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Inquisitor   /ɪnkwˈɪzətər/   Listen
Inquisitor

noun
1.
A questioner who is excessively harsh.  Synonym: interrogator.
2.
An official of the ecclesiastical court of the Inquisition.



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"Inquisitor" Quotes from Famous Books



... occasion. It had given occasion, first and last, to tyrannies and sufferings enough, Newman said to himself; it was an evil-looking place to live in. Then, suddenly, came the reflection—What a horrible rubbish-heap of iniquity to fumble in! The attitude of inquisitor turned its ignobler face, and with the same movement Newman declared that the Bellegardes should have another chance. He would appeal once more directly to their sense of fairness, and not to their fear, and if they should be accessible ...
— The American • Henry James

... You have been doing so well. Why have you suddenly slacked off?" asked her inquisitor, who believed in getting to the bottom of things if a girl shirked ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil

... boy, if you please, Mr. Vivian," returned the little inquisitor. "And have you got the ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... a third room before I had a chance even to bid good-bye to the examiners in the second, I found myself standing before a small desk answering questions about myself and my business asked tersely by an inquisitor who read from a lengthy paper which had to be filled in, and behind whom stood three officers in uniform. These occasionally interpolated questions and always glared into my very heart. When I momentarily looked away from their riveted eyes it was only to be held transfixed by the scrutinising orbs ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... town. It was evident that the Virgin had instigated me to throw over the image, as the only means of stopping the leak. The friars of the nearest convent claimed the image from their propinquity, and came down to the ship in grand procession to carry it to their church. The grand inquisitor, hearing the circumstance, acknowledged to the bishop and heads of the clergy my intrepid behaviour in the hall of judgment: and not three hours after the ship had been hauled on shore, I was visited in my dungeon by the grand inquisitor, the bishop, and ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... that you went to Mrs Hadwin's to see Mr Wentworth?" asked that unlucky inquisitor, with a world of horror in ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... record a new adversary to Jeanne, the most bitter and implacable of all; the next day, May 26, 1430, without the loss of an hour, a letter was addressed to the Burgundian camp from the capital. Quicherat speaks of it as a letter from the Inquisitor or vicar-general of the Inquisition, written by the officials of the University; others tell us that an independent letter was sent from the University to second that of the Inquisitor. The University we may add was not a university like one of ours, or like any existing ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... how the dark arts and secret ceremonies of the Nagualists escaped the prying eyes of the officers of the Holy Inquisition, which was established in Mexico in 1571. The answer is, that the inquisitors were instructed by Cardinal Diego de Espinosa, who at that time was Inquisitor General and President of the Council of the Indies, "to abstain from proceedings against Indians, because of their stupidity and incapacity, as well as scant instruction in the Holy Catholic faith, for the crimes of heresy, apostasy, heretical ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton

... Georgia notions of it? Or that of the Greeks by the Turks, by Turkish opinions of it? Or that of the Jews by almost all nations, by the judgment of their persecutors? Or that of the victims of the Inquisition, by the opinions of the Inquisitor general, or of the Pope and his cardinals? Or that of the Quakers and Baptists, at the hands of the Puritans,—to be judged of by the opinions of the legislatures that authorized, and the courts that carried it into effect. All those classes of persons did not, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... earnest, but it ended leaving all the disputants holding the same views that they had entertained at the outset. Beza condemned as idolatrous the practice of admitting statues or paintings into Christian churches, and urged their entire removal. The Inquisitor De Mouchy, Fra Giustiniano of Corfu, Maillard, dean of the Sorbonne, and others, attempted to refute his positions in a style of argument which exhibited the extremes of profound learning and silly conceit. Bishop Montluc of Valence,[12] and ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... the same proud cast of features. But here the resemblance stopped. The expression was wholly different. He looked melancholy enough, it is true. But his gloom appeared to be occasioned by remorse, rather than sorrow. No sterner head was ever beheld beneath the cowl of a monk, or the bonnet of an inquisitor. He seemed inexorable, and inscrutable ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... rhetoric of the squire; and it being agreed that Western should close with Allworthy that very afternoon, the lover departed home, having first earnestly begged that no violence might be offered to the lady by this haste, in the same manner as a popish inquisitor begs the lay power to do no violence to the heretic delivered over to it, and against whom the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... understanding of, or giving credence to, the message that tells us who He is and what He has done. A man may have not the ghost of a doubt or hesitation about one tittle of revealed truth, and if you were to cross-question him, could answer satisfactorily all the questions of an orthodox inquisitor, and yet there may not be one faintest flicker of faith in that man's whole being, for all the correctness of his creed, and the comprehensiveness of it, too. Trust is more than assent. If it is a Person on whom our faith leans, then from that there follows clearly enough that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... of Puritan infallibility was the last thing to which he was likely to submit. His mother would have wished him to sit under Cartwright and Travers. The friend of his choice was the Anglican preacher, Dr. Andrewes, to whom he submitted all his works, and whom he called his "inquisitor general;" and he was proud to sign himself the pupil of Whitgift, and to write for him—the archbishop of whom Lady Bacon wrote to her son Antony, veiling the dangerous sentiment in Greek, "that he was the ruin of the Church, for he loved his own ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... of the well-trained Spanish troops kept them in awe. The sermon—if a fierce harangue composed of invectives against simple Christianity could so be called— was brought to a conclusion; and now, in a loud voice, the presiding Inquisitor asked the accused for the last time whether they would recant and make confession of their sins, promising them absolution and a sure entrance into heaven, with a more easy death than the terrible one to which they were condemned. The gag was ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... saints, of which I sometimes hear in conversation, but with whom, I am glad to say, I have no personal acquaintance. Then you might ascribe to me a more deadly craft than mere quibbling and lying; in Spain I should have been an Inquisitor, with my rack in the background; I should have had a concealed dagger in Sicily; at Venice I should have brewed poison; in Turkey I should have been the Sheik-el-Islam with my bowstring; in Khorassan I should have ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... carriage rattled on towards the city of strife, where Jew, Goth and Roman, Moor and Inquisitor, have all had their day. Estella was silent, drooping with fatigue. The General alone seemed unmoved and heedless of the heat—a man of steel, as bright and ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... inquisitor, that I do not enter politics of my own volition. In pushing myself in this unexpected manner into the electoral breach, I merely follow an inspiration that has been made to me. A ray of light has come into my darkness; ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... Assault his ears: then those, whom form of laws Condemn'd to die, when traitors judg'd their cause. Nor want they lots, nor judges to review The wrongful sentence, and award a new. Minos, the strict inquisitor, appears; And lives and crimes, with his assessors, hears. Round in his urn the blended balls he rolls, Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls. The next, in place and punishment, are they Who prodigally throw their souls away; Fools, who, repining at their wretched state, And ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... distinction was made between men and women, and both seem to have suffered alike at the hands of these cruel ministers of the Church. In 1498, for the first time, it was decreed that men and women held under arrest by order of the inquisitor should be provided with separate prisons, and it is easy to imagine from this one statement that Isabella must have been very much of a bigot, or she could not have allowed so flagrant an abuse to exist ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... conversation the invalid can bear, if the case is one of great pain, or (what often makes undue length even more irksome) great weakness. We need an insight into the best side of approach to conscience, or to will. We need the skill which knows how to question enough, but not too much, not as the inquisitor but as the helper. Many another matter will call for sanctified common-sense in the sick-room; a restful voice, easy, quiet movements, and the like. And let me say that where you are visiting a chronic case, and need to call again and again, if a day and hour for the next visit is mentioned ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... more serious was the beloved apologist of the Church, Ozanam, the inquisitor of the Christian language. Although he was very difficult to understand, Des Esseintes never failed to be astonished by the insouciance of this writer, who spoke confidently of God's impenetrable designs, although he ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... due self-respect, did she go through Dame Jacoba's inquisition. For my part I should have lost patience all too soon, if I had thus been questioned touching matters concerning myself alone; but Ann kept calm till the end, and at the same time she spoke as openly as though the inquisitor had been her own mother. This, in truth, somewhat moved me to fear; for, albeit I likewise cling to the truth, meseemed it showed it a lack of prudence and foresight to discover so freely and frankly all that was poor or lacking in her home; inasmuch as there was much, even there, which could ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... establish a tribunal, under the name of the general inquisition (general inquisicion suprema). This was opened in Seville, 1481. Thomas de Torquenada, prior of the Dominican convent at Segovia, father-confessor to Mendoza, had been appointed first grand inquisitor by the king and queen, in 1478. The peaceful teachings of the meek and lowly Jesus do not seem to have had much influence on this political Boanerges. He had two hundred familiars, and a guard of fifty horsemen, ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... year of our Lord, one thousand two hundred and seventy-one, before me, Hierome Cornille, grand inquisitor and ecclesiastical judge (thereto commissioned by the members of the chapter of Saint Maurice, the cathedral of Tours, having of this deliberated in the presence of our Lord Jean de Montsoreau, archbishop—namely, the grievances and complaints of the inhabitants of the said ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... or any like craft invented by the Devil." In 1563 the King of Sweden carried four witches with him, as a part of his armament, to aid him in his wars with the Danes. In 1576, seventeen or eighteen were condemned in Essex, in England. A single judge or inquisitor, Remigius, condemned and burned nine hundred within fifteen years, from 1580 to 1595, in the single district of Lorraine; and as many more fled out of the country; whole villages were depopulated, and fifteen persons destroyed themselves rather ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... of demonstrating the truth more clearly, my youthful inquisitor, and that is by sending you on a voyage of exploration. Are you willing to make ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... actually left the body would do much to explain the phenomena, and I was very eager to push toward this demonstration. I had now been her chief inquisitor for nearly thirty sittings, and had developed (apparently) the power to throw her into trance almost instantly. A few moments of monotonous humming, intoned while my hand rested upon hers, generally sufficed to bring the first stage of her trance. As we had been sitting for half ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... such extraordinary exclamations?"—To this no answer. "Why do you refuse to explain the meaning of those exclamations?"—No answer. "Why do you persist in this obstinate and dangerous silence? Look, I beseech you, brother, at the cross that is suspended against this wall," and the Inquisitor pointed to the large black crucifix at the back of the chair where he sat; "one drop of the blood shed there can purify you from all the sin you have ever committed; but all that blood, combined with the intercession ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... He guessed at once that it would not do for him to betray the fact that suddenly he realized how completely he had been snared. Yet his trepidation must have communicated itself, for Storch leaned forward with the diabolical air of an inquisitor ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... instance occurred in 1450, when the Church had begun to use its power systematically against the witches. 'The Inquisitor of Como, Bartolomeo de Homate, the podesta Lorenzo da Carorezzo, and the notary Giovanni da Fossato, either out of curiosity or because they doubted the witches whom they were trying, went to a place of assembly at Mendrisio and witnessed ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... committed to the flames. Only the Nero of the last part of the Annals, or the Tiberius of the first six books of that work, can properly stand forth, in his persecuting spirit, as the counterpart of the Dominican, John de Torquemada, who, in the performance of his duty, as the Inquisitor General in Spain, proceeded against upwards of 100,000 persons, 6,000 of whom he ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... V. listened to the representations of the Duchess of Parma, and abandoned this perilous resolve. The tribunal, therefore, was ordered not to interfere with the foreign merchants, and the title of Inquisitor was changed unto the milder appellation of Spiritual Judge. But in the other provinces that tribunal proceeded to rage with the inhuman despotism which has ever been peculiar to it. It has been computed ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... had gathered round Medallion. The auctioneer, who liked the unique thing and was not without tact, having the gift of humour, took on himself the office of inquisitor, even as there rose again little snatches of "Vive Napoleon" from the crowd. He approached Valmond, who was moving on towards the Louis Quinze, with appreciation ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... sermons and to deliver up all their Hebrew books to be burnt, except the Old Testament. When Reuchlin's aid in this pious project was requested it was refused in a memorial dated October 6, 1510, pointing out the great value of much Hebrew literature. The Dominicans of Cologne, headed by their inquisitor, James Hochstraten, made this the ground for a charge of heresy. The case was appealed to Rome, and the trial, lasting six years, excited the interest of all Europe. In Germany it was argued with much heat in ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... could be as selfish as Oxford was, and could act the double part as skilfully as ambidextrous Churchill. He whose talk was always of liberty, no more shrunk from using persecution and the pillory against his opponents than if he had been at Lisbon and Grand Inquisitor. This lofty patriot was on his knees at Hanover and St. Germains too; notoriously of no religion, he toasted Church and Queen as boldly as the stupid Sacheverel, whom he used and laughed at; and to serve his turn, and to overthrow his enemy, he could intrigue, coax, bully, wheedle, fawn on the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... were found in your locker," returned the inquisitor coldly, "and they couldn't have got there of their own accord. Some one put them there. If you didn't, ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport

... case is still considered one of his masterpieces of legal acumen and eloquence. His cross-examination of Goodridge rivalled, in mental torture, every thing martyrologists tell us of the physical agony endured by the victim of the inquisitor, when roasted before slow fires or stretched upon the rack. Still it seemed impossible to assign any motive for the self-robbery and the self-maiming of Goodridge, which any judge or jury would accept as reasonable. The real motive has never been ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... the world. To the little work of Boturini on Mexico there are appended, 1. The declaration of his faith in the Roman Catholic Church in the most unequivocal terms. 2. The license of the Jesuit father. 3. The license of an Inquisitor. 4. The license of the Judge of the Supreme Council of the Indias. 5. The license of the Royal Council of the Indias. 6. The approbation of the "qualificator" of the Inquisition, who was a bare-footed Carmelite monk. 7. The license of the Royal Council of Castile. ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... said then, "it is a little hard to pass from one inquisitor to another—but I must hand you over to ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... suggest. Of course this remark only increased the squire's wrath, and he proceeded to pronounce sentence upon the unlucky youth, which was that he should be taken to the finished room in the attic, and confined there under bolts and bars till the inquisitor should further ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... he answered his inquisitor. "I have known absolutely nothing of any will affecting Dorothy, and I know nothing now. I only know you can rely upon me to fight her battles to the full extent ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... some friends," replied her ladyship haughtily. "Since when have you decided to become an inquisitor, my lord?" ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... best days and best energies, in bruising with my iron heel the head of the serpent of heresy? Why, even that Philip, for some toy of a mass neglected or an ave forgotten, will perchance give me over to the tender questioning of his grand inquisitor, as the shortest possible answer to my pretensions to a crown,—while the arrogant nobility of Spain, when roused from their apathy towards me by tidings of another Lepanto, a fresh Tunis, will exclaim with modified gratification—'There ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... nice, dry, cheerful sort of place to meet your cousin in, too; uncommon lively; hope it'll raise his spirits to see all his cousins a-grinning there; his spirits don't seem much in sorts now," continued the ruthless inquisitor, with a glance at the "keeper's tree" by which they stood, in the middle of dank undergrowth, whose branches were adorned with dead cats, curs, owls, kestrels, stoats, weasels, and martens. To what issue ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... have had something in their hearts for which it was worth while to die. At Aviguonet, that little grey town on the crag above the railway, they burst into the place, maddened by the cruelties of the Inquisitor (an archdeacon, if I recollect rightly, from Toulouse), and slew him then and there. They were shut up in the town, and withstood heroically a long and miserable siege. At last they were starved ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... Chacon was his name,—a man, it would seem, like poor Kaiser Joseph of Austria, born before his time. Among his many honourable deeds, let this one at least be remembered; that he turned out of Trinidad, the last Inquisitor who ever entered it. ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... also of a reproof, but of one administered by a worthy man, who lived the secular life, to a greedy religious, by a jibe as merry as admirable. Know then, dear ladies, that there was in our city, not long ago, a friar minor, an inquisitor in matters of heresy, who, albeit he strove might and main to pass himself off as a holy man and tenderly solicitous for the integrity of the Christian Faith, as they all do, yet he had as keen a scent for a ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... torture, furtively watching for some indication of what the Englishman wished him to say. A fellow new to these parts and ignorant, he would have sworn a highway to El Dorado itself if that was the point towards which his inquisitor's quiet, unemphatic questions tended; but he knew not, and his lies fell dead before the grave eyes of the man beneath the tree. At last he was tossed aside like a squeezed sponge and the Franciscan beckoned forward, who, being of sturdier make, twisted his thumbs in his rope girdle and prepared ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... the use of losing his temper and throwing away his place, and so, among the consequences which would necessarily follow, leaving the poor lady-teacher without a friend to stand by her ready to lay his hand on the grand-inquisitor before the windlass of his rack had ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... arrival, two or three representatives of opponent editors would call, and very courteously request to be allowed to turn me inside out, and then to report upon me: I only remember one or two cases (which I will not specify) wherein my inquisitor was not all I could have wished, or treated his patient victim more unkindly than perhaps a venial native humour might make necessary. Almost always the scribes were fair and gentlemanly. And in next morning's papers ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... familiar with the platform on which I stand. Not being a card player, and knowing absolutely nothing of the technicalities of the game, I am at a loss whether or not to look for an implication of underhand work in the phrase chosen by the inquisitor. If she means that I have kept aught back which that part of the reading public that does me the honor to be interested in my work has a right to know, I hope in the course of this paper to disabuse ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... be, for I answered most of the questions!" she exclaimed, and then, seeing no response in her inquisitor, she added soberly: "It's all set out in the catalogue and I have one with me. I'd be glad to bring it over if ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... he had to him, yer might say," he said, groping for words to answer the high-vested inquisitor. "Like a child like. Never scolded yer wunst.... Just up and give yer ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... a fortune left you?" went on her inquisitor, blinking enviously at the nodding plumes which shaded Miss Philura's blue eyes. "Everybody says you have; and that you are going to get married soon. I'm sure you'll ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley

... dusty cobwebs and the mould in the cellars of some ancient castle in Italy, France or England? This is the dust of centuries. Perhaps it touched the faces, helmets and swords of a Roman Augustus, St. Louis, the Inquisitor, Galileo or King Richard. Your heart is involuntarily contracted and you feel a respect for these witnesses of elapsed ages. This same impression came to me in Ta Kure, perhaps more deep, more realistic. Here life flows on almost as it flowed eight centuries ago; here man lives only in the past; ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... stared at him, And found, less to your pleasure than surprise, He seemed to know you and expect as much. So, next time that a neighbor's tongue was loosed, It marked the shameful and notorious fact, We had among us, not so much a spy, As a recording chief-inquisitor, The town's true master if the town but knew 40 We merely kept a governor for form, While this man walked about and took account Of all thought, said and acted, then went home, And wrote it fully to our Lord the King Who has an itch to know things, he knows why, And reads them in his bedroom ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... to be haunted by a terror of me, which alternated every now and then with defiance. She meditated continually how the incubus could be shaken off her life—how she could be freed from this hateful bond to a being whom she at once despised as an imbecile, and dreaded as an inquisitor. For a long while she lived in the hope that my evident wretchedness would drive me to the commission of suicide; but suicide was not in my nature. I was too completely swayed by the sense that I was in the grasp ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot

... he flee?" asked the merciless inquisitor. "No peer of the realm hath aught to fear if he be innocent of ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... the influence of alien religions and races, which should accordingly occupy in the Russian monarchy a position subordinate to that of the dominant nation. The ideas of this fanatic reactionary, who was dubbed "The Grand Inquisitor" and whose name was popularly changed into Byedonostzev [1] carried the day at the Gatchina conferences. The deliberations culminated in the decision to refrain from making any concessions to the revolutionary element by granting reforms, however however modest in character, and ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... followed a venerable gentleman along the banks of a mill-stream, armed at all points with piscatorial paraphernalia, looking out for some appropriate spot, with all the coolness of a Spanish inquisitor, displaying his various instruments of refined torture. He at last perched himself near the troubled waters, close to the huge revolving wheel, and threw in his float, which danced upon the mimic waves, and bobbed up ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... half year, taxes on five hundred head of cattle, whereas it is claimed that his holdings will amount to about five thousand, yearly average. In view of this ridiculously low return it seems incumbent upon me to appoint an inquisitor, whose duty——" ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... inquisitor for a moment; then he explained with patient politeness: "These were not carnivorous ducks. They ate bugs and ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... torn away from her by men in black, who roughly choked her screams. I was dragged off, thrown into a foul cell, left many days. Then, one night, I was dragged forth and brought before a grim tribunal in a hall of gloom and horror. They pronounced my doom—Death. The chief Inquisitor raised his mask, and in those ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... the choir, hastened to take possession of the seat abandoned by the worthy Tourainean. Having done so, he quickly hid his face among the plumes of his tall gray cap, kneeling upon the chair with an air of contrition that even an inquisitor would have trusted. ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac

... the police," she said, the softness gone suddenly out of her voice. "You are an honorable man, m'sieu. Your hand is against all wrong. Is it not so?" It was the voice of an inquisitor. She was ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... was at his wit's end to supply a hypothesis to answer why the mulierose man, from being a criminal and object of the lady's just wrath, should suddenly have become an inquisitor, sitting in judgment ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... "You must not turn inquisitor. I have not, however, offended against you, therefore you will come to see me again. Shall we say to-morrow? I seem to feel as if Oaklands and Mr. Winthrop were brought near to me when ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... affection, confidence and tenderness. Jeanne did not tell him about her new ideas, and her friendship for the Abb Tolbiac. The first time he saw the priest he conceived a great aversion to him. And when Jeanne asked him that evening how he liked him, he replied: "That man is an inquisitor! He ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... religious sects tolerated among us, of which every one has found opponents and vindicators, is another source of unexhaustible publication, almost peculiar to ourselves; for controversies cannot be long continued, nor frequently revived, where an inquisitor has a right to shut up the disputants in dungeons; or where silence can be imposed on either party, by the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... M'Clutchy, and thus the gaze continued for nearly a minute between them, and that with such steadiness on both sides, that they resembled a mesmeric doctor and his patient, rather than anything else to which we could compare them. On the part of M'Clutchy the gaze was that of an inquisitor looking into the heart of him whom he suspected; on that of Darby, the eye, unconscious of evil, betrayed nothing but the purest simplicity ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... A sulphur-yellow inquisitor, of a more insinuating manner than the former participant in their conversation, who had been examining the message on his own account, flew to the top of ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... later writers, that remained to the end the main motive of the rack and of the stake. Personally I find it hard to suppose that some such consideration in any way lightened the last hours of the victim, but at least it enlightens our judgment of the inquisitor. Heresy was to him, quite honestly, a form of lunacy. Public opinion agreed with him. It was a species of moral and mental hydrophobia, and the mass of men no more desired to be converted to heresy than we desire to be bitten by mad ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... could do; and it was as unwise as it was unworthy. The strength of his own case before the public was that he could be made to appear as the victim of a personal and partisan attack; yet on the first opportunity he acts in the spirit of an inquisitor, and that not in fair conflict with some one worthy of his hostility, but to wreak an injury, in a matter of private interest, on an individual, in no way known to him or opposed to him, except as ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... broke down, he was brought by sea to Edinburgh in stormy November weather which kept the ship a fortnight on its way. A dying man when he was put in the Tolbooth, he yet had to undergo many exhausting examinations and a farcical trial, with "Bluidy Mackenzie" for chief inquisitor, and on Christmas Eve, 1684, he gallantly and cheerfully met a martyr's death at the ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... was still blinking at him, trying to comprehend the exact status of Hiram's belief, that forceful inquisitor, who had been holding his victim in check with upraised ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... the game had begun prosperously, with Christian as the Witch of Endor, and John as a blend of the Prophet Samuel and the Head Inquisitor of Spain. A smouldering saucer of sulphur, purloined by the witch herself from the kennels medicine-cupboard, gave a stimulating reality to the scene, even though it had driven the fox terriers, who habitually acted as the Witch's cats, to abandon their parts, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... inquisitor, Jacques Dubois, doctor in theology, dean of Notre Dame at Arras, ordered the arrest of Levite the artist, and made him confess he had attended the 'Vauldine;' that he had seen there many people, men and women, burghers, ecclesiastics, ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... Cotswolds, pass your hand along the back, Fleeces fit for stuffing the Lord Chancellor's woolsack! For premiums e'en 'Inquisitor' would own these wethers are fit, If you want to purchase good uns you must go to ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... sped, and when at the end of a year I sought that infant cherished, That highly respectable Gondolier Was lying a corpse on his humble bier— I dropped a Grand Inquisitor's tear— That ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert

... material in it for two or three plays. The double intrigue of love and politics becomes toward the end very confusing. The confusion is increased by the unexpected turn given to the character of Posa, and reaches a climax when we learn from the Grand Inquisitor that he has been pulling all the strings from first to last, and that the entire tragedy was foreordained in the secret archives of the Holy Office. The unity of interest is marred by the fact that in ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... excited some surprise and remark on the part of those who observed it. The dog's acute powers of smell detected the presence of some person in the box: fortunately, however, for the Dead Man, the owner of the four-legged inquisitor, having transacted his business, called the animal away, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... honourable Member for Oldham (Mr Cobbett.), who would make the Jews incapable of holding land? And why stop at the point fixed by the honourable Member for Oldham rather than at the point which would have been fixed by a Spanish Inquisitor of the sixteenth century? When once you enter on a course of persecution, I defy you to find any reason for making a halt till you have reached the extreme point. When my honourable friend tells us ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... this very quietly, but the value of this work will never be estimated or known. Sir Colin Campbell—afterwards Lord Clyde—who led the Highland brigade at the Battle of the Alma—called him the "Inquisitor General," a compliment, indeed; and to-day the veteran field-marshal, Lord William Paulet, never meets him without gripping his hand and exclaiming: "I'm glad to see you, Rawlinson—had it not been for you I shouldn't be ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... of some hunted creature on her face. Yes, they had hung her with chains and tied her to the stake. "If she is to pour here, after all," Eudoxia had said grimly, "let her pay for the privilege." And close to the girl's elbow sat the chief inquisitor, Robin Morrell, big, bold, unabashed, persevering, bringing all possible pressure to force her to recant. People about them—his unconscious familiars—sipped and chattered, and fluttered up and away, ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... groans; he heard their mutual cries. Inflamed by jealousy, he triumphed in his power of vengeance, and even prolonged the torture which accident had given him the means of inflicting. He stood like the inquisitor who marks his victim's anguish on the rack, and calculates his powers of further endurance. But he could no longer dally, even with this horrible gratification. His companion grew impatient. Eleanor's fair long tresses had escaped from their confinement in the struggle, and fell down her ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Ignatius heard many rumors connecting his name with that of Caceres and Peralta, and learned that he had been summoned before the judge. As he did not wish to remain in doubt, he went of his own accord to the Inquisitor, a Dominican friar. "I heard that I had been sought for, and I now present myself." During the conversation he asked the Inquisitor to terminate the matter speedily. He had determined to begin his course in arts on the approaching feast of St. Remigius, and therefore wished all other business completed ...
— The Autobiography of St. Ignatius • Saint Ignatius Loyola

... "You are accused," the inquisitor went on, "of being steeped in the errors of heresy; and of refusing to listen to the ministrations of the holy father, who tried to instruct you in the doctrines of the true church. What have you ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... I must now go to the Inquisition to be absolved from the dreadful sin of heresy, and return to the bosom of the church with the same ceremony to which Henry the Fourth was subjected by his ambassador. The air and manner of the right reverend Father Inquisitor was by no means calculated to dissipate the secret horror that seized my spirits on entering this holy mansion. After several questions relative to my faith, situation, and family, he asked me bluntly if my mother was ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... was no appeal from his judgment or his temper. "The man who speaks only what he knows is old in wisdom;" and turning he addressed the company in great dignity: "It doth appear that Rome approveth Fra Paolo's rendering and hath gravely censured the Inquisitor who hath cited him, commanding him to meddle only with that of ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... You know me not, and question me, And wonder that I answer not—not knowing My inquisitor. Explain what you would have, And then I'll satisfy yourself, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... maladies; in a word, with attending continually to public affairs, without wages or hope of salary! Do you know that I am called Florian Barbedienne, actual lieutenant to monsieur the provost, and, moreover, commissioner, inquisitor, controller, and examiner, with equal power in provostship, bailiwick, preservation, and inferior court ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... of them, is sufficient to inspire all men of sense and common humanity with a detestation for them, and a contempt for their author. This is not the language of a protestant writer, but of a furious blood-thirsty popish inquisitor. That he would be gladly invested with such a character, and that he would act most furiously and bloodily in it, is evident from his journals; but that he is only a private man, and even as such his influence small, is surely a happy ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous

... with chagrin. He had intended to play a cunning game with Red Bill, but the outlaw seemed to be capable of reading his mind. Steeling himself to be more careful in the future he awaited the further questions of his inquisitor. Upon the manner in which he answered them he felt that not alone his safety and Peggy's depended, but also the security and possibly the lives of the party in the ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... Cliffe asked what there might be about him that so forcibly suggested the Grand Inquisitor. Kitty, cigarette in hand, with half-shut eyes, did not answer immediately. She seemed to be perusing his face ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... more than in any other country in Europe, in consequence of the great wealth of their monasteries. He was able to render his master and the kingdom a great service, from the powers lavished upon him. He presided at convocations as the King's vicegerent; controlled the House of Commons, and was inquisitor-general of the monasteries; he was foreign and home secretary, vicar-general, and president of the star-chamber or privy-council. The proud Nevilles, the powerful Percies, and the noble Courtenays all bowed ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... which devotion has conceived. Will then devotion and conscience be sufficient for a noble manhood? Devotion and conscience alone developed, have ofttimes, in the days that are past, formed some stern old grand inquisitor, torturing the life out of human sinews because he ought. The grand inquisitor's devotion and conscience told him that he ought to advance the holy faith by every engine in his power, and therefore, as he considered that the rack, the ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop

... his arms across his chest and looked into the prosecutor's inflamed face. He seemed to erect between himself and his inquisitor in that simple movement an impenetrable shield, but he said nothing. Hammer was up, objecting, making the most of the opportunity. Captain Taylor rapped on the panel of the old oak door; the crouching figures in the crowd settled back to ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... who stood sponsor to him, are all told in an anonymous life of the saint, said to be written in the thirteenth century, and published by Quetif and Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum. Par. 1719. fol. t 1. p. 25. These writers deny his having been an inquisitor, and indeed the establishment of the inquisition itself before the fourth Lateran ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... always found means to be informed of everything, immediately knew of Brancas's projected journey, and determined to get the start of him. At once she had sixteen relays of mules provided upon the Bayonne road, and suddenly sent off to France, on Holy Thursday, Cardinal del Giudice, grand inquisitor and minister of state, who had this mean complaisance for her. She thus struck two blows at once; she got rid, at least for a time, of a Cardinal minister who troubled her, and anticipated Brancas, which in our ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... 1483, the object of which was to inquire of heretics whether they were willing to renounce their faith and accept Christianity. The head of this tribunal, which was soon followed by others in all the large cites, was a Dominican friar called Torquemada. He was known as the "Inquisitor General." Inaccessible to pity, mild in manners, humble in demeanor, yet swayed only by a sense of duty, this strange being was so cruel that he seems like an incarnation of the evil principle. At the tribunal in Seville alone it is said that in ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele

... and parcelling out the doles of food. Already these mothers were erecting the invisible roof-tree and drawing around them and theirs the circle of the hearth, even though it was a circle drawn only in hot, drifting ashes. The Bishop was an inquisitor kindly of eye and understanding of heart, but by no means to be evaded. Unsuspected stores of bread and beans and tinned meats came forth from nondescript bundles of clothing and were laid under his eye. It appeared that Arsene LaComb had stayed in his little provision store until the last moment ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... swiftly came the questions. Even yet no muscle of the inquisitor's body stirred; but in the black eyes a light new to the other man, ominous in ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... made to take up a position some distance from the table and immediately opposite the central figure who was acting as chairman and inquisitor-in-chief. The soldiers formed a semi-circle around me, the only open space being immediately ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... "I suppose I am to be held up as a tyrant, a Nero, a Richard the Third, or a Grand Inquisitor, merely for having things smart and tidy! Stocks indeed!—your friend Rickeybockey said he was never more comfortable in his life—quite enjoyed sitting there. And what did not hurt Rickeybockey's dignity (a very gentlemanlike ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... this question is to inform your inquisitor that so far as Great Britain is concerned the War has only just begun—began, in fact, on the first of July, 1916; when the British Army, equipped at last, after stupendous exertions, for a grand and ...
— Getting Together • Ian Hay

... standing with her hands behind her gripping the edge of the bureau; she gasped once or twice, and glanced first at one inquisitor and then at the other; her face whitened slowly. She was like some frightened creature at bay; indeed her agitation was so marked that Robert Ferguson's perplexity hardened into something like suspicion. "Can ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... Kirkstone, and at the thought his disgust went out against them both. In this humor he returned to McDowell's office. He stood before his chief, leaning toward him over the desk table. This time he was the inquisitor. ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood

... that moment, would he have been expected to mind his cards and deal them neatly? When a man is laid on the rack at the Inquisition, is it natural that he should smile and speak politely and coherently to the grave, quiet Inquisitor? Beyond that little question regarding the cards, Harry's Inquisitor did not show the smallest disturbance. Her face indicated neither surprise, nor triumph, nor cruelty. Madame Bernstein did not give ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... you in consideration of the above mentioned causes; and because my uncle, the inquisitor, Don Pedro Hurtado de Gabiria—who served for thirty years in the Inquisition of the Canarias, Granada, and Lograno, and in the royal Council as fiscal and inquisitor—having reared me until I was old enough to go to serve your Highness ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various

... death seven hundred persons and condemned five thousand more to severe penalties. [Footnote: Bernaldez, Hist. de los Reyes, chap. xliv., quoted by Mariejol, L'Espagne, 46.] One of the great councils of the realm was formed to direct its operations, at the head of which was the inquisitor-general. The third in the line of inquisitors-general extended the ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... a twenty-two hid around in your pocket nowhere?" the inquisitor pressed, with comically feigned surprise. Morgan denied the ownership of even a twenty-two. "I'll have to feel over you and see—I never saw a granger in my life that didn't tote a twenty-two," the Texan declared, stepping up to Morgan to put ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... its affairs. The third policeman had heard of it and sent me off with directions. Presently I went through an obscure doorway, traversed a mean hall with a dirty gas-jet at the turn and came before a wicket. A dark man with the blood of a Spanish inquisitor asked my business. I told him I was a poor student, without taint or heresy, who sought knowledge. He stroked his chin as though it were a monstrous improbability. He looked me up and down, but this ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... religious belonging to my province of Filipinas. The said rector acted as commissary of the Inquisition for the tribunal of Goa, as long as he was there; but when he was withdrawn those forts were left without any commissary. I gave testimony regarding that to the inquisitor-general, so that he on his part might procure from your Majesty the appointment for those forts of a minister—a matter so important for the purity of our holy faith—since your Majesty strives, as your chief glory, to preserve it in all the kingdoms and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various

... "What an inquisitor you are, Bunny!" said he, putting down an evening paper that he had only just taken up. "Can't you see that this whole show has been no ordinary one for me? I've been fighting for a crowd I rather love. Their battle has got on my nerves as none ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... As I prepared to take my departure I was handed the address of another gentleman who would also examine me and make a report. Before I got out of the room my inquisitor said, "It may interest you to know that we have had more than six hundred applications for the post, and that it may, therefore, take some time before the matter ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland

... where the figure was that he had made for the Duke, and wholly destroyed it. Whereupon that Spaniard, considering himself affronted, denounced Torrigiano as a heretic; on which account he was thrown into prison, and after being examined every day, and sent from one inquisitor to the other, he was finally judged to deserve the severest penalty. But this was never put into execution, because Torrigiano himself was plunged thereby into such melancholy, that, remaining many days without eating, and thus becoming very weak, little by little he put ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... encounters, Douglas knew how to come back, with a graver tone, to the larger issue, as if they, and not he, were trying to obscure it. A spectator might have fancied that these high-minded men were culprits, and he their inquisitor. Now and then, as when he dealt with the abolitionists, there was no questioning the sincerity of his feeling, and it stirred him to a genuine eloquence. He was not surprised that Boston burned him in effigy. Had not Boston closed her Faneuil Hall upon the aged Webster? ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown



Words linked to "Inquisitor" :   official, functionary, querier, questioner, inquisitorial, inquirer, Grand Inquisitor, asker, enquirer



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