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Penance   /pˈɛnəns/   Listen
Penance

noun
1.
Remorse for your past conduct.  Synonyms: penitence, repentance.
2.
A Catholic sacrament; repentance and confession and atonement and absolution.
3.
Voluntary self-punishment in order to atone for some wrongdoing.  Synonyms: self-abasement, self-mortification.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Penance" Quotes from Famous Books



... work. He was master of his tools, for one thing, and he derived exquisite pleasure from the exercise of execution. The surety of his touch, the knowledge of the exact effect he was after, made his working hours an absorbing pleasure rather than an exasperating penance. And through his secluded life, with its singleness of purpose, its absence of the social ambitions of his youth, and the complexity of life in the world, the restlessness and agitation of his earlier devotion to his art disappeared. He was content to forget the expression ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... I was sure, however, to escape from him, and to conceal myself in some hole or corner, where I slept out the remainder of the watch; and the next morning, I was, as regularly, mast-headed, to do penance during the greater part of the day for my deeds of darkness. I believe that of the first two years of my servitude, one-half of my waking hours, at least, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Buxsoo and the nigger here would do the same. And though I am pretty stout already, I would coil a few more lengths round my waist; and if the natives were to find out by chance what I had got about my body, they would only fancy that I was doing a bit of penance like themselves. Keep up your heart, sir; and if the young lady is shut up in the old tower, as you suppose, we'll manage, by hook or by ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... about a holy man of Muckross, who fell into some great sin, and repenting of it, waded into the lake, and stuck a holly-stick into the bottom, and said he would not leave the spot till it should throw out leaves and branches. So he did penance for seven years, and then the stick suddenly leaved out and blossomed, and became a great tree, by which the good man knew that he was pardoned. We may take a lesson from this. If we do wrong, and ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... Soul of old that was, May now be damn'd to animate an Ass; Or in this very House, for ought we know, Is doing painful Penance in some Beau. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... goest not forth from the castle to-day. Hast thou forgot how thou didst answer me back about fetching the water this morning? This day thou must do penance, so go thou straight to the armory and scour thou up ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... rid me of her! and, that I did supererogatory penance in a belfry, at Westminster-hall, in the Cock-pit, at the fall of a stag; the Tower-wharf (what place is there else?)— London-bridge, Paris-garden, Billinsgate, when the noises are at their height, and loudest. Nay, I would sit out a play, that were nothing but fights at sea, ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... course of his wanderings, in fulfilment of a vow of penance, Arjuna came to Manipur. There he saw Chitrangada, the beautiful daughter of Chitravahana, the king of the country. Smitten with her charms, he asked the king for the hand of his daughter in marriage. Chitravahana asked him who he was, and learning that he was Arjuna the Pandara, ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore

... breathes one engrossing sentiment. With him, Christianity was the love of God and its morality was the love of the neighbor. Judged by occasional expressions, his piety might seem too ascetic and mystical—too urgent of penance and self-crucifixion—too enthusiastic in emotion, perilling the sobriety of reason in the impassioned fervors of devotion—sometimes bordering upon that overstrained spiritualism, which, in its impulsive flights, is so apt ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... be convinced by the arguments of the Jesuits, to be touched by divine grace, to pine for union with the only true Church. Marlborough had not, when Popery was in the ascendant, crossed himself, shrived himself, done penance, taken the communion in one kind, and, as soon as a turn of fortune came, apostatized back again, and proclaimed to all the world that, when he knelt at the confessional and received the host, he was merely laughing at the King and the priests. The crime of Sunderland was one which could never ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... whole history was within the memory of man portrayed upon a glass window in the hall, where unfortunately it has not been preserved. Mab's Cross is still extant. An old ruinous building is said to have been the place where the Lady Mabel was condemned to render penance, by walking hither from Haighhall barefooted and barelegged for the performance of her devotions. This relic, to which an anecdote so curious is annexed, is now unfortunately ruinous. Time and whitewash, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... articles. This was but the beginning of humiliations: he was now required to pronounce two ample recantations, one before the queen in person, the other before cardinal Pole, who also imposed upon him various acts of penance. Even this did not immediately procure his liberation from prison; and while he was obliged in public to applaud the mercy of his enemies in terms of the most abject submission, he bewailed in private, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... Simon Magus. What did he do? He endeavoured to snatch away free will from man: he prated of faith alone (Clen. lib. i. recog.; Iren. l. 1, c. 2). After him, Novatian. Who was he? An Anti-pope, rival to the Roman Pontiff Cornelius, an enemy of the Sacraments, of Penance and Chrism. Then Manes the Persian. He taught that baptism did not confer salvation. After him the Arian Aerius. He condemned prayers for the dead: he confounded priests with bishops, and was surnamed "the atheist" no less than Lucian. There follows ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... her, at that? When one of us at spinning sat, And mother, nights, ne'er let us out the door She sported with her paramour. On the door-bench, in the passage dark, The length of the time they'd never mark. So now her head no more she'll lift, But do church-penance in her ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... earliest and the crudest religions, teaches that man escapes dangers and secures safety by the performance or avoidance of certain actions. He may credit this or that myth, he may hold to one or many gods; this is unimportant; but he must not fail in the penance or the sacred dance, he must not touch that which is taboo, or he is in peril. The life of these cults is the Deed, ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton

... Lanfranc finally engaged to undertake a mission to the supreme Pontiff, who, considering the turbulent disposition of the Normans, and that a better end was likely to be answered by peaceable than by hostile measures, consented to grant the necessary dispensation. At the same time, by way of penance, he issued an injunction that the royal pair should erect two monasteries, the one for monks, the other for nuns. And in obedience to this command, William founded the abbey of St. Stephen, and Matilda, the abbey of the Holy Trinity; or, as they are usually ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... leaders of the movement. And the conception of an historic church, endowed with mystic powers—conveyed through an unbroken line of priests from the age of the apostles—the orderly round of vigil, fast, and festival, the secret, introspective joys of penance and confession, the fascinations of the strictly religious life, as set before him in eloquent public discourse or persuasive private conversation,—had combined to kindle an imagination very insufficiently satisfied by the lean spiritual meats offered it during an ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... to work upon. Mrs. Fisher was soon heartily tired of her, and could have regretted her complaisance to Mrs. Danvers' wishes in receiving her against her judgment; but she was too good to send her away. She laughed, and accepted her as a penance for her sins, she said—as a thorn in the flesh—and she let the thorn rankle there. She remembered her honored Fisher, and the scene by the bed-side of poor Saunders. She looked upon the endurance of this plague as a fresh offering to the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... out: "If his dear life Through stress of keen temptation merits aught Of penance or requital, be it wrought Upon my life. If only through the strife Is won the peace, through drudgery the gain, Give him the issue, and to me ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley

... free from the leaven of selfishness. For her own sake, as much as for her father's, Ellen Carley would have submitted to any penalty rather than disgrace. To have him branded as a thief must needs be worse suffering than any life-long penance she might endure in matrimony. To lose Frank Randall's love was less than to let him ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... Mary to accompany her was easily obtained; for Lady Juliana considered a visit to Mrs. Lennox as an act of penance rather than of pleasure; and Adelaide protested the very mention of her name gave her the vapours. There certainly was nothing that promised much gratification in what Mary had heard; and yet she already felt interested in this unfortunate blind lady whom ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... pyre thy body lay, And then shalt thou, set free from doom, Thine own fair shape once more assume." O Lakshman, hear my words: in me The world-illustrious Danu see. By Indra's curse, subdued in fight, I wear this form which scares the sight. By sternest penance long maintained The mighty Father's grace I gained. When length of days the God bestowed, With foolish pride my bosom glowed. My life, of lengthened years assured, I deemed from Sakra's might secured. Let by my senseless pride astray I challenged Indra to the fray. A flaming bolt with ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... shook his shaggy head, and pushed her away the length of his long, strong arms. "Bosh!" said he; "you're a puss and no cat, and I like you better for the claws. If you hate yourself, you'll get a big penance. Hate the ugly like Parpon, not the pretty like you. The one's no ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... and clearly showed her real enjoyment. She had taken to it first when she was about fifteen, as she found it helped her to feel less hungry. Now it had become as much a necessity to her as to many men, and the long abstinence of term-time had always been a penance. ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker

... This wise man gave me a piece of advice which helped me out of my trouble, and for which I shall always have reason to bless him. I admit that the expedient at first appeared to me sinful; but he assured me, and proved to me out of the casuists, that a little fasting and penance would do away with all that was culpable ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... proofs in the morning, then to the Court; thence to Cadell's, where I found some business cut out for me, in the way of notes, which delayed me. Walked home, the weary way giving my feet the ancient twinges of agony: such a journey is as severe a penance as if I had walked the same length with peas in my shoes to atone for some horrible crime by beating my toes into a jelly. I wrote some and corrected a good deal. We dined alone, and I partly wrought partly slept in the evening. It's now pretty clear ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... scatter a few grains of incense upon it, they were free; but this was a denying of their Lord, and the few who yielded in the fear of them who could kill the body, grieved all their lives afterwards for the act, and were not restored to their place in the Church until after long years of penance, or until they had atoned for their fall by witnessing a good confession. Sometimes they were not allowed to receive the Holy Communion again till they were on their dying beds. But these were the exceptions; in general, God's strength was made perfect in weakness, and ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... should your hand forget, Your guardian eyes stray otherwhere, Your cheeks shall all in vain be wet, Vain all your penance and your prayer. ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne

... He is a small, puny-built man, with gold rings in his ears, and a face of genteel ugliness, but touchingly lugubrious in its expression. With his violin at his shoulder, he has the air of a husband undergoing the nocturnal penance of walking the room with 'the child'—and performing it, too, with unaffected pity. He plays with the purest and coldest perfection of art, and is doubtless more learned on the violin than either of the rival performers [Ole Bull and Artot], but there is ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee

... the most uncivilized nation in Europe. Dr. Johnson would have said, "They have the least mind.". And can such serve their Creator in spirit and in truth? No, the gross ritual of Romish ceremonies is all they can comprehend: they can do penance, but not conquer their revenge, or lust. Religion, or love, has never humanized their hearts; they want the vital part; the mere body worships. Taste is unknown; Gothic finery, and unnatural decorations, which they term ornaments, are conspicuous in their churches and dress. Reverence ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft

... the extremest hour of need, opened the eyes of my understanding, which vile envy had closed. Wherefore, the readier you have been to comply with me, so much the more do I confess myself beholden to do penance for my default. Take, then, of me the vengeance which you deem ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... peasants maintain that they are high princesses, who, because they would not embrace Christianity when the apostles came to preach in Armorica, were stricken by the curse of God. The Welsh recognise in them, souls of Druids doomed to penance. This coincidence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... put right soon, The nobles have fingers In every small corner, The lad was brought back And young Mityenka started; They say that his service Did not weigh too heavy, 710 The prince saw to that. And we, as a penance, Imposed upon Ermil A fine, and to Vlasevna One part was given, To Mitya another, The rest to the village For vodka. However, Not quickly did Ermil Get over his sorrow: 720 He went like a lost one For full a year after, And—though the whole district Implored him to keep ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... after the sacrament were much more serious than those which went before. The Africans, very practical folk, clearly foresaw that they would sin again even after baptism, but they wanted to sin at a better rate, and lessen the inflictions of penance. This penance in Augustin's time was far from being as hard as in the century before. Nevertheless, the remembrance of the old severity always remained, and the habit was taken to put off baptism so as not to discourage ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... veil, she afterwards endeavoured to conceal her shame, but the precaution only tended to render her more culpable. Her behaviour, indeed, had long afforded ample food for the sarcasms of the Jews and Pagans. Saint Ambrose compelled her to perform public penance, and after having declaimed on her double crime, gave her hopes of pardon, if, like "Soeur Jeanne," this early nun would sincerely repent: to complete her chastisement, he ordered her every day to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... thee free; Oh, meet him cheerily As thy true friend, And all thy fears shall cease, And in eternal peace Thy penance end." ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... Rent by the lightning's recent stroke. Brian the Hermit by it stood, Barefooted, in his frock and hood. His grizzled beard and matted hair Obscured a visage of despair; His naked arms and legs, seamed o'er, The scars of frantic penance bore. That monk, of savage form and face The impending danger of his race Had drawn from deepest solitude Far in Benharrow's bosom rude. Not his the mien of Christian priest, But Druid's, from the grave released Whose hardened heart and eye might brook On human sacrifice to look; ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... seclude herself from the world. May God grant her patience and self-denial, far beyond what I have evinced; for often I know will that angel, in her solitary cell, turn her thoughts and her prayers towards me. Alas, it may be, she will impose on herself some rigid penance, in the hope that God may alleviate the sufferings of her brother! These reflections agitated me greatly, and my heart bled. Most likely my own misfortunes had helped to shorten the days both of my father and my mother; for, ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... Deemest thou that Atra is yet alive? Sooth it is, said Arthur, it may well be that I have slain her. And what may we do by her if ever we fall in with her alive? said Birdalone. I wot not, said Arthur; some would say that we have done penance for our fault, both thou and I; and what other penance may we do, save sundering from each other? And by God above I will not. By thine head and thine hands I will ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... exaggerated. His letters, and his wife's, show that he was a most affectionate husband when nothing had occurred to deprive him of his self-command. But he had at times been cruelly inconsiderate, and he wished to do penance for his misdeeds. A practical Christian would have asked God to pardon him, and made amends by active kindness to his surviving fellow- creatures. Carlyle took another course. In 1871, five years after his wife's death, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... Having done penance for some time in the damp alleys which line the borders of these lazy waters, I was led through corkscrew sand-walks to a vast flat, sparingly scattered over with vegetation. To puzzle myself in such a labyrinth there was no temptation, so taking advantage ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... of this kind of penance may be still perceived in the east, where the followers of Mahomet have been found to adopt it. In the history given by Hanway of the Persian monarch, Mir Maghmud, we have an account of a process similar to that above, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... sinner, but I understand a saint, Their bend of weary knees and their con- tortions long and faint, And the endless pricks of conscience, like a hundred thousand pins, A real perpetual penance for imaginary sins. ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

... word, "Adieu," from my lip is nigh falling, And with it, Hope passes away, Ere the tongue hath half breathed it, my fond heart recalling That fatal farewell, bids me stay, For oh! 'tis a penance so weary One hour from thy presence to be, That death to this soul were less dreary, Less dark than long absence ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... And breife with all: eather betwixt you too [sic] Make frendly reconsilement, and in presence Of this your brotherhood (for what is fryar But frater, and that's brother?), or my selfe Out of my power will putt you to a penance Shall make you ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... should be let go. The same method had already been used to rescue priests in trials for loose living. According to Llorente, it was deemed sufficient, if they owned their crime, and went through a slight penance. ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... the truth, Bob, I'm all wrong. I'm on the stool of repentance; to wit, on this easy chair, doing penance, as you perceive, in a pair of duck trousers. Last night I was half seas over, and tolerably happy; this morning, I am high and dry, and intolerably miserable. Carried more sail than ballast last night, and lost my head; this morning I've found it again, with ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... stating, with his usual effrontery, that he was put in the pillory for vindicating the blessed memory of her late Majesty Queen Anne. This either touched or tickled the mob—it does not matter which—who protected Curll whilst he stood on high from further outrage, and when his penance was over bore him on their shoulders to an adjacent tavern, where (it is alleged) he got right royally drunk. {65} Ten years earlier those pleasant youths, the Westminster scholars, had got hold of him, tossed him in a blanket, and beat him. This was the man who ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... de Espana, lib. 12, cap. 11; lib. 21, cap. 17.— Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 3.—The nature of the penance imposed on reconciled heretics by the ancient Inquisition was much more severe than that of later times. Llorente cites an act of St. Dominic respecting a person of this description, named Ponce Roger. The penitent was commanded to be "stripped ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... naturally of a devotional character; and this feeling had grown and strengthened by her companionship with the late duchess, who was noted for her piety and goodness-and in fact came to her death, as is well known, by too much rigor imposed upon herself in devotional penance! ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... husbands, was, on her death, transformed into a hound and compelled to run every night, between midnight and cock-crow, from the gateway of Fitzford, her former residence, to Oakhampton Park, and bring back to the place, from whence she started, a blade of grass in her mouth; and this penance she is doomed to continue till every blade of grass is removed from the park, which feat she will not be able to effect till the end of the world. Mr Dyer also goes on to say that in the hamlet of Dean Combe, Devon, there once lived a weaver of great fame and skill, who the ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... to resort chiefly to superstitious modes of working upon the imagination. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that every sickness, especially epidemics and plagues, were attributed to the anger of some offended god, and that penance and supplications often took the place of personal and domestic cleanliness, fresh ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae

... answered Heliobas decisively. "His life on earth is assured for many years yet,—inasmuch as his penance is not finished, his recompense not won. Thus far my knowledge of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... for its prey, could render no assistance. The manager's language was civilly evasive; but his resolution was inflexible. Crisp had committed a great error ; but he had escaped with a very slight penance. His play had not been hooted from the boards. It had, on the contrary, been better received than many very estimable performances have been-than Johnson's "Irene," for example, or Goldsmith's "Good-natured Man." Had Crisp been wise, he would have thought himself ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... doing penance opposite to Mrs. O'Shanaghgan. He was dreadfully afraid of that stately lady, and was glancing nervously round at his wife and the Squire from ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... familiarized the public mind with expressions which Catholics never could have spread among the English people to the same extent, such as altar and sacrifice, priest and priesthood, high mass, sacrament, penance, confession, &c. The movement has produced this result. Many persons have become seriously religious, who had been in the habit of considering that the service of God was only a fitting employment for Sunday. In fine, the spirit of God which breathed on ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... voices, well trained and divided, it was infinitely more beautiful than any ordinary church service—like the Trinita di Monte Convent service more than anything else, and must be very good for them, quite different in its effect on their minds from our wretched penance of ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... never be our creed, That when we do an evil deed, To think that penance can succeed, To cancel sin; We pluck the fruit, but still the ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon

... with oars contending, sails with sails, Upon Windander's spacious breast, it chanced That—after I had left a flower-decked room (Whose in-door pastime, lighted up, survived To a late hour), and spirits overwrought Were making night do penance for a day Spent in a round of strenuous idleness— My homeward course led up a long ascent, Where the road's watery surface, to the top Of that sharp rising, glittered to the moon And bore the semblance of another stream Stealing with ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various

... children, and lead children's lives; that if their pillows be damp, it is with the dews of Heaven, and not with tears; that the limbs of their girls are free, and that they are not crippled by distortions, imposing an unnatural and horrible penance upon their sex; that their lives are spent, from day to day, at least among the waving trees, and not in the midst of dreadful engines which make young children old before they know what childhood is, and ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... not nice to speak of such things," said the young lady, primly. "And it is not nice also to speak with strange gentlemen who come out of the forest when one is doing penance. But I am a half American, you know. Perhaps that is ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... for her to go to Lady Susan, I was much pleased with her, she was so simple: 'Very well,' she said, 'I hope I shall be able to make her comfortable:' no begging off, no heroism. And really, Beatrice, don't you think we could make some other arrangement? It is too great a penance for her, poor child. Lady Susan will do very well, and I can have an eye to her; I am much inclined to leave the poor little Queen ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... "of course" in it,' said Madeline. 'The death of twenty husbands should not make me undergo such a penance. It is as much a relic of paganism as the sacrifice of a Hindu woman at the burning of her husband's body. If not so bloody, it is quite as barbarous, and quite ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... to the paintings of Eustache le Soeur, in the Louvre, in illustration of his idea—a series based on the experience of St. Bruno, and representing the effects of maceration and ghostly penance with ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the cause of his heavy disposition; of his having 'foregone all custom of exercise'—so 'that this goodly frame, the earth,' seems to him 'a sterile promontory,' a mere place of preparation for gaining the next world through penance and prayer. Verily, 'this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,' appears to him no better 'than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.' Quite in accordance with ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... I wish our young exile could see you this evening," he went on, disregardful of my brief explanation. "He would strew his hair with ashes, and wear sackcloth in penance for the past, I doubt not; for I tell you frankly, Miriam, you have improved wonderfully of late, and you bear inspection far better than Evelyn with all her beauty; your figure is absolutely faultless; your face the most attractive woman ever wore, if not the most absolutely regular. ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... attraction for him. Nor are we mistaken, for he soon crosses the room, and going up to one of them, a rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed girl, he says in a low tone, "I am glad you have come, Nellie. I had almost given you up, and concluded you were doing penance for some misdemeanor, and so could not come out." Then taking her upon his arm, he kept her ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... left me, a great change came upon my spirit, and I felt what was wanting to make you love me. I cried to God unceasingly; I struck my breast; I placed a blessed candle on my bosom; I did penance; I said: 'Lord God be merciful unto me! Oh send down upon me the spirit of Poetry, that I may ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... He seized some church plate at Pinhel that he might convert it into rations. It was an act which, considering the general state of public feeling in the country at the time, might have had the gravest consequences, and Sir Robert was subsequently forced to do penance and afford redress. That, however, is another story. I but mention the incident here because the affair of Tavora with which I am concerned may be taken to have arisen directly out of it, and Sir Robert's behaviour may be construed as setting an example and thus as affording yet ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... it was, on some of these days, relaying the stuff up the glacier! I shall never forget Ascension Day, which occurred this year on the 1st May. Double feast as it was—for SS. Philip and James falls on that day—it was a day of toil and penance. With the mercurial barometer and a heavy pack of instruments and cameras and films on my back and the rope over my shoulder, bent double hauling at the sled, I trudged along all day, panting and sweating, through four or ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... penitents who formed the procession above described were yet engaged in the performance of their unnoticed and unshared duties of penance and prayer, a priest ascended the great pulpit of the basilica, to attempt the ungrateful task of preaching patience and piety to the hungry multitude at ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... sources of ecclesiastical revenue was the sale of indulgences, or the remission by the pope of the temporal penalties of sin, both penance in this life and the pains of purgatory. The practice of giving these pardons first arose as a means of assuring heaven to those warriors who fell fighting the infidel. In 1300 Boniface VIII granted a plenary indulgence to all who ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... more of a penance. No, I was referring to a chance meeting, a charming feminine figure, a kiss, a caress. Wulf, what would you say to two plump white arms ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... your mind to dwell on your own misconduct: that is ruin. The conscience has morbid sensibilities; it must be employed but not indulged, like the imagination or the stomach. (2) Let each stab suffice for the occasion; to play with this spiritual pain turns to penance; and a person easily learns to feel good by dallying with the consciousness of having done wrong. (3) Shut your eyes hard against the recollection of your sins. Do not be afraid, you will not be able ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... found pacing the deck of the Flushing steamer with a ticket for Hamburg in my pocket may seem a strange result, yet not so strange if you have divined my state of mind. You will guess, at any rate, that I was armed with the conviction that I was doing an act of obscure penance, rumours of which might call attention to my lot and perhaps awaken remorse in the right quarter, while it left me free to enjoy myself unobtrusively in the remote event ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... coarse yellow cloth with a large red cross on them, and figures of devils and instruments of torture among the flames of hell. The delinquents, dressed in one of these sacks, bareheaded and barefooted, were made to do penance, or, if condemned to be burned, marched to the place of execution. It is said that in San Juan they were not tied to a stake but enclosed in a hollow plaster cast, against which the faggots were piled,[80] so that ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... To these Emperors, for whom none weeps, time will give no surcease. Surely, it is sign of some grace in them that they rejoiced not, this bright afternoon, in the evil that was to befall the city of their penance. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... stout seconds, just of their own gizzard, Cross Captain X. and rough old General Izzard! Letter to Letter spreads the dire alarms, Till half the Alphabet is up in arms. Nor with less lustre have Initials shone, To grace the gentler annals of Crim. Con. Where the dispensers of the public lash Soft penance give; a letter and a dash— Where Vice reduced in size shrinks to a failing, And loses half her grossness by curtailing. Faux pas are told in such a modest way,— "The affair of Colonel B—— with Mrs. A——" You ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... our youthful years we still venerate and despise without the art of NUANCE, which is the best gain of life, and we have rightly to do hard penance for having fallen upon men and things with Yea and Nay. Everything is so arranged that the worst of all tastes, THE TASTE FOR THE UNCONDITIONAL, is cruelly befooled and abused, until a man learns to introduce a little art into his sentiments, and prefers to try conclusions ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... of his 'guide, philosopher, and friend,' who cannot safely be taxed with having first led him into temptation; he must not explain them away in another direction, or he runs full tilt into the wrath of mother Church—who will soon bring him to his senses by penance. Long lents, and no lampreys allowed, would soon cauterize the proud flesh of heretical ethics. Pope did wisely, situated as he was, in a decorous nation, and closely connected, upon principles of fidelity under political suffering, with the Roman Catholics, to say little in his own defence. ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... You have lost the goods you had on board, but I will compensate you another way. As to your two brothers, I have condemned them to remain five years in that shape. Their perfidiousness too well deserves such a penance." Having thus spoken and told me where I might hear of her, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... Sarah Dainty, Relict of Mr. John Dainty, (who was the greatest Prude in the Parish) came next in the Procession. She at first made some Difficulty of taking the Tail in her Hand; and was observed in pronouncing the Form of Penance, to soften the two most emphatical Words into Clincum Clancum: But the Steward took care to make her speak plain English before he would let her have ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... my Glories you have reap'd your Share, For your Deceit, let it your Penance be To know that I advance most in ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym

... throwing stones, were nothing more than mistaken. I forgive them from my heart, and likewise, I forgive all who have ever done me or intended to do me any injury. I know I have been guilty of many sins against my God; in satisfaction for those sins I have tried to do what little penance I could, and having received the sacraments of the Church, I have humbly begged that He would accept my sufferings and death, to be united to the sufferings and death of His innocent Son, through whom my ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown

... Sunday when the poor lass had to do her first penance it was in this wise—She had to walk from her home to the church porch with a soiled white sheet cast over her head to her feet, and there stand from the ringing of the first bell calling to morning prayer, and as the good folk did so pass ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... Prison, back againe; From thence, vnto the place of Execution: The Witch in Smithfield shall be burnt to ashes, And you three shall be strangled on the Gallowes. You Madame, for you are more Nobly borne, Despoyled of your Honor in your Life, Shall, after three dayes open Penance done, Liue in your Countrey here, in Banishment, With Sir Iohn Stanly, in the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... produced an uneasy feeling which led me ere long to retire below and bewail my old home and those from whom I had been so ruthlessly severed with greater grief than I had felt before. I suffered from that fearful nausea which Father Neptune imposes as a penance on the majority of his votaries, and it was wonderful how very melancholy the sensation ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... But, now permit me to laugh at the thought of Montfanon's choler when I relate to him this baptism. If I knew where to find the old leaguer! But he has been hiding since our duel. He is in some retreat doing penance. As I have already told you, the world for him has not stirred since Francois de Guise. He only admits the alms of the Protestants and the Jews. When Monseigneur Guerillot tells him of Fanny's religious aspirations, he raves immoderately. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... have been an excellent penance, with a chance of martyrdom at the end of it," returned Ralph. "Well, I must say we have given our visitors a pleasant afternoon! They won't want to take this as a specimen of our picnics. No good offering tea and cake in ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... ye dree for that, Edward, Edward? Whatten penance will ye dree for that? My dear son, now tell me, O.' 'I'll set my feet in yonder boat, Mither, mither; I'll set my feet in yonder boat, And I'll fare ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... of the country and to give him Sebile for wife, forbidding him, however, to cross the river any more—a command which Baldwin hears without meaning to obey. Nay, when Baldwin has once broken this injunction and escaped with great difficulty from the Saxons, the Emperor imposes on him the brutal penance of entering Sebile's tent to kiss her in the sight of the Saxons, and bringing back her ring—which Baldwin contrives to fulfil by putting on the armour of a Saxon knight whom he kills. As in The ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... the worthy papa for his story more warmly, perhaps, than he expected. He had been as much pleased by narrating as I had been by listening; but he was not very particular about the quality of his facts, and unintentionally made me do penance for the excessive pleasure I had experienced by giving me an account—two hours long, and with equal unction—of a tremendous controversy then raging as to the proper form of electing the sub-patriarch of Cairo. It would have been ungrateful to interrupt him, although there seemed no end ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... where I passed my life ere I was called to pomp and to trouble. A quiet brotherhood we were, regular in our domestic duties; and when the frailties of humanity prevailed over us, we confessed, and were absolved by each other, and the most formidable part of the penance was the jest of the convent on the culprit. I can almost fancy that I see the cloister garden, and the pear-trees which I grafted with my own hands. And for what have I changed all this, but to be overwhelmed with business which concerns me not, to be called My Lord Abbot, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... valley. My father bade me stay in the church, at my work; but I could not, madame, I could not. Not possible, you know. I wished to see your enemy again. I shall have to confess it to Monsieur le Cure, and he will give me a penance, perhaps a very great penance. But it was not possible to rest tranquil, not at all. I followed monsieur, your enemy, a la derobee. He did not ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... and sound of song: And they who, kindling fires with torch of Truth, Burn on a hidden altar-stone the bliss Of youth and love, renouncing happiness: And they who lay for offering there their wealth, Their penance, meditation, piety, Their steadfast reading of the scrolls, their lore Painfully gained with long austerities: And they who, making silent sacrifice, Draw in their breath to feed the flame of thought, And breathe ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold

... Republic; Luther and the Reformation; How and Why I Became a Catholic, or A Search after Rational Christianity; and The State of Religion in the United States. On the positive side his chief topics were: The Church as a Society, Why We Invoke the Saints, and the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion. Others he ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... be unforgivable if he could not see the fast out and go home, proud and sinless, to drink wine with the men. He turned so pale, as the afternoon service dragged itself along, that his father begged him again and again to go home and eat. But the boy was set on a full penance. And every now and again he forgot his headache and the gnawing at his stomach in the fervor of passionate prayer and in the fascination of the ghostly figures weeping and wailing in the gloomy synagogue, and once in imagination he ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... superficial and insufficient to enable him to properly weigh nice questions of theology and law, and finally it was insinuated that some of his opinions were heretical and that his refusal to allow the sacraments of penance and the eucharist in his diocese proceeded from his dissembled Lutheranism. As a hint of what might overtake him if he persisted in his course, a musket was fired into the window of his room one night. ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... ourselves, and furnishes a certain feeling of distinction. If something within us craves attention, even staying awake may not be too dear a price to pay for that attention. Strange to say, there are other times when the insomnia is chosen by the primitive subconscious mind with the idea of doing penance for supposed sins whose evil effects might possibly be avoided by this kind of expiation. Analysis shows that motives like this are not so uncommon as might be supposed. In other cases insomnia is chosen for the chance it gives for phantasy-building. A person denied the right ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... it was God's will for her to do so. The lay sisters can aspire to none of the convent offices; they have none of the smaller distractions of receiving guests, and instructing converts and so forth, and not to have as much time for prayer as they desire is their penance. They are humble folk, who strive in a humble way to separate themselves from the animal, and they see heaven from the wash-tub plainly. In the eyes of the world they are ignorant and simple hearts. They are ignorant, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... Prophets He had thought it worth while to inspire M. le Sage or the interluders of a fair, He would dictate to them the most entertaining harlequinade." And in a similar way it occurred that I became a Latinist because Friar Ange was taken by the watch and put into ecclesiastical penance for having knocked down a cutler under the arbour of the Little Bacchus. M. Jerome Coignard kept his promise. He gave me lessons and, finding me tractable and intelligent, he took pleasure in instructing me ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... commandant's breakfast table, "I MUST really say that I don't see anything particularly heroic in doing something wrong, lying about it just to get other folks into trouble, and then rushing off to do penance in a high wind and an open boat. But she's pretty, and wears a man's shirt and coat, and of course THAT settles anything. But why earrings and wet white stockings and slippers? And why that Gothic arch of front and a boy's hat? That's what I simply ask;" and the youngest ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... paid to saints, the claim of infallibility for the Church, the superstitious use of the sign of the cross, the muttering of the liturgy so as to disguise the language in which it was said, with the recommendation of auricular confession and the administration of Penance and absolution. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... (cf. Gal. i. 8 ff.; 1 Cor. xvi. 22), and it became the regular formula of excommunication from the time of the council of Chalcedon in 451, especially against heretics, e.g. in the canons of the council of Trent and those of the Vatican council of 1870. See EXCOMMUNICATION; PENANCE. The expression maranatha ("the Lord cometh''), which follows anathema in 1 Cor. xvi. 22, is often erroneously quoted as though it were an ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... give his victory proof.— A hawk this boasting heard: Now perish'd all his pride, As suddenly he died Beneath that savage bird. In consequence of this reverse, The vanquish'd sallied from his hole, And took the harem, master sole, For moderate penance not the worse. Imagine the congratulation, The proud and stately leading, Gallanting, coaxing, feeding, Of wives almost a nation! 'Tis thus that Fortune loves to flee The insolent by victory. We should mistrust her when we beat, Lest triumph lead ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... are told of the nightingale, as to their great memory, and facility in imitating the human voice. Sitting in thorns is more for protection than penance. See Goldsmith's Animated Nature. It was a generally received opinion that the nightingale, to keep himself awake in the night, sat on a tree of thorn, so that if he nodded he would be pricked in the breast. The learned and witty Dr. Thomas Fuller thus alludes to it:—'I ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... and of the delight had of her in my torments (whereof she repented her not, as one who thought not to have sinned therein, but rather to have merited reward,) was and is on like wise condemned to the pains of hell. Wherein no sooner was she descended than it was decreed unto her and to me, for penance thereof,[284] that she should flee before me and that I, who once loved her so dear, should pursue her, not as a beloved mistress, but as a mortal enemy, and that, as often as I overtook her, I should slay her with this tuck, wherewith ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... agues in others, but he adores it like the Indians, for then begins his progress after a hard winter. Ostlers cannot endure him, for he is of the infantry, and serves best on foot. He offends not the statute against the excess of apparel, for he will go naked, and counts it a voluntary penance. Forty of them lie together in a barn, yet are never sued upon the Statute of Inmates. If he were learned no man could make a better description of England, for he hath travelled it over and over. Lastly, he brags that his great houses are repaired to ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... of her voice as she addressed them. Mr. Carlisle grew restless. There was a more evident and tremendous gap between himself and her than he had counted upon. Was she doing this like a Catholic, for penance, or to work out good deeds to earn heaven like a philanthropist? While he pondered the matter, in increasing restlessness, mind and body helping each other; for the atmosphere of the room was heavy and stifling from the foul human beings congregated there, and it must require a very strong ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... poenitentiam spontaneam suscepit, tarn de his, quam quae in Bernardum proprium nepotem gesserat": "After this he did openly confess himself to have erred, and following the example of the Emperor Theodosius, he underwent voluntary penance, as well for his other offences, as for that which he had done against Bernard his ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... tell thee, boy, The hand which serves its country should be pure. Ambition, selfish love, vain lust of power Ravage thy head and heart! and would'st thou hold The judgment balance with a hand still red With royal blood? Would'st thou dare speak a penance On guilt, thyself so guilty? Canst thou hope Castile will trust her to thee? God forbid! Mad is that nation, mad past thought of cure, Past chains and dungeons, whips, spare food, and fasting, Who yields the immortal man a patriot's name, And looks in private vice for public virtue. Thou play ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... church. It was represented to her that, by this arrangement, she would be forced to remain an hour alone in the cold building. But she was one of those who regarded all discomfort as meritorious, as in some way adding something to her claim for heaven. Self-scourging with rods as a penance, was to her thinking a papistical ordinance most abominable and damnatory; but the essence of the self-scourging was as comfortable to her as ever was a hair-shirt to a Roman Catholic enthusiast. So she went and sat apart ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... were now the monk's prayers to heaven; he implored forgiveness for his brother, and offered penance for him. Poor man! he thought if he could but see him and talk to him, he would redeem him from his apostacy; but, alas! his duty was in Hurdwar, he was bound there and could not move. One day (it was during the fair) he had wandered at a distance ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... won to enthusiastic admiration of the heroes and heroines of the Catholic Church that he decided he would probe for himself the Catholic claims, and the child would say to the father, 'Father, if there be such a sacrament as Penance, can I go?' And the good Archbishop, being evasive in his answers, the young boy found himself emerging more and more in a woeful Nemesis of faith." It would be literally impossible, I think, to construct a story less characteristic both of Hugh's ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... priests and to all his people. He said: "I will take ship and I will go over the sea to Rome, where I may worship at the tombs of the blessed Apostles, and there I will be baptized. But since I am a king no one but the Pope shall baptize me. I will do penance for my sins. I will lift my eyes to things worthy of a man. I will put behind me what was dear to me, and I will accept that which is to come." And as they could not alter Caedwalla in any of his previous decisions, so they could not alter him in this. But his people gave ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... parted, with much admiration of the grandson, and Mr Furnival trotted back to his penance; for Madam kept him very short of money, and required from him an account of every shilling. The storm which he anticipated broke even a little more severely than he expected; but he bore it quietly, and went to ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... penance for my sins?" she laughed, holding up her riding-habit. "Please don't be too severe, Juan! Now begin, and I will try to ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... gods detained me many days in Egypt to sacrifice and do penance, for I had forgotten to make proper offerings to them. The island of Pharos lies just off the coast of Egypt. There I remained until the daughter of the Ancient Sea King, seeing my distress, came to ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer



Words linked to "Penance" :   remittal, penalty, remission, sacrament, remorse, absolution, compunction, confession, remission of sin, penalization, penalisation, self-reproach, punishment



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