"Compassion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that De Soto was greatly moved with compassion in view of the calamity which had befallen these noble young men. He embraced them with parental tenderness, and commended their valor, which he regarded as proof of their ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... Its unaccountable behavior made him conclude, at last, that the bird knew of some danger that awaited him, and which must needs be very terrible, beyond all question, since it moved even a little fowl to feel compassion for a human being. So he resolved, for the present, to return to the vessel, and tell his companions ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... gracious bestowal in it, of entreaty and of benediction, which were ineffably beautiful and winning. It is ever so when a woman, who is as strong as she is sweet, comes into the fullness of her womanhood's estate of love. Her joy overflows on all; currents of infinite compassion set towards those who must miss that by which she is thrilled; her incredulity of her own bliss is forever questioning humbly; she feels herself forever in presence of her lover, at once rich and free and a queen, and poor and chained and a vassal. So her largess is perpetual, ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Reformers whom the authority wished most to retain in the kingdom, the noblemen, the rich citizens, manufacturers, and merchants, were those who escaped easiest, being best able to pay for the interested compassion of the guards. It is said that the fugitives carried out of France sixty millions in five years. However this may be, the loss of men was much more to be regretted than the loss of money. The vital energy of France did not cease for many years to ooze away through ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... practical life, have been washed out of them by precocious mental debauchery—by book gluttony and lesson bibbing. Their faculties are worn out by the strain put upon their callow brains, and they are demoralised by worthless childish triumphs before the real work of life begins. I have no compassion for sloth, but youth has more need for intellectual rest than age; and the cheerfulness, the tenacity of purpose, the power of work which make many a successful man what he is, must often be placed ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... the young man. "He must be in a pretty bad way, for sure!" He knelt, compassion gentling his heart, and put one hand to the insentient face. A warm sweat moistened his fingers; his palm was fanned by ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... of undisciplined compassion," observed the gold-spectacled gentleman, glowering at me. "The integrity and virtue of a whole family sacrificed to the gratification of ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... was no longer embarrassed. She seemed for a moment to be looking through him and into him, a strange and yearning desire glowing dully in her eyes. He saw her throat twitching again, and he was filled with an infinite compassion for this daughter of the man he had killed. But he kept it within himself. He had gone far enough. It was for her to speak. At the door she gave him her hand again, bidding him good-night. She looked pathetically helpless, and he thought that someone ought to be there with the right to take her ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... me died before anything tangible was done. Still, there were several prosperous families of the old-fashioned class, each of which wanted to provide me with excellent board. But then Reb Sender's wife, in a fit of compassion and carried away by the prevailing spirit of the moment, claimed the sole right ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Segnor? Is it possible that your countenance expresses no surprize, no indignation? Is it possible that your Sister's infamy was known to you, and that still She possessed your affection? In that case, you have no need of my compassion. I can say nothing more, except repeat my inability of obeying the orders of his Holiness. Agnes is no more, and to convince you that what I say is true, I swear by our blessed Saviour, that three days have past since She ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... your Compassion, Lady, yet awake? Remember that the scaffold, hangman, sword, And all the Instruments death playes upon, Are hither calld by you; 'tis you may stay them. When at the Barre there stood your Ravisher You would have savd ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... breath instinctively as their eyes met. Baumgartner answered with increased compassion and restraint, a grey look on ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... when it is wholly dead; Who is a greater reprobate than he Who feels compassion at ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... in pity be allowed to swear and grumble a little; but a captious sceptic in love, a slave to fretfulness and whim, who has no difficulties but of his own creating, is a subject more fit for ridicule than compassion! [Exit.] ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... of her aunt, who no longer dared to offer her work as a washerwoman, considering her present position far above it. The question of working in the laundry did not even occur to Maslova now. She looked with compassion on the life of drudgery led by these pale, emaciated washerwomen, some of whom showed symptoms of consumption, washing and ironing in a stifling, steam-laden atmosphere with the windows open summer and winter, and she was horrified at the thought that she, too, might ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... I hold to be that Scene in the Troades, where ULYSSES is seeking for ASTYANAX, to kill him. There, you see the tenderness of a mother so represented in ANDROMACHE, that it raises compassion to a high degree in the reader; and bears the nearest resemblance, of anything in their Tragedies, to the excellent Scenes of Passion in ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... constitute the perfect way of the virtuous, viz., a man must not do wrong to any body, he must bestow alms, and must always be truthful. Those high-souled good men of virtuous conduct, and settled convictions, who are kind to all and are full of compassion, depart with contentment from this world to the perfect way of virtue. Freedom from malice, forbearance, peace of mind, contentment, pleasant speech, renunciation of desire and anger, virtuous conduct and actions regulated according to the ordinances of holy writ, constitute ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... in display of earth constituent, air current, and ocean tide. Shall we ever engrave the map of meaner research, whose shadings shall content themselves in the task of showing the depth, or drought,—the calm, or trouble, of Human Compassion? ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... speak with you this day: I AM THAT I AM. For I looked upon your weakness and your sorrow, and upon the little children about your feet; and my heart was moved to compassion for their sake, that they must die. Then I looked into my dear son's eyes; and I knew that the Atonement of Blood was there. And I went my way, and left him to ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... inaction. Mr. Clyde Fitch, in the last act of The Truth, made an elaborate and daring endeavour to relieve the mawkishness of the clearly-foreseen reconciliation between Warder and Becky. He let Becky fall in with her father's mad idea of working upon Warder's compassion by pretending that she had tried to kill herself. Only at the last moment did she abandon the sordid comedy, and so prove herself (as we are asked to suppose) cured for ever of the habit of fibbing. Mr. Fitch ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... to the last degree. Is their nothing in their Works Illustrious, or that cou'd merit Censure? Indeed some People are not to be reclaim'd by Ridicule; and Mr. Collier knowing their Vertues, with how much Compos'dness and Resignation they can bear a Hiss, out of Compassion, took Example by the Town ...
— A Letter to A.H. Esq.; Concerning the Stage (1698) and The - Occasional Paper No. IX (1698) • Anonymous
... homeward ride. His yearning to hear of his mother had been satisfied; but though he could still love the fair, sweet vision summoned up by her name, he was less disposed to feel that it had been hard upon him that she died. It was not Amy. In spite of his tender compassion and affection, he knew that he had not lost a Verena in her. None could occupy that place save Amy; and his mind, from custom, reverted to Amy as still his own, thrilled like a freshly-touched wound, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Bakar that we had gone a distance probably of about a mile and a half since we started, which will give the reader some idea of jungle walking in Borneo. Our dismal faces at this species of sport(!) must have excited the compassion of Bakar, for he volunteered the remark that this was rather hard walking, even for Borneo, a remark with which we ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... very glad to look you for that, I have much trouble all my life—great deal of war—my son some time since killed in battle." This was accompanied by such a melancholy expression of countenance, that could not fail to excite my compassion, I therefore avoided touching more on the subject of his wars; only observing, "that I hear he be too much for all his enemies, and that he build great wall that keep his town ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... Cardinal Corrado to have compassion on me," he answered, subtly mocking, and on that he swung down from his horse, and tossed the reins to ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... so is every repenting sinner, by his Father in heaven. When the prodigal resolved to return with, a "Father I have sinned—the father saw him a great way off," and all his bowels yearned over him—"he had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck, and killed him"—bid him a hearty welcome—lavished the richest favors on him, and called all to rejoice at his return. In like manner our heavenly Father receives the returning penitent. This is the spirit ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... her. But there was one, he thought, whose outstretched hands might not prove so vain. Why couldn't she have cared for John Harkless? Deuce take the girl, did she want to marry an emperor? He looked at Harkless, and pitied him with an almost tearful compassion. A feverish color dwelt in the convalescent's cheek; the apathy that had dulled his eyes was there no longer; instead, they burned with a steady fire. The image returned his unwavering ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... substitute between Miss Laura's thighs. Oh! you need not try to deceive me—I felt how it swelled up within me whenever I mentioned her name, and how firm and stiff it grew when I told you what I had seen. Well, it would be almost a pity not to let you take compassion upon her; it is very hard she should be reduced to such a miserable contrivance when she might have such a delicious charmer as this to amuse herself with. But I am afraid you would have some difficulty ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... pitiable ones who, perchance were even then wakeful and sinning, her heart went up toward the Dispenser of all blessings, in earnest supplication that the objects of her love might be ever preserved unblemished in purity, and those of her compassion be brought from their blackness and stain unto the fountain ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... fallen." One glimpse of him is given to us by Montaigne, who visited the cell, where it seems the unfortunate inmate was made a show of to all whom curiosity or pity attracted to the hospital. "I had even more indignation than compassion when I saw him at Ferrara in so piteous a state—a living shadow of himself." His jailer was Agostino Mosti, who, although he was himself a man of letters, and therefore should have sympathised with Tasso, on the contrary carried out ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... owned, that the conversational powers of our small society were limited. Very often some selfishness mingled with my sincere compassion for the prostrated sufferings of my Philadelphian friend of the tug-boat; for whenever his weary aching head would allow of the exertion, he could talk on almost any subject, fluently and well. He was returning from ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... 'he did'nt care if the court had convicted him, he wasn't guilty any how.' 'That will be a consolation to you,' rejoined the judge, with unusual benignity, and with a voice full of sympathy and compassion, 'That will be a consolation to you, in the hour of your confinement, for we read in the good Book that it is better to suffer wrong, than do wrong.' In the irrepressible burst of laughter which followed ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... were not the girl she thought, she might, by appealing to her compassion, supply her with a reason for giving Dick up, but if this happened, it would be to his advantage in the end. Still she did not think she was mistaken and she ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... turned somersaults, and twirled his caduceus. But when the sorrowful son of Latona approached him, the foxy patron of merchants simulated compassion ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... a touch of real compassion in his airy tenderness] You know that Praddy is the soul of kindness, Mrs Warren. Praddy: what do you ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... are not a little touched yourself, for, believe me, if it were a contagious disease you could not be so close to me and escape unscathed. I beg of you, though you do not feel yourself, to have some pity and compassion on me, for I shall die soon if I do not ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... impulse to it came on the contrary from the Queen. And as those laws ordered the punishment of heretics by fire, and Parliament had consented, and the orthodox bishops offered their aid, it would have seemed to her a blameable weakness, if out of feelings of compassion she had stood in the way of the execution of those laws, to the suspension of which the bishops ascribed the spread of heretical opinions. Many of the horrors which accompanied their execution may have remained concealed from her; still it cannot be doubted, ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... she passed all at once into the passive state of a drifting log. A ship sick with her own weakness has not the pathos of a ship vanquished in a battle with the elements, wherein consists the inner drama of her life. No seaman can look without compassion upon a disabled ship, but to look at a sailing-vessel with her lofty spars gone is to look upon a defeated but indomitable warrior. There is defiance in the remaining stumps of her masts, raised up like maimed limbs against ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... Even such docile allies as the Ottawas and Pottawattomies threatened to leave the French if goods were not sent to them wherewith to oppose their enemies. "They have powder and iron," complained an Ottawa deputy; "how can we sustain ourselves? Have compassion, then, on us, and consider that it is no easy matter to kill men with clubs."[125] By the end of the seventeenth century the disaffected Indians closed the Fox and Wisconsin route against French trade.[126] In 1699 an order was issued recalling the French from the Northwest, ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner
... wife of Ceyx. For their presumption in calling themselves Zeus and Hera they were changed into birds—Alcyone into a diver, Ceyx into a kingfisher. According to another story, Ceyx was drowned and his body cast on the shore. His wife found the body, and the gods, out of compassion, changed both her and her husband into kingfishers. By command of Zeus (or Aeolus) the winds ceased to blow during their brooding-time, for seven days before and after the shortest day, that their eggs might ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... put to it when I have been praising your good qualities to some of our friends, they have desired me to produce one single instance of any one man you have had the Compassion to relieve with the tenderness a King owes to a faithfull subject who has served him with the risk of his life ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... a bargain for his weighty secret. She knew too well that she was not of the snows which do not melt, however high her conceit of herself might place her. Happily she now stood out of the sun, in a bracing temperature, Polar; and her compassion for women was deeply sisterly in tenderness and understanding. She spoke of it to Emma as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the hawks, and no wonder, seeing all the disquietude they had caused me; I soon totally neglected the poor birds, and they would have starved had not some of the servants taken compassion upon them and fed them. My uncle, soon hearing of my neglect, was angry, and took the birds away; he was a very good-natured man, however, and soon sent me a fine pony; at first I was charmed with the pony, soon, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... fellows!" commanded Dick Prescott. "This doesn't look very gracious on our part, when an entertainment has been arranged for us. We'll go, and attend to our aches to-morrow." But when the referee of the afternoon noted how stiffly they all moved he found himself filled with compassion. ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... [that] God will euen so deale with vs/ as he did with them/ in all infirmities/ in all temptacions/ & in all like cases & chaunces. Wherin ye se on [the] one syde/ how fatherly & tendirly & with all compassion god entreateth his electe which submitte them selues as scolers/ to lerne to walke in the wayes of his lawes/ & to kepe them of loue. If they forgatt them selues at a time & went astraye/ he sought them out & sett them agayne with all mercie. ...
— The prophete Ionas with an introduccion • William Tyndale
... that moment, when the senses had had their fill, when the eye had seen the glory, and the ear had fed upon the harmony and the praise, then I thought and felt very differently. Sorrow and compassion for these gay multitudes were at my heart; prophetic forebodings of disaster, danger, and ruin to those, to whose sacred cause I had linked myself, made my tongue to falter in its speech, and my limbs to tremble. I thought that the ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... all it expressed; and as she lightly held up her rich robes in one hand, and in the other bore the light, the dark, shining eyes were fixed on his face, and were as barren of interest, eagerness, compassion, tenderness, or any other feeling, as the shining, black glass ones of a wax doll. So they stood looking at each other for some ten seconds or so, and then, still looking full at him, Miranda spoke, and her voice was as clear and emotionless as ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... themselves out, of passions that had crumbled to ashes. Now, as he stood with his arms folded on his breast, his face expressed something more than the interest of a servant in his mistress. In his faded eyes there was great compassion. His pale lips trembled. Jane did ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... considerable persuasion to get her on her feet and up the bank. Again and again she refused to go on, declaring that she didn't want to live. But Dan's patience was limitless. Added to his compassion for her, was the half-superstitious belief that he had been appointed by Providence ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... notwithstanding their soft hearts, and the most rapid money-makers in the empire. They built many of the most beautiful temples in India, in which they worship a kind and gentle god whose attributes are amiability, benevolence and compassion. The Jains of Ahmedabad still maintain a large "pinjrapol," or asylum for diseased and aged animals, with about 800 inmates, decrepit beasts of all species, by which they acquire merit with their god. And about the streets, and in the outskirts ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... of their country, yet the Government may, so far as consistent with its obligations to other countries and its fixed purpose to maintain and enforce the laws, entertain sympathy for their unoffending families and friends, as well as a feeling of compassion for themselves. Accordingly, no proper effort has been spared and none will be spared to procure the release of such citizens of the United States engaged in this unlawful enterprise as are now in confinement in Spain; but it is to be hoped that such interposition ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... me make out why his hospitable inclination should be voted 'ridiculous.' But Mrs. Balmossie appeared to find all natives alike a huge joke together. She never even spoke of them without a condescending smile of distant compassion. Indeed, most Anglo-Indians seem first to do their best to Anglicise the Hindoo, and then to laugh at him for aping ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... charitable societies and institutions. Until the latter part of the last century, the city was full of objects of compassion, the blind, the deaf and dumb, the sick and suffering. The prisons too, and the madhouses, were scenes of cruelty and violence. But a controversy arose upon the whole matter, and under Louis XVI. four new hospitals were ordered to be erected, but ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... approaching. 'Do not attempt to deceive me,' said she, 'I feel that I cannot long survive. I am prepared for the event, I have long, I hope, been preparing for it. Since I have not long to live, do not suffer a mistaken compassion to induce you to flatter my family with false hopes. If you do, their affliction will only be the heavier when it arrives: I will endeavour to teach them resignation by ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Redeemer, and without rites, prayers, penances, priests or intercessory saints; and a summum bonum, i.e., Nirvana, attainable in this life and in this world by leading a pure, unselfish life of wisdom and of compassion ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott
... little clucks of interest and compassion; but I regret to say their charity was not rewarded as they expected, for, the minute the coast was clear, the dog marched boldly up, seized the handle of the pail in his mouth, and was off with it, galloping down the road at ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... asses. The consul Laevinus, while passing by Capua, was surrounded by a multitude of Campanians, who besought him, with tears, that they might be permitted to go to Rome to the senate, so that if they could at length be in any degree moved by compassion, they might not carry their resentment so far as to destroy them utterly, nor suffer the very name of the Campanian nation to be obliterated by Quintus Flaccus. Flaccus declared, that "he had individually no quarrel with the Campanians, but that ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... helpless paroxysms of grief, now relating pitiful, commonplace anecdotes of the dead daughter so dearly beloved, a dazed helpless creature, unable to do a hand's turn for herself, while her husband crept in and out, quiet, resourceful, comforting, full of unselfish compassion. Margot had hard work to keep back her own tears, as he clumsily pressed his own services upon her, picking up odd garments, folding them carefully in the wrong way, and rummaging awkwardly through ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Ariel," said Prospero: "if you, who are but a spirit, feel for their distress, shall not I, who am a human being like themselves, have compassion on them? Bring them quickly, my ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... on high Olympus, look down on us in compassion and smile!" spoke Handy in the most tragic voice of which he was capable of employing. "Has it come to pass that a verdant experimentalist like you, Fogg, could intimate to a veteran of my standing that ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... as to be thrust into the hand or lip of a lewd old woman: whereby the worke of the Creator should be attributed to the power of a creature. Secondlie, that the religion of the gospell may be seene to stand without such peeuish trumperie. Thirdlie, that lawfull fauour and christian compassion be rather vsed towards these poore soules, than rigor and extremitie. Bicause they, which are commonlie accused of witchcraft, are the least sufficient of all other persons to speake for themselues; as hauing the most base and simple education of all others; the extremitie of their age giuing ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... which sparkled at this period in Papa's large blue eyes; yet there were moments also when she would be seized with such a fit of shyness that I, who knew the feeling well, was full of sympathy and compassion as I regarded her embarrassment. At moments of this kind she seemed to be afraid of every glance and every movement—to be supposing that every one was looking at her, every one thinking of no one but her, and that unfavourably. She would glance timidly from one person to another, the colour ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... and discourse, And judgement to distinguish, when you shall With feeling sorrow understand how wretched And miserable you have made your self, And but your self have nothing to accuse, Can you with hope from any beg compassion? But you will say, you serv'd your Fathers pleasure, Forgetting that unjust commands of Parents Are not to be obey'd, or that you are rich, And that to wealth all pleasure else are servants, Yet but consider, how this wealth was purchas'd, 'Twill ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... stain of blood upon it. "It fell from him that day he wasn't killed. One of the grooms picked it up from the ground and gave it me. Here it is in their d——d comedy jargon. 'Divine Gloriana—Why look so coldly on your slave who adores you? Have you no compassion on the tortures you have seen me suffering? Do you vouchsafe no reply to billets that are written with the blood of my heart.' She had more ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lifted itself from his heart. He was quick to understand. His story had not fallen upon ears eager with sensual curiosity. He had met a man, and from the soul of that man there had reached out to him the spirit of a deep and comforting strength. He would have revolted at compassion, and words of pity would have shamed him. Father Roland had given voice to neither of these. But the grip of his hand had been like the ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... she toys with for a moment, and then carelessly casts away? Art thou so very certain that thou hast never had a predecessor? And Aja started, in spite of himself. For the word recalled to him the manner of the old King. And Natabhrukuti saw it. And she looked at him as it were with compassion, and said: Alas! unhappy boy: thou seest that in thy youth and inexperience such an idea had not occurred to thee. Little art thou qualified to cope with ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... Regt.—our old opponents of Hohenzollern in October, 1915. He was led down to the Aid Post to have his wound dressed, much to the disgust of Captain Terry, the M.O., who would have liked to have killed him outright, though Serjeant Bent, the medical orderly, took compassion on his shivering prisoner and fed him on hot tea, and actually gave him ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... us that prohibition has ruined his life. His companions have deserted their haunts—all, all are gone, the old familiar faces—and he can find no one to talk to; and he talks very well, too. Now, we have as much compassion for him as it is possible to have for any bachelor, and yet we do not esteem his case utterly hopeless. As Mr. Lardner has suggested, when he repairs to his hotel at night he can open the clothespress and talk to ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... see that he had been put to death out of personal spite, and jealousy, and fear. There was no way, thenceforth, for the victor to maintain his power, but the quickening of the guillotine. Reserving compassion for less ignoble culprits, we must acknowledge that the defence of Danton is in the four months of increasing terror that succeeded the 5th of April 1794, when Robespierre took his stand at the corner of the Tuileries to watch the last moments ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... stage, wherefrom he read a long scroll of recantation, confessing all his ritual sins and all his intellectual errors, and promising to live till death as a true Jew. The Chacham, who stood near the sexton, solemnly intoned from the seventy-eighth Psalm: "But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned He his anger away and did not stir up all his wrath. For He remembered that they were but flesh: a wind that passeth away and cometh ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... sorrowfully at the sad face of the unfortunate Ivan, which seemed to me to have already graven upon it the stern sweet smile of those who have passed all passion and pain forever. "Oh, Zara! do you believe he will recover?" And tears choked my voice—tears of compassion and regret. ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... not Apache Indians, led by a Geronimo who knew no mercy, no compassion. We imagine that they were mostly poor white trash, of Tennessee. One small hamlet sent to market annually enough dead robins to return $500 at five cents per dozen; ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the waggon, all its defenders were killed by the savages surrounding it; and we knew too well that those inside must, according to their cruel custom, have been put to death, whether women or children. The Indians of the plains have no compassion either for age or sex. The dreadful thought occurred to me that those we had seen slaughtered might be our own friends. It was evident, however, from his calmness, that the idea of such a thing had ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... began to weep so bitterly that he filled us all with compassion and forced Zoraida to look at him, and when she saw him weeping she was so moved that she rose from my feet and ran to throw her arms round him, and pressing her face to his, they both gave way to such an ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... fool—at once swooned, with a vague, glimmering consciousness that I was dying and this, perhaps, was the first blissful glimpse into paradise. When I came to my senses, Mr. Sutherland was again standing by the bedside with a half-shamed look of compassion under his shaggy brows. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... in its enjoyment. In like manner a man, who is not dejected by misfortunes, is the more lamented on account of his patience; and if that virtue extends so far as utterly to remove all sense of uneasiness, it still farther encreases our compassion. When a person of merit falls into what is vulgarly esteemed a great misfortune, we form a notion of his condition; and carrying our fancy from the cause to the usual effect, first conceive a lively idea of his sorrow, and then feel an impression of it, entirely ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... are remarkable for their variety, moderation, and good taste. There is very little, if any, of that hideous ostentation, that mere expenditure of money, which renders Greenwood so melancholy a place, exciting far more compassion for the folly of the living, than sorrow for the dead who have escaped their society. We would earnestly recommend the managers of other cemeteries not to pass within a hundred miles of Cincinnati without stepping aside to see for themselves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... cannibalism in the list of imputed crimes which the Spaniards held as justification in making war upon the natives to enslave them, he vindicates them from other charges, such as that of sacrificing infants to their idols. The Spaniards were touched with compassion at seeing so many innocent beings perish before arriving at years of discretion, and without having received baptism. They argued that such a practice, which was worse than a crime, because it was a theological blunder, could not be carried on in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe-conduct through the prescribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle. ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... Lord and Master. Not, indeed, literally, as I shall have occasion to say in another place. But I long to have their hearts expand to overflowing with love to the world for whom Christ died; and I wish to have some of the tears of their compassion fall on those over whom God has given them an amazing, and ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... was Valentine Jernam, that of his factotum Joyce Harker. The captain had found him in an American hospital, had taken compassion upon him, and had offered him a free passage home. On the homeward voyage, Joyce Harker had shown himself so handy a personage, that Captain Jernam had declined to part with him at the end of the cruise: and from that time, the wizen little hunchback had been the stalwart seaman's friend ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Sense and Acceptation of the Word, as the other; nay, it must be allow'd 'tis a very great Piece of Familiarity in the Devil to make Visits, and shew none of his Disagreeables, not appear formidable, or in the Shape of what he is, respectfully withholding his dismal Part, in Compassion to the ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... pockets, one by one, the items of his display. When he came to the purse, he looked at it with an air of deep compassion. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... had more passion than tenderness, but what woman is not to be surprised and softened? When her young favourite, the greatest fighter she had ever seen, broke down at the end of his gallant effort and began to cry like a girl, her bowels of compassion yearned within her, and she longed to cry with him. She only saved herself from some imprudence by flight, and had her cry alone. After a flow of tears, such a woman is invincible; she treated Alfred at tea-time with remarkable coldness ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... one, remained at a little distance, seated in the shade of a bowlder; and he was making a great show of grief, hiding his face in his hands. The women, striving to console the mother, were bending over her with gestures of compassion, and accompanying her monody ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... only know me as I seem"—he spoke mildly, humbly—"not as I am. I am not a very bad man, Evelyn, nor even a very weak one; in all respects, vile as I appear to you, only a very unhappy wretch, and as such entitled to your respectful compassion at least—all I dare ask for now. I will not receive your scorn as my fit guerdon. Is there no strength in overcoming inclination as I have done, in compelling words of affection to flow from loathing lips?—for those scars alone, Evelyn, in contrast to your ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... stood there, leaving the path behind her, poised like a young goddess against the dazzling blue of the spring sky. Her face had been stern at first, but all the sternness had gone into an amazing kindness of compassion when her look had lighted upon him. She had not shrunk from him as shrank so many. And then—and then—he remembered the sudden fear, the sharp anxiety, that had succeeded that first look ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... girl on the verge of womanhood, she had offered up to him a very pure and maidenly worship. There was no one else whom she could love as much; for her dumb and deaf father she loved in quite a different manner—with more of pity and compassion than of admiration. Roland too had sometimes talked with her, especially while she was a child, about God and Christ; and she had regarded him as a spiritual director. Now her guide was lost in the dense darkness. There was no sure example for her ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... watching him the while; smoothing his hair with her loving hands, and gazing in his face with tenderness unspeakable. As she gazed she saw a cloud pass over his features; he looked up at her, and his eyes wore an expression of strange compassion and sorrow. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... drew near with that reverence which is due to a superior nature; and, as my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had heard, I fell down at his feet and wept. The genius smiled upon me with a look of compassion and affability that familiarised him to my imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears and apprehensions with which I approached him. He lifted me from the ground, and, taking me by the hand, 'Mirza,' said he, 'I have heard thee in ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... careless of her convenience, had only procured the services of a girl from a neighboring farm-house, who attended to the household duties during the day, and went home in the evening. But her womanly compassion was stronger than her sense of horror, and kneeling by the side of the prostrate woman, with inexpressible relief she perceived, by the slight pulsation of the heart, that life was there. Entering her chamber, she hastily put ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... charge of their own affairs would imperil their freedom. I feel that I have been cheated out of all the tears I have shed over the sufferings of such people. Those who tamely endure wrongs which they have the power to end deserve not compassion but contempt. I have felt a little badly that Julian should have been one of the oppressor class, one of the rich. Now that I really understand the matter, I am glad. I fear that, had he been one of the poor, one of the mass of real masters, who ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... "Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for those who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on earth and which Princess Mary taught me and I did not understand—that is what made me sorry to part with life, that is what ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... to start, 'Why dost thou tear me?' shrieked the trunk again, 'Hast thou no touch of pity in thy heart? We that now here are planted, once were men; But, were we serpents' souls, thy hand might shame To have no more compassion on our woes'; Like a green log, that hisses in the flame, Groaning at one end, as the other glows,— Even as the wind comes sputtering forth, I say, Thus oozed together from the splintered wood Both words and blood. I dropped the broken spray, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... who saved me, dear reader? Not the beautiful Lucia, whom I pitied with tender compassion because she was, after all, nothing but a slight feather upon my mother's breath, - but none less than Satan himself. Satan saved me, Satan, dear reader; hold this well in mind! Here is the profound explanation of his nature: ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... driving home the oxen." The water of the St. Lawrence is, it appears, more deleterious than our Thames: "when you arrive in the St. Lawrence, having been on shortish allowance of water, you will be for swallowing the river water by the bucket full. Now, if you have any bowels of compassion for your intestinal canal, you will abstain from so doing;—for to people not accustomed to it, the lime that forms a considerable constituent part of the water of this country, acts pretty much in the same manner ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... preserve the hereditary constitution in the Austrian Netherlands, and as Prussia had interfered to snatch even the malignant and the turban'd Turk from the pounce of the Russian eagle. Was not the King of France as much an object of policy and compassion as the Grand Seignior? As this was the first piece in which Burke hinted at a crusade, so it was the first in which he began to heap upon the heads, not of Hebert, Fouquier-Tinville, Billaud, nor even of Robespierre or Danton—for none of these had yet been ...
— Burke • John Morley
... to the surface now and then. Again and again he wrought havoc among the frontier settlers; yet we several times hear of his saving the lives of prisoners. Once he saved Simon Kenton from torture and death, when Girty, moved by a rare spark of compassion for his former comrade, had already tried to do so and failed. At last he perished in a drunken brawl by the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... poor cat into her lap, while kind-hearted Jane ran to the nearest cottage and returned with some warm milk. Oh, how greedily it was lapped up, and with what hungry eyes she looked for more! Jane had to warn the children lest in their compassion they should give her too much food at once, which would have been very hurtful to an animal so starved as the poor cat had been. Mr. Merry had only fulfilled one half of the agreement; he had taken ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... people are conscious of the existence of two individuals only—their two selves—in the whole world; so that poor little Blanche would soon have found herself quite out in the cold had not Mr Evelin taken compassion upon her and devoted himself to her amusement. He knew London well; and, on comparing notes, it soon transpired that he knew several people with whom Blanche was also acquainted; so they got on capitally ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... ducks, a leg, a wing, and a bit of the breast, entombed, within twenty-four hours, in the stomach of each of these seven men! The very feathers in their pillows (had they had any) would have cried out against such voracity. Truly it is without a spark of compassion that we read of their reduction, precisely one week afterwards, to short and less palatable commons. "Oct. 26. We enjoyed most gratefully our two wallabies, which were stewed, and to which I had added some green hide, to render the broth more substantial. This hide ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... you'd leave me here without money or anything?" she said in a cold, cutting voice. And her sneer was far more destructive than his. It destroyed in him the last trace of compassion for her. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... hope. Ay, something more than hope: for in this singular incident I cannot fail to recognise the finger of a merciful God. Surely He hath at length taken compassion upon us! Surely it is He who has sent these birds! They ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... Indians with bloodhounds, like wild beasts; they sacked the New World with no more temper or compassion than a city taken by storm; but destruction must cease, and frenzy be stayed; the remnant of the Indian population which had escaped the massacre mixed with its conquerors, and adopted in the end their religion ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... any "bowels of compassion" it is fit that they should yearn now. This frothy and frenzied Republic is at that ebb where national "extreme unction" must be administered speedily, else the sufferer will pass away from the theatre of sublunary things without the benefit of clergy. I feel as if I would like to get the whole ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... time of need be used as a refuge for the family. Of an Indian attack there was little danger; but they did not know to what length the Yorkers might go when once they did appear. Nuck believed Simon Halpen to be a man without compassion or mercy, and that the house might be attacked and ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... does as well as anything and it's a great simplification. If you don't believe me go to London and see." She had come with me out to the road. I had said I would walk back to Stresa and we stood there in the sweet dark warmth. As I took her hand, bidding her good-night, I couldn't but exhale a compassion. "Poor Linda, ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James
... only emerged at night to pass into the arms of the men who had won them by lot the previous morning. This state of things lasted for a month, at the end of which a Greek of Argyro-Castron, named G. Malicovo, moved by compassion for their horrible fate, ransomed them for twenty thousand piastres, and took ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... infinitely more sensible, the blows and stripes were renewed upon their backs; and then, delivering them over to soldiers, they were sent into their farms and villages to discover where a few handfuls of grain might be found concealed, or to extract some loan from the remnants of compassion and courage not subdued in those who had reason to fear that their own turn of torment would be next, that they should succeed them in the same punishment, and that their very humanity, being taken as a proof of their wealth, would ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... this patriotic warrior very deliberately. He had the face of a kindly person with clear eyes and grayish, pointed beard. He almost inspired a tender compassion by his overwhelming duties as ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... 'A wounded spirit who can bear!' And the evil subtle spirit waits (I am persuaded) to drive the sinner to despair; but godliness makes a cheerful heart. Let not past errors discourage; who lives and sins not? God will judge the obstinate, profane, unrelenting sinner, but is full of compassion to the work of His own hand, if they will cease from doing evil and learn to do well, pray for grace to repent, and endeavour with that measure which will be given, if sincerely asked for; for at what time soever a sinner repents (but observe, this is no licence to sin, because at any time we may ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... would perceive a lovely countenance, beaming with pity and compassion at our rags and apparent wretchedness, and then the money thrown to me gave me much more pleasure; but the major portion of those who threw us silver for their own amusement would not have given us a farthing if we had asked charity for ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... duke, which God raised up to deliver the children of Israel from the Midianites, in whose hands they were fallen, because they had broken God's commandment, and displeased God: yet at the length he had compassion on them, and raised up Gideon to deliver them. When they heard that they had a captain, or a duke, that should deliver them, they assembled a great number, about thirty thousand: but when it came to pass that they should fight, they departed all save five hundred. So, I fear ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... above man in order that every creature should tremble under the judgments of God. "I shall enter with David into the powers of the Lord," and I have to show you the wonders of his hand and of his resolutions: resolutions of deserved punishment for England, resolutions of compassion for the Queen's salvation; but resolutions stamped by the finger of God, whose imprint is so striking and manifest in the events of which I have to treat, that no one can fail to be dazzled by ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... added the sports of the circus, and assisted in person, sometimes driving a curricle, and occasionally mixing with the rubble in his coachman's dress. At length these proceedings excited a feeling of compassion, as it was evident that the Christians were destroyed, not for the public good, but as a sacrifice to the cruelty of a single individual." [167:2] Some writers have maintained that the persecution under Nero was confined to Rome; but various ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... looked at her with a mixture of astonishment and Compassion. Her pulse was high, she was extremely feverish, and he thought that the best thing which he could do was to stay with her till the next day, and to endeavour to divert her mind from this fancy, which he considered as an insane idea. He prevailed upon the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... her face, in order to enable her to see the way she was going, her pallor and her beautiful eyes spoke an unknown language to the men she met, and, unconsciously, the poor fugitive seemed to invite the brutal remarks of the one class, or to appeal to the compassion of the other. La Valliere still walked on in the same way, breathless and hurried, until she reached the top of the Place de Greve. She stopped from time to time, placed her hand upon her heart, leaned against a wall until she could breathe freely again, and then continued ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thought that Jo's sister was almost the same as Jo's self, and the conviction that it would have been impossible to love any other woman but Amy so soon and so well. His first wooing had been of the tempestuous order, and he looked back upon it as if through a long vista of years with a feeling of compassion blended with regret. He was not ashamed of it, but put it away as one of the bitter-sweet experiences of his life, for which he could be grateful when the pain was over. His second wooing, he resolved, should ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... acts more wicked and more dangerous than we could at any other time suffer to enter our imagination. As anger is justly said to be a short madness, so, while the frenzy is upon us, blood is shed as easily as water, and the mind is so filled with fury that there is no room left for compassion. There cannot be a stronger proof of what I have been observing than in the unhappy end of the poor woman who is the ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... in the Preface to his Small Catechism, "which I discovered lately when I, too, was a visitor, has forced and urged me to prepare this Catechism, or Christian doctrine, in this small, plain, simple form." (535, 1.) Thus the Small Catechism sprang, as it were, directly from the compassion Luther felt for the churches on account of the sad state of destitution to which they had been brought, and which he felt so keenly during the visitation. However, Luther's statements in the German Order of Worship concerning the catechetical procedure in question and answer quoted ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... of those atrocious acts which can only take place in a slave country. Owing to a quarrel and a lawsuit, the owner was on the point of taking all the women and children from the male slaves, and selling them separately at the public auction at Rio. Interest, and not any feeling of compassion, prevented this act. Indeed, I do not believe the inhumanity of separating thirty families, who had lived together for many years, even occurred to the owner. Yet I will pledge myself, that in humanity and good feeling he was superior to the common run of men. It may be said there ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... your heart itself did not stop you. It makes one shudder to think that such orders should be sent from the most polished court in Europe, as the most savage Tartars could hardly have executed without remorse and compassion. ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... Mr. Morgan rose and threw open the blinds. The radiance of the full harvest-moon so flooded the room that Miss Eood was fain to blow out the poor lamp for compassion. "Let us take ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... sure of it," Elsie said with emotion, "for he is the unchangeable God; 'Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever'; as ready to be moved with compassion for a sin-sick soul to-day, as he was for the leper when on earth. And he has said, 'Him that cometh to me I will in ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... And kindnesse, whose command lies in our power, We seldome relish; but if labourd for, Our very soule is rauisht with delight, It is so pleasing to our appetite. Vrg'd by these reasons, she would faine conceale The hid affection which her heart did feele; And yet compassion of her louers state (Whose outward habit shewd his inward fate) Perswade with her to lend him some by-taste, Lest through his loues griefe she his loues life waste. Thrise happy daies (quoth she) and too soone gone, When as the deed was coupled with ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... invent the submarine?' asked Mr. Macrae, and then the company saw what they had never seen before, the bard blushing. He seemed so discomposed that Miss Macrae took compassion ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... executions of this reign—that of the Lady Jane Grey, who had been reprieved three months before. The queen urged the plea of self-defence, and the safety of the realm—the same that Queen Elizabeth, in after times, made in reference to the Queen of the Scots. Her unfortunate fate excited great popular compassion, and she suffered with a martyr's constancy, and also her husband—two illustrious victims, sacrificed in consequence of the ambition of their relatives, and the jealousy of the queen. The Duke of Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane, was also executed, and deserved his fate, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... of the Passion in nine great compositions, with saints and martyrs and torch-bearing genii, to be one of his most ambitious and successful efforts. As it is, we can but judge in part; the adolescent beauty of Sebastian, the grave compassion of S. Rocco, the classical perfection of the cupid with lighted tapers, the gracious majesty of women smiling on us sideways from their Lombard eyelids—these remain to haunt our memory, emerging from the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... unaccompanied by corresponding wane of the mind. Of this I am as yet sensible sufficiently to be unwilling to trust myself before the public, and when I cease to be so, I hope that my friends will be too careful of me to draw me forth and present me, like a Priam in armor, as a spectacle for public compassion. I hope our political bark will ride through all its dangers; but I can in future be ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... began, 'I have come to rectify a great mistake. This poor fellow mortal whose body you are committing to its last resting place mistook the full measure of God's compassion. He believed that he had committed that sin for which there is no forgiveness. In his extreme anxiety to atone for his former crime, he was led to commit another, for God requires no man to commit suicide, and his Word expressly forbids it. My friends, I am here ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... to two charitable institutions, and 'for the Relief of the Prisoners in the several Gaols.' These latter were miserable persons who had been imprisoned for debt, and whose sufferings through neglect and poverty were such as to excite deep compassion. Four hundred pounds was the sum realised by this performance, which took place on Monday, April 13, 1742, and no doubt the poor prisoners felt very grateful to the composer, who had thus put into practice the very precepts which his sacred work inspired. So great was the success of this ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... he has got to play the game or he has got to get out of the game, and I have no more sufferance for such a man than the country has. Not a bit. Some of them got exactly what was coming to them and I haven't any bowels of compassion for them. They did not support the things they pretended to support. And the country knew they didn't,—the country knew that the tone of the cloakroom and the tone of the voting were different tones. Now, I am perfectly willing to say ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... remarkably beautiful boy, stood by the side of the sub-prior as he was murdered and fearlessly confronted the Danes, and bade them put him to death with the holy father. The young Earl Sidroc, however, struck with the bearing of the child, and being moved with compassion, stripped him of his robe and cowl, and threw over him a long Danish tunic without sleeves, and ordering him to keep close by him, made his way out of the monastery, the boy being the only one who was saved from the ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... found it so full of scaffolding and the litter of masonry, and the cool fresh smell of mortar from the restorations going on that we had no room for the emotions we had come prepared with. With the compassion of a kindly man in a plasterer's spattered suit of white, we did what we could, but it was very little. I at least was not yet armed with the facts that, among others, the headless form of Archbishop Laud had been carried from the block on Tower Hill and laid in All Hallows; and if I had known ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... instinctively were their intended executioners. Not one of them attempted to plead for mercy; that they knew were vain. Their eyes glanced hopelessly round, now on the assembled throng below, now on the groups collected on the platform, not expecting to meet a look of compassion turned towards them. But yes, among one group they see a man of strange appearance. His skin is white, and by his fine dress, glittering with gold, they believe him to be a great chief. He advances towards the king, whom, with eager look, he addresses in a strange language. What he says they cannot ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... home and go abroad. Ah, you say, pastors cannot endure the thought; it would be a shock to their parental feelings that they cannot sustain. But, I ask, have missionaries no feelings? have their hearts become hard, like blocks of wood and pieces of rock? Does love to Christ, and compassion for the heathen, tend to make men and women obtuse in their feelings, so that a father or mother on heathen ground does not feel as intensely for the present and eternal welfare of a child, as a parent who has never gone to the heathen? Ah! had you seen what my eyes have witnessed, ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... all of them in their way comfortable, in the full English spirit of the word, and according to the French explanation of comfortable, given to us by the Duchess d'Abrantes, convenablement bon; but in compassion to Mr. Churchill's fastidious restlessness, she would now show him a perfection of a chair which she had just had made for her own boudoir. She ordered that it should be brought, and in it rolled, and it was looked at in every direction and sat in, and no fault could be found with ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... could the sea, on the other hand, have come up to Bohemia, without overflowing a great part of Germany, and destroying millions of unfortunate inhabitants who could make no defence against it—Scandalous! cried Trim—Which would bespeak, added my uncle Toby, mildly, such a want of compassion in him who is the father of it—that, I think, Trim—the thing could ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Alvarado. These people had not been more guilty than those of Tezcuco, who indeed were the leaders in that affair, but they could be more conveniently chastised. The place was given up to military execution, though not more than three or four were put to death, as Sandoval had compassion upon them. Some of the principal inhabitants were made prisoners; who assured Sandoval that the Spaniards were fallen upon by the troops of Mexico and Tezcuco in a narrow pass, where they could only march ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... Salvation Army Santa Claus shivering outside and tinkling his pathetic little bell. Humane note: those scarlet Christmas robes of the Army not nearly as warm as they look. Hard-hearted vestryman, member of old Knickerbocker family, always wears white margins on his vest, suddenly touched by compassion, empties the collection plate into Santa's bucket. Santa hurries off to the S.A. headquarters crying 'The little ones will bless you for this.' Vestryman accused of having pocketed the collection, dreadful scandal, too proud to admit what ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... despairing, Cupid stirred up the little ant, a native of the fields, to take compassion on her. The leader of the ant-hill, followed by whole hosts of his six-legged subjects, approached the heap, and with the utmost diligence taking grain by grain, they separated the pile, sorting each kind to its ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... but thinks and hopes. Where is that boy? Where is her husband now? While she submitted body to force and soul To the great shuddering violence of despair How had their life progressed in that far place? Compassion fused my consciousness with hers And second-sighted eloquence arose To claim my mind for rostrum, But obstinately tranced My eyes clung to their vision; For regions to explore allure the boy No stretch of thought ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... desperate case, moved her deeply: she stood irresolute in the middle of the room. The three weeping girls were wondering when Mavis was going to recommence her attack; they little knew that her keen imagination was already dwelling with infinite compassion on the dismal conditions in which the promised new life would come into the world. Her heart went out to the extremity of mother and unborn little one; had not her pride forbade her, she would have comforted Miss Potter with brave words. Presently, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... of motherhood. Their wisdom, ever on the alert, is equal to the intuition of a mother; they remember the delicate perceptions which in their own mother were divinations, and import them into the exercise of a compassion which is carried to an extreme in their minds by a sense of the child's unutterable weakness. The slowness of their movements takes the place of maternal gentleness. In them, as in children, life is reduced to its simplest expression; if maternal sentiment makes the mother a slave, the abandonment ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... rejections, His mercy had continued its pleadings. With more than a father's pitying love for the son of his care, God had "sent to them by His messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because He had compassion on His people, and on His dwelling-place."(12) When remonstrance, entreaty, and rebuke had failed, He sent to them the best gift of heaven; nay, He poured out all heaven ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... faithful woman made every possible effort to gain the ear and favor of the emperor and to obtain influence in high places. She unhappily found that Roman officials had no time or thought to waste on fugitive rebels, and that compassion for those who dared oppose the supremacy of Rome was a sentiment that could find no place in the imperial heart. Repelled, disappointed, hopeless, the unhappy woman and her disguised husband retraced their long and weary ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... came to Rome, and is now determined to take his iourney to the Spanish Court, hoping there to obtaine some reliefe toward his liuing: wherefore the poore distressed man humbly beseecheth, and we in his behalfe do in the bowels of Christ, desire you, that taking compassion of his former captiuitie, and present penurie, you doe not onely suffer him freely to passe throughout all your cities and townes, but also succour him with your charitable almes, the reward whereof you shall hereafter ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... compassion, and even with enthusiasm; and being a little short-sighted, she pushed her sweet face up to Lygia's as if wishing to see surely the effect of ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... I find 'tis I must prove That men have no compassion; When we are won, you never love Poor women, ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... officer. Sixty of the prisoners were Negroes, which is a large proportion when compared with the total numbers of the white and black population, especially as the blacks are often let off, owing to the leniency of the committing magistrates who have compassion on their inferior intelligence; and it is owing, it is said, to a like leniency that there are so few females, though certainly not for the same reason. There are a large number of Irish ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... disease! I!" the Syndic cried, standing before him a piteous figure. He raised his hands above his head in a gesture which challenged the compassion of gods and men. "I! In two years——" His voice failed, he ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman |
