"Peddling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spinners, the ship-owners and the slave-traders. The slave-traders! The men who live and grow rich by a traffic in human flesh and blood in the colonies, are conducting at home a campaign in the sacred name of liberty! Don't you see that the whole movement is a movement of hucksters and traders and peddling vassals swollen by wealth into envy of the power that lies in birth alone? The money-changers in Paris who hold the bonds in the national debt, seeing the parlous financial condition of the State, tremble at the thought that it may lie in the power of a single man to cancel the debt by bankruptcy. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... railway offices at Hankow not more than forty cents would be received in small coins. If your ticket cost $10.50, you paid for it in unbroken dollars, giving the railway a chance to unload some of the undesirable change upon you. In the end I found myself reduced to peddling twenty-cent pieces among friends and friends of friends. For small change on my journey I carried rolls of copper cents, while the cook festooned himself with long ropes of copper "cash," about ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... years before made quite a reputation as Samuel of Posen, he traced Mr. Curtis's birth back to Bohemia, and carried him at an early age to Jerusalem, where Curtis was said to have laid the foundations of his fame and fortune peddling suspenders. Later he sold newspapers on the streets, and, by practicing the shrewd and self-denying habits of his race, quickly became the owner of the paper for which he worked, which was called the ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... biscuit-maker, not wrought in marble, but kneaded by some one used to dough. I am no judge, not being familiar with the method of stone-cutting; but I can tell you that the fingers look to me very stiff and dumpy. It is clear also that he has been peddling at the beard; and I believe my little boy would have done so with more sense, for it looks as though he had used a knife without a point to chisel the hair. This can easily be remedied, however. He has also spoiled one of the nostrils. A little more, and the whole ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... out of their tents. Daniel S. Dickinson, no longer peddling his griefs in private ears, declared "there was no doubt of the President's triumphant election;"[1017] the tone of Bryant and the Evening Post changed; Beecher renewed hope through the Independent and preached a political ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the whip, but that's no reason for using it on those who will. When I get a critter that hogs my good oats and then won't show them in his gait, I get rid of him. He may be all right for a fellow who's doing a peddling business, but I need a little more speed ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... Aurelius we shall have very little to say by way of summary, for they show no inconsistencies and very few of the imperfections which characterise Seneca's ideal of the Stoic philosophy. The "moral peddling," the pedagogic display, the puerile ostentation, the antithetic brilliancy, which we have had to point out in Seneca, are wanting in them. The picture of the inner life, indeed, of Seneca, his efforts after self-discipline, his untiring asceticism, his ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... men on foot, running hither and thither, talking shrilly and in all the tongues of Syria; men on horseback screaming to men on camels; men struggling doubtfully with fractious cows and frightened sheep; men peddling bread and wine; and among the mass a herd of boys apparently in chase of a herd of dogs. Everybody and everything seemed to be in motion at the same time. Possibly the fair spectator was too weary to be long attracted by the scene; in ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Les rues de Paris. I walked past Notre Dame. I bought tobacco. Jews are peddling things with American trade-marks on them, because in a day or two it's Christmas I suppose. Jesus it is cold. Dirty snow. Huddling people. La guerre. Always la guerre. And chill. Goes through these big mittens. To-morrow ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... next throw of the lead. Some ten or twelve canoes came off to the ship, bartering a small quantity of flying fishes for beads, the articles being reciprocally exchanged by means of a rope let down from the stern of the ship. From this peddling traffic the Indians soon after withdrew, and endeavoured to board and carry away the boat which was employed in sounding; but met with such a reception from guns, pikes, and cutlasses, that after two of them were slain, they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... abysmal, and it was often safer to ride in the ditch than on the road. The village, with a tramway through it, stood high and healthy. The best houses were those of the Chinese. The poorer Chinese find peddling employments and trade about the villages, rather than hard work on the estates; while they cultivate on ridges, with minute care, their favourite sweet potato. Round San Fernando, a Chinese will rent from a sugar-planter a bit of land ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... said, sorrowfully. "I'm not fit to handle these man's-size schemes any longer. Peddling oranges in a push-cart is about the suitable graft for me. When I said ten thousand, I swear I thought I had sized up that brown man's limit to within two cents. He'd have melted down for fifteen thousand just as easy. Say—Carry—you'll ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... the difference, and as the boy stuck to it that the man had said lien and not lease, we did not charge that up to him. A few days later he wrote for a town photographer a paid local criticising someone who was going around the county peddling picture-frames and taking orders for enlarged pictures. That was not so bad, but it turned out that the pedlar was a woman, and she came with a rawhide and camped in the office for two days waiting for Jimmy, while he came ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... going on in the peddling style I had been going on; I had won two hundred and fifty pounds in three months, and had I been less fearful I might have had twenty-five thousand pounds. Ah! I'll try my ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... worse than—Blank's—if we may trust this rumour. Since microbe "humour" fills both air and earth, Farewell to honest fun and wholesome mirth! Adieu to genial DICKENS, gentle HOOD! Hail to the peddling pessimistic brood Whose "nimini-pimimi" mouths, too small by half To stretch themselves to a Homeric laugh, Mince, in a mirror, to the "Paphian Mimp!" MOMUS is dead, and e'en that tricksy imp Preposterous Puck hath too much native grit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... waked by the maestro's noise, and came to the door of his chamber, which opens into the little sitting-room, to inquire what the matter might be. Nino asked if the maestro were peddling cabbages, that ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... not all, either. They lived there, during the lifetime of Cochise, in peace and quiet. There were thefts and there were cases of whisky-peddling with their inevitable accompaniments in the way of murder. There were times when the young men got restless; when passing Apaches from the White Mountains tried to induce the tribe to rise and leave the reservation with them, when medicine-men from these other clans ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... couldn't afford to lose many five hundred dollar bills," and he laughed frankly. "That's about as much as I make in a year—I mean, altogether," he said, quickly, lest the girls get an exaggerated notion of the peddling business. "I can't make that clear, though I hope to some ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... said Vuyning, with a laugh, "that my ancestors picked up the knack while they were peddling clothes from house to house a couple of hundred years ago. I'm told ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... answered John Charles with a lofty air. "That's too much like peddling. I won't peddle. I prefer to get regular customers and take ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... withdrawal from the duties of the sovereignty in favour of such a son had proved a constitutional unfitness for the duties of his station. The life he loved was one of seclusion in a round of pious exercises, petty studies, peddling economies, and mechanical amusements. A powerful and grasping Pope was on the throne of Rome. Urban at this juncture pressed Francesco Maria hard; and in 1624 the last Duke of Urbino devolved his lordships to the Holy See. He survived the formal act of abdication seven years; when ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... in the peddling tub-coopering carl!" muttered Caleb, in all the envy of astonishment; "it's a shame to see the like o' them gusting their gabs at sic a rate. But if some o' that gude cheer does not find its way to Wolf's Crag this night, my ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... Dick and Surajah set to work to perfect their disguises. They had, before, appeared simply as two young traders, well to do, and of a class above the ordinary peddling merchant. They now fitted on the ample beards that had been made at Tripataly. These were attached so firmly to their faces, by an adhesive wax, that they could not be pulled off without the use of a good deal of force. ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... is caparisoned in brass and plumage like a circus pony; and the driver wears a broad red sash, part of a shirt, and half of a pair of pants—usually the front half. With an outfit such as that, you feel he should be peddling aurora borealises, or, at the very least, rainbows. It is a distinct shock to find he has only chianti or cheeses or garbage ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... posterity with the utmost cruelty; because it is leaving them the great work to do, and a debt upon their backs, from which they derive no advantage. Such a thought is unworthy of a man of honor, and is the true characteristic of a narrow heart and a peddling politician. ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... Histoire Intime which we must go through in spite of the warning-signs. Between two paragraphs, to be plain, in the one of which we are told how the two Syrians established themselves as merchants in New York, in the other, how and wherefor they shouldered the peddling-box and took to the road, there is a crossed paragraph containing a most significant revelation. It seems that after giving the matter some serious thought, our Scribe came to the conclusion that it is not proper ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... head hopelessly. "If you hadn't been so greedy, you'd have found out what a chunk of land was to these natives before you started peddling it. You'd have found out other things about them, too. You'd have learned that in spite of all their bumbling and fussing and squabbling they're not so dull. You'd have found out that they're marsupials, and that two out of five of them get thrown out of ...
— Letter of the Law • Alan Edward Nourse
... you expect with these peddling Middlemarch papers?" said the Rector. "I don't suppose you could get a high style of man anywhere to be writing up interests he doesn't really care about, and for pay that hardly keeps ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... wretched flock bed. Behind the house was a court, and in the rear of this a stable, full of horses, ponies, mules, machos, and donkeys, for there was no lack of guests, who, however, for the most part slept in the stable with their caballerias, being either arrieros or small peddling merchants, who travelled the country with coarse cloth or linen. Opposite to my room in the corridor lodged a wounded officer, who had just arrived from San Sebastian on a galled broken-kneed pony: he was an Estrimenian, and was returning to ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... grandeur consists in the fact hat he tore himself clear of all those peddling and pitiful compromises, those half humorous concessions, those lazy conventionalisms, with which most people cover their brains as if with wool, and ballast their imagination as ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... peddling with the poor devils than any thing else," said Abel. "But you must remember the spirit of the age, Arthur, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... exhausted her experiments on the frock, the bonnet, and the hoop petticoat bought for her in London and sent like the proverbial pig in a poke, had taken to watching the Yankee peddling sloop, which, having lain for an hour at Patterson's on the Virginia shore, was now heading for the Browne place. It was pretty to see the sloop heel over under a beam wind and shoot steadily forward, while the waves dashed ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... earthy country villages. But I think I do understand the man that you have described.' I went straight to the point, and spoke of my cousin's parish. He agreed that my cousin was a disappointment. 'He's got the same peddling way of looking at things as you,' he said. 'I thought he'd flourish after transplantation, but I admit he doesn't seem to. Yes, I should think a desert and a barbarous people might suit him. I don't deny that he has vision, but ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... districts of France, notably in the northeast. This was attributed to the presence of Jews in large numbers. The stringent laws of the old regime had crowded that unfortunate people out of all occupations but two—peddling and money-lending. In both of these they became experts, and when emancipated by the Revolution they used their liberty, not to widen their activities, but to intensify the evils of the monopoly which they had secured. Since 1791 large numbers ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... cleared the south of Florida, sighted the high land of Cuba, and stood across through the Yucatan channel to commence her peddling business in Honduras, and at some twenty ports she came to an anchor six miles off shore, and hooted with her siren till lighters came off through the surf ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... guess we've got about the same idea of it; it's my opinion he is paid by somebody, and that somebody is Van Dorn, or whoever's backing him. I don't put much stock in this machinery business of his; he don't act like a fellow that needs to go peddling machines about the country, and I notice he don't seem in any great rush about putting it up, now he's got here; he ain't one of the kind that has to rustle for a living, like you and me. I think he's just out here getting pointers on the mines for that old fellow ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... increased currency to the delusion, certainly cherished by some moderate Gladstonians, that Home Rule can be identified with or cut down to extended local self-government,[136] will be fatal to the cause of Unionism. The concession to Ireland of a petty, paltry, peddling legislature, which dare hardly call itself a Parliament, and is officially designated say as a national council, combined with some faint imitation of a Cabinet, called say a committee, would disappoint and irritate Home Rulers; it would cheat their ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... oppose any such project tooth and nail. I have not been striving these thirty years to get Science clear of their schoolmastering sham-literary peddling to give up the game without a fight. I hope my Lords ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... government—nations as distinct as ever were the Roman and the Greek. As the Cavalier of the Cromwellian era was a horror to the pharisaical Puritan, and the Puritan in his turn a contempt and an abomination to the reckless, pleasure-hunting Cavalier, so to-day is the 'psalm-singing, clock-peddling Yankee' a foul odor to the fastidious nostrils of the lordly Southerner, and the reckless prodigal, dissipated and soul-selling planter a thorn in the flesh of Puritan morality. The Yankee is to the Southerner a synonym for all that is low and base and cunning, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... trying to sell oil-lands; every one had a great bargain at from thirty or forty thousand dollars downwards. The lowest in the lot was a boy of seventeen or eighteen, a loutish-looking youth, who looked as if his vocation had been peddling apples and lozenges. He had only a small estate to dispose of for $15,000 (3,000 pounds), but he was very small fry indeed. My companions met with many friends; all had within a few days or hours made or lost incredible sums by gambling ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... they went about peddling pop-corn. The man sent the boys all over the city, but he himself ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... a light a little way from the track, and found it to be the cabin of the daughter of the pleasant people with whom I had spent the previous night. Her husband had gone to the Plains, yet she, with two infant children, was living there in perfect security. Two pedlars, who were peddling their way down from the mines, came in for a night's shelter soon after I arrived—ill-looking fellows enough. They admired Birdie in a suspicious fashion, and offered to "swop" their pack horse for her. I went out the last thing at night and the first thing ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... won by the easiest possible means; when they themselves are forced by heavy toil to earn kopeks,—and we shall be amazed that all these people should remain working people, and that they do not all of them take to an easier method of getting gain,—by trading, peddling, acting as middlemen, begging, vice, rascality, and even robbery. Why, we, the participants in that never-ceasing orgy which goes on in town, can become so accustomed to our life, that it seems to us perfectly natural to dwell alone in five huge apartments, heated by a ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... for a living? He must give up religion and politics, and take to some other pursuit. Loafing or living on his neighbors was now impossible, as he was in disgrace with many; and besides, he had a wife and family to support. Peddling was so common, that nothing could now be made in that line; and besides, it took some capital to start with—a thing that was out of the question in our ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley |
