"Miser" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... children played; There youths and maidens dreaming strayed; Oh, precious hours! oh, golden prime And affluence of love and time! Even as a miser counts his gold, Those hours the ancient timepiece told,— ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... to satisfy the longing of your soul. You said, when you saw men going down into the dust and tussle of life, "Whatever god I worship, it won't be a golden calf." You saw men plunge into the life of a spendthrift, or go down into the life of a miser, like one of old smothered to death in his own money-chest, and you thought, "I shall be very careful never to be caught in these traps in which so many men have fallen, to their souls' ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... house in winter, but in spring Mother set him out in the flower-bed, just beside the double buttercup. So when the buttercup blossomed, with its lovely yellow balls, I played that Old Moneybags, who was an odious old miser, was counting his gold. Then, when the petals dropped, he piled his money in little heaps, and finally he buried it. He wasn't very interesting, Old Moneybags, but the buttercups were lovely. Then there were ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... might have prompted a hermit to leave his cave, a philosopher to renounce his books, a miser to give a penny to a beggar. It spoke of youth and love and growing things, of nest building in the trees, of water rippling over stones, of buds bursting into bloom, of grass blades pushing through ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... two hundred per cent. Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of income, the shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps at Mrs. Hackit's, who, though she always said Mrs. Fripp was 'as false as two folks', and no better than a miser and a heathen, had yet a leaning towards her ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... expression, by art, of the joy or grief of noble persons, for right causes. And accurately in proportion to the rightness of the cause, and purity of the emotion, is the possibility of the fine art. A maiden may sing of her lost love, but a miser cannot sing of his lost money. And with absolute precision, from highest to lowest, the fineness of the possible art is an index of the moral purity and majesty of the emotion it expresses. You may test it practically at any instant. ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... use of money. His family had the bare comforts of life, but his wife was a drudge, and his children had neither books nor pictures, nor any of those other things so necessary to the right education of children. Jack was yet young, but he was in great danger of becoming a miser. The truth was, he had made up his mind to get rich. It took him some time to make up his mind to be dishonest, but he was in a hurry to be rich, and lately he had been what his neighbors called "slippery" in his dealings. Poor Jack! he was selling ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... "A miser, as sure as you're born!" said Wyngate, with optimistic decision. "That's always the way. You'll find every crack of that blessed old shed stuck full of greenbacks and certificates of deposit, and lots of gold dust and coin buried all over that cow ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... night, when the miser was at the point of death, John saw a figure enter the room, deliberately look round, and retire. The face of the figure was the face of the portrait! After a moment of terror, John sprang up to pursue, but the shrieks of his uncle recalled him. The agony was nearly ended; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... wise he is to blame that spendeth over largely; and therefore saith Cato: Use (saith he) the riches that thou hast obtained in such manner, that men have no matter nor cause to call thee neither wretch nor miser, for it is a great shame to a man to have a poor heart and a rich purse; he saith also: The goods that thou hast obtained, use 'em by measure, that is to say, spend measurably, for they that foolishly waste and squander the goods that they have, when ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... a perfectly wonderful name for the lead!) hearing shots and coming on a dead run to the rescue." She picked up the cat and walked slowly down the hard-trodden path to the stable. "But there aren't any bandits, and dad hasn't any gold or anything else worth stealing—Ket, if dad isn't a miser, he's poor! And Lone Morgan is merely ashamed of the way I talked to him, and afraid I'll queer myself with the neighbours. No Western lead that I ever saw would act like that. Why, he didn't even want to ride ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... I have. I have a mind, says he, that balances in any direction that the public rekires. That's wot I call a well-balanced mind. I sold out and bid adoo to Billson. He is now an outcast in the State of Vermont. The miser'ble man once played Hamlet. There wasn't any orchestry, and wishin' to expire to slow moosic, he died playin' on a claironett himself, interspersed with hart-rendin' groans, & such is the world! Alars! alars! how onthankful we air to that Providence which kindly allows us to live ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... Should bold Columbus in his search succeed, And find those beds in which bright metals breed; Tracing the sun, who seems to steal away, That, miser-like, he might alone survey The wealth which he in western mines did lay,— Not all that shining ore could give my heart The joy, this conquered kingdom will impart; Which; rescued from these misbelievers' hands, Shall now, at once, shake off its double bands: ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... recesses of my soul? I should have gone to my father and said, "Bring me the son-in-law whom you desire; my will abdicates,—marry me to whom you please." And the man might have been a notary, banker, miser, fool, dullard, wearisome as a rainy day, common as the usher of a school, a manufacturer, or some brave soldier without two ideas,—he would have had a resigned and attentive servant in me. But what an awful suicide! never could my soul have ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, Poor man, said I, you pay too ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... marquis was that unpopular character, a miser. Your miser may be looked up to, in a way, as an ideal votary of Mammon, but he is never loved. On his vast possessions, mainly in coal-fields, he was even more detested than the ordinary run of capitalists. The cottages and farmhouses on his estates were dilapidated and ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... good precepts, and better example have been thrown away on me. I am still a child. Your letter of the 7th inst. reached me yesterday. Of course it made me very happy; but those pretty little playthings from D. M'Kinnon delighted me. I looked at them over and over, with as much pleasure as a miser over his hoard. But you must send me the shawl. I shall be down at the races, and want to have the ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... undergone. The robber looked at him with a hard disdain. "What have I ever done to thee, wretch?" cried the old man,—"what but loved and cherished thee? Thou wert an orphan,—an outcast. I nurtured, nursed, adopted thee as my son. If men call me a miser, it was but that none might despise thee, my heir, because Nature has stunted and deformed thee, when I was no more. Thou wouldst have had all when I was dead. Couldst thou not spare me a few months or days,—nothing to thy youth, all that is left ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... your knowledge of the world, you know not how a woman feels when she has been suddenly deprived of her beauty. The miser who loses his wealth—the fond mother from whom death snatches away her darling child; these bereaved ones do not feel their losses more acutely than does a once lovely woman feel the loss of her charms. Do not talk to me of philosophy, for ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... eagerly asked the miser, his face brightening. The idea had struck him, as being a good one. The ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... the state where Hedgeville is, Farmer Weeks is her legal guardian, and he could make her work for him until she was twenty-one. He's an old miser, and as mean as he can be. But once she is out of that state, he can't touch her, and Mr. Jamieson has had Miss Eleanor appointed her guardian, and mine too, for that state. The state where Miss Eleanor and all of ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... if, miser-like, he had counted his bags of treasure. And then see the contrasted singular, Xemian: he finds them all one ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... the floor besides, were boxes and trunks, some with covers, some without; the latter overflowing with rubbish. Evan wondered whimsically if the closed boxes were filled with shining gold eagles. It would be quite in keeping, he thought. But on second thoughts, no. Your modern miser is too sensible of the advantages ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... And fear, and hope, and longing unexpressed, In pain most human, and in rapture brief Almost divine. Love would possess, yet deepens when denied; And love would give, yet hungers to receive; Love like a prince his triumph would achieve; And like a miser in the dark his joys would hide. Love is most bold: He leads his dreams like armed men in line; Yet when the siege is set, and he must speak, Calling the fortress to resign Its treasure, valiant love grows weak, And hardly dares his purpose to unfold. Less with his faltering lips ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... avarice," sure enough: but, unless we are unjust and unkind, he can by no means be described as a MISER King. He collects what is his; gives you accurately what is yours. For wages paid he will see work done; he will ascertain more and more that the work done be work needful for him; and strike it off, if not. A Spartan man, as we said,—though probably he knew as little of the Spartans ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... in a large and antique house, with hooded windows, in Mercer's Lane, and was a dealer in antiques and curios. And his popular sobriquet was Simon the Saver (Anglice, miser). ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... different stuff, and 'twas rumored by old people that had known the family for several generations that he favored an ancient forefather by name of Brimpson Drake. This bygone man was a miser and the richest of the race. He'd lived in the days when we were at war with France and America, and when Princetown sprang up, and a gert war-prison was built there to cage all the chaps we got on our hands through winning such a lot o' sea battles. ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... developed on the firm ground of the Berlin life, and among which Frau Volkstett had perceived (as a most remarkable phenomenon and a proof that extremes sometimes meet) the disposition of a veritable little miser—and it made him altogether ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... rich, lies," said he testily, and with an uneasy gesture which explained to my mind the dilapidated state of the place. Maurice Gorman was not only a poltroon but a miser, and five hundred pounds were worth more to him ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... these manifold shades that the artist-professor established characteristic differences in parts wherein so many actors had seen but the identical fact of a similar passion or a similar vice. To his mind, all misers were not the same miser, nor all seducers the same seducer. In singing particularly, with what ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... own brothers, sisters, cousins, and aunts were calling her a miser, a snob, a brute. The whole family wanted to move to New York and make a house-party. They had every right to, too, for did not the Declaration of ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... she was with me, and, miser with my last few hours, I never left her side for five minutes. At last on the 10th of May the weakness passed into delirium, but even then the faithful eyes followed me about the room, until at length they closed for ever, and as the ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... and especially of the new element in Nathan's prophecy,—the perpetuity of the Davidic sovereignty in the dim, far-off future. Thankfulness delights to praise the Giver for the greatness of His gift. Faith strengthens its hold of its blessings by telling them over, as a miser does his treasure. To recount them to God is the way ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... sufficiently for the satisfaction, which attends riches. A miser receives delight from his money; that is, from the power it affords him of procuring all the pleasures and conveniences of life, though he knows he has enjoyed his riches for forty years without ever employing them; and consequently cannot conclude by any species of ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... compassion removed all tendency to laughter. Had he learned these reverences from an automaton or a performing dog? Is this beseeching look the look of one who is sick unto death, or does there lurk behind it the mocking cunning of a miser? Is that a mortal who in the agony of death stands before the public in the art arena, and, like a dying gladiator, bids for their applause in his last convulsions? or is it some phantom arisen from the grave, a vampire with a violin, who comes to suck, if not the ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... the venerable scholar, who lived in the simplest way, for great scholars are always poor. He was poor, as to money, but very rich in his sweet young daughter Hildegarde and his library. He had been all his life collecting his library, book and book, and he lived it as a miser loves his hoarded gold. He said the two strings of his heart were rooted, the one in his daughter, the other in his books; and that if either were severed he must die. Now in an evil hour, hoping to win a marriage portion for his child, this simple old man had entrusted his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "The old miser said that he should have been delighted to give the poor fellow a shilling, but most unfortunately he had left his purse ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... Andrew," said the expiring miser, "my whole estate, and desire him to be frugal." Andrew, in a sorrowful tone (as is usual on such occasions), prayed heaven to prolong his life and health to enjoy it himself. "I recommend Simon, my third son, to the care of his elder brother, and leave him, besides, four thousand ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the large brown volume and read: "'Nicholas Herison, an old miser, was hung at Batchford in 1763 for the murder of a farm lad who had accidentally discovered his secret hoard. His ghost is supposed to traverse the countryside, appearing sometimes as a white owl, sometimes ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... it—say ten and six, The lowest price a miser could fix: I don't pretend with horns of mine, Like some in the advertising line, To 'MAGNIFY SOUNDS' on such marvellous scales, That the sounds of a cod seem as big as a whale's; But popular rumours, right or wrong, - Charity sermons, short or long, - Lecture, speech, concerto, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... crippled with his debts, that I mind it being a fine treat when I and my sisters had a new gown apiece, though of the commonest serge, and all but bare necessaries were cut off from our board. Walter laid it so to heart that of a spendthrift he became a miser. I would not have thee so to do, but I bid thee mind that we have very little to live on, owing all we yet have, and have brought withal, to the goodness of my dear Aunt Joyce; and if thou ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... too, in his drawer, a box, which was quite heavy with money. She did not believe he had bought so much as a fish-hook, since he had been in their family. If he should go on in this way he will grow up to be a miser. Mr. Johnson smiled at his wife's earnestness, and remarked that with such an example of generosity as Reuben had constantly before him, he could not believe the child was in much danger from the fault she feared. "It ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... day Miss Love came to ask me to go out with her to visit some of her poor people, among others one—a very singular character—a woman who was reported to be a desperate miser, insomuch that she starved herself and her child for the sake of saving money. It was said that she was very ill at the time—thought to be dying— and seemed to be in a wretched state of destitution. Her name, Miss Love told me, ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... Winter sat alone and still, Locking his treasures in the flinty earth; And like a miser comfortless and chill, Frown'd upon pleasure and ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... and he began to sound me about Therese, but found my lips as tightly closed as the lid of a miser's coffer. I told him she was a child when I made the acquaintance of her family at Bologna, and that the resemblance between her brother and myself was a mere accident—a freak of nature. He happened ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... spin the coarser clue, The finest of the wool is left for you: Spare me but one small portion of the twine, And let the Sisters cut below your line: The rest among the rubbish may they sweep, Or add it to the yarn of some old miser's heap. But if you this ambitious prayer deny, (A wish, I grant; beyond mortality,) Then let me sink beneath proud Arcite's arms, And, I once dead, let him possess ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... feed on for a night, A noon, although the untasted feast you lay, To mock me, of your beauty. That you might Be lover for one space, and make essay What 'tis to pass unsuppered to your couch, Keep fast from love all day; and so be taught The famine which these craving lines avouch! Ah! miser of good things that cost thee naught, How know'st thou poor men's hunger?—Misery! When I go doleless ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... Washington and Polly Holloway, and belonged to Judge J.B. O'Neall. They lived about 3 miles west of town, near Bush River. An old colored man lived nearby. His name was Harry O'Neall, and everybody said he was a miser and saved up his money and buried it near the O'Neall spring. Somebody dug around there but never found any money. There were two springs, one was called 'horse spring', but the one where the money was supposed to be buried had a ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... to be doing something again. I was a little afraid when he made the offer, but knew that he had made a great deal of money out of my improvements and was very wealthy, and I did think he would be true to me, knowing as he did my circumstances. Look at this miser, with not a child in the world, and no one on earth that he cares one straw about, and yet so grasping! Oh! what will the poor ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... Cardigan Street on Saturday nights. He had concealed his adventure with the baby from Ada and her mother, feeling ashamed, as if he had discovered an unmanly taste for mud pies and dolls. But the imperious instinct was aroused, and he gratified it in secret, caressing the child by stealth as a miser runs to his hoard. In the women's presence he ignored its existence, but he soon discovered that Ada shared none of his novel sensations. And he grew indignant at her indifference, feeling that his ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... in poor streets, greatly to the disadvantage of the children's health and morals; to concentrate their energies to the narrow and sordid aim of saving money; to cultivate the instincts and feelings of the miser. ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... the sweating ploughman toil, The yearning miser count his gain, The fevered scholar waste his oil, But I ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... God can dumbness keep While Sin creeps grinning through His house of Time, Stabbing His saintliest children in their sleep, And staining holy walls with clots of crime? — Or, How may He whose wish but names a fact Refuse what miser's-scanting of supply Would richly glut each void where man hath lacked Of grace or bread? — or, How may Power deny Wholeness to th' almost-folk that hurt our hope — These heart-break Hamlets who so barely fail In life or art that but a hair's more ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... there by holding one hand in my trouser pocket. In that order, then, I interviewed Mrs. Gabbitas in the scullery, to receive her congratulations before proceeding to church. Altogether, it was a day of pleasing excitement; but, greatly though it intrigued me, the purchase left me as much a miser as ever, my only other extravagance for a long time being a cream-coloured parasol—my present to Mrs. Gabbitas; and—-I may as well confess it—I could not have brought myself to buy that, but for the fact that it was called ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... said, "the books—the generous friends who met me without suspicion—the merciful masters who never used me ill! The only years of my life that I can look back on with something like pride are the years I passed in the miser's house. The only unalloyed pleasure I have ever tasted is the pleasure that I found for myself on the miser's shelves. Early and late, through the long winter nights and the quiet summer days, I drank at the fountain of knowledge, and never wearied ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... or fidelities of what kind soever, forgot his assumed gravity when he heard this determination, and laughed outright at the simplicity of such a proceeding. He pronounced it, in his peremptory way, to be foolish and frivolous; compared it with the miser who, in burying a treasure, does good neither to himself nor any one else; and said, that lions and serpents might indeed be shut up in cages, but ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... broker, the old miser, obstinate as are the half-fuddled, began to mumble, 'I came not here to drink, O Ukleet, but to make a bargain; and my bags be here, and I like not yonder veil, nor the presence of yonder Vizier, nor the secresy of this. Now, by the Prophet and that interdict of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... volley of slang utterly untranslatable, "that is how you treat your betters, is it? Miser, monster, crocodile, serpent! He wanted the money and you refused it? Ah! son of Satan! You live on other men's miseries! Run after him, quick, and give him this, and this, and this, and this; and say you were only in jest, and that the things were worth a Sheik's ransom. Stay! You must ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... alone, on reception days, was able to prevail on the Pope to don a clean cassock if the one he was wearing happened to be soiled by snuff. And though his Holiness stubbornly shut himself up alone in his bed-room every night from a spirit of independence, which some called the anxiety of a miser determined to sleep alone with his treasure, Signor Squadra at all events occupied an adjoining chamber, and was ever on the watch, ready to respond to the faintest call. Again, it was he who respectfully intervened whenever his ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... he said about the timber; there's a cracking and crashing in the woods already. And a mild autumn, too, with no frost in the ground as yet to stop the ploughing; Nils grasps at the time like a miser, to save as much as possible ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... Duncton Hill glow in its place. She had bidden Hillyard look at the Weald of Sussex, that he might carry the smell of its soil, the aspect of its blooms and dark woodlands and brown cottages away with him as a treasure to which he could secretly turn like a miser to his gold; and she herself, with them ever before her eyes, had forgotten them altogether. To sink back into the rank and file—how fine she had thought it, and how little she had heeded it! Now she had got to pay for her ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... successes in gallantry he owed them to the terror inspired by his cruelty. The left hand of this terrible Catholic, which lay on the outside of the bed, will complete this sketch of his character. Stretched out as if to guard the countess, as a miser guards his hoard, that enormous hand was covered with hair so thick, it presented such a network of veins and projecting muscles, that it gave the idea of a branch of birch clasped with a growth of ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... really well founded, though not entitled to much respect. Sardinia did menace Austria. She menaced her by the force of her example,—as the honest man menaces the rogue, as the peaceful man menaces the ruffian, as the charitable man menaces the miser, as the Good Samaritan menaced the priest and Levite. In the sense that virtue ever menaces vice, and right constantly menaces wrong, Sardinia was a menace to Austria;—and as we often find the wrongdoer denouncing the good as subverters ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... been seen riding in Henry Dunbar's carriage, and from that moment he had become invested with a romantic interest. He was a reduced gentleman, who had seen better days; or he was a miser, perhaps—an eccentric individual, who wore shabby boots and shiny hats for ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... him from her side— Her every hour with joy beguiles. To make the gulf between us wide, He acts the miser ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... blessed with a good memory. In times of excitement such as that I seize all the best phrases and carry them away, and bury them out of sight, like a miser. They are my nuggets ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... his joy, with gold Beneath his pillow in the night; My head shall lie on soft warm hair, And miser's know not that delight. Captains that own their ships can boast Their joy to feel the rolling brine— But I shall lie near her, and feel Her soft ...
— Foliage • William H. Davies
... indeed. Alla bisogna, Monsignore." Then, gravely kissing the medallion, he thrust it into one pocket, the coins into the other, made up a bundle of the two defunct suits, and muttering to himself, "Beast, miser, that I am, to disgrace the padrone with all these savings in his service!" ran downstairs into his pantry, caught up his hat and stick, and in a few moments more was seen trudging off to the neighbouring ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... draw sword no more." He spoke, and smiled; and Gudurz made reply:— "What then, O Rustum, will men say to this, When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks, Hidest thy face? Take heed lest men should say: 'Like some old miser, Rustum hoards his fame, And shuns to peril it with younger men,'" And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply:— "Oh, Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words? Thou knowest better words than this to say. What is one more, one less, obscure or famed, Valiant ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the Mother Tongue will be; forasmuch as nothing is useful except inasmuch as it is used; nor is there a perfect existence with inactive goodness. Even so of gold, and pearls, and other treasures which are subterranean, those which are in the hand of the miser are in a lower place than is the earth wherein the treasure was concealed. The gift truly of this Commentary is the explanation of the Songs, for whose service it is made. It seeks especially to lead men to wisdom and to virtue, as will be seen by the process of this treatise. This design ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... only to scrape and hoard, moidering away her loveless life on the futile energies and sordid aims of a miser's wretched pleasures. But every now and then she had risen up out of the slough into which she had gradually sunk, and had done some grand things that marked her name with so many white stones. While she gloried in her skill in filching from the pig what would serve the chickens, in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... services, and the shelter he afforded, were occasionally rewarded with gold, which, though of little actual use or value to him as a circulating medium, gradually exercised a strange fascination over his senses. He hoarded his guineas with the doting fondness of the miser; he looked on them with more pleasure than on the faces of his children; and listened to their chink with a satisfaction no tone of household love or sweet Alpine melody could call forth. It chanced one day that our hunter, in the pursuit of his ordinary ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... the beautiful little town of Saumur thinks of the historic figures connected with its name? Even the grand personality of Duplessis Morny sinks into insignificance by comparison with that of the miser's daughter, the gentle, ill-starred Eugnie Grandet! And who when Carcassonne first breaks upon his view thinks of aught but Nadaud's immortal ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... said Jessie; "but he is hardly ever there. He is an old miser, you know-what they call a millionaire, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... salad, there should be a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a wise man for salt, and a madcap to stir the ingredients up, and mix them ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... as they were miser's gold, Counts and recounts the mornward steps of Time, The darkness thrills with conscience of each crime By Death committed, daily grown more bold. Once more the list of all my wrongs is told, And ghostly hands stretch ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... late to reflect," I said to the old man. "I must go; it is impossible for me not to go. Do not make yourself wretched, Saveliitch. God is good; we shall perhaps meet again. Mind you be not ashamed to spend my money; do not be a miser. Buy all you have need of, even if you pay three times the value of things. I make you a present of the money if in three days' ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... was a priest, and who had been rector of the Academy of Poitiers for three and thirty years, and had died at seventy-nine. "I lost him young," said he. This brother, of whom but little memory remains, was a peaceable miser, who, being a priest, thought himself bound to bestow alms on the poor whom he met, but he never gave them anything except bad or demonetized sous, thereby discovering a means of going to hell by way of paradise. As for M. Gillenormand the elder, he never haggled over his alms-giving, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... ony babies, we'll count them as lent; Hae we less, hae we mair, we will ay be content; For they say they hae mair pleasure that wins bu groat, Than the miser wi' his gear and ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... which came forth from the mint springing and shouting, "Hurrah! now I am going out into the wide world." And truly it did go out into the wide world. The children held it with warm hands, the miser with a cold and convulsive grasp, and the old people turned it about, goodness knows how many times, while the young people soon allowed it to roll away from them. The shilling was made of silver, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... As some lone miser visiting his store, Bends at his treasure, counts, re-counts it o'er; Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill, Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still: Thus to my breast alternate passions rise, 55 Pleas'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... now all fell to work more cheerfully for this burst of fun. The stalks rustled, the corn flashed downward, the golden heap grew and swelled to the light, slowly and surely, like a miser's gold. All went merrily on. Among those who worked least and laughed loudest, was the little constable that had taken so deep an interest in the affair that morning. Never did two ferret eyes twinkle so brightly, or peer ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... we thinke it so, it is no matter: In cases of defence, 'tis best to weigh The Enemie more mightie then he seemes, So the proportions of defence are fill'd: Which of a weake and niggardly proiection, Doth like a Miser spoyle his Coat, with ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... from the shelf; and then, to my great surprise, instead of drawing more beer, he poured an accurate half from one cup to the other. There was a kind of nobleness in this that took my breath away; if my uncle was certainly a miser, he was one of that thorough breed that goes near ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to visit Silas Shank the miser, as the people call him, though he must be very poor and miserable, as I cannot suppose that he would nearly starve himself if he had the means of buying proper ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... had impatiently gazed at the metal I had been fingering with all a miser's avidity, when my attention was taken by an object upon a rock close by where we had worked during the night—a toil that I had been ready to declare a dream, time after time, but for the solid ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid lips of lies, the cruel ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... with her mother's uncle at the Red Mill, as was told in the first volume of this series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill; Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret." The girl had found Uncle Jabez very hard to get along with at first, for he was a good deal of a miser, and his finer feelings seemed to have been neglected during a long life ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... Thessaliae campis Octavius abstulit ... famam.... This is analogous to the way in which the satirists use the names consecrated by Lucilius or Horace as types of a vice, and repeat the same symptoms ad nauseam, e.g. the miser who anoints his body with train oil, who locks up his leavings, who picks up a farthing from the road, &c. The veiled allusion to the poet Anser (Ecl. ix. 36) is perhaps recalled by Prop. iii. 32, 83, sqq. So the portents described by Virgil as following ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... that he had accumulated with such an earnest devotion and with so much perspicacity that the shrewdest merchant could not say that the Baron had ever erred in his taste or judgment. He loved them—his bibelots. He loved them intensely, like a miser; jealously, like a lover. Every day, at sunset, the iron gates at either end of the bridge and at the entrance to the court of honor are closed and barred. At the least touch on these gates, electric bells ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... traditions of the sacred race, and, against all appearances, had steadfastly hoped for the fulfilment of the promises that had been given in the olden times. More than this, too—each had treasured, as a miser hoards his gold, the ever-growing legacy of hate which the oppression and contempt of the Spaniards and their meaner descendants had heaped up from generation to generation against the long-awaited day of vengeance which, as but two or three in that strange company alone knew, ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... until to-night, Dolly," said Bessie, gravely. "You know, that trip in the automobile with Mr. Holmes the other day wasn't very nice for me, Dolly. If they had caught me, as Mr. Holmes had planned to do, I'd have been taken back to Hedgeville, and bound over to Farmer Weeks—and he's a miser, who hates me, and would have been as mean to me as he could possibly be. That's how we met Will Burns, you know—because you insisted on going with Mr. Holmes in his car to get an ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... he is one of the blots on the business, he is not the principal one. If the real degradation of Wegg is not very convincing, it is at least immeasurably more convincing than the pretended degradation of Boffin. The passage in which Boffin appears as a sort of miser, and then afterwards explains that he only assumed the character for reasons of his own, has something about it highly jerky and unsatisfactory. The truth of the whole matter I think, almost certainly, is that Dickens ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... pursuits, and ascends his chariot to drive to Will's; where the taste is refined, and a relish given to men's possessions, by a polite skill in gratifying their passions and appetites. There it is that the emperor has learned to live and to love, and not, like a miser, to gaze only on his ingots or his treasures; but with a nobler satisfaction, to live the admiration of others, for his splendour and happiness in being master of them. But a prince is no more to be his own caterer in his love, than in his food; therefore Aurengezebe has ever in waiting ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... into her head. In a moment she was in the street. Soon she stood at the door of her uncle, Yoemon. With this uncle and aunt she had but little to do. Matazaemon had been at daggers drawn with his brother, whom he accused of being a wretched miser, one acquiring wealth by very questionable means for a samurai. In old days Cho[u]bei had been a hired agent of Yoemon. The principal had escaped; the second had to leave Yotsuya and its neighbourhood. The Obasan (aunt) came out at O'Iwa's call. She greeted her niece ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... the suspicions of affection are often more apparent than real, in this they were not mistaken; for, without consulting his child—and as if her soul had been in his hand—he promised her in marriage to a rich old miser, ay, twice as rich, and nearly as ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... afar off, but those about you. All around you are souls going to destruction. Forget your own concern. Look at the needs about you till your heart is filled with desire for these souls, till you covet them for the Master as a miser covets gold. Then you will find work enough to do ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... Almost like a miser Richard took the mug in his hands and purred over it possessively. With a sigh of absolute content he raised it to his lips. Then a scream broke from him—harsh, strident, savage. There were no soft spots in the walls of Hugo Van Diest's ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... inner gardens grow a small quantity of green meat: water-melons are brought from Yamb(?): opium and Hashsh abound, but no spirits are for sale since the one Greek Bakkl, or petty shopkeeper, "made tracks." He borrowed from a certain Surr Selmah, negro merchant and head miser, 150 napoleons, in order to buy on commission certain bales of cotton shipwrecked up coast; he left in pledge the keys of his miserable store, which, by-the-by, la loi refuses to open; he was never seen again, and poor rich Surur is in ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... manuscripts of the Aulularia of Plautus are unfortunately mutilated towards the end; but yet we find enough in them to excite our admiration. From this play Molire has merely borrowed a few scenes and jokes, for his plot is altogether different. In Plautus it is extremely simple: his Miser has found a treasure, which he anxiously watches and conceals. The suit of a rich bachelor for his daughter excites a suspicion that his wealth is known. The preparations for the wedding bring strange servants and cooks into ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... know what ought to be done, you act at random. Liable to deceive yourself, you will have to retrace your steps, and will be farther from your object than if you had been less in haste to reach it. Do not then act like a miser, who, in order to lose nothing, loses a great deal. At the earlier age sacrifice time which you will recover with interest later on. The wise physician does not give directions at first sight of his patient, but studies the sick ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... trust a seaman's lore: Steer not too boldly to the deep, Nor, fearing storms, by treacherous shore Too closely creep. Who makes the golden mean his guide, Shuns miser's cabin, foul and dark, Shuns gilded roofs, where pomp and pride Are envy's mark. With fiercer blasts the pine's dim height Is rock'd; proud towers with heavier fall Crash to the ground; and thunders smite The mountains tall. In sadness hope, in gladness ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... too dear a payment for a night with her. One must love well to love like that, eh? and there are many worldly ones, who mock at such affection. But he, still thinking of her, neglected his cases and his clients, his robberies and everything. He went to the palace like a miser searching for a lost sixpence, bowed down, melancholy, and absent-minded, so much so, that one day he relieved himself against the robe of a counsellor, believing all the while he stood against a wall. Meanwhile the beautiful ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... I go on with my own narrative, that Charles Grammont, with whose murder I lie charged, developed a remarkable and unexpected characteristic. A reckless spendthrift whilst penniless, he became a miser when he found himself possessor of five thousand pounds. He had returned to Naples, and had for some time engaged himself in drinking, to the exclusion of all other pursuits. But he drank sullenly and alone, and had dismissed from his society that disreputable compatriot of mine, Giovanni ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... Was moved with compassion, and thought it a pity A youth should be lost, that had been so witty: Without more ado, he vamps up my spark, And now we'll suppose him an eminent clerk! Suppose him an adept in all the degrees Of scribbling cum dasho, and hooking of fees; Suppose him a miser, attorney, per bill, Suppose him a courtier—suppose what you will— Yet, would you believe, though I swore by the Bible, That he took up two news-boys for ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... it with a blazing sword, And some with old blue plates; Some with a miser's golden hoard; Some with a book of dates; Some with a box of paints; a few Whose loads of truth would ne'er pass through The first, white, fairy gates; And, oh, how shocked they are to find That truths are false when ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... however, by what she said this evening, though he was also secretly surprised and delighted. The contradiction is a common one. The miser is half mad with joy on discovering that he has much more than he supposed, and bitterly resents, at the same time, any notice which may be taken of the fact ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... clerk. I suppose, the finer a man is, the more willing he is to take his share in war, and if that's true, I'm not really a fine man. I'm simply a coward, hoarding up my life in a cupboard, like a miser hoarding up his money. I should have been the first to spend myself ... like Gilbert and Ninian. I'm the only one of the Improved Tories who hasn't gone! ... Oh, I couldn't offer you myself, dear. I'm too mean ... I'm a failure in fineness.... I used to feel contempt for Jimphy Jayne ... ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... me, upon just reflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther good to us than they are for our use; and that, whatever we may heap up to give others, we enjoy just as much as we can use, and no more. The most covetous, griping miser in the world would have been cured of the vice of covetousness if he had been in my case; for I possessed infinitely more than I knew what to do with. I had no room for desire, except it was of things which I had not, and they ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... his copie vnder thande of } the Wardenes, a Ballad } called Kemps J[xxi:1] newe Jygge } vi^d." betwixt a souldior and a Miser } and Sym ...
— Kemps Nine Daies Wonder - Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich • William Kemp
... hardly be mistaken as to whether he is at peace or not—whether he has rest in his soul or not. Neither I think can a man well be mistaken as to whence comes the peace he possesses,—as to the well whence he draws his comfort. The miser knows his comfort is his gold. Was Jesus likely to be mistaken when he supposed himself to know that his comfort came from his God? Anyhow he believed that his peace came from his obedience—from his oneness with the will of his Father. Friends, if I had such peace as was plainly his, should I not ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... an obscure funeral by night at Cobham. But for some unknown reason he appears to have been in pecuniary straits. Camden speaks of his return to the Tower 'omnium rerum egentissimus,' and of his death 'miser et inops.' Certainly he had been, as he deserved to be, more harshly treated in respect of money than Ralegh. On his conviction his estates had been confiscated. Even his valuable library, which, in the Tower, he had retained, was claimed in 1618 ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... majority of the Committee would have preferred to drop Bonum est confiteri and Benedic anima mea altogether, retaining Cantate Domino and Deus miser eatur as the sole alternates to the two Gospel canticles, as in the English Book, but rather than have a thousand voices cry out, as it was believed they would cry out, "You have robbed us," the device of a second alternate was adopted, to the sad defacement of the printed ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... Missionary Society and twenty cents extra for "incidentals." She contributed five dollars each quarter toward the Reverend Paul Stacey's salary. And she never, under any circumstance, gave more, no matter how urgent the appeal. She was suspected of being a miser. There was nothing else of which she could be suspected. So far as any one knew in Jordantown, she permitted herself only one luxury: this was a canary bird, not yellow, but green. It was a very old bird, as canaries go. ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... would learn the facts of physical science. They must be experienced before we can really know them. We must in our hearts live through Abraham's harsh and bitter experiences if we would know the blessedness which follows them. The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... their hands to anything that they do; and who, therefore, do nothing well. They are the dead weights of society, that must be helped through life by their more active neighbors. If they are scholars, they are collectors of facts, which they pile up in their memories as a miser heaps his gold, for no end but the pleasure of heaping. They make physicians without resource, lawyers without discernment, preachers who dole out divinity in its baldest and ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... Sister Alice! Please, Mamma, it's me and Rubens." (Sobs on my part, and frantic attempts by Rubens to lick every inch of my face at once.) "And please, Mamma, we're very miser-r-r-r-rable. And oh! please, Mamma, don't let papa marry Miss Burton. Please, please don't, dear, beautiful, golden Mamma! And oh! how we wish you could come ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... miser!" quoth Robin, "well thou knowest that so many horned cattle are worth seven hundred pounds and more, and even that is but small for them, and yet thou, with thy gray hairs and one foot in the grave, wouldst trade upon the ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... them for an ignorance for which they themselves are responsible, for a brutality that they will not struggle with,—rather than this, I would that the world should indeed sweep away all art for awhile, as I said before I thought it possible she might do; rather than the wheat should rot in the miser's granary, I would that the earth had it, that it might yet have a chance ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... granite block, a miser's barley loaf, and an Englishman's heart. But perhaps the best known is one translated long ago from ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... 'll just be ae bar to my pleasures, A bar that 's aft fill'd me wi' fear, He 's sic a hard near-be-gawn miser, He likes his saul less than his gear. But though I now flatter his failin', An' swear nought wi' gowd can compare, Gude sooth! it shall soon get a scailin', His bags sall be ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... that would become eminent in any pursuit, must make it the primary and almost exclusive object of his attention. It must never be long absent from his thoughts, and he must be contriving how to promote it, in every thing he undertakes. It is thus that the miser accumulates, by making the most trifling occurrences the occasions of gain; and thus the ambitious man is on the alert to forward his purposes of advancement by little events which another would pass unobserved. ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... recall of Governor Bernard, just as he was making himself comfortable for a long tenure of office under the protection of British soldiers. This man's character is as contemptible as any in colonial history. It was not merely or chiefly that he was an abject miser and a foe to liberty. He was a convicted liar, a spy, and a double-dealer; and his cowardice made him despised even by the British. He scrupled not to swindle the British government, by conniving at smuggling, while assuring them of his zeal in putting ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... The fourth class may be compared to the slave in the diamond mines of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gem." Nat was a reader of the latter class, and, at the same time, saved every gem for use. He had no disposition to hoard knowledge, as the miser does his gold. He thought it was designed for use as really as a coat or hat—an idea that does not seem to have entered the heads of many youth, of whom it may be said, "their apparel is the ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... violence and greed, of hate and ruth. His God, a God of wrath, a tyrant force To mete to helpless souls eternal doom; A Juggernaut, a hard unsentient power,— But yet less potent than the yellow gold Those crooked talons clutch, and for the which The miser Shylock fain would ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... stayed his steps in a distant village. Then in toil he sought to forget. Rising a great while before day, he wrought with the activity of a spinning insect; and while men slept, his loom hummed far into the night. When fifteen years had passed, he had much gold and was a miser. Under the brick floor he secreted his treasure. Each night he locked the door, shuttered his windows, and poured upon the table his gold and silver. He bathed his hands in the yellow river. He piled his guineas up in heaps. Sometimes he slept with arms around his precious ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... to a young student that he is a sly and crafty peasant, then a miser, and finally a very old man. While the subject's features and behavior generally are modified and brought into harmony with the idea of the personality suggested, we may observe also that his handwriting undergoes similar modifications ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... in obsidione Samari matres duas filios suos mactasse, et coctos comedisse: 4. Reg. C. 6. Legimus in obsidione Ierosolymitana, quam flebilis fuerit vox miserrim matris, filium misellum iam mactatur. Infans, ait, (referam enim Eusebij verba de hac re, etsi notissima, vt miser matris affectus appareat,) miselle et infelix, cuinam in hoc belli. famis, et seditionis tumultu, te commod reseruem? Si Romanorum subijciamur imperio, illic seruitutis iugo pressi, vitam infoeliciter exigemus. Sed seruitutum credo fames anteuertet. Accedit ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... Because a monk had been guilty of hoarding up a large sum of money, contrary to the rules of his order, he was denied Christian burial, and his body was cast upon a dunghill. After mass was said for the miser thirty days, the deceased monk appeared to a brother of his order and told him that he had been in purgatory till that day. From this blessed liberation St. Gregory instituted the custom of saying thirty masses ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... They knew. And when the scientific men set a watch on the man, they knew too. They saw him slouch for'ard after breakfast, and, like a mendicant, with outstretched palm, accost a sailor. The sailor grinned and passed him a fragment of sea biscuit. He clutched it avariciously, looked at it as a miser looks at gold, and thrust it into his shirt bosom. Similar were the ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... videnti, Qui somno partem maiorem conteris aevi, Et vigilans stertis nec somnia cernere cessas Sollicitamque geris cassa formidine mentem Nec reperire potes tibi quid sit saepe mali, cum Ebrius urgeris multis miser undique curis, Atque animi incerto ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... slightly bent, in an attitude of brooding retrospection. As she looked back at her past life, it seemed to her to have consisted of one ceaseless effort to pack into each hour enough to fill out its slack folds; but now each moment was like a miser's bag stretched to bursting with ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... scene between husband and wife at the hairdresser's on the ground floor about the matter, while a customer was being shaved. The wife, who was knitting steadily, said: "Well, there is one less, and as great a miser as one ever meets with. I certainly did not care for her; but, nevertheless, I must go and have a ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... her feeble, and contemptible, to ask to be dragged up by their strength, instead of exerting her own. If that were insufficient, why then let her go down, as thousands had gone down before her. As a miser telling his gold, she would read and re-read those occasional letters, written amidst the stress of life at high pressure, and bearing evidence of that life of thought and work, in their tense, full-packed phrases. With what a throb of longing and envy Hadria used to feel ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... bill was ninety-five cents, and she was terrified. She had thought her father a miser for complaining of the breakfast bill of eleven-odd dollars at the Biltmore, but that was his ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... that I am no judge of the way the rich live. I can say truthfully that my tastes are simple. If I had millions I really don't know that I should buy very much. Most probably I should be a miser as regards my own personal expenses. But for all that I could see that my brother's apartment was extraordinarily rich in its appointments. There were so many details you could not imitate cheaply. A man could sit in those rooms, and eat in ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... evident, was concealed the treasure that had escaped the clutches of the myrmidons and the officers of the Star-Chamber. There was a large open chest at the further end, full of corpulent money-bags, any one of which would have gladdened the heart of a miser. On this chest Mompesson's gaze was so greedily fixed that he did not notice the body of a man lying directly in his path, and well-nigh stumbled over it. Uttering a bitter imprecation, he held down the lamp, and beheld the countenance of Luke Hatton, now rigid ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... now, you wretched old miser," exclaimed Philip, seizing hold of the little man by the collar, and pulling him out of ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... Cabinski the miser would vanish, and in his place would appear Cabinski the munificent, dispensing hospitality after the ancient custom of the Polish nobility, while certain deeply hidden hereditary cells of lavishness opened up in his ego. The guests were received and feted generously ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... most, who was the least sparing of his thumps, and who continually made me suffer, as if it gave him pleasure, was the manager and proprietor, a kind of old, vicious brute, whom everybody feared like the plague, a miser who was continually complaining of the receipts, who hid away the crown pieces in his mattress, invested his money in the funds, and cut down the salary of everybody, as far ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... out, slowly and carefully, thinking he had plenty of time. But after he had taken out the first load, he heard cries and groans in a room near his own office, and going in, he found an old man, a wretched old miser that lived there all alone, in dirt and misery, though every one knew he was immensely rich. He seemed to have gone out of his mind with fright, and there he sat, his hands full of notes and bonds and things, screaming and crying, and saying that ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... seen many a blown-out bubble soaring and glittering, and then collapsing into a drop of soapsuds, and on the other hand, we are always hearing of notes and bank-books being found stowed away in some wretched hovel where a miser has died. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... as a vile Yankee type of miser and overreacher, who had plotted against the fortune of a gentleman and the virtue of his daughter for a ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... fortune, you miser?" Rosa said. "Fifteen guineas a day is four thousand five hundred a year; I've calculated it." And, so saying, she rose and taking hold of his whiskers (which are as fine as those of any man of his circuit,) she put her mouth close up against his and did something to his long face, which ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... With what jealousy a husband claims his wife, a mother her children, a miser his possessions! Pray that the Holy Spirit may show how God brought you to Himself, that you should be His. 'He is a holy God; He is a Jealous God.' God's love shed abroad in the heart ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... tell thee, if thou hast no more meat for so many, they'll ne'er be fat. What, if my cousin—nay, I myself alone—to dinner should come, Where should my lady and the rest dine, for I could eat up every crumb? Thou art an old miser: dost thou keep no better fare in thy house? Hast thou no great bag-pudding, nor hog's-face that is ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... instrument of authority. It secured him power; a power, however, which he had no care to employ, and which he valued only as tributary to the maintenance of that haughty ascendency over men which was his heart's first passion. He was neither miser nor mercenary; he did not labor to accumulate—perhaps because he was a lucky accumulator without any painstaking of his own: but he was, by nature an aristocrat, and not unwilling to compel respect through the means ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... run over by a motor-trolley ten days ago," announced the woman in the next stall; "she was terribly old and blind and a real wicked miser. There was no one belonging to her. Her clothes were just lined with bank-notes, and there was a whole lot of papers and bonds in her mattress, and a lovely silver tea-set up the chimney. She grudged herself a penn-'orth ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... but eager gripe, he seized the paper, as a miser would seize the deeds of an estate on which he has a mortgage. He smoothed the folds, looked complacently at the well-known hand, smiled—a ghastly smile! and then placed the letter under his pillow, and sank down; ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... things dictated to me upon just reflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther good to us, than as they are for our use: and that whatever we may heap up indeed to give to others, we enjoy as much as we can use, and no more. The most covetous griping miser in the world would have been cured of the vice of covetousness, if he had been in my case; for I possessed infinitely more than I knew what to do with. I had no room for desire, except it was of things which I had not, and they ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... silly woman Queen Anne, would have been more profuse of incense to Queen Caroline, who had sense, if the Court he paid to her had been crowned with success. Such were the men who wrote of virtue to one another; and even that mean, exploded miser, Lord Bath, presumed to talk ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... scanty and slight, like the down on a young duck, allowed his scalp to be plainly seen. The brown, crimpled skin of his neck showed the big veins which sank under his jaws and reappeared at his temples. He was regarded in the district as a miser and a hard man in ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... in a couple of centuries!' One would wish to return to earth to seek news of his family; another, of his dynasty. A philosopher is anxious to know if the ideas that he has planted will have borne fruit; a politician, if his party will have obtained the upper hand; a miser, if his heirs will not have dissipated the fortune he has made; a mere land-holder, if the trees in his garden will have grown tall. No one is indifferent to the future destinies of this world, which we gallop through in a few ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... 105, 'Beggar's Petition,' is a spirited and faithful representation of the cold indifference to the wants of others, displayed in the miser's disposition. The figures are of life-size, and well drawn. The female supplicating in behalf of the distressed, is graceful in attitude, and admirably contrasted with the hoarding miser. No. 205, 'The Image Pedler,' is an effort of a higher order; for the artist has attempted, and successfully ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... the maternal side) had simply called as a visitor. He lived in a cottage by himself, and many people considered him a miser; some, rather slovenly in his habits. He now came forward from behind grandfather William, and his stooping figure formed a well- illuminated picture as he passed towards the fire-place. Being by trade a mason, ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... servants he never knows the least detail, not even their names, and even a devoted secretary who has served him faithfully for many years may find himself treated almost as a stranger in a moment of need. I fear it must be said that in financial matters Mr. Balfour is as close-fisted as any miser, although I believe that this meanness has its rise, not so much in avariciousness as in a total incapacity to realize the importance ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... told Thorwald that the storehouse was empty of meat and fish, and he must go out to the Bear Isles and fetch some more. At this Thorwald reproached her, saying that it was her fault if garners were not yet full, and on Hallgerda's taunting him with being a miser, struck her such a blow in the face that blood spouted, and when he left her to row with his men to the islands, Hallgerda sat still, ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... N. parsimony, parcity^; parsimoniousness^, stinginess &c adj.; stint; illiberality, tenacity. avarice, greed &c 817.1. miser, niggard, churl, screw, skinflint, crib, codger, muckworm^, scrimp, lickpenny^, hunks, curmudgeon, Harpagon, harpy, extortioner, Jew, usurer; Hessian [U.S.]; pinch fist, pinch penny. V. be parsimonious ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget |
