"Prodigality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been a prodigal; I had been taken back to my parents' arms again. It was not a very great crime as yet, or a very long career of prodigality; but don't we know that a boy who takes a pin which is not his own, will take a thousand pounds when occasion serves, bring his parents' gray heads with sorrow to the grave, and carry his own to the gallows? Witness the career of Dick Idle, upon whom our friend ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and help of the minister, he had begun to "make the millions fly," in good earnest; and his phenomenal liberality—prodigality, it was called by some—could not, in the nature of things, escape notice. It soon became, in fact, the talk of the town and of the country round. But it was by the members of his church that "Cobbler" Horn's lavish benefactions were most eagerly discussed. ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... the following words: "I wish only to express the impression General Washington has left on my mind; the idea of a perfect whole, brave without temerity, laborious without ambition, generous without prodigality, noble without pride, virtuous without severity." Gen. Scott, Lord Cornwallis, Dr. Wistar, Bishop Soule John Bright, Jenny Lind Goldsmidt, and Dr. Gall are good representatives of this temperament. Fig. 86 is an excellent illustration of it, finely blended and well ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... peculiar to the worship celebrated in favour of souls in purgatory is the prodigality of lighted candles which are consumed on those occasions. There is no doubt that the object of this practice is to expose to the view of the faithful a lively image of the flames by which these souls are tormented in their probationary state. A traveller, worthy of credit, assures us ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... in another festival of the kind unless another near relative dies. He pays off all old scores of hospitality and lays his friends under future obligations by his presents. He is often beggared by this prodigality, but he can be sure of welcome and entertainment wherever he goes, for he is a man who has discharged all his debts to society and is therefore deserving of honor for the rest ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... his own most secret emotions written on the very rocks—who gathers up the many beautiful things that in the prodigality of nature lie scattered over the earth, neglected or unheeded, and the more dearly, the more passionately loves them, because they are now appropriated to the uses of his own imagination, who will by her alchymy so further brighten them that the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... It served less, perhaps, to excite than to sober and brace his mind. De Montaigne could have made no man rash, but he could have made many men energetic and persevering. The two friends had some points in common; but Maltravers had far more prodigality of nature and passion about him—had more of flesh and blood, with the faults and excellences of flesh and blood. De Montaigne held so much to his favourite doctrine of moral equilibrium, that he had really reduced ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mother were both great lovers and honourers of clergymen, but all of Cambridge, and chiefly Doctor Bamberge, Doctor Howlsworth, Broanbricke, Walley, and Mickelthite, and Sanderson, with many others. We lived in great plenty and hospitality, but no lavishness in the least, nor prodigality, and, I believe, my father never drank six glasses of wine in ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... hell, and of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, would more constantly, as it were, inhabit both the memory and judgment. Truly, for myself (me seems), I see before mine eyes the lost child's disdainful prodigality turned to envy a swine's dinner; which, by the learned divines, are thought not historical acts, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... Torella returned in a few years, and became wealthier and more prosperous than ever. When I was seventeen, my father died; he had been magnificent to prodigality; Torella rejoiced that my minority would afford an opportunity for repairing my fortunes. Juliet and I had been affianced beside my father's deathbed—Torella was to be a second parent ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... without temerity; laborious without ambition; generous without prodigality; noble without pride; virtuous ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... all things the most precious, wasting time must be,' as Poor Richard says, 'the greatest prodigality'; since, as he elsewhere tells us, 'Lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough, always proves little enough.' Let us, then, up and be doing, and doing to the purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... was even less qualified than his father to found a dynasty on principles which should endure. Allied to his many virtues were many compromising defects. He was volatile, thoughtless, and unsteady. He was swayed by no strong sense of duty. His generosity was apt to degenerate into prodigality; his attachments into weakness. He was unable to concentrate his energies for a time in any serious direction, whilst for comprehensive legislation he had neither the genius nor the inclination. He was thus eminently unfitted ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... do not think I want to extenuate sins of passion (though, in very truth, the sin of Magdalene is a light one compared to that of Judas); but observe, sins of passion, if of real passion, are often the errors and backfalls of noble souls; but prodigality is mere and pure selfishness, and essentially the sin of an ignoble or undeveloped creature; and I would rather, ten times rather, hear of a youth that (certain degrees of temptation and conditions of resistance ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... entered, they put aside their swords; but Henry, alarmed at their unusual appearance, exclaimed, "Am I then your prisoner?" "No, sire," replied Roger Bigod, "but by your partiality to foreigners, and your own prodigality, the realm is involved in misery. Wherefore we demand that the powers of government be delegated to a committee of barons and prelates, who may correct abuses and enact salutary laws." Some altercation ensued, and high words passed between the Earl of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... "Monstrous prodigality and wastefulness!" cried Saunders, as Eve passed on towards her own cabin, willing to escape any more of Sir George's complaints. "Just be so kind, Miss Effingham, ma'am, to look into this here pantry, once! Them niggers, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... which he sought with the reckless avidity of a needy spendthrift, rather than with the ceaseless longings of a miser. In short, the motive that urged them both so soon to go against the Hurons, was an habitual contempt of their enemy, acting on the unceasing cupidity of prodigality. The additional chances of success, however, had their place in the formation of the second enterprise. It was known that a large portion of the warriors-perhaps all—were encamped for the night abreast ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... have the advantage over our shovel-headed predecessor—or possibly ancestor—and can perceive that a certain vein of thrift runs through this apparent prodigality. Nature is never in a hurry, and seems to have had always before her eyes the adage, "Keep a thing long enough, and you will find a use for it." She has kept her beds of coal many millions of years without being able to find much use ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Grand Company to monopolize the trade and military expenditure of New France. The enormous fortunes its members made, and spent with such reckless prodigality, would by peace be dried up in their source; the yoke would be thrown off the people's neck, trade ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... hitherto been absolutely honest was led by his passions—one of the best administrative officials under Napoleon—peculation to pay the money-lenders, and borrowing of the money-lenders to gratify his passions and provide for his daughter. All the efforts of this elaborate prodigality were directed at making a display before Madame Marneffe, and to playing Jupiter to this middle-class Danae. A man could not expend more activity, intelligence, and presence of mind in the honest acquisition of a fortune than the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... in the street to meet with her; and Wilson says he gave such liberal presents to the court, as well as Buckingham to the Spanish beauties, that the Lord Treasurer Middlesex complained repeatedly of their wasteful prodigality.[3] ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... a solemn oath to make no alteration in his laws. He visited Egypt, Cyprus, and Asia Minor, and returned to Athens to find his work nearly subverted by one of his own kinsmen. Pisistratus, of noble origin, but a demagogue, contrived, by his arts and prodigality, to secure a guard, which he increased, and succeeded in seizing the Acropolis, B.C. 560, and in usurping the supreme authority—so soon are good laws perverted, so easily are constitutions overthrown, when demagogues and usurpers are ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... doth not always consist in a man's freedom from some corruptions. For there may be some corruptions that one hath no natural inclination to, but, on the contrary, a great aversion for; as some world's wretches may have no inclination to prodigality and ranting, or such like vices, which are contrary to their humour, or to their constant education; and Satan may never tempt some man to such evils, knowing he will get more advantage by plying his temper and genius, and so carrying him away to the other contrary evil; ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... of reddish-brown. We are nearing the end of the fine weather; the coloring is the coloring of late autumn; there is no need now to keep out of the sun. Everything is soberer, more measured, more fugitive, less emphatic. Energy is gone, youth is past, prodigality at an end, the summer over. The year is on the wane and tends toward winter; it is once more in harmony with my own age and position, and next Sunday it will keep my birthday. All these different consonances form a ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sober wife, a kind master to all his servants and dependants, a serviceable relation whenever it was in his power, and followed the instinct of nature in being fond of his children. Such a sort of behaviour without any glaring absurdity, either in prodigality or avarice, always gains a man the reputation of reasonable and honest; and this was his character when the Earl of Godolphin sent him envoy to the States, not doubting but he would be faithful to his orders, without giving himself the trouble of criticising on ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... employed to animate his brethren to the practice of virtue. When he proposed anything that was difficult to them, such as to go about soliciting alms, "Go," he would say, "and ask it for the love of God." He found a noble prodigality in asking it for that motive, and he thought those demented who preferred money to the love of God, the price of which is incalculable, and sufficient to purchase the Kingdom of Heaven, and which the love of Him who has so loved us must make infinitely dear to us. They ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... the Far South were given out with some prodigality. They did not appear in book form, however; for, at the time I was sending out these Antipodean sketches, I was also writing—far from the scenes where they were laid—a series of Canadian tales, many of which appeared in the 'Independent' of New York, in the 'National Observer', ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... be seen through a shadowy lens, which magnifies their stature. Let us hope that the crimes of the three or four generations immediately succeeding Clovis have been in like manner expanded; for it is sickening to read of such monstrous prodigality of wickedness; whole families butchered—husbands, wives, children, anything obstructing the path to the throne—with an atrocity which makes Richard III. seem a mere pigmy in the art of intrigue and killing. ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... days, far-off skies filled with drifting fleets of sunny vapor, summer green piled deep over the land, the gurgle of falling waters, the shimmer of near grain fields, deep-hued flowers glowing in the garden borders, all the prodigality of splendor that July pours over the world. And floating through these memories, scarce recognized, but giving hue and tone to them like a far-off, half-heard strain of music—a woman's presence. By some fine, subtile harmony, such as spirits recognize, all the summer ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Pythias. Physicians, Physiognomy, Pigmentaries, Pilgrimages, Piron, Pirre, Pitman, Isaac, Pity, Plaisters, Plato, Polygamy, Polygamy or polyandry? Pompeye, Porters of gates, Porus, Poverty, Princes' oaths and promises, Prisoners, Prodigality, Promises, Proverbs, Ptolome, Publius ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... caring for the future. He ruled a little set of newcomers, he had friendships—or rather, habits of fifteen years' standing, and men with whom he supped, and dined, and indulged his wit. He earned from seven to eight hundred francs a month, a sum which he found quite insufficient for the prodigality peculiar to the impecunious. Indeed, Lousteau found himself now just as hard up as when, on first appearing in Paris, he had said to himself, "If I had but five hundred francs a month, ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... to be filled with our things, and not to have some of our Diabolonians as retainers to their houses and services. Where is a Mansoulian that is full of this world, that has not for his servants and waiting-men, Mr. Profuse, or Mr. Prodigality, or some other of our Diabolonian gang, as Mr. Voluptuous, Mr. Pragmatical, Mr. Ostentation, or the like? Now these can take the castle of Mansoul, or blow it up, or make it unfit for a garrison for ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... in the best regulated families," and so it chanced that, in the autumn of the same year, our bachelor met at the Springs a charming belle of Baltimore, to whom he lost his heart incontinently. His person and address were attractive, and though his prodigality had impaired his fortune, still a rich old maiden aunt, who doted on him, Miss Persimmon Verjuice, promised to do the handsome thing by him on condition of his marrying and settling quietly to the management of his estate. So, under ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... understanding, so that, if she be not corrupted, we have good hopes of her." Unfortunately her brilliant and commanding qualities were vitiated by an inordinate pride and egoism, which exhibited themselves in an utter contempt for public opinion, and a prodigality utterly regardless of the necessities of the state. She seemed to consider Swedish affairs as far too petty to occupy her full attention; while her unworthy treatment of the great chancellor was mainly due to her jealousy of his extraordinary reputation and to the uneasy conviction ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... beyond which wealth will not make society tolerant. But his freedom of manner bore, to most observers, the appearance of generous heartiness, and he soon gained the good will of the neighborhood by the careless prodigality of his life. He was tall, elegantly formed, and quite well-looking; and though he is said to have borne, a few years later, a sinister and dishonest look, it is probable that most of this was attributable to the preconceived notions of those ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... dollar, and some of them got twenty. For several years Clarkson and I had him on our minds because of this gentle and yielding disposition until at last we discovered that in one way or another, in spite of a reckless prodigality, he prospered. The bread which he cheerfully cast upon these unknown waters, almost always returned (sometimes from another direction) in loaves at least as large as biscuits. His fame steadily increased with his charity. ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... fact is obvious; Nature flings treasures abroad, puffs them with open ups along on every breeze, piles up lavish layers of them in the free open air, packs countless numbers together in the needles of a fir tree. Prodigality and superfluity are stamped on everything she does. The ear of wheat returns a hundredfold the grain from which it grew. The surface of the earth offers to us far more than we can consume—the grains, the seeds, the fruits, the animals, the abounding products are ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... street, and with congressmen, to bring about the consummation of their scheme, and he waited his return in the empty house at Hawkeye, feeding his pinched family upon the most gorgeous expectations with a reckless prodigality. ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... dotted the plain. The water-courses brawled in their familiar channels, nor dreamed of ever shifting their regular tide. The wonders of the Yo-Semite and Calaveras were as yet unrecorded. The Holy Fathers noted little of the landscape beyond the barbaric prodigality with which the quick soil repaid the sowing. A new conversion, the advent of a Saint's day, or the baptism of an Indian baby, was at once the chronicle and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... The prodigality of the mass of indictments Louise launches against royalty as every-day occurrences, reminds one of the great Catharine Sforza, Duchess of Milan's clever mot. When the enemy captured her children she merely said, "I retain the oven ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... St. Donatian of Bruges, the great financier Pierre Bladelin, the Bishop of Tournai and many high officials. All these had, of course, received their letters of legitimation. Numerous edicts made by the dukes were unable to check gambling, prostitution and prodigality. The scant effect of the regulations relating to the latter may be easily understood when we read that, on the occasion of the marriage of Margaret of York to Charles the Bold, Belgian artists and artisans were ordered to prepare and to decorate a large wooden house which was subsequently ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... the darker crests of pines. For two months she was dazzled and bewildered with color. She had never before been face to face with this spendthrift Californian Flora, in her virgin wastefulness, her more than goddess-like prodigality. The teeming earth seemed to quicken and throb beneath her feet; the few circuits of a plow around the outlying corral was enough to call out a jungle growth of giant grain that almost hid the ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... change among groups of street boys, and it is said he once spent his last roubles in sending a cablegram to von Buelow in America, to thank him for his admirable performance of his first Piano Concerto. Often his friends protested against this prodigality, but it was no use to protest, and at last they gave up ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... devoted himself to newspaper illustration, but with what surprising prodigality of spirit and knowledge! The readers of the "Graphic" will know. This masterly virtuoso of the pencil might give drawing-lessons to many members of the Institute! The feeling for the life of crowds, psychology of types, spirited and rapid notation, astonishing ease ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... began to press after the first week flew away. We had a long discussion, in which each hurled at the other reproaches on the spendthrift prodigality with which we threw away our money. The discussion ended in our agreeing, that, the moment the next instalment of our income should be received, I should keep a severe account of our expenses, in order that no more quarrels should disturb the harmony of our household, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... of winter has a deep moral. The return of nature, after such a career of splendor and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the philosopher coming back from the banquet and the wine to a cup of water and a crust ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... world. Some men have been lucky enough to rise and stay risen, without money. But not a man of all the men who have been knocked out could have been dislodged if he had been armed and armored with money. My prodigality was my fatal mistake. I shan't make it again—if I get the chance. You don't know, Tetlow, how hard it is to get money when you are tumbling and must have it. I never dreamed what a factor it is in calamities of every ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... afford to make nothing of what would elsewhere be judged worthy of shrines. We say to ourselves, "If such be the things she throws away, what must be her jewels?" A similar feeling rises in me while exploring Shakespeare's prodigality in apa? ?e?? mue?a. His exchequer appears more exhaustless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... highway avenue will in four or five years furnish a family with its firewood. The strong, fattening alfalfa gives three, four, five, and even six harvests a year. Nature needs little rest, and, with the encouragement of water and fertilizers, apparently none. But all this prodigality and easiness of life detracts a little from ambition. The lesson has been slowly learned, but it is now pretty well conned, that hard work is as necessary here as elsewhere to thrift and independence. The difference between this and many other ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... his "History of Europe" Alison quotes Lamartine oftener than any other French writer, and evidently admires his genius, and throws no doubt on the general fidelity of his works. A partisan historian full of prejudices, like Macaulay, with all his prodigality of references, is apt to be in reality more untruthful than a dispassionate writer without any show of learning at all. The learning of an advocate may hide and obscure truth as well as illustrate ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... architect of his own fortune;" and perhaps there are few men, who, in the moments of their deepest suffering, have not felt the force of this assertion. In high life, embarrassments are generally to be attributed to the love of gambling, prodigality, or some such sweeping vice, which no station can control. Bankruptcies, or failures in trade, being common occurrences, are seldom traced to their origin, too often found to be in expensive habits, and overreaching ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... Europe save under the strong hand of a monarch in Russia. These climatic differences produced the frugal Northerner, who had to provide in advance for the winter season, and the hospitable planter of the South, in whom prodigality was induced by the very lavishness of nature about him. It was not strange that by contrast, and seen through the haze of distance, the frugality of the North should appear to be avarice to the South; while the hospitality upon which that section prided itself ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... Whitton, Middlesex; quitted Cambridge in 1628 to travel on the Continent, and for a time served in the army of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany; returning to England about 1632 he became a favourite at Court, where he was noted for his wit, prodigality, and verses; supported Charles in the Bishops' Wars against the Scots; sat in the Long Parliament; was involved in a plot to rescue Strafford, and to bring foreign troops to the aid of the king, but discovered, had to flee the country; died, probably by his own hand, in Paris; wrote several ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... general appropriation bills should be conducted with the greatest care and the closest scrutiny of expenditures. Appropriations should be adequate to the needs of the public service, but they should be absolutely free from prodigality. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... consecrated by him on the 26th of February, in 398.[12] In regulating his own conduct and his domestic concerns, he retrenched all the great expenses which his predecessors had entailed on their dignity, which he looked upon as superfluous, and an excessive prodigality, and these sums he applied to the relief of the poor, especially of the sick. For this purpose he erected and maintained several numerous hospitals, under the government of holy and charitable priests, and was very careful that all the servants and ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... extravagant households were the appanage of a new society composed entirely of stock-jobbers, army contractors, and shady financiers enriched by pillage. They gave Paris that superficial aspect of luxury and gaiety which has deluded so many historians of this period, because the insolent prodigality displayed covered ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... at Nice, there were fifty scullions constantly employed in the great square in plucking poultry. This absurd luxury infects their whole army. Even the commissaries keep open table; and nothing is seen but prodigality and profusion. The king of Sardinia proceeds upon another plan. His troops are better cloathed, better payed, and better fed than those of France. The commandant of Nice has about four hundred a year of appointments, which enable him to live decently, and even ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... tragedy on Marino Faliero, none of which is yet gone to England. The fifth act is nearly completed, but it is dreadfully long—40 sheets of long paper of 4 pages each—about 150 when printed; but 'so full of pastime and prodigality' that I think ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... unreflecting editorial parrot, where is its product? What has society to show for the expenditure of this energy? A hole in its working capital—a hiatus in its larder caused by employing and sustaining labor, not to produce but to destroy. Prodigality on the part of the rich personally benefits a few parasites, just as the bursting of a molasses barrel fattens useless flies; but waste, by reducing the amount of wealth available for reproduction, breeds general want. A thousand editors have screamed in leaded type that it were "worse for the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... become more luxurious in their table: public places are always full; and those who used, in a dress becoming their station, to occupy the "parquet" or "parterre," now, decorated with paste, pins, gauze, and galloon, fill the boxes:—and all this destructive prodigality is excused to others and themselves "par ce que ce n'est que du papier." [Because it is only paper.]—It is vain to persuade them to oeconomize what they think a few weeks may render valueless; ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... may be materials, tools, and provisions for the employment of an additional industry, a part also may be taken back in foreign wines, silks, &c. to be consumed by idle people who produce nothing; and so far the substitution promotes prodigality, increases expense and consumption, without increasing production. So far also, then, it lessens the capital of the nation. What may be the amount which the conversion of the part exchanged for productive goods, may add to the former productive mass, it is not easy to ascertain, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... original depravity of his mind; for being of a sanguine complexion, wholly bent upon his pleasures, and prodigal in his nature, he became engaged in great expenses. To supply these, the people were perpetually oppressed with illegal taxes and exactions; but that sort of avarice which arises from prodigality and vice, as it is always needy, so it is much more ravenous and violent than the other, which put the King and his evil instruments (among whom Ralph, Bishop of Durham, is of special infamy) upon those pernicious methods of gratifying his extravagances by all manner of oppression; ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... well, if so," Simonides said, in a low voice; then louder, "Malluch, the curse of the time is prodigality. The poor make themselves poorer as apes of the rich, and the merely rich carry themselves like princes. Saw you signs of the weakness in the youth? Did he display moneys—coin of Rome ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... was something in old Judkin's half-crown which soothed her again. A shilling would have been generous, Elinor said to herself, with a feminine appreciation of the difference of small things as well as great, whereas half-a-crown was lavish—ergo, he gave the sovereign also out of natural prodigality, as she had hoped, not out of calculation as he said. She drove soberly home, thinking over all these things in a mood very different from that triumphant happiness with which she started from the cottage with Phil by her side. The sunshine was still as bright, but it had taken an air ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... of patience would be necessary to bring them round to my way of thinking, I began to distribute gifts, especially tobacco, freely and frequently amongst them, only mentioning my wish occasionally, as if by chance. And my prodigality had its reward. ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... the excess Prodigality, the defect Stinginess: here each of the extremes involves really an excess and defect contrary to each other: I mean, the prodigal gives out too much and takes in too little, while the stingy man takes ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... vices, prodigality was the most remarkable, and that which in some measure gave rise to the rest. The luxuries of former emperors were simplicity itself when compared to those which he practised. He contrived new ways of ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... of his portrait in the "Harlot's Progress," was at his death still more bitterly branded by Swift's friend, Dr. Arbuthnot, in the epitaph he proposed for him: "Here continueth to rot the body of Francis Charteris, who, in the course of his long life, displayed every vice except prodigality and hypocrisy. His insatiable avarice saved him from the first: his matchless impudence from the second." And he concludes it with the explanation that his life was not useless, since "it was intended ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... unplucked luxuriance; the courtyard before the stables alone showed marks of the late military occupancy, and was pulverized by the uneasy horse-hoofs of the waiting staff. But the mingled impress of barbaric prodigality with patriarchal simplicity was still there in the domestic arrangements of a race who lived on half equal familiarity with ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... his wild imagination and his playfulness. He throws over all things a strange and magic coloring. You are startled at the boldness and beauty of his figures and illustrations, which are scattered everywhere with a reckless prodigality;—multitudinous, like the blossoms of early summer,—and as fragrant and beautiful. With a thousand extravagances are mingled ten thousand beauties of thought and expression, which kindle the reader's imagination, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... revenue which it has appropriated or dried up, to furnish in exchange a supply of water from the grand central reservoir, the public treasury.—But if water becomes low in this reservoir, if the taxes in arrears stop the regular supply, if a war happens to open a large breach in it, if the prodigality and incapacity of the rulers, multiply its fissures and leaks, then there is no money on hand for accessory and secondary services. The State, which has adopted this service drops it: we have seen under the Convention and the Directory ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of the sayings of "Who's Who" regarding Rochester, Arthur Coningsby, Delamere. The last decadent descendant of a family that had been famous in long past years for its power, prodigality and prolificacy. ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... a capacity singularly incommensurate with his ambition, he believed that money could accomplish everything. Monteagudo supplied this literally by plunder and cruelty, whilst San Martin recklessly flung it away in ostentation and bribes. In return for the means of prodigality, the Minister was permitted to carry on the Government just as he chose, the Protector meanwhile indulging in the "otium cum dignitate" at his country palace near La Legua—his physical powers prostrated by opium and brandy, to which he was a slave, whilst his mental faculties day by ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... service of Charles VII., and sheathed for ever his sword, in the retirement of the country. The death of his maternal grandfather, Jean de Craon, in 1432, made him so enormously wealthy, that his revenues were estimated at 800,000 livres; nevertheless, in two years, by his excessive prodigality, he managed to lose a considerable portion of his inheritance. Maulon, S. Etienne de Malemort, Loroux-Botereau, Pornic, and Chantol, he sold to John V., Duke of Brittany, his kinsman, and other lands and seigneurial rights he ceded ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... counteracted by the softness of her skin and the healthy colour of her curving lips. She bore his scrutiny so impersonally, with such sweet and challenging interest, that he persisted in it. Her brown hair was almost troublesome in its prodigality. There were little curls about her neck which defied restraint. Her cool muslin gown, even to his untutored perceptions, revealed a distinction which the first dressmaker in London had endorsed. She spoke the words of lifelessness, yet she ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... longer bares its bosom with so dazzling a prodigality, for it is many a day since it was uprooted. The little dryad long since fled away weeping,—fled away, said evil tongues, fled away to ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... questions with almost maudlin tenderness, calling me "dearie" throughout the interview. Her little parlor was hung with chromo reproductions of great religious paintings, and the close atmosphere was redolent of the heavy perfume of lilies and stale tuberoses. Remarking the unusual prodigality of flowers, the good lady explained that the undertaker beneath was in the habit of showing his esteem by the daily tender of such funeral decorations as had served their purpose. Mrs. Cunningham's accommodations at four dollars per week were beyond my purse, however; but, as she was ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... only through the alternative of pawning clothing and furniture to provide the means for this ephemeral transformation. I remember being warned, also, that the buffoonery was coarse, and some of the slang hardly fit for "ears polite." But I am afraid that I was not shocked at the prodigality of these poor people, who purchased a holiday on such hard conditions; and, as to the coarseness of the performance, I felt that I certainly might go where these ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... wrist, but shapely, tapering fingers, you may know that hand betokens a duplex temperament, where opposite characteristics are constantly struggling for the mastery. The palm may denote strength and industry, but the fingers may overbalance these qualities by their love of ease or generous prodigality. For instance, when you see a hand of this nature, you may know that its owner might give you half his fortune, might even give you his life, and yet would be very likely to keep the household in discomfort for months, for want of one new shingle ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... actually the Capo della Repubblica was playing rather fast and loose with his opulent patrimony. There came a day when the strain grew excessive, and Lorenzo was unable, had he been willing, to make advances to princely suitors, and he lived to repent his prodigality. ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... in the early hours of 17th July, 1719, the Duchesse de Berry passed away in her sleep. The life which she had wasted with such shameless prodigality closed in peace; and at the moment when she was being laid to rest in the Church of St Denis, Madame de Mouchy, blazing in the dead woman's jewels, was laughing merrily over her champagne-glass at a dinner-party to which she had ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... common monotony of soil, a single river, a single mountain, alone might have been deemed divine. It was the number of its tribes—it was the variety of its natural features, which produced the affluence and prodigality of its mythological creations. Nor can we omit from the causes of the teeming, vivid, and universal superstition of Greece, the accidents of earthquake and inundation, to which the land appears early and often to have been exposed. To the activity and caprice of ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... whom he otherwise cared nothing, merely because through them he got an insight into Alphonse's expensive mode of life and rash prodigality. He sought the same cafes and restaurants as Alphonse, but at different times; he even had his clothes made by the same tailor, because the talkative little man entertained him with complaints that Monsieur Alphonse ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... their welfare, soon felt the blessings of the new organisation of a regenerating Government. They were at once presented with; the stamp-duty, registration, the lottery, the droits reunis, the tax on cards, and the 'octroi'. This prodigality of presents caused, as we may be sure, the most lively gratitude; a tax for military quarters and for warlike supplies was imposed, but this did not relieve any one from laving not only officers and soldiers; but even all the chiefs of the administration and their officials billeted ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... merely the range, but the prodigality of the portions, surprises. Your halibut or salmon or trout is not a strip that seems like a sample, it is a solid slice of exquisitely cooked fish that looks dangerously near a full pound, and all the portions are on the same scale, so that ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... did nothing for a whole year but feast and make merry, wasting and consuming, with the utmost prodigality, the great wealth that his predecessors, and the good vizier his father, had with so much pains and care ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... conscientiousness in the smallest detail; life bowed in all humility, but yet steadfast and fervent; imagination and beauty that do not strive to shine: if you want a proof, look at the great number that remained anonymous! Here, on the contrary, prodigality, exultant love, blood coursing triumphantly through conquered veins. Rubens is the apostle of wholehearted happiness. The biggest things seem easy when you are in his presence. If ever you feel tired and ready to be discouraged, ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... it, was occupied. Waiters were scurrying up and down the wide stairway; the general hubbub was punctuated by the sound of exploding corks as the Klondike spendthrifts advertised their prosperity in a hilarious contest of prodigality. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... they were common from end to end of the island; but not until now had he appreciated the warm magenta coloring of gorgeous poinsettias and bougainvillea, the glowing-hearted, waxy white flowers of frangipani; not until now did he realize the prodigality of Nature towards Java in the matter of weird and awesome ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... He was the son of a man rich, worthy and able, but of a very weak character, and of a kept woman who had been the mistress of a royal personage. Through no fault of his own, he had inherited his mother's professional vices, persistent untruthfulness, a comedian's manner, prodigality, a love of finery and display. He was quite without intellectual interests, but had a distinguished bearing, a winning manner, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... prepossessions, without which human life can in no condition be profitably looked at or described. For we must remember that it is the nature of vice to force itself upon notice, both in the act and by its consequences. Drunkenness, cruelty, brutal manners, sensuality and impiety, thoughtless prodigality and idleness, are obstreperous while they are in the height and heyday of their enjoyment; and when that is passed away, long and obtrusive is the train of misery which they draw after them. But on the contrary, the virtues, especially those of humble life, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... noble Plant. And that the most abstemious and excellent Emperor [21]Tacitus (spending almost nothing at his frugal Table in other Dainties) was yet so great a Friend to Lettuce, that he was us'd to say of his Prodigality, Somnum se mercari illa sumptus effusione. How it was celebrated by Galen we have heard; how he us'd it he tells himself; namely, beginning with Lettuce in his younger Days, and concluding with it when he grew old, and that to his great ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... pounds were discovered. In certain diggings men picked pure gold from the rock crevices with a spoon or a knife point. As to values, they were guessed at, the only currency being gold dust or nuggets. Prodigality was universal. All the gamblers of the world met in vulture concourse. There was little in the way of home; of women almost none. Life was as cheap as gold dust. Let those who liked bother about statehood and government and politics; the average ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... Bygrave—thousands of pounds sterling out of my pocket!!!" He clasped his hands in despair at the picture of pecuniary compulsion which his fancy had conjured up—his own golden life-blood spouting from him in great jets of prodigality, under the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... the meetings of the parliament, when the abuses and prodigality of the court were denounced, a member, punning upon the word etats, (statements,) exclaimed, "It is not statements but States ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... back to the Hall, but as it was some time before Frank could get any one to attend to his own horse and Diana's mare, which she had left in his charge, he had time to look about him and take in the old castle and its rough, wasteful prodigality of service. By and by, however, there arrived Sir Hildebrand, who, among his sons, seemed, by comparison at least, both intelligent and a gentleman. He gave Frank a rough but hearty welcome ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... the redeemable sins of avarice and prodigality are, in Dante's sight, those which are without deliberate or calculated operation. The lust, or lavishness, of riches can be purged, so long as there has been no servile consistency of dispute and competition for them. The sin is spoken of as that of degradation by the love of earth; it ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... from which gentlemen were not excluded with that assumed suspicion that they can never enter it but for felonious purposes. Such a profusion of flowers! Such a multitude of books! Such a various prodigality of writing materials! So many easy chairs too, of so many shapes; each in itself a comfortable home; yet nothing crowded. Woman alone can organise a drawing- room; man succeeds sometimes in a library. And the ladies' work! How graceful they look bending over their embroidery frames, consulting over ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... things most detestable, or a caterwauler, or a cynic, or a preacher. From all these fates the gods mercifully saved him, and he abides with us (the presentation being but slightly marred by the injudicious prodigality of his editors) only as the poet of Medora's musical despair lest Araminta should derogate, of the Abbot's nightmare sufferings at the hands of the Red Fisherman, of the plaintive ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... unrestrained and wanton growth, where should have been decorous and orderly beauty. It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes, but it had a certain untamed charm of its own, for all that. The very riot of it, the wanton prodigality of untouched natural growth, produced an effect that was by no ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... cried, "d'ye hear 'em; jangle? No? Ah, but they are there! riveted on, never to come off, eating deeper into my flesh every day! I'm shackled, I tell you,—fettered hand and foot. Oh! egad, I'm an object lesson!—point a moral and adorn a tale, —beware of p-prodigality and m-money lenders. Shackled—shackled hand and foot, and must drag my chain until I f-fall into ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al |
