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Subsistence   Listen
noun
Subsistence  n.  
1.
Real being; existence. "Not only the things had subsistence, but the very images were of some creatures existing."
2.
Inherency; as, the subsistence of qualities in bodies.
3.
That which furnishes support to animal life; means of support; provisions, or that which produces provisions; livelihood; as, a meager subsistence. "His viceroy could only propose to himself a comfortable subsistence out of the plunder of his province."
4.
(Theol.) Same as Hypostasis, 2.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Subsistence" Quotes from Famous Books



... want is to provide my poor wife during my absence with the money necessary for her subsistence, which will not amount to much, also to enable me to pay for my journeys and my stay in Paris and London. Belloni must get me a small, cheap room, and I promise to be as careful as possible in every way. I trust you ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... Suzanna scarcely touched her glass. Covertly she watched Miss Smithson; she saw, how daintily that lady ate her plain vanilla ice cream; perhaps, after all, even teachers found it necessary to find some subsistence and Miss Smithson had hit upon ice cream as the most aesthetic. At least Suzanna was forced to believe this in her endeavor to keep intact her ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... patronage of the great. But most of all, and before all, I believe,—I am sure it is true in Lancashire, where the working men have seen themselves coming down from prosperity to ruin, from independence to a subsistence on charity,—I say that I believe that the unenfranchised but not hopeless millions of this country will never sympathize with a revolt which is intended to destroy the liberty of a continent, and to build on its ruins a mighty ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... in a part of the world where food is so difficult to be got; however, they still persisted in their design, putting on shore as often as they could to seek subsistence. But, about a fortnight after, another dreadful accident befell them, for the yawl sank at an anchor, and one of the men in her was drowned; and as the barge was incapable of carrying the whole company, they were now reduced to the hard necessity of leaving four marines behind them on that ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... the deep and luminous subsistence Of the High Light appeared to me three circles Of threefold color and of one dimension, And by the second seemed the first reflected As iris is by iris, and the third Seemed fire that equally by both is breathed. * * * * * "Within itself, of its own ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... dearer than 100 ells of wadmal. He permitted also all poor people, who could find provisions to keep them on the voyage across the sea, to emigrate from Iceland to Norway; and from that time there was better subsistence in the country, and the seasons also turned out better. King Harold also sent from Norway a bell for the church of which Olaf the Saint had sent the timbers to Iceland, and which was erected on the Thing-plain. Such remembrances ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival." "My son," said he, "it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing the design, as well as the goodness of God, in thus providing the means of subsistence." "Yes" replied the boy, "I think I see the goodness of God, at least so far as the crane is concerned: but after all, father, don't you think the arrangement a little ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... be as good as my word. All I have to impress upon you is, to beware of intemperance, which is very prevalent in this country, and when you find it convenient, to pay Government the money that was allowed you for subsistence while ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... horses and cattle belonging to an army. Also, the act of a military force in collecting or searching for such forage, or for subsistence or stores for the men; or, with ill-disciplined troops, for valuables in ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... in that island we put to sea again, and touched at several other ports. At last I arrived happily at Bagdad with infinite riches, of which it is needless to trouble you with the detail. Out of thankfulness to God for His mercies, I gave great alms for the support of several mosques, and for the subsistence of the poor, and employed myself wholly in enjoying the society of my kindred and friends, and in making merry ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... to such a dilemma that he was obliged to borrow a crown for a week's subsistence. He alludes to his distress when, entreating his cat to assist him, during the night, with the lustre of her eyes—"Non avendo candele per iscrivere i suoi versi!" having no candle to see to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... game, and fish are still abundant, and until recently have furnished to the Indians the chief source of subsistence. ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... are then,' said the wondering querist, 'destitute of all that other men are combined by—you have no law, no leader, no settled means of subsistence, no house or home. You have, may Heaven compassionate you, no country—and, may Heaven enlighten and forgive you, you have no God! What is it that remains to you, deprived of government, domestic ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... sovereign beyond the waters is, I know, the rightful lord of all. I rule in his name. You, Malinche, are his ambassador; you and your brethren shall share these things with me. Rest now from your labours. You are here in your own dwellings, and everything shall be provided for your subsistence. I will see that your wishes shall be obeyed in the same way as my own. Cortes, while he encouraged the idea that his own sovereign was the great Being, as Montezuma believed, assured him that his master had no ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... Captain Byron. The inhabitants of Tiookea are of a much darker colour than those of the higher islands, and appeared to be more fierce in their dispositions. This may be owing to their manner of gaining their subsistence, which is chiefly from the sea, and to their being much exposed to the sun and the weather. Our voyagers observed, that they were stout well-made men, and that they had marked on their bodies the figure of a fish, which was a ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... of Rievaulx Abbey and withdraw from their own monastery. This naturally did not please their abbot; but eventually, after appealing to the Archbishop of York, some land in a lonely valley, known as Skell Dale, was granted to them. Here, in the depth of winter, without shelter or means of subsistence, the pious monks suffered great hardship. After a few years Hugh, Dean of York, left all his possessions to the Abbey of Fountains, and after this ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home

... French, who has labored among this people, in a public address, drew a pleasing picture of the improvements introduced into the home-life of the negroes,—how, as they began to feel free, and earn an independent subsistence, their cabins were whitewashed, swept clean, kept in order, and pictures and maps, cut from illustrated newspapers, were pasted up on the walls by the women as a decoration. He spoke of the rivalry in neatness thus produced, and of the general elevating and refining effect. On his representation, ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society

... family of Esquimaux had been established on another lake not so far distant from the fort; and having been taught by the fur-traders how to set nets under the ice, they succeeded in procuring more than enough for their subsistence. It was hoped, therefore, that the larger lake would afford a good supply; and, the weather having become decidedly fine, Frank prepared to set out on the ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... use of machinery, which would probably, after a time, be somewhat restricted when men found out that there was no need for anxiety as to mere subsistence, and learned to take an interest and pleasure in handiwork which, done deliberately and thoughtfully, could be made ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris

... together in hordes in order that, by their joint efforts, they might, first of all, gain their still very primitive conditions of life and support, as well as to protect themselves against their common enemies, wild animals. Growing numbers and increased difficulties in securing subsistence, which originally consisted in roots, berries and fruit, first led to the splitting up or segmentation of the hordes, and to the ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... the benefit of man. Coal, the offspring of the sun, develops its latent energy, and water contributes its untiring hydraulic power. Machinery takes more and more the place of nerves and muscles, cheapens clothing and subsistence and all the necessaries of life, and opens new fields of industry, and more profitable employment for labor. Steam and lightning become the slave of man. He performs the journey of a day in an hour, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... he embarked 200 men of the most feeble & of the least resolute. He kept with him a like number of them more robust, & those who were able to endure fatigue & hunger, and determined having them to content themselves with certain small fruits, which commenced to ripen, for their subsistence, in order to await the new moon, in which the spirit of the other savages had predicted the arrival of my uncle, which they believed infallible, because their superstitious custom is of giving faith to all which their Manitou predicts. ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... he prostrated himself flat on the ground. "Deign not an unseemly jest. Close to the person of a great lady, such as is the honoured presence, the poor artisan finds but distress. His wares have no market amid this magnificence. Dependent on him for means of life are two aged parents. A bare subsistence is secured for them. Condescend his dismissal, that he may return ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... for unknown good, but experience.—The forest of Arden in As You Like It can alone compare with the mountain scenes in Cymbeline: yet how different the contemplative quiet of the one from the enterprising boldness and precarious mode of subsistence in the other! Shakespeare not only lets us into the minds of his characters, but gives a tone and colour to the scenes he describes from the feelings of their imaginary inhabitants. He at the same time preserves the utmost propriety of action and passion, ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... redemption of Debt. Chapter VI. Of An Interference Of Government Grounded On Erroneous Theories. 1. The doctrine of Protection to Native Industry. 2. —had its origin in the Mercantile System. 3. —supported by pleas of national subsistence and national defense. 4. —on the ground of encouraging young industries; colonial policy. 5. —on the ground of high wages. 6. —on the ground of creating a diversity of industries. 7. —on the ground that it lowers prices. Appendix I. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... and the lords of trade, by the King's command, advertised in March, 1749, offering to all officers and private men discharged from the army and navy, and to artificers necessary in building and husbandry, free passages, provisions for the voyage, and subsistence for a year after landing, arms, ammunition and utensils of industry, free grants of land in the Province, and a civil government with all the privileges enjoyed in the other ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman

... the reformed Church had an indisputable right to the entire inheritance of the Church it had displaced. There were, however, two formidable difficulties in the way of this claim. Without manifest injustice the ancient clergy could not be deprived wholesale of their means of subsistence. The second difficulty was also formidable. Of late years a considerable amount of Church property had passed into the hands of the nobles, barons, and gentry. Would these persons now be willing to lay their possessions at the feet of the ministers from whom they professed to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... received the brevet of captain. In 1848-1850 he was assistant instructor of infantry tactics at West Point. During the succeeding five years he was in the recruiting service, on frontier duty, and finally in the subsistence department. He resigned from the army in March 1855. During the futile attempt of Governor Beriah Magoffin to maintain Kentucky in a position of neutrality, he was commander of the state [v.04 p.0678] ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... rapidly decreasing on account of intermarriage with the Bukidnon or mountain Visayan. They are of very small stature, with kinky hair. They lead the same nomadic life as the Negritos in other parts, except that they depend more on the products of the forest for subsistence and rarely clear and cultivate "ca-ing-in." [11] They seem to have developed more of religious superstitions, and believe that both evil spirits and protecting spirits inhabit the forests and plains. However, these beliefs ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed

... sustain the first onset until the remainder of the army should have time to come to his assistance, and had started off one of his aides-de-camp with a letter to the marshal, apprising him of the danger, and asking him for re-enforcements. Fearing for the safety of the subsistence train, which had come up with the corps during the night and was again dragging its interminable length in the rear, he summarily sent it to the right about and directed it to make the best of its way to Chagny. Things were ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... heavy packs on their backs were making their toilsome way over the snow-covered surface of the frozen sea. One by one their companions had dropped. They had reached the wished for shore, but lofty ice-cliffs rose before them on which they had found it hopeless to seek for shelter of subsistence, and again they were attempting to make their way to the southward. First the boat which they had dragged over so many leagues had been consumed for fuel, and then the sledge was piece by piece burned to give them warmth ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston

... log that shook beneath their feet, while a ferocious dog opposed their passage, and drove many into the abyss. This river was full of sturgeons and other fish, which the ghosts speared for their subsistence. Beyond was a narrow path between moving rocks which each instant crushed together, grinding to atoms the less nimble of the pilgrims who essayed to pass." [1] A vestige of the same belief seems to crop out in a custom of some of ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... twelve years old, and Huldah, the "help." This last was the daughter of a neighboring farmer who was poor and hopelessly rheumatic, and most of the daughter's hard earnings went to eke out the scanty subsistence at home. Aunt Judith, the sister of John's mother, "looked after" the household affairs of her brother-in-law, by coming over once a week and helping Huldah darn and mend and make, and by giving Huldah such advice as her ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... noon without success, and hunger was now added to their thirst; they then returned to the beach to ascertain if their companions had been more successful. They had also quenched their thirst with the dew of heaven, but had found no water or means of subsistence; but some of them had eaten the leaves of the plant which had contained the dew in the morning, and had found them, although acid, full of watery sap and grateful to the palate. The plant in question is the one provided by bounteous Providence for the support ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... indirectly productive, are capable of a certain average yield of food, it is certain, as Malthus and Darwin would remind us, that human fertility can be reckoned on to bring the numbers up to a limit bearing a more or less constant ratio to the means of subsistence. ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... Great was the perturbation which then prevailed, the cry being, "We shall be cut off;" and while Col. Williamson's attention was imperiously called to rally his men, and charge the enemy, he was at the same time obliged to reinforce the baggage guard, on which the subsistence of the army depended for provisions, in ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... naval parlance, a ration is a portion or fixed allowance of provisions, drink and forage, assigned to a soldier in the army or a sailor in the navy, for his daily subsistence. Its component parts are established by law, but may be varied by the Secretary of War or of the Navy; or, when necessary, by the senior officer present in command. The latter may also diminish the allowance, in case of necessity, but of course the persons ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... possession of undisturbed leisure, is far from being the common lot; nay, it is something alien to human nature, for the ordinary man's destiny is to spend life in procuring what is necessary for the subsistence of himself and his family; he is a son of struggle and need, not a free intelligence. So people as a rule soon get tired of undisturbed leisure, and it becomes burdensome if there are no fictitious and forced ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer

... When they quarrel they constantly destroy each other, for they never will give up while they are alive. Among them are the Siberian dogs, remarkable for the instinct with which they return to their masters, after weeks of absence and self-subsistence, to drag their sleighs. This is the more curious, as they are then always very ill fed, and ill treated. They utter yells when about to be yoked, but, once in file, they move silently and rapidly, sometimes, however, trying ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... wife.—And, as a climax to the whole, his father's business was brought to a termination by bankruptcy, and the old man, in the decline of life, with still a large family dependent upon him for support, thrown upon the world, to struggle, almost powerless, for a subsistence. Fortunately, the Presidency of an Insurance Company was tendered him, with a salary of fifteen hundred dollars per annum. On this he could barely support those dependent upon him, leaving Charles the whole task of maintaining himself, his wife, and ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... later period of the century, when population pressed closely on subsistence, the system of middlemen produced a fierce competition which raised rent in the lower grades to an enormous height, but this evil was less felt with a scanty population, and the hierarchy of tenants at least saved the landlords from the dangerous isolation which their ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... of savage life; which is as if a painter should represent an oak-tree bearing roses. The life of the North-American Indian, like that of all men who stand upon the base-line of civilization, is a constant struggle, and often a losing struggle, for mere subsistence. The sting of animal wants is his chief motive of action, and the full gratification of animal wants his highest ideal of happiness. The "noble savage," as sketched by poets, weary of the hollowness, the insincerity, and the meanness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... taken eight years ago gave three and a half millions of women in England working for a subsistence; and of these two and a half millions were unmarried. In the interval between the census of 1851 and that of 1861, the number of self-supporting women had increased by more than half a million. This is significant; and still more striking, ...
— Women and Politics • Charles Kingsley

... of the Vandalin. Frightful deeds of shame and cruelty now prevailed all through the valleys. Two examples may suffice, although by no means the worst in some respects. A woman takes refuge in a cave, with her little babe and a goat, which furnished the means of their subsistence. Unfortunately the poor animal was heard to bleat by some of the soldiers who happened to be near. These wretches seized the child and, in the presence of its mother, threw it over the precipice, and then led the mother herself to a jutting crag that ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold

... profession, and I shall abide by it. I have no wish for wealth. I should never be tempted to sell my soul for money—no, nor my good name, or my independence: for I do not feel willing to barter even my time and tastes for riches. I can honestly say, money has no charms for me. A comfortable subsistence, in a very moderate way, is all I ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... deeds of violence. One example is sufficient:—Godin happened, on one occasion, to remain at his post with only one man, who attended the nets,—fish being the staff of life in that quarter. Visiting them regularly every day to procure his own and his master's subsistence, his return was one morning delayed much beyond the usual time. Godin felt so anxious, that he determined on going to the fishery to learn the cause; and just as he had quitted the house with that intention, he met an Indian who had been for some time encamped in ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... pabulum, nutrition, fare, diet, bread, meat, rations, victuals, subsistence, commons, provisions, viands, regimen, finding, sustenance, eatables, refreshments, comestibles, trencher, ambrosia, broma, manna. Associated Words: bromatology, bromatologist, alimental, alimentary, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... your epaulettes for the sake of beginning upon a new career, your enlistment could not be received in a single regiment of the army. It is fortunate, Monsieur, that the Emperor's government has been able to furnish you the means of subsistence in obtaining from His Royal Highness the Regent of Prussia the indemnity which was due you; for there is not even an office in the civil administration in which, even by special favor, a man seventy years old could be placed. You will very justly ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... became a very attractive place for all the vagabonds, outlaws, thieves and robbers of the country. Romulus welcomed them all, and as fast as they came he busied himself with plans to furnish them with employment and subsistence. He enlisted some of them in his army. Some he employed to cultivate the ground in the territory belonging to the city. Others were engaged as servants for the people within the walls—being taken into the city, in small numbers, from time to time, as fast as they could be ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Markham, who was the portionless younger son of a Nottinghamshire gentleman of ancient family, became the most voluminous miscellaneous writer of his age, using his pen apparently as his chief means of subsistence. He wrote on a vast variety of subjects, and both in verse and prose; but his works on farriery and husbandry appear to have been the most useful, and those on field sports the most entertaining, of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... this subject, Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), an Episcopal clergyman, announced his famous proposition, since known as the Malthusian theorem, that population tends to increase faster than the means of subsistence. Political economists and philosophers like Adam Smith (1723-1790), professor in the University of Glasgow, agreed on the "let-alone" doctrine of government. They held that individuals could succeed best ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... the Forward, which had just blown up before their eyes, took from them their last means of subsistence. Still, Hatteras's courage did not abandon him at this terrible crisis. The men who were left were the best of the crew; they were genuine heroes. He made an appeal to the energy and wisdom of Dr. Clawbonny, to the devotion of Johnson and Bell, to his own faith ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... satisfied with what you have said; and I only hope that, in future, you will not interfere with a poor smuggler, who may be striving, by a life of danger and privation, to procure subsistence for himself and, perhaps, his family. I stated to these ladies my intention of anchoring the yacht this night at Cowes, and leaving her as soon as she was in safety. Your unexpected presence will only make this difference, which is, that I must previously obtain your lordship's ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... economical, though of a very different moral character, is that possessed by domestic manufactures; fabrics produced in the leisure hours of families partially occupied in other pursuits, who, not depending for subsistence on the produce of the manufacture, can afford to sell it at any price, however low, for which they think it worth while to take the trouble of producing. The workman of Zuerich is to-day a manufacturer, to-morrow again an agriculturist, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... Bathurst craft. The commonalty of the sea is the host of dug-outs, in which the sable fisherman, indolently thrown back, props his feet upon the gunwales and attaches a line to each big toe. These men land little more than enough for their own subsistence, and the market-supply is infinitesimal compared with what industry and ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... from Versailles, 50 cavalry, and two companies of veterans; he ordered the property which was at Marly to be conveyed to Meudon; caused cartridges to be brought there, and established a workshop at that place for the manufacture of more. He secured means for the subsistence of the army and of the Convention for many days, independently of the depots ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog,—a natural sink in one corner of it. That was the jewel which dazzled me. I derive more of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my native town than from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are no richer parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda (Cassandra calyculata) which cover these tender places on the earth's surface. Botany cannot ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... whatever qualities it represents, even though they are in a certain sense amiable, it still displays them as having their origin in some dependence on our lower nature, accompanied with a defect in true freedom of spirit and self-subsistence, and subject to that unconnection by contradictions of the inward being, to which all ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... through the air. None of the party had more than six or seven pounds of flour left; whilst I had myself but one pound and a half, and half a pound of arrowroot; the native had nothing left and was wholly dependant on me for his subsistence. Now we had been seven days on our route, and had made but little more than seventy miles, and as the men were much weaker than when they first started it appeared to me to be extremely problematical whether we should ever reach Perth unless some plan different from what we had ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... climate or situation, or that they will produce nothing to send to Britain, such lands can only be converted into corn and pasture grounds; and the people in our colonies are thereby necessarily obliged, for a bare subsistence, to interfere with Britain, not only in manufactures, but in the very ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... heaven and furniture of the Earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a Mind," ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... The snow nearly all disappeared, and the ground was flooded with water. This thaw was life to the Indians. It enabled them to traverse the forests freely, and to gather ground-nuts, upon which they were almost exclusively dependent for subsistence. ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... horse, and begged a morsel of food for their famishing selves and dying infants. "look," cried an almost frantic mother, holding toward him the living skeleton of a child; "my husband was slain by the Southrons, who hold Lochmaben Castle; my subsistence was carried away, and myself turned forth, to give birth to this child on the rocks. We have fed till this hour on the wild berries; but I die, and my child expires before me!" A second group, with shrieks of despair, cried aloud, "Here are our young ones exposed to equal miseries. ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... Dr Johnson received his old friend Sir Alexander; a gentleman of good family, Lismore, but who had not the estate. The King's College here made him Professor of Medicine, which affords him a decent subsistence. He told us that the value of the stockings exported from Aberdeen was, in peace, a hundred thousand pounds; and amounted, in time of war, to one hundred and seventy thousand pounds. Dr Johnson asked, what made the difference? Here we had a proof of the comparative ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... God and all mankind permit you to eat and to drink, to enjoy good things, not merely what is necessary for actual subsistence, but in a measure calculated to afford gratification and pleasure, and you are yet not satisfied with that privilege—when such is the case, your sordid and gluttonous tendencies are worthy one born solely to consume beer and wine. But such are the excesses now ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... free we borrow money, and flatter and dance attendance on slaves, and give them dinners and presents, and pay taxes as it were to them, not on account of our poverty (for no one lends money to a poor man), but from our love of lavish expenditure. For if we were content with things necessary for subsistence, the race of money-lenders would be as extinct as Centaurs and Gorgons are; it is luxury that has created them as much as goldsmiths, and silversmiths, and perfumers, and dyers in bright colours. For we do not owe money for bread and wine, but for estates, and slaves, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... questioned whether publicity or notoriety should form an essential part of the definition; it seems, however, to be involved, or the prostitute cannot obtain clients. Reuss states that she must, in addition, be absolutely without means of subsistence; that is certainly not essential. Nor is it necessary, as the Digest insisted, that the act should be performed "without pleasure;" that may be as it will, without affecting the prostitutional ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... tribes and march on the Outagamies just as their corn was ripening, fight them if they stood their ground, or if not, destroy their crops, burn their wigwams, and encamp on the spot till winter; then send out parties to harass them as they roamed the woods seeking a meagre subsistence by hunting. In this way he hoped to cripple, if ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... widow of Avenel had cause to envy the lot of her husband in his dark and silent abode. The domestics who had guided her to her place of refuge, were presently obliged to disperse for their own safety, or to seek for necessary subsistence; and the shepherd and his wife, whose poor cottage she shared, were soon after deprived of the means of affording their late mistress even that coarse sustenance which they had gladly shared with her. Some ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... Their subsistence is wheat, corn, melons, pumpkins, vegetables, and the wild fruits. They have herds of cattle, plenty of horses, and great ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston

... vigorous effort to acquire such an education as would fit him for these duties. He succeeded, and by these efforts he raised himself from being a mere laborer, receiving for his daily toil a mere daily subsistence, to the respectability and the comforts of an intellectual pursuit. But this change once produced, he stops short in his progress. Once seated in his desk, he is satisfied, and for twenty years he has been going through the same routine, without ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott

... at a depth of two or three feet from the surface this proof was adduced of its presence; but the governor positively refused to assist the discoverers ("diggers," who were poor sailors visiting Ceylon), although they merely asked for subsistence until they should be able to reach a greater depth. This may appear too absurd to be correct, but ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... of Defoe is the paragraph [p. 2l] in which Defoe defends the hack-writers who must write for subsistence. One should not expect their writings, which are necessarily numerous, to be as correct and finished as they might be. After comparing their pens to prostitutes because of their venality, he claims, in a half-ironic tone, for both authors and booksellers the liberty of writing and printing ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe

... broken heart;—and who was to care for the orphan child of the forgotten friendless? An old pauper who lives in that hut, scarcely distinguishable from the shielings of the charcoal-burners, was glad to take her from the parish for a weekly mite that helps to eke out her own subsistence. For two or three years the child was felt a burden by the solitary widow; but ere she had reached her fifth summer, Alice Elleray never left the hut without darkness seeming to overshadow it—never entered the door without bringing the sunshine. Where can the small, lonely creature have heard ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... busy with his own interests than in making discoveries, is totally false, and, moreover, that any officers employed in such work will always be compelled to give some of their attention to trade, so long as the King allows them no other means of subsistence. These discoveries are very costly, and more fatiguing and dangerous than open war." [Footnote: La Galissoniere au Ministre, 23 Oct. 1747.] Two years later, the elder La Verendrye received the cross of the Order of St. Louis,—an honor much prized in ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... wagon accompanied them, full of extra rifles and ammunition, not unnecessary, for the Indians are raiding in all directions, maddened by the reckless and useless slaughter of the buffalo, which is their chief subsistence. On the Plains are herds of wild horses, buffalo, deer, and antelope; and in the Mountains, bears, wolves, deer, elk, mountain lions, bison, and mountain sheep. You see a rifle in every wagon, as people always hope to ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... Army of the Potomac, numbering 120,000 effective men, crossed the Rapidan en route for the Wilderness, each soldier carrying fifty rounds of ammunition and three days rations. The supply trains were loaded with ten days forage and subsistence. The advance was in two columns, General Warren being on the right and General Hancock on the left. Sedgwick followed closely upon Warren and crossed the Rapidan at Germania Ford. The Ninth Corps received its orders on the 4th, whereupon General Burnside ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... continued to receive for some years—not many; because these men either die early, or by unnaturally taxing their bodily energies, lose, prematurely, those physical powers on which alone they can depend for subsistence. His besetting sin gained so fast upon him, however, that it was found impossible to employ him in the situations in which he really was useful to the theatre. The public-house had a fascination for him which he could not resist. Neglected ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... live with no injury, or with the least possible injury, to animated beings, by pursuing those means of gaining subsistence, which are strictly prescribed by law, except ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... might appear to falsify the law of population enunciated by Malthus. Malthus maintained that population tended to increase beyond the means of subsistence; that three checks constantly operated to limit population—vice, misery, and moral restraint: vice, due largely to diseased conditions, misery, due to poverty and want, and moral restraint due to a dread of these. ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple

... Marston Moor fight; but leaving his command, employed his pen against the cause which he had supported with his sword, and became a favourite of Cromwell's. After the King's return, he, obtained a scanty subsistence by flattering men in power, and was frequently imprisoned for debt. He died in 1693. He published several poems, chiefly in Latin; and, in 1682, printed a book of Heraldry, with the arms of each of the gentry as he had ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... plants belonging to these four classes obtain part of their carbon, like ordinary species, from the atmosphere. Such are the diversified means, as far as at present known, by which higher plants gain their subsistence. ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... outset. Was Montmagny, the Governor, jealous of Maisonneuve; or did he simply realize the fearful dangers Maisonneuve's people would run going beyond the protection of Quebec? At all events, he disapproved this building of a second colony at Montreal, when the first colony at Quebec could barely gain subsistence. He offered them the Island of Orleans in exchange for the Island of Montreal, and warned them of ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... World War that brought soluble coffee to the front. E.F. Holbrook, formerly in charge of the coffee section, subsistence division, United States War Department, said, "The use of mustard gas by the Germans made it one of the most important articles of subsistence used by the army." Early in the war, soluble coffee was ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... perceived that he was not likely to meet in England with the success he had expected, both from love and fortune: but Lord Falmouth, ever attentive to the glory of his master, in the relief of illustrious men in distress, provided for his subsistence, and Lady Southesk for his pleasures: he obtained a pension from the king, and from her everything he desired; and most happy was it for him that she had no other present to bestow ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... tempting had gone, and with it their means of subsistence, begged, and not in vain, of shaky Alere Flamma. There are many of these wretches in Fleet Street. There is no romance about them to attract the charity ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... which may happen in a hundred ways,—the laborer, instead of being struck down and ruined by a sudden catastrophe, would be impoverished only; obliged to give a large quantity of his own value for a small quantity of the values of others, his means of subsistence would be reduced by an amount equal to the deficit in his sale: which would lead by degrees from competency to want. If, finally, the utility of the product should increase, or else if its production should become less costly, the balance of exchange would turn to the ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... innovations and improvements in the navigation of the lakes of Italy and Switzerland, it is true; but time, even at this hour, has done little towards changing the habits and opinions of those who ply on these inland waters for a subsistence. The Winkelried had the two low, diverging masts; the attenuated and picturesquely-poised latine yards; the light, triangular sails; the sweeping and projecting gangways; the receding and falling stern; the high and ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... so far successful as to supply him with a small capital. He seemed to work hard, leaving home at nine each morning, getting back to dinner at half-past six, and, as often as not, spending the evening away from home, and not returning till the small hours. He had the feverish eye of a man whose subsistence depends upon speculative acuteness and restless calculation. No doubt he was still so far the old Paul, that, whatever he undertook, he threw himself into ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... upon which they have reared an appalling superstructure of social and spiritual tyranny. Politicians have taught the peasantry to believe that they have been robbed of the land which is their only means of subsistence in a country that is destitute of mineral wealth, that lacks capital, and is overshadowed by the enormous commercial energy of Great Britain. The priests have adopted the theses of politicians, and have brought the terrors of their sacred ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... instruction. We wrap ourselves up in our own little vanities and weaknesses, and, fancying wealth and wisdom to be synonymous, vent our spleen against those who are resolutely striving, under the pressure of mediocrity and domestic misfortune, to obtain an honourable subsistence by ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... were more frequent than those from the English side of the border; not because the people were more warlike, but because they were poorer, and depended more entirely upon plunder for their subsistence. There was but little difference of race between the peoples on the opposite side of the border. Both were largely of mixed Danish and Anglo-Saxon blood; for, when William the Conqueror carried fire and ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... visitor was Dionysius, who seldom failed to make his appearance every forenoon: the poor fellow came for sympathy and conversation. It is difficult to imagine a situation more forlorn and isolated than that of this man,—a Greek at Seville, with scarcely a single acquaintance, and depending for subsistence on the miserable pittance to be derived from selling a few books, for the most part hawked about from door to door. "What could have first induced you to commence bookselling in Seville?" said I to him, as he arrived one sultry day, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... most part come raw to this study, unfitted and unprepar'd, and are long before they attain to the Knowledge of this Philosophy: And after they have spent some small time in this Study, they are many times call'd off and forc'd to leave it, in order to get a Livelihood and Subsistence. And although some, few do industriously apply themselves to Philosophy, yet for the sake of Gain, these very Men are opinionative, and ever and anon starting new and high Points, and never fix in the steps of their Ancestors. But the Barbarians keeping constantly close ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... the duty of the prudent man so to live, and so to arrange, that the pressure of suffering, in event of either contingency occurring, shall be mitigated to as great an extent as possible, not only to himself, but also to those who are dependent upon him for their comfort and subsistence. Viewed in this light the honest earning and the frugal use of money are of the greatest importance. Rightly earned, it is the representative of patient industry and untiring effort, of temptation resisted, and hope rewarded; and rightly used, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... ton—but say it is only half a ton, how many acres of dry western mountain land are capable of producing half a ton a year when not seeding down? As long as the consumption exceeds the production of the soil, it is only a question of time when even the sheep will no longer find subsistence. ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... object which they sought, "they were content to earn a bare subsistence by a life of frugality and toil. They asked nothing from the soil but the reasonable returns of their own labor. No golden vision threw a deceitful halo around their path.... They were content with the slow but steady progress of their social polity. They patiently ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... subsistence, was the municipality of the capital; and their seat of office was the first object of attack. Early on the Monday morning a multitude of excited women made their way into the Hotel de Ville. They wanted to destroy the heaps of papers, as all ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... luxurious abode there. So abundant were the imports of the place, that it was a common saying, that the productions, which were found singly elsewhere, were brought all together in Athens. Corn and wine, the staple of subsistence in such a climate, came from the isles of the Aegean; fine wool and carpeting from Asia Minor; slaves, as, now, from the Euxine, and timber too; and iron and brass from the coasts of the Mediterranean. The Athenian did not condescend to manufactures himself, but ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... at last; he believes he will have a vision, and that everything will be revealed to him. His devotion to his object is admirable, when he is a genuine ascetic and not, as is generally the case, a good-for-nothing who makes his piety pay for his subsistence; but it is devotion of a very low intellectual order. The true adept thinks the training of the mind in intellectual pursuits no less necessary than the moderate and reasonable mortification of the flesh, and higher Buddhism pays as ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford

... complaint; exhibited no resentment; and in reply to the condolences of her gaolers, simply replied: "I must have patience; my enemies are powerful, the Queen-mother is absent, and no doubt I shall be compelled to leave France. I will retire with my son to Florence; we have still the means of subsistence, and I must endeavour ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... Would a man who has an ill title to an estate, but yet is in possession of it, would he bring it of his own accord to be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talents [talent], yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right where ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... accustomed round of labors, but would lack impulse to attempt anything new. Circumstances did not compel them to unwonted efforts, and their capabilities lay dormant. The world was wide, the population comparatively sparse, and the means of subsistence not difficult ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... infrastructure is still damaged or undeveloped from the 27-year-long civil war. Remnants of the conflict such as widespread land mines still mar the countryside even though an apparently durable peace was established after the death of rebel leader Jonas SAVIMBI in February 2002. Subsistence agriculture provides the main livelihood for most of the people, but half of the country's food must still be imported. In 2005, the government started using a $2 billion line of credit, since increased to $7 billion, from China to rebuild Angola's ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... I, "civilization and population have gone hand in hand; and the necessity of an increasing subsistence for increasing numbers, has been the parent of useful arts and of social improvement. In every successive stage of their advancement, such countries have equally felt the evils occasioned by a scanty and precarious ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... it is nobody's business to see that the maimed, the halt, the blind are taught and trained to be of some service, and made able in some way to earn a subsistence. Philanthropy, it is true, does something, and also those blessed institutions, the schools for the blind, and training homes for the crippled. I never see such institutions without experiencing great gladness, for I know how much evil they ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... total subversion of it will make them absolute Masters in Physic and Physicians their Servants. In Order hereunto they have constantly, both publickly and privately opposed the College in whatsoever hath been offered to setle the liberty of practice on them, their only priviledg and subsistence, though they have been offered all they could desire for the security of their Trade, and legal employment, and far beyond whatsoever any Corporation of Apothecaries in all, or in any forreign part enjoy, yet nothing would ever content ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett

... proceeded in profound and moody silence to the summit of the nearest swell, whence they could command an almost boundless view of the naked plains. Here nothing was visible but a solitary buffaloe, that gleaned a meagre subsistence from the decaying herbage, at no great distance, and the ass of the physician, who profited by his freedom to enjoy a meal richer ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... absorb their thoughts and efforts, and to give room for the display of Christ's power to provide. It had a promise wrapped in it. He who forbade them to provide for themselves thereby pledged Himself to take care of them. 'The labourer is worthy of his food.' They may be sure of subsistence, and are not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... their nature, and admits a wider range. They are a very valuable property to the tribes of illiterate Tartars, who live in tents, and tend them from place to place, affording their herdsmen a mode of conveyance, a good covering, and subsistence. They are never employed in agriculture, but are extremely useful as beasts of burden; for they are strong, sure-footed, and carry a great weight. Tents and ropes are manufactured of their hair, and I have seen, though amongst the humblest ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey

... peace and freedom from worry for composing the overture; I had to postpone this until my luck should take another favourable turn, and meanwhile I was forced to engage in the struggle for a bare subsistence, making efforts of all kinds that left me neither leisure nor peace of mind. The concierge from the Rue du Helder brought us the news that the mysterious family to whom we had let our rooms had left, and that we ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it," Malthus declared. "It is incontrovertibly true that there is no bound to the prolific plants and animals, but what is made by their crowding and interfering with each others' means of subsistence." His deduction is well known: that as man tends to increase in geometrical ratio, and can not hope to increase his food-supply more rapidly than in arithmetical ratio, the human race must eventually face starvation, ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... the passage across the bar being cut off; and the communication with Alexandria intercepted, we found that our situation was altered; and that, separated from the mother-country, we were become the inhabitants of a distant colony, where we should be obliged to depend on our own resources for subsistence, till the peace. We learned, that it was L'Orient which blew up at ten o'clock at night, and L'Hercule the following morning; and that the captains of the ships of the line, Le Guillaume Tell and Genereux—and ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... not of the band of evangelical Christian preachers, who are roughly classed as a set of persons unable to tell the truth about the Bible, for fear they may lose their means of subsistence; these are men who know the true mission of the Bible. It is not to furnish a picture of life in the time of Moses such as life ought to be, a portrait of a David for the imitation of men, a statue of a warrior in a time of barbarism who shall command my ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption; but their souls (which neither die nor sleep) having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... that of the poorest land under cultivation at the time; and therefore being in its amount independent of direct human control. The Malthusian law of population showed that population tended to increase in a geometrical ratio, subsistence for the population, on the other hand, only in an arithmetical ratio, and that poverty was, therefore, the natural and inevitable result in old countries of a pressure of population on subsistence. The sanction of ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... can get subsistence they have everything else, except a just cause. Yet it is said that 'thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just.' I am willing, however, to risk our advantage of thrice in justice against their thrice ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... and employment of a pioneer family were distributed in accordance with surrounding circumstances. To the men was assigned the duty of procuring subsistence and materials for clothing, erecting the cabin and the station, opening and cultivating the farm, hunting the wild beasts, and repelling and pursueing the Indians. The women spun the flax, the cotton and the wool, wove the cloth, made them up, milked, churned and prepared the ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... we disturbed many white-breasted cormorants; we had seen the same species fishing between the cataracts. Here, with many other wild-fowls, they find subsistence on the smooth water by night, and sit sleepily on trees and in the reeds by day. Many hippopotami were seen in the river, and one of them stretched its wide jaws, as if to swallow the whole stern of the boat, close to Dr. Kirk's back; ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... without their assistance. Women,' he added, 'though they do everything are maintained at a trifling expense; for as they always stand cook, the very licking of their fingers in scarce times is sufficient for their subsistence.' Acting on these salutary opinions, the chief was a man of eight wives, and Hearne was shocked later on to find the Indian willing to add to his little flock by force ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock

... Hartford, Conn. He was appointed commissary of the Connecticut line, and subsequently had important trusts committed to his charge, by his own State, and also by the Congress at Philadelphia, having reference to the pay, clothing and subsistence of ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... to supply themselves with coals and fuel, which were advanced in proportion to the severity and continuance of the frost. The lower class of labourers, who worked in the open air, were now deprived of all means of subsistence; many kinds of manufacture were laid aside, because it was found impracticable to carry them on. The price of all sorts of provisions rose almost to a dearth; even water was sold in the streets of London. In this season of distress, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... however, only a few of the band being present. The density of the thickets on the first and second bottoms of this river, extending back inland often fifty miles, made this camp and refuge almost inaccessible. The country furnished their main subsistence; fresh meat was always at hand, while their comrades, scouting the river towns, supplied such comforts as ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... like his predecessors, he should become entangled in a country which could furnish no supplies, be unable to force Philip to fight, and be obliged to retreat to the sea again from want of the means of subsistence. He determined to force his way through the mountains in front, and as these were held by Philip with his main body, the phalanx, his flanks being secured by archers and light armed troops, skirmishes took ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... madam, 'tis a shame to say what he said, with his taunts and his fleers, tossing up his nose. Humh, says he, what, you are a-hatching some plot, says he, you are so early abroad, or catering, says he, ferreting for some disbanded officer, I warrant. Half pay is but thin subsistence, says he. Well, what pension does your lady propose? Let me see, says he, what, she must come down pretty deep now, she's superannuated, says ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... poor in Sweden, probably fewer than in any other European country except Norway and Switzerland, because of the low cost of living, the sparse population, and the ability of all men and women to find work if they are willing to earn their own subsistence. Able-bodied paupers are compelled to work upon poor farms, but the aged, decrepit and invalids who are dependent upon public charity are kindly taken care of by what is called outdoor and indoor relief. In the ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... given way; Ciudad Rodrigo was taken by the English (on the 19th of January, 1812); the discussions of Napoleon with the Pope increased in bitterness; Kutusof had destroyed the Turkish army on the Danube (on the 8th of December, 1811); France even became alarmed about her means of subsistence; every thing, in short, appeared to divert the attention of Napoleon from Russia; to recall it to France, and fix it there; while he, far from blinding his judgment, recognized in these contrarieties the indications of ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... there should be symptoms of a discovery, but, in the meantime, he gambled away all that he got into his hands, and never gave her enough to feed the children. Thus she was absolutely driven to force work from them for subsistence; and she is a passionate creature, whom jealousy embittered more and more, so that she became more savage than she knew. Poor thing! She has her punishment. Maddox only came home, yesterday, too late for any train before the mail, and by that time the child was too ill to be moved. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... himself to be only our equal, be in possession of magnificent palaces, and of thousands of acres of the public domain, and of a revenue of millions of francs, while we dwell in hovels, and eat the coarsest food, and, by the most menial toil, obtain a bare subsistence? Citizen Orleans has given up his titles, as he ought to have done; now let him give up his enormous estates, and divide them among us, his brethren; and, if he is unwilling to do this, let us compel him ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... circumstance of their being of some property, though numerous in some points of view, they cannot be very considerable as a number. In cities the nature of their occupations renders them domestic and feeble; in the country it confines them to their farm for subsistence. The national guards are all changed and reformed. Everything suspicious in the description of which they were composed is rigorously disarmed. Committees, called of vigilance and safety, are everywhere formed: a most severe and scrutinizing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of General Kearney and his men could not have been more desperate. The only subsistence they had were their mules, and the water was insufficient to meet their wants. They were completely surrounded by the brave California Mexicans. They might exist for a time on the bodies of their animals, but they ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis

... would be consequently no obligation, and I resolved that I would reject her terms if they were not favourable. I had some money, for I had spent but a small portion of twenty sovereigns which Madame d'Albret had given me in a purse when I quitted her. I had therefore the means of subsistence for some little time, should I not come to ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... efforts of reactionary politicians and churchmen who aim to retain for the classes all the constantly increasing wealth-producing power of the world, keeping the masses down to the same bare level of subsistence as formerly, while their capacity for enjoyment has been vastly enlarged through the increased general average of civilization and refinement. This naturally produces on the one side the piled-up accumulations of individuals garnered by the few, an inordinate display of wealth and ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... village, and gather vegetables and roots and nuts of all sorts for ourselves. After that we were never in want of the bare necessaries of life. We received an allowance from the French Government for our subsistence. The lieutenants received three shillings a day; the purser, master and surgeons only two; and the midshipmen but one shilling; on which, poor fellows, it was scarcely possible for them to exist. The captains ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... intensifies the functional activity of each specialized person or class; and this renders the specialization more definite where it already exists, and establishes it where it is but nascent. By increasing the pressure on the means of subsistence, a larger population again augments these results; seeing that each person is forced more and more to confine himself to that which he can do best, and by which he can gain most. Presently, under these same stimuli, new ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... sparrow, in that rough, ineffectual manner possible to a species having no special and highly perfected feeding instincts, there is room for the introduction of scores of competitors, every one of which should be better adapted than the sparrow to find a subsistence at that point or that particular part of the field where the two would come into rivalry; and every species introduced should also possess some quality which would make it, from the aesthetic point of view, a valuable addition ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... disposed towards her, she took up her abode amongst them in the calm seclusion of a remote Scotch town. There, even there, she still hoped, still employed agents; still yearned to discover, if not her father, at least her father's grave. Several years passed thus. She continued to earn a modest subsistence by her pen, till at length the death of one of those Scotch relatives left her mistress of a small inheritance. Money was welcome, since it enabled her to pursue her task with renewed vigor. She searched farther and deeper. A trivial circumstance eagerly followed ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... to favor them. Probably they will take advantage of his appointment, to press indulgences in commerce with us. The ministry is of a liberal complexion, and well disposed to us. The war may add to the motives for opening their islands to other resources for their subsistence, and for doing what may be agreeable to us. It seems to me at present, then, that the moment of the arrival of the Count de la Luzerne will be the moment for trying to obtain a freer access to their islands. It would be very material to do this, if possible, in ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... that it was not a rebellion against States, but a rebellion by States. No loose assemblage of individuals, though numbering hundreds of thousands, could long have resisted the pressure of the Federal power and the power of the State governments. They would have had no means of subsistence except those derived from plunder and voluntary contributions, and they would have lacked the military organization by which mobs are transformed into formidable armies. But the Rebellion being one of States, being virtually decreed by the people of States ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... begun to fall thickly: she strained her eyes and called, "Susy! Susy!" but she heard no response: yet her heart misgave her, for the thoughts of her darlings being exposed to such a storm made her shudder; but necessity knows no law, and on the slender earnings of these two children depended the subsistence of ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... few Hundreds of men well armed and immediately sent to our relief would prevent much bloodshed, confusion and devastation ... as the appearance of being supported would call back many of our fugitives to save their Harvest for their subsistence, rather than suffer the inconveniences which reason tells me they do down the Country and their with their families return must ease the people below of a heavy ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf

... regard to the women and children, we were long in a state of perplexity. We did our very best at the farm, and so did many others to provide for them, until they should manage about their own subsistence. And after a while this trouble went, as nearly all troubles go with time. Some of the women were taken back by their parents, or their husbands, or it may be their sweethearts; and those who failed of this, went forth, some upon their own account to the New World plantations, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... neighbors. The comforts by which those who have received even a very limited education and have engaged in agriculture are surrounded tend gradually to draw off their less civilized brethren from the precarious means of subsistence by the chase to habits ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk

... for their common wants from day to day. The Government for which they had become exiles was as liberal as they could have asked. It gave them lands, tools, materials for building, and the means of subsistence for two years; and to each of their children, as they became of age, two hundred acres of land. And besides this, of the offices created by the organization of a new Colonial Government, they were the chief recipients. The ties of kindred and suffering in a common ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... brethren of all classes and of every grade, how intimately the interest of each is bound up with that of the whole. It is clearly admitted that the children of the poor are not sufficiently educated, or sufficiently instructed in the means of procuring their subsistence, an evil which not only affects the present generation, but spreads its baneful influence wide and deep into the future, and may affect all the interests of our posterity. One great portion of the plan, therefore, ...
— Suggestions to the Jews - for improvement in reference to their charities, education, - and general government • Unknown

... worth his application? "It is impossible," says St. Chrysostom,[1] "that a man should be saved, who neglects assiduous pious reading or consideration. Handicraftsmen will rather suffer hunger and all other hardships than lose the instruments of their trade, knowing them to be the means of their subsistence." No less criminal and dangerous is the disposition of those who misspend their precious moments in reading romances and play-books, which fill the mind with a worldly spirit, with a love of vanity, pleasure, idleness, and trifling; which destroy and ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... the conjunction of the sexes to be established in nature, a family immediately arises; and particular rules being found requisite for its subsistence, these are immediately embraced, though without comprehending the rest of mankind within their prescriptions. Suppose that several families unite together in one society, which is totally disjoined from all others, the rules which preserve peace and order enlarge themselves ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... like the course of our own history—has been their dispersion and their subsistence as a separate people through ages in which for the most part they were regarded and treated very much as beasts hunted for the sake of their skins, or of a valuable secretion peculiar to their species. The Jews showed ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... her separation allowance; the Canadian Red Cross and many kind friends in London had been sending me prisoner-of-war parcels for a year; the authorities admitted my identity and my former comrades recognised me; I had fifteen months' pay at $1.20 a day, besides a subsistence allowance of sixty-five cents a day, coming to me; but could not draw a cent of it. I was dead. And continued so for three months. There is no explanation. "It's a way they have in the Army"; or ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... in the dim candle-light, that if those thoughtless females who interfere with the miserable market of poor creatures such as these, knew but one-half of the misery they suffer, and the bitter privations they endure, in their honourable attempts to earn a scanty subsistence, they would, perhaps, resign even opportunities for the gratification of vanity, and an immodest love of self-display, rather than drive them to a last dreadful resource, which it would shock the delicate feelings of these charitable ladies to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... some discomfort. I have been very much pleased with English rule and English hospitality in India. With that rule two hundred and fifty millions of uncivilized people are living at peace with each other, and are not only drawing their subsistence from the soil but are exporting a large excess over imports from it. It would be a sad day for the people of India and for the commerce of the world if the English should withdraw. We hope to be in Hong Kong by the middle of April, and farther north in China as soon thereafter as possible. When ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant



Words linked to "Subsistence" :   subsistence farming, subsist, living, survival, support, existence, livelihood, being, endurance, beingness, keep



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