"Extravagance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at Berwick,' the station-master said, still gruffly, 'and come on by the slow train.' I could see his careful Scotch soul was vexed (incidentally) at our extravagance in paying the extra fare ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... the secondary kings of the Orient, the court of the Ptolemies at Alexandria,—all are invaded by a horde of insatiable senators and knights, who, menacing and promising, extort money to spend in Italy and foment the growing extravagance. The debts pile up, the political corruption overflows, scandals follow, the parties in Rome rend each other madly, though hail-fellow-well-met in the provinces to plunder subjects and vassals. In the midst of this vast disorder Caesar, the man of destiny, rises, and with varying ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... the extravagance of their notions, exposed them to ridicule; their zeal for reform, by interfering with the interests of several different bodies at the same time, multiplied their enemies; and, before the dissolution of the house, they had earned, justly or unjustly, the hatred of the army, of the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... oppositions the book gathers an intensity that fairly adds to the dramatic—though the latter is supposed to be the sum of all intensities; or that has at any rate nothing to fear from juxtaposition with it. I consciously fail to shrink in fact from that extravagance—I risk it rather, for the sake of the moral involved; which is not that the particular production before us exhausts the interesting questions it raises, but that the Novel remains still, under the right persuasion, the most independent, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... of both sorts have tendered themselves to their acceptance. There is something very pretty in the sound of the word wild, added to the word fellow; and good sense is a very grateful victim to be sacrificed on the altar of love. Fervour and extravagance in expressions will please. How shall a woman, who, moreover, loves to be admired, know a man's heart, but from his lips?—Let him find flattery, and she will find credulity. Sweet souls! can they be ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... emerald is yet unknown; but this adds only to the Oriental-extravagance of the picture. I do not think with Lane (ii. 426) that "abyaz" here can mean "bright." Dr. Steingass suggests a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... occupy too much care; that there may not be instances in which it is suffered to engross the mind to the detriment of other things more worthy of consideration; that it may not lead to frivolity and extravagance. All this may be, and no doubt often is, true. It is quite possible, and more than probable. But we also maintain that it is a great mistake to come down upon it with a sweeping denunciation, and, ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... man was there in office, from the ministre d'etat to the commis, who did not think of making himself amends for the fatigues of the morning by a petit souper: these petits soupers, however, were, in latter times, carried to an excessive pitch of luxurious extravagance. But for refinements attempted in luxury, though, I confess, of a somewhat dissolute nature, our countryman eclipsed all the French bons vivans in originality ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... money was left there; and he became terrible to all men, by tearing and rending those that came near him; and all this in order to raise himself, and out of an ambitious desire of the royal dignity; and he hoped to obtain that as the reward not of his virtuous skill in war, but of his extravagance ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... to exhibit to her husband that which he might otherwise have regarded as foolish extravagance in the light of ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... so pleased that she yielded to the pressure and conceded a sum which her judgment told her was a foolish extravagance —a thousand dollars. Sally kissed her half a dozen times and even in that way could not express all his joy and thankfulness. This new access of gratitude and affection carried Aleck quite beyond the bounds of prudence, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... own imprudence had lost; how, when she found I had nothing to offer her but a home in my father's house, entirely dependent upon him, she accused me of having deceived her for the sake of her own miserable pittance; how she made herself the common talk of Newport by her dissipation, her extravagance, her affectations; how her love of excitement led her into such undisguised flirtations, under the name of friendships, with almost every man she met, that her imprudences, to call them by no harsher name, made my father insist, that, for my mother's sake, I should ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... lost their tempers: Christophe lost his, but he changed nothing. Waldhaus was amused by the unhappiness of his friends, which in no wise touched him, and took Christophe's part to annoy them. Perhaps also he was more capable than they of appreciating Christophe's extravagance, who with head down hurled himself upon everything without keeping any line of retreat, or preparing any refuge for the future. As for Mannheim he was royally amused by the farce: it seemed to him a good joke to have introduced this madman among these correct ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... whose amount was not known to any one. The avarice of the deceased persons was so keen that for a long time they had hoarded their money for the pleasure of secretly looking at it. Old Monsieur de la Bertelliere called an investment an extravagance, and thought he got better interest from the sight of his gold than from the profits of usury. The inhabitants of Saumur consequently estimated his savings according to "the revenues of the sun's ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... in our language, such as "over-master," "over-do." More forcibly we might say, "In all these things we over-overcome." Coverdale gives the sense of it well in his translation, "We conquer far." Observe some of the ways in which this excess and extravagance of victory may take place, for it is as if one should win a victory over a foe in such a way as to prevent him from ever troubling us again. Our conquest over special sin is to be of this character. We are not to be content with winning the field ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris
... I am satisfied with it," she said in conclusion. "I am glad you live frugally, Helen; waste is always sinful, and in your case peculiarly so. You don't mind my telling you, my dear, that I think it is a sad extravagance wearing crape every day, but of course you don't know any better. You are nothing in the world but an overgrown child. Now that I have come, my dear, I shall put this and many other matters to rights. Tell me, Helen, how long does your father ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... contests Albert was generally sure to sacrifice by his extravagance whatever sympathy he might otherwise have had from the rest of the family. When he denounced dishonest trading, Isabel knew that he was right, and that Mr. Plausaby deserved the censure, and even Mrs. Plausaby and the sweet, unreasoning Katy felt something of the justice of what he said. ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... but it will go deeper and it will spread its results wider: it appears as if it would not hesitate to call in question the received code of morality, and to revise our standard of right and wrong. One school at any rate has already made a claim of this sort, and the extravagance of its teaching has not ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... forming for himself strong opinions, often hastily, sometimes bitterly; not always strong or sound in judgment, but always seeking after truth in every matter, and following it as he understood it in scorn of consequence; utterly unselfish, devoted to his friends, generous even to extravagance towards any one who had ever been connected with his fortunes or his travels; playful, light-hearted, witty, and humorous, but not without those occasional fits of black depression and nervous irritability to which ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... done this night is beyond measure extravagant, never saw I any do the like of his fashion in any country; for he hath rent four dresses, each worth a thousand dinars, and this is surely excessive extravagance."' 'O man,' replied the youth, 'the money is my money and the stuff my stuff and this is by way of largesse to my servants and followers; for each suit that is rent belongeth to one of my boon-companions here present and I ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... were half-way down the stairs. A quarter of an hour later I was once more out in the streets of Paris. It was a beautiful, balmy night. I had two hundred francs in my pocket and there was a magnificent prospect of twenty thousand francs before me! I could afford some slight extravagance. I had dinner at one of the fashionable restaurants on the quay, and I remained some time out on the terrace sipping my coffee and liqueur, dreaming dreams such as I had never dreamed before. At ten o'clock I was once more on ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... between the Altrurians and the unfashionable Americans, in view of such a dinner as she gave us, would be that, while it would seem to us abominable for its extravagance, and revolting in its appeals to appetite, it would seem to most of such Americans altogether admirable and enviable, and would appeal to their ambition to give such a dinner themselves as soon ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... been clad in our lives, and especially Moll did profit by this occasion to furnish herself like any duchess; so that Dawson and I drew lots to decide which of us should present the bill to Don Sanchez, thinking he would certainly take exception to our extravagance; but he did not so much as raise his eyebrows at the total, but paid it without ever a glance at the items. Nay, when Moll presents herself in her new equipment, he makes her a low reverence and pays her a most handsome compliment, but in his serious humour and without a smile. He himself wore ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... use to him. He seemed in good repute too, and talked of fifty guineas for a picture with the utmost coolness. He must have earned a good deal of money, and the money must have gone somewhere. In all the details of his home there was evidence of extravagance in the past and poverty ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Present, and the Future, in the Chinese Collection, than upon the best of these breezy maniacs; whose every fold of drapery is blown inside-out; whose smallest vein, or artery, is as big as an ordinary forefinger; whose hair is like a nest of lively snakes; and whose attitudes put all other extravagance to shame. Insomuch that I do honestly believe, there can be no place in the world, where such intolerable abortions, begotten of the sculptor's chisel, are to be found in such profusion, as ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... heart-breaking attempts to keep within the limits of her weekly allowance, with unexpected calls from the nursery, and kitchen breakages; he forgot that it would not go so far now that there were more children to clothe and feed, and, when she gently hinted this, he hurled the bitter taunt of extravagance at her, not dreaming that she was really pinched for money, and stinting herself of a hundred and one things necessary to her comfort and well-being for the sake of her family. Indeed, it was part of his theory never ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... New Mexico, which were being suddenly filched from her confident expectation. In this emergency those extremists in the South who offset the Abolitionists at the North fell back upon the appalling threat of disunion, which could hardly be regarded as an idle extravagance of the "hotspurs," since it was substantially certain that the Senate would never admit California with her anti-slavery Constitution; and thus a real crisis seemed at hand. Other questions also were cast into the seething caldron. Texas, whose boundaries were as uncertain ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... the future comfort of the family: for instance, a big lot of wheat, a delicacy as rare to the tables of their class as was ice-cream to a hermit's; also a sizeable deal dinner-table; also two entire pounds of salt, which was another piece of extravagance in those people's eyes; also crockery, stools, the clothes, a small cask of beer, and so on. I instructed the Marcos to keep quiet about this sumptuousness, so as to give me a chance to surprise the guests and show off a little. Concerning the new clothes, the simple ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... delights, Paris drunk with gold, mad with the delirium of excesses, Paris with no aim except joy, no method but extravagance, held within her gilded gates one citadel of sensuality which remained ever an object of mystery, a source of curiosity even in that dissipated and pleasure-sated city. In the Palais Royal, back of the regally beautiful gardens, back of the noble rows of trees, ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... House would compose such an opposition; and while on the one hand it crushed the unholy attempt to impose an odious constitution —by force, or with threats or bribes—upon a free people, it would be prepared to check the reckless extravagance of the administration in the disbursement of the public funds. But the power of party ties and the executive influence were too potent. We can only look now to the virtue and intelligence of the people, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... of Miss Johnson a poet passed away of undoubted genius; one who wrote with passion, but without extravagance, and upon themes foreign, perhaps, to some of her readers, but, to herself, familiar as ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... in the East brought to Rome immense riches, which laid the foundation of its Oriental extravagance and luxury, and finally undermined the strength of the state. From Greece were introduced learning and refinement, from Asia immorality and effeminacy. The vigor and tone of Roman society are nowhere more forcibly shown ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... pure. Simplicity in dress is ever in harmony with beauty, and never out of place; yet are there state times when it is expected that the high-born carry bravery, as the horses bear high and waving plumes—to make the pageant grand; and though his Highness, at first, deemed it expedient to lessen such extravagance, yet my dear husband assures me that his children lack nothing worthy the state ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... sharpers, not Italian, but English, he was fleeced of considerable sums of money. The abbe, who, it seems, was an excellent individual of the old French school, remonstrated with his pupil on his dissipation and extravagance; but, finding his remonstrances vain, very properly informed the guardians of the manner of life of his charge. They were not slow in commanding Francis Ardry home; and, as he was entirely in their power, he was forced ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... of industry and thrift, by improvidence and bad farming. So when a nation becomes poor and bankrupt, it is its own fault; that nation has broken the laws of political economy which God has appointed for nations, and its ruin is God's judgment, God's plain-spoken opinion again of the sins of extravagance, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... from the text. 1. Bombast and mock-heroics. 2. Horse-play and slap-sticks. 3. Burlesque, farce and extravagance of situation and dialogue. a. True burlesque. b. True farce. c. Extravagances obviously unnatural and merely for the sake ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... one thing in all the items which go to make up fashionable extravagance, which, taken separately and by itself, is not in some point of view a good or pretty or desirable thing; and so, whenever the forces of invisible morality begin an encounter with the troops of fashion and folly, the world and the flesh, as we have just ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... punctilio is politeness; dissipation, life; and levity, spirit. The miserable and contemptible drudge of every tawdry innovation in dress or ceremony, she incessantly mistakes extravagance for taste, and ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... suggests harmony without extravagance. The pleasure grounds, although not on as large a scale as those of the other houses, are exceedingly beautiful—the Japanese Garden being a wonderful pleasaunce in miniature, with paved walks and toy lake and waterfall. Not far away the River Maun, with ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... partition and got his topcoat and hat; said good night to such clerks as came in his way, and went out and bought a dozen daffodils from the Greek flower-vendor. All day he had been arguing with himself because of this small extravagance which tempted him, but now that it was settled and the flowers were in his hand, he was glad that he had bought them. Helen May loved all growing things. He set off briskly in spite of his aching back, thinking how Helen May would hover over the flowers ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... as our vegetables,—indeed we might have sold the surplus for many dollars; but we soon found that to do so was to lose caste in the neighborhood. One piece of extravagance we were guilty of the first winter and spring we passed at A. The gardener had a little fire in the grapery during the severe weather, because he had placed some plants in it. We were told we could continue it till the grapes ripened for a "mere nothing." Now "mere nothings" mount ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... interesting article on the Palais Royal in The Nineteenth Century. This new style of comic play may be termed realistic farce—realistic, because it starts from every-day life and the most matter-of-fact conditions; and farce, because it uses its exact facts only to further its fantasy and extravagance. Consider La Boule. Its first act is a model of accurate observation; it is a transcript from life; it is an inside view of a commonplace French household which incompatibility of temper has made unsupportable. And then ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... enable them, as far as worthy, to take a place with the popular versions of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and other world-renowned tales of Europe and the East, to which, in their original conception, they bear a resemblance in romantic interest and quaint extravagance of fancy. The Editor hopes that these beautiful and sprightly legends of the West, if not marred in the handling, will repay, in part at least, the glorious debt which we have incurred to the Eastern World for her magical gifts of the same kind. ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... Campagna Mystica. On one day Mr. Browning met "Hatty" Hosmer on the Spanish Steps, and said to her: "Next Saturday Ba and I are going to Albano on a picnic till Monday, and you and Leighton are to go with us." "Why this extravagance?" laughingly questioned Miss Hosmer. "On account of a cheque, a buona grazia, that Ticknor and Fields of Boston have sent—one they were not in the least obliged to send," ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... companions. With characteristic fervour they enter enthusiastically into every thing in which they engage; and, when they indulge in dissipation, delight to sport on the brink of all its terrors, and to outvie in levity and extravagance the most practised professors of their new art. Few that see or hear them think, that even in the midst of their revels their hearts are often far away, or are extracting good from the evil spread before them; and that all the waste of time and talent, so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the tribunes and people was well nigh terminating in an extravagance of a by no means salutary tendency, a conspiracy being formed among the tribunes to have the same tribunes re-elected, and in order that their ambition might be the less conspicuous, to continue their office ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... basket packed with luncheon for three and a great demijohn of cool ginger tea under the wagon seat. Other farmers sometimes served hard cider, or rum, but her father's principles were dead against this riotous extravagance. Temperance, in any and all directions, was cheap, and the Deacon was a very temperate ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... forbearance drop from the hand of moderation; unsheathed the sabre of his tongue; set the steed of eloquence at full speed over the plain of arrogance; and, galloping up to me, said: "You have so exaggerated in their praise, and amplified with such extravagance, that we might fancy them an antidote to the poison of poverty and a key to the store-house of Providence; yet they are a proud, self-conceited, fastidious, and overbearing set, insatiate after wealth ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... of Louis XV. carried extravagance as far as the famous Egyptian queen. She melted a pearl,—they pulverized diamonds, to prove their insane magnificence. A lady having expressed a desire to have the portrait of her canary in a ring, the last Prince de Conti requested she would allow him to give it to her; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... question thus agitated can be set at rest, we must suppose a proficiency in those inquiries which he would proscribe as dangerous. After all, we can discover no more reason why sciolists in metaphysics should bring that study into discredit, than that religion itself should be disparaged through the extravagance of fanaticism. To have met the subject fully, he ought to have shown, that not only those opinions he controverts are erroneous, but that all the systems of former metaphysicians were so likewise." In truth, Beattie would have gained his purpose far better ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... for Judah. Even while Josiah lived, the crown prince showed the type of man he was. Instead of applying himself to the work of succeeding to the throne, he spent his time in riotous pleasure, and his father's money in lavish extravagance. ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... I have been defeated and disappointed heretofore, because the local executive itself has been for the most part rather the head of a party, than the Government of the country, and the opposition, or "Reform" party, has often gone to equal extremes of selfishness and extravagance; so that I have occupied the unenviable and uncomfortable position of a sort of break-water—resisting and checking the conflicting waves of mutual party violence, convinced that the exclusive and absolute ascendancy of either party would be destructive of the ends of just Government, and public ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... fourth open to the attendants. The prodigality of the Romans in matters of eating is well known, and it extended to all matters connected with the pleasures of the table. In their rooms, their couches, and all the furniture of their entertainments, magnificence and extravagance were carried to their highest point. The rich had several of these apartments, to be used at different seasons, or on various occasions. Lucullus, celebrated for his wealth and profuse expenditure, had a certain ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... these pages the triumphant entrance of the Chevalier into Edinburgh after the decisive affair at Preston. One circumstance, however, may be noticed, because it illustrates the high spirit of Flora Mac-Ivor. The Highlanders by whom the Prince was surrounded, in the license and extravagance of this joyful moment, fired their pieces repeatedly, and one of these having been accidentally loaded with ball, the bullet grazed the young lady's temple as she waved her handkerchief from a balcony. [Footnote: See Note 11.] Fergus, who ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Certain doubts had been disturbing her ever since that first moment of enthusiasm when she had yielded to Isobel's coaxing. Isobel had said that the other girls were making their own costumes—she knew that the faculty disliked any extravagance or great expenditures of money in any of the school affairs—might it not have been better to have helped Isobel fashion something simple and pretty at home? Then when she watched Isobel's flushed, happy face, radiantly pretty, she ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... his Poems late in life, Wordsworth said of this one:—'The effect of her laugh is an extravagance; though the effect of the reverberation of voices in some parts of the mountains is very striking. There is, in the "Excursion," an allusion to the bleat of a lamb thus re-echoed, and described without ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... his shamelessness had not abashed them. Though his constitution was said to be breaking up through unparalleled excesses, his heart, it was currently reported in domestic circles, was sound: and what a noble feat would it be to reclaim him! It was also reckoned impossible that any amount of extravagance could have seriously embarrassed such a property as he had inherited, indeed long since, but of which he had had the sole control only a few years. At the time of which we speak Carew was but thirty-five, though he looked much older. His muscles ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... because, when Burton died, only four florins remained of the 10,000 pounds which they had netted by The Arabian Nights; but when it is borne in mind that she spent every penny upon her husband and not a penny upon herself, it is not possible that the charge of extravagance can be maintained against her—certainly ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... in the school of God's Providence; and yet the school of life is carefully adjusted, in all its arrangements and tasks, to man's powers and passions. There is no extravagance in its teachings; nor is anything done for the sake of present effect. The whole course of human life is a conflict with difficulties; and, if rightly conducted, a progress in improvement. It is never too late for ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... have not been misinformed by our historians," Dr. Leete answered, "it was not college education but college dissipation and extravagance which cost so highly. The actual expense of your colleges appears to have been very low, and would have been far lower if their patronage had been greater. The higher education nowadays is as cheap as ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... than they're worth, and I doubt they'll fetch next to nothing if I leave 'em behind for the sale. My old man got 'em off a pedlar fellow for two-and-threepence apiece, back-along when we first set up house. A terrible extravagance, as I told 'en at the time; but he took such a fancy to the things, I never had the heart to say what I thought about ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... powerful mechanical combinations, rather than by means of the balloon; and though, as before remarked, the experiments of M. Petin and others may probably not be without useful results, we dismiss these brilliant phantasmagoria with the charitable reflection, that the extravagance of overweening hopefulness is, at least in an age which has witnessed the advent of steam and electricity, more natural and more pardonable than the scepticism of confirmed despondency; and that "he who shoots at the stars," though missing his aim, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... tears I frequently shed, without reason; the lively alarms I felt on the falling of a leaf, or the fluttering of a bird; inequality of humor in the calm of a most pleasing life; lassitude which made me weary even of happiness, and carried sensibility to extravagance, were an instance of this. We are so little formed for felicity, that when the soul and body do not suffer together, they must necessarily endure separate inconveniences, the good state of the one being almost always injurious to the happiness of the other. Had all the pleasure ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... to take the man's word seriously; indeed, he probably believed he had paid her a compliment. Alaire assured herself that Longorio's attentions were inspired merely by a temporary extravagance of admiration, characteristic of his nationality. Doubtless he had forgotten all about her by this time. That, too, was characteristic of Latin men. Nevertheless, the possibility that she had perhaps stirred him more deeply than she believed was disturbing—one might ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... and the Greeks, who celebrate the festival of the Imperial saint, seldom mention the name of Constantine without adding the title of equal to the Apostles. [71] Such a comparison, if it allude to the character of those divine missionaries, must be imputed to the extravagance of impious flattery. But if the parallel be confined to the extent and number of their evangelic victories the success of Constantine might perhaps equal that of the Apostles themselves. By the edicts of toleration, he removed the temporal disadvantages which had hitherto retarded ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... take your light view of your brother's extravagance," said the rector, addressing Oscar with his loftiest severity of manner, at the door. "I deplore and reprehend Mr. Nugent's misuse of the bounty bestowed on him by an all-wise Providence. You will do well to consider, before you encourage your brother's extravagance by lending him ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... His very goodness of heart rendered him a more easy prey to their flattery, and his kind and jovial disposition led him into company from which he had much better have been away. In fact, as the Colonel did not attempt in any way to check him in his youthful career of extravagance and experiences which were the result of an excessive high spirit, our young gentleman at this time brought down upon himself much adverse criticism for his behaviour, especially from his uncles. Because of this and other reasons there was not much friendliness exhibited by the several ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... affectation of rhetorical ornament. In having thus prepared materials for others who might be inclined to write his history, he may perhaps have encouraged some silly creatures to enter upon such a work, who will needs be dressing up his actions in all the extravagance a (37) bombast; but he has discouraged wise men from ever attempting the subject." Hirtius delivers his opinion of these Commentaries in the following terms: "So great is the approbation with which they are universally perused, that, instead of rousing, he seems to have precluded, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Duke Street was cordial, both on the part of my uncle and on the part of my aunt; the first being a good-hearted person, though a little too apt to run into extravagance on the subject of the rights of the rabble. I was pleased with the welcome I received, enjoyed an excellent hot supper, to which we sat down at half-past eight, my aunt being fond of town hours, both dining and supping a little later than my mother, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... from his African preparations to superintend personally the arrangements for her stay in Paris. He had himself selected the flat and installed her with every comfort and luxury that was befitting his wife. She had demurred once or twice on the score of extravagance, particularly in the case of the car he had insisted on sending over for her use, but he had laughed at her protests and she had ceased to make any further objection, accepting his wishes with the shy gentleness that marked her ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... 'that your grandfather urged repeated forgiveness, ingratitude, riot, and extravagance, and all that; but as I told him "these are common faults." "But he's a scoundrel," said he. "Granting that," said I (for the sake of argument of course), "a great many young noblemen and gentlemen are scoundrels too!" But he wouldn't ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... picture of the "Building of Carthage," the foreground is occupied by a group of children sailing toy-boats, which he thinks to be an "exquisite choice of incident expressive of the ruling passion." He, with a whimsical extravagance in praise of Turner, which, commencing here, runs throughout all the rest of the volume, says—"Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest order." Epic poetry ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... my chambers. We met at a late hour of the night; for our debaucheries were to be faithfully protracted until morning. The wine flowed freely, and there were not wanting other and perhaps more dangerous seductions; so that the gray dawn had already faintly appeared in the east, while our delirious extravagance was at its height. Madly flushed with cards and intoxication, I was in the act of insisting upon a toast of more than wonted profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted by the violent, although partial unclosing of the door ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... dramatist himself. This tradition gives additional value to Pepys's musical setting in recitative of the "To be or not to be" soliloquy. If we accept the reasonable theory that that piece of music preserves something of the cadences of Betterton's enunciation, it is no extravagance to suggest that a note here or there enshrines the modulation of the voice of Shakespeare himself. For there is the likelihood that the dramatist was Betterton's instructor at no more than two removes. Only the lips of D'Avenant, Shakespeare's ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... be spared, and so, largely for his own good and partly for mine, I kept the thing in his mind, which was necessary, as would-be suicides are very changeable aid hard to hold to their purpose. He had a preference for a pistol, which was an extravagance, for we hadn't enough between us to hire a pistol. A fork would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... passion for ornament is notorious; and an English philosopher goes so far as to maintain, that clothes were first made for ornament and not for warmth. As Professor Waitz remarks, "however poor and miserable man is, he finds a pleasure in adorning himself." The extravagance of the naked Indians of South America in decorating themselves is shewn "by a man of large stature gaining with difficulty enough by the labour of a fortnight to procure in exchange the chica necessary to paint himself red." (43. Humboldt, 'Personal Narrative,' ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... institutions. The people hear a second time only those who interest them. If a lecturer cannot engage the interest of his audience, his fame or greatness or learning will pass for nothing. A lecture-audience will forgive extravagance, but never dulness. They will give a man one chance to interest them, and if he fails, that is the last of him. The lecture-committees understand this, and gauge the public taste or the public humor as delicately as the most ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... in Berlin was to Calsabigi, the younger brother of the Calsabigi with whom I had founded the lottery in Paris in 1757. He had left Paris and his wife too, and had set up a lottery in Brussels; but his extravagance was so great that he became a bankrupt in spite of the efforts of Count Cobenzl to keep him going. He fled from Brussels to Berlin, and was introduced to the King of Prussia. He was a plausible speaker, and persuaded the monarch to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... were shining, and the smooth oval of her cheeks had deepened from poppy pink to poppy rose. She was dancing in a dream, a golden dream . . . incredibly, ecstatically happy. . . . She was in a confusion of young delight in which the extravagance of his words, the light of his glances, the thrill of the violins were inextricably ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... seldom disappointed by the want of money or credit; my pride was never insulted by the visit of an importunate tradesman; and my transient anxiety for the past or future has been dispelled by the studious or social occupation of the present hour. My conscience does not accuse me of any act of extravagance or injustice, and the remnant of my estate affords an ample and honourable provision for my declining age. I shall not expatiate on my oeconomical affairs, which cannot be instructive or amusing to the ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... without chart or compass, and was as unlucky in his panegyric on Milton as on Lee. He calls the "Paradise Regained" "a charming poem, nothing inferior in the poetry and the sentiments to the Paradise Lost." Such extravagance could only have proceeded from a critic too little sensible to the essential ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... Chancery, where all Patents are taken notice of which pass the Great Seal. Sir Aston was esteemed by some a good poet, and was acknowledged by all a great lover of the polite arts; he was addicted to extravagance; for he wasted all he had, which, though he suffered in the civil wars, he was under no necessity of doing from any other ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... very strange and striking in the effect of the latter, seen dimly and with difficulty through the intervals of the rich supports of the upper slab. The monument of Margaret herself is on the left, all in white marble tormented into a multitude of exquisite patterns, the last extravagance of a gothic which had gone so far that nothing was left it but to return upon itself. Unlike her husband, who has only the high roof of the church above him, she lies under a canopy supported and covered ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... books she carried out from the library, for purely children's books were very few in those days. The children of the present day would be dismayed were they asked to read what Betty pondered over with avidity and loved. Her father's library was his one extravagance, even though the purchase of books was always a serious matter, each volume being discussed and debated about, and only obtained after due ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... The name and man by whom the book was writ, Yet how shall they be brought to know, Whether that very name was he, or you, or I? Less should I daub it o'er with transitory praise, And water-colours of these days: These days! where e'en th'extravagance of poetry Is at a loss for figures to express Men's folly, whimseys, and inconstancy, And by a faint description makes them less. Then tell us what is Fame, where shall we search for it? Look where exalted Virtue and Religion sit, Enthroned with heavenly Wit! Look where you see The greatest ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... regulating force. When I am away from him I think subordination and regulation are very fine things, but when I am with him I feel that my liberty is somehow strangely curtailed. I cannot be fanciful or extravagant in Meyrick's company; his polite laugh would be a disheartening rebuke; he would think my extravagance an agreeable conversational ornament, but he would put me down as a man unfit to be placed upon a syndicate. I do not feel that I am being consciously judged and condemned; I simply feel that I am being unconsciously estimated; which fills ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... extraordinary production, in which perspective and proportion are curiously disregarded. The captain and officers are introduced in full uniform, and a number of the sailors on the rigging and masts. With all its extravagance, however, it has considerable merit; there is nothing slovenly about it, and there is enough of truth in it to shew that it was ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... whims. No desire of hers, however extravagant, ever went ungratified, and right up to the hour of her death old Henry never said no to her—partly out of a spirit of amusement, I dare say, and partly because she was the only unbridled extravagance he had ever yielded to in all his life. Well, having sowed the wind, he reaped the whirlwind in Alicia. She combined the distinguishing traits of both parents, and she grew up more effectively spoiled ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... unto the devil-god of that river. I thought, 'By Jove! it's all over. We are too late; he has vanished—the gift has vanished, by means of some spear, arrow, or club. I will never hear that chap speak after all'—and my sorrow had a startling extravagance of emotion, even such as I had noticed in the howling sorrow of these savages in the bush. I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... one side of his negative character; the other was his love of extravagance, vain display, and instability of purpose. Much of the time he drifted about like a ship without ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... The Virginians he is less attentive to dramatic propriety; he begins again to turn aside and lecture us, in the midst of his tale, upon the text of De te fabula narratur. Sir Miles and Lady Warrington are scandalised by their nephew's extravagance, and refuse all help to ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... have been seriously crippled by the extravagance of Reginald. Indeed both my boys have cost me much money. I had not, like you, the good fortune to be an only son. I was the fourth son of a younger son: there was very little left for me. I will treat Marian as liberally as I can; but I fear I cannot ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... that he was a part of the people, and he knew that he wanted nothing for himself which the world could not have on the same terms. He looked into the calm depths of his own heart and saw that he hated tyranny, pretense, vice, hypocrisy, extravagance and untruth. He knew in the silence of his own soul that he loved harmony, health, industry, reciprocity, truth and helpfulness. His desire was to benefit mankind, and to help himself ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... and a fresh outbreak of the silkworm disease had aggravated the misery of the people, while the mounting extravagance of the Duchess had put a last strain on the exhausted treasury. The consequent increase of the salt-tax roused such popular fury that Father Ignazio, who was responsible for the measure, was dismissed by the panic-stricken Duke, and Trescorre, as usual, called in to ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... small means. Salt, instead of costing thirteen sous and over, no longer costs more than two sous the pound. A cask of Bordeaux wine no longer pays two hundred livres before it is retailed by the tavern-keeper at Rennes.[3244] Except in Paris, and even at Paris, so long as the extravagance of municipal expenditure does not increase the octroi the total tax on wine, cider and beer does not add, even at retail, more than 18 % to their selling price,[3245] while, throughout France, the vine-grower, or the wine-maker, who gathers in and manufactures his own wine, drinks ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the 23d of Septr by yesterdays Post. You tell me that Boston is become a new City, and explain your self by mentioning the exceeding Gayety of Appearance there. I would fain hope this is confind to Strangers. Luxury & Extravagance are in my opinion totally destructive of those Virtues which are necessary for the Preservation of the Liberty and Happiness of the People. Is it true that the Review of the Boston Militia was closd with an expensive Entertainment? If it was, and the Example is followed by ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... brought about by financial difficulties are not, strictly speaking, marital problems at all. Debts resulting from his own extravagance or dishonesty may cause a man to leave home to escape prosecution or disgrace. One such man kept in touch with his family, sending money at irregular intervals for some years, but always moving on ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... joy at the sight, and with a swift little run she caught the other girl in her arms and kissed her in a breast-crushing embrace. She released her, blushing at her own extravagance. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... "Such extravagance!" she interrupted. "Your own rooms would have done quite nicely, only it is a luxury to have a place for Phoebe. I hope Beatrice ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Sooner or later you'll find out about your swan," said her husband. "Do you really believe in that marquise? Pooh! A young man who has senses and a taste for extravagance like Oscar can find such ladies as that on every bush—if he pays for them. Some fine morning you'll find yourself with a load of debt on ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... Nancy, no matter which, from under the comfortable drab jock, with velvet-covered collar, erect about the honest, ruddy face of a warm, smiling farmer, or even the tattered frieze of a poor laborer—anxious to secure the attention of the "masther" to his little "Shoneen," whom, in the extravagance of his ambition, he destined to "wear the robes as a clargy." Let no man say, I repeat, that the Irish are not ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... protesting [217] against all lower uses of love, barren, extravagant, antinomian. It is the love which is incompatible with marriage, for the chevalier who never comes, of the serf for the chatelaine, of the rose for the nightingale, of Rudel for the Lady of Tripoli. Another element of extravagance came in with the feudal spirit: Provencal love is full of the very forms of vassalage. To be the servant of love, to have offended, to taste the subtle luxury of chastisement, of reconciliation—the religious spirit, too, knows that, and meets just there, as in Rousseau, the ...
— Aesthetic Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... sixteen now, shapely and graceful, and of a beauty so extraordinary that I might allow myself any extravagance of language in describing it and yet have no fear of going beyond the truth. There was in her face a sweetness and serenity and purity that justly reflected her spiritual nature. She was deeply religious, and this ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... gamekeeper has brought in a thoroughly trained dog, which will also be yours. Shoot as much as you like, and, as you cannot go about without money in your pocket, take this, but be careful of it; for remember that extravagance on your part will procrastinate the day upon which our descendants will resume their proper ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... he deliberately set himself to raise the people to open resistance against their oppressors, while he disarmed the suspicions of the nobles by intentional buffoonery and extravagance of conduct. On May 20, 1347, the first blow was struck. Rienzi, with a chosen band of conspirators, and accompanied by the papal vicar, who had every interest in weakening the baronage, proceeded to the Capitol, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Renine, raising his voice and growing excited in turn to the point of punctuating his remarks by thumping the table. "No, things don't happen like that. No, fate does not display those refinements of cruelty and chance is not added to chance with such reckless extravagance! It was already an unprecedented chance that, on the very night on which the doctor, his man-servant and his maid were out of the house, the two ladies should be seized with labour-pains at the same hour and should bring ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... by Prince Astor at his palatial residence in New York. As for the profusion of gold plate, glittering glass, innumerable yellow wax-candles in ormolu chandeliers, and general exhibition of splendid and luxurious extravagance, and all manner of costly wines and rarest gourmandise, I never have seen its like before or since; and more than this (if I may state the fact without much imputation of vaingloriousness), the intellectual treat was, to my amour ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... are encouraging Blue Bonnet in habits of extravagance?" she asked, smiling inwardly at the likeness of her question to ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... sure, and the legal presumption of his death obtain by reason of the lapse of time, his estate would by the terms of the will vest in her, and thus financially all might be well. But on the contrary, should he be found in the course of time, this wild extravagance would result in bankrupting her. She thought it necessary to keep detectives in constant pay to hold their efforts and interest to the search, even though the ultimate rich reward were dangled continually before their eyes. The flamboyant advertisements, the widespread publicity ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... just share of the public burdens; the wasteful and irritating methods of collecting the taxes; the interior customs lines, preventing the easy passage of goods from one part of France to another; the extravagance of the king's household; the pensions granted to undeserving persons; every evil of the bungling, iniquitous old rgime was brought under the scrutiny of the new thinkers, who tested the existing system by the light of reason and the welfare of the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... flying. As they read of the work of Langley and others they concluded that the secret of flying could not be mastered theoretically in a laboratory; it must be learned in the air. It struck these young men, trained by necessity to count pennies at their full value, as "wasteful extravagance" to mount delicate and costly machinery on wings which no one knew how to manage. They turned from the records of other inventors' models to study the one perfect model, the bird. Said Wilbur Wright, speaking before the Society ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... baronage. A fresh source of revenue was found in the Church. The same principles of feudal dependence were applied to its lands as to those of the nobles; and during the vacancy of a see or abbey its profits, like those of a minor, were swept into the royal hoard. William's profligacy and extravagance soon tempted him to abuse this resource, and so steadily did he refuse to appoint successors to prelates whom death removed that at the close of his reign one archbishoprick, four bishopricks, and eleven abbeys were found to ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... would have her way. And so at last we all had dolls, and La Mamma, poor soul! spent thirty-six centimes! It seemed a mortal sin to her; and she has told me many a time how she lay awake that night and cried, and prayed to God and the saints to forgive her for that wicked extravagance. And yet she could not but feel glad to see how happy we all were with our dolls. And she was glad afterward for another reason, which I will explain presently. Little Teresina never went out again after the Feast of the Assumption. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... after righteousness, is mean enough to sink to any depth of disgrace. The judgments also of imagined superiority are hard to bear. The rich man who will screw his workmen to the lowest penny, will read his poor relation a solemn lecture on extravagance, because of some humblest little act of generosity! He takes the end of the beam sticking out of his eye to pick the mote from the eye of his brother withal! If, in the endeavour to lead a truer life, a man merely lives otherwise ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald |
