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More "Pelf" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to unite him with them, and that 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 be in their ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... daily means of communication between the different points of the coast. An inland navigation of unexampled rapidity conveys commodities up and down the rivers of the country. *u And to these facilities of nature and art may be added those restless cravings, that busy-mindedness, and love of pelf, which are constantly urging the American into active life, and bringing him into contact with his fellow-citizens. He crosses the country in every direction; he visits all the various populations of the land; and there is not a province in France in which the natives ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... 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, concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... none could see his way, Yet thee I found still virtuous, and saw The sun give clouds, and Charles give both the law. When private interest did all hearts bend, And wild dissents the public peace did rend, Thou, neither won, nor worn, wert still thyself, Not aw'd by force, nor basely brib'd with pelf. What the insuperable stream of times Did dash thee with, those suff'rings were, not crimes. So the bright sun eclipses bears; and we, Because then passive, blame him not. Should he For enforc'd shades, and the moon's ruder veil Much nearer us than him, be judg'd to fail? Who traduce ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... and of no 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
... wull too; for there never waur a bad ane of that stock. Wi' heads kindly stup'd to the least, and lifted manfu' oop to the heighest,—that ye all war' sin ye came from the Ark. Blessin's on the ould name! though little pelf goes with it, it sounds on the peur man's ear like a bit ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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
... for thyself, Wealth-giver, ignorant of pelf; Fain would I learn thy upright ways And ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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
... and leave you to the world that increaseth many sorrows: my silver hairs containeth great experience, and in the number of my years are penned down the subtleties of fortune. Therefore, as I leave you some fading pelf to countercheck poverty, so I will bequeath you infallible precepts that shall lead you unto virtue. First, therefore, unto thee Saladyne, the eldest, and therefore the chiefest pillar of my house, wherein should be engraven as well the excellence ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... care no whit For pelf or place, It is enough for me to sit And watch Dulcinea's face; To mark the lights and shadows flit Across the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... the smoke and ashes into his face and beard: the result of his labour was debt instead of pelf. I sung through the burst window-panes and the yawning clefts in the walls. I blew into the chests of drawers belonging to the daughters, wherein lay the clothes that had become faded and threadbare from ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... thy self! This that 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
... no pelf; I pray for no man but myself; Grant I may never prove so fond, To trust man on his ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... had seen them in March; and now I shall see them at the end of 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 ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... so 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
... will not leave himself, But stays down with his cares, Or with his thoughts of pride and pelf, Though loud and long his prayers, Beyond earth's dome of arching skies They shall not ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... fame. I called thee hither. Now, behold, Here are the silver, gems, and gold I took from thee in other days; Receive them back, and go thy ways, For thou hast learned this truth at last— Would that it might be sown broadcast!— That riches are but worthless pelf When hoarded only ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... moaning, His selfishness owning. Grieving and heaving, Though nought is he leaving. But pelf and ill ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... Judas, an apostate black, In the resemblance one thing thou dost lack: When he had gotten his ill-purchased pelf, He went away, and wisely hang'd himself: This thou may'st do at last; yet much I doubt, If thou hash any bowels ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... oppression of autocracy and seigniorage, another. The cry for direct action always woke echo in the popular breast, sick over the delays of the Versailles lawgivers, and nourishing the hope of seizing pelf and power, rescuing their kinsfolk from the prisons, and beating down the Kingship and aristocracy to relinquish privileges and abate the hardships of ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... battle or business, whatever the game, In law, or in love, it's ever the same: In the struggle for power, or scramble for pelf, Let this be your motto, "Rely on ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... corpse was leaded down; His decent heirs enjoyed his pelf, Mourning-coaches, many a one, 680 Followed his hearse along the town:— Where ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... mother had not given her the best education. I believe she was a bit of a thief, and she could tell fibs with fluency and precision. The woman was a sinner; but her wild, strong affections were true, and her heart was not in pelf. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the ken of man? On the other hand, persons who hang about the vestibules of the rich and great, and brag of their wonderful powers in big words,—what are they more than common adventurers in search of pelf? How should their nonsense be credited, and their drugs devoured? Besides, even medicines to cure bodily ailments are not to be swallowed casually, morning, noon, and night. How much less, then, this poisonous, fiery gold-stone, which the viscera of man must be utterly ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... (1610-1643) was a child; and the queen, Mary de Medici, who was the regent, an Italian woman, with no earnest principles, deprived of the counsels of Sully, lavished the resources of the crown upon nobles, who were greedy of place and pelf. At the assembly of the States-general in 1614, nobles, clergy, and the third estate were loud in reciprocal accusations. The queen fell under the influence of the Concinis, an Italian waiting-maid and her husband, the latter ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... burn'd, As home his 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. Unwept, unhonour'd, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... 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
... I was young I said to myself, Choose a career and start after the pelf, Early to bed and early to rise, You're sure to get wealthy and awfully wise, So I started out to look around, But nice fat jobs weren't ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... unto thee I came To learn thy science. Name or pelf I had not, so was driven with shame, And here I learn all by myself. But still as Master thee revere, For who so great in archery! Lo, all my inspiration here, And all my ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... is 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 him ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... off talking about what concerneth thee not: indeed thou hast straitened my breast and distracted my mind." Quoth he, "Meseems thou art a hasty man;" and quoth I, "Yes ! yes! yes!" and he, "I rede thee practice restraint of self, for haste is Satan's pelf which bequeatheth only repentance and ban and bane, and He (upon whom be blessings and peace!) hath said, 'The best of works is that wherein deliberation lurks;' but I, by Allah! have some doubt about thine affair; and so I should like thee to let me know what it ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... orchards fear no pelf or harm, By red Priapus sentinelled; By his huge sickle's formidable charm The bird ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... soldier his worth must understand; Whoe'er doesn't nobly drive the trade, 'Twere best from the business far he'd stayed. If I cheerily set my life on a throw, Something still better than life I'll know; Or I'll stand to be slain for the paltry pelf, As the Croat still ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... all men 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
... a friend of noble mind, Who loves me more than praise or pelf, Reproves my faults with spirit kind, And thinks of me ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... paused: but, lifting at length 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 - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... made till, one day, as I sat making merry and enjoying myself with my friends, there came in to me a company of merchants whose case told tales of travel, and talked with me of voyage and adventure and greatness of pelf and lucre. Hereupon I remembered the days of my return from abroad, and my joy at once more seeing my native land and foregathering with my family and friends; and my soul yearned for travel and traffic. So compelled by Fate and Fortune ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... you always, Willie, Body and soul from harm; I'll guard your faith and honor, Your innocence and charm From the polls and their evil spirits, Politics, rum and pelf; Do you think I'd send my only son Where ...
— Are Women People? • Alice Duer Miller
... who deny with an oath are always recruited from the ranks of the followers. In a sermon John Wesley once said: "To adopt and live a life of simplicity and service for mankind is difficult; but to follow the love of luxury, making a clutch for place, pelf and power, labeling Paganism Christianity, and imagining you are a follower of Christ, this is easy. Yet all through life we see that the reward is paid for the difficult task. And now I summon you to a life of difficulty, not merely for the sake of the reward, but ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... which revolutions have been effected, and shew us the benefit. A noisy or seditious individual has obtained a lucrative office—an ambitious leader is in the char of state satiating his pride, or like Abraham Bishop gratifying his passion for ignoble pelf, upon his thousands.—He drives his carriage by his industrious neighbor who has toiled for him at an election, cracks his whip, and laughs at the folly of his dupe, and will laugh till he may need his services again, and then he will again cringe and bow and flatter and gull. ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... Reformers—Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Knox and others—were 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 important as the immortal soul is more valuable than corruption ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... time there 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 I cannot say—most probably dying—but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... 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 ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... 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
... plundered, under the hollow knavish pretence of curing souls and forgiving sins. THUS will human laws kill the body of Antichrist. Every motive for professing to believe absurdities and contradictions will be at an end, when neither rule nor honour, nor pelf is to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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
... by learned labour Any sordid quid pro quo: Not to rise above your neighbour (Comrades ne'er are treated so): Not to change your lowly station, Not for rank and not for pelf, Academic education Only, only ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... Tom-foolish, and comical, very; Who has gone through the world, not unmindful of pelf, Upon easy terms, thank Heaven, with himself, Along bypaths, and in pleasant ways, Caring as little for censure as praise; Having some friends, whom he loves dearly, And no lack of foes, whom he laughs ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... 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
... me, in conclusion, why I do not seek myself All the laurel and the glory of these seeds I sell for pelf. I will tell you, though the confidence I can't deny is rash, I'm a trifle long on laurels, and ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... 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, ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... thy barn and storehouse treasure Did He take thy hoarded pelf? Yes: to feed thee was His pleasure, ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... scaling heights before untrod, Light, darkness, air and water, heat and cold He bids go forth and bring him power and pelf. And yet though ruler, king and demi-god He walks with his fierce passions uncontrolled The conquerer ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 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
... trusting each other, and only anxious that the other should have the best of it. Yet, instead of that being the case, the mischief, the myriad mischief, of money set in, until I heartily wished sometimes that my miserable self was down in the hole which the pelf ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... heard 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 this one in August." That ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... is a dreffle smart man; He's ben on all sides that give places or pelf, But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,— He's been true to one party,—and thet is himself; So John P. Robinson he Sez he shall vote ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... Sugar Camp in peace we dwell And none is boastful of himself; None plots to gain with shot and shell His neighbor's bit of land or pelf. The roar of cannon isn't heard, There stilled is money's tempting voice; Someone detects a new-come bird And at ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... the population enjoyed the franchise. In 1800, by shameless bribery, a majority of corrupt Colonists was procured to embrace the London subjugation and vote away the existence of their Legislature for pensions, pelf, and titles. ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... 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 England, the now useless order was formally abolished by Clement ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... it if I do discomfort those who think more of pelf than of courage and of virtue; those who, as that Hebrew prophet wrote, lay field to field and house to house, until the wretched whom they have robbed find no place left whereon to dwell? What if I proved your sagest chapmen fools, ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... wherewith she Mars did meet; 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 ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... 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, ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... himself, counting piles of pelf Of a counterfeit gamboge hue. He's wizened and dried like old Arthur Gride, That the novelist DICKENS drew. In the midst of his heaps, He conveniently sleeps With his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various
... the canker of self— Free from the lusting for prestige and power; Purged of her passion for place and for pelf— Shall she not rise to great heights in that hour? God speed its coming, for fain would ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... their wealth and reeling, condemn me to eat such things. The pirate and banknote monger still gloat o'er their golden stacks, while I must appease my hunger with oysters and canvasbacks. The plutocrat has his chuffer, a minion of greed and pelf; the poor man must weep and suffer, and drive his ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... sat at the Cafe I said to myself, They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking, But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho! How pleasant ...
— English Satires • Various
... 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
... he now will wear it, With as much love as then her grace did tear it, About his eyes, [THEY BLIND HIM WITH THE RAG,] to shew he is fortunate. And, trusting unto her to make his state, He'll throw away all worldly pelf about him; Which that he will perform, she ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... being the first jockey or the favourite courtier of his day. And how should it be otherwise, when from the lips whence other lessons should have proceeded, selfishness has been inculcated as a duty, a desire for vain distinctions and the love of pelf encouraged as virtues, and a splendid equipage, or it may be some bodily advantage, pointed out as the highest object of human ambition? To set the just value on every enjoyment, to choose noble and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • 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 wrath, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... truly great Who sought to serve himself alone, Who put himself above the state, Above the friends about him thrown. No man was ever truly glad Who risked his joy on hoarded pelf, And gave of nothing that he had Through fear of needing ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... 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 slave; thou ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Viglius saw the position of matters with his customary keenness, and wondered at the blindness of Hopper and Philip. At the last gasp of a life, which neither learning nor the accumulation of worldly prizes and worldly pelf could redeem from intrinsic baseness, the sagacious but not venerable old man saw that a chasm was daily widening; in which the religion and the despotism which he loved might soon be hopelessly swallowed. "The Prince of Orange and his Beggars do not sleep," he cried, almost in anguish; "nor will ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Mr. Meiklewham?" said her ladyship.—"That wretched old pettifogger," she added in a whisper to Tyrrel, "thinks of nothing else but the filthy pelf." ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... thee, gallant, betwixt wealth and honour; There lies the pelf, in sum to bear thee through The dance of youth, and the turmoil of manhood, Yet leave enough for age's chimney-corner; But an thou grasp to it, farewell ambition, Farewell each hope of bettering thy condition, And raising thy low rank above ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... properties I'm like to keep well: The custos rotulorum of the city, And captain of the guards of their banditti. Surrounded by my catchpoles, I declare Against the needy debtor open war. I hang poor thieves for stealing of your pelf, And suffer none ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... mud-ball there Where my world went green and fair?' I shall laugh and hug me, hearing how his sentinels declare, ''T is the Brute they chained to labor! He has made the bright earth dim. Store of wares and pelf a plenty, but they ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... Castlereagh, Brougham, and Canning ever sent forth 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
... 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 people read his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... man is great, and he alone, Who serves a greatness not his own, For neither praise nor pelf; Content to know and be ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... rather interrupted Wylie's 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 ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... served! we serve you rightly, for your hungry love of pelf; For your gross and greedy rapine, gormandizing by yourself— You that, ere the figs are gathered, pilfer with a privy twitch Fat delinquents and defaulters, pulpy, luscious, plump, and rich; Pinching, fingering, and pulling—tempering, selecting, culling; ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... now or kin, were access To his heart, did I press: Just a son or a mother to seize! No such booty as these. Were it simply a friend to pursue 'Mid my million or two, Who could pay me in person or pelf What he owes me himself! 30 No: I could not but smile through my chafe: For the fellow lay safe As his mates do, the midge and the nit, —Through ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... society, and between the people who let lodgings for money, and those who lived genteelly on their means was a great and awful gulf. No people were poorer in their way than the Bells, and no one would have more dearly liked to add to her little store of this world's pelf than would poor Mrs. Bell. She could scarcely afford to take a fashionable girl in for nothing, and yet—dared she accept payment? Bell, if he knew, would never forgive her, and, as to the town, it would simply cut ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... the Churches. We would remind them that in the past the Christian voice has been our only shield against legislative excesses of the kind now in full swing in the Union. But in the new ascendency of self and pelf over justice and tolerance, that voice will be altogether ignored, unless strongly reinforced by the Christian world at large. We appeal for deliverance from the operation of a cunningly conceived ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... despite thy meditative air, I hold thy stock of wit but paltry pelf— Thou show'st that same grave aspect everywhere, And wouldst look ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... is greater 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 ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... itself; It but reflects the lives of men; And they who lived and toiled for pelf Went out as vipers in a den. God cleans the sky from time to time Of every tyrant flag that flies, And every brazen badge of crime Falls to the ground and swiftly dies. Proud kings are mouldering in the dust; Proud flags of ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... footsteps he hath 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 concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... nation, let 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 the vista of the future, ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... 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
... stone, decides the character of the metal. The gold, after its weight has been ascertained, is put by the captain into little barrels, holding perhaps half a pint, and with the top screwing tightly on. This "glittering dust" (to use the phrase which moralists are fond of applying to worldly pelf), commands from sixteen to eighteen dollars per ounce, in England and the United States. It is gathered from the sands which the rivers of Africa wash down from the golden mountains; and, when offered for sale, small lumps of gold and rudely manufactured rings are sometimes found among the ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... 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 ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... his landlord to Thomas, "Your rent I must raise, I'm so plaguily pinch'd for the pelf." "Raise my rent!" replies Thomas; "your honor's main good; For I never can ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... To royalty, thus newly made, "Great sire, I know a place," said he, "Where lies conceal'd a treasure, Which, by the right of royalty, Should bide your royal pleasure." The King lack'd not an appetite For such financial pelf, And, not to lose his royal right, Ran straight to see it for himself. It was a trap, and he was caught. Said Reynard, "Would you have it thought, You Ape, that you can fill a throne, And guard the rights of all, alone. Not knowing how to guard ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... monarch, was queer, But his motto was "live and let live, sir," He was thirsty, and fond of good beer, Which his subjects were happy to give, sir; He levied his taxes himself, A quart or a pint for his dinner, No exciseman went snacks in the pelf, No clerks had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... spirit braves, O'er mountain-crags and ocean-waves, Then make ourselves the worst of slaves, A slave to self, To satisfy the thirst that craves For yellow pelf. ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... a dreffle smart man: He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,— He's been true to one party—an' thet is himself;— So John P. Robinson he Sez he shall vote ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted labour. The poor man starves while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. But their reign is rover for rever and ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... 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 Bowels to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... whine how I met the great Bertrand himself, The miracle-worker and saint. But those women will tell any "walkers" for pelf, And swear ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... 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 the city, and to take the gates by storm. When the ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... love my neighbour as myself, Myself like him too, by his leave— Nor to his pleasure, pow'r, or pelf, Came I to crouch, as I conceive: Dame Nature doubtless has design'd A man the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... usurers, Pelf-lickers, everlasting gatherers, Gold-graspers, coin-gripers, gulpers of mists, Niggish deformed sots, who, though your chests Vast sums of money should to you afford, Would ne'ertheless add more unto that hoard, And yet not be content,—you ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... may enjoy each jolly day Somewhere with their hard-earned pelf; But, for me, I want a holiday ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... Nelson's: but, he is rich in great and noble deeds; which t'other, poor devil! is not. So, let dirty wretches get pelf, to comfort them; victory belongs to Nelson. Not, but what I think money necessary for comforts; and, I hope, our, your's, and my Nelson, will get a little, ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... rather "too bad," if an ignorant elf, Who has caught a rich patient 'twere madness to kill, Should have all the credit, and pocket the pelf, Whilst you are requested to furnish the skill. No! no! amor patriae's a phrase I admire, But I own to an amor that stands in its way; And if England should e'er ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... 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 ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... up to the chase (for pelts or pelf) and careful of his status in the tribe, thinks only of ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... Shekelsford, the week is near its end, And, as my custom is, I come to thee; There is no other who has pelf to lend, At least no pelf to lend to hapless me; Nay, gentle Shekelsford, turn not away— I must have wealth, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Maid whose heart—yet free From Love's uneasy sovereignty— Beats with a fancy running high, Her simple cares to magnify; Whom Labor, never urged to toil, Hath cherished on a healthful soil; Who knows not pomp, who heeds not pelf; Whose heaviest sin it is to look Askance upon her pretty Self Reflected in some crystal brook; Whom grief hath spared—who sheds no tear But in sweet pity; and can hear Another's praise from ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling for phrases or pelf, Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to his neighbor, and not ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... a game be played for the sake of pelf? Where a button goes, 'twere an epigram To offer the stamp ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... and Throne Are in danger alone From such as himself, who would render The Altar itself But a step up to Pelf, And pray God ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... 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, ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... read with zeal the writings of those pupils of Bayle, the English Deists. He honoured English freedom and the spirit of religious toleration. In 1728 the Henriade was published by subscription in London, and brought the author prodigious praise and not a little pelf. He collected material for his Histoire de Charles XII., and, observing English life and manners, prepared the Lettres Philosophiques, which were to make the mind of England favourably known to ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... 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
... our cause, and therefore it 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 womanly thoughtful was she, placed in it an alabaster jar of pigment, ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... ENTICEMENTS OF THE STRANGER.—We urge you, gentle maiden, to beware of the silken enticements of the stranger, until your love is confirmed by protracted acquaintance. Shun the idler, though his coffers overflow with pelf. Avoid the irreverent—the scoffer of hallowed things; and him who "looks upon the wine while it is red;" him too, "who hath a high look and a proud heart," and who "privily slandereth his neighbor." Do not heed the specious prattle about "first love," and so place, irrevocably, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... host 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 For ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... Trafalgar; Who, born to guide such high emprize, 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 ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... completely triumphant? 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
... the poet's dis-privacied moods With do this and do that the pert critic intrudes; While he thinks he's been barely fulfilling his duty 1770 To interpret 'twixt men and their own sense of beauty. And has striven, while others sought honor or pelf, To make his kind happy as he was himself, He finds he's been guilty of horrid offences In all kinds of moods, numbers, genders, and tenses; He's been ob and subjective, what Kettle calls Pot, Precisely, at all events, what he ought ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... of a single breath; and this world is an existence between two nonentities. Such as truck their deen, or religious practice, for worldly pelf are asses. They sold Joseph, and what got they by their bargain?—"Did I not covenant with you, O ye sons of Adam, that you should not serve Satan; for verily he is your avowed enemy":—By the advice of a foe you broke your faith with a friend; behold from whom you separated, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... talk as they please about what they call pelf, And how one ought never to think of one's self, And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking— My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! How pleasant it is ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... from the hand of Boreas filched Congealment's art, which did dinero put Within their well filled purse, as day by day They fattened on the appetites of those Who loved a cooling draft more than the pelf Which is alas the seed that germinates To form a mighty tree which time enfruits With greed which sours the eager mouth it feeds. We did a statute draw with cunning hand To guard this enterprise of worthy aim, But now the enemy hath broke our guard And Ice a gold ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... present in the most poetic light the rampant, untamable individualism of the ancient Germanic paganism. In defiance of his friend Bjoern's advice, Frithjof, weary of this bootless chase for glory and pelf, resolves to see Ingeborg once more before he dies, and, disguised as a salt-boiler, he enters King Ring's hall. There he sees his beloved sitting in the high-seat beside her aged lord; and the sorrow which the years had dulled revives with an exquisite agony. He punishes with fierce promptitude ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... I would let the matter lie over; and what do you think was his answer? In a voice that made me tremble, he said, disdainfully, "You oblige ME, sir!—and pray sir, who are you that presume to offer to oblige me?—call tomorrow, sir, on my treasurer, and the pelf shall be paid to you, sir." And as I went down stairs I could hear him say to himself several times, "Oblige ME indeed, ha, ha, hah!—you oblige ME!!" In a word I got the money from him, but never saw him after." "You saw Barry, though?" ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... And at my counsels and my courage sneer; They call me tyrant, breaker of my word, Fond of a warrior's garb without his sword. A servile courtier, saucy cavalier, Bold as a lion when no danger's near, They say I seek their country for myself, To fill my bursting bags with plunder'd pelf; They say with goose's, not with eagle's wing, I wish to soar, and make myself a king. Dutchmen! to you I came, I saw, I sav'd: Where'er my staff, my bear, my banner wav'd, The daunted Spaniard fled without a blow, And bloodless chaplets crown'd my conquering ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... Three silver talents with him, and his friend forsook. Bad luck go with the fellow, who unjustly some restores From exile, while some others he had banished from our shores, And some he puts to death; and sits among us gorged with pelf. He kept an ample table at the Isthmian games himself, And gave to every guest that came full plenty of cold meat, The which they with a prayer did each and every of them eat, But their prayer was 'Next year be ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... 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
... Wandering over the face of the earth, Warming his hands at another's hearth: From the pomp of towns he must onward roam; In the village-green with its cheerful game, In the mirth of the vintage or harvest-home, No part or lot can the soldier claim. Tell me then, in the place of goods or pelf, What has he unless to honour himself? Leave not even this his own, what wonder The man should burn ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... the top of a mountain or church steeple. The man in question has forgotten to cut off evidence, and, in order to work out a theory, has killed two persons. He has committed a murder, and yet has not known how to take possession of the pelf; what he has taken he has hidden under a stone. The anguish he experienced while hearing knocking at the door and the continued ringing of the bell, was not enough for him: no, yielding to an irresistible desire of experiencing the same horror, he has positively revisited the empty place and once ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... sweet to think 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
... 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, ...
— Antinous: A Poem • Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa
... pale, and thin, Old Read[10] would hardly let him in. Said Harley, "Welcome, rev'rend dean! What makes your worship look so lean? Why, sure you won't appear in town In that old wig and rusty gown? I doubt your heart is set on pelf So much that you neglect yourself. What! I suppose, now stocks are high, You've some good purchase in your eye? Or is your money out at use?"— "Truce, good my lord, I beg a truce!" The doctor in a passion cry'd, "Your raillery is ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... for my master, And got him store of pelf, But goodness now be praised, I'm begging for myself. And a-begging we will go, Will go, will go, And a-begging we ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... love, Loved I not less by knowing it, were all My self my love and no thought love to prove. What consciousness makes more by consciousness, It makes less, for it makes it less itself, My sense of love could not my love rich-dress Did it not for it spend love's own love-pelf. Poet's love's this (as in these words I prove thee): I love my love for thee ...
— 35 Sonnets • Fernando Pessoa
... put 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 hiding ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... the respect of those you know, To scorn dishonest pelf; To sympathize with another's woe, And just be true ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... The marmots are off to their underground dens, And the wishtonwish marmot, the kind prairie dog, Makes room in his hole for the tortoise and frog. The hamster runs home, with the pouch in his cheek Stuff'd with various provisions enough for a week; Then stores in his dark lonely cell the rich pelf, For, ill bred and greedy, he cares but for self. No children, no wife, no companion had he, With his very best friend he could never agree, But lived by himself without pleasure or mirth, In a hermit-like vault, five feet deep in the earth; But the sentinel marmot's shrill ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... to present in the most poetic light the rampant, untamable individualism of the ancient Germanic paganism. In defiance of his friend Bjoern's advice, Frithjof, weary of this bootless chase for glory and pelf, resolves to see Ingeborg once more before he dies, and, disguised as a salt-boiler, he enters King Ring's hall. There he sees his beloved sitting in the high-seat beside her aged lord; and the sorrow which the years had dulled revives ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... gems that magnify a woman's charm, As flowers the creeping plant, I do not harm. I do not rob the Brahman of his pelf, Nor seize the sacrificial gold myself. I do not steal the baby from the nurse, Simply because I need to fill my purse. Even as a thief, I strive with main and might For just distinction 'twixt ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... Canning ever sent forth 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 ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... Rubies and yellowbacks! Madison's lips thinned and curled downward at the corners. Oh, it was coming all right, money, jewels, pelf, rolling in merrily every day, there wasn't any stopping it, but he was paying for it, and paying for it at a price he didn't like—Helena. Helena! She wanted Thornton, did she—with his money! Wanted to dangle ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... as corrupting to vulgar souls as money, this man seems to have been as regardless as he was of pelf. He received the Cross of the Iron Crown from the Emperor of Austria. He accepted what was graciously offered, but he said that, as an Englishman, he did not know what good Crosses were to him. The circumstance reminded ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... 'I tell you it's true, sir, I once was a punter with plenty of pelf, But gone is my glory, I'll tell you the story How I stiffened my horse and got ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... turned 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
... before untrod, Light, darkness, air and water, heat and cold He bids go forth and bring him power and pelf. And yet though ruler, king and demi-god He walks with his fierce passions uncontrolled The conquerer ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 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 - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... 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
... bowed to Clarabella, And quickly homewards bent my way, And there became a rustic fellow, And donned a suit of hodden-grey. And then I hired me to a farmer, Concealing every sign of pelf, One Hodge, who had a pretty charmer, Who might love me ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... or business, whatever the game, In law, or in love, it's ever the same: In the struggle for power, or scramble for pelf, Let this be your ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... fear no pelf or harm, By red Priapus sentinelled; By his huge sickle's formidable charm The bird thieves ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... and caught the pelf, And ran to tell her neighbours; And bless'd herself, and cursed herself, And rested ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... you 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
... emprize, 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 ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... are always recruited from the ranks of the followers. In a sermon John Wesley once said: "To adopt and live a life of simplicity and service for mankind is difficult; but to follow the love of luxury, making a clutch for place, pelf and power, labeling Paganism Christianity, and imagining you are a follower of Christ, this is easy. Yet all through life we see that the reward is paid for the difficult task. And now I summon you to a life of difficulty, not merely for the sake of the reward, but because the life ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... I so 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
... 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
... the Willows a night and a day; He rifles the Buckwheat patches; Then battens his store of pelf galore Under ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... beast is a niggardly ruffler, Nabbing, grabbing all for himself! Hang it, old fellow, I'll hit you a muffler, Since you won't give me a pinch of the pelf. You has not a heart for the general distress, You cares not a mag if our party should fall, And if Scarlet Jem were not good at a press, By Goles, it would soon be all up with us all! Oh, Scarlet Jem, he is trusty and trim, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... do discomfort those who think more of pelf than of courage and of virtue; those who, as that Hebrew prophet wrote, lay field to field and house to house, until the wretched whom they have robbed find no place left whereon to dwell? What if I proved your sagest chapmen fools, and gorge your greedy moneychangers with the gold that ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... of a first-rate military hero and commander—Scipio notwithstanding. It brightens his flame, and it is agreeable to them. That is how they come to distinction: they have no other chance; they are only women; they are mad to be singed, and they rush pelf-mall, all for the honour ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 this one ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Meiklewham?" said her ladyship.—"That wretched old pettifogger," she added in a whisper to Tyrrel, "thinks of nothing else but the filthy pelf." ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... little chickens,—which you want! And I've the hen's high spirit and her pluck, And for my little ones forget myself. You think me dull, I know it. Possibly You pass a harsher judgment yet, decree Me over covetous of worldly pelf. Good, on that head we will not disagree. [Seizes FALK's arm and continues in a low tone but with gathering vehemence. You're right, I'm dull and dense and grasping, yes; But grasping for my God-given babes and wife, And dense from struggling blindly for bare life, And dull ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... Esteem among them; for a great Dealer, amongst the Indians, is no otherwise respected and esteemed, than as a Man that strains his Wits, and fatigues himself, to furnish others with Necessaries of Life, that live much easier and enjoy more of the World, than he himself does, with all his Pelf. {Indians not afraid to die.} If they are taken Captives, and expect a miserable Exit, they sing; if Death approach them in Sickness, they are not afraid of it; nor are ever heard to say, Grant me some time. They know ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... 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 the ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... mistake! His own success he thus pursues With frantic zeal for her sole sake. To lose her were his life to blight, Being loss to hers; to make her his, Except as helping her delight, He calls but incidental bliss; And holding life as so much pelf To buy her posies, learns this lore: He does not rightly love himself Who ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... she Mars did meet; 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 ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... society organized, wars fought, there is the time of peace. Now Man, free to choose his task, goes down into the market-place to sell his force, and here he fights with new weapons a harder fight; while his Woman waits behind the firing line to care for him,—to equip him and to hoard his pelf. On the strength and wisdom of her commissariatship the fate of this battle in good part depends. Of such a nature was Colonel Price's marriage. "He made the money, I saved it," Harmony Price proudly ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... that great freedom how should such as I Be able to imagine in such a self? Less hopeless far the miser man might try To image the delight of friend-shared pelf. Freedom is to be like thee, face and heart; To know it, Lord, I must be as thou art, I cannot breed ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... them to be present at the popishe Masses / at popishe superstitions and jdolatries. It is to well knowne / that many fondlye do flatter / and indeede deceyue them selues / imagining that it is lawfull for them to be present at this popish pelf. Againste whom with all ther clokes I vse this sayinge of Paule / flye ye Idolatrie. But here they resiste and saye / that this sayinge and suche other as before I haue alledged / are to be vnderstanded of the sacryfices ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... Mary Baker Eddy and Jesus, the lowly peasant of Nazareth, is admirable. Jesus was a communist in principle, having nothing, giving everything. He carried neither scrip nor purse. He wrote nothing. His indifference to place, pelf and power is His distinguishing characteristic. Mrs. Eddy's love of power was the leading motive of her life; her ability to bargain was beautiful; her resorts to law and the subtleties of legal aid were all strictly modern; and the way she tied ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... she had met one who was not intent on truckling for place and pelf. His ideals were as high and excellent as her own—his mind more sincere. Life was more to him than to her, because he was working his energies up into art, and she was only allowing her powers ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... Wick at Number Nine, But he's intent on pelf, And though he's pious, will not love His neighbour as himself. At Number Seven there was a sale— The goods had quite a run! And here I've got my single lot On hand at ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... burned, As home his footsteps he hath 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, concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... believers of different sects, and of no 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 ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... 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, ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... popular, populous, smooth-paved, and gay. The flesh it was strong, but the spirit was faint. He first was too young, then too old, for a saint. He wished well by his neighbors, did well by himself, And hoped for salvation, and struggled for pelf; And easy Tomorrow still promised to pay The still swelling debts of his bankrupt Today, Till, bestriding the deep sudden chasm that is fixed The sunshiny world and the shadowy betwixt, His Today with a pale wond'ring face stood alone, And over the border Tomorrow had flown. So ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... selfishness owning. Grieving and heaving, Though nought is he leaving. But pelf and ill ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... not feed on either earth or pelf, But upon wisdom, and on love and virtue; 'Twixt Feltro and Feltro ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... battle or 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 ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... the week is near its end, And, as my custom is, I come to thee; There is no other who has pelf to lend, At least no pelf to lend to hapless me; Nay, gentle Shekelsford, turn not away— I must have wealth, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... 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
... is the orphan kiddie Of the group with their stars in the Flag, And it's looked on Outside as an alien, Where its treatment makes honest men gag. It's treated the same as the harlot Who barters her body for pelf And carries it home to her master And is told ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter
... Jack was 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 ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... dice, Make me rich in a trice, Oh give me the prize! Alas, for myself! Had I plenty of pelf, I then ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... race put 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 hiding to keep ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... Here dwelt his wife, quiet Mistress Thatch, and here his brawny daughter. Seldom a word came to this rural home from the father, burning and robbing, sinking and slaying out upon the western seas. But from the stores of pelf which so often slipped so easily into his great arms, and which so often slipped just as easily out of them, came now and then something to help the brawn grow upon his daughter's bones and to ease the ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... barn and storehouse treasure Did He take thy hoarded pelf? Yes: to feed thee was His pleasure, Like ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... for place, pelf and power! It were blasphemy to call this riot the desire for progress for the masses. It were equal blasphemy to call it stupidity and reaction, on the part of the contending monarchs, as against crushing with iron heel the hopes of the people for political and intellectual ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... is a dreffle smart man: He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,— He's been true to one party—an' thet is himself;— So John P. Robinson he Sez he shall vote fer ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... 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 ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... is good for you; you love your country as you love your pelf. You feel for the common people,—as the wolf feels ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... 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 ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... 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 Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... human tide, Came a ghost, and for a moment walked in silence by my side — Now my heart was hard and bitter, and a bitter spirit he, So I felt no great aversion to his ghostly company. Said the Shade: 'At finer feelings let your lip in scorn be curled, 'Self and Pelf', my friend, has ever been ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... merely held the goods he seized to compel the tenant to perform personal service. It would be impossible for a tenant to pay his rent if his stock or implements were sold off the land. As the Tudor policy of money payments extended, the greed for pelf led to an alteration in the law, and the act of William and Mary allowed the landlord to sell the goods he had distrained. The tenant remained in possession of the land without the means of tilling it, which was opposed to public policy. This power of distraint was, however, confined ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... hundred worldly 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 ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... 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 Of Little ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... allowed to sit within its walls; and only a handful of the population enjoyed the franchise. In 1800, by shameless bribery, a majority of corrupt Colonists was procured to embrace the London subjugation and vote away the existence of their Legislature for pensions, pelf, ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... honest, both in thought and deed, Of generous impulse, and above all greed; Not seeking praise, or place, or power, or pelf, But life's best blessings for her higher self, Which means the best for all. She must have faith, To make good friends of Trouble, Pain, and Death, And understand their message. She should be As redolent with tender sympathy ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... mean while observe what a cheap purchase of happiness is made by the strength of fancy. For whereas many things even of inconsiderable value, would cost a great deal of pains and perhaps pelf, to procure; opinion spares charges, and yet gives us them in as ample a manner by conceit, as if we possessed them in reality. Thus he who feeds on such a stinking dish of fish, as another must hold his nose at a yard's ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... always, Willie, Body and soul from harm; I'll guard your faith and honor, Your innocence and charm From the polls and their evil spirits, Politics, rum and pelf; Do you think I'd send my only son Where I would not ...
— Are Women People? • Alice Duer Miller
... 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 events, will show that the evils ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... master, And got him store of pelf, But goodness now be praised, I'm begging for myself. And a-begging we will go, Will go, will go, ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... speculations the 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 ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... thee I came To learn thy science. Name or pelf I had not, so was driven with shame, And here I learn all by myself. But still as Master thee revere, For who so great in archery! Lo, all my inspiration here, And all ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... Ledger, Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon, A black-leg saint, a spiritual 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 I ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... talking about what concerneth thee not: indeed thou hast straitened my breast and distracted my mind." Quoth he, "Meseems thou art a hasty man;" and quoth I, "Yes ! yes! yes!" and he, "I rede thee practice restraint of self, for haste is Satan's pelf which bequeatheth only repentance and ban and bane, and He (upon whom be blessings and peace!) hath said, 'The best of works is that wherein deliberation lurks;' but I, by Allah! have some doubt about thine affair; and so I should like thee to let me know what it is thou art in such haste ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... miser on a heap of rust Sat pining all his life there, did scarce trust His own hands with the dust, Yet would not place one piece above, but lives In fear of thieves. Thousands there were as frantic as himself, And hugged each one his pelf; The downright epicure placed heaven in sense, And scorned pretence; While others, slipped into a wide excess, Said little less; The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave, Who think them brave, And poor, despised truth ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... 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 England, the now useless order was formally abolished ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... as so many millions of people honestly believe its principles are for the benefit of the oppressed and unfortunate of the earth. This altruism is knocked and blasphemed by being made the means to the entrenchment in power in Missouri, of self- and-pelf seekers. The people are deceived. The press keeps them deceived. The Chicago principles are betrayed into the hands of men who have no principle but profit. A reform movement is turned over to the men against whom the movement is directed. The cause of free coinage is committed to a national banker. ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... either side Or both old Reuben Traveller cried— Cried for the man who won law's race— Cried for the man who lost his case— Cried for the criminal acquitted— Cried for the guilty when outwitted— He cried for loss or gain of pelf— For every one except himself; Reuben was a celebrity, We seldom meet with such as he. John Rochester, a man of old, Who's life a tale of goodness told, He steered through time from envy free, You'd scarcely find an enemy, ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... be free to fix your wages; Capital, you'd be free to pick your men: Love of free Union the one's tongue engages, Love of free "Knobsticks" fires the other's pen; But love of Freedom for her own fair self,— How much of it moves Poverty or Pelf? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... inheritance; gift &c. 784. recovery, retrieval, revendication[obs3], replevin[Law], restitution &c. 790; redemption, salvage, trover[Law]. find, trouvaille[obs3], foundling. gain, thrift; money-making, money grubbing; lucre, filthy lucre, pelf; loaves and fishes, the main chance; emolument &c. (remuneration) 973. profit, earnings, winnings, innings, pickings, net profit; avails; income &c. (receipt) 810; proceeds, produce, product; outcome, output; return, fruit, crop, harvest; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... 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
... his penchant for painting and pelf The tasteful Sir Charles,[1] so renowned far and near For purchasing pictures and selling himself— And both (as the public well knows) ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... night at such a rate, He soon arrives at Harley's gate; But was so dirty, pale, and thin, Old Read[10] would hardly let him in. Said Harley, "Welcome, rev'rend dean! What makes your worship look so lean? Why, sure you won't appear in town In that old wig and rusty gown? I doubt your heart is set on pelf So much that you neglect yourself. What! I suppose, now stocks are high, You've some good purchase in your eye? Or is your money out at use?"— "Truce, good my lord, I beg a truce!" The doctor in a passion cry'd, "Your raillery is misapply'd; Experience ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... peasant girl named Mariana; and when Kirkup withdrew for a moment, the 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 ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... seemed talking to him with uncommon earnestness, and just as she was approaching, said, "To terms I am indifferent, for writing is no labour to me; on the contrary, it is the first delight of my life, and therefore, and not for dirty pelf, I wish to ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... gambled the 'ole world over, from Monte Carlo to Maine; From Dawson City to Dover, from San Francisco to Spain. Cards! They 'ave been me ruin. They've taken me pride and me pelf, And when I'd no one to play with—why, I'd go and ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... fail him, crying to his cherubim, 'Who hath flung yon mud-ball there Where my world went green and fair?' I shall laugh and hug me, hearing how his sentinels declare, ''T is the Brute they chained to labor! He has made the bright earth dim. Store of wares and pelf a plenty, but they got no good ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... gems, and gold I took from thee in other days; Receive them back, and go thy ways, For thou hast learned this truth at last— Would that it might be sown broadcast!— That riches are but worthless pelf When hoarded only ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... my 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 ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... I said to myself, Choose a career and start after the pelf, Early to bed and early to rise, You're sure to get wealthy and awfully wise, So I started out to look around, But nice fat jobs weren't ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... Ialysus, but who took Three silver talents with him, and his friend forsook. Bad luck go with the fellow, who unjustly some restores From exile, while some others he had banished from our shores, And some he puts to death; and sits among us gorged with pelf. He kept an ample table at the Isthmian games himself, And gave to every guest that came full plenty of cold meat, The which they with a prayer did each and every of them eat, But their prayer was 'Next year be there no Themistokles ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... war. Louis XIII. (1610-1643) was a child; and the queen, Mary de Medici, who was the regent, an Italian woman, with no earnest principles, deprived of the counsels of Sully, lavished the resources of the crown upon nobles, who were greedy of place and pelf. At the assembly of the States-general in 1614, nobles, clergy, and the third estate were loud in reciprocal accusations. The queen fell under the influence of the Concinis, an Italian waiting-maid and her husband, the latter of whom she made a marquis and a marshal of ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... your gallant chief," she said, "To keep his paltry pelf; The knight who would my castle win, Must dare to come himself." And forth she sternly bade him go, But followed with her eyes. I ween she knew the brave knight well Through ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... however, was Jones likely to be popular with the greater number of his men, for the energetic man was bent on making them, as well as himself, work for glory to the uttermost, and the common run of seamen care more for ease and pelf than for fame. Jones's unpopularity with the crew of the Ranger is attested by a passage from the diary of Ezra Green, one of Jones's officers, on the occasion, at a later period, of the Ranger's sailing back to America: "This day Thomas Simpson, Esq., came on board with orders to take ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... of all men after gold aspire; Few study to be wise, more to acquire: Thus, Science! all thy virgin charms are sold, Whose chaste embraces should disdain their gold, Who seek not thee thyself, but pelf through thee, Longing for riches, ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... kind is, that complete anarchy prevails in the city, and, until a new Dey is elected by the janissaries, the Moors and Jews are at the mercy of the rude soldiery. Of course, all who have enemies among them hide themselves and their pelf, if possible, until the anarchy ceases, which it does the moment the green standard of the Prophet is hoisted on the terrace of the palace, announcing that a new Dey is seated on the warm throne of his not quite ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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
... 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 ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... is nothing in itself; It but reflects the lives of men; And they who lived and toiled for pelf Went out as vipers in a den. God cleans the sky from time to time Of every tyrant flag that flies, And every brazen badge of crime Falls to the ground and swiftly dies. Proud kings are mouldering in the dust; Proud flags of ages past are gone; Only the symbols of the just Have ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... great Hector's slayer. Zeus on high, Hidden from men, held up the scales; the sky Told Thetis that her son must go the way He sent Queen Hecuba's—himself must pay, Himself though young, splendid Achilles' self, The price of manslaying, with blood for pelf. A grief immortal took her, and she grieved Deep in sea-cave, whereover restless heaved The wine-dark ocean—silently, not moving, Tearless, a god. O Gods, however loving, That is a lonely grief that must go dry About ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... how I met the great Bertrand himself, The miracle-worker and saint. But those women will tell any "walkers" for pelf, And swear I'm ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... 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. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... 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 Forget, ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... making 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 ...
— 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 honor 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, and genius ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... 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 he should spot him, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... is momentarily increasing. To be entirely commercial, which view is of course not the right one, one need only watch the reports of sales at home and abroad to see what this latter-day appreciation means in pelf. In England a tapestry was recently unearthed and identified as one of the series of seven woven for Cardinal Woolsey. It is not of extraordinary size, but was woven in the interesting years hovering above ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... with the pelf, which must take its chance. Only, I pray you—I trust it to your honour and to your love of an old friend to bury it, burn it, cast it to the four winds of heaven before you suffer a Spaniard to touch a gem ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 I ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... in the wounds of pain; Unlocks no prison, and unclasps no chain; His heart is like the rock where sun nor dew Can rear one plant or flower of heavenly hue. No thought of mercy there may have its birth, For helpless misery or suffering worth; The end of all his life is paltry pelf, And all his thoughts are centred on—himself: The wretch of both worlds; for so mean a sum, First starved in this, then damn'd ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... that "Seneca" is an Iroquois Indian word. The Indians, however, whom we call the Senecas never called themselves thus until they took to strong water and became civilized. Before that they were the Tsonnundawaonas. The Dutch traders, intent on pelts and pelf, called them the Sinnekaas, meaning the valiant or the beautiful. Then came that fateful day when the Reverend Peleg Spooner, the discoverer of the Erie Canal, journeyed to Niagara Falls, and having influence with the authorities at Washington, gave to towns along the way these names: Troy, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... should prefer his scandalous pelf, the dust and dregs of the earth, to the prosperity and grandeur of ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... awful strain Of possessing such a brain William always used to play Eighteen holes each Saturday. But he scarce could see at all, And he often lost his ball, Plus his temper and his pelf, So he made a ball himself, Which, if it should chance to roam Out of sight, played "Home, Sweet Home" On a small euphonium he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... sake of being the first jockey or the favourite courtier of his day. And how should it be otherwise, when from the lips whence other lessons should have proceeded, selfishness has been inculcated as a duty, a desire for vain distinctions and the love of pelf encouraged as virtues, and a splendid equipage, or it may be some bodily advantage, pointed out as the highest object of human ambition? To set the just value on every enjoyment, to choose noble and becoming objects of pursuit, are the first lessons a child should learn; and if he does ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... traitorous 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
... adorn; Neither themselves nor others, if not worn. Who builds a palace, and rams up the gate, Shall see it ruinous and desolate: 240 Ah, simple Hero, learn thyself to cherish! Lone women, like to empty houses, perish. Less sins the poor rich man, that starves himself In heaping up a mass of drossy pelf, Than such as you: his golden earth remains, Which, after his decease some other gains; But this fair gem, sweet in the loss alone, When you fleet hence, can be bequeath'd to none; Or, if it could, down from th' enamell'd sky All heaven would come to claim this legacy, 250 And with intestine ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... Which, being a child, to wrap him in was rent; And prays him for a scarf he now will wear it, With as much love as then her grace did tear it, About his eyes, [THEY BLIND HIM WITH THE RAG,] to shew he is fortunate. And, trusting unto her to make his state, He'll throw away all worldly pelf about him; Which that he will perform, she ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... curing souls and forgiving sins. THUS will human laws kill the body of Antichrist. Every motive for professing to believe absurdities and contradictions will be at an end, when neither rule nor honour, nor pelf is ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the threshold, traitor—get thee hence! Without thee, we are open, cheerful, kind; Mistrusting none but self, injurious self, Of and to others wishing only good; With thee, suspicions crowd the gloomy mind, Suggesting all the world a viperous brood That acts a base bad part in hope of pelf: Virtue stands shamed, Truth mute misunderstood, Honour unhonoured, Courage lacking nerve, Beneath thy dull ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... spendthrift of thyself, Spendthrift of all the love in thee, Sold unto sin for little pelf, The captain ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... on the understanding that his absence from France was to be short; and he entrusted Andrea with a sum of money to be expended in purchasing works of art for his royal patron. The temptation of having a goodly amount of pelf in hand proved too much for Andrea's virtue. He spent the king's money and some of his own in building a house for himself in Florence. This necessarily brought him into bad odour with Francis, who refused to be appeased by some endeavours ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... English Deists. He honoured English freedom and the spirit of religious toleration. In 1728 the Henriade was published by subscription in London, and brought the author prodigious praise and not a little pelf. He collected material for his Histoire de Charles XII., and, observing English life and manners, prepared the Lettres Philosophiques, which were to make the mind of England favourably known to ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... or kin, were access To his heart, did I press: Just a son or a mother to seize! No such booty as these. Were it simply a friend to pursue 'Mid my million or two, Who could pay me in person or pelf What he owes me himself! 30 No: I could not but smile through my chafe: For the fellow lay safe As his mates do, the midge and the ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
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