"Exorbitant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... years in America. He will be remembered by those who have read "Paul the Peddler." Though nearly as poverty-stricken in appearance as his poorest customers, the old man was rich, if reports were true. His business was a very profitable one, allowing the most exorbitant rates of interest, and, being a miser, he spent almost nothing on himself, so that his hoards had increased to ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... An exorbitant jealousy of miracle, revelation, and ultimate moral distinctions has been imported from evolutionary science into religious thought. And it has been a damaging influence, because it has taken men's attention from facts, ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... his return. The following morning the tailleur called while Colton was still in bed, for the cash; he was shown into the bedroom by the miserable little urchin who attended daily to light the fire, &c., and demanded in payment twenty sous; this was resisted on the part of Colton as exorbitant, and the tailleur, vexed at having parted with his work before payment, seized a pair that were at the bedside, (imagining them the same that he had stitched,) and was about to quit the room with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... curious thing about this orgy of materialism, was that Harvey and all the thousands of Harveys great and small that filled America in those decades believed with all their hearts—and they were essentially kind hearts—that quick, easy and exorbitant profits, really made the equality of opportunity which every one desired. They thought in terms of democracy—which is at bottom a spiritual estate,—and they acted like gross materialists. So they fooled the world, while they deceived themselves. For the soul ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... of the first to settle at Little Missouri, and for a while had lived in the open as a hunter. But the influx of tourists and "floaters" had indicated to him a less arduous form of labor. He guided "tenderfeet," charging exorbitant rates; he gambled (cautiously); whenever a hunter left the Bad Lands, abandoning his shack, Maunders claimed it with the surrounding country, and, when a settler took up land near by, demanded five hundred dollars for his rights. A man whom he owed three thousand dollars had been opportunely ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... am utterly blind. Wrote a very long letter to my dear father on the subject of my future profession, wishing if possible to bring the question to an immediate and final settlement.' The letter is exorbitant in length, it is vague, it is obscure; but the appeal contained in it is as earnest as any appeal from son to parent on such a subject ever was, and it is of special interest as the first definite indication alike of the extraordinary intensity of his religious disposition, and of that double-mindedness, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Sally, "you'll have to take me to live with you; that creature sha'n't have you all to himself. I hate men, they are so exorbitant,—they spoil all our playmates; and what shall I do when you ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... indeed there are lodged in men's appetites; but these are so far from being innate moral principles, that if they were left to their full swing they would carry men to the overturning of all morality. Moral laws are set as a curb and restraint to these exorbitant desires, which they cannot be but by rewards and punishments that will overbalance the satisfaction any one shall propose to himself in the breach of the law. If, therefore, anything be imprinted on ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... the golden treasures. One story is told of some American associates who had been working at an unprofitable spot, putting up a notice that their "valuable site" was for sale, as they were going elsewhere. A few Germans who had just arrived offered themselves as purchasers. The price asked was exorbitant, as the proprietors stated that the "diggings" returned a large amount of gold, and the following day was appointed for the Germans to come and see what could be produced in the course of a few hours' working. ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... dukes of Savoy, Florence, Orleans, Bourbon, Brunswick, the Landgrave, Count Palatine; all which had severally feasted me; besides infinite more of inferior persons, as counts and others: it was my chance (the emperor detained by some exorbitant affair) to wait him the fifth part of an hour, or much near it. In which time, retiring myself into a bay-window, the beauteous lady Annabel, niece to the empress, and sister to the king of Arragon, who having never before eyed me, but only heard ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... different to those entertained by the boatmen. Only fourteen or fifteen shillings remained out of the sovereign Margaret had lent her, and the boatmen, imagining "plenty" to mean no less than several pounds, insisted upon receiving a sovereign (an exorbitant fare, by-the-bye, although reduced from their first ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to give lessons in English and Latin to the younger daughter, too, but I shall have a little time to myself, and I shall be earning fifty dollars a month! Doesn't that impress you as a perfectly exorbitant amount? She offered it; I should have blushed to ask ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... prophetic power, or what in the Highlands of Scotland is called "second-sight"; the most famous of the class being the Sibyl of Cumae, who offered King Tarquin of Rome nine books for sale, which he refused on account of the exorbitant sum asked for them, and again refused after she had burnt three of them, and in the end paid what was originally asked for the three remaining, which he found to contain oracular utterances bearing on the worship ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... follow in the wake of an army in the field, if permitted to do so, from trading with the citizens and getting the money of the soldiers for articles of but little use to them, and for which they are made to pay most exorbitant prices. He limited the number of these traders to one for each ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... his knowledge of private things that happened on the Palatine—and little that went on in the household of Bessas escaped him—Marcian depended upon his servant Sagaris. Exorbitant vanity and vagrant loves made the Syrian rather a dangerous agent; but it was largely owing to these weaknesses that he proved so serviceable. His master had hitherto found him faithful, and no one could have worked more cunningly and persistently when set to play the ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... employ additional counsel," interposed Mr. Whitney, "allow me to suggest the name of P. B. Hunnewell, of this city; he is one of the ablest attorneys in the United States, particularly in matters of this kind. His fees are somewhat exorbitant, but money is no object ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... went to the headsman, to whom he gave himself out as a great friend of the condemned man; and from whom he bought all the clothes of the dead man that was to be, for one hundred guilders; rather an exorbitant sum, as he engaged to leave all the trinkets of gold ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... at Port Jackson was so exorbitant, that it was impossible to think of purchasing it on the public account. I obtained one quarter of beef for the ship's company, in exchange for salt meat, and the governor furnished us with some baskets of vegetables from his garden; and in lieu of the daily ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... forgiveness—aye, and of the pleasure of paying fifty thousand francs. He resolved that the Count of Fieramondi should never know of Paul de Roustache's threats against the Countess or of his demand for that exorbitant ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... the place and the time to ask you, respected reader, what your opinion is with regard to the renewal of the tobacco monopoly, and what you think of the exorbitant taxes on wines, on the right to carry firearms, on gaming, on lotteries, on playing cards, on brandy, on soap, cotton, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... care for it. They told me the price—swindlingly exorbitant for the unwary traveller who might ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... the lairs of wild beasts, foetid and oppressive, inhabited by debased creatures, with the low forehead, the copper skin, and the shifty cruel look of the Spanish gipsy. They surround the visitor in their rags and tatters, clamouring for alms, and for exorbitant sums proposing to dance. Even in the slums of great cities I have not seen a life more bestial. I tried to imagine what sort of existence these people led. In the old days the rock-dwellings among the cactus served the gipsies for winter quarters only, and when the spring came they set off, ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... fisherman and the longshoreman were notorious offenders in this respect. Whenever they saw a vessel bound in, they were in the habit of putting off to her and of first inciting the crew to escape and then hiring themselves at exorbitant rates to work the vessel into port. On such mischievous interlopers the gangsman had no mercy. He took them whenever he could, confident that when their respective cases were stated to the Board, that body would "tumble" ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... quietly, unless he went through his classics (sporting-papers, automobile catalogs, etc.), and every month he made new acquisitions abroad, spending thousands of francs and, complaining, like a serious business man, of the rise in the Exchange, of the exorbitant customs charges, of the stupidity of the Government that so shackled the development of the country. The price of every automobile was greatly increased on crossing the frontier. And after that, politicians ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... simplest and most self-evidencing truth. The word "mistrustful"—"do not see me as long as you are mistrustful of"—with its implied appeal to her generous confidence, precipitated the visit. How could she be mistrustful? Of course he may come: but the wish to do so was unwisely exorbitant. On the afternoon of May 20th, 1845, Browning first set eyes on his future wife, a little figure, which did not rise from the sofa, pale ringleted face, great eager, wistfully pathetic eyes. He believed that she was suffering ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... was, that he placed centinels at all the avenues, to prevent the people from selling us any refreshments, except at such exorbitant rates as we could not afford to give. His pretence for this extraordinary stretch of power was, that he was obliged to preserve their provisions for upwards of an hundred families, which were daily expected as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... burros packed with fruit from the abandoned white-man's ranch that he had occupied; and even his wild-eyed daughters had more variety than Billy, for they accompanied him to Blackwater and Willie Meena. There they sold their grapes and peaches at exorbitant prices and came back with coffee and flour, but neither would say a word for fear of their old father, who watched them with intolerant eyes. They were evil, snaky eyes, for it was said that in his day he had waylaid many a venturesome ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... upon many parts of the French rivers were so exorbitant that the poorer people, deprived of the benefit of water carriage, were obliged to transport their goods by ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... vehicle taxation, on the other hand, durable and consistent results have been achieved. This is because most such taxation has been readily classifiable as the exaction of a toll for the use of the State's highways, and the only question was whether the toll was exorbitant. Moreover, such taxation is apt to be designed not merely to raise revenue but to promote safety on the highways. In the leading case, Hendrick v. Maryland,[738] decided in 1915, the Court took cognizance of the fact ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... you false and faithless Fair, Gods above forbid my Fate, First me Joys you do prepare, Then you Sorrows do create; For 'tis the Nature of your Sex, First to pleasure, then perplex, Happy's he without your Smiles. Ever-blest he lives content; In exorbitant Exiles, Never can his Fate repent; All his Wishes and Desires, To ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... all manner of extortion and annoyance, being repeatedly brought before the authorities on the most absurd charges. The fear that her husband would be put to death so haunted her, that she was willing to meet the most exorbitant demands, hoping thereby to ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... matter," austerely replied the government specialist. "Our department regularly awarded the beef contract for this post to The Western Supply Company. There was ample competition on the award, insuring the government against exorbitant prices, and the required bonds were furnished for the fulfillment of the contract. Right then and there all interest upon the part of the grantor ceased until the tender was made at this post on the appointed day of delivery. ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... chief with whom they engaged. Gonzalo Pizarro, in order to raise a thousand men, advanced five hundred thousand pesos. Gasca expended in levying the troops which he led against Pizarro nine hundred thousand pesos. The distributions of property, bestowed as the reward of services, were still more exorbitant. Cepeda as the reward of his perfidy, in persuading the court of royal audience to give the sanction of its authority to the usurped jurisdiction of Pizarro, received a grant of lands which yielded an annual income of an hundred ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... they decide their controversy by a duel with swords, he replied that "he came for redress of the people's grievances." In the Assembly he "pressed hard, nigh an hour's harangue on preserving our lives from the Indians, inspecting the revenues, the exorbitant taxes, and redressing the grievances and calamities of that deplorable country." After this impassioned plea he must have been greatly surprised when the Assembly told him "that they had already redressed their grievances." Since, had the so-called Bacon's Laws been passed while he was sitting ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... his horses; they were the only ones he had. He was without the means to purchase another team, and without horses he could not gather his harvest. He was therefore forced to mortgage his land for enough to buy another pair of horses. The money-lender demanded large interest on the loan and an exorbitant bonus besides; and as the 'bankers,' as they called themselves, had an organization, he could not get the money at a lower rate anywhere in that vicinity. It was the old story. The crops failed sometimes, and when they did not fail the combinations and trusts of one sort or another swept away ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... abroad has its general store, kept by some noted individual, at which articles of every possible description, from a chain cable to a paper of needles, can be purchased, at more or less exorbitant prices; where masters and mates of merchantmen, and ofttimes their crews, as well as traders of high and low degree, congregate to discuss their business affairs, and to renovate the inner man with beverages more or less ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... you will have a sure income, you will be well off. There are some authors whom I only pay three hundred francs for a romance; I give two hundred for translations of English books. Such prices would have been exorbitant ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... worse than that of a great city under the rule of a political "Boss." The people were frightfully overtaxed, illegal fees were charged for every service, juries were packed, and costs of suits at law made exorbitant. The officers of the law were insolent and arbitrary, and by trickery and extortion managed to rob many settlers of their property. And this was the more hateful to the people from the fact that ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... methods in management. That this is an unjust drain upon the public funds is clear, when we consider that, in a recent year, the government expended $17,277,783 more than it received for carrying second-class mail. (2) Another serious defect has existed in the payment of exorbitant rates to railroad companies for carrying the mails. (3) Some Congressmen abuse the privilege granted them of sending government publications free. (4) The postal system has offered one of the best fields for ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... for better or worse, and looked to that first reading as the creation of my world; for when we are young the less circumstantial, the further from common life a book is, the more does it touch our hearts and make us dream. We are idle, unhappy and exorbitant, and like the young Blake admit no city beautiful that is not paved with ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany
... be repaired. We also struck the yards and topmasts, in order to overhaul the rigging, which we found in so bad a condition, that almost every thing, except the standing rigging, was obliged to be replaced with new, and that was purchased at a most exorbitant price. In the article of naval stores, the Dutch here, as well as at Batavia, take a shameful advantage of ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... the MERCHANT OF VENICE, and AS YOU LIKE IT, all of which exhibit a great advance on the methods of LOVE'S LABOUR LOST, with its rhymes and sonnets and "concetti." The leap suggested by M. Chasles is exorbitant; such a headlong development would be unintelligible. Shakspere had first to come practically into touch with the realities of life and character before he could receive from Montaigne the full stimulus he actually ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... Janet, "all laid out in ribbon gardens and with the most beautiful terrace, and a fountain-only that doesn't play except when you give the gardener half-a-crown, and mamma says, that is exorbitant-and statues standing all round-real ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... attached tribe of Shoshones than to indulge in dreams of establishing a western empire; and, even if you will absolutely make the attempt, why should we seek the help of white men? what can we expect from them and their assistance but exorbitant claims and undue interference? With a few months' regular organisation, the Comanches, Apaches, and Shoshones can be made equal to any soldiers of the civilised world, and among them ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... the river are exorbitant of course, as they can only be brought up in canoes requiring long "portages." Here's the tariff at Sailor's Bar and other Bars:—"Flour, 100 dollars a-barrel, worth in San Francisco 11 to 12 dollars; molasses, 6 dollars a-gallon; pork, 1 dollar per pound; ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... grasps, and one which hangs. He is the procurator of Dame Tax and Monsieur Gibbet. The great are despoiled of their dignities, and the little incessantly overwhelmed with fresh oppressions. He is an exorbitant prince. I love not ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... metropolis, 2. Instance of exorbitant charges, 3. Field-marshal Count Bertrand, 4. Lines on the late Napoleon, 5. A mysterious vehicle, 6. The devil in Long Acre, 7. The child in the hay, 8. A family triumvirate, 9. Egyptian monuments, 10. Relations of Gog and Magog discovered, 11. The Theban ram, 12. Egyptian antiquities, 13. Egyptian ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... had given permission to preach and hear confessions; he did this not only because of the aversion which he had taken for the cabildo, but on account of the enmity which he had always felt toward the Society. The governor compelled two foreign ships to pay very exorbitant imposts, at which they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... double the legal fare, the London cabman seldom asks more than fifty per cent. above what the law allows him; and this (by Americans, at least) is considered quite reasonable and cheerfully paid. If our New-York Jehus could only be made to realize that they keep their carriages empty by their exorbitant charges, and really double-lock their pockets against the quarters that citizens would gladly pour into them, I think a reform might be ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... appearance and made him free of the Spirits of Natural Fact who abide there. If he is not the debtor of his comrade—and he protests the debt—he should be. But the rascal laps it all up, as a cat porridge, without so much as a wag of the tail for Thank-you. Such are the exorbitant overlords in mortal men, who pass for reputable persons, with a ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... town and its vicinity are sufficient to create a good local trade. Prices are high, nearly double those of Nicolayevsk, and the stocks of goods on hand are neither large nor well selected. Officers complained to me of combinations among the merchants to maintain prices at an exorbitant scale. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... 178), complaining of the high prices of English books, describes 'the excessive artifices made use of to puff up a paper of verses into a pamphlet, a pamphlet into an octavo, and an octavo into a quarto with white-lines, exorbitant margins, &c., to such a degree that the selling of paper seems now the object, and printing on it ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... by Spain on the vessels and commerce of the United States have demanded from time to time during the last twenty years earnest remonstrance on the part of our Government. In the immediate past exorbitant penalties have been imposed upon our vessels and goods by customs authorities of Cuba and Puerto Rico for clerical errors of the most trivial character in the manifests or bills of lading. In some cases fines amounting to ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... No settlements could well have been worse managed than those of Spain in Mexico, Peru, and Quito. The tyranny, superstition, and vices of the mother-country were introduced in ample quantities among her children. Exorbitant taxes were exacted by the Crown. The most arbitrary restrictions were imposed on their trade. And the governors were not behind hand in rapacity and extortion for themselves as well as their master. Yet, under all these difficulties, ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... having been made to the governor from the settlers in different parts of the colony, purporting that the wages demanded by the free labouring people, whom they had occasion to hire, was so exorbitant as to run away with the greatest part of the profit of their farms, it was recommended to them to appoint quarterly meetings among themselves, to be held in each district, for the purpose of settling the rate of wages to labourers in every different kind of work; that, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... warrants;[*] the renewal of the commission of "trailbaton;"[**] pressing men and ships into the public service;[***] levying arbitrary and exorbitant fines;[****] extending the authority of the privy council or star-chamber to the decision of private causes;[*****] enlarging the power of the mareschal's and other arbitrary courts;[******] imprisoning members for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... was most glad to hear the proposition that we should adjourn to Mustapha's. From him we learned that the Georgian beauty had been exposed to sale for several days; but that no one had offered to purchase her, the sum demanded being exorbitant. Her proprietor was a rich man, and could afford to wait until some one consented to put down the 2500 piastres at ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... not enemies to capital, but we oppose the tyranny of monopolies. We long to see the antagonism between capital and labor removed by common consent, and by an enlightened statesmanship worthy of the nineteenth century. We are opposed to excessive salaries, high rates of interest, and exorbitant per-cent. profits in trade. ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... As soon as the way was open the man might take the opportunity to move off to some other hiding-place; and, therefore, instead of bringing out his canvases, as he had intended, Cuthbert decided to call on him at once. Having chartered one of the few remaining fiacres, at an exorbitant rate, he drove to the house where he had seen Cumming enter, and ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... little Portuguese. From him I was able to buy a quantity of farinha, which came in useful to us, although I had to pay an exorbitant price for it—L4 sterling for each 50 litres or thereabouts—that is to say, about 51/2 pecks in English measure. The price of farinha on the coast would be less than four shillings ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... permitted to land except under a guard; some of the men who had been sent ashore on duty were imprisoned. Mr. Hicks, who had gone to report their arrival and ask for the services of a pilot, was detained for a time, and it was only with difficulty, and at an exorbitant rate, that they obtained fresh food and water. Consequently little was seen of the place, except from the ship, and Cook took all possible observations from thence, and made a sketch map of the ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... a fine specimen of the product of a shrewd charlatan's fertile brain, and doubtless found a ready sale at an exorbitant price. The fact that one, at least, of its ingredients is mythical, probably enhanced its curative properties, in the minds of a gullible public. The horn of the unicorn was popularly regarded as the most marvellous of remedies. In reality, it was the tusk ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... reported their arrival, the trading commenced and was conducted upon a basis which gave general satisfaction. The most exorbitant and fabulous prices ruled for such articles as the mountaineers required. Sugar and coffee brought two dollars the pint; powder, the same; and ordinary blankets were sold at fifteen and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... is the ability of the negro to bear these burdens? A defender of the planters gravely asserts "that the negro demands a price for his labor which would be exorbitant in any part of the world." What is that exorbitant price? An able-bodied agricultural laborer in Jamaica receives from eighteen to thirty cents a day; and, if he is both fortunate and industrious, may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... officer who had the good of the expedition at heart had good grounds for trying. It was well known that the prize goods could produce little or nothing in the South Sea, as the Spanish governors demanded such exorbitant sums for liberty to trade, that no advantage could be derived from such a commerce, either in buying or selling. He knew also that it was to little purpose carrying these goods to Europe; and it was certainly much preferable ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... the townsmen. The chancellor, Peter Flotte, foresaw this; he distributed among the public, instead of the original bull, a species of resume in which he had assembled, in a few lines, in the crudest terms, the most exorbitant pretensions of Boniface, at the same time suppressing everything which touched on the troubles of the nation against ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... is not averse to 'insults.' He calls his country a republic—it is so in name only. The majority of the population, representing the wealth and intelligence of the country—the Uitlanders—are refused almost every civil right, except the privilege of paying exorbitant taxes to swell an already overgorged treasury. Under this ideal(?) government, which is really a sixteenth-century oligarchy flourishing at the end of the nineteenth, and is, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... small return present was made by Kavimba, and nothing could be bought except at exorbitant prices. We remained all day on the 24th haggling and trying to get some grain. He took a fancy to a shirt, and left it to his wife to bargain for. She got the length of cursing and swearing, and we bore it, but could get only a small ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... in St. Petersburg, kissing Majesty's hand farewell, basking in the sudden sunburst of short notoriety, driving Bering almost mad by their exorbitant demands for luxuriously appointed barges to carry them down the Volga. Winter was passed at Tobolsk; but May of 1734 witnessed a firing of cannon, a blaring of trumpets, a clinking of merry glasses among merry gentlemen; for the caravans were setting out once more to the swearing ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... times. These glorious achievements were carefully recorded in the public acts of the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance of infamy, he received from the common fund of gladiators a stipend so exorbitant that it became a new and most ignominious tax upon the Roman people. It may be easily supposed that in these engagements the master of the world was always successful; in the Amphitheatre his victories were not often sanguinary; but when he exercised ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... preserve us from everlasting confusion: But it is the height of all impertinency to conceive, that those which are a part of themselves, and can in so great a Body, have no other interests, should (without the manifest hand of God were in it to infatuate all your proceedings) fall into such exorbitant contradiction to their own good, as a child of four years old would not be guilty of; and as this Pamphleter wildly suggests in pp. 6. 11. 27, &c. did they steer their course by the known laws of the Land, and as obedient Subjects ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... drawback that they are all studies of "the triangle." They are quite decently, and in fact morally, though not goodily, handled. But it certainly may be objected that trigonometry[267] of this kind occupies an exorbitant place in French literature, and one may be a little sorry to see a neophyte of talent taking to it. However, though Sandeau in these books showed his ability, his way did not really lie in, though it might lie ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... clothes were made by a certain famous couturiere in Hanover Square, for Lady Ranscomb had the art of dressing her daughter as well as she did herself. Gowns make the lady nowadays, or the fashionable dressmakers dare not make their exorbitant charges. ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... credit of France was low; but it was not annihilated. She did not derive, as our author chooses to assert, any advantages from the debility of her credit. Its consequence was the natural one: she borrowed; but she borrowed upon bad terms, indeed on the most exorbitant usury. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... reverence for them, they who break the vows made by themselves or oblige others to break them, and they who fall away from their status through sin, sink in hell. They who betake themselves to improper conduct, they who take exorbitant rates of interest, and they who make unduly large profits on sales, have to sink in hell. They who are given to gambling, they who indulge in wicked acts without any scruple, and they who are given to slaughter of living creatures, have to sink in hell. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... first place, was directed to the markets, and persons were sent, some to the country of the Volscians, others to Cumae, to buy up corn. The privilege of selling salt also was withdrawn from private individuals because it was sold at an exorbitant price, while all the expense fell upon the state:[10] and the people were freed from duties and taxes, inasmuch as the rich, since they were in a position to bear the burden, should contribute them; the poor, they said, paid taxes enough if they brought up their children. ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... bonnet of some offensive neighbor (who was not invited to the quilting) was criticised, and the suspicion started that she laced too tight; and an old man who happened to have the best farm in the county was overhauled for the size of his knee-buckles, and the exorbitant ruffles on his shirt, and the costly silk lace to his hat. I lay so still that no one supposed I was listening. I trembled on the coverlet with rage and wished that I could clip the end of their tattling ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... began, "I have never borne you any grudge for making over the business to me at such an exorbitant valuation; I have seen the father through it all. I have said to myself—'The old man has worked very hard, and he certainly gave me a better bringing up than I had a right to expect; let him enjoy the fruits of his toil in ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... to go to the convent, having been long in treaty with the friars for a steed which he had been commissioned by a nobleman to buy at any reasonable price. The friars, however, were exorbitant in their demands. On arriving at the gate, he sang to the friar who opened it a couplet which he had composed in the Gypsy tongue, in which he stated the highest price which he was authorised to ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... alienation of secrecy and suspicion. The living, suffering man was no longer before her to awaken her pity: there remained only the retrospect of painful subjection to a husband whose thoughts had been lower than she had believed, whose exorbitant claims for himself had even blinded his scrupulous care for his own character, and made him defeat his own pride by shocking men of ordinary honor. As for the property which was the sign of that broken tie, she would have been glad to be free from it and have ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... pestilence destroyed the hosts of Imilco. He maintained his power by intimidation of his subjects, careful organization, and liberal pay to his mercenaries. He cared nothing for money excepting as a means to secure dominion. His exactions were exorbitant, and his rapacity boundless. He trusted no one, and his suspicion was extended even to his wives. He allowed no one to shave him, and searched his most intimate friends for concealed weapons before they were allowed in his presence. He made Syracuse a great fortress, to the injury of Sicily and ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... doing all in their power for the men who had taken up arms in the cause of France, the villagers looked upon them only as strangers, out of whom the richest possible harvest was to be obtained; and charged the most exorbitant prices for all articles of necessity supplied to them. In fact, they sometimes did not hesitate to say that they would not provide them, at any price, with the provisions required; as these would be wanted to satisfy the requisition of the Germans, ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... the duke, touching his elbow, "it is all very beautiful and wonderful. But eighteen hundred thousand francs—including furniture and silver, of course—is an exorbitant price." ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... time sorely pressed for ready money. He was buying one piece of land after another, usually at exorbitant prices, and having already increased the estate of Abbotsford from 150 to nearly 1,000 acres, he was in communication with Mr. Edward Blore as to the erection of a dwelling adjacent to the cottage, at a point facing the Tweed. This house grew and expanded, until it became ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... a general cry against the merchants, against monopolizers, etc., who, 'tis said, have created a partial scarcity. That a scarcity prevails of every article, not only of luxury but even the necessaries of life, is a certain fact. Everything bears an exorbitant price. The Act, which was in some measure regarded and stemmed the torrent of oppression, is now no more heeded than if it had never been made. Indian corn at five shillings; rye, eleven and twelve shillings, but scarcely any to be had even at that price; beef, eightpence; veal, sixpence ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... be seen everywhere, to know everybody, and to have a finger in every pie in the neighborhood around. If any of the farmers or the laborers wanted small advances, they went to him, and he granted them loans at exorbitant rates of interest. He gave most disputants counsel, and had every point of law at his fingers' ends. He could teach people how to sail as close to the wind as possible, and yet to be beyond the reach of the law. He affected to be only too anxious to ameliorate ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... you are a monument of ingratitude," the other complained. "You conceive, Villaneuve was in price exorbitant. I snap my fingers. 'For a comrade so dear,' I remark, 'I gladly employ the most expensive of assassins.' Yet before the face of such magnanimity you grumble." The Duc de Puysange spread out his shapely hands. "I murder you! My adored Jean, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... reduced interest of thirty per cent. Plainly, the money-sharks of our day may trace an undoubted pedigree to these London merchants. [Laughter.] But I know not if any son of New England, oppressed by exorbitant interest, will be consoled by the thought that the Pilgrims paid ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... first she pretended to refuse; but we soon discovered her treachery, as she insisted on our paying two ducats as a ransom for each of our horses. We expressed our astonishment at this rapacity, and endeavoured to represent our inability to comply with such exorbitant demands, but all to no purpose, and we were forced to comply, being afraid that she might even have plundered ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... off the people at their exorbitant prices, I shall have to pay with gold, and for the present I wish to avoid showing that ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... their price is as uncertain as that of medals and other monuments of antiquity, and often depends more on the caprice of the buyer than the intrinsic merit of the work, some piquing themselves upon the possession of things from no other consideration than their exorbitant price." ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... mountain, now up some ravine, where the holly and olive still flourished, and the wild rhubarb-plant spread its large, succulent leaves over the soil. We had taken a guide, the day before, at the village of Dayr el-Ahmar, but as the way was plain before us, and he demanded an exorbitant sum, we dismissed him, We had not climbed far, however, before he returned, professing to be content with whatever we might give him, and took us into another road, the first, he said, being impracticable. Up and up we toiled, and the long hollows of snow lay below ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... crops did not fail; not only was there plenty of corn, the one essential, but there was also wheat, as well as potatoes, melons, pumpkins, turnips, and the like. Sugar was made by tapping the maple trees; but salt was bought at a very exorbitant price at the Falls, being carried down in boats from the old Redstone Fort. Flax had been generally sown (though in the poorer settlements nettle bark still served as a substitute), and the young men and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... had established six ferry boats at the crossing. In order to keep down competition, five of the boats were tied up and the sum of $18 was demanded for each and every wagon ferried over the stream. They had formed a kind of "trust," as it were, even in that day. The rate was pronounced exorbitant, unfair, outrageous, and beyond the ability of many to pay. Train after train had been blocked until a city of tents had been formed. On the morning of the 4th a meeting of immigrants was called to discuss the situation. A few counseled moderation, compromise, anything to prevent a clash with ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... Giffard was falling into decay. Miladi had sent to France early in the season for many new stuffs and trinkets, and the settlement of some affairs, instead of turning all over to Destournier. The goods had come at an exorbitant price, but there had been a great tangle in money matters, and at his death his concessions had ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... father groaned. "I hate parting with hard-earned money for exorbitant bills and these long journeys. Couldn't it be done without it, Ben?" he inquired, in a wheedling tone. "There's piles of money gone already in ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there's not much to learn—the great point as I take it is to be exorbitant enough in ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... visited twice before. The Moulin de la Galette waves its gaunt arms in the air half way up the butte of Montmartre; it serves its purpose as a dance hall of the quarter. One meets the pretty little Montmartroises there and the young artists; the entrance fee is not exorbitant and one may drink a bock. And when I have been there, sitting at a small table facing the somewhat vivid mural decoration which runs the length of one wall, drinking my brown bock, I have remembered the story which Mary Garden once told me, how Albert Carre to celebrate the ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... wealth and a more tempting sphere for the exercise of manly qualities in the attractions of a campaign that seemed to promise plunder and glory, especially when these prizes were accompanied by no exorbitant amount of suffering or toil. Thus when it had become known that Scipio Africanus would accompany his brother in the expedition against Antiochus, five thousand veterans, both citizens and allies, who had served their full time under the command of the former, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... is attributed to absent experience according to the value experience has in representation appears again in one of the most curious anomalies in human life—the exorbitant interest which thought and reflection take in the form of experience and the slight account they make of its intensity or volume. Sea-sickness and child-birth when they are over, the pangs of despised love when that love is finally forgotten or requited, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... you?" So it was that the way to meet her—and the way, as well, in a manner, to get off—came over him. He heard himself use the exorbitant word, the very sound of which helped to determine his flight. "I'll ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Eustace's mind a vivid picture—the black-fellow with poised boomerang standing over the shrinking Chinkee, threatening his life if he did not obey the exorbitant demands. ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... one of Mrs. Eddy's loyal students, to whom I paid one hundred dollars for my course of instruction. Since that time I have never employed a physician or paid out a penny for medicines. In view of these facts, do you think that the price of the book and teaching should be regarded as 'exorbitant,' 'out of all reason,' an 'imposition upon the public,' and many similar expressions, as are repeated over and over by numerous ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht for the month after the offer of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy. His son and helper was to receive a sum proportionally exorbitant. This worthy man sighted Mohair on a Sunday morning, and at nine o'clock dropped his anchor with a salute which caused Mr. Cooke to say unpleasant things in his sleep. After making things ship-shape and hoisting the jack, both father and son rowed ashore to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... money is only obtainable at such an exorbitant rate of interest as in China, it is but natural that some attempt should be made to obviate the necessity of appealing to a professional money-lender. Three per cent. per month is the maximum rate ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... their own patterns, or, what seems even more wonderful, make them by chewing a piece of bark into the form they require—the bark assuming the appearance of a stamped braiding pattern. As the white people put an exorbitant price on the flour and trinkets they give in exchange for the Indians' work, the latter ask, when selling for money, what seems more than its full value; but many who travel that way, provided with cheap trinkets and gaudy ribbons, ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... the long winter evenings were beguiled with fairy-tales and fables, his mother and nurse reading or reciting these, their little listener being always busy with pen or pencil. Something much more than mere precocity is shown in these almost infantine sketches. Exorbitant fancy is here much less striking than sureness of touch, outlined figures drawn between the age of five and ten displaying remarkable precision and point, each line of the silhouette telling. At six he celebrated his first school prize with an illustrated letter, two portraits ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... many questions; she wants to know everything. She reproached me with spending too much, being too fond of luxury, and you know how that is. She forgets that everything is higher priced than it used to be, that meat and vegetables are exorbitant, and that just now eggs cost one franc and fifty centimes a dozen. Besides, a poor creature, deprived of the use of her limbs, as I am, cannot go to market herself, and it is quite possible that my femme de menage ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... auriferous soil. What a wild life! How we suffered! We had to pay a shilling for a biscuit and a dollar for a box of sardines. We were glad when a hunter shot elk and reindeer, and sold the meat for an exorbitant price in gold dust. We lived huddled up in wretched tents and were perished with cold. Furious snowstorms swept during winter over the dreary country and the temperature fell to-67 deg. And what ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... nothing but Sherborne remained. His debts were 3,000l. His rich collections of plate and tapestry had been confiscated or stolen. If the King permitted Sherborne also to be taken, it would be impossible to meet the exorbitant charges of the Lieutenant, and under these circumstances it is only too probable that Raleigh might have been obliged to crouch in the traditional dungeon ten feet by eight feet. The retention of Sherborne, then, meant comfort and the status of a gentleman. It is therefore of the highest ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... justice of its claims. To this proposition we can not subscribe. It is equally unjust between nations and individuals. Whether a party in controversy is satisfied or not with the justice of his claims is what is only known to himself, and consequently the one whose claims are most exorbitant, however unjust, will always get the best end of the bargain. But such a rule would in this case apply most unfortunately to Maine. We are limited at farthest to the St. Lawrence, and to a very narrow point ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... and the cost of living had gone up so high that it was hard for the poor to make ends meet. It was almost impossible to get about in the city, as the war had reduced the number of cabs and the few that did business asked such exorbitant fares that only the rich could afford to ride in them. The street car situation was in a hopeless tangle. Even before the war there were not enough accommodations for the public, but since the opening of hostilities many of the cars had broken down and there were no mechanics to repair ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... there are other branches which could be rapidly modified in such a way as to furnish the peasant with clothes, watches, furniture, and the simple implements for which the towns make him pay such exorbitant prices at the present time. Weavers, tailors, shoemakers, tinsmiths, cabinet-makers, and many other trades and crafts could easily direct their energies to the manufacture of useful and necessary articles, and abstain from producing mere luxuries. All that is needed is that the public mind ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... difficult task of hoping and striving that Sir Louis might yet live to enjoy what was his own. But the task was altogether a difficult one, for as Sir Louis became stronger in health, so also did he become more exorbitant in his demands on the doctor's patience, and more repugnant ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... responsibility for the conduct of these authorities. In giving very extraordinary powers to them she owes it to justice and to her friendly relations with this Government to guard with great vigilance against the exorbitant exercise of these powers, and in case of injuries ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... and looked at him. "Isn't it a little exorbitant? You get the land at cost value, and a heavy charge on that, while I do ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... ignorance of it, this inscription: "Furnished Rooms," figured in letters three feet high, between the third and fourth floors. The inside arrangements could be easily divined: innumerable rooms, all small and inconvenient, and let out at exorbitant rentals. ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... cost you the heavy, galling burden of marriage vows, an exorbitant price, which only necessity extorts? How vividly we of the nineteenth century exemplify the wisdom of the classic aphorisms? Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. Have you no fear that you are seizing with bare fingers a glittering thirsty blade, which may ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... rich. She was living at the most exorbitant hotel in all Mayfair. She had innumerable gowns and no necessity to buy jewels; and she also had, which pleased her most, the fine cheval-glass I have described. At the close of the Season, Paris claimed her for a month's engagement. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... take place on the next day but one. The whole country seemed in a stir about it, and it was evident that Strelsau was thronged. Rooms were all let and hotels overflowing; there would be very little chance of my obtaining a lodging, and I should certainly have to pay an exorbitant charge for it. I made up my mind to stop at Zenda, a small town fifty miles short of the capital, and about ten from the frontier. My train reached there in the evening; I would spend the next day, Tuesday, in a wander over the hills, which ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... Salt Hill, he dined at the Castle Inn, and when Partridge, the host, produced his bill, which was rather exorbitant, the comedian asked him his name. "Partridge, sir," said he. "Partridge! It should have been Woodcock, by ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... ultimate recovery—God grant that he be not deceived! There is my explanation; it is sad enough, Poole, ay, and appalling to consider; but it is plain and natural, hangs well together, and delivers us from all exorbitant alarms." ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... that it depends, first, on keeping the exchangers ignorant of the exchange value of the articles; and, secondly, on taking advantage of the buyer's need and the seller's poverty. It is, therefore, one of the essential, and quite the most fatal, forms of usury; for usury means merely taking an exorbitant[47] sum for the use of anything; and it is no matter whether the exorbitance is on loan or exchange, on rent or on price—the essence of the usury being that it is obtained by advantage of opportunity or necessity, and not as due reward for labour. All the great thinkers, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... followed by the Tall Nonentity, and the bulk of the bystanders, who feel that the veil is about to be lifted, and that twopence is not an exorbitant fee for initiation. Inside is a low Stage, with a roughly painted Scene, and a kind of small Cabinet, the interior of which is visible and vacant; behind the barrier which, separates the Stage from the Audience stands Mlle. SCINTILLA, a young lady in ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... liturgy at King's Chapel. Though a warm Tory and Loyalist, he was never molested by the American government. He was one of Boston's most skilful and popular physicians for many years. While other city doctors got but a shilling and sixpence for their regular fee, he charged and received the exorbitant sum of half a dollar a visit; and for "bringing little master to town," in which function he was a specialist, he charged ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... inheritance of civilization were not spared. Their monuments, which have been respected during the centuries in all of the constant wars of which Belgium has been the theatre, were deliberately destroyed. Open cities were bombarded. Exorbitant taxation was imposed upon conquered towns, and when the inhabitants were unable to pay the taxes, a large number of their houses were set on fire. That is what happened to Wavre, among other cities, whose 8,500 inhabitants were unable to pay a tax of $600,000. Termonde, with 10,000 ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... recalled to London by the sudden stoppage of the cab. On the dim lamp over a doorway was stained the name of the obscure hotel to which he had been recommended as central in situation, while cheap in charges. Cabby's fare was exorbitant, the passenger thought; but, after a faint resistance, Mr. Wynn was glad to escape from the storm of h-less remonstrances by payment of the full demand, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... this danger of the Bank to bad and partial payments, the giving and allowing exorbitant interest, high premiums and discounts, contracting dear and bad bargains; the general debasing and corrupting of coin, and such like, by which means things were brought to such a pass that even 8 per cent. interest ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... to wink at her failures. We are so liable to be led away by our feelings in these matters. Sibyl was large, had eaten onions, and would have been improved if she had brushed her hair, and so I am afraid I rather grudged the somewhat exorbitant fee which the fat-handed man—not Sibyl—took and pocketed in an interval of his dental pursuit, and I passed out from that suburban lodging, none of us, I fancy, very well satisfied with one another. I have an idea I unconsciously expressed ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... had believed herself to be. This had come to her in the conversation with her children. Had she not sat there, timid, in spite of her words; had she not almost felt like one who was trespassing upon the rights of youth? Were not all the exorbitant demands of youth and all its naive tyranny in everything they had said?—It is for us to love, life belongs to us, and your life it is but ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... I once thought myself a kind of a monarch in my old station, of which I had given him an account, but that I thought he was not a monarch only, but a great conqueror; for that he that has got a victory over his own exorbitant desires, and has the absolute dominion over himself, and whose reason entirely governs his will, is certainly greater than he that conquers a city. "But, my lord," said I, "shall I take the liberty to ask you a question?"—"With all my heart," said he. "If the door of your liberty was opened," ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... was to hold the hand of little Claribel and to stand where her young mistress placed her. All looked to Hermione. She carried a canvas bag of five-franc pieces and paid right and left. I tried to interfere, as she was giving the postilion an exorbitant sum. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... concluded to put the price up to fifteen hundred. It is a ridiculous sum; but rather than disappoint a client who has set his heart on securing this same house, I suppose I must submit to the inevitable and consent to pay that exorbitant price," ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... There is very little fatty matter of any kind in the South. The climate and the food plants do not favor the accumulation of adipose tissue by animals, and there is no other source of supply. Lard oil and tallow were very scarce and held at exorbitant prices. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... and whites. A serious fire. Deep snow inflicts severe hardship. A trackless journey ends in safety and a hospitable welcome. Provisions exorbitant in price. A march on snowshoes. Sleds of native pattern are made. Delay through water on the ice. Bitter cold and the curse of solitude. A dismal swamp. Unfriendly Indians and the purchasing power of whiskey. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... very novelty of the thing, crowds of disciples soon gathered about him. At the town of Aspenda he made a great hit, when he "pitched into" the corn merchants who had bought up all the grain during a period of scarcity, and sold it to the people at exorbitant prices. Of course, such things are not permitted in our day! Apollonius moved by the sufferings of women and children, took his stand in the market place, and with his stylus wrote in large characters upon a tablet the following advice to the speculators ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... something is being done for housing the very poor!" But what of the rabbits! have they ascended to the seventh heaven of the new paradise? Not a bit; they cannot offer the required credentials, or pay the exorbitant rent! not for them seven flights of stone stairs night and morning; it is so much easier for rabbits to burrow underground, or live in the open. So away they scuttle! Some to dustheaps, some back to Adullam Street, some ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... up like cheese or ham; they were free to ruin it, or leave it waste, or erect upon it horrible and devastating eyesores. If the community needed a road or a tramway, if it wanted a town or a village in any position, nay, even if it wanted to go to and fro, it had to do so by exorbitant treaties with each of the monarchs whose territory was involved. No man could find foothold on the face of the earth until he had paid toll and homage to one of them. They had practically no relations and no duties to the ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... reducing the exorbitant power of France be such, as may soon turn your wreaths of laurel into branches of olive: that, after the toils of a just and honourable war, carried on by a confederacy of which your majesty is most truly, as of the faith, styled Defender, we may live to enjoy, under ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... she was complimented with a regallo of six hundred more from the Maccaroni Club. 'E molto particulare,' said Cocchi, the Composer; 'ma quei Inglesi non fanno conto d'alcuna cosa se non ben pagata:' It is very extraordinary that the English set no value upon any thing but what they pay an exorbitant price for."-E. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... to the house, Von Rosen was relieved. He produced it at once, and his wonder and disgust mounted to fever heat, when that Eastern boy proceeded to take out carefully the gauds of feminine handiwork which it contained, and press them upon Von Rosen at exorbitant prices. Von Rosen was more incensed than he often permitted himself to be. He ordered the boy from the house, and he departed with strong oaths, and veiled and intricate threats after the manner of his subtle race, and when Jane Riggs came home, ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... but her wonderful patience and tact, coupled with her knowledge of all the outs and ins of their character, again won her the victory. It was agreed that a fine should settle the quarrel, and one was imposed which she thought exorbitant In the extreme, but the delinquents accepted it, and promptly paid part ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... conferring the place of lady of honor on the countess; but she allowed her to exert a pernicious influence over her in many ways, for the countess was unwearied in soliciting appointments and pensions for her relatives; at times making demands in such numbers, and of so exorbitant a character, that the queen herself was forced to admit the impossibility of granting them all, though she still sought to gratify her to far too great an extent, and would not allow the proved insatiability of her and her family to open her ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... of Barneveld," said the sentence, "without being put to the torture and without fetters of iron, has confessed . . . to having perturbed religion, greatly afflicted the Church of God, and carried into practice exorbitant and pernicious maxims of State . . . inculcating by himself and accomplices that each province had the right to regulate religious affairs within its own territory, and that other provinces were not to concern themselves therewith"—therefore and for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... England with the information that his first wife still lived, and that the daughter of his second was illegitimate. Sooner than risk exposure, Frettlby agreed to anything; but Whyte's demands became too exorbitant, and he refused to comply with them. On Whyte's death he again breathed freely, when suddenly a second possessor of his fatal secret started up in the person of Roger Moreland. As the murder of Duncan had to be followed by that of Banquo, ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... completely honest mind; he had never caused her an hour's reasonable anxiety; only—to this eldest son she had not transmitted his father's genius, that one divine spark which the Epworth household claimed for its sons as a birthright. An exorbitant, a colossal claim! Yet these Wesleys made it as a matter of course. Did the father know that one of his sons had disappointed it? Sam knew, at any rate; and Sam's mother knew; and each, aware of the other's knowledge, tried ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rest, there was nothing he did not do or permit to be done. He painted when he liked and what he liked. His compositions, whether of landscape or history, were eagerly snatched up at extravagant prices,—for M—-y was always exorbitant in his demands. Besides, when he chose, M—-y painted portraits,—never on application, nor for the aristocracy or the rich,—but as the mood seized him, of some subject that attracted him while on his various excursions, or of some of his friends. Yet who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... $184,233,358, including in the last estimate $40,000,000 for the estimated value of the rights and property of the New Panama Canal Company. The company, however, held its property at a much higher value, or some $109,000,000, which the Commission considered exorbitant, and thus the only alternative was to recommend the construction of a canal by way of the Nicaraguan route. Convinced, however, that the American people were in earnest, the New Panama Company expressed a willingness to reconsider the matter, and finally agreed to the purchase ...
— The American Type of Isthmian Canal - Speech by Hon. John Fairfield Dryden in the Senate of the - United States, June 14, 1906 • John Fairfield Dryden
... they proposed to him to redeem his liberty with the sum of L3000, and to persuade the king to purchase their departure out of the kingdom, with a further sum of L10,000. As Alphage's circumstances would not allow him to satisfy the exorbitant demand, they bound him, and put him to severe torments, to oblige him to discover the treasure of the church; upon which they assured him of his life and liberty, but the prelate piously persisted in refusing to give the pagans ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... such firms as Childs—the books of whom go back to the year 1620, and refer to prior documents; Hoares, dating from 1680; and Snows, from 1685—were able to assist the public demand, although at the exorbitant interest of the period, it does not occasion so much surprise that the attempt made to meet the increasing requirements of trade proved insufficient. In 1678, sixteen years previous to the foundation of the Bank of England, "proposals for a large model ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... the true sense of his soul; there was no room to doubt his sincerity. I told him I once thought myself a kind of monarch in my old station, of which I had given him an account; but that I thought he was not only a monarch, but a great conqueror; for he that had got a victory over his own exorbitant desires, and the absolute dominion over himself, he whose reason entirely governs his will, is certainly greater than he that ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe |
