"Martyrdom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with her perfect face dividing their rippling flow she looked like some immaculate saint of legend being led to martyrdom. Rowland's eyes presumably betrayed his admiration, but her own manifested no consciousness of it. If Christina was a coquette, as the remarkable timeliness of this incident might have suggested, she ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... into captivity, to condemn them to silence and seeming indifference. The glowing heart bounds against these iron bands; it longs to cast off the yoke of silence, and to breathe unfettered as the wanton air. Princess Amelia had borne two days of this martyrdom, and her courage failed. She was resolved to grant him a private interview as soon as he dared ask for it. She wished to see this handsome face, now clouded by melancholy, illuminated by the sunshine of happiness; those sad eyes "should look up clear, ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Andromache, but Mrs. Oldfield; and tho the Poet had left Andromache stone-dead upon the Stage, as your ingenious Correspondent phrases it, Mrs. Oldfield might still have spoke a merry Epilogue. We have an Instance of this in a Tragedy [2] where there is not only a Death but a Martyrdom. St. Catherine was there personated by Nell Gwin; she lies stone dead upon the Stage, but upon those Gentlemen's offering to remove her Body, whose Business it is to carry off the Slain in our English Tragedies, she breaks out into that abrupt Beginning of what was a very ludicrous, but ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... martyrdom, is received by those who were not baptized with water, but were put to death for their Catholic faith. This takes place even nowadays in pagan countries where the missionaries are trying to convert the poor natives. These pagans have to be instructed before ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... course, possible that this disclosure may be anticipated by the arrival of another "crank and impostor" of the Keely type. Let us trust he may arise from within and not from without, scientific circles, and thus avoid his martyrdom! ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... makes one marvel at his cowardice when he denied his Master. St Lawrence, too, with his gridiron, and St Bartholomew with his flaying-knife and his own skin hanging over his own arm, look as though they liked their martyrdom, and were proud of it, and could be useful on an occasion. But this St John of the Bridges has no pride in his appearance, and no strength in his look. He is a mild, meek saint, teaching one rather by his ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... Could she? A great martyrdom, or heroic effort, these she would have faced gladly, counting them a small price to pay for her husband's love; but then how to subdue hasty impulses, to keep a watch over her tongue—this seemed beyond her strength. And yet the treasure which was threatened was of such ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... humbled. This girl, with her splendid talent, had quietly laid aside her chance of a great career because the road to fame deviated from the path of duty. And she had done it without a word or hint of martyrdom. And he—what had he done? How much thought had he spent in the past ten years on the man who had given him his chance in life? Suppose he had been to him all that he should have been? Then he would have lost Rosalie and the two years abroad that had brought him ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... to part the combatants. "The Romans were provoked by this interruption of their pleasures, and the rash monk was overwhelmed under a shower of stones. But the madness of the people soon subsided; they respected the memory of Telemachus, who had deserved the honors of martyrdom, and they submitted without a murmur to the laws of Honorius, which abolished forever the human sacrifices of the amphitheatre." This occurred A.D. 404. It was not, however, until the year 500 that the practice was finally and completely abolished ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... the character of Severus, constitute the principal charm of this drama. But the practical magnanimity of this Roman, in conquering his passion, throws Polyeucte's self-renunciation, which appears to cost him nothing, quite into the shade. From this a conclusion has been partly drawn, that martyrdom is, in general, an unfavourable subject for Tragedy. But nothing can be more unjust than this inference. The cheerfulness with which martyrs embraced pain and death did not proceed from want of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... tempered with a few reserves, have been the general notes of comment on Clarissa: and—as she goes through the long martyrdom of persecution by her family for not marrying the man she does not love; of worse persecution from the man whom she does love, but who will not marry her, at least until he has conquered her virtue; and of perhaps worst when she feels it her duty to ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... the distant village, with the order and decorum of sea lords descending on a dockyard for inspection purposes. The trackless sand proved hot and sharp; the dog proved in poor condition from the voyage and the morning's incidental martyrdom, and Byng was generous-hearted. He picked up the dog and carried him; and Scamp displayed his gratitude in customary ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... prince. 2. A very great king. 3. An inventor in the middle ages. 4. A small town in Buckinghamshire. 5. An English bishop who suffered martyrdom. 6. An extensive region of Southern Asia. 7. An ancient province of France. 8. A ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... perception. For most of us the third dimension is practically unknown beyond the reach of a few feet. A Beachey soaring aloft - why all the bravado of curve and loop? Sooner or later he will fall to his death. Ay, verily! but his is a joyous martyrdom making for the evolution of consciousness. Not always shall we crawl like flies the surface ...
— The Fourth Dimensional Reaches of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition • Cora Lenore Williams
... moment later by a towel, and the hanging veil of her hair, she could meet the Kirks' glances innocently enough. Later, fresh and tidy, she took her place at her desk, rather refreshed by her outburst, and curiously peaceful in spirit. The joys of martyrdom were Susan's, she was particularly busy and cheerful. Fate had dealt her cruel blows before this one, she inherited from some persecuted Irish ancestor a grim pleasure ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... his legs being also tied, the man with the hissing red-hot iron in the form of a letter, brands him on the side with the token of his dependence on the lord of the soil. Some of the bulls stand this martyrdom with Spartan heroism and do not utter a cry; but others, when the iron enters their flesh, burst out into long bellowing roars, that seem to echo through the whole country. They are then loosened, get upon their legs again, and like so many branded ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... of green (top), white, and red; the national emblem (a stylized representation of the word Allah in the shape of a tulip, a symbol of martyrdom) in red is centered in the white band; ALLAH AKBAR (God is Great) in white Arabic script is repeated 11 times along the bottom edge of the green band and 11 times along the top edge ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... he came to live and fight and gallant in a town on the western end of Long Island, where he perhaps found a church-home with members less severe and less sharp-eyed than those of his Boston place of martyrdom, and a people less inclined to resent and punish his frailties and his ways of ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... life seemed to be more rapturously happy than the others. I learned that they had passed through the darkness of continual disappointments or suffered under the mis-mating of matrimonial union. Others fought through the fires of persecution and torture, and still others passed through martyrdom for their Master's sake. All of these patiently endured all hardships leading down to the end of ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... hilum; quando quidem natura animi mortalis habetur!" cries Lucretius. With the advent of Christianity, condemning as it did the barbarous customs of self-mutilation and self-murder, these practices seem to disappear gradually; but stoicism and indifference to pain were exhibited in martyrdom. Toward the middle ages, when fanaticism was at its height and the mental malady of demoniacal possession was prevalent, there was something of a reversion to the old customs. In the East the Juggernaut procession was still in vogue, but this was ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... populace continued to torture the confessors; and I was led back to Alexandria by an ardent thirst for martyrdom. I found on my arrival that the persecution had ceased three days before. Just as I was returning, my path was blocked by a great crowd in front of the Temple of Serapis. I was told that the Governor ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... day began his martyrdom. He worked hard under his overseer, but ran away again and again, only to be brought back and tied up. Sometimes, as he toiled, he would look longingly across the narrow strait of sunlit water at the bright green little island of Manono, six miles away; and twice he ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... insisted on waiting till the carriage could be repaired, although in the eyes of every one but himself the delay was obvious ruin. Harper, seeing him obstinate, stole away a second time to gain favour for himself by carrying news to the court. Ponet, unambitious of martyrdom, told him he would pray God for his success, and, advising Brett to shift for himself, made away with others towards the sea and Germany.[243] It was nine o'clock before Wyatt brought the draggled remnant of his force, wet, hungry, and faint with their ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... stone of the great monument of mediaeval aspiration was being battered to pieces, and the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the martyrs, suffered another and a less resurgent martyrdom. After days of this crepuscular existence he emerged to find the cathedral less disfigured than he had feared. One masterpiece of the mediaeval craftsmen's chisel is, however, irremediably destroyed—the figure of the devil. We hope it is ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... think so? Tell me, my dear, that you have death in your soul and that you are suffering martyrdom. Behold my arms are ready to receive you; lean your head on me and weep. Then I will take you away, perhaps; but ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... little piece of furniture resembling a meat-safe, containing the Four Gospels. The saint is walking briskly, and is fully draped; the gridiron is of the proportions of a cot bedstead, and has a raging fire beneath it,—a gruesome suggestion of the martyrdom. ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... the crown of a little martyrdom is yours. Will you wear it until this old man ends his days, and then come to Kaskaskia as your reward? Or will you come trampling down your duty, and perhaps shortening the life of your father's father? I will not ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... dirty appearance. It was towards eight o'clock, when I walked for the first time, in the cloisters; and there viewed, amongst other mural decorations, an oil painting—in which several of their order are represented as undergoing martyrdom—by hanging, and severing their limbs. It was a horrid sight ... and yet the living ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... unruffled self-possession that Huss gave himself to martyrdom. As he had never abandoned the Romish Church, he calmly engaged in its functions preparatory to his death. Indeed, some touching scenes were witnessed in his prison—he unshaken—his friends, his very enemies weeping ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... goodness and all shining comes. God's children may be very naughty, but they must be able to turn towards him. The Father of Lights is the Father of every weakest little baby of a good thought in us, as well as of the highest devotion of martyrdom. If you turn your face to the Sun, my boy, your soul will, when you come to die, feel like an autumn, with the golden fruits of the earth hanging in rich clusters ready to be gathered—not like a winter. You may feel ever so worn, but you will not feel withered. ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... dishonor. When we are told that our people are not patriotic, or sigh of America as Burke did of France a century and a quarter ago, that the age of chivalry is gone, we may point to this great martyrdom, the brightest painting on the darkest background in all our history—thousands choosing to die for the country ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... The martyrdom of the Saints took place in the year 290, and their festival is celebrated by the Church ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... evidence accumulated; the martyrdom of Belgium and Northern France, the use of poisonous gas, the instigation of revolts in the colonies of the Entente Allies, the sinking of the "Lusitania," the shooting of Nurse Cavell, and above all the proofs of the enormous military preparations ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... the storm, and was then banished to the village of Cephro in the desert. But his flight was not without some scandal to the Church, as there were not a few who thought that he was called upon by his rank at least to await, if not to court, the pains of martyrdom. Indeed, the persecution was less remarkable for the sufferings of the Christians than for the numbers who failed in their courage, and renounced Christianity under the threats of the magistrate. Dionysius, the bishop, who had shown no courage himself, was willing to pardon their weakness, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... ready to sacrifice myself for Tom Slade," finished Roy, magnanimously. "Tom," he added, extending his hand across the table with a noble air of martyrdom, "Tom, ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... enthusiast; and in this spreading of the Divine word, he merits respect for his fervour, his courage, and self-devotion; his willingness, if the Lord should so think fit, to accept the crown of martyrdom." ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... spreads, a spiritual inroad of new religions from the time when the Pessinuntine mother of the gods, a shapeless mass of stone, was brought to the eternal city by her holiest citizen, to the day when the ship Castor and Pollux stood in at Puteoli, and St. Paul turned his face towards martyrdom and victory at Rome. Polybius was able to predict, from his knowledge of the causes of revolutions and the tendencies of the various forms of governments, the uprising of that democratic tone of thought which, as soon as a seed is sown in ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... returning from a pious mission to Herm. Jean knew them all; they were honest, God-fearing men, trustful and truthful. If their reasoning powers were not great, their faith was unswerving. Their life was a prolonged asceticism, and they had fair reason to expect that martyrdom would be their ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... approach, whether abrupt or lingering, is alike awful to man.—He spoke of the vicisstudes of empires with much eloquence and learning, but his audience were not observed to be much affected.—He cited various passages from the lives of the saints, descriptive of the glories of martyrdom, and the heroism of those who had bled and blazed for Christ and his blessed mother, but they appeared still waiting for something to touch them more deeply. When he inveighed against the tyrants under whose bloody persecution those holy men ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Thomas a Becket was murdered at Canterbury, but for more than three hundred years his name lived on, and his bones were working miracles, and his soul seemed as it were embodied and petrified in the lofty pillars that surround the spot of his martyrdom. Abelard was persecuted and imprisoned, but his spirit revived in the Reformers of the sixteenth century, and the shrine of Abelard and Heloise in the Pere La Chaise is still decorated every year with garlands of immortelles. Barbarossa was drowned in the same ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... what Fray Ignatius tells us—that the Americans have been everywhere pulling down churches, and granting martyrdom to the priests, and that everywhere miraculous retributions ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... glittering fight; she did not see the path of God deeply rutted by trampling feet, burnt by the blazing footsteps of God. She heard herself as John's great crying voice and heeded the prison and the martyrdom not at all: it was a moment's flash, a moment's revelation. Then she turned to him. Her eyes were very bright. She spoke ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... I sit and think, and think, And think again. Old Crabtree, Base villain that he is, hath put me here! And why? Ah, thereby hangs a tale, Horatio! His teeth, the teeth that chew the best of steak Set on our table — those I found and hid; And Mumps, the sneak, hath told on me! Alas! When will my martyrdom end?" ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... chamber. And not for women alone. He has no inkling of what an arsenal of clerical instruments of torture lie there ready for use—clerical, because they lie ready for the infliction of horrible corporal martyrdom in the service of a bloody, fanatical, papistical belief. Woe, when the door to the Bluebeard chamber opens. They are continually picking at the lock. Then we shall witness all the sanguinary horrors of the Thirty Years' War, the degenerate ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... leave what was not worthy of thee were a destiny not to be evaded—a summons not to be put by,—yet why, why, again and again I demand—why was it also necessary that this thy departure, so full of wo to me, should also to thyself be heralded by the pangs of martyrdom? Sainted love, if, like the ancient children of the Hebrews, like Meshech and Abednego, thou wert called by divine command, whilst yet almost a child, to walk, and to walk alone, through the fiery furnace,—wherefore then couldst not thou, like that Meshech ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... his head, sneezed inadvertently, and was scowled at by the orator for full two minutes in absolute silence. If that Cree warrior—he was on his first war-path—possessed anything akin to the feelings of the Paleface he must have suffered martyrdom. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... he had advanced several thousand dollars to the girl, and still her desire for martyrdom had not entirely vanished. Realizing that the mere presence of one so temperamentally hysterical as she was a constant menace, he insisted upon her going South, and in order to provide handsomely for her comfort he borrowed from his friends. He was aghast when he finally reckoned ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... of Death?— Can he who once drew honorable breath In liberty's pure sphere, Foster a sensual fear, When death and slavery meet him face to face, Saying: "Choose thou between us; here, the grace Which follows patriot martyrdom, and there, Black degradation, haunted ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... aloud, she could not have expressed their meaning more plainly than in that glance, full of a thousand thoughts, in which terror, hope, pleasure, the dangers of their mutual situation all took part. He had passed, in that one moment, from heaven to martyrdom and from martyrdom back to heaven! So then, the brave young seigneur, light-hearted and content, walked gaily to his doom; thinking that the horrors of the "question" were not sufficient payment for the delights of ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... impression that a modern pilgrimage to Canterbury is a thing to be highly appreciated; and on no account would we have missed this part of our excursion. The murder of Thomas a Becket (1170) took place between the nave and the choir in a transept or cross aisle called "The Martyrdom." ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... not court martyrdom to hold Upon his head a laurel of gold, Where for each rich conceit ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... in this period suffer largely from despondency, insomnia, and a feeling of martyrdom. Like the Positive type of the same Mount, they are also much inclined towards rheumatism and disorders ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... continued the old man, "I assure you that all I have read of those christian anchorets and self-tormentors, who out of overheated zeal transformed their life into a never-ending martyrdom, for the sake of stifling every impulse and thought save the highest of all, is less, far less, than what I have practist on myself since I became conscious of the cheerlessness of my existence. I too had ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... in religious matters—however cultivated they may chance to be in other concerns. From such souls God requires faith, and obedience to the commandments—a due, which, in certain rare crises, may mean heroism and martyrdom; but He does not expect of them that refinement of sanctity, that sustained attention to divine things, which depends so largely on one's natural cast of mind and disposition; and may even be found where the martyr's temper is altogether wanting. ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... admitted. "She thought that I ought to nurse him, put up with him, give up all my friends, and try and keep him alive. Why, it would have been absolute martyrdom, misery for me," she declared. "How could I be expected to do such ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... both remarkably associated with the history of the papal power in this country[56]. In the first, that of the coronation by the archbishop of York of prince Henry, son of Henry II., may be traced the incipient cause of the assassination of archbishop Becket, whose martyrdom became conducive to the highest triumphs of that power: in the second, queen Elizabeth's coronation by Oglethorpe, bishop of Carlisle, and the refusal of all the other prelates to assist in the ceremony, we behold its dying struggles for a dominion ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... Martyrdom of St. Edmund by the Danes 82 (From a drawing belonging to the Society ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." Thus spoke out the tenderest-hearted, most Christ-like human being, perhaps, who ever trod this earth, who, in his intense longing to save sinners, endured a life of misery and danger, and finished it by martyrdom. But there was no sentimentality, no soft indulgence in him. He knew right from wrong; common sense from cant; duty from public opinion; and divine charity from the mere cowardly dislike of witnessing pain, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... must confess that, elsewhere, I have shared the feelings of Dickens toward St. Francis and St. Sebastian, as the "Mounseer Tonsons" of Catholic art. St. Sebastian I have not been so tired of, for the beauty and youth of the figure make the monotony with which the subject of his martyrdom is treated somewhat less wearisome. But St. Francis is so sad, and so ecstatic, and so brown, so entirely the monk,—and St. Clara so entirely the nun! I have been very sorry for her that he was able to draw her from ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... peasants would soon have made a saint of her, and invented a legend to fit. The snakes, for them, would have been the instruments of martyrdom—turned into a martyr's crown. Italy and Catholicism absorb—assimilate—everything. "Santa Medusa!"—I assure you, she would be quite ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sole Lord Of life and death. To prove the word, We'll now appeal to none of all Those thy old soldiers, great and tall, Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down With strong arms their triumphant crown: Such as could with lusty breath Speak loud, unto the face of death, Their great Lord's glorious name; to none Of those whose spacious bosoms spread a throne For love at large to fill. Spare blood and sweat: We'll see Him ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... crushed so long, and now trembling eagerly under his breath at the prospect of a little more liberty in loving. A suspicion that already he loved perhaps too well and far too passionately thrilled through his conscience, and tortured a heart to whom thought was a refuge and feeling a martyrdom. ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... Rome, sends no salutations from him, which he would have done had Peter been there; indeed he never once mentions his name. The third or fourth Christian Bishop of Rome speaks of Saint Paul having suffered martyrdom under the emperors; but, by the way he speaks of Saint Peter, evidently believing that he suffered martyrdom elsewhere in the east, and does not allude to his having been at Rome. If, therefore, the very foundations of the pretensions of these august Pontiffs are defective, what ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... inflamed him when he beheld her in the tumbril on her way to the scaffold is a fitting corollary to her action. She in her way and he in his were alike sublime; her tranquil martyrdom upon the altar of Republicanism and his exultant martyrdom upon the altar of ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... modern and realistic; while Bacchus is steeped in the Greek spirit, and the little faun hiding behind him is the very essence of mischief. Add to these the fluid vigour of the unfinished relief of the Martyrdom of S. Andrew, No. 126, and you have five examples of human accomplishment that would be enough without the other Florentine evidences at all—the Medici chapel tombs and the ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... Gunch was silent, the others at the Roughnecks' Table came to accept Babbitt as having, for no visible reason, "turned crank." They argued windily with him, and he was cocky, and enjoyed the spectacle of his interesting martyrdom. He even praised Seneca Doane. Professor Pumphrey said that was carrying a joke too far; but Babbitt argued, "No! Fact! I tell you he's got one of the keenest intellects in the country. Why, Lord ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... think about it or to see it, when He began to speak about it. There are reasons for the earlier comparative reticence, and there is no ground for the conclusion that then first began to dawn upon a disappointed enthusiast the grim reality that His work was not going to prosper, and that martyrdom was necessary. That is a notion that has been frequently upheld of late years, but to me it seems altogether incongruous with the facts of the case. And, if John's Gospel is a true record, that theory is shivered against this text, which represents Him at the very beginning of His career—the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... chair in which the bishops are placed when they are installed. In the vestibule of the church, on the south side, stand the statues of three men armed, cut in stone, who slew Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, made a saint for this martyrdom; their names are ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... came upon me a kind of madness—for, although by God's blessing it brought no harm to me—yet it was nothing else; and I determined to go to Newgate as I had intended, and at least see them brought out. For here was to be a martyrdom indeed—five men, all priests, all Religious—suffering, in God's eyes at least, for nothing in the world but the Catholic religion; yes, and in men's too, if they had known all, for I remembered how Mr. Whitbread had refused to escape, while ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... fuller account of this animal origin of fraternity I recommend the reader to two excellent books, The Martyrdom of Man, by Winwood Reade (Kegan Paul), and Mutual Aid, by ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... made themselves heard, tending to exalt the martyrdom and celebrate the power of the "Man of Sorrows." Respecting one of those sublime sufferers, who, like Jeremiah, stained the streets of Jerusalem with their blood, one of the inspired wrote a song upon the sufferings and triumph ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... strange chamber, with its four windows only protected by white muslin blinds from the fierce glare of that inquisitive sun, that seemed to peer in upon our movements all day and all night, we endured a small martyrdom, till we begged the maid to make our beds the reverse way; that is, to put the pillows where one's feet are usually to be found, as by this means the wooden bedstead kept a little of the light out of our weary eyes. No one can realise the weariness of eternal light until he has experienced ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... the mediaeval practices when Francis I. burned ardent printers in Paris, and the Sorbonne would have banished the printing press from France forever. The Roman Catholic papers invoke the restoration of the Bourbons and of the temporal power of the Pope, and in the ardor of a new spirit of martyrdom offered themselves up to a spiritual bondage that must end in their own slow destruction and the death of the national intellect They would enforce anew that policy if isolation which has filled France with impurity, and left it the prey of emperors and marshals, ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... indispensable qualities of the modern mind? The power to make quick decisions and the inability to cling to convictions; the nervous high pitch and the failure to sustain the triumphant note; energy without direction; success without stability; martyrdom without faith. And around, above, beneath, the pervading mediocrity, the apotheosis of the average. Was this the best that democracy had to offer mankind? Was there no depth below the shallows? Was it impossible, even by the most patient ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... centre of all their regards. They hardly looked at her mother or sister. Had she been a martyr who had stood the test and received her aureole, she could hardly have been more regarded. The common use of the word martyr is a curious instance of how words get degraded. The sufferings involved in martyrdom, and not the pure will giving occasion to that suffering, is fixed upon by the common mind as the martyrdom. The witness-bearing is lost sight of, except we can suppose that "a martyr to the toothache" means a witness of the fact of the toothache and its tortures. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... found in all centres of commerce, and spreading from them among the uneducated urban populations. The persecution of Nero was directed against obscure people, vaguely known as a sort of Jews, and the martyrdom of the two great apostles was an incident that passed without remark and almost without notice. Tacitus dismisses the Christians in a few careless words, and evidently classes the new religion with other base Oriental superstitions as hardly worth serious mention. The well-known ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... nominal and actual, away over here in Japan. Seven years later, however, government persecution began, Christianity was put under the ban, and so remained until eight years after our Civil War ended. Many Christians suffered martyrdom for their faith in this long period; and a few who escaped detection even secretly handed their faith down from father to son through all the long generations until tolerance ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... wrote him the letters that came, a fat sheaf of them, by every steamer; it was to her that he wrote in reply. It was for the sake of her and in the intention of making a home for her that through four years he had endured this imprisonment or this martyrdom or this whatever you may be pleased to call it, away off here on the opposite side of the world from her. She was saving and he was saving, both for a common purpose. Back there at home it cost her little to live, and out here it cost him less. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... another; and what he has no power, no authority, to dispose of? Can Pius VII. confer on Napoleon the First what belongs to Louis XVIII.? Would Jesus Christ, if upon earth, have acted thus? Would his immediate successors, the Apostles, not have preferred the suffering of martyrdom to the commission of any injury? If the present Roman pontiff acts differently from what his Master and predecessors would have done, can he be ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... long martyrdom went on, the summer was growing old, with the work of planting and cultivating almost done and the harvest soon to follow, and whatever his feelings may have been he had never flinched a single time. Nourished by his great labors the Ware farm far surpassed all others, ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... its picturesque features, all its lines and colours, undimmed by time; and his curious eyes had been open to things great and small. He appears as a brave soldier, but, he confesses, capable of mortal fear; sincerely devout, but not made for martyrdom; zealous for his master's cause, but not naturally a chaser of rainbow dreams; one who enjoys good cheer, who prefers his wine unallayed with water, who loves splendid attire, who thinks longingly of his pleasant chateau, and the children awaiting his return; one ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... adhere to his errors with perfect obstinacy. So much I have gathered of truth about this plain, noble human brother and father of ours; his imperfections are the traits of his face, by which we know him for our fellow; his martyrdom and his example nothing can lessen or annul; and only a person here on the spot can properly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sent to hell by a white man's hand. If Socrates was poisoned and Christ was crucified for telling unpalatable truths to the splenetic-hearted hypocrites of their time, it would ill become me to complain of a milder martyrdom for a like offense. It may be urged that having been twice accused of the heinous crime of slandering young ladies, and twice beset on that pretext by armed thugs, I owe it to myself to make some explanation satisfactory to the ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the surrounding territory, and were daily expected to sack the city. In this dire dilemma the Archbishop of Rouen offered himself as an ambassador to the pagans, in the hope that perhaps he might become an instrument in the hand of God to avert the impending doom. But if, as seemed more probable, martyrdom was in store for him, he was ready to face death without flinching. Rollo, however, who could honor courage even in an enemy, received him courteously, and after a brief negotiation pledged himself, in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... With a wild rage her executioners seized her for the purpose of tearing out her tongue. And when that was accomplished, and her husband and son had suffered a similar martyrdom, all three were placed upon a kibitka, to be conveyed ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... the personal friend of John o' Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of the King Edward who had given him the living, and probably the most powerful man in England next to the king, he would inevitably have suffered martyrdom. He was equally fortunate in the following reign, as John o' Gaunt was uncle to Richard II, the reigning monarch, under whose protection he was spared to finish his great work and to translate the Holy Bible so that it could be read in ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... chronicles we learn, An old Hidalgo proud and taciturn, Whose name has perished, with his towers of stone, And all his actions save this one alone; This one, so terrible, perhaps 'twere best If it, too, were forgotten with the rest; Unless, perchance, our eyes can see therein The martyrdom triumphant o'er the sin; A double picture, with its gloom and glow, The splendor ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Any other child, but myself, would have succumbed to such constant martyrdom, but I grew up, and the more I grew, the prettier and more desirable I became, so that when I was fifteen, men were already beginning to write love letters to me, and to throw bouquets to me in the arena. I felt also that all the men in the company were watching ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the sensuous Oriental masterpiece at the club and saw no reason why the possessor of such a particular talent could be expected to succeed in a bank. He shook his head; no member of another sect—no heretical Viennese—should share his martyrdom with him. This left Prochnow free to rush upon the lions on his own account. Little O'Grady, returning to the Rabbit-Hutch, found his neighbour's loins fully girded for the task—the fine frenzy of inspiration had already ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... mustn't forget that reformers risk martyrdom. However, you can't be too honest for me; I am ready to sign any pledge you offer, even though it prohibit paint, putty and all other cloaks for poverty, ignorance ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... dungeon, there to remain till the day fixed for the next auto-da-fe, at which he was to suffer the extreme penalty inflicted by the Inquisition. He was among those who suffered on the day already described, when Don Carlo de Seso received the crown of martyrdom. Though he boasted of no exalted rank or lineage, yet, bold in the faith, he died as bravely ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... kept him from being present at the death-scene. 'The villanie of the rebells proceeding now so far as to trie, condemne and murder our excellent King on the 30th of this month, struck me with such horror that I kept the day of his martyrdom a fast, and would not be present at that execrable wickednesse, receiving the sad account of it from my Brother George and Mr. Owen, who came to visite me this afternoone, and ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Inconnu, though they will no doubt recognize that even in the first two named members of these pairs the Balzacian quality, that of magnifying and rendering grandiose, is present, and that the martyrdom of Eugenie, the avarice of her father, the blind self-devotion of Goriot to his thankless and worthless children, would not be what they are if they were seen through a perfectly achromatic ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... be deceived by the calm smile on his face. For six weeks Charles Maree has been undergoing an almost continual martyrdom, his pelvis fractured, with all the consequences one divines, weakened by hemorrhage, his back broken, capable only of moving his head and arms.... He is one of our most fervent Christians: I bring him the communion ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Suffragettes who chained themselves with iron chains to the railings of Downing Street is a good ironical allegory of most modern martyrdom. It generally consists of a man chaining himself up and then complaining that he is not free. Some say that such larks retard the cause of female suffrage, others say that such larks alone can advance it; as a matter of fact, I do ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... shows The world's deceitfulness, to all who hear him, Is, with the sight of all the good that is, Blest there. The limbs, whence it was driven, lie Down in Cieldauro; and from martyrdom And exile came it ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... the immensity of Paintings, Mosaic and Statuary I have seen here, representing St. Peter in Prison, St. Peter on the Sea of Galilee, St. Peter healing the Cripple, St. Peter raising the Dead, St. Peter receiving the Keys, St. Peter suffering Martyrdom, &c. &c. (some of them many times over), I have any where met with a representation of that most remarkable and beneficent vision whereby the Apostle was instructed from Heaven that "Of a truth, I perceive that God ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... son, who seemed to inherit all that was noblest and best in his father's nature—pined for his mother. The man endured a martyrdom worse than the agony of Damiens, the slow tortures of La Barre. What had befallen her? That she could desert him or his child was a possibility that never shaped itself in his mind. That drop of poison was happily wanting in his cup; ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Otho III is a striking picture. The subject has that touch of repulsive cruelty which was a sign of the times. Hans Memling's Martyrdom of St. Sebastian is another treasure; with his portraits of a man, of Guillaume Morel and of Barbara de Vlandenberg making an immortal quartet. The head of the man is the favourite in reproduction. Morel is portrayed as in prayer, his hands clasped, his expression rapt. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... asked, if better means of escape were not at hand, was there no drowning left? Ruins cried, 'Look here, and see what We are, wedded to uncongenial Time!' Animals, opposed by nature, worried one another, as a moral to them. Loves and Cupids took to flight afraid, and Martyrdom had no such torment in its painted ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... with her mouth full of pins is to me a perfect miracle. Once or twice in the week I have to endure a certain ordeal which, although a positive pleasure to some women, is to my disposition intense martyrdom, termed dressing to go out; and I think I never hated it more than the night of Lady Horsingham's ball. Lady Horsingham is my poor uncle's widow; and as Aunt Deborah is extremely punctilious on all matters relating to family connections, we invariably attend these ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... Samoa four of them have stations; they have introduced the gospel to the Maniiki group; and in Western Polynesia they have successfully preached the truth in the language of the inhabitants, and braved, and several have suffered, martyrdom for the gospel's sake. What should you suppose is the total expense of instructing, clothing, feeding, and lodging these most valuable missionaries? Only five pounds a year; while the entire outlay of their providing for twenty students does not amount to the sum of three pounds a week, or less ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... certain class. Like Bluebeard's wife, he may see everything, but is bidden TO BEWARE OF THE BLUE CHAMBER. Robert is more wise than Bluebeard's wife, and knows that it would cost him his head to enter it. Robert, therefore, keeps aloof for the moment. Would there be any use in his martyrdom? Bluebeard cannot live for ever; perhaps, even now, those are on their way (one sees a suspicious cloud of dust or two) that are ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as the year 1530, rendered memorable by that sensational, and, of its kind, triumphant achievement, The Martyrdom of St. Peter the Dominican, we must retrace our steps some three years in order to dwell a little upon an incident which must appear of vital importance to those who seek to understand Titian's life, and, above all, to follow the development of his art during ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... left an ineffaceable mark on the national life. The Bāb, it is true, again and again expresses his repugnance to the 'lies' of the Ṣufis, and the Bābīs are not behind him; but there are traces enough of the influence of Ṣufism on the new Prophet and his followers. The passion for martyrdom seems of itself to presuppose a tincture of Ṣufism, for it is the most extreme form of the passion for God, and to love God fervently but steadily in preference to all the pleasures of the phenomenal world, ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... of course, was for a time impossible. Martyrdom was followed by canonization, and the popular heart could not be blamed for overflowing in hyperbole. The fallen chief "was Washington, he was Moses, and there were not wanting even those who likened him to the God and Redeemer of all the earth. These latter thought they discovered ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... universe. And then I remembered the stake and the cross-roads, and the queer fact that Christianity had shown this weird harshness to the suicide. For Christianity had shown a wild encouragement of the martyr. Historic Christianity was accused, not entirely without reason, of carrying martyrdom and asceticism to a point, desolate and pessimistic. The early Christian martyrs talked of death with a horrible happiness. They blasphemed the beautiful duties of the body: they smelt the grave afar off like a field of flowers. All this has seemed to many the very ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... for resisting decline, or producing recovery. In such a period despair wins control. The philosophy is pessimistic. The world is supposed to be coming to an end. Life is not valued. Ascetic practices fall in with the prevailing temper. Martyrdom has no great terrors; such as it has can be overcome by a little enthusiasm. Inroads of barbarians only add a little to the other woes, or hasten an end which is inevitable and is expected with resignation. At such a time ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... the masses, and even competent authorities. The natural cowardice of men often makes them shut their eyes to avoid nuisances, and causes them to take no action against the most dangerous monsters, and especially against those who are most mischievous by their pens. This is why the martyrdom of unfortunate women and children illtreated by chronic alcoholics, sadists and other neuropaths or psychopaths, never comes to an end, owing to the stupid outcry against ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... to be an intellectual, to be able to rail at the base imbecile public in exquisitely select Bloomsbury coteries, he had so resolutely determined to be a martyr, to sacrifice himself on the altar of pure art, and somehow Mr. T.S. Eliot and martyrdom were as far off as ever. After all, he had given up 5,000 pounds a year and V.C.'s and happy endings. Was it his fault if he was making more money than ever and the inner circles of the unread elect seemed more firmly ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... representations let this be remembered, by those who object to our statement as austere and contracted) was such as it has been delineated in the present work. This was the Religion of the most eminent Reformers, of those bright ornaments of our country who suffered martyrdom under queen Mary; of their successors in the times of Elizabeth; in short of all the pillars of our Protestant church; of many of its highest dignitaries; of Davenant, of Hall, of Reynolds, of Beveridge, of Hooker, of Andrews, of Smith, of Leighton, of Usher, of Hopkins, of Baxter[110], ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... Is it not martyrdom that I for thine estrangement dree, Seeing, indeed, I cannot live, if thou depart from me? Is there no judge, in Love its law, to judge betwixt us twain, to do me justice on thy head and take my wreak ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... but what he said now she neither heard nor cared. Her martyrdom could hardly suffer augmentation, the whole world seemed against her, she set apart, pilloried.—But not alone. Faircloth was set apart, pilloried, also. And remembering this, her courage revived. The horror of the crowd lifted. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... fervid William Law, "is both atheist and idolater; atheist, because it rejects God; idolater, because it is its own idol." Even when this lowest expression of the preservative instinct rises but to the height of sex-love, it renounces self, and rejoices in martyrdom. "All for love, or the world well lost," has been the motto of too many tragedies to be doubted now. By the side of the ancient Roman or the soldier of the French revolution, who through mere love of country marched ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... you I did next? Got out my embroidery-material bag, and put it in order for action at a moment's warning. I was prepared for a reasonable amount of martyrdom pertaining to my profession, but I was always an economist of time, and not another unemployed hour would I yield to the selfish demands of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... memorials of the piety, wisdom, and devotedness of the martyr Renwick, it appears desirable to present a brief sketch of his personal history—to notice the particular time in which he laboured, and the principles for which he contended,—his martyrdom, character, and the distinct and honourable position assigned him in the great work of maintaining and advancing the Redeemer's cause in ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... sister's fate to be born in the second or third century A.D., as the daughter of a reigning prince or some governor or pro-consul in Asia Minor. She would undoubtedly have been one of those who would endure martyrdom and would have smiled when they branded her bosom with hot pincers. And she would have gone to it of herself. And in the fourth or fifth century she would have walked away into the Egyptian desert and would have ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... would be carefully attended; and he also endeavoured to reason with him on the absurdity of his self-assumed mission, assuring him that unless he desisted, and behaved with circumspection, he would inevitably be seized by the Inquisition. But the prospect of Martyrdom augmented his zeal; and the representations of the benevolent Catholic only stimulated his enterprise; so that in the course of a few days, much to his own exceeding great joy, and with many comfortable salutations ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... employed to muddy the stream, as it became painful to contemplate what was at the bottom of it. By his exclusion, therefore, from Parliament, he was, perhaps, seasonably saved from affording to that "Folly, which loves the martyrdom of Fame," [Footnote: "And Folly loves ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... was to be burned, the jailer saw a rare, sweet smile upon his face. "What is it?" the guard asked. "I hear the sounds of falling chains, and their clangor is like sweet music in my ears." Then, with smiling face he went to his martyrdom. And here is Michael Angelo. Grown old and blind, he gropes his way into the gallery of the Vatican, where with uplifted face his fingers feel their way over the torso of Phidias. Lingering by him one day the Cardinal Farnese ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... agency in her kidnapping. It is not your fault that my wife did not die of the poison you gave her to swallow, but only that the wind and rain revived her when she lay out in the road where you had her placed, believing her dead, with her lips sealed to your part in the martyrdom. ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller |
