"Open-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the assiduous attendance upon him of an absurd little cock-boat, in the person of wee Gibbie—the two reminding him right ludicrously of the story of the Spanish Armada. Round and round the bulky provost gyrated the tiny baronet, like a little hero of the ring, pitching into him, only with open-handed pushes, not with blows, now on this side and now on that—not after such fashion of sustentation as might have sufficed with a man of ordinary size, but throwing all his force now against the provost's bulging bows, now against his over-leaning quarter, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... his sons; modern writers go to the other extreme. Bertran is especially famous for his political sirventes and for the martial note which rings through much of his poetry. He loved war both for itself and for the profits which it brought: "The powerful are more generous and open-handed when they have war than when they have peace." The troubadour's two planhs upon the "young king's" death are inspired by real feeling, and the story of his reconciliation with Henry after the capture of his castle can hardly have been known to Dante, ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... her father talked of the possibility of inheriting a fortune and a baronetcy. She remembered how she had said, in bitterness of spirit, 'Of course they will live to the age of Methuselah. Whoever heard of luck coming our way?' And now this kind of luck, which meant sudden death for two amiable, open-handed young men, had come her way. How lightly she had spoken of those two young lives! how bitter had been her thoughts about ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... accomplishments of life, and the most genial nature in the world. It was difficult to say whether he was a greater favorite with men or with women. He was noisy, rattling, reckless, good-hearted, generous, mirthful, witty, jovial, daring, open-handed, irrepressible, enthusiastic, and confoundedly clever. He was good at every thing, from tracking a moose or caribou, on through all the gamut of rinking, skating, ice-boating, and tobogganing, up to the lightest accomplishments of the drawing-room. He was one of those ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... with which I had entered and left caused me considerable curiosity. Kemsley was one of those free, bluff, open-hearted, open-handed, men. He was never secretive, never elusive. I could only account for his curious, mystifying actions by the fact that the reputation of a woman was at stake—that he ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... Alice had satisfied them that it might be better that her daughter should pay them a long visit, while Mr. Egremont's health required constant attendance, and the Canon's family were at Redcastle. And as her husband was always open-handed, she could make Ursula's stay with them advantageous to their slender means, without hurting ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sentiment concerning the Falling Wall raid was making itself felt; its brutal ferocity was being more openly criticized and less covertly denounced. Hawk's personal popularity had never suffered among the cowboys and the cowboy following. He had been known far and wide for open-handed generosity and blunt truthfulness—and these were traits to silence or to soften reprobation of his fitful and reckless disregard for the property rights of the big companies. He was a freebooter with most of the virtues and vices of his kind. But the crowd that morning in Sleepy ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... condition high or low, the worthy occupant of it, by reason of the common humanity he shares with all above and all beneath and all around him, has a brother's birthright to brotherly treatment, to even-handed justice and open-handed charity. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... Revolution George Washington recorded in his diary the surprising fact that for the first time since he and Martha Washington had returned to Mount Vernon, they had dined alone. As Wharton says in her Martha Washington, "Warm hearted, open-handed hospitality was constantly exercised at Mount Vernon, and if the master humbly recorded that, although he owned a hundred cows, he had sometimes to buy butter for his family, the entry seems to have been made in no spirit of fault finding." Of this same ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... Bel-a-faire-peur would offer his last sous to aid him, or, if money were all gone, would sell the last trifle he possessed to get enough to assist his comrade. It was a virtue which went far to vouch for all others in the view of his lawless, open-handed brethren of the barracks and the Camp, and made them forgive him many moments when the mood of silence and the habit of solitude, not uncommon with him, would otherwise have incensed a fraternity with whom to live apart ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... arranged cups and saucers for seven people upon the waiter before her, instructing the butler, at the same time, to ring the bell again for those she was to serve. She was very busy and happy at that date. The neighborhood was gay, after the open-hearted, open-handed style of hospitality that distinguished the brave old days of Virginia plantation-life. A merry troup of maidens and cavaliers visited by invitation one homestead after another, crowding bedrooms beyond ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... with their own horses, rifles, and, in most cases, with their own ammunition, and were supplied only with their rations of food. When it was practicable, they were allowed to kill game; and, being very expert at it, they seldom returned from a hunt open-handed. Their peaceful mode of life prevented them from engaging in any deep league with the hostile Indians; but yet, there is no doubt that when the different tribes were at war with the whites, the Pueblos harbored the warlike Indians ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... make one. A rich parish decided that it could best honor God by building a new church, finer and costlier than anything else in the city, and invited several architects to submit plans. David entered the competition, not by the adroit methods Dick Holden practised, but in the simple open-handed fashion which alone was possible to him. He went to the chairman ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... the play, and the Tower, and wherever else there was honest amusement to be had in those days. Martin Lambert loved that his children should have all the innocent pleasure which he could procure for them, and Mr. George, who was of a most generous, open-handed disposition, liked to treat his friends likewise, especially those who had been so admirably ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Lenormant says of him: "he was avaricious as a Jew, and sumptuous as the most magnificent grand seigneur," and he seems to have been a most interesting character. He lived in a beautiful palace upon the Corso, wherein was placed Canova's Hercules and Lycas, and there he and his wife dispensed a most open-handed hospitality. Madame Torlonia had been a beauty in her day, and she was a very handsome woman even in her later years. Kind and good-natured, she was like the majority of Italian women of her time—a curious combination of devotion and gallantry. It is related ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... May, 1789, he writes from Montreal, and speaks gratefully of the open-handed hospitality extended to him, and of the kind lady friends he met ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... good qualities. He was kind and affectionate to her family. He had been wonderful when Jim died, and he loved Elizabeth dearly. He was generous and open-handed. He was handsome, too, in ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to say," Jack continued, "this swift transposition from the cultivation of civilization to the handiwork of Nature is whimsically illustrative of the people. Did you ever see or hear or read of such open-handed, honest-hearted hospitality as theirs; such refinement of manners; such sincerity in speech and act? Contrast this with their fairly pagan creed as to the slaves; their intolerance of the Northern people; their clannish ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... it all, the last night on board, Michael lost his thoroughbred temper with this man who had no temper. It came to a fight. And Michael had no chance. He raged royally and fought royally, leaping to the attack, after being knocked over twice by open-handed blows under his ear. Quick as Michael was, slashing South Sea niggers by virtue of his quickness and cleverness, he could not touch his teeth to the flesh of this man, who had been trained for six years with ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Hispaniola, Las Casas had been close friends with a man named Renteria, whom he describes as a most virtuous, prudent, charitable, and devout Christian, given entirely to the things of God and religion and little versed in the things of this world, to which he paid small attention; he was so open-handed by instinct that his generosity was almost the vice of carelessness rather than a virtue. He was pure and humble in his life and was a man of some learning, devoted to the study of the Scriptures and commentaries to the Latin ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... him on the edge of a dry ditch and looked down. In the bottom were two men, strays from the fight, grappled together and still fighting. They were weeping out of sheer fatigue and helplessness, and the blows they only occasionally struck were open-handed and ineffectual. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... life is more rare than the conversion of a person who is "close" about money into one generous, open-handed and lavish. The sparrow will sooner become the peacock than the miser the spendthrift. And if this is so, if such a transformation seldom occurs in life, it is even more unusual for a man or woman to leave behind in dying a manifesto ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... I," agreed his companion, who was large and jovial and open-handed, more like a lucky sea-captain than a farmer. After pounding a slender walnut-tree with a heavy stone, he had succeeded in getting down a pocketful of late-hanging nuts which had escaped the squirrels, and was now snapping them back, one ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... many other of our successful merchants, had been an open-handed patron of art, and a cheerful giver, not only to needy friends and relatives, but also to various charities. For example, as a kind of personal tribute to Osborne Gordon, his son's tutor, he gave L5,000 toward the augmentation of poor Christ-Church livings. His son's ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... meal; in fact, their standing here is probably the lowest in all the archipelago. Still, they do not lack amusement; they gather like the men for social carousals, and are giggling and chattering all day long. Their principal occupation is the cultivation of the fields, but where Nature is so open-handed this is not such a task as we might think when we see them coming home in the afternoon, panting under an immense load of fruit, with a pile of firewood on top, a child on their back and possibly dragging another by the hand. Port ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... themselves after the fatigues of the day's chase. They seemed to be in high good humor, as if the hunt had gone well with them that day; and, being in this mood, extended a true Indian welcome to the new-comers; setting before them, with open-handed hospitality, heaps of parched corn, and their choicest bits of venison, wild turkey, bear's meat, and fish. Supper ended, the pipe of peace and good-will passed from mouth to mouth, as a pledge that all should go on ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... what he asked for. He was not prepared for the amazing suddenness of the open-handed blow that fell on the side of his head and sent ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... drove on in the teeth of the sleet and wondered what Sir Robert would give him at the drive's end. A half-sovereign would not be too much for so open-handed a gentleman, and one so near his wedding; and the coachman, already feeling his hand close upon it, turned a brave face to the sleet and tried not to think of the warm fire in the harness-room from which they had called ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... Puerto Bello, and to attack the Spanish vice-admiral where he lay in the midst of the armed flota; wherefore, if anything was to be accomplished, it must be undertaken by some subtle design rather than by open-handed boldness. Having so prefaced what he had to say, he now declared that it was his purpose to take one of the ship's boats and to go in that to Puerto Bello, trusting for some opportunity to occur to aid him ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... were not few, for he came of an ancient family, long settled in the neighbourhood. In his worldly affairs he was well-to-do, having added not a little to the little his father had left him; but he was no lover of money, being open-handed even to his wife, upon whom first your money-grub is sure to exercise his parsimony. There was, however, at Stonecross, little call to spend and less temptation from without, the farm itself being equal to the supply of almost ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... that he was captain of their vessel, "which was a piece of news they knew not before." Going on shore, Evans stood treat to his crew at the village inn, spending three pistols on liquid refreshment. He so took the fancy of the publican by his open-handed ways that he was invited to call again. This Evans and his companions did, in the middle of the same night, and rifled the house and took away all they could carry aboard ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... the open-handed country man to the life—stood champagne. Ashmead chattered, and seemed quite off his guard. Smith approached the subject cautiously. "Gamble here as much ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... was anxious to conciliate the liking of all who approached him, however foreign to his own set, however humble, or however insignificant. He was as mistrustful as a greedy child. He could be extravagant, but he was not open-handed; and yet he would give up what he coveted for himself, if he were urged by those whose esteem he desired to win. Now, of all persons who came near him, Shelley was the one that combined the greatest number of qualities calculated to influence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... eyes are mostly defrayed from private funds. The sheriffs, for instance, derive no aid from public moneys; their own fortunes provide the means for handsomely entertaining friends and strangers, and for dispensing open-handed charity. The Lord Mayor himself almost invariably draws upon his own resources to a large amount, in order to maintain the ancient reputation and actual present influence of the City of London. Demolish Gog and Magog, put down the civic banquets, break up and melt down the weighty ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... not altogether popular: the poor people rather resented the extreme simplicity of his manner of living when they discovered that it was not accompanied by the open-handed liberality which Allison had half led them to expect; the tenant-farmers opposed any change that would touch their pockets; and people of his own class, few and far between in that thinly populated neighbourhood, called once, but found little to interest them in ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... in my bachelor days going with my boon companion, Bill Carberry, to look at the house to which he was in a few weeks to introduce his bride. Bill was a gallant, free-hearted, open-handed fellow, the life of our whole set, and we felt that natural aversion to losing him that bachelor friends would. How could we tell under what strange aspects he might look forth upon us, when once he had passed into "that undiscovered ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... soon his rash and reckless methods became known to the dealers, who would push the prices up with the certain knowledge that Rembrandt would rush in where wiser buyers feared to tread. The making of an art collection, the purchase of rich jewels for his wife, together with good and open-handed living, soon began to play havoc with Rembrandt's estate. The artist's temperament offended many of the sober Dutchmen who could not understand it at all, his independence and insistence upon the finality of his own judgment were more offensive still, and after 1636 there were ...
— Rembrandt • Josef Israels
... of open-handed gallantry would have made him answer, 'No offer from your uncle, but a simple request from you;' but he thought in time of the absurdity of returning without them, and merely answered, 'I have no right to yield them, fair lady. They are ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... They all "hope that matters are not so bad with him as represented; but when a man's own children begin to rail at his extravagance, things must be badly managed. They understand he is mortgaged over head and ears and is continually dabbling with money-lenders. He is certainly an open-handed old gentleman, but they fear he has lived too fast; indeed, they never knew any good come of this fondness for hunting, racing revelling, and prize-fighting. In short, Mr. Bull's estate is a very fine one and has been in the family a long while, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... falsehood and uses truth with rare economy! There, dishonesty and petty larceny are foibles too frequently condoned because too generally practiced. Even among the higher classes—the cultured and elite—open-faced and open-handed frankness and sincerity are too rare. Hypocrisy and duplicity are too often cultivated as a fine art. It seems to be the pride and pleasure of an Oriental to conceal his mind and purpose and to say and do things by the ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... "I've a word to say to you. This land that we have sighted is the place we have been sailing to. Mr. Trelawney, being a very open-handed gentleman, as we all know, has just asked me a word or two, and as I was able to tell him that every man on board had done his duty, alow and aloft, as I never ask to see it done better, why, he and I and the doctor are going below to the cabin to drink ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that he would display some portion of his father's ability, and restore peace to the nation. Men of arts and letters expected everything from a Medicean Pope, who had already acquired the reputation of polite culture and open-handed generosity. They at any rate were not deceived. Leo's first words on taking his place in the Vatican were addressed to his brother Giuliano: 'Let us enjoy the Papacy, now that God has given it ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... low-spirited and unwell. Partly also it was due to a touch of poetry. She polished her verses in beeswax and turpentine, and sought on her floors and tables for that which the poet seeks in Eden or Atlantis. It must not be imagined that because she was so particular she was stingy. She was one of the most open-handed creatures that ever breathed. She loved plenty. The jug was always full to overflowing with beer, and the dishes were always heaped up with good things, so that nobody was ever ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... her; so that the universal inference was"—to the above unspeakable effect. "She was of fine figure; had something grand in her air and carriage, and the prettiest humor in the world. She often appeared in men's clothes, which became her very well. People said she was extremely open-handed;" as indeed the Beelzebub Parent-Lover was of the like quality (when he had cash about him), and to her, at this time, he was profuse beyond limit. Truly a tempting aspect of the Devil, this expensive Orzelska: something beautiful ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... piece of fence-cutting on his own account opposite Nick Hargus' ranch, through which he had ridden and driven home thirty head of cattle lately stolen by that enterprising citizen from Vesta Philbrook's herd. This act of open-handed restoration, carried out in broad daylight alone, and in the face of Hargus, his large family of sons, and the skulking refugees from the law who chanced to be hiding there at the time, added greatly ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... admiringly by his side in a ragged dress had the power to call a faint flush into his colorless cheek. He dismissed her at last, but not until she had found out—what, sooner or later, her large-hearted and discriminating sex inevitably did—that he was exceedingly free and open-handed with his money, and also—what, perhaps, none other of her sex ever did—that the bold black eyes of this fine gentleman were in reality of a brownish ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... was my father's father, and very old, said, 'She shall be my daughter, and welcome,' and many of us young girls said also, 'She shall be welcome'—although we felt sorrowful to lose a lover so good and open-handed. And then did the FOMA'I call to the old chief and two others, and they entered the store and lighted lamps, and presently a man went forth into the village, and cried aloud: 'Come hither, all people, ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... as a severe man, with a hard visage; while the debtor is an open-handed generous man, ready to help and entertain everybody. He is the object of general sympathy. When Goldsmith was dunned for his milk-score and arrested for the rent of his apartments, who would think of pitying the milk-woman or the landlady? It is ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... sent thee," wrote Nathan to Raphael Joseph Chelebi, this pious and open-handed Prince in Israel, "is the first man in the world—I may say no more. Honor him, then, and thou shalt have thy reward in his lifetime, wherein thou wilt witness miracles beyond belief. Whatever thou shouldst see, be not astonied. It is a divine ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... up all the small stuff you can,' he said; 'keep at it for a while. I dare say we can agree all right about wages.' 'Honoured and thank you, Captain,' says I. 'Right! Go and tell Nils,' he says. Oh, but he's a grand open-handed sort, is the Captain! There's not ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... for good citizenship in the country. The jolliest aggregation of red-blooded, open-handed, hustle-em-up good fellows in the world. Joralemon welcomes ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... preparation of taro; in the Marquesas, of breadfruit. And a Marquesan does not readily conceive life possible without his favourite diet. A few years ago a drought killed the breadfruit trees and the bananas in the district of Anaho; and from this calamity, and the open-handed customs of the island, a singular state of things arose. Well- watered Hatiheu had escaped the drought; every householder of Anaho accordingly crossed the pass, chose some one in Hatiheu, 'gave him his name'—an onerous gift, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... successful. The management of his parish was pre-eminently good. The parish school was a model. The farmers went to church. Dissenters there were none. The people of Bowick believed thoroughly in their parson, and knew the comfort of having an open-handed, well-to-do gentleman in the village. This third episcopal difficulty did not endure long. Dr. Wortle knew his man, and was willing enough to be on good terms with his bishop so long as he was allowed to be in all ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... host answered, bustling out from behind the bar, eager in the interest of the pleasant-spoken, open-handed gallant. "Just round the corner of the Rue Clichet, in the court. The first house on the left, that is his. I would go with monsieur, only I cannot leave the shop alone, and the wife not back from market. But monsieur cannot miss it. The first ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... remarkable man. The grand duke of Weimar invited him to assume the direction of his musical establishment, including the opera. The salary was absurdly small—$800 or $1,000 a year. This, however, cut no figure in Liszt's mind, for he had always been singularly open-handed, yet at same time prudent. From his successful concert tours he had put by funds, 20,000 francs for his aged mother, and 20,000 francs for each of the three children he had by the Countess D'Agoult (known in literature as Daniel Stern), ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... art open-handed in thy proffers: he might have asked the like concerning thee but a ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... It graduates insensibly into every other class, it permeates society as threads and veins of gold permeate quartz. It includes the millionaire snob, the political-minded plutocrat, the wealthy sensualist, open-handed religious fanatics, the "Charitable," the smart, the magnificently dull, the great army of timid creatures who tremble through life on a safe bare sufficiency,[23] travellers, hunters, minor poets, sporting enthusiasts, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... fuifre, I can't remember them! I know I never done them, for I never done anything but good all my life—so much for so much." He had argued it out with himself and he believed he was a good man. He had been open-handed, had stood by his friends, and, up to a few days ago, was counted a good citizen; for many had come to profit through him. His trade—a little smuggling, a little piracy? Was not the former hallowed by distinguished patronage, and had it not existed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... resources, whom the head of the family, the Austrian Emperor, may coax or browbeat at his sweet pleasure. If papa had been able to save his thronelet, I have no doubt he would be a most agreeable man, open-handed and eager to enjoy life, but instead of making the best of a situation over which he has no control, he is forever fretting about his lost dignities and about "his dear people" that don't care a snap for his love and affection. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... with his right fist ready to strike, open-handed. Then he drew back. She had whipped the knife ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... leisure of country life, which shut out taste for God's feast. Strange preference of toil and risk of loss to abundance, repose, and joy! Savages barter gold for glass beads. We choose lives of weary work and hunting after uncertain riches, rather than listen to His call, despising the open-handed housekeeping of our Father's house, and trying to fill our hunger with the swine's husks. The suicidal madness of refusing the kingdom is set in a vivid light in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... he ever been known to pick a quarrel. He was a professional, and all the fighting brutishness of him was reserved for his professional appearances. Outside the ring he was slow-going, easy-natured, and, in his younger days, when money was flush, too open-handed for his own good. He bore no grudges and had few enemies. Fighting was a business with him. In the ring he struck to hurt, struck to maim, struck to destroy; but there was no animus in it. It was a plain business proposition. Audiences assembled ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... of his life, the loss of his young wife when Estelle was five years old, had changed him completely. From being a cheerful, open-hearted, open-handed man, he had become silent and reserved, seldom seeing anybody, and keeping aloof even from his brother's children when they paid their yearly visit to Estelle, and the ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... knives and knuckle-dusters and clubs; and the men who wielded them were cowardly, slinking foreigners whose very appearance was repugnant. Sneaky, underground, despicable crime it was, running the gamut from petty annoyance to senseless murder. None of the open-handed, bold and reasoned intelligence of the prairie criminal. It revolted him. Senseless, insensate, formless, erratic, it only disgusted him with its sheer and unprofitable lawlessness. On the prairie crime meant double duty for him—to discover, then to catch the criminal; ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... troopers by name—every one.... And he went to England, and he became a young man, and back he came, lilting a little in his walk, and cracking his finger-joints—back to his own regiment and to me. He had not forgotten either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart, Sahib. He was rich, open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers, keen- eyed, jestful, and careless. I could tell tales about him in his first years. There was very little he hid from me. I was his Umr Singh, and when we were alone he ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... time Jack Gray, a fine, open-hearted and open-handed sailor, came to the hamlet, where his widowed mother lived. He made love to Mary Field, and won her heart, unhappily before she had ascertained his principles and character. To her simple mind, ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... forbade the eating of meat on fast days, but the Church was ready with dispensations for those who could afford to pay for them. The Church forbade marriage to the fourth degree of consanguinity, but loving cousins, if they were rich and open-handed, could obtain the Church's consent to their union. There were toll-gates for the priests at every halting-place on the road of life—fees at weddings, fees at funerals, fees whenever an excuse could be found to fasten ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... much against the grain with him to take the money. But she made him take it. She said he wanted books and instruments, and insisted on his having at least a hundred pounds. It was generous of her. Yes; she is—I am convinced—a truly generous girl, and as open-handed as the day. Now, would a common girl, a girl of no descent, have shown so much ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... himself could live contentedly on so little, was the most open-handed of men, the most liberal and cheerful of givers; and whether to Samoans in distressful times, or to others who sought his aid, his purse was never closed; while his hospitality was like Sir Walter's. Probably, in his hour of greatest success, he never was among "the best sellers." But any financial ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... toward her. I ask that we help her as she struggles upward along the painful and difficult road of self-governing independence. I ask this aid for her, because she is weak, because she needs it, because we have already aided her. I ask that open-handed help, of a kind which a self-respecting people can accept, be given to Cuba, for the very reason that we have given her such help in the past. Our soldiers fought to give her freedom; and for three years our representatives, ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... night and stayed with them until morning, after the open-handed custom of the range-land. Billy Louise did not talk with him very much. He had shifty eyes and a coarse, loose-lipped mouth and a thick neck, and, girl-like, she took a violent dislike to him. But John ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... tastes in common. He was a bold dashing fellow, with plenty of pluck, and what those who disliked him called impudence. One thing no one could deny, that he was just the fellow to stand by a friend at a pinch, and that, blow high or blow low, he was always the same, merry-hearted, open-handed, and kind. These qualities, however, valuable as they are, if not backed by right principle and true religion, too often in time of temptation have been known miserably to fail. On a half-holiday, or whenever we ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... than those hinds, glebae ascriptitii, whom at a distance he ruled in his lands: he was slave of his baser parts. With God he was always at war, and with God's elect. What of blessed Thomas? Let Thomas answer on the Last Day. I deny him none of his properties; he was open-handed, open-minded, as bold as a lion. But his vices ate him up. Peace be with the man; he was a mighty king. He left a wife in prison, two sons in arms against him, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... would run unflaggingly round in a circle on the grass, like a tethered foal, leaning toward the center as he ran, so that his hand could pluck the grass, kicking up behind, and neighing and snorting. He was pouring forth energy from morning till night with open-handed profusion. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... should be honestly reciprocal. Without this it almost necessarily degenerates into a device to gain advantage or a contrivance to secure benefits with only the semblance of a return. In our dealings with other nations we ought to be open-handed and scrupulously fair. This should be our policy as a producing nation, and it plainly becomes us as a people who love generosity and the moral aspects of national good ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... his friendship and pay him tribute, rather than rely upon the uncertain protection of the King of France. They had discovered before this that Rollo was a man whose word could be trusted—a lord of mighty will, who had a ruthless way of enforcing obedience, but was open-handed and generous withal to those who would ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... helplessly at the dark shadowy shape for quite a minute—but it was only a matter of a few seconds—before, snatching his left hand from his companion's grasp, he let his revolver drop to the full extent of its lanyard, and sprang open-handed at the man. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... extraordinary feature of this undertaking was that it was left for an American to finance and promote in the very cradle of the British drama the highest and finest attempt yet made to encourage that drama. The Repertory Theater would have proclaimed any manager the open-handed patron of ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... objects of ambition or preserved their ancient habits of labour and self-restraint. A hundred years ago the tribes were organized and disciplined communities. No family or able-bodied unit need starve or lack shelter; the humblest could count on the most open-handed hospitality from his fellows. The tribal territory was the property of all. The tilling, the fishing, the fowling were work which could not be neglected. The chief was not a despot, but the president of a ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... no word. His gesture was, however, that of one unconvinced. Adventurer as he was, ingenious and unscrupulous, he lived from hand to mouth. Sometimes he made a big coup and placed himself in funds. But following such an event he was open-handed and generous to his friends, extravagant in his expenditure; and very soon found himself under the necessity to exercise his wits in order to obtain the next louis. He had known Flockart for years ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... Tennyson acquired another home at Aldworth, Surrey,—where he died Oct. 6, 1892, followed some four years later by his wife,—his happiest days were spent at Farringford, the pilgrimage place of many eminent worshippers of the poet's muse, where was dispensed an unostentatious but open-handed and genial British hospitality. It should be added that, besides the perquisites which attach to the office of the Poet Laureate, Tennyson was given from 1845 a pension of L200 ($1000) and that, while in 1865 he refused a baronetcy, in 1884 he accepted ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... believed it and not have been far from the truth. He thought a great deal about her; she was constantly present to his mind. At a time when his thoughts had been a good deal of a burden to him her sudden arrival, which promised nothing and was an open-handed gift of fate, had refreshed and quickened them, given them wings and something to fly for. Poor Ralph had been for many weeks steeped in melancholy; his outlook, habitually sombre, lay under the shadow ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... weeks,—together with the gold-bought English woman who is known as his 'Danish wife.'" The monk's watery eyes were rolled upward in pious disapproval, before he turned them earthward with a sigh of resignation. "Nevertheless, it is the will of Heaven,—and he is very open-handed with lands and gold when his meals please him." He cast a thirsty glance toward the half-filled goblet which Sebert was absently fingering. "If you have eagerness for a sight of him, you have but to walk through the galleries until you come to the garden in which he is fleeting ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... who was afraid that a storm was on the point of bursting forth, chanced to overturn his tin mug of tea. His mother was one of those obtuse women who regard an accident as a sin, to be visited by summary punishment. Her usual method of inflicting punishment was by means of an open-handed slap on the side of the head. On this occasion she dealt out the measure of justice with such good-will, that poor little Fred was sent sprawling and howling on ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... breakfast daily for a month with a dish of freshly picked currants. He will soon, almost doubt his own identity, and may even begin to think that he is becoming a good man. He will be more gallant to his wife, kinder to his children, friendlier to his neighbors, and more open-handed to every good cause. Work will soon seem play, and play fun. In brief, the truth of the ancient pun will be verified, that "the power to live a good life depends largely upon the LIVER." Out upon the nonsense of taking medicine and ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... Margaret's funeral took their due course—a lengthy one, and then, or rather throughout, there was the consideration what was to come next. Too late, all the Court seemed to have wakened to regret for Margaret. She had been open-handed and kindly, and the attendants had loved her, while the ladies who had gossiped about her habits now found occupation for their tongues in indignation against whosoever had aspersed her discretion. The King himself, who had always ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a name which, in years long past, the Western world of America had learned to hate with a bitterness rarely equaled. But all that was almost forgotten, and this man, by reason of his manner, which was genial, open-handed, even somewhat magnificent, rarely failed, at first, to obtain the good-will of those with whom ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Abner Briggs, Junior, was one of that kind. He remembered how he had floored Master Weeks, and he had just "spunk" enough left in him to try to repeat his former successful experiment an the new master. He sprang at him, open-handed, to clutch him. So the master had to strike,—once, but very hard, and just in the place to tell. No doubt, the authority that doth hedge a schoolmaster added to the effect of the blow; but the blow was itself a neat one, and did not ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) |
