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Madman   Listen
noun
Madman  n.  (pl. madmen)  A man who is mad; lunatic; a crazy person. "When a man mistakes his thoughts for person and things, he is mad. A madman is properly so defined."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Madman" Quotes from Famous Books



... instruction, set up the great wooden passages for the thunder; while the little pipes of pasteboard simulated the sound of the human voice singing to the victorious notes of the long metal trumpets. At times this also, as people heard night after night those wandering sounds, seemed like the work of a madman, though they awoke sometimes in wonder at snatches of a new, an unmistakable new music. It was the triumph of all the various modes of the power of the pipe, tamed, ruled, united. Only, on the painted shutters of the organ-case Apollo with ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... operation of foreign trade to the seed-time and harvest of agriculture. "If we only behold," says he, "the actions of the husbandman in the seed time, when he casteth away much good corn into the ground, we shall account him rather a madman than a husbandman. But when we consider his labours in the harvest, which is the end of his endeavours, we shall find the worth and plentiful increase ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... me!" When the folk heard his words, they said, "This man raveth," and doubted not of his madness. So they came in upon him, and seizing him, pinioned his elbows, and bore him to the Bedlam. Quoth the Superintendent, "What aileth this youth?" and quoth they, "This is a madman, afflicted of the Jinn." "By Allah, cried Abu al- Hasan, "they lie against me! I am no madman, but the Commander of the Faithful." And the Superintendent answered him, saying, "None lieth but thou, O foulest of the Jinn-maddened!" Then he stripped him of his clothes, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... him! That low imposture! That mysterious picture! If this be madness, must I wed a madman? And if not madness, there is mystery, And guilt ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... good friend, could I only command my temper; and yet to fall into a passion with a madman is almost a mark of madness. But his manner and his conduct are so provoking and so puzzling, that I cannot altogether repress my irritability. And that ridiculous incognito! Why I sometimes begin to think ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... tasted the bitter draught of separation; so he went forth at hap-hazard, distracted and knowing not what he should do, and began strewing dust upon his head and crying out, "The old woman hath taken her and gone away!" The little boys followed him with stones and pelted him, crying, "A madman! A madman!" Presently, the king's Chamberlain, who was a personage of years and worth, met him, and when he saw this youth, he forbade the boys and drave them away from him, after which he accosted him and asked him of his affair. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... so. He thought I was going to knock him down, and he raved like a madman. But I told him a few straight facts which he is ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody

... I believe I preferred Emperor Norton; the very mention of whose name reminds me I am doing scanty justice to the folks of San Francisco. In what other city would a harmless madman who supposed himself emperor of the two Americas have been so fostered and encouraged? Where else would even the people of the streets have respected the poor soul's illusion? Where else would bankers and merchants have received his visits, cashed his cheques, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... a madman. It was not thus that ladies were rescued from calumny. But to leave her alone to face it for time indefinite was unthinkable. And, meanwhile, what would become of him severed from her and little Jean? He sighed and looked around the little room where he had been so happy, and at the ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... look in the Death-cart. Not so Camille: it is but one week, and all is so topsy-turvied; angel Wife left weeping; love, riches, Revolutionary fame, left all at the Prison-gate; carnivorous Rabble now howling round. Palpable, and yet incredible; like a madman's dream! Camille struggles and writhes; his shoulders shuffle the loose coat off them, which hangs knotted, the hands tied: "Calm my friend," said Danton; "heed not that vile canaille (laissez la cette vile canaille)." At the foot of the Scaffold, Danton was heard to ejaculate: ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... a moment and then turned to leave the control deck. He paused in the hatch to call back in a low voice, "What can you do with a madman?" ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell

... caught her!" quoth Clara; and then ran on to tell how Elsley "never kept no hours, nor no accounts either; so that she has to do everything, poor thing; and no thanks either. And never knows when he'll dine, or when he'll breakfast, or when he'll be in, wandering in and out like a madman; and sits up all night, writing his nonsense. And she'll go down twice and three times a night in the cold, poor dear, to see if he's fallen asleep; and gets abused like a pickpocket for her pains (which was an exaggeration); ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... not the faintest conception of Keely's work, or what he claimed to have discovered or to be on the track of discovering. I never heard his name mentioned without being told at the same time that he was either a silly madman or a conscious impostor, and as I came with an entirely unprejudiced mind (for I had never heard of Keely before landing in America), it would have been natural to accept this ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... Holy Caaba," said the Emir, "thou art a madman who hugs his chain of iron as if it were of gold! Look more closely. This ring of mine would lose half its beauty were not the signet encircled and enchased with these lesser brilliants, which grace it and set it off. The ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... was but a Tims—but then ever so many gamekeepers met him all alone in my lord's pheasant preserve, and though two of them died within the month, two within the year, and two are now in the workhouse—one a mere idiot, and the other a madman—both shadows—so terribly were their bodies mauled, and so sorely were their skulls fractured;—yet the poacher was taken, tried, hulked; and there he sits now, sunning himself on a bank by the edge of the wood whose haunts he ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... extorted from every portion of the empire. The inhabitants of Pskof, oppressed beyond endurance by an infamous governor, sent seventy of their most influential citizens to Moscow to present their grievances to the emperor. Ivan IV. raved like a madman at what he called the insolence of his subjects, in complaining of their governor. Almost choking with rage, he ordered the seventy deputies to be put to death ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... What? To fly to another city—that meant another Palmer, or the miseries of the unprotected woman of the streets, or slavery to the madman of what the French with cruel irony call a maison de joie. To return ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... unbridled might of the House of Caesar, while against her there was only this stranger, a descendant of a freedwoman from a strange land. For the nonce his influence was great over the mind of the quasi-madman who sat on the Empire's throne, but any moment, any event, the whisper of an enemy, the word of a woman, might put an ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... for three months I have loved like a madman her who lives there, and I have not yet had the happiness of hearing the sound ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... chid her from me, And turned her loose; yet still she came again. My careless days, and my luxurious nights, At length have wearied her, and now she's gone, Gone, gone, divorced for ever. Help me, soldier, To curse this madman, this industrious fool, Who laboured to be wretched: ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... of him with respect. I have always felt the same for Alexander, with whom he has been classed as a madman by several writers, who have reasoned superficially, confounding the morals of the day with the few grand principles on which unchangeable morality rests. Making no allowance for the ignorance and prejudices of the period, they ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... taking his hand out of his back hair, and delighted to throw his Gradus ad Parnassum on to the sofa; "I know him pretty well. He's a very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter. He's called Madman, you know. And never was such a fellow for getting all sorts of rum things about him. He tamed two snakes last half, and used to carry them about in his pocket; and I'll be bound he's got some hedgehogs and rats in his cupboard now, and no ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... protect women and innocent children from the malice of a madman. To let you into a dark secret, he's got the idea that there's buried treasure somewhere on the land occupied by Heart o' ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... could not be expected to see or reason on what he saw in any such mood or tone. As he said in the writing he had left, what he saw as Ludovico and Bianca entered the forest, side by side, in deep and close talk, made a furious madman of him. He dodged, and watched them, as they sat down together—as they continued to talk in close confidence—till he saw her lay herself down on the bank to sleep, and saw him after ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... Bullard's right wrist. "Teddy, take the madman away," he cried, and Teddy removed Guidet, who went obediently, but blowing like a porpoise, to a ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... her," said Ferne, slowly,—"that had been the act of a madman. And if to live is a thing less fine than would ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... come across him. Among the religious ladies of Alexandria he is said to have had from the first a following of not less than seven hundred. This strange, captivating, moon-struck giant is the heretic Arius, or, as his adversaries called him, the madman of Ares or Mars. Close beside him was a group of his countrymen, of whom we know little, except their fidelity to him through good report and evil: Saras, like himself a presbyter, from the Libyan province; Euzoius, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... restraining FRED, in despair. FRED down L., in chair). About? About as near to raving madness as ever was seen! Go and buy a straight-jacket, sir, he's a lunatic. While you are at the straight waistcoat shop you may as well purchase half a dozen, for he's not the only madman on ...
— Three Hats - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Alfred Debrun

... confinement. Finally, on the seventeenth of October, 1862, I was released. My uncle was dead, and the friends of my youth were now strangers. Indeed, a man over fifty years old, whose only known record is that of a madman, ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson

... well-fed, puffy-cheeked, with a paunch and ankles as round as nuts. He perspired and puffed and panted. So strong was his dislike (or was it jealousy?) of the child that he actually began to carry on like a madman. ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... content. He would 'a' gone in after him. We'd be'n driv' a furlong back, I reckon, and every mark was lost. It 'ud be'n naught but to swaller him, too. He lost his sense. We had to holt him back. He raved thar', like a madman. It blew a bitter spell, longest of all, and when it helt a bit so we could take our bearin's ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... play the madman, the fool, the hero; in short, any or everything to rescue her I love. Name your objections no ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... feeling as if he should die of shame, grief, and joyful surprise, he stood spellbound, and knew not what to do, save to extend both hands to her, or what to say, save "I . . . I—I," then with a sudden change of tone exclaimed like a madman: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... flying, steel-clad arms and long swords whirling in great circles through the air. Foremost of all in fight the Bishop of Liege, his purple mantle flying back from his corselet, trampling down everything, sworn to win the barricade or die, riding at it like a madman, forcing his horse up to it over the heaps of quivering bodies that made a causeway, leaping it alone at last, like a demon in air, and standing in the thick of the Orsini, slaying to right ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... archway of the vault! Oh, whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!"—here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul—"Madman! I tell you that she now ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... a madman? Destruction hangs over you; destruction of body and soul. You dare not separate ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... as one man to show their admiration of so great a poet, and praised him marvellously both for the shrewdness of his argument and for the eloquence of his tragic verse. And indeed they were not far off unanimously condemning the accuser as the madman instead. ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... rose up in his brain, He cursed his will that had dealt her pain: To hurt sweet Emmy and lose her love Was madman's folly by all above. He saw too well as he crossed the yard That his madman's plunge had borne her hard. "To wring sweet Em like her ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield

... has entered the stomach it begins to ferment and swell; then the spirit of that man begins to abandon his body, rising as it were skywards, and the brain finds itself parting from the body. Then it begins to degrade him, and make him rave like a madman, and then he does irreparable evil, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... that without driving you to act the madman? No one but a madman would have gone out of this house and—" She clasped her forehead in her hands with a dramatic lifting of the arms. "Oh! It's too much! I don't care about myself. But to have it on your conscience that a man has thrown his ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... of Italy proved too intense, too frenzied and unbalanced. Rienzi established a republic in Rome and talked of the restoration of the city's ancient rule. But he governed like a madman or an inflated fool, and was slain in a riot of the streets.[10] Scarce one of the famous cities succeeded in retaining its republican form. Milan became a duchy. Florence fell under the sway of the Medici. In Venice a few rich ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... (at least) whether Midias was segregated because he was curable or because he was incurable. The meanest Thomist of the mediaeval monasteries would have the sense to see that you cannot discuss a madman when you have not discussed a man. The most owlish Calvinist commentator in the seventeenth century would ask the Eugenist to reconcile such Bible texts as derided fools with the other Bible texts that ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... flatter! Then trust thyself—[leading her to a fountain.] View on this watery mirror Thine angel-form reflected—Lovely shade, Bid this indignant fair confess, how vain Estella's charms were to contend with thine! And yet—oh madman! at Estella's feet Breathing my vows, these eyes forgot these lips, Than roses sweeter, redder—Oh! I'll gaze No more, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... for just three minutes. Then the man who had sworn before shot out another oath. Hookway began to rave like a madman. Evans burst into sobs. Davis began to swear horribly, and cursed Gilliland for putting the ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... Sherrard and Sherratt (Sherwood). But, in considering the frequency of the simple Wood, it must be remembered that we find people described as le wode, i.e. mad (cf. Ger. Wut, frenzy), and that mad and madman are found ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... precipitancy that had once gone near to losing him. His purpose gathered strength from a message that came that evening from Gian Maria, who was by then assured that Gonzaga's plan had failed. He sent word that, being unwilling to provoke the bloodshed threatened by the reckless madman who called himself Monna Valentina's Provost, he would delay the bombardment, hoping that in the meantime hunger would beget in that rebellious ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... "Oh, this is a madman!" thought Jennie, as she edged still nearer to the door. The old man paused in his walk and turned ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... said David kindly. "You hardly understand this business. The madman who attacked us meant to injure me, not you. Here is a cheque for L100, which will not only replace your horse and cab, but leave you a little over for the ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy

... embarked in a ship, the captain of which was bound on a long voyage, in which he and the pilot lost their course. Suddenly we saw the captain quit his rudder, uttering loud lamentations. He threw off his turban, pulled his beard, and beat his head like a madman. We asked him the reason; and he answered that we were in the most dangerous ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... aback at first as the two boys rushed out upon him, but Tim's well aimed club speedily brought him to his senses, and aroused his temper as well. He consequently fell upon his assailant like a madman, and choked him till ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey

... youth, with a circular twist of his head, and, eager to escape from a madman, he rode ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... to me an age, I and those near me stared at Vittoria's face, all red and swollen with the choked blood, made horrid with the starting eyes, its beauty ruined by the grasp of those two strangling hands. Simone was a madman at the moment, with a madman's single thought, to kill his victim, his fingers tightening and his blood-stained face twisted into a hideous grin. Before the ghastly sight men stood still, and knew not what to ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... he cried. "The Brown-Pericord Motor acts!" He danced about like a madman in his delight. Brown's eyes twinkled, and he began ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... "Jacobin,'' man of the world and mystic, he was to his contemporaries a riddle which each read according to his own temperament. Napoleon thought him a "shifty Byzantine,'' and called him the Talma of the North, as ready to play any conspicuous part. To Metternich he was a madman to be humoured. Castlereagh, writing of him to Lord Liverpool, gives him credit for "grand qualities,'' but adds that he is "suspicious and undecided.'' His complex nature was, in truth, the outcome of the complex character of his early environment and education. Reared in the free-thinking ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... my friend. He rushed at the door and shook it like a madman; he cursed with incredible fluency and addressed me in terms which it would be inadequate to describe as rude. Then I silently shot the bottom bolt and noisily drew back the top one. He thought I had unbolted the door, and when he found that I had ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... bewilderment. The whole progeny of "aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial devils" breaks loose upon us just as we are about to begin such a list of human apparel as never yet was published save in the catalogue of a museum collected by a madman. A dog with a tin kettle at his tail rushes mad and jingling across the street, leaving behind him a new view of the wild tyranny of Ambition. A great personage loses much sawdust through a rent in his unfortunate nether garments. Sirius and the Pleiades look down from ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact. One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt. The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heav'n to earth, from earth to heav'n; And, as imagination bodies forth The ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... push'd beyond all bounds of Decency and Sober Reasoning, that it quite carries over the Mark at which it was levell'd. Extravagant Abuse throws off the Edge of the intended Disparagement, and turns the Madman's Weapon into his own Bosom. In short, as to Rymer, This is my Opinion of him from his Criticisms on the Tragedies of the Last Age. He writes with great Vivacity, and appears to have been a Scholar: but, as for his Knowledge of the Art of Poetry, I can't perceive ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... and with the basket hanging on his arm, went directly to Aladdin's palace; as he approached beginning to cry: "Who will change old lamps for new ones?" As he went along, a crowd of children collected, who hooted, and thought him, as did all who chanced to be passing by, a madman ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... in your interest,' answered Steadman, firmly. 'No one who is not experienced in the ways of lunatics can imagine the danger of any association with them—their consummate craftiness, their capacity for crime. Every madman is harmless up to a certain point—mild, inoffensive, perhaps, up to the very moment in which he commits some appalling crime. And then people cry out upon the want of prudence, the want of common-sense which allowed such an act to be possible. No, Lady Mary, I understand the benevolence ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... think not; so you had better put that nonsense out of your head, now, once for all; for if you go about telling that mad tale you'll surely be taken for a madman and the mounted police——" He broke off as a flash of fear manifested itself in the half-breed's face, then he smiled maliciously. "I see you do not like the police, though I daresay they would ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... came on to blow heavily from the eastward, and after running before it as long as we dared—indeed a good deal longer than in my opinion was at all prudent—we were compelled to heave-to; and we thus remained for sixty-two consecutive hours, during which Mendouca fumed and raved like a madman; for the sea was making clean breaches over the brigantine during the whole of that time, so that a considerable portion of our bulwarks and everything that was not securely lashed was washed away, and, worst of all, it was imperatively necessary to keep the hatches ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... laid his snares.... And so Robert Baldry is lost, he and a hundred men besides? And Spaniards coming down the river took the Cygnet because they knew the word of the night?" A spasm distorted the masklike features, but in a moment it was gone. "I should be a madman," he said, "for once I walked before you with a high head and a proud heart. It seems that I knew not myself.... Now, John Nevil, enact Drake and send me to ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... II. disappeared in 578, and made way for Tiberius II., he was already a madman, and though Tiberius was renowned for his virtues, he reigned but four years, and in 582 Maurice the Cappadocian sat upon the throne of Justinian and ruled for twenty years not unwisely, but, so far as Italy was concerned, without success. It was he who was at last brought to make ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... When St. George left him it was in the hope that Olivia would consent to have him sent down the mountain, although St. George himself was half inclined to agree with Amory's "But, really, I would far rather talk with one madman with this madman's manners than to sup with uncouth sanity" and "After all, if he should murder us, probably no one could do it with greater delicacy." And Olivia had no intention of sending old Malakh back to Med. "How could one possibly ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... white and blue, on which was a rampant lion. Thence they proceeded to Goodnestone, near Faversham, producing throughout the whole neighbourhood the greatest excitement, and adding to their numbers by the harangues occasionally delivered by this ill-fated madman. At this farm Courtenay stated that 'he would strike the bloody blow.' A match was then taken from a bean stack, which had been introduced by one of the party. They next proceeded to a farm at Herne Hill, where Courtenay requested the inmates to feed his friends, which request ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... salamander wool, of which, according to Pliny, Nero had a napkin. Ursus possessed a retort and a flask; he effected transmutations; he sold panaceas. It was said of him that he had once been for a short time in Bedlam; they had done him the honour to take him for a madman, but had set him free on discovering that he was only a poet. This story was probably not true; we have all to submit to some such ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... and a royal tomb. One hall, over two hundred feet long and sixty wide, contains nearly seventy thousand bound volumes, all arranged with their backs to the wall so that the titles cannot be read, a plan which one would say was the device of some madman. The shelves, divided into sections and ornamental cases, are made of ebony, cedar, orange, and other choice woods. What possible historic wealth may here lie concealed, what noble thoughts and minds embalmed! In the domestic or dwelling portion of the Escurial, the apartments are very finely inlaid ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... of their life? What should we think of the same father, if, instead of imputing to himself the evil that happens to his poor children, he should punish them for their wanderings in the most cruel manner? We should say, with reason, that this father is a madman, who unites injustice to folly. A God, who punishes faults, which he could have prevented, is a being deficient in wisdom, goodness, and equity. A foreseeing God would prevent evil, and thereby avoid having to punish it. A good God would not punish ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... gave way. Michael's eyes alarmed her. Something in them warned her that, once roused, he was a dangerous man to trifle with. There is not an immeasurable distance between the mystic and the madman. The pressure of his fingers on her shoulders warned her of his strength; his ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... Cordelia, Alcestis and Amelia. By this I mean that those features are most constantly insisted upon, not in which they differ from other men but from other kinds of men. For example, Don Quixote is never set before us as a mere madman, but as the victim of a monomania, and that, when you analyze it, of a very noble kind—nothing less, indeed, than devotion to an unattainable ideal, to an anachronism, as the ideals of imaginative men for the most part are. Amid all his ludicrous defeats and disillusions, this ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... saw his road to wealth, renown, and power. Again he sailed for France, bearing, as before, letters from Frontenac, commending him to the king and the minister. We have seen that he was denounced in advance as a madman; but Colbert at length gave him a favoring ear, and granted his petition. Perhaps he read the man before him, living only in the conception and achievement of great designs, and armed with a courage that not the Fates nor the Furies themselves ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... the cabin in some anxiety as to how he should escape if the madman should proceed to violence. He made up his mind that if the worst should come to the worst, he would dive under the table, get between the old gentleman's legs, trip him up, and bolt up the companion before he could regain his feet. Relieved by the feeling that his mind ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... carried their hostility to existing theories of translation much farther. Cowley begins, reasonably enough, by pointing out the absurdity of translating a poet literally. "If a man should undertake to translate Pindar word for word, it would be thought that one madman had translated another; as may appear when a person who understands not the original reads the verbal traduction of him into Latin prose, than which nothing seems more raving.... And I would gladly ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... where he camped. It was a 'cold' camp, far above the timber-line, and he had not burdened his sled with firewood. That night three feet of snow covered them, and in the black morning, when they dug themselves out, the Indian tried to desert. He had had enough of traveling with what he considered a madman. But Daylight persuaded him in grim ways to stay by the outfit, and they pulled on across Deep Lake and Long Lake and dropped down to the level-going of Lake Linderman. It was the same killing pace going in as coming out, and the Indian did not ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... companion bore him, as well as of its cause, and fearing that the halter was intended to hang the luckless mealman, probably upon the next tree they came to, did not, as many another female would do, avoid or run away from the madman. On the contrary, she approached him with an expression singularly winning and sweet on her countenance, and in a voice of great kindness, laid her hand upon his arm to arrest his attention, asked him how he did. He paused a moment, and looking upon her with a dull but ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... June for Constantinople, where he did not expect to stay three months. I had several long conversations with him before his departure, and he did not appear to be satisfied with his destination. We frequently spoke of the King of Sweden, whose conduct M. d'Ocariz blamed. He was, he said, a young madman, who, without reflecting on the change of time and circumstances, wished to play the part of Gustavus Adolphus, to whom he bore no resemblance but in name. M. d'Ocariz spoke of the King of Sweden's camp in a tone of derision. That Prince ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... commented the miscreant, no longer a madman now to my thinking, but a very dangerous character indeed. 'I am not surprised. Now prepare yourself for a story that will freeze the very marrow in your bones. Know that I am from Daibul, the city by the sea ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... to enter your room?" said Christopher, and Gellert nodded assent. He was so courteous that he motioned to the peasant to enter first; however, Sauer went close after him: be thought it must be a madman; he must protect his master; the man looked just as if he were drunk. Gellert, with his amanuensis, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various

... of this faculty in controlling the aberrations of his patient:—A patient in the Pennsylvania Hospital, who called his physician his father, once lifted his hand to strike him. "What!" said his physician, (Dr. Rush), with a plaintive tone of voice, "Strike your father?" The madman dropped his arm, and instantly showed marks of contrition for his conduct. The following was related to me by Samuel Coates, President of the Pennsylvania Hospital:—maniac had made several attempts to set fire to the Hospital: upon being remonstrated with, he said, "I am a salamander"; ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various

... neither do I wish to describe the scene that followed this discovery. I was like a madman for a season, when I learned how I had been duped, how my darling had been wronged and betrayed, and driven to her untimely death, and I closed my heart and my doors forever against Margaret Barton. I settled an annuity of twenty-five hundred dollars upon her, then taking you, ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... had got a boat, or with what madman's strength he had launched it, we could not guess. It was midway of the Cat's Mouth that I first caught sight of him, at no great distance measured by feet and inches, but as far beyond human aid as if the wide Atlantic had separated us. He was standing up in ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... of armies—to the principle of fear. He was not indifferent to literature, or the improvement of his nation; but war was alike his absorbing passion and his highest glory. Peter the Great was half a barbarian, and Charles XII. half a madman; but Frederic was neither barbarous in his tastes, nor wild in his schemes. Louis XIV. plunged his nation in war from puerile egotism, and William III. fought for the great cause of religious and civil liberty; but Frederic, from the excitement which war produced, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... confused and silent—retired to bed, to lie awake for many hours, partly thrilled and partly elated by the awesome thought that there was a madman in the house. ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... shouted. His tone, his look, were almost those of a madman. He even put out his hands towards her in repulsion. He seemed to cast her away. This gesture, if not his words, reached her understanding. The lawyer saw her sway, fling back her young head with its disheveled locks to the night, and fall moaning pitifully to the ground. Here ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... of his illegitimate son? No, men hide these unfortunate children when and how they please. You know that as well as I, Monsieur. To run the risk of throwing us all into such a state of emotion and threatening his own future, as he has done, it would seem that Jean must be a madman, and he is by no means that. Had he known sooner of this situation, do you think that he would not have confided in me, and that I would have been so stupid—yes, I—as not to avert this disaster? Why, I tell you it is as clear ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... therefore, to the Regent, to intervene his power; to treat the Count as having acted under an access of his mental malady; and to shut him up in a madhouse. The Regent was deaf to their solicitations. He replied, coldly, that if the Count was a madman, one could not get rid too quickly of madmen who were furious in their insanity. The crime was too public and atrocious to be hushed up or slurred over; ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... the team. Make it big—BIG! Ready—!" Away whirled the megaphone, and he went through exactly the same performance that he had used before in conducting the regular cheer. Gifford looked like an inspired madman, but he knew exactly what he was doing. The students cheered lustily, so lustily that some of them were hoarse the next day. They continued to yell after the cheer was completed, ceasing only when Gifford signaled ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... much hated by the Duke of Brittany, and an attack which was made on him in the streets of Paris was clearly traced to Montfort. The young king, who was much attached to Clisson, set forth to exact punishment. On his way, a madman rushed out of a forest and called out, "King, you are betrayed!" Charles was much frightened, and further seems to have had a sunstroke, for he at once became insane. He recovered for a time; but at Christmas, while he and five others ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge

... In the third place, the Russian had also disappeared, and had left no trace behind. What could I do? Had I told the story to my new Colonel, I should mayhap only have been scouted as a liar or a madman. Besides, we were every day expecting to be ordered home, and I had made up my mind that I would at once come and see your ladyship. At that time I had no intention of going to China, and when once I got there it was too late to speak out. But through all the years I have been away my poor dear ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various

... and Mack! Do you know what this means? It spells hanging for every mother's son of you. Don't be a madman and fire that gun, Johnson. There's still a chance, even for you. Cut loose from the pirate you're serving and join the honest party. Mack, you're not a mutineer, are you? You don't want to be hanged at ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... I saw a man at the door with a drawn sword. Wild with grief and despair, and thinking, not of making my escape, or of concealing my part in what had happened, but rushing without an instant's delay to the body of her I loved so well, I drew my sword, and like a madman rushed upon him who barred the door. The combat was brief but furious, and nerved by the madness of despair I broke down his guard and ran him through the body. As he fell back, his face came in the full light of the moon, ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... message he should deliver unto ye Duke. Vnto wch. Mr. Towse replyed that he should be very unwilling to goe to ye Duke of Buckingham upon such an errand, whereby he should gaine nothing but reproach and contempt, and to be esteemed a Madman, and therefore desired to be exscused from ye employment, but ye Apparition pressd him wth. much earnestness to undertake it, telling him that ye Circumstances and secret Discoveries which he should be able to make to ye Duke of such passages in ye course of his life which were known ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... to pay his bills would feign madness. He would rave, and sing, and dance, call himself Nebuchadnezzar, or George Washington, or some such personage, and completely baffle the detectives, who were for a long time inclined to believe him a bona fide madman. In this way he ran up a bill of one hundred and seventy-one dollars at the Fifth Avenue ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... patriotism, of energy, of self-sacrifice, which burned in Stein made him no representative of the Prussian governing classes of his time. It was not long before the landowners, who deemed him a Jacobin, and the friends of the French, who called him a madman, had the satisfaction of seeing the Minister sent into banishment by order of Napoleon himself (Dec., 1808). Stein left the greater part of his work uncompleted, but he had not laboured in vain. The years of his ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... it possible? An unfrocked monk against us Leads rascal troops, a truant friar dares write Threats to us! Then 'tis time to tame the madman! Trubetskoy, set thou forth, and thou Basmanov; My zealous governors need help. Chernigov Already by the rebel is besieged; Rescue ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin

... well-defined thread of worldly wisdom and common-sense; to find that a man, described by almost every one who has dealt with his character as a credulous simpleton, one with disordered wits, or a down-right madman, should, when occasion demanded, prove himself to be a sharp man of business. When Fazio died he left his son with a number of unsettled law-suits on hand, concerning which he writes: "From my father's death until I was forty-six, that is to ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... on fire, And, raging like a tiger in the toils, You fancied every human form a foe. And when that little girl, like playful fawn, Unconscious of your state, came bounding forth To clasp your knee and welcome "father home"— You, with a madman's fury, struck her dead! [A shriek is heard from prisoner's wife. Prisoner, for this offence you have been tried, And every scope allowed that law could grant To mitigate the awful punishment. ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... the rumors myself," said Mr. Morris. "Indeed, I was openly told of it before leaving Paris. But only a madman would interfere in French politics at this hour. The whole country is in a state of disorganization almost inconceivable. The King—poor creature—has been reinstated, after a fashion, since his flight, but with most unkingly limitations. All political parties are broken ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... stood by him, suddenly turned, and maybe fearing lest some thunderbolt of vengeance should fall upon them from heaven and consume them all, he elbowed himself out of the crowd and hurried away. As for the wretched madman, in his raging fury, it was not the men who had forbidden him heaven whom he strove to rend and tear limb from limb, but poor, innocent, harmless Sandy Graff. The crowd swayed and jostled this way and that, ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... jealousy he strains her to his breast and drags her towards the Ljora-bridge. Helga vainly struggles against the madman, but Ingrid, who has witnessed the whole occurence, waves her white kerchief in the direction of the ship, and calls back Erhard, who is just in time to spring on the bridge, when its railing gives way, and Godila, who has let Helga fall at the approach of his enemy, is precipitated ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... reeled backward, tripped over a rug, and fell heavily. He was up in an instant, and came at Anthony, bellowing like a madman. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... Pole—even more unattainable than the North Pole, which still hadn't been reached by the boldest navigators— wasn't this an absolutely insane undertaking, one that could occur only in the brain of a madman? ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... is convulsed. These are the workings of the mighty spirit shaking and threatening to rend the frail tabernacle of flesh. This form of inspiration is not clearly distinguishable from what we call madness; indeed the natives do not attempt to distinguish between the two things; they regard the madman and the prophet as both alike inspired by a ghost or spirit, and a man will sometimes pretend to be mad in order that he may get the reputation of being a prophet. At Saa a man will speak with the voice of a powerful man deceased, while he twists and writhes under ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer



Words linked to "Madman" :   pyromaniac, maniac, sick person, sufferer, bedlamite, madwoman, lunatic



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