"Paltry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unknown, his tenderest feelings torn and wounded by the behaviour of the Armours, and so miserably poor that he had been for some weeks obliged to skulk from the sheriff's officers to avoid the payment of a paltry debt. He returned, his poetical fame established, the whole country ringing with his praise, from a capital in which he was known to have formed the wonder and delight of the polite and the learned; if not rich, yet with more money already than any ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... sick of seeing my own name Tagged to some paltry line, While this old corpus without shame Sits ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... peers of the realm,—no time for pleasure or relaxation,—being devoted entirely to public interests of the greatest magnitude; for on his shoulders rested the government of the kingdom. What was the paltry dispute of a few hundred pounds in a distant colony to the Prime Minister of England! All that Franklin could secure was an interview with the great man's secretaries, and they did little ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... towards the end of 1770, in the Juno, Captain Stott, which was sent to the Falkland Islands, in consequence of the forcible seizure of them by the Spanish squadron. It is remarkable that this paltry dispute, which might be almost forgotten but for the virulent invective of "Junius," and the masterly defence of the Government by Dr. Johnson, should have given to the navy two such officers as Nelson and Pellew; neither of whom might otherwise have found ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... too far beyond the scope of any one human personality for me to regard them indifferently. I wish I could. I have reason to believe myself the bearer of a message to many men. This belief is in itself enough, one would say, to deplete a man of paltry purpose. I wish to be considered only as the messenger, who comes and departs, and is thought of no more. The message remains, and should remain, the only material ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... they care nothing. Here am I who for the last ten hours have had neither meat nor drink. Not that I mind the meat so much, but, 'slife, my throat is dry as one of their sermons, and I would cheerfully give four of my five hours of life for a posset of sack. A paltry lot are they, Kenneth, holding that because a man must die at dawn he need not sup to-night. Heigho! Some liar hath said that he who sleeps dines, and if I sleep perchance I ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... never turned his thoughts to preferment in the Church, which he is invariably telling us he disliked, had not Beaufort given assurance that he would put him in the way of holding some high and lucrative post in England; and then when he received a paltry benefice, instead of expressing thanks like the other dependents on the Prince Prelate, he was silent, from fear of the power possessed by Beaufort, or from retaining even in his contracted fortunes the politeness which he had inherited from his noble forefathers:—"egere alii ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... the moonlight. The broad glare of day is so garish and extravagant. Besides, there is a restlessness and a buz no human being, at least no sensible human being, can endure. Everything is on the stir. Every creature, however paltry and insignificant, whether moth, mote, or atom, seems busy. Whereas, one serene soft gaze of the moon appears to allay nature's universal disquiet. The calm and mellow placidity of her look, so heavenly and undisturbed, lulls the soul, and subdues ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... this paltry consideration with a princely gesture. "I don't mind that part," he insisted. "Mr. Graham, if you'll teach me the drug business I'll ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... being still the possessor of twenty-five cents in silver. It was not much, but it seemed a great deal better than being penniless. A week before he would have thought it impossible that such a paltry sum would have made him feel comfortable, but he had passed through ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... time, and think fit, upon better acquaintance, to let me into her case, it may be a happy day for her, if I find it a just one; for, you must know, that when I was at the bar, I never was such a sad fellow as to undertake, for the sake of a paltry fee, to make white black, and black white: For what would that have been, but to endeavour to establish iniquity by quirks, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... circulated, in which the logic of a small sharp pettifogger was employed to prove that writs, issued in the joint names of William and Mary, ceased to be of force as soon as William reigned alone. But this paltry cavil had completely failed. It had not even been mentioned in the Lower House, and had been mentioned in the Upper only to be contemptuously overruled. The whole Magistracy of the City swelled the procession. The banners ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... large family. Why should any one have power lawfully, to "lift" the only cow from half-starved children. The defence for this woman was that through trouble she did not know what she was doing. It was a mean, paltry defence; she did know that she wanted to keep her cow, and the law should be altered to enable her to do so. The law that enables men of means to strip these poor wretches of everything that stands between them and their little children and starvation, is ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... struck, and are bruised and disfigured as a matter of course, in order that they may learn not to flinch from pain, or lose their tempers, or turn cowards, when they have to fight. "And so do I," says St. Paul; "they, poor men, submit to painful and disagreeable things to make them brave in their paltry battles. I submit to painful and disagreeable things, to make me brave in the great battle which I have to fight against sin, and ignorance, and heathendom." "Therefore," he says, in another place, "I take pleasure in afflictions, in persecutions, in necessities, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... that we are all to share alike and have everything in common, instead of one being rich and another poor, and one having hundreds of acres and another not enough to make him a grave, and one a houseful of servants and another not even a paltry foot-boy. I am going to ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... from the icy currents which blew from the north, quite an abundance of flowers, though there was a perfect absence of trees. They were dwarfed and ordinary-looking plants, saxifrages and other alpine growths, and so insignificant, that in another part of the world they would have been looked upon as paltry weeds, but here they were rushed after by both the lads, Watty being down on his knees directly ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... they are right. The positive cast of their minds prevents them from seeing the beautiful in aught but costly material, well-defined forms, and highly-polished workmanship: hence, to them Bagtche Serai must be a mere group of shabby huts adorned with paltry ornaments, and fit only for the ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... for Ireland; ay, a Cuchullin you were, Philip, Culann's chain-bound: but she unmanned you. She soaked the woman into you and squeezed the hero out of you. All for Adiante! or a country left to slavery! that's the tale. And what are you now? A paltry captain of hussars on the General's staff! One O'Donnell in a thousand! And what is she?—you needn't frown, Phil; I'm her relative by marriage, and she 's a lady. More than that, she shot a dart or two into my breast ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this Preface without an expression of regret at the dark and terrible fate which overtook the high-minded, patriotic, and distinguished Irishman, Thomas D'Arcy McGee. He was a man who loved his country well; and when the contemptible squabbles and paltry dissensions of the present have passed away, his name will be a hallowed memory, like that of Emmet or Fitzgerald, to inspire men with high, ideals ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... you have had a sample of all our poor talents, save and except that paltry talent of mine which in other company concludes such a performance. I pray you tell me what ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... of which must destroy the other—but over these obstructions Jack's manner floated him so lightly, that a refusal from him no more shocked you, than the easy compliance of Charles gave you in reality any pleasure; you got over the paltry question as quickly as you could, to get back into the regions of pure comedy, where no cold moral reigns. The highly artificial manner of Palmer in this character counteracted every disagreeable impression which you might have received from the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... the Constitution frigate, which had performed such gallant deeds in the Mediterranean, as "a bundle of pine boards sailing under a bit of striped bunting," and they declared that "a few broadsides from England's wooden walls" would, "drive the paltry striped bunting from the ocean." They did not heed the injunction, "Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... done for the people nothing but an insult to the nobility. His popular sentiments were in some sort but the liberality of his genius. The vast expansiveness of his mighty soul had no resemblance with the paltry impulses of demagogues. In acquiring rights for the people he seemed as though he bestowed them. He was a volunteer of democracy. He recalled by his part, and his bearing, to those democrats behind him, that from the time of the Gracchi to his own, the tribunes who most served the people ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... This dispute, seemingly paltry yet really serious, sudden in its appearance and dependent for its issue upon other considerations than its own merits, may serve to convince us of many latent and yet unforeseen dangers to the peace of the western hemisphere, ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... they do purchase human life cheap, and make a rare profit of it, for without these poor fellows how could they hold their possessions in spite of native and foreign enemies? For what a paltry and cheap annuity do these men sell their lives? For what a miserable pittance do they dare all the horrors of a most deadly climate, without a chance, a hope of return to their native land, where they might haply repair their exhausted energies, and take a new lease of life! Good God! if these ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... It is a long edifice with wings, and is only two stories high, though it can be seen afar, owing to its being situated on elevated ground. It has fifteen windows in the upper and twelve in the lower story, with a paltry-looking door something like that of a barn, the ascent to which is by a single step. The interior corresponds with the exterior, offering nothing which can gratify curiosity, if we except the kitchens, which are indeed magnificent, and so large that food enough might be prepared in them ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... The pettiness of human souls, The cheap frivolities of life, The keen pursuit of paltry goals,— How small they seem beneath the dome That ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... of rapine and murder. For this is the line of argument pursued by the representative of Athens in the Melian Debate. The substance of what he says may briefly be stated as follows "You are weak—we are strong; Melos is a paltry island, Athens is queen of the Aegaean, and the existence of an independent city in these waters is an insult to her empire. Let us waste no time in discussions about abstract law and right. For the mighty there is but one law—to get what they can, and to keep it; and the weak have no ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... paltry coffin and buried, at the expense of the arrondissement, in a nook of the burial-place beyond the Barriere de l'Etoile. They buried him at six o'clock, of a bitter winter's morning, and it was with difficulty that an English clergyman could be found ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of this mount, towering above the 'high places' and the hills, and turn without repining to the plains beneath, where puny man has pitched his tent and wars upon his fellow, mocking the sublimity of Nature with his paltry tyranny? I felt as if I lived in other times, and my eye eagerly but vainly sought for some traces of that 'ark' which furnished a refuge and a shelter to the creatures of God's mercy when the 'waters prevailed, and were increased ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... cutting down the flagstaff at the residence of the American consul. European states had purchased immunity for their commerce by paying tribute to these rapacious pirates; and the United States had followed the custom. The Pasha of Tripoli, however, was dissatisfied with the American tribute, a paltry eighty-three thousand dollars, and demanded more. The other Barbary powers threatened to make common cause with him. Anticipating trouble, Jefferson had sent a small squadron to the Mediterranean even before the dramatic act of the Pasha at the American consulate; and hostilities ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... disembowelled bird, which occurs in the indignant denial that the character of the revolutionary French in aught resembled that of the English. "We have not," says the orator, "been drawn and trussed, in order that we may be filled, like stuffed birds in a museum, with chaff, and rags, and paltry blurred shreds of paper about the rights of man." Into this perilous but singularly effective department, closed against even superior men, Mr. Stewart could enter safely and at will. One of the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... that all our marriages are made. So exquisite is the adaptation of Bass to Treble, of Tenor to Contralto, that oftentimes the Loved Ones, though twenty thousand leagues away, recognize at once the responsive note of their destined Lover; and, penetrating the paltry obstacles of distance, Love unites the three. The marriage in that instant consummated results in a threefold Male and Female offspring which takes ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... possess a paltry Irish title I cared little. My son was now heir to an English earldom, and I made him assume forthwith the title of Lord Viscount Castle Lyndon, the third of the family titles. My mother went almost mad with joy at saluting her grandson as 'my Lord,' and I felt that all ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to spare. Don't say no. It will raise my own position to say 'I and Rochebriant keep house together.' It must be so. Come here to-morrow. As for not having a career,—bah! I and Duplessis will settle that. You shall be a millionaire in two years. Meanwhile we will join capitals: I my paltry notes, you ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... up of Browning's knaves cannot be better expressed than by Chesterton. 'They are real somewhere. We are talking to a garrulous and peevish sneak; we are watching the play of his paltry features, his evasive eyes and babbling lips. And suddenly the face begins to change and harden, the eyes glare like the eyes of a mask, the whole face of clay becomes a common mouthpiece, and the voice that comes forth is the voice of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... Uncle Grafton, to cry "God save the King!" again when an English fleet sailed up the bay. Mr. Carvel's hand was large and his heart was large, and he was respected and even loved by the patriots as a man above paltry subterfuge. He was born at Carvel Hall in the year of our Lord 1696, when the house was, I am told, but a small dwelling. It was his father, George Carvel, my great-grandsire, reared the present house in the year 1720, of brick brought from England as ballast for the empty ships; ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... it of which I alone know. Those who force themselves upon Caesar, as these citizens do, must learn to have patience. And you—if you would fill the position to which I intend to raise you—must first take care to leave all paltry considerations and doubts behind you. However, all that will come of itself. Softness and mercy melt on the throne like ice before the sun. You will soon learn to scorn this tribe of beggars who come whining round us. If I ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of grandeur and renown with which Jeroboam had surrounded the kingdom could not hide its wretched and paltry character from the prophet's eyes; "for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease. And it shall come to pass at that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel."* ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... weekly, and opens his house for conversations on the Sundays. I found at his breakfasts, tea and coffee, with hot rolls, and men of celebrity afraid to speak. At the conversations, there was something even worse. A few plausible talking fellows created a buzz in the room, and the merits of some paltry nick-nack of mechanism or science was discussed. The party consisted undoubtedly of the most eminent men of their respective lines in the world; but they were each and all so apprehensive of having their ideas purloined, that they took the most guarded care never to speak ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... his intrigue with Lady Newhaven. He had been attracted, excited, partially, half-willingly enslaved. He had thought at the time that he loved her, and that supposition had confirmed him in his cheap cynicism about woman. This, then, was her paltry little court, where man offered mock homage, and where she played at being queen. Hugh had made the discovery that love was a much overrated passion. He had always supposed so; but when he tired of Lady Newhaven he was sure of it. His experience was, after all, only the same as that which ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... sports, but Godwin was one of those upon whose awaking intellect is forced a perception of the brain-defect so general in women when they are taught few of life's graces and none of its serious concerns,—their paltry prepossessions, their vulgar sequaciousness, their invincible ignorance, their absorption in a petty self. And especially is this phase of thought to be expected in a boy whose heart blindly nourishes the seeds of poetical passion. It ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... powerless &c. 158; frivolous, petty, niggling; piddling, peddling; fribble[obs3], inane, ridiculous, farcical; finical, finikin[obs3]; fiddle-faddle, fingle- fangle[obs3], namby-pamby, wishy-washy, milk and water. poor, paltry, pitiful; contemptible &c. (contempt) 930; sorry, mean, meager, shabby, miserable, wretched, vile, scrubby, scrannel[obs3], weedy, niggardly, scurvy, putid[obs3], beggarly, worthless, twopennyhalfpenny, cheap, trashy, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Army of the Potomac the people had looked as the bulwark of the country—the central force that should in good time take Richmond and give the last blow to the rebellion. The miserable bickering and paltry fears which had detached McDowell's division from the grand army, to defend Washington when never threatened, had been comparatively unknown or little understood. Many and disastrous months were yet to elapse, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... species of brutes; or rather, indeed, of our idea of devils; for I don't know that any brutes can be taxed with such malevolence. A sirloin of beef was now placed on the table, for which, though little better than carrion, as much was charged by the master of the little paltry ale-house who dressed it as would have been demanded for all the elegance of the King's Arms, or any other polite tavern or eating-house! for, indeed, the difference between the best house and the worst ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... years? O small And paltry period compared with all The tide of centuries that flowed and ebbed ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... serving as props for the vines. It didn't look amiss, but the heat, Junker, the heat spoiled all pleasure. And the dirt in the taverns, the vermin, and the talk about bravos, who shed the blood of honest Christians in the dark for a little paltry money. If your tongue dries up in your mouth, you'll find nothing but hot wine, not a sip of cool beer. And the dust, gentlemen, the frightful dust. As for the steel in Brescia—it's worthy of all honor. But the feather was stolen from my hat ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his views of conquest. But that this great man—as he is usually reckoned even by adversaries—this hero according to some—this illustrious warrior, and mighty sovereign—should have stooped to be guilty of an act of mean and petty malice worthy of a spiteful old woman,—a piece of paltry cruelty which could not at all conduce to his success in the war, or produce any effect except to degrade his country, and exasperate ours;—this, surely, is quite incredible. "Pizarro," says Elvira in Kotzebue's play, "if not always justly, at ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... atmosphere of patriotic mourning and amidst the discouragement of defeat. National life, such as it became reconstituted after that terrible shock, revealed to them on all sides nothing but abortive hopes, paltry struggles of interest, and a society without any other hierarchy but that of money, and without other principle or ideal than the pursuit of material enjoyment. Literature ... reflected these same tendencies; ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... alter my garb, and when one of them stammeringly referred to the Empress's tastes I asked him with plainness if he had got any definite commands on this paltry matter ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... impossible. Pray listen to reason. We are utterly unprepared for a sea voyage; it is simply madness to think of performing a journey of five hundred leagues upon a wretched pile of beams, with a counterpane for a sail, a paltry stick for a mast, and a tempest to contend with. As we are totally incapable of steering our frail craft, we shall become the mere plaything of the storm, and it is acting the part of madmen if we, a second time, run any risk upon this ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... drift to inordinate movements be wrecked by vice." And Augustine says (in the same sermon) that "fasting loves not many words, deems wealth superfluous, scorns pride, commends humility, helps man to perceive what is frail and paltry." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... "El Dorado"—the golden realm!—the home of an everlasting summer! Rob pauses dramatically; he comes to a full stop. How mean is the parlour of the comfortable Wood Street tavern! How paltry its pewter pots and clumsy flagons! How dull ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... blow, and that the hardest, bitterest of all—undermine what had been the very keystone of his life, the one really flawless element in the whole sad story? Her love—the strength of which she boasted—had been sullied by jealousy, dimmed by reservations, a paltry thing beside his; and yet, be that as it might, she knew it was all she had to give. She had given him her whole heart, irrevocably. Let her prove it by ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... us these paltry inducements to betray the secrets of our skill. We are—we hope we may say it without undue pride—an All-Round Angler, and we are not going to be squared by a bait of that kind. (2) We have never pretended ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... what havoc you may make in the happiness of a worthy man; look at his character; see his exemplary conduct; and could you, for the paltry gratification of your vanity, condemn him to the pangs of unrequited love. He has now, I fear, the ills of poverty to struggle against; did you notice his emotion when speaking of his mother and sisters? perhaps they are dependant on him,—you must ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... say true; it is a grave comedy. I follow the opinion of Longinus, who says comedy ought always to be sentimental. Sir, I value a sentiment of six lines in my piece no more than a nabob does a rupee. I hate those dirty, paltry equivocations, which go by the name of puns, and pieces of wit. No, Sir, it ever was my opinion that the stage should be a place of rational entertainment; instead of which, I am very sorry to say, most people go there for their diversion: accordingly, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... passage), and they mounted to the fourth and topmost floor. They stopped again upon a little landing in front of a second door. A wall-paper of a cheap and offensive pattern, which had here and there peeled from the plaster, added, Lady Tamworth observed, a paltry air of tawdriness to the poverty of the place. Julian fumbled in his pocket for a key, unlocked the door, and stepped aside for his companion to enter. Following her in, he lit a pair of wax candles on the mantelpiece and a brass lamp in the corner of the room. Lady Tamworth fancied that ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... great lilies in vases, wreaths of stephanotis; and, above all, roses—great garlands of white roses had been woven, and they hung along and across. A blossom fell, a sob sounded in the stillness; and how trivial it all seemed, and how impotent to assuage the bitter burning of human sorrow: how paltry and circumscribed the old grey church, with its little graveyard full of forgotten griefs and aspirations! This hour of beautiful sorrow and roses, how long will it be remembered? The coffin sinks out of ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... he had the desire. They are all men of families, well connected, and many of them have children grown up. Would they do an act that would bring disgrace not only upon themselves but their relatives, wives, children, and forever debar them from society for a paltry few dollars that they could bilk a railroad company out of? The idea is preposterous, and ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... utterly mysterious; they now shone out all too clearly, in glaring colours. He knew that he himself had not touched the money, and no one else had been left with it, except Hamish. Debt! what had the paltry fear of debt and its consequences been compared ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... herself and her mission, along with that mignonne, provoking, pretty, little face of hers, are altogether too incongruous! No, Ethel bores me, it must be confessed; and I have got to marry her—all for a paltry twenty thousand pounds! What a fool I was to propose before I had seen ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... failed to discover any more money. He felt indignant. That a miser should have but a paltry ten dollars in his ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... one morning, after Mr Dempster had been a little more disagreeable than usual about some copying not being finished, and then gone out, leaving me thinking what I could do to give him a little more satisfaction, so as to induce him to raise the very paltry salary he paid me. "'Tain't nonsense. Mother says that if I stop I shall some day rise and get to be Lord Mayor, but I don't think Demp would like it, so ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... war 's a damned war, an' them thet enlist in it Should hev a cravat with a dreffle tight twist in it; Thet the war is a war fer the spreadin' o' slavery; Thet our army desarves our best thanks fer their bravery; Thet we 're the original friends o' the nation, All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrication; Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' C, An' ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G. In this way they go to the eend o' the chapter, An' then they bust out in a kind of a raptur About their own vartoo, an' folks's stone-blindness To the men thet ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... the bear before I believe in the gnome or kobold!" cried Dale. "Oh, Melchior! now I have so far had so much respect for you as a frank, manly Switzer, don't spoil it by trying to cloak an error with a paltry excuse. You did not properly secure the rope; it came off; and it was an accident. You know it was an accident, so ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... very pretty, and written down looks very well. In reality, however, it is not so; something, I know not what, is lacking, and everything is very paltry. In other lands, in the delightful isles of Oceania, in the old, lifeless quarters of Stamboul, it seemed as if mere words could never express all I felt, and I struggled vainly against my own inability to render, in human language, the penetrating ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... endowed with hospitals, arsenals, quays, and fortifications, La Bourdonnais learned that a new governor was already installed there. His dissensions with Dupleix had borne their fruits; he had been accused of having exacted too paltry a ransom from Madras, and of having accepted enormous presents; the Company had appointed a successor in his place. Driven to desperation, anxious to go and defend himself, La Bourdonnais set out for France with ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... lovely thing, overflowing with the animation that comes from a quick intelligence—a keen appreciation of the intelligence of the great artists who had interpreted a story which thrilled the imagination of generation after generation, and he felt that Parliament was a paltry thing. Parliament—what was Parliament? The wrangle of political parties over a paltry issue. It had no real life in it; it had nothing of the fullness and breadth of the matters that interested ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... gilt dragon for a handle, these smaller jugs, boxes, and dishes, all of the same pattern, all with dark-blue dragons (no cold "Canton" blue, but a rich, splendid ultramarine), large and small, prancing and sprawling on a pale buff ground,—what were these things doing in the paltry bedroom of a common farm-house? Hilda felt a new touch of indignation at "these people" for presuming to have such things ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... the insults of the proud Generals, nor the knowledge of coming pain for herself. Her thought was all of the mission entrusted to her; and so, though thwarted and set aside, she showed no petty anger, dreamed not of any paltry vengeance such as others might have dealt the soldiers, by refusing to march with them on the morrow. Oh, no; hurt she might be—indeed we knew she was—her pain being for the dishonour done her Lord in this disrespect of His messenger; but no thought of reprisal entered ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Then let come what might on this plane of foolish contention, where we strive to cover the Immutable with the petty mask of our mutabilities. We sweat and toil for ends which we know not, and our paltry and blind decisions, our triumphs and failures, determine nothing but the degree of our own ignorance and impotence. The Lord's aims and issues are not ours, and ours do but measure our spiritual stature, and direct our ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... of Levasseur, and black grew the brow of Captain Blood as the Frenchman's tale was unfolded. At the end he roundly expressed his disapproval. The Dutch were a friendly people whom it was a folly to alienate, particularly for so paltry a matter as these hides and tobacco, which at most would fetch a bare ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... other examples of course of this principle of self-criticism, as the necessary condition of all criticism. It applies quite as much, for instance, to the other great complaint which my Kensington friend would make after the complaint about paltry ornament; the complaint about what is commonly called backsheesh. Here again there is really something to complain of; though much of the fault is not due to Jerusalem, but rather to London and New York. The worst superstition of Jerusalem, ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... themselves delightfully at home. It is wild as a hawk, an untamable creature that slowly pines to death when brought into contact with civilization. Greedy street venders, who ruthlessly tear up the plant by the yard, and others without even the excuse of eking out a paltry income by its sale, have already exterminated it within a wide radius of our Eastern cities. How curious that the majority of people show their appreciation of a flower's beauty only by selfishly, ignorantly picking every ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... travelling over the gold region. Now, whether headquarters are freighted with munitions of war, etc., or whether the cargo consists of blankets, shirts, etc., to clothe the suffering Indians, for the paltry consideration of gold, no one cares or knows; but the principle should be, that, if privates can or will be off making their thousands, those who are better ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... and shallow stream. Although from the extent of the stockade Mogoung has evidently in former periods (during the Shan dynasty) been of extent and consequence, it is at present a mean and paltry town. It derives any little consequence it possesses from being the rendezvous of the Shan-Chinese, who flock ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... great foreboding—the deep voice of an elemental power that knows no mercy. Within twenty feet of them men and women were struggling like dumb and driven animals for bare life—struggling, shouting, quarrelling over a paltry precedence of a minute or so in going to the boats; within a hundred yards of them, out over the dark waters, Agatha's mother, thrown from an overturned boat, was struggling her last struggle, with her silly old face turned indignantly ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... takes upon himself to comment. We listen submissively to much school-book lore as to "Claudius" and the "fourth century" and the "residence of Roman Emperors," but when it rains Bishops and Archbishops and Electors we fly before them. For, after all, what signifies the paltry learning of a dry-as-dust dominie compared with the vivid tales these grand old ruins tell if suffered to speak for themselves? In Treves people need to absorb silently, and then assimilate undisturbed by weary ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... Paternoster Row end of Cheapside, was uncovered July 21st, 1855. The Builder at the time justly lamented that so much good metal was wasted. The statue is without thought—the head is set on the neck awkwardly, the pedestal is senseless, and the two double lamps at the side are mean and paltry. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... what a giant structure will fall to the earth, if, at this crisis, the empress should fail me! Think what a triumph it would be to dash aside my rivals and seize the helm of state to gather, upon the deck of one stout ship, all the paltry principalities that call themselves 'Austria;' to band them into one consolidated nation; and then to steer this noble ship into a haven of greatness and glorious peace! Binder, to this end alone I live. I have outlived all human illusions. I have ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... intellectual superiority what it will, it can never assume the practical, available supremacy over other men, without the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, in themselves, more or less paltry and base. This it is, that for ever keeps God's true princes of the Empire from the world's hustings; and leaves the highest honours that this air can give, to those men who become famous more through their infinite inferiority to the choice hidden ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... is no easy matter to acquire a laboratory in the open fields, when harassed by a terrible anxiety about one's daily bread. For forty years have I fought, with steadfast courage, against the paltry plagues of life; and the long-wished-for laboratory has come at last. What it has cost me in perseverance and relentless work I will not try to say. It has come; and, with it—a more serious condition—perhaps a little leisure. I say perhaps, for my leg is still hampered with a ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... suspend. But I would willingly hear what is Atticus's opinion of Caesar."—"Upon my word," replied Atticus, "you are wonderfully consistent with your plan, to say nothing yourself of the living: and indeed, if you was to deal with them, as you already have with the dead, and say something of every paltry fellow that occurs to your memory, you would plague us with Autronii and Steiani without end. But though you might possibly have it in view not to incumber yourself with such a numerous crowd of insignificant wretches; or perhaps, to avoid giving any one room to complain that he ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... fate and the paltry ambitions of men had combined to rob Columbus of his just title to fame, the name of the double continent that he discovered was given to another. To that other the name remains, but the continent itself ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... to their own level, they are apt to sink to theirs; and persons with talents that might have served for nobler purposes are suffered to degenerate into diseurs de bons mots and raconteurs de societe, content with the paltry distinction of being considered amusing. How many such have I encountered, satisfied with being pigmies, who might have grown to be giants, but who were consoled by the reflection that in that world in which their sole aim is to shine, pigmies are more tolerated than giants, ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... led this brave soldier in gray so utterly to forget himself for the sake of doing a deed of mercy to his enemies. There is more grandeur in five minutes of such self-renunciation than in a whole lifetime of self-interest and self-seeking. There is something Christly in it. How poor, paltry, and mean, alongside the records of such deeds, appear men's selfish strivings, ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... chieftains seldom chose to abide in person a siege of this nature; and I have not observed a single instance of a distinguished baron made prisoner in his own house[41].—Patten's Expedition, p. 35. The common people resided in paltry huts, about the safety of which they were little anxious, as they contained nothing of value. On the approach of a superior force, they unthatched them, to prevent their being burned, and then abandoned them to the foe.—Stowe's Chronicle, p. 665. Their only ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... should be tried by a jury of his peers. But the way things have worked out, the man of average intelligence is apt to have to face a dozen jurors who are chosen partly for their lack of intelligence, and partly because their earning ability is so low that they are willing to serve for the paltry wage of a ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... enough plausibility in the theory to make it mischievous. The allegorical interpretation of the Book of Canticles was in truth the source of, or at least the model for, a vast amount of unwholesome and repulsive pietism. Not a word need be said for such a paltry narrative of endearments and sickly compliments as the "Revelations of the Nun Gertrude," in the thirteenth century. Nor are we concerned to deny that the artificially induced ecstasy, which is desired on account of the intense pleasure which is said ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... have loved him, and asked no return. If I had been his wife, I could have been the slave of his caprices for a word of love a year. I should have been. Who knows it better than I? You were exacting, proud, punctilious, selfish. My love would have been devoted—would have trod your paltry whimpering ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... infusion of some polemic element was necessary to make the meat savory and such as their souls loved. Their ambition was not to grow in grace, but in social influence and regard—to glorify their dissent, not the communion of saints. Upon the chief corner-stone they would build their stubble of paltry religionism; they would set up their ragged tent in the midst of the eternal temple, careless how it blocked up window ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... while ago," and the lean brown face puckered into a smile. "Come! In what way can I oblige'ee, friend? I can grant you any wish you like. Say the word—and it's done! Just think what you could do if you had heaps of money, now—piles of suvrins in that owld chest in your bedroom, instead o' they paltry two-an'-twenty suvrins which you now got heeded ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... this hideous hell on earth, Making a by-word of your native land, Stripped of your wealth, how paltry is your worth! See how men shrink ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... It is unnecessary to add that no gentleman will use profane language in the presence of a lady. For profanity there is no excuse. It is a low and paltry habit, acquired from association with low and paltry spirits, who possess no sense of honor, no regard for decency and no reverence or respect for beings of a higher moral or religious nature than themselves. ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... herself. He might be a cad, but he was real; his honest love possessed him body and soul. It was a matter of expediency to her; a thing to debate with herself, to dally over, with paltry pros and cons. ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... note the advantageous effect that is produced upon the sailing of a ship when it becomes possible to check the sheets and braces even a few paltry inches; it was distinctly noticeable in the case of the schooner; her movements were perceptibly freer and easier, she no longer drove her keen cut-water into the heart of the seas, receiving their blows upon the rounding of her weather bow with a force sufficient ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... life of a President of these United States before his election, been made an ambassador, or counsel, or something? Didn't Pierce send Hawthorne to Liverpool, not because of his transcendant genius, but for the reason that he had written a paltry life ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... a doubtful one, and sent me to fight Hellesfield, which it was never intended that I should win. Then Miller dug his own grave. He opposed me there and I lost the seat. Horlock was politely regretful, scarcely saw what could be done for me at the moment, was disposed to join in a paltry little domestic plot to send me to the Lords. This was at the time I came down to Martinhoe, the time, except for those brief moments in Paris, when ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... national hatred of the Austrians, I turned from the sight, resolved not to be pleased. The arena of the amphitheatre is smaller, and less oval in form than I had expected: and in the centre, there is a little paltry gaudy wooden theatre for puppets and tumblers,—forming a grotesque contrast to the massive and majestic architecture around it: but even tumblers and puppets, as Rospo observed, are better than wild beasts and ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... Company be swayed by so paltry a consideration in subjecting us to so grievous an inconvenience? Surely not; a body of men so respectable could neither have authorized nor sanctioned such sordid parsimony. The generous proposition originated with Mr. Simpson alone, and to him ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... of the great truth about it—and that therefore Mr. Stephens's declaration amounts substantially to saying that slavery was to be the corner stone of his new Government; and so your assertion, that 'he has made no such declaration,' is a paltry verbal quibble, unworthy of a sensible ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... clear, piercing gaze of the eagle, energy like that with which the strong wing of the royal bird cleaves the air, marked the noble Asmonean; for the soul's gaze was upward toward its Sun, and the soul's pinion soared high above the petty interests, the paltry ambition of earth. As there was dignity in the single-mindedness of the character of Judas, so was there power in the very simplicity of his words. I will mar that simplicity by no interpolations of my own, but transfer unaltered to my pages ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... later, the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced a Bill, empowering the Government to lend the paltry sum of L620,000 to Irish railways, which Sir Robert also opposed, saying that "the measure of Lord George Bentinck was free from some of the objections which forcibly applied to the present measure." ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... persons address an audience from the stage, it is usual, either in words or gesture, to say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, your servant.' If I were base enough, mean enough, paltry enough, and brute beast enough to follow that fashion, I should tell two lies in a breath. In the first place, you are not ladies and gentlemen, but, I hope, something better—that is to say, honest men and women; and, in the next place, if you were ever so ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... range and variety of his reading. Examine the Christ Church Canterbury catalogue in Henry Eastry's time, and note what a remarkable variety of subjects is comprised in what we nowadays consider rather a paltry number of books. There is another point worth bearing in mind. Speaking of Bishop Shirwood's books, a writer in the English Historical Review says: "Many of the books bear his mark, Nota, scattered over the margins, or a hand with a long pointing ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... forgotten. Pray pardon me," he said, "but the attack was so violent, the blow so savage, the weapon must have been so keen, that it is almost impossible to connect it with a mere attempt to commit a paltry robbery. I thought, and the police thought, that it was a case ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... during the past week, with its labored and tedious analyses of feelings and motives, its paltry and tiresome people, its unexciting and uninteresting story, and its frequent blinding flashes of single-sentence poetry, philosophy, wit, and what not, and nearly died from the overwork. I wouldn't read another of those books ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the province, because, as the subsidy was on the basis of paying to the provinces annually eighty cents per head of population, the people were really being sold by the government like sheep for this paltry price. The trusted Tilley, easily first in popular affection by reason of his probity and devotion to public duty, was discredited. His opponent in the city of St John, A. R. Wetmore, illustrated the dire effects of Confederation in an imaginary dialogue, between ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... advice:—'Before "X.Y.Z." institutes any other reforms, we would advise him to reperuse his English Grammar.' Far from having a salutary effect, this rebuff only rankled in my soul. I determined to revenge myself on the paltry malignant who dared to despise my efforts. I therefore wrote a slashing criticism for one of the evening papers, demolishing (as I thought) the delinquent periodical, and denouncing its whole corps of writers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... since His design admits of improvement? Can we conceive of Him as doing something in answer to a human petition which He would not do apart from such a petition? Can we think of Him as being prevailed upon by our assiduities and importunities to alter His decrees—is not this whole notion rather paltry and derogatory to His dignity? Everybody is familiar with these questions and arguments; let us see in what proportion truth and ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... was not in his nature to battle and grub with his fellows for a few paltry dollars, and the call of his father's blood was strong in his veins. Bob was the kind of fellow who likes to make a heap of his winnings, when he has any, and stake it all on the turning of a card; if this metaphor may be employed to designate Bob McGraw's nature without ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... an emotional satisfaction which brings comfort to all, and amongst these any of hysterical nature probably become far happier and better citizens under her wing than they would otherwise have been. No nets will catch the expanding soul which is rising out of its paltry self into ideals nearer ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... darting an impatient glance, "is it nothing to be reduced to this paltry situation—to be caged in a miserable cottage—to be obliged to toil almost in the menial concerns of her ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Because if a man will take from a woman something so precious as her love, surely he may share with her anything so paltry as her money. (Eric turns ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... upon the very face of it, a paltry scheme of present income. And, seeing his entered classes of boys and girls must soon have done with him, he has doubtless acted wisely, and quite in accordance with his own interest, to have made all ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... in cases of violations, and the prosecutions were to be conducted {187} by the Department of Justice. To enable these officials to execute the law, Congress has appropriated $50,000 annually—which is just about one tenth the minimum amount needed for the purpose. This paltry sum has been expended as judiciously as possible with marked results for good. Trouble, however, soon developed in the courts. One autumn day Harvey C. Schauver went a-hunting on Big Lake, Arkansas, and finding no Ducks handy he shot a Coot, which was against ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... would treasure that so long as I lived in remembrance of his Excellency, together with the honourable message he had sent me; for I considered that the splendid favours of his Excellency had amply recompensed my pains, whereas that paltry stone insulted them. This speech annoyed the Duke so much that he sent for his treasurer, and scolded him more sharply than he had ever done before. At the same time he gave me orders, under pain of his displeasure, not to leave Ferrara ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... and not its internal subdivisions. One great object of the war, we had supposed, was to abolish all fallacies of sectional distinction in a patriotism that could embrace something wider than a township, a county, or even a State. But Mr. Johnson has chosen to revive the paltry party-cries from before that deluge which we hoped had washed everything clean, and to talk of treason at both ends of the Union, as if there were no difference between men who attempted the life of their ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... are full of much better things) his pockets. Suppose the person to whom he applied for the meltings had withstood every plea of wife and fourteen children, no business, and good character, and refused him this paltry little office because he might hereafter attempt to get hold of the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster for life? would not Mr. Perceval have contended eagerly against the injustice of refusing moderate requests, because immoderate ones may hereafter be ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... but an under-plot of the Prophet, whose object was indeed far beyond that of becoming the paltry instrument of a rusty intrigue. It was a custom with Dick o' the Grange, for a few years previous to the date of our story, to sleep during the assizes, in the head inn of the town, attended by Jemmy Branigan. This was rendered in some degree necessary, by the condition of his bad leg, and his ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... me up with conceit and I thought if these words be true, why should I bury my talents in a little magazine in exchange for a paltry twenty-five dollars per thousand words? I would write a play and do something worth while. Just as I had the skeleton of the play well formed and a good start made on it, I came into the possession of a few thousand dollars by the death of an uncle in California. ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... the disposition of the proceeds. "Of course, I don't know in whose hands it lay, Lady Isabel," she said, raising her tea cup to her lips, and in order to do so curtaining it behind her ample veil, "but the Roman Catholics seemed to consider that it was all to go to them, and the paltry sum I have mentioned was all they gave Mr. Cotton and me for our charities!" Her black eyes snapped nenacingly at Lady Isabel over the rim of ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... money," said the offended Mr. Vickers, regarding him fiercely, "stick to it like leeches. Now, suppose I was a young man keeping company with a gal and her father wanted to borrow a couple o' quid—a paltry couple o' thick'uns—what ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the coral islands and the orange-groves. There you will see all the beauty of the world, and will laugh at the thought of having been content in this dull meadow, with its stupid daisies and buttercups, and its paltry little brook. Also you will find many cousins there, leaves such as you never dreamed of, wonderful in size and shape and color. Say, then, little playmates, will you come with me, and see all these ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... valuable possession, for another jewel of the same kind, but so worn and defaced as to be utterly worthless. In one shop there were a great many crowns of laurel and myrtle, which soldiers, authors, statesmen, and various other people pressed eagerly to buy; some purchased these paltry wreaths with their lives, others by a toilsome servitude of years, and many sacrificed whatever was most valuable, yet finally slunk away without the crown. There was a sort of stock or scrip, called Conscience, which seemed to be in great demand, and would purchase almost anything. Indeed, ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sent by Leonas, and admitting none of his appointments with the exception of that of Nebridius, he now celebrated the Quinquennalia[114] as emperor, and wore a splendid diadem inlaid with precious stones, though when first entering on that power he had worn but a paltry-looking crown like that of a ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... And, further, no sooner had he got hold of the money than it had intoxicated him, and he had yielded to the first fatuous temptation. He had no sense of responsibility, no scruple. And as for common prudence—had he not risked permanent disgrace and even prison for a paltry sum which he would certainly squander in two or three days? Yes, it was indubitable that he would stop ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... it ought to have killed me; but it took a great deal more than a paltry bottle of physic to kill a man in ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... indeed sad to see professors, for the sake of paltry pelf, or to escape from persecution, denying the Lord Jesus. It subjects religion to scorn and contempt, and doubles the sorrows and sufferings of real Christians. Bunyan expresses himself here in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... now of promise fickle, Niggard ooze, and paltry trickle, Freshet sprinkling scanty dole, Where the roaring ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... of after recollection, the whole thing seems absurd, even paltry. But as I heard it then, declaimed with hot, earnest fluency by an enthusiast who had spent long, clever years over his case, it appeared to prove itself up to the hilt. Of course his arguments must have been warped, and his premises ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... two months, he had carried the double load, and beaten his schedule; in early May, he was falling behind at the rate of fifty dollars a week. With twelve weeks ahead, he faced a deficit of a paltry six hundred dollars—and the Mix amendment was peeping over ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... state some repose and watched for a suitable opportunity to regain the country; instead of which, although he had lost so great an empire by sea and land, he yet insisted on continuing his frantic and fruitless efforts to reconquer the paltry territory of Messenia. ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... best intentions, are apt to go too far in punishing, and forget to pay due attention to the peculiarities of each child. His mother, he said, once whipped him till the blood came, for having taken a paltry little nut. He adds, that, in punishing children, the apple should be placed beside the rod, and they should not be chastised for an offence about nuts or cherries as if they had broken open a money-box. His parents, he acknowledged, had meant it for the very best, but they had kept him, nevertheless, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... mist, was the deadly opening to the Dardanelles. Presumably, one of those hill-tops, just visible, was old Achi Baba, which had defeated the invaders of Helles; and another, Sari Bair, beneath which lay the invaders of Suvla, wondering if they, too, had been beaten by a paltry hill. ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... mention a thousand cases of the like kind—it is said that Jesus, the head of this religion, on a certain occasion walked upon the sea; when, upon sifting the narrative, it is found that it was but upon a paltry lake, the lake of Galilee, upon which he performed that great feat!—a thing to which the magic of which he is accused—and doubtless with justice—was plainly equal; while to walk upon the sea might well have been beyond that science. How much of what we have heard is to be distrusted also, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware |
