"Bribe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as it were instinctively, that Clinton had procured his release by a bribe; and though he felt to rejoice in his freedom, he shrunk at feeling that he must be under obligations to such a man ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... subsequently constable at Florence, and of his wife Vincenzia Diligenti. Possessed in her girlhood of fascinating appearance and charming manners, she came out as a ballet dancer at the principal opera at Florence, and one night she so impressed Lord Newborough that, by means of a golden bribe, he had her transferred from the stage to his residence. His conduct towards her was tender and affectionate, and, in spite of the disparity of years, he afterwards married her, introducing her to the London ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... in the harsh tones of the prison-clock. A few minutes after, we heard the sound of bolts drawing, and bars unfastening. The jailer entered—drunk, and much disposed to be insolent. I thought it advisable to give him another bribe, and he resumed the fawning insinuation of his manner. He now directed us, by passages which he pointed out, to gain the other side of the prison. There we were to mix with the debtors and their mob of friends, and to await his joining us, which in that crowd ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Moruzi, who at that time conducted Turkish diplomacy, accepted a bribe, and concluded peace in the expectation of becoming Prince of Moldavia and Wallachia. Sultan Mahmud refusing to ratify this disgraceful treaty, gold was showered upon the Turkish army, which suddenly dispersed, and the deserted sultan was compelled ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... it impossible that Kansas should be admitted as a State unless that document should first be submitted to the people for acceptance or rejection. A bill to this effect was finally passed by Congress. It was called the English bill. It proffered a magnificent bribe if the people would accept the Lecompton Constitution—five million five hundred thousand acres of public land should be given to Kansas; besides other munificent donations. But the English bill also contained a menace as well as a bribe. It threatened that if the people ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... carefully arranged plan. But no one put in an appearance, and by nightfall everything was in readiness for the departure. The doctor had loaned his private turnout, and for a "consideration," otherwise a bribe, had dosed poor Dick into semi-unconsciousness, and had promised to say to all comers that the young man had got well and gone off in the company of two of his friends, a Mr. Arnold and a ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... bribe to me. I should have acted just as I have done, had no recompense been promised. In truth, this has been my conduct, for I never once thought of the reward; but, now that you remind me of it, I would gladly see it bestowed. To fulfil their engagements, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... hesitation, and following are our diseases. The rapid wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, or by the incessant expansion of our population and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest; this luck of one is the hope of thousands, and the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish the farm, the school, the church, the house, and the very body and feature of man."—"While the multitude of men degrade each other, and give currency to desponding ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... lord would never take the oath of allegiance, nor his seat as a peer of the kingdom of Ireland, where, indeed, he had but a nominal estate; and refused an English peerage which King William's Government offered him as a bribe to ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... motive, the spring of our resolution, the ground of our obedience. Deep from our inmost souls comes forth the mandate, the bare and simple law claiming the command of our whole existence merely by its proper right, and disdaining alike to menace or to bribe." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... O lovers of my tribe? And what is love, O women of my day? Love is a farthing piece, a bloody bribe Pressed in the palm ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... grimly to himself, "that the J who wants plans and calculations is either in the village or at the end of a long-distance wire. And Von Holtz said he was on the way. He'll probably turn up and try to bribe me." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... secure her son for her dingy supper table she was willing to put up with Elizabeth or any other girl. But certainly Nannie invited her very often. "I'll come in to-night, if you'll invite Elizabeth," Blair would bribe her. And Nannie, like Mrs. Maitland herself, would have invited anybody to gain an ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... gospel, and "as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled." [137:1] His apprehensions, however, soon passed away, and though he was fully convinced that Paul had not incurred any legal penalty, he continued to keep him in confinement, basely expecting to obtain a bribe for his liberation. When disappointed in this hope, he still perversely refused to set him at liberty. Thus, "after two years," when "Porcius Festus came into Felix' room," the ex-Procurator, "willing to shew the Jews a ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... likely about the same time. The English movement is connected alike with the course of the Danish fleet and with the appointment of Turold to the abbey of Peterborough. William had bribed the Danish commanders to forsake their English allies, and he allowed them to ravage the coast. A later bribe took them back to Denmark; but not till they had shown themselves in the waters of Ely. The people, largely of Danish descent, flocked to them, thinking, as the Chronicler says, that they would win the whole land. The movement was doubtless in favour ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... who rule the world by laws, Will ye despise the righteous cause, When the injured poor before you stands? Dare ye condemn the righteous poor And let rich sinners 'scape secure, While Gold and Greatness bribe your hands? ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... acting honestly. He saw my opportunity as I had seen it, as Sapt had seen it; he knew the princess—nay (and I declare that a sneaking sort of pity for him invaded me), in his way he loved her; he would think that Sapt and Fritz could be bribed, so the bribe was large enough. Thinking thus, would he kill the King, my rival and my danger? Ay, verily, that he would, with as little compunction as he would kill a rat. But he would kill Rudolf Rassendyll first, if he could; and nothing but the certainty of being utterly damned by the release ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... a serious aspect. Our flag was insulted, our vessels were captured, and our envoys were refused audience by the French Directory unless a bribe should be paid. The news of this insult aroused the nation, and the friends of France were silenced. Orders were issued to raise an army, of which Washington was appointed commander-in-chief. Hostilities had commenced ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... a certain way because others hold it their duty to act so. I must obey the inward voice, and no other. If I abandon this, I am lost—I am on the desert without sun, moon or stars to guide me. All the powers of the earth could not bribe nor drag me from that which I hold to be the true order of conduct for me; shown by the finger of ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... now!" said Lawrence. "I suppose you are going to tell me next that you've got a setting hen in another trunk and that you are going to bribe Fritz and Karl with fresh eggs. And that's no merry jest; we haven't seen a fresh egg in ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... would have lowered the value of the American shares if the British Parliament had rejected the Marconi System and chosen some other in preference. I may say at once that I feel no certainty that the transaction was a sinister effort to bribe ministers. But had it been, exactly the right ministers were chosen. They were the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has charge of the nation's purse; the Attorney-General, who advises upon the legality of actions proposed; ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... that seduces all Mankind, By her we first were taught the wheedling Arts: Her very Eyes can cheat; when most she's kind, She tricks us of our Money with our Hearts. For her, like Wolves by Night we roam for Prey, And practise ev'ry Fraud to bribe her Charms; For Suits of Love, like Law, are won by Pay, And Beauty must ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... see me, perhaps, to ask a question in the paque-bot—but he not confess after, that he goed and bribe the garcon at the hotel and the coachman to mystify me with all the boxes; but, very well, I shall tell you how it arrived, so as you shall see that it was impossible that a stranger could miss to be perplexed, and to advertise the travellers what will ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... I will try and take him in some fruit, tomorrow. If they won't let me in, I will watch outside the gates and, when one of the guard comes out, will take him aside; and I have no doubt that, for a small bribe, he will carry in the fruit and give it to the trooper. I wonder that they put them into that hut with the ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... write to Montraville, and endeavour to convince him of her innocence: he was well aware of her pathetic remonstrances, and, sensible of the tenderness of Montraville's heart, resolved to prevent any letters ever reaching him: he therefore called the servant, and, by the powerful persuasion of a bribe, prevailed with her to promise whatever letters her mistress might write should be sent to him. He then left a polite, tender note for Charlotte, and returned to New-York. His first business was to seek Montraville, and endeavour to convince ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... and Czarnecki was now directed against the whole of the Russian and two Polish generals, the notorious and unprincipled Raznieki, the head of the secret police of the kingdom, and Kossecki. Means had in vain been tried to bribe Messrs. Schuch and Czarnecki through the commissary of the circle, that the investigations should cease, or that the generals should not appear to be implicated in the affair. It was ascertained by the investigation that General Lewicki, Russian commander of the town, independently ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... my memory failed me. I should have borne more to the southward. But even as it was, we must have been within an hour of the place, when the Emir—curse his father!—gave the fatal order to turn back. Forget not, O my soul, to bribe the chief of the Arabs in that district, who is surnamed Son of the Lion; or he will certainly oppress thy ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... "I am safe and well, but in a place that I must not tell you of," and sign her name upon a piece of parchment. This letter Ithiel, who purposed to creep out into the city that evening disguised as a beggar, to seek for tidings, said he would take, and, if might be, bribe some soldier to deliver it to Benoni at the house of the high priest, ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... of all ages to carry men away, and beauty cannot bribe this charioteer." Thus wrote Petrarch in his Latin essays; but his love had wealth that proved resistless and ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... again met each other alive. For the unparalleled insult of a bribe offered to Judge Lynch—who, whether bigoted, weak, or narrow, was at least incorruptible—firmly fixed in the mind of that mythical personage any wavering determination of Tennessee's fate; and at the break of day he was ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... might find a discontented slave, mighty and skilled with weapons, and reveal to him a means of bettering his condition, or one might bribe the owner of a capable slave to wink at his running away, or if no fit slave could be found, a suitable freeman might be induced to become a slave under a master also in the plot. It was easy, merely a ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... What more could you have? Can your faith give you something which Christ cannot? Or will Christ give you nothing till you can produce faith of a certain kind and quality, whose excellences will entitle you to blessing? Do not bewilder yourself. Do not suppose that your faith is a price, or a bribe, or a merit. Is not the very essence of real faith just your being satisfied with Christ? Are you really satisfied with Him and with what He has done? Then do not puzzle yourself about your faith, but go on your way rejoicing, having thus been brought to be satisfied with Him who to ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... says he. 'Poor things, how they must suffer!' he says; 'an' I need th' money. Th' sthreet-car comp'nies is robbers,' he says; 'but 'tis thrue they've built up th' city,' he says, 'an th' money 'd come in handy,' he says. 'No wan 'd be hurted, annyhow,' he says; 'an', sure, it ain't a bribe f'r to take money f'r doin' something ye want to do, annyhow,' he says. 'Five thousan' widdies an' orphans,' he says; an' ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... this country should become more catholic and cosmopolitan than any other. Let us be brave and strong enough to trust in humanity; strong natures are inevitable patriots. The time, the age, what is that, but a few prominent persons and a few active persons who epitomize the times? There is a bribe possible for any finite will; but the pure sympathy with universal ends is an infinite force, and cannot be bribed or bent. The world wants saviors and religions; society is servile from want of will; but there is a Destiny ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... so compel the Athenians to withdraw their troops from Egypt. The liability of the Spartan government to corrupt temptation was not unknown to a court which had received the Spartan fugitives; and the ambassador was charged with large treasures to bribe those whom he could not otherwise convince. Nevertheless, the negotiation failed; the government could not be induced to the alliance with the Persian king. There was indeed a certain spirit of honour inherent in that haughty nation which, if not incompatible ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not known her cousin, might not give such help as that! "If you will not help me, I am helpless!" said the Lady Glencora, and then she kneeled at Alice's knees and threw her wavy locks abroad on Alice's lap. "How shall I bribe you?" said Lady Glencora. "Next to him I will love you better than all the world." But Alice, though she kissed the fair forehead and owned that such reward would be worth much to her, could not take any bribe for such a cause. Then Lady Glencora had been angry with ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... the plantation, the mistress sent for him, and, by means of a paltry bribe, induced him to reveal all! Selma thought he loved Phyllis as much as his brutal nature was capable of loving, and that he betrayed her to save her mother from further ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... or self-interested, he chooses such men as are most likely to serve his own ends. And it can hardly be said, Sir, that the People truly return the members of Government. For when the time comes for one such man to be elected, each candidate secures his own agent to bribe the people, and to work upon them as though they were so much soft dough, to be kneaded into a political loaf for his private and particular eating. Poor People! Poor hard-working millions! In the main they are all too busy earning the wherewithal to Live, to have any time left ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... legal proceedings that followed on these deeds of bloodshed, the Genoese judges found their profit. Condemnation was often followed by confiscation of the criminal's estates; acquittal had often been preceded by a heavy bribe to the judge. Multitudes were condemned to the galleys on frivolous charges in the hope that they would purchase their freedom at a high price. The law was even worse than the judges. A man could be condemned to the galleys ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... train—for serious meditation. Tim Riley allowed the landscape to fly by, the while he considered matters. He knew the temper of the kind of people with whom he was to battle. They were so many more like himself. As for trying to bulldoze or browbeat them, or—if he was that kind—to bribe a single one, though they were the hard-working, unsophisticated kind—whisht!—like the wind they'd go the other way. And as for scaring the tough ones, he might be the strongest and toughest and scrappiest and quickest lad on his feet that ever was, but out ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... provided the heir-male were removed, in which case the estate became the unlimited property of the weak and prodigal father. Stimulated by present gain and the prospect of contingent advantage, he accepted the bribe which the smugglers offered in their terror, and connived at, or rather encouraged, their intention of carrying away the child of his benefactor, who, if left behind, was old enough to have described the scene of blood ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... nothing more than weakness; my poor, frail sense of ethics collapsed completely at the sight of the bribe he offered me to become a party to the dark conspiracy that sprang from the depths of his own demoniac mind. Ah, well; none of ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... saved himself all this, of course, by a few full-page advertisements in The Scalpel. But then he had those idiotic notions about pluck, and he was reluctant to bribe his enemies. It is a very dangerous thing to have ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... regulation which Colonel Austin had insisted upon from the first. G. W., who was to sleep upon a mattress in his tent, was to go to bed early, as a child should. The men might bribe or coax him for a dance or a song during the day; but the little soldier had his orders to "turn in" at eight-thirty, and although G. W. often longed for an hour more, he obeyed like the hero he meant some day to be. Love and a strong sense of duty governed the heart ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... come here this morning to bribe you, if I can. I do not agree with your ideals; in the last analysis I do not believe that they will work. I am sure I do not believe in most of the things that you believe in. Life is different at bottom ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... and convent, had spread the greatest alarm among the inhabitants. The Sacristan and other monks counselled flight; the Treasurer recommended that the church plate should be offered as a tribute to bribe the English officer; the Abbot alone was unmoved ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... from his duty Into greed the burgess falls, Every hand on bribe and booty— How shall stand that ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... making an attempt to bribe the old beau into permitting him a glance at the letters, he abandoned the thought with sagacious alacrity. He must think of something safer. A letter to Van Buren and one to Glen was more than he had counted on discovering. It made him ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... highly possible there was some misunderstanding, highly possible that the Commissary (charmed with his visitor) supposed the attraction to be mutual and took for an act of growing friendship what the Cigarette himself regarded as a bribe. And at any rate, was there ever a bribe more singular than an odd volume of Michelet's history? The work was promised him for the morrow, before our departure; and presently after, either because he had his price, or to show that he was not the man to ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sudden humility that seemed to overcome her—"I have had my reward and known my power. I have been sent abroad, in the confidence of the highest—to the highest. Don't turn from me. I am offering you no bribe, Clarence, only your deserts. Come with me. Leave these curs behind, and live ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... bidding him be of good cheer, for he would certainly deliver him. But a false Lombard overheard these words, and thereby knowing that it was Sir Guy, ran off straightway to tell Duke Otho. Sir Guy followed quickly and sought to bribe the man with money to hold his peace, but without avail, for he would go into the palace where the Duke was, and opened his mouth to tell the tale. Then with one blow Sir Guy slew him at Duke Otho's feet. ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... imposing tale, none the less. In the beginning, when they would federate the Dominion of Canada, it was British Columbia who saw objections to coming in, and the Prime Minister of those days promised it for a bribe, an iron band between tidewater and tidewater that should not break. Then everybody laughed, which seems necessary to the health of most big enterprises, and while they were laughing, things were being done. The Canadian Pacific Railway was given a bit ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... time had it in her hand whenever her hand was free to hold it. She read it aloud, sometimes, to her grandmother, who listened with a half shake of her head, but allowed it was pretty. Charity was less easy to bribe with ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... is; and I have found among them many whom nothing on earth could make to swerve from the truth. Do what you please, you could never frighten or bribe ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... his face,—"what is this condition in which I find myself? this joy of living? this exultation of life? this inspiration, I may well call it? It is what comes when there is nothing wrong with one's digestion, when his stomach is in trim and his appetite has an edge, and all goes well. It is the bribe for living, the champagne of the blood, the effervescence of the ferment—that makes some men think holy thoughts, and other men to see God or to create him when they cannot see him. That is all, the drunkenness of life, the stirring and crawling of the yeast, the babbling of the life that is insane ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... mingle with them. Some escaped northward, some were caught in the torrent of peasantry that swept along the main roads; many gave themselves into the hands of the soldiery and were sent northward. Many of the men were impressed. But we kept away from these things; we had brought no money to bribe a passage north, and I feared for my lady at the hands of these conscript crowds. We had landed at Salerno, and we had been turned back from Cava, and we had tried to cross towards Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but we had been ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... man; and this brother thought that if he could win the young treasurer over to himself he might by this means manage to steal little by little any of the king's treasure which he needed. Then, with plenty of money, he could bribe the soldiers and some of the rajah's counsellors, head a rebellion, dethrone and kill his brother, and reign himself instead. He was too wary, of course, to tell Ram Singh of all these wicked plans; but he began by flattering him whenever ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... which they agreed to divide equally amongst themselves at breakfast next morning. In the night, while the others were fast asleep under the greenwood tree, one man approached the box, devoured exactly a quarter of the number of biscuits, except the odd one left over, which he threw as a bribe to their dog. Later in the night a second man awoke and hit on the same idea, taking a quarter of what remained and giving the odd biscuit to the dog. The third and fourth men did precisely the same in turn, ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... guiding them all to the ballot box. Those who can not stand, because of their frequent potations, are carefully supported on either side, each in turn depositing his vote, for what purpose he neither knows nor cares, except to get the promised bribe. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Edmund's, during his absence at Merton. The fervent intercession of Hubert's friends, moved by the passionate entreaties of the Countess, did not make much difference either; but what did make a good deal was that the Earl (who knew his royal master) offered a heavy golden bribe for pardon of the crime he had not committed. King Henry thereupon condescended to announce that in consideration of the effect produced upon his compassionate heart by the piteous intercession of ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... more hints from Max Wisler. Herein lay one secret of the man's success; he had his own methods, and no one could persuade or bribe him to depart from them. This caused him to be respected. And Nick had to leave San Francisco with Mrs. Gaylor and Angela, tingling with unsatisfied curiosity. Mrs. May had forbidden him to speak to Carmen of the mysterious box, having grown sensitive on the subject. More than once ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Charles could not afford to lag far behind.[256] The Margrave of Brandenburg, "the father of all greediness," as the Austrians called him, was particularly influential because his brother, the Archbishop of Mainz, was also an elector and he required an especially exorbitant bribe. He was ambitious as well as covetous, and the rivals endeavoured to satisfy his ambitions with matrimonial prizes. He was promised Ferdinand's widow, Germaine de Foix; Francis sought to parry this blow by offering to the Margrave's son the French ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... was in a sulky and suspicious mood, and would not let his master catch him. There were no alluring morsels left to bribe him with; for the eggs must be kept for Tom, and a chocolate ball Thor despised as ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... page in the life of Gen. Reed that remains to be told, and that is the attempt alleged to have been made by Mrs. Ferguson to bribe him. All are familiar with his intensely patriotic reply, refusing ten thousand pounds, and the best office in the colonies, in his Majesty's gift. To be sure, Gov. Johnstone,[B] in a speech before Parliament, most emphatically denied having employed[C] Mrs. Ferguson to offer to Gen. ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... you think you could bribe me with your gifts to tolerate your vileness? I have brought about your downfall and death, Dr. Bird. I, Feodrovna Androvitch! Now will I avenge my brother's ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... him. The sentinel accepted the bribe, and, devouring it, returned with the bribers on tiptoe to the hut, where they gazed in silent wonder ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... own—who insisted on her giving him these meetings two or three times a week, and was capable of any folly, any outrage, if she disappointed him. Well, to-day should end it! On that she was determined. If he persisted in refusing her bribe, she would throw herself on Lord Bearwarden's mercy and tell him the ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... place, he spent his last weeks in an orgie of rollicking lawlessness. He drank, he ate, he diced; he received his friends, or chaffed the Ordinary; he attempted, through the well-paid cunning of the Clerk, to bribe the jury; and when every artifice had failed he went to Tyburn like a man. If he knew not how to live, at least he would show a resentful world ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... instances sheltered by one or more of the crew; in which event they kept their places of concealment until the steamer had arrived at her port of destination, when they would profit by the first opportunity to leave the vessel undiscovered. A small bribe would tempt the average blockade-running sailor to connive at this means of escape. The "impecunious" deserter fared more hardly; and would, usually, be forced by hunger and thirst to emerge from ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... but her heart sickened with a sense of the truth of his phrase. "It's only a very small part payment. You can at least know that the bribe ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Assembly, than as some unassigned John Smith, who, with a handful of bribes and a heart full of cheap intrigue, must do his work from the corridor. A legislative seat was a two-edged sword to cut both ways. You could trade with it, using it as a bribe, bartering vote for vote; that was one edge. Or you could threaten with it, promising nay for nay, and thus compel some member to save your bill to save his own; that was the other edge. A mere bribe from the lobby owned but the one edge; it was ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... goes on fine 'cepting some cheers once in a while, until the Honorable gets down to the gover'ment's plans for the immigrants. And he says something about not stooping to bribe any man to cast a vote for the gover'ment by promising to find work for him, but there's a big programme of gover'ment works to be done in the neighbourhood, which, of course, will help to make ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... of the principal Savoyard lords, with a snuff-box enriched with diamonds, and estimated at fifteen thousand crowns, containing a portrait of M. de Savoie, at once perceived that the costly offering was intended as a bribe, and declined to receive it, declaring that he had made a vow never to accept any present of value except ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... of the king of Armenia, was brought to Rome by Pompey to adorn his triumph, and put under the care of Lucius Flavius. This prince was, for a bribe, released by Clodius by a trick, and the attempt to get him away led to a scuffle in which lives were lost. Pompey regarded this as a slight upon himself, and his partisan, the consul Gabinius, attempted to prevent it. But both were hustled ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... rather you learned how to make good bread than the best pies ever baked. When you bring me a handsome, wholesome loaf, entirely made by yourself, I shall be more pleased than if you offered me a pair of slippers embroidered in the very latest style. I don't wish to bribe you, but I'll give you my heartiest kiss, and promise to eat every ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... us. You see that he had gone out to fight the Indians; and when at last we came up with him, we found him in a very bad humour, for his troops had been beaten in every direction. So he would not listen to a word my captain had to say. The fact was, the bribe Captain Hindson had been advised to offer him was not large enough. My poor captain had before been very ill, and as the ship was, his own property, and all he possessed in the world, his loss ruined him. From the day he got the viceroy's answer, he never again lifted up his head; ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... contemporary of Homer, nor Boileau of Horace. Yet this species of criticism never presumed to assert an understanding of its own; it has always, unlike true science, followed, not preceded, the opinion of mankind, and would even now bribe with worthless adulation some of our greatest Poets to impose gratuitous fetters on their own imaginations, and become unconscious accomplices in the daily murder of all genius either not so aspiring or not so fortunate as their own. I have sought therefore to write, as I believe that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... large face. "For I, Caesar Basterga, have a brain. And 'tis better a brain than thews and sinews, gold or lands, seeing that it has all these at command when I need them. The fish is hooked. It will be strange if I do not land him before the year is out. But the bribe to his physician—it was a happy thought: a happy thought of this brain of Caesar Basterga, graduate of Padua, viri valde ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... chance. You've the idea that you can intimidate me. You can't intimidate me any more than you could my father. More than all this, McQuade is back of this move; and if I can prove that you accepted a bribe from him, I'll have you ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... people could have no sanctity as applied to the whites. The plunder of these last, with the possession of the treasure of iron and copper that was to be found in their vessels, had indeed been the principal bribe with which the turbulent and ambitious chief regained his power. The war did not break out, however, as soon as Waally had effected the revolution in his own group. On the contrary, that wily politician had made so many protestations of friendship ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... him that a man like Kermode might bribe a boy to get him gulls' eggs, and sneak up to Deborah's window and quietly reach in and place the eggs on her dressing-table, as a means of getting Deborah and Andrew into trouble. I had just finished giving this outline of the thought in my mind, I say, when the door of the farmhouse ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... d'Eglantine and their disciples, were among the most noxious of those conspiring by legislative action to raise and depress securities for stock-jobbing purposes. Bribery of legislators followed as a matter of course, Delaunay, Jullien and Chabot accepted a bribe of five hundred thousand livres for aiding legislation calculated to promote the purposes of certain stock-jobbers. It is some comfort to know that nearly all concerned were guillotined for ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... this is true. You know that in a Republic lawlessness is villainy entailing greater evils than it cures—that it cures none. You know that even the "money power" is powerful only through your own dishonesty and cowardice. You know that nobody can bribe or intimidate a voter who will not take a bribe or suffer himself to be intimidated—that there can be no "money power" in a nation of honorable and courageous men. You know that "bosses" and "machines" can not control you if you will not suffer then to divide you into "parties" by playing ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... he asked an audience with the queen, but it was refused to him, and the king, his uncle, was away. Next he tried to win admission into the prison and see Margaret, only to find that neither his high rank and authority nor any bribe would suffice to unlock its doors. The queen had commanded otherwise, he was informed, and knew therefrom that in this matter he must reckon with Isabella as an enemy. Then he bethought him of revenge, and ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... marry not, and thou shalt soon perceive how those Haeredipetae (for so they were called of old) will seek after thee, bribe and flatter thee for thy favour, to be thine heir or executor: Aruntius and Aterius, those famous parasites in this kind, as Tacitus and [5812]Seneca have recorded, shall not go beyond them. Periplectomines, that good personate old man, delicium senis, well understood ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... how little Gian Maria is prepared to carry out his threats of cannon. It is that fellow Cappoccio has seduced you with his talk. And you, like the sheep you are, let yourselves be driven by his foul tongue. Now listen to the bribe that Gian Maria offers to one within these walls if he can contrive a means to deliver Roccaleone into his hands." And to Gonzaga's paralysing consternation, he heard Francesco read the letter with which ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... so? what are they that think it? I never robb'd the soldiers of their pay, Nor ever had one penny bribe from France. So help me God, as I have watch'd the night, Ay, night by night, in studying good for England! That doit that e'er I wrested from the king, Or any groat I hoarded to my use, Be brought ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... observing that Plistoanax was a very young man, and entirely under the influence of Cleandrides, whom the ephors had sent to act as his tutor and counsellor because of his tender years, he opened secret negotiations with the latter, who at once, for a bribe, agreed to withdraw the Peloponnesians from Attica. When their army returned and dispersed, the Lacedaemonians were so incensed that they imposed a fine on their king, and condemned Cleandrides, who fled the country, to be put to death. This Cleandrides ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... with his head Heaven only knew where, was his son! He had been a nobleman; that one could see at a glance, but was poor now, "cashless," having spent his fortune in his efforts to bribe the officials to let his son be released. His money had come to an end, and there his son lay dead. The risk he was running, he well knew, was very great, in thus coming to remove the body of the one he loved. Were the ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... rate, you found out her surname?" I said. "Well, well, that's my secret," he went on. "Perhaps I should never have been in this part of the world if it hadn't been for that. I failed as a publican, you know." I imagine the situation of gateman was given him and his debts paid off as a bribe to silence; but I can't say. "Ah, yes!" he said, with a long breath. "I have never heard that name mentioned since that time till to-night, and then there instantly rose to my eyes the vision of that young lady ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... 17: This Ashburnham was turned out of the House of Commons the 3d of November, 1667, for taking a bribe of five hundred pounds of the merchants. I was ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... to prevent any immediate trouble, but not to hide what had happened from her husband for more than a day or two. She was even more angry with Pina than with Don Alberto himself, for she could not but believe that the nurse had taken a bribe to admit him, and had then acted as if her mistress were in love with him, or at least willing to receive him alone in a toilet that could only imply great intimacy. The woman's sudden appearance and her face at the door recalled too ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... and what is more, if I had a hundred pounds in my pocket, I would not offer them a penny; for certainly they would take it as an insult if I did so. They would feel that it would be a sort of bribe and, though they are ready to help us as comrades, I am sure they would not do it for money. I sincerely hope they won't get into any serious row. As he said, authorities won't be able to tell which party was on guard at the time we went, and they ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... death? The only thing is," he good-humouredly explained, "that one can't but have it before one, in the cleaving—the point where the death comes in. Don't be afraid for THAT. It's pleasant to a fellow's feelings," he developed, "to 'size-up' the bribe he applies ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... flushed; "do you not understand that it is no longer in our choice to hesitate? Either these two hundred and twelve millions must be ours—and then the re-establishment of our sovereign influence in France is sure—for, in these venal times, with such a sum at command, you may bribe or overthrow a government, or light up the flame of civil war, and restore legitimacy, which is our natural ally, and, owing all to us, would ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... that—yet Ethelberta's honesty shrank from the safe course of holding her tongue. It might be pleasant to many a modern gentleman to find himself allied with a lady, none of whose ancestors had ever pandered to a court, lost an army, taken a bribe, oppressed a community, or broken a bank; but the added disclosure that, in avoiding these stains, her kindred had worked and continued to work with their hands for bread, might lead such an one to consider that the novelty ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... mother, a witch, displeased at her son's choice, maliciously arrests by witchcraft the birth of Willie's son. Willie's travailing wife sends him again and again to bribe the witch, who refuses cup, steed, and girdle. Here our version makes such abrupt transitions, that it will be well to explain what takes place. The Belly Blind or Billie Blin (see Young Bekie, First Series, ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... it from patriotism, having (21) exposed me in this manner, you would not seem to be an informer, and if you desired gain, in this way could you have obtained most. As the crime was clear I should have had no means of safety if I did not bribe you. As you did none of these things, you seem, by your assertions, to be destroying me, having said in the prosecution that no one wishes to testify on account of my influence and wealth. 22. If, when you said you saw me cutting down the olive, you had brought the nine archons or some one ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... his mean and busy brain he was trying to figure to himself what that packet must contain. And, to make the bribe worth while, Leverett had concluded that only a solid packet of thousand-dollar bills could account for ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... defender of the faith, and, being prepared for action, moved immediately upon the enemy. The attack developed the unexpected. Hartwell's bill, tendered in desperation, was accepted in error, not as a bribe, but as an apology. Jakey sounded "cease firing" to his embattled lines, and called in his attacking forces. He had taken salt, henceforth he was Hartwell's friend and the friend ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... in amazement. A bribe, and to betray the confidence of my employer! Turning to her with a glance of ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... after a conciliating offer of his rum flask, accompanied by a slice of hung beef that lined the wallet depending from his shoulder, (neither of which were often refused,) enter upon some new and strange exploit, of which he was as usual the hero. Efforced in a degree to make some return for the bribe offered to his patience, Gerald would lend—all he could—his ear to the tale; but long before the completion he would give such evidence of his distraction as utterly to disconcert the narrator, and cause him finally to have recourse to one ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... gravest errors. 26. For they persuaded you to condemn to death some without a trial, to confiscate unjustly the property of many, and to banish citizens and deprive them of their civil rights. For they were such men as to let the guilty go for a bribe, and to ruin the innocent by bringing information to you. And they did not cease until they brought the state to a state of confusion and utter ruin, and had raised themselves from poverty to wealth. 27. But you were in such ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... who passes sentence for a bribe can never more give a free and sound decision on a point of justice or honour (for to him who takes a bribe honour and justice must be measured by his own interests), how can we of to-day expect, when the whole life of each one ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... here, missy; you're joshin' your Uncle Bud. Do you know that you're tryin' to bribe a Gov'ment officer? That means a pow'ful big penalty if I was to repo't ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... and his hands opened and clenched, and clenched and opened, as he gazed upon the coins. But reluctantly resisting the impulse, he said, with an affected bitterness, "Thinkest thou to bribe me?—if so, it cannot be with gold. But what if he does love a rival; what if he betrays thee; what if, wearied by thy jealousies, he designs in his flight to leave thee behind,—would ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... boylike eyes, burst his lips in another soundless laugh, and laid a finger beside his nose. His marvellous innocence of look and his peasant openness hid, I saw, great shrewdness and intelligence—an admirable man for Vaudreuil's purpose, as admirable for mine. I knew well that if I had tried to bribe him he would have scouted me, or if I had made a motion for escape he would have shot me off-hand. But a lady—that appealed to him; and that she was the Seigneur Duvarney's daughter did ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "we've even persuaded Nicolas to bribe some native to take a letter from us, to be mailed at some distant point. After two or three days Don Luis, in each instance, has come here, and, with a smile, has shown us our own intercepted letter. Yet Nicolas has been honest in the matter, beyond a doubt. It is equally past ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock |
