"Maddening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... watched it sweep toward him with grim satisfaction at the fulfilment of his own prophecy and with disgust that, by the irony of fate, it should come from the very quarters where years before he had played the maddening part of lunatic at large. The avalanche was sweeping southward; Pennsylvania was creeping down the Alleghanies, emissaries of New York capital were pouring into the hills, the tide-water of Virginia and the Bluegrass region of Kentucky ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... Isabel Cueto's frank acknowledgment of theft was maddening, and the realization that she was helpless, nay, dependent upon his charity for her living, ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... command you," and Rita did not go to the door. Dic met Mr. Bays at the gate, paused for a word of greeting, and plunged into the snow-covered forest, while the words "during the last four months" rang in his ears with a din that was almost maddening. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... persistently looked out of the window. The work-hours were over, and from some neighbouring cottage the sounds of a concertina came on the quiet air. The musician had chosen a popular music-hall song, which he played over and over again with a maddening pertinacity. Roden bit his lip, and frowned at each repetition of the opening bars. Von Holzen, with a still, pale face and stern eyes, seemed to hear nothing. He had no nerves. At times he twisted his lips, moistening them with his tongue, and suppressed an impatient ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... behind it the vast creature, not unnaturally, refused to go! It darted from side to side. Backward and forward. Up to the wall, only to back bewilderedly away from it. And constantly the tubes flicked their blistering, maddening rays along its monstrous sides and tail, as the Earthmen tried to guide it ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... and groan, it was such a puzzling sort of book. To begin with its type was bewildering with its s's all turned like f's and its italics so thin you could scarcely decipher them. Besides that, the author, who remained discreetly anonymous, but none the less unwarrantably conceited, had a maddening way of spreading over a whole page the way not to do things—he didn't state at the start that it was the wrong way he was relating, he just meandered on, letting the reader suppose that was the rightest way possible as he ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... thought I had, time after time. I would start off a series of circumstances that should have had a grave alterative effect, and it would look for awhile as if a long-range change was going to be affected—and then it would straighten itself out again, with no important change occurring. It was maddening. We worked for five years trying to make even a small alteration—and brought back our data—" He pointed to the papers on the floor. "There are the calculations, applied on the Equation. Meaningless. We accomplished nothing. And the Dictator ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... Vernabelle, putting her hands to her chest to show where it tore. "That last maddening Russian bit—it leaves me like a limp lily!" So she was led to the punch bowl by Comrades Price and Tuttle, with the others pushing after ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... Drake Vernon. I concealed my real name and rank; but I had no base motive in doing so. I was sick of the world, and weary of it and myself, and I longed to escape the maddening notoriety which harassed me. And then, when I thought—ah, no! I won't say thought, for; I know that then, then, ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... spirit of humanity and good-will seemed everywhere prevalent among the citizens. We were now ourselves tortured by suspense. Could we escape, or should we again have to seek refuge from the flames? Surely the work of destruction would stop before it reached India Street? The hot breath of the maddening fire, and its lurid glare, were the only response. O, if the wind would only change! But a vane, glistening like gold in the firelight, steadfastly pointed to the southeast. For one moment it veered, and our hearts almost stood still with hope; but it swung back, and a feeling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... succeeds the death of God's dumb creatures, are crowded halls, are slaughtered cattle festivals?—are maddening songs, and giddy dances, and hireling praises from parti-coloured coats? Can the voice of a minstrel tell us better things of ourselves than our own internal one might tell us; or can his breath ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... showed all the passion of an uncontrolled nature. At times he would reach out for the crock of buttermilk that stood beside him and drained a draught of the maddening liquid, till his brain glowed like the coals of the tamarack ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... but in vain, for signs of help in the shape of a friendly cruiser, but the Germans proceeded with their high-seas robbery undisturbed and unalarmed. The Hitachi had a valuable cargo of rubber, silk, tea, tin, copper, antimony, hides, cocoa-nut, and general stores, and it was indeed maddening to see all these cases marked for Liverpool and London being transferred to the capacious maw of the Wolf for the use of our enemies. The silk came in very handy—the Germans used a great deal of it to make new wings for their "bird." The seaplane did not, of course, take off from ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... down in the hall, resisting the temptation to go into the beautiful night. At least he would see her on her way back. But he waited until nearly eleven, and she never appeared, and then the maddening thought came to him—she had probably passed to her rooms along the terrace ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... hate. Live not for self, but live for others' good. Indulge no bitter speech, no bitter thoughts. Help those in need; give freely what we have. Kill not, steal not, and ever speak the truth. Indulge no lust; taste not the maddening bowl That deadens sense and stirs all base desires; And live in charity and gentle peace, Bearing all meekly, loving those who hate. This is the way to Brahma Loca's rest. And ye who may, come, follow after me. Leave wealth and home and all the joys of life, That we may ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... open winter that followed, and outdoor operations could thereby go on uninterrupted. In the office, the pompous Applerod, in his frock-coat and silk hat, ground Johnson's soul to gall dust; for he had taken to saying "Mr. Johnson" most formally, and issuing directions with maddening politeness and consideration. An arrangement had been effected with Applerod, whereby that gentleman, for having suggested the golden opportunity, was to reap the entire benefit of the improvement on his own twenty acres, Bobby financing the whole deal and charging ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is." They were enraged that this unlettered mendicant should answer so boldly in their scholarly presence; but the man was more than a match for all of them. His rejoinder was maddening because it flouted their vaunted wisdom, and withal was unanswerable. "Why herein is a marvellous thing," said he, "that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... him. Somewhere a drum began, reverberating as though unfixed in space; now before them, now behind; now, it seemed, in the air. The sound was maddening A swaying began in the crowd that took on cadence, became a dance. Simpson, his brain drugged, his senses perfervid marched on in exultation. These were his people ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... cry? Albeit for such I could despise a crown Of aught save laurel, or for such could die. I am a fool of passion, and a frown Of thine to me is as an adder's eye. To the poor bird whose pinion fluttering down Wafts unto death the breast it bore so high; Such is this maddening fascination grown, So strong thy magic or ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... was practising; indeed it seemed to me very much as if those frequent visits to town had been at the "dead" man's suggestion and with his entire consent. But the more I reflected upon the extraordinary details of the tragedy and its astounding denouement, the more hopeless and maddening became the problem. ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... option, under cover of her blindness, and obtained her quit-claim to the mine, she would at least have had the satisfaction of obtaining her own terms—and she would have the twenty thousand to spend. It was maddening, disgusting, when she thought it over, that he had turned out to be Holman's son, and she never quite forgave Virginia for dinning the fact into her ears. For what you don't know will never hurt you, and ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... with perfectly maddening deliberation, but for all that he overtook her before she had gone farther than a few rods, and he pulled up beside her with a decision which caused Huckleberry to stop also; Huckleberry, it must be confessed, was never known to show any reluctance in that direction when his head was turned ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... the ground.] Oh, you're maddening, Nicko! You are; you're maddening. Last night it was Stewie Heneage you chose to be jealous of, simply because you'd heard him sounding my praises at Catani's! You almost broke the window of the car, ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... a maddening smile and opened her mouth. Then she changed her mind and raised her ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... with curses that it seemed must blister his tongue. She received his effort with jeering laughter and taunting words; moving her body, now and then, among the cushions, with an air of purely physical enjoyment that, to the other, was maddening. ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... facts that the ice-water in the coolers scalded the mouth; the brass-work on the seats blistered the hands; and the empty stoves, almost red-hot from their exposure to the sun, superheated the cars to a degree that was maddening. Added to these was the fact that the intense heat expanded the rails until they were several miles longer than usual, and thus the passengers suffered the tortures of the transit for an ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... "It's perfectly maddening!" exclaimed Nell, with brows most becomingly wrinkled. "If we only knew something of English politics, we might be able to guess what it is ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... of Philip to end the life of his son by other means than execution he could not have taken better measures. For a young man of his high spirit and fiery temper such strict confinement was maddening. At first he was thrown into a frenzy, and tried more than once to make way with himself. The sullenness of despair succeeded. He grew daily more emaciated, and the malarial fever which had so long affected him now returned in a ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... in the air higher than she had yet gone. A maddening wail went up, and for a moment she tottered on the apex of an elevation like a wooden idol upheaved by an earthquake. Before she had time to tumble over she sank again with a thump. The great hairy bear, looking twice as large in that room ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... heard that call can never understand, those who have heard will forgive this feeble description of the intoxicating, soul-shattering, maddening sound. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... days and hours which elapse between the dates of an Arab's birth and death, his life seems a short one reckoned by sensations and incidents, for he spends so very large a proportion of it in sitting on the hump of a camel as it toils across a country of maddening sameness. The distances he has to travel are so vast, and his means of ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... whizzing down upon the backs of the two horses, who no sooner heard the whistling in the air above them, than instinctively they gave a great plunge forward, and broke into a gallop. Not a sound was heard from the two who sat behind. Mansana repeated the performance, and this time with maddening effect upon the horses. The road at this point began to slope down towards a stiff, steep hill; and precisely at this very point, Mansana, for the third time, raised the whip, swung it in lasso fashion round his head, and brought it down ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... laughs with us; in the days of vague and fantastic melancholy, there is an air of wistfulness, of mystery, that ministers to our luxurious sadness. But when one bears about the heavy burden of a harassing anxiety of sorrow, then the smile on the face of nature has something poisonous, almost maddening about it. It breeds an emotion that is like the rage of Othello when he looks upon the face of Desdemona, and believes her false. Nature has no sympathy, no pity. She has her work to do, and the swift and bright process goes on; she casts her failures ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in the morning, after a maddening hour in his own garden on the edge of the retreating brook, Midmore went off to confront more damage at Sidney's. The first thing that met him was the pig, snowy white, for the water had washed him out of his new sty, calling on high heaven ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... give. And now to be betrayed, forsaken, despised, to sink lower and lower, until at last I must become the object of your pity! To have fallen so low, that you should dare come and offer me to give up Jacques for my benefit! Ah, that is maddening! And I should let the vengeance I hold in my hands slip from me at your bidding! I should be stupid enough, blind enough, to allow myself to be touched by your hypocritical tears! I should secure your happiness by the sacrifice of my reputation! No, madam, cherish ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... that I was ready any time. He said yes, but that wed have to wait for the slow ones cause they was all goin together. I says was I to go out to drill with the rest. He said yes more for the example than anything else. Its kind of maddening to be hangin round here when I might be over there helpin the Sammies put ...
— Dere Mable - Love Letters Of A Rookie • Edward Streeter
... the heavy roll, and horrid explosion of the powder-barrels, the whizzing flight of the blazing splinters, the loud exhortations of the officers, and the continual clatter of the muskets, made a maddening din. Now a multitude bounded up the great breach, as if driven by a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous beams chained ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... with a maddening slowness, in the manner of all bottles. Presently he recovered his strength and addressed a screaming oath to it. He leaned over until it seemed as if he intended to try to push water into it with his hands. His eyes as he gazed down into the well ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... say, perhaps, that the one person about whom the thoughts of the men composing the rescuing party centred was the gentle, bright, and pretty Brenda. To think of her falling into the hands of the merciless Apaches was almost maddening. ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... vehemently. Jimmy's prohibition against billiards had hit him hard. He was suffering the torments of Tantalus. The castle was full of young men of the kind to whom he most resorted, easy marks every one; and here he was, simply through Jimmy, careened like a disabled battleship. It was maddening. "Make him go. You invited him here. He doesn't expect to stop indefinitely, I suppose? If you left, he'd have to, too. What you must do is to go back to London to-morrow. You can easily make some excuse. He'll have to go with you. Then, you can drop him in London, and come back. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... light that always shone upon Ayesha's brow; the wide-set, maddening eyes which were filled sometimes with the fire of the stars and sometimes with the blue darkness of the heavens wherein they float; the curved lips, so wistful yet so proud; the tresses fine as glossy silk that still spread and rippled as though with a separate life; the ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... confess when one is frightened. It may console some of you, when your own nerves play you tricks, to remember that you have heard even me, Brigadier Gerard, say that I have been scared. And besides my terror at this horrible attack, and the maddening pain of my wound, there was a sudden feeling of loathing such as you might feel were some filthy tarantula to strike its ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... truth. Now another alarm, another fire bell mingles its sound with the general chorus of discord, shouts of the soldiery, the frightened cries of the people—jells of the drunken troops all a scathing, maddening turbulance in the crowded streets. A lurid glare shoots up above the housetops, then the cracking and roaring of the dread elements told but too plainly that the beautiful city was soon to be wrapped in flames. The sack and ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... in his breast, As he heard them, in one maddening moment releast All that's evil and fierce in man's nature, to crush And extinguish in man all that's good. In the rush Of wild jealousy, all the fierce passions that waste And darken and devastate intellect, ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... Maddening as it was to French to see his old enemy escape through his fingers like this, the condition of his men and of his horses had to be taken into account; they were dead beat. For once the manoeuvring of De Wet proved as successful as when it was practised by French at Colesberg. ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... wonderful? No sleek-haired, slim and straight-backed youth said exactly any of these things to her, but somehow they were conveyed and filled her with a wondering realization of the fact that if they were true, they were no longer dreadful and maddening, since they only made people like and want to dance with one. To dance, to like people and be liked seemed so heavenly natural and right—to be only like air and sky and free, happy breathing. There was, it was true, a blissful ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... cannot touch the harp again, And sing another idle lay, To cool a maddening, burning brain, And drive the midnight fiend away. Music, own sister to the soul. Bids roses bloom on cheeks all pale; And sweet her joys and sorrows roll ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... "How maddening," cried Tuppence. "To think that Julius must have been actually under the same roof with her for ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... friend, Robert Barr, a mine in which you can never pick for half an hour without striking it rich. Alas! for the horrible slang of those days, the vapid witless Corinthian talk, with its ogles and its fogles, its pointless jokes, its maddening habit of italicizing a word or two in every sentence. Even these stern and desperate encounters, fit sports for the men of Albuera and Waterloo, become dull and vulgar, in that dreadful jargon. You have to tum to Hazlitt's account of the encounter ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... am. That is the kind of avenger that is on the track of that pancake-eater. I sat there and nodded over my remaining pancake, clutched in my hands, and finally started to my feet in alarm. Suppose I should fall asleep, and be robbed? The thought was maddening. I have read of Indians who would eat enough at one sitting to last them several days, and the thought occurred to me that if I ate the pancake my enemies could not get it away from me, and perhaps it would digest gradually, a little each day, and brace me up until we ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... Jasper went out together into the old grounds in the old way, and the sweet, yet sorrowful, week—so maddening to poor Hollyhock, so joyous to Jasper—was forgotten in the spirit of reunion. Oh, it was perfect for the Flower Girl to be with her precious Precious Stone again, and she even loved his dear Scots ways so much that she told him of her ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... the frying-pan into the fire!" This should have been my chosen motto from the beginning. The performance of the maddening feat indicated in the proverb has been the principal business of my life. I am always finding myself in the frying-pan, and always flopping out into the fire. My father's interference saved me from the dreadful old creature ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... tightly swathed hips, under the most brilliant light, women and maidens, whose chief virtue has always been modesty, exhibit themselves in the midst of strange men, who are also clad in improperly tight-fitting garments; and to the sound of maddening music, they embrace and whirl. Old women, often as naked as the young ones, sit and look on, and eat and drink savory things; old men do the same. It is not to be wondered at that this should take place at night, when all the common people are asleep, so that no one may see them. But ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... "You are a cad, young sir," kept sounding in my ears with maddening iteration. "I cannot leave things as they are," I at length decided as I rose to my feet with the fixed intention of returning to the gentleman and saying something outrageous to him—perhaps, also, of breaking the candelabrum over his head ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... loneliness of the plains and wilderness; he began to yearn for the companionship of his humble associates—the teamster, the scout Gildersleeve, and even Jim Hooker. But above all and before all was the wild desire to get away from these maddening streets and their bewildering occupants. He ran back to the baker's, gathered his purchases together, took advantage of a friendly doorway to strap them on his boyish shoulders, slipped into a side street, and struck out at ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... beneath the bough, nor moans At the death life feeds on). Robin, pray Come away, come away To the cultus of night. Abandon the day. Have more to think and have less to say. And CANNOT you walk now? Bah! don't hop! Stop! Look at the owl, scarce seen, scarce heard, O irritant, iterant, maddening bird!" ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... solve these maddening puzzles!" declared Nick, with a look of affection in the direction of the chum who ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... standing—standing—standing yet! With the flesh sick, the inmost soul a-fret, Pale, pulseless patiences, our very sex, That should be a protection, one more load To lade, and chafe, and vex. No tired ox urged to tramping by the goad Feels a more mutely-maddening weariness Than we white, black-garbed spectral girls who stand Stonily smiling on while ladies grand, Easily seated, idly turn and toss The samples; and our Watcher, 'neath the gloss Of courtly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... on coat hangers! Four skirts, beautifully hung! And what a litter of brushes and things on the floor! She turned to Dan, who had not entered, but was standing in the doorway, smiling. "It must have been perfectly maddening for the good lady of the ship to leave all this behind." She walked to the dressing-table and peered into the mirror. It must be said she saw a girl whom under other circumstances she would hardly ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... tried hard to go on composedly with the dissertation on cranes. "Flocks of these birds, Maria, pass periodically over the southern and central countries of Europe"—Her breath failed her, as she looked at Ovid: she could say no more. Zo stopped those maddening confidences; Zo, in desperate want of information, tugged boldly ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... traits in his nature and assumptions inspired me, had operated, hitherto, to impress me with an idea of my own utter weakness and helplessness, and to suggest an implicit, although bitterly reluctant submission to his arbitrary will. But, of late days, I had given myself up entirely to wine; and its maddening influence upon my hereditary temper rendered me more and more impatient of control. I began to murmur, to hesitate, to resist. And was it only fancy which induced me to believe that, with the increase of my own firmness, ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... well-stored magazine. Our visit to this scene of suffering and disaster was more harrowing than it is in the power of words to express; the sights which met our eyes, and the reflections they gave rise to, were quite maddening, and could not but increase tenfold the feelings of animosity and desire for vengeance which the disloyalty and barbarity of the mutineers in other places had aroused in the hearts of our British soldiers. Tresses of hair, pieces of ladies' ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... singular humiliations of earliest childhood have passed. Otherwise our first recollection would doubtless be of the grimly flushed large face of a resolute parent, bending hotly downward in effort to make both ends meet while we wambled and waggled in innocent, maddening sport. In those days when life was (as George Herbert puts it) "assorted sorrows, anguish of all sizes," the safety pin was the only thing that raised us above the bandar-log. No wonder the antique ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... use these, Mother." It was of no use to offer them till she was weakening in the search, and she would take them grudgingly with, "They don't suit me." Similarly with the keys, accepted only after prolonged and maddening search. "Well, you'd better try these, Mother."—"They injure ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... does not play because he is young, but he is young because he must play." Play is a constant factor in all grades of animal life. The swarming insects, the playful kitten, the frisking lambs, the racing colt, the darting swallows, the maddening aggregation of blackbirds—these are but illustrations of the common impulse of all the animal world to play. Wherever freedom and happiness reside, there play is found; wherever play is lacking, there the curse has fallen ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... rush to Dartford through the night; bareheaded he bent forward beside the chauffeur, teeth set, every nerve tense and straining as though his very will power was driving the machine forward. Then there came a maddening slowing down through Dartford streets, a nerve-racking delay until Sam Ogilvy's giant brother had stowed away himself and his satchel in the tonneau; then slow speed to the town limits; a swift hurling forward into space that whirled blackly around them as the ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... despair. He went on repeating the word 'sealed.' I began to realise that the wine had clouded his brain. No wonder! Foodless he had gone into futurity, foodless he still was. I urged him to eat at any rate some bread. It was maddening to think that he, who had so much to tell, might tell nothing. 'How was it all,' I asked, 'yonder? ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... eyes Which the Veiled Prophet destined for the skies:— And such quick welcome as a spark receives Dropt on a bed of Autumn's withered leaves, Did every tale of these enthusiasts find In the wild maiden's sorrow-blighted mind. All fire at once the maddening zeal she caught:— Elect of Paradise! blest, rapturous thought! Predestined bride, in heaven's eternal dome, Of some brave youth—ha! durst they say "of some?" No—of the one, one only object traced In her heart's core too deep to be effaced; The one whose memory, fresh as life, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Shakespeare gives to Richard therefore a power which excites astonishment, and a courage which extorts admiration. He gives to Macbeth a similar, though less extraordinary, greatness, and adds to it a conscience so terrifying in its warnings and so maddening in its reproaches that the spectacle of inward torment compels a horrified sympathy and awe which balance, at the least, the desire for the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... resist following the crowd to the door where he stood and watched his would-be captors silently mount; listened to the Sheriff give the word, which was immediately followed by the sound of horses grunting as they sprang forward into the darkness in a desperate effort to escape the maddening pain of the descending quirts and cruel spurs. It was a scene to set the blood racing through the veins, viewed in any light; and not until the yells of the men had grown indistinct, and all that could be heard was the ever-decreasing sound of rushing ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... passed away. At the time when I first stepped upon these grounds the red man still grasped the sceptre which has since been wrenched from his hand. They saw the throne of their fathers beginning to totter. Their realm had attracted the cupidity of a race of strangers, and with maddening despair, they grasped their falling power; and daily grew more desperate as they became more endangered. I among the rest had now a view of this exuberant west, this great valley of the Hesperides; and I determined to assist in extirpating the red man, and to ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... Aphrodite; and he hoped that she might be asleep. But when he swung the bar back into position and heard it strike the bricks, the tune and the words came back with the pendulum rhythm; and went on and on, till they were almost maddening, though there no longer seemed to be any sense in them. They made the ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... flowers,—no garlands green, Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen, Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, Like gleams of sunshine, flash between Thick leaves ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... wet night which had made his poor, ulcerated ankles as bad as they could be, and the pain in his eyes was maddening. Suffering from the murrain, too, it was far too dangerous to take him among other elephants, and so the end of Rataplan, the Rogue, was that, in spite of his grand physique, his unbreakable spirit, and his indomitable patience, ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... infant authors, maddening for renown, Extend the plume, and hum about the stage, Procure a benefit, amuse the town, And ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... gorgeous field they gather by a maddening passion fired, And they strive as strove the bright gods, ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... which had been fighting on the Southern side, and which numbered probably forty thousand men, were disbanded. These men had for four years been subjected to the unfamiliar and galling restrictions of military discipline, and to the most maddening privations. . . . At the same time four millions of slaves, without provisions and without prospect of labor in a land where employers were impoverished, were liberated. . . . The reign of law at this thrilling time ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... venture to incline your ear when I kneel before you and venture to hear me when I whisper, 'Father I have sinned;' I love a man with a maddening love that sets my brain on fire; I cannot pray, for his name ever rushes to my lips; I cannot look to the saints above, for everywhere I see his face; I cannot do penance, for I love my sin, and am ever returning to it; I had a good, true husband who ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... and dry in my ears and burn me blind. Pretty soon those people who read my paper, say the prosperity of the United States will slow down into a quiet trickle, then a dribble shading off into a blast of air and a maddening gurgle, while folks stick their heads out the window and swear at the government for not ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... I done that I should be made to suffer in this way? My God! Where is my child? This maddening suspense ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... short off in the middle of telling him something Miss Satterly had said—some whimsical thing—and he could hear his heart pounding in the silence which followed. The little, nickel alarm clock tick-tick-ticked with such maddening precision and speed that Chip wanted to shy a book at it, but his eyes never left the rocky bluff opposite, and the clock ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... with elocutionary slowness and passion the raw material supplied to him. No mechanical crossing and recrossing the stage, no punctilious tuition by your stage-manager—all was inspiration and fire. But to Pinchas this hearing of the play twice over—once raw and once cooked—was maddening. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... then?" I asked, trying to keep my head. A maddening sensation of excitement made my voice sound strained. "First, I want to tell you how beautiful I find my room. If you had known my taste, and had it done to please me, you could not have found anything I ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... attempt to gain her love, he would lose her friendship also. She would part from him as an enemy who had taken advantage of her sisterly affection to inflict an insult upon her. He knew that this would surely be the consequence; but yet, for the moment, he could scarce resist the maddening impulse to thus forfeit all while striving ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... town I feverishly collected them all; I picked out each in its order and held it up to the light. This gave me a maddening month, in the course of which several things took place. One of these, the last, I may as well immediately mention, was that I acted on Vereker's advice: I renounced my ridiculous attempt. I could really make nothing of the business; it proved a dead loss. After all I had always, ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... Amid the maddening maze of things When tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed stake my spirit clings I know that God ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... are free from stain, Where brilliant flowers blow in open meads, I heard the drumming hoofs of many steeds Raise maddening music from a grassy plain. They passed, with snorting nostril, flying mane, And fiery spirit; and the lad who breeds Their mettled herd, and pastures them, and feeds, Rode the black foremost, scorning ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... fingers nervously and shuffle with his feet, which of itself must irritate a woman with nerves on edge. He could do nothing. He could suggest nothing save that he should follow her about like a sympathetic spaniel. It was maddening. He walked to the window and looked out into the unexhilarating street, all that was man in him in revolt against ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... membrane. With guinea eggs there was quite another story. They have shells extra thick and hard—hence were laid plentifully in hot ashes, heaped over with live coals and left as long as our patience held out. When Mammy pulled them out, it was maddening to see her test them. She laid a short broom straw delicately on each egg. If it whirled round, the egg was done—if contrariwise it fell off, it had to go back in the embers. She had no thought of letting us eat eggs not cooked till the yolk was mealy. To this ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... self-consciousness in Sara Lee's bow and smile. Later on Henri was to find that lack of self and sex consciousness one of the maddening mysteries about Sara Lee. Perhaps he never quite understood it. But always he ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was no wife for him; and now—oh! Irony of Fate—he found himself compelled to the very reverse of what he longed to do: to fight the woman he loved—Yes, still loved—as if she were his mortal foe, and pay his court to the girl who really did not suit him. It was maddening, but inevitable; and once more spurring himself with the word "Onwards!" he flung himself into the accomplishment of the unholy task of subduing the inexperienced child at his elbow into committing even a crime for his sake. His heart was beating wildly; but no pause, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the more determined I became. She would sit there, calm and placid, until one of us entered the water. Then she became a veritable fury. It was maddening. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... wall of the Fortezza. Even in summer a little breeze would spring up towards sunset, and the leaves that had hung heavy and flaccid on the trees in the blazing heat of noon would be stirred by it to some semblance of life, while the shadows lengthened, and the incessant maddening scream of the locusts died down into silence. The gardens were a favourite resort. As the church bells rang the Ave Maria the people came to them by Camollia and San Domenico, to see each other and to talk over ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... tactful thing to say to ME, who had refused Max Irving so often that I had lost count. I was furious, and so I smiled most sweetly on my maddening aunt. ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... other nights of maddening pace, when music and wine, voice and laughter harnessed themselves to the chariot of youth and dashed us hither and thither. There were nights of melancholy, of anguish even, nights of failure and solitariness, when the last word seemed to be spoken, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... allowances for the impulses of boyhood. He had never condescended to study his own son, and the method of training he had adopted with him was in some respects very pernicious. His system hardened, instead of softening, and prejudiced Ben against what was right, maddening him with a sense of injustice, and so preventing his being influenced towards good. Of course, all this did not justify Ben in running away from home. The thought of his mother ought to have been sufficient ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... orchestra, and couples moved rhythmically round the big room, as though fatigue was a thing unknown. Once or twice Jim caught sight of the angel of his dreams, with face no longer pale, hanging on some man's arm, immersed in the all-consuming measure. It was maddening.... ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... doubt, recognize many old acquaintances; in the special hope of which, Bob Transit has faithfully delineated some of the most conspicuous characters, as they appeared on that occasion, lending their hearty assistance in the general scene of maddening uproar. It was past five o'clock in the morning ere we quitted this den of dreadful depravity, heartily tired out by the night's adventures, yet solacing ourselves with the reflection that we had seen much and suffered little ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... coarseness and imbecility of the servants' hall. There was a fierce crush under the festoons of gas lamps, and men in evening coats and women in outrageous low-necked old toilets, which they did not mind soiling, were howling and surging to and fro under the maddening influence of a vast drunken fit. At a distance of thirty paces the brass instruments of the orchestra were inaudible. Nobody was dancing. Stupid witticisms, repeated no one knew why, were going the round of the various groups. People were straining after wit without succeeding in being funny. Seven ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... Indeed, they were positively maddening. He went home, gave an emphatic order that no one, except Miss Martin, if she called, was to be admitted and savagely buried himself in ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... call for needful rest repelled, With dying hand the rudder held, Till in his fall, with fateful sway, The steerage of the realm gave way! Then, while on Britain's thousand plains One unpolluted church remains, Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around The bloody tocsin's maddening sound, But still, upon the hallowed day, Convoke the swains to praise and pray; While faith and civil peace are dear, Grace this cold marble with a tear - He who preserved them, Pitt, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... upon the wine when it was red, and found in its dregs the sting of the adder. He had participated in the maddening excitement of the gaming-table, from which remorse and horror pursued him with scorpion lash. He had entered the "chambers of death"—though avenging demons guarded its threshold. Poor, tempted Louis! poor, fallen Louis! In how short a space has the whiteness of thy innocence ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... of that kneeling figure, the sound of that piteous imploring voice, was well-nigh maddening to Daniel Granger. He caught his wife by the arm, and dragged her up from her knees ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... moaning cry. "O my dear infatuated brother, it is not in nature for a De Repentigny to love irrationally like that! What maddening philtre have you drank, to intoxicate you with a woman who uses you so imperiously? But you will not go, Le Gardeur!" added she, clinging to his arm. "You are safe so long as you are with your sister,—you will be safe no longer if you go to the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... "'Far from the maddening crowd,'" quoted Belle as they swung down the quiet river road. "But do be careful, Bess," she urged. "I know you understand as much about the car as I do, but I always feel that I ought to have a life preserver ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... certain, that I am the victim of an aberration," he said. "I do not speak of the Eucharist; there my thoughts may not be exact, but at least they are not maddening, while as for this ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... men were fools of necessity, and therefore the legitimate prey of rogues like himself. And yet, though he was more or less confronted now with men of integrity, he was as helpless in their hands as if he had been a child. The maddening part of the whole thing was his inability to find anything to strike. He was like a general leading an army into the dark in a strange country, and knowing all the time that he had cunning unseen foes ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... determined not to let vain regrets torment him. He shut out from his mind those pure images of home, the presence of which was maddening to him. Having stepped so deep into guilt, he would not, he could not, turn back. For Frank carried even into his vices that steadiness of resolution which distinguishes such natures from those of the Jack ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... self-willed, proud, passionate, with meager moral sense, he forfeited success by his perversity and his vices. From his own character and experience he drew the unhealthy and pessimistic views to which he has given expression in the maddening poem, The Conqueror Worm. And if there were not happier and nobler lives, we might well say with him, as we stand by ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... if I betrayed my absentmindedness during the time that I was struggling vainly with these maddening problems, but presently, Mrs. Camber having departed about her household duties, I found myself walking down the ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... he closed the door and began to pace a rageful sentry-beat back and forth between the windows. But all unknown to him one of the three fell sisters, she of the implacable front and deep-set, burning eyes, had entered with him to pace evenly as he paced, and to lay a maddening finger ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... external evidence of a mental state. Orville Platt always gave that little preliminary jerk when he was contemplating a step, or when he was moved, or argumentative. It was a trick as innocent as it was maddening. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... and the streak into a lane, and upon the lane came a blot that slowly resolved itself into the shadow of a hand upon the latch. Slowly, slowly, to the hand came a wrist, and to the wrist an arm—another minute, and this maddening suspense would be over. Despite Charmian's restraining clasp, I crept a long pace nearer the ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... Frenchwoman was torn with curiosity and repression. She wanted to know what causes had produced this unusual drama which was unfolding before her eyes. To be presented with effects which had no apparent causes was maddening. It was not dissimilar to being taken to the second act of a modern problem play and being forced to leave before the curtain rose upon the third act. She had laid all the traps her intelligent mind could invent; and Nora had calmly walked over them or around. Nora's mind was Celtic: French in its ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... nearly an hour, while he has waited barely half that time. By the great horn spoon! If his serene highness does not admit us to his presence in a few minutes more, I shall beard him in his den, and demand audience in the name of the king. It is simply maddening to think of Cuyler carrying the Rothsay party farther and farther away with each minute, and having the beauty all to himself. Of course you don't care, since it was decided that they travel by the north shore of the lake, while, as I understand it, your beastly post lies somewhere ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... Sid DuPree dancing around her in maddening circles, some afternoon, while she shrank piteously from each cry of "'Fraid cat! 'Fraid cat!" Or that bully might throw pieces of chalk at her or pelt her with snowballs in the winter time until ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... to tell about her mouth and eyes! Her strange, sweet, maddening eyes, her subtle mouth! Mouth in whose closure all love's sweetness lives,— Eyes with the warm gleam of the ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Her maddening eyes were directed on the Maiden Head inn. Her full lips were parted in a harsh boisterous laugh; her white teeth gleamed; the blood ran riot in her veins; she was the embodiment of exuberant, semi-savage, animal life. She danced up to the open window. The sight of the sleeping ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... And as he looked at the picture the hot blood in his veins ran cold. He stared—stared as if some wild and maddening joke was being played upon his faculties. A cry rose to his lips and broke in a gasping breath, and about him the floor, the world itself, seemed slipping away from under ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... battle in the harbor he had seen; and his own death he had described. But this was a much more startling plunge into the past. Was it possible that he had skipped half a dozen lives and was then dimly remembering some episode of a thousand years later? It was a maddening jumble, and the worst of it was that Charlie Mears in his normal condition was the last person in the world to clear it up. I could only wait and watch, but I went to bed that night full of the wildest imaginings. There was nothing that was not possible if Charlie's detestable ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling |
