"Mortify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... appetites are fed with air Where grows whatever is most fair; They bathe religiously in pools Which golden lily-pollen cools; They pray within a jewelled home, Are chaste where nymphs of heaven roam: They mortify desire and sin With things that others fast ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... him: "If you could mortify me before a whole roomful of people, as you did last night, what could I expect after ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... called; and conventual institutions abound, as at Arbois. Just beyond the pleasant garden of the Presbytere is a large building of cloistered nuns, wretched women, belonging to the upper ranks of society, who have shut themselves up to mortify the flesh and practise all kinds of puerilities for the glory of the church. All the handsome municipal institutions, large hospitals, orphanages, asylums for the aged, &c., are in the hands of the nuns and priests, and woe betide the unfortunate Protestant who is driven to ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Christ, who all his life long had no other taste or wish than to do the will of his Father whom he called his meat and nourishment. For example, you take satisfaction in HEARING of things in which the glory of God bears no part. Deny yourself this satisfaction, mortify your wish to listen. You take pleasure in SEEING objects which do not raise your mind to God: refuse yourself this pleasure, and turn away your eyes. The same with conversations and all other things. Act similarly, so far as you are able, with all ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... have always entertained of his honour and delicacy,-let me observe the difference of his behaviour, when nearly in the same situation, to that of Sir Clement Willoughby. He had, at least, equal cause to depreciate me in his opinion, and to mortify and sink me in my own; but far different was his conduct:-perplexed, indeed, he looked, and much surprised:-but it was benevolently, not with insolence. I am even inclined to think, that he could not see a young creature whom he had so lately known in a higher ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... that a man should die, in consequence of a broken leg or arm, if the skin be uninjured' but, if the broken end forces its way through the flesh, the injury is a very serious one. Abscesses form, the parts mortify, and the severest consequences often follow. Hence, when a man breaks a bone, do not convert a simple injury into a severe one, by carrying him carelessly. If possible, move the encampment to the injured man, and not vice versa. Mr. Druitt says:—"When a man has broken his leg, lay ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... Inocencio," said Pepe, feeling a bitter and rebellious sentiment of hostility springing up within him toward the canon, and unable to conquer his desire to mortify him. "But let none of you imagine, either, that it was the beauties of art, of which you suppose the temple to be full, that engaged my attention. Those beauties, with the exception of the imposing architecture of a portion of the edifice and of the three ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... would mortify me if it were in your power for acting against your advice. But my fame does not depend upon your judgment. All Europe admired the greatness of my mind in resigning a crown to dedicate myself entirely to the love ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... you ten kilometres further and deposits you at the station of Szeged. Here you congregate like lost souls in Hades and wait and suffer. They say those suffer most who continue to have hope in that region. The hopeful clamour and push and mortify themselves, whilst highly indifferent and laconic Magyars chuckle among themselves and throw ink across an inky table asking foreigners in Hungarian their mother's maiden name and their natal town. The officials have ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... her mother. "And Matt says that a man of this young man's traditions might mortify you ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... "I never," he says, "saw him in a passion, and never knew him to strike a slave, though he had over a hundred; neither would he allow an overseer to do it." He rebuked those who were in fault; but, adds Jennings, he would "never mortify them by doing it before others." It will be remembered that on the first occasion of his being a candidate for public office he refused to follow the universal Virginian habit of "treating" the electors. To the principle which governed him then ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... this insanity; the covetous, they say, commit crimes and mortify themselves without hopes of reward; and thus become miserable both in this world and the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... day while we were drawing logs of timber from the wood my girdle broke from the strain, so that my clothes hung loose. A monk behind me saw this and cutting a twig tied it so tightly around my sides that it has caused my flesh to mortify." Mochuda asked—"And why did you not loosen the twig?" The monk replied—"Because my body in not my own and he who tied it (the withe) has never loosed it." It was a whole year since the withe had been fastened around him. Mochuda said to him:—"Brother, you have suffered great pain; as ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... some general condemnation of the world on religious grounds, and must receive further consideration in that connection. Its proper meaning as a purely prudential formalism is best exhibited in the Greek Cynics. These philosophers were moved to mortify the flesh, and to deny their social interests, by extreme caution. They discovered that the safest method of adjustment was simplification. If one permits one's self no desires, one need not suffer {93} from their conflict, nor need one treat with the ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... tell clearly! I have thought that we have been selfish, careless, even impious, in our courses, you and I. Our life has been a vain attempt at self-delight. But self-abnegation is the higher road. We should mortify the flesh—the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... with their surroundings. Living in constant fear of their persecutors, and wandering from one place of refuge to another, the sufferers for the Faith had little time or inclination to think of family ties, and readily listened to the monks, who exhorted them to mortify the lusts ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... though she seem'd to listen more To all he spoke, than e'er before, He found her thoughts would absent range, Yet guess'd not whence could spring the change. And first he modestly conjectures His pupil might be tired with lectures; Which help'd to mortify his pride, Yet gave him not the heart to chide: But, in a mild dejected strain, At last he ventured to complain: Said, she should be no longer teazed, Might have her freedom when she pleased; Was now convinced he ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... to pass that many of the Saints were so perfect, so contemplative of Divine things? Because they steadfastly sought to mortify themselves from all worldly desires, and so were enabled to cling with their whole heart to God, and be free and at leisure for the thought of Him. We are too much occupied with our own affections, and too anxious about transitory things. Seldom, ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... will make no difference in the friendship which has hitherto subsisted between us. I have spoken of your poem exactly as I think, and though I cannot reasonably suppose that you will be pleased with everything I have said, it would mortify me very severely to believe I had given you pain. If you have any amity left for me, you will not delay very long to tell me so. In the meantime, I am very sincerely ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... swarm'd again. In bed like monstrous apes they crush'd my chest: They flapp'd my light out as I read: I saw Their faces grow between me and my book: With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left, And by this way I'scaped them. Mortify Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns; Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps, With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain, Have scrambled past those pits ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... to mortify a wit, The many-headed monster of the pit: A senseless, worthless, and unhonour'd crowd; Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud, Clattering their sticks before ten lines are spoke. Call for the farce, the bear, or the black-joke. What dear delight to Britons farce affords! 310 Ever the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... is amply sufficient—for the masses believe that he demands the most painful efforts on the part of those whom he deigns to initiate into the supremely adorable mysteries of His Person—it is necessary and just that he should mortify them before allowing them to taste the essential intoxication ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... and the Human are intermingled. In every one there are the Reason and the Moral sense, the passions that prompt to evil, and the sensual appetites. "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die," said Paul, writing to the Christians at Rome, "but if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." "The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh," he said, writing to the Christians of Galatia, "and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of forest art, as displayed on his person, lay in the wonderful painting of his entire body, which was covered with intricate designs in the most vivid colors on a background of black, and the prismatic effect was so bewilderingly gorgeous, that, as Christie said to Donald, "it was enough to mortify a rainbow." ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... the difficulties by which it is beset, and our already numerous failures in it. We lose heart; and partly in ill-temper, partly in real doubt of our own ability to persevere, we first grow querulous and peevish with God, and then relax in our efforts to mortify ourselves and to please Him. It is a sort of shadow of despair, and will lead us into numberless venial sins the first half-hour we ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... I did not perceive her; much obliged to you for telling me, for she conceals her age so well that I would not mortify her by letting her suppose that I am aware of her advanced years," continued the malicious little lady in a ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... any great Italian. On the other hand, the Italian painted and carved the face insuperably; but I believe there is no instance of his having perfectly represented the body, which, by command of his religion, it became his pride to despise and his safety to mortify." ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... sisterhood, mademoiselle cherie, for those who would withdraw themselves from the world. They are very strict, I believe, the sisters, and mortify the flesh exceedingly. Me, I cannot see why we should leave the beautiful world the bon dieu has put us into. For certain, He would not have put us in if He had not meant ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... Church developed the remarkable institution known as Monasticism, which denotes a life of seclusion from the world, with the object of promoting the interests of the soul. The central idea of the system is, that the body is a weight upon the spirit, and that to "mortify the flesh" is ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... made a cruel and bitter use of his opportunities in this respect. He was jealous and envious of the king's fame and greatness, and sought to revenge him-self by continual fault-finding and criticism. He sought to mortify the great Frederick, who was admired and wondered at by all the world; to make him feel and confess that he could never ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... we were not surprised at their shabby appearance when we learned that they each only had one coat a year in which to do all their work, no matter how dirty that work might be. Are they not there to mortify the flesh and learn economy? What is the want of raiment when compared with ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... into a central position in any gathering they happened to form part of, but stood forlornly in corners, like the rest of humanity. Perhaps he regretted even the sham celebrity he had enjoyed, for his was a disposition that rose to any opportunity of self-display—but in time the contrast ceased to mortify him, for most of the invitations dropped; he was only asked to places now as the husband of Mabel, and in the height of the season most of their evenings were passed at home, to the ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... told Phoebe it would never do. Convinced in her own conscience that she had done nothing blameworthy, Phoebe knew that it was the shortest way not to defend herself, and the storm was blowing over when Mervyn came in, charmed to mortify Juliana by compliments to Phoebe on 'doing it stylishly, careering in Acton's turn-out,' but when the elder sister explained where she had been, Mervyn, too, deserted her, and turned away with a fierce imprecation on his brother, such as was misery to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... began to aspire to the honor of her hand. Through these and other influences, she was the object of much attention; while, on the other hand, Queen Catharine, and the party in power at the French court, were envious and jealous of her popularity, and did a great deal to mortify and vex her. ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Moreover, they mortify the body by early rising and by very plain living. Few, as I said before, eat meat; and I was assured that a complete and long-continued experience had proved to them that young people maintain their health and strength fully without meat. They wear a very plain and simple ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... Sunday, in particular, their behavior served to mortify me. I had desired my girls the preceding night to be dressed early the next day, for I always loved to be at church a good while before the rest of the congregation. They punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were to assemble in the morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters, dressed ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... give it to me that I may return it to the duke, and not mortify him too much, as you will not ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... but Anne's request came as a great compliment It was a compliment, however, which had to be dispensed with, for Addison had already proposed to dedicate 'Cato' to the Duchess of Marlborough, and he harboured no wish to mortify the aggressive Sarah (now out of favour with the Queen) by acting upon the hint of her one-time friend and mistress. So the author diplomatically ignored both horns of the dilemma, or, in other words, determined to consecrate his tragedy ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... now lies buried in these doubtful luxuries, might most wisely and kindly be thrown into a form which would give perpetual pleasure, not to its possessor only, but to thousands besides, and neither tempt the unprincipled, nor inflame the envious, nor mortify the poor; while, supposing that your own dignity was dear to you, this, you may rely upon it, would be more impressed upon others by the nobleness of your house-walls than by the glistening ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... considered our saviours, as without their services we could not obtain the pardon of sin, and must go to hell. Now, it was our solemn duty, on withdrawing from the world, to consecrate our lives to religion, to practice every species of self-denial. We could not become too humble, nor mortify our feelings too far; this was to be done by opposing them, and acting contrary to them; and what she proposed was, therefore, pleasing in the sight of God. I now felt how foolish I had been to place myself in the power of such persons as ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... intended journey to Devonshire, I find it out of my power to perform it; for, as soon as I arrive at Dover, I intend to let the ladies go on, and I will take a country lodging somewhere near that place in order to do some business. I have so outrun the constable that I must mortify a little to bring it up again. For God's sake, the night you receive this, take your pen in your hand and tell me something about yourself and myself, if you know anything that has happened. About Miss ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... hopeless; yet his time of triumph—such triumph as it was—had nearly arrived. The queen's supposed pregnancy had increased her influence; and, constant herself in the midst of general indecision, she was able to carry her point. She would not mortify the legate, who had suffered for his constancy to the cause of her mother, with listening to Renard's personal objections; and when the character of the approaching House of Commons had been ascertained, she gained the ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... come back, and the man that was with him wrote that they got lost from each other, and water was so scarce and all that. And then, you know, I didn't get married again till you was 'most ten years old, Jason. I'm sure I don't know what to do. I don't want to mortify anybody, but I'd like to know ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... the sovereigns, was to raise men of humble station to offices of the highest trust; not, however, like their contemporary, Louis the Eleventh, because their station was humble, in order to mortify the higher orders, but because they courted merit, wherever it was to be found; [5]—a policy much and deservedly commended by the sagacious observers of the time. [6] The history of Spain does not probably afford another example of a person of the lowly condition ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... ever conversed with. The treatment you blame, he merited from one whom he addressed with the air of a person who presumes that he is about to confer a favour, rather than to receive one. I ever loved to mortify proud and insolent spirits. What, think you, makes me bear Hickman near me, but that the man is humble, and knows and keeps ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... it is meant that we must subject and mortify our five bodily senses, in such wise that we may never offend with them, taking through them or some of them unregulated pleasure or delight. In this way we shall be five, when we have subdued ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nature that only the grace of God held the soul back from the Abyss. It must be purged of all tendency to evil so as to be made "pure and ready to mount to the stars." (XXXIII, 140.) The purgation is seen in process in a threefold manner according to Dante. A material punishment is inflicted to mortify the evil passion and to incite the soul to virtue; the soul meditates upon the capital sin and its opposite virtue, moved to abhorrence of the evil and to admiration of the good by examples drawn from sacred and profane history; vocal prayer is addressed to God and it brings forth ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... clearly I seem to see all things now. Why could we not do so before? I have had my sinful worldly dream of happiness, and death has ended it. When I heard of his death and Jim's my heart turned to stone. All the strength I have shall be given to religion from this out. I can ease my heart and mortify the flesh for the good of my soul. To God—to the Holy Virgin—who hears the sorrows of such as me, I can pray day and night for their souls' welfare—for mine, for yours. And oh, Dick! think when that day, that dreadful day, comes that Aileen ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... my grandfather wept when he parted with his son, feeling that he should see him no more; yet so strong was his religion, or rather his superstition, that he did not hesitate to send him away, though for no reason save that he would mortify his own love and flesh, offering his son for a sacrifice as Abraham would have offered Isaac. But though my father appeared to consent to the sacrifice, as did Isaac, yet his mind was not altogether set on ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... nothing: I shall never know. And they say it is sin to think of him. Every thing seems to be sin; and loving people more especially. Mother Ada told me one day that she saw in me an inclination to be too much drawn to Mother Alianora, and warned me to mortify it, because she was my father's sister, and therefore there was cause to fear it might be an indulgence of the flesh. And now, these weeks past, my poor, dry, withered heart seems to have a little faint pulsation in it, and goes out to Margaret— my sister Margaret with the strange ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... diet had Ephraim, and it seemed to him not so much from a solicitude for his health as from a desire to mortify his flesh for the good of his spirit. Ephraim obeyed perforce; he was sincerely afraid of his mother, but he had within him a dogged and growing resentment against those ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Barneveld, "forbid the King of Great Britain from permitting the Spaniard to give the law in Italy. He is about to extort obedience and humiliation from the Duke of Savoy, or else with 40,000 men to mortify and ruin him, while entirely assuring himself of France by the double marriages. Then comes the attack on these Provinces, on Protestant Germany, and all other states ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Jew. Now, of the classes in Byzantium, which is it by whom hate of Jews is the article of religion most faithfully practised? Think if it be not the same from whose shops proceed the right and wrong of the time—the same I myself scarce three days gone saw insult and mortify the man they chose Emperor, and not privately, in the depths of a monastery or chapel, but publicly, his court present.... Ah, now thou seest my meaning! In plainest speech, my brother, when he who invented this crime is set down before us, look not for a soldier, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... and may say that these last three months, for joy, health, and profit, have been much the greatest that ever I received in all my life in any twelve months almost in my life, having nothing upon me but the consideration of the sicklinesse of the season during this great plague to mortify mee. For all which the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... hand. Of her everything is redolent. She it is that has cut the thick stale sandwiches, bottled the bitter beer, brewed the unpalatable coffee. Cold and hungry though I was, one sip of this coffee was one sip too much for me. I would not mortify my body by drinking more of it, although I had to mortify my soul by lingering over it till one of the harassed waiters would pause to be paid for it. I was somewhat comforted by the aspect of my fellow-travellers at the surrounding tables. Dank, dishevelled, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... tolerably off-hand jeu-d'esprit. I have several poetic trifles, which I shall gladly leave with Miss Nimmo, or you, if they were worth house room; as there are scarcely two people on earth by whom it would mortify me more to be forgotten, though at the distance of ninescore miles.—I am, Madam, with the highest ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... a breathless smile, "you may mortify my pride and rebuke my vanity. I deserve it; I need it; but Oh!—don't ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... had felt such confidence in me, that he would often leave his shoe store in my care, when he would have to go to the north, for a supply of stock. And I can truly say, that I never deceived him, when he thus trusted me. Nothing would mortify me as much, as to hear it said, "A negro can't be trusted." This saying would always nerve me with a determination to be trustworthy.—If I was trusted, I would deserve to be trusted. I wanted to show that ...
— A Narrative of The Life of Rev. Noah Davis, A Colored Man. - Written by Himself, At The Age of Fifty-Four • Noah Davis
... happiness as uncertain as the crown is to a person that is still engaged in battle, and has not yet obtained the victory." Solon retired, when he had spoken these words,(1103) which served only to mortify Croesus, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... father, being a Roman Catholic convert from the Episcopalian Church, sent me to Notre Dame, Indiana, to be educated; and there, to be sure, I read the "Lives of the Saints," aspired to be a saint, and put pebbles in my small shoes to "mortify the flesh," because I was told that a good priest, Father Hudson—whom I all but worshipped—used to do so. But even at Notre Dame, and much more in Denver, I was homesick for the farm; and at last I was allowed ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... much intercourse as Mr. Garrick used to profess an anxious wish that there should be. There might, indeed, be something in the contemptuous severity as to the merit of acting, which his old preceptor nourished in himself, that would mortify Garrick after the great applause which he received from the audience. For though Johnson said of him, "Sir, a man who has a nation to admire him every night, may well be expected to be somewhat elated;" yet he would treat theatrical matters with a ludicrous slight. He mentioned ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... the desired effect; for Rose, who was daily expecting a Miss King, from Philadelphia, felt that nothing would mortify her more than to be neglected by Ida, who was rather a leader among the young fashionables. Accordingly after a long consultation with her mother, she concluded it best to call upon Mary. In the course of the ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... their departure, Xavier, who was sometimes too far transported by the fervency of his soul, had tied his arms and thighs with little cords, to mortify himself, for some kind of vain satisfaction which he took in out-running and over-leaping his young companions; for he was very active; and, amongst all the recreations used by scholars, he liked none but the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... our cause Is in a damn'd condition: for I'll tell thee, That cankerworm, call'd lechery, has touch'd it; 'Tis tainted vilely. Wouldst thou think it? Renault (That mortify'd, old, wither'd, winter rogue,) He visited her last night, like a kind guardian: Faith! she has some temptation, that's ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... is able to say that he feels contented?" he asked. "I am, perhaps, a bad custodian, and that may be the reason why the prefect of the Imperial Library, Baron Fenish, is not on good terms with me, and profits by every opportunity to mortify me. A German savant never was an independent man, for he generally lacks the most indispensable requisite for an independent ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... of good-breeding, which can not, in all cases, be understood and applied by children in its widest extent. It is that which requires us to avoid all remarks which tend to embarrass, vex, mortify, or in any way wound the feelings of another. To notice personal defects; to allude to others' faults, or the faults of their friends; to speak disparagingly of the sect or party to which a person belongs; to be inattentive ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... satisfaction to you to know that you made me very unhappy by not dining here to-day, you may be gratified. I am very unhappy. I know that I was unkind this morning, and rude, but as my anger was occasioned by your leaving me, my conduct might annoy but surely could not mortify you. I shall see you to-morrow, however early you may depart, as I cannot let your dear sister leave Paris ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... teacher, amiable, affectionate, and laborious, but firm and resolute. He was too strict to please such indolent boys as Samuel, who often tried him by his idleness and stupidity. His object in making him spell as he did was to mortify him by an exposure of his ignorance. His father had given him good opportunities to learn, but he had not improved them, so that he could spell scarcely better than scholars eight years old. Had he been a backward boy, who could make little progress, even with hard study, the teacher would not ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... course would seem foolish to you, and I couldn't bear that you should know. I was afraid it would mortify you." ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... those who are supported only by their numbers, to treat their opponents with contempt, and when they cannot answer to insult them; and motions have been made, not because they were thought right by those who offered them, but because they would certainly be carried, and would, by being carried, mortify their opponents. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... to mortify the body through the spirit than the spirit through the body. To deaden and beat down the body instead of trying to reduce the swelling of an inflated spirit is like pulling back a horse by its tail. It is behaving like Balaam, who beat the ass which carried him, instead ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... it is alone enough to prove that the author is not depicting himself. The poem reflects him more or less truly in the doctrine of Divine Love, the belief in personal guidance, and the half-contemptuous admiration with which the speaker regards those who will mortify the flesh in obedience to a Christ-man. But it belies the evidence of his whole work when, as in Section XVII., it represents moral truth as either innate to the human spirit, or directly revealed to it; and we shall presently notice a still greater discrepancy which it shares with ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... should irritate her poet He divined this, and his hatred and jealousy of the child increased. And when the early letters of Ron-die contained complaints of Jack, he was very much delighted. But this was not enough. He wished to mortify and degrade the boy still more. His hour had come. At the first words of the letter, for he finally opened it, his eyes flamed with malicious joy. "Ah! I knew it!" he cried, and he handed the sheet ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... me consider whether I can indure to hear her nam'd or not; for I think I am so thorowly mortify'd, I shall hardly relish Woman-kind again this— ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... me die here? My wound may mortify. I think it is growing worse instead of better," added he, with a groan of anguish. "I will give you my word, Dandy, if you will put me on board of any vessel bound to any place where I can get home, I will give you all ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... should die, not then, perhaps, but before very long, for I knew that my arm was so shattered that it ought to be amputated just below the elbow, while for want of surgical assistance it would mortify; but somehow I felt very happy just then, and my state did not give me much pain, only that I wanted to have been up and doing; and at last Lizzy helping me, I got up, my arm being bandaged—and in a sling, to find ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... the miracle which affords a woman a chance to gratify her vanity, pacify her family, mortify her rivals, and electrify her friends, all at the same time. Marriage ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... was only a passing breeze, during the which, howsoever, I happened to swallow my thimble, which accidentally slipped off my middle finger, causing both me and the company general alarm, as there were great fears that it might mortify in the stomach; but it did not; and neither word nor wittens of it have been seen or heard tell of from that to this day. So, in two or three minutes, we had some few good songs, and a round of Scotch proverbs, when ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... Marian. It was as if this was only one among many injuries, too frequent for a reproach more or less to be needed. Mr. Lyddell did not take it half so much to heart, and no prohibition against future rides was issued, for the truth was that no one liked to mortify Lionel. It was exactly one of the cases in which the whole danger is not conquered, because it melts at the very aspect ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... not, like most persons who rise to eminence, dissatisfied even with his best productions. He had set up no unattainable standard of perfection, the contemplation of which might at once improve and mortify him. His path was not attended by an unapproachable mirage of excellence, for ever receding, and for ever pursued. He was not disgusted by the negligence of others; and he extended the same toleration to himself. His mind was of a slovenly character,—fond ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... would not say so, if you saw how he keeps everybody in a roar of laughter at the public-house till 1 or 2 in the morning." "But I was miserable," said Gough; "I knew that the parties who courted and flattered me really despised me." He told us some humorous tales,—how he used to mortify some of them by claiming acquaintance with them in the street, and in the presence of their respectable friends. He returned scorn for scorn. "Gough," said a man once to him, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself to be always drinking in this manner." "Do I drink at your expense?"—"No." "Do I owe ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... what others might seek in vain; or because Hester really filled a gap which must otherwise have remained vacant; it is certain that she had ready and fairly requited employment for as many hours as she saw fit to occupy with her needle. Vanity, it may be, chose to mortify itself, by putting on, for ceremonials of pomp and state, the garments that had been wrought by her sinful hands. Her needlework was seen on the ruff of the Governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the minister ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... if Van Baerle was not a traitor he was certainly in league with the devil, like all learned men, and he did all he could to mortify and annoy his prisoner. But Rosa would come every night when her father, stupefied by gin, was asleep, and talk to Cornelius through the barred grating ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Eliza's cabin; he is uncommonly solicitous about her companions on board: "I fear the best of your shipmates are only genteel by comparison with the contrasted crew with which thou beholdest them. So was—you know who—from the same fallacy which was put upon your judgement when—but I will not mortify you!" ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... compliments inflated I've a withering reply; And vanity I always do my best to mortify; A charitable action I can skilfully dissect: And interested motives I'm delighted to detect. I know everybody's income and what everybody earns, And I carefully compare it with the income tax returns; But to benefit humanity, however much I plan, Yet everybody says I'm such ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... position: partly for its absolute interference with the plans of our enemy, but still more from its keeping alive through central Europe the sense of a deep-seated vulnerability in France. Even to tease the coasts of our enemy, to mortify them by continual blockades, to insult them by capturing if it were but a baubling schooner under the eyes of their arrogant armies, repeated from time to time a sullen proclamation of power lodged in one quarter to which the hopes ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... churches of Madrid for the deliverance of the Pope, on the plea that "he was obliged to make war against the temporal sovereign of Rome, but not upon the spiritual head of the Church!" No wonder the king, after proving himself so good a Catholic, should end his days in a monastery, or that he should mortify himself by lying in a coffin, wrapped in a shroud, while funeral services were performed over him. What, again, could have appealed more to his sense of the ridiculous than the contest between the priests and the authorities over the funeral obsequies of Philip II., so intolerant a tyrant ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... for sleep, the last time he was out with her. It's a shame to keep him up so! As for myself, I would never go any where if I had to, for the lack of a man, always be dragging poor papa out. It must be so very mortifying. But nothing could mortify that girl; she is such an upstart. Her bonnets and her dresses are the talk of the town, because they are so ugly and unbecoming. But she has a gracious and pleasant manner, and sometimes has a good deal of attention—whenever she once gets out. People frequently say nice things about her; but ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... and Sir Sloth. Let a man lay those seven low, and he shall have the prize of the day, from the hands of the fairest queen of beauty, even from the Virgin-Mother herself. It is for this that these men mortify their flesh, and to set us an example, who would pamper ourselves overmuch. I say again that they are God's own saints, and I bow my ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... but after a draught of water. Nay, there have been some who have thought good roots and Adam's ale too great luxuries for a Christian lawfully to indulge in; and they have purposely ill-cooked their vegetables, and mixed them with ashes, and even more disgusting things, to mortify the flesh, as they called it—i.e. to offer a sacrifice of their natural feelings to the demon of which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... privately think!—Knyphausen, who knows the King well, privately tells me, "He will come round." "It is his avarice," thinks Knyphausen too; "nay it is also his jealousy of the Prince, who is very popular with the Army. King does everything to mortify him, uses him like a child; Crown-Prince bears it with admirable patience." This is Knyphausen's weak notion; rather a weak creaky official gentleman, I should gather, of a cryptosplenetic turn. "Queen told me some days later, His Majesty ill-used the Crown-Prince, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... again, is it while the enemy is in France that you should have done this? But nature has gifted me with a determined courage—nothing can overcome me. It cost my pride much too—I made that sacrifice; I—but I am above your miserable declamations—I was in need of consolation, and you would mortify me—but, no, my victories shall crush your clamours! In three months we shall have peace, and you shall repent your folly. I am one of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... want to hear it!" roared Henchard. "To-morrow the waggons must start at four, and if you're not here, stand clear. I'll mortify thy ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... melancholy, and drove him, it is said, to an excessive and habitual use of wine. In the same year we find him in London, brought out once more under the "special patronage" of Dean Swift, who had quite a penchant for Parnell, and who wished, through his side, to mortify certain persons in Ireland, who did not appreciate, he says, the Archdeacon; and who, we suspect, besides, did not thoroughly appreciate the Dean. Swift, partly in pity for the "poor lad," as he calls him, whom he saw to be in such imminent danger of losing ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... the slip in the garden, to come and overhear thee: No fat overgrown virgin of forty ever offered herself so dog-cheap, or was more despised; methinks now this should mortify thee exceedingly. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... qui in truste Dominica sunt, leudi, fideles, undoubtedly represent the first order of Franks; but it is a question whether their rank was personal or hereditary. The Abbe de Mably (tom. i. p. 334-347) is not displeased to mortify the pride of birth (Esprit, l. xxx. c. 25) by dating the origin of the French nobility from the reign ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... the forms of Religion, may yet be not improperly termed sober sensualists. These, though less impetuous and more measured, are not less staunch and steady, than the professed votaries of licentious pleasure, in the pursuit of their favourite objects. "Mortify the flesh, with its affections and lusts," is the Christian precept; a soft luxurious course of habitual indulgence, is the practice of the bulk of modern Christians: and that constant moderation, that wholesome discipline of restraint and ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... hath burned, albeit as yet unwilling to burn what he hath adored. How much more may be reasonably expected of our brother Pachymius, so eminent for sanctity! I therefore call upon him to demonstrate his humility and self-renunciation, and effectually mortify the natural man, by washing himself in this ample vessel provided ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... Freddy, "I shall never, never marry before Eleanor. It would mortify her—I know it would—and make her feel that she herself had failed. She's awfully frank about those things, Ezra—surprisingly frank. I don't see why being an old maid is always supposed to be so funny, do you? ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... hope this is fair. In every thing of this kind there must be risk; and till that be past, in one way or the other, I would not willingly add to it, particularly in times like the present. And pray always recollect that nothing could mortify me more—no failure on my own part—than having made you lose by ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore |
