"Prodigal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... found, as he sententiously expressed it, that it was not agreeable for him to remain under the kindly shelter of the paternal mansion; so he, prodigal like, took the portion his father gave him and spent it in riotous living. But he was determined not to feed on husks, if unmitigated cheek and unblushing effrontery ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... purchase a doughnut and a cup of coffee almost anywhere, or we could eat a sandwich in the park, but the matter of a bed, the business of sleeping in a maelstrom like New York was something more than serious—it was dangerous. Frank, naturally of a more prodigal nature, was all for going to the Broadway Hotel. "It's only for one night," said he. He always was rather ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... was all inevitable: we were as wise as any one can be before the event. I admit that we, scrupulously economical of our pemmican, were terribly prodigal of our man-power. But we had to be: the draft, whatever it may have been on the whole, was not excessive at any given point; and anyhow we just had to use every man to take every opportunity. There is so much to do, and the opportunities for ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... gratifying every inclination, and married by his ministers, when a boy, to an unattractive woman far his senior, he had lived for thirty-six years almost without blame, and bore through England the reputation of an upright and virtuous king. Nature had been prodigal to him of her rarest gifts . . . Of his intellectual ability we are not left to judge from the suspicious panegyrics of his contemporaries. His State Papers and letters may be placed by the side of those of Wolsey or of ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... be so easy and simple; is divine energy of such slight value that it can thus be squandered to no purpose; is the process of creation the sport of an infant God; is the Logos, sacrificing himself in order to give life to the Universe, a prodigal, working without rhyme or reason, sending forth His intelligence and might in aimless sport and leaving evolution at the mercy of His caprice; did not Brahma, by means of meditation, which, as the Oriental scriptures ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... better {64} scholars Luther took the degrees of bachelor in 1502 and of master of arts in 1505, and immediately began the study of jurisprudence. While his diligence and good conduct won golden words from his preceptors he mingled with his comrades as a man with men. He was generous, even prodigal, a musician and a "philosopher"; in disputations he was made "an honorary umpire" by his fellows and teachers. "Fair fortune and good health are mine," he wrote a friend on September 5, 1501, "I am settled at ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... that, for the better securing of the liberties of the subject, no person holding a place or pension under the Crown, shall be a Member of the House of Commons; that these are constitutional principles; and as we are convinced that all the notorious peculations, that all the prodigal waste of public money, that all the intolerable burdens and vexations therefrom arising; that all the oppression from within, and all the danger from without, proceed from a total abandonment of these great constitutional principles; we hold it to be our bounden duty, to use all the legal ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... many a desperate battle; there was Sir Martin Frobisher, one of the earliest explorers of the Arctic seas in search of that North-West Passage which is still the darling object of England's boldest mariners. There was the high-admiral of England, Lord Howard of Effingham, prodigal of all things in his country's cause, and who had recently had the noble daring to refuse to dismantle part of the fleet, though the Queen had sent him orders to do so, in consequence of an exaggerated report that the enemy had been driven back ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... smoke from a subterranean fire, white smoke with pearly shadows; would thicken and spread out; would draw together and rise in an irregular spiral column, curling, swaying, poising, as if uncertain what to do next; and at last, all at once making up its mind, (how like a younker or a prodigal!), would go sailing away, straggling away, amorphous, on a puff of wind, leaving the hillside clear again;—till, presently, the process ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... remembered hearin' a hack go by on the pike the night before, and wondered to myself what was up. I thought, maybe, it was a runaway couple or some such matter, but it was pore Dick comin' back to his father's house, like the Prodigal Son, after twenty years. It takes some folks a long time, child, to git tired of the swine and ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... tempest thus created within the Netherlands, that an affair of such slight importance came to occupy so large a space in contemporary history. The defenders of Solmstold wild stories about the losses of the besieging army. The cardinal, who was thought prodigal of blood, and who was often quoted as saying "his soldiers' lives belonged to God and their bodies to the king," had sacrificed, it, was ridiculously said, according to the statement of the Spaniards themselves, five thousand soldiers before the walls ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... shown by that old, but somewhat exaggerated, canon in natural history of "Natura non facit saltum." We meet with this admission in the writings of almost every experienced naturalist; or, as Milne Edwards has well expressed it, "Nature is prodigal in variety, but niggard in innovation." Why, on the theory of Creation, should there be so much variety and so little real novelty? Why should all the parts and organs of many independent beings, each supposed to have been separately created for its own proper ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... garden wall, smothering everything upon it. A kind of Jack's beanstalk, and every morning starred with turquoise blue trumpet mouths of ravishing beauty, which were dead at noon. The poor thing was constrained to be a hierodule, gave no seed. Nature is the prodigal's foster-mother. ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... hatreds, the friendships, of the man she loves; she acquires in a day the experience of a man of business; she studies the code, she comprehends the mechanism of credit, and could manage a banker's office; naturally heedless and prodigal, she will make no mistakes and waste not a single louis. She becomes, in turn, mother, adviser, doctor, giving to all her transformations a grace of happiness which reveals, in its every detail, her infinite love. She combines the special qualities of ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... by the thought that she was grown a great girl now. She called her father, and all the household, and after a while the old doctor came home, and the fatted calf was killed, and all made merry over the return of this altogether unrepentant prodigal son. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... good box, at her own command, and in a carriage to take her there. Valerie inherited these courtesan tastes from her mother, on whom General Montcornet had lavished luxury when he was in Paris, and who for twenty years had seen all the world at her feet; who had been wasteful and prodigal, squandering her all in the luxurious living of which the programme has been lost since the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... dog-cart as he had jumped from the old coach long ago, and ducking in and out among the horses and carriages, ran for his life. The men came after him; but he ran like the wind—pant, pant, nearer, nearer; at last the coach was reached, and Melchior seized the prodigal by his rags and dragged ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... returned to my lungs. With a disappointment almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body, not easily accommodative to the Spirit. Like a prodigal child, I had run away from my macrocosmic home and imprisoned myself in ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... alone' is a commandment, and it is a commandment to God's Church, but it is not a commandment to despair of any that they may be brought into the fold, or to give up efforts to that end. If our Father in heaven never ceases to bear in His heart His prodigal children, it does not become those prodigals, who have come back, to think that any of their brethren are too far away to be drawn by their loving proclamation of the Father's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... gone away from the neighbourhood for good. Soon after Miss Hatchard's return, however, he came back to his old quarters in her house, and began to take a leading part in the planning of the festivities. He threw himself into the idea with extraordinary good-humour, and was so prodigal of sketches, and so inexhaustible in devices, that he gave an immediate impetus to the rather languid movement, and infected the whole village ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... it were used as an example of conduct among men it would destroy all social conditions and disturb accepted laws of justice. The book is full of movement and incident, and must appeal to the public by its dramatic story alone. The Prodigal Son at the close of the book has learned this great lesson, and the meaning of the parable is revealed to him. Neither success nor fame can ever wipe out the evil of the past. It is not from the unalterable laws of nature and life that forgiveness can ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... moment he was supporting her unconscious form, for she had fainted. The bishop recovering from his astonishment assisted Carl in placing her upon a sofa, and an instant later Eleen, the daughter, was at her side. The bishop embraced the trembling, tearful prodigal, but could only inarticulately murmur: "My boy—my boy—you have come back—you have come back! Can it really ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... of the Prodigal Son. We look over the fence of goodness into the mystery of the great unknown world beyond and in that unknown realm we fondly imagine ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... she regarded the sated pleasures of that jaded world from which she had departed so recently. She had come to be bored—fully resigned for Blanch's sake to endure the ennui of mere vegetation until the prodigal Jack had been safely gathered within the fold once more. After the rude shock of first impressions had passed and she had found time to pause and breathe, she began to cast her eyes about her for something more real and tangible than the memories of the world she had left behind her, but had ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... themselves, as with us. They think very little about themselves—that's their weakness and their strength; that's the whole secret—I won't say of our superiority, but of our power. They lavish their soul, as a prodigal heir does his father's gold, while we exact a percentage on every worthless morsel.... How are they to hold their own with us?... All this is not compliments, but the simple truth, proved by experience. Once more, I beseech you, Marya ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... thing I should not intrust to you, Josephine," he said, laughing, "would be the keys of my treasury; you never would get them, my beautiful prodigal little wife of gauze, lace, diamonds, and pearls!" [Footnote: Ibid., vol. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... that during his absence Mungold had reappeared, fresh and rosy from a summer in Europe, and as prodigal as ever of the only form of attention which Kate could be counted on not to resent. The game and champagne reappeared with him, and he seemed as ready as Stanwell to lend a patient ear to Caspar's homilies. But Stanwell ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... wish, but not very ably. Her face was flushed and her eyes hot; ordinarily she was a splendid housekeeper and a dutiful daughter, but there are limits to human endurance. She mixed the batter so clumsily and with such prodigal waste that her mother had to stop her, and she was about to put salt into the sugar bowl when Mrs. Purnell snatched it out of her hands. "Go into the dining-room and sit down, Dorothy," she exclaimed. "You're beside yourself." ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... 'there is the charity of virtue! All evil in the spotted fruit. But I can tell you, sir, that you do Madame von Rosen prodigal injustice.' ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or most utterly turned their back on purity. The parables in the Third Gospel of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son lay emphasis upon the possibility of recovery, and, in the case of the prodigal, specially on the ability to return for those who ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... irritating calmness. "Prodigal son sends postal card stating that he is prepared to receive overtures looking to a resumption of family relations. No ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... by eating! Now I will tell you one thing. You are a child of the world; you don't belong here; therefore go in peace! Eat of the swine's husks which do not satisfy; but when you are sick of them, you will be welcome here again. The father's house always stands open for the prodigal son." ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... wastes between these words of the New Testament and those other words of the Old; but the parable of Christ really finished the prayer of David: in each there was the same young prodigal—the ever-falling youth ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... eastern bombast, nor the savage rant Of purpled madmen, were they numbered all From Roman Nero, down to Russian Paul, Could grate upon my ear so mean, so base, As the rank jargon of that factious race, Who, poor of heart, and prodigal of words, Born to be slaves, and struggling to be lords, But pant for licence, while they spurn controul, And shout for rights, with rapine in their soul! Who can, with patience, for a moment see The medley mass of pride and misery, Of whips and charters, manacles ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... events of the ignoble day passed before him in a frieze of pictures, and he thanked 'whatever Gods there be' for that open door of suicide. In such a little while he would be done with it, the random business at an end, the prodigal son come home. A very bright planet shone before him and drew a trenchant wake along the water. He took that for his line and followed it. That was the last earthly thing that he should look upon; that radiant speck, which he had soon magnified into a City of Laputa, ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the prodigal came home, the stray lamb returned to the fold—Mr. Keeler returned to his desk and his duties. There was a premonition of his return at the Snow breakfast table. For three days Mrs. Ellis had swathed her head in white and ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... the flood. It was pay-day and the boss was in high good humor. Either occurrence was always good for a number of rounds of free drinks. But when Mascola was happy on pay-day, the liberality of the "Red Paint" was indeed prodigal. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... may be briefly retold. The prodigal and outlawed son of a Bohemian noble, Count Siegendorf, after various adventures, marries, under the assumed name of Friedrich Kruitzner, the daughter of an Italian scholar and man of science, of noble ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Chevalier to the account of the latter, and he concluded that the Baron's views about the settlement of his property, or some such obstacle, thwarted their mutual inclinations. Common fame, it is true, frequently gave Waverley to Miss Mac-Ivor; but the Prince knew that common fame is very prodigal in such gifts; and, watching attentively the behaviour of the ladies towards Waverley, he had no doubt that the young Englishman had no interest with Flora, and was beloved by Rose Bradwardine. Desirous to bind Waverley to his service, and wishing ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... "Wicked prodigal! What shall we do to reform him, Mr. Douglas? He has not been to see us for three years past, and during that time we have had ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... great difficulty. For your horny-handed British working-man is apparently born with two golden aphorisms in his mouth: "Look before you leap," and "Haste makes waste." He looks continually, seldom, if ever, leaps, and never is prodigal of ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... and in what age have those been wanting who should bear witness to the truth, and seal it with their blood? There have been those who in time of persecution have fallen away—but for one apostate there have been a thousand martyrs. We have been, I may rather affirm, too prodigal of life—too lavish of our blood. There has been, in former ages, not only a willingness, a readiness to die for Christ, but an eagerness. Christians have not waited to be searched for and found by the ministers of Roman power; they have thrust themselves forward; they have gone up ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... regard to the mode of collecting the public revenue, oftentimes more onerous to the subject than the tax itself. They watched carefully over its appropriation to its destined uses. They restrained a too prodigal expenditure, and ventured more than once to regulate the economy of the royal household. [36] They kept a vigilant eye on the conduct of public officers, as well as on the right administration of justice, and commissions were ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Hear Sermons on the Prodigal Son? Distinction Between the Mentally Competent and the Defective in Criminal Classes. Moral Invalids. Rehabilitation of the Competent. The Right Use of Leisure Time. The Moving Picture. The Automobile and Its Influence. Parents Need Social Help in Moral Training of ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... yon dangling Apricocks, Which, like unruly children, make their sire Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight. ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... distribution of sickness seems to turn upon the amount of the expenditure of physical force. This is no new thing, for in all ages the enervation and decrepitude of the bodily frame has been observed to follow a prodigal waste of the mental or corporeal energies. But it has been nowhere previously established upon recorded experience that the quantum of sickness annually falling to the lot of man is in a direct proportion to the demands upon his muscular power. So ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... have been thought a cheerful feast for Joe Louden. The fatted calf was upon the board, but it had not been provided for the prodigal, who, in this case, was the brother that stayed at home: the fete rewarded the good brother, who had been in strange lands, and the good one had found much honor in his wanderings, as he carelessly let it appear. Mrs. Louden brightened ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... old couple bustled about the bright carpeted room, making it comfortable, and cooing over the return of their prodigal, till a heaven of homeness was made of ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... younker or a prodigal The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind! How like a prodigal doth she return, With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails, Lean, rent, and beggared by the ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... domestic concerns were in an unhappy condition, many of his friends and acquaintance having died in the plague time, and those of his family having long since been in disorder and in a kind of mutiny against him. For the eldest of his sons, Xanthippus by name, being naturally prodigal, and marrying a young and expensive wife, was highly offended at his father's economy in making him but a scanty allowance, by little and little at a time. He sent therefore, to a friend one day, and borrowed some money ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... deny them. Could she go home to him now, a repentant prodigal? Or even if, after hearing her story, he denied she was a prodigal; professed to see in it a reason for taking her fully into his life as his friend and partner? They might have a wonderful week together, living up to their new standard, professing ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... sheltered the house of the American, they were those planted by the winds; if there were any flowers at his door, they were only those with which prodigal nature has carpeted the prairies; and you may see now in the west, many a cabin which has stood for thirty years, with not a tree, of shade or fruit, within a mile of its door! Everything is as bare and as cheerless about ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... love to bring him into the right way. Even now he is ready to follow towards him the example of Divine mercy which wills not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live; and so once more he calls upon him to repent, in which case he will receive him graciously like the prodigal son. Sixty days are given him to recant. But if he and his adherents will not repent, they are to be regarded as obstinate heretics and withered branches of the vine of Christ, and must be punished according to law. No doubt the punishment ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... the captain cried heartily, as he clasped my hand. "I dare say this is a big surprise to all of you. But if it is quite true—I am the prodigal son come into his own again, and I can assure you I ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... and kissed her cheek, but she never shed a tear; she had been wont to weep like a watering pot when I went back to school or college after a visit, and I had always left her, loaded with biscuits and blessings, thankless prodigal that I was! and disposed to laugh at her display of maternal sorrow. How grateful to my wounded and sorrowful spirit, my outraged heart, would such a demonstration of love now have been! but all were alike heartless and cold to-day, and she smiled serenely under my parting kiss, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... measure also (and with reservations), and it would have been impossible to him, of all men, to confess himself beaten, and return to them for assistance of any kind. He could never have enacted the part of the prodigal son. He knew this in earlier days, when husks were for the most part all he had to sustain him. But the mind requires not even the material husk, it lives on better food than that, and in his case mind had triumphed over body, and borne it triumphantly to a safe, ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... surprise. A few years of intellectual elevation and development had made a prodigious change in the poor fugitive stripling from the convent. Still that no one should know me in my rightful home was overpowering. I felt like the prodigal son returned. I was a stranger in the house of my father. I burst into tears, and wept aloud. When I made myself known, however, all was changed. I who had once been almost repulsed from its walls, and forced to fly as an exile, was welcomed back with acclamation, with servility. One of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... let slip! Its hours have run, Its golden hours, with prodigal excess, All run to waste. A day of life the less; Of many wasted days, ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... sufficient indications of a kind of luxury. The animalism of the man, however, had developed so early in life that it had obliterated all strong markings of character. The flaccid, rather fleshy features were those of the sensual, prodigal young American, who haunts hotels. Clean shaven and well dressed, the fellow would be indistinguishable from the thousands of overfed and overdrunk young business men, to be seen every day in the vulgar luxury of Pullman cars, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... food from herself he would not have questioned her; if it had been her last ounce of life he would not have thanked her the more. You cannot blame him for this. To begin with, he knew nothing of her or her doings when he was asleep or on the watch. And a young man is a prodigal always, of another's goods besides his own, while a young woman is his banker, never so rich as when he overdraws. Deprived of him by her own act, his wife in name, she was his servant in reality. His servant and, just now, his sumpter-beast. Very wistfully she served him, but very diligently, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... renewing it early and often—was farthest from her inclination at that particular time. She intended to salve her conscience at the wolf-hunt for her casual reception of his impetuous visit. But apparently Peter did not intend to be prodigal of opportunity. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... the insolent owner glide past her, as if in a dream that was blurred by pain, and the sight infused into her soul, that was already harassed by pain and anxiety, a feeling of bitter aversion, and the envious thought that the mere trappings of the horses of this extravagant prodigal would suffice to keep her and her family above ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... eyes ached. Then he looked at the highly-coloured scripture pieces on the walls, in little black frames like common shaving-glasses, and saw how the Wise Men (with a strong family likeness among them) worshipped in a pink manger; and how the Prodigal Son came home in red rags to a purple father, and already feasted his imagination on a sea-green calf. Then he glanced through the window at the falling rain, coming down aslant upon the sign-post over against the house, and overflowing the horse-trough; and then ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... have lost their flavour, my son. So long as the prodigal finds the husks sweet, there is little hope of him. But let him once discover that they are dry husks, and not sweet fruits, and that his companions are swine, and not princes—then he is coming to himself, and there is ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... trusting to his eyes. An old, rosy-cheeked woman in a sunbonnet came up behind the old man, shrieked out "Master David!" and only waited with twitching fingers for her own onslaught till the father had first embraced his prodigal son. This was done at least three times, accompanied with tears, blessings, prayers, the uplifting of poor filmy eyes to a cloudless Heaven—"Diolch i Dduw!"—ejaculations as to the wonder of it—"Rhyfeddol yw yn eiholl ffyrdd"—God's Providence—His ways are past finding out! "Ni ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... fire-gleam playing upon the walls made the colours of the pictures seem bright as the tints of stained glass. The pathetic message of those flickering rays flowed into my soul. The red mantle of the Prodigal Son, in which he was feeding the swine, shone as though it had been soaked in sorrow and blood-red sin. The house was apparently empty; the tension of my passion became for the first time relaxed, and I passed into a strange mood of pathos, dreamy, but yet acute, ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... in the case of the precocious boy of the street, the cold vices of cynicism, misanthropy, and avarice—the reptilians of society—are found almost exclusively among adults. The younger brother is the prodigal. Experience has not taught him how to value ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... extravagant, almost a torrential, style; at times his prose falls into a chanting rhythm so attractive in itself as to make us overlook the fact that the praise and censure which he dispenses with prodigal liberality are too personal to be ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... for a single bulb, the minor folly of extravagance in preparing the soil may be readily pardoned. Happily that phase of the business has passed away, and handsome Tulips are now grown without such a prodigal expenditure of money and labour. The site for this flower should be sunny, the soil fairly rich, and the drainage good. With these conditions insured, and roots which are sound and dense, it is easy to obtain a ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... ancestors; but enough was still attached to the old mansion, to give my uncle the title of a man of large property. This he employed (as I was given to understand by some inquiries which I made on the road) in maintaining the prodigal hospitality of a northern squire of the period, which he deemed essential to his ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Clarissa, "our Lord and Saviour shows us the way. He has opened the door for those who have erred, and shown us that our Heavenly Father is always ready to forgive and receive those who repent and turn to him. Don't you remember the parable of the Prodigal Son and the words of Jesus to the men who were crucified with him? They ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... Prodigal as had been Father Feeny and his battalion, there was more grafting needed before the Avenue Girl could take her scarred body and soul out into the world again. The Probationer offered, but was ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... been fingering the recovered weapon in his pocket, almost fondling it, though with mingled feelings, as the Prodigal Son of his small possessions; suddenly it leapt out like a live thing in his hand, and clattered on the table between the girl and boy. It was a wonder neither of them was shot dead in his excitement. His whole face was altered; ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... cheap wisdom, but of some piece of our real selves, some hour of our own existence, which we have surrendered to such a being without at once exacting payment for it in some sort of coin. My dear Julian, we have kept our doors open, and have allowed our treasures to be viewed—but prodigal with them we have never been. You no more than I. We may just as well join hands, Julian. I am a little less prone to complain than you are—that's the whole difference.... But I am not telling you anything new. All this you ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... of a duke who enumerates his ancestors, the Senor Esteban carried back the line of the Lunas till it became misty and was lost in the fifteenth century. His father had known Don Francisco III. Lorenzana, a magnificent and prodigal prince of the church, who spent the abundant revenues of the archbishopric in building palaces and editing books, like a great lord of the Renaissance. He had known also the first Cardinal Bourbon, Don Luis II., ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... surplus water of some lake or lakes lying farther up the country. The solemn effect of the scenery was heightened by the absence of all traces and signs of men or other animals; and the occasional scream of a gull looking down upon us, made the general silence and solitude more impressive. How prodigal is nature of her beauties and glories, thus repeated and renewed in places where there is no one to admire, and very few to ...
— Extracts from a Journal of a Voyage of Visitation in the "Hawk," 1859 • Edward Feild
... loss of her lovely first-born. She could not doubt but God permitted it in love. Perhaps had Clinton been spared, he might have imbibed some sentiment of evil, which would have poisoned his beautiful nature and prompted him away into paths of sin. Young Walter Mowry was a prodigal, and likely to bring down his poor old mother in sorrow to the grave. George Richmond had no idea of the value of the money left him as a father's hard-earned legacy; no self-reliance; and was likely to die miserable and poor. Perhaps, had Clinton lived to enjoy the blessings ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... prospered," Hogan assented. "My life is a sort of parable of the fatted son and the prodigal calf. They tell me there is greater joy in heaven over the repentance of a sinner than—than—Plague on it! How ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... with nuts and apples in a basket to sell. I bought an apple for five cents. It was regarded by my teacher, Maggie, as a prodigal expenditure! I shared it with her, and she in turn shared her half with ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... real debtor, who came as quickly as was possible and at once discharged the debt. The creditor, full of shame and repentance, hastened to ask pardon of our Blessed Father, and he, receiving the prodigal with open arms, treated him ever afterwards with special tenderness, calling him his ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... all, what did it matter?—some one would shovel the stuff. That brief revolt had been spasmodic, sentimental. Here where the heat was almost intolerable and the red tongues sprang like forked daggers before dulled eyes, brutality and hatred alone seemed to reign. The prince might be the prodigal, free-handed gentleman to his officers; he was the slave-driver, by proxy, to his stokers. He who dominated in that place of torment had been an overseer from one of the villages the prince owned; these men were ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... written that moment to my dear, broken-hearted mother, to tell her how gladly her prodigal son would fly back to her arms; but I was prevented doing this, first by pride, and secondly by want of writing materials. Taking my place, therefore, at the table, I mustered up all my philosophy; and, to amuse myself, called to mind the reflections ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... between him and his American neighbors north of the Rio Grande. The Mormons hated the Americans; Diaz could trust them. The Mormons went to Mexico; there they are to-day in many a rich community, as freely polygamous as in the most wide-flung hour of Brigham Young. Diaz smiles as he reviews those prodigal crops of corn and cattle and children which they raise. They make his empire richer in men and money - commodities of which Mexico ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... most shiftless kind. In "Alexandre Dumas a la Maison d'Or," M. Philibert Audebrand tells the tale of this Micawber of newspapers. Everything went into it, good or bad, and the name of Dumas was expected to make all current coin. For Dumas, unluckily, was as prodigal of his name as of his gold, and no reputation could bear the drafts he made on his celebrity. His son says, in the preface to Le Fils Naturel: "Tragedy, dramas, history, romance, comedy, travel, you cast all of ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... to resist the temptation or suggestion of sentiment that he should give to the little loves of Anne Page and Fenton a touch of pathetic or emotional interest; but "opulent as Shakespeare was, and of his opulence prodigal" (to borrow a phrase from Coleridge), he knew better than to patch with purple or embroider with seed-pearl the hem of this homespun little piece of comic drugget. The match between cloth of gold and cloth of frieze could hardly have borne any good issue in this instance. ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... but also through her personal ministries in those large and widening circles which centred in her literary and pastoral life. Those who were favored with her friendship in times of sorrow found her a comforter indeed. Her letters, of which, at such times, she was prodigal, were to many sore hearts as leaves from the tree of life. She did not expect too much of a sufferer. She recognized human weakness as well as divine strength. But in all her attempts at consolation, side by side with her deep and true sympathy, went the lesson ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... We have been prodigal. The days are past When virgin acres wanted willing hands, When fertile empires lay in wilderness Waiting the teeming millions of the world. Lo where the Indian and the bison roamed—Lords of the prairies boundless as the sea—But twenty years ago, behold the change! ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... wheel; labor in vain &c (useless) 645; cut blocks with a razor, pour water into a sieve. leak &c (run out) 295; run to waste; ebb; melt away, run dry, dry up. Adj. wasted &c v.; at a low ebb. wasteful &c (prodigal) 818; penny wise and pound foolish. Phr. magno conatu magnas nugas [Lat.]; le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle [Fr.]; idly busy ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... them. Harold accordingly had to be consoled by the employment of every specious fallacy and base-born trick known to those whose doom it is to handle children. For me their hollow cajolery had no interest, I could pluck no consolation out of their bankrupt though prodigal pledges I only waited till that hateful, well-known "Some other time, dear!" told me that hope was finally dead. Then I left the room without any remark. It made it worse—if anything could—to hear that stale, worn-out old phrase, still supposed by those dullards to ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... relief. But under the terror of a scandal he suddenly quieted down, swearing finally by his mother's ashes that as soon as he got home he would pack up his trunk and go straight off to Sauvagnat, leaving his wife to depart with her scoundrelly prodigal and ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... The prodigal was a son of the father all the time; but when he preferred his will to the will of his father, his way to the way of his father, his management of his share in the property to his father's management, it issued but in ruin and misery—in hunger and nakedness ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... China graciously consented to allow the prodigal to return and "killed the fatted calf" by conferring high honors and titles upon the Hutukhtu. Moreover, he appointed the Living Buddha's good friend (?) "Little Hsu" to ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... glanced down the lonely canyon, losing itself in the afternoon shadow. Nevertheless Mrs. Ashwood's preoccupation with Nature did not preclude a human curiosity to hear something more of John Milton's quarrel with his father. There was certainly nothing of the prodigal son about him; there was no precocious evil knowledge in his frank eyes; no record of excesses in his healthy, fresh complexion; no unwholesome or disturbed tastes in what she had seen of his rural preferences ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... glow of tenderness on the part of Joseph and Madame Descoings; but she hastened to tell them of Philippe's sufferings in exile, and so lessened it. Madame Descoings, wishing to make a festival of the return of the prodigal, as she called him under her breath, had prepared one of her good dinners, to which old Claparon and the elder Desroches were invited. All the family friends were to come, and did come, in the evening. Joseph had invited Leon Giraud, ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... about a pig, and since that time we are in a good humour if we only hear one grunt. St. Antony took the pig under his protection; and when we think of the prodigal son we always associate with him the idea of feeding swine; and it was in front of a pig-sty that a certain carriage stopped in Sweden, about which I am going to talk. The farmer had his pig-sty built out towards the high road, close by his house, and it was a wonderful pig-sty. It was ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... De Croix!" he cried, excitedly, "the prodigal has had good cause to lag behind. He has found the ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... Parliament, and its members at once showed their temper by a vigorous support of the measures necessary for the prosecution of the war. The Houses indeed were no mere tools in William's hands. They forced him to resume the prodigal grants of lands which he had made to his Dutch favourites, and to remove his Ministers in Scotland who had aided in a wild project for a Scotch colony on the Isthmus of Darien. They claimed a right to name members of the new Board ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... possible, standing grimacing at the blood spirting from John the Baptist's decapitated trunk, as in Kranach's horrible print, while gaping spectators fill the castle-yard; there are the castles high on rocks amidst woods, with miserable villages below, where the Prodigal Son wallows among the swine, and the tattered boors tumble about in drunkenness, or rest wearied on their spades. There are the Middle Ages in full force. But had these Germans of the days of Luther really no thought beyond their own times and their ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... dozen players round the board—four on one wing, two on the other. Of the latter, one was that very young man who had been responsible for P. Sybarite's change of mind with regard to going home. With a bored air this prodigal was frittering away five-dollar notes on the colours, the columns, and the dozens: his ill success stupendous, his apparent indifference positively magnificent. But in the course of the little while that P. Sybarite watched, he either grew weary or succeeded ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... wild loud wind? Fate cuts us all in marble, and the Book Forestalls our glass of minutes; we may look But seldom meet a change; think you a tear Can blot the flinty volume? shall our fear Or grief add to their triumphs? and must we Give an advantage to adversity? Dear, idle prodigal! is it not just We bear our stars? What though I had not dust Enough to cabinet a worm? nor stand Enslav'd unto a little dirt, or sand? I boast a better purchase, and can show The glories of a soul that's simply true. But grant some richer planet at my birth Had spied ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... why don't he say so? I only touched him for a few odd dollars—I only needed a grub-stake—fifty would have done the trick—and he doesn't come through. And nobody writes. I guess it's me for the Prodigal, but when I do get next to the fatted calf I'll get inside and eat my way out by way of his hoofs and horns. Why couldn't you and Searle and the maid come down and have a look at me—working? It's worth it. Come on. Maybe it's easier than writing. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... Spanish Town and Kingston, opened its arms and insisted that the fair star of Barbadoes should enter them, and there were parties and dances and dinners, and it might have been supposed that everybody had been a father or a mother to a prodigal son, so genial and joyful were the festivities—Kate ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... the dentist beyond words. The still, colossal mountains took him back again like a returning prodigal, and vaguely, without knowing why, he yielded to their influence—their immensity, their enormous power, crude and blind, reflecting themselves in his own nature, huge, strong, brutal in its simplicity. And this, though he ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... Bible, which he could read with much more ease and profit than an English one. He seemed now to have a deep sense of the evil of his past careless life, when even the external forms of religion had been given up, and he had been, like the prodigal, wandering in a ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... above the root, and often bring others down with them in their fall. Sometimes these trees are split up at the time into rails or firewood; sometimes dragged to the saw-mills to be made into lumber; but are often piled into heaps and burnt—a necessary but prodigal waste of wood, to which I never became reconciled. When the wood has been cleared off, wheat is sown among the stumps, and then grass, which appears only to last about four years. Fire is put on the tops of these unsightly stumps to burn them down as much as possible, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... Freedom, how I hate thy cant! Not Eastern bombast, not the savage rant Of purpled madmen, were they numbered all From Roman Nero down to Russian Paul, Could grate upon my ear so mean, so base, As the rank jargon of that factious race, Who, poor of heart and prodigal of words, Formed to be slaves, yet struggling to be lords, Strut forth, as patriots, from their negro-marts, And shout for rights, with rapine in their hearts. Who can, with patience, for a moment see The medley mass of pride and misery, Of whips ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... assure you I am not angry. I am merely a little sorry for human nature. I could have sworn Woods was honest. But rogues all, rogues all, Kathleen! Money rules us in the end; and now the parable is fulfilled, and Love the prodigal returns to make merry over the calf of gold. Confess," Mr. Kennaston queried, with a smile, "is it not strange an all-wise Creator should have been at pains to fashion this brave world about us for little men and women such as we to lie and pilfer in? Was it worth while, think you, to arch ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... more than his father? Could that doubtful event suffice to rouse Hilda's fears to such a pitch? If the man came back, he would come as a suppliant, entreating to be received once, at least, on tolerance. He would come as a penitent prodigal might, to get a word of compassion from his brother, perhaps to borrow money. He could do no harm to any one, beyond the moral shame he brought upon his relatives by prolonging his wretched existence. He was certainly not a particularly ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... prodigal," said Bardo; "and though, with that ready ear and ready tongue of his, he is too much like the ill-famed Margites—knowing many things and knowing them all badly, as I hinted to him but now—he is nevertheless 'abnormis sapiens,' after the ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... enshrined a sweet, girlish face within his heart of hearts, and he no longer felt lonely and orphaned. He and George became the closest friends, and messages from the New England home came to him with increasing frequency, which he returned with prodigal interest. It also transpired that he occasionally wrote for the papers, and Elsie insisted that these should be sent to her; while he of course wrote much better with the certainty that she would be his critic. Thus, ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... her voice, fragile and firm as fluted china, before she enters. Then comes the wonderful love-duet—"Che gelida manina" for Caruso and "Mi chiamano Mimi" for Melba. Gold swathed in velvet is his voice. Like all true geniuses, he is prodigal of his powers; he flings his lyrical fury over the house. He gives all, yet somehow conveys that thrilling suggestion of great things in reserve. Again and again he recaptures his first fine careless rapture. His voice dances forth like a little girl on a sunlit road, wayward, captivating, never ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... hear even that much of his companion; it was better than the mystery of silence. But Ned's panic was pretty severe when he thought of Alick's perilous and deserted condition. A rush of mingled feelings came over the Northbourne lad. He felt as the prodigal son must have felt in ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... prodigal; he was a well-behaved youth. He was only proud, only thought much of himself; was only pharisaical, not hypocritical; was only neglectful of those nearest him, always polite to those comparatively nothing to him! Compassionate and generous to necessity, ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... an enormous height in the last reign; and to replenish the exchequer, which had been drained by the prodigality of his predecessors. 18. However, permitting himself to be governed by favourites, he at one time showed himself severe and frugal; at another remiss and prodigal; condemning some illustrious persons without any hearing, and pardoning others, though guilty. In consequence of this, seditions were kindled, and factions promoted. 19. Galba was sensible that, besides his age, his want of an heir rendered him less respected: he ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... passions. "I inherited nothing but my body—and living it is consumed." He is proof against the magic of the ring; the only value he knows is love. Alberich, his opponent, says, in speaking of him: "My curse has no sting for the mettlesome hero, for he knows not the worth of the ring; he squanders his prodigal strength, laughing and glowing with love his body is burning away." Half way between Alberich, the inwardly worthless wielder of power, and Siegfried, the truly free man, the embodiment of all virtue, who ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... him, and give him for pity what would have become, in the very giving, negligible to herself. He knew himself well: he could never ask for a thing. No! but could he get her to ask for something? Ah, then she might find out whom she had married! A man, he judged, of spendthrift generosity, a prodigal of himself. Yes, that was how it must be, if to be at all. He kept his eyes wide, and followed her every movement, with a longing to help which was incessant, like toothache. At the same time he was careful to keep himself quiet. Not ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... said, "it is now my turn." And he gave one pistole to the woman and two to the man; and the benedictions which were showered down upon them would have rejoiced the heart of Harpagon himself, and have rendered even him a prodigal. ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... never forgotten his friend, and had never ceased to grieve and pray for him. It was the great hope and desire of his heart that, having at last proved the vanity of all that the world can give, this Lost Brother would one day return, like the Prodigal Son, to the ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... forgotten before the man's renown has given them any importance; the few anecdotes which tradition has preserved are seized upon with the utmost avidity and placed in the most conspicuous position; but in these later books we have illustrious children portrayed with a Pre-Raphaelitic and most prodigal pencil. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the negroes. Hastily starting up, she looked around her and, for a moment, strove to remember what had happened. Soon she remembered all, and burying her face in the pillows, she sobbed out: "Father, I thank Thee; the prodigal ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... anything that I desire? There must be something very deeply wrong. This is what is wrong, your heart has shaken itself loose from dependence upon God; and you have no love as you ought to have for Him. You prefer to stand alone. The prodigal son, having gone away into the far country, likes the swine's husks better than the bread in his father's house, and it is only when the supply of the latter coarse dainty gives out that the purer taste becomes strong. Strange, is it not? but yet ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... if she had not recollected, with some little alarm, the deficit which such an expense must make in their budget. The three francs spent upon this single expedition were the savings of a whole week of work. Thus the joy of the elder of the two sisters was mixed with remorse; the prodigal child now and then turned its eyes toward the ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... would n't borrow Becky's best bonnet, as she at first intended, but get a new one, for in her present excited state, no extravagance seemed too prodigal in honor of this grand occasion. I am afraid that Maud's lesson was not as thorough as it should have been, for Polly's head was such a chaos of bonnets, gloves, opera-cloaks and fans, that Maud blundered through, murdering time and tune at her own sweet will. The instant it was over Polly ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... through Kate Kildare at that moment. The waste of it! The utter, insensate waste of so much passion and hope and tenderness, of such desperate agony, of such courage to bear...! There is no spendthrift so prodigal as Nature. For one perfected product that pleases her, hundreds of preciously guarded lives, such as this, thrown aside like so many pot-shards, useless, done for—and all to what purpose?... For the moment Kate visualised ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... mine owners (mineros) and Indian laborers. The majority of the mineros are descendants of the old Spanish families, who, at an early period, became possessors of the mines, whence they derived enormous wealth, which most of them dissipated in prodigal extravagance. At the present time, only a very few of the mineros are rich enough to defray, from their own resources, the vast expense attending the operations of mining. They consequently raise the required money by loans from the capitalists ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... companionship, such as it is; and our being mutually embarked on a hard and adventurous journey will, I hope, make us mutually kind and considerate. Nominally, he is a Shintoist, which means nothing. At Nikko I read to him the earlier chapters of St. Luke, and when I came to the story of the Prodigal Son I was interrupted by a somewhat scornful laugh and the remark, "Why, all this is our ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... intelligence would breed perhaps some viler swindle than my facetious rappings. That's the line our doubting bishops take, and why shouldn't I? For example, these people might give it to Public Charities, minister to the fattened secretary, the prodigal younger son. After all, at worst, I am a sort of latter-day Robin Hood; I take from the rich according to their incomes. I don't give to the poor certainly, I don't get enough. But—there are other good works. Many a poor weakling have I comforted with Lies, great thumping, ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... The Prodigal Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals—very exalted ones—but ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... a strange, sad, sneezing, wheezy moan resembling the expiring protest of a lusty pig and gradually increasing into a long-drawn but respectable whistle rewarded his efforts. For once, he could afford to be prodigal with the steam, and while it lasted there could be no mistaking the fact that here was a ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... how, a sinner and prodigal as I was, our heavenly Father met me, and received me to the arms of his mercy; how he made known to me his free grace and heavenly gift, of which I was utterly unworthy. It is his grace that has accomplished all in me. He it was who ...
— The Village in the Mountains; Conversion of Peter Bayssiere; and History of a Bible • Anonymous
... they returned, and entered Henchard's premises by the back way or traffic entrance. Here the matter was settled over the breakfast, at which Henchard heaped the young Scotchman's plate to a prodigal fulness. He would not rest satisfied till Farfrae had written for his luggage from Bristol, and dispatched the letter to the post-office. When it was done this man of strong impulses declared that his new friend should take up his abode in ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... Nickleby in the past. In fact, Rives was calmly advising Nickleby to remember that the police had long memories, and that away down south in the States was a certain institution which would be glad at any time to welcome home a prodigal no matter how often he changed his name. After this remark Nickleby had cooled down very quickly, as if realizing that he was in Rives' power, and it was apparent to the eager youth in the outer office that the pair understood each other thoroughly. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... years—ever since Tom was seven—it had witnessed the adventurous domestic career of the Orgreaves, so quiet superficially, so exciting in reality. It was the drawing-room of a man who had consistently used immense powers of industry for the satisfaction of his prodigal instincts; it was the drawing-room of a woman whose placidity no danger could disturb, and who cared for nothing if only her husband was amused. Spend and gain! And, for a change, gain and spend! That was the method. Work till sheer exhaustion ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... met him on the road His gray-haired father—elder brother now. Few words were spoken, little welcome said, But, as they walked, the more was understood. If with a less delight he brought him home Than he who met the prodigal returned, It was with more reliance, with more peace; For with the leaning pride that old men feel In young strong arms that draw their might from them, He led him to the house. His sister there, Whose kisses were not many, ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... boldly to the throne of grace," and plead through the great Intercessor for every wanderer from the right path, and specially and perseveringly for those dear ones of our own households, who, like the prodigal, have left the Father's house, to be in misery and want in ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the very one which is the most unfitted for such a labor." He had been and still was favoring delay and conciliation, in the visionary hope that the seceders would follow the scriptural precedent of the prodigal son. On April 9 the rumor of a fight at Sumter being spread abroad, Mr. Phillips said:[132] "Here are a series of States, girding the Gulf, who think that their peculiar institutions require that they should have a separate government. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man, with his sure grip on life, his superb optimism, and his almost miraculous knowledge of nature secrets, it would be notable. But when the ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... then adds: "Without claiming to be a religious man or a moralist, but simply as an artist, he shall reverently and humbly conform to the rules laid down by a great poet who created the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, whose works have lasted eighteen hundred years, and will remain when the present writer and his generations are forgotten. And he is conscious of uttering no original doctrine in this, but only ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... public interest; Otho himself, if he were a brave man, would not, after such an expense of Roman blood, attempt anything further; especially since even Cato and Scipio, though the liberty of Rome was then at stake, had been accused of being too prodigal of so many brave men's lives as were lost in Africa, rather than submit to Caesar after the battle of Pharsalia had gone against them. For though all persons are equally subject to the caprice of fortune, yet all good men have one advantage she cannot ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... examples of daring, exhibit anything that within a brief space quite equals the self-immolating valour displayed in the disastrous openings of this war by those youths, the gens Fabia of modern days, prodigal of their blood, rushing into the Mauser hailstorm, as if in jest each man had sworn to make the sterile veldt blossom like the rose, fertilizing it with the rich drops of his heart, since the ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... eight months in Munich, then a similar period in the United States, unless I traveled. I always returned to my apartment with such joy that if I arrived at night I did not go to bed lest I forget in sleep how overjoyed I was to get back to that stately and picturesque city, so prodigal with every form of artistic and aesthetic gratification. But that was just the trouble. For as long a time after my return as it took to write the book I had in mind I worked with the stored American energy I had within me; then for months and in spite of good resolutions ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... unmeaning appurtenances which a simpler taste will soon, it is to be hoped, banish from our funerals, were customary long before the eighteenth century began. In George III.'s reign a prodigal expenditure on such occasions began to be thought less essential. Before that time the relatives of the deceased were generally anxious that the obsequies should be as pompous as their means would possibly allow. It was still much as it ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... he drew nigh the city where he had spent his student years. On foot, weary, and dusty, and worn, he entered it like a returning prodigal. Few Scotchmen would think he had made good use of his learning! But he had made the use of it God required, and some Scotchmen, with and without other learning, have learned to think that a good use, and in itself ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... lingers in the popular tradition. Count Jean gave her his fairest mountain as a gage of his affection and villages and rich pasture lands to her brave son, his namesake, who had fought by his side at the Bicoque. The gallant count was, according to tradition, very prodigal in his favors, and a certain road, leading to the neighboring village of Charmey where the unhappy Countess Marguerite could watch her faithless lord as he rode away on his various adventures, is still known as ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... circumstances, defects which escape notice, and more than all the rest, the influence of a majority which shuts the mouth of all cavillers, may long perpetuate the delusions of a people as well as those of a man. Look at England throughout the eighteenth century. No nation was ever more prodigal of self-applause, no people was ever more self-satisfied; then every part of its constitution was right—everything, even to its most obvious defects, was irreproachable: at the present day a vast number of Englishmen seem to have nothing better to do than to prove that this constitution ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... very narrow view of it; but imagine the glory of restoring a lost tract to a nation, welcoming back the prodigal, and installing him in his place amongst his brethren. This was all forest once. Under the shade of the mighty oaks here those gallant O'Caharneys your ancestors followed the chase, or rested at noontide, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... his better brother had sunk to the level of an ordinary libertine and drunkard; of a faithful brother who, compelled by the necessity of rescuing the honor of business and home, had shouldered the care of everything and as a reward was being persecuted unto death by the degraded prodigal. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... seemed to Miss Cynthia to laugh out in prodigal joyousness on the afternoon she drove home when Wilbur had been pronounced out of danger. How tranquil the hills looked, with warm October sunshine sleeping on their sides and faint blue hazes on ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery |
