"Self-condemnation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the merry-making of the Elysian Fields could never give. If any of the readers of this book have any doubt of this, let them try the experiment themselves. At some time, after they have been spending a portion of the Sabbath in such a way as to give them an inward feeling of uneasiness and self-condemnation, let them engage for a time in the voluntary performance of some serious duty, as Rollo did, and in the spirit and temper which he manifested, and see how strongly it will tend to bring back their peace of mind and restore them to happiness. To try the experiment ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... office. I had just irately blamed a printer for a blunder of my own, and the words I overheard reminded me of the unpleasant truth that I had recently made a great many senseless blunders, over which I chafed in merciless self-condemnation. For weeks and months my mind had been tense under the strain of increasing work and responsibility. It was my nature to become absorbed in my tasks, and, as night editor of a prominent city journal, I found a limitless field for labor. It was true I could ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... stench of the port. This was, in itself, sufficiently distasteful, sufficiently depressing. And to Richard, just now, the disgust of it came with the heightened sensibility of physical illness, and as accompaniment to an immense private shame and immense self-condemnation, a conviction of outlawry and a desolation passing speech. He looked for comfort, for promise of restoration, and found none, in things material or things intellectual, in others or in himself. For his mind, always prone to apprehend by images rather than by words, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... to the last degree, but she had not this small vanity. She did not appreciate the situation fully, but she was unsparing in her self-condemnation. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... construction of the facts: it was so tempting to convict our old adversaries out of their own mouths, and make them, by the logic of events, read out either their recantation of the Colonial Revolution, or their self-condemnation for the Anti-Secession War. I have already explained to what extent these views appear to me to be tenable, and where their weak point lies: that both the insurrection of the colonies against England, and that of the South against the Federation,—both the repressive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... moment, and before the lovely presence confronting him could fully note the depth of his quick distress a wave of self-condemnation brought what seemed to him the answer of the riddle: that this was rightly she, the same angelic incarnation of wisdom and rectitude, as of gentleness and beauty, to whom in yesterday's sunset hour of surprise ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... man make confession of guilt before a legally constituted tribunal, such confession is not to be used against him unless properly attested by two other witnesses,'—Maimonides, 4:2. 'Not only is self-condemnation never extorted from the defendant by means of torture, but no attempt is ever made to lead him on to self-incrimination. Moreover, a voluntary confession on his part is not admitted in evidence, and therefore not competent to convict him, unless a legal number of witnesses minutely ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... pretty mess!" he growled, in tones of self-condemnation. "If ever I was done by a crafty jade, I've been ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... it reacted upon herself with a cruel spiritual hurt. She sat clasping the great doll, the pinks, and the pink cup and saucer before her on the table—a lone little weak child, opposing her single individuality against so many, and to her own hurt and horror and self-condemnation, and she did not weaken; but all at once her head drooped on one side, ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... bitter fury in his face. He struggled against it vigorously for a time till he gained a point whence he saw the dark blue sea lashing on the cliffs below. He looked up at the pass which was almost hid by the driving sleet. A feeling of regret and self-condemnation at having so readily given in to Grady was mingled with a strong sense of the duty that he had to discharge as he once more breasted the steep. The bitter cold began to tell on his exhausted frame. ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... I was bent on compliance with whatever seemed to be the requirements of the Gospel, and my friends, who had no misgivings on the subject of public worship, were resolved not to tolerate a change. I kept the usual course as long as I could do so without self-condemnation, but at length was constrained to change. One Sunday night I preached from the concluding words of the Sermon on the Mount,—"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... is the history of a most excitable mind in an age of excitement. By most of his biographers he has been treated with gross injustice. They have understood in a popular sense all those strong terms of self-condemnation which he employed in a theological sense. They have, therefore, represented him as an abandoned wretch, reclaimed by means almost miraculous, or, to use their favourite metaphor, "as a brand plucked from the burning." Mr. Ivimey calls him the depraved Bunyan and the wicked tinker of Elstow. Surely ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and the conclusion to which it brings me is, why hold principles that you find unworkable? I prefer a standard to which I can at least be true, in the main, and avoid self-condemnation, pricks of conscience, ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... cold desolation meets me. My father—Andre—and self-condemnation! Why seek I Andre now? Am I a man, To soothe the sorrows of a suffering friend? The weather-cock of passion! fool inebriate! Who could with ruffian hand strive to provoke Hoar wisdom to intemperance! who could lie! Aye, swagger, lie, and brag!—Liar! Damnation!! O, let me steal away and hide ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... far better to remain poor and independent, than compromise my integrity. Oh, that I had given more heed to that voice of the soul! That still, small voice, which never lies—that voice which no one can drown, without remorse and self-condemnation. ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... tale finely (perhaps just a little too diffusely) told and admirably presented. Mr. ERVINE'S most effective stroke was, I think, the character of James Caesar, with his pathetic yet revolting self-condemnation, interpreted with a real mastery of art without artifice by Mr. J.M. KERRIGAN, of the old band of "Irish Players." Miss MOYNA MACGILL (a name new to me) played her Hannah with an exquisite sincerity and restraint. A particular moment when, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... addressing her she could ignore. The import of the speech was, however, another matter. It contained self-condemnation. Selina herself realized her mistake the instant Miss Rutledge replied. She ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... stopped writing," said Glory Goldie, with a little laugh. There was something strong and sturdy about the girl then, as formerly. She was not one of those who torture themselves with remorse and self-condemnation. "Don't think any more of that, mother," she added, as Katrina did not speak. "I've been doing real well lately. For a time I kept a restaurant and now, I'll have you know, I'm head stewardess on a steamer that runs between Malmoe and Luebeck, and this fall I have ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... tidy little Martha, fresh and clean as a rosebud, stepping busily about, setting the table with extra places and putting the chairs around. Filled with self-condemnation at the sight of her sister's helpfulness, she dashed upstairs to do her part in getting all neat for the day. First she coaxed naughty little Jamie, who, in his nightshirt, was out on the porch roof fishing, dangling his shoe over the edge by its strings tied to his father's ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... Bart, who had listened to the other with many a whew! of surprise at his accompanying expressions of self-condemnation for killing an antagonist who struck the first blow—"that's grand! Here is what goes with you, Harry; for, between us here, I and Lightfoot are clipping it from a ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... reproach to my conscience. How miserably our practice halts behind our knowledge of good, even when tried at the bar of our own lenient judgment, and by our imperfect standard of right! how poorly does our life answer to our profession! I should speak in the singular, for I am only uttering my own self-condemnation. But as the excellence we adore surpasses our comprehension, so does the mercy, and in that lies ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... broke. Now Kennedy hated himself; called himself mean, vile, contemptible, a reptile, a cheat. Now his insulted honour began to vindicate its rights, and his trampled sense of truth to spring up with a menacing bound, and his conscience to speak out calmly and clearly the language of self-condemnation and contempt. Good heavens! how could he have sunk so low; fancy if Julian had seen him, or could know his meanness. Fancy if anybody had seen him. Hazlet, or Fitzurse, or Brogten himself, could hardly have been guilty ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... character, which formerly she fancied that she thoroughly understood, became the first in rank among the terrae incognitae, the pathless wilds of a country that had no chart. Erringly and strangely she began the task of self-examination with self-condemnation. And then again she became aware of her own excellencies, and began to balance with juster scales the shades of good and evil. I, who longed beyond words, to restore her to the happiness it was still in her power to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... a deeper horror in those mocking shapes than in the most loathsome phantasms of corporeal corruption that feverish dreams ever called up from the grave-yard. If his lips were unworthy, months ago, to touch Constance's cheek or hand, what were they now? He ground his teeth in the bitterness of self-condemnation. It would be easier to bear, if she met him coldly and proudly, than if she yielded at once, as her letter seemed to promise. Her letter! What became of the first one? If that had reached him, how much had been saved! Perhaps Constance's life—certainly much of his own dishonor. The idea ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... shows itself in extreme sensitiveness; then, in a loss of self-knowledge and of [25] self-condemnation,—a shocking inability to see one's own faults, but an exaggerating sense of other people's. Unless this mental condition be overcome, it ends in a total loss of moral, intellectual, and spiritual discernment, and is characterized in this Scripture: "The fool hath ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... For a while I was with a real estate firm trying to secure applications for a mortgage. The commission was $25, but, naturally, that did not go far toward expenses. It was not long before I was in a bad mental condition again through worrying, self-condemnation, and uncertainty. It would not have been difficult to ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... Poe was spending his last hours at the University in the dust and ashes of self-condemnation and regretful retrospection No farewell orgie celebrated his leave-taking. Only one of his friends was invited to his room that night and he no denizen of "Rowdy Row," but the quiet, irreproachable librarian. To this gentle guest The Dreamer confided his past sins ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... sad and bitter rumination. I had grown familiar with him from repeated conversations, and had found him superior in mind to the rest of the band. I was anxious to seize every opportunity of sounding the feelings of these singular beings. I fancied I read in the countenance of this one traces of self-condemnation and remorse; and the ease with which I had drawn forth the confidence of the chieftain encouraged me to hope ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... the church is broadening out. Thinking men believe that religion should not be an auto-intoxication of self-condemnation or worry, sobs and misery. Because so much of this sort of teaching is prevalent the church is not making the gains it should. The church is largely supported by nice little women, many of them maiden ladies who have little to do, and know little ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... restored and the fire blazing brightly. On the table was a pot of hot tea and a tempting little supper laid. But he pushed it all aside and buried his face down upon the table into his folded arms, groaning aloud. Physical suffering; thwarted love, and at the same time a feeling of self-condemnation, made him wish that life were ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... increasing skill, began to lose a little of its power to thrill. The getting had filled his thoughts waking and sleeping, had brought him some danger, many thrills, a good deal of reproach and much self-condemnation. Now he had it—that episode was diminishing rapidly in importance as it slid into the past, and Johnny was facing a problem quite as great, was harboring ambitions quite as dazzling, as when he rode a sweaty horse across the barren stretches of the Rolling R Ranch ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... mental state of self-condemnation and guilt or a faltering and doubting trust in Truth are unsuitable conditions for healing the sick. Such mental 455:6 states indicate weakness instead of strength. Hence the necessity of being right yourself ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... Penitence. — 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 of conscience; compunctious visitings of nature[obs3]. acknowledgment, confession &c. (disclosure) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... seconds before, he had been in the power of Black Moran, known far and wide as the hardest man in the North. And, now, there was no Black Moran—only a grotesquely sprawled thing—and a slush of crimson snow. The boy was conscious of no sense of regret—no thought of self-condemnation—for he knew too well the man's record. This man who had lived in open defiance of the laws of God and of man had met swift death at the hand of the savage law of the North. The law that the men of the outlands do not seek to explain, but believe in implicitly—because they ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... sat down, not merely to weep, but to enter into a regular self-examination. The truths she thus discovered were exceedingly humiliating, but the child began to feel that she needed humbling, and she did not shrink from the task. I do not know but Effie's self-condemnation was greater than the fault really called for, but it certainly was of great use to her, and made her humbler, and gentler, and more forgiving than ...
— Effie Maurice - Or What do I Love Best • Fanny Forester
... will now resume our narrative, was also, ever since her tiff with Pao-yue, full of self-condemnation, yet as she did not see why she should run after him, she continued, day and night, as despondent as she would have been had she lost some thing or other belonging ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... unpardonably I have wronged him! He will pardon me! Yes, he will! for he is all magnanimity, and he loves me! But I can never, never pardon myself!" exclaimed the young wife, her first joy at discovering the absolute integrity of her husband now giving place to the severest self-condemnation. ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... nodded. "I've heard that contended. Somebody says that self-condemnation is only self-conceit ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... tolerate and make excuse for the disreputable character who was glad to eat the dinner given by Jeremiah Growther, was that this same ill-conditioned fellow was himself. Thus every bitter thing which he said against society was virtually self-condemnation. And yet his course was most natural, for men almost invariably forget that their views change with their fortunes. Thousands will at once form a positive opinion of a subject from its aspect seen at their standpoint, where one will walk around and ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... in foolish Thing that I am! which this nice, [del. 4th] {un-nice,} Gentleman wou'd advise you to change, into foolish that I am! He does not seem to have tasted the pretty Contempt of Herself, the submissive Diminutive, so distant from Vanity, yet allayed by the gentle Reluctance in Self-condemnation [del. 4th] {;—-and the other fine Touches of Nature: which wou'd All have been lost, in the grave, sober Sound of ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... minor points still remain to be summed up: (1) The extravagant irony in the reason which is assigned for the pilot's modest charge; and in the proposed use of rhetoric as an instrument of self-condemnation; and in the mighty power of geometrical equality in both worlds. (2) The reference of the mythus to the previous discussion should not be overlooked: the fate reserved for incurable criminals such as Archelaus; the retaliation of ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... venturing in lotteries, or that they don't approve of it—but will do it this once. Then, when people lose their money, the chagrin which they feel is always deepened and imbittered by remorse and self-condemnation; while the pleasure which those feel who gain is greatly marred by a sort of guilty feeling, which they cannot shake off, at having taken the money of their friends and companions by such means. All these indications, and many others which might be pointed out, show that there is a deep-seated ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... rich color, striving to adorn them with better brightness than of the day: a gray glory, as of moonlight without mist, dwelling on face and fold of dress;—all faultless-fair. Creatures they are, humble by nature, not by self-condemnation; merciful by habit, not by tearful impulse; lofty without consciousness; gentle without weakness; wholly in this present world, doing its work calmly; beautiful with all that holiest life can reach—yet already freed from all that holiest death can ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... his labored cordiality; and it depressed me again—started me down toward those depths of self-condemnation from which I had been held up for a few days by the excitement of the swiftly thronging events and by the necessity of putting my whole mind upon ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... leading his army to lay the city in ruins. At the same time were to be seen the citizens flying into the country for safety, and the inhabitants of the country coming to seek shelter in the city. 7. In this universal confusion, Pompey felt all that repentance and self-condemnation, which must necessarily arise from the remembrance of having advanced his rival to his present pitch of power: wherever he appeared, many of his former friends were ready to tax him with his supineness, and ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... silently down beside her, and gently withdrawing her hand, placed it within mine. A dreadful feeling of self-condemnation shot through me as I felt the gentle pressure of her taper fingers, which rested without a struggle in my grasp. My tears fell hot and fast upon that pale hand, as I bent in sadness over it, unable to utter a word. A rush of conflicting thoughts passed through my brain, and I knew not ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... by feelings of self-condemnation. How was it that she possessed the courage to go, and he did not! The Colonel, divining a different type of depression and wanting to cheer him ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... He had obliged himself to treat her with paternal kindness: he had forced himself not to hate her, and even, perhaps, to feel some degree of kindly regard for her, at last, in return for her artless and unsuspecting attachment to himself; but the bitterness of his self-condemnation for his inward feelings towards that innocent being, his constant struggles to subdue the evil promptings of his nature (for it was not a generous one), though partly guessed at by those who knew him, could be known to God and his own heart alone;—so also was ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... had to sell it," cried his wife, in passionate self-condemnation. "I should be GLAD if we had to, as far ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... herself, for we will now resume our narrative, was also, ever since her tiff with Pao-y, full of self-condemnation, yet as she did not see why she should run after him, she continued, day and night, as despondent as she would have been had she lost some thing or other belonging ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... perpetually haunted with most troublesome companions, inward regret and self-condemnation, fear and disquiet: the conscience of dealing so unworthily doth smite and rack him; he is ever in danger, and thence in fear to be discovered, and requited for it. Of these passions the manner of his behaviour ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... or the woman who is free, and particularly free from self-condemnation, is instinctively monogamous. Life in all its phases tends upward toward conscious and specific selection. Conscious selection must include love, and we may safely trust love. Love is inseparable from truth ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... Emerson's thoughts ran in this direction, the deeper grew his feeling of self-condemnation, and the more tenderly yearned his heart toward the young creature he had left alone with the enemies of their peace nestling in her bosom and filling it with passion and pain. After separating himself from his party, he drove back toward the hotel at ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... and April were past, and May was come. Lepage had had a hard struggle for life, but he had survived. For weeks every night there was a repetition of that first night after the return: delirious self-condemnation, entreaty, appeal to his wife, and Hume's name mentioned in shuddering remorse. With the help of the Indian who had shared the sick man's sufferings in the Barren Grounds, the factor and Hume nursed him back to life. After the first night no word had passed between the two watchers ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the path of perversity. Sidney, too, had his promptings of obstinate humour. When he distinctly recognised Hewett's feeling it galled him; he was being treated with gross injustice, and temper suggested reprisals which could answer no purpose but to torment him with self-condemnation. However, he must needs consult his own dignity; he could not keep defending himself against ignoble charges. For the present, there was no choice but to accept John's hints, and hold apart as much as was possible ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... was altogether groundless, and not even a relief from aching heads and self-condemnation could have induced the subjects of Macora to drink ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... wondering whether, after all, he were not in earnest this time. He jerked out his sentences excitedly, striking his hands together and then swinging his arms in strange gestures. His tone, as he gave utterance to his incoherent self-condemnation, was full of sincere conviction and of anger against himself. He seemed not to see Unorna, nor to notice her presence in the room. Suddenly, he stopped, looked at her and came towards her. His ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... very desk in the mezzanine which we all have such bitter cause to remember, I could not forbear expressing myself in a way she could not misunderstand. The result was of a kind to drive a man like myself to an extremity of self-condemnation and rage. She rose up as if insulted, and flung me one sentence and one sentence only before she hailed the elevator and left my presence. A cur could not have ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... your general confessions of sin,' and most of us would be ready to unite in the acknowledgment: 'We have all come short of the glory of God,' though in our consciences there has never stirred the faintest movement of self-condemnation even whilst our lips have been uttering the confession. Do not shrink away in the crowd, my brother! Come out to the front, and stand by yourself as God sees you, isolated. Look at your own actions; never mind about other men's. Do not content yourselves with ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... behind. So that the whole army being filled with tears and distracted after this fashion found it not easy to go, even from an enemy's land, where they had already suffered evils too great for tears and in the unknown future before them feared to suffer more. Dejection and self-condemnation were also rife among them. Indeed they could only be compared to a starved-out town, and that no small one, escaping; the whole multitude upon the march being not less than forty thousand men. All carried anything they could which might be of use, and the heavy infantry and troopers, contrary ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... of his body confused and distorted his thoughts, but it was in any case inevitable that with his training he should be wrung with bitter self-condemnation. He flushed and thrilled at the remembrance of the pressure of Berenice against his breast; the warmth of her breath, the odor of her hair, seemed to come back to him even out of the tumult and reek of the burning car. He remembered ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... loss he had given no thought to any one else. He had expected Clare to be like himself, had made no allowance for differences of temperament, had.... Poor Peter had never before known an hour of such miserable self-condemnation. Had he known where to find him he would have gone that very instant to ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... that no part of the impulse which drove him to his rebellion lay at her door, not to feel at least that she had nothing but dread and horror for the threatened doom. She had no love for him; it came home to her now with a strange new sense of self-condemnation; she had married him for her own pleasure, because he interested her and made life seem dull without him. She pleaded no more that he had killed her love; it had never been there to kill. Had she left him to find a woman who loved him in and for himself, not for his doings, not for ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... he, every good man does more sincerely his duty than he. And if these be not some of the effects of the renewings of grace, I will confess I have taken my mark amiss. (6.) Renewings of grace beget renewed self-bemoanings, self-condemnation, self-abhorrences. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... nobly and frankly taken upon himself the blame of Nicholson's Nek that an impartial historian must rather regard his self-condemnation as having been excessive. The immediate causes of the failure were undoubtedly the results of pure ill-fortune, and depended on things outside his control. But it is evident that the strategic plan which would justify the presence of this ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sub-commander had been most explicit in his instructions on that head. "If you by any chance lose Parker," he had said, "come back." He had lost Parker, right enough. That was about the first thing he had done, he thought to himself with some feeling of self-condemnation. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... wildest possible perversion of the Puritan instinct for self-condemnation and, half-vexed, I ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... sleep, in melancholy reflections on the vanity of young men, which prompts them to commit so many foolish actions, contrary to their own sober judgment. Next day, however, instead of profiting by this self-condemnation, I yielded still more to the dictates of the principle I had endeavoured to chastise, and if fortune had not befriended me more than prudence could expect, I should have been treated with the contempt it deserved. After breakfast ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... were mostly from wealthy female devotees, missives usually couched in pious language. Some contained confessions of the most private nature, and asking the Father's advice and blessing. All these latter he had given me strict instructions carefully to preserve. Any letter which contained self-condemnation by its writer, or any confession of sin, was therefore carefully put away, after being duly replied to. At the time, it did not occur to me that the impostor ever intended to allow them to see the light of day, ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... has treed something. The Judge's method was skillfully chosen to give him this advantage: it made his meaning clear while it gave no possible opening for a reply to the real idea his words conveyed, and forced his listener to an embarrassed silence of self-condemnation, that secured the Judge in his ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... love—the first—the first, as God sees my heart—the degradation that has left nothing but bitterness and humiliation behind it? Shall the name of Lamberto di Castelmare be written in my memory in the hateful list of those who have been to me the occasion of remorse, of self-condemnation, of bitterness immeasurable? Never, never, never! Come what may there shall be one pure place in my heart; one unsoiled spot in my life; one ever-dear remembrance unlinked with sorrow and with shame; one memory which, however sad, ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... is nothing—nothing at all." Then she was again silent, and was unable to express herself She could not bring herself to declare in words that self-condemnation of her own conduct which was now weighing so heavily upon her. It was not that she wished to keep back her own feelings either from her sister or from Mrs. Clavering, but that the words in which to express them were ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... an instant, her dark brows drawn together, struggling to keep her tears back, yet lightening from moment to moment into a divine look of happiness. He tried to take possession of her, to stop her, to silence all this self-condemnation on his breast. But she would not have it; she held ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... has often been alleged as the self-condemnation of democracy. Vox populi vox Dei, its flatterers have said; but look yonder: when the multitude has to choose between Jesus and Barabbas, it chooses Barabbas. If this be so, the scene is equally decisive against aristocracy. Did the priests, scribes and nobles behave better than the mob? It was ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... of his self-condemnation—the very keenness of wounded pride irritated his feelings, and made him feel gloomy and sullen. He felt deeply for his suffering wife—he wished most ardently to speak to her a word of comfort, but his pride kept him silent. At the dinner hour, he eat a few mouthfuls in silence, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... Confessions, a work that has delighted and edified fifty generations, but which must, after all, yield the palm, as a literary production, to the writings of Bunyan, who, like Augustine, gave himself up to all the agony of unsparing personal examination and relentless self-condemnation, anatomizing his very soul, and dragging forth every sin into the ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... shame and confusion." The old man was lashing himself into a white rage, while Thomas sat looking stolidly before him, his slow tongue finding no words of defense. And indeed, he had little thought of defending himself. He was conscious of an acute self-condemnation, and yet, struggling through his slow-moving mind there was a feeling that in some sense he could not define, there was justification for what ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... generally adopt. Every word he uttered was distressing to Matilda, who felt as if she were insulted by his freedom, and had degraded herself too far to enjoy the right of resenting it; her native pride, however, contending with her self-condemnation, she removed her hand from her eyes, in order to give him a look which would repel his impertinence, and, to her utter astonishment, saw three gentlemen standing before, and looking earnestly upon her; two of these were her friends, ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... Old, blind, captive, helpless, mocked, decried, miserable in the failure of all his ideals, upheld only by faith and his own unconquerable spirit, Milton is the counterpart of his hero. Particular references to the circumstances of his life are not wanting: his bitter self-condemnation for having chosen his first wife in the camp of the enemy, and his surprise that near the close of an austere life he should be afflicted by the malady appointed to chastise intemperance. But, as in the Hebrew prophets Israel sometimes denotes a person, sometimes a nation, ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... account of his refusal to go of his own accord, and perhaps to be held there, or even to be tied. Cases requiring treatment so decisive as this must be very rare with children under ten years of age; and when they occur, the mother has reason to feel great self-condemnation—or at least great self-abasement—at finding that she has failed so entirely in the first great moral duty of the mother, which is to train her children to complete submission to her authority from ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... the Captain's vanishing was much obscured by self-condemnation and anxiety, still she managed to make it out and she did not at first think so very seriously of it. She concluded from it that her father had succeeded in getting at his whisky and Johnny had failed to prevent him or find out the whereabouts of the store—a not very astonishing ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... self-condemnation were a further enchantment, her husband murmured: "It makes you all the lovelier that you should feel like that. It makes me more in love with you than ever: but forget it now. Let me make you forget it. I can.—Darling, your beautiful hair. I remember it;—it is as beautiful as ever.—I remember ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... is within him does condemn/Itself, for being there?] That is, when all the faculties of the mind are employed in self-condemnation. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... you I saw that his knowledge of the father taught him to understand the daughter. It was well and beautifully done, and did we need anything to endear him to us this trait of character would do it, for it is a rare endowment, the power of overcoming all obstacles of pride, age, and the sad reserve self-condemnation brings us, and making ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... day, and the clothes had dried fast. In a word, when twelve o'clock arrived and Marco put his books away, nobody would have observed that his clothes had been wet. He ran about in the open air until dinner-time, and though, when he went in to dinner, he felt oppressed with a sense of guilt and of self-condemnation, he was satisfied that no one suspected him. Marco thought that he had ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... looked so forlorn and heartbroken and ashamed as she faltered out her woeful story; so consumed with self-condemnation, making no excuse for herself except to repeat over and over again that she had never meant to do wrong, that Nora could not refrain from weeping ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... he had located a bunch of horses, made a rough count, and went on, heavy-hearted, steeped in self-condemnation. He located other horses, scattered here and there in little groups, and kept a mental tally of their numbers. Now, while the sun dipped low toward the western hills, he watched this last herd dismally, knowing how completely he had failed in ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... 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^, twinge of conscience, twitch of conscience, touch of conscience, voice of conscience; compunctious visitings of nature^. acknowledgment, confession &c (disclosure) 529; apology &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... second appear. Stangrave is haggard, not from fear, but from misery, and rage, and self-condemnation. This is the end of all his fine resolves! Pah! what use in them? What use in being a martyr in this world? All men are liars, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... tougher-fibred brothers. Many parents reproach themselves for not having enforced their own convictions on their children in the face of every inborn antagonism they encountered. Let them not be too severe in their self-condemnation. A want of judgment in this matter has sent many a young person to Bedlam, whose nature would have opened kindly enough if it had only been trusted to the sweet influences of morning sunshine. In such cases it may be that the state ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... was what she said in beginning. I will tell you her history as nearly as possible in the way that she related it, but I cannot now recollect, and it were useless to repeat one half the bitter words of self-condemnation which ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... amusement in them. Listlessly, wretchedly, mechanically, I opened one; it was the memoir of a departed son, written by his father. I read a page describing the approach of death, and was arrested by the youth's expressions of self-condemnation, his humble acknowledgment of having deserved at the Lord's hand nothing but eternal death. "Ah, poor fellow," said I, "he was like me. How dreadful his end must have been; I will see what he said at last, when ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... clearly, and dislike and loathing of her proceedings during the last year grew more strongly upon her. The sense of her faults had been latent in her mind for months past, but the struggle of her external life had kept it down, until now it came forth with an overpowering force of grief and self-condemnation. It was not merely her sins against Mr. Fotheringham and Lord St. Erme that oppressed her, it was the perception of the wilful and rebellious life she had led, while making ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hasty good-night she left the shop, closing the door so sharply in her self-condemnation as to set the little bell upon it ringing as if it had gone mad. She could hear its metallic tinkle till she was close upon the church. Here other sounds filled her ears. There was a light in the church, and Fred Hurst was there playing one of ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... shoulders wrapped in a serious-toned pelerine, said little. Jasper Penny instinctively excluded her from a trivial conversation. She was, he decided, paler than usual, the shadows under her eyes were indigo. He was filled with self-condemnation. Mrs. Penny, gazing at her with a beady discernment, asked if her rest had been interrupted. "I am always an indifferent sleeper," Susan Brundon replied evasively. He followed her into the carriage that was to ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... as to our bringing on our own misfortunes, we hardly ever agree in the hard task of self-condemnation—a task of peculiar difficulty to the young and the ardent. They may even be inwardly dissatisfied with themselves, yet they care not to express it openly, lest they may be thought little of;—a timidity natural in youth, and arising, not unfrequently, from diffidence ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... according to number, and each party left to fill up its share, as had been done in former Coalition Ministries. He had seen Lord Palmerston, who was not willing to give up the Foreign Office—spoke of retiring from business at his age, of his success in conducting Foreign Affairs, and of its being a self-condemnation if he accepted another Office. Lord John told him that he did not agree in this view, that the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland was to be maintained, and thought it best to leave it there. He thought Lord Palmerston had given up the idea of leading the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... and looked out at the green leaves, with an expression of despairing self-condemnation dreadful ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... Failed to do as much as she wanted to do for other people; failed to express herself always as affectionately as she felt; failed to avoid giving slight occasions of offence, although she "never, never meant to do it!" In short she was, strange to say, a victim to self-condemnation. When the Gospel of Jesus came to her, telling, as it does, that "God is Love," that Christ came to sweep away for ever the very sins that troubled her, and that His Holy Spirit would fight for and in her, so as to make her "more than ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... and laid it down with a strange mingled feeling of relief and apprehension. The relief was a salve that touched his wounded conscience gently. If he had sinned, at least this physician's letter told him that by his sin he had accomplished something beneficent. And for the moment self-condemnation ceased to scourge him. The apprehension that quickly beset him rose from the knowledge that Sir Graham was in danger so long as he was in the Island. But how could he be persuaded to leave it? That was ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... upon it—a settled, serene patience that struck the onlooker. He sat there working on steadily, motionless, calm as a figure in stone; and poor Stephen, torn in the struggle of his desires, slipping into the cold slough of self-condemnation, and burnt with the fever of greed, groaned aloud as he stood outside. Then he turned from the window and plunged back through the snow to the path that led to the town. He wanted to see Katrine, and yet he hated the thought ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... hunted up passages in Church history that treated of the Ascetics of the second century. Before he had returned from Marygreen to Melchester there arrived a letter from Arabella. The sight of it revived a stronger feeling of self-condemnation for his brief return to her society than for his attachment ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... a rat in the mouth of a practised terrier. You will leave out some word or letter in your answer, and the ignorance of the cathedral clergy will be harped upon; you will make some small mistake, which will be a falsehood, or some admission, which will be self-condemnation; you will find yourself to have been vulgar, ill-tempered, irreverend, and illiterate, and the chances are ten to one, but that being a clergyman, you will have been guilty of blasphemy! A man may have the best of causes, the best of talents, and the best of tempers; he ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... self-condemnation she felt it her duty to protest. "But Uncle Sim says you've always been on the ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... self-condemnation, and profound rancor against the woman whose tool I had been, I realized what an excellent instrument she had found for her purpose of ridding her mistress ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... to pay false homage to wealth and rank, because the world tells me it is right that I should do so, and to neglect genius and virtue, which my judgment tells me would be an odious wrong, I should find but little satisfaction in the applause of the world, opposed to self-condemnation. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... I dwell, with self-condemnation and shame, upon this part of my story. To feel extraordinary indignation at vice, merely because we have partaken in an extraordinary degree of its mischiefs, is unjustifiable. To regard the wicked with no emotion but pity, to be active in reclaiming ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... there thundered a voice, like the voice of the Prophet: "It hath displeased the Lord!"—and he thought of David's transgression, Bathsheba's beautiful face, and his friend in the front of the battle! Shame and confusion of guilt, and abasement and self-condemnation, Overwhelmed him at once; and he cried in the deepest contrition: "It hath displeased the Lord! It ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... man, brought his spirits down to the lowest ebb; nevertheless, he went to meet the representatives of the Society at New York, and there, though between the hubbub of the town and his own perpetual self-condemnation he was continually wretched, they were so well satisfied with him as to give him the appointment, on condition that he studied the language, intending to send him to the Red men between the Susquehanna and the Delaware; but there was a dispute between these and the Government, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... one distraught through the freezing slush and mud of the country roads that night, feeling no fatigue and no discomfort. His brain was on fire with horror and self-condemnation. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... nature; self-condemnation is a sublime triumph over it, and as rare as sublime. What culprits would be convicted, if their own testimony were taken by juries as good evidence? Slaveholders are on trial, charged with cruel treatment to their slaves, and though in ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... distant, he had regarded Florence as his own, and as such had demanded her hand. In the pride of his birth, and position, and fashion, he had had no thought of her feelings, and had been imperious. He told himself that it had been so with much self-condemnation. At any rate, he had learned, during those months of solitary wandering, the power of condemning himself. And now he told him that if she would yet come he might still learn to sing that song of the old-fashioned poet ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... whether I was a Unitarian or not, my behaviour to Ellen showed I was bad enough to be one. Anyhow, he had forbidden her all further intercourse with me. When I had once more settled down in my solitude, and came to think over what had happened, I felt the self-condemnation of a criminal without being able to accuse myself of a crime. I believe with Miss Arbour that it is madness for a young man who finds out he has made a blunder, not to set it right; no matter what the wrench may be. But that ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... of them, from the consideration that they are all avowed liars. If, indeed, there was proof, either external or internal, that they had become reformed characters, and, of course, abhorrers of deceit, we might value their self-condemnation as evidence of truth; for what man of moral feeling would proclaim that he had been an habitual liar, except conscious that the avowal was incumbent on him to substantiate the truth? This was done by Bunyan, the author of the Pilgrim's Progress, and ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... bitter remorse, Mary wept until she could cry no more. As is usually the case with youth, she was sweeping in her self-condemnation. But that bitter hour of self-revelation did more to arouse within her the determination to conquer herself and establish the foundation for a noble womanhood than ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... a gold shipment aboard," he explained in a low voice, and added in bitter self-condemnation: "He sent me along to guard it, and I never even fired a shot to ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... self-condemnation from unwilling lips. Our Lord turns to the rulers with startling and dramatic suddenness, which may have thrown them off their guard, so that their answer leaped out before they had time to think whom it hit. His solemn ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... lack of tact, they had offended their kind host and hostess. That they had not done so deliberately, helped their self-condemnation not ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... justice of a sentence, but the more one is convinced of it, the more does one regret the course of conduct that made the sentence necessary. The sinner who suffers for his sin bears not only the pain of the punishment but also the sense of shame and self-condemnation. The good man who suffers for his goodness does indeed have to bear the burden of an awful mystery, a doubt whether God is indeed on the side of the righteous; but he is not crushed beneath the additional ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... vigor of his companions, the result might have been different and Martel might at this moment be on his way to Rome with his bride, alive and well. On such occasions he felt like a murderer. But his mind was not always undivided in this self-condemnation; there were times when with some show of justice he told himself that the result would have been the same or even worse if he had fought; and he tried to ease his conscience by dwelling on the possibility that under other circumstances he might ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... as recollection has enabled me to describe it, that this wretch made to my eye, by her suffragans and daughters, who surveyed her with scouling frighted attention, which one might easily see had more in it of horror and self-concern (and self-condemnation too) than of love or pity; as who should say, See! what we ourselves must ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... And because he could think of no more specific expression to suit his feelings, and because expression of any kind brought a sort of relief, he kept on repeating the word, "Fool, fool, fool!" And as his self-condemnation gradually won him back to a sense of perspective he became aware of the danger of his position. He went over the events of the recent months, and tried to be rational. He had left his ranch home to better himself, to learn things, to rise to be somebody. He had worked harder than ever before, at ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... the ground. He lay sprawling, so tangled with the Wilton players that for the moment he could not rise. With horrified gaze he saw the leather oval roll free and he felt the overwhelming shame of one who has failed to be equal to the demands of a crisis. But his feeling of self-condemnation immediately gave way to an entirely different emotion, for a swiftly moving pair of legs incased in the Ridgley red and white came within the range of his vision. He glanced up and saw that it was Neil Durant. Two Wilton players were after the ball also, but the Ridgley captain was before them; ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... The old Adam is only too glad to get a word in, if even in behalf of his supplanting successor." Then he rose, and, taking my mother by the arm, walked away with her. I confess I honored him for his self-condemnation the most. I must add that the offending nurse had been ten years in the family, and ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... nor for Eudocia's rejecting him with so much severity. It would have been a better ground of distress, considering the frailty of human nature, and the violent temptations he lay under; if he had been at last prevailed upon to profess himself a Mahometan: For then his remorse, and self-condemnation, would have been natural, his punishment just, and the character of Eudocia placed in a more amiable light. In answer to these objections, and in order to do justice to the judgment of Mr. Hughes, we must ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber |
