"Unhinged" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unimaginable trouble some of the strongest minds were unhinged. It is no small honor to George Sand that hers should have preserved its balance. The pages of this journal are distinguished throughout by a wonderful calm of judgment and an equitable tone—not the calm of indifference, but of a broad ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... cloud that hung over the poor woman's spirit, Master Swift's plain consolations made their way. The ruling thought of his mind became the one idea to which her unhinged intellect clung,- -the second coming of the Lord. For this she watched—not merely in the sense of a readiness for judgment, but—out of the upper windows of the windmill, from which could be seen a vast extent of that heaven in which the sign of the Son of Man should ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... things which have puzzled me. Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say, "My tablets! Quick, my tablets! 'tis meet that I put it down," etc., For now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... instant, with a jerk that nearly unhinged every bone in their bodies. Both yelled with terror ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... taking their vessels; among others from Captain Daniel, who turned up in Vancouver's Island. It seems that after you were thrown overboard and supposed to be drowned, your poor father went—went—that is to say, his mind was unhinged, owing, no doubt, to the combined effect of your supposed murder and the two terrible blows by which he ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... stooping to light a spill at the fire. Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the Psychologist's face. (The Psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged, helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.) 'What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished in there'—he indicated the laboratory—'and when that is put together I mean to have a journey on my ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... of the ghost had left upon the senses of Hamlet, he being weak and dispirited before, almost unhinged his mind and drove him beside his reason. And he, fearing that it would continue to have this effect, which might subject him to observation and set his uncle upon his guard, if he suspected that he was meditating ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... astonishment. She had no right feelings, no sense of the advantages of independence, no horror of being sold in marriage. Lady Randolph did not know what to think of a creature so utterly beyond all rules known to her. She was in such a condition of mind, unsettled, unhinged, feeling all her old landmarks breaking up, that a new interest was of great importance to her. It withdrew her thoughts from the Contessa, and the irksomeness of her sway, when she thought of Bice and what could be done for her. The strange thing was that the girl wanted nothing ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... door of the presbytery had closed behind Claudet, the Abbe Pernot, flinging to one side all his preparations, began to pace nervously up and down the principal garden-walk. He appeared completely unhinged. His features were drawn, through an unusual tension of ideas forced upon him. He had hurriedly caught his skullcap from his head, as if he feared the heat of his meditation might cause a rush of blood to the head. He quickened his steps, then stopped suddenly, folded his ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... "and, as such, an object of pity and even of repugnance to most of his friends. There was also a good deal of talk in Edinburgh society as to his mental condition, his mind, according to many intimate friends of the Grahams, being at times decidedly unhinged. Be that as it may, I fancy that his life must have been a very sad one; he had lost his mother when quite a baby, and his father seemed, strangely enough, to have an almost unconquerable ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... dwellings—all showing signs of more or less prosperous life, with the exception of one, which affords the orthodox "haunted house" belonging to every well-regulated village. The ruined walls of this old mansion, with lichen cropping out from every crevice; the unhinged doors and broken windows; the ladder rotting as it leans against the moss-grown roof, the broken well-sweep and deserted barn, offer an aspect of desolation and decay which should prove sufficient bait to tempt ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... treated her movements with the kindly interest offered at the shrine of childhood or imbecility. It was evident that he supposed that the landslip had unhinged Mademoiselle Brun's reason. ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... against our project, on the contrary, she was evidently pleased by it; but its evident ill success changed the current of her ideas. She felt, that, once awakened, Raymond would never return unrepining to Windsor. His habits were unhinged; his restless mind roused from its sleep, ambition must now be his companion through life; and if he did not succeed in his present attempt, she foresaw that unhappiness and cureless discontent would follow. Perhaps her own disappointment added a sting to her thoughts and words; she ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... put up his horse with careful absence of mind. The eastern horizon was already growing pale and distinct as he found his way in-doors through the drawing-room window, the shutter of which had been left unhinged for him by Ralph, according to custom when either of them was out late. He went noiselessly up to his room, and sat down. After a time he started to find himself still sitting there; but he remained without stirring, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... served his purpose for the moment, I grant you. I was unhinged. The indignity, the very monstrosity of it, the baselessness, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at an unlucky moment, for continual racketing in the country had quite unhinged me; I required bracing, and had quite lost my colour. My paternal relation, however, (Houlditch), undertook my repair, and I was very soon exhibited painted green, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... wingy mysteries in divinity, and airy subtleties in religion, which have unhinged the brains of better heads, they never stretched the pia mater<11> of mine. Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith: the deepest mysteries our contains have not only been illustrated, but maintained, by syllogism and the rule of reason. I ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... potboy's evidence would clear me, and therefore began to enjoy the fun. Even my certain expulsion from College on the morrow seem'd of a piece with the rest of events and (prospectively) a matter for laughter. For the struggle at the "Crown" had unhinged my wits, as I must suppose and you must believe, if you would understand my behavior in the next ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... he said, mastering his own shrinking by remembrance of how the strong-witted man could often master the brain unhinged; "my impression is that you want change. Suppose you and I take a run. What do you say ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... their capotes, on the bare rock, near where they had been working, and held a whispered conversation together, which lasted for some time after darkness covered the face of the deep. Paolo's mind, troubled and unhinged with the thoughts of the past, and the darkening prospect of the future, for long refused to allow sleep to visit his eyelids. He listened to ascertain whether his sister and Miss Garden were still awake; but from the perfect silence in their tent, he trusted that they had been ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... and knew she was involuntarily charting the means of summons, setting up the loom, as it were, to weave the magic web. She got up, took her hat, gave her toupee a little smack with the hand, and unhinged ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... first place, there is no vulgarity in Restif. If he had had a more regular education and society, literary or other, and could have kept his mind, which was to a certainty slightly unhinged, off the continual obsession of morbid subjects, he might have been a very considerable man of letters, and he is no mean one, so far as style goes,[419] as it is. He avails himself duly of the obscurity ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... globe, with a living warmth beside which the love of science and art is cold and clammy. Surely it would be not much to ask for the docility to recognize such patent facts as these. And I must believe that any mind is fundamentally unhinged that despises the profoundest convictions of the noblest hearts, or speaks lightly of the mighty influence that has moulded human events and has upheaved the world. It has, in its arrogance, cut adrift and swung off from the two grand foci of all truth, the ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... said to himself. "Her head turned by this love affair. He's treated her badly, whatever they may say, and it has unhinged her mind." ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... sadly, "there's no use in tryin' to conceal it from you any longer. Your pa was crazy—as crazy as a loon. What with buyin' books so steady and readin' of 'em so continual, his mind got unhinged. I've always suspected it, and now ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... the convent is a great escapement. You came here, having escaped death only by an accident, and when you went to Rome to see your father you came back distraught, your mind unhinged, and it was months before you could believe that your sins could be forgiven. If you leave here, what will become of you? You ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... vaguely and fearfully, for in the dark he could not see her face, and as he did not understand why she should suddenly be talking of de Batz he thought with horror that mayhap her prophecy anent herself had come true, and that her mind wearied and over-wrought—had become suddenly unhinged. ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... lay thinking of what his mother had said and of the strange look in her eyes. It seemed as though he had roused something evil in her nature, and for a time he wondered whether her brain had not been unhinged. He knew she was a proud woman, and that she was jealous beyond words of her good name. The thought of Wilson's words being bandied around the town must be worse than death to her, and yet what could he do? He blamed himself more than he could ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... back; she moved as mechanically though less certainly than one who walks in sleep. The fears that possessed him, that she herself had held so finely in check when they had followed Banks on this glacier, did not trouble her now. Her indifference to their extremity began to play on Frederic's unhinged nerves. This white, blue-lipped woman was not the Beatriz Weatherbee he had known; who had climbed the slope with him that morning, all exhilaration, spirit, charm; whose example had challenged his endurance and held his ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... as a rule," put in Christopher, too blind with fury now to realise the other's unhinged condition, but Geoffry ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... death for homicide and owned his guilt, refused to confess when the hour of punishment arrived. However strongly pressed, he resisted, and so violently, giving no reason, that all were persuaded that his mind was unhinged by the fear of death. Saint-Thomas of Villeneuve, Archbishop of Valencia, heard of his obstinacy. Valencia was the place where his sentence was given. The worthy prelate was so charitable as to try to persuade the criminal to make his confession, so as not to lose his ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of the ghost had left upon the senses of Hamlet, he being weak and dispirited before, almost unhinged his mind, and drove him beside his reason. And he, fearing that it would continue to have this effect, which might subject him to observation, and set his uncle upon his guard, if he suspected that he was meditating any thing against him, or that Hamlet really knew more of his father's death ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... reef and drowned myself a year ago. Now, tell me, Mr. Sherry, do you think it possible that owing to the continuous strain upon me mentally and physically—for I am really very weak, and had a long illness two years ago when my baby was born—that my mind has become unhinged in any way?" ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing had seemed to him. He looked completely undamaged—so far, good; he was neither scared nor unhinged, he was simply tremendously satisfied with the afternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms were the ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... mention of the "Jewish State" appeared in the Neue Freie Presse, then or ever. The Algemeine Zeitung of Vienna said that Zionism was a madness born of despair, The Algemeine Zeitung of Munich described it as a fantastic dream of a feuilletonist whose mind had been unhinged by Jewish enthusiasm. ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... trifle she could think of, in the house of Marchmont. She could have talked of its delights if there had been anybody to care about them in her own way, but that was the great if of Marian's life. She was conscious that her day's pleasure had unhinged her, and made her present tasks unusually distasteful, and she thought it the fault of the Lyddells, and in a great fit of repining blamed Edmund for injustice to Selina in not letting her house be their home. Her great hope was of ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... do with what I told you the first night I ever talked with you, Boyne. You threw doubt on Thomas Gilbert's death being suicide. I gave as a reason for my belief that it was, a knowledge and conviction that the man's mind was unhinged." ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... that's where you're wrong. You forget the dollars. A big crowd of solicitors will get busy, and they'll get some high-brow doctors on the job, and the end of it all will be that they'll say my brain was unhinged. I shall spend a few months in a quiet sanatorium, my mental health will improve, the doctors will declare me sane again, and all will end happily for little Julius. I guess I can bear a few months' retirement in order to rid the world of you, but don't you kid ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... Hanover prevails to an alarming degree, and the King talks of it right hand and left; but it is to be hoped the Ministers will be able to divert his attention from it at this particular moment, for in the present unhinged state of things it might be pregnant with very disagreeable consequences. I believe the King's mind is torn to pieces by his sons, and that he expects to relieve himself by a new scene, and by getting out of the way of hearing of and seeing the Prince of Wales, with the hopes of being able ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... over his shoulder and answering at random, "Yes, yes," or "Precisely—if you will allow me," or "Excuse me a moment, until my brother—" In short, he rambled so that Captain Muspratt could only suppose his wits unhinged. It was scarce credible that a sane man could receive such a message inattentively, and yet this old gentleman did not seem ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... time Lorna Bolivick really thought his mind was unhinged; I imagine, too, that she was afraid, because Edgecumbe told me that a look amounting almost to terror was in her eyes. But he seems to have taken no notice of this, ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... Perhaps he come and eat Mahomet!" This afterthought was too much for him, and Bacheet immediately comforted him by telling the most horrible tales of death and destruction that had been wrought by lions, until the nerves of Mahomet were completely unhinged. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... of which we were so jealous that it formed almost an assembly of automatons; we would have virtuous women, only for them to be pursued by immoral men. Peterborough feared, he must say, that we were an inconsequent people. His residence abroad had so far unhinged him; but a pipe would ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rescue, Lucie had never been out of Doctor Manette's sight. Now, though he was glad for her happiness, yet he felt the pain of the separation so keenly that it unhinged his mind again. Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry found him next morning making shoes at the old prison bench and for nine days he did not know them at all. At last, however, he recovered, and then, lest the sight of it affect him, one day when he was not there they chopped the bench ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... by the most splendid beauty that human eyes ever beheld." [2017] Romilly's affection and admiration for this noble woman endured to the end; and when she died, the shock proved greater than his sensitive nature could bear. Sleep left his eyelids, his mind became unhinged, and three days after her death the sad event occurred which brought his own valued ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... five or six years after our first meeting, that I began to think of him as an old man. It was as though the long-continued cold had cracked and shrivelled him. He had grown bent and hollow-chested and his lower lip shook like an unhinged door. The summer heat did little to revive him, and in September, when I came home from my vacation, I found him just recovering from an attack of pneumonia. That autumn he did not care to venture often into the night air, and now and then I used to go ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... salvation; also that all the faith of those who embraced the Gospel was founded upon these two facts, as upon the historical fundamentals of the {337} salvation which comes from Jesus; and that thus Christianity, with all its effects, which have unhinged the old world and diffused streams of blessing over mankind, has its historical basis in faith in the death of Jesus and his resurrection. This is our historical chain of proof. And that evidence which gives certainty to its most important link, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... Aignadel. In 1510 he commanded the troops which fought on behalf of the Duke of Ferrara against the Emperor and Pope Julius II., and the latter having excommunicated him for bearing arms against the Holy See, his mind is said to have become unhinged. He died at Correggio in February 1511, when only thirty-eight years of age, some biographers asserting that he was poisoned, whilst others contend that he fell from a bridge during a military expedition. Whilst on ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... have also shown that she was indiscreet, illiterate, [647] superstitious and impulsive; and that she was possessed of a self-assurance that can only be described as colossal. We have also shown that her mind was unhinged by her sad trouble. Such, then, was the woman and such the condition of the woman upon whom devolved the duty of considering the manuscripts of one of the most original men of the 19th century. Which of them were valuable and which mere lumber she was quite incapable of judging. Her right course ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... murmured, speaking very fast, "I thought your mind was more unhinged than it really is. I saved your life, regardless of all risk, because I thought you were insane, and now I know you are a criminal! Oh, yes, I know ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... the assassins of General Dillon was this morning guillotined before the hotel where we are lodged.—I did not, as you will conclude, see the operation; but the mere circumstance of knowing the moment it was performed, and being so near it, has much unhinged me. The man, however, deserved his fate, and such an example was particularly necessary at this time, when we are without a government, and the laws are relaxed. The mere privation of life is, perhaps, more quickly effected ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... check unhinged him altogether—seemed to make a mere fool of him—the sport of gods and men. There he paced up and down in a mad excitement. What in the Devil's name was the meaning of it? The picture came from ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... much amused once at thinking that the fine old solid paneled doors were being unhinged faster than ever nowadays, since so many front gates have disappeared, and the click of the latch can no longer give notice of the approach of a guest. Now the knocker sounds or the bell rings without note ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... a more ludicrous tableau than we presented can scarcely be conceived. What I would have given that the whist party was over, I need not say, and certainly his majesty's eulogy upon my play came too soon, for I was now so "destrait and unhinged," my eyes wandering from the table to see if Lady Jane was near, that I lost every trick, and finished by revoking. The king rose half pettishly, observing that "Son Excellence a apparement perdu la tete," and I rushed forward to shake hands with Lord Callonby, totally forgetting the royal ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... me? But no! Why should she? I could only conclude that her nerves were badly shaken, and that she was temporarily unhinged. Upstairs, I heard a door bang, loudly, and I knew that she had taken refuge in her room. I put the flask down on the table. My attention was distracted by a noise in the direction of the back door. ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... witnessed a significant spectacle. I was shown some large dwelling-houses which before the Civil War had at certain seasons been occupied by families of the planting aristocracy of that region. Most of those houses now looked deserted and uncared for, shutters unhinged, window-panes broken, yards and gardens covered with a rank growth of grass and weeds. In the front yard of one of the houses I observed some fresh stumps and stacks of cordwood and an old man busy cutting down with an ax a magnificent shade-tree. There was something distinguished ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... other alternative: the writer may have believed himself thus inspired, and was thus self-deceived But in this case far gone in disease must his mind have been; nor could it fail constantly to give striking evidence of being thus unhinged in other parts of his writings. This is a subject with which unbalanced minds have shown their inability to be much occupied without the most sorrowful evidences of the disease under which they suffer. Let there be independence of the Scriptures (as there confessedly ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... are rumours that Abdul has become mentally unhinged through dread of assassination. One of his own aides-de-camp, while being granted an audience in the Yildiz, made a sudden and abrupt movement to find his handkerchief; and Abdul Hamid whipped out a pistol and shot him dead. This ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... their best to amuse them. Paganel tried to beguile the time with his stories, but it was a hopeless case. Their minds were so distracted at this change of route as to be quite unhinged. Much as they had been interested in his dissertation on the Pampas, or Australia, his lectures on New Zealand fell on cold and indifferent ears. Besides, they were going to this new and ill-reputed country without enthusiasm, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... jaw—being easily unhinged by a practised artist—is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extracting the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard white whalebone with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious articles, including canes, umbrella-stocks, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Was this the meeting he had pictured to himself a thousand times? Had her troubles unhinged her mind? Was ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... very passion of waiting for a moment which will surely come. His theory, I confess, escapes me, nor can I guess how far a certain feverish remorse, an intention of expiation may be set as a guiding spring in his unhinged mind, and account, at least in part, for the fantastic attitude which he must have adopted for many years. If I cannot forgive him, at least I bear him no malice, and for the rest, our paths will hardly cross again. One takes up one's life and ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... of the whole company was now turned upon the speaker. He was an old gentleman, one side of whose face was no match for the other. The eyelid drooped and hung down like an unhinged window shutter. Indeed, the whole side of his head was dilapidated, and seemed like the wing of a house shut up and haunted. I'll warrant that side was well stuffed with ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... fortune, and had finally driven him into the Bankruptcy Court. The death of his wife on the very day of his insolvency had filled his cup of sorrow, and he had gone about since with a stunned, half-dazed expression upon his weak pallid face which spoke of a mind unhinged. So complete had been his downfall that the family would have been reduced to absolute poverty were it not for a small legacy of two-hundred a year which both the children had received from one of their uncles ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the appeal swung his unhinged mind to the other extreme—from the savagery of passion to a frenzy of remorse. "Fair to you? No," he cried, "because I love you. Oh, I'm ashamed—bitterly ashamed. I'm capable of any baseness to get you. You're right. You can't trust me. In going you're saving me from myself." ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... difficult to determine the exact line of demarcation where sound sense stops, and insanity commences; but he, who has visited a receptacle for the insane, will speedily observe the strange state and appearance of the eyes of those whose intellects are unhinged. This appearance cannot be mistaken either in lucid or rabid intervals; it is still perceptible, although, of course, in a greater or lesser degree. Now, the visitor to Bethlehem, on the occasion here refered to, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... neither reason, examine, nor discuss. They clap those whom they approve, and hiss those whom they disapprove.... I told their President frankly that it was impossible for such a mob to govern the country. They have unhinged everything. It is anarchy beyond conception, and they will be obliged to take back ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... mind unhinged, Trenchard scanned him narrowly. Richard caught the glance and misinterpreted it for one of reproof. He bethought him that his joy was unrighteous. He stifled it, and forced his ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... calmly. "Because if you do not you will have to pay me. It will be a sore, hard debt. I will have every joint of you unhinged so that you will be like a jelly-fish, like a fat pig with the bones removed, and I will then stake you out in the midmost centre of the dog-killing ground to swell in pain under the sun. And what is left of you I shall fling to the dogs to eat. Your seed shall not perish out of Somo. ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... pursued the man ever since with periodic attacks of illusion. Anything—a branch, a door-post, a window, would suggest the hateful form during those periods—happily brief—when the poor mind was temporarily unhinged. No doubt, in earlier years, the fits had occurred frequently. Now they were rare, and generally, it seemed, attributable to ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... whom he accused, but as indication of the need of thorough investigation. Then without warning he committed suicide in his cell. On investigation it turned out that he had been accustomed to from sixty to eighty drinks of whiskey each day, and the sudden and complete deprivation had unhinged his mind. Warned by this unforeseen circumstance, the Committee henceforth issued regular rations of whiskey to all its prisoners, a fact which is a striking commentary on the character of the latter. It is to be ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... scene related to us by the very gaoler we here describe, and as nearly as possible in his own language. rather an uncommon case, says it makes a body feel kind a' unhinged about the heart, which heart, however rocky at times, will have its own way when little children are sorrowing. "And then, to know their parents! that's what tells deeper on a body's feeling,—it makes a body look into the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... truth look thoroughly unhinged, though no one saw her give way. She felt her boy's conduct sorely, and grieved at the first parting in her family. Besides, there was anxiety for the future. Rob's manner of conducting his studies was no hopeful augury of his success, and the expenses of sending him to a tutor fell the more heavily ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their search. Quickly we mounted, and passed rapidly out by the gilded gates. The old servant and the gardener were still on the same spot, standing silent and depressed. They said not a word to us, nor did they make any sign; they seemed to be completely unhinged and incapable of understanding what ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... thing—which hardly so much lessened her reverence as converted it into a strange tenderness—that her husband was one of the many men who, brave enough morally, are the most utter cowards at sight of physical suffering. Completely unhinged, trembling all over, Dr. Grey knelt ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... had been driven out of Courland in consequence of the failure of an experiment by which an august princely house had been most seriously offended. The slightest allusion to his residence in Courland filled him with horror; but for all the troubles which had there unhinged the tenor of his life he held his predecessors entirely to blame, in that they had wickedly deserted the home of their ancestors. In order to fetter, for the future, at least the head of the family to the ancestral castle, he converted it into a property of entail. ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... tidings of life had subsided, and there had been time to look forth on the future with a spirit more steadfast than buoyant. The strain of the previous weeks was reacting on the bodily frame, and indisposition unhinged the spirits; so that, when Dr. May entered, beaming with congratulations, he was met with the same patient glance of endurance, endeavouring at resignation, that he knew so well, but without the victorious peace that had of late gained the ascendant expression. There was instead an almost ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Fuego rose dimly in her mind. And the advancing darkness did not tend towards cheerfulness. In her new track, the Kansas had turned her back on the murky light which penetrated the storm-clouds towards the west. Unhinged by the external gloom and the prevalent uncertainty, and finding that no one cared to dispute with her, Isobel felt that a scream or two would be a relief. For once, pride was ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... date, and their melancholy end. Both (Suckling in 1609, Lovelace nine years later) were born to large fortunes, both spent them, at least partially, in the King's cause, and both died miserably,—Suckling, in 1642, by his own hand, his mind, according to a legend, unhinged by the tortures of the Inquisition; Lovelace, two years before the Restoration, a needy though not an exiled cavalier, in London purlieus. Both have written songs of quite marvellous and unparalleled exquisiteness, and both have left doggerel which would ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... caution to his companion, which would ensure a noiseless retreat. To men of his own stamp it would have been useful, but he little knew the peculiar temperament of his friend; the mere idea of the success of the whole expedition depending upon his extreme care unhinged the nerves of the poor artist, who, although absolutely a brave man, in the true sense of the term, could no more control his nervous system than he could perform an Indian war-dance. He could have rushed single-handed on the whole ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... queer feeling in his head, a giddiness, a sense of obstruction in his brain. He went into the dining-room, and poured himself out a small quantity of whiskey, measuring it with the accuracy of abstemious habit. The dose had become necessary since his nerves had been unhinged by worry and the shock of Peggy's death. This time he drank it ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... You are ill, my poor child. The shock has upset you. You are out of your head. The boy's mind was unhinged by drink. Every one said so. He had broken his father's ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... to offer advice. Maria's well-balanced mind was so completely unhinged, that she looked with languid curiosity at her sister. Zo still stared at the ceiling, and still rolled slowly from one side to the other. The dog on her breast, lulled by the regular motion, slept profoundly—not even troubled by ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... generally feared that the king meditated a suppression of the liberties of his subjects by the introduction of foreign troops. This fear was enhanced by the knowledge that if Charles died the crown would fall to his brother, an uncompromising Catholic. The public mind became so unhinged that every breath or rumour created the greatest trepidation. Within a fortnight after the City had signified its assent to the last loan the nation was suddenly surprised by some words let drop by Dr. Tonge, the weak and credulous rector of St. Michael's, Wood Street, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... but that dagger, dagg, or arming sword might still be ready for her, and she believed that any fatal charge openly made against Mary at the trial might drive her friends to desperation and lead to the use of dagg or dagger. She was more unhinged than ever before, and commanded herself with difficulty when going through all the scenes of her public ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... saw a litter of torn-up papers; others were burning on the hearth. He said that he knew no one was to pass and that was why he had come. Cavour stared at him in silence. Then he went on, "Must I believe that Count Cavour will desert the camp on the eve of battle; that he will abandon us all?" And, unhinged by excitement and by his great affection for the man, he burst into tears. Cavour walked round the room looking like one distraught. Then he stopped opposite to Castelli and embraced him, saying, "Be tranquil; we will face it all together," ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... Doctor smiled. "It's only her way of saying that my mind is unhinged and that I ought to be sent to a private hospital ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... repose. But probably it would pain Lord Hugh Cecil if he realized (what is certainly the case) that ours is only an age of conservation because it is an age of complete unbelief. Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish institutions to remain the same. The more the life of the mind is unhinged, the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself. The net result of all our political suggestions, Collectivism, Tolstoyanism, Neo-Feudalism, Communism, Anarchy, Scientific Bureaucracy—the plain fruit of all of them is that ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... I was momentarily unhinged, "you see you must put things that way to get Miss Irma to help us. She can do anything with my father, and I believe she could with yours too if she ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... with his arms on the table:—a false tooth had got unhinged. His Lordship, who, at any other time, would have been most annoyed, coolly put it in his pocket. His cheeks had fallen, and he ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... surprised them. At length Harney sprang to his feet with a slight shiver. "God! it's damp—we couldn't have come here much longer." He went to the shelf, took down a tin candle-stick and lit the candle; then he propped an unhinged shutter against the empty window-frame and put the candle on the table. It threw a queer shadow on his frowning forehead, and made the smile ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... father to breakfast. I will tell you afterwards all I wish you to execute.—Oh, Tom! this business has unhinged me for society. Rigid morality, after all, is the best coat of ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... her manner very strange, but concluded she was a little unhinged by yesterday's excitement. Moreover, there faced him an omelet of enormous size, and savory. He thought this worthy to divide a man's attention even with the great creature's tantrums. He devoted himself to it, and it ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... however, I felt thoroughly exasperated. I was in a hurry to get on. Important business engagements would be unhinged by the delay. I was a stranger in Broughton. It looked like a stupid, stuffy little town. I went to a hotel in an atrocious humor. After I had fumed until I wanted a change, it occurred to me that I might as well hunt up Clark Oliver ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I have tried to stifle An old man's passion! Was it not enough That thou hast made my son a restless man, 270 Banish'd his health and half-unhinged his reason, But that thou wilt insult him with suspicion, And toil to blast his honour? I am old— A comfortless old man! Thou shalt not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... greeting," said Mr Armstrong, "and comes, I fear, from a mind unhinged. Your father had more than one delusion near the end. But on the night before he died he told me this elder son of his was dead. ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... is unhinged by the shock of my intelligence, Signor Marchese—naturally enough—or such an absurd notion would not have occurred to you. I have seen the dead body of Bianca Lalli. It is now in the custody of the police," said ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... days at home were usually spent in the solitude of her own room. Some friends of the family, he said, attributed it to grief at the great blow she had sustained, while others suspected that her mind had become slightly unhinged. I recollected, myself, how strange had been her manner when she had visited me, and inwardly confessed ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... destroy the organism if administered when in a healthy, normal condition. A strong organism recovers from disease, and from its treatment. Human societies and institutions pass through a similar ordeal, and when they are unhinged, extraordinary and abnormal ways are required to maintain the endangered ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... muttered in an undertone, as if to recall that name, 'who is Emmeline?' Then looking in my face with fearful shining eyes that made me shudder, she said in a strange, unnatural voice: 'Who are you?' and turned away from me. Her mind was unhinged; this last shock had been too much for her broken heart; she was ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies
... unhinged her for the day. Why had he crossed her path, and why had she allowed herself to reject his friendly offer to come and see her? Yet it would have made her miserable to bear the quiet scrutiny of his eyes through a whole visit. He had evidently quite ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... and if he lost, one penny left to last him to next pay day!" A terrible thought seized him. "And what if, when he presented himself at Mr. Fossell's bank on pay-day, the money was not forthcoming?" Nonsense! He was unhinged.... The money had always arrived punctually ... but the whole world seemed to be in conspiracy against him to-night, and his luck ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... let his head drop on his breast, his arms hung down by his side, and he sank into his chair, as if his spine had come unhinged. ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... prove that a criminal, at such a moment, is always, mentally, more or less unhinged. That point of view is a very original one, but it was not this part of your article which most interested me. I was particularly struck by an idea at the end of the article, and which, unfortunately, you have touched upon too cursorily. In a word, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... facing the unhinged gate was an old relinquished tannery that still flavored the air with decayed hemlock and fir bark, which lay here and there in dull-red patches, killing the grass. The undulations of a colonial graveyard broke tamely against the western base of the house. Head-stones ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... So unhinged was he that for quite half an hour after Buz's departure he kept looking nervously at the door, fully expectant that it would open to admit Uz, primed with some fresh reason why Eloquent Gallup should be asked to dinner; and that he would be followed by Ger ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... forth her story, Chloe Elliston listened as one in a dream. What was this she was saying, that it was Lapierre who sold whiskey to the Indians, and MacNair who stood firm, and struck mighty blows for the right of things? Surely, this girl's mind was unhinged—or, had something gone wrong with her own brain? Was it possible ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... loaded and ready to start. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, when a strange and painful trial befell us. Poor dear Mr. Mathieson, apparently unhinged, locked himself all alone into what had been his study, telling Mrs. Mathieson and me to go, for he had resolved to remain and die on Tanna. We tried to show him the inconsistency of praying to God to protect us or ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... world. She was almost angry with me for having thrown it away; almost angry with Miss Garth for asking what she could possibly want with it! Could there be any plainer proof than this that our misfortunes—falling so much more heavily on her than on me—have quite unhinged her, and worn her out? Surely her words and looks are not to be interpreted against her, when she is not sufficiently mistress of herself to exert her natural judgment—when she shows the unreasonable petulance of a child on a question which is ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... which Anne and Anthony had been endeavouring to restrain broke out tempestuously. Betty's procedure and bearing at the Bridge table would have unhinged an enthusiast, but since the four domestics played for amusement and a penny a hundred her short-comings hurt ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... is seriously deranged. I noticed something strange in him when he first came to consult me about his mother's health. The mischief has not been caused entirely by the affliction of her death. In my belief, his mind has been—what shall I say?—unhinged, for some time past. He is a very reserved person. I suspect he has been oppressed by anxieties which he has kept secret from every one. At his age, the unacknowledged troubles of life are generally ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... only the result of a conscious or unconscious exclusion and negation of all the artistically productive forms and requirements of a genuine style. The mind of the cultured Philistine must have become sadly unhinged; for precisely what culture repudiates he regards as culture itself; and, since he proceeds logically, he succeeds in creating a connected group of these repudiations—a system of non-culture, to which one might at a pinch grant ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the judge answered the sound, and his eyes were like lamps as he turned them toward the man. "But you're wrong—my mind is not unhinged. You'll see. After what I've gone through, after facing eternity without hope, what are mere years? I can wait. ...
— The Lifted Bandage • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews |
