Literary notes about Interest (AI summary)
The word "interest" operates on a rich spectrum in literature, often serving double duty as both a monetary concept and a marker of attention or concern. In some works it denotes financial stakes or returns, as when a character negotiates the rate he would accept for a loan or investment [1], [2], or when a discussion centers on legal or economic implications [3]. In other contexts, however, it captures an emotional or intellectual engagement—a character’s keen gaze during an exchange [4] or an earnest curiosity about human affairs [5], [6]. Even more broadly, discussions of civic or historical interest demonstrate its use as a tool to highlight societal concerns and collective memory [7], [8]. Through these varied hues, authors use "interest" to deepen our understanding of motivation and value on both personal and public levels.
- So, with an embarrassed air, he asked if it were possible to get them, adding that it would be for a year, at any interest he wished.
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert - If a good dog, Susanna would have got it; if an inferior one his wife would have got a dower interest in it.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain - In Scotland, though the legal rate of interest is the same as in England, the market rate is rather higher.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - There was an acute interest in all their faces during this exchange of view points.
— from The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War by Stephen Crane - “I am listening, madame, with the greatest interest,” said Mazarin.
— from Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - It seems to me I’ve a right to ask it, because I’ve a kind of interest in the answer.”
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James - The 'suprema lex' was the preservation of the family, and the interest of the State.
— from The Republic by Plato - There are very few villages in England which have no objects of historical interest, no relics of the past which are worthy of preservation.
— from English Villages by P. H. Ditchfield
