"Madman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sudden, a hellish joy overspread his countenance; up he jumped, and, like Archimedes of old, ran like a madman amongst the throng, turning over tables, and papers, and witches, roaring out for a full hour together nothing else but 'tis found, 'tis found! Away were sent the sisterhood in every direction, some to traverse all the corners of the earth, and others ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... remarks, that flattery is pleasing even from the mouth of a madman; and censure, as well as praise, often affects us, while we despise the opinions and motives on which it is founded and expressed. Ravenswood, abruptly reiterating his command that Alice's funeral should be attended to, flung away from the sexton, under the painful impression that ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... panting before the door. Was he then fighting against an army? When she entered, the performance had increased and was embellished even more than on previous occasions. Coupeau was a raving madman, the same as one sees at the Charenton mad-house! He was throwing himself about in the center of the cell, slamming his fists everywhere, on himself, on the walls, on the floor, and stumbling about punching empty ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... had at present, the crisis might have been followed up, and a favorable direction given to his disease. But the subject was not understood then, and, having once fallen mad, he was doomed to live and die a madman. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... was the wisdom of him who resolved to shear the wolf. What, shear a wolf! Have you considered the resistance, the difficulty, the danger of the attempt? No, says the madman, I have considered nothing but the right. Man has a right of dominion over the beasts of the forest; and therefore I ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... hit back. He was, in contradistinction to many preceding English admirals, a cautious fighter at sea, and he says, in a striking passage of the History of the World, written towards the end of his career, "to clap ships together without any consideration belongs rather to a madman than to a man of war." He must have taken the keenest interest in the gigantic failure of the Felicissima Armada in 1588, but, tantalisingly enough, we have no record of his part in it. On the other hand, the two finest ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... pitied as a madman, discouraged by the great, refused by the rich, he kept on till, in 1790, he had the first vessel on the Delaware that ever answered the purpose of a steamboat. It ran six miles an hour against the tide, and eight miles ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... had been so often a lazy, lounging spectator. I sprung over the gutter as if it had been the fatal Styx, and I a ghost, which, eluding Pluto's authority, was making its escape from Limbo lake. My friend had difficulty to restrain me from running like a madman up the street; and in spite of his kindness and hospitality, which soothed me for a day or two, I was not quite happy until I found myself aboard of a Leith smack, and, standing down the Firth with a fair wind, might snap my fingers at the retreating outline of Arthur's Seat, to the ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... with the person's face, which was bluish-red, with a large nose. "Then," said he, "you bloody dog, come and bow to my bishop," pointing to the best house there. I stared with astonishment, and was turning away presuming he was a cloth in the wind or some madman escaped from his keeper. "Ho, ho! but you can't go before you have bowed to my bishop," he again called out; "come with me to my house, and we shall be better acquainted." He took my arm; I thought him a character, which I afterwards found he was, and gave in to his whim. On ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... the natives presented themselves in a body before him, and declared their firm determination not to proceed any further, for, to the apparent surprise of Stibbs, they informed him that Barraconda was the end of the world, and certainly no person but a fool, or a madman, would attempt to penetrate any further. Instances, certainly, they confessed had been known of persons going beyond the end of the world, but then, as might be naturally expected, they never were seen ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... honey bees, which in size exceeds very little the common house fly, the native sticks a piece of feather or white down to it with gum, and then letting it go, sets off after it as fast as he can: keeping his eye steadily fixed upon the insect, he rushes along like a madman, tumbling over trees and bushes that lie in his way, but rarely losing sight of his object, until conducted to its well-filled store, he is amply paid for all his trouble. The honey is not so firm as that of the English bee, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... have been more indulgent with him than with my other children; these are the reasons why my soul was ill when the melamed scolded and whipped him in the heder, as the other children. I sinned then. I rushed into the heder like a madman, spoke ugly words to the melamed, and took the boy away with me. Rabbi, I sinned, because the melamed is a wise and saintly man; but this sin will disappear from your mind, Rabbi, if you will but think that I could not bear to look at the bruises on ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... lowest sense of the term, of the burners of ricks and barns in the south-eastern counties, a few years since? What proportion of the ferocious, fanatical, and sanguinary rout who, the other day, near the centre of the metropolitan see of Canterbury, were brought into action by the madman Thom, alias Sir W. Courtenay; stout, well-fed, proud Englishmen—Englishmen "the glory of all lands," who were capable of believing that madman a divine personage, Christ himself, invulnerable, till the fact happened otherwise, ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... event caused much excitement on board, at the same time practically diminishing our crew by two, as one man had constantly to be told off to look after the madman. His subsequent career was watched with great interest by those on board. His madness continued during the whole of the voyage, although sometimes he enjoyed lucid intervals, during which his chief desire was to sing, and he was permitted up on deck, ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... appointed Francis Van der Hulst to be inquisitor-general for the Netherlands. This man, whom Erasmus called a "wonderful enemy to learning," was also provided with a coadjutor, Nicholas of Egmond by name, a Carmelite monk, who was characterized by the same authority as "a madman armed with a sword." The inquisitor-general received full powers to cite, arrest, imprison, torture heretics without observing the ordinary forms of law, and to cause his sentences to be executed without appeal. He was, however, in pronouncing definite ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... any other conclusion, because any other would be a madman's mental aberration, the breaking of the rules of sense and logic. And now do you know how the cycle of these novels really ended? By a hymn in the worship ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... when I repeat, that he has been known, upon a sudden and immediate emergency, to purloin ("convey the wise it call") a portion of the warmest of Mrs. Shelley's wardrobe, to protect some poor starving sister. One of the richer residents of Marlow told me that "they all considered him a madman." I wish he had bitten the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... "Thou madman!" he cried. "What meaneth this rage against me? I am thy step-sire, and thou doomest me to danger like this! So God my safe return bestow, I promise to work thee ill as long as thou hast the breath of life." Then Roland ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... upon him in his rooms and gave him such news of the Count as the sentinels of the sick-room permitted. Oh, yes, his excellency was a little better. He had spoken a few words and asked for his English friend. Nothing was known of the madman who struck him save that which the papers in his pocket told them. The fellow had been shot as he left the Grand Duke's palace; some thought that he had been formerly in the Count's service and that this was merely an act of vengeance, mais terrible, as Malette added with emphasis. Later on his ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... days, weary hopes and weary disappointment, scorn rankling and throbbing, and the thought "I had rather call the devils my brothers and live with them in hell." He choked and gasped for breath, and felt involuntary muscles working in his face, and the impulses of a madman stirring him; he himself was in truth the realization of the vision of Caermaen that night, a city with moldering walls beset by the ghostly legion. Life and the world and the laws of the sunlight had passed away, and the resurrection and kingdom of the ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... something that trailed long and black like a funeral, and he sprang to his feet in the dory, and lost his footing, then caught at the gunwale, and sat down again in despair. It was like the panic of a madman, and he cursed and swore at old Ferris for his sins, with nothing to hear him but the busy waves that glistened between him and the shore. Ferris had stolen his chance; he was coming along with his rigging as fast as he could, with his quick French wood-choppers, and ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of the poets is applicable to all mankind; and so a man, whom any one should undertake to persuade, that the mirth and joy inspired by wine is chimerical, would do well to answer him, after the manner as a certain madman did the doctor that cured ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... son of Urien to Kai, "thou wert ill advised, when thou didst send that madman after the knight, for one of two things must befall him. He must either be overthrown, or slain. If he is overthrown by the knight, he will be counted by him to be an honourable person of the Court, and an eternal disgrace will it be to Arthur and his warriors. And if he is slain, the disgrace ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... to conceal and I told him quite fully all that I knew. Actually, I believe if Jermyn had been there, it would have taken both Kennedy and myself to prevent violence. As it was I had a veritable madman to deal with while Kennedy gathered up leisurely the wireless outfit he had installed on the deck of Waldon's yacht. It was only by telling him that I would certainly demand that Kennedy leave him behind if he did not control his feelings that ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... mused a space, and said, 'Send him away, sirs, and make on. It is some madman,' the king said. As the king said, so was ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... general, presenting the bridge to him, as trustee of the nation, for the use of the army, when I got a sight of his face, as a torch flared up and lit the surroundings. It was pale, and if he was not a madman, I never saw one. He fairly frothed at the mouth, as he said, addressing a soldier who had fallen in the stream, during the afternoon, and who was putting on his shirt, which he had dried by ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... Mecca. In spite of Mohammed's eloquence, obvious sincerity, and attractive personality, he met a discouraging reception. A few slaves and poor freemen became his followers, but most of the citizens of Mecca regarded him as a madman. Mohammed's disciples, called Moslems, [4] were bitterly persecuted by the Koreish, who resented the prophet's attacks on idolatry and feared the loss of their privileges at the Kaaba. Finally Mohammed and his converts took refuge in Medina, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... secretly pleased with the commendations I receive, though, I am sensible, it is a madman who bestows them on me. In the same manner, though we are often sure that the censures which are passed upon us, are uttered by those who know nothing of us, and have neither means nor abilities to form a right judgment of us, we cannot forbear being ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... an eventful day. As usual, we all came down to the Fram, driving our empty sledges, at half-past six in the morning. When the first man got to the top of the ridge, he began to wave his arms about and gesticulate like a madman. I understood, of course, that he saw something, but what? The next man gesticulated even worse, and tried to shout to me. But it was no use; I could not make anything of it. Then it was my turn to go over the ridge, and, as was natural, I began to ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... in silence, occasionally startling his companion by wild plunges across the table, knife in hand. At first she was inclined to believe him a dangerous madman; but finding that the various dishes, and not herself, were the objects of attack, she refrained from flight, and considerately pushed everything within convenient stabbing distance of the blade, which unweariedly continued to wave in glittering curves from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... troubled by thy gaze, And the question which to answer I had taxed a subtle brain, What thou art, and what thou wilt be, came again and yet again; With its opposite deductions, it recurred a thousand times, Like a coward's apprehensions, like a madman's favorite rhymes. But to-night my thoughts flow calmer—in thy room I think I stand, See a fair white page before thee, and a pen within thy hand; And thy fingers sweep the paper, and a light is in thine eyes, Whilst I read thy secret fancies, whilst I ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... man of his word, then plays the madman! Prize-fight the first day of her honeymoon? Good Lord! Leaves her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... yet, an I gave not to him 'tis only too sure that he would put me to the torture; wherefore I arose to see if my skin were stick-proof or not." When they heard these words they said to him, "May Allah not assain thy body, unlucky madman that thou art! Of a surety thou art fallen mad to-night! Lie down to sleep, may Allah never bless thee! How many thousand dinars hast thou, that the Caliph should come and borrow of thee?" He replied, "By Allah, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... if we Twelve had our way there would be just such another roof kept always over Earth. For the slavering madman has left a many like him clamoring and spewing about the churches that were named for us Twelve, and in the pulpits of the churches that were named for us: and we find it embarrassing. It is the doctrine of Mahound they splutter, and not any doctrine that we ever preached ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... died at the very instant that I gave him my madman's alms. His head dropped back stiffly, his eyeballs rolled. Anna came in again. She must have caught the sound of my outcry vaguely, for ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... dollar beside. They arrived in Canada on the 28th day of October, 1830. Describing his exultation Henson said: "I threw myself on the ground, rolled in the sand, seized handfuls of it and kissed them, and danced round till, in the eyes of several who were present, I passed for a madman. 'He's some crazy fellow,' said a Colonel Warren, who happened to be there. 'O, no, master! don't you know? I'm free!' He burst into a shout of laughter. 'Well I never knew freedom make a man roll in the sand in such a fashion,' Still I could not control myself. I hugged and kissed my wife and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... Louve was Saint-Lazared that he has gone on like a madman. Is it our fault that she is in prison? When she is once out of prison, let her come here, and I will serve her out—good ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... I have a rival in the shape of my own son. He, too, wishes to marry Zuilika—is madly enamoured of her, in fact; so wildly that I have always hesitated to confess my own desires to him for fear of the consequences. He is almost a madman in his outbursts of temper; and where Zuilika is concerned—Perhaps you will understand, Mr. Cleek, when I tell you that once when he thought her husband had ill-used her, he came within an ace of killing the man. There was bad blood between them always—even as boys—and, as men, it was bitterer ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... preach, and, as he pretended, with all the requisites of a true apostle—that is, without being able either to read or write. He was about twenty-five years of age, irreproachable in his life and conduct, and a holy madman. He was equipped in leather from head to foot, and travelled from one village to another, exclaiming against war and the clergy. Had his invectives been levelled against the soldiery only he would have been safe enough, but he inveighed against ecclesiastics. Fox was seized at Derby, and ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... 'em, and he jumped up and carried on like a madman. His idea was for 'em all to club together to pay the money, and to borrow it from Smith, the landlord, to go on with. They wouldn't 'ear of it at fust, but arter Smith 'ad pointed out that they might 'ave to go to jail with Henery, and said things about 'is license, they gave way. Bob Pretty was ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... "Like Macedon's Madman, my glass I'll enjoy, Defying hyp, gravel, or gout; He cried when he had no more worlds to destroy, I'll weep when my liquor is out, My ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... nothing. But I cannot understand how it came to pass. I was hunting quietly in the forest. All at once my horse ran away, without cause. Did he see anything unusual?... I had just heard the twelve strokes of noon. At the twelfth stroke he suddenly took fright and ran like a blind madman against a tree. I heard no more. I do not yet know what happened. I fell, and he must have fallen on me. I thought I had the whole forest on my breast; I thought my heart was crushed. But my heart is sound. ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... is the definition of humanity? Where does it end and where does it begin? Does humanity end with the savage, the idiot, the dipsomaniac, or the madman? If we draw a line excluding from humanity its lowest representatives, where are we to draw the line? Shall we exclude the negroes like the Americans, or the Hindoos like some Englishmen, or the Jews like some others? If we include all men without exception, ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... semicircle, a dash, and another salient semicircle faced by a wide, open V. Imagine such a situation complicated by offensive and counter-offensive, during which the French have seized part of the hills and the German part of the plain, till the whole region is a madman's maze of barbed wire, earthy lines, trenches,—some of them untenable by either side and still full of the dead who fell in the last combat,—shell holes, and fortified craters. Such was something of the situation in that wind-swept ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... have fallen ten thousand millstones on my heart. I tried to run, but I couldn't. I was as cold as ice. I was as fast rooted to the ground as a tree. There was another shriek more piercing than before—and I was off like an arrow from a bow—I was loose then. I was all on fire. I ran like a madman till I came within sight of th' house; and there I saw Lizzy in her nightgown with half her body out of the window, shrieking and wringing her hands ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... when up flew the door, and in rushed my pupil the carpenter. "What has happened?" I asked. "Happened!" said the carpenter,—"Happened!! The bride's away with another man!! The bridegroom has taken to his bed, and raves like a madman; and his poor old mother—good honest woman—is crying like a child. Do come and see what can be done." I accompanied him to my landlady's, where I found the bridegroom in a paroxysm of mingled grief and rage, congratulating himself on his escape, and bemoaning his unhappy ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Official! British! 'Eavy defeat of the 'Uns! Many thousand prisoners! 'Eavy defeat!" It speeds by, intoxicating, filling him with a fearful joy; he leans far out, waving his cap and cheering like a madman; the night seems to flutter and vibrate and answer. He turns to rush down into the street, strikes against something soft, and recoils. The GIRL stands with hands clenched, and face convulsed, panting. All confused ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and one of the Thousand, he has been judged the man best fitted to direct the helm of United Italy in days of unexampled difficulty. This is enough to prove that he was not the first-come ignoramus or madman that some people then liked to think him. But Crispi had the art of making enemies, nor has he lost it. Though volumes have been written on the civil administration under the dictatorship, the writers' judgments are so warped by their political leanings that it is not easy to get at ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... speaks evil of thee behind thy back. I send thee here a green hunting suit that my lady the duchess gave me; alter it so as to make a petticoat and bodice for our daughter. Don Quixote, my master, if I am to believe what I hear in these parts, is a madman of some sense, and a droll blockhead, and I am no way behind him. We have been in the cave of Montesinos, and the sage Merlin has laid hold of me for the disenchantment of Dulcinea del Toboso, her that is called Aldonza Lorenzo ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... show off their jesting tricks at Croydon fair, a most suitable place for them. On one occasion Hook personates a madman, accusing Mathews, 'his brother,' of keeping him out of his rights and in his custody. The whole fair collects around them, and begins to sympathise with Hook, who begs them to aid in his escape from his 'brother.' A sham escape and sham capture take place, and the party ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... practicability of traversing the atmosphere in all directions, by merely ascending or descending until a favorable current was attained, he was scarcely hearkened to at all by his contemporaries, who looked upon him as merely an ingenious sort of madman, because the philosophers (?) of the day declared the thing impossible. Really now it does seem to me quite unaccountable how any thing so obviously feasible could have escaped the sagacity of the ancient savans. But in all ages ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... ashamed of myself here. Not that I ran like a madman to the falls, and plunged into the thickest of the spray,—never stopping to breathe, till breathing was impossible; not that I committed this, or any other suitable extravagance. On the contrary, I alighted with perfect decency and composure, gave my cloak to the ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... in such a creature was the idea of a madman. Weapon he had none, nor the physical strength that would have enabled him to grapple with a boy of twelve years old. Half intoxicated with the spirits he had consumed on his long tramp, half delirious with fever, he had a vague notion that he could make an entrance into some ill-defended ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... be going mad. It is hard to believe he could so persecute his children were it not so, and it is not fitting that thou shouldest dwell beneath the roof of a madman." ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... our visitors, I believe I preferred Emperor Norton; the very mention of whose name reminds me I am doing scanty justice to the folks of San Francisco. In what other city would a harmless madman who supposed himself emperor of the two Americas have been so fostered and encouraged? Where else would even the people of the streets have respected the poor soul's illusion? Where else would bankers and merchants have ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... we are children; we are delighted with the marvellous story, we are not at all injured by the poison. Poor Swift! he was conscious of insanity's approach; he repeated annually Job's curse upon the day of his birth; he died a madman. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... him, and in crazy fury he turned on her, striking at her throat with the palette knife. The thin steel snapped, and the white throat showed only a scarlet scratch. Heloise, without that ordinary terror that would crush most women, grasped the thin wrists of the madman, and, though he could easily have wrenched his hands away, d'Yriex sank on his knees in a passion of tears. He shut himself in his room at Pontivy, refusing to see any one, walking for hours up and down, fighting against growing madness. Soon Dr. Charpentier ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... Emergency!' I think Blake could have made a Picture of it as he did of the Flea. Something of the same disgusting Shape too. . . . Blake seems to me to have fine things: but as by random, like those of a Child, or a Madman, of Genius. Is there one good whole Piece, of ever so few lines? . ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... serious case, for some money had been taken out of a drawer; but when the case was investigated it turned out that the house was a bar-room over which the man lived,—he was the same man who had pitched the dog into the water,—and that "No. 4", after being given whiskey enough to make him a madman, had been put out of the place, had broken into the bar during the night to get more, and was found fast asleep in a chair with an empty bottle beside him. I think the jury became satisfied that if any money had ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... that the Government would treat Tobias's case as that of a dangerous madman, rather than as a hanging matter, but, whatever its point of view, it was clearly undesirable for such an individual to remain at large. So the governing powers in Nassau, with whom Charlie Webster was ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... were worker termites. And these were centering their activities on an object as fearful as anything that ever haunted the mind of a madman. ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... everlasting types of human nature, as in Don Quixote and Hamlet, Antigone and Cordelia, Alcestis and Amelia. By this I mean that those features are most constantly insisted upon, not in which they differ from other men but from other kinds of men. For example, Don Quixote is never set before us as a mere madman, but as the victim of a monomania, and that, when you analyze it, of a very noble kind—nothing less, indeed, than devotion to an unattainable ideal, to an anachronism, as the ideals of imaginative men for the most part are. Amid all his ludicrous defeats and disillusions, ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... measures for the interior of France, and that the serious question of Switzerland is becoming less menacing. On the other hand, Austria behaves with a hostility, and I must say folly, which prevents all attempts at reconciliation. All the admirers of Austria consider Prince Schwartzenberg[21] a madman, and the Emperor Nicholas said that he was "Lord Palmerston in a white uniform." What a calamity this is ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... at a loss. At last she said in Spanish, "Thou wonderful enigma, I have been witness of all that has passed between thee and the Arab; and these affairs confuse my head like a whirlwind. Speak, therefore, plainly, that I may know whether thou art a madman or an angel?" ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... Philip was really convinced he had to do with a madman—perhaps a dangerous lunatic. So he answered rather testily, "No, certainly not; how absurd! you must see that's ridiculous. You're in a civilised country, not among Australian savages. All you'll have to do is to take the rooms and pay for them. I'm ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... of wit, Aboue the rage of Tyrants that doe sit, And from their strength, not one himselfe can saue, But they shall tryumph o'r his hated graue. In my conceipt, friend, thou didst neuer see A righter Madman then thou hast of me, For now as Elegiack I bewaile These poor base times; then suddainely I raile 90 And am Satirick, not that I inforce My selfe to be so, but euen as remorse, Or hate, in the proud fulnesse of their hight Master my fancy, iust ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... of consultation then took place, as a matter of form. Each captain asked of the other if he was perfectly satisfied as to Mr Littlebrain's capabilities, and the reply was in the affirmative; and they were perfectly satisfied, that he was either a fool or a madman. However, as we have had both in the service by way of precedent, Jack was added to the list, and the ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... ouvriers; but as it advanced and famine commenced, he contracted the habit of intoxication. His children died of cold and hunger. The woman he lived with followed them to the grave. Then he seems to have become a ferocious madman, and to have been implicated in the worst crimes of the Communists. He cherished a wild desire of revenge against this Jean Lebeau, to whom he attributed all his calamities, and by whom, he said, his brother had been shot in ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... live those in these ruins who are able to give you succour. But that you should come in to me at the moment you did—" He halted before the bold inquisitive brightness of her eyes. "Some day perhaps you will let me explain," he went on, embarrassed. "Indeed I must have seemed the most absolute madman, to you. But he who thinks he sees one returned from death in angry waters, may be ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... that he can stand it and her no longer. While she was pouring out literary garbage he could just manage to endure his position, but the thought that she would be hailed as a genius while he remained an utter failure was the final stroke that turned him from a mendicant into a madman. I am not going to tell you exactly what happened, but Jane found a "way out," and with her departure from this life my interest in the book evaporated. Mrs. HENRY DUDENEY has notable gifts as a descriptive writer, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... native of Salamis, conspired to give his exhortations a powerful effect, and the friends he had secured to back his attempt loudly proclaimed their applauding sympathy with the spirit of the address. The name of the pretended madman was Solon, son of Execestides, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... perverts the education of youth. With truth might his friends say it was wonderful that he should be accused of impiety, the whole tenor of whose life was reverence for God—a recognition not only of the divine existence, but of the divine superintendence. "It is only a madman," he would say, "who imputes success in life to human prudence;" and as to the necessity of a right education for the young, "It is only the wise who are fit to govern men." We must conclude that the accusations were only ostensible or fictitious, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... instant that I turned me to pick up the back-piece, a crash resounded through the chamber. He had hurled the breastplate to the ground in a fresh access of terror-rage. He strode towards me, his eyes glittering like a madman's. ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... through us for others. Hitherto the one perennial idolatry of the world has been destruction; and if one thing has escaped this insanity less than another, it is the human body. But for all that, we do not deny that a picture may be a work of genius, because any madman could destroy it in less time than it takes to suggest ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... deserts into China, thence to make his way by the sword through the whole circuit of Asia, and by the conquest of Turkey to unite Sweden with his new dominions: but this mighty project was crushed at Pultowa; and Charles has since been considered as a madman by those powers, who sent their ambassadors to solicit his friendship, and their generals "to learn under him the art ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... all that I tried it. Steamers, keels, and flats,—I hailed them all till I war hoarse; some o' 'em heard me, for I war answered by shouts o' scornful laughter. My own shouts o' despair mout a' been mistuk for the cries o' a fool or a madman. ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... incongruous, almost a humorous, thing to see the sun-warmed passivity of Ignacio Chavez metamorphosed in a flash into activity. He muttered something, leaped away from the Mission wall, dashed through the tangle of the garden, and raced like a madman to the eastern arch. With both hands he grasped the dangling bell-ropes, with all of his might he set them clanging and shouting and clamoring until the reverberation smote her ears and set the blood tingling strangely through her. She had seen the look upon ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... stop Maurice and inquire into his business. The inquisition was abruptly ended by a cut from the madman's sword. The gendarme took to his legs. Maurice continued, and the Mecklenberg tramped on after him. Into the Konigstrasse they turned. At this time, before the news was known, the street was deserted. Up the center of it the man went, his saber ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... inevitable, when you have to live with it, may contain of anguish wretched and humiliating. Her husband was risking his life, so she was absolutely convinced, and she could do nothing; she had come to the bed-rock of Samuel's character. She felt that, for the time being, she had a madman in the house, who could not be treated according to ordinary principles. The continual strain aged her. Her one source of relief was to talk with Cyril. She talked to him without reserve, and the words 'your ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... little while," said David kindly. "You hardly understand this business. The madman who attacked us meant to injure me, not you. Here is a cheque for L100, which will not only replace your horse and cab, but leave you a little over for ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... descent. Of the Italian branch the most noted descendant was Alphonso I., a distinguished soldier and statesman and patron of art, whose second wife was the famous Lucrezia Borgia. His son, Alphonso II., is remembered for his cruel treatment of Tasso, placing him in prison for seven years as a madman who dared to make love ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... could offer the world a safer, more stable basis for deterrence. We must also remember that SDI is our insurance policy against a nuclear accident, a Chernobyl of the sky, or an accidental launch or some madman who ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... hours over the exits and entrances of the characters in blue or white blouses who are to be the soldiers or the peasants, but who, meanwhile perform incomprehensible manoeuvres. Still the dream. One has to be a madman to put on these things. And the frenzy of the actors, pale and worn out, who drag themselves to their place yawning, and suddenly start like crazy people to declaim their tirade; continually the assembling ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... was enacted before every eye. With a yell the drunken maniac rushed to the rail. The nigger was at his heels—he was too late. Uttering another and more piercing shriek, the madman was overboard at a bound; one of his bundles preceded him; the other dropped like ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... loved him an' was faithful. An' she just worshipped her baby." Here Meg paused a moment. "Tom was a real danger to the country when she died," she presently went on. "He used to run about the woods like a madman, calling her to come back to 'im, an' threatenin' to murder any one who came nigh 'im;—then, by and by, he took to the kiddie, an' ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... plunging, the passengers were pouring out at both ends, and one fat man had crashed half way through a glass window on one side of the car, got wedged fast and was squirming and screaming like an impaled madman. Every door, of every house, as far as the eye could reach, was vomiting a stream of human beings; and almost before one could execute a wink and begin another, there was a massed multitude of people stretching in endless procession down every street my position commanded. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and brain; she had her arms about him. He tried to push her away, but she clung closer, and her senseless laughter echoed through the room. He flung her from him with an effort and rushed out through the hall and down the road like a madman. Estella, watching him, felt that she was avenged. She was glad with a joy more ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Indian and the bay of a deep-lunged hound regaining a lost scent. Then he began to throw over Sugar stock, right and left, in big and little amounts. He slaughtered the price, under-cutting Barry Conant's every offer and filling every bid. For twenty minutes he was a madman, then he stopped. Sugar was falling rapidly to the price it finally reached, 90, and the panic was in full swing, but panics seemed now to have no interest for Bob. He pushed his way through the crowd and, joining me, said: "Jim, forgive me. I have dragged you ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... Wislac, who looked oddly at me, and then laughed, saying that he believed I feared an old nun more than a wild berserk. And true it was that I was afraid of that stately abbess, though not in the same way as one fears a raging madman ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... guidance, confronted by the door of a mightily strong safety vault, the knobs of the combination lock bright and easily turned. And you might say: "Well, it's either the house of a man whose scheme of life is utterly beyond my comprehension, or of a madman." ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... I should be exposing myself to suspicions of the grossest superstition by questioning the sufficiency of Darwin; maintaining the reality of the Holy Ghost; declaring that the phenomenon of the Word becoming Flesh was occurring daily, he would have regarded me as the most extravagant madman our family had ever produced. Yet it was so. In 1906 I might have vituperated Jehovah more heartily than ever Shelley did without eliciting a protest in any circle of thinkers, or shocking any public audience accustomed to modern discussion; but when I described ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... hands, and then commenced playing. Up and down the floor he paced, backwards and forwards, never taking his hateful glance off my face and ever piping the same dismal dirge. At last, unable to stand the strain of it any longer, and convinced he was a madman, bent on murdering me—for who but a lunatic would behave in such a way?—I gave way to a violent fit of hysterics, and fainted. Now tell me who he was, and why he was permitted to frighten me in this manner?" And Mary stamped her feet and grew vicious, as only her class will when they ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... his notion that it was the French who were in sore straits; and he forbade the evacuation of Ulm; whereupon the Archduke, with Schwarzenberg, Kollowrath, Gyulai, and all whose instincts or rank prompted and enabled them to defy the madman's authority, assembled 1,500 horsemen and rode off by the northern road. It was high time; for Ney, firmly established at Elchingen, was pushing on his vanguard towards the doomed city: Murat and Lannes were charged to support him on the north bank, while across the river Marmont, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... side, and for a second turned his pallid face, in which his eyes were burning like a madman's, full on Paul as ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... demand which, in the first instance, he had to defend almost single-handed. Many of his best friends hung back, believing the time to be not yet ripe for such a proposal. Even Edmund Burke—the life-long and passionate friend of Ireland—cried out in alarm "Will no one speak to that madman? Will no one stop that madman Grattan?" The madman, however, went on undismayed. His words flew like wild-fire over the country. He was supported in his motion by eighteen counties, by addresses from the grand juries, and by resolutions ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... the last year of the period: and as Antony had been deposed,—a fact which I stated,[60]—Valerius Messala, who had once been proscribed by them,[61] became consul with Caesar. About this time a madman rushed into the theatre at one of the festivals, seized the crown of the former Caesar and put it on, whereupon he was torn to pieces by the bystanders. A wolf that darted into the temple of Fortune was caught and killed, and at the hippodrome during the very ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... shapeless Piazza Deferrari, with its statue to Garibaldi, while at the top of the Via S. Lorenzo on your right is the Church of S. Ambrogio, built by Pallavicini, with three pictures, a Guido Reni, the Assumption of the Virgin, and two Rubens, the Circumcision and S. Ignatius healing a madman. Not far away (for you turn into Piazza Deferrari and take the second street to the left, Strada S. Matteo) is the great Doria Church of S. Matteo, in black and white marble, a sort of mausoleum of the Doria family. Now, the family of Doria, one of the most ancient in Genoa, the Spinola clan ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... answered cheerfully, "the good old rain is at it in earnest. We're probably fixed for hours and hours. I might argue, you know," he added, "that I have a right to know these things. The box of matches I just gave away like a madman would have told me, and no questions asked. Matches and lamps you have none, but ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... or so the thatch burned on in silence. Then from within the building came the sound of an axe crashing, stroke on stroke, upon the posts and timbers of the roof. Some madman was bringing down the barn-roof upon him to save the house. The man at the window went on loading ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... away from Billy and flung himself upon his knees beside Little Mystery, sobbing and talking like a madman as he clasped the frightened child in his arms. With her he leaped to his feet with ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... Sunday, laughs at those passing by, and says to himself when he sees a gentleman going hawking with a bird on his wrist, "Ah! that bird will eat a hen to-day, and our children could all feast upon it!" Another is described as a sort of madman who equally despises God, the saints, the Church, and the nobility. His neighbour is an honest simpleton, who, stopping in admiration before the doorway of Notre Dame in Paris in order to admire the statues of Pepin, Charlemagne, and their successors, has his pocket picked of ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... little pipes of pasteboard simulated the sound of the human voice singing to the victorious notes of the long metal trumpets. At times this also, as people heard night after night those wandering sounds, seemed like the work of a madman, though they awoke sometimes in wonder at snatches of a new, an unmistakable new music. It was the triumph of all the various modes of the power of the pipe, tamed, ruled, united. Only, on the painted shutters of the organ-case Apollo with his ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... the first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping with a madman; and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render yourself liable to a criminal prosecution. Wall, said the landlord, fetching a long breath, that's a purty long sarmon for a chap that rips ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... despair when man is in agony." It is said that the difference between a fool and a madman is, that the fool draws wrong conclusions from correct principles, and the madman correct conclusions from erroneous principles. I leave my readers to judge under which denomination the author quoted comes. There is but one ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... and raved like a madman, but all in vain: for they swore they must have a dram. While they were devising ways and means how to get into the keg, the supposed tories, now a good distance ahead, came to a halt, and their captain fortunately reflecting that their pursuers ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... advanced medical science, it is sometimes difficult to decide whether a patient is insane or not, and it is quite possible to suffer from very severe fits of depression without being the subject of maniacal melancholia, or from very violent fits of passion without being a madman. ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... Senate. He belonged to the American. Party and by his application the Senate appointed a committee for examining my document. In that committee was a member of the Republican Party, who assured his colleagues, that he knew me, that I was a madman, having come from Geauga County in which I held a Convention in the year 1851. Notwithstanding the most malicious conspiracy of the Sectarian neighborhood we succeeded so far, that a number of resolutions in which I have concentrated what ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... Great was the death of the Tsarina Elizabeth (1762) and the accession to the Russian throne of Peter III, a dangerous madman but a warm admirer of the military prowess of the Prussian king. Peter in brusque style transferred the Russian forces from the standard of Maria Theresa to that of Frederick and restored to Prussia the conquests of his predecessor. [Footnote: Peter ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... serious that no loss in achieving such a result is to be compared to that. This event will delight my brother and faithful ally—and friend, Napoleon III.—I may add, for we really are great friends; this attempt,[78] though that of a madman, is very distressing ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... case all of a piece with what had gone before. In 1863 he wrote to a friend: "In trying to heal the British demoniac, true doctrine is not enough; one must convey the true doctrine with studied moderation; for, if one commits the least extravagance, the poor madman seizes hold of this, tears and rends it, and quite fails to perceive that ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... up any more original motions, and having breath for none, I sat on the floor and spat repeatedly, having seen a madman do that on the Hebron Road and get feared, if not respected for it. There seems to be a theory prevalent in that part of the world that the sputum ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... upon their paws; but a strange ugly creature, like an ill-shaped child, that was so vile to look on that I thought him the very Devil himself, crouching on the table by the archbishop's side, set up a chattering and a muttering, with now and then a kind of mocking laughter like a madman's meaningless merriment. Nor would he cease until my lord clouted him twice or thrice rudely on his ill-favoured crown with a "Hist, folly, stay thy devil's clatter." Now, this beast it was, one, I suppose, of those apes ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... thou madman, go to! and die the death," they answered, and led all the men to the centre of the courtyard whence they might see the pylon top. Then the priests also covered up their eyes and cast themselves at length upon ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... king of party. Catherine, in her despair, employed her last argument. She whispered in his ear, "Perhaps, sire, you are afraid." As if struck by an arrow, he started from his chair. Raving like a madman, he bade them hold their tongues, and with fearful oaths exclaimed: "Kill the admiral, if you like, but kill all the Huguenots with him—all—all—all—so that not one be left to reproach me hereafter. See to it at once—at once; do you hear?" And he dashed furiously out of the closet, leaving the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... Counsellor Von Sardagna collected certain particulars concerning Stainer, which were published in 1822. He states that Stainer lived at Absam, that it is traditionally reported that he went to Venice or Cremona, and died a madman. It appears that this slight material was at once utilised for the manufacture of nearly all the romantic accounts of Stainer with which we are familiar. Herr Ruf says that in the year 1825 there appeared ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... and the genius before his time, if judged by his works, can not be a genius at all. His thought may be great, so great that, centuries after, society may attain to it as its richest outcome and its profoundest intuition; but before, that time, it is as bizarre as a madman's fancies and as useless. What would be thought, we might be asked by writers of this school, of a rat which developed upon its side the hand of a man, with all its mechanism of bone, muscle, tactile sensibility, ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... doubtless more prudent than a madman in Bedlam; but is it not clear that the organs of d'Ossat the sage were made otherwise than those of the scatter-brain? just as a fox's organs are different from a ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... bend her from it) preserve a character of spotless integrity and useful industry,[55-] remembering that it is the fair price of INDEPENDENCE, which all wish for, but none without it can hope for; only a fool or a madman will be so silly or so crazy as to expect to reap where he has been too ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... her hands from his grasp and flung her arms above her head. "Yes," she cried, "I understand. I am a woman for whose sin Time has no mercy; you are a madman, and I am alone!" ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... form a branch of the great Franciscan Order, founded early in the thirteenth century by Saint Francis of Assisi. Saint, hero, or madman, according to the point of view from which he is regarded, he belonged to an era of the Church when the tumult of invading heresies awakened in her defence a band of impassioned champions, widely different from the placid saints of an earlier age. He was very young when ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... prelate of the kingdom of Ireland, who is a person of excellent wit and learning, he offered a notion applicable to the subject we were then upon, which I took to be altogether new and right. He said, that the difference betwixt a madman and one in his wits, in what related to speech, consisted in this; that the former spoke out whatever came into his mind, and just in the confused manner as his imagination presented the ideas: The latter only expressed such thoughts as ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... the house like a madman and on into the back room, where Moran, his face horribly distorted by passion, was forcing the girl slowly to the floor. But for the protection which her supple body afforded him, the ranchman would have shot him ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... darling," he cried. "I told you I'd kill you in the end! I told you the damn stuff was making a madman of me." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... ye seen?" she asked, with an uneasy cheerfulness, smiling, with eyes fixed steadily upon him; for the idea of a madman—even gentle Philip in that state—was ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... solitary glen, Fergus began to tell Edward that he had found out how wrongheaded and rash he had been in the matter of their quarrel. "Flora writes me," continued Fergus, "that she never had, and never could have, the least intention of giving you any encouragement. I acted hastily—like a madman!" ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Maria, but you must hear me. I was in earnest, terrible earnest in the mute vow I swore, and have sought to release myself from it by death. You have heard how I rushed like a madman among the Spaniards, at the storming of the Boschhuizen fortification in July. Your bow, the blue bow from Delft, the knot of ribbons the color of the sky, fluttered on my left shoulder as I dashed upon swords and lances. I was not to die, and came out of the confusion ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not a great many competitors of the highest quality. His Dick, also, was a remarkably good dog. Earlier specimens which have left their names in the history of the breed were Hinks's Old Dutch, who was, perhaps, even a more perfect terrier than the same breeder's Madman ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... Brown, "always encourage their own morbidity. They never strive against it. But you are trying to find traces of the burglar; even when there aren't any. You are struggling against it. You want what no madman ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... of them made his way on deck, and began to sing, and dance, and halloo like a madman. One of his shipmates, named Wilkins, remonstrated against such unruly conduct, and received in return a blow on the side of the head, which sent him with great force against the gunwale. The peacemaker, indignant at such unexpected and undeserved treatment, returned the blow with interest. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... he had served as secretary to the privy council for twenty-three years, he had thought that he might be believed upon his word. Hereupon La Tome drew up a formal protest, and Brederode drew up another. La Torre made a proces verbal of their interview, while Brederode stormed like a madman, and abused the Duchess for a capricious and unreasonable tyrant. He ended by imprisoning La Torre for a day or two, and seizing his papers. By a singular coincidence, these events took place on the 13th, 24th, and 15th of March, the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... character a well-defined thread of worldly wisdom and common-sense; to find that a man, described by almost every one who has dealt with his character as a credulous simpleton, one with disordered wits, or a down-right madman, should, when occasion demanded, prove himself to be a sharp man of business. When Fazio died he left his son with a number of unsettled law-suits on hand, concerning which he writes: "From my father's death until I was forty-six, that is to say for a space of twenty-three ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... I furious. I believe he could have killed me easily if he had wished, but he only parried my rapid blows. At last, however, as I pressed him more closely, he grew paler, and began to fight in earnest. What then could he do against a madman? I bore him back, step by step, till a mass of rock stopped him; and there I kept him, with the hissing steel playing about his head, until he dropped upon one knee and his sword fell from his hand. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... him as a breach of trust, and would, in fact, be a breach of trust. This consideration was not easily set aside, though I now see that it was needlessly scrupulous, and have no doubt whatever that if a child is left by the ignorance or the carelessness of superior authority in the hands of a madman, it has a clear right to provide for its own safety by any means ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... but when a peasant told me there was a bull-fight at Cordova, I set off like a madman to the spot. Lucas was pointed out to me, and on the bench close to the barrier I recognised Carmen. It was enough for me to see her to be certain how things stood. Lucas, at the first bull, did the gallant, as I had foreseen. He tore the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... heard the most illustrious authour of this age say: "If, Sir, Garrick believes himself to be every character that he represents he is a madman, and ought to be confined. Nay, Sir, he is a villain, and ought to be hanged. If, for instance, he believes himself to be Macbeth he has committed murder, he is a vile assassin who, in violation ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... sneer exhaustion I glared about me. The moonbeam had vanished, in its place lay a shaft of pale gray light, by which I could easily distinguish the whole length of the staircase and the closed gateway it its summit. I rushed up the ascent with the feverish haste of a madman—I grasped the iron grating with both hands and shook it fiercely It was firm as a rock, locked fast. I called for help. Utter silence answered me. I peered through the closely twisted bars. I saw the grass, the drooping boughs of trees, and straight before my line ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... when he got there? "I was alarmed," says he; "for the Rajah surrounded my budgero with two thousand men: that indicated a hostile disposition." Well, if he did so, what precaution did Mr. Hastings take for his own safety? Why, none, my Lords, none. He must therefore have been either a madman, a fool, or a determined declarer of falsehood. Either he thought there was no danger, and therefore no occasion for providing against it, or he was the worst of governors, the most culpably improvident of his personal safety, of the lives of his officers ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... she must know he was there; his very silence would be telling her—for his silence had its voice, its pitiful breathless sound. Then, quite distinctly, he heard her sigh, and her footsteps move away; and covering his face with his hands he rushed to and fro in the studio, like a madman. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... accident. She killed my child—killed her deliberately. Don't look at me as if I were a madman. She sat in that chair you're in ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... his head, seemed to stupefy him, so that at last they were obliged to halt and weave a kind of hat out of corn and grasses, which gave him so strange an appearance that some Moors, whom they met going to their toil, thought that he must be a madman, and ran away. ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... himself enjoying the reputation of a harmless madman. The name of the Earl of Rags was bestowed upon him, and the miserable companions of his wretched plight were never tired of tempting him to recount his adventures, for the sake of entertaining themselves by teasing that which they supposed ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... difficulty in obliterating the impression. The public were less tolerant. Windham has told us that at this time Burke was a man decried, persecuted, and proscribed, not being much valued even by his own party, and by half the nation considered as little better than an ingenious madman.[1] This is evidence beyond impeachment, for Windham loved and honoured Burke with the affection and reverence of a son; and he puts the popular sentiment on record with grief and amazement. There is other testimony ...
— Burke • John Morley
... knew what I meant, and that I was quite right in my conjecture, as regarded men, at least; a man who did not stop to think what the effect, upon himself and his own, his giving must have, would be a fool or a madman; but women could often give as recklessly as they spent, without any thought of consequences, for they did not ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... derangement was a common symptom of yellow-fever; and to increase the horror of the darkness that surrounded us (for we were allowed no light between decks), the voice of warning would be heard, 'Take heed to yourselves. There is a madman stalking through the ship with a knife in his hand,' I sometimes found the man a corpse in the morning, by whose side I laid myself down at night. In the morning the hatchways were thrown open; and we were allowed to ascend on the upper deck all at once, and remain on the upper deck all day. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... a deadly terror gnawing at their souls; and that evening Jurgis came home and heard their story, and that was the end. Jurgis was sure that they had been swindled, and were ruined; and he tore his hair and cursed like a madman, swearing that he would kill the agent that very night. In the end he seized the paper and rushed out of the house, and all the way across the yards to Halsted Street. He dragged Szedvilas out from his supper, and together they rushed to consult another lawyer. When ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... replied, "he was not a madman. He was almost a genius. Indeed, c'etait un Dore manque" (he was all ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... were obliged to make each stroke in time with their neighbors, and were bastinadoed mercilessly if they broke the rhythm; and there is little doubt that the expert artisans of France, Italy and Spain were even dearer to the old architectural madman than the friendship of the palace-building despot ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... appear'd, and all the gossip rout. O senseless Lycius! Madman! wherefore flout The silent-blessing fate, warm cloister'd hours, And show to common eyes these secret bowers? The herd approach'd; each guest, with busy brain, 150 Arriving at the portal, gaz'd amain, ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... the room. But when I spoke, and they recognised in the old lady the frock-coated (and I trust sympathetic) official they had interviewed earlier in the day, their astonishment knew no bounds. The father gazed at me horror-stricken, as though I were a madman; the mother kept on swallowing, as ladies of her type do when they wish to convey strong disapprobation; and the prominent-orbed boy's eyes nearly fell out of his head. I explained that some theatricals were in progress, but that did not mend matters; evidently in the serious circles in which they ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton |
