"Extravagant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... experience would seem to confirm the supposition. The policy of the Jesuits, however, was based on isolation of their missions, and how this might have worked is matter at least for speculation. It was on account of the isolation which they practised that it was possible for the extravagant calumnies which were circulated as to their rule and riches to gain belief. It was on account of isolation that the first conflicts arose betwixt them and the authorities, both clerical and lay. That the Jesuits were more highly esteemed than the other religious ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... position, his heels on top of the splash-board, and his arms behind the back of the seat, whilst Bob held the reins. "It was on Mirrabooka. O'Grady Brothers had owned the place for a few years; but they were careless and intemperate, great lovers of racehorses, and d—d extravagant all round"—— ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... covets fame should ne'er be over nice, Some slight distortion pays the market price. If haply lam'd by some propitious chance, Instruct in attitude, or teach to dance; Be still extravagant in deed, or word; If new, ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... undervalue the great horticultural novelties of the day, merely because I was unable to purchase, or because others were evidently realizing great sums by first originating them, and then spreading their merits before the world, though sometimes in extravagant terms. The world must have been waiting for them, or they could not have become so suddenly popular. And the painstaking horticulturist would not have devoted years of patient care and watchfulness, exercising a consummate skill in stimulating Nature to the production ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... still toiling heavily up the narrow channel of the Missouri, dragging the canoes. Sacajawea at once recognized the members of her tribe. A woman of the band ran forward to meet her, and they embraced with signs of extravagant joy, for they had ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... by—they were to have three weeks together—in perfect success. All the time, they themselves were reality, all outside was tribute to them. They were quite careless about money, but they did nothing very extravagant. He was rather surprised when he found that he had spent twenty pounds in a little under a week, but it was only the irritation of having to go to the bank. The machinery of the old system lasted for him, not the system. The money simply ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... frighted with the noise I made in my sleep, being a dream that one of our sea maisters did desire to see the St. John's Isle of my drawing, which methought I showed him, but methought he did handle it so hard that it put me to very horrid pain.... Which what a strange extravagant dream it was. So to sleep again and lay long in bed, and then trimmed by the barber, and so sending Will to church, myself staid at home, hanging up in my green chamber my picture of the Soveraigne, and putting some things in order there. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... 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 leather of his ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... to get a chinkapin tree twice as large as an oak, perhaps. I shall hope to have a chinkapin tree as sturdy as the red oak, with nuts larger than acorns and of as good quality as the chinkapin nut. Of course that extravagant possibility only appeals to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various
... for it and the knife (slight pause). The savoury was good. (P.S.—Later, note not enclosed.) Please tell Father he is very generous, but I have plenty money, as Miss Jennie would say. I think I must be awfully extravagant. I spend a lot of money, but I always seem to have plenty. I generally buy good ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... susceptible. Lawrence could never feel certain that his father was too old to think of marrying again. Carrissima knew that for the next few days he would talk of nobody but Bridget; that he would lend her books, and perhaps even express a wish to invite her to dine. He would on every opportunity pay her extravagant compliments and make himself generally ridiculous; then he would begin to forget her existence and fall back into his ordinary routine of bridge and golf until another attractive face arrested ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... and she hates being in the country in May and June, though Surrey is so close to town that luckily she doesn't miss much; but this year we seem to have been horribly poor, for some reason. Vic says it's Stan's fault. He is extravagant, I suppose. However, as everything is really his, I don't see that we ought to complain; only, it can't be pleasant for him to feel that Mother is worrying lest he should marry and make her a frumpy dowager, before we two girls are off ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... to make. Lady Pilkey told me she thought it very romantic—like marrying a newspaper correspondent—but I pointed to a lifelong task, with a pension attached, of teaching fat young Bengalis to draw, and asked her if she saw extravagant romance in that. ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... crackled cosily, toasting their toes outstretched upon the fender-bar, melting their mood to such glowing confidences as they had not exchanged since Mary was in her teens. No lamps were lighted. The widow was frugal with gas when eyes were idle; her extravagant sister loved ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... too," she told herself, "and be real comfortable and extravagant for once, and have a cup of tea ready when they come," for the good lady had no intention of going to bed, assuring herself she would not sleep if she did. So, moving about, she refilled the lamp, and drawing the machine nearer the stove, began to sew where Mary had left off. "I ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... sometimes expressed the most extravagant ideas of baptism, maintaining that the water in baptism, was pervaded by the divine majesty, and was a (durch goettertes Wasser,) water penetrated through and through with God! [Note 1] He compares the water in baptism to heated iron, in which, though you ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... village were not extravagant in shoes, and better cobblers than Scrub and Spare might be found. Nevertheless, Scrub and Spare managed to live between their own trade, a small barley-field, and a cottage-garden, till one unlucky day when a new cobbler ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... of primitive lawlessness recall at once to our attention the condition of affairs at some of our universities, colleges, and larger schools. The secret societies and student-organizations, with their initiations, feasts, and extravagant demonstrations, their harassing of the uninitiated, their despisal of municipal, collegiate, even parental authority, and their oftentime contempt and disregard of all social order, their not infrequent ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... already hinted, held extremely unfavourable views in regard to the characteristics at that period of undergraduate life in the English universities. The 'sciences of horse-racing, fox-hunting, and giving extravagant entertainments' the Duke regarded as the 'chief studies of our youths at Cambridge,' and he made no secret of his opinion that his promising son was better without them. Lord John's father is described by those who knew ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... no toil, and so it came to pass that the faultless head of her idol excited intense and universal admiration. In the catalogue it was briefly mentioned as "No. 17—a portrait; first effort of a young female artist." Connoisseurs, who had committed themselves by extravagant praise, sneered at the announcement of the catalogue, and, after a few inquiries, blandly asserted that no tyro could have produced it; that the master had wrought out its perfection, and generously allowed the pupil to monopolize the encomiums. In vain Mr. Clifton disclaimed the merit, ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... steps to the frosty airlock valve of his ship. Inside the cabin, Charley greeted his master's return with extravagant caperings which wasted millions of ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... spirits that enter and set their own precedents, there is for us the charm of mingling with men so different from ourselves: men adventurous but never strenuous, men of many tribulations but no perplexities. Fantastic, magnificent, extravagant, beautiful, gloriously colored, humorous—was ever book ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... and bloody, Henry mingled grovelling piety with debauchery, and made of the court at Paris a veritable Alsatia, where paid assassins who stabbed from behind and mignons who struck to the face, were part of the train of every prince. The king's minions with their insolent bearing, their extravagant and effeminate dress, their hair powdered and curled, their neck-ruffles so broad that their heads resembled the head of John the Baptist on a charger,—gambling, blaspheming swashbucklers—were hateful alike to Huguenot and Catholic. On 29th April 1578 three of them ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... for exceptional situations, wherefrom humanity does not always issue without serious blotches, he yet is free from pessimism. He has no nervous disorder, no "brain fag," he is no pagan, not even a nonbeliever, and has happily preserved his wholesomeness of thought; he is averse to exotic ideas, extravagant depiction, and inflammatory language. His novels and tales contain the essential qualities which attract and retain the reader. Some of his works in chronological order, omitting two or three novels, written ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... carefully observe, if all do keep close to their duty in the church, or are remiss and negligent;—if they conduct themselves in a holy, righteous, and sober way; or if, on the contrary, they are frothy, vain, proud, extravagant, unjust, idle, careless, or any way scandalous. They should strictly observe if there be any tattlers, backbiters, or sowers of discord; or such as speak contemptibly of their brethren, especially ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... mistress, each consumed with jealousy of the other, Henri had many a bad hour; and the climax came when de Sully refused to pass the extravagant charges for the baptism of the Marquise's second son, Alexander. Gabrielle was indignant and appealed angrily and tearfully to the King, who supported his minister. "I have loved you," he said at last, roused to wrath, "because I thought you gentle ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... games. Even supposing that they were an adequate substitute in the development of the body (which I doubt) they cannot claim to have an effect at all comparable to that of games in the development of character. Sometimes the most extravagant claims are put forward on behalf of athletics as a school of character, almost as extravagant as are the terms in which at other times the "brutal athlete" is denounced. I don't think it is found by experience that athletes cherish higher ideals or are more humble-minded than their less muscular ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... mean it," returned Fenton, becoming more animated from the pleasure of defending an extravagant position. "What is the object of art but to perpetuate and idealize the emotions of the race; and how does it touch men, except by flattering their vanity with the assumption that they individually share ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... evil and cunning in Saxo's eyes. Oldest of beings, with chaotic force and exuberance, monstrous in extravagant vitality. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... appealing jocosely to the strong Protestant interest, "The Jesuit in the Family,"—was really sold to an Art-Union prize-holder for ten pounds. Once furnished with a bank note won by his own brush, Valentine indulged in the most extravagant anticipations of future celebrity and future wealth; and proved, recklessly enough, that he believed as firmly as any other visionary in the wildest dreams of his own imagination, by marrying, and setting up an establishment, on the strength of the success which had been achieved ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... show, or for the vanities of dress. I have only one passion which I indulge,—Revenge. You are a slave to sensuality, and pamper your lusts at any cost. Let a fair woman please your eye, and she must be bought, be the price what it may. No court prodigal was ever more licentious or extravagant than you are." ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... his toasts, his guests have drunk in a permanent intoxication, a giddy frenzy, that never subsides. How often have his facetious jests stirred up the minds of the populace? and what an excitement was produced among the mob by the new liveries, and the extravagant devices ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... ordinary pleasures became distasteful. Conscious that at will he was the master of all the women that he could desire, knowing that his power was irresistible, he did not care to exercise it; they were pliant to his unexpressed wishes, to his most extravagant caprices, until he felt a horrible thirst for love, and would have love ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... hot, and when he sat down Barrington glanced at him. "I should explain that we never allow stakes of any kind at Silverdale," he said. "Some of the lads sent out to me have been a trifle extravagant in ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... square, majestically surrounded by its tightly-closed silent palaces, he looked up toward the bronze man on the column, as if calling to witness that great upstart, whose presence in the heart of Paris justifies the most extravagant ambitions and ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... there nothing after death? And so honorary monuments, triumphal columns, statues and tombs sprang into being. Again, with the growth of a people, wealth increases, and every new victory assuring an added degree of ease introduces at the same time extravagant tastes; a people after enduring suffering cries out for its portion of pleasure; it was to satisfy this demand that circuses were built, and amphitheatres where the eyes could feast on imposing spectacles; private houses became more comfortable, they were improved in arrangement, they ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... with white plumes, which was the most elegant in the assembly, completed this costume. Next him was the King of Wurtemberg with his enormous stomach, which forced him to sit some distance from the table; and the King of Naples, in so magnificent a costume that it might almost be considered extravagant, covered with crosses and stars, who played with his ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of no very distinctive character. The preparations are made. By the time he mounts the heap of turf to address his audience we are ready for him. Of course he makes a fine ass of himself. He has not had time to memorise the poem of the song, and with extravagant fun Wagner makes him change the poetical and serious words into words of most ludicrous significance. Walther's melody he has not got hold of at all, and in a state of intense nervousness tries to fit the words to the burlesque tune of his previous night's serenade. The accents ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... a painter who was a poet was trying his hand; a man who knew his Bible and his mythology and was equally at home with either. Perhaps it is not extravagant to say that you cannot be an artist unless you are at home with mythology, unless mythology is the swiftest and most direct expression of your being, so that you can be measured by it as a man is known by his books, or a woman by her clothes, her way of bowing, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... of the Chian seemed not extravagant to the blunt son of Miltiades, as his eyes now ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... was in extravagant spirits as he rode along, his laughter startling the squirrels in the dense pine woods, and every attempt that he made to explain himself being again and again interrupted by renewed peals of inextinguishable ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... may be more able to foresee than you can in your secluded home. My dear, I know that dear old John died without a penny: why if he had had any fortune as a young man—but, alas! he had none—is it possible that, in a soldier's life, with, for a few years, a madly extravagant wife to help him, he could conceivably have saved a capital that ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... elsewhere, enables us to pronounce them a people of general intelligence, refinement of manners, personal accomplishments, and true politeness. As to their style of dress and mode of living, were we disposed to make any criticism, we should say that they were extravagant. In refined and elevated conversation, they would certainly bear a comparison with the white ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... nature is large as her heart is tender, can smile upon childishness, and make allowances; but let her have ever so small a spice of vanity herself, and she cannot forgive childishness, or littleness, or vanity in her lover. Many a woman is so extravagant a worshiper that she must always see the god in her idol; but there are yet others who love a man for his sake and not for their own, and adore his failings with ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... observation of those Catholics with whom he has actually come in contact, far better than the preposterous notions that were in vogue fifty years ago. It represents them not as monstrously wicked and childishly idolatrous; but as narrow, extravagant, out-of-date, albeit, well-meaning ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... Nance Oldham and several other college mates. Then she discovered a thoroughly characteristic note from Aunt Clay, dry and dictatorial but enclosing a check for ten dollars on Monroe & Co., the Paris bankers. "For you and your extravagant mother to spend on ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... left the hospital he returned to Melihovo and prepared to go abroad. He went first to Biarritz, but there he was met by bad weather. A fashionable, extravagant way of living did not suit his tastes, and although he was delighted with the sea and the life led (especially by the children) on the beach, he soon moved on to Nice. Here he stayed for a considerable time at the Pension Russe ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... this: so long as the smoke remains in the flame of the candle and becomes ignited, it gives a beautiful light, and never appears to us in the form of black particles. I will light some fuel, which is extravagant in its burning. This will serve our purpose—a little turpentine on a sponge. You see the smoke rising from it, and floating into the air in large quantities; and, remember now, the carbonic acid that we have from the candle is from such smoke as that. To make that evident to you, ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... Europe have formed an opinion of the possible influence of General Jackson upon the affairs of his country, which appears highly extravagant to those who have seen more of the subject. We have been told that General Jackson has won sundry battles, that he is an energetic man, prone by nature and by habit to the use of force, covetous of power, and a despot by taste. All this may perhaps be true; but the inferences which ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... in review, and having been much scandalised by the "extravagant claims of the complete translations over the Standard Version"—a term which properly applies only to the Editio princeps, 3 vols. 8vo—the Edinburgh delivers a parting and insolent sting. "The different versions, however, have each its proper destination—Galland for the nursery, Lane ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... is always extravagant," replied the other, "and I think that General Bezan richly merits the honors he receives. He is so modest, yet brave ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... unpleasant situations. If, for example, it had been proposed to a person accustomed to a city life, at once to take up his quarters off a sunken reef and land upon it in boats at all hours of the night, the proposition must have appeared quite impracticable and extravagant; but this practice coming progressively upon the artificers, it was ultimately undertaken with the greatest alacrity. Notwithstanding this, however, it must be acknowledged that it was not till after much labour and peril, and many an anxious hour, that the writer is enabled ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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
... sorcery, 268 sq.; danger incurred by the sorcerer, 269; many hurts and maladies attributed to the action of ghosts, 269 sq.; capturing lost souls, 270 sq.; ghosts extracted from the body of a sick man or scraped from his person, 271; extravagant demonstrations of grief at the death of a sick man, 271-273; hypocritical character of these demonstrations, which are intended to deceive the ghost, 273; burial and mourning customs, preservation of the lower jawbone and one of the lower arm bones, 274; mourning costume, seclusion of widow ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... behind her, saw at almost the same moment the spectacle which had arrested her flight. Before them stood two little donkeys munching eagerly at a crop of rosy-headed thistles. They—the human beings—looked at each other; Tarrant burst into extravagant laughter, and Nancy joined him. Neither's mirth was spontaneous; Nancy's had a note of nervous tension, a ring of ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... was nicely treated by everybody. He should have blamed himself for eating himself out of house and home, but instead he blamed the Coupeaus for letting themselves be ruined in less than two years. He thought Gervaise was too extravagant. What was going to happen ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... eyes seemed trying to bind Shelton to his will, "I must say your ideas do seem to me both extravagant and unhealthy. The propagation of children is ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... confounded by six years of common opposition, reciprocated mutual understanding in their relations with a Cabinet which they were called on to support, although not emanating from their ranks. As it happens in similar cases, the violent and extravagant members of the party, paralyzed or committed the more moderate and rational to a much greater extent than the latter were able to restrain and guide their troublesome associates. Thus assailed in the Chambers by ambitious and influential ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... tambourine. And so when our pots came to be replenished a second time, we were all mighty merry and agreeable save Jack Dawson, who never could take his liquor like any other man, but must fall into some extravagant humour, and he, I perceived, regarded some of the company with a very sour, jealous eye because, being warmed with drink, they fell to casting glances at Moll with a certain degree of familiarity. ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... instinct—and as a necessary supplement to it. This instinct is more or less futile in most women because they are more or less ignorant of the realities as to wise and foolish expenditure. But it is found in the most extravagant women no less than in the most absurdly and ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... deeply her right to full citizenship, who herself had talked revolution, and who had so often listened to the extravagant antislavery declarations of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Parker Pillsbury, was not offended by these statements. She was, however, troubled by the attitude of the press, particularly of the Tribune which ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... themselves to their games with an enthusiasm even greater than that of boys. This is the second difficulty to which I referred. This enthusiasm must be kept in check, for it is the source of several vices commonly found among women, caprice and that extravagant admiration which leads a woman to regard a thing with rapture to-day and to be quite indifferent to it to-morrow. This fickleness of taste is as dangerous as exaggeration; and both spring from the same cause. Do not deprive them of mirth, laughter, noise, and ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... was thus scheming my attack, Madame de Bergenheim was upon her guard and had prepared her means of defence. Puzzled by my reserve, which was in singular contrast with my almost extravagant conduct at our first meeting, her woman's intelligence had surmised, on my part, a plan which she proposed to baffle. I was partly found out, but I knew it and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of the Emir and his friend to converse often and amply about them with the Queen. The idea of an united Syria was pleasing to the imagination of the young sovereign. The suggestion was eminently practicable. It required no extravagant combinations, no hazardous chances of fortune, nor fine expedients of political skill. A union between Fakredeen and Astarte at once connected the most important interests of the mountains without exciting the alarm or displeasure of other powers. The union was as legitimate ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... memory of the reader. The mode of locomotion is, of course, purely imaginary, and the incidents and adventures fictitious. The latter are abundantly amusing, and, in view of the wonderful "travellers' tales" with which we have been entertained by African explorers, they can scarcely be considered extravagant; while the ingenuity and invention of the author will be sure to excite the surprise and the admiration of the reader, who will find M. VERNE as much at home in voyaging through the air as in journeying "Twenty Thousand Leagues under ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... Eighth Symphony and the scherzo of his Ninth, he tunes them in octaves, his purpose in the latter case being to give the opening figure, an octave leap, of the scherzo melody to the drums solo. The most extravagant use ever made of the drums, however, was by Berlioz in his "Messe des Morts," where he called in eight pairs of drums and ten players to help him to paint his tonal picture of the terrors of the last judgment. ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... frigates was unwisely suspended in the fall of 1795. "Pay me so many hundred thousand dollars every year, and I will let your ships alone," said the piratical ruler of Algiers. The terms were agreed to. Congress seemed to think that now all danger to commerce was overpast, and a navy would be an extravagant toy. But when, not long afterward, French cruisers seized American ships, and English cruisers claimed the right (and exercised it) to take seamen from our vessels without leave, Congress perceived the folly ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... had a pair o' them shiny shoes with buttons on," I answered in a low, confidential tone, afraid to express, openly, a wish so extravagant. ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... wiping them away; "I believe I am crying for the very silly thought of how my mother would grieve if she could know; she always cared for us so much more than for herself. But many a poor person has less, and I am not very extravagant, and, thank God, when the neck of mutton, and Martha's wages, and the rent are paid, I have not a farthing owing. Poor Martha! I think she'll ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... after mass has appeared before us the most noble and illustrious lady of Croixmare. The same has worn her faith in the holy Evangelists, and has related to us with tears how she had placed her eldest son beneath the earth, dead by reason of his extravagant amours with this female demon. The which noble gentleman was three-and-twenty years of age; of good complexion, very manly and well bearded like his defunct sire. Notwithstanding his great vigour, in ninety days he had little by little withered, ruined by his commerce with the succubus of the Rue ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... dressed to the very extreme of fantastic fashion, and would seem to have wasted their brains in devising colours for their backs; others, aspiring to the seriously genteel, are fashioned in very extravagant broadcloth; while a third group is dressed in most niggardly attire, which sets very loosely. In addition to this they wear very large black, white, and grey-coloured felt hats, slouched over their heads; while their nether garments, of red and brown linsey-woolsey, fit like Falstaff's ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... shrink from such extravagant utterances was because he denied the resurrection of the dead. He judged of the prosperity of the wicked and the woes of the pious only by their earthly fortunes. Proceeding from this false premise, he held ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... foot, were mustered by the emperor in the plains of Hungary; and after such repetitions, we shall no longer be startled at the six hundred thousand pilgrims, which credulity has ascribed to this last emigration. [14] Such extravagant reckonings prove only the astonishment of contemporaries; but their astonishment most strongly bears testimony to the existence of an enormous, though indefinite, multitude. The Greeks might applaud their superior knowledge ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... about the time of our Saviour's coming into the world all kinds of learning flourished to a very great degree, insomuch that nothing is more frequent in the mouths of many men, even such who pretend to read and to know, than an extravagant praise and opinion of the wisdom and virtue of the Gentile sages of those days, and likewise of those ancient philosophers who went before them, whose doctrines are left upon record, either by themselves or other writers. As far as this may be taken for granted, it may be said that ...
— Three Sermons, Three Prayer • Jonathan Swift
... poetry as furnished by Sir William Jones, that of the Persian Hafiz, the early ballads of the Arabians, Moors and Spaniards, the poems of Ossian, besides the primitive Saxon ballads, and the triads of Wales, all indicate the extravagant imagery and rude license of poetry in the early ages of society. The history of those several nations also attests the magical influence of their early poetry upon the peoples. We find that Tallifer the Norman trouvere, who accompanied William to the invasion ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... society is not entirely composed of philosophers, even in America; and the sense of freedom and space is unqualifiedly welcome to its members. It is not easy for a European to the manner born to realise the sort of extravagant, nightmare effect that many of our social customs have in the eyes of our untutored American cousins. The inherent absurdities that are second nature to us exhale for them the full flavour of their grotesqueness. The idea of an insignificant ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... from extravagance of portraiture; we are speaking of the former. The object of the feeling may be unnatural, but the feeling itself is natural, and ought accordingly to be shadowed forth in the language of nature. While extravagant feelings may issue from a warm heart and a really poetic nature, extravagance of portraiture always displays a cold heart, and very often a want of poetic capacity. Therefore this is not a danger for the sentimental poet, but only for the imitator, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... till several months after he had promised to return to Canada; and he would certainly have refused it if it had been held out to him as an inducement to go there. He became Baron Dorchester and was granted the not very extravagant addition to his income of a thousand pounds a year payable during four lives, his own, his wife's, and those of his two eldest sons. His elevation to the House of Lords met with the almost unanimous approval ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... yet to be extravagant with," said Oswald, who had toothache that day. "What would you do with the things ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... action or character, we should afterwards be ready coolly to explain to our pupils the justice of our sentiments: by this due mixture and alternation of eloquence and reasoning, we may cultivate a taste for the moral and sublime, and yet preserve the character from any tincture of extravagant enthusiasm. We cannot expect, that the torrent of passion should never sweep away the land-marks of exact morality; but after its overflowing impetuosity abates, we should take a calm survey of its effects, and we should be able to ascertain the boundaries ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... this misfortune if it exists, to await death to make trial of it, yet to be very content in this state, to make profession of it, and indeed to boast of it. Can we think seriously on the importance of this subject without being horrified at conduct so extravagant? ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... is entitled to mention, not as exceptional, but only as eminent among like enterprises, in which few of the leading sects have failed to be represented. Extravagant expectations were at first entertained of immediate results in bringing the long-depressed race up to the common plane of civilization. But it cannot be said that reasonable and intelligent expectations have been disappointed. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... a great mass of discontented feeling in the country arising from the actual state of society. It arises from the distress and destitution which will fall at times upon a great manufacturing population, and from the wild and extravagant opinions which are naturally generated in an advanced and speculative ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... extravagant. You are not vicious. You have never done a dishonourable thing—one for which you need blush or fear to meet the eye of an honest man? Answer me that, Hugo. I may know what you will say, but I want to hear it from ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the needs and aims of life, it is absolutely prejudicial to them. The result is that, in youth, excessive energy in grasping the objective world, accompanied by a vivid imagination and a total lack of experience, makes the mind susceptible, and an easy prey to extravagant ideas, nay, even to chimeras; and the result is an eccentric and phantastic character. And when, in later years, this state of mind yields and passes away under the teaching of experience, still the genius never feels himself at ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... began to suspect that when we had married I was only second in her affection, and the result was that, after a severe struggle with myself, I took measures to have my wife watched. This step soon resulted in the discovery that the woman whom I loved with such extravagant devotion, and whom I had, up to then, believed equally devoted to me, was in the habit of secretly meeting a young Italian after nightfall in a secluded spot at the bottom of our own garden. So great, even then, was my faith ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... fluency and correctness than is usual among the French; she drew, moreover, with considerable taste. So affectionate and so amiable was she, that she deserved all the encomiums of her friends and even their hyperbolical compliments were scarcely extravagant when applied to her. She was literally "douce comme un ange, jolie comme les amours;" and, as the ne plus ultra of merit in France, she was "tout a fait gentille." She possessed also, considerable dramatic skill and tact, and would, I think, have proved a delightful acquisition to the stage, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... sage advice of our fathers, it is too plain that our present expensive habits are productive of much domestic unhappiness, and injurious to public prosperity. Our wealthy people copy all the foolish and extravagant caprice of European fashion, without considering that we have not their laws of inheritance among us; and that our frequent changes of policy render property far more precarious here than in the old world. However, it is not to the rich I would speak. They have an undoubted right to spend their ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... parties to one another, and keeping them in perpetual concord; composed by a high personage, true subject, and faithful servant of the French crown. But, if the chancellor's reasons were sound, the hopes he hung upon them were extravagant; the parties were at that pitch of passion at which reasoning is in vain against impressions, and promises are powerless against suspicions. Concluded "through the vehemence of the desire to get home again," as La Noue says, the peace of Longjumeau was none the less known as the little peace, the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... given a thousand dollars by his father to go to college with; this was all he was to have. The son returned at the end of the freshman year with extravagant habits and no money. His father refused to give him more, and told him he could not stay at home. When the youth found the props all taken out from under him, and that he must now sink or swim, he ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... on the 17th of January 1839, passed into the possession of his only son, Richard Plantagenet Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, who was born on February the 11th, 1797. The habits of the son were not less extravagant than those of his father, and in 1847 the effects at Stowe and his other residences were seized by bailiffs, and in August and September 1848 the pictures, furniture, china, plate, etc., were sold by auction, realising over seventy-five thousand five hundred pounds. The printed books in ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... was not difficult to disentangle a thread of truth here and there, or to detect under the most extravagant of these fictions, a substratum of fact. Among other significant circumstances, my father, chancing one day to see a portrait of the late minister in a shop-window at Cologne, discovered that his former ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... cherished vision of a son in whom he could confide his plans, upon whose aid and counsel he could lean, was gone forever. Hilary Vane had troublesome half-hours, but on the whole he had reached the conclusion that this son, like Sarah Austen, was one of those inexplicable products in which an extravagant and inscrutable nature sometimes indulged. On the rare evenings when the two were at home together, the Honourable Hilary sat under one side of the lamp with a pile of documents and newspapers, and Austen under the other with a book from the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... likely to occur a second time, and he determined to make the most of it. Accordingly, the negotiation was protracted with true diplomatic skill. Conference after conference was held with the two ambassadors. Comcomly was extravagant in his terms; rating the charms of his daughter at the highest price, and indeed she is represented as having one of the flattest and most aristocratical heads in the tribe. At length the preliminaries were all happily adjusted. On the 20th of July, early ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... Count de Vergennes may be, as to the claim of Spain, in a letter which I have seen, he treats them as well as ours, as chimerical and extravagant, and declares, that he does not mean to interfere in them. You can best judge of the sincerity of this declaration. If insincere, I cannot conceive for what purpose it was made, or the subject treated so lightly, or why this should be confided to me. For my own part, I believe ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... I had long despaired of success; not until poverty and I had become such old companions and bed-fellows, that looking back at my past life, I wondered whether that dashing, reckless, extravagant, luxurious, champagne-drinking dragoon could have really been the same man who sat on the damp ground gnawing a moldy crust in the wilds of the new world. I clung to the memory of my darling, and the trust that I had in ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... foolish, extravagant wives, who will run them in debt; and when once in debt, it is no easy matter in this country to get out of it. They must insure their lives for the money which they borrow; and as the house of agency will be gainers by their demise, of course they will not be permitted to leave the country and their ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... flowers; and looked, with its shuttered windows, not like a house that had been deserted, but like one that had never been tenanted by man. Northmour was plainly from home; whether, as usual, sulking in the cabin of his yacht, or in one of his fitful and extravagant appearances in the world of society, I had, of course, no means of guessing. The place had an air of solitude that daunted even a solitary like myself; the wind cried in the chimneys with a strange and wailing note; and it was with a sense of escape, as if I were going indoors, that I turned away ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... used the statement: "England's claim for the domination of the sea, and therein for the domination of the world, remains a great danger to the peace of the world." To this view I adhere firmly. Let us take it for granted that the most extravagant hopes of our most reckless dreamers are fulfilled, that England is crowded out of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and is involved in a long-lasting war with the native Indians. An impossibly large dose of political naivete is needed ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... made a permanent impress on the struggling colony so long neglected by the French Government. First, was the King, Louis Quatorze, then full of the arrogance and confidence of a youthful prince, imbued with the most extravagant idea of his kingly attributes. By his side was the great successor of Mazarin, Jean Baptiste Colbert, whose knowledge of finance, earnest desire to foster the best resources of the kingdom, acknowledged rectitude, as well as admirable ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... in the background; herself and a certain, new comer prevailed; one Alfred Fanshawe de Bassompierre de Hamal began to reign in his father's stead. There were great boastings about this personage, extravagant amplifications upon miracles of precocity, mixed with vehement objurgations against the phlegmatic incredulity with which I received them. I didn't know "what it was to be a mother;" "unfeeling thing that I was, the sensibilities ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... was a sprinkling of women, more than one with an infant sucking at her breast. Withdrawn into a group for themselves worked a body of Chinese, in loose blue blouses, flappy blue leg-bags and huge conical straw hats. They, too, fossicked and re-washed, using extravagant quantities ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... what must be had. Why," she told me in a burst of confidence, "I've been saving up for a tombstone for ma for twelve years, but I have to help pa once in a while, and I sometimes think I never will get enough money saved. It is kind of hard on three dollars a week, and then I'm kind of extravagant at times. I have wanted a doll, a beautiful one, all my days. Last Christmas I got it—for Lennie. And then I like to carry out other folks' wishes sometimes. That is what I am fixing to do now. Ma always wanted to see ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... not only personally disgraced by the worst vices, but his influence was disastrous on his country. Athens owed her political degradation more to him than any other man. He was insolent, lawless, extravagant, and unscrupulous, from his first appearance in public life. He incited the Sicilian expedition, and caused it to end disastrously by sending Gylippus to Syracuse. He originated the revolt of Chios and Miletus, the fortification of Decelea, and the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... it, and the logic of his brain to prove it. If the wound upon his head was real, if this girl in search of whom he was now bent was real, if that within his pocket was real—if, in brief, he were not a lunatic in complete subjection to a delusion—then, however extravagant it ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... not much to complain of in Bartley's treatment, unless it was the strain of extravagant compliment which it involved. But the flattery was mainly for the paint, whose virtues Lapham did not believe could be overstated, and himself and his history had been treated with as much respect as Bartley was capable of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... our baggage, (there was not a cart or wagon of any sort in the place) and with the information that he had engaged a house for our use. A whole house for two people sounded rather formidable but as this house contained only two rooms its rental was not as extravagant as might have been imagined. It was located on the main thoroughfare which had the very American name of Washington Street. Like the typical native house, our Washington Street mansion was built chiefly of bamboo and nipa palm, with ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... Our position is really so mediocre. . . And Cloete smiles, but isn't surprised, because he had put all these notions himself into her empty head. . . What your husband wants is enterprise, a little audacity. You can encourage him best, Mrs. Dunbar. . . She was a silly, extravagant little fool. Had made George take a house in Norwood. Live up to a lot of people better off than themselves. I saw her once; silk dress, pretty boots, all feathers and scent, pink face. More like the Promenade at the Alhambra than a decent home, it looked to me. ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... extravagant and fantastic observable in Duerer's first pictures never abandoned him. He has probably expressed the inspiration of his own soul in the figure of Melancholy, who, seated on the sea-shore, seems trying to penetrate with her gaze into infinite space. For my part, I have this picture ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... vulture will laugh and mock at you. Feast to-day; next week you may starve. Riches take to themselves wings and fly away. No one is absolutely safe, and while many thousands go through life indifferent about their expenditures, wasteful and extravagant and do not seem to be brought to time therefor, it must not be forgotten that tens of thousands start out to do the same thing and fail. What is the result? Worry over the folly of the attempt; worry as to where ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... company came to grief pecuniarily, under the name of the Real del Monte Mining Company. At the organization of the enterprise, its shares were a hundred pounds sterling each; but they sold in one year in the London market for sixteen hundred pounds a share! The management was of a very reckless and extravagant character. Economy is certainly more necessary in conducting a silver mine than in nearly any other business. After a few years, it was found that sixteen million dollars worth of silver had been mined and realized upon, while the expenses had amounted to twenty million dollars,—a deficit ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... sleep for thinking of my newfound treasures. You need to remember what it is to dwell in a rough country, isolated and remote from towns, to appreciate my experience. To me, coming to Whitestown was a translation to Paradise. It seems extravagant, yet it is true, that I met there those who were dearer than my life and for whom I would have died. The first warm friendships of youth are the purest and whitest flowers that bloom in the soul. If these are blighted, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... of Kepler in the light of our modern knowledge we are often struck by the extent to which his perception of the sublimest truths in nature was associated with the most extravagant errors and absurdities. But, of course, it must be remembered that he wrote in an age in which even the rudiments of science, as we now understand it, were almost ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... established both Belasco and Mrs. Carter. Then he started on that extravagant period of spectacular drama, which gave to the stage such memorable pictures as "Du Barry," with Mrs. Carter, and "The Darling of the Gods," with Blanche Bates. In such pieces he literally threw away the possibilities of profit, in order to gratify his decorative sense. Out of that time came ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... particular Tyes of Service to you, my Honoured Lords, have built me up to the height of this experience." His preface is a heartrending cry of regret for the good old times before usurping Parliaments banished splendidly extravagant gentlemen across the seas, "those golden days of Peace and Hospitality, when you enjoy'd your own, so as to entertain and relieve others ... those golden days wherein were practised the Triumphs and Trophies of Cookery, then was Hospitality esteemed and Neighbourhood ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... as in so many formal documents, something of the early form of Expression, with some traces of its piquant quaintness, are still retained. Very quaint indeed, and very extravagant also, is the style that was generally adopted by the Heralds of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and yet characteristic of both the men and their times. As an example of one of these old documents, an example of no common interest in itself, Inow give the Grant of Arms to ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... tin box she found Polly's letters—the letters that had given her such extravagant joy. She could see her yet, how eagerly she would seize them and rush up to this little room ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... from a home of wealth, and was posing as a poor girl for some reason best known to herself. Jean's remarkable wardrobe had impressed her deeply, while Jean herself carried out the impression of having been brought up in luxury. She was self-willed, extravagant, careless of the future, and her flippant opinion, delivered to Althea, of the Service Bureau and work in general, was all that was needed to convince the shrewd junior of Jean's true position in life. Then, too, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... danger demonstrated a concern for me which I can hardly account for, as my prevailing on his captain to make him a sergeant was the first favour he ever received at my hands, and this did not happen till I was almost perfectly recovered of my broken leg. Poor fellow! I shall never forget the extravagant joy his halbert gave him; I remember it the more because it was one of the happiest days of my own life; for it was upon this day that I received a letter from my dear Amelia, after a long silence, acquainting me that she was out of all danger from ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... the truest sense a representative of the people. He is quick in discovering, and vigorous in denouncing an abuse. He as quickly comprehends and as earnestly advocates a just cause. He is a safe guardian of the people's money and has never cast his vote for an extravagant expenditure; but he does not oppose an appropriation to gain a reputation for economy, or aspire to secure the title of "watch dog of the Treasury," by resorting to the ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... however, extravagant. The British system has innumerable different rates of pay and extra allowances of all kinds, and is so full of anomalies that it is bound to be costly. Unfortunately, the Army Estimates are so put together that it is difficult to draw from ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... at pre- sent, I hope I shall not injure truth to say, I have no taint or tincture. I must confess my greener studies have been polluted with two or three; not any begotten in the latter centuries, but old and obsolete, such as could never have been revived but by such extravagant and irregular heads as mine. For, indeed, heresies perish not with their authors; but, like the river Arethusa, though they lose their currents in one place, they rise up again in another. One general council is not ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... fortunately, was quite within sight. A path had been opened before her feet by which she might walk to a higher rank and position than even her extravagant dreams had led ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... conclusion of my lecture, last Sunday, that when we of the Church of England assert that the Scripture is the sole authority in matters of faith, we by no means mean to exclude the office of the Church, nor to assert any thing so extravagant, as that it is the duty of every person to sit down with the volume of the Scriptures in his hand, and to make out from that alone, without listening to any human authority, what is the revelation made by God ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... dissatisfied at the inroads lately made on the old etiquette, the queen had a compensation in the warm attachment with which she had inspired the Parisians. Instead of conveying the performers to Versailles, as had been the extravagant practice of the late reign, Louis and Marie Antoinette went into Paris when they desired to visit the theatre. The citizens, delighted at the contrast which their frequent visits to the capital ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... religious enthusiast, and as a religious enthusiast he must be judged. To us who read his story from a distance, who breathe an atmosphere totally different from his, and whose lives are governed by quite other passions and ideals, he may often appear one-sided, extravagant, deficient in tact and forethought, and, in the excess of his zeal, too ready to sacrifice everything to the purposes he never for an instant allowed to drop out of his sight. We may even, with some ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... was France destined to enjoy better things under John "the Good," one of the worst sovereigns with whom she has been cursed. He took as his model and example the chivalric John of Bohemia, who had been one of the most extravagant and worthless of the princes of his time, and had perished in his old age at Crecy. The first act of the new King was to take from his kinsman, Charles "the Bad" of Navarre, Champagne and other lands; and Charles went over to the English ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... and who could not pronounce the name of Beethoven without hesitations! The great deed had cost money, and it would cost more money; it would probably cost four hundred pounds ere it was finished with. An extravagant sum, but Xavier had motor-cars and toys even more expensive than motor-cars to keep up! Audrey, however, considered it a small sum, compared to the terrific spectacular effect obtained. And she was right. The attributes of money seemed entirely magical to her. And she was right again. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... chary in forming compounds of more than two words, while those of to-day exceed this number, especially if they speak of sacred things; although in their poetic dialect the ancients were also extravagant in this respect, as the following ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... guilds of the learned, were persecuted by the registered livery-men as interlopers on their rights and privileges. All without distinction were branded as fanatics and phantasts; not only those, whose wild and exorbitant imaginations had actually engendered only extravagant and grotesque phantasms, and whose productions were, for the most part, poor copies and gross caricatures of genuine inspiration; but the truly inspired likewise, the originals themselves. And this for no other reason, but because they were the unlearned, men of humble and obscure occupations. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... men, the vague and the uncertain possess irresistible attractions. For them, emigration was like the hazard of the gaming-table; ruin was a possible consequence, but fortune might also crown the most extravagant hopes. The merchant regarded with favor a scheme which would furnish employment for his ships by the transportation of men and stores. Besides, the fisheries had always been productive; they might be largely extended, and a trade in ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... and made no reply, whilst from the group of the young and idle sycophants who had hung on Dea Flavia's honeyed words just as they had done round her litter a while ago, came murmurs of extravagant adulation and well-chosen words in praise of her exquisite diction, her marvellous pity, her every talent and ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... which in the old affair of fireworks on the stairs had for many years resisted entreaties, coaxing, anger, and other means of investigation used by his beloved sister. For Stevie was loyal. . . . "No, I can't imagine. It's possible that he never thought of that at all. It sounds an extravagant way of putting it, Sir Ethelred, but his state of dismay suggested to me an impulsive man who, after committing suicide with the notion that it would end all his troubles, had discovered that it did ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... by chance; 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 ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... thing as it passed, to the end that the liberty of selecting, disposing, judging, and concluding might have remained in him: for either to conceal or to disguise the truth for fear he should take it otherwise than he ought to do, and lest it should prompt him to some extravagant resolution, and, in the meantime, to leave him ignorant of his affairs, should seem, methinks, rather to belong to him who is to give the law than to him who is only to receive it; to him who is in supreme command, and not to him who ought ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... ambassador of the Archduke, who then perhaps felt anxiety lest King James, under the influence of Cecil, should adhere to the policy of his predecessor. In order to effect a revolution, Cobham launched into extravagant ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... something extraordinarily reassuring about the book. It reconciles one to life even at the moment it is piling up life's extravagant miseries. Its buoyant and resilient energy, full of the unconquerable irreverence and glorious shamelessness of youth, takes life fairly by the throat and mocks it and defies it to its face. It indicates courageous gaiety as the only victory, and ironical submission to what even gaiety ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... to describe their characteristics, I should say, the most exuberant and extravagant humour, coupled with strong, noble, Christian purpose,—a thorough scorn for all that is false and base, all the more withering because of the thorough geniality of the writer. Perhaps Jean Paul is of all the satirists I have named the one who at bottom presents most affinity with Lowell, ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... ancient Britons in the character of a prophet or something more. The poems which he produced procured for him the title of "Bardic King;" they display much that is vigorous and original, but are disfigured by mysticism and extravagant metaphor; one of the most spirited of them is the following, which the Author calls ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... life, he made acquaintance with people who were not received into society, and in general he behaved in an unconventional and unceremonious manner. But in his heart of hearts he was cold and astute; and even in the midst of his most extravagant rioting, his keen hazel eye watched and took note of every thing. It was impossible for this daring and unconventional youth ever quite to forget himself, or to be thoroughly carried away. It should be mentioned to his credit, by the way, that ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... wandering round them full of a fresh set of ideas. All these many-hued dresses which covered the sands like nosegays, these pretty stuffs, those showy parasols, the fictitious grace of tightened waists, all the ingenious devices of fashion from the smart little shoe to the extravagant hat, the insinuating charm of gesture, voice and smile, all the coquettish airs in short displayed on this sea-shore, suddenly struck him as stupendous efflorescences of female depravity. All these bedizened women aimed at pleasing, bewitching, and deluding some ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... but could not altogether account. In a very short period he had become my debtor to a large amount, when, having taken a long draught of port, he did precisely what I had been coolly anticipating—he proposed to double our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of reluctance, and not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him into some angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance, did I finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how entirely the prey was in my toils; ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Monsieur Lechet, &c. This gentleman's whole pay does not amount to more than sixty pounds a year, yet he has always five guineas in his pocket, and every convenience, and some luxuries about him; he assists now and then an extravagant brother, appears always well dressed; and last year I bought him a ticket in the British lottery: he did not consider that he employed an unfortunate man to buy it, and I forgot to remind ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... things. For, as Ranny's mother said to Mrs. Randall, You should see her own white blouses. There was washing for you! Mrs. Ransome owned quite handsomely that the girl "paid for it." By which she meant that Violet's appearance justified the extravagant amount of time she spent on it. And it was not that Granville demanded from her the downright hard work Mrs. Usher had considered salutary in her case. Ransome had seen to that. He had not agreed with Mrs. Usher. If he couldn't ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... are covetous of those things of which we have but few, extravagant with those of which we have an abundance. When the Western farmer burns corn in place of coal, be assured he sees his own account in it. We husband our white pine, and are free with our hemlock; we are stingy with our hickory, and open-handed with ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... her for her confidence, and for her friendship, but there was a mystery in the former which perfectly bewildered him. In his extravagant devotion to the family, he had felt the loss of Merry more than any one but those who knew that for all the slights he underwent he thought his own demerits were to blame, could possibly have understood. He had scarcely reconciled himself to that when here was Charity about ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of childhood and youth; but not many are so philosophical in regard to the comparatively reasonable anticipations of more reasonable years. When you got married at five-and-forty, your hopes were not extravagant. You knew quite well you were not winning the loveliest of her sex, and indeed you felt you had no right to expect to do so. You were well aware that in wisdom, knowledge, accomplishment, amiability, you could not reasonably look for more than the average of the race. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... your letter of November 21st, but it found me in a very perplexed situation. I had great payments to make for the extravagant and very inconvenient purchase in Holland, together with large acceptances by Mr Adams, of bills drawn on Mr Laurens and himself, and I had no certainty of providing the money. I had also a quarrel upon my hands with Messrs de Neufville and others, owners of two vessels hired by Gillon to carry ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment of arrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance or legacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of the Romans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury often reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. When they wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the slaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... trials of the Simpson Spring Water in urinary disorders, extending over one year, I am convinced (despite my previous prejudices, excited by the extravagant claims made for other Springs,) that its properties are characteristic, and as clinically trustworthy as are those of terebinthina, lithia, or many other of the partially proven drugs. I have found it surprisingly gratifying as an adjuvant in the cure of albuminuria, and in lowering the specific ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... is money—gold—here—your hand." He pressed some gold coins into her hand. "Gold! ay, gold, gold, indeed!" gasped his mother, the intensity of her joy repressing for the instant all extravagant demonstrations of it. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... was fair, with beautiful complexion—a trifle sunburnt, blue eyes, good-humored mouth, and features excellent in their way, but a little lacking in expression. Her figure was good; her movements slow but not ungraceful; her dress of white ivory satin a little extravagant for the occasion. She looked exactly what she was,—a well-bred, well-disposed, healthy young Englishwoman, of aristocratic parentage. Penelope, on the other hand, more simply dressed, save for the string of pearls which hung from her ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... application and joined the Theosophical Society they will at once remember at least three or four of their past births; indeed, some of them promptly begin to imagine recollections and declare that in their last incarnation they were Mary Queen of Scots, Cleopatra, or Julius Caesar! Of course such extravagant claims simply bring discredit upon those who are so foolish as to make them but unfortunately some of that discredit is liable to be reflected, however unjustly, upon the Society to which they belong, so that a man who feels seething ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... doll up in front of her. "Have you given me something, dearie?" she asked tenderly. "I do hope you haven't been extravagant." ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... Boston, to the great offence of these prudent citizens; nothing appeared to them more culpable than the use of such gaudy painted vehicles, in contempt of the more useful and more simple single-horse carts of their fathers. This piece of extravagant and unknown luxury almost caused a schism, and set every tongue a-going; some predicted the approaching ruin of those families that had imported them; others feared the dangers of example; never ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... possible for men with the American and Spanish ideas of government to live in proximity and in peace? Contrast the character of the average American citizen with that of the Spaniard. The native and distinctive modesty of the national character forbids me to pronounce an extravagant eulogium upon the American citizen, but behold him and see what he has done ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... sooner ascertained that he was quite right in his conjecture, than he launched into the most extravagant encomiums of the divine original; and in the warmth of his enthusiasm kissed the picture a thousand times, while Mr Pluck pressed Mrs Nickleby's hand to his heart, and congratulated her on the possession of such ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the different characters seem to allow themselves to be caught up in a very whirlwind of madness as the play proceeds. "If it is possible to find a man more completely mad, I will go and publish it in Rome." This sentence, which warns us that the play is over, rouses us from the increasingly extravagant dream into which, along with M. Jourdain, ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... can easily be rendered by so small a Tumor, as he supposeth. Not to adde; that his account of the Progressive motion, which he fansieth to follow upon this Tumefaction, and by Acceleration to grow to so great a height near the Shoar (as in Chap. 13. and 14.) is a Notion, which seems to me too extravagant to be salved by any laws of Staticks. And that of the Moons motion onely Synchronizing with the Tydes, casually, without any Physical connexion; I can very hardly assent to. For it can hardly be imagined, that any such constant Synchronisme ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... lips of some true prophet the Spirit descends upon them. But when that happens, they take no decisions; they do not get beside themselves; rather, they sink into themselves. Before the distortions of a mob orator, with his extravagant promises, the masses become merely a driven crowd eager for gain, not human souls. They are the concave reflector of passions and greeds that rage in the focal point of the speaker's rostrum; they return in ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau |
