"Mercenary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seldom deviates to pure or innocent subjects: no title is so envied by the men as that of libertine, and the women, also, are all ambitious of a like distinction: an "unfortunate" is not regarded as unfortunate there. The richest, the noblest, the highest in the land are profligates in love, or mercenary: more frequently both. Nothing is so disagreeable to an Abyssinian lady's ear as an insinuation that she is virtuous; for that would be taken to mean that she is either ill-looking or for some other reason is not favoured with ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... trade are the legitimate work in which a Vaisya may engage without fear of censure. The man who abandons his own proper occupation and betakes himself to that of a Sudra, should be considered as a Sudra and on no account should any food be accepted from him. Professors of the healing art, mercenary soldiers, the priest who acts as warder of the house, and persons who devote a whole year to study without any profit, are all to be considered as Sudras. And those who impudently partake of food offered at ceremonials in a Sudra's house are afflicted with a terrible ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... his history through the war would be tedious. What Washington and Jefferson really thought of him we shall never know. He was never mercenary, but his pride was wounded that so little recognition of his astounding services was forthcoming. The ingratitude of Kings was a commonplace; the ingratitude of peoples an unpleasing novelty. But Washington bestirred himself at last, and Paine was voted an ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... It puts mercenary selfishness as the motive power for political action in the place of public spirit, and organizes that selfishness ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... if I am suspected of any mercenary motives, the liberal settlements which are now ready for your perusal, must ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... too, spoken of with a proud modesty (Prag is not spoken of at all); and how the neighboring ravenous Powers, on-lookers hitherto, have opened their throats with one accord to swallow Prussia, thinking its downfall certain: "Poor mercenary Sweden, once so famous under its soldier Kings, now debased by a venal Senate;"—Sweden, "what say I? my own kindred [foolish Anspach and others], driven by perverse motives, join in the plot of horrors, and become satellites ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... is a candidate for the governorship, and among the more mercenary class of politicians smiling often becomes a habit for the sake of popularity. Hawthorne might have added something to the judge's personale by representing him with a droll wit, like James Fiske, Jr., or ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... In the temple of old the swallow found a nest for herself where she might lay her young; but this is the first time we ever knew of the conference of such honors on the Felis domestica. It could not have been anything mercenary that took the old cat into the pulpit, for "poor as a church mouse" has become proverbial. Nothing but lofty aspirations could have taken her there, and a desire that her young should have advantages of high birth. If in ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... is nothing for it but a speedy return to Frankfort. I do not regret the cloth, which has been paid for over and over again, but I am mercenary enough to grudge Stahleck ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... be for my cousin Sir Adrian to marry a sensible woman—a woman who understands the world and its ways—a woman young and beautiful certainly, but yet conversant with the convenances of society? Such a woman would rescue Adrian from the shoals and quicksands that surround him in the form of mercenary friends and scheming mothers. Such a woman might surely be found. Nay, I think I myself could put my hand upon her, if I dared, at ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... a story of love for love, and how it came to naught. In it there shall be no marrying from mercenary motives; the manoeuvering mother-in-law is suppressed; Nature takes her course; and in the climax I strive to prove how sad a thing it is that men ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... The Athenians, with a view to their own interests, had recently set up a democracy in Samos, which had hitherto been governed by an oligarchy. Incensed by this interference, the Samian nobles, who had been driven into exile, hired a mercenary force, and making a sudden attack from the mainland, overthrew the democracy and raised the standard of revolt. The crisis called for prompt and vigorous action on the part of Athens; for if Samos had been ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... there was genuine affection in that glance. Was it not likely to be genuine,—that feeling that she could not be to him what she had been to others? It must have been abundantly clear to her that had she chosen to accept from him what he had offered her, she might have amply satisfied any mercenary views, the most exorbitant. Therefore her views and her feelings were ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... with a roar of laughter. "Don't! don't!" he pleaded, holding up a hand. "Why, Lafelle, you old fraud, I look upon your Church as a huge business institution, a gigantic trust, as mercenary and merciless as Steel, Oil, or Tobacco! Why, you and I are in the same business, that of making money! And I'd like to borrow some of your methods. You catch 'em through religion. I have to use other methods. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... rather than his principles, guided his actions. He did not love his relatives, because he thought their attentions were venal, and resolved to adopt this beautiful boy, not so much from feelings of benevolence towards him, as a desire to disappoint his mercenary kindred. Bryant's natural affections were not strong enough to prove any impediment to the stranger's wish, and his parents were willing to sacrifice theirs, for the brilliant advantages offered to their son. Behold our young prodigy ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... From Plutarch's narrative one would imagine that the "enemy" must mean the Macedonians: but we find that they really were the native Euboeans, led by Kallias of Chalkis, with only a detachment of Macedonians and some Phokian mercenary troops.] ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... he said: "It is the most glittering, ostentatious, and displaying property in the world; and now, if a young man goes courting, the only inquiry is how many negroes he or his lady love owns. The love of slave property is swallowing up every other mercenary possession. Its ownership betokened not only the possession of wealth, but indicated the gentleman of leisure who was above ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... American naval men were intent upon duty and their duty was merely to protect the dignity as well as the safety of our sea-borne commerce. The mercenary element was absent and that Mr. Daniels did well to emphasize this fact was the conviction of the navy as well as of the entire country; while, at the same time, as the secretary said, the spirit underlying ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... for all this, they came resolved to hiss it, right or wrong, and had gotten mercenary fellows, who were such fools they did not know when to hiss; and this was evident to all the audience. It was wonderful to see men of great quality, and gentlemen, in so mean a combination; but, to my great satisfaction, they came off as meanly as I could wish. I had so numerous ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... spiders, who have spun their webs over the lower division of my book-shelves (consisting chiefly of law and divinity) during the peaceful reign of her predecessor, fly at full speed before the probationary inroads of the new mercenary. Even so the Laird of Ellangowan ruthlessly commenced his magisterial reform, at the expense of various established and superannuated pickers and stealers, who had been his neighbours for half a century. ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... obloquy. The Smiths, Winders, and Elzeys, who are really foreigners, since the men from their States are not liable to conscription (vide Judge Campbell's decision), are very obnoxious to the people. Virginians can never be reconciled to the presence of a mercenary Swiss guard, and will not submit ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... thing was to happen," remarked Bea, with a little mercenary expectation, "Congreve Hall would be Olive's; just think of it, girls, how grand! and Cousin Roger is immensely wealthy, and there would be no end of splendid things;" and Bea sighed a little, as she spoke, for she was not going to win any wealth or ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh yes, I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary ground, will you agree to let me hector ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... which disgusted them, not only from the subservient spirit to Toryism which pervaded them, but also excited their laughter from their absurdity, Byron, in whose house they were, said to them, "It is satisfactory to see that a man who becomes mercenary, and traffics upon the independence of his character, loses at the same time his ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... ——, of lawful age, and by occupation a ——, begs leave to state that, unbiassed by friends, and uninfluenced by mercenary motives, he freely and voluntarily offers himself a candidate for the mysteries of Masonry, and that he is prompt to solicit this privilege by a favorable opinion conceived of the institution, ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... added, But the hireling who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep and fleeth. He is called not a shepherd, but a hireling, who feeds the Lord's sheep not for inward love, but with a view to temporal wages. He is a mercenary who seeks indeed the place of shepherd, but seeks not ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... and with gesturing hands]—"something enormous going on in iron, without the shadow of a doubt, and here I sit mousing in the dark and never knowing anything about it; great heaven, what an escape I've made! this underhanded mercenary creature might have taken me up—and ruined me! but I have escaped, and I warrant me I'll not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... we may believe, made from no unworthy or mercenary motive, but because he thought that such an indemnity was his due. Some years after (in 1809) the chair of zooelogy, newly formed by the Faculte des Sciences in Paris, was offered to him. Desirable ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... to take upon their own shoulders the responsibility of real work. Their leaders had been selected from the outside,—clever, eager, pushing men, but of late had been hardly selected from among themselves. As used to be the case with Italian Powers, they entrusted their cause to mercenary foreign generals, soldiers of fortune, who carried their good swords whither they were wanted; and, as of old, the leaders were ever ready to fight, but would themselves declare what should be and what should not be the casus belli. There was not so ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... they are past, those noble days! The days When nations would imperil all to keep Their liberties, are only memories now. The common cause is lost,—and thou art brought, The captive of some mercenary raid, Some skirmish of a gold-begotten war, To serve within my ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... altogether unprepared for this, Mr. Lightmark. In fact, I may as well own that I have talked it over with my son, and we agreed that the whole question resolved itself into—ah—into settlements. You must not think me mercenary." This was said with a dignified calm, which made the idea preposterous. "If you can"—here she seemed to refer to some mental note-book—"ah—satisfy Charles on that point, I am sure that it will give me great pleasure to regard you as a prospective ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... The deputies and the City Government at once gave their cordial assent to these articles. When the deputies returned, their constituents were not very well pleased with what had been done, declaring that they would not submit to be locked up at the mercy of any man, nor would they trust to mercenary troops for guarding their city. The Prince, hearing this, agreed that the burghers, Calvinists, Lutherans, as well as Romanists, should be employed to guard ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... Once more, Welcome to this grateful shore; Now no mercenary foe Aims again the fatal blow— Aims ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... been Muhammadans, who are intensely averse to us on both religious and political grounds. Under the influence of friendly intercourse and good offices performed to each other, a kindly feeling often sprung up between officers and men; but as a body they were mercenary troops fighting for strangers, and the history of the world furnishes abundant instances of such an army being as formidable to their employers as to those against whom they have been employed. In the ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... Care of, and furnish'd with all the Necessaries of Life by that venerable, and loyal Priest. In the mean Time, his Apothecary enter'd at Break of Day into my Apartment, with a Potion in his Hand, compos'd of Opium, black Hellebore, Aconite, and other Ingredients still more baneful. Whilst this mercenary Officer of the King's Vengeance was thus employ'd, another as inhuman as himself, went to your Lodgings with the silken Cord. Both, however, were disappointed, as both of us were fled. Cador, very officious, flew to the ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... The City Hall clock near by struck eleven. The time had come for returning to their mercenary guardian. Phil shook the sleeping form of Giacomo. The little boy stirred in his sleep, and murmured, "Madre." He had been dreaming of his mother and his far-off Italian home. He woke to the harsh realities of life, four thousand miles away ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... that, in general, the gentler virtues, so prominent in Christianity, have little place in the list. The virtues are chiefly aristocratic. Favourable conditions are needed for their cultivation. They are not possible for a slave, and hardly for those engaged in 'mercenary occupations.'[4] Further, it may be remarked that habit of itself does not make a man virtuous. Morality cannot consist in a mere succession of customary acts. 'One good custom would corrupt the world,' and habit is frequently ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... said Jane, rather drearily. "It isn't easy to find some one with whom one would be willing to pass one's life. I've had several chances—one or two of them not entirely mercenary, I think. But not one that I could ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... rushing upon the foe. Napoleon offered to these bands the same reward which he had promised to the peasants. But to a man, they refused the gold. They had imbibed the spirit of their chief, his enthusiasm, and his proud superiority to all mercenary motives. "We are not toiling for money," said they, "but for your approval, and to share ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... abroad: the lash resounds on a slave's naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labor, steals to a ditch to bid the world a long good-night, or, neglected in some ostentatious hospital, breathes its last amidst the laugh of mercenary attendants." ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... free under a limited kingship as in a commonwealth, and it is to this good form of our government that we partly owe that doubling of the people which has probably happened here in the 435 years last past. And if the ambition of some, and the mercenary temper of others, should bring us at any time to alter our constitution, and to give up our ancient rights, we shall find our numbers diminish visibly and fast. For liberty encourages procreation, and not only keeps our own inhabitants ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... over against Exeter Hall, I mentally apostrophise the Christian British people. "Ladies and Gentlemen," I say, "you are Christian in name, but I discern little of Christ in your ideals, your institutions, or your daily lives. You are a mercenary, self-indulgent, frivolous, boastful, blood-guilty mob of heathen. I like you very much, but that is what you are. And it is you—you who call men 'Infidels.' You ridiculous creatures, what do ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... further desire, as an example of college playwriting, to include the text of Barnabas Bidwell's "The Mercenary Match," written at Yale, and played by the students of Yale.[2] Only one copy of that play is, thus far, known to be in existence, owned by Mr. Evert Jansen Wendell, and its inclusion in the present collection is ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists - 1765-1819 • Various
... gold and silver shower of the bridal presents was raining down. The determining cause of the catastrophe was never quite clear to the community—whether a lover's quarrel with disproportionate consequences, by reason of the marplot activities of a mercenary relative of the lady's, advocating the interests of a sudden opportunity of greater wealth and station; or her foolish revenge for a fancied slight; or simply her sheer inconstancy in a change of mind ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... slight. I should be much hurt if I thought it was. So would he. (To Luiz.) Where are the halberdiers who were to have had the honour of meeting us here, that our visit to the Grand Inquisitor might be made in becoming state? LUIZ. Your Grace, the halberdiers are mercenary people who stipulated for a trifle on account. DUKE. How tiresome! Well, let us hope the Grand Inquisitor is a blind gentleman. And the band who were to have had the honour of escorting us? I see no band! LUIZ. Your Grace, the band are sordid ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... curtail, and patch up a drama in Italian, in order to introduce favourite airs, selected from different authors, the contrast has always been broken thereby, without every one's knowing the reason: and since ignorant mercenary prompters, though Italians, have been employed in hotch-potch, and in translating our dramas from Italian into English, how could such operas appear any other ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... you don't marry me at once I'll break every bone in your body!' He then snatched my bonnet, a new one, from my head, and so acted on my nerves that I went off to the Registry Office and was married. That he was actuated by merely mercenary motives is proved by the fact that the gratuity (of half-a-crown), which he presented to the Registry Clerk, he actually borrowed from me! I knew him already to be unprincipled; but never until that moment had it flashed upon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... Millicent protested, unwilling to be suspected of a mercenary mind, and Mrs. Keith's ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... hostile garrison. Her spirit sank within her, and she bitterly felt the impoverishment of the always scanty means, which deprived her of the power of laying out sums of money on those rites which were universally deemed needful for the repose of souls snatched away in battle. It was a mercenary age among the clergy, and besides, it was the depth of a northern winter, and the funeral rites of the Lady of Whitburn would have been poor and maimed indeed if a whole band of black Benedictine monks had not arrived from Wearmouth, ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... usually popular or to be encouraged, but Mark Twain had an especial weakness for compliments that came in that way. They were not mercenary compliments. The writer had nothing to gain. Two such letters follow—both written in England just at the time ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... againe for ransome? Her. No great King: I come to thee for charitable License, That we may wander ore this bloody field, To booke our dead, and then to bury them, To sort our Nobles from our common men. For many of our Princes (woe the while) Lye drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood: So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbes In blood of Princes, and with wounded steeds Fret fet-locke deepe in gore, and with wilde rage Yerke out their armed heeles at their dead masters, Killing them twice. O giue vs leaue great King, To view the field in safety, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... game, due on the 12th of August, breaking up the senate of the kingdom, and accessible only to the few whom wealth or privilege give the entree into the preserved regions, has, when even thrown into the market by the mercenary scions of the great, a considerable value; and perhaps it is only in the North that it is properly cooked and appreciated. A moor bird requires a particular sagacity in carving, which is a secret to the uninitiated. You may carve it like a common fowl; but the epicure alone ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... faine wrest A new expence of complement from me: If you delight to heare your praise, Ile hire Some mercenary [poet][102] to comend In lofty ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... certainly, on his side, a mercenary match. He would have been incapable of marrying with so mean a motive. He is said, indeed, to have given, about this period, a substantial proof of very much the contrary disposition. This appears in the following anecdote, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... a happiness—for surely a father would not have the heart to sell his own child to ambition and mercenary hopes! And thy mother?" ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... with some wonder. It had never dawned upon him that this shiftless, thriftless, worthless, sponging parasite was yet, after and in spite of all, not mercenary in the issue of his thoughts; ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... All the letters of Pitt at that time exude confidence from every line. He hopes that Dumouriez will succeed in overthrowing the regicides at Paris. The backwardness of the Prussians in supporting Coburg does not deter him from ordering to Flanders all the available British and mercenary troops, in order to besiege Dunkirk, and otherwise help the Imperialists. As if this is not enough, on or just before 1st April he treats with Malouet, the French envoy from Hayti, for the transfer of that colony ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... together in pleasant communion. It was a modern Babel, finished and furnished, and where there was almost a fusion, instead of, a confusion, of tongues. The "barbarous Turk" was there, the warlike Russ, the mercenary Swiss, the passionate Italian, the voluptuous Spaniard, the gallant Frenchman,—and yet foreboding English citizens did not find themselves compelled to go armed, or to lock up their plate, or their wives and daughters. ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... grace, and charm that, in spite our popular impression to the contrary, are not seldom found amongst the nobles of his country. His undoubted wealth and position redeemed his suit from any appearance of being inspired by a mercenary motive. Indeed, he was accustomed himself to be pursued, and Florence and he recognised in each ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... [26] however, the most important of the Greek colonies, held jealously to her independence. Unable single-handed to face the Romans, Tarentum turned to Greece for aid. She called on Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, the finest soldier of his age. Pyrrhus led twenty-five thousand mercenary soldiers into Italy, an army almost as large as Alexander's. The Romans could not break the bristling ranks of the Greek phalanx, and they shrank back in terror before the huge war elephants which Pyrrhus had brought with him. The invader won the first battle, but ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... the prize of the high calling she herself by mere accident had missed so narrowly. Her own life was done; Alan's death had made her task impossible; but if Dolly could fill her place for the sake of humanity, she would not regret it. Enough for her to have martyred herself; she asked no mercenary palm and ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... and military spirit fostered by their institutions that the Romans were indebted for their grandeur; and when they lost these virtues, and when, no longer regarding the military service as an honor as well as a duty, they relinquished it to mercenary Goths and Gauls, the fall of the empire became inevitable. It is doubtless true that whatever increases the prosperity of the country should be neither neglected nor despised; it is also necessary to honor the branches of industry which ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... Seacole: 'I have witnessed her devotion and her courage; I have already borne testimony to her services to all who needed them. She is the first who has redeemed the name of 'sutler' from the suspicion of worthlessness, mercenary business and plunder; and I trust that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some other illustrious dead.' England seems to ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... difficult person,' she wrote. 'The least error of taste on your dear girl's part would have froissed him. Men with that immense wealth are always suspicious, ready to imagine mercenary motives, on their guard against being trapped. But Lesbia had me at her back, and she managed him perfectly. He is positively her slave; and you will be able to twist him round your little finger in the matter of settlements. You may do what you like with him, for ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... young, and I almost wonder her mother allowed her to marry. Fan hints that they were mercenary, but if they were they concealed the fact wonderfully well, and made me think it a great sacrifice on their part to give me Daisy. And so it was; such a lovely little darling, and so beautiful. What a sensation she created at Saratoga, and still I was glad to get away, for ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... he said. 'There is one of his experiments which the doctor has withheld from you. You will find it neither mean nor mercenary, but it is very terrible. I do not know whether the account of it is true, but it would be of extraordinary interest to ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... that a "father" and "mother" should be found. On this subject "the Golden Shoemaker" had talked much with his minister. He shrank from the thought of advertising his need. He was afraid of bringing upon himself an avalanche of mercenary applications. His idea was to fix upon some excellent Christian man and woman who might be induced to accept the post as a sacred and delightful duty. They must be persons who loved children, and who were not in search of a living; and it would be none the ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... own honour, and do not need to hire strangers to fight the foes we fear to face. Next time I come to attend to your wounds, O Prince, I trust that they will be in front, and not behind. One word more, if you will be advised by me you will not threaten that Captain whom you call a Gentile and a mercenary, lest you should learn that it is not always well to be a coward, of ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... third* she was a thief and a common mercenary. She had no respect of persons: a prince or a porter was all one, according as they paid; yea, she would leave the finest gentleman in the world to go to an ugly fellow for sixpence more. In the practice of her profession she had amassed vast magazines of all sorts of things: she ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... literature, and all human learning should speak with unmistakable accents for the elevation, evangelization, and liberation of the oppressed. In a future day, the historian cannot purge our political history from the shame of wanton and mercenary oppression. But there is not, I believe, a book in the literature of our country that will be alive and known a hundred years hence, in which can be found the taint of despotism. The literature of the world is on the ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... of eagerness leaped into the young man's face. Mr. Randolph looked at him sharply. "I did not know that you were so mercenary, John." ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... without effort or responsibility, with every physical need luxuriously gratified. But these hotels nevertheless represent democracy, it may be urged, for the reason that every one may there buy board and lodging and mercenary service if he has the price. The exceeding greatness of that price, however, makes of it a badge of nobility which converts these democratic hostelries into feudal castles, more inaccessible to the Long Denied than as though ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... brought six thousand five hundred horse, three thousand foot, and four cannon of moderate size. His arrival did not, however, prove an occasion of unmingled satisfaction. The reiters, serving from purely mercenary motives, demanded the immediate payment of one hundred thousand crowns, promised as a first instalment on account of their wages, and were resolved to go no farther without receiving it. The Prince of ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... millions of men? Our writer proposes a solid gold collar testimonial for the "good" dog Tiny, to be raised by public subscription. But that would be a paltry return for such great services. Tiny's renown lifts him above such mercenary rewards. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Moldavia, and Siebenbuergen. With this view he commenced negotiations with the Porte, which were eagerly welcomed; and he also approached the German emperor, from whom he needed money to pay his mercenary troops. Indeed, for the purpose of accomplishing his ends, he at one and the same time did homage and acknowledged himself the vassal of both powers. For a long time he temporised and contented himself with strengthening and drilling ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... that this poor boy, who was so cruelly treated, was the unfortunate son of his friend, the hermit, who ought to be enjoying the comforts of a luxurious home. As it was, he was the victim of a cruel and unscrupulous relative, influenced by the most mercenary motives. ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... dolt to be pointed out as a clever fellow, when, the next turn of the market proving unsuccessful, he is despised and insulted: so much are the frequenters of 'Change influenced by the most sordid and mercenary feelings, that almost all of them are the willing dupes of riches and good fortune. However, as you are strangers here, gentlemen, I will introduce you, entre nous, to a few of the characters who thrive by the destruction of thousands of their fellow-creatures. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the scar of the burn sometimes hurts. To-night was one of those times; and Max believed that his disappointment in Billie had had its influence in driving him to the Legion. She stood now as a type of what was mercenary, calculating, and false in womankind, just as (almost unknown to himself) Sanda DeLisle stood for what was gentle, yet brave and true. He felt that Billie Brookton had made him hard, with a hardness that was not ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... mercenary force was of course the object to which the proceeds of both these taxes were destined; but they took time to collect and John soon fell back upon a readier, though less trustworthy, resource, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... never did he laugh in the wrong place, or prostitute his sense to serve his luxury; never did he stab into the wounds of fallen virtue, with a base and a cowardly insult, or smooth the face of prosperous villany, with the paint and washes of a mercenary wit; never did he spare a sop for being rich, or flatter a knave for being great. He had a wit that was accompanied with an unaffected greatness of mind, and a natural love to justice and truth; a wit that was in perpetual war with knavery, and ever attacking those ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... serjeant-painter to King Charles the Second. In February 1664, the Diarist saw Dryden's Indian Queen acted 'with rich scenes as the like had never been seen here, or haply, except rarely, elsewhere on a mercenary theatre.' Mr. Pepys—most devoted of playgoers—notes occasionally of particular plays, that 'the machines are fine and the paintings very pretty.' In October 1667, he records that he sat in the boxes for the first time in his life, and discovered that from that point of view 'the scenes ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... property, but he had invested some in a newspaper of which he was editor, and he had squandered much in vague speculation. From the account he gave of his losses it was difficult to decide whether he had been moved by mercenary or charitable temptations. Now only the merest competence remained. He lived in a small garret where no solicitor had penetrated, studying uninteresting literatures, dimly interested in all that the world did not care for. He lived in the gloom of present failure, embittered by the memory ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... bring pleasure in the end, as to the boxer who endures bruises from the hope of honour. Death is painful, and most so to the man that by his virtue has made life valuable. Such a man is to be considered more courageous, as a soldier, than a mercenary with little ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... influence can be traced in the tendencies towards monotheism which became marked at various periods, believed in a Heaven for the just and good. If they did, their teachings must have been suppressed by the mercenary priests. It was extremely profitable for these priests to perpetuate the belief that the spirits of the dead were consigned to a gloomy Hades, where the degree of suffering which they endured depended on the manner in which their bodies were ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... insinuation. In all of them, though so many are for the use of persons placed in the most trying circumstances, and some of them are for persons writhing under a sense of intolerable injury, sweetness and light do ever reign. Even 'yours truly, Jacob Langton,' in his 'letter to his Daughter's Mercenary Fiance',' mitigates the sternness of his tone by the remark that his 'task is inexpressibly painful.' And he, Mr. Langton, is the one writer who lets the post go out on his wrath. When Horace Masterton, of Thorpe Road, Putney, receives from Miss Jessica ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... Temple Bar to Guildhall was crowded from top to bottom, and many had scaffoldings besides; carpets and rich hangings were hung out on the fronts all the way along; and our friend notes that the citizens were not mercenary, but "generously accommodated their friends and customers gratis, and entertained them in the most elegant manner, so that though their shops were shut, they might be said to have ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... said Blanche, with just the faintest feeling of disgust—the first she had ever experienced toward Bob. "If you talk like that I shall leave you. I am disappointed in you; I should never have suspected you of being mercenary." ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... well-regulated militia, composed of gentlemen and yeomen, is the natural strength and only security of a free government; that such a militia in this colony would forever render it unnecessary for the mother country to keep among us for the purpose of our defence any standing army of mercenary forces, always subversive of the quiet and dangerous to the liberties of the people, and would obviate the pretext of taxing us ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... was it, signorina?' he said. 'Young people and beautiful people should not be mercenary. Poor child! you had better have stood ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... this community. As you well know, I have and could have no sympathy with the motives by which he may be presumed to have been actuated. Why, then, this sudden feeling in his behalf? Not, I assure you, from mercenary motives. His acquittal or his condemnation will make no difference in the compensation I receive for my services. The overpowering interest I feel in this case originates in the fact that it places at stake the reputation of this District, and, in some respects, of the country itself, of which ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... uncertain, in morals pompous and wrong-headed; Murat knew where and how the great prizes were to be found, and was as dashing and venturesome as he was selfish and worldly-wise. The Russian generals were plodding disciples of routine. Bennigsen was an able Hanoverian mercenary, despising alike his Livonian colleague, Buxhoewden, and his chief, the servile Russian marshal, Kamenski. The Prussian general Lestocq was capable but inexperienced. The chief and his subordinate were ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... induce her to remain, but when she looked at the pale thin face, and thought how many weary nights the lady had voluntarily sat up with the raving child, she ceased to urge the request, and at once set out for a mercenary to replace her. ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... to London unto Sainte Paul's, To seek himself a chantery for souls, Or maintenance with a brotherhood to hold; But dwelt at home, and kepte well his fold, So that the wolf ne'er made it to miscarry; He was a shepherd and no mercenary. And though he holy were, and virtuous, He was to sinful man not despitous, And of his speech nor difficult nor digne, But in his teaching discreet and benign. For to draw folk to heaven by fairness, By good ensample, this was his business: But were there any person obstinate, ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... was unscrupulous, and the probability is that he was mercenary; but such charges may be brought against some of the ablest men who have figured in history. When all is said, the fact remains that Alexander McGillivray was one of the most accomplished and ingenious of the politicians of his time. If he had been on the side of the whites, and had managed ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... had no argument to put forward to justify his belief; it was one of those beliefs which are rooted in something finer and truer than circumstantial evidence. His only argument in her favour was that he had never found her mercenary, but, as Abdul had answered him, a woman will sell her ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... and unadvised into the meshes of an acquaintanceship which leads to her ruin. It is perhaps as useless to ask the men who are base enough to conceive these things to refrain from publishing them, as it is to urge the mercenary proprietors of certain newspapers to refrain from printing them in their columns. Yet it must be perfectly clear to all right-thinking minds, that it is in vain for parents to warn, parsons to preach, friends to advise, for the good to deplore, and the ignorant ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... Point d'argent, point de Suisse, is a proverbial expression which the Swiss twist into a historical compliment, asserting that it arose in early mercenary times, from the fact that they were too virtuous to accept the suggestion of the general who hired them, and wished them to take their pay in kind from the defenceless people of ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... to the young readers, that and much more it is the writers' wish that the true Plays of Shakspeare may prove to them in older years—enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... speaking: he is diligent, clean, and pleasing; we all owe him periods of entertainment, and he has achieved an amiable popularity which he has adequately deserved. But the truth is, he does not, or did not when he first embraced it, regard his profession from this purely mercenary side. He went into it, I shall venture to say, if not with any noble design, at least in the ardour of a first love; and he enjoyed its practice long before he paused to calculate the wage. The other day an author was complimented ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the young ladies, when old enough, into general society. Mrs. Schreiber was the very person required. Intellectually she had no great pretensions; but these she did not need: her character was irreproachable, her manners were polished, and her own income placed her far above all mercenary temptations. She had not thought fit to accept the station of Colonel Watson's wife, but some unavowed feeling prompted her to undertake, with enthusiasm, the duties of a mother to the colonel's ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... in Germany. On the other hand, a commercial policy involved them in distant enterprises. Colonies were founded by the Italians in the south-east, by German cities in the east, by Slavonian cities in the far northeast. Mercenary armies began to be kept for colonial wars, and soon for local defence as well. Loans were contacted to such an extent as to totally demoralize the citizens; and internal contests grew worse and worse at each election, during ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... always mercenary, though they have that reputation with some. I should like, by the way, to find out ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... fouling at the highest fence; straining every sinew to the last, for his rider's defeat is his own failure, his rider's success his own victory. And we have all seen the gallant response of the race-horse to every movement of his rider's body—a loyal gallantry that ennobles even the merely mercenary; and the sight of these two—now one—flying toward the goal, always makes the heart beat faster and grow warm with its brave showing of this magical bond. And above all, we have seen the trooper's horse, which comes closer to him than the comrade fighting by his side; for it is to his horse ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... pictures, the world shall pay to have them," says he, with a smile; then turning to her he adds very tenderly: "I will owe all my happiness to you, sweetheart; yet guard my independence in more material matters. No mercenary question shall ever cast ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... year, and retired with his deaf old housekeeper to the Clints of Drumore. Yet forty years before, the Reverend Fergus Symington was counted the luckiest young minister in the Stewartry; and many were the jokes made in public-house parlours and in private houses about his mercenary motives. He had married money. He had been wedded with much rejoicing to the rich daughter of a Liverpool merchant, who had made a fortune not too tenderly in the West Indian trade. Sophia Sugg was ten years the senior of her husband, and her temper was uncertain, but ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... I have set upon my catalogue, has been represented by the booksellers as an avaricious innovation; and, in a paper published in the Champion, they, or their mercenary, have reasoned so justly, as to allege, that, if I could afford a very large price for the library, I might, therefore, afford ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... head ache: he prefers the clear, cold water, or at most a dish of chocolate. Mother may jeer at him as unmanly; she has a fine spirit, mother: and she may think I might have done better; but mother has grown a little mercenary, and forgotten that she was once young herself, and would have liked to have served a great genius with such a loving heart and such blue eyes as Will's. Ah! the girls will all envy me, when they get a glance from Will's blue eyes: and let them, for he is too good ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... that to-day you will find no man in our town as well liked, as jovial, and full of merry sayings as I. My jokes are again noised about and quoted; once more I take pleasure in my wife's confidential chatter without a mercenary thought, while Guy and Viola play at my feet distributing gems of childish humor without fear of the ghastly tormentor who used to dog their steps, notebook ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... he astonished me still more now by the proofs of his application to military and political science. He would talk very learnedly of the disposition of armies in the field, of the advantages and disadvantages of the use of mercenary troops, and the best way to defend and the best way to assault a well-walled citadel, so that you would think, to listen to him, that he was some gray old generalissimo steeped in experience, and not the smooth-cheeked fellow whom we knew, as we thought, so ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... friendship for them, that attention to the most important duties at the last gasp, indicates that honesty without any thought of personal advantage was innate in the man; that it did not require the invitation of pleasure, or the allurements of mercenary rewards. For what greater evidence can we require that those things which are honourable and right are desirable of themselves for their own sake, than the sight of a dying man so anxious in the discharge ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... special meeting and resolved to stand by the "Boston House Wrights" who, "in imitation of the noble and decided stand taken by their Revolutionary Fathers, have determined to throw off the shackles of more mercenary tyrants than theirs." Many societies voted varying sums of money in ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... particulars of her history. Percy is not her real name, but she is the daughter of an English peer of very ancient family. Her father having married a second time, Dorothea was exposed to the persecutions of a low-minded vulgar woman, whose whole ideas were of that mean and mercenary description which characterise the Caucasian race. Naomi Shekles was the offspring of a Jew, and she hated, whilst she envied, the superior charms of the noble Norman maiden. But she had gained an enormous supremacy over the wavering intellect of the elderly Viscount; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... the first to enter. He enquired of every one he met of the fate of Isabelle; but all turned from him with disgust. At length he found her out, but what was his grief and surprise—in a nunnery! Firm to the troth she had so solemnly plighted, she had rejected the proposition of her mercenary parent; and, having no idea but that her lover had shared the fate of all Christian captives, she had shut herself up from the world, and vowed to live the life ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... is such a mortal sin to think of money in this dirty world, where we cannot live without it, that they actually discourage him, and make it a point of honour to snub him daily, to prove their superiority to mercenary considerations. What weak things your strong-minded people sometimes do! and what horrors arise from acting upon principle! I, who have none, fancy I sometimes stumble into right by just doing what I please, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... both parties, Maurice, representing the States-General, pronounced for the Calvinists or Contra-Remonstrants, and took possession of one of the great churches, as an assertion of his authority. Barneveld, representing the Arminian or Remonstrant provinces, levied a body of mercenary soldiers in several of the cities. These were disbanded by Maurice, and afterwards by an act of the States-General. Barneveld was apprehended, imprisoned, and executed, after an examination which was in no proper sense a trial. Grotius, who was on the ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... perhaps encourage him," he said to himself, "especially now that his income is doubled. She might even accept him as a husband— women are so mercenary. But her heart will ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... guilty— to love liberty and freedom of conscience, to hate tyranny and oppression, then I am indeed a criminal," he answered in an unshaken voice. "You call me a spy and load me with opprobrium. It was necessary to gain information as to the movements of your mercenary army: twice have I obtained that information and carried it to our noble general. My only regret is that I have not succeeded a third time in so doing; but understand that though I have thus laboured to injure you secretly, I have ever ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... against my integrity,—in this long management of your affairs, whatever errors have been committed,—and doubtless there have been many,—have you found in me anything selfish, anything personal, anything mercenary? In the simple language of an ancient seer, I say, 'Behold, here I am; witness against me. Whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? At whose hands ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... great classes—the free tribes, chiefly if not exclusively Celtic, and the unfree tribes, consisting of the descendants of the subjugated races, or of clans once free, reduced to servitude by the sword, and the offspring of foreign mercenary soldiers. 'The unfree tribes,' says Mr. Darcy Magee, 'have left no history. Under the despotism of the Milesian kings, it was high treason to record the actions of the conquered race, so that the Irish Belgae fared as badly in this respect at the hands of the Milesian historians ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... wants me to speak well of her; if she intends to deceive him she expects me to back her up. The wish is doubtless natural, but for a proud girl it is rather an odd favor to ask. Oh yes, she 's a proud girl, even though she has been able to arrange it with her conscience to make a mercenary marriage. To expect me to help her is perhaps to treat me as a friend; but she ought to remember—or at least I ought to remember—that Gordon is an older friend than she. Inviting me to help her as against my oldest friend—is n't there a grain ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... process with the curate or village doctor it is a success, and her friend will always think so. And when a girl marries a gentleman, and a Member of Parliament, instead of well, I'm not going to say anything personal her friends will congratulate her upon his position. It may be very wicked, and mercenary, and all that; but it's the way ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... replied Lucy D——. 'The mystery of nature, of creation, of the communion of the creature with the infinitely bountiful Creator. Have you never wandered away from the beaten track, from tiresome dinners, with mercenary waiters and elaborate courses, from yawning, blase men, and over-dressed, artificial, weakly women, and, resting upon some quiet hillside, suffered the glories of external nature to fill your soul as you drained the cup of beauty, ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... they were no match for Great Britain in wealth, population, or naval power. As it was, Great Britain allowed the revolution to get under full headway before making a serious effort to suppress it. In 1776, however, a force of about 30,000 men, many of whom were mercenary German soldiers, commonly called "Hessians," was sent to occupy New York. Thenceforward, the British pursued aggressive tactics, and inasmuch as their armies were generally superior to those of the colonists in numbers, discipline, and equipment, and besides were supported by powerful fleets, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... it in a breath at sight of my poor wan face, for I was called a pretty girl, Mr. Talboys, when I sailed for Sydney, fifteen years ago; or he may be so changed by the world as to have grown selfish and mercenary, and he may welcome me for the sake of my fifteen years' savings. Again, he may be dead. He may have been well, perhaps, up to within a week of our landing, and in that last week may have taken a fever, and died an hour before our vessel anchors in the Mersey. ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... something akin to a grunt, which might by courtesy be taken for a groan: "Oh, how mercenary you women are! Well, if you marry a man for his money, Horace has the best of it—if he behaves himself. Yes, I admit ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various |
