"Avaricious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the church government of Italy was conducted by proud and avaricious legates, who lived as dukes or provincial kings, and in the name of the church assumed to dictate the policy of government to many small potentates, maintaining a standing array of condottieri made up of English, Dutch ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... on which the sun perpetually shone, he was not only greedy for additional dominion, but he was avaricious in small matters, and hated to part with a hundred dollars. To the soldier who brought him the sword and gauntlets of Francis the First, he gave a hundred crowns, when ten thousand would have been less than the customary present; so that the man left his presence full of desperation. The three ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... be said, old men are fretful, fidgety, ill-tempered, and disagreeable. If you come to that, they are also avaricious. But these are faults of character, not of the time of life. And, after all, fretfulness and the other faults I mentioned admit of some excuse—not, indeed, a complete one, but one that may possibly pass muster: they think themselves neglected, looked down upon, ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... deprive the poor of the necessary means of support, Mic. iii. 2, 3. The comparison of [Pg 22] chap. i. 15: "Your hands are full of blood," and of ver. 21: "But now murderers," compared with vers. 17, 23, 26, shews that we have to think especially of unjust judges and avaricious rulers. Yet, there is no reason for limiting ourselves to the nobles and rulers alone; comp. Ezek. xxii. 29: "The people of the land use oppression, and boldly practice robbery, and vex the poor and needy, and oppress the stranger." Where sins so gross are still prevalent, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... comment on the resemblance of certain youths laboring here the same as the others, galloping from the first streak of dawn over the fields, attending to the various duties of pasturing. The overseer, Celedonio, a half-breed thirty years old, generally detested for his hard and avaricious character, also bore a ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... saying of Dr. Johnson that wisdom may make laws but it requires virtue to execute them. The Spanish sovereigns were more humane than their subjects, but the latter were ready with expedients for evading laws whose execution would have hindered their avaricious undertakings in the distant colonies, while venal officials lent their connivance to these violations, instead of administering the laws in the spirit in which their authors had conceived them. The statute books of the worst despotisms are adorned with the wisest and most liberal ordinances. ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... all others, lives very economically; he dresses simply, and abstains from all that kind of expenditure which, being an evidence of wealth and chivalric generosity, elevates a man in the eyes of the world. That makes me fear that his uncle is either in moderate circumstances or very avaricious." ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... Ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious, in-sa-ti-a-ble old fence?' said the man, seating himself deliberately. 'I wonder they don't murder you! I would if I was them. If I'd been your 'prentice, I'd have done it long ago, and—no, I couldn't have sold you afterwards, for you're fit for nothing but keeping as a curiousity ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... had authorised him, when he couldn't have dared to make such a proposal to her, and her brother but two days dead. Well; I took him for a stiff-necked pompous fool, but I never thought him such an avaricious knave." And Fanny, too—could Fanny have agreed, so soon, to give her hand to another? She could not have transferred her heart. His own dear, fond Fanny! A short time ago they had been all in all to each other; ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... certainly not an unhappy frame of mind, and I am not aware that it indicates any depraved condition. I don't know of any very bad men who make puns, but I have known of many good men who make bad puns. It is not an avaricious state of the mind, for who ever heard of "puns for sale or manufactured to order," or of a man getting rich in the ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... classed among the lucky diggers; but "the more people have, the more they want;" and although the many pounds weight of the precious metal that our party had "taken up" gave, when divided, a good round sum a-piece, the avaricious creatures bore the want of success that followed more unphilosophically than they had done before the rich "pocketful" of gold had made its appearance. They would dig none but shallow holes, and a sort of gambling manner of setting to ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... each year. At initiative conclusions he would be classified with the freak species of humanity, but beneath his raw exterior there lurked rich mines which the moss kept a secret from the inquisitive, avaricious world. ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... the Captain at that time. His past history was as follows: He was the only son of a very wealthy but avaricious sugar manufacturer of Malabon, who was unwilling to spend a cent in his education. For this reason young Santiago became the servant of a good Dominican, a very virtuous man, who tried to teach him all the valuable knowledge which he ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... have to some extent seen already, felt the horrors of Indian warfare. Kieft, the Dutch director-general, a man cruel, avaricious, and obstinate, angered the red men by demanding tribute from them as their protector, while he refused them guns or ammunition. The savages replied that they had to their own cost shown kindness to the Dutch when in need of food, but ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... throne she was a wise woman, courageous and chaste; and had her palaces on the Bosphorus; and took good care of her beauty, and indulged in the pleasures of a good table; had ministers who kissed her feet; a crowd of women and eunuchs in her secret chambers, whose passions she indulged; was avaricious and sometimes cruel; and founded a convent for the irreclaimably bad of her own sex, some of whom liked it, and some of whom threw themselves into the sea in despair; and when she died was an irreparable loss to her emperor. So ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Next morning, the King repaired as usual to his council-chamber, and the amirs and viziers and chamberlains took their places round him. Now he had among his viziers one who was forbidding of aspect, sordid, avaricious and envious: a man of ill omen, naturally inclined to malevolence: and when he saw the esteem in which the King held Douban and the favours he bestowed on him, he envied him and plotted evil against him; for, as says the byword, "Nobody is free from envy"—and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... and a slave to priest craft, in which phrase Dwining included religion of every kind. On the whole, he considered Ramorny as one whom nature had assigned to him as a serf, to mine for the gold which he worshipped, and the avaricious love of which was his greatest failing, though by no means his worst vice. He vindicated this sordid tendency in his own eyes by persuading himself that it had its source in the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... his time, indeed of all times. It is hard to sum up briefly the good and evil of such a character. He was said to be of a pleasing and dignified presence, simple and self-reliant. We know that he was possessed of indomitable courage, endurance, and persistency of purpose; avaricious, perfidious, devout; and conspicuous for his cruelty even in a cruel age. Greedy as he was of gold, he spent little of it upon himself, and seemed to desire it chiefly for the power and honor it would ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... commanded me, I laid my hand upon the Bible and vowed eternal, inextinguishable hatred of the Prussians. And the boy's vow has been kept by the man. I have struggled ceaselessly against these ambitious land-greedy, avaricious Prussians; fought with my tongue, my sword, and my pen. And when at last, at Jena, they were vanquished and forced to bow to the very dust, I exulted, for their defeat was Poland's vengeance. God was requiting the wrong they had done to Poland. Since then I have no longer hated ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... the unwary. It's slow work and dangerous. Ernie lives off of you with something of the voracity of a leech—no offense intended, Ernie. Now, why not turn your hand to something big and definite and safe?" He paused to let the idea sink into Ernie's avaricious soul. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... Avaricious as well as unprincipled, he pursued, as an Ambassador, his former business of a smuggler, and, instead of being ashamed of a discovery, proclaimed it publicly, deserted his post, was not reprimanded in France, but was, without ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... covered with snow, and opened our windows at breakfast-time to let in the robins, who would hop on the table to pick up crumbs. The quantity of singing birds was very great, for the farmers and gardeners were less cruel and avaricious than they are now—though poorer. They allowed our pretty songsters to share in the bounties of providence. The shortsighted cruelty, which is too prevalent now, brings its own punishment, for, owing ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... their species to delude themselves. The first of those classes consisted of the selfish tyrants who upheld an unjust supremacy by systematic delusions, and of grovelling mountebanks who quenched their avaricious thirst at the fountains of credulity and ignorance. The second class comprehended spirits of a nobler mould: It embraced the speculative enthusiasts, whom the love of fame and of truth urged onward, in a fruitless research, and those ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... of his agents he discovered a warder who had been in some trouble with the authorities, a man who was avaricious and was even then on the brink of being discharged from the service for trafficking with prisoners. The bribe he offered this man was a heavy ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... Russia called him, was an outstanding personality, clever, scheming, and as unscrupulous as he was avaricious. His mujik blood ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... and assumed a grateful expression suitable to the occasion. In reality, his salary was of very little importance to him, as compared with what he realised from his illicit traffic in manuscripts. But, like his employer, he was avaricious, and the prospect of three hundred and sixty scudi a year was pleasant to contemplate. ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... the Mull of Galloway and entered the Irish Sea. Here there was an occurrence of an impressive nature. A woman, belonging to the steerage, who had been ill the whole passage, died the morning before. She appeared to be of a very avaricious disposition, though this might indeed have been the result of self-denial, practised through filial affection. In the morning she was speechless, and while they were endeavoring to persuade her to give up her keys to the captain, died. ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... a soul deformed, to be one intemperate and unjust, filled with a multitude of desires, a prey to foolish hopes and vexed with idle fears; through its diminutive and avaricious nature the subject of envy; employed solely in thought of what is immoral and low, bound in the fetters of impure delights, living the life, whatever it may be, peculiar to the passion of body; and so totally merged in sensuality as to esteem the base pleasant, and the deformed beautiful ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... avaricious, Billy?" Allys asked. "Last summer you cared less for money than anything. There must be a reason—tell me, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... aspect of the world, but they themselves were strangers. Gideon Rand, as he rode, thought of the bright leaf in the cask, of the Richmond warehouse, and fixed the price in his mind. His mind was in a state of sober jubilation. His only brother, a lonely, unloved, and avaricious merchant in a small way, had lately died, and had left him money. The hundred acres upon the Three-Notched Road that Gideon had tilled for another were in the market. The money would buy the land and the small, dilapidated house already occupied by the Rands. The purchase ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... women who are avaricious enough to sell their souls," they cried; "and the maternal Trent is one of them. The girl is only to blame for allowing herself to ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... cherished maxims of English jurisprudence. Lieutenant-Governor Hunter, in a letter written to a friend in England soon after his arrival at York, refers to P. R.—by whom Mr. Russell is clearly indicated—as "an avaricious one." In a subsequent part of the same epistle he adds: "So far as depended upon him [Mr. Russell] he would grant land to the de'il and all his family as good Loyalists, if they would only pay the fees." During Governor Hunter's own term of office, though there is no evidence ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... hence.... My whole philosophy—which is very real—teaches acquiescence and optimism. Only when I see how much work is to be done, what room for a poet—for any spiritualist—in this great, intelligent, sensual, and avaricious America, I lament my fumbling fingers and stammering tongue." It may be remembered that Mr. Matthew Arnold quoted the expression about America, which sounded more harshly as pronounced in a public lecture than as read in a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... angelic perfection. No insanity here either, but something of the same undue sensitiveness and melancholy as in the father, the same absence of the coarser and more robust virtues. Moreover, she belonged to a family by no means so angelic as herself, not insane, but abnormal—malevolent, cruel, avaricious, almost criminal. The most scrupulous modern alienist would hesitate to deprive either Bernardo or Porzia of the right to parenthood. Yet, as we know, the son born of this union was not only a world-famous poet, but an exceedingly unhappy, abnormal, ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... my duty to help grannie to make all the money we can to pay the debt, and get grandfather out of the hands of those avaricious Holts. What ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... youth to age! look at fashionable society as you know it. What does it pretend to be? An exquisite dance of nymphs. What is it? A horrible procession of wretched girls, each in the claws of a cynical, cunning, avaricious, disillusioned, ignorantly experienced, foul-minded old woman whom she calls mother, and whose duty it is to corrupt her mind and sell her to the highest bidder. Why do these unhappy slaves marry anybody, however old and vile, sooner than not marry at all? Because marriage is their only means of ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... pleasure, and little urchins catching butterflies in their caps. It was a forest after the pattern of the original Bois de Boulogne, hot and dusty, a much-frequented and sadly-abused promenade, one of those spots, avaricious of shade, to which the common people flock to disport themselves at the gates of great capitals—burlesque forests, filled with corks, where you find slices of melon ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... nothing for him," said Mrs. Hamilton, whose avaricious hand, larger far than her heart, grasped at and ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... of his instructor, Jan Wils, and was so avaricious that she allowed him no rest. Busy as he was by nature, she used to sit under his studio, and when she neither heard him sing nor stir, she struck upon the ceiling to rouse him. She got from him all the money he earned ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... the finest young Gentlemen of Naples, should be sacrific'd to a mercenary Wretch, a Wretch, that in the midst of plenty is poor and miserable, and who, tho' he has all Things to compleat his Happiness, his avaricious Temper will not permit him to enjoy the common Necessaries of Life: The Pleasures of living he's a Stranger to, he lives despis'd, and will die unpitied: But such is the inequality of Fortune's Favours, that Merit must ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... property are civil ordinances, approved by God's Word in the commandment, Ex. 20, 15: Thou shalt not steal. The abandonment of property has no command or advice in the Scriptures. For evangelical poverty does not consist in the abandonment of property, but in not being avaricious, in not trusting in wealth, just as David was poor in a most ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... a quieter tone, "that I see life in the hands of enemies, not only enemies of the noble but of everything good, avaricious and incapable of adorning ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... that he was avaricious—far from that; but he had numberless schemes in view, and he knew full well that without the gold they could not ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... from my name, as trustee, to you individually. Now it is up to you to prove that you are a careful little business woman. With more than a thousand dollars in the bank you may feel quite like an heiress, but I warn you that a big city is a glutton and its avaricious maw is always open for money. Be warned by one who knows. If you need any advice of any nature that a man can give better than Miss Merriman, I want you to promise to call on Phil ... Dr. Bentley, that is, for I mean to put you ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... districts. The chief of each arrogates to himself the title of king. The soil is fairly productive, and rice, yams, guavas, earth-nuts, and bananas might be grown in plenty, but for the lazy, vicious, and avaricious character of the inhabitants who vie with ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... exemplar of the simple life practical in the midst of unbounded success. He goes to his office every morning regularly at nine o'clock. In the midst of opulence he eats a frugal lunch in a room which supplies the one thing of which he is avaricious—big windows and plenty of fresh air. For light and air spell for him, as for the rest of us, health and sound judgment. He possesses, indeed, one terrible and hidden secret—a kind of baron's castle somewhere in the heart of South England, where he may retire beyond the pursuit of King ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... easy to see that you are a stranger to these waters, or you would not need to ask for information respecting that fiend Morillo," answered the Spaniard. "He is a cruel, avaricious, and bloodthirsty pirate, sparing neither man nor woman, friend nor foe. But little is really known about him, senor, for those who meet him rarely survive to tell the tale; but there have been one or two who, by a miracle, have escaped him, and it is from them that we ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... avaricious desire to accumulate riches, cooperating with a spirit of luxury and injustice, seems to be the leading cause of this peculiarly degrading and ignominious practice. Being once accustomed to subsist without labour, we become soft and voluptuous; ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... had a Dutch Squadron with us, who expected Convoy Rates, and all manner of Civilities from us, though there was now Peace, and we wanted nothing from 'em; but 'tis always the way with this Grasping and Avaricious People. Soon too we observed that the Dutch ships began to scrape and clean their sides, painting and polishing and beeswaxing 'em inside and out, bending new sails, and the very Mariners putting on half ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... an elder brother; and he must have been less avaricious than the rest of them, as he sacrificed a fortune for love. It was quite a little romance, you know. He and his brother Hugh were both in love with the same lady. The father did not approve, and gave his sons their choice between love without a fortune or a fortune without ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... she is so avaricious that she expends for herself and household only ten thousand francs a year," ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... knocked off a chunk of ore and showed her the specks of gold, scattered through it with such prodigal richness, she felt her old sense of security return; for he had never been rough with her. It was only with Old Whiskers, the grasping Blackwater saloon-keeper, and with the equally avaricious Dusty Rhodes—who had been trying to steal more than their share of the prospect and to beat her out of her third. They had thought to ignore her, to brush her aside and usurp her share in the claim; but Wunpost ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... heart of other people, seem to have a contrary effect on both. They contemplate the objects of nature as the stock-jobber does the vicissitudes of the public funds: "the dews of heaven," and the enlivening orb by which they are dispelled, are to the farmer only objects of avaricious speculation; and the scarcity, which is partially profitable, is but too often more welcome than a general abundance.—They consider nothing beyond the limits of their own farms, except for the purpose of making envious comparisons with those of their ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Agni, 'the nearest of the gods.' Agni sends him to another, and he to another, till at last, when the boy has prayed to all the gods, including the All-gods, his fetters drop off; Hariccandra's dropsy ceases, and all ends well.[72] Only, when the avaricious father demands his son back, he is refused, and Vicv[a]mitra adopts the boy, even dispossessing his own protesting sons. For fifty of the latter agree to the exaltation of Dogstail; but fifty revolt, and are cursed by Vicv[a]mitra, that their sons' sons should become barbarians, the Andhras, Pundras, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... had been, ever since the extinction of the Swabian line, a mere mark for ambitious princes to shoot at, with everything expected from him, and no means to do anything. Maximilian's own father was an avaricious, undignified old man, not until near his death Archduke of even all Austria, and with anarchy prevailing everywhere under his nominal rule. It was in the time of Maximilian that the Empire became as compact and united a body as could be hoped of anything so unwieldy, that law was at least ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flanks, the captain, left to more freedom of thought, reflected on the prodigious genius of Aramis, a genius of acumen and intrigue, a match to which the Fronde and the civil war had produced but twice. Soldier, priest, diplomatist; gallant, avaricious, cunning; Aramis had never taken the good things of this life except as stepping-stones to rise to giddier ends. Generous in spirit, if not lofty in heart, he never did ill but for the sake of shining even ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... temperately. The culture of rice is described, and the fertility of the soil praised. Much interesting information is given regarding the characteristics, habits, and customs of the people; he regards most of them as drunken, licentious, and idle, and avaricious and murderous. The governor has rebuilt the ruined fort at Cebu; but he thinks that a settlement there is useless and expensive. He asks for oared vessels, with which to navigate among the islands; and he is anxious to seize the Moluccas for Spain. He ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... complacence this evidence of yielding on the girl's part. He had, indeed, the vanity that usually characterizes the criminal. It was inconceivable to his egotism that he must be odious to any decent woman. Plutina's avaricious stipulation concerning money pleased him as a display of feminine shrewdness. He was in nowise offended. The women of his more intimate acquaintance did not scruple to bargain their charms. From such trollops, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... he was cruel by habit; without being naturally avaricious, he was a universal spoiler; and without savagely hating mankind, he spurned the feelings, the sufferings, and the life of man. He was hollow, fierce, and remorseless, where his own objects were concerned, and whether he cheated his party in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... her house when she died which were not in it when I called to see her at the time when she was first ill; but her purchasing the large Bible on account of the print was to me a satisfactory proof that she had no longer such avaricious feelings." ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... place the pails under the cows, thinking that the milk is flowing; the maidens also put the blue lotus-blossom in their ears, thinking that it is the white; the mountaineer's wife snatches up the jujube fruit, avaricious for pearls. Whose mind is not led astray by the ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... governmental authority; it has induced the use of force in an endeavor to wrest the sovereignty over a territory or over a community from those who have long possessed and justly exercised it. It has formed the basis for territorial claims by avaricious nations. And it has introduced into domestic as well as international affairs a new spirit of disorder. It is an evil thing to permit the principle of "self-determination" to continue to have the apparent sanction of the nations when it has been in fact ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... out of these come most of our outward acts, and all of their color. As is the preponderance of the man, will be this inward brood. The timid man will imagine dangers, the anxious man troubles, the hopeful man successes, the avaricious man accumulations, the ambitious possession of power; and the poetic man will imagine all sorts of perfections, be ever yearning for a better and higher, be ever building beautiful air-castles, earthy or moral, material or ethereal, according ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... punished where I had hoped to be rewarded," Michael said to me just now. "I had wished for a saving and industrious son, and God has given me an ambitious and avaricious one! I had always said to myself that when once he was grown up we should have him always with us, to recall our youth and to enliven our hearts. His mother was always thinking of getting him married and having children again to care for. You know women ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... representative. An invitation of Bessas could not lightly be declined, nor had Heliodora any reluctance to obey such a summons. More than a year had gone by since her vain attempt, on Marcian's suggestion, to enslave the avaricious Thracian, and, since then, the hapless Muscula had had more than one successor. Roman gossip, always busy with the fair Greek, told many a strange story to account for her rigour towards the master of Rome, who ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... female child, who survived. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire quotes a description of twins who were born in France on October 7, 1838, symmetrically formed and united at their ischii. One was christened Marie-Louise, and the other Hortense-Honorine. Their avaricious parents took the children to Paris for exhibition, the exposures of which soon sacrificed their lives. In the year 1841 there was born in the island of Ceylon, of native parents, a monstrous child that was soon brought to Columbo, where it lived only two months. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... and seeing the destitute condition of the woman he said nothing about fees. He was not an avaricious man. ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... But certainly!" and the old fellow trembled all over with avaricious eagerness as I counted the silver pieces into his withered palm. "Anything to oblige a generous stranger! There is the place I sleep in; it is not much, but there is a mirror—HER mirror—the only thing I keep of hers; come this way, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... thirteenth century as lord of Vicenza, Verona, Padua, and Brescia, and was defeated and hurt to death in an attempt to possess himself of Milan. He was in every respect a remarkable man for that time,—fearless, abstemious, continent, avaricious, hardy, and unspeakably ambitious and cruel. He survived and suppressed innumerable conspiracies, escaping even the thrust of the assassin whom the fame of his enormous wickedness had caused the Old Man of the Mountain to send against him. As ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... I believe you're right," blurted out Andy with an avaricious glitter in his shifty eyes. "Let's go there to-night and see if ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... lives, is almost incredible, and it is to be borne in mind that this property was not their own, but what they had taken from the wreck of the boats. Did I even induce one to throw anything away another avaricious fellow would pick it up; and their thoughts and conversation, instead of running upon making the best of their way home and saying their lives, consisted in conjectures as to what they would realize from their ill-gotten ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... of the baseness of the avaricious functions of the Lower Pthah, p. 54, with his beetle-gospel, p. 59, "that a nation can stand on its vices better than on its virtues," explains the main motive of all ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... project had been crowned with complete success, the old libertine was overjoyed beyond measure; but when Mike demanded the one hundred dollars, his face lengthened—for he was avaricious as well as villainous, and his recent loss of five thousand dollars, in favor of the Chevalier and the Duchess, made him exceedingly loth to part with a cool hundred so easily.—Not exactly knowing the sort of a ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... failure then to act decisively resulted in prolonging the discontent among our employees. Their purposes are as apparent to-day as then, viz., to rule or ruin our gigantic enterprise. Capital and labor should be the best of friends. Unfortunately, trusts and labor organizations are alike avaricious and selfish. ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... The avaricious bee that despised the slow process of extracting nectar from "every opening flower," and plunged recklessly into the tempting sweets, has ample time to bewail its folly. Even if it has not paid the forfeit of its life, but has been ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... that the old couple were saving, if not avaricious. But when it was known, through the indiscreet volubility of Mammy Downey, that Daddy Downey sent the bulk of their savings, gratuities, and gifts to a dissipated and prodigal son in the East,—whose photograph ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... avarus,—desirous of keeping.' BOSWELL. 'I have heard old Mr. Sheridan maintain, with much ingenuity, that a complete miser is a happy man; a miser who gives himself wholly to the one passion of saving.' JOHNSON. 'That is flying in the face of all the world, who have called an avaricious man a miser, because he is miserable[948]. No, Sir; a man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... lacemaker is not dependent on the shopkeeper, nor the head of a manufactory. All who choose to work have it in their own power, and can dispose of the produce of their labour, without being at the mercy of an avaricious employer; for though a tolerable good workwoman can gain a decent livelihood by selling to the shops, yet the profit of the retailer is so great, that if he rejected a piece of lace, or refused to give a reasonable price for it, a certain sale would be ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... things. An empty house is not God's ideal nor man's. The child may handle a toy, but a man must mount a locomotive; and before there can be New Jerusalems with golden streets, there must be men more avaricious of knowledge than of gold, or they would dig them up; more zealous for love than jewels, or they would unhang the pearly gates. The uplifting refinement of the material world has been kept back until there should ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... climb." But who can know what the bitterness of dependence is so well as the poor companion of an old lady of quality? The Countess A—— had by no means a bad heart, but she was capricious, like a woman who had been spoiled by the world, as well as being avaricious and egotistical, like all old people, who have seen their best days, and whose thoughts are with the past, and not the present. She participated in all the vanities of the great world, went to balls, where she sat in a corner, painted and dressed in old-fashioned style, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... fists, tying handkerchiefs or pieces of string to them, fastening tags around their necks, regardless of tribe, family, or condition. The negroes, not yet recovered from their melancholy voyage, were amazed and panic-stricken at this horrible onslaught of avaricious men; they frequently scaled the walls, and ran frantically ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... any party wall, and linked by a contignation into the edifice of France,) but as a happy occasion for pillaging the goods, and for carrying off the materials, of their neighbour's house. Their provident fears were changed into avaricious hopes. They carried on their new designs without seeming to abandon the principles of their old policy. They pretended to seek, or they flattered themselves that they sought, in the accession of new fortresses, and new territories, a defensive security. ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... murmured in proverbs—Lo que no lleva Christo lleva el fisco! "What Christ takes not, the exchequer carries away!" They have a number of sarcastic proverbs on the tenacious gripe of the "abad avariento," the avaricious priest, who, "having eaten the olio offered, claims the dish!" A striking mixture of chivalric habits, domestic decency, and epicurean comfort, appears in the Spanish proverb, La muger y la salsa a la mano de la lanca: "The wife and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... an Ezzelin, he never was; his cruelties had a purpose, the sufferings of the victims were a detail not an end. Yet something of that despot's character, refined into torturing the mind and not the flesh, chaste, cruel, avaricious of power, something of that Southern morbidness in crime, distinguishes Heathcliff from the villains of modern English tragedies. Placed in the Italian Renaissance, with Cyril Tourneur for a chronicler, Heathcliff would not have awakened the outburst of incredulous ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... never do any thing of this kind without letting you know what I do. He most generously answered, I shall then, perhaps, have you do less good than you would otherwise do, from a doubt of me; though, I hope, your discretion, and my own temper, which is not avaricious, will make such ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... under the command of an irascible old plainsman who had served out his apprenticeship in the Kansas border war, and whose name was Charity Joe, which, considering his avaricious disposition, was the wrong handle on the wrong man. Charity was the least of all old Joe's redeeming characteristics; charity was the very thing he did not recognize, yet some wag had facetiously branded him Charity Joe, and the appellation had ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... very well, but as this maxim was not observed toward Lord Byron, I also will repeat what I have heard said of his wife—I mean that the blame was hers—that her temper was so bad, her manners so harsh and disagreeable, that no one could endure her society; that she was avaricious, wicked, scolding; that people hated to wait upon her or live near her. How dared this lady to marry a man so distinguished, and then to treat him ill and tyrannically? Truly it is inconceivable. If she were charitable for the poor (as some one has pretended), ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... I see, are grown rich and avaricious. They have uprooted the old pomegranate hedges, and have built high walls to prohibit the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... The avaricious old woman did not deny the fact, but she fell to cursing and swearing in an awful manner, and wished so much evil to the lad, that, with the superstitious fear so common to the natives of his country, he left her under the impression that she was gifted with the evil eye, ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... educated gentlemen, are disposed to bear an ill opinion of our whole nation on account of the rough men here. They think that it is a great characteristic of Columbia's children to be prejudiced, selfish, avaricious, ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... these weak and greedy islanders with so much love, surprise, and respect as does contempt for gold and for earthly goods. The generous minister, he who gives, will be considered as good, most good, and will obtain whatever he wants from his parishioners. The greedy and avaricious, he who does what common and vile men do, will, notwithstanding the habit in which he is clad, notwithstanding the sermons he preaches, be considered as mean, if he does not end by being despised and abhorred. Nevertheless, I can affirm that the religious who trade are very few, and among the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... restrictive influences of those who had sought perfection. To organize and administer the new industrial-financial-commercial regime, the leaders must be shrewd, ingenious, quick-witted, thick-skinned, unscrupulous, hard-headed, and avaricious; yet daring, dominating, and gifted with keen prevision and vivid imagination. These qualities had not been bred under any of the Mediterranean civilizations, or that of Central Europe in the Middle Ages, which had inherited ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... excited, and the cries for vengeance, were deep and almost universal. Louis Philippe had no personal popularity to sustain him. Legitimists and Republicans alike ignored his claims to the throne. He was regarded as intensely avaricious, notwithstanding his immense wealth, and as ever ready to degrade France in subserviency to the policy of foreign courts, that he might gain the co-operation of these courts in the maintenance of his crown, and secure exalted matrimonial alliances for his children. There have ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... to seem very small and easy to you. While I starve for you, do, now and then, by words, bring back your presence to me! How can you be generous in deeds if you are so avaricious in words? I have done everything for your sake. It was not religion that dragged me, a young girl, so fond of life, so ardent, to the harshness of the convent, but only your command. If I deserve nothing from you, how vain is my labor! God will not recompense me, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Eastern tales, are transformed to stone for a century, retaining their consciousness. A revolution had gone through its entire progress in me. For the first time did I understand how selfish had been my adoration of my wife,—how I had merely purchased her of her scheming and avaricious mother,—how I had wronged her and one who loved her,—how incompatible with her youth and brilliancy were my maturity and unpoetic nature. Her conduct since our marriage was now fully explained. My love ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of disposition which gave the promise of much evil in his future years. As the seed sown so was the harvest. Parental instruction, counsel and rebuke, were alike unavailing, and he attained the years of manhood morose and unsympathizing in his disposition, avaricious and hard with his equals, and cruel and unjust towards his inferiors. His selfish mind, his low aims, and his tyrannical character, had long been preparing him for deeds of villany ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... his new waistcoat, 'is for you, to buy presents with for them at home, and to pay bills with, and to divide as you like, and spend exactly as you think proper. Last of all take notice, Pa, that it's not the fruit of any avaricious scheme. Perhaps if it was, your little mercenary wretch of a daughter wouldn't make so free ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... was not suffered to enter the chamber till his lordship had retired. Such indecent privileges must have originated in the worst of intentions; and when afterwards they advanced a step in more humane manners, the ceremonial was preserved from avaricious motives. Others have compelled their subjects to pass the first night at the top of a tree, and there to consummate their marriage; to pass the bridal hours in a river; or to be bound naked to a cart, and to trace some furrows as they were dragged; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Latin, were compiled by Dr. Johnson at a daily wage, and the third and fourth (which are a repetition of the first two), in English, are by Oldys. A charge of 5s. was made for the first two volumes, which caused a good deal of grumbling among the trade, and was resented 'as an avaricious innovation,' but Osborne replied that the volumes could be either returned in exchange for books or for the original purchase-money. He was also charged with rating his books at too high a price, but a glance ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... to the notice of the avaricious and ambitious Queen Elizabeth, she, five years later (1567), became the open protector of a new expedition and sharer in the nefarious traffic, thus becoming a promoter, abettor, and participant in ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... Honore Fouchard, and uncle, on the mother's side, of Henriette and Maurice Levasseur. He was a small farmer at Remilly, who to make money more quickly took up the trade of butcher also. Avaricious to the last degree, and with a nature of unpitying hardness, he opposed the marriage of Honore with his servant Silvine Morange. At the end of two years of waiting Honore went off, after a terrible scene with his father, though the old man still kept the girl, with whom he was well pleased. ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... also a private school for girls, established by a Senor Barela, who is noted as the first to introduce the industry of weaving wool into this community. While the memory of this gentleman is held in high esteem by this people, that of his wife is by no means savory. It seems that she was an avaricious, vain and selfish woman, with no sympathy for his schemes for the betterment of the people. Her feeling was well known, and she died heartily hated by all. When the time came for her burial, the grave was prepared, and her body placed within it. But the ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... was nobody's business, nobody's concern. Camps were sited in the wrong places and buildings erected only to be condemned. Tons of food were purchased overseas, transported across thousands of miles of ocean, only to be thrown into refuse barrels. The Government was robbed by avaricious hotel-keepers who made and were granted absurd claims for damages done to their property by billeted troops. But with vast new armies, recruited overnight, it is not strange that there should be mismanagement and friction at first. As the months ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... I was destined to appear in the flesh was that of an avaricious Jew. I was born in Alexandria in Egypt. My name was Balthazar. Nothing very remarkable happened to me till the year of the memorable tumult in which the Jews of that city are reported in history to have massacred ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... to have been the first English Sovereign who regarded art, not merely as an aid to the splendour of the throne, but for its own sake. As Walpole says, 'Queen Elizabeth was avaricious with pomp, James the First lavish with meanness.' To neither had the position of the painter been a matter of the slightest concern. But from Charles the First dates truly the dawn of a love of art ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... [Massowah] on September 19, 1769. Masuah, which means the "Harbour of the Shepherds," is a small island close upon the Abyssinian shore, and the governor is called the naybe. He himself was cruel, avaricious, and a drunkard, but Achmet, his son, became my friend, as I had cured him of an intermittent fever, and on November 10 he carried me, my servants and baggage, from the island of Masuah to Arkeeko, on the mainland, from which point my party started ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... man has gained a name for his mirth, but most of them have been at least independent. Scarron seems to have cared for nothing that was honourable or dignified. He laughed at everything but money, and at that he smiled, though it is only fair to say that he was never avaricious, but only cared for ease and a ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... and father could be counted on for a reasonable understanding of the whole matter, but the loss of their daughter's wages for so long would surely enrage the avaricious father and anger the unreasonable mother. Not much hope crept into poor Tessie's heart as late that night she packed her little bag, and with many misgivings, overcome only by the strongest resolutions to pay back the ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... Africans were excluded from this dispensation, and consequently have no idea of an overruling Providence or a future state; they therefore trust to luck and to charms, and think only of self-preservation in this world. Whatever, then, may be said against them for being too avaricious or too destitute of fellow-feeling, should rather reflect on ourselves, who have been so much better favoured, yet have neglected to teach them, than on those who, whilst they are sinning, know not what they are doing. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of any Californian assemblage in 1856,—it was quick to take a hint, and generous to the point of prodigality in its response to any charitable appeal. No matter how sordid or avaricious the individual, he could not resist the infection of sympathy. I doubled the points of my handkerchief into a bag, dropped a coin into it, and, without a word, passed it to the judge. He quietly added a twenty-dollar gold-piece, and passed it to the next. When it was returned to me, it contained ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... senior member of the film took on some unusual public sympathy from the reflected sorrow for his fellow-victim. The latter had been one of Zane's apprentices, raised to a place in the establishment by his usefulness and sincere love of his patron. Just, forbearing, soft-spoken, and not avaricious, Sayler Rainey deserved no injury from any living being. He was unmarried, and, having met with a disappointment in love, had avowed his intention never to marry, but to bequeath all the property he should acquire to his partner's only ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... except the one in which he lived, for he agreed with the proverb which says that fools build houses for wise men to live in, though "the greatest part of Rome sooner or later came into his hands," as Plutarch observes. He was of that sordid, avaricious character which covets wealth merely for the desire to be considered rich, for the vulgar popularity that accompanies that reputation, and not for ambition or enjoyment. He was said to be uninfluenced by the love of luxury or by the other passions ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... in a year's time; Francis West, that brother of Lord De La Warr and an ancient planter—these in quick succession sit in the Governor's chair. Following them John Pott, doctor of medicine, has his short term. Then the King sends out Sir John Harvey, avaricious and arbitrary, "so haughty and furious to the Council and the best gentlemen of the country," says Beverley, "that his tyranny grew ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... The avaricious old man was found to value his life above his money; he made a lamentable outcry about it, but he unfastened his girdle at last, and put ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... a heartless, avaricious man, of but little ability, and yet endowed with a very considerable degree of that cunning which sometimes proves to be temporarily so successful in diplomatic intrigues. The king was probably glad to be rid of him, for he could not easily throw off a yoke to which he had been habituated from childhood. ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... to titter, and to whisper to each other in their own language, which sounded just like Lettish,[56] and which their guest could not understand. The boy began to reproach his avaricious friend in his thoughts for having thus sent him to Porgu without thinking of what might happen to him; but presently the younger demons seized upon him, and began to toss him from one to another like a ball, sometimes from one side of the room to the other, and sometimes up ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... hovering luridly over their own beloved country. Warned thus, during their pleasant travel, of the coming events whose shadows seemed to rise on every side of Poland, in forms appalling to the luxurious, the avaricious, the indolently selfish, of every description in the land, but which only roused and nerved the hearts and arms of her two sons, courageous in the simplicity of their purpose—Poland's preservation! they hastened in ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... vanities, as if it had been accursed; for it seemed to them that they could not live a righteous life therein; and therefore went they into the wilderness, where they trowed to serve GOD in peace. Therefore says Seneca, "I have become more avaricious, and more cruel, and more inhuman because I was ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... Twelfth, of the race of Theodora Senatrix, Farnese of Naples and Rodrigo Borgia, a Spaniard, who was Alexander the Sixth, are the chief instances. There were, indeed, many popes who were not perfect, who were more or less ambitious, avaricious, warlike, timid, headstrong, weak, according to their several characters; but it can hardly be said that any of them were, like those I have mentioned, really bad men through and through, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... she exclaimed, and was about to angrily assert that she was not Madame Raminez, when Banker interrupted her. The sight of her pocket-book within two feet of his hands threw him into a state of avaricious excitement. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... confiscate his furs and seize his seigniory at Fort Frontenac—being restrained by the strong hand of the Viceroy; but while La Salle lay ill at the Illinois fort, Frontenac was succeeded by La Barre as viceroy; and the new Governor was a weak, avaricious old man, ready to believe any evil tale carried to his ears. He at once sided with La Salle's enemies, and wrote the French King that the explorer's "head was turned"; that La Salle "accomplished nothing, but spent his life leading bandits through the forests, pillaging ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... or more strictly speaking a goatherd, who kept the flocks of a rich man. It was his duty to sacrifice to the gods none of his master's animals, without permission; but as his master was a very avaricious person, Comatas knew that it would be of little use to ask him. Now this Comatas was a very good singer of peasant songs, and he made many beautiful poems for the people to sing, and he believed that it was the gods who had given him power to ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... this Sacramento Valley, just referred to, that a deal of the most lucrative of the early gold mining was done, and you may still see, in places, its grassy slopes and levels torn and guttered and disfigured by the avaricious spoilers of fifteen and twenty years ago. You may see such disfigurements far and wide over California—and in some such places, where only meadows and forests are visible—not a living creature, not a house, no stick or stone or remnant of a ruin, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... promised to renounce their resentments, to conquer their aversions, to suffer with patience certain crosses, and to repress their eagerness for wealth; but nature prevails, and they are vindictive, violent, impatient, and avaricious. ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... of Charles I, made a good governor, and had won the respect of the people, but as he became old there was a decided change for the worse in his nature. He is depicted in his declining years, as arbitrary, crabbed and avaricious. ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... no one, because he has people everywhere to spy and listen to everything, and carry what they hear to him; so every one endeavors to stand well with him. In a word he is very politic; being governor and, changeably, a trader, he appears friendly because he is both; severe because he is avaricious; and well in neither capacity because they are commingled. The Lord be praised who has delivered us safely, and the more, because we were in every one's eye and yet nobody knew what to make of us; we were an enigma to all. Some declared we were ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... ethics and simple justice for old traditions and debasing customs, the destruction of wealth will be recognized as a crime, no matter how it was obtained; and such profligates as the Prince of Wales, who spends half a million yearly, and then calls upon his avaricious mother for one or two millions to silence the clamor of creditors whom he has defrauded, will be no longer feasted, admired, and imitated, for justice will be embodied in law and the race of profligates ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... without money? But you are unwise to reproach us with a desire of obtaining money; you forget that your own church, if the Church of England be your own church, as I suppose it is, from the willingness which you displayed in the public-house to fight for it, is equally avaricious; look at your greedy Bishops, and your corpulent Rectors! do they imitate Christ in his disregard for money? Go to! you might as well tell me that they imitate Christ ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... Unfortunately, I could not prevent this crime as I was absent assisting at the birth of a prince whose parents are under my protection, and I forgot myself while playing tricks upon a wicked old maid of honor and an old chamberlain who was cruel and avaricious, both of them friends of my sister, the fairy Furious. But I arrived in time to save the princess Violette, only daughter and heiress of King Indolent and Queen Nonchalante. She was playing in the garden while the king Ferocious was seeking her with his poniard in his ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... in Ben's company had renewed his acquaintance with the Fleming children. The remembrance of the time and the scene came back so vividly, that he could not help telling his companions about it. Elizabeth's face clouded as he repeated Katie's words about "those avaricious Holts" which had brought him to a sense of the indiscretion he ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... Halberd, Fifteenth Century View of Alexandria, Sixteenth Century Village Feast, Sixteenth Century Village pillaged by Soldiers Villain, the Covetous and Avaricious Villain, the Egotistical and Envious Villain or Peasant, Fifteenth Century Villain receiving his Lord's Orders Vine, Culture of the Vintagers, The, Thirteenth Century Votive Altar of the ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... Void of all honor, avaricious, rash, The daring tribe compound their boasted trash— Tincture of syrup, lotion, drop, or pill: All tempt the sick to trust the lying bill. 1412 CRABBE: Borough, ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... the profits, you avaricious Jew," replied Lawless. "Yes, I've been trying effects, as the painters call it—putting down two or three beginnings to find out which looked the most like the time ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... They are avaricious and money loving to a deplorable degree, but there is one thing that can be said for the Somali. He will never desert in time of danger and will cheerfully sacrifice himself for his master. He has the stamina of a higher type of civilization, ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... have generally been the bankers and brokers of the people among whom they have resided, and have made a show of much wealth, this has tempted their avaricious adversaries to impose upon them ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... looks, while his affability, simplicity, and constant expression of interest in the welfare of his subjects earned him the appellation of "Good King Henry." His closest companions knew that he was selfish and avaricious, but that his quick decisions were likely to be good and certain to be put in force. Above all, Henry had soldierly qualities and would brook ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... success of our cause as the defeat of it. I attached myself to Pompey's party more in hope of peace than from desire of war; but I saw, if we had the better, how cruel would be the triumph of an exasperated, avaricious, and insolent set of men; if we were defeated, how many of our wealthiest and noblest citizens must fall. Yet when I argued thus and offered my advice I was taunted for being ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... to Meir narrow, dark, dirty, and mean. The Sabbath feast was over. It never was long, for it was scanty and passed in gloomy silence, interrupted only by quarrelling and the biting remarks of the father of the family. It was known that Reb Jankiel was avaricious. He gathered much money, but he did not care for the comfort of the house, because he was seldom there, being busy with whisky distilleries, with dram-shops in the neighbouring villages, returning to the town only when religious affairs required his presence. His wife, Jenta, and two ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... of precious metals used in making the richest garments and hangings sometimes made them objects to be desired by avaricious invaders. In an inventory of the contents of Cardinal Wolsey's great palace at Hampton Court there are mentioned, among many other rare specimens of needlework of that period, "230 bed hangings of English embroidery." ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster |
