"Farthing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... live sociably, friendly, temperately, and justly; of all which conditions they leave us not one, who cry out that man's sovereign good lies in his belly, and that they would not purchase all the virtues together at the expense of a cracked farthing, if pleasure were totally and on every side removed from them. And in their discourses concerning the soul and the gods, they hold that the soul perishes when it is separated from the body, and that the gods concern not themselves in our affairs. Thus the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... her face, as he advanced upon her with an almost threatening air. "Don't want 'em? Take 'Antony and Cleopatterer.' It's a sweet picter. Too dear? Do you know what sech picters costs to paint? Look at Cleopatterer's dress and the jewels she has on. I don't make a farthing on 'em. I gets daily bread out of the other things, and only keeps the picters to oblige one or two ladies of taste that likes to give their rooms a ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... small Indian coin, mentioned in the Gentoo code of laws: hence etymologists may, if they please, derive the common expression, I do not care a dam, i.e. I do not care half a farthing ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... The walks, which nature seems to have intended for solitude, shade, and silence, are filled with crowds of noisy people, sucking up the nocturnal rheums of an aguish climate; and through these gay scenes, a few lamps glimmer like so many farthing candles. ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... the Church of Elie, it appears that in the year 1154, every person who kept a fire in the several parishes within that diocese was obliged to pay one farthing yearly to the altar of S. Peter, in the same cathedral."—MSS. Bowtell, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... downwards, he finally gave up and resigned himself to his fate. The only unpleasant circumstance now remaining was that the day was rapidly drawing to a close. Gudbrand, who had started before dawn, now found himself fasting, at sundown, without a farthing in his pocket. He still had a long walk before him, and the good man felt that his legs were giving out and that his stomach craved refreshment. Some bold step must be taken; and so, at the first ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... by often changing sides in controversy, may give just suspicion of their fidelity, and whom I should think likely to desert for the pleasure of desertion, or for a farthing a month advanced in their pay. Of these men I know not what use can be made, for they can never be trusted, but with shackles on their legs. There are others whom long depression, under supercilious patrons, has so humbled and crushed, that they will never have steadiness to keep their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... kept an orchestra for show. Lemm lived with him seven years in the capacity of orchestra conductor, and left him empty-handed. The nobleman was ruined, he intended to give him a promissory note, but in the sequel refused him even that—in short, did not pay him a farthing. He was advised to go away; but he was unwilling to return home in poverty from Russia, that great Russia which is a mine of gold for artists; he decided to remain and try his luck. For twenty years the poor German had been trying his luck; he had lived in various ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... were rouped for L100 a year more than they brought last year. Poor Abbotsford will come to good after all. In the meantime it is Sic vos non vobis—but who cares a farthing? If Boney succeeds, we will give these affairs a blue eye, and I will ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... his voice quite gone, coughing every two minutes, and romancing on with some allegory about children marching on their little paths, and playing on their little fiddles. So I told Miss Cilly that if she cared a farthing for her father, she would hold her tongue, and I packed her up, and put her into her nursery. She'll mind me when she sees I will be minded; and as for little Owen, nothing would satisfy him but his promising ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hide something I can see" cried Mr. Palsey passionately, "you'd best tell me, or not a farthing of ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... house at Kingsgate, have been professed smugglers, and John, as I am informed, was employed in vending for them some of their contraband goods, for which he was to be allowed a profit. He sold the goods, and never accounted with his principals for a farthing; and so now they place him to sit up with the corps[e] of the family, and to act as one of their undertakers, that they may be in part reimbursed. This is the dessous des cartes, qui est veritablement comique, et singulier. Ste, &c., will be here ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... she said, twining her white arms round his swarthy neck and looking up into his murderous eyes with something like genuine adoration. "We shall get the wife's dowry for ourselves, by degrees, every farthing of it, and it shall be the dower of Aristarchi's bride instead. I shall not be portionless. You shall not be ashamed of me when ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... Evelyn tells me of several of the menial servants of the court lacking bread, that have not received a farthing wages since the king's coming in. He tells me that now the Countess Castlemaine do carry all before her. He did tell me of the ridiculous humour of our king and knights of the Garter the other day, who, whereas heretofore their robes were only ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... own by that sojourn in the Land of Sapience. So David learned his trade, and completed his education at the same time, and Didot's foreman became a scholar; and yet when he left Paris at the end of 1819, summoned home by his father to take the helm of business, he had not cost his parent a farthing. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... court question the justice of this contention? The peace of the world was at stake. Time only was asked to see what could be done to preserve that peace and satisfy Austria's grievances to the uttermost farthing. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... makes it possible for my happiness to be complete," returned Dorothy. "If he were kind to me, I should be unhappy, but his cruelty leaves me free to be as happy as I may. For my imprisonment in this room I care not a farthing. It does not trouble me, for when I wish to see—see him again, I shall do so. I don't know at this time just how I shall effect it; but be sure, sweet one, I shall find a way." There was no doubt in Madge's mind that Dorothy ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... men by falling even into the clutches of the law, or we border on the verge of self-destruction in our unspeakable ennui. We would have the half, while Nature planned the whole, and we pay the last farthing. The results are naturally so appalling that it is not to be wondered that men sought to express them under the image of a fire which will not be quenched, a worm of remorse which can never die—an immense despair for ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... Feb. 28, 1915, special reference being made to the Clyde strike. He declared that compulsory arbitration in war time was imperative, as it was "intolerable that the lives of Britons should be imperiled for a matter of a farthing an hour." This was essentially an engineers' war, for equipment was even more needed than men. Mr. Lloyd George went on to comment on the adverse effect of drinking upon production, and added: "We have great powers to deal with drink, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... cried Richard exultingly. "If every farthing of Ada's little fortune were mine, no part of it should be spent in retaining me in what I am not fit for, can take no interest in, and am weary of. It should be devoted to what promises a better return, and should be used where she has a larger stake. Don't be uneasy for ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... last long. And yet the New York Times, or some such journal, said that the work was very well done, and that the paper did well until I left. Heaven knows that I worked hard enough on it, and, what was a great deal to boast of in those days, never profited one farthing beyond free tickets to plays, which I had little time to use. And yet my pay was simply despicably small. I had great temptations to write up certain speculative enterprises, and never accepted one. Our circulation sometimes reached 150,000. And if the publishers (excepting Barnum) had ever shown ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... I've exacted my full price to the uttermost farthing. Blandford is saved, or will be on the day I marry him. We are neither of us under any illusions whatever; the whole thing is on an eminently business footing. . . . We are to be married ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... 1831, looked over the Lord's gracious dealings with us during the past year, in providing for all our temporal wants, we had about ten shillings left. A little while after, the providence of God called for that, so that not a single farthing remained. Thus we closed the old year, in which the Lord had been so gracious in giving to us, without our asking any one,—1. Through the instrumentality of the box, thirty-one pounds fourteen shillings. 2. ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... of the others were visited in the form of perpetual virulent abuse, until the man's life positively became a burden to him, to such an extent, indeed, that he would undoubtedly have deserted but for the fact that Butler, suspecting his inclination perhaps, positively refused to pay him a farthing of wages until the conclusion of his engagement. It can easily be understood, therefore, that, under the circumstances described, an element of tragedy was steadily ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... footing of equality with the Turks. The difference of treatment which the Christians experience from the Turks in different parts of Syria is very remarkable. In some places a Christian would be deprived of his last farthing, if not of his life, were he to curse the Mohammedan religion when quarrelling with a Turk; while in others but a few hours distant, he retorts with impunity upon the Mohammedan, every invective which he may utter against the Christian religion. At Szaffad, where is a small ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... to pay me, and that my wages were all counted out on the table. But I see there is nothing there, and I fear I shall get none, and be poor as a church-mouse all my life long. Your honor promised me positively that, as soon as the wedding was decided upon, you would pay me every farthing, with interest, and I depended ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... settled twenty minutes after I arrived here. Honoria has found the business too much for her this year; and she was on the point of sending for me and proposing a partnership when I walked in and told her I hadn't a farthing in the world. So I installed myself and packed her off for a fortnight's holiday. What happened at ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... purpose I will have you frequently read very loud, to Mr. Harte, recite parts of orations, and speak passages of plays; for, without a graceful and pleasing enunciation, all your elegancy of style, in speaking, is not worth one farthing. ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... figure on the rawboned horse—the apparition which could "never present itself in the village but it caught the attention of old and young," so that "labour stood still as he passed, the bucket hung suspended in the middle of the well, the spinning-wheel forgot its round; even chuck-farthing and shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping till he was out of sight." Throughout this chapter Sterne, though describing himself, is projecting his personality to a distance, as it were, and contemplating it dramatically; and ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... respect of persons; that, for his part, he would give up the dearest friend he had, if he had been engaged in the project. The nation had been plundered in a most shameful and flagrant manner, and he would go as far as any body in the punishment of the offenders. Lord Stanhope said, that every farthing possessed by the criminals, whether directors or not directors, ought to be confiscated, to make ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... command that soldier to give him one penny of his money; nor the general, that can condemn him to death for deserting his post, or for not obeying the most desperate orders, can yet, with all his absolute power of life and death, dispose of one farthing of that soldier's estate, or seize one jot of his goods; whom yet he can command any thing, and hang for the least disobedience; because such a blind obedience is necessary to that end, for which the commander has his power, viz. the preservation of the rest; but the disposing of his goods has nothing ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... thoughtful Clerk of Oxenford, of whom it is recorded that "Every farthing that his friends e'er lent, In books and learning was it always spent," was prevailed upon to give his companions a puzzle. He said, "Ofttimes of late have I given much thought to the study of those strange ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... On the other hand, there are risks. There is the uncertainty of what will be done in the year 1870, when the runs lapse to the Government. The general opinion appears to be, that they will be re-let, at a greatly advanced rent, to the present occupiers. The present rent of land is a farthing per acre for the first and second years, a halfpenny for the third, and three farthings for the fourth and every succeeding year. Most of the waste lands in the province are now paying three farthings per acre. There is the danger also of scab. This appears to depend ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... Newbury; Gyp sitting opposite that Swedish fellow with his greenish wildcat's eyes. Something furtive, and so foreign, about him! A mess—if he were any judge of horse or man! Thank God he had tied Gyp's money up—every farthing! And an emotion that was almost jealousy swept him at the thought of the fellow's arms round his soft-haired, dark-eyed daughter—that pretty, willowy creature, so like in face and limb to her whom he had loved ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... about Australey to me," ses old Mr. Walker, firing up, "off I go. Mind that! You're arter my money, and if you're not careful you sha'n't 'ave a farthing ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... Louie,' he began, hesitating, 'that fellow John's worked for me like a dozen, and has never taken a farthing from me. Don't you go and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his wine, which he has had twenty years in his cellar.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, all this notion about benevolence arises from a man's imagining himself to be of more importance to others, than he really is. They don't care a farthing whether he drinks wine or not.' SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 'Yes, they do for the time.' JOHNSON. 'For the time!—If they care this minute, they forget it the next. And as for the good worthy man; how do you know he is good and worthy? ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... you know, for expecting me to climb the third or fourth round, when I had seemed quite unequal to the first. Professing the most absolute bankruptcy from the very beginning, giving the man no sort of hope that I would pay even one farthing in the pound, I never could be made ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... found he had entirely misjudged the local feeling, and that, in any case, his suggestions were quite impracticable. He'll detest me, but I don't care a brass farthing. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... of rage, his cries of fury, his imprecations on me as one who should never touch a farthing of his fortune. And then I heard the whispering of his "friends," who were telling the "true story" of my disappearance, the tale of my "treacheries" to my husband—just as if Satan had willed it that the only result of the foolish fete on which my father had wasted ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... if you have to stick to it until he dies of old age, you're never to let up until you get Bucky Greenfield! While the British Empire holds together, no man shall rob Her Majesty of a farthing and sleep in security. ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... are, and always have been, swayed by a clever band of flatterers acting through their nominal master; while India, under the kindly British rule, is a perfect instance of a ruthless military despotism, where neither blood nor stratagem have been spared in exacting the uttermost farthing from the miserable serfs—they are nothing else—and in robbing and defrauding the rich of their just and lawful possessions. All these countries teem with stories of adventurers risen from the ranks to the command of armies, of itinerant ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... Sun set, sure he'll rise to-morrow, Not through a misty morning twinkling weak as A drunken man's dead eye in maudlin sorrow, But with all Heaven t'himself; the day will break as Beauteous as cloudless, nor be forced to borrow That sort of farthing candlelight which glimmers Where reeking London's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... laws of England abolish the authority of his father. If he is sufficiently infatuated to place his honor and his happiness at the mercy of a lady, who has behaved to her sister as your daughter has behaved to Miss Eunice, I warn the married couple not to expect a farthing of my money, either during my lifetime or after my death. Your faithful servant, DUNBOYNE, SENIOR." Having performed his duty as secretary, Philip received his dismissal: "You may send my reply to the post," his father said; ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... Sudden hopes that were rainbows to the sight proved but mists to the touch. In the meantime, unpleasant remarks, disguise them as some well-meaning people might, were floating around them every day. The undoubted truth, that they were the children of a dreamer who let slip away every farthing of his money and ran into debt with his neighbours—that the daughter had been brought up to no profession—that the son who had, had made no progress in it, and might come to the dogs—could not from the nature of things be wrapped up in silence in order that it might not hurt their ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... of the civic authorities to arrest him, but after an arduous chase of half-an-hour we unfortunately lost him in Houndsditch. Suppressed two illegal apple-stalls in the Minories, and took up a couple of young black-legs, whom I detected playing at chuck-farthing on Saffron-hill. Issued a proclamation against mad dogs, cautioning all well-disposed persons ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... secured the Archbishop's release, and therewith a handsome reward to himself; but lingering on, he found himself compelled to spend about a year in London—in prison: some Italian merchants having trumped up against him a charge of espionage, from which he only escaped by paying the uttermost farthing. That he suffered such a disagreeable experience perhaps indicates that no one in London was much interested in him ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... He was, therefore, in a very bad temper indeed when he returned sulkily to the schoolroom. He stood for a moment there unaware that there was anybody in the room, hesitating as to whether he should continue "A Flat Iron for a Farthing" or hunt up Hamlet. Suddenly he heard the sound of sobbing. He turned and saw ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... atom of the banquet had been demolished and the landlord paid to the utmost farthing the MacDonalds arose, and, headed by their piper, went roaring up to their native hills, fired with the triumphant assurance that they had that day performed a great and glorious deed, and that at ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... this sum he might appropriate to his own use. This practice was not secret, nor was it considered as disreputable. It was the practice of men of undoubted honour, both before and after the time of Pitt. He, however, refused to accept one farthing beyond the salary which the law had annexed to his office. It had been usual for foreign princes who received the pay of England to give to the Paymaster of the Forces a small percentage on the subsidies. These ignominious ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ten days. Triffitt, in fact, went almost foodless and sleepless; there was so much to do. To begin with, there was the daily hue and cry after Burchill, who had disappeared as completely as if his familiar evil spirits had carried him bodily away from the very door of Halfpenny and Farthing's office. Then there was the bringing up of Barthorpe Herapath before the magistrate at Bow Street, and the proceedings at the adjourned coroner's inquest. It was not until the tenth day that anything like a breathing space came. But the position of affairs on that tenth day ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... our temporalties, not to aduance the kings profit, but to satisfie your owne greedie covetousnesse, for vndoubtedlie if the king (as God forbid he should) did accomplish your wicked purposes and minds, he should not be one farthing the richer the yeare next after: and trulie, sooner will I suffer this head of mine to be cut off from my shoulders, than that the church should lose the least right that apperteineth ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed
... way," said the greybeard hastily; "I've been very much interested in your conversation. I was alluding to my unfortunate financial situation. You mayn't hardly believe it, but at the present moment I am absolutely without a farthing. Don't see any prospect of getting any money, either, for the next few days. I don't suppose you've ever found yourself in such a ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... gallant and dashing life should be celebrated in song. I, for certain, have never done anything to make a pothouse ring with my name, and I liken you to the knights of olden days who tilted in all simple fair bravery without being able to wager a brass farthing as to who was right and who was wrong. Admirable Jem Bottles," I cried enthusiastically, "tell me, if you will, of your glories; tell me with your own tongue, so that when I hear the ballads waxing furious with praise of you, I shall recall the time ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... her dues In sacraments and contracts, wills and pews; Usury furthermore, and simony; But people of ill lives most loathed he: Lord! how he made them sing if they were caught. And tithe-defaulters, ye may guess, were taught Never to venture on the like again; To the last farthing would he rack and strain. For stinted tithes, or stinted offering, He made the people piteously to sing. He left no leg for the good bishop's crook; Down went the black sheep in his own black book; For when the name gat there, such dereliction Came, you ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... visit us. Yesterday I gave him an English silver fourpenny piece, an English farthing, and a small French silver coin, with all of which he was greatly delighted. He summed up their value in wada; fifty wadas are an English penny. He admired her majesty's face on the silver fourpence; but his shadow, the man who generally ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... me quite a shock. 'Good Heavens, H——!' I said, 'what in the world does this mean?' 'Mean, old fellow? It means that I'd not a farthing in the world, and didn't want to starve. It's all my own cursed folly. I've made my bed, and must lie on it.' I pressed a couple of sovereigns into his hand, and made him promise to call on me next day. He came and gave me the details of his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... had nothing to give. I saw him go right through all the perturbations of business life. He was faithful to God. I saw him one day worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I saw him the next day and he was not worth a farthing. Stevens! How plainly he comes before me as I think of the night in 1857 after the New York banks had gone down, and he had lost everything except his faith in God, and he was at the prayer meeting to lead the singing as usual! And, not noticing that from ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... a protector? A tragic actor, Caesar in a clown; He's a brass farthing stamped with a crown; A bladder blown with other breaths puffed full; Not a ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... I've not got a farthing in the world. I durst not ask either father or mother after the bobbery we've had. Indeed, I hardly know whether I dare go home and get my victuals, Won't ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... a farthing from the State, or from any source beyond the free-will offerings of the people, to support them, there are in this country of yesterday, 30,217 churches (exclusive of those belonging to the Wesleyans) connected with the various sects of Christians: 26,588 ministers; and ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... that a Queen Anne's farthing is a coin of the greatest rarity, originated perhaps in the fact that there are several pattern pieces executed by Croker, which are much valued by collectors, and which consequently bring higher prices. One type only was in circulation, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... number of men, goaded by a thousand stings of reflection on the past and of anticipation on the future, about to be turned into the world, soured by penury and what they call the ingratitude of the public, involved in debts, without one farthing of money to carry them home after having spent the flower of their days, and many of them their patrimonies, in establishing the freedom and independence of their country, and suffered everything that human nature is capable of enduring on this side of death.... You may rely ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... good question like the German reparation question will go on for a century. Undoubtedly in the year 2000 A.D., a British Chancellor of the Exchequer will still be explaining that the government is fully resolved that Germany shall pay to the last farthing (cheers): but that ministers have no intention of allowing the German payment to take a form that will undermine British industry (wild applause): that the German indemnity shall be so paid that without weakening the power of the Germans, to buy from us ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... next morning. Captain Cheap and Mr. Hamilton were to drive in a post-chaise, and John Byron was to ride. But when they came to divide the little money they had left, it was found there would be barely enough to pay for horses. There was not a farthing left for John Byron to buy any food he might want on the way, nothing even to pay for the turnpikes. However, he boldly cheated these by riding as hard as he could through them all, and paid no attention to the shouts of the men when they tried to stop him. The want of food he had to ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... advantage to him, and a disadvantage to his foes," said Robin: "he has only to put the said nose to the touch-hole of the biggest cannon, and off it goes; it never costs the army a farthing for matches when ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... to the advance in mechanical power nor to the advance in diligence and industriousness, nor to the advance, if there was any, in general kindliness. It was due to the organization of labor. Mechanical progress makes higher wages possible. It does not, of itself, advance them by a single farthing. Labor saving machinery does not of itself save the working world a single hour of toil: it only shifts it from one ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... than once by his quickness in calculation. He was questioning me as to Turkish methods of taxation: population of a province so many—piastres per head of population so many—what was the precise value of the piastre? Twopence and a fraction of a farthing.—Ah! in pounds sterling that would be approximately so much. He made his reckoning with lightning rapidity and he was always accurate, as I could tell, having all the figures at my ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... also, King of Macedon, that the thruppenny bit is of value in ritual phrases, and particularly so in objurgations and the calling down of curses, and in the settlement of evil upon enemies, and in the final expression of contempt. For to compare some worthless thing to a farthing, to a penny, or to tuppence, has no vigour left in it, and it has long been thought ridiculous even among provincials; a threadbare, worn, and worthless sort of sneer; but the thruppenny bit has a sound about it very valuable to one who would insist ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... dropped over the side into the boat, which pulled ashore, landed him, and returned; and a few minutes later the cutter was standing for the mouth of the river, leaving the tailor on the Herne Bay beach, forty miles from home without a farthing in his pocket. ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... is one of the most filthy and disgusting in all India. In this temple I saw one of its many priestesses cutting into bits the flesh and entrails of a goat, which had been offered in sacrifice, in order that the poorest worshiper might have for his farthing something bloody to present at the altar. It was the altar of a fierce, cruel, and lustful goddess, whose black and ugly image could be dimly seen within the shrine. A stalwart priest followed me ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... learned to take, as they did, the fat with the lean in soldiering, and not to care a brass farthing which it was. Still, I was as yet so young at the game, that, though I was careful to swagger it out and say nothing, I did wonder why the body from the south was ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... aid. What is very remarkable, although he is constantly declaiming against the enormous sums of money given for books at public auctions, Mustapha doth not scruple to push the purchaser to the last farthing of his commission; from a ready knack which he hath acquired, by means of some magical art in his foresaid laboratory, of deciphering the same; thus adopting in a most extraordinary manner, the very line of conduct himself which he so ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... strange repugnances. Flying from his study, he would then betake himself to the open air. No one surpassed him in running, in wrestling, in the force with which he cast his javelin or discharged his arrows. So sure was his aim and so skilful his cast, that he could fling a farthing from the pavement of the square, and make it ring against a church roof far above. When he chose to jump, he put his feet together and bounded over the shoulders of men standing erect upon the ground. On horseback ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... pleasure and play to them. Up they are going, to spawn in the little brooks among the mountains; and all of them are the best of food, fattened on the herrings and sprats in the sea outside, Madam How's free gift, which does not cost man a farthing, save the expense of nets and rods ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... he gave us ten krones and a krone to each of the children. But when they're out, you know how the money goes if they don't want to look mean beside their companions. Anna's one of those who can spend all they get on clothes. She's willing enough to do without, but she never has a farthing, and hardly a rag to her body, for all that she's ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... be paid to the minister who they never saw nor cared to see, and if Mr. Boland had profit on them, so much the better, because the less tithe that went into the absent minister's pocket the more would they all be pleased. To be sure the tithe-proctor always exacted to the last farthing, and more than the minister—and it is believed that Mr. Boland was not behind any of the trade—and some people say, indeed, that, from his knowledge of farming and the ins and outs of people's little tillage, he sometimes exacted to within a trifle of one-fifth of the produce. Indeed, ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Grant had an uneasy feeling that she was being stared at; all the female staff and hangers-on of the place having gathered round the door to peer in at her and to appraise to the last farthing her hat, her tailor-made gown, and her solid English walking-shoes, and to indulge in wild speculation as to who or what she could be. A Kickapoo Indian in full war-paint, arriving suddenly in a little English village, could not have created ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... me. But I can easily compound with life. I have many wants, yet I love it. I was but a day or two since buried alive under the burning sands of the desert, and lost there a dromedary worth—if a farthing—four hundred aurelians, for which thou mayest have him. Yet I love to live, and take the chances of the world as they turn up. Here now have I all the way consoled myself with the thought of what I might sell to the great Prince Hormisdas, and thou seest my reward. Still I cry my goods ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... so prevalent amongst the exiles here is no doubt largely due to physical privation. When a man is banished for political reasons to Siberia, his property is confiscated to the uttermost farthing by the Russian Government, which provides a fixed monthly allowance for his maintenance in exile. At Sredni-Kolymsk it is nineteen roubles a month, or about L1 16s., an absurdly inadequate allowance in a place ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... give a farthing for that bit of intoxication. Ridiculous! And to build a life-long union on such a foundation. I'd rather trust a heap ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... into the gruel, Mary?' said a pale, sickly-looking man one evening, taking something out of his mouth, which he held towards the feeble gleams emitted by a farthing rush-light ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... the commissioners, and after a long and vehement debate Sir John Macdonald, not daring to test the opinion of the house by a vote, immediately resigned. In justice to Sir John Macdonald it must be stated that Sir Hugh Allan knew, before he subscribed a single farthing, that the privilege of building the railway could be conceded only to an amalgamated company. When it was shown some months after the elections that the proposed amalgamation could not be effected, the government ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... liard is a bit of copper composition, such as the fine cannon are made of, and is worth three sols french, or a halfpenny, and a farthing english. ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... little porch of my lodging-house, I see and am glad to find that the chase is fruitless. The black man, tortured to distraction, dared at length to rebel, and from the moment that he showed spirit his life was not worth a farthing, but his legs were, and he got clear of Excelsior. The lodgers troop back. Molly, my landlady's niece, breathing and panting, disheveled, leads the procession and is ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... finding that I was earning more than the hundred pounds he allowed me, I wrote and informed him, with all proper expressions of gratitude, that I should no longer need his assistance, and from that time I never had a single farthing that ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Was it possible? Could this horrible thing have happened in her home? Deleah's, who had known there only careless, happy days? Was this man who was to plead guilty to forgery, who had robbed a poor woman of every farthing she possessed, who was to pass years, perhaps, in prison, really her father? Who had been sometimes so affectionate to them all, always so loving and indulgent to her; who had sat in the square family pew with them all on the Sunday ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... her at all. She's different; that's one reason why I liked her. She would not care a farthing for me because I'm a Caruthers, or because I have money; not a brass farthing! She is the realest person I ever saw. She would go about Appledore from morning to night in the greatest state of delight you ever saw anybody; where my sister, for instance, would see ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... would," retorted the young man, "and it'll come cheaper. One thing I'll take my oath of, and that is I won't give you another farthing; but if you do as I tell you I'll give you a quid for ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... heard that they are going to dispute the will," he whispered, "and the relatives are likely to come by their property. Go and speak to M. Camusot, for this poor, harmless creature has not a farthing." ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... gains of their prosperous days had been reckoned, their risks and speculations discussed, but now their seats were pushed to the most distant corners, and between them stood a table covered with papers and account-books; for they had at last determined to divide their possessions to the uttermost farthing, and part company for ever. With merchant-like exactness, every tittle was reckoned up and shared. The old house was to be sold to a Jew for a sum already agreed on, and one item only remained which they could ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... Let us drink again to her witchery. It is her breath itself distilled by the Heavenly Twins that foams against my lips. I would give the soul out of my body to marry her, did I say? It were like buying her for a farthing. I would pledge the soul of the universe ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... have been a poor man. He had invested his last farthing—one hundred thousand pounds. And if he had left any more it would be assessed to make good his share of what der company must bay for der Royal ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... you willing to be at this cost to build the tower? Through the goodness of God in ordering these great affairs, you may never come actually to pay down so much, haply, not half so much, but except you resolve (if called and put to it by the real exigencies of this cause) to pay down the utmost farthing, your spirits are too narrow and your hearts too low for the honour and tenor of this covenant. If any shall say these demands are very high and the charge very great, but is a part in this covenant worth it? ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... out of the list of worthies as if she had never been born; and Miss Reid, though she was once actual flesh and blood, "rival in miniature and at large" of the celebrated Rosalba, she is as if she had never been at all; her little farthing rushlight of a soul and reputation having burnt out, and left neither wick nor tallow. Death, too, has overtaken copious Guthrie and circumstantial Ralph. Only a few know whereabouts is the grave where lies laborious ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... At the doors of the houses laboring men, mostly Irish, lounged or stood about, smoking and talking to one another, or to the women who leant out of the windows, or passed to and fro on their various errands of business or pleasure. A group of half-grown lads were playing at pitch-farthing at the farther end, and all over the court were scattered children of all ages, ragged and noisy little creatures most of them, on whom paternal and maternal admonitions and cuffs were constantly being expended, and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... see you in order that I might repay you the sovereign you lent us the other day. Here it is,"—selecting the coin from a handful which he pulled out of his breeches pocket and thrusting it into my hand—"and I am very much obliged to you for the loan. I really hadn't a farthing in my pocket at the time, or I wouldn't have allowed Tomkins to borrow it from you—and it was awfully stupid of me to let you go away without saying where I could send it ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... all tried to do our very best. (Cheers.) As to the vote of the Legislature, alluded to by your chairman, while I thank him heartily for his liberal spirit, I assure you I am very well satisfied indeed. (Applause.) When I started on the expedition I never expected one farthing of honorarium from the public funds; but though I am modest I am not altogether unselfish, and I did expect what I think every Briton expects from his countrymen when he does his best—but what he does not always get—the ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... bring that about, their fellow slaves all over the world must unite in a vast international association of men pledged to share the world's work justly; to share the produce of the work justly; to yield not a farthing—charity apart—to any full-grown and able-bodied idler or malingerer, and to treat as vermin in the commonwealth persons attempting to get more than their share of wealth or give less than their share of work. ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... colonel; not a damned farthing! By our agreement that cash was to be mine; but for that I wouldn't have touched your revolution with a pair ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... thing that intituled her to him, as he never was married by any priest. To Mr. Cranstoun's proposal I answered, "I won't, Cranstoun, do you so much injury, as well as myself; for my father never will forgive it, nor give me a farthing." To which he replied, "There will be no occasion to discover it, but upon such an interesting event; and then surely, if you love me, you will suffer anything rather than part with me. What would I not suffer for you!" To this I made answer, ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... he did not care ... it was all so absurd that it was not worth while to give it any attention. He would grow very fat, he would die—he would love women, play cards, drink, quarrel, give his life for a sentimental moment, pour every farthing of his possessions into the lap of a friend, incur debts which he would not pay, quarrel wildly with a man about a rouble, remember things that you would expect him to forget, forget everything that he should remember—a pagan, a ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... "I don't care a farthing what John likes," exclaims Luttrell, rather forcibly, giving wings to his manners, as his wrongs of the evening blossom. "What has he or any one to do with it but you and I alone? The question is, do ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... Mysterious Isle, in the History of Abdalla, Son of Hanif, where such inversions of the order of nature are said to have taken place.—"A score of old women and the same number of old men played here and there in the court, some at chuck-farthing, others at tip-cat or at cockles."—And again, "There is nothing, believe me, more engaging than those lovely wrinkles."—See "Tales of the East," vol. iii. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... contrary, I believe that, though masters of their weapons, they are too brave to abuse their skill; and I must add that, though they are sleeping partners in a shop, they would not cheat you of a farthing. Benign stars on earth, as Castor and Pollux ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... establishments of the kingdom the servants lived very much as common sailors live now. In the reign of Edward the Sixth the state of the students at Cambridge is described to us, on the very best authority, as most wretched. Many of them dined on pottage made of a farthing's worth of beef with a little salt and oatmeal, and literally nothing else. This account we have from a contemporary master of St. John's. Our parish poor now eat wheaten bread. In the sixteenth century the labourer ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... could avoid confusion, and confusion there is none. It is all part of a great business conducted on business principles. Every article, every farthing of money is recorded, with the circumstances under which it found its way to the Lost Property Office and its description, so that of the scores of thousands of things which pass through the hands of the officials, a ready history of each one can be ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... although the old accountant, who was now white as snow, with a long, streaming beard, remained scrupulously clean of person, he wore a most wretched threadbare coat, which he must have spent his evenings in repairing. Such, too, was his maniacal, sordid avarice that he no longer spent a farthing on himself apart from the money which he paid for his bread—bread of the commonest kind, which he purchased every four days and ate when it was stale, in order that he might make it last the longer. This ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... revelation of all yet remains to be made, however. When we rose to go we each of us endeavoured to force a fee on Professor Smith, but nothing would induce him to receive a farthing! I had got all my revelations, my "golden" memories of the past, my bright promises of the future free, gratis, for nothing! It will be evident, then, why I do not give this good wizard's address lest I inundate him with gratuitous applicants, and why I therefore veil his personality under the ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... had drawn of kings in exile. "What a pitiful figure they cut, all these poor princes in partibus, figurants of royalty, who drape themselves in the frippery of the principal characters, and declaim before the empty benches without a farthing of receipts! Would they not be wiser if they held their peace and returned to the obscurity of common life? For those who have money there is some excuse. Their riches give them some right to cling to these grandeurs. But the others, the poor cousins of Palermo for ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... that fixed for the payment of the loan to the abbot of St. Mary's. Abbot and prior waited in hope and excitement. If the cash was not paid by night a rich estate would fall into their hands. The knight must pay to the last farthing, or be beggared. As they sat awaiting the cellarer burst in upon ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... temper, and his continual itching after gaming. When he had money, he went to the gaming tables about town, and when reduced by losses sustained there, would put on an old ragged coat and get out to play at chuck, and span-farthing, amongst the boys in the street, by which, sometimes he got money enough to go to his old companions again. But this being a very uncertain recourse, he made use more frequently of picking pockets; for which being ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... out the case, and, by the great god of Light, he shall answer it. Be it but a farthing he hath wronged thee of, and he ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... year at Evora, in the introductory speech of the Auto Pastoril Portugues, placed in the mouth of a beir[a]o peasant, the audience is informed that poor Gil who writes plays for the King is without a farthing and cannot be expected to produce them as splendidly as when he had the means (I. 129). He was probably disappointed that the 6 milreis which he had received that year (May 1523) was not a regular pension. His complaint fell on listening ears and in 1524 (the year of Cam[o]es' birth) he was ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... I was living in lonely lodgings, I had occasion one Saturday night to slip into the nearest draper's shop for some pins. "I only want a farthing's worth of pins," I observed, apologetically, to the bald-headed shopwalker who pounced down upon me. "Please to step this way." To my astonishment he marched me to the extreme end of the shop, thence through an opening in the side wall, past another long double row of dames and damsels of all ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... who was very extravagant, one day asked his father for a hundred pounds. "Zounds, sir," said Colly, "can't you live upon your salary? When I was your age, I never spent a farthing of my father's money."—"But you have spent a great deal of my father's," replied Theophilus. This retort had ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... trust Him, with whom the hairs of our head are all numbered, and who touchingly reminds us that He cares for what has been quaintly called "the odd sparrow." Matthew records (x. 29) how two sparrows are sold for a farthing, and Luke (xii. 6) how five are sold for two farthings; and so it would appear that, when two farthings were offered, an odd sparrow was thrown in, as of so little value that it could be given away with the other four. And yet even for that one sparrow, not worth taking into account ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... a definite theory about this affair, Hugh," he said. "And I'll lay a fiver to a farthing that ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... (12. 41, etc.). "Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them,—'Verily, I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: for all they did cast in of their abundance; ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... for anything more, ma'am," he remarked, "unless you want to make presents to the young lady. No one will remember you. She hasn't a brass farthing ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... had begun to do so ever since the Ortlieb sisters were called the "beautiful" instead of the pious and virtuous Es. This showed how such notice of the face and figure benefited Christian maidens. Yesterday and to-day she had given a three-farthing candle to her saint as a thank offering that this horror had not reached their mother's ears. The dead woman had been a truly devout and noble lady, and her soul would be grateful to her for impressing upon the minds of her motherless daughters that the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... placed under the stress of circumstances. Temptation bids us repeat the offence, and woe comes in return for 5:9 what is done. So it will ever be, till we learn that there is no discount in the law of justice and that we must pay "the uttermost farthing." The measure ye mete "shall 5:12 be measured to you again," and it will be full ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy |
