"Prodigal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to make needles, what value will attach to individual specimens! If they were only to be found in occasional bric-a-brac shops or in the collections of some far-seeing hoarder of rarities, it would be difficult to overrate the interest which might attach to them. How, from the prodigal disregard of ages and the mysteries of the past, would emerge, one after another, recovered specimens, to be examined and judged ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... "Our prodigal has returned," answered Giselle, with a little air of satisfaction, very artificial, however, for she could hardly breathe, so great was her fear and her emotion. "My house is in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... home. . . . No, he couldn't. His pride revolted at that solution. Prodigal Son stuff was all very well in its way, but it lost its impressiveness if you turned up again at home two weeks after you had left. A decent interval among the husks and swine was essential. Besides, there was his father to consider. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... a figure of "The Prodigal Son," from a pencil drawing; and a "Prometheus," also from a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... saw more vividly than the besieged could do, the uncertainty of his own position, now poured daily into the city, the enemy becoming more prodigal of his vows, as he felt that the ocean might yet save the victims from his grasp. The inhabitants, in their ignorance, had gradually abandoned their hopes of relief, but they spurned the summons to surrender. Leyden was ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... Whereupon that sweet saint, as I must ever have leave to call her, turned, not to the prophecy of Ezekiel, but to the gospel of Saint Luke, and read out from that chapter which contains the parable of the Prodigal Son. And when she came to the words, "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found"—when she had come to this place, my father, who had sat and listened hitherto, cried ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... from tree to tree, calling and singing, and there fell pleasantly upon Pearl's ears the ripple and splash of the mountain brook. The joy in her heart at Harry's recovery mingled pleasantly with nature's joy in her prodigal, flowering summer. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... development. All other things being equal, that aim is best which most completely and forcefully covers the chapter or passage in question. To illustrate: Suppose we are asked to teach a lesson on the Prodigal Son. One aim that could be chosen clearly is that of jealousy on the part of the prodigal's brother. A second one might be repentance, as typified in the action of the prodigal. Still a third might be the compassion and forgiveness of the father, as typical of ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... Study the causes of the success of Benjamin Franklin, of Lincoln, of McKinley, of Sir Michael Faraday, of Agassiz, of Edison. Learn the might of minutes. 25 "Every day is a little life, and our whole life is a day repeated. Those that dare lose a day are dangerously prodigal; those that dare misspend it, desperate." Emerson says, "The creation of a thousand ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... appraise what is exacted of him by our modernly complex life. We have attacked the problem on one side by the promotion of cooperative marketing, and we might well inquire into the benefits of cooperative buying. Admittedly, the consumer is much to blame himself, because of his prodigal expenditure and his exaction of service, but Government might well serve to point the way of narrowing the spread of price, especially between the production ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... writes for himself under that character which, once taken up by Jacob Behmen, is never for one day laid down. Behmen's favourite Scripture, after our Lord's promise of the Holy Spirit to them that ask for Him, was the parable of the Prodigal Son. In all his books Behmen is that son, covered with wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, but at last beginning to come to himself and to return to his Father. The Way to Christ is a production of the very greatest depth and strength, but it is the depth ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... manners, and became, like the degenerate Romans, ready to obey the masters who provided them with brilliant spectacles. They gazed with admiration on the pomp of Italian princes, their dissolute and godless living, their luxury and prodigal expenditure; and when the Medici affected similar habits in the next generation, the people had no courage to resist the invasion of their ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... life in Transatlantic forests; the pauper shivering over the embers in his hovel and waiting for kind death; the man of business striving to keep his honour pure amid the temptations of commerce; the prodigal son starving in the far country and recollecting the words which he learnt long ago at his mother's knee; the peasant boy trudging afield in the chill dawn and remembering that the Lord is his Shepherd, therefore ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... debt, but he was already possessed of Mr. Bertram's ear, and, aware of the facility of his disposition, he saw no difficulty in enriching himself at his expense, provided the heir-male were removed, in which case the estate became the unlimited property of the weak and prodigal father. Stimulated by present gain and the prospect of contingent advantage, he accepted the bribe which the smugglers offered in their terror, and connived at, or rather encouraged, their intention of carrying away the child of ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... the state. This federal, republican country of ours is, of all forms of government, the very one which is the most unfitted for such a labor." He had been and still was favoring delay and conciliation, in the visionary hope that the seceders would follow the scriptural precedent of the prodigal son. On April 9 the rumor of a fight at Sumter being spread abroad, Mr. Phillips said:[132] "Here are a series of States, girding the Gulf, who think that their peculiar institutions require that they should have a separate government. They have a right to decide ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... moment, on the impulse of hot blood. Whether it be sin or sacrifice, the prompting is not that of convention, but of Nature herself. Love and hate, though they may burn and glow like a volcano, are not prodigal of words. It is one of the marks by which we may distinguish the characters in the ballads from those in later and more cultivated fields of literature that, as a rule, they say less rather than more than they mean. They speak ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... authority; and although it is difficult, in such a country, to find much that comes within that category, occasional exceptions may be found. Thus drunkenness, debauchery, indecency, and reckless, prodigal, and filthy habits, are but little regarded, while the slightest approach to the acquisition of a liberal education, or the expression of liberal opinions on any subject connected with public polity, is rigidly prohibited. Most ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... they looked farther afield seeing other and ever new packages bulk mysteriously into the growing light; bundles quickening before their eyes with every delight to be imagined of a Saint with epicurean tastes and prodigal habits—bundles that looked as if a mere twitch at the cord would expose their ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... hurried forward to meet the old man, who extended hands to envelop him, not trusting to his eyes. An old, rosy-cheeked woman in a sunbonnet came up behind the old man, shrieked out "Master David!" and only waited with twitching fingers for her own onslaught till the father had first embraced his prodigal son. This was done at least three times, accompanied with tears, blessings, prayers, the uplifting of poor filmy eyes to a cloudless Heaven—"Diolch i Dduw!"—ejaculations as to the wonder of it—"Rhyfeddol ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... expire, then our redivive Phoenix appear'd; rising from those Sacred Ashes Testator and Heir; Father and yet Son; Another, and yet the same; introsuming as it were his Spirit, as he breath'd it out, when singing his own Epicedium and Genethliack together, he seem'd prodigal of his own life to have it redouble'd in your felicity: Thus, Rex nunquam moritur. O admirable conduct of the Divine Providence, to immortalize the image of a just Monarch: Ipsa quidem, sed non eadem, quia & ipsa, nec ipsa est. Since that may as truly be apply'd to your Majesty, which was once ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... those about her, took the place of the apathy and indifference with which she regarded the sated pleasures of that jaded world from which she had departed so recently. She had come to be bored—fully resigned for Blanch's sake to endure the ennui of mere vegetation until the prodigal Jack had been safely gathered within the fold once more. After the rude shock of first impressions had passed and she had found time to pause and breathe, she began to cast her eyes about her for something more ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... first. Oh, my tender-hearted little one, can you not see that the bondage is more humiliating, more craven than is the idea of the veriest chattel mortgage? Yet you refuse to let the injured one go free, as you would not refuse the poorest prodigal whose one chance for home and happiness ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... national committee, although in a moment of weakness he had sent his son abroad to be educated. Now he was dead, but remembered well, and as a presidential campaign costs much money—legitimate money—and his son was a prodigal giver, the leaders could not refuse to the younger Heathcote the place of national ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... circumvolvitur annum. Long, yes long, have I yearned for thy return, fearful lest, nudus ignota arena, thou mightest, like another Palinurus, have been cast away. Thou art returned, and all is well; as the father said in the Scripture: I have found my son which I had lost; but no prodigal thou, though I use the quotation as apt. Now all is well; thou hast escaped the danger of the battle, the fire, and the wreck, and now thou mayest hang up thy wet garment as a votive offering; as Horace hath it, Uvida suspendisse ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... shops he would get out, and show his unwelcome visage. In the tavern, prints from Scripture, varnished and on rollers,—such as the Judgment of Christ; also a droll set of colored engravings of the story of the Prodigal Son, the figures being clad in modern costume,—or, at least, that of not more than half a century ago. The father, a grave, clerical person, with a white wig and black broadcloth suit; the son, with a cocked hat ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... more than compensated for directly afterwards by a grand success. Fortune is never weary of smiling upon them; they are her prime favourites, and she marks her approval by heaping favours upon them in a most indiscriminate and prodigal manner. Upon others she continually frowns. All their efforts uniformly bring back a plentiful harvest of disappointment. Their labour is ever in vain, they are left to languish in misery and to repine over the illusion which tempted them with ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... proof against the magic of the ring; the only value he knows is love. Alberich, his opponent, says, in speaking of him: "My curse has no sting for the mettlesome hero, for he knows not the worth of the ring; he squanders his prodigal strength, laughing and glowing with love his body is burning away." Half way between Alberich, the inwardly worthless wielder of power, and Siegfried, the truly free man, the embodiment of all virtue, who is murdered by the powers of darkness, stands Wotan, ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... couples were doing, comforted by proximity, and even by the unacknowledged mutual pleasure of it; again they watched the extraordinary happenings upon the stage. The fur coat was much used, cigarettes were lighted and flung away with prodigal recklessness, pistols were revealed—one of them was even fired into the air;—and jumping, trickling music heightened the effects of a number of strong speeches about love, and incorruptibility, and womanhood.... The climax was reached. In the middle of ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... intelligent and fearsomely well-informed spectators. They were prominent in the chief seats, they were represented, more sparsely but still in fair numbers, in the cheaper places, and everywhere they were voluble, emphatic, sanguine or sceptical, prodigal of word and gesture, with eyes that seemed to miss nothing and acknowledge nothing, and a general restless dread of not being seen and noticed. Of the theatre-going London public there was also a fair muster, more particularly centred in the less expensive parts of the house, while in boxes, ...
— When William Came • Saki
... matter of these little optional civilities. It has the most charming effect upon all domestic life, and we find a curious allusion to the politeness observed by French sons towards their mothers and fathers in one of Moliere's comedies, where a prodigal son observes to his father, who comes to denounce him, "Pray, sir, take a chair," says Prodigal; "you could scold me so much more at your ease if you ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... pass interwoven with various incidents, now prosperous, now adverse; although as the world is a vale of tears, it gave its pleasures with a close hand and its sorrows with prodigal liberality—especially in the years 46 and 47 when the Dutch, having become the ruler of the seas, forced or compelled all vessels to take refuge in the ports. The commerce of the Sangleys or Chinese fell off almost entirely; and according to the common opinion, the Dutch ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... councillors of his father, the petty nobles, or marmousets, as the great seigneurs contemptuously called them, resumed the direction of affairs, but, with all their prudence and ability, were quite unable to restrain the prodigal wastefulness of the prince. The entry of the queen, Isabeau de Baviere, whom he had married three years before, was made the occasion of extravagant processions, pomps, diversions, and mystery-plays in Paris, as was the marriage of his brother, the Duc d'Orleans, with the beautiful ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... Cardinals of Saint Lawrence. Its only other interest, perhaps, lies in the fact that it formed part of the great estates bestowed by Sixtus the Fifth on his nephews, and was nevertheless sold over their children's heads for debt, fifty-five years after his death. The swineherd's race was prodigal, excepting the 'Great Friar' himself, and, like the Prodigal Son, it was not long before the Peretti were reduced to ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... years he had disappeared, and no one knew what had become of him. Then, suddenly, as I say, he reappeared at Golden Friars—a very black and silent man, sedate and orderly. His mother was dead and buried; but the "prodigal son" was received good-naturedly. The good vicar, Doctor Jenner, reported to ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... misfortunes or misconduct of my ancestors; but enough was still attached to the old mansion, to give my uncle the title of a man of large property. This he employed (as I was given to understand by some inquiries which I made on the road) in maintaining the prodigal hospitality of a northern squire of the period, which he deemed essential to ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... hands, tear the note from him, burn it, and then throw him, Fortunat, out into the street, helpless and nearly dead. But now that danger had passed and Madame Vantrasson, fearing he might tire of waiting, was prodigal in her attentions. She brought him the only unbroken chair in the establishment, and insisted that he should partake of some refreshment—a glass of wine at the very least. While rummaging among the bottles, she alternately thanked him and complained, declaring ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... mind; he turned and jumped from the dog-cart as he had jumped from the old coach long ago, and, ducking in and out among the horses and carriages, ran for his life. The men came after him; but he ran like the wind—pant, pant, nearer, nearer; at last the coach was reached, and Melchior seized the prodigal by his rags ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... brought out all her choicest treasures for her "long lost baby"; my father and brothers "killed the fatted calf" for the "prodigal returned," the wide old fireplace sent forth its cheering warmth, the neighbors gathered round to swap stories, and the apples, walnuts and home-brewed juice of the fruit contributed their inspiration ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... began telling him everything, hurriedly, disjointedly, exaggerating the facts, inventing many, and so prodigal of parentheses that he understood nothing ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... have accompanied the Porter to the Terminus, such a pleasant helpful fellow, so intelligent! The Ostend streets much less dull at night. Feel relieved, in charity with all the world, now that my prodigal portmanteau is safely reclaimed. Porter takes me into a large luggage-room. Don't see my things just at first. "Your baggage—ere!" says the Porter, proudly, and points out a little drab valise ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... humanity." "Oral battles supplanted fields of battle: there were sessions of the Chamber finer than any Austerlitz, and orators were seen to be as lofty as generals; they spent their lives, their courage, their strength, as freely as those who went to war." "Speech was surely one of the most prodigal outlets of the vital fluid that ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... courageous enough to be honest; sinking deeper himself and, what is worse, dragging others down with him. A young man at college sometimes leads a double life, his letters home being filled with accounts of his legitimate employments, while at the same time he is leading the life of the prodigal, the spendthrift, the ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... "you have learned conceits from the catch-books. You quarrel by rote. Were I as eager to answer me, I might say: 'Ah, false flower, you grow out of the foulness underneath. You give your fragrance to all without discretion—a common lover, prodigal of favors, fit only to be torn to shreds by pretty, spiteful fingers, and to die at last with a lie in your mouth. Again ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... some towels, and a fresh suit of clothes, and, ordering the boy to strip, gave him a thorough washing with his own hands from head to foot at the horse-trough. It is to be regretted that there is no record of the after-fate of this young prodigal, although it would be pleasant to think that he was the unknown man who called at Sir Henry Gordon's house in 1885, after the news of Gordon's death, and wished to contribute L25 towards a memorial, because he was one of the youths saved by General Gordon, to whom all his success and prosperity ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... ointment, which might have served for a lifetime of anointing, and I cannot renew the shattered receptacle, nor gather back the wasted fragrance; and so my heart must remain without spikenard or balm during its earthly sojourn. I have been prodigal,—have beggared my womanly nature,—and henceforth shall feast on husks. But this piece of folly can be laid on no shoulders but my own, and I must not wince if they are galled by burdens which only I have imposed. Some women, under ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... that Betty became of age and was entitled to go home and claim her own. She and Tom went first to a small village in Kent, where dwelt an old lady who for some time past had had her heart full to the very brim with gratitude because of a long-lost prodigal son having been brought back to her—saved by the blood of the Lamb. When at last she set her longing eyes on Tom, and heard his well-remembered voice say, "Mother!" the full heart overflowed and rushed down the wrinkled cheeks in floods of inexpressible ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... "I'm not going back like a prodigal who can't stand the gaff any longer! I won't slink into a soft berth because it's offered, and admit that I'm not man enough to stand up and take what comes to me! I'm licked again—proper—and," harshly, "I don't expect anybody to believe ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... her eyes, lifting her brow for his waiting kiss. The heavy perfume of her hair seemed to draw his soul to a prodigal outpouring. He found her ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... throwing everything aside to greet one. It was almost with a feeling of awe that I sometimes climbed those stairs and entered into his presence. Perhaps it would be for a lesson on the New Testament—for when I was reading for a Theological Tripos he was generous, even prodigal, of help. The lesson over—and there are many who know what a goodly thing a lesson from him on the New Testament was—he would open a volume of Tennyson—"In Memoriam" most likely—read a few stanzas, and begin to talk about them. Gradually, it would seem, the things of the world would ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... bank, but he cannot understand how one can be convicted of sin, and, in a spasm of repentance, be born again. That would be a miracle, and miracles are inconsistent with evolution. It shocks the higher critic to have the prodigal son come back so suddenly after ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... comprehending the profound simplicity of the heart that has died, or is dying, to self, yet he also knows that when the suffering ages have piled up mountains of sorrow, the crushed and burdened soul of the world will fly to its final refuge, and that when the ages are completed, every prodigal will come back to the fold of Truth. And so he dwells in goodwill toward all, and regards all with that tender compassion which a father bestows upon his ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... exactly what I meant—but never mind. Hm! Now I understand the light you have seen me in; it was the return of the prodigal that you were ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... that statement, unless, indeed, one were a bitter, eccentric character like Dr. Monygham—for instance—whose short, hopeless laugh expressed somehow an immense mistrust of mankind. Not that Dr. Monygham was a prodigal either of laughter or of words. He was bitterly taciturn when at his best. At his worst people feared the open scornfulness of his tongue. Only Mrs. Gould could keep his unbelief in men's motives within due bounds; but even to her ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... all inevitable: we were as wise as any one can be before the event. I admit that we, scrupulously economical of our pemmican, were terribly prodigal of our man-power. But we had to be: the draft, whatever it may have been on the whole, was not excessive at any given point; and anyhow we just had to use every man to take every opportunity. There is so much to do, and the opportunities for doing it are ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... No prodigal was ever given a warmer welcome than I was when I left the area of the Great Western Railway; but the problem of how to finish my education remained and I was determined that I would not make my debut till I was eighteen. What with reading, hunting and falling in love at Easton Grey, I was not ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... in the hope of reforming his son, and of providing for him by the excellent match with Angelique, hunts up the prodigal and lectures him after the manner of fathers. Hector joins in, and expresses strongly his disapprobation of games of chance; "les jeux innocents, ou l'esprit se deploie," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... their natural wandering best, and would rather roam in the bee-loud glade than under the boughs of beryl and chrysoberyl, where I am put to school to learn the significance of every jewel. I like that natural infinity which a prodigal beauty suggests more than that revealed in esoteric hieroglyphs, even though the writing be in precious stones. Sometimes I wonder whether that insatiable desire of the mind for something more than it has yet attained, which ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... hill the tide of revelry at the "Red Paint" was at the flood. It was pay-day and the boss was in high good humor. Either occurrence was always good for a number of rounds of free drinks. But when Mascola was happy on pay-day, the liberality of the "Red Paint" was indeed prodigal. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... effort be so easy and simple; is divine energy of such slight value that it can thus be squandered to no purpose; is the process of creation the sport of an infant God; is the Logos, sacrificing himself in order to give life to the Universe, a prodigal, working without rhyme or reason, sending forth His intelligence and might in aimless sport and leaving evolution at the mercy of His caprice; did not Brahma, by means of meditation, which, as the Oriental scriptures tell us, preceded creation, practise the gentlest, the most ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... necessity eventually compelled. Maintaining as we did a large body of wild and reckless warriors, together with their families, it may be naturally supposed the excesses of these people were not few; but it would have required one to have seen, to have believed, the prodigal waste of which they were often guilty. Acknowledging no other law than their own will, following no other line of conduct than that suggested by their own caprice, they had as little respect for the property of the Canadian inhabitant as ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... he is a hopeless prodigal," replied the other. "Personally I find it impossible to ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and new, downy hair clothed the wounds and the scratches on his muzzle and throat. Sleek and strong once more, he was welcomed as a penitent prodigal by the relenting vixen, and, having in the period of his solitary wanderings learned much about the habits of the woodland folk, was doubtless able to assist his mother in the future ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... tasted of his bounty, but great lords did not disdain to rank themselves among his dependents and followers. His table was resorted to by all the luxurious feasters, and his house was open to all comers and goers at Athens. His large wealth combined with his free and prodigal nature to subdue all hearts to his love; men of all minds and dispositions tendered their services to Lord Timon, from the glass-faced flatterer whose face reflects as in a mirror the present humor of his patron, to the rough and unbending ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... short visit, promising to return for her in a few days when she was rested, and hastened back to Ashland to his work; for his soul was happy now and at ease, and he felt he must get to work at once. Rogers would need him. Poor Rogers! Had he found his daughter yet? Poor, silly child-prodigal! ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... rose and thorn was I Drawn to surrender and the bridal-kiss. Annunciations lit with jewelled wings Of sudden angels mid the lilies tall, Proud prothalamia chaunting enraptured things,— O sumptuous fables, why so prodigal Of masque and music, of dreams like foam-white swans On lakes of hyacinthus? Must Love seek Great allies, Beauty sound her arriere-bans That all her splendours betray us to this bleak Simplicity whereto blind satyrs run?"— The irony ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... Adams, fresh from Europe and chaos of another sort, he plunged at once into a lurid atmosphere of politics, quite heedless of any education or forethought. His past melted away. The prodigal was welcomed home, but not even his father asked a malicious question about the Pandects. At the utmost, he hinted at some shade of prodigality by quietly inviting his son to act as private secretary during the winter in Washington, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... land,—capacious beyond measure, whose prodigal soil rewards labor with an unharvestable abundance of exuberant fruits, occupied by a people signalized by enterprise and industry—there came a summer of prosperity which lingered so long and shone so brightly, that men forgot that winter could ever come. Each day grew brighter. ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher
... vain the hope, and vain the loss, And vain the famine and the strife; In vain the faith that bore the cross, The valour prodigal of life. ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... permanent parts of the Jewish Law, or so strong a denunciation of the Pharisees who exalted the external adjuncts of the Law, as we find in Matt. Nor do we find such parables as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, by which Luke lays emphasis upon the truth that the Jews have no monopoly of holiness, and that the outcast is welcome to the gospel. Mark is less Jewish than Matt., less Gentile and Pauline than Luke. It used to be said that this was the result of "trimming," ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... poetry—Mephistophiles gradually elbowing out Satan. Don Juan, though morally the worst, is intellectually the most vital and representative of Byron's poems. It takes up into itself most fully the life of the time; exhibits most thoroughly the characteristic alternations of Byron's moods and the prodigal resources of wit, passion, and understanding, which—rather than imagination—were his prominent qualities as a poet. The hero, a graceless, amorous, stripling, goes wandering from Spain to the Greek islands and Constantinople, thence to St. Petersburg, and finally to England. Every-where ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... the shyness of a prodigal son returning home. He had not been inside the yellow drawing-room for nearly four years. He still carried ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... village she fell in with the Roughsedges: the doctor, with his wide-awake on the back of his head, a book and a bulging umbrella under his arm; Mrs. Roughsedge, in a new shawl, and new bonnet-strings, with a prodigal flutter of side curls beside her ample countenance. Hugh, it appeared, was expected by an evening train. Diana begged that he might be brought up to see her some time in the course of the following afternoon. Then she drove on, and Mrs. Roughsedge ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... two A.M., and comparative peace reigns up and down the line. The rain of star-shells, always prodigal in the early evening, has died down to a mere drizzle. Working and fatigue parties, which have been busy since darkness set in at five o'clock,—rebuilding parapets, repairing wire, carrying up rations, and patrolling ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... then Clara spoke (Aunt Hildy stopped knitting the moment she began, as if expecting a treat). "We are taught," she said, "that our Father loves us; that he rejoices with great joy in the return of a prodigal to his fold. The truth that he loves us better than we can ever love each other here, that none of us shall ask for bread and receive a stone, neither fish and receive a serpent, was spoken to us from the ages past. Christ came into the world as the bearer of all essential truths. ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... Run and fasten the door!" her mother exclaimed, as she hurried away to tie up the prodigal, to prevent ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... faith sees in the social group the summit of human evolution, but where is the proof? Froment thought the greatest height was reached in an individual superiority. Millions of men have lived and died to produce one perfect flower of thought, for such are the superb and prodigal ways of nature. She spends whole peoples to make a Jesus, a Buddha, an Aeschylus, a Vinci, a Newton, or a Beethoven; but without these men, what would the people have been? Or humanity itself? We do not hold with the egotist ideal of the Superman. A man who is ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Presumptuous sin tends to become despotic sin. 'Let them not have dominion over me.' A man may do a very bad thing once, and get so wholesomely frightened, and so keenly conscious of the disastrous issues, that he will never go near it again. The prodigal would not be in a hurry, you may depend upon it, to try the swine trough and the far country, and the rags, and the fever, and the famine any more. David got a lesson that he never forgot in that matter of Bathsheba. The bitter fruit of his sin kept growing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... dim, uncertain light. He told me to put the last basketful in the little closet off the hall and then come and get my pay. I took the coal into the closet, but I do not know what I did with it. As I opened the door and stepped in, a tall skeleton got down off the nail and embraced me like a prodigal son. It fell on my neck and draped itself all over me. Its glittering phalanges entered the bosom of my gingham shirt and rested lightly on the pit of my stomach. I could feel the pelvis bone in the small of my back. The room was dark, but I did not light ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... people of Tournon—to which generous town, and to the breakfast provided by its cordial inhabitants, we came an hour before noon—entreated us with so prodigal a liberality in the matter of bottles that the questionable conduct of the Serrieres apothecary quickly faded from our minds. In ancient times Tournon had a black reputation for its evil-dealing with chance wayfarers along the Rhone, and one's blood runs cold with mere thought of the horrors ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... story of the Prodigal Son. We look over the fence of goodness into the mystery of the great unknown world beyond and in that unknown realm we fondly imagine ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... product of his Son, which openly declared war on all existing order? Astonishment and terror, anger and detestation, boundless anxiety, with touches of admiration and pride, stormed alternately through the solid honest man's paternal breast, as he saw the frank picture of a Prodigal Son rolled out before him; and had to gaze into the most revolting deeps of the passions and vices. Yet he felt himself irresistibly dragged along by the uncommon vivacity of action in this wild Drama; and at the same time powerfully attracted ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... London Prodigal. After these seven plays Pope added in the edition of 1728 "and a thing call'd the Double Falshood" (see Introduction, p. xlv). It will be noted that he speaks incorrectly of "eight" plays. In the same edition he also inserted The Comedy ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... American wasted. There was waste, and the most prodigal waste, on every hand. In every street-car and on every ferry-boat the floors and seats were littered with newspapers that had been read and thrown away or left behind. If I went to a grocery store to buy a peck of potatoes, and a potato rolled off the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... Lord Chizelrigg, 'was somewhat of an anomaly in our family. He must have been a reversal to a very, very ancient type; a type of which we have no record. He was as miserly as his forefathers were prodigal. When he came into the title and estate some twenty years ago, he dismissed the whole retinue of servants, and, indeed, was defendant in several cases at law where retainers of our family brought suit against him for wrongful dismissal, or dismissal without a penny compensation in lieu ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... to embrace every overture for a new enterprise; especially if attended with an offer of money, of which he was very greedy, very prodigal, and very indigent. Richard Pace, formerly secretary to Cardinal Bambridge, and now secretary of state, was despatched to the court of Vienna, and had a commission to propose some considerable payments to Maximilian:[**] he thence made a journey into Switzerland; and by like motives ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... hand, was of an inexhaustible fertility, and bore readily year after year a threefold harvest—first a grain crop, and then two crops of grasses or esculent vegetables. The wheat sown returned a hundredfold to the husbandman, and was gathered at harvest-time in prodigal abundance—"as the sand of the sea, very much,"—till men "left numbering" (Gen. xli. 49). Flax and doora were largely cultivated, and enormous quantities were produced of the most nutritive vegetables, such as lentils, garlic, leeks, onions, endive, radishes, melons, cucumbers, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... drew nigh the city where he had spent his student years. On foot, weary, and dusty, and worn, he entered it like a returning prodigal. Few Scotchmen would think he had made good use of his learning! But he had made the use of it God required, and some Scotchmen, with and without other learning, have learned to think that a good use, and in itself ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... of the prodigal son which we shall never forget! It is the moment of reconciliation: the father opens his arms to the son; the son falls into them and hides his face. Deep compunction of the heart bows down his head, and over his ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... now reduced to twenty-five, were as delighted at the prodigal plenitude visible on my tables and in my yard, as I was myself. And as I saw their eyes light up at the unctuous anticipations presented to them by their riotous fancies, I ordered a bullock to ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... misery became unendurable, and internal disorders being added to foreign oppression, the luckless insurrection broke out which gave the deathblow to Jewish nationality, and drove Judah into exile. On his thorny martyr's path he took naught with him but a book—his code, his law. Yet how prodigal his contributions to mankind's fund ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... were alone her first words were of kindly concern for my condition, delivered in that sweet, musical voice that was by no means the least charm of a princess to whom Nature had been prodigal of gifts. For without going to that length of exaggerated praise which some have bestowed—for her own ear, and with an eye to profit—upon Madonna Lucrezia, yet were I less than truthful if I sought to belittle her ample claims to beauty. Some ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... Riley! The World was full of Roses! Every Rose held hidden, within its Tremulous Heart, a Slender Crystal Chalice of Perfumed Dew, which, overflowing, spilled its Prodigal Sweetness, onto the ...
— A Spray of Kentucky Pine • George Douglass Sherley
... then, I believe she was rather enjoying herself. It was all so extremely like the sort of plays over which she had been accustomed to shed tears. The Prodigal's Return! And on Christmas Eve! It only required a little snow to be falling and a crying ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... Mr. Cinch nature had been generous, not to say prodigal, of materials, but certainly a wiser discretion might have been exercised in using them. The centre of Mr. Cinch's gravity was much too far above his waist. All the rest of him appeared to have been fitted out ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... enough to break his mother's heart," she would say when he staggered in. "I wish I had never brought him up. Ugh! You muddling, disgraceful, prodigal old son! I can't bear to look at you. Go into your corner this minute." And the wretched creature, whining and maudlin, would shuffle into his corner in disgrace, ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... were it not for high rents? They pay well! As sure as there is a God in heaven, shall these, who make money out of the sin of others, gnash their teeth in endless torment. Amos! He is in thy congregation! Do not preach to him of Heaven! but HELL! Thou art not talking to the prodigal son, but to those who have got his portion in their iron safe! Let them feel that hell is moved to meet them, and that they are listening to one who has the Word of the Lord in ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... prodigal grandfather for whom the fatted calf was killed and ready. But first, ere he sat down at table, he must stroll out and around. And sons and daughters of his flesh and of the law needs must go with him fulsomely ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... should be forced to forfeit their claims. Cleveland turned to the problem with energy and forced the return of some millions of acres. Nevertheless, the fact that it was becoming necessary to be less prodigal with the public land indicated that the supply was no longer inexhaustible, and led the President in his last annual message to urge that the remaining supply be husbanded with great care. Congress was not alert to the demands of the time, however, and no effective ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... bonds of the physical state and bring the savage to duty. The germ of the beautiful will find an equal difficulty in developing itself in countries where a severe nature forbids man to enjoy himself, and in those where a prodigal nature dispenses him from all effort; where the blunted senses experience no want, and where violent desire can never be satisfied. The delightful flower of the beautiful will never unfold itself in the case of the Troglodyte hid in his cavern always alone, and never finding ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... and Indian laborers. The majority of the mineros are descendants of the old Spanish families, who, at an early period, became possessors of the mines, whence they derived enormous wealth, which most of them dissipated in prodigal extravagance. At the present time, only a very few of the mineros are rich enough to defray, from their own resources, the vast expense attending the operations of mining. They consequently raise the required money by loans from the capitalists ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... hours have run, Its golden hours, with prodigal excess, All run to waste. A day of life the less; Of many wasted days, alas, ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... father has killed the fatted calf for his returned prodigal, and I must dine with him ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... "Wicked prodigal! What shall we do to reform him, Mr. Douglas? He has not been to see us for three years past, and during that time we have had ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he tries to define it with the precision of a practical man, it eludes him, slips away, as the glow of the wine he has drunk is slipping away, leaving him cross, and conscious of his liver. He feels that he has been extravagant, prodigal of something; virtue has gone out of him. He did not desire this glimpse of what lay under the three stars of his catalogue. God forbid that he should know anything about the forces of Nature! God forbid that he should admit for a moment that there are such things! Once admit that, and where was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... for suffering a further dismemberment of Prussia. "We have made loyal war,'' he said, "we must make a loyal peace.'' It was not long before the first enthusiasm of Tilsit began to wane. Napoleon was prodigal of promises, but niggard of their fulfilment. The French remained in Prussia, the Russians on the Danube; and each accused the other of breach of faith. Meanwhile, however, the personal relations of Alexander ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and conditionally for you," said Hartley cheerfully. "Now I will ring up Wilder and tell him that the prodigal has reappeared, and that ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... He was prodigal of his own energy—never spared himself. He looked after the important things and ...
— Sam Lambert and the New Way Store - A Book for Clothiers and Their Clerks • Unknown
... which he had relied turned at once against it. The elections for the new Parliament which met in 1768 were more corrupt than any that had as yet been witnessed; and even the stoutest opponents of reform shrank aghast from the open bribery of constituencies and the prodigal barter of seats. How bitter the indignation of the country had grown was seen in its fresh backing of Wilkes. Wilkes had remained in France since his outlawry; but he seized on the opening afforded by the elections to return and ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... one of but many defects in his vision. He was oblivious of materialistic facts. He was innocent of the ways of finance. He had come of a prodigal race of spenders, not accumulators. Away back somewhere in the line there must have existed what New Englanders term a "good provider," but that virtue had not descended from father to son. The original vast Desha estates decreased with every generation, seldom a descendant ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... thinking up a good lie to tell about where I had been, and what I had been doing, I heard horses neighing, and presently I came upon my regiment, just starting out to hunt me up. The colonel looked at me and said, "Kill the fat prodigal, the ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... deeper in it. The duke of Venice, that weds himself unto the sea, by a ring of gold, I will not accuse of prodigality, because it is a solemnity of good use and consequence in the state: but the philoso- pher, that threw his money into the sea to avoid avarice, was a notorious prodigal. There is no road or ready way to virtue; it is not an easy point of art to dis- entangle ourselves from this riddle or web of sin. To perfect virtue, as to religion, there is required a panoplia, or complete armour; that whilst we lie at close ward against one vice, we lie not open to the veney ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... give him for pity what would have become, in the very giving, negligible to herself. He knew himself well: he could never ask for a thing. No! but could he get her to ask for something? Ah, then she might find out whom she had married! A man, he judged, of spendthrift generosity, a prodigal of himself. Yes, that was how it must be, if to be at all. He kept his eyes wide, and followed her every movement, with a longing to help which was incessant, like toothache. At the same time he was careful to keep himself quiet. Not a tone of voice must ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... natives launching their light canoes and paddling off through the surf to the ship; or leapt eagerly into the boat alongside; reached the strip of dazzling beach—strewn now with beautiful shells; plunged into the grateful shade of enticing groves rich with the prodigal luxuriance and fantastic beauty of tropical growth, ablaze with flowers of gorgeous hues, alive with birds whose plumage flashed like living gems, and breathed ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... before had been so well supplied, and which, in added recognition of my services to science, had all bestowed upon me diplomas, degrees and fellowships without number. But their demand for cadavres was unequal to my supply: by even the most prodigal extravagances they could not consume the one-half of the products of my skill as a physician. As to the rest, I had owned and operated the most extensive and thoroughly appointed soapworks in all the country. The excellence of my "Toilet ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce |
