"Alms" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to transept, (3) old oak door on N., (4) Norm, font with cable moulding. In the churchyard is the effigy of a woman, and another old tomb with incised figure stands near the church door. The Court hard by is a modernised 15th-cent. hall. A dignified row of 17th-cent. alms-houses lines the common roadway to the church and court. Near the bridge on the Yeovil road is the old manor house, now a farm. It has a two-storeyed Perp. porch and some good windows. It was the birthplace ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... buried treasure on the lonely island, and there watched over its security. This last opinion was received with especial favor by the gaping vulgar, and further confirmed by the fact that the Solitary never asked alms or was destitute of money, of which, indeed, he gave away to those whom he considered poorer than himself. But whatever was the truth, or however anxious the good people of Hillsdale might be to discover the secret, no one ventured to meddle with him, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... peace and health of soul be with the queen! And pardon be with me though I speak truth. As I was going on peaceable men's wise Through your good town, desiring no man harm, A kind of shameful woman with thief's lips Spake somewhat to me over a thrust-out chin, Soliciting as I deemed an alms; which alms (Remembering what was writ of Magdalen) I gave no grudging but with pure good heart, When lo some scurril children that lurked near, Set there by Satan for my stumbling-stone, Fell hooting with necks thwart and eyes asquint, Screeched and made horns and shot out tongues ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... which will, of course, be extremely primitive at their inception. Clothing, linens, and shoes will first of all be manufactured for our own poor emigrants, who will be provided with new suits of clothing at the various European emigration centers. They will not receive these clothes as alms, which might hurt their pride, but in exchange for old garments: any loss the Company sustains by this transaction will be booked as a business loss. Those who are absolutely without means will pay off their ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... your guide, my child. Listen, Salome. Hitherto, you have been very charitable in giving alms. You have given liberally of your means; but you have never yet given your personal services to the poor and needy. That was not our Lord's way, whose servants we are. He gave alms, indeed, and he performed miracles to supply them, as in the case of the loaves and fishes; ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... heroic vice, the Vikings laid upon the opposite scale an heroic virtue. If they plundered and robbed, as most men did in the times when Might made Right, yet the heaven-sent instinct of hospitality was as the marrow of their bones. No beggar went from their doors without alms; no traveller asked in vain for shelter; no guest but was welcomed with holiday cheer and sped on his way with a gift. As cunningly false as they were to their foes, just so superbly true were they to their friends. The man who took his enemy's last blood-drop with relentless hate, gave his ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... active in preaching and in the care of souls, and to cultivate among themselves the study of theology. Arnoldi, Luther's teacher, belonged to this convent. As the Order possessed no property, but all its members lived on alms, the monks went about the town and country to collect gifts of money, bread, cheese, and ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... of the ninth century, Charlemagne reached even there with the greatness of his mind and of his power. "It was not only in his own land and his own kingdom," says Eginhard, "that he scattered those gratuitous largesses which the Greeks call alms; but beyond the seas, in Syria, in Egypt, in Africa, at Jerusalem, at Alexandria, at Carthage, wherever he knew that there were Christians living in poverty, he had compassion on their misery, and he delighted to send them money." In one of his capitularies of the year ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... through the orchards to the Ras-el-Ain (Promontory of the Fountain), on the side of Mount Gerizim. A multitude of beggars sat at the city gate; and, as they continued to clamor after I had given sufficient alms, I paid them with "Allah deelek!"—(God give it to you!)—the Moslem's reply to such importunity—and they ceased in an instant. This exclamation, it seems, takes away from them the power ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... quoth she; "now may the sweet Saint Mary So wisely help me out of care and sin, As in this wide world, though I sold my skin, I could not scrape up twelve pence, for my life. Ye know too well I am a poor old wife: Give alms, for the Lord's sake, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... corridor, astonishingly poor and old, twists itself suspiciously, and then issues into a narrow court, more than a thousand years old, where offertory boxes, fixed on Oriental brackets, invite our alms. The odour of the incense becomes more pronounced, and at last a door, hidden in shadow at the end of this retreat, gives access to ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... in his mind the formula: "London has been called the city of encounters; it is more than that, it is the city of Resurrections," when these reflections were suddenly interrupted by a piteous whine at his elbow, and a deplorable appeal for alms. He looked around in some irritation, and with a sudden shock found himself confronted with the embodied proof of his somewhat stilted fancies. There, close beside him, his face altered and disfigured by poverty and disgrace, his body barely ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... wharf could only be found high up, and at a considerable distance from the usual haunts of commerce. The brig lay more than a mile above the Hook (Corlaer's, of course, is meant—not Sandy Hook) and quite near to the old Alms House—far above the ship-yards, in fact. It was a solitary place for a vessel, in the midst of a crowd. The grum top-chain voice of Captain Spike had nothing there to mingle with, or interrupt its harsh tones, and it instantly brought on deck Harry Mulford, the mate in question, apparently ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... favorable. A Russian officer is riding by—he takes pity on the naked man with the gaping wounds; he throws him a soldier's old mantle, a piece of bread, and a half gulden. [Footnote: "Seven Years' War," 353.] The German poet receives the alms of the Russian thankfully—he covers himself with the cloak, he ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... was the depository of the legends of the whole country-side: chatting with the lairds, the confidential friend of fishermen, peasants, and farmers; the oracle in all sports and ruler of village feasts; repaying in friendly offices far more than the value of the alms which he took as a right; a respecter of old privileges, because he had privileges himself; and ready when the French came to take his part in fighting for the old country. There can be no fear for a country, says Scott, where even the beggar is ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... kept on Papal ground, for fear of her being led to speak about so mournful a business. She was never shown in public, save in the character of a penitent. She was taken out among the poor women to cut wood, which was afterwards sold for alms; the parents, whom she had brought to shame, having forsworn and ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... restitution is therefore only moderate; the emigres who return recover but little more than one-twentieth of their patrimony, one hundred millions[3129] out of more than two milliards. Observe, besides, that by virtue even of the law and as admitted by the First Consul,[3130] this alms is badly distributed; the most needy and the greatest number remain empty-handed, consisting of the lesser and medium class of rural proprietors, especially of country gentlemen whose domain, worth less than 50,000 francs, brings in only 2000 or ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to read in his face the indifference in which he was insisting. His face indeed wore an aspect of indifference, but his voice sounded as if he were pleading for alms. ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... male or female, ever gives any notice by knocking before they enter the bed-chamber, or apartment of ladies or gentlemen.—The post-man opens it, to bring your letters; the capuchin, to ask alms; and the gentleman to make his visit. There is no privacy, but by securing your door by a key or a bolt; and when any of the middling class of people have got possession of your apartment, particularly of a stranger, it is very difficult to ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... that criminals of all descriptions resorted to them, and as a result, the worst vices rapidly increased. The sick and the poor were left to suffer, while the gifts that should have relieved their wants went to the monks, who with threats demanded the alms of the people, denouncing the impiety of those who should withhold gifts from their orders. Notwithstanding their profession of poverty, the wealth of the friars was constantly increasing, and their magnificent ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... report. Accordingly, dressed like a private individual, without arms or attendants, he set out for the Cadi's towns, mounted on a docile Arabian steed. He arrived there, and was just entering the gate, when a cripple seizing the border of his burnous, asked him for alms in the name of the prophet. Bou-Akas gave him money, but the cripple still maintained his hold. "What dost thou want?" asked the Scheik; "I have ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... recollection of man. The Lenapes, who received William Penn a hundred and fifty years ago upon the banks of the Delaware, have disappeared; and I myself met with the last of the Iroquois, who were begging alms. The nations I have mentioned formerly covered the country to the seacoast; but a traveller at the present day must penetrate more than a hundred leagues into the interior of the continent to find an Indian. Not only have ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... possession of a crown, all shared it; the first thing he did when he rose was to serve God; he was a great giver of alms; and there was no man during his life who could say he had refused him anything within ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... asked of his nearest neighbor, a young artificer; 'what now? Where are all these good folks thronging?' Does any rich patron give away alms or ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... ornaments on the ragged Circassian dress, the dagger in the cracked sheath, the swollen, but still rosy face, the dishevelled, but still thick crop of hair.... Mercy on us! Misha! He had come then to begging alms on the high-roads. I could not help crying out. He recognised me, started, turned away, and was about to move away from the window. I stopped him ... but what could I say to him? Give him a lecture? ... In silence I held out a five-rouble note; he, also in silence, took it in ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... favours; and overturned cities and treasuries, being treasons and conspiracies; and serpents with female faces, that were coiners and thieves; and all sorts of broken bottles, which were services rendered in miserable courts. A great heap of overturned soup[10] he found to be alms to the poor, which had been delayed till the giver's death. He then came to a great mount of flowers, which once had a sweet smell, but now a most rank one. This (with submission) was the present which the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... count saw the lady from the manor take her way to church, on foot if the roads were good; and on her homeward way he could see her distribute alms among the beggars who were ranged along either side of the road. This the count did not approve. He, too, gave plenteously to the poor, but through the village pastor, and only to those needy ones who were too modest to beg ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... speak! thou fearful guest! Who, with thy hollow breast Still in rude armor drest, Comest to daunt me! Wrapt not in Eastern balms, But with thy fleshless palms Stretched, as if asking alms, Why dost thou ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... unfruitful, since the digits that explore and design, following up the vagrant fancies of the imagination, are practically atrophied. You will see beggars who find it too troublesome, on cold days, to extricate their hands for the purpose of demanding alms! Man has been described as a tool-making animal, but the burnous effectually counteracts that wholesome tendency; it is a mummifying vesture, a step in the direction of fossilification. Will the natives ever realize that the abolition of this sleeveless and buttonless ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... feast-days, or sermons—its religious being supported only by the stipend which your Majesty assigns to the ministers in the mission villages; and from this amount they spend much and distribute [alms] among the poor and needy Indians of their districts. Nor is there in any convent of the said province any fixed income; nor has the province ever accepted deposits or valuable articles, or permitted its individual religious to keep ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... days afterwards came a travelling ballad-singer, and sang under the window in hopes of a small alms. When the king heard of it, he said that he must come in. And so the ballad-singer entered in his dirty tattered garments, and sang before the king and his daughter; when he had done, he asked for a small reward. ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... with the pontifical zouave of bygone days. Either the latter would look upon it as monstrous and absurd, or he would see in it a charitable duty to be accomplished, and then, whatever annoyance the matter might occasion him, he would accept it, as he would bestow alms. It was that chord of generosity which Julien, diplomatic for once in his life, essayed to touch by his confidence. Gaining authority by their conversation of a few days before, he related all he could of Gorka's visit, concealing the fact of that word of honor so falsely given, which ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... charming view the elevation commanded. On one of these occasions—it was the twenty-fifth and my birthday—I was more than usually absorbed in my thoughts when my attention was caught by a shadow passing over the declivity a little removed from where I sat, and looking up I recognized the giver of alms. He lifted his hat, begged pardon and hoped it was not an indiscretion to ask if I had recovered my purse; which opened the way to further conversation. The sun was fast setting, and the scene on earth and sky was resplendent. Leaning upon a rock, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Grimbalde, his physician, who, like most of his fraternity at that day, was an ecclesiastic, never hinted that his dreams were the result of a bad digestion, but told him to shave his head, be reconciled to the Church, and reform himself with alms and prayer. But he would not take this good advice, and it was not until he had been nearly drowned a year afterwards, in a violent storm at sea, that he repented of his evil ways, cut his hair short, and paid proper deference to the wishes of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... great men whose deeds we all know, the great writers whose words are in all our memories, the brave and the beautiful whose fame has shrunk into their epitaphs, are all around us. What is the cry for alms that meets us at the door of the church to the mute petition of these marble beggars, who ask to warm their cold memories for a moment in our living hearts? Look up at the mighty arches overhead, borne up on tall clustered columns,—as if that avenue of Royal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... for a long while I was kept on board to cook their victuals. At last she was wrecked on this coast; how I escaped I know not, for I was weary of life. But I was thrown up, and made my way to this place—where I have for many years lived in company with an old wretch like myself, supplicating alms. He died about a year ago, and left me in the hovel by myself. I still beg for my subsistence; and now, pacha, you have my story, and I think you will acknowledge that I may well say that ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... too, unsubstantial, unreal, an illusion only, though comeliest of illusions? She had given him alms! Was the merit of the giver illusive also,—illusive like the grace of the supple fingers that gave? Assuredly there were mysteries in the Abhidharma impenetrable, incomprehensible!... It was a golden coin, stamped with the ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... said of Cornelius, while yet an unbeliever (Acts 10:4, 31), that his alms were acceptable to God. Therefore not every action of an unbeliever is a sin, but some of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... meant to prevent extortion, peculation, and corruption? What sort of body is the India Company, which, coming to the verge of bankruptcy by the robbery of half the world, is afterwards to subsist upon the alms of peculation and bribery, to have its strength recruited by the violation of the covenants imposed upon its own servants? It is an odd sort of body to be so fed and so supported. This new constitution of revenue that he has made is indeed a very singular contrivance. It is a revenue to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... fakir, who passed on his way along the crowded pavement unconcerned and practically unobserved, was white with ashes and was beating a piece of iron as a wayward child might be doing. He was followed by a boy, but no effort was made to collect alms. It is true philosophy to be prepared to live in such a state of simplicity. Most of the problems of life would dissolve and vanish if one could reduce one's needs to the frugality of a fakir. I have thought often of ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... reached her ear, although she could scarcely distinguish them in the darkness. These were no other than Max Grimeau and Blind Bartemy, the brace of beggars whose post was at the gate of the Basse Ville. They seemed to be comparing the amount of alms each had received during the day, and were arranging for a supper at some obscure haunt they frequented in the purlieus of the lower town, when another figure came up, short, dapper, and carrying a knapsack, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Alone Sole, solitary Alms Eleemosynary Age Primeval Belief Credulous Blame Culpable Breast Pectoral Being Essential Bosom Graminal, sinuous Boy, boyish Puerile Blood, bloody Sanguinary, sanguine Burden Onerous Beginning Initial ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... have yo' niver heared of Hester Rose, she as founded t' alms-houses for poor disabled sailors and soldiers on t' Horncastle road? There's a piece o' stone in front to say that "This building is erected in memory of P. H."—and some folk will have it P. H. stands for t' name o' th' man as was ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and Preliminary Discourse, Wherry's edition, p. 89. One of the chief religious duties under the Koran was the giving of alms (Zakat), and under this euphonious name was included the tax by which Mohammed maintained the force that enabled him to keep up his predatory raids on the caravans ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... Mrs. Townsend were content to bestow their charities without some other object than that of relieving material wants by their alms. Many infidels, Mr. Townsend argued, had been made believers by the miracle of the loaves and fishes; and therefore it was permissible for him to make use of the same means for drawing over proselytes to the true church. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... take my dole although I deale my alms ill, Narcissus cannot love with any damzell; Although, for most part, men to love encline all, I will not, I, this is ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... the town bands and trade-unions an opportunity to parade the streets and display their capability in playing national music. "Children's Day" is a school holiday, and the children dress in the old picturesque Danish costumes; they then go about the town and market-places begging alms for the sanatoriums in their collecting-boxes. In this way a large sum is collected for ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... resolved to tax all persons according to the true value of their real and personal estates, their stock upon land and in trade, their income by offices, pensions, and professions. A duty of one penny per week for one year was laid upon all persons not receiving alms. A further imposition of one farthing in the pound per week was fixed upon all servants receiving four pounds per annum as wages, and upwards to eight pounds a-year inclusive. Those who received from eight to sixteen pounds were taxed at one halfpenny ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... favour by this assembly. But it is not justifiable. Your favourite science has her own great aims independent of all others; and if, notwithstanding her steady devotion to her own progress, she can scatter such rich alms among her sisters, it should be remembered that her charity is of the sort that does not impoverish, but "blesseth him that ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... leave, and she went and began bestowing alms upon them, and examining them closely. And when she had come to one of them, and was going to give him some money, she caught sight of the ring which she had given to the Prince in the other world, and her sisters' rings too—for it really was he. So she seized him by the hand, ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... into the tide, Angel and demon troubled, of a man's mind; And if my alms are scattered far and wide, Only my love to find, Only to pave a path ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... never used its influence to make the hire worthy of the labourer; instead of that, it has always sought to grind the last penny out of the people, and then it pauperized them with alms," ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... "and God knows," he added, "we are grieved enough to learn that he is not silenced." What these heresies preached by Petri were, appears from a polemic hurled at the young reformer by Brask's deacon. They include, among other things, a denial of the priest's authority to solicit alms, with assertions that men should place no faith in the Virgin or in other saints, but in God alone; that the priest's first duty is to preach, not pray, and that confession should be made to none but God. Surely we have here ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... He wore the black gown of the pensioners of the Hospital of Grey Friars. The steps of this good man had been ordered hither by heaven's decree to this alms-house! ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... thanks to God, And speed thee home, and sleep; and since thy son No children left, take to thee orphans twain And rear them, in his honour, unto Christ; And yearly, when the death-day of thy son Returns, his birth-day name it; call thy friends; Give alms; and range the poor around thy door, So shall they feast, and pray. Woman, farewell: All night the dark upon thy face hath lain; Yet shall we know each other, ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... leper raised not the gold from the dust:— "Better to me the poor man's crust, Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door: That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives only the worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty: But he who gives but a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight,— That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through all ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... returneth to thy glory. . . . We humbly beg that this mind may be steadfastly in us; and that thou, by our hands and the hands of others, on whom thou shalt bestow the same spirit, wilt please to convey a largess of new alms ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... give your time, your care, your affection, yourself. For whatever you may do, your money certainly is not yourself. Tokens of interest and of kindness go farther and are of more use than any gifts whatever. How many unhappy persons, how many sufferers, need consolation far more than alms! How many who are oppressed are aided rather by protection ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... it was day, we began our journey towards Nantz, and by the way we passed by a little poor chapel, at the door of which a friar begged an alms, saying, that he would show us there the greatest wonder in the world. We resolved to go with him. He went before us to the altar, and out of a cupboard, with great devotion, he took a box, and ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... She had excused herself on the plea of her ill-health; and he was riding forth in no amiable mood, when an old gipsy woman, well known in the neighbourhood, accosted him with the usual prayer for alms. He was curtly dismissing her, when she mentioned her desire to pay her respects to the young Duchess. It then occurred to him that the sight of this ragged crone, and the chronicle of her woes, might be an excellent medicine ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... to see a wretched, down-trodden, alms-house looking set of creatures; for the word slave, and all the changes which are rung on that word, made me think only of people who are convicts, such as you see in the state-prison yard at Charlestown, Mass. I never expected that ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... of Dr. Mittelmann's weaknesses. "The principal industrial occupation of the inhabitants seems at present to be begging. In spite of their hostile glances the crowd did not hesitate to gather round as we entered our car, and quite a hundred greedy hands were stretched towards us for alms. But in Liege, without the shadow of a doubt the best of all was the magnificent Burgundy which we drank there; perhaps we had never relished wine so much in our lives."[157] One wonders whether these pioneers of Kultur ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... Thus they were four in number, and the customary developments followed: begging at first, the girl putting out her hand at the instigation of the three prowlers, who remained on the watch and drew alms by force at nighttime from belated bourgeois encountered in dark corners; next came vulgar vice and its wonted attendant, blackmail; and then theft, petty larceny to begin with, the pilfering of things displayed for sale by shopkeepers, and afterwards more serious affairs, premeditated ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... still Colonel House, kindhearted and unobtrusive. He has seen, and he is satisfied. He has a fine and perhaps half-unconscious loyalty to the great man from whose shoulders he surveyed the world. His is an ego that brushes itself off readily after a fall and asks for no alms of sympathy. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... Bishop," she piped in a shrill voice; "and what does your Grace at my humble door? Do you come to bless me and give me alms?" ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... are led by the Lord! O Florence! the time of singing and dancing is at an end; now is the time to shed floods of tears for thy sins. Thy sins, O Florence! thy sins, O Rome! thy sins, O Italy! They have brought these chastisements upon thee! Repent ye, then; give alms, offer up prayers, be united! O my people! I have long been as thy father; I have labored all the days of my life to teach ye the truths of faith and of godly living, yet have I received naught but tribulation, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... feel defiled if you touched them; would shut the door in your face if you proposed to call; whom you slave for, fight for, die for, and are not ashamed of it, but proud; whose existence is a perpetual insult to you and you are afraid to resent it; who are mendicants supported by your alms, yet assume toward you the airs of benefactor toward beggar; who address you in the language of master to slave, and are answered in the language of slave to master; who are worshiped by you with your mouth, while in your heart—if you have one—you despise yourselves for it. The ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... "How are all the good people in Coblentz?"—he says, "How is the Man in the Custom-House?" Thus the giant has a great partto play in the town; and thus ended the first day of Flemming's Rhine-journey; and the only good deed he had done was to give an alms to a poor beggar woman, who lifted up ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... seen her double. She had appeared to herself clothed in rags, turning with a shrivelled, withered hand the latch of her own shop-door, seeming to be at the threshold, yet at the same time seated in her armchair behind the counter. She was asking alms of herself, and heard herself speaking from the doorway and also from her seat ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... went homeward in the red sunset, she paused for a moment to speak to an old free negro who was begging for alms. She gave him something, and when he had shambled on she stood still a moment here at the corner of the street, with her eyes upon the beautiful rosy west. There was a garden wall behind her and a tall ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... squeezed themselves in behind the poor old women of the neighborhood for whom festivals were perquisites, and who, maimed or deformed, knelt on the stone floor close to the entrance, while with keenly observant, ubiquitous eyes they proffered their aves and their petitions for alms with the same exemplary patience and fervor—"Per l'amor ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... the reconcentrados in the suburbs of Matanzas. I can never forget to my dying day the hopeless anguish in their despairing eyes. Huddled about their little bark huts, they raised no voice of appeal to us for alms as we went among them.... Men, women, and children stand silent, famishing with hunger. Their only appeal comes from their sad eyes, through which one looks as through an open window ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... An alms is irremediable. Gratitude is paralysis. A benefit is a sticky and repugnant adherence which deprives you of free movement. Those odious, opulent, and spoiled creatures whose pity has thus injured you are well aware of this. It is done—you are their creature. They have bought ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... from its accustomed closure, and, being carelessly left to oblivion, at last become putrid. He is not ashamed to eat fruit and cheese over an open book, and to transfer his empty cup from side to side upon it; and because he has not his alms-bag at hand, he leaves the rest of the fragments in his books. He never ceases to chatter with eternal garrulity to his companions; and while he adduces a multitude of reasons void of physical meaning, he ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... but he hurried on as one possessed of a demon: "A little love, a little sacrifice, a little practical brotherly care from each of you each day would help. We don't want your alms, we want justice. Thousands of babies—loved just as yours are loved—are slaughtered every month through poisoned food that comes from commercial greed. Thousands of fathers and brothers over this land are killed every year because it is cheaper ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... is it to be denied that the souls of the departed are relieved by the piety of their living friends, when the sacrifice of the Mediator is offered for them, or alms are given in the Church. But these things are profitable to those who, while they lived, deserved that they might avail them. There is a life so good as not to require them, and there is another so ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... Give alms of thy goods, and never turn thy face from any poor man; and then the face of the Lord shall not be turned ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... with it. The monks became very fond of him, and made him a member of the Congregation Cassinensi; the poet Tasso also was a member of this fraternity. This membership gave him the right to share in the masses, prayers, and alms of the community, and after his death the same offices for the repose of his soul would be performed as if he had been a ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... Pope decreed that whoever would kiss the said stone, and repeat the Credo five times afterwards, should be capable of receiving an indulgence for 500 years: which indulgence must however be purchased at the rate of six groschen, to be bestowed in alms at Rome. And this inestimable benefit he, poor Friar Peter, had come from his brotherhood of St. Francis at Offingen solely to dispense to ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... requested in such an august presence as this to speak of the "Citizen Soldier," I cannot help feeling like the citizen soldier of Hibernian extraction who came up, in the streets of New York, to a general officer and held out his hand for alms, evidently wanting to put himself temporarily on the General's pay-roll, as it were. The General said: "Why don't you work?" He said he couldn't on account of his wounds. The General asked where he was wounded. He said, "In ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... their bribers, and the whole race of lawyers down to the catchpole. On the other side," said he, "there are physicians, apothecaries, doctors, misers, merchants, extortioners, usurers, refusers to pay tithes, wages, rents, or alms which were left to schools and charity houses; purveyors and chapmen who keep and raise the market to their own price; shopkeepers (or sharpers) who make money out of the necessity or ignorance of the buyer; stewards of every degree, sturdy beggars, taverners ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... to extort alms from me would place her on the pinnacle as an artist. Among all the Cooper clan, to which she was allied, there was not one who ever begged from me, they having all found that the ripest nuts are those which fall from the tree of ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... after mass, and many having been induced to take the cross, an aged man of that district, named Cador, thus addressed the archbishop: "My lord, if I now enjoyed my former strength, and the vigour of youth, no alms should ransom me, no desire of inactivity restrain me, from engaging in the laudable undertaking you preach; but since my weak age and the injuries of time deprive me of this desirable benefit (for approaching ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... dignity, above the more abject of his miserable calling. The class had, intact, some privileges. A lodging, such as it was, was readily granted to them in some of the out-houses, and the usual awmous (alms) of a handful of meal (called a gowpen) was scarce denied by the poorest cottager. The mendicant disposed these, according to their different quality, in various bags around his person, and thus carried about with him the principal part of his sustenance, which he literally received for the ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... plodded on through the mud and rain, we overtook a poor lad painfully limping along with the help of a stick. He was a bright lad, who unbound his leg and showed me a large swelling above the knee. He spoke to me, though I did not understand him, but with sturdy independence did not ask for alms, and when I had seen his leg he bound it up again and limped on. Meeting him a little later at an inn, where he was sitting at a table with nothing before him to eat, I gave him a handful of cash which I had put in my pocket for him. He thanked ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... me madam, a large alms. Valuable to me as that sum is, and eagerly as I would accept it in any other circumstances, yet at present I must, however reluctantly, decline it. A voyage to Europe and such a sum, if your daughter's happiness were not in question, ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... blackguard was wont to pray for alms from Mistress Oldfield; and that dear charitable creature (are not most actresses dear, charitable creatures?) would often waste her practical sympathy upon him. She despised the man, but, with that generosity so characteristic of her craft, was ever ready ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... and they passed on. It was a piece of twenty copecks. From his dress and appearance they might well have taken him for a beggar asking alms in the streets, and the gift of the twenty copecks he doubtless owed to the blow, which made them feel sorry ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... raging in the heart of the government. On the 14th of June, 1563, Protestants were forbidden to work, with shops open, on the days of Catholic festivals. On the 14th of December, 1563, it was proclaimed that Protestants might not gather alms for the poor of their religion, unless in places where that religion was practised, and nowhere else. On the 24th of June, 1564, a proclamation from the king interdicted the exercise of the Reformed religion within the precincts of any royal residence. On ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... high and methought my evil days were at an end, and I stood waiting for alms to be given unasked and for wealth scattered on all sides in ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... I know, but that is not what you are doing. Is it necessary to render assistance in that way? You are walking along, and a man asks you for twenty kopeks. You give them to him. Is that alms? Do you give spiritual alms,—teach him. But what is it that you have given? It was only for the sake ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... higher destiny than that of being the Domna,—[Domna, lady or mistress, in corrupt Latin. Hence her name of Julia Domna] the lady of the soldiers, the mother of the camp, and the lady philosopher among the sages. What she gave me in the way of love was but copper alms. She threw golden solidi of love into Geta's lap in lavish abundance. And her sister and her nieces, who often lived with us, treated me exactly as she did. They were distantly civil, or they shunned me; but my brother was their spoiled plaything. I was as incapable as Geta was master of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... couldn't jump a counter worth shucks. I have seen him in his misery industriously study "What I Know About Farming," squat on a farm in the West, and bring himself, his wife, and four miserable offshoots to the alms-house by endeavoring to apply the rules set down in "What I Know About Farming" to 160 acres of land. I have seen the poor, half-paid type-setters strike for their altars, their sires, and more wages, and I have seen a troop of petticoats, with gal children inside ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... to give praise where it is needed than where it is deserved, and friendship so often seduces the iron stylus of justice into a vague flourish, that she writes what seems rather like an epitaph than a criticism. Yet if praise be given as an alms, we could not drop so poisonous a one into any man's hat. The critic's ink may suffer equally from too large an infusion of nutgalls or of sugar. But it is easier to be generous than to be just, and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... doesn't skin't) With cold austerity, against these wars On scamps—'tis Scampery that he abhors! Behold advance in dignity and state— Grave, smug, serene, indubitably great— Stanford, philanthropist! One hand bestows In alms what t'other one as justice owes. Rascality attends him like a shade, But closes, woundless, o'er my baffled blade, Its limbs unsevered, spirit undismayed. Faith! I'm for something can be made to feel, If, like Pelides, only in the ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... mission, in case he should deem the maiden worthy to be the bride of his king. Geneva was duly reached, and the seeming pilgrim, learning where the princess dwelt, and her habits of Christian charity towards strangers, sought her dwelling and begged for alms and shelter. Clotilde received him with all kindness, bade him welcome, and, in pursuance of the custom of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... who have watched and waited like her. A sickening sense of despair stole over her at last. They had forgotten her; they hated and despised her, and left her to her fate. There was nothing for it but to go to the alms-house and die, like ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... something to Alessandro del Bene. So I arose, and when I reached the Banchi, I met a man called Ser Benedetto, who was a great friend of mine. He was a notary, born in Florence, son of a blind man who said prayers about the streets for alms, and a Sienese by race. This Ser Benedetto had been very many years at Naples; afterwards he had settled in Rome, where he transacted business for some Sienese merchants of the Chigi. [1] My partner had over and over again asked him for ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... the morals of all time that you have outraged; you have insulted death!" How have we insulted death? Because at the moment when this woman dies, there passes in the street a man whom she had met more than once, to whom she had given alms from her carriage as she was going to her adulterous meetings; a blind man whom she was accustomed to see, who sang his song walking along slowly by the side of her carriage, to whom she threw a piece of money, but whose countenance made her ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... Cistercian monastery of Foigni, in the diocese of Laon, where he died in 1229. His sister, taking leave of him at the gates of the monastery, took up her abode in a small hut about ten miles distant. Here she spent a long life in dire poverty and austerity. She would refuse all alms, working laboriously for her daily sustenance, and spending all the time that remained in prayer and contemplation. Miracles are said to have proved her power with God, both during her lifetime and ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... Leonardos, Michael Angelos, in short, all our wealth of art and intellect? What is a miserable cur of an American millionaire, a dollar maniac, as compared with all those great men? Let him come and ask us for alms." ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... relief, for I had just received a letter from my wife, Polly, who was in a sad strait at home, which added to the amount of my own misfortunes. And while I was musing in this way, a street beggar appeared, and notwithstanding he was well dressed, demanded alms; and when I told him I had none to give, he set to cursing me right manfully, which was a custom with such knaves, who imitated the city fathers in more ways than one. And as if to show his contempt for one who had no alms to give, the knave threw me a shilling, which he advised me to spend for ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... whole supper, a piece of biscuit as large as one's thumb, in a little wine, to aid him to sleep. I may say without exaggeration that his whole life was one continual fast, for he took no breakfast, and every evening only a slight collation.... He used his whole substance in alms and pious works; and when he needed anything, such as clothes, linen, etc., he asked it from the seminary like the humblest of his ecclesiastics. He was most modest in matters of dress, and I had ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... the face and gesture of one in doubt, and if anything averse, but not insuperably. The bounty of royalty, or of rich Americans, is not felt as alms. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... according to the custom of those days—when one man had to be paid in coppers, another in silver. Czipra filled her hand and began to search among the mass for the smallest copper, a kreutzer,[76] as the correct alms for ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... instituted, certainly he deserved to be canonised; but however grand may be the reputation of having founded and erected so many public monuments, yet when it is considered that numbers of the inmates of the different convents and monasteries erected by this Saint were obliged to demand alms from house to house, and of persons passing along the streets, it will be proved that the grand result of Saint Louis' operations was to fill Paris with beggars; although it certainly must be admitted that some of his other acts in a great degree ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousand-fold Relief Societies;—though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... not your justice before men, to be seen by them: otherwise you shall not have a reward of your FATHER WHO is in heaven.... But when thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth; that thy alms may be in secret, and thy FATHER WHO seeth in secret will repay thee.... Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that persecute ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... of its youth, so it does of its aged, sick or invalid members. It guards whoever, by whatever circumstance, has become unable to work. There is in this no question of charity, but of duty; not of an alms morsel, but of an assistance born of every possible consideration due him, who, during the time of his strength and ability to work, fulfilled his duties to the commonwealth. The setting sun of old age is beautiful with all that society ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... long serge gown, with a cowl, like a mendicant monk, and as they approached he put out his open hand for alms. ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... piece of parchment, whereon I read what purports to be a melancholy account of shipwreck and disaster, to the particular detriment, loss, and damnification of one Pietro Frugoni, who is, in consequence, sorely in want of the alms of all charitable Christian persons, and who is, in short, the bearer of this veracious document, duly certified and indorsed by an Italian consul in one of our Atlantic cities, of a high-sounding, but ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... for the first time to call to mind former states of existence, should choose a time after breakfast, when he has returned from collecting alms, and is alone and plunged in meditation, and has been absorbed in the four trances in succession. On rising from the fourth trance, which leads to the higher powers, he should consider the event which last took place, namely, his sitting ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... at your word, you see, Miss Mackenzie. You told me not to give alms in the street, and to bring the begging children to you. So here is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... emptied of all their beggars, cripples, wastrels, poor, and idiots on crutches; these wretches scattered along the road, with accordions and hurdy-gurdies; they held out their hands and hats to receive the alms that Yann threw to them with his own noble look and Gaud with her beautiful queenly smile. Some of these poor waifs were very old and wore gray locks on heads that had never held much; crouching in the hollows of the roadside, they were of the same colour as the earth ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... the humble studies of the Roman jurists. It maintained in peace, prosperity, happiness, and, as its maligners say, in comfort, an immense population. If they had not been as comfortable as they were,—if a tenth part of them had received alms every year, and a tenth part were flogged in the public schools every year,—if one in forty had been sent to prison every year, as in the happy city which publishes the "Atlantic Monthly,"—then Sybaris, perhaps, would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... therefore, who are the holy ones of God and humble of heart, that you will not be flattered by them, and that you will neither eat nor drink with them, nor receive their alms, until they do penance with many tears, and liberate the servants of God and the baptized hand-maids of Christ, for whom he was crucified and died. "He that offereth sacrifice of the goods of the poor, is as one that sacrificeth the son in the presence of the father." "Riches, he saith, which ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... the tramp, who at the back door solicited alms of a suspicious housewife. His nose was large and of a purple hue. The woman stared at it with an accusing eye, and ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... men were coming down the street arrayed in marvelous cloaks. All were sallow of skin and swarthy of hair, and most of them wore strange beards. They were coming slowly, and they walked with staves, and their hands were out for alms. ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... Church] The Canons of 1604 order a number of things to be provided at the charges of the parish, which may be included under this head, such as Communion Table, Pulpit, Reading-desk, Font, Alms-chest, Alms-basin, Vessels for Holy Communion, Bible, Common Prayer Book, Book of Homilies, Parchment Register Book and Coffer. It would not be easy to make a complete list of things authorised by this ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... I was bad, for I had fallen back into my former defects of telling lies and getting in a passion; with all these defects I nevertheless willingly gave alms, and I much loved the poor. I assiduously prayed to you, O my God, and I took pleasure in hearing you well spoken of. I do not doubt you will be astonished, Sir, by such resistance, and by so long a course of inconstancy; so many graces, so much ingratitude; ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... mean that I do anything. It's pure selfishness on my part, as I told you. But you may feel pretty sure, that, if a man's name is always in the papers, as 'our estimable fellow-citizen, President This, Director That, and Treasurer T'other,' he 'does not give indiscriminate alms':—I believe that is the phrase. Perhaps he won't rob, like my friend Sandford; but his 'disinterested labors' are an economical substitute for substantial charity, and his desire for a place in the public eye is the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... from that sin, mine being bitterly burdened with the memory of many a sixpence given to beggars of whom I knew nothing but that they had pale faces and thin waists. But it is not that kind of street beggary that is the worst beggars' trade. Home alms which it is their worst degradation to receive. Those scamps know well enough that you and your wisdom are worth nothing to them. They won't beg of you. They will beg of their sisters, and mothers, and wives, and children, and of any one else who is enough ashamed of being ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... out of the obscurity of the doorway revolving these things in his mind, a ragged and decrepit beggar, who had just dragged himself with slow and weary steps to this spot, begged an alms in the professional whine common to his class. The Caliph gave him a small piece of silver, and then watched him as he crossed the road and entered a dilapidated and wretched hovel, which stood close by the outer wall of the house of the dealer in ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... yet, if we are directed only by our particular natures, and regulate our inclinations by no higher rule than that of our reasons, we are but moralists; divinity will still call us heathens. Therefore this great work of charity must have other motives, ends, and impulsions. I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of my God; I draw not my purse for his sake that demands it, but his that enjoined it; I relieve no man upon the rhetorick of his miseries, nor to content mine own commiserating disposition; for this ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne |
