"For a song" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a thrill of mystery upon reading the titles of many of the volumes. The majority were old books, many of them in languages that he was not able to decipher, picked up for a song at second-hand shops or on the book stands installed upon the parapets of the Seine. Only a man holding the key of tongues could get together such volumes. An atmosphere of mysticism, of superhuman insight, of secrets intact for many centuries appeared to emanate from ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... are, or who fancy themselves to be good singers, are great bores. The airs which they assume in company are most insufferable. If asked for a song, they affect, with an aspect of the most hypocritical humility, that really they cannot sing—that their voice is out of order—that they are hoarse, and so forth; the fellows all the while being most anxious to show forth, only wanting to be pressed, in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... around his form after the fashion of a Spanish cloak.—His head was stuck full of sable hearse-plumes, which he nodded to and fro with a jaunty and knowing air; and, in his right hand, he held a huge human thigh-bone, with which he appeared to have been just knocking down some member of the company for a song. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a stall was loaded with the spoils of a sunken ship or the loot from a city fire, and you could buy for a song the rare fabrics and costly dainties of the rich, a stain on the cloth, a discoloured label on the tin, alone giving a hint of their adventures. Then the people hovered round like wreckers on a hostile shore, carrying off spoil and treasure at a fraction ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... be just an ordinary man, living on a place adjoining the haunted estate. He owned up to being the pallid specter that had been giving the house such a bad name; and said he wanted to buy the property in for a song, as it would find no other purchaser if it had such an evil reputation. Now, maybe somebody wants this quarry for thirty cents, and this is his way of scaring other would-be purchasers away. We don't want to butt in on ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... to their diversions as to each seemed best. But when the cicalas had hushed their chirping, all were mustered again for supper; and having blithely feasted, they all addressed them to song and dance. And the queen, while Emilia led a dance, called for a song from Dioneo, who at once came out with:—'Monna Aldruda, come perk up thy mood, a piece of glad tidings I bring thee.' Whereat all the ladies fell a laughing, and most of all the queen, who bade him give ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... did not listen to their taunts, for a song of joy was welling up in her heart—a song so sweet and true, it might have been the echo of that sung by the angels. Never had life seemed so beautiful to her. The ill looks of the neighbours appeared to her to be smiles of kindness and love; their hard speeches sounded soft and altered; the ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... three abreast, with snorting prows, we raced along; our mat-sails panting to the breeze. All present partook of the life of the air; and unanimously Yoomy was called upon for a song. The canoes were passing a long, white reef, sparkling with shells, like a jeweler's case: and thus Yoomy sang in the same old strain as of yore; beginning aloud, where he had ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... he was setting free his Negro slave, Nancy, aged about forty. During these years he tended the sick (a bill for sixty-five dollars was tendered to John Harper's widow in 1804), fought the plague and fever, epidemics, and prescribed for his friends with time out for a song or a sketch. His copy of James Sharples' George Washington, now in the Mount Vernon collection, is a competent, artistic portrait. He was fond of good food, good talk, people and music. His genial spirit and charming wit graced many a festive board, and that he was hospitable ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... am half in love with you myself, little Allison, in love with your lost youth, in love with the shadow of a shadow. And that is a subject for a song—" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... way of enjoyment, and that while he was far from criticising the vigilance committee, he was not altogether partial to the nature of his demise, and if it was just the same to them, instead of praying or cursing, he'd take that five minutes for a song. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... dozen Irish militia (who don't care to read, but are keen on a story) were gathered round another lady, who was telling them an amusing temperance tale, trying to speak so that the Bible readers should not hear her and yet that the Leinsters should was a difficulty, but when the Irishmen begged for a song—difficulty became impossibility, and their friend had to say, 'No.' Yet this is just the double work required in Soldiers' Homes, and above all at Lydd, where there is so little safe amusement to be had in camp, and none in the village." These ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... vain for a song; only a lisping "Twee-twee-ze," or "a dreary whisper," as Minot calls their low-toned communications with each other, reaches our ears from their high perches in the cedar trees, where they sit, almost motionless ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... of the slight importance which the Louvre attached to New France is furnished by the frequent and easy changes in its patronage to which reference has already been made. On the imprisonment of Conde, the young Duc de Montmorency purchased for a song the Lieutenancy of New France, and he in turn sold it to his nephew, Henri Levis, the Duc de Ventadour. All except De Ventadour had been moved by the lust of gain; in his case, however, the motive was religious—to win the infidels of the New World to ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... which Mr. JOHN HASSALL wrote under one of his sketches suggested the words for a song which has now been written. It is only fair to the artist to say that he was not aware that his quite innocent title would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... attention, first to the fact of that damsel having a gilt comb in her hair and a red necklace round her throat, and secondly, and subsequently to a pointed remonstrance, to the duty of making tea. After the meal Rose restored her to good-humour by bringing her guitar and asking for a song, and afterwards engaging her in an intelligent and sharp cross-examination about guitar-playing and music ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... in comfort, without ostentation, their picturesque surroundings. Their cottages were simple; but each had its charming outlook to sea and a sufficient number of more or less wooded acres to command privacy and breathing space. In the early days the land had sold for a song, but it had risen steadily with the times, as more and more people coveted a foothold. The last ten years had introduced many changes; the older houses had been pulled down and replaced by lordly structures with all the modern conveniences, including spacious ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... ["Thou hast asked me for a song, and I enclose you an experiment, which has cost me something more than trouble, and is, therefore, less likely to be worth your taking any in your proposed setting. Now, if it be so, throw it into the fire without phrase."—Letter ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... the land according to the return from it which each expects to get. The low valuation is expressed in the border wilderness, by which a third or even a half of the whole area is wasted; and also in the readiness with which savages often sell their best territory for a song. ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... very correct gray "shroud," as he named it in thankless terms, and to put his cigar and cigar ashes into something having the earmarks of an Etruscan coal scuttle, though Beatrice said it was a priceless antique Gay had bought for a song! There were many times when Steve would have liked to roam about his house in plebeian shirt sleeves, eat a plain steak and French-fried potatoes with a hunk of homemade pie as a finish, and spend the evening in that harmless, disorderly fashion known to men of doing nothing but stroll about smoking, ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... had not even cursed them. He said to Jesse Bulrush that it was an old game to get hold of a patent that made a fortune for a song while the patentee died in the poor-house. Yet that four days was time enough for a live man to do a "flurry of work," and he was fit enough to walk up their backs yet with hobnailed boots, as they said in Kerry when a man ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... trousers, and waistcoat," replied Winter desperately. "She doesn't want 'em any more; sold 'em for a song—glad to be rid of ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... well as women's, as they saw again the rows of lights one above the other shining kindly to them across the water, and "Thank God!" was murmured in heartfelt tones round the boat. The boat swung round and the crew began their long row to the steamer; the captain called for a song and led off with "Pull for the shore, boys." The crew took it up quaveringly and the passengers joined in, but I think one verse was all they sang. It was too early yet, gratitude was too deep and sudden in its overwhelming intensity, for us to sing very steadily. Presently, ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... writings of any other American poet.' Willis also tells us, as proof of the General's popularity with those shrewd dollar-loving men, the publishers, that 'he can, at any time, obtain fifty dollars for a song unread, when the whole remainder of the American Parnassus could not sell one to the same buyer for a single shilling!' He is the best-known poet of the ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... were meant for me. I took no notice for some time, but, as he continued, I answered with such spirit, as to arouse his indignation. My own blood boiled; but the interference of mutual friends pacified us for the time, and we renewed our applications to the bottle. My cousin was called upon for a song; he had a fine voice and considerable execution, and was ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... his, by some remark of a quite opposite tendency, very often of a commonplace character. From the great distress which at such times Antonia's glances betrayed, I perceived that he only did it to deprive me of a pretext for calling upon her for a song. But I didn't relinquish my design. The hindrances which the Councillor threw in my way only strengthened my resolution to overcome them; I must hear Antonia sing if I was not to pine away in reveries and dim aspirations ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... himself down to his last groat, and will let it go for a song now," said Tom. "I would get there before any other fellow does. Jack Wyse and Hal Langton both want it, but they have gamed their pockets empty, and wait till necessity forces him to lower his price to their means. But an hour since I heard ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and your pulses overplay us; Ye, with social sores unbandaged, can ye sing right and steer wrong? For the transient cosmic, rooted in imperishable chaos, Must be kneaded into drastics as material for a song. ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... favorite among both officers and men, on account of his lively and genial temper, combined with a fine voice for music—an accomplishment that with soldiers endears, and makes a favorite of any person possessing it. He was soon called upon for a song, and in accordance with the request commenced a song, and soon the rich and clear voice of the young man rang out on the air of the soft twilight. He sang of home, and as each word fell with distinctness on the ears of the soldiers, who grouped around him, each heart throbbed with ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... looke vppon his boote, and sing: mend the Ruffe and sing, aske questions and sing, picke his teeth, and sing: I know a man that had this tricke of melancholy hold a goodly Mannor for a song ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... arrange; he had arranged them before. Then, when the Two Strange People had been struck with panic, the Syrian donkey- market, and the five hundred feddans of American cotton, and the new schools would be his for a song—or a curse. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... depends. A movement of arms and feet teaches her that the child feels its strength and wants to use it. She helps, she lifts, she teaches; and while playing with her baby's hands and feet she is never at a loss for a song or story. ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... instinct he had divined and made preparations for a long drought. Being rich, with land in other counties, he was able to move his stock to green pastures. We knew that he was storing up the money sucked by the sun out of us. He was foreclosing mortgages, buying half-starved horses and steers for a song, selling hay and straw at fabulous prices. And we were reeling upon the ragged edge of bankruptcy! He, the beast of prey, the vulture, was gorging on ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Colorow society," laughed Serviss. Then, to clear the shadow which had gathered on the girl's face, he said: "I see a fine piano, and shelves of music books. This argues that you love music. Won't you sing for me? I am hungry for a song." ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... Gone! Three thousand pounds!" Three thousand pounds! A frenzy leapt in me. "That picture's mine," I cried; "I'm David Strong. I painted it, this famished wretch you see; I did it, I, and sold it for a song. And in a garret three small hours ago My daughter died for want of Christian care. Look, look at me! . . . Is it to mock my woe You pay three thousand for my ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... took possession of the apothecary's shop in Neu-Ruppin, which he had acquired at a most favorable price, for a song, so to speak; at Easter, 1826, after three of my four brothers and sisters had been born there, he disposed of the property. Whenever this early sale of the business became a topic of conversation, it was always ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... sits in homely cell, He'll teach his swains this carol for a song,— 'Blest be the hearts that wish my sovereign well, Curst be the souls that think her any wrong.' Goddess, allow this aged man his right To be your beadsman now that was ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... back all these treasures for a song. And still the Nightingale sang on. He sang of the quiet churchyard, where the white roses grow, where the elder flowers bloom, and where the grass is kept moist by the tears of those left behind, and there came to Death such a longing to see his garden, ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... of carts threaded through it all. The faint, unmistakable rattle of a wagon driven rapidly, came towards them. While they stood listening, came also a confused jumble of voices emitting sounds which the two guessed were intended for a song. A little later, above the high-pitched rattle of the wagon wheels, they heard the raucous, long-drawn "Yank-ee doo-oo-dle da-a-andy!" which confirmed their suspicions and identified the comers ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... ships that brought it had the right to do so. But after it was released from confinement there was still a difficulty. Nobody would buy it. The manufacturers were afraid to handle this new and unknown kind of cotton for fear it would not pay to work it up, and at last it had to be sold for a song to get a trial. Such was the state of the American industry at the period when the great republic was just born. It may be said that the nation and its greatest product were born together, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... offered by anybody in elucidation of this enigma, the shepherd's wife once more called for a song. The same obstacles presented themselves as at the former time: one had no voice, another had forgotten the first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul had now risen to a good working temperature, relieved the difficulty by exclaiming that, to start the company, he would sing ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... instantly cabled back 'Thanks, don't tell her of this.' ["So that's what mother was hinting at," thought Eileen, with a smile.] It was all I could do not to cable to you: 'Will you marry me? Reply paid.' ["What a good idea for a song!" murmured Nelly.] Put me out of my agony as soon as you can, won't you, dearest Eileen? Your face is floating before me as I write, with its black Irish eyes ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... prone to quarrel on the least pretext. It was because in order to receive his protection that I should have to bow before such a fellow, that I resolved that I would live by myself even if I had to do milk delivery. Shortly afterwards he sent for a second-hand dealer and sold for a song all the bric-a-bric which had been handed down from ages ago in our family. Our house and lot were sold, through the efforts of a middleman to a wealthy person. This transaction seemed to have netted a goodly sum to him, but I know nothing as ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... for supper! I got them for a song—or, rather, for a whistle. I was fed with more than fish. And I went to sleep that night with a glorious thought for a pillow: Truth expressed as Art is the universal language. One immortal strain from Verdi, poorly whistled in a wilderness, had made ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... Stoddard, "but you take too much for granted if you think I can be bought out for a song." ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... Perthes of Hamburg, paid to Neander on a single work, more than $20,000, exclusive of the interest his heirs still have in it. Poets like Uhland, Freiligrath, Geibel, have also received as much as $6,000 or $12,000 on the sales of a single volume. Long ago in Boston, Robert Treat Paine received $1,500 for a song. Of our living poets, Longfellow has been most ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... from flatulence; and he fetches breath, like a drowning kitten, whenever he can. Notwithstanding all this, his music gains ground, for it walks with him from end to end of the street. He is your only performer that requires not many entreaties for a song; for he will chant, without asking, to a street cur, or a parish post. His only backwardness is to a stave after dinner, seeing that he never dines; for he sings for bread, and though corn has ears, sings very commonly in vain. As for his country, he is an Englishman, that by his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... Mr. Balls, the great grocer of South Audley Street, a warm man, who, they say, had his twenty thousand pounds; Jack Snaffle, of the mews hard by, a capital fellow for a song; Clinker, the ironmonger: all married gentlemen, and in the best line of business; Tressle, the undertaker, etc. No liveries were admitted into the room, as may be imagined, but one or two select butlers and major-domos joined the circle; for the persons composing it knew very ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... calf and lead it back to the ranch. The calf would side up to the pony and follow it along as if under the delusion that it was following its mother. The man traded in cattle by picking up estrays and buying, for a song, those that were footsore and sick, keeping them till in condition and then selling them to passing trains that ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton
... predicted, nobody cared to put good money into what was officially and authoritatively announced as a bad title. At the sheriff's sale there were no bona fide bidders except the secret agents of Malcolm Neil. The sheriff's titles—such as they were— went for a song. Immediately the ostensible purchasers were personally warned by the commission; but ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... little. There's a new affair bein' started. Got a political side to it. Immense piece o' business. 'Course I got my finger in that pie, as I has in all the others now. We'd like to get Rauchhaupt's land ... He bought it for a song in the old days. If we c'n get it—the whole of it an' not parcelled—there'd be a cool million ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... through his. "Don't cry, pa, please! We'll wait until Don Mike loses all his sheep and cow money and then we'll buy Panchito for a song." ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... old man bought it, the circulation has fallen off about half; we don't get any 'ads'; we're not paying expenses. It's a crime too, for it's a good paper. Even Rogers is sick of it now; he'd sell for a song. I'd borrow the money and buy it if it weren't for the presses; I'd have to have new presses. Everything here is in pretty good shape," he finished, with an ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... spectator's attention by telling "how it all ends." To quote Mr. Harry Cowell, writing in The Magazine Maker: "A title is a means to an end. The end of a story should justify the title. If the title gives the story away, the writer may have to give it away, too, or sell it for a song, which is bad business." Let the title suggest the theme of the story, by all means; but keep your climax, your "big" scene, safely under cover until the moment comes to "spring it" upon the spectators and leave them gasping, as it were, at the very unexpectedness of it. Avoid ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... of these treasures for a song, and the nightingale went on singing. It sang about the quiet churchyard, when the roses bloom, where the elder flower scents the air, and where the fresh grass is ever moistened anew by the tears of the mourner. This song brought to Death a longing for his own garden, ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... crucible of poverty. Once admitted as an equal among such elect souls, Lucien represented beauty and poetry. They admired the sonnets which he read to them; they would ask him for a sonnet as he would ask Michel Chrestien for a song. And, in the desert of Paris, Lucien found an oasis in the Rue ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... treated on several hands. Being asked what he thinks of the proceedings, characterizes them (his strength lying in a slangular direction) as "a rummy start." The landlord of the Sol's Arms, finding Little Swills so popular, commends him highly to the jurymen and public, observing that for a song in character he don't know his equal and that that man's character-wardrobe would ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... castle or strong-hold, viz.: Sing-Sing. This, I would observe for the sake of historical exactness, is a corruption of the old Indian name, O-sin-sing, or rather O-sin-song; that is to say, a place where any thing may be had for a song—a great recommendation for a market town. The modern and melodious alteration of the name to Sing-Sing is said to have been made in compliment to an eminent Methodist singing-master, who first introduced into the neighborhood ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... there was no time for rest. A half dozen kilted Highlanders hailed her through the open door and asked for a song. She gave them "Wee Hoose Amang the Heather—" standing on the step. It was still raining, and they took with them a picture of a girl with glorious uncovered hair, and that cut tell-tale lock against ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... too, because Ixion says his wheel's old-fashioned; he wants a new one with pneumatic tyres warranted puncturable, which shows that he is really entering into the spirit of the thing. You might have had his old one for a song, I'm sure. However, what do you say to calling on those Danaid girls, and getting them to teach you their little industry? There, again, you have simplicity itself. Take a can with a hole in the bottom, go on pouring water ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... for a song without words by Mendelssohn—or a song with words, even by Schubert, even with German words—one was rebuked and made to blush for the crime ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... his other pretensions, had that of being able to relate a story in an impressive manner. These words were as pleasing to his ears as the request for a song is to a lady who requires urging, although she is dying ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... under the hammer, for just enough to pay the debt and costs, to Squire Gale, the clerk of the court, who is another of those conniving big bugs, who are seen going round with the sheriff, at such times, with their pockets full of money to buy up the poor man's property for a song, though never a dollar will they lend him ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... according to their sponsors in baptism) simply couldn't bear it. They went out; and four hours later came back with a car (Lord made it, so let it pass for a car!) which they had bought somewhere, second or third hand, for a song. Even a song of sixpence would be dear for the great-grandmother of the whole progeny of Lords! The thing must be eight years old if it's a day, but the boys are as pleased as Punch with their bargain. The oldest of them (Tom) thinks he has learned to manage the poor old lady; and on ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... the table. His friends had first tempted him with a cigar; then, as his first smoke produced the strange effects common in these cases, they had induced him to take a little strong punch as a remedy. He was now leaning against the table in answer to the call of "Mr. Gig-lamps for a song." Having decided upon one of those vocal efforts which in the bosom of his family met with great applause, he began to sing in low and plaintive tones, "'I dre-eamt that I dwelt in Mar-ar-ble Halls, with'"—and then, alarmed by hearing the sound of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... though murder had been the outcome of my art. "The lady and her husband dead and gone (honesty would have made me say 'or gone'), the letters fell into the possession of my friend, who in a way deals in such curios. I bought them from him for a song (some songs are worth one thousand dollars), although he was not over-anxious ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... President Pierce did what he could for him by giving him the Portuguese mission (after first offering it to my father), and O'Sullivan did excellent work there. But he became interested—abstractly—in some copper-mines in Spain, which, as he clearly demonstrated, could be bought for a song, and would pay a thousand per cent, from the start. Partly to gratify him, and partly with the hope of at least getting his money back, my father finally, in 1858 or 1859, advanced him ten thousand dollars to finance the scheme. I saw the dear old ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... his family made in Mr. Gowans, a Scotchman and a book-collector of means and cultivation, whose fancy for them went so far as to induce him to become a member of the unique little family in the dingy wooden shanty which they had succeeded in renting for a song. To this old gentleman, who had the reputation of being something of a crank, The Dreamer's conversation and Virginia's beauty and exquisite singing were never-failing wells of delight, while the generous sum that he paid for the privilege of ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... little to say, and that little they said ill; and I noticed that many of those who were perfect bores would cry loudest to be heard, though none of us wanted to hear them. We used to quench such fellows by calling loudly for a song with a rousing chorus. ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... upon a time. I calculate it's that now, only it ain't run as a hotel any more. It's been years since there was any summer folks come here—place didn't pay, they said; guess that's why they shet it up and how your pa come to buy it for a song." ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... Glasgow and Dundee and here and there a one in the City of London were able to procure. In its flavour, said he, lurked the mystery of strange and barbaric names. He showed me a Bonington water colour which he had picked up for a song. On enquiry as to the signification of a song as a unit of value, I learned that since eminent tenors and divas had sung into gramophones, the ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... as he came before his line A little space along, His beardless face broke into mirth, And he cried: "What broken bits of earth Are here? For what their clothes are worth I would sell them for a song." ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton
... of my coat," said Walter Bruce, "you will find a document. It is the deed of five lots in the town of Tacoma, in Washington Territory. I was out there last year, and having a little money, bought the lots for a song. They are worth very little now, but some time ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... very gallery roared with contempt when he was called a tyrant, was the remorseless and aged Creon. And Ismene being arrayed in spangled muslin trowsers very loose in the legs and very tight in the ankles, such as Fatima would wear in Blue Beard, was at her appearance immediately called upon for a song. After this, can ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... pay as an able seaman. He attempts to bribe the other to secrecy, by promising half the profits of the enterprise; but the sheet-anchor-man's integrity is like a rock; he is no mercenary, to be bought up for a song. The cockswain, therefore, is forced to swear that neither himself, nor any of his crew, shall enter the barge before morning. This done, the sheet-anchor-man goes to his confidants, and arranges his plans. In a word, he succeeds in introducing the six brandy bottles into the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Idols I have loved so long Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong: Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup, And sold my Reputation for a Song. ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam
... controversy was rampant, and flattery might not be overlooked by a poet who aspired to royal favor. So while the January pastoral tells of the unhappy love of Colin Clout (Spenser) for Rosalind, the springtime of April calls for a song ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... the gracious pathetic relations which sometimes existed between bearded knights and infant kings. Such was the case where Sir David Lindsay of the Mount and little King James V. were concerned, when the pupil would entreat the master for a song on the lute with childish peremptoriness, "P'ay, Davie Lindsay, p'ay!"] The view is beautiful, and the paper is still full of holes from their fencing; and the very same table is there on which they were ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... you don't want to die in here, do you? (explanatorily) "die in"—dine—you'll excuse me, but the ocean always makes me feel so facetious. Captain, dear, if you'll pardon a common sailor like myself for making the suggestion, I beg to call upon you for a song. (The Captain obligingly bellows "The Stormy Nore—The Jolly old Nore," to the general satisfaction). Ah, they didn't know what a canary-bird you were, Captain! Here's a lady asking you to drink at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various
... already, do you?" said the newcomer. "Well. Eat some bread and cheese, and I will give you sixpence for a song." ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... change came over them which might have reminded Signor G—— of the banditti of the green-room, with whose habits he had been so long familiar and whose operations he had himself directed. Some one of the troop, who, however fit for stratagems and spoils, had yet music in his soul, called aloud for a song. The idea was hailed with acclamations. Not satisfied with the capitalized results of his voice to which they had helped themselves, they were unwilling to let their prey go until they had also ravished from him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... little fish, and they had played with him ten days—ample time in which to swallow him, along with his eleven millions. Of course, they had been unloading on him all the time, and now they were buying Ward Valley back for a song ere the market righted itself. Most probably, out of his share of the swag, Nathaniel Letton would erect a couple of new buildings for that university of his. Leon Guggenhammer would buy new engines for that yacht, or a whole ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... narrow consoles that were so simple anyone could accomplish them: simply two wide shelves resting on good brackets, with mirrors above. The one splendid thing in the room was a curtain of soft green damask that was pulled at night to cover the group of windows. Everything else in the room was bought for a song. ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... and elegies to Chloris, Might raise a house about two stories; A lyric ode would slate; a catch Would tile; an epigram would thatch. Now Poets feel this art is lost, Both to their own and landlord's cost. Not one of all the tuneful throng Can hire a lodging for a song. For Jove consider'd well the case, That poets were a numerous race; And if they all had power to build, The earth would very soon be fill'd: Materials would be quickly spent, And houses would not give a rent. The God of Wealth was therefore made ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... vogue at home; and the character of Scrub, in particular, has usually been a prodigious favourite. I see by your look, however, that enough has been said; but after having done so much to amuse this good company, to-night, I shall feel authorised to call on every lady present, at least for a song, as soon as the proper moment arrives. Perhaps I have a right to add, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... agency were all informed of the circumstance, with a full description of Luigi Malatesta. The incident became a "nine-days' wonder" in the newspapers. Soon it was learned that the Sicilian had, on the very day before Tony's disappearance, sold his restaurant in Guilford for a song. He had disappeared with several others, questionable characters with whom he had been associated, and on whom he had evidently relied to do the kidnaping. It was discovered also, through the confession of a Sicilian suspect, ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... he saddest sits in homely cell, He'll teach his swains this carol for a song: 'Blessed be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well, Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong.' Goddess allow this aged man his right, To be your beadsman now that ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... the short-lived Apples in their season, and the long-lived Apples the year around, and some were costly and some were cheap; and in the autumn the market was flooded—so that then all people could buy apples for a song—to their hearts' content and their ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... he could not help being a little out of countenance,—"I have so begged and prayed, but she was never in voice or humour, or heart, or something. Yesterday, even Castlefort was almost on his knees for a song,—were not you, Lord Castlefort?" ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... the fact remains that the sale and dispersion of the ecclesiastical property passed in a storm of corruption and graft. Properties worth many thousands of dollars were juggled among political henchmen, sold for a song, and sold again at a great profit. Even as the Southerners complain of the Reconstruction rather than of the Civil War, so do the French Catholics complain, not of the law, but of its aftermath. The Socialist- Labor Party exultant, the Catholic Party wronged ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... politely. Mr. Beeton was quite sure that Dick had gone mad, otherwise he would have never parted with his excellent furniture for a song. The canvas things took up storage room and were much better ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... how repay thee for a song so rare? For not the whispering south-wind on its way So much delights me, nor wave-smitten beach, Nor streams that ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... Near it, were two unupholstered chairs; one, white; the other, black. Save for these, save too for a succession of mirrors and of lights, the room was bare. In addition, it was spacious, a long oblong, ceiled high with light frescoes, the proper aviary for a song-bird. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... Diamond Fields increased day by day, soon began to think that it had parted with a profitable possession for an inadequate return. The feeling rankled; and the confident expectation of recovering Kimberley sold for a song tempted Bloemfontein into the ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... to have spoken out before. He ought to have told the surveyor at once that he owned the land. He ought to have said: "Why, that's my land. I bought it of that drunken 'Lige Curtis for a song and out of charity." Yes, that was the only real trouble, and that came from his own goodness, his own extravagant sense of justice and right,—his own cursed good-nature. Yet, on second thoughts, he didn't know why he was obliged to tell the surveyor. ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... tell. But it was the only name that Andrew had, and as good as any other. It was part of his inheritance, the remainder being ninety-five francs in cash, some cheap trinkets, a couple of boxes of fripperies which were sold for a song, a tattered copy of Longfellow's Poems, and a brand new gilt-edged Bible, carefully covered in brown paper, with "For Fanny from Jim" inscribed on the flyleaf. From which Andrew Lackaday, as soon as his mind could ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... properly. But, believe me! I have had all the experience I want with freak stars. The expense and trouble I have been put to regarding Wonota has taught me a lesson. I'd sell my contract with Wonota to-morrow—or after the picture is done—for a song." ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... horseplay, one of the Hudson's Bay officers spoke up: "Y' hae niver asked me for a song. I hae a varse o' me ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... doing? For a long time I didn't hear, and chance kept me from returning to Rome. But one day, in Paris, I ran across a dealer who had captured for a song one of the best Florentine bronzes in the Daunt collection—a marvellous plaquette of Donatello's. I asked him what had become of it, and he said with a grin: "I sold it the other day," naming ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... had proved "much more like that of a father than a master." It was during the course of a visit to Edinburgh in the same year, that an accidental circumstance gave a wider range to his poetical reputation. Spending an evening with a party of friends in the Crown Tavern, he was solicited for a song. He sung the last which he had composed; it was "Donald Macdonald." The reception was a roar of applause, and one of the party offered to get it set to music and published. The song was issued anonymously ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... baker, who had once tried his hand at an original Christmas carol. He even called upon the ladies—and we were all of us rather shocked at the time—to bring their music; and as a piano had actually been hired from somewhere, and stood on the platform, he called upon his sister for a song there and then, and she actually—we were surprised—sang one of those old English ballads to hear which we had regarded as the sole privilege of the select few who were invited to take tea at the vicarage, at the sewing meetings which ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... Lochinvar has come out of the West, Thro' all the wide border his horse has no equal, Having cost him forty-five dollars at the market, Where good nags, fresh from the country, With burrs still in their tails are selling For a song; and save his good broad sword He weapon had none, except a seven-shooter Or two, a pair of brass knuckles, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... an earlier victim. The wildest stories of sudden fortune were in the air, some of them undoubtedly true. Men had gone to bed paupers, on the verge of starvation, and awakened to find themselves millionaires. Others had sold for a song claims that had been suddenly found to be fairly stuffed with precious ores. Cart-loads of bricks—silver and gold—daily ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... bore false witness against his neighbour than "cruelty" cases do of the old and just horror of the parents that hated their own flesh. A libel case has become one of the sports of the less athletic rich—a variation on baccarat, a game of chance. A music-hall actress got damages for a song that was called "vulgar," which is as if I could fine or imprison my neighbour for calling my handwriting "rococo." A politician got huge damages because he was said to have spoken to children about Tariff Reform; as if that seductive topic would corrupt their virtue, like an ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... lawn. The pergola can be made of rough cedar posts with the bark left on. Evan says that there are any quantity of cedar trees in your river woods that are to be cleared for the reservoir, and you can probably get them for a song. ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Once more Death begged for a song, and this time the little Nightingale obtained the banner for her singing. Then she sang one more song, so sweet and so sad that it made Death think of his garden in the churchyard, where he always liked best ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... to take Ethel back to Niagara and wait there a fortnight, or perhaps a little longer, while he and Mr. Heathcote came back by way of New England and from there went down into Maryland and Virginia, where, according to "a member of the Canadian Parliament," lands were to be had for a song. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... But the sharper and speculator thrives and fattens. If his country is fighting by a levy en masse for her very existence, he aids her by depreciating her paper, so that he may accumulate fabulous amounts with little outlay. If his neighbor is distressed, he buys his property for a song. If he administers upon an estate, it turns out insolvent, and the orphans are paupers. If his bank explodes, he is found to have taken care of himself in time. Society worships its paper-and-credit kings, as the old Hindus and Egyptians ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... it went through, until a feverish spot burned on either cheek-bone. And the burden of his refrain was that never since Noah came out of the ark, "the sole survivor," and all the world his oyster, as it were, had there been such a chance to "glom" everything in sight for a song. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart |
