DICTIONARY ONE.COM • More 'Simpleton' Quotes from Famous Books

... way known to primitive housekeepers unpossessed of jacks. But the pork had been hung at the farthest extremity of the hanger, apparently to prevent the roasting from proceeding too rapidly during the owner's absence. The old staring simpleton had hot meat for his supper, then? thought Dunstan. People had always said he lived on mouldy bread, on purpose to check his appetite. But where could he be at this time, and on such an evening, leaving his supper in this stage of preparation, and his door unfastened? ...

— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... Contarino.—Simpleton! the same thing happens to him which happens to betrayed husbands. Everyone can see the horns except the man who carries them. And yet I confess it is full time that we should realise our projects, and prevent the possibility ...

— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis

... L. Ch.—Well, simpleton, if I am at first so simple as to be a little taken with myself, I know it a fault, and ...

— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... 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 ...

— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... him! blind and dumb, Deaf and dumb, Twirl the carle so troublesome! Kinsman, once so full of glee, Kinsman, where's thy drollery, Where thy tricks, thou cunning one? All thy tricks are spent and past, To the devil gone at last Like a silly fop thou'lt prate, Like a washerwoman rate. Thou art but a simpleton. Now thou mayest—more shame to thee— Run away, because of me; Cupid, that young rogue, may glory Learning wisdom from thy story; Haste, thou sluggard, hence to flee As from glass is cut our wit, So, like lightning, 'twill be split; If thou won't be chased ...

— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... up with the belief that the way beyond this bridge up to Hartledon was private, and he might be taken up for trespassing if he attempted to follow it; so he went off that way to watch the front. If the fellow hasn't a writ in his pocket, or something worse, call me a simpleton. You are all right, sir, as long as he ...

— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... company a little while this morning (our head). I have been writing all the above gibberish while aunt has been looking after her family—now she is out of the room—now she is in—& takes up my pen in my absence to observe, I am a little simpleton for informing my mamma, that it is a great while since I was prais'd because she will conclude that it is a great while since I deserv'd to be prais'd. I will henceforth try to observe their praise & yours too. I mean deserve. ...

— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow

... nothing of the encounter; neither as to the origin of the old man's status in his father's esteem, nor as to the cause of his father's strange emotion. He regarded the old man impatiently as an aged simpleton, probably over pious, certainly connected with the Primitive Methodists. His father had said 'There's a good lad' almost cajolingly. And this was odd; for, though nobody could be more persuasively agreeable than his father when he chose, the occasions when he ...

— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... know what it means," said Boone, rising from the tree, "but it means something. You had better go back with this simpleton at once." ...

— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis

... with eyes that began to twinkle beneath his frown. Then he jerked his head aside and cast at his audience a prodigious wink. The cloudy eyes of Bull had assured him that he had to do with a simpleton, and he was inviting the ...

— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... knees; he played with me as if he were my own age, and his wife entirely spoilt me. Both required of me but one thing—to be good-humored; and in that, thank God! I never disappointed them; so they baptized me, Dimpleton (not Simpleton, neighbor!) and the cap fitted. As to gayety, they set me the example: never did I see them sad. If they uttered reproaches at all, it was the wife said to her husband: 'Stop, Cretu, you make me laugh ...

— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... 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 of him in ...

— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... 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 least one ...

— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various

... youth, in love a simpleton, When to escape myself I seek and shift, Lady, I of my heart the humble gift Vow unto thee. In trials many a one, True, brave, I've found it, firm to things begun; By gracious, prudent, worthy thoughts uplift. When roars the great world, in the thunder-rift, Its own ...

— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... of sisterly feeling. Patt insisted on taking off my wig, and seeing my face in its natural dress. I consented to gratify her, when the girl really behaved like a simpleton. First she pushed about my curls until they were arranged to suit the silly creature, when she ran back several steps, clapped her hands in delight, then rushed into my arms and kissed my forehead ...

— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... said Raven, "up to Pine Grove. You've got an hour, you little simpleton. What did you ...

— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... refusing his offer. A simpleton. The child of caprice, whom no time could render steadfast except in folly; into whom no counsel or example could instil an atom of common sense. He supposed my man was equally obstinate and stupid; but he would soon see of what stuff he was made. ...

— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... it seemed to me that she blushed. It was hardly polite for me to wait so long before speaking. When I sit in judgement I never lack for words, but in the presence of this innocent maiden I am as stupid as the veriest simpleton of a chicken thief. But I finally found my voice and the time passed quickly until the rector's return. Then Mistress Mette left us and did not return until she ...

— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... and vellum I will show you, to be bullied by the 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 in ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... "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 ...

— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... me the weakling, the simpleton, For my brothers were strong and beautiful, While I, the last child of parents who had aged, Inherited only their residue of power. But they, my brothers, were eaten up In the fury of the flesh, which I had not, Made pulp in the activity of the senses, which I had not, Hardened by the growth of the ...

— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters

... if everything I said to-night had been written down and laid before a man who was capable of judging, that he might give an opinion of the person who made these remarks, he could not truthfully say anything except: 'The fellow is perhaps not actually a simpleton, but does not surpass mediocrity.' Yet I am received as if I were some one of consequence. Yes, that's just it: it is not I, Louis, who am treated so, for no one would trouble himself about me, but Prince Etc." He became really jealous of "Prince Etc.," whom ...

— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... were great enough to compensate easily for the many things he lacked. This specially grotesque specimen of the wild West was soon seen not to be of the charlatan type; as a natural alternative he was assumed to be something of a simpleton. Many intelligent men retained this view of him throughout the years of his trial, and, only when his triumph and tragic death set going a sort of Lincoln myth, began to recollect that "I came to ...

— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... 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 the crumbs on ...

— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... might be, you might be sure that he started with 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: ...

— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley

... 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 first visit ...

— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... his shop, in search of food, But nothing found, 'tis understood, To eat, except a file of steel, Of which he tried to make a meal. The file, without a spark of passion, Address'd him in the following fashion:— 'Poor simpleton! you surely bite With less of sense than appetite; For ere from me you gain One quarter of a grain, You'll break your teeth from ear to ear. Time's are the only ...

— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... heart positively 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 ...

— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... "Simpleton! that is not what you were intended to say. You should have asked the cause of so singular a wish, and then I had a pretty little speech all ready for ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... to be—or to laugh about it as you do.... Is it because I look a simpleton that you come to see ...

— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... 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 ...

— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... irresponsibility in which the subject is capable of self-help, and sometimes of self-support under the careful guidance of other. Under the generic term "idiot" may be included the "complete idiot," the imbecile, the "feeble-minded" and the "simpleton," all of whom suffer in a greater or less ...

— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner

... 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 ...

— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... do. Then he always held open the gates of the different fields they passed through, shutting them after her, instead of making her do it. He even stopped throwing stones at a wounded bird in a field when he saw it distressed her, though he laughed at her for being such a simpleton as to care for a half-dead bird. This recalled to his mind a circumstance that had happened at school, when he and some of his schoolfellows had gone for a walk into the country one half-holiday; and he began to relate how they had caught a pigeon sitting on its nest up a tree, ...

— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples

... 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 imbedded in the person, yet ...

— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... 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 ...

— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... 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 set them to work in the field trenching, as earnestly ...

— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring

... 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 ...

— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... and took her place in the maternal drawing-room, amongst the sisters of the enraptured lover. Alas! enraptured no more! The rustic beauty, where could it have flown? The belle of the village was transformed into a very awkward young lady. Goddess!—She was a simpleton. Become a throne!—She could not sit upon a chair. The charm was broken. The application we need hardly make. There may be certain uncultivated men of genius on whom it is possible to practise a ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... day 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

... loud. "Oh, you simpleton!" she said. "And you call yourself a statesman! Do you not see that if I do not tell it, you are disgraced yourself and powerless, and can do me no harm? Tell it you? When I have you all on the hip—you, the King, the queen! Not for a million ...

— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... of opera which he 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 vulgar intriguer. Moreover—and all this is not ...

— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... muttered to himself. "I don't understand them. That man Jacks is either a simpleton or he is ...

— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... empty-headed girl!" retorted her mother, with swelling bosom and reddening face. "You have quarrelled on some simpleton's question, no doubt. He will accept his step-father's offer; we know that well enough. He ought to have done so a year ago, and our difficulties would have been lightened. Your father ...

— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... and cool as his own, hoped he was well and 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 ...

— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... of Congress! Go—go, simpleton, and learn how many these troopers muster, and what halt they make; but stay, place my clothes near me. Now, do as I bid you, and if the dragoon officer enquire for me, make my respects, and tell him I shall be with him soon. Go, ...

— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... not musical, 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 Joe ...

— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... yawn. "I believe they look on the C.R.F. people as some species of simpleton, sir. They hate all offworlders; memory of their desertion has been passed on verbally for generations. So by their one-to-one logic we should either hate back or go away. We stay instead. And give them food, water, medicine and artifacts. Because of this ...

— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... I meant only kindness! I sowed good seed, and reap thistles and brambles! My charity-cake turns out miserable dough! But how could I possibly foresee that the child would be such a simpleton? What right has she to be so unnecessarily interested in my brother, who is old enough to have been her father? It is unnatural, absurd, and altogether unpardonable in Salome to be guilty of such presumptuous ...

— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... simple. Some people think that he is a simpleton; but I know that those who understand simply, understand truly. In business and household management he was able to hold his own. Because his needs were small, and his wants few, he could manage carefully on what we had. He ...

— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore

... of several steps on the staircase, Fougeres rubbed up his hair, buttoned his jacket of bottle-green velveteen, and was not a little amazed to see, entering his doorway, a simpleton face vulgarly called in studio slang a "melon." This fruit surmounted a pumpkin, clothed in blue cloth adorned with a bunch of tintinnabulating baubles. The melon puffed like a walrus; the pumpkin advanced on turnips, improperly called legs. A true painter ...

— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac

... a king who had three sons, two of whom were clever and shrewd, but the third did not talk much, was simple and was merely called the Simpleton. When the king grew old and feeble and expected his end, he did not know which one of his sons should inherit the kingdom after him. So he said to them, "Go forth, and whoever brings me the finest carpet shall be king after my ...

— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... to climb to the chimney on the land-side and establish a nest. There was a broken cart-wheel in the warehouse, which Nanking procured and drew to the roof, and when daylight broke upon the town the earliest loungers and fishermen saw the happy simpleton working like a chimney-sweep, as they thought, except that instead of brushing he was piling brush around the chimney on the cart-wheel. His mother came out and looked joy to see him back; the soldiers strolled down from the fort and the boys and women from the ...

— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... Sir Anthony, there sits the deliberate simpleton who wants to disgrace her family, and lavish herself on a fellow ...

— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... 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 ...

— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... 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 scrutiny ...

— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... to the point of simplicity, though both depth and dignity lay concealed under that simplicity. The better of his comrades understood this, and all were fond of him. He was extremely intelligent, though he was certainly rather a simpleton at times. He was of striking appearance—tall, thin, blackhaired and always badly shaved. He was sometimes uproarious and was reputed to be of great physical strength. One night, when out in a festive company, he had with one blow laid a gigantic ...

— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... my dearest simpleton, did you ever hear of a woman of quality keeping accounts—unless it were some lunatic universal genius like her Grace of Newcastle, who rises in the middle of the night to scribble verses, and who might do anything preposterous. Keep accounts! ...

— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... be off, every one of you, and stay in purgatory till I pay to get you out, will you?" said Monna Ghita, fiercely, elbowing Nello, and leading forward her mule so as to compel the stranger to jump aside. "Tessa, thou simpleton, bring forward thy mule a bit: the cart ...

— Romola • George Eliot

... Mayot the solid; here you see the most astounding moves, and listen to the sorriest talk, for if a man be at once a wit and a great chess player, like Legal, he may also be a great chess player and a sad simpleton, ...

— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... Everybody would exclaim when I was gone: 'Did you hear that fop De Marsay, who tried to make us believe that he has already had the girl of the golden eyes? It's his way of trying to disembarrass himself of his rivals: he's no simpleton.' But such a ruse is vulgar and dangerous. However gross a folly one utters, there are always idiots to be found who will believe it. The best form of discretion is that of women when they want to take the change out of their husbands. It consists in compromising a woman with whom we ...

— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac

... sincerity the red hands, and shy, bashful manner of some young lady who at first struck him as an awkward simpleton, unattractive to the last degree, and surprisingly ridiculous. His doom was sealed. He had gone from the provinces to Paris; he had led the feverish life of Paris; and now he would have sunk back into the lifeless life of the provinces, but for a chance remark which reached his ear—a few words ...

— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac

... medical treatment, and in agony except when deadened with narcotics, rendered independent of all such things by a little skilful rubbing alone. Perhaps you object that these remedies are "very simple." Well, that would be no great harm; but if they are so simple, you are surely a simpleton if you let your poor nerves be killed with morphia, while such obvious remedies ...

— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... 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

... a wicked simpleton," cried my wife, and I forebore to triumph, even by a glance at her; "to put my doubts between you and your daughter in any way. It was romantic, and—and—disgusting. It's not only your right ...

— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... jargon to the girl, but he addressed me in the lilting, 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

... went directly to his room. He shrank from telling the news to his mother. He must first think it over. The girl in the red cloak who had stamped her foot and called him a simpleton, ah, she was the one he missed, and not her who had laughed in his face that winter night and wheedled him ...

— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... of two men, Nathaniel and Demas, encountering a pretender to miracles, a Simon Magus of the scriptures. Nathaniel is guileless, sweet-hearted and of strong moral sense, but in worldly matters rather a simpleton. Demas is a sharp man, who gets on well in the world, quick of eye and shrewd of wit, hard-headed and not to be imposed upon by his fellows; but destitute of any high religious aspirations or deep moral insight. The juggleries of ...

— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... and leave points of belief To simpleton sages, and reasoning fools; This moment's a flower too fair and brief, To be withered and stained by the dust of the schools. Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue, But, while they are filled from the same bright bowl, The fool, who would quarrel ...

— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... hissed the bride of Carl Walraven. "It is all her crafty scheming to attract the attention of that hoary-headed simpleton, Sir Roger Trajenna. If you are in love with her, Guy (and how you can is a mystery to me), why ...

— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... Polonius. His attitude towards the old Bromide (I thank you, Mr. Gelett Burgess, for teaching me that word which so lightly and charmingly describes the child of darkness and of platitude) was that of one who should say: "You dear, funny old simpleton, whom I have had to bear with all my life—how terribly in the way you seem now." With what slightly amused and cynical playfulness this Hamlet said: "I had thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well; they ...

— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... subject of skeletons that brought this boy back to my recollection. Before a very long time had elapsed, the village smarties began to feel an uncomfortable consciousness of not having made a very shining success out of their attempts on the simpleton from "old Shelby." Experimenters grew scarce and chary. Now the young doctor came to the rescue. There was delight and applause when he proposed to scare Nicodemus to death, and explained how he was going to do it. He had a noble new skeleton—the skeleton of ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... scarcely have been a 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. ...

— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... could expect no direct 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, ...

— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... H. 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 within him, though he bore ...

— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... "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 ...

— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini

... garrison, and slew many of them; the Athenians made preparations to join their forces 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 by them, fought by themselves, ...

— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... "Little simpleton, you're the rabbit," she said. "The girls still like you, but they're used to you and they rather expect you to do something now. It's your turn to do ...

— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill

... characteristic of the old dictionary makers. The gem of my collection is Ludwig's gloss for Luemmel, "a long lubber, a lazy lubber, a slouch, a lordant, a lordane, a looby, a booby, a tony, a fop, a dunce, a simpleton, a wise-acre, a sot, a logger-head, a block-head, a nickampoop, a lingerer, a drowsy or dreaming lusk, a pill-garlick, a slowback, a lathback, a pitiful sneaking fellow, a lungis, a tall slim fellow, a slim longback, a great ...

— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... you? Why did you tell him?" she cried. "I hate you. I'll hate you for this as long as I live. You have sent him to his death—you meddler, you simpleton! And you don't even know what you have done. You have sent him to his death, I tell you! Yes, that's what you have done, and I will never forgive you while I breathe. He has gone to warn the attorney-general, ...

— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... 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 wonder how ...

— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... "Ay—plotting, simpleton. I said plotting. I mind me 'tis not the first time I have seen them so mysterious together. It began on the day that first Mr. Caryll set foot at Stretton House. There's a deal of mystery about that man—too much ...

— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... broth now," said Bab to her maid; "and she has not a word for herself, though she has been abroad. My papa may well call her Simple Susan; for simple she is, and simple she will be, all the world over. For my part, I think she's little better than a downright simpleton. But, however, simple or not, I'll get what I want out of her. She'll be able to speak, maybe, when she has settled the grand matter of the broth. I'll step in and ask to see her mother, that will put her in a good ...

— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... 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 ...

— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various

... 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

... a simpleton you must be! There is but one subject for a novel—historical, philosophical, fashionable, antiquarian, or whatever it calls itself. The whole story, after all, is about a young man and a young woman—he all that is noble, and ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... aunt. 'Here, the poor fool has been begging and praying about handing over some of her money—because she has got too much of it. A simpleton!' ...

— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... coming near the Chateau, I saw her wave her handkerchief from the island-edge, for she divined that I had gone to seek her, and she was watching for me: and when I took her hand, what did she say to me, the Biblical simpleton?—'Oh you of little Faith!' says she. And she had adventures to lisp, with all the r's liquefied into l's, and I was with ...

— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... here, but for their superstition. Leaned a lass in Sunday garb, cross ankled, against her cottage corner, whose low roof was snow-clad, and with her crantz did seem a summer flower sprouting from winter's bosom. I drew rein, and out pencil and brush to limn her for thee. But the simpleton, fearing the evil eye, or glamour, claps both hands to her face and flies panic-stricken. But indeed, they are not more superstitious than the Sevenbergen folk, which take thy father for a magician. Yet softly, sith at this moment I profit by this darkness ...

— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... by the moonlight, that he jumped out of the window, going through sash and all, and then remarks with the most childlike simplicity that he "was not scared, but was considerably agitated." It puts us out of patience to note that the simpleton is densely unconscious that Lucrezia Borgia ever existed off the stage. He is vulgarly ignorant of all foreign languages, but is frank enough to criticize, the Italians' use of their own tongue. He says they spell the name of their ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... 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 in this ...

— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... the heap of rubbish, waiting for the approach of his trained lad, Checco, a lanky simpleton, cunning as a pure idiot, who was doing postman's duty, when a kick, delivered by that youth behind, sent him bounding round with rage, like a fish in air. The marketplace resounded with a clapping ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... ''Luss" thief, robber, rogue, rascal, the Persian "Luti" of popular usage. This is one of the many ''Simpleton stories" in which Eastern folk-lore abounds. I hear that Mr. Clouston is preparing a collection, and look forward to ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... that you are even a bigger simpleton than I took you to be," answered Emlyn angrily, as she rose and stretched herself, for her limbs were cramped. "The oath, pshaw! By now he is absolved from it as given under fear. Did you not hear me whisper to you to put ...

— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... News"), a compiler of general news. (See Cunningham) BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where provisions and liquors were stored BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards could be bought BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence BUZZARD, simpleton BY AND BY, at once BY(E), "on the ," incidentally, as of minor or secondary importance; at the ...

— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson

... he was 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 ...

— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... still D'ye 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

... 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 call them in Orel. They ...

— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... 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 ...

— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... notice of the stranger, and none at all of a gesture on the part of Mr Catesby as he introduced him—a momentary stroking upwards of his forehead, intended as a sign not to Aubrey, but to the other. The stranger, however, perfectly understood it. To him it said, "Here is a simpleton: mind ...

— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... odious to him. It was at this time that he was invited to the home of Diane de Maufrigneuse, Princesse de Cadignan, who was then thirty-six, but did not look it. The famous "great coquette" told him her (so-called) "secrets," offered herself outright to this man whom she treated as a "famous simpleton," and whom she made her lover. After that day there was no doubt about the relations of the princesse and Daniel d'Arthez. The great author, whose works became very rare, appeared only during some of the winter months at the Chamber of Deputies. [A Distinguished Provincial ...

— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... impatience exposes their ill-breeding. A polite man, however deeply interested in the subject on which he is conversing, catches at the slightest hint to have done: a look is a sufficient intimation, and if a pretty simpleton, who sits near him, seems distraite, he puts an end to his remarks, to the great regret of the reasonable part of the company, who perhaps might have gained more improvement by the continuance of such a conversation, ...

— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... I am too cautious for the one to happen, and, I believe, too hardy for the other. Judy is a simpleton," he laughed; "she has her water-butt, and what more can ...

— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... palsy seize ere he again consign To me his friend, as I to Hades mine! Pity the wretch, his faults howe'er you see, Whom A accredits to his victim, B. Like shuttlecock which battledores attack (One speeds it forward, one would drive it back) The trustful simpleton is twice unblest— A rare good riddance, an unwelcome guest. The glad consignor rubs his hands to think How duty is commuted into ink; The consignee (his hands he cannot rub— He has the man upon them) ...

— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... flower of perfect felicity is not so common, that the heaven-blessed man who possesses it, should be simpleton ...

— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac

... "Poor simpleton that you are!" was the reply. "Look fairly at the facts. There is every appearance that we shall gain his money. The Piedmontese, such as he is, are honest enough, but are by nature absurdly suspicious. He commands ...

— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... perplexity by sending it to the major the moment she returned it to me, as if it had been intended for him. She begged pardon, said her brother was thoughtless, and she watched over him lest he should get into mischief; professed to think I meant the line for him, and behaved like a charming simpleton, as she is." ...

— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard

... 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 ...

— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... full grown youth with a face bearing an expression of mingled silliness and wisdom.—As he glanced from under his long hair, first at the bed-quilt, then at the quarrelling children, he paid close attention to all that his sister-in-law was reading aloud. Carl was not the simpleton people considered him, although his highest ambition appeared to consist in erecting ...

— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen

... did. I am no longer such a simpleton as to suppose that sentiment entered into your little game at all. You simply wanted to secure yourself admission to Rosmersholm—to establish yourself here. That was what I was to help you to. ...

— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen

... and a beautiful shawl. He said to the youngest: "And you, Cinderella, what do you want?" They called her Cinderella because she always sat in the chimney-corner. "You must buy me a little bird Verdelio." "The simpleton! she does not know what to do with the bird! Instead of ordering a handsome dress, a fine shawl, she takes a bird. Who knows what she will do with it!" "Silence!" she says, "it pleases me." The father went, and on his return brought ...

— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... bit of it," 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 ...

— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... you, sir," she 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 wanting to ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... the most beautiful or the most ungainly form before a sorcerer like this, who can endow a fair simpleton with the rarest intellect, or transform, by a glance, the intellectual, noble-hearted dwarf to an angel of light? These, of course, are extreme cases. But if true in these, as we have reason to believe, how formidable ...

— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... every body would take care of themselves," interrupted Lady Cecilia, "excepting such a simpleton as Helen, who would take care of you first, mamma, of me next and of ...

— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... 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

... ("Woad is an herbe brought from the parts of Tolouse in France, and from Spaine, much used and very necessary in the dying of wollen cloath."—Cowell's Interpreter.) Woman Hater, the Wonning Woodcock ( simpleton) ...

— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... 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

... the Rue Blomet.—It all comes back to me now. I have heard of that little girl of the iron railing in the Rue Plumet. In a garden, a Pamela. Your taste is not bad. She is said to be a very tidy creature. Between ourselves, I think that simpleton of a lancer has been courting her a bit. I don't know where he did it. However, that's not to the purpose. Besides, he is not to be believed. He brags, Marius! I think it quite proper that a young man like you ...

— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... "Whereas I am a simpleton," suggested Hal, with a mischievous light in her eyes. "Well, then, dear Miss Walton, how fortunate for me that some one clever and briljant is willing to give me her friendship and help to lift me out of ...

— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... 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 virtues, must we not infer that ...

— The Republic • Plato

... old simpleton! How could she help it, and she dead, with no one to look after her?" said La Masque, with something like a half laugh. "She was carried to the plague-pit in her bridal-robes, jewels and lace; and, when about to be thrown in, was discovered, like Moses ...

— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... 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

... faces; graceful figures moved in the lively dances; and love and beauty alone seemed to preside within the joyous precincts. But suddenly a universal confusion and panic terror was spread among the company, and chiefly among the ladies. Some suspicious simpleton or mischievous wag had whispered that we had a design of secretly weighing anchor during this festivity, and sailing away with our beautiful prisoners. My friend Mendiburu, however, at length succeeded in banishing this ridiculous apprehension, and restoring ...

— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... walked deliberately up to Grace and Miriam. "I'm sorry for everything," she said huskily. "I've been a ridiculous simpleton, and I don't deserve to have friends. Will you forgive me, girls? I'd like to start ...

— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... generally look peaceful. No more it should; for it is clearly enough against nature; and one seldom kicks at her without getting sore toes. True enough, there do appear cases where it seems to work pretty well; but when they are inquired into, it is generally found either that the husband is a simpleton, submitting by mere inanity, or a man who has resisted to the uttermost, and is at last crumpled up by pure "Caudlish" iteration and perseverance. How Tammas took it ...

— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... tried to converse with her sister, she observed that Fanny shrank from her approach and that she had been weeping. In a very ironical tone Julia said, "What now is the matter? I declare, Fan, I believe you are a perfect little simpleton. I wouldn't be such a cry baby, anyway; and make so much fuss about one ...

— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... himself and anticipate the sect? I would have joined him and found him a settlement—it would not hold together without a superstition—for man all over the world are [sic] superstitious—it's the nature of the animal—your mother was a simpleton to have never heard of a man being in love with two women; when we are young we are in love with all women—the bible would call it ...

— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... the washing Eugenia was too indignant to reply, but when it came to the mopping, she lifted up her hands in astonishment, calling him "a fool and a simpleton." ...

— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes

... relief. An instant after his brow wrinkled itself. "Oho!" he thought. "So this is Miss Simpleton, is it?" ...

— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill

... to herself, "I'm on my own ground: I won't run away from the popinjay," Dr. Eben was thinking in his heart, "What a fool I am to care a straw about meeting her! I'm about my own business, and she is an obstinate simpleton." ...

— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson

... was as charming an affair as a chapter in one of George Sand's rural tales. I went one Sunday morning with my hostess, who knew them well and engaged their most garrulous confidence. I don't mean that they told her all their secrets, but they told her a good many; if the French peasant is a simpleton, he is a very shrewd simpleton. At any rate, of a Sunday morning in August, when he is stopping at home from work, and he has put on his best jacket and trowsers, and is loafing at the door of his neighbor's cabin, he is a very charming ...

— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... He found himself between two jolly young women, opposite Kitty who divided her time between Lord Monckton and a young millionaire who, rumor bruited it, was very attentive to Killigrew's daughter. Still, Thomas enjoyed himself. Nobody seemed to mind that he was only a clerk in the house. The simpleton did not realize that he was a personage to these people; an English private secretary, quite a social stroke on the ...

— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... Simpleton, you mean. In that swamp of pettiness, idiocy, and materialism, a man of your nature could not long abide. Religion—it has not yet responded to your need. And without faith your sins lose their savour. The arts—you don't know them all, the Seven Deadly Arts ...

— Visionaries • James Huneker

... wild desire to laugh, for she saw plainly that Peggy was teasing the youth, who in his extreme diffidence, was appearing as if he were a simpleton, which was ...

— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks

... the same boat, you, who pretend to believe in the good God. He has forbidden men to fight, your good God has. Why, then, are you here, you great simpleton?" ...

— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... you aware 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 ...

— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... you pleathe, I thaw him kith Thuthanna Peathe!" With frown to make a 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 threatener 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 ...

— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... Plot. The ancient story of the merciless Jew is told in the Gesta Romanorum, and re-told, with delicate grace, by Giovanni Fiorentino, a fourteenth-century Italian writer, in his Il Pecorone (the simpleton), a collection of novels, or, as we should call them, short stories. The story of the three caskets is also told in the Gesta Romanorum. Other incidents in the play are taken from other sources, possibly from other plays. ...

— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... "garden" or "govern," it has this fine mark of a masterful utterance, that it makes no perceptible effort to protect itself against the caviller or the simpleton; from men, for instance, who would interpret it as meaning that the only perfect government, or gardening, is none at all. Speaking from the point of view of a garden-lover, I suppose the true signification is that the best government is the government which procures and ...

— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable

... being asked what pleasure he could have in the company of a pretty woman who was a loquacious simpleton, replied, "I love to ...

— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... replied Benjamin; "but it is dirty and simple. It requires no ingenuity to do all that I do. Almost any simpleton could cut wicks and fill candle-moulds. A fellow who can't do it couldn't tell which side his bread is buttered. I prefer to do something that ...

— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer

... Missouri line was held by powerful European States which it would be madness to offend, and as the country south of that line was held by feeble States which it would be easy to conquer, no Northern or Western statesman could vote for such a measure without proving himself a rogue or a simpleton. Hence all measures of "compromise" necessarily failed during the last days of the ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... he cannot distinguish her from the others, the simpleton might as well have no eyes ...

— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... Gellatly? I was thinking over that 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 to crack our ...

— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin

... 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 ...

— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various

... him that the Fathers, procureurs, and 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 rest. He ...

— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... a 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

... dirty little house and its litter of old rubbish, its dusty debris of last year and the relics of so many summers gone by, among the furniture and household gear, something is moving. It is an old simpleton with a long bald neck, pink and rough, making you think of a fowl's neck which has prematurely molted through disease. His profile is that of a hen, too—no chin and a long nose. A gray overlay of beard felts his receded cheek, and you see ...

— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... look so very sad, my sweet girl," she said so fondly, that like a simpleton I cried the more. "I do not wish to see you changed, however different you may be to others. I do not wish to chill one feeling in this affectionate little heart, nor check one burst of enthusiasm. Your character has been and is too great a source of unalloyed pleasure to your mother, ...

— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... out to all religions and sects against a mythological background, with a freedom that would not have been possible earlier. The characters are not presented as individuals but as representatives of human types: the intellectual, the hedonist, the pious man, and the simpleton, are drawn with incomparable skill, with their merits and defects. A third famous novel is San-kuo yen-i ("The Tale of the Three Kingdoms"), by Lo Kuan-chung. Just as the European middle class read with avidity ...

— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... coarse, this web for any fly— Shall I this spider hail in my fatuity? His wrath is wrath arranged, his generous fire is nursed, That I, at Decius' hand, may meet the doom accurst, If I should pardon grant—that grace my crime would be, For he the spoil would reap of my credulity. No simpleton am I, each promise to believe, Words—oaths—are but the tools wherewith all men deceive; Too oft escaped am I to be so lightly caught; I know that words are wind. I know that wind is naught. The trapper shall be trapped,—the ...

— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille

... laid was the father of Gladys and Johnny. He picked up the remains of the journal from which Gladys had ravished a cosmetic of silken sounds. The editorial did not come under his eye, but instead it was greeted by one of those ingenious and specious puzzle problems that enthrall alike the simpleton and the sage. ...

— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... wherever he pleased. For his part, equally blinded by his wishes, whilst here gregious simplicity favoured his deception more than the most exquisite art could have done, he supposed, no doubt, that he had lighted on some soft simpleton, fit for his; purpose, or some kept minion broken to his hand, who understood him perfectly well, and entered into his designs. But, be that as it would, he led her to a coach, went into it with her, and brought her to a very handsome apartment, with a bed in it; ...

— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... 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 the ass, after the adventure with the sharper, went to the market ...

— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... knew, could be very agreeable among strangers, but he seldom chose to be so in his own house. All this made the advent of Phoebe appear to him like a sudden revelation out of a different world. He was an Oxford man, with the best of education, but he was a simpleton all the same. He thought he saw in her an evidence of what life was like in those intellectual professional circles which a man may hope to get into only in London. It was not the world of fashion he was aware, but he thought in his simplicity that it was the still higher world of culture and knowledge, ...

— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... 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 hair ...

— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... 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

... Allow me to assure you, mademoiselle"—Lady Henry rose from her seat, leaning on her stick; surely no old face was ever more formidable, more withering—"that whatever ambitions you may cherish, Jacob Delafield is not altogether the simpleton you imagine. I know him better than you. He will take some time before he really makes up his mind to marry a woman of your disposition—and ...

— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... gathering materials for a history of the war. By reason of his attention to this weighty project, he failed to do any reporting, and as his mind was not very well balanced, he was commonly taken to be a simpleton. As there was nobody else to talk to, I amused myself with Chitty during the forenoon, and he narrated to me some doubtful intrigues which had varied his career in Piedmont. But Chitty had mingled in no battles, ...

— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... And, Dulcie, you must not stand in your own light, and throw away any more notice upon him; it is wasting your time, and the word of him may keep away others. A match with him would be purely preposterous: even Sam Winnington, who is a great deal more of a scamp, my dear, treats him as a sublime simpleton." ...

— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... seeing something no other spectacles could see. Then his jaws closed with a snap, his countenance brightened, a flash of humour came through the goggle eyes of pebble, and, at length, he actually smiled as he said—"Really, Katey, you must take me for a simpleton!" ...

— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... 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 ...

— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... pretty young simpleton at the corner store, who giggled all the time, and made it dangerous for Wallace even to go for the mail. Then there was that family at Browns up on the hill with girls of all ages. And there were those Lindsays, for though the ...

— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... blind, conceited fool! Twist you round my little finger, can I? Yes, you great, hulking simpleton, and ten times better men! Let me worm your secret out of you—let me squeeze my sponge dry, and then see how I'll fling ...

— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... 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 be found ...

— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... and, striking his corpse, they exclaim, "He's a scurvy wretch (galeux) and a monster who has betrayed us; the nation demands his head to exhibit to the public," and the man who was kicked is asked to cut it off.—This man, an unemployed cook, a simpleton who "went to the Bastille to see what was going on," thinks that as it is the general opinion, the act is patriotic, and even believes that he "deserves a medal for destroying a monster." Taking a saber ...

— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... a man who had three sons. Johnny, the youngest, was always looked upon as the simpleton of the family, and had very little consideration or kindness ...

— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... 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. ...

— Rita • Laura E. Richards

... whether he could really 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

... independent of all such things by a little skilful rubbing alone. Perhaps you object that these remedies are "very simple." Well, that would be no great harm; but if they are so simple, you are surely a simpleton if you let your poor nerves be killed with morphia, while such obvious remedies are at hand. ...

— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... continued, "you're only a simpleton. The hat-box was fairly burnt to ashes: so were the notes. That hat-box, my dear fellow, is a different one; and those notes belong to me. I even burnt six of them to make you swallow the stunt. And you couldn't make out what had happened. What an owl you must be! To furnish ...

— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... drunkenness, and so on are actions that seem to us less free the better we understand their cause. If the man whose actions we are considering is on a very low stage of mental development, like a child, a madman, or a simpleton—then, knowing the causes of the act and the simplicity of the character and intelligence in question, we see so large an element of necessity and so little free will that as soon as we know the cause prompting the action we can foretell ...

— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... dance, and jump upon his knees; he played with me as if he were my own age, and his wife entirely spoilt me. Both required of me but one thing—to be good-humored; and in that, thank God! I never disappointed them; so they baptized me, Dimpleton (not Simpleton, neighbor!) and the cap fitted. As to gayety, they set me the example: never did I see them sad. If they uttered reproaches at all, it was the wife said to her husband: 'Stop, Cretu, you make me laugh too much!' or he said to her 'Hold your tongue, Ramonette (I do not know why he called ...

— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... is an utter fool," pondered the Doctor, as he went. Two friends had been kept long apart by the fear of each, lest he should seem to be setting up claims based on the past. It required a simpleton to bring them together. ...

— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom 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

... made up as a lovers' quarrel," said Aunt Tabitha. Silly old woman! No, silly young fellow! Flora has revenged herself on me as she meant to do, for defying her power. She has turned my head; made me act like a simpleton. But "Richard's himself again," and wiser than ...

— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various

... me for, Cilla? I inquired at the 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

... intimate comment and suggestion from a woman whom as a girl she had never admitted to familiarity with her, but had tolerated her because she was such a harmless simpleton, and hung upon other girls whom she liked better. The word monument cowed her, however. She was afraid they might begin to talk about the soldiers' monument. She answered hastily, and began to ask them ...

— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... graceful figures moved in the lively dances; and love and beauty alone seemed to preside within the joyous precincts. But suddenly a universal confusion and panic terror was spread among the company, and chiefly among the ladies. Some suspicious simpleton or mischievous wag had whispered that we had a design of secretly weighing anchor during this festivity, and sailing away with our beautiful prisoners. My friend Mendiburu, however, at length succeeded in banishing this ridiculous apprehension, ...

— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... ... 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 to him. For, they say, things do fall ...

— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... making you out. You sit like a scarecrow in the garden and roll your eyes at the fire. You can't say anything properly . . . when you speak you seem frightened. I dare say you are fifty, but you have less sense than a child. Aren't you sorry that you are a simpleton?" ...

— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... "Peace, simpleton!" said the Princess. "Though he said he was unhappy, it does not follow that he must be in love. Think of all that has happened to-day, and tell me if there are no misfortunes but what love causes.—Stranger," ...

— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole

... to indulge any tragical emotions on the occasion. He stared at her for a minute, with an expression of absurd bewilderment. There was no very graceful exit from the undignified predicament to which he had, like a simpleton, reduced himself. Recovering his self-possession, however, he broke into a cold ...

— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... penitentiary's like? Did you ever hear the clang of a celldoor as the turnkey slammed it behind him and left you to think and stew and weep in a silence accented and made more wretched by a yellow electricbulb and the stink of corrosivesublimate? Back to the cityroom, you dabbling booby, you precious simpleton, addlepated dunce, and be thankful my boundless generosity permits you to draw a weekly paycheck at all and doesnt condemn you to labor forever unrewarded in the subterranean vaults where the old files ...

— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... dearest simpleton, did you ever hear of a woman of quality keeping accounts—unless it were some lunatic universal genius like her Grace of Newcastle, who rises in the middle of the night to scribble verses, and who might do anything preposterous. Keep accounts! Why, if you was to tell me that two and two make five ...

— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... 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 ...

— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... 'sister,' and the opportunity of snubbing le beau monde who persistently snub her. Impossible! You are growing old and oblivious of the strategy you indulged in when throwing your toils around your devoted admirer, whom I, ultimately had the honor of calling my father. Your pet vagrant, Edna, is no simpleton; she can take care of her own interests, and, accept my word for it, intends to do so. She is only practising a little harmless coquetry—toying with her victim, as fish circle round and round the bait which they fully ...

— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... already told you that you are a simpleton, and I am quite of his opinion. D'Artagnan, you are a great man; and when you occupy Monsieur de Treville's place, I will come and ask your influence to secure me ...

— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... 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 ...

— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... were raised; there was a low-voiced discussion, so that the simpleton might not catch what they were saying: Cranajour had never been up to dodges of this kind: so far he had been kept out of them; besides, he was such a senseless cove, he might give things away, make ...

— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... 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 ...

— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... first-class simpleton," she decided. "Dorothy was right; always right. I'm a rattle-brain; and they think I am drowned. That is more reasonable, and more charitable, than to think I could be ...

— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose

... her husband, quite dumbfounded, and he seemed rather distressed himself. However, he muttered something about her being a hot-headed simpleton and soon thinking better about it, and then betook himself to his private retreat, to hold sweet converse with his own thoughts—having first rung the bell for Griffiths, to pick up the scattered ...

— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... 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 ...

— The Jolly Corner • Henry James

... (promptly turning upon him). And you ought to have kept me from making such a simpleton of ...

— The Sleeping Car - A Farce • William D. Howells

... 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

... 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 ...

— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... 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

... History of the Lovers of Syria 3. History of Al-Hajjaj Bin Yusuf and the Young Sayyid 4. Night Adventure of Harun Al-Rashid and the Youth Manjab a. Story of the Darwaysh and the Barber's Boy and the Greedy Sultan b. Tale of the Simpleton Husband Note Concerning the "Tirrea Bede," Night 655 5. The Loves of Al-Hayfa and Yusuf 6. The Three Princes of China 7. The Righteous Wazir Wrongfully Gaoled 8. The Cairene Youth, the Barber and the Captain 9. The Goodwife of Cairo and Her ...

— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... conscience as a King and a Christian has laid down, and which does not admit que je fasse la besogne ni de l'un ni de l'autre parti, I am abused and insulted at the Winter Palace, and regarded, by way of contrast in London and Paris, as a kind of simpleton—neither of which is pleasant. ...

— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... appearances, and clinging to him with a wild and glorious desire to give herself to him and to be all his own! That was a thing worthy of a true woman. And he? He shrinks from her and cowers and acts like a simpleton. His courage seems to have dribbled through his finger-tips; he is no longer a man—he is ...

— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... believe he would scarcely be able to refuse 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 acceptance. He has wealth and position, ...

— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... came to the conclusion that I was, to say the least of it, a simpleton to waste so much time and ...

— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme

... him up with the belief that the way beyond this bridge up to Hartledon was private, and he might be taken up for trespassing if he attempted to follow it; so he went off that way to watch the front. If the fellow hasn't a writ in his pocket, or something worse, call me a simpleton. You are all right, sir, as long as he takes ...

— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... simpleton would understand that. Are you more familiar with bricks than bribes?" It was a cruel thrust under the circumstances, and Miss Baylis had the grace to blush at the look of scorn which darted from Beverly's eyes straight into ...

— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... for what I knew must come, filling the empty wallet with very small stones picked up along the road. That wallet went into the stream. It is surprising how prone human nature is to jump at conclusions. Why should any of you think that I am simpleton enough to throw away good money? Dear, dear, what a world this ...

— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... 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 vanished clerk of works, ...

— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... you are the greatest simpleton that ever came to London, I think. I do believe you would go and ask this, as though you were afraid your tongue was not your own. Talk to her if you like, only don't grumble any more about me talking to my ...

— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie

... but I am not quite a simpleton. I have seen something of the world, and I don't think I am easily ...

— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger

... 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, ...

— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... where, except in countries doomed to eternal barbarism, are patients labouring under consumption avoided now, as they were in several parts of the world at one time, just as if they laboured under plague, and all for the simpleton's reason that the disease often runs through families? What disinterested man will, on due examination of all that has been written on yellow fever, stand up now in support of its being a contagious disease, of which some thirty or forty years ago there was so general a belief? On croup, ...

— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest

... this first favor, was she not tacitly encouraging him to ask for others? Was he dealing with a simple, innocent girl, or a village coquette, accustomed to be courted? And on this last supposition should he not pass for a simpleton in the eyes of this experienced girl, if he kept himself at too great a distance. He remembered the advice of Claudet concerning the method of conducting love-affairs smoothly with certain women of the country. Whether she was a coquette or not, Reine had bewitched him. The charm had worked more ...

— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet

... you know when you never were there? See here, Agnes, don't be a simpleton. Where is Ruth? I'll be bound she'll go; she has good sense and good taste. I saved up cigar money this week on purpose to take you. Hurry now, or we ...

— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd

... 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 like the jovial ...

— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... fit of sisterly feeling. Patt insisted on taking off my wig, and seeing my face in its natural dress. I consented to gratify her, when the girl really behaved like a simpleton. First she pushed about my curls until they were arranged to suit the silly creature, when she ran back several steps, clapped her hands in delight, then rushed into my arms and kissed my forehead and eyes, and called me "her brother"—her "only brother"—her "dear, dear Hugh," and by a number ...

— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... not a simpleton, or characterless; but if he had been, his prospetts of success would not have been materially damaged by her knowledge of his deficiencies. A union with him was a safe investment, and must be several degrees more supportable than was ...

— At Last • Marion Harland

... "My dear Baisemeaux," said he, "you are a simpleton. Lose this habit of reflection when I give myself the trouble to ...

— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Susan Davis, 'do not be a simpleton. Take the money, and do not pretend to more honesty than the rest ...

— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... upon his brother a look of inexpressible contempt. "I would be a simpleton if the history of heroes did not interest me," said he, "and I understand everything the good Professor Recco says—I understand it so well that I often know beforehand what his ...

— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... 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

... a gracious, 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 divinity ...

— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... equal to falseness and stupidity wherever I meet it, falseness, and Praskovya's folly. I don't know when I've met such a flabby woman, and what's more her legs are swollen, and she's a good-natured simpleton, too. What can be more foolish than ...

— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... will pass the pennant, like innocent market-people, and I'll risk a Flemish gelding against a Virginia nag, that they inquire if the captain has no need of vegetables for his soup! Ah! ha-ha-ha! That Ludlow is a simpleton, niece of mine, and he is not yet fit to deal with men of mature years. You'll think better of his qualities, one day, and bid him be gone ...

— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... only have seen that gallant simpleton's endurance of grinding pain, and his efforts to suppress his groans, you would have had many strange and perhaps tender thoughts. Mr. Blair was watching the operations from the ...

— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman

... 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

... fool I was to pay him that five dollars!" thought Luke, regretfully. "If I hadn't been such a simpleton, I should have found out what brought him here, before throwing away nearly ...

— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger

... I write so much as this every day, how will this paper hold a fortnight's work, and answer one of yours into the bargain? You never think of this, but let me go on like a simpleton. I wish you a merry Christmas, and many, many a one with poor Presto at some pretty place. I was at church to-day by eight, and received the Sacrament, and came home by ten; then went to Court at two: it was a Collar-day, that is, when the Knights ...

— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... as though he had never been. She would force herself to forget him, if forgetting lies in the absence of all thought. It was no more than Mr Whittlestaff had a right to demand, and no more than she ought to be able to accomplish. Was she such a weak simpleton as to be unable to keep her mind from running back to the words and to the visage, and to every little personal trick of one who could never be anything to her? "He has gone for ever!" she exclaimed, rising up from her chair. ...

— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... very handsome, with splendid mustaches; perfectly well-dressed; holding the reins and whip gracefully in hands glistening in straw-colored kid gloves—and between the two gentlemen ensued the following low-toned colloquy, which it were to be wished that every such sighing simpleton (as Titmouse must, I fear, by this time appear to the reader) ...

— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... who does 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

... The poor simpleton showed himself from among the ruins of a sort of greenhouse, that once terminated what was called the terrace-walk, but at first sight of a stranger retreated, as if in terror. Waverley, remembering his habits, began to whistle ...

— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... 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 whom ...

— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... imbecile, natural; simpleton, dolt, dunce, defective, witling, dotterel, driveler, blockhead, beetlehead, ninny, ignoramus, numskull, booby, clodpate, nincompoop, ass, wiseacre, dunderhead, halfwit, oaf, dullard, coot, mooncalf; zany, harlequin, buffoon, jester, merry-andrew, droll, clown, ...

— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... a slight 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

... contact with me. I spent myself upon it." Hester's voice sank. "I knew what I was doing. I joyfully spent my health, my eyesight, my very life upon it. I was impelled to do it by what you perhaps will call a blind instinct, what I, poor simpleton and dupe, believed at the time to be nothing less than the ...

— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... the people can give him, yet the remembers so tenderly the old home and its associations. That's his great secret of success—he's so human—with faults like other men, but they only make him all the more beloved. He is so tolerant of all. When that poor simpleton stuffed the ballot-box—out somewhere in the Blue Mountains, a really clever piece of work too, wonderfully well done—with the false bottom—I don't see how they ever discovered it—but it is hard to deceive the enemy—there's no piece of crooked work they are not familiar with. He was nearly ...

— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... eyes towards me. I was somewhat astonished and asked the proprietor of the baths, without appearing to be much concerned, the name of this gentleman. I laughed to myself 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 went back and sat down beside him again so as to get a good look at him. His face has an expression of calmness and of penetration. Somebody came to look for him, and I heard his voice, which ...

— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... here to this day, hold one end of the blanket and toss me up to the sky with very good grace and strength, and as much mirth as muscle. And where it comes to knowing persons, I hold, though I may be a simpleton and a sinner, that there is no enchantment, but only ...

— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... men, Nathaniel and Demas, encountering a pretender to miracles, a Simon Magus of the scriptures. Nathaniel is guileless, sweet-hearted and of strong moral sense, but in worldly matters rather a simpleton. Demas is a sharp man, who gets on well in the world, quick of eye and shrewd of wit, hard-headed and not to be imposed upon by his fellows; but destitute of any high religious aspirations or deep moral insight. The juggleries of Simon are readily discerned by Demas, but thoroughly ...

— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... Mr. Credulous, it is you who are a fool, and no one but such a simpleton would be so ...

— St. Patrick's Day • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... Admit, or by acknowledgment pass sentence upon thyself, as a simpleton? "Confess, and be hanged," ...

— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... in a tone of derision. Simpleton! The best thing your mother can do is to lock you up in the chamber with the picture that ...

— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... the Athenians made preparations to join their forces 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 by them, fought by themselves, and ...

— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... European States which it would be madness to offend, and as the country south of that line was held by feeble States which it would be easy to conquer, no Northern or Western statesman could vote for such a measure without proving himself a rogue or a simpleton. Hence all measures of "compromise" necessarily failed during the last days of the administration of ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... threw a morsel on the ground. "Haensel, why dost thou stop and look around?" asked 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 Haensel. "Simpleton!" said the woman, "that is not thy little pigeon, that is the morning sun that is shining on the chimney." Haensel, however, little by little, threw all the crumbs on ...

— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... Iredale, leisurely turning to the window. "Do you think I'm a babe? How are you going to prove your charge? Why, you must be the veriest simpleton to think I am unprepared. By the time you can bring the law about me there will not remain a trace of—my work. You can never bring ...

— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... were to be distributed by lots, and the mighty man and the beggar—the old man and the hobble-de-hoy—the industrious man and the spendthrift, the maimed, the cripple, and the blind, the clever man of business, and the haveril simpleton, made all just brethern, and alike. Save us! but to think of such nonsense! At one of their meetings, held at the sign of the Tappet Hen and the Tankard, there was a prime fight of five rounds between ...

— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... favour of his company a little while this morning (our head). I have been writing all the above gibberish while aunt has been looking after her family—now she is out of the room—now she is in—& takes up my pen in my absence to observe, I am a little simpleton for informing my mamma, that it is a great while since I was prais'd because she will conclude that it is a great while since I deserv'd to be prais'd. I will henceforth try to observe their praise & yours too. I mean deserve. It's now ...

— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow

... frank and enthusiastic student but a man of talent and feeling who has found his true course. In what concerns the revelation he has had from science, he is reserved and circumspect. Happily, man that is borne of woman, however great, if a simpleton and an idealist, almost always is the prey of the sex in one form or another. When they escape feminine influence, they are impregnable, and strong measures must ...

— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... calf and vellum I will show you, to be bullied by the 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 in what form ...

— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... Moth. Au revoir, Mademoiselle," and they fluttered off. "Did you see her blush, Moth, when I said that about the day not being so charming?" said the Butterfly. "That's what they like. Halloa! there goes that simpleton of a Humming-Bird. He thinks he's got the gayest coat in the Garden. What ...

— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder

... not have left the lambs all a long winter's night; and the house all unguarded; and nobody there to give counsel to the poor mute simpleton whom he had now ...

— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... He stammered out something about quite understanding, and retreated, while Rachel returned to find Bessie sitting upright, anxiously watching, and she was at once drawn down to sit beside her on the bench, to listen to the excited whisper. "The miserable simpleton! Rachel, Alick was right. I thought, I little thought he would forget how things stand now, but he got back to the old strain, as if—I shall make Lord Keith go to Scotland any way now. I was so thankful to see you and Alick." She proceeded with the agitated vehemence of one who, ...

— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... shoulders. "If I did not know you for a credulous simpleton," said she, "I should take you for an abandoned villain. You thought me fool enough to believe that you were bringing up your daughter as a governess when she was on the stage all the time. I don't want to tell you what my views are as to choosing a profession—I admit that they are ...

— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... worthless ledge, sunk a shaft on it, bought a wagon load of rich "Comstock" ore, dumped a portion of it into the shaft and piled the rest by its side, above ground. Then he showed the property to a simpleton and sold it to him at a high figure. Of course the wagon load of rich ore was all that the victim ever got out of his purchase. A most remarkable case of "salting" was that of the "North Ophir." It was claimed that this vein was a "remote extension" ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... 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 ...

— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... the boy a simpleton, and expected one of such answers as inconvenient questions in natural ...

— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... might care to name. Guns, horses, dogs, all were subjects for barter—though not for profit so far as YOU were concerned. Such traits are mostly the outcome of a boisterous temperament, as is additionally exemplified by the fact that if at a fair he chanced to fall in with a simpleton and to fleece him, he would then proceed to buy a quantity of the very first articles which came to hand—horse-collars, cigar-lighters, dresses for his nursemaid, foals, raisins, silver ewers, lengths of holland, wheatmeal, tobacco, revolvers, dried herrings, pictures, ...

— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... 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 ...

— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... unwilling to comply, and endeavoured to make excuses. This, perhaps, encreased Booth's curiosity, and he said, "Nay, I am resolved to hear it. Why, you simpleton, do you imagine me weak enough to be affected by a dream, ...

— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... 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 ...

— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... "You foolish, little simpleton! you ignorant little heretic!—destitute both of religion and common sense. Good Heavens, what a wife! Jealous of Mary, our Mother in Heaven! O, Holy Mary ...

— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... Presently two peasants came by with their sickles from the field. The parson called out to them, and begged them to come and release him and the clerk. Hardly had they touched the clerk when they also stuck fast as the others, and the simpleton with his golden ...

— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... 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

... experienced a painful sensation in writing, by his dictation, these official words, everyone of which was an imposition. Excited by all I had just witnessed, it was difficult for me to refrain from making the observation; but his constant reply was, "My dear fellow, you are a simpleton: you do not understand this business." And he observed, when signing the bulletin, that he would yet fill the world with admiration, and ...

— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... eyebrows, though not pencilled, were yet blue black; her face resembled a silver basin, and her eyes, juicy plums. She was sparing in her words, chary in her talk, so much so that people said that she posed as a simpleton. She was quiet in the acquittal of her duties and scrupulous as to the proper season for everything. "I practise simplicity," ...

— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... all the world! Just as she had known him as a boy, before their marriage, when he was "cat" on a fishing vessel! The same round jolly face, the same stout square-shouldered body, the same stubby sturdy legs, the same expression of an honest simpleton with a gift for plodding work that stamped him in advance as a steady reliable chap, an hombre de bien. And the same inside, as well! Good-natured, too good-natured if anything, and bashful! But a bull-dog when it came to hanging on to money; and a mad fondness for the sea, prolific ...

— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Recalde (Ignatius of Loyole) who with his eternal smile and humble looks made fun of me; nor Domingo (Dominic) with his aristocratic pretensions and little stars of false jewelry on his forehead, who laughed at me; but even the great simpleton of Francisco (Francis), do you understand? tried to poke fun at me; at me, who has thought, argued and written more than all of ...

— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... washing Eugenia was too indignant to reply, but when it came to the mopping, she lifted up her hands in astonishment, calling him "a fool and a simpleton." ...

— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes

... with the grand function of existing. Lucas showed her the portrait in the illustrated paper, which he had kept. She said that it was comparatively an old one, and had been taken at the Durbar in January. "Were you at the Durbar?" asked the simpleton George. Irene Wheeler looked at him. "Yes. I was in the Viceroy's house-party," she answered mildly. And then she said to Lucas that she had sat three times to photographers that week—"They won't leave me alone"—but that the proofs were none of them satisfactory. At this Laurencine Ingram boldly ...

— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... was amazed to hear him call the princess by such name, and the proudest gentry in the land arrant robbers. "Why, pray my lord," said I, "do you consider these great noblemen worse thieves than highwaymen?" "Thou art a simpleton—think on that knave who roves the wide world over, sword in hand, and with his ravagers at his back, slaying and burning, and depriving the true possessors of their states, and afterwards expecting to be ...

— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... with Mrs. Raymond for ten minutes, perhaps, and think her a simpleton; and then suddenly a cloud (as it were) parted, and you found yourself gazing into depths ...

— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Shaksperian thoughts'. A Berlin critic named Moritz, of whom we shall hear later, called the piece a disgrace to the age and wondered how a man could write and print such nonsense. The plot consisted, he declared, of a simpleton's quarrel with Providence over a stupid and affected girl. It was full of crass, ribald wit and senseless rodomantade. There were a few scenes of which something might have been made, but 'this writer converted everything into inflated rubbish'. Some one taxed Moritz with undue severity, whereupon ...

— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... their ideal, they bow to the real human—the purified man or woman of the better land. The recluse is ever the true prophet and seer, in this as in still higher matters. Your modest-eyed student, stealing glances of unfeigned admiration at ordinary maidens, is not such a simpleton as some suppose. His seclusion has cleared his vision. He sees on through the eons—sees things as they will or may be—regards the objects of his adoration as he will in the angelhood. Why will so many decry this admiration?—when they see that, not till the youth passes the purely romantic age—fourteen ...

— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... dear Cynthia, confuse the Boob with the Poor Fish. The Poor Fish, as an Emersonian thinker has observed, is the Boob gone wrong. The Poor Fish is the cynical, sneering simpleton who, if he did see an angel, would think it was only some one dressed up for the movies. The Poor Fish is Why Boobs ...

— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley