"Blindfold" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of it. I haven't been sleeping much lately, and I've been casting up my accounts. It s a pretty weak balance sheet. I would like to tell you the main items, Mr. Secretary, so that you may see that I'm not walking this road blindfold." ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... in arms, The blindfold mistress of uncertain chance Hath turn'd these traitorous climbers from the top, And seated Sylla in the chiefest place— The place beseeming Sylla and his mind. For, were the throne, where matchless glory sits ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... "it isna the dreariness o' the road that I am referring to. I would rather be sent across the hills from Cowdingham to Lander, blindfold, than I would be sent upon an errand like this. But is it not a dismal and a dreadfu' thought that Christian men should be roused out of their beds at the dead of night, to march owre moor and mountain, to be shot, or to cut each other's throats? ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... and bids him choose, he takes the youngest by the hand, and says: "I choose this one." We are not told that there was any difference in the maidens' hands, but this is surely to be inferred. In the Milanese story of the King of the Sun the hero also chooses his wife blindfold from the king's three daughters by touching their hands; and here, too, we must suppose previous help or concert, though it has disappeared from the text. In a story from Lorraine, John has to take the devil's daughter, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... who sat close to him, teaching. Forgetting he was no longer a child, she had caressed his hand approvingly; that was Hilda's tale. A likely one, forsooth! And the lad quite sick for love of her, as an infant of the female sex must have perceived blindfold! Already, before that, they had begun to persecute the lad, finding fault with his painting, his idleness, his language, his smoking—Allah knows with what besides!—so that he was vexed in mind, no longer quite himself. ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... some cases he constantly does, would not be thought fitter for Bedlam than civil conversation. I do not here mean when he is under the power of an unruly passion, but in the steady, calm course of his life. That which thus captivates their reason, and leads men of sincerity blindfold from common sense will, when examined, be found to be what we are speaking of. Some independent ideas, of no alliance to one another, are, by education, custom, and the constant din of their party, so coupled in ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the result of a knowledge of Practical Astronomy. "Place an astronomer," says Mr. Newcomb, "on board a ship; blindfold him; carry him by any route to any ocean on the globe, whether under the tropics or in one of the frigid zones; land him on the wildest rock that can be found; remove his bandage, and give him a chronometer regulated to Greenwich or Washington time, a transit ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... well that they will never be neglected; it is the drawbacks and the failings of the pampered goddess, Society, that need to be borne in mind and carefully dealt with, and unfortunately, in our day, her enamored victims voluntarily blindfold themselves to her evil influence, and extravagantly magnify the extent ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... attempted to trick them by a pretence of authority, however realistic that pretence might be. Thus it fell out that when the Adjutant was sighted he was instantly accosted and firmly apprehended. Inasmuch as he refused to be led blindfold through our lines, he was not allowed to approach our august selves at all, but was retained until such time as we cared to approach him. Mind you, I'm not saying we were asleep; merely I show you how thoroughly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... to plant, cut, or cure than any ten men round about. They do say that his pa went clean crazy about tobaccy jest befo' he died, an' that Mr. Christopher gets dead sick when he smells it smokin' in the barn, but he kin pick up a leaf blindfold an' tell you the quality of it ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... blindfolded so that it was impossible to see what might happen upon the other extremity. Suddenly he might be swung up to highest delight; suddenly he might be dashed earthwards to hit ground with a jarring thud. The one eventuality or the other was certain; but he must sit blindfold and helpless—unable to affect the balance by an ounce. Here is the position in which all of us are made cowards. Bring the soldier into action, and his blood will run hot enough to make him intoxicated and insensible to fear; hold him in reserve, and courage ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... also by Philip II., who took no small delight in the game. He first beat with ease all the players of Sicily, and was very superior in playing without seeing the board; for, playing at once three games blindfold, he conversed with others on different subjects. Before going into Spain, he travelled over all Italy, playing with the best players, amongst others with the Pultino, who was of equal force; they are therefore called by Salvio the light and glory of chess. He was the favorite of many Italian Princes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... depositions and interrogatories, in which the truth is elicited in spite of the most adverse testimony; it is clear that M. de Bussy never intended to do more than defend himself.—But prejudice is a blindfold to hostile eyes. It cannot be admitted that, under a constitution which is perfect, an innocent man could incur danger; the objection is made to him that "it is not natural for an armed company to be formed ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... him that it sometimes snowed in Lombardy in June, for I have seen it—and that any fool can cross the Alps blindfold, and that the sea is usually calm, not rough, and that the people of Dax are the most horrible in all France, and that Lourdes, contrary to the general opinion, does work miracles, ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... but to satisfy the lusts of man's pride, and so it increases that which was man's first malady, and keeps them from the true physician. In a word, all man's inventions are to hasten misery on him, or to blindfold himself till it come on; all his invention cannot reach a delivery from this misery. Let us therefore consider this which Solomon hath found out, and if we carefully consider it, and accurately ponder it in relation ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... a mind, Transcendent grace and beauty, all combin'd Must justify my love and seeming boldness. I ne'er accused you of disdain or coldness. I duly honour maidenly reserve.— Your favour I pretend not to deserve; But who would not risk all, with blindfold eyes,— To win a heaven on earth,—a Paradise? Each day do we not see, for smaller gain, Great captains brave the dangers of the main? For glory's empty bubble thousands perish, Above all treasures your fair hand I cherish; Your heart and not your throne, ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... gaining her independence; by not doing so, she ran the risk of being trodden upon by Russia on her way to Byzantium. But though resolved to co-operate with Russia in any eventual action in the Balkans, Prince Carol skilfully avoided delivering himself blindfold into her hands by deliberately cutting himself away from the other guaranteeing powers. To the conference which met in Constantinople at the end of 1876 to settle Balkan affairs he addressed the demand that 'should war break out between one of the guaranteeing powers and Turkey, Rumania's line ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... of the island; for wherever a piece of ground is left untilled, the macchi grow up, and the scent of their multitudinous aromatic blossoms is so strong that it may be smelt miles out at sea. Napoleon, at S. Helena, referred to this fragrance when he said that he should know Corsica blindfold by the smell of its soil. Occasional woods of holm oak make darker patches on the landscape, and a few pines fringe the side of enclosure walls or towers. The prickly pear runs riot in and out among the hedges and upon the walls, diversifying ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... never went there, the distance was too great. The only height she remembered was the Puy de Dome, rounded off at the summit like a hump. In the town itself she could have found her way to the cathedral blindfold; one had to turn round by the Place de Jaude and take the Rue des Gras; but more than that she could not tell him; the rest of the town was an entanglement, a maze of sloping lanes and boulevards; a town of black lava ever dipping downward, where the rain of the thunderstorms ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... But I was "guard of the gate," and it was my business to see that none of the band escaped. It took us fully two hours to catch the two horses. At last they were ours. Neither was well broken, though both had been ridden, and the first thing Sinyela did was to blindfold them. The saddles were removed from our jaded ponies, and placed upon the new ones. The starts of terror and anger showed what we had ahead of us. Bridles were adjusted, and then, with our fresh ponies still blindfolded, we sprang ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... "You filthy bitch!" I heard the sound of a blow. The next moment Kyral ripped the blindfold from my eyes and I blinked in the blaze of light. My arms were wholly numb now, twisted above my head, but the jar of his touch sent fresh pain racing through me. Kyral's face swam out of the blaze of hell. "If that is true, then this is a damnable farce, Dallisa. You have lost our chance of ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... ere the sixe yeares that he hath to spend Can change their Moones, and bring their times about, My oyle-dride Lampe, and time-bewasted light Shall be extinct with age, and endlesse night: My inch of Taper, will be burnt, and done, And blindfold death, not let me ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... likeliest to look in, which receptacle was the most promising to begin with, which position among other heaps of papers the one paper needful might be expected to occupy, was more than she could say. Hemmed in by immeasurable uncertainties on every side; condemned, as it were, to wander blindfold on the very brink of success, she waited for the chance that never came, for the event that never happened, with a patience which was sinking already into the patience ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... experience of the night. I was surprised to find how easy and pleasant it had been, even in this tempestuous weather. The stone which annoyed me would not have been there had I not been forced to camp blindfold in the opaque night; and I had felt no other inconvenience except when my feet encountered the lantern or the second volume of Peyrat's "Pastors of the Desert" among the mixed contents of my sleeping-bag; nay, more, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this game when played in the presence of a company of guests. Spread a sheet upon the floor and place two chairs upon it. Seat two of the party in the chairs within reach of each other and blindfold them. Give each a saucer of cracker or bread crumbs and a spoon, then request them to feed each other. The frantic efforts of each victim to reach his fellow sufferer's mouth is truly absurd—the ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... they meet 'em side o' the river or round the corner of Bart's shop, or anywhere they can, when the Deacon's back's turned. If you tied a handkerchief over Waitstill's eyes she could find her way blindfold to Ivory Boynton's house, but she's good as gold, Waitstill is; she'll stay where her duty calls her, every time! If any misfortune or scandal should come near them two girls, the Deacon will have no-body but himself to thank for ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the same season, and the same latitude, the air is peopled with new inhabitants, and in a zone where the barometer becomes a clock,* (* By the extreme regularity of the horary variations of the atmospheric pressure.) where everything proceeds with such admirable regularity, we might guess blindfold the hour of the day or night, by the hum of the insects, and by their stings, the pain of which differs according to the nature of the poison that each species ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... doubts of everything now, and above all of himself. Had he been made a tool of and a dupe? And was he walking blindfold into a net ready for ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... righteous and eternal laws which govern them, and of the righteous and loving will which is above all, and around all, and beneath all—this must be the end and aim of all of us, or we shall be wandering about blindfold, and spending time and labor and journey-money on that which profiteth nothing. So now I must ask my readers to forget the old buildings and quadrangles of the fairest of England's cities, the caps and the gowns, the reading and rowing for a short space, and take a flight ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... snuffed that long brier up into her nose. I never saw father more alarmed. After he pulled the brier out, there was a whole pailful of blood, which frightened old Blackey so much that they were obliged to blindfold her. ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... of the questions to be there decided, he resolved to attend, notwithstanding the stern vow of his earlier life, never to look on Irish soil again. Under a scruple of this kind, he is said to have remained blindfold, from Ms arrival in Ms fatherland, till his return to Iona. He was accompanied by an imposing train of attendants; by Aidan, Prince of Argyle, so deeply interested in the issue, and a suite of over one hundred persons, twenty of them Abbots or Bishops. Columbkill ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... a shrug of resignation—there was nothing to do except wave aside the blindfold and face the firing squad like an officer and a gentleman. But it was a pity that the crash had come so soon; fortune might have given him at least a short interval of grace. Haviland was probably in a cold rage at the discovery of the fraud, and Gray could only hope that he wouldn't get noisy ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... She fled blindfold from it, not knowing whither, only away from that pain, over any precipice, into ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... blindfold," replied Philippina contemptuously, "every one of them is an old bird, ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... frosty night with a winter moon high in the sky, and Millicent, who knew the Woodman's Path blindfold, much wished it had been darker, for the moonlight was strong enough to show queer faces in every tree-hole and turn the shadows from the trees into monsters upon her path at every yard. She prayed as she ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... dark? How did you know where to hit?" cried Saxe. "I could cut steps in the ice blindfold, herr," said Melchior sharply. "When the hands and arms have grown used to doing a thing, they can do it even if the eyes are not watching them. Of course I do not say I always struck exactly in the right ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... generous plan. Say whatever you please about me, but there is no need to mention Barclay or Burford; and it would not be fair to the honest free-traders here to explain where their Chine lies. I should have brought you up blindfold, if I could have done so with safety, not that I do not trust you, but I should be better able to satisfy those fellows if I ever see them again, by telling them I have ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I had heard, I took my way, as I thought, homewards. The whole country was well known to me. I should have said, before that night, that I could have gone home blindfold. Whether the lightning bewildered me and made me take a false turn, I cannot tell; for the hardest thing to understand, in intellectual as well as moral mistakes, is—how we came to go wrong. But after wandering for some time, plunged in meditation, and with no warning whatever of the presence of ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... selfish and shallow coquette! Trifle, if you must, with any other man's love, with any other woman's peace; but you had better invade the lair of the lioness, and seize her cubs—you had better walk blindfold upon the abyss of Hades, than come between Sybil Berners and ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... genuine pleasure and, I hope, some edification; at any rate, it made me feel how ignorant I had previously been on the subject which it treats. Hitherto I have only had instinct to guide me in judging of art; I feel more as if I had been walking blindfold—this book seems to give me eyes. I do wish I had pictures within reach by which to test the new sense. Who can read these glowing descriptions of Turner's works without longing to see them? However eloquent and convincing the language ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... out, as it had threatened to do, and he groped his way in darkness, though at another moment he would have walked with the sure foot of custom blindfold about the house. Somehow, the whole tide of his purpose seemed suddenly to ebb. He became conscious of the night, and stood in the dark to listen to its wild voices. There were other voices in the air, for he could hear his father speaking in a deep, loud hum, and Jervoyce answering ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... frightened she was! But she was a brave little rabbit girl, and she didn't cry, that is, at first. No, she started to try to find her way back, but the more she tried the more lost she became, until she was all turned around, you know, like when they blindfold you and turn you around three times before they let you try to pin the tail on the cloth donkey at a party. Yes, that's ...
— Sammie and Susie Littletail • Howard R. Garis
... black-fishers thought nothing of these things. They took a turnip lantern with them—that is, a lantern hollowed out of a turnip, with a piece of candle inside—but no lights were shown on the road. Every one knew his way to the river blindfold; so that the darker the night the better. On reaching the water there was a pause. One or two of the gang climbed the banks to discover if any bailiffs were on the watch; while the others sat down, and with the help of the turnip lantern "busked" their spears; in other words, fastened ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... the twilight gates of birth, And past Time's blindfold day, Beyond the star-ring of the earth, We found us ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... said he, 'laid hard at me to beat me out of heart.' At length he came to the determination to venture his eternal state with Christ, whether he had present comfort or not. His state of mind he thus describes—'If God doth not come in (to comfort me) I will leap off the ladder, even blindfold, into eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell. Lord Jesus, if thou wilt catch me, do; I will venture all for thy name.' From this time he felt a good hope and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... one well suited to Frontenac's genius for the dramatic. When a boat under a flag of truce put out from the English ships, Frontenac hurried four canoes to meet it. The English envoy was placed blindfold in one of these canoes and was paddled to the shore. Here two soldiers took him by the arms and led him over many obstacles up the steep ascent to the Chateau St. Louis. He could see nothing but could hear the beating of drums, the blowing of trumpets, the jeers and shouting ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... quite see the drift of it, but you people are all so good and kind, and have been working so earnestly and so energetically, that all I can do is to accept your ideas blindfold and try to help you. I have had one lesson already in accepting facts that should make a man humble to the last hour of his life. Besides, I know you loved my Lucy . ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... the men listened, horror in their faces. It seemed impossible that Englishmen should have walked blindfold into such a trap, and besides the grief and rage they felt at the fate of their countrymen another thought was in the minds of all. The Afghans would be intoxicated by their success, and at any moment might swoop down upon the ill-defended Jellalabad. Instantly the gates were closed, the horses ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... the afternoon sun on my head, and my shins were continually barked by stones and trees; but these were my only tidings of the outer world. By the sound of his paces Laputa was riding the Schimmel, and if any one thinks it easy to go blindfold by a horse's side I hope he will soon have the experience. In the darkness I could not tell the speed of the beast. When I ran I overshot it and was tugged back; when I walked my wrist was dislocated ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... custard is eaten up, they divide the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of these portions all over with charcoal, until it be perfectly black. They put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, draws out a portion. He who holds the bonnet, is entitled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black bit, is the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favour they mean to implore, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... omitted a circumstance which it is necessary to replace. But I search my memory in vain, while I dwell on the lines that I have just written, for a recollection of some attendant event which might have warned me of the peril towards which I was advancing blindfold. My remembrance presents us as standing together with clasped hands; but nothing in the slightest degree ominous is associated with the picture. There was no sinister chill communicated from his hand ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... the fifteen hundred before—the reason is obvious. During the tedious reign of the Romish priest, before the introduction of letters, knowledge was small, and he wished to confine that knowledge to himself: he substituted mystery for science, and led the people blindfold. But the printing-press, though dark in itself, and surrounded with yet darker materials, diffused a ray of light through the world, which enabled every man to read, think, and judge for himself; hence diversity of opinion, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... sharp and unsympathetic reply. "'Oo do yer think's goin' ter do this little job if they takes our lot away? Wy, this 'ere road is just like 'Igh 'Olborn to me; I knows all the 'umps and 'ollows blindfold." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... not acquainted with the Secret Outlet to these Vaults—and as you are not yet a Knight of the Round Table, I dare not trust you, a stranger, with the knowledge of it, until you join us, and prove yourself to be trustworthy. Therefore, we must blindfold you, until we reach the streets above. This is a precaution we use by every stranger who goes out ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... analyzing mind, secrets are successively revealed, not only of the deepest import to the welfare of man in his earthly career, but which seem to lift him from the earth to the threshold of his eternal abode; to lead him blindfold up to the council-chamber of Omnipotence, and there, stripping the bandage from his eyes, bid him look undazzled at the throne ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... had been his own pilot, he would have walked into a deep horsepond within a few hundred yards of his own house, and would certainly have terminated his career in that ignoble sphere of action. But Hugh, who had a sight as keen as any hawk's, and, apart from that endowment, could have found his way blindfold to any place within a dozen miles, dragged old John along, quite deaf to his remonstrances, and took his own course without the slightest reference to, or notice of, his master. So they made head against the wind ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... ordeal was of various kinds. In one ordeal the accused was required to take hot iron in his hand; in another to walk blindfold among red-hot ploughshares; in another to thrust his arm into boiling water; in another to be thrown, with his hands and feet bound, into cold water; in another to swallow the morsel of execration; in the confidence that his guilt or innocence would be miraculously made known. This mode ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... Buckle has not the slightest respect,—said he could write the whole of it on the back of his hand; and here Hekekyan Bey cordially agreed with him. Buckle is very fond of chess, and can play two games at once blindfold. He inquired very particularly about a native here who it is said can play four or six in this manner, and said he should like to try a game with him. He had seen Paulsen, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... as it would not Napoleon before you—but can easily be altered to the right size.... I meant at first to send you only what was in the ring: but your fashion is best so you shall have it both ways. Now don't say a word on Monday ... nor at all. As for the ring, recollect that I am forced to feel blindfold into the outer world, and take what is nearest ... by chance, not choice ... or it might have been better—a little better—perhaps. The best of it is that it's the colour of your blue flowers. Now you will not say a word—I trust ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... are displeased with me," resumed Madame de Fleury, playfully. "But I will earn my pardon. You will be compelled to forgive me; M. de Fleury meets me at the capitol, and I will deliver this letter of the count's into his hand, and make him promise, blindfold, to consent to any request ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... men in the Catholic orders correspond to this. It would be arrant bigotry to doubt that some offer up an unstained heart, in aspirations for usefulness or sighs for holiness; but many times a youth is led blindfold to the altar by ambitious relatives, like Talleyrand, and discovers too late his perfect unfitness for the vow he has assumed. And these last are they whose lives become a scandal to their profession, whose levity shocks so many Protestant observers, whose consciences have no true ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Granzius, who writes that the Devil was seen in the shape of a Nobleman to come out of the Empress's Chamber: But to clear her Innocency, she (according to the superstitious Ordeals then in fashion) walked blindfold over a great many of glowing hot Irons without touching any of them. Voetius in his [41]Disputation of Spectres proposeth that Question, whether the Devil may not untruly personate a Godly Man, and answers in the Affirmative: And withal adds, that it is a sufficient Argument ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... Horse, because he would have a table in court; marry, he would advance the earl of Worcester to a higher place. All this cannot be done without a multitude: therefore Watson the priest tells a resolute man that the king was in danger of Puritans and Jesuits; so to bring him in blindfold into the action saying, That the king is no king till he be crowned; therefore every man might right his own wrongs: but he is rex natus, his dignity descends as well as yours, my lords. Then Watson ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... the lawyer had said. And yet, what I had done, I had, so to speak, done blindfold. The merest accident might have altered the whole course of later events. I had over and over again interfered to check Ariel when she entreated the Master to "tell her a story." If she had not succeeded, in spite of ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... years he has clearly seen, and kept constantly and conspicuously in his own sight and that of his readers, the profoundly important crisis in the midst of which we are living. The moral and social dissolution in progress about us, and the enormous peril of sailing blindfold and haphazard, without rudder or compass or chart, have always been fully visible to him, and it is no fault of his if they have not become equally plain to his contemporaries. The policy of drifting ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... not scared on my own account," replied the officer, bitterly. "A dozen bullets, whether in battle or standing blindfold against a white wall, are all the same to me. I'll take the gallows itself, if it comes, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... did when first she was an egg, and then a moth, before; and this I take it, so far as I can gather from looking at life and things generally, she would not be able to do if she had not travelled the same road often enough already, to be able to know it in her sleep and blindfold, that is to say, to remember it without any conscious act ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... too, is he who can divine Where real right doth lie, And dares to take the side that seems Wrong to man's blindfold eye. ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... go down an' find out what he wants. Don't bring him in unless you blindfold him first. We don't wanta introduce him to the place so as he can walk ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... land, and make itself heard to every one. Let the people starve who are without means. Legislation would stir itself fast enough then. It is the only way. Charity to individuals is poison to the multitude. You create the criminal classes with your charities, you blindfold statesmen and mislead political economists. I tell you that the more you give away the more ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... acted over again that awful tragedy of sudden death. She was upbraiding her mother about Captain Winstanley. Bitter words were on her lips; words more bitter than even she had ever spoken in all her intensity of adverse feeling. She was in the woody hollow by Rufus's stone, blindfold, with arms stretched helplessly out, seeking for Rorie among the smooth beech-boles, with a dreadful sense of loneliness, and a fear that he was far away, and that she would perish, lost and ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... now. She was amenable to reason, though she did not consciously know what reason was; but to accept some one else's reason blindfold was repugnant to her nature, even at her then age. She was about to speak angrily, but looking up she saw that Harold's mouth was set with marble firmness. So, after her manner, she acquiesced in the inevitable ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... possession; but the ideality of the passion, in her naive and spontaneous nature, was a perfect safeguard from evil. Under this spell, all her rich, unquestioning ardors of reverence and fondness were as sacredly guided as the movements of Mignon, dancing blindfold amidst the eggs, with never a false step. Goethe's conduct towards the trustful and impassioned girl was exceedingly discreet, in its mingled kindness and wisdom. He felt the sweetness of her worship; he guarded ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... In a good cause, and as a necessity forced upon us in defence of our honour, or of our rightful interests, we are as ready to fight as we ever were; but we do not see our duty or our interest in going blindfold into an adventure such as this. We very much doubt, more over, whether, if Virginia belonged to France as Canada belongs to England, the Emperor of the French would be so active in beating up for recruits in this ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... heavens, sir!" stammered Rupert Garraweg, "have you not heard? Have you not seen? We cannot allow you to do this thing blindfold; can we Louis?" ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... emboldened. She made a mush of the divine verses, which in spite of certain sonorities and cadences, an evident effort to imitate a celebrated actress, a comrade of Madame Carre, whom she had heard declaim them, she produced as if she had been dashing blindfold at some playfellow she was to "catch." When she had finished Madame Carre passed no judgement, only dropping: "Perhaps you had better say something English." She suggested some little piece of verse—some fable if there were fables in English. She appeared but scantily surprised ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... politician and true reformer, than of the worthy, upright, kind-hearted, unthinking Christian. His very fearlessness made men fear him, as his motives and ability compelled their respect; and the majority, who cared less for political philosophy than for political fervour, applauded him blindfold, and in due time accorded to Punch a place in their esteem second only to that enjoyed by the "Times." Of course, "bitterness" was expected in the satirical papers of that day; and it is not pretended that Jerrold was ever so unreasonable or so anarchical ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... he answered; "we ain't going to blindfold you. I've got a carriage outside. I don't think you'll see much ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... fog to-night, but it didn't matter. Margot knows the way across blindfold—Margot would row the lady. She would be waiting with a lantern at five minutes to seven; and again at half-past nine. Not too late at all! But Margot would not wait on the other side, it was too cold. They would lend the lady a whistle, ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... quietly past the tree, when, getting a sight of the ditch on the far side, he rose, and banged my head against the branch above, crushing my hat right over my eyes, and in that position he carried me through blindfold.' ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... vapours, burst them wide Suddenly on the ocean's chilly streams. The planet orb of fire, whereon he rode Each day from east to west the heavens through, 270 Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds; Not therefore veiled quite, blindfold, and hid, But ever and anon the glancing spheres, Circles, and arcs, and broad-belting colure, Glow'd through, and wrought upon the muffling dark Sweet-shaped lightnings from the nadir deep Up to the zenith,—hieroglyphics old, ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... nor seeing facts as they are, nor affirming any truth whatsoever, nor depending for thy knowledge on any one but thine own ignorant self, thou mightest nevertheless be so fortunate as to escape punishment: not knowing, as it seems to me, that such a state of ignorance and blindfold rashness, even if Tartarus were a dream of the poets or the priests, is in itself ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... then," returned the other, as the guest changed her position, fully revealing her face. "Tried to dig some information out of her once. Like picking prickly pears blindfold. That's Camilla Van Arsdale. What a ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... must take one of your friends into your confidence. Borrow a watch and put it in your pocket, and then ask your audience to sit at the end of the room, blindfold your friend, and lead him outside. Now say: "Ladies and gentlemen, if you will give me some small object to hide, I promise that the blind man will find it, although I shall not even tell him what he is to look for, and I shall lower the gas, so that if the bandage should slip, he will ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... regard to any conscience or any wisdom, except one's own; a most irreverent propensity to thrust Providence aside, and substitute one's self in its awful place,—out of these, and other motives as miserable as these, comes your idea of duty! But, beware, sir! With all your fancied acuteness, you step blindfold into these affairs. For any mischief that may follow your interference, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Burly. Burly is a man of a great presence; he commands a larger atmosphere, gives the impression of a grosser mass of character than most men. It has been said of him that his presence could be felt in a room you entered blindfold; and the same, I think, has been said of other powerful constitutions condemned to much physical inaction. There is something boisterous and piratic in Burly's manner of talk which suits well enough with this impression. He will roar ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... board, now taught by professors, and supposed to be a comparatively modern art, was, as we have seen above, known and practised many centuries ago; and among the instructions last quoted are those for playing the 'blindfold-game.' The player is 'to picture to himself the board as divided first into two opposite sides, and then each side into halves, those of the king and the queen, so that when his naib, or deputy, announces that 'such a knight has been played to the second of the queen's ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... meet some mishap while bearing the maiden away? It is true that the gods are bound to watch over their chosen ones,—but have not such things happened more than once, as if the gods were playing games instead of watching what was passing in the world? Fortune is blindfold, as is well known, and does not see even in daylight; what must the case be at night? Let something happen,—let that Lygian bear hurl a millstone at the noble Vinicius, or a keg of wine, or, still worse, water,—who ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the way?" inquired the spirit. "Remember it!" cried Scrooge, with fervour; "I could walk it blindfold." 36 ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... them, the winged God himself Came riding on a lion ravenous. Taught to obey the menage of that elfe That man and beast with power imperious Subdueth to his kingdom tyrannous: His blindfold eyes he bade awhile unbind, That his proud spoil of that same dolorous Fair dame he might behold in perfect kind; Which seen, he much rejoiced ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Blindfold Novelette, but shan't exhibit it unless you exhibit yours. You would simply go to work and write a novelette that would make mine sick. Because you would know all about where my weak points lay. No, Sir, I'm one of these old ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... possibilities of this form of sensorial acuteness. I know of a woman who can by the smell at once tell the worn gloves of the several people with whom she is most familiar, and I also recall a clever choreic lad of fourteen who could distinguish when blindfold the handkerchiefs of his mother, his father, or himself, just after they have been washed and ironed. This test has been made over and over, to my ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... emptiness; the villages are asleep, and the whole world seems given up to fern-owls and bats and night-moths. Take care of the branch, Mr. Herrick, or you will knock your head. It will be lighter on the road outside. I am so used to this path that I think I could find my way blindfold." ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... about enough of it, I guessed, and what he was at really was a process of fishing for a suggestion. It was the pride of his life that he had never wasted a chance, no matter how boisterous, threatening, and dangerous, of a fair wind. Like men racing blindfold for a gap in a hedge, we were finishing a splendidly quick passage from the Antipodes, with a tremendous rush for the Channel in as thick a weather as any I can remember, but his psychology did not permit him to bring the ship to with a fair wind blowing—at least not on his own initiative. ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... of superstition, each of which is the very antithesis of the other. The victim of one believes all kinds of absurdities blindfold, oblivious of evidence or causality. The upsetting of a salt-cellar or the fall of a mirror is to him a harbinger of disaster, entirely irrespective of any possible connection between the cause and the effect. A bit of stalk floating on his tea presages an unlooked-for ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... I, picturing you having a gay weekend, and wondering where, and who your friends in this neighbourhood could be. And all the while you were sitting blindfold in the room over my head. Ah, the goodness of it is beyond words! But did you not feel somewhat of a ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... eve of St. John's, whereon the maidens of Brazil practise some of the same rites as those of Scotland do at Hallowe'en, to ascertain the fate of their loves. They burn nuts together; they put their hands, blindfold, on a table, with the letters of the alphabet; and practise many a simple conjuration. I think I recollect long ago, to have seen the maid-servants of a house in Berkshire place an herb, I think a kind of stone-crop, behind the door, calling it Midsummer ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... against social romances and ideal fancies. Francois Beaudouin was right when he said: "Caeca sine historia jurisprudentia;" and we are very sure that, without history as an element in it, Political Economy runs a great risk of walking blindfold. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... a kind of mythic shorthand for civilisation, making roads and the like, facilitating travel, suppressing various forms of violence, but many innocent things as well. So it must needs be in a world where, even hand in hand with a god-assisted hero, Justice goes blindfold. He slays the bull of Marathon and many another local tyrant, but also exterminates that delightful creature, the Centaur. The Amazon, whom Plato will [161] reinstate as the type of improved womanhood, has ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... he asked for the privilege of having a few minutes' talk with my father. This, of course, was readily granted. To my father's great surprise he had a strange request to make, and it was this: He wanted my father to allow him to blindfold his eyes, and in that condition take him on a journey of several days' duration into the more remote wilderness. There would be travelling both by the canoe and walking on land. Then at the right time he would uncover his eyes and show him a sight that would ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... the good of England and too little for thine own needs. Thou shalt be sent where thou mayest forget the one and improve thy knowledge of the other." Then as if turning to those about him, for I could not see by reason of the blindfold, he next said: "Take him on your voyage, and see that he escape not till ye are quit of England." And with that they clapt to the hatch again, and I heard him cast off from the ship's side. There was I, John Longbowe, an English yeoman,—I, who ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... also likewise performed by other of the captains, as at Eye-gate, where Captain Good-Hope and Captain Charity had a charge, was great execution done; for the Captain Good-Hope, with his own hands, slew one Captain Blindfold, the keeper of that gate. This Blindfold was captain of a thousand men, and they were they that fought with mauls; he also pursued his men, slew many, and wounded more, and made the rest ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... had come so far to seek, and that had cost already the lives of seventeen men from the Hispaniola. How many it had cost in the amassing, what blood and sorrow, what good ships scuttled on the deep, what brave men walking the plank blindfold, what shot of cannon, what shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell. Yet there were still three upon that island—Silver, and old Morgan, and Ben Gunn—who had each taken his share in these crimes, as each had hoped in vain ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Frank, who's so kind and so warm-hearted and so free. I cannot forget how he risked his life to save mine when we was coming out, as you know, captain; and I'd give my own life for him now, if I could only get him clear of yon cunning rascal as is leading him blindfold to hell." ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... tongue could trip off the orders, eyes everywhere, thought and act jumping together, Pierre Radisson had given each one his part, and pledged our obedience, though he bade us walk the plank blindfold to the sea. Two men were set to transferring powder and arms from the forehold to our captain's cabin. One went hand over fist up the mainmast and signalled the Ste. Anne to close up. Jackets were torn from ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... virtues; and what can be more encouraging than to find the friend who was welcome at one age, still welcome at another? Our affections and beliefs are wiser than we; the best that is in us is better than we can understand; for it is grounded beyond experience, and guides us, blindfold but safe, from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and that he would readily join in an Impeachment, if there was Reason sufficient to Charge them; and to refuse him otherwise, implied, they wanted Crime and just Ground to form the Impeachment upon, and therefore must choose such a Set of Men as would Impeach innocent Men blindfold, to please a Party. The Prince told him, That the Resolution was to Impeach them, and he would have none chosen that would not agree to it. What, right or wrong, my Lord! says the Earl; to which the Prince, not suddenly replying, the Earl went on, Let what will come of it, and tho' I should lose ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... to ketch folks young to marry 'em. After they gets to be thirty years they goes slowly to the altar. If you aims to marry a gent after he's thirty you has to blindfold him an' back him in. Females, of course, ain't so obdurate. No; I s'pose this yere bein' married is a heap habit, same as tobacco an' jig-juice. If a gent takes a hand early, it's a good game, I makes no sort of doubt. But let him get ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... "Never walk blindfold, Mr. Freeling," replied the lady, drawing herself up, with a dignified air. "We ought to understand each other by this time. I must see beyond the mere use of ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... to this that the late fellow of Oriel, so aristocratic in his tastes, so temperate in his likings, had entered certain devious paths, where hidden pitfalls and thorny enclosures warn the unwary traveller of unknown dangers, and in which he was walking, not blindfold, but by strongest will and intent, led by impulse like a mere boy, and not daring to raise his eyes to the future. "And what Grace would have said!" And for the first time in his life Archie felt that in this case he could not ask Grace's advice. He ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... street with frightful din, and while their parents look on from the windows, they surround the unhappy sufferer with wild dances mingled with songs, shouts, and savage howls. They throw stones at him, fling mud upon him, blindfold him; if he flies into a rage, they double their insults; if he weeps or begs for pity, they repeat his cries and mimic his sobs and supplications ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... with his free hand) Josie Powell that was, prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking back in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina Simpson's housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading? Subject, what ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... compassion in the hardest heart; yet, all circumstances coolly considered, I think the young lady deserves most to be pitied, being left in the terrible situation of a young and, I suppose, rich widowhood; which is walking blindfold upon stilts amidst precipices, though perhaps as little sensible of her danger, as a child of a quarter old would be in the paws of a monkey leaping on ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... of making a mistake when once we get into the lagoon," said Panton. "I could find my way to the boat-house blindfold." ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... I; "you may think you have made a choice, but it was blindfold, and you must make it over again. The Count's service is a good one; what are you leaving it for? Are you not throwing away the substance for the shadow? No, do not answer me yet. You imagine that I am a prosperous nobleman, just ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for doing so, unless by way of retaliation. Many of these constables were bargemen or petty tradesmen, who in their ex-official character had often been engaged in rows with undergraduates, and usually had had the worst of it. At present, in the service of the blindfold goddess, these equitable men were no doubt taking out their vengeance for past favors. But under all this wanton display of violence, the gownsmen practised the severest forbearance. The pressure from behind made it impossible to forbear pressing ahead; crushed, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey |
