"Mercantile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... commercial network may not be unwelcome to the reader desirous of contrasting the narrower but nevertheless fascinating mediaeval conditions of the German Hansa with those prevailing in our present mercantile world. Let us inquire how the confederation of the Hansa arose, and, after briefly sketching its external history, review in greater detail its commercial and industrial methods, its art work, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... winter, with the thermometer frequently standing at forty, and sometimes even fifty or sixty degrees below the freezing point of Fahrenheit, with its rivers completely blocked by ice and its fields covered by several feet of snow, puts a stop to most operations, whether mercantile or military. The winter of 1756 consequently afforded Isidore de Beaujardin, in his comfortable quarters at Montreal, complete leisure to reflect upon the incidents that had occurred during the last few months of his life, amongst which his short visit to Quebec ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... No captain in the mercantile navy of Britain was better qualified than he to take his ship across the trackless main, and, if need be, carry her safely into port; but seamanship and knowledge of channels and bars and currents avail nothing when the sails and cordage of a ship are unseaworthy and ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... eyes of his less imaginative companions the aspect of these shores recalled rather the cut-up lands of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; and where the Frenchman looked for traces of the heroes of fable, these Americans were noting favourable points for the establishment of mercantile houses in the interest of lunar commerce ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... "hands down". Fortunately there were no search-lights to baffle her quartermaster, for those of both Hurst and the batteries on the Isle of Wight shore had been previously switched off. Since the Needle Channel was closed to all mercantile shipping, the Capella could, and did, without risk, extinguish her navigation lights. Only the phosphorescent spray from her sharp cutwater ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... gentleman.—We mercantile men like to see offsets in our books, before they are balanced. Whatever may be my opinion of the reigning family, which I only utter to you in confidence, and not as coin that is to pass from one to another, my love for the Grand Monarque is still less. Louis is at loggerheads ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... his boyhood one gets a flavor of irreverence which was slow in disappearing. When yet a mere child he suggested to his father the convenience of saying grace over the whole barrel of salt fish, in bulk, as the mercantile phrase would be. By the time that he was sixteen, Shaftesbury and Collins, efficiently aided by the pious writers who had endeavored to refute them, had made him "a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine;" and while he was ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... charge to which he ministered for half a century. There were many other ministers in the Macaulay family during several generations; but Zachary Macaulay, the father of the historian, seemed born with a taste for business, and was accordingly sent out to Jamaica to learn mercantile affairs, when quite young. Here he saw much of negro slavery, and became so much impressed with its horrors, and so filled with sympathy for the black race, that he resolved to devote himself to their interests. He accordingly resigned his position in Jamaica and returned to Scotland, where ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... day, in comparison with the one all-powerful, all-pervading object. It is even whispered that one cause of the more than usual crowd at San Agustin this year, is that many failures are expected in mercantile houses, and that the heads of these houses or their agents are here on the desperate hope ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... "The Wolverine Mercantile Loan and Trust Company closed its doors, also," observed Delancy, dropping the tips of his long, highly coloured fingers into his finger-bowl as though to wash away all personal responsibility for these ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Henry, accompanied by Sam, went round to the Sixpenny Savings-Bank, then established on Astor Place, in a part of the Mercantile Library Building. It is kept open every day in the week from 10 A. M. till 8 P. M., thus affording better accommodation to depositors than most institutions of the kind. Sam had never been in a savings-bank before, and he looked ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... empire of the 16th and 17th centuries ultimately yielded command of the seas to England. Subsequent failure to embrace the mercantile and industrial revolutions caused the country to fall behind Britain, France, and Germany in economic and political power. Spain remained neutral in World Wars I and II, but suffered through a devastating Civil War (1936-39). In the second half of the 20th century, ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... mother died, and she went home to live with her father. I still visited her in company with my sister, for I hoped that my father would, at some time, consent to my marrying her. About a year after this, her father engaged in some mercantile business that failed; he was also very much defrauded by his agents, so that, from being what might be called a rich man, he was suddenly reduced to poverty. This sad change in his affairs affected him so much that he fell ill. I was grieved to my heart to see him in such a state, and to ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... as they were derisively called by their opponents, regarded the Bourgeois Philibert as their natural leader. His force of character made men willingly stand in his shadow. His clear intellect, never at fault, had extended his power and influence by means of his vast mercantile operations over half the continent. His position as the foremost merchant of New France brought him in the front of the people's battle with the Grand Company, and in opposition to the financial policy of the Intendant and the mercantile ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Americans residing in the town of Zanzibar are either Government officials, independent merchants, or agents for a few great mercantile houses in Europe ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... arrived from St. Louis. They had been attacked by Indians, and made a doleful appearance. During their trip they had once remained six days without any kind of food, except withered grass. Here it may not be amiss to say a few words about the origin of this inland mercantile expedition, and the dangers with which the ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... common forms of labour. But in Old Japan the occupations of the farmer and the artizan were not despised: trade alone appears to have been considered degrading,—and the discrimination may have been partly a moral one. The relegation of the mercantile class to the lowest place in the social scale must have produced some curious results. However rich, for example, a rice-dealer might be, he ranked below the carpenters or potters or boat-builders whom he might employ,—unless it happened that his family originally ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... politically—between us and you—as theirs is. I mean it ought not to be when both faiths are cleared of superstition and fanaticism.' He spoke very highly of Sir Bartle Frere but said 'I wish it were possible for more English gentlemen to come out to India.' He had been two years in England on mercantile business and was going back to his brother Ala-ed-deen much pleased with the English in England. It is one of the most comforting Erscheinungen I have seen coming from India—if that sort of good sense is pretty ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... married—and there would be an end of them. As for the son, he had long since placed himself beyond the narrow range of his father's sympathies. In the first place, his refusal to qualify himself for a mercantile career had made it necessary to dispose of the business to strangers. In the second place, young Robert Graywell proved—without any hereditary influence, and in the face of the strongest discouragement—to be a born painter! One of the greatest artists of that day saw ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... Goldwin Smith at Wormley's, Bancroft, speaking of Berlin matters, said that the Emperor William did not know that Germany was the second power in the world so far as a mercantile navy was concerned until he himself told him; and on the ignorance of monarchs regarding their own domains, Goldwin Smith said that Lord Malmesbury, when assured by Napoleon III that in the plebiscite he would have the vote of the army, which was five hundred thousand, answered, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... generous fibre in this mercantile soul, and full of sudden hope that she might get the two hundred thousand ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... consequent rapid appearance of multitudinous neat cottages, tenement houses and business blocks. A stranger entering South Bend proper on any ordinary day, will be at some loss to account for its prosperous appearance—its flagged and bouldered streets—its handsome mercantile blocks, banks, and business houses generally. Reasoning from cause to effect, and seeing but a meager sprinkling of people on the streets throughout the day, and these seeming, for the most part, merely idlers, and in nowise accessory to the evident thrift and opulence of their ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... He is a merchant, retired with a fortune amassed by the old-fashioned, slow processes of trade, and regards the mercantile life of the present day only as so much greed and gambling Christianly baptized.... Lu is my favorite sister; Lovegrove an unusually good article of brother-in-law and I cannot say that any of my nieces and nephews interest me more than their two children, Daniel and Billy, who are more unlike ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... is going to happen to the shipping of the world after this war? The Germans, with that combination of cunning and stupidity which baffles the rest of mankind, have set themselves to destroy the mercantile marine not merely of Britain and France but of Norway and Sweden, Holland, and all the neutral countries. The German papers openly boast that they are building up a big mercantile marine that will start out to take up the ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... economical, they never permitted him to clear off his debt. These debts had become hereditary from father to son, for many generations, so that the planters were a species of property, annexed to certain mercantile houses in London. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... August 22, 1903, the company entered into a contract with the Mississippi Valley Trust Company, the Lincoln Trust Company, the Mercantile Trust Company, and the St. Louis Union Trust Company, as trustees, under which it assigned all subscriptions which were at that date wholly or partly unpaid, together with all further subscriptions which might be received, and the premium to be received on the sale of $239,000 souvenir gold ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... the characters, standing, and means of the country dealers who are their correspondents, and who purchase their goods; for the whole of the transactions are upon credit, and a book of reference as to people's responsibility is to be found in many of the mercantile ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... thought of nothing, and could conceive of nothing more honourable, more dignified, or more desirable than a good business properly attended to. He was proud of the close and personal attention that he paid to his shop,—somewhat censoriously proud; he might be called a mercantile prude; or shopkeeping pedant; and when a near neighbour who had a country house at Kentish-town, to which he went down every Saturday, and from which he returned every Monday or Tuesday, came by a variety of unavoidable, or unavoided misfortunes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... business to pry into the conduct of their neighbours, and too indifferent, in point of disposition, to interest themselves in what they conceive to be foreign to their own concerns. They are wealthy and mercantile, of consequence liberal and adventurous, and so well disposed to take a man's own word for his importance, that they suffer themselves to be preyed upon by such a bungling set of impostors, as would starve for ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... associates. His eminent qualities were clouded by a temper haughty, envious, and obstinate; and, though he resigned an ample patrimony for the cause of God, his piety, in the public opinion, was not exempt from avarice and ambition. [50] A mercantile, rather than a martial, spirit prevailed among his provincials, [51] a common name, which included the natives of Auvergne and Languedoc, [52] the vassals of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arles. From the adjacent frontier of Spain he drew a band ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... and merry. She "bossed" the house, for Mrs. Whitney had subsided into novel-reading again, and now took books out of the Mercantile Library. A woman was doing the Saturday morning's work, and scrubbing the areas. After that she went over the front one with a red wash that looked like paint, and freshened it. The girls took a run in the yard. There was a long flower-bed down the side of the fence, and at one end all manner ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... was far from being easy. Reformers made bonfires of sacred pictures and sculptured wooden altar-pieces. Indeed the Reformation was a cruel blow to artists, for it took away Church patronage and made them dependent for employment upon merchants and princes. Except at courts or in great mercantile towns they fared extremely ill. Altar-pieces were rarely wanted, and there were no more legends of saints to be painted ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... acquisitions. He passed through existence a disappointed man, planning but never performing, seeing his more fortunate brother rising to the highest distinction in the priesthood, and finding himself irretrievably condemned to exist in the affluent obscurity ensured to him by his mercantile pursuits. ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... window on the south side. Mr. Harum's desk was by the rear, or west, window, which gave view of his house, standing some hundred feet back from the street. The south, or side, window afforded a view of his front yard and that of an adjoining dwelling, beyond which rose the wall of a mercantile block. Business was encroaching upon David's domain. Our friend stood looking out of the south window. To the left a bit of Main Street was visible, and the naked branches of the elms and maples with which it was bordered were waving defiantly at their rivals over ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... carried no taint of the dread associations of the Wolfsberg about me as I went down the bustling street to the Weiss Thor to call on that learned and well-reputed lawyer, Master Gerard von Sturm. So great was the fame of Master Gerard that he was often called in to settle the mercantile quarrels of the burghers among themselves, and was even chosen as arbiter between those of other towns. For, though accounted severe, he had universally the name of a just and wise man, who would not ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... his family; but however much that may be the case, it will still rest certain that the vast mass of men will necessarily remain workers to the last; and that no attempt to raise individual working men above their own class into the professional or mercantile classes can ever greatly benefit the working masses as a whole. What is most of all desirable is that the condition, the aims; and the tastes of working men, as working men, should be raised and bettered; that without necessarily going outside ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... had a useful reserve to draw upon in the various auxiliary naval bodies if these had not, one by one, been abolished. The Mercantile Marine was not in a position to lend much assistance in this respect, for our ships at that time carried eighty-seven thousand foreign officers and men, three parts of whom were Teutons. These facts were presumably all well known to the heads and governing bodies of the various trades, ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... army, which received her with bursts of pious and warlike enthusiasm; and leaving to Coligny her two sons, as she called them, she returned alone to La Rochelle, where she received a like reception from the inhabitants, "rough and loyal people," says La Noue, "and as warlike as mercantile." After her departure, a body of German horse, commanded by Count Mansfeld, joined Coligny in the neighborhood of Limoges. Their arrival was an unhoped-for aid. Coligny distributed amongst them a medal bearing the effigy ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... little prince was in leaving Kerika; he looked at his sabre, hung his gun against the wall, and set sail with M. Bonfils, a clerk in a mercantile house, who sent him home every year with the gold dust stolen from the ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... York I went to Chicago and obtained the position of collector for a mercantile establishment. I was paid a commission, and got on very well till one unlucky day I fell in with an acquaintance from ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... and drill commenced. The young captain showed that he knew more about the manual of arms than he did of mercantile practices. ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... awaited the offender, who intended, it is said, to enter into a mercantile concern at Glasgow with the money thus procured. He was taken prisoner in the house of Stewart of Glenbuckie, by a party of soldiers from the garrison at Inversnaid. He was carried to London, arraigned ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... J.G. Bremer, C.B. of H.M. Ship Tamar who was despatched by the government in the early part of last year (1824) to take possession of Arnhem's Land, upon the north coast of the continent, and to form an establishment upon the most eligible spot that could be found for a mercantile depot. Of the proceedings of this expedition the following particulars have been communicated to me by Lieutenant J.S. Roe, my former companion and assistant, who was appointed lieutenant of the Tamar upon her being destined for that service; and which, as the sequel ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... mercantile, and affords an excellent market to all nations. People from all Christian kingdoms resort to Alexandria, from Valencia, Tuscany, Lombardy, Apulia, Amalfi, Sicilia, Raguvia, Catalonia, Spain, Roussillon, Germany, Saxony, Denmark, England, Flandres, ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... face. His movements were quick and nervous; face and figure alike expressed the most absolute self-confidence. Prescott wondered if this self-confidence did not lie at the basis of all success, military, literary, mercantile or other, enabling one's triumphs to cover up his failures and make the people ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... digression, had the reader gone into the same building on Fifth Avenue which Burke had entered that afternoon, perhaps an hour later, and had he stopped on the third floor, entered a door marked "Mercantile Agency," he would have discovered a very busy little market-place. The first room of the suite of offices thus indicated was quite small. A weazened man, with thin shiny fingers, an unnaturally pallid face, and stooped shoulders, ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... the same proposition, except that the proportion of American shipping business done by foreign companies is much greater than the proportion of insurance business done by foreign companies. Since the Civil War the American mercantile marine instead of growing with the country has gone steadily backward, until now the greater part of our shipping is done in foreign bottoms. Aside from the other disadvantages of such a condition, the payment of such great sums for freight to foreign companies is a direct economic ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher
... character as a nation, and how can they? The slave-holding cavaliers of the South have little in common with the mercantile North; the cultivators and hewers of the western forests are wholly dissimilar from the enterprising traders of the eastern coast; republicanism is not always democracy, and democracy is not always locofocoism; a gentleman is not always a loafer, although certainly a loafer is never ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... of the whole story they could decide for themselves;' adding that, 'whether true or false, the narrative is written with consummate ability and possesses intense interest.' But others were more credulous. According to the 'Mercantile Advertiser' the story carried 'intrinsic evidence of being an authentic document.' The 'Albany Daily Advertiser' had read the article 'with unspeakable emotions of pleasure and astonishment.' The 'New ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... tons and thirty-five horse power; and the Jolly Bachelor, a Government gun-boat. The Bishop accompanied him, to see what missionary prospects there were in that distant spot, also because he was at that time anxious about Captain Brooke's health. Mr. Helms, the manager of the Borneo mercantile company, accompanied them as far as Muka, where was an establishment to collect sago for exportation. On the second day after his arrival, a piratical fleet of Ilanuns, consisting of six large, and as many smaller vessels, appeared ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... benefit, but for the benefit of white Europe. For this reason education is seldom encouraged, modern religious ideas are carefully limited, sound political development is sternly frowned upon, and industry is degraded and changed to the demands of European markets. The most ruthless class of white mercantile exploiters is allowed large liberty, if not a free hand, and protected by a concerted attempt to deify white men as such in the eyes of the native ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... legislative, judicial, and executive functions have never been clearly separated in the Chinese system of thought; new words have had to be coined within the last two years in order to express this distinction for purposes of law reform. Mercantile Law, Family Law, Fishery Laws—in a word, all the mass of what we call Commercial and Civil Jurisprudence,—no more concerned the Government, so far as individual rights were concerned, than Agricultural Custom, Bankers' Custom, Butchers' Weights, and such like petty matters; whenever ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... producing, and the crops, manufactures, and financial condition of every country across the sea. He knew, also, the way in which the various nations conducted the business of transport. From his office in Glasgow he could see the whole vast labours of industrious and mercantile man, that Brobdingnagian ant of this revolving globe, merely by closing his eyes. The map of the world's commerce was cinematographed upon ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... the city, and others interested in commerce, and Dr. Kennion, the Anglican Bishop of Adelaide. Mr. A.W. Meeks presided, and said that a special meeting of the Chamber had been called to hear Lord Brassey give an address on mercantile affairs. The Committee knew the great interest he (Lord Brassey) had taken in all matters referring to maritime and mercantile affairs, and the voyages made in the 'Sunbeam' had made Lady Brassey well known. Lord Brassey's father was well known in connection with ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... majority of them wholly unprovided with the means of subsistence, and illy equipped for campaigning, to combat a band of veteran troops who were bent on capturing Canada. A large proportion of our volunteers were mere youths who had left their colleges, office work, mercantile and other occupations, to go forth at their country's call, and had never encountered the perils of war or seen a hostile shot fired in their lives. But the high spirit of courage and patriotism which animated the hearts ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... new country, where there is no great competition in mercantile business, and money is scarce, the power and profits of store-keepers are very great. Mr. Q—- was one of the most grasping of this class. His heart was case-hardened, and his conscience, like gum, elastic; it would ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... influence of the lazy, drowsy climate, to which he is so well adapted physically, that have enabled him to endure these hardships so long. And, though the negro is the loser, the white man is not often the gainer, from this false plantation and mercantile system. The incidental risk may not be so large as the planter and merchant pretend, but the condition of the people is an evidence that the extortion they practice yields no better profit in the long run than would be gained by competition in fair prices on a ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... June, 1917, was perhaps influenced to some degree by the action of the United States, but she had her own specific reason in the sinking of three of her merchant vessels by German submarines; Brazil possesses an enterprising and good mercantile marine, has been carrying coffee and frozen meat to Europe during the war and her ships have thus been constantly exposed to risk. The sinking of her vessels raised a storm of anger, the popular voice warmly supporting the acts of the government. Nor is the alignment of Brazil a mere declaration; ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... laws regarding the employment of women, among them one restricting the hours of work in any mercantile establishment to fifty-eight in a week, except in retail stores during the month of December. Ten hours is a legal workday for women ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... broad; our ideas on social subjects were reformatory, progressive, experimental. Scientific subjects were a speciality of the household; and, living in a manufacturing district, mere neighbourhood kept us with the great current of mercantile interests. We argued each other into a general unfixity of opinions; and, full of youthful dreams of golden ages, were willing to believe this young world—where not yet we, but only our words could fly—to be but upon the threshold of true civilization. Above ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Jochanan as "the father of wisdom," and "the father of the coming generation." Tradition divides Jochanan's life, like Hillel's, into three periods of forty years each. The first forty years were spent in mercantile pursuits; in the second he studied; and in the third he taught and managed the affairs ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... anything approaching false Representations in this matter. I told her plainly that my Hand, Sword, and Deep Devotion were all I had to offer, and that for mere vile pounds, shillings, and pence, and other Mercantile Arrangements, I must look to her. Absolutely I borrowed ten pieces, although I was then at a very Low Ebb, to defray the expenses of the wedding Treat, which was done most handsomely at the Bible and Crown, in Pope's Head Alley, Cornhill. "Now then," I said to myself, as we came home ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... her emotion several times on seeing her children, Roxana shows herself a true woman. In short, though for the most part monumentally selfish, she is yet saved from being impossible by several displays of noble emotion. One of the surprises, to a student of Defoe, is that this thick-skinned, mercantile writer, the vulgarest of all our great men of letters in the early eighteenth century, seems to have known a woman's heart better than a man's. At least he has succeeded in making two or three of his women characters more alive than any of his men. It is another ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... were in London, at a hall in Milk Street. This guild did not confine its attention to the book-trade; nor did the booksellers sell only books. Often, indeed, this was but a small part of general mercantile operations. For example. William Praat, a London mercer, obtained manuscripts for Caxton. Grocers also sold manuscripts, parchment, paper and ink. King John of France, while a prisoner in England in 1360, bought from three grocers of Lincoln four "quaires" of paper, a main of paper and a skin ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... sick pickaninny of my host, and made the family a pot of strong coffee. This negro could read, but he asked me to address a label he wished to attach to a bag of Sea-Island cotton of one hundred and sixty pounds' weight, which he had raised, and was to ship by the steamboat Lizzie Baker to a mercantile house in Savannah. ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... out his great life object. He toiled on with indefatigable industry, and soon became rich. He had singular talents for acquiring wealth, and they were not suffered to remain idle. The few pounds with which he commenced his mercantile career, soon multiplied into thousands, and tens of thousands; and there is no knowing what an immense fortune he might have realized, had not death cut short his speculations at an early ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... intense interest; and at length, on the 26th of November, a small boat was seen to approach the shore, and the inquiring glances of the observers soon discovered that it contained an Englishman. This individual, who had come over on a mercantile adventure, landed amid the loudest acclamation, and was conducted by the populace in triumph to the governor's. Dressed in an English volunteer uniform, he showed himself in every part of the town, to the great delight of the ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... any terms rather than see the army, on which the safety of the empire rested, left without commanders. They were mistaken in their calculations; Clive supplied their places from the officers round his person; he sent for others from Madras; he even gave commissions to some mercantile agents who offered their support at this time. Fortunately the soldiers, and particularly the Sepoys, over whom Clive had unbounded influence, remained steadfast in their allegiance. The leaders were arrested, tried, and dismissed from the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... the noble family of Petre, being sold by William the fourth baron, on the 10th of November 1670, to Solomon Andrew of Lyme Regis, a gentleman, who possessed a considerable property obtained by his ancestors and himself in mercantile affairs. From him it descended to his only son, who died at the age of twenty-nine years, leaving two sons and a daughter, the latter of whom, by the decease of her brothers, became heiress to the estate. This young lady was placed under the guardianship of Mr. Rhodes ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... brotherhood"—the gradual substitution of the German language for the Dutch, and a Germanization of such colonies as the Allies may still leave for Holland, frequent State visits from Kaisers, and the subordination of Dutch mercantile interests to those of Hamburg and Altona and (Germanized) Antwerp. And—the everlasting howling everywhere of ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... A mercantile house, then one of the most respectable in Patna, had among its speculations undertaken some army contracts. With the knowledge of Berthier, with whom, indeed, the house had treated, I had invested some money in this business. Unfortunately the principals ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... this with a very agreeable mingling of sincerity, deference, and mercantile directness, also with a bright, admiring smile. He showed no astonishment at ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... you to interest yourself in our simple tastes. We are (I confess it) to some degree—ahem!—mercantile, and as citizens of Troy esteem it our duty to acquaint ourselves (theoretically) with the products of other lands. To this end I have had all my daughters carefully grounded in the 'Child's Guide to Knowledge.' Jane, ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and an ordinary mercantile risk no parallel can be drawn. A merchant insures his cargo so that his total loss can but be a small portion of the whole. The Overlander cannot do this with his stock and runs a far greater proportionate risk. It must also be borne in mind that ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... Petroleum is worth some shillings a gallon for actual use for many purposes. Stocks always claim to represent some real trade or business. The morus multicaulis was to be as permanent a source of wealth as corn, and was expected to produce the well known mercantile substance of silk. But nobody ever pretended that tulips could be eaten, or manufactured, or consumed in any way of practical usefulness. They have not one single quality of the kind termed useful. They have nothing desirable except the beauty of a ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... from the change of Times and other causes, the Education afforded at the Giggleswick Grammar School is at the present time insufficient for general purposes, and more especially for the purposes of Trade and Mercantile Business." ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... children. I cannot believe it can run clear and kindly yet; or that a few fine words, such as candour, liberality, the light of a nineteenth century, can close up the breaches of so deadly a disunion. A Hebrew is nowhere congenial to me. He is least distasteful on 'Change—for the mercantile spirit levels all distinctions, as all are beauties in the dark. I boldly confess that I do not relish the approximation of Jew and Christian, which has become so fashionable. The reciprocal endearments have, to me, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... blocks, and reported them to London, but the Foreign Office and the Conseil de Guerre seem to be either ignorant (I would not be very much surprised), or know more than the Ambassador, so, as yet, our Cabinet has not been warned. Our Cabinet! It sounds majestic.... Since Miliukov left, and the mercantile Monsieur Tereshchenko took his hot seat—everything goes to the devil with our policy abroad. It is strange, for Mr. Tereshchenko must be well posted in foreign relations: both of his French twin mistresses gave him every possibility ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... miller, in behalf of Tanglefoot Cove repudiating the responsibility. Perhaps the semi-mercantile occupation of measuring toll sharpens the faculties beyond natural endowments, and he began to perceive a certain connection between cause and effect inimical to ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... six years had been stretched an a bed of pain, where horrible convulsions held her fast, supported her three little girls by the needlework that she did in the intervals of suffering, he went as a mere clerk into one of the leading mercantile houses of Augsburg, where his lively and yet even temper made him welcome; there he learned a calling, for which, however, he was not naturally adapted, and came back to the home of his birth with a pure and stainless heart, in order to be the support of his mother ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... universally prior to the French Revolution. It is true that, before that tremendous epoch was reached, a far-reaching contribution to the approaching change in men's ideas on most matters touching mercantile intercourse, and the true relations of man to man, of nation to nation, had been made by the publication, in 1776, of Adam Smith's "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations;" but, as is the case with most marked advances in the realm of thought, the light thus ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... merchant of New York, the richest man in America in his time, was a poor boy; he had a dollar and a half and went into the mercantile business. But he lost eighty-seven and a half cents of his first dollar and a half because he bought some needles and thread and buttons to sell, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... or crumples, along with the other black garments that lie in that immense pocket of his."[88] Another illustration in the same book shows us Peter, after he has repented of his bargain (as vendors invariably do who indulge in mercantile transactions of this character) in ardent pursuit of his shadow, which the tantilizing purchaser has let out for the occasion. Can anything more ludicrous be imagined than this scampering piece of intangibility? The etching of Sailors Carousing ["Greenwich Hospital"], executed ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... between Reggio and Gaeta; and in particular the slope which overlooks the sea by Salerno, and which the dwellers there call the Slope of Amalfi, is studded with little towns, gardens and fountains, and peopled by men as wealthy and enterprising in mercantile affairs as are anywhere to be found; in one of which towns, to wit, Ravello, rich as its inhabitants are to-day, there was formerly a merchant, who surpassed them all in wealth, Landolfo Ruffolo by name, who yet, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... The few big roomy buildings, which served as storehouses and residences for the merchants, were built not only for the storage of goods and peltries, but also as strongholds in case of attack. The heads of the mercantile houses were generally Englishmen; but the hardy men who traversed the woods for months and for seasons, to procure furs from the Indians, were for the most part French. The sailors, both English ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... thoughts, quiet thoughts. O the corroding torturing tormenting thoughts, that disturb the Brain of the unlucky wight, who must draw upon it for daily sustenance. Henceforth I retract all my fond complaints of mercantile employment, look upon them as Lovers' quarrels. I was but half in earnest. Welcome, dead timber of a desk, that makes me live. A little grumbling is a wholesome medicine for the spleen; but in my inner heart do I approve and embrace this our close but unharassing way ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... great desire to read, and is indebted to his relative, William J. Jones, and to L. Marshall Haines and E.E. Ewing for the means of gratifying his early thirst for information. Shortly after removing to Philadelphia Mr. McKinsey entered a mercantile establishment as clerk, but soon afterwards accepted a position in the office of a publishing house, and subsequently entered the office of the Philadelphia and Reading railroad company as clerk in the record department. While in the office of the railroad company ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... student of any wealth and standing had every reason to show himself attentive to the mercantile class, and to be the more solicitous about the proper external forms, as the colony [Footnote: Leipzig was so called, because a large and influential portion of its citizens were sprung from a colony of Huguenots, who settled there after ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... have obtained the main facts of the great tobacco speculation, in reference to which there were so many rumors last week. It appears that an agent of a New York mercantile house, whose name it is deemed inexpedient to publish at this time, proposed to certain parties in this city to contract with them for the delivery of a specific quantity of manufactured tobacco at Fredericksburg, he undertaking for his principals to remove the ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... twenty-five years since was an uninhabited waste. Here were all the appliances of civilization: the school, the church, the town hall; improved agriculture, the mechanic arts, the varied forms of mercantile traffic, and at the base of the fabric the home made and ordered by woman. Here but yesterday was the frontier where woman was performing her oft before repeated task, and laying, according to her methods and habits, and within her appropriate sphere, the foundations ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... workmen lose their employment in "bad times." Mercantile concerns become bankrupt, clerks are paid off, and servants are dismissed when their masters can no longer employ them. If the disemployed people have been in the habit of regularly consuming all their salaries ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... and thoughtful man was this policeman; he possessed much originality of mind, which had received no small share of cultivation. He had been connected with a mercantile house till symptoms of a pulmonary disease drove him from his desk; then, by the kind aid of a politician, who had not entirely lost all human feelings in the council chamber, he was enrolled in the city police. To a mind less nobly constructed, this minor position might have been ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... to be buried in Florence, they refused to believe it, and began to project a decent monument to his memory in the Church of the SS. Apostoli. In order to secure his object, Lionardo was obliged to steal the body away, and to despatch it under the guise of mercantile goods to the custom-house of Florence. Vasari wrote to him from that city upon the 10th of March, informing him that the packing-case had duly arrived, and had been left under seals until his, Lionardo's, arrival at ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... which lies untouched and unclaimed on the publisher's shelves? And are we not perfectly well aware that those poems—well, we can wait. If Mr. Saxe would only put forth a volume that should prove, in a mercantile sense, a failure, we think he would be surprised to find how happily he would hit certain critics who can now see little in his writings to justify their success. Let him once join the fraternity of unappreciated geniuses, and he will find compensation,—though not, perhaps, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... continent are too much affected by the depreciation of our currency; scarce an officer, civil or military, but feels something of a desire to be concerned in mercantile speculation, from finding that his salary is inadequate to the harpy demands, which are made upon him for the necessaries of life, and from observing, that but little skill is necessary to constitute one of the merchants ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... at their beginning than the year that has just passed; instead of the great prosperity, that was unanimously looked forward to, it proved itself one of the most discouraging years during the last quarter of a century. This applies, of course, only to the mercantile, not to the industrial classes. And yet, surely there were grounds at the beginning of the year from which to draw a contrary conclusion; the stock of products was scanty, capital was abundant, provisions cheap, a rich autumn was assured, there was ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... Athens about 638 B.C., and belonged to the noblest family of the State. He was contemporary with Pisistratus and Thales. His father having lost his property, Solon applied himself to merchandise,—always a respectable calling in a mercantile city. He first became known as a writer of love poems; then came into prominence as a successful military commander of volunteer forces in a disastrous war; and at last he gained the confidence of his countrymen so completely that in a period of anarchy, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... Terrestrial vessels. They have no masts or rigging, are constructed of the zorinta, which in Mars serves much more effectively all the uses of iron, and differ entirely in construction as they are intended for cargo or for travel. Mercantile ships are in shape much like the finest American clippers, but with broad, flat keel and deck, and with a hold from fifteen to twenty feet in depth. Like Malayan vessels, they have attached by strong bars an ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... characteristic are they of times of restfulness and peace to which New York has long been a stranger. Down towards the point of the island, in the "city" proper, the visitor will find many happy creations for modern mercantile purposes, besides such older objects of architectural interest as Trinity Church and the City Hall, praised by Professor Freeman and many other connoisseurs of both continents. Among these business structures may be named ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... says the bay man, 'President Bolano was forced to fly. To-day Caballo is President by proclamation. Ah, yes. Beneath the new administration I am the head of the Department of Mercantile Concessions. On my file I find one report, Senor Casparis, that you have not made ice in accord with your contract.' And here the bay man smiles ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Unalaska, a distance of two thousand three hundred and sixty-eight miles, I studied well the passengers. We had preachers on board, as well as doctors, lawyers, merchants and miners, and there were women going to Nome to start eating houses, hotels and mercantile shops. There were several Swedish missionaries; one, a zealous young woman from San Francisco, going to the Swedish Mission ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... among that portion of the mercantile world of which Ben and Johnny were members that Mopsey Dowd, the pea-nut merchant of Fulton Ferry, had connected himself with the theatrical enterprise about which so many comments had been made, the matter put on an entirely different aspect, ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... went ahead, and after a long ride southward, the car stopped in the crowded mercantile ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... Meeker, is it even now too late to obey some natural instincts? You are well embarked in affairs, have already made money enough to support a wife pleasantly. Your business is daily increasing, your mercantile position for a young man remarkably well assured. Here is a really lovely young girl—a little spoiled, it may be, by fashionable associations, but amiable, intelligent, and true hearted. Probably you might win her, for she seems to ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... a tolerably lucrative commerce in supplying his old friends and customers. Every moment of his time was occupied from six o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock at night. He did everything "upon honor," and he carried this rule into his lessons as well as his mercantile speculations. What he learned he really learned, and never left the subject till he ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... he reached the gate in front of the little black house; and even there Tom begged him to stop a few moments. Our hero was in a hurry, and in the easiest manner possible got rid of this aspirant for mercantile honors. ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... phonetic values of the two Chinese characters here are in Sanskrit sa; and va, bo or bha. "Sabaean" is Mr. Beal's reading of them, probably correct. I suppose the merchants were Arabs, forerunners of the so-called Moormen, who still form so important a part of the mercantile ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... Fulda, the expedition from Madras, commanded by Clive, appeared in the Hoogley. Warren, young, intrepid, and excited probably by the example of the Commander of the Forces, who, having like himself been a mercantile agent of the Company, had been turned by public calamities into a soldier, determined to serve in the ranks. During the early operations of the war he carried a musket. But the quick eye of Clive soon perceived that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... F.R.S., fourth son of the third Earl of Rosse, is the engineer who developed the steam turbine system and made it suitable for the generation of electricity, and for the propulsion of war and mercantile vessels. If he has revolutionized traffic on the water, so on the land has John Boyd Dunlop (still living), who discovered the pneumatic tire with such wide-spread results for motorcars, bicycles, and such means ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... the approaching boat was a plainly dressed man, whose appearance so bespoke the mercantile class that it hardly needed the doffing of the captain's cap and his obsequious "your servant, Mr. Cauldwell, and good health to you," as the man clambered on board, to announce the owner of the ship. To the emigrants this sudden deference ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the development of the mercantile and manufacturing classes, which, in turn, strengthened the democratic movement. Meanwhile, a great literature was also arising, bold and inquiring. Nevertheless, it failed ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... exclusive right to the possession of the other hemisphere on the Pope's decision, Protestant ideas, which mocked at this supremacy of the Romish See over the world, now contributed also to impel men to occupy lands in these regions. This was always effected in the main by voluntary efforts of wealthy mercantile houses, or enterprising members of the court and state, to whom the Queen gave patents of authorisation. In this way Walter Ralegh, in his political and religious opposition to the Spaniards, founded an English ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... This mercantile adventure of his youth "reminded" the President of a very clever story while the members of the Cabinet were one day solemnly debating a rather serious international problem. The President was in the minority, as was frequently the case, and he was "in a hole," as he afterwards ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... Palestine, and Phoenicia from their native lands: to these Ptolemy gave great encouragement, and extraordinary privileges and immunities, which induced them to settle in Alexandria, where they followed their mercantile or commercial pursuits. The report of these advantages granted to foreigners, led Jews, Greeks and Macedonians to flock to Egypt, by which means the population and wealth of that country, and particularly of ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... two years ago no man could have stood before this bar, with perpetual servitude impending over him, but almost the entire bar would have come forward for his defence. No man would have dared to decline. But because of this pressure of political and mercantile interests, it is said that Henry Long found it difficult to obtain counsel in New York. His friends sent to Boston to obtain an eminent man here, willing to brave public feeling by acting as a counsellor ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... seating people according to their quality. They were very shrewd, but it had not occurred to them to give the best pews to the sitters able to pay the most money for them. They escaped the perplexity of reconciling the mercantile ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of my past life; I will tell you my present position. It is critical enough, but I shall improve it, for here," and he touched his forehead, "is what never fails me. This letter," he produced an epistle of mercantile aspect, bearing the Amsterdam post-mark, "I received last week from my eldest brother. The shabby schelm declares he will reply to no more of mine, that his efforts to arrange matters with my father have been fruitless, and that the old gentleman ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... had introduced new methods, laid down new principles, defied old systems, and created better ones having no precedent anywhere but in his own productive brain. It might justly be said that he had virtually revolutionized the mercantile world, for when the bridges that he built were found to hold, in spite of all dire prophecy to the contrary, others had crossed them, too, and ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... Moreover, like the doctor, the lawyer gets his weight upon him slowly, and is thirty at least before it can be heavy enough to task him severely. The business man's only limitation is need of money, and few young mercantile men will hesitate to enter trade on their own account if they can command capital. With the doctor, as with the lawyer, a long intellectual education, a slowly-increasing strain, and responsibilities of gradual growth tend, with his out-door life, ...
— Wear and Tear - or, Hints for the Overworked • Silas Weir Mitchell
... occupations permitted, was coming down to stay with his relatives for a few weeks. No doubt we two should find many things to talk about by ourselves in reference to our common calling, added little Fyne portentously in his grave undertones, as if the Mercantile Marine were ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... promise. Mr Dobbs allowed him to look over the library of the late Vicar of Fenside, and at length he came to a volume of "Sturm's Reflections," on the title page of which was written, in a clear mercantile hand, "Given to Susan Fluke, on her marriage with Henry Walford Esquire, by ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... suggestions of places not on this side of the world,—just as though fragments of the Occident had been magically brought oversea: bits of Liverpool, of Marseilles, of New York, of New Orleans, and bits also of tropical towns in colonies twelve or fifteen thousand miles away. The mercantile buildings—immense by comparison with the low light Japanese shops—seem to utter the menace of financial power. The dwellings, of every conceivable design—from that of an Indian bungalow to that of an English or French ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... cargo. Upon its arrival at Sar[a]wak, the rajah petitioned to have the cargo ashore, assuring Mr Brooke of a good and quick return: part of such return being immediately promised in the shape of antimony ore. Three months elapsed, and the rajah's share in this mercantile transaction had yet to be fulfilled. Disgusted with his treatment, and hopeless of justice, Mr Brooke dispatched the Swift to Singapore; and hearing that the crew of a shipwrecked vessel were detained in Borneo Proper, sent his only remaining vessel, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... solemn state by the sovereigns of Aragon and Castile, and was welcomed by a crowd greater than the streets of Barcelona could hold. Cabot was paid L10. The dramatic splendor of the one reception, the prosaic mercantile character of the other, represent the different tempers in which Spain and England approached the ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... occupation of the parents, was nevertheless more favorable to the freedom of the individual than at any previous period. These social elements combining with the wealth aforesaid, and the public spirit which has always distinguished the mercantile classes engaged in foreign commerce upon a large scale, united to form an environment favorable to the development of art; and, as music was the form of art which happened to be most in demand at ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... another and personal letter to the king, giving further accounts of Fray de Leon's illegal acts and general unfitness for his office. Tapia also accuses him and one Fray Amorin of having appropriated to themselves various funds entrusted to their care; and says that Leon is investing in mercantile speculations money which must ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... As we have, without any good effect therefrom, withheld our trade to obtain a redress of our grievances, let us now try the alternative, by independantly redressing them ourselves, and then offering to open the trade. The mercantile and reasonable part in England, will be still with us; because, peace with trade, is preferable to war without it. And if this offer be not accepted, other courts ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... had been more or less of a mercantile character, with an eye to money; but when Lucian Denzil appeared on the scene, the poor little woman really fell in love with his handsome face. But, in strange contrast to her other efforts, Miss Greeb never for a moment deemed that Lucian would marry her. He ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... capital of the island, Kingston is the largest town in Jamaica. It stands upon the brink of a frith, about nine miles above Port Royal, and thence enjoys all the advantages of the chief mart in this trading country. Like most other mercantile seaports, it is built without much regard to regularity. The streets, though wide, are in general the reverse of elegant, being composed almost entirely of wooden houses, and by no means remarkable for cleanliness. Of public buildings it possesses none worthy ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... be noticed in passing, much of the tendency on the part of our shipmen in this period to self-help in offence as well as in defence, was due to the fact that the mercantile navy was frequently employed in expeditions of war, vessels and men being at times seized or impressed for the purpose by order of the Crown. On one of these occasions the port of Dartmouth, whence Chaucer at ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... hours of business, whether judicial or mercantile, civil or military, I have nothing to do; I doubt not they are all spent wisely and profitably; but what are their hours of recreation? Those hours that with us are passed in the enjoyment of all that art can win from nature; when, if the elaborate repast be more deeply ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... been expected in the absence of his own continuous guidance. In town he walked about the hotel, entertained the guests, carved at the meals, hovered about the stores, the doctors' offices, the wagon and blacksmith shops, discussed mercantile, medical, mechanical questions with specialists in all these departments, throwing into them all more and more of politics as the intimacy between him and his patron and ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... best poets must, when they first began to write, make as many faults as he did. Osborne dissuaded him, assur'd him he had no genius for poetry, and advis'd him to think of nothing beyond the business he was bred to; that, in the mercantile way, tho' he had no stock, he might, by his diligence and punctuality, recommend himself to employment as a factor, and in time acquire wherewith to trade on his own account. I approv'd the amusing one's self with poetry now and then, so far as to improve one's ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... Kinkell, Conon Bridge. At the age of seventeen he went to Inverness and became an apprentice draper with Mr William Mackay, late of the Clan Tartan Warehouse. In this capacity he served two years, but finding mercantile life distasteful to him, he enlisted in the 92nd Regiment. Here his qualities procured for him rapid promotion. He successively and successfully discharged the duties of drill-instructor, pay-sergeant, and other non-commissioned ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... of William Sayle, who had been appointed governor of that part of the coast which lies south-west of cape Carteret. He was accompanied by Joseph West, who was intrusted with the commercial affairs of the proprietors, and who, with the governor, conducted the whole mercantile business of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to have another outlet for its wheat over the Portland & Seattle railway, projected and building. All these towns have good schools, churches, warehouses, mercantile establishments, and all enjoy an abundance of prosperity from ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... Navigation Acts were repealed in 1849. Thus for very nearly two hundred years British trade was subject to restrictions, of which the avowed intention was to curtail the commercial intercourse of the empire with the world. During this period the commercial or mercantile system, of which the fallacies were exposed by the economists of the latter half of the 18th century, continued to govern the principles of British trade. Under this system monopolies were common, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... more industry, though of comparatively small extent, that is included in the activities of the Orange works, namely, the manufacture and sale of the Bates numbering machine. This is a well-known article of commerce, used in mercantile establishments for the stamping of consecutive, duplicate, and manifold numbers on checks and other documents. It is not an invention of Edison, but the organization owning it, together with the patent rights, were ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... iron was certainly employed by the English, at least, from about the first century of the Christian era, and its use was perhaps introduced into the marshlands of Sleswick by the Germanic conquerors of the north. Even at this early date, abundant proof exists of mercantile intercourse with the Roman world (probably through Pannonia), whereby the alien culture of the south was already engrafted in part upon the low civilisation of the native English. Amber was then exported from the Baltic, while gold, silver, and glass beads were given in return. Roman ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... Clavering—condescends to notice the looks, good or bad, of Mr. Mainwaring? 'Sdeath, sir, he is the son of a land-agent! Sir, he is intended for trade! Sir, his highest ambition is to be partner in some fifth-rate mercantile house!" ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lawyers; long bill. Gallantry; "Toast be dear Woman." Mercantile; run on banks. And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... The mercantile class in Paris did not hold a high position. The merchant was too much of a shopkeeper, and the shopkeeper was too much of a huckster. The smallest sale involved a long course of bargaining. This was perhaps partly due to the fact, admirable in itself, that the wife was generally united with her ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... Persia. To this must be added the difficulties of examining and counting coins—weighing is not practicable owing to the irregularity of each coin—of the transmission of funds to distant places, and the general ignorance except in mercantile circles—of banking methods as we ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... civilized world, since it is scarcely possible that a war could exist between them without endangering the peace of Christendom. The immediate effect of the treaty upon ourselves will be felt in the security afforded to mercantile enterprise, which, no longer apprehensive of interruption, adventures its speculations in the most distant seas, and, freighted with the diversified productions of every land, returns to bless our own. There is nothing in the treaty which in the slightest degree ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... meeting this necessity was made in 1887 by Senator Whitthorne, of Tennessee, who in that year introduced a bill "to create a naval reserve of auxiliary cruisers, officers, and men, from the mercantile marine of the United States." The measure did not pass, and the next year another was introduced by Senator Whitthorne, providing for the enrolment of a Naval Militia and the organization of naval reserve forces. According to this bill, it was to be lawful for States and Territories bordering ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... common among children of superior social status as among children of inferior social status; the proportion among the former being about 24 per cent of all, and among the latter only 5 per cent of all. The group is made up largely of children of the fairly successful mercantile or professional classes. ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... inner realm. Mental perceptions are dulled. The stupefied faculties can hardly be aroused by any appeal. Memory fails. Thus the man is disqualified for any responsible labor. No railroad company, no mercantile house, will employ any one addicted to drinking. The mind of the drunkard is unable to retain a single chain of thought, but gropes about with idle questionings. The intellect is debased. Judgment is impossible, ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... birched the land. They were started at our dinner-tables, and scourged the social converse. Not less than in the articles, they were perhaps livelier than in the preface; they were distressing nevertheless; they led invariably to the question of our decadence. Carthage was named; a great mercantile community absolutely obliterated! Senatorial men were led to propose in their thoughtfullest tones that we should turn our attention to Art. Why should we not learn to excel in Art? We excelled in Poetry. Our Poets were cited: not that there was a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Government would undertake not to use their submarines to attack mercantile of any flag except when necessary to enforce the right of visit and search. Should the enemy nationality of the vessel or the presence of contraband be ascertained, submarines would proceed in accordance with the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... chef-d'oeuvre of fine acting, and was followed by loud plaudits, and "Bravo! bravo!" At length, having cast many a menacing look at the prompter, who repeatedly, though in vain, gave him the word, he came forward, and, with overacted feeling, thus addressed the audience: "You are a mercantile people—you know the value of money—a thousand pounds, my all, lent to serve a friend, is lost for ever. My son, too—pardon the feelings of a parent—my only son—as brave a youth as ever fought his country's battles, is slain—not ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... his Britannic majesty imported more iron and steel than all the other countries in Europe. For this article they paid a very great balance in ready money, which the Swedes again expended in purchasing from the French, and other mercantile powers, those necessaries and superfluities with which they might have been as cheaply furnished by Great Britain. In the meantime, the English colonies in America were restricted by severe duties from making advantage of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... opportunity as he seldom enjoyed. The one noteworthy thing about these productions, and about others of equally mistaken direction, was the sincerity of their workmanship. Had Yule been content to manufacture a novel or a play with due disregard for literary honour, he might perchance have made a mercantile success; but the poor fellow had not pliancy enough for this. He took his efforts au grand serieux; thought he was producing works of art; pursued his ambition in a spirit of fierce conscientiousness. In spite of all, he remained only a journeyman. The kind of work he did best ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... cities of the east coast, through the great advantage it derived from its easy harbour, but with the abolition of that traffic came the downfall of its prosperity; for having no back country by the exportation of whose produce it might sustain itself, it was speedily deserted by the mercantile community, and its carrying trade usurped by Providence, although the latter is situated some thirty miles higher up the river. A railroad from Boston through the wealthy manufacturing districts might nevertheless, I should imagine, bestow upon this place ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... in England at the suppression no such precautions were taken; manuscripts seem to have been at a discount just then, for which the invention of printing may be to some extent responsible; their mercantile value was small; private collectors were few. So the monastic libraries perished, save a few hundred manuscripts which have survived to give us an imperfect notion of what the rest ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... necessary to hear Clem, arrived upon one of his visits, and dealing in a spirit of continuous irony with the affairs and personalities of that great city of Glasgow where he lived and transacted business. The various personages, ministers of the church, municipal officers, mercantile big-wigs, whom he had occasion to introduce, were all alike denigrated, all served but as reflectors to cast back a flattering side-light on the house of Cauldstaneslap. The Provost, for whom Clem by exception entertained a measure of respect, he would liken to Hob. "He minds me o' the laird there," ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... informed him that he saw no "causam belli, onely litigandi," and asked him if he could not temper his speech "by pouring in oyle & not vinegar," and thus prevent a war if possible.[139] In Downing's behalf it may be said, however, that his attitude was the same as that of the mercantile interests in England which he so well represented. The increasing importance of the mercantile element, both in England and Holland, and their desire to encroach on the trade of one another in all parts of the world, especially ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... wrecks and condemned hulks, in process of breaking up, strewing the shores with their timbers; the boatfuls of Negroes gliding to and fro; and all the signs of our hasty, irreverent, wasteful, semi- barbarous mercantile system, which we call (for the time being only, it is to be hoped) civilisation. The engine had hardly stopped, when we were boarded from a fleet of negro boats, and huge bunches of plantains, yams, green oranges, junks of sugar-cane, were displayed upon the deck; ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... the reasonable liberties of the colonies. The influence of the Lords somewhat preponderated, because they controlled many of the elections to the Commons; but neither branch was disposed to increase the power of the king, and they were, besides, split by internal factions. It was not until the mercantile interest got into the saddle that Parliament saw the expediency of restricting the productive and commercial freedom of the colonies, and the necessity, in order to secure these ends, of diminishing their legislative license. Meanwhile, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... therefore, Murphy found it very difficult to suspect his owners of conspiring to deliver a cargo of coal to the German fleet at sea. No, indeed! Matt Peasley and Cappy Ricks were too intensely American for that; indeed, Cappy was always saying he hoped to see an American mercantile marine established before he should be gathered to the bosom ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Sadler did a mixed mercantile business, and they seemed to be prosperous people, but I take it Fu Shan mainly carried on the business, and Sadler was the reason why the firm's property was respected and let alone by the Caucasians. There is ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... of the disposition and character of the natives, as seem requisite to be understood to form an accurate judgment of the present condition of Africa. The advantages that may possibly result not only from moral, but political considerations, in forming upon sure principles, agricultural and mercantile establishments, calculated to instruct and civilize the Negroes employed in the necessary avocations, will unfold the fertility of their soil which is now left to nature; and will also fulfil the expectations of a rational humanity, while ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... The first Italian Opera House (that was its name) became the National Theater; the second, which was known as Palmo's Opera House, when turned over to the spoken drama, became Burton's Theater; the Astor Place Opera House became the Mercantile Library. The Academy of Music is still known by that name, though it is given over chiefly to melodrama, and the educational purpose which existed in the minds of its creators was only a passing dream. The Metropolitan Opera House has housed twenty-three regular ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... business or manufacturing or banking would do for me and would be suited to me. I wonder which is the best! Mercantile business gives one a good chance to show what he is made of. A man with ideas ought to succeed in it; that is, if he is pushing and has plenty of originality. A. T. Stewart, what a fortune he made! He was original, he did things in a new way, advertised differently, got up new ideas, and ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... The mercantile house of which I was until recently an active member had many business connections throughout the Western States, and I was therefore in the habit of making an annual journey through them, in the interest of the firm. In fact, I was always glad to escape from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various |
