"Miserly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... threaded before one reached the inhabited wing; while fowls and pigs and squirrels had possession of the terrace lawns in front. It was not for want of money that Maskew let things remain thus, for men said that he was rich enough, only that his mood was miserly; and perhaps, also, it was the lack of woman's company that made him think so little of neatness and order. For his wife was dead; and though he had a daughter, she was young, and had not yet weight enough to make her father do things ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... when some one remarked that Mrs. Errington had died in exactly three minutes of the rupture of a blood-vessel on the brain. So this comfortable theory was exploded. And no other seemed tenable. No other explained the fact that this wealthy woman, notorious during her life for her miserly disposition, her neglect of charity, her curious hatred of the poor and complete emancipation from the tender shackles of philanthropy, bequeathed at death the greater part of her fortune to the destitute of London, and to the honest beggars whom fate persistently castigates, whom even Labour ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and scolded him more sharply than he had ever done before. At the same time he gave me orders, under pain of his displeasure, not to leave Ferrara without duly informing him; and commanded the treasurer to present me with a diamond up to three hundred crowns in value. The miserly official found a stone rising a trifle above sixty crowns, and let it be heard that it was worth ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... cost over a hundred thousand; that's his hobby just now. And do you know how it all came about? The peasants asked him for some meadowland, I think it was, at a cheaper rate, and he refused, and I accused him of being miserly. Of course it was not really because of that, but everything together, he began this hospital to prove, do you see, that he was not miserly about money. C'est une petitesse, if you like, but I ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... and of evil times evil men are the natural fruit. In nearly all respects Asgill was as unscrupulous a man as the time in which he lived and the class from which he sprang could show. Following in the steps of a griping, miserly sire, he had risen to his present station by oppression and chicanery; by crushing the weak and cajoling the strong. And he was prepared to maintain his ground by means as vile and a hand as hard. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... portrait of old Killian Vander Spiegel, once a burgomaster of Amsterdam, who, on some popular troubles, abandoned Holland and came over to the province during the government of Peter Stuyvesant. He was my ancestor by the mother's side, and an old miserly curmudgeon he was. When the English took possession of New-Amsterdam in 1664, he retired into the country. He fell into a melancholy, apprehending that his wealth would be taken from him and that he would come to beggary. He turned all his property into cash, and used ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... plan of funding debts; but, curiously enough, sordid capitalists and miserly landlords don't. I offered the other day to fund all my personal debts, in the shape of a long loan at three per cent, but my creditors did not take kindly to the idea. Such is the sordid meanness which is too sadly characteristic of the merely commercial mind. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... "You're a miserly coward," she declared. "I'm not robbing you; you will have an abundance for your needs. Why do you quarrel with Dame Fortune? Don't you realize you can pay your rent now and eat three square meals a day, and not have to work and slave for them? You can smoke a good cigar after your ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... bards of yore," startling us at a Sunday-school festival of tea and cake in an English village; we have a crazy gypsy, in a scarlet cloak, singing snatches of romantic song, and revealing a secret on her death-bed which, with the testimony of a dwarfish miserly merchant, who salutes strangers with a curse and a devilish laugh, goes to prove that Ernest, the model young clergyman, is Kate's brother; and we have an ultra-virtuous Irish Barney, discovering that a document ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... with whom he and the Indians lodged. When he got off he lay two days hidden in the hold of the vessel that was to carry him away. Then the Indians came out and so frightened its officers that he was sent ashore and put under the care of a miserly old fellow who ate the most of the food that was provided for Jogues. While he was hidden in this man's garret he was within a few feet of Indians who came there to trade. Finally the Dutch satisfied the Indians by paying a large ransom and shipped Jogues ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... of angling with great dexterity and patience, under the direction of both her parents, my handsome sister Annabella had succeeded in catching an eligible husband, in the shape of a wizen, miserly, mahogany-colored man, turned fifty, who had made a fortune in the West Indies. His name was Batterbury; he had been dried up under a tropical sun, so as to look as if he would keep for ages; he had two subjects ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... death she was rude of speech, untidy in appearance, loved nothing or respected nothing unless it might be her violin and her money, and lived alone in a little old house on the river-road to Springwells. Though she made shoes for a living, she was of so miserly a nature that she accepted food from her neighbors, and in order to save the expense of light and fuel she spent her evenings out. Yet she read more or less, and was sufficiently acquainted with Volney, Voltaire, and other skeptics to shock her church acquaintances. Love of gain, not of company, ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... the hills, and in utter amazement she turned to the equally astonished colonel for an explanation. It cams to him after a little. That bookcase, with its false bottom and secret drawers, had been the hiding place of the miserly John Stanley's gold. In his will, he had spoken of that particularly, bidding Hugh be careful of it, as it had come to him from his grandfather, and this was the result. What had been a mystery to the colonel was explained. He knew ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... and unappreciated in his home and its surroundings. On the contrary, he was at liberty to indulge his Bohemian tastes and do much as he listed. His father gave him a seemingly inadequate allowance. Yet Thomas Stevenson was not a miserly man. He begged his son to go to his tailor's, for he disapproved of the youth's scuffy, mounte-bankish appearance. He supplied him with an allowance for travel—in fact, R. L. S. had all his bills paid, and his own study in a very hospitable home. R, L. S. owned books, and jewels were ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... half,—three-eighths,—a quarter,—seventy-three!" Frye set his feet hard together, and clinched his hands. Only two cents in price stood between him and the loss of all his twenty years' saving. All the lies he had told for miserable gain, all the miserly self-denial he had practised, all the clients he had cheated and robbed, all the hatred he had won from others availed him not. His contemptible soul and his life, almost, now hung by a miserly ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... Leonora's money, must make a very handsome sum. But one of the faults of the American women is that they are seldom good managers. Leonora is either no exception to the rule—or else she is getting very miserly. Why, an Italian on Leonora's income ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... scowled as he followed her through the gate. He scowled at that invisible fate which preceded them both. Now, at the end of five years, they were living in a tenement house, a crowded, filthy place, ruled by a miserly, relentless landlord, whose gold ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Sordid, miserly. Probably from A.-S. harian, to become mouldy or musty. The word hoard may be ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... Tompkins, turning to his desk as soon as this man had departed. "Here comes more trouble. That miserly wretch has no more use for his money than the man in the moon. It seems to give him delight to make every one feel his power. It is for no other reason than this, that I am now to be harassed half out of my life in order to raise ten thousand dollars in a week, besides meeting ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... gone? My dear Ethel, so I would have gone, if Inez had come down in the sisterly way she should. But she hasn't. I give you my word of honor her conduct has been shabby in the extreme. A few hundreds—I asked no more—and she wouldn't. What was a miserly fifty pun' note to a man like me, with expensive tastes, and who has not set foot on British soil for two years? Not a jewel would she part with—all Sir Victor's presents, forsooth! And she's in love with Sir ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... it if you like! PRINCESS. But, papa, where in the world is the Court? There is positively no one here to receive us! I can't help feeling that Rudolph wants to get out of it because I'm poor. He's a miserly little wretch—that's what he is. PRINCE. Well, I shouldn't go so far as to say that. I should rather describe him as an enthusiastic collector of coins—of the realm—and we must not be too hard upon a numismatist if he feels a certain disinclination ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... the actual, daily representations of the tales of Boccaccio and La Fontaine! Without the girdles and scapularies, what would you have our women do in the future—save that money and perhaps become miserly and covetous? Without the masses, novenaries, and processions, where will you find games of panguingui to entertain them in their hours of leisure? They would then have to devote themselves to their household duties and instead of reading diverting stories of miracles, we should ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... lacked expression, his eyes seemed dull, and something hard and icy in his looks revealed his wild character and foreign extraction. His tutor's portrait Petrarch has drawn for us: crimson face, hair and beard red, figure short and crooked; proud in poverty, rich and miserly; like a second Diogenes, with hideous and deformed limbs barely concealed beneath his ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... puts his fancies into the mouth of Alphius, a miserly money-lender. No one yearns so keenly for the country and its imagined peace as the overworked city man, when his pulse is low and his spirits weary with bad air and the reaction of over-excitement; no one, as a rule, is more apt to tire of the homely and uneventful ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... habits by making them look out for presents—that my income not only seemed to me disproportioned to the amount of labour necessary in the parish, but certainly was larger than I required to spend upon myself; and the miserly passion for books I contrived to keep a good deal in check; for I had no fancy for gliding devil-wards for the sake of a few books after all. So there was no great virtue—was there?—in easing my heart by ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... are very fond of broiled eels. A rich merchant, named Kisaburo, who was very miserly with his money, once moved his quarters next door to the shop of one Kichibei, who caught and cooked eels for a living. During the night Mr. Kichibei caught his stock in trade, and in the day-time served them, smoking hot, to his customers. Cut into pieces ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... "When miserly Bees shall return from their toils, We'll catch them, and tie them, and feast on the spoils; I'll lighten their burdens—I ought to know how— My pantry is full ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... on the subject. He was for interrupting the work semi-occasionally, but when the interruptions became too frequent, she would say: "Don't, Dic," and laughingly push him away. She was not miserly. She was simply frugal, and Dic had no good reason to complain. After every dish had been washed and dried many times, Rita started toward her torture chamber, the ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... could not have found one thought of personal interest. In 1814, when the rector of Guerande suggested to the baron that he should go to Paris and claim his recompense from the triumphant Bourbons, the old sister, so saving and miserly ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... of much use, I fear," said Tregarthen. "Hitchin is a tough old rascal, with a hard heart and a miserly disposition. However, it may be worth while to make the attempt, for you have a very ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... Voiture's name, I shall add a very droll "soi-disant" impromptu of his, composed to ridicule Mademoiselle Chapelain, the sister of the poet. Like her brother, she was most miserly in her habits, and not distinguished by that virtue which some ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... neither fat nor lean, neither short nor tall, neither rubicund nor pale, neither gay nor sad, neither contented nor discontented, neither energetic nor dull, neither proud nor humble, neither good nor bad, neither generous nor miserly, neither courageous nor cowardly, neither too much nor too little of anything—a man notably moderate in all respects, whose invariable slowness of motion, slightly hanging lower jaw, prominent eyebrows, massive forehead, smooth ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... England, there were two brothers named Nickleby who had grown up to be very different men. Ralph was a rich and miserly money-lender who gained his wealth by persecuting the poor of London—a thin, cold-hearted, crafty man with a cruel smile. The other, who lived in the country, was generous but poor, so that when he died he left his wife and two children, Nicholas and Kate, with hardly ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... morning, discoursing on the affairs of Egypt, the aspect of which, he assured me, was becoming daily worse and worse. There is no living for the poor people, brother, said he, the chokengres (police) pursue us from place to place, and the gorgios are become either so poor or miserly, that they grudge our cattle a bite of grass by the wayside, and ourselves a yard of ground to light a fire upon. Unless times alter, brother, and of that I see no probability, unless you are made either poknees ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... as an ill omen. She was the white man's fly. In fact, she was the epitome of the white man himself. She has the white man's craftiness, his industry, his architectural skill, his neatness and love of system, his foresight; and, above all, his eager, miserly habits. The honey- bee's great ambition is to be rich, to lay up great stores, to possess the sweet of every flower that blooms. She is more than provident. Enough will not satisfy her; she must have all she can get by hook or by crook. She comes ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... the master were regarded as very eccentric by his neighbors, and furnished frequent food for comment and speculation among the gossips which usually abound in country villages—and not in this case without cause. His manner of living was miserly and penurious in the extreme, and all ideas of comfort seemed to be ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... perhaps, have been drawn forth, to add a few years of existence to some feeble graybeard,—granting, what rests on no proofs, that some of the alchemists reached an age rarely given to man. But it is not in the miserly crucible, it is in the matrix of Nature herself, that we must seek in prolific abundance Nature's grand principle,—life. As the loadstone is rife with the magnetic virtue, as amber contains the electric, so in this substance, to which we yet want a name, is found the bright life-giving fluid. In ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... began) I come of a rather old family. I am not proud of my descent, seeing that my ancestors were all fearful prodigals. Though that reproach cannot indeed be made against my great-grandfather, Ivan Andreevitch Lutchinov; on the contrary, he had the character of being excessively careful, even miserly—at any rate, in the latter years of his life. He spent his youth in Petersburg, and lived through the reign of Elizabeth. In Petersburg he married, and had by his wife, my great-grandmother, four children, three sons, Vassily, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... discussing those which are real, I say that all men when they are spoken of, and chiefly princes for being more highly placed, are remarkable for some of those qualities which bring them either blame or praise; and thus it is that one is reputed liberal, another miserly, using a Tuscan term (because an avaricious person in our language is still he who desires to possess by robbery, whilst we call one miserly who deprives himself too much of the use of his own); one ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... sat for hours and planned and talked and wondered—how were we to meet the expense? There was nothing in the savings bank, and much was needed there. Mother had cherished for years her ideas for her baby's outfit. They would cost money; and I would be no miserly father, either! My child should have the best of everything, somehow. It was up to me to get it, somehow, to.... If only ...
— Making the House a Home • Edgar A. Guest
... books of a great collection are a part, not merely of their own property, though they are only the agents for their distribution, but that they are, as it were, outlying portions of their own organization. The old Librarian was getting a miserly feeling about his books, as he called them. Fortunately, he had a young lady for his assistant, who was never so happy as when she could find the work any visitor wanted and put it in his hands,—or her hands, for there were more readers among the wives and—daughters, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Ahab, it can only be said that he had his father's faults without his father's virtues. Ahab was liberal, Joram miserly, nay, he even indulged in usurious practices. From Obadiah, the pious protector of the prophets in hiding, he exacted a high rate of interest on the money needed for their support. As a consequence, at his death he fell pierced between his arms, the arrow going out at his heart, for he had ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... her, his heart overflowing with joy. He worked steadily, spent little, tried to save some money that he might not be without a sou at the time of his marriage, and became as miserly as he had once been prodigal. Summer glided by; then autumn, and no one suspected the tie existing between Duroy and Mme. Forestier, for they ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... have the power to betray all the miserly emotions and mean parsimonies usually concealed ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... so shall it be bravely done. I will give orders at once for the cutting and sewing. I will back our white coats against Master Hampden's green coats, or Essex's swarm in orange-tawny. Have you conveyed my message to my two miserly neighbors?" ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... deep-set, serious eyes, and firm mouths, with lips close together. The air on this hill-top must be of excellent quality; the life up here could scarcely be so hard as in the field villages. For the women looked less worn, and less hideously old, and in the men's eyes there was not so hard and miserly a glittering. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... miserly elf, Who, in hoarding his pelf, Keeps body and soul on the rack, O! Would he bless and be blest, He might open his chest By taking a pipe ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... thorns which are the most difficult to bear. The household of the mind is a thrifty one, and only so much is spent as is necessary. There is no squandering on trifles, and its wealth of strength is saved up with miserly strictness to meet the really big calamities. So any amount of weeping and wailing over the lesser griefs fails to evoke a charitable response. But when sorrow is deepest there is no stint of effort. Then the surface crust is pierced, and consolation wells up, and all the ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... he found the principal man of the Small People, a little old crusty fellow and very miserly. And when the great enchanter asked him for a drink of water, the Small Man told him he didn't keep a hotel for beggars. And this made the great enchanter so angry that he struck the ground with his staff, so that it made a deep hole, and then he ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... are sometimes loved by women when their sorrow has chained them to the rock of horror, and grief insatiable tears out their broken hearts. But in their strength they are not loved. They cannot give themselves yet, for their strength hinders them, and women think them miserly of words and of love's little coin of change. If they get love at last, it is as the pity which the unhurt weak feel ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... I can go without them," replied the countess, laughing. "I will be very respectful to a twenty-franc piece, and grow as miserly as the country people themselves. Come, my dear abbe, give me your arm. Leave the general with his two ministers, and let us go to the gate of the Avonne to see Madame Michaud, for I have not had time since ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... anybody's fool, whatever the division thought, and he was right down to the basic root of things from the start. Coupled with the stunted growth that nature in a miserly mood had doled out to him, none knew better than himself that the name of "Toddles," keeping that nature stuff patently before everybody's eyes, damned him in his aspirations for a bona fide railroad career. Other boys got a job and got their feet ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... wagon, bought an immense dinner bell and he was hit unmercifully. A rusty old fly-catcher elicited many remarks—as "no flies on that." I bought several chests, half full of rubbish, but found, alas! no hidden treasure, no missing jewels, no money hid away by miserly fingers and forgotten. Jake Corey, who was doing some work for me, encouraged me to hope. He said: "I hear ye patronize auctions putty reg'lar; sometimes there is a good deal to be made that way, and then ag'in there isn't. I never had no luck that way, but it's like getting married, ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... bear in silence the shocks of fate. Such an attitude cannot be considered that of maintaining opinions, it becomes sheer obstinacy. Action is the essence of party. Without intelligence, but loyal, miserly as a peasant yet noble in demeanor, bold in his wishes but discreet in word and action, turning all things to profit, willing even to be made mayor of Cinq-Cygne, Monsieur d'Hauteserre was an admirable representative of those honorable gentlemen on whose brow God Himself has ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... vanity of the world, are those who most greedily covet it. This is not peculiar to the ambitious, but is common to all who are ill—used by fortune, and who are infirm in spirit. For a poor man also, who is miserly, will talk incessantly of the misuse of wealth and of the vices of the rich; whereby he merely torments himself, and shows the world that he is intolerant, not only of his own poverty, but also of other people's riches. So, again, those who have ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... she do to hinder the fun, the sport they are making out of yon poor trembler who has come to redeem his bride. They begin by bargaining with him; they laugh at the pangs endured by "the miserly peasant;" they suck the very blood and marrow of him. Why all this fury? Because he is neatly clad; is honest, settled; is a man of mark in the village. Why, indeed? Because she is pious, chaste, and pure; because she loves him; because she is frightened and falls a-weeping. ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... him back to the indignant magistrate, who, deaf to his attempts at defence, sent him to prison. Now, in the East, the claws of justice open just as wide, and no wider than the purse of the culprit; and it may be supposed that Abon Casem, who was known to be as rich as he was miserly, did not get his freedom at the same rate ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... Paris, he presented Berlioz with 20,000 francs, in order to enable him to pursue his career as a composer unhampered by financial distress. This act was greatly to Paganini's credit, and entirely contrary to the prevalent opinion concerning him, which was that he was very miserly. Among the works which Paganini produced was a set of caprices for the violin which were essentially novelties for the instrument. He enlarged the resources of the violin in every direction, employing ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... which Carmichael's face had changed, "you are incorrigible. For years we have been trying to make you a really good and wise man, both by example and precept, and you are distinctly worse than when we began—more lazy, miserly, and ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... nothing to the miserly Pope Pius, he this time found no inconvenience in keeping his sacred promise, though not so promptly as Corilla and the passionate ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... not experienced the feelings I describe, dear reader, I pity you, and am forced to conclude that you must have been either awkward or miserly, and therefore ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova • David Widger
... capricious, and physically revolting. At dinner she will suddenly go off into sham hysterics because of some article in the newspaper. An affected thing." Another daughter-in-law: "In society she behaves passably, but at home she is a dolt, smokes, is miserly, and when she drinks tea, she keeps the sugar between her lips and teeth and speaks at ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... instruments must be carefully handled or not handled at all. But how recklessly some people wield the judgments of God! If a man meet with business misfortune, how many there are ready to cry out: "That is a judgment of God upon him because he was unscrupulous, or arrogant, or overreaching, or miserly. I thought he would get cut down! What a clean sweep of everything! His city house and country house gone! His stables emptied of all the fine bays and sorrels and grays that used to prance by his door! All his resources overthrown, and all that he ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... ought to feel bound to maintain me, should be rolling in wealth, and cottoned up in a palace. But he shall fork out. Sophy must be hunted up. I will clothe her in rags like these. She shall sit at his street-door. I will shame the miserly hunks. But how track the girl? Have I no other hold over him? Can I send Dolly Poole to him? How addled my brains are!—want of food, want of sleep. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mind is not then aware that there are many more such to come. When this comes to be known to that calculating organ it promptly tries to make a saving in its expenditure of attention. It is only when it believes something to be rare that the mind ceases to be miserly in assigning values. So in the streets of Calcutta I sometimes imagine myself a foreigner, and only then do I discover how much is to be seen, which is lost so long as its full value in attention is not paid. It is the hunger to really see which drives ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... self-murder, yet disgrace is not the only thing we have to fear in the course of our brief pilgrimage. We emerge from eternity, we plunge into eternity; we have but a brief space to poise ourselves in the light ere we drop into the gulf of doom, and our duty is to be miserly over every moment and every faculty that is vouchsafed to us. The essentials of thought and knowledge are contained in a very few books, and the most toilsome drudge who ever preached a sermon, drove a rivet, or swept a floor may become perfectly educated ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... "Miserly, indeed!" said he; "not that: he married three rimes, and he was not a man who restricted his official business to too few hands—how could ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... miserly, that he turned away the housemaid for burning candles eight to the pound. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of this story the trustees of the Fairham Poor-house had decided to bind Hal out to Daniel Scrogg, one of the most miserly farmers ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... from the standpoint of a statesman. To order expenditure of all kinds, even useless ones, does not constitute bad management. Such acts contribute to the movement of money, the stagnation of which becomes, especially in France, dangerous to the public welfare, by reason of the miserly and profoundly illogical habits of the provinces which hoard ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... services which you have allowed me to render you have brightened the closing days of my life. You have left me a treasury of happy memories which I shall hoard, when you are gone, with miserly care. Are you willing to add new claims to my grateful remembrance? I ask it of you, as a last favor—do not attempt to see me again! Do not expect me to take a personal leave of you! The saddest of all words is 'Good-by': I have fortitude enough ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... some sweet, some bitter lessons— none wiser than this: To spend in all things else, but of one's friends to be most miserly. ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... think that nowadays people attach far too much importance to chastity. Not that I deny that chastity is a virtue, but there are degrees in virtues just as there are in vices. It seems to be absurd that a woman should be banished from society for having had a lover, while a woman who is miserly, double-faced and spiteful goes everywhere. The morality of this age is assuredly not that which is taught in the Gospel. In my opinion it is better to love too much than not enough. Nowadays dry hearts are stuck up on a pinnacle" (Revue des Deux ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... her silvery face Reflects the mansions that her margins grace. Those mansions fair are seen on every hand, (What may not wealth, in such a place, command?) And mark their owners men of wealth and taste; Not miserly, nor yet ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... that M. Thiers has been guilty of treating certain members of his family with great meanness, and in society many scandalous stories have been repeated illustrating his miserly economy. ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... the almighty dollar has been his sole aim and ambition. He has been selfish and miserly in the pursuit of it, and money is all he has gained. Now Todd has been industrious enough, and gone about his business quite as faithfully as Ab, but instead of putting his head down like a dog on the scent of a rabbit, he has had some thought of the people he passed. I like that in a ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... original expenditure for building and fitting must be magnificent, and the current expenditure for cleaning and refitting magnanimous; but a certain proportion of this current cost should be covered by small entrance fees, exacted, not for any miserly helping out of the floor-sweepers' salaries, but for the sake of the visitors themselves, that the rooms may not be incumbered by the idle, or disgraced by the disreputable. You must not make your Museum a refuge against either rain or ennui, nor let into perfectly well-furnished, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... never make her husband out. He was so careful, so—so miserly in some ways, so wildly extravagant in others. All this furniture had come from Germany, and must have cost a pretty penny. It was true that he had got it, or so he assured her, with very heavy discount off—and that no doubt ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... couple had always led a retired life and had kept aloof from the very gay portion of society. They lived well, according to their station, and so far as any one could see; but it had always been said that Gregorio Macomer was miserly. At the same time it suited his wife, for reasons of her own, not to be conspicuous in the world, and she encouraged him to lead a quiet existence, spending half the year in the country, and receiving very few people when in Naples during ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... might have been supposed that the incessant wars and political intrigues in which he was constantly engaged would have given him no time for amusements of this kind, yet he was, nevertheless, the keenest sportsman of his day. This tyrant of the Castle of Plessis-les-Tours, who was always miserly, except in matters of hunting, in which he was most lavish, forbade even the higher classes to hunt under penalty of hanging. To ensure the execution of his severe orders, he had all the castles as well as the cottages searched, and any net, engine, or sporting arm found was ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... that is probably the means by which the miller had originally obtained the boat. He was of a miserly nature, was Uncle Jabez Potter, and the old boat—which its first owner had never considered worth coming after, following some spring freshet—served the miller well enough to transport ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... mountain side the hemlock, the pine, the birch, the spruce, the fir, and finally you come to little dwarfed trees, that look like other trees seen through a telescope reversed—every limb twisted as though in pain—getting a scanty subsistence from the miserly crevices of the rocks. You go on and on, until at last the highest crag is freckled with a kind of moss, and vegetation ends. You might as well try to raise oaks and elms where the mosses grow, as to raise great men and great women where their surroundings are unfavorable. You must ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... for he well knew that his Lordship of Treves was somewhat miserly in the dispensing of his hospitality. He preferred to see his guests drink the wine of a poor vintage rather than tap the cask which contained the yield of a good year. His Majesty smiled, because he imagined his nobles thought of the replenishing ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... me on the hip there, thou old miserly cony-catcher!" answered the captain, taking a bale of dice from the sleeve of his coat; "I must always keep company with these damnable doctors, and they have made me every baby's cully, and purged my purse into an atrophy; but never mind, it passes the time ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... to a wonderful degree of sharpness; and by reason of this the less respectful of the townspeople were accustomed to say, "The Deacon is very small at home, but great in a trade." Not that the Deacon could by any means be called an avaricious or miserly man: he had always his old Spanish milled quarter ready for the contribution-box upon Collection-Sundays; and no man in the parish brought a heavier turkey to the parson's larder on donation-days: but he could no more resist the sharpening of a bargain than he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... thus freed themselves from the yoke of the Achaean League, now fell into far worse hands, for they were governed by a tyrant named Na'bis,—a cruel and miserly man, who, in order to increase his treasure, often had recourse ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... but all beggars are reconciled at the porringer. That cursed Observateur litteraire, I wish the devil had had both him and his sheet! It was that dog of a miserly priest who caused my disaster. He appeared on our horizon for the first time; he arrived at the hour that drives us all out of our dens, the hour for dinner. When it is bad weather, lucky the man among us who has a shilling ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... patrons at "Malahide" were two quiet, polite little Japanese gentlemen, Mr. Den and Mr. Yabe; Madame Galli, a shrivelled old woman in a cheap wig, with sharp rat's eyes that nothing escaped, the soul of good nature, rich, miserly and incredibly mischievous. There were several boarders who were in business in the City, and Mr. Hutton, a careworn man of fifty, who spent his days working in the British Museum. Next to him at table sat Douglas Shafto, now a well set-up, self-possessed ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... reverse. She listened to the soft, regular breathing of her daughter, who was wrapped in refreshing slumber, and thanked God for the quick forgetfulness of youth. It was like a fresh draught of life and hope to think of her courage and perseverance in finding out and affronting her miserly uncle. Good must come ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... mysterious rummage. Garrets and closets surrendered their hoards to her; files of old newspapers, old ledgers, old letter-backs, began to accumulate in heaps,—everything but books, for Jane had a religious respect for their recondite lore; she cut the margins off the magazines, and she grew miserly of the very shreds ravelling under Vivia's fingers. At length, one morning, after she had watched the windows unweariedly as a cat watches a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... on this suggestion, Van Nant told of an adventure Carboys had had in Persia some years previously. It appears that he saved the life of a miserly old Arab called Abdul ben Meerza at the risk of his own; that the old man was profuse in his expressions of gratitude, and, on their parting, had said: 'By the Prophet, thou shalt yet find the tree of this day's planting bear rich fruit for thee and thy feet walk upon golden stones.' But, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... practice. There was an old woman very miserly. She would alway be taking one of her neighbours' sheep from the hills, and they stood it for long; they did not like to meddle with her. At last it grew so bad that they brought her before the sheriff, and she got eighteen months in prison. When she came out she was ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... cannot disclaim for our own parallel period, and which was much worse among the French, who have a choice selection of epithets for it. But the fortunes of the youthful Thomas—child of a prostitute of the lowest class, though a very good mother, who afterwards marries a miserly and ruffianly corporal of police—are told with a good deal of spirit—one even thinks of Colonel Jack—and the author shows his curious vulgar common sense, and his knowledge of human nature of a certain kind, pretty frequently, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... of Irishmen have lived and died paupers, owing to the barbarous laws enacted for that special purpose, few indeed among them have been reduced even by hard necessity and the extreme of misery to manifest a pauper spirit and a miserly bent. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... squire, saw this, sighed deeply, and wondered: "Why was my father only a miller? What favours are granted to a knight like that! But I hope the kiss won't be the end of it all; for, unless she is a miserly fairy, there ought to be much more substantial pay for his services ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Manerville died in 1810. Having learned the importance of worldly goods through the dissipations of his youth, and, giving them, like many another old man, a higher place than they really hold in life, Monsieur de Manerville became increasingly economical, miserly, and sordid. Without reflecting that the avarice of parents prepares the way for the prodigalities of children, he allowed almost nothing to his son, although that son was an ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... coma Cal Maggard opened his eyes weakly and had strength only to smile up at the face above him with its nimbus of bronze set about the heaviness of dark hair—or to spend his scarcely audible words with miserly economy. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... shoulders, which seemed to have become detached from their trunks and to roll about one atop of the other, she would exclaim unhesitatingly, "Ah, there's that big booby of a cousin; there's that miserly old Gavard; and there's the hunchback; and there's that maypole of a Clemence!" Then, when the action of the shadow-play became more pronounced, and they all seemed to have lost control over themselves, she felt an irresistible impulse to go downstairs to try to ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... volume tells how the hero ran away from his miserly guardian, fell in with a successful airman, and became a young aviator ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... Farnham when the weather is fine and the yield abundant. I, however, lost no time in making diligent and minute inquiry as to the character and habits of Jackson, and the result was a full conviction that nothing but the fear of being denounced as an accomplice could have induced such a miserly, iron-hearted rogue to put himself to charges in ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... living a lady, a widow, surrounded by a numerous household of serfs. Her sons were in the government service at Petersburg; her daughters were married; she went out very little, and in solitude lived through the last years of her miserly and dreary old age. Her day, a joyless and gloomy day, had long been over; but the evening of her life was ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... as if it were "tied in" close to the hand, the person is timid, easily frightened by both people and circumstances, narrow-minded in his views, and miserly in his habits. It is a well-established fact that the thumbs of all misers are "tied in" and cramped-looking. It is perhaps this very fear of things and people that in the end makes them misers with ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... softly out of the room and sat down in her old place on the stairs. So this was how Sophia Jane had spent the half-crown! How differently to anything Susan had imagined. Instead of being miserly and selfish, she was generous and self-sacrificing—instead of her own pleasure, she had preferred to give pleasure to Monsieur. And why? Because he had been kind to her. He was the only person, Susan remembered, who had ever ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... Anthesteria made in the play, two statements cannot fail to attract attention. In v. 504 f. the poet informs us that this is not the Greater Dionysia, when strangers, tribute-bearers, and allies were present. It is the contest at the Lenaeum. In v. 1150 f. the chorus frees its mind concerning the miserly fashion in which Antimachus treated them at a previous celebration of the Lenaea. Shall we say that the poet, in order to speak of things present before the eyes of Page 74 the Athenians, steps, in these two passages, entirely outside ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... was indeed comparatively rich, and though economical in his domestic arrangements, he had money in the bank enough to keep him comfortably for the rest of his days. His violence did not extend beyond words and black looks, and he was not miserly about a few francs for dress, or a dinner at the Falcone two or three times a year. But in the matter of domestic peace his conduct left much to be desired. He was a sober man, but his hours were irregular, ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... moodily. He was pulled between necessity and desire. He had come to Asia for this filigree basket, and he wanted it, with a passion which was almost miserly. At one moment he silently vowed to cast the whole thing into the sea, and at the next his fingers would twitch and ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... by doing so, but because he justly regarded waste as wicked. His example in this particular, in a city so given to careless and ostentatious profusion as New York, was most useful. We needed such an example. Nor did he appear to carry this principle to an extreme. He was very far from being miserly, though keenly intent ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... inhabitants submitted without offering resistance to their inevitable fate, and were placed under the governor of Cilicia. The ample treasure of nearly 7000 talents (1,700,000 pounds), which the equally covetous and miserly king could not prevail on himself to apply for the bribes requisite to save his crown, fell along with the latter to the Romans, and filled after a desirable fashion the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... throwing some apples from his pocket out of window to a poor child who was passing; "what I expect is, to have to work very hard for my living, and, as I am the eldest, I look upon it that I ought to do something for mamma, and the girls into the bargain. But for all that I hope I shall never turn a miserly screw. Why, when God gives us health, food, clothing, and lodging, don't you think that hoarding and hoarding, instead of dispensing the blessings, and performing such acts of kindness as may be in our power ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... receive all these unwelcome attentions. Moreover, his work, clear-cut, unobtrusive, and capable, pleased M. Joseph. And when the patron himself dined at the cafe, Ambroise was the garcon selected to wait upon him. Hence the jealousy of his colleagues. Couple to this the fact that he was reported miserly, and had saved a large sum—which were all sufficient reasons ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... rocket apparatus on this part of the coast; no mortar apparatus by which a line might be sent on board: Why not? The nearest lifeboat station is fifteen miles off: Whose fault is that? Is the storm our enemy here? Is not selfish, calculating, miserly man his own enemy in this case? So the ship goes to pieces, and the result is that the loss of this single vessel makes 60 widows and 150 fatherless children in one night! not to speak of thousands of pounds' worth of property ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... the French people, as well as of Italian skies, from English literature. The probability was that our earliest association with the Gallic race partook largely of the ridiculous. All the extravagant anecdotes of morbid self-love, miserly epicurism, strained courtesy, and frivolous absurdity current used to boast a Frenchman as their hero. It was so in novels, plays, and after-dinner stories. Our first personal acquaintance often confirmed this prejudice; for the chance was that the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was no matter; they were so new, so strange, so puzzling,—the beautiful, the quaint, and the faulty were so interwoven, that nobody cared to separate these elements, to take the trouble to criticize or to thank; and thus, though we all gladly enough received, we kept our miserly voices to ourselves, and she never met with any adequate recognition. After her first book, England quietly ignored her,—they could not afford to be so startled; as Sir Leicester Dedlock said, "It was really—really—"; she did very well for the circulating libraries; and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... with every one; and every one spoke well of him. "What a generous, whole-souled fellow he is!" or, "What a noble heart he has!" were the expressions constantly made in regard to him. While "Mean fellow!" "Miserly dog!" and other such epithets, were unsparingly used in speaking of a quiet, thoughtful young man, named Merwin, who was clerk with him in the same store. Merwin appeared to set an undue value upon money. He rarely indulged himself in any way, and it was ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... illustrious and great who are distinguished by their virtue and liberality, as well as their riches; for the great man who is vicious is only a great sinner, and the rich man who wants liberality is but a miserly pauper. ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... could regard him as mean or miserly. Could he have read Jasper's thoughts as he left the house he would have felt even less regret ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... his word. He ate and drank like one who has gone hungry for three whole days, he was enchanted with the tambourine of Musli, listened with open mouth to his story of the miserly slippers, and laughed as heartily as if he had never heard it at least a hundred ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... There I dwelt when I was fifteen years of age, a maid hungry in soul and body. I knew I was of the seed of Forester John and through him the child of a motley of ancient kings, but war and famine had stripped our house to the bone. And now I, the last of the stock, dwelt with a miserly mother's uncle who did shipwright's work for the foreign captains. The mirror told me that I was fair to look on, though ill-nourished, and my soul assured me that I had no fear. Therefore I had hope, but I ate my ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... it ended, with political murder. The miserly Henry VII had made use of two tools, Empson and Dudley, who, by minute inquisition into technical offences and by nice adjustment of fines to the wealth of the offender, had made the law unpopular and the king rich. Four days after his succession, Henry VIII ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... them our couple was much discussed. Something got to be known of Jamie,—that he was confidential clerk to the well-known firm of Boston's older ship-owners, and that she was his adopted daughter. Soon the rumor grew that he was miserly ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... latter, as they drove away, "you are to be congratulated. You have brought your family into a nice little inheritance if all our miserly old friend ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... The result is that the state is not one, nor two, but diverse. Folk say what they like and do what they like, and anyone is a statesman who will wave the national flag. That is democracy. Such is the son of your miserly oligarch; deprived of unnecessary pleasures, he is tempted to wild dissipation. He has no education to help him to distinguish, and the vices of dissipation assume the aspect and titles of virtue. He fluctuates from one point of view to another—is one thing to-day ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... among the wives is not always the rule in polygamous families. In equatorial Africa the wives themselves incline to polygamy and regard a rich man who restricts the number of his wives as miserly. Livingstone relates that the women of Makololo declared they would not live in monogamous England, for any respectable man should prove his wealth by the number of his wives. We must not forget that ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... one understand the same man at once miserly-economical and madly-prodigal, storming when his wife spent a few cents, and robbing to supply the expenses of an adventuress, and collecting in the same drawer the jeweler's accounts ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... useless, but because if expended it would be very acceptable to its recipients. The world has commended the man who gives out of his superfluity, but it has condemned him who keeps too much to himself. All literature, from the earliest times, is full of denunciation of such a character. The miserly and the stingy have been impaled over and over again on ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... he exclaimed, "does the miserly old hayseed expect me to spend a million for newspapers, cigarettes and Boston terriers? I ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... come! You are no longer the same Moor. Do you remember how, a thousand times, bottle in hand, you made game of the miserly old governor, bidding him by all means rake and scrape together as much as he could, for that you would swill it all down your throat? Don't you remember, eh?—don't you remember?' O you good-for-nothing, miserable braggart! that was ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... understand that now,' said Quilp; 'but I was going to say, I was so deceived by that, your miserly way, the reputation you had among those who knew you of being rich, and your repeated assurances that you would make of my advances treble and quadruple the interest you paid me, that I'd have advanced you, even now, what you want, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... often happens that a prophet has no honor among his own people, and David was the black sheep of the miserly household of Denton Farm. It consisted of old Christopher Denton, his three sons, Matthew, Sam, and David, and his daughter Jennie. They had the reputation of being "people well-to-do," but they were not liked among the Cumberland "states-men," who had small sympathy for their ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... but be quiet. Have no anxieties about the things that pertain to this life, and Jesus will clothe you with the beauties of heaven. Character, as the years pass on, is revealed on the face. The miser's face shows the miserly condition of his heart. Jesus will stamp his own image upon the soul if the soul is kept in quietness, and this image will stand out in beauty on the face and ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... this!" Tidemand would often say when he gave his signature. His father had a reputation for miserly thrift which had survived him; he was one of the old-fashioned tradesmen, who went around in his shirt-sleeves and apron, and weighed out soap and flour by the pound. He had no time to dress decently; his shoes were still a byword; the toes were sticking out, and when he walked it looked ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... social commerce called "an apology!" If the chemists were half so careful in vending their poisons, there would be a notable diminution in the yearly average of victims to arsenic and oxalic acid. But, alas, in the matter of apology, it is not from the excess of the dose, but the timid, niggardly, miserly manner in which it is dispensed, that poor humanity is hurried off to the Styx! How many times does a life depend on the exact proportions of an apology! Is it a hairbreadth too short to cover the scratch for which you want it? Make your will—you are a dead man! A life do I say?—a hecatomb of lives! ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... The poor most welcome—to Learning's treasure, And drink their fill without stint or measure? Who hath so nobly used his thrift, And bestowed on the world this priceless gift, Free to all, whoever may come? Was this noble work built up by the 'masses,' Or by one of the 'miserly, ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks |
