"Luxury" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the old grudge against the Medicean princes. They enslaved Florence; and even painting was not slow to suffer from the stifling atmosphere of tyranny. Lorenzo deliberately set himself to enfeeble the people by luxury, partly because he liked voluptuous living, partly because he aimed at popularity, and partly because it was his interest to enervate republican virtues. The arts used for the purposes of decoration in triumphs ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... they want training, they want love, they want care. Aunt Raby is too weak to do much for them now; she is very, very ill. You have not an idea— not an idea— Miss Oliphant, in your wealth and your luxury, what the poverty of Penywern Cottage is like. What does such poverty mean? How shall I describe it to you? We are sometimes glad of a piece of bread; butter is a luxury; meat we scarcely taste." Prissie again ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... like lords and ladies, now, Harry. I've two silver plates, and they're for the ladies. For us, we'll eat off the tin as before. And silver mugs for their drink. See? I would have got them china but it's too likely to break. Now, here's a luxury I've brought, and it was heavy to carry, too. Here's twenty-four panes of glass. I carried them, twelve on each side of my horse, like that, slung so, see? That's two windows of two sash each, and six panes to a sash. Oh, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... Athalie and her father were at Monte Carlo. There they met Madame la Comtesse de la Tour and her brother, Monsieur Gaston Merode. The baron has position but he has not wealth, Mr. Cleek. Athalie is ambitious. She loves luxury, riches, a life of fashion—all the things that boundless money can give; and when Monsieur Merode—who is young, handsome, and said to be fabulously wealthy—showed a distinct preference for her over all the other marriageable girls he met, she was flattered out of her ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... act as becoming the wife of Ross Van Shaw, it would have been the ruin of your life. I must say this—Van Shaw was engaged to my sister during his first year at Burrton. She is remarkably like you in many ways. A great lover of wealth and luxury. Van Shaw broke her heart by his conduct. Let us not say any more. I did not mean to say this much." Miss Gray exhibited an agitation that Helen had never seen in her before. "You need not fear for me any more," Helen said earnestly. "I begin to see more and more the danger I ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... and mortar. Finally there burst upon him the full import of the allocution—that he himself was to be the corner-stone of a renewed and purified Church. Purse and prestige he flung to the winds, and went along the highways of Umbria calling men back from the rot of luxury to the ways of purity, pity, and gladness, his life at once a poem and a power, his faith a vision of the world ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... returned Mr. Jack, his gaze on the towers that crowned the opposite hill; "not so long as always before the Pauper's eyes there are those gray walls behind which he pictures the Princess in the midst of her golden luxury." ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... block of the address Wass had given him. Not much later he walked Vye into a small lobby with a discreet list of names posted in its rack. No occupations attached to those colored streamers Hume noted. This meant either that their owners represented luxury trades, where a name signified the profession or service, or that they were covers—perhaps both. Wass' world fringed many different circles, intermingled with some quite surprising professions dedicated to the comfort, pleasure or health of the idle rich, off-world nobility, ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... outcries. It was not "food for human beings," it was "only fit for pigs," it was "a disgrace." Many of them lived almost entirely upon biscuit, others on their own private supplies, and some paid extra for better rations from the ship. This marvellously changed my notion of the degree of luxury habitual to the artisan. I was prepared to hear him grumble, for grumbling is the traveller's pastime; but I was not prepared to find him turn away from a diet which was palatable to myself. Words I should have disregarded, or taken with a liberal allowance; but when a man ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to say that he used boxwood toothpicks, and a brush dipped in some opiate. The Emperor was born, so to speak, to be waited on (homme d valets de chambre). When only a general, he had as many as three valets, and had himself served with as much luxury as at the height of his fortunes, and from that time received all the attentions I have just described, and which it was almost impossible for him to do without; and in this particular the etiquette was never changed. He increased the number of his servants, and decorated ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... impoverished. I have just been in the country. Is it proper that peasants should overwork themselves without getting enough to eat, while we are living in such wasteful luxury?" ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... In which Kate Bates fights for her freedom against long odds, renouncing the easy path of luxury. ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... money! In very truth the years following the Centennial witnessed an extraordinary awakening of worship of beauty, almost religious in its fervor. Passionate pilgrims ransacked Europe and the Orient; a prodigal horde of their captives, objects of luxury and of art, surged into galleries and museums and households. No cold, critical taste weeded out these adorable aliens. The worst and the best conquered, together. Our architecture, our furniture, our household surroundings were metamorphosed ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... prostration of body, and he was so stimulated by the change of air from his cell to the court-room that his sensations were chiefly those of a vague and unreasoning delight—delight at the prospect of freedom; delight at the prospect of once more enjoying the luxury of heaven's sunlight unimpeded by the bars of a prison cell; of running rampant through the land, and feeling upon his sunken cheeks the deliciously invigorating air of the open fields. His high ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... tomb-like stillness, an ember on the earthen hearth fell apart and a twist of flame threw a yellow illumination through the small room, grim and bare of everything suggesting luxury. ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... pursuits to allay his unsatisfied desires, and then strove to wash away his heart's reproaches in wine; after that he ceased to feel any remorse, he took delight in vice. When he had learned what Calcutta could teach him in regard to luxury, Debendra returned to his native place, and, taking up his abode in the garden-house, gave himself up to the indulgence of his recently acquired tastes. Debendra had learned many peculiar fashions in Calcutta; on returning ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... her eyes, and he was grateful for them. He felt that she had depths in her nature. But keen realization of his position, compared with hers, distressed him. She stood there, luxury incarnate, mistress of all that money could ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... find that the toilet-table and glass, ay, and even the basin-stand, had been removed to the dressing-room of the theatre; and my servant, I suppose, following his master's example, was too tipsy to remember to bring them back; so that I was unable to procure the luxury of cold water—for now not a moment more remained—the drum had ceased, and the men had all fallen in. Hastily drawing on my coat, I put on my shako, and buckling on my belt as dandy-like as might be, hurried down the stairs to the barrack-yard. By the time ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... the house screwing his chin over the unusual luxury of a stiff white collar, which his wife insisted upon as a necessary article of toilet while Miss Elliot was at the house. Jerry sat down on the step and smiled his broad, red smile ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... through its political vicissitudes, which brought it under the successive dominion of Burgundy, Spain, and France, and threw it into fraternal relations with Germany and Holland. From Spain it acquired the luxury of scarlet dyes and shimmering satins, tapestries of vigorous design, plumes, mandolins, and courtly bearing. In exchange for its linen and its laces, it brought from Venice that fairy glass-ware in which wine sparkles and seems ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... afforded," said Durade, waving his hand. "You'll be comfortable. There are books—newspapers. Here's a door opening into a little room. It's dark, but there's water, towel, soap. And you've a mirror.... Allie, this is luxury to what you've had ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... stucco designs, horse-shoe arches, and other Mooresque decorations. Here a large party of officials and friends were moving about. Beyond this, they came to the square court, which is the same in general arrangements, in all Moorish houses, though, of course, not in size or luxury of detail. ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... unserviceable, or else the surrender of it to public purposes. Thus, in many market and town houses, the ground story is left open as a general place of sheltered resort, and the enclosed apartments raised on pillars. In almost all warm countries the luxury, almost the necessity, of arcades to protect the passengers from the sun, and the desirableness of large space in the rooms above, lead to the same construction. Throughout the Venetian islet group, the houses seem to have been thus, in the first instance, universally built, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... had his father's temperament. The world was all before him, and Chicago, the young and giant city of the West, seemed an Eldorado, where fortune, and perhaps fame, might soon be won. He would not only place the family beyond want, but surround them with every luxury. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... do so}? To check his feelings, which are now hurried away by luxury and wantonness, and to bring him down so as not to know which way to ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... few motors making their cautious way in the dusk, its throngs of clerks, nearly all women now, hurrying home to whatever dread the night might hold. And it made him slightly more complacent. These things that he had taken for granted before had since his return assumed the quality of luxury. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... simplicity characterises the manners of the inhabitants of Hamburg. They do not visit each other much, and only by invitation; but on such occasions they display great luxury beneath their simple exterior. They are methodical and punctual to an extraordinary degree. Of this I recollect a curious instance. I was very intimate with Baron Woght, a man of talent and information, and exceedingly amiable manners. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... services of the police. The army became more unpopular than ever, and during the summer and fall many town-meetings were held in New England, condemning the Commutation Act. Are we not poor enough already, cried the farmers, that we must be taxed to support in idle luxury a riotous rabble of soldiery, or create an aristocracy of men with gold lace and epaulets, who will presently plot against our liberties? The Massachusetts legislature protested; the people of Connecticut meditated resistance. A convention ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... do not get more pleasure out of giving than we do out of consuming, we may well question both the amount and quality of our love and its direction. Often the work of God must go on crutches because of lack of means while professors live in luxury. ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... Art which is not also a profession, and supported by a healthy practical life, art which knows not the necessity of earning the daily bread, loses the best part of its force and its reality. It is only the flower of luxury. It is not—(what in the greatest, the only great, artists it is)—the sacred fruit of human suffering.—Olivier felt a disinclination to work, a desire to ask: "What is the good of it?" There was nothing to make him write: he would let his pen run ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... and if I went to a new part of the country I expect I could still stick to the old name, and not be known from Adam. Yes, things do blow over with time, and if you don't make too much stir when you go back. I should have to keep pretty quiet; but I bet I'd have a good time for all that. Fancy the luxury of having good Glenlivet in a cask again, with a tap half-way up, after the beastly stuff one got on the coast, or, worse still, what one gets up here—and that's no ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... it be possible that her professions of love and admiration had been genuine? His hunger for sympathy was so keen, his sense of loneliness in his fight so utter, he could not help allowing himself the luxury of ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... hospitality. We discussed many things that night, and the next day I was shown over the camp. Later on, the Lieutenant sent me on horseback to Ouderdom. There I found the Ambulance encamped in a pleasant field beside a large pond, which afforded us the luxury of a bath. I shall never forget those two restful days I spent at Ouderdom. I blamed the blankets, however, for causing an irritation of the (p. 075) skin, which lasted till I was able to have another ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... half a dozen cocks and hens, but they were the only ones we met with in the Island; nor did we ever come across a pig! Fancy a land without these common accessories to a peasant's board! Eggs are only eaten on state occasions, and are considered a luxury, being imported from France; the eggs of the eider duck are considered very good food: they are, of course, ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... used as He shall direct. And, like James and John, you must be willing to give up "the hired servants" too. It will make a great difference in your way of living. It will be a change to give up your ease and luxury, your being waited upon and indulged in every wish, and have to do your own work, to give up the attentions of others, to put with privations, and inconveniences, and humiliations, but it will be easy to do it with Him. He never owned a foot of land. He never rode in a carriage. He never had ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... Anne Ivanovna introduced western luxury into Russia. Prior to her arrival, fashions were unknown, and people used to wear their clothes until they were worn out. Soon after restoring autocracy, she (p. 178) returned to St. Petersburg where she endeavored to establish a court in imitation ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... wore a gilt watch-chain with a locket, the corner of a very white cambric pocket-handkerchief dangled from his breast pocket, and he held a cane and a felt hat in his hand. He was a Japanese dandy of the first water. I looked at him ruefully. To me starched collars are to be an unknown luxury for the next three months. His fine foreign clothes would enhance prices everywhere in the interior, and besides that, I should feel a perpetual difficulty in asking menial services from an exquisite. I was therefore quite relieved when his ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... entranced at the sublimity of the spectacle, that I perched myself on a rock at the foot of one of the great cliffs that form the walls of the Pass, and, throwing my head back, imagined myself in fairyland. Lost, thus, in a delicious luxury, I paid no heed to the time, nor did I think of stirring, until the dark shadows of the night fell across my face. I then started up in a panic, and was about to pedal off in hot haste, when a strange ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... out of 'em," said Lund. "That booze'll be an expensive luxury to 'em, paid for in ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... calamities and miseries have been brought upon the Church; hence such frequent acts of simony, complaints, fraud, impostures— from this one fountain spring all its conspicuous iniquities. I shall not press the question of ambition and courtly flattery, lest they may be chagrined about luxury, base examples of life, which offend the honest, wanton drinking parties, &c. Yet; hence is that academic squalor, the muses now look sad, since every low fellow ignorant of the arts, by those very arts rises, is promoted, and grows rich, distinguished by ambitious titles, and puffed up by ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health and peace and sweet content! And O may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... colony. In dress and equipage, they far surpassed the farmers and planters; and they were not backward in taking upon themselves airs of superiority on this account. In this they were imitated by the officers and agents of the Royal government of the colony, who were not less fond of luxury and show. To support their extravagant style of living, these minions of power, magistrates, lawyers, clerks of court, and tax-gatherers, demanded exorbitant fees for their services. The Episcopal clergy, supported by a legalized tax on the people, were not content with their ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... to travel in Ireland; yet I never remember to have experienced, on any journey, less ennui.[78] I was out of patience twenty times a day, but I certainly felt no ennui; and I am convinced that the benefit some patients receive from a journey is in an inverse proportion to the ease and luxury of their mode of travelling. When they are compelled to exert their faculties, and to use their limbs, they forget their nerves, as I did. Upon this principle I should recommend to wealthy hypochondriacs a ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... honor of truth. But I see that now in the present world I am greatly exalted by the Lord; and I was not worthy nor fit to be thus exalted, for I know that poverty and calamity are more suitable for me than riches and luxury. But even Christ the Lord was ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... take exercise and left it to their wives to patronize the arts. And so the notion grew that art was a feminine concern, and even artists were pets for women. The great man, especially in America, liked his wife to have every luxury. The exquisite life she led was itself a proof of his success; and she was for him a living work of art, able to live so because of the abundance of his strength. In her, that strength passed into ornament and became beautiful; she was a ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... doubtless, many a young Englander would have found matter for ridicule in some of his doings and sayings. Not so, however, the good and cultivated Englishman of the nineteenth century. He would have found abundance to love and respect in the man who left the luxury, science, learning and refinement of England, in that most wonderful of all ages, to labour amongst the refuse of her people in the largest of her colonies. For Mr Jones had seen but little, during his twenty years of ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... to enjoy the happiness of love, fully and wholly, I want to taste its pains and torments to the very dregs; I want to be maltreated and betrayed by the woman I love, and the more cruelly the better. This too is a luxury." ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... has tumbled! Paillasse has jumped over the desobligeant, cleared it, hood and all, and bows to the noble company. Does anybody believe that this is a real Sentiment? that this luxury of generosity, this gallant rescue of Misery—out of an old cab, is genuine feeling? It is as genuine as the virtuous oratory of Joseph Surface when he begins, "The man who," &c. &c., and wishes to pass off for a saint with ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Siva can be driven from the throne of the universe by any one who will sacrifice a sufficient number of wild horses. To abstract one's self from matter, to renounce all the gratification of the senses, to macerate the body, is thought the true road to felicity; and nowhere in the world are luxury, licentiousness and the gratification of the appetites carried so far. Every civil right and privilege of ruler and subject is fixed in a code of laws, and a body of jurisprudence older far than the Christian era, and the object of universal reverence; but the application ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... great advantage over Mahler; he knows how to rest after his labours. Both excitable and sleepy by nature, his highly-strung nerves are counterbalanced by his indolence, and there is in the depths of him a Bavarian love of luxury. I am quite sure that when his hours of intense living are over, after he has spent an excessive amount of energy, he has hours when he is only partially alive. One then sees his eyes with a vague and ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... my fellow-countrymen is a fiery furnace, Jerusalem a den of warring thieves. The rulers of earth are weary and turn a deaf ear on their peoples. The time is ripe for revolt. Sick of the accursed luxury and debauchery, fearful of the threatening barbarians from Asia and the boreal regions, who are hemming the civilized world, waiting like vultures for the first sign of weakness to destroy everything, the slaves in revolt—all these impending terrors assure ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... "Yes, we have every luxury of fashionable life, united to a very aristocratic set of boarders; and Mrs. Stone, herself, is an extremely fascinating lady. Indeed, I have been spoilt; I don't think I could endure the drudgery of housekeeping, now; though I once told Alonzo, if he would give me a four-story ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... price to the potato. England could find a hundred millions of money to spend in fighting for the Grand Turk; she could find twenty millions for the slave-owners of her colonies; she could find twenty millions more for the luxury of shooting King Theodore, but a sufficient sum could not be afforded to save the lives of five millions of ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... those who had to support families upon a pittance which in other parts of the country would mean starvation; yet so many had hastened to give, that the "go-cart," as it was generally called, proved a vehicle of marvelous luxury and finish to the unaccustomed eyes of these ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... heavier taxes in Boston, where they lived in winter,—they wished to separate themselves, in a most un-American and un-democratic manner, from the older inhabitants and "common" people, and to make a new settlement with a separate local government for those who formed a particular class living in luxury. Carleton, hostile to the sordid and unsocial spirit lurking in the bill, vigorously opposed the attempted mutilation of an old historic town, and the isolation of "Beverly Farms." He opposed it, because it would be a bad precedent, and one ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... word, Joanna banished me from the gilded luxury of cabin and roundhouse and gave me up to the rogues forward, a wild and lawless company of divers races and conditions so that they seemed the very scum of the world, and yet here, in this reeking forecastle, each and every of ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... enough to risk poverty again. She had seen enough of that in her first marriage, and in her degradation and misery had sworn a bitter oath to herself never again to marry, unless marriage should sweep her into the broad river of luxury and content. Had Maurice's financial affairs been all they ought to have been but for his mother's extravagances, she undoubtedly would have chosen him before all the world; but Maurice's fortunes were (and are) at a low ebb, and she would risk nothing. His uncle might die, and then Maurice, ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... a great luxury. But the corresponding luxury of being understood, is not always at command. Have you been puzzling Mr. Nightingale?' he asked in ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... self-supporting, mother dear. I shall give exhibitions on the campus, and the gate-money will keep me in luxury.' ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to find an empty carriage; but the train was full and there was no such luxury to be had. Besides, guards, porters, and station- masters were all shouting to me to get inside somewhere, and a score of heads attracted by the commotion appeared at the windows and added to my discomfort. Finally I took refuge in ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... "Hurrah, old fellow, I'LL LEND YOU MY KNIFE." This was considered so true to nature, on board a ship in which I once made a long voyage, that it passed into a proverb with us, and if any one was seen indulging in a luxury out of the way at dinner,—say an extra bottle of wine out of his private store,—half-a-dozen would cry out at once, "Hurrah, old fellow, I'll lend you my knife:" a modest way of requesting to be asked to take a glass of ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... was over. She never had a moment's doubt. She had no means, she could not starve, nobody would keep her, and she must go back to Dr. Jarvyse. She groaned in anguish as she looked about her dear, safe room and thought of the horrible luxury of that guarded prison, the birds and the flowers and cruel kindness of those strangers who knew every corner of her bureau, every word of her letters. Still, it must be. The Allens would never ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... war-prices for their produce—acted as if the chance-blown prosperity they enjoyed was the result of their own forethought, skill, and energy, and therefore, humanly speaking, indestructible. James Dutton was, consequently, denied nothing—not even the luxury of neglecting his own education; and he availed himself of the lamentable privilege to a great extent. It was, however, a remarkable feature in the lad's character, that whatever he himself deemed essential should be done, no ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... pride, his violence, his debaucheries, and his hatred of the English nation. He is said to have put some of his followers to death because they endeavored to introduce the use of bread after the English fashion.[*] Though so violent an enemy to luxury, he was extremely addicted to riot; and was accustomed, after his intemperance had thrown him into a fever, to plunge his body into mire, that he might allay the flame which he had raised by former excesses.[**] Such was the life ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... rent, costly liquor—had forced him to place his nights of escape on strict ration. He could not go on this way, he realized. Not now. Not since he had met the girl. He had to have more money. Perhaps he could not afford the luxury of leaving the wine bottle ...
— A Bottle of Old Wine • Richard O. Lewis
... Amherst feared the temptation to idleness if this outlet for his activity were cut off. He had long since found that the luxury with which his wife surrounded him merely quickened his natural bent for hard work and hard fare. He recalled with a touch of bitterness how he had once regretted having separated himself from his mother's class, and how seductive for a moment, to both mind and senses, that other life had appeared. ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... its end, and I can see the split fly along in front of the blade as the knife cleaves its way to the other end; I can see its halves fall apart and display the rich red meat and the black seeds, and the heart standing up, a luxury fit for the elect; I know how a boy looks, behind a yard-long slice of that melon, and I know how he feels; for I have been there. I know the taste of the watermelon which has been honestly come by, and I know the taste of the watermelon which has been acquired by art. Both taste good, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... removing his eye from the pallid-looking lady; and she riveted another steady gaze upon him, which conveyed the impression of a question. He just closed his eyes in affirmatory reply, and passed on to the next apartment, which, like the drawing-room, was furnished without any regard for luxury. ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... the price?" asked Washington sternly. "Three—three dollars," stammered the conscience-stricken steward. "Take it away," thundered the chief, "take it away, sir! It shall never be said that my table set such an example of luxury and extravagance." Poor Fraunces tremblingly did as he was told, and the first shad of the season was carried away untouched to be speedily discussed ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... its instructive aspect should not be lost sight of. When a youth of twenty-three, battling with the vulgar prose of life, falls into such a tone in writing to a middle-aged lady who has befriended him; when he lets his imagination brood upon the coming luxury of tears and of beautiful emotions; when he is so pathetically eager to reign without a rival in the heart of his friend, and to assure her of his everlasting loyalty in the world to come,—how shall we expect him to express himself when ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... symbols—the winged globe on the cornice of almost every temple in the Nile valley. Long before they had penetrated as conquerors to Thebes and Memphis, the Assyrians may have found this motive repeated a thousand times upon the ivories, the jewels, the various objects of luxury which Phoenician merchants carried from the ports of the Delta to distribute ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... discharge, every woman is a law unto herself. Usually, it is four or five ounces in all. Habits of life are apt to modify it materially. Here, again, those exposed to prolonged cold and inured to severe labor escape more easily than their sisters petted in the lap of luxury. Delicate, feeble, nervous women—those, in other words, who can least afford the loss of blood—are precisely those who lose the most. Nature, who is no tender mother, but a stern step-mother, thus punishes them for disregarding her laws. Soft couches, indolent ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... are grated fine for medicinal use, and when mixed with the oil of the ripe nut it becomes a healing ointment. The jelly which lines the shell of the more mature nut furnishes a delicate and nutritious food. The milk in its center, when iced, is a most delicious luxury. Grated cocoanut forms a part of the world-renowned East India condiment, curry. Dried, shredded (desiccated) cocoanut is an important article of commerce. From the oil a butter is made, of a clear, whitish color, so rich in fat, that of water and foreign ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... in luxury, in friendship, and in the pleasures of a happy, useful life. What a contrast this life was to that of Samuel Adams in Boston at the same time,—a man too poor to keep a single servant, or to appear in a decent suit of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... good, but this result of it would be sad indeed. Life is sweet, but it would not be sweet enough without the occasional relish of peril and the luxury of daring deeds. Amid the changes of time, the monotony of events, and the injustice of mankind, there is always accessible to the poorest this one draught of enjoyment,—danger. "In boyhood," said the Norwegian enthusiast, Ole Bull, "I loved to be far out on the ocean in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... glossed over, or to obtain money. Ill-natured people were apt to hint that he had amassed his wealth by means of usury and the taking up of shady cases. At any rate, he made sufficient to bring up his son in luxury and send him to Oxford, where Jasper had first come in contact with Adrien Leroy. At the death of his father, Vermont found himself possessed of an income of a thousand a year, which enabled him to become a member of Adrien's set, notwithstanding that ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... him, in my opinion, as we observe in fruits ripe before their season, which we rather take pleasure in looking at and admiring, than actually use; so much was his old-fashioned virtue out of the present mode, among the depraved customs which time and luxury had introduced, that it appeared indeed remarkable and wonderful, but was too great and too good to suit the present exigencies, being so out of all proportion to the times. Yet his circumstances were not altogether like Phocion's, who came to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... shall a few sprays of us, The emptying of our fathers' luxury, Our scions, put in wild and savage stock, Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds, And overlook ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... little,—is mere pageant to me; and I thank Heaven that I can meet the most stylish girl now upon the broad level of our common humanity. Besides, it seems to me that our experience of life has quieted us in many other ways. What a luxury it is to sit here, and reflect that we do not want any of these people to suppose us rich, or distinguished, or beautiful, or well dressed, and do not care to show off in any sort of way ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... which my kind mother had left me and which had grown considerably during the time I was in prison has enabled me to settle down to a life of luxury in one of the most aristocratic hotels. I have a large retinue of servants at my command and an automobile—a splendid invention with which I now became acquainted for the first time—and I have skilfully arranged my financial affairs. Live flowers brought to me in abundance by my charming ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... American architects to drop bathrooms about, thought Anna-Rose, as for the little clouds in the psalms to drop fatness. They shed them just as easily, and the results were just as refreshing. To persons hailing from Pomerania, a place arid of bathrooms, it was the last word of luxury and comfort to have one's own. Their pride in theirs amused Mr. Twist, used from childhood to these civilized arrangements; but then, as they pointed out to him, he hadn't lived in Pomerania, where nothing stood between you and being dirty ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... Newman, expressive of the firm belief that the time will come when the Catholic population of Erin will be as thick and prosperous as that of Belgium? Why should it not be so? Pauperism alone prevents it. Let their existence be one of comfort—mere comfort, not luxury—and there is no limit to the increase of their numbers. In such an event Protestantism would contract into such narrow limits that in Ireland it would become a thing unknown; the few sectarians still abiding there would themselvesshare in the general ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... she had been a princess, Miss Jeannette Crofton could not more thoroughly have looked the part. Georgiana had known many rich men's daughters at college and had found close friends among them, but no one of them had ever suggested such a background of luxury as did this slim and graceful girl, as she set her pretty foot upon the old box-bordered gravel path. She was rather small of stature, her fair-haired beauty was of a strikingly attractive type, and ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... children, even the poor armless and legless horrors on the way to Albano, and give a firm adhesion to Miss Manisty's Scotch doctrines on the subject of begging. But by herself, she could not refuse—she could not bear to be scowled on—even for a moment. She must yield—must give herself the luxury of being liked. It was all of a piece with her weakness towards servants and porters and cabmen—her absurdities in the way of tips and gifts—the kindnesses she had been showing during the last three days to the American girl. Too ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pride, and found it too heady an elixir for their sanity. It would ill become us to dilate at length upon the extremes into which their arrogance and luxuriousness led them. With regard, at all events, to the luxury and indulgence, we ourselves had been very far from guiltless. But it may be that our extravagance was less deadly, for the reason that it was of slower growth. Certain it is, that before ever an English shot was fired the ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... sworn to serve faithfully becoming prostituted by this same power, and used at times for purposes of intimidation and petty conquests where the interests of wealth were at stake. He saw the great city where luxury, dominant and defiant, existed largely by grace of exploitation— exploitation of men, ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... voluntary oblations of the faithful. Eight years after the edict of Milan, Constantine granted to all his subjects the free and universal permission of bequeathing their fortunes to the holy Catholic church; and their devout liberality, which during their lives was checked by luxury or avarice, flowed with a profuse stream at the hour of their death. The wealthy Christians were encouraged by the example of their sovereign. An absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed that he should purchase the favor ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... fighting fool, this thick-skulled hero, This blunt, unthinking instrument of death, With plain dull virtue has outgone my wit. Pleasure forsook my earliest infancy; The luxury of others robbed my cradle, And ravished thence the promise of a man. Cast out from nature, disinherited Of what her meanest children claim by kind, Yet greatness kept me from contempt: that's gone. Had Cleopatra followed my ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... not yet succeeded in getting rid of. So even to-day, when we fail to see the truth of religion, we seek in its observance an artistic gratification. So, also, much of our patriotism is not service of the mother-land, but the luxury of bringing ourselves into a desirable attitude of mind ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... the way to a splendid pavilion where was everything that royal luxury could devise. De Vaux, who was in attendance, then removed the long riding-cloak which Richard wore, and he stood before Saladin in the close dress which showed to advantage the strength and symmetry of his person, ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... there is no luxury equal to that of lying before a good fire on a good spruce bed, after a good supper, and a hard moose chase in a fine clear frosty moonlit starry night. But to enter into the spirit of this, you must understand what a moose chase is: the man himself runs the moose ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... Durant was looking for a stick or a hat, he would secure him softly by the arm and lead him out for a stroll. He would say, "My dear Durant, the women are all very well in their way, but it is a luxury to have another man to talk to." He talked to Durant, leaning toward him lover-like, with the awful passion of the bore ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... you're wrong. But it's what she's had. That kind of life is no longer a luxury to her. ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... contemporary; and however contracted might have been his knowledge of the principles of political economy, and of that prosperity which a wealthy nation is said to derive from its consumption of articles of luxury, the moral effects have not altered, nor has the scene ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... was present at a dinner given to the corps diplomatique in the palace, and was received in a saloon "with inlaid and polished parquet; the chairs and sofas covered with crimson and white satin damask, which is an unusual luxury in these regions; the roof admirably painted in subdued colours, in the best Vienna style. High white porcelain urn-like stoves heated the suite of rooms. The Prince, a muscular, middle-sized, dark-complexioned ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... stone. If e'er from me thy lov'd memorial part, May shame afflict this alienated heart; Of thee forgetful if I form a song, My lyre be broken, and untun'd my tongue. My grief be doubled from thy image free, And mirth a torment, unchastis'd by thee. Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone, Sad luxury! to vulgar minds unknown, Along the walls, where speaking marbles show What worthies form the hallow'd mould below; Proud names who once the reins of empire held; In arms who triumphed; or in arts excelled; ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... complaint, and coming into serious financial embarrassment, even within sight of bankruptcy, as Washington did, merely for the gratification of a desire to serve the people? This is indeed a very singular and noble form of luxury. But the wealth which makes it possible neither accounts for its existence nor detracts from its glory. It is the fruit of a manhood superior alike to riches and to poverty, willing to risk all, and to use all, for ...
— The Americanism of Washington • Henry Van Dyke
... of us death would be a luxury compared to what we suffer in consequence of the abusive treatment we receive from unprincipled men, which existing laws sanction and encourage by their indiscriminate severity, and with which we are told "it would be difficult to meddle on account of their sacredness ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... love for her; gradually and unintentionally she trained her feelings, when thus liberated from a continual temptation to the sympathies with cruelty, into a demand for gentler and purer excitement. Her purpose had been one of luxury; but, by the benignity of nature still watching for ennobling opportunities, the actual result was a development given to the higher capacities of her heart. In the same way, when the brutal right (and in many circumstances the brutal ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... were sometimes frozen to death. "So great is the hurry in the spirit of this world, that in aiming to do business quickly and to gain wealth, {398} the creation at this day doth loudly groan." Again, having reflected that war was caused by luxury in dress, etc., the use of dyed garments grew uneasy to him, and he got and wore a hat of the natural color of the fur. "In attending meetings, this singularity was a trial to me... and some Friends, who knew not from what motives I wore it, grew shy of me.... Those who spoke with me ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... sepulchres and the gods of their hearths, for among such numbers perhaps there is not one Roman who has an altar that has belonged to his ancestors or a sepulchre in which their ashes rest. The private soldiers fight and die to advance the wealth and luxury of the great, and they are called masters of the world without having a sod to call their own.' Again, he asked, 'Is it not just that what belongs to the people should be shared by the people? Is a man with no capacity for fighting more useful to his country than a soldier? Is ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... Castlemount was not the building of one generation, but it owed its chief glories to its present master. Mr. Chiverton had found it a spacious country mansion, and had converted it into a palace of luxury and a museum of art—one reason why Morte had thriven and Chiver-Chase become almost without inhabitant. Bessie Fairfax was half bewildered amongst its magnificences, but its winter-garden was to her the greatest wonder ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... was full of water and Wilbur's hammock was gone, so the pair decided to camp on shore. In that torrid weather to sleep in the open air was a luxury. ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... board the Napoleon, to be brought round to us by way of Fox River. We had retained only such few necessaries as could be conveniently carried on a pack-horse, and in a light dearborn wagon lately brought by Mr. Kercheval from Detroit (the first luxury of the kind ever seen on the prairies), and which my husband had purchased as an agreeable mode of conveyance for his ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... was not yet won, nor her father yet restored to the estates which would defray her dower; and, in the next place, Randal, like Iago, loved villany for the genius it called forth in him. The sole luxury the abstemious aspirer allowed to himself was that which is found in intellectual restlessness. Untempted by wine, dead to love, unamused by pleasure, indifferent to the arts, despising literature save as means to some end of power, Randal Leslie was the incarnation of thought hatched ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be endured that he should have listened for so many years to all the abominable politics of the Marquis, and to the anger and disappointment of the Marchioness, that he should have been so closely connected, and for so many years, with luxury, wealth, and rank, and then arrive at so poor an evening of his day? As he thought of this he felt the more ashamed of his misfortune, because he believed himself to be in all respects a stronger man than the Marquis. He had flattered himself that he could lead the Marquis, and had thought ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... used to urge him to set himself free. He declared, in earnest terms, that he was fully bent on remaining where he was rather than seek to return to his former miserable greatness, as he called it: where the seeds of pride, ambition, avarice, and luxury might revive, take root, and again overwhelm him. "Let me remain, dear sir," he said, in conclusion—"let me remain in this blessed confinement, banished from the crimes of life, rather than purchase a show of freedom at the expense of the liberty of my reason, and at the future happiness which ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... come to the Lucullus. It seems odd that the man whose name has come down to us as a by-word for luxury, and who is laden with the reproach of overeating, should be thus brought forward as a philosopher. It was perhaps the subsequent feeling on Cicero's part that such might be the opinion of men which ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... perhaps for other services, with a grant of the large estate of his elder brother Simon, who firmly adhered to the cause of James, with a pension of five hundred pounds a year from the Crown, and with the abhorrence of the Roman Catholic population. After living in wealth, luxury and infamy, during a quarter of a century, Henry Luttrell was murdered while going through Dublin in his sedan chair; and the Irish House of Commons declared that there was reason to suspect that he had fallen by the revenge of the Papists. [134] Eighty years after ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... governments of all Europe, if we doubt that the tendency of man is upward! How much that the world calls selfishness is only generosity with narrow walls,—a too exclusive solicitude to maintain a wife in luxury or make one's children rich! In an audience of rough people a generous sentiment always brings down the house. In the tumult of war both sides applaud an heroic deed. A courageous woman, who had traversed alone, on benevolent errands, the worst parts of New York told me that she never ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... to travel with, and was good to live with. She found her so reasonable, she said. One could discuss anything without shocking her, or without fear of being made uncomfortable by seeing her discomfort. Lady Maria, in fact, being entirely without prejudice, experienced the little luxury of being able to ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... a degree of imbecility that is confined only to the half-wits of the sex. But once the man is definitely committed, she frequently unbends a bit, if only as a relief from the strain of a fixed purpose, and so, throwing off her customary inhibitions, she, indulges in the luxury of a more or less forced and mawkish sentiment. It is, however, almost unheard of for her to permit herself this relaxation before the sentimental intoxication of the man is assured. To do otherwise—that is, to confess, even ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... running the full length and breadth of the house. Here the children, often a round dozen of them, were stowed at night. A shallow iron bowl of tallow with a wick protruding gave its dingy light. Candles were not unknown, but they were a luxury. Every one went to bed when darkness came on, for there was nothing else to do. Windows were few, and to keep out the cold they were tightly battened down. The air within must have been stifling; but, as one writer has suggested, ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... of the largest and most imposing of houses of Virginia, was sold and its contents were put up at auction. A partial list of articles bought at this sale by George Washington, then Colonel Washington, and here given, will show the luxury to which the Southern planter was accustomed: "A mahogany shaving desk, settee bed and furnishings, four mahogany chairs, oval glass with gilt frame, mahogany sideboard, twelve chairs, and three window curtains from dining-room. Several pairs ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... happened to him, external to his relation to her, he could never have spoken of that time, when he could have seen her every day—when he had her within his grasp, as it were—as a time of suffering. It had been a royal time of luxury to him, with all its stings and contumelies, compared to the poverty that crept round and clipped the anticipation of the future down to sordid fact, and life without an atmosphere of ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... before, he had sat on the river bank at Piquetberg Road, and grinned persuasively at the jam tins, so now he ranged up and down among the farms scattered about Winburg, and grinned himself into possession of manifold eggs and plump fowls and even of soft wheat bread, the final luxury of the biscuit-sated trooper who owned ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... and wonderful lot! The chances are that there is not a single wretched beggar suffering under the luxury and oppression of the rich who feels anything like as keenly as I do either the injustice, the cruelty, and the horror of their oppression of and contempt for the poor; or the grinding humiliation and ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... little war," will he embalmed in history. His denunciations are like the alarum of a war trumpet. The same character of simplicity which marks the Duke's speeches pervades his whole conduct, public and private. Though no man is more capable of enjoying the refinements of modern society, luxury has not enervated his mind or his manners. His dress, his equipage, his habits, all partake of the same indifference to effect—all have a cast of the hardy self-denial of the camp. A mattress bed, constant horse ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... for which we have no especial liking, be he either a tender suckling, nosing and tugging at the well-filled udder of his dam, or a well-proportioned porker, basking in all the plenitude of swinish luxury; albeit, in the use of his flesh, we affect not the Jew, but liking it moderately well, in its various preparations, as a substantial and savory article of diet. Still, the hog is an important item of our agricultural economy, and his production and ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... there were as yet but faint foreshadowings. Meanwhile, the force of the nations who were destined to achieve the coming transformation was unexhausted, their physical and mental faculties were unimpaired. No ages of enervating luxury, of intellectual endeavor, of life artificially preserved or ingeniously prolonged, had sapped the fibre of the men who were about to inaugurate the modern world. Severely nurtured, unused to delicate living, these giants of the Renaissance were like boys ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... greatest simplicity. His air and his deportment were so also. He was tall, dark, and thin; had an aspect pensive, slow, and somewhat mean; with very fine and expressive eyes. He deplored the signal faults that he saw succeed each other unceasingly; the gradual extinction of all emulation; the luxury, the emptiness, the ignorance, the confusion of ranks; the inquisition in the place of the police: he saw all the signs of destruction, and he used to say it was only a climax of dangerous disorder that could restore order to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... my chief amusements at Saint-Cloud. During my stay at this chateau I received a visit from a distant cousin whom I had not seen for many years. All that he had heard of the luxury which surrounded the Emperor, and the magnificence of the court, had vividly excited his curiosity, which I took pleasure in gratifying; and he was struck with wonder, at every step. One evening when there was a play at the chateau, I took him into my box, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... purse, and you may go and receive the first year's payment, which is now due." ("Secret Correspondence of the Court: Reign of Louis XVI.") The King preferred to spend money in charity rather than in luxury or magnificence. Once during his absence, M. d'Augivillers caused an unused room in the King's apartment to be repaired at a cost of 30,000 francs. On his return the King made Versailles resound with complaints against M. d'Augivillers: "With that sum ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... The luxury, the pampered state, the idleness—if you please, the wickedness of the rich, all contribute to the support, the comfort, and employment of the poor. You may behold extravagance—it is a vice; but that very extravagance circulates money, and the vice of one contributes to the happiness ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... longer, and replaced it with some generous and scented Volnay; and now I drank to the moon's sacred majesty upon the road. It was but a couple of mouthfuls; yet I became thenceforth unconscious of my limbs, and my blood flowed with luxury. Even Modestine was inspired by this purified nocturnal sunshine, and bestirred her little hoofs as to a livelier measure. The road wound and descended swiftly among masses of chestnuts. Hot dust rose from our feet and flowed away. Our two shadows—mine deformed with the knapsack, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that will squirt, is a great luxury to the boys, with whom "running with the machine" is a constitutional tendency. The novelty of the Josephine's force-pump had not yet worn away, and it contributed in no small degree to alleviate the hard and ungentlemanly labor of washing ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... Grit had averaged for the two of them to live on. With prodigal fancy she spent the money and with new-born thrift she placed it in bank. Limited only by her small knowledge of such things, she revelled in a dream of affluence and luxury which was only dissipated when gradually she became conscious that throughout the past hour she had been clinging to a grimy, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... this, I now proposed to make for the track we came by in the morning, and follow it down into camp; but this luxury was not destined to be our lot that night, for the rain had obliterated all our footprints of the morning, and we passed the track, mistaking it for the run of wild beasts. It struck me we had done so; but say what I would, the boys thought they knew better; and the consequence was ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... which he so often alluded as to the security from danger which was now enjoyed by the planters. As he sat in his parlor, surrounded by his affectionate family, the sense of personal and domestic security appeared to be a luxury to him. He repeatedly expressed himself substantially thus: "During the existence of slavery, how often have I retired to bed fearing that I should have my throat cut before morning, but now ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... effective mother-nurse of all arts. I also first bound with yokes beasts submissive to the collars; and in order that with their bodies they might become to mortals substitutes for their severest toils, I brought steeds under cars obedient to the rein,[38] a glory to pompous luxury. And none other than I invented the canvas-winged chariots of mariners that roam over the ocean. After discovering for mortals such inventions, wretch that I am, I myself have no device whereby I may ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... shoddily dressed, overcrowded masses of humanity why they are not exuberant, is to ask again, with Marie Antoinette, why the people who are starving for bread do not eat cake. The fact is that to keep within one's income to-day, either financially or vitally, is an aristocratic luxury that is absolutely denied to the many. Most men—the rich as well as the poor—stumble through life three parts dead. The ruling class, if it had the will and the skill, might awaken itself to fullness of life. But only a comparatively few of the others could, because the world is conducted on a ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... called up the image of a great personage or a splendid pageant of the past with the same affluence, the same rich vitality, that floods and warms the vast areas of canvas over which the full-fed genius of Rubens disported itself in the luxury of imaginative creation. ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and soon they were rejoicing in the luxury of bare feet, but not long, for Paul struck his toe against a stone, then getting a briar in his foot, sank down upon a green bank and ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... of death in its utility to the species. Long life is a useless luxury. Early and abundant reproduction is best for the species. An immortal individual would gradually become injured and would be valueless or even harmful to the species by taking the place of those that are sound. Hence natural ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... Richmond northward in something like haste and with as much comfort as was possible to the limited means of transportation at the command of the Confederate commissary. Even in those early days of the war, the railway system of the South was worn out and inadequate. Such a luxury as a parlor car was unknown. The trains were filled with military personages on their way to the field. Mrs. Sprague and Merry were the only women in the car in which they passed from Richmond to Fredericksburg. The route brought them through a land covered ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... that stage of despair when one seeks refuge in cheerfulness. "What's the use of putting oneself out—it does no good, and only upsets one." There is a certain satisfaction in feeling you are bearing with heroic resignation the irritating follies of others. Colonel and Mrs. Devine came to enjoy the luxury ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome
... labour. The world is so regulated by the laws of Providence, that a man's labour, well applied, is always amply sufficient to provide him during his life with all things needful to him, and not only with those, but with many pleasant objects of luxury; and yet farther, to procure him large intervals of healthful rest and serviceable leisure. And a nation's labour, well applied, is, in like manner, amply sufficient to provide its whole population with good ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... much in giving man a new independence of nature, a mighty armoury against evil. In curtailing the most arduous and brutalizing forms of toil, electricity, that subtler kind of fire, carries this emancipation a long step further, and, meanwhile, bestows upon the poor many a luxury which but lately was the exclusive possession of the rich. In more closely binding up the good of the bee with the welfare of the hive, it is an educator and confirmer of every social bond. In so far as it proffers new help in ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... the warm bath," says Dr. Paris, "presents another curious instance of the vicissitudes to which the reputation of our valuable resources is so universally exposed. That which for so many ages was esteemed the greatest luxury in health, and the most efficacious remedy in disease, fell into total disrepute in the reign of Augustus, for no other reason than because Antonius Musa had cured the Emperor of a dangerous malady by the use of the cold bath. The most frigid water that could be procured was in consequence recommended ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... went out of an evening he liked to make his way through the cheerful, crowded streets, in order to share in the brightness of it all; the rich luxury of the shops awakened something within him which noted the startling contrast between this quarter of the town and his own. When he passed from the brightly lit city into his own quarter, the streets were like ugly gutters to drain the darkness, and the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... beside Louetta on the piano bench. While he talked about motors, while he listened with a fixed smile to her account of the film she had seen last Wednesday, while he hoped that she would hurry up and finish her description of the plot, the beauty of the leading man, and the luxury of the setting, he studied her. Slim waist girdled with raw silk, strong brows, ardent eyes, hair parted above a broad forehead—she meant youth to him and a charm which saddened. He thought of how valiant a companion she would be on a long ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... quiet, and ready to oblige. His cheeks were somewhat hollow and his garments threadbare, for in truth the fourpence he received, though not a sum to be despised, was not sufficient to maintain him in much luxury. John Tobin had also a widowed mother, already advancing in life, whom he did his utmost to support, and he looked forward to the time when he should, by the result of his labours, enable her to live in more comfort than she then ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... his own would he ever hope to achieve, handicapped as he would be by all the ease and luxury she would bring him? He had grown to love the poverty which ever lends such strenuousness to endeavor. He thought of an engraving he had once taken a fancy to in Brussels, and purchased and hung up in his bedroom. I have it now! It is after Gallait, and represents a picturesquely poor ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier |
