"Extort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reduced the judges to contrition, and having proceeded to call forward the local secretary and to extort from him a long and painful apology, Mrs Bosenna wound up with a threat to bundle the whole Demonstration out of her field if she heard of any further nonsense, and, taking Dinah's arm, sailed off (so to speak) with all the ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... it was a great deal more than I had been able to extort from Mr. Grewter. I took a second cup of the sweet warm liquid which my new friends called tea, in order to have an excuse for loitering, while I tried to obtain more light from the reminiscences of the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... Parisian lawyer, whose signature the widow Morin tried to extort. She also attempted his assassination, and was condemned, January 11, 1812, on the evidence of a number of witnesses, among others that of Poiret, to twenty years of hard labor. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... warmly replied that genius cost its possessor nothing; that it was the inheritance of the whole race incidentally vested in a single individual, and that if that individual employed his monopoly of it to extort money from others, he deserved nothing better than hanging. The artist lost his temper, and suggested that if Trefusis could not feel that the prerogative of art was divine, perhaps he could understand that a painter ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Our own country cannot but regret and resent any formal stipulations which fetter its primacy of influence and control on the American continent and in American seas; and the concessions of principle over-eagerly made in 1850, in order to gain compensating advantages which our weakness could not extort otherwise, must needs cause us to chafe now, when we are potentially, though, it must be confessed sorrowfully, not actually, stronger by double than we were then. The interest of Great Britain ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... mean all emperors; or speaking of Machiavel, comprehend all statesmen; or in our Sordido, all farmers; and so of the rest: than which nothing can be uttered more malicious or absurd. Indeed there are a sort of these narrow-eyed decypherers, I confess, that will extort strange and abstruse meanings out of any subject, be it never so conspicuous and innocently delivered. But to such, where'er they sit concealed, let them know, the author defies them and their writing-tables; and hopes no sound or safe judgment will infect itself with their contagious ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... companions are no better—and in less than two years the million of francs which I bestowed on her as a dowry has been squandered, recklessly squandered—for there isn't a penny of it left. And, at this very hour, my daughter and my son-in-law are plotting to extort money from me. On the day before yesterday—listen carefully to this—my son-in-law came to ask me for a hundred thousand francs, and when I refused them, he threatened if I did not give them to him that he would publish some letters written by ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or stolen. These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions of the mind, and in obedience to pure motives. The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative. The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power: but they who do not the thing have ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... that I could extort from him is as follows.—He will give me time, and this negotiable paper in exchange for stock.—Also notes for forty-seven thousand francs, to be collected from a man named Michonnin, a gentleman broker, not considered very ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... hereditary attributes of the house of Waverley. With a grace and delicacy worthy the hero of a romance, Sir Everard withdrew his claim to the hand of Lady Emily. He had even, before leaving Blandeville Castle, the address to extort from her father a consent to her union with the object of her choice. What arguments he used on this point cannot exactly be known, for Sir Everard was never supposed strong in the powers of persuasion; but ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... to fleeting aristocratic splendor, but simply to the luxury of rapid motion. But Lord Altamont was firm in resisting this petition at that time. The remote consequence was, that by way of redressing the violated equilibrium to our feelings, we subscribed throughout Wales to extort six horses from the astonished innkeepers, most of whom declined the requisition, and would furnish only four, on the plea that the leaders would only embarrass the other horses; but one at Bangor, from whom we coolly requested ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... time forever. Who struck the first blow that humbled the Barbary flag—which, for a hundred years, had been the terror of Christendom,—drove it from the Mediterranean, and put an end to the infamous tribute it had been accustomed to extort? It was the American sailor, and the name of Decatur and his gallant companions will be as ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... degradation of all dignity, than almost every part and member of the present arrangement? Nor, in the whole course of our history, has any compliance with the will of the people ever been known to extort from any prince a greater contradiction to all his own declared affections and dislikes, than that which is now adopted, in direct opposition to everything the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... resolved to receive no assistance even from her, so that he might wholly claim the credit of regaining all that he had lost; but now, in the recklessness of despair, he proposed not only to ask for all the money he could obtain, but, if necessary, extort it by ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... summoning the deity. The attributes of some of the plants which Pliny discusses along with the peony are suggestive. Pieces of the root of the achaemenis (? perhaps Euphorbia antiquorum or else a night-shade) taken in wine, torment the guilty to such an extent in their dreams as to extort from them a confession of their crimes. He gives it the name also of "hippophobas," it being an especial object of terror to mares. The complementary story is told of the mandrake in mediaeval Europe. The decomposing tissues of the body of an innocent victim on the gallows when ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... habit on Earth. Only they carry it further there—swindle their brothers, deceive their parents, oppress the weak, extort from the poor; work, toil, plot, cheat, rob, yes, even kill! in order to lay up a store of something they can never take away with them, and which renders them unhappy oftener than happy while they ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... would like to depart with a full pocket; but he would never dare to release Trent, even if he could. It's simply a trick. They are playing artfully upon the anxiety, the suspense, the wretched state of fear and hope and dread in which young Trent's friends are held, to extort from them a little money, which will keep them in comfort while they wear out either the father or ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... assembled we may have, all winter, for the asking—if we will but ask ourselves instead of the lawn-mower man—an effect of home, of comfort, cheer and grace, of summer and autumn reminiscences and of spring's anticipations, immeasurably better than any ordinary eye or fancy can extort from the rectangular and stiffened-out nakedness of unplanted boundaries; immeasurably better than the month-by-month daily death-stare of shroud-like snow around houses standing barefooted on the frozen ground. It may be by hearty choice that we abide where we must forego outdoor roses in ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... the teachers, between him and the town. For all that we are filled with a profound respect for a man who can fight in himself so great a fight, and win so great a victory. It is the sturdy peasant blood which he derived from his mother that enables him to wrestle thus mightily with the Lord, and extort at last the tardy blessing; for we are assured in the last pages of the book that he makes a marriage, which is a further step toward health and virtue. We are not assured that he conquers happiness ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... are resolved to extort a confession from me, Louisa,' said Miss Tox instantly, 'I have no alternative but to confide to you that ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... that fat people possess, the corpulent matron succeeded in vanquishing Germinie's last resistance by dint of this tacit assurance and promise of marriage; and she finally allowed the young man's ardor to extort from her what she believed that she was giving in advance to ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... of his past life, of his errors and his follies, confessing even the worst of his actions; as, for instance, having abused his mother's and sister's affection to extort from them all the money ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... it all. But all his love, all his sweetness, all his truth, all his eloquence should avail nothing with her towards overcoming that spirit of self-sacrifice by which she was dominated. Though he should extort from her all her secret, that would be her strength. Though she should have to tell him of her failing health,—her certainly failing health,—though even that should be necessary, she certainly would not be won from her purpose. It might be sweet, she thought, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Gandhi thus: "You cannot fast against a tyrant, for it will be a species of violence done to him. Fasting can only be resorted to against a lover not to extort rights, but to reform him." Case Against ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin
... visited almost every English gaol, and in nearly all of them he found frightful abuses which had been noticed half-a-century before, but which had been left unredressed by Parliament. Gaolers who bought their places were paid by fees, and suffered to extort what they could. Even when acquitted, men were dragged back to their cells for want of funds to discharge the sums they owed to their keepers. Debtors and felons were huddled together in the prisons which Howard found crowded by the legislation of the day. No separation was preserved ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... Emperor became of importance in his day, he relaxed his severity to some extent, and at times at least showed him the respect due to an ally. On other occasions he would relapse into his original practice of violent and scornful attack—to such a point, as is seen elsewhere, as to extort the vigorous protests of Thackeray and Ruskin. "It is a tradition," it is said, "that when, during the entente cordiale, the Emperor and Empress paid a visit to Her Majesty in London, two cartoons were suggested ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... excellence be which can extort this from us, freelivers, like yourself, and all of your just resentments against the rest of her family, and offered our assistance to execute your vengeance on them? But we cannot think it reasonable that you should punish an innocent creature, who loves you so well, and who is your ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... of America, yet we ought not to expect that she will move a step in our favor; that she has no particular interest in terminating the war; that as she means to assume the character of a mediator, she must preserve that of justice and impartiality; that nothing, therefore, can extort from her measures that are favorable to us, but a conviction, that we cannot be brought back to the dominion of Great Britain. That this should lead us to think (a sentiment which he desires the Minister to inculcate) that our success depends upon our ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... was to prevail on congress, by a show of preparation for war, to extort from the cabinet of Madrid, what it persisted ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... dazzle of sun, and out of it her eyes regarded me with such leaden penetration beneath their thick lids that I doubt if my face concealed the least thought from her. "But there, there," she added very suavely, stooping her head a little, "don't trouble to answer me. I never extort an answer. Boys are queer fish. Brains might perhaps have suggested his washing his hands before luncheon; but—not my choice, Smithers. God forbid! And now, perhaps, you would like to go into the garden again. I cannot actually see from here, but I should not be surprised if Arthur is now skulking ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... is neither of the East nor of the West but rather international in its universality, yet India is specially fitted to make great contributions. {FN8-5} The burning Indian imagination, which can extort new order out of a mass of apparently contradictory facts, is held in check by the habit of concentration. This restraint confers the power to hold the mind to the pursuit of truth ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... plot known as Ridolfi's was discovered, and it is to be noted that Elizabeth herself ordered the rack to be used to extort information. The result was condemnation of Norfolk to the block. The recalcitrance of Henry of Anjou led to his definitely withdrawing from his courtship, while the young Alencon became the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... nobles now combined to extort from the king some of the despotic feudal privileges which existed in the twelfth century. They thought that in this hour of reverse Henry would be glad to purchase their powerful support by surrendering many of the prerogatives of the crown. After holding a meeting, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... places, have made it a rule never to take a domestic that has once lived in an English family; the consequence is that those engaged by the English are of the worst description, a sort of pariahs among the community, who extort and cheat their employers without mercy. If not permitted so to do, they leave them at a minutes warning; and you cannot go to any foreign colony of English people without listening to very justified tirades of the villany of the servants. Upon the same principle, there are few places abroad where ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Even the Protestants, for their own sakes, were often obliged to connive at the evasion of laws so extremely severe, and which introduced much difficulty in their dealings with Catholics; but, when any Protestant wished to be revenged upon a Catholic, or to extort money from him, he found in these laws a ready instrument for his purpose. By an additional Act, in 1726, it was ordained that a Roman Catholic priest, marrying a Protestant to a Catholic, should suffer ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... actual benefit from the money which you have earned by your many years of conscientious industry. To me there is no other spectacle in the world so humiliating as that of people laying themselves out to extort money from others. Do tear yourself away from the sponges. You and Miss Eva ought to have a quiet winter in a congenial climate. I hope you will go to Florida, and, after doing Jacksonville and St. Augustine, why not rent a little furnished cottage and ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... go without delay, and the appellant leads him as a prisoner. No one is punished capitally, unless taken in the act, or unless he confesses; but when witnessed against by many, he is severely tortured to extort confession. Homicide, adultery, and fornication, are punished with death; but a man may use his own slave as he pleases. Great thefts are punished capitally; but for small ones, as for stealing a sheep, when the party is ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... English shores. Henry VII. treated them with all possible courtesy, and made Philip a Knight of the Garter, while Philip repaid the compliment by investing Prince Henry with the Order of the Golden Fleece.[61] But advantage was taken of Philip's plight to extort from him the surrender of the Earl of Suffolk, styled the White Rose, and a commercial treaty with the Netherlands, which the Flemings named the Malus Intercursus. Three months after his arrival in Castile, Philip died, and Henry began to fish in the troubled waters for a share in ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... clothes.—Houses were likewise not unfrequently abandoned by the servants through fear of sharing the fate of their masters, and sometimes exposed equally by the arrest of those who had been left in charge, in order to extort discoveries of plate, money, &c. the concealment of which they ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... not to extort the tenderest acknowledgment from me that I was capable of. I told him his care of me was so obliging, that I knew not what return to make him, but if he pleased to leave me to my choice I desired no greater favour than to trail a pike under his command in the ensuing battle. "I ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... always reached my ears. She played a pious, modest, reserved part, in order to excite my curiosity. And at last, to-day she plays the prude. She refuses my forgiveness, in hopes by this generous device, to extort it from ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... strong, it may surround a house whose defenders have been warned of their coming, and attempt to starve them into submission. In the old days it was not uncommon for a strong party of Kayans to descend upon a settlement of the more peaceable coastwise people, and to extort from them a large payment of brass-ware as the price of their safety. If the unfortunate household submitted to this extortion, the Kayans would keep faith with them, and would ratify a treaty ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... so, but with so unmistakable an air of cunning and triumph that Eric was both astonished and dismayed. Could the miscreant have any further plot against him? At first he fancied that Billy might attempt to extort money by a threat of telling Dr Rowlands; but this supposition he banished as unlikely, since it might expose Billy himself to ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... blights, mildews, and damps. "Take this in thy hand," said Mercury, "and with it boldly enter her gates; when she shall strike thee with her rod, thinking to change thee, as she has changed thy friends, boldly rush in upon her with thy sword, and extort from her the dreadful oath of the gods, that she will use no enchantments against thee; then force her to restore thy abused companions." He gave Ulysses the little white flower, and, instructing him how ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... their dead husband, wife, father, mother, or the like; hoping there was the same God, the same spirit of piety, religion, and charity, still dwelling in the house as before the death of the person deceased. These and the like expressions, uttered in a most suppliant and pathetic voice, used to extort not only very handsome contributions, but tears from the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... ungentlemanlike, and the criticism is chiefly verbal. In the note the reader may peruse an ample specimen of the kind of wit, or rather banter, employed by this facetious person.[20] The letters were written successively at different periods; for Clifford in the last complains that he cannot extort an answer, and therefore seems to conceive that his ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... state prisoner with so much care and curiosity as I did him. Nay, I did more; for, contrary to the laws of this country, I gave him in some manner, the QUESTION ordinary and extraordinary; and I have infinite pleasure in telling you that the rack which I put him to, did not extort from him one single word that was not such as I wished to hear of you. I heartily congratulate you upon such an advantageous testimony, from so creditable a witness. 'Laudati a laudato viro', is one of the greatest pleasures and honors a rational being can have; may you long continue ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... (they have just introduced them[2]) trinkets, and especially watch chains and strings of beads, spread in gay colours upon the ground—the undulations of the chaussee—and a bright blue sky above the green trees—all these things irresistibly rivet the attention and extort the admiration of a stranger. You may have your boots cleaned, and your breakfast prepared, upon these same boulevards. Felicitous ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... which are supposed to serve as benefactors of suffering mankind? They have milliards at their disposal, but use most of it for the maintenance of armies, bureaucracies, police forces. With these vast sums, which they extort from the people, they increase instead of ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... interview there was a sort of bullying swagger in his air, which towards the end gave place to the brutal vehemence of an undisguised ruffian—a transition which had tempted me into a belief that he might seek even forcibly to extort from me a consent to his wishes, or by means still more horrible, of which I scarcely dared to trust myself to think, to possess himself ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... pretence of misapprehension, and if modesty merely had been the obstacle, such questions would not have been wanting; but we considered, that, if the disclosure were productive of pain or disgrace, it was inhuman to extort it. ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... alarm. "No," said, "I will not extort your reasons. It is a shame of me. Your bare will ought to be law in this house; and what reasons could reconcile me to losing you so suddenly? You are the joy of our eyes, the delight of our ears, the idol of all our hearts. You will leave ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... and meekness. But Beatrix's nature was different to that tender parent's; she seemed to accept her grief and to defy it; nor would she allow it (I believe not even in private and in her own chamber) to extort from her the confession of even a tear of humiliation or a cry of pain. Friends and children of our race, who come after me, in which way will you bear your trials? I know one that prays God will give you love rather than pride, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the other, he was trying with all his might to extort a confession from him. But Dutreuil drew himself up and coldly, with a sort of scorn in ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... kind as she was sometimes at Stoneleigh, but as a gambler, an adventuress, a woman of whom men jested and made sport—a woman who had probably ensured and fleeced him, as Neil would have expressed it. Bessie knew all the miserable catalogue of expedients resorted to by her mother to extort money from her victims; cards, chess, bets, philopenas, loans she never intended to pay, and which she accepted as gifts the instant the offer was made, and when these failed, pitiful tales of scanty means and pressing needs, an invalid husband at home, and ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... thoroughly rely. And it was no slight proof of his force of character and energy, as well as of his address, that, as the National Guard could not be employed out of the routine of their regular duty without a special authorisation from the civil power, he contrived to extort from Petion, as mayor of the city, a formal authority to augment his brigade for the special occasion, and, if force should be used against him, to ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... silent for a moment. Then with the air of a martyr, from whom the rack can only extort a fuller confession of his faith—though I fear she had no deeper gospel at the root of it than Byron had ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... in south or north but had yielded him their finny brood. By young authors he was frequently consulted, and he entered with enthusiasm into their concerns; many poets ushered their volumes into the world under his kindly patronage. He had his weaker points; but his worth and genius were such as to extort the reluctant testimony of one who was latterly an avowed antagonist, that he was "the most remarkable man that ever wore the maud ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... almost seems," went on Mrs. Wade, "as if Northway really had no intention of using his power to extort money. To be sure, your own income is not to be despised by a man in his position; but most rascals would have gone to Mr. Quarrier.—He is still in love ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... noblemen or governors always reside with the Soldan to assist him with their councils and to carry his orders into execution. The Mameluke government is exceedingly oppressive to the merchants and even to the other Mahometan inhabitants of Damascus. When the Soldan thinks fit to extort a sum of money from any of the nobles or merchants, he gives two letters to the governor of the castle, in one of which is contained a list of such as he thinks proper to be invited into the castle, and in the other is set down what sum the Soldan is ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... Helmholtz, has said of him, "He did not try to translate nature into abstract conceptions, but takes it as a complete work of art, which must reveal its contents spontaneously to an intelligent observer." Goethe never became a thorough experimentalist; he did not want "to extort the secret from nature by pumps and retorts." He waited patiently for a voluntary revelation, i.e., until he could surprise that secret by an intuitive glance; for it was his conviction that if you live intimately with Nature she will sooner or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... have a petit verre with me. You see I don't stand on ceremony with you; I say whatever comes into my head, because I know you to be a fair-minded man. Now I tell you your prefet is all wrong in trying to extort those forty-two thousand francs from the city. Just think once of all our losses since the beginning of the war. In the first place, before the battle, we had the entire French army on our hands, a set of ragged, hungry, exhausted men; and then along came your ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... inclined to be silent; and would only say that the Peruvians had mistaken them for a couple of Spaniards, and that they had consequently escaped a terrible death by the very skin of their teeth. And when Dick further pressed him with several very obvious questions, the only reply which he could extort was, that in the excitement of the moment certain words, the meaning of which he did not in the least understand, had involuntarily escaped his lips, and that it was undoubtedly those mysterious words which had wrought the singular change in the priests' ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... officers the only offenders. A swarm of civil servants flew westwards from Byzantium and lighted on the unhappy country. Their duty was to extort money by any and all means for their master, their pleasure to accumulate fortunes for themselves; but whether the logothete plundered for the Emperor or for himself, the Italian tax-payer equally had the life-blood ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... was proclaiming the sternest doctrines of a renovated Catholicism. A spell which acted so widely and so marvellously could not be altogether unfelt by a mind whose peculiar property it was to yield itself to every influence in order to extort its secret and comprehend its power. Beyond this point the magic failed. "In all my transitions,"—thus he has written of himself,—"I have never alienated my judgment and my will; I have never pledged my belief. But I had a power of comprehending persons and things which gave ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... bestowing a thousand anathemas upon his red brethren, he informed us that he had left the red man forever, and was willing to join his white brothers, and to wage an exterminating warfare against his own kindred. We strove to extort from him the cause of this ebullition of passion, but he only shook his head in reply to our questions, and uttered a guttural "ough." We at first suspected him of some treacherous plot; but there was such an air of candor and ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... accounting for the trust funds which the complainant recognized were legally in the hands of Aguinaldo. It could be carried on only with great difficulty without his presence and without his account books. Meetings were held, and Artacho was denounced as attempting to extort blackmail, but he refused to yield, and Aguinaldo, rather than explain the inner workings of the Hongkong junta before a British court, prepared for flight. A summons was issued for his appearance before the supreme ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... Parliament in London that was very much engrossed with other matters. We cannot do better than to quote the Puritan biographer Clarke.[31] "A report was carried to the Parliament ... as if some busie men had made use of some ill Arts to extort such confession; ... thereupon a special Commission of Oyer and Terminer was granted for the trial of these Witches." Care was to be used, in gathering evidence, that confessions should be voluntary and should be backed by "many collateral circumstances." ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... one was certain of employment, even at twopence a day. Everybody was controlled by the priests, whose power rested on their ability to stimulate religious fears, and who were supported by such contributions as they were able to extort from the superstitious and ignorant people,—by nature brave and generous and joyous, but improvident and reckless. It was the wonder of O'Connell how they could remain cheerful amid such privations and such ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... company had to remove the rails and discard the rolling stock. But the ten millions were well invested in this public-utility trust, for the company had a monopoly of the street railway service and electric power and gas supply of Salt Lake City; and its franchises left it free to extort whatever it could from the people of the whole country side, by virtue of a partnership with the Church authorities whereby extortion was given the protection of "God's ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... take them, and extort By any kind of torment the truth from them. —Our present business is, I take it, this: That I should win the wife of Pamphilus To return home; which so I but effect, I sha'n't regret the same of having done What others of my ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... I've come to see you on a matter of business—an important matter upon which I wish your advice. And I not only wish it, but I need it, as you will appreciate when I tell you that my occupation for the next few weeks, months, or years—as the case may be—will consist in endeavoring to extort a little money from Mr. John ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... base occupation he followed of a treacherous spy who, residing in the Canadas, came, for the mere consideration of gold, to sell political information to the enemies of the country that gave him asylum and protection. I added that his visit to me was to extort money, under a threat of publishing our consanguinity, and that dread of his (my lover's) partiality being decreased by the disclosure, had induced me to throw my arms, in the earnestness of entreaty upon his ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... to be nothing more than a poor Bedlam beggar, who had crept into this deserted hovel for shelter, and with his talk about devils frighted the fool, one of those poor lunatics who are either mad, or feign to be so, the better to extort charity from the compassionate country people, who go about the country, calling themselves poor Tom and poor Turlygood, saying, "Who gives anything to poor Tom?" sticking pins and nails and sprigs of rosemary into their arms to make them bleed; and with such horrible ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... bladder: no mention, we believe, occurs of glass being thus employed. The rich were preceded by a slave bearing their lantern. This Cicero mentions as being the habit of Catiline upon his midnight expeditions; and when M. Antony was accused of a disgraceful intrigue, his lantern-bearer was tortured to extort a confession whither he had conducted his master. One of these machines, of considerable ingenuity and beauty of workmanship, was found in Herculaneum, and another almost exactly the same, at Pompeii a few years after. In form it is cylindrical, with a hemispherical top, and it is made ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... by their own representatives. The Stamp Act says we shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase, nor grant, nor recover debts; we shall neither marry nor make our wills unless we pay such and such sums, and thus it is intended to extort our money from us, or ruin us by the consequences ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... intercourse with strangers appear impatient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise. The most slender eulogium is acceptable to them; the most exalted seldom contents them; they unceasingly harass you to extort praise, and if you resist their entreaties they fall to praising themselves. It would seem as if, doubting their own merit, they wished to have it constantly exhibited before their eyes. Their vanity is not only greedy, but restless and jealous; it will grant nothing, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!" To be sure what the robber demanded of me—my money—was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union to extort my vote, can ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... it from the start. He could remember his mother helping his father make the sausage and head-cheese and pickle the pigs' feet, which they took turns in selling at as great a price as they could extort from the townspeople. She was a good and tender mother, and when her little Yawcup, as the boys called Jacob in mimicry after her, had grown to the school-going age, she taught him to fight the Americans, who stoned him when he came out of his gate, and mobbed ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... used—drift about in their vapoury limbo. I have the key to this land of dreams. Over the earth I shall float my rainbows of art like a flock of angels. With them I propose to dazzle the eyes of mankind, to arouse sleeping souls. From the chords of the combined arts I shall extort nobler cadences, nobler rhythms, for men to live by, for ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... honest Citizens, could in no wise perswade him to leave his extort power, no nor yet to cause any temperance of his tongue, but the more they went about with gentle words to tell him his faults, the more would he fret and likewise fume, swearing all the oathes under God, ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... election of the deacons, Peter and John had been incarcerated. The Sanhedrim wished to extort from them a pledge that they would "not speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus," [55:1] but the prisoners nobly refused to consent to any such compromise. They "answered and said unto them—Whether ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... employed to extort, or the hire of the venal to buy, that engagement which the Tartar comes under to his prince, when he promises, "That he will go where he shall be commanded; that he will come when he shall be called; that he will kill whoever is pointed out to him; and, for the future, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... follows that we have no right to tax him, which is only one mode of inflicting a fine or penalty for an act, the right to do which we have acceded. In the strong language of the Committee of Correspondence of Maryland:[94] "The object of Masonry never was to extort, nolens volens, money from its votaries. Such are not its principles or teaching. The advocating such doctrines cannot advance the interest or reputation of the institution; but will, as your committee fear, do much to destroy its usefulness. Compulsive membership ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... surely," said Rochester, "the plain meaning of all this is that I must turn Catholic or go out." He put many questions for the purpose of ascertaining whether the communication was made by authority, but could extort only vague and mysterious replies. At last, affecting a confidence which he was far from feeling, he declared that Barillon must have been imposed upon by idle or malicious reports. "I tell you," he said, "that the King will not dismiss me, and I will not resign. I know him: he knows ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a question intricate and rare Did I there strow; But all I could extort was, that he now Did there repair Such losses as befell him in this air, And would ere long Come forth most fair ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... disinterestedness need not prevent you from resuming your dissipations. You must gamble, bet, and lose more money than you ever did before. You must increase your demands, and say that you must have money at all costs. You need not account to me for any money you can extort from her. All you get is your own to spend ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... princes violently extort many things from their subjects: and this seems to savor of robbery. Now it would seem a grievous matter to say that they sin in acting thus, for in that case nearly every prince would be damned. Therefore in some ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... wine-shops most frequently, and lodging in them, among men without a roof, without faith or honor, he could find persons easily to undertake any task, and still more easily others who, if they sniffed coin on his person, would begin, but when they had received earnest money, would extort the whole sum by threatening to deliver him to justice. Besides, for a certain time past Chilo had felt a repulsion for nakedness, for those disgusting and terrible figures lurking about suspected houses in the Subura ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... in adopting any means in my power to extort a confession from the negro, who very soon admitted that my gun was stolen by a runner from the wizard of Matacan, who was still hanging about the outskirts of our settlement. I offered a liberal reward and handsome bribes ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... the sixteenth century, the country began to be overrun by a new horde of barbarians: the English. The English came neither as invaders nor as marauders; they were peaceable students and rich noblemen, who, so far from trying to extort money or annex territory, rather profited the ruined Italians by the work which they did and the money which they squandered. Yet these quiet and profitable travellers, before whom the Italians might safely display their remaining wealth, were ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... brings destruction upon the king. When all the officers of the king posted in the provinces unite together and act with injustice, the king is then said to bring about a state of unmixed evil upon his kingdom. When the officers of the king extort wealth, by unjust means or acting from lust or avarice, from persons piteously soliciting mercy, a great destruction then is sure to overtake the king. A mighty tree, first starting into life, grows into large proportions. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... continued our march down the river. The people continued to be hospitable, with some few exceptions. Knowing our need of their articles, some of them would extort from us an extravagant price. We chose to live mostly on bread and butter and milk, having but little relish for meat, and supposing it not to be healthy food after fasting ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking
... threw into relief two methods of action which hitherto we had been hazily seeking to combine, seesawing between one and the other, each of us influenced at different times by different motives. One was to rely on independent research; the other to extort the secret from Dollmann direct, by craft or threats. The moral of to-day was to abandon the first and embrace ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... want to send Lowell: but I do not like writing as if to extort answers from him. You see Carlyle's Note within: I do not want it back, thank you. Good night: for Night it is: and my Reader is coming. We look forward to The Lammermoor, and Old Mortality before long. I made another vain attempt on George ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... these objects not have passed since Death snatched away the persons for whom they were originally designed! And here they are in the ignoble custody of some avaricious vender, who having obtained them at the sale of some departed amateur for less than half their first cost, now expects to extort more ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... sophists of the negative school, who, through inability to create, have scoffed at creation, are now found the loudest in applause. What, in its chrysalis condition of principle, affronted their demure reason, never fails, in its maturity of accomplishment, to extort admiration from their instinct of the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... singing about the house, and began to care for our brittle possessions, which struck my wife as being a very sad sign indeed. The next Sunday, and the next, Jane asked to go out, "to walk with William," and my wife, who never attempts to extort confidences, gave her permission, and asked no questions. On each occasion Jane came back looking flushed and very determined. At last ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... fidelity who in this way extort from their feeling husbands cashmere shawls, diamonds, the payment of their debts, or the rent of a box at the theatre; but almost always vapors are employed as decisive ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... for the latter's diversion; but seeing Bernabo there and thinking there was no need to use farther delay in the matter, he took occasion to procure the Soldan to have Ambrogiuolo and Bernabo brought before him and in the latter's presence, to extort from the former, by dint of severity, an it might not easily be done [by other means,] the truth of that whereof he vaunted himself concerning Bernabo's wife. Accordingly, they both being come, the Soldan, in the presence of many, with a stern countenance commanded Ambrogiuolo ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the ruling power with any colleague, least of all with one of so secondary a sort as was Pompeius; and beyond doubt he had long resolved after terminating the conquest of Gaul to take the sole power for himself, and in case of need to extort it by force of arms. But a man like Caesar, in whom the officer was thoroughly subordinate to the statesman, could not fail to perceive that the regulation of the political organism by force of arms does in its ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... them with considerable booty. They stripped off the jewels and rich ornaments that garnished the royal mummies in the temple of Coricancha. Indignant at the concealment of their treasures, they put the inhabitants, in some instances, to the torture, and endeavored to extort from them a confession of their hiding-places.39 They invaded the repose of the sepulchres, in which the Peruvians often deposited their valuable effects, and compelled the grave to give up its dead. No place was left unexplored ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Cavelier, MS.] When they crossed the tropic, the sailors made ready a tub on deck to baptize the passengers, after the villanous practice of the time; but La Salle refused to permit it, to the disappointment and wrath of all the crew, who had expected to extort a bountiful ransom, in money and liquor, from their victims. There was an incessant chafing between the two commanders; and when at length, after a long and wretched voyage, they reached St. Domingo, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... drought has lasted a long time, people drop the usual hocus-pocus of imitative magic altogether, and being far too angry to waste their breath in prayer they seek by threats and curses or even downright physical force to extort the waters of heaven from the supernatural being who has, so to say, cut them off at the main. In a Japanese village, when the guardian divinity had long been deaf to the peasants' prayers for rain, they at last threw down his image and, with ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... of Criminal Procedure, and the institutions which they regulate, are somewhat grim presents for one people to make to another, and are little calculated to excite affection; but they are eminently well calculated to protect peaceable men and to beat down wrongdoers, to extort respect and to enforce obedience.' The code was re-enacted in 1882 under the care of Mr. Whitley Stokes. It was then extended to the High Courts, which had been previously omitted, and alterations were made both ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... from a European in a sulky frame of mind. Hajjee Ali has very kindly offered to take Marie down to Cairo and start her off to Alexandria, whence Ross's people can send her home. If she wants to stay in Alexandria and get placed by the nuns who piously exhorted her to extort ninety francs a month from me, so much the better for me. Ali refuses to take a penny from me for her journey—besides bringing me potatoes and all sorts of things: and if I remonstrate he says he and all his family and all they have ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority. Were the defensive privilege limited to particular cases, an interested minority might take advantage of it to screen themselves from equitable sacrifices to the general weal, or, in particular emergencies, to extort unreasonable indulgences. Lastly, it would facilitate and foster the baneful practice of secessions; a practice which has shown itself even in States where a majority only is required; a practice ...
— The Federalist Papers
... studies were not followed up according to school discipline, they were not the less diligently applied to." This high-soaring ambition was the source both of his weakness and his strength in art, as well as in his commerce with the world of men. The boy who despised discipline and sought to extort her secrets from nature by magic, was destined to become the philanthropist who dreamed of revolutionizing society by eloquence, and the poet who invented in "Prometheus Unbound" forms of grandeur too colossal to ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... their felicity, they are undeserving we think, fortune is a stepmother to us, a parent to them. "We envy" (saith [4822]Isocrates) "wise, just, honest men, except with mutual offices and kindnesses, some good turn or other, they extort this love from us; only fair persons we love at first sight, desire their acquaintance, and adore them as so many gods: we had rather serve them than command others, and account ourselves the more beholding to them, the more service they enjoin us:" though they be otherwise vicious, dishonest, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... first governor of the State of New York. In the course of the following month a writ of habeas corpus was sued out, but without result, and he was not liberated until March 4, 1771, when the assembly was prorogued. When the Assembly attempted to extort from him a humiliating recantation, he undauntingly answered their threat, that "rather than resign my rights and privileges as a British subject, I would suffer my right hand to be cut off at the bar of the house." When ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... applauses and contempt will for the most part be systematically misplaced; that though the beneficent and disinterested spirit of Christianity, and her obvious tendency to promote domestic comfort and general happiness, cannot but extort applause; yet that her aspiring after more than ordinary excellence, by exciting secret misgivings in others, or a painful sense of inferiority not unmixed with envy, cannot fail often to disgust and offend. The word of God teaches us, that though such of ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... of a personal action. She longed to tear him with her nails, outrage him in people's eyes and make him suffer in his flesh; but that passed: she knew she could not do it. A man was needed to extort punishment from Raymond. But no man existed who would undertake the task. She must then find such a man. She even sought him. But she did not find him. The search led to bitter discoveries. If women could forgive her ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... this account two theories have occurred to me as possibly true respecting this most remarkable assault: First—The aim may have been simply to extort from me such admissions as in the hands of money and influence would have sent me to the Penitentiary for libel. This, however, seems unlikely, because any statements elicited by fear or force could ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... renown!—for thou art not a place of yesterday:—long before the Roses red and white battled in fair England, thou didst exist—a place of throng and bustle—place of gold and silver, perfumes and fine linen. Centuries ago thou couldst extort the praises even of the fiercest foes of England. Fierce bards of Wales, sworn foes of England, sang thy praises centuries ago; and even the fiercest of them all, Red Julius himself, wild Glendower's bard, had a word of praise for London's 'Cheape,' for so the bards of Wales styled ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... two chairmen at five o'clock in the morning; had caught a confounded cold, for one of the windows of the chair would not shut, and the rain and snow came in, finally, was in such a bad humour, that all poor Sampson's quirks and jokes could scarcely extort a ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Captain Lamine, and only wants to extort money for his services," interjected the brute. "Leave him to me, sir; I'll find a way to refresh his memory of Key West that will open the bottom of the gulf to his eyes as clearly as the pathway to his piratical hut on the sand key! To the helm, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... I am wealthy—far wealthier than was ever my Lord Ostermore, as my friends Collis, Stapleton and many another can be called to prove. What need, then, had I to extort?" ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... knowledge and the pedantry of opinion, that it is impossible for him to rouse in other minds any of the antipathy which is often felt for powerful individualities whose powers of mind and extent of erudition still enforce respect and extort admiration. The instinctive sympathy he thus creates is due to no lack of intrepidity in expressing his love for what is right and his hatred for what is wrong. No historian is more decisive in his judgments, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... binding force of a promise of this kind, made in writing or in the presence of witnesses, certain of the more selfish or less manly and honorable class of creditors are ever seeking to extort by fair or foul means, from an unfortunate debtor, who has honestly given up every thing, an acknowledgment of his indebtedness to them, in order that they may reap the benefit of his first efforts to get upon his feet again. ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... the mark which they have left on our judicature, our municipal liberty, our political constitution, the first three Plantagenets are to most of us little more than dim shapes of strange manner and speech, hurrying to their island realm to extort money, to enforce good government, and then hurrying back to Anjou. But there is hardly a boy in the streets of Angers to whom the name of Henry Fitz-Empress is strange, who could not point to the ruins of his bridge or the halls of his Hospice, or tell of the ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... waste—not plundered—in accordance with a well concocted plan. The trees were hewn down and the trunks were intentionally left to lie and rot, or the forest was burnt down in order, with each day's quota of burned forest, to extort the concession of a new "popular demand." The old legend of the "War about the Forest" had become, once ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... object in insulting me is in the hope of extorting money for which she has several times applied to Sir William Wilde with threats of more annoyance if not given, I think it right to inform you, as no threat of additional insult shall ever extort money from our hands. The wages of disgrace she has so basely treated for and demanded shall never be ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... goods than money, and were, before this man came, selling us Fowls and Syrup as fast as they could bring these things down. From this and other Circumstances we were well Assured that this was all the Dutchman's doing, in order to extort from us a sum of Money to put into his own pocket. There hapned to be an old Raja at this time upon the beach, whose Interest I had secured in the Morning by presenting him with a Spy-glass; this man I now took by the hand, ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... I know you Americans often speak of the Black Hand as a myth coined originally by a newspaper writer. Perhaps it has no organisation. But, Professor Kennedy, to me it is no myth. What if the real Black Hand is any gang of criminals who choose to use that convenient name to extort money? Is it the less real? ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... ability of a large business to depress wages by the possession of a total or partial monopoly of local employment, the corresponding power to obtain raw material at low prices, or to extort higher prices from consumers than would obtain under the pressure of free competition, represent individual business economies which may enable a large business to obtain ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... grand sachem, was removed from the office of city controller by his own party for acquiring land from the city without paying for it. In 1807 several superintendents of city institutions were dismissed for frauds. The inspector of bread, a sachem, resigned because his threat to extort one-third of the fees from his subordinates had become public. Several assessment collectors, all prominent in Tammany, were compelled to reimburse the city for deficits in their accounts. One of the leading ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... of Lincoln, since with his national prominence and his great popularity, he was always sure of an audience, and could reply as he chose to the attacks of his antagonist. Lincoln felt that he must come to close terms with Douglas and extort from him admissions which would discredit him with Republicans. With this end in view, Lincoln suggested that they "divide time, and address the same audiences the present canvass."[704] It was obviously to Douglas's interest to continue the campaign as he had begun. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... these lords, and not, as they asserted, from the evil disposition of their subjects. For these princes being poor, yet choosing to live as though they were rich, were forced to resort to cruelties innumerable and practised in divers ways; and among other shameful devices contrived by them to extort money, they would pass laws prohibiting certain acts, and then be the first to give occasion for breaking them; nor would they chastise offenders until they saw many involved in the same offence; when they fell to punishing, not from any zeal for the laws which ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... please don't; I cannot bear it—and I am not worth it," he protested. "I ought never to have told you. I was a selfish brute to extort your sympathy by the miserable recital of my own misfortunes; I have basely ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... very likely that, however artful Bourgonef might be, a severe examination might extort from him sufficient confirmation of my suspicion to warrant further procedure. But knowing also that THIS resort was open to me when all others had failed, I resolved to ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... authorities, too, smell a rat, as though a cold wind were blowing on them from the peasants. They see the peasant smiles very little, and altogether is not very kindly disposed and wants to disaccustom himself to the authorities. The other day in Smolyakov, a village not far from here, they came to extort the taxes; and your peasants got stubborn and flew into a passion. The police commissioner said straight out: 'Oh, you damned scoundrels! why, this is disobedience to the Czar!' There was one little peasant there, Spivakin, and says he: 'Off with you to the evil mother ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... pain or peril, when prudentially deemed expedient. This virtue is equally distant from rashness and cowardice, and should be deeply impressed upon the mind of every Mason. It is a safeguard or security against the success of any attempt, by force or otherwise, to extort from him any of those valuable secrets with which he has been solemnly intrusted, and which were emblematically impressed upon him on his first admission into the lodge, when he was received on * * * which ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... about their spiritual experiences and their religious joy, and all the other sweet and sacred things which belong to the silent life of the spirit in God, unless, side by side with these, there is the doing of the common deeds which the world is actually able to appraise in such a fashion as to extort, even from them, the confession, 'We find no ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... "I have never exposed any one and I never will. I have the secrets of a great many hid in my breast, that nothing shall ever extort from me." Here she was interrupted, and soon left the room. I never saw her again. Whether she was under punishment, or was so fortunate as to make her escape, I do not know. As no questions could be asked, it ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... as a good master, how he had better act." [20] But this somewhat servile proceeding produced no adequate result, as his envoy received only ambiguous answers, and all he could accomplish was to extort a promise from Henri III that on his return to Paris he would discuss the affair with the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... cried, turning to the old cashier. "I will give you just ten minutes to get out of this building—you and the girl, both of you. It was a plan hatched up between you and her to extort money from me." ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... occasions spoken to slaves as the gangs were on their way back to the prison, and had told them to be prepared to take part in a plan that was on foot for their rescue from slavery. The torture had not been, as was then the usual custom, applied to extort information; partly because his story was probable, still more because the grand master and council did not wish that more publicity should be given to the affair, and were glad that it should be allowed to drop without any further trial of the delinquents. In the city generally it ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... no notion of having any thing for the Inscription[452]. I hope you don't think I kept it to extort a price. I could think of nothing, till to day. If you could spare me another guinea for the history, I should take it very kindly, to night; but if you do not I shall not think it an injury.—I am ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... conscientious, form a small select class; the great mass is egotistic, ignorant, and needy, and lets its money go only under constraint; there is but one way to collect the taxes, and that is to extort them. From time immemorial, direct taxes in France have been collected only by bailiffs and seizures; which is not surprising, as they take away a full half of the net income. Now that the peasants of each village ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... safety of Clotelle, while she felt glad that Jerome had escaped. In vain did they try to extort from the girl the whereabouts of the man whose escape she had effected. She was not aware that he had fled on a steamer, ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... they beat her tender flesh that they make the blood gush out from it. When they have beaten her with straps till they have lacerated her flesh, and till the blood which issues through her wounds runs down from them, and when for all that they can do nothing nor extort sigh or word promise her; they are meddling to no purpose. And from her, and she never moves nor stirs, then they tell her that they must seek fire and lead, and that they will melt it and will pour ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... compromise, so accepted, will receive from Mr. Dillon the treatment accorded to the recommendations of the Recess Committee and of the Land Conference. The compromise will be repudiated and the millions already advanced for purchase will be used as a lever to extort complete autonomy. The lever is a powerful one. All depends upon who holds ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... came—browned by the climate, full of oaths, savage in his bearing, and occasionally referring to scenes which made me shudder; but he was my son, my only son, and I loved him as much as ever. He was now but seldom at home, for he lived almost at the gaming-tables; if he came to me, it was to extort money, and he never failed. I sold out my property to support his extravagance, and by degrees it was rapidly diminishing. I begged him, I entreated him, to be more prudent, but he laughed, and promised to return me all ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... instead of hanging them at once at the yard-arm of the galleys, which was the usual manner of disposing of Segnarese prisoners, took them to Venice, and placed them at the disposal of the senate. All subsequent threats and promises proved ineffectual to extort from the pirates an acknowledgment of superior rank; and the Venetian authorities would perhaps have ended in believing the account they gave of themselves, had not the urgent applications made by the Austrian Envoy and the Capitano of Fiume, for the release ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... sentiment. But the sentiment was a seed, the promise and potency of kindlier times. With the close of the long struggle other questions arose; got the people's ears; fixed the attention of the leaders. Scant notice could emancipation extort from men who had to repair the ravages of an exhausting war, reconstruct shattered fortunes, restore civil society in parts tumbling into ruinous disorder. The instinct of self-preservation was altogether too masterful for the moral ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... themselves. Open the book in what page you will, there is a frontispiece of themselves staring you in the face. They are a sort of Jacks o' the Green, with a sprig of laurel, a little tinsel, and a little smut, but still playing antics and keeping in incessant motion, to attract attention and extort your pittance of approbation. Whether they talk of the town or the country, poetry or politics, it comes to much the same thing. If they talk to you of the town, its diversions, 'its palaces, its ladies, and its streets,' they are the delight, the grace, and ornament of it. If they are describing ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... was strange that such disobedience should be tolerated, but the King wanted money. He was willing to refrain for a season from exasperating the provinces by fresh religious persecution at the moment when he was endeavoring to extort every penny which it was possible to wring from ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... grace, muttering and swearing between his set teeth. The doctor, strange to say, was considerate enough to go out into the hall to question him; but no information of value was gained by the man's answers. He declared that the gentleman had hired him at twelve o'clock, hoping by this means to extort pay for five hours' driving, which, joined to the liberal gratuity he could not fail to obtain, would remunerate him handsomely for his day's work. Living is dear, it should be remembered, and a fellow makes as ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... being a harsh man, he straightway took Martellino aside and began to examine him. Martellino answered his questions in a bantering tone, making light of the arrest; whereat the deputy, losing patience, had him bound to the strappado, and caused him to receive a few hints of the cord with intent to extort from him a confession of his guilt, by way of preliminary to hanging him. Taken down from the strappado, and questioned by the deputy if what his accusers said were true, Martellino, as nothing was to be gained by denial, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... But from Denmark, and Sweden, and Russia, there is not much to be gained. In the mean while, wherever his iron yoke is fixed, the spirits of the people are broken; and it is in vain to attempt to extort money which they do not possess, and cannot procure. Their bodies he may command, but their bodies he cannot move without the inspiration of wealth, somewhere or other; by wealth I mean superfluous produce, something arising from the labour of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... yield to my demand: for, come what may, you shall not quit the castle till then.' Madame Montoni burst into loud lamentation, which she as suddenly checked, considering, that her husband's assertions might be only artifices, employed to extort her consent. She hinted this suspicion, and, in the next moment, told him also, that his designs were not so honourable as to serve the state, and that she believed he had only commenced a captain of banditti, to join the enemies ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Lal to an investigation that would, at least, extort a confession as to his ability to allude to the ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... afraid, Monsignor. We do not extort answers by the rack. I only wished to know if you would ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... for this is simple. The Government have refused to the workman the right to extort unearned increment out of the country in its dire necessity. The workman may not strike or cease work or even change employment without the permission of the State. Assuredly the State has the right to exact that obedience from him. But it ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... inquired if anything dreadful had happened. "Oh no—nothing," I answered. "Only an odd man appeared in the woods, and said something strange—but it's all right now." This was the only account I ever gave of the adventure. It was surmised that I had met a gipsy, who probably hoped to extort money from me. My father made inquiries in every direction, and gave notice that he should prosecute any rogues and vagabonds found trespassing ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... me hers at once, and even eagerly. I held it for awhile in mine, and gazed into her eyes. It was she who first tore her hand away, and, forgetting all about her request and the promise she had sought to extort, ran at the top of her speed, and without turning, till she ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... musquets and cavaliers, and to take also the Prince and Council: then under the king's authority to carry the King to the Tower; and to make a stale of the admiral. When they had the King there, to extort three things from him, first, A Pardon for all their Treasons: Secondly, A Toleration of the Roman Superstition; which their eyes shall sooner fall out than they shall ever see; for the king hath spoken these words ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... which we treat. Carey's conduct, on this occasion, almost atones for the cold and unfeeling policy with which he watched the closing moments of his benefactress, Elizabeth, impatient till remorse and sorrow should extort her last sigh, that he might lay the foundation of his future favour with her successor, by carrying him the first tidings of her death.—Carey's Memoirs, p. 172. et sequen. It would appear that Sir Robert Ker was soon afterwards committed to the custody of the archbishop of York; ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... occurrences, the negro's mind has been filled with visionary hopes of liberty; insurrections have been planned, and, worse still, insurrections have been imagined. In fear for life and property, torture worthy of the worst days of the Inquisition has been resorted to, to extort confession from those who had nothing to confess. Some died silent martyrs; others, in their agony, accused falsely the first negro whose name came to their memory; thus, injustice bred injustice, and it is estimated that not less than a thousand ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... impossible to extort such a sense from the words of the commandment; seeing that the reason for which the command itself was originally given, namely, as a memorial of God's having rested from the creation of the world, cannot be transferred from the seventh day to the first; nor can any new motive be substituted ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... oppression was greater when the dukes of Moscow farmed this tax, not only from their own subjects, but also from neighboring dukedoms. They were absolutely pitiless in collecting from the poor people as much as they could extort, and this was the disgraceful foundation of their wealth and power. The poll-tax, thereafter, was always a favorite source of revenue ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen |
