"Mad" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. Potts's got pokeberry and silver maple growin' all over his place, too, and he's as mad as—Well, you just ought to hear him snortin' around town. ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... lately took place at Cobham church: The earl of Darnley was followed there by one of his pointers, which shortly became mad, and threw the whole congregation into confusion and alarm. A countryman, with great courage, procured a rope, and slipped it round the animal's neck, and hung him across one of the pews. Fortunately no ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... rest of his life—and now they had come to an end. Now he had to show that he deserved them. "Good," he said, and leaving her side he softly descended the stairs, crept cat-foot across the tavern floor and insinuated himself dexterously into the society of his friends, who were by this time far too mad and merry to show any surprise at his sudden re-appearance, or to question whence he came. Only one of the fellowship was away from the board—Ren de Montigny, who had risen as soon as the soldier ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... today would be accepted nowhere unless by a court and jury composed of the inmates of a lunatic asylum, if even by them. It is unnecessary to say that the more severe the persecution, the more widespread did witchcraft become. Every person tortured accused others and whole communities went mad with grief and fear and superstition. No amount of human evidence establishing the actual whereabouts of the accused at the time they were asserted by the witness on the rack to have been at the sabbath would avail. The husbands were told that they had seen or held only the devil-created ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... have discovered the track of a chamois, and are going to take the gentleman to see if he can get a shot at it. He seems quite mad upon hunting, and I dare say you will get a five-franc piece ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Liberal deputation from Darlford, two aldermen, three town-councillors, and the Secretary of the Reform Association, were walking about London like mad things, eating luncheons and looking for a candidate. They called at the Reform Club twenty times in the morning, badgered whips and red-tapers; were introduced to candidates, badgered candidates; examined would-be members as if they were at a cattle-show, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... the ladies in the gallery were amused, but the Scotch were mad, and Choate lost invitations to future ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... insanity. Among other patients, we passed a deaf and dumb man, now afflicted with incurable madness too, of whom they said that it was only when his madness began to develop itself in strongly-marked mad actions, that it began to be suspected. "Though it had been there, no doubt, some time." This led me to consider, suspiciously, what employment he had been in, and so to ask the question. "Aye," says Dr. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... said. "I was driven mad with dread and horror. I had not slept for weeks. The night I staggered out of my house all the air seemed full of hideous things mocking ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... thou stood'st forth of all the ethereal host, When bold rebellion shook the realms above, The undaunted guard of cloud-compelling Jove: When the bright partner of his awful reign, The warlike maid, and monarch of the main, The traitor-gods, by mad ambition driven, Durst threat with chains the omnipotence of Heaven. Then, call'd by thee, the monster Titan came (Whom gods Briareus, men AEgeon name), Through wondering skies enormous stalk'd along; Not he that shakes the solid ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... summer nights, when the pulses of nature are felt and senses stirred with music and wine and dance, the Gran Madre di Dio is adored in a manner less becoming Christian youths and maidens, than heathens celebrating mad orgies to Magna Mater in Daphne, or the Babylonian groves (where she was not worshipped at all—though she might ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... her sleeping. I offered her some trional, and then—I just lingered. She thought it wise to be nice to—your aunt, and I turned the conversation to you. She said you were charming. I said you would be, if you hadn't such a terrible temper. I said you were almost mad with it sometimes, when you were a little boy. Yes, I did, really—you ought to thank me. I dare say you were a horrid little boy. But she didn't seem to mind that much. She told me that she got along splendidly with bad-tempered people: they were always nice ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... bright and vivid now, as giant hollyhocks growing in irregular rows. Still, they did not look one bit like houses, or offices where people could work without going stark, staring mad. I got a queer idea in my head that the houses themselves must be buried deep underground, like bulbs, with only their ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... well and kind o' grievin' about me, so, as I was making good money, I thought I could afford to surprise the old man by slapping him on the back. You see, when I left, I told him I'd never darken his door again—you know the line of talk a boy hands out to his dad when he's mad—and for over ten years I never so much as wrote a line to any of ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... his caresses in the proportion of their attachment to the chief object of his affections. When I return from an absence, or when he meets an old friend of mine, or of his own (which is the same thing to him) his ecstacy is unbounded; he tears and curvets about the room as if mad; and if out of doors, he makes the welkin ring with his clear and joyous note. When he sees a young person in company he immediately selects him for a play fellow. He fetches a stick, coaxes him out of the house, drops it at his feet; then retiring backwards, barking, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... written, most excellent Belisarius, carries sound admonition, but pertinent to some other men, not to us the Goths. For there is nothing of the Emperor Justinian's which we have taken and hold; may we never be so mad as to do such a thing! The whole of Sicily we claim because it is our own, and the fortress of Lilybaeum is one of its promontories. And if Theoderic gave his sister, who was the consort of the king of the Vandals, one of the trading-ports ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... and fled in terror stumbling through the swamp, hearing strange sounds and feeling stealthy creeping hands and arms and whispering voices. On he toiled in mad haste, struggling toward the road and losing it until finally beneath the shadows of a mighty oak he sank exhausted. There he lay a while trembling and at last drifted into ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the real enthusiasm of affection. Woodroffe, much her senior, was her father's friend, and it therefore seemed to me more than likely that Leithcourt was pressing a matrimonial alliance upon his daughter for some ulterior motive. In the mad hurry for place, power, and wealth, men relentlessly sell their daughters in the matrimonial market, and ambitious mothers scheme and intrigue for their own aggrandizement at sacrifice of their daughter's happiness more ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... events willing to create a scene, if only to gratify his vanity. It appears that he has now played out his role at Vienna, as well as in St. Petersburg and Berlin, and the world would forget him if he did not attract its attention by some mad piece of folly. How he intended to accomplish this I do not know, but certainly not by a murder—no, I ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... knaves who preach up ardent benevolence and draw captivating pictures of a happier state of society only the better to enable them to destroy the present establishments and to forward their own deep-laid schemes of ambition, or as wild and mad-headed enthusiasts whose silly speculations and absurd paradoxes are not worthy the ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... tremendous yell and darted from their ambush. A furious battle was started at once on the Flat. Stones flew like hail on both sides, and then the combatants came to close quarters, and the fray developed into a series of stand-up fights, with every boy yelling like mad. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... Merry-Garden at high springs in procession without end. But now the house had been standing furnished for three good years, with fruit-gardens planted on the slopes below it, and basins full of gold-fish: and there Dr. Clatworthy lived with half a score of male patients as mad as himself. For, though rich, he didn't spend his money in enjoyment only, but charged his guests six guineas a week, while he taught 'em the ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the cause to which his whole heart was given. The night before he left for Ireland, he slept at the house of a merchant in Manchester, named Porteus; that gentleman used all his influence to dissuade his friend from so mad an exploit, but in vain. The embryo chief left a considerable store of pistols in the custody of Mr. Porteus, which were delivered to the chief ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... mad,' says Jimmy. 'But light yore pipe, and set down on that rock, and you'll see in a minute why I preferred to corner ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... in her dreams appears, Disdainful as by day: she seems, alone, To wander in her sleep, thro' ways unknown, Guideless and dark; or, in a desart plain, To seek her subjects, and to seek in vain: Like Pentheus, when, distracted with his fear, He saw two suns, and double Thebes, appear; Or mad Orestes, when his mother's ghost Full in his face infernal torches toss'd, And shook her snaky locks: he shuns the sight, Flies o'er the stage, surpris'd with mortal fright; The Furies guard the door ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... he crouched in his chair, be-spelled by it, till he violently rose and fled, with loneliness for companion in his flight. He was lonely. He sighed that he was "lonely as fits." Lonely—the word obsessed him. Doubtless he was a bit mad, as are all the isolated men who sit in distant lands longing for the voices ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... "I am not mad, but I am old and wise, your Majesty. To-day you have made me feel that I am very old. Punish me as you will for my frankness. My work for you and yours is nearly done. Cheerfully will I submit to ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... from telling him that with so much at stake I was unwilling to accept even treaty assurances on that point. He went on. "The whole world is mad with desire to slay. But I would rather have my son ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... help that,—but such excessive gayety rather makes me shrink within myself; I am too out of tone with it. I never feel more absolutely quiet than sometimes when I am laughing at Constance Evelyn's mad sallies—and sometimes I cannot laugh at them. I do not know what they must think of me; it is what they can have no ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... was a witness of the way you acted when I found it!" exclaimed Bill. He stood up, and Frank scrambled to his feet. He watched Bill furtively until he glanced aside, then he made a mad lunge toward him. Bill was too quick for him and once more Frank, sobbing with rage, ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... streets had been filled with frightened, disordered crowds. The city was again stricken with the old, inevitable, ever-recurring scourge of yellow fever, and the people had lost their heads. In every house, in every office and shop, there was hasty packing, mad confusion, and wild flight. It was only a question of getting out of town as best one might. Wagons and carts creaked and rumbled and rattled through every street, piled high with household chattels, up-heaped in blind haste. Women rode on the swaying loads, or walked beside with the ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... the weird dame Plays the light gas, or kindles into flame. If rests the traveller his weary head, Grim MANCINELLA haunts the mossy bed, Brews her black hebenon, and, stealing near, 190 Pours the curst venom in his tortured ear.— Wide o'er the mad'ning throng URTICA flings Her barbed shafts, and darts her ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... betray, Or change his right for arbitrary sway? 330 Let haughty Pharaoh curse with such a reign His fruitful Nile, and yoke a servile train. If David's rule Jerusalem displease, The dog-star heats their brains to this disease. Why then should I, encouraging the bad, Turn rebel and run popularly mad? Were he a tyrant, who by lawless might Oppress'd the Jews, and raised the Jebusite, Well might I mourn; but nature's holy bands Would curb my spirits, and restrain my hands: 340 The people might assert their liberty; But what was right in them were crime in me. His favour leaves ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... is always dangerous although apparently well. He often has a sore mouth and his spit is as dangerous as that of a mad dog. The bite of such a man will develop a chancre and any pipe, cup, or tooth pick which he uses, or his kiss, will give syphilis. A syphilitic tattooer who wets his needles and his India ink with spit will put a chancre into the skin with ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... polite to her and was not rude like you were to that handsome young Mister Percival Robin, whom you were so insanely jealous of! I remember your trying to knock him into the spring, and raving around like mad! Why! You chased him clear over that hill and you were simply too funny for anything, and all because he was very polite to me and he was rather good looking!" said ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field
... "Well, I was mad when I found he had got them papers; but the lawyer had left a message with my mother, saying if I came home, she was to tell me I'd hear something to my advantage by applying to him. So I went after him to the place where he lives; and sure enough there was Hopgood, and he and Clapp as thick ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... was to save the Southern Court. He saw that if the young Emperor. Chokei, persisted in his design of a general campaign against Kyoto, a crushing defeat must be the outcome, and since the sovereign would not pay heed to his remonstrances, he concluded that the only way to arrest the mad enterprise was his own defection, which would weaken the South too much to permit offensive action. Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was then shogun at Muromachi. He had succeeded to that office in 1367, at the age of nine, and his father, then within a year of death, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... great exertion that the brave sailors succeeded in rescuing him from a watery grave. Hardly had he recovered his senses ere he endeavoured to throw himself in again, exclaiming that he had no wish to live. The man was raving mad, and the captain was obliged to have him bound hand and foot, and chained to the mast. On the following day he was deprived of his office, and degraded to the rank of subordinate to a ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... seemed angry, but before he had ceased to speak her expression changed. She smiled, and seated herself before him.' 'No, I am not angry with you,' she said. 'I am only sorry that you should have watched me, for I am sure you must have thought me mad when you saw me dancing that way, all by myself; and now I must tell you the meaning of what ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... this prison for several months, and no one would buy me for fear I would run away. One day while I was in this prison, Garrison got mad with my wife, and took her off in one of the rooms, with his paddle in hand, swearing that he would paddle her; and I could afford her no protection at all, while the strong arm of the law, public opinion and custom, were all against me. I have often ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... and the dancers once more whirled into the centre of the room and the crowd filled the space under the grand arch which led into the hall. Bivens was the centre of an admiring group of sycophants and worshipful snobs. The doctor's heart gave a mad throb of joy. His hour ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... times. The Poles had always hated the Russians, and to show their contempt for them Sigismund had a white figure dressed in splendid garments and sent to the Russian court, in lieu of the looked-for bride. Mad with rage at this bitter insult, the czar invaded and cruelly ravaged Poland, the people, as is so often the case, being made to suffer for the quarrels and the folly of the kings. From that time forward the czar hated Sigismund and ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... will run mad with Will, I cannot clear their sight But leave them to their study still, To look where is no light! Till time too late, we make them try, ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... hands vigorously). Oh, then all will turn out well! You will remain here! Thank you for that! (Breaking out in joy.) Now everything may turn out well after all. (He walks to and fro in suppressed excitement.) Mad as it may sound, Hella, under these circumstances. (He stops, facing her.) I am almost merry! (He continues to pace up ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... for a moment to be compared with that which is evident enough in both of these affections. It is a symptom of short duration, and seldom lasts longer than twelve hours. The stories that are told of the mad dog covered with froth, are altogether fabulous. The dog recovering from, or attacked by a fit, may be seen in this state; but not the rabid dog. Fits are often mistaken for ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... straightway imagines that he has hurried away to some easy conquest. In this respect, women endow men with superhuman faculties. Fear magnifies everything, it dilates the eyes and the heart: it makes a woman mad. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... last, and seen the banners go past. As it rose again over the suburbs he had seen the long lines of trains streaming in, visible as bright serpents in the brilliant glory of the electric globes, bringing the country folk up to the Council of the Nation which the legislators, mad with drama, had summoned to decide the great question. At Lyons it had been the same. The night was as clear as the day, and as full of sound. Mid France was ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... managed in accordance with the system unfolded in the two preceding Meditations. But I ought to add, also, that I have built up my system on the example of that house. The admirable fortress I allude to belonged to a young councillor of state, who was mad with ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... They hated the Department. There never could be any fun but what that horrid old Department came in. And when Horace found that Tom was going to the Department too, and that Bev meant to go with him, he was mad, and said he did not see what was the use of having Christmas. Here he had tin- foil and plaster upstairs, and little Watrous had lent him a set of government medals, and they should have such a real good time if Bev would only stay. He wished the Department was at the bottom ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... imperceptible to his senses, perhaps even imperceptible to his instruments, but perceptible to each other, and so to some known ray at the end of the scale. Langley seemed prepared for anything, even for an indeterminable number of universes interfused — physics stark mad ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... you mad?" was the reply, in tones that set the young man's heart beating furiously, for he knew that Sir Henry Norland was proscribed for the part he had take in the attempt of the Young Pretender, and Leigh had thought that ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... wasn't so cussed hilarious for the next four days. I expected that Injun back with his friends every minute, and what with watchin' all night and joshin' Percy all day I was plumb wore out. He made me kind of mad by not noticin' things was wrong, although that's the impression I'd labored to create upon him, as ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... seemed to like distressing us both by parting us. All I could do was to give Anne my direction, and to tell her privately, if she was ever in trouble, to come to me. But years passed before she was free to come. I never saw her again, poor soul, till the night she escaped from the mad-house." ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... of the saucer and upset a cup of hot coffee in a gentleman's lap. (As the scalded man jumped up the trader quietly said, "Don't disturb yourself, neighbour; accidents will happen in the best of families.") "It always makes me mad to hear a man talking about fidelity in niggers. There isn't a d——d one on 'em who wouldn't cut sticks, if he ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... "Think I'm mad to take risks like that, don't cher? Well, I aren't neither. They couldn't catch me ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... George tempestuously. "If I were to be born again, I'd pray to the high gods, the cruel gods, Jinny, to make me mad—like Nicky—to give me the gift of indestructible illusion. Then, perhaps, I might know what ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... she saw the old woman, she said to her, "O nurse, where is the beloved of my heart?"; and the other replied, "O my lady, I cannot find him nor have mine eyes espied him, but I have brought thee his own sister; and here she is." Cried the Princess, "Art thou Jinn-mad? What need have I of his sister? Say me, an a man's head irk him, doth he bind up his hand?" The old woman answered, "No, by Allah, O my lady! But look on her, and if she pleases thee, let her be with thee." Then she uncovered the Prince's face, whereupon Hayat al-Nufus knew ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... the cultivation of prophecy as the most sacred and Divine of all religious exercises, saying, in 1 Corinthians xiv. 21-25: "If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those who are unlearned or unbelievers, will they not say ye are mad? But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face, he will worship God, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various
... all were dead. I always imagine your next letter will bring bad news, and if I knew it was in Genthin by this time I would send Hildebrand there in the night. Berlin is endurable when one is alone; there one is busy, and can chatter all day; but here it is enough to drive one mad; I must formerly have been an entirely different mortal, to bear it as I did. * * * The girl received the notice to leave very lightly and good-naturedly, as quite a matter of course; Kahle, on the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... "and I always thought him such a quiet, amiable little chap. He's a Tartar; that's what he is. Making all this fuss about a boy who, as like as not, is having a game with us. Don't see me getting out o' temper with everybody, and spitting and swearing like a mad Tom-cat. Hang the boy! He's on'y a middy.—Now, my lads,—now, my lads, put your ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... his agents solicited vulgar suffrages or uttered claptraps about retrenchment and reform. "I felt I was wrong," he said to me, in after days, "though I was too proud to own my error in those times, and you and your good wife and my boy were right in protesting against that mad election." Indeed, though we little knew what events were speedily to happen, Laura and I felt very little satisfaction when the result of the Newcome election was made known to us, and we found Sir Barnes Newcome third, and Col. Thomas ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold, To be so pestered with a popinjay, Out of my grief and my impatience, Answered neglectingly, I know not what; He should, or he should not;—for he made me mad. To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman, Of guns, and drums, and wounds; (God save the mark!) And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth Was parmaceti for an inward bruise; And that it was a great pity, so it was, This villainous ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... have been at work? No, no; the persons who constituted the town-council were too obscure, unless they were mad, to attempt to vie in public consideration and glory with the illustrious author of the History of Astronomy, with the philosopher, the writer, the erudite scholar who belonged to our three principal ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... Bertha, ever so pleased to frolic with him—and he almost felt her chubby arm around his neck; he remembered old Fritz, and his rides upon Saladin, with his arched neck and flowing mane. He thought of the ancient hall, in which he had played such mad pranks with Bruno—even the black cat came in for a portion of his regret. And never, never more was he to behold these objects of his love! So feels the Swiss, when in a foreign land, when breathing the balmy air of Italy, or wandering amid the ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... Tom. "They think I'm a sort of wizard. Well, so I am. Tell them if they don't get lots of quinine bark I'll have to stay here until all the mad ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... with confetti or blows of harlequins' swords, which, moreover, are within a law of their own. But nobody takes rough hold of another, or meddles with his mask, or does him any unmannerly violence. At first sight you would think that the whole world had gone mad, but at the end you wonder how people can let loose all their mirthful propensities without unchaining the mischievous ones. It could not be so in America or in England; in either of those countries the whole street would go mad ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... upon her eggs, it amused her to see the Mate Hares come limping out at sunset, very timidly at first, pausing, startled, at every sound. Soon, however, they forgot their fears and began their dances, hopping and running round and round like mad, and cutting such capers as quite ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... a man who is not even mad, but only strenuous—strenuous about race-suicide—should come to me and try to get me to use my large political and ecclesiastical influence to get a bill passed by this Congress limiting families to twenty-two children ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... provision. At last his avarice grew too powerful for his kindness; he would refuse a bottle of wine, and in Ireland no man visits where he cannot drink. Having thus excluded conversation, and desisted from study, he had neither business nor amusement; for, having by some ridiculous resolution, or mad vow, determined never to wear spectacles, he could make like little use of books in his latter years; his ideas, therefore, being neither renovated by discourse, nor increased by reading, wore gradually ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... "They don't raise my spirits, Hugh. I am amused sometimes I can't help that but such excessive gaiety rather makes me shrink within myself; I am, too, out of tone with it. I never feel more absolutely quiet than sometimes when I am laughing at Constance Evelyn's mad sallies and sometimes I cannot laugh at them. I do not know what they must think of me; it is what they can have no ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of the chief and shrewder farm owners were not swept away in this mad flight, which they did their best to restrain. Venturing within a mile of the mountain, they saw that the glare of the flames was decreasing. In truth it hardly seemed that the region was immediately menaced by any further ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... was little frequented. No one was in sight. Osborn glanced about him to make sure of this fact. A long stretch of road lay before him, with stone heaps piled at regular intervals. He had taken a big whiskey and soda at the last wayside inn he had passed, and drink did not make him drunk so much as mad. He pushed the mare ahead, feeling in just the humour to try experiments ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and lovely to be real. And she was laughing! That did not seem real, either. She might have been pleasant, even cheerful, but this sprite, swinging there and laughing at nothing whatever, almost frightened him. For an awful moment he wondered if he had driven Marjorie mad. . . . He had been unkind to ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... are too sensible already Of what you've done, too conscious of your failings; And, like a scorpion, whipt by others first To fury, sting yourself in mad revenge. I would bring balm, and pour it in your wounds, Cure your distempered ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... the animal which he regards as his external or bush soul, that the death or injury of the animal necessarily entails the death or injury of the man. And, conversely, when the man dies, his bush soul can no longer find a place of rest, but goes mad and rushes into the fire or charges people and is knocked on the head, and that is an ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... tongues of serpents and mad dogs venomous? A. Because of the malignity and tumosity of the venomous humour ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... some of his best officers, those who could not be impelled by the clamours of the ill-informed to ruin the public interests, were opposed to this mad enterprise. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... said. "Even to the killing of brave men. I know what you're saying to yourself—I thought that too, I thought it would send me mad, I longed to kill myself to get out of it. But, in an attack, when you've seen your own jolly pals, who have lived in the trenches with you, bleeding and tattered, spatchcocked against barbed wire, and had to leave them sticking to it, their eyes haunt you, your blood gets ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... PARADOXES—THE LITTLE GIANT PAUL—whose head was as big as his body, and his heart greater than both. Once he thought and treated every Christian as a combination of knave and fool. Then he became one himself. He was called "fool" because his acts were so far beyond the dictates of human reason, and "mad" because of his irresponsible fiery zeal for Christ and men. A first-class scholar, but one who knew how to use scholarship properly; for he put it on the shelf, declaring the wisdom of men to be but folly, and ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd
... fire against a force like mine in so small a ship? Sirrah, you must be stark mad. I compliment you ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... by such mad tricks?' I asked of Umslopogaas, indignantly. 'Surely thou art mad. Twenty times didst thou go near to ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... conscious of the sickening odor of sour whiskey, of a volley of mad threats and imprecations, of a stinging blow in the face that only served to make him cling the tighter to his prisoner. Then, as they swayed and struggled to and fro, he felt that he was not gaining ground, and that this unseen ruffian might after all escape ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... she said angrily; "I didn't think and I didn't feel. Of course I thought that I'd dropped right out of your life, and after that I didn't care. I was mad right through, and I'd made up my mind to do what others did—take a title and a big position, and have the outside as bright as I could get it, whatever the inside might be like. I'd made up my mind to be a society queen abroad, and a miserable woman at home—and, Lenox, thank ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... of such a thing—I will not hear of it for a moment; and if you persist in this mad folly, I tell you, fairly, that from this moment I shall have nothing more to say to you! You have to choose between me, ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... show to others the ruin that you are, and say: "See what I am, and take warning!" ...Go! And may your misfortunes save those that come after from the same fate! Dare to speak, and cry out to them: "You are mad, peoples of the earth; instead of defending your Country, you are killing her. You are your Country and the enemies are your brothers. Millions of God's ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... from Crawford is related by Mr. Lamon. "For a long time," he says, "there was one person in the neighborhood for whom Lincoln felt a decided dislike, and that was Josiah Crawford, who had made him pull fodder for three days to pay for Weems's Washington. On that score he was hurt and mad, and declared he would have revenge. But being a poor boy, a fact of which Crawford had already taken shameful advantage when he extorted three days' labor, Abe was glad to get work anywhere, and ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... cousin was in every way unreasonable,—as unreasonable in his generosity as he was in his claims, he felt convinced. But an unreasonable man, though he is one whom one would fain conquer by arguments were it possible, is the very man on whom arguments have no avail. A madman is mad because he is mad. Herbert had a great deal that was very sensible to allege in favour of his views, but what use of alleging anything of sense to such a mind as that of Owen Fitzgerald? So he went his way without ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... union which was to last beyond the Judgment Day. They wept here, quarrelled here, rushed again into one another's arms here, swore to one another here, when Henry the Eighth was king; and they wept here, quarrelled here, embraced here, swore here, in exactly the same mad fashion, when William the Fourth sat upon the throne. Half-way up the avenue was a stone pillar commanding a gentle descent, one way to the Hall, and the other way to the lodge. It set forth the anguish of a former lord of the time ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... is on thy closed lips, But in thine eye a power to smite The mad wolf backward from ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and this always seemed to rattle his little nerves. It was strange, however, what a coward I was when I first went out by myself. There was no devil left in me at all, and I was certainly the crawly-crawliest bubbler you ever saw, and I teetered at street-car crossings till everybody went mad. It might have been worse than it was, though, for the only real trouble I had was chipping the tail off a milk wagon and ramming a silly horse on Eighth Avenue. When his friends helped him up (he had ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... "I shall go mad if this goes on!" he muttered, and making a desperate rush to the door, threw it wide open, ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... her eyes filling with tears, "I have been anything but a good sister. I thought of it day and night, when you were ill, and it nearly drove me mad." ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... turned sharply round to march to the other end of the room, Bella hurriedly placed the tea-tray upon the table, and then hastened back to go and tell Martha the cook that she believed Master Waller was going mad. ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... misery which they suffer: but when they grow very ill, pleasure is too weak for them, and they seek for pain[496]. Employment, Sir, and hardships, prevent melancholy. I suppose in all our army in America there was not one man who went mad[497].' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... make me mad, so that I'll make it seem like a personal affair," thought Hal Overton swiftly. "I'll keep cool and fool ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... cavalry skirmishers[39] formed across the country was making ineffectual efforts to stop the stream of fugitives who had stolidly and stubbornly set their faces to the rear. Dazed by the surprise in their camps, they acted like men who had forfeited their self-respect. They were chagrined, mortified, mad at their officers and themselves—demoralized; but, after all, more to be ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... chase. The bear was jumping from cake to cake. Raed, Corliss, and Hobbs were following after him at a reckless pace; Bonney was trying to cut him off on the right; while Wade and Donovan, with Palmleaf a few rods behind them, were heading him on the left. Such a shouting and hallooing! They were all mad with excitement. We, who had killed our bear, kept after them as fast as we could run, but couldn't ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... power. He said, "If they ever get up a bunch to trap one of them [Water Babies], I don't want to have nothing to do with it." When I asked why not, he replied: "Why hell, if you make one of them things mad they'll flood the world. I just don't want nothing to do with them. I ain't that desperate." I asked, "desperate for what?" and he replied "for power. I like to dream about womens [sic] and things like that, not about Water Babies ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... be a lot more cruel than that," she boasted. "It made me tired to hear those sillies had elected that girl to the class presidency. Glad I'm not a freshie. They will rue it before the year is up. Phil's supporters are as mad as hops." ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... again and looked at his handkerchief. One's own blood is very interesting. The sight of his wounds did not touch Kedzie's heart. She could never feel sorry for anybody she was mad at. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... odour immediately filled the air; it was so intense that it made the tears come into Freddie's eyes; but what it did to the wild mob of imps was almost beyond belief. As they got their first whiff of it, they tumbled back over one another in a mad effort to get away; but they could not get away from the odour quick enough; it caught them and held them, so that in a moment they could not move; they stood fixed and fast and silent; in another moment they began to melt away, and in two minutes they had vanished; actually vanished where ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... laughing until his grinders appeared: "Rather, by Allah, would I take all the punishment thou dreadest, thou most false donkey-driver of the Ruby Hills, than believe this story of thine—this mad, mad story, that she with whom thou wast seen was not the living wife of Hasan here (as these four legal witnesses have sworn), but thine own dead spouse, Alawiyah, refashioned for thee by the Angel of Memory out of thine own sorrow and ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... to stray I feel would come Though Italy were all fair skies to me, Though France's fields went mad with flowery foam And Blanc put on a special majesty. Not all could match the growing thought of home Nor tempt to exile. Look I not on ROME— This ancient, modern, mediaeval queen— Yet still sigh westward over hill and dome, Imperial ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... war is raging, simply raging, down in Mexico right now. Our division will be here to commence drill in a few weeks, and we start for the border in a few months. You are mad to take such a risk." The commander's ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... we had all gone mad together, there was certainly something to excuse her. Here she had only a few weeks before forwarded with a heavy heart to her son in America Elisabeth's flat refusal to hear him, and when she expected gloom and despair, all at once his letters overflowed with a hysterical happiness that ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... decennial absence, I know nobody in Paris—I am just as much of a stranger as the ambassador of Siam.... Who knows Mad. de Lorgeville? M. de Balaincourt is the only person in Paris who can give me the desired information—he is a living court calendar. I fly to ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... as he sat down. "I went out there and found her at the churn. I said, 'Look here, you'll drive me mad if you don't let that churn alone—I mean with the charm of the position.' And then she blushed, and I would have grabbed a kiss, but she shied to one side. She scolded me somewhat for coming so soon. She said that people would wonder what brought me out that way so often. I told ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... good impression on a chemist don't tell him that he seems to you a sort of magician, master of a black art, and all that nonsense. The chemist has been trying for three hundred years to live down the reputation of being inspired of the devil and it makes him mad to have his past thrown up at him in this fashion. If his tactless admirers would stop saying "it is all a mystery and a miracle to me, and I cannot understand it" and pay attention to what he is telling them they would understand it and would find that it is no more of a mystery or a miracle ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... weapons have we to win her back," screamed Dark Malcolm, raving mad, "but we may die fighting to get near enough to her to drive dirk into her little breast and save her ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a mad circle around the mercenary. His Excellency's Peacekeeper turned to stay facing the dog but found himself turning his back on Peter. He stepped back and to one side and reached for his heavy-duty pencil—the ...
— History Repeats • George Oliver Smith
... dynasty succeeded in doing about as much devilment and as little good as many dynasties much older in years. One of the missionaries explained to me yesterday that it was only when the King got very mad that he would order heads cut off without reason—but then the Koreans are very lazy and his inactivity at other periods may have been due ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... freak of Tchitchikof's was soon noised abroad, and in the eyes of the Nikolskians proved two things:—1st, That he was unmistakably mad, or philanthropic to a high degree; 2d, That there was now a prospect of gaining something by said madness or philanthropy. Accordingly, all the serf-owners made it their business to drop in upon Tchitchikof in a purely casual manner; and contrived, after more or less higgling, to depart ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... "As to titles, perhaps he only wants to try me. He has been told that I am mad about titles, and bent on marrying none but a peer's son. My priggish sisters have played me that trick."—"I assure you, monsieur," she said aloud, "that I have had very extravagant ideas about life and the world; but now," ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... truly independent electors the political seer must turn when he would desire fairly to calculate the probable changes likely to be worked out in this vast region. They are the owners of the land which their votes govern; they are invulnerable to the anarchist and the mad agrarian; they are observant and intelligent; and although liable, as are all men, to be for a time hoodwinked, or led astray, by interested brawlers, only let the veil be once lifted, and a glimpse afforded which shall inform them that their property or the country's freedom are endangered, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... pause that matched her own; then he had, with an adequate spirit, a complete admission. "It's quite true. I'm extremely wonderful just now. I dare say in fact I'm quite fantastic, and I shouldn't be at all surprised if I were mad." ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... covering of my wagon. Then Heaven's artillery broke loose and the water came down in torrents. Never in my young life had I witnessed such a storm. It seemed as if thunder, lightning and clouds had descended to earth and were mad with anger. The racket was deafening. Between the angered claps could be heard the cursing of those Missouri bushwhackers, who, in their oaths, defied the Almighty to do his worst and hurled unspeakable insults at the memory ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... ar's dredful sterious. An me a hollarin an a yellin like mad. Tell you what, I felt as ef I'd bust my ole head open, I did yell ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... a common thing for writers of a certain class, when they want to produce the feeling of wonder in their readers, to introduce some frantic action, and then to account for it by letting out the secret that the actor was mad. The trick is not so necessary as it seems, for the strength of human passions is a potentiality only limited by experience; and so it is that a sane person may under certain stimulants do the maddest ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... is far less clear and sound than Dr. Thornwell in his reasoning on this ethical question, says: "I presume that no man would feel himself guilty for deceiving a mad dog in order to destroy him;"[1] and he argues from this assumption that when a man, through insanity or malice, "is not a rational man, but a brute," he may fairly be deemed as outside of the pale of humanity, ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... me To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods; To tell them that this world did equal theirs Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but naught; Patience is sottish, and impatience does Become a dog that's mad: then is it sin To rush into the secret house of death Ere death dare come to us?—How do you, women? What, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian! My noble girls!—Ah, women, women, look, Our lamp is spent, it's out!—Good sirs, take heart:— We'll ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... a pile of coal just inside and just outside of the door, the forward grates were bare, the steam was down, and I went in seven minutes late, too mad to eat—and that's pretty mad for me. I laid off, and Miles Diston took the high-roller ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... my mammy done tole us er heap er times, en dat is dat when I wuz born dat de granny woman runned ter old mis en tell her ter cum en look at dat baby whut Emily done gibed birth ter, and dat I wuz nigh 'bout white en hed straight hair en blue eyes, en when old mis seed me dat she so mad dat she gib mammy er good stroppin kase I born lak dat but hit warn't long atter I born 'fore I gits black, en old mis see den dat I er pure nigger, en den she tell mammy dat she sorry dat she stropped her 'bout me being white en er habin blue eyes en straight hair. No sir, Boss ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... though mad or imbecile from birth, have, nevertheless, lucid intervals, in which they can make right use of reason. Wherefore, if then they express a desire for Baptism, they can be baptized though they be actually in a state of madness. And in this case the sacrament ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... cleared, but the scenery still remained. And into the scenery went the actor 'like mad.' Planks and canvas came tumbling down; the manager called his assistants; the house was delirious with joy. The manager rushed on the stage; the actor kicked him over into the orchestra, and seizing the prompter's box, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... been taking place Chunky had continued in his mad flight for a short distance. He had a long hold on the rope by which the mustang was hauling him. The wary beast, espying a tree whose limbs hung low, changed his course and darted under the lowest of the limbs. Its intention was plain to those who knew the habits of these ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... even those who believe them not in Virgil and Catullus. 'Tis a symptom of an obstinate and obdurate nature to be sensible of no emotion, as 'tis reported for a miracle of Polemon; but then he did not so much as alter his countenance at the biting of a mad dog that tore away the calf of his leg; and no wisdom proceeds so far as to conceive so vivid and entire a cause of sorrow, by judgment that it does not suffer increase by its presence, when the eyes and ears have their share; parts ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... himself), is quite charming. There is an intelligent little German here as Austrian Consul, who draws nicely. I went into his house, and was startled by hearing a pretty Arab boy, his servant, inquire, 'Soll ich den Kaffee bringen?' What next? They are all mad to learn languages, and Mustapha begs me and Sally to teach ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... made the past live again. She must have known when she went down that mountain that even with her strong will and powers of self-delusion, things could not be quite the same again. Not even if she had returned with Dinwiddie. Why in heaven's name had she been so mad as to go? She could have sent Hohenhauer a peremptory refusal to see him and then gone off on a camping trip that could have lasted until he gave up the game. She ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... berries, and in a little while they find a sheltered place among the bushes, and Inger says: "Gustaf, you're mad to do it." And hours pass—they'll be sleeping now, belike, among the bushes. Sleeping? Wonderful—far out in the wilderness, in the Garden of Eden. Then suddenly Inger sits upright and listens: "Seems like I heard some one down on ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... pursued one of the bulls (maddened with noise and multitude) clean through the town. This sight so pleased the Earl that he gave the Castle Meadow, where the bulls' duel had begun, for a common to the butchers of the town, after the first grass was mown, on condition that they should find a mad bull the day six weeks before Christmas day, for the continuance of the sport ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton |
