"Compunction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shrubberies and meet the gentlemen as they return from shooting," Colonel Damer being one of the shooting party. But Mrs. Damer had declined the drive, and made her cousin understand so plainly that she preferred being left alone, that Mrs. Clayton felt no compunction in acceding to her wishes, and laying herself out to please the other ladies ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... Compunction visited the face before him. 'I didn't mean to say I didn't love it at all. It's like those people you care to be with for a little while, but if you must go being with them for ever ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... this book was written while Sir John Hawkins was alive; and I avow, that one object of my strictures was to make him feel some compunction for his illiberal treatment of Dr. Johnson. Since his decease, I have suppressed several of my remarks upon his work. But though I would not 'war with the dead' offensively, I think it necessary to be strenuous in defence of my illustrious friend, which I ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... land they are anxious of annexing to their own—and in the doing of the deed to save their own necks. If they succeed, they are accounted clever men. As I write, I hear of a man, quite a youngster, himself an exceedingly wealthy man, who killed his brother and confiscated his property with no compunction whatever. When tackled on the subject, he said he could do nothing else, for if he had not killed his brother his brother ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... sort, in a region of no roads, or bad roads, of rivers perpetually in flood, turning the lanes into water-courses for three-fourths of the year, of miry fields and marshy heaths, she procured for herself a suit of boy's clothes, donning blouse and gaiters now and then without compunction for these rough country walks ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... laughed aloud when the name came into his puzzled head. That buccaneer was the last person to surrender his plunder or to feel compunction in committing a crime. Once the skipper got his grip on two jewels, worth endless money, he would never let them go—not even one of them. Arguing thus, it seemed that Hervey was out of the running, and Random could think of no one else. In this dilemma he remembered that two ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... specially good form; perhaps the bears "rose" well. Anyhow, the bag was a portentous one. In later days, on reading of the growing scarcity of Polar bears, my conscience has pricked me; but that afternoon I experienced no compunction. Nevertheless, when the huge pile of skins had been hoisted on board, and a stiff grog had been served out to the crew of the captain's gig, I ordered the schooner's head to be set due south. For icebergs ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... the heart is no longer touched, when the imagination ceases to be charmed. Explain to me this metaphysical phenomenon of my nature, and, for your reward, I will quiet your jealousy, by confessing without compunction what now weighs on my conscience terribly. I begin to feel that I can never love this English friend as I ought. She is too English—far too English for one who has known the charms of French ease, vivacity, and sentiment; for one ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... of mental activity that reminded us of the Kawa and of William Henry Thomas. Great heavens, what would he think of us? Here nearly a month had elapsed, we were mostly married and had never given him a thought. We were filled with compunction. On top of this Triplett came to us with the announcement that Baahaabaa had informed him that we might expect a big wind about this time. Remembering what we had been through the Captain was worried about our ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... studied the lovely face, eloquent with love and truth, for some moments in silence;—a kind of compunction pricked her conscience. Why destroy all that beautiful faith? Why wound that grandly trusting nature? The ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... my college aspirations was broken once for all. My Temple was destroyed. Nothing was left of it but vague yearnings and something like a feeling of compunction which will assert itself, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... said. "It's a pitiless business." Then, as if his last feeble compunction vanished with the words, he added, "It's to be the ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... was a marvel. The Pony Express stations were scattered over a wild, desolate stretch of country, two thousand miles long. The trail was infested with "road agents," and hostile savages who roamed in formidable bands ready to murder and scalp with as little compunction as they ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... to men do not count. Had that finback attempted to play about a passenger ship in such a fashion, all the loungers on board would have been popping at him with their revolvers and rifles without ever a thought of compunction; yet here, in a vessel whose errand was whale-fishing, a whale enjoyed perfect immunity. It was very puzzling. At last my curiosity became too great to hear any longer, and I sought my friend Mistah Jones at what I considered ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... fifty things to do; you must excuse me." He was nervous, restless, his heart was beating much faster than usual; he couldn't stand still, and he had no compunction whatever about leaving her to get rid, by herself, of ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... child's face, the dark eyes brimming with rising tears, and the little mouth drawn and trembling, might have touched some men; indeed, even Caffyn felt a languid compunction for what he was doing. But his only chance lay in working upon her fears; he could not afford to be sentimental just then, and so he went ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... circumstances, as an approximation, it may be, to justice, but, at all events, as an advantageous solution of difficulties. This is as true of its criminal as of its civil branches. Its concern is with society rather than the individual, and it sacrifices the individual to society without compunction, applying one rule to all alike, with a view to social, not individual, results, on the broad scale. Those matters which make individual justice impossible,—especially the element of personal responsibility in wrong-doing, how ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... compunction, which had been putting up a fight, vanished into thin air. The sweep had offered me money. I was prepared to ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... the rebuke of her words, though I knew she had intended no rebuke, and made up my mind with a rush of compunction to write a long letter ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... advice thankfully; besides having a distaste for the idea of corporal punishment, he could hardly have borne to hurt the eager, bright creature who always hung about him so confidingly when in the mood, but who had no compunction in not going near him for days, except to say good-morning and good-night, when in one ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Jane with compunction in her voice. "Just let yourself down a little like I do, and remember you don't wear silk onderclothes now. I'm afraid those stockings won't feel very good after yours, but you gotta be careful. An' 'f I ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... smiles up at you even after you behead it, and does not seem to mind. Tara was convinced such treatment did not hurt them. They would stop smiling if it did. But one day she suddenly seemed to feel a pang of compunction, for she looked at the little useless heads and sighed. I had suggested their being fitted on again, as with the croton leaves and ferns. But this idea had failed; and what worked the change I know not, for Tara never told. But "tunflowers" now ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... the sight of the pirate, and fled ashore. It is impossible particularly to recount the destruction and havoc they made here, burning and sinking all the shipping except a Bristol galley, and destroying the fisheries and stages of the poor planters without remorse or compunction; for nothing is so deplorable as power in mean and ignorant hands—it makes men wanton and giddy, unconcerned at the misfortunes they are imposing on their fellow-creatures, and keeps them smiling at the mischiefs that bring themselves no advantage. They are like madmen ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... had passed thus before she remembered the silent little figure behind her, and then it was with a swift sense of compunction that she took her hands from the ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... fairly well acquainted with Major Harcourt; and although he had seen nothing of him for some time, he had not the slightest compunction in claiming shelter for himself and his horse. He led her up the trim, winding drive to the front ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there is no history existing in that tongue to balance the partial accounts which the Roman writers have left us.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. They have not been partial, they have told their own story, without shame or regard to equitable treatment of their injured enemy; they had no compunction, no feeling for a Carthaginian. Why, Sir, they would never have borne Virgil's description of Aeneas's treatment of Dido, if she had ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... he added, waxing enthusiastic on the subject. "Why, I believe if you were crossing a chasm with only a board between you and eternity, and they happened to need that board for kindling wood they would pull it out from under you without the slightest compunction." ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... Speak cheerfully: how did my letter work On his hard temper? I am sure I wrote it So feelingly, and with the pen of sorrow, That it must force Compunction. ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... declined to submit to the judgment of this reviewer. But my readers will remark, that Mr. Martineau, writing against me, and seeking to rebut my replies to him—(nay, I fear I must say my attack on him; for I have confessed, almost with compunction, that it was I who first stirred the controversy)—was very favourably situated for maintaining a calmly judicial impartiality. He thought us both wrong, and he administered to us each the medicine which seemed to him needed. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... she wet it and laid it on his palm, across which a red gash ran. He had moved close to her, stooping down, and a disturbing thrill ran through him as she held his hand. Once more, however, he was troubled by a sense of compunction as he recalled his ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... word Joan turned her back and began to plough her way across the ferns towards the dark wood. Joyce, watching her, saw her go at first with wrath, for she had been stung, and then with compunction. The plump baby was so small in the brooding solemnity of the pines, thrusting indefatigably along, buried to the waist in ferns. Her sleek, brown head had a devoted look; the whole of her seemed to go with so sturdy an innocence towards those peopled and uncanny ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... this in itself pleased her and restored her self-respect; her previous relations with Stanbury and Schenk suffered by comparison, and if she secretly hoped for the death or removal of Mme. Poussette it was with soft womanly compunction and pity, and with stern resolves not to overstep ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... morning, and we had rode for eight hours, and were dying of hunger! Moreover we travelled with a cook, a very tolerable native artist, but without sentiment—his heart in his stew-pan; and he, without the least compunction, had begun his frying and broiling operations in what seemed the very vestibule of Pharaoh's palace. Our own mozos and our Indian guides were assisting in its operations with the utmost zeal; and in a few minutes, some sitting round the fire, and others upon broken pyramids, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... postponed. A special commission was sped to do the work while Manchester jurors were in a white heat of panic, indignation, and fury. Then came the trial, which was just what might be expected. Witnesses swore ahead without compunction, and jurors believed them without hesitation. Five men arraigned together as principals—Allen, Larkin, O'Brien, Shore, and Maguire—were found guilty, and the judge concerning in the verdict, were ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... now had neither fear nor compunction in asserting that authority which would be his to the full to-morrow. He felt that there was a vein of rebellion in Elsa's character, and this he meant to drain and to staunch till it had withered to nothingness. It would never do ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... a man be in some sort hindered so that he is not at liberty to make use of such external acts, the interior man does not therefore cease to pray; in the secret chamber of his heart, where lies compunction, he lies prostrate before the eyes of God (Of ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... day, the love and practice of truth have grown obsolete; dramatic pieces and works of fiction, indeed all kinds of literature, especially biography, and even history, combine to outrage truth with impunity; no compunction is felt in transforming great characters into monsters, and monsters into heroes. People are no longer astonished that travellers' narratives should be like poems, good or bad, works of imagination full of anachronisms, exaggerations, impossibilities, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... half cynical, half wistful, as though the decent honest days that were no more had had their merits after all. Raffles would plan a fresh enormity, or glory in the last, with the unmitigated enthusiasm of the artist. It was impossible to imagine one throb or twitter of compunction beneath those frankly egotistic and infectious transports. And yet the ghost of a dead remorse seemed still to visit him with the memory of his first felony, so that I had given the story up long before the night ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... who advanced to help him on with his coat that Marsden was to be assisted first; but Marsden, with a grunted "All right," had already helped himself. A glimpse of the interior of the coat told Romarin why Marsden kept waiters at arm's-length. A little twinge of compunction took him that his own overcoat should be fur-collared and lined ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... Hugh, opening his eyes, "why don't you begin? It cannot be that compunction has suddenly ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... indignation were now laid aside. His tone and looks betokened the deepest distress. All the firmness, reluctance, and wariness of my temper vanished in a moment. My heart was seized with an agony of compunction. I came close to him, and, taking his hand involuntarily, said, "Dear brother, ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... oppose your opinion to mine, youngster?" exclaimed Rhymer. "As you claim the credit of saving his life, you think it necessary to praise him; but if any of us fall into his power, he'd show his gratitude by cutting our throats with as little compunction as any other Arab ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... any necessity, from tempestuous weather, for lightening the ship; or if it should be presumed on the voyage, that the provisions will fall short before the port can be made, they are, many of them, thrown into the sea, without any compunction of mind on the part of the receivers, and without any other regret for their loss, than that which avarice inspires. Wretched survivors! what must be their feelings at such a sight! how must they tremble to think of that servitude which is approaching, when the very dogs of the receivers ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... part of the room, where, with her hands behind her, she stood leaning against the grand piano, with the bearing of one only indirectly, and yet intensely, concerned. Bienville left the task of beginning to Diane. In spite of his determination to be self-possessed, a trace of compunction was visible in his face as he contrasted the subdued little woman before him with the sparkling, insouciant creature to whom, two or three years ago, he had paid ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... was changed, much warmer, pressing to be more than merely friendly. Aminta twice gave her cheek for kisses. The secretary had spoken of Mrs. Lawrence as having the look of a handsome boy; and Aminta's view of her now underwent a change likewise. Compunction, together with a sisterly taste for the boyish fair one flying her sail independently, and gallantly braving the winds, induced her to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is human nature. Here were these men, to whom murder was familiar, who again and again had struck down the father of the family, some man against whom they had no personal feeling, without one thought of compunction or of compassion for his weeping wife or helpless children, and yet the tender or pathetic in music could move them to tears. McMurdo had a fine tenor voice, and if he had failed to gain the good will of the lodge before, it could no longer have been withheld after he had thrilled ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... distressed, but she did not know all the reasons why. Madame had been very good to her, and Bessie felt sorry; but to leave school for home was such a natural, inevitable episode in the course of life in the Rue St. Jean that, beyond a momentary regret, she had no compunction. Mr. Cecil Burleigh proceeded to lay open his arrangements. He was on his road to Paris, where he might be detained from ten to fifteen days, but madame should receive a letter from him when the precise time of his return was fixed. After he had spoken to this effect he rose ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... passionately, raising her arm aloft with a gesture worthy of Siddons or Ristori; "may I never be forgiven when I die if I do! I could kill you this moment, as I would a rat, if I had it in my power, and with as little compunction. I hate you—I hate you—I hate you! How I hate you words are too poor and weak ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... her elbow on the table sustained her head in her open palm casting down her eyes. Compunction? It was indeed a very off-hand way of treating a brother come to stay for the first time in fifteen years. I suppose she discovered very soon that she had nothing in common with that sailor, that stranger, fashioned and marked by the sea of long voyages. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... nature-phenomena, such as rain and fire and water and clouds, and sun, moon and stars—which WE consider quite senseless and inanimate. Towards these apparently senseless things therefore he felt the same compunction as I have described him feeling towards his brother tribesmen. He could sin against them too. He could sin against his totem-animal by eating it; he could sin against his 'brother the ox' by consuming ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... puts the matter in that way, wrinkling her pretty brows, twisting her little hands, and growing wistful in the eyes, all on account of an idle scamp like myself, for whom she has no natural responsibility, I am visited with compunction. Moreover, I thought it possible that I could pass the time in the position suggested with some ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... the future "Lady of the Camelias" in her appartement on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. Another habitue there at this period was Lola's old Dresden flame, the Abbe Liszt, who, not confining his attentions to the romanticists, had no compunction about poaching on the preserves of Dumas fils, or, for that matter, of anybody else. As for the fair, but frail, Alphonsine, she said quite candidly that she was "perfectly willing to become his mistress, if he wanted it, but was not prepared to share ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... knew he could not, but the old honour of the man had become so sapped that he felt little compunction when he resolved to have him murdered under his own roof. He knew that his own life was not safe a moment while La Pommeraye lived; and he knew, moreover, that should the truth of the story get abroad, his hopes of advancement ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... habits of devotion gradually displaced by other habits of solicitude, hurry, and care? Is not the taste for devotion lessened? Is not the time for devotion abridged? Are you not more and more conquered against your warnings and against your will; not, perhaps, without pain and compunction, by the Mammon of life? And what is the cure for this great evil to which your profession exposes you? The cure is, to keep a sacred place in your heart, where Almighty God is enshrined, and where nothing human can enter; to say to the world, 'Thus far shalt thou go, and no further'; ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... fulfilment of the prediction; for it was written in the great book of fate that London was to be destroyed. Hundreds of persons, who might have rendered valuable assistance, and saved whole parishes from devastation, folded their arms and looked on. As many more gave themselves up, with the less compunction, to plunder a city ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... did not quite like to tell Harry plainly it was his turn to provide the usual nightly amusement of a story, for they felt some sort of compunction towards him, because of his mother's death, even though they had not spoken to him; but they did not hesitate to talk pointedly about its being the new boy's turn; that Jackson had done his turn; he was the last new boy, ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... Susan, or Mrs. Hastings, as they called her, looked the picture of a kindly, dignified matron. Her grey hair was done in a simple, becoming fashion, and ornamented with a spray of silver tinsel leaves. The grey satin gown of Mrs. Allen's, which Patty had appropriated without compunction, fitted fairly well, and a fichu of old lace, prettily draped, concealed any deficiencies. Though possessing no elegance of manner, Susan had quiet ways, and being observant by nature, she remembered the demeanour of ladies she had worked ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... Southron made open war upon his country till it grew to be unsafe, the dark Northerner would tear the Constitution of that country to tatters, and trample it under foot, as he did upon one occasion, without remorse or compunction, because it was held by others to give property in man, though for himself he denied that it did so, or that it sanctioned slavery in any shape,—as he did, I say, though I was not an eyewitness of the outrage, and have only the report from others who were. If it was only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... to do it quickly and decisively, since done it must be. If she had been a warrior worthy of his steel, a woman who would have defended herself and held her own, it would have been so much more easy; but it was not without a compunction that Sir Tom thought of the disproportion of their forces, of the soft and compliant creature who had never raised her will against his or done other than accept his suggestions and respond to his guidance. He remembered how Lucy had stuck to her colours before her marriage, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... never experienced any compunction; he believed that he was directed by Providence in these "executions," as he called them, and after they were over, he held divine services. His fearful deed sent a thrill of horror through the country, and Brown and his sons became marked men. Their houses ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... that I wanted Maria—not just as a man longs for the woman he loves—but to drink of the fountain of her life, that warm, intoxicating fountain, greedily, joyously. She never knew what went through my mind at that moment. If I could have killed myself then, I would have, and with no compunction. But there is more to killing a revenant than that. The Church knows the procedure. I hurried Maria home as fast as I could and told her I had to go away for a week on business. She believed me and said she would miss me. But I didn't go ...
— Each Man Kills • Victoria Glad
... tomorrow early. I asked Mrs. Farlow to telegraph as soon as she got my letter." A twinge of compunction shot through Darrow. Her words recalled to him that on their return to the hotel after luncheon she had given him her letter to post, and that he had never thought of it again. No doubt it was still in the pocket ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... a result he did not intend nor anticipate. Zoe, being now cool, fell into a state of compunction and dismay. She saw his affection leaving her for her, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... not welcome this old-time greeting, and she drew away her hand, saying, "not allowed. Naughty man! Express proper compunction, or you can't sit next me ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... would have you speak," she cried. "I am glad. Oh, I am glad!" and her voice rang with the fulness of her pleasure. She had been greatly distressed by the unhappiness of her friend, and in that distress compunction had played its part. There was no hardness in Violet Oliver's character. To give pain flattered no vanity in her. She understood that Shere Ali would suffer because of her, and she longed that he should find his compensation in the ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... liked to take him up in her arms and comfort him; but once when her pity moved her to attempt it, the dog ran at her ravening. The husband cried out: 'Has he hurt you, my Love?' and was for stringing him up. But some compunction stirred in her, and she saved him from the rope, though she made no more attempts to ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... Tisdall offered on his knees, declaring it must remove my last objections, since the worthy friend of my childhood supported his suit. I received it sedately, and dismist him with the compunction so worthy a gentleman merited. Was this letter honest to his ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... been born, is a supposition that has nothing, absolutely nothing, absurd in it. Was he happy, the poor Jewish intellectualist definer of intellectual love and of happiness? For that and no other is the problem. "What does it profit thee to know the definition of compunction if thou dost not feel it?" says a Kempis. And what profits it to discuss or to define happiness if you cannot thereby achieve happiness? Not inapposite in this connection is that terrible story that Diderot tells of a eunuch who desired to take lessons in esthetics from a native ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... November, not long before the concert. He remembered the suggestion he had then made that Alice should turn her attention to reclaiming Greatorex. And, though he had no morbid sense of responsibility in the matter, it struck him with something like compunction that he had put Greatorex into Alice's head chiefly to distract her from ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... neighbourhood, and was obliged to go off to a distance to get work. This, to him, was not felt to be a very great trial, for it removed him from the sight of his half-fed, half-clothed children, and dejected, suffering wife; and he could, therefore spend with more freedom, and fewer touches, of compunction, the greater portion of his earnings in gratifying the inordinate ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... faithful—always on the watch for any clue to the mystery of Marian Holbrook's fate, always ready to receive the wanderer with open arms, should any happy chance bring her back to the Grange. Assured of this, he felt less compunction in turning his back upon the spot where his lost love had vanished from ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... swarms, on every habitation, profiting by the darkness, which prevented them from recognizing their officers or being known by them. They tore down everything, doors, windows, and even the woodwork of the roofs, feeling but little compunction in compelling others, be they who they ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... her outraged feelings, she had changed her complaint against him. Glancing up at the portrait of her husband which was hanging over the fireplace, she said, "That your father's son should do the like of that!" Compunction came to him then. He, too, looked up at the portrait of his father, and suddenly he wanted to cry. The pale face, made more pale in appearance by the thick, black beard, and having the faded look which ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... touch of pity and compunction as she remembered these things, and suddenly she lifted to her lips ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... It was summertime. The sun glared down upon the city with pitiless ferocity. It is difficult for the sun to be ferocious and exhibit compunction simultaneously. The heat was—oh, bother thermometers!—who cares for standard measures, anyhow? It ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... taken by storm, and all the persons found in it were immediately hanged, as some authorities say, by the king's orders, with the exception only of Gurdun. He was brought into the presence of his dying victim, when Richard, under the impulse of generosity or compunction, gave him his liberty, with a hundred shillings to take him home; but after the king's death he was flayed alive, and then hanged, by order of Marchadee, the leader of the Brabantine mercenaries serving ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... the fact that he had no powerful house behind him to help to support his case, probably made him reckless. In April, 1355, six months after his arrival in Venice as doge, the smouldering fire broke out. Two of the conspirators were seized with compunction on the eve of the catastrophe and betrayed the plot—one with a merciful motive to serve a patrician he loved, the other with perhaps less noble intentions—and, without a blow struck, the conspiracy collapsed. There was no real heart in it, nothing to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... shall kill you," said Farrington briefly, "just as I killed Poltavo. You are the worst enemy I have and the most dangerous. I have always marked you down as one whose attention was to be avoided, and I shall probably kill you with less compunction because I know that but for you I should not have been forced to live this mad dog's life that has been mine for the past few months. You will be interested, Mr. Smith, to learn that you nearly had me once. You see the whole wing of the house in which Mr. Moole lies," he smiled, "works ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... loudly shuffling his feet to drown the noise as he stealthily cracked a peanut, "that there are scoundrels in our very midst who would feel no compunction in swiping plugged money from a contribution box. Doubtless," he continued, deftly snapping the shelled kernels into his mouth, "the hands of those scoundrels are even now ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... with no desire for toiling, and no ability for spinning, would be content to drift and dawdle through life on his father's money. At that moment he was more contemptible to her than Irene, winning lovers by the score, and casting them aside with no more compunction than if they were the litter of ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... some others, especially Collins and Ralph. But each of these having wronged me greatly without the least compunction; and recollecting Keith's conduct towards me, who was another Free-thinker, and my own towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful. My London pamphlet, printed ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... people, according to his duty, against the crimes which publick elections frequently produce. His warning was felt by one of his parishioners, as pointed particularly at himself. But instead of producing, as might be wished, private compunction and immediate reformation, it kindled only rage and resentment. He charged his minister, in a publick paper, with scandal, defamation, and falsehood. The minister, thus reproached, had his own character to vindicate, upon which his pastoral ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... is generated that contrition perfect through charity for having offended God so sovereignly good, who is to be loved above all things. For His own sake, and regardless of the penal consequences of sin, the soul is touched with sincere compunction. This sorrow, with the implicit or explicit desire to have recourse to the Sacrament of Penance, reconciles the soul at once with God, and restores the justifying or habitual grace lost by grievous sin. "There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walls not according ...
— Confession and Absolution • Thomas John Capel
... lover!" he whispered over to the other, as he set to work with his adze upon the pencilled plank. Shortly after he muttered in a tone of compunction— ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... another's sufferings. I thought as I listened to him of all I had heard about that ancestor of his who had killed a man in cold blood in the old house at the bank—and I knew that Joseph Chestermarke would kill me with no more compunction, and no less, than he would show in crushing a beetle that crossed ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... look upon us, Protestants, as the Mahomedans do the Christians, a sort of outcasts, the killing of whom amounts not to the horrid sin of murder. It is certain that some of these people have been known to plunge a knife into a man with no more compunction than an Englishman or an American would ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... required for guiding the horse than in hunting, the use of sharp spurs is forbidden, except by special permission. Whyte-Melville points out that my sex are unmerciful in the abuse of the spur. He says:—"Perhaps because they have but one, they use this stimulant liberally and without compunction. From their seat and shortness of stirrup every kick tells home. Concealed under a riding habit, these vigorous applications are unsuspected by lookers on." I have seen more than one poor animal's side badly torn and bleeding ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... reiterated more than once by the clerk, but the persevering Scot still persisted. The master of the establishment overheard all that had taken place, and now he stepped forward, and, moved by some compunction for the treatment the traveler had received, and some admiration, too, for the patience and perseverance of the man, he consented to look over the contents of the pack, found them to be exactly the goods he was in want of, purchased them all, and ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... short, and a deep blush spread itself over his boyish face. His tone was filled full to overflowing with compunction as he answered. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... truants were, eager, hurried, afraid for the train, full of compunction, for the long abandonment: Alice, most apologetic; Wilmet, most quiet; Felix, most attentive; Robina, still ecstatic; and Angela, tired out—there they all were. It was all one hasty scramble to the crowded ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... purple—on the spreading pavements. And vaguely—while the Bishop's grief still, as it were, smarted within his own heart—there arose the sense that he was the mere instrument of a cause; that personal shrinking and compunction were not allowed him; that he was the guardian of nascent rights and claims far beyond anything affecting his own life. Some such conviction is essential to the religious leader—to the enthusiast indeed of any kind; and it was not ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... walk brought us to Lengan Lengang about dusk, where we put up for the night. For the first time, this day I saw the cockatoo in his wild state; I was within easy shot of two of them, but the stream lay between us, and I felt some compunction at shooting these ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... thoughts the week's acquisition of folly. I went to church, and read the Bible at home with a sermon of Blair's, or some similar writer wholly destitute of gospel light; and I generally had a short fit of compunction, on that day, for having been so wholly absorbed in worldly things during the preceding six; for even then God was striving with me to bring me unto himself, and many a strong conviction did I forcibly ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... road in silence: but this time they made no attempt to deceive themselves or to deceive one another by charging their constraint upon the atmosphere or the scenery. Each was aware that their friendship had a crisis to be overcome; each sincerely pitied the other, with some twinge of compunction for his own good fortune; each longed to make a clean breast—"a straight quarrel is soonest mended," says the proverb,—and each, as they kept step on the macadam, came separately to the same decision, that the occasion must be taken ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Servadac had been acting only in jest. Aware that old Isaac was an utter hypocrite, he had no compunction in turning a business transaction with him into an occasion for a bit of fun. But the joke at an end, he took care that the Jew was properly paid all his ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... I said,' replied Diane. Curiously enough, she had no compunction in worming secrets from Eustacie and betraying them, but she could not bear to think of the trap she had set for the unsuspecting youth, and how ingenuously he had thanked her, little knowing how she had ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that this was not quite fair, and the look that it brought to his face—a twinge of pain like neuralgia—awakened a sharp compunction in her. She did not know why—at least not exactly why—his relation with his daughter should be a sore spot in his emotional life, but she knew quite well that this was true. There was on the surface, nothing, or nowhere near enough, to account ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the plot without compunction, for these people of Mr. De Forrest's are so unlike characters in novels as to be like people in life, and none will wish the less to see them because he knows the outline of their history. Not only is the plot good and very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... little later we were traveling south again, surmounting by the aid of snowshoes, all the rugged difficulties of the wintry wilderness. Flora was strapped on the sledge as before, and we had left the dead Indian—for whose fate I felt not the least compunction—lying ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... London. My successor was to be Northey, of the 60th Rifles, from Givenchy way, and he turned up on the 2nd March at our Headquarters, which were then at 28 Rue de Lille. I at once recognised that he would carry on excellently well, and had no compunction in leaving the command in his hands. All that was left for me to do was to take a tender farewell of the officers of the Brigade and of my staff, and to publish a final farewell order to the old Brigade. I was very sad ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... of a, for him, very memorable something that he peered now into the immediate future, and tried, not without compunction, to take that period up where he had, prospectively, left it. But just where the deuce had he left it? The consciousness of dubiety was, for our friend, not, this morning, quite yet clean-cut enough ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... but in all other instances, Nature works in men of all professions alike; nay, perhaps, even more strongly with those who give her, as it were, a holiday, when they are following their ordinary business. A butcher, I make no doubt, would feel compunction at the slaughter of a fine horse; and though a surgeon can feel no pain in cutting off a limb, I have known him compassionate a man in a fit of the gout. The common hangman, who hath stretched the necks of hundreds, is known to have trembled at his first operation on a head: and the very professors ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... while the helpless Sheriff was trussed up and his mouth stopped by Santry, and if the ranch owner felt any compunction at the sight, he had only to think of his own men as he had seen them the night before, lying on the ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... accumulated in the royal treasury were seized, and the chief ornaments of the palace were taken and carried off. Nor did blood and plunder content the victors. After slaughtering the adult males they made prize of the women and children, who were torn from their homes without compunction and led into captivity, to the number of a ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... were as dry and as full of dust as the entrails of a carpet sweeper. His vision was blurred and he had no control over his muscles. Weakly he leaned against the table in front of the jury, the room swaying about him. The pains of hell gat hold upon him. He was dying. Even the staff felt compunction—all but the Honorable Peckham. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... to adorn as soon as Agamemnon was out of the way, why rejoice whenever the Trojans prospered, why go on to persecute Orestes and herself, nay, why not slay Aegisthus for persecuting these her children? The sight of Electra's miserable condition makes even Clyt. feel compunction: she has been too harsh, she will be kinder now, and so shall Aegisthus—Electra replying to all that it is too late. At last Clyt. prepares to go within the house and perform the rite for Electra; then she will join her husband. ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... science, of book-learning, did not become infidels, but exhibited a practical faith throughout life, and died in the odor of sanctity. Divine faith does not require as a companion, in the individual Catholic, a knowledge of profane literature, but humility, compunction, self-denial, and a contempt of the world. Schools are therefore not absolutely ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... exalted into fanaticism, and a rational spirit of proselytism, into one of fiendish persecution. It was not enough now, as formerly, to conform passively to the doctrines of the church, but it was enjoined to make war on all who refused them. The natural feelings of compunction in the discharge of this sad duty was a crime; and the tear of sympathy, wrung out by the sight of mortal agonies, was an offence to be expiated by humiliating penance. The most frightful maxims were deliberately ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... sneered, despising these innocent novices, sure that he could have beaten and robbed them without compunction. That far he had come toward understanding the outlaws, the twisted ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... audience, the change in the collective mind of this typical gathering of shepherds, farmers, and small tradesmen might have been compared to the sudden coming of soft weather into the iron tension, the black silence, of a great frost. Gales of compunction blew; of self-interest also; and the common judgment ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mountaineers. Not one of them has a religion or a creed. Nor is there anything which they [consider it right to] abstain from or to avoid [as impure]; but they do whatever they list, and follow their desires without check or compunction. Baluristan is bounded on the east by the province of Kashgar and Yarkand; on the north by Badakhshan; on the west by Kabul and Lumghan; and on the south by the dependencies of Kashmir. It is four months' journey in circumference. Its whole extent consists of mountains, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... and walked back, apparently to report to his aunt, who, with Lady Helen, had been watching the experiment from the main drawing-room. His face was a curious mixture of gravity and the keenest excitement. The gravity was mostly sharp compunction. He had satisfied a passionate curiosity, but in the doing of it he had outraged certain instincts of breeding and refinement which ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... meeting each other so gallantly with a trembling compunction. Mrs. Herrick, who trusted her, was giving her hand in sublime ignorance. It was vain that Flora told herself she had given warning. She knew she had thrown the softening veil of her spiritual crisis over the ugly material fact. Had she said, "I want ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... usually looks much more burdensome when it is laid upon one's self. Indeed, she was conscious just then that one might be shortly thrust upon her which she would find it very hard to bear, and she became troubled with a certain compunction as she remembered how she had of late persistently driven all thought of it out ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... and red-foil top, and watched, fascinated, how they swung. A white child in a tenth of the time would have eaten the cakes, torn off the transfiguring tinfoil, tired of the tree, and forgotten it. The Boy felt some compunction at the sight of Kaviak's ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... tears. And all the while a low voice kept whispering in her heart with relentless persistency, till human respect gave way to higher motives. She glanced up at the picture, turned it around again with a feeling of compunction, and, humbled and contrite, sank on her knees in a little ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... pale and sad. I cannot say that Mrs. Hazleton, when she beheld Emily's changed look, felt any great compunction. If she had no great desire to torture, which I will not pretend to say, she did not at all object to see her victim suffer; but Emily's pale cheek and distressed look afforded indications still more satisfactory; which Mrs. Hazleton remarked with the satisfaction of a philosopher ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... time of life, ashamed of the savage instinct that in those days filled me with a certain joy in destroying human life, unthinkingly, and without compunction. But I had been brought up in a rough school, among men who thought it not only justifiable, but correct and proper to shoot a man—black, or white, or brown, or yellow—who had done them any wrong. It had been my lot, in the Solomon Islands, to witness one of the most hideous and ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... Without compunction for any mortal cow (though one was bellowing sadly in the distance, that had lost her calf that day), and without even dreaming of a grievance there, Master Anerley sat down to think upon a little bench hard by. His thoughts were not very deep or subtle; yet to him they were difficult, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... excessively, and which made me renounce the amusement in spite of my passion for it. When I resumed it in Georgia, it was with the full determination to find out some speedy mode of putting my finny captives to death—as you are to understand that I have not the slightest compunction about killing, though infinite about torturing,—so my "slave," Jack, had orders to knock them on the head the instant he took the hook from their gills; but he banged them horribly, till I longed to bang him against the boat's side, and even cut their throats from ear to ear, so ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... the door carefully and quietly, and once more crossed the room till he stood directly in front of his father. The squire noted with a little pang of compunction how pale the child was. "What is it?" he said ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... each other again, with all pity and compunction gone, and, after receiving one or two blows, I forgot everything but the fact that there was something before me that I must hit, and hit it I did, my deliveries, as it happened, being quite in accordance with Lomax's teaching, which somehow came ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... you will need all the factors. Some of our people are in the desert outside of Hovedstad. We do not officially approve of them, though they have a good deal of popular support. They are mostly young men, operating as raiders, killing and destroying with very little compunction. They are attempting to uncover the weapons by ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... Scripture enjoined upon him to pluck out his own eye if it offended, and it was natural that he should not hesitate to sacrifice others when they offended. With all his severity he took good care to let transgressors know what they had to expect, and he felt the less compunction, therefore, in inflicting penalties deliberately incurred. Life for the Puritan was a very serious affair, and levity a crime only milder than non-orthodoxy. Gaming even for amusement was rigidly prohibited. It was a criminal act to kiss a woman in the street, even in the way of chaste ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... good fellow," said he. "I had misjudged you. I thank Heaven that my compunction at leaving poor Staunton all alone in this plight caused me to turn my carriage back, and so to make your acquaintance. Knowing as much as you do, the situation is very easily explained. A year ago Godfrey ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shepherd-boy, to which must be added the exquisite psalm which later traditions put in his mouth; the victory over the giant; the most pathetic story of the moody and wayward Saul—the power of music over his melancholy, the alternations of jealous rage and compunction; the friendship with Jonathan, more tender and pure than the friendships Plato pictures; the dramatic fortunes of the outlaw; the family tragedies full of crime and horror; the dark story of Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom; the passion of fatherhood in fullest intensity, with ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... and there was a touch of shame and compunction in his voice. As he stood before Agatha, she was reminded of his shamed and cowed appearance in the cove, on the day of their rescue, when he had waited for her anger to fall on him. She saw that he had gained something, ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... Gibbie rose, tried to walk, but failed, and getting down on his hands and knees, crawled out after her. Angus caught a glimpse of his face as he crept past him, and then first recognized the boy he had lashed. Not compunction, but an occasional pang of dread lest he should have been the cause of his death, and might come upon his body in one of his walks, had served so to fix his face in his memory, that, now he had a near view of him, pale with suffering and loss of blood and therefore more like his former self, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... first of men who have tried to find in vain how and when a relationship becomes an entanglement. He ought to break off now, and the riddle was just why he should feel this compunction in breaking off now. He had disappointed her, and he ought not to have disappointed her; that was the essential feeling. He had never realized before as he realized now this peculiar quality of his own mind and the gulf into which it was leading him. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... word, but with a more severe compunction of conscience than she had ever felt before in her life. Her father's face and words smote her with a keen reproach, piercing the thick armor of her vanity and selfishness. She saw, for a moment, how unnatural and unlovely she must appear to him, in spite of her beauty, and the thought crossed ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... bolting into the car. "I'll risk getting your cushions wet without compunction. I came up in a taxi, but I didn't hold it. Bad economy. I thought I saw your car down on Fourteenth Street about ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... leave Choisy at once. Come; be stirring. In God's name, girl, bethink you that we have not a moment to lose. I know these Republicans, and how far they are to be trusted. This fellow would betray me to save his skin with as little compunction as—" ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... Margaret without saying something of what had passed between herself and Sir John, and that it would be better that nothing should be said. So she went away to her own room, and dispatched her maid to send the lamb to the lion. Nevertheless, it was not without compunction, some twang of feminine conscience, that Mrs Mackenzie gave up this opportunity of saying some last important word, and perhaps doing some last important little act with regard to those nicenesses of which she thought perhaps too much. Mrs Mackenzie's philosophy was not ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... that the fellow is probably on the watch to betray him, if he shows any signs of compunction; at least to report faithfully to his superiors the slightest expression of sympathy with a heretic; but a horrible curiosity prevails over fear, and he pauses close to the fatal door. His face is all of a flame, his knees knock together, his ears are ringing, his heart bursting through his ribs, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... I came up again with my short axe and after clearing away the grass and leaves with which the wind had mulched it, I cut into the clean white roots. I had no twinge of compunction, for was this not fulfillment? Nothing comes of sorrow for worthy sacrifice. When I had laid the tree low, I clipped off the lower branches, snapped off the top with a single clean stroke of the axe, and shouldered as pretty a second-growth sapling stick as anyone ever laid his ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... was at that moment expressing itself in regret and compunction. Since the dawn, that morning, she had been unable to sleep. The strong light, the pricking air, had kept her wakeful; and she had been employing her time in writing to her mother, ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... donkeys loaded with the new uniforms, loomed suddenly out of the darkness. Once a donkey took fright and bolted back, and the soldier in charge yelled and pointed his rifle at us. If we had moved he would have shot without compunction. Later the men had bivouacked, and all along the rest of the road we passed little fires of fresh brushwood, the sparks pouring up like fountains into the night, round which the soldiers and drivers were sitting and ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... cannot be always foreseen. The intrusion of inferior clay cannot be always prevented. The mere friction of contact may produce bad nicks. Nor is the fineness nor the excellence of the product an insurance against mishaps. From your factories or stores your output is at the mercy of carriers without compunction, and in our homes it is exposed to the heavy hands of servants without sentiment. The pleasure of many a dinner is impaired by the fear or the consciousness that inapt peasants are playing havoc with the treasures of art on which the courses ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... increased, and presents of trinkets seemed to incline all the natives in Alarcon's favour. At length he discovered that they reverenced the sun, and without compunction he proclaimed that he came from that orb. This deception served him well. Henceforth no service was too great for the natives to perform for these sacred beings. Everything was placed at their disposal. Alarcon's word was their law. They relieved the men entirely of the wearisome task of ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... affairs, we naturally came to the conclusion that the sooner we changed that state the better. Our excursion to Topsham would, we supposed, prove a very disagreeable business to him; but we knew it would result very agreeably for us, and so, though with a good deal of maidenly compunction and granddaughterly compassion on Julia's part, we ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... have had no compunction, some nights ago, in making myself highly objectionable to Mr. P. G. who has turned up here on some mission connected with the war—so he says, and it may well be true; no compunction whatever, had that gentleman been in his ordinary social state. Mr. P. G., the acme ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... 'I know thy thoughts, Abidan,' exclaimed the priest; 'but it cannot be. I have dismissed, henceforth and for ever I have dismissed all feeling from my mind; now I have no brother, no friend, no pupil, and, I fear, no Saviour. Israel is all in all to me. I have no other life. 'Tis not compunction, then, that stays my arm. My heart's as hard ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... and compunction at being obliged to leave the "Queen of the summer sea" without paying our devoirs at the tomb of Virgil, father of Latin poets. The last resting-place of the "dead king of melody"—he who, in his own words, "sung of shepherds, fields, and heroes' deeds" (cecini ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... in costly furs, a great wave of misery and bitterness was sweeping over her heart. In the first agony caused by Annabel's death Maggie had vowed a vow to her own heart never, under any circumstances, to consent to be Hammond's wife. In the first misery of regret and compunction it had been easy to Maggie Oliphant to make such a vow; but she knew well, as the days and months went by, that its weight was crushing her life, was destroying her chance of ever becoming a really ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... well-powdered head, instead of cropped locks a la Jacobin? But the people forget, that while they permitted, and even applauded, the past horrors, they were also accessary to them, and if they rejoice at their termination, their sensibility does not extend to compunction; they cast their sorrows away, and think it sufficient to exhibit their ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... breast for evangelical doctrine, the belly for avarice, the bowels for the mysterious precepts of the Lord, the body and loins for suggestions of lust, the bones typified hardness of heart, and the marrow compunction, the sinews were evil members of Anti-Christ. And these writers extended this method of interpretation to the commonest objects of daily use, even to tools and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans |
