"Penny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not broken him down to this point of self-abasement. Could any Sultan, or even the "Oriental Despot" of a radical penny-a-liner, be implored in more abject terms? Madame de Sevigne, Madame de Scudery, Le Fevre, talked, wrote, and spared no expense for their dear friend. Brebeuf, the poet, who had neither influence nor money, took to his bed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... the hard, dull labour of levelling, setting the frames and laying the concrete foundation. The finishing was the absorbing part. The idea was not for a fine-grained sand walk, but a mixture of all sizes from a penny large down to the finest sand. The cement makes the most lasting bond in a mixture of this kind; moreover, the pebbly finish was effective and darker for ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... Estimates for a day immediately after the end of a vacation. The reasons are two. First, because Estimates give more time and opportunity for the mere bore and obstructive than any other part of Parliamentary business. On the Estimates, as I have often explained, every single penny spent in the public service has to be entered. Whether that sum be large or small makes no difference. For instance, there is a charwoman at the Foreign Office; the charwoman's salary appears in the accounts just as bold ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... good many vegetarian cookery books, ranging in price from one penny to half-a-crown, but yet, when I am asked, as not unfrequently happens, to recommend such a book, I know of only one which at all fulfils the requirements, and even that one is, I find, rather severely criticised by ladies who know anything about ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... by my Lord Jermyn; but the Queen, his mother, had not money to buy him another for the next day. The Duc d'Orleans went to compliment his Majesty upon his arrival, but it was not in my power to persuade his Royal Highness to give his nephew one penny, because, said he, "a little would not be worth his acceptance, and a great deal would engage me to do as much hereafter." This leads me to make the following digression: that there is nothing so wretched as to be a minister to a Prince, and, at the same time, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... surprise and inquiry; and it were well that your noble conduct to my daughters should not be known, for Henry would not be likely to regard it favourably. Therefore we will put you to ransom at the sum of a crown for yourself, and a penny for your squire." ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... penny! I have gone on foot From house to house; each door is long since closed. I know not what ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... hour of Cardhaven was well established and the thoughtful housewives did not seek to make purchases while the fat was hot in Cap'n Abe's skillet. One of these untimely customers was a wandering child with a penny. "I might have waited on him, ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... Ishmaelitish greed and cunning: we are shooting crocodiles on the white Nile, unearthing the winged lions of Ezekiel's vision on the Tigris—watching the night-dance of the Devil-worshipers on their mountains, negotiating with the shrewd penny-turning patriarch of Armenia for a sample from his holy-oil manufactory at Erivan, drinking coffee at Damascus, and sherbet at Constantinople, lunching in the vale of Chaumorng, taking part in a holy fete at Rome, and a merry Christmas at Berlin. We look into ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... skillfully and very nearly succeeded in avoiding detection. To credit these little boys with instinctive crime was intolerable, and just as in the Middle Ages a scapegoat had to be found. Apuleius and his Ass were out of the question, but the little boys admitted having read penny dreadfuls; London breathed again, the way now was clear, these newspapers must be prosecuted, and this recrudescence of wickedness in the heart of a little boy would never be heard of again. A little later or maybe it was a little earlier, I relate these things in ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... as the bell of the packet is tolling a farewell to London Bridge, and warning off the blackguard-boys with the newspapers, who have been shoving Times, Herald, Penny Paul-Pry, Penny Satirist, Flare-up, and other abominations, into your face—just as the bell has tolled, and the Jews, strangers, people-taking-leave-of their families, and blackguard-boys aforesaid, are making ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... our daily life is much less strict than it was when old John Shakespeare, the poet's father, was Stratford's ale-taster, empowered to see, inter alia, that every baker sold a whole loaf of true weight for one penny. ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... gone, not hungry, but what is almost worse, yearning for dainties and tobacco, if it were not for the generosity of their comrades. I have seen men with twopence and no more, men who were longing for a dozen things themselves, share what the twopence bought with comrades who had not even a penny. I passed two young soldiers near the door of a canteen. One of them stopped me and very shyly asked me if I would give him a penny for an English stamp. He fished it out from the pocket of his pay-book. It ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... Seas, thy Vessel freight; Flax, Castor, Coan Wines, the precious Weight Of Pepper and Sabean Incense, take With thy own Hands, from the tir'd Camel's Back, And with Post-haste thy running Markets make. Be sure to turn the Penny; Lye and Swear, 'Tis wholsome Sin: But Jove, thou say'st, will hear. Swear, Fool, or Starve; for the Dilemma's even: A Tradesman thou! and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... out of the tart, and gravely handed the rest to the monkey. "My poor little man!" he said, with grotesque tenderness, "you look hungry. In the sacred name of humanity, I offer you some lunch!" The organ-grinder piteously put in his claim to a penny from the benevolent stranger. The Count shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... befallen all the other ships, so that the aggregate loss must have run into thousands of pounds, every penny of which might have been saved had ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... very eminent lawyers constantly engaged in causes involving large interests, who nevertheless find leisure, many times each year, to serve by advice and counsel, and sometimes even by the active conduct of cases, numbers of the children of poverty, and to serve them without a penny ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... of these geometrical ratios knows how wondrously they mount up. There is an old familiar story of the blacksmith who asked the price at which the stranger would sell the horse he was shoeing. The owner of the horse replied that, if the blacksmith would give him one penny for the first nail he drove into the shoe, two for the second, four for the third, and so on, he might have the horse. No hundred horses in the world taken together have ever brought such a price as the blacksmith would have had to pay for the animal on which he was working. This is no circumstance ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... cabinet, which contained only the most indispensable articles of furniture. This furniture belonged to him. He gave three francs a month to the old principal tenant to come and sweep his hole, and to bring him a little hot water every morning, a fresh egg, and a penny roll. He breakfasted on this egg and roll. His breakfast varied in cost from two to four sous, according as eggs were dear or cheap. At six o'clock in the evening he descended the Rue Saint-Jacques to dine at Rousseau's, opposite Basset's, the stamp-dealer's, on the corner of the Rue des Mathurins. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... a penny Has friends and friends a-many; They hang around him eagerly and offer him advice. Tim Lanigan states clearly That he loves taffy dearly And butterscotch is awful good ...
— Children of Our Town • Carolyn Wells
... general terms.*—This is a most important rule. Instead of "I have neither the necessaries of life nor the means of procuring them," write (if you can with truth), "I have not a crust of bread, nor a penny ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... occupied a place of honor and convenience in the household, is now relegated, a harmless thing, to a forgotten corner of the cellar, and no longer points a moral but adorns a wood-pile. Disciplinary applications of the old type have fallen into innocuous desuetude; the penny now tempts, the sugar candy soothes and sugar-coated promises entice when the rod should quell and blister. Meanwhile the refractory urchin, with no fear to stimulate his sluggish conscience, chuckles, rejoices and ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... reunion round the festive board at night, when every one again lives through all the excitement of the day. Talk of fox-hunting after pig-sticking, it is like comparing a penny candle to a lighthouse, or a donkey race ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... I was out bicycling. A boy, of about 10 years of age, offered me a bunch of violets for a penny. I told him I would give him a shilling to pick me a large bunch. I am not sure if I had any ulterior motive. He proceeded into a wood on the side of the road; I dismounted from my machine and followed him. He was a pretty, dark boy. He made water. I went up to him and asked ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... that some laboured the whole day, which are hired for a penny, that is of our money ten pence: for like as we have a piece of money which we call a shilling, and is in value twelve pence, so the Jews had a piece that they called denarium, and that was in value ten of our pence. The first company wrought twelve ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox
... talk of fame, I have gotten it in the wars; and will afford any man a reasonable penny-worth: some will say, they could be content to have it, but that it is to be atchiev'd with danger; but my opinion is otherwise: for if I might stand still in Cannon-proof, and have fame fall upon me, ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Let me see, I breakfasted exactly ten hours ago, in the rosy morning, off a modest cup of coffee in Covent Garden Market. Coffee, a penny; bread, a simple halfpenny. What has Mrs. Ridley ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you can get the lukewarm water that people come here to drink. One is the public well, where there is a pump free to everybody, and the other is in the pump-room just across the street from the well, where you pay a penny a glass for the same water, which three doleful old women spend all their ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... papers, and among them a general confession which she desired to make; when she wrote it, however, her mind was disordered; she knew not what she had said or done, being distraught at the time, in a foreign country, deserted by her relatives, forced to borrow every penny. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... not drowned," she answered, mercilessly, handing the telegram back. "However, it will cost him a pretty penny, as Macpherson valued ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... these, numbers of torches carried about by hand lend a wavering and picturesque light to the scene. By eight o'clock in the evening, crowds begin to fill the Piazza and the adjacent streets. Long before one arrives, the squeak of penny-trumpets is heard at intervals; but in the Piazza itself the mirth is wild and furious, and the din that salutes one's ears on entering is almost deafening. The object of every one is to make as much ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... figure it's great To think, when the war is all over, And we're thro' with the mud— And the spilling of blood, And we're shipped back again to old Dover; When they've paid us our tin And we've blown the lot in, And our very last penny is spent, We'll still have a thought, if that's all we've got: Well, I'm one of the boys ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... respective colleges, our acquaintance had become intimate; that we had once shared a little bit of fishing on the Test; and that we were both book-collectors. I was a comparatively sane bibliomaniac, but to Allen the time came when he grudged every penny that he did not spend on rare books, and when he actually gave up his share of the water we used to take together, that his contribution to the rent might go for rare editions and bindings. After this deplorable change of character we naturally saw each other less, ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... hand upon the pommel of the saddle and looking up in my face, "and I think I can find you a customer. If you would take a hundred, I think my lord would purchase it, for he has sent me about the fair to look him up a horse, by which he could hope to make an honest penny." "Well," said I, "and could he not make an honest penny and yet give me the price I ask?" "Why," said the go-between, "a hundred and fifty pounds is as much as the animal is worth, or nearly so; and my lord, do you see . . ." ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... having an eye! It's worth a thousand guineas of it's worth a penny. And those stupid idiots let me have ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... your commission a short time ago, Mr. Crawshay," he said, "with the interest which one always feels in Government business of a remunerative character. I tell you now that I would have taken it on eagerly if there had not been a penny hanging to it. I can't tell you exactly why I feel so bitterly about him, but if I can really get my hands on to the man who calls himself Jocelyn Thew, it will be one of the happiest days of ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... end. I cannot bandy words with such as you. Not another dollar shall you receive from me—not a penny. You had my final word at Massac, last Spring. Quit this boat instantly, and leave St. Louis. If I see you again, or hear of your hanging around the garrison, I'll settle your account in ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... he was apprenticed to a barber, and after learning the business, he set up for himself in Bolton, where he occupied an underground cellar, over which he put up the sign, "come to the subterraneous barber—he shaves for a penny." The other barbers found their customers leaving them, and reduced their prices to his standard, when Arkwright, determined to push his trade, announced his determination to give "A clean shave for a ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... my father's sudden death I have inherited all his wealth, as he had no time to alter his will. Therefore Mrs. Merrick's objection to me is now removed, and Louise has never cared whether I had a penny ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... that. I don't say nothing against our skipper; what he does is all right and above board, and a better man nor officer never stepped a deck, but, mark my words, that 'ere 'Chatham's' people now will be filling their pockets with gold dollars, while we shan't have a penny piece to chink in ours; as for our ship, I knows what I knows, and ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... glory over the earth, on this bright Christmas Eve, nor the busy pedestrians, who hurried to and fro, with well-filled baskets for to-morrow's celebrations. He did heed an odd beggar-child who stopped, to hold towards him a Christmas number of the "Free Press," for a penny, or who still more appealingly extended a little bare frozen hand for charity. He had not far to go on this nights' ramble, but he walked thoughtfully along, like one, on a serious errand, the old familiar sights of other days distracted him somewhat, his eyes ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... which the sea ran gently, sweeping before it a rim of foam which sparkled and displayed iridescent colours like a soap-bubble. Here we found our first jelly-fish, a beautifully clear disc of transparency about the size of a penny bun, and from which, when we plunged it in the first rock pool, hung down quite a lovely fringe of ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... the Wall;—he abates not his din; His hat gives him vigour, with boons dropping in, From the Old and the Young, from the Poorest; and there! The one-pennied Boy has his penny to spare. ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... the words that had been haunting him all the evening, for they were not again alone, and he had no chance to ask a question. What could she mean? For years he had been living a life of stern self-denial; but long before his promotion the last penny of the obligation that, justly or otherwise, had been laid upon his shoulders was paid with interest. He was a man free and self-respecting, strong, resolute, and possessed of an independence that never would have been his had his life run on in the same ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... led to the melting down of all the older and superior coins, and as for the same reason coining was suspended, the result was an appreciation of the "cash," so that a tael in 1909 exchanged for about 1220 cash or about 35 to a penny English. Inasmuch as the "cash" bore no fixed relation to silver, and was, moreover, of no uniform composition, it formed a sort of mongrel standard of its own, varying with the volume ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... cruel robber such as she had read about in badly-printed penny books, and he would shoot her dead in half a minute. She gave a scream and turned to run back, but the man strode after her and laid a huge hand on her shoulder. At this she ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... mahogany! You know how crazy I am about the furniture of bygone days. I shall squander every penny on things Chippendale and Sheraton and Hepplewhite. Oh, it is going to be a darling house and I'm the happiest girl in the world. And you have made me so!—dearest ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... Queen Harmonia mother. The five old soldiers of the dragon's teeth grew very fond of these small urchins, and were never weary of showing them how to shoulder sticks, flourish wooden swords, and march in military order, blowing a penny trumpet, or beating an abominable rub-a-dub upon a ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... Finally, in his fury, he staked his last penny—"and your brothers' heads into the ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... penny in the world to go to law with!" exclaimed Tag-rag, with an air of mingled wonder, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... he hath the vanity. And I will wager thee a thousand marks to a silver penny that my jester shall talk giddie Georgie into advancing a claim to be soldan of Egypt or Pope ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would oftener risk the payment of a small fine than attend his lectures.... Upon occasion of one such imposition he said to Jorden:—"Sir, you have sconced [fined] me two pence for non-attendance at a lecture not worth a penny." Hawkins's Johnson, p. 9. A passage in Whitefield's Diary shows that the sconce was often greater. He once neglected to give in the weekly theme which every Saturday had to be given to the tutor ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... wouldn't. Austin is horribly selfish. He wouldn't give Sisily a penny if he had his way, now that he knows the truth. But I don't intend to consult Austin in the matter. I thought of asking Dr. Ravenshaw to go with me and try and influence Robert. Robert trusts him implicitly, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Little Russian laughed. "Oh, mother dear—money! If we only had money! We are still living on charity. Take, for instance, Nikolay Ivanych. He earns seventy-five rubles a month, and gives us fifty! And others do the same. And the hungry students send us money sometimes, which they collect penny by penny. And as to the masters, of course there are different kinds among them. Some of them will deceive us, and some will leave us; but the best will stay with us and march with us up to our holiday." He clapped his hands, and rubbing ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... impression of Basra is that of an unending series of quays along a river not unlike the Thames at Tilbury. The British India boats and other transports lying in the stream or berthed at the wharves might be at Gravesend and the grey-painted County Council "penny steamboats" at their moorings in the river look very much as they looked in the reach ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... from land sales,—but also those intangible and prospective gains which would accrue to State and nation from the occupation and cultivation of the national domain. He came to believe that, even if not a penny came into the treasury, the government would still be richer from having parcelled out the great uninhabited wastes in the West. Beneath the soiled and uncomely exterior of the Western pioneer, native ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... use to him there in helping carry out certain party measures—measures to which he pledged himself before his election. Down here, a British steamship line has laid down local rules which, in my case anyway, are ridiculous. The question is, are you going to be bound by the red tape of a ha'penny British colony, or by your oath to the President of the ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... memory serves me, the Act of Parliament repealing the newspaper duty had not passed and become law when the Birmingham Daily Press appeared. Its first issues were, I believe, marked "specimen" copies, which would seem to show that the new penny paper was really published in anticipation of the passing of ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... threshing-floors. Plants which in burning give out a thick smoke and an aromatic smell are much sought after for fuel on these occasions; among the plants used for the purpose are giant-fennel, thyme, rue, chervil-seed, camomile, geranium, and penny-royal. People expose themselves, and especially their children, to the smoke, and drive it towards the orchards and the crops. Also they leap across the fires; in some places everybody ought to repeat the leap seven times. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... turned to stone. Oh, well may it be said that the rich man's chances of heaven are as those of the camel going through the eye of a needle, if the recording angel pencils down the use and abuse of every dangerous penny that might have been well spent, and ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... all the articles under his charge, and on no account must deliver a yard of twine or a ten-penny nail to the boatswain or carpenter, unless shown a written requisition and order from the Senior Lieutenant. The Yeoman is to be found burrowing in his underground store-rooms all the day long, in readiness to serve ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... fortune for the purpose—certainly! and I have at once placed it at his disposal; and I further told him that he could take everything, even the last penny, if this sacrifice on my part would suffice to get rid ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... high company, sir, until I nearly ruined myself; I grew so dull, and vapid, and genteel. Nothing saved me but being arrested by my landlady and thrown into prison; where a course of catch-clubs, eight-penny ale, and poor-devil company, manured my mind and brought ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... is usually occupative or local (Chapter XVII), and Shilling is the Anglo-Saxon name Scilling. The oldest and commonest of such nicknames is the simple Penny, with which we may compare the German surname Pfennig and its compounds Barpfennig, Weisspfennig, etc. The early adoption of this coin-name as a personal name is due to the fact that the word was taken in the sense of money in general. We still speak ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... bubbles, were out of sight beneath, so that when the bubbles began to grow upon the floor of the platform it really seemed like magic to the people of Oz, who knew nothing about even the common soap-bubbles that our children blow with a penny clay pipe and ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... usual for me to write. Pray believe, my dear and kind friend, in the face of all circumstances and appearances, that I never forget you, nor am reluctant (oh, how could that be?) to write to you; and that you shall often have to pay 'a penny for my thoughts' under the new Postage Act—if it be in God's wisdom and mercy to spare me through the winter. Under the new act I shall not mind writing ten words and then stopping. As it is, they would scarcely be worth ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... thousands of looms are shut down in Lancashire because of the high price of cotton produced by an American combine—and worse coming, sevenpence a pound I hear they're going to have it, against the fourpence ha'penny they've got it up to already. That's the sort of thing they're afraid to ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... and that with Jehovah no man Could barter or be on bargaining terms, but must accept freely what was freely given. Therefore Elisha refuses even to see him, that Naaman might understand it was with God he had to do; and by refusing a single penny of payment he compelled the Syrian to humble himself and accept his cure as ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... them all?" he thought. "I have ten children, and my wages are so small, and food and clothing are so dear. When the poor wife was well, she used to look after the cow and poultry, and turn a little penny, but now she is ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... failures so far as stomach and appetite were concerned; but when I came to pay my bill I found the white kid gloves and the fancy china again; they were all in it, and many more things as well. The bill was more than a foot long, filled with such items as soap, sixpence; one envelope, one penny; one sheet note paper, one penny; bath, two shillings; extra towels and soap for same, sixpence, and so on through ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Father—I hope to see you again in a few weeks, as soon as I have settled a little business here, where I have found a capital opening for a medical man. Meanwhile let Mark or Mary write and tell me how you are—and for sending you every penny I can spare, trust me. I have not had all the luck I expected; but am as hearty as a bull, and as merry as a cricket, and fall on my legs, as of old, like a cat. I long to come to you; but I mustn't yet. It is near three years since ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... unchaste; so that in neither sex does wine produce that moral and mental wreckage which abbreviates the length of human existence among those of other creeds. Radical fanaticism, that drives a tack with a maul and a twenty-penny spike with a tack-hammer, cannot be expected to study this or any other question in any rational manner; but to the sociologist, the question as to what produces this remarkable soberness, in the midst of the habitual and continued use of wine in the race from the time of its earliest history, ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... very morning in buying a red woolen shirt near Catharine Market, a tarpaulin hat, which I got at an out-door stand near Peck Slip, a belt and jackknife, and two or three trifles. After these purchases, I had only one penny left, so I walked out to the end of the pier, and threw the penny into the water. The reason why I did this, was because I somehow felt almost desperate again, and didn't care what became of me. But if the penny had been a dollar, I ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... vegetables. Put them in a large pot with all the vegetables that you can find, according to the season. In the winter you will take four celeries, four leeks, two turnips, a cabbage, two onions, pepper and salt, two-penny-worth of bones, and about five and one-half quarts of water. Let it all boil for three hours, taking care to add water so as to keep the quantity at five quarts. Rub all the vegetables through a tammy, crushing them well, and then let them boil up again for at least ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various
... Johnnie is a lazy good-for-nothing, and twenty-five cents is all his pin is to cost. It will be big and blue, but not a penny over twenty-five can be spent on it. I think we'd better get the doll and the silk stockings and the sled first. I've already bought a doll for Rosy, but it's in white, and we'll have ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... heart, boy!" he explained for Courtney. "At two-thirty, neither Courtney nor Johnny Gamble owned a penny's worth of interest in the Terminal Hotel site, if that's the property you mean—and ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... that way," sobbed the woman. "He's ferever makin' me feel so beholten ter him fer every penny an' ter-day when I needed some money awful fer tea an' I went ter his pocket an' got it, he went on so afore ther children it seems like I can't never look them in ther face agin. He said—he said"—she stammered amid her sobs—"thet I was a thief—a low-down ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... that one of his earliest remembrances was the going to church one week-day to see a woman doing penance in a white sheet, and the disappointment of not getting a penny, which he had been told was given to all lookers-on.[1257] This must have been a very rare event at that date—about 1777.[1258] Early in the century this sort of ecclesiastical pillory was somewhat more common. But it was evidently quite unfrequent even then. Pope's parish ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... around the circle is in the Welch language, and reads as follows:—"Y. BRENAIN-AR- GYFRAITH," the interpretation of which is "The King and the Laws." The coin is 778 years old—over seven and a half centuries—and on the edge of the rim can be distinctly seen "Glenmorgan Half Penny," with representations of leaves intertwining. The denomination of the coin is imprinted in raised letters, and everything connected with it shows it to be a coin of the reign of the emperor whose name it bears. Further, in ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... front,—behind, other two were fixed in the same manner, the lesser of course uppermost; and deep beyond a pile of light bundles and bandboxes, that occupied a large portion of the interior, the blithe faces of the Doctor and Mrs. Pringle were discovered. The boys huzzaed, the Doctor flung them penny-pieces, and the ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... the world. Dear Orcutt has found that out since, if he did not know it before. The trustees who would have sniffed had George written to them, turned round from their desks, and begged him to take a chair, when he came to talk with them. Had he put every penny he was worth into that stock? Then it was worth something which they did not know of, for George Orcutt was no fool about railroads. The man who bridged the Lower Rapidan when a freshet ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... the whole, a most amusing episode,' he said. 'We are not a penny the worse—nay, we are immensely gainers. Our philosophy has been exercised; some of the turtle is still left—the most wholesome of delicacies; I have my staff, Anastasie has her new dress, Jean-Marie is the proud possessor ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and his helpers sought day by day to be guided of God, and, as faith fed on this daily bread of contact with Him, the assurance grew strong that help would come. Shortly Mr. Muller was as sure of this as though the building already stood before his eyes, though for five weeks not one penny had been sent in for this purpose. Meanwhile there went on that searching scrutiny of his own heart by which he sought to know whether any hidden motive of a selfish sort was swaying his will; but as strict self-examination brought to light ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... Lagny, a town no better indeed than Rochester, it is a thing so strange to me that seeing of it I can scarce believe it. They make their excuses of their want, which I know indeed is great—for there were few left with one penny in their purses—but yet that extremity could not be such but that they might have tarried ten days or fifteen at the most that the king desired of them. . . . From six thousand horse that we were and above, we are come to two thousand and I do not see an end of our leave-takers, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... form their plurals not according to any general rule; thus, man, men; woman, women; child, children; ox, oxen; tooth, teeth; goose, geese; foot, feet; mouse, mice; louse, lice; brother, brothers or brethren; cow, cows or kine; penny, pence, or pennies when the coin is meant; die, dice for play, dies for coining; pea and fish, pease and fish when the species is meant, but peas and fishes when we refer to the number; ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... not a penny indebted to this person; I had no redress, having been obliged to pass and sign all ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... a beauty?" the newcomer cried. "And just on the very last day! I haven't a penny left in the world, and I sold my old farm to come up here. It's been getting harder and harder for me every day, and we had decided to give it all up. I hadn't a bit of ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a child passing our window calling "wallflowers!" We must have a bunch forthwith: it is only a penny! A shower has just fallen, the pearly drops are still hanging upon the petals, and they sparkle in the sun which has again come out in ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... us—nothing but a legal claim. If she had lived and we had grown dear to one another, and she had given the fortune to me out of her heart, then I should have accepted it gladly. But to have it bestowed on me merely by right of succession—I couldn't think of touching a penny of it!" ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... C—— had gone, the Minister showed us several curiosities in his possession, and amongst them a beautiful Spanish dagger. The steel was so hard, that, a Danish copper coin, about the size and solidity of an English penny, was placed horizontally on a marble slab, and the Spanish Minister, with one blow, pierced the piece of money with the dagger's point without ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... did. The order was sent forth that all Russians, with the exception of the clergy, should shave. Those who preferred to keep their beards could do so by paying a yearly tax into the public treasury. This was fixed at a kopeck (one penny) for peasants, but for the higher classes varied from thirty to a hundred rubles (from sixty dollars to two hundred dollars). The merchants, being at once the richest and most conservative class, paid the highest tax. Every ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... constitutional objects; the laws of the States are supreme in the same way. These supreme laws may act on different objects without clashing; or they may operate on different parts of the same common object with perfect harmony. Suppose both governments should lay a tax of a penny on a certain article; has not each an independent and uncontrollable power to collect its own tax? The meaning of the maxim, there cannot be two supremes, is simply this—two powers cannot be supreme ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... Saw—Margery Daw. (Arms sideward raise, sway body to left and right.) 2. Jack shall have a new master. (Partners join hands—skip forward four steps.) 3. But he shall have a penny a day. (Step left, point right toe forward, shaking right forefinger at partner and left hand on hip.) 4. Because he won't work any faster. (Join both hands with partner, skip around ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... printed, his brother sent him to sell them to the town's-people, wet from the press. "Buy my ballads!" shouted Benjamin, as he trudged through the streets, with a basketful on his arm. "Who'll buy a ballad about Black Beard? A penny a piece! a penny a piece! who'll buy ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... trouble and amazement, he was going to seek his landlady, when she appeared. She was as severely polite as people who have got the last penny they hope to get out of one can be. Mrs. Tresham had gone to the sea-side. She had left five days ago—gone to Broadstairs. The address was in the letter which she gave him. Greatly to Roland's relief she said nothing about money, and ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... and the superficial reader may reply: "This saying is utterly unreasonable. Stealing a penny is not committing a murder; overeating does not break the law of chastity; how, then, is it possible to break all laws by breaking any single one of them?" There is, however, a deeper meaning to this seeming paradox which makes it ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... because I claimed acquaintance with the El Dorado bar in Buenos Ayres. From that instant I was lost. Like St. Augustine on the gridiron, no sooner was I nicely toasted on one side than I was turned on to the other. That grinning penny-a-liner, Peters, too, helped as assistant torturer. Wait till he asks me for a 'pointer' in this or any other case. He sold me a pup to-day, but I'll land him with a ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... dictionary?" The next morning, before any one else in the farmhouse was astir, Theodore was moving rapidly through the bushes, picking, picking, picking, with unwearied fingers, the shining berries, every one of which was of greater value in his eyes than a penny would be ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... on until that man is a beggar; until he has to borrow a dime for his breakfast, and slump out of his lunch with a cent's worth of rat poison or a bullet in his head! It'll go on until his old partner—that softy George Barker—comes to the bottom of his d——d fool luck and is a penny-a-liner for the papers and a hanger-round at free lunches, and his scatter-brained wife runs away with another man! It'll go on until the high-toned Demorest, the last of those three little tin gods of Heavy Tree Hill, will have to climb ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... contain everything in the world; and I astonished a young fellow behind the counter by asking for a thousand pairs of stays. Such an unusual request sent him off like a rocket to higher authority, with whom I made a bargain for the article required at one shilling and a penny per pair, to be delivered the next day. At the same time I bought five hundred boxes of Cockle's pills, and a quantity of toothbrushes. Well, here I was in Wilmington, with all these valuables on my hands; the corsages were all right, but the horrid little Cockles were bursting their cerements ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... Turner gives." Yet what wonderful detail has he required from Canaletti and others?—But is there any reason why we should have "pink spots?"—is there any reason why Turner's foreground figures should resemble penny German dolls?—and for the reason we have above given, there ought to be reason why the figures should be made out, at least as they are in a camera-obscura. We here speak of nature, of "truth," and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... let us say, may love whom she will, and nobody else be a penny the worse for her mistaking of the preferable nail whereon to hang her affections; whereas with a queen this choice is more portentous. She plays the game of life upon a loftier table, ruthlessly illuminated, she stakes by her least movement a tall pile of counters, some of which are, of necessity, ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... to the poor mother, Clara; I got into drinkin' too much; yes, I did. I've broke myself off that; but if you was to leave me—I've had hard things to go through. Do you know the Burial Club broke up just before she died? I couldn't get not a ha'penny! A lot o' the money was stolen. You may think how I felt, Clara, with her lyin' there, and I hadn't got as much as would pay for a coffin. It was Sidney Kirkwood found the money—he did! There was never man had as good a friend as he's been to me; I shall never have ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... neglected a Request of one of my Correspondents so long as I have; but I dare say I have given him time to add Practice to Profession. He sent me some time ago a Bottle or two of excellent Wine to drink the Health of a Gentleman, who had by the Penny-Post advertised him of an egregious Error in his Conduct. My Correspondent received the Obligation from an unknown Hand with the Candour which is natural to an ingenuous Mind; and promises a contrary Behaviour in that Point for the future: He will offend his Monitor with no more Errors of that kind, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... soldiers. He was much in the hospitals, cheering up the wounded, writing letters for them, and sending last messages from the lips of the dying to wives, mothers, and friends. He shared his blanket, his last crust, his last penny, with the neediest of his men, and abstained from food ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... has drunk brackish water and lived upon salt meat; that he has been in a continual contest with the sea, with disease, and with a tedious existence; but upon his return he can sell a pound of his tea for a half-penny less than the English merchant, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the key," i.e. the gratuity which it is customary to give to the porter or portress on hiring a house or lodging. Cf. the French denier Dieu, Old English "God's penny." ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... than the tongue is — gold is stronger than the pen: They'd have squirmed in Cambaroora had I found a nugget then; But in vain we scraped together every penny we could get, For they fixed us with their boycott, and the plant was seized for debt. 'Twas a storekeeper who did it, and he sealed the paper's doom, Though we gave him ads. for nothing when the STAR began to boom: 'Twas a paltry bill for tucker, and the ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... rent ahead of us before. But the landlord was a new one, and if he made a rule, why, we must obey him; so we scraped up and sold this and that and paid it. If we had known what was coming we might have kept it, and had a penny to turn to when we were out under the sky. It was to get the rent before he turned us out that he made that plan. We were put out in the beginning of April; our rent was paid up to May. Oh, I wish, I wish that ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... of the kind was related to me by my old hunting friend Willis. In his youth, in southwest Missouri, he knew a half-witted "poor white" who was very fond of hunting coons. He hunted at night, armed with an axe, and accompanied by his dog Penny, a large, savage, half-starved cur. One dark night the dog treed an animal which he could not see; so he cut down the tree, and immediately Penny jumped in and grabbed the beast. The man sung out "Hold ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... days, the sufferer was on her legs again. Furthermore, her sickness had proved the means of interesting several benevolent individuals in her fate, and by their assistance she was established in a little shop, where she is making an honest penny, and laying by something against a rainy day. This she all attributes to the "blissid wather," and, in her veneration for the element, has totally abjured whiskey, and signed the pledge, an act which gives ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... to ask, but there had come in return a brief harsh statement from her father that she was no longer his daughter and must cease from further communication with the family in any way; that she should never enter his house again and not a penny of his money should ever pass to her. He also informed her plainly that the trousseau made for her had been given to her sister who was now the wife of the man she had not seen fit ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Pegwell, the corn-factor; he used to drive him in his gig seven years ago, and he wanted me to take him, but I said, 'Thank you, Peg, I don't deal in wind-instruments.' That was what I said. It went the round of the country, that joke did. But, what the hell! the horse was a penny trumpet to that ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... here week, we're doing very badly and could not get any money. Your two brothers are doing well, running about the country selling things. Your old uncle came to his sister and stayed three days, and went away like an old dog and never gave me a penny. ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... money at stake were mine," Reade said slowly, "then I'd hang on as long as I had a penny left to invest." ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... a knife-blade. She had developed into a very pretty girl, alive, ambitious, energetic, with a shrewd eye to the main chance. Always popular socially, she had surprised everybody by refusing the catch of the town to marry a young mining engineer without a penny. Gordon was in college at the time, but during the next long vacation he had fraternized a good deal with the Peter Pagets. The young married people had been very much in love with each other, but not too preoccupied to take the college boy into their happiness as a comrade. ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... that a native will not take the trouble to do anything that would turn a penny; in this I do not agree. Certainly a native has not sufficient courage for a speculation which involves the risk of loss; but provided he is safe in that respect, he will take unbounded trouble for his ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... said Rosa. "I shall go and live with my father, and never spend a penny. O Christie, if you knew how I hate myself for the folly that is parting us! Oh, why don't they teach girls sense and money, instead of music and ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... earth and skies, From flowers that glow to stars that shine; The comet and the penny show, All curious things, above, below, Hold each in turn my wandering eyes: I claim the Christian Pagan's line, Humani nihil,—even so,— And is not human life divine? When soft the western breezes ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of an eighteen-penny cab fare from where I write, I think there is plenty of spiritually productive work for all the missionaries in China; work for all the sincere, self-sacrificing missionaries—and there are still many of them in ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... Conservative, are freely discussed, and often powerfully resisted by the academic constituencies, and the personal dislike of a Minister or Ministerial Councillor could as little injure a professor or tutor as his favor could add one penny ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... rights for that meal of ours which you took," said the Lad; "for, as for that cloth I got, it isn't worth a penny." ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... thank you," I said, in a great hurry to get away now that I had actually the precious stamp in my possession. "I can put it on quite well. Here is the penny, and thank you very much for ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... heaped them upon the table. "Now, this one," he added, gingerly extracting a filthy and dilapidated rag, "is a particularly interesting specimen. Apparently, upon close inspection, merely a valuable security, worth, to be exact, a shade under twopence-half-penny, it is in reality a talisman. Whosoever touches it, cannot fail to contract at least two contagious diseases within the week. In view of the temperature of my coffee this morning, I'm saving it for ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... her feet. In ordinary times this demonstration would at once have attracted a crowd; but at the very moment when it might have been expected to provoke a patriotic outburst it excited no more attention than if one of the soldiers had turned aside to give a penny to a beggar. The people crossing the square did not even stop to look. The meaning of this apparent indifference was obvious. When an armed nation mobilizes, everybody is busy, and busy in a definite and pressing ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... penny-weddin' or christ'nin' a wee ane, Sic' ribbons, sic' ringlets, sic feather's are fleein'; Sic' laughin', sic' daffin', sic dancin', until The laft near comes doon ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... him say anything except "Yes, sir." He will go far. Well, now that I am calmer let us return to your little matter. Honestly, Bill, you make me sick. When I contemplate you the iron enters my soul. You stand there talking about your tuppenny-ha'penny job as if it mattered a cent whether you kept it or not. Can't you understand plain English? Can't you realize that you can buy Brown's and turn it into a moving-picture house if you like? ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... whose mother, a baker's wife, gave the following history:—No one of the family, and no ancestor, to her knowledge, presented this deformity. In the early months of her pregnancy she sold bread from the counter, and nearly every day a child with a double thumb came in for a penny roll, presenting the penny between the thumb and the finger. After the third month she left the bakery, but the malformation was so impressed upon her mind, that she was not surprised to see it reproduced in ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... off the ground I was struck with the clever way in which a London costermonger will turn anything and everything to account. One of them was going about with a truck of cherries, crying out, "Sir Roger Tichborne cherries. Penny a lot!" ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... a naughty boy he had been, both by what he used to do at home, and because he changed a good Master for a bad, &c.) He should not therefore have given him money so soon. What if he had pinched a little, and gone to Journey-work for a time, that he might have known what a penny was, by his earning of it? Then, in all probability, he had known better how to have spent it: Yea, and by that time perhaps, have better considered with himself, how to have lived in the world. Ay, ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... interests. Many a young man of the past generation, who was no fool, has sacrificed everything for love. Not one young man in ten thousand of the present generation, except the fools, has sacrificed a half-penny. The daughters of Eve still inherit their mother's merits and commit their mother's faults. But the sons of Adam, in these latter days, are men who would have handed the famous apple back with a bow, and ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... musical foundations, which are justifying the standing condemnation of utilitarian economists so long as the stipendiaries are content indolently to follow the fortuitous traditions of the books that lie in the choir, supplemented by the penny-a-sheet music of the common shops. In the Universities, too, it should be impossible for an undergraduate not to gain acquaintance with good ecclesiastical music, and this is not ensured by an occasional rare performance of half a dozen old masterpieces ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... by a sliding-scale, and are sometimes out of stock altogether: Pussy's provider, on the contrary, sticks to one price from year's end to year's end, and never, in the memory of the oldest Grimalkin, was known to disappoint a customer. A half-penny for a cat's breakfast has been the regulation-price ever since the horses of the metropolis began to submit to the boiling process for the benefit of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... recommend The Miracles of Christian Belief and The Claims of Christianity, by Charles Watts, and Christianity and Progress, a penny pamphlet, by G. W. Foote ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... and took a handful of anenes, copper tenth-penny bits, to rattle between his hands. "Zonang!" he shouted: "Come here! Is there a boy amongst you brave enough to ride with an off-worlder to the Sarki's house, ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang |
