"Half-pay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... appeared the whole museum which was hopelessly antiquated, being twenty-five years old, could be entirely knocked down if a sufficient sum was forthcoming; and its curator, who was as ancient as the Dinosaurus itself, could be dismissed on half-pay if any man had a heart large enough for ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... kinsman," said the Marquis, "for I am ashamed to tell you half what she said. It is enough—her mind is made up, and the mistress of a first-rate boarding-school could not have rejected with more haughty indifference the suit of a half-pay Irish officer, beseeching permission to wait upon the heiress of a West India planter, than Lady Ashton spurned every proposal of mediation which it could at all become me to offer in behalf of you, my good kinsman. I cannot guess what she ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... 1701, he left La Chine with a hundred men in twenty-five canoes loaded with provisions, goods, munitions, and tools. He was accompanied by Alphonse de Tonty, brother of Henri de Tonty, the companion of La Salle, and by two half-pay lieutenants, Dugue and Chacornacle, together with a Jesuit and a Recollet.[30] Following the difficult route of the Ottawa and Lake Huron, they reached their destination on the twenty-fourth of July, and ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... the public street, in a loud military voice, alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a particular house. The ladies of Cranford were already rather moaning over the invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman. He was a half-pay captain, and had obtained some situation on a neighbouring railway, which had been vehemently petitioned against by the little town; and if, in addition to his masculine gender, and his connection with the obnoxious railway, he was so brazen as to talk ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... Republic usually kept only a garrison of one hundred half-pay Sclavonians, happened to contain at that time two thousand Albanian soldiers, who ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Luttrell, having been appointed to the Ganges, took with him Mr. Riou as second lieutenant. He served in this ship until the following summer, when he retired for a time on half-pay, devoting himself to study and continental travel until March, 1786, when we find him serving under Admiral Elliot as second lieutenant of the Salisbury. It was about this time that he submitted to the Admiralty ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... or nine years ago—I write from memory, and am not very certain as to dates—a young Irish emigrant girl was hired into the service of Captain Kinnaird, an officer on half-pay, who had purchased a farm about thirty miles in the rear of Toronto; but the name of the township, and the county in which it was situated, I have forgotten; but this is of little consequence to my narrative. Both circumstances could be easily ascertained ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... you, and probably it would be the best thing for me in the long run. The war with France cannot last many years, and when peace comes there will, of course, be a great reduction of the navy, and an immense number of officers put upon half-pay, without much chance of again obtaining employment. My time during the last three years will not have been misspent. As a lieutenant in the service who had obtained exceptionally rapid promotion I should be able to secure orders for stores or repairs to any men-of-war who might put in, and the ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... expedition, and was wounded at Ticonderoga in 1758. He also served for a time in Portugal, but certain infelicities of temper hindered his advancement, and he never rose higher in the British service than a half-pay major. As a "soldier of fortune" he was vastly more successful. In all the pages of American history, indeed, it would be difficult to find anybody whose career was more interestingly and picturesquely ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... as great an event ashore as the Dead Horse day was at sea. The sailors' wives, mothers, or sweethearts always celebrated half-pay day by wearing white stockings and by carrying their skirts discreetly high enough so that it might be observed. This custom was carried out with rigid regularity, and the participators were the objects of sympathetic attraction. Poor things, there is no telling ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... wrote to me about when at Rome, the end of 1751. He has been a constant correspondent of John Murray's, and all along suspected of being a spy. Cameron's remarks leave it without a doubt.' Samuel, Edgar adds, is now a half-pay lieutenant in French service, at Dunkirk. Lord Ogilvie and Lochiel mean to secure him, but Lord Lewis Drummond does not think the evidence sufficient. From 'The Scots Magazine' of September 1753, we learn that a court-martial of Scottish officers was held ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... never, before that day, entered the metropolis together. Their stock of money was soon exhausted. In his visionary project of an academy, Johnson had probably wasted his wife's substance; and Garrick's father had little more than his half-pay.—The two fellow-travellers had the world before them, and each was to choose his road to fortune and to fame. They brought with them genius, and powers of mind, peculiarly formed by nature for the different vocations to which each of them felt himself inclined. They acted from the impulse ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... was a half-pay officer," I went on, "very poor and very proud. Miss Pleyel's father was a tradesman, an Austrian Jew, rich, vulgar, ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... himself despicable, and could not longer remain with the regiment. As soon as the regiment arrived at Lyons, he sent in his retirement, and has ever since been living at Pau, in the south of France, upon his half-pay and the other property which ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... duty. Their furloughs are very limited, and they have their choice of the outposts, where they live out of the world, or the Florida war, when they go out of it. But the greatest injustice is, that they have no half-pay: if not wishing to be employed they must resign their commissions and live as they can. In this point there is a great partiality shown to the navy, who have such excellent half-pay, although to prevent remarks at such glaring injustice ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... that very moderately—we needed one thousand infantrymen; but all the islands could only furnish six hundred paid soldiers. In order to supply this lack, three hundred and eighty men were provided from the citizens of this city, and from captains, alferezes, and sergeants on half-pay—the captains numbering thirty-four, the alferezes one hundred and six, the sergeants eighty, and the common soldiers one hundred and sixty. These men showed a willingness to take service on this occasion for honor. But to fulfil their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... fashion, of which we shall give abundant examples when we come to treat of gentility-mongers. But the heavy swell, who is of all classes, from the son and heir of an opulent blacking-maker down to the lieutenant of a marching regiment on half-pay, is utterly destitute of brains, deplorably illiterate, and therefore incapable, by nature and bringing-up, of respecting himself by a modest contented demeanour. He is never so unhappy as when he appears the thing he is—never so completely in his element as when acting the thing he is not, nor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... on half-pay! hear this, port-admirals and captains afloat! I have often heard that the service was deteriorating, going to the devil, but I never became a convert to ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... Government. Bodies of armed Highlanders were seen moving about in several districts in the North. A party appeared in the neighbourhood of Inverness which was, however, soon dispersed by the local garrison. The Government became alarmed, and the Lords Justices sent a large number of half-pay officers, chiefly from the Scottish regiments, to officer the militia, under command of Major General Whitham, commander-in-chief at the time in Scotland. These proceedings alarmed the Jacobites, ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... king." But the bows were less profound, and the wonderment none at all, when twice a week, as was his wont during the summer months, his majesty, with all his family, and a considerable bevy of ancient maids of honour and half-pay generals, walked through the town, or rode at a slow pace in an open carriage, to the Windsor theatre, which was then in the High-street. Reader, it is impossible that you can form an idea of the smallness of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... collected at the mouth of the Seine for a raid on England. Three years later, as commander-in-chief on the Leeward Islands station, he captured Martinique, St. Lucia, and Grenada, and learned the ways of the West Indian seas. Then came years of political disfavour, half-pay and financial embarrassment, until in an hour of darkness for England, with the American colonies in successful revolt and Frenchman and Spaniard besieging Gibraltar by land and sea, the veteran admiral was recalled to active service, and found and seized the great ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... then contained a considerable colony of English people, among whom the military element predominated. Quite a number of half-pay or retired officers had come to live there with their families, finding Jersey overcrowded and desiring to practise economy. The colony also included several Irish landlords in reduced circumstances, who had quitted the restless isle to escape assassination ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... "That is a part of the business which caused my visit in this direction, and Mrs. Bradley need have no fears as to the validity of her title. I have the papers with me that will place her in full possession of the estate. Besides, she is entitled to a large amount from the Government as half-pay for her husband's services during the Revolution, which she will receive on application through the proper channel." It was now getting late, and Col. Godfrey was told that his room was ready if he wished to retire. Feeling a little sleepy, after ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... strange vicissitudes and bitter trials, still his friends. Levasseur, his secretary, who had accompanied him in his visit to the United States, with his German wife, a young gentleman whose name I have forgotten, but who was the private tutor of young Jules de Lasteyrie, and Major Frye, an English half-pay officer, of whom I shall have a good deal more to say by-and-by, completed the circle. We formed a long procession to the dining-room, and I shall never forget how awkward I felt on finding myself walking, with the General's arm in mine, at the head of it. There was a certain air ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... knew not how long I might be spared to linger near her; but now, when of both I am assured, wherefore should I hesitate longer? With the title of captain, that for which I have so long pined, I am at liberty to retire on half-pay, till farther orders; the adopted son and acknowledged heir to my uncle, Lord Delmont, I have now enough to offer her my hand, without one remaining scruple. You are silent. Oh, Mr. Grahame, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... were limited, yet he was not destitute. He had an annual income of a few hundred dollars, in addition to his half-pay as a colonel in the revolutionary army. For two or three years before his death he suffered under the effects of a paralysis. Much of the time he was in a measure helpless, so far as locomotion was concerned. His general ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... patriotism alone, but required, in addition, the prospect of interest, or some reward. The members of Congress did not all agree with him in his views, and expected that officers would make greater sacrifices than private citizens, but, after a while, the plan of half-pay for life, as Washington proposed, was adopted by a small majority, though afterwards changed to half-pay for seven years. There was also a prejudice in many minds against a standing army, besides the jealousies ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... two lords, a customhouse-officer, five half-pay captains, and a baronet, (all noted gamesters,) came publicly into a church at Westminster, and deposited a very considerable sum of money in the minister's hands; the parties, whom they had defrauded, being either out of town, or not to be found. But so great is the hardness ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... for six months from a Captain Marchmont, a half-pay officer, naval or military, I don't know which, for we never saw him, and all the negotiations were managed by an agent. Captain Marchmont and his family, as a rule, lived at Ballyreina all the year round—they found it cheap and ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... further disbursements met with angry opposition. Large arrears of pay were due to soldiers, and bounties had been promised to induce them to disband peacefully, and to compensate them for the depreciation of the currency. Congress had also granted five years' extra pay to officers, in lieu of the half-pay for life which was first voted. The army, in consequence, became very unpopular. A great clamor was raised against the Cincinnati Society, and factious patriots pretended to see in it the foundation of an hereditary aristocracy. The public irritability, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... enthusiastically. "Papa Mignon,—mignon by name, mignon by nature, and that's why I respect him,—well, he would rob himself of everything to marry his daughter. Your Restoration" (hiccough) "has taught him how to live on half-pay; he'd be quite content to live with Dumay on next to nothing, if he could rake and scrape enough together to give the little one three hundred thousand francs. But don't let's forget that Dumay is going to leave all his money to ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... heard me speak of Lina Dale, my English governess before I had Mary Gibson. Mary Gibson is an excellent girl, but she has not the talent that Lina had. Lina's father was a Captain Dale, a half-pay officer, whom I had once seen on business about a pupil of mine who had crossed the Channel under his care. A surly, morose man he appeared to me, rough towards his wife, a meek, worn-out looking old lady, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... been a successful teacher in the State of New York fifteen years of her life, she had seen the need of many improvements in the mode of teaching and in the sanitary arrangements of school buildings; and more than all, the injustice to women in their half-pay as teachers. Her interest in educational conventions was first roused by listening to a tedious discussion at Elmira on the "Divine ordinance" of flogging children, in which Charles Anthony, principal of the Albany Academy, quoted Solomon's injunction, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... virtue, if in one individual he could find them all combined, and finding, could secure them for himself. It might have been a year after his appearance in London, that he became acquainted with the family of Mr Graham, a lieutenant in the navy on half-pay, and the father of two children. He was a widower, and not affluent. His offspring were both daughters, and, at the time to which I allude, full grown, lovely women. Their mother had been a governess previously to her marriage, and her subsequent days had been profitably employed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... daughter. Besides, Monsieur de Fischtaminel is good looking for a man of thirty-six years; he received the cross of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon upon the field of battle, he is an ex-colonel, and had it not been for the Restoration, which put him upon half-pay, he would be a general. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Chaleco of Valdepenas; in the time of the French I served as bragante, fighting for Ferdinand VII. I am now a captain on half-pay in the service of Donna Isabel; as for my business here, it is to speak with you. Do ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... to officers who had served in Spain. Only not even the marshal's protection could secure for him active employment. He remained irreconcilable, idle, and sinister. He sought in obscure restaurants the company of other half-pay officers who cherished dingy but glorious old tricolour cockades in their breast-pockets, and buttoned with the forbidden eagle buttons their shabby uniforms, declaring themselves too poor to afford the ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... received more billets than bullets, and consequently grew out of knowledge, although he obtained a world of information in his travels; and, at the expiration of the war, returned to his native village covered with laurels, and in the Joyment of the half-pay of a corporal, to which rank he had been promoted in consequence of his meritorious conduct in the Peninsula. His father was still living, but his step-nother was lying ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... Exchequer, and Lord Chamberlains, when my attention was turned to a very animated scene going on between a pair who seemed perfectly unconscious of all the external creation. One of the parties was a showy-looking fellow, with the mingled expression of roueism and half-pay, which is so frequent and so unmistakeable in the neighbourhood of St James's. The lady was a calm and composed personage, whom, on a second glance, I remembered to have seen wherever the world could bow down to the fair possessor of countless "consols." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... suddenly, was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr. Gundry, who had spent some years in California, was now returning to England by the Bridal Veil. This was Major Hockin, an officer of the British army, now on half-pay, and getting on in years. His wife was going home with him; for their children were married and settled in England, all but one, now in San Francisco. And that one being well placed in the firm of Heniker, Banks, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... the amiable Gisborne family, settled at Leghorn; its serene cheerfulness is reflected in Shelley's charming rhymed 'Letter to Maria Gisborne'. And early in 1821 they were joined by a young couple who proved very congenial. Ned Williams was a half-pay lieutenant of dragoons, with literary and artistic tastes, and his wife, Jane, had a sweet, engaging manner, and a good singing voice. Then there was the exciting discovery of the Countess Emilia Viviani, imprisoned in a convent by a jealous step-mother. All three of them—Mary, Claire, ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... gentleman to fight at pleasure; and for the others whose blood was hotter and younger, for the three Kerry Cocks, the Conclave had not been more surprised if a Cardinal had risen and denounced the Papacy, nor an assembly of half-pay captains been more astonished if one of their number had denounced the pension system. The Colonel was a Sullivan and an Irishman, and it was supposed that he had followed the wars. Whence, then, these strange words, these unheard-of opinions? ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... with fidelity and courage, and having been, according to the custom of the provinces, intrusted with commands much superior to those to which he was entitled by rank, with reputation also. When Major Effingham yielded to the claims of age, he retired with dignity, refusing his half-pay or any other compensation for services that he felt he ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... was dining at this excellent hotel, I remarked a bald-headed gentleman in a blue coat and brass buttons, who looked like a colonel on half-pay, and by his side a lady and a little boy of twelve, whom the gentleman was cramming with an amazing quantity of cherries and cakes. A stout old dame in a wonderful cap and ribands was seated by the lady's side, and it was easy to see they were ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and a destroyer of religion. The numerous party of the pretended devotees mustered in the streets and public places, and presently...persuaded the Bishop to publish a mandate in the church whereby the Sieur de Mareuil, a half-pay lieutenant, was interdicted the use ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... Oudney, a Scotchman, whose enthusiasm had been aroused by the travels of Mungo Park. This Dr. Oudney was a friend of Hugh Clapperton, a lieutenant in the Navy, three years his senior, who had distinguished himself in Canada and elsewhere, but had been thrown out of employment and reduced to half-pay by the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... April 3rd, all the officers on half-pay assembled at the fountain to be reviewed by a general and a sub-inspector, and as these officers were late, the order of the, day issued by General Ambert, recognising the Imperial Government, was produced and passed along the ranks, causing ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... soon as they've got any money," reflected Duplay in a puzzled tone. "If you were on half-pay as I am, you'd ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... debauched her reason, and perverted her sense of decorum and propriety. She and her husband gave a loose to vulgar excess, in which they were enabled to indulge by the charity and interest of some friends, who obtained half-pay for the captain. ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... were practically nil. Half the privates of his regiment had been dismissed to their native villages. The rest, though nominally in barracks, and paraded once or twice a month (very badly), were wont to eke out their half-pay (supposed to be whole, but actually shared with two lofty administrators whose names were known to a certain astute Moscow official) by working in the Artels that ply their various crafts in the Russian cities throughout the winter season. The chief duty of the officers, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... sullen and thoughtful; I supposed him sorry for the hard fortune of his friends; and tried to comfort him, by saying that the war would soon be at an end, and that, if they had any honest occupation, half-pay would be a pretty help. He looked at me with indignation; and snatching up his candle, told me, as he went up stairs, that he hoped to see a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... an ornamental cottage in the grounds at Thorpe Ambrose. For some reason unknown, young Armadale has chosen to let it, and a tenant has come in already. He is a poor half-pay major in the army, named Milroy, a meek sort of man, by all accounts, with a turn for occupying himself in mechanical pursuits, and with a domestic incumbrance in the shape of a bedridden wife, who has not been seen by anybody. Well, and what of all this? you will ask, with that sparkling impatience ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... not diminish the danger. The reduced officers, instead of conforming to the order, encouraged each other in disobedience. According to the regulations of the war department, their contumacious residence at Paris would subject them to the loss of their half-pay; and many of them, though in poverty, preferred independence to submission. The ministers were irritated by this resistance, and they determined to make an example. It happened that a letter of congratulation which General Excelmans ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... attraction; that the coins were marked with strange characters, and grew red-hot of their own accord. In short, there were a thousand extravagant reports. But what is most remarkable is, that this population of Kolomna, made up of pensioners, half-pay officers, petty functionaries, obscure artists, and others equally necessitous, preferred bearing the utmost distress to having recourse to the dreaded money-lender. They all declared they would rather mortify their bodies than destroy their souls. Those who met him in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... of the undertaking. "The opera, a tawdry, expensive and meretricious lady, who had been accustomed to high keeping, was now reduced to a very humble state. Her establishment was not only diminished, but her servants reduced to half-pay. Pescetti seems to have been her prime minister, Carestini her head man, the Muscovita her favourite woman, and Andreoni a servant for all work." Concerts and pasticcios formed the main repertory, ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... mean was a retired half-pay officer, with a wife and two grown-up daughters, whom he maintained with the port and notions of gentlewomen upon that slender professional allowance. Comely ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... next he met Bettina they had a very long talk about their people, and it appeared that they were both descendants of French peasants. That was why Jean loved the country folk around Longueval. And when he had served his time in the army, he thought he would retire on half-pay—an old colonel, perhaps—and come back ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... have him, he was now more alive than before to the difference between her position and his. The splendid apartments occupied by the count, his unlimited expenditure, the beauty of his carriages and horses, all showed Jack the difference between a great Russian seigneur and a lieutenant on half-pay. Feeling that he was becoming more and more in love with Olga, he determined to make some excuse to leave Paris, intending upon his return to apply at once to be sent on ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... his acting order confirmed. At Quebec, he shall, of course, leave the ship, and go with you. I don't pretend to detain him from his duty; but you will observe, that if he does obtain his rank, he will also obtain his half-pay, which, if he remains in Canada with you, will be a great assistance; and if things should turn out so well, that you can, after a year or two, do without him, and allow him to return to the service, he will then have already gained the most important step, and will, ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... place on the 9th instant, at Calais, between Lieut. Finch, 20th regiment of Dragoons, and Lieut. Boileau, on half-pay of the 41st regiment. Lieut. Finch was bound over, some days back, to keep the peace in England; in consequence of which he proceeded to Calais, accompanied by his friend, Captain Butler, where they were followed by Lieut. Boileau and his friend Lieut. Hartley. It was settled by ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... locality and characters for some of the earlier Sketches by Boz." "The Old Lady" was a Miss Newnham, who lived at No. 5, and who was, by all accounts, very kind to the Dickens children. The "Half-pay Captain" was also a near neighbour, and he is supposed to have supplied one of the earliest characters to Dickens as a mere child. Some of the neighbours at the corner house next door (formerly No. 1) were named Stroughill,—pronounced Stro'hill (there was, it will ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... genuine seclusion; for the ordinary stream of life does not run through this little, quiet pool, and few or none of the inhabitants seem to be troubled with any business or outside activities. I used to set them down as half-pay officers, dowagers of narrow income, elderly maiden ladies, and other people of respectability, but small account, such as hang on the world's skirts rather than actually belong to it. The quiet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... refuse to go out with you. At the same time, under your peculiar circumstances, I think if you were in a crack regiment you would, in all probability, have to fight one half the mess, and be put in Coventry by the other. You must then exchange on half-pay, and your commission would be a great help to you. As for the law—I'd sooner see a brother of mine in his coffin. ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... the house! The kitchens, back-kitchens, laundries, drying-rooms, would at all times be crammed choke-full of a miscellaneous rabble of Editors, Authors, Lords, Baronets, Squires, Doctors of Divinity, Fellows of Colleges, Half-pay Officers, and Bagmen, oppressing the chambermaids to death, and in the headlong gratification of their passion for well-aired sheets, setting fire so incessantly to public premises as to raise the rate of insurance to ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... half-pay for a week and a day, unless the wind shifts or moderates," I answered. "I believe the old barkie was never in greater peril. If we save the people's lives we ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... from his pocket, he displayed the undress coat of a military man. The card disclosed his rank, and a brief inquiry at the bar was sufficient for the rest. He was a captain whom ill-health and long service had entitled to half-pay. In earlier life he had been engaged in several affairs of honour, and, in the dialect of the fancy, was ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... she roar'd with the quilt Wrapp'd round her in haste as she jumped out of bed, And ran down to the coast, Where she looked like a ghost, Though 't was he was departed—the vagabone fled And she cried, "Well-a-day! Sure my heart it is grey: They're deceivers, them sojers, that goes on half-pay." ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... on July 6th, 1783, a warm letter of thanks to Nairne for the attention, readiness, and punctuality of his services. Not long after, in the same year, Nairne was at last free. He now sold his commission, receiving for it L3,000. With the sale he renounced all claim to half-pay, pension, or other consideration for past services and the sum he received was, therefore, no very great final reward for his long services. There had been some competition for this commission and its final disposal throws some ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... CLEGGS returned aboard, His blithesome crew convulsive roar'd, To see him altered so. The Admiralty did insist That he upon the Half-pay List Immediately should go. ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... worthless United States certificates of indebtedness. His patriotic zeal in lending money to the National Government in her hour of need now bade fair to ruin him. The veteran of the Revolutionary War carried his half-pay certificate to the money-lender, glad to get even five shillings in the pound for it. Holders of various forms of State indebtedness besieged their State authorities for payment, rapidly approaching a point where they would welcome any ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... Great Britain in the comedy of the Bourbon and Orleanist collapse. Captain Duncan had retired from the army, changing his career from one of a chartered to an unchartered uselessness, and he herded with tarnished aristocracy and half-pay failures in the smoking-rooms ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... witnessing his incapacity in Italy, in 1800, put him on the full half-pay, and has lately made him a commander of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of the Lower Empire. Depend upon it, it is all Horace then, and Claudian now, among us; and if I had to begin again, I would mould myself accordingly. Crabbe's the man, but he has got a coarse and impracticable subject, and * * * is retired upon half-pay, and has done enough, unless he were to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... was a half-pay lieutenant, young Bonaparte was very fond of the "Lives of Famous Men" which Plutarch, the Roman historian, had written. But he never tried to live up to the high standard of character set by these heroes of the older days. Napoleon seems to have been devoid of all those considerate ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... as the world says. Haliburton has grown very rich in the rag and paper business, rich enough to discard rag money and believe in gold. He even spits at silver, which I am glad to get when I can. Frederic Ingham will never be rich. His regular income consists in his half-pay as a retired brevet officer in the patriot service of Garibaldi of the year 1859. For the rest, he invested his money in the Brick Moon, and, as I need hardly add, insured his life in the late Continental Insurance ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... on half-pay, had offended Arthur by a letter: a Gazette announcement informed him that he was placed under a ban;[149] and his name recorded, to prevent his participating in the "favors or indulgencies of the local government"—a help to official remembrance, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... spoken to, little girl! That's a question you are not qualified to answer. I'm on half-pay at present, and I haven't made up ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... important as disclosing the true story of his escape, of which the published accounts are, as appears, erroneous. Among other matter now printed for the first time may be mentioned a letter from the War Office to the Paymaster-General, directing Cranstoun's name to be struck off the half-pay list; and a letter from John Riddell, the Scots genealogist, to James Maidment, giving some account of the descendants of Cranstoun. For permission to publish these documents the Editor is indebted to the courtesy of Mr. A.M. Broadley and ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... of the prescriptions of some doctors, or by the efficacy of some baths; and was again on foot and in the world, tramping about in her grim pursuit of pleasure. Lady Julia, we are led to believe, had retired upon half-pay, and into an inglorious exile at Brussels, with her sister, the outlaw's wife, by whose bankrupt fireside she was perfectly happy. Miss Newcome was now her grandmother's companion, and they had been on a tour of visits in Scotland, and were journeying from country-house ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... letter was succeeded by another of the like comfortable kind, which informed me that the company in which I was, being an additional one raised in the beginning of the war, was reduced; so that I was now a lieutenant on half-pay. ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... distributed according to their rank and wealth. Notwithstanding, the governors do not make the allotment in accordance with this order. Sometimes they give it, under pretext of gratuities, to officers on half-pay, thus obliging the inhabitants to buy space at excessive prices. Sometimes they allot many toneladas for charitable purposes, in order that these may be sold, and the price [obtained for them] be used therefor, to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... a fishing-town, for besides the quantity of John Dorys caught there, it is a celebrated place for pursey half-pay officers to angle in for rich widows. The bait they generally use consists of dyed whiskers, and a distant relationship to some of the "gentles" or nobles of the land. The town itself is built upon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... drink, poverty, and a crack on the skull at the battle of Steenkirk had served to injure the former; and the Ensign was not in his best days possessed of any share of the latter. He had really, at one period, held such a rank in the army, but pawned his half-pay for drink and play; and for many years past had lived, one of the hundred thousand miracles of our city, upon nothing that anybody knew of, or of which he himself could give any account. Who has not a catalogue of these men in his list? ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... She throws out dark hints of her intention to compose a great work which shall settle everything. Then she bursts into poetry, and pens poems of so fiery a passion that her family are in consternation lest she should elope with the half-pay officer who meets her by moonlight on the pier. Then she plunges into science, and cuts her hair short to be in proper trim ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... sans reproche—but which was extinguished at last by the cord that tied the heroic Turpin to the remorseless tree. It were a subject well worthy of inquiry, to trace this decline and fall of the empire of the tobymen to its remoter causes; to ascertain the why and the wherefore, that with so many half-pay captains; so many poor curates; so many lieutenants, of both services, without hopes of promotion; so many penny-a-liners, and fashionable novelists; so many damned dramatists, and damning critics; so many Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviewers; so many detrimental brothers, and younger sons; when ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... light and eager eyes, fair hair plastered down upon an anxious forehead, a small drawn-bonnet of faded green taffetas lined with pink, a white gown with violet spots, and leather shoes. The count recognized the wife of some poor, half-pay captain, a puritan, subscribing no doubt to the "Courrier Francais," earnest in virtue, but aware of the comfort of a good ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... there this year that they called the "Hotel des Quatre Saisons" the "Hotel of Quarter Sessions." There were judges and their wives, serjeants and their ladies, Queen's counsel learned in the law, the Northern circuit and the Western circuit: there were officers of half-pay and full-pay, military officers, naval officers, and sheriffs' officers. There were people of high fashion and rank, and people of no rank at all; there were men and women of reputation, and of the two kinds of reputation; there were English ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... send a deputation of chiefs to receive him from the hands of Onontio, and calling upon them to do so without delay, lest he should think that they had forgotten him. Along with the messengers, Frontenac ventured to send the Chevalier d'Aux, a half-pay officer, with orders to observe the disposition of the Iroquois, and impress them in private talk with a sense of the count's power, of his good-will to them, and of the wisdom of coming to terms with him, lest, like an angry father, he should be forced at last to use the rod. The ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... Nissler had a sad tale to tell of them; [In Busching, Beitrage, i. 400, 401, account of their sacking of Nussler's pleasant home and estate, "Weissensee, near Berlin."] as who had not? Terror and murder, incendiary fire and other worse unnamable abominations of the Pit. One old Half-pay gentleman, whom I somewhat respect, desperately barricaded himself, amid his domestics and tenantries, Wife and Daughters assisting: "Human Russian Officers can enter here; Cossacks no, but shall kill us first. Not a Cossack till all ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... not prevent the expression of just and well-founded regret that the amelioration has spread to the opposite extreme; the placing a son in the navy being now a heavy tax instead of a relief, which we know is felt severely by old naval officers on half-pay, who naturally wish to employ a son in the service to ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... living at Boulogne before my husband was sent to the Cape," she said, choosing her words with care—"for the advantages of education, of course, and—well, dear Mrs Jardine, you know what half-pay means as well as I do, and I need not apologize, need I? Two elderly cousins of Sir Arthur's happened to pass through, and we were able to offer them hospitality when the packet was prevented crossing by a storm. They took the greatest ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... dismissal might originate. And is it not most probable that their inclination would run counter to those claims, especially when it is considered that my letter of the 6th of March to the Minister of Marine, in which I made the inquiry whether my right to half-pay would be recognized on the termination of the war, has never been answered, although my application for a reply has been repeated?[B] If then the explicit engagements in writing between the late minister of his ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... case of female degeneration we ever came into contact with was that of a daughter of a poor English officer on half-pay and who had to exist on a few hundreds a year. This woman could neither cook her own food nor make her own clothes, nor was she engaged in any social, political, or intellectual or artistic labour. Though able to dance for a night or ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... patriot's heart,[226] 300 When Eloquence and Virtue, (late Remark'd to live in mutual hate) Fond of each other's friendship grown, Claim every sentence for their own; And with an equal joy recites Parade amours and half-pay fights, Perform'd by heroes of fair weather, Merely by dint of lace and feather, As those rare acts which Honour taught Our daring sons where Granby[227] fought, 310 Or those which, with superior skill, Sackville achieved by standing still. This hag, (the curious, if they please, May search, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... his rider, and under the difficulty of the moment compelled him to withdraw the hand which held up the handkerchief, and suddenly to expose his features. Precisely at this critical moment it happened that an old half-pay officer passed, recognised the emperor, and saluted him. Perhaps it was with some purpose of applying a remedy to this unfortunate rencontre, that the party dismounted at a point where several roads met, and turned ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... copper have I but my pay, or am I likely to have. You may talk about descent, but a more descending family than mine was never in existence, for here am I with twenty-five pounds a-year, and a half-pay of 'nothing a day, and find myself,' when my great ancestor did just what he pleased with all Ireland, and everybody in it. But this is all nothing, except to prove satisfactorily that I am not worth a skillagalee, and that is the reason which induces ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... G. H. Q., feeling quite convinced that for the moment there was no room for me in German diplomacy; for the only policy which I regarded as right, had no prospect of being realized. After my return from America, I was placed on half-pay. I was therefore at liberty to return home, however unwilling I may have felt, at that moment of great tribulation for my country, to give myself up to a life of ease and idleness. During my period of rest, a Reichstag resolution ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... till eventide. 'Tis LIFE to reach the livery stable, Secure the RIBBONS and the DAY-BILL, And mount a gig that had a spring Some summer's back: and then take wing Behind (in Mr. Hamlet's tongue) A jade whose "withers are unwrung;" Who stands erect, and yet forlorn, And from a HALF-PAY life of corn, Showing as many POINTS each way As Martial's Epigrammata, Yet who, when set a-going, goes Like one undestined to repose. 'Tis LIFE to revel down the road, And QUEER each o'erfraught chaise's load, To rave and rattle at the GATE, And shower upon ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... 42d Regiment, in which he served to the close of the Pyrenees' campaign. Wounded at the battle of Toulouse, by a musket-ball penetrating his right shoulder, and otherwise debilitated, he retired from active service on half-pay, and with a pension for his wound. He now fixed his abode in Edinburgh, and devoted himself to literary pursuits. He contributed to Constable's Magazine, and other periodicals. For one of the earlier volumes of "Constable's Miscellany," he wrote a narrative of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... considerably discomposes the French. Who bestir themselves in Sweden and elsewhere against Russia and it: with no result,—except perhaps the incidental one, of getting our esteemed old friend Guy Dickens, now Sir Guy, dismissed from Stockholm, and we hope put on half-pay on his return home." [Adelung, vi. 250, 302:—Sir Guy, not yet invalided, "went ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... 30 pounds for each able seaman. An Act was also passed to enable those who came forward voluntarily to allot part of their pay to the maintenance of their wives and families. Seamen also were allowed to forward letters home on the payment only of a penny; half-pay officers and widows of officers were enabled to obtain their pay or pensions free ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... was away, I called regularly on Mrs. Bunter every Saturday, just to see whether she had any use for my services. It was understood I would do that. She had just his half-pay to live on—it amounted to about a pound a week. She had taken one room in a quiet little square in ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... you Croesuses make a half-pay Major of Artillery's head reel. If I were like you, I should go into a shop and buy a super-dreadnought, and stick a card on it with a drawing pin, and send it to the Admiralty with ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... Herefordshire hills and the valley of the Wye; and there could be no doubt that it was the identical spot that the doctors had seen in their dreams, when they described the sort of dwelling we were to choose. I wish I were a half-pay captain, with a wife and three children, a taste for gardening, and a poney-carriage. I wish I were a Benedict in the honeymoon. I wish I were a retired merchant, with a good sum at the bank, and a predilection for farming pursuits. I wish I were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... as missing, and the owners ceased the monthly remittance of Samuel's half-pay to his wife. It was the question of the child's legitimacy that preyed on her mind, and, when all hope of Samuel's return was abandoned, she drowned herself and the child in the loch. And here enters the ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... uncleared land. It may easily be supposed that no persons would encounter these hardships who have not a young family to establish in the healthful ways of independence. This family renders the residence of such a head still more valuable to the colony; and the half-pay officer, by thus leading the advanced guard of civilization, and bringing into these rough districts gentle and well-educated females, who soften and improve all around them by mental refinements, is ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Commercial Square, of which I formed an agreeable picture in my imagination; rather, perhaps, resembling the Junior United Service Club in Charles Street, by which every Londoner has passed ere this with respectful pleasure, catching glimpses of magnificent blazing candelabras, under which sit neat half-pay officers, drinking half-pints of port. The club-house of Gibraltar is not, however, of the Charles Street sort: it may have been cheerful once, and there are yet relics of splendour about it. When officers wore pigtails, and in the time of Governor O'Hara, it may have been a handsome ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... works again?" said an English half-pay captain, with one eye, who was a very frequent ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... years before he would naturally have been put on half-pay under the age limit, a little expedition was arranged against some unruly hill-tribes, and Colonel Parsons was given the command. He took the enemy by surprise, finding them at the foot of the hills, and cut off, by means of flanking bodies, ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... has, but that's another pair of shoes. There's some difference between him and a beggarly half-pay Colonel who will very likely have to black the boots to work out his bill. They ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... greater and greater gravity,[6141] "the reprimand in presence of an academical board, censure in presence of the University board, transfer to an inferior office, suspension with or without entire or partial deprivation of salary, half-pay or put on the retired list, or stricken off the University roll," and, in the latter case, "rendered incapable of obtaining employment in any other public administration."—"Every member of the University[6142] who shall fail to conform to the subordination ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the soldiers mentioned were used to forest life, from having been long stationed at frontier posts, and had thus become familiarized with its privations, and hardened against its dangers, it was no unusual thing for them to sell out, or go on half-pay, when the wants of a family began to urge their claims, and to retire to their "patents," as the land itself, as well as the instrument by which it was granted, was invariably termed, with a view of establishing themselves ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... my dear. We have no money to spare for speculating, and I don't think an old Indian cavalry officer on half-pay is quite the man to attempt ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... spoken to, little girl! That's a question you are not qualified to answer. I'm on half-pay at present, and I haven't made up ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... marquis of Espinola did the same, and in the year 609 granted him a permit to raise two hundred and fifty infantrymen, whom he led to the expulsion of the Moriscos from the kingdom of Valencia. Having been retired on half-pay, he went with the marquis de la Ynojosa on the expedition of Alarache. Lastly, he was in that of La Mamora, serving at his own cost. In the year of 620, your Majesty rewarded him with the office of governor and captain-general of the province of Yucatan, which he is filling with approval, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... his age;[1175] a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money acquired by himself. He began the world with a great hunger for money; the son of a half-pay officer, bred in a family, whose study was to make four-pence do as much as others made four-pence halfpenny do. But, when he had got money, he was very liberal.'[1176] I presumed to animadvert on his eulogy on Garrick, in his Lives of the Poets.[1177] 'You say, Sir, his death eclipsed ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... turned his pale grim face towards me—for his face was always somewhat grim, do you see—nodded and said, or I thought I heard him say, "All right, old chap." The next moment . . . my eyes water. He had a high heart, got into a scrape whilst in the marines, lost his half-pay, took to the turf, ring, gambling, and at last cut the throat of a villain who had robbed him of nearly all he had. But he had good qualities, and I know for certain that he never did half the bad things laid to his charge; for example, he never bribed Tom Oliver to fight cross, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... with an outside constituency, such as belongs to a practitioner of the second class. When a fellow like you chooses his beat, he must look ahead a little. Take care of all the poor that apply to you, but leave the half-pay classes to a different style of doctor,—the people who spend one half their time in taking care of their patients, and the other half in squeezing out their money. Go for the swell-fronts and south-exposure houses; the folks inside are just as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... Manila, on the completion of two years of service after date of return. An employee entitled to thirty-five days' accrued leave per annum who visits the United States after having rendered three years of service receives a total of two hundred thirteen days' accrued leave, vacation leave, and half-pay travel time. If he postpones his visit till he has completed five years of service, he receives a total of two hundred ninety-one days' accrued leave, vacation leave and travel time. An employee entitled to thirty days' accrued leave per annum who visits the United States after three years ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... promotions should be made from the army as a whole, and not from the colony- or State-line alone, and most unpopular of all, that since Continental soldiers could not otherwise be obtained, a bounty should be given to secure them, and that as compensation for their inadequate pay half-pay should be given them after the war. He eventually carried these points, but at the price of an entire alienation of the democratic party in the Congress, who wished to have the war fought with militia, to have all the officers elected annually, and to whom the very suggestion ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... grim face towards me—for his face was always somewhat grim, do you see—nodded and said, or I thought I heard him say, 'All right, old chap.' The next moment . . . my eyes water. He had a high heart, got into a scrape whilst in the Marines, lost his half-pay, took to the turf, ring, gambling, and at last cut the throat of a villain who had robbed him of nearly all he had. But he had good qualities, and I know for certain that he never did half the bad things laid to his charge; for example, he never ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... had been placed on half-pay, like so many others of the old war officers, and so, for nearly two years, he was able to remain with us. During all this time I can only once remember that there was the slightest disagreement between him and my mother. ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... years, when he was invited to be present at his sister's marriage with a Belgian banker. At the age of sixteen he lost his father, who, on dying, did not leave behind him enough of the world's wealth to pay for his own burial. His half-pay of course died with him, and young Tudor was ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... peace made by Captain Allen with Argier; and that the Dutch have sent part of their fleet round by Scotland; and resolve to pay off the rest half-pay, promising the rest in the spring, hereby keeping their men. But how true ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... former state of existence. He went to the baths every year and gambled; he returned to Paris for the winter; but, though he received some large sums from the depths of certain niggardly coffers, that sort of half-pay to a daring man kept for use at any moment and possessing many secrets of the art of diplomacy, was insufficient for the dissipations of a life as splendid as that of the king of dandies, the tyrant of several Parisian clubs. Consequently Comte Maxime was often uneasy about matters financial. ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... in soft diapasons, and with a mellifluous soprano which I instinctively knew must belong to a throat that could sing. Was it Nilsson? Just over my head was a jerky croak of a snore, sounding at intervals of half a minute, as if it had retired on half-pay and longed to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... And why not? Miss S.'s own fortune was 70l. a year, mine was 150l., and when we had 300l., we always vowed we would marry. "Ah!" thought I, "if I could but go to Somersetshire now, I might boldly walk up to old Smith's door" (he was her grandfather, and a half-pay lieutenant of the navy), "I might knock at the knocker and see my beloved Mary in the parlour, and not be obliged to sneak behind hayricks on the look-out for her, or pelt stones ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Pont Neuf, I must relate to you an adventure which, in the year 1786, happened to our friend P——-, who is now abroad, in a situation of considerable trust and emolument. He was, at that time, a half-pay subaltern in the British army, and visited Paris, as well from motives of economy as from a desire of acquiring the French language. Being a tall, fresh-coloured young man, as he was one day crossing the Pont Neuf, he caught the eye of a recruiting-officer, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... stays, and dressing in the fashion, and so shone in splendor for a short time, that the Baron thought her marriageable. Lisbeth at that stage was the piquante brunette of old-fashioned novels. Her piercing glance, her olive skin, her reed-like figure, might invite a half-pay major; but she was satisfied, she would say laughing, with her ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... this interview, at night, in Derville's room, the notary commissioned to advance the half-pay on Derville's account to his eccentric client, came to consult the attorney on a serious matter, and began by begging him to refund the six hundred francs that ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... fervour of belief in his creed to redeem him from the charge of absolute dulness. An abler thinker was Colonel (Robert) Torrens (1780-1864).[352] He had served with distinction in the war; but retired on half-pay, and was drawn by some natural idiosyncrasy into the dry paths of economic discussion. He was already confuting the French economists in 1808; and was writing upon the Bank-charter Act and the Ten Hours' Bill in 1844. Torrens held himself, apparently with justice, to be rather an independent ally ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... who greatly enhanced the value of home produce; but the cessation of hostilities restored matters to their natural order, and the Jerseymen bewail the return of peace and plenty with as much sincerity as any half-pay officer that ever doffed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... recruits joining every day. In September a number of parades were held in different localities, at which the General was accompanied by Sir Edward Carson, Mr. F.E. Smith, Captain James Craig, and other Members of Parliament. The local battalions were in many cases commanded by retired or half-pay officers of the regular army. At all these inspections Carson addressed the men, many of whom were now seeing their Commander-in-Chief for the first time, and pointed out that the U.V.F., being now under a single command, was no longer a mere collection of unrelated units, but ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... Edinburgh, and the wife and me had a holiday, and went down and saw Colonel and Mrs Maine, and those children grown up a'most into a man and woman. But Colonel Dyer had exchanged into another regiment, and they say he is going to retire on half-pay, on account ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... covered with firs and pines into the west strait. We passed Drummond's Island, and then coasted St. Joseph's Island, on the woody shore of which I was shown a solitary house. There I was told lives a long-nosed Englishman, a half-pay officer, with two wives, sisters, each the mother of a numerous offspring. This English polygamist has been more successful in seeking solitude than in avoiding notoriety. The very loneliness of his habitation on the shore causes it to be remarked, and there is not a passenger who makes the voyage ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... was, all covered with dust and blood—to Washington, who gave her the commission of sergeant as a reward for her bravery; in addition to that he recommended her to Congress as worthy to have her name placed upon the list of those entitled to half-pay during life. ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... their day. The first husband is a lord, an eldest son, and therefore heir to all the family property; the second is his younger brother, the husband of Pamela, who has been disinherited on account of his marriage, and lives on half-pay in a state but ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Shrewsbury, in the reign of George I., a half-pay officer, who was a nonresident burgess, was, with some other voters, brought down from London at the expense of Mr. Kynaston, one of the candidates. The old campaigner regularly attended and feasted at the houses which were opened for the electors in Mr. Kynaston's interest until ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... frigate. After having refitted, to our great mortification we were again under orders for the detestable station off Brest. The captain wrote to be superseded, and as there was no lack of sharp half-pay skippers looking-out, his request was ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... Arthur Wellesley himself. At that time these testimonies, slight and passing as they were, contributed to the pride and glory of my existence; and even now—shall I confess it?—when some gray hairs are mingling with the brown, and when my old dragoon swagger is taming down into a kind of half-pay shamble, I feel my heart warm ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... which could penetrate within this structure and its internal arrangements might have perceived in a corner, fastened to the planks, and immovable on its four wheels, the old hut of Ursus, placed on half-pay, allowed to rust, and from thenceforth dispensed the labour of rolling as Ursus was relieved from the labour of ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo |
