"Beggar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Charley. "I know every one of your demd old stories, that are as old as my grandmother. How-dy-do, Barney?" (Enter Barnes Newcome.) "How are the Three per Cents, you little beggar? I wish you'd do me a bit of stiff; and just tell your father, if I may overdraw my account I'll vote with ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... came o'visiting one evening covered with shining ornaments, to see if he would approve of the appearance she made. When they were gone home, "Well, sir," said I, "how did you like little miss? I hope she was fine enough." "It was the finery of a beggar," said he, "and you know it was; she looked like a native of Cow Lane dressed up to be carried ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... well? And did they honor those who liv'd, and weep for those who fell? What meed of thanks was given to them let aged annals tell. Why should they bring the laurel-wreath,—why crown the cup with wine? It was not Frenchmen's blood that flow'd so freely on the Rhine,— A stranger band of beggar'd men had done the venturous deed: The glory was to France alone, the danger was their meed. And what cared they for idle thanks from foreign prince and peer? What virtue had such honey'd words the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... eyes to God and say, 'Use me hereafter to whatsoever thou pleasest. I agree, and am of the same mind with thee, indifferent to all things. Lead me whither thou pleasest. Let me act what part thou wilt, either of a public or a private person, of a rich man or a beggar.'"[845] "Show those qualities," says Marcus Aurelius, "which God hath put in thy power—sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... heard the story thought that Spare must be mad, and nobody would take up with him but a lame tinker, a beggar boy, and a poor woman, who was looked upon as a witch because she was old and ugly. As for Scrub, he went with Fairfeather to a cottage close by that of the new cobbler, and quite as fine. There he mended shoes so as to please everyone, had a scarlet coat for holidays, and a ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... has no horses, and makes a pair of lean oxen draw his plow, is a cotter and must hold his tongue. In the tavern, in the town meeting, and everywhere. His opinion is worthless, and no regular farmer pays any attention to the poor beggar. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, par excellence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy (School for Scandal), the best drama, (in my mind, far before that St. Giles's lampoon, the Beggar's Opera,) the best farce (the Critic—it is only too good for a farce), and the best Address (Monologue on Garrick), and, to crown all, delivered the very best Oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... "The beggar's at work somewhere in those bushes, and you couldn't get him out with dynamite until the ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... I am of thy cold beauty! I long to return to life. Let me get home again, as conqueror or as beggar; what does that matter? But let me get home to begin life anew. The years are passing here, and what do they bring? Nothing but dust, dry dust, which the first wind blows away; new dust comes in its place, and the next wind takes it too. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... who alone knows good from evil!" exclaimed the trapper, in English. "To some He grants cunning, and on others He bestows the gift of manhood! It is humbling, and it is afflicting to see so noble a creatur' as this, who has fou't in many a bloody fray, truckling before his superstition like a beggar asking for the bones you would throw to the dogs. The Lord will forgive me for playing with the ignorance of the savage, for He knows I do it in no mockery of his state, or in idle vaunting of my own; but in order to save mortal life, and to give justice to the wronged, while I defeat the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... ah, my dear, now I look at you, you are a sufferer! To suffer like that is no joke. To have given shelter to a beggar, and he to lead you such a dance! Why don't ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... sympathetic, 'anima! principium hylarchicum! rationes spermaticae!' [Greek: logoi poiaetikoi!] O formidable words! And O man! thou marvellous beast-angel! thou ambitious beggar! How pompously dost thou trick out thy very ignorance with such glorious disguises, that thou mayest seem to hide it in ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... them the whole story as she heard it from her maid, who picked it out of Mary's servant. "She is a foolish creature, and this friend that she pays as much attention to as if she was a lady of quality, is a beggar." "Well, how ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... but unprincipled and intriguing, the great leader of the Tory party. Gay, as a poet, was respectable, but poor, unfortunate, a hanger on of great people, and miserably paid for his sycophancy. His fame rests on his Fables and his Beggar's Opera. Prior first made himself distinguished by his satire called A City Mouse and a Country Mouse, aimed against Dryden. He was well rewarded by government, and was sent as minister to Paris. Like ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... the beggar of Barbary. Genet lay back, his hands behind his head, staring into shadows ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... heard my sister relate so many pleasant anecdotes, and whom, never having seen, I yet seem almost to remember. For nearly fifty years she had lost all sight of him; and, behold! the gentle usher of her youth, grown into an aged beggar, dubbed with an opprobrious title to which he had no pretensions, an object and a May-game! To what base purposes may we not return! What may not have been the meek creature's sufferings, what his wanderings, before he finally settled down in the comparative comfort of an old hospitaller ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... he's still loose," added Phil, uneasily. "Hope we don't run across the beggar again; but if we should, remember Paul, the country expects you to do your duty. You must bag him, no matter what noise you ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... sat in the service o' foreign commanders, Selling a sword for a beggar man's fee, Learning the trade o' the warrior who wanders, To mak' ilka stranger a sworn enemie; There was ae thought that nerved roe, and brawly it served me. With pith to the claymore wherever I won,— 'Twas the auld sodger's story, that, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... drawing-room were pale Virgins, with long hands, reigning peacefully among angels, patriarchs, and saints in beautiful gilded frames. On a pedestal stood a Magdalena, clothed only with her hair, frightful with thinness and old age, some beggar of the road to Pistoia, burned by the suns and the snows, whom some unknown precursor of Donatello had moulded. And everywhere were Miss Bell's chosen arms-bells and cymbals. The largest lifted their ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... if married to Sir Felix Carbury. Melmotte had not time for any long discussion. As he left her he took hold of her and shook her. 'By—,' he said, 'if you run rusty after all I've done for you, I'll make you suffer. You little fool; that man's a beggar. He hasn't the price of a petticoat or a pair of stockings. He's looking only for what you haven't got, and shan't have if you marry him. He wants money, not you, you ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... and, what is worse, Full angrily men hearken to thy plaint; Thou gettest many a brush, and many a curse, For saying thou art gaunt, and starved, and faint: Even the old beggar, while he asks for food, Would kill thee, hapless stranger, ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... first directed toward the judge and his accomplished lady, who are doing the honors of the evening. As we scan their looks closely, we are struck with their features, and we feel sure that to them wealth was not given in vain, and that the beggar never left their door ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... eleventh century. The theme is one of the commonest and one of the least sympathetic in hagiology. Alexis is forced by his father, a rich Roman "count," to marry; and after (not before) the marriage, though of course before its consummation, he deserts his wife, flies to Syria, and becomes a beggar at Edessa. After a time, long enough to prevent recognition, he goes back to Rome, and obtains from his own family alms enough to live on, though these alms are dispensed to him by the servants with every mark of contempt. At last he dies, and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... resumed its peculiar defiant smile, and Felix thought: 'Young beggar! He's as close as wax.' After their little talk, however, he had more understanding of his nephew. His defiant self-sufficiency seemed more genuine. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in view of the scientific organization of society, that there are so many sensibilities unclassified and unprovided for in the otherwise perfect machinery. Why should the beggar to whom you toss a silver dollar from your carriage feel a little grudge against you? Perhaps he wouldn't like to earn the dollar, but if it had been accompanied by a word of sympathy, his sensibility might have been soothed by your recognition of human partnership in the goods ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... old beggar, Wargrave," broke in Burke. "Looks like the Pope av Rome in his thriple crown, for he wears a high gold-edged cap and a flowing red robe av Chinese silk, out av which sticks a pair ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... after this. He seemed to catch his employer's real meaning, and he grabbed the dollar and chased the beggar out into the hall. Grimes, meanwhile, held Helen back a bit. But he had nothing of any ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... matchmaker, I ought to have said to myself, perhaps, "Never mind, my dear Molly, beggars mustn't be choosers. Pat is, it seems, a beggar maid. You shouldn't look a gift Cophetua in the mouth. Here he is, to be had for the taking. Encourage ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... although it was a lovely summer night, a gloom seemed to her to overhang everything. Her little brothers spoke to her, and she answered them harshly and sent them away. While she stood idly musing a miserable old beggar woman, who bore but an indifferent character in the neighborhood, came hobbling along; she came up to the little girl and asked an alms. Almost instinctively she put her hand in her pocket, and taking thence the ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... transformation being complete, Blenheim gave a curt order in German, the candles were blown out, and lighted only by the torch, we turned toward the door. There was an inarticulate cry from Schwartzmann, just conscious enough, poor beggar, to grasp the fact of his abandonment in the strategic retreat his friends were beating. Then we were out in the courtyard, beneath ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... any delusions which prompt their victims to actions inimical to their fellow-creatures, are the objects not unusually of pity, but of indignation, of private aversion and public punishment. We smile at the avaricious insanity of the miser, who dresses himself in the cast-off Wig of a beggar, and pulls a crushed pancake from his pocket for his own and for his friend's dinner.[83] We smile at the insane vanity of the pauper, who dressed himself in a many-coloured paper star, assumed the title of Duke of Baubleshire, and as such required homage from ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... the lesson which God must mean us to learn, if He means us to learn any, from what has so nearly befallen? Let our hearts be bowed as the heart of one man, to say—that so far as we have power, so help us God, no man, woman, or child in Britain, be he prince or be he beggar, shall die henceforth of preventable disease. Let us repent of and amend that scandalous neglect of the now well-known laws of health and cleanliness which destroys thousands of lives yearly in this kingdom, without need and reason; ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... of you have got at the true secret of Peter's success," said Ray. "It was his wonderful capacity for work. To a lazy beggar like myself it is marvellous. I've known that man to work from nine in the morning till one at night, ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... the rarest essence of real beauty I have ever seen, in lady born or beggar; and I am an ass to go my way and leave it for the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... eggar. Fama, fame; volat, flies; Idomoeea ducem, that Idomaeeus the leader; pulsum, expelled. Get out, I say, you foolish beggar" (to the moth). ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with the world died, I thought, when your mother died, and, leaving my active business to you, I retired to live in the country, I must go forth again, as if I were young, to seek for the means of existence, for I feel I was not made to be a beggar—a creature hanging on the bounty of others; no, no, the merciful God will give me strength yet to provide for myself, though I am old, and broken down in mind and body. Farewell; you who were once my beloved son, may God ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... for bart'ring! Had not the people, which of all the world Degenerates most, been stepdame unto Caesar, But, as a mother, gracious to her son; Such one, as hath become a Florentine, And trades and traffics, had been turn'd adrift To Simifonte, where his grandsire ply'd The beggar's craft. The Conti were possess'd Of Montemurlo still: the Cerchi still Were in Acone's parish; nor had haply From Valdigrieve past the Buondelmonte. The city's malady hath ever source In the confusion of its persons, as The body's, in ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... young man did when his beard was grown was to take the road to the dragon's house and on the way he met a beggar, whom he persuaded to change clothes with him, and in the beggar's garments he went fearlessly forth to ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... Government man, can't take charge of the schooner there, flog the jungle with trackers, and finish Leyden and his opium runners off-hand. Why, he has had a dozen chances. If my hands had not been tied by secret orders and later circumstances, I could have potted the beggar myself, easily. Now Miss Sheldon is gone. Where? You say Leyden fascinates her. Well, has she joined him? Where can she find him, in this maze of ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... get into a hansom and go and dine—I'm positively starving. I'll stand you a dinner at the Cavour—standing you a dinner will be such a new sensation; and new sensations are the only things worth living for. I will tell you about Kitty in the cab. What a beneficent old beggar you are!" ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... crowded the endless unvarnished shelves. In an empire where scholarship has attained an untrammelled pedantry never dreamed of in the remote West, in a country where a perfect knowledge of the classics is respected by beggar and prince to such an extent that to attempt to convey an idea would cause laughter in Europe, all of us thought—even the pessimists—that it could never happen that this holy of holies would be desecrated by fire. Listen ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... ingenuity of man is great. He who defends the claims of the individual, or of a class, against the rights of the human race is a criminal. A hungry man, an idle man, an ignorant man, a destitute or degraded woman, a beggar or pauper child, is a reproach to society and a witness against existing religion and civilisation. In such a world as this, friend Christian, a man has no business reading the Bible, singing hymns, and attending divine worship. He has ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... as flatly, Blount, as you would refuse a penny to a blind beggar—as obstinately, Tracy, as thou didst ever deny access to ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... a basis of equality with the rich; I would send a guilty millionaire to prison with a light heart, and on the same day I would move heaven and earth to secure the freedom of an innocent beggar, though men of wealth were trying ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... no valid argument against the supposition that dogs form generic ideas of sensible objects. One of the most curious peculiarities of the dog mind is its inherent snobbishness, shown by the regard paid to external respectability. The dog who barks furiously at a beggar will let a well-dressed man pass him without opposition. Has he not then a "generic idea" of rags and dirt associated with the idea of aversion, and that of sleek broadcloth associated with the ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... a grin. "This is life as I understand it. The question is a simple one and may be put in different ways. How can a wretched, unwashed beggar, with not a penny in his pocket, make a fortune in twenty-four hours without setting foot outside his hovel? How can a general, with no soldiers and no ammunition left, win a battle which he has lost? In short, how ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... him, and half starve him in his mind and his body, and see what ye'd get! Ye'd get an idiot, that's what ye'd get! The average lad couldn't stand it! Not the way this boy has! Because why? I'll tell ye: ye've made his home a prison, and ye've dressed him like a beggar, but ye've never been able t' keep his brain and his soul from growin'! Ye've never been able t' lock them up! Nor dress them badly! And God ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... up the shaft for us,—a cunning old beggar, the pere de famille of the encampment; up to every move on the board. He wanted to have a deal with me for Jessy. But 'pon my honor, we had a good time of it. There was the old tinker, mending the shaft, in his fur cap, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... remorseful old beggar," thinks Desmond, with wonder; but just at this moment a servant enters with a message to the squire; so the photograph is hastily withdrawn, and the conversation—or rather ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... tatters Like a beggar, form as fair As ever gave to Heaven The treasure of a prayer; And words all dim and faded, And obliterate in part, Grow into fadeless meanings That ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... Thou bearest in thy breast a star Fixed and tranquil, and dost contemplate Death unafraid, still calm, inviolate. Of riches, one thing thou dost hold the measure: Proportion to man's needs—not gold nor treasure; Thy searching eyes have power to behold The beggar housed beneath the roof of gold, Nor dost thou grudge the poor man fame as blest If he but hearken him to thy behest. Oh, hapless, hapless man am I, who sought If I might gain thy thresholds by much thought, Cast down from thy last steps after so long, ...
— Laments • Jan Kochanowski
... ways that I met you." Then the blood crept into his face again. "I should, at least, like you to think kindly of me, and I'm rather afraid appearances are against me. Because that is so, there's a thing that I should like you to understand. I'd have been proud to marry you had you been a beggar." ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... that the day has anything to do with it," said the captain—a courtesy title, bestowed because he was president of the Maraposa Yacht Club. "I was just interested in the clean way the beggar dived after that fish. Flounder, ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... the governor's brother came on board, making many fair speeches, and had a present given him. The governor impudently urged us to give him presents, though he had already received three, but found fault with them, and even named what he would have given him, being beggar and chooser both at once. We had this day news of Mr Aldworth's death; and on the 5th November we received intelligence of the lord ambassador having fallen sick at Burhanpoor, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... sustained by my new comrade; for I am little addicted to commence unnecessary socialities myself, though I should think very meanly of my pretensions to the name of a gentleman and a courtier, if I did not return them when offered, even by a beggar. ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... decorous through Milan's stately streets, and scattered from his hand an invisible dust. It touched the walls; it lay on the streets; it ascended to the cross on the minster's utmost top. It went down to the beggar's den. Peacefully he walked through the streets, vanished and went home. But the next morning, the pestilence was in Milan, and ere a week had sped half her population were in their graves; and half the other half, crying that hell was clutching at their hearts, fled from ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... multitudes increase; Blind Bartimeus, hold thy peace! But still, above the noisy crowd, The beggar's cry is shrill and loud; Until they ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... rose in southern Honan. Kuo was the son of a wandering soothsayer and a blind beggar-woman. He had success; his group gained control of a considerable region round his home. There was no longer any serious resistance from the Mongols, for at this time the whole of eastern China was in ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... I think it does matter to me, sir," interposed Titmouse; "for on the 10th of next month I'm a beggar—being next door ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... on miles and miles of streets and warehouses and dwellings of rich and poor. But there are not many poor people in this Queen City. In all my wanderings about the city for a month, I was never accosted by a professional beggar. Everybody could find work to do, and all seemed prosperous and happy. Off to the west, serving as a sentinel, is Russian Hill, 360 feet high. It is a striking feature in the ever-expanding city, and it is a notable landmark for the San Franciscan. In the southeastern part of the ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... the power to kill? And he was impotent! He was a waif tossed about in the chaos of eternity, with no power to smite the man whose crime had—perhaps—been greater than the thrusting of two lives from existence a few years before their time. He was as powerless as the invisible beggar who floated at his side. And that man was on earth yet, perchance, coldly indifferent in his proud position, inwardly gloating at the ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Mrs. Bolton, that there can be any cause for anger. If I were a beggar, if I were below her in position, if I had not means to keep a wife,—even if I were a stranger to his name, he might be angry. But I do not think he can be angry with me, now, because, in the most straightforward way, I come to the young lady's ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... back!" said Pere Fourchon; "don't you see it breathe, the beggar? How do you suppose they manage to breathe at the bottom of the water? Ah, the creature's so ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... me, Love, thy slave again, One other proof, miraculous and new, Must yet be wrought by you, Ere, conquer'd, I resume my ancient chain— Lift my dear love from earth which hides her now, For whose sad loss thus beggar'd I remain; Once more with warmth endow That wise chaste heart where wont my life to dwell; And if as some divine, thy influence so, From highest heaven unto the depths of hell, Prevail in sooth—for what its scope ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... if more humility and subordination to his orders were not shown. But he was detained, first by a brother priest who wished to consult him in a difficulty, then by the Cardinal's sumner, who brought documents from his Eminence, and lastly by a beggar requesting alms. Having at length freed himself from these interruptions, he set out for Primrose Croft. He had passed through the gates, and was approaching the door, when he saw an unwelcome sight which brought him to a sudden stop. That sight ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... Vernon. They are afraid of slavery there. They are afraid of this, that, and the other; but give they will not." He handed me a dollar, in a hopeless way, which was a four-hundredth of his income. The blacksmith's wife would not admit me at all, saying, "There has been one beggar here already this morning!" The butcher's wife gave five cents; but I had my doubts about accepting it, for while I was indignantly relating the desolate condition of the home and tomb of the Father of his Country, and something about its being ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... Fairies,—a name absurdly changed by the people of North Conway to Diana's Bath,—and on entering he was invited to take meat. The tail of a whale was cooked and offered to him, but after he had taken it upon his knees one of the goblins exclaimed, "That is too good for a beggar like you," and snatched it away. Glooskap had merely to wish the return of the dainty when it flew back into his platter. Then he took the whale's jaw, and snapped it like a reed; he filled his pipe ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... the house?" The old man was silent; the downcast, rather cynical look of his lined face deepened. And Frances Freeland thought: 'He's overtired. They must give him some tea and an egg. What can he want, coming all this way? He's evidently not a beggar.' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... equipage, he had, however, something elegant in his manners and conversation; his countenance was expressive and agreeable, and he spoke with facility if not with modesty; in short, everything about him bore the mark of a young debauchee, who did not crave assistance like a beggar, but as a thoughtless madcap. He told us his name was Venture de Villeneuve, that he came from Paris, had lost his way, and seeming to forget that he had announced himself for a musician, added that he was going to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... openly in the face of day among the neighbors! Now, Mave Sullivan, farewell!" said he rising, while his face was crimsoned over with shame; "farewell, Mave Sullivan; all, from this minute, is over between you an' me. The son of a beggar must never become your husband; will never call you his wife; even if there was no other raison ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... and his minions male and female. On looking at the article the other day, I was glad to see that I drew attention to Gay's peculiar handling of the couplet and also to his delight in every kind of old song and ballad. I quoted in this respect, however, not from "The Beggar's Opera" but from the song as sung by Silenus in Gay's Eclogues. One of these songs I have always longed to hear or to read, owing to the fascination of its title—"The grass now grows where ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... little charity. Popanilla was about to empty part of his pocketfuls into the mendicant's cap, but his companion repressed his unphilosophical facility. 'By no means!' said his friend, who, turning round to the beggar, advised him, in a mild voice, to work; calmly adding, that if he presumed to ask charity again he should certainly have him ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... women knitting, crocheting, sewing, cooking, weaving rugs and making baskets, and doing the work side by side with their more fortunate sisters, and doing it as well, and often better. Then and only then will the greatest sting be removed from blindness; then and only then will the blind beggar depart from our public thoroughfares, and when all these things come to pass, my dream for my people will be realized. Aren't you going to help to make my ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... world have died, and the age at which several other very great men have been born again—which possibly is the same thing. Titian lived to be a hundred, lacking six months, and when past seventy used to give alms to a beggar-woman at a church- door—the woman who had broken the heart of Giorgione. He also painted her portrait—this in sad and subdued remembrance of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... vainly imagined that if he preached three sermons a week, attended the Wednesday evening prayer-meeting, the Thursday evening sewing society, officiated at every funeral, visited all the sick, and gave to every beggar who called at his door, besides superintending the Sunday school, he was earning his salary ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... 18th June, 1815, at the very moment when the destiny of Europe was being decided at Waterloo, a man dressed like a beggar was silently following the road from Toulon ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... goes about telling of his reverses and misfortunes, exhibiting them to the public eye like a beggar his sores, without shame or remorse; seeking to levy contributions on his fellow men, as one who has been robbed of his estate. Reader, will you say that you have never ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... lighted their own hearths from the pile and ended by feasting on the remains. Words of incantation were repeated by an old man from Morven, who came over as master of the ceremonies, and who continued speaking all the time the fire was being raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochroy. Asked to repeat the spell, he said, the sin of repeating it once had brought him to beggary, and that he dared not say those words again. The whole country believed him accursed."[728] From this account we see that in Mull the kindling of ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... very angry when he saw how his daughter behaved, and how she ill-treated all his guests; and he vowed that, willing or unwilling, she should marry the first man, be he prince or beggar, that came ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... had first seen Henry's advertisement, Mr. Mix had been as uncertain of his prospects as a child with a daisy; he had foreseen that it was only a part of a very narrow margin of fortune which would determine whether he was to be a rich man, poor man, beggar man—or jilt. Now, however, his confidence was back in his heart, and when, on Sunday afternoon, he placed himself inconspicuously in the window of an ice-cream parlour, squarely opposite the Orpheum, ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... rum beggar," said the black, with a satisfied smile, as if pleased with the new title; but he turned round fiercely directly after, having in his way grasped the meaning ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... little red riding-hood, isn't she?" whispered Hugh, to his brother, after taking a survey of the prim, little black-eyed miss before him. Then looking sour and angry, he added, "But why does Jessie take the beggar's ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... lieu of the lesser decencies, Lord Borrodaile lived his life as far removed from any touch of scandal and irregularity as the most puritanic of the bourgeoisie. Part and parcel of his fastidiousness, some said—others, that from his Eton days he had always been a lazy beggar. As though to show that he did not shrink from reasonable responsibility towards his female impedimenta, any inquiry as to the absence of Lady Borrodaile was met by reference to Sophia. In short, where other attractive ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... teaching me to jump now, are you? Oh, worthy counselor! (quoting) Put a beggar in your barn and he'll ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... shouted Philip. "A beggar!" He caught himself with a laugh, and to cover his sudden emotion turned to lay a fresh piece of birch on the fire. "We ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... Then, while she was pinning her hat on, her cape blew up, and he held it down for her, looking at her intently. His face worked as if he were going to cry or were frightened. He leaned over and whispered something to her. It struck her as curious that he was really quite timid, like an old beggar. "Oh, let me ALONE!" she cried miserably between her teeth. He vanished, disappeared like the Devil in a play. But in the mean time something had got away from her; she could not remember how the violins came in after the horns, just there. When ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... her back bent by age and years of work in the 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
... he will not allow that they have any merit. He read them over in his way, and counted faults enough to show that there is very little poetry in me. A beggar and a poet mean about the same ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... Pao-yue demurred, "we must be careful, or else some beggar might kidnap us away; besides, were they to come to hear of it, there'll be again a dreadful row; and isn't it better that we should go to some nearer place, from which we could, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... affairs to know that you were his niece; and as there had been an old difficulty, I thought I couldn't do better than call and see what sort of a person you were, so as to judge whether a reconciliation might not be brought about. I came here three days ago, and that beggar of a porter wouldn't let me in. The next day I came back, and found Wiggins, and had some talk with him. He said something or other about your grief and seclusion and so forth; but I knew the scoundrel ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... sermon on the 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
... despise me, don't you?" he went on, as if that, too, gave him pleasure. "But I tell you the Colonel's a beggar but for me. Go and ask him if I'm lying. All you've got to do is to say you'll be my wife, and I tear these notes in two. They go over the bluff." (He made the motion with his hands.) "Carvel & Company's an old ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... savvy plenty, do you? (Beggar's seen this trick in the mail-boat, I guess.) Well, why you no savvy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this region after dark. His fears were not allayed by noticing that underneath his himation Pratinas occasionally let the hilt of a short sword peep forth. Still the Greek kept on, never turning to glance at a filthy, half-clad beggar, who whined after them for an alms, and who did not so much as throw a kiss after the young Roman when the latter tossed forth a denarius,[60] but snatched up the coin, muttered at its being no more, and vanished ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... bet," murmured the old man clutching his head in despair... "Why didn't the man die? He's only forty years old. He will take away my last farthing, marry, enjoy life, gamble on the Exchange, and I will look on like an envious beggar and hear the same words from him every day: 'I'm obliged to you for the happiness of my life. Let me help you.' No, it's too much! The only escape from bankruptcy and disgrace—is that the man ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... or beggars in India are often holy men whose advice even kings are glad to listen to; so that, when everyone heard what this beggar said, there was great excitement and terror. For many were the stories told of the misfortunes Rakshas or evil magicians had brought on other cities. The brothers all wanted to try their luck once more, but the beggar checked ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... worn-out broom-stump, which he has shouldered for these seven years past, and with which he has never displaced a pound of soil in the whole period. He abominates work with such a crowning intensity, that the very pretence of it is a torture to him. He is a beggar without a beggar's humbleness; and a thief, moreover, without a thief's hardihood. He crawls lazily about the public ways, and begs under the banner of his broom, which constitutes his protection against the police. He will ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... BEGGAR. May you never taste cake again! May the very cake in your mouth seem to be crust! If you will not give, you shall ...
— Children's Classics in Dramatic Form - Book Two • Augusta Stevenson
... you?" slobbered Weeks, half crying, in a savage, vindictive voice, and rushing at me as soon as he rose up. "You spiteful beggar! Well, two can play at that game, and I'll pay you out for it if you've got pluck ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... himself so, that his nearest friends could not have known him, and set up in Tower Street for an Italian mountebank, where he practised physic for some weeks, not without success. In his latter years he read books of history more. He took pleasure to disguise himself as a porter, or as a beggar; sometimes to follow some mean amours, which, for the variety of them, he affected. At other times, merely for diversion, he would go about in odd shapes; in which he acted his part so naturally, that even those who were in the secret, ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... infamous part is that by betraying the noblest thing in my possession I have not even secured the prize which was to be the equivalent. I remain, after all, the beggar I ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... intended to represent the head and shoulders of a man in khaki lying on grass and aiming at us. However, the British private, with his usual genius for misapprehension, has christened this effigy "the beggar in ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... me laird! After being turnit frae the castle like a thief, or a beggar, or a dog! after being threatened wi' a constable and a prison if I ever showed my face here; but once mair I hae come agen, in obedience to your bidding! Come creeping, creeping, creeping ander the castle wa', by night, like ony puir cat afeared ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... screamed. "My dear Sir, do spare me, an eyeless beggar; and henceforth I'll look up to you with veneration; ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... house torn from its foundations might roll from the summit of a mountain. Then, reaching the ledge of the last ravine, it described a circle, and, falling to the bottom, burst open as an egg might do. It was no sooner smashed on the stones than the old beggar, who had seen it going past, went down toward it slowly amid the rushes, and with the customary caution of a peasant, not daring to go directly to the shattered hut, he went to the nearest farm ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... have you not thought at such a time that a hundredth part of that would have been enough to extinguish you? Have you not wondered at the tenacity of material life, and at the desperate grasp with which even the most wretched cling to it? Is it worth the beggar's while, in the snow-storm, to struggle on through the drifting heaps towards the town eight miles off, where he may find a morsel of food to half-appease his hunger, and a stone stair to sleep in during the night? Have not ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... fatigue of the day, could not well be compensated by a mere puppet-show; for puppet-show it was, though it cost a million. The Queen is so gay that we shall not want sights; she has been at the Opera, the Beggar's Opera and the Rehearsal, and two nights ago ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... vanity, jealousy, morbid sensibility. To these faults were now superadded the faults which are commonly found in men whose livelihood is precarious, and whose principles are exposed to the trial of severe distress. All the vices of the gambler and of the beggar were blended with those of the author. The prizes in the wretched lottery of book- making were scarcely less ruinous than the blanks. If good fortune came, it came in such a manner that it was almost certain to be abused. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... known to all the vagrant train; He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain; The long-remembered beggar was his guest, Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast; The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed; The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, Sat by his fire and talked the night ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... woman, suppose that you are a widow and are killed," (Mrs Marrot looked as if she would rather not suppose anything of the sort), "what I ask, what becomes of your child?—Left a beggar; ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Weed lived as a beggar, Thurlow thought as a king. He revelled in the mountains and streams interspersed along the routes of the family's frequent movings; his taste for adventure made the sloop's cabin a home, and his love for reading turned the blacksmith shop and printing office into a schoolroom. As ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... looked at him with a cold eye and for a moment said nothing. "It's not so obvious as you might suppose," he rejoined dryly, "considering what a demonstrative beggar I am." ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... her hand in the dance, and in its stead the bony fingers of a skeleton were extended to him. He shrank back aghast; for royalty shuddereth at the sight of Death as doth a beggar, and, in its presence, feeleth his power to be as the power of him who vainly commanded the waves of the sea to go back. Still the skeleton kept true measure before him—still it extended to him its bony ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... "Wish I were a beggar: fellows always have no end in stock, they say; and your tailor can't worry you very much when all you have to think about is an artistic arrangement of tatters!" murmured Bertie, whose impenetrable serenity was never to be ruffled by ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... men and women, there is nothing that we require more than to have what we have, to possess what is ours, to make our own what has been bestowed. You sometimes hear of some beggar, or private soldier, or farm labourer, who has come all at once into an estate that was his, years before he knew anything about it. There is such a boundless wealth belonging by right, and by the Giver's gift, to every Christian soul; and yet, here are we, many of us, like the paupers ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... there, knowing it was not what she ought to say. And as she stopped and looked at the words she began herself to wail somewhat as Robin had wailed in the dark when she would not listen or go to her. It was like a beggar's letter—a beggar's! Telling him that she had no money and no food—and would be turned out for unpaid rent. And that the baby was crying ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... caste feeling occurred in the case of Captain Vratz, who said of himself and companions on their way to the gallows for murder, that "God would show them some respect as they were gentlemen." When Gay's "Beggar's Opera" was put on the stage, the fashionable world crowded to see their own coarseness and immorality exhibited in the persons of thieves and highwaymen, and to laugh at the truth of the Beggar's words: ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... austerely, very detached. But I could not let him off like this. The sly beggar. So this was the secret of his passion for sailing about the river, the reason of his ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... "Beggar my shoes!" said John. "This weren't no devil-dog, but a living creature! The Hound be a spirit and don't leave no mark where he runs; but the dog that made these tracks weighs a hundred and fifty pound if he weighs an ounce; and look ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... and lending his money upon pledges. Moreover he dwelleth in a small house, and is ever counting his money, and hath a wife that is a companion of his extreame misery, neither keepeth he more in his house than onely one maid, who goeth apparelled like unto a beggar. Which when I heard, I laughed in my self and thought, In faith my friend Demeas hath served me well, which hath sent me being a stranger, unto such a man, in whose house I shall not bee afeared either of smoke or of the sent of meat; and therewithall I rode to the ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... hill" The Thorn Goody Blake and Harry Gill Her Eyes are Wild Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman Lines written in Early Spring To my Sister Expostulation and Reply The Tables Turned The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman The Last of the Flock The Idiot Boy The Old Cumberland Beggar Animal ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... burnt—and so on—and so on. The red-haired pilgrim was beside himself with the thought that at least this poor Kurtz had been properly revenged. 'Say! We must have made a glorious slaughter of them in the bush. Eh? What do you think? Say?' He positively danced, the bloodthirsty little gingery beggar. And he had nearly fainted when he saw the wounded man! I could not help saying, 'You made a glorious lot of smoke, anyhow.' I had seen, from the way the tops of the bushes rustled and flew, that almost all the shots had gone too high. You can't ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... already been to my place, and who had also offered me a great deal for the cloak. He threw a purse with sequins upon the table, and exclaimed: "Of a truth, Zaleukos, I must have thy cloak, should I turn into a beggar over it!" He immediately began to count his pieces of gold. I was in a dangerous position: I had only exposed the cloak, in order merely to attract the attention of my stranger, and now a young fool ...
— The Severed Hand - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Wilhelm Hauff
... upstairs and had not come down when the tea bell rang. Now she was hopping down on her way to the dining room, and hearing the slight noise below, stopped and looked through the railing. Any pet creature that lives in a nice family hates a dirty, shabby person. Bella knew that those beggar boys had no ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal more saucy. When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece; but Poor Dick says, It is easier to suppress the first desire than to ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... being anxious to hear the orator whom he had idolised, Khalid bravely appeals to his generosity in this quaint and touching note: "My pocket," he wrote, "is empty and my mind is hungry. Might I come to your Table to-night as a beggar?" And the man at the stage door, who carries the note to the orator, returns in a trice, and tells Khalid to lift himself off. Khalid hesitates, misunderstands; and a heavy hand is of a sudden upon him, to say nothing of ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani |
