"Blockhead" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Command to Day, and perhaps may lye between me and my Mistress to Night.' 'By Hell (answered Erizo) thou hast raised a Fury in me, that will not be lulled asleep, but by a Potion of his Blood; let's dispatch this Blockhead first': And running at the Footman, with one Thrust killed him. Dangerfield by this time had been let out, and hearing the Noise, ran to the Place; they presently assaulted him; he defended himself very bravely the space of some Minutes, having wounded ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... two contradictory propositions cannot be undeniable truths, that to beg the question is not the way to settle it, or that when an objection is raised, it ought to be met with something more convincing than "scoundrel" and "blockhead." ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the manor, for killing a partridge. Now, all these are crimes, no doubt; but surely to which attach different degrees of contempt and horror. A warrant granted by a reformed bacon stealer would be absurd; but a hot brained young blockhead, who chose to favor the mutiny at the Nore, may, when he is forty years of age, and has cast his jacobin teeth, make a ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... you mean by running into me, you blockhead!" cried the purser, in a loud voice. "Why don't you look where you ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... without a special permission. It signified nothing to him that on his wake belated police officers, not a little relieved to find themselves belated, shook warning handbills at his retreating back. He was going to see what the world had to show him, poor incredulous blockhead, and he did not mean that occasional spirited persons shouting "Hi!" at him should stay his course. He came on down by Rochester and Greenwich towards an ever-thickening aggregation of houses, walking rather slowly now, staring about him ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... "'Oh, you blockhead! The fools aren't all dead yet,' cried the old man. 'Didn't I tell her so? But she always found an excuse for him. At one time she ridiculed him, at another time he was honesty itself. But I'll take a hand in this business! I'll show you who's master in this house. You, Barbara, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... "Tut—tut; stuff and nonsense. Talbot, the fact is, I've been a blockhead. I've got you into a fix, and you're the sufferer. Now I'm quite ready to die, as I deserve, for getting you into danger; but the mischief of it is, what's going to become of you? I swear to you, Talbot, this is ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... blockhead that brother of mine is! He will never be good for anything as long as he lives! He who wants to be a ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... had gained over, came at last to meet him by appointment. When he arrived, it was only to inform him of the manner in which he had been baffled, to convince him that the game was up, and that nothing was left him but to retreat utterly foiled in his attempt, and to be stigmatized as a blockhead ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... possible I found, under the rose be it spoken, even for a bishop to be a blockhead: but, if that bishop had sense enough to discern my good qualities, I ought not to be the most unrelenting of his censurers. My defence of the articles would indeed do its own business: yet to come forth under episcopal auspices ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... announced that he could not accompany the family party to Switzerland, Mr. Athel was saved from undignified irresolution by a hearty outburst of temper, which saw him well over the Straits before it gave way to the natural reaction, under the influence of which he called himself a blockhead. He had, beyond a doubt, precipitated the marriage, when postponement was the only thing he really cared about. To abuse himself was one thing, the privilege which an Englishman is ready enough to exercise; to have his thoughts ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... most ancient of the noble families in the Morea; is a well-meaning old blockhead; has a son, a good-looking youth, who commanded the Government forces against the captains in 1824; is said to be an ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... Yes; you blockhead! She received me with a pistol at her head. Your cavalry were at my heels. I'd have blown out her brains if ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... have; and yet 'tis true, There are as mad, abandon'd critics too. The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always listening to himself appears. All books he reads, and all he reads assails, From Dryden's Fables down to D'Urfey's ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... one." He who honored me with this eulogy was a scholar, "and a ripe and good one," and of all my tutors, was the only one whom I loved or reverenced. Unfortunately for me (and, as I afterwards learned, to this worthy man's great indignation), I was transferred to the care, first of a blockhead, who was in a perpetual panic lest I should expose his ignorance; and, finally, to that of a respectable scholar, at the head of a great school on an ancient foundation. This man had been appointed to his situation by —— College, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... letter meant. It was not written by Naomi at all, and in my heart I cursed myself as a blockhead for being so easily duped. I heard the gruff voices of men, and among others I felt sure I heard that of Israel Barnicoat. For some few minutes, although my hands were pinioned, I struggled fiercely, but it was of no use; besides, I heard a threatening voice near me saying, "You be quiet, Jasper ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... right the blockhead hits!) Yet more to rack thy heart, and break thy brain, Thy niece has been before the ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... you last night that the cords were too long," mutters the old man; "but no, 'It's not too long, Daddy.' There's no making you do anything, you will have everything your own way.... Blockhead!" ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... went on: "And now see the precious old fool! He is deeply interested in the movements of the little ants, and as childish and ridiculous over them as if they were highly important.—There, you old blockhead, ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... top of the tallest pole, and was daring them to come up to him, was detected by the Empress in the very act. The Hofcompositor was sent for, and the figure of Haydn rocking himself to and fro on the pole duly pointed out. 'Give that fair-haired blockhead einen recenten Schilling' (slang for a 'good hiding'); 'he is the ringleader of them all,' said the Empress. The descent of Joseph from his elevated perch, and the descent of the Hofcompositor's rod, were events which speedily followed ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... Sganarelle is a blockhead who will spoil everything. However, as we have nobody else, we must make use of him. But where shall we find him?—Ah! here he is in the very nick ...
— The Flying Doctor - (Le Medecin Volant) • Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
... cigar," Merrihew urged drolly. "I paid fifteen cents apiece for them in Rome. They are now four for a dollar. And I suppose that I'll have to smoke them all up in Monte Carlo, or the Italian end of this ruin will sink the harpoon into me for fifty more francs. I'd like to get that blockhead over the line. I'd ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... riding upon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. That may be; but the reason is that the crocodile does not live fast—he is a slow coach. I believe it is generally understood among naturalists that the crocodile is a blockhead. It is my own impression that the Pharaohs were also blockheads. Now, as the Pharaohs and the crocodile domineered over Egyptian society, this accounts for a singular mistake that prevailed through innumerable generations on ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... the coffin. He now first realized what he was undertaking. What if the bottle was false! What if he should fail! Would not his head be dangling from the ropes of the scaffold, to be hailed by the multitude as the remains of a blockhead, a dunce, and a fool? The coffin was opened. With these meditations in his mind, Juan tremblingly uncorked his bottle of violet liquid, and held it under the nose of the princess. He held the bottle there ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... Chinese wall in truth's way, and built of materials that are indestructible. While this remains, it is vain to say to this mountain, be thou cast into the sea. For I ask of the men of knowledge of the world, whether they would not hold him for a blockhead, that should hope to prevail in an argument, whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask further, when such attempts have been made, whether they have not failed of success? The indignant heart repels the conviction that is believed to ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... indestructible. While this remains, it is vain to argue; it is vain to say to this mountain, Be thou cast into the sea. For, I ask of the men of knowledge of the world whether they would not hold him for a blockhead that should hope to prevail in an argument whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask, further, when such attempts have been made, have they not failed of success? The indignant heart repels ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... often I have been provoked at my own stupidity, but never, never have I felt so stupid, such a godforsaken blockhead as I do now. When I try to consider I feel as if that heavy shutter had been nailed clown on my head. Have you had any ideas? I have not one which would not disgrace the veriest ass—not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... service I'm in now.... Our section was on repo and they sent some of us fellers down to Nantes to fetch a convoy of cars back to Sandrecourt. We started out like regular racers, just the chassis, savey? Bill Rees an' me was the goddam tail of the peerade. An' the loot was a hell of a blockhead that didn't know if he was ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... that neer learns his A B C, For ever will a blockhead be; But he that learns these letters fair, Shall have a Coach to take the Air. THE ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... careless or lazy to look out for yourself," retorted the baron. "But then you can have no possible objection to the present match. The fair Julia is just twenty—eyes, you dog—lips, you rascal—a shape, you blockhead, to bewitch an anchorite. And then she has ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... Trinity College he remained for thirteen years, studying, thinking, dreaming, bewildering most of the collegians, his colleagues, who seemed to have been unable to make up their minds whether he was a genius or a blockhead. Within the walls of Trinity he worked, gradually and laboriously piecing together and thoughtfully shaping out his theory of the metaphysical conception of the material world about him; poring over Locke and Plato, breathing an atmosphere saturated ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... will die of cold," said the Judge. "Don't be a blockhead, Perkins, we have got to get her out ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... his romantic flights. The blockhead, I believe, is so attach'd, I shou'dn't wonder if he flew off at a tangent, and married the ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... it," he observes, "to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full face, and to make the nose and cheeks stand out, ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... again! Come, that was better! But you must sigh like a horse down with the colic. So—o! that's right. Thus I go, drilling myself in hypocrisy; stamp impatiently in the street when I fail to succeed; rail at myself for being such a blockhead, whilst the astonished passers-by turn ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... prefer being made a"—what shall we say? by a light wife,—"or to serve under the haughty FONTANGE [Species of topknot; so named from Fontange, an unfortunate female of Louis Fourteenth's, who invented the ornament.] of my Spouse [as Ludwig Rudolf does, by all accounts], than to have a blockhead who would drive me mad by her ineptitudes? and whom I should be ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... other. She said it in such an affectionate tone, her eyes were so beseeching, her feeble voice was so humble and so passionate in making the request, that mademoiselle had not the courage to force her to accept an assistant. She simply called her a "blockhead," who believed, like all country-people, that a few days ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... the least doubt," said the Colonel, "the efficacy of your qualifications to lay the devil; but still I think some odd mistake has occasioned this confusion amongst them, if there has any such in reality existed. Desborough is a blockhead, to be sure; and Harrison is fanatic enough to believe anything. But there is Bletson, on the other hand, who believes nothing.—What do you know of this matter, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the evening in the common room. Dr. Dry told several stories. Were very merry. Our new fellow, that studies physick, very talkative toward twelve. Pretends he will bring the youngest Miss —— to drink tea with me soon. Impertinent blockhead! ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... or Bitle s. a bron-bitle, or brand-bitle, a heavy mallet for cleaving wood. Shaks. Hen. IV. "fillip me with a three man beetle." Bitle-head s. a blockhead ...
— A Glossary of Provincial Words & Phrases in use in Somersetshire • Wadham Pigott Williams
... to Mathavya].—Persevere in your opposition, my good fellow; I will sound the King's real feelings, and humor him accordingly. [Aloud]. The blockhead talks nonsense, and your Majesty, in your own person, furnishes the best proof of it. Observe, Sire, the advantage and pleasure the hunter derives from the chase. Freed from all grosser influences, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... have used from time to time the only possible phrases for the case, that I mean the Victorian Englishman to appear as a blockhead, which means an unconscious buffoon. To all this there is a final answer: that he was also a conscious buffoon—and a successful one. He was a humorist; and one of the best humorists in Europe. That which Goethe had never taught the Germans, Byron did manage to teach the English—the ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... game that was tending to create a frightful amount of hot water in Burton Crescent. She was devoting herself to a flirtation with Mr Cradell, not only under the immediate eyes of Johnny Eames, but also under those of Mrs Lupex. John Eames, the blockhead, did not like it. He was above all things anxious to get rid of Amelia and her claims; so anxious, that on certain moody occasions he would threaten himself with diverse tragical terminations to his career in London. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... witling, blockhead, coot, lackbrain, ninny, oaf, nincompoop, mooncalf, ignoramus, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... She would be in Paris before the police made any definite move. The one thing that disturbed him was the thought of the blockhead of a chauffeur, who had got drunk before his return from Versailles. If he talked; well, he could say nothing beyond the fact that he had deposited the singer at the house as directed. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... listening. It was astonishing to realize that what VanDeusen had said was perfectly true. A blockhead like VanDeusen would simply be lifted to a position of higher authority, only to be replaced by another blockhead. There would be no essential change in the ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... that point;—where we shall find the old superstitious art represented finally by Perugino, and the modern scientific and anatomical art represented primarily by Michael Angelo. And the epithet bestowed on Perugino by Michael Angelo, 'goffo nell' arte,' dunce, or blockhead, in art,—being, as far as my knowledge of history extends, the most cruel, the most false, and the most foolish insult ever offered by one great man to another,—does you at least good service, in showing how trenchant the separation is ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... fish. By Jove!" (he had caught his father's expletive) "that blockhead has put the tent on the wrong side of the lake, after all. Holla, you, sir!" and the unhappy gardener looked up from his flower-beds; "what ails you? I have a great mind to tell my father of you—you grow stupider every day. I told you to put the tent ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... write in a graphic and witty fashion; and if you have reached sense at last, (which some, it may be remarked, never do,) I think you will blush even through the unblushing front of manhood, and think what a terrific, unutterable, conceited, intolerable blockhead you were. It is not till people attain somewhat mature years that they can rightly understand the wonderful forbearance their parents must have shown in listening patiently to the frightful nonsense they talked and wrote. I have already spoken of sermons. If you go early into the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... away next morning to London in wrath. His master and I driving the same road an hour after, overtook him. "What is the matter, child," says Dr. Johnson, "that you leave Streatham to-day. Art sick?" "He is jealous," whispered I. "Are you jealous of your wife, you stupid blockhead?" cries out his master in another tone. The fellow hesitated, and, "To be sure, sir, I don't quite approve, sir," was the stammering reply. "Why, what do they do to her, man? Do the footmen kiss her?" "No, sir, no! Kiss my ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... assertions?" The queen, detaching herself gently and with politeness, takes leave and goes away with her attendant. Vasantaka remarks, "Your Majesty has had a lucky escape. The queen's anger has dispersed like summer clouds." The king observes. "Away, blockhead, we have no occasion to rejoice; could you not discover the queen's anger through her unsuccessful attempts to disguise it? Her face was clouded with a passing frown. As she hung down her head, she looked on me with an affected smile. She gave utterance ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... of his comrades heard what had happened, he said, 'You blockhead, you can't have done it properly; just let me have a try,' and with these words he seized his wife by the roots of her hair, cut her throat with a razor, and then took the pipe and blew into it with all his might but he couldn't bring her back to life. The same thing happened ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... admitting the Protestants to an equality of rights with the Catholics, and that he had left in the middle of his empire these vigorous seeds of hatred and disaffection. But the world was never yet conquered by a blockhead. One of the very first measures we saw him recurring to was the complete establishment of religious liberty. If his subjects fought and paid as he pleased, he allowed them to believe as they pleased. The moment I saw this, my best hopes were lost. I perceived in a moment the kind of man we ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... came a most inopportune 'Haw-haw' from that blockhead Spenser Hale, completely spoiling the dramatic situation I had elaborated with such thought and care. It is little wonder the English possess no drama, for they show scant appreciation of ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... his coachman—a thing he rarely did. "Home, I told you! And drive faster, blockhead!" "I must get away this very ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and observe then, O well married Couple, what strange tricks and actions that children will play. If yours act then the part of a liberal Son, or wanton Student, rejoice therein that you have not brought forth a dunce or blockhead; but since his Doctor saith that he is sharp-witted, and a hopefull youth; doubt not, but that you will, when he comes to his seriouser years, with delight and pleasure see him ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... the joke, you blockhead! But we can't expect a poor fellow like you to see it. I say, the Field-Marshal's behind time. I'll give him two minutes, and then we'll start ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... simpleton, dolt, dunce, defective, witling, dotterel, driveler, blockhead, beetlehead, ninny, ignoramus, numskull, booby, clodpate, nincompoop, ass, wiseacre, dunderhead, halfwit, oaf, dullard, coot, mooncalf; zany, harlequin, buffoon, jester, merry-andrew, droll, clown, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... had composed thirteen volumes on the properties of the griffin, and was besides the chief theurgite, hastened away to accuse Zadig before one of the principal magi, named Yebor, the greatest blockhead and therefore the greatest fanatic among the Chaldeans. This man would have impaled Zadig to do honors to the sun, and would then have recited the breviary of Zoroaster with greater satisfaction. The friend Cador (a friend is better than a hundred priests) went to Yebor, and said to him, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... my heart I had a conviction that one who had not studied the Talmud could not be anything but a blockhead ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... colored boy in school, who did not sit on a bench, like the rest, but on a block of wood that looked like a backlog turned endwise. Aunt Hannah often called him a "blockhead," and I supposed it was because he sat on that block. Sometimes, in his absence, a boy was made to sit in his place for punishment, for being a "blockhead" too, as I imagined. I hoped I should never be put there. Stupid little girls received a different treatment,—an occasional ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... Naseby, I had spade and mattock taken to a hill near half a mile across from the "Blockhead Obelisk," and pitted with several hollows, overgrown with rank Vegetation, which Tradition had always pointed to as the Graves of the Slain. One of these I had opened; and there, sure enough, were the remains of Skeletons closely packed together—chiefly teeth—but some remains of Shinbone, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... at Lissoy one little child strikes us all with deepest interest and love, and yet he was an oddity to those who knew him, not as we do now, but as he was—a dull boy, and quite a "blockhead in book-learning." ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... fools of by the girls; but this can never with truth be said of me. I most emphatically in this instance made a fool of myself. I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason I can never be satisfied with any one who would be blockhead enough ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... is a blockhead," said Croustillac, contemptuously. "If he has no other means of pleasing—faith, ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... said, and then sought once more to tranquillise his mind. "No doubt among the vulgar, coarse-minded people outside the Rule there may be something of the sort. Every earthly moral blockhead, a little educated, perhaps, is to be found in Utopia. You will, no doubt, find the 'cut' and the 'boycott,' and all those nice little devices by which dull people get a keen edge on life, in their place here, and their place here ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... my sole ornaments, my prettiest feature," said the Woozy, uneasily. "If I give up those three hairs I—I'm just a blockhead." ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... I were either invisible or invulnerable! These gods have a fine time on it; they can see and make mischief, and never feel it. [Clattering of swords at both doors; he runs each way, and meets the noise. A pox clatter you! I am compassed in. Now would I were that blockhead Ajax for a minute. Some sturdy Trojan will poach me up with a long pole! and then the rogues may kill one another at free cost, and have nobody left to laugh at ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... beauty, of course, is dismissed by the average male blockhead as no more than a feeble sentimentality. The truth is that it is precisely the opposite. It is surely not sentimentality to be moved by the stately and mysterious ceremony of the mass, or even, say, by those timid imitations ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... you talking to, you blockhead? Can't you let me sleep, dummy!' shouted a voice from the ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... passed through this way of education but must have seen an ingenuous creature expiring with shame, with pale looks, beseeching sorrow, and silent tears, throw up its honest sighs, and kneel on its tender knees to an inexorable blockhead, to be forgiven the false quantity of a word in making a Latin verse. The child is punished, and the next day he commits a like crime, and so a third, with the same consequence. I would fain ask any reasonable man whether this lad, in the simplicity ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... with sedulous perseverance; nor was he confronted with failure, until his figure became a universal terror. His common method was to price a horse, and while the dealer showed Barney the animal's teeth, Haggart would slip under the uplifted arm, and ease the blockhead of his blunt. Arrogant in his skill, delighted with his manifold triumphs, Haggart led a life of unbroken prosperity under the brisk air of heaven, and, despite the risk of his profession, he remained two years a stranger to poverty and ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... disheartened, I have encouraged the boy by the anecdote of Newton, where he attributes the difference between him and other men, mainly to his own patience; or of Mirabeau, when he ordered his servant, who had stated something to be impossible, never again to use that blockhead of a word. Thus cheered, the boy has returned to his task with a smile, which perhaps had something of doubt in it, but which, nevertheless, evinced a resolution to try again. I have seen his eye brighten, and, at length, with a pleasure of ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... do so, and chattered of it to me in fondness. If you will swear to give me a good share I will lend you my shoulders in order that you may climb on to the top of the wall and from there throw yourself into the pear-tree, which is against the wall. There, now do you say that I am a blockhead, an animal?" ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... for love. If Beauty Steele come back-eh! sacra! that would be a mess. But he is at the bottom of the St Lawrence—the courts say so, and the Church say so—and ghosts don't walk here.' 'But if that Beauty Steele come back alive, what would happen it?' I speak. 'His wife is marry, blockhead!' ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he should; for the master, who, in preference to a very learned and proper man, was chosen by a party into this school, the salary of which was upwards of a hundred pounds a-year, had himself never travelled through the Latin Grammar, and was, in truth, a most consummate blockhead. ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... next to a certainty that the great-grandchildren will not know their father's grandfather, and that half a century hence at furthest, the hammer of the auctioneer will thump its knock-down blow against his blockhead, sold at so much for the pound of stone! And it ought to make us shiver, the idea of leaving our features to be a dusty-white ghost among strangers of another generation, who will take our nose between their thumb and fingers (as we have ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... impertinent meddling blockhead! How dare you presume to look at that photograph! How dare ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... when I was a boy, and father went along with me to teach me. Well, the first flock of plover I seed I let slip at 'em, and missed 'em. Says father, says he, "What a blockhead you be, Sam, that's your own fault, they were too far off; you hadn't ought to have fired so soon. At Bunker's hill we let the British come right on till we seed the whites of their eyes, and then we let 'em have it slap bang." Well, I felt kinder grigged at missin' my shot, and I didn't over ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... point), how the drawing, the placing, and the cutting of this most crucial test of a man's powers as an artist or workman, determines the extent of one or other, or both; for a man may be the one, and show himself a blockhead as to the other. You ask for originality, and you find copy, copy all over the world; yet you may suddenly pounce on a line or two not seen in combination before, most abominably in juxtaposition to their entire opposites in curve as they are in grace as in character. For example or ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... surgeon, and when he came to the bottom of the ladder, called out that he had brought him a patient, desiring some one to bear a hand, and help him easily down. The surgeon turned about, but instead of giving any assistance, exclaimed, "You blockhead, what do you do here with a man that has lost his head?" "Lost his head!" says Benbow; "the lying fellow, why he told me it was his leg; but I never in my life believed what he said without ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... changed men into beasts, insects, and reptiles. But the prince having his eyes shut, and his back toward him, could not see his motions, and the enchanter being horribly affrighted, as well as naturally a great blockhead, was so long in recollecting the formula of his incantation, that the prince, seeing by a sly glance over the shoulder, that he was sufficiently near, suddenly turned round, and with one blow severed his head from his shoulders. Then catching ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... punctual dose of wives; 955 Is cuckolded, and breaks or thrives. There's but the twinkling of a star Between a man of peace and war; A thief and justice, fool and knave, A huffing officer and a slave; 960 A crafty lawyer and a pick-pocket, A great philosopher and a blockhead; A formal preacher and a player, A learn'd physician and manslayer. As if men from the stars did suck 965 Old age, diseases, and ill-luck, Wit, folly, honour, virtue, vice, Trade, travel, women, claps, and dice; And ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... The elephant should carry on his back The tools of war, the mighty public pack, And fight in elephantine way and form; The bear should hold himself prepared to storm; The fox all secret stratagems should fix; The monkey should amuse the foe by tricks. "Dismiss," said one, "the blockhead asses, And hares, too cowardly and fleet." "No," said the king; "I use all classes; Without their aid my force were incomplete. The ass shall be our trumpeter, to scare Our enemy. And then the nimble hare Our ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... said he, a little nettled, "I draw tolerably—should do it at least, have had good masters—and flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead." ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... Witness his lazy, lousy son! Puff'd up with pride and insolence, Without a grain of common sense, See with what consequence he stalks, With what pomposity he talks; See how the gaping crowd admire The stupid blockhead and the liar. How long shall vice triumphant reign? How long shall mortals bend to gain? How long shall virtue hide her face, And leave her votaries in disgrace? ——Let indignation fire my strains, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... myself. Give me the lantern. Now oil the bearings thoroughly. Put the feather into the socket, and work the pin in and out, that the oil may go all round. Now pour in some oil from the lip of the flask; but not upon the treadle, you old blockhead. Now do the other end the same. Ah, now it would go with the weight of a mouse! I have a great mind to make ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... I'm mistaken. Hold, hold, madam! I confess I have run into an error. I beg your pardon a thousand times. What an eternal blockhead am I! Can you forgive me the disorder I have put you into? But it is a mistake which ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... who, thinking to serve the artist by it, made it an argument that the Pope should be reconciled to him, because men of his profession were commonly ignorant, and of no consequence otherwise; his holiness, enraged at the bishop, struck him with his staff, and told him, it was he that was the blockhead, and affronted the man himself would not offend: the prelate was driven out of the chamber, and Michael Angelo had the Pope's benediction, accompanied with presents. This bishop had fallen into the vulgar error, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Bar. Dolt! blockhead! (to Christopher) when, except this untitled girl, there is not one plain lady, no, nor one real gentlewoman in the whole party; and she, as heiress and sole relation of the high-born ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... quoth he. "If we be delayed here any longer thou shalt be hanged for a false thief! To keep the king's messengers waiting thus! Canst thou not see the king's seal? Canst thou not read the address of the royal letter? Ah, blockhead, thou shalt dearly abide this delay ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... is settled that I am in love with Grace Harding. What's that? "We are in love with Grace Harding," you say. Very well, old fellow, have it your own way. You are the only one in the world with whom I shall refuse to become jealous. They say that two heads are better than one, even if one is a blockhead—meaning ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... short the marionette's words by taking out their handcuffs and preparing to lead him away to prison. But the innkeeper was a good-hearted man, and he was sorry for the poor blockhead. He begged them to ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... pull back to supper, sir?" quoth Moses Yerk to the captain. We all started, the men dipped their oars, our dreams were dispelled, the charm was broken—"Confound the matter—of—fact blockhead," or something very like it, grumbled the captain—"but give way, men," fast followed, and we returned towards the ship. We had not pulled fifty yards, when we heard the distant rattle of the muskets of the sentries at the gangways, as they discharged them at sundown, and were remarking, as we were ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... this girl was sending information to the Southern commanders I was inclined to think it would be accurate and worth while. It wouldn't do not to capture it. At the same time I wouldn't have laid a finger on her, to compel her, for a million dollars. I stood and stared like a blockhead for a minute, at my wit's end, and she sat there and smiled. All of a sudden I had an idea. I caught the end of the table and tipped it up, and off slid the young lady, and I snatched at the knob of the drawer, and had ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... acted on the principle that an opponent is necessarily a blockhead or a scoundrel. But there was little or no truth in his severe arraignment. Richmond's purpose was plainly to nominate Horatio Seymour if it could be done with the consent of the Northwestern States, and his ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... bank on it, it was sumpin' pretty fine. When he settled here, he was discoursin' on the weather, an' he talked it out about proper. He'd say, 'Wet year! Wet year!' jest like that! He got the 'wet' jest as good as I can, an', if he drawed the 'ye-ar' out a little, still any blockhead could a-told what he was sayin', an' in a voice pretty an' clear as a bell. Then he got love-sick, an' begged for comp'ny until he broke me all up. An' if I'd a-been a hen redbird I wouldn't a-been so long comin'. Had me pulverized in less'n no time! Then a little hen comes 'long, an' stops with ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... ruling over mankind!" he cried, as Edward came in: "That miserable fellow there whom you met flatters himself he shall gain a large sum of money from me, if he can detect our thief by means of some senseless artifice. He won't come back again, the blockhead! for I have at length given vent for once to my feelings. There is nothing in the world so insufferable to me, as when people try, by means of certain phrases fabricated at random, or of certain traditional ceremonies, most of ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... was, the Pit the Field; Fierce was the Hero, and too brave to yield. But stoutest Hearts must bow; and being well can'd, He crys, Hold, hold, you have the Victory gained. All laughing call— Turn out the Rascal, the eternal Blockhead; —Zounds, crys Tartarian, I am out of Pocket: Half Crown my Play, Sixpence my Orange cast; Equip me that, do you the Conquest boast. For which to lie at ease, a Gathering's made, And out they turn the Brother ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... the poor man was not a mere clown or blockhead; but beneath his "hodden gray" often carried good feeling, intelligence, and wit. He was rather humorous than ludicrous, and had some dignity of character. Since his time, consideration for the poor has greatly increased; ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... "But, you little blockhead, can't I make you understand? It wouldn't do at all. We should both of us be wrong then—each with the ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... to have neglected neither the studies nor the discipline of the University. He has, indeed, in our own time been denied enough even of the common intellectual culture of his day to save him from ridicule as a blockhead. But there is no reason for this contemptuous statement. His own contemporaries, and others, who if not exactly contemporaries have at least as good right to be heard as a writer of our own time, have left very different testimony. Burnet, who, though connected by marriage with Claverhouse ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... Schemes of Politesse, For books, and buildings, politicks, and dress. This is True Taste, and whoso likes it not, Is blockhead, coxcomb, puppy, fool, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... guard how I treated him. But as sickness frets one's temper, I sometimes forgot myself, and called him "bestia, blockhead;" and once when he was at a loss which way to go, at a wild woody part of the country, I fell into a passion, and called to him "Mi maraviglio che un uomo si bravo puo esser si stupido. I am amazed that so brave a man can ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... read Tooke's Pantheon, and prated of the Heathen gods. This was very harmless and innocent pastime; tiresome, to be sure, yet laughable withal; nor did it call for any further rebuke than an occasional tap upon the cranium of some blockhead who forsook his legitimate sphere, thrust himself in your way, and became unsufferably blatant. Now the spirit of the times has changed. The literary youth of London are all in the facetious line. They have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... could, in her mind, have prevailed for a moment over worldly advantage: yet, it was evident, from what Pelet said, that, not only had she repulsed him, but had even let slip expressions of partiality for me. One of his drunken exclamations was, "And the jade doats on your youth, you raw blockhead! and talks of your noble deportment, as she calls your accursed English formality—and your pure morals, forsooth! des moeurs de Caton a-t-elle dit—sotte!" Hers, I thought, must be a curious soul, where in spite of a strong, natural tendency ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... that," said the little man. "If this blockhead here," with a lurch of the head backwards to where the blacksmith rode behind, "hasn't blundered in his 'reckonings,' ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... painful. Indeed, one sees at a glance how absolutely hopeless would be any finite effort to convince him of the absurdity of his positions or the weakness of his understanding. There he stands, a solemn, shallow, conceited, narrow-minded, imperturbable, impracticable, incorrigible blockhead, on whom everything in the shape of argument is utterly wasted, and from whom all the arrows of wit and sarcasm fall harmless to the ground. In fact, he is perfectly proof against any intellectual weapons forged by human skill or wielded by mortal arm, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... "Blockhead!" cried the Professor, whose enthusiastic spirit was easily roused to indignation, "it was your duty to carry it till ordered to lay it down. You were hired to act, sir, not to think. Obedience is the highest virtue of a servant! Shall we send him back for it?" he said, turning to ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... not so much the moral offence of corruption, in receiving money to spare Warburton, as the intellectual solecism of selecting him for ridicule. "What the devil!" he exclaims, "is there no one learned blockhead throughout the schools of misapplied science in the Christian world to make a tutor of for my Tristram—are we so run out of stock that there is no one lumber-headed, muddle-headed, mortar-headed, pudding-head chap amongst our doctors...but ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... order, and the same profusion. When they had taken their seats in the corner of the room, Yussuf said, "Now, my guests, as you hope for pardon, tell me, do you know nothing of what has happened to me this day—and what the blockhead of a caliph has been about?" Haroun and the vizier could with difficulty restrain their laughter, as they shook their heads. "Yes," continued Yussuf, "that vicegerent of a tattered beard, and more tattered understanding, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... for the law, we may remark, takes no account of the theft of a patronymic. Worse than all is the rape of ideas which these caterers for the public mind, like the slave-merchants of Asia, tear from the paternal brain before they are well matured, and drag half-clothed before the eyes of their blockhead of a sultan, their Shahabaham, their terrible public, which, if they don't amuse it, will cut off their heads by curtailing the ingots and emptying ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... until you are dead, dead, dead! Think of it, Lagrange, what a great big ugly bloated corpse you'll make hanging by the neck after your toes have stopped twitching, twitching, and your face is a beautiful blue. Eh? Bien! is not that so, blockhead?" ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... NAPOLEON. You tricked that blockhead out of them. You disguised yourself as a man. I want my despatches. They are there in the bosom of your dress, under ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... me, and spoke of him as a man of no genius, whose mind contained nothing but the lumber of learning. I was modestly beginning a panegyric upon the doctor, when he again interrupted me with, "Oh! never mind, that old blockhead. Have you such a thing as ninepence about you?" Luckily for him I had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various |
