"Mercenary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... between two countries, by the same arts of double-dealing by which he caused dissensions among the commissioners in Paris, and distractions in America. But his life has been fraud, and his character has been that of a plodding, plotting, cringing mercenary, capable of any disguise that suited his purpose. His final detection has very happily cleared up those mistakes, and removed that uneasiness, which his unprincipled conduct occasioned. Every one now sees him in the same light; for towards friends or enemies he acted with the same deception ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... spiritual establishment, but it was decorous, and Randall had such an affection and respect for the innocence of his sister's young son, that he could not bear to have him exposed to the company of one habituated to the licentiousness of the mercenary soldier. At first the jester hoped to remove the lads from the danger, for the brief remainder of their stay, by making double exertion to obtain places for them at any diversion which might be going on when their day's work was ended, and of these, of course, there ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that combination of correct sentiments, music, dancing, drawing, elegant note-writing, private album for extracted verse, and perfect blond loveliness, which made the irresistible woman for the doomed man of that date. Think no unfair evil of her, pray: she had no wicked plots, nothing sordid or mercenary; in fact, she never thought of money except as something necessary which other people would always provide. She was not in the habit of devising falsehoods, and if her statements were no direct clew to fact, why, they were not intended in that light—they were among ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... swiftly to its conclusion down in Vera Cruz. Alan Massey had found his cousin in a wretched, vermin haunted shack, nursed in haphazard fashion by a slovenly, ignorant half-breed woman under the ostensible professional care of a mercenary, incompetent, drunken Mexican doctor who cared little enough whether the dog of an American lived or died so long as he himself continued to get the generous checks from a certain newspaper in New York City. The ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... The professional medium, paid to display certain powers, which are in any case extremely uncertain in their response to the call for them, invariably begins to imitate them when they fail. The mediums are invariably persons of an inferior order of intellect, avid of notoriety, and mostly mercenary, so that the results of the consultations with them were almost sufficient to deter serious-minded people from dealing with them a second time, while the people who formed the regular circles and had made a sect with a devotional character in it, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... their beloved (if I may say element) woods. It would give me great pleasure to relate something more to the advantage of this gentleman who is, in many respects, possessed of several virtues, and particularly all the military ones, except prudence, and entirely free of all mercenary principles; but, as his conduct on this occasion is universally condemned by all those who are not immediately dependent on him, truth obliges me to state matters as I believe, they really stood; more especially as it is not said he advised with any of those who had a right to be consulted ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... finer country is nowhere to be found. The people are learned also, and skilful in the philosophy of the Greeks: but giving themselves up entirely to luxury, they eat and drink every man under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree. They have mercenary soldiers, hired from all nations, whom they call Barbarians, to fight against the soldan, king of the children of Togorma, who are commonly called Turks; for the Grecians themselves, through sloth and luxury, have become quite effeminate and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... not mere passive obedience and bravery; that, so far from this, no country is in a healthy state which has separated, even in a small degree, her civil from her military power. All states of the world, however great, fall at once when they use mercenary armies; and although it is a less instant form of error (because involving no national taint of cowardice), it is yet an error no less ultimately fatal—it is the error especially of modern times, of which we cannot yet know all the calamitous consequences—to take away the best blood and strength ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... a matter and the coarse mercenary nature of the woman jarred upon the poet's sensitive soul. The plain fact that he hadn't got twenty guineas in the world could not be gainsaid. But he had rich friends. If he could only interest them in this protegee of his something might be done. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... not a good man; so do you, I will venture to say, Claudia. And I know that he marries you for some selfish or mercenary motive—your money, possibly. And so also do you know it, Claudia, I ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... our common men; For many of our princes (wo the while!) Lie drowned and soaked in mercenary blood; So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs In blood of princes." (Henry ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... Marriage.—Included here should be hasty marriages, mercenary marriages, marriages entered into unwillingly after pregnancy had occurred, as well as marriages where coercion was a factor for ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... continual custom, which is soon prescribed which though it be not true, yet I forbear to note any deficiences; for the Olympian games are down long since, and the mediocrity of these things is for use; as for the excellency of them it serveth for the most part but for mercenary ostentation. ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... above that one of the abuses which came into large practice from the middle period of the Tokugawa Bakufu was the adoption of children of ignoble birth into samurai families in consideration of monetary payments by their parents. This mercenary custom was strictly interdicted by the Matsudaira regent, who justly saw in it a danger to the solidity of the military class. But it does not appear that his veto ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Before starting, they sent their booty back to Golden Island, under a guard of twelve men. Most of the Indians fell off at this time, for they had "got from us what knives, scissors, axes, needles and beads they could." Old King Golden Cap, and his son, were less mercenary, and stayed with the colours, being "resolved to go to Panama, out of the desire they had to see that place taken and sacked." They may have followed the buccaneers in order to kill the Spaniard who had raped the princess, for that worthy was ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... are associated with them, and thus habituated to all the forms of a civilized state. Mr. Brooke, with a rare courage and wisdom, has always trusted for his safety to the good-will of his native subjects. He has never been sustained by mercenary bands. At a time when piratical violence was most threatening, when disorders were yet rife in his own state, and when his subjects but poorly appreciated his benevolent purposes towards them, his whole English force ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... by those who take it up from mercenary motives, for wealth and fame, or think to build a baseless fabric of their own on another's foundation. They cannot put the "new wine into old bottles;" they can never engraft Truth into error. Such students come to my College to ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... by ancient writers that the strength of a free state consists in its infantry; and, on the other hand, that when the infantry in a state become more valuable than the cavalry, the power of the aristocracy is diminished, and equal rights can no longer be withheld from the people. The employment of mercenary soldiers in modern times renders these observations no longer applicable; but in the military states of antiquity, where the citizens themselves served as soldiers, there are innumerable examples of this mutual connection between political and military ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... baiting of Uncle Martin's philosophy died away, his heart sank with sorrowful thoughts of Phillida and her sufferings, and with indignant and mortifying thoughts of how she would inevitably be associated in people's minds with mercenary quacks and disciples of ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... shamefully mercenary engagement that I think Amenda ever entered into was one with a 'bus conductor. We were living in the North of London then, and she had a young man, a cheesemonger, who kept a shop in Lupus Street, Chelsea. He could not come up to her because of ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... the quarries, and also near the emerald mines on the borders of the Red Sea. Hundreds of hired labourers, slaves, and condemned criminals here led a wretched existence under the rule of some eight or ten overseers, and the brutal surveillance of a company of Libyan or negro mercenary troops. The least political disturbance in Egypt, an unsuccessful campaign, or any untoward incident of a troubled reign, sufficed to break up the precarious stability of these remote establishments. The Bedawin ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... narrowly. Her own life was done; Alan's death had made her task impossible; but if Dolly could fill her place for the sake of humanity, she would not regret it. Enough for her to have martyred herself; she asked no mercenary palm and crown ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... offenders; let there be no pretenses or defaults on your own part for you can not harshly scrutinize the conduct of others, unless you have done what is right yourselves. Why, think you, do all the generals [Footnote: A system of employing mercenary troops sprang up at the close of the Peloponnesian war, when there were numerous Grecian bands accustomed to warfare and seeking employment. Such troops were eagerly sought for by the Persian satraps and their king, by such men as Jason of Pherae, ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... I am guilty— to love liberty and freedom of conscience, to hate tyranny and oppression, then I am indeed a criminal," he answered in an unshaken voice. "You call me a spy and load me with opprobrium. It was necessary to gain information as to the movements of your mercenary army: twice have I obtained that information and carried it to our noble general. My only regret is that I have not succeeded a third time in so doing; but understand that though I have thus laboured to injure you secretly, I have ever fought openly ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... ardent assurance she had just now believed, that he had been forced to shed the blood of an impious wretch, in obedience to an overpowering fate, was capable of allowing the noblest of men to be beheaded, unjudged, merely to please a mercenary favorite! His confession, then, had been nothing but a revolting piece of acting! He had endeavored to vanquish the disgust she felt for him merely to ensnare her and her healing hand more surely—as his plaything, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dreamt of that first kiss, which was to consecrate our engagement, and I knew not on what spot I should put my lips, that were madly thirsting for her beauty and her youth. Not on her forehead, that was accustomed to family caresses, nor on her light hair, which mercenary hands had dressed, nor on her eyes, whose turned up lashes looked like little wings, because that would have made me think of the farewell caress which closes the eyelids of some dead woman whom one has adored, nor her lovely mouth, which I will ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... not the death of a sinner, but that he be converted and live. If the man abode in fear alone, it would not suffice to give him life, nor would he attain to the perfect favour of his Lord; but he would be a mercenary servant. Nor ought he to remain only in the love of the fruit and the consolation which he might receive from his Lord, after he has been made a friend; for this kind of love would not be strong, ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... which guide your conduct; if you are patient because you expect to make something eventually out of Crimsworth, notwithstanding his tyranny, or perhaps by means of it, you are what the world calls an interested and mercenary, but may be a very wise fellow; if you are patient because you think it a duty to meet insult with submission, you are an essential sap, and in no shape the man for my money; if you are patient because your nature ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... signorina?' he said. 'Young people and beautiful people should not be mercenary. Poor child! you had ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... appearance, with all the gaiety, grace, and charm that, in spite our popular impression to the contrary, are not seldom found amongst the nobles of his country. His undoubted wealth and position redeemed his suit from any appearance of being inspired by a mercenary motive. Indeed, he was accustomed himself to be pursued, and Florence and he recognised in each other ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... rights of private citizens violated, and the titles of all landed property declared void; the voice of complaint stifled by restrictions on the press; and, finally, disaffection overawed by the first band of mercenary troops that ever marched on our free soil. For two years our ancestors were kept in sullen submission by that filial love which had invariably secured their allegiance to the mother country, whether its head chanced to be a Parliament, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... a mumbling bear without a claw? 220 Nor this, nor that, is standard right or wrong, Till minted by the mercenary tongue; And what is conscience but a fiend of strife, That chills the joys, and damps the scenes of life, The wayward child of Vanity and Fear, The peevish dam of Poverty and Care? Unnumber'd woes engender in the breast That ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... permitted you to acquire. Remember that the men who wish to rule over you are they who, in pursuit of this plan of despotism, annulled the sacred contracts which they had made with your ancestors; conveyed into your cities a mercenary soldiery to compel you to submission by insult and murder; who called your ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Mama, Mameluke; spahee[obs3], spahi[obs3], Cossack, Croat, Pandoz. irregular, guerilla, partisan, condottiere[obs3]; franctireur[Fr], tirailleur[obs3], bashi-bazouk; vietminh[guerilla organization names: list], vietcong; shining path; contras; huk, hukbalahap. mercenary, soldier of fortune; hired gun, gunfighter, gunslinger; bushwhacker, free lance, companion; Hessian. hit man[criminals specializing in violence: see bad man], torpedo, soldier. levy, draught; Landwehr[Ger], Landsturm[Ger]; conscript, recruit, cadet, raw levies. infantry, infantryman, private, private ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the pure love of Jesus, unmixed with any gain or love of self! Should not all they be called mercenary who are always seeking consolations? Do they not prove themselves lovers of self more than of Christ who are always seeking their own gain and advantage? Where shall be found one who is willing to ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... obscurely as a form of magnanimity; and that, in general, the gentler virtues, so prominent in Christianity, have little place in the list. The virtues are chiefly aristocratic. Favourable conditions are needed for their cultivation. They are not possible for a slave, and hardly for those engaged in 'mercenary occupations.'[4] Further, it may be remarked that habit of itself does not make a man virtuous. Morality cannot consist in a mere succession of customary acts. 'One good custom would corrupt the world,' ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... tried an appeal for instruction. Often an opponent will come over to your side if you just confess, honestly, that he is a better man than you are, and you need his help. What was the road I must take to achieve the same understanding he had achieved? His eyes glittered at that, and a mercenary expression underlay the ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... life, so many and so fierce, may sweep us asunder at any moment. I may become mercenary, and choose a richer wife even than yourself; or you may turn from me to some one more ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... proprietors or merchants. They are people of very temperate habits, but they are passionately fond of gaming, and in this respect they have bequeathed a dangerous inheritance to the Creoles. The pride and mercenary spirit which distinguished the Spaniards before the independence are now broken, if not entirely subdued. The intercourse between them and the natives, though still somewhat constrained, is every year becoming more and more friendly, as the ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... the memory of a dead woman, for one who first hazarded her life and then gave it freely to save the lives of others—for such was the charge for which she died—is not a woman to restrict her gracious ministrations of mercy for mercenary motives. ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck
... show of reason for his political and military morality, for he only chose to execute the evil which had been practised upon himself. His father had been beggared, his mother had died of spite and despair, he had himself been reduced from the rank of a sovereign to that of a mercenary soldier, by spoliations made in time of truce. He was reputed a man of very decided abilities, and was distinguished for headlong bravery. His rashness and personal daring were thought the only drawbacks to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... during a period of several weeks, the matter ended in the purchase of the papers outright, with unreserved permission to show them for copying or explanation to anybody who might be selected. Wilnoti was not of a mercenary disposition, and after the first negotiations the chief difficulty was to overcome his objection to parting with his father's handwriting, but it was an essential point to get the originals, and he was allowed to copy some of the more important formulas, ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... own esteem? Will he, who may with heroes claim a place, Belie that fame, and to himself be base? Think how august and godlike you did look, When my defence, unbribed, you undertook; But, when an act so brave you disavow, How little, and how mercenary now! ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... the man before him was more mercenary and wicked than he thought could be possible. He buried both his sons almost at the same hour, but he still found time and opportunity to inquire about the legacy for which he had made ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... not feel much elation. His was not a mercenary nature, and he had all along thought his comrade too sanguine, though he meant to ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... Beg's influence that the Moghul portion of the Imperial troops joined him immediately, and left the unfortunate Emperor to be protected exclusively by unbelievers, under the general direction of the Gosain leader, Himmat Bahadur. This mercenary, not perhaps having his heart in the cause, terrified by the threats of the Pathan, and (it is possible) tampered with by traitors about the emperor's person, soon withdrew; and the confederate chiefs at once crossed the river, and ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... II., would have appointed him Commander-in-Chief of her fleet, and covered him with honours, even as she did her Scotch Admiral Gleig, and that other yet more famous sea-dog, king of corsairs, Paul Jones. It would be unjust to sneer at Hobart as a mercenary. His was no more a hired sword than were the blades of Schomberg and Berwick, of Maurice de Saxe and Eugene of Savoy. When there was fighting to be done Hobart liked to be in it—that is all. Of the fearless, dashing, adventurous Englishman, ready to go anywhere ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... of this report, relating to the Duke, was yet of more importance. The greatest part of Her Majesty's forces in Flanders were mercenary troops, hired from several princes of Europe. It was found that the Queen's general subtracted two and a half per cent, out of the pay of those troops, for his own use, which amounted to a great annual sum. The Duke of Marlborough, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... the mercenary reported to Rowlett what had occurred on that afternoon he omitted any mention of the knife, but much later he carelessly turned it over to its owner—and ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... rotten, decaying; vitiated, depraved, dissolute, venal, unprincipled, unscrupulous, vicious, purchasable, mercenary. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... to ask whether you can have a sharp and also a dull knowledge, and whether you can know near, but not at a distance, or know the same thing with more or less intensity, and so on without end. Such questions might have been put to you by a light-armed mercenary, who argued for pay. He would have lain in wait for you, and when you took up the position, that sense is knowledge, he would have made an assault upon hearing, smelling, and the other senses;—he would have shown you no mercy; and while you were ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... "Only, look at the situation. She comes in, filled with the idea that it was Cornish who proposed this plan, and that he did it for her sake. I couldn't very well say, like a boy, ''Twasn't Cornish; 'twas me!', could I? And in showing her the purely mercenary character of the deal, I'm put in the position of backcapping Cornish, and she goes away with that impression! Oh, Al, what's the good of being able to convince and control every one else, if you are always further off than Kamschatka with the only ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... is a much better rendering of the famous ode than nine-tenths of its more pompous competitors; and the allusions to the perfidious qualities of Trinity Audit Ale and the mercenary conduct of the Fellows of Clare need no explanation for Cambridge readers, and little for others. But it may be fairly objected that this is not, in strictness, a parody. That is true, and indeed as a parodist Sir George Trevelyan ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... and took his eldest with him; but wanting somebody to keep his house and take care of his daughters, he took Marcia again, who was now a rich widow, Hortensius being dead, and having left her all his estate. Caesar afterward made use of this action also, to reproach him with covetousness, and a mercenary design in his marriage. "For," said he, "if he had need of wife, why did he part with her? And if he had not, why did he take her again? Unless he gave her only as a bait to Hortensius; and lent her when she was young, to have her again when she was ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... of the Court. In February, 1664, he saw acted "The Indian Queen" of Sir Robert Howard and Dryden—"a tragedy well written, so beautiful with rich scenes as the like had never been seen here, or haply (except rarely) elsewhere on a mercenary theatre." At a later date, one Robert Aggas, a painter of some fame, is known to have executed scenes for the theatre in Dorset Garden. Among other scene-painters of distinction, pertaining to a comparatively ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... a thing was to happen," remarked Bea, with a little mercenary expectation, "Congreve Hall would be Olive's; just think of it, girls, how grand! and Cousin Roger is immensely wealthy, and there would be no end of splendid things;" and Bea sighed a little, as she spoke, for she was not going to win any wealth or ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... that the house of God and the depository of the dead, should be so shamefully assigned over to the influence of Mammon, and a price of admission as into a place of public amusement, exacted by those to whose mercenary government the ancient structure of Westminster Abbey had devolved. "Was it thus, always," asked he, "from the time of Henry IIId?" To this enquiry, the guide replied merely by a shrug of his shoulders, rather indicative of contempt than ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... only take their proper place in the work of human development when, freed from all mercenary bondage, they will be exclusively cultivated by those who love them, and for ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... sing of geese: of the Biblical goose, that blew his bugle from the roof of Noah's Ark; the classical goose that picked his livelihood along the shores of the AEgean; of the historical goose, that squawked to save old Rome; the mercenary goose, laying the golden egg; and, finally, ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... under French auspices, had taken the arms away from the Germans but left arms with the Poles. Added to that, guns, machine-guns, rifles, and ammunition, were run over into the plebiscite area, and a mercenary "insurrectionary" army was raised, partly from the local Polish population and partly from Poland proper. An army which the French Government held to be capable of intimidating the League of Nations garrison of ten thousand fully equipped ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... Augereau in action was utterly uncertain, in morals pompous and wrong-headed; Murat knew where and how the great prizes were to be found, and was as dashing and venturesome as he was selfish and worldly-wise. The Russian generals were plodding disciples of routine. Bennigsen was an able Hanoverian mercenary, despising alike his Livonian colleague, Buxhoewden, and his chief, the servile Russian marshal, Kamenski. The Prussian general Lestocq was capable but inexperienced. The chief and his subordinate ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... taken a very minor part in light opera. She was American by birth, young, slim, and spoke like a lady. Her hair was dyed; her breasts padded. She acted sentiment, but was less affectionate than E.B. I met her when she was out of a job. I gave her L2 whenever I met her. She was not mercenary. She was sensual. I became very much in love with her. I discovered her, however, writing letters to a fellow whom I had met one day when I was walking with her. He was only an acquaintance, but the brother of my most intimate ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... peasantry to defend the state; it could only produce the riches which might attract its enemies. Hence the constant complaint, that Italy had ceased to be able to furnish soldiers to the legionary armies; hence the entrusting the defence of the frontier to mercenary barbarians, and ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... to adopt oligarchical methods; then the friend of the people appears; the protector, champion, and hero, by a familiar process becomes a military autocrat, who himself battens, as must also his mercenary soldiery, on the citizens; and our unhappy Demos finds that it has jumped out of the reek into the fire. Now our democratical man was swayed by the devices and moods of the moment; his son will be swayed by the most irrational and most ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... grave? Hell stalks abroad: the lash resounds on a slave's naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labor, steals to a ditch to bid the world a long good-night, or, neglected in some ostentatious hospital, breathes its last amidst the laugh of mercenary attendants." ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... He has vegetables for the table and plenty of flowers for cutting. The latter preclude any argument over whether his garden pays since, oddly enough, the subject of a flower garden never seems to take a mercenary turn. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... have found Cowardice in the number of his infirmities.—We will try if we cannot redeem him from this universal censure.—Let the venal corporation of authors duck to the golden fool, let them shape their sordid quills to the mercenary ends of unmerited praise, or of baser detraction;—old Jack, though deserted by princes, though censured by an ungrateful world, and persecuted from age to age by Critic and Commentator, and though never rich enough to hire one literary prostitute, shall find a ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... though naturally careful of all put under her own hands, she was at heart very far from being either selfish or mercenary. In fact, the silver cup was at that hour of more real interest to her. It would be a part of her old home in her new home. It was connected with her life memories, and it made a portion of her ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... received to his communion Celestius and Julian, who had been condemned by the popes Innocent and Zozimus, and banished out of the West by the emperor Honorius, for Pelagianism. Theodosius obliged them to leave Constantinople, notwithstanding the protection of the bishop. Nestorius and his mercenary priests broached also new errors from the pulpit, teaching two distinct persons in Christ, that of God, and that of man, only joined by a moral union, by which he said the Godhead dwelt in the humanity merely as in its temple. Hence he denied ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... accomplish the acquisition of additional knowledge by purchasing it from individual Mid[-e]. It is customary with Mid[-e] priests to exact payment for every individual remedy or secret that may be imparted to another who may desire such information. This practice is not entirely based upon mercenary motives, but it is firmly believed that when a secret or remedy has been paid, for it can not be imparted for nothing, as then its virtue would be impaired, if not entirely destroyed, by the manid[-o] or guardian ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... the introduction of slaves into this country, sacrificed the injunctions of Revelation to mercenary ambition, and for temporary interest bestowed a lasting disgrace upon posterity. Time and perseverance may eradicate the evil, which is increasing in importance, and which not only has brought obloquy upon our national character, but threatens to involve us in all disastrous results ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... noble stream that it "rolls mingling with his fame forever"? The prosaic traveller perhaps remembers it better from the fact that a great sea-monster, in the shape of a steamboat, takes him, sitting in the car, on its back, and swims across with him like Arion's dolphin,—also that mercenary men on board offer him canvas-backs in the season, and ducks of lower degree at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... disappeared, the intense interest in menstruation vanished, and now, rather than being held in fear and awe, the physicians of to-day constantly see the results of copulation during this period. The uncontrollable desire of the husband and the mercenary aims of the prostitute furnish examples ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... mussels, and are of all shapes and sizes, out of which might be selected hundreds of perfect spheres, from the size of bird-shot to that of a cherry. What splendid necklaces must the latter have made! But, alas for the mercenary collector, all are ruined by fire,—a fact advantageous to science. Like nearly all the other objects, every pearl ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... discovered that Miss Pride accounted her a rival, thanks to a cherished delusion, wholly of independent inspiration, that dear Abigail was a forlorn widow-woman in sore want of some thoroughly unselfish friend—somebody whose devotion could not possibly be thought mercenary—somebody very much ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... their country's service, and therefore these representations were judged necessary to spur them up to their duty and withal show the Ministry that the people would not behave so tamely as did their mean spirited mercenary representatives, who, perceiving they would lose all their interest and scarce dare venture to return home if they did not follow the instructions given them, made most humble applications to the Ministry, who on the other hand being apprehensive the resentment might be carried to some height, ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... there wasn't any. The news is, that Annabel will never forgive me, and as I'm here solely as her guest, my guesting-time will be brief—just long enough to find out what Mr. Gledware decides to do. I oughtn't to have told Annabel that she was mercenary, or that Mr. Gledware was as hard as a stone and as old as M— (I'm not sure how to spell him, but you remember: the oldest man). Yes, I know I oughtn't. If a woman can marry a man when she doesn't love him, it won't change her purpose ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... their works, and harangued for diversion; the eleotesia, where the fragrant oils and ointments were kept for the use of the bathers; and the conisteria, where the wrestlers were smeared with sand before they engaged. Of the thermae in Rome, some were mercenary, and some opened gratis. Marcus Agrippa, when he was edile, opened one hundred and seventy private baths, for the use of the people. In the public baths, where money was taken, each person paid a quadrans, about the value of our halfpenny, as ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... bitterness in his voice that Margaret noted silently. So (she thought) he had hoped for a moment that at the last Frederick R. Woods had relented toward him. It grieved her, in a dull fashion, to see him so mercenary. It grieved her—though she would have denied it emphatically—to see him so disappointed. Since he wanted the money so much, she would have liked for him to have had it, worthless as he was, for the sake of the boy he ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... and the figure said to him, "Stay where thou art, and let thy troops proceed against the enemy." So the pious king, in obedience to this convenient vision, remained secure behind the walls of Memphis, and sent his forces, native and mercenary, into the nome of Prosopis against the Libyans. The two armies joined battle on the 3rd of Epiphi (May 18), and a desperate engagement took place, in which, after six hours of hard fighting, the Egyptians were victorious, and the confederates suffered a severe defeat. Menephthah charges ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... Fatimites of Egypt and northern Africa, who claimed the caliphate, and who aimed at extending their rule over the Mahommedan world, at least in the west. Abd-ar-rahman subdued the nobles by means of a mercenary army, which included Christians. He repelled the Fatimites, partly by supporting their enemies in Africa, and partly by claiming the caliphate for himself. His ancestors in Spain had been content the the title of sultan. The ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... (Spanish national air), and he wept like a child. This air recalled to him the immortal defence of the heroic city, behind the falling walls of which he had fought against the French, and sounded to him, he said, like the voice of all the holy affections expressed by the word home. The mercenary Swiss troops, when in France and Naples, could not hear the "Ranz des Vaches" (the shepherd song of old and rude Helvetia) without being overcome by it. When from mountain to mountain the signal of revolt summoned to the cause ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... his most despondent moods astride of a chair with his head down on his arms, as if the song suggested the attitude. Her heart quite softened to him as she looked, and she decided to forgive him if no one else, for she was sure that he had no mercenary plans ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... intention, however, he was frustrated by Thady, who, as he thoroughly detested the knavish tyrant, resolved to caution the poor scholar against his dishonesty. Thady, indeed most heartily despised the mercenary pedagogue, not only for his obsequiousness to the rich, but on account of his severity to the children of the poor. About two o'clock the young wag went out for a few minutes, and immediately returned in great haste to inform the master, that Mr. Delaney, the parish priest, and ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... out of clothes-horses like G. P. R. James. The boldness and freshness of the present are carried back into the past, and you see Papists and Puritans, Cavaliers and Roundheads, Jews, Jacobites, and freebooters, preachers, schoolmasters, mercenary soldiers, gipsies, and beggars, all living the sort of life which the reader feels that in their circumstances and under the same conditions of time and place and parentage, he might have lived too. Indeed, no man can read Scott without being ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... to insist here upon the character of the thrice renowned Ker. It is evident to all, he was a man of a great mind, far above a servile and mercenary disposition.—He was, for a number of years, hurried from place to place, and guarded from prison to prison. He endured all this with undaunted courage.—He lost a good estate then for the cause of Christ: and, though he got not the martyrs crown, yet he beyond all ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... more than the lands would bear; but it was resented by the tacksmen, deeming it a wanton injury inflicted in the house of their dearest friend. They were hurt at the idea that the chief,—the father of his people—should be controlled by such a mercenary idea, and to exercise that power which gave him the authority to lease the lands to the highest bidder. This policy, which they deemed selfish and unjust, naturally cut them to the quick. They and their ancestors had occupied ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... court as well as the client; and he violates it when he consciously presses for an unjust judgment, much more so when he presses for the conviction of an innocent man.... The high and honorable office of a counsel would be degraded to that of a mercenary, were he compelled to do the biddings of his client against the dictates of his conscience."[18] The sentiment has been expressed in flowing numbers by our great commentator, ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... broadened in a smile. "Thank Heaven 'Young Ed' has the insides of a steel range, and so my pet client is safe from your mercenary schemes for some years. Just the same, if you ever do think of marrying—remember—I want you to come to ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... and Isabella, who deprecated the scandal it must bring upon the church, and who had little to hope for themselves, in a political view, from the elevation of one of their own subjects even, whose mercenary spirit placed him at the control of the highest ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... at a certain period of life, as the natural delicacy of taste and feeling is gradually worn away by the attrition of society, become willing to take up with any coxcomb or scoundrel, whom that merciless and mercenary gang of cold-blooded slaves and assassins, called, in the ordinary prostitution of language friends, may agree in designating as a prudent choice. Young men, on the other hand, are driven by the same vile superstitions from the company of the most amiable ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... to engage in any wild crusade against a neighboring people, regardless of the justice of the enterprise and without looking at the fatal consequences to ourselves and to the cause of popular government. Such expeditions, however, are often stimulated by mercenary individuals, who expect to share the plunder or profit of the enterprise without exposing themselves to danger, and are led on by some irresponsible foreigner, who abuses the hospitality of our own Government by, seducing the young and ignorant ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... alludes to a foolish proposal of marriage for mercenary considerations, which the gentleman here mentioned thought proper to recommend to her. The two letters which immediately follow, are addressed to ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... indolent or mercenary creature, No one more cordially detested the life of dependence than he. He always thought that his father had discharged all the duties of that relation in nourishing his childhood and giving him ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... to play in America, and each time I come I discover how much you have grown. The musical development here is wonderful. This country is very far from being filled with a mercenary and commercial spirit. If Europeans think so it is because they do not know the American at home. Your progress in music is a marvel! There is a great deal of idealism here, and idealism is the very heart and soul ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... the Times, wrote, in 1858, of Mary Seacole: 'I have witnessed her devotion and her courage; I have already borne testimony to her services to all who needed them. She is the first who has redeemed the name of 'sutler' from the suspicion of worthlessness, mercenary business and plunder; and I trust that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some other illustrious dead.' England seems to have forgotten her, but it is hoped that this account ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... nipped natures; and dwelling on it, they forgot to press their suggestion. Incidentally, he named the sum his Fredi would convey to her husband; with, as was calculable, the further amount his only child would inherit. A curious effect was produced on them. Though they were not imaginatively mercenary, as the creatures tainted with wealth commonly are, they talked of the sum over and over in the solitude of their chamber. 'Dukes have married for less.' Such an heiress, they said, might buy up a Principality. Victor had supplied them with something of an apology to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... straining every sinew to the last, for his rider's defeat is his own failure, his rider's success his own victory. And we have all seen the gallant response of the race-horse to every movement of his rider's body—a loyal gallantry that ennobles even the merely mercenary; and the sight of these two—now one—flying toward the goal, always makes the heart beat faster and grow warm with its brave showing of this magical bond. And above all, we have seen the trooper's ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... had written me a letter, which I destroyed at the time; and which, if I had it now, I should forbear from copying into these pages. Let it be enough for me to relate here, that he never forgave the action by which she thwarted him in his mercenary designs upon me and upon my family; that he diverted from himself the suspicion and disgust of his wife's surviving relatives (whose hostility he had some pecuniary reasons to fear), by accusing his daughter, as ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... lot of the unfortunate aborigines of America, in the early periods of colonization, to be doubly wronged by the white men: they have been dispossessed of their hereditary possessions by mercenary and frequently wanton warfare, and their characters have been traduced by bigoted and interested writers. The colonist often treated them like beasts of the forest, and the author has endeavored to justify him in his outrages. The former found it easier to exterminate ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... was not merely mercenary motives that had made Emilia accept John Lambert; but what troubled him was a vague knowledge that it was not mere pique. He was used to dealing with pique in women, and had found it the most manageable of weaknesses. It was an element of spasmodic conscience ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... gentlemen and yeomen, is the natural strength and only security of a free government; that such a militia in this colony would forever render it unnecessary for the mother country to keep among us for the purpose of our defence any standing army of mercenary forces, always subversive of the quiet and dangerous to the liberties of the people, and would obviate the pretext of taxing ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... followers to its own level. A people without a lofty and ennobling object is sure to fall into decay. The grasping spirit which everywhere pervades our society is fast lowering our people to the level of a race of mercenary jobbers. Truth, justice, honor, purity, and even religion, are in a great measure lost sight of in the general scramble for gold, until the strictest integrity, the most self-sacrificing honesty, are beginning to be looked upon as marvels, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... world. We have been visited with no national calamity. Our people have been advancing in general intelligence, and, I will add, as great and alarming as has been the advance of political corruption among the mercenary corps who look to government for support, the morals and virtue of the community at large have been advancing in improvement. What, I again repeat, is ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... not fair for me," he sang to himself, "what care I how fair she be?" But he did care; he could not master that passion. She had been vile to him, unfeminine, untrue, coarsely abusive; she had shown herself to be mercenary, incapable of true love, a scold, fickle, and cruel. But yet he loved her. There was a gallant feeling at his heart that no misfortune could conquer him,—but one; that misfortune had fallen ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... been combating against his Catholic brethren in Dublin, with circular letters, edicts, proclamations, arrests, and dispersions;—all the vexatious implements of petty warfare that could be wielded by the mercenary guerillas of government, clad in the rusty armour of their obsolete statutes. Your Lordships will, doubtless, divide new honours between the Saviour of Portugal, and the Dispenser of Delegates. It is singular, indeed, to observe the difference between ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... exclusively, of Milesian race; and the Daer-Clanna, or unfree tribes, consisting of the descendants of the subjugated older races, or of clans once free, reduced to servitude by the sword, or of the posterity of foreign mercenary soldiers. Of the free clans, the most illustrious were those of whose Princes we have traced the record—the descendants of Nial in Ulster and Meath, of Cathaeir More in Leinster, of Oliold in Munster, and of Eochaid in Connaught. An arbitrary ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... enforcing the order that debars such an army of men of the means of support, the Coal Magnates, at Purdy's suggestion, have massed three hundred of the Coal and Iron Police in the town of Hazleton. This mercenary force occupies the armory, built two years before by the benevolent multi-millionaire Iron King of Pennsylvania, whose immense mills and foundries are situated some two hundred ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... would be both mercenary and irreverent; moreover, my bonnet has nothing to do with artistic rules. It is not a work of art or of science, of nature or of grace. It is a conventional signal by which I announce a friendly disposition toward the ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... every line. He hopes that Dumouriez will succeed in overthrowing the regicides at Paris. The backwardness of the Prussians in supporting Coburg does not deter him from ordering to Flanders all the available British and mercenary troops, in order to besiege Dunkirk, and otherwise help the Imperialists. As if this is not enough, on or just before 1st April he treats with Malouet, the French envoy from Hayti, for the transfer of that colony to the British Crown; he writes hopefully of finding a force large ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... subservient spirit to Toryism which pervaded them, but also excited their laughter from their absurdity, Byron, in whose house they were, said to them, "It is satisfactory to see that a man who becomes mercenary, and traffics upon the independence of his character, loses at the same time his talent ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... true? If young Dietrich had in him (and he shewed that he had in after years) a Teuton's heart, may not that strange interview have opened his eyes to his own folly, and taught him that the Teuton must be his own master, and not the mercenary of ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... that she was a "Yankee" did not make her less beautiful, and it did not make her any the less the daughter of a millionnaire. No one could say that he was mercenary, however, and no one could say why he was not as deeply interested in the daughter of the planter, for she was hardly less beautiful, though her father was not considered a millionnaire, to say nothing of a ten-millionnaire. Major Pierson did ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... protected the younger in the midst of battles, helped him to cross precipices, sponged the sweat of fevers from his brow, and stole food for him, and the weaker, a child perhaps, who had been picked up on the roadside, and had then become a Mercenary, repaid this devotion by a ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... political ethics, 'stuck thru.' But it is not the revolution wrought in the minds of men of great intelligence that is most to be deplored—for the powerful will of such men may compel their thoughts back again to a philosophy of peace; no, it is the mercenary and military interests created under Mr. Lincoln which are represented, the former by an estimated governmental outlay of above $100,000,000 this year, and the other by the 800,000 men, whose blood is thus to be bought and paid for; by the armies out of ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... Worldly-Wisdom, not mincing words, and back came Youth and Romance, passionately. "Aunt Frances, a woman hasn't any right to marry just because she thinks it is her best chance. She hasn't any right to make a man feel that he's won her when she's just little and mean and mercenary." ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... army marched rapidly to attack him. Both sides drew up their forces near the city of Mantinea, and both brought into the field not only nearly all their own countrymen, but also large bodies of foreign mercenary troops. Machanidas began the battle by a charge of his mercenaries, who routed the Tarentines and other light troops of the Achaeans, but then instead of moving at once to attack and overwhelm their main body, hurried away in pursuit, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... parts, such as those of infames Anglais, brutal Cossacks, and what not, and prefer to appear at a smaller salary, in their real characters as loyal Frenchmen. I set the two stories one against the other, so that you may see that it is not from mere mercenary motives that the present performer is desirous to show up and trounce his villains; but because he has a sincere hatred of them, which he cannot keep down, and which must find a vent in suitable abuse and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... strange tale, dealing with matters to him particularly strange, such as gambling, dishonoured mothers, horrors of men and mercenary marriages. It all struck him as very dreadful; it all sank into him; but it didn't oppress him in its strangeness; no outside fact, however dreadful, ever oppressed Franklin. What did oppress him was the thought of Helen in it all. This ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... at the flexible form, and listens to the words that he would admire, only the cynical suspicion is in his mind that she is talking for effect. His general habit was to consider all women mercenary and untrustworthy. Deep in his heart—for he had a heart, though contracted from want of use—lay a hungry desire to be loved, really loved for himself; and the very keenness of the longing, and the anxiety not to be deceived, lessened his ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... as ten men. That burly giant pushed ever in the lead, and his hoarse call and strenuous action told of more than a mercenary rage ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... have a practical turn, the thing which interests him most, the thing he asks at once and really wants to know is what you have to propose as a remedy. How are you going to make people less selfish and more considerate of others? Less mercenary and more honorable? Less immoral, or ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... a volume of Verlaine in his hands, and he wandered off. He tried to read, but his passion was too strong. He thought of the stray amours to which he had been introduced by Flanagan, the sly visits to houses in a cul-de-sac, with the drawing-room in Utrecht velvet, and the mercenary graces of painted women. He shuddered. He threw himself on the grass, stretching his limbs like a young animal freshly awaked from sleep; and the rippling water, the poplars gently tremulous in the faint breeze, the blue sky, were ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... first introduction of the mercenary character, which actuates the hireling soldier; and, though civilization was not then far enough advanced, to make it very conspicuous, there were other elements mingled, which could not but depreciate the simple nobility ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... felt a special animosity against lawyers, whom they considered mercenary instruments in the hands of the nobles for oppressing them. They hung all the lawyers that they could get into their hands, and after burning the Savoy they went to the Temple, which was a spacious edifice containing the courts, the chambers of the barristers, and a vast store of ancient ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... My knowledge, my time, my fortune have ever been employed in the relief of distress! I have studied and practised medicine, but I have never degraded that most noble and most consoling of arts by mercenary speculations of any kind. Though always giving, and never receiving, I have preserved my independence. I have even carried my delicacy so far as to refuse the favours of kings. I have given gratuitously my remedies and my advice to the rich: the poor have received ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... length to favour my design, and then appeared as a Persian dealer in jewels. As I could gain no satisfactory information touching myself in this country, had no purpose to pursue, and was extremely miserable among a people, who, being mercenary and unsocial, were very ill adapted to alleviate the horrors of my condition, I gratified my landlord for his important services, with the best part of my effects; and having, by his means, procured a certificate from the magistracy, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... think you are making the children rather mercenary, Clytie? They seem to want to be paid for everything they do. I'm just about drained out ...
— The Blossoming Rod • Mary Stewart Cutting
... "Mercenary;—of course he's mercenary. That is to say, he doesn't want to go to destruction quite at one leap. But he's awfully fond of falling in love, and when he is in love he'll do ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... out from his shaking his head and crying out, "nicht" and "Geld,"—the rest of his lingo was Greek to me,—did refuse to save the Gentleman unless he had more Money given him. For these Bathing-men were a most Mercenary Pack. In a much shorter time than it has taken me to put this on Paper I had off coat and vest, kicked off my shoes, and struck into the water. 'Twas of the shallowest, and I had but to wade towards him who ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... destined to last; he always respected his work, and the care given to it bore no relation to the price it was to fetch. He often expressed a wish that he might labor like the monks in the Middle Ages, without being disturbed by mercenary considerations; that simple shelter, food, and raiment should be provided for himself and for those dependent upon him—he did not foresee any other wants—so that he might devote the whole of his mental energy to subjects worthy of it. But I used to ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... the people, after so many successful struggles, deemed themselves happy in the secure possession of their privileges, they were surprised in 1305 to find that Edward had secretly applied to Rome, and had procured from that mercenary court an absolution from all the oaths and engagements, which he had so often reiterated, to observe both the charters. There are some historians,[*] so credulous as to imagine, that this perilous step was taken by him for no other purpose than ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... swept that murmur of expectation which crowds know when the procession is coming at last. By some mysterious magnetism all were aware that the BRIDE herself—the poor hysteric bride—had left the paternal camp, was coming in person to plead with her mercenary lover. ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... show I believe he was simply radiant. He has died the death he would have chosen and in a good cause. Many a time he said to me that he was sure he would never survive the war, and that he did not, for himself, greatly care, for he was not built for a mercenary age. We may be sure that all is well with him ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... "that you admired her, and that she had a very pretty little income of her own. You coupled those two facts together in such a way as to make me think you were ready to contract a mercenary marriage." ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... disagreeable necessity." Upon this the lady sent for her Bruttian admirer and introduced him to her brother. He, by encouraging the stranger in his passion, and assuring him that he would induce his sister to look favourably on it, had no difficulty in inducing the man, who was a mercenary soldier, to break his faith in expectation of the great rewards which he was promised by Fabius. This is the account given of the transaction by most writers, though some say that the lady by whose means the Bruttian was seduced from his ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... confess I should not wish to be a great heiress; I should always be fancying that it was the "fine eyes of my casket," as the French say, which attracted my admirers, and I could not stand that. No, Frank was not mercenary, I was sure, and if even—why the competency I should be possessed of would be an agreeable surprise. If, indeed! Nothing was clear, nothing was settled. What a fool I was to dwell so upon an uncertainty, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... mentioning in his wasted face, filled with wonder and pity. "If you'll be so kind," he said with great deference. But just as this perverted product of a liberal education was about to propel him across the threshold of the court he turned about, disengaged the mercenary hands, with one of his own, from the back of the chair, drew their owner alongside and turned to me. "While we're here, my dear fellow," he said, "be so good as to perform this service. You understand?" I gave our companion a glance of intelligence ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... follow closely the internal politics of Florence where his enemies and rivals abounded. And in all these years he was pushing forward and carrying through with unceasing and unspeakable vigour the great military dream of his life, the foundation of a National Militia and the extinction of Mercenary Companies. But the fabric he had fancied and thought to have built proved unsubstantial. The spoilt half-mutinous levies whom he had spent years in odious and unwilling training failed him at the crowning moment in ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... had, with reason, great confidence in his own powers of dealing with women—getting whatever it was that he wanted from them, and afterwards preventing their being a nuisance. But he did not much like the idea of this mercenary marriage, because he was not in the least tired of his romance with Valentia, and saw great difficulties in the way of keeping it up later on. He had worrying doubts as to her consenting to revive it ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... where the lawful and accustomed possessors of the she-savage have never yet been fortunate enough to elicit its display. Well, therefore, has Captain Cook remarked, that the motives which lead to their occasional connexion are selfish, by which must be understood, the mercenary nature of the principle which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... conquer a partiality so un gratefully bestowed. She rejoiced that in no instance she had ever betrayed it, and she saw that his own behaviour prevented all suspicion of it in the family. Yet, in the midst of her mortification and displeasure, she found some consolation in seeing that those mercenary views of which she had once been led to accuse him, were farthest from his thoughts, and that whatever was the state of his mind, she had no artifice to apprehend, nor design to guard against. All therefore that remained was to ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Cincinnati the next morning, he then being the American Minister at Rome, they were given the cold shoulder for the first time during the trip, that gentleman declaring that he had never taken the slightest interest in athletics, and that he did not propose to lend the use of his name for mercenary purposes. There being no inclosed grounds in Rome this action of Jude Stallo's was in the nature of a gratuitous insult, and was looked upon as such by the members of our party. Mr. Charles Dougherty, the Secretary of the American Legation at Rome, proved, however, ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... natives. But the moving power with Pizarro and his followers was the lust of gold. This was the real stimulus to their toil, the price of perfidy, the true guerdon of their victories. This gave a base and mercenary character to their enterprise; and when we contrast the ferocious cupidity of the conquerors with the mild and inoffensive manners of the conquered, our sympathies, the sympathies even of the Spaniard, are necessarily thrown into the scale of ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... cannot be the choice of the mercenary, the envious, or the malicious. Its value is known only to persons of an opposite temper; and to their experience alone, we appeal. Guided by mere disposition, and without the aid of reflection, in business, in ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... there is no deceit in Peter's question; he thinks aloud, and his thought is one of intense and undisguised self-conceit. The spirit of the Pharisee was there, "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men." His heart at this moment was undisguisedly mercenary; his eye was on the main chance. We have done and suffered so much for God; what return may we expect for our services? That young rich man would not part with his portion in this world, in order ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... Alaric, 'and a doosed fine girl, you know;' and he also laid great stress on the latter part of the offer, knowing how inflammable was Charley's heart, and at the same time how little mercenary was his mind. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... bracelet of Runjeet Sing, and is now destined to adorn the hideous idol of Prista. The Afghan soon followed to complete the work of devastation which the Persian had begun. The warlike tribe of Rajpoots threw off the Mussulman yoke. A band of'mercenary soldiers occupied the Rohilcund. The Seiks ruled on the Indus. The Jauts spread terror along the Jumnah. The high lands which border on the western sea-coast of India poured forth a yet more formidable ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... was a dismal yesterday at least, perhaps it was to me! The genius of England might be a mere mercenary man of the world, and employed all his attention to turn aside cannonballs from my Lord Stair, to give new edge to his new Marlborough's sword: was plotting glory for my Lord Carteret, or was thinking of furnishing ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... not have meant that,' protested Basil. 'Child of a mercenary traitor, who opened Italy to his people's foe! Not that! Had you seen her, you would ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... notice, and in its perpetration he merely followed the example of his ancestors in obedience to African ferocity. Yet, of his intrepidity and nobler endurance, I will relate an anecdote which was told me by reliable persons. Some twenty years before my arrival at the Cape, large bands of mercenary bushmen had joined his enemies along the beach, and after desolating his territory, sat down to beleaguer the stockade of Toso. For many a day thirst and hunger were quietly suffered under the resolute command of the king, but at length, when their pangs ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... of them? If not, was there any trouble in adding to their store? Were there not railroads to be wrecked; stockholders to be fleeced; Wall Street lambs to be shorn? Surely a man married to please himself and not to make money. Ed. assured the old man that cases had been known where a suspicion of mercenary motives had hovered round a matrimonial alliance, but Druce expressed the utmost contempt for ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... very bad neighbours, and that our generals must needs be richer than our kings." He asked, what business we had out of our own islands, unless upon the score of trade, or treaty, or to defend the coasts with our fleet?" Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary standing army, in the midst of peace, and among a free people. He said, "if we were governed by our own consent, in the persons of our representatives, he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or against whom we were to fight; and would hear my opinion, whether a private ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... indeed!' replied Lucy D——. 'The mystery of nature, of creation, of the communion of the creature with the infinitely bountiful Creator. Have you never wandered away from the beaten track, from tiresome dinners, with mercenary waiters and elaborate courses, from yawning, blase men, and over-dressed, artificial, weakly women, and, resting upon some quiet hillside, suffered the glories of external nature to fill your soul as you drained the cup of beauty, until ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... stood or fell with the clergy: nor could I ever but hold it for a sordid and unworthy speech of any churchman who had a competency left him. If therefore ye be loath to dishearten utterly and discontent, not the mercenary crew of false pretenders to learning, but the free and ingenuous sort of such as evidently were born to study, and love learning for itself, not for lucre or any other end but the service of God and of truth, and perhaps that lasting fame and perpetuity ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... for—though I do not know the motive would make me enter into controversy with a fair or an 'unfair' literary critic—I may be well excused for a wish to clear my personal character from any tinge of mercenary or sordid feeling in the eyes of a contemporary of genius. Your Lordship will likewise permit me to add that you would have escaped the trouble of this explanation, had I not understood that the satire alluded to had been suppressed, not to be reprinted. For in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... in which it should be pursued. "Men have not been content," he says, "to show the natural advantages of honesty and virtue. They have rather lessened these, the better, as they thought, to advance another foundation. They have made virtue so mercenary a thing, and have talked so much of its rewards, that one can hardly tell what there is in it, after all, which can be worth rewarding. For to be bribed only or terrified into an honest practice, bespeaks little of real honesty ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... regard it himself. Hutter growled out his dissatisfaction, for the act led to no advantage, while it threatened to render the warfare more vindictive than ever, and none censure motiveless departures from the right more severely than the mercenary and unprincipled. Still he commanded himself, the captivity of Deerslayer rendering the arm of the offender of double consequence to him at that moment. Chingachgook arose, and for a single instant the ancient ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... scholarship are well-nigh impeccable. In considering the adjective "amateur" as applied to the press association, we must adhere to the more basic interpretation, regarding the word as indicating the non-mercenary nature of the membership. Our amateurs write purely for love of their art, without the stultifying influence of commercialism. Many of them are prominent professional authors in the outside world, but their professionalism never creeps ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... over a fellow like that. Baron indeed! He's only a foreign mercenary; and here is your poor father sent out of the country, while my lord has apartments set aside for him in the Palace, and he's petted and pampered, and now at last he goes off in one of the King's carriages with ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... cried, touched by his look and manner to an immediate unfolding of her scheme, "let us look at things again. Perhaps we shall not find them so hopeless as they look. If I am prudent, Everett, I am not mercenary. I only want to see Rosa happy. I don't care whether it is on hundreds a year, or thousands. And the fact is, I have not condemned your plans without having a more satisfactory one to offer to your ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... peril and hardship, he tendered his services to the government to make one effort more, in order to reach the mouth of this mysterious river; his offer was accepted, but on terms which make it abundantly evident that the enterprise was not undertaken from any mercenary impulse. The manner in which he had acquitted himself of his trust, amidst the difficulties with which he had to contend after the death of Clapperton, bespoke him as being worthy to be sent out on such a mission, when scientific observations ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... your present work con amore for your reputation." "No Sir," said Johnson, "nothing excites a man to write but necessity."' Walpole then relates the anecdote of the clergyman, and speaks of Johnson as 'the mercenary.' Walpole's sinecure offices thirty-nine years before this time brought him in 'near, L2000 a year.' In 1782 he wrote that his office of Usher of the Exchequer was worth L1800 a year. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill |
