"Compassion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease, and every infirmity. [9:36]And seeing the multitudes he had compassion on them because they were faint and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd. [9:37]Then he said to his disciples, The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers few. [9:38]Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest to ...
— The New Testament • Various
... again moments so holy and so sweet. O, how precious are these sudden unfoldings of loving-kindness! These Godsends of infinite love! He had not dared to expect any thing for himself; he had only asked for the life of Phyllis, and it had been given him with that royal compassion that ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... not heartily. He felt that this marble ship was a conception of high humor and was not without its pathetic element. The whimsicality of the idea amused him, but the sad earnestness of the nervous, unstrung visionary at his side moved his compassion. ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... returning her caresses. The boys, half emerged from their hiding-places, stood watching this demonstration of affection not without sympathy; and Skull-Splitter, for one, heartily wished that the chief had not wounded the little bear. Quite ignorant as he was of the nature of bears, he allowed his compassion to get the better of his judgment. It seemed such a pity that the poor little beast should lie there and suffer with one eye put out and forty or fifty bits of lead distributed through its body. It would be much more merciful to put it out of its misery altogether. And accordingly when ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... old laws against the Lollards; the chief impulse to it came on the contrary from the Queen. And as those laws ordered the punishment of heretics by fire, and Parliament had consented, and the orthodox bishops offered their aid, it would have seemed to her a blameable weakness, if out of feelings of compassion she had stood in the way of the execution of those laws, to the suspension of which the bishops ascribed the spread of heretical opinions. Many of the horrors which accompanied their execution may have remained ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... carefully slid one of his big hands under her back, and now he drew her toward him, bending over to kiss her stomach through the covers, touched by a rough man's compassion for the suffering of a woman in childbirth. He inquired if he was hurting her. Gervaise felt very happy, and answered him that it didn't hurt any more at all. She was only worried about getting up as soon as possible, because there was no time to lie about ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... all, Simon trumping compassion from foghorn nose, all laughing they brought him forth, Ben Dollard, in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Meryl such a story as that. For sixteen years his path had lain alone and his bitterness been shared with none. It must go on so now to the end. When he could bear it the memory of Joan's dear face still came to him as in infinite love and compassion; but he seldom dared allow himself even that; it was better to have nothing in his life—no past, present, nor ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... have forgot that the story of Van Ptschirnsooker's powder was interrupted by a message from Frog. I have a natural compassion for curiosity, being much troubled with the distemper myself; therefore to gratify that uneasy itching sensation in my reader, I have procured the following ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... Evil Disappearing. 1. Moral—Honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Means be agreeable to the Heroical Bent of his Inclinations, and perceive what a tender Regard he had for the Wellfare of his Family, when he took the strictest Care imaginable for the Preservation of the Hog-Pudding. And what can be more remarkable? What can raise the Sentiments of Pity and Compassion to an higher Pitch, than to see an Hero fall into such an unforeseen Disaster in the honourable Execution of his Office? This certainly is conformable to the way of Thinking among the Ancient Poets, and what a good-natur'd Reader cannot ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... last words, the Widow Geraghty knew well, the barrier was down that fences off one human soul from another; all the same, she shook her trembling head when Deasey drew the cork. At her refusal Deasey was struck with the most respectful compassion; until that hour he had never known one single ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... heard him through with tears of compassion running down her cheeks. It was not quite news to her, for Courtland had told her something of the tale, without any names, when he had confessed that he held the garments of those who did ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... they were both done for, but there was not much help in saying so. Diana's confession horrified her, and she saw that her own future at the Cape was knocked as flat as a house of cards that is demolished by the wayward hand of a child. Yet at that moment her principal feeling was one of compassion for the girl on the sofa, who alternately laughed and covered her eyes, and now with a pitiful attempt at bravado was attempting to light a cigarette, with hands ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... sympathy she could not help but feel, could not betray itself, without at once ranking her in opposition to the judgment of both husband and father. Anne Hutchinson's condition was one to excite the compassion and interest of every woman, but it had no such effect on her judges, who forced her to stand till she nearly fell from exhaustion. Food was denied her; no counsel was allowed, or the presence of any friend who could have helped by presence, if in ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... that Miss Hatchard had no help to give her and that she would have to fight her way out of her difficulty alone. A deeper sense of isolation overcame her; she felt incalculably old. "She's got to be talked to like a baby," she thought, with a feeling of compassion for Miss Hatchard's long immaturity. "Yes, that's it," she said aloud. "The housework's too hard for me: I've been coughing a good ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... has grown in compassion since the days when Surgeon Fallon's soldiers were starved and neglected in the Meeting House. To-day I am sure no class of men in real need could appeal to the community, or to any constituent group of it, in vain. The growth has been along lines which, beginning in a group-compassion ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... programme. The nation could not progress with this corrupting monster in its pathway; and the battle between them has not come an hour too soon. The monster must be exterminated, and that, too, without mercy and without compassion, as the sworn and implacable enemy both of God and man. Otherwise this glorious country, which has so long worn the garland and surging robe of liberty, will become a dungeon of desolation from the Atlantic to the Pacific, resounding ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... poor protection from the icy blast of the wind. She was very hungry, for she had tasted no food that day, but her faded eyes were calm and patient, telling of an unwavering trust in Providence. Perhaps, she thought, some traveller might come that way who would take compassion on her, and give her alms; then she could return to the garret that she called "home," with bread to eat, and fuel ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... such as are willing to settle in this land as permanent residents, and not return in the same ship on which they came. Your Excellency will provide for this and in all other necessary matters. I humbly beg your Excellency to have much compassion on me, and kindly give me permission to go into retirement, entrusting the affairs of this land to the hands of one who might take them up with more energy. This will be a very ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... Cameron commanded of Mr. Mencke, as he stooped to assist the fallen man, his noble face full of pity and compassion ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... retorted, "if I lack pity to waste upon your Mr. Vanringham. At present I devote all funds of compassion to my own affairs. Am I, indeed, to understand that this lady and I are ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... impatient, almost angry. His glance blazed at her. All about him, his tragic face, his sadness, his defeat, his struggle to hold on to his manliness and to keep his faith in nobler thoughts—these challenged Lenore's compassion, her love, and her woman's combative spirit to save and to keep her own. She quivered again on the brink of betraying herself. And it was panic alone ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... the facts. Now, one peculiarity of Magendie's vivisections WAS THEIR PUBLICITY. There was no attempt at concealment, such as governs the practice in England and America to-day. Magendie's experiments were publicly made, seemingly with a desire to parade his contempt for any sentiment of compassion towards animals. The evidence of Magendie's cruelty is supported by an overwhelming amount of evidence, and to Mr. Martin's account of his vivisections, none of Magendie's English friends or apologists ever ventured to reply in the public journals ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... say that the engineer felt compassion at the other's sudden catastrophe; he experienced none. On the contrary he had a sense of justice fittingly executed, as if, escaping bullets and man's blows, Sorenson had been felled by a more certain power, by the inevitable consequences of his own deeds ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... which much uneasiness. People who are purely commercial look upon an author with mingled sentiments of fear, compassion, and curiosity. Though Popinot had been well brought up, the habits of his relations, their ideas, and the obfuscating effect of a shop and a counting-room, had lowered his intelligence by bending it to the use and wont of his calling,—a ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... exerting themselves to do away the evil, and ensure liberty to the sons of Africa, the situation of the plantation-slaves is depicted as truly deplorable and their condition wretched. It is not so. A Briton's heart, proverbially kind and generous, is not changed by climate or its streams of compassion dried up by the scorching heat of a Demerara sun: he cheers his negroes in labour, comforts them in sickness, is kind to them in old age, and never forgets that they ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... least to mourn the success of his own army. Nowhere did this terrible Italian misfortune fail to awaken sympathy and compassion save in a rival Italian city. Florence heard the tidings, says Varchi, with the utmost delight. The same historian expresses his own opinion, that the sack of Rome was at once the most cruel and the most merited chastisement ever inflicted by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... ingenuity, challenges Minerva to a contest of skill in her art. The Goddess accepts the challenge, and, being enraged to see herself outdone, strikes her rival with her shuttle; upon which, Arachne, in her distress, hangs herself. Minerva, touched with compassion, transforms her ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... 'Bully Presby.' You are that! You are one of those shriveled souls that fatten on the toil of others—that thrive on others' misfortunes and miseries. My God! A usurer—a pawnbroker, is a prince compared to you. You are without compassion, pity, charity or grace. Your code is that of winning all, the code of greed! Listen to me. You doubtless look down on me as a camp woman, and with a certain amount of scorn! But knowing what I am, I should far rather ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... this crusade of cosmic pity but adopted it very much in his own style, severe, explanatory, and even unsympathetic. He had no affectionate impulse to say "Brother Wolf"; at the best he would have said "Citizen Wolf," like a sound republican. In fact, he was full of healthy human compassion for the sufferings of animals; but in phraseology he loved to put the matter unemotionally and even harshly. I was once at a debating club at which Bernard Shaw said that he was not a humanitarian at all, but only an economist, that he merely hated to see life wasted by carelessness ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... said Mrs. Corfield with compassion. She forgot that at the time she had thought the girl's love and despair, both the one and the other, exaggerated and morbid. She met her now on the platform of sympathy, and her mind saw what it brought to-day ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... has been said in the preceding pages, it will be gathered that a vast amount of compassion has been wasted on the enclosure of commons, for it is abundantly evident from contemporary writers that there were a large number of people dragging out a miserable existence on them, by living on the produce of a cow or two, or some sheep and ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... which Herr Bugge had formerly called his, the vessel had stranded. Those rough, inhuman times, when the inhabitants of the west coast dealt cruelly, it is said, with the shipwrecked, had long passed away; and now the utmost compassion was felt, and the kindest attention paid to those whom the engulfing sea had spared. The dying mother and the forlorn child would have met with every care wherever "the wild wind had blown;" but nowhere could they have been received ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... of these merchant still and Corsair sell A large supply, and most of those most fair. Reckoning one slain a-day, you thus may well Compute what wives and maids have perished there. But if compassion in your bosom dwell, Nor you to Love an utter rebel are, Be you contented with this band to wend, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... kindness, mildness, benignity, forbearance, lenience, pardon, blessing, forgiveness, leniency, pity, clemency, gentleness, lenity, tenderness. compassion, grace, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Victoria, who throughout her life had lived in light alone; in the light she had shed, and the light which she had kindled in others. With a throb which was an exquisite pain, she understood now the compassion in Austen's eyes, and she saw so simply and so clearly why he had not told her that her face burned with the shame of her demand. The one of all others to whom she could go in this trouble was denied her, and his lips were sealed, who would have spoken honestly and without prejudice. She rose and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... daily sinking deeper into that condition wherein people are conscious of the existence of two individuals only—their two selves—in the whole world; so that poor little Blanche would soon have found herself quite out in the cold had not Mr Evelin taken compassion upon her and devoted himself to her amusement. He knew London well; and, on comparing notes, it soon transpired that he knew several people with whom Blanche was also acquainted; so they got on capitally together, especially as Lance possessed in an eminent degree ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... again from the remains that were put in the pot, seeing the misery and tribulation of her poor lover, and how he was turned in a second to the colour of a sick Spaniard, of a venomous lizard, of the sap of a leaf, of a jaundiced person, of a dried pear, was moved with compassion; and springing out of the pot, like the light of a candle shooting out of a dark lantern, she stood before Cola Marchione, and embracing him in her arms she said, "Take heart, take heart, my Prince! have done now with this lamenting, wipe your eyes, ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... an air of quietude and restfulness about an ordinary cathedral city. Some of our cathedrals are set in busy places, in great centres of population, wherein the high towering minster looks down with a kind of pitying compassion upon the toiling folk and invites them to seek shelter and peace and the consolations of religion in her quiet courts. For ages she has watched over the city and seen generation after generation pass away. Kings and queens have ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... remote past our Lord and Father the Sun took compassion upon us his people, he sent two of his children—Manco Capac and Mama Oello Huaco—to earth in order that they might form us into a united and consolidated nation. These two established themselves in a certain spot, the locality of which had been divinely revealed to them by a certain ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... angel-asylum, for the lodging, restorative treatment, and systematic invigoration of decayed volumes. Love and power combined made him look on the dilapidated, slow-wasting abodes of human thought and delight with a healing compassion—almost with a passion of healing. The worse gnawed of the tooth of insect-time, the farther down any choice book in the steep decline of years, the more intent was Richard on having it. More and more skillful he grew, not only in rebinding such whose clothing was past repair, but in restoring ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... poor relation whom everyone treated with a careless familiarity which hid a good-natured contempt. She was prim and very timid even with her sister and brother-in-law, who liked her as they liked everyone, but whose affection was formed of an indifferent kindness, and an unconscious compassion. ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... of the day was taken up with Sir John's speech, and with the witnesses which he called for the defence. He certainly succeeded in strengthening the compassion which was felt for Caldigate and for the unfortunate young mother at Folking. 'It was very well,' he said, 'for my learned friend to tell you of the protection which is due to a married woman when a husband has ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... continue to be thankful for the times thou hast helped me, when I have asked for thy compassion; may I recall the joy in which I received it, when it may be mine to have compassion and extend a helping hand to others. I pray that I may place my life where it will be stronger than adversity and controlled by sincerity ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... woman's act to put flowers on the man," said Whiteside quietly. "Those daffodils tell me of pity and compassion, and perhaps repentance." ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... happens happened in this case: because they had had too good an opinion of the cause, they began to form too bad a one. Before this time, if they had no friendship for the Tories, they had at least some consideration and esteem. After this, I saw nothing but compassion in the best of them, and contempt ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... Fondege was about to make an impatient reply, but she mastered the impulse, and in a tone of hypocritical compassion, exclaimed: "Poor child! poor, dear child! that's true. I had forgotten. Well, such being the case, we'll go and ask Baroness Trigault to give us our breakfast. You will see a lovely woman." And addressing the coachman ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... "And then," she added, "I shall be a saint in heaven, for I have done many good deeds in my days; but I think it much unkindness in the king to put such about me as I never loved."[582] Kingston was a hard chronicler, too convinced of the queen's guilt to feel compassion for her; and yet these rambling fancies are as touching as Ophelia's; and, unlike hers, are no creation of a poet's imagination, but words once truly uttered by a poor human being in her hour of agony. Yet they proved ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... accentuated their fury against the Christians wherever they met with them. The first was the destruction of Jerusalem (A. D. 70). The fugitives from Palestine, who found refuge in Smyrna with their fellow-countrymen already settled there, found sympathy also—save from one class, the Christians. Compassion these last could feel for men whose best blood had welled over the courts of the Temple, whose dearest and nearest had perhaps perished in Jerusalem, that 'cage of furious madmen, a city of howling wild beasts and of cannibals—a hell' (Renan); but they knew to be true ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... soul the Logoi of God move without end; when they ascend, drawing it up with them, and severing it from the mortal part, and showing only the vision of ideal things; but when they descend, not casting it down, but descending with it from humanity or compassion towards our race, so as to give assistance and help, in order that, inspiring what is noble, they may revive the soul which is borne along on the ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... course." He smiled again, as if in deprecation of so much child-like earnestness; then put his arm about the girl's shoulder, dropped his voice to a tone of mingled compassion and affection, and said, as he lifted the brightening face to his, "There, there—now go off ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... at any moment arrive from the General Head-quarters and require the rooms. It was then past nine o'clock, and bitterly cold—and we began to wonder. Finally the polite officer who had been charged to dismiss us, moved to compassion at our plight, offered to give us a laissez-passer back to Paris. But Paris was about a hundred and twenty-five miles off, the night was dark, the cold was piercing—and at every cross-road and railway crossing ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... empress of my heart, The merit of true passion, With thinking that he feels no smart, That sues for no compassion. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... to me how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age. It is wonderful to me that, even after my descent into the poor little drudge I had been since we came to London, no one had compassion enough on me—a child of singular abilities, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt, bodily or mentally—to suggest that something might have been spared, as certainly it might have been, to place me at any common school. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... moved with compassion than with horror, gave to this shocking beggar the two florins which he had received from the honest Anabaptist James. The spectre looked at him very earnestly, dropped a few tears, and fell upon his neck. Candide ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... was her tresses by the breathing air Were wreathed to many a ringlet golden bright, Time was her eyes diffused unmeasured light, Though now their lovely beams are waxing rare, Her face methought that in its blushes show'd Compassion, her angelic shape and walk, Her voice that seem'd with Heaven's own speech to talk; At these, what wonder that my bosom glow'd! A living sun she seem'd—a spirit of heaven. Those charms decline: but does my passion? No! I love not less—the slackening ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... predicament, into which Ascelin and his party had brought themselves, a woman's pity came to the rescue. Baithnoy's principal wife endeavored to move him to compassion; but, finding him obdurate, she next appealed to his interest. To violate in this way the law of nations would cover him with disgrace, she said, and stay the coming of many who otherwise would ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... defence affected the little circle, and Mr. Harewood observing it, said—"You perceive, my dear children, that this child is in fact far more an object of compassion than blame, for she has been permitted to indulge every bad propensity of her nature, and their growth has destroyed that which was good; of course, her life has been unhappy in itself, yet punishment has not produced amendment. Poor thing! how many of the sweetest pleasures ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... day, but there are times when to keep the letter of a sacred law whose spirit is righteous, becomes a sin, and this was a case in point. We pleaded for the tired, ill-treated horses, and tried to show that their faithful service deserved kindness in return, and their hard lot compassion. But when did ever self-righteousness know the sentiment of pity? What were a few long hours added to the hardships of some over-taxed brutes when weighed against the peril of those human souls? It was not the most ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his wares, and is turning wheels upon the pavement, before the servants, for a penny. An old man pulls out from under his cloak a dancing dog, with crimson collar and bells, and collects a little crowd under the atrium of the cathedral. A soldier, touched with compassion, takes a crust from his pocket to reward the dancing dog, which, overcome by the temptation, drops on his four legs, runs to him, and devours it, for which delinquency the old man beats him severely. His yells echo loudly among the pillars, and drown ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... saw the bear rushing upon thee, I thought It was the Manitou who had taken compassion on my sufferings, my heart for an instant felt light and happy; but as death was near thee, very near, the Good Spirit whispered his wishes, and I have saved thee for happiness. It is I who must die! I am nothing, have ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... object of all their confidence, now exposed to the utmost rigors of the law. As he was the most popular among his own party, so was he ever the least obnoxious to the opposite faction; and his melancholy fate united every heart, sensible of humanity, in a tender compassion for him. Without the least change of countenance, he laid his head on the block; and at two strokes, it ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... and the "coward" are the abhorrence of youth. It is youth which climbs "the imminent deadly breach" and faces the deadly hail of battle, which defies the tyranny of custom and the hatred of the world. One may have compassion for age, which is naturally timid and sees fears in the way, but youth which ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... was unknown to his captive, and he endeavored by gestures of kindness to invite the lad to follow. He was silently and quietly obeyed. On reaching the court, however, the prudence of a border proprietor in some degree overcame his feelings of compassion. ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... thing of him, because, whenever they reprimanded him, he ran to his mother, father, and grandfather, for consolation; and from them constantly received protection in rebellion, and commiseration for the wounds which he had inflicted upon his own hands and face, purposely to excite compassion, and to ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... fierce determination to expose this man who had falsified all trust. But then came the thought of the girl, and, most of all, there came the words of his dying mother, "Be good, my boy, and God will make you great"; and for his mother's sake he had compassion on the girl, and sought no restitution from her husband. And now, ten years later, he did not regret that he had stayed his hand. The world had ceased to call Lepage a genius. He had not fulfilled the hope once held of him. Hume knew this from occasional ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... themselves out, of passions that had crumbled to ashes. Now, as he stood with his arms folded on his breast, his face expressed something more than the interest of a servant in his mistress. In his faded eyes there was great compassion. His pale lips trembled. Jane did not speak. ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... had reached Askham the late sun had risen. He was now beginning to feel the need of food, and stepping into a cottage he asked an old daleswoman who lived there if he might trouble her in the way of trade to make him some breakfast. The good soul took compassion on the young man's weary face, and said he was welcome to such as she had. When Robbie had eaten a bowl of porridge and milk, the fatigue of his journey quite overcame him. Even while answering his humble ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... there was something demonic, which appalled. The impotence of justice, of compassion, in the presence of certain shameless and insolent forces of the human spirit—the lesson goes deep! Victoria ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... law. Parliament undertook the investigation, making it the occasion, when the evidence was completed, of a special statute, so remarkable that I quote it in its detail and wording. The English were a stern people—a people knowing little of compassion where no lawful ground existed for it; but they were possessed of an awful and solemn horror of evil things,—a feeling which, in proportion as it exists, inevitably and necessarily issues in tempers of iron. The stern man is ever the most tender when ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... in a corner of the sofa near the fire; his wife was in the other corner watching him attentively, with a soft smile upon her lips,—the smile which proves that women are nearer than men to angelic nature, in that they know how to mingle an infinite tenderness with an all-embracing compassion; a secret belonging only to angels seen in dreams providentially strewn at long intervals through the history of human life. Cesarine, sitting on a little stool at her mother's feet, touched her father's hand lightly ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... never loved Dominique; she had feared him at times, and at times pitied him; but now fate had lifted her and set her feet on a height from which she looked down upon love and fear with a kind of wonder that they had ever seemed important, and even her pity for him lost itself in compassion for all men and women in trouble. In truth, Dominique looked but a ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... huge bush, 'Why mangle me?' it screeched. Then, as the dingy drops began to start, 'Why dost thou tear me?' shrieked the trunk again, 'Hast thou no touch of pity in thy heart? We that now here are planted, once were men; But, were we serpents' souls, thy hand might shame To have no more compassion on our woes'; Like a green log, that hisses in the flame, Groaning at one end, as the other glows,— Even as the wind comes sputtering forth, I say, Thus oozed together from the splintered wood ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... open grass-lands we wended our way, a dismal, sorrowful procession, but Omar, now beside me again, briefly related how, after being removed from the torture-frame, his wounds had been dressed and he had been tenderly nursed by an old female slave who had taken compassion upon him. A dozen times messengers from Samory had come to offer him his liberty in exchange for the secret of the Treasure-house, but he had steadfastly refused. Twice the scoundrel Kouaga had visited him and made merry over ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... have become permanent. The places left vacant by the death of many of the first inmates, and the entrance into active life of those who survived, were soon filled by others who had equal claims on Christian compassion. On the occasion of great melas children are often lost, and in not a few cases their parents are never found. In the great cities, by the death of parents, and by the abandonment of children—sometimes through extreme destitution, at other times by unnatural indifference—helpless little ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... rest of the world, indeed, who have had no trouble themselves, and who look upon the misfortunes of others without any suffering of their own, the feeling of pity is itself a source of pleasure. For what man of us is not delighted, though feeling a certain compassion too, with the death-scene of Epaminondas at Mantinea? He, you know, did not allow the dart to be drawn from his body until he had been told, in answer to his question, that his shield was safe, so that in spite of the agony of his wound he died calmly and with glory. Whose ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... really deceiving the girl, as that would be what it would amount to (if he should lead her to the altar). Some held that it was too late to escape, others maintained that it is never too late. Some thought Miss Bernardstone very much to be pitied; some reserved their compassion for Ambrose Tester; others, still, ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... she felt sure that all would be well. She began now eagerly to examine her companion's faces. Sometimes they turned away from her bright, almost too bright, eyes, but then again they would look at her with a certain compassion. ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... to this motherless one. And thou hast not heard me—thou hast not heard me. Holy Virgin, what doest thou? Have I not offered candles at thy shrine? Have I not deprived myself of needful things to pay for thy litanies? What could I have done more? Is this thy pity, Lady of Pity?—this thy compassion, ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... did not seem difficult, however. Those who travelled alone had nothing worth the taking; while those who possessed gold went in numbers too strong to be attacked. The road agents had gone straight to the larger cities. Nor, must I confess, did I see many examples of compassion to the unfortunate. In spite of the sentimental stories that have been told—with real enough basis in isolated fact, probably—the time was selfish. It was also, after eliminating the desperadoes and blacklegs, essentially honest. Thus one day we came upon a wagon apparently ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... are no hils wherewith to feede thine eyes, But heaped hils of mangled Carkases, Heere are no birdes to please thee with their notes: But rauenous Vultures, and night Rauens horse. Anto. What meanes great Caesar, droopes our generall, Or melts in womanish compassion: To see Pharsalias fieldes to change their hewe 270 And siluer streames be turn'd to lakes of blood? Why Caesar oft hath sacrific'd in France, Millions of Soules, to Plutoes grisly dames: And made the changed coloured Rhene to blush, To beare his bloody burthen to the ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... of scorn that had kindled in Blandford's eyes, darkened with a swift shadow of compassion as he glanced at Demorest's hard, ashen face. He held out his hand with a sudden impulse. "Enough, I accept your offer, and shall put it to the test this very night. I know—if you do not—that Rosita is to leave here for Los Osos an hour ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... my designs, I go to a place where I shall conquer and die—where I shall make known, by my generous despair, that if I could not deserve your affection by my services, I shall have at least not made myself unworthy of your compassion ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... be the centre?—She had been left it seems a widow in great distress, with three or four small children, in her forty-seventh year; and as she was at that time a person of decent carriage,—grave deportment,—a woman moreover of few words and withal an object of compassion, whose distress, and silence under it, called out the louder for a friendly lift: the wife of the parson of the parish was touched with pity; and having often lamented an inconvenience to which her husband's flock had for many years been exposed, inasmuch ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... judgment I despise — I own, with shame and confusion of face, that importunity of any kind I cannot resist. This want of courage and constancy is an original flaw in my nature, which you must have often observed with compassion, if not with contempt. I am afraid some of our boasted virtues maybe traced ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... in his pockets, one by one, the items of his display. When he came to the purse, he looked at it with an air of deep compassion. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... calling of sinners, not the righteous, to repentance. How would Jesus speak? What would He say? He could not tell all that His message would include, but he felt sure of a part of it. And in that certainty he spoke on. Never before had he felt "compassion for the multitude." What had the multitude been to him during his ten years in the First Church but a vague, dangerous, dirty, troublesome factor in society, outside of the church and of his reach, ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... to make good use in his appeal to a Roman jury. Many of the unhappy victims had the Roman franchise. The torture of an unfortunate Sicilian might be turned into a jest by a clever advocate for the defence, and regarded by a philosophic jury with less than the cold compassion with which we regard the sufferings of the lower animals; but "to scourge a man that was a Roman and uncondemned", even in the far-off province of Judea, was a thought which, a century later, made the officers of the great Empire, at its pitch of power, tremble before a wandering ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... compassion for the weeping Miriam. He had met her a hundred times and she had shown herself now haughty, now discontented, now exacting and now wrathful, but never before soft or sad. To-day, for the first time, she had opened her heart to him; the tears which disfigured her countenance ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with something of the apprehension of a victim of the Inquisition facing the torture chamber. She advanced hesitatingly towards the Principal's desk, and stood without speaking, a forlorn enough little figure to have excited compassion in the most mercenary heart. Miss Poppleton glanced at her furtively, and looked away again. She had made up her mind not to allow herself to be worked upon by her feelings, and meant ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... comming, [8] Then straight it is our fashion, My Legge I tie, close to my thigh, To moue him to compassion. Still doe I ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... purpose of portraying life as he saw it, in all its strange complexity, Dickens had a twofold object in writing. He was a radical democrat, and he aimed to show the immense hopefulness and compassion of Democracy on its upward way to liberty. He was also a reformer, with a profound respect for the poor, but no respect whatever for ancient laws or institutions that stood in the way of justice. The influence of his novels in establishing better ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... Abbey, London, called the "Devil's Acre,"—a school for vicious habits, where depravity was universal; where professional beggars were fitted with all the appliances of imposture; where there was an agency for the hire of children to be carried about by forlorn widows and deserted wives, to move the compassion of street-giving benevolence; where young pickpockets were trained in the art and mystery which was to conduct them in due course to an expensive voyage for the good of ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... on: 'Sarah was right. Had I been she, I would have driven her out as remorselessly and as pitilessly. Did she not, presuming upon her youth, her beauty, and her child, despise her mistress? and why should her mistress feel compassion for her? The love of a long life might well thrust aside the passion of a few months, and Sarah, contemned by her bondmaid, is more worthy of pity than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... her Rigour, and take Compassion on them, and be mov'd at their Sufferings, having ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym
... utterance: "My son, if thy heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine." We have also a beautiful exhibition of it in the touching history of Ruth, in the life of Joseph, and in the mother of Samuel. Peter describes it when he says, "Be all of one mind, having compassion one of another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous." Esther expresses it in the exclamation, "How can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred!" Paul gives utterance to it when he says, "I would be accursed for my ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... ragged skin on one of our horses, he mounted the animal and led the way over the next range of hills. The rain soon poured down so hard upon the poor fellow's bare skin, that he begged permission to return, to which we would not consent; but, out of compassion to him, I took off my over-coat, with which he covered his swarthy hide, and seemed highly delighted with the shelter from the pitiless storm it afforded him, or with the supposition that I intended to ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... of Pisa, to help it keep its balance. The morning of our visit, so gay in its forgetfulness of the tragical past, we found the place in charge of an old soldier, an Irishman who had learned, as custodian, a professional compassion for those poor Jews of nine hundred years ago, and, being moved by our confession of our nationality, owned to three "nevvies" in New Haven. So small is the world and so closely knit in the ties of a common humanity and a common citizenship, native ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... speaking to his mother, behold, the angels blew with the trumpets, and fell on their faces, and cried with a loud voice, "Blessed be the glory of the Lord over all His works; for He hath had compassion upon Adam, the work of His hands." Then came one of the Seraphim, having six wings, and caught up the soul of Adam and bare it to the lake of pure water which is on the north side of Eden, and washed it before the face of God. And the Most High commanded him to deliver it unto ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... struck and sank; A thousand screams the heavens smote; And every scream tore through my throat. No hurt I did not feel, no death That was not mine; mine each last breath That, crying, met an answering cry From the compassion that was I. All suffering mine, and mine its rod; Mine, pity like the pity of God. Ah, awful weight! Infinity Pressed down upon the finite Me! My anguished spirit, like a bird, Beating against my lips I heard; Yet lay the weight so close about ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... some straw or hay for bedding, blankets or cast-off clothing for the half naked; possibly a little food, certainly a supply of reading matter from the charitably disposed. Single instances of his compassion I have mentioned. I shall have occasion to speak of another. But the spectacle of the hopeless mass of misery in the four Danville prisons seemed to render him powerless, if not indifferent. As Mrs. ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... Leon had shown her the figure of the Colonel, she had been seized by an actual passion for this nameless mummy. It was nothing like what she felt towards young Renault, but it was a combination of interest, compassion ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... Creator and Lord of all has appointed to exist in peace and harmony; while He does good to all, but most abundantly to us who have fled for refuge to His compassion through ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... might then indeed be excused for ridiculing so fantastical an appearance. Much less are natural imperfections the object of derision; but when ugliness aims at the applause of beauty, or lameness endeavours to display agility, it is then that these unfortunate circumstances, which at first moved our compassion, tend only to ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... thereat, that he commanded his men they should leaue none of the English nation aliue, [Sidenote: A bloudie comandment executed vpon the English by the Scots.] but put them all to the sword without pity or compassion, so oft as they came to hand. The bloudie slaughter which was made at this time by the Scots, through that cruell commandement of Malcolme, was pitifull to consider, for women, children, old and yong, went all one way: howbeit, manie of ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (1 of 12) - William the Conqueror • Raphael Holinshed
... and a buzz all through the circus, and the fierce King Padella even felt a little compassion. But Count Hogginarmo, seated by his Majesty, roared out "Hurray! Now for it! Soo-soo-soo!" that nobleman being uncommonly angry still at Rosalba's ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sad period preceding his departure, the affection of the masses for their sovereign, intensified by compassion, had assumed the quality of veneration. Now that he was gone, they brooded over the wrongs which had driven him, a lawful and popular king, into exile: wrongs which suffered for their sakes enhanced his claims on their ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... hand up, and suddenly her emotion changed. It was love, still love crying out for expression, but now she was all compassion, tenderness, and fear. She read in his face what she had done, and her heart was gray with the pain at her ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... themselves to their work with devotion and even self-sacrificing enthusiasm without the Christlike love to souls being strong. It is this lack of love that causes so much shortcoming in prayer. It is as love of our profession and work, delight in thoroughness and diligence, sink away in the tender compassion of Christ, that love will compel us to prayer, because we cannot rest in our work if souls are not saved. True love ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... the sight of them the white-armed goddess Hera had compassion, and anon spake winged words to Athene: "Out on it, thou child of aegis-bearing Zeus, shall not we twain any more take thought for the Danaans that perish, if only for this last time? Now will they fill up the measure of evil destiny and perish by one man's onslaught; seeing that he ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... compassion, he stretched forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, "I will; be thou made clean." And straightway the leprosy departed from him, and he was made clean. And he strictly charged him, and straightway sent him out, and saith unto him, "See thou say ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... call Him—that is, a Manu not of one race only, but of a whole vast round of kosmic evolution, presiding over the seven globes that are linked for the evolution of the world—that mighty Manu, sitting one day immersed in contemplation, sees a tiny fish gasping for water; and moved by compassion, as all great ones are, He takes up the little fish and puts it in a bowl, and the fish grows till it fills the bowl; and He placed it in a water vessel and it grew to the size of the vessel; then He took it out of that vessel and put it into a bigger ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... especially of industry, providence, and thrift. A man may be brought into the world by voluntary contributions; he may be maintained and educated at a foundling asylum, if his parents, as thousands do, choose to throw him upon the public compassion; he may ride into a good business upon the back of a borrowed capital, for which he pays but a nominal interest; and if he fail to realise a competence by his own endeavours, he may perchance revel in some corporation sinecure, or, at the worst, luxuriate in an alms-house, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... the clusters of Nuts for my Fair, What a blow I receiv'd from a strong bending bough; Though Lucy and other gay lasses were there, Not one of them show'd such compassion as you. ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... to this very moment tonight, that policy has rested on the claims of compassion, and the certain knowledge that only a people advancing in expectation will build ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... love, the fourteenth of John, and preached unto them Jesus, in His two natures, Divine and human. While emphasising the redemptive work of the Son of God, I referred to His various offices and purposes of love and compassion, His willingness to meet us and to save us from perplexity and doubt, as well as from sin. I spoke about Him as our elder Brother, so intimately allied to us, and still retaining His human form as He pleads for us at the throne of God. I dwelt upon ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... Murphy, a very judicious critic, has evinced by induction of particular passages, that the cruelty of his daughters is the primary source of his distress, and that the loss of royalty affects him only as a secondary and subordinate evil. He observes with great justness, that Lear would move our compassion but little, did we not rather consider the injured father than ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... night's halt convinced me Boston was no quarter such as I desired just now; the house was crowded, the thermometer high, and my room as high as the glass, for it was one hundred and something up four flights of stairs. My good friend, Mr. T——r, took compassion on my condition, and volunteered to drive me down to Nahant; so off I was again. We passed across the harbour by one of the little steamers; and from hence to the pretty town of Lynn, there is nothing in the landscape particularly attractive. Over ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... bent double on two sticks, blinking and peering out at the faces, wondering whether it was a roar of anger or welcome or compassion that had broken out at his apparition, and smiling—smiling piteously, not of deliberation, but because the muscles of his mouth so moved, and he could not contract ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... a pet dog has given birth to a litter so numerous that she cannot suckle them all, and it is necessary to destroy some of the puppies, what sincere grief is felt by the mistress of the house, whose own baby is being suckled by a magnificent wet nurse! Well—the thing which excites her compassion above all is the eager, whimpering mother, who does not understand whether she has or has not the strength to suckle all the shapeless puppies she has borne, but who cannot lose one of them without despair. The ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... shirt wherein he can scarcely move, and a square-cut coat which divides him neatly in twain by a line immediately above the knee, with the effect of lessening his height by several inches. The Desert-Born surveys him gravely and in civil compassion, sometimes with a muttered prayer against the hideousness of him, but on the whole with patience and equanimity,—influenced by considerations of "backsheesh." And the English "season" whirls lightly and vaporously, like blown egg-froth, over the mystic ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... appetite, but onely to haue a sight of him: whiche (as shee thought) would bring unto her such contentation, as ther by her grief shoulde take ende. Emilia who euer loued her maistresse as she did her owne heart, had great compassion vpon her, when she vnderstode the light foundation of her straunge loue: neuerthelesse desiring to please her euen to the last point of her life, she said vnto her: "Madame if it wil please you to recreate your selfe from these your sorrowes, and to ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... Provisions were concealed in bales of goods, which were allowed to cross the line, and very often the Bernese authorities were deceived by their own subjects to the advantage of the needy. And we do not find, that, when discovered, such proofs of brotherly compassion, and perhaps even of a secret leaning toward the old system, were ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... describe the deep pathos of Edith's voice as she uttered the last three words. Love, admiration, compassion and pity, all were blended in the tone, and it is not strange that it touched an answering chord in the heart of the "poor blind man." Slowly the broad chest heaved, and tears, the first he had shed since the fearful morning when they led him into the sunlight ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... looked down at her with an infinite compassion and gentleness. "It will all be well, my Karen; do not fear," he said. "The train does not go from Falmouth for three hours still. We will take it then and go to Southampton and sail for Germany to-night. And for now, you will drink this ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... he must have understood that he himself was under discussion. Alternately hopeful and apprehensive, he scanned each face in the room that came within range of his vision, until one arrested and drew him. Such faces, full of understanding, love and compassion for dumb animals, are to be found among men, women and children, in any company and in every corner of the world. Now, with the dog's instinct for the dog-lover, Bobby made his way about the room unnoticed, and set his short, shagged paws ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... nobler. This should be the aim of all young women. The poor and needy should occupy a large place in their hearts. The sick and suffering should move upon their sympathies. The sinful and criminal should awaken their deepest pity. The oppressed and down-trodden should find a large place in their compassion. How blessed is woman on errands of mercy! How sweet are her soothing words to the disconsolate! How consoling her tears of sympathy to the mourning! How fresh her spirit of hope to the discouraged! How ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... don't seem to know why I do anything these days. I know its most improper for a respectable married lady, and I certainly have no reason to suppose you want to be bothered by me any more after the way I did. But somehow you stick in the back of my head. You might write me a line, just out of compassion, if you're not too busy with all your sheep and mountains and things." She signed herself "as ever", which, he reflected ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... History, then taught by the present Lord Woodhouselee, and, as far as I remember, no others, excepting those of the Civil and Municipal Law. So that, if my learning be flimsy and inaccurate, the reader must have some compassion even for an idle workman, who had so narrow a foundation to build upon. If, however, it should ever fall to the lot of youth to peruse these pages—let such a reader remember that it is with the deepest regret that I recollect ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... relationship which entirely alters man's conception of life. To be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, to be, and embody in life all that love means, that is the sublime aim which Jesus in His own person and teaching sets before the world. As God's love is universal, and His care and compassion world-wide, so, says Christ, not by retaliation or even by the performance of strict justice, but in loving your enemies, in returning good for evil and extending your acts of helpfulness and charity to those 'who know not, care not, think {145} not, what they do,' ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... panting that it can be climbed by man or beast. The face of the cliff is hung with vines and ferns, and at its base grow palms and the rich vegetation of the tropics. It is the grandest bit of scenery on Oahu. We rode our horses to the foot of the Pali: then, out of compassion for them, dismounted and led them up the long steep path, stopping several times to rest. On the way some natives passed us on horseback, racing up the Pali! At the top we stood a while in silence, gazing at the magnificent prospect ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... aims at the highest rank in eloquence, will endeavour with his voice on the stretch to speak energetically; with a low voice, gently, with a sustained voice, gravely, and with a modulated voice, in a manner calculated to excite compassion. ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... of Belial," came a savage snort, "do you give all that food unto a dumb idol, when a Christian man, a ministering servant of the Most High, lies groaning with a stomach which has n't tasted food for four and twenty hours? Possess you no bowels of compassion for the long sufferings of a fellow-man? Come now, give me just a bite of the white meat, and yonder grinning wooden image will never miss it. You won't, you spawn of Baal, yet I marked plain enough how you filled your own lean belly ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... and merciful they change him into hard hearted and barbarous. Habitual gamesters have compassion foe neither men nor brutes. The former they can ruin and leave destitute, without the sympathy of a tear. The latter they can oppress to death, calculating the various powers of their declining strength, and their capability of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... would not mistake it for any of the Greek goddesses. It had a splendor and majesty such as Phidias might have given to a woman Jupiter. But not terrible. The culmination of the awful beauty was in an expression of matchless compassion. If there had been other figures, they must have been suffering ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... the plain, visible proof that His Spirit lives in the world of men. But what a Via Dolorosa it is, that grim ditch dug across Europe, with its crouching men behind the snipers' plates. Strange path for the twentieth century to have to walk in, to prove that compassion and righteousness still live. ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... own. That settlement of the Republic—firmly established by my wisdom, as you thought, as I thought by God's—which seemed fixed on a sure foundation by the unanimity of all loyalists and the influence of my consulship—that I assure you, unless some God take compassion on us, has by this one verdict escaped from our grasp: if "verdict" it is to be called, when thirty of the most worthless and dissolute fellows in Rome for a paltry sum of money obliterate every principle of law and justice, and when that which every man—I had almost said every animal—knows ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Congress, with a pitiful tale, with which he went to the President. Her husband was a soldier who had been away from home a year. He deserted in order to have a glance at the family, and was captured on his way back to the front. But the rules of war are imperative, and without compassion. The President was interested, as in all such cases where a deserving life and a sorrowing woman were ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... that they should do to us. This uniformity of moral feeling and affection even proves a check upon those who have subdued the influence of these feelings in themselves. Thus, a man who has thrown off all sense of justice, compassion, or benevolence, is still kept under a certain degree of control by the conviction of these impressions existing in those by whom he is surrounded. There are indeed men in the world, as has been remarked by Butler, in whom this appears to be the only restraint ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... them, I never met one yet with the talent of lucid exposition sufficiently developed to give me a connected account of what they are about. But they are books, part and parcel of humanity, and as such, in their ever increasing, jostling multitude, they are worthy of regard, admiration, and compassion. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... of the Boers are not intended to produce a sneer at their ignorance, but to excite the compassion ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... able to see, or, from carelessness, had neglected to see, any peculiar wrong done to her in the matter which occasioned her grief,—but had simply felt compassion for her as for one summoned, in a regular course of providential and human dispensation, to face an affliction, heavy in itself, but not heavy from any special defect of equity. Consequently their very sympathy, being so much built upon the assumption that an only ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... scenes she witnessed that day made an impression she never forgot. "Can it be," she said to herself, "that such things have been going on around me all these years, and I so unconscious of them? What should I now be, if Alfred had not taken compassion on me, and prevented my being sent to the New Orleans market, before I was ten years old?" She thought with a shudder of the auction-scene the day before, and began to be afraid that her friends could not save her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... prudish shepherdess falls at first sight in love with Rosalind, disguised in men's apparel; the latter sharply reproaches her with her severity to her poor lover, and the pain of refusal, which she feels from experience in her own case, disposes her at length to compassion and requital. The fool carries his philosophical contempt of external show, and his raillery of the illusion of love so far, that he purposely seeks out the ugliest and simplest country wench for a mistress. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... massive white-locked head still turned a little in that curious listening attitude, beside whom, close drawn now, was that white-clad girlish form, whose eyes were lowered, whose sweet face seemed to hold a heaven of pity and infinite compassion, upon whose lips there was a smile of divine tenderness, drew that piteous mockery of the image of a man, whose every movement appeared one of agony beyond human power to endure—and the agony found echo in the watchers' souls, ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... Thirteenth-Century England. If we knew all, however, it is probable that their lot would prove to have been but little more fortunate than is that of the Malay raayat of to-day, whose hardships and grievances, under native rule, move our modern souls to indignation and compassion. Therefore, we should be cautious how we apply our fin de siecle standards to a people whose ideas of the fitness of things are much the same as those which prevailed in Europe some ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... bread and a bottle of wine. To her dismay Leopold had vanished. Presently he came creeping out from under the bed, looking so abject that Helen could not help a pang of shame. But the next moment the love of the sister, the tender compassion of the woman, returned in full tide, and swallowed up the unsightly thing. The more abject he was, the more was he to be pitied and ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... deepest sympathy and compassion for you, my dear young lady," said the vicar in a gentle tone. "We will pray for the soul of the departing—join me, I beseech you—induce your niece to kneel with us," he whispered to Miss Pemberton, ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... him full in the face, "I mean to have Crothers in our firm." She saw the mingled liking and compassion which came in his eyes, and she bit her lip to keep down the wave of self-pity which ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... it necessary to want companionship? It thought about that for a moment. And then the alien beast thoughts grew sharper, clearer. It knew suddenly that it did not want man's compassion. It knew that there was only one driving thought in it. Hate. Hate that would inspire fear. Fear that would freeze its victim into terror. And terror that would be replaced by death. And then it would ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... been much impressed by the spiritual destitution of the Indians of the Pacific coast of British North America and the adjacent islands. They were "scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd," and he, like his Divine Master, was "moved with compassion on them." No Protestant missionary had ever yet gone forth into the wilderness after these lost sheep; and in addition to their natural heathenism, with its degrading superstitions and revolting cruelties, ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... proudly, but also with a deeply-grounded consciousness of cunning. There were moments when I felt such strong repugnance for the man that I itched to open the door and thrust him through—other moments when compassion for him urged me to offer money—food—influence—anything. The second emotion fought all the while against the first, and I found out afterward it had been ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... neighbours began to collect; they came from miles around, all classes and all ages—for the family was much respected, and their sudden bereavement had excited general compassion. The little door-yard and the humble parlour were filled, with those who justly claimed the name of friends; the highway and an adjoining field were crowded ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... you might have been drowned," compassion lighting her beautiful eyes. "Sit down on the bench, Monsieur, for you must be weak. And it was that sunken pier? I shall speak to Monseigneur; he must have it removed. Bull, stop growling; you are very impolite; the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... that putty into the shape of a crazed beast, because it took that form as readily as any other, and in taking it, best served my selfish ends. Now I must pay for that sorry shaping, just as, I think, you too must pay some day. And so, I cry farewell with loathing, but with compassion also!" ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Bay. In the corner of that bay was a castle, where dwelt a giant and his wife, very respectable and decent people, and this giant, taking his morning walk along the bay, came to the place where the child had been cast ashore in his box. Well, the giant looked at the child, and being filled with compassion for his exposed state, took the child up in his box, and carried him home to his castle, where he and his wife, being dacent respectable people, as I telled ye before, fostered the child and took care of him, till he became old enough to go out to ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... that the most careful might think an unwise policy, there has yet been growth. Success necessitates development. Good schools will enlarge. One church creates another. One foothold secured in a missionary region opens districts to many who swell the cry of need to the heart of Christian compassion "come over and help us," so that with all our pruning the work has grown beyond the slight increase of funds ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various
... of which he became possessed,—and we know what a treasure the first watch is to a child. We have followed him later, a youth at college, at the university, and at Newstead, in his devoted passionate affections; a young man on his travels, and in the midst of the great world, and we have seen his compassion for every kind of misfortune, and ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... bold as to address your highness." She answered, "Speak; your life is secure." The eunuch said, "Your highness is by nature a judge of merit; for God's sake lift up the screen from between you, and recognise him, and take pity on his lamentable condition. Ingratitude is not proper. Now whatever compassion you may feel for his present condition is amiable and meritorious—to say more would be [to outstep] the bounds of respect; whatever your highness ordains, that assuredly ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... scene. The Vicar with his wounded arm is on his bed, with his distressed family about him. Olivia has fainted on hearing the news of her betrayer's intended marriage, and the mother is attending her. "My compassion for my poor daughter, overpowered by this new disaster, interrupted what I had further to observe. I bade her mother support her, and after a short time she recovered." The countenance of the Vicar in this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various |
