"Fourscore" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... do not mock me, I am a very foolish-fond old man Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less, And, to deal plainly I fear I am not ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... I wish it were all to live again. Doesn't the Scripture somewhere say, By reason of strength men oft-times may Even reach fourscore? Alack! who knows? Ten sweet, long years of life! I would paint Our Lady and many and many a saint, And thereby win my soul's repose. Yet, Fra Bernardo, you shake your head: Has the leech once said I must die? But he Is only ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. 35. For I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake. 36. Then the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. 37. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. 38. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... not mock me; I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upwards: Not an hour more, nor less; and, to deal plainly I fear I am not in ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... English in a war with the people with whom they had entertained a friendship for twenty years, and in the next place gained time, while the English army were so employed, to enter twenty-five miles within their country, destroying fourscore whites and three hundred Indians and negroes. But this insult did not remain long unrevenged, for the troops in which Weaver served arriving immediately after from Europe, the army (who before they had done any considerable mischief to the people against ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... to a Waterman of London, a Laborious Trade: and yet though it be said, that Ease is the Nurse of Poetry, yet did he not only follow his Calling, but also plyed his Writings, which in time produced above fourscore Books, which I have seen; besides several others unknown to me; some of which were dedicated to King James, and King Charles the First, and by them well accepted, considering the meanness of his Education to produce works of ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... tell. It may be that this grand career, long and lustrous as a summer day, has reached its evening hour at last. Perchance we shall see no more the massive head framed in its snow-white locks and beard, the piercing eyes, the stalwart frame that bore so lightly the burden of wellnigh fourscore years. It may be so, and yet we hope, we pray, for the return of him who lights our century with the lustre of the great creative genius of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... and the Pavilion of Pictures, the whole belonging to the Caliph Harun al-Rashid who was wont, when his breast was straitened with care, to frequent garden and palace and there to sit. The palace had eighty latticed windows and fourscore lamps hanging round a great candelabrum of gold furnished with wax- candles; and, when the Caliph used to enter, he would order the handmaids to throw open the lattices and light up the rooms; and he would bid Ishak bin Ibrahim the cup-companion ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... houses blew into their faces, a sudden gust—no more, and these declared that some one was burning cedarwood there. Men had dreamed that there is a witch there, walking alone through the cold courts and corridors of marmorean palaces, fearfully beautiful and still for all her fourscore centuries, singing the second oldest song, which was taught her by the sea, shedding tears for loneliness from eyes that would madden armies, yet will she not call her dragons home—Carcassonne is terribly guarded. Sometimes she ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... is almost deserted to-day, on account of the Sarkee being absent. I passed the slave-stalls, and saw another poor old woman for sale, upwards of fourscore years of age. The slave-merchants offered her for four thousand wadas, about eight shillings. People purchase these poor old creatures that they may fetch wood and water, even until their strength fails them and they faint ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... English archers bent their bows,— Their hearts were good and true; At the first flight of arrows sent, Full fourscore Scots ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... my father and myself during two years. My father did his best to smash the Bank of England by passing forged notes, and I did my best to assist him. We attended races and fairs in all kinds of disguises; my father was a first-rate hand at a disguise, and could appear of all ages, from twenty to fourscore; he was, however, grabbed at last. He had said, as I have told you, that he should be my ruin, but I was the cause of his, and all owing to the misfortune of this here eye of mine. We came to this very place of Horncastle, where my father purchased two horses of a young ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well spare, muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong to these. But the central wisdom which was old in infancy is young in fourscore years, and dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise. I have heard that whoever loves is in no condition old. I have heard that whenever the name of man is spoken, the doctrine of immortality ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... name was Maria Maddalena. Was born in Florence in 1566. It would be interesting to know the relation that this gentle lady bore to those Pazzi who had earned a fame so unlike hers fourscore years before ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... HIS fourscore years have bent a back of oak, His earth-brown cheeks are full of hollow pits; His gnarled hands wander idly as he sits Bending above the hearthstone's feeble smoke. Threescore and ten slow years he tilled the land; He wrung his bread from out the stubborn soil; He saw ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... five." "Thank Heaven!" said Candour, "that will never be the case with Charles: he has a fine estate in Leicestershire." "Mortgaged for half its value," said his lordship. "A large personal property!" "All gone in annuity bills," said the Exquisite. "A rich uncle upwards of fourscore!" "He'll cut him off with a shilling," ...
— English Satires • Various
... to Musa. The table had revenged its finder. If Musa had lied in this case, he had lied in all. So held the angry caliph, who turned upon him with bitter abuse, calling him thief and liar, and swearing by Allah that he would crucify him. In the end he ordered the old man, fourscore years of age, corpulent and asthmatic, to be exposed to the fierce sun of Syria for a whole summer's day, and bade his brother Omar to see that the ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... of this son, and of his father:—"It was his painful lot to follow to the grave his only remaining son, in the forty-fourth year of his age, a man of much ability and reputation, worthy to have supported the honour of his name. Notwithstanding these repeated sorrows, and the weight of nearly fourscore years, Evelyn still enjoyed uninterrupted health, and unimpaired faculties; he enjoyed also the friendship of the wise and the good, and the general esteem beyond any other individual ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... Of more than fourscore national cemeteries in the United States, that which stands among the hills and trees, overlooking the river, at the northerly end of the military park, is one of the most beautiful, and is, with the single exception of ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... Fourscore and five times has the gradual year Risen and fulfilled its days of youth and eld Since first the child's eyes opening first beheld Light, who now leaves behind to help us here Light shed from song as starlight from a sphere Serene as summer; song whose charm compelled ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... old and sad and poor, To our shame, not to his—so he lived on, Till man's allotted fourscore years were gone, And scarcely then had leave to ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... the Jew grew very feeble. He had lasted his fourscore and ten years, and prosperity had attended him through all, and children loved him; but, true to his first and only fondness, his heart was ever across the sea, where gentle Abraham, studiously intent amongst the Rabbis, communicated with his father ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... same place by the same Fraternity, when every clerk offered a halfpenny. The Mass was sung by divers of the Queen's Chapel and children. And after Mass was done every clerk went their procession, two and two together, each having a surplice, a rich cope and a garland. After them fourscore standards, streamers and banners, and every one that bare had an albe, or else a surplice, and two and two together. Then came the waits playing, and then between, thirty Clarkes again singing Salva festa dies. So there were four quires. Then came a canopy, borne by four of the masters ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... to see whatever there was of interest. As it would be best to wait until morning for looking at the pictures, they at once set forth and walked along the narrow streets lined with arcades, and through grassy Il Prato, with its fourscore and more statues of Padua's famous men ranged between the trees. They saw the traditional house of Petrarch, and that of Dante, in front of which stands a large mediaeval sarcophagus reported to contain the ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... Aladdin's mother had retired, the sultan put an end to the audience; and rising from his throne ordered that the princess's attendants should come and carry the trays into their mistress's apartment, whither he went himself to examine them with her at his leisure. The fourscore slaves were conducted into the palace; and the sultan, telling the princess of their magnificent apparel, ordered them to be brought before her apartment, that she might see through the lattices he had not exaggerated in ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... into legend, and fourscore years had followed it, when the soldiers of another king of England marched down State Street, and fired on the people of Boston who were gathered below the old State House. Again it was said that the form of a tall, white-bearded man ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... real and substantial growth in the feeling for international responsibility and justice among the great civilized nations during the past threescore or fourscore years. There has been a real growth of recognition of the fact that moral turpitude is involved in the wronging of one nation by another, and that in most cases war is an evil method of settling international difficulties. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... heard, as of forty cannon discharged together, and again repeated at about eight minutes distance. This alarmed and raised all the neighbourhood; who, coming into their Honours' rooms, gathered up the great stones, fourscore in number, and laid them in the corner of a field, where, in Dr. Plot's time, who reported this story, they were to be seen. This noise, like the discharge of cannon, was heard through all the country for sixteen miles round. During these noises, which were heard in both rooms together, the ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... some hours, without perceiving they made any offer to stir; when about two hours before night, they came down directly upon us; and, though we had not perceived it, we found they had been joined by some more of the same, so that they were near fourscore horse, whereof, however, we fancied some were women. They came in till they were within half a shot of our little wood, when we fired one musket without ball, and called to them in the Russian tongue, to know what they wanted, and bid them keep ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... of your error with regard to the two species of herons, you incidentally gave me great entertainment in your description of the heronry at Cressi-hall; which is a curiosity I could never manage to see. Fourscore nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity which I would ride half as many miles to have a sight of. Pray be sure to tell me in your next whose seat Cressi-hall is, and near what town it lies.* I have often thought that those vast extents of fens have never been sufficiently explored. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... in the fire. Be kind to the poor old school-girl of ninety, who has had leave to come out for a day of Christmas holiday. Shall there be many more Christmases for thee? Think of the ninety she has seen already; the fourscore and ten ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... from men. (100) A heavenly voice resounded: "O thou wicked man, son of a wicked man, and descendant of Nimrod the wicked, who incited the world to rebel against God! Behold, the days of the years of a man are threescore years and ten, or perhaps by reason of strength fourscore years. It takes five hundred years to traverse the distance of the earth from the first heaven, and as long a time to penetrate from the bottom to the top of the first heaven, and not less are the distances from one of the seven heavens ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... sciant utra manus sit dextra aut sinistra") likewise loses sight of the moral sense. But good and evil are very decidedly used in a physical sense in 2 Sam. xix. 36 (35), where Barzillai says: "I am this day fourscore years old, can I discern between good and evil, or has thy servant a taste of what I eat or drink, or do I hear any more the voice of singing men or singing women?" The connection with the eating of cream and honey, by which the good and evil is qualified, clearly proves that good and ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... in France as soon as a man of fashion marries, he takes an opera girl into keeping; and this he mentioned as a general custom. "Pray, Sir, (said I,) how many opera girls may there be?" He answered, "About fourscore." "Well then, Sir, (said I,) you see there can be no more than fourscore men of ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... old man, verging on fourscore, the very beau ideal of the merchant's serving-man of the last century. He had once been comparatively prosperous, but, judging from his cheerful face, perhaps hardly ever happier than he was now. For fifty ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... is life, if measured by the space Not by the act? Or masked man, if valued by his face, Above his fact? Here's one outlived his peers, And told forth fourscore years; He vexed time, and busied the whole state; Troubled both foes and friends; But ever to no ends: What did this stirrer but die late? How well at twenty had he fallen or stood! For three of his fourscore he did ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... girls let me down from fourscore fathoms' height, As swoops a hawk, with wings all open in full flight; And when my feet trod earth, "Art slain, that we should fear," Quoth they, "or live, that we ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... should consist; that further grants should be made to them as the number should increase, and in proportion as they should manifest their abilities in agriculture; that every officer, under the rank of ensign in the land service, or lieutenant in the navy, should be gratified with fourscore acres on the same conditions; that two hundred acres should be bestowed upon ensigns, three hundred upon lieutenants, four hundred upon captains, and six hundred on every officer above that degree, with proportionable considerations for the number ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... was conveyed into Slawkenbergius's sensorium—so that Slawkenbergius should know whose finger touch'd the key—and whose hand it was that blew the bellows—as Hafen Slawkenbergius has been dead and laid in his grave above fourscore and ten ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... by H. Stephen. Folio. De Thou's own copy—and, upon the whole, perhaps MATCHLESS. The sight of this splendid volume would repay the toil of a pilgrimage of some fourscore miles, over Lapland snows. There is another fine copy of the same edition, which belonged to Diana and her royal slave; but it is much inferior to ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... not, Time and Space so intervene, Whether, still waiting with a trust serene, Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten, Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen; But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee, Like an old friend, all day has been with me. The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... may be," said Peder, "I have some knowledge of the people about us, having lived nearly fourscore years in the parish; and perhaps, sir, as you are young, and from a distance, you would allow me to say a word. ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... Gladstone was accustomed to a walk in the grounds, accompanied by his faithful little black Pomeranian dog, Petz, who was obtained on a trip abroad, and became and remained for many years, an important member of the household, and one of Mr. Gladstone's most devoted followers. Increasing years of over fourscore, prevented finally walks of fifty miles a day once indulged in, and the axes stood unused in their stands in the vestibule and library, but still Mr. Gladstone kept up his walks with his silent companion Petz. After walking for half ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... which (like cancers) were reputed incurable by any other topic, than some actual, or potential cautery: But, what is more noble, a dear friend of mine assur'd me, that a countrey neighbour of his (at least fourscore years of age) who had lain sick of a bloody strangury (which by cruel torments reduc'd him to the very article of death) was, under God, recover'd to perfect, and almost miraculous health and strength (so as to be able to fall ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... so with us,' continued Probus; 'he beareth long and patiently. We are not destroyed because in the first years of our life we do not rise to all virtue, but are spared to fourscore. Ought we not to manifest a like patience and forbearance? By waiting patiently we shall see our faults, and one by one correct them. There is still some reason and discernment left among us. We are not all fools and blind. And the faults which we correct ourselves, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... the original of Paul Pry, (which Poole, however, strenuously denied,)—a belief easily entertained by those who knew the man. A little, round man he was, with straight and well-made-up figure, and rosy cheeks that might have graced a milkmaid, when his years numbered certainly fourscore.[F] But his age no one ever knew. The story is well known of James Smith asserting that it never could be ascertained, for that the register of his birth was lost in the fire of London, and Hook's comment,—"Oh, he's much older than that: he's one of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.... For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years yet is their strength, labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off and we fly away.... So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.... Oh, satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.... And let the beauty of the ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... for the music. The hint sufficed; the friends met after a fortnight's interval, when the poet produced and read the song of "Yon burn side." It immediately became popular. Marshall used to relate this anecdote with much feeling. He died in March 1851, at the age of fourscore. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... then, and yet (it is conceived) are to be seen, thus sometime throwing stones, and sometime making thundering noise for two hours space it ceast, and all was quiet till the morn. After their rising, and the maid come in to make the fire, they looked about the rooms; they found fourscore stones brought in that night, and going to lay them together in the corner where the glass (before mentioned) had been swept up, they found that every piece of glass had been carried away that night. Many people came next day to see the stones, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... make a work completely fine, Number and weight and measure join; Then all must grant your lines are weighty Where thirty weigh as much as eighty; All must allow your numbers more, Where twenty lines exceed fourscore; Nor can we think your measure short, Where less than forty fill a quart, With Alexandrian in the close, Long, long, long, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... the fight lasted; it seemed short, we were so busy, and yet long, deadly long. It is no joke to have to defend one's life, and the lives of those one loves best, against fourscore bloodthirsty Spaniards, and that with only half a dozen rifles for arms, and a few palisades for shelter. When it was over we were so dog-tired that we fell down where we were, like overdriven oxen, and without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... off the premises when I began my notes referring to old age. I must be equally fair with old people now. They are earnestly requested to leave this paper to young persons from the age of twelve to that of fourscore years and ten, at which latter period of life I am sure that I shall have at least one youthful reader. You know well enough what I mean by youth and age;—something in the soul, which has no more to do with the color of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... devoured him. Every night, at going to bed, besides the ordinary doses of the day, in which he would not suffer the least drop of water, he used to drink a bottle before he slept. He enjoyed a strong, robust, and vigorous health; to the age of fourscore. ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... stone blind, but retains all her vivacity, wit, memory, judgment, passion, and agreeableness. She goes to operas, plays, suppers, Versailles; gives supper twice a week; has everything new read to her; makes new songs and epigrams—aye, admirably—and remembers every one that has been made these fourscore years. She corresponds with Voltaire, dictates charming letters to him, contradicts him, is no bigot to him or anybody, and laughs both at the clergy and the philosophers. In a dispute, into which she easily falls, she is very warm, and yet scarce ever in ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Nestor, in wisdom as well as years. He was too feeble to take a conspicuous part in the discussions, but his opinions and counsel had great weight whenever he spoke, for his judgment was never clearer than when he had passed fourscore years. The battle of words had to be fought by younger and more vigorous men, of whom, perhaps, Madison was the most prominent. At no time of his life, however, was Franklin a great speaker, except in conversation, but his mind ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... or more years short of fourscore at the time of his death he was Lancaster's oldest inhabitant. His fellow pioneer, Lawrence Waters, who was the elder by perhaps a years, till survived, though blind and helpless; but he dwelt with a son in Charlestown, after the destruction ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... capable reach their climax. Only one who has something of the Shakespearean gift of language could adequately characterise the scenes of agony—'the living martyrdom'—to which the fiendish ingratitude of his daughters condemns the abdicated king—'a very foolish, fond old man, fourscore and upward.' The elemental passions burst forth in his utterances with all the vehemence of the volcanic tempest which beats about his defenceless head in the scene on the heath. The brutal blinding of Gloucester by Cornwall exceeds in horror any other situation that Shakespeare ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... eternal origin. "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" After this time, though the writings of the Holy Book, either historical, doctrinal, or prophetic, at the lowest calculation embrace a period of fourscore years, no allusion is made to Joseph as a man still living, or to his memory as one already dead. And yet he is one of those for the benefit of whose intercession the Church of Rome teaches her members ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... had well supped, and left their good master in the lurch. I hate that man worse than poison that offers to run away when he should fight and lay stoutly about him. Oh that I were but King of France for fourscore or a hundred years! By G—, I should whip like curtail-dogs these runaways of Pavia. A plague take them; why did they not choose rather to die there than to leave their good prince in that pinch and necessity? Is it not better and more honourable to perish in fighting valiantly ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... irregular habits and the inherited disposition to rove over the world, became poor, and sometimes, when remote from his family and friends, in real want, yet he, the youngest of the four, lived past the traditional family fourscore years, dying poor (near Lawrenceville, Illinois), but leaving children and grandchildren in many States of the West, who had become, at his death, or since became, distinguished as soldiers and eminent citizens. He was a man of most cheerful disposition, and whatever his circumstances ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... process of time become fashionable vices, the number of women kept by the great became at last more an article of grandeur and state, than a mode of satisfying the animal appetite: Solomon had threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. Maimon tells us, that among the Jews a man might have as many wives as he pleased, even to the number of a hundred, and that it was not in their power to prevent ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... Raphia and Altaku. But no morrow was to break on the great mass of those who took their rest in the tents of the Assyrians. The divine fiat had gone forth. In the night, as they slept, destruction fell upon them. "The angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses." A miracle, like the destruction of the first-born, had been wrought, but this time on the enemies of the Egyptians, who naturally ascribed their deliverance to the interposition ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... them, being as I suppose the French for apes, of which there are no doubt plenty in those regions; and the other were the highlands of Corsica, both being as white, in midsummer, as the hair of a man of fourscore. You see, Sir, we had only to set the two, by compass, to know, within a league or two, where we were. So we ran till midnight, and hove-to; and in the morning we took the light to ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... Descartes returned to France; paid the fees of his patent, which was sold at that time, but no pension was settled upon him. Thus disappointed, he returned to his solitude in North Holland, where he again pursued the study of philosophy, whilst the great Galileo, at fourscore years of age, was groaning in the prisons of the Inquisition, only for ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... age, when Mrs. Stanton prepared for future generations the Reminiscences of her life and work of fourscore years, she wrote to her old friend: "The current of our lives has run in the same channel so long it can not be separated, and my book is as much your story as, I doubt not, yours is mine;" and when it was ended she placed upon it the inscription, "I dedicate this volume to Susan B. Anthony, my ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... cruelty made away themselves, some by fire, water, breaking their necks, and seduced others to do the like, threatening some if they did not," with a thousand such; as you may read in [6572]Austin (for there were fourscore and eleven heresies in his times, besides schisms and smaller factions) Epiphanius, Alphonsus de Castro, Danaeus, Gab, Prateolus, &c. Of prophets, enthusiasts and impostors, our Ecclesiastical stories afford ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... "Art of Thriving," 1697, p. 8, are directions for preparing fourscore noble and wholesome dishes, upon most of which a man may live excellently well for two-pence a day; the author's Obs. on water gruel is, that "essence of oatmeal makes a ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... keeping, and he declared this to be the general custom. "Pray, sir," said Johnson, "how many opera girls may there be?" He answered, "About four score." "Well then, sir," replied Johnson, "you see there can be no more than fourscore men of fashion who ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... systematic work in youth, and untiring effort has been the rule of his life. Man was made to be well, and he was made to work. It is only work—which is the constant effort to retain equilibrium—that makes life endurable. So we find Haeckel now, at near fourscore years, a model of manly vigor, with all the eager, curious, receptive qualities of youth—a happy man, but one who knows that happiness lies on the way to Heaven, and not in arriving there and sitting down ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... rising hill cut into inclosures but without wood, land-locked on every side with high lands, scattered with inclosures, woods, seats, etc., with every cheerful circumstance of lively commerce, have altogether a great effect. Advancing to Passage the shores are various, and the scenery enlivened by fourscore sail of large ships; the little port of Passage at the water's edge, with the hills rising boldly above it. The channel narrows between the great island and the hills of Passage. The shores bold, and the ships scattered about them, with the inclosures hanging ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... primarily designed for the sick and was not simply a public guest house is to be found in the statements of contemporaries. One described it as a "retreat or guest house for sicke people, a high seat and wholesome air," while another wrote that "here they were building also an hospitall with fourscore lodgings (and beds alreadie sent to furnish them) for the sicke and lame, with keepers to attend them for their comfort and recoverie." The use of the word "hospital," which had then a general sense, does not indicate any similarity to a present-day hospital as does the other information. Nothing ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... of the founder is still kept solemnly by Cistercians. In their chapel, where assemble the boys of the school and the fourscore old men of the hospital, the founder's tomb stands, a huge edifice emblazoned with heraldic decorations and clumsy, carved allegories. There is an old hall, a beautiful specimen of the architecture of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... by a fit appreciation of orderly and tranquil activity for the common service, as the normal type of the individual life? And this is precisely the temper and the spirit of Byron. Nowhere else do we see drawn in such traits that colossal figure, which has haunted Europe these fourscore years and more, with its new-born passion, its half-controlled will, its constant cry for a multitude of unknown blessings under the single name of Freedom, the one known and unadulterated word of blessing. If only Truth, which alone of words is essentially ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... reply. The fathers of the people, those of fourscore years and upward, were disturbed, deeming it strange that they should forget one of such evident authority whom they must have known in their early days, the associate of Winthrop and all the old councillors, giving laws and making prayers and leading them ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Price walked down the wagon lines, passing fourscore men shaking in their native agues, not yet conquered. Women, pale, gaunt, grim, looked at him from limp sunbonnets whose stays had been half dissolved. Children whimpered. Even the dogs, curled nose to tail under the wagons, growled surlily. But Caleb Price found at last the wagon ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... who had passed the limits of fourscore, once said to me, "My father was in the army during the whole eight years of the Revolutionary War, at first as a common soldier, afterwards as an officer. My mother had the sole charge of us four little ones. Our house was ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Fourscore, like twenty, has its tasks and toys; In earth's wide school-house all are girls and boys. —O. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Besides, to be throubled my conscience begins, That your Reverence should have any hand in my sins, So you'd betther suppose I committed them all, For whether they're great ones, or whether they're small, Or if they're a dozen, or if they're fourscore, 'Tis your Reverence knows how to absolve them, asthore; So I'll say in a word, I'm no very good boy— And, therefore, your blessin', sweet ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... of discontent,' said Lorimer; 'the upstart ways of her kin were not to be borne. To hear Dick Woodville chaffer about the blazoning of his horse-gear when he was wedding the fourscore-year-old Duchess of Norfolk, one would have thought he was an ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... blowing of these plaintive November winds that note bore a great resemblance to the ruins of human song which remain to the throat of fourscore and ten. It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, and it brushed so distinctly across the ear that, by the accustomed, the material minutiae in which it originated could be realized as by touch. It was the united products of infinitesimal vegetable causes, and these were neither stems, leaves, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Gorumna in the absence of its mistress, and that the Dark Master had caught a score of the O'Malleys who had been wrecked in Bertraghboy Bay, promptly hanging them all. Between the plague and the hanging Nuala had a bare fourscore men left within the castle, and she counted Brian's offer as a ruse on the part of O'Donnell, for she was strongly afraid ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... for his return, and first delivered all the bread out of the bread room (which came to a pound apiece for every man's share), and he wept when he gave it unto them." It was barely sufficient for fourteen days, and even with the fourscore small fish they had caught it was "a poor relief for so ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... as a good musician, and Thomas Hearne tells us that he left behind him "a valuable collection of musick mostly pricked by himself, which was sold upon his death for near an hundred pounds," "a considerable collection of musical instruments which was sold for fourscore pounds," "not to mention the excellent collection of printed books that he also left behind him, both of chemistry and musick. Besides these books that he left, he had some years before his death (1714) ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... waked and armed, I left Hugh at the gates with ten men, and myself led the rest into that house. There while we slew all those that yielded not, came Arnald with the others, bringing our horses with them; then all the enemy threw their arms down. And we counted our prisoners and found them over fourscore; therefore, not knowing what to do with them (for they were too many to guard, and it seemed unknightly to slay them all), we sent up some bowmen to the walls, and turning our prisoners out of gates, bid them ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris
... Archbishop of Paris to take care of his diocese in his absence, my first business was, by the Queen's express command, to visit the Nuns of the Conception, where, knowing that there were above fourscore virgins, many of whom were very pretty and some coquettes, I was very loth to go for fear, of exposing my virtue to temptation; but I could not be excused, so I went, and preserved my virtue, to my ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... alone for half a day, but not willingly for half an hour in such a crowd. The crowd, however, closed every exit and he had to submit. A possible chance to secure some odd bit was his only consolation. Why the good old soul who last occupied the house, and who was born in it fourscore years ago, should necessarily have had only her grandmother's tableware, why every generation of this family should have suffered no losses by breakage, was not asked. Every bit, even to baking-powder ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. And the lord com mended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail, ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... to be huddled into its dishonorable grave. But the wrecks of precious virtues, which had been covered with the waves of prosperity, came up also. And all sorts of unexpected and unheard-of things, which had lain unseen during our national life of fourscore years, came up and are coming up daily, shaken from their bed by the concussions of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... If so, it must befall That Death, whene'er he call, Must call too soon. Though fourscore years he give Yet one would pray to live Another moon! What kind of plaint have I, Who perish in July? I might have had ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... (14th) March, 1734; to the joy of self and mankind, in England here.]), a vivacious light gentleman, slightly crooked in the back; Princes of Baden, Darmstadt, Waldeck: all manner of Princes and distinguished personages, fourscore Princes of them by tale, the eyes of Europe being turned on this matter, and on old Eugene's guidance of it. Prince Fred of England, even he had a notion of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... were thirty, they at least fourscore, We rushed upon them, and a midnight pall Over the seething lake our pinions spread, 'Neath which our gleaming arrows thickly sped, As shooting stars that in the rice-moon fall. Rent by our beating wings ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... valley lies concealed; and near its centre, upon the smooth summit of a gently swelling ridge, which, extending north and south for miles, divides the valley lengthwise, stands Belfield, the shire town of the rural county of Hillsdale. Its fourscore white dwellings, scattered unevenly along the shady margins of a straight and ample street, are mostly large, substantial granges, each with its little suburb of dependencies making a hamlet by itself. But where the broad avenue, at midway, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... inclination for trade, the summit of his ambition was to be a country gentleman, to found a family, and to pass the remainder of his days in rural ease and dignity, and all this he managed to accomplish; he disposed of his business, purchased a beautiful and extensive estate for fourscore thousand pounds, built upon it the mansion to which I had the honour of welcoming you to-day, married the daughter of a neighbouring squire, who brought him a fortune of five thousand pounds, became a magistrate, and only wanted a son and heir to make him completely happy; this blessing, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the town of Corrientes, where, safe from further persecution, he once more entered upon agricultural pursuits. And there, in the companionship of a South American lady—his wife—with a family of happy children, he ended a life that had lasted for fourscore years, innocent and unblemished, is it had ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... made to England, that we might have liberty to coin new ones, as in former times we did; but they did not succeed. At last one Mr. Wood a mean ordinary man, a hard-ware dealer, procured a patent under his Majesty's Broad Seal to coin fourscore and ten thousand pounds in copper for this kingdom, which patent however did not oblige any one here to take them, unless they pleased. Now you must know, that the half-pence and farthings in England ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... John Davis, native of Jamaica, where he sucked in the lust of piracy with his mother's milk. With only fourscore men, he swooped down upon the great city of Nicaragua in the darkness of the night, silenced the sentry with the thrust of a knife, and then fell to pillaging the churches and houses ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... western edge of fourscore years, ended this long and industrious, this peaceful and beautiful life. In our land of busy and constant action there have been few like it,—surely none happier. Serene at the close as it was placid in its course, its ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... donation to the work of the American Missionary Association. It is probably my last donation as my age (past fourscore) and poor health warn me my time is short in which to serve the Lord in ...
— American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 9, September, 1896 • Various
... however, we discover that the 'ballad in print' is the broadside, the narrative ballad, sung of a usurer's wife brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, or of a fish that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April: in short, as Martin Mar-sixtus says (1592), 'scarce a cat can look out of a gutter but out starts a halfpenny chronicler, and presently a proper new ballet of a strange sight is indited.' Chief amongst these 'halfpenny chroniclers' were William Elderton, ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... welcome to its republication; but a third edition of it, by another hand, ought not to have been published without permission. The ORIGINAL of this Portrait has ceased to exist. After a laborious life of fourscore years, the learned Schweighaeuser has departed—in the fullest maturity of reputation arising from classical attainments; to which must be added, all the excellences of a mild, affable, christian-like disposition. As a husband, a father, and a friend, none went before him: no ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... craft that bore him into a slow-forming curve that did not end for fourscore miles before the wild flight was checked. He swung it back, to guide the ship with shaking hands where a range of mountains rose in icy blackness, and where a gleaming cylinder rested upon a bank of snow whose white expanse showed a figure that came ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... about a hundred Years old, who, for thirty Years past, lived on nothing but Chocolate and Biscuit. He sometimes indeed had a little Soop at Dinner, but never any Fish, Flesh, or other Victuals: He was, nevertheless, so vigorous and nimble, that at fourscore and five, he could get on ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... thankful for the ideals voiced in The Poet (1863), and we listen respectfully to The Flood of Years (1876), as the final utterance of a poet who has had the experience of fourscore years. ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... strident threatening through the rigging; the ship vibrated to the concussive voice of the minute-gun. No murmurs but those of wind and water were heard among the throng; they drove forward in awful, pallid silence. Suddenly the shriek of one voice, but from fourscore throats, rent the agonized quiet. A red light was running along the deck, a tongue of flame lapping round the forecastle, a spire shooting aloft. Marguerite hid her face in Mr. Raleigh's arm; a great sob seemed to go up from all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... mouldy memory corrects Old Holinshed our famous chronicler With moral rules, and policy collects Out of all actions done these fourscore year; Accounts the time of every odd[483] event, Not from Christ's birth, nor from the prince's reign, But from some other famous accident, Which in men's general notice doth remain,— The siege ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... and devoured with one of those lagartos. In the meanwhile our companies in the galley thought we had been all lost, for we promised to return before night; and sent the Lion's Whelp's ship's boat with Captain Whiddon to follow us up the river. But the next day, after we had rowed up and down some fourscore miles, we returned, and went on our way up the great river; and when we were even at the last cast for want of victuals, Captain Gifford being before the galley and the rest of the boats, seeking out some place to land upon the banks to make fire, espied four ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... body broken, and soul made an offering for my sins. For whereas, before, I lay continually trembling at the mouth of hell, now, methought, I was got so far therefrom that I could not, when I looked back, scarce discern it. And oh! thought I, that I were fourscore years old now, that I might die quickly, that my soul ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... Volscians, quians, Etruscans and other envious enemies. Six times was he made one of the tribunes, and five times did he hold the office of dictator. When the Gauls came again, in the year 367, Camillus was called upon to help his countrymen for the last time, and though he was some fourscore years of age, he did not hesitate, nor did victory desert him. The Gauls were defeated with great slaughter, and it was a long time before they again ventured to trouble the Romans. The second founder of Rome, after his long life of warfare, died of a plague ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... which brings in a great revenue. For it produces every year, in round numbers, fourscore tomans of gold; and the toman is worth 70,000 saggi of gold, so that the total value of the fourscore tomans will be five millions and six hundred thousand saggi of gold, each saggio being worth more than a ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... in us the withered affections and feelings, buried but not dead. Then the excess of love is welcomed, not repelled: it is gracious to us as the sun and dew to the seared and riven trunk, with its few green leaves. Lear is old—"fourscore and upward"—but we see what he has been in former days: the ardent passions of youth have turned to rashness and wilfulness: he is long passed that age when we are more blessed in what we bestow than ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... pseudonym of "R. B." (later expanded to "Richard Burton"), published as early as 1688 (not 1706, as says the Dict. Nat. Biog.) The Kingdom of Darkness: or The History of Daemons, Specters, Witches, ... Containing near Fourscore memorable Relations, ... Together with a Preface obviating the common Objections and Allegations of the Sadduces [sic] and Atheists of the Age, ... with Pictures. Edward Stephens, first lawyer, then clergyman, ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... But in our course we were much deceived by the currents, which set into the gulf of Arabia, all along the coast of Melinda; and the winds so scanted upon us from the east and north-east, that we could not get off, and set us to the northward, within fourscore leagues of Socotoro, far from our destined course. During all this time we never wanted dolphins, bonitos, and flying fishes. Finding ourselves thus far to the northward, and the season being far spent, we determined upon going to the Red Sea, or the island of Socotoro, both for refreshment ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... That's Walter Ewbank. [F] He had as white a head and fresh a cheek As ever were produced by youth and age 210 Engendering in the blood of hale fourscore. Through five [24] long generations had the heart Of Walter's forefathers o'erflowed the bounds Of their inheritance, that single cottage— You see it yonder! and those few green fields. 215 They toiled and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... an earthquake, as we read in Dion[10] and Aristides.[11] The proconsul repeated: "Swear by the genius of Caesar, and I discharge you; blaspheme Christ." Polycarp replied: "I have served him these fourscore and six years, and he never did me any harm, but much good; and how can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour? If you require of me to swear by the genius of Caesar, as you call it, hear my free confession: I am a Christian; ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler |
