"Compunction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and other honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they know not whereof they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted they can demand without compunction a violation ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... because that gave him a chance to steal a look behind him without being caught in the act. Good, wide hat-brims have more uses than to shield one's face from the sun. He saw that Evadna was riding in what looked like a sulky silence beside her friend, but he felt no compunction for what he had done; instead he was exhilarated as with some heady wine, and he did not want to do any thinking about it—yet. He did not even want to be near Evadna. He faced to the front, and lighted his cigarette while he listened ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... the offers of marriage which she accepted in succession, abandoning one suitor after the other without any adequate reason or any feeling of compunction. At length she unexpectedly accepted a man of whom she had ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... possible animal, as we have seen, and all sorts of nature-phenomena, such as rain and fire and water and clouds, and sun, moon and stars—which WE consider quite senseless and inanimate. Towards these apparently senseless things therefore he felt the same compunction as I have described him feeling towards his brother tribesmen. He could sin against them too. He could sin against his totem-animal by eating it; he could sin against his 'brother the ox' by consuming its strength in the labor of the plough; he could ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... in for the first time. Although he had been frowning with vexation, some touch of compunction had held him silent. "I will not allow you to say that, nor should you wish to speak so." He hesitated, rubbing his chin perplexedly. "I acknowledge that I experience the same disgust that you do; yet I am not altogether certain that ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... leave Choisy at once. Come; be stirring. In God's name, girl, bethink you that we have not a moment to lose. I know these Republicans, and how far they are to be trusted. This fellow would betray me to save his skin with as little compunction as—" ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... said. "It's a pitiless business." Then, as if his last feeble compunction vanished with the words, he added, "It's to be ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... came and rubbed his head against her like a faithful dog, whining grievously. She stroked his hair lovingly. "Pore Eddie," she said, "it'd be better if you an' me an' the biby, was with Minnie;" and then with sudden compunction, "but wot would pore Bill ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... so far led an honest life, and did not fall into habits of thievery without some feelings of compunction. When Joshua first drove cattle into the bend, he did not tell Neddy that he had stolen them. Oh, ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... Necessarianism seems to assume that in action there is only one element, motive. But reflection seems to show that there are two elements, motive and will; and of this duality we seem to be sensible when we waver in action or feel compunction for what we have done. Is it possible to explain moral repentance or morality at all without assuming the freedom of the will? Habit may enslave; but to be enslaved is once to ...
— No Refuge but in Truth • Goldwin Smith
... give, not as matter of glory, but shame: yet I ought to tell you all the truth, or nothing. 'Meantime,' thought I, (for I used to have some compunction for my vile practices, when cool reflection, brought on by satiety, had taken hold of me) 'I wish this sweet girl was grown to years of susceptibility, that I might reform this wicked course of life, and not prowl about, disturbing honest folks' peace, and endangering myself.' ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... sister-in-law puts the matter in that way, wrinkling her pretty brows, twisting her little hands, and growing wistful in the eyes, all on account of an idle scamp like myself, for whom she has no natural responsibility, I am visited with compunction. Moreover, I thought it possible that I could pass the time in the position suggested with some tolerable amusement. ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... conversation: how it was "a son of a gun of a cold night on deck, Mr. Dodd" (with a grin); how "it wasn't no night for panjammers, he could tell me": having transacted all which, he would throw himself down in his bunk and sleep his two hours with compunction. But the captain neither ate nor slept. "You there, Mr. Dodd?" he would say, after the obligatory visit to the glass. "Well, my son, we're one hundred and four miles" (or whatever it was) "off the island, and scudding for all we're worth. We'll make it to-morrow ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... but almost uninterestedly; and Percy was conscious of a tiny prick of compunction at his own heart. After all, the reconciling of a soul to God was a greater thing than the ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... compunction. It was odd-once upon a time she had known exactly what to say to the man of the moment, whoever he was, and whatever kind of talk he required; she had even, in the difficult days before her marriage, reeled off glibly enough the sort of lime-light sentimentality that plunged ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... without compunction, for these people of Mr. De Forrest's are so unlike characters in novels as to be like people in life, and none will wish the less to see them because he knows the outline of their history. Not only is the plot good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... white and still beneath the drifting snow, or even wandering helplessly in the blinding gale, was so terrible that it blanched her cheek, and made her lips tremble when she tried to speak. She felt that she had been a little brusque to him at times, and now she reproached herself in remorseful compunction, and with the abandonment of a child to her present overwrought condition, felt that she could never refuse him anything should his blue eyes turn pleadingly to her again. At first she did not give way, but was sustained, like Maggie, by ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... first I was much pleased with him; but when I came to be more thoroughly acquainted with him, I found that I could not approve of the principles which guided him, or many of the acts he committed without compunction. I have, however, seldom met any one who, at first sight, was more likely to win confidence and regard. I have frequently met people like him; and I consider them much more dangerous companions than men with inferior manners and education. His first officer ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... exactly sing, the sound they make is very musical and pretty. Yesterday Ben [the man of all work] took his gun and went into the bush to shoot. He returned with some small birds like parrots, which were almost bursting with fat. I felt some compunction about eating birds that suggested cages and swings and stands, but as we had nothing else to eat was fain to cook them, and a very excellent dish they made. I have read somewhere that the dodo and a relative of his ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... and walked back, apparently to report to his aunt, who, with Lady Helen, had been watching the experiment from the main drawing-room. His face was a curious mixture of gravity and the keenest excitement. The gravity was mostly sharp compunction. He had satisfied a passionate curiosity, but in the doing of it he had outraged certain instincts of breeding and refinement which ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cried Leslie pitifully; and then a secret compunction seized her, thinking of her own little elegant, odd-minute work, which was all she had to ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... "that woman." Besides, she could sometimes also silence the reproaches of conscience, so as to seize for the public use the bequests of the pious for religious purposes, and to confiscate the revenues of rich monasteries apparently without any compunction. Men fancied, says our author, that they could foresee in all this conduct that if this just and religious Princess had power enough over herself to silence her generosity and even sometimes her piety, she might perhaps be capable in some state crisis of incurring still greater ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the steep gangway to the steerage deck, which they were obliged to traverse on their way to the forecastle, and they came upon the little creature lying, with upturned face, against the woman's knee, Blythe felt a sharp pang of compunction and pity. The child looked even more pathetic than when seen from above, and the young girl involuntarily stooped in passing, and touched the wan little cheek. Whereupon one of those ineffable smiles which are the birthright of Italians lighted the little face, and the small hand was lifted with ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... determined, therefore, to go my own way, and, after drinking bitter mate, I caught and saddled the dun horse. I really had not deserved the severe censure Lechuza had passed on me the previous evening in reference to horse-stealing, for I had taken the dun with very little more compunction than one is accustomed to feel in England when "borrowing" an umbrella on a rainy day. To all people in all parts of the world, a time comes when to appropriate their neighbour's goods is held not only justifiable, but even meritorious; to Israelites in Egypt, Englishmen under ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... day's duties, and at the same time to inquire about the strange apparition of the young girl. He was so convinced that there was a vein of insanity about her, that he was very sure that questioning her only excited her the more. Just as he had parted from her, some compunction seized her, and she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... loss of caste to almost all, nay, all, of the very few sources of pecuniary emolument open to them. It requires great strength of principle to disregard this prejudice; and while urged by duty to inveigh against mercenary unions, I feel some compunction at the thoughts of the numerous class who are in a manner forced by this prejudice into forming them. But there are too many who have no such excuse, and to them the remaining observations are addressed. The sacred nature of the conjugal relation ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... Without compunction, Winslow turned and sprinted down the roadway. He saw Ethel dashing across the field, hurdling the cotton rows. The officer was racing down the road, seeming away from her, but in another moment he turned ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings
... as a corollary, Lord Lindfield would come. Then there would be the newly-engaged couple, namely, Daisy and Willie Carton. Either of them would go, as steel filings go to the magnet, wherever the other was, and without the least sense of compunction Lady Nottingham told each of them separately that the other was coming to her. She had been rather late in doing this, and, as a matter of fact, Willie, no longer hoping for it, had made another engagement. But he did not ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... with his sudden descent from earnest hope to disappointment. A flood of half-angry shame dyed his face and the wound to his sensibilities showed its effect so plainly that the beauty noted it with a sudden burst of compunction. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... said Katherine, and the remark reminded her of her humble friend Rachel. She therefore sat down and wrote her a kind, sympathetic letter, feeling some compunction for having allowed so long an interval to elapse since ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... got during that afternoon's tramp over the icebergs. Perhaps I was in specially good form; perhaps the bears "rose" well. Anyhow, the bag was a portentous one. In later days, on reading of the growing scarcity of Polar bears, my conscience has pricked me; but that afternoon I experienced no compunction. Nevertheless, when the huge pile of skins had been hoisted on board, and a stiff grog had been served out to the crew of the captain's gig, I ordered the schooner's head to be set due south. For icebergs were played out, for ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... account destroy one of these reptiles, believing that were they to do so the whole race of rattle-snakes would rise up and bite them. Under the influence of the white man, however, their respect for their grandfather the rattle-snake gradually died away, till at last they killed him without compunction or ceremony whenever they met him. The writer who records the old custom observes that he had often reflected on the curious connection which appears to subsist in the mind of an Indian between man and the brute creation; "all animated nature," says he, "in whatever degree, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... work. This, to him, was not felt to be a very great trial, for it removed him from the sight of his half-fed, half-clothed children, and dejected, suffering wife; and he could, therefore spend with more freedom, and fewer touches, of compunction, the greater portion of his earnings in gratifying the inordinate ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... chattered away the old man, not without some slight compunction. "But in my opinion she's too dark for such somber dresses. I've told her so a score of times." Then as he watched the woman before him rolling up the goods he proceeded to ask with fussy importunity what she thought the express charges ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... upon having us leave the hotel and spend the remainder of the time of our stay with her. So pronounced was her character and so peremptory her demand, there was no room for refusal, and when in a succeeding conversation with her son I expressed some compunction at our stay, I was at once silenced by the remark that his mother was a woman of marked idiosyncracies, and when she so distinguished an individual as to make them a guest the decision was final, and I must ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... Lamb straying from the flock, and felt some compunction about taking the life of so helpless a creature without some plausible excuse; so he cast about for a grievance and said at last, "Last year, sirrah, you grossly insulted me." "That is impossible, sir," bleated the Lamb, "for I wasn't born then." ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... I borrowed from any one it would be from you. But my father has this very sum, five thousand pounds, and, as I tell him, I owe him so much that I have no compunction ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... one start, and muttering between her teeth, "Insolent woman!" but not speaking the words aloud, for she knew her father would treat them as treason. He always had a certain tender deference for his cousin Urania, mixed with something akin to compunction, as if his loyalty to his betrothed had been disloyalty to his family. Thus, he exceeded the rest of his sex in blindness to the defects that had been so evident to his wife and daughter; and whatever provocation might make him say of my Lady ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ashamed of myself to-day, for we talked for half an hour, unsophisticated geology, with poor Mrs. Lyell sitting by, a monument of patience. I want practice in ill-treatment the female sex,—I did not observe Lyell had any compunction; I hope to harden my conscience in time: few husbands seem to find it difficult to effect this. Since my return I have taken several looks, as you will readily believe, into the drawing-room; I suppose ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... then that Hengly was—" Neel couldn't finish the sentence. He knew what he wanted to say, but the idea was too unbearable to put into words. Costa had no such compunction. ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... facing each other again, with all pity and compunction gone, and, after receiving one or two blows, I forgot everything but the fact that there was something before me that I must hit, and hit it I did, my deliveries, as it happened, being quite in accordance with Lomax's teaching, which somehow ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... at all more feeling or sentiment than usually falls to the lot of a youth of his age, but a sort of compunction visited him at that moment to think how soon they all, alive and well, had invaded the poor old woman's locked and guarded sanctuary! He stooped to gather another lily, and offered the flowers to his father. Old Daniel looked at the lilies, but his unready hand did ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... at once guessed to be Singing Sal. That solitary figure was impressive there—high up on the edge of the slope; the still, shining sea far below her; and all around her and illumining her, as it were, the reddening glow flooding over from the westering sun. Nan—perhaps moved by some subtle compunction, perhaps only in token of friendly remembrance—took out her handkerchief and waved it twice; but ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... countries and the reduction of their inhabitants to serfdom. To a predatory and parasitic class war seems only a logical extension of the principles upon which it habitually acts; and for this reason privileged orders seldom feel much moral compunction about a war-policy. Lastly, among the causes of the war must be reckoned one which has received far too little attention from social and political philosophers—the tenacious and half-unconscious memories of a race. Injustice comes home to roost, ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... certain compunction helped him to put the Varr case, and even Miss Ocky, out of his mind for the balance of the morning while he laboriously worked through an accumulation of other matters that had been waiting for his personal attention. At one o'clock he went to the basement of the building ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... Passenger, and above all Ngouta, they openly did not care a row of pins for, and I have small doubt that had it not been for us other three they would have killed and eaten these very amiable gentlemen with as much compunction as an English sportsman would kill as many rabbits. They on their part hated the Fan, and never lost an opportunity of telling me "these Fan be bad man too much." I must not forget to mention the other member of our party, a Fan gentleman with the manners of a ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... they scatter in different directions. Panic chiefly seized the tribunes, now taught by their colleague's death how utterly ineffectual was the aid the devoting laws afforded them.[72] Nor did the patricians display their exultation with due moderation; and so far was any of them from feeling compunction at the guilty act, that even those who were innocent wished to be considered to have perpetrated it, and it was openly declared that the tribunician power ought to be subdued ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... wanted but a month to the acceptable season when claims upon the house poured in which could not be put off. Michael borrowed money once more from his wife to meet them. He did it without remorse or hesitation. Why should he have compunction—why think about it, when the hour of repayment was so near at hand? It was a proper question for a man who could slumber on a mine that was ready to burst, and shatter ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... they knew themselves to be safe from Israel's attacks. [716] Their fear was in reality quite without foundation, for Israel never dreamed of transgressing God's command by waging war upon Lot's descendants. They might without compunction keep the former provinces of Moab and Ammon because they took them not from these, but from Sihon and Og, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... these innocent novices, sure that he could have beaten and robbed them without compunction. That far he had come toward understanding the outlaws, the twisted men ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... change in the child's face, the dark eyes brimming with rising tears, and the little mouth drawn and trembling, might have touched some men; indeed, even Caffyn felt a languid compunction for what he was doing. But his only chance lay in working upon her fears; he could not afford to be sentimental just then, and so he went on, carefully ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... revelry, the brouhaha of a mad population, saluted his deaf ears, the distant music of lutes and viols. The captain of the soldiers went hot and cold. He had harried the heels of the rotund runner in special amusement, but he had not designed murder. A wave of compunction traversed the spectators. But ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... bad roads, of rivers perpetually in flood, turning the lanes into water-courses for three-fourths of the year, of miry fields and marshy heaths, she procured for herself a suit of boy's clothes, donning blouse and gaiters now and then without compunction for these rough ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... though she had failed the little man whose reliance was in her. "You know I'm your friend," she had said to him, and this reference to the Professor had not the flavor of full friendship. The same compunction remained with her next morning, and made her specially gentle with Smith. He had fallen back to his usual condition of vacuity and inertia; she had to rouse him to eat and drink when he sat at table with a face as void of life as a death- ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... the captain. "Recollect that a man's life is in danger. If you feel any compunction about going, Mr Lennox, make way for one ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... way is comforting. If only I could accept her as a human creature. But when I think of her callous reception of the tidings of the unhappy boy's death, my spirit fails me. Such a being would run a carving-knife into you, as you slept, without any compunction, and when you squeaked, she would laugh. Look at her base ingratitude to the good Hamdi Effendi, who took her in before she was born and has treated her as a daughter all her life. No: her spiritual attitude all through has been ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... soon as Jean and Gervaise earned their first francs, he found some good in children after all. Lisa was no longer there. He lived upon the earnings of the two others without compunction, as he had already lived upon their mother. It was a well-planned speculation on his part. As soon as little Gervaise was eight years old, she went to a neighbouring dealer's to crack almonds; she ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... back so that beauty, and even life, might miraculously survive. She seemed to have emerged from an ignoble dream; she longed to merit again, at least in her devotion to this supine figure, that word, perfection. Suddenly her bosom swelled not only with compunction, but with love also—since it was she, indeed, who had recreated him, and since without the nourishment of her ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... truth. It was true! Well, then he forced me to a decision. Forced me, without ever hinting of this change, this possibility in him. I had told him I couldn't love him. Never! Then he said I could go to hell and he gave up. Failing to get money from dad he stole it, without compunction and without regret! He had gone ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... silence golden. She knew perfectly well why Dick had slammed the door. An explanation would have been absurd. It would have interfered with her relations with Austin, which were beginning to be exciting. But she loved Dick in her heart for being a bear, and evinced both her compunction and ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... myself to every part of my duty. I made a general confession with great compunction of heart. I frankly confessed all that I knew with many tears. I became so changed that I was scarcely known. I would not for ever so much made the least voluntary slip. They found not any matter for absolution when I confessed. I discovered the very smallest faults ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... and to die before our ordained time:—Whether offered up in gratitude, or uttered in complaint, destiny cannot be altered by a thousand sighs and lamentations. The angel who presides over the store-house of the winds feels no compunction, though he ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... had passed between the two friends. Isabel rather gloried in the fact; she had no compunction. She had one great article of faith, which was, that husband and wife should be so important to one another, that the rest of the world simply did not count. She and Maurice were husband and wife. They loved one another. They would have children. ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... his driver to set him down a quarter of a mile off? why overpay the man by a shilling? why wear down the soles of an exceedingly thin and elaborate pair of boots on the hot, hard pavement without compunction? Why? Because he was in love. This was also the reason, no doubt, that he turned red and white when he approached the Square railings; that his nose seemed to swell, his mouth got dry, his hat felt too tight, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... sure that no day pass without calling upon God in a solemn, fervent prayer, seven times within the compass thereof. That is, in the morning, and at night, and five times between. Taken up long ago from the example of David and Daniel, and a compunction and shame that I had omitted it so long, when I heedfully read of the custom of the Mahometans to pray five times in ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... own—and in the doing of the deed to save their own necks. If they succeed, they are accounted clever men. As I write, I hear of a man, quite a youngster, himself an exceedingly wealthy man, who killed his brother and confiscated his property with no compunction whatever. When tackled on the subject, he said he could do nothing else, for if he had not killed his brother his brother would ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... Noel's visit, but he answered that Mr. Noel he knew would excuse him, and turned to leave the room. As he did so he stepped on one of the kittens which cried out pitifully. It had been an accident, of course, but he might have shown some compunction, which he utterly failed to do. The little creature hopped away on three feet, and Mrs. Dallas, with pretty foreign words of pity, followed it and brought it to the fireside where she sat down with it on her lap, and stroked and soothed ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... And then compunction seized him. He sat down by Tennessee on a pile of bark, and took off his old wool hat to mop the cold perspiration that had started on his head and face. He felt sick, and sad, and extremely wicked,—a sorry contrast to Birt, who was so ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... Take up your sword, man, and do my bidding; thus shall you have a slender chance of life. Refuse and I pistol you without compunction. So now put ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... his task would be far more difficult than he expected, and that he would have to be extremely guarded in order not to reveal his design, he was glad to learn that the foe was worthy of his steel. Meanwhile her ability and self-reliance banished all compunction. He had no scruples in humbling the pride of a woman who was at once so proud, so heartless, and so clever. Nor would the effort be wearisome, for she had proved herself both amusing and interesting. He might enjoy it quite as much as an intricate ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... not chivalry that prompted Schwalbe to act with consideration. Had he been untrammelled he would have sent his prey to the bottom without compunction, for he had all the brutal instincts of the kultured Hun. It was a superstitious fear that held his frightfulness in check—a presentiment based upon the Mosaic Law, an eye for an eye and a tooth ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... given me up to the Grand Duke; me, with whom he was not connected, and who, of my own accord, sought his hospitality; sooner, I repeat, than have delivered me up, he would have had his castle razed to the ground and fifty swords through his heart; and yet, without the slightest compunction, has this same man deserted, with the greatest coolness, the party of which, ten days ago, he was the zealous leader. How can you account for this, except it be, as I have long suspected, that in politics ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... publication, because of the numerous sketches contained in them of various friends or connections, which were drawn with a wit and precision worthy of Miss Austen herself in her least merciful moments. One specimen, however, may be given without compunction. She was describing a visit paid by her to a well-known country house, and mentioned that among the company were a prominent statesman and his wife, the former of whom was dear to caricaturists on account of his superabundant figure. "Sir —— ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... almost be imagined as a punishment for them. She mows down those on whose existence hangs the well-being of a whole people; perhaps the prospects of the human race for generations to come, with as little compunction as those whose death is a relief to themselves, or a blessing to those under their ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... wantonness, except sharks, while I was on board the CACHALOT. Of course, injuries to men do not count. Had that finback attempted to play about a passenger ship in such a fashion, all the loungers on board would have been popping at him with their revolvers and rifles without ever a thought of compunction; yet here, in a vessel whose errand was whale-fishing, a whale enjoyed perfect immunity. It was very puzzling. At last my curiosity became too great to hear any longer, and I sought my friend Mistah Jones at what I considered a favourable opportunity. ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... young Countess awoke next morning, and reviewed in her mind the chief event of the preceding day, remembering the reluctance of Father Ambrose to undertake the quest she had outlined without the consent of his overlord the Archbishop, a feeling of compunction swept over her. She berated her own selfishness, resolving to send her petition to her guardian, the Archbishop, and abide by ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... Dimas and Ventura to life imprisonment for being accessory to the murder of the Spanish officer above named, Lieutenant Piera. Villa officiated as arch-fiend on the grewsome occasion. I am quite sure I would have hung Villa without any compunction at that time, if I could have gotten hold of him. I tried to get hold of him, but Governor Taft's attorney-general, Mr. Wilfley, wrote me that Villa was somewhere over on the mainland of Asia on British ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... Hopkins was moved by the appalling spectacle. A strong conviction of the great wrong of slavery, and of its utter incompatibility with the Christian profession, seized upon his mind. While at Great Barrington, he had himself owned a slave, whom he had sold on leaving the place, without compunction or suspicion in regard to the rightfulness of the transaction. He now saw the origin of the system in its true light; he heard the seamen engaged in the African trade tell of the horrible scenes of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... creditable merchants felt no compunction in speculating in the flesh and blood of their own species. These articles of merchandize were as common as wheat and tobacco, and ranked with these as a staple of Maryland. This state of things was naturally productive of scenes of cruelty. Georgia was then ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... passionately, raising her arm aloft with a gesture worthy of Siddons or Ristori; "may I never be forgiven when I die if I do! I could kill you this moment, as I would a rat, if I had it in my power, and with as little compunction. I hate you—I hate you—I hate you! How I hate you words are too poor and ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... progress in her studies, but mostly in order not to hurt this hospitable Prosper Gael. The naivete of her gratitude, of her delicate consideration for his feelings, which continually triumphed over an instinctive fear, would have filled him with amusement, perhaps with compunction, had he been capable of understanding them. She was truly sorry that she had hurt him by running away. She told herself she would not do that again. In the spring she would make him a speech of thankfulness and of farewell, and then she would tramp back to Pierre's homestead ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... hitherto been treated in a most ungrateful and step-motherly fashion. We fly to the Umbrella when the sky is overcast—it affords us shelter in the hour of need—and the service is forgotten as soon as the necessity is relieved. We make abominable jokes upon the Umbrella; we borrow it without compunction from any confiding friend, though with the full intention of never returning it—in fact, it has often been a matter of surprise to us that any one ever does buy an Umbrella, for where can the old Umbrellas go to? Although ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... deliberation, she had gone to the theatre, and there forgot her hard day-labor in the wonders of the stage,—forgot Jacqueline, and Antonine, and every care and duty. It was hard for her, when all was ended, to come back to compunction and explanation, yet to this she ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... hand, which lay on his as she held her arm around his waist, was as cold and damp as marble. But, full of his new dress and the part he acted in the procession, the circumstance, which he long afterwards remembered with bitter sorrow and compunction, made no impression on him at ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... you are not the principal. But tell him from me, that if a word is breathed against Mrs. Rivington, I swear that I'll search for him till I find him, and when I find him I'll kill him with as little compunction as I would a rattlesnake." Peter turned and going to his dressing-room, washed away ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... D'Artagnan in vain sought to make out what caused her delay. She continued praying, she frequently passed her handkerchief over her face, by which D'Artagnan perceived she was weeping. He saw her strike her breast with the pitiless compunction of a Christian woman. He heard her several times proffer, as if from a wounded heart: "Pardon! pardon!" And as she appeared to abandon herself entirety to her grief, as she threw herself down almost fainting, amid complaints and prayers, D'Artagnan, touched by his ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... crying aloud, "O! unhappy man! I am so wicked! I am lost! I am lost!" Kohlmeister now asked him affectionately who told him that he was so wicked and must be lost? Siksigak related what had taken place at his mother's, and how her words had pierced him; and with much compunction ingenuously confessed the abominations of which he had been guilty, and the sins in which he had still intended to indulge. The missionary then asked him, whether he sincerely resolved to amend his life? and being answered in the affirmative, told him, he ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... long moonlit road and lapsed into one of her sudden abstractions. A belated compunction seized her for not going straight home from the Martels', for being late for dinner on her last night, for going on with her affair with Captain Phipps, when she had been ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... soldier hears throughout in silence. I urge no answer: to those words, I fear, Thy heart with sharp compunction will reply. ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... sorcery, necromancy and their horrible profanations; and he expressed himself with so much force and energy, that the king and madame de Maintenon looked at each other without knowing what to say, and began, for the first time, to feel compunction for what they had done, and to regret their imprudence. They talked of it much together, and at length resolved to reveal their crime to their confessors. The punishment imposed on the king by his spiritual adviser was, that he should evince his contempt ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... shall come to you. Therefore, I feel certain that all I've said and am saying to you will be treated as it ought to be—by you. I daresay you think I'm an awful scoundrel, but I told you I was an Ishmael—and I certainly haven't got the slightest compunction about appropriating the stuff in those chests on deck—one of the Forestburnes stole it from the monks—why shouldn't I steal it from his successor? It's as much mine as his—perhaps more so, for one of my ancestors, a certain Geoffrey de Knaytheville, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... our day, the love and practice of truth have grown obsolete; dramatic pieces and works of fiction, indeed all kinds of literature, especially biography, and even history, combine to outrage truth with impunity; no compunction is felt in transforming great characters into monsters, and monsters into heroes. People are no longer astonished that travellers' narratives should be like poems, good or bad, works of imagination ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... review which attempted to cover the imperious theories of the Church with a varnish of tolerance. Veuillot, franker and more open, scorned such masks, unhesitatingly admitted the tyranny of the ultramontaine doctrines and confessed, with a certain compunction, the pitiless ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... private life he had been a courageous burglar. And the Imperial and Royal army, according to certain "Instructions for the conduct of troops" which were found on a wounded officer of the 9th Army Corps, had resolved—irrespective of success or failure in the War—to massacre the Serbs without compunction: "Any person encountered in the open, and especially in a forest, must be regarded as a member of a 'band' that has concealed its weapons somewhere, which weapons we have not the time to look for. These people are to be executed if they appear ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... vision was blurred and he had no control over his muscles. Weakly he leaned against the table in front of the jury, the room swaying about him. The pains of hell gat hold upon him. He was dying. Even the staff felt compunction—all but the Honorable Peckham. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... the man to be disturbed by any scruples with regard to the hospitality of the owner of Lonely Ranch. He partook of the ample supper which Chintz had prepared for him without the slightest compunction. And when it was finished he idled the time away smoking one of Iredale's best cigars with the utmost enjoyment. He watched the shadows grow and deepen. He waited until the blue vault of the sky had changed its hue to ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... when our friends we lose, Our alter'd feelings alter too our views; What in their tempers teased us or distress'd, Is, with our anger and the dead, at rest; And much we grieve, no longer trial made, For that impatience which we then display'd; Now to their love and worth of every kind A soft compunction turns th' afflicted mind; Virtues neglected then, adored become, And graces slighted, blossom on the tomb. 'Tis well; but let not love nor grief believe That we assent (who neither loved nor grieve) To all that praise which on the tomb is read, To all that passion dictates ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... said to himself, "I can go forward with less compunction. I can gratify my desire for excitement and adventure with perfect safety. I will stay with them for a while, and when I am tired can leave them without any entanglements." When the situation had been regarded for a little while from this point of view, he felt happier and more care-free ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... happy dreams, did not look down to note the shadow that suddenly swept all joy from the little face. When she spoke again, it was the tone rather than the words that brought him to himself with a pang of compunction. ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... The half-piteous doubt and compunction had something childish, which made her smile as she answered: 'You had better have done as you ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... deep movement of compunction; for the moment, her mind ceased to contend against what she felt to be cruel and unreasonable, and in her self-blame she ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Compunction weeps our guilt away, The sinner's safety is his pain; Such pangs for our offences pay, And these severer griefs ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe
... it is to be kept a secret between us, only?" she asked wistfully, compunction already pulling at her conscience. Secrecy savoured of intrigue, and all things underhand were abominable ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... hand. One thousand and fifteen fine trees were chosen and carefully stowed. But the comfortable indolence, the luxuriant abundance, the genial climate, the happy hospitality of the handsome islanders, and their easy freedom from compunction in reference to restraints imposed by law and custom in Europe, had a demoralising effect upon the crew of the Bounty. A stay of twenty-three weeks at the island sufficed to subvert discipline and to persuade some of Bligh's ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... Supreme Court of the United States has absolved her from all her feelings of humanity? "The parting!" Where has she lived not to know how, according to our lecturers, families are parted at the auction-block in the Southern States without the least compunction? We are constantly told,—has she not heard it?—that the slave at the South is a mere "chattel," and that a slave-child is bought and sold as recklessly as a calf, and that a parting between a slave-mother and her children, sold and separated for life, is an occurrence as familiar ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... studied the lovely face, eloquent with love and truth, for some moments in silence;—a kind of compunction pricked her conscience. Why destroy all that beautiful faith? Why wound that grandly trusting nature? The feeling ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... of compunction swept over me. I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder. 'Henry, dear old chap, I never thought you felt like this about things.' Certainly he was writing a play, but as he had been engaged on it now for over ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... in it were immediately hanged, as some authorities say, by the king's orders, with the exception only of Gurdun. He was brought into the presence of his dying victim, when Richard, under the impulse of generosity or compunction, gave him his liberty, with a hundred shillings to take him home; but after the king's death he was flayed alive, and then hanged, by order of Marchadee, the leader of the Brabantine mercenaries serving in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... Canada. This message was delivered. So far as Roon and Paul were concerned their usefulness was ended. They had done all that was required of them. The cause they served was better off with them dead than alive. Without the slightest compunction, without the least regard for faithful service, they were set upon and slain by their supposed friends. Now, you may laugh at my fancy if you like, but you must remember that frightful things are happening in these days. The killing of these men adds but a drop ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... than terrible, or the man that did it other than fierce and stern. No traits of chivalrous generosity are told of him, nothing that softens the dreadfulness of war. He showed no touch of pity or compunction, no lofty, statesmanlike qualities, nothing constructive; he was simply a rough soldier, with an iron hand and an iron heel, who burned and slew and settled down his men in the land ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... sagas are hard as iron; their pride is ferocious, their courage and sense of duty inflexible, their hatred is as enduring as their love. The memory of a slight or an injury is nursed for a lifetime, and when the hour of vengeance strikes, no compunction, not even the commonest human instincts—such as mother love—can avert the blow. Signy in the "Voelsunga Saga" is implacable as fate. To avenge the slaughter of the Volsungs is with her an obsession, a fixed idea. When incest seems the only pathway to her purpose, she takes that path without ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... continues to afford the world some pleasure. But the buried body is forgotten, and no longer ranks with men. He is noisome and horrible; he is bereft of all that pleases the eye; he is trodden under foot in a cemetery without compunction, so convinced is every one that he is nothing, and that he is rooted from among the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... entered a convent or married young Waleran de Luxemburg, her cousin. Therefore he had striven to force on her his half-brother, who would certainly never unite any inheritance to hers; but he much preferred the purchase of her Hainault lands; and had no compunction in throwing over Boemond, except for a certain lurking desire that the lady's contumacy should be chastised by a lord who would beat her well into subjection. He would willingly have made a great show of generosity, and have laid James ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bright head did not fall, nor the tender gaze falter; and driven out of himself, Roger Upjohn was about to step passionately forward, when, seized by fresh compunction, he ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... sitting in the Senate, appalling news came from the Assembly: Dr. Willard, while making one more passionate appeal for the asylum, had fallen dead in the presence of the committee. The result was a deep and wide- spread feeling of compunction, and while we were under the influence of this I sought Judge Folger and showed him his opportunity to do two great things. I said: "It rests with you to remedy this cruel evil which has now cost Dr. Willard his life, and at the same time to join us in carrying the Cornell University Bill. Let ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... her head and laughed. "You are chained by the most inflexible of all chains," she said: "your own compunction." ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... return to the city, there to be guided by the circumstances of the next few weeks. If it became clear that Mara had not been influenced by his warning, but on the contrary was accepting Bodine's attentions, then he would face the truth that she was lost to him beyond hope. Without compunction he would turn to Miss Ainsley, and, with all the wariness and penetration which he could exercise, seek to discover how far she would go with him in his life campaign to achieve eminence. He was glad, however, that he did not regard her as essential to his plans and hopes. Indeed, he had the ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... have killed them both with a clear conscience, if I could. I tried hard enough. But it was different then; out in the open, where a man had an even break. I don't believe if I had shot as straight as I wanted to that I'd ever have felt a moment's compunction. But now, when they're disarmed and shackled and altogether helpless, I couldn't walk up to them deliberately and kill them ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... Parson's advice thankfully; besides having a distaste for the idea of corporal punishment, he could hardly have borne to hurt the eager, bright creature who always hung about him so confidingly when in the mood, but who had no compunction in not going near him for days, except to say good-morning and good-night, when in ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Lanarkshire, he was called upon, at an Ayrshire Burns Club dinner, to propose the toast of the "Ayrshire Lasses." After alluding to the honour that had been conferred upon him, happily said that "Provided his fair clients were prepared to be 'contented wi' little and canty wi' mair,' he had no compunction in performing ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... person of either sex becomes so old and infurm that they are unable to travel on foot from camp to camp as they rome in surch of subsistance, for the children or near relations of such person to leave them without compunction or remose; on those occasions they usually place within their reach a small peace of meat and a platter of water, telling the poor old superannuated wretch for his consolation, that he or she had lived long enough, that ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... to all the lessons she inculcated. Once I recollect her mentioning the particular failing which disgraced so intelligent a being. She pleaded, in excuse of it, the unmitigable regret of a widowed heart, and with compunction declared that she flew to intoxication as the only refuge from the pang ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... pleading. Thus, the serpent, ranging through the garden, perceives Eve alone among the roses, and rejoices to think he can make his first attempt upon what he rightly deems the weaker vessel. Although not without compunction, he wends his way toward her and startles her by addressing her in a human voice. When she inquires how it happens a beast can communicate with her, the serpent rejoins that, although at first speechless like other beasts, he no sooner tasted a certain fruit ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... then feel? No power of language can make the scene more touching than it appears in the plain and simple narrations of the Evangelists. The heart that is unmoved by it, can be scarcely human; but the emotions of tenderness and compunction; which almost every one feels in reading this account, will be of no avail, unless applied to the true end—unless it inspires you with a sincere and warm affection towards your blessed Lord—with a firm resolution ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... serpent. The wooden sentry-boxes in the square reeled round and fell, while a cloud of filth and dust obscured the fallen monster, and men looked awe-struck at one another like naughty children who had broken something which they ought not to have dared to touch. The moment of compunction was a short one, and a howling throng rushed with one accord into the noisome cloud, fighting and quarrelling for bits of bronze and stone, and a man near me drew back, half stifled for an instant, saying, with disgust, "See what a stench the Empire has!" ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... a first aid to the injured. She had betrayed the bandits without the least compunction, because they had ignored the oath of vengeance against the slayer of her son; but she nursed them all impartially and skillfully until the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... the face. 'I know thy thoughts, Abidan,' exclaimed the priest; 'but it cannot be. I have dismissed, henceforth and for ever I have dismissed all feeling from my mind; now I have no brother, no friend, no pupil, and, I fear, no Saviour. Israel is all in all to me. I have no other life. 'Tis not compunction, then, that stays my arm. My heart's as hard ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... stopped short, and a deep blush spread itself over his boyish face. His tone was filled full to overflowing with compunction as ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... told me last night," said King, drawing on imagination without any compunction at all, "that the fight in the Khyber was because a jihad is ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... things to do; you must excuse me." He was nervous, restless, his heart was beating much faster than usual; he couldn't stand still, and he had no compunction whatever about leaving her to get rid, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... some of the cows, but to do so would only have meant leaving them to perish of hunger; it was kinder to kill them at once. The wounded bull I slew with my own hand, and I cannot say that I felt much compunction in so doing. He knew me again, and made a desperate effort to get at me, but I am glad to say that ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... arbitrarily as in the Midsummer Night's Dream does Peter Quince, who says to highly respectable people: "You play the Lion, and you play the Ass," necessitates making a victim of a man who was a mediocre diplomat, but for a time, at least, a fairly good soldier. The author feels no compunction on this score. Stupidity, as Comus artlessly thinks, is not wickedness; the Lion or the Ass—each is necessary to different moments in the play. A Brandenburg-Prussian comedy of 1733 can, a priori, hardly fail to be "unjust" to an Imperial Ambassador of that epoch. Such injustice belongs to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Lincoln's lack of refinement; and though from first to last the serious provocation in their disputes lay in the set policy of the Southern leaders, it ought to be realised that they, men who for the most part were quite kind to their slaves and had long ago argued themselves out of any compunction about slavery, were often exposed to intense verbal provocation. Nevertheless, what followed on Sumner's speech is terribly significant of the depravation of ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... the yoke of Christ, the breast for evangelical doctrine, the belly for avarice, the bowels for the mysterious precepts of the Lord, the body and loins for suggestions of lust, the bones typified hardness of heart, and the marrow compunction, the sinews were evil members of Anti-Christ. And these writers extended this method of interpretation to the commonest objects of daily use, even to tools and vessels within ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... you villain and murderer!" exclaimed the young Cuban, glaring savagely along the sights of the levelled weapon into Senor Alvaros' eye: "hands up; or I will blow your worthless brains out with as little compunction as that with which I would crush a venomous snake beneath my heel! Quick! ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... Then followed two quick snorts of alarm; the horses shied simultaneously outward, while down on the ground between them came two souls with but a single thud, two hearts that squelched as one. In spite of the compunction and sympathy I felt, modesty compelled me to glide unobstrusively away, leaving the souls to disentangle themselves and catch their horses the best ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... itself? or that any one should repent of what he had done in a passion? as we see that Alexander the king did, who could scarcely keep his hands from himself, when he had killed his favourite Clytus: so great was his compunction! Now who, that is acquainted with these instances, can doubt that this motion of the mind is altogether in opinion and voluntary? for who can doubt that disorders of the mind, such as covetousness, and a desire of glory, arise from a great estimation of those things, by which the mind ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... effect will they produce? My lady's sagacity is obscured by the benevolence of her temper. Her brother was sordidly wicked,—a hoary ruffian, to whom the language of pity was as unintelligible as the gabble of monkeys. His heart was fortified against compunction, by the atrocious habits of forty years; he lived only to interrupt her peace, to confute the promises of virtue, and convert to rancour and reproach the fair ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... never again was guilty of such an outbreak. From that moment he began the serious endeavour to subjugate the pig, tiger, mule, or whatever animal he found in himself. There remained, however, this difference between them—that Alister punished without compunction, while Ian was sorely troubled at having to ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald |
