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Penury   Listen
noun
Penury  n.  
1.
Absence of resources; want; privation; indigence; extreme poverty; destitution. "A penury of military forces." "They were exposed to hardship and penury." "It arises in neither from penury of thought."
2.
Penuriousness; miserliness. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Penury" Quotes from Famous Books



... must be understood as in relation to the rank and position which he still held, and the work which he wanted done for the Instauratio. His will, dated a few months before his death, shows that it would be a mistake to suppose that he was in penury. He no doubt often wanted ready money, and might be vexed by creditors. But he kept a large household, and was able to live in comfort at Gray's Inn or at Gorhambury. A man who speaks in his will of his "four coach geldings ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... supported by props and pillars, near the Grime Thor, but which his fellow-townsmen are at this moment prouder of than they are of the Artimshof or the Stockthurm. How did Andreas Stock live? In obscurity and penury, without one smile of good fortune to gild the darkness of existence. But do you suppose that these men were unhappy? Oh no, Marguerite, to make everything in nature beautiful there is but one element in nature essential, and that is ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various

... present expectation, whilst the effect is at a distance, and may be the concern of other times and other men. On these principles, he chooses to suppose (for he does not pretend more than to suppose) a naked possibility that he shall draw some resource out of crumbs dropped from the trenchers of penury; that something shall be laid in store from the short allowance of revenue-officers overloaded with duty and famished for want of bread,—by a reduction from officers who are at this very hour ready to batter the Treasury with what breaks through stone walls for an increase of their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... dedicating to them translations from Plutarch and Lucian, Chrysostom and Basil. But this was not enough. He was free in his tastes, and liked to be free in his spending. He needed a horse to ride, and a boy to attend upon him. In consequence we hear a good many complaints of penury, all through his three years at Cambridge, 1511 ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... higher standard of comfort is being evolved, though relics of this former state of insecurity may still be found; such as the absence, even in houses of good families, of clocks and watches, and convenient storage for clothes and domestic utensils; their habits of living in penury and of buying their daily food by farthings, as though one never knew what the next day might bring; their dread of going out of doors by night (they have a proverb which runs, di notte, non parlar forte; di giorno, guardati attorno), their lack of humour. For humour is ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... in the preface to his lectures, "Poetry is the controller of sullen care and frantic passion; it is the companion in youth of desire and love; it is the power which in later years dispels the ills of life—labour, penury, pain, disease, sorrow, death itself; it is the inspiration, from youth to age, and in all times and lands, of the noblest human motives and ardours, of glory, of generous shame, of freedom ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... because then they would bee all staruelings, neither would they be directly one ouer another; for the lower would stay the rising vp of the sap of the tree, and so those aboue should consume in penury, and vndergoe the aforesaid inconuenience. You must note, that the Scutcheon which is gathered from the Sien of a tree whose fruite is sowre, must be cut in square forme, and not in the plaine fashion of a Scutcheon. It is ordinary to graffe the sweet Quince tree, bastard Peach-tree, Apricock-tree, ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson

... any recollection of himself. There were times when in his dreams he had even returned to the domestic ark, and in the result a day of welcome and comparative peace, then discord and jangling strife as before, and the ever weighing-down, depressing, crushing consciousness of squalid penury for the rest of his natural life. From such visions he had awakened, awakened with a start of exultant gratulation, to find the glow of the African sun streaming into the room; every nerve tingling with ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... and enduring, the Methodist Church had its beginning among the humble and lowly. Rocked in the cradle of penury and ignorance, it was firmly fixed in the foundations of society, whence it rose from its own purity of doctrine and simplicity of worship to command the respect, love, and adoption of the highest in the land, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... those miserable victims and outcasts of a world which dares to call itself virtuous, whom that very society whose pernicious institutions first caused their aberrations,—consigning them, without one tear of pity or one struggle of remorse, to penury, infamy, and disease,—condemns to bear the burden of its own atrocious absurdities! Thus, the youth of one sex is consumed in slavery, disappointment, and spleen; that of the other, in frantic folly and selfish intemperance: till at length, on the ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... islands it must be confessed, that they have not many allurements but to the mere lover of naked nature. The inhabitants are thin, provisions are scarce, and desolation and penury give little pleasure.' Johnson's Works, ix. 153. In an earlier passage (p. 138), in describing a rough ride in Mull, he says:—'We were now long enough acquainted with hills and heath to have lost the emotion that they once raised, whether pleasing or painful, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... during a twelvemonth; and yet it flourished. The traits of Lang's character were unwavering devotion to his pursuits; no one could excel him in the kindness of his demeanor; unconscious of the penury of his intellectual powers, he at times, unwittingly became the pliant agent of designing individuals, and from the blunders into which he was led, his baptismal name, John, seemed easily converted into that of Solomon, by which specification much of his correspondence was maintained. He bore ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... Frequent in the Temptations of the Devil, then for our Adoption to be doubted, because of our Affliction. When our Lord was in his Penury, then says the Devil, If thou be the Son of God; he now makes an If, of it; What? the Son of God, and not be able to Command a Bit of Bread! Thus, when we are in very Afflictive Circumstances, this will be the Devils Inference, Thou art not a Child of God. The Bible says in Heb. 12.7. ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... that the scarcity of this one year does not bring ruin on us all. Even thus was it ordained by the first occupant of our present dignity[889], that the preceding plenty should avail to mitigate the present penury.' ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... various causes; to what purpose should they ask one another what countrymen they are? Alas, two thirds of them had no country. Can a wretch who wanders about, who works and starves, whose life is a continual scene of sore affliction or pinching penury; can that man call England or any other kingdom his country? A country that had no bread for him, whose fields procured him no harvest, who met with nothing but the frowns of the rich, the severity of the laws, with jails and punishments; who owned not a single foot of the ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... is the clergy's interest to have religion corrupted." Quite the contrary; prove it. How is it the interest of the English clergy to corrupt religion? The more justice and piety the people have, the better it is for them; for that would prevent the penury of farmers, and the oppression of exacting covetous landlords, &c. That which hath corrupted religion, is the liberty unlimited of professing all opinions. Do not lawyers render law intricate by their speculations, &c. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... that paid his rent and supported his childish vanity and grotesque pride. From a peg in the corner hung the familiar masquerade that hid his poverty—the pearl-gray trousers, the black frock coat, the tall shining hat—in hideous contrast to the penury of his surroundings. But if THEY were here, where was HE, and in what new disguise had he escaped from his poverty? A vague uneasiness caused her to hesitate and return to the open door. She had nearly reached it when her eye fell on the pallet which it partly ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... wretched noble!' he exclaimed, 'and now we will settle our account! After reducing my father, who has just given you a fortune, to despair and penury, you have tried to degrade my sister. I will have my ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... that she was the victim of some unyielding necessity, whose decree had gone forth, and might not be annulled. In early childhood her home had been one of splendid affluence; but reverses came, thick and fast, as misfortunes ever do, and, ere she could realize the swift transition, penury claimed her family among its crowding legions. Discouraged and embittered, her father made the wine-cup the sepulcher of care, and in a few months found a deeper and far more quiet grave. His mercantile embarrassments had dragged his father-in-law ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... SIR, - This formidable paper need not alarm you; it argues nothing beyond penury of other sorts, and is not at all likely to lead me into a long letter. If I were at all grateful it would, for yours has just passed for me a considerable part of a stormy evening. And speaking of gratitude, let me at once and with becoming ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... should have. As for her proposals of friendship made to him that day—her suggestions of visits to be paid to Ashley and herself, with introductions to a greater world—he swept them aside. He quite understood that she was offering him the two mites that make a farthing out of the penury of her resources, and, while he was touched by the attempt to pay him, ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... replied Borgert, coolly; "it is the only way out of all our difficulties, and it is not the first time I have had the thought. Is it not better to put an end to this dog's life than to die by inches in penury and distress?" ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... Castle was as remarkable for its profusion as that of Wolf's Crag had been for its ill-veiled penury. The Lord Keeper might feel internal pride at the contrast, but he had too much tact to suffer it to appear. On the contrary, he seemed to remember with pleasure what he called Mr. Balderstone's bachelor's meal, and ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... as he ambles up the street beneath the roaring "El" between the rows of reeking sweatshops. Pallid, stooping, insignificant, squalid, doomed to exist forever in penury of body and mind, yet, as he swings his cheap cane and projects the noisome inhalations from his cigarette you perceive that he nurtures in his narrow bosom the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... so far as that. The king, through his uncle, has simply made a proposal. How would you regard it, knowing what you do of the past, the years that you lived in comparative penury, amid hardships, unknown, and ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... his time was Whittington. In his own words: 'The fervent desire and busy intention of a prudent, wise, and devout man, should be to cast before and make secure the state and the end of this short life with deeds of mercy and pity, and especially to provide for those miserable persons whom the penury of poverty insulteth, and to whom the power of seeking the necessaries of life by act or bodily ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... visible signs which we have mentioned, another symptom which was none the less significant for not being visible. This never deceives. When the population suffers, when work is lacking, when there is no commerce, the tax-payer resists imposts through penury, he exhausts and oversteps his respite, and the state expends a great deal of money in the charges for compelling and collection. When work is abundant, when the country is rich and happy, the taxes are paid easily and cost the state nothing. It may be ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... quench his ardor, while opposition invariably stimulated him to fresh efforts. After long years of toil, he had at length attained an influential position in the country, and though crippled by debts incurred in the struggle for freedom of speech, and living in absolute penury, he was one of the most powerful men of ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... brought the school-fellows together again, Lucien was weary of drinking from the rude cup of penury, and ready for any of the rash, decisive steps that youth takes at the age of twenty. David's generous offer of forty francs a month if Lucien would come to him and learn the work of a printer's reader came in time; David had no need whatever of a printer's reader, but he saved Lucien from despair. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... offended with the condition of his estate? The nature of human felicity is doubtful and uncertain, and is neither ever wholly obtained, or never lasteth always. One man hath great revenues, but is contemned for his base lineage. Another's nobility maketh him known, but, oppressed with penury, had rather be unknown. Some, abounding with both, bewail their life without marriage. Some other, well married but wanting children, provideth riches for strangers to inherit. Others, finally, having children, mournfully bewail the vices which their sons or daughters are given to. So ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... youth and hope in mockery caught From life; and mocking pulses that remain When the soul's death of bodily death is fain; Honour unknown, and honour known unsought; And penury's sedulous self-torturing thought On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane; And longed-for woman longing all in vain For lonely man with love's desire distraught; And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness, Given unto bodies of whose souls men say, None ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti

... moral tone, with religion as an underlying principle—a practical religion, that inculcates duty rather than fosters emotion, and embodies the wise proverb of Solomon, "In all labor there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth to penury." ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... held or the eagerness with which they were sought. His supremacy in the minds of clients was more like the rage of a passion for a youthful Roscius or an extraordinary preacher, than the result of deliberate consideration; and yet it prevailed, in questions not of an evening's amusement, but of penury or riches, honor or shame. Suitors were content, not only to make large sacrifices for the assured advantage of his advocacy, but for the bare chance— the distant hope— of having some little part (like that which Phormio desires to retain in Thais) of his faculties, ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... the vegetable world is undisputed, is Nature less powerful in the nobler existence of thinking man? The very destruction of the two most active causes of physical deterioration—here, luxurious wealth; there, abject penury,—must necessarily prolong the general term of life. (See Condorcet's posthumous work on the Progress of the Human Mind.—Ed.) The art of medicine will then be honoured in the place of war, which is the art of murder: the noblest study of the acutest minds will be devoted to the ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... he; "and has a mere dream scared thee to penury and want, with all this wealth in thy possession?" Philip replaced the sacks, and locked up the cupboards, after having taken out of one, already half emptied, a few pieces for his immediate wants. His attention was next directed to the buffets above, which ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... the depressing result of this labour, of a too exacting labour? I know not. But at times (it is his one melancholy!) he expresses a strange apprehension of poverty, of penury and mean surroundings in old age; reminding me of that childish disposition to hoard, which I noticed in him of old. And then—inglorious Watteau, as he is!—at times that steadiness, in which he is so ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... restless violence round about The pendent world; or to be worse than worst Of those that lawless and uncertain thoughts Imagine howling! 'tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed earthly life That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... different things to two persons. For this reason the specific word that appeals to him most may be of no value in addressing others. "Free silver" means to one set of men the withdrawal of money from investment, consequent stagnation in business, followed by the closing of factories and penury among laborers. To others it means three dollars a day for unskilled labor, fire, clothes, and something to eat. Again, if one wished to present the horrors of devastating disease, in the South he would ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... speculated again and won—but never got his money. His talents were great; his disposition, easy, generous and liberal. His friends profited by the one, and abused the other. Loss succeeded loss; misfortune crowded on misfortune; each successive day brought him nearer the verge of hopeless penury, and the quondam friends who had been warmest in their professions, grew strangely cold and indifferent. He had children whom he loved, and a wife on whom he doted. The former turned their backs on him; the latter died broken-hearted. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... her what a romantic answer had come to his prosaic advertisement. And Roland was still more excited. The air of the house, its peace, refinement, and luxury appealed irresistibly to him. It was his native air. He wondered how he had endured the vulgarity and penury of his surroundings for so long; how indeed he had borne with Denasia's shortcomings at all. That refined old gentleman, that quiet, elegant woman whom he had had a glimpse of—these people were like ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... is, child, I am not the rich woman people credit me with being. I did not tell you that I had lost my entire fortune, and that I was reduced to penury and want—ay, I would have been reduced to starvation if you had not so kindly taken me in and ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... your benevolent clemency and humane consideration, and implore you to confer the vacancy in question which will enable me to meet the daily unavoidable returning requisites of domestic life in all their varied ramifications, and relieve a famishing family from the jaws of penury and privation. By thus delivering me from an impending impossibility most prejudicial to my purse resources, you will confer on your humble servant a boon which will be always vivid on the tablet of my breast, never to be effaced ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... the Dorcas Society had taken a parish coal ticket. He urged her no more, but took the chair that she offered him, feeling a little uncomfortable withal, as a well-clothed and overfed man should, in the presence of penury. It was true he had not been to see her for some time; but, then, Bellevue Lodge was so far off, and he had been so pressed with the cares of the parish and of his business. Besides that, their walks of life were so different, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... richest; but now it was old and threadbare. His hands were once white and elegantly shaped; now they were dirty, and blue with cold. His face once beamed with contentment; now it was worn with care and marked by the hard lines of penury. ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong

... To the end that they, desiring food, might for the ugly sight of the beasts sent among them lothe even that, which they must needs desire; but these, suffering penury for a short space, might be made partakers of a ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous

... have already gone the whole length of your credit. This is to set the quiet of your whole life at hazard. If you anticipate your inheritance, you can at last inherit nothing; all that you receive must pay for the past. You must get a place, or pine in penury, with the empty name of a great estate. Poverty, my dear friend, is so great an evil, and pregnant with so much temptation, and so much misery, that I cannot but earnestly enjoin you to avoid it[468]. Live on what you have; live if you can on less; do not borrow either for vanity or pleasure; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... old, and am happy to be able to say that he is going to dine with me one day this week. I hope I may not injure his character by stating that in those days I lived very much with him. He, too, was impecunious, but he had a home in London, and knew but little of the sort of penury which I endured. For more than fifty years he and I have been close friends. And then there was one W—— A——, whose misfortunes in life will not permit me to give his full name, but whom I dearly loved. ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... scorn. To whom, Eumaeus, thou didst thus reply. My ancient guest! I cannot but approve Thy narrative, nor hast thou utter'd aught Unseemly, or that needs excuse. No want Of raiment, therefore, or of aught beside 620 Needful to solace penury like thine, Shall harm thee here; yet, at the peep of dawn Gird thy own tatters to thy loins again; For we have no great store of cloaks to boast, Or change of vests, but singly one for each. But when Ulysses' son shall once arrive, He will himself with vest and mantle both Cloath ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... there was variety. Some were stupid and ungracious, hardened and dulled with long penury as some in this world are hardened and dulled with long riches. Some were as fat as beggars; some were old and shrivelled; some were shrivelled and young; some were bold; some were frightened; and here and there ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... Shishak, The king of Egypt, who took away their treasure, Conveyed their cattle, and slew them without measure. In time of Ahaz, a hundred thousand and twenty Were slain at one time for their idolatry. Two hundred thousand from thence were captive led, Their goods dispersed, and they with penury fed. Seldom they fail it, but either the Egyptians Have them in ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... marriage of Madame Phoebus, to accumulate, "and when the genius and vanity of her husband are both exhausted, though I believe they are inexhaustible," remarked Mr. Cantacuzene, "it will be a nest's-egg for them to fall back upon, and at least save them from penury." The duke had no doubt that Mr. Cantacuzene was of imperial lineage. But the latter portion of the letter was the most deeply interesting to Lothair. Bertram wrote that his mother had just observed that she thought the Phoebus family would like to meet Lothair, and begged Bertram to invite ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... the personal wealth of the manual working class, and has, alike in Great Britain, and in other countries, afforded both a valuable financial reserve to the wage earners against all emergencies and an instrument for their elevation from the penury to which competition is always depressing them. By making possible the upgrowth of great business enterprises in working class hands, the Cooperative Movement has, without divorcing them from their fellows, given to thousands of the manual workers both administrative experience ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... Charleston who, after investing her all (fully $5,000) in these Confederate "promises to pay," brought them out at last, and kindled her morning fire with the worthless chaff. Most of the citizens who were considered wealthy at the beginning of the war were reduced to penury at its close, and were to be seen carrying their rations through ...
— The Flag Replaced on Sumter - A Personal Narrative • William A. Spicer

... him a second nature. He considered them not only lawful, but praiseworthy employments. He could not help lying and cheating if he tried. By so doing, he had heaped up hoards of wealth—he had raised himself from abject penury, and how could he be expected to persuade his conscience, or what stood him in place of one, that he had not been acting rightly. True his gold was of no real use to him—he had no one to enjoy it with him—he had no relative to whom he could leave it. Some might say that it would ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... find Shakspere in London, from six to ten years connected with its principal theatre, but writing nothing for its stage, not even as a "hack-writer." We respectfully dissent from this conclusion because it lacks support either in fact or probability. The man who, from utter penury, had in 1589 won his way to a lucrative share in the theatre he made illustrious, and who wrote "Romeo and Juliet," which first appeared, according to Ulrici's investigation, in 1592, was more capable ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith

... with them, absolutely blind to the fact that they are being preyed upon. We must open the eyes of these poor victims. We must point out to them that the Jew saves money and amasses wealth, while they toil in penury; that Jews fill our schools and colleges, while our people remain ignorant; that the Jew, base, deceitful, and avaricious, fattens on ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... despised. He had been out of pocket and out at the elbows—indeed, his wardrobe now was mean and scanty; want and privation had been his companions, and, from his grievous experiences, he had become a sensational story-teller of low life and penury. Certainly Barnes had reason to lament the coincidence which brought players and lecturer into town at the same time, especially as the latter was heralded under the auspices of ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... against the last day. I tell them which be rich, ponder these sentences; for if ever they had occasion to show their charity, they have it now at this present; the poor people being so many, and victuals so dear; for although I have been long in prison, yet have I heard of the great penury ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... away feeling sick at heart, and directed my vagrant steps towards home. All the pomp and glory of the world's wealth were dimmed and darkened before my eyes by this huge black shadow of penury and suffering, that had darted across my way at that moment. If such thoughts as these could be ever with us, if such vivid reminders of the shallowness and vanity of earth's transient splendors would abide with us constantly, how paltry ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... preternatural dominion of the air, of earth, and of hell, was exercised, from the vilest motives of malice or gain, by some wrinkled hags and itinerant sorcerers, who passed their obscure lives in penury and contempt. [47] The arts of magic were equally condemned by the public opinion, and by the laws of Rome; but as they tended to gratify the most imperious passions of the heart of man, they were continually proscribed, and continually practised. [48] An imaginary cause as ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... graduate its volume to the amount needed and which shall prevent times of artificial stringency that frighten capital, stop employment, prevent the meeting of the pay roll, destroy local markets, and produce penury and want. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... end must be more tame, Let large well-mounted photographs be made Of this high gathering, and let each name Beneath each face be generously displayed, That I may say, when penury has crept Too near for decency, to some old snob, "That was the kind of company I kept When England ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various

... her back upon the bed and its pretty burden. But then the mere snowy whiteness of the muslin and freshness of the ribbons, and the burning curiosity to see herself decked therein, overcame a nature which, in the midst of its penury, had been always really possessed by a more than common hunger for sensuous beauty and seemliness. Marcella wore it, was stormily happy in it, and kissed Mademoiselle Renier for it at night with an effusion, nay, some tears, which no one at Cliff House had ever witnessed in her before except with ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Daemon to whose suggestions Socrates is said to have listened anything more was meant than conscience, we must infer that he laboured under that mental malady to which those are liable who, either through penury or designedly, submit to extreme abstinence, and, thereby injuring the brain, fall into hallucination. Such cases are by no means of infrequent occurrence. Mohammed was affected in ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... emerged from the gloom of her prison into the streets of Paris, she found herself a widow, homeless, almost friendless, and in the extreme of penury. But for her children, life would have been a burden from which she would have been glad to be relieved by the executioner's axe. The storms of revolution had dispersed all her friends, and terror reigned in Paris. Her children were living upon the charity of others. It ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... ye affluent, And when the overplus of your fortunes disturb Your minds, think how little stops the lash of penury, And makes ...
— The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H.

... dearer to them than life—the thousands of wives and mothers, who in our revolutionary struggle, and in our recent war, gave up freely at their country's call, their best beloved, regretting only that they had no more to give; knowing full well, that in giving them up they condemned themselves to penury and want, to hard, grinding toil, and privations such as they had never before experienced, and not improbably to the rending, by the rude vicissitudes of war, of those ties, dearer than life itself—those who in the presence of ruffians, capable of any atrocity dared, and in many cases suffered, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... that you could not possibly live on less than fifteen thousand florins, and that you appealed to him to assist you in maintaining the dignity of the ducal house of Savoy, and saving its representatives from absolute penury." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... told every one of them not to consider the pictures but as a final refuge from penury. She warned them that they would find the life one of hard work and full of disappointments. It seemed that even the snares and temptations were disappointing, being more easily evaded than many of her correspondents appeared ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... Vivian twice or thrice, and the result of the interviews has disappointed and depressed me. It seems to me that much of the previous effect I had produced is already obliterated. At the very sight of the great Babel,—the evidence of the ease, the luxury, the wealth, the pomp; the strife, the penury, the famine, and the rags, which the focus of civilization, in the disparities of old societies, inevitably gathers together,—the fierce, combative disposition seemed to awaken again; the perverted ambition, the hostility to the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... physicians remaining in the city, nine fell a sacrifice to duty. Amongst those who survived was the learned Dr. Nathaniel Hodges, who was spared to meet a philanthropist's fate in penury and neglect. [Dr. Hodges subsequently wrote a work entitled "Loimologia; or, an Historical Account of the Plague of London," first published in 1672; of which, together with a collection of the bills of mortality ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... good report of the children's progress, and talking quite enthusiastically of Lovedy's sweetness and intelligence. Perhaps she would turn out a superior artist, now that chill penury no longer repressed her noble rage, and he further brought a small demand for drawing materials and blocks for engraving, to the amount of five pounds, which Rachel defrayed from the general fund, but sighed over ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Francesca, but now he stormed and raved at her; he had been to the cellar to see the wine drawn for that day's use, and not a drop was in the cask. "Charity indeed!" he exclaimed, "charity begins at home; a pretty sort of virtue this, which, under the pretext of assisting strangers, introduces penury and privation into the midst of a person's own family." He vented his anger in bitter reproaches; Lorenzo and Paluzzo were also inclined to take his part, and joined in severely blaming Francesca. She the while, with a gentle ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... consequently all the persons concerned in them were dismissed also. When he came to the abolition of the pensions, he says,—"I proceeded with great pain, from the reflection that I was the instrument in depriving whole families, all at once, of their bread, and reducing them to a state of penury: convinced of the necessity of the measure, I endeavored to execute it with great impartiality." Here he states the work he was employed in, when he took this two hundred pounds a day for his own pay. "It was necessary to begin with reforming the useless servants of the court, and retrenching ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... despair. There are few conditions in life so utterly unenviable as penury and love—to be next door to starving, and at the same time in love. Day after day Shiel, who was thus afflicted, had revelled in Gladys's company, and had intoxicated himself with her beauty, fully aware that for each ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... and deserving poor. It was time it was done. It is rather a shame for a rich country like ours, probably the richest country in the world, if not the richest the world has ever seen, that it should allow those who have toiled all their days to end in penury and possibly starvation. It is rather hard that an old workman should have to find his way to the gates of the tomb, bleeding and footsore through the brambles and thorns of poverty. We cut a new path through, an easier one, a pleasanter one, through ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... but allow me to observe, that I am no swindler. Your thousand pounds you will find safe in the bank, for penury would not have induced me to touch it. But now that your lordship appears more cool, will you do me the favour to listen to me? When you have heard my life up to the present, and my motives for what I have done, you will then decide how ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... naked, in the coldest weather; sufferings, almost without a parallel, were borne with patience and resignation. Despair there might be in the hearts of thousands, but those thousands were mute and passive in their misery; all was dark, all was hopeless; the wintry wind of penury blew untempered, keen upon them, but still they cried not; hunger preyed upon their very vitals, but they uttered no complaint. Let us not, even now, refuse a passing tribute of honour and respect to the passive heroism which in many an instance marked the endurance of the hopeless misery ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... discriminatory treatment, they are rendered incapable of lifting themselves from the enforced degradation they endure. Even were the fields of education open to them, of civil employment and of commerce, as to "Roumanian citizens," their penury would prevent rising by individual effort. Human beings, so circumstanced, have virtually no alternatives but submissive suffering, or flight to some land less unfavourable to them. Removal under such conditions ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf

... towards Mossgiel and Mauchline. He had several reasons, and all serious ones, for taking Ayrshire in his way to the Nith: he desired to see his mother, his brothers and sisters, who had partaken of his success, and were now raised from pining penury to comparative affluence: he desired to see those who had aided him in his early struggles into the upper air—perhaps those, too, who had looked coldly on, and smiled at his outward aspirations after fame or distinction; but more than all, he desired to see one whom he once ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... arms. And therefore out of all questions, the splendor and magnificence, and great retinues and hospitality, of noblemen and gentlemen, received into custom, doth much conduce unto martial greatness. Whereas, contrariwise, the close and reserved living of noblemen and gentlemen, causeth a penury ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... he was born. He had farms in the county, wide reaches of woodland, fields, and pastures. The provincials would confiscate them. In his declining years all his property was to slip through his fingers, and he was to totter in penury to ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... and its quick and plentiful reproduction in all the chief cities, not only of Spain but of the outside Spanish dominions, though highly flattering to the author, could not have greatly helped to lighten his life of toil and penury. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... misfortune even my besotted optimism could not prevail. My pioneering spirit, subdued by years of penury and rough usage, yielded more and more to the honor and the intellectual companionship which the East offered. To Fuller I privately remarked: "As soon as I can afford it I intend to establish a home in ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... that the only trade seems to be carried on, and this is limited to amber and serpentine. They are very dirty, and excessively penurious, but industrious. Owing to their habits and extreme penury, there is no outlet for our manufactures in this direction; so that I fully agree with Hannay's statement, that 500 rupees worth of British goods would be unabsorbed for some years. Rosa is common, also a Rumex; a Sisymbroid plant also occurs. Among the ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... form." Then "Thee Chatterton," to "blaze of Seraphim." Then "clad in nature's rich array," to "orient day;" then "but soon the scathing lightning," to "blighted land." Then "Sublime of thought" to "his bosom glows." Then "but soon upon his poor unsheltered head Did Penury her sickly Mildew shed, and soon are fled the charms of vernal Grace, and Joy's wild gleams that lightend o'er his face!" Then "Youth of tumultuous soul" to "sigh" as before. The rest may all stand down to "gaze ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... poor man in the grave-yard cry: "Arise, oh friend! a little hour assume My weight of cares, whilst I, Long weary, learn thy respite in the tomb." I listened that the corpse should make reply; Who, knowing sweeter death than penury, Broke not his ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... since the scandal of his mother's elopement and his father's duel with Sir Charles shook two continents. What an old rake the General was. And the boy's mother after two other marriages and a sad period on the variety stage died alone in penury! And Amos says that the General was so insolent to his men in the war, that he dared not go into action with them for fear they would shoot him in the back. Yet the boy is as lovely and gentle a creature as one could ask to meet. This is as it ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... invincibly rooted in a prudential morality, in a rationalised Protestantism, in respect for liberty and law: above all he was deeply convinced, as he puts it, "that the handsome conveniences of life are better than nasty penury". Locke still speaks, or spoke until lately, through many a modern mind, when this mind was most sincere; and two hundred years before Queen Victoria he was ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana

... of bone and dry skin, whose greed and penury had starved his own soul. He had brought her there and put burdens upon her, with the assurance that it would be only for a little while, until somebody could be hired to take the work off her hands. ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... with bitterness of the iron rule of Marie, the insolence of his nobles, and the ostentatious profusion of the Italian: contrasting the first with his own helplessness, the second with the insignificance to which he was condemned, and the last with the almost penury to which he was ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... Macleod, to call out the clan in her husband's absence. Subsequently, when that Earl and his son were confined in the Tower of London for the part which they took on her advice, and when the Countess with ten children, and bearing another, were suffering the severest hardships and penury, the Rev. Colin, at great risk to himself and the interests of his family, collected the rents from the Cromarty tenants, giving his own receipt against their being required to pay again to the Forfeited Estates Commissioners, and personally carried the money to her ladyship ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... thread paper of a fellow! What misery life must be to a chap like that! He walks in fear—he wallows in it. Poor devil!' And a curious feeling swelled his heart, of elation, of lightness such as he had not known for years. Those two young things were safe now from penury-safe! After dealing with those infernal creditors of his he would go round and have a look at the children. With a hundred and twenty a year the boy could go into the Army—best place for a young scamp like that. The girl would go off like hot cakes, of course, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... have obtained five-sixths of these deputations. These are the sons of peasants, who have done all the drudgery of the service, for ten, twenty, and thirty guineas a year, and whose oppressions and penury, contrasted with the pride and luxury of the higher clergy, have rendered them perfectly disposed to humble the latter. They have done it, in many instances, with a boldness they were thought insusceptible of. Great hopes have been formed, that these would concur with ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... beautifying every object on which its rainbow colours rest, and who have been equally tried by affliction and misconstruction, and equally tempted by brilliant opportunities of pleasure in the intervals of penury and pain—these, if they stand fast, may be allowed to speak, and they will seldom speak uncharitably, of their brethren who have fallen; or, if they fall, they may be heard to plead a somewhat similar excuse. But let ordinary men, and men less extraordinary ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... George, "must be freed of ignorance, insobriety, penury, and the tyranny of man over man." That ought not to require more than three or ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... good, and hatred for His love,(19) He had steadfastly pursued His mission of mercy. Never were those repelled that sought His grace. A homeless wanderer, reproach and penury His daily lot, He lived to minister to the needs and lighten the woes of men, to plead with them to accept the gift of life. The waves of mercy, beaten back by those stubborn hearts, returned in a stronger tide of pitying, inexpressible love. ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... finding that Claire obviously had not thought it over, she threw out a hint that was little save a thinly veiled threat. She came in with a more genial manner than she was accustomed to waste upon the desert air of penury, and Claire, well schooled in reading the significance of proverbial ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... angelic aspect of human nature displayed itself by preference in the house of poverty, as if those who possessed no other treasure, no other jewels with which to adorn themselves, were compensated for their penury in other ways by these priceless gems of the most unselfish virtue. Such conduct, of course, is not universal. There are abundant instances of the opposite. But the truth remains that it is the worth which ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler

... worn by sixteen years of struggle in the Capital, and aged quite as much by pleasure as by penury, hard work, and disappointments, looked eight-and-forty, though he was no more than thirty-seven. He was already bald, and had assumed a Byronic air in harmony with his early decay and the lines furrowed in his face by over-indulgence in champagne. ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... spirit, but most rich in faith, off-scourings of the world and salt of the earth, despisers of the world and fishers of men, how happy are ye, if suffering penury for Christ ye know how to possess your souls in patience! For it is not want the avenger of iniquity, nor the adverse fortune of your parents, nor violent necessity that has thus oppressed you with beggary, but a devout will and Christ-like election, by which ye have ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury

... labelled threepence or fourpence! We did not know whether to smile or to drop a tear, as we contemplated these baits hung out to tempt the coins from the exiguous purses of ancient maidens, forlorn widows, withered annuitants, stranded humanity in every stage of shipwrecked penury. I am reminded of Thackeray's "Jack Spiggot." "And what are your pursuits, Jack? says I. 'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. Go down there once a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shilling whist.'" Mrs. Gaskell's picture of "Cranford" is said to have been ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... there is no room for contradiction in any point. What, then? Can the proposing and thinking of such a life make Thyestes's grief the less, or AEetes's, of whom I spoke above, or Telamon's, who was driven from his country to penury and banishment? in wonder at ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... who groan beneath Oppression's iron hand In view of penury, hate, and death, I see thee fearless stand. Still bearing up thy lofty brow, In the steadfast strength of truth, In manhood sealing well the vow And promise ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... had to the knights bound for the Holy Wars; his agent, Herbert de Burgh, was either faithless, or the fleets entrusted to him were lost; he never returned from his last voyage to the East, and the unfortunate merchant, reduced to penury and driven to despair, is said to have destroyed himself." As Anselm uttered these words the captain became convulsed with agony; his face was livid, his eyes rolled, his teeth were clenched. "Wretch that I am!" cried he; "who am the cause of all! I wrote to my dear master and told him of my intention ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... influence; the selfishness which would trade in principles, and bargain away public measures for private gain,—these, and such as these, are the conclusive proofs of public vice. Even the deplorable appearances which penury exhibits are counterfeited, and we hesitate to give alms lest we should encourage an impostor. The benevolent man distrusts the beggar who asks for a night's lodging, and turns him away, fearful that he might prove an assassin or a robber; or he reluctantly calls ...
— Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 • Christopher C. Andrews

... possesses, or he would gladly return to the country of his fore-fathers; but alas! he sees no prospect of gaining even a bare livelihood there. Without knowing, then, how or where to improve his condition, he deplores the penury of his lot, and sighs for wealth which he has no prospect of ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... rumors through their little subservient throngs of henchmen brokers, they create untold ravage and despair. Fearful cruelty is shown by them then. The law cannot reach it, though years of imprisonment would be far too good for it. Families are plunged into penury by their subtly circulated frauds; forgery and embezzlement in hundreds of individual cases result; banks are betrayed and shattered; disgrace and suicide are sown broadcast like seeds fecund in poison. One often marvels that assassination ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... thanksgiving as well as prayer, gratitude for the present and the past as well as hope for the future. Among secular influences, contrast and comparison have the greatest value. Some minds are always looking on the fortunes that are above them and comparing their own penury with the opulence of others. A wise nature will take an opposite course and will cultivate the habit of looking rather at the round of the ladder of fortune which is below our own and realising the ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... kynge of Tuscaye / whiche whan he [C.v.r] could by no menes entreat the Romains to receiue agayn theyr kyng / he cam with all his puissaunce against the citie / & there long space besieged the Romaynes / by rea[-] son wherof / great penury of whete was in the citie / & the kynge of Tuscay had great trust / that continuynge the siege / he shulde within a litle lenger space compell the Ro[-] maynes thrugh famine ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox

... carried about with me in my journeys—the spirit of youth. Youth is the only season for enjoyment, and the first twenty-five years of one's life are worth all the rest of the longest life of man, even though those five- and-twenty be spent in penury and contempt, and the rest in the possession of wealth, honours, respectability, ay, and many of them in strength and health, such as will enable one to ride forty miles before dinner, and over ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... Attalus may sway By proffer'd wealth to tempt Myrtoan seas, The timorous captain of a Cyprian bark. The winds that make Icarian billows dark The merchant fears, and hugs the rural ease Of his own village home; but soon, ashamed Of penury, he refits his batter'd craft. There is, who thinks no scorn of Massic draught, Who robs the daylight of an hour unblamed, Now stretch'd beneath the arbute on the sward, Now by some gentle river's sacred spring; Some love the camp, the clarion's joyous ring, And battle, by the mother's ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... little, but a very little, of any thing, and every thing—one of those distressed looking shops which bring a sensation of dreariness over the mind, and which cause a sinking of the heart before you have time to ask why you are saddened—a frail and feeble barrier it seems against penury and famine, to yield at the first approach of the gaunt enemy—a shop that has no aspect of business about it, but compels you to think of distraining for rent, of broken hearts, of sickness, suffering ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... and enterprise are raised to the possession of wealth, that is the one. If there is one measure better calculated than another to produce that state of things so much deprecated by all true republicans, by which the rich are daily adding to their hoards and the poor sinking deeper into penury, it is an exclusive metallic currency. Or if there is a process by which the character of the country for generosity and nobleness of feeling may be destroyed by the great increase and neck toleration of usury, it ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... The gift of faith implies the charitable obligation of weaving our belief into our every day life and, through that life and its influence, into the lives of others. The plenitude of some make up for the penury of others. If St. John, to urge the precept of alms-giving, said: "He that hath the substance of this world and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how doth the charity of God abide in him?" (I. Jo. III, 17), with how much more truth cannot the ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... assistants, he was able to effect, with extraordinary rapidity, not only their entire pacification, but such a beneficial change in their material condition, that they have risen from a state of barbarous penury to comparative ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... You're lucky who conjoin the benefits Of penury and abundance; for I know Your father was a man of slender means. You do not blush, I see. That's right! Why should you? What merit to be dropped on fortune's hill? The honour is to mount it. You'd have done it; For you were ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles

... afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape. One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me, visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... preparing for the examinations at the London University. None of the other students knew where he lived nor a bit of his past history. There was a vague idea afloat that he was an only child whose parents had been hounded to penury and death by Russian persecution, but who launched it nobody knew. His eyes were sad and earnest, a curl of raven hair fell forwards on his high brow; his clothing was shabby and darned in places by his own hand. Beyond accepting the gift of education at the hands of ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... handed him a raged shirt over the top of it, while I sat in a chair and dreamed. What I reflected, would the School say if it but knew! I felt no remorce. I was there, and beyond the screan, changing into the garments of penury, was the only member of the Other Sex I had ever felt ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... 'tis dreadful. I marvel not you grieve To think that he survives in hapless penury, Unconscious of his right, perchance unfitted, And if recover'd, prove no source of joy, But one of deep regret, that a young stock Which culture and the graft of education Would now have loaded on each bough with fruit, Neglect hath left degenerate and worthless. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... in your dream, is significant of pleasure and comfort, or penury and distress, according as the cupboard is clean and full of shining ware, ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... desired bliss was achieved. He would spend his youth in this atmosphere of neurosis and hasty judgment, and perhaps when he was old and no longer full of zest for enjoyment, he would have leisure for the things he could no longer delight in. And Eleanor, too ... she would have to struggle with penury until she grew tired and lustreless!... "No, she won't!" he vowed. "I'm not going to let her down whatever happens. I'll make a ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... fellow—it was wonderful how a man of Iden's intelligence could trust his affairs to such a man, the more so as there was at least one good lawyer in the place. This is very characteristic of the farming race; they will work like negroes in the field, and practise the utmost penury to save a little, and be as cautious over a groat as the keenest miser, and then go and trust their most important affairs to some perfect fool of a solicitor. His father, perhaps, or his uncle, or somebody connected ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... which she had been warned against; baskets of melon seed and water-chestnuts; men working in teak and blackwood; fan makers and jade cutters; eggs preserved in what appeared to her as petrified muck; bird's nests and shark fins. She glimpsed Chinese penury when she entered a square given over to the fishmongers. Carp, tench, and roach were so divided that even the fins, heads and fleshless spines were sold. There were doorways to peer into, dim cluttered holes with shadowy forms moving ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... never before quite realized the place of the Fence in civilization. This is the Land of the Unfenced, where crouch on either hand scores of ugly one-room cabins, cheerless and dirty. Here lies the Negro problem in its naked dirt and penury. And here are no fences. But now and then the crisscross rails or straight palings break into view, and then we know a touch of culture is near. Of course Harrison Gohagen,—a quiet yellow man, young, smooth-faced, and diligent,—of ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... the blessing of reading the burden of life would be intolerable and the riches of life reduced to the merest penury. ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... My compassion for the Limberts led me to hover perhaps indiscreetly round that closing scene, to dream of some happy time when such an accession of means would make up a little for their present penury. ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... from France, and whatever is curious from the Indies. Even the commonest meats have the rarest relish imparted to them. There is neither a plenty which gives a notion of extravagance, nor a frugality that discovers penury or meanness.' ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... friends. The flame of his literary ambition was not quenched by the most abject poverty, nor by the death of those whom he loved most intensely. After his first wife died, he suffered agonies of grief, accentuated by wretched health, public neglect, and total lack of financial resources. But chill penury could not repress his noble rage. He was always planning and writing new novels, even when he had no place to lay his head. And the bodily distress of poverty did not cut him nearly so sharply as its shame. His letters prove clearly that at times he suffered in the same way ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... your hogs, and eat huskes with them? what prodigall portion haue I spent, that I should come to such penury? Oli. Know you where you are sir? Orl. O sir, very well: heere ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... penury, indigence, need, destitution, privation, neediness, impecuniosity, pauperism; deficiency, paucity, infecundity, dearth, lack, meagerness, sterility, barrenness. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... thou, kings and parasites arose? Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap Toil and unvanquishable penury On those who build their palaces, and bring Their daily bread? From vice, black, loathsome vice, From rapine, madness, treachery and wrong; From all that genders misery, and makes Of earth this thorny wilderness; ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran

... the French version of Ditton on the Resurrection, which he purchased for a few coppers. He had the linguistic gift which soon after made the young carpenter Mezzofanti of Bologna famous and a cardinal. But the gift would have been buried in the grave of his penury and his circumstances had his trade been almost any other, and had he not been impelled by the most powerful of all motives. He never sat on his stall without his book before him, nor did he painfully ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... income would make up almost as much as that of these three worthies put together—oh, my dear Madam, see in what hopeless penury the poor fellow lives! What tenant can look to HIS forbearance? What poor man can hope for HIS charity? 'Master's the best of men,' honest Stripes says, 'and when we was in the ridgment a more free-handed chap didn't live. But the way in which Missus ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... thousand to thousand, to provide a competent maintenance for them. If these last remain obstinate, and it be idle to hope that youths of talents without fortune, whatever be their piety, will serve the church of God at the expense of devoting themselves to infallible penury, and all the wretchedness which belongs to it—is it wise to weaken the hands and discourage the hearts of those ministers already settled pastors, or to furnish their people with arguments in their own vindication for leaving them ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... Restoration that brought us face to face with the Occidentals. It was the Restoration that pulled the demigods of the Feudal lords down to the level of the commoners. It was the Restoration that deprived the samurai of their fiefs and reduced them to penury. It was the Restoration that taught the people to build their houses of bricks and stones and to construct ships and bridges of iron instead of wood. It was the Restoration that informed us that eclipses and comets are not to be feared, and that ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... needy scholar asked, or in silent, hopeless poverty seemed to ask, his aid, will he demonstrated most clearly by relating shortly one example of his generosity, where the applicant had no pretensions to literary renown, and no claim whatever, except perhaps honest penury. It is delightful to attempt to delineate from various points of view a creature of infinite moral beauty,—but one instance must suffice; an ample volume might be composed of such tales, but one may ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various

... Astonished to find my penury treated as sad, I ask for an explanation: I was not accustomed to this solicitude on the part ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... the power of the different climate they inhabit. The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury and useless labour he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... like the great of old? Many have died in their misery, And left their thought untold; And many live, and are ranked as mad, And are placed in the cold world's ban, For sending their bright, far-seeing souls Three centuries in the van. They toil in penury and grief, Unknown, if not maligned; Forlorn, forlorn, bearing the scorn Of the meanest of mankind! But yet the world goes round and round, And the genial seasons run; And ever the Truth comes uppermost, And ever ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... cast her two mites into the treasury, and then to the rich men who had cast in much more. "This poor widow hath cast in more than they all. For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette

... themselves to do it? Have not their closets, and houses, and the neighboring livery stable, been well furnished and supplied, notwithstanding? Have they not given, in this respect, wholly of their abundance—and not, like the good woman mentioned in the gospel, of their penury? ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... hampering conditions of birth and poverty, which he felt as so many chains upon body and soul. Why was he born the son of a small country tradesman, narrow, ignorant, and tyrannical?—harassed by penury, denied opportunities—while a man like Welby found life from the beginning a broad road, as it were, down a widening valley, to a land of abundance ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... to separate from the scenes of their youth; but the secret understanding with the solicitor required that sacrifice. By staying at home a still greater might be called for,—subsistence in penury, and, worse than all, in a humiliating position; for, notwithstanding the open house long kept by their father, his friends had disappeared with his guests. Impelled by these thoughts, the brothers resolved to go forth into the wide world, and seek fortune ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various

... resigned much for Lord Vargrave; but his picture startled and appalled her. For difficulties in a palace she might be prepared; perhaps even for some privations in a cottage ornee,—but certainly not for penury in a lodging-house! She listened by degrees with more attention to Vargrave's description of the power and homage that would be hers if she could secure Lord Doltimore; she listened, and was in part consoled. But the thought of Evelyn again ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... his youth, when he had periled his life in fighting for the liberties of his country; to the scenes of his manhood, when he had preached the gospel of his divine Master to the heathen of the remote wilderness; and to the scenes of riper years, when the hard hand of penury had lain heavily upon him. While thus occupied, almost forgetting himself in the multitude of his thoughts, he was suddenly disturbed, and even terrified, by loud hurrahs from behind, and by a furious pelting and clattering ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... poor little things remained a burden to the house, Antoine grumbled. They were useless mouths that lessened his own share. He vowed, like his brother, that he would have no more children, those greedy creatures who bring their parents to penury. It was something to hear him bemoan his lot when they sat five at table, and the mother gave the best morsels to ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... messenger would receive the letter from him in the colonnade of the cathedral. On this night, each week, the messenger waited. Sometimes there was a letter, sometimes none. That was all. It was amazingly simple, and for it one received the difference between penury and comfort. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... as follows: Strepsiades, a wealthy country gentleman, has been brought to penury and deeply involved in debt by the extravagance and horsy tastes of his son Phidippides. Having heard of the wonderful new art of argument, the royal road to success in litigation, discovered by the Sophists, he hopes that, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape. I can now look back upon three score and four years, in which little has been done, and little has been enjoyed; a life diversified by misery, spent part in the sluggishness of penury, and part under the violence of pain, in gloomy discontent or importunate distress. But perhaps I am better than I should have been if I had been less afflicted. With this I will try ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... all the promised preferments, he would have chosen the mastership of St. Cross for its seclusion. Here is a great man making great demands, but reposing with dignity on his claims; his wants were urgent, but the penury was not in his spirit. The commissioners, as they listened to his autobiography, must often have raised their eyes in wonder, on the venerable and ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce

... put up with this. I am to submit to all this?" thought Olga Vseslavovna, writhing with wrath. "To endure all this from him, and after his death to suffer beggary? No, a thousand times no! Better death than penury and such insults." And she fell ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... help and money out of his own store, which was but small. Now, after they had been awhile in the strange city, it happened that the poor Jew spent all his little money, and he too fell ill, and was in great penury. And now it was Laertes who befriended that Ebrew Jew. He fee'd doctors; he fed and tended the sick and hungry. Go to, Laertes! I know thee not. It may be thou art justly exul patriae. But the Jew shall intercede for thee, thou not, let us ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... seen the delightless abode, Where Penury nurses Despair; Where comfortless Life is a load, Age wishes no longer to bear. Ah! who, in this lazerhouse pent, His lone wailings sends up to the skies? 'Tis the Man whose young prime was mispent; 'Tis ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield

... about forty in a gorgeous yellow dress and a red-and-black bonnet, with a large boy and a small girl under one arm, and a large boy and a small girl under the other arm. The splendour of the group appeared somewhat at odds with the penury of the "Free Seats," whither it had been conducted ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... photographs were gone; the rude poverty of the bare boards and scant pallet looked up at them unrelieved by the bright face and gracious youth that had once made them tolerable. In the grim irony of that exposure, their own penury was doubly conscious. The little knapsack, the tea-cup and coffee-pot that had hung near his bed, were gone also. The most indignant protest, the most pathetic of the letters he had composed and rejected, whose torn fragments still littered the floor, could never have spoken ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... room. Through which the same frost troops are sighing, Churlishly gloweth the charcoal flame, While a man lies there in penury dying. ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins

... Which bursts when Nature's feelings newly flow; Yet Tenderness and Time may rob the tear Of half its bitterness for one so dear; A Nation's gratitude perchance may spread A thornless pillow for the widowed head; May lighten well her heart's maternal care, And wean from Penury the soldier's heir; Or deem to living war-worn Valour just[311] Each wounded remnant—Albion's cherished trust— Warm his decline with those endearing rays, Whose bounteous sunshine yet may gild his days— So shall that Country—while he ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron



Words linked to "Penury" :   pauperization, mendicity, pauperism, indigence, need, beggary, impoverishment



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