"Sinecure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is now better, and I ride about again. My office here is no sinecure, so many parties and difficulties of every kind; but I will do what I can. Prince Mavrocordato is an excellent person, and does all in his power; but his situation is perplexing in the extreme. Still we have ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... wonder at a girl of your knowledge and talent asking a question like that! Is there a scoundrel in Gloria who is not his enemy? Is there a man who has succeeded in getting any sinecure office from the State who doesn't know that the moment Ericson comes back to Gloria out he goes, neck and crop? Is there a corrupt judge in Gloria who wouldn't, if he could, sentence Ericson to be shot the moment he landed on the ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... will stoop from your solitary splendour and say to the devoted beggarman, 'Allow me to offer you the post of King Consort; it is a mere sinecure, and confers only the semblance and not the reality of power; but I hope you will accept it, as I have nothing better to give you, and if you are submissive and obedient I will make you as comfortable as I can under ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... taste for botany. Although the constantly renewed cries for some not clearly defined system of public support for men of letters are, as a rule, absurd, there is no doubt that Mr Arnold was the very man for a sinecure, and would have justified the existence of Pipe or Hanaper to all reasonable men. But his political friends had done away with nearly all such things, and no one of the very few that remained fell to his lot. His father had died in 1842, but the son ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... out. The presidency of the Salamander, involving as it did occasional interviews of a nature similar to this with Mr. Murch, was no sinecure. Mr. Wellwood frequently debated whether it would not be better to listen to the siren voices of the agricultural weeklies with their alluring refrain of "back to the soil"; but the facilities for his favorite ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... number. As it was, he had got through twice, and also dropped a goal. The two were now having a late tea with Allardyce in his study. Allardyce had succeeded Trevor as Captain of Football at Wrykyn, and had found the post anything but a sinecure. ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... some cure or sinecure; To feed from the superfluous taxes A friend of ours—a poet—fewer 660 Have fluttered tamer to the lure Than he.' His lordship ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... consideration of the easiest methods of dealing with problems as they presented themselves from time to time, though not always with success, and his first perusal of the list of tenants handed him by Whimple showed him that the job of rent collecting would be no sinecure. He knew his own district very well; the work and conditions, the family life, and many other details of a more or less intimate nature, were matters of knowledge to him. He read the list over again as he turned down a street to make his first call, and then passed ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... again; as clean as everything else in that wonderful house-place, where the only chance of collecting a few grains of dust would be to climb on the salt-coffer, and put your finger on the high mantel shelf on which the glittering brass candlesticks are enjoying their summer sinecure; for at this time of year, of course, every one goes to bed while it is yet light, or at least light enough to discern the outline of objects after you have bruised your shins against them. Surely nowhere else could an oak clock-case ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... in ink and poor in will, has ended by capitulating entirely, and has settled down into a sinecure, like any other commonplace man. After lending his pen to all disorganizing efforts, he now lives in peace under the protecting shade of a ministerial organ. The cross of the Legion of honor, formerly the fruitful ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... description of Nature as she appears on the broad sweeps of the Scottish moors, combined with its novelty, gave it great success, and Thomson went on to write also of Summer, Spring and Autumn, publishing the whole work as 'The Seasons' in 1730. He was rewarded by the gift of sinecure offices from the government and did some further writing, including, probably, the patriotic lyric, 'Rule, Britannia,' and also pseudo-classical tragedies; but his only other poem of much importance is 'The Castle of Indolence' (a subject appropriate ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... again to his political scheme, but not until he had made another military appointment from which at the moment no one could have guessed that trouble would ever come. He gave to Burnside what might be called the sinecure position of Commander of the Department of the ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... to the sea-shore. A supply of fresh water would be constantly required; ice for this purpose must be perpetually carried in from the coast, and it would be necessary to arrange that everyone in turn should perform this office, as it would be no sinecure to clamber up the sides of the crater for 900 feet, and descend the same distance with ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... of girl and women workers in this great metropolis is, indeed, a vast one, and work for them is no sinecure. If they cannot work so thoroughly or efficiently as men, at least it is for them greater toil than for the sterner sex. Of a more delicate organisation, of less robust frame, of smaller powers of endurance, the "buffets of fortune" meet with less resistance, and are more readily yielded ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... immediately pushed on to Orizaba (April 19), where he arrived (April 20) just as General Prim, with the Spanish contingent (and the newspaper staff which, gossip related, had traveled in his suite to herald his exploits—truly a sinecure!), were leaving by the same garita on their way to the coast. General Zaragoza, with the Liberal army, retreated from the city by one gate as the French entered by the other, with all the bells of the city ringing in token of ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... and became a supporter of government when the profusion of ministers had greatly increased, and their crimes multiplied beyond example. At such a critical moment, I will suppose this gentleman to be corrupted by a great sinecure office to muzzle his declamation, to swallow his invective, to give his assent and vote to the ministers, and to become a supporter of government, its measures, its embargo, and its American war. I will suppose, that with respect to the Constitution of his country that part, for instance, which ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... secretary, and the place was no sinecure. Besides manuscripts and letters which his master signed, Pilorge copied everything. The illustrious author, attentive to the demands of posterity, preserved with religious care copies of his most trifling notes. The tragedy which Chateaubriand read from with pomp and emphasis ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... disinclination that Prince Peter Karagjorgjevi['c] was induced to accept the by no means enviable, easy, or profitable task of guiding Serbia's destiny. The Serbian throne in 1903 was a source neither of glory nor of riches, and it was notoriously no sinecure. ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... from January 1770 to March 1782. When his health, which was very delicate, permitted, he went to Eton, and afterwards became a student of Christ Church, Oxford. He was created D.C.L. in 1793, and received the same degree by diploma in 1819. In 1779, through his father's interest, he obtained the sinecure of one of the Chamberlains of the Tally Court of the Exchequer, and in 1794 he was appointed to the Comptrollership of the Customs of the Port of London, when he resigned the representation of the family borough of Banbury, to which he had succeeded when ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... publishers. It was eagerly caught up and sold rapidly. In the midst of his success he went to the minister and demanded employment, naming his father as reference! This bold application was successful, and he had a sinecure given him, as a kind of inspector ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... therefore made responsible for its fidelity and efficiency, and exercising a supervision over all the departments of the city government, to promote economy and to lessen taxation, Mayor Buhrer has found his office to be no sinecure. Among the distinguishing traits of his official conduct has been his impartiality, his exemption from favoritism and partizanship, when in conflict with the public interests, and especially his well-known hostility to "cliques" and "rings," such as resort ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... himself out in the sunshine, intrusted with the sinecure of checking up barrow-loads of dirt which convicts wheeled past him where he sat in an armchair provided by the warden from his office, the prisoner perceived that the Wagg policies ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... exist for the sole purpose of taxing the king's gifts of plate? Its object falls naturally within the chamberlain's province, and ought to be under his care and inspection without any fee. Why should an office of the robes exist, when that of groom, of the stole is a sinecure, and that this is a proper object ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... instantly into touch with some of the few better and rarer memories round which the selfishness of life is always building a thicker crust. For one thing, at that moment I was deeply grateful—that I knew my friends. My task was made a sinecure. ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... into power, the appointment of librarian to the king at the chateau de Choisy, where she built him, at her own expense, a little cottage ornee, named by the poets of the time, the Parnassus of the French Anacreon. This appointment was a complete sinecure, for we know that the king never opened a book, and we are equally assured that Bernard never put his foot inside ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... I feel ashamed to accept your money for such a sinecure as this. I will tell the story to my friend Lupin. He will enjoy ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... ready and waiting to drop like a ripe plum into his mouth, without his asking me! Am I ready, indeed? And suppose I am not? Perhaps I, too, may have my misgivings. A woman's place is not a sinecure. Troubles, annoyances, as the sparks fly upward! Buttons to begin with, and everything to end with! What did Mrs. Hemans say, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his residence in London. In the preceding generation a writer of eminent merit was sure to be munificently rewarded by the government. The least that he could expect was a pension or a sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitude for politics, he might hope to be a member of parliament, a lord of the treasury, an ambassador, a secretary of state. It would be easy, on the other hand, to name several writers of the nineteenth century of whom the least successful has received forty ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... judgment, for an officer commanding a partisan corps like your own; but which, if general, would in a very short time put an end to all military combinations, and render the office of a commander-in-chief a sinecure. ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... the world; and, to do it properly, would require the almost undivided attention of a man in the vigour of youth. Nor would a superintendent of the Nautical Almanac, if he made a point of being acquainted with every thing connected with his subject, find his situation at all a sinecure. Slight as are the duties of the Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, it might have been supposed that Mr. Brande would scarcely, amongst his multifarious avocations, have found time even for them. But it may be a consolation to him to know, that from the progress the Society ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... soon as any of the wreckage was reported in sight; the remainder of the hands being directed to place themselves under the orders of the carpenter until their services should be required to relieve the look-out men at the end of their watch. The duty of these latter, however, was for some time a sinecure, as the breakers were still breaking angrily against the cliffs and keeping up the hoarse diapason in which they expressed their impotent rage; while the wind, though blowing with less force than during the night time, was yet strong enough to sweep off the tops of ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... comprehension. As with the royal invitation that is a command, only death positive or threatening could excuse non-attendance; and though his friendship was in truth a liberal education, the position of even the humblest confidant was no sinecure, for the plans he loved to describe and discuss were not confined to that day and season, but were long, daring looks ahead; great coups for the distant, ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... seated in the breakfast-room at her usual employment, mending and patching no sinecure now. Fleda opened the kitchen door and came in, folding up a calico apron ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... self-defence the orator wound up by declaring himself the guardian of his own honour. "What a sinecure!" murmured his opponent. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Europe. The subject of the causes was frequently very trivial, yet the patience of the sovereign was by no means exhausted. I thought, in general, that the pleaders were satisfied with the Bey's decision. One sees, by this, that the Bey's place is no sinecure; and I am told that few monarchs in Christian countries have so much personally to do. The Bey sits every day in the court, from eight in summer, and from nine in winter, till mid-day; and illness, or absence from town, is his only excuse for non-attendance. His other governmental ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... and never shrinking from absurd conclusions. In theory he aimed at disorganising the whole of human society, yet in actual life he was content to live unobtrusively, publishing harmless books for children; and though he abhorred the principle of aristocracy, he did not scruple to accept a sinecure from government through Lord Grey. Notwithstanding his stolid inconsistency and his deficiency in humour, Godwin is a figure whom it is impossible to ignore or to despise. He was not a frothy orator ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... would be highly gratifying to us who have thrown aside our former occupations and the prospects that were fair for increasing our fortunes, with a view of serving our country, and who have no desire of being mere sinecure officers if we could at this moment embark and obey the commands of our country, in going in pursuit of a barbarous enemy, who now holds in chains and slavery so many of our unfortunate fellow-citizens; the relieving and restoring ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... the new Hospital at Marlborough was filled to its utmost capacity and Evadne found her work no sinecure. The force of nurses was inadequate to the demand. Often she would be called from her rest to minister to the critical cases which were her special care, and she would go down to the ward saying softly, "The ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... by granting the valuable sinecure office of clerk of the pells to Barre in exchange for the pension secured to him by the whigs. His private means were only L300 a year, and, as such matters were then regarded, he might have taken the office himself without scandal; but uncertain as his position seemed to be, he preferred saving ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... certain passages of Faust, part II, Eduard von Hartmann's "Philosophy of the Unconscious," and Lermontoff's "Hero of our Times," I am convinced that to love a man very good-looking, or, on the contrary, a perfect horror, is no sinecure. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... Swamp was no sinecure. He had only about 100 men to withstand Leslie, whose forces at Portsmouth amounted to nearly 1,000 men. His troops were poorly equipped, half naked, and ill-fed; and his situation seemed almost desperate. To add to his troubles, an attempt was made at this time by Colonel Blount, of the Edenton ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... several times known a young woman of two-and-twenty, with a child in her hood, walk twelve miles to the ships and back again the same day, for the sake of a little bread-dust and a tin canister. When stationary in the winter, they have really almost a sinecure of it, sitting quietly in their huts, and having little or no employment for the greater part of the day. In short, there are few, if any people, in this state of society among whom the women are so well off. They always sit upon the beds with ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... as President of Chile was no sinecure. He had not only to attend to the organization of the new State, but also to employ to the utmost his judgment, tact, and diplomacy, with which qualities he was so well endowed, in allaying the disputes and jealousies between the patriot leaders. There is no doubt, for instance, that ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... of the Governor, or Voivoda, to give him his proper Montenegrin title, corresponding to our word Duke, is therefore no sinecure. His position calls for more diplomacy and acumen than any other in the country. A false move, a thoughtless action or word could plunge the tribes of Northern Albania and Montenegro in a fierce warfare. But a few weeks after our departure, war very nearly did break out at Mokra, over ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... administration, be sure he will mention the affair of the railway station which was built too far from the town, and this of the Sidi Mansur water. And who, you ask, was to blame for these follies? Oh, the controlleur, as usual; always the controlleur! It is no sinecure being an official of this kind in Tunisia, with precise Government instructions in one pocket, and in the other his countrymen's contrary lamentations and suggestions, ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... much business and excitement set in, and the lengthening spring evenings were no sinecure to Wilmet, as the flitting day approached, being rather hurried on by the old bookseller, who wanted to be at Marshlands in time to admire his hyacinths and sow his annuals. Mr. Audley would take rooms at the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her creator christened her) would have had a no more responsible duty, except for the size of it, than that of an electrician or a Standard Oil magnate. But to "enlighten" the world (as our learned civic guardians "Englished" it) requires abler qualities. And so poor Liberty, instead of having a sinecure as a mere illuminator, must be converted into a Chautauqua schoolma'am, with the oceans for her field instead of the placid, classic lake. With a fireless torch and an empty head must she dispel the shadows of the world and teach it its ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... finished your Dictionary, I suppose you will labour your present work con amore for your reputation." "No Sir," said Johnson, "nothing excites a man to write but necessity."' Walpole then relates the anecdote of the clergyman, and speaks of Johnson as 'the mercenary.' Walpole's sinecure offices thirty-nine years before this time brought him in 'near, L2000 a year.' In 1782 he wrote that his office of Usher of the Exchequer was worth L1800 a year. Letters, i. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... peko. Sin peki. Sinapis sinapo. Sinapism sinapa kataplasmo. Since (conjunction) tial ke, cxar. Since then de tiu tempo. Since (adv.) antaux ne longe. Sincere sincera. Sincerity sincereco. Sinecure senlaborofico. Sinew tendeno. Sinful pekema. Sing kanti. Singing (the art) kantarto. Single (alone) sola. Single unuobla. Singe bruleti, flameti. Singular (gram.) ununombro. Singular stranga. Sinciput verto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... mill, we come to the churchyard of Slinfold, a little quiet village with a church of almost suburban solidity and complete want of Sussex feeling. James Dallaway, the historian of Western Sussex, was rector here from 1803 to 1834. He lived, however, at Leatherhead, Slinfold being a sinecure. A Slinfold epitaph on an infant views bereavement with more philosophy than is usual: in conclusion calling upon Patience ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... head of affairs. Pope's new friends seem to have treated him with a deference which he had never experienced before, and which bound him to them in unbroken affection. Harley used to regret that Pope's religion rendered him legally incapable of holding a sinecure office in the government, such as was frequently bestowed in those days upon men of letters, and Swift jestingly offered the young poet twenty guineas to become a Protestant. But now, as later, Pope was firmly resolved not to abandon the faith of his parents ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... to look at him no one would think that he was in any way a strong man. He is small, thin, and worn looking—in fact, almost insignificant in appearance, were it not for his keen eye and a certain lofty expression of face. My post is no sinecure, I can assure you, for the general expects all to be able to do as well as himself. But with a chief who never spares himself all are willing to do their best. Extreme as has been the labor of the troops, ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... they are at least a year old; and he parted with his last footboy because he one day discovered a perceptible difference between the polish of the right and left foot. In winter, he wears and recommends cork soles. His toilet is no sinecure; and on the table are always to be found, besides his dressing-box, which contains an assortment of combs, scissors, tweezers, pomades, and essences, not easily equalled, a bottle of "Eau de Cologne, veritable," a Packwood and Criterion strop; a case of gold-mounted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... the fashionable infidels of the Continent, similar to those enacted by Wilkes in his infamous monkery. But every thing in his career equally exhibits the times. At an age when he was fit for nothing else, he was considered fit to receive the salary of a sinecure; and, at twenty-one, he was appointed to a brace of offices at the mint. His share of the duty consisted of his enjoying the weekly dinners of the establishment, and signing the receipts for his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... work in the Middle Ages includes far more than the account of what her needle accomplished. The position of the mistress of a family in those centuries was no sinecure. When we look up at castles perched on rocks, or walk through the echoing apartments of baronial halls, we know that woman must have worked there with brain and fingers. The household and its dependencies, in such mansions, consisted of more than a score of persons, and provisions must be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... And as he was precise and conscientious in all the steps of his own blameless course, he looked for the same precision and an even greater gravity in the bearing of his deity, my father. It was no sinecure to be Coolin's idol: he was exacting like a rigid parent; and at every sign of levity in the man whom he respected, he announced loudly the death of virtue and the proximate fall of ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had planted a signal staff upon its parapet to angle upon; being then engaged, as chief of a hydrographic surveying party, in surveying the approaches to Boston Harbor. Then its garrison consisted of a superannuated sergeant whose office was a sinecure; now it held an armed garrison, who drilled and paraded every day, with all the "pomp and circumstance" of war, to the patriotic tune of "John Brown's body lies a-moulding in the grave, but his spirit is marching on;" and it was crowded with southern ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... Roberts allowed no games at cards or dice to be played for money, as he strongly disapproved of gambling. He was a strict Sabbatarian, and allowed the musicians to have a rest on the seventh day. This was as well, for the post of musician on a pirate ship was no sinecure, as every pirate had the right to demand a tune at any hour of the day or night. He used to place a guard to protect all his women prisoners, and it is sadly suspicious that there was always the greatest competition amongst the worst characters in the ship ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... employed to drive tenants for rent; that is, to drive the cattle belonging to tenants to pound. The office of driver is by no means a sinecure. ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... such consideration, after treating Jones so badly, leaving him at a moment's notice. It's really great nonsense, if you come to think of it. He wants her services, and I do not; but because she gets into a rage about nothing he must find her a comfortable sinecure. What am I to do with a lady-clerk? I don't want one ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... blockhead instead of a dead saint, could withstand the temptation of bouncing from L100 a year at Sligo, to L300 in Tipperary? This is the miserable sum of money for which the merchants and landowners and nobility of England are exposing themselves to the tremendous peril of losing Ireland. The sinecure places of the Roses and the Percevals, and the 'dear and near relations,' put up to auction at thirty years' purchase, would almost amount to ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... time of dessert, I can give no consecutive account, for as footman, under the orders of this enthusiastic parlour-maid, my place was no sinecure, and but few opportunities of observation through the crack of the door were afforded me. All that was clear to me was that the chief guest was a Mr. Teidelmann—or Tiedelmann, I cannot now remember which—a snuffy, mumbling old frump, with whose name then, however, ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... intolerable to me, I find myself at the age of 41 so out of touch with the spirit of strenuous effort which has invaded every corner of our national life that I am anxious to confer on the State or, failing that, some meritorious millionaire the privilege of providing for my modest needs. A snug sinecure with a commodious residence and a good car—cheap American motors are of course barred—represent the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... into a premature grave, needed a firm hand. Indeed, they generally needed not only a firm hand, but a firm hand grasping a serviceable walking-stick. Add to these Harrison himself, and others of a similar calibre, and it will be seen that Graham's post was no sinecure. It was Harrison's custom to throw off his mask at night with his other garments, and appear in his true character of an abandoned villain, willing to stick at nothing as long as he could do it strictly incog. In this capacity he had come into constant contact ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... it was rare indeed that there were any complaints of scarcity of work, except, indeed, on the part of the Rector, who declared that, what with the healthiness of the village and the absence of want, his occupation, save for the Sunday duty, was a sinecure. Mr. Bastow was more happy and much brighter than he had been for many years. The occupation of teaching suited him, and he was able to make the work pleasant to his pupil as well as to himself; indeed, it occupied ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... out that afternoon; for she had been on her feet all day, busied in her loving cares to make our simple home as pleasant and as welcome as home could be. But yet she stopped to dress us in our Sunday clothes,—and it was no sinecure to dress three persistently undressable children; Winthrop was a host in himself. "Auntie must see us look ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... whom she was somewhat lacking in Reverence." But it is droll enough to fancy the scene—the pretty schoolgirl gravely rebuking her delinquent master for the too great partiality her own bright eyes had won for her. Poor man! His was no sinecure. To hold rule over a parcel of unruly girls, with the graces of one so tugging at his heartstrings! His path might at least have been spared the thorn of having his fault denounced by the very voice ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... she seemed more than ever severe and hard; yet probably there never was a time when every pulse of her heart was beating more warmly for the child, and every thought of the future was more entirely regulated with reference to her welfare. It is no sinecure to have the entire devotion of a strong, enterprising, self-willed friend, as Agnes had all her life found. One cannot gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, and the affection of thorny and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... labor of an eight-room dwelling proved a little too much for him, he urbanely said so. Thereupon, at Fyfe's suggestion, he imported a fellow countryman, another bland, silent-footed model of efficiency in personal service. Thereafter Stella's task of supervision proved a sinecure. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... a little man, and spirited, who had hung on at his post during the German occupation, and done his best to protect his fellow-townsmen against the lust and rapine of the Huns. Under such circumstances the office of municipal magistrate is no sinecure. It is, in fact, a position of deadly peril, for by the doctrine of vicarious punishment, peculiar to the German Staff, an innocent man is held liable with his life for the faults of his fellow-townsmen, and, it may ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... very hard on Rachel that Fanny giggled like a school-girl, and even though ashamed of herself and her sons, could not find voice to scold them respectably. No wonder, after such encouragement, that Rachel found her mission no sinecure, and felt at the end of her morning's work much as if she had been driving pigs to market, though the repetition was imposing on the boys a sort of sense of fate and obedience, and there was less active resistance, though learning it was not, only letting teaching be thrown at them. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tried it in modern times say that to be a gentleman is no sinecure, and the well-bred author falls in with this sentiment, though still regarding it as a ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... hay has gone to the devil already," he muttered, "and he'll have the wheat too! The whole shoot has gone to the deuce!" For the innkeeper of the csarda does not live by only doling out wine, but is a bit of a farmer besides, and his business is no sinecure. ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... ambassador; an uncle was raised per saltum from cure to bishop. The Duchesse's widowed aunt was made happy by a pension of six thousand livres a year; and her son-in-law, de Guiche, in addition to his dukedom, was rewarded further for his fortunate nuptials by valuable sinecure ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... to enjoy a laugh at Malcolm's expense. But when the mare was brought out, and he was going to mount her where she stood, something seemed to wake in the marquis's heart, or conscience, or wherever the pigmy Duty slept that occupied the all but sinecure of his moral economy: he looked at Malcolm for a moment, then at the ears of the mare hugging her neck, and last at the stones of the ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... sinecure. Dade and Malcolm, and even Bob, assisted in it—Malcolm and Bob attending to the heating of the branding irons while Calumet roped the steers and dragged them to the fire where Dade pressed the white-hot irons to their hips. ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the lives of the Tahitian shepherds in the Anti-Jacobin—the shepherds whose occupation was a sinecure, as there were no sheep ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... sinecure or a curacy), or the administration of any hospital or a sacristy or churchwardenship, or the stewardship of a hospital, or any other benefice or ecclesiastical office, shall become vacant, or when it has to be filled for the first time: the prelate shall order a written proclamation to be posted ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... the scene of my first campaign. There is the pass opposite Kalabagh and the Thul valley, where I was engaged during the summer of 1841 in protecting the convoys and keeping the Afridis in order. It wasn't a sinecure, I promise you." ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that the dreadful power which clothed itself with darkness had not expired, but was only reposing from its labors, all at once the chief jailer of the city was missing. He had been in the habit of taking long rides in the forest, his present situation being much of a sinecure. It was on the first of July that he was missed. In riding through the city gates that morning, he had mentioned the direction which he meant to pursue; and the last time he was seen alive was in one of the forest avenues, about eight miles from the city, leading ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... was in the annual receipt of forty-three pounds, out of which he had to pay me, but with the aid of a little simony, this was easily avoided, and as I took no fees, I can hardly call it a lucrative appointment, and certainly not a sinecure. ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... under the roof once more, agreed so perfectly well with him ever after, that he even protected him against the insults of other dogs (a task which the quarrelsomeness of the little terrier rendered no sinecure), and, if he but heard Gilpin's voice in distress, would ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... the best portion of the day, he would find his fingers so completely dead, that he could not hold his pen. But there is no situation, under any of the powers that be, that has not some drawback. People may say that a sinecure is one that has not its disadvantages; but such is not the case—there is the disgrace of holding it. At all events, Joey's place was no sinecure, for he was up early, and was employed ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... and on, down and down. He begins to confide all his maudlin woes to Evan, and that young man is ever ready with sympathy and advice that is not calculated to make Jasper Lamotte's position, as bear trainer, a sinecure. ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... position for a man just promoted to the proud position of Corporal. As they rolled me about and yelled like Indians, I could see that an official position in that regiment was to be no sinecure. All official positions have more or less care and responsibility, but this one seemed to me to have too much. Finally they spilled me out of the barrel, and I was a sight to behold. My first idea was to order the whole two hundred fellows under arrest, and have them court-martialed ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... that I never touch cheese, or hare, or rabbit, or eel, and I would have to be in the last stage of starvation before I could eat cold lamb or cold veal; so it will be seen by these confessions that my cook's berth is not a sinecure, and that these complimentary dinners, as dinners, are to a great extent wasted upon me. I once, in fact, was asked to a dinner at a club, and I could not touch one single dish! But my friends kindly provided ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... congregation in the city of New York has no sinecure. The sermons to be written, the parochial visiting, once a year, at least, to each family, and weekly or daily to the sick and afflicted, my walks commonly extended to from four to seven miles a day, the calls of the poor and distressed, laboring ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... weeks before the details of their proposals were made public. The measure received warm support from Canning, who a month earlier had resigned the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, and was now for the time merely on the India Board of Control, with a sinecure superadded. The sensitive young Irishman had found it impossible to work with the cold and austere Grenville; and his place was taken for a time by his coadjutor on the "Anti-Jacobin," Hookham Frere, to whom the Grenville yoke proved scarcely ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... 'he tumbled on a sinecure. Since your mind runs on him and you want to sleep, make it out that he was a bishop, and ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the cemetery may be called a concierge who has reached the condition of a functionary, not soluble by dissolution! His place is far from being a sinecure. He does not allow any one to be buried without a permit; he must count his dead. He points out to you in this vast field the six feet square of earth where you will one day put all you love, or all ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... hinder the Church's work; but if in a friendly spirit and with words of wisdom he is always ready to meet the Rector and consult as to the advisability of this or that particular course of action, the office becomes neither a surplusage nor a sinecure. There is nothing worse in a parish than either clerical or lay clan-ship. Isolation is good neither for the one nor the other. The interests of both are the same, and surely their hands should be joined together for common action in the ...
— Churchwardens' Manual - their duties, powers, rights, and privilages • George Henry
... he had served under Charles X, as a matter of fact exercised no burdensome supervision over the commune which was all bare rocks and waste lands. A sub-prefect who patronized him had created for him the sinecure where he devoured in peace ...
— The Fete At Coqueville - 1907 • Emile Zola
... know. And even if his health does give out, his college pals will always find him some sort of sinecure. So jolly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... odd man, is the only male servant, then, whatever his ostensible position, he is required to make himself generally useful. He has to clean the knives and shoes, the furniture, the plate; answer the visitors who call, the drawing-room and parlour bells; and do all the errands. His life is no sinecure; and a methodical arrangement of his time will be necessary, in order to perform his many duties with any satisfaction to himself ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... readiness to leap upward at any suspicion that her duties were not worth the payment made for them and that for any reason which might include Lord Coombe she was occupying a position which was a sinecure. She kept her serious little room in order herself, dusting and almost polishing the reference books, arranging and re-arranging the files with such exactness of system that she could—as is the vaunt of the ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the energetic admiral, no sinecure. He was kept constantly moving from one point to the other, to see that all was going on well, and to report the progress made. The work never ceased, night or day, and for the first week neither Francis, nor his commander, ever ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... holds down this job don't earn his salt, Jose. It's what they call a sinecure," Alan was saying at the very instant ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Justice, if he would have sanctioned a job for Villiers, the new royal favourite. George Villiers, a young man of twenty-four, since the fall of the Earl of Somerset had centralised all power and patronage in his own hands. The chief clerkship in the Court of King's Bench, a sinecure worth L4,000 a year, was falling vacant, and Villiers wished to have the disposal of it. The office was in the gift of Coke, and, when Bacon asked that its gift should be placed in the hands of Villiers, Coke flatly refused and thus offended the most powerful ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... in abundance if we cared to have them. What other universities do by founding new chairs for new sciences, the colleges of Oxford could do to-morrow by applying the funds which are not required for teaching purposes, and which are now spent on sinecure fellowships, for making either temporary or permanent provision for the endowment of ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... that Prince of good fellows, Sir WALTER RALEIGH. The aged Knight is always up to some of his nonsense!" After playing a game of quoits with Lord BALMARINO and the Tower Headsman (whose office is a well-paid sinecure), I returned to Newgate, greatly pleased with my morning's promenade. In the afternoon, entertained the Governor at dinner, who declared that he could never get so good a meal in his own quarters. "Strap me, no!" I exclaimed: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... the mess cabin as Ah Sing rang the bell, and during the meal Mart revised his opinion of the mate to some extent. He saw that Swanson did not like him because he considered the wireless job a sinecure, and wanted to keep all the crew hard at work all the time. It was the usage of the sea, and the big mate himself was blunt and well-meaning. But Mart Judson had no mind to be ordered about by anyone, and he determined that if Swanson ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... province by a deputy-governor. His position was indeed no sinecure. The two proprietaries, who appointed him, could at any time deprive him of office. The Assembly could refuse to vote his salary, and if he displeased the king of England, he might lose, not only ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... leave it. They often look out from their perches upon wandering flocks of vagrant rooks, but are never tempted to new adventures. The old fellow is very wise. Like a fat old office-holder, he knows enough to appreciate a sinecure in which the rewards are liberal and the service nominal. His devoted follower never falters in his dutiful ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... of Cambridge, Eng., is examined by the Dean and the Head Lecturer. "The Dean is the presiding officer in chapel, and the only one whose presence there is indispensable. He oversees the markers' lists, pulls up the absentees, and receives their excuses. This office is no sinecure in a large college." At Oxford "the discipline of a college is administered by its head, and by an officer usually called Dean, though, in some colleges, known by other names."—Bristed's Five Years ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... of the best Malaga; and though it has been usual to catch a mouse or two, for form's sake, in public once a year, yet to you, sir, we shall not stand on these things,' I cannot say I should jump at it; nay, if they would drop the very name of the office, and call me Sinecure to the King's Majesty, I should feel a little awkward, and think everybody I saw smelt a rat about me; but I do not pretend to blame any one else that has not the same sensations; for my part, I would rather be serjeant trumpeter or pinmaker to the ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... our oldest sister and tea-maker general. She had no sinecure office of it; but, in spite often of the most remarkable demands, she dispensed the beverage with the most perfect justice and good humour. Not unsatisfactory were the visits paid to the sideboard, covered as it was with brawn, and ham, and tongue, and a piece of ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... absence made my position a sinecure, I thought I would try to make some little use of my time; so I took some books and a sword to a little room which I hired at the corner of the Rue St. Antoine, from whence I could see ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... practitioner with a scattered "panel" connection, had but recently entered the Navy as a surgical probationer R.N.V.R. He joined purely through patriotic motives, having sacrificed a fairly substantial income in order to do so. Up to the present his work had been almost a sinecure. The Yealm had not had the faintest chance of taking part in an engagement. Her crew—to use Fanshawe's own words—were "that beastly healthy, don't you know", that, out of sheer anxiety to do something, he was learning ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... an ideal post for him, still it had the patent advantage of being practically a sinecure. He and his wife seem to have been able to get away almost at any time. They sometimes travelled together, but often went in different directions, and as Burton was as restless as a hyena, he never stayed in any one place many hours. Occasionally they met unexpectedly. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... for you to do, and as far as I am concerned your duties will be a sinecure until the day we arrive in Chili. Katherine, you must take this young ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... said the Goblin; "it's YOUR function to feel sorry for them. If they were to leave off being poor you couldn't fulfil your functions. You'd be a sinecure." ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... parson he rides with a jingling pouch, How it blabs of the rifled poor! The courtier he lolls in his gilded coach, —How it smacks of a sinecure! ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... your lordship's first actions upon record, consists in the high professions you made at the county meeting of Buckingham, in that ever-venerable aera of oeconomy and reform, the spring of 1780. My lord, there are certain offices of sinecure, not dependent upon the caprice of a minister, which this country has reserved to reward those illustrious statesmen, who have spent their lives, and worn out their constitutions in her service. No man will wonder, when he recollects from whom your lordship has the honour ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... debate, he put his hand on his heart, saying, "I am the trusty guardian of my own honour."—"Then," replied Sir Boyle Roche, "I congratulate my honourable friend in the snug little sinecure to which ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... very bits were gilt. [Note 2.] Ten strong men in the royal livery walked, five on each side of the char; and their office, which was to keep it upright in the miry tracks—roads they were not—was by no means a sinecure. ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... for a majority. Wouldn't Dilworthy open his eyes if he . . . knew some of the things Balloon did say to me. There . . . Hopperson's influence ought to count twenty . . . the sanctimonious old curmudgeon. Son-in-law . . . sinecure in the negro institution. . . . That about gauges him . . . The three committeemen . . . sons-in-law. Nothing like a son-in-law here in Washington or a brother- in-law . . . And everybody has 'em . . . Let's see: . . . sixty- one . . . with places . . . twenty-five ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... is an easy task for any one in good physical condition and accustomed to gymnastic work. Two Bedouins assist you from the front while an ancient Sheik is supposed to help push you from the rear. In my case the Bedouins had a very easy job, while the Sheik enjoyed a sinecure. The stones are about a yard high, and the only difficulty of the ascent lies in the straddle which must be made to cover these stones. The ascent is made on the northeast corner of the pyramid, and much help is gained by inequalities in the great ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... precisely in this state. He condemned political institutions worked for the benefit of a class, and leading, especially in legal matters, to endless abuses and chicanery. The abuses everywhere imply 'inequality' in some sense; for they arise from monopoly. The man who holds a sinecure, or enjoys a privilege, uses it for his own private interest. The 'matter of corruption,' as Bentham called it, was provided by the privilege and the sinecure. The Jacobin might denounce privileges simply as privileges, and Bentham denounce them ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... the functions of milliner and dressmaker, encouraged thereto by the family for her unerring taste and skill. Her salary, however, had been proportionately increased, and it did not decline when her office as governess became practically a sinecure as her pupils passed beyond the sphere of the schoolroom. Perhaps George Osgood, father of John Osgood, and owner of Wandenong, did not make an allowance to Barbara Golding for her services as counsellor and confidant ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... go to for advice in every doubt and perplexity, and with a dozen or more of well-trained servants at her command, her post, though no sinecure, did not burden her with its duties; she still could find time for the cultivation of mind and heart, for daily walks and rides, and the enjoyment of society both at ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... Committee was no sinecure. Coveted Saturday afternoon and evening leisure had to be given up to the stitching of long seams. Mathilde LeBrun, who was another Josephine in that her brain seemed to be in her fingers, was convener of ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... and characteristic. Always the "stunt" involved a lot of pretty girls and often it demanded the services of the mayor. I shall regret to the end of my days that I did not keep a scrapbook devoted to Mayor Rolph's activities. For being mayor of San Francisco is no sinecure. But as most of his public duties seemed to involve floods of pretty girls—well, if I were a man it would be my ambition to be mayor of San Francisco for the rest of ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... to say, further, gentlemen," he concluded. "It is no sinecure to hold public office and administer a public trust and I am moved to protest most earnestly against the public tendency to discredit politics and the men who are devoting their energies—frequently ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Lords of their Circumlocution Office, they took it as a piece of news with which they had no nearer concern than with any other piece of news—any other Accident or Offence—in the English papers. Some laughed; some said, by way of complete excuse, that the post was virtually a sinecure, and any fool who could spell his name was good enough for it; some, and these the more solemn political oracles, said that Decimus did wisely to strengthen himself, and that the sole constitutional purpose of all places within the gift of Decimus, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... capacities. He had doubtless taken a heavy load upon himself but he felt that he was to labor for his race and his country. At least one half of his students were too wild to attend the ordinary public or private schools, or to profit by them if admitted. With such material, his work could not be a sinecure. But he had a taste for it, and he gave his whole heart and soul to the performance of ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... ecclesiastical, ecclesiology, ecclesiolatry, ecclesiasticism, parish, hierarch, hierarchy, hierocracy, hierolatry, hierology, hierarchism, irenics, cure, evangelical, verger, beadle, chancel, clearstory, nave, transept, vestry, presbytery, prebend, prebendary, lectern, apse, irenicon, living, benefice, sinecure, glebe, see, prelacy, convocation, synod, conference, conclave, consistory, crypt, schism, orthodoxy, heterodoxy, unchurch, sacristan, sacristy, Dorcastry, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... looked into before) that it is there mentioned 'during good behaviour,' and not for life, upon which condition alone his father would have accepted it. He adds that it was given to him as totally and absolutely a sinecure, and that his appointment took place at so early a period of life that it would be impossible for him to do ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... to rest in, from the labour of leave-taking, with which the whole morning was taken up, and which, combined with packing and preparing all our own personalities and those of the children, was no sinecure. At every moment one or other of the poor people rushed in upon me to bid me good-bye; many of their farewells were grotesque enough, some were pathetic, and all of them made me very sad. Poor people! ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... against each other when the locomotive jerked on or came to a stop. They were in good condition, but their eyes were sad and their tails were woefully rubbed. After seeing Kroonstadt Railway-station, I realized that the work of a Staff officer on the lines of communication was no sinecure. ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... that they detested work of any kind. Yet the chaplain had almost as much business on his hands as the bursar of a great college, in the administration of Carew's affairs, besides filling an office which was by no means a sinecure, in that of his master of the ceremonies. Many a rudeness in that house would have been bitterly avenged, and many a quarrel would have had a serious termination, but for the good offices of Parson Whymper. Nor would Mr. Byam Ryll have been considered by every ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Servente" is the phrase Used in politest circles to express This supernumerary slave, who stays Close to the lady as a part of dress, Her word the only law which he obeys. His is no sinecure, as you may guess; Coach, servants, gondola, he goes to call, And carries fan and tippet, gloves ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... most important—is but a vast continuous commentary on these reflections. It would, indeed, be absurd to press against Presidential government AS SUCH the singular defect by which Vice-President Johnson has become President—by which a man elected to a sinecure is fixed in what is for the moment the most important administrative part in the political world. This defect, though most characteristic of the expectations[4] of the framers of the Constitution and of its working, ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... tell her so. The last few years of Godwin's life had not ended, as he had so bitterly apprehended, in penury; as his friends in power had obtained for him the post of Yeoman Usher of the Exchequer, with residence in New Palace Yard, in 1833. The office was in fact a sinecure, and was soon abolished; but it was arranged that no change should be made in the old philosopher's position. His old friends had died, but his work had its reward for him, as well as its place in the ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... had been reckoning on. For, if it had been Gwenda she had been thinking of, she would have kept her instead of handing her over to Lady Frances. The companion secretaries of that distinguished philanthropist had no sinecure even at a ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... nor at physical exercise. They passed a short and merry time at the University, fashioned as nearly as might be on the mode of life of a man about town. In 1740 he was appointed to the vague-sounding office of Clerk of the Irons and Surveyor of the Meltings in the Mint, a sinecure which, after the manner of the time, required no personal attention from the holder. Even in those early days Selwyn, who went by the sobriquet of "Bosky," had many friends—not only among college boys, but in London society. "You must judge by what you feel ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... sentiments, but the putting them in practice rather made him nervous. In short, he was as convinced as ever that he was an ill-used man, of great influence and abilities; but then he remembered his agreeable sinecure and his dignified office, and he might not succeed. The thought did ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Elsmere,' said the Liberal tutor with emphasis. 'No one can say a living with 1200 souls, and no curate, is a sinecure. As for hard town work, it is absurd—you couldn't stand it. And after all, I imagine, there are some souls worth saving out of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the two parties: but the Whigs had the larger share. Some persons, indeed, who did little honour to the Whig name, were largely recompensed for services which no good man would have performed. Wildman was made Postmaster General. A lucrative sinecure in the Excise was bestowed on Ferguson. The duties of the Solicitor of the Treasury were both very important and very invidious. It was the business of that officer to conduct political prosecutions, to collect the evidence, to instruct the counsel for the Crown, to see that the prisoners were ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Sedgwick's return to Boston to his seat in the Legislature early in February, had left Woodbridge to resume unimpeded his ancient autocracy in the village, and with as many grudges as that gentleman had to pay off, it may well be supposed the constable had no sinecure. The victims of justice were almost exclusively those who had been concerned in the late rebellion. For although the various amnesties, as well as the express stipulations under which a large number had surrendered, protected most of the insurgents from penalties for their political crimes, ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... exactions gave the brain no rest, and kept the physical frame in a condition of constant nervous weakness. Writing from a bed of sickness, he tells his employer almost pitifully, amid the strain of things, that he cannot complete his translations from Plutarch. Without a pension or a sinecure in some office of the State, literary life at that time was fraught with such incalculable difficulties that it demanded the maximum of prudence to achieve the minimum of subsistence. Men of letters lived, and by some ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... commissary of police attached to the railway station at Havre. He was a former officer who considered his present occupation as practically a sinecure, spending much of his time at the cafe. He was a confirmed gambler, who could lose or win without change of expression. A room on the first floor of the Cafe du Commerce was his usual haunt, and there Roubaud frequently spent half the night ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... with disfavour by the community, since the punishment of his transgression fell upon all. At the end of a fortnight the reader was silent more than half the time, and at the end of the month his position was a sinecure. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mollendorf?' I am Marshal; I am about to risk all for nothing. Why should I not remain Marshal for the remainder of my days? It is a pleasant thing to go to Vienna once the year and to witness the maneuvers, with an honorary position on the emperor's staff. To be Marshal here is to hold a sinecure, yet it has its compensations. The uniforms, gray and gold, are handsome; it is an ostrich plume that I wear in my chapeau de bras; the medals are of gold. My friend, it is the vanity of old age which ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... we were still encamped here, I organized a football match and acted as referee, which in a tropical sun is no sinecure, I can tell you. On Wednesday I rode into Kroonstadt and had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Lowry, Mr. Lane, the Canadian chaplain, and Mr. Carey, the resident Wesleyan minister, and ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... save when he scrawls a card; Constant at routs, familiar with a round Of ladyships, a stranger to the poor; Ambitions of preferment for its gold, And well prepared by ignorance and sloth, By infidelity and love o' the world, To make God's work a sinecure; a slave To his own pleasures and his patron's pride.— From such apostles, O ye mitred heads, Preserve the Church! and lay not careless hands On skulls that cannot teach, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... The anxious sinecure-holder did not share his retainer's favorable opinion. Before seating himself in his deep chair, whose rounded back screened him from draughts, he looked round him doubtfully, examined his dressing-gown with a hostile expression, shook off a few grains of snuff, carefully wiped his nose, arranged ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac |
