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Infatuation   Listen
noun
Infatuation  n.  The act of infatuating; the state of being infatuated; folly; that which infatuates. "The infatuations of the sensual and frivolous part of mankind are amazing; but the infatuations of the learned and sophistical are incomparably more so." "Such is the infatuation of self-love."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Infatuation" Quotes from Famous Books



... ran high in the Gallito cabin, but although Hanson sometimes sat in at this or that game, more often he sat talking to Pearl in the soft shadow of the porch. To her he made no secret of his infatuation, but it seemed to him that when with her they were ever more constantly and more irritatingly interrupted. Either Mrs. Gallito, or Hughie, or some of the visitors would join them and Hanson realized that his opportunities for speech with Pearl were ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... now looked as if the English government intended to treat the Bostonians as rebels, to coerce them by armed men, to frighten them into submission to all its unwise measures. What a fortunate thing was that infatuation on the part of English ministers! The independence of the Colonies might have been delayed for half-a-century but for the stupidity and obstinacy of George ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... the situation I accepted. I had undertaken, with my companion, to see it out, and I was under a charm, apparently, that could smooth away the extent and the far and difficult connections of such an effort. I was lifted aloft on a great wave of infatuation and pity. I found it simple, in my ignorance, my confusion, and perhaps my conceit, to assume that I could deal with a boy whose education for the world was all on the point of beginning. I am unable even to remember at this day what proposal I framed for the ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... myself in your hands. My name is Sophie T———. You have guessed the truth; 'tis the betrayal of a lover I was too fondly attached to has brought me to despair. If you deem my grief excessive, that is because you do not know how great was my assurance, how blind my infatuation, and you cannot realize how enchanting was the paradise ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France

... you hear that traitor?" Gilda whispered, tearfully, and Rigoletto nodded. He was indeed glad; maybe it would cure her of her infatuation. ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... the passions of party and faction, liberated from prejudice and infatuation and the tyranny of tradition, these watchers on the threshold of another world are vaguely conscious of the simplicity of the present and the yawning ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... absorbed by gayety. Sometimes going to as many as fourteen assemblies, balls, etc., in one evening. "He acknowledged to me," says Dallas, "that it amused him." Did not his genius suffer then from the new infatuation? So courted, flattered, and surrounded by temptations, did not this worldly life prove too seductive, hurtful to his mind, heart, and independence of character? Did he draw from the world's votaries his rules of judgment, his ways of thought? Did he yield when brought in contact with that terrible ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... been considered so pleasing to the Deity as a total denial of the authority of your own mind. Self-reliance has been thought deadly sin; and the idea of living and dying without the aid and consolation of superstition has always horrified the church. By some unaccountable infatuation, belief has been and still is considered of immense importance. All religions have been based upon the idea that God will forever reward the true believer, and eternally damn the man who doubts or denies. Belief is ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... the last touch to all I have to bear, Jack, if mama brings a misunderstanding between you and me. If you can feel it fitting, appropriate, that a widow of barely four months should encourage the infatuation of a stupid old Englishman, then I have no more to say. We have different conceptions of right and wrong, that is all." Imogen's lips trembled ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... shutting up the ships of the latter which might be trusted into the St. Lawrence. To suppose that the British government would not avail itself of this superiority on such an occasion would be to impute to it a blind infatuation or ignorance of the plans of its adversary, which could not be safely assumed in calculations of ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... stupidity and infatuation of the buffalo seems the more remarkable from the contrast it offers to their wildness and wariness at other times. Henry knew all their peculiarities; he had studied them as a scholar studies his books, and he derived quite as much pleasure from the occupation. The buffalo ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... not wish to be unfair to anyone; but I must own that I am sorry that you have such an infatuation ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... a sense of the presence of the glorified spirits of her uncle and child, assumed that caressed infatuation, that which she had deemed a higher, nobler love, proportions of gigantic horror? Why had she spat out as gall and wormwood the sweet morsel she had rolled under her tongue? Why, giving up her only joy, trampling down with all her strength and might the one hope of her existence, had ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... "Her infatuation for him seems perfectly unaccountable. Johnson in his rough (I may here call it brutal) manner said to her, 'Why Ma'am, he is not only a stupid, ugly dog, but he is an old dog too.' Sir William says he really believes that she combated her inclination for him as long ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... my esteem for her, even more than my affection, has lessened almost every day since I have been in her house; but this morning, when I ventured to speak to her with earnestness, I found her powers of reasoning so weak, and her infatuation to luxury and expence so strong, that I have ever since felt ashamed of my own discernment in having formerly selected ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... Freedom in this country are idle. Some are timid; some are selfish; and many the torpedo torch of hopelessness has numbed into inactivity. We would fain hope that (if the above account be accurate—it is only the French account) this dreadful instance of infatuation in our Ministry will rouse them to one effort more; and that at one and the same time in our different great towns the people will be called on to think solemnly, and declare their thoughts fearlessly ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... collar—following them through crowded thorough-fares. Some young ladies, especially those of doubtful ages, delight in caressing lumps of white, cotton-looking dumpy dogs and toting them around, to the disgust of the lookers-on—with all the fondness and blind infatuation of a mamma with her first born, bran new baby. Wherever you see any quantity of white and black loafers—Philadelphia, for instance, you'll see rafts of ugly and wretched looking curs. Boz says poverty and oysters have a great affinity; in this country, for oysters read dogs. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... no hopes of beating up to their ship, they came to an anchor, and inconsiderately sent away the boat to give the rest of the company notice of their condition, and to order the ship to them; but too soon—even the next day—their wants made them sensible of their infatuation, for their water was all expended, and they had taken no thought how they should be supplied till either the ship came or the boat returned, which was not likely to be under five or six days. Here, like Tantalus, they almost famished in sight of the fresh streams and lakes, being drove ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... imagine how it had happened, that they should think him willing to stir up strife as a discontented person, or usurp the government of his country like an ambitious one. He therefore begged that the infatuation of the multitude might not injure him in their estimation; for, to the utmost of his power, their authority should be restored. He then recommended them to use good fortune with moderation; for it would be much better to enjoy ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... Neither was my lover less faithful; he found means to communicate to me a particular night on which he proposed to attempt to storm the nunnery of Saint Bride, and carry me from hence to freedom and the greenwood, of which Wallace was generally called the king. In an evil hour—an hour I think of infatuation and witchery—I suffered the abbess to wheedle the secret out of me, which I might have been sensible would appear more horribly flagitious to her than to any other woman that breathed; but I had not taken the vows, and I thought Wallace and Fleming ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... interest or amuse her, was another shock to me. I am free to confess that, in spite of all my former assertions to myself that I had not loved her as much as I had supposed, this new development was the first that began to make me believe I had been blinded by mere infatuation. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... be sure, will proceed to depreciate the military work of Von Moltke, just as he tries to depreciate his diplomatic and parliamentary work. He has reached a pitch of infatuation unbelievable; and is becoming, as I have said before, more and more of a Nero every day. At the present moment he is instigating the construction of an arena at Schildorn where spectacles after ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... up, and got him into, through Heaven knows what influence. No; Du Laurier's no fool, and is said to be a fine sportsman, as well as almost absurdly good-looking. Mademoiselle Maxine has plenty of excuse for her infatuation—for I assure you it's nothing less. She'd jump into the fire for this young man, and grill with a Joan of Arc smile ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... her and those first mad days of his engagement, but so that he might have proved to Christine that the fact of her being in London and near to him affected him not at all, that he might prove his infatuation for her to be a ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres

... which spares not youth or loveliness; seemed, in short, to have lost all count of the passage of time in his grief for the beloved Fastrada. At length he was approached by Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, who had learnt, by occult means, the reason for the Emperor's strange infatuation. Going up to the dead Empress, he withdrew from her mouth a large diamond. At the same moment Charlemagne regained his senses, made arrangements for the burial of his wife, and left for the Castle ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... hospital I visited the huts all along the street, confiscating sundry refractory baby caps among shrieks and outcries, partly of laughter and partly of real ignorant alarm for the consequence. I think if this infatuation for hot head-dresses continues, I shall make shaving the children's heads the only condition upon which they shall be allowed to ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... with pride, but rather with gratitude and surprise. I loved him for a time, or rather I loved a self-created delusion under his name. I might have yielded to the charm of such a feeling, had I not discovered that what I supposed to be a passionate attachment of the heart was on his part only an infatuation of the senses. When I perceived the real nature of his love, it became odious to me, and I blushed to think how I had been deceived; I took back my heart, and wrapped myself once more in the cold monotony of ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine

... welcoming to this country every friend of liberty, who is exposed to danger from the tyranny of the British Government, and who, while they continue under it, must expect to share in those calamities, which its present infatuation must, sooner or later, bring upon it. But let us all join in supplications to the Great Parent of the Universe, that for the sake of the many excellent characters in our native country its government may be reformed, and the judgments impending over ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith

... might have enabled the renter to pay three pounds per acre, and yet still maintain himself with tolerable comfort, could not now pay more than one pound, or, at the most, one pound ten; and yet, such is the infatuation of landlords, that, in most instances, the terms of leases taken out then are rigorously exacted. Neither can the remission of yearly arrears be said to strike at the root of the evils under which they suffer. The fact of the disproportionate rent hanging over them is a disheartening circumstance, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... desire than to see sects of paradoxers. There are fully five thousand adults in England who ought to be the followers of some one false quadrature. And I have most hope of 3-1/8, because I think Mr. James Smith better fitted to be the leader of an organized infatuation than any one I know of. He wants no pity, and will get none. He has energy, means, good humor, strong conviction, character, and popularity in his own circle. And, most indispensable point of all, he sticks ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... the Selby affair, and Laura's treatment of him, sometimes encouraging him—and then throwing him off, and finally his belief that she would go, to the bad if something was not done to arouse her from her infatuation. He wished Philip was in Washington. He knew Laura, and she had a great respect for his character, his opinions, his judgment. Perhaps he, as an uninterested person whom she would have some confidence, and as one of the public, could say some thing to her that would ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... which he is apt to fall a victim is the infatuation trap. This is a much more elaborate machine, and is worked by one of those semi-attached couples who might sit to a new Hogarth for a new edition of Marriage a la Mode. The husband's part is very simple. It is to be as little in the way as possible, and to afford his sprightlier ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... time it occurred to me to reflect on the strange conduct of the springboks; for, instead of making off at my appearance, they only bounded a little to one side, and then kept on their course. They seemed possessed by some species of infatuation. I remembered hearing that such was their way when upon one of their migrations, or "trek-bokens." This, then, thought I, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... or other, I think it is in Castelnuovo's edition—is not there such a one?—that the infatuation of a nation for a foolish minister is like that of a lover for an ugly woman: when once he opens his eyes, he wonders what the devil bewitched him. This is the text to the present sermon in politics, which I shall not divide under three heads, but tell ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... our account by again quoting Captain Hardy. Of the infatuation of this animal for castoreum he saw several instances. "A trap was fastened by its steel chain to a stake, to prevent the beaver, when caught, taking it away. It slipped, however, and the beaver swam away ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... fantastically variegated with English clouds; and on inquiring of the person to whom it belonged whether something had not been done to it, received for answer 'that a gentleman, a great artist in the neighbourhood, had retouched some parts of it.' What infatuation! Yet this candidate for the honours of the pencil might probably have made a jovial fox-hunter or respectable justice of the peace it he could only have stuck to what nature and fortune intended ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... his subjects just as he had deceived himself regarding the durability of his work. They did not understand to what an extent their power was the personal power of their King. Proud to the point of infatuation of the role he had made them play, they imagined it was their own doing, and that Frederick's soul would survive in them. They expected from a new reign the same glory abroad, the same security at home, the same relative prosperity, with ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... course, was ridiculous in his sudden drunken infatuation for Avdotya Romanovna. Yet apart from his eccentric condition, many people would have thought it justified if they had seen Avdotya Romanovna, especially at that moment when she was walking to and ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... experienced at Naples from her conviction that Hawbury was false was increased and, if possible, intensified by the discovery that he had followed them to Rome. His true motives for this could not possibly be known to her, so she, of course, concluded that it was his infatuation for Minnie, and his determination to win her for himself. She felt confident that he knew that she belonged to the party, but was so utterly indifferent to her that he completely ignored her, and had not sufficient interest in her to ask the commonest question about ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... intelligent mortals; and as long as other men did not judge him, she felt no inclination to usurp so unfeminine a prerogative. He had always been kind to her, and she understood now from his manner that he meant to be still kinder. It occurred to her at once that he knew of George's infatuation for Florrie, and that he was chivalrously extending to George's wife a sympathy which he would probably have withheld in such circumstances from his own. Had it been possible she would have liked to explain to him that in her case his sympathy was not needed; but she realized, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... unfeeling aunt expressed her satisfaction at Alicia's good sense and discretion; represented, in what she thought glowing colours, the unheard-of presumption it would have been in her to take advantage of Sir Edmund's momentary infatuation; and then launched out into details of her ambitious views for him in a matrimonial alliance—views which she affected now ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... her first visit, had he succeeded in driving her bewitching image from his mind. He had tried to laugh at his own folly, then had grown angry with himself, but finally had settled down to a dismayed acceptance of a wild infatuation. ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer

... face that belonged to it, and the hand that he had held in his, inclined him to a serious view. What was he, under the circumstances, called upon to do? Perhaps to avoid the girl? Well, he would think about that. Perhaps to break the truth to her? Why, ten to one, such was her infatuation, he would fail. Perhaps to keep up the illusion, to colour the raw facts; to help her to false ideas, while yet not plainly stating falsehoods? Well, he would see about that; he would also see about avoiding the girl. He saw about this last so well, that the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... however, was taking a new direction—it was towards the Parson and his church instead of the conventicle of Mr. Tonkin. Quite what had brought about this change was hard to say—probably chiefly the infatuation of Tonkin for Vassie, a circumstance Annie took ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... a month after her arrival at Boyleston, when her brother, overcoming the infatuation which usually attends that disease, saw that the end was near and made provision ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... intervention. This, however, to the misfortune of Ibrahim's seamen, the English admiral could not do alone. Ibrahim re-entered Navarino, and there found the orders of the Sultan for which it had been agreed that he should wait. These orders were dictated by true Turkish infatuation. They bade Ibrahim continue the subjugation of the Morea with the utmost vigour, and promised him the assistance of Reschid Pasha, his rival in the siege of Missolonghi. Ibrahim, perfectly reckless of the consequences, now sent out his devastating columns ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... in his life. He had seen a little way into his small daughter's soul, and conceived of a power of spirit beyond him, although he considered her both unreasonable and wrong. He grieved for her that she had carried such a great burden so bravely and so long. How great must have been her love, or her infatuation! The pathetic knowledge hardened his heart toward the young man in the jail, and he no longer tried to defend ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... man would have to know a lot about a girl," he said, "before he could be sure she was the sort he could fall in love with. I thought love at first sight wouldn't be love at all, but only infatuation. Now I see that I didn't know what I was talking about. It isn't a question of whether you could love her. You've just got to. You can't do anything else. It's like seven devils or seven angels entering ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... of Hydra and with it all Greece was saved. The subsequent course of Sultan Mahmoud was that of blind infatuation and fury. So far from accepting the European demands for an armistice, he put forward a peremptory request for an indemnity for the losses inflicted upon him. The Ambassadors of the Powers quitted Constantinople. It was then that the loss ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... advisers and should act under the skilled guidance of their own organisation, so that they may make no bad bargains. Mr Dillon, on his part, sought to kill land purchase outright, but why he should have had this mad infatuation against the most beneficent Act that was passed for Ireland in our generation, I am at a loss to know, if it is not that he allowed his personal feeling against Mr O'Brien to cloud the operations of ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... all Tina could get out of him. She noticed, too, what her blind infatuation had prevented her observing before, that there was a fierce expression in his eyes when he set out on these nocturnal rambles, and that on his return the corners of his mouth and his long finger-nails were always smeared with ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... "I am sure that she feels grateful to you for saving her from the consequences of her infatuation." ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... the gold? Because of his infatuation for the girl he had become a highwayman. He had not expected her to come down from Graniteville that day. He had not counted on being nearly killed by Cummins, for it was he whom Cummins had overpowered. He ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall

... He and Marguerite had quarrelled before her illness—no one knows why, unless she was already under the influence of her fatal infatuation for Rowan. Barbee has gone to work. A few weeks ago he won his first serious case in court and attracted attention. They say his speech was so full of dignity and unnecessary rage that some one declared he was simply trying to recover his self-esteem for Marguerite's having called him trivial ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... are two patterns eternally set before them; the one blessed and divine, the other godless and wretched: but they do not see them, or perceive that in their utter folly and infatuation they are growing like the one and unlike the other, by reason of their evil deeds; and the penalty is, that they lead a life answering to the pattern which they are growing like. And if we tell them, that unless they ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... the young man used in his infatuation. He knew no others—miserable, so that he should no longer care what happened to him, or believe in any good, which was the most probable state of affairs; or divine, a life celestial, inconceivable, which was indeed ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... mentioning Running Elk of her own free will; she wasn't the least bit embarrassed, and, although her father's face whitened, she preserved her quiet dignity, and I realized that she was in no wise ashamed of her infatuation. I didn't wonder that the old gentleman chose to accompany her to this game, although he must have known that the sight of Running Elk would pain ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... Louise found some pleasure in arranging the little house Sandy had taken for her in a new suburb, and in making, wearing, and altering the additional gowns which their joint earnings—for she still worked intermittently at her trade—allowed her to enjoy. After the first infatuation was a little cooled, Sandy discovered in her a paganism so unblushing that his own Scotch and Puritan instincts reacted in a sort of superstitious fear. It seemed impossible that God Almighty should long allow Himself to be flouted as Louise flouted Him. He found also that the sense of truth was ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Jess's infatuation had in time the effect of making Hendry uncomfortable. In the attic he delivered himself ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie

... fact we know nothing of the lady, except that she was handsome, cultivated, and well-connected. Whatever approaches Tegner may have made toward her (and it is not known of what nature they were) she appears to have repelled; and the poet, though fighting desperately against his growing infatuation, wore out his splendid vitality in the conflict of emotions which the unhappy relation occasioned. He became a prey to the most terrible melancholy, and a misanthropy of the deepest hue spread its sombre veil over the world ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... fallen majesty of the ambitious despot. With great judgment, both here and in the Seven before Thebes, the poet describes the issue of the war, not as accidental, which is almost always the case in Homer, but (for in tragedy there is no place for accident,) as the result of overweening infatuation on the one hand, and wise moderation ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... 1870, the time of the great reforms undertaken by Alexander II, when the interests of the people were, for the first time, the order of the day. It was at this period that a great deal of studying was being done with great enthusiasm and that a general infatuation for folklore and for a "union with the masses" was being shown. The desire to become "simplified," that is to say to have all people live the same kind of life, the appearance of a type, celebrated under the sarcastic name of "noble penitent" (meaning the titled man who is ashamed ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... the man to give except in the expectation of plenty, would plant the unwary Rochester on the hearth of his own and Overbury's enemies. With Rochester in the Howard camp there would be short shrift for Thomas Overbury. There would be, though Rochester in his infatuation seemed blind to the fact, as short a shrift as the Howards could contrive for ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... of the imposture. The immense number of persons who now believed him to be Yezzid was incalculable; his party increased and multiplied, and he soon had thousands of followers who supported his cause. The infatuation of the vulgar and the bulk of the community was astounding; for the renowned Muley Yezzid, like his Majesty George IV., was the first horseman in his empire, and the most accomplished gentleman: whereas Buhellesa[187], for so he was called in derision, was so bad a horseman ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... confident, "when she recovers from a natural and childlike infatuation for you she'll marry somebody... Possibly even such a man as Graylock might make her happy. You can't ever tell about such men at the ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers

... said on the way, 'she has gone to some special service at St. Luke's.' She was mistaken, though Beatrice had in truth been diligent at such services of late. 'Now there,' she added, 'is a kind of infatuation I find it difficult even to understand. How can a girl of her sense and education waste her time in that way? Don't think I have no religious belief, Mr. Athel; I'm not strong-minded enough for that. ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... merchant, in preference to superficial, so- called, 'professional men.' But Eugene had rare educational advantages, and I expected him to improve them, and be something more than ordinary. He expected it, five years ago. What infatuation possesses him ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... tell your friends there to withdraw their troops as soon as they can. That flag, which pretends to partition France, will unite it as one man. Our sages here are actually about to play its game. Orders have come to divide the army. What folly! What inconceivable infatuation! In the very face of the most fantastic and furious population of mankind, whom the most trivial success inflames into enthusiasts; they are going to break up their force, and seek adventures by brigades ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... proved that my sight had not deceived me: I approached within sabre's length of the line; and having ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt that the line was composed of American soldiers, I returned to my friend and again urged him to charge. But there was an infatuation upon him that night for which I have ever been unable to account: he insisted that I must be mistaken; he spoke of the improbability which existed that any part of the enemy's army should have succeeded in taking ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... loved power, and was undoubtedly glad to see that she could make Caesar forget about going home, though it was too bad that he forgot, for always, even after he had lived to write about all the great things he had done in the world, people remembered more about his rather absurd infatuation for the lady than about all the battles he had won and all the prizes he had captured. And the lady, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... almost continually. Yes, perhaps I am in love. I dream about her too much. I think of her when I am asleep and when I awake—that is surely a grave indication. Her face follows me, accompanies me ceaselessly, ever before me, around me, with me. Is this love, this physical infatuation? Her features are so stamped upon my vision that I see her the moment I shut my eyes. My heart beats quickly every time I look at ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... somehow never can run straight where money is concerned), are becoming known to her as she knows few, if any, of her friends; and that, because known, they are extraordinarily interesting. She will see Rachel drawn out of the haven of her staunch and critical common sense by her infatuation for Louis; threatened by the shipwreck of despair when she realises his weakness and her irrevocable mistake, and again putting into a new harbour of determination to pay the price of her love and make the best of things. And I should not be altogether surprised if even our romantic ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various

... his quick advance to White Otter discovered for him nothing until, with a series of lightning-like stabs, the knife tore its way into his vitals—once, twice, three times, when, with a wild yell, he sank under his deluded infatuation. ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington

... pirate who received the general pardon from Captain Woodes Rogers in 1718. When, a little later, the scandal of Captain Rackam's infatuation for Anne Bonny was causing such gossip among the two thousand ex-pirates who formed the population of the settlement, it was Turnley who brought news of the affair to the notice of the Governor. In revenge ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... foot, and chest; had a romantic deliverance; was hidden in a chapel by a young lady, and nursed into consciousness and convalescence by loving care, which enabled him to reach Madrid, and ultimately Geneva, where, in the radiance of youthful infatuation, he rode with reckless energy down a risky steep part of the city, so that he might pass the window of the lady, who was more than old enough to be his mother, and in a few months was to be made his wife. A child was born to ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... impositions as Chatterton had practised on the public credulity. Whom did he deceive? Nobody but those who well deserved to be deceived, viz., shallow antiquaries, who pretended to a sort of knowledge which they had not so much as tasted. And it always struck me as a judicial infatuation in Horace Walpole, that he, who had so brutally pronounced the death of this marvellous boy to be a matter of little consequence, since otherwise he would have come to be hanged for forgery, should himself, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... felt greatly relieved in her heart that he was going away so soon, but she was too wise to say so to Dorothy, knowing that if one attempts to break up an infatuation on the part of a girl of that age, ten to one it makes matters ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... but a conventional member of society. It was not in his mind or in his character to plot the murder or mayhem of his rival. What he wanted was a public disgrace, one that would blare his name out to the newspapers as a law-breaker. He wanted to sicken Beatrice and her father of their strange infatuation for Lindsay. ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... contempt, and the affair was suffered to fall into oblivion. Yet it is now so notorious that many of the highest persons in the state were tampering with the exiled family, that the plot is rendered sufficiently probable. There seems to have been some political infatuation connected with the name of the Stuarts. Though, excepting the bravery of Charles I. and the pleasantry of Charles II., they all were evidently the dullest, most mulish, and most repulsive of mankind; yet many brave men periled their lives to restore them, and many men of great distinction ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... reason of the citie's infatuation, Ireton has made it drunk with the cup of abomination; That is, the cup of the whore, after the Geneva Interpretation, Which with the juyce of Titchburn's grapes (51) must needs cause intoxication. From ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... a particular and grave interest. "It is to him," say M.M. Ampere and Haureau, "that we must refer the honor of the decision taken in 794 by the Council of Frankfort in the great dispute about images; a temperate decision which is as far removed from the infatuation of the image-worshippers as from the frenzy of the image-breakers." And at the same time that he thus took part in the great ecclesiastical questions, Charlemagne paid zealous attention to the instruction of the clergy, whose ignorance he deplored. "Ah," ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... tangle of her love affairs Wilmot Allen threaded a path of hope, despair, and cynicism. There were times when she seemed to have a return of her childhood infatuation for him; there were times when he feared that in one of her moments of impressionable enthusiasm she would marry some other man in haste, and repent at leisure. And there were the cynical intervals, when it seemed to him that he could do without her, and that nothing was worth while ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... free himself from his infatuation, but unsuccessfully. With that in view he fixed his attention on the woman's past; it was said that despite her beauty, her aristrocratic manners, the brilliancy of mind with which she had dazzled him—a poor country boy—she ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... absurdly, and fell asleep and snored horridly. Booh, the nasty pig! But as he lay there stretched on the pink satin sofa, Angelica still persisted in thinking him the most beautiful of human beings. No doubt the magic rose which Bulbo wore caused this infatuation on Angelica's part; but is she the first young woman who has thought ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the wrongs he had suffered as an aspirant to the royal dignity; no sooner was he firmly seated on the throne, than he recalled the strangers, and showed that he had only friendly intentions with regard to them. His predecessors had received them into favour, he, in fact, showed a perfect infatuation for them, and became as complete a Greek as it was possible for an Egyptian to be. His first care had been to make a treaty with the Dorians of Oyrene, and he displayed so much tact in dealing with them, that they forgave him for the skirmish of Irasa, and invited him ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... mean time, neither the fierceness of the persecutors nor the infatuation of their victims had decreased. The dungeons were never empty; the streets of almost every village echoed daily with the lash; the life of a woman whose mild and Christian spirit no cruelty could embitter had been sacrificed, and more ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... illustration of the infatuation of the Rebel sympathizers, a few days after Memphis was captured. One evening, while making a visit at the house of an acquaintance, the hostess introduced me to a young lady of the strongest secession proclivities. Of course, I endeavored to avoid the topics ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... reformer. You've taken him up as a sort of hobby, until, in his lucid intervals, he takes advantage of your reforming process to acquire the added disease of love, which has reduced him to a condition of imbecile infatuation with your ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... chance carefully prearranged). It was an item of which Farbish had known, in advance of publication, but Wilfred would never have seen that sheet, had it not been so carefully brought to his attention. There were hints of the strange infatuation which a certain young woman seemed to entertain for a partially civilized stranger who had made his entree to New York via the Police Court, and who wore his hair long in imitation of a Biblical character of the same name. ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... excitement of the people, as if the existing order of things could have been seriously threatened by such incoherent ravings. Their exertions were effectual, for exorcism was a powerful remedy in the fourteenth century; or it might perhaps be that this wild infatuation terminated in consequence of the exhaustion which naturally ensued from it; at all events, in the course of ten or eleven months the St. John's dancers were no longer to be found in any of the cities of Belgium. The ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... came out again. Daniel Van Vleck expected the same, which made his wife and family much distressed; for he had often talked too inconsiderate, and in a wrong spirit; however it blew over. After all, it is observable, that those of our people who had kept themselves free from the Infatuation, were acknowledged as such, and met with nothing disagreeable of ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... triumphant smile—a very faint smile, but quite triumphant. I guess she had so long since given up any idea of getting her man back that it was enough for her to have got the girl out of the house and well cured of her infatuation. Once, in the hall, when Leonora was going out, Edward said, beneath his breath—but ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... popularity; gilding with the appearance of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various

... believed herself going, free and rid of care, to take at Elizabeth's court the place due to her rank and her misfortunes: thus she persisted, in spite of all that could be said. In our time, we have seen the same infatuation seize another royal fugitive, who like Mary Stuart confided himself to the generosity of his enemy England: like Mary Stuart, he was cruelly punished for his confidence, and found in the deadly climate of St. Helena the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... continual persecution. Olympe and she gave up seeing one another, as you might imagine. I gave my new mistress a carriage and jewels. I gambled, I committed every extravagance which could be expected of a man in love with such a woman as Olympe. The report of my new infatuation was immediately spread abroad. ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils

... monument of his mercy. How awful the consideration! To think that we may be called to give an account at any hour of the day, and not frequently to examine the state of affairs between us and our God, is complete infatuation. Strange as it may seem, as it regards myself I stand condemned. I am sensible sufficient attention is not paid to the important work of self-examination. O that this fresh year may ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... hand of God for servitude; and you must pardon me if I express my surprise that a gentleman of your evident intelligence should seek such a connection—you must be labouring under some horrible infatuation." ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... but I do not think it was of malice or hatred, but rather "righteous indignation." The instigators of it were serious and earnest persons, who verily thought they were doing right. They tried first to save me from what they considered was my infatuation; and failing that, did all they could to save others from my bad influence. "I bear them record, that they had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge." It was just such a zeal as I had before I was converted; therefore my heart's desire was drawn out towards them, and I ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... arrangement was proposed by Lord North for himself; and, to say truth, those of his friends for whom he wished provision to be made, were at least as unexceptionable as many, I may even add as most of those whom Lord Shelburne had collected from the two former Administrations. The infatuation, however, which pervaded the whole of his Government, operated most forcibly in this instance. The affectation of holding the ostensible language of Mr. Pitt, in 1759, is only mentioned to show the ridiculous vanity of the Minister who, unsupported ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... Coldriver did: it sat and awaited the outcome with ill-restrained enthusiasm, and while it waited it talked. No word or gesture or movement of young Homer Locker and Yvette Hinchbrooke went undiscussed. Nobody in town was unaware of Homer's infatuation for the coffee demonstrator—with the one exception of Homer's father, who was too busy waiting upon the unaccustomed rush of trade to notice ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... that Government, professing to be the friend of man and the great supporter of his liberty and independence, should light up the torch of war against the only nation that stands between itself and destruction, exhibited a degree of infatuation or madness, altogether incomprehensible. But the men at present ruling the States, infatuated, or, as their more enlightened countrymen say, 'bribed by the Tyrant of France,' regardless of the best interests of their country, and the feelings and affections of a great majority of their own people, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... draw this article to a close. We may well rejoice that we live in the nineteenth century; and that the disgusting infatuation and baleful doctrines of witchcraft are gone ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various

... perhaps, then who brought into Sara Lee's life the strange and mad infatuation for her that was gradually to become a dominant issue in the next few months. For the maid chose a white dress, a soft and young affair in which Sara Lee looked like the heart of ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... have returned a civil answer to our subsequent remonstrances. In that case, our government would have been conciliated; and the monster's son, who yet lives in Malabar, would now be reigning in his stead. But Diis aliter visum est—earth was weary of this Kandyan nuisance, and the infatuation, which precipitated its doom, took the following shape. In 1814, certain traders, ten in number, not British but Cinghalese, and therefore British subjects, entitled to British protection, were wantonly molested in their peaceable occupations by this Kandyan king. Three of these ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... for him in vain. Yet this man I captivated, I fixed; and far from being content, as other beauties had been, with the honor of possessing his heart, I brought him to make me his wife, and gained an honorable title to his tenderest affection.—The infatuation of Paris reflected little honor upon you. A thoughtless youth, gay, tender, and impressible, struck with your beauty, in violation of all the most sacred laws of hospitality carries you off, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... that God brought to nought the dangerous counsel of Ahithophel, and directly infatuated wicked Absalom to reject it, [which infatuation is what the Scripture styles the judicial hardening the hearts and blinding the eyes of men, who, by their former voluntary wickedness, have justly deserved to be destroyed, and are thereby brought to destruction,] is a very just one, and in him not unfrequent. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... to have changed or delayed this design, and proceeded at once towards the main body of the fleet, less perhaps with the intention of giving regular battle, than of attempting such detached skirmishes as would make experiment of their hardihood and skill. The Persians, amazed at the infatuation of their opponents, drew out their fleet in order, and succeeded in surrounding the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to the fact that his health was giving way again, and she thought with some apprehension of the life of hardship and poverty he was choosing. That he should throw away all that was desirable and advantageous for the sake of his wife, who was merely a trouble and dishonor to him, was an infatuation that she could not understand. He pointed out to her that he was also losing his influence over his people, and she maintained that even this was no reason why he should give up a suitable living and a pleasant rectory. At last, angry ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton

... yourself had stolen; the Diamond which was all the time in your own hands! After that proof of your horrible falseness and cunning, I tore up my letter. But even then—even when I was maddened by the searching and questioning of the policeman, whom you had sent in—even then, there was some infatuation in my mind which wouldn't let me give you up. I said to myself, 'He has played his vile farce before everybody else in the house. Let me try if he can play it before me.' Somebody told me you were on the terrace. I went down to the terrace. I forced myself to look at you; I forced ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... chits would of pretended a feverish interest in the day's hunt for fossil cockroaches, and would even of gone out to chip off rocks with a hammer; but not Lydia. She would never pretend to the least infatuation for organic remains, and would, like as not, strike up something frivolous on her ukulele while Oswald was right in the middle of telling all about the secret of life. She was confident all the time, though, like she already had him stuffed and mounted. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... being quite possible most of the way; sometimes the trail is visible and sometimes it is not. With but the vaguest idea of the distance to the next abode of man, or the nature of the country ahead, I bowl along southward, led by the strange infatuation of a pathfinder traversing terra incognita, and rejoicing in the sense of boundless freedom and unrestraint that comes of speeding across open country where Nature still holds her ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... and in the first flush of victory, he must first and last write her; and he would more willingly meet 20,000 Frenchmen than his wife's displeasure! Indeed Sarah seems to have waged her own battles very successfully with her tongue, and also to have had her own diplomatic triumphs. Through Anne's infatuation for her, she was virtually ruler while the friendship lasted. But to acquire ascendancy over Anne was not ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... urged on by Impulse, offspring of Infatuation, till his mischief stands out clear, as worthless bronze stripped of its varnish. So Paris sees now his light-hearted crime has brought his city low. He came to the house of the Sons of Atreus, and stole a Queen away, leaving Shame where he ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton

... society to its inability to solve the marriage problem. Anyone can get married! Mere children can meet on a pleasure excursion and in a moment of fun or infatuation walk over to a justice of the peace and be married. In some states not even a license is necessary. A large proportion of the marriages in the world are consummated without a proper consideration on the part of either bride or groom as to the responsibilities of ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry

... had been compelled by the force of circumstances to look up to everyone—and, alas! he had done so with a very bad grace. He had never known what it was to help any one. His mother had thoroughly spoiled him. Strange infatuation in the mother! She had often blamed the boy for spoiling his toys; but she had never blamed herself for spoiling the boy. "Darling Jacky! don't ask the child to do anything for you—he's too young yet." So Jacky was never asked to help ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... a fly intentionally. So when that name cropped up suddenly in this vexing bomb affair he realised all the danger of it for the ticket-of-leave apostle, and his mind reverted at once to the old lady's well-established infatuation. Her arbitrary kindness would not brook patiently any interference with Michaelis' freedom. It was a deep, calm, convinced infatuation. She had not only felt him to be inoffensive, but she had said so, which last by a confusion of her absolutist mind became a sort ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... good-looking and pleasant-mannered, and had a sort of rollicking, light-hearted way with him, which was very attractive; but still it seemed little short of infatuation on the part of Edith Robins to take up with a man whose character was so well known, and who was in every way her ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker

... if he might enter the box. He was happy, less on account of his prodigious success than at seeing Felicie. He dreamed, in his infatuation, that she had come for his sake, that she loved him, that she ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France

... the next room. As to you, sir, I do not think that I can condemn any lady of my Court to take such a man as a husband. Suffice it that you have been shown in your true colours, and that Mademoiselle Bernac has been cured of a foolish infatuation. Roustem, remove ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... to live with one of the creatures, a woman who had made her living in the dance-halls, and every one knows no woman ever did that and remained straight. They warned me of the character of this girl, of your infatuation, of your callousness to public opinion. They told me how barefaced, how shameless you were. They begged me to try and save you. I would not believe it, but now I've come to see for myself, and it's all ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... add that for those remaining days until the present the unspeakable creature's mad infatuation for me had made my life well-nigh a torment, to say nothing of its being a matter of low public jesting. Hardly did I dare show myself in the business centres, for as surely as I did the animal found me and crawled ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... Protestantism of the Waldenses,—that put down the Reformation in France by one terrible blow,—that by the help of dungeons and racks banished the light from Italy and Spain,—will that Church, we ask, spare the Protestantism of Britain? What folly and infatuation to think that she will! What matters it that, in rooting out British Protestantism, she should shed oceans of blood, and sound the death-knell of a whole nation? These are but dust in the balance to her: her dominion must be ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... heaved so, without seeming cause, and the color rushed up in her cheeks at a word, as though she had been so far away that the effort of recall was alone enough to set all her veins throbbing. And yet Felix could devise no means of attack on her infatuation. For a man cannot cultivate the habit of never interfering and then suddenly throw it over; least of all when the person to be interfered with is his pet ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... flirtation with Vavasour, to stifle the vexatious conviction that Bertie had only been making a fool of her on Sunday, and was now probably repeating the same game with Miss Tremaine. Yet at this period her vanity was more wounded than her heart; very different from poor Cecil, whose infatuation was of older date, and not the mere result of a few ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... touched Anne's elbow several times as they walked, and the young woman at last understood that this was meant as a hint to her to take the trumpet-major's arm, which its owner was rather suggesting than offering to her. Anne wondered what infatuation was possessing her mother, declined to take the arm, and contrived to get in front with the miller, who mostly kept in the van to guide the others' footsteps. The trumpet-major was left with Mrs. Garland, and Anne's encouraging ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... leave her and go to greet the French princess when she finally arrived in Valladolid. But he tore himself away, went to Blanche, and was married with great pomp and ceremony. Some had said before the marriage that Maria de Padilla must have bewitched Pedro, so great was his infatuation; and three days after the wedding a strange thing happened, which caused people to shake their heads again and suggest the interference of the powers of sorcery. For, after this short time, Pedro rode away from Valladolid and his new queen ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... inconsistent with the indiscriminate charges of cruelty, injustice, and wrong, preferred by his enemies,—traits that have inexpressibly endeared their possessor to every officer and soldier in his late army. Said an officer, but just returned from New Orleans, to me a few days since,—"I have heard of the infatuation of the Army of the Potomac to its earlier leader, but I do not believe their devotion is near so deep and earnest as that of the faithful men who followed General Butler from New England and the Northwest, through the campaign of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... gentle-mannered man, a philosopher who saw that the only constant attribute of life is change, he held that, as long as she lives, there is nothing finite in the most impassioned attitude a woman may take up. In twelve months his girl-wife's recent infatuation might be as distasteful to her mind as it was now to his own. In a few years her very flesh would change—so said the scientific;—her spirit, so much more ephemeral, was capable of changing in one. Betty was his, and it became a mere question of means ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... confusion of thought about a future life, the peculiar facts related in the following pages can certainly be regarded as helpful. Spiritualism, with its morbid tendencies, its infatuation and deceit, has not been of any substantial value in this inquiry. It may afford to those who have experienced any positive visitation from another world a very comforting and indisputable proof. To most sane people it is a humiliating ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... friend who procured you privileges with Margaret which her father would not grant at your own request. This, at the outset, secured me from suspicion on your part; and I had only to leave it to your infatuation to do the rest. With you my course was easy—with her it was beset by difficulties; but I overcame them. Your fatal consent to wait through a year of probation, furnished me with weapons against you, which I employed to the most ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... something more than personal magnetism. I am wondering how far the contagion has really spread. There is a difference between contagion and infection, you know. Infection is the result of personal contact,—contagion is something in the air. This epidemic of infatuation very plainly is in two forms. It appears to be both infectious and contagious. I rather fancy the amiable Obosky has selected the former type of the prevailing malady. Percivalitis, I believe, is the ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... in retreat, in a place he is fond of," Mount Dunstan said drily. "He took a companion with him. A new infatuation. He will not ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... sense of that word, is a system according to which God is all, and the universe nothing. This extraordinary thesis is met with in India. A Greek, Parmenides, has vigorously sustained it. We have in it a kind of sublime infatuation. In presence of the one and eternal Being thought collapses in bewilderment; and thenceforward it experiences for all that is manifold and transitory a disdain which passes into negation. In the domain of experience, all is limited, temporary, imperfect; and reason seeks the perfect, ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... her late access of reserve—that she was being carried away by her feelings; but how, when, and whither, she neither knew nor apparently cared to know. In the meanwhile, in Wyndham's friendship she not only triumphed over Vincent's scorn, but she felt secure against his infatuation. For she imagined the scorn and the infatuation as still existing together. She knew that he was still in London, presumably unable to tear himself away from her neighbourhood; and the sense of his presence, of his ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... heart, my dear, if I were to think that; if I were to know that you had tricked me," she said, with a trembling voice. Celia covered her face with her hands. It would be true. She had no doubt of it. Mme. Dauvray would never forgive herself—would never forgive Celia. Her infatuation had grown so to engross her that the rest of her life would surely be embittered. It was not merely a passion—it was a creed as well. Celia shrank from the renewal of these seances. Every fibre in her was in revolt. ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... say that Dickens' pathos is always of the too facile sort, which plays round children's death-beds. Other pathos he has, more fine and not less genuine. It may be morbid and contemptible to feel "a great inclination to cry" over David Copperfield's boyish infatuation for Steerforth; but I feel it. Steerforth was a "tiger,"—as Major Pendennis would have said, a tiger with his curly hair and his ambrosial whiskers. But when a little boy loses his heart to a big boy he does not think of this. Traddles thought of it. "Shame, J. Steerforth!" ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... creature. All the best things in the world, as I have said, were at her service, and she had them for nothing; even ideas and fashionable intellectual movements served her pleasure, a diversion in her existence, and I was only the coachman who drove her from one infatuation to another. Now I was no longer necessary to her; she would fly away and ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... intoxication!' as Scudo says; but the glory was that of a shooting star. In eight short years after that brilliant season at Venice, Adelade Montresor, better known as 'La Malanotte,' the idol of the European musical public, the short-lived infatuation and passion of the celebrated Rossini, was a hopeless invalid, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... have no reason to think that there has ever been any secret communication between them? Miss Georgette left no letters or anything that would indicate that her former infatuation survived?" ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... not stretch my friendship too far, Bob. Your apparent infatuation for that rebel spy"—Goddard winced perceptibly, and his color heightened—"blinds your judgment. I give you fair warning, sir, that if you interfere in any way in this affair you will be ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... all human probability, be involved in complications from which you cannot escape with honor. Separated from your family and all your kin, and an object of suspicion, you will find your position unendurable. A fatal infatuation seems to have seized the southern mind, during which any act of madness may be committed. . . . If the sectional dissensions only rested upon real or alleged grievances, they could be readily settled, but ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... Bachelors Samoan Traits Courtship Pantomime Two Samoan Love-Stories Personal Charms of South Sea Islanders Tahitians and Their White Visitors Heartless Treatment of Women Two Stories of Tahitian Infatuation Captain Cook on Tahitian Love Were the Tongans Civilized? Love of Scenery A Cannibal Bargain The Handsome Chiefs Honeymoon in a Cave A Hawaiian Cave-Story Is this Romantic Love? Vagaries of Hawaiian Fondness Hawaiian Morals The Helen ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... despised his own work as a painter. He had grown really fond of Van Buren for the simple, sincere qualities in which Harry knew himself to be deficient; and the American's whole-hearted admiration—almost infatuation—for him gave Harry the pleasure one feels in the frank devotion of a child. It touched him, even while he intended to make use of it, because it was his nature to make use of everything. It is an infallible sign of the second-rate in nature ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... inappropriately named Tableaux de Societe—the autobiography of a certain Fanchette de Francheville, who, somewhat originally for a French heroine, starts by being in the most frantic state of mutual passion with her husband, though this is soon to be succeeded by an infatuation (for some time virtuously resisted) on her side for a handsome young naval officer, and by several others (not at all virtuously resisted) for divers ladies on the husband's. With his usual unskilfulness in managing character, Pigault makes very little of the opportunities ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... through the horrible month that followed—a month so full of agony that she seemed to draw every breath in pain. Spencer never sought her again; he went everywhere with Miss LeMar. His infatuation was the talk of the settlement. Estella knew that her story was in everyone's mouth, and her pride smarted; but she carried a brave front outwardly. No ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... contrast should be made between the two men. Octavius easily made the people believe that they had every thing to fear from Antony. The nobles who sided with Antony urged him to dismiss Cleopatra, and enter upon a contest with his rival untrammelled; but, on the contrary, in his infatuation ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... remarkable vigor and promise, and planned on such noble and powerful lines as to deepen regret that its author's death left it but half finished. A single sentence has been added by another hand to round the episode of Willan Blaycke's infatuation to conclusion.] ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... that as it may, my pleasure with Charlotte is over. Call it folly or infatuation, what signifies a name? The thing speaks for itself. Before Albert came, I knew all that I know now. I knew I could make no pretensions to her, nor did I offer any, that is, as far as it was possible, in the presence of so much loveliness, not to pant for its ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

... Europe, on the score of this most picturesque, and frequently salutary, accompaniment of street scenery. In our own country, which has the amplest means of any other in the world, of carrying these objects of public taste into execution, there seems to be an infatuation—amounting to hopeless stupidity—respecting the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... truth be fairly stated, women have many excuses for their infatuation regarding small waists. It is Mrs. Haweis who says, "The reason why a small waist is a beauty is because, when it is natural, it goes together with the peculiar litheness and activity of a slenderly-built figure. All the bones are small, the shoulders and arms petite, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... is my opinion—an opinion which I shall be forced to express to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if you persist in this infatuation.' ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... was acquainted with her, surprised me one day in the riding-school, where I was lurking concealed behind the lady's grooms and the fur wraps which they were holding, and, having heard from Dimitri of my infatuation, frightened me so terribly by proposing to introduce me to the Amazon that I fled incontinently from the school, and was prevented by the mere thought that possibly he had told her about me from ever entering ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... mourned. The friends of despotism in the Old World, ignorant of the real stamina of his popularity, regarded it as unquestionable evidence of the all-powerful influence of military achievement in the New. But the infatuation which had been the exciting cause of General Jackson's first election to the Presidency would soon have evaporated under the multiplied evidences of an ill-regulated will, had it not been encouraged and supported by a local interest which predominated in the councils of the nation. With no desire ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... which we were bound. We were shown upstairs, where I was introduced to old Mrs. Merton, Miss Northcott's aunt, and to the young lady herself. She looked as beautiful as ever, and I could not wonder at my friend's infatuation. Her face was a little more flushed than usual, and she held in her hand a heavy dog-whip, with which she had been chastising a small Scotch terrier, whose cries we had heard in the street. The poor brute was cringing up against the wall, whining piteously, ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... found his way into my cabinet whilst I was engaged in important business, and told me that Christ was coming. . . . And now you have made your appearance, and almost persuaded me to embroil myself yet more with the priesthood, as if they did not abhor me enough already. What a strange infatuation is this which drives you over lands and waters with Bibles in your hands. My good sir, it is not Bibles we want, but rather guns and gunpowder, to put the rebels down with, and above all, money, that we may pay the troops; whenever you come with these three things you shall have a hearty ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... once that to attempt to denounce her would expose him to destruction at the wolfish hands of the frenzied mob. There were not soldiers enough in the city to destroy her influence, for she had achieved in her followers that infatuation that goes down to death before it relinquishes its conviction. Her control was complete. Seraiah was the anointed one, but the prophetess, the instigator, the founder of the worship, as follows in all apostasies, ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... jeweller's. We were young, they were beautiful— or we thought 'em so; but the majority of us weren't vicious, any more than the majority of the girls were— though many of 'em were mighty calculating. It would have been better for us men if all the girls had been wicked; the glamour, the infatuation, the folly, would have been sooner over, and one of us at least would have had a different ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... death produced no immediate change in the situation of affairs at Streatham. Dr. Johnson's visits were as frequent and as protracted as before; Fanny continued to be numbered among the dearest friends of the widow. Not yet had arisen that infatuation which eventually alienated from Mrs. Thrale the sympathy of her former friends, and subjected her, justly or unjustly, to such severe and general condemnation. But to this topic we shall revert at ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... her pen as she sat in the little library that opened from the big, cheery hall. Her thoughts were with all that had betided in the past and what might have been. She canvassed anew, as often heretofore, her strange infatuation, like a veritable aberration, so soon she had ceased to love her husband, to make the signal and significant discovery that he was naught to love. She had always had a sort of enthusiasm for the truth in the abstract—not so much as a moral endowment, but a ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... And don't mention it to Mildred or Mrs. Annister. Now, about that other thing. I must insist, Felix, that you release Mildred from this engagement between you. I have let it go on against my own judgment too long already, because I was hoping that time would lessen her infatuation. But in the light of all that you have just told me it is impossible—it must not continue another day. You ought to see yourself how unfair ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly

... wrong he had suffered at his hands as by the contempt which he (Richard) had entertained for him. Without materials such as his father had possessed to back his pretensions he had imagined himself a sort of irresponsible and sovereign being. (Such infatuation is by no means rare, nor confined to despots and brigands, and when it exists in a poor man it is always fatal to himself.) His education, if it could be called such, had doubtless fostered this delusion; but Mr. Dodge was right; the ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn



Words linked to "Infatuation" :   puppy love, calf love, infatuate, passionateness



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