"Small fortune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wall, caught the swift flash of surprise in the eyes of the boy. He counted the chips of the Mexican and then his own. These he added to the small fortune in the center of ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... in his turn, the pockets that contained a small fortune apiece, and he smiled in my face as we crossed the lighted avenues of the Mall. Next moment he was hailing a hansom—for I suppose I was still pretty pale—and not a word would he let me speak until we had alighted as near as was prudent to ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... until at last his emotions overcame him. He growled, "Confound it, I can't do it! Belay there, men; I'll have another think over this job." And think he did, with businesslike solemnity, all day long. He saw that he might make a small fortune by risking his liberty, and the curious morality of the British sailor prevented him from seeing shades of right or wrong where contraband business was concerned. Had you told him that the tobacco was stolen, he would have pitched ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... even that, had it not befallen him through the perfidy of his brother. When, therefore, he was met by his wife's bitter reproaches and persistent coldness he closed his heart against all the world, shook the dust of home from off his feet, left his own small fortune behind him, kissed his little son, and became a wanderer on the face ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the good old days, before electricity and the motor-car caused the finest specimen of the brute creation to become virtually extinct (although a few may still be seen at the Zoological Gardens), horse-racing for a cup and a small fortune in gold was only second to cricket and football in the estimation of all merrie Englanders—the only races now indulged in being those of flying machines to Mars and back twice a day. Two hundred years hence, I say, the Victorian ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... Dave Liardet. A man whom she had only tolerated—never loved. And then, Russell was a big, handsome man; and she liked big, handsome men. Also, he was captain now. And, of course, when he had told her of that rich patch of pearl-shell, that he alone knew of at Caille Harbour, in which was a small fortune, and had looked so intently into her blue eyes, he had meant that it was for her. "Yes," and she smiled again, "I'm sure he loves me. But he's terribly slow; and although I do believe that blonde young widows look 'fetching' ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... very picturesquely apparelled in gaily coloured turbans and sarongs, whilst the women,—tall, graceful, and pretty—convey a small fortune about with them, in the shape of jewellery, in the cartilage of the nose, in the ears, and around the arms and legs. I saw one woman who had such heavy masses of gold in her ears that the lobes of ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... money out of those shelves. The catalogue shows that there was a copy of the first book printed in England by Caxton, and several priceless Shakespeares, as well as many other volumes that a collector would give a small fortune for. All these are gone. I think when I show this to be the case, the authorities cannot refuse me the right to sell something, and, if I get this permission, I shall at ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... if he had not just returned from a thousand mile journey taken to consult one of the most eminent physicians in the country, to whom he paid a small fortune for services that saved his life; and as if he were not constantly trying every thing he possibly can to help and save himself! Nevertheless, after this blunt prophecy, he did something more, something he is not in the habit of doing. He went ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the contrary, had been taught habits of care and foresight. His father had but a very small fortune, and was anxious that his son should early learn that economy ensures independence, and sometimes puts it in the power of those who are not very ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... 1776 marks Brackenridge's severance from teaching work. He soon after went to Philadelphia with his small fortune of one thousand pounds, and continued his efforts to make a livelihood by editing the United States Magazine, which afforded him an opportunity of airing his patriotic views, and gave him the added ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... The small fortune which his divorced wife had brought into their marriage had, of course, been handed back to her ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... who owned the crumbling place, had originally been only the occupier and tenant-farmer of the fields around. His wife had brought him a small fortune, and during the growth of their only son there had been a partition of the Oxwell estate, giving the farmer, now a widower, the opportunity of acquiring the building and a small portion of the land attached on exceptionally low terms. But two years after the purchase the boy died, and Derriman's ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... can witness as busy and interesting a scene as New York affords. All kinds of people come here, from the poor woman whose scanty garb tells too plainly the story of her poverty, to the wife of the millionaire whose purchases amount to a small fortune, and all ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... and so few things to which they can turn their hands. Governesses? But there are hardly any situations. Music and drawing? There is not one in fifty who has any special talent in that direction. Medicine? It is still surrounded with difficulties for women, and it takes many years and a small fortune to qualify. Nursing? It is hard work ill paid, and none but the strongest can stand it. What would you have them do then, ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... little farm close by and was making a small fortune from it for himself, whilst thirty-five Australians next to him could not make a living for each other! So much for the advantages of ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... senora, widow of a cadet of the house of Brancadori, to whom you sacrificed the small fortune your father gave you; but here you ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... fine business; Lauriston felt no doubt that he would respond. And meantime, till the expected letters came, he had money—and when you have lived for four days on two shillings, fourteen shillings seems a small fortune. Certainly, within the last half-hour, life had taken on a roseate tinge—all due to ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... explain to you," said Maud, "that our father and mother were both killed years ago in a dreadful automobile accident. Father left a small fortune to be divided between Flo and me, and appointed Uncle George our guardian. We were sent to a girls' school and nicely provided for until uncle's death, when it was found he had squandered our little inheritance as well as his ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... one William Wallace, of a small fortune, but descended of an ancient family in the west of Scotland, whose courage prompted him to undertake, and enabled him finally to accomplish, the desperate attempt of delivering his native country from the dominion of foreigners. This man, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... began Howard abruptly, avoiding Graham's eyes, "that our social order is very complex. A half explanation, a bare unqualified statement would give you false impressions. As a matter of fact—it is a case of compound interest partly—your small fortune, and the fortune of your cousin Warming which was left to you—and certain other beginnings—have become very considerable. And in other ways that will be hard for you to understand, you have become a person of significance—of very ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... increase the comforts and elevate the character of the colored people within his influence; he zealously promoted the establishment of an African school, and devoted much of the two last years of his life to personal attendance upon his pupils. By fifty years of constant industry he had amassed a small fortune; and this was left after the decease of his widow, to the support ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... mode of talk, told his son point-blank, that his cousin was a pretty girl, and what was more, a considerable heiress—so that it was his duty—his, Hector de Langevy—the owner of a great name and a very small fortune, to marry the said cousin—or if not, he must stand the consequences. Hector, at the first intimation, had revolted indignantly against the inhuman proposal, and made many inaudible vows of undying constancy to his innocent and trusting Daphne; but by degrees, there is no denying that—without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... should accompany him. He assured me that I should make my fortune there, as his own forefathers had in fact done. But my mother died about this time, and my friends, moreover, procured for me a position in the diplomatic body. He persuaded me, at least, to entrust to him the small fortune I had inherited from my mother, that he might employ it advantageously for me; a request which I have always suspected was made in order that he might have, some future time, a pretext and disguise for his generosity. We took leave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... Mathilde Duval, Leuillet was astonished and somewhat annoyed, as he was slightly devoted to her, himself. She was the daughter of a neighbor, a former proprietor of a draper's establishment who had retired with quite a small fortune. She ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the world, if you're lucky enough to be able to," was Rhoda's envious reply. "It costs a small fortune to live there even for a short time, ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... communicated with my Lady Maria; but there will no need to tell her and dear Harry that his mother or your ladyship hope to be able to increase his small fortune. The ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had had sufficient enterprise, sufficient distaste, possibly, for his English position, to sell the business that was left in his hands, and affection drew him, as a loadstone a magnet, to his brother's neighbourhood. He brought with him securities of the small fortune they were to divide between them, and expected nothing but happiness in the meeting and prosperity in his future career. Unfortunately, a cause of dispute between the two brothers arose instantly on Alec's arrival: there was an exceptionally good ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... socialism profitable, more profitable perhaps than socialism, and he actually gave five-and-sixpence for the volume. With the ninepence already in their pockets, you will see that they were now possessors of quite a small fortune. Six-and-threepence! It wouldn't pay for one's lunch nowadays. Ah! but that is because the poor alone know the ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... a country where a woman is worth a small fortune to her relatives, and where she can not offer her love according to her own choice, but must follow her relatives' desires,[21] it is not likely that she would be delivered over temporarily to even a warrior chief, nor is she likely to be ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... able to find only about ten thousand dollars’ worth of securities. Possibly— quite possibly—we were all deceived in the amount of his fortune. Sister Theresa wheedled large sums out of him, and he spent, as you will see, a small fortune on the house at Annandale without finishing it. It wasn’t a cheap proposition, and in its unfinished condition it is practically valueless. You must know that Mr. Glenarm gave away a great deal of money in his lifetime. ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... people and most hospitable, at whose house we tarried one day and night), and saw Lloyd. The Wordsworths were gone to Calais. They have since been in London and past much time with us: he is now gone into Yorkshire to be married to a girl of small fortune, but he is in expectation of augmenting his own in consequence of the death of Lord Lonsdale, who kept him out of his own in conformity with a plan my lord had taken up in early life of making everybody ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... a time there were two brothers whose father had left them but a small fortune. The eldest grew very rich, but at the same time cruel and wicked, whereas there was nowhere a more honest or kinder man than the younger. But he remained poor, and had many children, so that at times they could scarcely get bread to eat. At last, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... his personality cleared the way for him. At nineteen he had won and lost the small fortune of thirty-three hundred dollars at a third-class gambling resort where he came in ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... crowd, they would tell you the man was Edgar Fay; that, years before, his father brought him, a velvet-coated boy, to Rio de Janeiro; that shortly afterward he died, leaving the son and a baby sister a small fortune; that the sister, being under the control of a mother who had deserted her husband, was never heard of; and that the guardians, finding no coheir, had spent the money on Edgar's education, afterward securing him a position under ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... on how you look at it. You will always have your own small fortune, on which you can live ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... old Sir Giles had stored in the secret room was considerable. He had evidently distrusted investments, and, following his own singular whim, had hoarded his money in gold and bank notes. There were precious stones also, in themselves worth a small fortune, which he must have collected, in addition to the family jewels and the old silver plate that had been handed down through ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... who lost the money, a small fortune, and it was the rather unpleasant Sid Wilcox, and perhaps unfortunate Ida Giles, who finally cleared up the mystery, happily enough, all things considered, although in spite of the other girls' opportune intention ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... little canvas bag, considerably soiled from much handling, such as is used by banks for coin, a sturdy, matter-of-fact, every-day sort of canvas bag, with nothing about it of hauteur, no air of self-importance or ostentation, to betray the fact that it was the receptacle of a small fortune. ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... as Artemus Ward says," responded Ernest. "I should like to pay them out! But to make a long story short, with the remaining two Indian guides—who only came with me after I promised them a small fortune on my reaching a settlement—I managed to lose my way utterly; and then having lost the guides also, I wandered about hungry and cold until I met your hunters amongst the mountains, when all ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... are right," interrupted Colonel Baxter. "But don't be discouraged! Unless I'm very badly mistaken, that chest will be worth a small fortune in itself. Look at those brass straps across the corners. The carving is ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... her favourably from the rest of the company; nor was this distinction accompanied by anything outre. I promised to visit her, and thus became acquainted with an idyllic home such as I had never met before. This Mathilde, who was the daughter of a lawyer who had died leaving only a small fortune behind, lived with her mother, two aunts and a sister in a neat little house, while her brother, who was learning business in Paris, was a continual source of trouble to her. Mathilde, with her practical common-sense, attended to the affairs of the whole family, apparently to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Every one?" enquired the secretary, arching her dark eye-brows. "Why it will cost you a small fortune ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... valuables forfeited, houses taken in possession by foes, but the owner of the current gold of the land would never be utterly destitute; so for years before her death she bad been filling this ingeniously contrived belt, and had stored within its many receptacles gold enough to be a small fortune in itself. This belt had been in Paul's possession ever since the sad day when she had kissed him for the last time and had commended him to the care of Heaven. He had by no means yet exhausted its contents, for he had often won wages for himself ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a beautiful staircase of carved wood, and ascended. Everywhere were thick rugs into which the feet sank almost ankle deep. On the walls were pictures that must have cost a small fortune. The furniture was of the costliest; there were splendid bronzes and objects of art ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... a gentleman with no expectations; I the inheritor of a small fortune that made my friendship of temporary use to him, even if it did not offer him much to rely on in the future. We lived, he with an uncle who was ready to throw him off the moment he was assured that he would not marry one of his daughters, and I in my ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... was the Widow Scudder,—or, as the neighbors would have said of her, she that was Katy Stephens. Katy was the only daughter of a shipmaster, sailing from Newport harbor, who was wrecked off the coast one cold December night and left small fortune to his widow and only child. Katy grew up, however, a tall, straight, black-eyed girl, with eyebrows drawn true as a bow, a foot arched like a Spanish woman's, and a little hand which never saw the thing it could not do,—quick of speech, ready of wit, and, as such girls have a right ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... house back again, and fitted it up in every respect as Mercy had once suggested. This done, he sat down to wait—for he knew not what. He had a vague feeling that he would die soon, and leave the house and his small fortune to Mercy; and she would come and spend her summers there, and so he would recall to her their old life together. He led the life of a hermit,—rarely went out, and still more rarely saw any one at home. He looked like a man of sixty rather than like one of fifty. He was fast becoming an invalid, ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... "Having squandered a small fortune on the carriage down. Better leave them with me, Debbie, and let me send you what you ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... of that unhappy, vicious, unbridled old man, who has met with such a melancholy end, the head of a family! Beginning life of noble birth, but in a poor dependent position, through an unexpected marriage he came into a small fortune. A petty knave, a toady and buffoon, of fairly good, though undeveloped, intelligence, he was, above all, a moneylender, who grew bolder with growing prosperity. His abject and servile characteristics disappeared, his malicious and sarcastic ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... small trading vessel, and landed in Algiers. There Charles learnt of his supposed death, and the idea occurred to him to leave the report uncontradicted. For one thing, it solved a problem that had been troubling him. He could trust his father to see to it that his own small fortune, with possibly something added, was handed over to Mivanway, and she would be free if she wished to marry again. He was convinced that she did not care for him, and that she had read of his death with a sense of relief. He would make a new life for ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... there might be some mistake. Put up your veil for a moment, dear, and glance at the pictures. Every one has cost a small fortune. Oh, he is immensely rich—and knows so ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... thence to India, whither he sailed in 1553, exclaiming, "Ungrateful country, thou shall not possess my bones." In India his bravery and accomplishments won him friends, but his imprudences soon caused his exile to China, where he accumulated a small fortune and finished his poem. Happier circumstances permitted him to return to Goa; but on the way the ship laden with his fortune sank, and he escaped, saving only his poem. After sixteen years of misfortune abroad, Camoens returned to Lisbon in 1569. ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... but there is another and even more powerful agency at work which operates in the same direction, and is adverse to the investment of money in objects which do not appeal directly to the eye. The bibliophile discovers, when he has expended a small fortune (or perhaps a large one) in the formation of a library, that his friends evince no interest in it, have no desire to enter the room where the cases are kept, do not understand what they are told about this or ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... breeding for the trail. When a stampede to new diggings takes place, the price of dogs rises enormously. Any sort of good dog on the spot may be worth a hundred dollars, or a hundred and fifty, and the man with a kennel would make a small fortune out of hand. But at other times it is hard to get twenty-five dollars for the best ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... off. That same cunning chap has actually made a small fortune in this way. He really is licensed as a peddler, and though arrested more than once, has consequently not been found ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... have willingly tossed the moke a nickel for his readiness to assist them; but truth to tell, even such small coin happened to be at a premium with the voyagers just then—although they carried a small fortune in yellowbacks, not for worlds would they think of making use of a single bill for their own benefit—it was a sacred trust ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... River and began a work into which he put a half century of earnest endeavor. After preaching at Vermillion and Plaquemine Brule for eight years, amidst hardships and bitter persecutions, unaided and alone, and sacrificing a small fortune in the struggle, he was able, with the aid of visiting ministers, to constitute the first Baptist Church at Bayou Chicot. Other churches, the fruits of his labors, soon sprang into being, and in 1818 the Louisiana Baptist Association ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... and Slyme must be making a small fortune out of all these funerals,' said Harlow. 'This makes the fourth in the last fortnight. What is ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... to copy it. It was a very generous thing for an art-lover to do, and I think it must have cost the duke a wrench. It took Wedgwood a whole year to copy this vase, and when he had succeeded in doing so he made fifty more copies. The venture cost him not only his time but a small fortune as well; but it proved far from a waste of hours or money, since the feat brought to the manufacturer a familiarity with Grecian art which had its outcome in ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... suicidal. [Footnote: A pupil of his destroyed himself in the rooms.] He was, as I have been informed by those quite competent to know, an excellent and most conscientious lawyer, but plagued with so bad a temper, that he drove the attorneys from him. In his early days he was a man of some small fortune and of higher hopes. These stood so high at the time of my birth, that he was felt to be entitled to a country house, as well as to that in Keppel Street; and in order that he might build such a residence, he took the ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... to play at faro at a certain place where he stopped, and though he was perfectly unskilled in the game, yet he had such an extraordinary run of good luck, that he rose from the table with what was for him a small fortune. Next morning the event made so deep and powerful an impression upon his excitable temperament—his mind was so awed by the magnitude of his winnings—that he vowed never to touch a card again so long as he ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... of the money I did it, sir, although what they offered me was a small fortune, and would have been a mighty hard temptation in the old days. It was because if I refused they were going to strike at me through my little girl, the one thing on earth I've got left to love! They were going to have me sent up on an old score which no one else even had suspected ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... have lived here I have spent my days and nights, my poor brain, and my small fortune all most freely and gladly to get some understanding of the men who rule this Kingdom, and of the women and the customs and the traditions that rule these men—to get their trick of thought, the play of their ideals, the working of their imagination, the springs of their instincts. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... decide whether we were to stand still, to go backward, or to go ahead. We were, at this time, unable to accommodate the audiences that attended both Sabbath services. The lighting, the warming, the artistic equipment, all the immense expenses of the church, required a small fortune to maintain them. We had more friends than the Tabernacle had ever had before. At no time during my seventeen years' residence in Brooklyn had there been so much religious prosperity there. The memberships of all churches were advancing. It was a gratifying year ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... went on Professor Snodgrass, "I think you will agree with me that it is quite a problem to try to find in Europe, at this particular time, two girls I have never seen, that I may deliver to them a small fortune, and claim ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... home must evidently be broken up at once, and a small house taken for his mother. But fortunately both his mother and sister were entirely undismayed by this; their tastes were simple enough; but Hugh saw that he would have himself to contribute to their assistance. With his own small fortune, his literary work, and a little academical work that he was doing, he had been able to live comfortably enough without taking thought; but now he saw that all this must be curtailed. He had an intense dislike of thinking about money; and he therefore ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the man who happens at any moment to be next to her, lies an entire chapter on the "Whole Art of Flirtation." Were she reduced to penury, and the world a little more advanced in its fashionable ways, she might readily make a small fortune in teaching young ladies "How to Marry Well." No man could resist her pupils, once properly finished by her and turned out to prey upon the stronger sex. "The Complete Angler" would be a title they might filch with perfect honor and call ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... "My dear man, the church has owed you this car for at least ten years. If you get half the pleasure out of using it that I'm having in presenting it to you, it will be well worth while. I only wish you'd let me endow the thing. It's likely to cost you a small fortune." ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... ought not to come to Canada. It is emphatically "the poor man's country;" but it would be difficult to make it the country of the rich. It is a good country for the poor man to acquire a living in, or for a man of small fortune to economize and provide for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... one may be as avaricious with a small fortune as with a great one; and if we are to measure M. Ramon's wealth by his parsimony, he must be a triple millionaire—such a wretched old miser!" continued Louis, contemptuously, biting into his bread with ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... his heir was no honor to his noble name, and did not promise to end in being anything but a selfish, wasteful, insignificant man, with no manly or noble qualities. It was very bitter, the old Earl thought, that the son who was only third, and would have only a very small fortune, should be the one who had all the gifts, and all the charms, and all the strength and beauty. Sometimes he almost hated the handsome young man because he seemed to have the good things which should have gone with the stately title and the magnificent ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... yet come within your Speculation; and is, the Censure, Disesteem, and Contempt which some young Fellows meet with from particular Persons, for the reasonable Methods they take to avoid them in general. This is by appearing in a better Dress, than may seem to a Relation regularly consistent with a small Fortune; and therefore may occasion a Judgment of a suitable Extravagance in other Particulars: But the Disadvantage with which the Man of narrow Circumstances acts and speaks, is so feelingly set forth ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... there lived a man called Sentaro. His surname meant "Millionaire," but although he was not so rich as all that, he was still very far removed from being poor. He had inherited a small fortune from his father and lived on this, spending his time carelessly, without any serious thoughts of work, till he was about thirty-two ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... respect for the printed word had not made her accept as final the judgment of the newspapers, there was still the incontestable fact that so many people had paid to see "Pretty Fanny" that both Oliver and Miss Oldcastle had reaped a small fortune. She glanced in a helpless way at ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... Travers—the original Barnes hadn't discovered mustard a hundred years ago. But I say, here's a Gainsborough, 'The Blue Boy.' By George! that's a stunner! Worth a small fortune, I suppose." ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... said to himself. "At the price lumber is selling for now, those logs are worth a small fortune. Gad! It makes a fellow feel pretty sober when he thinks how easily he could make a mistake that would cost the ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... waiting for my steamer I mobilized my transport and supplies, and purchased such articles as I considered necessary for a rough campaign in a tropical climate. My purchases consisted of a revolver, a money-belt, in which to carry my small fortune, which I had exchanged into gold double-eagles, a pair of field-glasses, a rubber blanket, a canteen, riding boots, and saddle-bags. I decided that my uniform and saddle would be furnished me from the quartermaster's department of Garcia's army, ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... gave a stranger what little they possessed, but they had not the remotest idea of the value of things. In one farmhouse you were charged the equivalent of a few pence for an egg or a chicken; in the next farm a small fortune was demanded for similar articles of convenience. Men, women, children, dogs, pigs and fowls, all lived—not happily, ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... is as follows. While the land which he sold continued to increase in value, his small fortune began to diminish in value. The interest on his money has been less every ten years; whereas he formerly could loan at first for six and sometimes seven per cent, he cannot loan safely now for more than five or six ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... Field was the happy possessor of one of those sunny dispositions which is thoroughly antagonistic to trouble of every description; he absolutely refused to entertain the black demon under any pretext whatever, and after spending a small fortune with the easy grace of a prince, he settled down to doing without one with equal grace and nonchalance, in a manner more creditable to himself than satisfying to his creditors. Did his hatter or tailor present an untimely ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... first object with all three children, that was plainly to be seen; but if it should fall out that the means of improvement she so much desired and so much needed were gained for her by Mr. Ashton's trust, then this small fortune was to be devoted to the church of which her father was rector. Then, too, these young home missionaries intended to devote the proceeds of the fair they were to hold at Easter to the help of the same church; so that altogether ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... ceased to write to one another. Even the volumes of 1842, while winning high favour with cultivated readers, and stirring enthusiasm at the Universities, failed to attract the larger public and to make a success in the market. So when he sustained a further blow in the loss of his small fortune owing to an unwise investment, his health gave way and he fell into a dark mood of hypochondria. His star seemed to be sinking, just as he was winning his way to fame. Thanks to medical attention, aided by his own natural strength and the affections of his friends, he was already ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... (next to) stole two nice planks in store tent, and what with empty condensed milk box and my box which I used as chair, able to give quite small fortune ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... of the somewhat celebrated entomological collection were quite familiar; again and again they had studied the peculiarities of the most rare and beautiful specimens of insect life under the loving tutelage of their friend, who had spent his life and a small fortune in gathering together his treasures, and they were even able to explain in the prettiest fashion the origin and use of the many curious objects that were distributed ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... at Las Palmas to go home for business forthwith, and there was a Liverpool boat in the harbour which I just managed to catch as she was steaming out. It was a close thing, and the boatmen made a small fortune out of my hurry. ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... was assembled, and it was most embarrassing to see how seriously they took it. At home we have loads of flowers in the conservatories, but sometimes one of Vere's admirers sends her a lot of early violets, or lilies of the valley, great huge boxes which must cost a small fortune, but no one thinks anything of it, or pays any attention beyond a casual remark. Here, however, ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary; but still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune; and, however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want. This preservative she had now attained; and at the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all the good-luck of it." This reflection is ascribed to Charlotte Lucas, an ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... fittings and could see at once that the farmer had lavished money upon the home to make it distinctive in the neighborhood as a suitable background for his wife and daughters. The piano alone must have cost a small fortune, and it was but one of the many instruments to be seen. There were carpets, rugs, and curtains in great profusion, and a bewildering array of all sorts of bric-a-brac. In time the father asked one of the daughters to play, ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... setting the country a staring at the novelties he introduced. Even the stable and the kennel were ousted by farming from rural talk,[442] and citizens who breathed the smoke of London five days a week were farmers the other two, and many young fellows of small fortune who had been brought up in the country took farms, and the fashion was followed by doctors, lawyers, clergymen, soldiers, sailors, and merchants. The American and French War of 1775-83 and the great conflict with France from ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... out. He stood looking at it, absorbed. He could hardly believe his quest was at an end and that a small fortune lay in the palm of his hand. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... a good-looking widower of about eight-and-twenty, accepted the post of private physician to Lord Abercorn. He was a Cambridge man, an intimate friend of Dr. Jenner's, and possessed a small fortune of his own. When he first arrived at Baron's Court, Miss Owenson was absent, and he heard so much of her praises that he conceived a violent prejudice against her. On her return she set to work systematically to fascinate him, and succeeded even better than she had hoped or desired. ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... answered. "I have gone already further than I meant to. This house and the servants and carriages are costing me a small fortune. I dare not even look at my bills. Another house is not to be ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... person descended from parents very honest and industrious, though of small fortune. They bred him up with all the care they were able, and when he came to a fit age put him out to an honest employment. But in his youth having taken peculiar fancy to his father's profession of a painter, he thereto attained in so great a degree as ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... your sister Grace says, I'd turn the whole country upside down before I'd give up the hope of finding a witness," he said. "Why, it would amount to several thousand dollars! A small fortune!" ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... tiresome as a husband. He gave his mind to hunting and farming, and cared for nothing else. His chief conversation was about cattle and manure, guano and composts, the famous white Chillingham oxen, or the last thing in strawberry roans. He spent a small fortune that would have been large for a small man—in the attempt to acclimatise strange animals in his park in the Midlands. Sophia, Duchess of Dovedale, had seven country seats, and no home. Her children were puny and feeble. They sickened in the feudal Scotch castle, they languished ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... fine profile attentively. "I'm glad he fell in with a strong man like you—an experienced miner. He might have made a mistake and lost all his small fortune. My! but it's fine up here! What's that wonderful snowy range ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... him at once that their circumstances were those of poverty. Lady Rose's small fortune, indeed, had been already mostly spent on "causes" of many kinds, in many countries. She and Dalrymple were almost vegetarians, and wine never entered the house save for the servants, who seemed to regard their employers with a real but half-contemptuous ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Willegis the wheel on his coat-of-arms, if it has thus served to tame down freeborn men and women to the slouching and indolent practice of driving,—a practice in which the human figure appears at such disadvantage, that one can hardly wonder at Horace Walpole's coachman, who had laid up a small fortune by driving the maids-of-honor, and left it all to his son upon condition that he never should take ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... the delicately tinted walls; choice statuettes, bric-a-brac, and old-world curios of every description, which she knew must have cost a small fortune even in the countries where they were produced, were artistically ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... compelled to place as far as possible on a basis to meet the current outlay. The Society, as far as its name went, thus became a Catholic publishing firm, with Mr. Hecker mainly involved financially and Mr. Kehoe in charge of the business. Mr. Hecker sunk a small fortune in the Apostolate of the Press, much of it during the hard times between 1873 and 1876. The history of the whole affair is as curious as it is instructive, and hence we have given a pretty full account of it. It weighed heavy ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... "she'll probably change it soon. Can't you tell me something about her—just a tiny bit of information. Just a picture of where she is now, and what she's doing with that small fortune I gave her." ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... seem satisfied with your sinecure position. You represent me as rolling in wealth. Jonas and I are living very comfortably, and we have nothing to complain of, but that is no reason for my squandering the small fortune left me by my husband. I advise you to be a little more reasonable in your demands, or I shall request you to leave ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... besides what hopes they entertained from his sagacity, they knew him to be so great a friend to taciturnity, that there was no doubt of his keeping counsel. He was an old bachelor, of good family, but small fortune, and distantly related to the House of Robsart; in virtue of which connection, Lidcote Hall had been honoured with his residence for the last twenty years. His company was agreeable to Sir Hugh, chiefly ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... and his quiet studies by night, and gave everything such an amusing aspect that often she could not help laughing. But presently he was sad, as he told her how at an early age he had lost his father and mother, and was left to depend solely on himself and on a very small fortune, having no relations; for his father had been a grammarian, invited to Alexandria from Athens, who had been forced to make a road for himself through life, which had lain before him like an overgrown jungle of papyrus and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... arranged now for his wild horse hunting, he set out one day from home to be gone a week or more, he told his mother, and with the promise that he would bring her a small fortune soon. ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... value was the work of a moment. Her cry of dismay and his shout of mad triumph rang out simultaneously, and never have I seen such an ebullition of opposing passions as I was made witness to as his hand closed over this small fortune and their staring eyes met in the mortal struggle they had now entered upon for its ...
— The Gray Madam - 1899 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... is not so rich in variety as the Chinese language. A Chinaman who desires to publish a paper in order to fill a long felt want, must have a small fortune in order to buy himself an alphabet. In this country we get a press, and then, if we have any money left, we lay it out in type; but in China the editor buys himself an alphabet and then regards the press as a mere annex. If you go to a Chinese type maker and ask him to show you his goods, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... was the reply; "but that's a pretty big order, Mr. Merrick. The outfit for a modern daily will cost a small fortune." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... unlikely in such a quarter; and it's better she should have none than a small fortune. I'm an old whist-player, and when I play dummy, there's nothing I hate more than to see two or three small trumps ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... After her father's second marriage, the girl, who has been brought up by the nuns, is extremely fond of her step-mother, and when she grows under her fostering care into a lovely woman, becomes attached to Edward Rosier, a man of small fortune. Her father, cold and hard as stone, decrees that she shall marry an English lord, and upon her refusal, sends her back to the convent.—Henry James, Jr., ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... did have church aid, but——Well, then I was three years a circuit rider and then I preached four years here in Suez. And then I married. Folks laugh about preachers always marrying fortunes—it was a mighty small fortune Rose Montgomery brought me! But she was Rose Montgomery, and I got her when no other man had the courage to ask for her. You know an ancestor of hers founded Suez. That's how it got its name. His name was Ezra and hers ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... other matters can be settled, or at least explained. I refer to these manifold dispatches, detailing the latest news of the Liverpool cotton-market, by the fraudulent possession of which on the part of somebody, a client of mine, Captain Grant of Waltham, was cheated out of a small fortune. Perhaps Mr. Dartmouth knows who went to Waltham one morning to close a bargain before the telegraph-news should transpire. It is rather remarkable that certain lost dispatches should have been found in that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... a fireplace that is improperly built. This is from a fireplace in a palatial residence in New York City, enclosed in an antique Italian marble mantel, yellow with age, which cost a small fortune. The fireplace was designed and built by a firm of the best architects, composed of men famed throughout the whole of the United States and Europe, but the fireplace smoked because the angle of the ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... of twine, and three brass buttons, the property of Oliver, besides the manuscript Gospel of John, and Olly's treasured letter from his mother. These articles, with the garments in which they stood, constituted the small fortune of our wanderers, and it became a matter of profound speculation, during the progress of the supper, as to whether it was possible to exist in an unknown wilderness on ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... brought herself to think that if Jack would ask her, she would risk everything. But were he to do so, which was not probable, she would immediately begin to calculate what could be done by Jack's moderate income and her own small fortune. She and Mrs. Houghton kissed each other affectionately, being at the present moment close in each other's confidences, and then she was introduced to Lady George. "Adelaide hasn't a chance," was Miss Mildmay's first thought as she ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... withdrawn himself from all business connections, and sold his property. With his small fortune, realized by active, intelligent industry, and now represented by Certificates of Deposit in three of the city banks, he vanished from among those who had known and respected him for years, and left not a sign of the direction he had taken. Even idle rumor, so ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... oracle. Don't you see how worthless great men and dull rich rogues avoid a witty man of small fortune? Why, he looks like a writ of enquiry into their titles and estates, and seems commissioned by heaven to seize ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... differently?—that was what I vainly puzzled my brain to explain. However, his gloomy fears of poverty were not realized. A delightful surprise awaited him at New York. A relative had recently died, leaving him a legacy of fifty thousand dollars—a small fortune. I hoped that he would now cease his constant complaints, but he seemed even more displeased than before. 'Such is the irony of fate,' he repeated again and again. 'With this money, I might easily have married ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau |
