"Imbecile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by a doctor. Mrs. Gurrage had lost her reason, he told me, upon hearing the news. She had been weak and ailing and in bed ever since her return from London, and this had proved the last straw, and now she lay, a childish imbecile, in her gorgeous ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... in the imbecile voice of a man in love, "why do you tremble so when I am here to protect you? Don't you love and ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... Europe had the insulter taken him at his word. When the experimentalists did attempt to govern, we all know, and have too severely felt, the consequences. Yet this unfortunate monarch has been represented to the world as imbecile, and taxed with wanting character, firmness, and fortitude, because he has been vanquished! The despot-conqueror ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... out, "I am not going to express myself on the experiences of this afternoon. Words could not do them justice, and I am not cool enough to trust myself. But I wish to apologize to you most humbly for my egregious, my imbecile mistake." ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Who comes imbecile to the world 'mid double danger, groans, and tears; The toy, the sport, the waif and stray of ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... that of the equine or the porcine, the experiment would not have been left untried so long. In-and-in breeding is a mistake, and can only commend itself, and that for selfish reasons, to the Aztec in physique and the imbecile in mind. The families which take most pride in their purity are the most degenerate; the stock which is the most robust and handsome is that which has in it a liberal infusion of foreign bloods. In my opinion, the coming man, the highest form of well-balanced qualities—moral, intellectual, and ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... resources, so long as there remained any men to be "combed out" of unessential industries, you could pour troops and munitions into Salonika without stopping to consider the needs of other theaters of war. Such a notion would have been clearly imbecile, for the sufficient reason that the sending of armies to Salonika would do nothing in itself to secure (however much it might incidentally stimulate) the more efficient use of the ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... West was no imbecile. He understood the threat underneath the suave words of the storekeeper. Rhinegoldt had gone to the penitentiary because C.N. Morse had willed it so. The inference was that another lawbreaker might go for the same reason. The trail ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... Official holy-of-holies was scandalously laid bare to dogs and the profane:—Enter, all the world, see what kind of Official holy it is. Kings everywhere, and reigning persons, stared in sudden horror, the voice of the whole world bellowing in their ear, "Begone, ye imbecile hypocrites, histrios not heroes! Off with you, off!" and, what was peculiar and notable in this year for the first time, the Kings all made haste to go, as if exclaiming, "We are poor histrios, we sure enough;—did you want heroes? ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... Montcornet's house? If you object, let us consider that nothing has been said. But I don't fancy that the women are so much in question as a poor devil that Lucien pilloried in his newspaper; he is begging for mercy and peace. The Baron du Chatelet is imbecile enough to take the thing seriously. The Marquise d'Espard, Mme. de Bargeton, and Mme. de Montcornet's set have taken up the Heron's cause; and I have undertaken to reconcile Petrarch and his Laura—Mme. de Bargeton ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... Idiots and imbecile persons likewise afford good evidence that laughter or smiling primarily expresses mere happiness or joy. Dr. Crichton Browne, to whom, as on so many other occasions, I am indebted for the results of his wide experience, informs ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... but Billy had somehow adopted the ditty and made it his own, so far as eternally singing it could do so, and his comrades had found it not unpleasant; for the voice of Billy was youthful, and had a melodious smoothness that atoned for much in the way of imbecile words and ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... Lans gave a laugh. "See, I'm discovered even in this disguise." He nodded toward the old man as one might toward an imbecile who had shown a gleam of intelligence. "Lansing Hertford is my real name; named for a grandfather just as you are, Sandy Morley. You see I've patched the scraps together. It was your grandfather and mine who were good pals way back in the musty ages. Some ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... who nevertheless appears to have treated him as though he were what the world took him for; and that Francis, who saw these underlined manuscripts, and yet persisted in the conventional view of Boswell, was not a Mid-Victorian prig but a common imbecile. It is true that he has been stupid enough to mangle and emasculate the letters that he was employed to publish; an officious prude unquestionably he was, but no fool, much ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... render exhaustion no longer a pain, but a pleasure, Peter lay on that knoll, high up the mountain-side, in close proximity to the clouds, dreaming and thinking about nothing; that is to say, about everything or anything in an imbecile sort of way: in other words, wandering in his mind disjointedly over the varied regions of memory and imagination; too tired to originate an idea; too indifferent to resist one when it arose; too weak ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... Hildebrand, with imbecile agony, grasped at the very stones for succour. He then rushed towards the bridge, and, ere his purpose could be anticipated, with one wild yell, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... especially music. Out of an art a man may be so trivial you would mistake him for an imbecile, at best a grown infant. Put him into his art, and how high he soars above you! How quietly he enters into a heaven of which he has become a denizen, and, unlocking the gates with his golden key, admits you to follow, ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... wicked for you to say such things. Do you suppose that Mr. Atkins would find it necessary to work as he is doing to beat a fool? And, besides, you're not complimentary to me. Should I, do you think, take such an interest in one who was an imbecile?" ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the fool. A policeman came up, and I should have told him the truth, and, if he didn't believe it, demanded to be taken to Scotland Yard, or for that matter to the nearest police station. But a delay at that moment seemed to me unendurable, and the sight of Marmie's imbecile face was more than I could bear. I let out with my left, and had the satisfaction of seeing him measure his length in ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... explain to her, to repeat two or three times things that Germinie had always grasped on the merest hint. She asked herself, when she saw how slow and torpid she was, if somebody had not exchanged her maid for another.—"Why, you're getting to be a perfect imbecile!" she would sometimes say to her testily. She remembered the time when Germinie was so useful about finding dates, writing an address on a card, telling her what day they had put in the wood or broached the cask of wine,—all of which were things that her old brain could not remember. ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... boor (he reflected) was Colonel Rudolph Musgrave, confessedly the social triumph of his generation! This imbecile, without a syllable to say for himself, without a solitary adroit word within tongue's reach, wherewith to annihilate the hussy, was a Musgrave ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... books. You have not written my plays. Any statement to the contrary is an infamous falsehood. No one else, dead or alive, could ever have written anything which I have written. When I have become an imbecile, which is not likely to happen yet, as I am a vegetarian and do not read your rag, it will be time enough for other people to lay claim to my work. Nor have I ever assisted you in conducting that which you call a paper, nor have I ever written an editorial for its columns. Please ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... praying to God to "preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all generations," wrung his nerveless hands in despair over his own powerlessness—as he construed the Constitution—to prevent Secession! Before writing his pitifully imbecile Message, President Buchanan had secured from his Attorney-General (Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania) an opinion, in which the latter, after touching upon certain cases in which he believed the President would be justified ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... churches were half empty; the temperance reading-rooms were shut up; the Mechanics' Institute no longer got support; only the jails and the poorhouses were crowded. A new generation, born in disease and reared in destitution, pitiless and imbecile, threatened to drag down the nation to hopeless slavery. Trade was paralyzed; no one bought anything which was not indispensable at the hour. The loss of the farmers in potatoes was estimated at more than twenty millions sterling; and with the potatoes the pigs, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... the Duke never took eyes from his face—that face so facile in the display of feeling or emotion. The voice also had a lilt of health and vitality which rang on the ears of age pleasantly. As he listened he thought of his eldest son, partly imbecile, all but a lusus naturae, separated from his wife immediately after marriage, through whom there could never be succession—he thought of him, and for the millionth time in his life winced in impotent disdain. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... systems go in part to Englishmen or Belgians or Germans who never set foot in America, and who obviously can have no share in even the mental labor of direction. A certificate of stock may belong to a child, to a maniac, to an imbecile, to a prisoner behind the bars, and it draws profit for its owner just the same. Stocks and bonds may lie for months or years in a safe-deposit vault, while an estate is being disputed, before their ownership is determined; but ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... he suddenly, as if answering the voices which whispered in his soul; "that would be an imbecile, miserable resort, and, moreover, we would not obtain our object; ho would not be humiliated, but a martyr's crown would be added to his laurels. When, however, ho is completely humbled, when, to this great victory at Hochkirch, we add new triumphs, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... imbecile you are!" sighed Tchelkache, and he again turned his back on his interlocutor, thinking this time that he would not vouchsafe him another word. This robust peasant awakened something obscure ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... be glad it was over. Of all the words in the English language 'honeymoon' is the most ridiculous and imbecile." ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... he yet was able for twelve hours at a time to shut his impending bride in the remotest cupboard of his mind, nor heed her sighs. But there was an older love than Elizabeth Schuyler: a ragged poverty-stricken creature by this, cowering before dangers within and without, raving mad at times, imbecile at others, filling her shattered body with patent nostrums, yet throughout her long course of futilities and absurdities making a desperate attempt to shade the battered lamp of liberty from the fatal draught. Her name was the United States ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... predisposition—there can be no doubt that moral imbecility of slight degree is very frequently found among prostitutes. It would be plausible, doubtless, to say that every woman who gives her virginity in exchange for an inadequate return is an imbecile. If she gives herself for love, she has, at the worst, made a foolish mistake, such as the young and inexperienced may at any time make. But if she deliberately proposes to sell herself, and does so for nothing or next to nothing, the case is altered. The experiences of Commenge ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... majority!—of women don't know enough about politics to vote, and that a big percentage haven't brains enough to vote intelligently for a town dog catcher! And that if I had my way any woman who wanted to vote would be arrested and given six months in an imbecile asylum!" ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... all the naval patronage, or First Lord of the Treasury, with the chief influence in every department of the Government. I must therefore suppose that those who join in the cry against the three Privy Councillors, are either imbecile or hostile to the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "Imbecile!" replied his neighbor. "It's Prince Villardo whom we saw last night in the play!" And the alcalde, in the character of giant-slayer, rose accordingly in the ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... nursed a dear gazelle; But I was given a parroquet - (How I did nurse him if unwell!) He's imbecile, but lingers yet. He's green, with an enchanting tuft; He melts me with his small black eye: He'd look inimitable stuff'd, And knows it—but he ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... this, or that she will remain an obstinate vestal till a nobler breed of wooers arises. What woman owns that she really does is to mould herself as much on the monster's model as she can. According to her own account, she puts nature's picture of herself into the hands of this imbecile, invites him to blur it as he will, and lets him write under the daub "Ego feci." As he cannot talk sense, she stoops to bandy chaff and slang. As he refuses to be attracted by modesty of dress and manner, she apes the dress and manner of the demi-monde. His indolence, his triviality, ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... "An imbecile without friends and twelve bajocchi in his pocket," he muttered savagely. "Perhaps the night without food will restore his senses. Come, fool!" and he roughly pushed me into a dark little chamber adjoining. "Here, ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... for this, but then he never blamed himself for anything. A fate, often drunken and always imbecile, was to blame for everything that he did, and he pitied himself sincerely for having to be in the hands of such a creature. He happened to be just now very considerably frightened about himself, more frightened than he had been for a very long ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... stability and vigour. The citizens, defended by their walls, and governed by their own magistrates and their own by-laws, enjoyed a considerable share of republican independence. Thus a strong democratic spirit was called into action. The Carlovingian sovereigns were too imbecile to subdue it. The generous policy of Otho encouraged it. It might perhaps have been suppressed by a close coalition between the Church and the Empire. It was fostered and invigorated by their disputes. In the twelfth century it attained its full vigour, and, after a long and doubtful ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... middle class girls! Always the same! What are you doing here then? What d'you know about life? Nothing. Compromised! Then all your dreams of elevating humanity, all your ambitions, your career, the realization of yourself—you'll give up all that before you'll be what you describe by that stupid, imbecile, middle class word, compromised. When you shook yourself free of your family you behaved like a capable woman. Now you're behaving and thinking like a fashionable doll. Isn't that true? I appeal to your intelligence, to your mind, to everything in you that lifts you out of the ordinary ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... doubts and conjectures. In an imbecile frame of mind, he came to the I Hung court. Lin Tai-y was, at the moment, sitting with Hsi Jen, and chatting with her. As soon as Pao-y entered his quarters, he addressed himself to Hsi Jen, with a long sigh. "I was very wrong in what I said yesterday evening," he remarked. "It's no matter ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... with disgust that while of yore, when I own I was guilty, you never spared me abuse—but now, when I am so virtuous, where is the praise? Do admit that I have become an excellent letter-writer—at least to you, and that your ingratitude is imbecile.—Yours ever, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... insignificant and imbecile. Though, like "Contarini Fleming," they may begin with a magnificent paragraph, and fine passages be scattered through the volumes, they are yet rarely stories of ideas as well as persons, rarely succeed in involving events of more than temporary interest, and rarely, perhaps, should ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... conscience yet, unless he has paid for it. He was of a race which elsewhere has so immemorially plundered hen-roosts that chickens are as free to it as the air it breathes, without any conceivable taint of private ownership. But the spirit of New England had so deeply entered into him that the imbecile broiler of another, slain by pure accident and by its own contributory negligence, was saddening him, while I was off in my train without a pang for the owner and with only an agreeable ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the look you think you've got on just now it's a fairly imbecile one," Dick interrupted scornfully. "Perhaps you are in love ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... becoming noisily gay over the extraordinary witticisms he launched forth. He himself, having returned to the subject of his picture, again discussed it with a deal of gaiety, caricaturing the crowd he had seen looking at it, and imitating the imbecile laughter. Along the avenue, now of an ashy hue, one only saw the shadows of infrequent vehicles dart by. The side-walk was quite black; an icy chill fell from the trees. Nothing broke the stillness but the sound of song coming from a clump of verdure behind the cafe; there was some ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... bloody fields in Hungary, and the princes in the vicinity of Vladimir soon found that Constantin had no spirit to resent any of their encroachments. Enormous crimes were perpetrated with impunity. Princes were assassinated, and the murderers seized their castles and their scepters, while the imbecile Constantin, instead of avenging such outrages, contented himself with shedding tears, building churches, distributing alms, and kissing the relics of the saints, which had been sent to him from Constantinople. Thus he lived for several years, a superstitious, perhaps a pious man; ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... England. Unrestricted and absolute power in the hands of a king was the only government he believed in. The king might be feeble, in which case he could delegate his power to ministers; or he might be imbecile, in which case he might be virtually dethroned; but his royal rights were sacred, his authority incontestable, and consecrated by all ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... "Oh, that imbecile Gladys Brown! I know what you mean. I'd explained it a hundred times. If she'd the brains of a cow she'd have understood. No wonder I was cross. I should have been a saint if I wasn't, and no one can be a saint in the summer term. Did—did any one ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... matutinal brimstone and treacle to the starving pupils of Do-the-boys Hall. Mark the astonishment of Squeers and his victim, as the savage goes down under the thundering blows of Nickleby's cane. Look at the old imbecile declaring his passion for the foolish Mrs. Nickleby. Behold his knee-breeches and shorts protruding from the chimney, when his benighted intellect prompted him, at the imminent hazard of strangulation, to pay ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... On the contrary, he bobbed his head in a foolish and imbecile way towards Frank, as though seeking unconsciously to find a place on which to rest it. But Frank wouldn't allow anything of the sort He made Bob sit erect, and held him in this way for some time, bawling, ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... overpowered her; he had lacked only the courage to trust his instinct. Coward's luck! It served him right. He had held her in his arms and had let her slip through; her lips had been raised to his, and he had refused to press them. Imbecile! ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... and sarcastically. An infinite supply of courtesy would, of course, be a priceless asset to him, but does not this work both ways? What right have people to bother other people with perfectly foolish and imbecile questions? Is there any one who cannot sympathize with a "sucker-sore" attendant? And with the people who are stationed about for the purpose of answering questions almost anywhere? There are not many ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... with a smile. Doray broke into a bitter lamentation and two soldiers had to work hard to keep her from embracing her husband. Antonio, the son of Captain Tinay, next appeared, crying like a child—a fact which made the family cry all the more. The imbecile, Andong, broke out in a wail when he saw his mother-in-law, the cause of his misfortune. Albino, the former seminary student, came out with his hands tied, as did also the twin sons of Capitana Maria. These three youths were ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... and imbecile attempt at the conquest of Canada. The loss of Mackinac and Detroit, with the flower of their army, at the outset of the war, was a disgrace that filled the American Government with consternation and alarm, as their plans of aggrandisement were not only ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... myself. What a quaint imbecile I am. Or rather, was. In my effort to emancipate myself from life, I succeeded only in handing myself over to my senses. And my senses, I perceive, belong not to me but to the procreative principles of biology. They have been loaned to me by a master chemist. When I die ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... "It's imbecile!" says J. Bayard. "What can he do with a thousand in New York. You might as well try to sprinkle Central Park with a quart watering can. I told him so. I tried to get out of him too some suggestion ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... seems to sweep up to this moment, and now is the crisis of my fate. All my future depends upon it, whether for weal or woe. Lady Chetwynde, do not call it nonsense—do not underrate its importance. Do not, I implore you, underrate me. Thus far you have tacitly assumed that I am a feeble and almost imbecile character. It is true that my abject devotion to you has forced me to give a blind obedience to all your wishes. But mark this well, Lady Chetwynde, such obedience itself involved some of the highest qualities of manhood. Something like courage and fortitude and daring was necessary to carry ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... watch upon Laura's every movement. His other shoulder stole the bloom from many a lovely cheek that brushed him in the surging crush, but he noted it not. He was too busy cursing himself inwardly for being an egotistical imbecile. An hour ago he had thought to take this country lass under his protection and show her "life" and enjoy her wonder and delight—and here she was, immersed in the marvel up to her eyes, and just a trifle more at home in it than he was himself. And ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... kindness did not stop there, nor with his brothers and sisters in white. He recognized his close relationship with the black man, and the bitterest name his enemies called him—worse in their minds than "fool," "clown," "imbecile" or "gorilla"—was a "Black Republican." That terrible phobia against the negro only enlisted Abraham Lincoln's sympathies the more. He appeared in court in behalf of colored people, time and again. The more bitter the hatred and oppression of ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... appointment to a Cabinet position when Lincoln suggested it to him in their consultation at Springfield before the inauguration) declared that "It is worse than a fault, it is a crime, to keep that old imbecile at the head of the Navy Department." And another critic expressed the uncomplimentary opinion that "If Lincoln would send old Welles back to Hartford, it would be better for the Navy ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... de Guise himself, but also by two notaries, a priest, and several witnesses. Unfortunately, however, whether by accident, or intention on the part of the Duke, both the notaries by whom it had been attested were aged men, one of whom had subsequently died; while the other had become so imbecile that when interrogated upon the subject, he first doubted, and subsequently denied, all knowledge of the transaction; but as these contingencies did not affect the signature of M. de Guise himself, his position was sufficiently embarrassing; and the rather that, his passion ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Meyerbeer, who is universally known by his reputation, and who has been celebrated by the cleverest journalists. This Beer, namely Heinrich, was a thoroughly stupid fellow, and indeed was afterward actually declared imbecile by his family, and placed under guardianship, because instead of making a name for himself in art or in science by means of his great fortune, he squandered his money on childish trifles; and, for example, one day bought ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... as he finished perusing this letter. "The imbecile! Was there ever such a fool born on ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... owl and the ape, there, they seem on very good terms. I wonder if they go to the room of Monsieur Kater! I think so; for one—the ghost in white, he is a little lame like the Englishman who goes always to the room of Monsieur.—Ah, bah! Imbecile! Away ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... gnarled, heavy-browed, iron-jawed fellow of about sixty, with deep-set eyes aglow with sinister and greedy instincts. His wife, older than he, and as deaf apparently as the door of a dungeon, wore a simpering, imbecile look of wonderment, it seemed to me, at the presence of such unusual and abundant cheer. The young people who lodged with Jackson were really a very frank, honest, good-looking couple, though not then appearing to advantage—the countenance of Henry Rogers being ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... matter whether it is a man or a woman. We must do something with our hands. We have got to. Papa told the Signora he should strike her at once unless she put down the red parasol and was silent. What did she do, the imbecile? She stuck out her face like this,"—he thrust his face forward with the right cheek turned towards Artois—"and said, 'Strike me! strike me!' Papa obeyed her. Poom! Poom! He gave her a smack on each cheek before every one. 'You want education!' he said to her. 'And I shall give it ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... replied and started toward the door. Half-way across the room he suddenly whirled around. "Lord, Carpenter. what an imbecile I am!" he exclaimed. "I fancy I've had the key-word all the ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... sake of a dreadful result from it in after years of dreaming. But it seems, ex abundanti, to yield this moral—viz., that as, in England, the idiot and the half-wit are held to be under the guardianship of chancery, so the man making love, who is often but a variety of the same imbecile class, ought to be made a ward of the General Post-Office, whose severe course of timing and periodical interruption might intercept many a foolish declaration, such as lays a solid foundation for ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... harmless—quenched, conquered, disgraced, and brutal,—to the ground. Poor fugitive slave bill Court! It can only gnash its teeth against freedom of speech in Faneuil Hall; only bark and yelp against the unalienable rights of man, and howl against the Higher Law of God! it cannot bite! Poor, imbecile, malignant Court! What a pity that the fugitive slave bill judge was not himself the grand-jury, to order the indictment! what a shame that the attorney was not a petty jury to convict! Then New England, like Old, might have had her "bloody assizes," and Boston streets might have streamed ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... Lecuyere, Isabeau la Paynette, Berarde Gironin! I know them all, by Heavens! A fine! a fine! That's what will teach you to wear gilded girdles! ten sous parisis! you coquettes! Oh! the old snout of a judge! deaf and imbecile! Oh! Florian the dolt! Oh! Barbedienne the blockhead! There he is at the table! He's eating the plaintiff, he's eating the suits, he eats, he chews, he crams, he fills himself. Fines, lost goods, taxes, expenses, loyal charges, salaries, damages, and interests, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... the grain which had been sold for supplying the departments below the Loire, is shipped at Paimboeuf and taken out of the kingdom from there to be sold abroad." In the suburbs of Rouen they imagine that grain is purposely "engulfed in the swamps, ponds, and clay-pits." At Laon, imbecile and Jacobin committees attribute the dearness of provisions to the avidity of the rich and the malevolence of the aristocrats according to them, "jealous millionaires grow rich at the expense of the people. They know the popular ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... these more appropriate and educational objects. It should, for the reason given in the footnote, be still ignorant of the Arabic numerals. It should be able to handle a pencil and amuse itself with freehand of this sort:—and its mind should be quite uncontaminated by that imbecile drawing upon squared paper by means of which ignorant teachers destroy both the desire and the capacity to sketch in so many little children. Such sketching could be enormously benefited by a really intelligent teacher who would watch the child's efforts, ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... becoming more and more articulate and cognisable. The same principle of growth that carried his first book beyond the books of previous writers, carries his last book beyond his first. And just as the most imbecile production of any literary age gives us sometimes the very clue to comprehension we have sought long and vainly in contemporary masterpieces, so it may be the very weakest of an author's books that, coming in the sequel of many others, enables ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he boasted that he had already passed judgment on four Governments. He still contemptuously shrugged his shoulders at the thought of Charles X, the priests and nobles and other attendant rabble, whom he had helped to sweep away. Louis Philippe, with his bourgeois following, had been an imbecile, and he could tell how the citizen-king had hoarded his coppers in a woollen stocking. As for the Republic of '48, that had been a mere farce, the working classes had deceived him; however, he no longer acknowledged that he had applauded the Coup d'Etat, for ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... not complain of these ancients so much because their logic is, by their own showing, utterly baseless, worthless and fantastic altogether, as because of their pompous and imbecile proscription of all other roads of Truth, of all other means for its attainment than the two preposterous paths—the one of creeping and the one of crawling—to which they have dared to confine the Soul that loves nothing so well ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... catch the sun, and regulate their indiscreet shining. Darkness and silence are excellent for knaves and tyrants; but the attempt to command the one or the other in the North, changes the knave to an imbecile and the ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... tell the imbecile that Your Highness will not see him," responded Glueck, impassively, his hand ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... splendid—like the picture of the young David in the Bible." "Then there's something wrong. Does he cough?" "His health seems perfect." "Which proves conclusively that he cherishes a secret feeling. For a man to go twenty-six years without falling in love means that he's either a saint or an imbecile, my dear; and for my part, I declare I don't know which character sits worse upon a gentleman. Can it be one of the Morrisons, do you think? The youngest girl used to be considered something of a beauty by the family; though she was always too namby-pamby ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... his most valuable possessions, were unknown to him. It may well be doubted whether he was aware that Sicily was an island, that Christopher Columbus had discovered America, or that the English were not Mahometans. In his youth, however, though too imbecile for study or for business, he was not incapable of being amused. He shot, hawked and hunted. He enjoyed with the delight of a true Spaniard two delightful spectacles, a horse with its bowels gored out, and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... we think of this imbecile mixture of superstition and farce? This ass was perhaps typical of the ass which Jesus rode! The children of Israel worshipped a golden ass, and Balaam made another speak. How fortunate then was James Naylor, who desirous of entering Bristol on an ass, Hume informs us—it is indeed ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... with Cleves was the deathblow to the power of the Empire. With the Protestant Princes armed behind his back, the imbecile called Charles would never dare to set his troops on board ship in Flanders to aid the continual rebellions, conspiracies and risings in England. He had done it too often, and he had repented as often, at the last moment. It was true that the marriage ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... and in occasional passages of his pamphlets, we see that he could be pithy enough when he chose to descend from his Latinized abstractions to good concrete English; but that is only when he becomes excited. His face when in repose, we are told, appeared to be almost imbecile; he was constantly sunk in reveries, from which he was only roused by a challenge to conversation. In his writings, for the most part, we seem to be listening to the reverie rather than the talk; ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... flop on to the floor. All these manoeuvres to-day availed him nothing; Jeremy held his neck in a vice, and dug his fingers well into the skin. Hamlet whined, then lay still, and, in the midst of indignant reflections against the imbecile tyrannies of man, fell, ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... family stores, the idea of julep was dismissed as a vain dream, and its place supplied by iced Congress water, a liquid which my cousin characterized, in a hasty aside to me, as being a drink fit only for imbecile infants ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... may pass over it, and where its roots shall only strike the deeper for the questionings and conflicts that may often befall it. Error cannot be overcome either by ignoring it or by the cheap but imbecile scolding ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... away his strength and life and vivacity, besmirch and weaken his mind, take the strength from his muscles, the courage from his heart, sap the very foundation of his existence, unsex and unnerve him, render him feeble, wavering and imbecile, dog his footsteps to the very steps of the altar, to curse and blacken and disappoint those joys of parentage and marital right that should be his. The shadow deepens with him as life advances, and follows him, bringing shame ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... others, and unkind. She loses him, by the vengeance of a husband whom he has wronged, and her second child is born dead in consequence of this shock. Her first she spoils for some twenty years, till he goes off with a concubine and nearly ruins his mother. We leave her consoling herself, in a half-imbecile fashion, with a grandchild. Her only earthly providence is her bonne Rosalie, the same who had been her husband's mistress, but a very "good sort" otherwise. The book is charged with grime of ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... made jealous, who have measured their wits with yours and gone under. Oh! but the newspapers will enjoy it—that is very certain. Our latest millionaire, his rise and fall! Cannot you see it in the placards? And for what? To give wealth to an old man long past the enjoyment of it-ay, imbecile already! You will ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thoughts in lucid order, and with every desirable variety of manner and expression. But when thrown from his self-possession, he can do nothing better than mechanically string together words, while there is no soul in them, because his mental powers are spell-bound and imbecile. He stammers, hesitates, and stumbles; or, at best, talks on without object or aim, as mechanically and unconsciously as an automaton. He has learned little effectually, till he has learned to ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... who are much accustomed to abstract contemplation are generally unfitted for active pursuits, and vice versa. I myself am sufficiently decided and dogmatical in my opinions, and yet in action I am as imbecile as a woman or a child. I cannot set about the most indifferent thing without twenty efforts, and had rather write one of these Essays than have to seal a letter. In trying to throw a hat or a book upon a table, I miss it; it just reaches the edge and falls ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... "Poor imbecile!" said the false La Jonquiere, "and these idiots think of conspiring. It is like D'Harmental; they think they can attend to love and politics at the same time. Triple fools; if they were to go at once to La Fillon's for the former, the latter would not be so likely to ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Charlotte," she begged me with tears in her eyes. "I must get her away from this attractive but undesirable young man! That absurd uncle who didn't want his name to die out must have been a lunatic or an imbecile. Why shouldn't such a vulgar name become extinct? And to think that my exquisite Dorothea—whose figure and eyelashes have been remarked by royalty—to think that she should be expected to graft herself on to that family tree of all others! To think that ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a flat with fire-escapes written all over the front of it. The street in front was being repaired. It had been said by imbecile residents of the vicinity that the paving was never allowed to remain down for a sufficient time to be invalided by the tramping millions, but that it was kept perpetually stacked in little mountains through ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... inebriate myself. This melancholy example of Mr. Clifford had a very great effect upon me. To see a man of the most brilliant talent, of the most profound erudition, so far forget himself as to become an object of pity and contempt, imbecile, and even beastly, was a sight which made a deep and lasting impression upon my mind, and I began to think that my own partial indulgence in the practice of drinking so freely after dinner was an act of great weakness ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... land. Those who had once chanted in sanctimonious chorus, "He kept us out of war," now sang sentimental hymns invoking mercy and forgiveness for the crucifiers of children and the rapers of women, who licked their lips furtively and leered at the imbecile choir. Representatives of a great electorate vaunted their patriotism and proudly repeated: "We forced him into war!" Whereas they themselves had been kicked headlong into it by a press and public at the end ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... the post office at Kulanche the other day showing 'em off, each one in a red shawl; and sneering at people with only one. And this imbecile ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... Jones—who, during the whole operation of drying and weighing the gold, had remained seated on a log, looking on with an expression of imbecile astonishment, and without uttering a word—"Mister McLeod, if I may make bold to ax, how much is one ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Italian opera was what it is now, frivolous, insincere, imbecile. Its sole function was, and always has been, to help idlers of the upper classes to while away their evenings. The absurd notion of a Platonic music was rivalled by the absurdity of the composition. The inane dialogue was made up of interminable recitative, in the midst of which an occasional ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... expected, and it was brought to abrupt conclusion by the sudden charge of two of them from the rear. Being coupled, they mowed his legs from under him as irresistibly as chain shot and being puppies, and of an imbecile friendliness they remained to lick his face and generally make merry over him as he struggled ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... that people who have become imbecile, or whose memory is much impaired, yet frequently retain their power of recalling impression which have been long ago repeatedly ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... the little fellow a very noisy and truculent vocalization of the ursine type, which Archie, who was a great favorite with his host, eagerly imitated, Briscoe appearing throughout the duet at the pitiable disadvantage of the adult imbecile disporting himself in ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... tete-a-tete. Of these opportunities I have availed myself to the fullest possible extent. And with what result, you will naturally ask? With the result, my dear, of making this man absolutely mad about me. He has become an utter imbecile. C'est tout dit. His incoherent raving would only bore you, so, like the kindhearted little person I am, I spare you this infliction. Suffice it to say that he is mine body and soul. I say ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... how good so ever he might chance to be. Against her own inclination, but from the advice of her new friend, she occasionally received her sisters and a few former acquaintances. They went away commiserating her condition, as being semi-imbecile, semi-lunatic. ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... length, and with an earnest and implicit faith singularly at variance with his enlightened scepticism in other matters. But there were regions of superstition in which even this Sampson of logic became imbecile and powerless. The rationale of the bleeding of a murdered corpse at the touch of the murderer is given by Sir Kenelm Digby with his usual ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... lonely Cynossema. Young David ends as a dotard—Solomon as worse. Glorious Alexander must die, half of fever, half of drunkenness, as the fool dieth. Charles the Fifth, having thrown all away but his follies, ends in a convent, a superstitious imbecile; Napoleon squabbles to the last with Sir Hudson Lowe about champagne. It must be so; and the glory must be God's alone. For in great men, and great times, there is nothing good or vital but what is of God, and not of man's self; and when He taketh away that divine breath they ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... cried, "I shall never be but a common imbecile! Is not my way all traced out? I must continue my career, and let myself go with the current of life. Is it then so hard? Why delude myself with phantoms? I will try to slay the muttering passions, to drive away the fits of ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... pleased survey of the boy's height and strength, Goodwife Dolly came forward to beg the lady to come to her fire, and rest under the gipsy tent which she and nephew Piers—her real herd-boy, a rough, shaggy, almost dumb and imbecile lad—had raised with branches, skins and canvas, to protect their few articles of property. There was a smouldering fire, over which Doll had prepared a rabbit which the dog had caught, and which she had intended for Hal's supper and that of her husband if he came home in time. While ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... born 1834, son of Mouret, the hatter, and Ursule Macquart, his wife. After the death of his father, Silvere went to live with his grandmother Adelaide Fouque. Though poorly educated, he was fond of reading, and his lonely life with this old half-imbecile woman increased his own tendency to visionary dreamings. "He was predisposed to Utopian ideas by certain hereditary influences; his grandmother's nervous disorders became in him a chronic enthusiasm, striving after everything that was grandiose and impossible." His Uncle Antoine Macquart, ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... contrasted you, my own pure pearl, with the deformed, dwarfish, repulsive daughter, whom the Nemesis of my wrongs gave to Cuthbert, in little Maud Laurance, I almost shouted aloud in my great exultation. You so beautiful, with his own lineaments in every feature, disowned for that misshapen, imbecile heiress of his proud name. Oh, mills of the Gods! how delicious the slow ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... but still evidently wasting away,—like a candle burnt down to the socket, flitting and flaring alternately; at one time almost imbecile, at others, talking and planning as if he were in the vigour of his youth. O what a curse it must be—that love of money! I believe—I'm shocked to say so, Philip,—that that poor old man, now on the brink of a grave into which he can take nothing, would sacrifice ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... forehead, much too large and too prominent, suggested water on the brain, and beneath that waxen cupola her face, noticeably too small and ending in a point like the nose of a mouse, made some people fear she would become, sooner or later, imbecile. Her eyes, which were light blue, and her lips, always fixed in a smile, did not contradict that idea. On the solemn occasion of her marriage she had the manner, air, and attitude of a person condemned to death, whose only desire is that it might ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... of Meer Jaffier was, of course, displeasing to the imbecile Emperor of India, and a large army was sent to dethrone him. The nabob appealed, in his necessity, to his allies, the English, and, with the powerful assistance of the Europeans, the forces of the successor of the great ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... his father, as the last King of France. He is youthful, uneducated, imbecile. He is wedded to a giddy superficial queen. Both are infidels and incapable of any intelligent acts of government. With imbecility and credulity on the throne, corruption continues to prevail among high and low. Instead of individual thrift and general ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... those truly unfortunate cases which, so far as present knowledge goes, cannot be guarded against. Eunice, age 31, mentally 2, is a low-grade imbecile. There is not in the whole family, for generations back, a single case of feeble-mindedness, nor of disease that would undermine the nervous organization. Close scrutiny does not reveal a single ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... would if you should do so suddenly or clumsily. But you must insinuate the idea very slowly and subtlely. Clarence is not for the works; Clarence is too good for this world—at least for the business of this world. I think him half an imbecile! My father does not hesitate to call him a perfect idiot. Do you begin to see your way now? Clarence can be moderately provided for, but should have no share in ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... evidence of the power of the personal structure to react upon the sexual elements, that is not open to serious objection." Some of the cases of apparent inheritance he regards as coincidence of effect. Thus "the fact that a drunkard will often have imbecile children, although his offspring previous to his taking to drink were healthy," is an "instance of simultaneous action," and not of true inheritance. "The alcohol pervades his tissues, and, of course, affects the germinal matter ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... that?" Basterga repeated with sudden energy, and he shook a massive finger before the other's eyes. "But how know you anything," he continued with disdain, as he dropped the hand again, and turned on his heel, "dolt, imbecile, rudiment that you are? Ay, and blind to boot, for it was but the other day I worked a miracle before you, and you learned nothing ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... himself at last; but I fear that his health was impaired by his few mad outbursts. Charles Lamb, who is dear to us all, reduced himself to a pitiable state by giving way to outbreaks of alcoholic craving. When Carlyle saw him, the unhappy essayist was semi-imbecile from the effects of drink; and the savage Scotsman wrote some cruel words which will unfortunately cleave to Lamb's cherished memory for long. Lamb fought against his failing; he suffered agonies of remorse; he bitterly blamed himself for "buying days of misery ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... are never completed. I felt that it was of joy—of hope; but felt also that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to perfect—to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile—an idiot. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... around him before the Government in London could seriously believe that a Stuart in arms was in the island. There were other and minor elements of success, too, to be noted in the great game that the Stuart prince {210} was playing. The Ministry was unpopular: the head of that Ministry was the imbecile Duke of Newcastle, perhaps the most contemptible statesman who has ever made high office ridiculous. The King was away in Hanover. England was in the toils of a foreign war, and her prestige had lately ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... those who did not know him, or, knowing, did not or could not appreciate him, Lamb often passed for something between an imbecile, a brute, and a buffoon; and the first impression he made on ordinary people was always unfavourable—sometimes to a violent ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... advocating any policy which he thinks will aid the Union cause. But the country was never more disgusted than it is at present, with men who use politics as a mere trade by which to live. The infamy which has attached to the miserable and imbecile Buchanan, that type of degraded, pettifogging diplomacy, is rapidly extending to his whole tribe—and their name is legion. It is significant that a bank, whose notes bore as vignette a portrait of the ex-honorable ex-President, has been obliged to call them in, and substitute ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to say, but find, to your horror, that your reasoning faculties have left you. It is a moment of despair, and your evil genius, seizing the opportunity, suggests to you some of the most idiotic remarks that it is possible for a human being to perpetrate. Glancing round with an imbecile smile, you sniggeringly observe that "it hasn't got much hair has it?" Nobody answers you for a minute, but at last the stately nurse says with ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... tears in their eyes when they thanked the Queen for her confidence and support. Lord Aberdeen means to have an interview with Lord Palmerston, and says that when he (Lord A.) came into office, Lord Palmerston and the Chronicle assailed him most bitterly as an imbecile Minister, a traitor to his country, etc., etc. He means now to show Lord P. the contrast by declaring his readiness to assist him in every way he can by his advice, that he would at all times speak to him as if he was his ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... with that!' growled angry voices. 'Down with the imbecile rhymester from the forum! Away with the idiot! Rotten apples, stinking eggs for the motley fool! Give ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... crayon portrait staring out from the gilt frame. "He has to stay in this room always. And I believe another two hours would drive me hopelessly insane." The word caught her attention. "Hope!" she laughed ironically. "What imbecile ever thought of hope in the same breath with this place? What they really ought to do is paint that 'Abandon-hope' admonition across the whole front ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... but we know also, and by that knowledge we must stand or fall. There is such a thing as loyalty to a man's own better self; and from those who have not that, God help me, how am I to look for loyalty to others? The most dull, the most imbecile, at a certain moment turn round, at a certain point will hear no further argument, but stand unflinching by their own dumb, irrational sense of right. It is not only by steel or fire, but through contempt and blame, that the martyr fulfils the calling of his dear soul. Be glad if ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... call me 'Corky,' didn't I?" He glared at his big brother. "How can you stand there grinning like an imbecile with all ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... were stolen or I was snubbed for taking them. I was not taught and was called a fool. My hand was against everybody's. How it was that with my high spirits and vivid imagination I did not grow up a moral imbecile full of perverted instincts I do not know. I describe myself as a docile child, but I was full of temptations to be otherwise. There were times when I was silent before people, but if I had had a knife in my hand I could have stuck it ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... every step how I should be met by this mother who had shown herself so little of a mother to me, and from whom, during eight years, I had heard nothing beyond the two letters of which you know. Judging it unworthy to simulate an affection I could not possibly feel, I put on the air of a pious imbecile, and entered the room with many inward qualms, which however soon disappeared. My mother's tack was equal to the occasion. She made no pretence of emotion; she neither held me at arm's-length nor hugged me to her bosom like a beloved ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... capable of ignoring the somnolent influences of human nature. To his own extreme surprise his head fell forward with an abrupt nod while he was engaged in the act of depicting Big Waller's nose, and he found, on resuming work, with an imbecile smile at what he deemed his weakness, that that member of the Yankee's face was at least two feet long, and was formed after the pattern of a somewhat irregular Bologna sausage. Indiarubber quickly put this to rights, however, ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... squalor and ludicrous splendor, accommodates our democratic menage to the taste of the richest and most extravagant plebeian amongst us. He, unhappily, minds danger and oppression as little as he minds money, so long as he has a spectacle and a sensation, and it is this ruthless imbecile who will have lace curtains to the steamboat berth into which he gets with his pantaloons on, and out of which he may be blown by an exploding boiler at any moment; it is he who will have for supper that overgrown and shapeless dinner in the lower saloon, and will not let any one else ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... of your maternal grandfather, a good old man whose possessions will surely fall to you, for he has grown imbecile, and is therefore ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... side, their sons fought side by side, at New Orleans. Kentuckians and Tennesseans now fight another and a different kind of battle. But they are fighting now, as then, a band of mercenaries, the cohorts of power. They are fighting a band of office-holders, who call General Harrison a coward, an imbecile, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... was feeling safe. No: ten days are a long time, especially in the country—but it would take longer than that to cure even a little imbecile like Betty of the Vernon habit. It was worse than opium. Who ought to know if not she who sat, calm and sympathetic, promising to entangle Temple so as to leave Betty free to become a hopeless prey to ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... her, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He wondered for an instant if she really looked troubled, or if he only imagined it. There was no doubt about how Vincent looked, as though he thought Mr. Welles, exulting over a blow with a mattock, an old imbecile ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... intolerant as Bloody Mary. Their attitude is really this: that the man must stop thinking, if he is to go on living. Their counsel is one of intellectual amputation. If thy HEAD offend thee, cut it off; for it is better, not merely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child, but to enter it as an imbecile, rather than with your whole intellect to be cast into hell— or ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... Even then she could not speak, though she smiled a little, faintly and forlornly and gratefully. She struggled to say one word, but it resolved itself into a cacophonous and inarticulate mumble, half-infantile, half-imbecile. ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... in the ordinary occupations of life and to earn a livelihood should be allowed to come. It is a high privilege to enter into American citizenship. Neither a pauper, in the strict legal sense of the word, nor an imbecile, nor one who has a defect or imperfection of body or mind which lowers him below the standard of American citizenship should be allowed ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... imbecile way of talking. I dare say I shall tear up my letter in the morning. No, I shall not. It belongs to you, for it is just what your loving old Dorry ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... in M. Meydieu, "your godfather is right. You had better marry the miller who proposed, or that imbecile of a Spanish tanner who lost his brainless head for the sake of your pretty eyes. You will never do anything on the stage! You'd ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... sudden light broke in upon the meeting. It was unanimously resolved, that a deputation of old ladies should wait upon a celebrated orator, imploring his assistance, and the favour of a speech; and the deputation should also wait on two or three other imbecile old women, not resident in the parish, and entreat their attendance. The application was successful, the meeting was held; the orator (an Irishman) came. He talked of green isles—other shores—vast Atlantic—bosom of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... away the hypothesis. "You poor things! You're merely saying that to shield him. A blind imbecile could see through you"—I have already apologised to you for our being the unconvincing liars that we were—"you know nothing more about it than I do. You ought to, as I've already said. But you don't. In fact, you know ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... you be so pig-headed! You are talking like an imbecile. Your secretary, Miss Dore, is a nice girl. But how would you feel if Percy were to come to you and say that he was engaged ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... seemed only half to understand. She stared at her son, swaying backwards and forwards in imbecile misery. ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... efficiently worked, if her husband had been at home, but there was not room for much improvement. Yet that woman had no one to help her except a very old man, her father-in-law, I think, who was infirm and almost imbecile. ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... preparation to meet an unknown danger. Catharine, whose depraved yet imperious spirit was guiding with such consummate duplicity all this enginery of intrigue, hourly administered the stimulus of her own stern will to sustain the faltering purpose of her equally depraved but fickle-minded and imbecile son. ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Then the passion of grief let itself loose, and Diane cried, "And why not? Where else should he go? He belongs to me. Why do you stand there like an imbecile? Take him at once. Oh, Jack, Jack, why don't you speak? Oh, take him quickly! You said he would bleed to death. He isn't dead? No, tell me ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... I thought it would really increase your comfort, though I know I'd feel like an infernal ass. I've got new light upon this 'damning' business. I've come to regard it as the refuge of the mentally inert, not to say imbecile, who have lost the capacity for originality and force in speech. For ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor |
