"Quixotic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... see these notions in a young man, sir. I had them myself at your age. I believe I had great ideas then, on the subject of temptation and the force of circumstances; and was as Quixotic as any one about reforming rogues. But my experience has convinced me that roguery is innate. Nothing but outward force can control it, and keep it within bounds. The terrors of the law must be that ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... man from the chivalrous and quixotic Essex now took the reins. Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, had expected to be sent to Ireland when Essex had suddenly been appointed with ampler powers and a more extended consequence, and the disappointment had caused him to follow the course of ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... quebrantar to break. quedar(se) to stay, remain; —— en algo to abide by something. quehacer m. business, duty. queja lament. quejar vr. to complain. quemar to burn. querellante plaintiff. querer to wish, love. quien, quien who, whom, which. quijotesco Quixotic. quimerico chimerical, extravagant. quince fifteen. quinientos, -as five hundred. quinta conscription. quinto conscript. quitar to take away, remove. quiza, ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... my brothers and sisters of the pen, I am capable of impulsive, even quixotic action, and I ought, in justice to myself, to mention here that I had not then read that noble book "The Treasure of Heaven," in which it will be remembered that a generous-souled woman takes in from the storm, and nurses back to health in her lowly cottage, an aged tramp who turns out to ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... exclaimed the prince. "It is Quixotic. San Giacinto has plenty of money without ruining us. Even if he finds it out I will fight the case to the end. I am master here, as my father and my father's father were before me, and I will not give up what is mine without a struggle. Besides, who assures ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... romantic, if quixotic, resolve, Henry Cecil strapped a knapsack on his back, and, staff in hand, tramped off in search of the "beggar-maid" who was to bring him happiness at last; or, if he could not discover her, at least to find some place of retirement where he could lead a simple life, ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... from the limits of Turkey to those of Prussia. This court hesitates, or rather its Premier hesitates; for the Queen, Montmorin, and Breteuil are for the measure. Should it take place, all may yet come to rights, except for the Turks, who must retire from Europe, and this they must do, were France Quixotic enough to undertake to support them. We, I hope, shall be left free to avail ourselves of the advantages of neutrality: and yet, much I fear, the English, or rather their stupid King, will force us out of it. For thus I reason. By forcing us into the war against them, they will be engaged in an expensive ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... aspect of this tragedy; but there was a singular fact which added to its intensity and bitterness. In such a hot-bed of secession as was Delisleville, the fact in question was indeed not easily explainable, except upon the grounds either of a Quixotic patriotism or upon those of a general disposition to contradictoriness. A Southern man, the head of a Southern family, the Judge opposed the rebellion and openly sided with the Government. That he had been a man given to argument and contradiction, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... you to know till you have taken the matter up and sifted it? But what you propose is Quixotic in every way. It will not hold water for a moment. You know as well as I do that no barrister would keep a wig on his head who pretended to such a code of morals in his profession. Such a doctrine is a doctrine of puritanism—or ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... something that the ordinary civilized white man would not do, even if his legitimate wife and all his outside concubines were to have twins or triplets every nine months; so that, even as strange as it may appear, civilization must need go to the wild Bushmen in search of that grand old Quixotic chivalry that was in ancient times always ready to sacrifice itself ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... bone-dome?" muttered Bill. Such an attitude seemed to him both senseless and quixotic, for he had never attached the least sentiment to money. Money was an elemental necessity, therefore he looked upon it with practical, unromantic eyes, and helped himself to it as he helped himself to such elemental necessities as air or water. Most of life's necessaries had fallen ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... a convenient solution to many a complicated problem. It commends itself, moreover, to those who adopt it, by the sense of chivalry which it involves. There is something generous and noble, albeit quixotic, in siding with the weak, even if they be in the wrong. There is something charitable in the judgment, 'Oh! poor creature, think of his adverse circumstances, his ignorance, his temptation. Let us be merciful and forgiving.' In practice, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... this great war—the all-absorbing drama of Christendom—were it not that they were for the moment the whole war. It might be thought that hostilities were approaching their natural termination, and that the war was dying of extreme old age, when the Quixotic pranks of a Du Terrail occupied so large a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... vast, misty questions, I can always talk your father into good sense. That is the best thing about him,—he is well-balanced, in spite of his tendency to theories. When I show him that a thing is quixotic he laughs, shrugs his shoulders, and good-naturedly goes on in the even tenor of his way. It was the luckiest thing in the world for him when he married me, for I soon learned his weak points, and have ever guarded ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... them both, Max might be rewarded for his noble resolve by learning that there was no need to make the sensational story public. If the girl had died or could not be found, it would be—in Mr. Reeves's opinion—foolishly quixotic to rouse sleeping dogs, and ruin himself, to put money in the pockets of the Reynold Dorans, who had ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... plot to force me to my own good. It went decidedly against the grain with me to requite Richards' hospitality and friendship by claiming back the money I had lent him, and for which he no doubt had good use. At the same time, it would have been rather Quixotic to let my own plantation go to rack and ruin for want of the funds by which he was profiting; and moreover, I had given Menou my word to be guided by him; so I put the receipt and my romantics in my pocket, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... silly, foolish, quixotic to hope that here, in this little world of workaday people, he might be brought to see that personal acquisition and advance is not enough to give life meaning, to justify what it exacts. I was foolish. We are more apart than ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... money,—that's a fact! and I can't learn. I suppose you would be glad to see me rubbing around in old calico dresses, wouldn't you? and keeping only one girl, and going into the kitchen, like Miss Dotty Peabody? I think I see myself! And all just for one of your Quixotic notions, when you might just as well keep all your money as not. That is what it is to marry a reformer! I never have had any peace of my life on account of your conscience, always something or other turning up that you can't act like anybody else. I should ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of the things he did and the scruples he had, but in our hearts I think we all honoured and loved him for them. For without forcing it in any way upon others he himself followed a code of honour that differed from, and was stricter than, that of the world around him. He was quixotic, especially in anything to do with money, and often to his own personal loss. I think we were all the better for having known him. He seemed hardly to think of himself ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... do the same thing when you had not lent it. He could make anything disappear that was not absolutely screwed to the floor, and at public-houses where he was known the pewter from which he drank was always chained to the bar. He had something of my own quixotic nature, and would probably have taken the rest if he had wanted it. One day at Ascot he made a stranger's watch disappear. When he came to examine his newly-acquired property he was disappointed to find that the watch was a four-and-sixpenny American Everbright—"Puts ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... which Richard Brithwood will not pay, and John Halifax will not go to law to make him. Nay, father dear, I am not going to quarrel with any one of your crotchets." She spoke with a fond pride, as she did always, even when arguing against the too Quixotic carrying out of the said crotchets. "Perhaps, as the reward of forbearance, the money will come some day when we least expect it; then John shall have his heart's desire, and ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... mean to say that you really believe this fellow to be innocent, Mr. Brereton?" he exclaimed. "You!—with your knowledge of criminal proceedings! Oh, come now, Mr. Brereton—it's very kind of you, very Quixotic, as ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... gentleman to be ready with his hat to a lady, ready with his sword to a man; to honour his word and his king; to be courteous with his equals, generous to his dependants, helpful and trusty in friendship. But it was not asked of us to be quixotic. If I had married every lady by whom it is my fortune - not my merit - to have been distinguished, the Wells would scarce be spacious enough for my establishment. You see, sir, that while I respect your emotion, I am myself conducted by experience. And besides, Mr. Fenwick, is not love a warfare? ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... Goldsmith's friends 'remembered his relating [about the year 1756] a strange Quixotic scheme he had in contemplation of going to decipher the inscriptions on the written mountains, though he was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which they might be supposed to be written.' Goldsmith's Misc. Works, ed. 1801, i. 40. Percy says that Goldsmith applied to the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... in his person, is above the middle size, with marked features, and an air somewhat stately and Quixotic. He reminds one of some of Holbein's heads, grave, saturnine, with a slight indication of sly humour, kept under by the manners of the age or by the pretensions of the person. He has a peculiar sweetness in his smile, and great ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... women. He cannot bear flippant allusions to the sex. He has preserved a childlike faith in their purity, their sacred mission on earth, their refining influence upon the race. His friends call him old-fashioned and quixotic on this point. A true woman, he declares, can do no wrong. And this same man, towards the end of the book, watches how the truest woman in the place, the one whom he admires more than all the rest, his own cousin and a mother, calmly throws her legitimate husband over a cliff. He ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... circular riot, which leads to l'Ete. The ladies then join hands, and endeavour to imitate the graceful evolutions of a windmill, occasionally grinding the corns of their partners, who frantically rush in with the quixotic intention of stopping them. A general shuffling about then takes place, which terminates in a bow, a bob, and "allow me to offer you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... last dozen years, I should never shake off the feeling that I had behaved badly. And as I am much given to brooding over my misdeeds, I don't want you to increase the number of my hell-hounds. You must help me in this...and if I am Quixotic, play Sancho for ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... papers will be full of it. Not that the boy was anything but foolish," she added hastily. "I'll do him the justice to admit that he's more of a fool than a villain—and I hardly know whether it's a compliment that I'm paying him or not. He got some quixotic notion into his head that Harry Maupin insulted the girl in his presence, and he called him to account for it. As if the honour of a barkeeper's daughter was the ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... secret attachment, which continued, through all the most perilous stage of life, to act as a romantic charm in safeguard of virtue. This—(however he may have disguised the story by mixing it up with the Quixotic adventure of the damsel in the Green Mantle)—this was the early and innocent affection to which we owe the tenderest pages, not only of Redgauntlet, but of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, and of Rokeby. In all of these works the heroine has certain distinctive features, drawn from one ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... over at Danby are all crazy about him, I think," said Stephen. "He is a very good man no doubt, and does no end of things for the college boys, that none of the other professors do. But I think he is quixotic and sentimental; and all this stuff about those niggers at the Cedars is moonshine. They'd pick his very pocket, I daresay, any day; and he'd never suspect them. I know that lot too well. The Lord ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... God's hand; and there would have been plenty of excuses very ready about using means as well as exercising faith, and not being called upon to abandon advantages, and not pushing a good principle to Quixotic lengths, and so on, and so on. But whatever truth there is in such considerations, at any rate we may well learn the lesson of this story—to be true to our professed principles; to beware of making our religion a matter of words; to live, when the time for putting them into practice comes, by the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... life, Lorenzo rose to the occasion and effected a solution of the difficulty by daring to perform what was undoubtedly one of the bravest acts ever achieved by a diplomatist. By some statesmen it might be condemned as foolhardy, by others as quixotic. Its very foolhardiness and quixotry fascinated the man it was intended to influence, the blood-thirsty, cruel, and pitiless Ferrante of Naples, who was restrained from crime by the fear neither of God nor man, and who had actually slain the condottiere ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... see the city, which I had never seen, and get my cyclopaedia and magazine. It was the least offer the Public ever made to me; but just then the Public was in a collapse, and the least was better than nothing. The plan of so long a journey was Quixotic enough, and I hesitated about it a good deal. Finally I came to this resolve: I would start in the morning to walk to the lock-station at Brockport on the canal. If a boat passed that night where they would give me my fare for any work I could do for them, I would ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... 'What is this for? What are we making ourselves miserable about? We care for each other a great deal, much more than I had any idea of this morning. Why should we say good-bye? I don't believe it's at all necessary, after all. You have got some silly, quixotic idea into your head, I'm sure. Tell me what it is, and let me ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... so sure. There is a quixotic streak in him—in all you Holidays, for that matter. You can't say much. Think of the stray boys you have taken in at one time or another, some of them rather dubious specimens, ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... company when this uncomfortable letter arrived, in the person of Monsieur Lablache, the French master. It would be difficult to say what there was in the unpopular foreigner which attracted the Master of the Shell. It may have been a touch of Quixotic chivalry which led him to defy all the traditions of the place and offer his friendship to the best-hated person in Grandcourt; or it may have been a feeling that monsieur was hardly judged by his colleagues and pupils. However it was, during the short time the term had run, the two men had struck ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... I am very much obliged to you; but you must have been terribly imprudent. Could you not have managed without being discovered in that suspicious attitude? I was so grievously distressed. You are too quixotic—you seek ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... typical Englishman; he had a very feminine side to his character, and though he was saved from sentimentality by his extreme trenchancy, and by his irritable temper, yet his whole temperament is beautiful, winning, attractive, rather than salient and picturesque. He had the qualities of a poet, a quixotic ideal, and an exuberant fancy; but though his spell over those who understand him is an almost magical one, his point of view is bound to be ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... She raised her eyes sometimes and looked at him as he sat there. His shabby, hapless appearance always appealed to her. She knew that he was, in reality, anything but hapless, but his clothes never fitted him, and it was impossible for him to escape from the Quixotic embarrassments of his thin hair, his high cheek-bones, his large spectacles. His smile, however, gave him his character; when he smiled—and he was always smiling—you saw a man independent, proud, wise and gentle. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... battles have been actually won for England in the spirit thus engendered. It is only with a measure of habitual foolhardiness that you can be sure, in the common run of men, of courage on a reasonable occasion. An army or a fleet, if it is not led by quixotic fancies, will not be led far by terror of the Provost-Marshal. Even German warfare, in addition to maps and telegraphs, is not above employing the "Wacht am Rhein." Nor is it only in the profession ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the part of these Jacksons," Mr. Renfrew said, "but your interference was most imprudent, my young friend; and as you see, it has done harm rather than good. If you are so quixotic as to become the champion of every ill-treated slave in the State, your work is pretty ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... promised the girl! Stronger than his curiosity, stronger almost than his wish to deliver the papers, was his desire to keep that promise. It may have been foolish, quixotic; but he resolved to continue as he had begun. "At ten o'clock," he said to himself, "if I have not found her, I will look at the papers or go to the police—do whatever is necessary." He did not like to break promises or ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... a flood of tears. Even Belmont had ceased to be attractive in her eyes—the stern privations that surrounded her banished all thoughts of love. The realities of life had cured her in one day of all her Quixotic notions. ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... distant fault in the rock which would require much patient search to locate. The engineer had assumed grave chances in this venture underground; in this moment of victory he felt little inclination to surrender his information, or to sacrifice himself in any quixotic devotion to his assailant. Yet he must give the fellow a fair chance. There seemed only one course practicable, the despatching to the helpless man's assistance of some among that gang of workmen down in Number One. But could this be accomplished without ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... creatures themselves shun the wiles of the interviewer, or are at all shy and retiring, as a matter of delicacy, about their family affairs; on the contrary, they display a striking lack of reticence in their native element, and are so far from pushing parental affection to a quixotic extreme that many of them, like the common rabbit immortalised by Mr. Squeers, 'frequently devour their own offspring.' But nature herself opposes certain obvious obstacles to the pursuit of knowledge in the great deep, which render it difficult for the ardent naturalist, ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... so by Sir Charles's action. To him the matter represented the mere carrying out of a bargain; but friends were, as is natural in such a case, remonstrant, and he was accused of "needless self-sacrifice," of "Quixotic conduct," of "self-abnegation," of "your usual disinterestedness in politics," and the bargain was much criticized. A letter from Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, congratulating Sir Charles on the stand he had made, added: "Not that I am altogether satisfied with the result. I had assumed ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... much. What have you had in your mind? Some foolish Quixotic notion. What were you ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... to justify the Russian war. A Quixotic love of the marvellous was no longer supposed to be the passion which excited it. In making war against Russia, he was actuated by the desire of avenging the injuries which that power had occasioned to France, at the moment when the Russian government again opened ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... a scheme with this object, but it came to nothing; and Colbert only succeeded in obtaining the right for his countrymen to land their goods at Whampoa, the river port of Canton. But French commerce never flourished in China, and a bold but somewhat Quixotic attempt to establish a trade between that country and the French settlements on the Mississippi failed to achieve anything practical. But what the French were unable to attain in the domain of commerce they succeeded in accomplishing in the region ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... on: "Olivier, as you know, was quixotic, and would not permit a secret service and spies. The thing, however, was done, like many other things, behind his back. It was managed by my old friend Espado; he was the bright-clad fop, whose hook nose got him called the Vulture. Posing ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... unfulfilled. She half repented now that she had given him any such promise. What good was she to do by interceding between her son and Miss Nevill? and why was she to lay herself open to the chance of a rebuff from that young lady? It had been a senseless and quixotic idea on Maurice's part altogether. Young women do not take back a jilted lover because the man's mother advises them to do so; nor is a broken-off marriage likely to get itself re-settled in consequence of the interference of a ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... Russia, so Luxemburg must look to France in the first instance for protection against Germany, to Germany if she is assailed from the French side. In either case we should hold ourselves bound to exercise our influence, but not as principals. Any other course would be impossibly quixotic, and would only have the effect of destroying our power to help ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... carry your knapsack," said Arnfinn, who was flitting about like a small nimble spaniel trying to make friends with some large, good-natured Newfoundland. "You must be very tired, having roamed about in this Quixotic fashion!" ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... phrase. "I suppose Grexon thinks I am very Quixotic," he thought, "coming to London to tilt with the windmills of the Press. But Don Quixote was wise in spite of his apparent madness, and Grexon will recognize my wisdom when he sees my Dulcinea, bless her! Humph! I wonder if Hay could pacify my father and ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... fool of himself. He almost wished that he had left the Democrats to their own devices. But no! he had done the right, and that was the main point. The sense of failure, however, robbed him of confidence in regard to the future. How should he act? Since high motives were ineffectual, Quixotic, ought he to discard them and come down to the ordinary level? 'Twould be better not to live at all. The half-life of a student, a teacher, dwelling apart from the world, would be preferable ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... triumph was, however, but short-lived, for the simple-minded congregation, who loved their teacher, were enraged that he should be thus confounded. Without more ado, therefore, they laid violent hands upon the Quixotic knight-errant of the Church, and so cudgelled and belabored him bodily that he might perhaps have lost his life in the encounter had he not been protected by the more respectable portion of the assembly. These persons, highly disapproving ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... talk to her. Take your life in exchange for that of Lind? Pooh! We cannot send good men after bad; you are too valuable to us; whereas he, if he were released, could be of no more use at all. It is a generous notion on your part, friend Calabressa, but it is quixotic; moreover, impossible." ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... at him. Even in the utter desolation of the moment she could not help marveling that this queer-mannered sailor, who spoke like a gentleman and tried to pose as her inferior, who had rescued her with the utmost gallantry, who carried his Quixotic zeal to the point of first supplying her needs when he was in far worse case himself, should be so utterly indifferent to the fate ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... their course since leaving the village, the brothers understood better than before the cause of more than one tortuous winding by their guide, when they had been unable to guess the reason for such quixotic turns that did not lessen the labor of ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... Bog-meteor, foolish putrescent will-o'-wisp, his Majesty promptly defined it to be: Tom-foolery and KINDERSPIEL, what else? Whereupon ingenious Buckeburg, who was himself a Mason, man of forty by this time, and had high things in him of the Quixotic type, ventured on defence; and was so respectful, eloquent, dexterous, ingenious, he quite captivated, if not his Majesty, at least the Crown-Prince, who was more enthusiastic for high things. Crown-Prince, after table, took his Durchlaucht of Buckeburg aside; talked ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... learnt to look to Great Britain for a reign of peace. Rather than again be ruled by the Boer despots, they were ready to spill the last drop of their blood, and only the high principled, almost quixotic action of the British officials prevented the utilisation in extremity of this massive and effective weapon of defence. Besides the garrison in Pretoria there were other forts defended by soldiers and loyalists, forts which were none of them taken by the enemy. ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... of friendship," interrupted Philip stoutly. "It may matter little to you. It is everything to him. He has a Quixotic notion that you would turn back from what is before you for his sake. You cannot be ignorant of what all the city is talking of." Philip said this determinedly and ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... name of his friend, who, as if loath to cross the plank, held back for a few more words. Tom gave him a little push at last, and said, "Good-bye, you really must go. Success to you, but don't for a moment think of carrying out that quixotic plan you first mentioned. Better jump ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... but slender fortune, must have created by far the strongest impression among the hidalgoes of Rio. He had read Don Quixote, and, instead of curing him of his Quixotism, as it ought to have done, it only made him still more Quixotic. Indeed, there are some natures concerning whose moral maladies the grand maxim of Mr. Similia Similibus Curantur Hahneman does not hold true, since, with them, like cures not like, but only aggravates like. Though, on the other hand, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... that of every man present: what would be the outcome of Ivan's audacity? If Brodsky took the remonstrance in bad part—and who doubted that he would?—what would be the fate of Gregoriev? Poor fellow! He had undertaken a quixotic task; and more than one of his fellow-officers regretted that they had not had the generosity to warn him of what he certainly should himself have realized—the strong ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... He left Caracas, his native city, and here again he was taking a last farewell. In July he was in Cartagena, where the people received him with genuine affection. He recalled that it was from here he had begun his first quixotic expedition to his country in 1812. Fifteen years had elapsed since then, and he was again in Cartagena, his great work of redemption fulfilled but now in danger of ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... Bomford demanded, impressively, "whether you have a right to treat your other self in this fashion? Your other self will assuredly resent it, if you retain your memory. Your other self would hate your present self for its short-sighted, quixotic folly. I tell you frankly that you have not the right to treat your coming self in this way. Consider! Wealth does not inevitably vulgarize. On the contrary, it takes you away from the necessity of associating with people calculated to depress and cramp your life. There ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... would appear to his mother and himself as noblest of all would seem quixotic and senseless to his father. Besides, his father had set his heart on John's becoming his partner in business. John dreaded to disappoint him, yet stronger and stronger grew the call of that inner voice which now ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... Oscarovitch, flushing in spite of his effort to keep the blood back from his face. "You have solved the problem, and won't make use of the greatest invention of all the ages! Surely, Professor, that is a little quixotic, is ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... Gable Inn, resolved only to claim her, though she was all his own already, when he had reinstated his fortunes by his labour. That was noble also, perhaps, but in her own heart she thought it a trifle foolish—say Quixotic, not to be too severe. She would rather have seen his ardour find a more commonplace expression. She had a general sort of belief that whatever Philip did was bound to be right, and yet this actual experience rather jarred with ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... opened and closed swiftly. Denver stood clear of the rocks and wondered if he should risk anything further. Pursuit was useless with such arms as he carried. No question of courage was involved. A man is not required to play quixotic fool under such circumstances. And there might not be time to return to his spacer for a long-range heat gun. If he tried to reach the strange ship, its occupants could smoke him down before he covered half the distance. If he continued toward the ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... after my views; but when a quarter of the human race assume to tell me what I must do, I may be too much disturbed by the circumstances to see so clearly the absurdity of their command. Therefore all public ends look vague and quixotic beside private ones. For any laws but those which men make for themselves, are laughable. If I put myself in the place of my child, and we stand in one thought and see that things are thus or thus, that perception is law for him and me. We are both there, both act. But if, without carrying ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... events of the Revolutionary struggle, Burgoyne's campaign deservedly holds the foremost place, as well for what it led to, as for what it was in inception and execution—at once the most daring, most quixotic, and most disastrous effort of ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... have often been similarly situated to you, Ruth; Mr Bradshaw has frequently opposed me on the points on which I feel the warmest—am the most earnestly convinced. He, no doubt, thinks me Quixotic, and often speaks of me, and to me, with great contempt when he is angry. I suppose he has a little fit of penitence afterwards, or perhaps he thinks he can pay for ungracious speeches by a present; so, formerly, he invariably ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... position in the county. (In which case I know a good many people who are landlords on a very extensive scale, and have made allowances for their tenants the generosity of which may be described as Quixotic.) But as a general rule, and in times less exceptionally hard, though Shakespeare tells us 'How apt the poor are to be proud,' they are not proud ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... concern the reader. They led over many lands, but this book is only a narrative of my search after Livingstone, the great African traveller. It is an Icarian flight of journalism, I confess; some even have called it Quixotic; but this is a word I can now refute, as will be seen before the reader ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... she was utterly unable to swerve him a hair's breadth from his determination and purpose. So she was obliged to see him start off by himself on his useless and Quixotic errand. She knew that he would return disappointed, saddened, doubly depressed, and ill both ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... lost, and reason is, by themselves, disclaimed in matters of religion. Don Quixote undertook to redress the bodily wrongs of the world, but the redressment of mental vagaries would be an enterprise more than Quixotic. I should as soon undertake to bring the crazy skulls of Bedlam to sound understanding, as inculcate reason into that of an Athanasian. I am old, and tranquillity is now my summum bonum. Keep me, therefore, from the fire and faggots of Calvin and his victim Servetus. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Marshall will never do one quixotic thing," said a Queenslea professor, who had a habit of uttering rather mysterious epigrams, "but if he ever does it will supply the one ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... as we please; and on the next we are sharply upbraided for not having done as the author pleases. We are first assured that we are the finest fellows in the world in our own right; and then it appears that we are only fine fellows in so far as we practise a most quixotic code of morals. The disciple who saw himself in clear ether a moment before is plunged down again among the fogs and complications of duty. And this is all the more overwhelming because Whitman insists not only on love between sex and sex, and between friends ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the strangest contrast to the calm countenance which I saw so tranquilly listen to its own tale. It was Quixotic, and two hundred years ago could scarcely have escaped the pen of some French Cervantes. He had begun life as an officer in the French household troops in absolute boyhood. At sixteen he had married! at eighteen he had formed his political principles, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... to secure that the impudence of financial independence should be properly checked; and so it happened that although L5,000,000 was secured after an intense struggle it was soon plain that the large requirements of a derelict government could not be satisfied in this Quixotic manner. Two important points had, however, been attained; first, China was kept financially afloat during the year 1912 by the independence of a single member of the London Stock Exchange; secondly, using this coup as a lever the Peking Government secured better ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... requited, and I had already made up my mind to leave it at that. I have merely kept up the game to this point out of curiosity to see how far your—shall we say knight-errantry?—would lead you. I will now relieve you from the necessity of going through an act of Quixotic folly which would assuredly, sooner or later, have unpleasant ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... quietly asserted that he honestly filled in the declaration each year, and honourably paid the demand which was regularly served upon him. The company's surprise had increased to contemptuous incredulity, when their Quixotic friend proceeded: "I don't think I lose by it, I always take the average of three years, according to the regulation; so I take the present year and the two future ones—and you fellows know what ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... can't do that, Graham," she began, a note of entreaty in her voice; "you can't possibly be so absurdly quixotic." ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... shillings), and a perfect stack of cushions (at prices varying from half-a-crown to three shillings and elevenpence-three-farthings, or, in technical terminology, "three-and-eleven-three.") The man became infected with the quixotic spirit of the affair and revealed himself in his true colours as a hierophant of the higher mysteries. Producing secret keys, he exhibited those arcana, of the inner rooms which apparently are not for sale but which ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... asked. "Will you give your moral principles a vacation and take Rod's message to Rose, even though you may think it's Quixotic nonsense?" ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... my keeping a sharp lookout on his movements against the good Turk." As regards Paul I., ferocious and half crazy as he was, this imputation of merely interested foresight scarcely did justice to the quixotic passions which often impelled him to the most unselfish acts, but the general tendency was undeniable; and Nelson's watchful attitude exemplifies the numerous diplomatic, as well as military, responsibilities that weighed upon him. He was, practically, commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... some extent successful, man, for defending his rights in good earnest, would arouse more sympathy throughout the nation than the accumulated wrongs and sufferings of more than three millions of our submissive colored population." Even now, when mere Quixotic knight-errantry and his own positive violation of the rights of individuals and society had put his life in forfeit, this sympathy for his boldness and misfortune came to him in large measure. Questioned by Governor Wise, Senator Mason, and Representative Vallandigham ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... for the sake of a woman," he said to Brian, "I don't care who she is, it's absurdly Quixotic. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and if my neck was in danger I'd spare neither man, woman, nor child ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... I think Forbes would have won, had not Hopkins forced this unfortunate issue upon him. As it is, our young friend cannot avoid the consequences of his quixotic action." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... suddenly, "there is some one following us; he is coming at a quick pace, as if trying to overtake us. Perhaps it is your quixotic adventurer friend, with ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... call stemning, poorly rendered by the English "atmosphere." The epilogue is disproportionately long; the portion written as by another hand is all too recognizably in the style of the rest. And with all his chivalrous sacrifice and violent end, Glahn is at best a quixotic hero. Men, as men, would think him rather a fool, and women, as women, might flush at the thought of a cavalier so embarrassingly unrestrained. He is not to be idolized as a cinema star, or the literary gymnastic hero of a perennial Earl's Court Exhibition set to music on the stage. He could not ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... this consolation. Finding that the book they bought cheap is really valuable, they will insist on sharing the profits with the author, or on making him great presents of money to which he has no legal claim. Some persons, some authors, cannot fail if they would, so wayward is fortune, and such a Quixotic idea of honesty have some middlemen of literature. But, of course, you may light on a publisher who will not give you more than you covenanted for, and then you can go about denouncing the whole profession as a congregation of robbers ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... to do this, but I've got to, to save the city. You gave me your word that the day you had to suppress news for your own sake, you'd quit this Don Quixotic business and treat others as decently and ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... honourable of you to own up to it. If every boy in the school was as honest as you, Newall, we should soon find out who was the culprit who went to my desk. Moncrief was guilty of a Quixotic act of disobedience, as it turns out, and I think, in the circumstances he has been sufficiently punished. It is due to you that he ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... back to his lodgings in Thirty-second Street. Wild, Quixotic notions of sacrifice flooded his mood of dejection. If the worst came, he could go West with the family and learn how to do something. And yet—Mrs. Wybert. Of course it must be that. The other idea was absurd—too wild ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... he was capable of employing. "Has it come to pass that a verdant experimentalist like you, Fogg, could intimate to a veteran of my standing that I should take my chances of remuneration from the proceeds of such a quixotic scheme? Go to, Fogg! I love thee, but never more be officer of mine." Then laying aside his serio-comic manner and assuming one that more easily appertained to him, he continued: "Fogg, old pal, I told you that you could ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... "You would give your life, but you would destroy that which is more than life to me. You did not intend to kill him. It was no murder, it was punishment." Her voice had got harder. "He would have killed my life because he was evil. Will you kill it because you are good? Will you be brave, quixotic, but not pitiful? . . . No, no, no!" she had said, as his hand was upon the gate, "I will not go unless you promise that you will hide the truth, if you can." She had laid her hand upon his shoulder with an agonised impulse. "You will hide it for a girl who will cherish your memory her whole ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... one of those cases in which we cannot be convinced. The strongest point against him was the payment of the money. It is possible that he paid it from a Quixotic ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... Numidia in ten days. Of course the Senate would not acknowledge the treaty. Nor did they even go through the farce of surrendering the man who had made it. The chivalry of the era of Regulus would have seemed quixotic to cynics like Scaurus. The other Albinus, hastening to Africa, found the troops mutinous, and could effect nothing. Another tribune now stepped forward to impeach all, whether soldiers or civilians, who had assisted Jugurtha to the prejudice ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... dry sense of humor and a very keen knowledge of his fellow men. He made a good deal of money, but not having any wife or child upon which to lavish it he spent it all either on books or surreptitiously in quixotic gifts to friends or strangers whom he either secretly admired or whom he believed to be in need of money. There were vague traditions in the office of presents of bizarre and quite impossible clothes made to office boys and stenographers; ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... hand. The conviction had been with him before—that he could not back out just then and leave those poor people to shift for themselves, as anxious as he was to be off about his own affairs; his undertaking was quixotic, but if he abandoned it at that juncture a queer story would chase him alongcoast, and he knew what sort of esteem mariners entertained ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... worrying myself, Peter,' she said at last. 'You are so chivalrous and unselfish. You're quixotic. It's that that is troubling me. Are you marrying me just because you're sorry for me? Don't speak. I can tell you now if you will just let me say straight out what's in my mind. We have known each other for two years ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... strength of bone, muscle, and sinew was in proportion to the colossal size of the animal. The gravel inside the paling flew like splashing water as they alighted with a crash, and widow Marston, uttering a faint cry, shrank within the doorway as the wild horseman seemed about to launch himself, with Quixotic recklessness, ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... flashed the memory of Ned Landon and his malignant intention—born of baffled desire and fierce jealousy— to tarnish the fair name of the girl he coveted,—then, his uncle's quixotic and costly way of ridding himself of such an enemy at any price. He understood now old Jocelyn's talk of his "bargain" on the last night of his life,-and what a futile bargain it was, after all!—for was not Jenny of the Mill-Dykes ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... in this idea of women nurses, especially when they're young and pretty." He scowled at Rachel as if she had committed a crime in being young and beautiful. "But the country's full of women with a Quixotic notion of being Florence Nightingales, and they've badgered the Government into accepting their services. I suppose I'll have to take my share of them. ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... performance. "Of course," she said to herself, "if heirs should be found in my lifetime, I would revoke this testament; but it is not right that I should bind those who come after me for all time to yield to his Quixotic notions. Besides, why should I be juster than the law? This property has been in the family for a long time, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... than any other woman. But even on that day, when he had left her, he had half guessed that he might love her if opportunity gave possibility the right of way. He had guessed it, and even to guess it was to fear it, for Gianluca's sake. He was not quixotic. Had he been first, death or life, he would not have given another room at her side, had that or that man been twenty times his friend or his brother. Even if it had been a little otherwise, if Gianluca had not confided in him from the ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... Cunningham, March 17, 1869). 'I am thoroughly and grievously out of spirits about these plans of ours. On the whole I incline towards them; but they not unfrequently seem to me cruel to Mary, cruel to the children, undutiful to my mother, Quixotic and rash and impatient as regards myself and my own prospects.... I have not had a really cheerful and easy day for weeks past, and I have got to feel at last almost beaten by it.' He goes on to tell how he ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... complex maze, And Nature's laws are most despotic. Vice is not killed by kindly craze. Nor suffering quelled by zeal Quixotic. Big questions the Big Scheme beset. Bid Pity think, and do not ask it Too blindly all its eggs to get In ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 29, 1890 • Various
... the mistakes which, possibly, I had committed. She had behaved so unreasonably as to release me from any obligation. As to Marie Delhasse, I had had enough (so I declared in the hasty disgust my temper engendered) of Quixotic endeavors to rescue people who, had they any moral resolution, could well rescue themselves. There was only one thing left which I might with dignity undertake—and that was to put as many miles as I could between the scene of my unappreciated labors and myself. This I determined to do the very ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... busy. She had a hard task before her. Alwyn's absurd conscience and Quixotic ideas were difficult to cope with. After his last indiscreet talk she had ventured deftly to remonstrate, and she ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... has ever been heard of the tragedy mentioned by Dr. Farr; it was probably never completed. The same gentleman speaks of a strange Quixotic scheme which Goldsmith had in contemplation at the time, "of going to decipher the inscriptions on the written mountains," though he was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which they might be supposed ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... and when he finally makes his near- true statement, he is filled with such confessional fervor that to reward him seems to be the only logical course left. He is certainly a child of nature, but of a nature so quixotic that we are non-plussed. ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... October. As long as there seemed the slightest chance of preventing the execution, Balzac continued his efforts to save the notary, though blamed by his family and friends for his interference, which they set down as quixotic. Presumably Peytel had committed the crime in a fit of jealous passion, to punish his wife's adultery. A curious drawing by Balzac exists in the first volume of his general correspondence, in which Gavarni is represented mocking the headsman; and, accompanying the design, is an ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... little about any of the whole crooked business!" he retorted, still enraged at his own quixotic resolve. "That's what I was sent here to clean up, after a dozen others failed. That's what I was put in charge of this district for. That's what I could have found out—or seventy per cent of it—if I'd had the sense not to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... before, and my life had been singularly loveless. I had fought a lonely battle always. Once before, in college, we had both laid ourselves and our callow devotions at the feet of the same girl. Her name was Dorothy—I had forgotten the rest—but I remembered the sequel. In a spirit of quixotic youth I had relinquished my claim in favor of Richey and had gone cheerfully on my way, elevated by my heroic sacrifice to a somber, white-hot martyrdom. As is often the case, McKnight's first words showed our ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... like a magic-lantern show of peculiarly enlivening character, at which we looked on like merry children. Hans, who was in an equally happy mood—for we all seemed to each other to be embarked on some Quixotic adventure—called my attention to Brendel, who was sitting not far from us, and seemed to be expecting me to recognise him. I found it entertaining to prolong this suspense thus occasioned, by pretending not to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... in this account life be credited with too much gravity and import, or it seem to be assumed that life is all knight-errantry, let us turn to our less quixotic, and perhaps more effectual, man of affairs. He works for his daily bread, and for success in his vocation. He has selected his vocation for its promise of return in the form of wealth, comfort, fame, or influence. He likewise performs such additional service ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... only Browning's generosity kept Landor from actual want. At Rugby, and at Oxford, his extreme Republicanism brought him into constant trouble; and his fitting out a band of volunteers to assist the Spaniards against Napoleon, in 1808, allies him with Byron and his Quixotic followers. The resemblance to Byron is even more strikingly shown in the poem Gebir, published in 1798, a year made famous by the Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... nobleman to have recourse to hired bravoes to avenge his personal quarrel against any one, more especially a person holding the rank of a gentleman, he might lay his account with being hunted out of society. But in the age of Charles, the ancient high and chivalrous sense of honour was esteemed Quixotic, and the civil war had left traces of ferocity in the manners and sentiments of the people. Rencounters, where the assailants took all advantages of number and weapons, were as frequent, and held as honourable, as regular duels. Some of these approached closely to assassination; ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... 1765—but this was not in England. Many years ago the late Mr. A.J. Munby pointed out that Smollett, in one of his letters dated March 18, 1765, giving an account of his journey from Nice to Turin, describes how he ascended "the mountain Brovis," and on the top thereof met a Quixotic figure, whom he thus pictures: "He was very tall, meagre, and yellow, with a long hooked nose and twinkling eyes. His head was cased in a woollen nightcap, over which he wore a flapped hat; he had a silk handkerchief ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... were alone, why, I do not say that I should trouble myself, for you yourself would not be troubled. But I have grown to love that child of yours. It is all for her. Do you now understand why I make the request? It appears Quixotic? Not at all. Put my money in jeopardy? Not while the kingdom exists. If you can not pay back, your kingdom will. Perhaps you ask what is the difference, whether I or the duke becomes your creditor? This: in ten years I shall be happy to renew the loan. In ten years, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... "Very quixotic, but quite useless," said he; and then set himself to dissuade me from my quest with every argument that he could bring to bear upon me. Some of these, indeed, I thought he might well ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... Quixotic: if you do, you will never succeed in the legal profession. In this case the law is on the father's side, and you ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... in Rome were finding their open verification in the senate. A vigorous championship of the cause of right from the foremost politician of the day, might not influence the decision of the House, and would certainly not lead to a quixotic policy of armed intervention; but it might prove to critics of the government that the inevitable decision had not been reached wholly in defiance of the claims of the suppliant and wholly in obedience to the machinations of ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... facts of his marriage, and the criticism of his wife, had another effect on Jackson which in time became important to the whole country. Through that experience his chivalrous feeling for women was developed into a quixotic readiness to be the champion of any woman whom he found distressed ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... written to me twice since he left England, and I am convinced, now, that he and Jasmine Gastrell—or rather Jasmine Osborne—are tremendously in love with each other. I told you of his idea that she would, when he had married her, entirely change her life. Perhaps that idea is not as quixotic ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... fool into strictest confinement, the donjon of the ancient structure. In that darkened cell he had rested over night and there he would no doubt remain indefinitely. The king's guest had not been greatly concerned with the jester's quixotic love for the princess, being little disposed to jealousy. He was no sighing solicitant for woman's favor; higher allurements than woman's eyes, or admiration for his inamorata, moved him—that edge of appetite for power, conquest hunger, an itching ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... and Lady Compton having determined to rescue her, if possible, from the suspicious custody of her relatives, and naturally apprehensive of the legal difficulties which she could not doubt would impede the execution of her generous, if somewhat Quixotic project, resolved on at once sending off an express for Mr. Ferret, on whose acumen and zeal she knew she could ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... is mad, to draw you away from all your friends at a moment's warning! I would remonstrate—I would not go; I would exert a proper spirit, and force him to abandon this Quixotic expedition." ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... fortune, who, in his residence at Twickenham, surrounded by friends of congenial tastes, enjoyed a life of literary ease. The Scribleriad is an attack on pseudo-science, the hero being a virtuoso of the most Quixotic kind, who travels far to discover rarities, loves a lady with the plica Polonica, waits three years at Naples to see the eruption of Vesuvius; and plays all kinds of fantastic tricks, as if in continual ridicule of The Philosophical Transactions, which are especially ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... a large place, lighted only by a single candle set upon the floor. The mountebank lay on his back upon a pallet; a large man, with a Quixotic nose inflamed with drinking. Madame Tentaillon stooped over him, applying a hot water and mustard embrocation to his feet; and on a chair close by sat a little fellow of eleven or twelve, with his feet dangling. These three were the only occupants, except the shadows. ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... closed his eyes. But even in his weak state he was conscious of the blood coming into his cheek at Sophy's relentless criticism of the man for whom he had just periled his life and position. Much of it he felt was true; but how far had he been a dupe in his quixotic defense of a quarrelsome blusterer and cowardly bully? Yet there was the unmistakable shot and cold-blooded attempt at Cato's assassination! And there were the bloodhounds sent to track the unfortunate man! That was no dream—but a ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to the world a new adjective when he wrote his romance of The Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha—a world in which the filibusters are those of commerce, the pirates those of trade. When we English call an action "quixotic," we do not exactly mean disapproval, but neither, certainly, do we intend admiration; unless it be that of other-worldliness which it is well to affect, however far we may be from practising it ourselves. It is, at best, something quite unnecessary, if acknowledged ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... willing to venture forth among the cannibals, but he was forbidden by Governor Macquarie. That all-powerful functionary was determined that such a valuable life should not be thrown away on what appeared to be a quixotic scheme. But the chaplain was not to be altogether balked. He received into his parsonage whatever Maoris of good standing he could find; showed them the varied activities of his model farm; and explained to them ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... that they had tried to drug their first rising doubts with the tumult of incessant travel and change. His wife had lured him to secluded places, she had struggled to interest him in a language or two, she had planned quixotic courses of reading—as though a man such as he might be remolded by a few months of modern authors!—and carried him off to centres of gaiety—as though the beat of Hungarian bands and outlandish dances could drive that inmost fever out ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... morning, after she had remained three months at the station, the Colonel's palanquins and bearers made their appearance, and Elvira Wilkins went away weeping as a widow should. Why did she abuse Newcome ever after at Calcutta, Bath, Cheltenham, and wherever she went, calling him selfish, pompous, Quixotic, and a Bahawder? I could mention half a dozen other names of ladies of most respectable families connected with Leadenhall Street, who, according to Colonel Newcome's chum—that wicked Mr. Binnie—had all conspired more or less to give Clive Newcome ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the porter hurried from the entrance. Mr. Cupples uttered an exclamation of pleasure as a long, loosely built man, much younger than himself, stepped from the car and mounted the veranda, flinging his hat on a chair. His high-boned, quixotic face wore a pleasant smile; his rough tweed clothes, his hair and short moustache ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... urgent in upholding Peytel's contention that his crime had been homicide, not murder, and brought forward the plea of "no premeditation." His energetic efforts were of no avail: Peytel was executed at Bourg on November 28th, 1839, and Balzac, who had espoused his cause with quixotic enthusiasm, was genuinely sorry. He wrote to Madame Hanska in September: "I am extremely agitated by a horrible case, the case of Peytel. I have seen this poor fellow three times. He is condemned; I ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... that I could not endure it, and I went straight to her and took her hand as I said: 'Miss Burton, is there anything Ik Stanton can do to make you happier? It's none of my business, I suppose, but it's breaking my heart to see you becoming so sad and pale. I may seem to you very foolish and Quixotic, but there is no earthly think I would not do or suffer for you.' She did not withdraw her hand as she replied, very gently: 'Mr. Stanton, please do me the kindness to be happy yourself, and forget me.' I could only say, in honesty: 'You have asked just the two ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... absurd," she continued placidly. "Quixotic—the sort of romantic 'live and die unwed' idea that is quite exploded. Girls nowadays don't wither on their virgin stems if the man they want doesn't happen to be in a position to marry them. They ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... apparently, took liberties with the law. There was a bond between us. I—er—took it upon myself to do what I could. And, besides, I was not insensible to the fact that I was under a certain obligation to her, quixotic as it may sound, in view of the fact that we were evidently competitors after the same game. You see, if she had not forestalled me and been caught herself, I should most certainly have walked into the trap that our friend of headquarters had prepared. I—er—as I say, ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... to have troubled you," he said. "The world seems to have grown more quixotic since I knew it better. I am almost afraid to ask you whether my last letter has yet received the ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... understand,' I cried out, 'the widespread growth of economic reaction against which we Western Liberals are waging a ridiculous Quixotic war with all our apparently irrefutable arguments. We present to the people as an argument against protection exactly that after which they are—unconsciously, it is true—eagerly longing. Protective tariffs, trade guilds, and whatever else the ingenious devices of the last decades ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka |
