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Farthing   Listen
noun
farthing  n.  
1.
The fourth of a penny; a small copper coin of Great Britain, being a cent in United States currency.
2.
A very small quantity or value. (Obs.) "In her cup was no farthing seen of grease."
3.
A division of land. (Obs.) "Thirty acres make a farthing land; nine farthings a Cornish acre; and four Cornish acres a knight's fee."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Farthing" Quotes from Famous Books



... receive what the country can afford to give for its relief. As soon as the rains set in, all the able-bodied men, women, and children should be sent off with each a good blanket, and a rupee or two, as the funds can afford, to last them till they can engage themselves with the farmers. Not a farthing after that day should be given out, except to the feeble and sick, who may ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... whimsical, changeable old chap, it would be right for her to refuse me at first; and so she did, very much to the old man's annoyance, who then set his mind upon it, and swore that if she did not marry me, he would not leave her a farthing. After a few days of quarrelling, Jane gave in, and the old chap swears that we shall be married immediately, and that he will give us half his ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... recalled to more tranquil scenes. He was elected Scholar of New College, Oxford, on the 5th of January 1789, and at the end of his second year he exchanged his Scholarship for a Fellowship. From that time on he never cost his father a farthing, and he paid a considerable debt for his younger brother Courtenay, though, as he justly remarks, "a hundred pounds a year was very difficult to spread over the wants of a College life." Ten years later he wrote—"I got in debt by buying books. ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... the meantime, unpleasant remarks, disguise them as some well-meaning people might, were floating around them every day. The undoubted truth, that they were the children of a dreamer who let slip away every farthing of his money and ran into debt with his neighbours—that the daughter had been brought up to no profession—that the son who had, had made no progress in it, and might come to the dogs—could not from the ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... abandoned themselves to that care. He dared to trust Him, with whom the hairs of our head are all numbered, and who touchingly reminds us that He cares for what has been quaintly called "the odd sparrow." Matthew records (x. 29) how two sparrows are sold for a farthing, and Luke (xii. 6) how five are sold for two farthings; and so it would appear that, when two farthings were offered, an odd sparrow was thrown in, as of so little value that it could be given away with the other ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... still to come, and therefore are still subject to chance and mischance, so long wilt thou continue in thy mess of embarrassments. Furthermore, as long as thou thinkest, This gulden or batzen (shilling or farthing) can't help me to get over it; so long will thy debts become never the smaller: and, what were a sorrow to me, thou wilt not be able, after a heavy labour of head got done, to recreate thyself in the society of other good men. But, withal, to ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... all things to rid the house of his handsome namesake, lest his sweetheart Cicely should make other mistakes, offered to get Waverley a change of clothes, and to conduct him to his father's farm near Ulswater. Neither old Jopson nor his daughter would accept a farthing of money for saving Waverley's life. A hearty handshake paid one; a kiss, the other. And so it was not long before Ned Williams was introducing our hero to his family, in the character of a young clergyman who was detained in the ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... could obtain after long importunity was that Canisius should administer the affairs of the diocese for one year, pending the election of a bishop, with the proviso that he should not touch a single farthing of the rich revenues belonging to the see, which he was to govern ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... fact which Calne did not know. In that unhappy second visit of Clerk Gum's to London, he did succeed in appeasing the wrath of Goldsworthy and Co., and paid in every farthing of the money. How far he might have accomplished this but for being backed by the urgent influence of old Lord Hartledon, was a question. One thing was in his favour: the firm had not taken any steps whatever in the matter, and those handbills ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... know what that means. I owe a beastly lot of money at the inn, and that impudent little beggar of a landlord won't let me out of his sight. The luck 's dead against me at those filthy tables; I have n't won a farthing in three weeks. I wrote to my brother the other day, and this morning I got an answer from him—a cursed, canting letter of good advice, remarking that he had already paid my debts seven times. It does n't happen to be seven; it 's only ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... man could, brought a canoe full of girls to see us. She wore an ornamental head-dress of red beads tied to her hair on one side of her head, a necklace of fine beads of various colours, two bright figured brass bracelets on her left arm, and scarcely a farthing's worth of cloth, though it ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... with the fact that I am not answerable for my late husband's debts but I wish to pay them for I am his lawful wife and his good name is dear to me. I am going into the Lodgings gentlemen as a business and if I prosper every farthing that my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of the love I bore him, by this right hand." It took a long time to do but it was done, and the silver cream-jug which is between ourselves and the bed and the mattress in my room up-stairs (or it would have found legs ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens

... Master—best friend of the sinning, the sick, and the sorrowing—we offer to thee this bruised child. We find no sin, no guile, in her; for after the ignorant code of men she has paid the last farthing for satisfying the wolf's greed. Dost thou ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... as if the five fingers of my hand to be lessening from me, the same as five farthing dips the heat of the sun would be ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory

... indebted to the Italians for the idea of newspapers. The title of their gazettas was, perhaps, derived from gazzera, a magpie or chatterer; or, more probably, from a farthing coin, peculiar to the city of Venice, called gazetta, which was the common price of the newspapers. Another etymologist is for deriving it from the Latin gaza, which would colloquially lengthen into gazetta, and signify a little treasury ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... deputy, now he is in office.—Well, one of these free lances, as we say on the stock market, of the pen, or of the brush, is the only man in Paris who would marry a penniless beauty, for they have courage enough for anything. Monsieur Popinot married Mademoiselle Birotteau without asking for a farthing. Those men are madmen, to be sure! They trust in love as they trust in good luck and brains!—Find a man of energy who will fall in love with your daughter, and he will marry without a thought of money. You must confess that ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... stress of circumstances. Temptation bids us repeat the offence, and woe comes in return for 5:9 what is done. So it will ever be, till we learn that there is no discount in the law of justice and that we must pay "the uttermost farthing." The measure ye mete "shall 5:12 be measured to you again," and it will be full ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... up from his home-lessons and sighed deeply. 'My money-box is quite empty,' he remarked, 'and Nellie and Hilda have not a farthing in ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... that, it seems such a matter of course to you that you don't value it. But (with biting acrimony) there is another sort of family life: a life in which husbands open their wives' letters, and call on them to account for every farthing of their expenditure and every moment of their time; in which women do the same to their children; in which no room is private and no hour sacred; in which duty, obedience, affection, home, morality and religion are detestable tyrannies, and life is a vulgar round ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw

... ideals remained, but they made for swords, not peace; the sweetness of the dream had become an inflexible law of conscience; the doctrine of a transcendent disdain of this world, accepted in solitude by the obscure youth brought up in a provincial town, had exacted its tax to the uttermost farthing from the man who struggled now with the rich and powerful in a great city of the great universe of affairs.... He thought of his dead godmother, Madame Bertin, with her still, pale face and beautiful hands—a cold, blameless woman ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... in the wheel which circulates them. In computing either the gross or the neat revenue of any society, we must always, from the whole annual circulation of money and goods, deduct the whole value of the money, of which not a single farthing can ever make any part ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... the worshipers enter or leave; and one always notes the preponderance of silver at the morning, and of copper at the evening services. It is perhaps needless to say that before Francesca had been in Edinburgh a fortnight she asked Mr. Macdonald if it were true that the Scots continued coining the farthing for years and years, merely to have a piece of money serviceable for ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... is annually, I believe, worth 300,000l. at the least farthing. If you urge the American violence as a justification of your perseverance in enforcing this tax, you know that you can never answer this plain question,—Why did you repeal the others given in the same act, whilst the very same ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... mother ran away from home, and died in a hospital. My father was always drunk, and always beating me. My step-mother is as good as dead, for all she cares about me. My only brother is thousands of miles away in fore ign parts, and never writes to me, and never helps me with a farthing. My sweetheart—" ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... this would only be a partial reform. I would have our criminal laws based upon the old Mosaic principle of "enforced restitution," and carried out on the Christian principle of making the offender "pay the uttermost farthing." Then we could fairly and justly retain the idle and the useless in the net of justice, and allow the willing and industrious to achieve their own freedom by satisfying the ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... have been overcome in two days' time, carried him off, a feeble and unresisting prey. He was thought to have left a large property, but it could never be got at; and I have heard my poor father say that he was glad we never had a farthing of it, for it would have seemed to him the price of blood. It was a mistake, however, and only a mistake; for his welfare was the object of his parents: but it was a mistake whose consequences weighed them down with sorrow to their ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau

... folks shall see that, of all Heaven's gifts of food, the one to be protected most carefully is that worthy gentleman salmon, who is generous enough to go down to the sea weighing five ounces, and to come back next year weighing five pounds, without having cost the soil or the state one farthing? ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley

... a definite theory about this affair, Hugh," he said. "And I'll lay a fiver to a farthing that it's the ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher

... we have— i. Children's Free and Farthing Breakfasts. ii. Midnight Soup and Bread Brigades for the Homeless. iii. Cheap Food Depots. iv. Special Relief Funds for cases of Special Destitution. v. Old Clothes' Depots for Slum Families. vi. Poor Men's Hotels, vii. Cheap Grain ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... beggar. I am spoiled, I am stripped of all my revenues; I owe above two hundred thousand marks; and if I had said three hundred thousand, I should not exceed the truth; I am obliged to pay my son, Prince Edward, fifteen thousand marks a year; I have not a farthing; and I must have money from any hand, from any quarter, or by any means." He then delivered over the Jews to the earl of Cornwall, that those whom the one brother had flayed, the other might embowel, to make use of the words of the historian.[*] King John, his father, once demanded ten thousand ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... from his necessities, or permit him to look for some employment more profitable than the ducal service. The answer of this prince, who was now rich, but had always been penurious, and who never laid out a farthing, if he could help it, except in defence of his capital, was an appointment of Ariosto to the government of a district in a state of anarchy, called Garfagnana, which had nominally returned to his ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... an edition in 4to published in 1772, in farthing numbers, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It extends to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... To go about all day with the blessed thought that I don't owe a farthing to anybody. ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones

... carriage, and live in a street near a fashionable square, and keep an expensive and clumsy footman to answer the door, instead of a cheap and tidy housemaid. How he managed to "maintain his position" (that is the right phrase, I think), I never could tell. His wife did not bring him a farthing. When the honorable and gallant baronet, her father, died, he left the widowed Lady Malkinshaw with her worldly affairs in a curiously involved state. Her son (of whom I feel truly ashamed to be obliged to speak again so soon) made an effort to extricate his mother—involved himself in a ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... portray. The walls were whitewashed, and at sundry places strange figures and grotesque characters had been traced by some mirthful inmate, in such sable outline as the end of a smoked stick or the edge of a piece of charcoal is wont to produce. The wan and flickering light afforded by a farthing candle gave a sort of grimness and menace to these achievements of pictorial art, especially as they more than once received embellishments from portraits of Satan such as he is accustomed to be drawn. A low fire burned gloomily in the sooty grate, and ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... came and examined the table-cloth, which was ordinary enough, though she said it was a beautiful one. I did not see how a white table-cloth could be beautiful, but I clutched it most fervently and her ruse failed. She then asked me if a plate which had cost elevenpence-farthing was Wedgwood, and asked me to take it off the wall so that she might see the mark on the back. I told her I had bought it at the Japanese shop and mentioned the sum it cost, but she declared that I had got a bargain and she must have ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... "churchy" evangelical told him he had a poor opinion of all Baptists except one, the man who wrote The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. When he learned that its author was before him, the hasty offender apologised and offered a subscription. "Not a farthing, sir!" was the reply, "you do not give in faith;" but the persistent Cecil prevailed. Men, however, were a greater want than money at that early stage of the modern crusade. Thomas and Fountain had each been a mistake. So were the early African missionaries, with the exception ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... to-morrow he did not care ... it was all so absurd that it was not worth while to give it any attention. He would grow very fat, he would die—he would love women, play cards, drink, quarrel, give his life for a sentimental moment, pour every farthing of his possessions into the lap of a friend, incur debts which he would not pay, quarrel wildly with a man about a rouble, remember things that you would expect him to forget, forget everything that he should remember—a pagan, a saint, a blackguard, a hero—anything ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... and laughed at you. Two pair of griffins, a lion, half-a-dozen leopards, and a hand with a dagger, wouldn't 'ave cost a farthing more. But what can you hexpect from ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... honor, which they ought to hold dearer still. And more, from the time that you arrived here, there hath not been done to me, or to the least of my people, a single insult, but all courtesy; and there hath not been taken by your folks of the goods they found here the value of a farthing without paying for it. My lord, I am well aware that my husband, and I, and my children, and all of this household are your prisoners, for to do with and dispose of at your good pleasure, as well as the goods that are herein; but, knowing the nobleness of your heart, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... malt rather abune the meal), and with the help of his gillies he gat him into the hills with the speed of light, and the first place he wakened in was the cove of Uaimh an Ri. So there was old to do about ransoming the bridegroom; for Donald would not lower a farthing ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... deny that there's glimmerings of sense in you, Mr. Garvald. But how do you, a lad with no backing, propose to beat a strong monopoly buttressed by the whole stupidity and idleness of Virginia? You'll be stripped of your last farthing, and you'll be lucky if it ends there. Don't think I'm against you. I'm with you in your principles, but the job ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... mention, which will serve as a sample. An itinerant preacher, well known as a knave upon both banks, and the whole length of the river, used (before he was sent to the Penitentiary for picking pockets) to live comfortably in the steamboats without ever paying a farthing. From St. Louis he would book for New Orleans, and the passage-money never being asked in the West but at the termination of the trip, the preacher would go on shore at Vicksburg, Natches, Bayou, Sarah, or any other such station ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... necessities by pledging the credit of the house, so far as he could pledge it without exciting suspicion of the truth. This done, there were actually left, between that time and Christmas, liabilities to be met to the extent of forty thousand pounds, without a farthing in hand to pay ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins

... thought in want of them. The superiority of a class-mate is hard to bear, and a high-spirited child will not easily acknowledge starvation in presence of a roomful of purse-proud urchins, some of them able to spend a farthing a day on pure luxuries. Moses Ansell would have been grieved had he known his children were refusing the bread he could not give them. Trade was slack in the sweating dens, and Moses, who had always lived from hand ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... slaves. To bring that about, their fellow slaves all over the world must unite in a vast international association of men pledged to share the world's work justly; to share the produce of the work justly; to yield not a farthing—charity apart—to any full-grown and able-bodied idler or malingerer, and to treat as vermin in the commonwealth persons attempting to get more than their share of wealth or give less than their share of work. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... subsequent law; an obolus, or one penny farthing, was the first payment; it was afterward increased to three oboli, or threepence ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Containing Sir Samuel Moreland's Tables, shewing the Value of any Quantity of Goods, at any Rate, from half a Farthing to 20 Shillings per Yard, Pound, &c. With Tables of Coin and Interest. ...
— The True Life of Betty Ireland • Anonymous

... Jim Gulpin buried here. You know what I mean; and let me tell you that a civil and correct answer will stand your friend, just at this time. You have no police to fall back upon, and if I but give the word, your lives are not worth a farthing." ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... other they are always unprofitable. At the cost of upwards of a million, government constructed the Caledonian Canal, the revenue drawn from which does not at the present moment defray its own expenses, much less return a farthing of interest on this large expenditure of capital. Now it is very difficult to see why government, if it has power to undertake a losing concern, should not likewise be entitled, for the benefit of the nation at large, to undertake even greater works, which not only assist the commerce ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... for instance, that I had taken to my own use a very great sum of the Chevalier's money, when it was notorious that I had spent a great sum of my own in his service, and never would be obliged to him for a farthing, in which case, I believe, I was single. Upon this head it was easy to appeal to a very honest gentleman, the Queen's Treasurer at St. Germains, through whose hands, and not through mine, went the very little money which the ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke

... which two sharp-eyed players will mutually endeavour to detect this weakness, and adapt their game to it, is very curious and entertaining. The effect is greatly heightened by the universal suddenness and vehemence of gesture; two men playing for half a farthing with an intensity as all-absorbing as ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... won't touch her at all. She's different; that's one reason why I liked her. She would not care a farthing for me because I'm a Caruthers, or because I have money; not a brass farthing! She is the realest person I ever saw. She would go about Appledore from morning to night in the greatest state of delight you ever saw anybody; where my sister, for instance, would see nothing but rocks ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... would do at a pinch for a cellar, but a professional cellar. He appreciated the brains necessary to put a brick on another brick, with just the right quantity of mortar in between. He thought the house would never get itself done—one brick at a time—and each brick cost a farthing—slow, careful; yes, and even finicking. But soon the bricklayers had to stand on plank-platforms in order to reach the raw top of the wall that was ever rising above them. The measurements, the rulings, the plumbings, the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... sir, How much Carnation Ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration? Ber. What is a remuneration? Cost. Marrie sir, halfe pennie farthing ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... to a parcel o' teetotalers," 'e ses, very cross, when 'e found that Peter 'ad spent all 'is money too. "Here we are just beginning the evening and not a farthing in our pockets." ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... even one-tenth of their annual income to the Lord. Most of those who are rich, hoard up their money, instead of spending it for the purpose of saving souls. And there are many persons who have never given a farthing to send the Gospel to the heathen. O, what will such say, when they must meet the heathen at ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder

... whose name is unknown; the former by Paolo Corso di Massa, in the streets of Rome. This came as a relief to Francesco, whose avarice pursued his sons even after their death, for he intimated to the priest that he would not spend a farthing on funeral services. They were accordingly borne to the paupers' graves which he had caused to be prepared for them, and when he saw them both interred, he cried out that he was well rid of such good-for-nothing children, but that he should be perfectly happy only when the remaining five were ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... blank: an old French coin; six blanks were worth two sous and a half; targe, an ancient coin of Burgundy, a farthing. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... his statement of the consumption of zinc does not agree with what might be theoretically expected but he bases it upon the result of his experiments in the Pullman train, which place the cost at one farthing per hour per light. At the same time he does not profess that the battery can compete in the matter of cost with mechanically generated currents on a large scale, but he offers it as a convenient means of obtaining the electric light in places where a steam engine or a gas engine ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various

... remarked Dick, in continuance of their conversation, "that there is no other course open to me; for I am resolved that I will not touch a farthing of the money that your friend Graham has so cleverly rescued from the ruins of Cuthbertson's estate; every stiver of it will be required for the maintenance of the poor Mater while I am away. And I must go away, because, as you yourself ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... not stop crying unless he told them a story, and there was he with his voice quite gone, coughing every two minutes, and romancing on with some allegory about children marching on their little paths, and playing on their little fiddles. So I told Miss Cilly that if she cared a farthing for her father, she would hold her tongue, and I packed her up, and put her into her nursery. She'll mind me when she sees I will be minded; and as for little Owen, nothing would satisfy him but his promising not ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... right about eating the cock first, for they will not be worth a farthing if they get cold. So you stick to the pig, do you— hey, McTaggart? Well, there is no reckoning on taste—holloa, Tim, look sharp! the champagne all ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... easy to see that the owner of the island understands luxury, and yet that owner never has a farthing to call his own; no money ever enters the island. Those however, who need the exports know also the requirements of the islanders, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... month ago, and that here am I returning from Pskoff, a month after, with hardly a boot to my foot. They've treated me like a dog! I've been ill of fever at Pskoff the whole time, and not a line, nor farthing of money, have I received from my mother ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... if "A" is a sufficiently poor man not to be formidable, and has gone bankrupt on a small scale, he gets squeezed ferociously to extract the last farthing from him; he may find himself in jail and his home utterly smashed up. If he is a richer man, and has failed on a larger scale, our law is more sympathetic, and he gets off much more easily. Often his creditors find it advisable to arrange with him so that he will still carry on with ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... London Madeira. I found this was an unfavourable season for other refreshments: Indian corn, potatoes, pumpkins, and onions, were all very scarce and double the price of what they are in summer. Beef also was difficult to be procured and exceedingly poor; the price nearly sixpence farthing per pound. The corn was three current dollars per fanega, which is full five shillings per bushel; and biscuit at twenty-five shillings for the hundred pounds. Poultry was so scarce that a good fowl cost three shillings. This is therefore not a place for ships to ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh

... house-minding, &c., in fact, anything and everything that would bring in a shilling; but it would only keep us in semi-starvation. I have now done six weeks' travelling from morning till night, and not received one farthing for it, If that is not enough to drive you mad—wickedly mad—I don't know what is. No bright prospect ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... rather from affectation of superiority and pride of understanding. When his circumstances were narrow, he accepted the office of librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, worth L40 per annum, and to my certain knowledge he gave every farthing of the salary to families in distress. For innocent mirth and agreeable raillery I never knew ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... efforts to console her. "God is against me and all mine House. We have sinned; or rather, I have sinned,—and have thus brought down sorrow and mourning upon the hearts that were dearest to me. I owe a debt; and it must needs be paid, even to the uttermost farthing." ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... into the gruel, Mary?' said a pale, sickly-looking man one evening, taking something out of his mouth, which he held towards the feeble gleams emitted by a farthing rush-light standing on ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

... ledge; there you ought to see the whole length of the route to Ernee. Choose a position where the road is not flanked by woods, and where the sergeant can overlook the country. Take Clef-des-Coeurs; he is very intelligent. This is no laughing matter; I wouldn't give a farthing for our skins if we don't turn the odds ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... duty; the monk who loves hunting, and hates work and reading; the friar who is ready to grant absolution to any one who will give money to the friars; who has a word and a jest for every man, and presents of knives and pins for the women; who takes a farthing where he cannot get a penny, but turns aside from those who have not even a farthing to give; the pardoner, who has for sale sham relics—a piece of the sail of the ship which carried St. Peter on the sea of ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... quickly replied that he had no opinion, and that learned men and excellent divines could come to no agreement over the matter. His worship might drink of both and judge for himself; the charge was but a farthing. ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... and, inasmuch as he wanted very much to deliver his address before the Congregational Societies, and did not at all long to make the acquaintance of his honor, the Police Court Judge, he determined to pay the fine. But, alack and alas! he had "not a farthing" with which to discharge him from his embarrassment. Fortunately, if he wanted money he did not want friends. And one of these, Jacob Horton, of Newburyport, who had married his "old friend and playmate, Harriet Farnham," came to his rescue with ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... without difficulty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one; pen, ink, and paper, therefore, in despite of the flippant remark of lord Orford, were, for the most part, as completely out of my reach, as a crown and sceptre. There was, indeed, a resource; but the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... proceedings of the coroner's court and the importunities of creditors occupied his days very fully. The chaos of his father's affairs and the winding up of his own provided ample entertainment. The net result was a settlement of something less than a farthing in the pound and the retirement into oblivion of one of the most able spendthrifts of the twentieth century. He had spent a couple of months looking for work, but the name Frencham Altar, coupled with his complete inability to point to a single marketable asset other than courage and a smiling ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... head clerk of the banking-house made a Marquis, and his Lordship will screw a BAJOCCO out of you in exchange as dexterously as any commoner could do. It is a comfort to be able to gratify such grandees with a farthing or two; it makes the poorest man feel that he can do good. 'The Polonias have intermarried with the greatest and most ancient families of Rome, and you see their heraldic cognizance (a mushroom or on an azure field) quartered in a hundred places in the city with the ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to these Khans to be allowed to pass through; but so bad is their name for treachery, ferocity, &c., that few, if any, of the traders between India and Central Asia go this route. They do not care a farthing for the Ameers, who also secretly connive at their proceedings, in order to draw recruits from ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... gracious master! I am this day seventy-one years of age! and have honored my father and my mother, and, to the best of my knowledge, have never in the whole course of my life defrauded any one to the value of a farthing,—and I have adhered to my creed truly and honestly, and have served in your house four-and-forty years, and am now calmly awaiting a quiet, happy end. Oh, master! master! (violently clasping his knees) and would you deprive ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... in tobacconists' signs occur occasionally. In 1660 there was a "Tobacco Roll and Sugar Loaf" at Gray's Inn Gate, Holborn. In 1659 James Barnes issued a farthing token from the "Sugar Loaf and Three Tobacco Rolls" in the Poultry, London. The "Sugar Loaf" was the principal grocer's sign, and so when it is found in combination with the tobacco roll at this time it may reasonably be assumed that the proprietor of the business ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... Appropriate. Kidney pie. Sweets to the. Not making much hand of it. Best value in. Characteristic of him. Power. Particular about his drink. Flaw in the glass, fresh Vartry water. Fecking matches from counters to save. Then squander a sovereign in dribs and drabs. And when he's wanted not a farthing. Screwed refusing to ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... do so long to have another!" cried Bobbie rapturously. "I only want three-halfpence-farthing more, and I shall have enough in my money-box to pay for it. Will James ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... be paid for his work, though it is only signing a bit of a list of medicines, that the apothecary and not he makes up, and, there, his labor is over; but with me, though to cure somebody else costs me drops of blood, smacks, pinches, pin-proddings, and whippings, nobody gives me a farthing." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... fancied that all manner of 'torches from the highest regions' would come to light themselves at his 'farthing candle.' None of them came, and he was left for some years in obscurity, though still labouring at the great work which was one day to enlighten the world. At last, however, partial recognition came to him in a shape which greatly influenced ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... habits and the fact that she was a turncoat—had been born a Roman Catholic, and had married into the other camp—was a great favourite with the children. She often gave them sweets when they had not a farthing between them to pay. ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick

... the word cue, which is a hint to the actor to proceed in his part, and has the same sound with the letter q, the mark of a farthing in college buttery-books. To size means to battle, or to be charged in the college accounts for provisions. [A q is so called because it is the initial letter of quadrans, the fourth ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... may venture in his reach. How to-night the throng press on to bend The knee to Baal, and to place a crown On Magog's princely head! Dollars and dimes, A purse well-filled, a soul that pants for more; An eye that sees a farthing in the dust, And in its glitter plenitude of joy, Yet sees no beauty in the stars above, No cause for gladness in the light of day,— A hand that grasps the wealth of earth, and yields For sake of it the richer stores of heaven; A soul that loves the perishing of earth, And hates that ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... out laughing at Saad. "What is that bit of lead worth," said he, "a farthing? What can Hassan do with that?" Saad presented it to me, and said, "Take it, Hassan; let Saadi laugh, you will tell us some news of the good luck it has brought you one time or another." I thought Saad was in jest, and had a mind to divert himself: however I took the lead, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... notion that it is better than any other part. As in the grocer's shop pictured by one of our best wits, so is it here—the tenpenny nail looks upon the tin tack and calmly snubs it; the long sixes eye the farthing dips and say they are poor lights; the bigger articles seem cross and potent in the face of the smaller; the little look big in the face of the less; and the infinitessimal clap their wings when they make ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... straight glance was gone. There was a new expression in his eyes and a sort of suggestion that he was tired of the subject and only concerned to save his face and let me out so quick as might be. He spoke like a conqueror, in fact, and I well knew he didn't care a farthing for my feelings under his pretence ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... pays better than her neighbors. With her artillery-private (or gunner as he is more properly called), we will compare a private of the United States artillery, or infantry, since both are on a par in this respect. The former receives one shilling fourpence farthing, or thirty-three and one-half cents, per day, from which, deducting his rations and clothing, there will be left thirteen and one-half cents, or about four dollars per month. The latter receives ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... the sunlight sifted softly into the stripped, bare, and lonely room. Angy felt strangely encouraged and comforted. The roses became symbolical to her of the "lilies of the field which toil not, neither do they spin"; the robin was one of the "two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father"; while the sunlight seemed to call out to the little old lady who hoped and believed and loved much: "Fear ye not therefor. Ye are of more value ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund

... the brother had said. "Eat at my table, sleep beneath my roof. I shall not turn my back upon my brother. But I shall not pay any bills for you, nor shall I allow you a farthing of money—you have shown us the use you make of money. You will find it inconvenient to be without, and I advise you therefore ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... far more easily. That would at least have given him a sense of superiority, and helped him to be magnanimous; while this readiness to pay put him in the wrong, and drove him to exact the uttermost farthing of his rights. On a weak woman he might have taken pity; but this strong creature, who refused to sue to him by so much as the quiver of an eyelid, and rejected his concessions before he had time to put them forth, exasperated every nerve that had been wont to tingle ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... kind of farthing dip, Unfriendly to the nose and eyes; A blue-behinded ape, I skip ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his position could, and many a man in his position would, have saved himself, by making terms which would have very slightly, almost insensibly, increased the losses of those who had had dealings with him, and left him a remnant to live upon. But he is resolved on payment to the last farthing of his means. His own words are, that they will clear, or nearly clear, the House, and that no one can lose much. Ah, Miss Harriet, it would do us no harm to remember oftener than we do, that vices ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... to the late Dr. Currie's biography, he at once vindicated his brother's memory from many aspersions which had been cast upon it, and established his own credit as an author. On receiving payment for his labour, the first thing he did was, to balance accounts, to the uttermost farthing, with the widow and family of his deceased brother. The letter which accompanied the remittance of the money was, in the highest degree, creditable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various

... angry, for this was the third demand during the month. 'You shall not have a farthing from me,' I cried, on which he bowed and left the room ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... book, they made so deep an impression on me: 'Dr. Johnson one day took Bishop Percy's little daughter on his knee, and asked her what she thought of 'Pilgrim's Progress.' The child answered that she had not read it. 'No!' replied the Doctor; 'then I would not give one farthing for you!' And he set her down, and took no further notice of her.' When Papa explained to me," continued Hildegarde, laughing, "what a great man Dr. Johnson was, it seemed to me very dreadful that he ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... convince the reader that he was a good man, which was a much better character; for when some who were present told him that this treasure was too much for such a poor boy as Whittington, he said: "God forbid that I should deprive him of a penny; it is his own, and he shall have it to a farthing." He then ordered Mr. Whittington in, who was at this time cleaning the kitchen and would have excused himself from going into the counting-house, saying the room was swept and his shoes were dirty and full of hob-nails. The merchant, however, made him come in, and ordered a chair to be set ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... movement was set on foot for the removal of the Cattle Market to the Old Vauxhall neighbourhood, but the cost frightened the people, and the project was shelved. The "town improvers" of to-day, who play with thousands of pounds as children used to do at chuck-farthing, are not so easily baulked, and the taxpayers will doubtless soon have to find the cash for a very much larger Cattle Market in some other part of the borough. A site has been fixed upon in Rupert Street by the "lords in Convention," but up to now (March, 1885), the question ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... in the record I have long kept against thee. Now the day of reckoning has come, and thou wilt find the reckoning a heavy one. But thou shalt pay it — every jot and tittle shalt thou pay. Thou shalt not escape from my power until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Death is, since this happened, bought up strangely. And it is to be observed that, notwithstanding all the trouble and fatigue Mrs. Bargrave has undergone upon this account, she never took the value of a farthing, nor suffered her daughter to take anything of anybody, and therefore can have no interest in ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... not tell: how fix thought indefinite in words defined? But her angel might well have thought what a weary road she had to walk before she gained that entrance. But for all of us the road has to be walked, every step, and the uttermost farthing paid. The gate will open wide to welcome us, but it will not come to meet us. Neither is it any use to turn aside; it only makes ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... him with me then, for your father would not permit that, any more than he would abate one farthing of ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... purchased. The cost of each plate is to be 6d., and for the painting of each plate the charges are to be: For one plate, 1s.; for two plates alike, 113/4d. each; for three plates alike, 111/2d. each, and so on, the charge being one farthing less per plate for each similarly painted plate. Now, what ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... aunt, he is not worthy of pity, when he wins favour from a peerless beauty like Mistress Forrester. But let be, it will not break my heart if he gives you this fair country maid for your daughter, who has not—so I have heard—so much as a brass farthing to call her own.' ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... "A farthing a day is seven shillings a year," answered the M.P.; "seven shillings a year is the interest of seven guineas. Take care of your farthings, old Tinker, and your guineas will come ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... that, as you know, I never cared one farthing, either for Whig or Tory: so I shall consider our Writers purely as they are such, without any respect to which ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... money to lay out on a passage across the Atlantic. Nor would Hester wait. She had persuaded herself that a letter would be suppressed, even if she had known how to address it; but to claim her son's rights, and make an earl of him, had become her fixed idea, and she began laying aside every farthing in her power. ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge

... had often thrown her a hard-earned penny, which he had not had to spare. "Leave me, leave me in peace, you insane old woman," he said; "but you are right, it is hunger more than my wound which has made me weak and miserable; for three days I have not earned a farthing. I wanted to go over to the monastery[15] and see if I could get a spoonful or two of the soup that is made for invalids; but all my companions have gone; there is not one to have compassion upon me and take me in his barca;[16] and now I have fallen down here, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... in some church in London; and the old lord her father actually heard 'em asked the three times, and didn't notice her name, being gabbled on wi' a host of others. When she had married she told her father, and 'a fleed into a monstrous rage, and said she shouldn' hae a farthing. Lady Elfride said she didn't think of wishing it; if he'd forgie her 'twas all she asked, and as for a living, she was content to play plays with her husband. This frightened the old lord, and 'a gie'd 'em a house to live in, and a great garden, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... after the dinner with a piece of plate estimated at fifty guineas. He received the plate, made a neat speech of thanks, and when the bill was called for, made another neat speech, in which he refused to receive one farthing for the entertainment, ordering in at the same time two dozen more of the best champagne, and sitting down amidst uproarious applause, and cries of "You shall be no loser by it!" Nothing very wonderful in such conduct, some people will say; I don't say there is, nor have I ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... she said, twining her white arms round his swarthy neck and looking up into his murderous eyes with something like genuine adoration. "We shall get the wife's dowry for ourselves, by degrees, every farthing of it, and it shall be the dower of Aristarchi's bride instead. I shall not be portionless. You shall not be ashamed of me when you meet ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... would like to be serv'd thus himself let the World determine, and that they may the better do it I shall give them one Instance, using almost the Doctor's own Words, and applying them to himself as thus; Doctor COPPER-FARTHING, was by Pimping, Swearing, For-swearing, Flattering, Suborning, Forging, Gaming, Lying, Fawning, Hectoring, Voting, Scribling, Whoring, Canting, Libeling, Free-thinking, endeavouring to ruin the British Constitution, set aside the Hanover Succession, and bring in a Popish Pretender; by prostituting ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous



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