"Compunction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and ideas. No break is too great to be bridged by this instinctive impulse to rationalize the products of diverse experience. Hence, early man, having identified the Great Mother both with a cow and the moon, had no compunction in making "the cow jump over the moon" to become the sky. The moon then became the "Eye" of the sky and the sun necessarily became its other "Eye". But, as the sun was clearly the more important "Eye," seeing ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... and faithful, and loving wife!" exclaimed the Assistant, enclosing her in his arms, and feeling something like compunction at the moment, "you deserve a better mate. But trouble not thyself with such misgivings. Do not this wrong, sweet, to thine own charms, and to my profession and station, as one of ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... suspense that my temper knows ill how to endure; but I should rather be rendered miserable than happy, in merely overpowering your reason by entreaty. I leave you, therefore, to your own reflections; yet remember,—and refuse not to remember with some compunction, that all chance, all possibility of earthly happiness for ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... heart—that is, if there is such a thing. He told me with horrible Chinese reasonableness that he could not let us pass the barrier, because we should be pursued. He doesn't like fights. He gave me to understand that he would shoot me with my own revolver without any sort of compunction, rather than risk a rude and distasteful contest with the strange barbarians for my sake. He has preached to the villagers. They respect him. He is the most remarkable man they have ever seen, and their kinsman by marriage. They understand his policy. And ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... subordinate only to Napoleon himself. On these terms Metternich was not unwilling to enter the campaign. He satisfied his scruples by inventing a strange diplomatic form in which Austria was still described as a neutral, although she took part in the war, [171] and felt as little compunction in uniting with France as in explaining to the Courts of St. Petersburg and Berlin that the union was a hypocritical one. The Sovereign who was about to be attacked by Napoleon, and the Sovereigns who sent their troops to Napoleon's support, perfectly well understood one another's ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... something sad to have done the ill—but misery to have done it all for nothing: the sin was not altogether pleasant to his taste, but it was aloe itself to lose the reward. And when, pale and sick, leaning on his spade, he came to his old strength again, what was the reaction? Compunction at incipient crime, and gratitude to find its punishment so mercifully speedy, so lenient, so discriminative? I fear that if ever he had these thoughts at all, he chased them wilfully away: his disappointment, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... approximation, it may be, to justice, but, at all events, as an advantageous solution of difficulties. This is as true of its criminal as of its civil branches. Its concern is with society rather than the individual, and it sacrifices the individual to society without compunction, applying one rule to all alike, with a view to social, not individual, results, on the broad scale. Those matters which make individual justice impossible,—especially the element of personal responsibility ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... chiefly seized the tribunes, now taught by their colleague's death how utterly ineffectual was the aid the devoting laws afforded them.[72] Nor did the patricians display their exultation with due moderation; and so far was any of them from feeling compunction at the guilty act, that even those who were innocent wished to be considered to have perpetrated it, and it was openly declared that the tribunician power ought to be subdued ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... 'I shall like going,' said she,—'all but leaving you, Molly,' she added, in a lower tone, as if suddenly smitten with some compunction. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Episcopal Church, with the highest views of propriety and a reverential regard for the rules of conduct laid down by good society. This made her all the harder to deal with. If she were a common or vulgar sort of mother-in-law, I could assert my prerogatives without compunction; and I was forced to admit that she was a very worthy woman, and not given to petty meddling, but I felt that her presence was an awful restraint. Without her we could have such good times, going and coming as we pleased, and acting with ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... anger and scorn that were almost loathing, that she who looked so fine should be so poor, so—But he did not finish his thought, for on its heels came another, a recollection that stayed his anger and changed his scorn to compunction. However dear Rothgar might have been to her, he could be dear no longer, or she would never have betrayed his trust and dared his hate to save Ivarsdale Tower—and its master. Sebert winced and put up his hand to shut out the vision as he realized ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... he had volunteered it; the creature was well served for his spite and his cupidity; and the man of peace and letters, whose temperament shrank from contention of any kind, could not but congratulate himself upon an incidental triumph for which it was impossible to feel the smallest compunction. Moreover, he had gained his point. It was enough for him to know that there was a certain secret in Steel's life, upon which the wretch Abel had admittedly traded, even as his superior Minchin had apparently intended to do before him. Only those two seemed ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... them in the garden, and given them the timely warning. This was for him a greater relief than Fanny expected; for, after the first feeling of pride and delight at having gained his lovely prize, Delphin had felt more and more compunction in his inmost heart every time he thought of Madeleine. He was not willing to break off with Fanny—this was more than he dared to do; but, careless and clever as he was, he thought that he would be able for the present to keep up the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... But now he was "running" less with reformers than with artists, and these ill-regulated spendthrift folk were prone to break up the day and send its fragments broadcast as they would, without forethought, scruple, compunction. ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... but with a countenance that was like marble in its intensity. I knew that he was suffering, and that my words were the cause of his agony. I knew that I was prodding him deeply and severely, thrusting the iron into his soul with as little compunction as a Mexican charo exerts when he "cinches" a heavily burdened burro. But I was doing it with malice prepense, and I was doing it ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... the handsome gentlemanlike man, who, on his side, made no secret of the impression produced on him by the great loveliness of the English girl. Moore, who was a thoroughly heartless scamp, had not the least compunction in agreeing to a marriage between his sister and this man, with whose character and mode of life he was perfectly well acquainted; indeed, it suited his views so well, that he did what lay in his power to forward it. There were no difficulties in the way; the ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... bed-stead, ready to launch herself into the air, and strangle herself by the weight of her own body at Caesar's first step towards her. So desperate was the resolution depicted on Meroe's face that the Roman general for an instant remained motionless. Then, urged either by compunction for his violence; or by the certainty that, if he attempted force, he would have but a corpse in his possession; or, as the unscrupulous libertine later pretended, by a generous impulse that had guided him throughout;—whatever ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... interest, of course, no more than that. To-night her eyes and thoughts were for him alone,—a circumstance which, could he have felt sure, would have made him wildly happy, instead of inordinately furious in his complete misunderstanding of her manner toward Freddie Ulstervelt, who had no compunction about making love to two girls at the same time. She was never so beautiful, never so vivacious, never so resourceful. Brock was under the spell; he was fascinated; he had to look to himself carefully in order to keep his ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... least offending and conscientious mariner, to take such awful punishments in vain, by acting them in his sports; but doubly so do I pronounce it in the crew of a ship on which no man can say at what hour retribution and compunction are to alight. It seems to me unwise to tempt Providence by ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... observed that, from the uncertainty of its motions, the turkey-cock was blind, a discovery which caused a throb of compunction to enter his breast for standing and looking on, so he ran forward. The eagle saw him instantly, and tried to fly away, but was unable ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... I had felt helpless; then I had determined to leap over and go to their help; then I saw that I was best where I was, and took aim, ready to fire at the first chance, for I could do nothing at first for fear of injuring my friends. And besides, a horrible feeling of compunction had come upon me at the thought of having to fire at men—fellow creatures—and I ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... dates would be brought down too far or too near!" And this is the keynote of his entire policy: fiat hypothesis, ruat caelum! On the other hand Prof. Max Muller, enthusiastic Indophile as he seems, crams centuries into his chronological thimble without the smallest apparent compunction.... ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... understood it. Beasley himself knew it. Buck had assured him that he would shoot him down like a dog if he offended against the unwritten laws of instinctive chivalry as he understood them, and he would do it without any compunction or ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... Go home and come back again to-morrow,' I said; 'sleep over it, and I will sleep over it, and I will meet you here to-morrow, when you are more calm.' She agreed to this and went away. I felt a little compunction for my own softness during that evening and night, Niece Charlotte, I felt that I was not quite true to you; but then you had not seen her face, poor brave young thing, poor ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... his compunction held Jerry to his task, but more often he turned an end furrow and laid his misgivings snugly under it and was away to the woods or the creek. There was joy and a loaf for the present. What ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... see," chattered away the old man, not without some slight compunction. "But in my opinion she's too dark for such somber dresses. I've told her so a score of times." Then as he watched the woman before him rolling up the goods he proceeded to ask with fussy importunity what she thought the express charges were ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Forsyth said, he had no difficulty in conjuring a vacation congregation for his young substitute. They came trooping, old and young. Mr and Mrs Murchison would survey their creditable family rank with a secret compunction, remembering its invariable gaps at other times, and then resolutely turn to the praise of God with the reflection that one means to righteousness was as blessed as another. They themselves never missed a Sunday, ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... around her delicate form. She was very beautiful in her joyful, modest emotion, and Count Alexis Orloff, who, in a rich Russian costume stood by her side, viewed her with ecstatic and warm desiring glances. The inhuman executioner led the lamb to the slaughter without pity or compunction! ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... many paces again when they discovered two horses tied to a tree, possibly the property of the two couriers whose boat they had previously utilized. These they looked upon as fair spoil in an enemy's country, and with little compunction and less ceremony mounted and started on their way. A few miles brought them to the verge of the wood, and the day was now breaking. They therefore reluctantly dismounted, turned their steeds adrift for fear of detection, and trudged ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... falsehood. There is too much evidence of guile and conspiracy to attribute all their actions and declarations to delusion; and their conduct throughout was stamped with a bold assurance and audacious bearing. With one or two slight and momentary exceptions, there was a total absence of compunction or commiseration, and a reckless disregard of the agonies and destruction they were scattering around them. They present a subject that justly claims, and will for ever task, the examination of those who are ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... wintry afternoon as she pressed close to the window, to catch the fading light on the page of her Bible, it chanced to be the chapter in St. Luke, which contained the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican; and while she read, a great compunction smote her; a remorseful sense of having scorned as utterly unclean and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... compunction at being obliged to leave the "Queen of the summer sea" without paying our devoirs at the tomb of Virgil, father of Latin poets. The last resting-place of the "dead king of melody"—he who, in his own words, "sung of shepherds, fields, and heroes' deeds" (cecini pascua, rura, duces)—lies "shadowed ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... fought and lost to me. Mr. Parasyte, roused to the highest pitch of anger and excitement, seemed to be determined to overwhelm me. He was reckless and desperate. He had smashed my boat apparently with as little compunction as he would snap a dead stick in his fingers. He was thoroughly in earnest now; and it was fully demonstrated that he intended to protect the discipline of the Parkville Liberal Institute, even if it cost a human life for him ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... her mother had felt so much, and recollected him so soon and suddenly cut down and consigned to that dreary darkness, the strange yearning spirit dismissed to the unknown world, instead of her old terror and repulsion, a great tenderness and compunction came over her, and she longed to join those who would in two days more be keeping All Souls' Day in intercessions for their departed, so as to atone for her past dislike; and there was that sort of feeling about her which can only be described by the word 'eerie.' ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he felt a melancholy compunction, he used to comfort himself with all kinds of arguments, just as they happened to cross his mind, but now he was far removed from any such ideas; he was filled with a profound pity, and he desired ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... most creditable merchants felt no compunction in speculating in the flesh and blood of their own species. These articles of merchandize were as common as wheat and tobacco, and ranked with these as a staple of Maryland. This state of things was naturally productive of scenes of cruelty. Georgia ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... bodyguard of twenty noble youths, six chaplains, and a Benedictine abbot went to the suburb to escort into the city the curate with the Peach-stone. It was a glorious day, never to be forgotten in the annals of Verona. Charity and the open heart went side by side with compunction and the searching of the heart. Tears were shed and kissed away; kisses induced the fall of gentler tears. It might be stoutly questioned whether Verona held one unshriven soul, one sin unspoken, or one ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... any—QUIVER. Throw on the saddle without a cloth, and he would "give" in the middle like a broken rail—bend till his belly almost touched the ground, and remain bent till mounted; then he'd crawl off and gradually straighten up as he became used to you. Were you tender-hearted enough to feel compunction in sitting down hard on a six-year-old sore, or if you had an aversion to kicking the suffering brute with both heels and belting his hide with a yard or two of fencing-wire to get him to show signs of animation, you would dismount ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... our day, the love and practice of truth have grown obsolete; dramatic pieces and works of fiction, indeed all kinds of literature, especially biography, and even history, combine to outrage truth with impunity; no compunction is felt in transforming great characters into monsters, and monsters into heroes. People are no longer astonished that travellers' narratives should be like poems, good or bad, works of imagination full of anachronisms, exaggerations, impossibilities, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... night, for the first time in his life, he did not say his prayers. "I suppose the sense of change was so great that it shook them quietly off. I was not then a sceptic; I had got as far as disbelief in infant baptism, but no further. I felt no compunction of conscience, however, about leaving off my morning and evening prayers—simply I could no longer ...
— Samuel Butler: A Sketch • Henry Festing Jones
... if she would go with him to one of Lady Maxwell's East End "evenings," and she, with equal formality, refused. But he did not take advantage of her refusal to go himself. Was it fear of his own weakness, or compunction towards Letty, or the mere dread of being betrayed into something ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... more burdensome when it is laid upon one's self. Indeed, she was conscious just then that one might be shortly thrust upon her which she would find it very hard to bear, and she became troubled with a certain compunction as she remembered how she had of late persistently driven all thought of it ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... Chayani also if possible. The Tehuas would reap many scalps; she would have had her revenge; and the deed could be so performed as to make those at the Rito believe that the Navajos were the perpetrators. This was her plan, and she did not feel the slightest scruple or compunction. For years she had been, among her own people, the butt of numberless insults and mortifications. Now it had gone so far that her life even was in imminent peril. Ere this should be lost, she would prove to her enemies that she was alive, and ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... to this he merely repeated his observation that Crasweller was a very bad specimen to begin with. "He has got ten years of work in him," said my friend, "and yet you intend to make away with him without the slightest compunction." ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... at this time of life, ashamed of the savage instinct that in those days filled me with a certain joy in destroying human life, unthinkingly, and without compunction. But I had been brought up in a rough school, among men who thought it not only justifiable, but correct and proper to shoot a man—black, or white, or brown, or yellow—who had done them any wrong. It had been my lot, in the Solomon Islands, to witness one of the most hideous ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... have lynched the manager of the Free Speech for exercising the right of free speech if they had found him as quickly as they would have hung a rapist, and glad of the excuse to do so. The owners were ordered not to return, the Free Speech was suspended with as little compunction as the business of the "People's Grocery" broken up ...
— Southern Horrors - Lynch Law in All Its Phases • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... that struck me dumb. Without replying, I rose and shook them off, retiring with my boy into the inner chamber. But they pursued me without compunction, repeating the extraordinary "conundrum," and dragging the Malay duenna along with them to interpret my answer. The intrusion provoked me; but, considering their beggarly poverty of true life and liberty, of hopes and joys, and loves and memories, and holy fears and sorrows, with ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... late of your unequall'd virtues, And wrung with deep compunction for your wrongs, By his own hand ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... anything, without even making excuses for her failure to keep her promise. She knew now that George had never meant that her mother should live with them, that he had never meant that they should take an apartment, that he had lied to her, without compunction, from the beginning. She knew this as surely as she knew that he was faithless and selfish, as surely as she knew that he had ceased to love her and would never love her again. And this knowledge, which had once caused her such poignant agony, seemed now as detached and remote as any tragedy ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... and the tears came into her eyes. She felt that she had been somewhat harsh to him; but she felt, too, with great thankfulness, that, despite this softening compunction, her heart was free and firm. She had great liking, but not a particle of ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... ascertain what facilities we should have for meeting in future, on the supposition that I could carry my project into effect. I found him of a most tractable disposition. He asked me how I felt towards you, and if I had not experienced some compunction at quitting you. I told him that you were so truly amiable, and had ever treated me with such undeviating kindness, that it was impossible I could hate you. He admitted that you were a man of merit, and expressed an ardent desire to gain ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... the least dishonest nor insincere. They are talking in the most amicable manner, they pass with all in the world—including themselves—for bosom friends; and yet at a certain moment—in a given situation—they would stab each other in the back without compunction or hesitation, to gain a step in the ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... "But in that case you'll have no compunction in leaving him without saying 'goodbye.' Let's go ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... slave of a given situation from which he could not set her free. The total lack of ready money was felt by her to constitute in our altogether factitious society an intolerable situation, frightful misery or absolute powerlessness. What she missed was some means of which she might dispose, without compunction and uncontrolled, for an artistic treat, a beautiful book, a week's travelling, a present to a poor friend, a charity to a deserving person, and such like trifles, which, although not indispensable, make life pleasant. "Irresponsibility is a state of servitude; it is something ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... passionately, raising her arm aloft with a gesture worthy of Siddons or Ristori; "may I never be forgiven when I die if I do! I could kill you this moment, as I would a rat, if I had it in my power, and with as little compunction. I hate you—I hate you—I hate you! How I hate you words are too ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... days when people went to the opera for lack of the music-hall, not yet invented; when Costa still lorded it not over living musical London merely, but over all the deceased masters, and without compunction added trombones to Mozart's scores, and defiled every masterwork he touched with his unspeakable Costamongery; when Wagner was either unheard of or regarded as a dangerous lunatic and immoral person; and it shows every ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... would come, and so, as a corollary, Lord Lindfield would come. Then there would be the newly-engaged couple, namely, Daisy and Willie Carton. Either of them would go, as steel filings go to the magnet, wherever the other was, and without the least sense of compunction Lady Nottingham told each of them separately that the other was coming to her. She had been rather late in doing this, and, as a matter of fact, Willie, no longer hoping for it, had made another engagement. But he did not even frown or consider that. He wrote a cheerful, ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... through the success of my friend's books and from his companionship. It was odd that from the care of his father he should immediately pass on to the care of one who had made such a disastrous mistake as I had made. But I feel the less compunction at the thought of the amount of sympathy I called for at that time, because I notice that the giving of sympathy is a necessity for Derrick, and that when the troubles of other folk do not immediately thrust themselves into his life he carefully hunts ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... However, compunction vanished with the decline of day. Night came, and his tea and supper; but no Lizzy Newberry, and no sweet temptations. At last the minister could bear it no longer, and said to his quaint little attendant, 'Where is Mrs. Newberry to-day?' judiciously handing a penny ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... shoes, and the sunshade hat all belong in the picture. But the entire wardrobe costs less than the hat I wear on Sunday. Then the comfort of these inexpensive habiliments! I need not be fastidious in such a garb, but can loll on the grass without compunction. When I get mud upon my big shoes I simply scrape it off with a chip, and that's all there is to it. The dirt on my overalls is honest dirt, and honestly come by, and so needs no apology. I can ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... this renaissance of mental activity that reminded us of the Kawa and of William Henry Thomas. Great heavens, what would he think of us? Here nearly a month had elapsed, we were mostly married and had never given him a thought. We were filled with compunction. On top of this Triplett came to us with the announcement that Baahaabaa had informed him that we might expect a big wind about this time. Remembering what we had been through the Captain was worried about our tight ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... and Leithgow—alive. It would of course be idle to ask you to surrender, but that's not necessary, for you're trapped and can't possibly last another five minutes. I intrude only to warn you away from my synchronized brains. I will destroy without compunction anyone ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... myself. But I see that it has got to be done, and after all it will be better to kill the poor brutes than to let them fall into the hands of the Indians, who don't know what mercy to their beasts means, and will ride them till they drop dead without the least compunction." ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... he chatted on about his early impressions of the Hall, his listener became aware that he regarded their first interview as the doorway of a friendship into which he had now entered. A knowledge of this fact smote Leigh with some compunction, for he had been so much absorbed in his own ulterior purpose as to regard this man in the light of a means toward its accomplishment. Now Emmet stood before him again, haying taken him at his word, innocent of his original position as a pawn in another's game. He was not one who deserved to ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... sitting in the Senate, appalling news came from the Assembly: Dr. Willard, while making one more passionate appeal for the asylum, had fallen dead in the presence of the committee. The result was a deep and wide- spread feeling of compunction, and while we were under the influence of this I sought Judge Folger and showed him his opportunity to do two great things. I said: "It rests with you to remedy this cruel evil which has now cost Dr. Willard ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... brought us to Lengan Lengang about dusk, where we put up for the night. For the first time, this day I saw the cockatoo in his wild state; I was within easy shot of two of them, but the stream lay between us, and I felt some compunction at ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... King's Bench Prison! If he had been in Italy indeed, and the time had been sunset, and the scene a stately terrace! But, there is one broad sky over all the world, and whether it be blue or cloudy, the same heaven beyond it; so, perhaps, he had no need of compunction for thinking as ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... first of men who have tried to find in vain how and when a relationship becomes an entanglement. He ought to break off now, and the riddle was just why he should feel this compunction in breaking off now. He had disappointed her, and he ought not to have disappointed her; that was the essential feeling. He had never realized before as he realized now this peculiar quality of his own mind and the gulf into which it was leading him. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... top floor. He always went upstairs three steps at a time, as if in a hurry to have it over with. He had a room at the top of the house because he couldn't afford one lower down. A delayed sense of compunction had ordered Mrs. Tresslyn to insist upon George's paying his own way through life, now that he was of age and ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... "You owe me none; it will be a matter of convenience to me to have the use of this additional money. I only feel some compunction in deriving that profit from it which you might yourself reap. However, as I take the risk, and you take none, it is according to your own plan;—and now I must be off; I have already overrun my time," said ...
— Rich Enough - a tale of the times • Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee
... subject of perils, it perhaps does not misbecome me to say that my most imminent perils come from yourself, or at least would come if I believed in your love and accepted your addresses. Your father has told me plainly that in that case I should be consumed into a cinder with as little compunction as if I were the reptile whom Taee blasted into ashes with the flash ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... did sleep; so soundly, so healthfully, that old Lizette without compunction stole softly away, to creep back through the moonlit fields to her own cabin ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... little daughter Anne was sent off with her nurse, grandpapa persuading her that Rosella and the others were very much tired. When she was gone, he declared his fears that he had sat down on Celestina's head, and showed so much compunction that we were much amused at his relief when Martyn assured him of having searched the carriage with a stable lantern, so that whatever had befallen the lady he was not the guilty person. He really seemed more concerned about this than at the loss of all his own barns and stores. And little ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... themselves to be safe from Israel's attacks. [716] Their fear was in reality quite without foundation, for Israel never dreamed of transgressing God's command by waging war upon Lot's descendants. They might without compunction keep the former provinces of Moab and Ammon because they took them not from these, but from Sihon and Og, who ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... who can sit on a knoll for an hour and let old Mother Earth spin her tune to the fathering sun, is ever a friend of mine. But the Red Man carries the pastime beyond me, unless when he is on the warpath, and then he is a devil. It would give me no compunction to reign with a hundred or more Fraser Highlanders, in a strath from which the Red Man has to be persuaded away, or driven by force. Perhaps I could even hold out a helping invitation to smaller 'broken men' still in the Aberdeenshire ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... relief Irene heard him return upon this note, and strike it so violently. She felt no more compunction. The man was finally declared to her, and she could hold her own against him. Her headache had grown fierce; her mouth was dry; shudders of hot and cold ran through her. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... hungry child finds a quick response to its mute appeal; but when we know that hundreds are rendered homeless every day, and countless thousands are killed and wounded, men and boys mowed down like a field of grain, and with as little compunction, we grow a little bit numb to human misery. What does it matter if there is a family north of the track living on soda biscuits and turnips? War hardens us to human grief ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... cakes filled with cream and soaked in syrup. They eat scores of them, and they do it every day and any hour of the day, in the morning or afternoon or whenever they happen to pass. No wonder they look pasty-faced! We are only here for once, so we need have no compunction about our digestions, especially as there is an empty place left after that tantalising bacon-less breakfast. We are soon provided with a plate each and a little implement which looks as if it had started life as a butter-knife and suddenly changed ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... you might discover by digging down into the ground. One man claimed to have struck a vein of oyster-soup. And anyway he sold oyster-soup over his counter at a dollar a dish. Gas-gushers were lighted and burned without compunction as to waste. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... election, warned his people, according to his duty, against the crimes which publick elections frequently produce. His warning was felt by one of his parishioners, as pointed particularly at himself. But instead of producing, as might be wished, private compunction and immediate reformation, it kindled only rage and resentment. He charged his minister, in a publick paper, with scandal, defamation, and falsehood. The minister, thus reproached, had his own character to vindicate, upon which his pastoral ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... have cried shame on him had the matter been pursued further. But no such public sentiment was needed in order to induce Davenport to give the justice and Basset a hint to do nothing more. He was really grateful, though feeling no compunction for his conduct, easily persuading himself that it had been prompted by a love of justice, and a desire to protect the interests ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... asceticism. It is not a self-inflicted compunction, but a Christ-inflicted crucifixion. Our Lord was done with the cross when on Calvary he cried: "It is finished." But where he ended each disciple must begin: "If any man will come after me let him deny himself ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... N. penitence, contrition, compunction, repentance, remorse; regret &c. 833. self-reproach, self-reproof, self-accusation, self-condemnation, self- humiliation; stings of conscience, pangs of conscience, qualms of conscience, prickings of conscience[obs3], twinge of conscience, twitch of conscience, touch of conscience, voice ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the first to be hanged. He got his finger under the rope around his neck and died hard, but died. Stinson, also cursing, went next. It was then time for Plummer, and those who had this work in hand felt compunction at hanging a man so able, so urbane and so commanding. None the less, he was told to prepare. He asked for time to pray, and was told to pray from the cross-beam. He said good-by to a friend or two, and asked his executioners to "give ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... enough to try the temper of a saint, such senseless, wicked rages! There she lay dashing her head against the arm of the sofa, and grinding her teeth, so that you might fancy she would crash them to splinters! Mr. Linton stood looking at her in sudden compunction and fear. He told me to fetch some water. She had no breath for speaking. I brought a glass full; and as she would not drink, I sprinkled it on her face. In a few seconds she stretched herself out stiff, and turned ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... retorted. "And I suppose you'll be pleased, and Margaret will shout for joy, if ye get a dirk in your assistant aide-de-camp's ribs ane o' these fine nights. Just understand ance for a', my friend, that a Highlander kills a man wi' as little compunction as an Englishman squashes a beetle. There's nane o' your law-and-order bodies beyont ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... truth of the narrative. It is well known that during the worst period of the French Revolution, in the massacres in the prisons on Sept. 2, 1792, some of the mob who had literally wearied their arms in hewing down the prisoners let loose from the jails, took a momentary fit of compunction, were seized with pity for some of the victims, and after saving them from their murderers, accompanied them home, and witnessed with tears of joy the meeting between them and their relations. We are not warranted, after such facts have been recorded ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Poussette instead of being persuaded by him, and this in itself pleased her and restored her self-respect; her previous relations with Stanbury and Schenk suffered by comparison, and if she secretly hoped for the death or removal of Mme. Poussette it was with soft womanly compunction and pity, and with stern resolves not to ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... frantic with grief, and filled the air with lamentations for his father and mother. Mi Padre! Mi Madre!—was his incessant cry. When we beheld this pitiable sight, and pictured to ourselves the fate of the two women, carried off by savages so brutal and so loathsome, all compunction for the scalped-alive Indian ceased; and we rejoiced that Carson and Godey had been able to give so useful a lesson to these American Arabs who lie in wait to murder and ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... make out what caused her delay. She continued praying, she frequently passed her handkerchief over her face, by which D'Artagnan perceived she was weeping. He saw her strike her breast with the pitiless compunction of a Christian woman. He heard her several times proffer, as if from a wounded heart: "Pardon! pardon!" And as she appeared to abandon herself entirety to her grief, as she threw herself down almost fainting, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... will be so nice when the Prince and all the best people are in Paris. We shall only stay in Cuba till the fuss about my running away is all over, and people have forgotten, don't you know. As for Mr. Smithson, why should I have any more compunction about jilting him than he had about that poor Miss Trinder? By-the-bye, I want you to send him back all his presents for me. They are almost all in Arlington Street. I brought nothing with me except my engagement ring,' looking down at the half-hoop ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Estabrook might go to the bureau and discover the loss before he got out of the house, which would make it awkward for him. Once out in the street, he breathed more freely. He had enough with him to pay his only debt, and give him four hundred dollars extra. It might be supposed he would feel some compunction at robbing his stepmother of her all. Whatever her faults, she was devoted to him. But Willis Ford had a hard, selfish nature, and the only thought that troubled him was the fear that he might be found out. Indeed, the housekeeper's ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... prevented. The mere friction of contact may produce bad nicks. Nor is the fineness nor the excellence of the product an insurance against mishaps. From your factories or stores your output is at the mercy of carriers without compunction, and in our homes it is exposed to the heavy hands of servants without sentiment. The pleasure of many a dinner is impaired by the fear or the consciousness that inapt peasants are playing havoc with the treasures of art on which the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... who can row is allowed to refuse his oar; no man, however much money he may have saved in his pocket, is allowed so much as half a biscuit beyond his proper ration. Any riotous person who endangered the safety of the rest would be bound, and laid in the bottom of the boat, without the smallest compunction, for such violation of the principles of individual liberty; and, on the other hand, any child, or woman, or aged person, who was helpless, and exposed to great danger and suffering by their weakness, would receive more than ordinary care and indulgence, not unaccompanied ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... it over—but we had tasted nothing that morning, and we had rode for eight hours, and were dying of hunger! Moreover we travelled with a cook, a very tolerable native artist, but without sentiment—his heart in his stew-pan; and he, without the least compunction, had begun his frying and broiling operations in what seemed the very vestibule of Pharaoh's palace. Our own mozos and our Indian guides were assisting in its operations with the utmost zeal; and in a few minutes, some sitting round the fire, and others upon broken ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and other honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they know not whereof they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted they can demand without compunction a violation of the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... community of his caste-fellows, and here absolutely no discredit is attached to grinding the faces of the poor, but on the contrary the honour and consideration accruing to him are in direct proportion to his wealth. The agent may have some compunction, but his first aim is to please his principal, and as he is often a sojourner liable to early transfer he cares little what may be said ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... like that before Trenham Manning! I just burst out crying then and there, and ran away and hid. It was very silly of me, but I couldn't help it. That stings me yet. If I was ever to get a chance to pay Lou Carroll out for that, I'd take it without any compunction." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... take my horse; I'll walk to get me an appetite. 'Tis but a mile; And exercise will keep me from being pursy. Ha! Marall! is he conjuring? Perhaps The knave has wrought the prodigal to do Some outrage on himself, and now he feels Compunction in his conscience for't: no matter, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... exclaimed one of the Pagans, moved by some rare compunction to remember that he had a wife at ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... gather, Gerda seemed to be "dressing up" for the delectation of her guests. Shrieks of laughter and clapping of hands made us wince. My nerves were on edge. Had any one at that moment dared to suggest that there was even a suspicion of humor in these proceedings I should have slain him without compunction. Letitia was less irate and tried to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... some others, especially Collins and Ralph. But each of these having wronged me greatly without the least compunction; and recollecting Keith's conduct towards me, who was another Free-thinker, and my own towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful. My London ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... clergymen's wives in general, and the way in which marriages came about. Who had the ordering of these inexplicable accidents? It was surely not Providence, but some tricky imp or other who loved confusion; and then Miss Dora paused with compunction, and hoped she would be forgiven for entertaining, even for one passing moment, such a wicked, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant |
