"Alms" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pinch of hunger. And folk said it came of their own fault. At that very moment Pierre Grandmange the tripe-seller was saying as much, where he stood in his tripe-shop, pointing a finger at them. "'T would be sinful," he was crying, "to give an alms to such good-for-nothing varlets." The tripe-seller would fain have been very charitable, but he feared to lose his soul by giving to evil-livers, and all the fat citizens of Le Puy had the ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... away thinking. They do not think of the Heavenly Ones altogether. They think of the fire-carriage and the other things that the bridge-builders have done, and when your priests thrust forward hands asking alms, they give unwillingly a little. That is the beginning, among one or two, or five or ten—for I, moving among my people, know what ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... which they have so long aimed, and so much indeavoured for; and would now gladly lick their fingers at that which they have many times thrown away upon the Dunghills, or in the Kennels; falling many times into deplorable poverty, or to receive Alms from the Churchwardens and charitable people; of which there are vast numbers of examples, too lamentable and terrible to ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... lives in plenty, while the workman weeps in famine. I will establish taxes on bread, wine, meat, salt, and honey, on articles of necessity and on objects of value, and these shall supply alms for my poor. ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... friars were so ready to grant absolution that criminals of all descriptions resorted to them, and as a result, the worst vices rapidly increased. The sick and the poor were left to suffer, while the gifts that should have relieved their wants went to the monks, who with threats demanded the alms of the people, denouncing the impiety of those who should withhold gifts from their orders. Notwithstanding their profession of poverty, the wealth of the friars was constantly increasing, and their ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... mendicant orders showed during the prevalence of the cholera last year. I speak of the Dominican friars—men who wear a coarse, heavy brown robe and a cowl, in this hot climate, and go barefoot. They live on alms altogether, I believe. They must unquestionably love their religion, to suffer so much for it. When the cholera was raging in Naples; when the people were dying by hundreds and hundreds every day; when ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... which added a splendour to their monasteries. But now, it is complained, the Regulars even reject their own rule that books are to be asked for every day. They carry bows and arrows, or sword and buckler, and play at dice and draughts, and give no alms except to their dogs. 'Our places are taken by hawks and hounds, or by that strange creature, woman, from whom we taught our pupils to flee as from an asp or basilisk. This creature, ever jealous ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... lord," replied Bouchier. "In your lord ship's name, then, as vice-chamberlain, in which character I presented myself, I summoned together the dean and canons of the College of St. George, the usher of the black rod, the governor of the alms-knights, and the whole of the officers of the household, and acquainted them, in a set speech-which, I flatter myself, was quite equal to any that your lordship, with all your poetical talents, could have delivered—that the king's highness, being at Hampton Court with the two cardinals, Wolsey ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... skirts off their backs, to give to the cautious housekeeper, before they can procure a night's lodging, or a morsel of food; indeed, in the country, it is a common thing, when a traveller (which is the respectable appellation by which the alms-seeking gentry designate themselves) seeks for a night's lodging, for the landlord to refuse admittance, unless the applicant carries a bundle, which is looked upon as a kind of security, should he not have the desirable ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... wounded soldiers were limping along the sidewalks; but scarcely an able-bodied man was to be seen anywhere. A poor soldier, who had lost both legs and a hand, was seated at a street-corner, asking alms of the colored women as they passed. Pointing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... bestowed upon a class of vagabonds who wandered over the country dressed in grotesque fashion, pretending to be mad and working upon the fears or the charity of people for alms. They were common in the time of Shakespeare, and were found even as late as the Restoration. The slang phrase "to sham Abraham," is a survival of the practice. There was a ward in Bethlehem (or Bedlam) Hospital, called the Abraham ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... poor love to feed, A beggar starved for want of help he lies; And at your mouth, the door of beauty, cries, That thence some alms of sweet grants might proceed. But as he waiteth for some almes deed, A cherry tree before the door he spies. "O dear," quoth he, "two cherries may suffice. Two only may save life in this my need." But beggars, can they ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... the breaking into jails, prisons, asylums, penitentiaries, alms-houses? The going out of the homes, of hearts; going out into the cold; going into drunkard's graves and a ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... of Bangor a certain poor man was maintained by the alms of the brothers; and he received a small sum every day, for performing some office in the mill. He had been lame for twelve years, creeping on the ground with his hands, and dragging his dead feet after him. Him Malachy found one day before his cell, sad and sorrowful, and asked him the cause. ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... a poor beggar-woman, with a child in her arms, her naked feet smeared with mud, her head covered with a wretched bonnet, from which hung a tattered feather, and her shoulders shrouded in a ragged shawl, approached, and mournfully asked for alms. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... a human being who trusted Him like a child, who has never known what happiness in this world meant, nor demanded it, who has never received love from anyone but his mother and, although maimed and crippled, has worked hard until the end, never stretched out his hands for alms, never stolen or coveted his neighbours' possessions, who has ever given away the half of what he had... see what He has made ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... family had to escape from the English to Neufchateau. All told, the fortune of the family of Joan attained an annual income of about two hundred pounds of our money, a not inconsiderable revenue at that time; and with it they were enabled to raise a family in comfort, and to give alms and hospitality to the poor, and wandering friars and other needy wayfarers, then so common ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... thee thy pantofles," replied she. "Be they a cast-off pair of his Majesty's, or did my Lord Oxford so much alms ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... This excommunication was not, however, permanent, and the sinner could be restored to the privileges of Church-fellowship after he had confessed his sin, professed penitence, and performed certain penitential acts, chief among which were alms-giving, fasting and prayer, and, somewhat later, pilgrimage. These acts of penitence came to have the name of "satisfactions," and were a condition precedent to the reception of absolution. They varied in duration and severity, according to the enormity of the offence, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... oration to the senate of Antioch, declared her royal intention of enlarging the walls of the city, bestowed a donative of two hundred pounds of gold to restore the public baths, and accepted the statues, which were decreed by the gratitude of Antioch. In the Holy Land, her alms and pious foundations exceeded the munificence of the great Helena, and though the public treasure might be impoverished by this excessive liberality, she enjoyed the conscious satisfaction of returning to Constantinople with the chains of St. Peter, the right ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... and thy name shall be Yeb, and thou shalt ever tread the road before the palace waiting for alms from the King ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... to such a degree that she was willing to stoop to such shameful concessions! If she were acquainted with her husband's present life, how did it happen that she did not prefer starvation, or the alms-house and a pauper's grave to his assistance? Chupin could understand how, in a moment of passion, she might be driven to denounce her husband in the presence of his fashionable acquaintances, how she might be impelled to ruin him so as to avenge herself; but he ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... cabildo was already filled with a motley crowd of arrieros and others on their way to San Miguel. A tall mestizo, covered with ulcers, sat in the doorway, and two or three culprits extended their claw-like hands towards us through the bars of their cage and invoked alms in the name of the Virgin and all things sacred. We therefore contented ourselves with a lunch under the corridor of a neighboring house, and, notwithstanding it was late in the afternoon, pressed forward towards the little Indian town of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... lived and died like a saint, unspotted from the world, full of alms deeds, full of humility, and all the examples of a virtuous life. 'I wish (if God shall be so pleased) that I may be so happy as to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... of idleness, and that distress which arises from circumstances over which human foresight has no control, so as to relieve with propriety the pressure of want, without encouraging the degrading and debasing habit of depending upon alms, instead of labouring to provide the necessaries of life. He had no fine clothes to be spoiled by trudging down the filthiest lanes, and entering the meanest hovels to relieve suffering humanity. The poor—and that is the great class to whom the gospel is preached, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... noteworthy also that in an investigation conducted by the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor 39 per cent of the cases of poverty were attributed directly or indirectly to drink. Again the Committee of Fifty found that in the case of alms-house paupers a considerably higher per cent owed their condition to the influence of drink either directly or ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... small as it was, was big enough to shut the whole world out from him, he heard some music in the street. Looking up from his book, he saw a little girl, with large eyes, playing an organ, while a monkey begged for alms from a crowd of idlers who had nothing in their pockets but their hands. The girl was playing, but she was also weeping. The merry notes of the polka were ground out to a silent accompaniment of tears. She looked very sad, this organ-girl, and her monkey seemed to have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... to sympathise should not be brought in at the close of a work of fiction, is so beautifully told that no lover of Thackeray's work would be willing to part with it. The old colonel, as we have said, is ruined by speculation, and in his ruin is brought to accept the alms of the brotherhood of the Grey Friars. Then we are introduced to the Charter House, at which, as most of us know, there still exists a brotherhood of the kind. He dons the gown,—this old colonel, who had always been ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... two slaves, who walked by the side of his horse, to throw handfuls of money among the people as he passed through the streets and squares, which were generally on those occasions crowded. Besides, no one came to his palace gates to ask alms but returned satisfied with his liberality. In short, he so divided his time, that not a week passed but he went either once or twice a-hunting, sometimes in the environs of the city, sometimes farther off; at which time the villages ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... their lodgings in a state of deep depression. Wherever one went in Dublin, one was followed by little whining children, demanding alms in the cadging voice of the professional beggar, and many of them ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Journals of the period; were buried and stowed away in Parliamentary Blue Books, and Parliamentary debates;—were to be sought for in pamphlets, in periodicals, and more especially in the Reports of the various Societies and Associations, which were appointed for dispensing the alms given with such free hand, to aid in saving the lives of the famishing people. Those Records will be found quoted and referred to in the course of ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... highest sum assessed from great personages was twenty pounds! The king was willing to suffer any mortification, even that of a charitable solicitation, rather than endure the obdurate insults of parliament! All donations were received, from ten pounds to five shillings: this was the mockery of an alms-basket! Yet with contributions and savings so trivial, and exacted with such a warm appeal to their feelings, was the king to send out a fleet with ten ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... would induce him to grant me a demi-part." M. de Beaumont, who was very little acquainted with the language of the theatre, thought that a demi-part meant a more liberal portion of the Marshal's alms, and the note was written in the most pressing manner. The Marshal answered, that he thanked the Archbishop for the interest he took in the Theatre Italien, and in Madame la Caille, who was a very useful person at that theatre; that, nevertheless, she had a bad voice; but that the recommendation ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... set out upon the road, and took with him twenty knights. And as he went he did great good, and gave alms, feeding the poor and needy. And upon the way they found a leper, struggling in a quagmire, who cried out to them with a loud voice to help him for the love of God; and when Rodrigo heard this, he alighted from his beast and helped ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... and regulate our inclinations by no higher rule than that of our reasons, we are but moralists; divinity will still call us heathens. Therefore this great work of charity must have other motives, ends, and impulsions. I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of my God; I draw not my purse for his sake that demands it, but his that enjoined it; I relieve no man upon the rhetorick of his miseries, nor to content mine own commiserating ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... and cruel in the last degree. To bring a family into the world, give them refined tastes, and accustom them to comforts, the loss of which is misery, and then to leave the family to the workhouse, the prison, or the street—to the alms of relatives, or to the charity of the public,—is nothing short of a crime done against society, as well as against the unfortunate individuals who ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... Gold roubles, office, sudden dearest friends. The whole world smiled; then, as I stooped to taste The sweetest cup, freak dashed it from my lip. This very night—just think, this very night— I planned to come and beg of you the alms I dared not ask for in my poverty. I thought me poor then. How stript am I now! There's not a ragged mendicant one meets Along the Nevski Prospekt but has leave To tell his love, and I have not that right! Pauline Pavlovna, why do you stand there Stark as a statue, ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to see both sides of a question, certainly. But what a miserable state of things, that the labouring man should require all these societies, and charities, and helps from the rich!—that an industrious freeman cannot live without alms!' ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... a story in Lockhart's Life of Scott of an ancient beggar-woman, who, whilst asking an alms of Sir Walter, described herself, in a lucky moment for her pocket, as 'an old struggler.' Scott made a note of the phrase in his diary, and thought it deserved to become classical. It certainly clings most tenaciously to the memory—so picturesquely does it body forth ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... to it: To cure temporary lassitude by a stimulant, and so derange the liver; to establish a new industry by protective duties, and thereby impoverish the rest of the country; to gag the press, and so drive the discontented into conspiracy; to build an alms-house, and thereby attract paupers into the parish, raise ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... Tudor himself was a pious man, as piety was reckoned: punctual in observances, commended and complimented by Popes. His chapel in Westminster Abbey is evidence of his zeal in one direction; he gave alms with a business-like regard to their post-mortem efficacy. Throughout his reign the Popes made much talk of a new crusade, and Henry seems to have been the one European monarch who took the idea seriously. It is true that when Alexander VI. appealed ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... leper raised not the gold from the dust: "Better to me the poor man's crust, Better the blessing of the poor, 160 Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives only the worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; 165 But he who gives a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight. That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... kind of intermittent divorce between husbands and wives of different religion. Monnica often went out, either alone, or accompanied by a faithful bondwoman. She had to attend the services of the Church, to go about the town visiting the poor and giving alms. And there were the fast-days which occurred two or three times a week, and especially the long fast of Lent—a grievous nuisance when the husband wanted to give a dinner-party just on those particular days! On the vigil of festivals, Monnica would ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... they plundered and robbed, as most men did in the times when Might made Right, yet the heaven-sent instinct of hospitality was as the marrow of their bones. No beggar went from their doors without alms; no traveller asked in vain for shelter; no guest but was welcomed with holiday cheer and sped on his way with a gift. As cunningly false as they were to their foes, just so superbly true were they to their friends. The man who took his enemy's last blood-drop with relentless hate, ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... procured you the occasion to render it yet more complete. Before you stands the kinsman you have wronged. He knows now, that though, for a while, you ruined his fortunes, you failed to sully his hearth. His heart can grant you pardon, and hereafter his hand may give you alms. Kneel then, Giulio Franzini, kneel at the feet of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and to these sums she added seven hundred livres for the poor, namely, two hundred for the poor of England and five hundred for the poor of France; then she gave to each man in her suite two rose nobles to be distributed in alms for her sake, and finally one hundred and fifty crowns to Bourgoin to be divided among them all when they should separate; and thus twenty-six or ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... sisters, and besought them to love their father well, and make good their professions: and they sullenly told her not to prescribe to them, for they knew their duty; but to strive to content her husband, who had taken her (as they tauntingly expressed it) as Fortune's alms. And Cordelia with a heavy heart departed, for she knew the cunning of her sisters, and she wished her father in better hands than she was ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... about the church during the service, and collect alms from the congregation in a purse with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... various familiar forms, such as scourgings, fastings on bread and water, reciting a given number of psalms, prayers, and the like. Later penalties could be redeemed by alms. A penitent would be excused from the prescribed works of penance at the cost, e. g., of equipping a soldier for the crusade, of building a bridge or road. Gradually in the history of the Christian religion, penances have been lightened. In the Protestant Church, with ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... his great charity, said that he ought to take it for the poor. Francis refused to do so, saying that it was only a snare of the devil, and that, if it was really money which had been lost, it would not be right to take what belonged to others to give away in alms; so they continued their route. His companion was not satisfied; he thought that an opportunity was lost of doing a good action, and he tired Francis with his remonstrances. The holy man, who was very mild and very obliging, returned to the spot where the purse was, not intending to do what his ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... into exile penniless. Who now are ye, or what like proof have ye given of not adoring the "Almighty Dollar," who dare to insult my honour and call me a sturdy beggar, and ask in what brewery I will invest the money I get from Americans? And why? because I ask a poor alms to prepare the approaching struggle of my country; because I cannot and may not tell the public (which is to tell my country's enemy), how I dispose of the sums which I receive. And Americans, pretending to be republicans, pretending to sympathize with liberty, ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... chapels of St. Vitus, near Zabern and Rotestein, where priests were in attendance to work upon their misguided minds by masses and other religious ceremonies. After divine worship was completed, they were led in solemn procession to the altar, where they made some small offering of alms, and where it is probable that many were, through the influence of devotion and the sanctity of the place, cured of this lamentable aberration. It is worthy of observation, at all events, that the dancing mania did not recommence at ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... it is nevertheless true that you are deprived of the just compensation of your labor, while no one thinks of causing justice to be rendered to you. If you could be consoled by noisy appeals to philanthropy, to powerless charity, to degrading alms-giving, or if high-sounding words would relieve you, these indeed you can have in abundance. But justice, simple justice—nobody thinks of rendering you this. For would it not be just that after a long day's labor, when you have received your little wages, ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... Rome, and encountering a female pilgrim, exchanged clothes with her. Maguelone pursued her journey, prayed in S. Peter's Church at Rome, unnoticed by her uncle, who, with great state, passed by her kneeling there, and threw her alms. Then she went on to Genoa, where she took boat to Aigues Mortes. Hearing at this place that there was a little island off the coast suitable for a hermitage, thither she went, and with her jewels she had brought ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... for I am arrived at the age in which people know which way the world turns, because they have often been forced to turn along with it. Should the poor children lose their suit, you are not the man neither of whom I should wish them take alms. ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... of such an element, hungry and unemployed, is easily appraised. Small wonder, then, that such a condition should become absolutely unbearable; starvation has become a common occurrence, and many prefer suicide to asking for alms. And should some of these care to ask for aid there is no one who could offer it, since the local population cannot cope with the need that has so suddenly ...
— The Shield • Various
... way you felt all along ... better run along now, or I'll say I don't know you, and have you taken up for soliciting alms." ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... honor a queen. Therefore, to-morrow let us walk as lovers, hand in hand, among the rocks and beside the sea; your step upon the sands of my old Brittany will bless them anew to me! Give me this day of happiness; and that passing alms, unremembered, alas! by you, will be eternal riches ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... King! I hold Nothing in fee and barony of the King. Whatever the Church owns—she holds it in Free and perpetual alms, unsubject to One ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... of Assisi ([Symbol: cross] 1226) took up the notion that it was wrong to own property, or at least meritorious to renounce it, and affirmed that Christ and his apostles repudiated all property and lived on alms. The Timotheists of the fifth century had held this notion, but were rated as heretics.[447] Poverty, for Francis, did not mean a little property, but absolute rejection of all property. This was necessarily only a pose. He had to use other men's property, the use being ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... was turned over to the anthropological service; they had never seen anything like him. However, they easily traced his past history. He was known at Courbevois, at Asnieres and at Levallois. He lived on alms and slept in one of those rag-picker's huts near the barrier de Ternes. He had disappeared from ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... as to hurt by a gift more than by a blow, that they may give infinitely more by loving sympathy than by much gold, and that a L5 note does not discharge all their obligations. We have to give after His pattern who does not toss us our alms from a height, but Himself comes to bestow them, and whose gift, though it be the unspeakable gift of eternal life, is less than the love it speaks, in that He Himself has in wondrous manner become partaker ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... derives from the word submission, and obedience to God is a primary theme in this religion. In order to live an Islamic life, believers must follow the five pillars, or tenets, of Islam, which are the testimony of faith (shahada), daily prayer (salah), giving alms (zakah), fasting during Ramadan (sawm), and ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... numerous Brahmanas, all went to the sacred lake called Dwaitavana. And Yudhishthira was surrounded by numerous Brahmanas some of whom sacrificed with fire and some without it and some of whom, devoted to the study of the Vedas, lived upon alms or were of the class called Vanaprasthas. And the king was also surrounded by hundreds of Mahatmas crowned with ascetic success and of rigid vows. And those bulls of the Bharata race, the sons of Pandu setting out with those numerous Brahmanas, entered the ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... of Christendom is well described by Villani.[6] The enormous wealth amassed by Florentine citizens in commerce may be still better imagined when we remember that the Medici, between the years 1434 and 1471, spent some 663,755 golden florins upon alms and public works, of which 400,000 were supplied by Cosimo alone. But to return to Villani; not content with the statistics which I have already extracted, he proceeds to calculate how many bushels of wheat, hogsheads of wine, and head of cattle were consumed in Florence by the year and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... too, unsubstantial, unreal, an illusion only, though comeliest of illusions? She had given him alms! Was the merit of the giver illusive also,—illusive like the grace of the supple fingers that gave? Assuredly there were mysteries in the Abhidharma impenetrable, incomprehensible!... It was a golden coin, stamped with the symbol of an elephant,—not more of an illusion, indeed, than the gifts ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... assembly of Quakers; a ruined miller; a rat-catcher; and, having borrowed three children from a tinker, a grandmother. Carew once wheedled a gentleman, who boasted that he could not be taken in by beggars, into giving him liberal alms twice in one day—in the morning as an unfortunate blacksmith, whose all had been destroyed by fire; whilst in the afternoon, on crutches, his face 'pale and sickly, his gestures very expressive of pain,' he pleaded as a disabled tinner, who, from 'the damps and hardships ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... impulsive a whole lot,' I argues onct when a profligate he's staked, an' who reports himse'f as jumpin' sideways for grub previous, goes careerin' over to the dance hall with them alms he's wrung, an' proceeds on a debauch. 'You oughter not allow them ornery folks to do you. If you'd cultivate the habit of lettin' every gent go a-foot till he can buy a hoss, you'd clean up for a heap more at the end of the week. Now this ingrate ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... bath in closed and curtained litters, escorted by the eunuchs of their households; great lords riding on their Arab horses and preceded by their runners, who thrust the crowd asunder and beat the poor with rods; beggars, halt, maimed, and blind, beseeching alms; lepers, from whom all shrank away, who wailed their woes aloud; stately companies of soldiers, some mounted and some afoot; holy men, who gave blessings and received alms; and so forth, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... quoth she; "now may the sweet Saint Mary So wisely help me out of care and sin, As in this wide world, though I sold my skin, I could not scrape up twelve pence, for my life. Ye know too well I am a poor old wife: Give alms, for the Lord's sake, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... in order not to give them. However, as the friars insist that it be given and spent in sermons, I have, without consulting them made a decree to the effect that only the needy poor should receive alms, and the gift must be for their support. I ordered a list of the poor to be made and rice to be given them, as is given to others who are supplied with rations from the royal treasury. Thereupon some persons came, and have received alms. ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... charity, charity, the condescension of the rich to the poor. What we want are understanding, fellowship, and we get alms! If there is so much spirituality as you say, and Christianity is what you say it is today, how happens it that this side is left in filth and misery and physical wretchedness? You know what it is, and you know the luxury elsewhere. And you think to bridge over ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... [i.e. Henry VII.'s alms-house], westward, was an old chapel of St. Anne; over against the which, the Lady Margaret, mother to King Henry VII., erected an alms-house for poor women, which is now turned into lodgings for the singing men of the college. The place wherein this chapel and ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... burial money? Have I already fallen so low that I must ask alms? Keep your money for yourself! I do not want it. Drop that complaint also, for I am still rich, very rich. How can it injure me that Santurian has failed? I stand here firm and unshakable, and have inexhaustible money ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... others following. Dodsley—that is my groom's name—tells me that he does a great deal more mowing now than he need, simply because they worry him for the work. Gratitude, you see, Mr. Ledsam, sheer gratitude. If you were to provide a dozen alms-houses for your poor dependants, I wonder how many of them would be anxious to mow your lawn.... Come, let me ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Francis of Assisi. It is related that, travelling towards France with a companion, Brother Masseo, he one day entered a town wherethrough they both begged their way, as their custom was, taking separate streets. Meeting again on the other side of the town, they spread out their alms on a broad stone by the wayside, whereby a fair fountain ran; and Francis rejoiced that Brother Masseo's orts and scraps of bread were larger than his own, saying, "Brother Masseo, we are not worthy of such treasure." "But how," ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and the embarrassment of yours. There was not one hint about him of the beggar's emphasis, the outburst of revolting gratitude, the rant and cant, the "God bless you, Kind, Kind gentleman," which insults the smallness of your alms by disproportionate vehemence, which is so notably false, which would be so unbearable if it were true. I am sometimes tempted to suppose this reading of the beggar's part a survival of the old days when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Money?—There! I'm out of patience, I declare; It goes for plays, and diamond pins, For public alms, and private sins, For hollow shams, and silly shows,— And that's ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... excepting that the zeal of the worthy priest was easily kindled at the idea of rescuing an old soldier of the faith and a strong box of King Chico from the very clutches of Satan; and then what alms might be dispensed, what churches built, and how many poor relatives ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... afterwards came a travelling ballad-singer, and sang under the window in hopes of a small alms. When the king heard of it, he said that he must come in. And so the ballad-singer entered in his dirty tattered garments, and sang before the king and his daughter; when he had done, he asked for a small reward. But the ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... bid farewell to that existence which was so good, so pure, so radiant, to the respect of all, to honor, to liberty. He should never more stroll in the fields; he should never more hear the birds sing in the month of May; he should never more bestow alms on the little children; he should never more experience the sweetness of having glances of gratitude and love fixed upon him; he should quit that house which he had built, that little chamber! Everything seemed charming to him at that moment. Never again should he read those books; ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... could annul the penalty attached to sin, and according to him the only sort of almsgiving which had any merit was that prescribed in the Gospel: "Let not thy right hand know what thy left hand doeth." He even maintained that he who gave alms sinned unless it was done with the greatest secrecy, for alms given in public are sure ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova • David Widger
... rode along. Here and there a group of people were squatting on the ground, talking noisily. Here and there a beggar stretched out a maimed limb and sought for alms. Then close to the gate he saw that for which he searched: a man sitting apart with a blanket over his head. No one spoke to the man, and for his part he never moved. He sat erect with his legs crossed in front of him and his hands resting idly on his knees, a strange and rather ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... mass sung for the eternal rest of the colonel at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. I sent out no invitations to it, I did not whisper a word of it to anybody; I went there alone. I knelt during the whole service and made many signs of the cross. I paid the priest double and distributed alms at the door, all in the name ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... of belongings. His intention was to leave these great riches with a member of his family who lived outside the village, dress himself in beggar's rags, and then go to his mother's house to solicit alms. He would draw from her the account of the son who had been lost when he was a little child, and, at the psychological moment, when the poor lady was weeping, Ah Fu would cry out: 'Behold your son returned to you, not a beggar, as I appear, ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... his lass: I have fallen before your door. I came to ask for alms and have lost my all, I had a copper-shod quarter-staff but the dogs attacked me, And not a strand of her hair came the way of my lips. The lover to his lass: I have fallen ...
— The Garden of Bright Waters - One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems • Translated by Edward Powys Mathers
... labyrinth of narrow, unpaved streets, roofed here and there with frayed and tattered palmetto-leaves that offer some protection, albeit a scanty one, against the blazing sun. At one of the corners where the beggars congregate and call for alms in the name of Mulai Abd el Kader Ijjilalli, I catch a glimpse of the great Kutubia tower, with pigeons circling round its glittering dome, and then the maze of streets, shutting out the view, claims me again. The path is by ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... it be denied that the souls of the dead are benefited by the piety of their living friends, when the sacrifice of the Mediator is offered, or alms given in the Church in their behalf. But these services are of advantage only to those who during their lives merited that services of this kind could help them. For there is a manner of life which is neither so good as ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... and so she went to Almesbury, and there she let make herself a nun, and wore white clothes and black, and great penance she took as ever did sinful lady in this land, and never creature could make her merry, but lived in fastings, prayers, and alms-deeds, that all manner of people marvelled how virtuously she was changed. Now leave we Queen Guinevere in Almesbury, a nun in white clothes and black, and there she was abbess and ruler as reason would, and turn me from her and speak me ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... daubed with grease and wine lees, sometimes swallowed up in a grotesque mask. A wretched, cracked earthen cup, or an old wooden shoe, hanging by a string to his belt, he uses to ask alms in the shape of wine. No one refuses him, and he pretends to drink, then pours the wine on the ground by way of libation. At every step, he falls and rolls in the mud; he pretends to be most disgustingly drunk. His poor wife runs after him, picks him up, calls for help, tears out the ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... his fan? In China and Japan to this day every one has a fan; and there are fans of all sorts for everybody. The Japanese waves his fan at you when he meets you, by way of greeting, and the beggar who solicits for alms has the exceedingly small coin "made on purpose" for charity presented to him on the tip of ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... is true I was bad, for I had fallen back into my former defects of telling lies and getting in a passion; with all these defects I nevertheless willingly gave alms, and I much loved the poor. I assiduously prayed to you, O my God, and I took pleasure in hearing you well spoken of. I do not doubt you will be astonished, Sir, by such resistance, and by so long a course of inconstancy; so many graces, so much ingratitude; but the sequel will astonish ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Earle of Lincolne to all his men and all the Children of our Holy Mother the church sends greeting willing you to know that I have given and granted in pure alms to the monks of Ryvalls for my Father's and Mother's souls And for ye remission of my sinns the Manor of the town of Rughfforde And all that I have there in demesne to build an Abbey of the order of ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... last act of the great drama, as Tell sits at his cottage-door in Buerglen in Uri, surrounded by his wife and children, after the consummation of the deed, there approaches a monk begging alms;—it is the parricide Duke John, flying the sight and presence of men. In the contrast of the feelings of these two persons, then and there, one reads Schiller's justification of his hero. As if to complete by contrast the moral of the drama of "Tell," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... people before his time; but that he encouraged the application of a more systematic method of reasoning upon the great problem of the time. Instead of simply giving way to the first kindly impulse, abolishing a hardship here and distributing alms elsewhere, he substantially argued that society formed a complex organism, whose diseases should be considered physiologically, their causes explained, and the appropriate remedies considered in all their bearings. We must not ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... bulls, were brought up in a great closed van and loosed in an improvised bull-ring, of which the church wall formed one side, and the roof a sort of a tribune. What the cure thought of all this is not clear, but as the alms-coffers of the church were already full to the lids, and the parish depends largely upon the contributions of visitors to replenish its funds, any seeming sacrilege was ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... having nearly 5,000 communicants. He went with the collecting procession out through the great congregation and back to the chancel where each collector ceremoniously emptied the contents of his basket into the great gold alms basin held ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... education, crippled in consequence of having drunk several glasses of brandy given him by the baker (such a funny story!) and a vagabond all his life afterward—the only thing he knew how to do was to hold out his hand for alms. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... said the duke, after staring for a moment in astonishment at this odd-looking specimen, "what does this mean? Are you offering alms to me, pray, or what? with your purse there held out at arm's length, apparently ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... The Canons of 1604 order a number of things to be provided at the charges of the parish, which may be included under this head, such as Communion Table, Pulpit, Reading-desk, Font, Alms-chest, Alms-basin, Vessels for Holy Communion, Bible, Common Prayer Book, Book of Homilies, Parchment Register Book and Coffer. It would not be easy to make a complete list of things authorised by ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... for alms! He flung a coin at me Contemptuously. Not without sense of shame I stooped and picked it up. Does this fulfil The Master's will To give a cup Of water in ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Indians like these, who beg for food, always return, to those who give them alms, the amount of the gift, as soon as ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... the Profits of his Journey would be equal to his Pains. At last it so happened, that a Shopkeeper there, having noted his fruitless standing, seeing that he neither sold any Wares, or asked any Alms, went to him, and enquired his Business; to which the Pedlar made Answer, that being a Countryman, he had dreamt a Dream, that if he came up to London, he should hear good News: 'And art thou (said ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... master has sent him to buy something," while Thaddeus added, "Or to distribute alms ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... three years have I fed upon your bounties, And by the fire of your blest charity warm'd me, And yet, good Master, pardon me, that must, Though I have now receiv'd your alms, presume To make ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... throughout Pomerania. An old chronicler, and a Protestant, thus testifies, 1542:—"And since this time (the Reformation) a great change has come over all things. In place of piety, we have profanity; in place of reverence, sacrilege and the plundering of God's churches; in place of alms-deeds, stinginess and selfishness; in place of feasts, greed and gluttony; in place of festivals, labour; in place of obedience and humility of children, obstinacy and self-opinion; in place of honour and veneration for the priesthood, contempt for the priest ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... your face if you proposed to call; whom you slave for, fight for, die for, and are not ashamed of it, but proud; whose existence is a perpetual insult to you and you are afraid to resent it; who are mendicants supported by your alms, yet assume toward you the airs of benefactor toward beggar; who address you in the language of master to slave, and are answered in the language of slave to master; who are worshiped by you with your mouth, while ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... heir of Linne, To John o' the Scales' wife then spake he: Madame, some alms on me bestow, I pray ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... continued, "they are not then satisfied with delivering me over to poverty and abandonment; it does not suffice them to see me so deeply humiliated as to receive alms from this regent who occupies the throne that belongs to me. They would rob me of my last and only remaining blessing, my personal freedom! They would make my poor heart a prisoner, and bind it with the chains and fetters of a marriage which I abhor! ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... grandfather's knife he would become a priest, and even if necessary live in solitude, on the alms of the people, as did the hermits on the seashore in the sanctuary of Cubells. As he thought of the venerable weapon his eyes glowed with admiration, and he described it to Febrer. A jewel! It was an antique steel blade, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... earns his future in another world by his own thoughts and acts. Even the value of the victim is less important than the correct performance of the ceremony. The teaching of the Brahmanas is not so much that a good heart is better than lavish alms as that the ritually correct sacrifice of a cake is better than a hecatomb not offered ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Mohune Hospital—for that was what the alms-houses were now called—Master Glennie was first warden, with fair rooms and a full library, and Master Ratsey head of the Bedesmen. There they spent happier days, till they were gathered in the fullness of their years; and sleep on the sunny side of the church, within sound of the sea, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... unscrupulous, she seems yet to have had some instincts of kindness. The stories of her good deeds are rather swamped by those of her bad ones. She did try to do some good with the Prince's money round about Chantilly, took a definite and lasting interest in the alms-houses built there by "the Great Conde,'' and a request in her own will was to the effect that if she had ever done anything for the Orleans gang, the Prince de Conde's wishes regarding the use of the chateau of Ecouen as an orphanage might ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... for believing that Christianity was imported not many centuries later into Southern India by the Nestorian or Chaldaean missionaries from Persia and Mesopotamia, whose apostolic zeal ranged all over Asia, even into Tibet and Tartary. According to the Saxon chronicle, our own King Alfred sent alms to India in 883 for St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew, and at that date there certainly existed, besides some small Christian communities on the Coromandel coast, two flourishing communities on the Malabar coast, where the so-called ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... old chairs, stools, sofas, with the same respectful tenderness as she regarded old dogs and horses, and her room, therefore, was something like an alms-house for furniture. Round the mirror, on all tables and shelves, stood photographs of uninteresting, half-forgotten people; on the walls hung pictures at which nobody ever looked; and it ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... Cross, permitted the Christians to leave Egypt with all their belongings, and commanded all prisoners to be set free, so that at that time 30,000 captives were released. He also commanded his subjects to sell food to the rich and give alms to the poor and the sick." Occasionally the pope entered into an alliance with the enemies of Christendom against the emperor, if the latter proved troublesome. A.D. 1246 the Sultan of Egypt (Malek as Saleh ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... generation of men who fought greatly and endured greatly in the last struggle of their Republic. Now, in the intermediate hours between the early communion and dinner-time, they were making their last perambulations to collect alms and vanities, and this was why Romola saw the slim white figures moving to and fro about the base of ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... untuned heart. Fond hearts, farewell, that swallow'd have my youth; Adieu, vain muses, that have wrought my ruth; Repent, fond sire, that train'dst thy hapless son In learning's lore, since bounteous alms are done. Cease, cease, harsh tongue: untuned music, rest; Entomb thy ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... out of light he brought him into darkness, and how he rewarded him again; yet Achiacharus was saved, but the other had his reward, for he went down into darkness," Then it goes on, "Manasses gave alms, and escaped the snare that was set for him, but Aman fell ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... reduced to utter destitution. Milton's works are under a monopoly. Milton's granddaughter is starving. The reader is pillaged; but the writer's family is not enriched. Society is taxed doubly. It has to give an exorbitant price for the poems; and it has at the same time to give alms to the only surviving descendant of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a few days sauntering about Melbourne, swinging a neatly-rolled silk umbrella, smoking very excellent cigars. He passed several frowsy acquaintances of other days, and on two he bestowed small alms. He felt great satisfaction in the fact that none of his former companions recognised Nickie the Kid in the well-groomed, ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... never let a single beggar pass without giving alms) "told me to-day," he went on, "that she would pray for my ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... like the other, being, like him, a child of wrath; but when the precious blood of Christ was shed as the price of our redemption and paid to the Father for our debt, then the thief asked God to give him an alms for his good, and at once received it. For how can one alms diminish that inexhaustible treasure? How could our tender Lord, whose property is always to have mercy, have refused his request? Indeed He gave him more than he asked. Yet how could the thief escape ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... astrology and magic science, you are not for a moment to suppose that this implied any aberration of intellect. She believed these things in common with those around her, for she seldom spoke to anybody except crazy old dervishes, who received her alms, and fostered her extravagancies, and even when (as on the occasion of my visit) she was brought into contact with a person entertaining different notions, she still remained uncontradicted. This entourage and the habit of fasting ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... one thing that pertains to the princes and cities—viz. concerning good works, that they do not merit the remission of sins, which, as it has been rejected and disapproved before, is also rejected and disapproved now. For the passage in Daniel is very familiar: "Redeem thy sins with alms," Dan. 4:24; and the address of Tobit to his son: "Alms do deliver from death and suffereth not to come into darkness," Tobit 4:10; and that of Christ: "Give alms of such things as ye have, and behold all things are clean unto you," Luke 11:41. If works were ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous
... had presently noted a certain priest who went forbiddingly about her court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, and who went also into many hovels, where pitiable wrecks of humankind received his alms and ministrations. ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... Nathaniel, as "an Israelite in whom was no guile[20];" Joseph of Arimathea was "a good man and a just[21];" Cornelius, the centurion, was a "religious man, and one that feared God with all his house, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway[22]." And in the book of Acts generally, we shall find (as far as we are told any thing) that those chiefly were addressed and converted by St. Paul, who had previously trained themselves in a religious life:—At Perga, St. Paul addressed the Israelites and ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... profitable management of cows and grumphies in her father's house, that she could not desist, at the which I was greatly grieved. By-and-by, however, I began to discern that there was something as good in her example, as the giving of alms to the poor folk; for all the wives of the parish were stirred up by it into a wonderful thrift, and nothing was heard of in every house, but of quiltings and wabs to weave; insomuch that, before many years came round, there was not a better stocked parish, ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... me no answer. As soon as it was day, she rose and taking a purse of dinars, said to me, "Come, show me her tomb, that I may visit it and grave some verses thereon and build a dome over it and commend her to the mercy of God and bestow these dinars in alms for her soul." "I hear and obey," replied I and went on before her, whilst she followed me, giving alms by the way and saying to all to whom she gave, "This is an alms for the soul of Azizeh, who kept her counsel, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... cook their victuals. At last she was wrecked on this coast; how I escaped I know not, for I was weary of life. But I was thrown up, and made my way to this place—where I have for many years lived in company with an old wretch like myself, supplicating alms. He died about a year ago, and left me in the hovel by myself. I still beg for my subsistence; and now, pacha, you have my story, and I think you will acknowledge that I may well say that ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... display their capability in playing national music. "Children's Day" is a school holiday, and the children dress in the old picturesque Danish costumes; they then go about the town and market-places begging alms for the sanatoriums in their collecting-boxes. In this way a large sum is collected ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... darkness. Thousands of Christian slaves were always wearing out their miserable lives in the galleys and prisons of the Mohammedan ports. Isolated expeditions were sometimes made by this or that Christian power for their deliverance. Two religious orders were founded to collect alms for their ransom, to minister to them in their captivity, and to negotiate for their deliverance. But all this was only a mitigation of the evil, and year after year there went on the enslavement of Europeans, men for the ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... ring, as proof of his mission, in case he should deem the maiden worthy to be the bride of his king. Geneva was duly reached, and the seeming pilgrim, learning where the princess dwelt, and her habits of Christian charity towards strangers, sought her dwelling and begged for alms and shelter. Clotilde received him with all kindness, bade him welcome, and, in pursuance of the custom of the times, washed ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... means of relief, for I had just received a letter from my wife, Polly, who was in a sad strait at home, which added to the amount of my own misfortunes. And while I was musing in this way, a street beggar appeared, and notwithstanding he was well dressed, demanded alms; and when I told him I had none to give, he set to cursing me right manfully, which was a custom with such knaves, who imitated the city fathers in more ways than one. And as if to show his contempt for one who had no alms to give, the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale" |
