"Exorbitant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... even surpassing that of its great Founder. In the second century Montanus the Phrygian claimed to be the incarnate Trinity, uniting in his single person God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Nor is this an isolated case, the exorbitant pretension of a single ill-balanced mind. From the earliest times down to the present day many sects have believed that Christ, nay God himself, is incarnate in every fully initiated Christian, and they have carried this belief to its logical conclusion by adoring each other. Tertullian ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... an agent he knew, he made inquiries—merely to satisfy a casual curiosity, he thought—and he found matters much as he had supposed, except that the owners of the big building did not wish to let, but to sell it, and this at a price so exorbitant that Adams laughed. But the long brick shed in the great muddy lot was for sale or to let, or "pretty near to be given away," he learned, if ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... the declared enemy of all good men, and acted a distinguished part among the vilest instruments of that pernicious court. See his character, Annals xv. s. 34. When an illiberal and low buffoon basks in the sunshine of a court, and enjoys exorbitant power, the cause of literature can have nothing to expect. The liberal arts must, by consequence, be degraded by a corrupt taste, and learning will be left to run wild and grow ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... hearing a diplomate he has saved ask, "How is the Emperor?" could say, "The courtier is alive; the man will follow!"—that man is not merely a surgeon or a physician, he is prodigiously witty also. Hence a patient and diligent student of human nature will admit Desplein's exorbitant pretensions, and believe—as he himself believed—that he might have been no less great as a minister than ...
— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac
... Giffard was falling into decay. Miladi had sent to France early in the season for many new stuffs and trinkets, and the settlement of some affairs, instead of turning all over to Destournier. The goods had come at an exorbitant price, but there had been a great tangle in money matters, and at his death his concessions had ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... of the colony of North Carolina was worse than that of a great city under the rule of a political "Boss." The people were frightfully overtaxed, illegal fees were charged for every service, juries were packed, and costs of suits at law made exorbitant. The officers of the law were insolent and arbitrary, and by trickery and extortion managed to rob many settlers of their property. And this was the more hateful to the people from the fact that much of the money raised was known to go into the pockets of officials and ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... allow anyone to be grateful, for a gift is never sufficient for its exorbitant expectations. Of all these hindrances to gratitude, the most violent and distressing vice is jealousy, which torments us with comparisons of this nature: "He bestowed this on me, but more upon him, and he gave it him earlier." There is no kindness so complete that malignity cannot ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... depends upon the preparation of the materials, they have carried to a pitch of perfection not hitherto equalled by any nation, except the Japanese, who are allowed to excel them, not only in this branch, but also in all articles of lacquered and varnished ware, which fetch exorbitant prices even in China. The beauty of their porcelain, in a great degree, depends upon the extreme labour and attention that is paid to the assortment, and the preparation of the different articles employed. ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... seems to work well. The service could hardly be better, and recalling that under the old private system the fare for the forty-seven miles across the Isthmus was $25 with a charge of ten cents for every pound of baggage, the $2.40 of today does not seem particularly exorbitant. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... the same hour, the owner of the grain elevators, in which is stored the crops of the great plains, there to be kept until the needs of the people shall place an exorbitant price upon every bushel, was smothered to death in the hold of one of his own ships. With him died the martyr who had succeeded in bringing a just retribution upon the head ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... by this new route to the East (via Duluth for a portion of Northern Iowa and Southern and Central Minnesota) is a saving of the three hundred miles of extra rail transportation incurred by way of Lake Michigan; to say nothing of avoiding the exorbitant tolls and inexplicable delays of the latter route. The difference inhering to the benefit of the public, between the two routes, has been estimated, amounts to about one dollar per barrel in favor of this new outlet. ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... seven hundred and thirty-five several times. These glorious achievements were carefully recorded in the public acts of the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance of infamy, he received from the common fund of gladiators a stipend so exorbitant that it became a new and most ignominious tax upon the Roman people. It may be easily supposed that in these engagements the master of the world was always successful; in the Amphitheatre his victories ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... to his face," lamented Mr. Sheridan, "is bribery as gross as it is efficacious. I must unwillingly consent to your exorbitant demands, for you are, as ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... that mother, how hard, indeed, is the lot of the very poor. They have to buy coal by the basketful and pay almost double price, likewise food and all life's necessities. They are compelled to live in frightful disease-fostering quarters, and pay exorbitant rents for the accommodations they receive. When sick they are not always free from imposition, even when they receive aid in the name of charity, and sometimes theology under the cloak of religion oppresses them. This last thought had ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... concerning the History of the States-General, which was crowned in 1869 by the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, and the regent resolved to leave to the judgment of France the acceptance or refusal of such exorbitant demands. He summoned a meeting, to be held at Paris on the 19th of May, of churchmen, nobles, and deputies from the good towns; but "there came but few deputies, as well because full notice had not by that time been given of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... they miscarry. But though I cannot enter here into a long debate upon that subject, yet I may have room to say, that I differ from those people very much; for, though the terror of the commission is in some measure abated, as indeed it ought to be, because it was before exorbitant and unreasonable, yet the terror of ruining a man's family, sinking his fortunes, blasting his credit, and throwing him out of business, and into the worst of disgrace that a tradesman can fall into, this is not taken away, ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... remained to them and depart thence; which accordingly they did. Without leave-taking, or any ceremony, they quitted Florence; nor did they rest until they had arrived in England and established themselves in a small house in London, where, by living with extreme parsimony and lending at exorbitant usances, they prospered so well that in the course of a few years they amassed a fortune; and so, one by one, they returned to Florence, purchased not a few of their former estates besides many others, and ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... fee; fourteen pence for the turning of the key; twelve pence for every action that lay against him. For leave to go out with a keeper upon security (as formerly in the Queen's Bench) the prisoners paid for the first time four shillings and tenpence, and two shillings every day afterwards. The exorbitant prison fees of three shillings a day swallowed up all the prison bequests, and the miserable debtors had to rely on better means from the Lord Mayor's table, the light bread seized by the clerk of the markets, and presents of under-sized and illegal ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... as he has least studied, and forget to discharge even the dull duty of an editor. In this project let him lend the bookseller his name (for a competent sum of money) to promote the credit of an exorbitant subscription.' Gentle reader, be pleased to cast thine eye on the proposal below quoted, and on what follows (some months after the former assertion) in the same journalist of June 8. 'The bookseller proposed ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... inhabitants of other parts of Asia, and to Europeans, curiosity and commercial interests impelled other races to seek information concerning the origin and treatment of different Chinese teas. The prices obtained by the Chinese from foreigners for teas two and three centuries ago were most exorbitant, and paid the Chinese Government and Chinese merchants an enormous profit. Quite naturally that sagacious nation saw the danger of letting the truth concerning the origin, manufacture and cost ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... behavior of the officers. He knew that I was a stranger, and with a show of cordiality, for which I was very thankful, he invited me to accompany him to a quiet, respectable hotel, where the charges were not exorbitant. As his proposal suited my purse and my humor, I acquiesced willingly enough, little suspecting into what hands I had fallen. In less than an hour we were seated at a capital dinner, the best that I ever remembered to have eaten, so exquisite is the relish imparted by a keen appetite ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of his knowledge of private things that happened on the Palatine—and little that went on in the household of Bessas escaped him—Marcian depended upon his servant Sagaris. Exorbitant vanity and vagrant loves made the Syrian rather a dangerous agent; but it was largely owing to these weaknesses that he proved so serviceable. His master had hitherto found him faithful, and no one could have worked ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... the merits of either cause. But the issue or events of this war are not so easy to conjecture at; for the present quarrel is so inflamed by the warm heads of either faction, and the pretensions somewhere or other so exorbitant, as not to admit the least overtures of accommodation. This quarrel first began, as I have heard it affirmed by an old dweller in the neighbourhood, about a small spot of ground, lying and being upon one of the two tops of the hill Parnassus; ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... drawing-room faithful to Dunlap Brothers' exorbitant interpretation of the Italian Renaissance, a veritable forest of wrought-iron candle-trees burned dimly into a scene of Pinturicchio table, tapestry-surmounted wedding-chest, brave and hideous with pastiglia work, the inevitable ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... would abandon the system. Political parties, subsequently organized, taught, that to vote for a slaveholder, or a pro-slavery man, was sinful, and could not be done without violence to conscience; while, at the same time, they made no scruples of using the products of slave labor—the exorbitant demand for which was the great bulwark of the institution. This was a radical error. It laid all who adopted it open to the charge of practical inconsistency, and left them without any moral power over the consciences of others. As long as all used their products, so long the slaveholders ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... not be allayed, for the respectable inhabitants of the town were still convinced of the need of a market as a defense against exorbitant charges. For some years the subject was brought up in town meetings; but as often as it came to the point of appropriating money the motion was lost. At length Mr. Peter Faneuil came forward to end the dissension in a truly magnificent manner. He offered to build a market ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... few thousand dollars a year, and, if they were sought for and educated, boarded and lodged gratuitously the meanwhile, their services could be procured for several years in payment of the expenses of apprenticeship. In that way alone can the exorbitant demands of foreign artists be diminished; and the folly and extravagance of paying them from one to ten thousand dollars a night, as has been done in this city, will be forever avoided. In connection with this it may be mentioned that there are some Americans ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... financial expedition. A later agent, Allerton, was able to borrow for the colony L200 at a reduced interest of thirty per cent. Plainly, the money-sharks of our day may trace an undoubted pedigree to these London merchants. But I know not if any son of New England, opprest by exorbitant interest, will be consoled by the thought that ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... in print; she compares herself to Crabbe (as Jane Austen might have done), and feels 'what she supposes a farthing candle would experience when the sun rises in all its glory.' Then comes the Publisher's bill for 59 pounds; she is quite shocked at the bill, which is really exorbitant! In her next letter Miss Mitford reminds her father that the taxes are still unpaid, and a correspondence follows with somebody asking for a choice of the Doctor's pictures in payment for the taxes. The Doctor is in London all ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... that a cheque for a large amount had been abstracted from Arthur's desk, and further search discovered that nearly every article of value had been perloined during her illness. Their charges were so exorbitant, that it took nearly all the money she had to satisfy their demands, and when she mentioned the cheque, &c., they held up their hands in horror at the idea, that after all their kindness she should suspect them ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... busy, part of the day, in dictating answers to correspondents who wrote offering their services as hunters of big game, collectors of all sorts of fauna, trappers, snarers, and also to those who offered specimens for sale, usually at exorbitant rates. ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... because the three-penny tax on tea was so exorbitant that our Revolutionary fathers fought and died, but to establish the principle that such taxation was unjust. It is the same with this woman's revolution; though every law were as just to woman as to man, the principle that one class may usurp ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Rajah soon found that the Datu Patinghi could not be restrained from oppressing the Dyaks under his charge, levying more than the proper tax, or obliging them to buy whatever he wished to sell, at exorbitant prices. His power over the Dyaks was therefore taken away, and a fixed income given him to preclude temptation. When the Rajah was in England, in 1851, this Datu intrigued with the Bruni Malays to upset the Government; he mounted yellow umbrellas, a sign of royalty, and arrogated power to ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... considered exorbitant; it being argued that when her husband had determined never to live with her, he was in a far different condition, therefore it was unfair to seek so large a separate ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... turned over his prisoners to Peter, the prefect of Rome; who executed some, as notorious ringleaders, on the spot; and allowed others to ransom themselves at exorbitant rates. Indeed, that stern functionary would have put the whole of them to death, had not Adrian, in whose breast this unfortunate outbreak had produced the liveliest regret, interfered in their behalf, so that it was reluctantly ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... as we do in the Paris market, or the hay as it is sold in the Rue d'Enfer. The Arab chiefs, like our Spahis, prefer hard cash, and sell the plunder at a very low price. The Commissariat needs a fixed quantity and must have it. It winks at exorbitant prices calculated on the difficulty of procuring food, and the dangers to which every form of transport is exposed. That is Algiers from the army contractor's ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... lasting satisfaction." He then adds, "My last observation received the most marked approbation of the lunar inhabitants: they truly pitied the ignorant triflers of our sinful world, who prefer drunkenness, debauchery, sinful amusements, exorbitant riches, flattery, and other things that are highly esteemed amongst men, to the pleasures of godliness, to the life of God in the soul of man, to the animating hope of future ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... 'Indeed there is nothing more remarkable in the Gorgias, than the manner in which. Sokrates not only condemns the unmeasured, exorbitant, maleficent desires, but also depreciates and degrades all the actualities of life—all the recreative and elegant arts, including music and poetry, tragic as well as dithyrambic—all provision for the most essential wants, all protection against particular sufferings ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... The copyhold was also subject to a variety of grievous taxes, which the lord had the privilege, upon many occasions, of imposing—such as aids, reliefs, primer seisin, wardship, escheats for felony and want of heirs, and many more, altogether so exorbitant and oppressive as often totally to ruin the tenant and rob him of almost all interest in his property. {56} The difference of the circumstances under which the lands in the manor of Merdon are, and, as ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... these revolutionists Gustave had become intimately lie. They wrote in the same journal, and he willingly accepted a distraction from his self-conflict which Edgar offered him in a dinner at the cafe Riche, which still offered its hospitalities at no exorbitant price. At this repast, as the drink circulated, Gustave waxed confidential. He longed, poor youth, for an adviser. Could he marry a girl who had been a ballet-dancer, and who had come into an unexpected heritage? "Es-tu fou d'en douter?" cried Edgar. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... who abide there. If he is not the debtor of his comrade—and he protests the debt—he should be. But the rascal laps it all up, as a cat porridge, without so much as a wag of the tail for Thank-you. Such are the exorbitant overlords in mortal men, who pass for reputable persons, with a ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... the office of his favorite journal; his interview was not entirely satisfactory. Editors, one and all, as he called upon them in succession, didn't seem especially anxious to send the young man abroad for an indefinite period; the salary requested seemed exorbitant. They each made a proposition; all said: "This is the best I can do at present; go to the other offices, and if you receive a better offer we advise you to take it." This seemed reasonable enough, but as their best rate was fifteen dollars for one letter a week he feared ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... obliged them to fall back from the banks of the Adige to the line of the Oglio, on which they made a stand. But though hostilities had thus commenced in Italy, negotiations were still carried on at the Hague; though unhappily the pretensions of the French king were found to be of so exorbitant a character, that an accommodation was impossible. Marlborough's first mission to the Continent, however, after the accession of Anne, was of a diplomatic character; and it was by his unwearied efforts, suavity of manner, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... and "that he thought it concerned him very little," and adding that "two bad things were before them, that it was unbearable" and that "he could suggest no other choice,"[10] that is, but to pay the bishop's tithes, however exorbitant, or not pay them, or possibly to make an end of him. It is clear also that the monk who was with the bishop was to blame for his exactions. But there is some excuse in the fact that Bishop John had been censured by Rome for ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... confess now, noble Piso, if in thy judgment it would have been exorbitant if I had required of thee three talents of Jerusalem instead of two? For what wouldst thou cross that molten sea, and be buried under its fiery waves! It is none other than a miracle that I am here alive ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... four or five dollars per day; if a special bargain is made for a considerable period, it is customary to give a reduction on transient rates of ten or fifteen per cent. Among the small towns in the interior, at the houses of entertainment, which are wretchedly poor as a rule, the charges are exorbitant, and strangers are looked upon as fair game. This, however, is no more so than in continental Europe, where, though the accommodations are better, the general treatment is the same. The luscious and healthful fruits ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... a travelling Moorman, who had just arrived at the village with a little rice to exchange with the Veddahs for dried venison. As the villagers did not happen to have any meat to barter, we purchased all the rice at an exorbitant price; but it was only sufficient for half a meal for each servant and coolie, when ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... and because the furniture and everything else would require to be accordant therewith, besides making me pay an extravagant price, perhaps to accommodate the alterations to the taste of another or to the exorbitant rates of workmen. ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... was also to stop at Timur and several other settlements before he returned to Batavia: at the same time, he offered the vessel for sale, or to lett her on freight; but as he conjectured that the colony wanted such a vessel, his demands were exorbitant. He first valued her at sixty thousand rix-dollars, and before he was ready to sail, he offered her for two and thirty thousand rix-dollars. If she was hired, he talked of eleven pounds sterling per month; but no attention being paid to any of these ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... sidewalk, he snapped his fingers defiantly in the direction of the Peek homestead, turned the other way, and voyaged, Columbus-like into the wilds of an enchanted street. Nor is the figure exorbitant, for, beyond his store the foot of Tansey had scarcely been set for years—store and boarding-house; between these ports he was chartered to run, and contrary currents ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... you your life, does he not give, think you, a valuable consideration for the money you engage your honour to send him? If not, the sum must be exorbitant, or your life is a very paltry one, even ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... richly-apparelled gentleman who does you the honour of receiving your petitions and grossly overcharging you at the office-no, you have simply to go without food until dinner-time, or to go to bed by the light of a jet of gas for which you will be charged an exorbitant price in your bill. As in the days of Roman despotism we know that the slaves were occasionally permitted to indulge in the grossest excesses, so, under the rigorous system of the hotel-keeper, the guest is allowed to expectorate profusely ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... the dukes of Savoy, Florence, Orleans, Bourbon, Brunswick, the Landgrave, Count Palatine; all which had severally feasted me; besides infinite more of inferior persons, as counts and others: it was my chance (the emperor detained by some exorbitant affair) to wait him the fifth part of an hour, or much near it. In which time, retiring myself into a bay-window, the beauteous lady Annabel, niece to the empress, and sister to the king of Arragon, who having never ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... inquiry at the Dragon in the morning. All that day the condition of such of the prisoners as had well-to-do friends was improving. Fathers, brothers, masters, and servants, came in quest of them, bringing food and bedding, and by exorbitant fees to the jailers obtained for them shelter in the gloomy cells. Mothers could not come, for a proclamation had gone out that none were to babble, and men were to keep their wives at home. And though there were more material comforts, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... power by means of such powerful allies. Prominent among their party were courtier nobles—such as the chamberlain, Lord Latimer, and the steward of the household, Lord Neville of Raby,—and rich London financiers, chief among whom was Richard Lyons, men who made exorbitant profits out of the necessities of the administration. Faction sought to appear more respectable by professions of zeal for reform. The cry against papal encroachments was extended to a denunciation of the wealth and power of the clergy. John Wycliffe was called from his Oxford classrooms ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... might, All hast thou spoken as my thoughts are, all As my eternal purpose hath decreed; Man shall not quite be lost, but sav'd who will; Yet not of will in him, but grace in me Freely vouchsaf'd; once more I will renew His lapsed powers, though forfeit; and enthrall'd By sin to foul exorbitant desires; Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand On even ground against his mortal foe; By me upheld, that he may know how frail His fallen condition is, and to me owe All his deliverance, and to none but me. Some I have chosen of peculiar grace, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... could well have been worse managed than those of Spain in Mexico, Peru, and Quito. The tyranny, superstition, and vices of the mother-country were introduced in ample quantities among her children. Exorbitant taxes were exacted by the Crown. The most arbitrary restrictions were imposed on their trade. And the governors were not behind hand in rapacity and extortion for themselves as well as their master. Yet, under all these difficulties, the colonies made a quick progress in population. The city of ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... Kafirs. This abuse has sometimes occurred, and clearly ought to be checked by the home societies. But probably it does not disgust the wandering white trader any more than the fact that the missionary often warns the native against the exorbitant prices which the trader demands for his goods. They are blamed for making the converted Kafir uppish, and telling him that he is as good as a white man, an offence which has no doubt been often committed. A graver allegation, to which Mr. Theal ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... given four hours to pay a fine of $20,000 in gold, in default of which one hundred houses would be sacked. When the payment was made forty-seven houses had already been plundered. Instance after instance could be given of similar unjustifiable and exorbitant fines. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... cues a minute, Uncle Tooter and the rest of you, while I introduce you to Mr. Hemlock Holmes, the celebrated butter-in on other people's business, whom I have hired at an exorbitant price to run down the depraved scoundrels who cabbaged my diamond cuff-buttons. If he can't catch 'em, nobody can, I guess. Mr. Holmes, meet the Countess's uncle, Mr. J. Edmund Tooter, of Hyderabad, India; my friend, Mr. William Q. Hicks, of Saskatoon, ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... understand you, Sir. [Gives Money.] The Fees here are so many, and so exorbitant, that few Fortunes can bear the Expence of getting off handsomly, or of dying ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... year 1822, the Canal Saint-Martin was begun. Land in the Faubourg du Temple increased enormously in value. The canal would cut through the property which du Tillet had bought of Cesar Birotteau. The company who obtained the right of building it agreed to pay the banker an exorbitant sum, provided they could take possession within a given time. The lease Cesar had granted to Popinot, which went with the sale to du Tillet, now hindered the transfer to the canal company. The banker came to the Rue des Cinq-Diamants to see the druggist. If du Tillet was indifferent ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... of the restful hours, to ask Barbara just how much money she needed to defray her expenses in camp, with her mother. And in spite of her mentioning an exorbitant sum, he silently wrote out the ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the franc tireurs; for often, instead of doing all in their power for the men who had taken up arms in the cause of France, the villagers looked upon them only as strangers, out of whom the richest possible harvest was to be obtained; and charged the most exorbitant prices for all articles of necessity supplied to them. In fact, they sometimes did not hesitate to say that they would not provide them, at any price, with the provisions required; as these would be wanted to satisfy the requisition of the ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... in 1424. He lived after this only thirteen years; but the period of his reign has always been thought a glorious interlude in the dark early history of Scotland. He set himself, with considerable success, to curb the exorbitant power of the nobles, sacrificing some of them, such as Albany, to his just indignation. He passed many useful regulations in reference to the coinage, the constitution, and the commerce of the country. He suppressed with a strong hand some of the gangs of robbers and 'sorners' which ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... observes Mirabeau, 'will do somewhat; he believes every word he says.'" The audacity of Danton the 'sea-green' certainly did not possess, but of that sort of courage which can use the extremest means for the desired end, he surely had sufficient. He shrunk from no crime, however exorbitant. His faith carried him through all, and nearer to the goal than any of his compeers. He walked as firm as others round the crater of this volcano, and walked there the longest. It is impossible not to feel that here, by the side ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... spoke on, for it was one of the paradoxes in Manning's soul that that voice was never silent. Whatever else he was, he was not unscrupulous. Rather, his scruples deepened with his desires; and he could satisfy his most exorbitant ambitions in a profundity of self-abasement. And so now he vowed to Heaven that he would SEEK nothing— no, not by the lifting of a finger or the speaking of a word. But, if something came to him—? He had ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... exorbitant for a g-gypsey's fiddle! You could buy a d-dozen other instruments for that, just as ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... of silks," says Hutton, in his 'History of Derby,' "was the taste of the ladies, and the British merchant was obliged to apply to the Italian with ready money for the article at an exorbitant price." Crotchet did not succeed in his undertaking. "Three engines were found necessary for the process: he had but one. An untoward trade is a dreadful sink for money; and an imprudent tradesman is still more dreadful. We often see instances where a fortune ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... we have it in this country, but without the palm-oil. This ingredient was not used, because, not being in the tariff, it was thought that, should it be imported, it would in all probability be classed under "perfumeries," and charged an exorbitant duty. The soap being a new thing in Rome, and unlike the nauseous stuff there in use, a clamour was raised against it, to the effect that it produced sickness, and caused headache and vomiting. The Roman ladies, in certain circumstances, are most fastidious about smells, though why they ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... them on the market where they became an object of active speculation at rapidly rising prices. The result was that when slaves finally reached the islands under Garrevod's grant the prices demanded for them were so exorbitant that the purposes of the original petitioners were in large measure defeated. Meanwhile the king, in spite of the nominally exclusive character of the Garrevod grant, issued various other licenses on a scale ranging from ten to four hundred slaves ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... certain extent, however, the evil has provided its own remedy. For men of strong heads and ambitious temper, perceiving the exorbitant power which a belief in inspiration places in the hands of the feeble-minded, have often feigned to be similarly afflicted, and trading on their reputation for imbecility, or rather inspiration, have acquired an authority over their fellows which, though they have often abused it for vulgar ends, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... rather than to himself. Accustomed to observe what we think an unwarrantable conceit exhibiting itself in ridiculous pretensions and forwardness to play the lion's part, in obvious self-complacency and loud peremptoriness, we are not on the alert to detect the egoistic claims of a more exorbitant kind often hidden under an apparent neutrality or an acquiescence in being put ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... from his countrymen, every article should be paid for. All his arguments and promises were thrown away upon the natives, whose rapacity knew no bounds; they would give nothing without payment, and their charges were exorbitant. ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... With the more exorbitant demands of the Hungarians Matthias had not hesitated to comply. For Hungary was an elective monarchy, and the republican constitution of the country justified to himself their demands, and to the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... I shall be perfectly satisfied with, only do exterminate that vile Generation of Bugs which nearly ate me up the last Time I sojourned at your House. After undergoing the Purgatory of Harrow board and Lodging for three Months I shall not be particular or exorbitant ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... and inspiration of the editor dictated. The establishment of the paper was undoubtedly a bold attempt at a time when the province was but sparsely settled, and the circulation necessarily limited by the rarity of post-offices even in the more thickly-populated districts, and by the exorbitant rates of postage which amounted to eight hundred dollars a-year on a thousand copies. More than that, any independent expression of opinion was sure to evoke the ire of the orthodox in politics and religion, which in those days were somewhat closely connected. ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... afraid that he would not be able to secure a seat in the diligence, so numerous were the travellers who wished to leave Brussels behind them. But in this, Chance and the length of his purse favoured him: he bought his seat for an exorbitant price, but he bought it; and at nine o'clock the diligence ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... is told of some American associates who had been working at an unprofitable spot, putting up a notice that their "valuable site" was for sale, as they were going elsewhere. A few Germans who had just arrived offered themselves as purchasers. The price asked was exorbitant, as the proprietors stated that the "diggings" returned a large amount of gold, and the following day was appointed for the Germans to come and see what could be produced in the course of a few hours' working. The sellers went during the night and secreted the gold-dust ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... it to the family, saying, 'Money, or I make row.' Do you think it is to you, who are penniless, that they give credit? It's on my pocket that they were drawing,—on my pocket, because they believed me rich. They sold you at exorbitant prices every thing they wished; and they relied on me to pay for trousers at ninety francs, shirts at forty francs, and ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... cathedral, whilst the long winter evenings were beguiled with fairy-tales and fables, his mother and nurse reading or reciting these, their little listener being always busy with pen or pencil. Something much more than mere precocity is shown in these almost infantine sketches. Exorbitant fancy is here much less striking than sureness of touch, outlined figures drawn between the age of five and ten displaying remarkable precision and point, each line of the silhouette telling. At six he celebrated his first school prize ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... no room to doubt his sincerity. I told him I once thought myself a kind of monarch in my old station, of which I had given him an account; but that I thought he was not only a monarch, but a great conqueror; for he that had got a victory over his own exorbitant desires, and the absolute dominion over himself, he whose reason entirely governs his will, is certainly greater than he that conquers ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... walk. I barted my Elkskins old irons and 2 canoes for beads. one of the canoes for which they would give us but little I had cut up for fuel. These people have yet a large quantity of dryed fish on hand yet they will not let us have any but for an exorbitant price. we purchased two dogs and some shappellel from them. I had the horses graized untill evening and then picquited and bubbled within the limits of our camp. I ordered the indians from our camp this evening and informed them that if I caught them ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... occasion to go to the convent, having been long in treaty with the friars for a steed which he had been commissioned by a nobleman to buy at any reasonable price. The friars, however, were exorbitant in their demands. On arriving at the gate, he sang to the friar who opened it a couplet which he had composed in the Gypsy tongue, in which he stated the highest price which he was authorised to give for the animal in question; ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... find this drug, by means of which the poor soul retains some hope of ultimate recovery—God grant that he be not deceived. There is my explanation; it is sad enough, Poole, ay, and appalling to consider; but it is plain and natural, hangs well together, and delivers us from all exorbitant alarms." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... about him, however, he found the possibility of independent municipal action pretty well hampered by mandatory legislation. He had promised, for instance, to do all he could to lower the exorbitant gas rate and to abolish grade crossings, but the law said that no municipality could do either of these things without first voting to do so three years in succession—a little precaution taken by the corporation representing ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... a question I am not bound to answer, even if I knew. It is a matter on which I say nothing. You have lent him money, at an exorbitant ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... seem exorbitant rents is this demand for modern improvements in old houses, and the atrocious carelessness of tenants of property. It is not their own, and they do not obey the golden rule in ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... all over the country offered him liberal commissions if he would dispose of expensive objets d'art to his friends. He entered in business relation with several firms and soon his rooms became a veritable bazaar for art curios of all kinds. Mrs. Jeffries' friends paid exorbitant prices for some of the stuff and Underwood pocketed the money, forgetting to account to the owners for the sums they brought. The dealers demanded restitution or a settlement and Underwood, dreading exposure, had to hustle ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... statuettes, music-boxes, mechanical toys, models of all ships and engines, and a thousand other useless and inappropriate articles, for, when the late Sultan paid his periodic visits to Europe, the shopkeepers of Paris, Amsterdam and The Hague seized the opportunity to unload on him, at exorbitant prices, their costliest and most unsalable wares. Opening a marquetry wardrobe, the Regent displayed with great pride his collection of uniforms and ceremonial costumes, most of which, the Resident told me, had been copied from pictures which ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... scent of enemy's property on board every vessel met on the seas. The character of enemy's property was regarded as an infection, and reprobated with all the terms originally reserved for guilty practices. The mercantile ingenuity of the country, pressed by the increased demand and exorbitant prices of prohibited articles, was strained to evade by every species of fraud these prohibitions, and a warfare was carried on within our own courts of justice between the pitiless exactions of the laws of war and the ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... "So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men, whether considered in their persons or their states, that they will grasp at all, and can form no scheme of perfect happiness with less."[1] So writes the most powerful of English prose-writers. And this hope and desire, which ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... zeal for the main chance you flog the exchange with many a stripe,' a mysterious passage generally supposed to mean 'if you exact exorbitant usury'. A little less enigmatic, but fully ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... Kinross, and, after excellent ham and eggs, begin to make a start, the cockney element is most visible at the first. Everybody's name is registered in a book; each pays a considerable, but not exorbitant, fee for the society—often well worth the money—and the assistance of boatmen. These gentlemen are also well provided with luncheon and beer, and, on the whole, there is more pleasure in the life of a Loch Leven boatman than in most arts, crafts, or professions. ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... they entirely engrossed that branch of commerce. Constantinople was obliged to depend on the rival power for an article which luxury reserved and desired as essential to elegance. The Persians, with the usual rapacity of monopolists, raised the price of silk to such an exorbitant height, that the Emperor Justinian eager, not only to obtain a full and certain supply of a commodity which was become of indispensible use, but solicitous to deliver the commerce of his subjects from the exactions of his enemies, endeavoured, by means of his ally, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... resisted. He regarded the proposed cession of lands as exorbitant and unjust, and summoned all the resources of his eloquence to defend his position. The course of his argument and the various means he took to enforce it, we have no means of adequately presenting. A few hints respecting ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... and two soldiers on horseback. On the fourth day of their march, they had a skirmish with some of the country Moors. The dispute began in consequence of some of our men in the rear stopping at a village to buy some milk, for which, after they had drank it, the Moors demanded an exorbitant price. This our men refused to give, on which the Moors had recourse to blows, which our people returned; and others coming to their assistance, they maintained a smart battle, till the enemy became too numerous. In the meantime ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... away waiting for the still higher prices they believed would obtain before fresh supplies could arrive in July. There was a general feeling of disappointment and discouragement, enhanced by discomfort and actual suffering from the terrible stormy weather of the winter and the exorbitant and growing price of provisions. Many men without occupation were living on one meal a day. The saloons and the parasitical classes, male and female, seemed to flourish and to play their usual prominent part in the life of such places. The doings of notorious women whose sobriquets seemed ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... days, and would bind myself under penalties to be always enraptured by them; and, above all, that I would turn my back on all other women for ever for her sake. I did not object to these conditions because they were exorbitant and inhuman: it was their extraordinary irrelevance that prostrated me. I invariably replied with perfect frankness that I had never dreamt of any of these things; that unless the lady's character ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... Obstinacy. But I am running from my intended Purpose, which was to celebrate a certain particular Manner of passing away Life, and is a Contradiction to no Man. but a Resolution to contract none of the exorbitant Desires by which others are enslaved. The best way of separating a Man's self from the World, is to give up the Desire of being known to it. After a Man has preserved his Innocence, and performed all Duties incumbent upon him, his Time spent his own ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... After riding about two miles we came to a small clearing, and were informed that the road for ten miles was "tolerbal clar" and pretty thickly settled. So after partaking of an early country dinner, also obtaining a small amount of eggs, chickens, etc., at exorbitant prices, we resumed our ride. That expedition will never be forgotten by me. At its close, I felt that my powers of diplomacy were quite equal to any emergency. Oh, the sullen, sour-looking women that I sweetly smiled upon, and flattered into good ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... I am utterly blind. Wrote a very long letter to my dear father on the subject of my future profession, wishing if possible to bring the question to an immediate and final settlement.' The letter is exorbitant in length, it is vague, it is obscure; but the appeal contained in it is as earnest as any appeal from son to parent on such a subject ever was, and it is of special interest as the first definite indication alike ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... would have made! The escapement suddenly announced that the cloth could not be purchased; for, while the dispute about the colors of the uniform had been going on, the greedy merchants had advanced the price of all cloths to such an exorbitant figure that the government could ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... intercourse which may be accomplished by railways; however great animal speed, there cannot be a doubt that it would be considerably surpassed by mail steam carriages, and that the expense would be infinitely less. The exorbitant charge now made for small parcels prevents that natural intercourse of friendship between families resident in different parts of the kingdom, in the same manner as the heavy postage of letters prevents free ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... of the "Java" (guava) broke the Bantu heart. "'Ave a banana" was (happily) not yet composed, and gooseberries—Cape gooseberries do not grow on bushes. Small green things which lured one to colic were offered by the cool coolies for twopence each—a sum that would have been exorbitant for a gross had they not borne the hall-mark ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... tumult amongst the people, who saw with marked displeasure the exigencies of the excise gradually raising the price of an article of primary necessity. We have already mentioned times during which the price of salt was so exorbitant that the rich alone could put it in their bread. Thus, in the reign of Francis I., it was almost as ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... between the Islands and the United States to American bottoms from July 1, 1906. It is alleged that the success of the new regulations which may (or may not, for want of American vessels) come into force on that date will depend on the freights charged; it is believed that exorbitant outward rates would divert the hemp cargoes into other channels, and a large rise in inward freights would facilitate European competition in manufactured goods. Any considerable rise in freights to America would tend to counterbalance the benefits which the Filipinos hope ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... likewise been injuring these poor people, though I shall find it difficult to bring it home to him. His agent, Bandar Dowud (a man involved in debt), took fifteen Dyak cloths and sold them, or rather forced them to take them, at an exorbitant rate; in a month or two after, he returns and demands 200 reals over and above the large price already paid for articles worth seven or eight reals; the poor Dyaks not being able to pay, he seizes the chief's daughter ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... the five years following 1656. These early Quakers, when not the veritable persons, were the ghosts of the old troublers of "the Lord's people in the Bay." Gorton, Randall Holden, Mrs. Dyer, and other "exorbitant persons," who had been found "unmeet to abide in this jurisdiction," could not be got rid of once ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... 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 made? Would he not have said, and said truly, Leave such exorbitant attempts as these to the general indignation of the Commons, who will take care to defeat them when they do occur; but do not refuse me the Irons and the Meltings now, because I may totally lose sight of all moderation hereafter? Leave hereafter to the spirit and the wisdom ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... woods, and a good many little copses. Farms often lay close together, and now and again attempts were made to buy food and drink of the peasantry, who, upon hearing our approach, came at times with lights to their thresholds. But they were a close-fisted breed, and demanded exorbitant prices. Half a franc was the lowest charge for a piece of bread. Considering how bad the men's boots were, the marching was very good, but a number of men deserted under cover of the night. Generally speaking, though there was a slight skirmish at Cloyes and an engagement ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... to the world without even being incapacitated from office. He still had to run the gauntlet of the Serjeant-at-Arms, who at some period unknown arrested him as obnoxious to the resolution of June 16th, and detained him, charging exorbitant fees, until compelled to abate his demands by the Commons' resolution of December 15th. Milton relinquished his house in Westminster, and formed a temporary refuge on the north side of Holborn. His nerves were shaken; he started ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... named a sum that was rather less exorbitant than the Hon. Morison had anticipated. The latter nodded his head in token of his entire willingness to pay. He would have promised a sum far beyond his resources just as readily, for he had no intention of paying anything—his one reason for seeming to comply with The Sheik's demands ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... only one piece of advice to offer. Make careful inquiries as to the value of property. Then ask a fair price, not one that is exorbitant. That might drive the hotel people to seeking ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... but kept them carefully concealed in case of some great emergency; for I knew that if I were to shew a single sequin, the Arabs would suppose that I possessed several hundreds, and would either have robbed me of them, or prevented me from proceeding on my journey by the most exorbitant demands. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... capable of more honour. At his return from the Cadiz voyage and action, she conferred it upon him, creating him Earl of Nottingham, to the great discontent of his colleague, my Lord of Essex, who then grew excessive in the appetite of her favour, and the truth is, so exorbitant in the limitation of the sovereign aspect, that it much alienated the Queen's grace from him, and drew others together with the Admiral to a combination, to conspire his ruin; and though, as I have heard it from that party (I mean the old Admiral's faction) that it ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... hostile country, with a powerful army hovering near him, and an unapproachable citadel as his objective, Grant could save himself from destruction only by complete and prompt success. Desperate, indeed, was the occasion, yet all its exorbitant requirements were met fully, surely, and swiftly by the commander and the gallant troops under him. In the task of getting a clear space, by driving the Confederates from the neighborhood for a considerable distance around, the army penetrated eastward as far as Jackson, fighting ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... exchange superfluities for necessaries. There the rarest articles, the value of which was not known to their possessors, were sold for the merest pittance; while others of little worth, but more showy appearance, were purchased at the most exorbitant prices. Gold, from being most portable, was bought at an immense loss with silver that the knapsacks were incapable of holding. Everywhere soldiers were seen seated on bales of merchandise, on heaps of sugar and coffee, amid wines and the most exquisite liquors, all of which ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... deposited, as I may say, at first in the hands of the States of the kingdom, and afterwards in those of the Parliament. The registering of treaties with other Crowns and the ratifications of edicts for raising money are almost obliterated images of that wise medium between the exorbitant power of the Kings and the licentiousness of the people instituted by our ancestors. Wise and good Princes found that this medium was such a seasoning to their power as made it delightful to their people. On the other hand, weak and vicious Kings always hated it as an obstacle ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to comprehend, we may say, in an eminent degree, variety of outline, correctness of detail, force of expression and purity of taste, with simplicity of execution, and in those parts of the country where lumber is abundant, and labor not exorbitant, it can be erected ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward |
