"Sinecure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... down to the ice and anchor it by the grip of the nails, thereby retarding its speed. The steersman on the mammoth Ponkapoag bob-sled steered by a rope bridle and the use of his feet on a stout wooden cross-bar, and his position was no sinecure. He had at least a ton of people on board and ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... new Hospital at Marlborough was filled to its utmost capacity and Evadne found her work no sinecure. The force of nurses was inadequate to the demand. Often she would be called from her rest to minister to the critical cases which were her special care, and she would go down to the ward saying softly, "The Master is come and calleth for thee," and bending tenderly ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... that I never touch cheese, or hare, or rabbit, or eel, and I would have to be in the last stage of starvation before I could eat cold lamb or cold veal; so it will be seen by these confessions that my cook's berth is not a sinecure, and that these complimentary dinners, as dinners, are to a great extent wasted upon me. I once, in fact, was asked to a dinner at a club, and I could not touch one single dish! But my friends kindly provided some impromptu dishes without cheese ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... cards or dice to be played for money, as he strongly disapproved of gambling. He was a strict Sabbatarian, and allowed the musicians to have a rest on the seventh day. This was as well, for the post of musician on a pirate ship was no sinecure, as every pirate had the right to demand a tune at any hour of the day or night. He used to place a guard to protect all his women prisoners, and it is sadly suspicious that there was always the greatest competition amongst the ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... the Hive and to the sea-shore. A supply of fresh water would be constantly required; ice for this purpose must be perpetually carried in from the coast, and it would be necessary to arrange that everyone in turn should perform this office, as it would be no sinecure to clamber up the sides of the crater for 900 feet, and descend the same distance ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... battle?" it Is so strange a thing, that numbers imagine you may go (ind see it at Charing Cross. Indeed, our officers, who are going to Flanders, don't quite like it; they are afraid it should grow the fashion to fight, and that a pair of colours should be no longer a sinecure. I am quite unhappy about poor Mr. Chute: besides, it is cruel to find that abstinence is not a drug. If mortification ever ceases to be a medicine, or virtue to be a passport to carnivals in the other world, who will be a self-tormentor any longer-not, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... in the sunshine, intrusted with the sinecure of checking up barrow-loads of dirt which convicts wheeled past him where he sat in an armchair provided by the warden from his office, the prisoner perceived that the Wagg policies were effective in ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... worse off than he. They would both have frankly owned, had they been asked, that they detested work of any kind. Yet the chaplain had almost as much business on his hands as the bursar of a great college, in the administration of Carew's affairs, besides filling an office which was by no means a sinecure, in that of his master of the ceremonies. Many a rudeness in that house would have been bitterly avenged, and many a quarrel would have had a serious termination, but for the good offices of Parson Whymper. Nor would Mr. Byam Ryll have been considered by every body to earn ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... mess cabin as Ah Sing rang the bell, and during the meal Mart revised his opinion of the mate to some extent. He saw that Swanson did not like him because he considered the wireless job a sinecure, and wanted to keep all the crew hard at work all the time. It was the usage of the sea, and the big mate himself was blunt and well-meaning. But Mart Judson had no mind to be ordered about by anyone, and he determined that if Swanson tried ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... Bankruptcy. In 1787 he was returned M.P. for the borough of Helleston; and from 1789 to 1795 held office as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In 1795, at the instance of his chief, Lord Grenville, he vacated his post, and by way of compensation was created a baronet with a sinecure post as Knight-Marshal of the Royal Household. Thenceforth he devoted himself to literature. In 1796 he wrote the 'Birth and Triumph of Love', by way of letter-press to some elegant designs of the Princess ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... was no sinecure. Bricks without straw were a child's pastime to the cures aunt Polly and the Springs effected without a pretense to the comforts of life in health, to say nothing of sickness. Modern conveniences are ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... conquerors, and we could have them in abundance if we cared to have them. What other universities do by founding new chairs for new sciences, the colleges of Oxford could do to-morrow by applying the funds which are not required for teaching purposes, and which are now spent on sinecure fellowships, for making either temporary or permanent provision for the endowment ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... Costume Committee was no sinecure. Coveted Saturday afternoon and evening leisure had to be given up to the stitching of long seams. Mathilde LeBrun, who was another Josephine in that her brain seemed to be in her fingers, was convener of the committee, and under her direction ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... was Joint Chief Clerk of the Pleas in the Queen's Bench, a sinecure conferred on him by his father, who was Lord Chief Justice of the King's ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... secretary, and the place was no sinecure. Besides manuscripts and letters which his master signed, Pilorge copied everything. The illustrious author, attentive to the demands of posterity, preserved with religious care copies of his most trifling notes. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... be seen that the office of the Forest Ranger is by no means a sinecure. He works hard and he works long and alone and our kindly thoughts should go out to him in his solitary ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... the benefit of a class, and leading, especially in legal matters, to endless abuses and chicanery. The abuses everywhere imply 'inequality' in some sense; for they arise from monopoly. The man who holds a sinecure, or enjoys a privilege, uses it for his own private interest. The 'matter of corruption,' as Bentham called it, was provided by the privilege and the sinecure. The Jacobin might denounce privileges simply as privileges, and Bentham denounce them because they ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... somewhat of a philosopher, and always eager to make the best use of the time at his command. There was nothing more to be feared from the Aryks, and his situation, therefore, of guardian of his sleeping friends might be considered a sinecure. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... probationers arrived in the middle of May, and then work began in good earnest. The post of lady superintendent was by no means a sinecure. At 5.30 every morning she might have been seen unlocking the doors for the kitchen-women. She was often round the wards at 6.0, and all through the busy day until 11.0 at night she was kept fully employed, giving out stores, superintending her nurses, presiding at meals, ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... exalted virtues he seemed to think it rested. He said he thought his little kingdom had aped the style of the great monarchies too much, and that he should like to abolish a good many high sounding titles, sinecure offices, the household troops, and some of the "imitation pomp" of his court. He said he had never enjoyed anything so much since his accession as the hookupu of the morning, and asked me what I thought of it. I was glad to be able to answer truthfully that I had never seen a state ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... I shall put you to every possible use; you may be quite certain that your position will not be a sinecure." ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... no sinecure, teaching Rhoda, but she won the dress,—a lilac print, delicate and pretty enough for any one. I undertook to make the dress, but she accomplished a good part of it herself. She said Miss Reeny used to show her about sewing. Whatever was to be done with hands she learned with surprising quickness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... see it at Charing Cross. Indeed, our officers, who are going to Flanders, don't quite like it; they are afraid it should grow the fashion to fight, and that a pair of colours should no longer be a sinecure. I am quite unhappy about poor Mr. Chute: besides, it is cruel to find that abstinence is not a drug. If mortification ever ceases to be a medicine, or virtue to be a passport to carnivals in the other world, who will be a self-tormentor any longer—not, my child, that I am one; ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... afternoon; for she had been on her feet all day, busied in her loving cares to make our simple home as pleasant and as welcome as home could be. But yet she stopped to dress us in our Sunday clothes,—and it was no sinecure to dress three persistently undressable children; Winthrop was a host in himself. "Auntie must see us look our prettiest," ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... generally needed not only a firm hand, but a firm hand grasping a serviceable walking-stick. Add to these Harrison himself, and others of a similar calibre, and it will be seen that Graham's post was no sinecure. It was Harrison's custom to throw off his mask at night with his other garments, and appear in his true character of an abandoned villain, willing to stick at nothing as long as he could do it strictly incog. In this capacity he had come ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... takes a heap for a majority. Wouldn't Dilworthy open his eyes if he knew some of the things Balloon did say to me. There. . . . Hopperson's influence ought to count twenty . . . the sanctimonious old curmudgeon. Son-in-law. . . . sinecure in the negro institution . . . .That about gauges him . . . The three committeemen . . . . sons-in-law. Nothing like a son-in-law here in Washington or a brother- in-law . . . And everybody has 'em . . . Let's see: . . . sixty- one. . . . with places . . . twenty-five ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... the cemetery may be called a concierge who has reached the condition of a functionary, not soluble by dissolution! His place is far from being a sinecure. He does not allow any one to be buried without a permit; he must count his dead. He points out to you in this vast field the six feet square of earth where you will one day put all you love, or all you hate, a mistress, or a cousin. ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... foreigners as the Tartar General, was so placed in order to act as a check upon the civil Governor or Viceroy, of whom he, strictly speaking, took precedence, though in practice their ranks have always been regarded as equal. With the empire at peace, the post of Tartar General has always been a sinecure, and altogether out of comparison with that of the Viceroy and his responsibilities; but in the case of a Viceroy suspected of disloyalty and collusion with rebels, the swift opportunity of the Tartar General was the great safeguard of the dynasty, further strengthened as he was ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... of those in charge of the building of ships would seem, from the following law, to have been a sinecure in the islands. This law is taken from Recopilacion de leyes, lib. v, tit. xv, ley viii. "The governors of Filipinas appoint persons to build the galleons or boats, who are wont to cause great thefts and injuries ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... it takes a heap for a majority. Wouldn't Dilworthy open his eyes if he . . . knew some of the things Balloon did say to me. There . . . Hopperson's influence ought to count twenty . . . the sanctimonious old curmudgeon. Son-in-law . . . sinecure in the negro institution. . . . That about gauges him . . . The three committeemen . . . sons-in-law. Nothing like a son-in-law here in Washington or a brother- in-law . . . And everybody has 'em . . . Let's see: . . . sixty- one . ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... her absence, the unhappy Lad took upon himself the task of turning little Wolf from a pest into something approaching a decent canine citizen. It was no sinecure, this educating of the hot-tempered and undisciplined youngster. But Lad brought to it an elephantine patience and an uncannily wise brain. And, by the time Lady was brought back, cured, the puppy had begun to show the results ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... by the foregoing sketch that a clerkship in the Railway Mail Service is far from being a sinecure, either mentally or physically. As the country increases in population and the system becomes more complex, it is found to be important to the public that the clerks should be insured against removal except for the following reasons: "Intemperance, inattention to or neglect of duty, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... one beyond it is the superintendent's. They are both usually officers of high rank, who have made an honorable record for themselves. The latter has entire charge of the post, and the position is a very responsible one; nor is it by any means a sinecure, for when the papers have nothing else to find fault with they pick at ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... position for a man just promoted to the proud position of Corporal. As they rolled me about and yelled like Indians, I could see that an official position in that regiment was to be no sinecure. All official positions have more or less care and responsibility, but this one seemed to me to have too much. Finally they spilled me out of the barrel, and I was a sight to behold. My first idea was to order the whole two hundred fellows under arrest, and have ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... any good, that will do me no harm. Pray advise with Walls and Raymond, and a little with Bishop Sterne for form. Tell Raymond I cannot succeed for him to get that living of Moimed. It is represented here as a great sinecure. Several chaplains have solicited for it; and it has vexed me so, that, if I live, I will make it my business to serve him better in something else. I am heartily sorry for his illness, and that of the other two. If it be not necessary to let the tithes till a month hence, you may keep the ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... open Desert is no sinecure. When I go under the shade from the sun the wind blows unpityingly, when in the sun the flies torment me. Our grand slave-driver Haj Essnousee, is most determinedly bent on showing himself a perfect master in his profession. This afternoon he set to work beating one poor ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... had doubtless taken a heavy load upon himself but he felt that he was to labor for his race and his country. At least one half of his students were too wild to attend the ordinary public or private schools, or to profit by them if admitted. With such material, his work could not be a sinecure. But he had a taste for it, and he gave his whole heart and soul to the performance of ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... for reform as a personal attack upon them. The opposition, therefore, could not muster even its usual strength, and the motion for inquiry was rejected. When the war was over, even the government began to feel that something must be done. In 1817 some acts were passed[63] abolishing a variety of sinecure offices and 'regulating certain offices in the Court of Exchequer.' The Radicals considered this as a mere delusion, because it was provided at the same time that pensions might be given to persons ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... disorganising the whole of human society, yet in actual life he was content to live unobtrusively, publishing harmless books for children; and though he abhorred the principle of aristocracy, he did not scruple to accept a sinecure from government through Lord Grey. Notwithstanding his stolid inconsistency and his deficiency in humour, Godwin is a figure whom it is impossible to ignore or to despise. He was not a frothy orator ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... the only chance of collecting a few grains of dust would be to climb on the salt-coffer, and put your finger on the high mantel-shelf on which the glittering brass candlesticks are enjoying their summer sinecure; for at this time of year, of course, every one goes to bed while it is yet light, or at least light enough to discern the outline of objects after you have bruised your shins against them. Surely nowhere else could an oak clock-case ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... and coachman! And, then, no demands for money were ever met so cheerfully by my mother as those which went to support Mr. Pitt's policy against Jacobinism and Regicide. At present, after five years' sinecure existence, unless on the rare summons of a journey, this dormant carriage was suddenly undocked, and put into commission. Taking with her two servants, and one of my sisters, my mother now entered upon a periplus, or systematic circumnavigation ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... dower, that he perceived he must be madly in love with her. So with the consent of the signora he had arranged a correspondence between the young people; and all went on well at first,—the letters from both passing through his hands. But his office was anything but a sinecure, for while the Doctor was on his part of a cold temperament, and disposed to regard the affair merely as a proper way of providing for the natural affections, the Paronsina cared nothing for him ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... your absence made my position a sinecure, I thought I would try to make some little use of my time; so I took some books and a sword to a little room which I hired at the corner of the Rue St. Antoine, from whence I could see ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... Robina had been reckoning on. For, if it had been Gwenda she had been thinking of, she would have kept her instead of handing her over to Lady Frances. The companion secretaries of that distinguished philanthropist had no sinecure even at a ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... knows. Wealth compensates for other deficiencies. At all events his aid is desired."—"For how much?" Cho[u]bei spoke bluntly. If Rokuro[u]bei had forgotten Cho[u]bei, Cho[u]bei had not forgotten Rokuro[u]bei. He went on—"To get a price for damaged goods is no sinecure. Fortunately she is only out of repair on the surface.... Say ten ryo[u]?" Kondo[u] laughed scornfully—"And they call Cho[u]bei 'the Blind-man'! Rather is it vision magnified. The entertainment should be the reward; with what Cho[u]bei ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... somewhat unreasonable, for Pitt's health seems now to have been beyond doubt so shattered by his hereditary malady, that he was already in old age though only fifty-eight. It was natural, therefore, that he should choose a sinecure office, and the ease of the Lords. But a popular idol nearly always suffers by removal from immediate contact with the popular sympathy, be the motives for ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... Berenger took his seat beside the hazel-eyed, brown-haired Sidney, in his white satin and crimson, and with the Ambassador and his attendants were rolled off in the great state-coach drawn by eight horses, which had no sinecure in dragging the ponderous machine through the unsavoury debris ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ignorant, and gifted with a delicate complexion, pearly teeth, and a face that would have been Grecian but for a slight upward tilt of the nose and traces of a square, heavy type in the jaw. Her father was a retired admiral, with sufficient influence to have had a sinecure made by a Conservative government expressly for the maintenance of his son pending alliance with some heiress. Yet Gertrude remained single, and the admiral, who had formerly spent more money than he could comfortably afford on her education, and was still doing so upon her state and personal ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... was, indeed, no sinecure, being a most onerous burden. He says of it himself in one of ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... later there arrived here a certain major of the United States Army, a large, broad-chested, rather pompous person of about forty-eight or -nine, who from taking his ease in one sinecure and another had finally reached the place where he was unable to endure certain tests (or he thought so) which were about to be made with a view to retiring certain officers grown fat in the service. As he ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... fat. The grace of youth and the strength of maturity met there. He would make a pattern colonel if he lived. Under the simple lines of his uniform one apprehended the ripple and play of unclogged muscles. If all men were like Stonor the tailor's task would be a sinecure. ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... expected. The larger orders he drew, the thinner and the more transparent he became; and at last, when the shadow of his person had become to him a vague and unreal memory, he repented, and applied to be reinstated in his comfortable sinecure at the ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... became proverbial for peevishness, sarcasm, and scandal. Of course, fashion took its revenge; and where every one was shooting an arrow, some struck, and struck deep. The Princess grew masculine in her manners, and coarse in her mind. Her appointment as ranger in Richmond Park, one of those sinecure offices which are scattered among the dependants of the throne, made her enemies. Little acts of authority, such as stopping up pathways, brought the tongues of the neighbouring population and gentry upon her, until ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... of course, claiming precedence and preference. These are usually interspersed with solos on the flageolet, to contrast with obligati for the ophecleido; the drummers—side, long, and double—are seldom inactive; the trombones and trumpets have no sinecure, and there is always a great mortality amongst the fiddle-strings. Eight bars of impossible variation is sure to be succeeded by sixteen of the deafening fanfare of trumpets, combined with smashing cymbalism, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... neatly printed signs telling who and what is within. If you should come walking down the street outside at 3 A.M. you would probably see the lights in Hindenburg's office still burning, as I did. At 3:30 they went out, indicating that a Field Marshal's job is not a sinecure. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a day's shooting, and you shall have it." Under this system the yeomen became keen sportsmen; they and all their labourers took a keen interest in preserving, and the whole district would have risen on a poacher. The keeper's place became a sinecure, and the squire had as much game as he wanted without expense, and was, moreover, the most popular man in the county. Even after the new man came, and all was changed, the mere revocation of their ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... are so good as to promise these two posts—the appointment of justice of the peace and the sinecure for my friend—I will undertake to bring you the property, almost intact.—Almost intact, I say, for the co-operation of the legatee and several other persons is absolutely indispensable, and some obligations will be ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... the king's offer, preferring to return to Geneva. There from 1715 he rendered valuable assistance to a society that had been formed for translating the New Testament into French. He declined the offer of the chair of philosophy in the university in 1723, but accepted, in 1727, the sinecure office of librarian to the city of his adoption. Here he died at a good old age, in 1767. Abauzit was a man of great learning and of wonderful versatility. Whatever chanced to be discussed,it used to be said of Abauzit, as of Professor W. Whewell of more modern times, that he seemed to have made ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... it so much that she was led to inquire who the author was. On being told he was a poor man starving in a garret, she at once requested the Duc de Moray, President of the Corps Lgislatif, to offer him a post as secretary in his department, a sinecure, with a handsome salary attached. This gave him plenty of time to devote to literature, but hard work soon told on so delicate a frame. In 1861 he broke down owing to overwork, and went to Algeria and Corsica to recruit, collecting materials for future ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... young woman of two-and-twenty, with a child in her hood, walk twelve miles to the ships and back again the same day for the sake of a little bread-dust and a tin canister. When stationary in the winter, they have really almost a sinecure of it, sitting quietly in their huts, and having little or no employment for the greater part of the day. In short, there are few, if any, people in this state of society among whom the women are so well ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... their patrons, to record that the Private Secretary, in the most delicate manner, placed at the disposal of his former employer, the Marquess Moustache, the important office of Agent for the Indemnity Claims of the original Inhabitants of the Island; the post being a sinecure, the income being considerable, and local attendance being unnecessary, the noble Lord, in a ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... publishers. It was eagerly caught up and sold rapidly. In the midst of his success he went to the minister and demanded employment, naming his father as reference! This bold application was successful, and he had a sinecure given him, as a kind of inspector ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... some of the few better and rarer memories round which the selfishness of life is always building a thicker crust. For one thing, at that moment I was deeply grateful—that I knew my friends. My task was made a sinecure. ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... too," Joe put forth, quickly. "It wouldn't be any sinecure, Happy. You'd earn your money; don't ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... wish to tax his old servant with any labor at all. He wished his office to be as much of a sinecure as possible. And he continually urged the professor to go abroad and see the city sights, or to walk in the garden and enjoy his pipe, or rest himself in his own room, or visit ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... important functionary in Constantinople, and, though his office is lucrative, it is no sinecure. In former times the appearance of Franks in the streets of Constantinople was very likely to cause disturbance. Those were the great days of Turkey, when the Osmanli was master of the East, and regarded himself as the master of the ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... that no bishop was sent to superintend the exertions, or sustain the efficacy, or cement the connexion of the Church in America with the Church in England. The whole of the united provinces were, by the absurd fiction of a sinecure law, "in the diocese of London!" Of course, in the first collision, the Church was swept away like chaff before the wind. An Episcopal Church has since risen in its room; but it has now no farther connexion with its predecessor than some occasional ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... of "villanous saltpetre." This was the more so from the fact that enchanters, magicians, demons, dragons, and all that uncanny brood, the creation of ignorance and fancy, made knighthood often no sinecure, and men's haunting belief in the supernatural were frequently more troublesome to them than their armed enemies. But with this misbegotten crew we have nothing to do. They belong to legend and fiction, not to history, and it is with the latter alone that we are ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... labor of an eight-room dwelling proved a little too much for him, he urbanely said so. Thereupon, at Fyfe's suggestion, he imported a fellow countryman, another bland, silent-footed model of efficiency in personal service. Thereafter Stella's task of supervision proved a sinecure. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Establishments. It was to the former that he deemed the latter to be the most direct road. The strength of the administration in the House was due to the gifts which the Minister had in his hands to dispense. Men voted with the side which could reward their fidelity. It was the number of sinecure places and unpublished pensions, which along with the controllable influence of peers and nabobs, furnished the Minister with an irresistible lever: the avarice and the degraded public spirit of the recipients supplied the required fulcrum. Burke knew that in sweeping away these factitious ...
— Burke • John Morley
... picked him up and put him back into his bed again—his body glowing through his night-dress, and his eyes staring wildly about him. It was evidently impossible to leave him, and so I spent the rest of the night nodding and shivering in the armchair. No, it was certainly not a sinecure ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... FAIRCHILD, - I am guilty in your sight, but my affairs besiege me. The chief-justiceship of a family of nineteen persons is in itself no sinecure, and sometimes occupies me for days: two weeks ago for four days almost entirely, and for two days entirely. Besides which, I have in the last few months written all but one chapter of a HISTORY OF SAMOA for the last eight or nine years; and while ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... England, had it been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his residence in London. In the preceding generation a writer of eminent merit was sure to be munificently rewarded by the government. The least that he could expect was a pension or a sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitude for politics, he might hope to be a member of parliament, a lord of the treasury, an ambassador, a secretary of state. It would be easy, on the other hand, to name several writers of the nineteenth ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... allegiance to the Emperor, and the long line of petty tyrants did not come to an end until Pope Eugenius the Fourth beheaded the last of the race for his misdeeds in the fifteenth century; after him the office was seized upon by the Barons and finally drifted into the hands of the Barberini, a mere sinecure bringing rich endowments ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... counsel to have presented both? Might he not, for instance, have told his readers that, in addition to the $200,000 above referred to, and wholly as acknowledgment of his literary services, the eminent recipient had for many years enjoyed a diplomatic sinecure of the highest order, by means of which he had been enabled to give his time to the collection of materials for his most important works? Might he not have further told us how other of the distinguished men he had named, as ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... administration, be sure he will mention the affair of the railway station which was built too far from the town, and this of the Sidi Mansur water. And who, you ask, was to blame for these follies? Oh, the controlleur, as usual; always the controlleur! It is no sinecure being an official of this kind in Tunisia, with precise Government instructions in one pocket, and in the other his countrymen's contrary lamentations and suggestions, ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... Francis Mallet, a priest, in his place. Queen Elizabeth dispossessed Malet, and appointed Thomas Wilson, a layman and a Doctor at Laws. During his mastership there were no Brothers, and only a few Sisters or Bedeswomen. The Hospital then became a rich sinecure. Among the Masters were Sir Julius Caesar, Master of the Rolls; Sir Robert Acton; Dr. Coxe; three Montague brothers, Walter, Henry, and George; Lord Brownker; the Earl of Feversham; Sir Henry Newton, Judge of ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... brilliant younger brother must be provided for; presently Peter and Ebenezer, who were proprietors of a fairly prosperous hardware business, offered him a partnership, with nominal duties and one fifth of the profits. His connection with the firm was at first a sinecure. Later, and when the business had come to the brink of failure, the burden fell upon him, and absorbed his whole time and energies for nearly two years. His literary idling cannot be said to have been due to this entanglement. ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... the ensign of the troop, his office would be a sinecure," laughed the colonel, "seeing we have no standard ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... by acclamation. But at length it became a kind of triumph. The zeal of the rabble, (probably under good guidance, for the French employes comprehend those little arrangements perfectly,) determined on drawing the carriage. The harness was taken off, the horses enjoyed a sinecure, the coachman sat in uneasy idleness on his box, and the crowd tugged away in their best style. The procession slowly moved through the principal streets of the West End, till it reached the Foreign Office. After a pause there, for the delivery of his credentials, Lauriston ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... jurisdiction. The consent of the bishop of the diocese was at first required, and ordinarily that of the parish priest; but in the not infrequent cases where a slothful vicar would not allow any intrusion on his sinecure, his objections were disregarded. When the parish priest gave consent, the church was used if conveniently situated; otherwise the nearest barn or glade in the woods was utilised for the sermons. Like certain ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... as President of Chile was no sinecure. He had not only to attend to the organization of the new State, but also to employ to the utmost his judgment, tact, and diplomacy, with which qualities he was so well endowed, in allaying the disputes and jealousies between ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... This work was no sinecure. Dade and Malcolm, and even Bob, assisted in it—Malcolm and Bob attending to the heating of the branding irons while Calumet roped the steers and dragged them to the fire where Dade pressed the white-hot irons to their hips. But the work was ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... saint, could withstand the temptation of bouncing from L100 a year at Sligo, to L300 in Tipperary? This is the miserable sum of money for which the merchants and landowners and nobility of England are exposing themselves to the tremendous peril of losing Ireland. The sinecure places of the Roses and the Percevals, and the 'dear and near relations,' put up to auction at thirty years' purchase, would almost amount ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... his biographer says, he grew more and more "inclined by his temperament to a meditative existence." When he was in his thirtieth year, a crisis came. By some means or other, he secured a lucrative sinecure, that of treasurer of finances at Caen in Normandy. He hated the country and went down to Caen on the rarest occasions possible. La Bruyere, a Parisian to the marrow of his bones, says, "Provincials and fools are always ready to lose their temper and believe that one is laughing at them or despising ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... some cure or sinecure; To feed from the superfluous taxes A friend of ours—a poet—fewer 660 Have fluttered tamer to the lure Than he.' His lordship stands and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... when the mare was brought out, and he was going to mount her where she stood, something seemed to wake in the marquis's heart, or conscience, or wherever the pigmy Duty slept that occupied the all but sinecure of his moral economy: he looked at Malcolm for a moment, then at the ears of the mare hugging her neck, and last at the stones ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... made—malapropisms which are understood by the speaker's intimates, but often astonish strangers—such as the expressions "the sinecure of every eye,'' "as white as the drivelling snow.''[2] Of intentional mistakes, the best known are those which have been called cross readings, in which the reader is supposed to read across the page instead of down the column of a newspaper, with ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... somewhat unsteadily conferred, and divided with unworthy Italian rivals. The change, however, was tardy, and, when it came, did not much improve his external circumstances. The appointments he held made but a miserable sinecure, with a still more miserable salary; but the deficiency was supplied by soft words and familiar looks, which, with Mozart's kindly disposition, served to attach him to his imperial master, better than would have been done by a larger ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... sweeps of the Scottish moors, combined with its novelty, gave it great success, and Thomson went on to write also of Summer, Spring and Autumn, publishing the whole work as 'The Seasons' in 1730. He was rewarded by the gift of sinecure offices from the government and did some further writing, including, probably, the patriotic lyric, 'Rule, Britannia,' and also pseudo-classical tragedies; but his only other poem of much importance is 'The Castle of Indolence' (a subject ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... replace what was lost overnight, these proud and often honourable nobles would ante-chamber and cringe for sinecures, pensions, indemnities, privileges, importune and supplicate the King, the King's mistress, pandar or lacquey. And the sinecure, pension, indemnity or privilege was always deducted out of the bread—rye-bread, straw-bread, grass-bread—which those parched, prone human animals described by La Bruyere were extracting "with desperate obstinacy"—out of the ever more sterile ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... trivial, yet the patience of the sovereign was by no means exhausted. I thought, in general, that the pleaders were satisfied with the Bey's decision. One sees, by this, that the Bey's place is no sinecure; and I am told that few monarchs in Christian countries have so much personally to do. The Bey sits every day in the court, from eight in summer, and from nine in winter, till mid-day; and illness, or absence from town, is ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... detailed for that purpose. He was a well-educated young man and a fine musician,—in fact, had been a professor of music before the war, had entered the service intelligently, desiring to remain in active service, but some disability caused his detail. His position was no sinecure: he was expected to keep a full account of all stores in my department, all bedding, hospital clothing, all clothing of the patients, and a great many other things, having full charge of the laundry and the laundresses, with ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... power, the appointment of librarian to the king at the chateau de Choisy, where she built him, at her own expense, a little cottage ornee, named by the poets of the time, the Parnassus of the French Anacreon. This appointment was a complete sinecure, for we know that the king never opened a book, and we are equally assured that Bernard never put his ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... inaction, passiveness, abstinence from action; noninterference, nonintervention; Fabian policy, conservative policy; neglect &c 460. inactivity &c 683; rest &c (repose) 687; quiescence &c 265; want of occupation, inoccupation^; idle hours, time hanging on one's hands, dolce far niente [It]; sinecure, featherbed, featherbedding, cushy job, no-show job; soft snap, soft thing. V. not do, not act, not attempt; be inactive &c 683; abstain from doing, do nothing, hold, spare; not stir, not move, not lift a finger, not lift a foot, not lift a peg; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... books Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card; Constant at routs, familiar with a round Of ladyships, a stranger to the poor; Ambitions of preferment for its gold, And well prepared by ignorance and sloth, By infidelity and love o' the world, To make God's work a sinecure; a slave To his own pleasures and his patron's pride.— From such apostles, O ye mitred heads, Preserve the Church! and lay not careless hands On skulls that cannot teach, and will ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... to catch a mouse or two, for form's sake, in public once a year, yet to you, sir, we shall not stand on these things,' I cannot say I should jump at it; nay, if they would drop the very name of the office, and call me Sinecure to the King's Majesty, I should feel a little awkward, and think everybody I saw smelt a rat about me; but I do not pretend to blame any one else that has not the same sensations; for my part, I would rather be serjeant trumpeter or pinmaker to the palace. Nevertheless I interest ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... do some chaperoning at last, am I?" queried her father. "The job has ceased to be a sinecure. I suppose I'll have to do all the talking, since young girls, of course, may only speak when spoken to and then must answer with a yes or no. Really, my dear, you're setting yourself an ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... arranged, and Reilly entered the house; but, as it happened, Fergus's office proved a sinecure; although, indeed, when we consider his care and anxiety, we can scarcely say so. At all events, Reilly returned in about half an hour, bearing under his arm a large dark portfolio, which, by the way, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... sinecure offices are held in more or less respect, and as the belfry—man of Vondervotteimittiss has the most perfect of sinecures, he is the most perfectly respected of any man in the world. He is the chief dignitary of the borough, and the very pigs look up to him with a sentiment of reverence. His coat-tail ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... as the wheels revolved smoothly and the stream of creamy flour issued from the mouth of the machine the miller had a sinecure. Ambrose scowling and grinding his teeth scarcely saw what his eyes were turned on. His ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... a scattered "panel" connection, had but recently entered the Navy as a surgical probationer R.N.V.R. He joined purely through patriotic motives, having sacrificed a fairly substantial income in order to do so. Up to the present his work had been almost a sinecure. The Yealm had not had the faintest chance of taking part in an engagement. Her crew—to use Fanshawe's own words—were "that beastly healthy, don't you know", that, out of sheer anxiety to do something, he was learning ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... fencers, bearwards, minstrels, common players of interludes, jugglers, tinkers, peddlers, and many others, and adequate whipping of them and starting them in the direct route homeward must have been no sinecure. [Footnote: Lambarde, Duties of ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... expose any of his books to be printed, and dedicated a version of the Psalms to him as the best judge of divine poetry." Herbert was patronized by James I. who, for an elegant Latin oration, gave him a sinecure of 120l. a-year, for in those days the only Royal Society of Literature was in the palace; it is now among subjects, and too little in the Court. Upon the death of James, Herbert's Court hopes died also, and he betook himself to a retreat from London. In this retirement, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... school I had to mend clothes, sew, set the table again, take a turn at nursing the baby, and on washing-day iron. This sounds a lot, but in reality was nothing, and did not half occupy my time. Setting the table was a mere sinecure, as there was nothing much to put on it; and the only ironing was a few articles outside my own, as Mr M'Swat and Peter did not wear white shirts, and patronised paper collars. Mrs M'Swat did the washing and a little scrubbing, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... be the boon-companion of peasants and the associate of peers. Had he dissociated himself altogether from his past life, the doors of the nobility might have been still held open to him; and no doubt the cushioned ease of a sinecure's office would have been had for the asking. But in that case he would have lost his manhood, and we should have lost a poet. Burns would not have turned his back on his fellows for the most lucrative office in ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... them in their walks along the bay, for this was the favorite with the girls, and they could not but comment upon his increased manliness of bearing. He had found his position no sinecure. There were many farmers along the river who, while undeniably patriotic, saw no reason why they should not take the hard money of the British in New York in exchange for supplies, and this contraband trade had to be kept in check. An unceasing watch was ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison |
