"Idiotical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said his master, impatiently, "we are now near home, and I have permitted you to speak of this matter for once, that we may have an end to your prying folly, and your idiotical superstitions, for ever. For whom do you, or your absurd authors or informers, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... bear to lie awake—alone." His eyes dropped toward the mirror again. "You know," he said, "it's only now, mother, that I realize that Hilda is really gone. I can't explain it very well, but before this evening it seemed—well, it seemed idiotic to think that my wife was ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... up here, if you have to drag him. I don't know where the channel is, and I am liable to put the whole outfit aground any minute," shouted Phil Forrest. "Teddy, never mind that idiotic donkey. We're in a fix. Get downstairs, at one jump, and see that the pilot is brought up ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... replace the pivots, and it is difficult to persuade him that all is for the best. But he informed me that "Hoot up" had nothing whatever to do with, the night-cries of owls or any other kind of bird, but was in fact the idiotic way in which the natives of this country pronounce "Hut ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... sir, but not of an undeserved asperity!" I returned, "D'ye think the Marchioness, her flighty head crammed with scraps of idiotic romance, would elope without regard for the canons of romance? Not so; depend upon it, a letter was left upon her pin-cushion announcing her removal with you, and in the most approved heroic style arraigning the obduracy of her unsympathetic ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... Mr Dombey, sternly. 'The whole world knows that, I presume. Grief has not made me idiotic, Louisa. Take them away, Louisa! Let me see this woman and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... utmost resentment the determination of the war to come to Leesville, in spite of all his labours to keep it out. Take the most preposterous thing you could imagine—the most idiotic thing on the face of the earth—take German spies! When Jimmie heard people talking about German spies, he laughed in their faces, he told them they were a bunch of fools, they belonged in the nursery; for Jimmie ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... golf; she hasn't played since I sprained my ankle. I wish I could come too. I wonder if I could hop round with my stick and look on. I do love to watch Aunt Mary drive; I learnt a lot from her last week before I sprained my ankle in that idiotic way." ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... to be done," said Jaimihr, speaking in a dialect peculiar to Howrah. "That—of all the idiotic notions I have listened to—is the least worth while! Thy brains are in thy belly and are lost amid the fat! If my brother Howrah only had such counsellors as thou—such monkey folk to make his plans for him—the jackals would have finished with him ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... kicked up the devil's delight at Headquarters, and the chief was out for blood. He was determined to arrest somebody, and I suggested Ramsey, but he got purple in the face and told me he'd instructed your people to bag Froelich. I thought this quite idiotic, but it relieved the chief's feelings, and it was too late to do anything sensible. We knew the ship she took; of course, she was much too clever to sail under the English flag. Naturally we wirelessed, but they won't dare touch her. After that last ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... unalloyed and idiotic delight began to creep over Hummil's face. 'I think,' he whispered,—'I think I'm going off now. Gad! it's positively heavenly! Spurstow, you must give me that case to keep; you—' The voice ceased ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... friendly relations with other powers at any cost. Brush up your history, Mr. Narkom, and give your memory a fillip. Eight-and-thirty years ago Queen Karma of Mauravania had an English consort and bore him two daughters, and one son. You will perhaps recall the mad rebellion, the idiotic rising which disgraced that reign. That was the time for England to have spoken. But the peace party had it by the throat; they, with their mawkish cry for peace—peace at any price!—drowned the voices of men and heroes, and the end was what it was! Queen Karma was ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... in the fur cloak he had picked up. He had known that it would end in some such way. Of course; it had been idiotic to expect anything else. He listened smilingly for what else Leif ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... these congenital manifestations had independently occurred to me as arguments against his position. The experiences of Elmira Reformatory and Bicetre—not to mention institutions of more recent establishment—long since showed that both the morally insane and the idiotic can be greatly improved by appropriate treatment. Schrenck-Notzing seems to be unduly biased by his interest ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... refused Peter over and over again, she said I was a fool. But she says that whatever I do. I—I suppose I let her think," said Sarah, leaning her head against Lady Mary's knee, "that some day—if he is still idiotic enough to wish it—and if ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... gives me his notes, gathers up his papers, bows and retires. Left alone in my office, I fall to examining the wallpaper with a sort of idiotic minuteness. It has the appearance of green felt with here and there a yellow stain; I begin to draw little men on my paper; I make an effort to write; for the fact is my Chief has asked for the circular three times and has promised ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... sulkily (it is odd, but true, that one does often become reckless and sulky under such circumstances) that I was ready to jump "any beastly bergschrund." My offer was no doubt made with the comfortable consciousness that the guides were not likely to let me do anything quite idiotic. But there was no necessity for any such gymnastics. The schrund's lower lip was only six feet lower than the upper lip, and the whole crevasse was barely three feet across, though doubtless deep enough to swallow a thousand parties ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... thought the best way to get rid of Goupil was to sign the draft. The clerk, seeing the flush of seigniorial fever on the face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him an "au revoir," by way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which would have made any one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation of the magnificent chateau built in the style in vogue under Louis XIII., tremble in ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... accomplish the pardon and restoration of the erring mother?" General Darrington had struck his cane violently on the floor, and exclaimed: "Don't talk such infernal nonsense! Did you ever hear of my pardoning a wrong against my family name and honor? Does any man live, idiotic enough to consider me so soft-hearted? No, no. On the contrary, I was harsh to the girl; so harsh that she turned upon me, savage as a strong cub defending a crippled helpless dam. They know now that the last card has been played, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... that he supposed any words he should try to produce would be sure to be too clever; yet only three weeks after his first encounter with Mrs. Ryves he sat at his delightful davenport (well aware that he had duties more pressing), trying to string together rhymes idiotic enough to make his neighbour's fortune. He was satisfied of the fineness of her musical gift—it had the touching note. The touching note was in ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... that attracted Jeremy; he had himself felt thus after a slippering from his father, or idiotic punishments from the Jampot, and the uninvited consolations of Mary or Helen upon such occasions had been resented with so fierce a bitterness that his reputation for sulkiness had been soundly established with all ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... material outlook was all the while a different matter. The March afternoon, judged at the window, had blundered back into autumn; it had been raining for hours, and the colour of the rain, the colour of the air, of the mud, of the opposite houses, of life altogether, in so grim a joke, so idiotic a masquerade, was an unutterable dirty brown. There was at first even, for the young man, no faint flush in the fact of the direction taken, while he happened to look out, by a slow-jogging four-wheeled cab which, awkwardly deflecting from the middle course, at the apparent ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... distance, going round and round a large pond on his bicycle. He did look odd! in a thick striped jersey, and the tightest knickerbockers; almost as low as a "scorcher." He jumped off and made a most polite bow, and explained he was doing it for exercise. But I do think that an idiotic reason—don't you, Mamma? It would be just as much exercise on a road. However, he assured me that, like that, he knew exactly how many miles he went on the flat before breakfast, so I suppose it was ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... you tell her. She's prepared for it, and do you know what she counts upon for her defence? On your believing that I lie. Perhaps you do; don't make yourself uncomfortable to hide it. Only, as it happens this time, I don't. I've told plenty of little idiotic fibs, but they've never hurt any one ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... fact that she is silly. And that might have arisen in so many other ways. Real responsible woman has never been silly; and any one wishing to knock her would be wise (like the streetboys) to knock and run away. It is ultimately idiotic to compare this prehistoric participation with any royalties or rebellions. Genuine royalties wish to crush rebellions. Genuine rebels wish to destroy kings. The sexes cannot wish to abolish each other; and if we allow them any sort of permanent opposition ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... be rendered luxuriant in its growth, or it may be stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under one class of conditions; it may be distorted and perverted, or it may perish utterly under another. And so in the idiotic mind the ideas of reason may be wanting, or they may be imprisoned by impervious walls of cerebral malformation. In the infant mind the development of reason is yet in an incipient stage. The idea of God is immanent to the infant thought, but the infant thought is not yet matured. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... More idiotic rot—excuse the expression—I have never read in my life. What has civilization to do with Servia's murderous plotting against us? What with Russia's desire to shield her from the consequences of her aggressions and to demonstrate to the world that ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... had written, just before leaving home, a musical bit of verse born of his luring dreams, about "the joy of speeding fleetly where the grassland meets the sky," and he was gritting his teeth now over the idiotic lines. ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... with dress awry, and sodden face, and rumpled hair, sat blinking and drooping, and rolling his idiotic eyes about, until, becoming conscious by degrees, he recognized his wife, and shook his fist ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... what was her thought. Had we not shared it for forty years? And the moment of its consummation had come at last. So I, too, affected not to recognize my enemy, and, putting on an idiotic senility, I, too, crawled in the dust toward the litter whining for ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... well as librettist, is as charming as it is strikingly original. After the Chevalier sans peur et sans approche had retired, clever and sprightly Miss JENNY HILL gave as a taste of lodging-house-keeperism, following whom came the Two MACS belabouring each other in their old hopelessly idiotic, but always utterly irresistible style; and then Lieutenant W. COLE—King COLE we "crowned him long ago"—gave his ventriloquial entertainment, who, with his troop of talking dolls, should have his address at Dollis Hill. There were many "turns" yet to follow when we ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... the detective aloud, "how idiotic men and women can be in their attitude to the supreme things of life. What is of greater importance than the food we eat and the liquors we drink? Through them the body reconstitutes itself hourly and daily. Providence gives us a perfect engine, yet we clog ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... too damned idiotic!" he thought, as he laid it on the table and prepared to get into bed; "I'm not going to carry that letter about all my life. I must either post it or ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... hearty recognition—shouting, questioning, tossing up of arms, and expressions of goodwill—among friends. Several men hailed and saluted Fox as his smack, the Cormorant, went by, but he took no notice except with an idiotic wink of ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... in stealthy silence like conspirators, or sit together in a boat, dumb, glum, and penitential, like naughty schoolboys on the bench of disgrace? 'Tis an Omorcan superstition; a rule without a reason; a venerable, idiotic fashion invented to repress lively spirits and put a ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... prisoners, and his bones were laid in a sarcophagus which may still be seen forming the sill of one of the windows of S. Matteo (on the right as you enter). Over this sarcophagus stood the Bust of Lamba till 1797, when the mob of Genoa, in idiotic imitation of the French proceedings of that age, threw it down. All of Lamba's six sons had fought with him at Meloria. In 1291 one of them, Tedisio, went forth into the Atlantic in company with Ugolino Vivaldi on a voyage of discovery, and never returned. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Why had she been such a fool as to count on this poor old idiotic creature? Probably while Judy was hunting for her pipe, Mike had watched and waited in vain for ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... to him, evidently brought joy to her. Was she, then, after all, a mere shallow flirt? Had all her love been feigned? Was it possible that she could so soon forget? With these thoughts, and others like them, this idiotic ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... "What an idiotic law to have to make!" she mutters resentfully. "But I'm sure I shouldn't be so dumb in History if I had an interesting text-book. It seems as though someone could write it, even if we aren't all Van Loons ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various
... guess the impression made on Meir by Schmul's humble and at the same time grave, warning. He continually kept his hand on little Lejbele's head, and looked into the beautiful fine-featured face of the pale, sick, idiotic and trembling child, where he saw the personification of that portion of Israel, which, devoured by misery and disease, nevertheless believed blindly and ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... great many anonymous letters—some letters in which God is asked to strike me dead, others of an exceedingly insulting character, others almost idiotic, others exceedingly malicious, and others insane, others written in an exceedingly good spirit, winding up with the information that I must certainly be damned. Others express wonder that God allowed me to live at all, and that, having made the mistake, he does not instantly correct ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... I see the same principle of self-sacrifice. In 1846, William Freeman, a pauperized and idiotic negro, was at Auburn, N.Y., on trial for murder. He had slain the entire Van Nest family. The foaming wrath of the community could be kept off him only by armed constables. Who would volunteer to be his counsel? No attorney wanted to sacrifice his popularity ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... gentleman has just told us is no less curious. You can always find—at Strasburg, Cologne, or Milan—churches or cathedrals to equal the chapel of Brou; but where will you find an administration idiotic enough to destroy such a masterpiece, and a mayor clever enough to turn it into a barn? A thousand thanks, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... too well justified by the facts," she replied seriously. "But only the most idiotic and ignorant of gossips could possibly say that of you. Every one who is any one knows that the Kyneston coronet ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... foreign wares, to prohibit the outflow of specie—in obedience to the universal superstition, which was destined to survive so many centuries, that gold and silver alone constituted wealth—while, at the same time, in deference to the idiotic principle of sumptuary legislation, it was vigorously opposing mulberry culture, silk manufactures, and other creations of luxury, which, in spite of the hostility of government sages, were destined from that time forward to become better mines of wealth for the kingdom than the Indies ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... observer who understood their arts and knew how to defeat them. As a general rule, whenever silly tricks or practical jokes are played at a seance, we may infer the presence either of low-class nature-spirits, or of human beings who were of a sufficiently degraded type to find pleasure in such idiotic performances ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... the first year of married life should be allowed to pass without conception taking place. A child begotten in an intoxicated or depraved condition of a parent may be depraved itself in the same way, and is apt to be feeble-minded or idiotic. ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... "if it is not terrible because it is new to you, and because you do not know me very well. Not," he added hastily, "that I think your knowing me well would be an advantage! I am not so idiotic. But you do not know me at all, and for a good many years I must have stood in the light of an enemy. It is not easy to readjust such things—witness the reception ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the following case observed by Meniere:—A married couple, being cousins, who enjoyed excellent health, had eight children, of whom four were born deaf mutes, another was idiotic, another died when five years of age, and two others suffered from absolute deafness, which only made its appearance ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... "such idiotic nonsense! Let me tie the rope round myself, and I'll go down and try and find him. I don't believe in all that talk about the mine being haunted. I've ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... out at her leisure, to the last link of the chain, the way their prettiness had set them trap after trap, all along—had foredoomed them to awful ineptitude. When you were as pretty as that you could, by the whole idiotic consensus, be nothing but pretty; and when you were nothing "but" pretty you could get into nothing but tight places, out of which you could then scramble by nothing but masses of fibs. And there ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... his mother!" people exclaimed; "what promise there was in her! She might have chosen so as to have been now in one of the best positions in the country—when, lo and behold! she went and made the most idiotic marriage. The most idiotic? No, the son's is more idiotic still." And ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... I'm not reasonable. I'm just a drivelling, idiotic fool. But—but I love my foolishness too well ever to part with it. Ever, did I say? No, even I am not quite so foolish as that. But it's sublime enough to hold me till—till I know for certain whether—whether the thing I call love is ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... printers, sign-painters and other such parasites. Their towns are bedaubed with chromatic eye-sores and made hideous with flashing lights; their countryside is polluted; their newspapers and magazines become mere advertising sheets; idiotic slogans and apothegms are invented to enchant them; in some cities they are actually taxed to advertise the local makers of wooden nutmegs. Multitudes of swindlers are naturally induced to adopt advertising as a trade, and some of them make great fortunes at it. Like all other men who live by their ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... on the "fatal mistakes" made since the last election by the other party. There never was a year in which the party in power and the party out of power did not make bad mistakes—mistakes which, unlike eggs and fish, seem always worst when freshest. If idiotic errors of policy were always fatal, no party would ever win an election and there would be a hope of better government under the benign sway of ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... merry-makings, and brooded over strange things. Caves and woods were his dearest haunts; and there he talked on and on with beasts and birds, with trees and rocks—of course not one rational word, but mere idiotic stuff, to make one laugh to death. He continued, however, always moody and serious, in spite of the utmost pains that the squirrel, the monkey, the parrot, and the bullfinch could take to divert him, and set him in the right way. The goose ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... coldly, 'will you tell me if this is a new parlour game, or are these actual troopers who are a little more idiotic ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... lively desire to please, but of which each word is a douche of cold water; and then the hearty hand-shakes of rivals, of comrades, some very frank, others that communicate to you the weakness of their grasp; the pretentious great booby, at whose idiotic eulogy you must appear to be transported with gladness, and who, lest he should spoil you too much, accompanies it with "a few little reserves," and the other, who, while overwhelming you with compliments, demonstrates to you that you ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... comfort and an anxiety, for it seemed to me that my khaki-coloured suit gleamed in it. The Belgian officers in their dark blue were less conspicuous. I thought they had an unfair advantage of me, and that it was idiotic of the British to wear and advocate anything so absurd as khaki. My cape ballooned like a sail in the wind. I felt at least double my ordinary size, and that even a sniper with a squint could hardly miss me. And, by way of comfort, I had one last ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... breathing corpses, rather than living men." At the bottom of his heart, and in spite of the ill temper their resistance caused in him, the heroism of the Rochellese excited the cardinal's admiration. Buckingham had just been assassinated. "The king could not have lost a more bitter or a more idiotic enemy; his unreasoning enterprises ended unluckily, but they, nevertheless, did not fail to put us in great peril and cause us much mischief," says Richelieu "the idiotic madness of an enemy being more to be feared than his ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... remarked as he rose. In the gate sat Bakahenzie. Birnier was conscious of an idiotic impulse to rush forward to greet him as an old and long lost friend. But remembering the dignity of his godhood he remained in the tent doorway, bidding the chief witch-doctor ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... poor, wronged child!" he muttered. "Why should I be so hard on her for doing what she's been brought up to do? Well, well, it's too bad to send her away, but I can't help it. I'd lose my own reason if the mother were here much longer, and if I kept Jane, her idiotic mother would stay in spite of me. If she didn't, there'd be endless talk and lawsuits, too, like enough, about separating parent and child. Jane's too young and little, anyway, to be here alone and do the work. But I'm sorry for her, I declare I am, and I wish I could ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... a doctor see you," she replied coolly. "What in the world put that in your head? Haven't you everything here a man could want? That's exactly what they were talking about; it's so—so idiotic. Those younger girls ought to be smacked and put to bed, with their one-piece swimming-suits and shimmying. They give a ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... things than is any one else at the present time. However, I will compromise with you. We can learn much in a month if you will really try, instead of wasting time in fuming around the ship and indulging in these idiotic tantrums. If you will buckle down and really study the problems confronting us for thirty days, we will set out at the end of that ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... punishment, and as a subtle way of letting him know what she thought of him and his idiotic jingle, she picked up the tablet, found the pencil Johnny had used, and did a little poetizing herself. She could have rhymed it much better, of course, if she had condescended to give any thought whatever to the matter, which she did not. Condescension went far ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... Marston's cheek, and, in the excess of his joy, the lad threw his arms round the dog's neck and hugged it vigorously, a piece of impulsive affection which that noble animal bore with characteristic meekness, and which Grumps regarded with idiotic satisfaction. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... dismal was the night of that day to the two, the foolish mother and wretched daughter, as they sat brooding together, in deep silence, by the light of a feeble candle. The mother rocked a while in her easy-chair. The daughter, hands clasped in her lap, sat watching the candlelight in almost idiotic vacancy of gaze. At length she stood up and spoke—slowly, deliberately, and apparently in as calm a mood as she had ever felt in ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... and shoving amusements that are all most people care for; unless, perhaps," Lady Grace went on, "your own peculiar one, as I understand you, of playing football with the old benighted traditions and attributions you everywhere meet: in fact I think you said the old idiotic superstitions." ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... of his acquaintance, and that there was a wide distinction between hospitality and the care of the feeble-minded. Lady Blemley replied that your lack of brain-power was the precise quality which had earned you your invitation, as you were the only person she could think of who might be idiotic enough to buy their old car. You know, the one they call 'The Envy of Sisyphus,' because it goes quite nicely ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... two years, or the number of ten-penny nails in a hundred weight, or the freight on lard from Galveston to Rotterdam. And by the same token one could not imagine him expert at billiards, or at grouse-shooting, or at golf, or at any other of the idiotic games at which what are called successful men commonly divert themselves. In his great study of British genius, Havelock Ellis found that an incapacity for such petty expertness was visible in almost all first rate men. They are bad at tying cravats. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... Everybody stared, most people laughed, and some jeered at his terrible affliction. He may have numbered some five-and-forty years, stood about five feet four inches high, with a head of about twice the natural size. The idiotic appearance produced by this deformity was increased by the dimensions of his tongue, which protruded from his mouth, and hung down at the side in the most woe-begone manner. The poor wretch accepted the banter of the spectators with that good-humoured indifference which leads one to ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... already alight with interest, grew even more responsive to this offer, yet as the tea came, he felt unaccountably stupid and idiotic. Utter disgust with himself filled his mind to think he couldn't get to the point then and there of telling his kind host about that ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... mental weakness and inferiority? And as it has been, so it is. Woman is still believed intellectually inferior to man, by ninety-nine one hundredths of mankind. Poor, weak, silly, drunken, half-idiotic men, whose wives have to support them, will tell you in conscious pride of sex of woman's weakness of mind. I have heard little Lilliputian men, whose minds were as small as a baby's rattle-box, always harping on this worn-out string of woman's ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... on marrying for money the very Diana that George loves for her blue hyacinth eyes. There is a misunderstanding between George and Diana (of such a childlike ingenuousness as to suggest that really this too easy spot-stroke should be barred to playwrights), and the idiotic girl promptly engages herself to Richard, who is of course in love with a patently naughty married woman. The most reckless of lovers from the moment when in his ardour he (apparently) bites this lady's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... of mirror, designed to stimulate the thirst for more symmetrical features. Denton caught the reflection of himself and his new friend, enormously twisted and broadened. His own face was puffed, one-sided, and blood-stained; a grin of idiotic and insincere amiability distorted its latitude. A wisp of hair occluded one eye. The trick of the mirror presented the swart man as a gross expansion of lip and nostril. They were linked by shaking hands. Then abruptly this vision passed—to return to memory in the ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... a place where there was no shelter," remarked Ramblethorne. "Idiotic thing to do—very idiotic. Now tell me: what were you doing on the top ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... while Piotr Andreitch returned home utterly exhausted and perspiring, and announcing almost before he had recovered his breath, that he would deprive his son of his blessing and his heritage, ordered all his idiotic books to be burned, and the maid Malanya to be sent forthwith to a distant village. Kind people turned up, who sought out Ivan Petrovitch and informed him of all. Mortified, enraged, he vowed that he would take revenge on his father; and that ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... you believe that I dislike your brother. I want to go away, because I can no longer endure to live in the same house with Dr. Grey, who shows me more plainly every hour that he can never return the affection I have been idiotic and presumptuous enough to cherish for him. There! I have said it,—and my lips are not blistered by the unwomanly confession, and you still permit my head to rest in your lap. I expected you would be indignant ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... him, and within him. There they were dancing, those idiots, dancing on a volcano if ever human beings did, in the little sultry respite from the tornado which was called the world-peace. Well, that was less idiotic than working, at least. How soon before it would break again, the final destructive hurricane, born of nothing but the malignant folly of human hearts, and sweep away all that they now agonized and sweated ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... heavy, clumsy, dull. But when the worst has been said, when one has writhed under the recollection of an adipose prima donna fooling with bear-like skittishness a German tenor whose figure and face bewray the lager habit, when one has shuddered to remember the long-winded idiotic dialogue, the fact remains firmly set in one's mind that one has stood before a gigantic work of art—a work whose every defect is redeemed by its overwhelming power and beauty and pathos. There has never been, nor does it seem possible there ever will be, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... that I saw there was an underlying idea in the minds of the people he loved well enough to lay down his life for in the hope of benefiting and ennobling them, and that I did not, as many do, set them down as idiotic brutes, glorying in an aimless cruelty that would be a ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... notions of dusting them were primitive and erroneous. But the room and the dust are mere subterfuges. The truth is, there is a disinclination to pay L4 9s. 3d. for the ten volumes containing the complete Johnsonian legend. To quarrel with the public is idiotic and most un-Johnsonian. 'Depend upon it, sir,' said the Sage, 'every state of society is as luxurious as it can be.' We all, a handful of misers excepted, spend more money than we can afford upon luxuries, but what ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... considerably disconcerted. He was incapable of understanding her psychology, and, as it seemed impossible to him that a woman was not his inferior, he came to the logical conclusion that his wife was "idiotic." This was precisely his expression, and at every opportunity he endeavoured to crush her by his own superiority. All this seems to throw some light on his character and also on the situation. Here was a man who had married the future George Sand, and he complained, in all good ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... bit of it, Aunt. Church of England. But I can see what has happened. You have been allowing old Bones to cloud your judgment. I never knew a fellow so prone to jump to idiotic conclusions. No doubt he heard that I had come in search of Indians and, without a single inquiry, decided that ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... good enough for you for fifty years," I retorted. "And if you think you look sporty, or anything but idiotic, sitting there in a flowered kimono and swabbing out the throat ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in frame, and retaining my powers of mind in a surprising degree, while the rest were completely prostrated in intellect, and seemed to be brought to a species of second childhood, generally simpering in their expressions, with idiotic smiles, and uttering the most absurd platitudes. At intervals, however, they would appear to revive suddenly, as if inspired all at once with a consciousness of their condition, when they would spring upon their feet in a momentary flash of vigour, and speak, for a short ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... idiotic blindness which ruled her in those fearful days, maintained a protective system which prevented America from sending cheap food to starving people, nor was Jefferson able to effect more than a slight change in the pernicious law. One thing done by him made him popular with ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... rather less idiotic!" said Charmian; "but only rather. You mustn't expect me to be quite my usual brilliant self, Mr. Heath. You must wait a day or two for that. What have you ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... miser must have been idiotic; for soon forgetting what he had but just told us of his utter toothlessness, he was so smitten with the pearly mouth of Hohora, one of our attendants (the same for whose pearls, little King Peepi had taken such a fancy), that he made the following overture to purchase its contents: namely: ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... anything or anybody look much funnier than does a woman with a sharp-pointed nose and a pysche knot. The nose bumps out in the front and the wad of hair sticks out in the back with a similarity that is positively convulsing to any one with half an eye for the humorous. It gives one an idiotic longing to take a measuring rule and find out the exact distance from "tip to tip." Another waggish picture is made by the snub-nosed girl with her hair arranged a la Madonna. These long hirsute lamberquins ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... examiner; how long do you intend remaining so quietly here, the bond slave of this idiotic old man? And what will you do when this play ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... curious," I went on, "how we let this idiotic love-passion absorb us to the very last. It is wholly unimportant who marries who, or whether anybody marries at all. And yet we no sooner have the making of a love-affair within reach than we revert to the folly of our own youth, and abandon ourselves ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... tossed her head. "I'm only afraid she will be a laughing-stock and bring down ridicule on all of us. You and Father are perfectly idiotic about her. You might be expected to make a fool of yourself, but I am surprised at ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... yours!" said the princess malevolently. "He is a hypocrite, a rascal who has himself roused the people to riot. Didn't he write in those idiotic broadsheets that anyone, 'whoever it might be, should be dragged to the lockup by his hair'? (How silly!) 'And honor and glory to whoever captures him,' he says. This is what his cajolery has brought us to! Barbara Ivanovna told me the mob near killed ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... lots of things, but please remember that Sig Brazier was my husband, quite as much, if not more than Belle's, that he committed—that he died under our roof, and simply because the divorce laws of this country are idiotic is no reason why I should abdicate my rights as a wife—at least his last wife. If Belle attempts her grand airs or begins to lord it over me ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... is of essential significance and must not be undervalued. It has been much studied and the notion has been reached that children mainly (in particular during the period of puberty), and idiotic and weak persons, suffer much from home-sickness, and try to combat the oppressive feeling ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... "You are getting idiotic again, Dick," Crane rejoined calmly, without moving. "You know, even better than I do, that you are playing with the most concentrated essence of energy that the world has ever seen. That zone of ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... connected is this grouping, the less logical is the mind; and when the proper connection fails to be made between particulars and generals, between facts and their principles, or between parts and their centre, then the mind is in an idiotic or insane condition. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... report it to the governor, who, in his idiotic love for monarchy, would adjudge her responsible for a deed committed before ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... "Stop all your idiotic chatter, Mr. Ferrers, and listen to me with whatever little power of concentration you may possess. Your conduct, sir, has been wholly unfitting an officer and a gentleman. If I did my full duty I'd order you in arrest at once, and have ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... waste any time on the mother. I wonder if Miss Mayhew meant anything by that odd little ballad last evening. Could she have intended to remind me of blue-eyed Jennie Burton? No, for she was singing it by herself, when she did not know I was listening. The idiotic brook! If I had given my whole heart to the effort I might have won Jennie Burton by this time. Ida Mayhew was right; no woman that I wish to win will show a lover any favor till he cannot help stopping ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... which the commander could view without anxiety. All the time that the army was operating on the Atbara it drew its supplies from the fort at the confluence. Between this and the camp, convoys, protected only by a handful of Camel Corps, passed once in every four days. Only the idiotic apathy of the Dervishes allowed the communications to remain uninterrupted. Mahmud was strong in cavalry. It will be evident to anyone who looks at the map how easily a force might have moved along the left bank to attack the convoys. Such tactics would have occurred ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... displayed by me when we parted at Sceaux; it implored one last interview before I left the colonies forever. I had not the art to conceal or veil my meaning, but told it out and plainly. Such a note as an idiotic boy might pen, or a simpering school lass ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... said; "you work for an ideal, and you get something out of it for yourself. Ideals, incidentally, that are not profitable are idiotic." With that he blew the smoke of his Havana cigar ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... I'll confess I'm disgusted. This has been the most idiotic thing I've ever done, and if you say the word we'll get out of here on the first train—freight or passenger. The ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... meet him and slid to a halt with his saucer feet scattering gravel and the idiotic grin on his face. "I mair your retter and you owe me ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin |
