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Auction   Listen
verb
Auction  v. t.  To sell by auction.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Auction" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Honest to your womanly instincts, and to the simplest and purest part of your nature. I should have proved for myself the fact that you refused to sell your beautiful person for gold—that you were no slave in the world's auction-mart, but a free, proud, noble-hearted English girl who meant to be faithful to all that was highest and best in her soul. Ah, Lucy! You are not this little dream-girl of mine! You are a very realistic modern woman with whom a man's ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... credulous as a child. He lied himself, and expected all men to tell him the truth. Camille at his bidding mortgaged the old place, and Margaret dared not oppose. Taxes were not paid; interest was not paid; credit was exhausted. Then the house was put up at public auction, and brought little more than sufficient to pay the creditors. Jack took the balance and staked it in a few games of chance, and of course lost. The weary trotter stumbled one day and had to be shot. Jack ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... romantic interest. Each instrument of the greatest makers has a pedigree, as well authenticated as those of the great masterpieces of painting, though there have been instances where a Strad or a Guarnerius has been picked up by some strange accident for a mere trifle at an auction. There have been many imitations of the genuine Cremonas palmed off, too, on the unwary at a high price, but the connoisseur rarely fails to identify the great violins almost instantly. For, aside from their magical beauty of tone, they are made with the greatest beauty ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... territories. Those territories, which had been annexed from the Marathas two years previously, are now included in the jurisdiction of the Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces. In such a recently-conquered country, where the sale of all widows by auction for the benefit of the Treasury, and other strange customs still prevailed, the abilities of an able and zealous young officer had ample scope. Sleeman, after a brief apprenticeship, received, in 1822, the independent ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... was immediately identified as the poet's own draft of the 'Hyperion.' The responsible authorities soon after, offered the fortunate possessor five hundred guineas for the manuscript, but courteously and honestly informed her that, were it put up to auction, some American collector would be almost sure to give a ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... by that very legitimate piece of business, and he extended his walk into the town, and strayed, half by chance, half by intention, to the old furniture shop at the other end of the High Street, which was a favourite resort of the higher classes in Carlingford, and where periodically there was an auction, at which sometimes great bargains were to be had. Mr. May went into this dangerous place boldly. The sale was going on; he walked into the midst of temptation, forgetting the prayer against it, which no doubt he had said that morning. And as evil fate would have it, a carved book-case, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... College, it was until within a few years customary for the members of the Senior Class, previously to leaving college, to bring together in some convenient room all the books, furniture, and movables of any kind which they wished to dispose of, and put them up at public auction. Everything offered was either sold, or, if no bidders ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... Triumphs of Peace. In 1789, when Dr. Burney published the third volume of his History of Music, it was in the possession of Dr. Morton of the British Museum.—Query, Was Dr. Morton's library disposed of by auction, or what was ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various

... happy at last. There's considerable to tell. Jim got into trouble with the police and finally sent for me. He told me everything and—it wasn't pretty; I'd rather not repeat all he said, but it opened my eyes and showed me why they brought you here, how they put you on the auction block, and how they cried for bids. He told me things you know nothing about and could never guess. When he had finished I thanked God that they had flung you into my arms instead of—some other man's. It's a miracle that you weren't ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... proceed thus to the new land of the Jews. The lots in provinces and towns will be sold by auction, and paid for, not in money, but in work. The general plan will have settled on streets, bridges, waterworks, etc., necessary for traffic. These will be united into provinces. Within these provinces sites for towns will be similarly ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... existing form. He may, without special sanction, but subject to any directions which may be given by the creditors in general meeting, or failing them by the committee, sell the property or any part of it for cash, including business goodwill and book debts, and either by public auction or private treaty, and generally exercise all the powers which the bankrupt might before adjudication have exercised in relation to the property, or which are by the Bankruptcy Act conferred ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... lands; to pour in the bonds and the bills which lay within those rosewood receptacles that lined the fatal lair of the sleek usurer; to seize on the very house in which now moved all the pomp of a retinue that vied with the valetaille of dukes; to advertise for public auction, under execution, "the costly effects of the Right Hon. Audley Egerton." But, consummate in his knowledge of the world, Egerton felt assured that Levy would not adopt these measures against him while he could still tower in the van of political war,—while he ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to the difficulty of dealing with the gigantic evil. The merchant feared a financial crisis, the repudiation of Southern debts and his own consequent inability to maintain the social position which his easily earned wealth had secured; the politician, who, at the great auction-sales of Northern pride and principle held every four years, had so often sought to outbid his rivals in baseness, that his party or faction might win the Presidential prize, turned pale at the prospect of losing Southern support; the divine could see no danger threatening ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... the auction sales, The poet's song and the lover's glee, The horrible murders, the seaboard gales, The marriage list, and the jeu d'esprit, All reach my ear in the self-same tone,— I shudder at each, but the fiend ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... been purchased, but it was in the neighbourhood she was sure. I had now a date to go upon; I learned, by careless inquiries, what sales near Fernside had taken place in a certain year. A gentleman had died at that date whose furniture was sold by auction. With great difficulty, I found that his widow was still alive, living far up the country: I paid her a visit; and, not to fatigue you with too long an account, I have only to say that she not only assured me that she perfectly ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... September, 1776, a resolution was introduced into the Massachusetts House of Representatives, "to prevent the sale of two negro men lately brought into this state, as prisoners taken on the high seas, and advertised to be sold at Salem, the 17th inst., by public auction."[588] The resolve in ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... 341 by Inch of Candle. An auction where bids are taken so long as an inch of candle burns, the last bid before the flame expires ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... prejudices, that to train so young a girl (and a girl so fond of children, and, therefore, a good girl at bottom, whatever her little faults might be) to such a wandering life, and to put her up as it were to auction for whoever would bid highest, was too terrible to be thought of. Better a thousand times to be a governess, or a sempstress, or any honest occupation by which she could earn her own bread. But then to Bice any such expedient ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... of the rights of Sechele and the Bakwains, I was treated as conniving at their resistance, and my house was destroyed, my library, the solace of our solitude, torn to pieces, my stock of medicines smashed, and our furniture and clothing sold at public auction to pay the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... yearly 10,000 dollars. Of all sheep or goats, he is entitled to a fifth. On the sale of every slave, he has, in addition to the head-money, a dollar and a half, which, at the rate of 4,000, gives another 6,000 dollars. The captured slaves are sold by auction, at which the sultan's brokers attend, bidding high only for the finest. The owner bids against them until he has an offer equal to what he considers as the value of the slave; he has then three-fourths of the money paid ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... any bay in Laputa—that voyage which resulted in the founding of a cluster of great nations any one of whose mammoth millionaires could now buy up Ilium and the Golden Fleece combined if offered in the auction mart? The Spirit of Antiquity knows not that captain. In a thousand years' time, no doubt, these things may be as ripe for poetic treatment as the voyage of the Argonauts; but on a planet like this a good many changes may occur before an epic poet shall arise to sing them. Mr. Lighthall ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... in the gift, observed with his grave smile: "I didn't suppose I should find any one here who would feel about these things as I do." On another occasion he asked her acceptance of a half-effaced eighteenth century pastel which he had surprisingly picked up in a New York auction-room. "I know no one but you who would really appreciate it," ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... be new to me too," said Sandy. "Here we have no selling; we do not even auction off our own wool, as you see, for our clip goes direct to our owners. But when a ranch sells its wool to other buyers the manager has lively days, I can tell you. Both Anchor and Star Ranch sell to brokers. They send out word that they have wool for sale and the ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett

... that the whole amount of cash left was barely enough for the funeral expenses. The bonds which were found proved to be so many worthless pieces of parchment. The jewellery of recent workmanship consisted of a set of valueless shirt-studs and a watch that would not have fetched ten florins at auction. Of silver there was a tablespoon, a teaspoon, a ladle, and two or three pieces of tableware, bent, crooked, and broken, hardly worth the mentioning. Of horses there were two lean and decrepit-looking animals, and the cattle consisted of a diminutive black cow and her calf, neither of much value, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... heart knows, that to men and Nations there are invaluable values which cannot be sold for money at all. George Robins is great; but he is not onmipotent. George Robins cannot quite sell Heaven and Earth by auction, excellent though he be at the business. Nay, if M'Croudy offered his own life for sale in Threadneedle Street, would anybody buy it? Not I, for one. "Nobody bids: pass on to the next lot," answers Robins. And yet to M'Croudy this unsalable lot is worth all the Universe:—nay, I ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... remuneration for painting this valuable series was but a few shillings more than one hundred pounds. On the demise of Mr. Lane, they became the property of his nephew, Colonel Cawthorn, who very highly valued them. In the year 1797 they were sold by auction, at Christie's, Pall Mall, for the sum of one thousand guineas; the liberal purchaser being the late Mr. Angerstein. They now belong to government, and are the most attractive objects in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various

... would ride rough-shod over a weaker neighbour. In fact, he pleaded strongly for British approval of the pride which Portugal felt in her traditions and of her desire to cling to what she had preserved from the past. Once break this down, he said, and we should see Portuguese dominions put up for auction, and England might not always prove to be the highest bidder. Friendly co-operation, joint development of railways, and commercial treaties commended themselves better to his judgement, and he was prepared to spend a large part even of his holidays in England in working out the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... of the room is the auction room," King, indicating nearly half of the long living-room. "Now, Flip and I are auctioneers and you ladies are in reduced poverty, and have to bring your household goods ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells

... brothel, where half a million of women are flogged to prostitution, or, worse still, are degraded to believe it honorable. The public squares of half our great cities echo to the wail of families torn asunder at the auction-block; no one of our fair rivers that has not closed over the negro seeking in death a refuge from a life too wretched to bear; thousands of fugitives skulk along our highways, afraid to tell their ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... agricultural, political and social, on the price of the commodity. The room in which the sales are conducted is not a large one, and usually not more than a hundred people, buyers, pressmen, etc., are present. Not a single cacao bean is visible, and it might be an auction sale of property for all the uninitiated could tell. The cacao is put up in lots. Usually the sales proceed quietly, and it is difficult to realize that many thousands of bags of cacao are changing hands. The buyers have perfect trust in the broker's descriptions; they know the invariable ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp

... Transvaal suddenly recommenced with redoubled vigour. It began through a man named Bezuidenhout, who refused to pay his taxes. Thereupon a waggon was seized in execution under the authority of the court and put up to auction, but its sale was prevented by a crowd of rebel Boers, who kicked the auctioneer off the waggon and dragged the vehicle away. This was on the 11th November 1880. When this intelligence reached Pretoria, Sir Owen Lanyon sent ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... same house, and it is still a place of entertainment; but, about ten years ago, the lease expired, when the rarities, presented by so many collectors, to the spirited Barber Salter, (nicknamed, Don Saltero,) were sold by public auction. ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... look-out for some new distraction from the tedium of War. The latest vogue with smart people is to get up little air-raid parties for the Tube, to be followed by auction or a small boy-and-girl dance. Sections of tunnel or platform can be engaged beforehand by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various

... replied the old man, waxing wroth. "Well, Archer, to tell heaven's truth, now, I doos know it; but it's an etarnal all-fired shame of me to be tellin' it, bein' as how I knows it in the way of business like. It's got to be selled by vandoo in April*. [*Vendue. Why the French word for a public auction has been adopted throughout the Northern and Eastern States, as applied to a ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... both sides of the water had bought up every berth from stem to stern, and had put them up to auction, realising fabulous prices, which had little chance of being abated, even when her sister ship the Sidonia, the construction of which was being pushed forward on the Clyde with all possible speed, was ready to ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... Europeans, who, as Mr. Hardy had done, generally bring English saddles from home. After an absence of a month, Mr. Hardy returned with the welcome news that he had made his choice, and had bought at the public auction a tract of four square leagues, upon a river some twenty miles to the south of the town of Rosario, and consequently only a few days' journey from Buenos Ayres. Mr. Thompson looked a little grave when he heard the location of the property, but ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... a bottle. As soon as we have tasted the first sparkling foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of nectar is at our lips. On the Monday we have an allegory as lively and ingenious as Lucian's Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday an Eastern apologue, as richly coloured as the Tales of Scherezade; on the Wednesday, a character described with the skill of La Bruyere; on the Thursday, a scene from common life, equal to the best chapters in the Vicar of Wakefield; ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and what its proper use. When we were at St. Louis a tax was being gathered of 100l. a head from certain men presumed to be secessionists; and, as the money was not of course very readily paid, the furniture of these suspected secessionists was being sold by auction. No doubt such a measure was by them regarded as a great abuse. One gentleman informed me that, in addition to this, certain houses of his had been taken by the government at a fixed rent, and that the payment of the rent was now refused unless he would take the oath of allegiance. He no doubt ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... clump of weeds. The savages were intent on cutting off some whites who were working in a turnip patch two hundred yards from the fort; Clark's party killed three—he himself killing one,—wounded another, and sold the plunder they took, at auction, for seventy pounds. At other times the skirmishes resulted differently, as on the occasion chronicled by Clark in his diary, when they "went out to hunt Indians; one wounded Squire Boon and escaped." [Footnote: Clark's Diary, entry ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... dramatically hiked interest rates added to the domestic debt burden and stifled growth. GDP fell by 10% in 1996, after experiencing 2.6% growth in 1995. Privatization of state-owned industries stagnated, although the first auction of a mass privatization program was undertaken in late 1996. Lagging progress on structural reforms led to postponement of IMF disbursements under a $580 million standby loan agreed to in July. In November 1996, the IMF proposed a currency board as ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... at By was near Fontainebleau, where she lived quietly, and for some years held gratuitous classes for drawing. She left, at her death, a collection of pictures, studies, etchings, etc., which were sold by auction in Paris ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... free by constitution simply? Are there no slaves except those who, like the African thirty years ago, are bought and sold at the auction block? Ay, indeed! for every black man liberated by President Lincoln's proclamation, there is, to-day, a white man robbed and degraded and brutalized by some gigantic trust or other equally soulless, ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... but think twice is safest ollers; There aint, thinks I, not one on em' but 's wuth his twenty dollars, Or would be, ef I hed 'em back into a Christian land,— How temptin' all on 'em would look upon an auction-stand! (Not but wut I hate Slavery in th' abstract, stem to starn,— I leave it ware our fathers did, a privit State consarn.) Soon 'z they see me, they yelled an' run, but Pomp wuz out ahoein' A leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else there aint no knowin' He would n't ha' ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... relinquishment, on the part of the general government, of the beach lands in front of the town in favour of the municipality, under certain conditions. This was granted by the Governor, who issued a decree dated 10th March, permitting the sales by auction of all such grounds adjacent to the water-side as might be found adapted to commercial purposes, with the exception of such lots as might be selected for the use of the United States government, by its proper officers. The sales accordingly took place, the lots were ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... are handed in, there are invariably some pieces of valuable comment which are well in keeping with the traditions of professional criticism. The critic usually returns the book with his article. These books are ultimately collected and disposed of in various ways. They may be sold at auction to members of the staff, which is an effective way of getting rid of them ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... weather—it's been about as bad as I ever seen it. Not a good hard rain, but a steady drizzle-drozzle day after day. You can't put your foot out of doors without getting your petticoats draggled. But you'll want to hear the news. Cousin Joshua he died last month, and the place was sold to auction. Deacon Stebbins bought it low. He's getting harder-fisted every year. Eliza Stebbins she's pretty far gone with lung trouble, living in that damp old place; but he won't hear to making any change, and she ain't got life enough left to ask for it. Both her boys ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... grumbled Sam; "he won't come across with a cent. I suppose, if I don't pay for the hydroplane's recovery pretty soon, she will be sold at auction." ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson

... say to you is, Moe, you should look out for yourself and don't play no auction pinocle with that feller. Every afternoon he is playing with such sharks like Moe Rabiner and Marks Pasinsky, and if he ever got out of a job as designer he could go on the stage at one of them continual performances as a ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass

... shops, are some auction-rooms, where you may find any article of wearing apparel or household furniture, from a lady's wig a la Caraculla to a bed a la Grecque: here are as many puffers as in a mock auction in London; and should ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves. Here are no lying nor vain epitaphs. What though you own no lot at Mount Auburn? Your lot is surely cast somewhere in this vast cemetery, which has been consecrated from of old. You need attend no auction to secure a place. There is room enough here. The Loose-strife shall bloom and the Huckleberry-bird sing over your bones. The woodman and hunter shall be your sextons, and the children shall tread upon the borders as much as they will. Let us walk in the cemetery ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... Marden. He says that a lad, who later became one of the millionaires of one of our great Western cities, began his earning career by taking advantage of an opportunity that came to him as he was passing an auction shop. He saw several boxes of a kind of soap which his mother was accustomed to buy from the family grocer. Hastening to the grocery store he asked the price of the soap. "Twelve cents a pound" was the ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... enterprising Dutch traders captured the first world's market for coffee—Activities of the Netherlands East India Company—The first coffee house at the Hague—The first public auction at Amsterdam in 1711, when Java coffee brought forty-seven cents a pound, green ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... day they took us all on shore, lodging us in two rooms near the Stadt-house, our bark, with all our money and goods, being taken from us, except what we happened to have about our persons, and soon after our vessel and goods were sold by auction. We were fed with bad meat, which our stomachs could ill digest, being very weak with having been so long on short allowance, and if we desired to have better we had to buy it with our own money. Several of us had fortunately ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... volume, entitled "Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat," there was related our hero's adventures in a fine craft which was recovered from the thieves and sold at auction. There was a mystery connected with the boat, and for a long time Tom could not solve it. He was aided, however, by his chum, Ned Newton, who worked in the Shopton Bank, and also by Mr. Damon and Eradicate ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... numerous and varied in matter. I have heard upon good authority that the proprietor of any one of these journals draws at least L4000 to L5000 per annum from the profits of them. It is not difficult to account for these enormous gains. Every thing here is sold by auction, and the advertisements are in consequence more numerous than they would otherwise be. An auctioneer alone, in good business, will pay each of the papers about L1000 per annum for printing and advertising his numerous sales. We have a supreme court with a suitable establishment ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... show of the thing, a great deal more good would have resulted if everybody had carried a tin mug of water and thrown it upon the fire. Still, they did learn this truth at last, and the result was that one day the old fire-engine was sold by auction in the marketplace of the nearest town and bought for a trifle by ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... colored people were divided amongst his children, and I fell to young master; his name was James Grandy. I was then about eight years old. When I became old enough to be taken away from my mother and put to field work, I was hired out for the year, by auction, at the court house, every January: this is the common practice with respect to slaves belonging to persons who are under age. This continued till my master and ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy

... whether surveyed or unsurveyed, to which the Indian title may have been extinguished at the time of settlement. It has been found by experience that in consequence of combinations of purchasers and other causes a very small quantity of the public lands, when sold at public auction, commands a higher price than the minimum rates established by law. The settlers on the public lands are, however, but rarely able to secure their homes and improvements at the public sales at that rate, because these combinations, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... said land for a market place, and public landing as to them shall seem convenient; and when the said town shall be so laid out, the said directors and trustees shall have full power and authority to sell all the said lots, by public sale or auction, from time to time, to the highest bidder so as no person shall have more than two lots."[13] The money arising from the sale was to be paid to the two Alexanders and to ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore

... said the redhead. "I'll wait. When you change your mind look me up. Name's Yule Larson." He slapped Tee heavily on the back and swaggered toward the door. He turned and looked back. "Better go along with me. After six months they can auction off your ship to pay for the port charges, you know." The door swung shut ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow

... Auctioneers of Literary Property, will SELL by AUCTION, at their Great Room, 191. Piccadilly, on MONDAY, May 26, and five following Days, a most curious Collection of BOOKS, the property of a Gentleman, including Works on Animal Magnetism, Mesmerism, and Mesmeric Sleep; Angels and their Ministrations; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various

... in the least in touch with us. On the Stock Exchange they do little, nowadays, I am told, but invent stories which the members can tell only to other men's wives, and up in the west we do little else except talk finance. The money we used to lose at auction bridge now all goes to our brokers. We worry the lives out of our men friends by continually ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... sitting before the fire in one of the two big "wing" chairs which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects were sold at auction. I should not have acquired them as cheaply if Captain Cyrus Whittaker had been at home when the auction took place. Captain Cy loves old-fashioned things as much as I do and, as he has often told me since, he meant to land those chairs some day ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... evening we returned to dinner, and again we had a very pleasant one in celebration of my birthday. After dinner we played cut-throat auction, and ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack

... "She wasn't saying anything about you at all. She and Hinpoha were playing a game, a very clever and original game, by the way, having an auction sale in sign language. Sahwah bought all the figures but one, and then, wishing a diversion, refused the last one. It just happened to ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... and she and Rose and Vi came downstairs with them to the room in which the children had been playing at first. Russ and Laddie had set up the sectional bookcase once more and the room looked less like the wreck of an auction room, ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope

... territory to the sea-devils. He was, in consequence, declared "worthy of death," deprived of his titles, goods, and honors, and sent into exile in Tartary: his houses were razed to the ground, and his wives put up to auction! But Fortune and the emperors of China are capricious; and events in Thibet having, towards the year 1844, assumed an aspect which appeared to offer a favorable opportunity of extending Chinese influence in that quarter, the "Holy Master" bethought ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... for sale by auction by Mr. Prestage, of Savile Row, in April, 1756, and sold by private contract to Mr. Child. It forms the principal part of the ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... proposed to scare Nicodemus to death, and explained how he was going to do it. He had a noble new skeleton—the skeleton of the late and only local celebrity, Jimmy Finn, the village drunkard—a grisly piece of property which he had bought of Jimmy Finn himself, at auction, for fifty dollars, under great competition, when Jimmy lay very sick in the tanyard a fortnight before his death. The fifty dollars had gone promptly for whiskey and had considerably hurried up the change of ownership in the skeleton. The doctor would put Jimmy ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain

... been used to the melting mood, which he was not; having never been seen actually to shed a tear but once—when five-sixths of his little bill of costs (L196, 15s. 4d.) were taxed off in an auction on a Bill of Exchange for L13.[7] As it was, he tweedled the letter about in his hands for about five minutes, in a musing mood, and then stepped with it into Mr. Gammon's room. That gentleman took the letter with an air of curiosity, and read it over; at every sentence (if ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... from vanishing into thin air to-morrow morning at the auction mart, eighteen hundred francs! To repay my friends, as much again! Three quarters' rent to the landlord—whom you know.—My 'uncle' wants five ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... in Southerne's The Loyal Brother. Mrs. Quin appears to have retired from the stage towards the close of the year 1682. There exists of this actress an extremely interesting portrait which was offered for sale at Stevens' Auction Rooms, 26 February, 1901, but not reaching the reserve price, withdrawn. It is mistakenly described in the catalogue as 'Miniature Portrait of Nell Gwynn on copper with original case and 30 cover dresses on talc...' An illustrated article on it, entitled, 'Nell Gwynne's ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... about four years after the disappearance of her husband, while she was walking along the Rue aux Juifs, she stopped before the house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose furniture was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction. He had green feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with a displeased look. "Three francs!" cried the auctioneer. "A bird that can talk like a ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... which they performed of their spiritual office. Such fines they refused to pay, lest they should acknowledge the justice of their condemnation. Their movable property, accordingly, was seized and sold at auction, and they themselves were immured in the prisons, where they were mixed up with felons condemned to the same labors, and designated, like them, by numbers. It was all in vain. Nothing could shake their ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... forward presented the external aspect to which the inhabitants of the narrow and fashionable street and those who passed through it had been accustomed. Such individuals as had anticipated beholding at some early day notices conspicuously placed announcing "Sale by Auction. Elegant Modern Furniture" were vaguely puzzled as well as surprised by the fact that no such notices appeared even inconspicuously. Also there did not draw up before the door—even as the weeks went on—huge and heavy removal vans with their resultant litter, their final note of farewell a "To Let" ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... cause of Rome's decline, inferior and subject races having been sucked into Rome to fill the vacuum left as the Romans themselves perished in war. The continuous killing of the best left room for the "post-Roman herd," who once sold the imperial throne at auction to the highest bidder. As the Romans vanished through warfare at home and abroad, came an inrush of foreign blood from all regions roundabout. ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... remarked Price, rousing his mind from a retrospect of its extensive past. And, no doubt, the old man was right; for a relic, answering to Mosey's description, was sold by auction in Melbourne, with other assets of the expedition, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... advertising age, and an advertising age is a sensational age. Religion itself—the staid, the demure—shares in the general tendency. She preaches in the style of the auction room, she beats drums and shakes tambourines in the streets, she affects criminals and dotes on vice, she bustles about the reformation of confirmed topers. By-and-bye she will get up a mission to lunatics and idiots. She is now a very "forward" person. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... somewhat early, others were earlier still, and a group of men, hardy sons of toil, were standing near the house engaged in earnest conversation. They had come a long distance, for an auction such as this was a most unusual occurrence in Glendow. The Frenelle homestead had belonged to the family from the early Loyalist days, descending from father to son for several generations. Each had contributed something to the improvement of the land, but it remained ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody

... was an auction at the old house, and the little boy saw from his window how they carried the old knights and the old ladies away, the flower-pots with the long ears, the old chairs, and the old clothes-presses. Something came here, and something came there; the portrait of her who had been found at the broker's ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen

... movements,—ignorant of everything but what related to the negro quarter. He had heard that himself, his wife, his daughter,—"the leetle Chloe,"—with all their fellow-slaves, were to be carried down to the city, and to be sold in the slave-market by auction. They were to be taken the following day. They were already advertised. That was all he knew. No, not all,—one other piece of information he had in store for me. It was authentic: he had heard the "white folks" talk of it to one another:—Larkin, Gayarre, ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... money on doing it; that one projectile probably had not ruined her beyond repair; that she was a menace to navigation in Papeete Harbor and hence would have to be gotten out of the way, either by dynamite or auction; that—well, any number of thats should have occurred to Cappy Ricks to suggest the advisability of keeping track of the wreck of the Valkyrie. However, for some mysterious reasons—his resentment against the German ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... merit. He was too natural for an artificial age. Among the pictures exhibited here is one from his famous series of the Harlot's Progress. It is too well known by the engravings to need description; but when the eight masterly pictures which compose this series were sold at auction during Hogarth's life, they brought the sum of fourteen guineas each! The March of the Guards to Finchley, so admirable in composition, so full of incident and character, so rich in humor, could not be sold by the artist, and he disposed of it in a lottery, in which many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... the interior of the closet when they are partially open, as well as when they are closed. They may be as light as it is possible to make them. In many houses one-half the doors might wisely be sent to the auction-room and the proceeds invested in portieres, which are often far more suitable and convenient than solid doors, especially for chamber closets, for dressing-rooms, or other apartments communicating in suites, and not infrequently a heavy curtain ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... to the Pretorians all that he had promised and to the people one hundred denarii apiece. All the articles that Commodus had gathered by way of luxury and for armed combats and for chariot driving were exposed in the auction-room, the principal object sought being their sale, though there was a further intention to show what were the late emperor's deeds and practices and to ascertain ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... will make haste to desert the iron rails. Railroad freights everywhere, will fall to zero. Short railroads—branches and feeders to main lines—will become useless and worthless. Many of them will be sold at auction, for less than the cost of the iron in ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... New York Horace Eastman went, and arranged for a large auction-sale of goods, which was a remarkable success, and created quite a ripple in the sea of stagnation. Then he contracted to deliver another lot by the first of January, at certain prices. And now either manufacturer must give up profits, or workman yield his margin, and be contented ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... enclosed he would please find a bill for the current year's taxes on the 75,000 acres of Tennessee Land belonging to the estate of Silas Hawkins, deceased, and added that the money must be paid within sixty days or the land would be sold at public auction for the taxes, as provided by law. The bill was for $180—something more than twice the market value of ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... most in the house of her friends, so was it with Savonarola. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed the increasing corruption and licentiousness of popes and clergy. The offices of cardinal and bishop were put up to auction, and sold to the highest bidder. The bishop extorted money from the priests, and these robbed the people. The grossest immorality was prevalent in all ranks of the Church, and without concealment. Even the monasteries and convents ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... Is the "Auction Block". You hear the moans and screams of mothers torn from their offspring. You see them driven away, herded like cattle, chained like convicts, sold to "master's" in the "low lands", ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... stratagem, a whole fleet of nine sail were taken by a single ship, in the neighbourhood of four or five harbours, in any one of which they would have found immediate shelter and security. The prizes, which happened to be richly laden, were safely conveyed to Jamaica, and there sold at public auction, for the benefit of the captors, who may safely challenge history to produce such another ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... paid the price. But Time is not at all a sentimental person: he is quite unaffected by the Adelphi reality of the doctor's face or the mawkish treacle of the village church; and when the collection is sold at auction twenty years hence, it will fetch about a fourth of the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... therefore, was spent in the subduing of the enemy and in the plundering of the city; and never indeed was city more wealthy. The next day the Dictator sold by public auction all the inhabitants that were of free condition; the money from which sale was brought into the public treasury; and though none other was so brought the Commons took it ill. And indeed for such spoil as each man bare home with ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church

... with that little praying figure; a story, which, to me, is a very touching one; and I believe myself to be the only human being capable of telling it. Indeed, I am only able to tell a part of it. How the figure came to be sold by auction, in the city of Toronto, at Messrs. Morris & Blackwell's sale on the 14th of March, 1880, or how it ever came to be in this part of the world at all, I know no more than the reader does; but I can probably tell all that is worth ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... confidence Mr. Royal had always placed in him, thought it was the best arrangement that could be made, at least for the present. While preparations were being made to effect this change, her proceedings were suddenly arrested by tidings that the house and furniture were to be sold at auction, to satisfy the demands of creditors. She kept back the unwelcome news from the girls, while she held long consultations with Signor Papanti. He declared his opinion that Rosabella could make a fortune by her ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... "The bureaus in the two rooms are just alike. I got 'em at auction, and most likely ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger

... or two cowboys and several other citizens standing around talking earnestly. Sheriff comes out of open door with hand-lettered placard. He tacks it up beside a notice of an auction sale of stock, close to door. Draws attention of bystanders, who crowd around ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... choice company to go with him over the line and attend the christening of the stations. He convinced the rest of us of the wisdom of this, by showing us that it would awaken local interest along the line, and prepare the way for the auction sales of ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... extended to the whole nation by the Commonwealth government, and when the lands forfeited by the wars of 1690 came to be sold at Chichester House in 1703, the Irish were declared by the English Parliament incapable of purchasing at the auction, or of taking a lease of more than ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... discreetly advanced in her forties, was entitled to keep house for the colonel in his bereavement, as a jointly beneficial arrangement, without provoking scandal's tongue to more than a jocose innuendo or two when people met for "auction"—that new-fangled perplexing variant of bridge, just introduced, wherein you bid on the suits.... And, besides, Cousin Lucy Fentnor (as befitted any one born an Allardyce) was to all accounts a notable housekeeper, ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... reprinted from the columns of the "New York Tribune," possesses a double interest. It furnishes the best and most minute description of an auction-sale of slaves that has ever been published; and it admirably illustrates the enterprise and prompt energy which often distinguish the journalism of America above that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... dream and starve and write. Then followed an auction sale of the total collection of verses, hawked about anywhere and everywhere among the editeurs, like a crop of patiently grown fruit. Having sold it, literally by the yard, they would all saunter up the "Boul' Miche," and forget their past misery, in feasting, to their hearts' content, on the ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith

... magnificent stag-picture called, "The Monarch of the Glen," and well known all over the world from engravings, was recently exposed to auction, when it fetched the enormous price of 6,510 pounds. It is said that the painter sold it off his easel for 800 guineas. The bidding at the sale began at 2,000 pounds, and by bids of one hundred guineas reached 4,000 pounds, at which price it was hoped that it ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... magnificent pearl necklace that circled her throat. Its purchase had made a sensation in New York. The papers were full of it at the time Bivens had bought it at an auction in Paris, bidding successfully against the agents of the Tzar of Russia. Never had he seen Nan so ravishing. Magnificent gowns, soft laces, and jewelry were made to be worn by such women. There was an eternal fitness in the whole scheme of things in which this glorious creature ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... the gentlemen of the West India Company, in Holland, found all their property mercilessly confiscated. Colonel Nicholls seized on everything upon which he could lay his hand. He seemed anxious to eradicate every vestige of the former power. This property was sold at auction that it might thus be distributed among a large number of individual owners. The Colonel shrewdly imagined that he might thus interest all these persons in the maintenance ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... Poor Burton's clothes were put up to auction and disposed of among the crew, and his name was seldom or never mentioned afterwards. Too often the same thing happens on board ship when a seaman is lost, much as his shipmates may mourn for him ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston

... John Kennedy. I was raised round Aberdeen, Mississippi but they come in there after freedom. I heard em talk but I couldn't tell you much as where they come from. They said a young girl bout got her growth would auction off for more than any man. They used em for cooks and house women. I judge way they talked she be fifteen or sixteen years old. They brought $1,600 and $2,000. If they was scared up, where they been beat, they didn't sell off good. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... had prepared his bed, Harry drew out his basket, and proceeded to eat his supper. He then took a walk down Washington Street, with John, went to an auction, and otherwise amused himself till after nine o'clock, when he ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... up, bidding against one another good-humoredly and naming prices as though they had been haggling over Nana at an auction. La Faloise said he would cover her with gold. Besides, everybody was to be made to back her; they would go and pick up backers. But as the three young men were darting off to propagandize, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... importing and selling opium is sold, by auction, to the highest bidder for a term of three years. The present contract runs until 1899, and ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... has been known to go to a house within twelve hours of the death of the last surviving member of the family, and offer to negotiate with a servant or friend of the deceased for a chair, table, clock or sideboard he coveted. I doubt if an auction of old furniture has occurred for four years within one hundred miles of him where he has not been the first ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... mentioned, though it relates to Christmas Day, not Epiphany. At Salers in the centre of France there were formerly a king and queen whose function was to preside over the festival, sit in a place of honour in church, and go first in the procession. The kingship was not elective, but was sold by auction at the church door, and it is said to have been so much coveted that worthy citizens would sell their heritage in order to ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... exchanged their Spanish suits for the uniform of British officers, which they obtained from the effects of some of those who had fallen upon the previous day, these being, as is usual in a campaign, at once sold by auction, the amount realized being received by the paymaster for the benefit of the dead men's relatives. Major MacLeod had witnessed their ready presence of mind in throwing the rope across the road, and so checking the French charge, and giving time to the rear-guard to ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... was an auction-sale of fifty girls without character at Tortuga. They went off so well that fifty more were soon supplied. Schoelcher says that in the twelfth volume of the "Archives de la Marine" there is a note of "one hundred nymphs ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... of books, which was rather extensive, and rich in Oriental, especially Sanscrit literature, was sold by auction in Bonn, December, 1845. It appears by a chronological list prefixed to the catalogue, that reckoning both his separate publications and those contributed to periodicals, his printed works number no fewer than 126. Besides these he ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... absolute boob as she was. She'd pick out the most worthless junk I was knocking down and go mad over it and buy it with my good money. It got so that I realized I was slipping. I'd get a promise from her that she wouldn't come into the auction, but I never could be sure. And if I felt like cutting loose on some piece of junk and knocking it down with a lot of flourishes I knew sure as fate that the missus would be there and that she would be the fish that caught fire first and most ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... knick-knacks, and were selling them at the little tables set about the room; they also presided, more or less alluringly, at fruit, coffee, and ice-cream stands; and—I will not be sure, but I think—some of them seemed to be flirting with the youth of the other sex. There was an auction going on, and the place was full of tobacco smoke, which the women appeared not to mind. A booth for the sale of wine and beer was set off, and there was a good deal of amiable drinking. This was not like ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells

... mention the excellent collection of printed books that he also left behind him, both of chemistry and musick. Besides these books that he left, he had some years before his death (1714) sold by auction a noble collection of books, most of them in the Rosicrucian faculty (of which he was a great admirer), whereof there is a printed catalogue extant, as there is of those that were sold after his death, which catalogue ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley

... city authorities and rented to Baron Steuben, the disciplinarian of the American Army and the author of its first Manual of Arms. The household furniture, too, had been removed and offered for sale at public auction, while the coach and four was bought by a trader at the Coffee House. Arnold's presence in the city was now no more than a memory—a memory, indeed, but ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... therefore, still hard pressed for money in his business. The sale of his handsome furniture would help him a good deal, and he determined, resolutely, to have this done forthwith. His wife ventured a demurrer, which he immediately overruled. She had lost the ability to contend with him. A sale at auction was proposed. ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... been successful also. To this each person contributes a pound of something useful, all of which is sold by auction during the evening, causing ...
— Why and how: a hand-book for the use of the W.C.T. unions in Canada • Addie Chisholm

... for the wardrobes of the empresses till A.D. 176, when Marcus Aurelius, "the Philosopher," sold all the imperial ornaments and the silken robes of his empress by auction ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... trumpery which had begun to accumulate in his father's day. Among the rest was a dried tapeworm. And now, after lying half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these things were not burned; instead of a bonfire, or purifying destruction of them, there was an auction, or increasing of them. The neighbors eagerly collected to view them, bought them all, and carefully transported them to their garrets and dust holes, to lie there till their estates are settled, when they will start again. When a man dies he kicks ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... to Debenham's auction rooms, and they surveyed the lots of clothes which were hung up all round the auction room to be viewed. Ellen had had sufficient experience to know about how much each lot ought to fetch; she overhauled lot after lot, and valued it; in a very short ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... Declaration of Independence, that all men are created free and equal, and that no human being has a right to make merchandise of others born in humbler stations, and place them on a level with horses, cattle, and sheep, knocking them off the auction- block to the highest bidder, sundering family ties, and outraging the purest and ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... of about 1660. Plate 21. The Old Exchange in Amsterdam. After an engraving by Cl. Jz. Visscher. Plate 22. The Inn Called "de Keizers Kroon" In The Kalverstraat, Amsterdam. Here Rembrandt's collections were sold by auction, after his bankruptcy, in 1657 and 1058. After an anonymous drawing in the Archives in Amsterdam. Plate 23. The House Of Mr. F. Banning Cocq (the Captain And Prominent Person In Rembrandt's "Night-watch") In Amsterdam After an anonymous drawing in the family archives of Jhr. ...
— Rembrandt's Amsterdam • Frits Lugt

... pearl which cost him six millions of sesterces; and in the civil war, besides other presents, assigned to her, for a trifling consideration, some valuable farms when they were exposed to public auction. Many persons expressing their surprise at the lowness of the price, Cicero wittily remarked, "To let you know the real value of the purchase, between ourselves, Tertia was deducted:" for Servilia was supposed to have prostituted her daughter ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... coloured oil-lamps, a mere twinkling grin upon the face of pleasure? Dim my impression of having been admitted—or rather, I suppose, conducted, though under conductorship now vague to me—to view it by colourless day, when it must have worn the stamp of an auction-room quite void of the "lots." More distinct on the other hand the image of the bustling barriere at the top of the Avenue, on the hither side of the Arch, where the old loose-girt banlieue began ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... that I should like to have you see it, immediately, in most generous fashion, he suggested that I bring it home and show it to you. It is almost priceless and of course I demurred; but he insisted. He had just bought it at an auction in New York and was, I fancy, glad to find some one who was interested and would appreciate it. It is not complete; if it were it would be very valuable. It is just a few stray sheets from an ancient psalter. Nevertheless its workmanship is exquisite ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... were loaded upon the slave ships. When the trade was brisk and prices high, the hold of the ship was crowded to suffocation, and intense suffering was inevitable. Landing at Savannah or Charleston, Mobile or New Orleans, the slaves were sold at wholesale, in the auction place. Later, the slave dealer drove them in gangs through the villages, where they were sold at retail. The cost of a slave varied with the price of cotton. Of the three million one hundred thousand slaves living in the South in 1850, one million ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... time was directed to that region of social life in which the behavior of the individual is most individualistic and least controlled, namely, the market place. The economic man, as the classical economists conceived him, is more completely embodied in the trader in the auction pit, than in any other figure in any other situation in society. And the trader in that position performs a ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... had noticed that Charles was rather attentive to the fair actress, and the thought that an intimacy between them was possible drove him to the verge of distraction, Mrs. Dombey noticed his strange behavior, and asked him the cause, on which he muttered something about "Auction lunch— infernal champagne," and some other incoherent exclamations, altogether unintelligible to his unsuspicious wife. When he and his paramour got outside they walked along in gloomy silence for several minutes—at last he addressed her: "Is it not strange that this child, whom I had ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer

... the newly-mown grass in the front of the house. She gave him hasty and unlimited directions, only seeming intent—if any one had been suspiciously watching her words and actions—to hurry him off to the distant village, where the auction ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... germ of a great enterprise. Probably his venture was no very great success; it ran only for three years from its commencement on the 1st of February, 1824. On the 28th of October, 1827, Egan's Life in London was sold by auction to a Mr. Bell, and thenceforth assumed its well known and now time honoured title of ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... town of the far west. It reaches us in the MS. of a Boston friend: 'Old Colonel W——, formerly a well-known character in one of our eastern cities, was remarkable for but one passion out of the ordinary range of humanity, and that was for buying at auction any little lot of trumpery which came under the head of 'miscellaneous,' for the reason that it couldn't be classified. Though close-fisted in general, he was continually throwing away his money by fives and tens upon such trash. In this way he had filled all the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... by showing us a collection of pottery famous in England, that had belonged to the fifth duke, his father. Every piece of it, by the way, afterwards brought an enormous sum at auction. Supper was served in a warm little room of oak. The game was from Derresley Manor, the duke's Nottinghamshire seat, and the wine, so he told us, was some of fifty bottles of rare Chinon he had inherited. Melted rubies it was indeed, of the sort which had quickened the blood of many a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... violence of tongues, the broken, half-comprehensible tumult, was smitten and divided by a wave of rhythmic sound. It pushed aside the cries of the sweetmeat sellers, and mounted above the cracked bell that proclaimed the continual auction of Krist, Dass and Friend, dealers in the second-hand. In its vivid familiarity it seemed to make straight for the two Englishmen, to surround and take possession of them, and they paused. The source of it was plain—an open ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... the cholera did the stage coach bring this mohning?" quickly inquired his neighbor in his ear; and the two immediately fell into low, grave talk, forgot the auction, and turned away. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... the creditors were disposed to grant him any indulgence not incompatible with their own interests. They agreed to accept the proffered note, all except Mr. Grossman. He insisted that the girl should be put up at auction. For her sake, the ruined merchant condescended to plead with him. He represented that the tie between them was very different from the merely convenient connections which were so common; that Loo Loo was really good and modest, and so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... thought it would be fairer to put it up to auction. There were other enquiries. Oh! She's a leery old bird—reminds me of one of those pictures of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... child is father of the man."—so Wordsworth sang; and here is a jolly story of a little girl who was her father's mother in a very real way. There were hard lines for him, and she was fruitful of devices to help him along, even having an auction of the pretty things that had been given her from time to time, and realizing a neat little sum. Then her father was accused of peculation; and she, sweetly ignorant of the ways of justice, went to the ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge

... from his mother, written without his father's knowledge, and that letter persuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come and take matters in hand, their whole property would be sold by auction and they would all have to go begging. The count was so weak, and trusted Mitenka so much, and was so good-natured, that everybody took advantage of him and things were going from bad to worse. "For God's sake, I implore you, come at once if you do not wish to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... was a very stupid person. It is true that Ben Jonson is on the side of the lady, but I am far too orthodox to entertain any such opinion; and though I have, in this instance of history, so far resisted him as to have refrained from sending my standard historians to the auction mart—where, indeed, with the almost single exception of Mr. Grote's History of Greece (the octavo edition in twelve volumes), prices rule so low as to make cartage a consideration—I have still of late found myself turning off the turnpike of history to loiter down the primrose paths of men's ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell

... relating to this method of inducing what is called clairvoyance, we have an illustration of the early acquaintance of mankind with some of the forms of mesmerism. The passage is found in Spartian's life of Ditius Julian, the rich Roman who purchased the Empire when it was put up to auction by the Praetorian guards. "Julian was also addicted to the madness of consulting magicians, through whom he hoped either to appease the indignation of the people, or to control the violence of the soldiery. For they immolated certain victims (human?) not agreeable ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... run the risk of dying without confession and going eternally to hell; and yet the gars of Marignay, whose churches they have burned, stand still with folded arms! Oh! oh! this Republic of damned souls has sold the property of God and that of the nobles at auction; it has shared the proceeds with the Blues; it has decreed, in order to gorge itself with money as it does with blood, that a crown shall be only worth three francs instead of six; and yet the gars of Marignay haven't ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac



Words linked to "Auction" :   commercialism, sale, outbid, auction sale, overbid, auctioneer, commerce, offer, tender, bridge, dutch auction, upset price, auction house, vendue, underbid, auction block, mercantilism



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