"Demented" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about like a man demented; since, to begin with, audacious as the terms were, the plague had spared him scarcely a hundred men capable of resistance. Moreover, he had no son, but an only daughter, and she was lying sick almost to death with the distemper. So he made answer, promising the ransom, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... moment Giafer, who seriously believed that the Caliph had become demented, hesitated. But the habit of obedience prevailed, and putting his hand to his head, the usual sign of implicit devotion to the royal will, he beckoned Mesrur, whose figure at a little distance from them was the only living object visible in the street, and they disappeared ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... and that several, while asleep in their saddles had been pulled off their horses by low branches and severely injured. Yet we had to get through the Nek and get to the plateau before I could allow any rest. I went and had a look at the demented men. They looked as if intoxicated and were very violent. All our men and horses were utterly exhausted, but we pushed on and at last reached the plateau, where, to everybody's great delight, we rested for the whole ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... debate Throughout the isle was storming, And Rads attacked the throne and state, And Tories the reforming, To calm the furious rage of each, And right the land demented, Heaven sent us Jolly Jack, to teach The way to ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... much as an equal in promotion with Denham. The Earl's time in the West Indies is up, and he and his family return to Ireland. Denham's ship visits Kilfinnan Bay, and he walks on shore, where it is possible he may have been recognised by O'Rourke and by a demented woman, who is not as mad as ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... by half," said Lady Honoria drily. "Here we are, and there is Effie, skipping about like a wild thing as usual. I think that child is demented." ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... aristocrats, of suspects, of wealthy bourgeois. Those who have money occasionally buy themselves out, and generally succeed in living well; while outside the prison doors, angry, half-demented women revile the aristocrats who betray the people and who, even in prison, eat delicate food and drink expensive wines. Among the prisoners there is some light-heartedness, much demoralization, with here and there, at rare intervals, a Madame Roland or an Andre Chenier, ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... continued as long as the seller sees fit. There is no regular organization of the brokers operating here, though these men control the bulk of the sales made in the street. They are noisy and seem half demented in their frantic ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... perhaps hold it tight, and not give it up to any one whatsoever!" His own hand was trembling with excitement. The eagerness of delight with which he listened to every word uttered by the low-toned and gentle voice was almost painful; and yet he knew it not. He was as one demented. This was Gertrude White—speaking, walking, smiling, a fire of beauty in her clear eyes; her parted lips when she laughed letting the brilliant light just touch for an instant the milk-white teeth. This was no pale Rose Leaf at all—no dream or vision—but the actual laughing, ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... and pretender," cried Lady Whitburn; "as if all did not ken that the first duty of a leech is to take away the infected humours of the blood! Demented as I was to send for you. Had you been worth but a pinch of salt, you would have shown me how to lay hands on Nan the witch-wife, the cause of all the ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me a sledge.' Shure, we thought it was demented he was, but he was the only cool man, an' orders were orders. Dooley, he found one, an' then the captain went to the rails an' gave it a swing, an' struck the bolts crosswise like, so that the heads flew off, like they was shootin' stars. Then he struck ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... her window, we could follow her footmarks easily across the lawn to the edge of the mere, where they vanished, close to the gravel path which leads out of the grounds. The lake there is 8 ft. deep, and you can imagine our feelings when we saw that the trail of the poor demented girl came to an end at the edge ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... far back in the jungles of the Amazon with a half-demented naturalist who told the lad nothing of his past. The jungle boy was a lover of birds, and hunted animals with a bow and arrow and his trusty machete. He had a primitive education in some things, and his daring adventures will be followed with breathless ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... came nearer to me. He wore a faded straw hat, which looked forlorn, as the month was January. His face, despite its angularity of outline and its wanness, had that expression of complacency which often relieves from pathos the countenances of harmlessly demented people. His hair was gray, but his somewhat formidable looking moustache was still dark. He carried an unadorned walking-stick and under his left arm was what a journalistic eye immediately recognized as manuscript. From the man's aspect of extreme poverty, ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... by the presence of tube-casts.[29] It is related of Sir Isaac Newton, that while riding homeward one day, the weather being clear and cloudless, in passing a herder he was warned to ride fast or the shower would wet him. Sir Isaac looked upon the man as demented, and rode on, not, however, without being caught in a drenching shower. Not being able to account for the source of information through which the rustic had gained his knowledge, he rode back, wet as he was, to learn something. "My cow," answered the man, "always twists her tail in ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... interfered, and rescuing him from the hands of the infuriated mob, bore him to the castle, the tower of Antonia. When they arrived at the stairs of the tower, Paul begged the tribune to be allowed to speak to the angry and demented crowd. The request was granted, and he made a speech in Hebrew, narrating his early history and conversion; but when he came to his mission to the Gentiles, the uproar was renewed, the people shouting, "Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... dramatic bit that again involved the demented mother. "This ought to be good if you can do it the right way," began Baird. "Mother's mopping along there and slashes some water on this Mexican's boot-where are you, Pedro? Come here and get this. The old lady sloshes water ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... that. So I hustled the poor thing into my car and brought her here. All the way she kept crying over and over: 'Look, don't you see it? She's afire! Her lips shine—they shine, they shine.' I think the girl is demented ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... greasy smile, that allus did make me want to slap his face. "This is Mr. Clamp, from Coptown. Make ye acquainted with Miss Ca-iry Pennypacker, Mr. Clamp. I met up with Mr. Clamp yesterday, Ca-iry, and I was tellin' him about this demented creatur as you've been shelterin' at your own expense the last three years, as the hull neighborhood says it's a shame. And lo! how myster'ous is the ways o' Providence! Mr. Clamp is sup'n'tendent o' the Poor Farm down to Coptown, and he says this woman is a crazy pauper as he has ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... life afterwards she could never forget the anguish of poor Stella, who was like a thing demented. She could remember the objects that met her eyes as she held the two hot trembling hands to her with one hand while the other stroked Stella's ruffled hair. She felt as though she were holding the girl back by main force from the borderland beyond which lay total darkness. She could remember ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... cried Rosamond Lee. "Tell me the story of this demented girl over again in all its details. I was not paying attention before. I did not half listen to all ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... demeanor of Legrand—some air of forethought, or of deliberation, which impressed me. I dug eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually looking, with something that very much resembled expectation, for the fancied treasure, the vision of which had demented my unfortunate companion. At a period when such vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had been at work perhaps an hour and a half, we were again interrupted by the violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness in the first instance had been, evidently, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... with cries, and Edward ran out of the house to see what was the matter; but on the spot nobody was game enough to come between the furious man and the fiery girl. The consequence was, her impetuous courage began to flag and her eye to waver; the demented man found this out by some half animal instinct, and instantly caught her by the shoulder and whirled her down on her knees; then raised his ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... population is swarming the streets, half frenzied with terror, the whole punctuated at frequent intervals by the scream of a woman or child, the shouts of men, and the occasional crack of a musket-shot fired by someone demented with fright and quite irresponsible for ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... screamed with rapture, and sat beating her feet upon the floor, clapping her hands, and bobbing herself backwards and forwards, like a demented member of some ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... A demented countryman, respected as a saint by reason of his madness, a thing of rags and tatters and woefully unkempt hair, a quite wild creature, more than six feet high, and gaunt as a lightning-smitten pine, came down the deserted bazaar of the brass-workers. He carried a long staff in one hand, a bright ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... unhappy fate of the poor village maiden, the grief of her lover, George Merrideth, had been observed to be the wildest. For some days, he had wandered about like one demented; and all who witnessed, respected and commiserated his anguish. Latterly, however, he had disappeared entirely from the public view; and it was hinted by some, that his mind had been seriously affected by the occurrence. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... no one was here. I am not quite demented yet. Now go. Don't you see you are interrupting me?' was Arthur's rather savage response, and without having gained any satisfactory information Charles returned to the group ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... the Auld Lichts went demented. The occasion was the Fast Day at Tilliedrum; when its inhabitants, instead of crowding reverently to the kirk, swooped profanely down in their scores and tens of scores on our God-fearing town, intent on making a day of it. Then did the weavers rise ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... known about the young warriors of Canon lane, I should have thought her demented: as it was, I could scarcely wait for the next day, which was Sunday, to be introduced to the scene which had already produced such a marked change ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... not seem so to me. You know the general tendency of sudden madness, which usually produces a complete reversal of the ordinary instincts of the demented persons, making them dangerous to their dearest friends. But why talk longer of this? It is too painful—too overwhelming. What can man do against the great forces of Nature? At this moment I solemnly declare to you that I regret that I ever ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... "He was demented on that one subject," confessed Alec, "and the disease kept getting a stronger grip on him until finally—-but hello! here's the hole in the wall we wanted to find, so let's crawl over ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... the same polite tourist paid a visit to the island to see how the poor demented young man was being looked after, and on these occasions he would take Jock out for quite a long walk, and afterwards assure the family that their guest's health was benefiting greatly. But this gentleman had not visited the island since the war, ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... did not warm up to this at all. "Indeed, doctor, if I tell the truth, I could not say I am. For to hear the poor old soul fancy herself my sister, dead now five-and-forty years and more! Not for the pain to myself, but for the great pity for a poor demented soul, and no blessed Saviour near to bid the evil spirit begone. No, indeed—I will hope she may be well on her way home before ever I return to Strides. But my daughter says she'll be loath to part with her, so I'm not bound to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... his strong white teeth under his black waxed moustache. He wrung his right hand violently, and as he did so he sent a little spray of blood from his finger-tips. A bullet had chipped his wrist. Headingly ran out from the cover where he had been crouching, with the intention of dragging the demented Frenchman into a place of safety, but he had not taken three paces before he was himself hit in the loins, and fell with a dreadful crash among the stones. He staggered to his feet, and then fell again in the same place, floundering up and down like a horse which has broken its ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... to take a plunge in these enchanted waters. The Emperor and his friends may or may not have gambolled in this jewelled bath; but certain it is that Tiberius knew of the existence of this unique cavern; and equally certain that an artistic but demented potentate of our own days was so smitten with the idea of owning a secret staircase descending to a blue grotto, that he must needs construct within the walls of a fantastic castle in the highlands of Bavaria ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... preacher on the warm, rainy Sunday when he stood within sound of the great Fall and read from the forty-seventh chapter of the Prophet Ezekiel. Romeo Desnoyers, thin, keen, professional looking; Poussette and his wife, the latter an anaemic, slightly demented person who spoke no English; Mr. Patrick Maccartie, foreman of the mill, who likewise was ignorant of English, despite his name, and the Methodist contingent from Beaulac were planted along the front seats at markedly wide intervals, for Poussette had erected his church on a ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... much vexed because he came up to London about the will, and the lawyers say he cannot—or somebody else, I don't know which—cannot administer it unless he takes the name of Melcombe. So what he said was quite true, and afterwards we heard the old lady telling her friends that he was demented, but he seemed very harmless ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... seconds, the earth came away, and my spade lay bare four bags of mouldering leather—four torn and decaying things through which came the dull golden gleam of minted metal. With a smothered cry Cumshaw threw himself on the saddle-bags and hugged and clawed them like a man gone demented. For the moment there came a curious vulpine look into his face, and then it passed so swiftly that I could have fancied that it had never been there or anywhere else save in ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... to see my mother, and she was as respectful and kind as though she were her own daughter. Mother has been almost demented ever since father died—she's an old woman. She sits and bows from her chair to everyone she sees. If you left her alone and didn't feed her for three days, I don't believe she would notice it. Well, I took her hand, and ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... with orders to swerve to right and left respectively as soon as they had captured the first line of trenches, in order to let the Royal Irish Rifles and the Rifle Brigade through to the village. The Germans left alive in the trenches, half demented with fright, surrounded by a welter of dead and dying men, mostly surrendered. The Berkshires were opposed with the utmost gallantry by two German officers who had remained alone in a trench serving a machine gun. But the lads ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... The poor demented creature had taken refuge behind a clump of shrubs, and was standing there with eyes dilated with anguish fixed on the Professor and hand pointing to him, trembling in ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... for a single moment. He had the appearance of a man half demented by a passion which could find no outlet. Then he left the room, without salute, without a glance to the right or to the left. Out in the hall, a moment later, they heard a harsh voice of command. The hall door was opened and closed behind the ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... intellect went, with it went their last opportunity for heaven. Now they are not responsible for what they do, or for what they say; but in the last day they will be held responsible for what they did when they were mentally well; and if, on that day, a soul should say: "Oh, God, I was demented, and I had no responsibility," God will say: "Yes, you were demented; but there were long years when you were not demented. That was your chance for heaven, and you missed it." Oh, better be, as the Scotch say, a little "daft," nevertheless ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... doubt. I coldly set myself to tell her of Arthur's double dealing about the estate, and of how he had made Hugh's father believe he was minded to consider the ways of Friends, and at last of how he had borrowed money and had set poor Hugh's half-demented father against him. I did not spare her or him, and the half of what I said I have not set down. The Arnold business I did return to, seeing that it struck her, or seemed to, less than it did me; for to my mind it ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... jumped down to recover it and realized it was dawn already. We were bowling along at a fine pace past green trees and undulating veld, and I wondered why the engine should keep on screaming like a thing demented. I knelt on Fred's berth to lean from the window and look ahead. We were going round a slight curve and I could see the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... bred up, where such remote precautions are taken against the pursuits of justice? What would my father or Reuben Butler think if I were to tell them there are sic folk in the world? And to abuse the simplicity of this demented creature! Oh, that I were but safe at hame amang mine ain leal and true people! and I'll bless God, while I have breath, that placed me amongst those who live in His fear, and under the shadow ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and dropped through a mat of brambles, dragging my rug after me. The fall landed me on all-fours upon the sunken high road, along which I ran as one demented—stark naked, too—a small Jack of Bedlam under the broadening eye of day; ran past Miss Belcher's entrance gate with its sentinel masses of tall laurels, and had reached the bend of the road opening the low cottage into view, when a sudden jingling of bells and tramp of horses ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hand with a look of infinite love. She only said, "My poor mother!" That word did not fall to the ground. It flashed like lightning at night across the demented lover, and lighted up his egotism (suicide, like homicide, is generally a fit of maniacal egotism), even to ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... indeed a night of terror in the oil fields, for destruction was wholesale, and to those who were fortunate enough to be in no danger it was scarcely less trying than for the luckless ones out in the flooded area. Buddy Briskow was half demented. At one time it seemed certain that the surface oil was aflame near his father's farm, and the pictures he conjured ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... uprooting a regiment of currant bushes; had leaped clear and was caught in the eaves of a wooden outhouse, fetching us up with a dislocating shock. I heard a rending noise, and picked myself up in time to see the building collapse like a house of cards, and a pair of demented pigs emerge from the ruins and plunge across the garden-beds. And with that I was pitched off my feet again as the hook caught in an iron chevaux-de-frise, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... excess of his fear drove him into madness beyond all human courage. His eyes staring at nothing, his mouth open and frothing, and breathing as one in a cold bath, he went forward demented, while Dan toiled after him. The charge checked at a high mud wall. It was Mulcahy who scrambled up tooth and nail and hurled down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan who barred his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping to the straight line of the rabid dog, who led a collection ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... wit? "When with your withered lips you bill and coo, Is he that builds card-houses worse than you? Then, too, the blood that's spilt by fond desires, The swords that men will use to poke their fires! When Marius killed his mistress t'other day And broke his neck, was he demented, say? Or would you call him criminal instead, And stigmatize his heart to save his head, Following the common fallacy, which founds A different meaning upon ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... been shortened by the ill-concealed hatred of each brother for the other. At the second, brooding care found unwonted lodging in the charming personality of Sylvia Manning—care, almost foreboding, heightened by the demented mutterings of her "aunt." At the third, with the detectives, sat responsibility; but light-heartedly withal, since these seasoned man-hunters could cast off their day's work like ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... gases that rose from the now incandescent charcoal. At times the fury of the gale would drive it back and hold it against the sides of the pit, leaving the opening free; at times, following the blind instinct of habit, the demented man would fall upon his face and bury his nose and mouth in the wet bark and sawdust. At last, the paroxysm past, he sank back again into his old apathetic attitude of watching, the attitude he had so often kept beside his sylvan ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... lying near her. The sight of the river close by was in his mind, he released the hands, picked up the tin and scrambled out of the cave. As he ran to the river heedless of sea elephants or anything else he kept crying out: "Oh, the poor woman. Oh, the poor woman." He seemed like a huge thing demented. The baby sea elephants scuttered out of his way and as he came running back he spilt half the contents of the tin. Then he was down beside her again, dipping his finger in the water and ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... out of the station I was not two feet behind him. With naked head, and hands outstretched toward the rapidly departing train, and still uttering impotent cries, ran the demented fellow, his reason for the time being entirely gone. The rampant wind blew the half-frozen rain in my face with such force that I could scarcely breathe, while my eyes smarted so under the onslaught that I could see only with great difficulty. ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... was studying the arrival of trains list at Paddington in order to ascertain from which platform the 1.20 p.m. started; she had assumed the slightly demented appearance that so many take when they enter a railway station. Turning from the poster distractedly, she clutched at the arm of a sailor, and was putting to him agitated inquiries concerning the Great Western service ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... Modestine forward, and guiding her like an unruly ship through the open. In a path, she went doggedly ahead of her own accord, as before a fair wind; but once on the turf or among heather, and the brute became demented. The tendency of lost travellers to go round in a circle was developed in her to the degree of passion, and it took all the steering I had in me to keep even a decently straight course through a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... morning the curate and his friend Master Nicholas, the barber, went to Don Quixote's house to settle their grievance with the cause of all the mischief—the books of their demented friend. The curate asked the niece for the keys to the library, and she was only too willing to let him have them. They all went in, followed by the housekeeper, who grew faint-hearted as soon as she caught ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... it at Donald, and steeking his nieves, he would seem to threaten him wi' a leatherin'. A'thegither he was desperate impudent, and eneuch to try the patience of a saunt, no to spak o' a het-bluided Heelandman. It was gude for sair een to see how Donald behavit on this occasion. He raged like ane demented, misca'ing the monkey beyond measure, and swearing as mony Gaelic aiths as micht hae sair'd an ordinar man for a twalmonth. During this time, I never sterr'd a foot, but keepit keeking frae the back shop upon a' that was ganging on. I was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... Under the combined effects of the injury, exposure, and want, he was wasting visibly away; his strength was so completely gone that he was quite unable to move without assistance; and George had once or twice asked himself the question, whether he was justified in involving this poor weak demented creature in the sufferings which there was only too much reason to believe still awaited them. Would it not have been truer kindness, he asked himself, to have left Walford in some sheltered spot where there would be a certainty of his being speedily ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... from hell to speak of horrors. But it did not seem to the laird that, although turned straight towards him, his eyes rested on him; they did not appear to be focused for him, but for something beyond him. It was like the stare of one demented, and it invaded—possessed the laird. A physical terror seized him. He felt his gaze returning that of the man before him, like to like, as from a mirror. He felt the skin of his head contracting; ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... far away across the sand there floated up a silvery haze, like a veil of spangled tissue—exquisite for a ball robe, she said long after!—and in this haze she saw again the phantom Arab galloping upon his horse. But now he was clear in the moon. Furiously he rode, like a thing demented in a dream, and as he rode he looked back over his shoulder, as if he feared pursuit. Mademoiselle could see his fierce eyes, like the eyes of a desert eagle that stares unwinking at the glaring African sun. He urged on his fleet horse. She could hear now the ...
— The Figure In The Mirage - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... without the loyalty and the religious faith of this man. What strange, relentless power is it that perpetually awards an angel to a madman; to a man of heart, of true poetic passion, a base woman; to the petty, grandeur; to this demented brain, a beautiful, sublime being; to Juana, Captain Diard, whose history at Bordeaux I have told you; to Madame de Beauseant, an Ajuda; to Madame d'Aiglemont, her husband; to the Marquis d'Espard, his wife! Long have I sought the meaning of this enigma. I have ransacked many mysteries, ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... go to prove that there is a great wrong somewhere, and that a part, or the whole, of the American people are demented, and hurrying down to swift destruction. To ascertain where this great wrong and evil lies, to point out the remedy, to disabuse the public mind of all erroneous impressions or prejudices, to combat all false doctrines on this subject, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... at Simon's Bay. These are festivals in which Mussulman fanatics run knives into their flesh, go into convulsions, &c, to the sound of music, like the Arab described by Houdin. Of course the poor blacks go quite demented. ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... it was, but being sorely demented with the tragical end of the godly old man," replied my grandfather, "and seeing that I could do the Earl no manner of service, I wist not well what course to take, so after meickle tribulation of thought and great uncertainty ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... whisks up his white tail, and begins careering round and round; another is fired by emulation and joins; another and another follow, and soon there is a flying ring of merry little creatures who seem quite demented with the very pleasure of living. One bounds into the air with a comic curvet, and comes down with a thud; the others copy him, and there is a wild maze of coiling bodies and gleaming white tails. But let the treacherous wind carry the scent of you down on the little rascals and you will see ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Smarlinghue sprang from his chair, and clawed like a demented man at the other's hands for possession ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the night I felt little the worse for my climb, and was all eagerness for dawn to break that I might see what manner of country I was in, for I had been half demented when my terrible ride from the pursuing sandstorm had brought me ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... on justice. Yet there was no other constitutional device for removing him. Though Pickering never appeared in person, the managers for the House pressed the prosecution; and rather than leave the administration of justice to a demented judge, the Senate pronounced the unhappy man "guilty as charged," and resolved that he should be ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... the Isle of Scilly since Oct. 1655 (ante p. 66), had moved for a writ of habeas corpus, and had been brought to London, apparently with an intention on Cromwell's part to set him at liberty. Nor had Cromwell lost sight of the poor demented Quaker, James Nayler. There is extant a long and confidential letter to his Highness from his private secretary Mr. William Malyn, giving an account of a visit Malyn had paid to Nayler in Bridewell expressly by his Highness's command. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... broke, equally unannounced, into the presence of his mistress, the coachman, fresh from his stables and none too careful of his garb. Tears ran down his cheeks. He flung out his hands with gestures as of one demented. ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... which the future critics of English literature will award him. But in this age of critical hysteria it is not enough to yield a man the palm for his own qualities. With regard to Stevenson our professional guides have gone fairly demented, and it is worth while to make an effort to give him the place he has honestly earned, before the inevitable reaction sets in, and unmerited laudations have brought about an unmerited neglect. His life was arduous. His meagre physical means and ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... to see distinctly. He appeared rather tall and slim. I don't remember that he said a word, but he laughed harshly as he ran. Somehow, that laugh gave me the impression that the man was demented. But I have nothing else to judge by, and I would not be unjust. The thing for which to be thankful is that Dr. Wise hopes my kinsman's injuries are ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... great leather sacks which, upon being opened, were found to contain more gold, either in the form of rough nuggets, just as they had been taken from the mine, or dust which had evidently been washed out of the sand of some river. The sight came near to driving them demented, for there were tons of the precious metal; far more of it indeed than they could possibly hope to ever carry away. But even this was not all; for at the far end of the chamber they came upon three great bronze coffers of elaborate and exquisitely beautiful workmanship, which, upon being ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... the archdeacon's had upon the table; and the start he made was so great as to make his wife jump from her chair. Not accept the deanship! If it really ended in this, there would be no longer any doubt that his father-in-law was demented. The question now was whether a clergyman with low rank, and preferment amounting to less than 200 pounds a year, should accept high rank, 1200 pounds a year, and one of the most desirable positions which his ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... fatigue, asked permission of the soldiers to put his hands behind his neck, but this grace was denied, and after some hours more all the company was pushed into a cattle train and for eight days taken over the country, as far as Cologne, and at last released in Brussels, almost demented. ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... the rock, As this eternal jaud wears me; I could withstand the single shock, But not the continuity. It's pay me here, an' pay me there, An' pay me, pay me, evermair— I'll gang demented wi' despair— I'm charged ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... write something somewhere, I don't care if dinner is ready, and Brother's "safe old Secesh" downstairs! Lydia has another boy! Letter has just come, and I am demented about my new godchild! There now! ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... said the General, turning to his Aid, 'Demented! Demented! Might be a dangerous man in camp; must be attended to,' continued the General; striking, as he spoke, vigorous blows across his saddle-bow, with his gauntlet; Tom all the while waiting for a bite, with the ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... said the nicest of the angry gentlemen. 'Take the poor, demented thing home and tell your parents she ought to be properly ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... Half-demented by grief, my love had arrived in hot haste about ten o'clock, and, rushing to poor Mary's room, had thrown herself upon her knees beside the poor inanimate clay; for, even though of late differences might have existed between them, the sisters were certainly ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... heavily than usual. I made no attempt to master these sensations. It occurred to me that fear is merely a physical reaction that cannot be avoided. If a man reacts so violently that he is overcome and rushes about as though he were demented, it is no more his fault than if he shivers with cold. A man can stop shivering by an effort of the will, but only to a certain extent. And no effort of the will can prevent him from feeling cold. In the same ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... world, and taking a survey of the work before him, he felt that sense of a divided personality which often becomes so vivid in the history of individuals of strong will and passion. It seemed to him that there were two men within him: the one turbulent, passionate, demented; the other vainly endeavoring by authority, reason, and conscience to bring the rebel to subjection. The discipline of conventual life, the extraordinary austerities to which he had condemned himself, the monotonous solitude of his existence, all tended to exalt the vivacity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... When the Eskimos came back in the summer of 1720, a great many graves had been scooped among the drift sand and boulders. The survivors were plainly starving, for they fell ravenously on the Eskimos' putrid whale meat. The next summer only two demented men were alive. They were clad in rabbit and fox skins. Their hair and beards had grown unkempt, and they acted like maniacs. Again the superstitious Eskimos fled in terror. Next summer when the savages came down to the coast no white men were alive. The wolves ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... took care not to remind her of that mythical youth. I had expected her to see him on every street corner, to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young Englishmen and made to ask ridiculous questions which might lead to our being taken in charge as a pair of demented foreigners. But my forebodings were not realized. London was so huge and the crowds so great that even Hephzy's courage faltered. To select Little Frank from the multitude was a task too great, even for her, I imagine. At any rate, she did not make the attempt, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Maria Novella. And no sooner wist he that the Master was on the tomb, than he fell a careering in a most wild and furious manner to and fro the piazza, and snorting and bellowing and gibbering like one demented, insomuch that, as soon as the Master was ware of him, each several hair on his head stood on end, and he fell a trembling in every limb, being in sooth more timid than a woman, and wished himself safe at home: but as there he was, he strove might and main to keep his spirits ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... straight to her room. Volney has given it out that the lady is his wife and is demented. His man Watkins spreads the report broadcast to forestall any appeal she may make for help. I talked with the valet in the stables. He had much to say about how dearly his master and his mistress loved each other, and what a pity 'twas that ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... cried she, "where am I to find a shilling? And if I could find one, why should I throw it away upon a thing not worth twopence, and which will only lumber my store till I die? The boy's demented!" ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... inclined to say that the insect comes from another planet, more monstrous, more energetic, more insane, more atrocious, more infernal than our own. One would think that it was born of some comet that had lost its course and died demented in space. ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... Washington could afford, to assuage the thirst of officers and the men of note. Many of the high dignitaries and officials from the Capitol had come out to witness the fight from afar, and enjoy the exciting scene of battle. They were now fleeing through the woods like men demented, or crouched behind trees, perfectly paralyzed with uncertainty and fright. One old citizen of the North, captured by the boys, gave much merriment by the antics he cut, being frightened out of his wits with ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... important that a clear distinction should be preserved between these adult cases and those which date from birth or childhood. The former are labouring under dementia, not amentia. They are demented persons, or, as they are called in our asylums, dements. They are not always, but they are for the most part, harmless lunatics. It is confusing to call them imbeciles, now that this term has become restricted ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... man, whose raging invective and brutal violence drove a weeping woman out into the cheerless night. He deemed her the Russian's cherished mistress. With a shudder Alixe Delavigne recalled the white face of the discarded mother, whose babe slumbered in peace, while the half-demented woman fled away to the shelter of the house ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... blue-bottle, and she shot off in that direction,—when the hum of the gnat again diverted her; and in the middle of this perplexity, pounce came a young wasp in a violent passion! Then the spider evidently lost her presence of mind; she became clean demented; and after standing, stupid and stock-still, in the middle of her meshes for a minute or two, she ran off to her hole as fast as she could run, and left her guests to shift for themselves. I confess that I am somewhat in the dilemma of the attractive and amiable insect I have just ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,— The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... Berenger, who on the other side held his friend's hand tight, 'this is a noble gentleman—the brother of the Duke de Mericour. He has come at great risk to bring me tidings of my dear and true wife. And not one word will these demented rascals let me hear ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... room more than her company so it came as a genuine relief when the keeper made her a rude sign to take herself off. Round the side of the Evening Telegraph he just caught a fleeting glimpse of her face round the side of the door with a kind of demented glassy grin showing that she was not exactly all there, viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers round skipper Murphy's nautical chest and then there was no more ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... are sent for something that would not have happened except for financial disaster. There is no longer any question that a large number, say probably from ten to twenty per cent of the convicted are, in fact, insane at the time the act was committed, and that the demented, the imbecile, and the clearly subnormal constitute many more than half of the inmates of prisons. Most of the rest can be accounted for by defective nervous systems, excessively strong instincts in some directions, weak ones in another, or a very hard environment. Add to this the ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... and earthquakes wouldn't stop him. And though he sneaks away so silently when he hears anything suspicious, yet when he smells danger he'll go through the forest at a thundering rush, making as much noise as a demented fire-brigade." ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... are the best-hearted, the saintliest man on earth. Because you are so beautifully clean-souled yourself, you must pardon me. I am ashamed to say it, but I shall have no rest till I do. When I saw you in the carriage downtown, with that poor, demented child, I thought, for just a moment—oh, can you forgive me? It shows what an evil mind I have. But you, who know so well what Edward is, what my life has been with him, will see how much reason I have to be ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... Constance, with a shake of the head, "it must be hard to live alone year after year poor, crippled and almost demented. It is very good of you, Mr. Castaigne, to visit him as often ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... not so sure: 'Tis certain we have much that's quite as bad, Whose hardy writers have not to endure The hangman's fondling. It is said they're mad: Though lately Mr. Brooks (I mean the poet) Looked well, and if demented didn't show it. ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... atavism, to see their repetition in the propensities of a vampire bat, when Mr. Y——suddenly dashed in on our small group and spoiled all the results of our conciliatory words by screaming at the top of his voice: "The old woman has gone demented! She keeps on cursing us and says that the murder of this wretched bat is only the forerunner of a whole series of misfortunes brought on her house by you, Sham Rao," said he, hastily addressing the bewildered follower ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... or "Tom Jones" or "Anthony and Cleopatra." What would be thought of a French magistrate or a German magistrate who ordered a fair translation of "Hamlet" or of "Lear" to be burnt, because of its obscenity? He would be regarded as demented. One can only understand such a judgment as an isolated fact. But in England this monstrous stupidity is the rule. Sir A. de Rutzen was not satisfied with ordering the books to be burnt and fining the bookseller; he went on to justify his condemnation ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... childhood," quoth the venerable Jacob Sasportas, chief Rabbi of the English Jews, as he sat in the presidential pew, an honored visitor at Hamburg. "Surely thy flock is demented." ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... she had been, and respected by all the Quality,—but in pursuit of the determination with which I set out, to tell the Truth, and all the Truth, I am forced to confess that my Grandmother's Ravings were of the most violent, and that of her thoroughly demented state there could be no doubt. So far, indeed, did the unhappy creature's Abandonment extend, that those who were about her could with difficulty persuade her to keep any Garments upon her body, and ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... to be wondered that she did shriek. Turning toward the spot at which the villain pointed, the Protector saw the half-demented Baronet standing in the door-way. He had opened the closet, and come forth during the momentary absence of his attendant, and now stood moping and bowing to the assembly in a way that would have moved the pity of a heart ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... moments, when he was made with her destroying him, when all his complacency was destroyed, all his everyday self was broken, and only the stripped, rudimentary, primal man remained, demented with torture, her passion to love him became love, she took him again, they came together in an overwhelming passion, in which he knew ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... don't be frightened! The powers above would be demented surely To give effect to orders such as these. No, my good sir—the cure for your disease Is exercise for muscle, nerve, and sinew. Don't lie there wasting all the grit that's in you In idle dreams; cut wood, if that were all; And then I'll say the devil's in't indeed If one brief ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... me, those demented friends of mine! they were a perpetual wonder to me, and I am glad to remember that I never passed hard judgment upon them, or gave them hard words. And I owe much to them, a hundred times more than the whole of them are indebted to me; ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... door did not open again. For a moment she stood like one transfixed, staring at the place whence he had vanished, then, with a moan, she sank in a heap on the floor, and rocked to and fro like one demented. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sold him," said Mrs. Mullet, "but something must be done, and done at once. The man is not used to horses, and I believe I told him it was as quiet as a lamb. After all, lambs go kicking and twisting about as if they were demented, don't they?" ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... the paddler crew of Shaunekuks. It was in the display of Steve's side-arms strapped to a strut of the canoe ready to his hand, with holsters agape, and his loaded guns protruding threateningly. It was in a similar display in the second boat, which the well-nigh demented Julyman had commanded. Oh, yes. No words were needed to tell the story. It was there for ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... thou vain demented soul; My force thy craving shall control. Away, aboard! What, clingest to the shrine? Away! this city's gods I ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... walked slowly home with his hands clasped behind his back he pondered upon the seeming mockery and injustice of the law that forced a lonely, half-demented old fellow with the fixed delusion that he was a financier behind prison bars and left free the sharp slick crook who had no bowels or mercies and would snatch away the widow's mite and leave her and her consumptive daughter to die in the poorhouse. Yet such was the case, ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... brief period of transition, he thought it easy to form an agreement with the Entente Powers for military assistance against a Bulgarian attack, or, even without the Entente, "should the Bulgars be so demented by the Lord as to attempt aggression, I have not the slightest doubt that Servia, moved by her treaty obligations, her interests, and her gratitude for our present aid, would again co-operate with us to humble Bulgarian ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... be explained, the factors which produced such popular fury may be understood. As he stands on the terrace of Versailles or wanders through the vast apartments of the chateau, the traveller sees in imagination the dramatic panorama of the long-dead past. The courtyard is filled with half-demented women, clamouring that the Father of his People should feed his starving children. The Well-Beloved jests cynically as, amid torrents of rain, Pompadour is borne to her grave. Maintenon, gloomily pious, urges with sinister whispers the commission of a great ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... friends, and such great and honest men as Diderot and Hume were among them, seem to have been in the right; but it seems no less clear that they were too anxious to proclaim and emphasize the faults of a poor, unfortunate, demented man. We can hardly blame them; for, in their eyes, Rousseau appeared as a kind of mad dog—a pest to society, deserving of no quarter. They did not realize—they could not—that beneath the meanness and the frenzy that were so obvious to ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... staring eyes, as one demented, repeated, "Die? Then I am a traitor. I have given him up to death!" He sank down like a man crushed by a blow, and then springing up and breaking out into wild passion, he shouted aloud: "May ten thousand devils from hell tear ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... gone, and from the black streets below came scarcely a sound. But always the great tattoo of guns beat in the east. Gradually we descended to a lower level, till we emerged on the top of a shed in a courtyard. Hussin gave an odd sort of cry, like a demented owl, and something began ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... best he could. The latter uttered a sharp command which brought the crew to their feet in an instant, and, in an incredibly short space of time, the proa came around, and, scarcely losing any headway, moved back toward the spot where the demented man had sprung into the sea, which was now ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... this darker dream demented to have wrestled with its pleasure and its pain: it is something to have sinned, and have repented: it is something to have failed, ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... crazy, a. demented, deranged, insane, delirious, dementate, mad, lunatic, distracted, frantic, crazed, crack-brained; rickety, decrepit, shaky, tottering, dilapidated; desirous, eager, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... shoulders with well-studied indifference. It was not the mode at this epoch to seem anything but bored at all the circumstances of public and private life in Rome, at the simple occurrences of daily routine or at the dangers which threatened every man through the crazy whims of a demented despot. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... mercy and those of the dying. The conquered threw away their arms; some tried to escape into the forest, others feigned death and fell to the earth, others stood erect, their faces white as snow, and bloodshot eyes, whilst others prayed. One of them, apparently demented, began to play the pipe, then looked upward and smiled, until a Zmudzian crushed his head with a club. The forest ceased to rustle and ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Ermil Himself, pale and bare-foot, With ropes bound and handcuffed, And bowing his head He spoke low to the people: 'The time was when I was 690 Your judge; and I judged you, In all things obeying My conscience. But I now Am guiltier far Than were you. Be my judges!' He bowed to our feet, The demented one, sighing, Then stood up and crossed himself, Trembling all over; It pained us to witness 700 How he, of a sudden, Fell down on his knees there At Vlasevna's feet. Well, all was put right soon, The nobles have fingers In every small ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... his presumption, if it hath not quite demented him," said the parson. "These persons are like those addressed by St Chrysostom, fitly called the golden-mouthed, who said, 'Miserable wretches that ye be! ye cannot expel a flea, much less a devil!' It will be well if it serves no other purpose but to bring back these stray sheep to the fold of ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... soul, whose past was a blank, there was nothing for memory or resignation to cling to; nothing before that last journey, as nothing after; unless it be mournful vigils by the side of the brother she nursed—the almost demented brother, whose life was wrecked by his idleness and a great unfortunate passion; who became an incurable opium-eater and drunkard. Then, shortly before her twenty-ninth birthday, on a December afternoon, as she sat in the little whitewashed parlour combing her long ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... girls riding from nowhere to nowhere, of Lydia laughing because her father made great debts and said, "I know, I know"; of Jews running down the street shouting in Yiddish, "Don't do it, don't do it," and being cut down by demented peasants—she called them "cattle"—whilst she looked on interested and even amused; of tutors and governesses and Paris and a convent. It was too much for him. And there she sat, telling the tales to the open space, not to him, arrogating a curious superiority to him, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... With bells and cries in vain: the while Lamps, plate, and the decanter smile On the forgotten board. But she, Deaf, blind, and prone on face and knee, Forgets time, family, and feast, And digs like a demented beast. ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... about our house are very neat and we shall have oceans of flowers of all sorts; several kinds are in full bloom now. The wild flowers are so profuse, so beautiful and so various that A. and I are almost demented on the subject. From the windows I see first the wide, gravelled walk which runs round the house; then a little bit of a green lawn in which there is a little bit of a pond and a tiny jet d'eau which falls agreeably ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... she remembered how once she had been laid up for a long while with the fever, and had crept out of the Union infirmary to find that her relations, supposing her dead, had all "tuk off wid thimselves to the States," and was keening like one demented over her desertion outside McNeight's public, when what should come familiarly round the corner but Thady himself, who had stopped behind, foregoing his assisted passage, because the divil a fut of him would stir out of it so long as there might be e'er a chance at all of ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... gentleman's proceedings against myself; whereupon the Senator declined to make the motion. Hastings then presented to the House of Representatives a petition to be relieved from his allegiance as a citizen of the United States. As illustrative of the demented character of the man's brain, some portions of the petition are given. After setting forth his admission to the Supreme Court of California as an attorney and counsellor-at-law, and his taking the oath then required, he proceeded ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... fall received on leaving an inn where he spent his time after becoming well-to-do. His wife, who was a very harsh aunt of Flore's. Lastly the brother and brother-in-law of this girl's guardians, the real father of "La Rabouilleuse," who died in 1799, a demented widower, in the hospital of Bourges. [A ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... assumed the Protectorship. This received expression in his extraordinary pamphlet, Killing no Murder, in which the assassination of C. is advocated, and which displays in a remarkable degree perverted ingenuity of argument combined with considerable literary power. S. d. demented ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... They sent socks and cigarettes and candy and books. And they all wanted us to hurry back to marry them.... Then—when the months had gone by and the novelty had worn off—when we went against the hell of real war—sick or worn out, sleepless and miserable, crippled or half demented with terror and dread and longing for home—then, by God, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... her knickerbockers and started after him; and away they raced around the house, past the fountains, under trees by the coach-house, across paths and lawns and flower-beds, tearing about like a pair of demented kittens. They frisked, climbed trees, chased each other, wrestled, clutched, tumbled, got mad, made up, and finally, removing shoes and stockings, began ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... water. With a jerk she dragged the fainting boy over the parapet and held him in her arms, while she continued to scream for help. People came running from the shore the Carlstrasse, the Fahrhaus, and in an instant the terrace was crowded. They relieved the still half-demented mother of the dripping child to carry him across to the house. She was pushing her way through the closely packed groups and tottering after them when a cry reached her. "There is another one in the water!" Only then did she remember ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... and from there you shall overlook the whole world. You see, Olof, it is now Whitsuntide; it was at this time the Holy Ghost came down and filled the Apostles—nay, all humanity. The spirit of the Lord has descended upon me. I feel it, and for that reason they shut me up like one demented. But now I am free again, and now I shall speak the word; for now, Olof, we are standing on the mountain. Behold the people crawling on their knees before those two men seated on their thrones. The taller holds two keys in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other. That is the Pope. Now he hurls his ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... insisted she had played only one game after half-past eight on the night of the murder. If he dared accept such a computation of time an unimagined possibility in the case stood revealed. But—a demented woman. "A parable in the mouth of a fool." Perhaps it was because she was a fool that he had stumbled on this revelation. She lacked the wit to lie ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees |
