...Fifty years ago, Carlyle, in whom the truth was always alive, but in whom it was then unperverted by suffering, by celebrity, and by despair, wrote in his study of Diderot : " Were it not reasonable to prophesy that this exceeding great multitude of novel-writers and such like must, in a new generation, gradually do one of two things : either retire into the nurseries, and work for children, minors, and semi-fatuous persons of both sexes, or else, what were far better, sweep their novel-fabric into the dust-cart, and betake themselves with such faculty as they have to understand and record what is true, of which surely there is, and will forever be, a whole infinitude unknown to us of infinite importance to us ?...

...He forges infernally, though grossly enough, an imputed correspondence between them, a series of love-letters, scandalous scrawls, of the last erotic intensity; which we in the event see solemnly weighed by his fatuous judges, all fatuous save the grave old Pope, in the scale of Pompilia 's guilt and responsibility ....

...INTRODUCTION ' Oh, Mr. Bickerstaff, ' says the delightfully fatuous Tom Folio of the 2 ` atler, ' what would a man give ....

...Our thoughts were frosty mist along the eaves; our two ghosts kissed, high on the long, mazed wires--eerie half-laughter echoes here and leaves only a fatuous sigh for young desires; regret has followed after things she loved, leaving the great husk ....

...`` Of course that seems to you too fatuous . "...

...m Vida had done her a service; had made all agonizing seem so fatuous that she ceased writhing and saw that her whole problem was simple as mutton : she was interested in Erik 's aspiration; interest gave her a hesitating fondness for him; and the future would take care of the event ... But at night, thinking in bed, she protested, " I 'm not a falsely accused innocent, though !...

...He would rather seem stupid any day than fatuous, and he drew back, as well, with a smothered inward shudder, from the consideration of what women--of highly-developed type in particular--might think of each other ....

...And I was about to turn away, withdrawing my privacy from his fatuous, objectless attempts to test what sort of stuff it was made of, when he laid down his pipe in an extremely significant manner, you know, as if a critical moment had come, and leaned sideways over the table between us ....

...The ignorance and the fatuous con-1 ceit which lay behind her grimacing mask of slang and I ridicule humiliated him so deeply that he became absolutely reckless ....

...It was a fatuous thing to do with me, but it had the advantage that it made me acquainted with Claire de Bellegarde ....

...Cer-ainly, in the opinion of Hirst and Hewet, who lay back in ong armchairs in the middle of the hall, with their coffee-cups ieside them, and their cigarettes in their hands, the evening iras unusually dull, the women unusually badly dressed, the nen unusually fatuous ....

...He had been merely drifting in fatuous and conceited blindness ....

...Persist in this fatuous obstinacy, and I have done with you ! ' '...

...What fatuous neglect of opportunity to continue to deluge Europe with our surplus food when the East trembles upon the verge of starvation ! "...

...From beginning to end the conduct of Madame Foucault had been fatuous and despicable and wicked ....

...At the sudden clear sound of it we started from our several occupations; but it was in vain we turned to him; he sat there silent, and, to all appearance, fatuous ....

...I asked her why the marriage had n't taken place months ago, when Owen was perfectly ready; and I showed her how completely that fatuous mistake on Mona 's part cleared his responsibility ....