"Mercenary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... representatives; the rights of private citizens violated and the titles of all landed property declared void; the voice of complaint stifled by restrictions on the press; and finally, disaffection overawed by the first band of mercenary troops that ever marched on our free soil. For two years our ancestors were kept in sullen submission by that filial love which had invariably secured their allegiance to the mother-country, whether its head chanced to be a Parliament, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... legitimate work in which a Vaisya may engage without fear of censure. The man who abandons his own proper occupation and betakes himself to that of a Sudra, should be considered as a Sudra and on no account should any food be accepted from him. Professors of the healing art, mercenary soldiers, the priest who acts as warder of the house, and persons who devote a whole year to study without any profit, are all to be considered as Sudras. And those who impudently partake of food offered at ceremonials in a Sudra's house are afflicted with a terrible calamity. In consequence of partaking ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... study of military discipline. Hence, during the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, they had that advantage over their neighbours which regular troops always possess over militia. This advantage they lost, when other states began, at a later period, to employ mercenary forces, who were probably as superior to them in the art of war as they had hitherto been to their antagonists.) Each pursuit therefore became first an art, and then a trade. In proportion as the professors of each became more expert in their particular ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... calmly, nor cowardly suffer those who have no claims but their impudence, to storm their fortress and to capture them. They will defend it in all lawful ways.-Bishop and Wolcott, and a thousand other mercenary hirelings may attempt to subdue or terrify them—a proud and haughty leader who under the guise of patriotism, is attempting to undermine the happiness of the best regulated and freest State in the Union, with a thousand sycophants, conspiring to bring ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... of Art and Music is to add those beauties, by expression and the power of memory, to the self. Thus we may grow more beautiful, just as surely as by thinking ever in terms of pounds, shillings, and pence, we grow more sordid and mercenary. It is a perfectly commonsense process. Furthermore, the appreciation of beauty and of artistic expression develops our power of keener appreciation. Evolution in music cannot stop, for spirit is behind it: and the spirit within must eventually find its ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... driven by starvation into frenzied revolt, avenged their agony upon the nobility by hideous plunderings and burnings of the rich chateaux.[21] A partial peace with England was patched up in 1360; but the "free companies" of mercenary soldiers, who had previously been ravaging Italy, had now come to take their pleasure in the French carnival of crime, and so the plundering and burning went on until the fair land was wellnigh a wilderness, and the English ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... favors by ribald jesting and talk as obscene as their condition of drunkenness would permit them, while the women accepted their attentions in the spirit in which they were offered, calculating, watching, with an eye trained to the highest pitch of mercenary motive, for the direction whence the greatest benefit ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... possible way. These were fed by the politicians for the sake of their influence. The soldiery of Rome had changed. Formerly made up of patriots who marched out to defend their own country or to conquer surrounding provinces in the name of the Eternal City, the ranks were filled with mercenary soldiers taken from the barbarians, who had little interest in the perpetuation of the Roman institutions. They had finally obtained so much power that they set up an emperor, or ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... aim or not? Yet they are, speaking in terms of communities, pure self-interest—all bound up with economic problems, with money. Does Admiral Mahan mean us to take him at his word when he would attach to such efforts the same discredit that one implies in talking of a mercenary individual? Would he have us believe that the typical great movements of our times—Socialism, Trades Unionism, Syndicalism, Insurance Bills, Land Laws, Old Age Pensions, Charity Organisation, Improved ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... Day to the prejudice of the rest of the brethren.' Thanks to the Almighty, we are the only people upon earth that have no priests. Wouldst thou deprive us of so happy a distinction? Why should we abandon our babe to mercenary nurses, when we ourselves have milk enough for it? These mercenary creatures would soon domineer in our houses and destroy both the mother and the babe. God has said, 'Freely you have received, freely give.' Shall we, ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... indolent or mercenary creature, No one more cordially detested the life of dependence than he. He always thought that his father had discharged all the duties of that relation in nourishing his childhood and giving him a good education. Whatever has ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... themselves. The taking and re-taking of Tortuga by the French was always with the assistance of the roving community; and at the conquest of Jamaica the English navy had the same influence in its favour. The [v.04 p.0655] buccaneers, in fact, constituted a mercenary navy, ready for employment against the power of Spain by any other nation, on condition of sharing the plunder; and they were noted for their daring, their cruelty and their extraordinary ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... But no; he fixed me with a cold and glittering eye, searching with the chill of space till my financial status stood before him shivering and ashamed. I communed with myself: By his brow he is a thinker, but his intellect has been prostituted to a mercenary exaction of toll from misery. His nerve centres of judgment and will have not been employed in solving the problems of life, but in maintaining his own solvency by the insolvency of others. He trades upon sorrow and draws a livelihood from misfortune. He transmutes tears into treasure, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... The disarming of the population in Upper Silesia, conducted under French auspices, had taken the arms away from the Germans but left arms with the Poles. Added to that, guns, machine-guns, rifles, and ammunition, were run over into the plebiscite area, and a mercenary "insurrectionary" army was raised, partly from the local Polish population and partly from Poland proper. An army which the French Government held to be capable of intimidating the League of Nations garrison ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... rancour that compensated for his lack of talent. The marquis, in entering on the campaign, had perceived immediately the advantage that might be derived from the co-operation of this insipid sacristan with the coarse, mercenary pen. After the February Revolution the articles in the "Gazette" contained fewer mistakes; the marquis ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... of your tone in talking of our young pupil and your daughter; I object still more strongly to your insinuation that my desire to see them married (provided always that they are sincerely attached to each other) springs from a mercenary motive." ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... "Oh, you mercenary rascal! You have saved your neck from the gallows, if you have saved nothing else. But here are ten pounds for present needs; and I will take care not to see you want for the future. Now be off with you. Your longer stay ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... social chance for me, except as I could buy in for a few glimpses at the tidy confectioners', where persons of civil condition resorted for afternoon tea. Even to these one could not speak, and I could only do my best in a little mercenary conversation with the bookseller about York histories. The book- stores were not on our scale, and generally the shops in York were not of the modern department type, but were perhaps ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... wound me with that treacherous weapon, evading the question and giving a distorted meaning to my sentiments in order to offend my dignity, you are mistaken, dear aunt. Call me mercenary, if you choose. God knows ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... Now they crossed athwart a bright feathery cloud, and now they were against the clear blue sky. I confess, being no sportsman, I was more interested for the poor bird that was striving for its life, than for the hawk that was playing the part of a mercenary soldier. At length the hawk got the upper hand, and made a rushing stoop at her quarry, but the latter made as sudden a surge downwards, and slanting up again, evaded the blow, screaming and making the best of his way for a dry tree on the brow of a neighbouring ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... up into regular hours for work and recreation. Other good Quaker women from outside came in to help; and the taproom kept by a mercenary guard was done away with, and an order established that no spirituous liquors should be brought into Newgate. The women agreed to keep away from the grating on the street, except when personal friends came; to cease begging; to quit gambling. They were given pay for their labor. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... that no provocation should be wanting to engage him to speak the truth, they asked him if he wanted any money. He with much art answered very indifferently, no; adding, he scorned to make such a discovery out of a mercenary view, but that he was resolved to be revenged of his captain. They then ordered him to the sign of the Boot, in St. Thomas's, Exeter, whither they soon followed him, having first sent to Mr. Eastwood, an exciseman, to ask what he would have for dinner, and what liquor he would ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... first to enter. He enquired of every one he met of the fate of Isabelle; but all turned from him with disgust. At length he found her out, but what was his grief and surprise—in a nunnery! Firm to the troth she had so solemnly plighted, she had rejected the proposition of her mercenary parent; and, having no idea but that her lover had shared the fate of all Christian captives, she had shut herself up from the world, and vowed to live the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... murmured the old woman. "For these worthless, glittering toys have they ruined the happiness of the dear innocent heart, and on them the guilt will fall if her soul is lost! I remark how she is changed in her letters since her shameful, mercenary marriage. She writes of nothing but the arrangement of her house, and speaks as if the beauty and costliness of things were only to be thought of, and there is not even a confidential, heart-felt word ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... refined or spiritual establishment, but it was decorous, and Randall had such an affection and respect for the innocence of his sister's young son, that he could not bear to have him exposed to the company of one habituated to the licentiousness of the mercenary soldier. At first the jester hoped to remove the lads from the danger, for the brief remainder of their stay, by making double exertion to obtain places for them at any diversion which might be going on when their day's work was ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... perfunctory pomp and display, and gave not a suggestion of bereavement—and that it was, for every person in the cortege was hired for the occasion. Half the food had been left at the tomb for the departed in his spirit form; the remainder was to be devoured by the mercenary mourners when the procession broke up at the door of the home from which ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... you have finished your Dictionary, I suppose you will labour your present work con amore for your reputation." "No Sir," said Johnson, "nothing excites a man to write but necessity."' Walpole then relates the anecdote of the clergyman, and speaks of Johnson as 'the mercenary.' Walpole's sinecure offices thirty-nine years before this time brought him in 'near, L2000 a year.' In 1782 he wrote that his office of Usher of the Exchequer was worth L1800 a year. Letters, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... bitterness in his voice that Margaret noted silently. So (she thought) he had hoped for a moment that at the last Frederick R. Woods had relented toward him. It grieved her, in a dull fashion, to see him so mercenary. It grieved her—though she would have denied it emphatically—to see him so disappointed. Since he wanted the money so much, she would have liked for him to have had it, worthless as he was, for the sake of the boy ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... once warm and exacting. The fact was, that Horatio Paget saw in his daughter the high-road to the acquirement of a handsome competence for his declining years. His affection was sincere so far as it went; a sentiment inspired by feelings purely mercenary, but not a hypocritical assumption. Diana was, therefore, so much the more likely to be softened ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... liberty and freedom of conscience, to hate tyranny and oppression, then I am indeed a criminal," he answered in an unshaken voice. "You call me a spy and load me with opprobrium. It was necessary to gain information as to the movements of your mercenary army: twice have I obtained that information and carried it to our noble general. My only regret is that I have not succeeded a third time in so doing; but understand that though I have thus laboured to injure you secretly, I have ever ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... articles. When the deputies returned, their constituents were not very well pleased with what had been done, declaring that they would not submit to be locked up at the mercy of any man, nor would they trust to mercenary troops for guarding their city. The Prince, hearing this, agreed that the burghers, Calvinists, Lutherans, as well as Romanists, should be employed to guard ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... Basis of Marriage.—Included here should be hasty marriages, mercenary marriages, marriages entered into unwillingly after pregnancy had occurred, as well as marriages where coercion was ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... cherry-brandy; he says it makes his head ache: he prefers the clear, cold water, or at most a dish of chocolate. Mother may jeer at him as unmanly; she has a fine spirit, mother: and she may think I might have done better; but mother has grown a little mercenary, and forgotten that she was once young herself, and would have liked to have served a great genius with such a loving heart and such blue eyes as Will's. Ah! the girls will all envy me, when they get a glance from Will's blue ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... strange, voluptuous, and in some way terrible, shone those Pleasure Cities of which the kinematograph-phonograph and the old man in the street had spoken. Strange places reminiscent of the legendary Sybaris, cities of art and beauty, mercenary art and mercenary beauty, sterile wonderful cities of motion and music, whither repaired all who profited by the fierce, inglorious, economic struggle that went on in ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... Hour of Application in a Day is not sufficient, even for one of the quickest Apprehension; the Master therefore should consider how much more Time is necessary for one that has not the same Quickness, and how much he is obliged to consult the Capacity of his Scholar. From a mercenary Teacher this necessary Regard is not to be hoped for; expected by other Scholars, tired with the Fatigue, and solicited by his Necessities, he thinks the Month long; looks on his Watch, and goes away. If he be but poorly paid for his ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... Mycroft. It is an advantage to get about in such a case without taking a mercenary into your confidence. But we must plan what we are ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... virile power of fascination in the not immediate future after an expensive repast in a private apartment in the company of an elegant courtesan, of corporal beauty, moderately mercenary, variously instructed, a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... concerning Kado the Striver, but it is most unlikely that he is a mere figment of popular imagination. What history does record, however, is that the wicked Duchess and her host of mercenary Normans were forced to flee, and that her place was taken by a more ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... for them, that attention to the most important duties at the last gasp, indicates that honesty without any thought of personal advantage was innate in the man; that it did not require the invitation of pleasure, or the allurements of mercenary rewards. For what greater evidence can we require that those things which are honourable and right are desirable of themselves for their own sake, than the sight of a dying man so anxious in the discharge of such important duties? But, as I think that letter deserving of ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... might be proved by reference to the Byzantine historians; most of whom, and also Villehardouin's account of the taking of the city of Constantinople by the Franks and Venetians, make repeated mention of this celebrated and singular body of Englishmen, forming a mercenary guard attendant on the person of the Greek Emperors. [Footnote: Ducange has poured forth a tide of learning on this curious subject, which will be found in his Notes on Villehardouin's Constantinople ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... fading charms there yet remained attraction for many visitors; and she now submitted to the mercenary profanations of love, more odious, as her mind had been subdued by its most captivating, ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... to be amused, so as not—it was too absurd—to be fairly frightened. Strange enough indeed—if not natural enough—that, late at night thus, in a mere mercenary house, with Susie away, a want of confidence should possess her. She recalled, with all the rest of it, the next day, piecing things together in the dawn, that she had felt herself alone with a creature who paced like a panther. That was a violent ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... simple intermediaries, claiming no wondrous powers, making use of no deceptive nor mercenary methods, as far as my observation goes, with no particular dress and little paraphernalia, having no political influence, but possessing, in all that concerns religion, paramount authority. Their title to priesthood is derived from violent manifestations, such as trembling, perspiring, belching, ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... The City Hall clock near by struck eleven. The time had come for returning to their mercenary guardian. Phil shook the sleeping form of Giacomo. The little boy stirred in his sleep, and murmured, "Madre." He had been dreaming of his mother and his far-off Italian home. He woke to the harsh realities ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... are not usually popular or to be encouraged, but Mark Twain had an especial weakness for compliments that came in that way. They were not mercenary compliments. The writer had nothing to gain. Two such letters follow—both written in England just at ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... who was a prisoner like himself, "As for you, Count Narischkin," said he, "I have nothing to upbraid you with; you are a Russian, you are doing your duty; but how could a man of one of the first families in Russia become the aide-de-camp of a foreign mercenary? Be the aide-de-camp of a Russian general; that employment will ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... twenty-two homilies on Ezekiel, which he preached while Rome was besieged by the Lombards, in 592. In the nineteenth he, in profound humility, applies to himself, with tears, whatever the prophet spoke against slothful mercenary pastors. Paul the deacon relates, that after the saint's death, Peter the deacon, his most intimate friend, testified that he had seen in a vision, as an emblem of the Holy Ghost, a dove appear on his head, applying his bill to his ear while he ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... to slip by. No honeymoon should be shorter than that. It is meet that we should grant our quiddlers three and their excellent parent the supreme felicity of enjoying the period without being spied upon by a mercenary story-teller. But all interests, as well as all roads, lead to a common centre. The centre in this case was ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... I have a few words to say to you all—words which, though they may sound a little mercenary, are in reality prompted by very ...
— I'll Leave It To You - A Light Comedy In Three Acts • Noel Coward
... of subterfuge, there was no deep and double subterfuge in all this. De Stancy took no particular interest in his ancestral portraits; but he was enamoured of Paula to weakness. Perhaps the composition of his love would hardly bear looking into, but it was recklessly frank and not quite mercenary. His photographic scheme was nothing worse than a lover's not too scrupulous contrivance. After the refusal of his request to copy her picture he fumed and fretted at the prospect of Somerset's return before any impression had been made on her heart ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Crown, whose zeal, ability, and fidelity could not be suspected. On the next day (January 25) the Governor devoted a despatch to Lord Hillsborough to remarks upon the press, and especially the "Boston Gazette" and Edes and Gill—"They may be said to be no more than mercenary printers," are the Governor's words,—"but they have been and still are the trumpeters of sedition, and have been made the apparent instruments of raising that flame in America which has given so much trouble and is still likely to give more to Great Britain and her Colonies"; and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... 40,000 pounds, acquired without her husband's privity or approval;" and a year later her husband followed her, having resigned his Governor-Generalship. The fortune which he now possessed was moderate, his opportunities considered, and had been honourably acquired; for his motives had never been mercenary, and the money which he had wrung from Indian princes had invariably been applied to the service of the Company or the necessities of his administration. He was received with honour by the Directors and with favour by the Court. There was talk of a peerage ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... their own; they lost in independence, but they gained far more than they lost. They were the basis on which the State was built up; they no longer wasted their military prowess in purposeless feuds or in mercenary service; in the Prussian army and administration they found full scope for their ambition, and when the victories of Frederick the Great had raised Prussia to the rank of a European Power, the nobles of Brandenburg were the most loyal of his subjects. They formed an ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... that to-day you will find no man in our town as well liked, as jovial, and full of merry sayings as I. My jokes are again noised about and quoted; once more I take pleasure in my wife's confidential chatter without a mercenary thought, while Guy and Viola play at my feet distributing gems of childish humor without fear of the ghastly tormentor who used to dog ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... was the beginning of one of those phenomena of mental contagion which abound in the history of the Revolution. The foreign mercenary troops, although they could scarcely be interested in the movement, began to show symptoms of mutiny. Louis XVI. was reduced to accepting their disbandment. He recalled Necker, went to the Hotel de Ville, sanctioned by ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... event; the gold and silver shower of the bridal presents was raining down. The determining cause of the catastrophe was never quite clear to the community—whether a lover's quarrel with disproportionate consequences, by reason of the marplot activities of a mercenary relative of the lady's, advocating the interests of a sudden opportunity of greater wealth and station; or her foolish revenge for a fancied slight; or simply her sheer inconstancy in a change of mind and heart. At all events, without a word of warning, Julian Bayne, five years before, ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... shoulders the responsibility of real work. Their leaders had been selected from the outside,—clever, eager, pushing men, but of late had been hardly selected from among themselves. As used to be the case with Italian Powers, they entrusted their cause to mercenary foreign generals, soldiers of fortune, who carried their good swords whither they were wanted; and, as of old, the leaders were ever ready to fight, but would themselves declare what should be and what should not be the casus belli. There was not so much meanness as Mr. Ratler supposed in the ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... So, when the mercenary reported to Rowlett what had occurred on that afternoon he omitted any mention of the knife, but much later he carelessly turned it over to ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... perceived the real state of affairs. A great number of Allorron's people were absent in the interior, employed by Abou Saood's companies as mercenary soldiers. The Baris are a most warlike tribe, and would make excellent troops; thus they were valuable allies of the slave-hunters, as the geographical position of Gondokoro rendered it the only spot that was adapted for an important station. The traders now possessed of the monopoly ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... conversion of common metals into silver and gold by means of a most marvellous and wholly fabulous agent called the Philosopher's Stone, that its devotees were half knaves, half fools, whose views concerning Nature were entirely erroneous, and whose objects were entirely mercenary. This opinion is not absolutely destitute of truth; as a science alchemy involved many fantastic errors; and in the course of its history it certainly proved attractive to both knaves and fools. But if this opinion involves some element of truth, it involves ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... domineering being all on the wife's side. No tears were shed by her during his absence, and a scornful smile was the utmost that his anger or ill-temper ever elicited. So they managed to get on tolerably well, the inquiring look of the cold grey eye often checking a fit of passion. As Louis's mercenary propensities have already shown themselves, it is almost needless to add that she had what he valued more than anything else—money—which, by the way, she took good care to have settled on herself. But this he did not object to (albeit she would have done so all the same if he ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... Goodness, built upon Selfishness and Mercenary Principles, to that which proceeds from a Rectitude of Thinking, and a real Love of Virtue and Reasonableness of ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... temple and its oracles would not be meddled with. Its treasures would be safe. Visitors would be free to come and go. He would give any security that Greece required that the wealth of Apollo should be safe and all go on as before. But he fortified the town, and invited mercenary soldiers till he had an army of five thousand men. As for the priestess of Apollo, from whose lips the oracles came, he demanded that she should continue to be inspired as before, and should give an oracle in his favor. The priestess refused; whereupon ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... that art nothing but your commendation of my trifle[344] can give me any occasion to call in question. I do not doubt but you will look over this poem with another eye, and reward it in a different manner, from a mercenary bookseller, who counts the lines he is to purchase[345], and considers nothing but the bulk. I cannot help taking notice, that, besides what the authour may hope for on account of his abilities, he has likewise another claim to your regard, as he lies at present under very disadvantageous circumstances ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... coolly taken his sight, while speaking, now deliberately applied the match with his own hand, and, with a philosophy that was sufficiently to be commended in a mercenary, sent what he boldly pronounced to be "a thorough straight-goer" across the water, in the direction of his recent associates. The usual moments of suspense succeeded and then the torn fragments, which were seen scattered in the air, announced that the shot ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... confess to being glad to leave: for either one was intruding upon a simple folk entirely surrounded by water; or the simple folk, knowing human nature, had made itself up and sent out its importunate young from strictly mercenary motives. In either case Marken is no place for a sensitive traveller. The theory that the Marken people are savages is certainly a wrong one; they have carried certain of the privileges of civilisation very far and can take care of themselves with unusual ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... set me a most difficult task—so difficult, that should I succeed in solving this problem, I hope shall obtain your complete confidence. Gentlemen, we have amongst us at this moment a visitor, and one whom we all delight to honour, the more especially as we know him to be the determined foe of that mercenary scoundrel the weasel, who, should I be so fortunate as to obtain the crown, shall, I promise you, never set foot in my palace—I allude to the friend of the squirrel and the hare—I allude to Sir Bevis. ('Hear, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... expenses of the little court, of the bodyguard, of the mercenary troops, and of the public buildings were met, as well as of the buffoons and men of talent who belonged to the personal attendants of the prince. The illegitimacy of his rule isolated the tyrant and surrounded him with constant danger, the most honorable alliance which he could form was with intellectual ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... sword laid Rhoesakes dead at his feet. During this fierce and perilous cavalry battle, the Macedonian phalanx[407] crossed the river, and engaged the enemy's infantry force, none of which offered much resistance except a body of mercenary Greeks in the pay of Persia. These troops retired to a small rising ground, and begged for quarter. Alexander, however, furiously attacked them by riding up to them by himself, in front of ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... to be frank, lest she might seem to be angling for his fortune, did not fully divine his cheerful readiness to offer it, if by so doing he could make amends for his infidelity to her family forty years back in the past. Time had not made him mercenary, and it had quenched his ambitions; and though his wish to wed Avice was not entirely a wish to enrich her, the knowledge that she would be enriched beyond anything that she could have anticipated was what allowed ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... was American by birth, young, slim, and spoke like a lady. Her hair was dyed; her breasts padded. She acted sentiment, but was less affectionate than E.B. I met her when she was out of a job. I gave her L2 whenever I met her. She was not mercenary. She was sensual. I became very much in love with her. I discovered her, however, writing letters to a fellow whom I had met one day when I was walking with her. He was only an acquaintance, but the brother of my most intimate friend. What I objected to was that in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... scarcely less hampered by social prejudice, which forbade them to pursue manual avocations, even when adapted to them, and destined them, whether fit or unfit, to the professions, thus wasting many an excellent handicraftsman. Mercenary considerations, tempting men to pursue money-making occupations for which they were unfit, instead of less remunerative employments for which they were fit, were responsible for another vast perversion of talent. All these things now are ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... ear-rending neigh is heard throughout the town, has muddied the Boiling Spring with his foot, and he it is that has browsed off all the woods on Walden shore, that Trojan horse, with a thousand men in his belly, introduced by mercenary Greeks! Where is the country's champion, the Moore of Moore Hill, to meet him at the Deep Cut and thrust an avenging lance between the ribs ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... prejudices—its falsehoods. He would have recast it, less for himself than for the benefit of mankind. He would have consented to be crushed beneath its ruins, provided those ruins were to give place to his ideal plan of the government of reason. Brissot was one of those mercenary scribes who write for those who pay best. He had written on all subjects, for every minister; especially Turgot. Criminal laws, political economy, diplomacy, literature, philosophy, even libels,—his pen was at the hire of the first comer. Seeking the support ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... time Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, fled away from Rome, and took Tripoli, a city of Syria, and set the diadem on his own head. He also gathered certain mercenary soldiers together, and entered into his kingdom, and was joyfully received by all, who delivered themselves up to him. And when they had taken Autiochus the king, and Lysias, they brought them to him alive; both which were immediately put to death by the command of Demetrius, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... else but speedy death. But until he had the partnership, he felt himself morally obligated to deny himself Eveley in the flesh. For he was one of those unique, old-fashioned creatures who feels that man must offer position and affluence as well as love to the lady of his choice. So it was no mere mercenary madness on his own account that kept Nolan living a life of gentle and economic obscurity, patient struggling for a foothold on the ladder of ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... make the terms with Farrington. The first glance aroused my suspicions of him. He was shifty-eyed, and his face had a hard and mercenary look. In spite of, perhaps rather because of, my repugnance we quickly came to an agreement, and as I left the apartment I mentally resolved to keep my ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... wailed Nell. "How can you be so mercenary? Oh, I wish it was the necklace! But it ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... our laws, our language, and our institutions new vigor for conquest and for human enlightenment. Venality, that dogs great efforts, undoubtedly there was. But the high tide of the conflict showed no mercenary taint. On both sides it was urged from the highest motives of patriotism and of honor and in defense of the popular principle. That principle with us means local self-government and representative union. The rebel yell was because ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... me at once I'll break every bone in your body!' He then snatched my bonnet, a new one, from my head, and so acted on my nerves that I went off to the Registry Office and was married. That he was actuated by merely mercenary motives is proved by the fact that the gratuity (of half-a-crown), which he presented to the Registry Clerk, he actually borrowed from me! I knew him already to be unprincipled; but never until that moment had it flashed upon me that he was a fortune-hunter! However, as he had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... little history in his mind that was reasonably near the truth, of a hard-up professional family, fatherless perhaps, of a mercenary marriage at seventeen ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... knowledge by purchasing it from individual Mid[-e]. It is customary with Mid[-e] priests to exact payment for every individual remedy or secret that may be imparted to another who may desire such information. This practice is not entirely based upon mercenary motives, but it is firmly believed that when a secret or remedy has been paid, for it can not be imparted for nothing, as then its virtue would be impaired, if not entirely destroyed, by the manid[-o] or guardian spirit under whose special protection it may be supposed ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... made with them another attack on Tsingpu. This attack, like its two predecessors, was repulsed with heavy loss, and the original Ward force was thus finally discredited. It should be borne in mind, to distinguish it from what followed, that it was a mercenary force of European and Spanish half-breeds, without ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... her so anxious for the marriage beats me," cried Ernest. "It was not a particularly good match from a mercenary ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... enemies, that I had been the principal accessory to it. My most trifling actions were misrepresented with the same black malignity. They even made it a crime in me to have written to madame de Bearn, thanking her for her past kindnesses, and thus setting her at liberty to retire from the mercenary services she pretended to have afforded me. And who could blame me for seeking to render myself independent of her control, or for becoming weary of the tyrannical guidance of one who had taken it into her head that I had become her sole property, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... in love he saw now had been in shallow water; but it had not tended to strengthen his faith in the innate nobility of women. On the contrary, it had shown him that a woman who seemed sweet and loving could be hard and calculating, even mercenary. Innocence being a charming pose, why should it not be adopted by the cleverest actresses, professional sirens, specialists in enchantment, who wished to be admired by all men, even men for whom they cared nothing? How could he tell even now that this girl ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." And that holy "prize" does, and must, prove a magnet to the Christian's will and hopes. What is he looking for? Not an accession of personal dignity in heaven, but a word from his beloved Master's heart. There is nothing mercenary in this. True, it "has respect unto the recompense of reward." But the "reward" is what only love can give, and only love can take. It is love's approval of ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... of the leading chiefs or "khans" of the Bakhtiyaris, and another chief was the self-styled Minister of War. These chieftains have always been a strange and changing mixture of mountain patriot and city intriguer—of loyal soldier and mercenary looter. The mercenary instincts, possibly aided by a sense of their own comparative helplessness against Russian Cossacks and artillery, led them to accept the stranger's gold and fair promises, and they ended their checkered but theretofore ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... contemptuous rage; the man before him was more mercenary and wicked than he thought could be possible. He buried both his sons almost at the same hour, but he still found time and opportunity to inquire about the legacy for which he had ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... glittering, ostentatious, and displaying property in the world; and now, if a young man goes courting, the only inquiry is how many negroes he or his lady love owns. The love of slave property is swallowing up every other mercenary possession. Its ownership betokened not only the possession of wealth, but indicated the gentleman of leisure who was above ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... immoderately attracted by anyone possessed of riches and a title—or of either of the two? As an au fait in the female temperament, I shall wager that it is nine out of ten that if you spoof this mercenary young minx into believing that you are merely a native impecunious nonentity, and not to be shot at with powder, she will instantaneously drop pursuing ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... during the preceding night all the men had declared their adherence to his party, he received from them a promise of safety, and was gladly admitted to their assembly; where, however, though treated with all honour by the throng of mercenary soldiers, he found himself detained almost as a hostage; for they, like the praetorians who after the death of Pertinax had accepted Julian as their emperor because he bid highest, now undertook the cause of Procopius in the hope of great gain to themselves from the unlucky ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... with the curate or village doctor it is a success, and her friend will always think so. And when a girl marries a gentleman, and a Member of Parliament, instead of well, I'm not going to say anything personal her friends will congratulate her upon his position. It may be very wicked, and mercenary, and all that; but it's the way ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... does weak tottering age seek to unite itself with warm, impetuous youth! The ice of winter is no congenial mate for the fresh, early flower of spring. How often do we see old, decrepit men wooing and wedding young girls, purchased by wealth from mercenary parents! Well have such sacrifices to Lust and Mammon, been termed legalized prostitution. And does not such a system excuse, if not justify, infidelity on the part of the wife? An old, drivelling dotard ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... ancient writers that the strength of a free state consists in its infantry; and, on the other hand, that when the infantry in a state become more valuable than the cavalry, the power of the aristocracy is diminished, and equal rights can no longer be withheld from the people. The employment of mercenary soldiers in modern times renders these observations no longer applicable; but in the military states of antiquity, where the citizens themselves served as soldiers, there are innumerable examples of this mutual connection between political and military systems. It is further illustrated in ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... esteem? Will he, who may with heroes claim a place, Belie that fame, and to himself be base? Think how august and godlike you did look, When my defence, unbribed, you undertook; But, when an act so brave you disavow, How little, and how mercenary now! ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... deserted by them in her turn, and because, instead of arming her warlike people against every foreign foe, she had habituated her citizens to unarmed effeminacy and had rested her sole support on a mercenary army, an artificial and spiritless automaton, separated from and unsympathizing with the people. The idea that the salvation of Prussia could now alone be found in her reconciliation with the neighboring powers of Germany, in a general confederation, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... slave!" We omit Kolin Battle, too, spoken of with a proud modesty (Prag is not spoken of at all); and how the neighboring ravenous Powers, on-lookers hitherto, have opened their throats with one accord to swallow Prussia, thinking its downfall certain: "Poor mercenary Sweden, once so famous under its soldier Kings, now debased by a venal Senate;"—Sweden, "what say I? my own kindred [foolish Anspach and others], driven by perverse motives, join in the plot of horrors, and become satellites ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... said Lady Fitzgerald, who knew that of all men her husband was usually most free from mercenary feelings and an over-anxiety as to increased wealth, either for himself or for his children; "and I think it would be such a comfort to you. Herbert, you see, is so fond of county business, and so little anxious for what young ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... her—I cannot endure her! I, while my heart smote me for the profanity, tried to compare her with my Clarinda. 'Twas setting the expiring glimmer of a farthing taper beside the cloudless glory of the meridian sun. Here was tasteless insipidity, vulgarity of soul, and mercenary fawning; there, polished good sense, heaven-born genius, and the most generous, the most delicate, the most tender passion. I have done with her, and ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... and so forth, may please others, but I prefer to make a collection that shall show future ages who it was that built up our finances, and furnished the sinews of war. Some may look upon this move as a mercenary one, but with me it is a passion. It is not simply a freak, it is a desire ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... his kindred, as unlike as unequal, has been combating against his Catholic brethren in Dublin, with circular letters, edicts, proclamations, arrests, and dispersions;—all the vexatious implements of petty warfare that could be wielded by the mercenary guerillas of government, clad in the rusty armour of their obsolete statutes. Your Lordships will, doubtless, divide new honours between the Saviour of Portugal, and the Dispenser of Delegates. It is singular, indeed, to observe the difference between our foreign and domestic policy; if Catholic ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... had looked steadily upon his lot in life, and he accepted it, and determined to make the best of it and to be happy in it; yet he felt that it was after all a rugged lot. Without considering all women as mercenary as Caroline Danby, which his knowledge of his mother forbade him to do, even in his most woman-scorning mood, he yet doubted whether any of those who had been reared amidst the refinements of cultivated life, could be won to leave them all for love in the western wilds; and as the unrefined could ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... Buonaparte, being an only child, had fallen heir to her father's property on the second marriage of her mother. The stepfather was an excellent Swiss, a Protestant from Basel, thoroughly educated, and interested in education, and for years a mercenary in the Genoese service. On his retirement he became a Roman Catholic in order to secure the woman of his choice. He was the father of Letitia's half brother, Joseph. The retired officer, though kindly disposed to the family he had entered, had little but his pension and savings: he could contribute ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... blessings and praises, if happily we are the instrument of saving them from the tyranny meditated against them. Let us, therefore, animate and encourage each other, and allow the whole world that a freeman contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... love other than as a degraded menial, to make men the slaves of her mercenary schemes, La Corriveau cared nothing. She never felt it, never inspired it. She looked down upon all her sex as the filth of creation and, like herself, incapable of a chaste feeling or a pure thought. Every ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... becomes their duty to act upon its contents. Do you know what that means? Can you for a moment realize what is involved? A man's enemy, even his so-called religious enemy, any assassin, any slanderer, any liar, even the mercenary who agrees to hire out his honor itself for the wages of a slave, can deposit an anonymous accusation against any one whom he hates or wishes to ruin; and it becomes the duty of the authorities to respect his communication as much as though ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... whatever route I proposed. This is a point that I should like to make clear to all who may read this, for it is indicative of a trait often lost sight of by those accustomed to having, in novels and so forth, the more mercenary side of the Australian's character pointed out to them. A common subject of speculation is whether or no Australians would make good soldiers; as to that my belief is, that once they felt confidence in their officers none could make more loyal or willing troops; without that ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... their fortunate speculations; a lucky hit will cause a dolt to be pointed out as a clever fellow, when, the next turn of the market proving unsuccessful, he is despised and insulted: so much are the frequenters of 'Change influenced by the most sordid and mercenary feelings, that almost all of them are the willing dupes of riches and good fortune. However, as you are strangers here, gentlemen, I will introduce you, entre nous, to a few of the characters who thrive ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... has thus been the means of enlightening the masses of the colored people that lay claim to any degree of education whatever. What the Negro teacher has accomplished has been done not from a selfish motive or a mercenary point of view, but primarily because he has endeavored to do his part toward elevating the race with which he is identified. If it is true that the salvation of the Negro lies in his being educated, then to the Negro teacher must be attributed the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... THOUSAND.—The Anabasis, the principal work of Xenophon, describes the retreat from the Tigris to the coast of Asia Minor, of a body of ten thousand mercenary Greek troops,—a retreat effected under his own masterly leadership. The Persian Empire, now in a process of decay, was torn with civil strife. Xerxes and his eldest son had been murdered (465 B.C.). The story ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... the duke started in his chair with a look of pain; but Pollyooly's deep blue eyes shone suddenly like bright stars, and she smiled a heavenly smile. It was not that she was mercenary. But it was the chief aim of her life to raise a wall of gold (it could not be too thick or too high) between the ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... d'argent, point de Suisse, is a proverbial expression which the Swiss twist into a historical compliment, asserting that it arose in early mercenary times, from the fact that they were too virtuous to accept the suggestion of the general who hired them, and wished them to take their pay in kind from the defenceless people of the country they ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... shining up into sudden renown in these times. The Long Bridge has done nothing hitherto except carry passengers on its back across the Potomac. Hucksters, planters, dry-goods drummers, Members of Congress, et ea genera omnia, have here gone and come on their several mercenary errands, and, as it now appears, some sour little imp—the very reverse of a "sweet little cherub"—took toll of every man as he passed,—a heavy toll, namely, every man's whole store of Patriotism and Loyalty. Every man—so it seems—who passed the Long Bridge was stripped of his last dollar ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... of the jury, is the fatal weapon with which a woman's hand, supernaturally nerved in the struggle for gain, struck down, destroyed a venerable old man, an honored citizen, whose gray hairs should have shielded him from the murderous assault of a mercenary adventuress. Can she behold without a shudder, this tell-tale instrument of her ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... afterwards, "seeing himself deserted, and fearing they would seize his castles, he sent the Earl of Pembroke and other faithful messengers to them, to let them know he would grant them the laws and liberties they desired." * * But after the charter had been granted, "the king's mercenary soldiers, desiring war more than peace, were by their leaders continually whispering in his ears, that he was now no longer king, but the scorn of other princes; and that it was more eligible to be no king, than such a one as he." * * He applied to the Pope, that he might by ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... desk,—his heart had been always there. The death of his father gave him, as a birthright, a high position in a respectable though second-rate firm. To make this establishment first-rate was an honourable ambition,—it was his! He had lately married, not entirely for money,—no! he was worldly rather than mercenary. He had no romantic ideas of love; but he was too sensible a man not to know that a wife should be a companion,—not merely a speculation. He did not care for beauty and genius, but he liked health and good temper, and a certain proportion of useful understanding. He chose ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... too well to trust him. There were higher powers in France than Bishop Gaudri, which were known to be susceptible to the same mercenary argument. A deputation was therefore sent to King Louis the Fat at Paris, laden with rich presents, and praying for a royal confirmation of the commune. The king loved the glitter of cash; he accepted the presents, swore that the commune should be respected, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... multiply in the earth that confusion will be the result—a second Babel. We, all of us, such as we are, have reason to know that crowned kings are less ungrateful than kings of our profession; that the most sordid man of business is not so mercenary nor so keen in speculation; that our brains are consumed to furnish their daily supply of poisonous trash. And yet we, all of us, shall continue to write, like men who work in quicksilver mines, knowing that they are doomed to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... neighboring people, regardless of the justice of the enterprise and without looking at the fatal consequences to ourselves and to the cause of popular government. Such expeditions, however, are often stimulated by mercenary individuals, who expect to share the plunder or profit of the enterprise without exposing themselves to danger, and are led on by some irresponsible foreigner, who abuses the hospitality of our own Government by, seducing the young and ignorant to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... bird of game, due on the 12th of August, breaking up the senate of the kingdom, and accessible only to the few whom wealth or privilege give the entree into the preserved regions, has, when even thrown into the market by the mercenary scions of the great, a considerable value; and perhaps it is only in the North that it is properly cooked and appreciated. A moor bird requires a particular sagacity in carving, which is a secret to the uninitiated. You may carve it ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... that you have plenty of cash, but that it has been borrowed, portends that you will be looked upon as a worthy man, but that those who come in close contact with you will find that you are mercenary ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... he said to himself, "especially now that his income is doubled. She might even accept him as a husband— women are so mercenary. But her heart will never cease to ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... of Arab, and his features were peculiarly regular for the colour of his skin—details which George was not slow to note. The fellow was armed with the usual long knife stuck in his waist-cloth, and looked the picture of the unscrupulous mercenary so frequently found ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... al, pardonable. cor po're al, bodily. ve'nal, mercenary; base. du'al ist, a believer in two gods. ap'po site, suitable; fit. op'po site, over against. du'el ist, one who fights a duel ac cla ma'tion, a slout. ac cli ma'tion, inurement to climate. de scen'sion, descent. dis sen'sion, strife. an'a lyze, to separate. ce're ous, like ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... as an example of college playwriting, to include the text of Barnabas Bidwell's "The Mercenary Match," written at Yale, and played by the students of Yale.[2] Only one copy of that play is, thus far, known to be in existence, owned by Mr. Evert Jansen Wendell, and its inclusion in the present collection is ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists - 1765-1819 • Various
... we'd set up as packers, but in the meantime all is fish that comes to our net. I'm getting quite a mercenary character. You had a long ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... a mercenary wretch and will do anything for money. I won't be scrambled into my boat in a hurry, and we MUST have Rebecca because I've borrowed a fine pitcher and promised the boys their camel," said Miss Ellery, who considered herself ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... wrong view of things, and if it was not the idle and good-for-nothing fellows who were more prudent than he. To waste his life in superhuman works, to tire his mind in seeking to solve great problems, and to attain old age without other satisfaction than unproductive honors and mercenary rewards. Those who only sought happiness and joy—epicureans who drive away all care, all pain, and only seek to soften their existence, and brighten their horizon—were they not true sages? Death comes so quickly! And it is with astonishment that one perceives when the hour is at hand, that ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... be called cold-hearted, mercenary, and unfeminine. But when a young girl throws prudence to the winds, and allows herself to love where there is nothing to live on, what then is she called? It seems to me that it is sometimes very hard for young girls to be in the right. They ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... the court, the dark forces among the local population, prompted by hatred of the Jews, bent all their efforts on putting the investigation on the wrong track. The low, mercenary Terentyeva became their ready tool. When in September, 1825, Alexander I. was passing through Velizh, she submitted a petition to him, complaining about the failure of the authorities to discover the murderer ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... as he went on with his arguments, that she had become to him an Ophelia, weakly led. Women in his lexicon of romance might be weak but never mercenary. I think he finally overthrew her in his mind with "Get thee to a nunnery!" I know that he burned her picture; he showed me the ashes in a ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... town; and, exchanging clothes with an acquaintance a Highland soldier, he had walked unsuspected opposite her door, until, finding an opportunity of conversing with her on the morning of the wedding-day, he had represented her new lover as a silly, ill-shaped fellow, who had just head enough to be mercenary, and himself as one of the most devoted and disconsolate of lovers. And, his soft tongue and fine leg gaining the day, she had left the marriage guests to enjoy their tea and toast without her, and set off ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Still, as she knew her mother was not overscrupulous, and any stick was good enough wherewith to beat Claverhouse, she would like to know, if only to gratify a woman's curiosity, whether Claverhouse was really going to marry this kinswoman of his, and, in passing, whether he was the mercenary ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... respective motives, the drunkard is an innocent and honorable man in comparison with the retailer of drinks. The one yields under the impulse—it may be the torture—of appetite; the other is a cool, mercenary speculator, thriving on the frailties and vices of others. He is a man selling for gain what he knows to be worthless and pernicious; good for none, dangerous for all, and deadly to many. He has looked in the face the sure consequences of his course, and if he can but make gain ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... the other, in which the stronger protected the younger in the midst of battles, helped him to cross precipices, sponged the sweat of fevers from his brow, and stole food for him, and the weaker, a child perhaps, who had been picked up on the roadside, and had then become a Mercenary, repaid this devotion by a ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... me an injustice, young gentleman: I am not so mercenary,—I do not always make terms. It is true, I served the Count for pay; that is what my company is for, and if he had not gone out of his chateau to hunt his wife, we might have defended the place till the enemy was tired out. But he allowed himself to be caught in the road,—you have heard ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the title and privileges of Romans were enlisted for the general defence of the republic; but those mercenary troops heard with cold indifference the antiquated names of the republic and of Rome. Attached, either from birth or long habit, to the climate and manners of Gaul, they loved and admired Julian; they despised, and perhaps hated, the Emperor; they dreaded the laborious ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... Carthage depended upon mercenary troops, which her great wealth enabled her to procure in abundance from Spain, Italy, and Greece, as well as from Libya. Sardinia and Corsica were among her earliest conquests, and Sicily was also one of the first objects of her military enterprise. The Phoenician colonies in this island came under ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... knowing that you are provided for. I promised your mother that, as far as lay in my power, I would shield you from wrecking your life as she wrecked hers. And money—a secure little income of her own—is a very good sort of shield for a women. Four hundred's not enough to satisfy a mercenary individual, but it's enough to enable a woman to marry for love—and not for a home!" He spoke with a kind of repressed bitterness, as though memory had stirred into fresh flame the embers of some burnt-out passion of regret, and Sara looked at him ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... property, earnings and children of married women to the irresponsible control of their husbands, is not a protest against marriage. It is a vindication of marriage, against the barbarism of the law which degrades a noble and life-long partnership of equals into a mercenary and servile relation between superior ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... of the Moon was seen in Mysia, according to Polybius.[123] The date of September 1 has been assigned for this eclipse which is said to have so greatly alarmed some Gaulish Mercenary troops in the service of Attalus, King of Pergamos, that he had to get rid of them as soon as he could—make terms with them to ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... We have been at peace with all the world. We have been visited with no national calamity. Our people have been advancing in general intelligence, and, I will add, as great and alarming as has been the advance of political corruption among the mercenary corps who look to government for support, the morals and virtue of the community at large have been advancing in improvement. What, I again repeat, ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... backers of the Fair showed no mercenary temper. The architects, too, worked with public spirit and zeal which money never could have elicited. Notwithstanding the World's Fair was not financially a "success," this was rather to the credit of its unstinted ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... small pittance of property which they had permitted you to acquire. Remember that the men who wish to rule over you are they who, in pursuit of this plan of despotism, annulled the sacred contracts which they had made with your ancestors; conveyed into your cities a mercenary soldiery to compel you to submission by insult and murder; who called your patience ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... and that the fifty-two good ladies employ their time in more charitable and useful actions than in filling the heads of poor children with stories so hurtful to the real interests of religion. However credulous our young guide was, he was not mercenary, being with difficulty persuaded to accept a franc or two for what he styled the pleasure of having conducted us. We next visited the castle of Tarascon, now used as the public prison, and in which 1500 English were confined ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... and flaying; it has created the Puritan entrepreneur, the daring and imaginative organizer of Puritanism, the baron of moral endeavour, the invincible prophet of new austerities. And, by the same token, it has issued its letters of marque to the Puritan mercenary, the professional hound of heaven, the moral Junker, the Comstock, and out of his skill at his trade there has arisen the whole machinery, so complicated and so effective, of ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... evil hour, listening to mercenary suggestion, the parents conceived the idea that the poor girl might be made a source of pecuniary gain; and notwithstanding the advice and remonstrance of her true friends, M. de Faremont, Dr. Verger, M. Hebert, and others, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... ever served their country with more entire exemption from every imputation of selfish and mercenary motives, than those to whose memory we are paying these proofs of respect. A suspicion of any disposition to enrich themselves or to profit by their public employments, never rested on either. No sordid motive approached ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... part of Asia and Africa. I have everywhere shown myself the friend of my fellow-creatures. My knowledge, my time, my fortune have ever been employed in the relief of distress! I have studied and practised medicine, but I have never degraded that most noble and most consoling of arts by mercenary speculations of any kind. Though always giving, and never receiving, I have preserved my independence. I have even carried my delicacy so far as to refuse the favours of kings. I have given gratuitously my ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... traveller perhaps remembers it better from the fact that a great sea-monster, in the shape of a steamboat, takes him, sitting in the car, on its back, and swims across with him like Arion's dolphin,—also that mercenary men on board offer him canvas-backs in the season, and ducks of ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... but, I repeat, I am not mercenary. Of course, if I should marry, I should like, for my wife's sake, to live as well as a married man as I have lived ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... unclerical and do mischief. Now he used, though not getting on with the Curtises, to be most successful with the second-rate people; but he has managed to offend half of them during this unhappy mania, which, of course, they all resent as mercenary, and how he is ever to win them back I don't know. After all, curatocult is a shallow motive—Rachel ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are pretended to be raised. Pitt, who has alternately bullied and flattered Mr. Pelham, is at last to be secretary-at-war;(1129) Sir W. Yonge to be removed to vice-treasurer of Ireland, and Lord Torrington(1130) to have a pension in lieu of it. An ungracious parallel between the mercenary views Of these patriot heroes, the regiment-factors, and of their acquiescent agents, the ministry, with the disinterested behaviour of m Lord Kildare,(1131) was drawn on Friday by Lord Doneraile; who read the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... suffer not thyself to know that sin; and suffer never pride to have domination in thy wit, ne in thy word, that sin was the beginning of all perdition. Whosomever work to thee any thing, anon yield to him his meed and hire, let never the hire of thy servant ne meed of thy mercenary remain in no wise with thee. That thou hatest to be done to thee of other, see that thou never do to an other. Eat thy bread with the hungry and needy, and cover the naked with thy clothes. Ordain thy bread and wine upon the sepulture of a ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... bade some of our friends farewell, and at about nine o'clock of the night set out for Baltimore. How shall I describe my first experience of free life? Nothing can be greater than the contrast it affords to a plantation experience, under the suspicious and vigilant eye of a mercenary overseer or a watchful master. Day and night are not more unlike. The mandates of Slavery are like leaden sounds, sinking with dead weight into the very soul, only to deaden and destroy. The impulse of freedom lends wings to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various |
