"Dowry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his will sometimes gives his wife property in lieu of dowry. In this case, she may, after his death, elect to take either such property or her dower; but she cannot take both. While the husband lives the wife's right of dower in only inchoate; it cannot be enforced. Should ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... Apennine looks down On Arno, till he perches, it may be, 170 Within my all inexorable town, Where yet my boys are, and that fatal She,[294] Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought Destruction for a dowry—this to see And feel, and know without repair, hath taught A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free: I have not vilely found, nor basely sought, They made an Exile—not a Slave ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... lady, had this union warmly at heart. This scroll, signed with his own hand, will show it." He bent his knee as he gave the paper. "The wife of De Lacy will have, as the daughter of Raymond Berenger merits, the rank of a princess; his widow, the dowry ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... listen. If you were at all a man of the world, I should not have to explain that in marrying into a noble house I bring my dot, my dowry— ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson
... desired by all parties. On purpose it is sewn up clumsily, with the hope that by this means the scar will last a lifetime. Such a wound, judiciously mauled and interfered with during the week afterwards, can generally be reckoned on to secure its fortunate possessor a wife with a dowry of five figures at ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... words she's an insipid little chit. Is that what you mean? Having no fortune she can't hope to marry as they marry here; so that Isabel will have to furnish her either with a maintenance or with a dowry." ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... mines of Nubia were in good working. The Babylonian letters, therefore, seldom failed to contain a hint that the king desired some of the precious metal, sometimes as a return gift for rich presents he had given the Egyptian, sometimes as temple-offerings, or as a dowry. Matrimonial alliances were the principal means by which a ruler kept on good terms with neighbouring princes, and Oriental polygamy allowed a great deal to be done in that line. It is noticeable that the claim made by the Egyptian king to divine ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... liquid measure of two quarts capacity, it has been supposed that it was conferred upon one of his forefathers as a sobriquet. Leon Gambetta's grandfather was a poor man of no education, and his only son, Leon's father, thought he had done very well for himself when he set up a shop with the small dowry brought him by his wife, Mlle. Massabie. The mother of Leon died while he was a child, and he was indebted for his early teaching to his maternal aunt and to her brother, a priest, who held a small benefice ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... over. The young man's father had most to do with the selection of a wife. He tried to secure for his son some daughter of a friend who possessed rank and property equal to his own. The parents of the two parties would then enter into a contract which, among other things, usually stated how large a dowry the bride's father was to settle on his daughter. An engagement was usually very little a matter of romance and very much a ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... child of a nameless father and a common harlot of Rome; she is repelled by his person; and her cold submission to what she has been instructed in by the Archbishop as the duties of a wife is more intolerable than her earlier remoter aversion. He is cheated of the dowry which lured him to marriage. He is pointed at with smiling scorn by the gossips of Arezzo. A gallant of the troop of Satan might have devised and executed some splendid revenge; but Guido is ever among the sutlers and camp-followers ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... to me but poor relations. Bad luck to them, and they only waitin' for myself to die, so that they could have what I worked and slaved for all those long and weary years. But 'tisn't much there will be for any one after Kitty gets her dowry. What's left will be little ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... He had not expected to have Rosie pass out of his ken. He had supposed that he should remain near her, watch over her, know what she was doing and what was being done to her. He was busy trying to readjust his mind while Claude stammered out suggestions for the payment of Rosie's proposed dowry. It was clear without his saying so that he hated doing it; but he did say so, adding that it made him feel as if ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... head. The first wish is to have a dishfull of the finest nuts, for which I have a marvellous appetite; the second is to have a faithful people and a brilliant army, for unquestionably I am born to govern; the third and last wish is to marry a rich and beautiful Princess, who shall bring me as her dowry a pretty portion of land, where I may live with your assistance in all possible ease and comfort, eat nuts, govern my people, and pass the time merrily. Your duty is now to advise me how these wishes may ...
— The King of Root Valley - and his curious daughter • R. Reinick
... two of the roundabout proposals which etiquette demands, and began to gather a dowry for Leah and to recall extraordinary outstanding securities to that end. But, before these things were accomplished, his sons and his troubles returned upon him. With renewed energy, stimulated imagination, and enriched profanity, "them Yonowsky devils" came ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... it was!" She liked to drive fast, and was ready to play at cards from morning until evening. When her husband approached the card-table, she was always in the habit of covering with her hand the trumpery losses scored up against her; but she had made over to him, without reserve, all her dowry, all the money she had. She brought him two children—a son named Ivan, our Fedor's father, and a ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... did not, however, seem to extend itself in that quarter, where, according to the general opinion, it is most efficiently displayed; in labouring, namely, to establish her in life, either by a large dowry or a wealthy marriage. By an old settlement, almost all the landed estates of the Baron went, after his death, to a distant relation; and it was supposed that Miss Bradwardine would remain but slenderly provided for, as the good ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... here," the Vampire said. "I own my own farm and am well-to-do and in marrying me your daughter would get a desirable husband. Indeed, I am so well off that I don't have to ask any dowry." ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... brimming cup on one of the quiet, cozy streets, almost in the centre of the city,—the adored daughter Birdie, who—if not to-day then tomorrow—must marry a respected man, an engineer, a house-owner, and member of the city-council; provided for as she was with a respectable dowry and magnificent valuables ... Now it was possible peacefully, without hurrying, with gusto, to dine and sup on sweet things, for which Anna Markovna had always nourished a great weakness; to drink after dinner good, home-made, strong cherry-brandy; and of evenings to play a bit at "preference," ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... gone. His present dwelling is the study; the sphere of his operations the parlour; the scene, where his exhibitions are displayed in a dress of morocco and gold, is the centre table of the rich and the genteel. Popular poetry,—we do not mean that divine gift, the dowry of a few blessed individuals; we mean that general productiveness, which pervades the mass of men as it pervades Nature,—popular poetry, among all the nations of Europe, is only a dying plant. Here and there a lonely relic is discovered among the rocks, preserved by the invigorating ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... committed great damage, and no one approaches them without endangering his own life. If you overcome and slay both these Giants, I will give you my only daughter in marriage, and half of my kingdom for a dowry: a hundred knights shall accompany you, too, in order ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... the damsel were agreed, every thing else—threats, denunciations, sarcasms, cuttings-off with a shilling, and loss of a ponderous dowry—all went for nothing. They were married, as some thousands were before them in just the like circumstances. But if the Bohemian maid was not mad, it must be confessed that Hans was rather so. He ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... Ebbe, a rover of common birth, was so confident of his valour, that he was moved to aspire to a splendid marriage. He was a suitor for Sigrid, the daughter of Yngwin, King of the Goths, and moreover demanded half the Gothic kingdom for her dowry. Halfdan was consulted whether the match should be entertained, and advised that a feigned consent should be given, promising that he would baulk the marriage. He also gave instructions that a seat should be allotted to himself among the places of the guests at table. Yngwin ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... house from which your calm face has driven all signs of mourning: embrace her who awaits you—the good mother who has to-day for the first time exchanged her black gown for that blue one in which we knew her in days of happiness. Never has bride brought a richer dowry to a bridegroom's home, than you have to ours. ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... living or dying, in any of the three brothers' estates; contenting myself with what my beloved's grandfather had bequeathed to her: for I have reason to be abundantly satisfied with my own circumstances and prospects—enough rewarded, were she not to bring a shilling in dowry, in a woman who has a merit superior to all the goods of fortune.—True as the Gospel, Belford!—Why had not this scene ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... girl and have her educated for Hammud. So she paid four Turkish pounds for a little Nusairy girl named Zahara or Venus, whose widowed mother had removed to her village. This payment was in accordance with Nusairy customs, and constituted the girl's dowry. After the betrothal in 1863, Hammud sent her to Latakiah, where she was taken into the family of the late Dr. Dodds for instruction and training. She gladly received the truth, and Hammud labored earnestly for her enlightenment. Everything seemed ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... a wall, a cheap table covered with a chenille tablecloth, and the resplendent old cask, about which he lingered. He mentioned Brittany. Her tragic face lighted up again. Monsieur was right. Her aunt, Madame Morin, was Breton, and had brought the cask with her as part of her dowry, together with the press and other furniture. Doggie alluded to the vastly lettered inscription, "Veuve Morin et Fils." Madame Morin was, in a sense, his hostess. ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... his wife. So the good steward wandered out of sheer good nature into this marriage. The day of the wedding, bereft of all her reasons, and not able to find objections to her pursuer, she made him give her a fat settlement and dowry as the price of her conquest, and then gave the old knave leave to wink at her as often as he could, promising him as many embraces as he had given grains of wheat to her mother. But at his age ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... upon, then how can we account for their conduct? They had lost much when they lost their sister. When he arrived at La Grange-aux-Ormes, Pierre du Lys had just quitted a Burgundian prison; his ransom had been paid with his wife's dowry, and he was then absolutely destitute.[2680] Jean, Bailie of Vermandois, afterwards Governor of Chartres and about 1436 Bailie of Vaucouleurs, was hardly more prosperous.[2681] Such circumstances explained ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... nobility have been published in the Berlin journals, for I do not wish the daughter of a general, and a countess, to marry beneath her. You can prepare every thing for the wedding, and let them be married as soon as publication has been made. I will give the bride a thousand thalers for a dowry, that she may not go to her rich husband penniless; the money will be paid to your daughter from the government treasury at her receipt. As ever I remain ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... is a proper fellow, I will see that he weds you honestly. Yes, and I will do more for you, Nais, since this day brings me to a husband. Seeing that all your estate is confiscate as a penalty for your late rebellion, I will charge myself with your dowry, and give it back to you. So come, ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... armory. Out of it St. Isidore, St. Thomas, and other masters of those holy sciences have chiefly drawn their sublime maxims. Mauritius having married the daughter of Tiberius, in 582, who had the empire for her dowry, St. Gregory was pitched upon to stand godfather to his eldest son. Eutychius was at that time patriarch of Constantinople.[5] This prelate, having suffered for the faith under Justinian, fell at length into an error, importing, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... lively, an' in ten minutes seven hundred dollars is raised for a dowry. Then French, who has been settin' in a sort ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... paleontological labours are so well known, for bringing this interesting relic to my knowledge. Tyson's granddaughter, it appears, married Dr. Allardyce, a physician of repute in Cheltenham, and brought, as part of her dowry, the skeleton of the 'Pygmie.' Dr. Allardyce presented it to the Cheltenham Museum, and, through the good offices of my friend Dr. Wright, the authorities of the Museum have permitted me to borrow, what is, ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... in the breast of man; the old inheritance or original dowry of truth, imparted to him by God in the primitive revelation; and error, or the foundation for error, in his degraded sense and spirit now turned from God to nature, false faiths easily sprung up and grew rank and luxuriant, when the Divine Truth was no longer guarded with ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... her way was pecuniary. The admiral was poor. He had not quite six thousand a year, and though he practiced the utmost economy in order to keep up the most expensive habits, he could not afford to give his daughter a dowry. Now the well born bachelors of her set, having more blue bood, but much less wealth, than they needed, admired her, paid her compliments, danced with her, but could not afford to marry her. Some of them even told her so, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... in all its details, so that only the public announcement of it remains.[126] Later we find that the lines of division have already been drawn on the map of Britain (l. 38), and again that Cordelia's share, which is her dowry, is perfectly well known to Burgundy, if not to France (ll. 197, 245). That then which is censured as absurd, the dependence of the division on the speeches of the daughters, was in Lear's intention a mere form, devised as a childish scheme ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... Egypt, which he performed in the sixth year of his reign, An. Nabonass. 578: for upon the death of Cleopatra, the governors of her son the young King of Egypt claimed Phoenicia and Coelosyria from him as her dowry; and to recover those countries raised a great army. Antiochus considering that his father had not quitted the possession of those countries[8], denied they were her dowry; and with another great army met and fought the ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... degree of relationship for so proud a mark of distinction. The family of Neel did not retain much longer possession of St. Sauveur: the lord of the castle died in 1092, leaving only a daughter, named Laetitia, who married Jourdain Taisson, or Tesson, and brought to him these possessions as her dowry. After the expiration of about a century, a similar event deprived the Taissons of St. Sauveur. Jane, the last of that family, formed an alliance with the Harcourts, and with them the lordship remained till the middle of the ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... for my Melie, you wouldn't catch me here." Melie was his daughter. He had thrown up his post in the Administration of the Telegraphs, though he had been for seventeen years perfectly happy there, to earn a dowry for his girl. His wife was dead, and the child was being brought up by his sisters. He regretted the streets, the pavements, the cafes, his friends of many years; all the things he used to see, day after day; all the thoughts suggested by familiar things—the ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... should marry Clara Pulleyn, and by way of a dowry lay his schedule at her feet, was out of the question. His noble father, Lord Highgate, was furious against him; his eldest brother would not see him; he had given up all hopes of winning his darling prize long ago, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... conditions Henry agreed to modifications in the new commercial treaty, which indeed, as it stood, was almost impossible of fulfilment; probably in the hope that his project of marriage with Margaret of Savoy might still be carried out, the dowry she would bring being very much more satisfactory than that ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... one of them? What chance was there of Mercy's marrying well! she was so decidedly plain! Was the idea of marrying her into an old and once powerful family like that of the Macruadh, to her husband inconceivable? Could he not restore its property as the dowry of his unprized daughter! it would be to him but a trifle!—and he could stipulate that the chief should acknowledge the baronetcy and use his title! Mercy would then be a woman of consequence, and Peregrine would have the Bible-honour ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... by way of final settlement, and end to all these brabbles, was this, and he insisted on it: "Give me your eldest Princess to wife; let her dowry be your whole claim on Cleve-Julich; I will marry her on that condition, and we shall be friends!" Here evidently is a gentleman that does not want for conceit in himself:—consider too, in Johann Sigismund's ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... for happy Spring To-day shall all her dowry bring, The love of kind, the joy, the grace, Hymen of element and race, Knowing well to celebrate With song and hue and star and state, With tender light and youthful cheer, The spousals ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... kind which seemed to have interfered from the first with her matrimonial projects. As a young girl, a relation of the Saracinesca, whom she now so bitterly hated, she should have been regarded as marriageable by any of the young Roman nobles, from Valdarno down. But she had only a small dowry, and she was said to be extravagant—two objections then not so easily overcome as now. Moreover, she was considered to be somewhat flighty; and the social jury decided that when she was married, she would be excellent company, but would make a very poor wife. Almost before they had finished ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... you could do, you could give it to me. You never think of me. When I marry Noemi you can't give her dried plums for a dowry; but you don't care about your daughter's happiness. You ought to help me, that I may get a good situation. I have just received my nomination as first dragoman at the embassy; but I have no money to get there, for my purse has been stolen, and ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... demanded that "the theatrical king formed by the Duchess of Burgundy" should be given up to him. The ambassadors were received with all outward respect, but their request was refused, and they were sent home with the answer, that "the Duchess of Burgundy being absolute sovereign in the lands of her dowry, the archduke could not meddle with her affairs, or hinder her from doing what she thought fit." Henry in resentment cut off all intercourse with the Low Countries, banished the Flemings, and recalled his own subjects from these provinces. At the same time, Sir Robert Clifford ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... their station. Instead of darning stockings, they read romances; instead of working in the kitchen, they run after comedies and concerts. Their houses are dirty, and they are walking out, dressed like princesses; all they bring a husband as a dowry are handsome dresses, lace ribbons, intrigues, romances, and idleness! Sir, I speak from experience; I should have married long since, if ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... horror. The cost enormous sums. The lowest expense was calculated at 150,000 livres, to pay only the functionaries and the domestics, the education and the board of the , etc. This does not include the cost of the , the indemnities paid to families, the dowry given with them in marriage, the presents made to them, and the expenses of the illegitimate children: this was enormous in cost, at least 2,000,000 livres a year, and yet I make the lowest estimation. The was kept up for thirty-four ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... great deal better worth than I thought, valued by some at sixty thousand ducats per annum, at forty thousand generally; and moreover his sister, (as a domestic, who you know, of that family, tells me,) as a consequent of the late sentence, will recover for, or towards, her dowry, a deposited arrear of between three or four hundred thousand ducats. She was lately, in all appearance, very near marriage with the heir of the Conde de Oropesa; but quite broke off before this sentence, upon point of alimony, ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... Vasilowich aforesaide married a wife called Sophia being daughter vnto Thomas Palalogus, which is reported to haue had her dowry out of the Popes treasury, because the Moscouite had promised to conforme himselfe vnto the Romish Church. This Sophia being a woman of a princely and aspiring minde, and often complaining that she ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... or rocks clothed in delicate ferns and spouting forth white cascades. The full, rich summer she had left at home in the South was early spring in the cool North. The earth was like a bride, displaying her trousseau of lace, fall after fall of it, on green velvet cushions, and the gold of her dowry, the splendour of her wedding gifts, in a riot of flowers. No money coined in mints could buy diamonds such as this bride had been given by her mother—Nature; diamonds flashing in river and cascade upon cascade. But Carmen Gaylor had no eyes for ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... primordial instinct? the history of monogamy; the monogamic idea and the ideal monogamy; the history and cause of polygamy; the evolution of the "old-maid" idea and the psychic cause of this evolution; the path of the virtuous woman in ancient days; the elevating power in the dowry system; the two great purposes which this custom ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... the career of a man of fortune; and his original patrimony had been handsomely augmented by his wife's dowry. But his guardian (a maternal uncle) had proved culpably remiss in the management of his property, he himself had been careless in pecuniary matters, and these circumstances, along with others, convinced ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... pretend to be leaders of society. She is scarcely twenty-two, and there is not a single prejudice left for her to brave! Her husband is the companion of actresses and courtesans; her own companions are no better—and in less than two years the million of francs which I bestowed on her as a dowry has been squandered, recklessly squandered—for there isn't a penny of it left. And, at this very hour, my daughter and my son-in-law are plotting to extort money from me. On the day before yesterday—listen carefully to this—my son-in-law came to ask me for a hundred thousand ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... much! Whose fault is it that this girl has to have a dowry? You seem to forget who is her child's father; but, no doubt, you would abandon her altogether ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... in need of money, because of my son's debts. Your husband offered me then sixty thousand dollars and thirty thousand ducats, but I did not consent. I preferred to sell the beautiful fertile property of Alfald, my wife's dowry, but the Mitosin Castle of my ancestors I would not set a price on for my neighbor; my pride would not allow it. Now I have no more pride, I am humbled to the dust. The disgrace which has fallen upon my house has been seen by hundreds, has ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... need be said that a great number of mutual-aid habits and customs continue to persist in the Swiss villages. The evening gatherings for shelling walnuts, which take place in turns in each household; the evening parties for sewing the dowry of the girl who is going to marry; the calling of "aids" for building the houses and taking in the crops, as well as for all sorts of work which may be required by one of the commoners; the custom of exchanging children from one canton ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... deeds, and men distinguished in political, civil, military, or religious careers, especially during the reigns of Sigismund III, of John Casimir, and of John III, Sobieski, There are several copies of the portrait of Barbara Tarlo, who brought the castle of Janowiec as a dowry to a Lubomirski. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... yet bland, And in a calmer mood: "I thank you, sir, for your offer'd hand, With dowry ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... were involved. At length the conference was amicably concluded. The king agreed to pardon the Prince of Conde, and restore to him all his honors; and the Infanta Maria Theresa renounced for herself and her descendants all claim to the inheritance of her parents. She was to receive as a dowry five hundred thousand golden crowns. There were several other articles included in the treaty which have now ceased to be ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... favour or dislike with equal readiness; and give the reason for anything she did as willingly as do the thing. She was a special favourite at Mortgrange. Not only did she bewitch the blase man of the world, sir Wilton, but the cold eye of his lady would gleam a faint gleam at the thought of her dowry. Her father "prospected" a little for something higher than a mere baronetcy, but he had in no way interfered. Of herself, divine little savage, she would never have thought of love until she fell ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... music beat into my blood. This savage ritual that I had looked at with alien eyes suddenly took to itself the dignity of the terrible wilderness that bound us. The pageantry of its barbarism seized upon me; it was a fitting setting for one kind of marriage,—not a marriage of flowers and dowry, but the union of two great, stormy hearts who, through clash and turmoil, had found peace at last. But ours was a mock marriage, and we had not found peace. My breath choked me. I leaped to my feet, and begged Onanguisse to end the ceremony, and let me do my share. I knew ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... he subdued several tribes of the Arabs. Among the captives was a woman of great beauty, named Juweira, whom Mahomet took to wife and, by way of dowry, released all her ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... an ugly and gouty old maid, sister of the usurer who had lent me five hundred pounds to pay for my medical studies. I preferred the prison; but after weeks and months I came to the end of my courage, and I married Miss Strang, who brought me for dowry—my note of hand. You can guess what my life was between these two monsters who adored each other. A jealous, impotent wife. The brother spied on me, following me everywhere. I should have gone away, but one thing kept me there. The usurer was said to be very rich. I wished to ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... causes its work to be done, not on high motives only, but also on the ordinary ones which influence mankind. He concludes by observing that providence dealt with the Indians as a prudent father who has an ugly daughter, but makes up for her ugliness by the help of a large dowry. By the ugliness in this case he means the seas to be traversed, the hunger to be endured, and the labours to be undertaken, which he considers no other nation but the Spaniards would have encountered, even with ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... childhood's years, but with even greater insistence when she had reached maidenhood. For it became necessary then to guard their treasure from any adventurer who might seek to win her in marriage for the sake of the goodly dowry which every one knew must fall to her lot. Her father would often remark with no little show of determination: "Penny shall never throw herself away on any whipper-snapper of a fellow! She'll not be a pauper, and she can afford ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... pretty enough, I admit, although rather thin, but, now-a-days, beauty goes for nothing. Men are so mercenary they think only of money. I do not know of one who has the manhood to take a d'Arlange with her bright eyes for a dowry." ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... to blows; and past Bewick, with its little Norman church buried from sight amongst leafy trees. The effigy of a lady in the chancel of this church is said to be that of Matilda, wife of Henry I. This is the more likely in that the lands of Bewick formed part of her dowry, and were given by her to the monks of Tynemouth Priory. At Bewick Bridge the little stream ceases to be the Breamish, and becomes the Till; as an old ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... the curtain it spelt disgrace, that the eldest grand-daughter—at the ripe age of twenty-two—should be neither wife nor mother. It would need a very advanced suitor to overlook that damning item. Doubtless a large dowry would be demanded by way of compensation; and, before all, caste must be restored. While Aruna remained obdurate, nothing could be definitely arranged; and her grandfather had not the heart to enforce his wife's insistent demands. But if the Indian woman's horizon be limited, her shrewdness ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... the less will a woman dare to employ this expedient; but a husband caught in this snare will never have anything to say to his stern better-half, when the maid, giving evidence of the fault she has committed, is sent into the country with an infant and a dowry. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... something. An unexpected grunt at the doorway attracted my attention and I saw a pig leering at me from the corners of its half-closed eyes—the very same pig the Free Trader and his wife had chosen to add to their daughter's wedding dowry—then it gave a familiar little nod, as though it recognized me; and I fancied, too, that its ugly chops broke into an insolent smile. What was it thinking about? . . . ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... sufficiently and of being so ready to get her off their hands. The old count felt this most. He would probably have been unable to state the cause of his embarrassment, but it resulted from the state of his affairs. He did not know at all how much he had, what his debts amounted to, or what dowry he could give Vera. When his daughters were born he had assigned to each of them, for her dowry, an estate with three hundred serfs; but one of these estates had already been sold, and the other was mortgaged and the interest so ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... his windfall of luck until he could find out whether the Scotch estates were enough to keep up the Scotch title. He soon discovered that they were not, and that the late Lord Duncan, having married money, kept up such state as he could out of the revenues of the dowry of Lady Duncan. And Eliphalet, he decided that he would rather be a well-fed lawyer in New York, living comfortably on his practice, than a starving lord in Scotland, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... Terentius Varro[7] whose rashness brought upon his country the terrible disaster of the defeat of Cannae. She had a half-sister, probably older than herself, of the name of Fabia, who was a vestal virgin. She brought her husband, to whom she was married about 78 B.C., a fair dowry, about three thousand five hundred pounds. We have seen how affectionately Cicero writes to her during his exile. She is his darling, his only hope; the mere thought of her makes his eyes overflow with tears. And she seems to have deserved all his praise and ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... lover an ingenious reproof, after they had been separated some time, when a marriage-bargain was broken off, because the lover could not obtain from the girl's father a certain brown filly as part of her dowry. The damsel, after the lapse of some weeks, met her swain at a neighbouring fair, and the flame of love still smouldering in his heart was re-illumined by the sight of his charmer, who, on the contrary, had become quite disgusted with him for his too obvious preference ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... The only dowry that Seraphita Neilsen brought her husband, besides her delicate beauty and her wide blue eyes, was a full set of Swedenborg's later writings in English. These became the daily food of the solitary household. Saul Chaney would read ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... going (or limping) fifty-five, and broken by DEBAUCHES TERRIBLES (rivers of champagne and tokay, for one item), who had fallen a Widower last year! They had schemed it all out, Wilhelmina understands: Friedrich Wilhelm to advance such and such moneys as dowry, and others furthermore as loan, for the occasions of his Polish Majesty, which are manifold; Wilhelmina to have The Lausitz (LUSATIA) for jointure, Lausitz to be Friedrich Wilhelm's pledge withal; and other intricate conditions; [Wilhelmina, i. 114.] what would Wilhelmina ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the wretched bride wept bitterly. "Take back your wedding-ring!" she cried. "Take back your dowry and your ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... thus been so royally entertained, he felt he could not live without Renzolla; so, calling the fairy, he asked her for his wife. Whereupon the fairy, who wished for nothing but Renzolla's good, not only freely consented, but gave her a dowry of ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... This morning the man who sold the arrows brought two new ones, to replace two which were imperfect. I found them, as Mr. Von Siebold had done, punctiliously honest in all their transactions. They wear very large earrings with hoops an inch and a half in diameter, a pair constituting the dowry of an Aino bride; but they would ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... poor and have to work for their living I may see them—but not otherwise. Except—" He stopped. The chief exception was a young lady, to whom he had once been introduced for matrimonial purposes. But the dowry had proved inadequate, and the ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... intended to reflect upon the Queen or the rest of the Royal Family, is shown by the extremely hearty manner in which the marriage of the Princess Royal was welcomed by Mr. Punch as representing the English feeling. John Bull is heard saying, as he hands over to the Imperial Princess of Germany her dowry, 'There, my child! God bless you! And may you make as good a wife as ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... good woman the real reformation in his life began. While still in his teens he married a girl as poor as himself. "We came together," he says, "as poor as might be, having not so much household stuff as a dish or spoon between us both." The only dowry which the girl brought to her new home was two old, threadbare books, The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, and The Practice of Piety[168] Bunyan read these books, which instantly gave fire to his imagination. He saw new visions and dreamed terrible new dreams of lost souls; his attendance at ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... father—imbecile that he was—swore he would test it in your own interests. He hunted round till he found the most hair-brained, wildcat company ever floated for the purpose of robbing moneyed fools, and invested ten thousand dollars in it as a life-dowry for you. It was the joke of all his gambling friends. It was like pitching dollar bills into the Hudson. And then in a month the miraculous happened. After a struggle the company boomed, and you were left ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... day of his redemption came, but not from the cold-hearted tyrant he had so nobly served. The matter was presented to him by Cervantes's comrades, but he would do nothing. So that Don Roderick sold his estate and his sisters sacrificed their dowry to buy the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... subject!—were of polished metal; the richest were composed of a plate of silver applied upon a plate of gold and sustained by a carved handle of wood or ivory; and Seneca exclaimed, in his testy indignation, "The dowry that the Senate once bestowed upon the daughter of Scipio would no longer suffice to pay for ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... addressed as domina, by all members of the family. See Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 57 note 3. It should be noted that she had brought a contribution to the family resources in the form of a dowry (dos) given her by her ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... it all, my boy," said my uncle; "but he holds our future entirely in his hands, and he looks for the receipt of Lilla's little dowry as part payment of the debts. I've struggled very hard against ruin, Hal, and now it seems that it must come. But after all, I don't know that I'm sorry, for it would have been a cruel thing—like selling that poor child. But when a man is embarrassed as I am, what can he do? And besides, we ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... commands; 45 Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretense 50 Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, 55 Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... cushions were placed; and massive tables, with tops made of marble or bits of colored wood,—was ranged around the walls. Among the great chests there was one which stood out conspicuously in the salon, and which contained the dowry of linen. It was in such a chest—the chest of his sister—that the unfortunate Stefano Porcaro concealed himself when he endeavored to escape after his unsuccessful attempt to excite an uprising on the fifth of January, 1453. His sister and another woman sat on the chest, ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... the new ideas in these marriage matters. Students now regard it with regret and some sense of a grievance when their guardians have married them in their school or college years. The only alleviation to their minds is when the dowry which they bring into the family at their marriage helps to endow a sister who has reached the marriage age, or to educate a brother or pay off the family debts. Among educated people too, the idea that ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... not merely my costume, but my very soul, so entirely art thou the sole possessor of my body and my spirit. Never, God is my witness, never have I sought anything in thee but thyself; I have sought thee, and not thy gifts. I have not looked to the marriage-bond or dowry. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... insisted upon courtesy; a guinea stolen by an awkward ruffian was a sorry theft; levied by a gentleman of the highway, it was a tribute paid to courage by generosity. Nothing would atone for an insult offered to a lady; and when it was Hind's duty to seize part of a gentlewoman's dowry on the Petersfield road, he not only pleaded his necessity in eloquent excuse, but he made many promises on behalf of knight-errantry and damsels in distress. Never would he extort a trinket to which association had given a sentimental worth; ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... cup and window-sash with his gold. It will give a rich dowry to Marietta But when Marietta brought in the fragments of the shattered cup, when Manon saw the Paradise lost, the good man Adam without a head, and of Eve not a solitary limb remaining, the serpent unhurt, triumphing, the tiger safe, but ...
— The Broken Cup - 1891 • Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke
... of Alexander de Medices Duke of Florence, vpon a gentleman whom he fauoured, who hauing rauished the Daughter of a poore Myller, caused him to mary hir, for the greater honour and celebration whereof, he appoynted hir a rich and honourable Dowry. ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... father, a prefect at Pau, had rendered services to Bernadotte which the latter did not forget. When she married, in 1831, Auguste Manet, a distinguished judge of the Seine tribunal, Bernadotte made her many valuable presents and a dowry. Her three sons were Edouard, Eugene, and Gustave. They inherited from their rich grandfather, Fournier. Edouard was born at Paris, Rue Bonaparte, January 23, 1832. His brother Eugene became a doctor of medicine and later married one of the most gifted of women painters, Berthe Morisot, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... marry her, by God!" answered the earl, drawing himself up, dashing the tear from his eyes, and endeavouring to recover his composure. "I pray your Majesty's pardon, but he shall marry her, with her dishonour for her dowry, were she the veriest courtezan in all Spain—If he gave his word, he shall make his word good, were it to the meanest creature that haunts the streets—he shall do it, or my own dagger shall take the life that I gave him. If he could stoop to use so base a fraud, though ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... them up. L10,000, my dear John! God bless my soul! it's a magnificent dowry for a daughter,—an ample provision for a younger son. And she is to be allowed to filch it, as other widows filch china cups, and a silver teaspoon or two! It's quite a common thing, but I never heard of such ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... book debts, as a writer or attorney and as agent for a bank. But the business fell off, the book debts could not be collected; the bank called up the advances; and for 24 years there was a struggle. My mother would not have her dowry of 1,500 pounds and other money left by an aunt settled on herself—neither her father nor herself approved of it—the wife's fortune should come and go with her husband's. My father first speculated in hops and lost heavily. He took up ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... I endeavor to add merit (if only the Deities favor me). I {only} stipulate that she may be mine, {if} preserved by my valor." Her parents embrace the condition, (for who could hesitate?) and they entreat {his aid}, and promise as well, the kingdom as a dowry. Behold! as a ship onward speeding, with the beak fixed {in its prow}, plows the waters, impelled by the perspiring arms[83] of youths; so the monster, moving the waves by the impulse of its breast, was as far distant ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... New Testament, and the Crusaders' Tower, one hundred and twenty feet high. Here Samuel was a judge and Israel asked for a king. Then the Hill of Gezer, with ruins of the old city presented to Solomon by Pharaoh as a dowry for his daughter. Now we see Zorah, the birthplace of Samson, where the Ark was held up by the Philistines before they returned it to the Israelites, fearing it would bring a curse on them, and also where he tied burning brands to the foxes' ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... husband by a repudiation made by her and prove no cause for her divorcing him, the gifts which she received as bride shall be taken away and she shall likewise be deprived of her dowry, and be subjected to the punishment of deportation; and to her we deny not only the right of marriage with another man, but also the right of post-liminium.(145) But if the woman opposed to the marriage prove faults of morals and vices, though of no great gravity, let her lose ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretense Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... doe, whom heedless, far away, Some swain hath pierced amid the woods of Crete, And left, unware, the flying steel to stay, While through the forests and the lawns his prey Roams, with the death-bolt clinging to her side. Now to AEneas doth the queen display Her walls and wealth, the dowry of his bride; Oft she essays to speak, so oft ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... this, the wife has a mortgage on her husband's lands, and a privilege on his movables, including those of the community (C. C., Art. 2376; Art. 2347). "The dower is given to the husband, for him to enjoy the same as long as the marriage shall last." Strong as is this language, the dowry is given by the wife or her father or mother or other relations or friends, simply to support ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... radical elements of all religions. Though sometimes hidden, they rise again and again to the surface. Though frequently distorted, they tend again and again to their perfect form. Unless they had formed part of the original dowry of the human soul, religion itself would have remained an impossibility, and the tongues of angels would have been to human ears but as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. If we once understand this clearly, the words of St. Augustine ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... has; and what magnificent black eyes; and what a fine spirit of her own; and what a tongue of her own, too, when she likes to use it. I perfectly adore her! But never mind, Milicent: I wouldn't have her for my wife, not if she'd a kingdom for her dowry! I'm better satisfied with the one I have. Now then! what do you look so sulky for? don't ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... of her vast fortune in giving a marriage dowry to her sister Ann, who soon after became the wife of a young gentleman by whom she had long been beloved. Another part she employed in buying captains' commissions for her two brothers; and the rest she presented to a most worthy gentleman, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... a basin of massy gold, full of pearls, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. Aladdin then addressed his mother: "Madam, pray lose no time; before the sultan and the divan rise, I would have you return to the palace with this present as the dowry demanded for the princess, that he may judge by my diligence and exactness of the ardent and sincere desire I have to procure myself the ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... never misses exhibiting at the Salon, passes in bourgeois regions for a fine portrait-painter. He earns some twenty thousand francs a year and spoils a thousand francs' worth of canvas. His wife has six thousand francs a year in dowry, and he lives with his father-in-law. The Vervelles and the Grassous, who agree delightfully, keep a carriage, and are the happiest people on earth. Pierre Grassou never emerges from the bourgeois circle, in which he is considered one of the greatest artists ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac
... within gunshot. I am not sure that I ever came within sight of one, no matter how suddenly or how far away, that it did not give evidence of having seen me first. Long legs, long wings, a long bill—and long sight and long patience: such is the tall bird's dowry. Good and useful qualities, all of them. Long may they avail to put off the day ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... a great argument with my uncle and aunt last night. They absolutely refuse to sign the document of which my lawyer sent them the draft, or to restore the dowry squandered ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... Little do you know the age in which we live—To-day, madame, wealth is everything, family is nothing; there are no families, but only individuals! The future of each one is to be determined by the public funds. A young girl when she needs a dowry no longer appeals to her family, but to a syndicate. The income of the King of England comes from an insurance company. The wife depends for funds, not upon her husband, but upon the savings bank!—Debts are paid, not to creditors, ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... mistake in saying that you had married Aniela without a dowry; she is still very ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... gradually acquired it. First he obtained a right of occupancy in his land and of its devolution to his son if he had one. Finally he was given the power of making a will. But he was still obliged to contribute to such expenses of the patron as ransom in war, fines imposed by the courts, or the dowry of a daughter. [187] The client was considered as a member of the family and bore its name. [188] But he was not a proper member of the family or gens, because his pedigree never ascended to a pater or the head of a gens. [189] It was incumbent on the patron to protect the client, and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... lands, his inheritance to be given at once, a wife "with a rich dowry of jewels"—all a Tamil boy most desires they offered him. And they promised him freedom to worship God; "only come back and save your Caste, and do not break your mother's heart ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... in thine hands thou holdest still this rod, Whereon are carved the names of every god That rules the fertile earth; but having come Unto King Pelias' well-adorned home, Abide not long, but take the royal maid, And let her dowry in thy wain be laid, Of silver and fine cloth and unmixed gold, For this indeed will Pelias not withhold When he shall see thee like a very god. Then let thy beasts, ruled by this carven rod, Turn round to Pherae; yet must thou abide Before thou comest to the streamlet's ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... name.[119] Again there was a change. The king lived on, the alarm yielded to the temptations of covetousness. Had he restored Catherine to her father he must have restored with her the portion of her dowry which had been already received; he must have relinquished the prospect of the moiety which had yet to be received. The negotiation was renewed. Henry VII. lived to sign the receipts for the first instalment ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... have married; was affianced to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between 205 which time of the contract and limit of the solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most 210 kind and natural; with him, the portion and sinew of her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate husband, ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... after to-morrow, Captain Rotherby, and you shall marry her and have a dowry of fifty thousand pounds, besides what her Uncle Nicholas ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... claiming it all. The son was at length compelled to give it up, at least in the character of an appendage to his marriage property. He feared that the wife, should he not be able to replace it by a new one, or should she herself not be able to bring him one, as part of her dowry, would find the honeymoon rather lively. Phelim's bedstead admitted of no dispute, the floor of the cabin having served him in that capacity ever since he began to sleep in a separate bed. His pillow was his small clothes, and ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... you tell me of the Princess of Mecklenburg," for whom they want a Brandenburg Prince,—"could not I marry her? Let her come into this Country, and think no more of Russia: she would have a dowry of two or three millions of roubles,—only fancy how I could live with that! I think that project might succeed. The Princess is Lutheran; perhaps she objects to go into the Greek Church?—I find none of these advantages in this Princess of Bevern; who, as ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle |
