"Dotard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he began to study that book called the Bible; and it seems, that in order to credit its fabulous nonsense, we must believe that the knowledge of mankind will be so increased that we shall be able to travel at the rate of fifty miles an hour. The poor dotard!' exclaimed the philosophic infidel Voltaire, in the self-complacency of his pity. But who is the dotard now?—Rev. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... no choice. I must wed with this de Montfort. I think I shall die presently. I have prayed God that I may die before they bring me to the dotard's bed." ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... philosophers, but they are so absorbed in their philosophy, that they pay no attention to him. He then asks the gypsies, who take his money and decamp with a dance. At length, he overhears Dorim['e]ne telling a young lover that she only marries the old dotard for his money, and that he cannot live above a few months; so he makes up his mind to decline the marriage. The father of the lady places the matter in his son's hands, and the young fire-eater, armed with two swords, goes at once to the old fianc['e], and begs ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... heaven".[181] A more critical observer of feminine beauty thought her eyes and eyebrows too light,[182] but, as an Italian, he may have been biassed in favour of brunettes, and even he wound up by calling Mary "a Paradise". She was eighteen at the time; her marriage with a dotard like Louis had shocked public opinion;[183] and if, as was hinted, the gaieties in which his youthful bride involved him, hastened the French King's end, there was some poetic justice in the retribution. She had, as she reminded Henry herself, only consented to marry the "very aged ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... theatre carries down that ancient tradition and worship, as masons have carried their secret signs and rites from temple to temple. When the libertine hero carries off the beauty in the play, and the dotard is laughed to scorn for having the young wife: in the ballad, when the poet bid his mistress to gather roses while she may, and warns her that old Time is still a-flying: in the ballet, when honest Corydon courts Phillis under the treillage of the pasteboard ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... proceeded to the election of Ferdinand. That Emperor was crowned in March, and immediately despatched a legation to the Pope to apprize him of the fact. Nothing was less expected than any opposition on the part of the pontiff. The querulous dotard, however, who then sat in St. Peter's chair, hated Charles and all his race. He accordingly denied the validity of the whole transaction, without sanction previously obtained from the Pope, to whom all crowns belonged. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... your admonition and my own. For an elderly gentleman trotting at a young girl's heels is a most unedifying spectacle—giving occasion, and reasonably, to the enemy to blaspheme—bad for her in numberless ways; and, if he's any remnant of self-respect left in him, is anything better than a fatuous dotard, damnably bad for him as well. Do ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Then you'll not take my word for it, But let a dotard's clatterjaw destroy you? You ken my worth: yet, if you care for Jim, You'll trust his oath. If he denies the bairn, Then, you'll believe? You'd surely never doubt Your husband's word, and on your wedding-day? Small wonder you'd be duberous of mine. But Jim's not my sort; he's an honest lad; And ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... caught sight of no one else, but of a very aged bonze, of unkempt appearance, cooking his rice. When Yue-ts'un perceived that he paid no notice, he went up to him and asked him one or two questions, but as the old priest was dull of hearing and a dotard, and as he had lost his teeth, and his tongue was blunt, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... enough; but worse than this Were the attentions of our ancient hero, Whose frequent vow, and frequenter caress, Unwelcome were for any one to hear, who Had charms for better pleasure than a kiss From feeble dotard ten degrees from zero. So, as one does when circumstances harass one, Hy-son began to draw up ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... indignant that their motives should be misinterpreted by what they considered deliberate falsehood and misrepresentation; and the Lindsays could not look in silence upon the property which they thought ought to be theirs, transferred to the possession of strangers, who had wheedled a dotard to make a will in their favor. Such, however, in thousands of instances, are ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... *tested at various Basons and lavers, ere that men them buy, seasons Spoones, stooles, and all such husbandry, And so be pots, and clothes, and array,* *raiment But folk of wives make none assay, Till they be wedded, — olde dotard shrew! — And then, say'st thou, we will our vices shew. Thou say'st also, that it displeaseth me, But if * that thou wilt praise my beauty, *unless And but* thou pore alway upon my face, *unless And call me faire dame in ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... "Your dotard king couldn't rule without Zaspar Makann, and Makann couldn't rule without me, and neither can you," he said. "Shoot this gang of turncoats, and I'll rule Marduk for you." He looked at Trask again. "Who are you?" he demanded. "I ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... so-called tales of chivalry produced or adapted by English writers during this century there is no trace of the poetry and interest of chivalric sentiments. In "Tom-a-Lincoln," the Red Rose Knight, the noble King Arthur is represented as an old dotard, surrounded by knights who bear no resemblance in person or in the nature of their adventures to their prototypes of ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... hands can slay Such Trojan hosts, whose trophies grace the plain. What worth can do, and manhood can essay, We twain may venture. Sooth, not far away Need foes be sought; around the walls they throng. March we to meet them! Dotard, why delay? Still dwells thy War-God in a windy tongue, And flying feet, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... and real tragedy of Richard Carstone. It is strictly the one and only great tragedy that Dickens wrote. It is like the tragedy of Hamlet. The others are not tragedies because they deal almost with dead men. The tragedy of old Dorrit is merely the sad spectacle of a dotard dragged about Europe in his last childhood. The tragedy of Steerforth is only that of one who dies suddenly; the tragedy of old Dombey only that of one who was dead all the time. But Rick is a real tragedy, for he is still alive when the quicksand ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... lesson for the aged man; Who thinks, when old, to act as he began; But, if the sage a yielding dotard seems, His work is done by those the wife esteems; Complaints are never heard; no thrilling fears; And ev'ry one ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... there was Roger Sherman, who had signed the articles of confederation, and was now trying to undo his own work. What confidence could be placed in a man who did not know his own mind any better than that? Then there were Hamilton and Madison, mere boys; and Franklin, an old dotard, a man in his second childhood. And as to Washington, he was doubtless a good soldier, but what did he know about politics? So said the more moderate of the malcontents, hesitating for the moment to speak disrespectfully ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... to destroy, And shuts up all the passages of joy: In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour, The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flow'r; With listless eyes the dotard views the store, He views, and wonders that they ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... profundity deeper than ever plummet sounded. The gliding ball does not swing round in its groove faster than the old man's soul fares towards the darkness; and yet he clenches his jaw and engages in the most trivial of pursuits as if he had an eternity before him. The youth and the dotard have alike succeeded in passing out of themselves, and their very souls will not return to the body until the delirious spell has ceased to act. All men alike seem to have, more or less, this craving for oblivion. Long ago I remember seeing a company of farmers who had come to market in the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... lights up the faces of the horrified spectators with his glare. A father fond of unworthy children, and leading a life of self-denial for their sake, as may probably and pathetically be, is not enough; there must be an imbecile, trembling dotard, willing to promote even the liaisons of his daughters to give them happiness and to teach the sublimity of the paternal instinct. The hero cannot sufficiently be a selfish young fellow, with alternating impulses of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... invisible, and placed himself in a corner of the room. He soon perceived the father and mother of the bride; and coming behind the mother's chair, whispered in her ear, "If you marry your daughter to that old dotard, before eight days are over you shall certainly die." The woman, frightened to hear such a terrible sentence pronounced upon her, and yet not know from whence it came, gave a loud shriek, and dropped upon the floor. Her husband asked what ailed her: ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... "Dotard! thou would'st carry thyself and all with thee, by thy narrowness of spirit, to a port from which, when it is once entered, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... — N. veteran, old man, seer, patriarch, graybeard; grandfather, grandsire; grandam; gaffer, gammer; crone; pantaloon; sexagenarian, octogenarian, nonagenarian, centenarian; old stager; dotard &c 501. preadamite^, Methuselah, Nestor, old Parr; elders; forefathers &c (paternity) 166. Phr. superfluous lags the veteran ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... wrangling of pedants and partisans. Brunswick, himself a man of great intelligence though of little resolution, saw the true quality of the men who surrounded him. "Ruechel," he cried, "is a tin trumpet, Moellendorf a dotard, Kalkreuth a cunning trickster. The generals of division are a set of stupid journeymen. Are these the people with whom one can make war on Napoleon? No. The best service that I could render to the King would ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... he kissed me on the cheek and set off for school as fast as his legs could carry him. Oh, Love, omnivorous Love, that sparest neither the dotard leaning on his staff nor the boy with pantaloons buttoning on his jacket—omnipotent Love, that, after parents and teachers have failed, in one instant can make Billy try ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... dotard!" cried the knight. "Could ye not see it was a wench? She in the murrey-coloured mantle—she that broke her fast with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... darkened for a moment. "What! dearest," said he, "can you be affected by the foolish fears of yon dotard? How do we know as yet, whether this improbable story have any foundation in truth. At all events, it is evidently exaggerated. Perhaps an invasion of the poultry-yard, in which some hungry fox was the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and God brought him and them to a terrible judgment. Yet God turned the curses to blessings. The young, warm, vigorous blood of Greece, and her splendid literature, and magnificent arts were carried into the heart of Asia, and raised those old dotard nations to a second youth; inspired them with power and light; flooded their lands with new and noble ideas, and brought sluggish and unsocial peoples into commerce, ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... other stick of tobacco obtained from his friends, the planters. Toward afternoon, he strolled back to their abode; where he tarried till the next morning, smoking and snoozing, and, at times, prating about the hapless fortunes of the House of Tonoi. But like any other easy-going old dotard, he seemed for the most part perfectly content with cheerful board ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... of the wine, however, came the consoling reflection that Iris as a scullery-maid might not tickle the fancy of the dotard who had undertaken to provide fifty thousand pounds for the new partnership. And she had promised—that was everything. His lack of diplomacy was obvious even to himself, but he had won where a man of finer temperament might have failed. Now, he must rush the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... calculation, with conclusion that my report of the tourney with young Orchan reached my Lord's hand, and I now am patting myself on the back, happy to believe it had something to do with my Lord's decision. The imposition deserved to have its head blown off. Orchan is a dotard. His son's ears are still impaired. In the fall the ground caught him crown first. He will never ride again. The pretension is over.... I rode from the Princess' house directly to Blacherne. The Grand Council was in session: yet the Prefect of the Palace admitted ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... in your case, that should not disturb me. Is not the jealous dotard twice your age? Such incidents shou'd more confirm my empire. Nay, my offence shou'd be his accusation, Nor wou'd I rest until he shou'd acknowledge The fault was his, not mine; so, rouse ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... a death-dealing terror. It has become a blubbering fish. And the author of its crimes is no diabolical triton, but a semi-imbecile old dotard, round whom his evil—but terrified—brood have clustered; they fawning on him in terror, he fondling them in shaky, decrepit fondness. Note the flaccid paunch, the withered top, and the foolish, hysterical face. How the full-dress cocked hat shames ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... of Dee, our English "Faust," as he is not inaptly called, has both been misrepresented and misunderstood. An enthusiast he undoubtedly was, but not the drivelling dotard that some of his biographers imagine. A man of profound learning, distinguished for attainments far beyond the general range of his contemporaries, he, like Faustus, and the wisest of human kind, had found out how little he knew; had perceived ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as an exercise—and I will never write another. They are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions. I detest the Petrarch so much, that I would not be the man even to have obtained his Laura, which the metaphysical, whining dotard never could. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... of us telleth the truth." Masrur said, "Come, let us go, that I may do to this ill-omened old woman evil deeds[FN76] and deal her a sound drubbing for her lying." And the duenna answered him, "O dotard, is thy wit like unto my wit? Indeed, thy wit is as the hen's wit." Masrur was incensed at her words and would have laid violent hands on her, but the Lady Zubaydah pushed him away from her and said to him, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... 'Peace, dotard!' cried one of those who guarded and led him; and at the same moment brought his spear with such force upon his head that he ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... gallery, [539] The House fell first on the renegades of the late reign. Of those renegades the Earls of Peterborough and Salisbury were the highest in rank, but were also the lowest in intellect: for Salisbury had always been an idiot; and Peterborough had long been a dotard. It was however resolved by the Commons that both had, by joining the Church of Rome, committed high treason, and that both should be impeached, [540] A message to that effect was sent to the Lords. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to fish in troubled waters, and drink the cup of contention, or she would not now think of mingling her affairs with those of America. It would be like a foolish dotard taking to his arms the bride that despises him, or who has placed on his head the ensigns of her disgust. It is kissing the hand that boxes his ears, and proposing to renew the exchange. The thought is as servile as the war is wicked, and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... brother were to die, who would maintain your wife and daughter? The widow of a Marshal gets at least six thousand francs pension, doesn't she? Well, then, I wish to marry to secure bread for your wife and daughter—old dotard!" ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... because they were cowed by the majestic presence, the guard stood still and the drum was silenced. Andros spurred forward, but even he made a pause when he saw the staff levelled at his breast. "Forward!" he blustered. "Trample the dotard into the street. How dare ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... with mine! I might have been a common soldier, a day-laborer, a factory operative, a mechanic, instead of a missionary. If my faculties had been left to run riot or to waste as those of so many young men, I should now have been used up, a dotard, as many of my school-fellows are. I am respected by the natives, their kind expressions often make me ashamed, and they are sincere. So much deference and favor manifested without any effort on my part to secure it comes ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... converse or friendship with that old man who to so large an experience of things had joined an equal strength of mind and sharpness of judgment? And therefore for this reason it is that old age dotes; and that it does so, it is beholding to me. Yet, notwithstanding, is this dotard exempt from all those cares that distract a wise man; he is not the less pot companion, nor is he sensible of that burden of life which the more manly age finds enough to do to stand upright under it. And sometimes too, like Plautus' old man, he returns to his three letters, A.M.O., the most ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... legitimate; though it might be asked why the earl should not marry, marrying the lady who pleased him. But if, in the words of his wife, the lady had no claim to be called a lady, the marriage was deplorable. On the other hand, Lord Ormont spoke of her in terms of esteem, and he was no fondling dotard. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his rusty scythe may whet, The unmowed grass is glowing yet Beneath the sheltering snow, my boys; And if the crazy dotard ask, Is love worn out? Is life a task? We'll bravely answer No! my boys, We 'll bravely ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... "Alas! dotard," interrupted Kai Lung impatiently, "it would be well if I spent my few remaining hours in kowtowing to the Powers whom I shall shortly meet. An aged and unsightly hag! Know you not, O venerable bat, that the ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... mistake her utterly. To me she is bound by all the ties which can secure her to one who has been the means of gratifying both her love and ambition. Who was it that took the obscure Amy Robsart, the daughter of an impoverished and dotard knight—the destined bride of a moonstruck, moping enthusiast, like Edmund Tressilian, from her lowly fates, and held out to her in prospect the brightest fortune in England, or perchance in Europe? ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... fiercely. "The old dotard! He did but shrug his shoulders and offer me a diamond necklace in exchange for my pretty puppet of a plaything. It is plain Melinza has some hold upon him, what it is I cannot guess; but it is stronger than my wishes. He would sooner brave my anger ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... law. She holds despotic sway. Her wont has been to show the narrow way Wherein must tread the world, the bright, the brave, From infancy to dotard's gloomy grave. ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... told you, and I tell you still: Lay steady siege to a rich dotard's will; Nor, should a fish or two gnaw round the bait, And 'scape the hook, lose heart and give up straight. A suit at law comes on: suppose you find One party's old and childless, never mind Though law with him's a weapon to oppress An upright neighbour, take his part no less: ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... any more, Jurgen, the while he brings about old happenings over and over, and changes the name of what is ancient, in order to persuade himself he has a new plaything. There is really no more tedious and wearing old dotard anywhere, I can assure you. But Atlantis is only the western province of Cocaigne. Now do you ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... and honesty are brought into the highest possible relief by the restoration to the feebly guileful Polonius of the speeches of which he has long been deprived. Among the reinstated scenes is that in which the meddlesome dotard teaches his servant Reynaldo modes of espionage that shall detect the moral lapses of his son Laertes in Paris. The recovered episode is not only admirable comedy, but it gives new vividness to Polonius's maudlin egotism which is responsible ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... it! he acknowledges it!" roared the magician. "Wretch, dotard, owl, mole, miserable buzzard! I have no reason to tell thee now that thy form is monstrous, that children cry, that cowards turn pale, that teeming matrons shudder to behold it. It is not thy fault that thou art thus ungainly: but wherefore so blind? wherefore so conceited ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... before I had got my telephone exchange buzzing. Sometime I'll explain the thing to you, for it's a pretty little business. I've got the cutest cypher ... No, it ain't my invention. It's your Government's. Any one, babe, imbecile, or dotard, can carry my messages—you saw some of them today—but it takes some mind to set the piece, and it takes a lot of figuring at my end to work out the results. Some day you shall hear it all, for I ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... dancing and making violent efforts to free himself.) What the plague has got hold of you? What have you to do with me, you dotard? Why pick on me? Why are you grabbing me? Don't beat me! (Succeeds ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... Manchester, I beg your pardon for this slight resume of warlike facts, but it is of no consequence. Lord Wellington is, for you, only a decayed old gentleman now. I rather think some of you have called him a "dotard;" you have taunted him with his age and the loss of his physical vigour. What fine heroes you are yourselves! Men like you have a right to trample on what is mortal in a demigod. Scoff at your ease; your scorn can never break his grand ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... for what we use," cried careless James; "let us eat, and warm our toes, and therewith have somewhat less of thy prating, old dotard. It can be shrewdly cold in this westerly country ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... The stream of life scarce trembling through the vein, More than half kill'd by honest truths which fell, Through thy own fault, from men who wish'd thee well— Canst thou, e'en thus, thy thoughts to vengeance give, And, dead to all things else, to malice live? 430 Hence, dotard, to thy closet; shut thee in; By deep repentance wash away thy sin; From haunts of men to shame and sorrow fly, And, on the verge of death, learn how to die! Vain exhortation! wash the Ethiop white, Discharge ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... an age of lax morals; and the outraged Princess Caroline had no more valiant champion. She not only declined to have anything to say to her husband's mother, she carried her disapproval to the extent of refusing point blank to appear at Court. So furious was the Regent at this slight that "the dotard with corrupted eye and withered heart," as Byron calls him, had her portrait removed from the Palace Gallery of Beauties, and ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... solely to find food for themselves. The Chinese were the first to leave the duck-yard; and the other fowls soon followed them. The witty little duck said of the Portuguese that the old lady was becoming a ducky dotard. At this the other ducks laughed and cackled aloud. "Ducky dotard," they whispered; "that's too witty!" and then they repeated the former joke about Portulak, and declared that it was vastly amusing. And ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... public prints. But, whatever are the causes, it is certain that the government is at once powerful and detested—almost without apparent support, yet difficult to overthrow; and the submission of Rome to a dotard and a boy can no longer excite the wonder of any one who reflects on what passes ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... that varlet Knight, Sir Frank de Dock, I have naught to say, save and excepting only that he be a caitiff and base-born dotard that did deride me and steal away unto his castle this very night when I did supplicate him to regale me with goodly viands around the board of that noble host, the gracious Sir Wralsy of Murdough. I would to heaven a murrain would seize ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... inquired what instruction he had under the master. Rin-zai answered: 'I asked him three times about the essence of Buddhism, and he slapped me three times. But I am yet unable to see whether I had any fault or not.' Dai-gu said: 'Obak was tender-hearted even as a dotard, and you are not warranted at all to come over here and ask me whether ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... Bible well would not be shocked with a little swearing. I bet some of the bits in Genesis and Samuel are hotter than anything the blighter said. It was probably some dotard ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... you old dotard," cried the Countess, rounding then on him with a suddenness that made him seem to shrink into his shell. "The law! Is a silly wench to run us into danger of losing what is ours? He shall marry ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... afternoon the inconsequent dotard had employed a telephone to summon his car to transport him to the links, and had denied even a glance of acknowledgment at the wonder floating above him. Much like that is growing Newbern. There was gasping aplenty ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... speak to the seal-cutter; for certain am I that, not only would Suddhoo disbelieve me, but this step would end in the poisoning of Janoo, who is bound hand and foot by her debt to the bunnia. Suddhoo is an old dotard; and whenever we meet mumbles my idiotic joke that the Sirkar rather patronizes the Black Art than otherwise. His son is well now; but Suddhoo is completely under the influence of the seal-cutter, by whose advice he regulates the affairs of his life. Janoo watches daily ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Nigel. It was so intense a passion that it supplied the place of talents, that it inspired even fatuity with cunning. "Have no money dealings with my father," says Marth to Lord Glenvarloch; "for, dotard as he is, he will make an ass of you." It was as dangerous to have any political connection with Newcastle as to buy and sell with old Trapbois. He was greedy after power with a greediness all his own. He was jealous of all his colleagues, and even of his own brother. Under ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... boys at play, And had his nuts as well as they, A grave Athenian, passing by, Cast on the sage a scornful eye, As on a dotard quite bereaved: Which, when the moralist perceived, (Rather himself a wit profess'd Than the poor subject of a jest) Into the public way he flung A bow that he had just unstrung: "There solve, thou conjurer," he cries, "The problem, that before thee ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... old Duc de Marny, a feeble old man now, almost a dotard whose hitherto spotless blason, the young Vicomte, his son, was doing his best ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... he had lost the power of doing it; and he ended darkly and shamefully, a dotard worshipping idols of wood and stone, among his heathen queens. And thus, as in David the height of chivalry fell to the deepest baseness; so in Solomon the height of wisdom fell to ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... went off and left him; for he was not lustful, nor an agreeable bedfellow to spend the night with. Now a woman delights in being wantonly treated. But you are an old dotard. For (to Phidippides) consider, O youth, all that attaches to modesty, and of how many pleasures you are about to be deprived—of women, of games at cottabus, of dainties, of drinking-bouts, of giggling. And yet, what ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... himself of one of his neighbors; the man saw the hostile intention of his officer, collared him, and pitched him overboard. "Aha! The duck has a mind to drink. ... Over with you!—There is room for two now!" he shouted. "Quick, major! throw your little woman over, and come! Never mind that old dotard! he will ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... and many a father, Worn out with toil and slavery, implored The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth, And spare his children the detested task Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning The choicest days of life, To soothe a dotard's vanity. There an inhuman and uncultured race Howl'd hideous praises to their demon—God; They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb The unborn child—old age and infancy Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends, And what was he who taught ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... Jealousy has fled: his bars, his bolts, His withered Centinel,[96] Duenna sage! And all whereat the generous soul revolts,[df] Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, Have passed to darkness with the vanished age. Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen, (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage,) With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, While on the gay dance shone Night's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... descended upon my gray head, Thou hand of God! How comes my son to me! My son, my only glory, here I languish, And tremble to behold thee! Shall I see Thy deadly wounded body, I that should Be wept by thee? I, miserable, alone, Dragged thee to this; blind dotard I, that fain Had made earth fair to thee, I digged thy grave. If only thou amidst thy warriors' songs Hadst fallen on some day of victory, Or had I closed upon thy royal bed Thine eyes amidst the sobs and reverent grief Of thy true liegemen, ah; it still ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Bergthorsknoll, whose name was Saevuna. She was wise in many things, and foresighted; but she was then very old, and Njal's sons called her an old dotard, when she talked so much, but still some things which she said came to pass. It fell one day that she took a cudgel in her hand, and went up above the house to a stack of vetches. She beat the stack ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... o'er the arsenal, Keeping due time with every hammer's clink, As a good jest to jolly artisans; Or making chorus to the creaking oar, In the vile tune of every galley-slave, Who, as he sung the merry stave, exulted He was not a shamed dotard like ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... to work with zeal, believing it was Bouvard's own case, and calling him an old dotard, even though he ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... majority of the people then on earth. On the contrary, we blush to admit it, Methuselah was held in very trifling esteem by his frivolous fellow-citizens, who habitually referred to him as an "old 'wayback," "a barnacle," an "old fogy," a "mossback," or a "garrulous dotard," and with singular irreverence they took delight in twitting him upon his senility and in pestering him with divers new-fangled notions altogether distasteful, not to say shocking, to ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... full of good taste and spirit, but that it showed some want of study and practice on the author's part; otherwise I had been extremely touched to think that those young fingers should have thus embroidered an old man's rough sketch of fancy, and given form so brilliantly to the dreams of a dotard like myself. ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... hard than hers, aroused only her deepest ire—not because he had counted out the hairs, but because there had not been more to count. Jumping to her feet in her wrath, she exclaimed, "Fool that I was, to have withheld one, when the old dotard would have paid for it so richly. But it cannot now be helped," she continued, and resuming her seat, she read the letter through, exploding, but once more, and that at the point where Uncle Nat had spoken of returning asking if there was one who ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... must submit with a good grace to that which is out of our power to remedy. But I dare say the rascally groom is not after all so perfect a resemblance of your devoted admirer as the besotted gardener would make us believe; how could the old dotard distinguish objects so well, at the distance he confesses, and at night? It would seem more probable, by his prowling abroad at such an hour, that a free potation of wine had so far acted upon his senses, that he saw the marvellous story he has related, in a reverie ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... watched us with a most pertinacious vigilance, in order that we might have no opportunity of conversing with our pretty hostess, whom he closely followed about with looks of angry jealousy, while she prepared our supper. It was truly pitiable to observe the misery the old dotard endured, every time his wife entered our apartment, constantly fidgetting at her elbow, and scrutinizing, suspiciously, every look that passed between her and her guests. His fears served us for a jest, however, and ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... it came on me all at once, This was the place! those two hills on the right Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; While to the left, a tall scalped mountain... Dunce, Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, After a life spent training for the ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... dotard, with a senile chuckle, "that he was wrong. His answer was beyond my meaning—he muttered something about 'mutton and capa sauce.' I was engaged," continued the dotard, with a feeble grin, "as a capa for seventy years certain, with an annual benefit once in four years, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... dotard Ulfkytel not to see all this; would that you had slain me in the woods at first—or that he had hanged me at Caistor—or that I had been drowned. But justice is done, and my life ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... him with us here a prisoner?" suggested an old buck; only to be cried down loudly as a doddering dotard, whose blood had ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... the third of the third day, in the Decameron of Boccaccio, where a young woman uses her father-confessor as a go-between for herself and her lover. In the Adelphi there are two old men of dissimilar character, who give a different education to the children they bring up. One of them is a dotard, who, after having for sixty years been sullen, grumpy and avaricious, becomes suddenly lively, polite, and prodigal; this Molire had too much common sense ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... such credit at Antwerp, Louvain, and Liege! A dish of spinach, indeed!' And by this time the fury of the insulted painter had increased to such a degree, that he seized David by the arm, and shaking him violently, added: 'Do you know, you old dotard, that my character has been long established? I have a red horse at Mechlin, a stag at Namur, and a Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, that no one has ever ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... every other trouble and anxiety I have had of late times, springs from that old dotard and his darling child—two wretched feeble wanderers! I'll be their evil genius yet. And you, sweet Kit, honest Kit, virtuous, innocent Kit, look to yourself. Where I hate, I bite. I hate you, my darling fellow, with good cause, and proud as you are to-night, I'll ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... meet various types of men—some of them, it may be, types which you and I have never encountered; but even to Chichikov this particular species was new. In the old man's face there was nothing very special—it was much like the wizened face of many another dotard, save that the chin was so greatly projected that whenever he spoke he was forced to wipe it with a handkerchief to avoid dribbling, and that his small eyes were not yet grown dull, but twinkled under their overhanging brows like ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... near his heart as they who dare Frankly to face her where she faces them, On their own threshold, where their souls are strong To grapple with and throw her; as I once, Being yet a boy, did cast this puny king, Who now has grown so dotard as to deem That he can wrestle with an angry realm, And throw the brawned Antaeus of men's rights. No, Hampden! they have half-way conquered Fate Who go half-way to meet her,—as will I. 150 Freedom hath yet a work for me to do; So ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... "Dotard!" exclaimed the prince, as in blind rage he struck him in the mouth with his clenched fist. "Keep thy advice for dogs, and ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... needful that she die. To blurt all out— I know that you desire her; without doubt The flame that rages in my heart warms yours; To carry out these subtle plans of ours, We have become as gypsies near this doll, You as her page—I dotard to control— Pretended gallants changed to lovers now. So, brother, this being fact for us to know Sooner or later, 'gainst our best intent About her we should quarrel. Evident Is it our compact would be broken through. ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... to the death of that champion, for in the chamber smoke was he smothered like a dog; nor is there loss therein, for he was grown a dotard." ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... pleased with the opportunity of displaying his powers before so distinguished an auditor. When the discourse was finished, they asked Hannibal what he thought of it. "I have heard," said he, in reply, "many old dotards in the course of my life, but this is, verily, the greatest dotard of ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... possessing fat enough to cook himself; but, being rather doubtful of his own culinary efficiency, had consented to receive a French cook into the family: and, fearing there might yet be a deficiency, the ever-credulous old dotard was making good-natured overtures to one Joseph of Hapsburg,—never trustworthy, and always known to act as circumstances changed interests,—who said there was no knowing what time he would be ready to turn his attention to such purposes. Joseph, however, was never in his ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... the murderous conflicts of Barnet, Towcester, Tewkesbury, St. Albans! How happy for Spain, had no modern line of French coxcombs (not succeeding by any claim of blood, but under the arbitrary testament of a paralytic dotard) interfered to tamper with the old Castilian rules, so that no man knew whether the Spanish custom or the French innovation really governed. The Salic law or the interested abrogation of that law were the governing principle ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... for my promised appearance, from the sign of the Hen and Chickens, with the cordials, and a few biscuits on a salver—when, lo! an old bald-pated, oily-faced, red-nosed Cameronian ranter, whom by your elegant negligee capering you have fairly danced out of his dotard senses, comes pawing up to you like Polito's polar bear, drops on his knees, and before you can avert your nose from a love-speech, embalmed in the fumes of tobacco and purl, the hoary villain has beslobbered your lily-white fingers, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... other occupations. But it was your getting the money from her at the Kaims for Nanny that I was to speak of. Absurd though it seems, I think some dotard must have seen you and her at the Kaims, and mistaken her for ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... "My cousin had quite supplanted me with my so-called Uncle McClintock. The old dotard would have left him every cent, except for that calf-love affair of Stan's with the Selden girl. Some reflections on the girl's character had come ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... opposeth, And axeth if that he supposeth 2300 What deth he schal himselve deie. He seith, "Or fortune is aweie And every sterre hath lost his wone, Or elles of myn oghne Sone I schal be slain, I mai noght fle." Thoghte Alisandre in privete, "Hierof this olde dotard lieth": And er that other oght aspieth, Al sodeinliche his olde bones He schof over the wal at ones, 2310 And seith him, "Ly doun there apart: Wherof nou serveth al thin art? Thou knewe alle othre mennes chance And of thiself hast ignorance: That thou hast seid amonges alle Of ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... Paris his "Medecin malgre lui," his "Etourdi," his "L'Avare," and his "Scapin." Milan offered a pimp in the Brighella; Florence an ape of fashion in Gelsomino. These and other pantomimic characters, and some ludicrous ones, as the Tartaglia, a spectacled dotard, a stammerer, and usually in a passion, had been gradually introduced by the inventive powers of an actor of genius, to call forth his own ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... they ever heard of a river in Monmouth and another in Macedon? There was an Allen some hundred years ago—and a Ben Allen now alive in India. What rubbish was this? ("Shame" cries of "put him out"). Where was the connection, he asked. Some old dotard or dodderer, they were told, said so. The doddering in the case was not confined to that individual. Here Mr. Pickwick rose, and, with much heat, told the intruder to sit down. He would not hear him; he ought to be ashamed of himself. "Would you believe it," went on Mr. Pickwick, ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... poor old dotard, there's no oil in these specimens. You can smell 'em yourself if you want to," he said. But there was something in his manner of the lady who doth protest ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... Metastasio is here," said the empress, "for his presence will prove to Calzabigi that he is not a pensioned dotard. And what thinks my daughter of the opera?" asked Maria Theresa of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... admission. Distinguished as it is by puerile desires and pursuits, by a failure of the memory, a deficiency of the judgment, and a general obliteration of the mental powers, its external signs are easily appreciated, and furnish at once abundant reason why, like idiots and madmen, the superannuated dotard is unfit to be the recipient of ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... "The Wandering Jew, thou dotard!" The wondrous phantom cried— "'Tis several centuries ago Since that poor stripling died. He would not use my nostrums— See, shaveling, here they are! These put to flight all human ills, These conquer death—unfailing pills, And ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... what you are, monsieur!" she said, coming up to him and impudently snapping her fingers under his nose. "Such a fool this white-headed old dotard of a count, to think that he can take me in with a silly yarn about going to visit a nephew and bringing him back here to stay. Monsieur, you are a police spy. Well, good luck to you. Get what the Mauravanian ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... old dotard! Good Lord, I know colonial law; I've been skating on the edge of it on more planets than you're years old. And I never thought of that; why, of course it would. Where are you now, with the Company, ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... father!—you old dotard Dot-and- carry-one that you are," answered the goldsmith. "A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... philosopher, &c., in short he is everything and knows everything. When Nurredin orders him to begin his shaving he relates the fate of his six brothers, who all died before him and always of love. At last Nurredin's patience giving way, he calls his servants in to throw the old dotard out of doors. But Abul drives them all back and Nurredin tries to pacify him with flattery ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... stuff as dreams are made of, and that of the most pernicious kind." In imitation of his parent, an obscure Frenchman, Caussee, has not hesitated to call this Dionysius, the Apostle of an illustrious nation, "an old dotard." Ignatius has given grievous offence to the Centuriators of Magdeburg, as also to Calvin, so that these men, the offscouring of mankind, have noted in his works "unsightly blemishes and tasteless prosings." ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... old dotard. Look at him; he can scarcely move his legs, old Harry with the evil eye. Keeps three women in the village; one is not enough for him. (The monks laugh good-naturedly) You see, you see? Whew! Look at their brazen, shameless eyes! Might ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... Instead of bewailing, and sighing, and fainting like a lovesick swain, it would be better to set to work to think out some plan for rescuing your Marianna. You just wait and see, Antonio, how finely we'll circumvent the old dotard; in such like emprises, the wildest extravagance hardly seems to me wild enough. I'll set about it at once, and learn what I can about the old man, and about his usual habits of life. But you must not be seen in ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... grew thoughtful, and bent down his brow: "O man, what can magic avail thee! A false lying dotard, Enchanter, art thou: Our rage and contempt should assail thee. My horse might have borne me till now, but for thee Then the bones of his charger ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... his State, and shuns to know, That Life protracted is protracted Woe. Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, And shuts up all the Passages of Joy: In vain their Gifts the bounteous Seasons pour, The Fruit Autumnal, and the Vernal Flow'r, With listless Eyes the Dotard views the Store, He views, and wonders that they please no more; Now pall the tastless Meats, and joyless Wines, And Luxury with Sighs her Slave resigns. Approach, ye Minstrels, try the soothing Strain, And yield the tuneful Lenitives of Pain: No Sounds ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... and leaned my hand against the table for support, breathing heavily. Behind me I heard the click, click of the roulette-ball as it pursued its course around the wheel. The old dotard had already forgotten me, and was playing with his right hand against his ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... nymph retract, and pardon for thy words, "With suppliant voice require; Pallas will grant." Sternly the damsel views her; quits the threads Unfinish'd; scarce her hand from force restrains: And rage in all her features flushing fierce, Thus to the goddess, well-disguis'd, she speaks:— "Weak dotard, spent with too great gift of years, "Curst with too long existence, hence, begone! "Such admonition to thy daughters give, "If daughters hast thou; or thy sons have wives: "Enough for me my inbred wisdom serves. "Hope not, that ought thy vain advice ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... of a ballad-maker; a tapster; a drunkard; a rectified young man; a young nouice's new yonger wife; a common fidler; a broker; a iouiall good fellow; a humourist; a malepart yong upstart; a scold; a good wife, and a selfe-conceited parcell-witty old dotard. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... said Vautrin, holding the letter up to the light. "A banknote? No." He peered into the envelope. "A receipted account!" he cried. "My word! 'tis a gallant old dotard. Off with you, old chap," he said, bringing down a hand on Christophe's head, and spinning the man round like a thimble; "you ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... were "mere boys" and "visionary young men"; Franklin was an "old dotard" and "in his second childhood"; and as for Washington, "What did ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... thou wert but once more young! That I might strike thee to the earth For this audacious lie, thou feeble dotard. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... with a dull world under, The dreary world of the Commonplace, I have stood when the whole world seemed a blunder Of dotard Time, in an aimless race. With worry about me and want before me - Yet deep in my soul was a rapture spring That made me cry to the grey sky o'er me: 'Oh, I know this life ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... soules anguish, Desires dread, mindes madnes, Secrets bewrayer, natures error, 10 Sights deceit, sullens sadnes, Speeches expence, Cupids terror, Malcontents melancholly, Liues slaughter, deaths nurse, Cares slaue, dotard's folly, Fortunes bayte, world's curse, Lookes theft, eyes blindnes, Selfes will, tongues treason, Paynes pleasure, wrongs kindnes, Furies frensie, follies reason: 20 With cursing thee as I began, Neither God, neither man, ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... called her by name, but a harsh voice me this ear in reply. He was grasped by the arms, and, looking up, perceived three strange men in the chamber. He attempted to shake them off, but in vain. He called for help, but they scoffed at his cries. "Peace, dotard!" cried one: "think'st thou the servants of the most holy inquisition are to be daunted by thy clamours? ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... marry and wive, For better or worse With his elderly nurse— Which the poor little boy didn't live to contrive: His hearth didn't thrive— No longer alive, He died an enfeebled old dotard ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... like aspen-leaves in a storm? ... this darkness is but a conjurer's trick to scare women, and Khosrul's followers can so play with the strings of electricity that ye are duped into accepting the witch-glamour as Heaven's own cloud-flame! By the gods! If Al-Kyris falls, as yon dotard pronounceth, her ruins shall bury but few heroes! O superstitious and degraded souls! ... I would ye were even as I ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... a superficial knowledge of the Scriptures and with no knowledge of science who would fain arrogate to themselves the power of decreeing upon all questions of nature. As St. Jerome writes: "The talking old woman, the dotard, the garrulous sophist, all venture upon, lacerate, teach, before they have learnt. Others, induced by pride, dive into hard words, and philosophate among women touching the Holy Scriptures. Others (oh, shameful!) learn of women what they ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... dotard fly, With thy wise dreams, and fables of the sky. Go prophesy at home, thy sons advise: Here thou art sage in vain—I better read the skies Unnumber'd birds glide through the aerial way; Vagrants of air, and unforeboding stray. Cold in the tomb, or in the deeps ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope |
