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Wherewithal   /wˈɛrwɪðˌɔl/  /hwˈɛrwɪðˌɔl/   Listen
Wherewithal

noun
1.
The necessary means (especially financial means).






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wherewithal" Quotes from Famous Books



... so now, silently and earnestly; for their pilfering fingers and their plausible lies had robbed his father's son of a fine inheritance. Money. Never had he desired it so keenly. A few weeks ago it had meant the wherewithal to pay his club-dues and to support a decent table when he traveled. Now it was everything; for without it he never could dare lift his eyes seriously to this lovely picture so close to him, let alone dream of winning her. He recalled Cathewe's light ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... out on a jungle trip, although I have never started from home with such an intention. Seeing some fine big fellows swimming about in a deep hole is a great temptation, especially when you know they are grey mullet, and the chef de cuisine is short of the wherewithal for dinner. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... fulfil her vow by observing continence. Again a priest is not bound to say Mass, except he have a suitable opportunity, and if this be lacking, there is no omission. And in like manner, a person is bound to restitution, supposing he has the wherewithal; if he has not and cannot have it, he is not guilty of an omission, provided he does what he can. The same applies to other ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... moulds us, lacking wherewithal To shape out nobler fortunes or contend Against all-patient Fates, who may not mend The allotted pattern of things temporal Or alter it a jot or e'er let fall A single stitch thereof, until at last The web and its drear weavers be overcast And ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... dust, a burning throat, and water at a shilling to half a crown a gallon! Right enough for the lucky ones "on gold," and for them not a life of ease! The poor devil with neither money nor luck, who looked into each dishful of dirt for the wherewithal to live, and found it not, was indeed ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... Ursula. "Do you not know that one general meeting day, God having ordered them to be seated, they answered Him that they had not the wherewithal." ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... course there must be muffs and boas; of course there must be hose and handkerchiefs. That dressing of the windows was to be the special care of Mr. Jones, and Robinson would take care that there should be the wherewithal. The dressing of the windows, and the parading of the shop, was to be the work of Jones. His ambition had never soared above that, and while serving in the house on Snow Hill, his utmost envy had been excited by the youthful aspirant who there walked ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope

... belongs to me there is a father who does not consider me his child, and a step-mother who treats me like a son-in-law. With regard to my road, it is that which chance places before me, and it will end wherever I may find some one who will give me the wherewithal to sustain ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... undiscovered in his bed; yes, if he can lift up his heart, and realize the presence of the God of heaven, while the language of hell resounds on every side. Even so, he has an enemy within, striving against the right principle, and responding to all that his better feeling repudiates. Then, too, wherewithal shall the young man cleanse his way, if not by ruling himself according to the word of God? And how is he to study that word? Does the parent who puts a Bible in his boy's portmanteau know that the most ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... issuing from the hatchway; "here are our stores: a ham, two Dutch cheeses, two callabashes full of Rockhouse malaga, and there is plenty of fresh water in the gourds; with these, we have wherewithal to ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... glorious tree-logs and roaring fires, had been a failure at the White Mountain. The Dragoman had killed our last turkey, and had forgotten to bring the plum-pudding from El-Muwaylah: there was champagne, but that is not the stuff wherewithal to wash down tough mutton. New Year's Day, on the other hand, had all the honours. Its birth was greeted with a flow of whisky-punch, wherein wine had taken the place of water; and we drank the health of his Highness, the Founder of the Expedition, in a bottle of dry ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... it, mayn't we? I mean, it isn't as if I hadn't been given the tip. From the moment I woke this morning—— Listen, dear. Don't bother about the wheel—the lady's been hammering away. You must admit, she's done the job thoroughly. First the intuition: then the wherewithal: then, what to back. I should be a bottle-nosed ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... of being sorry, as I certainly ought to be, when your letters are short, I feel quite glad; I rejoice that I am not much in your debt, when I have not wherewithal to pay. Nothing happens worth telling you: we have had some long days in the House, but unentertaining; Mr. Pitt has got the gout in his oratory, I mean in his head, and does not come out: we are sunk quite into argument—but you know, when ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... here, as well as leads to happiness and heaven hereafter. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?" Psalm cxix. 9, 103-105. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul," Psalm xix. 7-11. What an eulogy is this on the perfection of the sacred writings! the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... shillings were all one to him. Philip had been right, no doubt, in his first diagnosis of his queer acquaintance as a man of distinction. For wealth and distinction are practically synonyms in England for one and the same quality, possession of the wherewithal. ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... Lonagon who had first struck gold in this desolate region, late in the summer, whilst engaged in hunting caribou. Shanks had gone in with him on a fifty-fifty basis, but both lacked the wherewithal to finance a trip so far North. Against their desire they were obliged to take in a third person. D'Arcy, having assured himself that Lonagon was no liar, put up the money to buy food and gear and joined in. The idea ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... Tuesday, the 9th of October—we thought it best to travel along by the sea coast, to seek out some place of habitation—whether they were Christians or savages we were indifferent—so that we might have wherewithal to sustain our hungry bodies, and so departing from a hill where we had rested all night, not having any dry thread about us, for those that were not wet being thrown into the sea were thoroughly wet ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt

... of Preston found him the wherewithal to carry on his experiments first at Preston and later on at Nottingham. Certainly what he put up at Nottingham gave such promise of practical utility, that two experienced business men were led to join him in partnership, and the three of them, Need, Strutt, and Arkwright, very ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson

... of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying—What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (for after all these things do the Gentiles seek;) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves

... thou, or didst thou not? Just tell me, friend! Not that my conscience may be satisfied, I never for a moment doubted thee— But that I may have wherewithal in hand To turn against them when they point at thee: A whip to flog them with—a rock to crush— Thy word—thy simple downright 'No, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... wrong about that. Had she been a steam yacht he could have understood it. Much as he might have desired a steam yacht, he would have accepted cheerfully the fact that he did not have the wherewithal to purchase it. He would have felt no sense of injustice. But it scarcely seemed decent to consider Frances from this point of view, though a certain parallel could be drawn: her clean-cut lines, her nicety of finish, a certain air of silver and mahogany about her, affording a basis of comparison; ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... American Indian is possessed of as much devotion to his family as is to be found in the most cultivated of the white race; but the old fellow was inordinately fond of getting drunk, and at one time, not having the wherewithal to procure the necessary liquor, made up his mind that he would trade his daughter for a ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... he had at least gained bread and cheese; but his rhymes were not worth a crust. He then tried painting with as little success; and as a last resource, began to search for the philosopher's stone and tell fortunes. This was a happier idea; he soon increased in substance, and had wherewithal to live comfortably. He therefore took unto himself his wife Petronella, and began to save money; but continued to all outward appearance as poor and miserable as before. In the course of a few years, he became desperately addicted to the study of alchymy, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... he did not touch his talisman, and what is the reason he gives for it? The chief reason, as I have just said, was that when she would say, 'I am yours, take me where you will,' he might have the wherewithal to take her. But that first reason, in the prisoner's own words, was of little weight beside the second. While I have that money on me, he said, I am a scoundrel, not a thief, for I can always go to my insulted ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... to me, object to my society. There were many things we had to talk of, but I could not yet bring myself to speak of one subject which was at my heart. I felt myself still a dependant on the bounty of Sir Thomas Gresham. He supported me, and supplied me liberally with the wherewithal to pay for my clothes and other expenses, and to leave me an ample supply of pocket-money. But as yet he had never spoken of paying me a fixed salary; and with the possession of that alone should I feel justified ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... and signing that I should take her hand—"Then live, Norman Leslie, for this is to me an easy thing and a joyous. Thou art a clerk, hast thou wherewithal ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... about to die, Call'd on his children to come nigh: "I leave," he says, "a small estate, But wherewithal to make it great: For know, a treasure it contains, If you to search will take the pains." He died. The sons dug all the ground, And there no hidden treasure found; But so productive was the soil, The crop by far o'erpaid the toil. Says one, when they the corn had sold, ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... than it is worth. On the other hand, the tenth received by the proprietors is no less a waste; for, being laborers themselves, they, like the others, possess in the nine-tenths of their product the wherewithal to live: they want for nothing. Why should they wish their proportion of bread, wine, meat, clothes, shelter, &c., to be doubled, if they can neither consume nor exchange them? Then farm-rent, with them as with the rest of the laborers, is a waste, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... M. Lescaut!' said I to him: 'my wants demand a more speedy remedy; for what am I to say to Manon?' 'Apropos of Manon,' replied he, 'what is it that annoys you about her? Cannot you always find in her wherewithal to meet your wants, when you wish it? Such a person ought to support us all, you and me as well as herself.' He cut short the answer which I was about to give to such unfeeling and brutal impertinence, by going on to say, ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... resolve to make no fuss, the girl went out. The police had gone. The mother-child was putting her little folk to bed; and in the kitchen Felix was arranging the wherewithal to eat. He made her sit down and kept handing things; watching like a cat to see that she put them in her mouth, in the way from which only Flora had suffered hitherto; he seemed so anxious and unhappy, and so awfully sweet, that Nedda forced herself to swallow ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... you truly, Mr Loveby, my husband and I cannot live by love, as they say; we must have wherewithal, as they say; and pay for what we take; or some ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... too glad to pay for his place; but, as he "received at home everything that he needed," he did not have the wherewithal. Still, there was no danger of his being thrown out. The crowd, which was threatening to expend its remaining energy in destroying the liquids of the place, was now occupying the barmaid's attention. I should say Mrs. Goremest's attention. She ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... near the goal, misfortunes multiplied. They came into a town on a tidal river, whence they could hope to drift down to their destination for a shilling or two; but here Hope spent his last farthing on Grace's supper at an eating-house, and had not wherewithal to pay for bed or breakfast at the humble inn. Here, too, he took up the local paper, praying Heaven there might be some employment advertised, however mean, that so he might feed his girl, and not let the fiend Consumption take her ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... son of a witch, my visit is at all times an honor to you. I drunk!" he hiccoughed out; "and with what, you jack-pudding you? How is a man to get drunk," he screamed out, "when he has not wherewithal to pay ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... greater, and out of Kersis (all which are Northerne regions and full of woods) and also out of many other countries of the North, which are subiect vnto them, the inhabitants bring them rich and costly skins of diuers sortes (which I neuer saw in our countries) wherewithal they are clad in winter. And alwaies against winter they make themselues two gownes, one with the fur inward to their skin, and another with the furre outward, to defend them from wind and snow, which for the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... she declared. "I will take no heed what I shall eat, nor what I shall drink, nor wherewithal I ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... those supplies from Ireland running ominously short, the philosophic vagabond determined to prove to his correspondents that he was really at work somewhere, instead of merely idling away his time, begging or borrowing the wherewithal to pass him from town to town. That he did see something of the foreign universities is evident from his own writings; there are touches of description here and there which he could not well have got from books. With this degree, ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... rich. The nurse is poor. That is, she has been poor. Lately I've had a man keeping tabs on her. Since leaving the hospital, she's moved into an expensive flat, and has splurged out into good clothes. Whence the wherewithal?" ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... country in which their traditionary sphere has shrunk to so small dimensions. Nowhere else are there so many women of such a station that they are not obliged to toil and spin, nor to sleep all day to make up for nights of dissipation. For all those who do not have to concern themselves with the wherewithal of living, the art of living easily has been brought to a state of great perfection. The general care of the house and of the children is still the duty of the woman, but the labor involved in acquitting herself of that duty is a very different matter from what ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... you in a memorandum, and will order you, for the good of my soul, for whose salvation it will be employed, to pay me a portion of what you owe me, if it please you, and I conjure you for the honour of Jesus, to whom I shall pray to-morrow at my death, that you leave me the wherewithal to found a mass and to perform the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... demandest of me what thou shalt say? Thou shalt say a thousand things, and saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have said nothing! Be not afraid, I tell thee! When thou comest into the world (whither I purpose sending thee, forthwith), thou shalt not lack the wherewithal to talk. Talk! Why, thou shalt babble like a mill-stream, if thou wilt. Thou hast brains ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... those ports in the Mediterranean or the ocean, that vast creation of vessels, arsenals, foundries, military houses and hospitals which we had seen springing up in all parts. He had procured by his application, his careful calculations, the wherewithal to build innumerable fortresses, aqueducts, fountains, bridges, the Observatory of Paris, the Royal Hospital of the Invalides, the chateaus of the Tuileries and of Vincennes, the engine and chateau of Marly, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... all very fine—a likely tale; but I don't believe a word of it. If they cared to have you in their ship, they'd have given you the wherewithal to git there. But, come! it's no use shilly-shallyin' any longer. The landlord won't like it. He's gin his orders ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... disappointment awaited us. In vain I applied at the Navy Office. I had satisfied the board at Surgeon's Hall, it seemed nothing but money could help me at the Navy Office, and by that time I had not wherewithal to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... realized in a monarchy far beyond the visionary republic of Plato. The whole scenery was exactly disposed to captivate those good souls, whose credulous morality is so invaluable a treasure to crafty politicians. Indeed there was wherewithal to charm everybody, except those few who are not much pleased with professions of supernatural virtue, who know of what stuff such professions are made, for what purposes they are designed, and in what they are sure constantly to end. Many innocent gentlemen, who had been talking prose all their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... one would know when we stole away into the desert to where the old tombs are hidden. Then the treasures could be found and brought away by his Excellency's servants, who would rejoice after and have the wherewithal to buy oil and honey, dhurra and dates, so that their faces might shine and the starving camels grow sleek and fat ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... the mouth of Columbus, in a dialogue with Ferdinand, who earnestly invites the discoverer to ask of him the wherewithal to prosecute the discovery, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... had finished his business and left Turin, thanking me with tears in his eyes; and if it had not been for me he would not have been able to quit the town, for I paid divers small debts he had incurred, and gave him the wherewithal for his journey. Often is vice thus found allied to virtue or masking in virtue's guise; but what matter? I allowed myself to be taken in, and did not wish to be disabused. I do not seek to conceal my faults. I have ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... life, his poet's life, reading, thinking, remembering. Then all he had known in Italy would return to his memory, campaniles, azure frescoes, olive groves, sonnets of Petrarch, poems of Dante, tales of Boccaccio; he had brought back wherewithal to move and to enliven "merry England" herself. Once more in his tower, whither he returned without speaking to any one, "domb," he says, "as any stoon," the everyday world was done with; his neighbours were to him as though they had lived ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... which they talked and laughed one to the other, as if they enjoyed the loss of a sheep as a very good joke; and the boy could not help asking himself whether they were taking advantage of his inexperience to help themselves to the wherewithal for an ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... them in order to leave them at the house of one of his tenants, a respectable widow whom he had trained as a nurse, and to whose kind care he now confided them with strict orders for their comfort, and the wherewithal ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... the president, "thanks to us, the general will have the wherewithal for his first month's ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... alcove, with their naked children; entire populations which no longer go to church on Sunday, because they are naked; bodies kept a week before they are buried, because the deceased has left neither a shroud in which to lay him out nor the wherewithal to pay for the coffin and the undertaker (and the bishop enjoys an income of from four to five hundred thousand francs); families heaped up over sewers, living in rooms occupied by pigs, and beginning to rot while yet alive, or dwelling in holes, like Albinoes; octogenarians sleeping naked ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... signify much to you," said I, "seeing I have wherewithal in the locker to pay my shot; and as to the second, of that hereafter; so, old boy, let's have some grog, and then say if you can ship me with one of them cowers that are lying alongside ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... our young affections, aroused our enthusiasm and inspired in us the belief that a permanent institution was inevitable, and then—quietly dropped out. In other walks of life, people who make experiments have generally supplied themselves with the wherewithal to wait while their schemes approach fruition. Rome was not built in a day, but if the builders thereof had been actors, Rome never would have been built at all! The actor, who is usually a singularly unbalanced person, looks for ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... goddesses of the Hindu pantheon, and has learned to smile at many of the superstitions of his uneducated countrymen. But Hinduism as a religion that tells a man not only what he shall eat, what he shall drink, and wherewithal he shall be clothed, but tells him how to perform innumerable acts that men of other nations never think have anything to do with religion at all, Hinduism as an intricate social code, stands largely unaffected by the flood of Western education that has been poured upon the country. He instances ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... by the Bishop of Honduras and the Bishop Torres. The Bishop of Honduras was about setting out, but at my request he waited to assist at my consecration, and in great poverty he has delayed his journey seven or eight days, the expenses of which I would have willingly paid if I had had the wherewithal. I humbly beg Your Highness to recompense him for what I owe him: I shall esteem it a favour to myself. Although no occasion should offer, I was thinking to ask Your Highness to graciously grant him some relief, so that that church, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... rather puts him in need of further protection. How in the world, then, can want be driven away by riches? Cannot the rich feel hunger? Cannot they thirst? Are not the limbs of the wealthy sensitive to the winter's cold? "But," thou wilt say, "the rich have the wherewithal to sate their hunger, the means to get rid of thirst and cold." True enough; want can thus be soothed by riches, wholly removed it cannot be. For if this ever-gaping, ever-craving want is glutted by wealth, it ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius

... was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby's, as he falsely called it, and would often say, That could his brother Toby to his process have added but a pipe of tobacco, he had wherewithal to have his way, if there was faith in a Spanish proverb, toward the hearts of half the women upon ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... glass of port wine and spices, that acted upon my empty stomach, which at that time would have rejected all solid food, with an instantaneous power of restoration; and for this glass the generous girl without a murmur paid out of her humble purse at a time—be it remembered!—when she had scarcely wherewithal to purchase the bare necessaries of life, and when she could have no reason to expect that I should ever be able ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... there should never man have drawn out this sword, but he that shall be rightwise king of this land. Now let me see whether ye can put the sword there as it was, and pull it out again. That is no mastery, said Arthur, and so he put it in the stone; wherewithal Sir Ector assayed to pull ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... tinctured with such fascinating extravagance, was too tempting not to be immediately snapped at by the gudgeons of learning; and, accordingly, there were divers profound writers ready to swear to its correctness, and to bring in their usual load of authorities and wise surmises, wherewithal to prop it up. Vatablus and Robert Stephens declared nothing could be more clear; Arius Montanus, without the least hesitation, asserts that Mexico was the true Ophir, and the Jews the early settlers of the country. While Possevin, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... I sing, To profit wherewithal, Clip folly's wanton wing, And keep her within call: I've little else to give, What thou canst easy try, The lesson how to live, Is ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... thick, ungainly legs, which had been rendered familiar to me through the portraits which I had seen in the Johnsonia. As I gazed on that marble tribute to genius and worth, I could not but remember, Charley, how Johnson had frequently walked the streets of London all night, because he had not the wherewithal to pay for a lodging. Near to Johnson's monument was that of Howard the philanthropist. We noticed a very fine one to Sir Joshua Reynolds; also statues to Bishop Heber, Abercrombie, Cornwallis, Sir John Moore, Sir Astley Cooper, Sir Thomas Lawrence, ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various

... high, stiff, squarely sawed felt hat which he imagines gives him great dignity. His clothes have become so painfully scrupulous in their exact conformation to the mode that he looks wooden. He has given so much thought to the subject of "wherewithal shall ye be clothed," that the thought in some queer spiritual curdling has appeared in the unyielding texture of his artificial tailored skin, that seems to be a part of ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... another supper, and, what is far worse, are adding to the discredit of such an act by resorting to dishonest means of procuring the wherewithal for it. Oh, it is shocking, shocking! And yet Marion cannot be convinced that her girls are capable of deceit. Poor child, poor child, it is fortunate for her that there is someone at hand to come ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... credence. However haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere disco etcetera as the Latin poet remarks especially as luck would have it he got paid his screw after every middle of the month on the sixteenth which was the date of the month as a matter of fact though a good bit of the wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke was nothing would get it out of Corley's head that he was living in affluence and hadn't a thing to do but hand out the needful. Whereas. He put his hand in a pocket anyhow not with the idea of finding any food there but thinking ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... up to London along with his young master. Julian argued the point with him; and insisted he had better stay to take charge of his aunt, in case she should be disturbed by these strangers. Lance replied, "She would have one with her, who would protect her well enough; for there was wherewithal to buy protection amongst them. But for himself, he was resolved to follow Master Julian ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... the most likely places to find wherewithal to light a fire, are under large stones and other shelter; but in soaking wet weather, little chips of dry wood can hardly be procured except by cutting them with an axe out of the middle of a log. The fire may then be begun, as the late Admiral the Hon. C. Murray well recommended in his travels ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... certain sustaining exhilaration about voluntary abstinence from food, due to the contemplation of one's mind's mastery. The reverse is true of the hunger due to the unsuccess of one's efforts to obtain the wherewithal to get better food and ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... an opportunity. The need of money became very pressing at the Vicarage. They had literally no longer the wherewithal to live. The tithe payers absolutely refused to fulfil their obligations. As it happened, Jones, the man who had murdered the auctioneer, was never brought to trial. He died shortly after his arrest in a fit of delirium tremens ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... circumstances in which it is the duty of a Christian man to be married, there are others in which it may be his duty to remain unmarried. For instance, in the case of a missionary it may be right to be married rather than unmarried; on the other hand, in the case of a pauper, not having the wherewithal to bring up and maintain a family, it may be proper to remain unmarried. You will observe however, that no fixed law can be laid down upon this subject. We cannot say marriage is a Christian duty, nor celibacy is a Christian duty; nor that it ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... from father to son, with little change, except what the introduction of illicit distillation had wrought, and making little or no export from the country beyond the few lean kyloes, which paid the rent and produced wherewithal to pay for the oatmeal imported."*[9] Telford's first recommendation was, that a bridge should be thrown across the Tay at Dunkeld, to connect the improved lines of road proposed to be made on each side of the river. He regarded this measure ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... receipt of bribes from prisoners. I never heard that any one succeeded in bribing Wirz, and this is the sole good thing I can say of that fellow. Against this it may be said, however, that he plundered the boys so effectually on entering the prison as to leave them little of the wherewithal to bribe anybody. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... again. That day they would for the first time lack everything; a whole week separated them from the date when their little income would fall due, and she had spent her last copper that morning. She had nothing left for the evening, not even the wherewithal to buy a loaf. To whom could she apply? How could she manage to hide the truth any longer from him when he came home hungry? She made up her mind to pledge the black silk dress which Madame Vanzade had formerly given her, but it was with a heavy heart; she trembled with ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... duty, as the stewards of God, is to attend to their salvation. You should "give them the bread of life in due season." It will be of no avail for you to inquire, "What shall they eat, and what shall they drink, and wherewithal shall they be clothed;" if you neglect this their highest interest and your greatest trust? "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" It is not the wealth, nor the magnificence of life which will make your home happy; these are but the ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... hot days thereafter the pirates and their prisoners toiled hard at the refitting of the ships. Lumber was not easy to come by in that desolate region and when they had used up all their spare planking, Bonnet took the Royal James out over the bar to hunt for the wherewithal to do his patching. After a cruise of a day and a night to the southward they sighted a small fishing shallop which they quickly overtook, and captured without a fight. The two men in the shallop jumped overboard and swam ashore when they saw ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... he said, "give me the wherewithal to replace my barrow, and it will be the best use you ever made ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... way. Money was only a marker. It was the game that counted with him. The possession of millions made little change in him, except that he played the game more passionately. Temperate as he had always been, save on rare occasions, now that he had the wherewithal for unlimited drinks and had daily access to them, he drank even less. The most radical change lay in that, except when on trail, he no longer did his own cooking. A broken-down miner lived in his log cabin with him and now cooked for him. But it was the same food: bacon, beans, flour, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... lightly clothed, and of this I felt the inconvenience the more I advanced northeast. What must not a poor old man have suffered in that severe weather and climate, whom I saw on a bleak common in Poland, lying on the road, helpless, shivering and hardly having wherewithal to cover his nakedness? I pitied the poor soul; though I felt the severity of the air myself, I threw my mantle over him, and immediately I heard a voice from the heavens, blessing me for that piece of charity, saying: "You will be rewarded, ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... the old question, which our Lord answered long ago, and said, "Be not anxious what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal you shall be clothed. For after all these things do the heathen seek, and your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley

... never long; in that case if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the entire company: this being one of the very few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has the wherewithal ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... brought up in stout and manly fashion. They stand, each one of them, in body and soul equipped; and, save God himself shall hinder them, they will march into the territory of those their human hinderers, and take from them the wherewithal to support their lives. Since often enough in war it is surer and safer to quest for food with sword and buckler than with all ...
— The Economist • Xenophon

... information. Our whole stock in this line was the Bible and Primer, and these were our main dependence for whiling away the tedious hours between our early breakfast and the signal for meeting. How often was our invention stretched to find wherewithal to keep up our stock of excitement in a line with the duties of the day! For the first half hour, perhaps, a story in the Bible answered our purpose very well; but, having despatched the history ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... sought to spare thine ear So long as aid and counsel could be found; Now dire necessity doth loose my tongue. Naught hast thou now in presents to bestow, Thou hast not wherewithal to live to-morrow! The spring-tide of thy fortune is run out, And lowest ebb is in thy treasury! The soldiers, disappointed of their pay, With sullen murmurs, threaten to retire. My counsel faileth, not with royal splendor But meagerly, to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Metcalf, formerly a mountaineer, was in want of the wherewithal to hang the condemned criminals, so he borrowed some rawhide lariats and picket-ropes ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... lodging. What a comment on the period which adored genius, but allowed it to starve! His audiences could be enthusiastic enough to carry him to his hotel on their shoulders, but probably never thought that the wherewithal of a hearty supper was a more seasonable homage. So our musician struggled on through the closing years of his life with the wolf constantly at his door, and an invalid wife whom he passionately loved, yet must needs see suffer from the want of common necessaries. ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... the discussion of material means, of the wherewithal, that is to say to the "Economics" of Socialism. The reader will see very speedily that this great social revolution we propose necessarily involves a revolution in business and industry that will be equally far reaching. The two revolutions are indeed inseparable, ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... in the surrounding district, whom he described as men given up to the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life; hunting and shooting, and adorning their own houses; asking what shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?—careless of dispensing the bread of life to their flocks, preaching at best but a carnal and soul-benumbing morality, and trafficking in the souls of men by receiving money for discharging the pastoral office in parishes ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... done, he went back to his costly little apartment upon which the rent would be due in a few days. He had the cash in hand: that was all right. As for the next month, he wondered humorously whether he would have the wherewithal to meet the recurring bill, not to mention others. However, the consideration was not weighty enough to keep ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... in urgent need of funds, and on the 13th he sent out to the student debtors appealing letters of which the following is typical: "I beg that you will pay your fees this week if possible, as I have a heavy College claim to meet on Saturday without the wherewithal to pay it." He supported this appeal by letters to parents, "I beg that you would be good enough to pay your son's College fees on or before Saturday next, as I have a heavy College debt to pay on that day and not sufficient funds to meet it." These appeals ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... anything else will enrich those whom Popery has impoverished. England should turn a deaf ear to the cry for Home Rule, which means the ruin of her only friends in Ireland, and unknown damage to herself. To give her enemies the means wherewithal to damage her is very ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... that of industry to inspire him. I have demonstrated that all over the West Indies, even when fatigued with working the allotted hours for the profit of his master, he can work again for wages for him who chooses to hire him and has wherewithal to pay him; I have also most distinctly shown that the experience of Antigua and the Bermudas is demonstrative to show that without any state of preparation, without any indenture of apprenticeship at ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... love me, giving me besides that unselfish affection, something that neither mother nor sister can give—the utmost bliss of love. Poor Coralie, after giving up everything for my sake, may perhaps have died for me—for me, who at this moment have not the wherewithal to bury her. She could have solaced my life; you, and you alone, my dear good angels, can console me for her death. God has forgiven her, I think, the innocent girl, for she died like a Christian. Oh, this Paris! Eve, Paris is the glory and ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... those who obey without disputing; but notwithstanding their boasted humanity, the lives of those who endeavour to get away are not always safe. They are very strict and severe in levying their impost; and if a man has not wherewithal to pay them, he may run the chance of getting himself knocked on the head for ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... you out of bed at no rate), and at sunset, in the hymns which they utter in full tide of song to their Creator. Let me pour out the thankfulness of my heart to the Giver of all good things, for the numerous blessings I enjoy, and intreat Him to bless my increase, that I may have wherewithal to relieve the wants of others, as he prevents and relieves mine. No! give me the country. It's—' Minister was jist like a horse that has the spavin: he sot off considerable stiff at first, but when he once got under way, he got on like a house a fire. He went like the wind, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... them, and brought all sorts of wines and spirits, and provisions from the shore, far more indeed than the crew could by possibility consume. The wine and spirits, however, seemed to be most welcome, and the crew, having an abundance of wherewithal to carouse, sat down to make themselves happy. Never have I heard a set of human beings jabber away at the rate they did; they laughed, and sang, and pledged ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... he sold his estates to find the wherewithal for Vincent's schemes of charity, and he would have stripped himself of all that he had, had not Vincent himself forbidden it. His sword, which had served him in all his duels, and to which he was very much attached, he broke in pieces on a rock. His great chateau, the walls of ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes

... you threaten to make upon us, we must therein defend ourselves as well as we can; and know ye, that we are not without wherewithal to bid defiance to you; and, in short, (for I will not be tedious,) I tell you, that we take you to be some vagabond runagate crew, that having shaken off all obedience to your King, have gotten together ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... the fishing season there is often the close smell of herring-scale, of bow tar and the bark-tan of the fishing nets; but this stair I climbed for the wherewithal was unusually sweet-odoured and clean, because on the first floor was the house of Provost Brown—a Campbell and a Gael, but burdened by accident with a Lowland-sounding cognomen. He had the whole flat to himself—half-a-dozen snug apartments with windows facing the street or the sea as he wanted. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... the pious offerings from their disciples, they are not at all particular. They go upon the easy principle that all is fish that comes into their net. If the ignorant and superstitious givers have not 'filthy lucre' wherewithal to propitiate the ugly represented saints, wax candles, silver ore, cacao, sugar, and any other description of property is as readily received. Thus, it often happens that these peripatetic friars have a long convoy of heavily-laden mules with which ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... made every inquiry concerning the cause of their complaints, and find from Letafit Ali Khan that they are in a starving condition, having sold all their clothes and necessaries, and now have not wherewithal to support nature. And as my instructions are quite silent upon this head, should be glad to know how to proceed in case they were to force the doors of the zenanah; as I suspect it will happen, should no subsistence be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... that the hobos had better strike out and do some lively begging in order to get the wherewithal to celebrate my return to the fold after a year's separation. But I flashed my dough and Slim sent several of the younger men off to buy the booze. Take my word for it, Anak, it was a blow-out memorable in Trampdom to this day. It's amazing the quantity of booze thirty ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... stocks and shares are the machinery of international finance, by which moneylenders of one nation provide borrowers in others with the wherewithal to carry out enterprises, or make payments for which they have not cash available at home. It was shown in a previous chapter that bills of exchange are a means by which the movements of commodities from market ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers

... sat till noon, but no work came to him and his fear of his wife redoubled. Then he arose and went out perplexed as to how he should do in the matter of the vermicelli-cake, seeing he had not even the wherewithal to buy bread. Presently he came to the shop of the Kunafah-seller and stood before it, whilst his eyes brimmed with tears. The pastry-cook glanced at him and said, "O Master Ma'aruf, why dost thou weep? Tell me ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? Or, Wherewithal shall ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... examined, and at first persisted in saying that he had only returned from exile because he had not the wherewithal to live abroad. But when put to the torture he was made to endure such agony that, despite his courage and constancy, he confessed that he had formed a plan to introduce a band of Huguenot soldiers ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... preceding evening, and robbed him even to his cap, and taking from him the letters, saying they cared not for the sheik or Boo Khaloom, tied him to a tree and there left him. In this state he was found by Major Denham's party, and Mr. Clapperton coming up soon afterwards, gave him from his biscuit bag, wherewithal to break his fast, after being twenty-four hours without eating. Eighteen men had stripped him, he said, and taken off the camel and Mina Tahr's man, who, they also said, should be ransomed, or have ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... trifling articles not beyond the scope of his mechanical ingenuity—for which he exacted such compensation as he could obtain. In sober truth, like his parent, he was fond of money. The world, he was wont to say, owed him a living, and he prided himself not a little on his skill in procuring the wherewithal. And yet he was rarely known to realize one shilling that did not cost him two; or in other words, in all his multifarious transactions of barter and otherwise, he was almost uniformly overreached. There was one way, moreover, in which his little earnings ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone

... other woman she knew or knew about—who in her desperate circumstances would have done what she had done? She could have married a man who would have given her wealth and the very best social position. She had refused him. She could have continued to "borrow" from him the wherewithal to keep her in luxurious comfort while she looked about at her ease for a position that meant independence. She had thrust the temptation from her. All this from purely high-minded motives; for other motive ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... good blood and lineage, a few proposals of a certain type were inevitable. Middle-aged men—becoming bald and grey; tired of racketing about town; with beautiful old country places and an unfortunate lack of the wherewithal to keep them up—proposed to the Honourable Jane Champion in a business-like way, and the Honourable Jane looked them up and down, and through and through, until they felt very cheap, and then quietly refused them, in an ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... were well calculated to inspire a sanguine temperament with trustful confidence in the future. In spite of the bad performances of my operas, Tannhauser brought me unexpectedly good royalties from Berlin. From Vienna, too, I obtained the wherewithal to give me breathing-space in a most curious way. I was still excluded from the Royal Opera, and I had been assured that so long as there was an imperial court, I was not to dream of a performance of my seditious works in Vienna. This strange state of affairs inspired my old director, ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... be exhausted," added the treasurer. "In three days the people must return to work, for we shall not have the wherewithal to feed them." ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... does he approve of that organization which enables trusts to juggle prices? When organization has reached that point where one-third of our wealth-producers must stand idle because denied the privilege of producing the wherewithal to feed and clothe and house themselves, it might be well for 'varsity presidents to apply the soft pedal to their paean of praise and inquire diligently whether it be possible to get entirely too much of a good thing. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... send his own favourite, or rather she that was his favourite, the 'Skipping Fawn,' as the Siouxes call her, to fill her place. You see, neighbour, though the Red-skin is minded to keep your property, he is willing to give you wherewithal to ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... applying for land in the island as are granted entry. The blunt truth is that the State has felt itself compelled to spend so much on military and naval expansion that the claims of Hokkaido for the wherewithal for better roads, more railway line and better credit have often ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... Wherewithal they rode their ways through the thorpe, and at the southern end thereof Simon drew rein, and looked on Christopher as if he would ask him something, but asked not. Then said ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris

... you worship Mammon. Tell me, do you think you would feel safer if you had money in the bank? Then you are Mammon-worshippers; for you would trust the barn of the rich man rather than the God who makes the corn to grow. Do you say—"What shall we eat? and what shall we drink? and wherewithal shall we be clothedl?" Are ye thus of doubtful mind?—Then you are Mammon-worshippers. "But how is the work of the world to be done if we take no thought?—We are nowhere told not to take thought. ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... duty. His Honour has given me nothing. But I would not be troublesome, having wherewithal to wait, so conclude, Honoured Madam, your dutiful servant to command, till death, ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... know that I have got wherewithal to pay the reckoning?" I demanded. "Brother," said Mr. Petulengro, "I was just now looking in your face, which exhibited the very look of a person conscious of the possession of property; there was nothing hungry or sneaking in it. Pay ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... Mr Rainscourt?" said the lady, who, as her daughter had remarked, seemed wonderfully recovered from the phle-back-omy which had been administered,—"why should you be shocked at stabbing me in the back? Have I not wherewithal in my hand to stab me a thousand times in the heart? Look at these letters, all of which I have read! You had, indeed, reason to leave me in Galway; but I will submit to it no longer. Mr Rainscourt, I insist upon ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... forty miles away) were carried through the forest on the backs of men. Our mail was delivered once a month by a carrier who made the journey in alternate stages of horseback riding and canoeing. But we had health, youth, enthusiasm, good appetites, and the wherewithal to satisfy them, and at night in our primitive bunks we sank into abysses of dreamless slumber such as I have never known since. Indeed, looking back upon them, those first months seem to have been a long-drawn-out and glorious picnic, interrupted only by occasional ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... consistent with his own safety to adopt the cause of the Lacedaemonians without the concurrence of the king—a scruple which did not prevent him from privately presenting Antalcidas with a sum of money, in hopes that when the Athenians and their allies discovered that the Lacedaemonians had the wherewithal to furnish a fleet, they might perhaps be more disposed to desire peace. Further, accepting the statements of the Lacedaemonians as true, he took on himself to secure the person of Conon, as guilty of wrongdoing ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... preparation, proclaiming itself wearied with camp life, and clamouring to be led against an enemy, that it might justify its traditions and find employment for its spears. Often and often he must have been sorely puzzled to find excuses wherewithal to put it off. Indeed his position was both awkward and dangerous: on the one hand was Scylla in the shape of the English Government, and on the other the stormy and uncertain Charybdis of his clamouring regiments. Slowly the idea must have began to dawn upon him that unless he found ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... whose turban Prosperity dances and Peace makes her bed! Whose mother is twin-sister to the Sacred Cow, and whose grandmother is the Lotos of Seven Virtues! O Khodabund! buksheesh do! Bestow upon thy abject and self-despising slave wherewithal to commemorate the golden hour when, by a blessed dispensation, he was permitted to lay his trembling forehead ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various



Words linked to "Wherewithal" :   substance, means



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