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Preferment   Listen
noun
Preferment  n.  
1.
The act of choosing, or the state of being chosen; preference. (R.) "Natural preferment of the one... before the other."
2.
The act of preferring, or advancing in dignity or office; the state of being advanced; promotion. "Neither royal blandishments nor promises of valuable preferment had been spared."
3.
A position or office of honor or profit; as, the preferments of the church.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Preferment" Quotes from Famous Books



... nation, induced them to look up to the sovereign, as the power to whose influence they owed their elevation. But, in other respects, James spared the prejudices of his subjects; no ceremonial ritual was imposed upon their consciences; the pastors were reconciled by the prospect of preferment,[B] the dress and train of the bishops were plain and decent; the system of tythes was placed upon a moderate and unoppressive footing;[C] and, perhaps, on the whole, the Scottish hierarchy contained as few objectionable points as any system of church-government in ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... the chief occupation, bravery is the first virtue among the Shoshonees. None can hope to be distinguished without having given proofs of it, nor can there be any preferment or influence among the nation, without some warlike achievement. Those important events which give reputation to a warrior, and entitle him to a new name, are: killing a white (or grizzly) bear, stealing individually ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... heiresses we shall never know for certain. But we do know that in the days of King Henry, who was the father of King Edward, there was a very large incursion of Italian clergy into England, and that the Pope of Rome got preferment of all kinds for them. In fact, in King Henry's days the Pope had immense power in England, and it looked for a while as if every valuable piece of preferment in the kingdom would be bestowed upon Italians who did not know a word of English, and ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... boy! Thou hast a pretty, forward, lying face, And may'st in time expect preferment. Canst thou Pretend to secresy, cajole and flatter Thy master's follies, ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway

... only sad and dismal; but also joyful and prosperous: thus they foretell of happy marriages, good children, what kind of life men shall live, and in what condition they shall die: and riches, honour, preferment, ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... metropolitan authority of Canterbury. He detested the practice of promoting Normans to Welsh sees, and of excluding Welshmen from high positions in their own country. "Because I am a Welshman, am I to be debarred from all preferment in Wales?" he indignantly writes to the Pope. Circumstances at first seemed to favour his ambition. His uncle, David Fitz-Gerald, sat in the seat of St. David's. When the young scholar returned from Paris in ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... it was understood in clerical and learned circles that young Mr. Rolles had in contemplation a considerable work—a folio, it was said—on the authority of the Fathers of the Church. These attainments, these ambitious designs, however, were far from helping him to any preferment; and he was still in quest of his first curacy when a chance ramble in that part of London, the peaceful and rich aspect of the garden, a desire for solitude and study, and the cheapness of the lodging, led him to take up his abode with Mr. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... college he had never (illis dissimilis in nostro tempore natis) cringed to the possessors of clerical power. In the duties of his station, as dean of the college, he was equally strict to the black cap and the lordly hat. Nay, when one of his private pupils, whose father was possessed of more church preferment than any nobleman in the peerage, disobeyed his repeated summons, and constantly neglected to attend his instructions, he sent for him, resigned his tuition, and refused any longer to accept a salary which the negligence of his pupil would ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... who had begun his fighting career at the age of eleven, when he was on board a heavily battered ship in Lord Howe's battle of June 1, 1794. At thirty, with little influence, and at a period when promotion had become comparatively sluggish, he had fairly fought his way to the modest preferment in which he died. Under the restricted opportunities of the United States Navy, Burrows had seen service, and his qualities received recognition, in the hostilities with Tripoli. The unusual circumstance of both captains falling, and so young,—Burrows was but ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... eno'. He will come to higher preferment than even you or I. Why, mon, an Aga of the Janissaries is as good as ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... introduced his son Drusus into the forum, he immediately removed from Pompey's house, in the Carinae, to the gardens of Mecaenas, on the Esquiline [317], and resigned himself entirely to his ease, performing only the common offices of civility in private life, without any preferment in the government. But Caius and Lucius being both carried off in the space of three years, he was adopted by Augustus, along with their brother Agrippa; being obliged in the first place to adopt Germanicus, his brother's son. After his adoption, he never more acted as ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... beyond all comparison most dreaded and detested by Henry at this juncture was his cousin Reginald Pole, for whom when a youth he had conceived a warm affection, whose studies he had encouraged by the gift of a deanery and the hope of further church-preferment, and of whose ingratitude he always believed himself entitled to complain. It was the long-contested point of the lawfulness of Henry's marriage with his brother's widow, which set the kinsmen at variance. Pole had from the first refused to concur with the university of Paris, in ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... time went on. Everard always checked all talk of his prospects. He was so repressive on the subject that she could not possibly pursue it, and she came at last to conclude that his hope of preferment had vanished like a mirage in ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... in Htr, but cheap in Amshr; honey will be dear and grapes and water-melons will rot; and Allah is Omniscient!" Q "What if it fall on the Sabbath (Saturday)?" "That is Saturn's day and portendeth the preferment of slaves and Greeks and those in whom there is no good, neither in their neighbourhood; there will be great drought and dearth; clouds will abound and death will be rife among the sons of Adam and woe to the people of Egypt and Syria from the oppression of the Sultan and failure of blessing upon ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... to the fact that if he lost this election—the first to be vigorously contested—it might involve a serious chain of events; but he did not propose to be unduly disturbed, since he could always fight in the courts by money, and by preferment in the council, and with the mayor and the city attorney. "There is more than one way to kill a cat," was one of his pet expressions, and it expressed his logic and courage exactly. Yet he did not ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... to me was ever inexplicable. It is, however, due to Mr. Newcome to confess that his faculty of obtaining favours of all sorts, was of a most extraordinary character; and he certainly never lost any chance of preferment for want of asking. In this respect, Jason was always a moral enigma, to me; there being an absolute absence, in his mind, of everything like a perception of the fitness of things, so far as the claims and rights of persons were connected with rank, education, birth, and experience. Rank, in ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... merely the difference of dress between the two that constituted the distinction: the soldier might be as pious as the priest, the priest was sure to be as worldly as the soldier; the soldier might have ecclesiastical preferment; the priest sometimes turned ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... government patronage, even when dispensed by the dirty hands of such scurvy nursing fathers as Fletcher and Lord Cornbury, may give strength of a certain sort to a religious organization. Whatever could be done in the way of endowment or of social preferment in behalf of the English church was done eagerly. But happily this church had a better resource than royal governors in the well-equipped and sustained, and generally well-chosen, army of missionaries of the Society for the Propagation ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... foolish caste that held us in iron thrall, made labor respectable and progress possible. It brought energetic Northern people among us to teach us that the way to greatness lies through the workshop,—to incite us to shake of our indolence and enter the race for preferment. Grant's red- throated batteries did more than break the shackles from the wrists of the blacks; they tore the cursed fetters of caste and custom from the minds of the whites,—a nobler emancipation. They set the heart of southern chivalry to beating with a truer, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... Proteus' father had just been talking with a friend on this very subject: his friend had said, he wondered his lordship suffered his son to spend his youth at home, while most men were sending their sons to seek preferment abroad; "some," said he, "to the wars, to try their fortunes there, and some to discover islands far away, and some to study in foreign universities; and there is his companion Valentine, he is gone ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... great Man was famous for Military Qualifications, only, if so noble an Excess may be term'd a Fault, he was perhaps too brave. But this Intrepidity, which in any other Country would have hindered his Preferment, promoted it among the Kofirans, and raised his Character with that People, who are all Fire and Spirit. His Name was Vameric. He has been reproached with interrupting the Actions of this Campaign, which was not so glorious as its Opening had promised. ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon

... and a Christian, to meet the last stern foe. He sent for Gay and asked his forgiveness for some act of unkindness he had done him. Gay granted it, although utterly ignorant of what the offence had been. He had probably, on account of his Toryism, been deprived, through Addison's means, of some preferment. He entrusted his works to the care of Tickell, and dedicated them to Craggs, his successor in the secretaryship, in a touching and beautiful letter, written a few days before his death. He called, it is said, the young Earl of Warwick, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... stubborn perseverance. He early espoused the liberal doctrines of Fox and Grey; and inasmuch as for many years after the Tories monopolized the power, his politics were an effectual bar to his professional preferment. He remained, however, through his whole life, an earnest and consistent advocate of his early convictions. Owing to the prejudice which Lord Chancellor Eldon entertained against the Whigs, he did not obtain ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... the title of courtier and gambler became synonymous. Gaming was the means of securing preferment; it was by gambling that Vitellius opened to himself so grand a career; gaming made ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... universities lecturing against the most material points in the Gospel. He instanced, I think, Paulus, whose lectures he had attended. The object was to resolve the miracles into natural operations; and such a disposition evinced was the best road to preferment. He severely censured Mr. Taylor's book, in which the principles of Paulus were explained and insisted on with much gratuitous indelicacy. He then entered into the question of Socinianism, and noticed, as I recollect, the passage in the Old Testament; 'The people ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... had not plenty of occupation for his thoughts? Don Juan Montefalderon was a soldier and a gallant cavalier; and love of country had alone induced him to engage in his present duties. Not that patriotism which looks to political preferment through a popularity purchased by the valgar acclamation which attends success in arms, even when undeserved, or that patriotism which induces men of fallen characters to endeavour to retrieve former offences by the shortest ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... her loftiest mound, To bar his passage o'er forbidden ground. Swift o'er all impediments he flew, And strain'd his eyes to keep the prize in view. Religion, virtue, sense, to him were nought; He hated none, yet none employ'd his thought, Save when he glitter'd in their borrowed beam, To gain preferment, or to court esteem. The minister, not tool, of Christiern's will, He serv'd his measures, yet despis'd him still: Scann'd with impartial view th'encircling scene, Glancing o'er all an eye exact and keen, Advantage to descry; and seldom fail'd, When Virtue's cause by Fortune's will prevail'd, ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... diplomatists, mayors, and corporations, heads of public departments, all very gorgeously arrayed in their official uniforms; and there amongst the rest sat a compact bunch of prominent Free Churchmen in black gowns—their chances of episcopal preferment flown. ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... a Captain of Horse in the late Protector Oliver's time; but, to the surprise of all men, he was not dismissed at his Majesty's Restoration, but was continued in his command, and indeed, received preferment, having the grade of a Colonel on the Irish establishment. But they did not fail to tell him, and with fresh instances of severity, that he would answer with his head for the safe keeping ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... step of preferment to the other public offices, and to admission into the senate: its continuation was for but one year, and no one could be a candidate for it until he had ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... Pope Gregory VII. tried again to do something for the cause of public morality, in 1074, when he issued edicts against both concubinage and simony—or the then prevalent custom of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferment; but the edict was too harsh and unreasonable with regard to the first, inasmuch as it provided that no priest should marry in the future, and that those who already possessed wives or concubines were to give them up ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... rare to find this type of woman competing with men in outside business affairs, although her influence has always counted immensely in official life where she pulls the strings to get husband or lover Government preferment or concession. ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... would be of no use for me to unmask," was the reply; "but if I tell you I have something of importance to communicate to you—something in reference to your application to the emperor for preferment, you may be disposed to ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... dynasty Daniel was given so much power that some of the officials, jealous of his preferment, plotted against him. They contrived to persuade King Darius to sign a decree that "whosoever should ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of the king himself, should be cast into the den of lions." The ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... School, till he came to know himself better. Peter Winkel perceiving that he was unmoveable in this Resolution, fell into a Rage, telling him, he had taken a great deal of Pains to a fine Purpose indeed, who had by earnest Sollicitations, provided a good Preferment for an obstinate Boy, that did not understand his own Interest: And having given him some hard Words, told him, that from that Time he threw up his Guardianship, and now he might look to himself. Erasmus presently reply'd, that he took him at his first ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... it; it used to be said that, with the assistance of a dexterous parish clerk, he could get through the whole morning service, sermon and all, in five and thirty minutes; he was no spoil-pudding except where he dined. With all these talents, however, he had no preferment in the church, nor even a curacy; but he had plenty of duty to do of one kind or another, and as all his work was piece-work, he got through it with as much rapidity as possible. He was in almost ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various

... single instance, during the three years I passed at Hofwyl, in which even a suspicion of an electioneering cabal or other factious proceeding attached to an election among us. It can scarcely be said that there were candidates for any office. Preferment was, indeed, highly valued, as a testimonial of public confidence; but it was not sought, directly or indirectly, and was accepted rather as imposing duty than conferring privilege. The Lacedemonian, who, when he lost his election ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... that I need say no more of him than that he signalized himself as a good patriot and true Protestant in the Parliament of 1686 in defence of the Penal Laws against Popery. This self-denyed man hath taken no less pains to shun places that were in his offer than some others have been at to get into preferment. Witness his refusing to accept a patent in the year 1692 to be the King's Advocate, and the resigning his place as a Lord of Justiciary after the Union, which Her Majesty with reluctancy took off his ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... may be so stupefied at the close as to shut out of his range what has been suggested here. And further even if a man's soul be saved he is responsible to God for his life. We want men to live for Jesus, and win others to Him. And further, yet, reward, preferment, honour in God's kingdom depends upon faithfulness to Him down here. Who would be saved by the ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon

... fawn, Though it would raise him to the lawn: He passed his hours among his books; You find it in his meagre looks: He might, if he were worldly-wise, Preferment get, and spare his eyes: But owned he had a stubborn spirit, That made him trust alone in merit: Would rise by merit to promotion; ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... part of the enterprise, ambition, and patriotism, of the country, was given to the training, studies, and pursuits, calculated to fit men for so stern a struggle. But now that other avenues are inviting in themselves, and promise political preferment, we are liable to the criticism that our young men, well educated in the schools and in a knowledge of the world, are not well grounded in political history and constitutional law, without which ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell

... army failed him, then he would risk his neck upon the road, levying his own tax and imposing his own conditions. To one of his dauntless resolution an opportunity need never have lacked; yet he owed his first preferment to a happy accident. Surprised one evening in a drunken brawl, he was hustled into the Poultry Counter, and there made acquaintance over a fresh bottle with Robert Allen, one of the chief rogues in the Park, and a ruffian, who had mastered every trick in the game of plunder. A dexterous cly-faker, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... inhabitants of the upper and more inaccessible mountains have held their independence above all price, fighting for their homes as the mountaineer only will; and the chieftains who have been tempted by preferment in the Russian army and the glitter of its epaulettes, by the honors of the parades at Tiflis, and even by the imperial champaign, and the sight of the ballet dancers of St. Petersburg, have disdained to sell a birthright of freedom inherited ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie

... have been at the prospect of becoming the chief of an embassy, yet when I was offered the inferior appointment, my feelings were very different. I felt that in quitting the situation I now enjoyed, I should leave the high road to preferment, to get into one of its crooked lanes. Besides, I strongly participated in the national antipathy, the horror of leaving one's country, and particularly dreaded the idea of going to sea; and when I came to reflect that the country ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... morbid belief in the power of money—he probably would have agreed that "every man has his price," and his simoniacal dealings with William Rufus, which procured his preferment to Norwich, afford evidence of this weak trait ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell

... conduct in the field for those very different qualifications demanded in responsible civil stations. A wound received, or a limb lost, will, in many instances, constitute a stronger recommendation for political preferment than long experience, coupled with ability and high character. This disposition to reward those who have faithfully served the country in time of war is an amiable characteristic of the American people, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... an offer of preferment in England, and was anxious to go home as soon as possible. Clement was now so well, that after assisting the next day in the week's duties among the people, and at the pretty little church that Mr. White had built, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of Indulgence James the Second attempted to detach, and almost succeeded in detaching, the Dissenters from their common cause with the Church in opposing his enfranchisement of the Roman Catholics, and his preferment of them to great offices. As for its author, his most eminent acts are written in the pages of the universally read historian above quoted. But he was in reality more of a Tory than it suited Macaulay to represent him, though he gloried in the ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... professed a contempt for all letters and learning, was even less likely to be influenced by Cervantes' literary merits than by his services as a soldier—services which had now become an old story. Disappointed in his hopes of preferment, Cervantes had to maintain himself and his family by the exercise of his pen—writing, as we learn, letters and memorials for those who needed them,[3] while busy upon his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... breathed their last. Neither they, nor the ministers who treated Church patronage as a means of strengthening their party, were necessarily careless about religion. Newcastle and Hardwicke, for example, were religious men, and the personal piety of some preferment-seeking bishops is unquestioned. It was a matter in which the Church was neither better nor worse than the age. The ecclesiastical system was disorganised by plurality and non-residence; the dignified clergy as a whole were worldly minded, and the greater ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... loved his cousin Melicent; but, now that he was in holy orders and possession of her had become impossible, he had cannily resolved to utilise her beauty, as he did everything else, toward his own preferment. ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al

... determination to substitute a sort of general religion for the doctrines of the church. The next really marking incident after the secession of Newman was a decision of a court of law, known as the Gorham judgment. This and the preferment of Hampden to his bishopric produced the second great tide of secession. 'Were we together,' Mr. Gladstone writes to Manning at the end of 1849 (December 30), 'I should wish to converse with you from sunrise to sunset on the Gorham ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... the Senate. And she was aware that without such party service as Bassett was rendering, with its resulting antagonisms, the virulent newspaper attacks, the social estrangements that she had not escaped in Fraserville, a man could not hope for party preferment. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... Acts VIII. The crime of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferment or the corrupt presentation of any one to an ecclesiastical benefice ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... a dingy stack of buildings, and within it, bending over great tomes of law, a man, impoverished and orphaned, but young, strong, and full of hope,—a man well spoken of and allowed to be on the road to high preferment. The chamber wavered into darkness; but the city spires flashed light, and the slow ringing changed to mad peals from joy bells. Some one had been restored—to drop balm upon the bleeding heart of a nation, to bring light to them that sit in darkness,—so said ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... of colonel Moultrie, with the second regiment, afforded me infinite satisfaction. It brought me once more to act in concert with Marion. 'Tis true, he had got one grade above me in the line of preferment; but, thank God, I never minded that. I loved Marion, and "love," as every body knows, "envieth not." We met like brothers. I read in his looks the smiling evidence of his love towards me: and I felt the strongest wish to perpetuate his partiality. Friendship was gay within ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... have had no news from England, except on business; and merely know, from some abuse in that faithful ex and de-tractor Galignani, that the clergy are up against 'Cain.' There is (if I am not mistaken) some good church preferment on the Wentworth estates; and I will show them what a good Christian I am, by patronising and preferring the most pious of their order, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... lived in a larger London house, 'up to their position,' which means ever a trifle beyond it, and gave choice dinner-parties to the most eminent. His jealousy slumbered. Having ideas of a seat in Parliament at this period, and preferment superior to the post he held, Mr. Warwick deemed it sagacious to court the potent patron Lord Dannisburgh could be; and his wife had his interests at heart, the fork-tongued world said. The cry revived. Stories of Lord D. and Mrs. W. whipped the hot pursuit. The moral repute ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the people. There is an increasing demand in all the provinces for schools and colleges; and the native young men especially are eagerly seeking the educational advantages of the colleges and universities, because they know that these are a sure road to preferment. "The government takes care to give employment to those ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... is ashamed to own that 'last infirmity of noble minds!' He was avaricious, my readers will say. No—it was not for love of lucre that he wished to be bishop of Barchester. He was his father's only child, and his father had left him great wealth. His preferment brought him in nearly three thousand a year. The bishopric, as cut down by the Ecclesiastical Commission, was only five. He would be a richer man as archdeacon, than he could be as a bishop. But he certainly did desire to play first fiddle; ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... with unflagging zeal. He gave up his living of 700l. a year and refused to take any remuneration for his work. He was appointed by Bishop Blomfield to a prebend at St. Paul's, but received and desired no other preferment. He gradually became infirm, and a few months before his death, January 12, 1873, was compelled to resign his post. Henry Venn laboured through life in the interests of a cause which seemed to him among the highest, and which even those who hold ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... they denote the person prudent and liberal, a lover of learning, and of a good temper, if it spreads towards the fore and middle finger and ends blunt, it denotes preferment. Let us now see what is signified by the middle line. This line has in it oftentimes (for there is scarce a hand in which it varies not) divers very significant characters. Many small lines between this and ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... first used in the sense given below by Dr. Paley. "He [Paley] held, indeed, all those little arts of underhand address, by which patronage and preferment are so frequently pursued, in supreme contempt. He was not of a nature to root; for that was his own expressive term, afterwards much used in the University to denote the sort of practice alluded to. He one day humorously proposed, at some social meeting, that a certain contemporary Fellow ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... remember that their party friends from whom they have received preferment have not invested them with the power of arbitrarily managing their political affairs. They have no right as officeholders to dictate the political action of their party associates or to throttle freedom of action within party lines by methods and practices which pervert every useful and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... inhabitants of the metropolis, or probably the country in general, know the character of the brave, ill-fated band of Highlanders, who were now advancing into the very heart of the country. It was the custom, especially among those who wished to gain preferment at Court, or who affected to be fashionable, to speak of the Highlanders as low, ignorant savages; semi-barbarians, to whom the vulgar qualities of personal courage and hardihood might be allowed, but who had neither any urbanity to strangers, nor refined notions of honour. The word "rebel," ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... his professional career, he had coolly, dispassionately, sordidly, and with a hand as firm as Astraea's own, held the matrimonial scales, and weighed the influence and preferment that he could command by a politic and brilliant marriage, against the advantages of freedom, and the glory of unassisted success and advancement. For the lady herself—a bright, mirthful, pretty brunette, who in contrast with his frigid nature seemed a gaudy tropical ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... great weight; and in the campaign which came on later between Mr. McKinley and Mr. Bryan, he, in my opinion, and indeed in the opinion, I think, of every leading public man, did a most honorable thing when he deliberately broke from his party, sacrificed, apparently, all hopes of political preferment, and opposed the regular Democratic candidate. His speech before the working-men of Chicago on the issues of that period was certainly one of the two most important delivered during the first McKinley campaign, the other ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... call "to arms" and "mount" sounded through the camp and, in five minutes, a hundred mercenaries galloped rapidly toward the castle of Richard de Tany, in the visions of their captain a great reward and honor and preferment for the capture of the mighty outlaw who was ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... fashion of that day to place the youth of certain families in the army and navy of England, as the regular stepping-stones to preferment. Most of the higher offices in the colonies were filled by men who had made arms their profession; and it was even no uncommon sight to see a veteran warrior laying aside the sword to assume the ermine on the benches ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... knight; his martial bearing and ability, modesty, and uniform good conduct soon paved the way for him to the highest dignities in this celebrated Order. Soon the Grand Master appointed him "Commandeur de Troyes"; this preferment yielded ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... peculiarly marked difference of features and color, will be always an insurmountable barrier to general amalgamation." Again, "Were they of the same color and features that we are, in an elective republican government like this, where talents and merit are the common footsteps to esteem and preferment, there would be no difficulty in universal emancipation, without a separation. I have no idea that they are at all inferior to the white people in intellect; give them the same opportunity for enterprise and improvement." Their only sin, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... took his place as Minister of State. The councillors soon found themselves again thrust aside. The influence of the new favourite surpassed that of his predecessor. The payment of bribes to him or marriage to his greedy kindred became the one road to political preferment. Resistance to his will was inevitably followed by dismissal from office. Even the highest and most powerful of the nobles were made to tremble at the nod of this ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... of sleeping at Tideswell was in their eyes extreme, though the hostel was so crowded that Cis had to share a mattress with Mrs. Talbot, and Diccon had to sleep in his cloak on the floor, which he persuaded himself was high preferment. He woke, however, much sooner than was his wont, and finding it useless to try to fall asleep again, he made his way out among the sleeping figures on the floor and hall, and finding the fountain in the midst of the court, produced his soap and comb from his pocket, and made his morning ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... deified and invoked. I have heard them invoke their friends who have been drowned at sea. I need not advert to the absurdity of praying to those who could not save themselves from a watery grave. Tuikilakila, the chief of Somosomo, offered Mr. Hunt a preferment of this sort. 'If you die first,' said he, 'I shall make you my god.' In fact, there appears to be no certain line of demarcation between departed spirits and gods, nor between gods and living men, for many of the priests ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... circumcised with new names, and brought to confesse a new Religion. Others againe, I must confesse, who never knew any God, but their own sensuall lusts and pleasures, thought that any religion would serve their turnes, and so for preferment or wealth very voluntarily renounced their faith, and became Renegadoes in despight of any counsell which seemed to intercept them: and this was the first newes wee encountred with at our comming ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... Restoration became greater, Lucy Hutchinson grew alarmed for the safety of her husband, who was one of the men who had signed the death-warrant of Charles I. The friends of the exiled king had promised him pardon and preferment if he would become a Royalist, but this he had ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore

... called upon to make a personal sacrifice there is none who makes a greater one than he. It is not alone the relinquishment of his position in the world as a patient and industrious worker; his sacrifice of love; the obliteration of his hope for preferment, but the extinction of life itself at an age when all men cherish ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... party-men, who differed in all things besides, agreed in their turn to show particular respect and friendship to this insolent derider of the worship of his country, till at last the reputed writer is not only gone off with impunity, but triumphs in his dignity and preferment. I do not know that any inquiry or search was ever made after this writing, or that any reward was ever offered for the discovery of the author, or that the infamous book was ever condemned to be burnt ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... the rebels the command of a party of men to march forward and attack Fort Cumberland, besides which further inducements of preferment and advancement were held out to him. But nothing the rebels could offer was able to shake his allegiance to King George the Third. His former losses, his present situation, the safety of his wife and family, his treatment by the Board of Trade and Plantations, ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... thirtieth year before he dreamed of going to sea. An accident, then, put preferment in this form before his eyes, and he engaged as the mate of a small coaster, for his very first voyage. Fortunately, the master never found out his deficiencies, for Ithuel had a self-possessed, confident way with him, that prevented discovery, until they were outside of the port from which ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... seriously asked from what motive I published my Calm Address to the American Colonies? I seriously answer, Not to get money; not to get preferment; not to please any man living; least of all to inflame any; just the contrary. I contributed my mite towards putting out the flame that rages. This I have more opportunity to see than any man in England. I see with pain to what a height this already rises, in every part of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... happy a life does the Parson possess, Who would be no greater, nor fears to be less; Who depends on his book and his gown for support, And derives no preferment from conclave or court! Derry ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... intense disappointment. In Humbert's mind had been forming, for the past hour or two, a plan—nothing less than to go himself before the Council and, with the letter in hand, to point out certain things which would be valuable. In this way he would serve both the party and him-self. Preferment would follow. He could demand, under the corning republic, some high office. Already, of course, he was known to the Committee, and known well, but rather for brawn than brain. They used him. Now— "Code!" he said. And struck the paper with a hairy fist. "Everything ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... varietie of ancient and moderne writers I haue perused; what a number of old records, patents, priuleges, letters, &c. I haue redeemed from obscuritie and perishing; into how manifold acquaintance I haue entered; what expenses I haue not spared; and yet what faire opportunities of priuate game, preferment, and ease I haue neglected; albeit thyselfe canst hardly imagine, yet I by daily experience do finde & feele, and some of my entier friends can sufficiently testifie. Howbeit (as I told thee at the first) the honour and benefit of this common weale wherein I liue and breathe, hath ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... Troubridge and another officer felt themselves under the absolute necessity of conducting him out of the room. This disagreeable occurrence, naturally agitating the breast of the worthy admiral, who was at that very period soliciting the indiscreet young man's preferment, in a letter then on it's way to England, occasioned a violent return of those internal spasms to which all excesses of the passions had constantly subjected him since the time when this grievance first commenced, while his anxious mind was occupied in vainly pursuing ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... the upper hand after their exile. Since then most of them have been given to Germans. It would seem that the king was so set against Englishmen that only by bringing in foreigners can Harold prevent all preferment going to Normans. But what is the consequence? They say now that our church is governed from Rome, whereas before Edward's time we Englishmen did not think of ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... his service will give umbrage to his own subjects: but, when the business is to establish a maritime power, these considerations ought to be sacrificed to reasons of public utility. Nothing can be more absurd and unreasonable, than the murmurs of the Piedmontese officers at the preferment of foreigners, who execute those things for the advantage of their country, of which they know themselves incapable. When Mr. P—n was first promoted in the service of his Sardinian majesty, he met with great opposition, and numberless mortifications, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... respect to him as an officer of the colony Madam Heathcote, the task is not one of easy bearing. If the King's representative had given the colors to my brother Reuben, and left the Dudley with the halberd in his hand, the preferment would have been ample for one of his qualities, and all the better for the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... for him. Though for a time he had to be satisfied, even when he was married, with a very small London living, he soon rose in the Church, at a time when clergymen of a liberal way of thinking had not much chance of Crown preferment. But having gone at the head of a deputation to Lord Palmerston, to inform him that Gladstone's next election as member for Oxford was becoming doubtful, owing to all the bishoprics being given to the Low Church party—the party of Lord Shaftesbury—Palmerston remembered his ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... of Congress and a greater proportion of the Senate are brunettes. The same rule holds good in State legislatures as far as I have observed. The temperament which stands second best in political preferment is the magnetic mental. Sam J. Tilden, Levi P. Morton and Thomas A. Hendricks represent this type. It owes its success to the depth and intensity of its intellectual development, which frequently creates a demand for its services ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... of Baumgarten and others Deism now gained great favor in Germany. Toland was personally welcomed, flattered and honored at the very court—that of Frederic William I.—which had banished Wolf, and made adherence to his doctrines a bar to all preferment. ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... spoliation of churches and religious houses, wherever the arms of Napoleon extended; the dethronement of the Pope, by Gen. Berthier, in 1798; the refusal of some of the powers to permit her to nominate, within their limits, the candidates for ecclesiastical preferment, &c. She is thus made to feel her widowhood,—her divorce from the secular arm,—and has mourned the loss of her most devoted children, who have ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... only coolness which is known to have taken place between him and Charles Montague[573] [Halifax] arose out of his imagining that his friend was not in earnest about getting him into the public service. March 14, 1696, Newton writes thus to Halley: "And if the rumour of preferment for me in the Mint should hereafter, upon the death of Mr. Hoar [the comptroller], or any other occasion, be revived, I pray that you would {312} endeavour to obviate it by acquainting your friends that I neither put in for any place in the Mint, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... judgment to be overruled by the royal confessor's advice and sought out Conchillos as being the less intractable of the two. The letter from the Archbishop of Seville procured him a courteous reception and had he come seeking a benefice or some preferment from the King, he might have counted upon the favour and assistance of the Secretary to advance his suit, but, as he piously phrases it, he had, by divine mercy, been rescued from the darkness in which, like all the others, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... professors, opulent both from their private property and from their liberal salaries, were not dependent upon their scholars; and many subjects of the state, educated at the government schools or other gymnasia, and hoping for preferment, did not venture to throw off the traditional customs. The neighborhood of Dresden, the attention thence paid to us, and the true piety of the superintendent of the course of study, could not be without a moral, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... shafts. Each arch has a triangular hood moulding, crocketed with carved finials. The spandrils are ornamented with very interesting carvings. These have been interpreted to mean: on the south side, the birth of the bishop, his confirmation, his education, and possibly his first preferment; on the north, the bishop doing homage for his see, a procession with a cross-bearer (generally accepted as a memorial of the consecration of the building by this bishop); his death; and finally his soul borne up to heaven by ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White

... if we had, I suspect, as things are, a parson's wife would, in practical substantial usefulness, be infinitely superior to all the monks that were ever shaven. I declare, I think the Bishop of Ipswich is almost justified in giving out that none but married men have a chance of preferment from him; nay, the Bishop of Abingdon, who makes a rule of bestowing his best livings as marriage portions to the most virtuous young ladies in his diocese." Carlton spoke with more energy than ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... habits, all suited him for such a career. By a happy coincidence, too, it was one in which Lady Beauchamp could most importantly assist him through her connections. Her eldest son, the young baronet, had preferment in his own gift, which was to say, in hers; and not only this, but her sister's husband, the uncle of Rosa, was a bishop, and one over whom she, Lady Beauchamp, had some influence. Once in orders, Everett's prosperity was assured. The present incumbent of Hollingsley was aged; by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... mean, of his regiment? I hear, too, that to make the gift still sweeter, 55 The Duke has given him the very same In which he first saw service, and since then, Worked himself, step by step, through each preferment, From the ranks upwards. And verily, it gives A precedent of hope, a spur of action 60 To the whole corps, if once in their remembrance An old deserving ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... of rest. A game at battledore and shuttlecock occasionally relieved their vigils; but no serious employment divided their attention with the arduous task upon which they had entered, of mastering and digesting the principles of the Augustinian theology. The Bishop of Bayonne offered preferment to D’Hauranne, and there were projects of settling Jansen also at the head of a college; but it was not till some time afterwards that either of them entered upon official labours. They were left during those years to the uninterrupted studies which subsequently resulted in the great ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... the Eares to the Consideration of holy Things. But this, for the most part, you shall find amongst them, that let them continue never so long in the Church, yea though it were twentie Years, they will never study to sing better than they did the first Day of their Preferment to that Place; so that it seems, that having obtained the Living which they sought for, they have little or no Care at all, either of their own Credit, or well discharging of that Dutie whereby they have ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi

... them. The Cluniac monks, therefore, thought it best to separate the clergy entirely from the world. In the first place they were to be celibate, that they might not be entangled in the cares of life. In the second place they were to refrain from simony, or the purchase of ecclesiastical preferment, that they might not be dependent on the great men of the world. A third demand was added later, that bishops and abbots should not receive from laymen the ring and staff which were the signs of their authority—the ring as the symbol of marriage to their churches; the staff or crozier, in ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... on the road to preferment, Nicholas," observed Richard, with a smile. "You will outstrip Buckingham himself, if you go on ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... seafaring men, for employment; but could hear of none, there being many waiting for berths; and I feared my appearance (which was not so mean as most of that sort of gentry is) would prove no small disappointment to my preferment that way. At last, being out of heart with my frequent repulses, I went to a landing-place just by, and as I asked some sailors, who were putting two gentlemen on shore, if they wanted a hand on board their ship, one of the gentlemen, whom I afterwards found to be the master of a vessel bound ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... report from Major General Hopkins to Governor Shelby that "the firm and almost unparalleled defense of Fort Harrison had raised for Captain Zachary Taylor a fabric of character not to be affected by eulogy;" and forthwith procured from President Madison a preferment to the rank of brevet major, the first brevet, it is said, ever ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... timid embarrassment, which overpowered him in the bustle and uproar, amid the winding streets and smoky labyrinths of the densely populated Babel, had been experienced by many another aspiring adventurer, whom the glitter of a great name and the hope of literary preferment had drawn from happy retirements to battle through adversity to fame and fortune. His first object on his arrival in town was to seek the shelter of respectable lodgings; his next, to introduce himself, to explain his projects and to submit his tragedy to the manager of a London theatre. The ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... would not seem to appear to th' world Puff'd up with your preferment, you continue This out-of-fashion melancholy: leave ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster

... had been a trooper during the great Civil War, seems to have received no preferment, after the Restoration, suited to his high birth, though, in fact, third cousin to Charles II. Captain Crichton, the friend of Dean Swift, who published his Memoirs, found him a private gentleman in the King's Life-Guards. At the same time this was no degrading condition; ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... the nation, Miss Alice Somebody came in contact with a young gentleman named Rhapsody,—of pleasant and respectable demeanor, an office-holder, but not high up enough to suit the tastes and aims of Colonel Somebody and his lady; and so, our friend Rhapsody stood little or no chance for favor or preferment in the graces of Miss Alice, though he was a recognized visitor at the Colonel's house, and essayed to make an impression upon the heart's affections ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... poetry, because its orators do perorare with a song; and because, climbing up by slow degrees, fate is sure to turn them off before they can reach within many steps of the top; and because it is a preferment attained by transferring of propriety and a ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift

... Esq., in 1715, bequeathed to his nephew Timothy, the sum of [pounds]20 a year, to be paid during his residence at the university, and to be continued to him till he obtained some preferment worth at least [pounds]30 a year.—Sussex ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... proved to be true. The new bishop was a very "moderate" Anglican indeed, and his appointment was meant as a sop to the Presbyterians. Richard Baxter and Edmund Calamy refused similar preferment. ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... following statement: "As virtue is necessary in a republic, and in monarchy, honor, so fear is necessary in a despotic government." The meaning is, that in republics, virtue possessed by the citizens is the spring of national prosperity; that under a monarchy, the desire of preferment at the hands of the sovereign is what quickens men to perform services to the state; that despotism thrives by fear inspired in the breasts of ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... interesting one. Mrs. Gray told how, when Dean of Derry in Ireland, the project of establishing a college in Bermuda for the education of English boys and of Indian youths to act as missionaries to their own people, had taken possession of his mind; and he had given up his preferment, and crossed the sea with his family to engage in this chosen work. She described their landing in Newport on a Sunday morning when everybody was at church, and how the clergyman stopped in the middle ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge



Words linked to "Preferment" :   promotion, accusation, accusal



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