"Extravagant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would only prepare me to be, and make me, instrumental in the great work of emancipation, I would be willing to bear any suffering, and the question arose, whether this was not the peculiar kind allotted to me. Oh, the extreme pain of extravagant praise! to be held up as a saint in a public newspaper, before thousands of people, when I felt I was the chief of sinners. Blushing, and confusion of face were mine, and I thought the walls of a prison would have ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... in the manner habitual to gay young men in Paris. He had experienced much difficulty in complying with his son's last request, and became painfully aware that it would not much longer be in his power to supply him at the same extravagant rate. As a natural consequence, he hailed the proposition to travel, which might break off any unfortunate connections, or liaisons, he might have formed in Paris, and without their aid, divert his troubled mind. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... a large bosom to be a dreadful deformity. A bosom should be an indication, a hint; a positive statement he viewed with abhorrence. And he paused to think if he would be willing to forego his natural and cultured taste in female beauty and accept those extravagant growths of flesh if they could be proved to be musical necessities. But Evelyn was by no means flat-chested ... and he remembered certain curves and plenitudes with satisfaction. Then, catching sight of Evelyn's frightened face, he forced himself ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... something extraordinarily reassuring about the book. It reconciles one to life even at the moment it is piling up life's extravagant miseries. Its buoyant and resilient energy, full of the unconquerable irreverence and glorious shamelessness of youth, takes life fairly by the throat and mocks it and defies it to its face. It indicates courageous gaiety as the only victory, ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... totally useless, set of combinations would be a multiple of innumerosity similar to that which has clearly been shown to represent the preponderance of probability against the constant repetition of any set of combinations whatever, whether useful or useless. If, then, it were permissible to use so extravagant an hyperbole to indicate an idea of multitude to which it is not in the power of words to give adequate expression, it might be said that while the chances against Nature's habitual action being unintentional, or the result as it were of mere fidgettiness or restlessness, are an indefinite ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... curiosity and extravagant fondness herein arrived at that pitch, that he sold many acres of arable land to purchase books of knight-errantry, and carried home all he could lay hands on ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... Mrs Latrobe, "you will not make extravagant speeches. There might be not another man in the world, that you should go into such a frenzy. We shall yet find ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... draft-oxen, occasionally striking in the dust with a dull report, sent little puffs like smoke on either side of the track. Within, the children were playing "keeping store." The little girl, as an opulent and extravagant customer, was purchasing of the boy, who sat behind a counter improvised from a nail-keg and the front seat, most of the available contents of the wagon, either under their own names or an imaginary one ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... would not have been in the least offended by the preference. Indeed, he would have told you that Tiger was a most wonderful dog, and knew as much as any two boys, though this might be called extravagant. ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... he said, as he paused at the threshold, "you know Schenkmann is a married man with a wife and child, and I understand Mrs. Schenkmann is inclined to be extravagant. For that reason I let him live in a house I own on Park Avenue, and I take out the rent each week from his pay. It's really a charity to do so. The amount is—er—sixteen dollars a month. I suppose you have ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... average value of good modern pictures of different classes; but the subject is too complicated to be adequately treated in writing, without introducing more detail than the reader will have patience for. But I may state, roughly, that prices above a hundred guineas are in general extravagant for water-colours, and above five hundred for oils. An artist almost always does wrong who puts more work than these prices will remunerate him for into any single canvas—his talent would be better employed ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... lights, is curiously English, while the whole is neither English nor French nor belonging to any other national school. The same may be said of the larger eight-light window in the central bay, but that there the tracery is even more elaborate and extravagant. The octagon above has buttresses with ordinary pinnacles at each corner, a parapet like that below, and flying buttresses, all pierced, cusped and crocketed like those at the west front. On each face is a tall two-light ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... drawing-rooms whither all snobdom crowded and shoved to get near the trade-marked coronet, and where bewildering young ladies strolled haughtily about all day long, displaying to agitated Gotham the most startling gowns in the extravagant metropolis. ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... it happened that, during these lessons in French, he was varying the monotony of a study hour by drawing, under cover of his lesson-book, a portrait of his teacher, whose most striking physical characteristic was a nose of extravagant bulk. He was detected just as he was completing the sketch, and was asked, much to his confusion, to exhibit the result. It appears to have been a remarkable piece of work as well as an excellent likeness, for the subject of it was ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... could Dante, deficient in conduct, plan, nature, variety, and temperance, have been brought into comparison with these men, but for those fortunate isles laden with golden fruit, which alone could tempt any one to embark in the misty ocean of his dark and extravagant fiction. ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... a student of human nature is this Earl of Oxford—a curious compound, like his late royal lady, of greatness and littleness. He began life as a youthful exquisite. His costumes were more extravagant, his perfumes more choice, his Italian more pure and fluent, than those of the other dilettante nobles of his time. He was a minor poet of some note in his day, and was esteemed to be the first writer of comedy then living—though Shakespeare was living too. In middle life ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... of those weapons of which his family for several generations have forgotten the use?' In the Government journals the story of the attack was headed, 'Attack on Kilgobbin Castle. Heroic resistance by a young lady'; in which Kate Kearney's conduct was described in colours of extravagant eulogy. She was alternately Joan of Arc and the Maid of Saragossa, and it was gravely discussed whether any and what honours of the Crown were at Her Majesty's disposal to reward such brilliant heroism. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the descendants of the ancient Britons in the character of a prophet or something more. The poems which he produced procured for him the title of "Bardic King;" they display much that is vigorous and original, but are disfigured by mysticism and extravagant metaphor; one of the most spirited of them is the following, which the Author calls his ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... vegetable kingdom pours forth not less lavishly from its horn of plenty a supply of almost all the wild and cultivated fruits and garden-produce of the tropics. At the same time everything is so cheap that the most extravagant glutton could not exceed a daily consumption costing more than a penny or two, even should the courteous and hospitable Wa-Taveta accept payment at all—which, however, they seldom did from us. It is true that the fame of our heroic deeds against the Masai had gone before us, and ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... England under it. He added, regarding the Turkish Convention, that, possibly it was necessary to sustain the credit of the country, but whether that credit should be sustained at such a price remained for the people to determine at the polls. He rejoiced that these most unwise, extravagant, unwarrantable, unconstitutional and dangerous proceedings had not been the work of the Liberal party, but he was grieved to think that any party should be found in ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... otherwise have gone on. He says to himself, 'I have been deceived,' or 'I must be a born fool;' whereas he is wrong in both suppositions. I am convinced that the want of popularity of Walter Scott among the rising generation is partly due to this extravagant laudation; and I am much mistaken if another great author, more recently deceased, will not in a few years be added to the ranks of those who are more praised than read from the ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... unique character of their earth-works, will lead to deceptive inferences, unless facts and principles are carefully considered and rigorously applied, and such deductions only are made as they will fairly warrant. It is easy to magnify the significance of these remains and to form extravagant conclusions concerning them; but neither will advance the truth. They represent a status of human advancement forming a connecting link in the progressive development of man. If, then, the nature of their arts, and more especially the character ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... account. In a very short period he had become my debtor to a large amount, when, having taken a long draught of port, he did precisely what I had been coolly anticipating—he proposed to double our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of reluctance, and not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him into some angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance, did I finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how entirely the prey ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... that whatsoever is commonplace in my story is my own invention. Whatsoever may seem extravagant or startling is most likely to be historic fact, else I should not have dared to write it down, finding God's actual dealings here much too wonderful to dare to invent many ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... the same time shows its novelty. In this book the new collection had its bond of cohesion, its Catholic element (apostolic tradition), and the guide for its exposition. That the Acts of the Apostles found its place in the canon faute de mieux is clear from the extravagant terms, not at all suited to the book, in which its appearance there is immediately hailed. It is inserted in place of a book which should have contained the teaching and missionary acts of all the 12 Apostles; but, as ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... had first taken up his abode in Faalelei's house he had never doubted, seeing the girl's extravagant affection for him, and knowing the laxity of the native people, that it would not be long before he might form with her one of those irregular connections so common in the islands; and, indeed, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... pointing to the splendid birthday gift seated near—"that ridiculous doll, with all her nonsensical, extravagant things—I actually paid the ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... into chymistry; and for some years he thought he was very near the finding of the philosopher's stone, which had the effect that attends on all such men as he was, when they are drawn in, to lay out for it. He had no principles of religion, virtue, or friendship; pleasure, frolic, or extravagant diversion, was all he laid to heart. He was true to nothing; for he was not true to himself. He had no steadiness nor conduct; he could keep no secret, nor execute any design without spoiling it; he could never fix his thoughts, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... said that I was very beautiful. You would scarcely think so now, but I suppose he thought so, too. In a short time we were married, and soon saw that we were utterly unfitted to each other; he was grave and I was gay; he was careful and industrious, I was careless and extravagant; he loved the quiet of his home and books; I loved the excitements of pleasure and the ball room, and yet I think he loved me, but it was as a father might love a wayward child whom he vainly tried to restrain. I had a cousin who had been absent from New Orleans ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... can legitimately think that there was another reason which induced orthodox Christians to regard the Revelation with less confidence. The Montanist sect, which arose in the latter half of the 2nd century and became powerful in Asia Minor and North Africa, taught an extravagant doctrine about the millennium when Christ would return to reign on earth. This doctrine was partly founded on Rev. xx., and was supported by pretended prophecies. It caused orthodox Christians to be more suspicious about the statements of Christian prophets, and probably made ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... severity here, and were persecuted to the death in New England. Nevertheless the public, which seldom makes nice distinctions, often confounded the Puritan with the Quaker. Both were schismatics. Both hated episcopacy and the Liturgy. Both had what seemed extravagant whimsies about dress, diversions and postures. Widely as the two differed in opinion, they were popularly classed together as canting schismatics; and whatever was ridiculous or odious in either increased the scorn and aversion which the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... members of the House of Representatives will permit me to express the opinion that it will be impossible to deal in any but a very wasteful and extravagant fashion with the enormous appropriations of the public moneys which must continue to be made, if the war is to be properly sustained, unless the House will consent to return to its former practice of initiating and preparing all appropriation bills through a single ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... employers to know how much they saved. That is entirely obviated by the men running their own associations. Other people told you the people in their District never did, could, or would save and were spending their big wages in the most extravagant way—that pianos and fur coats appealed far more than war savings certificates. The official people in the towns when we approached them about conferences said much the same in some cases, but, yes, of course, you could come and have a conference and the Mayor ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... experience had often shown me that where gold and myself failed, a pair of flashing eyes and other felicities will often succeed. Like all the other women of that set in Belgrade, Mlle. Valon was woefully extravagant. She gambled heavily and one night I assisted her with a loan of 500 francs. I came to know ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... to in one of his early poems ("Margaret," vol. i.), "the tender amber." I asked his opinion of Sydney Dobell—he agrees with me in liking "Grass from the Battlefield," and thinks him a writer of genius and imagination, but extravagant. ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... the greatest opulence in the several American counties where these Tracts are, have sufficient influence to be perpetually elected for those counties. The General Assembly, then, of this Province consists of the owners of these extravagant Grants, the merchants of New York, the principal of them strongly connected with the owners of these Great Tracts by Family interest, and of Common Farmers, which last are men easily deluded and led away with popular arguments of Liberty and Privileges. ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... to a statement which had appeared in several popular histories, that, during the eight years of the Revolutionary War, the thirteen colonies sent two hundred and thirty-two thousand men to the Continental army. He traced the origin of this extravagant statement. In 1790, General Knox, then Secretary of War, presented to President Washington a report on the number of troops furnished during the war. He showed the number credited to the several States, making no distinction between those who ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... Professor Fish was always rather extravagant in manner and speech; his relief now seemed a little exaggerated. He drew a deep breath and glanced past Mary to the patient on his chair at the far end of the room. "Yes," he said, "at such times he is distinctly resentful. I ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... it, and not as far as could be from tears. The small vexation of his failure to think her treasure worth anything she might have paid for it, the intimation that he might join the camp of the enemy in finding her extravagant, had acted apparently as ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... going to do when the air up there gets foul?' says I to William, who seemed to be making arrangements for spending the summer in our present quarters. 'Oh, that'll be all right,' said he. 'It don't do to be extravagant with air any more than with anything else. When we've used up all there is in this cabin, we can bore holes through the floor into the hold and let in air from there. If we're economical, there'll be enough ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... suspecting it, hoping the while that he would not notice the absence of butter at this last home meal. She herself had never believed in buttering bread when there was "sass" to eat with it; but Abe's extravagant tastes had always carried him to the point of desiring both butter and sauce as ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... In regard to minor matters she preferred, if anything, Byronic collars to starched ones; troubling little, for the rest, what costume her cavalier was wearing or what opinions he expressed. In fact, she liked youngsters to be frank, impetuous, extravagant in their views and out of the common rut. The two ladies had been likened to Divine and Earthly Love, or to Venus Urania and Venus Pandemos—a comparison which was manifestly unfair to both ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the thick foliage of the sculpture. The portion of the wing of Louis XII. that fronts toward the court is supported on a deep arcade. On your right is the wing erected by Francis I., the reverse of the mass of building which you see on approaching the castle. This exquisite, this extravagant, this transcendent piece of architecture is the most joyous utterance of the French Renaissance. It is covered with an embroidery of sculpture in which every detail is worthy of the hand of a goldsmith. In the middle of it, or rather a little to the left, rises ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... little and how great a thing it is to write a 'Pseudonym.' Four whole 'Pseudonyms' ... are easily contained within its not extravagant limits, and these four little books have given John Oliver Hobbes a recognized position as a master of epigram and narrative ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... body. Douglas was so delighted with the unforeseen second that had given him first chance at the orchids, and so this unexpected call, that he did not mind the attention she gave the flowers. He had reasons for not being extravagant; but seldom had a like sum brought such returns. He began drawing interest as he watched Leslie. Never had her form seemed so perfect, her dress so becoming and simple. How could other women make a vulgar display in the same pattern that clothed ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... It was an out-and-out love match. She has expensive tastes; she is indolent and extravagant. Why, his carriage hire is a big item of itself. She couldn't ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... is. The divine infant came not to deprive Herod of his earthly kingdom, but to offer him one that is eternal; and to teach him a holy contempt of all worldly pomp and grandeur. Again, how senseless and extravagant a folly was it to form designs against those of God himself! who confounds the wisdom of the world, baffles the vain projects of men, and laughs their policy to scorn. Are there no Herods now-a-days; persons who are enemies to the spiritual kingdom ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... me very miserable all the way. Only once I could not but heartily laugh to see Fincher be sturdyly belaboured by five or six carmen with whips and prong staves for provoking them with some of his extravagant frolics." ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... eye on Polly, on her high and red cheek-bones, the extravagant fringe that vulgarised all her honest face, the Sunday dress of stone-coloured alpaca, profusely ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not greatly and promptly reduced, the existing scale of inflated prices would not only continue, but, by the very fact of the large amounts thus made requisite in the conduct of the war, these prices would reach rates still more extravagant, and the whole system would fall under its own weight, rendering the redemption of the debt impossible, and destroying its value in the hands of the holder. If, on the contrary, a funded debt, with interest secured by adequate taxation, could be substituted for the outstanding ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... confide his plans, upon whose aid and counsel he could lean, was gone forever. Hilary Vane had troublesome half-hours, but on the whole he had reached the conclusion that this son, like Sarah Austen, was one of those inexplicable products in which an extravagant and inscrutable nature sometimes indulged. On the rare evenings when the two were at home together, the Honourable Hilary sat under one side of the lamp with a pile of documents and newspapers, and Austen under ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... proclaiming the admiration which he privately expresses for his works. The fact was incomprehensible to Mr. Browning—it was so foreign to his own nature; and he commented on it with a touch, though merely a touch, of bitterness, when repeating to a friend some almost extravagant eulogium which in earlier days he had received from him tete-a-tete. 'If only,' he said, 'those words had been ever repeated in public, what good they might ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... sentimental, impatient but never uncontrolled. She liked almost everyone and almost everything, but no one and nothing mattered to her very deeply; she liked going to church, always learnt her Collect first on Sunday, and gave half her pocket-money to the morning collection. She was generous but never extravagant, enjoyed food but was not greedy. She was quite aware that she was pretty and might one day be beautiful, and she was glad of that, but she was never silly about ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... was on ill terms with him: I believe not without sufficient reason, for he was extravagant and dissipated. My father never mentioned his name, but my mother would sometimes tell me that he had ruined the family. That he spent much I know; but I am inclined to think that his undutiful conduct occasioned ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... special grant obtained from the pope, and accordingly the reigning monarch of Portugal, John II., obtained the grant of all the lands from Cape Bojador to the Indies inclusive. Robertson, speaking of this grant, says, "extravagant as this donation, comprehending such a large portion of the habitable globe, would now appear even in catholic countries, no person in the fifteenth century doubted but that the pope, in the plenitude of his apostolic power, had a right to ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... took charge of the stores instead of Niblet, who had been very extravagant with them, and also sent in false returns; the allowance of flour was now reduced, and hopes were entertained that with care it would hold out; but at first the supply provided was insufficient. The horses too, began to knock up, and one after another they were left ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... of,' said he smiling down at her. 'To be extravagant, is to go beyond bounds; and one who has never been conscious of the bounds, cannot be justly said to ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... addicted to the habits of the world than to those of the cloister, had become an ecclesiastical courtier. He went to Antwerp to pay his homage to the First Consul, upon whom he heaped the most extravagant praises. Afterwards, addressing Madame Bonaparte, he told her that she was united to the First Consul by the sacred bonds of a holy alliance. In this harangue, in which unction was singularly blended with gallantry, surely it ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... but that Lessing was the most chaste of their writers. He spoke favourably of Goethe; but said that his SORROWS OF WERTER was his best work, better than any of his dramas: he preferred the first written to the rest of Goethe's dramas. Schiller's ROBBERS he found so extravagant, that he could not read it. I spoke of the scene of the setting sun.[232] He did not know it. He said Schiller could not live. He thought DON CARLOS the best of his dramas; but said that the plot was inextricable.—It was evident ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... valley. It may be that such a system of improvement would as it progressed require the appropriation of twenty or thirty millions of dollars. Even such an expenditure, extending, as it must, over several years, can not be regarded as extravagant in view of the immense interest involved. The safe and convenient navigation of the Mississippi is a matter of concern to all sections of the country, but to the Northwest, with its immense harvests, needing cheap transportation to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... was at least a mile and a quarter. He was a Yankee, as O'Dowd had said, and he was not extravagant ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... only reply by a look. She had long worshipped Mr. Pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at once, raised to a pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes and never dared to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was going to propose—a deliberate plan, too—sent her little boy to the Borough, to get him out ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... suitable. It is almost certain that electricity and other mysterious radiant forces (of which we have so recently discovered the existence) have played an important part in the origin and development of organised life, and it does not appear to be extravagant to assume that the extraordinary way in which these cosmic forces have remained hidden from us may be due to that central position which we are found to occupy in the whole universe of matter discoverable by us. Indeed, it may well be that these wonderful forces of the ether are more ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... alive to her distinctive qualities, "The moral and prudential lessons of these volumes," says the writer, "are judiciously chosen; and the stories are invented with great ingenuity, and are happily contrived to excite curiosity and awaken feeling without the aid of improbable fiction or extravagant adventure. The language is varied in its degree of simplicity, to suit the pieces to different ages, but is throughout neat and correct; and, without the least approach towards vulgarity or meanness, it is adapted with peculiar felicity to the understandings ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... appearances, it must," was his reply. "We are the most extravagant people in the world. We consume, per head, more coffee, tea, and sugar, jewelry, silks, and cotton, than the people of any other country on the face of the earth. Our women wear more satins and laces, and our men smoke more high-priced cigars, than those of any ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... masses, however enormous, with defined outlines presented to the view. In the former instance, the imagination is called into play and fills out the picture on a scale corresponding with the actual features, as far as they are subject to observation; but the imagination proverbially adopts an extravagant measure. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... a puncheon when we first came to these parts," said Mr. Lincoln. "We had no beds, and we slept on a floor of pounded clay. My new wife brought all of this grand furniture to me. That beereau looks extravagant—now don't it?—for poor folks, too. I sometimes think that she ought to sell it. I am told that in a city place it would be worth as ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... investigation. The whole affair appeared to be tangled in a maze of technicalities and a snarl of red-tape which it would take some time to unravel. In the meantime Taylor was enjoying himself; and was almost extravagant in his delight over the climate ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... Petersburg, a sort of Richmond to St. Petersburg,—Felicien's, a dependence of Cubat's; and Ernest's, a branch of the Cafe de l'Ours, and managed by a brother of the proprietor. Both these have an excellent cuisine and cellar, but the charges, especially at Felicien's, are fairly extravagant. Bands of music and pretty gardens are features of these restaurants, and Felicien's has a terrace on the river opposite the Emperor's summer palace on the Island of Iliargin. They are both practically closed ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... tell such stories?" exclaimed Jimmy, shocked at such an extravagant assertion. Phil laughed, for there was something ludicrous in the idea of Jimmy, who was a slight boy of seven, making away with such a large quantity, and the little boy began to see that it was a joke ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... it appears, are silently presupposed without being mentioned beforehand, it being of course assumed that the readers would know all about them from the old tradition. The outside of the ark, however, is furnished in the most extravagant style, and with a splendour which other descriptions of the chest of acacia-wood are far from suggesting. The ark in the Priestly Code differs indeed in every way from the appearance of it in 1Kings vii. 23 seq. We are reminded of the Haggada by the covering which Moses has ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... of his unrestrained examination; she was, however, far more seriously concerned for Mrs Harrel, when she discovered that this favourite friend of her husband was an unprincipled spendthrift, and an extravagant gamester, for as he was the inseparable companion of Mr Harrel, she dreaded the consequence both of ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... peaceful towns in the south and west. The railway stations are so crowded that it is almost impossible, at the Gare of Saint-Lazare or at the Quai d'Orsay to get anywhere near the booking office. Motor-cabs are being hired at extravagant prices to convey families to Tours, Orlans, Le Mans, or Bordeaux. The bearing of the public however by no means resembles that of "nerves," ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... to which moderation, connected with a wise discrimination, is more necessary than in the imposition of duties on imports. Whether reference be had to revenue, the primary object in the imposition of taxes, or to the incidents which necessarily flow from their imposition, this is entirely true. Extravagant duties defeat their end and object, not only by exciting in the public mind an hostility to the manufacturing interests, but by inducing a system of smuggling on an extensive scale and the practice of every manner of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... the same in its principal features, the Byzantine workmen being employed by the caliphs; but the Arab rapidly introduces characters half Persepolitan, half Egyptian, into the shafts and capitals: in his intense love of excitement he points the arch and writhes it into extravagant foliations; he banishes the animal imagery, and invents an ornamentation of his own (called Arabesque) to replace it: this not being adapted for covering large surfaces, he concentrates it on features of interest, and bars his surfaces with horizontal ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... unsuccessful. A few mornings after this her advertisement appeared in the Tribune, calling for a partner with ten thousand dollars to take a half interest in an enterprise which was sure to net a quarter of a million within a month. It had such an extravagant sound that it was set down as a humbug, and few answered it. She had interviews with two young men of such suspicious appearance that she did not dare reveal her scheme to them. Day after day the card appeared with no satisfactory result; and Mary perceived with a kind of frenzy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... disadvantages which so sudden and so extreme a policy imposed on the people, the progress for the four years of these extravagant and exceptional duties was very rapid, and undoubtedly exerted a lasting influence on the industrial interests of the United States. But the policy was not one which commanded general support. Other interests came forward in opposition. New England was ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... will merely await future opportunities to plunder the British public. In short, little constructive legislation, even of that mild and tentative character one might expect from a Liberal party, made up of capitalistic units can be expected after the ten years of corrupt and extravagant rule of this band ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... they would make the best of what was before them, but their observation would fail; it would be beyond them; they simply wouldn't understand. Of what use would it be then that they had come?—if they weren't to be intelligent up to THAT point: unless indeed he himself were utterly deluded and extravagant? Was he, on this question of Chad's improvement, fantastic and away from the truth? Did he live in a false world, a world that had grown simply to suit him, and was his present slight irritation—in the face now of Jim's silence ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... lights are removed, but at the word of command, openly, not without the knowledge of her husband, she will come forth, whether it be a factor that calls for her, or the captain of a Spanish ship, the extravagant purchaser of her disgrace. It was not a youth born from parents like these, that stained the sea with Carthaginian gore, and slew Pyrrhus, and mighty Antiochus, and terrific Annibal; but a manly progeny of rustic soldiers, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... record of his friend's early days, which is incomparable for the vividness of its portraiture. The pages which narrate Shelley's course of life at Oxford have all the charm of a romance. No novel indeed is half so delightful as that picture, at once affectionate and satirical, tender and humorous, extravagant and delicately shaded, of the student life enjoyed together for a few short months by the inseparable friends. To make extracts from a masterpiece of such consummate workmanship is almost painful. Future biographers ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... emerged from the thicket. He had a long grey beard, a shirt of birch-bark, and a coat of pine-bark, and he thanked the woodcutter for sparing his children, and gave him a golden rod, which would fulfil all wishes that were not so extravagant ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... Then the extravagant promises made by the candidates, which they never really intend to fulfil, and could not if they wished. It is like the man in Church who, ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... her, I do not wonder at Rochester's extravagant passion," rejoined the monarch. "But, odds fish! she seems to care ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... not and things that are not are all one, so he had rather not be than not appear. The top of his ambition is to have his picture graved in brass and published upon walls, if he has no work of his own to face with it. His want of judgment inclines him naturally to the most extravagant undertakings, like that of making old dogs young, telling how many persons there are in a room by knocking at a door, stopping up of words in bottles, &c. He is like his books, that contain much knowledge, but know nothing ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... us,' unless there is some altogether different connection between the God who commends His love and the Christ who dies to commend it, than exists between a mere man and God? Brethren! to deliver my text, and a hundred other passages of Scripture, from the charge of being extravagant nonsense, and clear, illogical non sequiturs, you must believe that in that man Christ Jesus 'we behold His glory—the glory of the only begotten of the Father'; and that when we look—haply not without some touch of tenderness and awed admiration ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the unworthy favourites whom James I. of England raised to a power so extravagant, has always been surrounded with a tragic mystery. One of them, Buckingham, was stabbed by an assassin; the other, Somerset, was condemned to death for murder. The extravagant dignities and emoluments heaped on these unworthy men, are utterly beyond the belief ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... surprised, because he had put all these notions himself into her empty head. . . What your husband wants is enterprise, a little audacity. You can encourage him best, Mrs. Dunbar. . . She was a silly, extravagant little fool. Had made George take a house in Norwood. Live up to a lot of people better off than themselves. I saw her once; silk dress, pretty boots, all feathers and scent, pink face. More like the Promenade at the Alhambra than a decent home, it looked to me. But some ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... by blackmailers, who threaten to lay bare his father's extravagant innuendos, unless he pays fifty thousand dollars. He can afford it, but as he says, it's war times and money is scarce as brunette chorus girls. He has put the matter before the District Attorney and is going to sail for Far Cathay until they round ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... the head of the household has a conscience. I see a king careless of the welfare of his people, and the honour and glory of his reign; affecting to be a patriot, and a man of business, on the strength of an extravagant fancy for shipbuilding; careless of everything save the empty pleasure of an idle hour. A king who lavishes thousands upon wantons and profligates, and who ever gives not to the most worthy, but ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Like a soldier returning from a week in the trenches, I sought the comfort and seclusion of the Y.M.C.A. Here I witnessed a checker contest of a low order between two unscrupulous brothers. They had a peculiar technique completely their own. It consisted of arts and dodges and an extravagant use of those adjectives one is ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... folks. But she knows how to drive a bargain. She can skin a flint, and tan the hide. She makes a fool of Catharine, dressing her up like a London doll. I wonder who she expects is going to marry her, if she brings her up with such extravagant notions." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... dissentient voice was to be heard. All concurred in thinking him a fine fellow; could plainly read his high courage in his bearing; his good breeding in his debonnaire deportment; and his manly beauty in his extravagant red whiskers. Dick saw the effect that he produced. He was at home in a moment. Your true highwayman has ever a passion for effect. This does not desert him at the gallows; it rises superior to death itself, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... consented to Lady Shrewsbury's new match with the well-endowed Eleanor Ratcliffe. If he could not have Cicely, he cared not whom he had. He had been leading a wild and extravagant life about town, when (as poor Tichborne afterwards said on the scaffold) the flourishing estate of Babington and Tichborne was the talk of Fleet Street and the Strand, and he had also many calls for secret service money, so that all his thought was to have more to spend in the service ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in dismay, heave the most desponding sighs, utter aloud their complaints, and earnestly implore a cessation of those evils, which nature, acting by necessary laws, obliges them to experience as necessarily as she does those benefits by which she fills them with the most extravagant joy. In short, it is of the essence of certain climates to produce men so organized, whose temperament is so modified, that they become either extremely useful or very prejudicial to their species, in the same manner as it is the property of ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... able to say, 'With me it is a very small matter to be judged of you, or of man's judgment. He that judgeth me is the Lord.' Never mind, though they say, 'Beside himself!' Never mind, though they say, 'Oh! utterly extravagant and impracticable.' Better that than to be patted on the back by a world that likes nothing so well as a Church with its teeth drawn, and its claws cut; which may be made a plaything and an ornament by the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... of her hair, which is of the deepest hue of night, and falls to the middle of her back (Arab ladies are extremely fond of full and long hair). A rosy blush overspreads the center of each cheek; and a mole is considered an additional charm. The Arabs, indeed, are particularly extravagant in their admiration of this natural beauty spot, which, according to its place, is compared to a drop of ambergris upon a dish of alabaster or upon the surface of a ruby. The eyes of the Arab beauty are intensely black,[132] large, and long, of the form of an almond: ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... man, that we choose the grey-beard Falieri and not the youth Falieri." And these censuring voices were completely silenced when the people, learning upon whom the choice had fallen, greeted it with the loudest and most extravagant demonstrations of delight. Do we not know that in such dangerous times, in times of such tension and unrest, any resolution that really is a resolution is accepted as an inspiration from Heaven? Thus it came to pass that the "dear ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... our "honourable country," and we were helped to more tea and cakes, and begged to make ourselves at home. We, on our part, led the conversation back to matters concerned with the object of our residence in this country, and received from our hostess extravagant compliments upon our extraordinary ability and learning, the reputation of which, they said, was well ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... Mrs. Falconer had been first tempted to these practices by the distress for money into which extravagant entertainments, or, as she stated, the expenses incident to her situation—expenses which far exceeded her income—had led her. It was supposed, from her having kept open house at times for the minister, that she and the commissioner had great influence; ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... thought, more successful than was good for him. He had been elected freely to the best Clubs. During the season he had gone everywhere. Many editions of his book had been sold. He had acquired a little cult who said extravagant things about him in the literary papers. It is sickening to see a man reverenced during his lifetime. I could imagine him posing before his cult and being pleased; even before I had read a page of his novel, I had made ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... tale hangs by that bacon and beans. While I was awaiting the second trial in Newgate, and providing my own food, I studied the diet scale which hangs up in each cell, and was fascinated by this extravagant quantity of pork, which seemed to evidence an unimagined display of prison hospitality. One of the officers to whom I mentioned the matter said, "Ah, Mr. Foote, I wish you would show that diet up when you get out. Untried prisoners have ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... presume upon her own influence—the good sense, the taste she showed, yet not displaying her superiority—the address, temper, and patience, with which she at last accomplished her purpose, and prevented Lady Clonbrony from doing anything preposterously absurd, or exorbitantly extravagant. ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... thought this walk extravagant. Emily feared Lilias had lost her aunt's good opinion, and prepared herself for some hints about a governess. It was untoward; but in the course of the evening she was a little comforted by a proposal from Lady Rotherwood to take her and Lilias ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge |
