"Beggar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... splash! of the rain still sounded on the brick pavement, and as I glanced through the window, I saw an old blind negro beggar groping under the street lamp at the corner. The muffled beat of his stick in the drenched leaves passed our doorstep, and I heard it grow gradually fainter as he turned in the direction of the negro hovels that bordered our end of the town. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... I do that I've never been the sort of chap who wept he knows not why; I've never nursed a tame gazelle or any of that sort of stuff. In fact I've got about as much sentiment in me as there is in a pound of lard. But when I see this poor beggar Sabre as he is now, and when I hear him talk as he talked to me about his position last week, and when I see how grey and ill he looks, hobbling about on his old stick, well, I tell you, old man, I get—well, look here, here it is from ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... flock; each has its bedrabbled main street, with a great stone trough into which a stream of ice-cold water is forever flowing, and where comely young women of substantial ankles, with their flaxen hair braided down their backs, are forever washing linen; each has its beggar, with a goitre or a wooden leg, lying in wait for you; and each, in turn, with its purple and green and red tiled roofs, is charming to approach and ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... their procession in all solemnity on the fete day of St. Patrice from his church to the parish of their warden, and all the poor school children went before, and the last twelve wardens followed after, each leading a beggar man by the hand, whose feet they washed during the performance of their Mystery. And this continued until 1636. The last written "Mystere du Lavement des Pieds" that exists was by one Nicolle Mauger, who laboured under the disadvantage ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... Bertie Godolphin reassuringly. "Perhaps some unrelenting beggar of an uncle will die of old age next and leave him the ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... fascination. To another the important thing is the subject; the picture must represent what he likes in nature or in life. To a third the subject itself is of less concern than what the painter wanted to say about it: the artist saw a beauty manifested by an ugly beggar, perhaps, and he wanted to show that beauty to his fellows, who could not perceive ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... it's home again!" cried the Irish girl as she paced up and down the platform. "Molly, do listen to the brogue. Isn't it just delicious? Come along, and let's talk to this poor old Irish beggar." ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... take in every cat and dog and beggar and newsboy she sees," said Jim, with his bright smile. But Julia knew he was not pleased. "Do you want to come speak to Mother and the girls, dear, before I take you home?" he added, offering his arm. Julia stood up and ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... disease, and Mookerji stated in his address on Ophthalmalogy at the Indian Medical Congress of 1894 that in Bengal alone there were six hundred thousand totally blind beggars, forty per cent. of whom lost their sight at birth through maternal gonorrhoea; and this refers to the beggar class alone. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... upon parole, and you know how you have kept it, and that he will disinherit you if he hears the truth. Nay, suppose he dies to-morrow, his estate is not sufficient to pay the sum in which you are indebted to me; and, were you to yield me up all, you would be a beggar, and ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to point out to you the universal existence of those beliefs, and the historic fact that they gave the clergy a character supernatural, magical, divine, with a reserve of power before which all trembled, from the beggar to the king; and also, that all struggles between the temporal and spiritual powers, like that between Henry and Becket, can only be seen justly in the light of the practical meaning of that excommunication which Becket so freely employed. I must also point ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... 'money' never passes his lips," she said. "I don't think he really knows what it means. He proposed to sit on the green with a beggar's bowl but of course I would not permit that, and for the present I just give him all he wants. No doubt when he goes away, which I hope will not be for many weeks yet, though no one can tell when he will have another call, I shall slip something suitably generous into his hand, but I don't think ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... interesting Musical Anecdotes; the Greek Fables respecting the origin of Music; the rise and progress of Musical Instruments; the early Musical Drama; the origin of our present fashionable Concerts; the first performance of the Beggar's Opera, &c. ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... of delight which followed his son's appearance. But as a matter of fact he was as much delighted as any one, and proud as man could be of his pretty little wife and his splendid boy. He took "the little beggar," as he called him, in his arms, and kissed the mother again, soothing and laughing at her in the tender, kindly, fatherly ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... was very dirty and tired, and they may have thought me a beggar, to whom, like good sensible Christians who had no nonsense about them, they would rather have given a handsome kick than a cup of cold water. However, I think it was not only my poverty but a native churlishness which bound their bovine ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... Kiuprili. The longest line that ever tracing herald Or found or feigned, placed by a beggar's soul Hath but a mushroom's date in the comparison: 300 And with the soul, the conscience is coeval, Yea, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... lovely classic landscape, with smooth sky, pearly distance, and picturesque plains; the Holy Family in the foreground. "Do take notice of the St. Joseph in this charming picture," he said. "The painters too often pourtray him as little better than a vagabond Jew or an old beggar. Polemberg had too much good taste for such caricaturing, and you see he has made him here look like a ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... him in the cheek, very gently, and say: "Why, I never! What a rum little beggar he is! He's got some tremendous ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... side of the canvas wall, and I heard one old soldier telling, to the amusement of his fellows, (p. 242) of my visit on the previous evening. He said "We were out there with the shells falling round us, and who should come up but the Canon, and the first thing the old beggar said was, 'Boys, what a lovely night it is.'" The men roared at the idea. It was always illuminating to get a chance of seeing yourself ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... and subtler art, Can sap the principles, or taint the heart; With more address a lover's note convey, Or bribe a virgin's innocence away. Well may they rise, while I, whose rustic tongue Ne'er knew to puzzle right, or varnish wrong, 80 Spurn'd as a beggar, dreaded as a spy, Live ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... slaughter of Farmer Saboureux's fowls.... Hullo! Hullo! Gad, how difficult it is to get put on!... Hullo! Hullo!... I even shocked M. Morestal by refusing to punish the culprit, one Duvauchel, an incorrigible anti-militarist.... An excuse like that would just have served the beggar's turn...." ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... seem to be guided by some secret demon; this stopping our ports and depriving us of all trade is cruel, calculated to starve and beggar thousands of families, more spiteful than politic, more to their own disadvantage than ours: But we can resolve to do without trade; it will be the means of banishing luxury, which has ting'd the simplicity and spotless innocence ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... connexion has proved a pretty close one; for a noble, accomplished and accurate English historian, Lord Mahon, in his "Life of Belisarius" has considered it strong enough to advance a plea of identity between the warrior of history and the beggar ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... "The beggar wants to be civil," he said. "He is civil. It was kind of him to bring the things to amuse me, and better food. Wants to be friends! But who's going to be friends with a scoundrel like that? I don't want his rubbish—only ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... dropping the tone of confident authority and speaking very tenderly, "you forget that my father is a convict. You forget that he has done things which will forever keep me a beggar at your feet. I am asking YOU to forget and overlook inuch more than you could ever ask of me. Old Elias, wretch that he is, has pointed out our ways for us; they run together in spite of what may conspire to divide them. Jane, I love my soul, but I love you ten thousand times ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... confessed, "of a poor beggar of a Phoenician who used to make water-jars in Sidon. I have been condemned to plow the high seas and explore the tall mountains until I find the Pitiful Princess. She must be up at the very peak, ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... James Bradly owes his rapid downfall, in a great measure, to the fact that Harry Arnold would not pay him a just debt in anything but whiskey? And against Harry Arnold really your friend, that you are so willing to beggar your wives and children to put money in his till? I only ask the questions. You can answer then at your leisure. So ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... best years of his life! His father would have opened to him a boundless career; he would have seen the world under the guidance of a master hand. And here he was to-day, the possessor of millions, a beggar in friends, no niche to fill, a ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... was so sad a king as I! [2] My life is worn as ragged as a coat A beggar wears; a prince should put it off. [3] To love a captive and a giantess! Oh love! oh love! how great a king art thou! My tongue's thy trumpet, and thou trumpetest, Unknown to me, within me. [4] Oh, Glumdalca! ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... they were alive, but I never heard any such stories myself.[*] But certainly those eggs we got were as fresh as if they had been new laid. Fresh! Carrying them down to the boat one of my nigger chaps dropped one on a rock and it smashed. How I lammed into the beggar! But sweet it was, as if it was new laid, not even smelly, and its mother dead these four hundred years, perhaps. Said a centipede had bit him. However, I'm getting off the straight with the story. It had taken us all day to dig into the slush ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... possessed, and the poor wretches in turn became brigands and preyed upon those weaker than themselves. Through all this Borrow had to penetrate in order to reach Madrid. Had the road been familiar to him he would have performed the journey alone, dressed either as a beggar or as a gypsy. It is obvious that he appreciated the hazardous nature of the journey he was undertaking, for he asked Mr Brandram, in the event of his death, to keep the news from old Mrs Borrow as long as possible ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... empire, but in this it resembled the other windfalls to the house of Hapsburg in that it was an almost accidental, unsought-for acquisition. The Genoese sailor who went to the various courts of Europe begging for a few ships in which to break the watery path to Asia, had in his beggar's wallet all the kingdoms of a new world and the glory of them. For a few years Spain drank until she was drunken of conquest and the gold of America. That the draught acted momentarily as a stimulant, clearing her ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... silent until it had gone. Within the gate of the Mellah, a shocket was killing fowls and taking his tribute of copper coins, but he stopped his work and fell back as the procession approached. A blind beggar crouching at the other side of the gate was reciting passages of the Koran, and two Arabs close at his elbow were wrangling over a game at draughts which they were playing by the light of a flare, but both curses and ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... months, as the nomads hardly ever feed them with corn, trusting to the slight vegetation which exists beneath the snow. Occasionally the poor beasts perish by thousands, and a Tartar who is a rich man one week may find himself a beggar the next. This comes from the frequent snow-storms, when the thermometer sometimes descends to from forty to fifty degrees below zero, Fahrenheit; but more often from some slight thaw taking place for perhaps a few hours. This is sufficient to ruin whole districts, for ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... a rail; and a blind beggar is going towards the church: but whether he will become one of the congregation, or take his stand at the door, in the hope that religion may have warmed the hearts of its votaries to "Pity the sorrows of a ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... into the courtyard. No one knew who he was. The queen looked at him coldly. There was no friendly face to greet him. But the old dog lifted up his head and whined and wagged his tail for joy. The beggar's rags could not deceive him. He knew his master had come back at last, and Ulysses stooped to caress him with tears in ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... singing bird my feet Touch earth, and I must drink and eat. Welcome to all men: I'll not care What any of my fellows wear; We'll not let cloth divide our souls, They'll swim stark naked in the bowls. Welcome, poor beggar: I'll not see That hand of yours dislodge a flea,— While you sit at my side and beg, Or right foot scratching your left leg. Farewell restraint: we will not now Measure the ale our brains allow, But drink as much as we can hold. We'll count no change when we spend gold; This is no time to ...
— Foliage • William H. Davies
... Saviour, Jesus Christ—He took no account of His arms or His ancestry, though the whole starry universe was His banner. He was as humble to the little child as to the learned doctors in the temple—to the chiefs among the people, as to the trembling sinner and the blind beggar Bartimaeus. Let us take, then, this Prince for our example, and mind our life long what He says—'Come unto Me, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.' Will you not learn of Him, dear lady? I will, if God give ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... very visibly ruffled. 'I'd be sorry to ask ye to, for it's what I've never done in me life, an' never would. Would ye call a man a beggar for takin' a ration or a bitter 'baccy from a station store? Why, doesn't every traveller do the same? An', for that matter, can't a man always put in a day's work, gettin' firewood or what not, if he's a mind to? Ye needn't fear Ted ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... more or less all my life," he observed, "and I've seen bear under many different conditions. But this is the first time I ever saw a bear tackle anybody without cause or warning. I guess this beggar was strictly on the warpath, looking for trouble on ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... close, and he knew that at last he was alone. He flung out his arms, ecstatically. Free! He would see no more of that nagging beggar Ryan until tomorrow. Free to put into execution the idea that had been bubbling all day long in his head, like a fine champagne, firing his ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... all the way from London to Babbicombe, where Jack used to practice. But Jack saw at once under this rough exterior he had the voice and address of a cultivated gentleman, though he was so broken down by want and long suffering and exposure and illness that he looked like a beggar just let loose ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... he contemplates it frankly, excuse me for hoping that if I am free I am at least not very free, and that I may reasonably expect to find SOME degree of consistency in my life and actions. ... Suppose that I have given a dollar to a blind beggar. Can I, if it is really an act of free- will, be properly said to have given the money? Was it given because I was a man of tender heart, etc., etc.? ... What has all this to do with acts of free-will? If they are free, ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... easily have done so: the prospect of reaching Para, penniless, and becoming a beggar in the streets—the nearer prospect of starving in the wilderness of ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... once some ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings brought him to this pass?—some statesman who plunged his country in ruin, and perished in the fray?—some wretch who left behind him a legacy of shame?—some beggar who died in the pangs of hunger and cold? Or didst thou reach this state by the natural course ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... which often strikes foreigners in China as ludicrous, is only the carrying-out of respect for personal dignity in the sphere of social manners. Everybody has "face," even the humblest beggar; there are humiliations that you must not inflict upon him, if you are not to outrage the Chinese ethical code. If you speak to a Chinaman in a way that transgresses the code, he will laugh, because your words must be taken as spoken in jest if they are not to ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... just eleven buttons, which brought the ominous result, "beggar man." Rosie gave herself up to renewed dismay, but Elizabeth grew more joyful every moment. It would be very romantic to marry a beggar man, and likely poor Charlie would have to be one, seeing he was so sick and had only one arm. It would be just like the story ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... be the most important of all colours in the gradations of society. A licensed beggar in Scotland, called a bedesmen, is so privileged on receiving a blue gown. Pliny informs us that blue was the colour in which the Gauls clothed their slaves; and blue coats, for many ages, were the liveries of servants, apprentices, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... say, Mr. Spantz, you might assume a different tone in addressing me. I'm a customer, not a beggar." ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... to lend me money!" he muttered, half-aloud. "Money! Not give it to me, as a beggar, but to lend it to me.... Her nose has the funniest little tilt to it! And she can't be an inch over five feet tall! ... I'm a ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... whose time the earth brought forth double, and there was neither beggar nor poor man from the North to the South Sea." POWELL's Hist. of Wales, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Elmore was not a hard-hearted woman, and if Ellen had come as a beggar to solicit help for her sick mother, Mrs. Elmore would have fitted out a basket of provisions, and sent a bottle of wine, and a bundle of old clothes, and all the et cetera of such occasions; but the sight of a bill always aroused ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Sally, standing quite still on the sands, wringing her hands and commencing to cry, "if that story comes out, I am ruined. Jay Gardiner will leave me, and I will be a beggar!" ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... that I ever saw," he thought. "She doesn't look to be a French girl, either—decidedly English." He shrugged his shoulders, then laughed dryly. "Farnsworth's as crazy as can be, the beggar; in love with her so deep that he can't see out. By Jove, she IS a beauty! Never saw such eyes. And plucky to beat the devil. I'll bet my head Barlow'll be daft ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... mount, St. Praxed in a glory, and one Pan, And Moses with the tables ... but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp, Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine, Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then! There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world— And have I not St. Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts. ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... of course, one can't help suspecting there's something wrong about a chap who draws the pay he does, and goes staggering about the streets with his arms full of children's clothes, and his own things looking like a beggar's." ...
— Archie's Mistake • G. E. Wyatt
... were found in the prisoner's pockets. 2. He was always kind to his brothers (brethren). 3. How many shot (shots) did you count? 4. He carried two pailfuls (pails full) of water up the hill. 5. I have two handfuls (hands full) of gold-dust. 6. He gave the beggar six pennies (pence). 7. There are serious errors in the indexes (indices) in this new Algebra. 8. Ten shot (shots) were fired from the gun ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... will be a sure inheritance Not to decay; manors and towns will fall, Lordships and parks, pastures and woods, be sold; But this land still continues to the lord: No tricks of law can me beguile of this. But of the beggar's dish, I shall drink healths To last forever; whilst I live, my roof Shall cover naked wretches; when I die, 'T ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... Knight came in, Who look'd as he would swagger; And after follow'd him A merry needy Beggar—Dancing in. ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... help that. But I shouldn't have kept that money, I suppose. Still, you were dead. Money meant nothing to you. It was in my hands and I needed it, or thought I did. You must have had a hard time, Robin, coming back to civil life a beggar." ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... maritime powers, then thrown into the scale of France, would infallibly have made the balance at least even. In which case too, the moderate efforts of the maritime powers on the side of France would have been sufficient; whereas now, they are obliged to exhaust and beggar themselves; and that too ineffectually, in hopes to support the shattered; beggared, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to be placed on her finger, the intended ceremony was, in the most abrupt and unexpected manner, ended. The prettiest part of the tale remains to be told. Not long afterwards Sir Francis Drake returned, and, disguised as a beggar, he solicited alms from his wife at her own door; when, unable to prevent smiling in the midst of a feigned tale of abject poverty, she recognised him, and a very ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... we reach Glaisdale End, where a graceful stone bridge of a single arch stands over the rushing stream. The initials of the builder and the date appear on the eastern side of what is now known as the Beggar's Bridge. It was formerly called Firris Bridge, after the builder, but the popular interest in the story of its origin seems to have killed the old name. If you ask anyone in Whitby to mention some of the sights of ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... baskets, and they now sat down on the steps of the Temple of Neptune to enjoy their picnic. Fortunately the grounds of the ruins were enclosed by railings, so they were preserved from the attentions of a group of beggar children, who had greeted the arrival of the char-a-banc with outstretched palms and torrents of entreaties for "soldi," and who were hanging about the gate evidently waiting for any fresh opportunity that might occur of asking alms. Four lean and hungry dogs, however, had managed ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... here counts by bits; two make a quarter; and then, you know, we don't have any pennies here, nothing smaller than a five-cent piece. Remember that, and don't offer anybody a penny, even if it's a beggar. ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... the noble bearing and refined speech of Columbus, and saw at once that he was not a beggar. He asked him what he wished, and Columbus related ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw
... in the boy, 'to 'igh hinsults. Do you think that every gent what years a coat an' pants with 'oles in 'em is a beggar?' ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... frugal only that her thrift May feed excesses she can ill afford, Is hackneyed home unlackeyed; who, in haste Alighting, turns the key in her own door, And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light, Finds a cold bed her only comfort left. Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives, On Fortune's velvet altar offering up Their last poor pittance—Fortune, most severe Of goddesses yet known, and costlier far Than all that held their routs in Juno's heaven.— So fare we in ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... excited greeting. I answered, "He went past about fifteen minutes ago. What about him?" "He's a spy, that's all, and if you had caught him it would have meant fourteen days' leave for you," said Captain Breedan. Just my luck to miss a nice fat chance like that—the beggar was never caught, he seemed to vanish into thin air. After he left me the boys kept up the hunt for a long time and then gave up ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... afraid of what would happen when Mrs. Fenton set eyes on her wilful daughter. At the same time, Lavinia was not the same girl who at Bedfordbury used to run wild, half clad and half starved, and yet never looked like a beggar, so pretty and so attractive was she. Six months had developed her into a woman and the training of Miss Pinwell, the pink of gentility, had given her the modish airs of a lady of quality. True, her appearance just now had little of this "quality," her walk being in fact somewhat limping and one-sided. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... Great King, and sets forth Himself as the Husband of humanity. And passing from that Holy of Holies out into this outer court, He lays His hand, too, on that more common and familiar, and yet precious and sacred, thing—the bond of friendship. The Prince makes a friend of the beggar. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... I see you dead than you should do such a thing," cried Little John; "I swear it by my soul and by my body! Now listen, dear master, and I will tell you that I have heard of a wondrous cure for thee. An old beggar came this morn through the woods, and, strangely, when he spied me, asked if there was not one amongst ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... carried them this three and thretty year, but they hae aye been like to burn a hole i' my pouch sin' ever they were turned for your admittance. Tak them again, an' gie them to wha you will, and muckle gude may he get o' them. Auld John may dee a beggar in a hay barn, or at the back of a dike, but he sall aye be master o' his ain thoughts an' gie them vent or no, ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... thousand petty interferences which had told only to the advantage of the poor; and they were soon to learn that it was no epoch for their easy rule and their careless hospitality. The great houses, now isolated, were themselves brought down one by one; and the beggar, whom the monastery had served as a sort of sacred tavern, came to it at evening and found it a ruin. For a new and wide philosophy was in the world, which still rules our society. By this creed most of the mystical virtues of the ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... small boy I was told that he lost his eyesight through an act of charity. He drew a purse from his pocket, intending to give a beggar an aim when his horse shied violently, causing the steel-beaded tassels of the purse ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... and if he can't pay for his grub, he can and will steal it. Abolition has done great things for him. He was once a life-labourer on a plantation in the south, he is now a prisoner for life in a penitentiary in the north, or an idle vagrant, and a shameless, houseless beggar. The fruit of cant is indeed bitter. The Yankees emancipated their niggers because it didn't pay to keep slaves. They now want the southern planters to liberate theirs for conscience sake. But here we are on the ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... to begin to understand the typical American is to take a look at him in Europe. It does not require a professional beggar or a licensed guide to identify him. Not that the American in Europe need recall in any particular the familiar pictorial caricature of "Uncle Sam." He need not bear any outward resemblances to such stage types as that ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... fields. She furtively put out her hand for alms. Duruy felt in his waistcoat, found a two franc piece and placed it in the outstretched hand; I wanted to add a couple of sous as my contribution, but my pockets were empty, as usual. I went to the beggar woman and whispered in her ear: 'Do you know who gave you that? ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... which travellers told of the savage Hottentots near the Cape of Good Hope were realised in Leinster. Nothing was more common than for an honest man to lie down rich in flocks and herds acquired by the industry of a long life, and to wake a beggar. It was however to small purpose that Keating attempted, in the midst of that fearful anarchy, to uphold the supremacy of the law. Priests and military chiefs appeared on the bench for the purpose of overawing the judge ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... pore beggar. He 'adn't the language, so to speak. He was confined to heavings and shruggin's and copious Mong Jews! The French are very badly fitted with relief-valves. And then our Mr. Leggatt drove. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... Din! Din! 'Ere's a beggar with a bullet through 'is spleen; 'E's chawin' up the ground an' 'e's kickin' all around: For Gawd's sake, ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... they looked plainly astonished. "Why, Mother!" said the girl admiringly, "you are talking in a foreign language when you use signs. How did you happen to find out such an easy way to dismiss the little beggar?" ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... proportion'd forever with painful exactness To the portable nature, the vulgar compactness, The minuteness in size, or the lightness in weight, Of the truth he imparts. So small coins circulate More freely than large ones. A beggar asks alms, And we fling him a sixpence, nor feel any qualms; But if every street charity shook an investment, Or each beggar to clothe we must strip off a vestment, The length of the process would limit the act; And therefore ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... some formal recognition. The pontiff, so the story goes, was walking in the garden of the Lateran when the momentous meeting took place. Startled by the sudden apparition of an emaciated young man, bareheaded, shoeless, half-clad, but—for all his gentleness—a beggar who would take no denial, Innocent hesitated. It was but for a brief hour, the next ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... it pitiful to hear poor Francis Trent, with his broken-down, cringing, crafty look, thus sueing for a sovereign. For he had the air of a ruined gentleman, not of an ordinary beggar, and the signs of refinement in his face and bearing made his state of abasement and destitution more apparent. But Oliver was not touched by any such sentimental considerations. He looked at first as if he were about to refuse his brother's request; but policy dictated ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... in the class of emblems when used in designating the conflicting powers of Christendom and Islamism. Emblems do not necessarily require any analogy between the objects representing, and the objects or qualities represented, but may arise from pure accident. After a scurrilous jest the beggar's wallet became the emblem of the confederated nobles, the Gueux of the Netherlands; and a sling, in the early minority of Louis XIV, was adopted from the refrain of a song by the Frondeur opponents of Mazarin. The portraiture of a fish, used, especially by the early Christians, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... in the duke's guard, with those wild Mohocks. And I have been playing worse and worse, and going deeper and deeper into it; and I owe Mohun two thousand pounds now; and when it's paid I am little better than a beggar. I don't like to look my boy in the face; he hates me, I know he does. And I have spent Beaty's little portion; and the Lord knows what will come if I live; the best thing I can do is to die, and release what portion of the estate is ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with his horrid cannons. I can't help disliking him, for the Maxwells seem to have been the most fascinating people. One Lord Maxwell of the seventeenth century, who was Roman Catholic when it wasn't safe to be Roman Catholic, used to disguise himself as a beggar, and play the fiddle in the market-place of Dumfries as a signal to tell the faithful of his own religion where and when they might come to Mass. They understood according to certain tunes agreed upon, which was easy, as they had only three meeting-places. A nice ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a bold minion and you have a quick wit. But if you marry this gaol bird you decline to his condition. Your high titles fall from you, your great estates are forfeit to the crown and you and he must go out into exile together; the beggar woman with the ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... not take me by surprise, young man. I was prepared for this—I have but a word to say. Restore this money, or undertake to pay it back to me—to the last farthing of my lawful claim. Do this, and I forgive you, and forget your indiscretion. Refuse, and to-morrow you are a bankrupt and a beggar. Leave me, and take time for your decision. Come to me again this evening. If you fail—you may expect a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... does not flourish among them, is true," answered Andrea, who loved so well to discourse on such subjects, that he would have stopped to reason on religion or manners with the beggar to whom he gave a pittance, did he only meet with encouragement; "but it is not as bad in France, on this important head, as it has been; and we may hope that there will be ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Jericho. And as he went from Jericho, and his disciples and a great multitude, the son of Timeus, Bartimeus, a blind beggar, sat by the way. [10:47]And hearing that Jesus was the Nazarene, he cried, saying, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. [10:48]And many charged him to be still. But he cried much more, Son of David, have mercy on me. [10:49]And Jesus stopping, said, Call him. And they called the blind man, ...
— The New Testament • Various
... hundred pounds; an hostler that had built a goodly inn; a carman in a leather pilche that had whipt a thousand pound out of his horse's tail—and have I more than these? thought I to myself; am I better born? am I better brought up? yea, and better favoured! and yet am I a beggar? How am I crost, or whence is this curse? Even from hence, the men that should employ such as I am, are enamoured of their own wits, though they be never so scurvie; that a scrivener is better paid than a scholar; and men of art must seek to live among cormorants, or be kept ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... popular in a land of large families, and it was certainly credited without any reservation for many years. In England the rabbit-breeding woman of Dorking had her adherents too. What the beggar really wished for the Dutch lady was as many children at one birth as there were days in the year in which the conversation occurred—namely three, for the encounter was on January 3rd. Or so I have somewhere read. But it is more amusing to believe in the greater number, especially as ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... with another man, worst shame of all, with the brother of her husband. And she had borne another son, she had given a brother to her first-born, whom the world called noble and rich, who in truth was penniless and nameless as any beggar in the street. She had heaped dishonour upon father and son, and she had borne in dishonour a second son and shamed the spotless life of a second father. And this woman, this wretch, this creature for whom no speakable name could be found, was his own mother, and was ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... lowest of the low; His pliant soul gave way to all things base, He knew no shame, he dreaded no disgrace. It seem'd, so well his passions he suppress'd, No feeling stirr'd his ever-torpid breast; Him might the meanest pauper bruise and cheat, He was a footstool for the beggar's feet; His were the legs that ran at all commands; They used on all occasions Richard's hands: His very soul was not his own; he stole As others order'd, and without a dole; In all disputes, on either part he lied, And freely pledged his oath on either side; ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... thence, where burning oceans lave. Now polished bright, your native flame And inward worth are still the same; A flaming diamond still you glow, In brighter hues: then cheery go— More suited by a skilful hand To do your father's high command: Fit ornament for sage or clown, Or beggar's rags, or ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... with fagots, the merchant whom he rescued from robbers, the King's councillor to whom he gave aid, all became his friends. Up and down the land, to beggar or lord, homeless wanderer or high-born dame, he gladly gave unselfish service all unsought, and such as he helped straightway ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... tallying with each other, that some doubted whether there were not two of them, or more—some, whether he had not unearthly means of travelling from spot to spot. The footpad hiding in a ditch had marked him passing like a ghost along its brink; the vagrant had met him on the dark high-road; the beggar had seen him pause upon the bridge to look down at the water, and then sweep on again; they who dealt in bodies with the surgeons could swear he slept in churchyards, and that they had beheld him glide ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... more deeply read in psychology and physiognomy. It was, in a way, something of a joke to the doctor: psychology and physiognomy on an island which white folks did not visit more than three or four times a year, only then when they had to. Why did the beggar hang on down there, when he could have enjoyed all that civilization had to offer? Yes, he would be mighty glad to see McClintock; and the sooner ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... should reply,' Do you think I am going to send my daughter from my house like a beggar? No, no, my boy! she must carry something with her! If beggars married beggars, the world would be full of ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... adventure during a halt at the Buffalo river was the loss of all their oxen, who were driven off by some natives. They applied to the chief of the tribe, named Tzatzoe, who recovered the cattle for them, but showed himself an insatiable beggar, even asking why, as Mr. Berken had two shoes, he could not spare him one of them. However, he was honest enough, when Mr. Berken chanced to leave his umbrella behind him, to send after him to ask whether he knew that he ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... interesting, but nothing to what they have in the museum at Naples or in Pompeii itself. You must go there some day, Bunny. I've a good mind to take you myself. Meanwhile—slow march! The beggar hasn't moved an eyelid. We may swing for him if you show ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... we were accosted by a little ragged beggar boy, who addressed himself to our compassionate dispositions, by the appellation of "tres charitable citoyen," but finding we gave nothing, he immediately changed it to "mon chere ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... people were proud to establish even the most distant relationship with him. Israel was poor to the verge of beggary, but he prayed more than other people, never failed in the slightest observance enjoined on Jews, shared his last crust with every chance beggar, and sat up nights to commune with God. His family connections included country peddlers, starving artisans, and ne'er-do-wells; but Israel was a zaddik—a man of piety—and the fame of his good life redeemed the whole wretched clan. When his grandson, my father, came ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... [Footnote: Lame beggar.] lost in you, Murphy. Wait; let me rub a handful of mud on your face—there—you have a very upset look, 'pon my soul," said Dick, as he flashed the light of his lantern on him for a moment, and laughed at Murphy scooping the mud out of his eye, where Dick had ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... prejudices and preferences, bred of early education and training, which might impair our discovery of those consequences. To the untrained, those things look most significant which stir their impulses most strikingly. The beggar's sores seem much more important and terrible than a gifted youngster deprived of education through poverty. Instinctively we shrink back from the sight of blood, but instinct is no safe clue in helping us to distinguish between the poisons and the panaceas among the brightly colored bottles ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... the race in, do not know what they are talking about. Where could they raise such Saint-Michael pears, such Saint-Germains, such Brown Beurres, as we had until within a few years growing within the walls of our old city-gardens? Is the dark and damp cavern where a ragged beggar hides himself better than a town-mansion that fronts the sunshine and backs on its own cool shadow, with gas and water and all appliances ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various |
