"Avaricious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of America, and the alliance with France, as the great pillars of our politics; and this attachment should not be slight and accidental, but regular, consistent, and founded in strong conviction. His manners, gentle and polite; above all things, honest, and least of all things, avaricious. His circumstances and connections should be such as to give solid pledges for his fidelity; and he should by no means be disagreeable to the prince with whom we are in alliance, his ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... her, at all events, death must have been a release. She would have been happier with a drunken husband, with a brute who kicked her, rather than with this supercilious cold-hearted patrician. Toward the end of the poem, in his remarks about the dowry, we see that the Duke is as avaricious as he is cruel; though he says with a disagreeable smile, that the woman herself is his real object. The touch to make this terrible man complete comes at the very end. The Duke and the envoy prepare to descend the staircase; ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... principally depend for their livelihood on an extensive traffic in stolen goods which they carry on. It is said that there is honour amongst thieves, but this is certainly not the case with the Jews of Lisbon, for they are so greedy and avaricious, that they are constantly quarrelling about their ill-gotten gain, the result being that they frequently ruin each other. Their mutual jealousy is truly extraordinary. If one, by cheating and roguery, gains a cruzado in the presence of another, the latter instantly says I cry ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... avarice loseth all, By striving all to gain, I need no witness call But him whose thrifty hen, As by the fable we are told, Laid every day an egg of gold. "She hath a treasure in her body," Bethinks the avaricious noddy. He kills and opens—vexed to find All things like hens of common kind. Thus spoil'd the source of all his riches, To misers he a lesson teaches. In these last changes of the moon, How often doth one see Men made as poor as he By force ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... make it easy for Shung whilst he was in prison, his mother had to spend large sums in bribing every one connected with the yamen. Never before had such an opportunity for reaping a golden harvest been presented to the avaricious minions entrusted by the Emperor with the administration of justice amongst his subjects. In her anxiety for her son the poor woman sold field after field to find funds wherewith to meet the demands of these ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... by righteousness alone that the king has been able to regain his kingdom free from all enemies (thorns), and it was by the action of righteousness that king Suyodhana has been killed in battle, and, O son of Pritha and pillar of the Kuru race, the wicked sons of Dhritarashtra, avaricious, always rude in speech, and bent upon an unrighteous course of conduct, having been exterminated with their followers, the king, the son of Dharma and lord of the earth, now peaceably enjoys the entire kingdom of the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Authorities (of town, etc.) estraro. Authority auxtoritato. Autocrat auxtokrato. Automatic auxtomata. Automobile auxtomobilo. Autumn auxtuno. Auxiliary helpanto (noun), helpa (adj.). Avalanche lavango. Avarice avareco. Avaricious avara. Avaunt for de tie cxi! Avenge vengxi. Avenue aleo. Average (n.) mezonombro. meza kvanto. Averse antipatia, kontrauxa. Aversion antipatio, kontrauxo. Avert deturni. Avidity ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the slave. In this instance-when master and slave are both incited to a noble purpose-Grabguy is a wealthy alderman, and Nicholas-the whiter of the two-his abject slave. The master, a man of meagre mind, and exceedingly avaricious, would make himself distinguished in society; the slave, a mercurial being of impassioned temper, whose mind is quickened by a sense of the injustice that robs him of his rights, seeks only freedom and what may follow ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... I do,' resumed Montoni, 'I cannot believe you will oppose, where you know you cannot conquer, or, indeed, that you would wish to conquer, or be avaricious of any property, when you have not justice on your side. I think it proper, however, to acquaint you with the alternative. If you have a just opinion of the subject in question, you shall be allowed a safe conveyance to France, within a short period; ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... affected: and therefore, tho', when it proceeds from hypocrisy, it be nearly allied to deceit; yet when it comes from vanity only, it partakes of the nature of ostentation: for instance, the affectation of liberality in a vain man, differs visibly from the same affectation in the avaricious; for tho' the vain man is not what he would appear, or hath not the virtue he affects, to the degree he would be thought to have it; yet it sits less awkwardly on him than on the avaricious man, who is the very reverse of what he ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... Why do we say "daily"? A. We say "daily" to teach us that we are not to be avaricious but only prudent in providing for our wants; and that we are to have great confidence in the ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... and the fertility of the soil praised. Much interesting information is given regarding the characteristics, habits, and customs of the people; he regards most of them as drunken, licentious, and idle, and avaricious and murderous. The governor has rebuilt the ruined fort at Cebu; but he thinks that a settlement there is useless and expensive. He asks for oared vessels, with which to navigate among the islands; ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... so sure of that," replied Paul. He knew instinctively that she was avaricious by nature, and would be likely to do ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... like it or no, cannot help himself. He must needs accede, proudly and joyfully, to my proposal. He knows his estates to be in my power far too deeply to resist. Nay, more, though he be somewhat selfish, and ambitious, and avaricious, I know nothing of him that should justify me in believing that he would sell his daughter's honor, even to a king, for wealth or title! My good wife is all too doubtful and suspicious. But, hark! here comes the mob, returning ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... the attention of parliament on the eve of the great struggle over the reform bill. One of these was the settlement of the civil list, which the Duke of Wellington's ministry had failed to effect. William IV. was not an avaricious sovereign, nor did he share the spendthrift inclination of his brother. But he was disposed to stickle for the hereditary rights of the crown, both public and private, and he greatly disliked the details of his expenditure being scrutinised by a parliamentary committee. Now, Grey and his ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... belief of the people in the evil spirits, that they are completely under the influence of the priests and spend large sums of money in order to secure their favour. They live in constant dread lest by the least transgression or omission they should offend these avaricious men and so bring upon themselves the wrath of the demons." The influence of the lyngdohs over the people in the Jaintia Hills seems to be stronger than in the Khasi Hills. For instance, it came to my notice in Raliang ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... "My client had a son and daughter, both married. They were good children and loved their father on the American plan. The son had married an avaricious woman, while the daughter was married to a man who was not so avaricious as his sister-in-law. The old gentleman was very wealthy and like all good children they were thinking of the time when the ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... paper, and, as she read, her colour changed, and at last she shrieked aloud and fell down before the burgomaster, clasping his knees, and praying by the Jesu cross not to send such a testament to her brother, for that he was still harder than her father, because he was by nature avaricious, and would grudge her even salt with her bread. Let him remember that his son had promised her marriage, and would he destroy ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Constitution." Wonderful Judge Parsons! who is able, by the magic wand of his decision, to unshackle all the slaves who, under the cruel whip of necessity,—more unmerciful than any slave-driver's lash,—have sweated under the burdens imposed by avaricious task-masters in every city of ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... they said, "arise from the moral obliquity of the fastidious, and the cupidity of the avaricious. They consist in an illiberal opinion of the worth and rights of the laboring classes, an unjust estimation of their moral, physical, and intellectual powers, and unwise misapprehension of the effects which would result from the cultivation ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... Theodora Senatrix, Farnese of Naples and Rodrigo Borgia, a Spaniard, who was Alexander the Sixth, are the chief instances. There were, indeed, many popes who were not perfect, who were more or less ambitious, avaricious, warlike, timid, headstrong, weak, according to their several characters; but it can hardly be said that any of them were, like those I have mentioned, really bad men through and through, vicious, unscrupulous and ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... unwise to reproach us with a desire of obtaining money; you forget that your own church, if the Church of England be your own church, as I suppose it is, from the willingness which you displayed in the public-house to fight for it, is equally avaricious; look at your greedy Bishops, and your corpulent Rectors! do they imitate Christ in his disregard for money? Go to! you might as well tell me that they imitate Christ in his meekness ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... all ages there have been those whom nature has qualified for a better life, who wish to live in harmony, and turn with weariness and disgust from the present forms of avaricious strife, rivalry, and fraud. If the best of these could be gathered in one community, a better state of society could ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... Anguish of the Empty Womb, thou dost not demand the bootless offering of chaste loins, thou dost not sing the praises of Lenten follies; thou alone receivest the carnal supplications and petitions of poor and avaricious families. Thou determinest the mother to sell her daughter, to give her son; thou aidest sterile and reprobate loves; Guardian of strident Neuroses, Leaden Tower of Hysteria, bloody ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... hag's daughter was both wicked and avaricious, and it was not her way to make presents. She therefore made a dash at the little hand, wished the guardian of the ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... were unhampered by the restrictive influences of those who had sought perfection. To organize and administer the new industrial-financial-commercial regime, the leaders must be shrewd, ingenious, quick-witted, thick-skinned, unscrupulous, hard-headed, and avaricious; yet daring, dominating, and gifted with keen prevision and vivid imagination. These qualities had not been bred under any of the Mediterranean civilizations, or that of Central Europe in the Middle Ages, which had inherited so much therefrom. The pursuit of perfection always implies a ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... Jew, rendered desperate by paternal affection; "my daughter is my flesh and blood, dearer to me a thousand times than those limbs thy cruelty threatens. No silver will I give thee unless I were to pour it molten down thy [v]avaricious throat—no, not a silver penny will I give thee, [v]Nazarene, were it to save thee from the deep damnation thy whole life has merited. Take my life, if thou wilt, and say that the Jew, amidst his tortures, knew how to disappoint ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... repeated instances of a rash and inflexible temper, Dr. King also adds faults alleged to belong to the prince's character, of a kind less consonant with his noble birth and high pretensions. He is said by this author to have been avaricious, or parsimonious at least, to such a degree of meanness, as to fail, even when he had ample means, in relieving the sufferers who had lost their fortune, and sacrificed all in his ill-fated attempt. [The approach is thus expressed by Dr. King, who brings the charge:—'But the most odious part ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... early half of the thirteenth century as lord of Vicenza, Verona, Padua, and Brescia, and was defeated and hurt to death in an attempt to possess himself of Milan. He was in every respect a remarkable man for that time,—fearless, abstemious, continent, avaricious, hardy, and unspeakably ambitious and cruel. He survived and suppressed innumerable conspiracies, escaping even the thrust of the assassin whom the fame of his enormous wickedness had caused the Old Man of the Mountain to send against him. As lord of Padua he was more incredibly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... act of mine had ever forfeited, I was ridiculed, sneered at, and looked upon with jealousy and hate by those whose souls were too narrow to believe in a noble action—and who, measuring and judging me by their own sordid standards of avaricious justice, deemed I would spare no pains to legally rob them, as they termed it,—when I saw this, I say, my blood became heated, my fiercer passions were roused, and I inwardly swore, that if it were now in my power to accomplish what they feared, I would do ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... downright grave. His ignorance was astounding, his hunger for information amazing. He was a man from Mars who knew all that was to be known in his own world but brought into this strange planet a frank and burning curiosity. Barbee's chaps delighted him; a hair rope awoke in his soul an avaricious hunger for a hair rope of his own; commonplace ranch matters, like branding and marking and breeding and weaning and breaking, evoked countless eager questions. For so academic a man, the strange thing about him was his attitude toward these day labourers; he looked upon them ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... is uncertain, I have not made up my mind. A folk so vague in their ideas are very fond of this 'no bounds;' it is like the 'Quien sabe?' of the Mexicans, who knows? and accompanies every remark. An avaricious person is very 'having;' wants to have everything. What are usually called dog-irons on the hearth are called brand-irons, having to support the brand or burning log. Where every one keeps fowls the servant girls are commonly asked if they can cram a chicken, if they ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... how a man could be tempted to go wrong when such a girl loved him. He was laboring under a misapprehension, of course. Billy Louise had permitted him to misunderstand her interest in the matter. If he had known that she was pleading solely for Marthy—poor, avaricious, gray, old Marthy—perhaps his mercy would have been less tinged with that smoldering resentment which was directed not so much at the wrongdoer, as at ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... take such high measures, and he felt miserably lonely after the usual round of elaborate dinners to which he had grown grumblingly accustomed. His one senile passion was his pride in her, and he was avaricious of the lost days while she was absent from her usual victorious post as the mistress of that great house. The next day his heart sank still lower, for he saw in the Sunday papers a little paragraph to the effect that Mrs. Stuart had invited a brilliant house-party to her autumn ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... the old fellow trembled all over with avaricious eagerness as I counted the silver pieces into his withered palm. "Anything to oblige a generous stranger! There is the place I sleep in; it is not much, but there is a mirror—HER mirror—the only thing I keep of hers; come this way, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... forth while it was yet early in the morning. Shunning the public roads; we could not rest until we believed ourselves safe from pursuit. Ascyltos, when he had caught his breath, gloatingly exulted of the pleasure which the looting of a villa belonging to Lycurgus, a superlatively avaricious man, afforded him: he complained, with justice of his parsimony, affirming that he himself had received no reward for his k-nightly services, that he had been kept at a dry table and on a skimpy ration of food. This ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... white society. While the colonists persuaded themselves that slavery was an institution indispensable to the colony, its evil effects soon became apparent. It were impossible to engage the colony in the slave-trade, and escape the bad results of such an inhuman enterprise. It made men cruel and avaricious. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Muley-Hassan's band traversed the jungle paths it was evident to the two young captives that there was imperative need in Muley-Hassan's mind of arriving somewhere at a set time. The usual noonday rest, which even the avaricious slave-trader was in the habit of taking, was not observed and the travelers pressed straight on. Lathrop and Billy were almost ready to drop with fatigue when that evening, just at dusk, they arrived ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... of the senior member of the film took on some unusual public sympathy from the reflected sorrow for his fellow-victim. The latter had been one of Zane's apprentices, raised to a place in the establishment by his usefulness and sincere love of his patron. Just, forbearing, soft-spoken, and not avaricious, Sayler Rainey deserved no injury from any living being. He was unmarried, and, having met with a disappointment in love, had avowed his intention never to marry, but to bequeath all the property he should acquire to his partner's ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... Vernole having taken De Pais into the Garden, to discourse him concerning the sending Charlot to the Monastery, which Work he desir'd to see perform'd, before he declar'd his Intentions to Atlante: for among all his other good Qualities, he was very avaricious; and as fair as Atlante was, he thought she would be much fairer with the Addition of Charlot's Portion. This Affair of his with Monsieur De Pais, gave Charlot an opportunity of delivering her Letter to her Sister; who no sooner drew it from her Bosom, but Atlante's ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... rejected. "They would have to come, anyway, or go out of business." But they did not come; rather they put their backs up and fought. And because Fairbanks was enterprising and far-sighted, while Chena was avaricious and narrow, because Fairbanks offered free sites and Chena charged enormously for water-front, business went the ten miles up the often unnavigable slough and settled there, and by and by built a little railway that it might be independent ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... during my campaign in Moravia, but I am sure there is One above Who does not lose sight of honest people. Now, it is impossible that after nineteen years of work and resignation, now when you grow old, with two beautiful children, you should dream of remaining at the mercy of an avaricious monk or a year of frost. In listening to you, an idea has come to me. If I was the boaster of old, I should say that it was an idea from above; but I wholly believe that it is a fortunate idea. What has ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... but I believe you're right," blurted out Andy with an avaricious glitter in his shifty eyes. "Let's go there to-night and see if we can ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... purity, simplicity and mercy, are published to the world in the records of former times by sacred bards of great learning. Though endued with every noble virtue, these have yielded up their lives. Thy sons were malevolent, inflamed with passion, avaricious, and of very evil- disposition. Thou art versed in the Sastras, O Bharata, and art intelligent and wise; they never sink under misfortunes whose understandings are guided by the Sastras. Thou art acquainted, O prince, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... respect as does contempt for gold and for earthly goods. The generous minister, he who gives, will be considered as good, most good, and will obtain whatever he wants from his parishioners. The greedy and avaricious, he who does what common and vile men do, will, notwithstanding the habit in which he is clad, notwithstanding the sermons he preaches, be considered as mean, if he does not end by being despised and abhorred. Nevertheless, I can affirm that the religious ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... stiff ruff encircled her neck, a cap of the finest muslin, though rather dingy, covered her head; and her nose was bestridden by a pair of gold- bowed spectacles with enormous glasses. But the old lady's face was pinched, sharp and sallow, wearing a niggardly and avaricious expression, and forming an odd contrast to the splendor of her attire, as did likewise the implement which she held in her hand. It was a sort of iron shovel (by housewives termed a "slice"), such as is used in clearing the oven, and with this, selecting a spot between ...
— An Old Woman's Tale - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mixture of the Odalisque and Valkyria... realization of the ancient sylph—new Flora—freed from the chain of the seasons" [Footnote: Idem. 3d vol. Atala.]—and whom M. de Chateaubriand feared to meet again. "Divine coquetries" at once generous and avaricious; impressing the floating, wavy, rocking, undecided motion of a boat without rigging or oars upon the charmed and ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... wish to have; but he did not look upon them as very desirable travelling companions. Ateeko was a little spare man, with a full face, of monkey-like expression. He spoke in a slow and subdued tone of voice, and the Fellatas acknowledge him to be extremely brave, but at the same time avaricious and cruel. "Were he sultan," say they, "heads would fly about ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... didn't say that. So this witness is a liar too! Answer me. Is he a liar? [Silence] You don't answer. It's just as well. Come now, Etchepare, why do you persist in these denials—eh? Isn't it all plain enough? You are avaricious, interested, greedy for gain— ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... and seize his seigniory at Fort Frontenac—being restrained by the strong hand of the Viceroy; but while La Salle lay ill at the Illinois fort, Frontenac was succeeded by La Barre as viceroy; and the new Governor was a weak, avaricious old man, ready to believe any evil tale carried to his ears. He at once sided with La Salle's enemies, and wrote the French King that the explorer's "head was turned"; that La Salle "accomplished nothing, but spent his life leading bandits ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... never without their muskets in their hands, and they and their descendants became an athletic, powerful, and bulky race, courageous, and skilled in the use of fire-arms, but at the same time cruel and avaricious to the highest degree. The absolute power they possessed over the slaves and Hottentots demoralized them, and made them tyrannical and blood-thirsty. At too great a distance from the seat of government for its power to reach them, they defied it and knew no ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... you are to me, Maria, if you do not, I will tell you this evening. I must meet the members of the council at the town-hall, or a whole day will be lost, and at this time we must be avaricious even of the moments. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... certain amount of intelligence, I have no aesthetic sense; while I possess the mathematical faculty, I am wholly without the religious emotions; while I am naturally addicted to venery, I have little ambition and am not at all avaricious. Education has further limited my scope. Having been brought up in society, I am impregnated with its laws; not only should I be afraid of taking a holiday from them, I should also feel it painful to try to do so. In a word, I have a conscience ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... obey and call any man master but Himself? How we could be so submissive to a gang of men, whom we can not tell whether they are as good as ourselves, or not, I never could conceive." "The whites," he asserted, "have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and bloodthirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority." As heathen the white people had been cruel enough, but as Christians they were ten times more so. As heathen "they were not quite so audacious ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... morning I might have doubted, but now, thanks to that vain idiot who goes by the name of Wilkie, I am sure, perfectly, mathematically sure of success. Maumejan, who is entirely devoted to me, and who is the greediest, most avaricious scoundrel alive, will draw up such a complaint that Marguerite will sleep in prison. Moreover, other witnesses will be summoned. By what Casimir has said, you can judge what the other servants will say. This testimony ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Ingenheim is cruelly regretted by the people, the royal family, and even the Queen, much less for the person of the said Countess as because of the increase of credit which her death will bring to Dame Rietz, the old habitual mistress, who is said to be very avaricious and ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... respects, this was the most remarkable man of his age. He may be said to have risen from nothing, for though his mother was Elizabeth, eleventh Viscountess Lisle in her own right, his father was Edmund Dudley, the mean and avaricious favourite of Henry the Seventh. The marriage of Dudley and Elizabeth was apparently forced upon the Viscountess, then a mere girl of some twenty years of age or under; and when she was left free, she re-married Sir Arthur Plantagenet (Viscount Lisle), ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... this valley, resting and grazing their horses, trading off those that were worn and foot-sore for fresh ones, and buying from the ranchmen and merchants such other supplies as they needed, including guns and ammunition. Some of these avaricious whites not only sold the Indians all the supplies they could while passing, but actually loaded wagons with meat, vegetables, and such other marketable goods as they had, and followed up the dusky horde, selling them every penny's worth ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... such as could afford to pay, gave him what they pleased. When very young, having kept a diary of his expenses, however trifling, the large amount, at the end of the year, surprised him; and from that time the rule of his life was to be economical, not avaricious. At his decease he left behind him no less a sum than 2000l.; and such a sense of his various excellencies was prevalent in the country, that the epithet of WONDERFUL is to this day ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... prompted her to make an effort to see the heroes who were conquering Europe in obedience to a word from the Emperor in the order of the day; the heroes of a modern time who outdid the mythical feats of paladins of old. The cities of France, however avaricious or refractory, must perforce do honor to the Imperial Guard, and mayors and prefects went out to meet them with set speeches as if the conquerors had been crowned kings. Mme. de Bargeton went to a ridotto given to the town by a regiment, and fell in love with an officer of ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... the Son of God seated on the right hand of His Father, who rose up greatly irritated against sinners, holding three darts in His hand, for the extirpation of the proud, the avaricious, and the voluptuous. His holy Mother threw herself at His feet, and prayed for mercy, saying that she had persons who would remedy the evil; and she at the same time introduced to Him Dominic and Francis, as being proper persons for reforming the world, and ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... it is my duty to help grannie to make all the money we can to pay the debt, and get grandfather out of the hands of those avaricious Holts. ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... hotel in the place, ordered his supper, and hastened to Meiser's house. His friends at Berlin had given him accounts of that charming family. He knew that he would have to deal with the richest and most avaricious of sharpers: that was why he assumed the cavalier tone that may have seemed strange to more than one reader ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... series of fascinating fictions, that being the first of them which I read—as it was the first he wrote. But "All Baba and the Forty Thieves"—the "open, sesame!" "shut, sesame!"—the sackfuls of gold and silver and the bales of rich merchandise in the robbers' cave—the avaricious brother forgetting the magical formula which would open the door and permit him to escape with his booty—his four quarters hung up in terrorem—and above all, the clever, devoted slave girl Morgiana, who in every way outwitted the crafty robber-chief,—these incidents remain stamped in my ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... be the slave of glory? Glory, the casual gift of thoughtless crowds! Glory, the bribe of avaricious virtue! Be but my country free, be thine the praise; I ask no witness, but attesting conscience, No records, but the ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... convince me that he was an altruist who had no private ends to serve. There was an avaricious ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... Russia called him, was an outstanding personality, clever, scheming, and as unscrupulous as he was avaricious. His mujik blood betrayed ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... one, because he has people everywhere to spy and listen to everything, and carry what they hear to him; so every one endeavors to stand well with him. In a word he is very politic; being governor and, changeably, a trader, he appears friendly because he is both; severe because he is avaricious; and well in neither capacity because they are commingled. The Lord be praised who has delivered us safely, and the more, because we were in every one's eye and yet nobody knew what to make of us; we were ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... piece, which relates, like the former, to the avaricious demands which the Irish Secretary of State made upon the company of players, is said, in the collection called "Gulliveriana," to have been composed by Swift, and delivered by him at Gaulstown House. But it is more likely ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... descriptive; but is it not difficult to ascertain what we can pronounce "an elegant sufficiency"? Perhaps you will answer, as some others have done, we can attain it by circumscribing our wishes within the compass of our abilities. I am not very avaricious; yet I must own that I should like to enjoy it without so much trouble as that ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... evil of the dead; that is very well, but as this maxim was not observed toward Lord Byron, I also will repeat what I have heard said of his wife—I mean that the blame was hers—that her temper was so bad, her manners so harsh and disagreeable, that no one could endure her society; that she was avaricious, wicked, scolding; that people hated to wait upon her or live near her. How dared this lady to marry a man so distinguished, and then to treat him ill and tyrannically? Truly it is inconceivable. ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... admirable text; but a text selected with discretion. Fully to comprehend it, recollect the character we have given of Felix. He was covetous, luxurious, and governor of Judea. St. Paul selected three subjects, correspondent to the characteristics. Addressing an avaricious man, he treated of righteousness. Addressing the governor of Judea, one of those persons who think themselves independent and responsible to none but themselves for their conduct, he treated of "judgment ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... like Dame Partington with her mop, thought to stay its progress. The grandsons of the old routiers cried fie on this quiet life, and snuffed the air for rapine. The nobility were out of pocket and out at elbows, and looked with avaricious eyes on the fair and broad lands of the Church, and their fingers itched to be groping in her treasury, and they hoped to patch their jerkins with her costly vestments. Court favourites were abbots in commendam, held prebendaries, without being ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... been seized upon by avaricious Jews as permission to exact usury of all the nations not of Hebrew blood, ignoring the fact that when given it was limited to those peoples under the curse of God for their iniquities. It can not justly be made to mean that the Hebrews ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... flanks, the captain, left to more freedom of thought, reflected on the prodigious genius of Aramis, a genius of acumen and intrigue, a match to which the Fronde and the civil war had produced but twice. Soldier, priest, diplomatist; gallant, avaricious, cunning; Aramis had never taken the good things of this life except as stepping-stones to rise to giddier ends. Generous in spirit, if not lofty in heart, he never did ill but for the sake of shining even yet more ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... first few hours was too much for the self-control of Colonel Gideon Ward's avaricious nature. He hesitated a long time, blinking hard as each shovelful of dirt sprayed against the breeze. Then he grasped an opportunity when he could talk with Cap'n Sproul apart, and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... this avaricious, extortionate and cruel statesman, that "the dark shades of his character were not relieved by a single virtue." His advent disturbed the public tranquillity. He plundered the people, cheated the proprietors, and on all occasions seems ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... "bewitchingly beautiful." It was easy to believe report in this case, for there must have been some strong inducement to make Frederick Kurston wed in his sixtieth year a woman barely twenty. It was not money; Mr. Kurston had plenty of money, and he was neither ambitious nor avaricious; besides, the woman he had chosen was both poor ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... countess de Monterey, which was also the work of Algardi. From an artistic point of view, he was most successful in his portrait-statues and groups of children, where he was obliged to follow nature most closely. In his later years he became very avaricious and amassed a great fortune. He died in Rome on the 10th of June ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... avaricious desire to accumulate riches, cooperating with a spirit of luxury and injustice, seems to be the leading cause of this peculiarly degrading and ignominious practice. Being once accustomed to subsist without labour, we become ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... traitor whom the earth shall swallow up? For thirty pieces of silver wouldst thou now sell that most loving friend and benefactor? O, pause while there is yet time. That blood-money will cry to heaven for vengeance, will burn like hot iron thy avaricious soul!" ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... which distinguishes one person from another. Purpose, intention, aim. Principles, fixed rules. Capacity, ability, the power of receiving ideas. Sordid, base, meanly avaricious. ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... these, who in life had been the famous statesman Peter de Vineis, Dante learns that at the judgement they will recover their bodies, like others, but will not be allowed to reassume them. The body will be hung on the tree to which it belongs. Here, as in the case of the avaricious and the wrathful, the spirits of other sinners take a part in the infliction of the punishment. The wood is inhabited by the souls of those who had wasted their substance in life, and these are constantly ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... Honorable Chaffee's undoing—was blonde, slender, notably fresh as yet, being only twenty-six, and as ruthless and unconsciously cruel as only the avaricious and unthinking type—unthinking in the larger philosophic meaning of the word—can be. To grasp the reason for her being, one would have had to see the spiritless South Halstead Street world from which she ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... wanted the money—not that he was avaricious—far from that; but he had numberless schemes in view, and he knew full well that without the gold they ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... he was, was a mere yeoman with nothing spiritual about him; the monks of Hyde were, the younger, gay comrades, only trying how loosely they could sit to their vows; the elder, churlish and avaricious; even the Warden of Elizabeth College was little more than a student. And in London, fresh phases had revealed themselves; the pomp, state, splendour and luxury of Archbishop Wolsey's house had been a shock to ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in a quandary. He was not greedy or avaricious; but to have a serpent for a son-in-law was, for a ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... Void of all honor, avaricious, rash, The daring tribe compound their boasted trash— Tincture of syrup, lotion, drop, or pill: All tempt the sick to trust the lying bill. 1412 CRABBE: ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... child-atheists and precocious profligates, calculating debauchees while their cheeks are still innocent of down, who, after the effervescence of a foul, vicious youth has spent itself, simmer down into avaricious, dishonest bourgeois and bloated cafe politicians. The teeth of the Republican dragon have been drawn, but they are sown broadcast from Dan even to Beersheba. Ancient realm of Capet, Valois, and ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... know what he meant by questionable propriety; the meaning of the expression is rather vague. He had returned in all honesty and sincerity of purpose to an honest life, and nothing in the world would have induced him, avaricious though he was, to commit an act that was positively wrong. Only the line that separates good from evil was not very clearly defined in his mind. This was due in a great measure to his education, and to the fact ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... for sound counsel, or for the execution of his plans. Tavannes was prudent, indeed; but, having been Anjou's lieutenant, and almost the author of his victories, would oppose a war that threatened to obscure his laurels. Vieilleville was wedded to his cups. Cosse was avaricious, and would sell all his friends for ten crowns. Montmorency alone was good and trustworthy, but so given to the pleasures of the chase that he would be sure to be absent at the very moment his help was indispensable.[892] It is not strange, under these circumstances, that Charles ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... ill-educated, yet fond of literature, although not himself a speaker,—fierce with slaves, but obedient to rulers, a lover of power and honour, which he hopes to gain by deeds of arms,—fond, too, of gymnastics and of hunting. As he advances in years he grows avaricious, for he has lost philosophy, which is the only saviour and guardian of men. His origin is as follows:—His father is a good man dwelling in an ill-ordered State, who has retired from politics in order that he may lead a quiet life. His mother is angry at her loss of precedence among other women; ...
— The Republic • Plato
... is not avaricious, but he saves money. He cannot help it. He has no tastes and he draws very large pay. His mind, therefore, broods over questions relating to the investment of money, the depreciation of silver, and the saving ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... this John gets the people into his traps. To-day he will act as if altogether stupid. To-morrow he is suddenly shrewd, and understands the business well. Then he is simple again and a pure lamb. Now he is avaricious, now generous. And so he goes on. Yes, he slips around among the people like a fox with his tail wagging, and when he picks out his victim, he fastens his teeth in his neck and the poor beggar is lost. He gets him in his ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... though he still continued to practise his profession, and to design many valuable bridges, drainage cuts, and other small jobs, that great undertaking was the last masterpiece of his long and useful life. His later days were passed in deserved honour and comparative opulence; for though never an avaricious man, and always anxious to rate his services at their lowest worth, he had gathered together a considerable fortune by the way, almost without seeking it. To the last, his happy cheerful disposition enabled him to go on labouring at the numerous schemes by which he hoped to benefit the world ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... rarity to the terrible Turk, for it was from Damascus in his part of the world that this precious fabric came most plentifully. So de Helly took Arras tapestries into Turkey, a suite representing the history of Alexander the Great, and the avaricious monarch was persuaded by reason of this and other ransom to let ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... with us as do these broader lines which mark these two classes among all other nations. They think that it is the grand characteristic of Columbia's children to be prejudiced, opinionated, selfish, avaricious, and unjust. It is vain to tell them that such are not specimens of American gentlemen. They will answer, "They call themselves gentlemen, and you receive them in your houses as such." It is utterly impossible for foreigners to thoroughly comprehend and ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... quite true to say that the doctrine of usury was that which gave the greatest trouble to the mediaeval writers, on account of the nicety of the distinctions with which it abounded, and on account of the ingenuity of avaricious merchants, who continually sought to evade the usury laws by disguising illegal under the guise of legal transactions. In practice, therefore, the usury doctrine was undoubtedly the most prominent part of the canonist teaching, because it was the ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... keeping.' BOSWELL. 'I have heard old Mr. Sheridan maintain, with much ingenuity, that a complete miser is a happy man; a miser who gives himself wholly to the one passion of saving.' JOHNSON. 'That is flying in the face of all the world, who have called an avaricious man a miser, because he is miserable[948]. No, Sir; a man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... self-love springs. For when we raise a son to riches and dignities, and leave an heir to much wealth, we become either ready to grasp at the property of the State, if in any case fear should be removed from the power which belongs to riches and rank; or avaricious, crafty, and hypocritical, if anyone is of slender purse, little strength, and mean ancestry. But when we have taken away self-love, there remains only love ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... he was avaricious—no. It was by no means necessary to the satisfaction of the philosopher, that the bargain should be to his own proper advantage. Provided a trade could be effected—a trade of any kind, upon any terms, or under any circumstances—a triumphant smile was seen for many days thereafter ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the watchman ever before me, not trusting him, although his frank smile somewhat disarmed my suspicion. It may be I did him an injustice, but I liked not the avaricious gleam in ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... Smith or Smythe. To attain his object,—viz., the rich widow's hand—the solicitor invites everybody to dinner. She gets his consent to the marriage of his ward to young Chesney, and eventually everybody but the avaricious ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... into three districts. The chief of each arrogates to himself the title of king. The soil is fairly productive, and rice, yams, guavas, earth-nuts, and bananas might be grown in plenty, but for the lazy, vicious, and avaricious character of the inhabitants who vie ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... The avaricious, gold-seeking, Suchong Pollyhong Ka-te-tow had performed his task; wealth poured into his coffers from the ambitious parents, who longed to boast of an alliance with the brother of the sun and moon, and many ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... triple reign of the house of Ducas, the two younger brothers were reduced to the vain honors of the purple; but the eldest, the pusillanimous Michael, was incapable of sustaining the Roman sceptre; and his surname of Parapinaces denotes the reproach which he shared with an avaricious favorite, who enhanced the price, and diminished the measure, of wheat. In the school of Psellus, and after the example of his mother, the son of Eudocia made some proficiency in philosophy and rhetoric; but his character was degraded, rather than ennobled, by the virtues of a monk and the learning ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... young spark Play'd no mad pranks at first: but Phaedria Got him immediately a music-girl: Fond of her to distraction! she belong'd To a most avaricious, sordid pimp; Nor had we aught to give;—th' old gentleman Had taken care of that. Naught else remain'd, Except to feed his eyes, to follow her, To lead her out to school, and hand her home. We too, for lack of other business, gave Our ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... and with untold business interests. Just look out there! [pointing out across the expectant audience] look there, and see the countless minions toiling servilely at your dread mandates. And yet—ha! ha! See! see!— They recognize the avaricious greed that would thus grind them in the very dust; they see, alas! they see themselves, half-clothed—half-fed, that you may glut your coffers. Half-starved, they listen to the wail of wife and babe, and ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... little doubt that the old couple were saving, if not avaricious. But when it was known, through the indiscreet volubility of Mammy Downey, that Daddy Downey sent the bulk of their savings, gratuities, and gifts to a dissipated and prodigal son in the East,—whose photograph the old man always carried with him,—it rather elevated him in their regard. ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... pale, agitated trembling, and with half suppressed grief and indignation, "I thank you, at least, for having suspended your judgment. No, I am not a coward; for heaven is my witness, that I knew of no danger to which the Society was exposed. Nor am I base and avaricious; for heaven is also my witness, that only at this moment I learn from you, father, that I may be ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... governments, but of wealthy capitalists or enterprising captains of industry. "Why do you suppose that there is so much talk now of an independent little state centering around Klagenfurt?" one of them asked me. "I will tell you: for the sake of some avaricious capitalists. Already arrangements are being pushed forward for the establishment of a bank of which most of the shares are to belong to X." Another said: "Dantzig is needed for politico-commercial reasons. Therefore it will ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... of the war, it was claimed that frauds and peculations were unavoidable; that the cupidity of the avaricious would take advantage of the necessities of the nation, and for a time must revel and grow rich amidst the groans and griefs of the people; that pressing wants must yield to the extortion of the base; that when the capital was threatened, railroad ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... of dollars and cents. In her fancy she juggled huge sums of money; she drew extravagant pictures of a glittering future in which the whole family figured. Throughout this sordid chatter, with its avaricious gloatings and endless repetitions, Lorelei sat listless, her thoughts far from pleasant. It had required this final touch to make her fully feel ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... for their obstinacy. They next tried the effect of a bribe, offering to pay him a basket of corn and a fowl for each hut in the village if he would wait till the harvest was gathered. Chopart proved to be as avaricious as he was arbitrary, and agreed ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... designed us and our children to be slaves and beasts of burden to them and their children.—I say, I do not only expect to be held up to the public as an ignorant, impudent and restless disturber of the public peace, by such avaricious creatures, as well as a mover of insubordination—and perhaps put in prison or to death, for giving a superficial exposition of our miseries, and exposing tyrants. But I am persuaded, that many of my brethren, particularly those who are ignorantly in league ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... avaricious. Your present property is sufficient for me. With your permission, instead of doubling the property, and doubling myself, I will remain ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... with every feature and line of its parent. This castle-building, however, is harmless. If it does not strengthen, still it does not absolutely impoverish or corrupt, characters. Of some castle-building one cannot say so much. Character is assuredly corrupted by avaricious dreams of marriage as a road to material opulence and luxury. There is, indeed, no end to the depraved broodings which may come to an empty and undirected mind. If the emotions and the intellect are not tended and trained, they will run to an evil ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... appeared to be all strength. His whole life seemed like a rod of burnished steel—a passion-proof life, a fire-proof rod. The owners of the Chrysolite, Messrs. Ruin & Ruin, of Billiter Street, piqued themselves on knowing his tender point. He was avaricious, thought they; he would do much for money, and they would some day try him in the furnace. It was true, indeed, that the old sailor had amassed considerable wealth during his frequent voyages to the East. It was true ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... more distinct, more full of summons; the orifice that was the end of the avenue gaped like a mouth that opens more widely. A line of donkeys appeared, with here and there a white camel with tasselled trappings, surrounded by groups of shouting Egyptians, who stared at the carriage with avaricious eyes. "Ah—ah!" shouted the coachman. The horses broke into a gallop, turned into a garden on the right, and drew up before ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... distillers did not hesitate to endanger the lives of the inhabitants by such practices), poured in full volume over the rich livery-cloak of the servant, which was completely spoiled. The master, who was as powerful as he was avaricious, made a formal complaint against Bruin and his stall as a nuisance; and as it was impossible even in Caneville to obtain perfect justice, the report, without other inquiry, was taken as correct, and Bruin, boiling with rage, had ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... and may be generally described as being unwashed, ragged, and carnivorous; in color swarthy; in lineaments and expression avaricious and shrewd; and in appetites voracious. The latter were of the common species, of the usual size, and of approved gravity. There were two of each sex; being very equally paired as to ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Manyuema started to lay down their loads, but this was altogether too much for the avaricious Arabs. With loud shouts and curses they aimed their guns full upon the bearers, threatening instant death to any who might lay down his load. They could give up firing the village, but the thought of abandoning this enormous fortune in ivory was ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... this Pfalz business that Herr Luiscius, the Prussian Minister in Holland, got into trouble; of whom there is a light dash of outline-portraiture by Voltaire, which has made him memorable to readers. This "fat King of Prussia," says Voltaire, was a dreadfully avaricious fellow, unbeautiful to a high degree ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... large formed Italian model,) and even Perugino, in that there is about his noblest faces a shortcoming, indefinable; an absence of the full outpouring of the sacred spirit that there is in Angelico; traceable, I doubt not, to some deficiencies and avaricious flaws of his heart, whose consequences in his conduct were such as to give Vasari hope that his lies might stick to him (for the contradiction of which in the main, if there be not contradiction enough in every line that the hand of Perugino drew, compare Rio, de ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... animal, who knows how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination to do.' Examples of this convenience abound. The Barbary Jews were rich and industrious, and, accordingly, their wealth provoke the cupidity of the indolent and avaricious Mussulmans. These latter, whenever a long drought had destroyed vegetation, and the strenuous prayers offered up in the mosques had proved unavailing for its removal, were accustomed to argue—and a mighty convenient argument it was—that it was the foul ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... represents the king as an avaricious and irreligious sovereign: he is said one day to have conceived the sacrilegious desire to bring about a conflict between an ordinary bull and the Mnevis adored at Heliopolis. The gods, doubtless angered by his crimes, are ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... his position. He held himself in every sense the father of his people, and by a nice condescension the citizens of Quebec were included in the patriarchal fold. The far-away city on the borders of the world was no longer to be abandoned to the avaricious whims of a trading company: the King himself would now take it under his royal care. Daniel de Remy, Sieur de Courcelles, was appointed Governor, with Jean Baptiste Talon as Intendant; and the valorous Marquis de Tracy was commissioned to New France as the King's personal representative, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... prejudices, and a slave to priest craft, in which phrase Dwining included religion of every kind. On the whole, he considered Ramorny as one whom nature had assigned to him as a serf, to mine for the gold which he worshipped, and the avaricious love of which was his greatest failing, though by no means his worst vice. He vindicated this sordid tendency in his own eyes by persuading himself that it had its source ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... prone to discontent, and avaricious after imaginary causes of lamentation. Like lubberly monks, we belabor our own shoulders, and take a vast satisfaction in the music of our own groans. Nor is this said by way of paradox; daily experience shows the truth of these observations. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... one of strength and depth. Even now no Jew in fiction is ever a weakling or a trifler. In whatever light he is presented, a Shylock of Shakespeare, an Isaac of Scott, a Nathan of Lessing, a Sidonia of Disraeli—revengeful, avaricious, bigoted, benevolent, magnificent, talented—he is always a character of striking power and intensity. The ancient type of Greek does not appear in modern fiction. If he did, it would be as a subtle reasoner, perfect critic, polished man of the world, ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... address to a wonderful degree of sharpness; and by reason of this the less respectful of the townspeople were accustomed to say, "The Deacon is very small at home, but great in a trade." Not that the Deacon could by any means be called an avaricious or miserly man: he had always his old Spanish milled quarter ready for the contribution-box upon Collection-Sundays; and no man in the parish brought a heavier turkey to the parson's larder on donation-days: but he could no more resist the sharpening of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... adage of the poet, that "the course of true love never did run smooth;" and, in the father of the maiden, they found that a stumbling-block lay in the path of their happiness, for he was of an avaricious disposition, and they knew that he valued gold more than nobility of blood. Their fears grew more and more, as Isabelle, in her private conversations, endeavoured to sound her father on this point; and although the suspicions of affection are ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... and spirited as well as handsome; they ruled their husbands, oppressed their vassals, and inspired terror in various ways. But still their characters were very different. Havise had wit and eloquence, but she was cruel and avaricious. Isabel was generous, enterprising, and gay, so that she was beloved and esteemed by those about her. She rode in knight's armour when her vassals were called to war, and showed as much daring among ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... own? Oh, I protest against this vile abjection of youth to age! look at fashionable society as you know it. What does it pretend to be? An exquisite dance of nymphs. What is it? A horrible procession of wretched girls, each in the claws of a cynical, cunning, avaricious, disillusioned, ignorantly experienced, foul-minded old woman whom she calls mother, and whose duty it is to corrupt her mind and sell her to the highest bidder. Why do these unhappy slaves marry anybody, however old and vile, sooner than not marry at all? Because marriage is their only means ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... aid, or indeed any other form of donation, is after all a cheap description of charity. The most avaricious persons may sometimes. resort to annual or other stated contributions, as expedients to save trouble and to pacify conscience; and while we duly appreciate this periodical goodness, it is insufficient as ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... FONTAINE'S LIFE PREFACE Joconde The Cudgelled and Contented Cuckold The Husband Confessor The Cobbler The Peasant and His Angry Lord The Muleteer The Servant Girl Justified The Three Gossips' Wager The Old Man's Calendar The Avaricious Wife and Tricking Gallant The Jealous Husband The Gascon Punished The Princess Betrothed to the King of Garba The Magick Cup The Falcon The Little Dog The Eel Pie The Magnificent The Ephesian Matron Belphegor The Little Bell ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... to Avignon his son Agapito, who was destined for the church, that he might be educated under the eyes of the Cardinal and the Bishop, who were his uncles. These two prelates joined with their father in entreating Petrarch to undertake the superintendence of Agapito's studies. Our poet, avaricious of his time, and jealous of his independence, was at first reluctant to undertake the charge; but, from his attachment to the family, at last accepted it. De Sade tells us that Petrarch was not successful in the young man's education; and, from a natural partiality for the hero of his biography, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... avaricious disposition could thus forego such a prospect of advantage was the occasion ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... his brow at the thought, for in that event all his time had been thrown away, and there was no possibility of his meeting his various engagements. It was not one Hoffman but many that beset him, although Hoffman was truly the most avaricious of his tribe, where all were greedy. And then, as he gazed on the lovely countenance by his side, he thought of the affection which had resigned all luxury, and, far above all luxury, that consideration which women so prize, for him, and that he had brought her to a home ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... only daughter of M. and Mme. Felix Grandet; born at Saumur in 1796. Strictly reared by a mother gentle and devout, and by a father hard and avaricious. The single bright ray across her life was an absolutely platonic love for her cousin Charles Grandet. But, once away from her, this young man was forgetful of her; and, on his return from the Indies in 1827, a rich man, he married the young daughter of a nobleman. Upon this ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... got rid of their money, and craved again the power they had sold. They began to consider how the citizens might once more be made serfs. They would not have hesitated long but for that inconvenient grant of Louis the Fat. But King Louis might be managed. He was normally avaricious. The bishop invited him to Laon to take part in the keeping of Holy Week, trusting to get his aid to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... one else. It is certainly not an unhappy frame of mind, and I am not aware that it indicates any depraved condition. I don't know of any very bad men who make puns, but I have known of many good men who make bad puns. It is not an avaricious state of the mind, for who ever heard of "puns for sale or manufactured to order," or of a man getting rich in the wholesale ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... seen, a lump of rugged gold, pure and clean, which Mike estimated to be worth four hundred pounds. It glowed in the sunlight with the lustre of a live ember, and, gazing upon it, Done trembled again with the vehement joy that thrills in the veins of the least avaricious digger at the sight of such ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... for ever!" said Mr. Tompkins, speaking to himself, as he stepped into the street from Wolford's dwelling, feeling lighter in heart than he had felt for a long time. "What madness, with the means I have had in my hands, ever to have fed your avaricious maw!" ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... once called on an old woman who lived all alone in a little cottage in an extensive forest in Norway. Her name was Gertrude, and she was a hard, avaricious old creature, who had not a kind word for anybody, and although she was not badly off in a worldly point of view, she was too stingy and selfish to assist any poor wayfarer who by chance passed her cottage door. One day our Lord happened ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... furniture, clothes, and ornaments. This, however, she did so incautiously, that attention was drawn to it; upon which Dhanamittra went again to the king, saying: "I suspect that the actress, Kamamanjari, has got my purse; for though notoriously avaricious, she is giving away everything she possesses, and there must be some strong reason ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... titter, and to whisper to each other in their own language, which sounded just like Lettish,[56] and which their guest could not understand. The boy began to reproach his avaricious friend in his thoughts for having thus sent him to Porgu without thinking of what might happen to him; but presently the younger demons seized upon him, and began to toss him from one to another like a ball, sometimes ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... the avaricious principle of fathers. But observe that the avaricious principle is here mitigated very considerably. It is avarice by proxy; it is avarice not working by itself or for itself, but through the medium of parental affection, meaning ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in which he lived, for he agreed with the proverb which says that fools build houses for wise men to live in, though "the greatest part of Rome sooner or later came into his hands," as Plutarch observes. He was of that sordid, avaricious character which covets wealth merely for the desire to be considered rich, for the vulgar popularity that accompanies that reputation, and not for ambition or enjoyment. He was said to be uninfluenced by the love of luxury or by the other passions ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... from tourists admitted to view them. But his favourite abode was almost as ruinous as his cottages, and an artist in search of a model for the domestic interior of the Master of Ravenswood might have found what he wanted at Kirkburn, the usual lair of this avaricious nobleman. It was a keep of the sixteenth century, and looked as if it had never been papered or painted since Queen Mary's time. But it was near the collieries; and within its blackened walls, and among its bleak fields and grimy trees, Lord Restalrig chose to live alone, with an ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... merely suffering the slave-trade to be carried on among the natives. The constitution fixed a scale of revenue, and levied a tariff on all imported articles. A customs-service was introduced, and many reforms enforced which greatly angered a few avaricious white men whose profession as men-stealers was abolished by the constitution. Moreover, there were others who for years had been trading and doing business along the coast, without paying any duties on the articles they exported. The ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams |
