"Bribe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who might perchance be attracted by Miss Derrick, especially if they learnt that Mr. Higgins was disposed to 'behave handsomely' to his stepdaughter; but the Mumfords had no desire to see Louise speedily married. To the bribe with which the letter ended they could give no serious thought. Having secured their "paying guest," they hoped she would remain with them for a year or two at least. But already Louise had dropped hints such as ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... and which the City of Never; they are the twin-born children, the fairest daughters of Wonder. Time had been there, but not to the domes that were made of copper, the rest he had left untouched, even he, the destroyer of cities, by what bribe I know not averted. Nevertheless they often wept in Never for change and passing away, mourning catastrophes in other worlds, and they built temples sometimes to ruined stars that had fallen flaming down from the Milky ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... spy, employed to track and rob me of what I carried, why should he have made me a present of these rare and precious diamonds? Would the bribe for which he used his skill reach anything like the sum he could obtain by selling the stones? I was almost sure it would not; and therefore, having the diamonds, it would have been far more to his advantage to keep them than to stuff them into my pocket, simply to fill up the space ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... the Indians deemed it more advantageous to themselves to sell their prisoners than to torture them. They, therefore, took them to Detroit, where all were ransomed by the British except Boone. The governor offered a large sum for his release, but the savages would not listen to the bribe. They knew the value of the man they held, and were determined that their illustrious captive should not escape again to give them trouble in field ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... that have stayed at thy knees, Mother, go call them in — We that were bred overseas wait and would speak with our kin. Not in the dark do we fight — haggle and flout and gibe; Selling our love for a price, loaning our hearts for a bribe. Gifts have we only to-day — Love without promise or fee — Hear, for thy children speak, from the uttermost ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... treason, Rodney received a letter from Donald Lovell, then a captain in the army. "Uncle Dick," the letter said, "exclaimed when he heard of it: 'what a pity that a British bullet had not taken his life before a British bribe killed his good name!'" It became a custom for Rodney and Zeb to yearly exchange letters with Donald Lovell who, later in life, established his home down on ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... the disciples could not have falsely pretended the resurrection. It is also impossible that they obtained, or surreptitiously disposed of, the dead and interred body; because it was in a tomb of rock securely sealed against them, and watched by a guard which they could neither bribe nor overpower; because they were too much disheartened and alarmed to try to get it; because they could not possibly want it, since they expected a temporal Messiah, and had no hope of a resurrection like that which they soon began proclaiming to the world. And ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... take ONE American in! Ha! seest thou? This American comrade shall bribe his courts, his corregidores. After a little he shall supply the men who invent the machine of steam, the mill, the ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... South-western Australia likewise pay a respect, almost amounting to veneration, to shining stones or pieces of crystal, which they call Teyl. None but their sorcerers or priests are allowed to touch these, and no bribe can induce an unqualified native to lay his hand ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... into a wild set of girls there, and one of our amusements was sending out for suppers late in the evening; the servants would do anything for money, and they were always willing to go over to Evins, and get what we wanted for a small bribe. The bill was allowed to run on in my name, for, although it was understood that all the dormitory girls should share in the expense, it was more convenient to order in one name. Then the end of the term came, and there was so much confusion ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... a breach of etiquette which the code entailed. Jakey thereupon assumed the duties of a 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 ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... "Don't try to bribe me," said Jamieson, with a gesture of disgust. "It's no use. I win, as you say. There may be a next time—but I'm not afraid of you, Holmes. Take me up ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... you my business. I have changed my mind so many times that there is nothing left of my original intention. I speak now as the thoughts come to me. I am here on behalf of a syndicate of manufacturers—foreign manufacturers—to offer you a bribe." ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... still public life had splendid prizes. Nay, should he fail with Miss Cameron, he even thought that, by good management, he might ultimately make it worth while to his colleagues to purchase his absence with the gorgeous bribe ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... too gross for him to swallow. The raw and unspiced stuffings of Master Brook convey to him no hint of mistrust: he drinks them in with unfaltering confidence; and opens his breast to this total stranger as freely as if he were his sworn and long-tried counsellor; the offered bribe of the man's money so falling in with the other baits of greed as to swamp his discretion utterly. After being cheated through the adventures of the buck-basket, where he was "stopped in with stinking clothes that fretted ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... offer me the Doge's crown as a bribe, this could not be. Our Leman winds will not wait for king or noble, bishop or priest, and duty to those I have in the bark commands me to quit the ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Omniscient, Judge, Witness, and Claimant, and He will judge thee hereafter, blessed be He; for in His presence there is no unrighteousness, forgetfulness, respect of persons, or acceptance of a bribe, for everything is His. Know also that everything is done according to the account, and let not thine evil imagination persuade thee that the grave is a place of refuge for thee, for against thy will ...
— Hebrew Literature
... Frisian, smiling in his slow fashion, "if I had been there unknown to Ramiro, and you had offered him this head of mine on a dish as a bribe, not only would I have forgiven you but I would have said that you did right. You are a maid, and you had to protect yourself from a very dreadful thing; therefore ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... truth; but if rewards and punishments serve the interests of truth, it is by mere accident. It is very much easier to find arguments for the divine authority of the Gospel than for the divine authority of the Koran. But it is just as easy to bribe or rack a Jew into ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ceremonials of a rough and waggish nature, practiced upon the uninitiated; among which was the old nautical joke of shaving. The river deities, however, like those of the sea, were to be propitiated by a bribe, and the infliction of these rude honors to be parried by ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... elected; on pain of being incapable to serve for that place in parliament. And if any money, gift, office, employment, or reward be given or promised to be given to any voter, at any time, in order to influence him to give or withhold his vote, both he that takes and he that offers such bribe forfeits 500l, and is for ever disabled from voting and holding any office in any corporation; unless, before conviction, he will discover some other offender of the same kind, and then he is indemnified for his own offence[l]. The first instance that occurs of election bribery, was so ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... at Azalea's home early next morning, having been earnestly asked to come in time to see the babies take their bath. There is nothing I like better than to see a baby take a bath, and to see two at once was a bribe indeed. ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... began to consult seriously with his council, what they all thought most advisable for defending this land, ere it was utterly undone. Then advised the king and his council for the advantage of all the nation, though they were all loth to do it, that they needs must bribe the enemy with a tribute. The king then sent to the army, and ordered it to be made known to them, that his desire was, that there should be peace between them, and that tribute and provision should be given them. And they accepted the terms; and ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... 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 began a search for Inez and ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... moment's delay, for the sun is fast sinking toward the west, Joseph hastens to Pilate, and asks that he may take away the body of Jesus; and not unlikely he quickens Pilate's response by an offer of a liberal bribe if he will but accede to his request. Pilate, who had just given orders to the soldiers to hasten the death of the crucified, marvelled that Jesus was really dead; nor was he reassured until he had asked the centurion; and when he knew ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... not turned to him for comfort, from the false friends and open enemies of Ireland? who did not remember him in the days of its burnings and wastings and murders? No Government ever dismayed him—the world could not bribe him—he thought only of Ireland—lived for no other object—dedicated to her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendour of his astonishing eloquence. He was so born and so gifted that poetry, ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... Gorton was set upon another job or two when he returned; and one of those he contrived to mismanage so woefully, that I would give him no more to do. It struck me that he must drink, or else was accessible to a bribe." ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... for I had no money to offer a bribe, and the possibility of escaping grew more and ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... the contract. Other people were growing desperate, too, it appeared, and his bribe was not great enough. One member of the committee stood by him and gave him the facts. A check had been passed, and it was a bigger check than Tom could draw without trenching on the balance left in the Iron City National to ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... therefore, if you can think upon any present means for his delivery, do not foreslow it. A bribe to the officer that committed ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... they could not gain any information of the author, by threat or bribe, carried him to France, where his doom was supposed to be sealed in torture and death, in the Bastile ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... surreptitiously the proofs of a marriage she wished the world to forget. Having learned that she had wedded, a second time, in her maiden name, and that her antecedents were unsuspected in her present home, the thought of extorting a bribe to continued silence, from the wealthy lady of Ridgeley, would have occurred to any common rascal with more audacity than principle. It was but a spark—the merest point of light that showed her the verge of the precipice toward which ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... One day a better scheme came into his unbalanced brain; he broke the dam and sent for Munn. Between them they laid a plan to ruin forever the trout-fishing in the Sagamore; and Munn, taking the last of O'Hara's money as a bribe, actually secured several barrels full of live pickerel, and shipped them to the nearest station on the ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... If thou but take myself — nay — don't refuse.' 'Nay — nay — my child!' I said; 'the only wealth We wish for is the wealth of soul — of grace. Not all your gold could unlock yonder gate, Or buy a single thread of Virgin's veil. Not all the coins in coffers of a king Could bribe an entrance here for any one. God's voice alone can claim a cell — a veil, For any one He sends. Who sent you here, My child? Thyself? Or did some holy one Direct thy steps? Or else some sudden grief? Or, ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... result of this enforcement—not now. What I propose to do as an honest man is to put the prohibitory profession of this State to the test. When this is law, Luke Presson cannot pose as an honest man and continue to sell liquor to all-comers, he cannot bribe sheriff and police; I'll send my own men to smash every bottle in his place, and I'll put him into just as dark a cell as any Cheap John who peddles poison from his boot-leg. The rich man must stand on the level of the poor man. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... from the withdrawal of Russia from the war except, perhaps, in that important factor—the release of German troops from the Eastern frontier. But as time passes the Germans may use food from Russia to bribe northern neutral nations into an alliance with the ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... on him!—But the notablest was a certain necessitous or covetous Duke of Burgundy, in straitened circumstances we shall hope,—who reflected that in all likelihood this English Archbishop, going towards Rome to appeal, must have taken store of cash with him to bribe the Cardinals. Wherefore he of Burgundy, for his part, decided to lie in wait and rob him. 'In an open space of a wood,' some 'wood' then green and growing, eight centuries ago, in Burgundian Land,—this fierce Duke, with fierce steel followers, shaggy, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... am offering them the grain to bribe them to remain here, while I myself go away leaving them to the mercy of the French," thought Princess Mary. "I will offer them monthly rations and housing at our Moscow estate. I am sure Andrew would do even more in my place," she thought as she went out in the twilight ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... property, treasure, coin, money, wealth, LL: payment, price, tribute, bribe, reward, : money of account, denarius, twentieth part of a ...
— A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - For the Use of Students • John R. Clark Hall
... the ring so the stone sparkled in the light. The woman's lips parted and her hand crept toward the letter. Nyoda turned the ring in the light once more. By the look in the woman's face she knew that she had gained her point. In another moment she would accept the bribe. Just then the throbbing sound of a motor was heard on the drive. The woman started violently, jerked her hand back and sent the elevator down in haste. With a gesture of despair Nyoda threw the letter down on ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... was taken up in passing to and from the exercises, especially in the case of those who lived at a distance, and thus found it almost impossible to cultivate their own rice-fields. Frequently, also, the officers would not allow the men to return home without a money bribe. In short, the private soldier was little better than a slave—in some cases worse—while the officers of the highest rank ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... too much—greedy, ambitious men, who might turn their knowledge to evil account. The moment might be propitious to the pretender, however false his claim. Therefore Boris dispatched a messenger to Wisniowiecki with the offer of a heavy bribe if he would yield up the ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... old system of rewards, and far from taking fright at the name of a bribe, the mother of the Child of Tumult has only to wish she had at command rewards ample and varied enough to give the shock of hope and promise to the heart of the little boy, and change his passion at ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... at least got to Concord. A swift procession of coaches, carriages, and buggies, all going to Concord, passed us, inert and helpless, on the sidewalk in the peculiarly cold mud of North Cambridge. We began to wonder if we might not stop one of them and bribe it to take us, but we had not the courage to try, and Clemens seized the opportunity to begin suffering with an acute indigestion, which gave his humor a very dismal cast. I felt keenly the shame of defeat, and the guilt ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... treasure. When he had retrieved three shillings and sevenpence-halfpenny he peered out. Paul was far away. Barney Bill put the money on the shelf and looked at it in a puzzled way. Was it an earnest of the boy's return, or was it a bribe to let him go? The former hypothesis seemed untenable, for if he got nabbed his penniless condition would be such an aggravation of his offence as to call down upon him a more ferocious punishment than he need have risked. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... repeated; and that upon hearing this, he would know that his friends were without. Roger listened anxiously for the password from his new guard; but as it did not come, he concluded that Cuitcatl had not been able to bribe him, and that he must himself overpower ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... hundred dollars to get "lost" long enough for the prisoner to slip over to Mexico. Acting upon the advice of his attorney, Jesse encouraged this attempt, under the belief that if he could get the Hummel forces in the position of having attempted to bribe him the prisoner's bail could then be forfeited and Dodge himself taken into custody. Hummel became wary, however, and apparently abandoned for the time the idea of bribery. Later on Bracken again disappeared. ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... and punished, and afterwards be set at liberty. How was it possible that he could always avoid him, or escape being recognised? and how little chance had he of escape from Furness's searching eye! Could he bribe him? Yes, he could now; he was rich enough; but, if he did, one bribe would only be followed up by a demand for another, and a threat of denouncement if he refused. Flight appeared his only chance; but to leave his present ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... traits of magnanimity, and in which, notwithstanding, a keener eye cannot fail to detect the hidden purpose of the writer to sap the foundations of moral principle, and the veneration for whatever ought to be held sacred by man; while all this sentimentality is only to bribe to his purpose the effeminate soft-heartedness of his contemporaries [Footnote: The author it is supposed alludes to Kotzebue.—TRANS.]. On the other hand, if any person were to undertake the moral vindication of poor Aristophanes, who has such a bad name, and whose licentiousness ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the Protestants; and by a royal edict, the full and free exercise of the Protestant religion was guaranteed in every part of France except Paris and a circle twelve miles in diameter around the capital. As a bribe to the Duke of Alencon, he was invested with sovereign power over the three most important provinces of the realm, with an annual income of one hundred thousand crowns. This celebrated treaty, called the Paix de Monsieur, because concluded under the auspices of Francis, the brother ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... safe your parks; but when Men taunted you with bribe and fee, We only saw the Lord of Men Grin like an Ape and climb a tree; And humbly had we stood without Your princely barns; did we not see In pointed faces peering out What ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... 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 could hardly put the whole of ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... By another bribe we contrived to make our way into a box, whose doors were more unrelenting than brass or marble to the crowd in the lobby, less acquainted with the mode of getting through the English world; and I had my first ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... No, no, I never bribe an old acquaintance. Perhaps I might let it sparkle in the eyes of a stranger a little, till we come to a right understanding. But then, like all other mortal things, it would return from ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Zimmermann, telegraphed to the German Minister in Mexico, instructing him to form an alliance with Mexico in the event of war between Germany and the United States, and to offer as bribe the States of New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas; he also suggested the possibility of winning Japan from her allegiance to the Entente and persuading her ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... demanded supply, renewed the offer formerly pressed upon his father, and entreated him to seize all the ecclesiastical revenues, and convert them to the use of the crown.[**] The clergy were alarmed: they could offer the king no bribe which was equivalent: they only agreed to confer on him all the priories alien, which depended on capital abbeys in Normandy, and had been bequeathed to these abbeys, when that province remained united to England: and Chicheley, now archbishop of Canterbury, endeavored to divert the blow by giving ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... this sight brought back auld times so vive to him, that he a kind of mistook which ane he was, and took to dropping, forgetful-like, into public-houses again. It was high time Tam should be got out of the place, and they did manage to bribe him into leaving, though no easily, for it had been fine sport to him, and to make a sensation was what he valued above all things. We heard that he went back to Redlintie a curran years after, but both the gauger and his wife were dead, and I ken that ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... to offer to bribe us; but just then there was the sound of voices in the garden and Sir Francis appeared directly after, candle in hand, closely followed by Mr Solomon, and both of them looking very serious, though somehow it did not have the slightest effect on me, for I was watching the faces of Courtenay ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... cry death to courtiers. 'Tis God's voice. Take you the word of one who has occupied His business in great waters. There's no room, Meaning, or reason, office, or place, or name For courtiers on the sea. Does the sea flatter? You cannot bribe it, torture it, or tame it! Its laws are those of the Juggernaut universe, Remorseless—listen to that!"—a mighty wave Broke thundering down the coast; "your hands are white, Your rapier jewelled, can you grapple that? What part have you in all its flaming ways? ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... squeeze no 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. ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... brooch at once. Fearing the wrath of the officer, he came immediately and I returned the diamonds. Even after this the family renewed their efforts. I found out afterwards that the general had violated his oath of allegiance; his bribe was to buy my influence ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... to give Nina to her grandfather. She would pay him for delivering her from the child. After receiving his bribe Hart was to leave that part of India at once, When the Major returned your mother would tell him that the child was lost. That she feared her grandfather Hart had stolen her. She would help Major Bertram ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... the strokes frequently detaching the viscera from their living walls. In order to give more force to the blow, the executioner takes a leap and run, only striking as he reaches his victim. If possible to gain him by a bribe, he may diminish the punishment without detection. He may manage not to use his little finger on the instrument, which softens the force of the blow, without attracting the attention of the superintending officer. If the number of lashes is to be great, the operator is often ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... speaking openly to Lord Palmerston. His desire to acquire Denmark and Finland is not unnatural, and would not be very dangerous; but the important part of the matter is, that the Emperor Napoleon has evidently tried to bribe him for his schemes by such expectations. After having established a large kingdom, dependent upon him and possessing a fleet, in the South of Europe on his right flank, he evidently tries to establish by the same means a similar power on his left flank in the North. If then the Revolution of Poland ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... manner in which it was obtained, he says, is this:—On some occasion of alteration in the church at Twickenham, or burial of some one in the same spot, the coffin of Pope was disinterred, and opened to see the state of the remains. By a bribe of L50 to the Sexton, possession of the skull was obtained for one night; another skull was then returned instead ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... would, by her advice, have recovered their plough-irons, which had been stolen, had it not been the will of fate that William Dougal, sheriff's officer, one of the parties searching for them, should accept a bribe of three pounds not to find them. In short, although she lost a lace which Thome Reid gave her out of his own hand, which, tied round women in childbirth, had the power of helping their delivery, Bessy Dunlop's profession of a wise woman seems ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... ask you, for I have not a single bribe to offer. I merely intend to marry you. I am a ne'er-do-well, a debauchee, a tippler, a compendium of all the vices you care to mention. I am not a bit in love with you, and as any woman will forewarn you, I am sure to make you a vile ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... the gipsy, the same man who had avoided meeting Bertram's eye when out hunting with Dandie Dinmont, told the whole story of Kennedy's murder, as he was at Warroch Point on the day of its occurrence. He stated that Glossin was present and accepted a bribe to keep the matter a secret. This witness also stated that it was he that had told his aunt, Meg Merrilies, that Bertram had returned to the country; and that it was by her orders that three or four of the gipsies had mingled in the crowd when the custom-house was attacked, for the purpose of helping ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... 'do you wish to tamper with my honour? Do you believe an officer of France will take a bribe? I have a mind to consign thee to my black-hole, and to have ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he was to plunge into all the intrigues of the Court at which he resided, to discover and flatter every weakness of the prince, and of the favourite who governed the prince, and of the lacquey who governed the favourite. He was to compliment the mistress and bribe the confessor, to panegyrise or supplicate, to laugh or weep, to accommodate himself to every caprice, to lull every suspicion, to treasure every hint, to be everything, to observe everything, to endure everything. High as the art of political intrigue had been carried in Italy, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... reasonable and judicious: am I not right to be charmed with her? Then, too, she is most kind, gentle, considerate, and affectionate to me, and esteems me, as I believe I have before told you, far beyond my deserts—who can resist that bribe? ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Douglas' side nor bribe nor threat could e'er divide,'" he protested. "Not that its name was Lufra, but he ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... he said. "I have been arguing the pros and cons of a ticklish problem. There are two courses to me. I can either bribe you, or leave you to your own devices. The latter method implies the interference of the police. I dislike that. Helen would certainly be opposed to it. I make the one thousand into five; but I want your ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... generally observe the eldest son of a duke takes a fortune out of the market. Why, there is Beaumanoir, he is like Valentine; I suppose he intends to marry for love, as he is always in that way; but the heiresses never leave him alone, and in the long run you cannot withstand it; it is like a bribe; a man is indignant at the bare thought, refuses the first offer, and pockets ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... young shepherd there, named Paris—who was, in fact, a prince in disguise—that they might exhibit themselves to him, and submit the question of the right to the apple to his award. The contending goddesses appeared accordingly before Paris, and each attempted to bribe him to decide in her favor, by offering him some peculiar and tempting reward. Paris gave the apple to Aphrodite, and she was so pleased with the result, that she took Paris under her special protection, and made the ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... thou shouldst leave me in peace in the suburb I am inhabiting, what bribe must I offer thee, oh, little beings more contemptible than ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a special dispensation, he declared—he need not bribe. Returned from Albania with shattered health, he had been sent hither to recuperate. He required not only butter, but meat on meatless days, as well as a great deal of rest; he was badly run down.... And eggs, raw eggs, drinking eggs; ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... smallest possible chance of winning your case. But you have a chance. It's a hundred to one against you. Still, odd things do happen in courts. But let me tell you this. I know that judge. I've known him for years, and if you try to bribe him with a pair of ducks he'd give it against you even if you had the best case in the world instead of the worst. That's the kind of ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... not the latter, as I told you, but the Chancellor's wife, who offered up the order of St. Catherine. I do not know how my Lord Buckingham [the English Minister at St. Petersburg] feels, but unless to conjure up a tempest against this fury of the north, nothing could bribe me to set my foot in her dominions. Had she been priestess of the Scythian Diana, she would have sacrificed her brother by choice. It seems she does not degenerate; her mother was ambitious and passionate for intrigues; she went ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... inserted the story about the proffered bribe. The story is entitled to small credit, but as helping to swell and maintain a tradition concerning an historical character about whom little is positively known, it can hardly escape mention in any biography of Marvell. A pamphlet printed ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... you bribe the jailers. But don't give them more than a tical each. They'll demand two; ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... military skill, he overthrew him in three great battles. Niger fled to Antioch, the seat of his late government, and was there decapitated. Meantime Albinus, the British commander-in-chief, had already been won over by the title of Csar, or adopted heir to the new Augustus. But the hollowness of this bribe soon became apparent, and the two competitors met to decide their pretensions at Lyons. In the great battle which followed, Severus fell from his horse, and was at first supposed to be dead. But recovering, he defeated his rival, who immediately committed suicide. Severus displayed his ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Hallowe'en cakes and nuts are laid on graves to bribe the spirits not to disturb the vigils ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... "It is Bruce—my son-in-law—who's ill; and I've come down here to find a doctor. Couldn't get one in Cairo—it seems the pilgrims have just returned from Mecca bringing their pet cholera along with them, and the city's got a scare—so I came down here to meet the boat, meaning to bribe the ship's surgeon to come back into the desert with me. If he wouldn't respond to bakshish I should have tried kidnapping," finished Sir Richard ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the habit of driving him in a baby carriage to the Queen's Park for an airing, and one afternoon the mother lay in wait for the appearance of the infantile equipage. She was afraid to approach the servant with a bribe, as, in the event of her refusal, the Wilkies would be placed on their guard, and would set a strict watch over all the child's movements. She accordingly sat down at a distance, closely veiled, and waited till an ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... 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 or to death on secret information, without ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... the house, looking in every one's face for the offender, who was found to be Publius Clodius, a worthless young man, who had been in Catilina's conspiracy, but had given evidence against him. He escaped, but was brought to trial, and then borrowed money enough of Crassus the rich, to bribe the judges and avoid the punishment he deserved. Caesar's wife, the sister of Pompeius was free of blame in the matter, but he divorced her, saying that Caesar's wife must be free from all suspicion; and this, ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... was but partially successful. She brought Margherita's father indeed from Siena and established him as a baker near the villa; but no commands, threats, or bribe of his could induce his daughter to ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... money to thyself, Bekie," she answered. "Thy cousin John and I have no need of it. Neither doth he require a bribe to make him willing to take me for his wife. To speak truth, we loved each other long ere I set eyes on thee, and 'twas but the King, my father, who would have none of him. Perchance by now he hath changed ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... to commemorate some incident or other in the national history, and I was to be present and to reply to the toast of "The Commerce of Aureataland." My task was, at all hazards, to keep this party going till the colonel's job was done, when he would appear at the soldiers' quarters, bribe in hand, and demand their allegiance. Our knowledge of the character of the troops made us regard the result as a certainty, if once the President was a prisoner and the dollars before their eyes. The ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... book you're selling?" he asked. "Well, I'll take one. I don't take one for a bribe, but because I can see you're not the sort of man that would sell a book that wasn't worth the money. I want that book. And just you keep still about those fire-extinguishers. Between you and me, those are first-class nickel-plated lung-testers, and not fire-extinguishers. ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... free! that is the mission of my life. Now, friend, come to my help; all that I am and have I offer up. I have gold, I have diamonds, I gave an estate given me by my father. I will sell all to liberate him; we will, if necessary, bribe the whole garrison. But now, before all other things, I ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... the price of the humiliation of their city. Such were the Pisans. And, indeed, they threatened that if at such a price they were set free, they would return only to punish those who had thought such treason. Ugolino for his part cared not.[30] He proceeded to bribe Lucca with other strongholds. In the city all was confusion. Ugolino was turned out of the Dictatorship, he became Captain of the People. Not for long, however, for soon he contrived to ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... desired by its authors. "If by this," said he, "you expect to induce the recent slave-master to confer the right of suffrage without distinction of color, you will find the proposition a delusion and a snare. He will do no such thing. Even the bribe you offer will not tempt him. If, on the other hand, you expect to accomplish a reduction of his political power, it is more than doubtful if you will succeed, while the means you employ are unworthy of our country. ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... a still greater ascendency over the Court of France, he had expended immense sums to bribe secretaries and Ministers; and couriers were even stopped to have copies taken of all the correspondence to and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... tall, white-haired man in a frock-coat, got up and pounded the table with his fist. "Who is this young engineer?" he thundered. "He has the nerve to back his work instead of sneaking to get a bribe. And he tells the truth. We're building twice—spending twice when ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... to work to ascertain the trouble that must dwell in her heart so constantly to becloud her face. I'll bribe Helen to find out for me. It may be some unfortunate love affair—who knows? I think I would like to put any fellow out of the way that might be seeking her hand. I believe I would kill him, if necessary. Perhaps, dear Journal, I should not have written ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... castle of Baldwineltz came to be builded, and thus Heinrich von Richenbach, brave, ingenious, and unscrupulous, was installed captain of it, with twoscore men to keep him company, together with a plentiful supply of gold to bribe ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... wagons, running regularly to the coast, in which the smuggled goods were conveyed up to London. They bribed, when they could, the revenue men, and they had spies in every direction to give notice of the approach of those whom they could not bribe. They had lookout men on the watch for the approach of an expected smuggling vessel, and spots-men to select he best place on which she could run her cargo. They had also large parties on the beach, frequently strongly armed, to assist in landing the goods and to carry them up to the carts, ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... Revolution, while General Reed was President of Congress, the British Commissioners offered him a bribe of ten thousand guineas to desert the cause of his country. His reply was, "Gentlemen, I am poor, very poor; but your king is not ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... not there. She stayed as long as she dared, and finally had to return so as to be home before her father got back. This was the day of the storm. She had much difficulty in finding a driver, but at length succeeded by means of a heavy bribe. Then followed her momentous meeting with me. Her departure from the cottage so abruptly was owing to her intense desire to get home before her father should arrive. This she succeeded in doing. She felt deeply grateful to me, but did not dare to ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... and groaned. Nor would he listen to reason. I was a quack. My painless tooth-extraction was a delusion and a snare and a low advertising dodge. I was so anxious to get that tooth that I was almost ready to bribe him. But that went against my professional pride and I let him depart with the tooth still intact, the only case on record up to date of failure on my part when once I had got a grip. Since then I have ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... much of gold in the earlier times, but in 237 B.C., when Ts'in was straining every nerve to conquer China, the (future) First August Emperor was advised that "it would not cost more than 300,000 pounds weight in gold to bribe the ministers of all the states in league against Ts'in." Yet in 643 B.C., on the death of the First Protector, the orthodox state of Cheng (lying between Ts'i and Tsin to the north and Ts'u to the south), was bribed with "metal" ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... 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 his hiding place, while the steamer ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... theocratic equality, all gradually disappeared. An independent Syrian kingdom, framed and guarded by a hundred thousand sabres, rose up before him; an established Olympian religion, which the Druses, at his instigation, would embrace, and toleration for the Maronites till he could bribe Bishop Nicodemus to arrange a general conformity, and convert his great principal from the Patriarch into the Pontiff of Antioch. The Jews might remain, provided they negotiated a loan which should consolidate the Olympian institutions and establish ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... 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, ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... expired, he was sent to Congress. In 1794-95 he was again made governor; and it was at this time, that, contrary to all expectations, he was prevailed on to sign the Yazoo Act. No charge of corruption was ever made against him. No thief or swindler was ever bold enough to try to bribe such a high-spirited and fearless man. But excitement in the State ran so high, that General Matthews was ruined so far as his influence was concerned. He left Georgia, and never afterwards made the State his home ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... to speak, in statu quo. The ameer is friendly to the British, but asserts his independence with a great deal of firmness and vigor, and is an ever-present source of anxiety. He receives a subsidy of $600,000 from the British government, which is practically a bribe to induce him not to make friends with Russia, and yet there are continual reports concerning Russian intrigues in that direction. He declines to receive an English envoy and will not permit any ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... wilderness mail service. He could find no messenger whom he dared trust. So he sent Eileen. She was at Fort o' God for a week. Then she came to Churchill, where we saw her. The scheme was that Brokaw should bribe the ship's captain to run close into Blind Eskimo Point, at night, and signal to Thorpe and Eileen, who would be waiting. It worked, and Eileen and Thorpe came on with the ship. At the landing—you remember—Eileen was met by the girl from Fort o' God. In order not to betray ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... for our own vices, and ugly ones for the very same vices in other people. David will flare up into generous and sincere indignation about the man that stole the poor man's ewe lamb, but he has not the ghost of a notion that he has been doing the very same thing himself. And so we bribe our consciences as well as neglect them, and they ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... had sent for him evidently not as a judge, but partly with a view to try to get a bribe out of him, and partly because he had some kind of languid interest, as most Romans then had, in Oriental thought—some languid interest perhaps too in this strange man. Or he and Drusilla were possibly longing for a new sensation, and not indisposed ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... fetter, and emancipate the land. If this state of things be not speedily reversed, 'we be all dead men.' Unless the pulpit lift up the voice of warning, supplication and wo, with a fidelity which no emolument can bribe, and no threat intimidate; unless the church organise and plan for the redemption of the benighted slaves, and directly assault the strong holds of despotism; unless the press awake to its duty, or desist from its bloody co-operation; ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... still weeping, but this time it is for lack of pupils, not of teachers or machinery. "We are unfairly handicapped!" she cries. "You have prizes and scholarships for classics and mathematics, and you bribe your best students to desert us. Buy us some bright, clever boys to teach, and then see what we can do!" Once more we heard and pitied. We had bought her bones; we bought her boys. And now at last her ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... dressing,—the brushing of hair and freshening of clothes, which were customary with her; but, this tax paid to personal comfort, she gave little further heed to appearances. She wore an old gray gown, day in and day out, which Lilly would not have put on for half an hour without a large bribe, so unbecoming was it; but somehow Lieutenant Worthington grew to like the gray gown as a part of Katy herself. And if by chance he brought a rose in to cheer the dim stillness of the sick-room, and she tucked it into her buttonhole, ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... Ruddiman, of course, comments on the fact by saying that Buchanan "was at length to act under the threefold character of malcontent, reformer, and pensioner:" but it gives no proof whatsoever that Buchanan ever received any such bribe; and in the very month, seemingly, in which that list was written—10th March, 1579—Buchanan had given a proof to the world that he was not likely to be bribed or bought, by publishing a book, as offensive probably to Queen Elizabeth as it was to his own ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley |
