"Prodigal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recorded words on the approach of death, "O! what a prodigal have I been of that most valuable of all possessions—Time!" express with exact truth the fundamental flaw of his character and career, of which he ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... would arise from this new trouble—the public disgrace; Mr. Ascott's anger and annoyance, not that she cared much for this, except so far as it would affect Selina; lastly, the death-blow it was to any possible hope of reclaiming the poor prodigal. Who she did not believe was dead, but still, fondly trusted he would return one day from his wanderings and his swine's husks, to have the fatted calf killed for him and glad tears shed over him. But after being advertised as ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... his mother the Duchesse de Guise and his brother the Duke,[206] and as they entered the royal closet, somewhat startled by so sudden a summons, he said, directing their attention to the delinquent: "There stands the prodigal son in person; he has filled his head with follies; but I shall treat him as a child and forgive him for your sakes, although only on condition that you reprimand him seriously; and that you, my nephew," addressing himself particularly to the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... lieutenant-governor of the province, displayed qualities admirably adapted to awe the disloyal, to reconcile the wavering, and to animate the great mass of the inhabitants against successive attempts of the enemy to invade the province, in the last of which he unhappily fell, too prodigal of that life of which his eminent services had taught us to understand ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... descend through the third circle where the sin of gluttony is punished; through the fourth, where they find the prodigal and avaricious; through the fifth where immersed in a filthy pool are the souls of the irascible. The sixth circle is the city of Dis, with walls of heated iron, filled within with open fiery tombs from which issue the groans of the heretics who are punished here. With two of these, Farinata degli ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... exclaimed the old lady, with a look of indignation—"no indeed! Have not you repented and come back, like a good prodigal son; and didn't the dear beautiful letter that you wrote from that awful island—what's its name—where you were all but ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... gone; but the effect of these things was but to fill his heart with a world sympathy, with pity for all who sorrow. Again and again he treated the Christ at Emmaus, The Good Samaritan, and The Prodigal Son themes. "Some strange presentment of his own fate," says M. Michel, "seems to have haunted the artist, making him keenly susceptible to the story of The Good Samaritan. He too was destined ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... cage gazed upon madame with stupid awe, while the strange monster capered, or prostrated himself in great humility at her bidding. When she had withdrawn, and after the Professor had made his prodigal offer, it was Mahdi's duty to stimulate ungovernable ferocity, in order to deter any too-venturesome spirits. Nickie did his best. He bounded madly round the cage, he tore at the straw, tooth and nail, he roared terribly, and snatched furiously at the people near ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... All this prodigal waste of the money of the people was designed to keep up the national debt, and the influence it gave the government, which, united with standing armies, and immense revenues, would enable their rulers to rivet the chains which they were secretly ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... never in his life "took more than five shillings the quarter to maintain a Lute with strings, only for the first stringing I ever took ten shillings." He says, however: "I do confess Those who will be Prodigal and Extraordinary Curious, may spend as much as may maintain two or three Horses, and Men to ride upon them too, if they please. But 20s. per ann. is an Ordinary Charge; and much more they need not spend, to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... be wealthy young Richard,[122] Dame Fortune should hing by the neck; For prodigal, thriftless, bestowing, His merit had won him respect: An' there will be rich brother nabobs, Tho' nabobs, yet men of the first, An' there will be Collieston's[123] whiskers, An' Quintin, o' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... for a European port as I hoped when I left you, as the authorities seemed to be taking my case seriously, and I was lucky to get off as a deck-hand on a south-bound boat. I expected to get a slice of English prodigal veal at Christmas, but as things stand now, I am grateful to be loose even in this God-forsaken hole. The British bulldog is eager to insert its teeth in my trousers, and I was flattered to see my picture bulletined in a conspicuous place the day I struck Vera Cruz. You see, they’re badgering ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... entered the squalid, dingy passage that led to Mother Guttersnipe's abode, they saw a faint light streaming down the stair. As they climbed up they could hear the rancorous voice of the old hag pouring forth alternate blessings and curses on her prodigal offspring, and the low tones of a girl's voice in reply. On entering the room Calton saw that the sick woman, who had been lying in the corner on the occasion of his last visit, was gone. Mother ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... The loggia floor was clothed with rugs and furnished with chairs and sofas; and the uncompleted surprise was there: in the form of a Christmas tree that was drenched with silver film in a most wonderful way; and on a table was prodigal profusion of bright things which she was going to hang upon it today. What desecrating hand will ever banish that eloquent unfinished surprise from that place? Not mine, surely. All these little matters have happened in the last four days. "Little." Yes—THEN. But not now. Nothing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... back like the prodigal son. Let me give you a smack. You'll take me in—but how about father? I thought I heard him playing ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... inscrutable. No one has ever given us a continuous history of any particular poem, tracing its history and adventures after its first publication—the places it has been quoted, the hearts it has rejoiced. It could only be done by an infinity of toil and a prodigal largesse to clipping bureaus. It would be a fascinating study, showing how some poems have fought for their lives against the evaporation of Time, and how they have come through, sometimes, because they were carried and cherished ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... commenced his hereditary career by the perfidious manoeuvres which contributed to the ruin of M. de la Chalotais. Discredited from the very first by a dishonorable action, he had invariably managed to get his vices forgotten, thanks to the charms of a brilliant and fertile wit. Prodigal and irregular as superintendent of Lille, he imported into the comptroller-generalship habits and ideas opposed to all the principles of Louis XVI. "The peace would have given hope a new run," ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... however, to supply the wants of his prodigal and degenerate nephew, but they increased so enormously that he was forced to remonstrate with the young man upon the recklessness of his conduct. His remonstrances were met with a spirit of impertinence and defiance that angered the old gentleman to such ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... the gate stands open; the Redeemer from within is calling chief sinners in, He has pledged himself to cast no comer out because of his worthlessness. Nor does the freeness of his grace prove that the prodigal's sins are small; it proves only that the forgiving love ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... is a great number of noblemen among you, that are themselves as idle as drones, that subsist on other men's labour, on the labour of their tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to the quick. This indeed is the only instance of their frugality, for in all other things they are prodigal, even to the beggaring of themselves: but besides this, they carry about with them a great number of idle fellows, who never learned any art by which they may gain their living; and these, as soon ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... glance now included Argensola. . . . "A very interesting fellow, that Argensola!" And as he thought this, he forgot completely that, without knowing him, he had been accustomed to refer to him as "shameless," just because he was sharing his son's prodigal life. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a man of brilliant attainments, was busily engaged in the exposure of the enormous abuses that had prevailed in the improvident and prodigal grants of the Crown lands. A bill was brought forward in the Assembly for more effectually ascertaining the state of the public funds in the hands of the Receiver General. The Receiver General was to account annually to the legislature for his expenditures, and he was to tell over, for its ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Olympus. A pious fraud is practised on the boy, who hurries home thinly clad through the winter weather, his ill-eaten Christmas cake wringing him with remorseful indigestion, to receive the last blessing, if such a prodigal might hope for it, of a broken-hearted mother. He finds the good dame in excellent health, and softened toward him by a cold he has taken on his pious journey. He remains at home several months, now writing Anacreontics of such warmth that his sister (as volunteer representative ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... a dozen players round the board—four on one wing, two on the other. Of the latter, one was that very young man who had been responsible for P. Sybarite's change of mind with regard to going home. With a bored air this prodigal was frittering away five-dollar notes on the colours, the columns, and the dozens: his ill success stupendous, his apparent indifference positively magnificent. But in the course of the little while that P. Sybarite watched, ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... great was the demand for copies, increasing with the publication of each successive number, month by month, that the colourists could not keep pace with the printers. The alternate scenes of high life and low life, the contrasted characters, and revelations of misery side by side with prodigal waste and folly, attracted attention, while the vivacity of dialogue ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... to my lungs. With a disappointment almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body, not easily accommodative to the Spirit. Like a prodigal child, I had run away from my macrocosmic home and imprisoned ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... back at all, came back with wealth of furs and bought off punishment, "wearing sword and lace and swaggering as if he were a gentleman," the annals of the day complain; and a long session in the confessional box relieved the prodigal's conscience from the sins of a life in the woods. If my young gentleman were rich enough, the past was forgotten, and he was now on the highroad to distinguished service and perhaps ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... masked by the melancholy trees. But those initiated knew well that behind the solemn barrier there smiled a kind of earthly paradise—pleasances where even the flowerful soil of Sicily seemed extravagantly prolific of color, extravagantly prodigal of odors; thickets wherein the great god Pan might have delighted to lurk; fair colonnades thick-carpeted with the petals of roses and framed to greet all cool, benevolent breezes; temples to exquisite divinities; fountains lapsing, murmurous as the laughter of youth, into great basins ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... admitted to himself, though he would not have done so to his wife, that perhaps he had been unjust to the boy after all. Every day when he turned from his office to go home, it was with the unacknowledged hope that he might find the prodigal returned. But in this hope they were all doomed to be disappointed. Year after year passed away, and still no tidings from Ben beyond that single letter which ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... not to be built up of prodigal sons," said a speaker at the Congregational Conference. Fatted calves will, however, continue to be a feature ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... universe mean?—But why is there a universe at all? Why has the unlimited become limited? What was the need for the long cosmic struggle, the ignorance and pain, the apparently prodigal waste of life and beauty? Why does a perfect form appear only to be shattered and superseded by another? What can it all mean, if indeed it has a meaning? This is what thinkers have been asking themselves since thought began, and I have ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... you are too hard upon that poor fellow,", he said; "he may return to you some day like the prodigal son. ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... are so simple! How easily he might have thriven among such kindly neighbors! None of them could be called rich, but they had an abundance of this world's goods, with something to spare for him, the returned prodigal. What does it profit a man to gain the wealth of California and lose his own soul? Had he lost his soul, then? He had proved unfaithful to his friend. Or had he been simply unfortunate? Ah, well! he hardly knew. He was eager to see Robert Palmer ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... prodigal to you, Madame la Marquise, has not yet deflowered, nor recalled in the least degree, those graces and attractions which were lavished on you. Retire ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps to the South Sea or the Gulf of California. They glided calmly down the tranquil stream, by islands choked with trees and matted with entangling grape-vines; by forests, groves, and prairies,—the parks and pleasure-grounds of a prodigal nature; by thickets and marshes and broad bare sand-bars; under the shadowing trees, between whose tops looked down from afar the bold brow of some woody bluff. At night, the bivouac,— the canoes inverted on the bank, the flickering fire, the meal of ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... was done that day without his help. Nothing was seen of him until just before dark, when he came into the house with the air of a prodigal son. He did not walk up like an honest dog to get his supper, but slunk ...
— The Nursery, February 1878, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... bows, so that the ships plunged toward a cloud of Doppler hell-blue. The constellations lay thinly abeam, you looked out upon the dark. Aft, Sol was still the brightest object in heaven, but it had gained a sullen red tinge, as if already grown old, as if the prodigal would return from far places to find his home buried ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... with Egypt and its literature, and the opportunities of discovery afforded him by his position for several years as director of the Bulaq Museum, give him an unique claim to speak with authority on the history of the valley of the Nile. In the present work he has been prodigal of his abundant stores of learning and knowledge, and it may therefore be regarded as the most complete account of ancient Egypt that has ever ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... had been busy exculpating herself from possible blame due to her failure to have prepared for the prodigal the sort of ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... accompany us from the start," and he briefly, in simple words, outlined the Darwinian theory, which brought an outraged grunt from Big Jerry. Then he turned back to Donald, and said, "Take the story of ... well, say the prodigal son, for an example. Was that the account ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... her rise, When some rich factor courts her charms, Who calls the wanton to his arms, And, prodigal of wealth and fame, Profusely buys the costly ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... in the Gospel story of the Prodigal Son. The statement "he wasted his substance in riotous living" means more than that he wasted his funds. It implies that he wasted himself. And the most serious phase of all waste is not the waste of substance but the waste of self, of one's ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... pieces occupied four days, every moment of which we enjoyed. Grand Rapids Island is prodigal in wild flowers,—vetches, woodbine, purple and pink columbines, wild roses, several varieties of false Solomon's seal, our persisting friend dwarf cornel, and, treasure-trove, our first anemone,—that beautiful buttercup ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... it was a fine sight to see this pale, handsome, elegantly dressed young fellow lounging along between a blue-checkered pinafored girl on one side and a barefooted boy on the other. The ranchmen turned and looked after him curiously. One, a rustic prodigal, reduced by dissipation to the swine-husks of ranching, saw fit to ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... see Mrs. Paine. She noticed the quantity of machinery which stood in the yard, some under cover of the big shingled shed, and some of it sitting out in the snow, gray and weather-beaten. The yard was littered, untidy, prodigal, wasteful—every sort of machine had evidently been bought and used for a while, then discarded. But within doors there was a bareness that struck Pearl's heart with pity. The entrance at the front of the house was banked ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... the most of them were young men who had once been in better circumstances, but who now were reduced to get their living by calling papers about the streets. A few fine characters might have been picked out amongst those prodigal sons, as they stood warming their backs, or grouped ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... heart," said Alfred to himself, "and bring him home like the prodigal son about whom ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... descending from the pulpit, "I think of the words of the blessed Saviour, 'The fields are white and ready to harvest,' so I'm going to open the doors of the church. Who here is ready to make a start for heaven to-night? Come, sinner! God's not calling the righteous, but you. There is a prodigal child here to-night who has wandered from home. Come home; there is bread and to spare, and a warm welcome there. Here comes one, thank God!" A young man went forward and took the minister's hand, followed by two others. "Who ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... ... Covetous, the Prodigal, the Ambitious, the Voluptuous, the Bully, the Vain, the Hypocrite, the Flatterer, the Slanderer, call aloud for the Champion's Vengeance." —The Champion, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... that part of the town now known by the name of the Halfway Houses. The old woman lived upon a small pension allowed by the Dutch court, having been employed for many years in a subordinate capacity in the king's household. She was said to have once been handsome, and when young prodigal of her favours; at present she was a palsied old woman, bent double with age and infirmity, but with all her faculties as complete as if she was in her prime. Nothing could escape her little twinkling bloodshot eyes or her acute ear; she could scarcely hobble fifty yards, but she kept no ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... costly farce by which such persons were sent to England for trial. Seven years of development followed, to be broken by the long struggle between England and France, which the splendid genius of Pitt inspired and directed. He not only "conquered America in Europe" by the prodigal carelessness with which he poured subsidies into the treasury of Prussia, but he conceived and delivered in America itself a death-blow to French ambition. In 1758 Amherst and Wolfe, with a fleet ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... inhabitants. From this it may be estimated that the same tax, producing in all France $600,000, would lighten the taxes of QUOTITE LESS THAN TWO CENTS a year for each individual. Certainly I am far from pretending that $600,000 is a sum to be disdained, especially with a prodigal ministry; and I regret that the Chamber should have rejected the dog tax, which would always have served to endow half a dozen highnesses. But I remember that a tax of this nature is levied much less in the interest of the treasury than as a promoter of order; that consequently ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... there are bench-ends bearing Beville and Grenville arms. The families were connected, as we are reminded by the name of the noble Sir Beville Grenville. The transept was formerly known as the Killigarth Chapel; and Killigarth, close by, was formerly the Beville manor, noted in old days for its prodigal hospitality. The house has been destroyed, and a farm stands on the site, retaining the old name. A mile or two inland is Trelawne, another notable Cornish manor associated with one of the great old families. Parts of the house, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... equally wrong to offer to go with them, and quite inappropriate to witness the home-coming,—they took themselves off, but each resolved to flutter unseen in the neighbourhood until he, or she, could make quite sure that the prodigal had returned. ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... meaning; pr'ythee, be silent, boy, I profit not by thy talk. Now the rotten diseases of the south, gut-gripings, ruptures, catarrhs, loads of gravel in the back, lethargies, cold palsies, and the like, take thee, and take thee again! thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou! Ah how the poor world is pestered with such ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... visiting girls. They rode in parties to High Knob, and the ring of hoof and the laughter of youth and maid made every dusk resonant with joy. On Poplar Hill houses sprang up like magic and weddings came. The passing stranger was stunned to find out in the wilderness such a spot; gayety, prodigal hospitality, a police force of gentlemen—nearly all of whom were college graduates—and a club, where poker flourished in the smoke of Havana cigars, and a barrel of whiskey stood in one corner with a faucet waiting for the turn of any hand. And still the foundation of the new hotel was ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... throbbed the true life—the true power and spirit of America; gigantic, crude with the crudity of youth, disdaining rivalry; sane and healthy and vigorous; brutal in its ambition, arrogant in the new-found knowledge of its giant strength, prodigal of its wealth, infinite in its desires. In its capacity boundless, in its courage indomitable; subduing the wilderness in a single generation, defying calamity, and through the flame and the debris of a commonwealth in ashes, rising suddenly ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... gives an intangible flavor which never fails to elicit praise. What is true of garlic is also true of the many herbs that are used. It is easy to pass from a rare flavor that makes a most savory dish to a taste of medicine that spoils a dinner. With the well-known prodigal and wasteful habits of America the American who learns the use of herbs usually makes the initial mistake of putting in the flavoring herbs with too lavish a hand, and it is only after years of experience that a knowledge ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... Madame Anserre was prodigal of smiles and civilities. Alas! no one was found any longer to cut it voluntarily. The newcomers seemed to decline the honor. The "old favorites" reappeared one by one like dethroned princes who have been replaced for a brief spell in power. Then, the chosen ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... had no moral sense whatever, unless that which was supplied by the so-called code of honor. His intrigues, his carouses, his debaucheries, his hordes of mistresses, gave scandal even in that time of prodigal license. But he had a cool head, a daring spirit, and an intellect capable of accepting new and original ideas. He must be called a statesman; and, despite the vulgarity of some of his vices, he has to be called a gentleman as well. He could be trusted; he would keep his word once ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... like childish petulance when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens. All the parts incessantly work into each other's hands for the profit of man. The wind sows the seed; the sun ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... Catherine, the black sheep of the family, who is supposed to have run off with another woman's husband. It is the day of the village bazaar, and amid a lot of hustle and bustle Catherine enters—the prodigal daughter most inopportunely returned! As the day progresses Old Mrs. Deveral becomes fractious, the Fete entertainment falls through and Judy decides to run away with the unpleasant Rodney. Things are going from ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... his bravery. He lodged at a woman's, who was, they said, a Druidess, and had the prophetic faculty. One day when he was settling his account with her, she complained of his extreme parsimony: "Thou'rt too stingy, Diocletian," said she; and he answered laughing, "I'll be prodigal when I'm emperor." "Laugh not," rejoined she: "thou'lt be emperor when thou hast slain a wild boar" (aper). The conversation got about amongst Diocletian's comrades. He made his way in the army, showing continual ability and valor, and several times during his changes of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... when men who had known Shakespeare personally {211} were dead, we certainly cannot believe that its editor had better information than those of the First Folio, who were the poet's personal friends, and who did not include these plays. The spurious dramas printed in the Third Folio were: The London Prodigal, The History of the Life and Death of Thomas Lord Cromwell, The History of Sir John Oldcastle, The Puritan Widow, Yorkshire Tragedy, ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... my wond'ring eyes Pass'd onward, o'er the streamlet, to survey The tender May-bloom, flush'd through many a hue, In prodigal variety: and there, As object, rising suddenly to view, That from our bosom every thought beside With the rare marvel chases, I beheld A lady all alone, who, singing, went, And culling flower from flower, wherewith her way Was all o'er painted. "Lady beautiful! Thou, who (if looks, that ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... of his race and later upbraiding Jehovah because of the destruction of the gourd that for a time had protected his head from the burning sun. Jehovah's concluding remonstrance voices the message of the book. Like the New Testament parable of the Prodigal Son, the story of Jonah presents in graphic form the unbounded love of the heavenly father and contrasts it sharply with the petty jealousies and hatred of his favored people. It was a call to Israel to go forth ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... females, or to older sons. In the Institutes of Justinian, we see on every page a regard to the principles of natural justice. We discover that the property of the wife cannot be alienated nor mortgaged by a prodigal husband; that wards are to be protected from the cupidity of guardians; that property could be bequeathed by will, and that wills are sacred; that all promises are to be fulfilled; that he who is intrusted with the property of another is bound to restitution by the most imperative obligations; ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... can get them," laughed Louis. "But Urania is not prodigal of her kisses, Eugene; I never was able to obtain a single one until she became my wife. But let us not speak of her. Love is any thing but an incentive to valor; and just now I almost envy you who have never loved. If you intend to be a soldier, twine no myrtle with your laurels ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... unutterable mixture of comedy and pathos. The wicked wolf that for a half a day had paralyzed London and set all the children in town shivering in their shoes, was there in a sort of penitent mood, and was received and petted like a sort of vulpine prodigal son. Old Bilder examined him all over with most tender solicitude, and when he had finished ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... corruption of many both of the bishops and clergy, and in the rapacious and selfish policy of the government, forced to starve and cripple the public service, while great men and favourites built up their fortunes out of the prodigal indulgence of the Queen. ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... glance. He had recognized him as one of those wily evil-minded men who employ their leisure to the profit of their depravity—one of those patient, cold-blooded hypocrites who make poverty their purveyor, and whose passion is prodigal only in advice. "So he's paying his court to Madame Paul," thought Chupin. "Isn't it shameful? The old villain! he might at least give ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... a hot day. Unless the sun is shining, there is no brightness; unless the water is cool, there is no refreshment. The source of all our joy in the landscape, of the luxuriance of fertile nature, is the sun and not the air. Nature would be more prodigal in Mexico than in Greenland, even if the air in Mexico were as full of soot and smoke as the air of Pittsburg{h}, or loaded with the acid from a chemical factory. So it is with language. Language is merely a medium for thoughts, emotions, the intelligence of a finely wrought ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... brought into comparison demonstrate the recklessness, changefulness, and incapacity of calculation belonging to the Asiatic mind of that day—as well as the great command of hands possessed by these kings, and their prodigal waste of human labor. Vast walls and deep ditches are an inestimable aid to a brave and well-commanded garrison; but they cannot be made entirely to supply the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... went Dr. Walter Russell, six gentlemen, and seven soldiers. The narrative of the voyage is signed by Dr. Russell, Thomas Momford, gentleman, and Anas Todkill, soldier. Master Scrivener remained at the fort, where his presence was needed to keep in check the prodigal waste of the stores upon his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the prodigal son was only increasing pauperism when he received the unworthy youth with open arms; he had set a premium (in the words of our scientific charities) upon other sons becoming ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... hues blending rainbow-like. The brighter colours seem to have been carelessly and profusely applied, for they run when touched and smear the fingers. Among a family generally sad-hued and shrinking so conspicuous an example is quite prodigal and invites one to ponder upon the sportfulness of Nature. What special office in her processes does this fop of the species with ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Sir Harry's blackness was still the result of vacillation. Though he would fain redeem this prodigal, if it were possible, and give him everything that was to be given; yet, when he saw the prodigal attempting to help himself to the good things, his wrath was aroused. George Hotspur, as he betook himself from Bruton Street to such other amusements ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... "Wicked prodigal! What shall we do to reform him, Mr. Douglas? He has not been to see us for three years past, and during that time we have had ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... man all of this world that he desires, multiply around him the gratifications of sense and the pleasures of thought, and if God is not his joy and refuge the day is not far distant when he will feel as did the poor prodigal in a far country feeding upon husks in nakedness and want; but if you are a Christian you dwell with God in Christ, for "God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing unto them their trespasses," and if any man ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various
... weeks the blockade was maintained, the American troops being established in every house near the walls, more especially in the vicinity of the Intendant's Palace, which once had been gorgeous with the prodigal luxury and magnificence for which this old Chateau had been notorious. The roughly-shod New England soldiers tramped through the rooms and up the noble staircases on which ladies of fashion had glided when the infamous Intendant Bigot had disgraced his King ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... the right of election of magistrates, or on the balance among the several orders of the state, ii. 120. character of civil freedom, ii. 229. our best securities for it obtained from princes who were either war-like or prodigal, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... You hear her voice, fragile and firm as fluted china, before she enters. Then comes the wonderful love-duet—"Che gelida manina" for Caruso and "Mi chiamano Mimi" for Melba. Gold swathed in velvet is his voice. Like all true geniuses, he is prodigal of his powers; he flings his lyrical fury over the house. He gives all, yet somehow conveys that thrilling suggestion of great things in reserve. Again and again he recaptures his first fine careless rapture. His voice dances ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... and became, like the degenerate Romans, ready to obey the masters who provided them with brilliant spectacles. They gazed with admiration on the pomp of Italian princes, their dissolute and godless living, their luxury and prodigal expenditure; and when the Medici affected similar habits in the next generation, the people had no courage to resist the invasion of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... well, Polly, instead of petting her; but it is always the way with the prodigal—he has the ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... must be admitted, was by no means an easy one. The ablest statesman might have shrunk from coping with the financial difficulties that beset her. The crown was almost hopelessly involved. Henry the Second had in the course of a dozen years accumulated, by prodigal gifts and by needless wars, a debt—enormous for that age—of forty-two millions of francs, besides alienating the crown lands and raising by taxation a larger sum of money than had been collected in eighty years previous.[981] ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... Wall Street like soot, and settles on the professional and the public alike. It is a sporty business. It appeals to the idle, the reckless, the prodigal and the declasse. In the quickness and uncertainty of its evolutions, it is unfortunately so analogous to racing and gaming that their terms are interchangeable, and to the thoughtless the stock market is the ranking evil ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... played the prodigal, And bade my senses to a solemn feast; Yet more to grace the company withal, Invites my heart to be the chiefest guest. No other drink would serve this glutton's turn, But precious tears distilling from ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... prodigal! You took your time about coming back, didn't you? Was the hospital to your taste, the nurses pretty? How is the wife? Any more children? How ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... little thrill, this reminder of the life he was entering once more. He ordered one of the dinners he used to order, and hung up the receiver, with a smile and a little tightening about his heart at the entry he, the prodigal, would make that ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... in the place of the violets which before had perfumed her bosom. I could not help thinking about my old mathematical master. I did not then see any difference between him and his pupil, than that which exists between a frugal man and a prodigal, little thinking that he of the two who seemed to calculate the better, actually calculated the worse. The luncheon went off merrily. Very soon, seated in a little drawing-room newly decorated, before a cheerful fire which gave warmth and made our hearts expand as in spring time, I felt compelled ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... oppress those who are in his power, you may see into the very thoughts of his heart; you may learn what he really is. Or you may measure the depths of a mother's love in observing her when, after violating every principle she has valued and lived for, her prodigal boy comes to ask her to ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... Corinthians by urging them at such length to contribute to the relief of the poor. It seems to be a by-product of the Gospel that nobody wants to contribute to the maintenance of the Gospel ministry. When the doctrine of the devil is preached people are prodigal in their willing support of those ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... respects, too, were honours equally balanced between them; they were both made Royal Academicians, but in this, youth had the start of age—Lawrence obtained that distinction first. Nature, too, had been kind—some have said prodigal—to both; they were men of fine address, and polished by early intercourse with the world and by their trade of portrait painting could practise all the delicate courtesies of drawing-room and boudoir; but in that most fascinating of all flattery, the art of persuading, with ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... struggling for his life in Transatlantic forests; the pauper shivering over the embers in his hovel and waiting for kind death; the man of business striving to keep his honour pure amid the temptations of commerce; the prodigal son starving in the far country and recollecting the words which he learnt long ago at his mother's knee; the peasant boy trudging afield in the chill dawn and remembering that the Lord is his Shepherd, therefore he will not want—all shapes of humanity have found, and will find ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... Of this prodigal daughter Aunt Polly was the elder, and wiser, sister. She had never ceased to urge upon the other, both before and after marriage, the folly of her conduct, and had lived herself to be a proof of her own more excellent sense, having married a wealthy stockbroker ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... is more sacred to the Lord than a saved soul, a lost one redeemed, a prodigal brought back. What headway is one church opened three hours a week goin' to make aginst twenty saloons open every day and night." Arvilly begun to be powerful agitated and I spoke up quick, for I knew how hash she wuz when she got to goin', ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... to the pharisaical Puritan, and the Puritan in his turn a contempt and an abomination to the reckless, pleasure-hunting Cavalier, so to-day is the 'psalm-singing, clock-peddling Yankee' a foul odor to the fastidious nostrils of the lordly Southerner, and the reckless prodigal, dissipated and soul-selling planter a thorn in the flesh of Puritan morality. The Yankee is to the Southerner a synonym for all that is low and base and cunning, and the Southerner is to the Yankee the embodiment of all worthlessness ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hours have run, Its golden hours, with prodigal excess, All run to waste. A day of life the less; Of many wasted days, ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... others accrediting him with the possession of fabulous riches, and all being unanimous in the idea that the old man's heir or heirs, as the case might be, would speedily scatter his long-hoarded treasures. Many of these people could remember the silversmith's prodigal son; but none among them were aware of that gentleman's return. They wondered a good deal as to whether he was still living, and whether the money had been left to him or to that pretty young woman who had appeared in the last days of the old man's life, no one knowing whence she had come. There ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... the reapers at their sultry toil. In front they bound the sheaves. Behind Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil, And ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... we have done dyes here if that you dye, And heaven, before too prodigal to us, Shedding beames over-glorious on our heads, Is ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... old, rosy-cheeked woman in a sunbonnet came up behind the old man, shrieked out "Master David!" and only waited with twitching fingers for her own onslaught till the father had first embraced his prodigal son. This was done at least three times, accompanied with tears, blessings, prayers, the uplifting of poor filmy eyes to a cloudless Heaven—"Diolch i Dduw!"—ejaculations as to the wonder of it—"Rhyfeddol yw yn eiholl ffyrdd"—God's ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... three hundred upon sensuality, I bet you the odd seven hundred he does not make both ends meet; the proportion is too great. And two-thirds of the distress of the lower orders is owing to this—that they are more madly prodigal than the rich; in the worst, lowest and most dangerous item of ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... apparent that she received more, and that with the love of her people, than any two of her predecessors that took most; which was a fortune strained out of the subjects, through the plausibility of her comportment, and (as I would say, without offence) the prodigal distribution of her grace to all sorts of subjects; for I believe no prince living, that was so tender of honour, and so exactly stood for the preservation of sovereignty, was so great a courtier of the people, yea, of the Commons, and ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... much hope himself; he dared not hope. Hope meant a prop to his old age; hope meant joy to Jane, who would welcome the prodigal; hope meant relief to the doctor, who could then claim his own; hope meant redemption for Lucy, a clean name for Archie, and honor to himself and ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... might be dead. He might be alive and in want in a strange land. The uncertainty and suspense hanging over his fate magnified their sorrow. The outlook was unpleasant; there was no comfort in it. They appealed to God. Before Him they pleaded for their prodigal son—for his ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... few, most falling into one of the extremes, avarice or profusion, ver. 1., &c. The point discussed, whether the invention of money has been more commodious, or pernicious to mankind, ver. 21 to 77. That riches, either to the avaricious or the prodigal, cannot afford happiness, scarcely necessaries, ver. 89 to 160. That avarice is an absolute frenzy, without an end or purpose, ver. 113 to 152. Conjectures about the motives of avaricious men, ver. 121 to 153. That the conduct of men, with respect to riches, can only be accounted ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... my share in the Venus' voyage for one hundred and twenty dollars. This gave me, in all, about five hundred dollars, which money lasted me between five and six weeks! How true is it, that "sailors make their money like horses, and spend it like asses!" I cannot say this prodigal waste of my means afforded me any substantial gratification. I have experienced more real pleasure from one day passed in a way of which my conscience could approve, than from all the loose and thoughtless follies, in which I was then in the habit of indulging when ashore, of a whole life. The ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... his disposal of gratifying every inclination, and married by his ministers when a boy to an unattractive woman far his senior, he had lived for thirty-six years almost without blame, and bore through England the reputation of an upright and virtuous king. Nature had been prodigal to him of her rarest gifts. In person he is said to have resembled his grandfather, Edward IV., who was the handsomest man in Europe. His form and bearing were princely; and amidst the easy freedom of his address, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... it was so long as its sign swung at the side of the road: famous for its landlord, portly, paternal, whose welcome to a guest that looked worthy of the attention was like that of a parent to a returning prodigal, and whose parting words were almost as good as a marriage benediction; famous for its landlady, ample in person, motherly, seeing to the whole household with her own eyes, mistress of all culinary secrets that Northern ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... as a goddess, and submit themselves as the vilest slaves to her will and pleasure? a plain proof that this love exceeds the love of self. Have there not been, and are there not still instances of men, who for such a woman, make light of wealth, yea of treasures presented in prospect, and are also prodigal of those which they possess? a plain proof that this love exceeds the love of the world. Have there not been, and are there not still, instances of men who for such a woman, account life itself as worthless, and desire to die rather than be disappointed in their wishes, as is ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... where walk the modern bards and sing." Into the Silent Land he walked with Salis; he wept with the melancholy Werther, or laughed with the gentle Meister; he pondered deeply over the congenial Schiller, but delighted most of all in Jean Paul the Only, in whose prodigal fancy he lost for a time the memory of his sorrows. But ever at his side, as he walked on the banks of the beautiful Neckar and gazed up at the lofty mountains which surround Heidelberg, there seemed to walk the Being Beauteous who had whispered with her ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... darkest night of winter can conceal her high station and fanciful design; every evening in the year she proceeds to illuminate herself in honour of her own beauty; and as if to complete the scheme—or rather as if some prodigal Pharaoh were beginning to extend to the adjacent sea and country—half-way over to Fife, there is an outpost of light upon Inchkeith, and far to seaward, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... noblest in the battle meet their doom— To die a bitter, yea, a cruel death— Tortured with thirst, and under horses' hoofs, A doubler, sharper, bitt'rer meed of pain Than ever, sinner on the gallows-tree, And sickness daily takes our best away; For God is prodigal with human life; Should we be timid, then, where his command, His holy law, which he himself has giv'n, Demands, as here, that he who sins shall die? Together then, we will request the King To move from out his path this stumbling-block Which ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Published according to the true Original Copies. Unto which is added, Seven Plays, Never before Printed in Folio: viz. Pericles Prince of Tyre. The London Prodigal. The History of Thomas Lord Cromwel. Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham. The Puritan Widow. A Yorkshire Tragedy. The Tragedy of Locrine. The Fourth Edition. London, Printed for H. Herringman, E. Brewster, and R. Bentley, at the Anchor in the New Exchange, the Crane ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... Fie! you are not going to play the prodigal son!—a fellow like you who with his sword has scratched more hieroglyhics on other men's faces than three quill-drivers could inscribe in their daybooks in a leap-year! Shall I tell you the story of the great dog funeral? Ha! I must just bring back your own picture to your mind; that will kindle ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... that Betty became of age and was entitled to go home and claim her own. She and Tom went first to a small village in Kent, where dwelt an old lady who for some time past had had her heart full to the very brim with gratitude because of a long-lost prodigal son having been brought back to her—saved by the blood of the Lamb. When at last she set her longing eyes on Tom, and heard his well-remembered voice say, "Mother!" the full heart overflowed and rushed down the wrinkled cheeks in floods of inexpressible ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... classes, in general, have (to expose the sad reality) nothing of the sort? To take an example from those eating and drinking recreations which absorb so large a portion of existence:—If the rich proprietors of the "mansions" in the "park" could give their grand dinners, and be as prodigal as they pleased with their first-rate champagne, and their rare gastronomic delicacies; the poor tenants of the brick boxes could just as easily enjoy their tea-garden conversazione, and be just as happily and hospitably prodigal, in turn, with their porter-pot, their teapot, their ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... more prodigal than in his buildings. He completed his palace by continuing it from the Palatine to the Esquiline hill, calling the building at first only "The Passage," but, after it was burnt down and rebuilt, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... she was concerned, and also to hide his hurt and disappointment, which were deep. The rumour of lion was genuine and the excitement, extending far down the Nile, intense. In fact, with the aid of the Oriental's prodigal imagination the one royal beast of feminine persuasion which was reported as having been seen prowling around Deir el-Bahari had been multiplied to two pairs ravaging ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... bigot, and the like. Blessed Francis immediately sent an account of the affair to the real debtor, who came as quickly as was possible and at once discharged the debt. The creditor, full of shame and repentance, hastened to ask pardon of our Blessed Father, and he, receiving the prodigal with open arms, treated him ever afterwards with special tenderness, calling him ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... her brow for his waiting kiss. The heavy perfume of her hair seemed to draw his soul to a prodigal outpouring. He found her lips again, clasping ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... familiar, frank, ingenuous, communicative, artless, candid; gratuitous, spontaneous, voluntary, optional; liberal, open-handed, generous, bountiful, lavish, flush, munificent, hospitable; unrestrained, immoderate, prodigal, dissolute, lax; ready, eager, prompt, willing. Antonyms: subject, reserved, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... and unexpected appearance of his brother Algernon at the Hall. With quivering lips he congratulated him upon his return to his native land; exchanging with cold and nerveless grasp the warm pressure of his brother's hand, while he contemplated with envy and alarm the elegant person of the returned prodigal. From a boy, he had never loved Algernon; coveting with unnatural greed the property which would accrue to him, should it please Heaven to provide for his twin brother by taking him to itself. But when that brother stood before him in ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... garden, in an arbor stripped of all its green, the prodigal son in stooping down found among the autumn leaves a bluish bead that had lain there since the time he had played in the bower ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... by night at Covent Garden, as the Garden is turned into a Race-course for The Prodigal Daughter's steeplechase, and Drury Lane is wanted for the Pantomime. Sir DRURIOLANUS has his hands full—likewise his pockets. "So ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the Harvester's whole being realizes that this is the highest point ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... would n't borrow Becky's best bonnet, as she at first intended, but get a new one, for in her present excited state, no extravagance seemed too prodigal in honor of this grand occasion. I am afraid that Maud's lesson was not as thorough as it should have been, for Polly's head was such a chaos of bonnets, gloves, opera-cloaks and fans, that Maud blundered through, murdering time and tune at her own sweet will. The instant it was over Polly ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott |
