"Paltry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as he went homewards by himself, was disturbed by various thoughts. If it really was to be the case that Polly Neefit wouldn't have him, why should he stay in a country so ill-adapted to his manner of thinking as this? Why remain in a paltry island while all the starry west, with its brilliant promises, was open to him? Here he could only quarrel with his father, and become a rebel, and perhaps live to find himself in a jail. And then what ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... this that his artist's soul rejected the paltry fact? For "blue" the hours of New Year's Day may be in Italy, but as "long blue hours" they cannot, even there, be figured. I maintain that, whatever it may be called, it is really Midsummer's Day on which Pippa passes from Asolo through Orcana and ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... by drawing me aside into the room in which we had supped, where, after rallying me on the whimsical notion of the Grand Master of the Ordnance and Governor of the Bastile being besieged in a paltry inn, he confessed that he had been wrong, and that the adventure was likely to prove serious. "Ten to one this is the very band that Bareilles ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... incidents—of that direful night? The lean figure in the black frock-coat, and black silk waistcoat, with that great gleaming watch-chain, the long, shabby, withered face, and flushed, bald forehead; and those paltry little eyes, in their pink setting, that nevertheless fascinated her like the gaze of a serpent. How had that horrible figure come there—why was this meeting—whence his knowledge? An evil spirit incarnate he seemed to her. She blanched before it—every vestige ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... is useless to palliate, let our other friend say what he pleased; and Reineke himself felt it so. It sate heavy, for him, on his soul, and alone of all the actions of his life we are certain that he wished it undone—the death and eating of that poor foolish Lampe, the hare. It was a paltry revenge in Reineke. Lampe had told tales of him; he had complained that Reineke, under pretence of teaching him his Catechism, had seized him and tried to murder him; and though he provoked his fate by thrusting himself, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... shall consider and compare these portraits till the outlines of his character are clear and certain; afterwards I shall show how his little vanities and shames idealized the picture, and so present him as he really was, with his imperial intellect and small snobberies; his giant vices and paltry self-deceptions; his sweet gentleness and long martyrdom. I cannot but think that his portrait will thus gain more in truth than it can lose in ideal beauty. Or let me come nearer to my purpose by means of a simile. Talking with Sir David Gill one evening on ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... slight angular figure, who was still on her mother's hands. The illustrious matches made by her sisters had, in fact, been secured by extravagant dowering, which had left nothing for poor Lady Constance except a miserable three hundred pounds a year, at which paltry figure no man had as yet offered to take her. The Countess (Dowager) habitually assumed that Marmaduke Lind ardently desired the hand of his cousin; and Constance herself supported tacitly this view; but the Earl was apt to become restive when it was put forward, though he ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... and his paltry measure of self-control with it, Matey started to chase Finn with a stick. Now and again he succeeded in getting a blow home, as Finn wheeled and leapt before him within the narrow limits of the yard; and every time the stick touched him Finn barked angrily. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... three-penny tax on tea, or the paltry tax on paper and sugar to which our revolutionary fathers were subjected, when compared with the taxation of the women of this Republic? The orphaned Pixley sisters, six dollars a day; and even the women who ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... compartment, which, fortunately, I continued to have all to myself, and was soon being rolled westward across the great Musashi plain, ruminating. My chief quarrel with railway rules is, I am inclined to think, that they preach to the public what they fail to practice themselves. After having denied me a paltry five minutes' grace at the station, the officials proceeded to lose half an hour on the road in a most exasperating manner. Of course the delay was quite exceptional. Such a thing had never happened before, and would not happen again—till the next time. But the phenomenal character ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... moulding whatever we look at into the forms borrowed from the one art with which we are acquainted. There is our standard of artistic reality. Let anyone give us shapes and colors which we cannot instantly match in our paltry stock of hackneyed forms and tints, and we shake our heads at his failure to reproduce things as we know they certainly are, or we ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... is a small and shallow stream. Although from the extent of the stockade Mogoung has evidently in former periods (during the Shan dynasty) been of extent and consequence, it is at present a mean and paltry town. It derives any little consequence it possesses from being the rendezvous of the Shan-Chinese, who flock here annually for ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... Ottawa woman, for she knew that she stood in the presence of the god of her people, the Great Michabou. Nor was that awe and fear diminished, when the angry god spoke in a voice of thunder to the Great Elk, demanding why he had enticed the son whom he loved into a marriage with the daughter of a paltry Elk. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... So, with a paltry excuse, he jumped out of the carriage before it reached the gate, and stood looking after it, holding his hat—the glossy tuba which Giovanna had with her elbow stroked and stroked the right way of the silk, when she laid out her signorino's ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... to think that from the Fall till now man has gone on continually producing and reproducing scenes like this—sometimes, no doubt, unavoidably; but often, too often, because of some trifling error, or insult, on the part of statesmen, or some paltry dispute about a boundary, or, not infrequently, on grounds so shadowy and complex that succeeding historians have found it almost impossible to convey the meaning thereof to the intellects of ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... head of each procession walked an Indian beating a drum, tap, tap, tap, without a vestige of time. The other processions with stoles and canopies, and the officials of the city in dress-coats and yellow kid gloves, were paltry affairs enough. ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... her. I had no dislike to the work, and our gains were very large; but I was anxious to get back to India to secure the reward which had been promised me. It may seem strange that I should be eager after a sum which was paltry, compared to what I was now making; but I did not like to lose what I considered my right, gained, too, with so ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... to think that sober ecclesiastical influences contribute a serious grace to the life of Oxford, yet I am glad to feel that the spirit of the place is liberal rather than ecclesiastical. Such traces as one sees in the chapels of the Oxford Movement, in the shape of paltry stained glass, starved reredoses, modern Gothic woodwork, would be purely deplorable from the artistic point of view, if they did not possess a historical interest. They speak of interrupted development, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... are doing their duty to themselves and their families when they move heaven and earth to rise a few steps in the world. The moment we find ambition taking a purely social form, it becomes ridiculous. The aim is so paltry in comparison with the effort, and so out of proportion with the energy- exerted to attain it, that one can only laugh and wonder! Unfortunately, signs of this puerile spirit (peculiar to the last quarter of the nineteenth century) can be seen on all ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... discreet, To know where wisdom prompts, and where conceit. Alike their draughts to every scribbler's mind (Blind to their faults as to their danger blind); - We write enraptured, and we write in haste, Dream idle dreams, and call them things of taste, Improvement trace in every paltry line, And see, transported, every dull design; Are seldom cautious, all advice detest, And ever think our own opinions best; Nor shows my Muse a muse-like spirit here, Who bids me pause, before I persevere. But she—who shrinks ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... for not being as prompt as himself)—he, of course, looked sulky and answered shortly. Then you pouted and finally worked yourself into quite a temper over his inconsiderateness and crankiness because of that paltry little fifteen minutes he had to wait. He worked himself into a temper because you were not on time; you worked yourself into a temper because he wasn't "nice." All that working ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... ordered off contrary to his wishes), and which might have been anticipated by those who appointed me to the situation; but it would have been derogatory to the exalted rank of their highnesses to bestow any consideration on such trivial matters as related to the comfort or convenience of a paltry apprentice! Their neglect, however, might have been attended on this occasion with serious consequences to the Company's interests, as I had never seen any of the Indians of that quarter before, and knew very little of their mode of trading. It ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... paltry trash!" said Edward, with the same emotion. "No, father, it was rivalry—it was jealous rage—it was the love of Mary Avenel, that rendered me the unnatural ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... throne burdened by the debts of his father, and by an expensive war, which the Commons incited, but would not pay for. They granted him, to meet his difficulties and maintain his honor, the paltry sum of one hundred and forty thousand pounds, and the duties of tonnage and poundage, not for life, as was customary, but for a year. Nothing could be more provoking to a young king. Of course, the money was soon ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... thou speak'st, and like thyself, my lord, Whom I may term a Damon for thy love: Therefore 'tis best, if so it like you all, To send my thousand horse incontinent [9] To apprehend that paltry Scythian. How like you this, my honourable lords? Is it not a ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... Adelaide de Montemare known from the court of Castile to that of Byzantium. And how was I requited?—When I returned with my dear-bought honours, purchased by toil and blood, I found her wedded to a Gascon squire, whose name was never heard beyond the limits of his own paltry domain! Truly did I love her, and bitterly did I revenge me of her broken faith! But my vengeance has recoiled on myself. Since that day I have separated myself from life and its ties—My manhood must know no domestic home—must ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... this young soldier came in I had caught bits of speech in the clatter and din From the fine men about me in life's dress parade Who were boasting the cash sacrifices they'd made; And I'd thought of my own paltry service with pride, When I turned and that ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... life totally opposite to that which is found beside the silver streams of the Tweed and its tributaries. When we passed near any of these spots, we were sure to catch the unlovely details, so frequently, though so unnecessarily attendant on factory-life—the paltry house, the unpaved, unscavengered street, the fry of dirty children. It was a beautiful tract of natural scenery in the process of being degraded by contact with ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... blaspheme when ye say that a few paltry speeches of yours about God and souls will make me fail my mother's memory and the remembrances of ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... made that home so dear to your boyhood, so real to your after-years,—standing amid all the flights of your youthful ambition, and your paltry cares (for they seem paltry now), and your doubts, and anxieties and weaknesses of heart, like the light of your hope—burning ever there under the shadow of the sycamores,—a holy beacon, by whose guidance ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... paltry gilding here, but massive golden cornice, frieze, plate, stud, and boss ornamenting the massive walls—glistening, sparkling, and flashing back the sun's light, while, as if these were not sufficient, emeralds ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... pardon me," he said, "but the attack was so violent, the blow so savage, the weapon must have been so keen, that it is almost impossible to connect it with a mere attempt to commit a paltry robbery. I thought, and the police thought, that it was a ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... petulance and faltering, elicited that some old forgotten London bills had come down and swamped this Midsummer quarter's allowance, so that the promise must stand over till—till Michaelmas; or it might be that Ferdinand's matters were arranged, and then what would such a paltry sum be? Wilmet turned away in shame and disgust at having trusted for a moment to such offers. She could only do what she had never done before—apply to Mr. Froggatt for an advance on Felix's account: and she detained him after dinner ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... circles could evade official quest even for forty-eight hours. K Division's explanation, too, that there were no less than eighty Chinamen resident in and about Limehouse whose names either began or ended with Sin, he looked upon as a paltry evasion. That very morning he had awakened from a species of nightmare wherein 719 had affected the arrest of Kazmah and Mrs. Sin and had rescued Mrs. Irvin from the clutches of the former. Now—here was hope. 719 would ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... and live on bread and tea for a month, to save the price of a gay ribbon. This is trying, no doubt, to a philanthropist, but is it not partly a starved sense of beauty asserting itself? If it has none of the usual outlets, where can imagination express itself if not in some paltry ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with an offer of $1,500 for the Tennessee Land. Mrs. Hawkins said take it. It was a grievous temptation, but the judge withstood it. He said the land was for the children—he could not rob them of their future millions for so paltry a sum. When the second blight fell upon him, another angel appeared and offered $3,000 for the land. He was in such deep distress that he allowed his wife to persuade him to let the papers be drawn; but when his children came into his presence in their poor apparel, he ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... Fornovo, as modern battles go, was a paltry affair; and even at the time it seemed sufficiently without result. Yet the trumpets which rang on July 6, 1495, for the onset, sounded the reveil of the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination of the struggle of that day, the Italians were already judged ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... absolute generosity is a thing unknown to the negro. Not being aware of the value of the offering, I simply requested the Sheikh to give him four yards of American sheeting, and thought no more about the matter, until presently I found the cloth returned. The "Sultan" could not think of receiving such a paltry present from me, when on the former journey he got so much; if he showed this cloth at home, nobody would believe him, but would say he took much more and concealed it from his family, wishing to ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... new coco-palm plantation means a voyage beyond the narrow confines of the home island, there dwells a race whose splendid chest and arm muscles were developed in the gymnasium of the sea; who, living on a paltry 515,000 square miles (1,320,300 square kilometers) of scattered fragments of land, but roaming over an ocean area of twenty-five million square miles, are not more at home in their palm-wreathed islets than on the encompassing deep. Migrations, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... foreboding—the deep voice of an elemental power that knows no mercy. Within twenty feet of them men and women were struggling like dumb and driven animals for bare life—struggling, shouting, quarrelling over a paltry precedence of a minute or so in going to the boats; within a hundred yards of them, out over the dark waters, Agatha's mother, thrown from an overturned boat, was struggling her last struggle, with her silly old face ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... fleet and forces were victualled for ten weeks only, and they could not depend upon a supply of provisions from New England, they should return home without making any further attempt. Such was the issue of this paltry expedition, intrusted to the direction of an officer without talents ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... About the time of the Queen's marriage to Philip Gresham went to Spain, to start from Puerto Real fifty cases, each containing 22,000 Spanish ducats. All the time Gresham resided at Antwerp, carrying out these sagacious and important negociations, he was rewarded with the paltry remuneration of L1 a day, of which we often find him seriously complaining. It was in Antwerp, that vast centre of commerce, that Gresham must have gained that great knowledge of business by which he afterwards enriched himself. Antwerp exported to England ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... d'Aumale) was offered on her behalf to the Vidame de Chartres, who was kept poor by the far-sighted policy of Francois I. In fact, when the Vidame de Chartres and the Prince de Conde first came to court, Francois I. gave them—what? The office of chamberlain, with a paltry salary of twelve hundred crowns a year, the same that he gave to the simplest gentlemen. Though Diane de Poitiers offered an immense dowry, a fine office under the crown, and the favor of the king, the vidame refused. After which, this Bourbon, already factious, married Jeanne, daughter ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... his genius had been properly felt. He was the contemporary of some mighty names older than his, yet there scarcely was to be found among them all a spirit more thoroughly original; and surely, when the paltry conflicts of passing taste are laid to rest forever, it will be found that this man has written his signature indelibly on one of the principal pages of the register of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... the First Consul's disposal might have been considered sufficient to dispense with these paltry devices; for when the squadrons of Brest, Lorient, Rochefort, and Toulon had joined their forces, they mustered thirty-two ships of the line and thirty-one frigates, with more than 20,000 troops on board. So great, indeed, was the force as to occasion strong ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... fist anger. In vain then is the flesh restrained if the mind allowed to drift to inordinate movements be wrecked by vice." And Augustine says (in the same sermon) that "fasting loves not many words, deems wealth superfluous, scorns pride, commends humility, helps man to perceive what is frail and paltry." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... whether, after all, riches are the one desirable thing in the world, or even the most desirable. But this was only a passing thought. So fascinated was Midas with the glitter of the yellow metal that he would still have refused to give up the Golden Touch for so paltry a consideration as a breakfast. Just imagine what a price for one meal's victuals! It would have been the same as paying millions and millions of money (and as many millions more as would take forever to reckon up) for some fried trout, an egg, a potatoes a hot ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... them an emotional satisfaction which brings comfort to all, and amongst these any of hysterical nature probably become far happier and better citizens under her wing than they would otherwise have been. No nets will catch the expanding soul which is rising out of its paltry self ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... Was it her fault that he chanced to be engaged in scientific pursuits? And when he took her face so tenderly in his two hands—looked so far down into her eyes—and told her in a voice she would follow to the ends of the earth that he loved her—was there any time then to think of paltry ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... restrained by the presence of more reflective natures.—It was asked, "Why tertian and quartan fevers were like certain short-lived insects." Some interesting physiological relation would be naturally suggested. The inquirer blushes to find that the answer is in the paltry equivocation, that they SKIP a day or two.—"Why an Englishman must go to the Continent to weaken his grog or punch." The answer proves to have no relation whatever to the temperance-movement, as no better reason is given than that island—(or, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... happened, Janet—sich a lot o' deaths I've been in at, to be sure—all great folks, too, none o' your paltry little fellows of poachers or gamekeepers, but real quality. What do you think of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... is about a paltry gilt ring that Nerissa gave me, with words upon it like the poetry on a cutler's knife: 'Love me, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Baron Badlihoff, who, a few days ago, made his appearance on the monkey-board of an omnibus, whence he was suddenly escorted by policeman B. 1001, to the presence of a magistrate, who unsympathisingly transferred him to Clerkenwell Jail, for certain paltry threepenny defalcations, due to a lapse of memory which our shameful code persists in regarding as worthy of incarceration and hard labour. He is now an active member of a company legally incorporated under government sanction, for grinding the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... upon an immense domain of wilderness, they found the ground already occupied with a scanty and curiously mixed population, which had taken on a simple form of polity and was growing into a state. The region adjoining Virginia was peopled by Puritans from the Nansemond country, vexed with the paltry persecutions of Governor Berkeley, and later by fugitives from the bloody revenge which he delighted to inflict on those who had been involved in the righteous rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon. These had been ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... wanting to assure the success of the vast projects that the pope and his son were founding upon the friendship of Louis and an alliance with him—that is,—money. But Alexander was not the man to be troubled about a paltry worry of that kind; true, the sale of benefices was by now exhausted, the ordinary and extraordinary taxes had already been collected for the whole year, and the prospect of inheritance from cardinals and priests was a poor thing now that the richest of them had been poisoned; but Alexander ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... should hardly compress 'Twixt the leaves of a treatise on Statics: life's stress Needs scope, not contraction! what rests? to wear out At some dark northern court an existence, no doubt, In wretched and paltry intrigues for a cause As hopeless as is my own life! By the laws Of a fate I can neither control nor dispute, I am ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... glory to think that even a Mexican rebel could not have been guilty of so heinous a crime. The performer of that cowardly deed was a Frenchman, living among the Indians of the west, who, for the sake of a paltry sum of gold, came to the aid of the rebels with many thousands of the savages. His next step was to enter St. Francisco, and there the horrors he committed recall to our mind the bloody deeds performed in his country during the ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... and beautiful, and the feeling of summer came over our bosoms; the flowers blossomed and the birds sang; and, as the sun looked from the blue sky, the quiet of nature banished from our thoughts all the poor and paltry cares that embitter life, and all the pitiful considerations which are but too apt to be the only concerns of the busy and bustling, from their awaking in the morning to their lying down on the pillow of evening rest. Peter and myself felt this ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... will say to themselves with a smile, 'that is but a paltry medicine for so great a disease—a pitiful ending, forsooth, to such a severe sermon as this, to recommend just the Church Catechism!' Let those laugh who will, my friends. If you think you can bring up your children to be blessings to you,—if you think you can live so as to be blessings ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... best, or rather one of the few I like at all. I find that the pleasure I derive from churches is mainly due to their being the most inhabited things in the world: inhabited by generation after generation, each bringing its something grand or paltry like its feelings, sometimes things stolen from previous generations like the rites themselves with their Pagan and Hebrew colour; bringing something, sticking in something, regardless of crowding (as life is ever regardless of other life): tombs, pictures, silver hearts and votive ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... place of exile, gave him his majesty's orders that he should see no person, and receive no visits. This order did not proceed from me, but was the work of the duc de la Vrilliere, who sought, by this paltry action, to avenge himself upon M. de Choiseul for the reception he had given him. It was wholly useless, however, for in the exile of the duke was seen a thing unheard of, perhaps, before, and, in all probability, unlikely ever to occur again—the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... proved mortal, and certainly were of very bad consequences to many." He recommended a quick and prompt punishment in all such cases. "No man," said he, "should be pestered by giving the way (sometimes) to hundreds of pack-horses, panniers, whifflers (i.e. paltry fellows), coaches, waggons, wains, carts, or whatsoever others, which continually are very grievous to weary and loaden travellers; but more especially near the city and upon a market day, when, a man having travelled a long and tedious ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... windows on this side, a paltry, insignificant view, for there is always that bustling and noisy inn, which is a very disagreeable neighbor. I had four windows here, but ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of "El Dorado"—the golden realm!—the home of an everlasting summer! Rob pauses dramatically; he comes to a full stop. How mean is the parlour of the comfortable Wood Street tavern! How paltry its pewter pots and clumsy flagons! How dull its ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... if on purpose, to abridge the pleasures of Lady Mary's intended tour. "It was very distressing—she heartily wished there was no such thing as money in the world—it made people very miserable—they were a much happier couple, she contended, when they were merely Honourables, and lived upon a paltry two thousand and the expectancy—there never was any difficulty then about money transactions, and a proposition for a trip to a watering-place was always hailed with pleasure."—"True, Lady Mary; but then you forget we travelled in a stage ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... 'Could you not come here by some easier road than a cloister?' they ask. 'If you must sell your soul, why did you not get something for it?' Brethren, there be devils waiting for some of us; they are laughing at your paltry shifts and evasions, at your efforts to make things easy,—for they know how it will all end at last. Rouse yourselves! Awake! Salvation is no easy matter,—nothing to be got between sleeping and waking. Watch, pray, scourge the flesh, fast, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... pall of clouds over the sky and the complaining of the gale-swept tops of the great trees, in spite of the vast dull roar of the great falls, that had seemed a dirge, a ray of cheer had entered the little shack. It had seemed to her like such a paltry and mean excuse for a dwelling, when she had first seen it, and had been so thoroughly in keeping with the sordid nature she had at once attributed to this man whom she believed to have brought her there with amazing lies. But now, in some way, it had become a link, and ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... the fact that Vado was now held in force by the Austrians, the importance of British co-operation by the fleet, at this critical moment, becomes strikingly apparent. The future thus throws back a ray of illuminating significance upon the otherwise paltry and obscure campaign of 1795, dragging out into broad daylight the full meaning of lost opportunities in the early year, and of Nelson's strenuous efforts in ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... that blessed mother gone to the unknown world, to face in its stead the idea of a female justice of the peace or township constable? For my part I want when I go to my home—when I turn from the arena where man contends with man for what we call the prizes of this paltry world—I want to go back, not to be received in the masculine embrace of some female ward politician, but to the earnest, loving look and touch of a true woman. I want to go back to the jurisdiction of the wife, the mother; and instead of a lecture upon finance or the tariff, or upon ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... the colleges that record them rather guess at than solve. But the blow which had shattered my life had been dealt by the hand of a fool. Here, there were no mystic enchantments. Motives the most commonplace and paltry, suggested to a brain as trivial and shallow as ever made the frivolity of woman a theme for the satire of poets, had sufficed, in devastating the field of my affections, to blast the uses for which I had cultured my mind; and had my intellect been as great as heaven ever gave to man, it would ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... still live, is beyond me. As he told me before he lost the power of speech, not to be too hard on the railroad company, though some railroads would be glad to pay him $20,000, and no questions asked, he begged me, as heir to his estate, to let you off for a paltry $10,000." ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... sent to San Francisco. The lucky speculators had gained five or six hundred per cent. profit for their ventures of preserved and dried fruits, champagne, other wines and liquors, Madeira nuts and the most paltry stuff imaginable. In five months some of the Valparaiso merchants had cleared five hundred thousand dollars. The excitement was still unabated. Shippers were still loading and dispatching their goods daily for San Francisco. ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... to greet each moment as the manifestation of the divine will we could find in it all the heart could desire. Nor what indeed is more reasonable, more perfect, more divine, than the will of God? Can its infinite value be increased by the paltry difference of time, place, or circumstance? The present moment is always filled with infinite treasures; it contains more than one is capable of receiving. Faith is the measure of these blessings; in proportion to your faith will you receive. By love also are they ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... rooms once tenanted by the Canterbury pilgrims; the gallery probably differing but little in appearance from what it was when Chaucer frequented it in search of good wine. The landlord eventually became insolvent; the paltry tavern was shut up, and the bedrooms were dismantled. In that plight they might be seen some years ago, may still possibly be seen—empty, dusty, dreary—ranged above ground-floor premises which do duty as a parcels' conveyance office, and abutting ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... politicks was introduced. JOHNSON. 'Pulteney was as paltry a fellow as could be[907]. He was a Whig, who pretended to be honest; and you know it is ridiculous for a Whig to pretend to be honest. He cannot hold it out[908].' He called Mr. Pitt a meteor; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... And there are old leather portmanteaus, like stranded porpoises, their mouths gaping in gaunt hunger for the food with which they used to be gorged to bulging repletion; and old brass andirons, waiting until time shall revenge them on their paltry substitutes, and they shall have their own again, and bring with them the fore-stick and the back-log of ancient days; and the empty churn, with its idle dasher, which the Nancys and Phoebes, who have left their ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... audience!" wailed Jane, falling into convenient arms. "Why not install a ghost in Madison if you are all so keen on it? I can't see how you expect one paltry spook to ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... not at the vulgar accusation, the paltry sneer, but at the prophecy relating to Godolphin: "he had never distinguished himself in anything—he never would." Rank, wealth, power, Constance felt these she wanted not, these she could command of herself; but she felt also that a nobler vanity of her nature required that ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lashes stung, She spoke her shameful speech. Serene He heard the fury of the queen, And to her words so vile and dread Gently, unmoved in mind, he said: "I would not in this world remain A grovelling thrall to paltry gain, But duty's path would fain pursue, True as the saints themselves are true. From death itself I would not fly My father's wish to gratify, What deed soe'er his loving son May do to please him, think it done. Amid all duties, Queen, I count This duty first ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... circumstances, would have been the field of my choice. With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not-they can not at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... him less than the knight, possibly because we know that men of the Dwining stamp, when they have had the control of nations, often do good simply from the dictates of superior wisdom—the wisdom of the serpent—which, no Ramorney ever did. The skill with which the crawling, paltry leech controls his fierce lord; the contempt for his power and pride shown in Dwining's adroit sneers, and above all, the ease with which the latter casts into the shade Ramorney's fancied superiority in wickedness, is well set forth—and such a character ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... bundle emphatically with his fist,—"an' th' handsome young lasses all stannin' out on the stone steps, it ud' ha' been summat like openin' a pack, that would. It's on'y the poor houses now as a packman calls on, if it isn't for the sake o' the sarvant-maids. They're paltry times, these are. Why, mum, look at the printed cottons now, an' what they was when you wore 'em,—why, you wouldn't put such a thing on now, I can see. It must be first-rate quality, the manifactur as you'd buy,—summat as 'ud wear as well as ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... within the hive that their instinct teaches them they must deposit their eggs. You can hardly find them by day, for they are cunning and secrete themselves. "They love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." They are a paltry looking, insignificant little grey-haired pestilent race of wax-and-honey-eating and bee-destroying rascals, that have baffled all contrivances that ingenuity has devised to ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... come—and this is the result. I am separated from my broomstick, which has all the germ-bombs hanging from its collar—the germs are those of dissension and riot—I am marooned upon an English cloud, with no enemy at my mercy but a paltry and ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... there be any right better founded and stronger than that of conquest, such right belongs unquestionably to the saviors of Rome. They have saved it for the Christian world, for mankind, for the Church. It is no man's property. It cannot be let, like a paltry farm, to those who shall bid the highest, in vain compromises and delusive hopes of liberty. Should the Roman people, of their own free will, pretend to give themselves away,—to sell themselves to a faction whose subversive principles they abhor, their forefathers of all preceding ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... Larmer—he is an animal without manners. But no matter. I am glad you are reasonable, my friend. You buy a respite for a few weeks. I shall forget you with all my heart—until I have a migraine, and suddenly remember you again. But it is too cheap; I cannot live decently on this paltry sum. Good-bye, my ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Land-marks, Rights of chase, Sheriffs and Factors, Lairds and Thanes, Would all have seem'd but paltry things Not ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... friends are here), Why should we blame the Spartans for all this? For people of ours, some people of our own,— Some people from among us here, I mean: But not the People (pray, remember that); I never said the People, but a pack Of paltry people, mere pretended citizens, Base counterfeits,—went laying informations, And making a confiscation of the jerkins Imported here from Megara; pigs, moreover, Pumpkins, and pecks of salt, and ropes of onions, Were voted to be merchandise from Megara, Denounced, and seized, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... tobacco you found in his hand, and had I returned before you came up, I should have as readily perceived, and as soon induced him to deliver it. If I might venture, sir, to express an opinion, I would say, at most, the offence is a paltry one, and could well be left unnoticed; more especially as he is, as I have premised, a servant ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... right. He'd have to go out and sleep in the scrub, where the mosquitoes and bulldog ants would bite him out of his sleep. I hate the man who's always whining about his mother through his nose, because, as a rule, he never cared a rap for his old mother, nor for anyone else, except his own paltry, selfish little self. ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... for assistance and protection to one who will feel for the indignity that has been shown her. How will his generous nature shudder, when he hears that she is on the point of being dragged to a loathsome dungeon, for want of the paltry sum of fifty pounds! Retrospection may convince the man of her heart, that her soul is superior to mercenary considerations; else, she would not now be reduced so low in the power of her enemies: she scarcely knows ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... thy meditative air, I hold thy stock of wit but paltry pelf— Thou show'st that same grave aspect everywhere, And wouldst look thoughtful, stuffed, ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... I believe he frightened you into this composition: I believe you gave it him out of fear, pure, paltry fear—confess. ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... was made an earl not long since—you may have heard of the fuss about it. Uncle Sam's only a miserable baron yet. And Uncle Cuthbert is that paltry insect—a baronet. ...
— The Title - A Comedy in Three Acts • Arnold Bennett
... it was!—looking up drearily into the drifting heaps of gray. What a wretched, paltry balk the world was! What a noble part he played in it!—taking out his pistol. Well, he could pull a trigger, and let out some other sinner's life; that was all the work God thought he was fit for. Thinking of Dode all the time. He knew her! He could have summered her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... discovers on which side it is most accessible. He avails himself of this weakness by addressing her in a language exactly consonant to her own ideas. He attacks her with her own weapons, and opposes rhapsody to sentiment—He professes so sovereign a contempt for the paltry concerns of money, that she thinks it her duty to reward him for so generous a renunciation. Every plea he artfully advances of his own unworthiness, is considered by her as a fresh demand which her gratitude must answer. And she makes it a point of honour to ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... up for the great county gentry; give very grand entertainments, dinners, etc., and go also to grand dinners, so their time is fully taken up going and receiving; they never scarce honour the little paltry town of Bury St. Edmunds. Bloomfield, the old butler, is gone to service again; he could not bear himself without horses, so he is gone to the Wigsons, near Bury, where he will have plenty of hunters to look after; he wished to live ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... the Duke sighed deeply and murmured: "Dios mio! if only I had a son of my own blood like that boy! What a pity he should be tied down to paltry pettifoggery!" ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... barons of Jerusalem," he said, as he and the pilgrim emperor entered the audience-hall, "'t is for us to act. Lay we aside all paltry jealousy and bickering. Our brothers from the West are here to aid us. 'T is for us to wield the sword of Godfrey and raise the banner of the Cross, and marching in the van deal death to the pagan Saracen. Up, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... no game, and his poverty frequently putting out of his reach the procuring of the needful sporting gear, where he does follow hunting, it is pursued with much-weakened ardor, and often bootless issue. He is moved now to its pursuit, solely with the hope of realizing a paltry gain from the sale of the few prizes he ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... Memnon, had the chief command. The veteran general Parmenio advised Alexander to delay the attack till the following morning; to which he replied, that it would be a bad omen at the beginning of his expedition, if, after passing the Hellespont, he should be stopped by a paltry stream. Thereupon he directed his cavalry to cross the river, and followed himself at the head of the phalanx. The passage, however, was by no means easy. The stream was in many parts so deep as to be hardly fordable, and the opposite bank was steep and rugged. The ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... his address, which was meant as much for the public ear as for that of the judge, he said: "These paltry charges, may it please your Honor, these foul and slanderous charges, the filthy ooze of an irresponsible newspaper, are incredible, preposterous—nay, mendacious! They are not made in good faith. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... delusive, and, it was soon found, was based upon the hope of a lottery! When the time for action came, the promised millions melted away, and all that the unfortunate monarch could scrape together, on the eve of entering upon a campaign on which hung his life, was a paltry fifty thousand dollars! ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... are to be met with everywhere. And what is her attraction? That she is old and sickly. Upon my word, Miss Anne Elliot, you have the most extraordinary taste! Everything that revolts other people, low company, paltry rooms, foul air, disgusting associations are inviting to you. But surely you may put off this old lady till to-morrow: she is not so near her end, I presume, but that she may hope to see another day. What is her ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... working for God. Oh! what will you say to God when your precious children stand at His bar, without the sheaves they might have gathered, and the souls they might have won? What will you say to Him? And why do you hold them back? Oh, the mean, paltry considerations that you would be ashamed to own before this congregation! Is it for fear of suffering? Not in many instances; but, even if it were, did you bargain with Jesus Christ when you gave yourself and children to Him, that ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... then how often have we repeated already that on the present occasion there is no reason why brevity should be preferred to length; for who is 'at our heels?' as the saying goes, and it would be paltry and ridiculous to prefer the shorter to the better. It is a matter of no small consequence, in some way or other to prove that there are Gods, and that they are good, and regard justice more than men do. The demonstration of this would be the best and noblest prelude of all our laws. ...
— Laws • Plato
... Poor, paltry slaves! yet born 'midst noblest scenes— Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men? Lo! Cintra's glorious Eden intervenes[45] In variegated maze of mount and glen. Ah, me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen, To follow ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... all its pleasures, Afric's coast I left forlorn; To increase a stranger's treasures, O'er the raging billows borne. Christian people bought and sold me, Paid my price in paltry gold: But though slave they have enrolled me Minds are never to ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... match (for it was quite dark within this passage), and they mounted to the fourth and topmost floor. They stopped again upon a little landing in front of a second door. A wall-paper of a cheap and offensive pattern, which had here and there peeled from the plaster, added, Lady Tamworth observed, a paltry air of tawdriness to the poverty of the place. Julian fumbled in his pocket for a key, unlocked the door, and stepped aside for his companion to enter. Following her in, he lit a pair of wax candles on the mantelpiece and a brass lamp in the corner of the room. Lady Tamworth ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... instant with a sort of bitter, desperate regret. These men were not men of mere ordinary intelligence; their cleverness, their power, the amazing scope of their organisation, all bore grim witness to the fact that they would be blinded not at all by any paltry ruse. ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... of war, but we forget its calamities. Let us remember that we should not sacrifice one life for this paltry abstraction. Let us remember how great are the miseries of war. Let us think of the rush of angry armies, of the widows and orphans, of the sorrow and desolation that war always ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... every day, when we were little children together, just as you play with your mates. Now that we perceive how great she was, now that her name fills the whole world, it seems strange that what I am saying is true; for it is as if a perishable paltry candle should speak of the eternal sun riding in the heavens and say, "He was gossip and housemate to me when we were candles together." And yet it is true, just as I say. I was her playmate, and I fought at her side in the wars; to this day I carry ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... to sacrifice every personal feeling to his sense of duty. It is with some impatience that one finds the grand schemes of discovery and colonization interrupted by such contemptible means, and the course of the narrative checked by the necessity for recording, however briefly, the paltry dissensions of vile miscreants such as Roldan and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... tell you that we are all to share alike and have everything in common, instead of one being rich and another poor, and one having hundreds of acres and another not enough to make him a grave, and one a houseful of servants and another not even a paltry foot-boy. I am going to introduce communism ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... the gem in my hand all ready, and when the old man squeaked peevishly, 'Out with it then, let's see, let's see,' I reached it out to him. He stretched down over the banisters, and took it; holding out his palm hollowed, as if 'twas some little paltry stone that might otherwise fall and be lost. It nettled me to have him thus underrate our treasure, even though he had never seen it, and so I plumped it down into his hand as if it were as big as a pumpkin. Now the hall was a dim place, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... order, this very instant! It is utterly preposterous to waste six days sending letters backwards and forwards about a paltry matter that can be settled by word of mouth in as many minutes. No wonder the troops have ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... have been made, and the retreat might have been effected with inconsiderable loss. Such a precaution was the more necessary, as he could not be ignorant that Bluecher's troops had already gained a march upon him, and was waiting for him at the Saale. Thus the want of a few paltry wooden bridges proved as ruinous to the French army as the battle itself. It lost, solely because it was unprovided with them, great part of its yet remaining artillery, several thousands of dead, who were mostly drowned, and a great number of prisoners. It was evident that such a retreat, conducted ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... so you mean to let your gifts go to waste? To bury your talent? Do you think your paltry achievements at Leipsic amount to the ne plus ultra of genius? Let us but once get to the great world—Paris and London! where you get your ears boxed if you salute a man as honest. It is a real jubilee to practise one's handicraft there on a grand scale. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... cookery—that they were continually tempting him to excess, etc. He says, that after having withstood all the temptations that the noblest lampreys and oysters could throw in his way, he was at last overpowered by paltry beets and mallows. A victory, by the way, which, in the case of the eater of plain food, is very ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... improvement in his lodgings he was punished indirectly. Poor Sim had dislocated a bar of the window in pushing the straw into Ralph's hands, and for this offence he was apprehended and charged with prison breaking. Four days later the paltry subterfuge was abandoned, as we know, for a more serious indictment. Ralph's new abode was brighter and warmer than the old one, and had no other occupant. Here he passed the second week of his confinement. The stone ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... he spoke the words of him that sent him. Well might this woman, if she dared not lift the downcast eye before the men present, yet depart in shameless peace: he who had healed her had called her Daughter. Everything on earth is paltry before such a word. It was the deepest gift of the divine nature—the recognition of the eternal in her by him who had made it. Between the true father and the true daughter nothing is painful. I think also that very possibly some compunction arose in her mind, the moment she ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... and lights A race of slaves! he sets, and his last beam Falls on a slave!—not such as, swept along By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads To crimson glory and undying fame, But base, ignoble slaves—slaves to a horde Of petty tyrants; feudal despots; lords, Rich in some dozen paltry villages, Strong in some hundred spearmen; only great In that ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... understand," she said. "This is no paltry Toy to be exhausted and sickened of in a single hour! This is a real Game! Eth-ical! Psycho-psycho—logical! Unendingly diverting! Hour after hour! Day after day!—Once begun, you understand, ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... state, But not to warp or change it. We are his, To serve him nobly in the common cause True to the death, but not to be his slaves. Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love Of kings, between your loyalty and ours. We love the man; the paltry pageant you: We the chief patron of the commonwealth; You the regardless author of its woes: We, for the sake of liberty, a king; You chains and bondage for a ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... this point of view they are right. The positive cast of their minds prevents them from seeing the beautiful in aught but costly material, well-defined forms, and highly-polished workmanship: hence, to them Bagtche Serai must be a mere group of shabby huts adorned with paltry ornaments, and fit only for ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... had said, Esther was too proud to take help unless it was most tactfully offered. He racked his brains in vain. It was a sickening thought that, with all his wealth, he could give her nothing. Even the few paltry pounds she had unconsciously taken from him would have been indignantly rejected had she known who ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... me? Mountains shall sooner bend their lofty summits to the earth, than I will ever waste a thought on thee." "Do with thee, my fairest!" cried the peer, "why, marry thee. Dost thou think that the paltry Damon shall get the better of my eagle genius? No. Fortune now unfurls my standard, and I drive the frighted fates before me." "Boastful, empty coward! Thou darest not even brave a woman's rage. If my hands were at liberty, I would ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... the very first thing for this man to do is to see that he does not get soured. That attitude of character is an acid which will destroy all success. Keep yourself sweet, no matter how snail-like your progress has been, no matter how paltry your apparent achievements. If you are already soured on men and the world, change that condition by a persistent habit of optimism. All death shows an acid reaction. Hopefulness is ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... many volumes, believe that you have a sincere passion for reading. You hold literature in honour, and your last wish would be to debase it to a paltry end. You are not of those who read because the clock has just struck nine and one can't go to bed till eleven. You are animated by a real desire to get out of literature all that literature will give. ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... into his service and that of religious art. It is said also that his Madonnas seem 'amiable beings imbued with a lofty grace;' while his saints are 'powerful and noble forms.' But he never descended to the paltry or the vulgar. He knew from the depths of his own soul how to invest a face with moral grandeur. Especially in his representations of our Saviour Gian Bellini 'displays a perception of moral power and grandeur ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... dear"—Sally makes a paltry attempt to laugh—"it's three in the afternoon. It's the fog." But she cannot hear what he says in answer to this, go close as she may. After a pause of rest he ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... this quick-witted and pleasant-spirited lady; yet when we recollect that to the wit and imperious temper of Beatrice is united a magnanimity of spirit which would naturally place her far above all selfishness, and all paltry struggles for power—when we perceive, in the midst of her sarcastic levity and volubility of tongue, so much of generous affection, and such a high sense of female virtue and honor, we are inclined to hope the best. ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... sword of Orleans hath not made me smart; These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart: On that advantage, bought with such a shame, To save a paltry life and slay bright fame, Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly, The coward horse that bears me fall and die! And like me to the peasant boys of France, To be shame's scorn and subject of mischance! Surely, ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... prepared to do all, to suffer all, to sacrifice all. But her loyalty, as it exceeded her brother's in fanaticism, excelled it also in purity. Accustomed to petty intrigue, and necessarily involved in a thousand paltry and selfish discussions, ambitious also by nature, his political faith was tinctured, at least, if not tainted, by the views of interest and advancement so easily combined with it; and at the moment he should unsheathe his claymore, it might be difficult to say whether it would ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... materials. In doing this he is aware that he is merely following the example set him by countless culinary experts, who have communicated their ideas to the daily press; but Mr. Punch is not to be deterred from doing a helpful action by any paltry jealousy as to precedence. His readers, he knows, will be grateful ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... or even months, he cried out in worse English that he was ruined. He would have to violate his contract! No impressario would think of engaging him again! His wonderful American tour! If he was not rescued within a week—Oh, my God, the consequences! He did not regret the paltry two thousand a week—for thirty ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... without at least adding the obvious suggestion, that the avarice of Rienzi could have been much better gratified by sparing than by destroying the life of one of the richest subjects in Europe. Montreal, we may be quite sure, would have purchased his life at an immeasurably higher price than the paltry sum lent to Rienzi by his brothers. And this is not a probable hypothesis, but a certain fact, for we are expressly told that Montreal, "knowing the Tribune was in want of money, offered Rienzi, that if he would let him go, he, Montreal, would furnish him not ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... carved triangular pediments. Before the castle lies a vast green sward the trees of which had recently been cut down. On either side of the entrance bridge are two small dwellings where the gardeners live, connected across the road by a paltry iron railing without character, evidently modern. To right and left of the lawn, which is divided in two by a paved road-way, are the stables, cow-sheds, barns, wood-house, bakery, poultry-yard, and the offices, placed in what were doubtless the remains of two wings of the old building similar to ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... moment far too busy to spare time for the making up of returns; and from this list I learned the appalling news that, of our entire complement of fifty-eight, all told, we had lost no less than seventeen killed, and thirty-two more or less severely wounded, leaving only a poor paltry nine of us untouched, of whom I was one. Fortunately, of the thirty-two wounded only about half of them were hurt severely enough to be rendered totally unfit for duty; but that was bad enough in all conscience, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... discernment than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, occasional system will be at all suitable to such an object. It will show you that it is not to be considered as one of those minima which are out of the eye and consideration of the law; not a paltry excrescence of the state; not a mean dependent, who may be neglected with little damage and provoked with little danger. It will prove that some degree of care and caution is required in the handling such an object; it will show that you ought not, in reason, to trifle ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... far shore, there, amidst unalloyed pleasures, to spend immortal days. This region was naturally located on the surface of the earth, where the cheerful sun could shine and the fresh breezes blow, yet in some untrodden distance, where the gauntlet of fact had not smitten the sceptre of fable. The paltry portion of this earth familiar to the ancients was surrounded by an unexplored region, which their fancy, stimulated by the legends of the poets, peopled with mythological kingdoms, the rainbow bowers and cloudy synods of Olympus, from ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... I dare to say that I feel I am happy. I was surfeited with adoration, weary of pleasure, emotional on the surface of things, but conscious that emotion itself never reached my heart. I have found all the men whom I have known petty, paltry, superficial; none of them ever caused me a surprise; they had no innocence, no grandeur, no delicacy. I wish I could have met with one man able ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... thoughts of this man, now that his adventure was over and his end near? If he were in very truth a prince, how pitiable, how paltry! What cheap martyrdom! If an impostor, had the game been worth the candle?—Death seemed a coin of high value for this short, vanished comedy. The man alone could answer, for the truth might not be known, save by the knowledge that comes ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... She will abandon or defer the fray; But that, Troyano's valiant son to right, She will, together with them, wend her way; By which her warlike fame a higher flight, More easily may, even to heaven, assay, Than in a quarrel of such paltry guise, Which offers hindrance ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... best that were ever reared on the banks of the Potomac, would be but a paltry price, for ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... can you accept this heart, such as wasted years, and griefs too fondly nursed, have left it? Can you be, at least, my comforter? Can you aid me to regard life as a duty, and recover those aspirations which once soared from the paltry and miserable confines of our frivolous daily being? Helen, here I ask you, can you be all this, and under the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... that high thought were 50 Linked to a servile mass of matter—and, Knowing such things, aspiring to such things, And science still beyond them, were chained down To the most gross and petty paltry wants, All foul and fulsome—and the very best Of thine enjoyments a sweet degradation, A most enervating and filthy cheat To lure thee on to the renewal of Fresh souls and bodies[112], all foredoomed to be As frail, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... John Milton only by virtue of the epic code of Pere le Bossu. People will consent to place themselves at the author's standpoint, to view the subject with his eyes, in order to judge a work intelligently. They will lay aside—and it is M. de Chateaubriand who speaks—"the paltry criticism of defects for the noble and fruitful criticism of beauties." It is time that all acute minds should grasp the thread that frequently connects what we, following our special whim, call "defects" with what we call "beauty." Defects—at all events those which we call by that name—are ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... declares the inalienable rights of man,—and which, as it makes the tour of the earth, hand and hand with Christianity, is lifting the many from the dust, where for ages they have been trampled, into political life and dignity,—he converts a paltry swindle into its standard and creed, and prostitutes its glorious mission, as a redeeming influence among men, into a ministry of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... I'd care for the office," said Dunn. "Sure it's yerself be's makin' all the fees, and ourselves getting the paltry dollar; and yerself gives us as much trouble to get that as we'd be earning two dollars at magistrate Jiles' beyant. Sure! himself's liberal and doesn't be afraid to give us a division of the fees when the business is good. And sure ye make yer ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Paymaster of the Forces, and to whose credit there stood at the Bank of England, as Mr. Trevelyan assures us, a million pounds of the public money, the interest of which was paid to him "or to his creditors." This was a much better thing than Grosvenor Bedford had with his paltry collectorship at Philadelphia; and the interest on a million pounds, more or less, had it been diverted from Mr. Rigby's pocket to the public treasury, would perhaps have equaled the entire increase in the revenue ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... bides his time, and day by day Faces defeat full patiently, And lifts a mirthful roundelay However poor his fortunes be— He will not fail in any qualm Of poverty; the paltry dime— It will grow golden in his palm ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... and act at once!" said the Captain, his voice thrilling with intensity. "This piece of property will be gone befo' night! All it takes is a paltry three thousand dolla's, and within ninety days—no man can say what its value will be. We can plat it, and within ten days we may have ouah money back. Allow me to draw ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... so alluring. But you, Count Manteuffel, why are you not like the flute? Why have you spies and eavesdroppers at all places? Why are you an Austrian spy at the court of Prussia—you who have wealth, rank, and standing which should place you above such paltry considerations?" ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... but failed to discover any more money. He felt indignant. It seemed to him that he was badly used. That a miser should have but a paltry ten dollars in his trunk ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... I'd spend in viewing The elemental strife, My soul the while subduing With the littleness of life; Of life, with all its paltry plans, Its conflicts and its cares— The feebleness of all that's man's— The might that's ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... Morge were discovered missing, Thougor had called the village together, explaining that Thor had left them, taking Morge as a sacrifice because he was dissatisfied with the tribe's paltry blood offerings and worship. Therefore a great death sacrifice of young men and women must be undertaken to pacify Thor and ...
— Regeneration • Charles Dye
... perhaps have been justifiable at first, before you knew exactly the nature of your revenue and expenditure; but with these facts before me, I should think I were degrading the situation which I hold, if I could consent to such a paltry expedient as this. I can hardly think that Parliament will adopt a different view. I can hardly think that you, who inherit the debt contracted by your predecessors—when, having a revenue, they reduced the charges of the post-office, and inserted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various |
