"Labor of love" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a careful eye the growth of the public schools of Cleveland, and for some time was associated with Mr. Charles Bradburn in their management, as members of the Board of Education. And this, which was wholly a labor of love, with no remuneration but the consciousness of having done some good by hard work, was the only public office ever held by Mr. Handy, or ever desired by him. At the same time he was deeply interested in the growth and management of the Sunday schools of ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... us anew Our journey pursue— Roll round with the year, And never stand still till the Master appear; His adorable will Let us gladly fulfill, And our talents improve By the patience of hope and the labor of love. ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... infesting those waters; for you cannot successfully shoot at them from .. the deck owing to the resistance of the water, but to shoot down upon them is a very different thing. Now, it was plainly a labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does, all the little detailed conveniences of his crow's-nest; but though he so enlarges upon many of these, and though he treats us to a very scientific account of his experiments in this crow's-nest, with a small ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... gladly availed myself of the liberality and great kindness of Senor de Gayangos, who has placed these manuscripts at my disposal, transcribing such as I have selected, for the corroboration and further illustration of my work. The difficulties attending this labor of love will be better appreciated, when it is understood, that the original writing is in an antiquated character, which few Spanish scholars of the present day could comprehend, and often in cipher, which requires much patience and ingenuity to explain. With these various ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Hardwicke and Murray will be here very scon, to aid me, and to watch Hawke. I wish Alan Hawke to blunder around, hunting for Major Hardwicke, and so give me an opportunity to do my duty secretly, and to aid you in your own labor of love. In the mean time—you must be content to rest tranquilly here; cultivate my dear old aunt, and I will come to you daily so that your quiet life in this 'moated grange' will be brightened up a bit. You see," thoughtfully said Anstruther, ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... years. And it testifies to the martyr-like nature of her spirit, that she even rallied from the disappointment consequent upon the financial failure of the book. The dedication of the work reads as follows: "This book has been a labor of love, and it is lovingly dedicated to the Twentieth Century Woman by one who has seen and shared in the struggles of the Woman of the Nineteenth Century." But nothing that is good is lost, and the book testifies to the ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... think that he rode gladly upon his errand; that the thought of Mary Hope turned the work before him into a labor of love. It did not. Lance Lorrigan was the glummest young man in the whole Black Rim, and there was much glumness amongst the Rim folk that day, let me tell you. He ached from fighting, from dancing, from sleeping on the pool table, from hanging for ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... lent their powerful aids to render Alvira a charming nurse. But her labor of love was not very protracted, for it pleased God to cast the last and fatal fever on Cataldus, the invalid brother of the saint. At the time the malady was increasing and death imminent, St. Francis was ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... men. "Your work is as noble and sincere as work can be," he said, "but I do not believe that you will find a publisher in this country to undertake it, unless there be one who feels wealthy enough to do it as a service to literature and a labor of love." ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... Prepared powder was sifted through the lines of perforation and fixed by the application of heat, and we then had the entire composition exactly outlined upon the ground. After that the work of superimposing color and shading by needle weaving was a labor of love and diligent fingers during many months. Every inch of stitchery was carefully criticized and constantly compared with the colored copy, and at last it was a finished tapestry and was hung in a north light on one of the great spaces of the studio, ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... had been enjoined upon them as a most sacred duty: they were proud of the honor it conferred upon their city, when it grew up in its splendor to become the chief object of the admiration of strangers upon the upper Mississippi. Besides, they had built it as a labor of love; they could count up to half a million the value of their tithings and freewill offerings laid upon it. Hardly a Mormon woman had not given up to it some trinket or pin-money; the poorest Mormon man had at least served the tenth part ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... sentenced to hard labor for life for some unlawful outburst of my wild republicanism, I will make one request as I throw myself upon the mercy of the court: Let me be transported to India, and allowed to perform my daily task in beautifying and preserving the Taj. This would be a labor of love, and I should not be unhappy with my idol to worship, doing my part to hand it ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... and brave knights!" exclaimed the Queen; "with such true and loyal assistance, my labor of love will be most delightful. Come now—to the ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... was going on, Texas had finished his labor of love. A crevice in the northern wall of the enclosure looked out upon a steep slope of marl, almost a precipice, which slanted sheer into the boiling flood of the San Juan. To this crevice Texas dragged one naked carcass after another, bundled it through, launched it with a ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Carolina, originally written for private perusal, seems to me worthy of a place in the "Atlantic." Its young author—herself akin to the long-suffering race whose Exodus she so pleasantly describes—is still engaged in her labor of love on St. Helena Island.—J.G.W.] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; (3)remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, before God and our Father; (4)knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election; (5)because our gospel came not to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance; as ye know what ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... It is at some such point as this that man's and woman's natures make one of their many departures from the parallel. To Haig the taming of Sunnysides now meant everything; to Marion it seemed a useless, a worse than useless risk, a wicked waste. What had been the worth, then, of all her labor of love, if it was to be thrown away? He would be killed the next time. And in the horror with which she foresaw that tragic end of all that she had planned and builded, her courage and confidence fell away from her, and left her weak ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... certainly have given my support to the young people in this effort; and as far as possible, will encourage and help them in their labor of love." ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... quality of her friends. No woman ever had better or more loyal friends than Margaret Fuller. Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Freeman Clarke and William Henry Channing were among them and compiled her "Memoirs," evidently as a labor of love. George William Curtis knew her personally, and called her "a scholar, a critic, a thinker, a queen of conversation, above all, a person of delicate insight and sympathy, of the most feminine refinement of feeling and of dauntless courage." Col. Higginson, ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... be made to prevent the negroes holding real estate. I have no doubt of the disposition of the late Rebels in favor of such enactment, and believe they would display the greatest energy in its enforcement. It would be a labor of love on their part, as well as of duty. Its success would be an obstacle in the way of ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... Wilhelm Mller and Bodenstedt have given way to Mrike, Keller and Hebbel, we assuredly have no reason for lament. If this little book help to win in our schools for these three and for Storm, C. F. Meyer, and Liliencron the recognition they deserve, I shall feel richly repaid for this labor of love. ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... She had pressed her less willing father into her service, and through him she had obtained the right to see that Jeff's house was made ready. It had been a labor of love in its highest sense, for not one single detail of her efforts but had been a fresh laceration of her loyal soul. In her mind it was never possible to shut out the memory that everything that was for Jeff was also for a woman who had plucked ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... many happy hours in the Canadian Archives and have read all and copied most of the documents referred to in this book; but I cannot omit to thank the officers at Ottawa for their courtesy in forwarding my labor of love, in furnishing me with copies, photographic and otherwise, and in unearthing interesting facts. It will not be considered invidious if I mention William Smith, Esq., I.S.O. and Miss Smillie, M.A., as specially ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... re-echo with the agonizing shrieks of those who are racked and tortured. That is music well pleasing to God; and the angels in heaven will triumph and be glad when the heretical and infidel Queen Catharine also has to strike up this music of the damned. Now I go to the holy labor of love and godly wrath. Pray for me, my son, that I may succeed. Remain here in the anteroom, and await my call; perhaps we shall need you. Pray for us, and with us. Ah, we still owe this heretical queen a grudge for Anne Askew. To-day we will pay her. Then ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... firm of Cooper and Hewitt, and manager of a department in the Cooper Union. This circumstance, together with the preference kindly expressed by Mr. Cooper's family, doubtless influenced the selection of the writer for the honorable task of preparing this book,—a task which was welcome as a labor of love, though the execution of it has been hindered and impaired by the demands of other duties. The real difficulty has been to compress within the prescribed limits a story covering so many years and so many topics, yet not ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... feigned to hope she knew the duties of a housekeeper, and situated as she was, it was a labor of love to work—toil, for those misfortune ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... interruption. She was preparing some tokens of regard for different members of the family. Many chaste and valuable articles had been received from home for this purpose, but she wished to make some choice trinkets as her own work. Many times she had stolen a half-hour to devote to this labor of love. An elegant silk purse had been netted for Lady Douglas. For Mary Douglas she is engaged on a prettily-designed portfolio. None were forgotten, not even Sir Howard, who was the recipient of a neat dressing-case. As Lady Rosamond's deft fingers wrought ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... fellow laborers all who are seeking to learn and to do the will of the Father and work righteousness, and recommend that in all places, with or without preaching, they organize for religious worship and culture—the work of faith and the labor of love." ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... greatest landscape painters of his country and generation. Another equally important requisite is knowledge of children. It happens that this translator has a daughter just the age of the heroine, who moreover loves to dress in Tyrolese costume. To translate "Heidi" was for her therefore a labor of love, which means that the love contended with and overcame ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... Sanborn, whose tribute to Holmes on his eightieth birthday shows how thorough was his research for that labor of love, tells us that his first contribution to the New England Magazine was published in the third or September number of the first year, 1831. It was a copy of verses of an unpromising title—"To an Insect". ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... pure art to direct his attention to the glorious promises which it reveals to him of a closer communion with the Great Artist, the beneficent Creator of the Beautiful—she will feel herself more than compensated for her 'pleasant labor of love.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... And thenceforward the hermit's garden throve as it had never thriven before. For, though he had skill, the hermit was old and feeble; but the boy was young and active, and he worked hard, and it was to him a labor of love. And being a clever boy, he quickly knew the names and properties of the plants as well as the hermit himself. And when he was not working, he would go far afield to seek for new herbs. And he always returned ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... narrative of an heroic female's unparalleled endurance, will ever say that woman's is a feeble nature, incapable of withstanding the rude shocks of adverse fortune? Nay, who will not rather say, that in woman, hope and faith, and fortitude and energy, make even the frail body immortal, till her labor of love is accomplished, and its cherished ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... determined that his boy and girl, so far as he could shape their lives, should be scholars also. To teach them all he knew was henceforth his chief occupation; for he would not hand over to another a task which for him was a simple labor of love. Day by day he sat between them in his comfortable study, where roses tapped at the lozenge-shaped window panes all through the summer, and in winter the glow of the great logs upon the hearth was reflected from the polished binding and gilt lettering ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... striven for a crown, and now beholds a crown. Now he is beyond the waves. All the contempts, and imprisonments, and outrages of wicked men are now too short to reach him. He is so far from repenting, that he rejoiceth and triumpheth in reflecting back upon all the pains, and care, and labor of love, whereby he hath loved the Lord Jesus, in submitting ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... whom he had performed all this labor of love, for whom he had waited five long months—the tedium of which had been broken only by the intellectual pleasure of teaching English to a sympathetic native neighbor—Phyllis seemed unappreciative. She had hardly looked at ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith
... for the doctor one day, was anxious to get a word of applause for his labor of love. The grave doctor, however, did not introduce the subject, and his younger brother was obliged to bait the hook for him. "I hope, sir, I did not weary your people by the length of my sermon to-day?"—"No, sir, not at all; nor by the depth either!" ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... doing in a local but no less effective, though less comprehensive way. These colored men and women, many of whom are people of genuine culture and character, are giving their lives to the upbuilding of a race. And it is for them a labor of love. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... Mrs. Swiggs can finish her sentence, "don't mention such a thing. I assure you it is a labor of love." ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... in a large sense a labor of love, is the collaboration of an American officer of the United States Air Service and another American, a flying-officer in the Royal Air Force. If the Royal Air Force way of doing things seems to crowd itself to the fore in the discussion of the training ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... seemed to see, a little head bending over the crumpled page, a dimpled hand toiling at its rude labor of love, and an earnest little face smiling at the thought that this labor would not be in vain. And how wearied the little hand grew and how sleepy the little head became, but the loyal little heart throbbed on and on with patient ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... story of a boy's labor of love, and how it changed the course of his life many years after it ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, [1:3]remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ before God even our Father, [1:4] knowing, brothers beloved by God, your election, [1:5]that our gospel came not to you in word only, but with power and with the Holy Spirit and with full assurance, ...
— The New Testament • Various
... himself. If in this volume the author is able to impart to others, in a small degree, the beneficent influence he has received through the splendid precepts and noble examples of the women to whom he owes so much, he will deem himself grandly rewarded for the labor of love herein ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... said. "I kept the grass trimmed. It didn't seem right to let the brush overrun it after the poor devil put that labor of love on it. It always seemed to me that it should be kept smooth and green, and that there should be a big, roomy bungalow there. You see ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of our government, connected with the diplomatic history of the country, as an able, successful and distinguished negotiator. The career of this gentleman has been so marked, and is so instructive, that it becomes not less a labor of love than an act of public duty, with the press, to make it the occasion of comment. At the breaking out of our revolution, the father of the subject of this imperfect sketch was an eminent loyalist of Massachusetts, residing in Boston, connected by affinity with the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... had undertaken was not a repetition of what she had done before. With painful anxiety she scrutinized her words, her thoughts, her feelings. The work was a labor of love; the loving best know what anguish their labor sometimes costs them. The pain of this letter was not fairly understood by her who endured it,—it could not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... their request, and Miss Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Bracebridge, and thirty-seven others, all experienced nurses, went out to their assistance, and arrived at Constantinople on the 5th of November. The whole party were soon established in the hospital at Scutari, and there pursued their labor of love and benevolence. The good they did, and the wonders they accomplished, are too well known to need particular detail. "Every day," says one, writing from the military hospital, "brought some new combination ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... a labor of love, written to perpetuate the memory of some most noble lives, among whom were my father and mother who sought a home in the forests of Michigan at an early day. Being then quite young, I kept no record of dates or occurrences, and this book is mostly ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... laughing face and went to a cupboard, also made of packing cases, and brought forth a pair of moose-hide moccasins, perfectly beaded and trimmed with black fox fur. She had made them with her own hands for her little friend, a labor of love into which she had put the most exquisite work of ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... regarding only the present, he gives no due thought to the intellectual cultivation of his successors. The printer has no care for the beauty and the artistic form of books, while with the scribe this is a labor of love." ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater
... faithfully Maud performed her labor of love, giving up her much-prized runs on the prairie, and resisting all the children's entreaties to play with them, till the Christmas gift was finished. It was no small task, for Maud most heartily ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... evening visit; the administration of medicines; washing feverish faces; smoothing tumbled beds; wetting wounds; singing lullabies; and preparations for the night. By eleven, the last labor of love was done; the last "good night" spoken; and, if any needed a reward for that day's work, they surely received it, in the silent eloquence of those long lines of faces, showing pale and peaceful in the shaded rooms, as we quitted them, ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... built and paid for the erection of the new church building. He had charge of Mr. Thorndyke's endowment fund, to which had been added fifty thousand dollars, making now one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which was safely invested at six per cent interest per annum. All this had been simply a labor of love, he never having received a dollar for his services. This was not boasting, but simply to show them his love for the interests of Monastery University and church. And this love alone inspired him to nominate a man for the vacant presidency. And to still further gain ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... mangled almost past semblance of itself; at hurried burial, where gory blanket, or rough board, makes final rest for some "Hero without a name;"—there ever, and ever tender and tireless, the priest of Rome works on his labor of love and consolation! And the gentlest daughter of the eldest church was there as well. All southern soldiers were brothers, in her eyes; children of the One Father. And that noble band of Sisters of Mercy—to which our every woman belonged; ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... remembered as he sat there every kind word which the Colonel had ever spoken to him, and every one seemed magnified a thousand-fold. This call to lend his living strength towards the bearing of the dead man to his last home seemed like a call to a labor of love and gratitude, though he was still much perplexed that he should ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... large front-kitchen, smoothing out, as she calls it, one of Honor's pretty white dresses. It is a labor of love with the old woman, and every week she comes up from her little ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... attention and unbounded liberality. One lady generally had direction of the affairs of one particular hospital, assisted by others whose duties lay just there, and who devoted each in turn on successive days their entire care and attention to this labor of love. For instance, on Monday certain ladies sent in all the cooked food needed by the patients. Others personally nursed the sick. Still others attended to the distribution of the food or superintended the servants, and so with all duties required. ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... dollars, but you will permit me to perform the ceremony for nothing. It's a labor of love, Mr. Fenton. We are all very much interested in Miss Butterworth, as ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... not discouraged in your work, your labor of love. The prospect before the poor slave is indeed dark, dark! But the power shall not always be on the side of the oppressor. God reigns. A day of vengeance will come, and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... reinforced by the advantages enumerated, our corps of inventors, of both sexes, would be inspired by a labor of love. Unbiased by any selfish motives, they would be working for the farm and for humanity. With no cause to distrust their fellows, they could openly discuss their discoveries, without fear of having them stolen; consequently, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... while groping in the past as if blindfolded he has been decoyed on step by step by the unexpected recovery of new materials after the others were in type, so that as often as he had finished his labor of love new facts have turned up which he had not the heart to reject. So he has incorporated them one after another as best he could. The results are more inartistic and crude than he could have wished, but he hesitates not on that account ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... the earliest and most immediate of these the writings have perished.[765] Our sole original authority is Diogenes Laertius, who was unquestionably an Epicurean. The sketch of Epicurus which is given in his "Lives" is evidently a "labor of love." Among all the systems of ancient philosophy described by him, there is none of whose general character he has given so skillful and so elaborate an analysis. And even as regards the particulars of the system, nothing could be more complete than ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... ashore than his home under the poop-deck of the Condor, with the big main cabin all white and gold, garlanded as if for a perpetual festival with an unfading wreath. She had decorated the center of every panel with a cluster of home flowers. It took her a twelvemonth to go round the cuddy with this labor of love. To him it had remained a marvel of painting, the highest achievement of taste and skill; and as to old Swinburne, his mate, every time he came down to his meals he stood transfixed with admiration before the progress of the work. You could almost smell ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... raising scholarships, on their return home, and a few noble friends in the United States have sent on their gifts from time to time unsolicited, to defray the general expenses of the Institution. Its support has been to some of us a work of faith, as well as a labor of love. Not unfrequently has the end of the month come upon us, without one piastre in the treasury for paying the teachers' salaries or buying bread for the children, when suddenly, in some unknown and unexpected way, funds would be received, ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... one in our community. Many are the labors that have cheerfully been bestowed upon its interests, many and generous the contributions given to it, and many and ardent the prayers offered up in its behalf to the throne of grace. Of those who first united themselves in this work and labor of love, I find that all have been removed, and have gone to ...
— A Sermon Preached on the Anniversary of the Boston Female Asylum for Destitute Orphans, September 25, 1835 • Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright
... social function. It is not sufficiently considered how little there is in most men's ordinary life to give any largeness either to their conceptions or to their sentiments. Their work is a routine; not a labor of love, but of self-interest in the most elementary form, the satisfaction of daily wants; neither the thing done, nor the process of doing it, introduces the mind to thoughts or feelings extending beyond individuals; ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... to this letter is not in my possession, but we may be sure that it came from the heart, while it must have expressed the writer's deep regret that the multiplicity of his other cares would prevent him from undertaking what would have been to him a labor of love. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... flourish of the pencil, as I have done in that wavy, licentious curve, which Hogarth, in his quaint "Analysis of Beauty," assumes as the line of true Grace; nor yet are its infinite motions governed by any cold mathematical laws. In it is the earnest and deliberate labor of Love. There are thought and tenderness in every instant of it; but this thought is grave and almost solemn, and this tenderness is chastened and purified by wise reserve. Measure it by time, and you will find it no momentary delight, no voluptuous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... a newspaper reporter so much satisfaction as gathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious murder and writing them up with aggravating circumstantiality. He takes a living delight in this labor of love—for such it is to him, especially if he knows that all the other papers have gone to press, and his will be the only one that will contain the dreadful intelligence. A feeling of regret has often come over me that I was not reporting in Rome when Caesar was killed—reporting on an evening ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Elie Magus thought sufficiently painstaking; the old Jew himself had taught him to use the English leaf, which is infinitely superior to that produced by French gold-beaters. Servais is among gilders as Thouvenin among bookbinders—an artist among craftsmen, making his work a labor of love. Every window in that gallery was protected by iron-barred shutters. Elie Magus himself lived in a couple of attics on the floor above; the furniture was wretched, the rooms were full of rags, and the whole place smacked of the Ghetto; ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... an ill-kept croquet ground and some patches of garden where those who were so disposed could raise vegetables or flowers. There was something pathetic about the figures bending with childlike faith over their labor of love—attempting to make nature smile upon them. Without the vision of the bull pen Fred Starratt would have found much that afternoon that was revolting. But one glimpse into the horrible inferno of the morning had made him ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie |
