"Bidder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... modern Popes no longer depose Princes, dispense with oaths, or absolve subjects from their allegiance. Appeals are not any more carried to Rome from the national tribunals, nor justice sold there to the highest bidder." Justice was sold at Rome before the existence of the Catholic Church, or even the Christian religion. It has been sold, as Hugh Latimer testified, in England herself. But with the English Court's independence of the Holy See came the principles of ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... forgetfulness of the world in the one moment which was life to her—all this trembled through each quivering word she uttered. "He lied to you and to me. He told me that you jeered at me and that you had offered my flower to the highest bidder. You know, at the Whitsun feast, the little blue-bell that I laid there. And you sent it to him. I saw it. I did not know why I was sorry for you. Then he told me during the dance that you had laughed at me. You went away, and he told me you made fun of me in your letters. That hurt ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... one among them. They have all very much the same general features, pleasing and displeasing. All feeding-establishments have something odious about them,—from the wretched country-houses where paupers are farmed out to the lowest bidder, up to the commons-tables at colleges, and even the fashionable boarding-house. A person's appetite should be at war with no other purse than his own. Young people, especially, who have a bone-factory at work in them, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... 'Sigurd the lads call me,' said he, 'and I am thought to be a son to Bui: not yet are all the vikings of Jomsborg dead.' 'Thou must of a surety be a true son to Bui; wilt thou have quarter?' 'That dependeth upon who is the bidder thereof,' said Sigurd. 'He offereth it who hath power to give it, to wit Earl Eirik.' 'Then will I take it,' and loosed was he from the rope. Then said Thorkel Leira: 'Though thou grantest quarter, Earl, to all these men, yet never shall Vagn Akason depart hence alive,' & so saying ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... cheap and tinselled to-night, beside these tender dreams that had their roots in the real truths of life. Travel and position, gowns and motor-cars, yachts and country houses, these things were to be bought in all their perfection by the highest bidder, and always would be. But love and character and service, home and the wonderful charge of little lives,—the "pure religion breathing household laws" that guided and perfected the whole,—these were not to be bought, they were ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... hair prettily ornamented to increase their personal attractions, which were far superior to those of the negroes. Close to the group stood a man who acted as auctioneer, ready to hand his goods over to the highest bidder. The purchasers were chiefly Arabs, who walked about surveying the hapless slaves, and ordering those to whom they took a fancy to be paraded out before them, after which they examined the mouths and ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... a husband's name, honor, position, and reputation among his fellows, and sheltering herself with these, passes her beauty promiscuously about like some coarse article of commerce, that goes to the highest bidder! Ay, let your French novels and books of their type say what they will—infidelity is a crime, a low, brutal crime, as bad if not worse than murder, and deserves as stern ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... voters in the mass—they were individuals who were thinking, who were demanding, who were seeking a leader that would consider them as citizens to be served, not chattels to be sold to the highest bidder. His keen lawyer's ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... be noted, as a symptom of the centralising policy which the Porte is adopting, that the government now farms the customs of these provinces, in place of selling the right of doing so to the highest bidder, ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... neither flattery, nor bribery, nor intrigue, nor deceit; instead of loading you with praise, he will point you to the better way. I scoff at Cleon's tricks and plotting; honesty and justice shall fight my cause; never will you find me a political poltroon, a prostitute to the highest bidder. ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... fishing-worm, and let a cry out of him the size of a warwhoop, and Tom he turned kinder blue around the gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state of things for about a quarter of a minute or as much as that, and I would a sold out for half price if there was a bidder. But after that we was all right again—it was the sudden surprise of it that knocked us so kind of cold. Uncle ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to share the plunder, that is the sense of your virtuous cry.' So I had 'em up here; and then there was no more virtuous howling, but a deal of virtuous thieving, and modest drinking, and pure-minded selling of my street-door to the highest male bidder. And they will corrupt the boy; and if they do, I'll cuts their black hearts out with my riding-whip. But I suppose I must keep them on; they are my own flesh and blood; and if I was to be ill and dying, they'd do all they knew to keep ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... going to be a hencoop instead of a bank, I'll draw every dollar I have in it out, and sell my stock to the lowest bidder!" exclaimed a frowsy old man, clawing his whiskers. This was Thaddeus Bailey. He owned three grocery stores in Jordantown, and had ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... prodigal.... However it were, this stately palace is decreed to ruin, to support the prodigious waste the Duke of Albemarle had made of his estate since the old man died. He sold it to the highest bidder, and it fell to certain rich bankers and mechanics, who gave for it and the ground about it 35,000; they design a new town as it were, and a most magnificent piazza.... See the vicissitudes ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... established on this coast a manufacture of an excellent kind of soap from palm-oil and ashes, which is carried on for the king's account. All the trade of this coast, to the kingdom of Manicongo exclusively, is farmed out every four or five years to the highest bidder. Great Negro caravans bring gold and slaves to the stations on the coast. The slaves are either prisoners taken in war, or children whom their parents have parted with in the hope of their being carried to a more fertile ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... unaccustomed to such a scene to witness the expression of utter despair on the faces of these poor creatures. Then, as the sale proceeded, this expression would sometimes give way to one of feverish hope as the purchaser of a husband or parent would become a bidder for the wife or child. In one or two rare cases the hope was realised; and as husband and wife, or parent and child, found themselves once more reunited—once more the property of the same man—their joy was enough to wring tears from the heart of a stone. But in most cases the ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... of my father, brought over a two bushel sack of turnip greens and a ham. I remember seeing him shake them out of the bag. At this sale for the first, and only time, I saw a negro put on a block and sold to the highest bidder. I can't understand how my father could have allowed this. His name was "Big Bill," to distinguish him from another "Bill". He was a widower or a batchelor and had no family. There was one colored man my father valued highly, and wanted to take with him, but this man, Tom, had a wife, who belonged ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... party up to London. Tell her so, Sybilla, with G. W. P.'s compliments, and say that I give her just two more days, and if she doesn't come to book before the end of that time, I'll sell her secret to the highest bidder." ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... the murdered body in the death-struggle with his victim. The jewel is his! Nobody will deny it. He may have it for asking. But to ask is his death-warrant. 'Oh yes!' would be the answer, 'here's your jewel, wrapt up safely in tissue paper. But here's another lot that goes along with it—no bidder can take them apart—viz. a halter, also wrapt up in tissue paper.' Francis, in relation to Junius, was in that exact predicament. 'You are Junius? You are that famous man who has been missing since 1772? And you can prove it? God bless me! sir; what a long time you've been sleeping: every ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... vessel arrives in America an advertisement is put into the paper mentioning the different kinds of people on board whether smiths, tailors, carpenters, laborers, or the like and the people that are in want of such men flock down to the vessel. These poor Germans are then sold to the highest bidder and the captain of the vessel or the ship holder puts the money ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... have life and wit, We women are of all things wretchedest, Who first must needs, as buys the highest bidder, Thus buy a ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... but that rigidity of principle for which they had been distinguished before their intercourse with other nations. From being models of honour and good faith they had become a kind of marketable ware, always ready for sale to the highest bidder. The French were the first to experience this venality, which later-on proved so fatal to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... by Vincent. The joy of the negro was extreme. The previous message had raised his hopes that Vincent would succeed in getting her bought by someone who would be kind to her, but he knew well that she might nevertheless fall to the lot of some higher bidder and be taken hundreds of miles away, and that he might never again get news of her whereabouts. He had then suffered terrible anxiety all day, and the relief of learning that Vincent himself had bought her, and that she ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... that some excuse can even be found for his way of regarding things. It is, possibly, an atavistic relapse into the views of his ancestors, who, when they were sick of their wives, led them with a halter round their necks into the marketplace and sold them to the highest bidder. They say it is not so long ago that this pretty custom has gone out ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... gold heart to a woman who seemed lonely and desolate; but the woman only cared for the hearts of men, and threw back the princess's in her face. And then somebody advised her to set it up for auction, to go to the highest bidder, as that was generally considered the correct thing to do with regard to well-regulated women's hearts; but she didn't like that suggestion at all. At last the poor princess grew tired of offering her treasure to people who didn't want it, and so she locked it up out of sight; and then everybody ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... first sold in England to be afterwards re-sold on shipboard to the colonies, as men sell horses, to the highest bidder. ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... who assuredly were no atheists. One mark perhaps of the wide interval which, in Csar's age, had begun to separate the Roman nobility from the hungry and venal populace who were daily put up to sale, and bought by the highest bidder, manifested itself in the increasing disdain for the tastes and ruling sympathies of the lowest vulgar. No mob could be more abjectly servile than was that of Rome to the superstition of portents, prodigies, and omens. Thus far, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... what market I mean," retorted the great man with unconcealed contempt. "What you don't know is your own game. Always seek the highest bidder before you ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... coercion," and is continually urging into notice the "purity of election" that characterises the system of our "cousins"—say, to the fact, that one party of "free and enlightened citizens" of the model cosmos of his admiration regularly sell their votes to the highest bidder; while, another set, under a military despotism, are compelled to exercise the franchise only in a manner pleasing to a dominant faction? What will your Democratic Dilke, or Ouvrier Odger—who may, in this ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... hurt, nor friendship help us; who set their subjects to sale, like sheep or oxen, without any inquiry after the intentions of the buyer; and will withdraw the troops, with which they have supplied us, whenever a higher bidder shall be found. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... they desired it. They used with the money to buy young slaves, teach them a trade at Cato's expense for a year, and then dispose of them. Many of these Cato retained in his own service, paying the price offered by the highest bidder, and deducting from it the original cost of the slave. When endeavouring to encourage his son to act in a similar manner, he used to say that it was not the part of a man, but of a lone woman, to diminish one's capital; and once, with an excessive ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... Revolution proclaimed freedom of business transactions; it said—"Sell and buy freely. Sell, all of you, your products, if you can produce, and if you do not possess the implements necessary for that purpose but have only your arms to sell, sell them, sell your labour to the highest bidder, the State will not interfere! Compete among yourselves, contractors! No favour shall be shown, the law of natural selection will take upon itself the function of killing off those who do not keep pace with the progress of industry, and will reward ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... upon by the tale of one missionary who had lost his all many times in succession, sympathetically contributed his only shovel, for which act he was enthusiastically cursed and liberally treated at the bar, while the shovel was promptly sold at auction to the highest bidder, who presented it, with a staggering slap between the shoulders, to its original owner. The remaining non-legal tenders were then converted into gold-dust, and the whole dispatched by express, with a grim note from Pentecost, to the ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... nearly all the free and independent electors accepted his offer, it was said that Cromarty came out of the Election of 1826 cleaner than any other place in Scotland, notwithstanding the fact that it happened in an age when parliamentarian representation generally went to the highest bidder. ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Paris; but the boon was scarcely appreciated when it was discovered that the King not only levied taxes on local merchandise to pay his new judges, but also made quite a good thing out of selling the offices to the highest bidder. In 1580 the need of this Court began to be felt again, in a town which possessed its own High Court of Justice, suitably housed, and also its Financial Bureau in the Parvis. But all receivers of taxes had to go to Paris to settle ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... worthless that if put up and sold to the highest bidder, the auctioneer would have to ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... possible, more jovial than ever, and beckoning to his assistant,—that is to say to the small man with the red nose and the blue chin, who, it seemed answered to the name of Theodore,—he clapped him jovially upon the back,—(rather as though he were knocking him down to some unfortunate bidder),—and immediately fell into business converse with him,—albeit ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... of a laird's tenants:—'Since the islanders no longer content to live have learned the desire of growing rich, an ancient dependant is in danger of giving way to a higher bidder, at the expense of domestick dignity and hereditary power. The stranger, whose money buys him preference, considers himself as paying for all that he has, and is indifferent about the laird's honour or safety. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... had many offers for her wigwam, if she would sell it after the fair. She agreed to let it go to the highest bidder, and finally ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... its flight, any one might offer for the pitch, but the instant it touched the ground, the bargain was held to be concluded with the last bidder. ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... more than two hundred dollars, can be accepted. Come, now, friends, here is a fine opportunity for a shrewd business man. One need not be a showman, or have any personal need of a tent, in order to become a bidder. Whoever buys this tent to-day will be able to realize handsomely on his investment by selling this big-top tent in turn to some showman in need of a tent. Who will start the bidding ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... in regard to my uniform, and contractors advertised for; the making will be let out to the lowest bidder. In case the Guards are ordered to take the field, a special commissary will be detailed to ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... last beaver-skin it is! Do you think I was old Cam's private secretary for nothin'? Not I! I say—get your wares as you may and sell 'em to the highest bidder. So here I am, snugly berthed, with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs, all through judicious—distribution—of—information." And the boy gurgled with pleasure over his own cleverness. "And say, Gillespie, I'm in regular clover! The Little Statue's here, all alone! Dad's gone ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... homeopathists, the operations suggested by political leeches, the radical cures of social quacks, and such like. But the Mule continues to kick against the pricks; and the wise Muleteer, these days, when he has not the price of a new Panel, or knows not how to make one, sells him to the first bidder. And the new owner thereupon washes the sores and wounds, applies to them a salve of the patent kind, buys his Mule a new Panel, and makes him do the work. That is what I understand by a political revolution.... And are the Ottoman people free to-day? Who in all Syria and Arabia dare openly criticise ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... nigger sitting up here. Here's a lot of folks waitin' to buy him. One would say, 'I bid so much.' Another would say, 'I bid so much.' That would go on till the biddin' got as high as it would go. Then the little nigger would go to the highest bidder ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... Union, said the persevering friend, insisting, it seemed, on finding Peter a career. "Don't they talk about politics?" enquired Peter. "I couldn't do that, you know. I don't approve of politics. If ever I have a vote I shall sell it to the highest female bidder. Fancy being a Liberal or a Conservative, out of all the nice things there are in the world to be! There are health-fooders, now. I'd rather be that. And teetotallers. A man told me he was a teetotaller to-day. I'll go in ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... their respected fellows were inferentially appraised and colloquially "hefted" as articles of social commerce ready to be knocked off matrimonially to the best bidder under the material rules of the German Mitgift system. Through the garish films of innuendo and braggadocio that day Kirtley was led to behold images of these daughters as if they were languishing to become mates and beating their breasts in their longing to ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... giving the squire some daily interest to distract his thoughts from the regrets and cares that were almost weakening his mind. It was 'Roger Hamley, Senior Wrangler and Fellow of Trinity, to the highest bidder, no matter what honest employment,' and presently it came down to 'any bidder ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... would not bid for the cattle, and probably {209} could not pay for them, and the population of the district would have made the place very uncomfortable for any of the clergymen's friends who showed an anxiety to buy up the impounded beasts. In some cases when cattle were sold by public auction no bidder ventured to come forward but the farmer himself who owned the cattle, and they had to be knocked down to him at a purely nominal price because there was no possible competitor. The farmer drove home his beasts amid the exultation of the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... discussed it before his children. So I can't tell you excepting he said he was owned by the Brittians in South Carolina. He said his mother died soon after he was sold. He was sold to a nigger trader and come in the gang to Memphis, Tennessee and was put on the block and auctioned off to the highest bidder. He was a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... others, fear personal injury more than anything else, break the peace by their riots, and by violence and terror domineer over those who are weaker than themselves. No wonder that they plunder provinces and offer the seat of judgment for sale, knocking it down after an auction to the highest bidder, since it is the law of nations that you may sell what you ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... clings to his studies, and dreads the interference that may take him away from them. An independent bachelor can afford to follow unremunerative study; a married man, unless he is rich, must lay out his time to the best pecuniary advantage. His hours are at the disposal of the highest bidder. ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... is a slave by his intended bidder. 'Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures, And all are to be sold, if you consider Their passions, and are dext'rous, some by features Are bought up, others by a warlike leader; Some by a place, as tend their years or natures; The most by ready cash, but all have prices, From crowns ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... said to his friend, when the ladies were safely out of hearing at the other end of the long dreary saloon. "Now thy son Gustave is a fine fellow—brave, handsome, and of a good race. It is true he is not as rich as Madelon will be by-and-by; but I am no huckster, to sell my daughter to the best bidder" ("and I doubt if there would be many bidders for her, if I were so inclined," thought the Baron, in parenthesis); "and if thy son should take a fancy to her, and she to him, it would please me ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... great-great-grandfather, who was used to say that his great-grandfather sat in it too. Here sat his son, and his son's son— the Lord Mayor as was—and his son, my father, ladies and gents, who died in it besides, and whose son now hoffers it to the 'ighest bidder. You'll observe its antiquity, ladies an' gents. That's its beauty. It's what I may call, in the language of the haristocracy, a harticle of virtoo, w'ich means that it's a harticle as is surrounded by virtuous memories in connection with the defunct. ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... upon Kosher meat was originally placed at the free disposal of the Kahals, though subject, since 1839, to the combined control of the administration and municipality. According to the new enactment, the proceeds from the meat tax which was to be let to the highest bidder were to be left entirely in the hands of the gubernatorial administration. The latter was instructed to see to it that the income from the tax should first be applied to cover the fiscal arrears of the Jews, then to provide for the maintenance ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... delivered, no one at the custom-house knew what the huge case contained. It was deposited in a bonded warehouse during the legal interval, but, never having been claimed, was then sold, still unexamined, to the highest bidder. He soon identified his purchase, and proceeded to make his own profit out of it,—the consequence being that government at last discovered that the Fresnel light had been some two years in this country, and was then upon exhibition, if the President and cabinet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... the Archbishop that the Duke of Milan was poor, though proud; and that while he would consider the Princess Lucia eternally disgraced by marrying beneath her, he probably would not scruple to sell her hand to the highest bidder of those illustrious persons who stood on the list of eligibles. And Kent, semi-royal though he were, was not a rich man, his family having suffered severely from ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... take, from the right bidder, for that girl's free papers dated ahead to when you come of age, bidder takin' all ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... me that he had no idea who was the bidder, or he would not have suffered it," said Fulk, "I told him I could have ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mastered him; he knew not what to do or to say, but remained like a stone in the midst of the crowd, gazing. The bystanders, who were ignorant that Alischar had so soon dissipated his patrimony, never doubted that he had come in order to be a bidder for the beautiful slave. The crier moved his situation so as to stand right opposite to him, with the girl in his hand, and began to call out the usual words more loudly than before, "Ye rich merchants, ye honourable wholesale dealers, gentlemen all of worth and condition, ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... over-cometh (and that is well-nigh whenever they meet) these worthy lords slay no woman of them, but the men only, whether they be old or young or youngest. As for their women they are brought hither and sold at the market-cross to the highest bidder. And this honour they have, that such of them as be fair, and that is the more part of the younger ones, fetch no ill penny. Yet for my part I were loth to cheapen such wares: for they make but evil servants, being proud, and not abiding stripes ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... family by a constant miracle of effort which would be impossible but for the harsh training which slavery gave and which is one of the beneficent results of that institution. If he refuses to work the road, or to pay or list the poll-tax, he may be indicted, fined, and his labor sold to the highest bidder, precisely as in the old slave-times, to discharge the fine and pay the tax and costs of prosecution. There is a grim humor about all this which did not fail to strike the colored man and induce him to remark its ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... colonies. From some points of view they might be considered one and the same question. At a meeting of Presbyterian ministers in Philadelphia, it was pertinently asked, "Have two men chosen to represent a poor English borough that has sold its votes to the highest bidder any pretence to say that they represent Virginia or Pennsylvania? And have four hundred such fellows a right to take our liberties?" In Parliament, on the other hand, as well as at London dinner tables, and in newspapers and pamphlets, it ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... be the best Bidder must, at the same time, pay one Month in advance (if required) of the Rent at which such Tolls may be respectively Let, and give security, with sufficient sureties to the satisfaction of the Trustees ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... standing upon the platform of a pillory was selling human flesh and blood. He saw the boy who had stood beneath the yews of the old Hall, who had fought at Worcester beneath his father's eye; the man who had lain in prison and in the noisome hold of the ship, put up and sold to the highest bidder. He saw him carried away with other merchandise to the home of his purchaser. He saw a Virginia plantation lying fair and serene beneath a Virginia heaven; and a wide porch, and standing therein an angelic vision, all grace and beauty, vivid youth ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... you know, and I'm positively bored to death by them, and that's the truth, really. It's most unlucky, under the circumstances, that I should happen to be the daughter of one peer, and be offered promiscuously as wife to the highest bidder among half a dozen others, if only I would have them. But I won't, Mr. Le Breton, I really won't. I'm not going to marry a fool, just to please my mother. Nothing on earth would induce me to marry Lord Connemara, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... misleading was accomplished by the telling of untruths. A fiction writer is, by definition, a professional liar; he makes his living by telling interesting lies on paper and selling the results to the highest bidder for publication. Since fiction writing is my livelihood, I cannot and will not deny that I am an accomplished liar—indeed, almost an habitual one. Therefore, I feel some small pique when, on the one occasion on which I stick strictly to the truth, I am accused of fraud. Pfui! say I; I ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... million, six hundred thousand men. In the face of his assurances to the nobility in 1580 and of his reiterated protestations, he has put up our very priests at auction and sold them off to the highest bidder, in order that his Huguenots might have on whom to wreak at leisure their diabolic hatred. He thinks himself King of France; it is a malady common to the crack-brained to fancy themselves kings of the first realm they spy and to fashion them seigniories in the air. Beware ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... possesses traps and animals of his own, ranges wherever he lists through the country, and disposes of his peltries to the highest bidder. There are others employed by the fur companies, who supply them with traps and animals, and pay a certain price for ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... fantastic performances as long as possible, made an investigation and ordered him before a court over which the chief justice of Bengal presided. The evidence disclosed a most scandalous condition of affairs throughout the entire province. Public offices were sold to the highest bidder; demands for blackmail were enforced by torture; the wives and daughters of his subjects were seized at his will and carried to his palace whenever their beauty attracted his attention. The condition of the people was desperate. ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... of Congress ratifying said agreement, allotments of land have been regularly made to each Indian occupant who desired it, and a schedule has been made of the lands to be abandoned and the improvements thereon appraised, and such improvements will be offered for sale to the highest bidder at not less than the appraised price prior to the date fixed for the opening of the ceded lands to settlement, and the classification as to agricultural and grazing lands ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... the broker, pointing to another bidder, "Wilt thou be sold to this man?" She looked at him and seeing that he was short of stature[FN271] and had a beard that reached to his navel, cried, "This is he of whom the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... was a cardboard box. The suggestion of millinery made the farmer's wife a reckless bidder, and the ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... chattels they are sold to the highest bidder. In that auction Caste comes first, then wealth and position. And the chattel is bought, the bit of breathing flesh and blood is converted into property; and the living, throbbing heart of the child may be trampled and stamped down ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... assumed the right of naming or appointing Bishops throughout his Empire. This sacred office was commonly bestowed on very unworthy candidates, and very often put up at auction, to be sold to the highest bidder, as is now the case with the ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... perhaps, no conspicuous waste places with a greater aggregate area than the strips along the public highway. In certain foreign countries, these strips are planted to fruit trees and the right of harvest awarded to the highest bidder. The revenue so obtained goes a long way toward keeping the highways in good condition. It is possible that this practice may sometime be introduced into the United States, but until public opinion ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... National Gallery) it represents Sir John Hawkwood, an English free-lance and head of the famous White Company, who after some successful raids on Papal territory in Provence, put his sword, his military genius, and his bravoes at the service of the highest bidder among the warlike cities and provinces of Italy, and, eventually passing wholly into the employment of Florence (after harrying her for other pay-masters for some years), delivered her very signally from her enemies in 1392. Hawkwood was an Essex man, the ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... secular clergy brings out into startling prominence the ravages of simony; the traffic in ecclesiastical places was carried on with boundless audacity; benefices were put up to the highest bidder, and Innocent III. admitted that fire and sword alone could heal this plague.[1] Prelates who declined to be bought by propinae, fees, were held up ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... he did not believe it. The same authorities insisted that the sole notion of marriage that occupied the head of an English girl of our own day was as to how she should sell her charms to the highest bidder; he did not believe that either. And indeed he argued with himself, in considering to what extent books and plays could be trusted in such matters, that in one obvious case the absurdity of these allegations was proved. If France were the France of French playwrights and novelists, the ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... scenes that may be classed as "extravagant" are found in Strobilus' cartoon of Euclio (Aul. 300 ff.), Demipho's discovery in the distance of a mythical bidder for the girl (Mer. 434 ff.), Charinus' playing "horsey" and taking a trip in his imaginary car (Mer. 930 ff.), and the loud "boo-hoo" to which Philocomasium gives vent (Mil. 1321 ff.). These all might be classed under either "farce" or "burlesque," ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... Frisco that's got a fleet o' trucks—fella named Albert Drummond. Shrewd customer, too. He was tryin' to make a dicker with us. But we'll make no deals. We're not goin' to freight any ourselves if we can get out of it. But we'll sign no contracts in such a matter. Lowest bidder gets our business so long as he don't fail to keep us supplied with all we need. If you can underbid these truck men, you'll get the business; and from what I know about you, I have no doubt but that ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... his patriotism won back the fortune he had risked; but at the time of course it hampered him intolerably to be without funds. He had, besides, other difficulties to contend with. At least one of his sub-contractors or head-workmen was a disappointed bidder for the gunboat contract, and was on a salary which ran till the boats were finished; and while Eads would not mention such a suspicion in public, he suggested in a private letter that this had been ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... to have, but every one merely took into consideration how much profit he would derive from them. Oh, my sisters, we rich Jewesses are treated just in the same manner as the poor princesses; we are sold to the highest bidder. And we have not got the necessary firmness, energy, and independence to emancipate ourselves from this degrading traffic in flesh and blood. We bow our heads and obey, and, in the place of love and happiness, we fill our hearts with pride and ostentation, and yet we are starving and pining away ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... of land that a white man would starve on. He will outbid the white man every time in the matter of price when renting land for farming purposes and the land-owner doesn't give a darn then whether he rents to white or yellow—so long as he gets the highest bidder's money. The chink spends hardly anything on clothes, he lives in a hovel; eats rice, works seven days in the week, pays no taxes except a paltry Road Tax of something like four dollars a year—and generally manages to evade even that;—doesn't contribute ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... Tammany? Was there not a "stag of Ten" to be found, to be struck, if party necessities required it? Would OAKEY HALL and PETER B. SWEENY put such a slight upon these bastard allies of the O'BRIENS and MORRISSEYS whose columns are open to the highest bidder, and whose lips reek venom while their hands are ever ready to strike a victim in the back, as to pass them by while they were ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... rupees against a portion of this gold. The tale of the riches at your command will go abroad, and the army will remain faithful in the hope of receiving more. Without it—I do not deceive myself—they would sell their swords to the highest bidder in the state or outside it, and it will also be necessary to use it with discretion, lest their minds should be so much inflamed by the thought of it that they should combine to seize and plunder the palace. They would ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... sale to the highest bidder, up to Doomsday next, several choice lots of tombstones. Bidders will state price and terms of payment, and accepted purchasers will remove the monuments from their present localities, at their own ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... reflect that at this time the justice of the cause was comparatively unimportant, and the extent of the recompense the main object to which the soldier looked; and when bravery, like every other commodity, was disposed of to the highest bidder. But France, richer and more determined, outbade all competitors: it bought over General Erlach, the commander of Breysach, and the other officers, who soon placed that fortress, with the whole army, in ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the landlord; 'he was there, and was offered for seventy pounds, but didn't find a bidder at any price. What do ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... d' Aragona (brother to the King of Naples) and Ascanio Sforza (brother of Lodovico, Duke of Milan) are said to have disposed of their votes in the most open and shameless manner, practically putting them up for sale to the highest bidder. Italy rang with the scandal ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... sickly they were not bothered about him. Many a time if the boy was desirable, he was put on the stump and auctioned off by the time he was thirteen years old. They called that putting him on the block. Different ones would come and bid for him and the highest bidder ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... of Ellangowan were advertised to be sold to the highest bidder, and a day was fixed for ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... dear Sir, what shall we do now? I have read that Benniger such a lecture, and taken the money ad depositum. But, good heaven! that fellow is a wild ferocious beast. He says, it is a bargain; that the receiver is the thief, and not the bidder. He insists on having the patent for the monopoly dispatched; if not, he swears he will ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... it to you, as a man, is it fair of you to pay her open attentions, and compromise her? You must not think me very mercenary; I am not the man to give my daughter to the highest bidder. But there is ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... has lost his glittering hat! Though he does not sigh and pull up for that— Alas! his horse is a tit for Tat To sell to a very low bidder— His wind is ruin'd, his shoulder is sprung, Things, though a horse be handsome and young, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children — those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own — being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Peter, at this, gave a laugh of harsher cadence than he intended, asking, justly enough, on what privilege his visitor rested such a demand and why he himself was disqualified from offering his wares to the highest bidder. "Surely you wouldn't hawk such things about?" cried Mr. Locket; but before Baron had time to retort cynically he added: "I'll ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... former possessions. If your answer is decidedly unfavourable, the return of your friends to France will be thenceforward impracticable, and their chateau, as well as their house in Paris, will be declared national property, and sold without delay to the highest bidder. To you, who have as much understanding as beauty, it is unnecessary to say more. Consult your heart, charming Victoire! be happy, and make others happy. This moment is decisive of your fate and of theirs, for you have to answer a man of a most ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... his money-bags under his pillow. There are others who wait, with impatience, to see the articles; and I have not crossed the Atlantic, with a freight that scarcely ballasts the brigantine, to throw away the valuables on the lowest bidder." ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... President and the Council lent to this afflicted nation was—shall I be believed in relating it?—the landed interest of a whole kingdom, of a kingdom to be compared to France, was set up to public auction! They set up (Mr. Hastings set up) the whole nobility, gentry, and freeholders to the highest bidder. No preference was given to the ancient proprietors. They must bid against every usurer, every temporary adventurer, every jobber and schemer, every servant of every European,—or they were obliged to content themselves, in lieu of their extensive ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... act providing for the sale of the tract of land at the lower rapids of Sandusky River," passed on the 27th day of April, 1816, it was enacted that all the lands in the said tract, except the reservations made in the said act, should be offered for sale to the highest bidder at Wooster, in the State of Ohio, under the direction of the register of the land office and the receiver of public moneys at Wooster, and on such day or days as shall, by a public proclamation of the President of the United States, be designated ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... when to their amazement and dismay Grandsteiner laid the hand of the law upon them and told them they were "redemptioners." A redemptioner was an emigrant whose services for a certain period were liable to be sold to the highest bidder for the payment of his passage to America. It seems that in fact a large number of those on board the Johanna had in some way really become so liable; but it is equally certain that of others, the Kropps, the Schultzheimers, ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... of supply and demand. Let our future sieges of Sebastopol be done by contract—no capture, no pay—(I admit that things might sometimes go better so); and let us sell the commands of our prospective battles, with our vicarages, to the lowest bidder; so may we have cheap victories, and divinity. On the other hand, if we have so much suspicion of our science that we dare not trust it on military or spiritual business, would it not be but reasonable to try whether some authoritative handling may not prosper ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... mightily puffed up with the pride and dignity of his office. Gentleman Geoff's private papers were few and carefully indited, their instructions unmistakably clear. Under them, Baggott sold the Blue Chip scrupulously to the highest bidder, although it broke his heart to see Limasito's proudest institution pass into the hands of a Tampico syndicate. He placed the two hundred thousand, American, which the establishment brought, unreservedly to ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... Hippol., II, 2; Plin., H. N. XXXII, 3. On the other hand, the practice of supporting the populace at the expense of great candidates or of the state, was developed to a very great extent. The masses lived very largely by the sale of their right of suffrage to the highest bidder. At the election of consuls in the year 54, 500,000 thalers were offered to the century called on to vote first. (Cicero, ad Quintum II, 15; ad. A.H. IV, 15.) Even Cato had a part in such bribery. (Sueton., ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... all events, very few. The men the great Gustavus Adolphus brought over the Baltic Sea are gone long ago, and those who have taken their places will sell both soul and body any day to the highest bidder.' ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... improvement. The difference between what the land was worth when the tenant got it, and what generations of thrifty outlay of time and the means made it was the tenant's property, and the Ulster custom allowed him to sell his right to his improvements to the highest bidder. On some lands the tenant right was much more than the rent, as it should be when it was made valuable by years and years of outlay; but landlords, pinched for money, or greedy for money, naturally grudged that this ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... the democracy of the church. There are no pews to be sold to the highest bidder—no 'reserved seats;' the oneness and equality before God are always recognized. A Russian gentleman, as he prays, does not look around, and move away from the poor beggar next to him. At St. Peter's the crowd stands or kneels—at ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... doubtless caught in wars, as may be seen every day in Africa, made slaves of, and sold to the Arabs for a few yards of common cloth, brass wire, or beads. They would then be taken to the Zanzibar market, resold like horses to the highest bidder, and then kept in bondage by their new masters, more like children of his family than anything else. In this new position they were circumcised to make Mussulmans of them, that their hands might be "clean" to slaughter their master's cattle, and extend his creed; for the Arabs ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... he has spent a fortune of opulence, and a life of genius, in carrying to perfection the greatest of all human inventions; and his productions, slighted by his country, were hawked over Europe, in quest of a bidder? ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... see the bearing of their special knowledge upon the whole, in order to rank high in the profession. Third, a class who lack both natural and acquired knowledge, and whose only recommendation is that they are always for sale to the highest bidder, whether he be president, director, or contractor; sometimes working nominally for the company, but really for the contractor,—or in some cases, so debased is this class of persons, for both contractor and company openly. Of late years ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... than any other in the world, where he might seek repose from time to time; a tower so tall that it would reach the cloud that hangs perpetually on the mountain. To him who should build such a tower in the shortest time the King would give any reward which the fortunate bidder might ask. The old King laughed as he made his offer, and it was plain that he was only half serious; but many of the richest of his nobility desired the prize, and contended for it earnestly. One proposed ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... two or three hundred of these bells, and in the second place to retain the recollection of the slight peculiarities characterising each for several years, would seem altogether incredible, had we not other instances—such as Bidder's and Colburn's calculating feats, Morphy's blindfold chess-play, etc.—of the amazing degree in which one brain may surpass all others in some special quality, though perhaps, in other respects, not exceptionally powerful, ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... amount bid for it either by himself or by anybody else at the sale should be esteemed the value on which the rental was to be calculated during the twenty-one years next following the sale. In case the present holder of the lease was the highest bidder, this was the only result of the sale; but in case he was outbid he was bound to transfer the lease to the best bidder, on receiving from the government the amount at which his improvements had been valued. This payment might be made in government ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... repetition of such ghastly recitals the stoutest heart sickens. Men, and even mere boys, of the reformed faith were butchered in their homes, in the arms of their wives or their mothers. The goods of Protestants were plundered and openly sold to the highest bidder. Of many, a ransom was exacted for their safety. The work went on for two weeks. At last a deputy from Orange reached the Huguenot princes and the admiral at La Rochelle, and Count Louis of Nassau, who was ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird |
