Literary notes about Ledger (AI summary)
In literature, the term "ledger" is employed both literally and metaphorically to denote a record of transactions, events, or moral accounts. Authors frequently use it as a tangible object—a book brimming with figures, secrets, and fateful entries that govern a character’s fortunes [1][2][3]. At times, the ledger serves as a metaphorical archive, reflecting the balance of one’s actions or life’s inherent debts, as when characters allude to sacrificing parts of their life for a higher purpose [4][5]. Moreover, the ledger's dual role as an instrument of accountability and a repository of hidden truths enriches narratives by linking everyday bookkeeping to larger themes of justice, fate, and human frailty [6][7].
- He took a ledger labelled “1906” and ran through it rather carefully.
— from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Without this enclosure, but just within the street entrance, sat a grey-haired gentleman at a small table, with a large open ledger before him.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser - Well, then, here on this page are the country folk, and the numbers after their names are where their accounts are in the big ledger.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - "I am glad," she said to herself, "the right side of the ledger means giving up all, and the best of life is to be able to lose it if necessary.
— from The Rebel of the School by L. T. Meade - a month is their Sermon on the Mount, and a balance on the wrong side of the ledger is their demonstration.
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I - The bank is the universal government credit-account, the ledger in which every individual's earnings and spendings are balanced.
— from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair - In this ledger was made out an exact balance-sheet of his affairs.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
