"Auction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of immoderate dicta which would disorganize society, and should never be uttered, in my opinion, except behind the veil, among priests. As to displaying before the great, innocent eyes of a girl like Una all the horror of a slave-auction—a convent is better than such untimely revelations. Now, you must not think I am a Catholic. I know the Lord withholds the pure from seeing what they should not—blessed be the Lord!—but I will not be the one to put what should not be seen before ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... after which the garrison was put to the sword, and the townspeople fared little better. Men, women, and children were murdered in cold blood, or obliged to purchase their lives by heavy ransoms, while matrons and maids were sold by auction to the soldiers at two or three dollars each. Almost every house in the city was burned to the ground, and these horrible but very customary scenes having been enacted, the army of Hierges took its way to Schoonhoven. That city, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and, upon going to examine it, would find those privileges rather too extensive, the whole lot being under water. Even after the crisis, there was a man still going about who made a good livelihood by setting up his plan of a city, the lots of which he sold by public auction, on condition of one dollar being paid down to secure the purchase, if approved of. The mania had not yet subsided, and many paid down their dollar upon their purchase of a lot. This was all he required. He went to the next town, and sold the same ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... 's it,—said the Master,—two sides to everybody, as there are to that piece of money. I've seen an old woman that wouldn't fetch five cents if you should put her up for sale at public auction; and yet come to read the other side of her, she had a trust in God Almighty that was like the bow anchor of a three-decker. It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth looking at. ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... period which has bestowed so much appreciation on the work of the artists of "the sixties" has seen no knight-errant with "Arthur Hughes" inscribed on his banner—no exhibition of his black-and-white work, no craze in auction-rooms for first editions of books he illustrated. He has, however, a steady if limited band of very faithful devotees, and perhaps—so inconsistent are we all—they love his work all the better because the blast of popularity has not trumpeted ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... subsequent to this, Mr. Johnson stood beside Mr. Watson in an auction room. To the latter a sample of new goods, just introduced, was knocked down, and when asked by the auctioneer how many cases he would ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... existence of herself and her two children. To carry on the farm single-handed was impossible. There were, moreover, immediate liabilities to be met. She could find no way out, and the upshot was a public auction sale of the farm effects and the household furniture. Three-year-old David, not understanding the tragedy of it all, was nevertheless impressed by the scene on the day the neighbors came to bid for, and to buy, the things that ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... 134, begins in good earnest, and, except for the idle dilletante reader, all the foregoing, from the first Chapter, might go by the board—that is, as far as the Baron can make out. He speaks only for himself. The Chapter describing the sale by auction is first-rate; no doubt about it. The Baron's spirits, just now down to zero, rose to over 100 deg.. On we go: Throw over OSBOURNE, and come along with Louis STEVENSON of Treasure Island. Bah! that exciting Chapter was but a flash in the pan: brilliant but ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... once. There's yards and yards of clothes-line covered with carpets and rugs and curtains I've been ordered to clean. It's somethin' beyond words. The whole place looks as if there was goin' to be an auction, or a rummage sale, or as if we had moved out 'cause the house was afire. Then she falls to with tubs of boilin' hot soap-suds, until it fills your lungs, and drips off the ends of your nose and your fingers, and ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... Auctioneers of Literary Property, will SELL by AUCTION, at their Great Room, 191. Piccadilly, on MONDAY, February 24th, and following Day, a Collection of very Choice Books in beautiful Condition, Books of Prints, Picture Galleries, a Fine Set of Curtis' Botanical Magazine; a beautiful Series of Pennant's Works, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... the summit of Bush Street hill. She was attired, Spanish fashion, in a loose overcoat and slippers. Suddenly she broke off her song, a dark-browed young soldier from the Presidio cautiously approached, and seizing her fondly in his arms, snatched away the overcoat, retreating with it to an auction-house on Pacific Street, where it may still be seen by the benighted traveller, just a-going for ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... question whether this insistence upon action may not be exaggerated. Abraham Lincoln witnessed an auction sale of slaves in his younger days. He did not go out immediately and issue an emancipation proclamation, and yet there are few who can doubt that that auction sale registered an application in an ideal ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... ordinary impulse to regard, therefore, all claim to miraculous power as imposture, or self-deception, reminds me always of the speech of a French lady to me, whose husband's collection of old pictures had brought unexpectedly low prices in the auction-room,—"How can you be so senseless," she said, "as to attach yourself to the study of an art in which you see that all excellence is a mere matter of opinion?" Some of us have thus come to imagine that the laws of Nature, as well as those of Art, may be matters of opinion; and I recollect ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... abolition of slavery (implied but positive) at the bottom of that close fraternity created by the faith in the Saviour. Between brethren, the relation of master and slave, of merchant and merchandise, cannot long subsist. To sell on an auction-block or deliver over to a slave-driver an immortal soul, for which Christ has died, is an enormity before which the Christian sense of right will always recoil in the end. "In this," it is written, "there is neither Greek nor Jew, nor circumcision ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... reconciled his mind to the stroke of death. He made his will thirteen days previous to it, and dictated and signed plain and accurate orders respecting his funeral. He directed his library of books and all his pictures to be sold by auction, and the money arising therefrom, together with what money he might have at his bankers or in his strong box, he bequeathed to his executor, Mr. Jesse Foot, of Dean Street, Soho. To Mrs. Mangeon (his landlady) he gave ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... secret musical box, which played sixteen different tunes. He had bought this handsome relic of the Victorian era (not less artistic, despite your scorn, than many devices for satisfying the higher instincts of the present day) at an auction sale in the Strand, London. But it, too, had been supplanted in his esteem by the ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... Public Auction.—At three o'clock this afternoon there will be sold to the highest bidder all the common property of the Little Sisters of Samaria, at the home of the Sisterhood, in Bonhomme Street. The sale will dispose of the building, ground, and the complete furnishings ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... your cows over to the shire and auction them off for what they'll bring. You can sue this town and recover the real value of the cows, along with interest at twelve per cent. That is to say, you can get judgment against the town for ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... case. Poor Burton's clothes were put up to auction and disposed of among the crew, and his name was seldom or never mentioned afterwards. Too often the same thing happens on board ship when a seaman is lost, much as his shipmates may mourn for ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... I advertised him for sale, as belonging to a person going down east, who only parted with him because he thought him too heavey for a man who never travelled less than a mile in two minutes and twenty seconds. Well, he was sold at auction, and knocked down to Rip Van Dam, the Attorney-General, for five hundred dollars; and the owner put a saddle and bridle on him, and took a bet of two hundred dollars with me, he could do a mile in two minutes, fifty seconds. He didn't know me from Adam parsonally, at the time, but ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... and takes out the hat). Red and orange! Horrors! And I gave her a cut glass cold-cream jar that I got at the auction. I wouldn't wear this to a dog ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... was the name given to the confiscated property of the emigres, which was sold from time to time at auction ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... hot and uncomfortable in the crape veil in which I was pinned. The others walked behind us, two by two, in a long procession. We went five times around the circle, while Sim Williams, on the wood-shed roof, tolled a big auction bell, which he had borrowed for ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... with the negro in a way that to him was more memorable. He and the young fellows with him saw, among the sights of New Orleans, negroes chained, maltreated, whipped and scourged; they came in their rambles upon a slave auction where a fine mulatto girl was being pinched and prodded and trotted up and down the room like a horse to show how she moved, that "bidders might satisfy themselves," as the auctioneer said, of the ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... entitled "Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat," there was related our hero's adventures in a fine craft which was recovered from the thieves and sold at auction. There was a mystery connected with the boat, and for a long time Tom could not solve it. He was aided, however, by his chum, Ned Newton, who worked in the Shopton Bank, and also by Mr. Damon and Eradicate Sampson, an aged colored whitewasher, ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... values, and that is to begin stall-hunting as soon as you leave school or college and continue until past middle age, absorbing information from stalls, from catalogues, and from sale-rooms. The records of prices at which books have been sold in the auction rooms, and which are regularly issued, are useless in the hands of an inexperienced person. To make up your mind on Monday that you are going to begin a career of successful bargain-hunting and book-collecting is only to be defrauded on all the other five remaining days. Experience must be bought, ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... Hook, the pilot brought abroad a New York paper, and as he was carelessly glancing over it, his eyes were caught by an advertisement of the sale by auction of the Walton estate, his old home. He saw by the date that the sale would not take place till the following day, and he now felt sure that he could give Annie a double surprise, for he had not written of his ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... or departure of ships from the harbour;—the commission of the first murder in the colony, and other sad accounts of human depravity and its punishment;—the gradual improvement and extension of the colony;—the first sale by auction of a farm of twenty-five acres for the sum of 13l.:—these and similar subjects occupy the history of New South Wales, not merely during the three years that elapsed between Governor Phillip's departure and the arrival of his successor, but also during the long ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... years had elapsed since the castle and lands had been sold at auction and fallen into the possession of a company of speculators, who had divided it and resold it to various purchasers. Only the farm of Valpendant, with a house of ancient and vast construction, built in the time of Philippe-Auguste, remained to an old tenant, ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... Denmark was to such a degree restrictive that imported manufactures had to be delivered to the customs, where they were sold by public auction, the proceeds of which the importer received from the custom-houses after a deduction was made for the duty. To this restriction, as regards foreign intercourse, was added a no less injurious system ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... municipal receiver was put up to auction in the city of Bologna. An offer was made by an honourable and responsible man to collect the dues for a commission of 1-1/2 per cent. The Government gave the preference to Count Cesare Mattei, one of the Pope's Chamberlains, ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... heavy sigh, softer, as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. Must get those settled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar. Forgotten any little Spanish she knew. Wonder what her father gave for it. Old style. Ah yes! of course. Bought it at the governor's auction. Got a short knock. Hard as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At Plevna that was. I rose from the ranks, sir, and I'm proud of it. Still he had brains enough to make that corner in stamps. Now that ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... so much respect, that the creditors were disposed to grant him any indulgence not incompatible with their own interests. They agreed to accept the proffered note, all except Mr. Grossman. He insisted that the girl should be put up at auction. For her sake, the ruined merchant condescended to plead with him. He represented that the tie between them was very different from the merely convenient connections which were so common; that Loo Loo was really good and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... dollars. This company left off working on the twenty-fourth day of September, having taken out, in all, gold-dust to the amount of forty-one dollars and seventy cents! Their lumber and tools, sold at auction, brought about ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... two after my arrival, my friend who came down with me from the mines came to me and said that there were a lot of blankets to be sold at auction; that he had no money, or he would buy them; that if I would buy them he would take them up in the mines and peddle them out for me for half of the profit. As I knew they were in great demand there—I had sold, when ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... heavy burthen, I devised the following expedient. His wife's jewels, together with his superfluous plate and furniture in both houses, his horses and carriages, which are already advertised to be sold by auction, will, according to the estimate, produce two thousand five hundred pounds in ready money, with which the debt will be immediately reduced to eighteen thousand pounds — I have undertaken to find him ten thousand pounds at four per cent. by which means he will save one hundred a-year ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... with his right hand held high, his small finger and thumb doubled in his palm, like a bidder at an auction. ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... being always right about unimportant matters and idealistically wrong about important matters, politely intruding into everything, being earnest about the morality of the poor and auction bridge and the chaperonage of nice girls, possessing a working knowledge of Wagner and Rodin, wearing fifteen-dollar corsets, and believing on her bended knees that the Truegates and Winslows were the noblest families in the Social Register, Aunt Emma Truegate ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... we put a fabulous price on this part of our treasure; I think in our ignorance we mentioned ten thousand pounds as about their value; but when they were sold in London some months after, in a well-known auction room, they realised but little more than a tithe of ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... mentioned that I should like to have you see it, immediately, in most generous fashion, he suggested that I bring it home and show it to you. It is almost priceless and of course I demurred; but he insisted. He had just bought it at an auction in New York and was, I fancy, glad to find some one who was interested and would appreciate it. It is not complete; if it were it would be very valuable. It is just a few stray sheets from an ancient psalter. Nevertheless ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... imperial capital, and contributed their elements to the final composition of the Roman people. When we read of ninety-seven thousand Hebrews whom Titus sold into bondage after the fall of Jerusalem, of forty thousand Greeks sold by Lucullus after one victory, and the auction sub corona of whole tribes in Gaul by Caesar, the scale of this forcible transfer becomes apparent, and its power as an agent of race amalgamation. Senator Sam Houston of Texas, speaking of the Comanche Indians, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... on fire in an instant. "I saw a flash from the arch! It was the soul of the Great Captain speaking! I tell you, Philip, the Republic is not yet lost! I've read somewhere, and so have you, that the Romans sold at auction at a high price the land on which Hannibal's victorious army was camped, when ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... slave to bondage. I firmly, believe in our Declaration of Independence, that all men are created free and equal, and that no human being has a right to make merchandise of others born in humbler stations, and place them on a level with horses, cattle, and sheep, knocking them off the auction- block to the highest bidder, sundering family ties, and outraging the purest and tenderest ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... Galloway and Angus cattle, belonging to A. B. Matthews, Kansas City, were sold at auction at Des Moines, Iowa, January 9th, at prices ranging from $235 to $610. The sale aggregated $10,425, or $386 per head. In the evening of the same day some twenty-five polled cattle-breeders met and organized a State association. An address was read by Abner Graves, of Dow City, in which ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... North; pardon me, Vincent, I do not see how it can be otherwise in a society based upon human servitude. To live on the labors of a helot people blunts the finer sensibilities of men and women alike; when you can look unshrinkingly at the separation of husband and wife on the auction-block, when you can see innocent children taken from their mothers and sold into eternal separation, I think it is not unnatural in me to fear that a woman with my convictions would not be happy mated with a Southerner. All this is cruel, I fear you will ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... where a great number of people were collected at an auction of merchants' goods. The hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times; and one of the company called to a plain, clean old man, with white locks: "Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... daring manoeuvre which made the conquest of the clapper possible, and revel in the faculty's amazement at the sudden silence of the tyrant will. Macnooder would have proceeded to capitalize this imagination by fabricating clapper watch charms and selling them at auction prices. The Gutter Pup might organize the sporting club in memory of the lamented Marquis of Queensberry; Macnooder sold the tickets and extinguished the surplus. His ambition was not to be a philosopher, or a benefactor. He announced openly that he intended to be a millionaire, ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... offered 2800 pounds for Anthony Rich's place and have accepted it. It is probably worth 3000 pounds, but if I were to have it on my hands and sell by auction I should get no more ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... the Tullivers were sold to Wakem the lawyer, and the bulk of their household goods were disposed of by public auction; but the Tullivers were not turned out of Dorlcote Mill. And, indeed, when Mr. Tulliver, known to be a man of proud honesty, was once more able to be up and about, it was proposed that he should remain and accept employment as manager of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... hid their prize in a shadowy nook, betwixt a large gray stone and the earthy roots of an overthrown tree; and when the campaign was ended, they conveyed our friend to Boston, and put him up at auction on the sidewalk of King Street. He was suspended, for the nonce, by a block and tackle, and being swung backward and forward, gave such loud and clear testimony to his own merits, that the auctioneer had no need to say a word. The highest ...
— A Bell's Biography - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... seized with a fever on a journey, and, after lingering for a few days, died, leaving Essex, as it were, in his place. Elizabeth seems not to have been very inconsolable for her favorite's death. She directed, or allowed, his property to be sold at auction, to pay some debts which he owed her—or, as the historians of the day express it, which he owed the crown—and then seemed at once to transfer her fondness and affection to the young Essex, who was at that time twenty-one years of age. Elizabeth ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and finest log of mahogany ever imported into this country has been recently sold by auction at the docks in Liverpool. It was purchased for 378l., and afterwards sold for 525l., and if it open well, it is supposed to be worth 1,000l. If sawed into veneers, it is computed that the cost of labour in the process will ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... were overstocked and, on account of shortage of cars, were not buying any more for the present. Davis Incorporated were reorganizing and would do nothing until their plans were completed. Others intimated they would submit bids if he cared to sell at auction and some broached the question of taking his output on consignment. But from no firm did he receive ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... broad arrow that is well known as the Government mark throughout Great Britain. The destruction of tigers was so great in a few years that the Lieut.-Governor of Bengal found it necessary to reduce the reward from fifty rupees to twenty-five, and tiger-skins were periodically sold by auction at the Dhubri Kutcherry at from eight annas ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... there was a, circus in the town and a public auction of real estate had also taken place that day. The boys could get only a small room, but over this they did not complain. Their one thought was of and the rascals who had ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... often like our House of Commons sit late, and detain many gentlemen from the circles of morning amusements—that I find very entertaining;—particularly the street orators and mountebanks in Piazza St. Marco;—the shops and stalls where chickens, ducks, &c. are sold by auction, comically enough, to the highest bidder;—a flourishing fellow, with a hammer in his hand, shining away in character of auctioneer;—the crowds which fill the courts of judicature, when any cause of consequence is to be tried;—the clamorous voices, keen observations, poignant sarcasms, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... nudged him, and said, "Brother, brother, take heed what you vow. Why, if you sell all you have in the world by public auction, 'twill not buy his weight ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... house which he now held: and then he could take no steps as to the tenants; could neither receive money nor pay it away, and was altogether at his wits' ends. Lady Fitzgerald looked to him for counsel in everything, and he did not know how to counsel her. Arrangements were to be made for an auction in the house as soon as she should be able to move; but would it not be a thousand pities to sell all the furniture if there was a prospect of the family returning? And so he waited for Mr. Prendergast's letter with an uneasy heart ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... freed Young on the ground that Boreman's order was void. White's successor, Judge Schaeffer, in 1876 reduced the alimony to $100 per month, and, in default of payment, certain of Young's property was sold at auction and rents were ordered seized to make up the deficiency. The divorce case came to trial in April, 1877, when Judge Schaeffer decreed that the polygamous marriage was void, annulled all orders for alimony, and assessed ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... about the world watching their pretty humours, fashions, follies, flirtations, rivalries; and noting them with the most charming archness. He sees them in public, in the theatre, or the assembly, or the puppet-show; or at the toy-shop higgling for gloves and lace; or at the auction, battling together over a blue porcelain dragon, or a darling monster in japan; or at church, eyeing the width of their rivals' hoops, or the breadth of their laces, as they sweep down the aisles. Or he looks out of his window at the "Garter" in ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... make men free by constitution simply? Are there no slaves except those who, like the African thirty years ago, are bought and sold at the auction block? Ay, indeed! for every black man liberated by President Lincoln's proclamation, there is, to-day, a white man robbed and degraded and brutalized by some gigantic trust or other equally ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... steep descent, the little town Spread wider till its sprawling street Enclosed her and her footfalls beat On hard stone pavement, and she felt Those throbbing ecstasies that melt Through heart and mind, as, happy, free, Her small, prim personality Merged into the seething strife Of auction-marts ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... sir. I was feeling along with my left hoof, when my right suddenly give a slip on a bit of rock as seemed like glass, and there it was slithering away more and more. If you hadn't ha' held on, you might ha' told 'em to sell off my kit by auction when you ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... creditors in its existing form. He may, without special sanction, but subject to any directions which may be given by the creditors in general meeting, or failing them by the committee, sell the property or any part of it for cash, including business goodwill and book debts, and either by public auction or private treaty, and generally exercise all the powers which the bankrupt might before adjudication have exercised in relation to the property, or which are by the Bankruptcy ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... There was a auction block, I saw right here in Petersburg on the corner of Sycamore street and Bank street. Slaves were auctioned off to de highest bidder. Some refused to be sold. By dat I mean, "cried". Lord! Lord! I done seen dem young'uns fought and kick like crazy folks; child it wuz pitiful ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... his house half a story higher than number one. But his triumph is short, for the third aspirant soon arrives, who, true to principle, takes another step in the ascending series. So it goes till the block is finished, the whole thing looking as if architecture was a sort of auction, in which the prize of success was ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... Downstairs the auction was over, the drawling monologue was succeeded by a babel of voices, and glancing through the blinds, I saw the real estate men untying their horses from the young maples. A swirl of dust laden with the scent of the catalpa blew ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... servants were not exactly sold, but the law permitted the transfer from one owner to another when the slave acquiesced in the transfer before a notary, but it was often done without regard to the slave. They were even bequeathed and sold as personal property at auction. Notices for sale were frequent. There were rewards for runaway slaves. Negroes whose terms had almost expired were kidnapped and sold to New Orleans. The legislature imposed a penalty for such, but it was not generally enforced. ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... one's distractions," Selingman protested. "I confess that auction bridge, as it is played over here, is the one game in ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... trifling offense. He saw an abolitionist attacked by a mob, and they would have lynched him had not a Methodist minister defended him on a plea that he must be crazy. He did not remember, in later years, that he had ever seen a slave auction, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... soundest thrashing you ever had in your life—one that will find you something to think about for the next fortnight, and no mistake. The idea of putting the young woman's affections up to auction! why, you're worse than your old governor, he only wants to sell her to ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... policemen moved him on. And after closing hours back he would go to his dingy room, in that part of our capital where English is seldom spoken, to supplicate little idols of his own. And when Pombo's simple, necessary prayer was equally refused by the idols of museums, auction-rooms, shops, then he took counsel with himself and purchased incense and burned it in a brazier before his own cheap little idols, and played the while upon an instrument such as that wherewith men charm snakes. And still the ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... assented to by the tenant, the matter was settled for another twenty-one years; but if he objected to the new valuation as excessive, it was provided that he could demand that it should be offered by public auction (subject to payment of the value of his improvements), and that the amount bid for it either by himself or by anybody else at the sale should be esteemed the value on which the rental was to be calculated during the twenty-one years next following the sale. In case the present holder of the ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... in his father's day. Among the rest was a dried tapeworm. And now, after lying half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these things were not burned; instead of a bonfire, or purifying destruction of them, there was an auction, or increasing of them. The neighbors eagerly collected to view them, bought them all, and carefully transported them to their garrets and dust holes, to lie there till their estates are settled, when they will start again. When a man dies ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... us in the MS. of a Boston friend: 'Old Colonel W——, formerly a well-known character in one of our eastern cities, was remarkable for but one passion out of the ordinary range of humanity, and that was for buying at auction any little lot of trumpery which came under the head of 'miscellaneous,' for the reason that it couldn't be classified. Though close-fisted in general, he was continually throwing away his money by fives and tens upon such trash. In this way ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... have advanced him fifty Louis on it; but if he does not redeem it to-morrow I will have the stone taken out before a judge, and afterwards I shall sell it by auction." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... heart knows, that to men and Nations there are invaluable values which cannot be sold for money at all. George Robins is great; but he is not onmipotent. George Robins cannot quite sell Heaven and Earth by auction, excellent though he be at the business. Nay, if M'Croudy offered his own life for sale in Threadneedle Street, would anybody buy it? Not I, for one. "Nobody bids: pass on to the next lot," answers Robins. And yet to M'Croudy this unsalable lot is worth all the Universe:—nay, I believe, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... combination of sea-water and hides had spoiled it. The owner tried all sorts of doctorings: he used colouring matter—indigo, kurkuma, chrome, copper vitriol—he had it rolled in hogsheads with leaden bullets. Nothing availed; he had to sell it at auction. Henriksen's agent bid it in for ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... with one of its fingers; and every month new doles at the public expense are distributed under the camouflage of 'social reform.' At every election the worldly goods of the minority are put up to auction. This is far more immoral than the old-fashioned election bribery, which was a comparatively honest deal between two persons; and in its effects it is far more ruinous. Democracy is likely to perish, like the monarchy of Louis XVI, through ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... prairie schooner, oxen, milch cow, saddle horses, dogs, and children. Calamity had overtaken the caravan. The mother had died; the father was disgusted with the country and everything in it; and his one idea was to sell his outfit and get the children back East, back to school and granny. At the auction, the cattle brought good prices, but no one wanted the horses. They were gaunt and weary, saddle-and spur-galled; one young and the other past middle life. It was the young horse that caught Hartigan's eye. ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and Bulwer's novels. But greatly mistaken is the scholar who, for relief from severe studies, goes to an empty or insincere book. It is like saying money, after large and worthy expenditures, by purchasing at a low price that which is worth nothing,—buying "gold" watches at a mock-auction room. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... answered—She was gone with such and such ladies to an auction. "But why give her that title already, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... the priest took part with the poor,—as they always do, God bless 'em!—the landlord came down on Mr. O'Clery, sold out his sixty milch cows, after being twenty-one days in pound; and though the cows were worth ten pounds each, Lord Mandemon's agent sold them by auction, and he bought them back himself for two pounds each; and so the poor family was ruined. After that, O'Clery sold out another farm he had; and, collecting all that was due to him, he came to America, against the advice of the priest, his brother. He thought, he said, to live ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... the Cheap Jack shouted or beat his gong. Hester thought at first there were half-a-dozen Cheap Jacks at least—he made such a noise, and the mirrors around his glittering platform flashed forth so many reflections of him. Trade was always brisk on Saturday night, and he might have kept the auction going until eleven had he been minded. But he had come to stay for a fortnight (much to the disgust of credit-giving tradesmen), and cultivated eccentricity as a part of his charm. In the thickest of the bidding ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... away in great dudgeon. March fell asleep on one side of him, and I on the other, the moment that the cloth was taken away. He was not last night in the Division, or made any bargain. He has been all this day at Charles's auction, to secure for him his books. All his things were upon sale yesterday and to-day. Some of his books are very scarce and valuable. I wonder that, knowing himself liable to such an attack, he did not keep them at Brooks's, where they would ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... year that Mr and Mrs Montefiore first visited East Cliff Lodge, which was about to be sold by auction. They felt a great desire to purchase it, although much out of repair. After discussing with his wife the probable price it would fetch, he said, "If, please God, I should be the purchaser, it is my intention to go but seldom to London, and after two or three ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... we have not a town where the houses are not "turned out of windows," and all the furniture of every kind piled up in the streets; and as if to show a pretty general bankruptcy, together with the artist's own poverty, you would imagine an auction going on in every other house, by the Turkey carpets and odds and ends hanging from the windows. We have even seen a "Rag ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... your little girl was upon that auction block; suppose some villain had hired me to aid in debauching her; suppose you, her father, should come to me and plead with me not to do it; suppose I should tell you what you have told me, and then—should go out and buy your child; what ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Carthage; the rarest and most esteemed articles which they brought were carbuncles, which, by means of this traffic, became so plenty in this city, that they were generally known by the appellation of Carthaginian gems. The mode of selling by auction seems to have been practised by this nation; at least there are passages in the ancient authors, particularly one in Polybius, which would naturally lead to the conclusion, that in the sale of their merchandize, the Carthaginians employed a person to name and describe ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... said the Professor, beginning to fumble in all his pockets—was he searching for a note in Sylvia's handwriting?—"in that case, you will be conferring a real favour on me if you can make it convenient to attend a sale at Hammond's Auction Rooms in Covent Garden, and just bid for one or two ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... is a well known fact. Mr. S. S. Macdonnel, a resident of Windsor, and a gentleman of high social and political position, is the owner of a large amount of real estate in that place. The Bowyer farm, a large tract of land belonging to him, was partitioned into lots some few years since, and sold at auction. Some of the lots were bid in by negroes of means, among others, by a mulatto named De Baptiste, residing in Detroit. As soon as the white purchasers found that negroes were among the buyers, they threw up their lots, and since then the value of the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... is vain. Form a plan, have an object; then work for it, learn all you can about it, and you will be sure to succeed. What I mean by studying on speculation, is that aimless learning of things because they may be useful at some time; which is like the conduct of the woman who bought at auction a brass door-plate with the name Thompson on it, thinking it might some ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... on the face; so he left her, cursing, as he went, men who put themselves up at auction,—worse than Orleans slaves. Margret laughed to herself at his passion; as for the story he hinted, it was absurd. She forgot it ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... of whatever description, from the purchase of a borough to that of a brooch, was alike the object of Mr. Brown's most zealous pursuit: taverns, where country cousins put up; rustic habitations, where ancient maidens resided; auction or barter; city or hamlet,—all were the same to that enterprising spirit, which made out of every acquaintance—a commission! Sagacious and acute, Mr. Brown perceived the value of eccentricity in covering design, and found by experience that whatever ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of soujee, dholl, and rice, were sold at public auction; and though wholly unfit for men to eat, yet being not too bad for stock, were quickly purchased, and in general went off at a great price. Several lots, consisting of five bags of the soujee, each bag containing about one hundred and fourteen pounds, sold for L4 14s. The whole ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... many applicants for the privilege of marrying the little king that it was decided to put him up at auction, in order that the largest possible sum of money should be brought into the kingdom. So, on the day appointed, the ladies gathered at the palace from all the surrounding kingdoms—from Bilkon, Mulgravia, Junkum and even as far away ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... an infinite consumption for the pleasures, luxuries, whims, and debaucheries of our civil or military commanders. Most of those articles were delivered in kind, and what were not used were set up to auction, converted into ready money, and divided among ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the expense is greater, as, after an application being made, the land is put up to public auction, and may fetch a very low or higher price according to the bidding. The land secured, contracts are made with natives of the lower class to clear the forest and plant cinchona. The contracts are often sublet to Indians. The young plants are planted from five to six feet apart, with banana trees between, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... the plunder might be divided between the armies, &c. &c. There was not a room that I saw in which half the things had not been taken away or broken to pieces. I tried to get a regiment of ours sent to guard the place, and then sell the things by auction; but it is difficult to get things done by system in such a case, so some officers are left who are to fill two or three carts with treasures which are to be sold.... Plundering and devastating a place like this is bad enough, but what is much worse is ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... of revenue is the amount realised by the tithes. Since 1858 these have been farmed by the government, but previous to that year they were sold by auction, as in other provinces, to the highest bidder. The arrangement was complicated enough, for they underwent no less than four sales: 1st. In each district for the amount of the district. 2nd. At Mostar, where each district was again put up, and given ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... it will make him a slave," argued Jane; "he is bound to support his mother, and a hundred and fifty pounds a year won't go far with her! And now I dare say she will have her wish and be able to live in London. I suppose there will be an auction at 'Littlecote'?" ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... is with life," I said to myself;—"with time." This world is a sort of auction-room; we do not know that we are buyers: we are, in fact, more like beggars; we have brought no money to exchange for precious minutes, hours, days, or years; they are given to us. There is no calling out of terms, no noisy auctioneer, no hammer; but ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... interest are the laws which relate to the position of women. In this connection reference may first be made to the marriage-by-auction custom, which Herodotus described as follows: "Once a year in each village the maidens of age to marry were collected all together into one place, while the men stood round them in a circle. Then a herald called up the ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... room; they also presided, more or less alluringly, at fruit, coffee, and ice-cream stands; and—I will not be sure, but I think—some of them seemed to be flirting with the youth of the other sex. There was an auction going on, and the place was full of tobacco smoke, which the women appeared not to mind. A booth for the sale of wine and beer was set off, and there was a good deal of amiable drinking. This was not like our fairs quite; and I am bound to say that the ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... Jewisher things in Hester Street, on our own East Side. The market did not begin so early as I had been led to expect it would. The blazing forenoon of my visit was more than half gone, and yet there was no clothes' auction, which was said to be the great thing to see. But by nine o'clock there seemed to be everything else for sale under that torrid July sun, in the long booths and shelters of the street and sidewalks: meat, fish, fruit, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... likeness in a few words, and described her as if she had been some knick-knack for sale at an auction. Her hair came low on her forehead like a golden net, her skin was dazzlingly white, while her bright eyes threw out glances that were like those flashes of summer lightning which dart across the sky on ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... "It's the auction," said Georgie with great satisfaction. "I heard 'em talking about it down at the shore this morning. There's Lisha Downs now. He started off just before we did. That's his fish-cart ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... strolled to the Halles to view their strangely altered aspect. The fish pavilion, of which M. Zola has so much to say, was bare and deserted. The railway drays, laden with the comestible treasures of the ocean, no longer thundered through the covered ways. At the most one found an auction going on in one or another corner, and a few Seine eels or gudgeons fetching wellnigh their weight in gold. Then, in the butter and cheese pavilions, one could only procure some nauseous melted fat, while in the meat department horse and mule and donkey took the place of beef ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... else, break the peace by their riots, and by violence and terror domineer over those who are weaker than themselves. No wonder that they plunder provinces and offer the seat of judgment for sale, knocking it down after an auction to the highest bidder, since it is the law of nations that you may ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... had amassed enabled him to gratify this devilish desire. He opened his bags of gold and unlocked his coffers. No monster of ignorance ever destroyed so many superb productions of art as did this raging avenger. At any auction where he made his appearance, every one despaired at once of obtaining any work of art. It seemed as if an angry heaven had sent this fearful scourge into the world expressly to destroy all harmony. Scorn of the world was expressed in his countenance. His tongue ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... I cannot admit that proposition of a ransom by auction, because it is a mere project.... Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal in the end to our Constitution.... Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the complaint of the Colonies." What was "that proposition"? Give the substance of Burke's ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... Landseer's magnificent stag-picture called, "The Monarch of the Glen," and well known all over the world from engravings, was recently exposed to auction, when it fetched the enormous price of 6,510 pounds. It is said that the painter sold it off his easel for 800 guineas. The bidding at the sale began at 2,000 pounds, and by bids of one hundred guineas reached 4,000 pounds, at which price ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Auction did begin, Bidders, alack! were lacking; Back numbers hove in sight in shoals, Yet seemed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... in the Southland of our America, we stood a well formed, sound limbed, healthy, intact young woman on the auction block and sold her to the biggest bidder for her beauty, her virtue, her heart, her honor, her soul and her body, and the established average price paid for such a young woman was eighteen hundred dollars ($1800.00). I take for granted ...
— Chicago's Black Traffic in White Girls • Jean Turner-Zimmermann |
