"Ducat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soldier himself, who at the entreaty of the dwarf had gone outside the gate, was soon brought back, and thrown into prison. In his flight he had forgotten the most valuable things he had, the blue light and the gold, and had only one ducat in his pocket. And now loaded with chains, he was standing at the window of his dungeon, when he chanced to see one of his comrades passing by. The soldier tapped at the pane of glass, and when this man ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... of food in Germany, and poor Bach was only too glad to avail himself of this feeble chance of satisfying his cravings. But what was his astonishment, upon pulling the heads to pieces, to find that each contained a Danish ducat! The acquisition of so much wealth fairly took his breath away, and for a moment he almost forgot that he was famishing. On realising his good fortune, he lost no time in entering the inn and regaling himself at the expense ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... "Here is a ducat for you," he whispered. "Do my bidding and you shall have more. Detain him in the tower till I return, and on no account let him be seen ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... your Highness saw her! When that thief Hangs upon Lazarus' bosom, he'll be bidding A ducat for each drop of milk he's cost ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... father found her an excellent marriage in the person of a withered picture-dealer. She took the spouse, and very properly clapped the door in the face of the lover. I was not disheartened, Excellency; no, not I. Women are plentiful while we are young. So, without a ducat in my pocket, or a crust for my teeth, I set out to seek my fortune on board of a Spanish merchantman. That was duller work than I expected: but luckily we were attacked by a pirate; half the crew were butchered, the rest captured. I was one of the last,—always in luck, ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a black cat in her arms, with five or six more purring around her. The two old cronies held together a long discourse of which, most likely, I was the subject. At the end of the dialogue, which was carried on in the patois of Forli, the witch having received a silver ducat from my grandmother, opened a box, took me in her arms, placed me in the box and locked me in it, telling me not to be frightened—a piece of advice which would certainly have had the contrary effect, if I had had any wits about me, but I was ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... spinning and three or four spun off and clattered to the stones. The sherbet-seller called on all the saints, and Tony, clapping a lordly hand to his pocket, tossed him a ducat by mistake for a sequin. The fellow's eyes shot out of their orbits, and just then a personable-looking young man who had observed the transaction stepped up to Tony and said ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... was unknown, The opinionative islander turned the still vibrating scale by pulling' out a long purse and repeating his original theory, that the whole question was mercantile. "Quid damni?" said he, "Dic; et cito solvam." The podesta snuffed the gold: fined him a ducat for the duke; about the value of the whole tree; and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... popular with collectors, but I do not experience any great joy in the presence of his work, which, with all its miraculous deftness, is yet lacking in personal feeling. Mieris, says Ireland, "was frequently paid a ducat per hour for his works. His intimacy and friendship for Jan Steen, that excellent painter and bon vivant, seems to have led him into much inconvenience. After a night's debauch, quitting Jan Steen, he fell into a common drain; whence he was extricated by a poor cobbler and his wife, ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... addressed as authority against him, that he pulled down the great Reformer's picture which hung near him, and trampled it under his feet. One Professor was so deeply in debt that he could not pay his creditors, "if every hair on his head were a ducat." Another was "in bed with seven wounds received in a fall when he was coming home drunk." Some read their newspapers at church-service. Nor did the wives and daughters of the Professors lead any ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... a dangerous one as the reader is already aware. In the infatuation of her strong, unconquerable, but not less guilty love for the handsome spendthrift Orsini, she had pledged her diamonds to Isaachar ben Solomon for an enormous sum of money, every ducat of which had passed without an hour's delay into the possession of the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... you can count upon me to help you in every way. That goes without saying. But I can't help thinking that this news from the War Office with regard to English gold in Belgium has something to do with these bank robberies, my friend. The two things seem to hang together in my mind, and a dollar to a ducat that in the long run they identify themselves thus.... Hello! Who's that?" as a tap sounded at the door. "I'll be off if you're expecting visitors. I want to look into this thing a little closer. Some time or other the thieves are bound to leave a clue behind. Success breeds carelessness, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... be exceeded. There they treated with the King for their cargo, and the King engaged to give them whatever there was in the country for their money, and they settled to give for the bahar of cloves fourteen ells of yellow cloth of seventy-seven tem, which are worth in Castile a ducat the ell; of red cloth of the same kind ten ells; they also gave thirty ells of Britanny linen cloth, and for each of these quantities they received a bahar of cloves; likewise for thirty knives, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... every ducat in six thousand ducats, Were in six parts, and every part a ducat, I would not draw ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... dollars to be given to a cheap little man—that was hardest of all, for he had come to hate the sight of the sleek black head of Arthur Eldred. Yes, but he had saved the day. He had put in six hundred dollars when every dollar was a ducat. True, but the reward was too great. A hundred thousand ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... heart. If thou wilt change it and write up the contrary thereof, I will deliver thee from thy predicament." And he answered, "This that thou seekest is easy. On my head and eyes be it." So saying, he brought out a ducat[FN264] and calling one of his mamelukes, said to him, "Get thee to such an one the scribe and bid him write us an inscription, adorned with gold and ultramarine, in these words, to wit, 'THERE IS NO CRAFT BUT WOMEN'S CRAFT, ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... the mason built the vault in the mysterious house; (b) how he unexpectedly came into possession of this vault many years later. 16. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: hoodwinked; vault; maze; cathedral; pest; ducat. 17. Pronounce: Granada; Senor; ponderous; ghastly; obliterated; route; gaunt; hovel; ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... Membranis:—"In cunctorum viventium generatione (sicut diximus) hoc solenne est, ut ortum ducunt a primordio aliquo, quod tum materiam tum elficiendi potestatem in se habet: sitque, adeo id, ex quo et a quo quicquid nascitur, ortum suum ducat. Tale primordium in animalibus (sive ab aliis generantibus proveniant, sive sponte, aut ex putredine nascentur) est humor in tunica, aliquaaut putami ne conclusus." Compare also what Redi has to say respecting ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... her neck and said: "No, you shall have this!" Then she blew on her fingers, which were stiff with the cold, until they were nimble enough to permit her to unclasp from her neck a necklace of five rows of garnets, with a Swedish ducat hanging from them; and she fastened the ornament around the child's neck, kissing her at ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... invenies?' I knew they were light in the balance of mortality; but I thought their living dust weighed more carats. Alas! this imperial diamond hath a flaw in it, and is now hardly fit to stick in a glazier's pencil;—the pen of the historian won't rate it worth a ducat. Psha! 'something too much of this.' But I won't give him up even now; though all his admirers have, 'like the thanes, fallen from him.'"—Journal, April 9, 1814, Letters, 1898, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... their lands to the crown by four years' military service at their own charges. Then, as now, they fought with barbaric ferocity; they attacked in open formation, each man for himself, and gave no quarter until the Czar offered a ducat for every live Frenchman. They were known to ride a hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and their services in pursuing an ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... who is leading us, Caesar est is qui nos ducit (mere statement of fact, no description, with the indicative) Caesar is the man to lead us, Caesar est is qui nos ducat (descriptive relative clause ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called The Jonas-in-the-Whale.... Some say the whale can't open his mouth, but that is a fable.... They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains.... I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel of herrings in his belly.... One of our harpooneers told me that he caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over." —A VOYAGE TO GREENLAND, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... question she asked of them was, "Did the Prince show courage?" and when they replied, with a little Montenegrin craft, that they had had to hold him by force to keep him from plunging into the mle, she gave them each a half ducat. "And," said the Prince, "if they had said that I had led the charge, she would have given them a ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... I wear every day. I had only dared to place one little branch of rosemary in my hair.... While I was dressing, I thought of Barbara's wedding, and could not refrain from weeping.... It was not my mother who prepared the ducat, the morsel of bread, the salt, and the sugar, which the betrothed should bear with her on her wedding day; and so, at the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... For, when a humid flux, or catarrh, by the mutability of air, falls from your head into an arm or shoulder, or any other part; take you a ducat, or your chequin of gold, and apply to the place affected: see what good effect it can work. No, no, 'tis this blessed unguento, this rare extraction, that hath only power to disperse all malignant humours, that ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... anyone who, in those days of expenses connected with so many campaigns, chiefly against the Genoese, dared to mention the rebuilding or beautifying of the Ducal Palace. But Mocenigo was not to be deterred, and rising in his place with his thousand ducat penalty in his hand, he urged with such force upon the Council the necessity of rebuilding that he carried his point, and the lovely building much as we now know it was begun. That was in 1422. In 1423 Mocenigo died, his last words being a warning against the election ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... tournois. Absolution for incest was afforded at thirty-six livres, three ducats. Perjury came to seven livres and three carlines. Pardon for murder, if not by poison, was cheaper. Even a parricide could buy forgiveness at God's tribunal at one ducat; four livres, eight carlines. Henry de Montfort, in the year 1448, purchased absolution for that crime at that price. Was it strange that a century or so of this kind of work should produce a Luther? Was it unnatural that plain ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... while scoffing at the wealthy for not enjoying themselves was met by a stranger who gave him a purse, in which he was always to find a ducat. As fast as he took one out another was to drop in, but he was not to begin to spend his fortune until he had thrown away the purse. He took ducat after ducat out, but continually procrastinated and put off the hour of enjoyment until he ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... will be declared hereafter; this, with the declarations, limitations, conditions, and clauses contained and stated hereunder for the sum of three hundred and fifty thousand ducats of gold, paid in the current money, of gold or silver, each ducat being valued in Castilla at three hundred and seventy-five maravedis. The said King of Portugal will give and pay this amount to the said emperor and king of Castilla, and to the persons whom his majesty may appoint, in the following manner: one ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... but he had been too slow and was soon caught and thrown into a strong prison and loaded with chains. What was worse, in the hurry of his flight, he had left behind him his great treasure, the blue light, and all his gold, and had nothing left in his pocket but one poor ducat. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... intrigue and amusement; while the mild temper of the people and the watchfulness of the police prevented the public disorders that such license might have occasioned. These seeming anomalies abounded on every side. From the gaming-table where a tinker might set a ducat against a prince it was but a few steps to the Broglio, or arcade under the ducal palace, into which no plebeian might intrude while the nobility walked there. The great ladies, who were subject to strict sumptuary laws, and might not display ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... is in ducat, my second in gold. My third is in courage, my fourth is in bold. My fifth is in whimper; my sixth is in scream. My seventh is in thinking, my eighth is in dream. My ninth is in acorn, my tenth is in seed. My eleventh is in hunger, my twelfth is in need. My thirteenth is in silence, my ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the pagans, and the people here say that it passes right on to Manicongo upon the Western Sea. This salt is dug from the mountain, it is said, in squared blocks.... At the place where they are dug, 100 or 120 such pieces pass for a drachm of gold ... equal to 3/4 of a ducat of gold. When they arrive at a certain fair ... one day from the salt mine, these go 5 or 6 pieces fewer to the drachm. And so, from fair to fair, fewer and fewer, so that when they arrive at the capital ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... knew of it. When they found a bit they kept it for ornament. The cacique possessed a piece the size of a ducat, suspended by a string of cotton. It had been given to him by a cacique who lived on the great water. Perhaps he took it from the Caribs. But it was in the mountains, too. He indicated the heights beyond. Sometimes they scraped it from sand under the stream. He seemed indifferent to it. But Diego ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... Mexico, appeared to the viceroy to be no less incompatible with the rights of his majesty than they were irreconcilable to the honour of an officer and patriot of a foreign state. The viceroy, therefore, did not give a single ducat to Burling, but took immediate steps for having him ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... his features therein; then, bringing forth an Ashrafi, he set it upon the mirror and gave it back to the boy; and the barber marvelled yet the more to see the Fakir rising up and wending his ways.[FN153] The beggar ceased not coming every day and gazing at himself in the glass and laying down his ducat, whereat the barber said to himself, "By Allah, indeed this Darwaysh must have some object of his own and haply he is in love with the lad my prentice and I fear from the beggar lest he seduce the boy and take him away from me." Hereat he cried, "O ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... was it? Of course a ducat more or less isn't of consequence, but you said eleven hundred ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... weighed something more than forty thousand pounds, to which were to be added some chests of wrought plate.—Thurloe, 542. Thurloe himself says all was plundered to about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, or three hundred thousand pounds sterling (557). The ducat was worth nine shillings.] ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... this "four hundred thousand Hungarian Gold Gulden" is, I have inquired in the likely quarters without result; and it is probable no man exactly knows. The latest existing representative of the ancient gold gulden is the ducat, worth generally a half-sovereign in English. Taking the sum at that latest rate, it amounts to two hundred thousand pounds; and the reader can use that as a note of memory for the sale-price of Brandenburg with all its lands and honors—multiplying it perhaps by four or six to bring out its effective ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... must know, says it would give a ducat for you to see it, it is well painted and beautifully coloured. I have earned much praise but little profit by it. In the time it took to paint I could easily have earned 220 ducats, and now I have declined much work, in order that I may come home. I have stopped the mouths of all the painters ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... ladies. I was introduced to General Wood for the first time, although I have known him by sight, and known of him well, for months. Many officers of Wood's and Negley's divisions were present. After the review, and while the troops were leaving the field, Colonel Ducat, Inspector-General on General Rosecrans' staff, and Colonel Harker, challenged me for a race. Soon after, Major McDowell, of Rousseau's staff, joined the party; and, while we were getting into position ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... gondolier, but he is not one of those with whom he associates. The mendicants, whom he questioned, could give him no further information than that the signora had come to the church for the last few Saturdays, and had each time divided a gold-piece among them. It was a Dutch ducat, which Biondello changed for ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... this relic of my lost kingdom, so that when my enemies scoff and say, "all the wonderful things that were written of him had no truth in them, except only as they appeared on paper, I can, pointing to this hat, say: 'here's the ducat!'" ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... for; and as to Josephine, who, it was said, married me from pity, we are about to crown her in the very teeth of Raguedeau, her notary, who once told her that I had lost my commission and my sword, and was not worth a ducat; and faith he was not far wrong! But now, what is it that rises up in perspective before me? An imperial mantle and a crown. To me what are such things? a costume, a mere actor's costume. I shall wear ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... deeds of old, The grisly story Chaucer told, And many an ugly tale beside Of children caught and crucified; I heard the ducat-sweating thieves Beneath the Ghetto's slouching eaves, And, thrust beyond the tented green, The lepers ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... I answer, that if you work well (and give sufficient time to your works), and paint with good colours, you will acquire so much fame that from a poor person you will become a rich one; and your name will stand so high for using good colours, that if some masters receive a ducat for painting one figure, you will certainly be offered two, and your wishes will be fulfilled, according to the old proverb, 'good work, good pay.'" Of a truth, if man cannot dip his brush in the rainbow ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... and a laugh. "After all, a live dog is better than a dead lion—only you will not see it. We are ruled, the most of us, by our feelings, and die for our side without asking ourselves whether a single person would be a ducat the worse if the other side won. It is not philosophical," with another shrug. ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... profit, because the peril of the sea was to be encountered. The Lord, who, as I have said, takes care of the least of His children, so ordered it that we not only did not lose any thing by our Dutch money, which commonly brings not more than five shillings for a ducat; but we received for almost all that we used, five shillings and six pence, that is 67 stivers.[84] The reason of this was, that the man who took our money was about going to Norway, for timber, where he could pay it out ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... works, and then more probably be sought by the court than be obliged to seek it myself. Since my return here Herr Albert has a project in his head, the fulfilment of which does not seem to me impossible. It is this: He wishes to form an association of ten kind friends, each of these to subscribe 1 ducat (50 gulden) monthly, 600 florins a year. If in addition to this I had even 200 florins per annum from Count Seeau, this would make 800 florins altogether. How does papa like this idea? Is it not friendly? Ought not I to accept it if they are in earnest? I am perfectly satisfied with ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... improvident as a Negro who sells his wife in the morning for a drop of brandy, and cries for her at night. He gave no thought to even the immediate future, and never asked himself what resources he would have when his last ducat was melted up. He pursued his work and continued his purchases, apparently unaware that he was now no more than the titular owner of his house and lands, and that he could not, thanks to the severity of the laws, raise another penny upon a property of which he ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac |
