"Contrition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any heart left, I will bring the tear of contrition to your eye. I asked and obtained her permission to tell you all I know, and ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... condemnation, Somerset acknowledged with contrition that he had once mentioned to certain persons an intention of assassinating these lords; but he protested that he had never taken any measures for carrying this wicked purpose into execution. However this might be, no act of violence ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... he did not go so far as to make gratitude the subject of a corresponding formula of denunciation, he always implied that this too is really one of the false virtues. He confessed to Malesherbes, without the slightest contrition, that he was ungrateful by nature.[27] To Madame d'Epinay he once went still further, declaring that he found it hard not to hate those who had used him well.[28] Undoubtedly he was right so far ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... intently lived, carefully employed; behind the pleasures lay a great tract of solid work, very diligently pursued. That was to have been the backbone of the whole; and it is for this that I have no sense of regret or contrition about it. It was an experiment; and if in one sense it failed, because it did not take account of energies and elements unused, in another sense it succeeded, because one cannot learn things in this world by hearsay, but ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... shaping and moulding me. The evil I had done, was it indeed evil? It had been the flowering of a root of bitterness, the impact of material forces and influences. Had I ever desired it? Not in my spirit, I now felt. Sin had brought me shame and sorrow, and they had done their work. Repentance, contrition—ugly words! I laughed softly at the thought of how different it all was from what I had dreamed. I was as the lost sheep found, as the wayward son taken home; and should I spoil my joy with recalling what ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... betrayed lover to the bitter end, false and heartless though she had been. The coquette in her played with him even now in the midst of the bitter pain she must have known she was inflicting. No word of contrition spoke she, but took her deed as one of her prerogatives, just as she had always taken everything she chose. She did not even spare him the loving salutation that had been her custom in her letters to him, but wrote herself down as she would have done the day before when all ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... seen him speeding on his errands of mercy; she hung about the crowd that followed his steps; his tender look of pity may have sometimes gleamed into her soul. Stricken, smitten, confounded, her yearnings for peace gush forth afresh. It was as if Hell, moved by contrition, had given up its prey,—as if Remorse, tired of its gnawing, felt within itself the stimulus of hope. But how shall she see Jesus? Wherewithal shall she approach him? She has "nothing to pay." She has tears enough, and sorrows enough,—but these are derided by the vain, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... told me the story of that night of storm and bloodshed,—a story which will be found lying near this, in my alcove of shame and contrition. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... while in that state, as acting from a mechanical impulse, and as incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong. For the scandal which his behavior may have occasioned, he feels the most heartfelt sorrow, and will submit with penitence and contrition to the severe rebuke which the Presbytery have decreed against him. But he cannot think that his unfortunate misdemeanor, circumstanced as he was, merits a severer punishment. He can show that pains were at these times taken to lead him on, when bereft of his senses, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... conscience. The less spiritual, self-denying, and humiliating the doctrines presented, the greater the favor with which they are received. These persons degrade the intellectual powers to serve their carnal desires. Too wise in their own conceit to search the Scriptures with contrition of soul and earnest prayer for divine guidance, they have no shield from delusion. Satan is ready to supply the heart's desire, and he palms off his deceptions in the place of truth. It was thus that the papacy gained its power over the minds of men; and by rejection of the truth because ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... she would find it to walk alone down the long paths of old age! how hard it was to be deprived of a dear arm on whose support she had reckoned for when "the slow dark hours begin"! But she thrust this reflection away from her as selfish, and contrition for having harboured it found expression in a hand wrinkled and roughened by hard wear, which stole ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... and contrition, this discontent verging on hopelessness, constituted, as we have seen, the characteristic attitude of Carlyle; and it represents a true and, in fact, an indispensable element of ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... her understanding of it was just about what can be expected in a person who has never made a thorough study of any language. As he advanced toward her she seemed unconscious of his presence. But she was seeing him distinctly, and so ludicrous a figure of shy and sheepish contrition was he making that she with difficulty restrained her laughter. He glanced guiltily at the long, red scratch on the pallid whiteness of ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... jewels of Cardinal Mazarin, which of course that minister could not do otherwise than leave; all the queen-mother's jewels as well as a few belonging to his wife—Monsieur wore them all, and he was as dazzling as the rising sun. Behind him followed De Guiche, with hesitating steps and an air of contrition admirably assumed; De Guiche wore a costume of French-gray velvet, embroidered with silver, and trimmed with blue ribbons: he wore also Mechlin lace as rare and beautiful in its own way as the jewels of Monsieur in theirs. The ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Tobacconist against which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful catastrophe in New York. In America those things were continually happening. Unfortunate people to die like that, unprepared. Still, an act of perfect contrition. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... resurrection is a reward to the just, it follows that each one shall have a body glorified in proportion to his own individual merits. Any contrary doctrine would sound like heresy. If you were told, for instance, that the murderer who dies on the scaffold, after making an act of perfect contrition, will rise on the last day with a body as beautiful and glorious as that of the Blessed Virgin, or of the Apostles, martyrs, and holy virgins, your whole soul would revolt at such a doctrine. You would maintain, that if the resurrection is a reward to the just, the ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... being called to the bar. DRUMMOND, of Hawthornden, quitted the bar from his love of poetry; yet he seems to have lamented slighting the profession which his father wished him to pursue. He perceives his error, he feels even contrition, but still cherishes it: no man, not in his senses, ever ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... caught one of Grace's hands in hers. "You're the dearest girl," she said, "and I'll try to be worthy of your friendship. Please tell the girls I'm sorry. I'll tell them myself to-night." With that she fairly ran from the room, and going to her own shed tears of real contrition. Later, it took all Grace's reasoning powers to put Elfreda in a state of mind that verged even slightly on charitable, but after much coaxing she promised to behave with ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... him, and there was Fetuao back again in a state of the sweetest contrition and remorse. He took her in his arms and kissed her; and then, like a pair of lovers, they held each other's hands and shrank close together as the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... prospect when th' enthusiast cries, "I die assured!" and in a rapture dies? Ah, where that humble, self-abasing mind, With that confiding spirit, shall we find; The mind that, feeling what repentance brings, Dejection's terrors and Contrition's stings, Feels then the hope that mounts all care above, And the pure joy that flows from pardoning love? Such have I seen in Death, and much deplore, So many dying—that I see no more: Lo! now my Records, where I grieve to trace How Death has triumph'd in so short a space; Who are the dead, how ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... Dellanow showed himself singularly deficient in moral graces. To the very end of his life he was given to outbreaks of violent behaviour—as we have seen; and not only would he show no signs of after-contrition for his bad conduct, but would hint, at times, that his invisible companion had been a partner, or at least an unreproving spectator, in what he had done. But if he made a mistake in feeding the ewes or in doctoring the lambs, Snarley would say, "I don't know what 'the Shepherd' ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... Wiltons have spent many lives in their Princes' service; Grey cannot beg his!' Within a few days he was grovelling in gratitude for an insulting reprieve: 'As your mercy draws out my life, I cannot deny it the only object it aspires to, by unfeigned confession and contrition to diminish my offence, and your displeasure.' Not till the Civil War had cleared the atmosphere through which royalty was seen, was the demeanour of subjects to the Sovereign in general conformity with the modern standard of manliness. Ralegh, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... meetings at Glasgow, and that he has taken a violent part in politics. He yesterday saw a Presbyterian clergyman, who prayed with him; who pointed out the atrocity of his crime, the innocence of his victim, the pangs of sorrowing relatives, and who exhorted him to contrition and repentance. Some impression was made at the moment; but his general demeanour is marked by cold reserve ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... mazes of Shandyism up to the point where the sentimental Yorick really takes up the pen and introduces the reader to the sad fate of Maria of Moulines. One can imagine eager Germany aroused to sentimental frenzy over the Maria incident in the Sentimental Journey, turning with throbbing contrition to the forgotten, neglected, or unknown passage ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... lost himself, both for amusement and for contrition, in the wonder of whether he had made, in his own challenge that afternoon, such another figure, that he for an instant missed the ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... remorse and shame were something pitiable. Of him, as an impartial historian, it is difficult to write, since long association with Stannard had forcibly impressed his views as to Rallston's character. Perhaps we were as reluctant to hear of his subsequent behavior and to believe in his contrition as Mrs. Whaling with all her meek and lowly piety was to conceive of Ray's innocence of the various charges laid at his door; but, in the absence of proof to the contrary, we simply place before the patient reader Nellie Ray Rallston's ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... were long dry melted into tears, and hearts that were strangers to every sweet and holy influence throbbed with emotion. Efforts to check the pent-up feelings were expressed by louder and convulsive sobs; some knelt and prayed, others beat their breasts in the agony of contrition. The immense concourse of people, simple and religious minded, at all times impressionable, were, under the appeals of Francis, moved as in times of public calamity, and the whole crowd swayed to and fro as the deep moved by the storm—now trembling in terror, now ashamed ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... enter here into the troubles and tribulations of Columbus's first voyage. The details of the men's discontent and of the leader's courage, persistence, and strategy have been the subject of thousands of works. The great contrition, moreover, of his mutinous crew, when after five weeks' sailing they sighted land, and their sudden admiration and almost worship of the great navigator, afford too familiar a subject to be dealt with here. Suffice ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... slide cost him the lives of two men and half a dozen mules, it was Jim who, in his boyish contrition and fear lest the catastrophe might have been due to his lack of foresight, insisted on first testing the wall for further danger and risked his life in doing so. When a cloudburst sent to the bottom in a half hour ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... contrition of heart and deep sense of sin, which God gives to those who seek earnestly to turn away ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... as these, who die without contrition, Must go to—beg your pardon, sir—perdition, The sons of light, you tell me, can't be gay, But count it sin of the sort called omission The groan to smother or the tear to stay Or fail to—what is that they live by?—pray. So down they flop, and the whole serious race ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... he upraised his glowing and dripping countenance from the brook, resembled Silenus emerging from one of the rivers which Bacchus metamorphosed into wine during his campaign in India. He resorted to attrition and contrition, to maceration and laceration; he tried friction with leaves, with grass, with sedge, with his garments; he regarded himself in one crystal pool after another, a grotesque anti-Narcissus. At last he flung himself on the earth, and gave free ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... ministerial functions again in such poor parishes as would admit us: Then I saw it was high time not only to prescribe strong purgative medicines in the pulpit (contempered of the myrrh of mortification, the aloes of confession and contrition, the rhubarb of restitution and satisfaction, with divers other safe roots, seeds, and flowers, fit and necessary to help to carry away by degrees the incredible confluence of ill humours and all such malignant matter as offended), but also to put pen to ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... gently, touched by this sign of contrition. "I do care for you, Monty, but don't you see it's no little thing you ask of me? I must be ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... That scans the inmost thought of man, discern'd Its work completed in that lowliness Of deep humility which fits the soul For heavenly intercourse, and renovates The blessed image of obedient love That Eden forfeited. Out of the depths Of true contrition sigh'd a trembling tone In utter abnegation, "I repent! In dust and ashes. I abhor myself." —Thus the returning prodigal who cries Unclothed and empty, "Father! I have sinn'd, And am not worthy to be called thy son," Finds full forgiveness, and a free embrace, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... it would be granted to me to live the life of the saints and perhaps even to die a martyr's death. This, alas! has not happened—yet, in spite of the transgressions and errors which I have committed, and for which I feel sincere repentance and contrition, the holy light of the Cross has never been entirely withdrawn from me. At times, indeed, the refulgence of this Divine light has overflowed my entire soul.—I thank God for this, and shall die with my soul fixed upon the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... religious wars, the cruelty of religious controversies, the bigotry of the confessional, these all, which, only a generation earlier, had been taken by long-suffering humanity as if they had been matters of course, were now viewed with contrition by the more exalted spirits and with contempt and embitterment by the rest. Men said, if religion can give us not better morality than this, it is high time we looked to the natural basis of morality. Natural morality came to be the phrase ever on the lips ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... scene might too much unstring his master, the servant seemed anxious to terminate it. And so, still presenting himself as a crutch, and walking between the two captains, he advanced with them towards the gangway; while still, as if full of kindly contrition, Don Benito would not let go the hand of Captain Delano, but retained it in his, across ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... the year 1336 or 1337, his biographer adds, 'no less a good Christian than an excellent painter,' and in token of his faith he painted one crucifixion in which he introduced his own figure 'kneeling in an attitude of deep devotion and contrition at the foot of the Cross.' The good taste of such an act has been questioned, so has been the practice which painted the Virgin Mother now as a brown Italian, now as a red and white Fleming, and again as a flaxen-haired ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... be satisfied till the exercise, however performed, has taken hold of the heart, and led to penitence for sin, and a sense of pardon through the blood of Christ, which accompanies true contrition; for "the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... uncle's death was known at home, Richard wrote the most pathetic letter to me, professing deep contrition, and saying he could never forgive himself for having quarrelled with his dear uncle. He had a sad tale of how the business that he had started had failed and left him with debts. If he had only a few hundred dollars, he could go on with it and pay ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... lowest stair.] By the white step is meant the distinctness with which the conscience of the penitent reflects his offences, by the burnt and cracked one, his contrition on, their account; and by that of porphyry, the fervour with which he resolves on the future pursuit of piety and virtue. Hence, no doubt, Milton describing "the gate of heaven," ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... could not forbear weeping aloud, insomuch that, in the agonies of his grief, the seat shook under him. Constantia, who thought the good man was thus moved by his compassion towards her, and by the horror of her guilt, proceeded with the utmost contrition to acquaint him with that vow of virginity in which she was going to engage herself, as the proper atonement for her sins, and the only sacrifice she could make to the memory of Theodosius. The father, who ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... my contrition for having displeased you, since it shews the reliance I might have on a promise which you will not give ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... license, Smith telling him that "the less priesthood he had, the better it would be for him." Rigdon, Mrs. Smith says, according to his own account, "was dragged out of bed by the devil three times in one night by the heels," and, while she does not accept this literally, she declares that "his contrition was as great as a man could well live through." After ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... whole—with a certain moral obtuseness, seemed inconceivable. For to Jurgen it now appeared that Guenevere was behaving with not quite the decorum which might fairly be expected of a princess. Contrition, at least, one might have looked for, over this hole and corner business: whereas it worried him to note that Guenevere was coming to accept affairs almost as a matter of course. Certainly she did not seem to think at all of any wickedness anywhere: the utmost she suggested was ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... hymn-singing and praying, and "Sistering" and "Brothering" get on my nerves, until I almost scream, but when I remember how heavenly good to me they are I'm all contrition. I have even been invited to write for the Mission papers, now isn't that sufficient ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... arm—and I—-" The boy's face crimsoned with shame and contrition. Through the semi-darkness the blush escaped Graydon's notice, but not so the truly feminine, little shriek of dismay, as he touched and felt ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... through or evading his district without paying a hongo, else he would not have sent his men to invite him to his palace, doubtless with instructions, if necessary, to use force. This appears the more evident from the fact of his subsequent contrition, and finding it necessary to send excuses when the property was in his hands; for these chiefs, grasping as they are, know they must conform to some kind of system, to save themselves from a general war, or the avoidance of their territories by all travellers ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... their spirits so severely that his conscientious Scotch parents thought it their duty to lecture them on the sin of ingratitude for the blessings that were still theirs. In great contrition their daughter-in-law writes: ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... half-mocking contrition. "I am as bad as you are. But, as I say, there are times when I should like to shriek the truth in the world's face, and see what it would do. I don't think anything could be ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... things that she should live so, many years. I devoted myself to reclaim the otherwise predestined and lost boy; to give him the reputation of an honest origin; to bring him up in fear and trembling, and in a life of practical contrition for the sins that were heavy on his head before his entrance into this condemned world. Was that a cruelty? Was I, too, not visited with consequences of the original offence in which I had no complicity? Arthur's father and I lived no further ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... his face full on his daughter's with an expression of mingled shame, contrition, and pride. It was as though his heart yearned for that love which he thought he had ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... you Lord Mertoun's pedigree before the flood, Which Thorold seemed in very act to tell —Or bringing Austin to pluck up that most Firm-rooted heresy—your suitor's eyes, He would maintain, were grey instead of blue— I think I brought him to contrition!—Well, I have not done such things, (all to deserve A minute's quiet cousin's talk with you,) ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... there is something of human affection in these tears. But apart from this, they are shed, not in contrition for the sinfulness of his course, but in grief for the pitiful plight to which it has brought him. Being the tears of self-pity, and not of repentance, they are not the kind to divert us from our fixed purpose—that purpose, our ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... did not even know that it was the house of his son, your father—so great a gulf is fixed between the legitimate and the bastard! He had crossed the wooden bridge in going, and was sure to cross it in coming back. How he could tread those planks without contrition and horror—but never mind. I resolved to bring him to a quiet parley there, and I waited in ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... in Newgate, Mr. Macshane could not be brought to express any contrition for his crimes, except that of having killed his commanding officer. For this Wood he pretended an excessive sorrow, and vowed that usquebaugh had been the cause of his death,—indeed, in prison he partook of no ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ready!" said the king, involuntarily shuddering. "My coffin, and that of the queen! And Sophia gives a ball, and perhaps dances, in place of bowing her soul in contrition before God. I will awaken her from these soul-destroying vanities; the arrival of the coffins now was an especial providence of God. The ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... befall you, daughter," said the nun, "if you manifest contrition for past errors and a resolution to devote your future years to ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... grave of buried love and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited—every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being who can never-never—never return to be soothed by thy contrition! ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Rupe's scornful expression altered to one of contrition. "Well, I declare!" he exclaimed remorsefully. "I didn't s'pose it would hurt. Turn about's fair play; so now you do that ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... possible sins or mishaps that have caused the suffering of the petitioner, proceeds to invoke the gods, goddesses, and the powerful spirits to loosen the ban. There is no question of retribution for actual acts of injustice or violence, any more than there is a question of genuine contrition. The enumeration of the causes for the suffering constitutes in fact a part of the incantation. The mention of the real cause in the long list—and the list aims to be exhaustive, so that the exorciser may strike the real cause—goes a long way towards ensuring the departure of the evil spirit. ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... It is a curious document, full of the strong religious sentiment by which he came to be distinguished; tracing the finger of Providence in all that happened to him, even in the good results brought out of actions for which he expresses contrition; and yet with an obvious pleasure in recalling the vivid impressions of his early and vigorous youth. I omit parts of what is at times a confession of error. This much I think it only right to say. Although he was guilty of some lapses from strict morality, for which he expresses sincere ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the now frenzied parent, rising on his pillow. "Her innocence! Her sweetness! And he, cold as the stone we laid upon her grave, had seen her perish with the anguish and shame of it, without a sign of grief or a word of contrition." ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... her husband as that she might have trusted him entirely. Now that he was gone without betraying her, the knowledge that he had known her secret and had guarded it faithfully did not make her feel, with a flood of humble contrition, how deeply she had misjudged him, how loyal he had been from first to last; it only aroused in her a sense of fear and anger. How secretive Andrea had been, how underhand! Perhaps part of the doom of a petty, self-centred nature ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... right, had striven on to finish the work that he was in." In England, apart from more formal tokens of a late-learnt regard and an unfeigned regret, Punch embodied in verse of rare felicity the manly contrition of its editor for ignorant derision in past years; and Queen Victoria symbolised best of all, and most acceptably to Americans, the feeling of her people when she wrote to Mrs. Lincoln "as a widow to a widow." Nor, though the transactions in which he bore his part were but little understood ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... eyebrows slightly as though surprised, but his expression of genuine contrition softened her heart a little and rendered her answer perhaps a trifle less unkind than she ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... and being without a particle of self-respect, he would never have given over his tricks, even if they had drawn upon him the scorn of the whole party. Now and then, indeed, something worse than laughter fell to his share; on these occasions he would exhibit much contrition, but half an hour after we would generally observe him stealing round to the box at the back of the cart and slyly making off with the provisions which Delorier had laid by for supper. He was very fond of smoking; but having no tobacco of his own, we used to provide ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... change in Uncle Jim's face and quickly extended his hand, with an apologetic backward shake of his long hair. "Hang it all, old man," he said, with a laugh of mingled contrition and amusement, "you mustn't mind what I said just now. I've been so worried thinking of things about MYSELF, and, maybe, a little about you, that I quite forgot I hadn't a call to preach to anybody—least of all to you. ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... preached his last sermon in Haxby, and paid his last visit to our house; but the place that knew him shall know him no more for ever. So will it soon be said of me.—Jesus hath broke the bars of death, and opened paradise. In visiting, I was much refreshed. Tears of contrition rolled down the face of Mrs. L. and Mrs. E. One was added to the little class. All were present, and I felt loath to take leave of them; but so it must be. Thos. Y. will now take charge of them. ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... might be supposed to have passed by, offering to restore it. His uncle was undoubtedly a very silly man; but he was not one who could acknowledge to himself that he had done an unjust act without suffering for it. At the present moment, while his wrath was hot, there would be no sense of contrition. His ears would still tingle with the sound of the laughter of which he had supposed himself to have been the subject at the rectory. But that sound in a few weeks might die away, and some feeling of the propriety of justice would come back upon the poor man's mind. Such ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... said, almost laughing at his contrition; "I should never have married Julia, believe me; and I am delighted that she is going to be married, especially to an old friend like you. I shall make your ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... distinguished-looking old gentleman. The dinner we ordered was "stunning"—especially the wines. When the bill was presented our host scanned it carefully, scrutinizing each item and making his own addition, altogether "like a thoroughbred." Frank and I watched him not without a bit of anxiety mixed with contrition. When he had paid the score he said with a smile: "That was rather a steep bill, but we have had rather a good dinner, and now, if you boys know of as good a dance hall we'll go there and I'll buy ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... impetuous rush. "Adrian," she breathed, with plaintive contrition, "I wish you wouldn't say such things—no, ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... living light, verse by verse stood out before her, as written by the finger of a present God. Humbled to the earth, overpowered by deep self-abasement and contrition of soul, she clung as with a death-grasp to the words that were bearing her triumphantly through these ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... on any account whatever, be allowed to whip a child. "Does ever any man or woman remember the feeling of being 'whipped' as a child, the fierce anger, the insupportable ignominy, the longing for revenge, which blotted out all thought of contrition for the fault or rebellion against the punishment? With this recollection on their own parts, I can hardly suppose any parents venturing to inflict it, much less allowing its infliction by another ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... to his feet, and she looked up at him miserably, her hand held out in swift contrition. "Oh, forgive me! I shouldn't have said that. You haven't deserved it. You have been—kind. I am grateful. Forgive me and my rudeness. It must be the heat, it makes one very irritable, don't ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... realize that we are sinners, we feel that our good spirit is a small particle to the Holy Spirit God that we are helpless children and related to the good father God. We then pray with innermost contrition that God may forgive, that God may enlighten one of us that God may find a ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... fidelity of his subjects, as he flew from post to post, seeking to hide his proscribed head. Eustace burst into tears. "I need proceed no further," continued Lord Hopton, "tell me what urged you to this base action."—"Necessity," replied Eustace, with a look of deep contrition. "That is a bad plea," returned the nobleman, "and urged with a bad grace, by those who refuse to admit it as an excuse for the crimes of rebels. In this instance too, I fear it is a false one. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... unfitness of intruding such a subject upon you in the present state of the family, that I again address you on the same topic as that on which I wrote to you from Italy, at the first moment at which I have felt it possible to ask your attention. I was then too ill to be able to express my contrition for all that has passed; in fact, I doubt whether it was even then so deep as at present, since every succeeding week has but added to my sense of the impropriety of my conduct, and my earnest desire for pardon. I can hardly venture at ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of you," she said, almost in a whisper. "Yet it is always a trial to meet you. I think I would rather not. Tell me," with a sudden impulse of tenderness and contrition, looking up to him with humid eyes, "are you well and happy? How have you borne the ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... there occurs more than one mention of her brother's occasional fits of contrition on the subject of his own idleness; but these regrets and confessions must be taken for what they are worth, and for no more. He worked much harder than he gave himself credit for. His nature was such that whatever he did was done with all his heart, and all his ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... of the richest heiresses in the world. Hartley was the principal owner of large cartridge, gun and other factories.] admitted that he had sold a large consignment of Hall's carbines to a member of the New York Union Defense Committee. In a sudden burst of contrition he went on, "I think the worst thing this Government has been swindled upon has been these confounded Hall's carbines; they have been elevated in price to $22.50, I think." [Footnote: House Report No.2, etc., 1861-62, vol. ii: 200-204] He could have accurately added that these carbines were ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... have felt all the infamy of it, nor she all the wrong perpetrated against her. Only now it all came out in all its horror. He now for the first time perceived how her soul had been debased, and she finally understood it. At first Nekhludoff had played with his feelings and delighted in his own contrition; now he was simply horrified. He now felt that to abandon her was impossible. And yet he could not see the ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... contrition by ceasing to follow me," she said, and the sharp tone of her accusation was still ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... melancholy, and give his mind more exclusively to the business before him. As for Rose, she sympathised deeply with Jack Tier, for she knew his history, his origin, the story of his youth, and the well-grounded causes of his contrition and regrets. From her, Jack had concealed nothing, the gentle commiseration of one like Rose being a balm to wounds that had bled for long and bitter years. The great poet of our language, and the greatest that ever lived, perhaps, short of the inspired writers of the ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... should rejoice to think so, Nicholas," replied Mistress Nutter, "if I had any hope in the world to come. But, alas! I have none. I cannot, by any act of penitence and contrition, expiate my offences. My soul is darkened by despair. I know I ought to give myself up—that Heaven and man alike require my life, and I cannot reconcile myself ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... them put him ashore. They did so, and rowed on. He plunged into the woods, and walked back till he got on Gualtier's trail, which he followed up. Black Bill here remarked, with a mixture of triumph and mock contrition, that an accident in his early life had sent him to Australia, in which country he had learned how to notice the track of animals or of man in any place, however wild. Here Gualtier had been careless, and his track was plain. Black Bill thus followed him from ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... the watches of the night, dawn fills the dark spaces of a window, meditations grow more and more lucid. He could now distinguish the instantaneous sensation of wrong that had flashed on his excited mind in the moment of his sinning.... Then he could think no more, and in the twilight of contrition he dreamed vaguely of God's great goodness, of penance, of ideal atonements. Christ hung on the cross, and far away the darkness was seared with flames ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... penitence as well as the sacrament of absolution; also the suffering to which a penitent voluntarily subjects himself, according to the schoolmen, as an expression of his penitence, and in punishment of his sin; the three steps of penitence were contrition, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of the colony were soon reassembled about the grotesque figures of the suffering duelists, and with their approval, the governor having demanded and received ample professions of contrition, and promises of amendment, ordered Billington to release the prisoners, who shamefacedly crept away to their master's house, and thus ended the first and for many years the only duel fought upon ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... I hope you will forgive us," said the Prophet, with passionate contrition. "If I had had the slightest idea that we should have the pleasure of seeing you to-night, of course I should have given up this engagement. But it is such an old one—settled months ago—and I have promised ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... In deep contrition I was about to fall at her feet. But, coming nearer, I perceived that my faery's breath smelled ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... he quoted lightly. But beneath the lightness she divined a pain that she could not wholly fathom. Quite aware of her power, Miss Polly Brewster was now, for one of the few times in her life, stricken with contrition for her ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... leap taken, he felt his foot once more on firm ground. He felt, too, that he had left behind him much of which he was heartily ashamed. He was in no mood to feign an aspect of contrition. ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... the world who needs pleading for; but suppose, Leucha—I don't say for a moment I shall succeed—but suppose I were to go to Hollyhock, who feels that she has done her part and has shown her sorrow for her little childish freak in every possible way, would you, my child, accept her words of contrition, and when I brought her to meet you, receive her as one so noble ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... forgive his brother sinning against him, Matt. 18:22. But the second part of this article is utterly rejected. For when they ascribe only two parts to repentance, they antagonize the entire Church, which from the time of the apostles has held and believed that there are three parts of repentance—contrition, confession and satisfaction. Thus the ancient doctors, Origen, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Gregory, Augustine, taught in attestation of the Holy Scriptures, especially from 2 Kings 12, concerning David, 2 Chron 3:1, concerning Manasseh, Ps. 31, 37, 50, 101, ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous
... Christopher into the bargain. She had to climb down, as other ruling powers have had to climb down before now; and the act of climbing down is neither a becoming nor an exhilarating form of exercise to ruling powers. But at the back of her humble contrition there was a feeling of gladness in the knowledge that Christopher had not really failed her after all, and that her kingdom was still her own as it had been in her childish days; and there was also a nobler feeling ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... aggravated his guilt most was the pretext and show of godlinesse wt which he had even to that tyme deceived the world. His sister also was but a very lamentable object, for she ran on the other extreem and praesumed exceidingly on the mercy of God, wheiras their ware no great evidences in hir of soull contrition. She ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... arms, assembled to see the sentence carried out. They knelt round the doomed man, while the prophets by turn prayed for his soul, and implored the clemency of the Sovereign Judge. Guignon professed the utmost contrition, besought the pardon of his brethren, and sought leave to embrace for the last time his two sons—privates in the Camisard ranks. The two young men, however, refused the proffered embrace with a gesture of apparent disgust; ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles |
