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More "Simpleton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sir!" repeated Mr. Bagges. "Have biled! And what if it has 'biled,' or boiled, as I desire you will say in future? What is that to the purpose? Water may be frozen, you simpleton, notwithstanding it has boiled. Was it boiling, sir, eh? when you took it off the fire? That is ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... society a mere simpleton. His blunders would not come in amiss among the stories of Hierocles. But these men attained literary eminence in spite of their weaknesses. Boswell attained it by reason of his weaknesses. If he had not been a great fool, he would never have been a great writer. Without all the qualities ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "Simpleton!" she said. "Do thieves travel in that way? I wish my master had come back," she proceeded, speaking to herself: "I'm afraid ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... "Fair? Simpleton! it's this way every day, only worse, because this is early morning, and there's only a few about yet;" and Mrs. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... advantage. He was cautious, and at the same time enterprising, like a fox; though he was as fond of gossip as an old woman, he never let out his own affairs, while he made everyone else talk freely of theirs. He did not affect to be a simpleton, though, as so many crafty men of his sort do; indeed it would have been difficult for him to take any one in, in that way; I have never seen a sharper, keener pair of eyes than his tiny cunning little 'peepers,' as they ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... with an air of childish candor; looking as much like a big simpleton as he could. The grandmother looked at him very closely and ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... at me, am I not charming? And you have sat like that for the whole night, when you have been alone with a pretty woman, you great simpleton!" ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... and as silly as she is pretty. This Ideot has a very good Ear, and a most agreeable Shape; but the Folly of the Thing is such, that it Smiles so impertinently, and affects to please so sillily, that while she Dances you see the Simpleton from Head to Foot. For you must know (as Trivial as this Art is thought to be) no one ever was a good Dancer, that had not a good Understanding. If this be a Truth, I shall leave the Reader to judge from that Maxim, what Esteem they ought to have for such Impertinents ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... at the glass, and skipped about as if they were eager to begin dancing. But the youngest said, 'I don't know how it is, while you are so happy I feel very uneasy; I am sure some mischance will befall us.' 'You simpleton,' said the eldest, 'you are always afraid; have you forgotten how many kings' sons have already watched in vain? And as for this soldier, even if I had not given him his sleeping draught, he would ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... "You're a simpleton, Martha." Elsa turned the ring round and round on her finger. "If I had told him, he would have canceled his sailing and taken ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... to the wood where he had left his wife, he heard a parrot on a tree calling out his name: "Mr. Vinegar, you foolish man, you blockhead, you simpleton; you went to the fair, and laid out all your money in buying a cow. Not content with that, you changed it for bagpipes, on which you could not play, and which were not worth one- tenth of the money. You fool, you—you had no sooner got the bagpipes than you changed them for the gloves, which ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... "You simpleton," expostulated Darry, "are you going to spoil Dick's reward by letting a chump cook attend to the trout? Dick wants to cook his trout for himself, but we'll do everything else. I'll appoint myself to make the coffee for ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... was such a delicious simpleton. So long as he could regard me as someone on the other side of the grave, he could reveal to me the intimacies of his emotional life; but as soon as he realized his confidant in the flesh, embarrassment and confusion overwhelmed him. And, ostrich again, ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... sceptically, confidently, as one who could not be deceived. "Pooh!" she said. "That was only a try-on. That was only so that he could begin his palaver! Don't tell me! I may be a simpleton, but I'm not such a simpleton as he thinks for, nor as some other folks think for, either!" (At this point Hilda had to admit that in truth her mother was not completely a simpleton. In her mother was a vein of perceptive shrewdness that occasionally ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... not with Willie I have to deal, though the story of his marriage is a little romance in itself. It was Mick was the prodigal son. Every one about the country knew and liked Mick. He was a bit of an omadhaun, that is to say a simpleton,—but quite unlike the shambling idiots of whom every village possessed one, who was a sort of God's fool to the people, till some new legislation locked them all up ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... That simpleton at Willoughby Pastures." If his wife had dropped the pillow-sham, and sunk into a chair beside the bed, fixing him with eyes of speechless reproach; if she had done anything dramatic, or said anything tragic, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... sojlo. Silliness malsagxeco. Silly naivega. Silver argxento. Silver plate argxenti. Silver-fir pinio. Similar simila. Similarity simileco. Similitude komparajxo. Simile simileco. Simmer boleti. Simper naivegrideti. Simple simpla. Simple (foolish) naivega. Simpleton naivegulo. Simpleness simpleco. Simplicity simpleco. Simplify simpligi. Simply (adv.) simple, nur. Simultaneous samtempa. Sin peko. Sin peki. Sinapis sinapo. Sinapism sinapa kataplasmo. Since (conjunction) tial ke, cxar. Since then de tiu tempo. Since (adv.) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... most vigilant when its mouth is widest, for it opens as a net to catch whatever comes in its way,—hence the French, giving the whole family the more literal name, "Gobble-fly"—Gobe-mouche, extend the term to the open-mouthed and too acceptant appearance of a simpleton. ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... slipping into a chair and stretching out his legs, "and it will only remain for Michael Phelan to turn up or to fail to turn up and the mystery of the escape is explained. Poor Phelan, he must be a terrific simpleton, and I suppose I am ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... to do a foolish thing for me, I should be a simpleton to prevent her," said Armand to himself. "She has a liking for me beyond a doubt; and as for the world, she cannot despise it more than I do. So, now for ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... right, and you—you've acted—I don't know HOW you've acted. I'm ashamed of you. A girl that could be so sensible for her sister, and always say and do just the right thing, and then when it comes to herself to be such a DISGUSTING simpleton!" ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... exemplary greenness. That message to my brother, with all its virus of insolence I repeated as faithfully for the spirit as, and as literally for the expressions, as my memory allowed me to do; and in that troublesome effort, simpleton that I was, fancied myself exhibiting a soldier's loyalty to his commanding officer. My brother thought otherwise: he was more angry with me than with the enemy. I ought, he said, to have refused all participation in such sans cullotes insolence; to carry it was to acknowledge it as fit to be ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... sufficient skill to deceive children or simple people. Suppose now that somebody came to us and told us, how he had met a man who knew all that everybody knows, and better than anybody:—should we not infer him to be a simpleton who, having no discernment of truth and falsehood, had met with a wizard or enchanter, whom he fancied to be all-wise? And when we hear persons saying that Homer and the tragedians know all the arts and all the virtues, must we not infer that they are under a similar ...
— The Republic • Plato
... as the much-discomfited doctor bowed with a very ill grace; while I, in no small bewilderment, walked off with Dorothy. And a parting shot of the delighted colonel brought the crimson to my face. Like the wind or April weather was my lady, and her ways far beyond such a great simpleton as I. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... wise at the housekeeper. Of course I shall feel very strange at going into such a house. To you I may say how much nicer it would be to go to some place that Walter and I could have to ourselves,—as you did when you married. But I am not such a simpleton as to repine at that. So much has gone as I would have it that I only feel myself to be happier than I deserve. What I shall chiefly look forward to will be your first ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... for inquiries, eh?" said Wogan, shrewdly. "You are hiding something from me, my friend,—something which that good honest simpleton of a Whittington blurted out to you without the least thought of making any disclosure. Oh, I know my Whittington. And I know you, too, Dick. I do not blame you. For when the King goes a-visiting the Princess Caprara privately at night-time while the girl to whom he is betrothed suffers ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... gave way in anything to her husband, who almost killed her, and whose death she did not survive, though she had been for ever quarrelling with him. The son of Andrei, Piotr, Fedor's grandfather, did not take after his father; he was a typical landowner of the steppes, rather a simpleton, loud-voiced, but slow to move, coarse but not ill-natured, hospitable and very fond of coursing with dogs. He was over thirty when he inherited from his father a property of two thousand serfs in capital condition; but he had soon dissipated it, and had partly mortgaged his estate, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... is not simply weak and incapable, but a moral leper; a man who, if not a knave, has everything bad about him except knavery; nay, rather, has together with every other worst vice, a spice of knavery to boot. His simpleton is one who has become such, in judgment for his having once been a knave. His simpleton is not a born fool, but a self-made idiot, one who has drugged and abused himself into a shameless depravity; one, ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... the very best quality; and I regret to say, that this announcement had the effect of reducing considerably the sum she derived from the charity of the ward, and effectually preventing the consummation of any very formidable debauch with her favourite viands. But the poor simpleton was as merry as she was innocent and harmless; and all unsuspicious of the latent grudge which had lessened her gratuity, tripped hastily off, to enjoy at ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... young man was a simpleton, and that he, himself, was most wise and fortunate; but the former, nothing daunted by this opinion, which he was not unconscious that the latter entertained of him, immediately hired a set of laborers, and set them to work in the field trenching, as earnestly ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... art, as in most others, I was an unpractised simpleton. In the countenance of Welbeck, there was somewhat else than sympathy with the astonishment and distress of the lady; but I could not interpret these additional tokens. When her attention was engrossed by Welbeck, her eyes were frequently vagrant or downcast; her cheeks contracted ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... entered a carpenter's shop, and went from one to another of the tools, begging for something to eat. Among the rest, he addressed himself to the File, and asked for the favour of a meal. The File replied in a tone of pitying contempt, "What a simpleton you must be if you imagine you will get anything from me, who invariably take from every one and never give anything ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... From older dialogues. If he gave one thought Of Urban's to Simplicio—you know well How composite are all characters in books, How authors find their colours here and there, And paint both saints and villains from themselves. No matter. This was Urban. Make it clear. Simplicio means a simpleton. The saints Are aroused by ridicule to most human wrath. Urban was once his friend. This hint of ours Kills all of that. And so we mortals close The doors of Love and Knowledge on the world. And so, for many an ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... say! "what is this superannuated simpleton calculating upon? He has already told us, he is ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... baths, without appearing to be much concerned, the name of this gentleman. I laughed inwardly a little at this reader of rhymes: he seemed behind the age, for a man. This person, I thought, must be a simpleton. Well, Aunt, I am now infatuated about this stranger. Just fancy, his name is Sully Prudhomme! I turned round to look at him at my ease, just where I sat. His face possesses the two qualities of calmness and elegance. ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... she said nothing because she was afraid of irritating him. But the poor girl's dumb eloquence irritated him more than anything else would have done, and he caught himself murmuring more than once that it was a grievous pity his only child was a simpleton. His murmurs, however, were inaudible; and for a while he said nothing to any one. He would have liked to know exactly how often young Townsend came; but he had determined to ask no questions of the girl herself—to ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... There, Sir Anthony, there stands the deliberate simpleton, who wants to disgrace her family and lavish herself on a ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... master of the situation. I shall be free. I have a stated income. I shall offer myself as a candidate in October in my native district, where I am known. I could not win any respect were I to be hampered with a wife whose honor was sullied. She took me for a simpleton, but since I have known her game, I have watched her, and now I shall get on, for ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... a man who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called the Simpleton. He was laughed at and despised and neglected on all occasions. Now it happened one day that the eldest son wanted to go into the forest, to hew wood, and his Mother gave him a beautiful cake and a bottle of wine to take with him, so that he might not ...
— The Golden Goose Book • L. Leslie Brooke
... Quintus Icilius, "I abandon my renowned scholar, and freely confess that your majesty judged him correctly; he is an insufferable fool and simpleton." ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... proprietor of a "Wood and Bache," and a shelf of peppered sheepskin reprints by Philadelphia Editors. Besides, many of the profession and I know a little something of each other, and you don't think I am such a simpleton as to lose their good opinion by saying what the better heads among them would condemn as unfair and untrue? Now mark how the great plague came on the generation of drugging doctors, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... information from their persistent questionings; what they hoped for was unconscious betrayal by some slip of the tongue. As for young Breslin, Pringle had long since sized him up for what the Major knew him to be—a good-hearted, right-meaning simpleton. In the indifferent-seeming Anastacio, Pringle ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... in saying that I am a simpleton to doubt that, if Germany had not attacked France, France would have attacked her, shows a much greater courage than he credits me with. That is Germany's contention, and if valid is her justification for dashing at any ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... gay, He loved the simpleton to mock, To make wise men the idiot play Openly or 'neath decent cloak. Yet sometimes this or that deceit Encountered punishment complete, And sometimes into snares as well Himself just like a greenhorn ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... both meet with the little innocent child. All have the same undervaluation of the statue. And if any man values it preposterously, it will be neither a great philosopher, nor a labouring man with horny fists, nor a little innocent and natural child. It will be some crazy simpleton, who dignifies himself as a man of taste, as elegans formarum spectator, as one having a judicious eye for the distinctions of form. But now, suddenly, let one of the meanest of these statues begin to stir and ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... perceptible only to herself; but she instantly felt that she was the greatest simpleton in the world, the most unaccountable and absurd! For a few minutes she saw nothing before her; it was all confusion. She was lost, and when she had scolded back her senses, she found the others still waiting for the carriage, and Mr Elliot (always obliging) ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the man in black. "Salamanders resemble women, or, to speak precisely, nymphs, and they are perfectly beautiful! But I feel myself rather a simpleton to ask you if you're able to see this one. One has to be a philosopher to see a Salamander, and I do not think philosophers could ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... agitated to mind her angry looks. She kept wiping the perspiration from her brow with her handkerchief, and speaking in broken sentences: "If we could only get there first—fool not to teach my sister her lesson before we went, she's such a simpleton!—can't you ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... words was turned about at men's pleasure; the most reckless bravo was deemed the most desirable friend; a man of prudence and moderation was styled a coward; a man who listened to reason was a good-for-nothing simpleton. People were trusted exactly in proportion to their violence and unscrupulousness, and no one was so popular as the successful conspirator, except perhaps one who had been clever enough to outwit him at his own trade, but any one who honestly attempted to remove the causes of such treacheries was ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... goodies were stuffed into thy already crowded valise! It wasn't for nothing that her communications have been so frequent, and contained such tender inquiries after thy health, and such pathetic injunctions to be careful of thyself!" You must be a simpleton, man, to imagine that a benevolent disposition prompted so many manifestations all of a sudden, when the past was so different. "But why not?" thought he, as his charitable heart sought for a better motive in the ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... they had fallen; and young girls—well, one would have supposed they had never been given feet of their own to walk with, from the trouble they were to poor Jacques. The worst of it was, that when all these good people were well over their troubles they called Jacques a simpleton for his pains, and refused to have any intercourse with him, giving him the worst side of the road and laughing at his old-fashioned staff and scrip, and even at his little dog, to which they gave many a sly kick. Nor was it any wonder, for there were many in the company ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... amazed, we know not, Dr. Gannius hears from 'our simpleton of the pastures,' as he calls the Rev. Doctor to his daughter, that he and Mr. Semhians have absolutely pushed forth upon this most mighty of enterprises naked of any backing from their Government! Babes in the Wood that they are! 'a la grace de dieu' at every ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... This further lapse of loyalty to the absent husband was transmitted to Egypt, and very naturally determined him on the necessity of taking proceedings to get a divorce, but although Napoleon had ceased, so far as he could, to be the dreadful simpleton lover of other days, he failed to gauge the grip the ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... and often stood still and threw a morsel on the ground. "Hansel, why dost thou stop and look round?" said the father, "go on." "I am looking back at my little pigeon which is sitting on the roof, and wants to say good-bye to me," answered Hansel. "Simpleton!" said the woman, "that is not thy little pigeon, that is the morning sun that is shining on the chimney." Hansel, however, little by little, threw all ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... great loose lips trembled with unformed words as he gazed his eager inquiry from one to another. Under normal circumstances it would have remained contemptuously unanswered, but in these days in Tanglefoot Cove a man, though a simpleton, was yet a man, ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... actually and physically, at this speech, which brought back to her with a sharp flick the egregiousness of her absurd self-deception. What a simpleton she had been—what a little naive, provincial simpleton! In spite of her high opinion of her own cleverness and knowledge of people, how stupidly steeped she had been in the childish, idiotic American tradition of entire disinterestedness in the relations of men and women. It was ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... to-night she experienced a feeling of embarrassment she had never known before. She realized this, and scolded herself roundly for it. "You idiot!" she observed, mentally, to her own soul; "if you want to make a good impression, you'd better stop feeling like a simpleton. Now brace up, and do the best you ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... cast the first stone at this poor simpleton, who had no other use for the Redeemer's word than to gain by means of it a few more acres of the earth for himself: in every age, some men may be found who hang on the skirts of the Church for the sake of some immediate temporal benefit. Nor is it difficult ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... I said to Dorothy that I didn't hate Marian Seaton any longer; that I felt only sorry for her. I said, too, that there must be some good in her if one could only find it. What a simpleton I was!" ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... answered the Baron; "he's been a simpleton all his life; simple people never go crazy." Some time after, John stayed away much longer than usual on an errand. The good Frau von S. was greatly worried and was already on the point of sending out people, when they heard him limping ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the ramifications especially of an ample back staircase over which he leaned, many a time, to look far down—not deterred from his gravity even while aware that he might, for a spectator, have figured some solemn simpleton playing at hide-and-seek. Outside in fact he might himself make that ironic rapprochement; but within the walls, and in spite of the clear windows, his consistency was proof against the cynical light ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... then came a woman with a white swelling; then came an individual who had nothing at all the matter with him, and was only a poor unfortunate, wandering about the world; then came a far cake, {22} a dark man, who was led about by a gossoon; after him a simpley, and after the simpleton somebody else as much or more unfortunate. And as the afflicted people arrived and placed themselves by the side of the door and said 'Ave Mary,' or 'In the name of God,' or crossed their arms, or looked down upon the ground, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... from his night's amusement; and Pen was smoking his pipe, and recounting, as his habit was, to his friend the observations and adventures of the evening just past. "How I am changed," he said, "from the simpleton boy at Fairoaks, who was fit to break his heart about his first love! Lady Mirabel had a reception to-night, and was as grave and collected as if she had been born a Duchess, and had never seen a trap-door in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... if I know anything at all about it!" cried Barbican, with a joyous laugh. "Ha, ha, ha! The first eastern shore Marylander or any other simpleton you meet in Baltimore, knows as much about the Moon as I do! Why we're going there, I can't tell! What we're going to do when we get there, can't tell either! Ardan knows all about it! He can tell! ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... College and, later, court poet under Queen Mary. This play, founded on a comedy of Plautus, shows the classical influence which was so powerful in England at this time. Ralph, the hero, is a conceited simpleton. He falls in love with a widow who has already promised her hand to a man infinitely Ralph's superior. Ralph, however, unable to understand why she should not want him, persists in his wooing. She makes him the butt of her jokes, and he finds himself in ridiculous positions. ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... Eveline," she said. "Now have I known many a wedding, and generally there are quite as many tears as smiles at them. I like not that, exactly, though I believe I was as great a simpleton as most, when I mar—(here the dame decorously put her handkerchief to her eyes to receive the tears which she did not shed)—when I—; but I must not think of my sorrow, when thy happiness is just commencing." (Dame Spikeman wiped her eyes, and ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... next the large class of stories about simpletons, so dear to the public in all parts of the world. In the Skazkas a simpleton is known as a durak, a word which admits of a variety of explanations. Sometimes it means an idiot, sometimes a fool in the sense of a jester. In the stories of village life its signification is generally that of a "ninny;" in the ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... original characters were Pantaloon, a Venetian Merchant; Dottore, a Bolognese physician; Spavento, a Neapolitan braggart; Pulcinello, a wag of Apalia; Giangurgoto and Corviello, two Clowns of Cala-simpleton; and Arlechino, a blundering servant ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... was destined to become, a sulky, stagy creature, in theatrical poses and a black-plumed hat, who cannot even play the easy and perennially attractive part of desdichado so as to keep our compassion. Lucy is a simpleton so utter and complete that it is difficult even to be sorry for her, especially as Ravenswood would have made a detestable husband. The mother is meant to be and is a repulsive virago, and the father a time-serving and almost ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... a purty name to call me!—amazin' perlite, tew! Want Melissy, hey! Tribble-ation! gracious sakes alive! Well, I'll give it up now! I always knowed you was a simpleton, Tim Crane, but, I must confess, I didn't think you was quite so big a fool. Want Melissy, dew ye? If that don't beat all! What an everlastin' old calf you must be, to s'pose she'd look at you! Why, you're old enough ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... bailiffs were ordered to remove the simpleton; and Colin was also directed to retire, until he should be ...
— The Broken Cup - 1891 • Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke
... You don't get quite so wet; that's all. Where's the "danger," where's the "glory," of merely stepping under a little spirt from one end of the Falls, with plenty of room to stand, and no darkness, no mystery, no nothing. Nothing but an overwhelming sense of being a cussed fool, and a simpleton, and a stupid, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... Agnes called me to my mistress's room; and there I found Mr. Brympton. He was standing on the hearth; a big fair bull-necked man, with a red face and little bad-tempered blue eyes: the kind of man a young simpleton might have thought handsome, and would have been like to pay ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... business there. But when Shamus became able to refer to the motive of his pauper journey from his native solitudes into the thick of such a scene, it was no wonder that the zeal of superstition totally subsided amid the astounding truths he witnessed. In fact, the bewildered simpleton now regarded his dream as the merest chimera. Hastily escaping from the thoroughfare, he sought out some wretched place of repose suited to his wretched condition, and there mooned himself asleep, in self-accusations ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... Ch.—Well, simpleton, if I am at first so simple as to be a little taken with myself, I know it a fault, and take pains ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... years after; a chignon, front teeth (blue or artificially white), mottled complexion, double chin,—all that sort of plump prettiness goes into double chin. Face, bah! What man of sense—what pupil of Welby, the realist—can fall in love with a face? and even if I were simpleton enough to do so, pretty faces are as common as daisies. Cecilia Travers has more regular features; Jessie Wiles a richer colouring. I was not in love with them,—not a bit of it. Myself, you have nothing to say there. Well, then, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Lydia you would make the mistake that you usually make in judging girls: entering among them, you think their attitudes proclaim their traits. For instance, you take the most giggling one for a simpleton, but afterward learn that she is a good scholar and has accepted the Greek chair in a Western college, and looking again you see she has a strong frame, a capable head and large bright eyes. Lydia dressed in the mode, wore the high-heeled shoes that give such a dainty look to the foot and gait, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... was an orderly, busy, competent woman, the counterpart of endless millions of her sex, who liked to understand what she saw or felt, and who had no happiness in reading riddles. To her he was at times an enigma, and at times again a simpleton. In both aspects he displeased and embarrassed her. One has one's sense of property, and in him she could not put her finger on anything that was hers. We demand continuity, logic in other words, but between her son and herself there was a gulf fixed, spanned by no bridge whatever; there was ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... of what I tell you? To slight money on some occasions is sometimes the surest gain. What! —were you afraid, you greatest simpleton alive, if you had parted with ever so little[38] of your right, and had humored the young man, that he would not repay you ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... the examination, and all thought of the Civil Service. If I invented reasons for this, you would not believe them, and you would think ill of me. The best way is to tell you the plain truth, and run the risk of being thought a simpleton, or something worse. I have been in great trouble, have gone through a bad time. Some weeks ago there came to stay here a girl of eighteen or nineteen, the daughter of Dr. Lowndes Derwent (whose name perhaps you know). She is very beautiful, and I was ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... me what we could do in the land of the Corahai! Aromali! I almost think that I am speaking to a lilipendi (simpleton). Are there not horses to chore? Yes, I trow there are, and better ones than in this land, and asses and mules. In the land of the Corahai you must hokkawar and chore even as you must here, or in your own country, or else you are no Caloro. Can you not join yourselves with the black ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... think those people pitiable enough who let their hearts break their sleep and interfere with their appetites," replied Diana. "I have got over my disappointment already; and Clarice will be a simpleton ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... Mrs Merton, "does your father eat and drink out of silver?" "I don't know, madam, what you call this; but we drink at home out of long things made of horn, just such as the cows wear upon their heads." "The child is a simpleton, I think," said Mrs Merton: "and why is that better than silver ones?" "Because," said Harry, "they never make us uneasy." "Make you uneasy, my child!" said Mrs Merton, "what do you mean?" "Why, madam, when the man ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... much progress," Pierre replied. "If mysterious poisons were believed in by the ancients and remained undetected in their time it was because there were no means of analysis. But the drug of the Borgias would now lead the simpleton who might employ it straight to the Assizes. Such stories are mere nonsense, and at the present day people scarcely tolerate them in newspaper serials ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... a man of talent, and a simpleton that will do your memoirs for you, in his aunt's name, for a ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... "That little simpleton Gatien has, I suppose, related to you a speech I made simply to make him confess that he adored you," said Etienne. "Your silence, during dinner the day before yesterday and throughout the evening, was enough to betray one of ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... little too much amazement escape through my surprise, for he answered with a deprecating laugh: "Yes—she's an awful simpleton, you know, Mrs. Stroud. Her only idea was to have him done by a fashionable painter—ah, poor Stroud! She thought it the surest way of proclaiming his greatness—of forcing it on a purblind public. And at the moment I ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... yet, doctor, I am not a simpleton. I have now been pleading five years in criminal courts: I have had to dive down into the lowest depths of society; I have seen strange things, and met with exceptional specimens, ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... This time he was in the wagon before Farmer Green was. And all the way down the road, until they reached the farmyard, he acted (or so Farmer Green told him!) like a simpleton. ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... and taste was added to the list,—McCormick's reaper, Colt's revolver, Powers's Greek Slave, Hobbs's unpickable lock, Hoe's wonderful printing presses, and Bond's more wonderful spring governor,—-it began to be suspected that Brother Jonathan was not quite so much of a simpleton as had been thought. He had contributed his full share, if not to the splendor, at least to the utilities of the exhibition. In fact, the leading journal at London, with a magnanimity which did it honor, admitted that England had derived more real benefit from the contributions of the United States ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... "Why," continued the provoking simpleton, looking as if he had to reveal unpleasant tidings, and drawing back as he spoke, "the bearer is in the train of some herald or pursuivant, come from o'er sea to our court, about exchange of prisoners and the like. This man has a message ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... simpleton!" said Marion, gaily. "What on earth is there to be frightened over? Not pine seats and lamplight, surely, and there is nothing more formidable than that ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... meeting, and a severe test to any friendship but that of the most sterling sort. In the turmoil of her distraction Charlotte had the consolation of knowing that if her act of justice to Somerset at such a moment were the act of a simpleton, it was the only course open to honesty. But Paula's cheerful serenity in some measure laid her own troubles to rest, till they were reawakened by a rumour—which got wind some weeks later, and quite drowned all other surprises—of the true relation between the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... may grow wiser! Put spurs to your jade, and let us see what her heels are good for, for the next three hours. I do not yet feel secure. The simpleton may grow wiser and change ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... to illustrate a passage in Shakespeare which puzzles the commentators—"Cupid is a good hare-finder."—Much ADO, Act I., Sc. 1. The hare, in Germany, is considered an emblem of abject submission and cowardice. The word may also be rendered "Simpleton," "Sawney," or any other of the numerous epithets ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... monkey, then, instead of a man? The use, I ask you, of addressing intelligent remarks to such a corporosity? My mistress and I, simpleton. This General of yours drives us from his quarters; he begrudges the morsel we eat, the rude hut that shelters us. Enough! we go; even now I make preparation. Pull this strap for me, Pepe; at least you have strength. Ah! If I were ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... and not boil over like a simpleton, since thou hast to provide coffee for ladies!" said the Assessor in jesting anger. "Here, Miss Leonore, are drops for the mother and Eva. Sister Louise, be so good as to take my whole storeroom in hand; and you, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... refusal on the part of Ferdinand. This trivial circumstance confirmed the suspicions of Lodovico, who, naturally subtle and intriguing, thought that he discerned a deep political design in what was really little more than the personal conceit of a broad-shouldered simpleton.[1] He already foresaw that the old system of alliances established by Lorenzo must be abandoned. Another slight incident contributed to throw the affairs of Italy into confusion by causing a rupture between Rome and Naples. Lorenzo, by the marriage of his daughter to Franceschetto Cibo, had ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... "Oh, you simpleton!" said she, "then we must all four die of hunger; you had better plane the coffins for us." But she left him no peace till he consented, saying, "Ah, but I shall miss ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... Volrees' wrath knew no bounds. "What do they take me to be, a knight errant of hell and a simpleton withal? I swear by every shining star that I shall probe to the bottom of this matter if it shakes the foundations of the earth," said he. He took the first train back to Almaville, his spirit crushed within him, though he bore his sorrow with an outward calm. He utterly refused to ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... this. "My dear Baisemeaux," said he, "you are a simpleton. Lose this habit of reflection when I give myself the ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which his carriage lacked, he persuaded me that one horse was enough—at the price of two. To save time I yielded, deducting twenty-five cents only from the sum agreed on, lest I should appear too easily cheated. That sense of being ridiculed as an inexperienced simpleton, when I had merely paid my interlocutor the compliment of trusting him, never ceased to be a pain and a terror ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... didn't know his uncle was to be one of the musicians. If I had, I would have made the leader hire some other man. I sha'n't tell his uncle that he's here. He's hired to play for my dance, not to waste his time taking a simpleton home. It's a ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... couched in a logical form nor articulated in very definite language; and, I am bound to admit, is in no way of the nature of pure reason. Indeed, it is for the most part ejaculatory, and such that the veriest infant and simpleton, and I fear even animals (which is a dreadful admission), can follow its meaning. For to that unceasing question Why? the tiny voice within us answers with imperturbable irrelevance, "I want," "I do," "I think," and occasionally ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... exclaimed Dona Perfecta. "Don't trouble my nephew any more. Pepe, don't mind this simpleton. Do you wish me to tell you the cause of the great Caballuco's anger?" she said, ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... that fashion, Holmesy," returned the young lieutenant almost stiffly. "Corporal Overton is a mighty fine young soldier, and a good soldier never needs to be his officer's pet; he can stand on his own merits. But what's the trouble with Overton? Is he still absurdly suspected of relieving that simpleton Green ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... is next door to a simpleton: he is not half-baked," retorted Mr. Hamlyn, his own temper getting up: "if I may judge by what I've seen ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... off too long, supposing I had the conscience to transfer my liabilities to some simpleton who might not draw half a dozen of the dividends of which I have drawn scores. Besides, the thing is impossible, as I am telling you. Between you and me, the ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... was as wrong for a rich man to take advantage of a poor man, as for a strong man to attack a weak one, or a cunning man to cheat a simpleton." ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... to his feet, he thundered out: "The parol shall not demur—the parol shall not demur. I have got this simpleton where I wanted him! I didn't 'spose he was fool enough to run into this trap; I set it on purpose for him: anybody else would have seen it; anything will catch him. The case can go no farther; the phrase, may it please the court, is ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... he says. 'We'll have another session with him before you leave. Perhaps we can get him into the house here this evenin'. My wife is pretty good at that, she jollies him along. Oh, he swallows it all; the poor simpleton don't know when he's ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... office of physician permitted him to add to the friend. The doctor took all his advantage; he did not take more; and not Faith herself could see that there was any warmer feeling behind his pleasant and pleased eye and smile. But it is true Faith was a simpleton. She did not see that his pleasantness covered keen scrutiny. The ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... to the stile, and Ralph's heart beat stronger, and a nervous tension of expectation quivered through him, bewildering his judgment. But Winsome was very clear-headed, and though the white of her eyes was as dewy and clear as a child's, she was no simpleton. She had read many men and women in her time, for it is the same in essence to rule Craig Ronald as ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... see!" he said. "Bob is thinking of the radio here in the cave. Aren't you, Bob? I'm a simpleton not to ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... said Susan Davis, 'do not be a simpleton. Take the money, and do not pretend to more honesty ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... a tall being with a beaver in his hand rose to meet me, looking so big and handsome and generally imposing that I could not recover myself for several minutes, and mentally wailed for my combs, feeling like an untidy simpleton. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... all the mother's jewels and she's on tenter-hooks every three months, I can tell you! It is hard work for her to pay the interest on what I've lent her. Do you want to marry there, simpleton?" she added, addressing Gazonal; "then pay me forty francs and I'll talk four ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... For her sake, personally, I should never have thought of committing the folly; and still less, I assure you, for that piece of perfumed and yellow-complexioned politeness, her husband. It was pride, sir, pride that ruined me. They went to Cox's Hotel, in Jermyn Street; and I, simpleton as I was, went with them,—for that was before I rode ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... believe his own ears, for he had thought knight-errantry extinct. It was not long, however, before he realized that he was talking to a madman; and then Sancho Panza came under his observation, and he was deemed a simpleton. ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... I grow older," thought Avdyeeich, with some self-contempt. "I make up my mind that Christ is coming to me, and lo! 'tis only Stepanuich clearing away the snow. Thou simpleton, thou! thou art wool-gathering!" Then Avdyeeich made ten more stitches, and then he stretched his head once more towards the window. He looked through the window again, and there he saw that Stepanuich had placed the ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... Fortune the other day," said Ellen, laughing very heartily—"and she told me to hush up and not be a fool; and I told her I really wanted to know, and she said she wouldn't make herself a simpleton if she was in my place; so I thought I might as ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... statue thrill, The master thundered, "Hither, Will!" Like wretch o'ertaken in his track, With stolen chattels on his back, Will hung his head in fear and shame, And to the awful presence came—— A great, green, bashful simpleton, The butt of all good-natured fun. With smile suppressed, and birch upraised, The thunderer faltered—"I'm amazed That you, my biggest pupil, should Be guilty of an act so rude! Before the whole set school to boot—— What evil genius put you to't?" ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... speculation. "Whut—w-whut ails him ter take arter Tangle-foot? W-w—" his great loose lips trembled with unformed words as he gazed his eager inquiry from one to another. Under normal circumstances it would have remained contemptuously unanswered, but in these days in Tanglefoot Cove a man, though a simpleton, was yet a man, and ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... a moment, smiling a little to himself. "What a simpleton is this Saint Felix!" he thought. "What a fool to run amuck at his own chances of ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... changes which had come about in his appearance— for, after all, I told myself that it was impossible that I could have been such a simpleton as to have been mistaken on such a question as gender—was heightened by the self-evident fact that, very recently, he had been engaged in some pitched battle; some hand to hand, and, probably, discreditable encounter, from which he had borne ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... interruption, she laughed, the low, indolent laugh, by means of which she seemed determined, on this night, to keep anything from touching her too nearly. "How crude you men are! Because he is handsome and dances well, you reason that he must necessarily be a simpleton." ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... friend Pertinax! Let Rome wait! Rome's affairs will outlive both of us. I suspect you intend to tell Marcia to have my name included in the next proscription list! But I am not quite such a simpleton as that. Sit down and listen. I have proof that you plotted with the governor of Antioch to have an unknown criminal executed in place of a certain Norbanus, who escaped with your connivance and has since become a follower of the highwayman Maternus. That involves you rather seriously, ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... them. I own that my heart was beating tolerably quickly all the time, but I tried to look as brave as a lion. When they saw that I had laid aside my weapon, for which I had reason to suspect they thought me a great simpleton, their own courage returned, and then rushing forward, I was soon surrounded by their motley band, each man amusing himself, very much to his satisfaction though very little to mine, by thrusting the point of his sword or spear-head at me, to try whether I could bear ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... mean to say is, that you have such a way of turning up when you're wanted very bad, that you're just the scamp to figure in a lot of story books; I wonder whether some simpleton won't undertake to use you that way. The only trouble will be that if he invents yarns about you, he'll make a fizzle of it, and, if he tells the truth, he will hardly be believed; but," added the youth, as if the mantle of prophecy had fallen on him, "it will depend a good ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... tremendous pal of mine at Eton, yet he behaved like a lunatic about this very thing. Poor chap, he reads like anything, and I suppose he'd been overdoing it, for he actually asked me to choose between Mrs. Lascelles and himself! What could a fellow do but let the poor old simpleton go? They seem to think you can't be pals with a woman without wanting to make love to her. Such utter rot! I confess I lose my hair with them; but that doesn't excuse me in the least for ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... there?" demanded Prince Balder, with the air of finding nothing extravagant or improbable in the sailor's yarn. The latter (a little doubting whether his interlocutor were a simpleton or a "deep one") answered, after a moment's pause,—to ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... physical and her strange spiritual charm: he could have wished her not to be providing yet another specimen of the phenomena of woman repeating herself so monotonously in the various worlds of London. The simpleton of fifty made in his soul an effort to be superior, and failed. "What is it that binds me to her?" he reflected, imagining himself to be on the edge of a divine mystery, and never expecting that he and Christine were the huge contrivances of certain ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... I insist that I must talk with somebody. I can't stand around like a simpleton, and say nothing. If you will not tell me who I may talk with, please tell me who ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... auditors of the Rota bought by certain presents, not relics or indulgences, but jewels and gold, the favour of being familiar with the best of these pampered cats who lived under the protection of the lords of the Council; the poor Touranian, all simpleton and innocent as he was, treasured up under his mattress the money given him by the good archbishop for writings and copying—hoping one day to have enough just to see a cardinal's lady-love, and trusting to God for the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... ramifications especially of an ample back staircase over which he leaned, many a time, to look far down—not deterred from his gravity even while aware that he might, for a spectator, have figured some solemn simpleton playing at hide-and-seek. Outside in fact he might himself make that ironic rapprochement; but within the walls, and in spite of the clear windows, his consistency was proof against the cynical light of ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... were enclosed the whole of the savings from his salary. 'Master Jordan shook his head at this passage, and cried out, deeply moved, yet as though vexed, while a tear of motherly tenderness stole down Martha's cheek: "No! no! by no means! What is the fool thinking of? He'll want the money himself—a simpleton. Let him wait till he comes to the master-piece. What pleases me most in the story, is his contentment and his humility. He is not ashamed of his old silver watch yet. It is not everybody that could act so. There must be strong legs to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... derangement of the functions of these organs, like dyspnoea, mental weakness, in some more or less indifference, a disregard of their surroundings; in short, all those symptoms of what was called at that time "Russian simpleton." ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... baker's—the baker was the old master's brother—they were hoisting sacks of meal. The windlass squeaked horribly, and in between the squeaking one could hear Master Jorgen Kofod, in a high falsetto, disputing with his son. "You're a noodle, a pitiful simpleton—whatever will become of you? Do you think we've nothing more to do than to go running out to prayer-meetings on a working day? Perhaps that will get us our daily bread? Now you just stay here, or, God's mercy, I'll break every bone in your body!" Then the wife chimed in, and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... "glory," of merely stepping under a little spirt from one end of the Falls, with plenty of room to stand, and no darkness, no mystery, no nothing. Nothing but an overwhelming sense of being a cussed fool, and a simpleton, and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... no simpleton, hearing these words and seeing the lady's eyes sparkle, advanced towards her with open arms, saying, 'Madam, considering that I owe it to you to say that I am now alive and having regard to that from which you delivered me, it ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... question of yours, "What did I think?"[13] But, my dear Susie, you might as well ask Gibbie Gellatly what he thought. What does it matter what any of us think? We are but simpletons, the best of us, and I am a very inconsistent and wayward simpleton. I know how to roast eggs, in the ashes, perhaps—but for the next world! Why don't you ask your squirrel what he thinks too? The great point—the one for all of us—is, not to take false words in our mouths, and ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... if you like to put it so, it was kindness and generosity and universal compassion that ruined him; but it would be nearer the truth to call him a fool and a simpleton and a blunderer; he did not realize that his proteges were carrion crows and wolves; vultures were feeding on his unfortunate liver, and he took them for friends and good comrades, showing a fine appetite just to please him. So they gnawed his bones perfectly clean, sucked out with great precision ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... was neither much better nor much worse than my neighbours in that respect; but I was so taken aback when I entered the tent and my eyes met those of its occupant, that I could only bow somewhat awkwardly, blushing like a simpleton the while. ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... be fools to the world's end. Answer a fool according to his folly; supply a simpleton with the reading he craves, if it will put money in your pocket. You have discouraged poor Whelpdale in one of the most notable projects of ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... greenness. That message to my brother, with all its virus of insolence I repeated as faithfully for the spirit as, and as literally for the expressions, as my memory allowed me to do; and in that troublesome effort, simpleton that I was, fancied myself exhibiting a soldier's loyalty to his commanding officer. My brother thought otherwise: he was more angry with me than with the enemy. I ought, he said, to have refused all participation in such sans cullotes insolence; to carry it was to acknowledge it as ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... any request he might choose to make. I wonder so talented a father should own a dolt like Rufus for a son. Silly-pated fellow! he has made love to me several times. I say made it, and truthfully; for no such simpleton as he could ever actually feel it in their bosoms. But then, no doubt, he thinks he is in love,—desperately so. I have no pity for him; nothing but contempt, and yet, should he propose for me to my father, I fear the result would be his ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... fact, that these persons, who are generally women, frequently make large sums of money out of the credulity of their fellow creatures. Every mail brings them letters from persons in various parts of the country. These letters are generally answered, and the contents have disgusted more than one simpleton. The information furnished is such as any casual acquaintance could give, and just as trustworthy as the reports of the "reliable gentleman just from the front," used to prove during the late war. The city custom of these impostors is about equal ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... heard you say in a sermon that the hearts of kings are in his rule and governance. As for titles and dignities, I do not care much about them while His Majesty loves me, and calls me his Angelique. They make people more civil about us; and therefore it must be a simpleton who hates or disregards them, and a hypocrite who pretends it. I am glad to be a duchess. Manon and Lizette have never tied my garter so as to hurt me since, nor has the mischievous old La Grange said anything cross or bold; on the contrary, she told me what a fine ...
— English Satires • Various
... station, but she had not been there, and on the Monday I went to London and saw the mother, who was in great distress, for she had had a letter much like mine, only more unsatisfactory, throwing out absurd hints about grandeur and prosperity—poor deluded simpleton!' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... then, which is strictly in accordance with natural philosophy, being very well developed in this worthily aged country, makes the truly great very great of modesty; while the man of pewter greatness—that is, great because Our Sovereign Lady said he might take upon himself the name of Sir Simpleton Somebody! always boiling over with the froth of his own follies. With tin in his pocket, brass in his face, and never a forlorn h in his vocabulary, is he the fellow to do brown the 'rag ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... they are young and silly what they sometimes repent of when they are of riper years and understandings. I sometimes think that had I not been something of a simpleton, I might at this time be a great court lady. Now, madam," said she, again taking Belle by the hand, "do oblige me by allowing me to plait your ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... she, "that father would give me sixpence; but I know he wont, for he never goes to church, and cares nothing about the heathen, and as for mother, she would call me a simpleton if I was to ask her. I am determined I wont go to school next Sunday if I can't take something, it looks so mean; I will say I ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... clearly a simpleton, in thinking that he'll for everlasting be your friend and well-wisher. I warn you of that; he'll forsake you by reason of age ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... animal had died. But he went through street after street still carrying the saddle on his head, never pausing to look around or to speak to anybody, and at last the people began to wonder. Some said he was a simpleton, some said he was a saddle-maker advertising his wares, and some said he was a tramp who ought to be arrested ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... not in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland Archer to be a simpleton. He meant her (thanks to his enlightening companionship) to develop a social tact and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own with the most popular married women of the "younger set," in which it was the recognised custom to attract ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... am a simpleton; and all that has been for tormenting in my heart is sheer nonsense. My crown does not prevent me from being a silly woman. But, my heart's love, forgive my folly for ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... than flesh and blood can bear, to be ordered to do this and that by a feller that don't know half as well as you do yourself! ... Ah—you'll rue this marrying as well as he!" she added, turning to Sue. "All our family do—and nearly all everybody else's. You should have done as I did, you simpleton! And Phillotson the schoolmaster, of all men! ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... said Raven, "up to Pine Grove. You've got an hour, you little simpleton. What did you ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Rivers is next door to a simpleton: he is not half-baked," retorted Mr. Hamlyn, his own temper getting up: "if I may judge by what I've seen ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... which I am familiar is the "Arabian Nights" anecdote of "The Simpleton and the Sharper" (Burton's translation, v : 83). This story is practically identical with ours, except that the Filipino version lacks the additional final comical touch of the Arabian. The owner of ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... musician. Then, when there had been enough of music, Miss Grove returned to her embroidery, and Captain Starr held her cotton and her scissors, and talked such nonsense to her, that Arthur hearing him now and then in the pauses of the conversation, thought him a great simpleton; and firmly believed that Miss Fanny listened from "pique or wounded pride," or something else, not certainly because she liked it. Not but that she seemed to like it. She smiled and responded as if she did, and was very kind and gracious to the handsome soldier, ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course, he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, 'Are they even or odd?' Our school-boy replies, 'Odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself: 'The simpleton had them even upon the first trial, ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... winking at one another, and slyly laughing as she uttered one learned word after another, with an affected air of familiarity with scientific terms. During the walk, she took occasion to lug in all the little she knew, and at one time ventured to quote a little Latin for their edification. Poor simpleton! She thought she had produced quite an impression upon their minds. And, in truth, she had. She had fixed indelibly the impression that she was an insufferably weak and self-conceited girl. She made herself the laughing-stock of the whole company. The moment she was gone, there was one ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... became able to refer to the motive of his pauper journey from his native solitudes into the thick of such a scene, it was no wonder that the zeal of superstition totally subsided amid the astounding truths he witnessed. In fact, the bewildered simpleton now regarded his dream as the merest chimera. Hastily escaping from the thoroughfare, he sought out some wretched place of repose suited to his wretched condition, and there mooned himself asleep, in self-accusations at the thought of poor ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... was too agitated to mind her angry looks. She kept wiping the perspiration from her brow with her handkerchief, and speaking in broken sentences: "If we could only get there first—fool not to teach my sister her lesson before we went, she's such a simpleton!—can't you drive faster?" ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... All at once he comes upon the sleeping beauty, and is awakened by her charms to a hitherto unfelt consciousness. With the advent of the new passion all his dormant faculties start into life, and the seeming simpleton becomes the bright and intelligent lover. The case of Number Five is as different from that of Cymon as it could well be. All her faculties are wide awake, but one emotional side of her nature has never been called into active exercise. ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... extraordinary mixture of whimsicality and common sense, of heroic courage and craven timidity, of violence and tenderness, of impulsiveness and caution. In very truth a delightful bundle of paradox. Quick-witted and impatient, she had yet infinite toleration for the simpleton, and could on occasion suffer fools with a gladness quite unshared by her much gentler daughter or her husband. But the snob, the sycophant, and, above all, the humbug met with short shrift at her hands, and the insincere person hated her heartily. She spoke ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... earnest or to suspect the rage that was gnawing his heart, she had her way. She smiled at his coarse and open grasping, smiled at his scarcely hidden anger, and smiled at the half-insulting consent he flung at her, as if it were all a jest. And he believed her the simpleton she seemed, and did not know that he had found a mistress who would rule him with a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... that we need more than the ability merely to distinguish a genius from a simpleton, just as a physician needs something more than the ability to distinguish an athlete from a man dying of consumption. It is necessary to have a definite and accurate diagnosis, one which will differentiate more finely the many degrees and qualities ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... out all their fine clothes, and dressed themselves at the glass, and skipped about as if they were eager to begin dancing. But the youngest said, 'I don't know how it is, while you are so happy I feel very uneasy; I am sure some mischance will befall us.' 'You simpleton,' said the eldest, 'you are always afraid; have you forgotten how many kings' sons have already watched in vain? And as for this soldier, even if I had not given him his sleeping draught, he would have slept ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... fellow, you are just beginning to perceive what anybody who isn't a born simpleton would have seen for himself ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... pardonable thing, because in its essentials are youth and zeal and all high, white-hot qualities whose roots strike not in the base earth. Any sage, nay, any simpleton, seeing Maxine upon the balcony, could have told her what a fool she was; but who would have told it without a pause, without a sigh for the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... dear Baisemeaux," said he, "you are a simpleton. Lose this habit of reflection when I give myself the trouble to think ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... greatly interest you," said Herzog, familiarly. "Come, be sincere. Cayrol has just refused you a sum of money. He's a simpleton! How much do you want? Will a hundred ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... contradict me? Did I ever wish For any thing in all my life, but you In that same thing oppos'd me, Sostrata? Yet now if I should ask wherein I'm wrong, Or wherefore I act thus, you do not know. Why then d'ye contradict me, simpleton? ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... honour of ordering the dinner, and looking wise at the housekeeper. Of course I shall feel very strange at going into such a house. To you I may say how much nicer it would be to go to some place that Walter and I could have to ourselves,—as you did when you married. But I am not such a simpleton as to repine at that. So much has gone as I would have it that I only feel myself to be happier than I deserve. What I shall chiefly look forward to will be your ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... at the same time enterprising, like a fox; though he was as fond of gossip as an old woman, he never let out his own affairs, while he made everyone else talk freely of theirs. He did not affect to be a simpleton, though, as so many crafty men of his sort do; indeed it would have been difficult for him to take any one in, in that way; I have never seen a sharper, keener pair of eyes than his tiny cunning little ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... would gladly specify all the various printed sources to which I am indebted. But my memory is not equal to such a feat. I can only say that I rarely write a novel without milking about two hundred heterogeneous cows into my pail, and that "A Simpleton" is no exception to my general method; that method is the true method, and the best, and if on that method I do not write prime novels, it is the fault of the man, and ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... idea that that soldier could have been put to better use; that, in fact, he is entirely out of the line of duty. The position assigned him is unnatural, and the modern soldier-boy will be apt to conclude that nobody but a simpleton would be likely to wander about in solitary places, extemporizing in measured sentences; besides it is hard work, as I know from experience. I tried my hand at it the other day until my head ached, and this is the best I ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... with them; Demosthenes ruled supreme in the popular assembly, and wrote letters to the Persian officers who commanded under the king in Asia, inciting them to make war upon the Macedonian, calling him child and simpleton. But as soon as Alexander had settled matters in his own country, and came in person with his army into Boeotia, down fell the courage of the Athenians, and Demosthenes was hushed; the Thebans, deserted ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... slipping into the wood and banged off a gun at him. I was out on them like a hawk, crying if they wanted to murder a poor woman's innocent bairn! Whereupon they swore down my throat that they had seen 'the auld rebel himself,' as they called the Baron. But my Davie, that some folk take for a simpleton, being in the wood, caught up the old grey cloak that his Honour had dropped to run the quicker, and came out from among the trees as we were speaking, majoring and play-acting so like his Honour that the soldier-men ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... conducted back to prison, whence he was taken later to be sewn in a sack and thrown into the Seine.[2601] Even the French admitted that Guillaume was but a simpleton and that his mission was not ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... been dreaming, little simpleton, and fancy now that you really heard what dull sleep alone was thrumming about your ears. All has been quiet and peaceful here, and no evil spirits were ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... "This poor simpleton has been robbed of four gold pieces. Take him, therefore, and throw him into prison." The Marionette, on hearing this sentence passed upon him, was thoroughly stunned. He tried to protest, but the two officers clapped their paws on his mouth and hustled him away ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... hasn't, you may be sure of that, you simpleton!" muttered Maitre Quennebert in his corner. "If you only knew what a mere novice you are at that game compared with the chevalier! If you only knew ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... not going to make me believe," she said, "that you are not wise about that. It isn't clever, you know, to treat me as a simpleton." ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... followed. This time he was in the wagon before Farmer Green was. And all the way down the road, until they reached the farmyard, he acted (or so Farmer Green told him!) like a simpleton. ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to carry this analysis any further. From the runner who falls to the simpleton who is hoaxed, from a state of being hoaxed to one of absentmindedness, from absentmindedness to wild enthusiasm, from wild enthusiasm to various distortions of character and will, we have followed the line of progress along which the comic becomes more and more deeply ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... man chained to his bed for two months when you can cure him with quinine in a week. You have none of those characteristics which in the eyes of the average American make an aristocrat. From the American point of view you are a simpleton, because you are always ready to sacrifice yourself for every poor dog that strays your way. You ought to return to a land where, thank the Lord, the aristocracy of the spirit, the aristocracy of ideas is still a match for that other aristocracy. You ought to return to a land ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... a simpleton? I clean forgot to lock the door; an' that kitchen-bedroom winder, I doubt that you ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... the plainer dishes. Of course, he'll be in line to get married to a rich girl some time. Well, now, to be sure, he wouldn't throw me out in the street just so, mother-naked. Although he's a little simpleton, and chatters a lot, still it's easy to tell he's a decent man. He'll provide for me with something, somehow. And, perhaps, he'll get to like me, will get used to me? I'm a simple girl, modest, and would never consent to be false ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... farmer thought the young man was a simpleton, and that he, himself, was most wise and fortunate; but the former, nothing daunted by this opinion, which he was not unconscious that the latter entertained of him, immediately hired a set of laborers, and ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... answered, "it wouldn't do me no good. I am too old for that. Now, get out of the way there—do, you simpleton," she added, turning to the idiot; "just let me pass—don't you see I am ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... "How can I, simpleton? My money is all locked up in the bargains. No, I'm tied, tied to the stake; I'll fight to the last: and, if I'm defeated and disgraced, I'll die, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... about this insolent old man. I told you from the first what would come of him. But no, you would have your own foolish way. It was easy to see that the devil's dues were in him. Yet you would not believe me! You would believe him. Simpleton as you are, you are believing him now! The poor? Fiddle-faddle and fiddlesticks! I tell you again this man is trying to put his foot on your neck. How? Oh, trust him, he's got his own schemes! Look to it, El Arby, look to it! He'll ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... speaking to a monkey, then, instead of a man? The use, I ask you, of addressing intelligent remarks to such a corporosity? My mistress and I, simpleton. This General of yours drives us from his quarters; he begrudges the morsel we eat, the rude hut that shelters us. Enough! we go; even now I make preparation. Pull this strap for me, Pepe; at least you have strength. Ah! If I were but a ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... to me, Cadet, and I might have been entrapped by it had not this cursed affair happened. La Pompadour is a simpleton beside Angelique des Meloises! My difficulty is to believe her so mad as to have ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... round eyes and innocent ways. I know your sort, I know you, mam'selle, too well! Me, I am nobody's fool, least of all yours, young woman. What goes on under my nose, I see; and if you imagine otherwise you are a bigger simpleton that you ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... man's ingenuousness. He contradicted his own story so unconsciously, that I began to think he was more of a simpleton ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... G. Volrees' wrath knew no bounds. "What do they take me to be, a knight errant of hell and a simpleton withal? I swear by every shining star that I shall probe to the bottom of this matter if it shakes the foundations of the earth," said he. He took the first train back to Almaville, his spirit crushed ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... this, he looked pityingly at his little companion, wondering how she happened to be so silly as to suppose a ship ever went "tip-side up." But he was mistaken if he considered Dotty a simpleton. The child had never gone to school. Her parents believed there would be time enough yet for her to learn a great many things; and her ignorance had never distressed them half so much ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... above-board methods, even if the former were more trouble. Lying, cheating, and deception is the universal rule among them; honesty and straightforwardness are unknown virtues. Anyone whom they detect telling the truth or acting honestly they consider a simpleton unfit to transact business. The missionaries and their families are at present tenting out, five miles south of the city, in a romantic little ravine called Kirk-dagheman, or the place of the forty mills; and on Saturday morning ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... acted—I don't know HOW you've acted. I'm ashamed of you. A girl that could be so sensible for her sister, and always say and do just the right thing, and then when it comes to herself to be such a DISGUSTING simpleton!" ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Faith with all the free kindliness which his office of physician permitted him to add to the friend. The doctor took all his advantage; he did not take more; and not Faith herself could see that there was any warmer feeling behind his pleasant and pleased eye and smile. But it is true Faith was a simpleton. She did not see that his pleasantness covered keen scrutiny. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... to hear, and the lads, all in chorus, imitated the simpleton's laugh with a "hee, hee, hee!" which sounded very ridiculous, ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey
... search we through the kitchen-garden, to see if there be any there, and if there be none, we have but to take him by the hand and lead him hither to the hut where he takes shelter from the rain; and then one shall mount guard while the other has him with her inside. He is such a simpleton that he will do just whatever we bid him." No word of this conversation escaped Masetto, who, being disposed to obey, hoped for nothing so much as that one of them should take him by the hand. They, meanwhile, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... a fool, I believe, and Sir Nigel Anstruthers is the kind of man a simpleton would be obliged to submit to," Bettina had heard ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with letters. I should have seemed to be encroaching if I had written much. Indeed it didn't come from not thinking about you. And first of all, about the money,—as to your offer, I mean. I really feel that I do not know what I ought to say to you about it, without appearing to be a simpleton. The truth is, I don't know what I ought to do, and can only trust to you not to put me wrong. I have an idea that a man ought not to accept a present of money, unless from his father, or somebody like that. And the sum you mention is so very ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... patience was nigh exhausted when he cried: Granny, it is day, and bade her leave her bed and come to the window to tell him if day were not breaking; but she answered: get thee back to thy bed, for 'tis the moon shining down the sky, simpleton. The sun won't give way an hour to the moon nor the moon an hour to the sun because thou'rt going to Arimathea. And methinks, Joseph, that to some the morrow is always better than to-day, and yesterday better than either,—a remark that puzzled Joseph and kept him from his rest. Didst never hear, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... thing to be marvelled at. One final point in connection with her may be noted, which has not always been borne in mind by those who depict good women—much after Hogarth's fashion— without a head. She is not by any means a simpleton, and it is misleading to describe her as a tender, fluttering little creature, who, because she can cook her husband's supper, and caresses him with the obsolete name of Billy, must necessarily be contemptible. On ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... bleeds for you. What is the matter with your hand, that you talk of being a life-long prisoner to your room? Pray send for Paget or Erichsen, and have yourself put right at once. No doubt that local simpleton is making a mess of your case. Perhaps while he is dabbing with lint and lotions the real remedy is the knife. I am sure amputation would be less melancholy than the despondent state of feeling which you are now suffering. If any limb of mine went wrong, I should say to the ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the firm conviction that you could not possibly arrive at the journey's end. It seemed as if the one great principle of his life was that the Sons of Zeruiah must be too hard for us, and that nobody but a simpleton or a fanatic would expect anything else. 'With a manner,' he says of himself, 'which I believe suggested conceit, I had really a very low estimate of myself as compared with others. I could echo what Bishop Stanley says of himself in his journal: "My greatest obstacle to success in life ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... with the dark, Byway, where the ears may hark; Live and fierce when day is done, You, that do without the Sun:— What's this game you bring to nought?— Muttering like a thing distraught, Reckoning like a simpleton? (Since the hearing must be brief,— Living or a dying thief!) Cobbled with the anguished stones That the thoroughfare disowns; Stones they gave you for your bread Of the disinherited! Where the Towers of Hunger loom, Crowding in the dregs of doom; Where ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... it," said Annie, casting her bright eyes downwards: "love is as simple as milking, when people know how to do it. But you must not let her alone too long; that is my advice to you. What a simpleton you must have been not to tell me long ago. I would have made Lorna wild about you, long before this time, Johnny. But now you go into the parlour, dear, while I do your collop. Faith Snowe is not come, but Polly and Sally. Sally has made up her mind to conquer you this very blessed evening, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... — N. fool, idiot, tomfool, wiseacre, simpleton, witling[obs3], dizzard[obs3], donkey, ass; ninny, ninnyhammer[obs3]; chowderhead[obs3], chucklehead[obs3]; dolt, booby, Tom Noddy, looby[obs3], hoddy-doddy[obs3], noddy, nonny, noodle, nizy[obs3], owl; goose, goosecap[obs3]; imbecile; gaby[obs3]; radoteur[obs3], nincompoop, badaud[obs3], zany; trifler, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... said: 'I thought you'd appreciate him,' he says. 'We'll have another session with him before you leave. Perhaps we can get him into the house here this evenin'. My wife is pretty good at that, she jollies him along. Oh, he swallows it all; the poor simpleton don't know when he's bein' ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I shall go to bed. Or I might shoot myself. But if you think that I'm going outside this room in this dress, you're a perfect simpleton, Audrey. I don't mind being a fool, but I won't ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... not separate himself forever from his wife is a veritable simpleton. If a wife and husband think themselves fit for that union of friendship which exists between men, it is odious in the husband to make his wife feel ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... anybody, same as I am about you, you find yourself hating everybody that comes near them. You get notions that every man is conspiring to tell the girl what a perfect fool you are, that they're worrying to boost you right out with her. You hate her, because you think she thinks you are a simpleton, and can't see your good points, which are so obvious to yourself. You hate yourself, you hate life, you hate the sunlight and the trees, and your food, and—and everything. And you wouldn't have things different, or stop making ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... that he would not be killed in the coming struggle. The coming struggle with the Xenophon was nothing compared to his present struggle. Fernando still loved Morgianna. Five years had only added to the intensity of his love; but he had once made a simpleton of himself, and he determined not to do so again. Thus two hungry souls, thirsting for each other's love, acted the cold part of casual acquaintances. Could the veil have been lifted, could the barriers have been broken down, what misery might have been spared! but it is ever thus. Humanity is ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... that with a wave of his hand. "Oh, I think she'll give it, dear simpleton!" He looked at Glenfernie now with genial affection. "Well, on the whole, and balancing one thing against another, I think that I want you to ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... sing-song speech of Shainsa. I made no answer, gesturing him to be seated. On Wolf, formal courtesy requires a series of polite non sequiturs, and while a direct question merely borders on rudeness, a direct answer is the mark of a simpleton. ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... rather to the class of simpleton-stories; and in the following, from the Rev. J. Hinton Knowles' Folk Tales of Kashmir (Truebner: 1888), we have a variant of the well-known tale of the twelve men of Gotham who went one day to fish, and, before returning ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... "Oh, you little simpleton! She is not a married woman, she is a widow; and she is left extremely well off and with everything in her hands,—that is to say, she would be very well off if there was any money. A widow is in the best position of any woman. She can do what ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... produce a model of perpetual motion. He was sure he could do it, and he set to work with a resolution worthy of a nobler enterprise. When one attempt failed, he tried again, and yet again, until his friends and neighbors called him a "simpleton," and openly rebuked him for his folly. His mother began to think he never would learn any craft by which he could gain a livelihood, and she was really discouraged. He was not vicious nor indolent. He had energy and perseverance, intelligence and tact; and still ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... not so easily to be hoodwinked, but bade his men take the supposed spy to the sergeant's house at Hofwa, where four men were set over him as guards. The pretended simpleton seemed well-enough pleased, eating and drinking freely, talking cheerfully of country affairs with his guards, and spending his money freely, so that the sergeant grew to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... other artist, although he knows nothing of their arts; and this with sufficient skill to deceive children or simple people. Suppose now that somebody came to us and told us, how he had met a man who knew all that everybody knows, and better than anybody:—should we not infer him to be a simpleton who, having no discernment of truth and falsehood, had met with a wizard or enchanter, whom he fancied to be all-wise? And when we hear persons saying that Homer and the tragedians know all the arts and all ...
— The Republic • Plato
... and thought of the other dancers. "Doubtless," he mused, "she has told this beau of hers that she has left the baby with the 'looney' Man on the Beach. Perhaps I may be offered a permanent engagement as a harmless simpleton accustomed to the care of children. Mothers may cry for me. The doctor is at Eureka. Of course, he will be there to see his untranslated goddess, and condole with her over the imbecility of the Man on the Beach." Once he carelessly asked ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... little. It was not the first time that she had been called a simpleton, or some kindred name, by the out-spoken Miss Fanny; for this young lady prided herself on not being afraid to speak plainly, and tell people just what she ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... satirically, but compassionately. 'The little simpleton!' he thought to himself. 'If half of what they say of Lady Montbarry is true, Mrs. Ferrari and her trap have but a poor prospect before them. I ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... of committing the folly; and still less, I assure you, for that piece of perfumed and yellow-complexioned politeness, her husband. It was pride, sir, pride that ruined me. They went to Cox's Hotel, in Jermyn Street; and I, simpleton as I was, went with them,—for that was before I rode in Madam ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the elder, "I should not have regretted if his majesty had but pitched upon you; but that he should choose that little simpleton really grieves me. But I will revenge myself; and you, I think, are as much concerned as I; therefore, I propose that we should contrive measures and act in concert: communicate to me what you think the ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... a theory of mine that when we become sorry for ourselves we make our misfortunes harder to bear, because we lose courage and can't think without bias; so I cast about me for something to be glad about, and the comfort that at least we were safer with a simpleton than near a drunken Mexican came to me; so I began to view the situation with ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... suddenly a woman falls in love with him, too; and out of pure jealousy he takes himself off to Trieste, immortal poem and all—whereto is this prophetical epitaph appended already, as Bluphocks assures me—"Here a mammoth-poem lies, 15 Fouled to death by butterflies." His own fault, the simpleton! Instead of cramp couplets, each like a knife in your entrails, he should write, says Bluphocks, both classically and intelligibly.—AEsculapius, an Epic. Catalogue of the drugs: Hebe's plaister—One strip Cools 20 your lip. Phoebus's emulsion—One bottle Clears your throttle. Mercury's bolus—One ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... have a dozen such friends, if friendship is all you want, and be Lady Mallow into the bargain," retorted Captain Winstanley scornfully. "You are a simpleton to send such a man away despairing. But I suppose it is idle to ask you to hear reason. I am not your father, and even if I were, I daresay you would take your own way ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... my partner's dealings with me is also quite erroneous. He did not begin to treat me coldly, as a poor simpleton, when my uncle and I so fatally quarrelled; nor did he afterwards gradually possess himself of our business and edge me out. On the contrary, he behaved to me with the ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... Gloversville, N.Y., November, 1919, and passing out of the Kingsborough Hotel we set off to have a look at the town. And if we must be honest, we were in passable good humour. To tell the truth, as Gloversville began its daily tasks in that clear lusty air and in a white dazzling sunshine, we believed, simpleton that we were, that we were on the road toward making our fortune. Now, we will have to be brief in explanation of the reason why we felt so, for it is a matter not easy to discuss with the requisite delicacy. Shortly, we were on the road—"trouping," ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... it off too long, supposing I had the conscience to transfer my liabilities to some simpleton who might not draw half a dozen of the dividends of which I have drawn scores. Besides, the thing is impossible, as I am telling you. Between you and me, the shares ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
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