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Small fortune   /smɔl fˈɔrtʃən/   Listen
Small fortune

noun
1.
A large sum of money.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Small fortune" Quotes from Famous Books



... to take a large armful of green clover and thrust it into the same yawning red cavern; and having done so she started quickly back for fear of being swallowed alive along with the grass. Mr. Eden spent a small fortune on buns, nuts, and bon-bons for the animals, and she fed everything, from the biggest elephant and the most tree-like giraffe to the smallest harvest mouse. But it was most curious with an eagle ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... matter right. Think of how people have started again to talk about Gaugin: about his starting to paint in a new manner down there in the Marquesas Islands, of his trading a picture for a stick of furniture or selling it for a few hundred francs—which same paintings are now each worth a small fortune. Capitalize this Gaugin talk; also the talk about poor mad Blakeslie. You've got a new ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... he had had sufficient enterprise, sufficient distaste, possibly, for his English position, to sell the business that was left in his hands, and affection drew him, as a loadstone a magnet, to his brother's neighbourhood. He brought with him securities of the small fortune they were to divide between them, and expected nothing but happiness in the meeting and prosperity in his future career. Unfortunately, a cause of dispute between the two brothers arose instantly on Alec's arrival: ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... warmed up old Skinny properly," while their mother sends them generous remittances that they may obtain nourishing food to supplement their starvation rations. This money will be spent rapidly, but also shrewdly, at the "tuck-shop," where some old servant of the school is making a small fortune in providing for the boys such meat as their souls love, and for a fortnight Tom and his friends, for he is not a fellow to see his chums die before his eyes, will live on the fat of the land, which, upon the whole, means cocoa, sardines, sausages, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... resorts—Hampshire—great friend of mine. He's got money, and he's going to chuck it—doesn't suit his wife. I told him I'd find a purchaser if he would leave it with me. Merely nominal— only 400 pounds. He says that in a year or so there'll be a small fortune in the practice, because a company is taking the place over to develop it. You shall have first refusal. Come ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... other languages; but there is another and even more powerful agency at work which operates in the same direction, and is adverse to the investment of money in objects which do not appeal directly to the eye. The bibliophile discovers, when he has expended a small fortune (or perhaps a large one) in the formation of a library, that his friends evince no interest in it, have no desire to enter the room where the cases are kept, do not understand what they are told about this or that precious acquisition, and turn on ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... tapestry of a soft, rich colour, and every piece of furniture in the room was of the Louis Quinze period. There was scarcely a single anachronism. The Martin de Vaux of forty years ago had been an artist, and a man of taste; and when he had brought home his bride, a duke's daughter, he had spent a small fortune on this apartment. Since then it had always been her favourite, and she was always glad to hear any one ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... General, that it would cost him a small fortune, if he was rich, and his life if he was poor. But then these Inglez are so imprudent, so rash, so headstrong, and I felt that I had no wish to have a bullet in my head, just to put money into the pocket of the best judge ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... coat-of-arms, if it has thus served to tame down freeborn men and women to the slouching and indolent practice of driving,—a practice in which the human figure appears at such disadvantage, that one can hardly wonder at Horace Walpole's coachman, who had laid up a small fortune by driving the maids-of-honor, and left it all to his son upon condition that he never should take a maid-of-honor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... if you're lucky enough to be able to," was Rhoda's envious reply. "It costs a small fortune to live there even for a short time, ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr

... by a fiendish fortune at games of chance. As if Fate meant that my ruin should be complete, she saw to it that I was provided with funds for the journey. I have seen my last penny hang on the turn of a card, and come screaming back to me with a small fortune in its wake. Everywhere, misconstruing the results, men whispered of my luck. It was only once that the truth was told: at Monte Carlo a pair of red-painted, consumptive lips pouted at me with terrible coquetry over the table. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... remittance for fifty pounds. The writer, Major —— of the North-West Mounted Police, said that the money was payment for a certain pair of old shoes, the gift of which "had set him on his feet in more senses than one." He also stated that he had made a small fortune by speculating in town-lots, and, hearing that Hankin was alive, he was prepared to send him any further sum of money that might be necessary to secure him a comfortable old age. Major —— died last ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks

... host insisted that he would enjoy the lark, he expostulated: "Why, the idea is ridiculous! You—Calvin Gray, the financier, peddling jewelry? Ha! Outside of the fact that you wouldn't, couldn't do it, it's not the safest thing in the world to carry a small fortune in stones ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... think money most unlikely in such a quarter; and it's better she should have none than a small fortune. I'm an old whist-player, and when I play dummy, there's nothing I hate more than to see two or three small ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... they reluctantly gave a stranger what little they possessed, but they had not the remotest idea of the value of things. In one farmhouse you were charged the equivalent of a few pence for an egg or a chicken; in the next farm a small fortune was demanded for similar articles of convenience. Men, women, children, dogs, pigs and fowls, all lived—not ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... must not omit the feature that had the strongest and most immediate lure for me. It was a barber shop and I made tracks for it as soon as I arrived. I was not surprised to find that the proprietor was a Portuguese who had made a small fortune trimming the Samson locks of the scores of agents who stream into the little town every week. He is the only barber in the place and there is no competition this side of Stanleyville, more ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... novel, it won her instant fame and a small fortune. It was gloomy, pessimistic, excoriating, merciless, drab, sordid, and hideously realistic. Its people hailed from that plebeian end of the vegetable garden devoted to turnips and cabbages. They possessed all the mean vices and weaknesses that detestable humanity ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... Leipzig and then to Dresden. Efforts to get some of his dramas accepted by the Leipzig and Dresden theatres continued to prove fruitless. But in 1844, after his uncle's death, he had come into possession of a small fortune, and as his habits were always exceedingly frugal, he now saw before himself the assurance of a few years free from all care. In characteristic fashion he again created for himself a quiet retreat, partly in the idyllic surroundings of Meissen, partly in Meissen itself, the charmingly picturesque ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... in her victoria and away, a very grand-looking lady, indeed, with two in spick and span summer livery on the box, with her exquisite white and gold sunshade, a huge sapphire in the end of the handle, a string of diamonds worth a small fortune round her neck, a gold bag, studded with diamonds, in her lap, and her superb figure clad in a close-fitting white cloth dress. In the gates she swept past Torrey and his two clerks accompanying him as witnesses. She understood; ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... vision." There may be, as there probably always will be, two opinions as to the value of their writings; there can be no difference of view concerning their intense devotion to literature, their unhesitating rejection of all that might distract them from their vocation. They spent a small fortune in collecting materials for works that were not to find two hundred readers; they passed months, and more months, in tedious researches the results of which were condensed into a single page; they resigned most of life's pleasures and all its joys to dedicate themselves totally to the office ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt

... tolerated—never loved. And then, Russell was a big, handsome man; and she liked big, handsome men. Also, he was captain now. And, of course, when he had told her of that rich patch of pearl-shell, that he alone knew of at Caille Harbour, in which was a small fortune, and had looked so intently into her blue eyes, he had meant that it was for her. "Yes," and she smiled again, "I'm sure he loves me. But he's terribly slow; and although I do believe that blonde young widows look 'fetching' ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... and so go and leave no trace of yourself! You have the courage here to my face"—the comedy of the situation gained much from the mock indignation—she no longer had any compunctions—"to say that you destroyed my letter and what it contained—a small fortune it would ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... name is John Philpot Curran. My parents were poor, but I believe honest people, of the province of Munster, where also I was born, at Newmarket, in the County of Cork, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty. My father being employed to collect the rents of a Protestant gentleman, of small fortune, in that neighbourhood, procured my admission into one of the Protestant free-schools, where I obtained the first rudiments of my education. I was next enabled to enter Trinity College, Dublin, in the humble sphere of a sizer:"—and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various

... a native might make a small fortune here, and how little use he makes of his opportunities, not only from laziness, but also because he has no wants. Nature supplies food in abundance without any effort on his part, so that matches, tobacco, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... proud of this ornamentation, and displayed much coquetry in attracting our notice to it. Wealthier women in Tibet have quite a small fortune hanging down their backs, for all the money or valuables earned or saved are sewn on to the Tchukti. To the lower end of the Tchukti one, two or three rows of small brass or silver bells are attached, ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... stay here, none of my soldiers will ever get out." But we waited a little to cool off and to refresh our carcasses; because we were really played out. We carried away a golden cross that was on the Kremlin, and every soldier had a small fortune. ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof

... over the blow to his hopes. For the sake of the bonnie prince, so unworthy of his true devotion, he had been estranged from his family, and had spent his small fortune in coming to Canada. Here he was, perforce, ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy

... any young clergyman, somewhat agreeable in person, and who has a small fortune independent, can be well recommended as to strictness of morals and good temper, firmly attached to the present happy establishment, and is willing to engage in the matrimonial estate with an agreeable young lady in whose power it is immediately to bestow a living of nearly 100l. per ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various

... had reached the land, was taken off by a homeward-bound ship, in which I returned to England. I should immediately have again sailed, but hearing that my father was ill, I went to visit him. I had the happiness of being reconciled to him before he died, when I found myself the possessor of a small fortune. It is not, however, sufficient to enable me to live without a profession, and through the recommendation of the late captain of the Harmony, which her owners were about to send again to the Pacific, I obtained command of her, and trust before ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston

... Hallie Bassett had assumed that she and her children, as Sally Owen's next of kin, quite filled the heart of that admirable though often inexplicable woman. Mrs. Bassett had herself inherited a small fortune from her father, Blackford F. Singleton, Mrs. Owen's brother, a judge of the Indiana Supreme Court and a senator in Congress, whose merits and services are set forth in a tablet at the portal of the Fraser County Court-House. The Bassetts and the Singletons had been early settlers of that region, ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... were rescued by a small trading vessel, and landed in Algiers. There Charles learnt of his supposed death, and the idea occurred to him to leave the report uncontradicted. For one thing, it solved a problem that had been troubling him. He could trust his father to see to it that his own small fortune, with possibly something added, was handed over to Mivanway, and she would be free if she wished to marry again. He was convinced that she did not care for him, and that she had read of his death with a sense of ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... on Professor Snodgrass, "I think you will agree with me that it is quite a problem to try to find in Europe, at this particular time, two girls I have never seen, that I may deliver to them a small fortune, ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young

... and this good American gold will tide me over until drafts can be sent through to Paris. In New York in peace time sixty dollars seems a small amount, but in France in war three hundred francs in gold looks a small fortune. At least, it insures ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... you know, our family has for some generations depended upon the land. Your dear mother brought a small fortune with her, five or six thousand pounds, but that, with the sanction of her trustees, was expended upon improvements to the farms and in paying off a small mortgage. Well, for many years the land brought in about ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... a priest. In the meantime, Justinian, pretending that he knew nothing of what was going on, neither inquired to what part of the world Priscus had been banished, nor ever thought of him again afterwards, but remained silent, as if he had fallen into a state of lethargy. However, he seized the small fortune that he ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... tell me nothing. I know it all," Mercy broke in, roughly pushing the clinging hands from about her spare waist. "You rode with young Sorley this morning—Dick Sorley. He asked you to marry him. He told you that since he had known you he had made a small fortune on Wall Street. That he had followed you here because you were the only woman in the world for him. He told you that life without you was impossible, and many other foolish things only fitted for the credulity of a young girl. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... mother is. After her father's second marriage, the girl, who has been brought up by the nuns, is extremely fond of her step-mother, and when she grows under her fostering care into a lovely woman, becomes attached to Edward Rosier, a man of small fortune. Her father, cold and hard as stone, decrees that she shall marry an English lord, and upon her refusal, sends her back to the convent.—Henry James, Jr., Portrait of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... zealously promoted the establishment of an African school, and devoted much of the two last years of his life to personal attendance upon his pupils. By fifty years of constant industry he had amassed a small fortune; and this was left after the decease of his widow, to the support of the ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... Master Michael Mumblazen; and they admitted him the more readily, that besides what hopes they entertained from his sagacity, they knew him to be so great a friend to taciturnity, that there was no doubt of his keeping counsel. He was an old bachelor, of good family, but small fortune, and distantly related to the House of Robsart; in virtue of which connection, Lidcote Hall had been honoured with his residence for the last twenty years. His company was agreeable to Sir Hugh, chiefly on account of his profound learning, which, though it only related to heraldry and genealogy, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... her big kitchen apron tied over her best afternoon gown. She didn't scold very hard, but she thought Uncle Win might better be careful of the small fortune coming to Doris, since she had neither father nor brother to augment it. And they would make Betty as vain as a peacock in all ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... said Mr. Magee, "she'll probably change it soon. Can't you tell me something about her—just a tiny bit of information. Just a picture of where she is now, and what she's doing with that small fortune I ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers

... it is not hard to understand how seats in Parliament were bought and sold like boxes at the opera or seats in a stock-exchange. Nor is it surprising that after having paid a small fortune for the privilege of representing the people, the worldly-wise Commoner should be willing to indemnify himself by accepting bribes, or, if perchance his tender conscience forbade monetary bribes, by accepting a government post with fat salary ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... what this may be a stepping-stone into a successful career?" she exclaimed. "Why didn't I think of applying to you for a position in the very beginning? It would have saved a world of worry and disappointment, and a small fortune in postage stamps." ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... we do so the better," observed Miss Jane. "I will write to Mr Shallard and beg him to come over here the first day he is at leisure. Sir Ralph ought to be able to well provide for his children, and they cannot miss our small fortune, nor has he any reason to expect that we might have ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... called the New South Wales Corps, and was intended to be permanently settled in Sydney. Very few high-class officers cared to enter this service, so far from home and in the midst of the lowest criminals. Those who joined it generally came out with the idea of quickly gathering a small fortune, then resigning their commissions and returning to England. The favourite method of making money was to import goods into the settlement and sell them at high rates of profit; and, in their haste to become rich, ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland

... the harm was done now and he was in a most unenviable plight. No doubt it would cost a small fortune to get the automobile into shape again, more money than he had in the world; certainly far more than he had in his pocket at the present moment. What was he to do? Even suppose the boys did remember to send back help (they ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett

... The small fortune which his divorced wife had brought into their marriage had, of course, been handed back to ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... Abram, a Jesuit, in his manuscript History of the University of Pont a Mousson, reports that a youth of good family, but small fortune, placed himself at first to serve in the army among the valets and serving men: from thence his parents sent him to school, but not liking the subjection which study requires, he quitted the school and returned to his former kind of life. On his ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... father and mother had long been dead. The father had been a barrister in London, having perhaps some small fortune of his own. He had, at any rate, left to this son, who was one among others, a sufficiency with which to begin the world. Paul when he had come of age had found himself possessed of about L6,000. He was then at Oxford, and was ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... thoughts that she had not noticed the return of Mrs Stirling from the brook, and was only made aware of it when she put a cut-glass goblet filled with water in her hand. A very beautiful goblet it was, no doubt equal to the one for which the Roman emperor, in the story, paid a small fortune; and you may be sure it was a great occasion in Mrs Stirling's eyes that brought it from the cupboard in the corner. No lips save those of the minister had touched the ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson

... William Wallace, of a small fortune, but descended of an ancient family in the west of Scotland, whose courage prompted him to undertake, and enabled him finally to accomplish, the desperate attempt of delivering his native country from the dominion of foreigners. This man, whose ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... addicted to circumlocution in his mode of talk, told his son point-blank, that his cousin was a pretty girl, and what was more, a considerable heiress—so that it was his duty—his, Hector de Langevy—the owner of a great name and a very small fortune, to marry the said cousin—or if not, he must stand the consequences. Hector, at the first intimation, had revolted indignantly against the inhuman proposal, and made many inaudible vows of undying constancy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... weariedly, as she threw herself down on the sofa after an expedition to the office of the most widely read Paris daily paper, where she had spent a small fortune in advertisements, "I really think quite half the world is constantly employed in finding, or rather searching for, the things that the other half is as constantly employed in losing. I could fill a three-volumed ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... he'll want a small fortune for the hire of the Ripper," objected Bob. "We haven't any too much money, for this ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young

... with Arcadian sweetness, and the sound of the well-known notes cheered his own heart as well as those of the loungers. He played on with spirit, and in half an hour had earned in pence what was a small fortune to a destitute man. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... Finally, when it became absolutely necessary for Cowperwood to secure without further delay this coveted strip, he sent for its occupant, who called in pleasant anticipation of a profitable conversation; this should be worth a small fortune to him. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... then returned to her native place, to ancient Kitzuki, where she cut off her beautiful hair, and became a Buddhist nun. She was learned for her century, and especially skilful in that art of poetry called Renga; and this art she continued to teach until her death. With the small fortune she had earned as an actress she built in Kitzuki the little Buddhist temple called Rengaji, in the very heart of the quaint town—so called because there she taught the art of Renga. Now the reason she built the temple was that she might therein always ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... oracle. Don't you see how worthless great men and dull rich rogues avoid a witty man of small fortune? Why, he looks like a writ of enquiry into their titles and estates, and seems commissioned by heaven ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve

... wanted to study art. After several scenes with my father, I was allowed to go my own way—a pleasant way, too, but it led downhill, you understand. I spent three winters in Venice. Then my father died, and I came into a small fortune, which I squandered. My mother helped me; then she died. My brothers cut me, condemning me as a Bohemian and a vagabond. I confess that I did take a malicious pleasure in rubbing their sleek fur the wrong way. Then I crossed the Atlantic ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... amount above a certain maximum. The tax should if possible be made to bear more heavily upon those residing without the country than within it. A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune. No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax; and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... India for a few years, and return by the time he has a wife and a home for his old father; or, if I die, I shall have done the best for him, and my boy will be left with the best education, a tolerable small fortune, and the blessing ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... always attended by his body-servant when engaged in his studies. Though no efforts had been wasted upon the "chattel," he had learned the lessons better than the son and heir, upon whose education a small fortune had been lavished. Dandy was quick to see and comprehend what Archy had to have explained to him over and over again. Though the slave was prudent enough to conceal his attainments, he was wise enough ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... six long and heavy covered vehicles, not dissimilar in size, strength, and build to army wagons. Garcia had thought that two would suffice; six wagons, with their mules, etc., were a small fortune: what if the Apaches should take them? But Coronado had replied: "Nobody sends a train of two wagons; do you want ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... arranged now for his wild horse hunting, he set out one day from home to be gone a week or more, he told his mother, and with the promise that he would bring her a small fortune soon. ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham

... came here, senora, widow of a cadet of the house of Brancadori, to whom you sacrificed the small fortune your father gave you; but here ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac

... the squire delighted in setting the country a staring at the novelties he introduced. Even the stable and the kennel were ousted by farming from rural talk,[442] and citizens who breathed the smoke of London five days a week were farmers the other two, and many young fellows of small fortune who had been brought up in the country took farms, and the fashion was followed by doctors, lawyers, clergymen, soldiers, sailors, and merchants. The American and French War of 1775-83 and the great conflict with France from 1793 to 1815 were, however, to divert many ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... the delicately tinted walls; choice statuettes, bric-a-brac, and old-world curios of every description, which she knew must have cost a small fortune even in the countries where they were produced, were ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... just as they are. I will now move in there, and put one of my servants in charge while you are gone. I have made my will and named your father as my executor and the guardian of my daughter, and you are to succeed, in case of his death! There will be a small fortune for you both in the fees, and neither of you are forgotten in the will! I have drawn two thousand pounds in notes for you, and here is a bank draft on London for three thousand more!" The young man was sitting in open-mouthed wonder, when the nabob sharply said: "Now! Have your wits about you! ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... evident to him at once that their circumstances were those of poverty. Lady Rose's small fortune, indeed, had been already mostly spent on "causes" of many kinds, in many countries. She and Dalrymple were almost vegetarians, and wine never entered the house save for the servants, who seemed to regard their employers ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Jim married the Maryland heiress. Her father, as may be supposed, repudiated the marriage, but she clung to her scamp, and so the old Maryland aristocrat sent her a small fortune, which was hers, inherited from her mother's mother, and beyond his control; and bade her consider herself no more a Schuyler, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... small fortune on the carriage down. Better leave them with me, Debbie, and let me send you what you ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... think it must have cost the duke a wrench. It took Wedgwood a whole year to copy this vase, and when he had succeeded in doing so he made fifty more copies. The venture cost him not only his time but a small fortune as well; but it proved far from a waste of hours or money, since the feat brought to the manufacturer a familiarity with Grecian art which had its outcome in his well-known ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett

... itself is in danger. Alone, without knowledge of ways, ill able to bear distress, and fainting with hunger and thirst, the girl can hardly protect her life. And, O friend, she hath been deserted by that man of small fortune and having little sense, with the wide and terrible forest, ever abounding in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... was a leader of the aristocratic party, Marcus Crassus, who lived in a house that is estimated to have cost more than a quarter of a million dollars. Probably he would not have been very prominent if his father had not left him a small fortune, to which he had added very largely by methods that we can hardly consider noble. It is said that when the Sullan proscription was going on, he obtained at ruinously low prices the estates that the proscribed had to give up, and, whenever there was ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... have touched a farthing of the income allowed the family till the bank's affairs were wound up—that winding-up which Dr. Millar said might last throughout his life. She would willingly have resigned the bulk of her small fortune in favour of the bank's creditors, but marriage settlements and trustees are stubborn facts to deal with. All she could do was to stint and punish herself and her family in the manner described, and inasmuch as the stinting and punishment were done in good ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... with a sword. He was, however, received at Trinity Hall, where he took his M.A. degree in 1683. After travelling in France and Italy, he settled in London, where he became acquainted with Dryden, Wycherley and others; and being made temporarily independent by inheriting a small fortune, he devoted himself to literature. The duke of Marlborough procured him a place as one of the queen's waiters in the customs with a salary of 120 a year. This he afterwards disposed of for a small sum, retaining, at the suggestion of Lord ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... you are right," interrupted Colonel Baxter. "But don't be discouraged! Unless I'm very badly mistaken, that chest will be worth a small fortune in itself. Look at those brass straps across the corners. The ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm

... Philip at her shoulder. "She is absolutely and altogether lovely! I'd give a small fortune for that ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... you to try to, you would find it would cost a small fortune," answered the Scotchman. "Once you could have secured such an article at a very modest price; but values increase with time, and to-day the work of Richard Parsons and those like him is at a premium. Moreover, old bracket ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett

... like Lupez," answered Senor Romano. "He is wanted in Cuba for having swindled a rich aunt out of a small fortune; and in Manila you will find a hundred people who will tell you that both brothers are rascals to the last degree, although, so far, they have kept out of the clutches of ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer

... disappointing. In his trust-company boxes here I have been able to find only about ten thousand dollars’ worth of securities. Possibly— quite possibly—we were all deceived in the amount of his fortune. Sister Theresa wheedled large sums out of him, and he spent, as you will see, a small fortune on the house at Annandale without finishing it. It wasn’t a cheap proposition, and in its unfinished condition it is practically valueless. You must know that Mr. Glenarm gave away a great deal of money in his lifetime. Moreover, he established your father. You know what he left,—it was not ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... of classical studies, and the art of printing, were, in the hands of the peace-loving citizen, fresh means for strengthening his position in the State. The handicraftsman or the merchant, who had gained a small fortune, was no longer satisfied with the modest prospects which he could offer to his talented son in an ordinary workshop, or in his narrow store-rooms. Since Rome no longer exercised her once all-powerful influence in every walk of life, university ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... form the acquaintance of any low "white trash" like him. Whenever Mrs. Maroney went to Philadelphia he followed her and excused his frequent absences to Josh. by stating that he went up to get his arm dressed. That arm was indeed a very sore one, and his physician must have made a small fortune out of him alone. When Rivers found that Mrs. Maroney was going into town with her escort, he would go in on the train and get to the outskirts of the city in time to meet them as they drove in. She was generally accompanied by De Forest, who had become her constant attendant. After they ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton

... extremely averse from going to law with a man who was his relation, for whom he had early felt, and still retained, a considerable regard: yet he could not stand by, and see the woman he loved, defrauded of nearly half the small fortune she possessed. On the other hand, he was employed as a professional man, and called upon to act. He determined, however, before he should, as a last resource, expose the truth and maintain the right in a court of justice, previously to try every ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... passed. We met, shook hands. "Everything going well?" "Splendidly." And that was all. Then, later, I found the name of Louis Miraz but rarely in the journals and periodicals. "Happy man; he is resting," I said to myself, remembering that he was spoken of as having made a small fortune. Finally, last autumn, I learned that he was ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee

... man, Hyams," said his friend, as he raised his glass to his lips. "Thirty thousand pounds! It's a fortune, a small fortune," he added correctively. ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs

... possession by foes, but the owner of the current gold of the land would never be utterly destitute; so for years before her death she bad been filling this ingeniously contrived belt, and had stored within its many receptacles gold enough to be a small fortune in itself. This belt had been in Paul's possession ever since the sad day when she had kissed him for the last time and had commended him to the care of Heaven. He had by no means yet exhausted its contents, for he had often won wages for himself by following one or another great noble ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green

... contrary, had been taught habits of care and foresight. His father had but a very small fortune, and was anxious that his son should early learn that economy ensures independence, and sometimes puts it in the power of those who are not very ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... D'Eterville, M.A., "Poor Old Detterville," as the Grammar School boys called him, of Caen University, who arrived at Norwich in 1793. He acquired a small fortune by teaching languages. There were rumours that he was engaged in the contraband trade, an occupation more likely to bring fortune ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... is a question I have often proposed to myself. Frankly, it's beyond me. I can only surmise that poor Arthur, who had scattered a small fortune about in foolish loans, managed, before he actually disappeared (mind you, we didn't begin to look for him until a week had gone by)—managed to collect some of this money, and so went away with something in pocket. That, of course, ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... discovered. She lives there with her niece, and they've lived there for hundreds of years, more or less—maybe a little less, Anne. Exaggeration is merely a flight of poetic fancy. I understand that wealthy folk have tried to buy the lot time and again—it's really worth a small fortune now, you know—but 'Patty' won't sell upon any consideration. And there's an apple orchard behind the house in place of a back yard—you'll see it when we get a little past—a real apple ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... must be making a small fortune out of all these funerals,' said Harlow. 'This makes the fourth in the last fortnight. What is it they gets ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... happened to him during this trip must not be passed over in silence. He was induced to play at faro at a certain place where he stopped, and though he was perfectly unskilled in the game, yet he had such an extraordinary run of good luck, that he rose from the table with what was for him a small fortune. Next morning the event made so deep and powerful an impression upon his excitable temperament—his mind was so awed by the magnitude of his winnings—that he vowed never to touch a card again so long as he lived; and this vow he faithfully kept. In the tale Spielerglueck ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... Providence when an accident in a tunnel carried him off—that is to say, carried the husband off. The second husband was not so much of a disappointment as a surprise. He developed ability of a literary order, and wrote songs which sold and made him a small fortune. Then he ran away with another woman. The woman spent his fortune, drove him to dissipation, and when he was dying he came back to Nora, who received him cordially, attended him to the end, and cheered his last hours by singing his own songs to him. Then she raised ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... winning high favour with cultivated readers, and stirring enthusiasm at the Universities, failed to attract the larger public and to make a success in the market. So when he sustained a further blow in the loss of his small fortune owing to an unwise investment, his health gave way and he fell into a dark mood of hypochondria. His star seemed to be sinking, just as he was winning his way to fame. Thanks to medical attention, aided by his own natural strength and ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... the evils which befell me, and the gross mismanagement, under my guardians, of my small fortune, and that of my brothers and sisters, it has often occurred to me that so important an office, which, from the time of Demosthenes, has been proverbially maladministered, ought to be put upon a new ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... his first name sounds Hebraic and his last Gallic, he was, we may take it, a thoroughly British soul, for he called it Richmond Hill to remind him of England. The people of New York used to gossip excitedly over the small fortune he spent on those grounds, the house was the most pretentious that the neighbourhood had boasted up to that time. Of course the Warren place was much farther north, and this particular locality was only just beginning ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... find the worst-paved streets in the world. I have found them. I was told that I would see unsightly, old-fashioned telegraph-poles sticking up in the streets. I have seen them. I was told that I would have to pay a small fortune for my cab from the docks to my hotel. I have paid it. I was told that a newspaper reporter would ask me what I thought of America as soon as I landed. I am asked that question by eight gentlemen of the Press; indeed, I was interrogated upon that point by the representative of a leading ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... sir," was the reply; "but that's a pretty big order, Mr. Merrick. The outfit for a modern daily will cost a small fortune." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... chosen to be the champion of a party, and he loyally accepted the consequences. He escaped with life and liberty. The reaction, though barbarous in its treatment of its victims, was not bloodthirsty. Milton was already punished by the loss of his sight, and he was now mulcted in three-fourths of his small fortune. A sum of 2000 l. which he had placed in government securities was lost, the restored monarchy refusing to recognise the obligations of the protectorate. He lost another like sum by mismanagement, and for want of good advice, says Phillips, or ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... who are rash enough to expend these massive amounts have ever been swindled at the monthly New Orleans drawings. Indeed, they have ample proof, if they care to sift it, that somebody in Maine, or Indiana, or California, has received a small fortune for part of a ticket purchased at the same cheap terms as their own. Naturally, unless they were complete fools, they knew previous to their investment that the chances against them were extremely large, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... quite close together, two things did happen. Miss Wilcox was left a small fortune and Vera ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco

... fortune there, as his own forefathers had in fact done. But my mother died about this time, and my friends, moreover, procured for me a position in the diplomatic body. He persuaded me, at least, to entrust to him the small fortune I had inherited from my mother, that he might employ it advantageously for me; a request which I have always suspected was made in order that he might have, some future time, a pretext and disguise for his generosity. We took ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... little mustachios carefully pointed, his cheeks freshly shaven and talcumed, his slender feet encased in white canvas shoes. A wonderful Guayaquil hat, the creamy straws of which were no thicker than silk threads, crowned his sleek, raven locks. It must have cost a small fortune. He carried a dapper little cane, with which he tapped his former prisoner ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... a Roman citizen. It is necessary to have enough wealth to equip one's self at one's own expense, for the state furnishes no arms to its soldiers; down to 402 B.C. it did not even pay them. And so only those citizens are enrolled who are provided with at least a small fortune. The poor (called the proletariat) are exempt from service, or rather, they have no right to serve. Every citizen who is rich enough to be admitted to the army owes the state twenty campaigns; until these are completed the man remains at the disposition of the consul and this from ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos

... who owned the crumbling place, had originally been only the occupier and tenant-farmer of the fields around. His wife had brought him a small fortune, and during the growth of their only son there had been a partition of the Oxwell estate, giving the farmer, now a widower, the opportunity of acquiring the building and a small portion of the land attached on exceptionally low terms. But two years after ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... share in the government of a great empire; because the greater part of their members must always have too little interest in the prosperity of that empire, to give any serious attention to what may promote it. Frequently a man of great, sometimes even a man of small fortune, is willing to purchase a thousand pounds share in India stock, merely for the influence which he expects to aquire by a vote in the court of proprietors. It gives him a share, though not in the plunder, yet in the appointment ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... city looked to; keeping a high hand, and, in a manner, insulting over those that courted preferment. It was not as great a matter to have Themistocles for an adversary, a person of mean extraction and small fortune, (for he was not worth, it is said, more than four or five talents when he first applied himself to public affairs,) as to contest with a Scipio Africanus, a Servius Galba, and a Quintius Flamininus, having no other aid but a tongue free ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... the Society of the Holy Rosary. His soul leaped with joy to see about each neck four or five scapularies and around each waist a knotted girdle, and to behold the procession of corpses and ghosts in guingon habits. The senior sacristan made a small fortune selling—or giving away as alms, we should say—all things necessary for the salvation of the soul and the warfare against the devil, as it is well known that this spirit, which formerly had the temerity to contradict God himself face to face and to doubt His words, as is related in ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... backward, or to go ahead. We were, at this time, unable to accommodate the audiences that attended both Sabbath services. The lighting, the warming, the artistic equipment, all the immense expenses of the church, required a small fortune to maintain them. We had more friends than the Tabernacle had ever had before. At no time during my seventeen years' residence in Brooklyn had there been so much religious prosperity there. The memberships of all churches were advancing. ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... Shopton in due course of time, and found Mr. Swift well. They did not become millionaires, for they found, to their regret that their gold was rather freely alloyed with baser metals, so they did not have more than half the amount in pure solid gold. But there was a small fortune in it for all ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton

... with my Lady Maria; but there will no need to tell her and dear Harry that his mother or your ladyship hope to be able to increase his small fortune. The ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... when she laughed at his jokelets, even although she did not scruple to tell him that she thought his favourite pictures detestable, and looked with the eye of indifference on a collection of jade that was worth a small fortune. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... to be squeezed a little," said Ferris, reflectively. "He makes a small fortune alongside of what we get out ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield

... hand upon Miss Evans's shoulder. "O'Reilly, this girl has done more for Cuba than any of us. She has spent a small fortune for medical supplies," ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... to tell Mr. Fern all he knew about Roseleaf. He said the young man was at present engaged on literary work that promised to yield him good returns. He had a small fortune of his own beside. Everything that could be thought of in his favor was dilated ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... little farm close by and was making a small fortune from it for himself, whilst thirty-five Australians next to him could not make a living for each other! So much for ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor

... the day of our appointment. He submitted his estimate to me, and you shall judge my horror when I perused it. There were many sheets of paper, but in one line my misery was summed up. EIGHT THOUSAND POUNDS were deficient and unaccounted for. Yes, and my own small fortune had been included in the amount of capital. The accountant had been careful and exact—there was not a flaw in his reckoning. The glaring discrepancy stared me in the face, and pronounced my ruin. I knew not what to think or do. In accents of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... prescribes that thereafter no decurion nor child of a decurion or person with suitable wealth and able to support the public burdens shall have recourse to the name and duties of the clergy, but only those shall be called to the place of the deceased who are of small fortune and are not held liable to civil burdens, we have learned that some have been molested, who before the promulgation of the said law had joined themselves to the company of the priests. Therefore we decree that these shall be free from all annoyance, but those who after the promulgation ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... the papers, unbelievingly. "Zen!" he ejaculated. "The fool really did it. He's sunk a small fortune ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... hundred cavalry, and one battery. The Prince rode out magnificently attired and armed; the hilt and scabbard of his sword sparkled with precious stones, and a cockade of valuable diamonds flashed from his turban. The bridling and caparison of his mount, a splendid chestnut, represented alone a small fortune. His troops were also splendidly equipped, and displayed great confidence. The horsemen carried long pikes, like the English lancers, and wore red turbans, striped with blue. But many had been obliged to enter the lines of infantry in spite of their heavy boots, since a great number of ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... this situation is as follows. While the land which he sold continued to increase in value, his small fortune began to diminish in value. The interest on his money has been less every ten years; whereas he formerly could loan at first for six and sometimes seven per cent, he cannot loan safely now for more than ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson

... attention, and after inquiring where and how I had obtained him, asked what I intended to do with him; on my telling him that I was undetermined, and that I was afraid the horse was likely to prove a burden to me, he said, 'It is a noble animal, and if you mind what you are about, you may make a small fortune by him. I do not want such an animal myself, nor do I know any one who does; but a great horse-fair will be held shortly at a place where, it is true, I have never been, but of which I have heard a great deal from my acquaintances, where it is said a first-rate horse is always sure to fetch ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... circumstance in the whole affair," declared the man, after a pause, "was that I wanted money, and took what I thought would bring it. So you would give a small fortune to ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... whole family was assembled, and it was most embarrassing to see how seriously they took it. At home we have loads of flowers in the conservatories, but sometimes one of Vere's admirers sends her a lot of early violets, or lilies of the valley, great huge boxes which must cost a small fortune, but no one thinks anything of it, or pays any attention beyond a casual remark. Here, however, ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... fortune. Mr. Brad was undoubtedly clever, and was down as a bright young man in the list of those who employed talent which was not dulled by conscientious scruples. He had stood well in college, during three years in Europe he had picked up two or three languages, dissipated his remaining small fortune, acquired expensive tastes, and knowledge, both esoteric and exoteric, that was valuable to him in his present occupation. Returning home fully equipped for a modern literary career, and finding after some ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... happened early, the wrecks of his originally small fortune, scarcely afforded her subsistence for a year. By many humble but grating concessions on her part, and no less proud upbraidings on the part of her father, she was first allowed a trifling annuity, almost too scanty to afford the means of life, and, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... might be illustrated by two facts set forth by Maclay, whose "History of American Privateers" is the chief authority on the subject. He asserts that "it frequently happened that even the common sailors received as their share in one cruise, over and above their wages, one thousand dollars—a small fortune in those days for a mariner," and further that "one of the boys in the 'Ranger,' who less than a month before had left a farm, received as his share one ton of sugar, from thirty to forty gallons of fourth-proof Jamaica rum, some ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... Baron that it is possible to solve the famous problem called the "Philosopher's Stone." His own pecuniary resources have long since been exhausted by his costly experiments. His sister has next supplied him with the small fortune at her disposal: reserving only the family jewels, placed in the charge of her banker and friend at Frankfort. The Countess's fortune also being swallowed up, the Baron has in a fatal moment sought for new supplies at the gaming table. He proves, at starting on ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... Some are simply awkward, heavy, and stupid; others are vicious; more are good at times and under ordinary circumstances, but fail you at a pinch. This horse is thoroughbred and well broken. You must have paid a small fortune for him." ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... him in my name to describe my malady, and to add these pages to the analysis of my disease, that at least, so far as possible, the world may be reconciled to me after my death. I also hereby declare you both heirs of my small fortune (if so it may be called). Share it fairly, agree together and assist each other. You know that anything you did to give me pain has been long forgiven. I thank you, my brother Carl in particular, for the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner



Words linked to "Small fortune" :   large indefinite quantity, large indefinite amount



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