"Demented" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opportunity for heaven. Now they are not responsible for what they do, or for what they say; but in the last day they will be held responsible for what they did when they were mentally well; and if, on that day, a soul should say: "Oh, God, I was demented, and I had no responsibility," God will say: "Yes, you were demented; but there were long years when you were not demented. That was your chance for heaven, and you missed it." Oh, better be, as the Scotch say, a little "daft," nevertheless having ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... experienced. This was, of course, an exceptional case of temper, which I mention only to show to what extremities a violent burst of rage may carry a sane individual. We often hear of an uncontrollable temper, but I believe that every man can, if he likes, govern his rage, unless, of course, he is demented. If the vast majority of so-called vicious horses could write the story of their lives, what terrible tales of suffering and injustice they would relate! A horse, unlike a dog, bears punishment in silence, and any brutal creature may with impunity torture a horse, but if he tried to hurt a dog in ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... him and he was gone. Mariana had never heard him in such demented haste since the days when one squad of the boys besieged another in the schoolhouse, and Eben Hanscom was deputed to run for reinforcements of those that went home at noon. But she settled down there by the fire and held herself quiet until he ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... a bonny little Swiss girl whom some reckless people brought home and then turned adrift. It will be a real kindness to help her home, and you shall pick her up when you come up to me on your way, and see my child! Oh, didn't I tell you? We had a housemaid once who was demented enough to marry a scamp of a stoker on one of the Thames steamers. He deserted her, and I found her living, or rather dying, in an awful place at Rotherhithe, surrounded by tipsy women, raging in opposite corners. I got her into ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the cool of the night I felt little the worse for my climb, and was all eagerness for dawn to break that I might see what manner of country I was in, for I had been half demented when my terrible ride from the pursuing sandstorm had ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... end, the panic excess of his fear drove him into madness beyond all human courage. His eyes staring at nothing, his mouth open and frothing, and breathing as one in a cold bath, he went forward demented, while Dan toiled after him. The charge checked at a high mud wall. It was Mulcahy who scrambled up tooth and nail and hurled down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan who barred his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping to the straight line of the ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... thrill of disappointment as ran through the little crowd, who stood at the door to witness her departure. "On straight!" Why, they must wait the post-boy's return before they could possibly know which way she went. Such provoking suspense was enough to drive the entire village demented. ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... built the palace for Aladdin", only to return and recognize with saddened, grown-up eyes—exaggerating the depreciation a little, for the sake of the contrast—"a mere mean little heap of bricks, like a chapel gone demented". Close by the Guildhall is the Town Clock, "supposed to be the finest clock in the world", which, alas! "turned out to be as moon-faced and weak a clock as a ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... my mind. The next, I was pricking Modestine forward, and guiding her like an unruly ship through the open. In a path, she went doggedly ahead of her own accord, as before a fair wind; but once on the turf or among heather, and the brute became demented. The tendency of lost travellers to go round in a circle was developed in her to the degree of passion, and it took all the steering I had in me to keep even a decently straight course through ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cards still spread in front of them and the candles burned down to their sockets. The sister lay back stone-dead in her chair, while the two brothers sat on each side of her laughing, shouting, and singing, the senses stricken clean out of them. All three of them, the dead woman and the two demented men, retained upon their faces an expression of the utmost horror—a convulsion of terror which was dreadful to look upon. There was no sign of the presence of anyone in the house, except Mrs. Porter, the old cook and housekeeper, who declared that she had slept deeply and ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had been seized with a sudden fit of madness and had smashed the crockery, scattered the food about, spilt a bottle of wine on the carpet, upset the furniture, and ruined the flowers. Having performed these exploits, he was wandering aimlessly to and fro with demented gestures, and in this state they discovered him. After securing and fastening him up in a small room, the visitors helped to place the luggage in the yard and then retired, with profuse thanks from the novelist, who being thoroughly unnerved by this untoward incident, was obliged to go straight ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... and cigarettes and candy and books. And they all wanted us to hurry back to marry them.... Then—when the months had gone by and the novelty had worn off—when we went against the hell of real war—sick or worn out, sleepless and miserable, crippled or half demented with terror and dread and longing for home—then, by God, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... matter of course, by Rover, who was ready and waiting for him on the terrace outside, barking and bounding about like a demented dog who had parted company with his usual stock ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... has consulted, upon the subject of Al-Walahn the well-known Professor of Arabic at Halle, Dr. Thorbeck, who remarks that the word (here as further on) must be an adjective, mad, love-distraught, not a "lakab" or poetical cognomen. He generally finds it written Al-Sh'ir al-Walahn (the love-demented poet) not Al-Walahn al-Sh'ir Walahn the Poet. Note this burst of song after the sweet youth falls in love: it explains the cause of verse-quotation in The Nights, poetry being the natural language of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... that dark dumb creature who had destroyed her! Out there on the river—in the wood of their happiness—somewhere alive! . . . And, staggering up past Cramier, who never moved, he got into his boat, and like one demented pulled out ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... life, and, accompanied by an elderly confidant, disguises herself as a peasant girl, and visits the infernal regions of the slums, partly to learn how the other half lives, and partly to learn the fate of some former servants. After interviewing don Pedro Infinito, a half-demented astrologer and employment agent, who furnishes the best scene and the most interesting character in the play, they inspect a rag-picking factory. Celia buys it and promises to establish profit-sharing and old-age pensions, if all the workers will live ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... a youth of those years. Teresina loved me in return, and for some two years we lived on happily till one day it was brought to my knowledge that she was unfaithful to me. I was beside myself with grief and mortification and jealous fury. For some hours I just raged up and down my room like one demented, crying like a child one minute, cursing and meditating revenge the next. I felt that I must have blood at all costs to appease my passion—Teresina's or her lover's, or somebody's. I was to meet Teresina that evening as usual towards nine o'clock, and I thought the intervening hours would ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... unchristian. Let me rather correct mine own. I fear me that when Ovid wrote his picture he intended it for the use of young men, and not for an old fool like me. Behold! I have again broken my pipe—the fourth pipe that I have destroyed this week. What will the dame say? already hath she declared me demented, and God knows she is not very far from the truth;" and the Dominie covered up his face in his hands. I took this opportunity to step to the door, and appear to enter it, dropping the latch, and rousing the Dominie by the noise, who extended ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the world, and offers a premium for recluse life and studious habits. How incomprehensible it is that Murray should prefer to pass his years roaming over deserts and wandering about neglected, comfortless khans, when he might spend them in such an elysium as this! The man must be demented! How do you explain ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... as our Scotch friends say, 'half daft'; and whoever, in the Lower Provinces, about the same time, would have ventured to foretell the composition of their delegations which sat with us under this roof last October, would probably have been considered equally demented. But the thing came about; and if those gentlemen who have had no immediate hand in bringing it about, and, therefore, naturally feel less interest in the project than we who had, will only give ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... from the Caliph's house with drugs and whatever else may be required. Every sick man who comes is maintained at the Caliph's expense and is medically treated. Here is a building which is called Dar-al-Maristan, where they keep charge of the demented people who have become insane in the towns through the great heat in the summer, and they chain each of them in iron chains until their reason becomes restored to them in the winter-time. Whilst they abide there, ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... hardly realised and understood all that was going on around her. At the time when the inner vitality of France first asserted itself and then swept away all that hindered its mad progress, she was tied to the invalid chair of her half-demented father; then, after that, the sheltering walls of the Ursuline Convent had hidden from her mental vision the true meaning of the great conflict, between the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Plooie. This was that, if you sneaked softly up behind him and shouted: "Hey, Plooie! What was you doing in the war?" his jaw would drop and his whole rackety body begin to quiver, and he would heave his burden to his shoulder and break into a spavined gallop, muttering and sobbing like one demented. As the juvenile sense of humor is highly developed in Our Square, Plooie got a good deal of ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... "Like demented wolves they are destroying each other—Pray the God of Justice," quoted she from her husband's letter, "that it may only last; in a few months, then, there will be none of them left, and the people, relieved from this rule of blood, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... imposed on him. He springs from his high seat and stands among them begging that rather they will kill him. "Already I feel the night of death closing around me, and must I be forced back into life? You demented! Who shall compel me to live? Death alone it is in your power to give!" He tears open his garment and offers his breast. "Forward, heroes! Slay the sinner with his affliction! The Grail perchance will glow for you ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... so much to do; and father"—she paused a moment and shrugged her shoulders—"has been very bad. The excitement and fuss——You know the condition he would be in, under the circumstances. I told Burden to wire this morning to say I was coming, but she forgot to do so. She seems half demented, and I am going to get rid of her. What ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... riding, riding hard, did she know a moment's relief. The physical exertion eased the inward tumult, but she would not slacken for an instant. She felt that to do so would be to lose her reason. Beelzebub, galloping after her, thought her demented already. ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... no one was here. I am not quite demented yet. Now go. Don't you see you are interrupting me?' was Arthur's rather savage response, and without having gained any satisfactory information Charles returned to ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... little girl! Shiver my timbers, lad, you're goin' demented! Put yer face close to mine. Let me see ye, boy! Are ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... has been seated for some time on an old croquet ball, trying to hatch out a whole set of croquet balls. This shows that her mind is affected. You pick up the croquet ball, and find it hot and feverish, so you throw it into the shade of the woodshed. Anon, you find your demented hen in the loft of the barn hovering over a door knob and trying by patience and industry to hatch ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Yukon river, weather fair, recent heavy rains; set out packing and filed main-rod brasses of both engines. Settled with Enoch to go home on first ship bound south. Demented white man brought on board by ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... the same drug, or other diabolical method, had been used upon us both, and that I, the stronger of the two, had recovered, while she still remained in that half demented state? ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... little farther yet," remarked the captain. "But I cannot understand," he continued, "why that man persists in acting so strangely. He must know by this time that we have seen him and will rescue him, yet he continues to signal with his arms and that red rag as though he were demented. It would not greatly surprise me to find, when we get him on board, that his brain has given way with the horror of solitude, ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... of fact, has always been above suspicion and above proof. Democrat as he was, and independent in his views, he was as indignant as the "Standard" itself when the half-demented Bean made his attempt upon the Queen's life; yet gleeful to a degree when his Liege Lady was called upon to pay income-tax precisely as all her subjects did. The birth of the Prince of Wales, which coincided with Lord Mayor's Day, provided Punch with ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... opposite the dirty little charbonnier, and standing about a little hole which he calls his boutique a group of women in discoloured peignoirs and heavy carpet slippers. They have baskets on their arms. Everywhere traces of meagre and humble life, but nowhere do I see the demented wretch common in our London streets—the man with bare feet, the furtive and frightened creature, gnawing a crust and drawing a black, tattered shirt about ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... The poor demented creature had taken refuge behind a clump of shrubs, and was standing there with eyes dilated with anguish fixed on the Professor and hand pointing to ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... The man was clearly demented and must be humoured. "Well, you must wait till the morn's morning. It's very near dark now, and those are two ugly customers wandering about yonder. You'd better sleep the ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... where he spent his time after becoming well-to-do. His wife, who was a very harsh aunt of Flore's. Lastly the brother and brother-in-law of this girl's guardians, the real father of "La Rabouilleuse," who died in 1799, a demented widower, in the hospital ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... wondered that she did shriek. Turning toward the spot at which the villain pointed, the Protector saw the half-demented Baronet standing in the door-way. He had opened the closet, and come forth during the momentary absence of his attendant, and now stood moping and bowing to the assembly in a way that would have moved the pity of a ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... cavern gloom! Oh, divine darkness! Oh, impenetrable abysses of night! What, oh, what is this! Oh, Atam-or, are you mad? Alas! it must be so. Joy has turned your brain; you are quite demented. You call good evil, and evil good; our light is your darkness, and our darkness your light. Yet surely you cannot be altogether insane. Come, come, let us look further. How is it! Try now to recall your reason. A long life—a life, and a long ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... long trip up the Koyuk. The reindeer were fresh and lively, and when everything was loaded and lashed upon the three sleds, the animals were hitched to them, when, presto! the scene was changed in a moment. Each deer ran in several directions at the same time as if demented, overturning sleds and men, tossing up the snow like dust under their hoofs, and flinging their antlers about like implements of battle. Now each man was put to his wit's end to keep hold of the rope attached to the horns of the deer he was driving, ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... point, in especial; it created a nightmare of its own, and gave it the shape of Abraham Lincoln. Behind this it placed another demon, if possible more devilish, and called it Mr. Seward. In regard to these two men, English society seemed demented. Defence was useless; explanation was vain; one could only let the passion exhaust itself. One's best friends were as unreasonable as enemies, for the belief in poor Mr. Lincoln's brutality and Seward's ferocity became a dogma of popular faith. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... painful. Mrs. Blackie went clean demented. Blackie went—not so demented. (It always appeared to me that his was a more practical mind than his wife's, perhaps because he wore a more conspicuous livery.) Mrs. Blackie kept passing and repassing the ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... she said, "what with rasping voices, and piping voices, and droning voices, to say nothing of voices that were more like growls than anything else, I felt nearly demented. Yes, Miss Mainwaring, this is a sore affliction that has befallen me, and I knew there was nothing before me but the services of a 'continual reader,' for poor Mrs. Dredge, though she did her best, was decidedly thick in her utterance; and Miss Slowcum, oh dear! the affectations ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... at Ali Baba, but could not bring himself to fire at the bleeding, rabid object which snarled and slavered and bit and kicked, regardless of the blows raining on him. At last one of his assailants broke the half demented creature's arm with a chair; and the bloody, battered thing squeaked like a crippled rat and darted away amid the storm of blows descending, limping and floundering up the attic stairs, his broken arm flapping with ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... table near by—one of those shiny metal bells with a button on the top which you press down sharply to induce the thing to ring. Eliot thumped it, and continued thumping till a half-demented waiter came flying ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... enchanted waters. The Emperor and his friends may or may not have gambolled in this jewelled bath; but certain it is that Tiberius knew of the existence of this unique cavern; and equally certain that an artistic but demented potentate of our own days was so smitten with the idea of owning a secret staircase descending to a blue grotto, that he must needs construct within the walls of a fantastic castle in the highlands of Bavaria an artificial counterpart of the Grotta ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... is there any escape from that which He hath predestined!" Then he went up to the roof and found the strips of Ba'albak stuff tied to the crenelles and hanging down to the ground, and thus it was he knew that she had descended thence and had fled forth, as one distracted and demented with desire and passion. Presently, he turned and seeing there two birds, a gor-crow and an owl he justly deemed this an omen of ill; so he groaned and recited ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... as she hastily retreated down stairs, Charlie running after her. "Mistress Rose is gone clean demented with trouble, and that is the worst that has befallen ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no doubt Bob had become demented, but without question obeyed the command. In this position what had previously been the stern of the canoe now became the bow, Shad Trowbridge the bowman and ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... the sinewy arms of his host, and forcing his livid face and fixed eyes within a few inches of Captain Dick's, "hear me! You must and shall hear me. I've been in jail—do you hear?—in jail, like a common felon. I've been sent to the asylum, like a demented pauper. I've—" ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... efforts that Dena was sent to a hospital and some one provided to take care of the invalid father and demented mother. It was because she had interested charitable people in their behalf that Elsie Whayne found a home in the country once more, and old Mrs. Donegan's eyes had such skilful treatment from a specialist that she was able to use them again. There were a dozen instances like that, but best ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... he had kept himself by his never-flagging exertions, and with the demented idea that he was mounting upward. And now he stood very near the lowest depth of life—the very bottom. And he was so tired. Why not let himself sink yet a little further; why not let destiny run its course? There would be a seductive ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... believe that Livingstone possessed a splenetic, misanthropic temper; some have said that he is garrulous, that he is demented; that he has utterly changed from the David Livingstone whom people knew as the reverend missionary ; that he takes no notes or observations but such as those which no other person could read but himself; and it was reported, before I proceeded ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... were mostly unarmed; many were wounded; some dead. All the camp-following tribes were there; all the cowards; a few officers. Not one of them knew where his regiment was, nor if he had a regiment. Many had not. These men were defeated, beaten, cowed. They were deaf to duty and dead to shame. A more demented crew never drifted to the rear of broken battalions. They would have stood in their tracks and been shot down to a man by a provost-marshal's guard, but they could not have been urged up that bank. An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... in the jungles of the Amazon with a half-demented naturalist who told the lad nothing of his past. The jungle boy was a lover of birds, and hunted animals with a bow and arrow and his trusty machete. He had a primitive education in some things, and his daring adventures will be followed with ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... cries her sister, horror-struck. "Good heavens, Vera! what can you mean? Have you gone suddenly mad? What is the matter with you? Break off a match like this at the last minute? You must be demented!" ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... said Doyle, "but he hasn't. The tunes he whistles round the house would drive you demented if so be that you listened to them; but I needn't tell you ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... three times the same polite tourist paid a visit to the island to see how the poor demented young man was being looked after, and on these occasions he would take Jock out for quite a long walk, and afterwards assure the family that their guest's health was benefiting greatly. But this gentleman had not visited the island since the ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... be frightened! The powers above would be demented surely To give effect to orders such as these. No, my good sir—the cure for your disease Is exercise for muscle, nerve, and sinew. Don't lie there wasting all the grit that's in you In idle dreams; cut wood, if that were all; And then I'll say the devil's in't indeed If one brief fortnight ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... never attempted to avoid the girl's direct gaze, nor did he flinch as the accusation fell from her lips. Never was he more alert, never more gently disposed towards this half-demented creature than at that moment. He recognized the hand that had been at work, and he laid no blame upon her. His feelings were of sorrow—sorrow for the woman he loved, and sorrow for himself. But his thoughts were chiefly for her. He knew, as she had ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... pockets. The gesture supplies us with the first clause of our illustrated lecture. Without his pockets John would be a cipher, and a decimal cipher at that. If some men were not all pocket they would never be Johns, for no Jill would be so demented as to "come tumbling after" them. I have seen a pocket marry off a hump-back, a twisted foot and sixty winters' fall of snow upon the head, while a pocketless Adonis sighed in vain for Beauty's glance. A full pocket balances ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... disturbance in the outer office, sir," he announced. "A man, who appears to be demented, insists upon seeing you. He isn't one of the ordinary cranks, or we would have dealt with him ourselves. He says that if you will read this, you will be glad to assent to an interview ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... "He was demented on that one subject," confessed Alec, "and the disease kept getting a stronger grip on him until finally—-but hello! here's the hole in the wall we wanted to find, so let's crawl over the broken-down ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... a single moment. He had the appearance of a man half demented by a passion which could find no outlet. Then he left the room, without salute, without a glance to the right or to the left. Out in the hall, a moment later, they heard a harsh voice of command. The hall door was opened and closed behind ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of a demented London stockbroker running out into Threadneedle Street and tearing off his clothes as he ran. 'The Steel Trust is scrapping the whole of its plant,' he shouted. 'The State Railways are going to scrap all their engines. Everything's going to be scrapped—everything. ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... a big man, as I have heard, and knew tolerably well how to use his hands, And when my mother heard the news, she became half distracted, and ran away into the fields and forests, totally neglecting her business, for she was a small milliner; and so she ran demented about the meads and forests for a long time, now sitting under a tree, and now by the side of a river—at last she flung herself into some water, and would have been drowned, had not some one been at hand and rescued her, whereupon she was conveyed to the great house, lest she should attempt ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... imitate that Indian trot, nor would remember to attempt it if she were frightened. The idea that she was a captive white, held by the Indians, became ridiculous when he thought of the nearness of civilization and the peaceful, timid character of the "digger" tribes. That she was some unfortunate demented creature who had escaped from her keeper and wandered into the wilderness, a glance at her clear, frank, intelligent, curious eyes had contradicted. There was but one theory left—the most sensible and practical one—that she was the offspring of some white man and Indian squaw. ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... side, I was entirely ignorant of Mrs. Tenbruggen's purpose in endeavoring to identify the daughter of the murderess. Speaking of myself, individually, let me add that I only waited the event to protect the helpless ones—my poor demented friend, and the orphan whom his mercy received into his heart and ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... time o' year and doin' chores for Pop all winter strikes me as bein' about a toss-up," said the man called Sucatash. "I reckon it's a certainty that Pop requires considerable labor, though, and maybe this demented lady won't. If the wages ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... smiled at himself for the constant thought, and felt that he must certainly be demented on this one point at least, since it colored every impression of his life, and, in some shape, thrust itself upon him at the most unseemly ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... strain showed what treasures lay hidden in that stupendous opera, which, however, would never find comprehension so long as the musician persisted in trying to explain it in his present demented state. His wife and the Count were equally divided between the music and their surprise at this hundred-voiced instrument, inside which a stranger might have fancied an invisible chorus of girls were ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... near upsetting Souk's better judgment, and for a while he was nearly demented. Taking the fond girl in his arms, he swore, rather than see her the wife of the hated Cheyenne, he would spill both his own and her blood, and they would go to the happy hunting-grounds together. Chaf-fa-ly-a begged him to be calm, and she would ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... and had begun to hold 'Kalifahs' at Simon's Bay. These are festivals in which Mussulman fanatics run knives into their flesh, go into convulsions, &c, to the sound of music, like the Arab described by Houdin. Of course the poor blacks go quite demented. ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... reply. One thing is certain. He did not either accept the mediation or heed the remonstrances of the Holy Father. He was equally deaf to the warnings of his old allies of Crimean fame. The British government despatched to Paris a member of the cabinet, who, in a prolonged interview with the demented Emperor, argued earnestly on the part of Queen Victoria and her ministry against his purposed violation of the peace of Europe by undertaking an ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... we seed two young gentlemen a scampering along here, and up that there lane. Bees they demented? We didn't like to stop them, though somehow we thought as how ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... that legislative hall His wisdom still he 'd vented, It never had been known at all That Mowther was demented. ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... the merry young Queen laughed at the absurd demonstrations and amatory effusions of her demented admirers; but when, after her marriage, and her appearing always in public with the handsomest Prince in Christendom at her side, such monomaniacs grew desperate and took to shooting, the matter became serious. Then ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... percepts. Thus closely is healthy attached to morbid mental life. There seems to be no sudden break between our most sober every-day recognitions of familiar objects and the wildest hallucinations of the demented. As we pass from the former to the latter, we find that there is never any abrupt transition, never any addition of perfectly new elements, but only that the old elements go on combining ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... whirling sand, revealing the desolation of an almost featureless void. The village, the whole oasis, was penetrated by a passionate fog that instead of brooding heavily, phlegmatically, over the face of life and nature travelled like a demented thing bent upon instant destruction, and coming thus cloudily to be more free for crime. It was an emissary of the desert, propelled with irresistible force from the farthest recess of the dunes, and the desert itself seemed to be hurrying behind it as if to spy upon the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... saddles had been pulled off their horses by low branches and severely injured. Yet we had to get through the Nek and get to the plateau before I could allow any rest. I went and had a look at the demented men. They looked as if intoxicated and were very violent. All our men and horses were utterly exhausted, but we pushed on and at last reached the plateau, where, to everybody's great delight, we rested for the whole day. The demented men would not sleep, ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... These last words were addressed to a ghost-like man with a long white beard and insane eyes, who had glided into the store. He was recognized by all present under the name of "Solly," an abbreviation of Solitarius. The demented fanatic ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... the irritated and evidently astonished Haviland, who, in his obtuseness, even now, could not perceive what objection his daughter could have to a match esteemed by him so advantageous. "What can this mean? Why, the girl must be demented! You to decide on the time! Why, reasonable time is all that was meant by that, if it is ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... directly across the open ground towards the Ark. On the outside marched Phorenice's personal guards with their weapons new blooded. They had been forced to fight a way through their own fellow soldiers. The poor demented creatures had thought it was every one for himself now, till these guards (by their mistress's order) proved to them that Phorenice still ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... than were a shower of vitriol poured on a green wound, are these distilled, dire drops of apprehension. Sir, are you guilty that you thus stand dumb? What have you done injurious towards my ward, that you so linger upon the street, and to my queries but gaze like one demented? Sir, I charge you, tell me without more reserve or hesitation, lest at last I listen to you with less of fear than of ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... in the Isle of Scilly since Oct. 1655 (ante p. 66), had moved for a writ of habeas corpus, and had been brought to London, apparently with an intention on Cromwell's part to set him at liberty. Nor had Cromwell lost sight of the poor demented Quaker, James Nayler. There is extant a long and confidential letter to his Highness from his private secretary Mr. William Malyn, giving an account of a visit Malyn had paid to Nayler in Bridewell expressly by his Highness's command. It is to the effect that he had found ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... unconscionably sane, and was known far and wide as a gallant woman resolutely oblivious to the batterings of time, and so avid of flattery that she was ready to smile on any man who durst give the lie to her looking-glass. Demented landlady of her heart, she would sublet that antiquated chamber to the first adventurer who came prepared to pay his scot in the false coin of compliment; and 'twas not difficult to comprehend how this young ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... Marmaduke, with a smile of compassion, "the poor man must be somewhat demented; for I opine that the value of such curiosities must be in their rarity; and who would care for a book, if five hundred others had precisely the same?—allowing always, good Nicholas, for thy friend's vaunting and over-crowing. Five hundred! ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... such as to excite any ordinary man subject to natural excitement after what has transpired to-day. The natural excitement, or may I add anxiety, which my trial causes me is enough to justify me in acting in the manner of a demented man; but I hope, with the help of God, that I will maintain a calm exterior and act with the decorum that suits this honourable Court. You have, no doubt, seen by the papers produced by the Crown, that I was not a man disposed to think of God at the beginning. Gentlemen, I don't ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... was already beginning to close in when they reached the belt of pines. It had grown much colder; one could almost believe there would be frost in the air by and by. The wind was lulling a little; it still roared with strange rushings and half-demented tearings at the tree-tops, almost like some great spirit prisoned there, but it had spent its first strength. The rain clouds were going, too; already in places the sky was swept clear so that a pale light ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... wrung his right hand violently, and as he did so he sent a little spray of blood from his finger-tips. A bullet had chipped his wrist. Headingly ran out from the cover where he had been crouching, with the intention of dragging the demented Frenchman into a place of safety, but he had not taken three paces before he was himself hit in the loins, and fell with a dreadful crash among the stones. He staggered to his feet, and then fell again in the same ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... was studying the arrival of trains list at Paddington in order to ascertain from which platform the 1.20 p.m. started; she had assumed the slightly demented appearance that so many take when they enter a railway station. Turning from the poster distractedly, she clutched at the arm of a sailor, and was putting to him agitated inquiries concerning the Great ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... like a man demented; since, to begin with, audacious as the terms were, the plague had spared him scarcely a hundred men capable of resistance. Moreover, he had no son, but an only daughter, and she was lying sick almost to death with the distemper. So he made answer, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... forethought, or of deliberation—which impressed me. I dug eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually looking, with something that very much resembled expectation, for the fancied treasure, the vision of which had demented my unfortunate companion. At a period when such vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had been at work perhaps an hour and a half, we were again interrupted by the violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the first instance, had been evidently ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... some nights ago she thought the devil had come for Carol, and she has never been the same since. She crouches about like a creature demented. Sometimes I fancy she must ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... copied on blue paper or white. He did not in the least roguishly accent the word prefer. It was plain that it involuntarily rolled form his tongue. I thought to myself, surely I must get rid of a demented man, who already has in some degree turned the tongues, if not the heads of myself and clerks. But I thought it prudent not to break ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... lying in that dank, musty shack, bleeding, unconscious, for hours. How long he lay there no man shall say. We may picture him wandering forth, in an ill-fitting suit of civilian clothes, demented, broken, dazed. Of his wanderings, likewise, who shall tell the full truth? He visited a place called Blytheville and took the name of Blythe. He visited great cities, so he said. He was in the west. He ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... family of Austria. The building is extensive; the streets of the city at that time running under it here and there in tunnels. I visited the Schatz Kammer, the treasure-room, and saw men go almost demented at the spectacle of the gold and jewels heaped up in the cases. The sight of the splendour, the heaped-up jewels, the batons, the faded, and sometimes bloody, garments, the trinkets and decorations, associated with towering personalities of the past, attuned my spirit for ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... devil's power is not yet extinct, since it thrives in them through the presence of original sin. But as to baptized persons who are vexed in body by unclean spirits, the same reason holds good of them as of others who are demented. Hence Cassian says (Collat. vii): "We do not remember the most Holy Communion to have ever been denied by our elders to them who ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... understand. He had pictures of a cattle-truck full of naked girls riding from nowhere to nowhere, of Lydia laughing because her father made great debts and said, "I know, I know"; of Jews running down the street shouting in Yiddish, "Don't do it, don't do it," and being cut down by demented peasants—she called them "cattle"—whilst she looked on interested and even amused; of tutors and governesses and Paris and a convent. It was too much for him. And there she sat, telling the tales to the open space, not to him, arrogating a curious ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... direction,—when the hum of the gnat again diverted her; and in the middle of this perplexity, pounce came a young wasp in a violent passion! Then the spider evidently lost her presence of mind; she became clean demented; and after standing, stupid and stock-still, in the middle of her meshes for a minute or two, she ran off to her hole as fast as she could run, and left her guests to shift for themselves. I confess that I am somewhat in the dilemma of the attractive and amiable ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... finding the Palatine large enough, seized upon the delightful gardens climbing the Esquiline in order to set up his Golden House, a dream of sumptuous immensity which he could not complete and the ruins of which disappeared in the troubles following the death of this monster whom pride demented. Next, in eighteen months, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius fell one upon the other, in mire and in blood, the purple converting them also into imbeciles and monsters, gorged like unclean beasts at the trough of imperial enjoyment. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... my mistress hated, as was the use with the liege vassals of the house of Glenallan; for though, my Lord, I married under my degree, yet an ancestor of yours never went to the field of battle, but an ancestor of the frail, demented, auld, useless wretch wha now speaks with you, carried his shield before him. But that was not a'," continued the beldam, her earthly and evil passions rekindling as she became heated in her narration"that was not a'; I hated Miss Eveline Neville for her ain sake, I brought her frae England, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... their repetition in the propensities of a vampire bat, when Mr. Y——suddenly dashed in on our small group and spoiled all the results of our conciliatory words by screaming at the top of his voice: "The old woman has gone demented! She keeps on cursing us and says that the murder of this wretched bat is only the forerunner of a whole series of misfortunes brought on her house by you, Sham Rao," said he, hastily addressing the bewildered follower of Haackel. "She says you have polluted your Brahmanical holiness by inviting ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... and such great and honest men as Diderot and Hume were among them, seem to have been in the right; but it seems no less clear that they were too anxious to proclaim and emphasize the faults of a poor, unfortunate, demented man. We can hardly blame them; for, in their eyes, Rousseau appeared as a kind of mad dog—a pest to society, deserving of no quarter. They did not realize—they could not—that beneath the meanness and the frenzy ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... to suspect that this amazing girl was demented. He thought of the powerfully entrenched rulers of this theoretically republican government. For more than two hundred years, if he remembered rightly, the Martians had been ruled by a small group of ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... agreed, is the first necessity for all men, and especially for inebriates, as the surest hope of a real and permanent reformation of life. And intemperate men, especially those who become demented rather than demonized, it is well known, are always easily moved by religious influences, even when so drunk that they would wisely be deemed incompetent to execute a will for the disposal of earthly property, and incapable of giving testimony ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... that he was transported and in an ecstasy. Catullus after the same manner maketh mention, in his Berecynthia and Atys, of the place wherein the Menades, Bacchical women, she-priests of the Lyaean god, and demented prophetesses, carrying ivy boughs in their hands, did shake their heads. As in the like case, amongst the Galli, the gelded priests of Cybele were wont to do in the celebrating of their festivals. Whence, too, according to the sense of the ancient theologues, she herself has her denomination, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of the fear-demented man, but she was powerless to prevent it. The mucker saw it too, and grinned—he hoped that it would be a good fight; there was nothing that he enjoyed more. He was sorry that he could not take a hand in ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... brute pitted against him. The rabbit was lifted out of the hamper by one of those greasy nondescript males, who are always to be seen when pigeon shooting or coursing is going on. The greasy being held the rabbit by the ears, and put it temptingly near the dogs. The sprightly terrier went clean demented; the sullen one stood with thoughtful earnestness waiting for a chance to catch the start. When the rabbit was put down it cowered low and seemed trying to shrink into the ground; its ears were pressed hard back, its head was pressed closely to the grass, and it was huddled in an ecstasy of terror. ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... combined effects of the injury, exposure, and want, he was wasting visibly away; his strength was so completely gone that he was quite unable to move without assistance; and George had once or twice asked himself the question, whether he was justified in involving this poor weak demented creature in the sufferings which there was only too much reason to believe still awaited them. Would it not have been truer kindness, he asked himself, to have left Walford in some sheltered spot where there would be a certainty of his being speedily found and taken care of? But reflection satisfied ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... prognosis suggested by the presence of tube-casts.[29] It is related of Sir Isaac Newton, that while riding homeward one day, the weather being clear and cloudless, in passing a herder he was warned to ride fast or the shower would wet him. Sir Isaac looked upon the man as demented, and rode on, not, however, without being caught in a drenching shower. Not being able to account for the source of information through which the rustic had gained his knowledge, he rode back, wet as he was, to learn ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... trough. This was the moment. Again I was favoured with a sample of the lightning speed with which that aged man of sixty- nine could handle his body. Timed precisely, and delivered in a flash and with weight, the boat-stretcher came down on the Greek's head. The knife fell into the sea, and the demented creature collapsed and followed it, knocked unconscious. Mr. Pike scooped him out, quite effortlessly it seemed to me, and flung him into the boat's ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... demented, deranged, insane, delirious, dementate, mad, lunatic, distracted, frantic, crazed, crack-brained; rickety, decrepit, shaky, tottering, dilapidated; desirous, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... chief object of interest. I have seen three or four citizens sitting in a row, on a fence, like so many rooks,—and sitting there for hours, as if waiting for something. For what, pray? For the demented squaw, who revolved about the place, and slept out of doors in all weathers, and muttered to herself incessantly while she went to and fro, day after day, seeking the rest she could not hope for this side the grave? Or for Murillo, ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... was a great big hole there. And they'd eaten every chicken, and every egg in the yard. My lovely boxes were all knocked over, and the nests torn to bits, and there wasn't so much as an eggshell left. The poor old hens were just demented—they were going round and round the yard, clucking and calling, and altogether like mad things. And in the middle of it all, fat and ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... curate and his friend Master Nicholas, the barber, went to Don Quixote's house to settle their grievance with the cause of all the mischief—the books of their demented friend. The curate asked the niece for the keys to the library, and she was only too willing to let him have them. They all went in, followed by the housekeeper, who grew faint-hearted as soon as she caught sight of all the beautifully bound books in the room. She ran out as if beset, ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... French soldiers left dead in the wood, and one was captured and made prisoner; but the rest had fled like men demented, and the Rangers could not come up with them. As for Charles and his quarry, they had disappeared, and it was long before any trace could ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... under her window, we could follow her footmarks easily across the lawn to the edge of the mere, where they vanished, close to the gravel path which leads out of the grounds. The lake there is 8 ft. deep, and you can imagine our feelings when we saw that the trail of the poor demented girl came to an end at ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... saw that the old gentleman thought he was dealing with a demented man; he saw, too, that the denial was an ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... without resistance on her shoulders, like a cloak. She drew it, indeed, about her with trembling fingers as if her senses craved the comfort though her detestation of the man who gave it was great. But in truth she was demented now, forgetting even the bleeding lover. She gave little paces on the sand, with one of her shoes gone from her feet, and wrung her hands and ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... You see, Olof, it is now Whitsuntide; it was at this time the Holy Ghost came down and filled the Apostles—nay, all humanity. The spirit of the Lord has descended upon me. I feel it, and for that reason they shut me up like one demented. But now I am free again, and now I shall speak the word; for now, Olof, we are standing on the mountain. Behold the people crawling on their knees before those two men seated on their thrones. The taller holds two keys in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other. That is the Pope. Now he hurls ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... back with one eye shut and the other fixed on the luff of the sail. He was in his element: nothing to do but steer and smoke, warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze. A landsman would have been half demented in his condition, many a sailor would have been taciturn and surly, on the look-out for sails, and alternately damning his soul and praying ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... almost fell from the archdeacon's had upon the table; and the start he made was so great as to make his wife jump from her chair. Not accept the deanship! If it really ended in this, there would be no longer any doubt that his father-in-law was demented. The question now was whether a clergyman with low rank, and preferment amounting to less than 200 pounds a year, should accept high rank, 1200 pounds a year, and one of the most desirable positions which his ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... cried she, "where am I to find a shilling? And if I could find one, why should I throw it away upon a thing not worth twopence, and which will only lumber my store till I die? The boy's demented!" ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... practical and statesmanlike, so different from the wild projects of demented Socialists, was started by the Rev. Mr Bosher, a popular preacher, the Vicar of the fashionable Church of the Whited Sepulchre. He collected some subscriptions from a number of semi-imbecile old ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... he had fallen asleep the face of Sue Rainey came to visit his dreams. One night he thought she had become blind and sat in the room with sightless eyes saying over and over like one demented, "Truth, truth, give me back the truth that I may see," and he awoke sick with horror at the thought of the look of suffering that had been in her face. Never did Sam dream of having her in his arms or of raining kisses on her lips and neck as he had dreamed ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... In her embrace her hand had rested over her husband's heart, and had felt a faint pulsation. A moment later she sprung up and rushed back to the office. Merwyn thought that she was partially demented, and could scarcely keep ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... drink himself maudlin. He left the porter at the station to keep the books, and would go off for days "on the drink" with his friends and fellow-carousers. About this time Mr. Grundy, then an engineer at Halifax, fell in with the poor, half-demented, lonely creature, and for a while things went a ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson |
