"Mercenary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... love he saw now had been in shallow water; but it had not tended to strengthen his faith in the innate nobility of women. On the contrary, it had shown him that a woman who seemed sweet and loving could be hard and calculating, even mercenary. Innocence being a charming pose, why should it not be adopted by the cleverest actresses, professional sirens, specialists in enchantment, who wished to be admired by all men, even men for whom they cared nothing? How could he tell even now that this ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... what are ye not, when duly protected and left to the almost divine impulses of your generous natures! What may ye not become, when rendered mercenary and envious by too close a contact with those worldly interests which are never admitted to an ascendancy without ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... OF THE TEN THOUSAND.—The Anabasis, the principal work of Xenophon, describes the retreat from the Tigris to the coast of Asia Minor, of a body of ten thousand mercenary Greek troops,—a retreat effected under his own masterly leadership. The Persian Empire, now in a process of decay, was torn with civil strife. Xerxes and his eldest son had been murdered (465 B.C.). The story of several reigns which follow is full of tales of treason and fratricide. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... face, as she thought of the draft, but she merely replied, "And suppose we haven't any money, can't I make believe, and by looking at expensive instruments induce Mr. Hastings to think we are richer than we are? I don't accuse him of being at all mercenary, but I do think he would have proposed ere this, if he hadn't thought us so ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... was no indolent or mercenary creature, No one more cordially detested the life of dependence than he. He always thought that his father had discharged all the duties of that relation in nourishing his childhood and giving him a good education. Whatever has been ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... Will he, who may with heroes claim a place, Belie that fame, and to himself be base? Think how august and godlike you did look, When my defence, unbribed, you undertook; But, when an act so brave you disavow, How little, and how mercenary now! ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... chief! once more Welcome to this grateful shore! Now no mercenary foe Aims again the fatal blow. Aims at thee ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... richer than our kings. He asked what business we had out of our own islands, unless upon the score of trade or treaty, or to defend the coasts with our fleet. Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary standing army in the midst of peace and among a free people. He said if we were governed by our own consent, in the persons of our representatives, he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or against whom we were to fight; and would hear my opinion, whether a private man's house ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... the Carthaginians consisted in their alliances with kings; in tributary nations, from which they drew both men and money; in some troops raised from among their own citizens; and in mercenary soldiers purchased of neighbouring states, without being themselves obliged to levy or exercise them, because they were already well disciplined and inured to the fatigues of war; they making choice, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... animosity against lawyers, whom they considered mercenary instruments in the hands of the nobles for oppressing them. They hung all the lawyers that they could get into their hands, and after burning the Savoy they went to the Temple, which was a spacious edifice containing the courts, the chambers of the barristers, and a vast ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... account the sum of five thousand dollars. We had never invited him to visit us or made any overtures in the way of communication with him, lest he should think we were cultivating his acquaintance from mercenary motives. ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... been to the young readers, that and much more it is the writers' wish that the true Plays of Shakespeare may prove to them in older years—enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, his pages ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... who laughingly replied, "It would be funny if you should make this Maude my cousin instead of Nellie. Let me see—Cousin Nellie—Cousin Maude. I like the sound of the latter the best, though I am inclined to think she is altogether too good for a mercenary dog like you." ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... vindictive," he said, more kindly,—"least of all toward you. But I cannot see how you should desire the friendship of one whom you regard as a mercenary hypocrite. When you can truthfully assure me that you disbelieve that charge, then, and not till then, will I forgive you and be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... I must go to the Blue Boar, my mind was much disturbed by indecision whether or not to take the Avenger. It was tempting to think of that expensive Mercenary publicly airing his boots in the archway of the Blue Boar's posting-yard; it was almost solemn to imagine him casually produced in the tailor's shop, and confounding the disrespectful senses of Trabb's boy. On the other hand, Trabb's ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Ireland did not constitute a nation or possess any common interest or bond of union. There was no trace of an organization by which the Irish tribes could be united into one people. The ceaseless civil wars had indeed supplanted the original tribesmen by the mercenary followers of another set of rival chiefs; but there had been no union; and the mass of the people, still under the influence of their native customs, were probably in a more wretched condition than they had ever ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... man enjoys an uninterrupted peace and serenity of mind, which excels the other not only in duration, but in sense of pleasure too. As for the other sort of converse, that which consists in expression of itself to others, Pindar says very well, that it was not mercenary in old time, nor indeed is it so now; but by the baseness and ambition of a few it is made use of to serve their poor secular interests. For if the poets represent Venus herself as much offended with those who make a trade and traffic of the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... other persons, to be sent to inquire into and ascertain the truth, as is customary in such cases. We know those aspersions to be false; but that avails us nothing. We are condemned unheard, and forced to an issue with an armed mercenary mob, which has been sent against us at the instigation of anonymous letter writers, ashamed to father the base, slanderous falsehoods which they have given to the public; of corrupt officials, who have brought false accusations against us to screen themselves in their own infamy; and of hireling ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... The mercenary never fell into the condition of the ordinary serf: he retained his rights as a man, and possessed in the person of the patron for whom he laboured, or whom he himself had selected, a defender of his interests. When ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... whole country; corrupting the very fountains of political power; and converting the ballot-box—that great palladium of our liberty—into an unmeaning mockery, where the rights of native-born citizens are voted away by those who blindly follow their mercenary and selfish leaders. The evidence of this is found not merely in the shameless chaffering for the foreign vote at every election, but in the large disproportion of offices which are now held by foreigners at home and abroad, as ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... one or two or three others, staunch Bonapartist. He is always of the militant, not of the triumphant party: so far he bears a gallant show of magnanimity; but his gallantry is hardly of the right stamp: it wants principle. For though he is not servile or mercenary, he is the victim of self-will. He must pull down and pull in pieces: it is not in his disposition to do otherwise. It is a pity; for with his great talents he might do great things, if he would go right forward to any ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... power hath the pure love of Jesus, unmixed with any gain or love of self! Should not all they be called mercenary who are always seeking consolations? Do they not prove themselves lovers of self more than of Christ who are always seeking their own gain and advantage? Where shall be found one who is willing to ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... love other than as a degraded menial, to make men the slaves of her mercenary schemes, La Corriveau cared nothing. She never felt it, never inspired it. She looked down upon all her sex as the filth of creation and, like herself, incapable of a chaste feeling or a pure thought. Every better instinct of her nature had gone out like the flame of a ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... absent, D'Aunay mustered all his vessels and men, and laid siege to the fort, but he met with most determined resistance from the garrison, nerved and stimulated by the voice and example of the heroic wife. The besiegers were almost disheartened, when a traitor within the walls—a "mercenary Swiss," according to a contemporary writer—gave them information which determined them to renew the assault with still greater vigour. D'Aunay and his men again attempted to scale the walls, but were forced to retire ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... provocation, and only the entirely inoffensive could expect to sojourn in the village without being a target for stones. The incursion of the artistic hordes has been a great factor in the demoralization of the village, for who would not be mercenary when besought at all hours of the day to stand before a canvas or a camera? Thus, the harmless stranger who strays on to the staith with a camera is obliged to pay for 'an afternoon's 'baccy' if he ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... imputation. He constantly resumes the moralising attitude; and his pungent persiflage is poured out, as if from an apocalyptic vial, upon worldliness and fashionable insolence. Sir Barnes Newcome's divorce from the unhappy Lady Clara furnishes a text for sad and solemn anathema upon the mercenary marriages in Hanover Square, where 'St. George of England may behold virgin after virgin offered up to the devouring monster, Mammon, may see virgin after virgin given away, just as in the Soldan of Babylon's time, but with never a champion to come to the rescue.' We ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... and suffer not thyself to know that sin; and suffer never pride to have domination in thy wit, ne in thy word, that sin was the beginning of all perdition. Whosomever work to thee any thing, anon yield to him his meed and hire, let never the hire of thy servant ne meed of thy mercenary remain in no wise with thee. That thou hatest to be done to thee of other, see that thou never do to an other. Eat thy bread with the hungry and needy, and cover the naked with thy clothes. Ordain thy bread and wine upon ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... both principle and interest in the business of life. That's why we look to them to keep up the moral standard. That's why we feel it to be unworthy of her when a girl makes a mercenary marriage." ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... affairs. The most that I should expect from them, were all the facts published to-morrow, would be the secret assent of the wise and good, the expressed censure of the vapid and ignorant (a pretty numerous clan, by the way), the surprise of the mercenary and the demagogue, and the secret satisfaction of the few who will come after me, and who may feel an interest in my conduct or my name. I have openly predicted bad consequences, in a political light, from the compliance of our agents here, and we shall yet see how far this ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... him, rather then by communicating it to others, make himself obnoxious to their discovery. But if he should communicate to others, 'tis more probable he would communicate it to meaner, and more Mercenary persons, as Apothecaries and Nurses, at a smaller rate and with more security, then reveal such secrets to Physicians, Men of Honour, and Honesty. Furthermore, if any mans life be suspected to be taken away ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... not be your bridesmaid. I could never co-operate in the unhallowed scheme of wedding a man whom you despise. Oh, Olga! do not degrade yourself by such a mercenary traffic." ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... repeat, I am not mercenary. Of course, if I should marry, I should like, for my wife's sake, to live as well as a married man as I have lived ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... and I was deeply touched to find that I had to deal with a young man who, in spite of being threatened by consumption, and being also exceedingly badly off, had come at my invitation, simply from a sense of duty and honour, and not with any mercenary motive. I saw from his knowledge and capacities that he would never be able to attain a position of great influence, but his kindness of heart and his extraordinarily receptive mind filled me with a feeling of profound respect for him. A few years later I was very ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... 'em all come"), Swann supposed that the Doctor recognised him from having met him already somewhere, probably in some house of 'ill-fame,' though these he himself very rarely visited, never having made a habit of indulging in the mercenary sort of love. Regarding such an allusion as in bad taste, especially before Odette, whose opinion of himself it might easily alter for the worse, Swann assumed his most icy manner. But when he learned that the lady next to the Doctor was Mme. Cottard, he decided that so young a ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... exacted black mail, and held prisoners for ransom.[231] But their barbarities were insignificant, when compared with those commonly perpetrated by wandering companies of adventure before the days of Alberigo da Barbiano; nor did brigands cost Italy so much as the mercenary troops, which, after the Condottiere system had been developed, became a permanent drain upon the resources of the country. The raids of Tunisian and Algerian Corsairs were more seriously mischievous; since the whole sea-board from Nice to Reggio lay open to the ravages of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... upon their own shoulders the responsibility of real work. Their leaders had been selected from the outside,—clever, eager, pushing men, but of late had been hardly selected from among themselves. As used to be the case with Italian Powers, they entrusted their cause to mercenary foreign generals, soldiers of fortune, who carried their good swords whither they were wanted; and, as of old, the leaders were ever ready to fight, but would themselves declare what should be and what should not be the casus belli. There was not ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... trinket, as a mark of consideration; because he himself had such a particular value for the fellow, on account of his attachment and fidelity, that he should be sorry to see him treated on the footing of a common mercenary domestic. There was not one jewel in the possession of this grateful young lady, that she would not have gladly given as a recompense, or badge of distinction, to her rescuer; but his master pitched upon a seal ring of no great value that hung at her watch, and Pipes, being ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... throughout to the English taste, than Coleridge's criticism (3lst Dec. 1799) on the new constitution established by Bonaparte and Sieyes on the foundation of the Consulate, with its eighty senators, the "creatures of a renegade priest, himself the creature of a foreign mercenary, its hundred tribunes who are to talk and do nothing, and its three hundred legislators whom the constitution orders to be silent." What a ludicrous Purgatory, adds he, "for three hundred Frenchmen!" Very vigorous, moreover, is he on the ministerial rejection of the ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... which are in any case extremely uncertain in their response to the call for them, invariably begins to imitate them when they fail. The mediums are invariably persons of an inferior order of intellect, avid of notoriety, and mostly mercenary, so that the results of the consultations with them were almost sufficient to deter serious-minded people from dealing with them a second time, while the people who formed the regular circles and had made a sect with a devotional character in it, rapidly degenerated into a credulity and materialism ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... confess I should not wish to be a great heiress; I should always be fancying that it was the "fine eyes of my casket," as the French say, which attracted my admirers, and I could not stand that. No, Frank was not mercenary, I was sure, and if even—why the competency I should be possessed of would be an agreeable surprise. If, indeed! Nothing was clear, nothing was settled. What a fool I was to dwell so upon an uncertainty, to anchor my hopes upon a dream! I was not at all ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... pause. Hugh was already inclined to think that he had raised an obstacle to the immediate celebration of the marriage. A speedy disappointment was in store for him. Lord Harry was too fond of Iris to be influenced, in his relations with her, by mercenary considerations. ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... liking. After her engagement with Captain Fizgig, and after Mr. Tidd had paid his 20,000l. and Fizgig's great relations had joined in some of our Director's companies, Mr. Brough declared he believed that Captain Fizgig's views were mercenary, and put him to the proof at once, by saying that he must take Miss Brough without a farthing, or not have her at all. Whereupon Captain Fizgig got an appointment in the colonies, and Miss Brough became more ill-humoured ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... or more than one hundred and sixty millions of men? Our writer proposes a solid gold collar testimonial for the "good" dog Tiny, to be raised by public subscription. But that would be a paltry return for such great services. Tiny's renown lifts him above such mercenary rewards. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... usually accepted as a sufficient qualification, or if he has ever seen the person write whose writing is in question, he is deemed competent. With such limited qualification it is no matter of surprise that expert testimony is sometime made to appear at very great disadvantage. Incompetent and mercenary witnesses will seek employment, and since there are always two sides to a case, and on each side lawyers who spare no efforts for victory, there is a chance for every kind of witness, as there is ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... are not so mercenary, Stofflet," said Bonchamps, "I do not think they have shewn any great ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... he might avoid much obloquy. The Smiths, Winders, and Elzeys, who are really foreigners, since the men from their States are not liable to conscription (vide Judge Campbell's decision), are very obnoxious to the people. Virginians can never be reconciled to the presence of a mercenary Swiss guard, and will not ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... seven vials of fiery wrath have been poured out upon the creed of Palestine, it is refreshing to find the creed of Arabia almost patronised and praised. The writer who could not have found in his heart to think Gregory the Great or Hildebrand other than a mercenary impostor, nor Cromwell other than an ambitious hypocrite, admits with exquisite blandness of Mahomet that he had the art of employing all the means of subjugating men avec adresse, mais avec grandeur.[65] Another reason, no doubt, besides his ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... reproach of Demosthenes, that his eloquence was mercenary; that he privately made orations for Phormion and Apollodorus, though adversaries in the same cause; that he was charged with moneys received from the king of Persia, and condemned for bribes from Harpalus. And should we grant that all those (and they are ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... were laughing at some of Wordsworth's last poems, which disgusted them, not only from the subservient spirit to Toryism which pervaded them, but also excited their laughter from their absurdity, Byron, in whose house they were, said to them, "It is satisfactory to see that a man who becomes mercenary, and traffics upon the independence of his character, loses at the same time his talent as ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... wandered off. He tried to read, but his passion was too strong. He thought of the stray amours to which he had been introduced by Flanagan, the sly visits to houses in a cul-de-sac, with the drawing-room in Utrecht velvet, and the mercenary graces of painted women. He shuddered. He threw himself on the grass, stretching his limbs like a young animal freshly awaked from sleep; and the rippling water, the poplars gently tremulous in the faint breeze, the blue sky, were almost more than he could bear. He was ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... deposition, and in return was excommunicated. He then sent a French knight named William de Nogaret, with Sciarra Colonna, a turbulent Roman, the hereditary enemy of Boniface, and a band of savage mercenary soldiers to Anagni, where the Pope then was, to force him to recall the sentence, apparently intending them to act like the murderers of Becket. The old man's dignity, however, overawed them at the moment, and they retired without laying ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... letters were found too short, too cold. He replied to the remonstrance by a reference of extreme coarseness. His correspondents wrote from the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal, then and for long after the haunt of mercenary women. "You belong to your quarter more than I thought," he said brutally.[37] The vulgarity of the lackey was never quite obliterated in him, even when the lackey had written Emilius. This was too much for the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... emerges the more by contrast—he is a triton among minnows. But I think the responsibility of those who keep sending out here young fellows of sixteen and seventeen fresh from a private school or Addiscombe is quite awful. The stream is so strong, the society is so utterly worldly and mercenary in its best phase, so utterly and inconceivably low and profligate in its worst, that it is not strange that at so early an age, eight out of ten sink beneath it. ... One soon observes here how seldom ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... save you. Believe me, if you cannot love your daily companions for their own sake in this world, whoever and wherever they are, you will fail to find love for your own sake in the next—and to love well, whatever you love you must love for itself, and not for any future and mercenary end." ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... B.C. an eclipse of the Moon was seen in Mysia, according to Polybius.[123] The date of September 1 has been assigned for this eclipse which is said to have so greatly alarmed some Gaulish Mercenary troops in the service of Attalus, King of Pergamos, that he had to get rid of them as soon as he could—make terms ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... duke started in his chair with a look of pain; but Pollyooly's deep blue eyes shone suddenly like bright stars, and she smiled a heavenly smile. It was not that she was mercenary. But it was the chief aim of her life to raise a wall of gold (it could not be too thick or too high) between ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... of sailing, I would retire to my island,—the position of which, in a beautiful semi-tropic ocean, would be known only to myself and to my crew,—and there I would pass happy days in the company of my books, my works of art, and all the various treasures I had taken from the mercenary vessels ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... "It has shown me my age. I declare I am trembling; I, whose nerves were iron. But I have a particular contempt for servants. Mercenary wretches! I think Heaven inspired me to talk to them. After all, who knows? perhaps we might find a way to their hearts, if we did not eternally shock their vanity, and forget that it is, and must be, far greater than our own. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... her, and leaned for a moment against the wall. Mrs. Warren's idea of perfect happiness would have received a severe shock, could she have heard Nancy murmur, brokenly: "Dear old dad! Pray Heaven you don't know that your little Nance is a miserable, mercenary coward!" ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... really live," Stuart broke in, "not merely exist. You don't live. You are engaged in an endless fight, desperate, cruel, mercenary—for what? The superfluous, ambitions you never exploit, privileges you don't know how to use, caprices without the genius to express them, pleasures when you don't know ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... afterwards, "seeing himself deserted, and fearing they would seize his castles, he sent the Earl of Pembroke and other faithful messengers to them, to let them know he would grant them the laws and liberties they desired." * * But after the charter had been granted, "the king's mercenary soldiers, desiring war more than peace, were by their leaders continually whispering in his ears, that he was now no longer king, but the scorn of other princes; and that it was more eligible to be no king, than such a one as he." * * He applied to the Pope, that he might by his apostolic authority ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... on my next birthday,' said Sarah. Having said it the intolerably mercenary spirit of her action seemed to strike her, and impulsively she turned away with a bright blush. Fire seemed to sparkle in the eyes of both men. Said Eric: 'A year so be! The man that wins ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... wrong. A dozen times in the last three days her hand had gone out to the telephone and the will had been there to confess to Cranbourne that her allegiance to his side existed no longer, but even in this her honesty had broken down. She saw herself, as she hesitated on the threshold, a wretched mercenary creature—the sport of greed and jealousy—self-centred and governed by thought of gain. It was not a pleasant reflection. For the doubtful blessing of being wife to an unscrupulous millionaire she had deafened her ears to the call ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... what it was when the paper first claimed public attention and support. "When we are impecunious," says Mr. du Maurier, "we must needs be democratic." And democratic Punch was in Jerrold's era, although from no mercenary or unworthy motive. Later on, the club and the drawing-room frankly recognised the power wielded by the paper, and, by that very acknowledgment, influenced it to an obvious degree. Then came the sentiment of Church and State, and the Palmerston patriotic pose ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... "thy mercenary demand alone proves the vanity of thy pretence of being initiated into the secrets of the Gods. Depart my ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... of my fellow-creatures. My knowledge, my time, my fortune have ever been employed in the relief of distress! I have studied and practised medicine, but I have never degraded that most noble and most consoling of arts by mercenary speculations of any kind. Though always giving, and never receiving, I have preserved my independence. I have even carried my delicacy so far as to refuse the favours of kings. I have given gratuitously my remedies and my advice to the rich: ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... courtier. But if you look into their manner of life you'll find them mere sots, as debauched as Penelope's wooers; you know the other part of the verse, which the echo will better tell you than I can. They sleep till noon and have their mercenary Levite come to their bedside, where he chops over his matins before they are half up. Then to breakfast, which is scarce done but dinner stays for them. From thence they go to dice, tables, cards, or entertain themselves with jesters, fools, gambols, and horse tricks. ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... bred a hundred or more horses from the original stock he had brought up from Durango. His particular interest was in the almost unblemished whites, and these he had given especial care. He made a good deal of money selling this strain to friends among the ranchers back in Texas. No mercenary consideration, however, could have made him part with the great, rangy white horses he had gotten from the Durango breeder. He called them Blanco Diablo (White Devil), Blanco Sol (White Sun), Blanca Reina (White Queen), Blanca Mujer (White Woman), and El Gran Toro Blanco (The Big ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... suppose, that we are to leave our heavy overcoats and blankets and foot stoves and such other luxuries behind; that rather indicates that we are going to do something besides retreat; and I should like to get a whack at those mercenary Dutchmen before I freeze or starve," ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... nature," it would be recognized by the affections of all of them to be a true sentiment. Why it would be disgraceful, great God, that birth and travail and procreation should be gratis and mere nature among the beasts, while among mankind they should be merely mercenary transactions! ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... condition, and openly sanctions that fearful abuse which dooms the poor man's unborn children to the mundane perdition of poverty's thousand penalties. Is God's will so done in heaven? While the Church teaches you to pray, "Thy Kingdom come," she strikes with mercenary venom at the first principle of that kingdom, namely, elementary equality in citizen privilege. Better silence than falsehood; better no religion at all—if such lack be possible—than one which concedes equal rights beyond the grave, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... more serious than these mercenary meannesses. Bettina Caroline died in the arms of her younger sister, who had nursed her with the devotion of girlhood, and the curiosity of an untainted imagination. In the silence of long nights the sisters exchanged many a confidence. With what dramatic ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... will come over to your side if you just confess, honestly, that he is a better man than you are, and you need his help. What was the road I must take to achieve the same understanding he had achieved? His eyes glittered at that, and a mercenary expression underlay the tone of ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... surprise that the house of God and the depository of the dead, should be so shamefully assigned over to the influence of Mammon, and a price of admission as into a place of public amusement, exacted by those to whose mercenary government the ancient structure of Westminster Abbey had devolved. "Was it thus, always," asked he, "from the time of Henry IIId?" To this enquiry, the guide replied merely by a shrug of his shoulders, rather indicative of contempt than otherways, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Mind-healing is dishonored by those who take it up from mercenary motives, for wealth and fame, or think to build a baseless fabric of their own on another's foundation. They cannot put the "new wine into old bottles;" they can never engraft Truth into error. Such students come to my College to learn a system which they go away ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... I will not endure it any longer. Ladies, I beseech you, help me. This is such a wrong as never was offered to poor bride before: upon her marriage day, to have her husband conspire against her, and a couple of mercenary companions to be brought in for form's sake, to persuade a separation! If you had blood or virtue in you, gentlemen, you would not suffer such ear-wigs about a husband, or scorpions to ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... of the quickest Apprehension; the Master therefore should consider how much more Time is necessary for one that has not the same Quickness, and how much he is obliged to consult the Capacity of his Scholar. From a mercenary Teacher this necessary Regard is not to be hoped for; expected by other Scholars, tired with the Fatigue, and solicited by his Necessities, he thinks the Month long; looks on his Watch, and goes away. If he be but poorly paid for ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... the brutes are turned mercenary, madam," said Mr. Touchwood, "I remember when a Scottishman would have scorned to touch a shilling that he had not earned, and yet was as ready to help a stranger as an Arab of the desert. And now, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... these worthless, glittering toys have they ruined the happiness of the dear innocent heart, and on them the guilt will fall if her soul is lost! I remark how she is changed in her letters since her shameful, mercenary marriage. She writes of nothing but the arrangement of her house, and speaks as if the beauty and costliness of things were only to be thought of, and there is not even a confidential, heart-felt word for her old Trude. It would seem as ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... 276 votes against 194. Majority 82. House of Lords by common consent passed second reading of useful little Bill for protection of grey seals threatened with extinction by mercenary sportsmen. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... without plan, without rhyme or reason. I take that last back, he has reasons all right—some of the screwiest. Religious reasons, racial reasons, idealistic reasons, political reasons, altruistic reasons and mercenary reasons. ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... that the Negro teacher has acted along the method here described, and has thus been the means of enlightening the masses of the colored people that lay claim to any degree of education whatever. What the Negro teacher has accomplished has been done not from a selfish motive or a mercenary point of view, but primarily because he has endeavored to do his part toward elevating the race with which he is identified. If it is true that the salvation of the Negro lies in his being educated, then to the Negro teacher must be attributed the greater ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... adoption of the plans now proposed would place woman above the necessity of any mercenary marriages. She could leave her father's home if she didn't like it, and engage in business and support herself. Who cared for the husband of Jenny Lind, or of Mrs. Norton? It was not necessary for Florence Nightingale, Harriet Hosmer, or Elizabeth Blackwell ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... another young person just because she was at present engaged to him. At which he got perfectly furious and said he would not marry that certain person if she was the only woman left on earth; that she had treated him as no lady should treat a gentleman, and that she was vain and mercenary and ambitious, and he was mortified to think he had ever imagined he had loved so shallow and weak and changeable a ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... misunderstood me," she said, not knowing how to excuse her mercenary hopes. "I wish only for your happiness!" And then, conscious that this was not her sole aim, and that she was not perfectly ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... caudal throat, guttural lung, pulmonary bone, osseous hair, hirsute tearful, lachrymose early, primitive sweet, dulcet, sweet, saccharine young, juvenile bloody, sanguinary deadly, mortal red, florid bank, riparian hard, arduous wound, vulnerable written, graphic spotless, immaculate sell, mercenary son, filial salt, saline meal, farinaceous wood, ligneous wood, sylvan cloud, nebulous glass, vitreous milk, lacteal water, aquatic stone, lapidary gold, aureous silver, argent iron, ferric honey, mellifluous ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... passed sentence of death on him, and bade the officers carry him to the Dechas, as it is called, a place in the prison where they strangle malefactors. And when the officers would not venture to lay hands on him, and the very mercenary soldiers declined it, believing it an illegal and a wicked act to lay violent hands on a king, Damochares, threatening and reviling them for it, himself thrust him ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... and moving chair.] And I must say I think you are very hard on modern life, Lady Windermere. Of course there is much against it, I admit. Most women, for instance, nowadays, are rather mercenary. ...
— Lady Windermere's Fan • Oscar Wilde
... fools, by fools mistook for pride; From thee whatever virtue takes its rise, Grows a misfortune, or becomes a vice; Such were thy rules to be poetically great: "Stoop not to interest, flattery, or deceit; Nor with hired thoughts be thy devotion paid; Learn to disdain their mercenary aid; Be this thy sure defence, thy brazen wall, Know no base action, at no guilt turn pale;[4] And since unhappy distance thus denies T'expose thy soul, clad in this poor disguise; Since thy few ill-presented graces seem To breed contempt where thou hast hoped esteem—" Madness ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... needed, and that she needed rest; Mrs. Riddell at first tried hard to induce her to remain, but when she looked at the pale thin face, and thought how many weary nights the lady had voluntarily sat up with the raving child, she ceased to urge the request, and at once set out for a mercenary to ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... man could work in such a hodge-podge. Even inspiration was likely to be chaotic and futuristic. Small blame to Brian if he resented it all. To-morrow, if Reynolds deigned to appear with his check, he would summon Mrs. Haggerty, and the studio should have a cleaning that the mercenary old beldame would remember. Kenny vaguely coupled Mrs. Haggerty with the present disorder and resented both, his defiant eyes lingering with new interest upon a jumble of musical ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... Traffic has invaded the world. The money-changers are established even in the sanctuary, and by sanctuary I do not mean religious things alone, but whatever mankind holds sacred and inviolable. It is not gold that complicates, corrupts, and debases life; it is our mercenary spirit. ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... and sell, and, as it were, create; but these irrepressible tokens themselves float and glitter in the foam-crests upon those very billows. It cannot, then, be doubted that the instruments and accompaniments of most of the pomp and luxury, the war, treasons, and varied mercenary crimes of the world, are still acting their part ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... loved, my honored, much respected friend![1] No mercenary bard his homage pays; With honest pride I scorn each selfish end, My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise: To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, 5 The lowly train in life's sequestered scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aikin in a cottage would have been; ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... anything to do with this. And you didn't, for I watched your eyes: you never would have thought of him but for me. It is I, his own sister, who have hinted it. He has nobody but me, and when his back is turned I accuse him of being so base, so cruel, so mercenary, that—" She stopped and tried to steady her voice. Suddenly she turned and pointed to the door: "And if he came in there now, this minute—oh, Bertie, my Bertie, if you would!—if he stood there now, I should have slandered him without a shadow of proof. Oh, it is odious, horrible! The one in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep and fleeth. He is called not a shepherd, but a hireling, who feeds the Lord's sheep not for inward love, but with a view to temporal wages. He is a mercenary who seeks indeed the place of shepherd, but seeks not the gain ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... appear not only hateful, but contemptible too. All the officers of government, also, in the Alexandrian court had turned against her, because they had supposed that they could control her brother more easily if she were away. Thus she had always been surrounded by selfish, mercenary, and implacable foes. Now, for the first time, she seemed to have a friend. A protector had suddenly arisen to support and defend her,—a man of very alluring person and manners, of a very noble ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... popular histories! Certain general notions of the character of nations we, indeed, distinctly and correctly attain: that Chinese civilization is stationary, the French instinctively a military race, the Swiss mercenary, and adventurous in engineering and religious reform,—that modern German literature was as sudden as simultaneous in its development,—that Holland redeemed her foundations from the sea,—that Italy owes to art, and England ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... it for himself, and was willing—so at least it was reported—to pay for it at the handsome figure of 4,000 pounds for a single couplet. Pope, however, who was not mercenary, declined to gratify the alderman, who by his will left the poet a legacy of 100 pounds, possibly hoping by this benefaction, if he could not be praised in his lifetime, at all events to escape posthumous abuse. If this were his wish it was gratified, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... readiness to return by whatever route I proposed. This is a point that I should like to make clear to all who may read this, for it is indicative of a trait often lost sight of by those accustomed to having, in novels and so forth, the more mercenary side of the Australian's character pointed out to them. A common subject of speculation is whether or no Australians would make good soldiers; as to that my belief is, that once they felt confidence ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... Trumbull, "but I call this will eccentric. I was always willingly of service to the old soul; and he intimated pretty plainly a sense of obligation which would show itself in his will. The gold-headed cane is farcical considered as an acknowledgment to me; but happily I am above mercenary considerations." ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... I was not disposed to be mercenary; though I did think you were not worldly-wise. Now that I am destitute, you can see that to marry a man not worth a dollar, and with a precarious profession, is not what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... conventional after-character, for in 1725 he was but a boy fresh from Eton, and could scarcely have established any reputation as a rake. Nor is there anything in our whole knowledge of him to justify us in supposing that he was at any time a mere mercenary fortune-hunter. Finally, according to one of Mr. Roberts's letters to Mr. Keightley, timorous Mr. Tucker of Lyme had a very different reason from his personal shortcomings for objecting to Fielding as a suitor ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... consequences sprung? We have been involved in no war. We have been at peace with all the world. We have been visited with no national calamity. Our people have been advancing in general intelligence, and, I will add, as great and alarming as has been the advance of political corruption among the mercenary corps who look to government for support, the morals and virtue of the community at large have been advancing in improvement. What, I again repeat, ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... propose would aid manifestly in the due classification of all assistants at a ball. It is not to be thought that the sex is governed by any mercenary motive; but in the present organization of society a certain degree of attention to the mode in which matrimonial establishments are to be sustained ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... George IV. were sad, and for a king he was left comparatively alone. He had neither wife nor children to lean upon and to cheer him,—only mercenary courtiers and physicians. His tastes were refined, his manners affable, and his conversation interesting. He was intelligent, sagacious, and well-informed; yet no English monarch was ever more cordially ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... is rather mercenary: perhaps that is too strong a word; but, in short, a mere man of the world. Might it not be that Grace Carden would wish him to learn your attachment either from your lips or from her own, and not detect it in an ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... easy to marry," said Jane, rather drearily. "It isn't easy to find some one with whom one would be willing to pass one's life. I've had several chances—one or two of them not entirely mercenary, I think. But not one that I could bring myself ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... sapphires. It evidently brings her happy thoughts, as, after gazing at it for a moment or two, she stoops and presses her lips eagerly to it. It is his first gift (though not his last), and therefore the most precious. What girl does not like receiving a present from her lover? The least mercenary woman on earth must feel a glow at her heart and a fonder recognition of her sweetheart's worth when he lays a love-offering ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... man, a strong man, a man whose respect was to be prized. Beside him she felt herself small and ordinary. That was all right, but she was determined he should not believe her insignificant, shallow, unworthy, mercenary. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... will say that to-day you will find no man in our town as well liked, as jovial, and full of merry sayings as I. My jokes are again noised about and quoted; once more I take pleasure in my wife's confidential chatter without a mercenary thought, while Guy and Viola play at my feet distributing gems of childish humor without fear of the ghastly tormentor who used to dog their steps, ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... talking of our young pupil and your daughter; I object still more strongly to your insinuation that my desire to see them married (provided always that they are sincerely attached to each other) springs from a mercenary motive." ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins |
