"Coin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... afternoon, three people sat together in a compartment, the curtains of which were drawn close. They were the unhappy couple and their faithful servant. And outside in the corridor of the railway carriage, a small, slight man walked up and down—up and down. He had pressed a gold coin into the conductor's hand, with the words: "The party in there do not wish to be disturbed; the lady ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... with their spoil to join Rupert and his pillaging Cavaliers. About 1645 the citizens returned almost entirely to the goldsmiths, who now gave interest for money placed in their care, bought coins, and sold plate. The Company was not particular. The Parliament, out of plate and old coin, had coined gold, and seven millions of half-crowns. The goldsmiths culled out the heavier pieces, melted them down, and exported them. The merchants' clerks, to whom their masters' ready cash was still sometimes entrusted, actually had frequently ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... it to 'em," Billy grinned one day, when he had been particularly bested in a horse deal. "They won't tear under the wings, the sons of guns. In the summer they take in boarders, an' in the winter they make a good livin' coin' each other up at tradin' horses. An' I just want to tell YOU, Saxon, they've sure shown me a few. An' I 'm gettin' tough under the wings myself. I'll never tear again so as you can notice it. Which means one more trade learned for yours truly. I can make ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... Havannahs." "No, Jorrocks,—dine with me," said a third, "and play chicken-hazard." "Don't," said a fourth, confidentially, "he'll fleece ye like fun". "Let me put your name down to our Pigeon Club; only a guinea entrance and a guinea subscription—nothing to a rich man like you." "Have you any coin to lend on unexceptionable personal security, with a power of killing and selling your man if he don't pay?" inquired another. "Are they going to abolish the law of arrest? 'twould be very convenient if they did." "Will you discount me a bill at three months?" "Is B—— out of the Bench ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... proposition half-way. She had known long and well Simon Yakovlevich, who played amusingly on the piano, danced splendidly, and set the whole drawing room laughing with his pranks; but chiefly, could, with unusually unabashed dexterity, make any carousing party "shell out the coin." It only remained to convince the mate of his life, and this proved the most difficult of all. She did not want to detach herself from her beloved for anything; threatened suicide, swore that she would burn his eyes out with sulphuric ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... coin, but turned a calculating eye on the others. If his news had had power to rouse Jude, how would it act now? Billy, freckled and sharp-eyed, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... while he was in his twelfth year, Swerting and Hanef, the kings of Saxony, disowned his sway, and tried to rebel openly. He overcame them in battle, and imposed on the conquered peoples a poll-tax of a coin, which they were to pay as his slaves. For he showed himself so generous that he doubled the ancient pay of the soldiers: a fashion of bounty which then was novel. For he did not, as despots do, expose himself to the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... hath been our only support for several years past, furnishing us all the little money we have to pay our rents and go to market. But our merchants assure me, "This trade hath received a great damp by the present fluctuating condition of the coin in France; and that most of their wine is paid for in specie, without carrying thither ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... pursuits of civil life suspended, so that he did but make head against the enemy. As long as there was a man left in Prussia, that man might carry a musket; as long as there was a horse left, that horse might draw artillery. The coin was debased, the civil functionaries were left unpaid; in some provinces civil government altogether ceased to exist. But there was still rye-bread and potatoes; there was still lead and gunpowder; and, while the means of sustaining and destroying life remained, Frederic ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... story, in which the beggar is quietly silenced by the proprietor. A noble lord, some generations back, well known for his frugal habits, had just picked up a small copper coin in his own avenue, and had been observed by one of the itinerating mendicant race, who, grudging the transfer of the piece into the peer's pocket, exclaimed, "O, gie't to me, my lord;" to which the quiet answer was, ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... he is counting his money or is in the bath, a kite will relieve him, before he knows it, either in coin or in clothes, of the value of a couple of sheep, and carry ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... The coin that is most current among mankind is flattery; the only benefit of which is that by hearing what we are not we may be instructed what ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... will drain off abroad—if the foreigners don't follow in our footsteps at once. If the demonetised gold is withdrawn—well, we can have a new currency by nationalising the railways and paying the shareholders 'in current coin'" (which means in unconvertible notes), "not in redeemable, interest-bearing bonds. So long as solid wealth rests behind our issue, our financial policy is sound. Of course, the railway and other shareholders will want fresh investments; they won't ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... when he turned over his change he found the new farthing still there and a sovereign gone. The accident offered him vistas of sneering speculation. Either way, the boy would show the greasy greed of the species. Either he would vanish, a thief stealing a coin; or he would sneak back with it virtuously, a snob seeking a reward. In the middle of that night Lord Glengyle was knocked up out of his bed—for he lived alone—and forced to open the door to the deaf idiot. The idiot brought with him, not ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... length completed, apparently to his satisfaction, he folds the sheet, thrusts a stick of wax into the flame of a candle, and seals the document, but without using any seal-stamp. A small silver coin taken from his pocket makes the necessary impression. There does not appear to be any name appended to the epistle, if one it is; and the superscription shows only two words, without any address. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... was "considered." He was in good humour, for he had won all the evening, and with a smile he rubbed his hands among the notes—three thousand dollars it was. It was like a man with a pocket full of money, chuckling over a coin he has found in the street. Presently he heard a rustle of the inner tent-curtain and swung round. He faced the man from ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... my gallant sir?" replied Fragoso, with a smile; "a moment of despair, which I would have duly regretted had the regrets been in another world! But eight hundred leagues of country to traverse, and not a coin in my pouch, was not very comforting! I had ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... "I've had all the romance I want, and I'll stake you to all your love affairs. I am out to gather in as much coin as I can in my own way, so when the old rainy day comes along I'll have a little change ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... eight is equal to about one dollar of American money. The maravedi is a small copper coin, of the value of three mills in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... his pocket and gave the youngster a coin. "See that it's sent instantly—like lightning. Run!" and the sharp little son of New York was off before the last word ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... is a general name for all such pieces of metal. I will write the word the before this sentence. The coin is stamped. I have now made an assertion about one particular coin, so the meaning of the subject is limited by joining ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... willfully inaccurate, and, in addition, his sarcasm and pleasantries seemed to her odiously vulgar. He was answered by a most miserable representative of Christianity, who made a foolish, weak, blustering speech, and tried to pay the atheist back in his own coin. Erica felt wretched. She longed to get up and speak herself, longing flatly to contradict the champion of her own cause; then grew frightened at the strength of her feelings. Could this be mere love of fair play and justice? Was her feeling merely that of a barrister ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... she cried, with artificial cordiality. "Just a ring of gold with a coin attached. May I look?" And without waiting for permission ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... confiding a lad; but I've got you where you won't squeal, and I suppose we've got to know each other if we're going to do business together. You must know, my dear ladies, that every proposition I've handled I've gone into it as much for the fun as for the coin." He cocked his head; plainly there was an element of conceit in his ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... you please; put it on any number, any number." And she took from her bosom a purse, and out of it a gold piece, the only coin there, and she put it into George's hand. The boy laughed and did ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... often marvelled at a comparative lavishness about cheques that Bruce combined with a curious loathing to parting from any coin, however small. ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... some workmen, near Norfolk, were boring for water, a coin was drawn up from a depth of about 30 feet. It was about the size of an English shilling, but oval—an oval disk, if not a coin. The figures upon it were distinct, and represented "a warrior or hunter and other characters, apparently of ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... the grass, her companion, who, no doubt, was her brother, seemed to follow far less cheerfully. I could not help thinking there was something unwilling, almost resentful, in his manner, so that I felt prepared to pay him back in his own coin. Although I might look as dirty and as much like a tramp as Jacintha had suggested, I was not going to stand ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... blue-books and parties, and come on the last grand profession of this man of many talents—that of the wit. That it was a profession there can be no doubt, for he lived on it, it was all his capital. He paid his bills in that coin alone: he paid his workmen, his actors, carpenters, builders with no more sterling metal; with that ready tool he extracted loans from the very men who came to be paid; that brilliant ornament maintained his reputation in the senate, and his character in society. But ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... lost all interest in the case. He went prowling along the water-front, peering into every junk-shop he came to. What he finally pounced upon and carried away, after tossing the shopkeeper a coin, amused Johnny greatly. It was a bamboo pole, like a fishing-pole only much larger. He estimated it to be at least five ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... Books, vol. ii., p. 345), because these are really interesting, as well as rare, volumes. There is at present no reprint of either; and can I afford to bid ten or twelve guineas for each of them at a public book-sale? But—let them be faithfully reprinted, and even a golden guinea (if such a coin be now in the pocket of a poor bibliomaniac like myself) would be considered by me as dear terms upon which to purchase the original edition! The reviewer has illustrated his position by a model of the Pigot diamond; and intimates that this model does not "lessen ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... them, they were not put into actual operation until March 1, 1781. By the terms of the Articles the states yielded some of their powers, the central government being given the right to declare war, borrow and coin money, establish post offices, and otherwise act for the general good. On the other hand, the Articles declared that "each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by this ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... Priests he did once fell, With mighty Strokes sent them to Hell, Sent presently away, Sirs; Would you know why? The Reason's plain They had no English nor French coin To make ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... books for children there was a story of the adventures of a cent (or perhaps that coin of older lineage, a penny) told by itself, which came into my mind when the publishers suggested that the readers of a new edition of this book might like to know how it happened to be written. I promptly fancied the book speaking, and taking ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... reasonable for the time you have been out; and there is a sovereign," added the passenger, as he handed him the gold coin. ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... the street. The gentleman, however, put off a good deal of time in identifying his carpet-bag—then his pocket seemed to be indefinitely deep, as his hand appeared to have immense difficulty in getting to the bottom of it. At last he succeeded in catching hold of some coin, and, while he dropt it into the extended palm of the impatient Jehu, he sad, "Hem! I say, coachie, who is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... agent in Hispaniola the royal fifth due to the treasury, represented by three hundred pounds of gold, at eight ounces to the pound. This pound is called a marc in Spanish, and is composed of fifty gold pieces, called castellanos. The weight of each castellano, a Castilian coin, is called a peso, and the entire sum, therefore, amounted to fifteen thousand castellanos. The castellano is a coin somewhat inferior to one thirtieth of a pound, but its value exceeds that of a golden ducat. This coin is peculiar to Castile, and is not minted in any other province. It may ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... Good-by." He leaned forward as if about to take Clarence's outstretched hand, checked himself suddenly with a grim smile, and taking from his pocket a gold coin handed it ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... guinea—a pocket piece I've carried for years. You've heard, no doubt, of vital things turning upon the tossing of a coin. Well, if you see me toss this coin to-morrow, something of that sort will occur. It will be tossed up in the midst of a riddle, Major; when it comes down it will ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... I am quite ready to suffer blame on this count in his company. I must express my deep gratitude to you, Maximus, for listening with such close attention to these side issues, which are necessary to my defence inasmuch as I am paying back my accusers in their own coin. Your kindness emboldens me to make this further request, that you will listen to all that I have to say by way of prelude to my answer to the main charge with the same courtesy and attention ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... at them as they entered, seemed to know their errands at once and each one's peculiar need, and fell back again into somnolence, receiving his twenty francs in an almost lifeless hand and biting the coin as though ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... old rickety chest standing in the wall and took out of it a copper coin, bearing the effigy of the late king, and called our attention to a round stain crossing the coin ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... worried him was he didn't know how to lead up to it or word it exactly, supposing he did entertain the proposal, as it would afford him very great personal pleasure if he would allow him to help to put coin in his way or some wardrobe, if found suitable. At all events he wound up by concluding, eschewing for the nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of Epps's cocoa and a shakedown for the night plus the use of a rug or two and overcoat doubled into a pillow at least he would be ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... you saw this; I didn't intend you should. Let us go to the hotel!" he says, slipping a coin in the hand of the honest smith, who seems loth to ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... the advantage; and I must say that I never had a youngster under me who ever did his duty more cheerfully. Since that day we've shifted places; end for end, as one might say; and I endeavour to pay you, in your own coin. There is no man whose orders I obey more willingly or more to my own advantage; always excepting those of Admiral Oakes, who, being commander-in-chief, overlays us all with his anchor. We must dowse our peaks to his signals, though we can maintain, without mutinying, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... breakfasts as far as Chatelherault, Loches, Vendome, and Blois. This said man, an old fox, perfect in his business, never lighted lamps in the day time, knew how to skin a flint, charged for wool, leather, and feathers, had an eye to everything, did not easily let anyone pay with chaff instead of coin, and for a penny less than his account would have affronted even a prince. For the rest, he was a good banterer, drinking and laughing with his regular customers, hat in hand always before the persons furnished with plenary indulgences entitled ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... try to make the reader believe that their thoughts have gone much further and deeper than is really the case. They say what they have to say in long sentences that wind about in a forced and unnatural way; they coin new words and write prolix periods which go round and round the thought and wrap it up in a sort of disguise. They tremble between the two separate aims of communicating what they want to say and of concealing ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... coin between his teeth). In course you didn't, my dear; but I did, and I thought I'd mention it. Is that my supper, hey? Do my nose deceive me? (Sniffing and feeling.) Cold duck? sage and onions? a round of double Gloster? ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the loves of all who live long together in this sordid and most earthly earth are sooner or later blended! We could not have spared to others an atom of the great wealth of our affection. We were misers of every coin in that boundless treasury. It would have pierced me to the soul to have seen Isora smile upon another. I know not even, had we had children, if I should not have been jealous of my child! Was this selfish love? yes, it was, intensely, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... small brown birds" carry their half-fledged young from their nest in a low bush, where there was danger from cats, to a new nest which they had just finished in the top of a near-by tree! Could any person who knows the birds credit such a tale? The bank-teller throws out the counterfeit coin or bill because his practiced eye and touch detect the fraud at once. On similar grounds the experienced observer rejects all such stories as the above. Darwin quotes an authority for the statement that our ruffed grouse makes its drumming sound by striking its wings together over its ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... time out of England, was filched from the "poor starved wretches," as Leicester called his soldiers, by the dishonesty of Norris, uncle of Sir John and army-treasurer. This man was growing so rich on his peculations, on his commissions, and on his profits from paying the troops in a depreciated coin, that Leicester declared the whole revenue of his own landed estates in England to be less than that functionary's annual income. Thus it was difficult to say whether the "ragged rogues" of Elizabeth or the maimed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... he made with it, now for Lasse, now for himself. He bought the dearest things, and when he lingered long enough over one purchase and was satiated with the possession of it, he set about buying something else. And all the while he kept the coin. At times he would be suddenly seized with an insane fear that the money was gone; and then when he felt ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... coffee as usual," said the purchaser, producing a coin from a wonderful metal-work purse. As an apparent afterthought he fired out the question: "Have you, perhaps, any ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... humour," said Hugh, "and, no doubt, a sweet tooth." He felt in his pocket for the coin that the Starden children had grown to expect from him. The boy took it, yelled and whooped, and sped down the street to the ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... a few moments he darted convulsively towards the silver coin, seized it, and straightened himself up again and began to gaze afar off over the plain, at the same time casting his eyes towards all points of the horizon, as he stood there erect and shivering, like a terrified wild animal ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... a government paper currency in circulation, amounting to L16,000,000 sterling. The smallest copper coin is the pie, worth half a farthing, equal to a quarter of a cent of your money. Three of them make a pice, a farthing and a half, three-quarters of a cent. Four pice make an anna, a penny and a half, three cents. Sixteen annas ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... art, in its lack of extrinsic form and finish, is Oriental rather than Occidental, and is an offense to a taste founded upon the precision and finish of a mechanical age. His verse is like the irregular, slightly rude coin of the Greeks compared with the exact, machine-cut dies of our own day, or like the unfinished look of Japanese pottery beside the less beautiful but more perfect specimens of ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... dazed. Would the young lady think he was crazy to care so much about so small a coin? He must say something. "Thank you, miss," he stammered as well as he could. "You see, I thought it was gone—and there's the baby—and it's Christmas Eve—and my ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... privileges were not always, of course, free gifts. Thus in the twelfth century Gilbert Burdin grants land to Margam, and in return the abbot gives 20s. to the grantor, a gold coin to his wife, and red shoes to each of his children. In 1325 John Nichol, of Kenfig, gave his property to the abbey in return for a life annuity. He was to receive daily one loaf, two cakes, and a gallon of beer; also 6s. 8d. for wages, four pairs ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... company, without iver asking leave o' yo',' said Sylvia, hastily arranging the things in the little wooden work-box that was on the table, preparatory to putting it away. At the time, in his agitation, he saw, but did not affix any meaning to it, that the half of some silver coin was among the contents thus turned over before the box ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... port to be paid off: so it seemed to run, with surprising verbiage; so ended. And with the end the commissioner, in each case, fetched a deep breath, resumed his natural voice, and proceeded to business. "Now, my man," he would say, "you ship A. B. at so many dollars, American gold coin. Sign your name here, if you have one, and can write." Whereupon, and the name (with infinite hard breathing) being signed, the commissioner would proceed to fill in the man's appearance, height, etc., on the official form. In this task ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... upon your hook; it will not tempt the fish; the bait must be quick and fresh. Indeed, a certain quality of youth is indispensable to the successful angler, a certain unworldliness and readiness to invest yourself in an enterprise that doesn't pay in the current coin. Not only is the angler, like the poet, born and not made, as Walton says, but there is a deal of the poet in him, and he is to be judged no more harshly; he is the victim of his genius: those wild streams, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... the cat who rose, raised his back into a high arch, yawned and stretched, and then walked on to the counter, and rubbed his head against Vane's buttons, as the latter thrust his hands into his pocket for a coin, and tapped on the counter loudly once, then twice, then the third time, but there was no response, for the simple reason that Mrs Grader had gone to talk to a neighbour, and John Grader, having risen at three to bake his bread, and having ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... blacking-brush, and the operation of removing them more like mowing than shaving. When completed, the barber held out his hand for payment. The usual charge must have been a penny, for that was the coin he placed in the barber's hand. But it was now the barber's turn. Drawing himself up to his full height, with a dignified but scornful expression on his face, he pointed with his razor to the penny he held in his other hand, which remained open, and exclaimed fiercely, "This! for a month's ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... fully two hundred yards when the handsome passenger made his final largess,—proving himself quite an expert in flinging coin. The piece fell far short of the boys, but near enough to distinctly betray a yellow shimmer as it twirled to the ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... many hours' show, with clean sand for the absorption of certain great red patches there, by troops of white-shirted boys, for whom the good-natured audience provided a scramble of nuts and small coin, flung to them over a trellis-work of silver-gilt and amber, precious gift of Nero, while a rain of flowers and perfume fell over themselves, as they paused between the parts of their long feast upon the spectacle of ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... issue is concerned, that I am disposed to look upon his creed in this respect as a modified Mahometanism. I could relate many instances, affecting myself, where trustfulness has incurred payment in this coin, but, having no desire to stimulate the Indian's existing proneness to practical joking, I stay my hand at ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... superstitious practice for purposes of state, and the development of the registration of births and deaths is but one instance. In older times it had been a custom, on the occasion of a birth, to pay a visit to the shrine of "Juno the Birth-Goddess," and to leave a small coin by way of offering. It is easy for a state to convert an already established general custom into a rule; and at our date this shrine of Juno had become practically a registration office, where a small fee ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... shall cankered coin corrupt thy heart? Or shall want in this world cause thee to feel everlasting smart? O Conscience, what a small time thou hast on earth to live: Why dost thou not, then, to God all honour give? Considering the time is everlasting that ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... of relief. In these circumstances, a proposal was formally submitted recommending the debasement of the gold coinage, but it failed to obtain official consent. It may be mentioned that, in the year 1659, the treasury was reduced to ashes, and a quantity of gold coin contained therein was melted. With this bullion a number of gold pieces not intended for ordinary circulation were cast, and stamped upon them were the words, "To be used only in cases of national emergency." The metal thus reserved is said to have amounted to 160,000 ryo. The register ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... and houses and solid bullion. It is a thing incredible to reason that with a stroke of the pen a man may sign away his thousands. If cheques were prohibited by law, and all payments made in good coin of the realm, I believe we should all be much more careful in our expenditure, for we should have at least some true symbol ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... box, marked with streaks Of bright vermilion, by the shrine, The key whereof has lain for weeks Untouched, he'll find some coin—'tis mine. That will enable him to pay The bracelet's price, now fare thee well!" She spoke, the pedler went away, Charmed with her voice, as by some spell; While she left lonely there, prepared To plunge into the water pure, And like a rose her ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... here you may see that the vile accusation of Wood and his accomplices, charging us with disputing the King's prerogative by refusing his brass, can have no place—because compelling the subject to take any coin which is not sterling is no part of the King's prerogative, and I am very confident, if it were so, we should be the last of his people to dispute it, as well from that inviolable loyalty we have always paid to his Majesty, as from the ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... down upon the embroidery with drawing-pins and rub off the pattern with drawing-wax. In default of the right kind of wax, the bowl or handle of a spoon, or a large silver coin will serve the purpose equally well, as will also some powdered graphite or charcoal. The outlines will not of course, in any case, be very clearly defined upon the paper and will have to be gone over and carefully ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... am! I thought that French coin was a five shilling piece. I fear I have no English money about me but this half-crown; and I can't ask you to trust me, as you ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... until late in the evening of the following day. It had been one portion of his business to superintend the arrest of part of a gang of counterfeiters, that had, even at that early period, buried themselves in the woods, to manufacture their base coin, which they afterward circulated from one end of the Union to the other. The expedition had been completely successful, and about midnight the sheriff entered the village, at the head of a posse of deputies and constables, in the centre of whom rode, pinioned, four of ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie; but we pay them for it in stamped coin, not stabbing steel;—therefore they do not give ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... walk; and in it have I tried to keep, till this good day. Thus equally divided has the time been spent. Except the years of childish innocence, twenty-five were in the service spent of him who for this life pays the soul in spurious coin, and leaves it bankrupt in the life beyond; while an equal number, praise the Lord, have a better Master claimed. For the rest of life, be it long or short, the long side will the right side be, while hitherto it otherwise has been. The periods of service have not before been equally ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... enjoins that no private man shall be allowed to possess gold and silver, but only coin for daily use, which is almost necessary in dealing with artisans, and for payment of hirelings, whether slaves or immigrants, by all those persons who require the use of them. Wherefore our citizens, as we say, should have a coin passing current ...
— Laws • Plato
... the purposes of life, must be carried about with us, and be ready for use at call. It is not sufficient that we have a fund laid up at home, but not a farthing in the pocket: we must carry about with us a store of the current coin of knowledge ready for exchange on all occasions, else we are comparatively helpless when the ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... day, he noticed a round bit of green ground, close to one of the gates on Tan-y-Coed farm, and going up to it discovered a piece of silver lying on the sward. Day after day, from the same spot, he picked up a silver coin. By this means, as well as by the wage he received, he became a well-to-do man. His wife noticed the many new coins he brought home, and questioned him about them, but he kept the secret of their origin ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... period. He investigated, presumably, the public school systems of Geneva and Berlin; the higher education drew him through the chateau country of France; for three weeks the head-waiters of Paris (in the pedagogical district) were familiar with the clink of his coin; and August's first youth was gone before he was in London with the lake region a ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... with the following brief note, two Spanish dollars of ancient date. We hope that some lovers of ancient coin will be able to make ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 48, No. 7, July, 1894 • Various
... Our writers of romances and novels are initiated into all the arcana of names, which cost them many painful inventions. It is recorded of one of the old Spanish writers of romance, that he was for many days at a loss to coin a fit name for one of his giants; he wished to hammer out one equal in magnitude to the person he conceived in imagination; and in the haughty and lofty name of Traquitantos, he thought he had succeeded. Richardson, the great father of our novelists, appears ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... up to my new profession; I'm as gay and swell and gummy as can be; only all my boots leak; one pair water, and the other two simple black mud; so that my rig is more for the eye, than a very solid comfort to myself. That is my budget. Dismal enough, and no prospect of any coin coming in; at least for months. So that here I am, I almost fear, for the winter; certainly till after Christmas, and then it depends on how my bills 'turn out' whether it shall not be till spring. So, meantime, I must whistle in my cage. My cage is better by one thing; I am an Advocate ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... child, was carried to be touched by her Majesty Queen Anne for the "king's evil," as scrofula used to be called. Our honored friend The Dictator will tell you that the brother of one of his Andover schoolmates was taken to one of these gifted persons, who touched him, and hung a small bright silver coin, either a "fourpence ha'penny" or a "ninepence," about his neck, which, strange to say, after being worn a certain time, became tarnished, and finally black,—a proof of the poisonous matters which had ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... would quiet the fears of the California creditors, but for the next three days there was a steady "run" on that bank. Page, Bacon & Co. stood the first day's run very well, and, as I afterward learned, paid out about six hundred thousand dollars in gold coin. On the 20th of February Henry Height came to our bank, to see what help we were willing to give him; but I was out, and Nisbet could not answer positively for the firm. Our condition was then very strong. The deposit account was ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... pieces in his purse. He hurried out to the girl behind the cigar stand. She was exhibiting a box of cigars to a customer, who selected three, paid for them, and walked away. Hawksley, boiling with haste to have his affair done, flung a silver coin toward the girl. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... receiving the precious metals by actual weight, it was necessary to have the value of these pieces certified to in the most solemn manner. To this end the effigies of the gods, together with the tokens of their attributes and sacred offices, were stamped upon the coin. If we could trace coinage to its earliest use, perhaps to its origin, among the people who lived about the AEgean Sea, it would not be unreasonable to expect to find that at first gold coin was issued under the patronage of Apollo, that silver bore the ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... this treadmill, all moving with the accuracy and precision of machinery. The irreverent foreigner calls these the "hotfoot" boats, and in the land where a coolie may be hired all day for forty cents Mexican or twenty cents in our coin this human power is far cheaper than soft coal at five dollars a ton. These boats carry freight and passengers and they move along at a ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... the hay and am getting ready to call him to a fare-you-well when he flashes his bundle. My anger vanished in a moment and I just reach out and cop the coin and roll over and goes to sleep. Wilbur sleeps on the floor until I took compassion on him and rolled him on the lounge. Talk about your wifely devotion, what! I count the roll in the morning before I slip it to the purser ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... the tail of the swirl, he sat down on the bank and once more changed his hook. The nature of change might have been heard by the insects among the heather close by, if they were listening, for Donald whispered to his companion,—"He's coin' to try pait!" ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... vexation, the brethren rent their clothes. God paid them in their own coin. They had caused Jacob to tear his clothes in his grief over Joseph, and now they were made to do the same on account of their own troubles. And as they rent their clothes for the sake of their brother Benjamin, so Mordecai, the descendant of Benjamin, was destined to ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... or will he not?" he asked himself. He took a coin from his pocket and spun it upon the floor. "Heads, he sees her; ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Found a Hair in His Soup The Young Lady Finds a Purse, on opening it a mouse jumps out and she remembers that it is 1st of April A Young Man Telephoning to His Best Girl A Man Meeting and Killing a Rattlesnake Lighting a Lamp Drawing a Cork Looking for a Lost Coin—finding it in one pocket or shoe A Musician Playing His Own Composition The Sleeping Beauty and the Prince (two actors) Goldilocks and the Three Bears William Tell and the Apple (best rendered in caricature with a pumpkin ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... heads of his immediate assailants, he turned the stream of his abuse upon Sir Walter Scott, whom he singled out deliberately as the towering head of a supposed literary conspiracy. He is credited with remarking; "To pay these fellows in their own coin, the way would be to begin with Walter Scott, and have at his clump foot."[28] Very mean-spirited this sounds to us, who are acquainted with the nobility of Scott's character and who know with what magnanimous ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... guardianship of his father and maternal uncle, a furrier at Leipsic, head of the firm of Virlaz and Company, Brunner senior was compelled by his brother-in-law (who was by no means as soft as his peltry) to invest little Fritz's money, a goodly quantity of current coin of the realm, with the house of Al-Sartchild. Not a penny of it was he allowed to touch. So, by way of revenge for the Israelite's pertinacity, Brunner senior married again. It was impossible, he said, to keep his huge hotel single-handed; ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... come music will have lost its personal flavor. Instead of interpretative artists there will be gigantic machinery capable of maniacal displays of virtuosity; merely dropping a small coin in a slot will sound the most abstruse scores of Richard Strauss—then the popular and bewhistled music maker. And yet it is difficult for us, so wedded are we to that tragic delusion of earthly glory ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... disappearance of coin, no person could think it the same country in which the present minister of the finances has been able to discover fourscore millions sterling in specie. From its general aspect one would conclude that it had been for some time past under the special direction of the learned ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... must not think your sister so tender eyed as not to see your follies, alas I know your heart, and must imagine, and truly too; 'tis not your charitie can coin such sums to give away as you have done, in that you have no wisdom Isabel, no nor modesty, where nobler uses are at home; I tell you, I am ashamed to find this in your years, far more in your discretion, none to chuse but things for pity, none to seal your thoughts ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... end. No! Do sit down. That wasn't a back-hander, aimed at you, Brenton. I hit straight, or not at all. I wish I could give you a tonic that would take away a little of your blamed self-sensitiveness, if I can coin the term. You're as unselfish as the rest of them, until you get hold of a bit of impersonal slander. Then you seize it in your arms, and hold it on your mental stomach like a mustard plaster. It doesn't do any good, though. It ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... perfection. I owed it originally to my old trade, and practice daily improved it. An equally indispensable necessity was to know the name of every object offered me. It was not enough to say, for instance, "It is a coin"; but my son must give its technical name, its value, the country in which it was current, and the year in which it was struck. Thus, for instance, if an English crown were handed me, my son was expected to state that it was struck in the ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... honourable quarter of her heart the hope of receiving her due reward. Mamma pinched my arm sharply and said in a loud voice: "Good morning, Francoise." At this signal my fingers parted and I let fall the coin, which found a receptacle in a confused but outstretched hand. But since we had begun to go to Combray there was no one I knew better than Francoise. We were her favourites, and in the first years at least, while she shewed the same consideration for us as for my aunt, she enjoyed us ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... "He balanced a coin on his thumb-nail, and smiled at me sidelong. I drew myself up with dignity to repudiate his proposal, but at that instant there came to me—who can say what it was?—a whim, a nudge from the thumb of Providence, a momentary ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... ye make pretence to cure, Poor comforters! in your attempts I see Nought but the pride which feigns unreal glee! O mortals, of such bliss how weak the spell! Ye cry in doleful accents—"All is well!"— And all things at the great deceit rebel. Nay, if your minds to coin the flattery dare, Your hearts as often lay the falsehood bare. The gloomy truth admits of no disguise— Evil is ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... tracks in the jungle? Such behavior serves only to attest the extraordinary powers of observation in primitive man with respect to things which are of use and hence of interest to him. The same powers are shown in the vast number of words he will coin to denote the same object, say a certain tree at ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... wooden-soled shoes, to greet us with a howl or a laugh, I hardly know which, holding out his hand for a penny, and chuckling grossly when it was given him. All under-witted persons, so far as my experience goes, have this craving for copper coin, and appear to estimate its value by a miraculous instinct, which is one of the earliest gleams of human intelligence while the nobler faculties are yet in abeyance. There may come a time, even in this world, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
