"Contrite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shall hold my tongue. I efface myself and intercede for him, and thou dost call it exulting. And when I am fallen from thy favor there will be none to plead my cause, none to hide her misty eyes with contrite lashes." ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... that as a matter of fact, left to your own initiative, you would have slept peacefully till roused in Christian fashion with a cup of tea at eight, they are firstly astonished, secondly apologetic, and thirdly sincerely contrite. In the present instance, waiving the purely academic question whether the awakening of George at a little before five was due to natural instinct on his part, or to the accidental passing of a home-made boomerang through his bedroom window, the dear children frankly ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... was it that, under so manly and sweet an appeal straight to her woman's heart, she had not instantly subsided on the shoulder of her contrite lover, with grateful tears? Cally herself hardly understood. She was, truth to tell, secretly surprised and thrilled by her own high-handedness. To what degree she and her former betrothed had remet under permanently changed conditions, it was beyond her thought to try to analyse ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... ear, or left the loss of it for a reminder to the man of the part he had taken against his Lord, and the return the Lord had made him, we do not know. Neither do we know whether he turned back ashamed and contrite, now that in his own person he had felt the life that dwelt in Jesus, or followed out the capture to the end. Possibly the blow of Peter was the form which the favour of God took, preparing the way, like the blindness from ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... dwellest in the licht inaccessible, whom mortal eye hath not seen nor can see, but who dwellest with him that is humble and contrite of heart, and liftest the licht o' thy coontenance upo' them that seek it, O Lord,"—here the solemnity of the appeal gave way before the out-bursting agony of Thomas's heart—"O Lord, dinna lat's cry in vain, this thy lammie, and me, thine auld sinner, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... replied jokingly, "I can't imagine a friend going back on you. However, I'll not be curious about this chap. He appears contrite, and the incident is closed. But all the same, this is one of the queerest cases I've had in all my experience," and he went out, ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... Possesse them not with feare: Take from them now The sence of reckning of th' opposed numbers: Pluck their hearts from them. Not to day, O Lord, O not to day, thinke not vpon the fault My Father made, in compassing the Crowne. I Richards body haue interred new, And on it haue bestowed more contrite teares, Then from it issued forced drops of blood. Fiue hundred poore I haue in yeerely pay, Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold vp Toward Heauen, to pardon blood: And I haue built two Chauntries, Where the sad and solemne Priests sing still ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... and was awarded a brief period of enforced retirement. Declining to walk to the place of detention he was placed on a stretcher, but the stretcher bearers were so inexperienced then that after a journey of about 200 yards he elected to march. On his release, the offender, very contrite and desiring to make the amende honourable, approached the warrant officer and explained that the statement previously made in regard to his figure ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... which we set forth that such as have fallen after baptism may obtain remission of sins at whatever time, and as often as they are converted. They condemn the second part, in which we say that the parts of repentance are contrition and faith [a penitent, contrite heart, and faith, namely that I receive the forgiveness of sins through Christ]. [Hear, now, what it is that the adversaries deny.] They [without shame] deny that faith is the second part of repentance. What are we to do here, O Charles, thou most invincible ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... grandeur of the rich, he remembers the declarations in the word of God. He sees with admiration that the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, who dwelleth in the high and holy place, dwelleth with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa. lvii. 15); and although heaven is his throne, and the earth his footstool, yet, when a house is to be built and a place of rest to be sought for himself, he says, "To this man will I look, even to ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... had promised to introduce him to London society, and present him at Court, and at White's. He was to consider Castlewood as his English home. He had been most hasty in his judgment regarding his relatives in Hampshire. All this, with many contrite expressions, he wrote in his second despatch to Virginia. And he added, for it hath been hinted that the young gentleman did not spell at this early time with especial accuracy, "My cousin, the Lady ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... man was as contrite as a revivalist's last convert. He said he was all broken up to think I'd gotten a green watermelon. He promised the he would never carry another green watermelon if he starved for it. And he drove ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... too much, I should have stopped playing when I saw I was losing," went on Cedric in a contrite tone; "but they plied me with liquor, and I got reckless, and then I knew no more till I found myself in bed with ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... God, and in your doom ye have ordained a day to him. O good Lord, how patient is he, let us ask him for forgiveness with weeping tears; he shall not threaten as a man, ne inflame in wrath as a son of a man, therefore meek we our souls to him and in a contrite spirit and meeked, serve we to him, and say we weeping to God, that after his will he show to us his mercy, and as our heart is troubled in the pride of them, so also of our humbleness and meekness let us be joyful. For we have not followed the sin of our fathers that forsook their God and worshipped ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... had charged too much for work done, or how often the gospodarze had refused to come to terms with the squire about rights of grazing or wood-gathering in the forests, and he felt contrite. Good Lord! how beautifully the squire had spoken to them: 'Let us help each other and live peaceably ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... as a poppy, with his two fingers in his snuff-box, kept silence, his head bent forward and his brows knit in a certain contrite way peculiar to him, facing the tempest with his bald spot, and looking slyly between one wink and another at the unfortunate cards. When he heard the words "ecclesiastical court" repeated by his companion, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... matrimonial troubles of George Waschke and Juliana Jaeschke had been happily terminated by their marriage. Waschke had been one of the discontents ever since the arrival of the second company, but when his marriage was finally arranged he professed himself contrite, and promised all obedience to the rules of the "Society", so long as he stayed in Savannah, though he retained his desire to leave as soon as possible. Juliana also had greatly improved in her behaviour before ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... looked first furious, then almost contrite, and finally gave way to a huge burst of laughter. "Curious how one falls in with other people's way of talking, when one knows it is absolutely false!" he said. "No, it is not my experience, and you know it, you young dog. I married my wife because I couldn't do without her, and it has been ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... sick. He had never in his life felt such repulsion as toward what seemed to him this facile, theatrical remorse. If Guion was really contrite, if he really wanted to relieve the world of his presence, he could blow his brains out. Ashley had known, or known of, so many who had resorted to this ready remedy for a desperate plight that it seemed simple. His thoughts were too complex, however, for immediate ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... we late? We're so sorry. How do you do, Jimmy? It's awfully nice you can be with us." Mrs. Farwell was so contrite and charming that Bobbie's momentary huff disappeared as it always did before his ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... be a good time to throw in the chapter," whispered Leach; "he seems quite conscious, and very contrite." ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... same evening it was no fairy princess but a contrite little girl who approached her ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... the Lord is upon me. Wherefore he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the contrite of heart, to preach deliverance to the captives, and sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... hearts of the people, and raised the whole moral tone of the Greek nation, was the belief, gradually developed with the intelligence of the people, that he was the god who accepted repentance as an atonement for sin, who pardoned the contrite sinner, and who acted as the special protector of those, who, like Orestes, had committed a crime, which required long years ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... moments. Be true! be true at last! at last! Then let it be with you as God shall order. Do not carry this sin to the eternal judgment. Blessed, a thousand times blessed, will be the outpouring of a contrite heart. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... more than a dozen words to each other since sitting down to table, which was set, as usual, in the kitchen. Both were thoughtful;—one of them was contrite. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... literature this poet goes by the name Ha-Sallach, "penitential poet," on account of his many religious songs, bewailing in elegiac measure the hollowness of life, and the vanity of earthly possessions, and in ardent words advocating humility, repentance, and a contrite heart. The peculiarity of Jewish humor is that it returns to its ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... beneficiaries are far in advance of her, not in charity or singleness of purpose, but in self-sacrificing action. She reaches the old-time virtue of humility by a social process, not in the old way, as the man who sits by the side of the road and puts dust upon his head, calling himself a contrite sinner, but she gets the dust upon her head because she has stumbled and fallen in the road through her efforts to push forward the mass, to march with her fellows. She has socialized her virtues not only through a social aim but by ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... the abbe, with contrite mien, "I wanted to do something in the defence of our cause, and what can a poor ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... deeply religious poems. Now, men are very seldom really religious and contrite, except after an excess. Following a debauch a man signs the pledge, vows chastity, writes fervently of asceticism and the need of living in the spirit and not in the senses. Good pictures show best on a dark back-ground. Men talk most about ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... sir. But I saw something back here that interested me, and I stopped to take a look. I hope you will forgive me." His manner was so contrite and his chagrin so complete that the instructor had no choice but to ...
— Be It Ever Thus • Robert Moore Williams
... and sincere gratitude to the Giver of all good, for the pure happiness then enjoyed, I sank down by the tomb-stone, overpowered with veneration, and breathed fervent thanks to HIM who refuses not the offering of a humble and contrite heart. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... for its upward flight. Delme led away the sorrowing husband, and the minister of Christ was left alone, to hear the contrite outpourings of a weak ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... perfect as to be given but that the very giving mends them; not so desperate as not to be accepted but that the very accepting dignifies them. This is a melting heart,[161] and a troubled heart, and a wounded heart, and a broken heart, and a contrite heart; and by the powerful working of thy piercing Spirit such a heart I have. Thy Samuel spake unto all the house of thy Israel, and said, If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, prepare your hearts unto the Lord.[162] If my heart be prepared, it ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... strong appeals to the bar of justice, as an innocent condemned; not he—not he: innocent, indeed? his wicked, wicked courses—(an old man, too—gray-headed, with no young blood in him to excuse, no inexperience to extenuate), these deserved—did he say hanging? it was a harsher syllable—hell: and the contrite sinner gladly would have welcomed all the terrors of the gibbet, in hope to take full vengeance on himself for his wicked thirst for gold ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... avail. For although the Pope taught men to depend upon, and trust in, these indulgences [for salvation], yet he rendered the [whole] matter again uncertain. For in his bulls he declares: Whoever would share in the indulgences or a Golden Year must be contrite, and have confessed, and pay money. Now, we have heard above that this contrition and confession are with them uncertain and hypocrisy. Likewise, also no one knew what soul was in purgatory, and if some were therein, no one knew which had properly repented and confessed. Thus he ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther
... How could she resist him when his strong, firm clasp was upon her; when he was looking into her eyes pleadingly, even tenderly; when his breath was on her cheek, and his voice murmured in her ear? She sat before him, contrite, conquered, strangely happy; conscious of nothing save a wish that she might die then and there, with her hands in his. She was afraid to speak and break the spell. He had said that he cared for her, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the hour was late, and the poor man of genius went away contrite for having seemed curious, and for wounding the sensitive heart of that rare woman who had so strangely suffered. As for her, she had passed her life in amusing herself with men, and was another Don ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... to her the readiness of the Lord Jesus to forgive sin. "How ready to bless the humble and contrite heart! Only believe this with all thy heart, and the blood of Jesus is sufficient to wash away every stain that sin has made. Though they be as scarlet, he will make them white as snow." We knelt together, and she too offered earnest ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... he will ever enrich the believer. We cannot indeed enhance his glory by the most splendid liberalities, or the most costly offerings; but he solemnly requires, and graciously deigns to accept our penitence and our obedience. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Whatever be the present state of the world, it is pleasing to reflect that an omnipotent Providence is hastening the triumphs of Christ; and to this wise and glorious King of Israel, all the tribes ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... feebly describe the varying emotions which struggled in her bosom. At this interesting era she was preparing to encounter the freezing scorn, or the contrite glances, of either an estranged or a repentant husband; in either case her situation was replete with anticipated chagrin, for she loved him too tenderly not to participate even in the anguish of his compunction. His letter, which was coldly civil, requested ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... tell tales; I know my 'cello could," said the Grey One. "Beth, dear, I am touching wood, and praying to preserve 'an humble and a contrite heart,' but reeking with commerce. Sold three pictures—real pictures. The one that was hanging at Torvin's so long was sold four days ago, and Torvin ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... houses, built by regular church-goers and unbreathed upon by scandal ever since, frowning upon him perpetually; and the wind, which had risen greatly, wailing and booming all sorts of morals. And now a fresh trouble agitated him. He was growing less contrite! He kept seeing his brother's bulging cheeks, and Ellen's innocent, kind smile, and all sorts of backslidings suggested themselves. He had been criminal enough to fall in love, and now was added another crime—he could not fall out again. Never had he dreamt of ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... man of spirit? ... Ah, well! let me take the name of drunkard humbly—let me be a man of contrite knees—let it be! I know that I always do say 'Please God' afore I do anything, from my getting up to my going down of the same, and I be willing to take as much disgrace as there is in that holy act. Hah, yes! ... But not a man of ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... to do with it." "Ah!" Marinier replied, assuming a contrite expression, "if you intend to ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... " observed Themistocles, sarcastically. "I had expected it. Well, I can imagine many motives for coming,—to betray our hopes to the Persians, or even because Athena has put some contrite manhood in your heart. You know, of course, that the resolution we passed recalling the exiles did not extend ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... deeper into depths of contrite peace, no longer able to suffer the pain of dread, and sending forth, as he sank, a faint prayer. Ah yes, he would still be spared; he would repent in his heart and be forgiven; and then those above, ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... became permanently made under the action of the inevitable lunge, or whether he lapsed into mere dabbling with the artistic side of his profession only, it would be premature to say; but at any rate it was his contrite return to architecture as a calling that sent him on the sketching excursion under notice. Feeling that something still was wanting to round off his knowledge before he could take his professional line with confidence, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... of it was that Jesus was at all times ready to take upon Himself the burden of our sins, provided we came to Him with a humble and contrite spirit, and begged His help. This doctrine was new to me; I had often been at church, but had never heard it preached before, at least so distinctly. When he said that all men might be saved, I shook, for I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... maintained an unceasing chatter of the sort above set down. Now his voice was loud and challenging, now it was apologetic, always it stimulated curiosity. One moment he was jubilant and gay, again he was contrite and querulous. Occasionally he ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... reckoning, lest the opposed numbers Pluck their hearts from them!—Not to-day, O Lord, O, not to-day, think not upon the fault My father made in compassing the crown! I Richard's body have interred new;(C) And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears, Than from it issu'd forced drops of blood: Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up Toward heaven, to pardon blood: More ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... in a mood to accept this comfort from Oakum Otie, and to put out of his contrite conscience the memory of what Captain Ranse ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... He was contrite. "Why, I couldn't ever speak to you like that, honey; it just made me mad the way he banged things down in front of you. I don't want people to treat you ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... as the text of a sermon words like these, in which a broken and contrite spirit groans for deliverance, and which are, besides, hallowed by the thought of the thousands who have since found them the best expression of their sacredest emotions. But I would fain try not to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... "Meekness is better than sacrifice"; for is it not written, "The sacrifices of God are a broken heart—a broken contrite spirit, Thou, oh ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... immediate search. Elinor was prostrate in her room, visioning all sorts of dreadful things that might have happened to an Arethusa always too prone to make chance acquaintances, when Arethusa herself, as repentant and contrite a cause of it all as it was possible for her ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... suffered the people to demolish the images and all the monuments of papistry, without molestation or hinderance; so that the town was cleansed of the pollution of idolatry, and the worship of humble and contrite hearts established there, instead of the pagan pageantry ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... thought had ruined at once my chance of successful persuasion—proved my best help. Difficult of management so long as I had done him no harm, he became graciously pliant as soon as I stood in his presence a conscious and contrite offender. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... before him, forgetting the indignity he had received, the mistake he had made, the damage he had done, in simple wonder at the revolutions going on under his astonished eyes. When Dolly stopped for breath, he muttered with a contrite look,— ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... which all morality and all society is founded. Whosoever shall fall on that Rock in repentance and humility, confessing, bewailing, and forsaking his worldliness and sinfulness, he shall indeed be broken: but of him it is written, 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.' And he shall find that Rock, even Christ, a safe standing-ground amid the slippery mire of this world's temptations, and the storms and floods of trouble which ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... spot for the special presence of him of whom the prophet bears witness: 'Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.' Jesus himself, with the same breath in which once he called it his father's house, called it a den of thieves. His expulsion from it of the buyers and sellers, ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... unfavourable a medium. It may be said of him, that he 'saw GOD in clouds[288].' Certain we may be of his injustice to himself in the following lamentable paragraph, which it is painful to think came from the contrite heart of this great man, to whose labours the world ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... reached home she was contrite and spiritless. She was Mrs Angel Clare, indeed, but had she any moral right to the name? Was she not more truly Mrs Alexander d'Urberville? Could intensity of love justify what might be considered in upright souls as culpable reticence? She knew not what was expected ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... waiting-room just as the passengers were pouring off the boat, and sat down beside me as if nothing had happened. He did not look sad, or contrite, or ashamed—not, at least, enough to notice. He glanced at his watch, and then handed me ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... head with shut eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very near crying; but I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely down by the roadside to consider my situation. Modestine in the meanwhile, munched some black bread with a contrite hypocritical air. It was plain that I must make a sacrifice to the gods of shipwreck. I threw away the empty bottles destined to carry milk; I threw away my own white bread, and, disdaining to act by general average, kept the black bread for Modestine; ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... that I may take comfort a little before I go whence I shall not return even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death.(2) What dost Thou so much require of a guilty and miserable sinner, as that he be contrite, and humble himself for his sins? In true contrition and humiliation of heart is begotten the hope of pardon, the troubled conscience is reconciled, lost grace is recovered, a man is preserved from the wrath ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... at seven o'clock I was wakened by the furious ringing of the telephone bell. It was Gordon at the station, about to resume his journey to Washington. He was in quite a contrite mood about the asylum, and apologized largely for refusing to look at my children. It was not that he didn't like orphans, he said; it was just that he didn't like them in juxtaposition to me. And to prove his good intentions, he would send ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... of this scene might well be a matter of dispute, for while it represents the guilty Claudius miserable and contrite, even in the height of his success, it also portrays the anticipated revenge of Hamlet in so fearful a light, that he stands there, not the human instrument of divine retribution, but with all the diabolical cravings of Satan himself. ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... He proceeded to ask questions, beginning with inquiries conventional and domestic, but verging presently on points of faith. Babcock, to whom they were directly addressed, stood the ordeal well, revealing himself as flattered, contrite, and zealous to avail himself of the blessings of the church. He admitted that lately he had been lax in ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... fasting and in weeping and in mourning." The same is declared by Augustine in a sermon (De orat. et Jejun. [*Serm. lxxii] (ccxxx, de Tempore)): "Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one's flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire of lust, kindles the true ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... trail consists of saplings laid end to end, and supported three or four feet above wet places by means of sawbuck-like structures at their extremities. To a river-man or a tight-rope dancer they are easy walks. All others must proceed cautiously in contrite ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... the Son and to the Immaculate Mother!" With these, and other like exclamations, the mass precipitated itself forward, and, crowding near the historic symbol, flung themselves on the floor before it, grovelling and contrite, if ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... minutes before Maurice could rally sufficiently to take a clear view of his own position. His first impulse caused him to turn to his father in an excess of rage; but the broken, contrite, abject demeanor of the latter silenced the angry reproaches that were ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... pardon," he said, contrite, and something shaken out of his imperturbability. "Sylvia," he ventured very boldly, and there checked, so terrified as to be a shame to his ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... even more than bold in one thing, and that is in describing regions where the wise and the imaginative and the immortal have been before him. For that he never can be contrite enough. And yet, in spite of the renown of these regions, he can present neither map nor chart of them, latitude nor longitude: can affirm only that their frontier stretches just this side of Dream; that they border ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... like, so many Damocles' swords, day and night suspended over their heads, filling their souls with the terrors of an eternal death! Sometimes the terror-stricken consciences of those honest and pious women tell them that they were not sufficiently contrite; at another time, they reproach them for not having spoken sufficiently plain on some things fitter to ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... conscious of an almost continual study from Madame Zephyrine's apartment. So distressing did this become that he was at last obliged to block up the spy-hole from his own side; and when he was thus secured from observation he spent a considerable portion of his time in contrite ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... napoleons as he paid. He did not invite her, but she followed him to his hotel again, and here, as if with terrible ennui, he threw himself upon his bed and feigned to sleep, while she crouched at his table and wrote him a contrite letter. It was sweetly and simply worded, and asked that he should let her return to him for his few remaining days in Paris. If he could not grant so much, might she speak to him in the street; come to see him sometimes, if only ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... to her in her room where she sat toiling, and had confessed with a childlike, contrite innocence the things that ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... I feel very contrite; but still I cannot help thinking it is an error on the right side. It began by Miriam sending Mr. Conn a box of cigars when she was on Canal the other day, with a note saying we would be delighted to assist him in anyway. Poor creature! He wrote an answer which breathed desolation ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... there was more splashing, then a violent agitation, and the trickle and drip of water, and a second and a third violent agitation of the liquid contents of what appeared to be a porcelain bowl—the whole indicating that the occupant of the chamber was washing her face in haste with a contrite determination to make a thorough success of the ablution. And there was silence, broken by gasps and stifled sobs—doubtless a vigorous rubbing was in course; and then the door was flung open from within, and Peggy Lacey ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... sad. It only shows how necessary it is to preserve a meek and contrite spirit in prosperity. Pride always goes before ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... a contrite hand upon his shoulder. "You're a better man than I am, Jack," he asserted humbly. "But it's hell for me to stand back and let you go into this thing alone. I've got piles of confidence in you, old boy—but Jose ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... would rather have walked home with Sara, but she was very contrite over Jim's lonely afternoon, so she promised. Sara left the boat at the Battery to get a subway train home. When the others reached 23rd street, it was not difficult for Jim and Pen to drop well ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... S.B.A. thinks she is very cunning. As if I did not see a huge pussy under that meal! She has been so modest, humble, ashamed, reluctant, apologetic, contrite, self-accusing whenever the last ten years she has asked me to do anything, go anywhere, speak on any topic! Now she makes you pull the chestnuts out of the fire and thinks I do not see her waiting behind. Ah, the hand is the hand of Esau, the voice is the voice of Jacob, wicked, sly, skulking, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... shouting dies— The Captains and the Kings depart— Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... any analysis of Mr. Taynton's character may seem almost grotesque. It is a fact nevertheless that his was a nature capable of great things, it is also a fact that he had long ago been deeply and bitterly contrite for the original dishonesty of using the money of his client. But by aid of those strange perversities of nature, he had by this time honestly and sincerely got to regard all their subsequent employments ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... harming him, for your uncle and I knew better than you what was best to be done. Now," concluded Aunt Elizabeth, "because you were brave enough to come and confess your fault, and because you are really contrite, I shall not punish you beyond forbidding you all sweets ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... be more amused or indignant at the sense of his helplessness. It seemed so preposterous that a chit of a girl should be able to keep him prisoner, that for a moment he seriously contemplated getting out of the chair and limping back to the house. How contrite she would be when she returned to find the chair empty; how full of contrition, and anxiety about ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and spent many days in other similar works, furnishing an example to all the country; and although it is true that he was always an example during all his life, he seems on this occasion to have redoubled his acts of penitence—praying God, as a truly contrite man, that, if that lamentable case and one so worthy of sorrow throughout the islands had happened through his omissions. He would pardon him and regard those sheep which had been committed to him with eyes of pity and kindness; and that he might not be the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... They brought no sacrifices or offerings, but sorrow, self-abasement, and amendment. The characteristic sin of a great military power would be 'violence,' and that is the specific evil from which they vow to turn. The loftiest lesson which prophets found Israel so slow to learn, 'A broken and a contrite heart Thou wilt not despise,' was learned by these heathens. We need it no less. Nineveh repented on a peradventure that their repentance might avail. How pathetic that 'Who can tell?' (ver. 9) is! ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... altars, humiliate thyself at the feet of their ministers; expiate thy transgressions by largesses, by sacrifices, by offerings, by ceremonies, and by prayer; these things done with a willing spirit, and a contrite heart, will pacify thine own conscience, and cleanse thee in the ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... Velasquez who first understood. She knew that Bansemer's one woman had found him at last. Her heart leaped with hatred for one brief instant, then turned soft and contrite. If she had learned to care for the big American herself during the hard days when he had been so tender, she also had learned that her worship was hopeless. She had felt his yearning love for another; now she was looking ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... receive The sacrifice I bring— A broken and a contrite heart, That is my offering; And for His sake Who came To bear the Cross of pain, Forgive the error of my life, ...
— Hymns from the Greek Office Books - Together with Centos and Suggestions • John Brownlie
... bringing it with him; and it looked poor, and mean, and coarse, as he bore it amongst the heaps of gold, and jewels, and silks, which lay piled up all around; yet did he draw near unto the king; and as he came, he spoke, and said, "A broken and a contrite heart wilt thou not despise." And as he spake, the king looked graciously upon him: a mild and an approving smile sat upon his countenance, and he spoke to him also the blessed words, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Then did the coarse sackcloth shine as the most rich ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... contrition real? And here, for our comfort, we remember that God accepts as contrition the sincere desire to be contrite. ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... thoughts, degraded him the more: Should he repent—would that conceal his shame? Could peace be his? It perish'd with his fame: Himself he scorn'd, nor could his crime forgive; He fear'd to die, yet felt ashamed to live: Grieved, but not contrite, was his heart; oppress'd, Not broken; not converted, but distress'd; He wanted will to bend the stubborn knee, He wanted light the cause of ill to see, To learn how frail is man, how humble then should be; For faith he had not, or a faith too weak To ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... contrition was somewhat more difficult to meet. But here too there was a way out. Complete contrition included love to God as its motive, and the truly contrite man was not always easy to find; but some of the scholastic Doctors had discovered a substitute for contrition in what they called "attrition." viz., incomplete contrition, which might have fear for a motive, and which the Sacrament of Penance could transform into contrition. When, therefore, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... Blake managed to seize it with his mittened hands. He rolled it in a cloth and gave it to a porter, and then advanced toward Mrs. Keith, his face red with exertion but contrite, and the cloak, which had come unhooked, hanging down from one shoulder. She glanced at him in a puzzled, half-disturbed ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... for I am a heavy sinner, and I dare not fight with thee.' How could I then attack him? A strange truce was agreed on between us. He is half as my vassal, and yet I solemnly forgave him in my own name and in that of my friends. He was contrite, and yet no tear was in his eye, no gentle word on his lips. He is only kept under by the power with which I am endued by having right on my side, and it is on that tenure that Biorn is my vassal. I know not, lady, whether you can bear to see us together ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... the one Valencia had sent him, inclosing the one written by her grandfather to her father. Her contrite little note went straight to his emotions. If not in words, at least in spirit, it pleaded for pardon. Even the telegram she had wired implied an undeniable interest in him. Dick went with a light heart to the ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... out the folds of a rebellious skirt, for the penitent, held fast at the waist, has been able to get only half of her form into the narrow space. However, her head can be distinguished moving in the shadow, and we can guess from the contrite movements of her white feather that her forehead is bowed by reason ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... out of the syndicate as I did? I knew it wasn't right and I felt awfully about it—but then, Harry and I couldn't have managed otherwise, and it takes years and years to save a thousand dollars!" she looked so sweet and pitiful and contrite as she said this that I forgave her everything and hugged her till she choked. It seemed a shame to spoil her happiness with reproaches, and I couldn't but think how I'd have felt myself if it had been Mor— Not that I cared a row of pins for ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... Oh! my dear mother, how much pleasure have I lost by not knowing that I might call you by that endearing name! What an example of virtue have you set me! How noble your resolution! How uniform and constant your penitence! Blest you must be supremely by him who loveth the contrite heart; and you and my father I doubt not will enjoy eternal felicity together, united never more to part. Oh! may your afflicted daughter be received into the same place, and partake of your happiness; may she behold your piety rewarded, and admire in you the blessed ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... feature of the place; it deceived the simple, and amused the complex. He was ready to talk about anything with anybody who shoved along; he had a fund of naughty tropical stories for the so-called bawdy section, and could be as sympathetic and pious as you please with a contrite youngster suffering from ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... St. Mary's, at York, and then made Colchester the centre of his wanderings, spent twenty years organising the revolt, and three times was excommunicated and imprisoned by the Archbishop of Canterbury for teaching social "errors, schisms, and scandals," but was in no wise contrite ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... occasion, addressed a letter to Burghley and Walsingham, expressing himself as became a crushed and contrite man, never more to raise his drooping head again, but warmly and manfully urging upon the attention of the English government—for the honour and interest of the Queen herself—"the miserable state of the poor ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... forced to spray him again as he clung momentarily on top of the palings. With a sob Jerry dropped back and buried his nose in the dust, while The Laird beat a hurried retreat into the darkness, for he had lost all confidence in his efforts to inculcate in Jerry an humble and contrite spirit. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... not trifle with thyself to thine own perdition. There is an eye in yon vault above us which pervades space, and which looks into the inmost secrets of the heart. Can'st thou pardon the error of the patricians in a contrite spirit ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... O Thou that holy art; In mercy full forgiveness send To every contrite heart; For Thou hast risen to set us free, And ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... upset her," said the general, swelling and loftily contrite. "I don t know why it is that people never seem to be able to act natural with me." He hated those who did, regarding them as ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... all that a good and true man could do to eradicate the causes of the mischief. He participated in the exercises of a day of Thanksgiving, set apart for the purpose, in 1700, to express the devout and contrite gratitude of the people to a merciful God for deliverance from the errors and passions that had overwhelmed them with such awful judgments. The removal of Mr. Parris having been effected, Joseph Green was ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... in a great measure. They consider themselves a part of the Apostolic Church, which by its isolated position in the then almost inaccessible ravines had escaped the early innovations introduced by the church of Rome; albeit not altogether, for they admitted confession by contrite prayer to God and the mention aloud of their sins to a priest, the power of priests to bind and to loose, that sins were of two classes, mortal and venial, and the efficacy of fasts and penance. At the Reformation all these ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... but shows their penitence and faith, and, claiming for them forgiveness, He lifts His wounded hands before the Father and the holy angels, saying, "I know them by name. I have graven them on the palms of My hands. 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.' "(860) And to the accuser of His people He declares, "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?"(861) Christ will clothe His faithful ones with His own righteousness, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... taunting accusations, mingled with supplications to God. We recognize again the national mood of the psalmody of the first act. The entire scene is finely conceived. It is dramatic in a lofty sense, for its action plays on the stage of the heart. Samson, contrite, humble, broken in spirit, with a prayer for his people's deliverance, is led away to be made sport of in the temple of Dagon. There, before the statue of the god, grouped among the columns and before the altar the High Priest and the lords of the Philistines. Dalila, too, with ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel |
