"Prodigal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out of their sockets, and leaue them all darke. Another did nothing but winke and make faces. There was a parasite, & he with clapping his hands and thripping his fingers seemed to dance an antike to and fro The onely thing they did well, was the prodigal childes hunger, most of their schollers being hungerly kept, and surely you would haue sayd they had ben brought vp in hogs academie to learne to eate acornes, if you had seene how sedulously they fell to them. Not a iest had they to ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... delicate viands the poor never taste, And dollars were lavished in prodigal waste To pamper the palate of epicures rich; Who drew from the wine cellar's cavernous niche "Excelsior" brands of the rarest champagnes To loosen their tongues—though it pilfered their brains— Oh, sad if a step in some ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... Wit, like some luxuriant Vine, Profusely wanton'd in each golden Line. Who, prodigal of Sense, by Beaumont's care, Was prun'd so wisely, and became so fair. Could from his copious Brain new Humours bring, A bragging Bessus, or inconstant King. Could Laughter thence, here melting pity raise In his Amyntors, and Aspasia's. But Rome and Athens must the Plots ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... began, "have you seen M. de Sartines, and did you speak to him respecting those 100,000 livres?" "Oh, yes," replied I, "he gave them back to me; but I have already had half of them stolen from me." "By comte Jean, I'll engage," cried she. "Upon my word, that man is a perfect spendthrift, a prodigal; who, if you do not take great care, will certainly ruin you. And what will you do with the remaining 50,000 livres, my dear friend; where will you place them?" "In your hands, my dear marechale; 'tis ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... a poor forecast you are making, Cousin Janet," said he, cheerfully. "I am to play the prodigal son, then. But I will take the letter. And good-bye again, Janet; and God bless you, for you are a ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... Mews;' (Unlucky T——ll, doom'd to daily cares By pugilistic pupils and by bears!) Fines, tutors, tasks, conventions, threat in vain, Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket plain: Rough with his elders; with his equals rash; Civil to sharpers; prodigal of cash. Fool'd, pillaged, dunn'd, he wastes his terms away; And, unexpell'd perhaps, retires M.A.:— Master of Arts!—as Hells and Clubs[10] proclaim, Where scarce a black-leg bears a ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... their human wastes between these words of the New Testament and those other words of the Old; but the parable of Christ really finished the prayer of David: in each there was the same young prodigal—the ever-falling youth ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... doubt, struggle, error, sin—the nun agonising in the cloister; the settler struggling for his life in Transatlantic forests; the pauper shivering over the embers in his hovel and waiting for kind death; the man of business striving to keep his honour pure amid the temptations of commerce; the prodigal son starving in the far country and recollecting the words which he learnt long ago at his mother's knee; the peasant boy trudging afield in the chill dawn and remembering that the Lord is his Shepherd, therefore he will not want—all shapes of humanity have found, ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... indeed is shown by that old, but somewhat exaggerated, canon in natural history of "Natura non facit saltum." We meet with this admission in the writings of almost every experienced naturalist; or, as Milne Edwards has well expressed it, "Nature is prodigal in variety, but niggard in innovation." Why, on the theory of Creation, should there be so much variety and so little real novelty? Why should all the parts and organs of many independent beings, each supposed to have been separately ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... illustration of the sequence in the presentation of signs by deaf-mutes, the following is quoted from an essay by Rev. J.R. Keep, in American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb, vol. xvi, p. 223, as the order in which the parable of the Prodigal Son ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... draught, that she would daily somewhat with the rich banquet that was spread for her. She had many griefs to overcome, much sorrow to conquer, perhaps a long period of desolation to assuage, and she would not be prodigal of her resources. As she looked around her while she walked, almost furtively, lest some gardener as he spied her might guess her thoughts and tell how my lady was revelling in her pride of possession—it appeared to her that those novelties in which ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... appeared with a piece of soap, some towels, and a fresh suit of clothes, and, ordering the boy to strip, gave him a thorough washing with his own hands from head to foot at the horse-trough. It is to be regretted that there is no record of the after-fate of this young prodigal, although it would be pleasant to think that he was the unknown man who called at Sir Henry Gordon's house in 1885, after the news of Gordon's death, and wished to contribute L25 towards a memorial, because he was one of the youths saved by General Gordon, to whom all his success and prosperity ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... a strain," he admitted presently. "I called as often as possible and a little oftener. The reception, except for dear Ena, was not prodigal. Once they were having a sitting, and I went back to the kitchen. Of course Lizzie Tuoey, their former servant, was no more, and they had an ashy-black African woman. Some one was sobbing in the front room—the terrible sobs of a suffocating grief. There was a voice, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... an hotel with the refinements of a well-appointed home. That it offered, together with a luxurious table, the society of youthful persons of both sexes. And if everything around Mrs. Downey was on a liberal scale, so was Mrs. Downey herself. She was expansive in her person, prodigal in sympathy, exuberant in dress. If she had one eye to the main chance, the other smiled at you in pure benignity. On her round face was a festal flush, flooding and effacing the little care-worn lines ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... "Lay there, you damned prodigal!" he roared, terrible in his rage. "You disgrace me—an' you disgrace the girl who's been a daughter to me!... if you ever have another weddin'-day it'll not be me who ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... attentive, then serious. Her dry and withered heart received the rain. "The sadness, the cold, the dew come down from the sky in the mantle of the night," seemed to fall upon her heart; she understood "the flower, full of vanity, and prodigal with its splendors in the sun, now, at the fall of day, withered and stained, repentant and disillusioned, trying to raise its poor petals toward heaven, begging a shade to hide it from the mockery of the sun, who had seen it in its pomp, and was laughing at the impotence of its pride; begging ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... unreasonable, is upon him; when he tries to define it with the precision of a practical man, it eludes him, slips away, as the glow of the wine he has drunk is slipping away, leaving him cross, and conscious of his liver. He feels that he has been extravagant, prodigal of something; virtue has gone out of him. He did not desire this glimpse of what lay under the three stars of his catalogue. God forbid that he should know anything about the forces of Nature! God forbid that he should admit for a moment that there are such things! Once admit that, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... means by which he bought land, now worth hundreds of millions of dollars? For once, we get a gleam of the truth, but a gleam only, in the "popular writer's" account when he says: "John Jacob Astor's record is constantly crossed by embarrassed families, prodigal sons, mortgages and foreclosure sales. Many of the victims of his foresight were those highest in church and state. He thus acquired for $75,000 one-half of Governor George Clinton's splendid Greenwich country place [in ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... ever I hear that you have betrayed the first symptom of age, that your back is bent a twentieth of an inch from the perpendicular, I shall hasten to believe you are shearing your prodigal overgrowths, and are calling in your troops to the citadel, and I may come in the first steamer to drop in of evenings and ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to rescue Mary's children in their distress. And Clarice! she has been to me as an angel of light. You remember that she gave me a book. I took it to please her, not intending to read it; but I did read it, and it showed me what I was—a wretched, lost sinner. I learned that I was like the prodigal son; and as I heard that my earthly father was no more, I determined to go to my Heavenly Father, knowing that he would receive me. He has done so, and I can now say honestly that I am a Christian, and fit to ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... smile was sufficient to set the soul on fire and draw another soul towards it to consume together in the suddenly kindled flame! And women veiled their faces in youth, lest they should be deemed too prodigal of their charms; and in age they covered themselves still more closely, in order not to affront the Sun-God's fairness by their wrinkles." She smiled, a dazzling smile that drew Gervase yet a few steps closer unconsciously, ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... the great party were immediately commenced. More than two hundred invitations were sent out. And the aid of the three great ministers of fashion—Vourienne, Devizac, and Dureezie—were called in, and each was furnished with a carte-blanche as to expenses. And as to squander the money of the prodigal heiress was to illustrate their own arts, they availed themselves of the privilege in the ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... time the memory of that moment, which began in such fright for me, and ended in such rapture for us both, rushes over me, I wonder that I could ever have feared the man whom I love. But you must not infer from this that I can be prodigal of my kisses. Only, in the future, I shall have a saner reason for withholding them,—that of economy. For if frugality is ever wise, and extravagance forever foolish, it must be true in love as in the less romantic ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... heaps of rooms. It was an old house, added to at many times; added to by builders, who had little or no knowledge of their craft, who were prodigal of space, and illiberal in ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... contrary; war is recognized as the most potent method still; the prominence of military matters is greater than ever before; at no time in the past has interest in war been so keen as at the present, or the expenditure of blood and money been so prodigal; at no time before has war so thoroughly engaged the intellect ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... nearness of the supernatural; and perhaps the Messer Domeniddio of the Florentines stood rather for a mental effigy that might be played with, than for the reasoned conception of the dread Deity. If we possessed a minutely elaborated history of the Good Shepherd and His adventures, or of the Prodigal's father, or of the Good Samaritan, interspersed with all manner of ludicrous and profane incidents, and losing sight of the original purport of the figure, we should have something like a mythology. Were it not stereotyped ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... co-operative work, Diderot did much, and in many directions, single-handed, flinging out his thoughts with ardent haste, and often leaving what he had written to the mercies of chance; a prodigal sower of good and evil seed. Several of his most remarkable pieces came to light, as it were, by accident, and long after his death. His novel La Religieuse—influenced to some extent by Richardson, whom he superstitiously admired—is a repulsive ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... expose his miserable passion. Molire, on the other hand, without attaining this object, puts a complicated machine in motion. Here we have a lover of the daughter, who, disguised as a servant, flatters the avarice of the old man; a prodigal son, who courts the bride of his father; intriguing servants; an usurer; and after all a discovery at the end. The love intrigue is spun out in a very clumsy and every-day sort of manner; and it has the effect of making us at different times lose sight ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... And at this stage of the run, when the evening is closing in already, no one remarks whether you run a little cunning or not; so you should stick to those crafty hounds who keep edging away to the right, and not follow a prodigal like young Brooke, whose legs are twice as long as yours and of cast-iron, wholly indifferent to one or two miles more or less. However, they struggle after him, sobbing and plunging along, Tom and East pretty close, and Tadpole, whose big head begins to pull ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... trunk-hose. She has built up her reputation by "break-downs," and has clutched the burlesque diadem with, innumerable bounds of her elastic legs. Now, however, she has grown weary of offering up her fatted calves at the shrine of a prodigal New-York audience, and desires to hide the lightness of her legs under a bustle and crinoline. Wherefore she exchanges her PIPPIN for a MOSQUITO, and appears in serious instead of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... history of the middle-ages; worthy to be the hidden principle of all the actions of a young man's life; a love as high, as pure as the skies when blue; a love without hope and to which men bind themselves because it can never deceive; a love that is prodigal of unchecked enjoyment, especially at an age when the heart is ardent, the imagination keen, and the eyes of ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... remove the causes which led them to crime, to convince them of our good faith and good will, and to disabuse them of their suspicion that we distrust them, condescend to them, and despise them. For this prodigal brother of ours has become a very unsightly and unattractive object during these thousands of years of his sojourn among the pigsties and corn husks. He does not speak in our language or observe our manners or contemplate our ideals, or care for our refinements. We shall ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... with a returned prodigal is to kiss him, and the next to feed him; and therefore Dick was led away at once to the table on the lawn. But he gave no sign of requiring the immediate slaughter of a fatted calf. Though he had not exactly the appearance of a well-to-do English gentleman, he did not seem ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... believe she was rather enjoying herself. It was all so extremely like the sort of plays over which she had been accustomed to shed tears. The Prodigal's Return! And on Christmas Eve! It only required a little snow to be falling and a crying infant at ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... that she was grown a great girl now. She called her father, and all the household, and after a while the old doctor came home, and the fatted calf was killed, and all made merry over the return of this altogether unrepentant prodigal son. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... About a month ago I was seated in an upper apartment in a fit of rapture. There was a pen in my hand, and paper before me on the table, and likewise a jug of good ale, for I always find that the awen is most prodigal of her favours when a jug of good ale is before me. All of a sudden my wife came running up, and told me that Sir Richard was below, and wanted to speak to me. 'Tell him to walk up,' said I. 'Are you mad?' said my wife. 'Don't you ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... It was pay-day and the boss was in high good humor. Either occurrence was always good for a number of rounds of free drinks. But when Mascola was happy on pay-day, the liberality of the "Red Paint" was indeed prodigal. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... for myself, and conditionally for you," said Hartley cheerfully. "Now I will ring up Wilder and tell him that the prodigal has reappeared, and that you ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... Besides, you look at things in a light by far too partial and rose-colored. Do not confound your enthusiastic hopes with stern reality. The 'grand army of public opinion,' to which you refer, is an ally which cannot be depended upon—it is fickle, turning with every wind—it is an ally prodigal of words, but not of deeds. If my soldiers were to be clothed, and fed by public opinion, they would likely go naked and die of hunger. If my military chests wait for public opinion to fill them, they would remain empty. Public opinion, by the way, has always been ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... training, but they had the advantage of serving beside men who knew their business and who had almost become veterans over night. The enemy had taken every advantage of the terrain, which especially favored the defense, by a prodigal use of machine guns manned by highly-trained veterans and by using his artillery at short ranges. In the face of such strong frontal positions we should have been unable to accomplish any progress according ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... he recovered, and new, downy hair clothed the wounds and the scratches on his muzzle and throat. Sleek and strong once more, he was welcomed as a penitent prodigal by the relenting vixen, and, having in the period of his solitary wanderings learned much about the habits of the woodland folk, was doubtless able to assist his mother in the future training of ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... they think of Glyndon. But then, as the minutes passed, and he appeared not, Mervale, whose heart was as good at least as human hearts are in general, grew seriously alarmed. He insisted on returning to search for his friend; and by dint of prodigal promises prevailed at last on the guide to accompany him. The lower part of the mountain lay calm and white in the starlight; and the guide's practised eye could discern all objects on the surface at a considerable distance. They ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... which had politically isolated Silas Ruthyn and opposed him to the landed oligarchy of his county, whose retaliation had been a hideous slander. There, too, and on his brows and lip, I traced the patience of a cold disdain. I could now see him as he was—the prodigal, the hero, and the martyr. I stood gazing on him with a girlish interest and admiration. There was indignation, there was pity, there was hope. Some day it might come to pass that I, girl as I was, might contribute by word or deed towards the vindication of that ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... the hour was to revive the old subjects which contained the eternal essentials of life and present them in "palpitatingly modern" form. I eloquently developed my thesis. We were sick to death, for instance, of the quasi-scriptural Prodigal Son, sitting half-naked in a desert beside a swine trough. Was it not more "palpitating" to set the prodigal in ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... so familiar to his ear, and yet seemingly so incongruous in the present instance, baffled him completely. In the first moment of his discovery he had intended, figuratively speaking, to fall upon the prodigal's neck, and converse with him in the old, familiar style; but now, between Valentine Fenleigh, Esq., of the ——sex, and Private Fenleigh, of the Royal Blankshire, there was a great gulf fixed, and the latter, especially, seemed determined ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... go on the principle of stopping everywhere and anywhere to put down his notes, as the true painter will stop anywhere and everywhere to sketch, he will be able to cut down his works liberally. He will become prodigal not of writing—any fool can be this—but of omission. You become brief because you have more things to say than time to say them in. One of the chief arts is that of knowing what to neglect and the more talk increases the more necessary does ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... as a person with a curious temper; as one who does not scatter kindnesses and cruelties alternately, impartially, and in order, but heartless severities or overwhelming generosities in lawless caprice. Man's case is always that of the prodigal's favourite or the miser's pensioner. In her unfriendly moments there seems a feline fun in her tricks, begotten by a foretaste of her pleasure in ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... His deep interest in the purposes and hopes of our Association has never ceased. Upon his own ground he planted, and budded and grafted many nut trees, and has given away the fruits of his labors with a prodigal good will. Deming's Burnham pecan and the Deming Purple black walnut are the only introductions, so far as this writer ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... addition of property carried by it to the Upper House, did not add sufficient strength to that body to compensate for the distastefulness of the measure to the people; and, as far as the property of the New Peers was but the creature of prodigal grants from the Crown, the conjoint strength of the two Estates received no increase. In the meanwhile surrenders were made of the power of the Crown with infatuated facility; till the Commons became so ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... arriving. The two met on the great staircase, whose walls exhaled an icy chill. They lifted up their eyes and beheld one another. The count still wore his muddy clothes, and his pale, bewildered face betrayed the prodigal returning from his debauch. The countess looked as though she were utterly fagged out by a night in the train. She was dropping with sleep, but her hair had been brushed anyhow, and ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... sat down to that breakfast in the Canadian National diner I think we realized more emphatically than we had through the whole course of our reading how prodigal and rich a land Canada was. As we sat at our meal we could watch from the windows the unfolding of the streams and the innumerable lovely lakes, that expand suddenly out of the spruce forests that clad the rocky hills and the sharp valleys ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... but not very ably. Her face was flushed and her eyes hot; ordinarily she was a splendid housekeeper and a dutiful daughter, but there are limits to human endurance. She mixed the batter so clumsily and with such prodigal waste that her mother had to stop her, and she was about to put salt into the sugar bowl when Mrs. Purnell snatched it out of her hands. "Go into the dining-room and sit down, Dorothy," she exclaimed. "You're beside yourself." It is frequently the way with people, ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... another difficulty peculiar to the translating of Dante into English. English is essentially a diffuse and prodigal language. The great English writers have written with a free hand, prolific, excursive, diffuse. Shakespeare, Sir Thomas Browne, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Browning, all the typical writers of English, have been many-worded. They have been men ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... the right of election of magistrates, or on the balance among the several orders of the state, ii. 120. character of civil freedom, ii. 229. our best securities for it obtained from princes who were either war-like or prodigal, vi. 35. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... the place of the violets which before had perfumed her bosom. I could not help thinking about my old mathematical master. I did not then see any difference between him and his pupil, than that which exists between a frugal man and a prodigal, little thinking that he of the two who seemed to calculate the better, actually calculated the worse. The luncheon went off merrily. Very soon, seated in a little drawing-room newly decorated, before a cheerful fire which gave warmth and ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... more wonderful than their variety. His invention never seems to flag; nor is he ever under the necessity of repeating himself, or of wearing out a subject. There are no dregs in his wine. He regales us after the fashion of that prodigal nabob who held that there was only one good glass in a bottle. As soon as we have tasted the first sparkling foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of nectar is at our lips. On the Monday we have an allegory as ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... summer-tide of this same year I again persuaded him to visit me. Ah! how sacred now, how sad and sweet, are the memories of that rich, clear, prodigal ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... though generally found amongst the ranks of those who rail a the injustice of "the world." But if a man will not be his own friend, how can he expect that others will be. Orderly men of moderate means have always something left in their pockets to help others; whereas, your prodigal and careless fellows who spend all, never find an opportunity for helping anybody. It is poor economy, however, to be a scrub. Narrow-mindedness in living and in dealing is generally short- sighted, and leads to failure. Generosity and liberality, ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... and his guide heard from behind the rocks the hoarse shouts of revelry. But he heeded them not, so intent was he on his errand. He was seeking the prodigal, his adopted son—who was not seeking the loving father. He drew the reins of his horse, while he told his guide that their journey was ended, and prayed for themselves and for him whom they sought. His nearness was discovered by one of the band, who led him to the ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... said without a word. I sit beneath thy looks, as children do In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through Their happy eyelids from an unaverred Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue The sin most, but the occasion—that we two Should for a moment stand unministered By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close, Thou dovelike help! and, when my fears ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... many will reckon but a worthless weed; but the more historical associations we can link with our localities, the richer will be the daily life that feeds upon the past, and the more valuable the things that have been long established: so that our children will be less prodigal than their fathers in sacrificing good institutions to passionate impulses and impracticable theories. This herb of grace, let us hope, may be found in the old footprints of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Baptist's decapitated trunk, as in Kranach's horrible print, while gaping spectators fill the castle-yard; there are the castles high on rocks amidst woods, with miserable villages below, where the Prodigal Son wallows among the swine, and the tattered boors tumble about in drunkenness, or rest wearied on their spades. There are the Middle Ages in full force. But had these Germans of the days of Luther really no thought beyond their own times and their own country? Had they really no knowledge of the ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... conversation. It was as profligate a court in reality, with all its masses and monks, as the gay and atheist circle of the Regent of Orleans. Even Philip, the Inquisitor King, did not confine his royal favor to his series of wives. A more reckless and profligate young prodigal than Don Carlos, the hope of Spain and Rome, it would be hard to find to-day at Mabille or Cre-morne. But he was a deeply religious lad for all that, and asked absolution from his confessors before attempting to put in practice his intention ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... on for a while longer, then Mrs. Minturn gracefully took her leave and went home to tell Katherine that another prodigal was on his ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... attract the vilest characters to seek newness of life; and if there be hope for them, no one ought to despair. Far be it from us to cloud this light, or to tarnish so conspicuous an example. Like a Magdalene or a thief on the cross, his case may be exhibited to encourage hope in every returning prodigal. During this period of his childhood, while striving to harden his heart against God, many were the glimmerings of light which from time to time directed his unwilling eyes to a dread eternity. In the still hours of the night 'in a dream God opened' his ears[25]—the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... centuries, and having been very wicked in this world they asked, with some show of reason, why they should live again. They were incorrigible heathens, keenly interested in the demonstration that their language was capable of being written and read, but untouched by the parables of Lazarus or the Prodigal Son, which Borrow read and expounded to them. "Brother," exclaimed one woman, "you tell us strange things, though perhaps you do not lie; a month since I would sooner have believed these tales, than that this day I should see one who could read ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... was a clamant and manifold astonishment in the kitchen of the inn, together with prodigal and much-whispering wonder. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... not left his seat. When the hymn was finished, and Ensign Sand said, "The meeting is now open for testimonies," he knew that all her hope was upon him, though she looked at the screen above his head; and he sat abashed, with a prodigal sense surging through him of what he would rejoice to do for her in compensation. In the little chilly silence that followed he surprised his own eyes moist with disappointment—it had all been so anxious and so vain—and he felt relief and gratitude when the man who beat the drum stood up and ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... been a relief. But under the terror of a scandal he suddenly quieted down, swearing finally by his mother's ashes that as soon as he got home he would pack up his trunk and go straight off to Sauvagnat, leaving his wife to depart with her scoundrelly prodigal and live ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... The prodigal squandering of our mineral fuels proceeds unchecked in the face of the fact that such resources as these, once used or wasted, can never be replaced. If waste like this were not chiefly thoughtless, it might well be characterized as the deliberate ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... sing Many soft welcomes to the lusty spring. These are our musick: next, thy watry race Bring on in couples; we are pleas'd to grace This noble night, each in their richest things Your own deeps or the broken vessel brings; Be prodigal, and I shall be as kind, And shine at full ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... pretence of zeal to his Majesty's service have been so prodigal of their informations against me," and who desired "to lay the blame at one man's door (though more innocent than many others) rather than put it where it ought justly to lie." "Although," he proceeds, "I lay no claim of merit upon any of my endeavours for his Majesty's ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... and submit themselves as the vilest slaves to her will and pleasure? a plain proof that this love exceeds the love of self. Have there not been, and are there not still instances of men, who for such a woman, make light of wealth, yea of treasures presented in prospect, and are also prodigal of those which they possess? a plain proof that this love exceeds the love of the world. Have there not been, and are there not still, instances of men who for such a woman, account life itself as worthless, and desire to die rather ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... of M. le Vent et Mme. la Pluie, which latter has been translated. He was the devoted, unselfish friend and mentor of Alfred, to whose juniority and genius he extended an indulgence of which he needed no share for himself: in fact, he was the elder brother of the Prodigal in everything but want of generosity. A more amiable portrait cannot be imagined than the one to be drawn of him from the history of his intercourse with his brother and from Alfred's own letters and verses to him. This, however, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... came up to the house at Walcote, the windows from within were lighted up with friendly welcome; the supper-table was spread in the oak-parlor; it seemed as if forgiveness and love were awaiting the returning prodigal. Two or three familiar faces of domestics were on the look-out at the porch—the old housekeeper was there, and young Lockwood from Castlewood in my lord's livery of tawny and blue. His dear mistress pressed his arm as they passed into the hall. Her eyes beamed out on him with affection indescribable. ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... God's mercy in Christ that even you are welcome when you come; the gate stands open; the Redeemer from within is calling chief sinners in, He has pledged himself to cast no comer out because of his worthlessness. Nor does the freeness of his grace prove that the prodigal's sins are small; it proves only that the forgiving ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... if the plants were sufficiently protected against the encroaching weeds to enable them to overtop the latter, after which they were left to take care of themselves. Yet, notwithstanding all this negligence, prodigal Nature rendered a rich return. It has been said (with what truth we know not) that the weeds of a soil depend upon the race which cultivates it—they which spring from the sweat of an Indian being different from those which embarrass the toil of the white ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... sat down at the door. The sermon wass on the Prodigal Son, but there iss only one word I remember. 'You are not forgotten or cast off,' the preacher said; 'you are missed,' and then he will come back to it again, and it wass always 'missed, missed, missed.' Sometimes he will say, 'If you had a plant, and you had taken great care of it, and it ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... Untrodden, hark! the breezy carol comes Upwafted, with the chant of radiant birds.— What meadows, bathed in greenest light, and woods Gigantic, towering from the skiey hills, And od'rous trees in prodigal array, With all the elements divinely calm— Our fancy pictures on the infant globe! And ah! how godlike, with imperial brow Benignly grave, yon patriarchal forms Tread the free earth, and eye the naked heavens! In Nature's stamp of unassisted grace ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... big enough dose for one day,' he said. 'I can't stand any more.' He thrust the letter into his breast-pocket. 'Another impossibility. No prodigal's return to end that story. Veal was never a favourite meat of mine. Lord! I could laugh to see what a mess I have made of things. I could cry if anybody else had made it, and had meant as well, and ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Crepineau was thus prodigal of her praises, in front of No. 13, her lodger, as she called him, was in the third story of the house, and was shut up in his room engaged in the strangest manner. The studio had preserved nothing of its original destination but its name. Instead of pictures, plaster casts, statuettes, and manikins, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... don't object to receiving a little visit from a prodigal, wayward son. To tell the truth, I have found it convenient to leave the Ready Money Ranch for a while, although Bob Tyner is good enough to say I may have the place when I come back. You know I often think of you and Phrasie back in Ripton, and I long to see the dear old town ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... honesteco. Problem problemo. Proboscis rostro. Proceed procedi. Proceedings (law) proceso—ado. Proceeding procedo. Procession procesio. Process procedo, rimedo. Proclaim proklami. Procrastinate prokrasti. Procure havigi. Procuration konfidatisto. Prodigal malsxpara. Prodigality malsxparemo. Prodigious mireginda. Prodigy miregindajxo. Produce produkti. Produce produktajxo. Product produktajxo. Production produkto. Productive fruktoporta. Proem antauxdramo, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... He was taking it up by handfuls and throwing it upon the fire. Leonnatus reproved him for this extravagance, and told him that when he became master of the countries where these costly gums were procured, he might be as prodigal of them as he pleased, but that in the mean time it would be proper for him to be more prudent and economical. Alexander remembered this reproof, and, finding vast stores of these expensive gums in Gaza, he sent the whole ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Lightning of the hour, the pun, the scurrilous tale,— Old scandals buried now seven decads deep In other scandals that have lived and died, And left the living scandal that shall die— Were dead to him already; bent as he was To make disproof of scorn, and strong in hopes, And prodigal of all brain-labor he, Charier of sleep, and wine and exercise, Except when for a breathing-while at eve, Some niggard fraction of an hour, he ran Beside the river-bank: and then indeed Harder the times were, and the hands of power Were bloodier, and the according ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... beat, Full prodigal of heat, Full lavish of its lustre unrepressed; But we have drifted far From where his kisses are, And in this landward-lying shade we let ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... him. The morning after the committee meeting, Magnus had called Harran and Annie Derrick into the office, and, after telling his wife of Lyman's betrayal, had forbidden either of them to mention his name again. His attitude towards his prodigal son was that of stern, unrelenting resentment. But now, Presley could not fail to detect traces of a more deep-seated travail. Something was in the wind, the times were troublous. What next was about to happen? ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... said, some of the old bitterness creeping into her tone, "the prodigal of twelve years old who is rioting in Amboise—you see how he riots—should ask forgiveness," and as she spoke Stephen La Mothe, with a sudden sense of chill, remembered that other prodigal of twelve years old who was hung on the Valmy gallows that ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... and was entitled to go home and claim her own. She and Tom went first to a small village in Kent, where dwelt an old lady who for some time past had had her heart full to the very brim with gratitude because of a long-lost prodigal son having been brought back to her—saved by the blood of the Lamb. When at last she set her longing eyes on Tom, and heard his well-remembered voice say, "Mother!" the full heart overflowed and rushed down the wrinkled cheeks in floods of inexpressible joy. ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... and the ring of hoof and the laughter of youth and maid made every dusk resonant with joy. On Poplar Hill houses sprang up like magic and weddings came. The passing stranger was stunned to find out in the wilderness such a spot; gayety, prodigal hospitality, a police force of gentlemen—nearly all of whom were college graduates—and a club, where poker flourished in the smoke of Havana cigars, and a barrel of whiskey stood in one corner with a faucet waiting for the turn of any hand. And ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... to ruin must succeed, Fresh cities sink in flame, fresh thousands bleed! What want'st thou more, thou prodigal of guilt! Oppression's sword is buried to the hilt In unoffending blood—what want'st thou more, Thou sanguinary pest of an unhappy shore? Far as thy sight can stretch, look round, and see All Sweden piled with monuments of thee; Behold ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... written "The Prodigal Daughter," "The People of Our Parish," and "Orchids." Edna Thacher Russ, also of Wichita, writes short stories and ...
— Kansas Women in Literature • Nettie Garmer Barker
... earth, with angels ascending and descending upon it, and shed a light upon the lonely place, which can never pass away. The story of Ruth, again, is as if all the depth of natural affection in the human race was involved in her breast. There are descriptions in the book of Job more prodigal of imagery, more intense in passion, than anything in Homer; as that of the state of his prosperity, and of the vision that came upon him by night. The metaphors in the Old Testament are more boldly figurative. Things were collected more into masses, and gave ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... a difficulty in coming to definite conclusions respecting Jane's father. Of course he was prejudiced against the man, and though himself too little acquainted with the facts of the case to distinguish Joseph's motives, he felt that the middle-aged prodigal's return was anything but a fortunate event for Michael and his granddaughter. The secret marriage with Clem was not likely, in were not lacking grounds for hesitation in refusing to accept any case, to have a respectable significance. True, there Joseph's account of himself. ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... Diaz could trust them. The Mormons went to Mexico; there they are to-day in many a rich community, as freely polygamous as in the most wide-flung hour of Brigham Young. Diaz smiles as he reviews those prodigal crops of corn and cattle and children which they raise. They make his empire richer in men and money - commodities of which Mexico has sorely ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... dressed in silks or in flannel shirts, as the case might be, still gathered almost weekly in truly democratic comradeship—the egg-shells were no longer filled with gold-dust, as sometimes happened in the prodigal Spanish days; yet time was still regarded as a thing of so little value that no one thought of abandoning the pleasures of the dance until broad daylight. Along the narrow, crooked streets of the little town, with its precarious wooden sidewalks, the language of old Castile, spoken with ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... melancholy testimony of the futility of good counsel unaided by direction and example. He tells of his grief at seeing the evil case into which his son had fallen, vexed by poverty, disgrace, and loss of health, how he would gladly even now receive the prodigal into his house (he says nothing about the wife), did he not fear that such a step would lead to his own ruin rather than to his son's restoration. After showing that any fresh misfortune to himself must needs cut away the last ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... mother to come very often to Little Market Street and to become intimate with Robin. But when he saw her with Robin he was generally embarrassed, although she was obviously enchanted with that gentleman, for whose benefit she was amazingly prodigal of nods and becks and wreathed smiles. It was a pity, he thought, that his mother was at moments so apparently elaborate. He felt her elaboration the more when it was contrasted with the transparent simplicity of Rosamund. Even Robin, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... again; the old, old story of the Prodigal Son and how God's arms are always ready to take in a mother's lost boy. The room swam before Job's eyes. The crowds were flocking to the altar, the people were shouting, the boys were punching him and saying. "Yer dursn't go!" Heaven, hell, sin and Christ were very real to ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... decent thing to do as far as she was concerned, and also to hide his hurt and disappointment, which were deep. The rumour of lion was genuine and the excitement, extending far down the Nile, intense. In fact, with the aid of the Oriental's prodigal imagination the one royal beast of feminine persuasion which was reported as having been seen prowling around Deir el-Bahari had been multiplied to two pairs ravaging the ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... what such corrupting influences are; and perhaps you will tell us if you know of any one who, under my influence, has been changed from a religious into an irreligious man; who, from being sober-minded, has become prodigal; from being a moderate drinker has become a wine-bibber and a drunkard; from being a lover of healthy honest toil has become effeminate, or under the thrall of ...
— The Apology • Xenophon
... said monastery, and of certain other enormous crimes and excesses hereafter written. In the rule, custody, and administration of the goods, spiritual and temporal, of the said monastery, you are so remiss, so negligent, so prodigal, that whereas the said monastery was of old times founded and endowed by the pious devotion of illustrious princes of famous memory, heretofore kings of this land, the most noble progenitors of our most serene Lord ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... vapours, floating upon the wind; but by degrees the airy vision developed into forest-crowned mountains, deep shadowy gorges, and domes clothed with mists. Our minds were almost overwhelmed with a multitude of emotions, excited by the prodigal nature before us, the magnificent vegetation, and the various hues of forest and mountain, peak, crag, ravine, and snowy summits. It was beautiful, superbly beautiful, and then it was the Caucasus! The Caucasus—a name associated with so many grand historic memories, ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... good. Soon after Miss Hatchard's return, however, he came back to his old quarters in her house, and began to take a leading part in the planning of the festivities. He threw himself into the idea with extraordinary good-humour, and was so prodigal of sketches, and so inexhaustible in devices, that he gave an immediate impetus to the rather languid movement, and infected the whole village with ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... acts stop. Having obtained vast wealth, and women and all the enjoyments of this world, the man, without action is unable to enjoy them long, but the high-souled man, who is even diligent, is able to find riches buried deep in the Earth and watched over by the fates. The good man who is prodigal (in religious charities and sacrifices) is sought by the gods for his good conduct, the celestial world being better than the world of men, but the house of the miser though abounding in wealth is looked upon by the gods as the house ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... during his absence Mungold had reappeared, fresh and rosy from a summer in Europe, and as prodigal as ever of the only form of attention which Kate could be counted on not to resent. The game and champagne reappeared with him, and he seemed as ready as Stanwell to lend a patient ear to Caspar's homilies. But Stanwell could see that, even now, Kate had ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... Not Eastern bombast, not the savage rant Of purpled madmen, were they numbered all From Roman Nero down to Russian Paul, Could grate upon my ear so mean, so base, As the rank jargon of that factious race, Who, poor of heart and prodigal of words, Formed to be slaves, yet struggling to be lords, Strut forth, as patriots, from their negro-marts, And shout for rights, with rapine in their hearts. Who can, with patience, for a moment see The medley mass of pride and misery, Of whips and charters, manacles and rights, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... and simplicity of surroundings," Mr. David Brunger in the office chair would tell a client in the armchair. "For myself—" and he would waggle his head towards the side walls with an air that seemed to imply prodigal luxury in the fittings of "(Clerks)" ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson |
