"Pelf" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his eye— This epitaph, in pompous pride, Engraven on its polished side: "Perfection of Creation's plan, Here resteth Universal Man, Who virtues, segregated wide, Collated, classed, and codified, Reduced to practice, taught, explained, And strict morality maintained. Anticipating death, his pelf He lavished on this monolith; Because he leaves nor kin nor kith He rears this tribute to himself, That Virtue's fame may never cease. Hic jacet-let him rest in peace!" With sober eye Jove scanned the shaft, Then turned away and lightly laughed "Poor Man! since I have careless been In keeping books ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... Trafalgar; Who, born to guide such high emprise, For Britain's weal was early wise; Alas! to whom the Almighty gave, For Britain's sins, an early grave! His worth, who in his mightiest hour A bauble held the pride of power, Spurned at the sordid lust of pelf, And served his Albion for herself; Who, when the frantic crowd amain Strained at subjection's bursting rein, O'er their wild mood full conquest gained, The pride he would not crush restrained, Showed their fierce zeal a worthier ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... turned, From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... might hear. (The Shah had heard it long ago, And asked the taxman if 'twere so, Who promptly answered, rather airish, The man had long been on the parish.) The more he feared, the more he grew A cynic and a miser, too, Until his bitterness and pelf Made him a terror to himself; Then, with a razor's neckwise stroke, He tartly cut his final joke. So perished, not an hour too soon, The ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... my marble brow; I'd take no thought of pelf; I'd lie the long day through at ease a-thinking of myself; For when a man's mere presence lends to any scene delight He needn't worry what he does—whate'er he does ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... me, Sir John Clavering, why for the sake of pelf and of honours that you will never harvest do you seek to part those who love each other and whom God has willed to bring together? Why would you sell your child to a gilded knave whom she hates? Nay, stop me not. I'd call him that and more to his face and none have ever known me lie. Why did ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... rebel, though { here at every word {in what I sing If I no longer hail thee { King and Lord { Lord and King I have redeemed myself with all I had, And now possess my fortunes poor but glad. With all I had I have redeemed myself, And escaped at once from slavery and pelf. The unruly wishes must a ruler take, Our high desires do our low fortunes make: Those only who desire palatial things Do bear the fetters and the frowns of Kings; Set free thy ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his Party; some of us have sorrowed To make such close pals of such reglar old foes; The horse don't half like him, I'm bound to admit it, Between you and me I don't like it myself, For me and dear JOSEPH have not always hit it. But then, he stands in; we must look to the pelf; Can't afford to offend him, our Stable can't—blow it! Eh! What? You have heard me disparage Boy Bill As too Free in his ways by long chalks. Well, I know it; But JOE is dead nuts on his go and his skill— The Blinkers? Oh yes! Horse not used to him yet, Sir, And if ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... January, and that is really one of the main purposes of my journey. If from time to time in my passage I do deliver a few incoherent utterances, these utterances will not be prompted by any desire for pelf. That is far from my thoughts, but still if anyone wants to pay two dollars, or seventy-five cents, to hear those incoherent utterances you may be assured that my managers and myself will do our utmost to devote the funds accruing therefrom to purposes of mercy and of charity. [Applause.] ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... hae I lo'ed her, and lo'ed her fu' dearly, For saft is the smile o' her bonny sweet mou'; An' aft hae I read in her e'en, glancing clearly, A language that bade me be constant an' true. Then ithers may doat on their gowd an' their treasure; For pelf, silly pelf, they may brave the rude sea; To lo'e my sweet lassie, be mine the dear pleasure; Wi' her let me live, an' wi' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... a friend of noble mind, Who loves me more than praise or pelf, Reproves my faults with spirit kind, And thinks of me as well ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... than his will; No gods to him will lend a hand! Upon his courage and his skill The record of his life must stand. What honors shall befall to him, What he shall claim of fame or pelf, Depend not on the favoring whim Of fortune's ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... the right of mankind to be free? Yet, what are the rights of the Negro to me? I'm well fed and clothed, I have plenty of pelf— I'll care for the blacks when ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... scout, Or black a waiter's eye. Of all the clubs,—the Clippers, Screws, The Fly-by-nights, Four Horse, and Blues, The Daffy, Snugs, and Peep-o-day, Tom's an elect; at all the Hells, At Bolton-Row, with tip-top swells, And Tat's men, deep he'd play. His debts oft paid by Snyder's{24} pelf, Who paid at last a debt himself, Which all that live must pay. Tom book'd{25} the old one snug inside, Wore sables, look'd demure and sigh'd Some few short hours away; Till from the funeral return'd, Then Tom with expectation burn'd To hear his father's will:— "Twice twenty thousand ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Here's that which is too weak to be a sinner, Honest water, which ne'er left man i' the mire: This and my food are equals; there's no odds: Feasts are too proud to give thanks to the gods. Immortal gods, I crave no pelf; I pray for no man but myself. Grant I may never prove so fond To trust man on his oath or bond; Or a harlot for her weeping; Or a dog that seems a-sleeping; Or a keeper with my freedom; Or my friends, if I should ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... business, whatever the game, In law, or in love it is ever the same: In the struggle for power, or the scramble for pelf, Let this be your motto, "Rely on yourself."—J. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... mind is fixed On one point and made up: To accept my lot unmixed; Never to drug the cup But drink it by myself. I'll not be wooed for pelf; I'll not blot out my shame With any man's good name; But nameless as I stand, My hand is my own hand, And nameless as I came I go to ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... about myself? Do I live in a house you would like to see? Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf? 'Unlock my ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... Judas, an apostate black, In the resemblance one thing thou dost lack; When he had gotten his ill-purchas'd pelf, He went away, and wisely hanged himself: This thou may do at last, yet much I doubt, If thou hast any ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... pangful love, so pure, so vain. And thereby win forgetfulness And pardon of the spirit's excess, Which soar'd too nigh that jealous Heaven Ever, save thus, to be forgiven. No Gospel has come down that cures With better gain a loss like yours. Be pious! Give the beggar pelf, And love your neighbour as yourself! You, who yet love, though all is o'er, And she'll ne'er be your neighbour more, With soul which can in pity smile That aught with such a measure vile As self should be at all named "love!" Your sanctity the priests reprove; Your case of grief they wholly miss; ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... design of walking in and chucking the two thousand pounds into Nancy's lap. On the contrary, he shoved them deeper down in his pocket, and resolved to see the old gentleman to bed, and then produce his pelf, and fix the wedding-day ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... mention of another owner of land in Thimbleby, in the 15th century, whose apparent love of pelf would seem to have tempted him to defraud the king of his dues. A certain Thomas Knyght, of the City of Lincoln, Esquire, died in the 10th year of the reign of Henry VII. (A D 1495), seized of lands and tenements "in Thembleby," and other places. At the Inquisition ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... not all. Every foul bird comes abroad and every dirty reptile rises up. These add crime to confusion. Strong measures deemed indispensable, but harsh at best, such men make worse by maladministration. Murders for old grudges, and murders for pelf, proceed under any cloak that will best cover for the occasion. These causes amply account for what has occurred in Missouri, without ascribing it to the weakness or wickedness of any general. The newspaper files, those chroniclers of current ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... leaded down; His decent heirs enjoyed his pelf, Mourning-coaches, many a one, 680 Followed his hearse along the town:— Where was ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of loss; The call of honour all demands! What thought those generous hearts of dross Who sowed our races in these lands? Who blames the Loyalist of pelf? Champlain, what cared he ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... I know, is much approved, Yet not thus can Severus' soul be moved. To Fate unequal—equal to myself— In duty's path I go. For power and pelf I never swerve where honour leads the way; Come weal, come woe, her call I must obey. Let fate depress an all unequal scale, Let Clothe hold her distaff—I'll not fail! Yet one more word—this to thy private ear— The fables that thou dost of Christians ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... sect; [5] some, so-called Christian Scientists in sheep's clothing; and all "drunken without wine." They have small con- ceptions of spiritual riches, few cravings for the immortal, but are puffed up with the applause of the world: they have plenty of pelf, and fear not to fall upon the Stranger, [10] seize his pearls, throw them away, and afterwards try to ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... From wandering in a foreign strand! If such there be, go mark him well: For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim: Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... Python a voice, Diana made her chaste, Ceres gave plenty, Cupid lent his bow, Thetis his feet, there Pallas wisdom placed. With these she queen-like kept a world in awe. Yet all these honors deemed are but pelf, For she is much more worthy ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... of them. A meeting of the little army of claimants was held at the Temperance Hall, March 2, 1875, and there have been several attempts, notwithstanding the many previous adverse decisions, to re-open the battle for the pelf, no less than a quarter of a million, it is believed, having already been uselessly spent ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... shook his head, and he warily said: "Though cunning be good, we take money instead, On the Rhine, thrifty Rhine; If ye fancy ye may without pelf have your way You'll find that there's both host and the devil to pay ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... are my brothers Wherever they may be, And he is most my proper care Who most has need of me; Who most may need my counsel, My influence, my pelf, And most of all who needs my strength To save ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... matches for herself, And daughters, brothers, sisters, kith or kin, Arranging them like books on the same shelf, There's nothing women love to dabble in More (like a stock-holder in growing pelf) Than match-making in general: 't is no sin Certes, but a preventative, and therefore That is, no doubt, the only ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... ye, who, with small care for fame, and little reward from pelf, have opened to the intellects of the poor the portals of wisdom! I honour and revere ye; only do not think ye have done all that is needful. Consider, I pray ye, whether so good a choice from the tinker's bag would have been made by a boy whom religion had not scared from the Pestilent, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sometimes fancy that when I'm king, And my gallant courtiers form a ring, Each so careless of power and pelf, Each so thoughtful for all but self, I'd give the best on his bended knee— Yes, barter them all, for the loyalty ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... us talk about his lineage, deplore the length of his nose, or call him "clever-looking." We should have been ashamed to let him smell about us the tar-brush of a sense of property, to let him think we looked on him as an asset to earn us pelf or glory. We wished that there should be between us the spirit that was between the sheep dog and that farmer, who, when asked his dog's age, touched the old creature's head, and answered thus: "Teresa" (his daughter) "was born in November, and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Britain, in the zenith of her power and greatness, think kindly of the native races, and now for once in her history rule this great island for right and righteousness, in justice and mercy, and not for self and pelf in unrighteousness, blood, and falsehood. It is to be hoped that future generations of New Guinea natives will not rise up to condemn her, as the New Zealanders have done, and to claim their ancient rights with tears now unheeded. I can see along ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... and he alone, Who serves a greatness not his own, For neither praise nor pelf; Content to know and be unknown: ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... with your pelf Some respect, where you importune; Those may love me for myself, That regard you for your fortune. Rich or born of high degree, Fools as well as you may be; But that peace in which I live No descent nor ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... practice of "gouging," with which, according to the veracious English traveler of early days, the native American gave the charm of diversity and diversion to a life whose serious thoughts were wholly absorbed in the acquisition of pelf. Some will remember the definition given of it in Grose's "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:" "to squeeze out a man's eye with the thumb; a cruel practice used by the Bostonians in America." A curious illustration of the belief in this myth occurred to Cooper. One of ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... Laird's attention to the family of Deans had at different times excited in his bosom. But he was too generous long to nurse any feeling which was allied to selfishness. "He is," said Butler to himself, "rich in what I want; why should I feel vexed that he has the heart to dedicate some of his pelf to render them services, which I can only form the empty wish of executing? In God's name, let us each do what we can. May she be but happy!—saved from the misery and disgrace that seems impending—Let me but find ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... traitorously gave the best friend that we had For spiritless pelf—as we felt to ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... With servants, clothes, and money too, The rest benevolence implored, With case depicted on a board: Which when Simonides espied, "I plainly told you all," he cried, "That all my wealth was in myself; As for your chattels and your pelf, On which ye did so much depend, They're come to ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... must come and God knows it is through no discrepancies on my part. Poor little Madge; she is a good child. If she were only settled I would feel more relief; but she is to be bartered for pelf, poor child. I will stand by ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... plucked from the outmost twig Was somewhat withered, 'tis true, Long years had flown since it lightly danced To the summer air and the dew; Not much of a dowry brought she, In beauty or vulgar pelf, But she had two or three ancestors More than ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... give Yours Truly quite a pain. On the T square I do not like your style; For you are playing favorites again And you have got me handicapped a mile. Avaunt, false Life, with all your pride and pelf: Go take a running jump ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin
... hedger, Who backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak, Against the wicked remnant of the week, A saving bet against his sinful bias— "Rogue that I am," he whispers to himself, "I lie—I cheat—do anything for pelf, But who on earth can say ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... poor, the lad was frank and free; Of late he's grown brimful of pride and pelf; You wonder that he don't remember me? Why, don't you see, Jack has ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... woman spendthrift of thyself, Spendthrift of all the love in thee, Sold unto sin for little pelf, The captain Christ ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... of life, It will be joy to call thee by The holy name of "wife!" I love thee for thy gentleness, I love thee for thy truth; I love thee for thy joyousness, Thy buoyancy of youth I love thee for thy soul that soars Above earth's sordid pelf; And last, not least, above these all, I love thee for thyself. Now come to me, my dearest, Place thy hand in mine own; Look in mine eyes, and see how deep My love for thee hath grown; And I will press thee to my heart, Will call thee "my dear wife," ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... market holds forth, The best that I know for a lover of pelf, Is to buy Marcus up, at the price he is worth, And then sell him at that which he sets ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... wise, I might seem to advise So great a potentate as yourself; They should, sir, I tell ye, spare't out of their belly, And this way spend some of their pelf. ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... at SELL-ALL'S door, The same who saved old SELL-ALL'S life— 'Twas but the year before! And Sell-all rose and let him in, Not utterly unwilling, But first he bargain'd with the man, And took his only shilling! That night he dreamt he'd given away his pelf, Walk'd in his sleep, and sleeping hung himself! And now his soul and body rest below; And here they say his punishment and fate is To lie awake and every hour to know How many ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... below allow themselves to be inebriated by the love of honours and pelf! Alone and watchful you persevere in the right path. But a time will come when, taking your flight to the sky, you will open in the ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... And how was it possible to fall from political grace by withdrawing from the fellowship of the knaves and traders that formed the body-guard of the President, and were using the Republican party as the instrument of wholesale schemes of jobbery and pelf? To charge the Liberal Republicans with apostasy because they had the moral courage to disown and denounce these men was to invent a definition of the term which would have made all the great ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... step on life's highway, A grip on the bottom rung; A few good deeds done here and there, And my life's song is sung. It's not what you get in pelf that counts, It's not your time in the race, For most of us draw the slower mounts, And our deeds can't keep the pace. It's for each what he's done of kindness, And for each what he's done of cheer, That goes on the Maker's scorebook ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... critic folk the poet's use of vulgar slang upbraid, But, when I'm speaking by the card, I call a spade a spade; And I, who have been touched of that same mania, myself, Am well aware that, when it comes to parting with his pelf, The curio collector is so blindly lost in sin That he doesn't spend his money—he ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... and justice! These principles once, and indubitably now, so precious in their fullest integrity to the normal British conscience, must henceforth, say Mr. Froude and his fellow-colonialists, be scored off the moral code of Britain, since they "do not pay" in tangible pelf, in self-aggrandisement, ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... time of hermit Japan, as we see him in the literature of men who were hostile in faith and covetous rivals in trade, is a repulsive figure. He seems to be a brutal wretch, seeking only gain, and willing to sell conscience, humanity and his religion, for pelf. In reality, he was an ordinary European, probably no better, certainly no worse, than his age or the average man of his country or of his continent. Further, among this average dozen of exiles in the interest ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... world cries for workers; not toilers for pelf, But souls who have sought to eliminate self. Can the lame lead the race? Can the blind guide the blind? We must better ourselves ere ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, Those joys, those loves, those interests to resign; Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death, and calmly pass away. Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbour with himself. The learned is happy nature to explore, The fool is happy that he knows no more; The rich is happy in the plenty given, The poor contents him with the care of Heaven. See the blind beggar dance, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... we grow more wise When Radcliffe's page we cease to prize, And turn to Malthus, and to Hervey, For tombs, or cradles topsy-turvy; 'Tis sweet to flatter one's dear self, And altered feelings vaunt, when pelf Is passion, poetry, romance; — And all our faith's in three per cents." R. ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... the irresolution of their victims. They, who at the same time have no delicacy and no shame, count fearful odds; and, much as is murmured about the false estimation of riches, there is little doubt that the parvenus as often owe their advancement in society to their perseverance as to their pelf. ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... Every foul bird comes abroad, and every dirty reptile rises up. These add crime to confusion. Strong measures deemed indispensable, but harsh at best, such men make worse by maladministration. Murders for old grudges and murders for pelf proceed under any cloak that will ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... Training of Children, black even as white; the leading out of little souls into the green pastures and beside the still waters, not for pelf or peace, but for life lit by some large vision of beauty and goodness and truth; lest we forget, and the sons of the fathers, like Esau, for mere meat barter their ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... men of such ideals. Rather he had repeatedly been courted by the grafter, the promoter, the social climber, each beneath a thinly disguised friendship working for his own selfish ends. But here at last was the novel phenomena of one who scorned pelf, who would not even allow his gratitude to be bought. The sight was refreshing. It rejuvenated the New Yorker's jaded belief ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... her owner right clear of his debts, He landed a fortune in stakes and in bets, He paid the old bailiff the whole of his pelf, And gave him a ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... an artificial and man-created condition, not God's arrangement and order; for it degrades man and ennobles mere pelf. It demeans those who live by useful labor, and, in proportion, exalts all those who eschew labor and live (no matter by what pretence or respectable cheat—for cheat it is) without ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... coloured clay, but coloured clay can be very beautiful. The modern idolater of riches is content with far less genuine things. The glitter of guineas is like the glitter of buttercups, the chink of pelf is like the chime of bells, compared with the dreary papers and dead calculations which make the ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... revere: No forceful eagles, butterflies e'er look. They love not thee: of them then little seek, And wish for readers triflers like thyself. Of ludeful matron watchful catch the beck, Or gorgeous countess full of pride and pelf. They may say "pish!" and frown, and yet read on: Cry odd, and silly, coarse, and yet amusing. Should dainty damsels seek thy page to con, Spread thy best stores: to them be ne'er refusing: Say, fair one, master loves thee dear as ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... a dreffle smart man: He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; But consistency still was a part of his plan,— He's ben true to one party,—an' thet is himself;— So John P. Robinson he Sez he shall vote ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... could be trusted with the very best when the native-born Protestant, Arnold, had betrayed the country for pelf and position among the oppressors of the native land of John Barry and the native land of the infamous ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... slander to say you oppressed them; Does a man squander the price of his pelf? Was it not often that he who possessed them Rather was owned by his servants himself? Caring for all, as in health so in sicknesses, He was their father, their patriarch chief; Age's infirmities, infancy's weaknesses Leaning on ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... footsteps he hath turn'd, From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there he, go, mark him well; High though his titles, proud his fame, Boundless his wealth, as wish can claim, Despite these titles, power and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living shall forfeit fair renown, And doubly dying shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... was an artist with historical leanings not unassociated with the desire for pelf—pelf being, even to idealists, what petrol is to a car. The blend brought him one day to Portsmouth, where the Victory lies, with the honourable purpose of painting a picture of that famous ship with NELSON on board. What the ADMIRAL was doing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... Where orient pearls and precious stones abound; In my conceit these far do disagree The perfect praise of beauty forth to sound. O Chloris, thou dost imitate thyself, Self's imitating passeth precious stones, Or all the eastern Indian golden pelf; Thy red and white with purest fair atones; Matchless for beauty nature hath thee framed, Only unkind and cruel ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... shocking for pure Christian women to know, so they expend their prayers and pelf on the "poor heathen" who have never heard that Adam ate an apple, or that the whale swallowed Jonah. Christianity feeds and fattens on the sentiment and the credulity of women. It slanders the women of India, of China and of Japan that ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... snares, Self-seeking men, by ignorance deluded, Strive by unrighteous means to pile up riches. Then, in their self-complacency, they say, "This acquisition I have made to-day, That will I gain to-morrow, so much pelf Is hoarded up already, so much more Remains that I have yet to treasure up. This enemy I have destroyed, him also, And others in their turn, I will despatch. I am a lord; I will enjoy myself; I'm wealthy, noble, strong, successful, happy; I'm absolutely perfect; no one else In all the world can ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... would no doubt entail additional expense, but I am convinced that the pure love of art for art's sake which is inherent in the nature of all operatic stars and syndicates would ultimately rise superior to considerations whether of pelf or amour propre. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... below. He walk'd the streets, and wore a threadbare cloak; He din'd and supp'd at charge of other folk: And by his looks, had he held out his palms, He might be thought an object fit for alms. So, to the poor if he refus'd his pelf, He us'd 'em full as kindly as himself. Where'er he went, he never saw his betters; Lords, knights, and squires, were all his humble debtors; And under hand and seal, the Irish nation Were forc'd to own to him their obligation. He that cou'd once have half ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... magistrates will hear him entertain the worthy aldermen with an instructing and pleasing narrative of the manner in which he made the rich citizens of Bordeaux squeak, and gently led them by the public credit of the guillotine to disgorge their anti-revolutionary pelf. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... uncle has wooed for himself: Her father has sold her for land and for pelf: My steed, for whose equal the world they might search, In mockery they borrow to bear ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... to-day is a tincture so strong, That, if dosing yourself, you are sure to go wrong. What men learnt in the past they say brings them no pelf, And the well-tried old remedies rest on the shelf. But the patient may haply exclaim, "Don't be rash, Lest your new-fangled physic should settle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... no pelf or harm, By red Priapus sentinelled; By his huge sickle's formidable charm The ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... an egoist. Friends and colleagues had known his weakness before, but had scarce ventured to speak of it in public. In his cabinets he had suffered no rival. To those who submitted he was sweet as summer. He would give everything to or for them, keeping nothing for himself. They might have the pelf if he had the power. Proposals that did not emanate from himself got scant justice in council or caucus. This egoism, which long feeding on popular applause had developed into a vanity almost incomprehensible ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... Many words in English are From the Latin tongue deriv'd, Of whose sense girls are depriv'd 'Cause they do not Latin know.— But if all this anger grow From this cause, that you suspect By proceedings indirect, I would keep (as misers pelf) All this learning to myself; Sister, to remove this doubt, Rather than we will fall out, (If our parents will agree) You shall Latin ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... this stock soon came to be of vast account, for thereby she soon managed to bind and rule the Queen Regent—managed to drive Sully into retirement in less than a year—managed to make herself and her husband the great dispensers at court of place and pelf. Penniless though Concini had been, he was in a few months able to buy the Marquisate of Ancre, which cost him nearly a half a million livres; and, soon after, the post of first gentleman of the bedchamber, and that cost him nearly a quarter of a million; and, soon after that, a multitude ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... crime is daily avenged," replied Lopez. "How many wicked, how many low souls, who basely squander divine gifts to obtain worthless pelf, there are among my people! More than half of them are stripped of honor and dignity on your altar of vengeance, and thrust into the arms of repulsive avarice. And this, all this. . . . But enough of these things! They rouse my inmost soul to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... he had thought of giving Asaad the same sum, that no obstacle might remain to his leaving them. "This money," said he, "with which the English print books, and hire men into their service is but the pelf of the man of sin, and could you but be present to hear what the people say of you, through the whole country, for your associating with the English, you would never ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... entranced Mariana relieved herself from the fatigue of her posturing, at the same time inviting Browning with a wink to be a charitable confederate in the joke by which she profited in admiration and in pelf. Browning, who would have waged immitigable war against the London dog-stealers, and opposed all treaty with such rogues, even at the cost of an unrecovered Flush, could not but oppose the new trade of elaborate deception. But his feeling was intensified by the personal repulsiveness of the professional ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... of the L. of N. With calorimetric and statistic arts Administer the prog of Foreign Parts, Or, eager not to do the thing by halves, To reconcile the Czechs and Jugo-Slavs— I will, resigning honours, kudos, pelf, Administer hot cocoa to myself; Then to repose; for it is truly said The best ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... the foothills; Got a tent to sleep in nights, Far away from beaten highways And the talk of human rights; Far away from din and tumult, Where the greed of pelf consumes— I've a corner, here, of heaven Where the creamy ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... given up to the chase (for pelts or pelf) and careful of his status in the tribe, thinks only of himself and ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... in their essence diviner Than dreams of ambition and pelf; A cherub, no babe will be finer, Invented ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... not they thought to be enthusiasts and zealots? Why? Because they were somewhat in earnest in the cause of Christ. Worldly men toil and strive night and day, in collecting together a little of the pelf and dust of the earth, and think themselves wise in doing so; but if the disciples of Christ show zeal or earnestness, in pursuits as much higher than theirs as heaven is higher than the earth, and as much more ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his strength Into the utterance—"Pan spoke thus: 'For what thou hast done Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!' ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... glorious Cause I've meanly quitted For the sake of pelf; But ah, the Devil has me outwitted; Instead of hanging ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... against those who bear it. It is confidently asserted by those who profess to know his private concerns, that he has feathered his dirty nest well, and that, as the best means of securing his ill gotten pelf, he has lately invested it in the French funds, to the amount of one hundred ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... Lucre men come from Italy, Barbary, Turkey, From Jewry; nay, the Pagan himself Endangers his body to gape for her pelf. They forsake mother, prince, country, religion, kiff and kin; Nay, men care not what they forsake, so Lady Lucre they win; That we poor ladies may sigh to see our states thus turned and tost, And worse and worse is like to be, where Lucre rules ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... of France, whose words were ever lit By lightning flashes of ironic wit; More fond of power than of pelf or place, Eternal foeman of the mean and base, And always ready in a righteous cause To suffer odium and contemn applause— Men call you still the "tiger," but the name Has long outworn the faintest hint of blame, Since ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... hate me, because I will not join them in their treachery toward my empress—of those who hold out to me gold and diamonds, and who hate me because I will not sell my loyalty for pelf. Oh, I was flattered with orders and honors, promises and presents. But I would not listen. What cared I for future security? What mattered it to me that I was to be the victim of Paul's vengeance? I thought of you alone; and more to me ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... is fitting that thou shouldst spend it. Moreover, if I want money, doubtless Antony, who is henceforth my master, will give me more; he is much beholden to me, and this he knows well. There, waste not the precious time in haggling o'er the pelf—not yet art thou all a merchant, Harmachis;" and, without more words, she thrust the pieces into the leather bag that hung across my shoulders. Then she made fast the sack containing the spare garments, and, so ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... found; and our country has got along, perhaps, as well as one could have expected, considering what it has had to contend with: pressure of debt; primrose paths; pelf; party; patrio-Prussianism; the people; pundits; Puritans; proctors; property; philosophers; the Pontifical; and progress. I will not disguise from you, however, that we are far from perfection; and it may be that on your next visit, thirty-seven years hence, we shall be further. ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... pelf, Melancholic and thoughtful, his mind Look'd inward and dwelt on itself, Still pensive, pathetic, and kind; Yet oft in despondency drown'd, He from friends, and from converse would fly. In weeping a luxury found, And reliev'd others' woes with ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... deathless lyres the strains prolong, That gush from living founts of song, Without a cross; Here spirits never feel the weight Of Wrong, or Envy, or of Hate, Or earthly loss; The pomp of Pelf—the pride of Birth— The gilded trappings of this ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... Richard and the third Henry the Templars increased in pelf, power, and pride. After a career commenced in zeal and purity, culminating in valor and fanaticism, and closing in corruption and indolence, in the year 1312, when the second Edward sat on the throne of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... love is that it is thyself, Thy body as it was ere death was it, Towering above the silence infinite That girds round life and its unduring pelf. Even as thou wert in life, thy corporal shade Is in the presence of the gods. My love Permits not that its carnal being fade Or one whit false to fleshly presence prove. Creeds may arise and pass, and passions change, Other ways may be born out of Time's dream, But this our love, made but thy body, ...
— Antinous: A Poem • Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa
... has haunted all the past, That conjured disappointments fast, That never could let well alone; That, climbing to achievement's throne, Slipped on the last step; this that wove Dissatisfaction's clinging net, And ran through life like squandered pelf:— This that till now has been thy self ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... sad to see professors, for the sake of paltry pelf, or to escape from persecution, denying the Lord Jesus. It subjects religion to scorn and contempt, and doubles the sorrows and sufferings of real Christians. Bunyan expresses himself here in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... administer in the government of men, in which they stand in the person of God Himself, should have high and worthy notions of their function and destination; that their hope should be full of immortality; that they should not look to the paltry pelf of the moment, nor to the temporary and transient praise of the vulgar, but to a solid, permanent existence, in the permanent part of their nature, and to a permanent fame and glory, in the example they leave as a rich inheritance to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... house whose mistress was a slave! So say old saws, my own in aid I crave; Woe to the court whose judge once spake for fees, Though he were readier than Isocrates! An advocate that pleaded once for pelf Scarce on the bench forgets ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams
... pelf, and war, can hardly be denied. That he had a mounting ambition; that he thought a monarchy founded upon the historical institutions and charters of the provinces might be better than the burgher-aristocracy which, under the lead of Barneveld, was establishing itself ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... on this island is, that there are few shops, no temptation to part with one's pelf, and no beggars, barelegged or barefaced, to ask for it. I do not believe that there are any cases of the cacoethes subscribendi. The natives have got out of the habit of making money, and appear to want nothing in particular, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... Aitkins himself, For a shilling a day of poor pelf, And for love of his King, And the fun of the thing, He fights till he's laid on ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... lip and brow of scorn, The worshiper of reason and of self, The atheist, wanton, and the giddy maid, The faith-betrayer and the love-betrayed; Self-righteous pharisees, who would adorn Or hide with pious garb their love of pelf. ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... people had grown so accustomed to regarding the McCalls, the Perkinses, the Hydes, the McCurdys, and the Alexanders, whose eminent physiognomies looked out at them from their insurance policies, as lofty and generous souls far removed from thoughts of pelf or self-aggrandizement, that my assertion caused consternation such as would occur in a Chinese temple if some rough intruder struck the idol, before whom a congregation was worshipping, with a stone. At once an avalanche of letters—protests, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... house of a grave and courteous burgess of the city, who bestowed the fairest chamber on his guest. Eliduc fared softly, both at bed and board. He called to his table such good knights as were in misease, by reason of prison or of war. He charged his men that none should be so bold as to take pelf or penny from the citizens of the town, during the first forty days of their sojourn. But on the third day, it was bruited about the streets, that the enemy were near at hand. The country folk deemed that they approached to invest ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France |
