"Extravagant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... answer, that this was the practice of Plautus, whose aim was to please the people, but that Terence, who wrote for gentlemen, confined himself within the compass of nature, and represented vice without addition or aggravation. However, these extravagant characters, such as the Citizen turned gentleman, and the Hypochrondriac patient of Moliere, have lately succeeded at court, where delicacy is carried so far; but every thing, even to provincial ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... resources exploitation is well known. Paul Sears' Deserts on the March; Fairfield Osborn's Our Plundered Planet; William Vogt's Road to Survival, and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring tell the story of the misuse and the extravagant abuse of nature. The record of labor power ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... most part, and in honor of the day's work. In a vast swirling, laughing, shouting, triumphant mob we swept through the camp to where Billy-by now not very much surprised-was waiting to get the official news. By the measure of this extravagant joy could we gauge what the killing of a lion means to these people who have always lived under the ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... entertainer, he was bound to exert himself, and the exertion did him good. He threw off his melancholy; and with the help, possibly, of somewhat more than his usual quantity of wine, entered thoroughly into the passing joyousness of the hour. What a recherche, luxurious extravagant little dinner it was, that evening at the Maison Doree! We had a charming little room overlooking the Boulevard, furnished with as much looking-glass, crimson-velvet, gilding, and arabesque painting as could be got together within the space of twelve-feet ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... will see in it that infallible criterion of hypocrisy and pretense in professions of regard, viz., extravagant ideas feebly and incoherently expressed. When the heart dictates what is said, the thoughts are natural, and the language plain; but in composition like the above, we see a continual striving to say something for ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... respect, the general decision of America; and instead of being taught by experience the propriety of correcting any extremes into which we may have heretofore run, they appear disposed to conduct us into others still more dangerous, and more extravagant. As if the tone of government had been found too high, or too rigid, the doctrines they teach are calculated to induce us to depress or to relax it, by expedients which, upon other occasions, have been condemned or forborne. It may be affirmed without the imputation of invective, ...
— The Federalist Papers
... all. There's the trouble. If he'd only quarrel there'd be no harm done. Quarreling's cheap, and Tommy's extravagant. A big blacksmith here, the other day, kicked some boy out of his shop, and Tommy, on his cart, happened to be passing at the time; and he just jumped off without a word, and went in and worked on that fellow for about three ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... to me, "it is bad economy making dresses at home, but I really cannot afford to pay the extravagant prices charged by Madame Desbelli. My bills are monstrous, and my poverty, but not my will, consents. Still it does make such a difference in the appearance, being well-dressed, that if I could, I never would have a dress made at home; but the saving is astonishing— nearly two-thirds, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... that you are content with Dutch fame,' he writes to his old friend William Hermans, who like Cornelius Aurelius had begun to devote his best forces to the history of his native country. 'In Holland the air is good for me,' he writes elsewhere, 'but the extravagant carousals annoy me; add to this the vulgar uncultured character of the people, the violent contempt of study, no fruit of learning, the most egregious envy.' And excusing the imperfection of his juvenilia, ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... elevating, cherishing, and increasing all the institutions of the government, and of a vigorous and energetic administration of it. From his rapidity of thought, he is often wrong in his conclusions, and his theories are sometimes wild, extravagant, and impractical. He has always claimed to be, and is, of the Democratic party, but of a very different class from that of Crawford; more like Adams, and his schemes are sometimes denounced by his party as ultra-fanatical." [Footnote: Mass. Hist. ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... after, we were joined accidentally by Jemmy Wilder, well known in Dublin—once the famous Macheath, in Smock Alley—a worthy and respectable character, of a fine, bold, athletic figure, but violent and extravagant in his mode of acting. He had quitted the stage, and commenced picture-dealer; and when we met him in the Park, was running after a man, who, he said, had bought a picture of Rubens for three shillings and sixpence at a broker's stall in Drury-lane, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... Church of England, and Dean of St Paul's,—a vigorous although rude satirist, a fine Latin versifier, the author of many powerful sermons, and of a strange book defending suicide; altogether a strong, eccentric, extravagant genius. ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... had communicated itself to Liftore's blood, and, besides, he thought after such a run Kelpie would be less extravagant ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... the most extravagant stories were set afloat, not only concerning the trouseau of the bride, but the bride herself. What ailed her? What made her so cold, so white, so proudly reserved, so like a walking ghost? She, who had been so full of vigorous life, so merry, so light-hearted. ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... highest point ever reached. From the nature of things the press must comment promptly and without the full knowledge of conditions that might alter its judgments. But on account of the necessary haste of its expressions, the writers should avoid extravagant language and the too ready imputation of bad motives to the public servants. "It is strange that men cannot allow others to differ with them without charging corruption as the cause of the difference," are the plaintive words of Grant during a confidential conversation with ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... over at the last moment; it is very inconsiderate and unkind. But I suppose he can't help it, poor fellow," with a touch of regret for her petulance. "I am very extravagant, Ma. I spend no end on clothes, though you wouldn't think it to look at me now. Philip just trots off to the City and makes the money, so it does not matter ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... at the disposal of the Government as volunteer army surgeon to Cuba. During the four years of his exile at Dapidan, he has conducted himself in the most exemplary manner, and he is in my opinion the more worthy of pardon and consideration, in that he is in no way connected with the extravagant attempts we are now deploring, neither those of conspirators nor of the secret societies that ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... characters in the play, which was the story of a girl who, holding a position as private secretary in the home of a man of wealth, discovers that his daughter, a girl about her own age, has been unduly extravagant and, needing money, has forged a check in her father's name. While she deliberates as to what is to be done, the father discovers the forgery, and taxing his daughter with it, she becomes panic-stricken and lays the forgery at the door of the private secretary. Her employer, ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... should hear for the first time this naked exposition of the writer's theory would be tempted at once to reject the whole, as too extravagant and absurd to deserve further notice. But he would be much mistaken in this conclusion. The theory is a very plausible one; it is one of the best cosmogonies that the wit of man has ever framed. It is a revival ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... every man of the expedition felt the fatal truth, my wife confided her secret, that she had hitherto concealed, lest the knowledge of a hidden store should have made the men extravagant. She now informed them that in past days of plenty, when flour had been abundant, she had, from time to time, secreted a quantity, and she had now SIX LARGE IRON BOXES FULL (about twelve bushels). This private store she had laid by in the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... acted by the Capuchin was known to himself alone, and even he was utterly ignorant of Pickle's being concerned in the affair; so that the greatest share of the painter's sufferings were supposed to be the exaggerations of his own extravagant imagination. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... asleep?" Then, gently touching him, she said, "Good sir, if you are alive, awake." Upon this Lysander opened his eyes, and (the love-charm beginning to work) immediately addressed her in terms of extravagant love and admiration; telling her she as much excelled Hermia in beauty as a dove does a raven, and that he would run through fire for her sweet sake; and many more such lover-like speeches. Helena, knowing Lysander was her friend Hermia's lover, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... Malvina's father found himself having trouble with his workmen. There were strikes. The family received threatening letters. Malvina's rosy cheeks grew pale. "I don't know what they want," she said forlornly. "They say we are all so extravagant. I don't know what difference that makes to them if we pay for what we buy. We never hurt them. I wish we were not rich at all. It would be much nicer to be poor. I should like to be a—what is it?—a commoner—or a communist or something. ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... beg that the members of the House of Representatives will permit me to express the opinion that it will be impossible to deal in any way but a very wasteful and extravagant fashion with the enormous appropriations of the public moneys which must continue to be made, if the war is to be properly sustained, unless the House will consent to return to its former practice of initiating and ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... longer, and vented his satisfaction at the success of the enterprise in the most violent and extraordinary manner. He laughed till his eyes were filled with tears, and had nearly upset the overloaded boat by his extravagant demonstrations. ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... forth against the dark background of the piano, a domed shaven head that made him stop short—that head full of so many astounding things! He saw, traveling swiftly up and down the keys, rising above them to an extravagant height and pouncing down upon them again, those predatory hands that had pounced on the spoils of Susa! They began, in a moment, to flutter lightly over the upper end of the keyboard. It was extraordinary what a ripple poured as if out of those hands. Magin himself bent over ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... over a carpet of flowers. Life is here around us in its most exquisite forms. Those flowers! Poppies, cornflowers, lilies, tulips whose colours are those of the rainbow. The coast line curving down and far away to meet the extravagant blueness of the Aegean where the battleships lie silent—still—smoke rising up lazily—and behind them, through the sea haze, dim outlines of Imbros ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... had poured out a cup of coffee; and, as a matter of course, the coffeepot, whatever metal it may have been when he took it up, was gold when he set it down. He thought to himself that it was rather an extravagant style of splendor, in a king of his simple habits, to breakfast off a service of gold, and began to be puzzled with the difficulty of keeping his treasures safe. The cupboard and the kitchen would no longer be a secure ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... dreamed of by civilized man, his worry might have ceased; for surely a man who had found a new world for Spain need not have found gold besides; but he knew nothing of the continent as yet; and remembering the extravagant promises made in Barcelona, he decided to postpone writing the letter home to Spain until he should make another ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... discrimination: "The true art seems to be when you would have the person you represent pitied, you must show him at once, in the highest grief, and struggling to bear it with decency and patience. In this case," adds the writer, "we sigh for him, and give him every groan he suppresses." As for the extravagant idea of any artist, however great, identifying himself for the time being with the part he is enacting, who is there that can wonder at the snort of indignation with which Doctor Johnson, talking one ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... Although looked up to by all, they appear so humble, so moderate in everything. I think the Christian ladies on the Continent dress far more simply than those in England. The Countess appeared very liberal, but extravagant in nothing. To please us she had apple dumplings, which were quite a curiosity; they were really very nice. The company stood still before and after dinner, instead of saying grace. We returned from ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... drawing-room of her flat when he threw himself at her feet, and poured forth his worship of her in the most extravagant phrases. ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... for, my dear! we have been VERY extravagant over our house!!! I should like to hear if you and your dear ladies (I know Auntie would be candid!) think we have been wisely so!—Our predecessor had a cottage and garden for L35—the Col. Commanding only paid L55—and we are ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... person, from Governor Johnstone to General Reed, and enclosing a note from Lord Carlisle, which was in cypher. This letter related to overtures upon which Donop, the Hessian officer, and General Reed, had already exchanged their views; pronounced them to be somewhat extravagant; and suggested that Reed had better close the arrangement which had been proposed to Count Donop, and he would have no reason to complain. The ten thousand pounds of which Donop spoke, Johnstone said would be immediately paid, and he did not think there would be any difficulty about the ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... told his story. After his discharge from the Army he had looked about for a job and found one at the mills in Wellingsford, where he had met the woman, a mill-hand, older than himself, whom he had married. She had been a bit extravagant and fond of her glass, but when he left her to rejoin the regiment, he had had no anxieties. She did not write often, not being very well educated and finding difficult the composition of letters. A machine gun bullet had ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... consented to Lady Shrewsbury's new match with the well-endowed Eleanor Ratcliffe. If he could not have Cicely, he cared not whom he had. He had been leading a wild and extravagant life about town, when (as poor Tichborne afterwards said on the scaffold) the flourishing estate of Babington and Tichborne was the talk of Fleet Street and the Strand, and he had also many calls for secret service money, so that all his thought was ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... alone be suitable. It is almost certain that electricity and other mysterious radiant forces (of which we have so recently discovered the existence) have played an important part in the origin and development of organised life, and it does not appear to be extravagant to assume that the extraordinary way in which these cosmic forces have remained hidden from us may be due to that central position which we are found to occupy in the whole universe of matter discoverable by us. Indeed, it may well be that these wonderful forces of the ether are more irregular—and ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... racket, which little respite gave poor de Sigognac time to collect his scattered senses, and, with a mighty effort, he broke the spell that had bound him, and threw himself into his part with such desperation that his acting was more extravagant and telling than ever. It fairly brought down the house. The haughty Yolande herself could not forbear to smile, and her old uncle, thoroughly aroused, laughed heartily, and applauded with all his might. No one but Isabelle had the slightest idea of the reason of Captain Fracasse's unwonted fury—but ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... will gladden the hearts of a whole tribe of blacks," said he; "there's enough to dress a thousand of them, for they're not very extravagant with cloth." ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... the facts contained in the speech to be untrue; condemned the confiding such important fortresses as Port Mahon and Gibraltar to foreigners; and exposed the idea of conquest to ridicule. In reply, Lord North urged the necessity of regaining the colonies, and exposed the extravagant pretensions of the colonial assemblies, as well as of the general congress, and the encroachments on all the rights of the parent state. He also defended the conduct of ministers, maintaining that they had tried conciliation, but that the attempt ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to give the spirit of them. He talked in the finished style of a Maupassant, with all the imagination and all the strength of that great master. I saw then, before I had read his work, that his title of "The Jewish Maupassant" was not extravagant. And I saw also that here was an artist with human sympathy immeasurable, and yet not lacking sensuous imagery and ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... garibaldis by an arrangement which failed when applied to those of the widow, and her opinions by the simple process of looking at everything from one point of view. Her forte was dress and general ornamentation; not that Miss Letitia was extravagant—far from it. If one may use the expression, she utilized for ornament a hundred bits and scraps that most people would have wasted. But, like other artists, she saw everything through the medium of her own art. She looked at birds with an eye to hats, and at flowers with ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... "I sure hate to burn daylight. And you and I have burned a heap of daylight. We've been scandalously extravagant. We might have been ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... easy, but I, having no indulgent parent behind me ever ready to draw a check, began to be uneasy over the financial situation. Strangely enough, however, it never occurred to me to cut down my personal expenses, and I continued living at the same extravagant rate as when money was plenty—dining and wining and being dined and wined. Just here an important character, one destined to have an influence for evil on my future life, came upon the scene, and I will halt for a moment in my narrative to give ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... seldom or never observe any of the three great Unities of Action, Time and Place, which are great Errors; For what breeds more Confusion than to have five or six main Plots in a Play, when the Audience can never attend to 'em? What more extravagant than to fancy the Actions of Weeks, Months, and Years represented in the Space of three or four Hours? Or what more unnatural than for the Spectators to suppose themselves now in a Street, then in a Garden, ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... Ohio. He was sent to assist the insurgent mountaineers, and with him went the Ohio militia. From this situation and from the small engagements with Confederate forces in which McClellan was successful, there resulted the separate State of West Virginia and the extravagant popular notion that McClellan was a great general. His successes were contrasted in the ordinary mind with the crushing defeat at Bull Run, which happened ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... Ned, whose cheeks had turned very red, for though not so extravagant as the American painted, he was fain to own to himself that he had some such ideas in connection with the dusky warriors who had stormed ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... people and rarely to be taken care of themselves—or else her cruel experience of married life had forever blighted in her all wifely emotions—even wifely regrets. She was grave, sad, silent, for many months during her early term of widowhood, but she made no pretense of extravagant sorrow, and, except under the rarest and most necessary circumstances, she never even named her husband. Nothing did she betray about him, or her personal relations with him, even to her nearest and dearest friends. He had passed away, leaving no ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... you expect me to indulge an extravagant wife, who seeks to become a social queen, and still save anything out of a ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... set when the travellers came in sight of the spires of Stralsund, among which the church of St Nicholas reared its double-headed tower. Bernard had enlivened the journey by his wild sallies, and merry but extravagant humour. Now, however, that the goal was almost reached, he became silent and anxious. The hours appeared to go too slowly for him, and his restlessness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... he was doing mankind a service in this endowment. Maybe he was, but I've always rebelled against being dependent. I've always wanted my own. Uncle Joshua thinks I am frivolous, and he has told Uncle Lloyd that it's just my love of spending and extravagant notions that makes me rebel against conditions. It is n't. It's the sense of being robbed, as it were. It was n't right and honest toward me, even in a great cause, to leave me dependent. Uncle Lloyd ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... we took him to a large brick house, which was building for the governor's residence: being about to enter, he cast up his eyes, and seeing some people leaning out of a window on the first story, he exclaimed aloud, and testified the most extravagant surprise. Nothing here was observed to fix his attention so strongly as some tame fowls, who were feeding near him: our dogs also he particularly noticed; but seemed more fearful ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... the port where the packet boats, between England and Holland, go out and come in. The inhabitants are far from being famed for good usage to strangers, but, on the contrary, are blamed for being extravagant in their reckonings in the public- houses, which has not a little encouraged the setting up of sloops, which they now call passage boats, to Holland, to go directly from the River Thames; this, though it may be something the longer passage, yet as ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... at this extravagant idea of introducing a furnace into his manor-house. It would have seemed more natural to him to have his dogs fed out of silver dishes. He gave a tremendous laugh from the bottom of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... interject my ideas on the lecture system. The lecture has a twofold advantage over the recitation. (1) It is economical, since one man handles a large number of students; the method of recitation is extravagant. This fact alone will mean the retention of the lecture system, wherever it can possibly be employed with success. (2) It is educationally the better method, for the average student and the average teacher. For the reconstruction of a lecture ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... color. Elsewhere temperaments are more evenly balanced; one finds precision, the word exactly fitted to the thing. But farther on—effect of the sun, the air, the wine perhaps—hot blood courses in the veins, tempers are excitable, language is extravagant, and the simplest things are said in ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... not extravagant speech, neither listen thereto; for it is the utterance of a body heated by wrath. When such speech is repeated to thee, hearken not thereto, look to the ground. Speak not regarding it, that he that is before thee may know wisdom. If thou be ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... proved upon the trial to the satisfaction of judge and jury; and you know, after that, nothing but the daisy[3] would do. I leave you four honest weight carriers, and as sweet a pack as ever ran into a red rascal without a check. Don't be extravagant in my wake." ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... is not the only testimony to the ridiculous and extravagant tastes of this unfortunate period. One writer speaks with indignation of the goats' beards (with two points), which seemed to put the last finishing touch of ridicule on the already grotesque appearance of even the most serious people of that period. Another exclaims against the ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... however, to set down the extravagant and often blasphemous harangue in which, styling M. de Guise the martyr of God, he told the story now so familiar—the story of that dark wintry morning at Blois, when the king's messenger, knocking early at the ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... People: finally, that Letters in the King's Name should be dispatched to the Pope, according to the Tenor following. Philip by the Grace of God, King of France, to Boniface, who stiles himself universal Bishop, little or no greeting. Be it known to thy great Folly and extravagant Temerity, that in things temporal we have no Superior but God; and that the Disposal of the Vacancies of certain Churches and Prebends belong to us of Regal Right; that it is our due to receive the profits of them, and our Intention to defend our selves by the Edge of the ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... taught music and drawing, with the better hope of success, as the necessity of completing her education had been made the excuse for sending her to a boarding school; but this request was denied her on frivolous pretences, the real cause, when she perceived the very extravagant turn of her step-mother, she soon understood ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... handsomest usually pays the highest price for her time. Many of these women are the favourites of persons who furnish them with the means of paying their owners, and not a few are dressed in the most extravagant manner. Reader, when you take into consideration the fact, that amongst the slave population no safeguard is thrown around virtue, and no inducement held out to slave women to be chaste, you will not be surprised when we tell you that immorality ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... every thing," added her mother. "Rene, you ought not to be so extravagant. Papa is quite depressed with the ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... improved or injured Dickens' work; for he tells us everything written by the latter was submitted to him, and corrections and alterations offered. I am inclined to confess that, when in his official mood, Forster's notions of humour were somewhat forced. It is thus almost startling to read his extravagant praise of a passage about Sapsea which the author discarded in Edwin Drood. Nothing better showed Boz's discretion. The well-known passage in The Old Curiosity Shop about the little marchioness and her make-believe of orange peel and water, and which ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... whimsical and extravagant tirade about his future prospects. The wonderful career of fame and fortune that awaits him, and after indulging in all kinds of humorous gasconades, concludes: "Let me, then, stop my fancy to take a view of my future self—and, as the boys say, light ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... proceeded in February. And there the cost was great. Sibylla was not one to go to work sparingly in any way; neither, in point of fact, was Lionel. Lionel would never have been unduly extravagant; but, on the other hand, he was not accustomed to spare. A furnished house in a good position was taken; servants were imported to it from Verner's Pride; and there Sibylla launched into all the follies of the day. At Easter she "set her heart" upon a visit to Paris, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a diminutive bower of Oriental luxury. Her decorative tastes were decidedly Eastern and lavishly extravagant. She knew how to arrange a room with the object of stealing away a man's reserve. There is something about the atmosphere of well chosen surroundings which intoxicates judgment and murders discretion—which bars reason at the threshold and generates madness of thought and deed beyond it. A ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... practice what falsehoods are in theory. A reasonable, prudent, provident, and moderate coercion may be a means of preventing acts of extreme ferocity and rigor: for by propagating excessive and extravagant doctrines, such extravagant disorders take place as require the most perilous and fierce corrections ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... them by its movement, its colouring, its youthfulness. They made scarcely any distinction between Victor Hugo, Dumas, or Bouchardy, and the diction was no longer to be pompous or fine, but lyrical, extravagant. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... you conclude with me what is the initiating ordinance: but withal, give me leave to correct, as I think, one extravagant expression of yours. You say, 'It is CONSENT on all hands and NOTHING else, that makes them members of particular churches, and not faith and baptism.' You might have stopped at, and nothing else, you need not in particular ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... while the whole is neither English nor French nor belonging to any other national school. The same may be said of the larger eight-light window in the central bay, but that there the tracery is even more elaborate and extravagant. The octagon above has buttresses with ordinary pinnacles at each corner, a parapet like that below, and flying buttresses, all pierced, cusped and crocketed like those at the west front. On each ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... see two elderly men, evidently merchants, for they were dressed much like her uncle the goldsmith, approach two gayly dressed gentlemen and, stopping them on the street, proceed to measure their swords and the width of their extravagant ruffs with ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... a treaty at Oxford some time before, where the Parliament insisting that the king should pass a bill to abolish Episcopacy, quit the militia, abandon several of his faithful servants to be exempted from pardon, and making several other most extravagant demands, nothing was done, but the treaty broke off, both parties being rather farther exasperated, than ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... The boldness of my grandiloquent and bombastic expressions roused my uncle Adolph's alarm and astonishment. He was unable to understand how I could have selected and used with inconceivable exaggeration precisely the most extravagant forms of speech to be found in Lear and Gotz von Berlichingen. Nevertheless, even after everybody had deafened me with their laments over my lost time and perverted talents, I was still conscious of a wonderful secret solace in the face of the calamity that had befallen ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... master chords of one with which it is in unison, and whereon the fresh breeze of morning lightly plays, calling forth sounds of joy and gladness. Therefore do we love it, with a warmth of affection that may perchance appear extravagant to those whose robust, well-balanced minds, clothed with strong, healthy, unsusceptible bodies—people who are always in good spirits, unless there be a reason for the contrary—may render them independent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... are to be sent to your principal cities, I wish I had flesh enough to be dispersed through Christendom, to attest my dying attachment to my king.' It was the calm employment of his mind, that night, to reduce this extravagant sentiment to verse. He appeared next day, on the scaffold, in a rich habit, with the same serene and undaunted countenance, and addressed the people, to vindicate his dying unabsolved by the church, rather than to justify ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... what is more displeasing than a distorted figure, which aimed at grace and is become a caricature? Affectation is in the arts the equivalant of sophistry in logic, of the false in morals, of hypocrisy in religion. It is not extravagant to assume that affectation, being a falsity, an active lie, is a torture to the spirit which perceives it, and a wrong to the honest souls who endure it. It should be, therefore, for twofold cause, banished without pity ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... of her aspect, and turned for relief to more than usual levity and mockery. Hence the perpetual interruption of the serious and affecting, and sometimes even awful, interest which belongs to the main argument of the piece, by scenes of farcical and extravagant caricature which might be pleasant enough as varieties in that farce of unreason with which he usually entertains us, but which, coming upon the mind in a state of serious emotion, are offensive and disagreeable. The two styles appear two opposite and incompatible moods; and it is impossible ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... hearts are not quite deadened by their commerce with the world, innocence (no longer familiar) becomes an awful idea. So I felt when I wrote it. Your other censures (qualified and sweetened, though, with praises somewhat extravagant) I perfectly coincide with: yet I choose to retain the word "lunar,"—indulge a "lunatic" in his loyalty to his mistress the moon! I have just been reading a most pathetic copy of verses on Sophia Pringle, who was hanged and burned for coining. ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... are able to dart through the air at the speed attained by the automobile, it will be time enough to think of taking seriously the extravagant claims made in behalf ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... drawback to my pleasure? There is one more. It is the idea of the monotonous uniformity with which the Reviews will eulogize me. They cannot say a word of commendation beyond what is strictly true, I am fully aware; and I am not obliged to read any more of it than I please. Still it may appear extravagant to the very few yet unacquainted with the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... live in day—Oh, my Maskwell! how shall I thank or praise thee? Thou hast outwitted woman. But, tell me, how couldst thou thus get into her confidence? Ha! How? But was it her contrivance to persuade my Lady Plyant to this extravagant belief? ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and when thou viewest him in that light too, and reckons up his friends, his family, his kindred and allies,—and musters up with them the many recruits which will list under him from a sense of common danger;—'tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes,—thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... singular scene, that may serve to show that the little decorums of breeding were then by no means attended to as in modern times. 34. One of her stewards having alleged, that the inventory was defective, and that she had secreted a part of her effects, she fell into the most extravagant passion, started from her couch, and snatching him by the hair, gave him repeated blows on the face. Augus'tus, smiling at her indignation, led her to the couch, and desired her to be pacified. To this she replied, ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... for, making an unfortunate minute when they were almost tired with the other business, the Duke of York did find fault with it, and that made all the rest, that I believe he had better have given a great deal, and had nothing said to it to-day; whereas, I have seen other things more extravagant passed at first hearing, without any difficulty. Thence I to my Lord Brouncker's, at Mrs. Williams's, and there dined, and she did shew me her closet, which I was sorry to see, for fear of her expecting something from me; and here she took notice of my wife's ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... increased. I stated that, if the currency was not greatly and promptly reduced, the existing scale of inflated prices would not only continue, but, by the very fact of the large amounts thus made requisite in the conduct of the war, these prices would reach rates still more extravagant, and the whole system would fall under its own weight, rendering the redemption of the debt impossible, and destroying its value in the hands of the holder. If, on the contrary, a funded debt, with interest secured by adequate taxation, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... from St. Petersburg, a sort of Richmond to St. Petersburg,—Felicien's, a dependence of Cubat's; and Ernest's, a branch of the Cafe de l'Ours, and managed by a brother of the proprietor. Both these have an excellent cuisine and cellar, but the charges, especially at Felicien's, are fairly extravagant. Bands of music and pretty gardens are features of these restaurants, and Felicien's has a terrace on the river opposite the Emperor's summer palace on the Island of Iliargin. They are both practically closed during the winter, excepting ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... Chemin des Dames; and not only had the river to be crossed, but the formidable slopes, which the Germans had beeen meticulously fortifying for two and a half years, to be surmounted. The results of the first day's onslaught fell lamentably short of the extravagant anticipations. The banks of the Aisne were cleared, some progress was made up the slopes, and from Troyon, where the original line was nearly on the ridge, an advance was made along it. But on the whole the Germans maintained their grip on the Chemin ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... a literary hack who had been employed on the Encyclopaedia. He died, leaving a foolish and extravagant widow, and a perverse and violent daughter. The latter went on to the stage, and Diderot took as much trouble in advising her, in seeking appointments for her, in executing her commissions, in investing her earnings, in dealing with her relatives, as if he had been her own father. If his ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... wish to say a word to parents—having been a boy myself, and being now a father. Let your boys go when summer comes; put them to their wits; do not let them be extravagant, nor have money to pay other men for working for them. It is far better for them to move about than to remain in one place all the time. The last, especially if the camp is near some place of public resort, tends to ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... his life by the whispers, or opinions of the World. Yet he had a great reverence for a good reputation. He hearkened to Fame when it was a just Censurer: But not when an extravagant Babler. He was a passionate lover of Liberty and Freedom from restraint both in Actions and Words. But what honesty others receive from the direction of Laws, he had by native Inclination: And he was not beholding to other mens wills, but to his ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... so kind and so thoughtful that Harry had never dreamed of opposing it, yet the brothers were both conscious this afternoon that the old attitude towards each other had suffered a change. Harry showed it first in his dress, which was extravagant and very unlike the respectable tweed or broadcloth common to the manufacturers of the locality. Harry's garb was that of a finished horseman. It was mostly of leather of various colors and grades, from the highly dressed Spanish ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... her work might have appeared with a very pretty collection of well-deserved poetical praises in its introductory pages. As old customs linger longest in places like this, I hope she and you will not think it quite extravagant to send a single sonnet ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... dazzling. And after marriage the little parlourmaid developed extravagant tastes. She had a passion for theatres. I, Janiaud, have nothing to say against theatres, excepting that the managers have never put on my dramas, but in the wife of a struggling restaurateur a craze for playgoing is not to ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... of unblown plants had been valued by an official and while he might be waiting for this well-hated spirit of evil, his cauliflower-heads would have expanded into coral-like projections and have become utterly valueless except for pig-feeding. I cannot conceive a more extravagant instance of oppression than this system of taxation, which throws enormous powers of extortion into the hands of the official valuer. This person can oppose by delays and superlative estimates the vital ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... pay him, and a note to his brother, requesting him to pay the bearer the same sum at the end of the trip. After spending fifty cents for a lunch, consisting of crackers, cheese, sandwiches, and a pie, for the boy had no idea of going hungry again if he could help it, nor of paying the extravagant prices charged at railroad lunch-counters, Rod took his place, with Juniper, in car number 1160, which was the one assigned to them. Here he proceeded to make the acquaintance of his charge; and, aided by a few lumps of sugar that he had obtained for this purpose, ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... little a ship' when we could live on land with beer and music handy. I was tempted to raise the North Sea question, just to watch Davies under the thunder of rebukes which would follow. But I refrained from a wish to be tender with him, now that all was going so well. The Frisian Islands were an extravagant absurdity now. I did not even refer to them as we pulled back to the Dulcibella, after swearing eternal friendship with the good pilot and ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... as if the empire, or their functions, were to end the next day; as long as the national treasures shall be exhausted by unparalleled depredations, and that its indigence shall only be removed by extravagant speculations, the ruinous consequences of which will not be perceived, or will be neglected, for the trifling advantages of the moment? and to make use of an energetic, but true metaphor, one that is terrifying, but symbolical ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... of such mad infatuation as a humiliating exhibition of human weakness. Any one under its fearful spell is an object of pity. But I have more sympathy for him than for Cleopatra, although she was doubtless a very gifted woman. He was her victim; she was not his. If extravagant and reckless and sensual, he was frank, generous, eloquent, brave, and true to her. She was artful, designing, and selfish, and used him for her own ends, although we do not know that she was perfidious and false to him. But for her he would have ruled the world. He showed himself capable ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... a school exhibition, our ears are deafened by declamation addressed to ambition. The boys have sought out from literature every stirring appeal to effort, and every extravagant promise of reward. The compositions of the girls are of the same general tone. We hear of "infinite yearnings," from the lips of girls who do not know enough to make a pudding, and of being polished ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... intuition of Lucretius all the more remarkable. But in Rome there were the conditions favourable to its development—imperfect culture, vehement passions unabsorbed by commerce or by political life, the habituation to extravagant excitement in war and in the circus, and the fermentation of an age foredestined to give birth to new religious creeds. When the infinite but ill-assured power of the Empire was conferred on semi-madmen, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Roman Clement,' had not this Clement become a legendary person and had so many spurious works palmed off upon him [Endnote 59:2]. But it is surely no argument to say that because a certain number of extravagant and spurious writings are attributed to Clement, therefore one so sober and consistent with his position, and one so well attested as this, is not likely to have been written by him. The contrary inference would be the more reasonable, for if Clement had not been an ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... Why didn't I think of it? So bright and delicate and becoming? It will last better than flowers; and no one can think I'm extravagant, since it costs nothing." ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... were indulging in extravagant joy at the Palais Royal, to increase the hilarity of the queen, Mazarin, a man of sense, and whose fear, moreover, gave him foresight, lost no time in making idle and dangerous jokes; he went out after ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... you will be tempted in a hundred different ways, by things which are pleasant—everyone knows that they are pleasant enough—but wrong. One will be tempted to be vain of dress; another to be self-conceited; another to be lazy and idle; another to be extravagant and roving; another to be over fond of amusement; another to be over fond of money; another to be over fond of liquor; another to go wrong, as too many young men and young women do, and bring themselves, and those with whom they keep company, and whom they ought, if they really love them, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... covered with pines, and veined with silver-bearing quartz. We visited the abandoned mines of Marqueliso and Potosi, but the shafts were filled with water, and only faint traces remained of the ancient establishments. Extravagant traditions are current of the wealth of these mines, and of the amounts of treasure which were taken from them in the days of the Viceroys. A few specimens of the refuse ore, which we picked up at the mouth of the principal shaft, proved, on analysis, to be exceedingly rich, and gave ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... we again went out to hunt. This time I took only a 12-gauge shotgun. As we travelled through the forest I was impressed once more by the fascination of the grandly extravagant vegetation. ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... knew, that it was in vain to contend with the very first emotions of grief on such an occasion, but intended, at her return, to show them how much it was their duty and interest to conquer all sorts of extravagant sorrow. ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... fiddler for the rest of his days. In return for this the old man surrendered the golden slippers, which, it is also said, the reverend fathers carefully locked away in the treasure-chest, lest the Virgin should again be tempted to such extravagant almsgiving. ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... hope it will not be said I mean to insinuate that any circumstances at present exist to justify insurrection. I protest against any such inference. Nothing can be further from my thoughts, and I regret that such an extravagant mode of construing men's words should be in fashion, as to render such a caution on my part needful. All I say is, that the writer of this paper spoke of insurrection conditionally, and prospectively only, and, in doing so, has done no more ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... woman is troubled with a loathing for meat and a greedy longing for things contrary to nutriment, as coals, rubbish, chalk, etc., which desire often occasions abortion and miscarriage. Some women have been so extravagant as to long for hob nails, leather, horse-flesh, man's flesh, and other unnatural as well as unwholesome food, for want of which thing they have either miscarried or the child has continued dead in the womb for many days, to ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... of them based upon the belief that an intellectual conviction is a crime. No wonder the church hated and traduced the author of the "Age of Reason." England was filled with Puritan gloom and Episcopal ceremony. The ideas of crazy fanatics and extravagant poets were taken as sober facts. Milton had clothed Christianity in the soiled and faded finery of the gods—had added to the story of Christ the fables of mythology. He gave to the Protestant church the most outrageously material ideas of the Deity. He turned all the angels into soldiers—made ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... came in all his boast and arrogance. The time was not festive—he was made to feel that—but what Kurho felt he did not show. Extravagant point was made that he should see all that he wished! Across all the great series of ledges he was taken, both high and low and length and breadth, to observe the abundance and well-being and extent of the Otah ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... this young celibate began her course naturally felt rebuked by her standards, and preferred stirring kettles to meeting her. It was not so long since the princess had been a hoiden among them, abounding in the life which rushes to extravagant action. Her juvenile whoops scared the birds. She rode astride of saplings, and played pranks on solemn old warriors and the medicine-man. Her body grew into suppleness and beauty. As for her spirit, the women of the tribe knew very little about it. They saw none of her struggles. ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... beyond account, the lawless soul, extravagant by our standards, the glow of love and friendship, the fervent kiss—nothing in argument or logic, but unsurpass'd in proverbs, in religious ecstasy, in suggestions of common mortality and death, man's great equalizers—the spirit everything, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... sumptuous in his tastes, liberal, chivalrous, voluptuous, extravagant. At the same time he had a cultivated mind, an eye for proportion, and an ear for harmony. He was even pious at times, and like all debauchees had periods of asceticism. He was much given to gallantry, and his pension-list of beautiful women was not small. He was a poet ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... real nobility of the mind and heart. Its history is bright with the footprints of men whose very names still stir the hearts of freemen, the world over, like a trumpet peal. Say what we may of its fanaticism, laugh as we may at its extravagant enjoyment of newly acquired religious and civil liberty, who shall now venture to deny that it was the golden age of England? Who that regards freedom above slavery, will now sympathize with the outcry and lamentation of those interested in the continuance of the old ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... was there but they preferred the painting. Similar stories with innumerable variations are told of later artists. Rembrandt himself is said to have been deceived by his pupils who, knowing he was careful about collecting money in small quantities, however extravagant he might be in spending it, painted coins on the floor of the studio, and enjoyed the joke of seeing him stoop to pick them up. We have heard, too, of flies painted with surprising skill in conspicuous places to deceive the unwary. But apart ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... is about twice as long as in England. A good many students live with their families, which is cheaper than living in lodgings; and as nearly all classes are represented, there is a considerable difference in their standards of life. Some are certainly extravagant, as in all Universities, which tends to raise prices, but, on the other hand, many of them are men whose parents can ill afford the expense, but are tempted by the value which attaches to a University career in Holland, and these bring the average down. Between these two extremes there are plenty ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... perilous this adventure might seem to me, I may say that never in all my life have I enjoyed anything so much. I was at an age (24) at which one loves to do extravagant and startling things, and I felt that nothing could be more startling or more extravagant than to snatch at the same time the Queen from the King her husband, and from the Cardinal de Richelieu who was jealous, and Mlle d'Hautefort from the King who was in ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... describe his conduct as eccentric—what one might call reprehensibly eccentric and extravagant. I didn't call exactly in the way of business, but about a poor young fellow in my house, who is, I fear, rather far gone in consumption, and, knowing he was a Life Governor, y'know, I thought he might give me a letter for the hospital. Well, when I got ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... no better from him. Some were assured he could pay forty shillings in the pound if he would. Others had overheard hints formerly pass between him and Mrs. Heartfree which had given them suspicions. And what is most astonishing of all is, that many of those who had before censured him for an extravagant heedless fool, now no less confidently abused him for a cunning, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... on the preceding miserable trio, yet still far from fulfilling the extravagant assertions as to its merit with which the press has been deluged. We see in this novel, historic pictures, not without accuracy, details of life which are true enough, and, we might add, familiar enough, from a thousand feuilletons, but we find no ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... live down his past. His earlier writing gave but little promise of the enduring qualities obvious enough in his later works. Noah Brooks has told us how he was advised if he wisht to "see genuine specimens of American humor, frolicsome, extravagant, and audacious," to look up the sketches which the then almost unknown Mark Twain was printing in a Nevada newspaper. The humor of Mark Twain is still American, still frolicsome, extravagant, and audacious; but it is riper now ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... The extravagant language in which he addressed them astonished the wenches as much as his amazing appearance, and they first would have run from him, but finally stayed to laugh. Don Quixote rebuked them, whereat they ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... heard of Lee's surrender and had no longer a motive to hold tenaciously to the central part of the State. [Footnote: Id., p. 777.] It was on our march of Tuesday, the 12th, that the news of the surrender reached us, and was greeted with extravagant demonstrations of joy by both officers and men. [Footnote: For a vivid description of the scene, see "Ohio Loyal Legion Papers," vol. ii. p. 234, by A. J. Ricks, then a lieutenant on my staff, since Judge of U. S. District Court, N. Ohio.] Sherman had got the news in a ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... questioned whether any professed preacher has done so much to develop the best modern type of religion; centered in daily work, reaching out into all human service, and consciously inspired by the divine life. It would not be extravagant to say that in the little group—perhaps half a dozen in all—whom America has contributed to the world's first rank of great men, not one stands higher in heroic manhood and far-reaching service ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam |
