"Merciful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was so hot that the horses had already assumed their summer hats. "A good man is merciful to his beast," and the good-hearted peasants of the Riviera and Provence, thinking that their horses must suffer from the burning heat of the sun, provide, them with straw hats, very much the same sort of hats as girls wear, adorned also with ribbons and rosettes, but to suit ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... herself to those who were already crushing me to the earth, and driving me mad. It seemed hard, by Jove! I tell you what it is, old chap, nobody's so remorseless as a woman. Even my duns have been more merciful to me than these friends whom I love. It's too ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... how the junction of the forces was effected; the military history of the march; how they appeared, at last, before the castle of Cartigny,—are these not written by the pen of the hero himself in his Chronicles of Geneva? But Bonivard, though brave, was merciful. Willing to spare the effusion of blood, he sent the general-in-chief, Bischelbach, with his servant, Diebolt, as an interpreter, to summon the castle. The answer was a shot that knocked poor Diebolt over with a mortal wound; whereupon the attacking army fell back in a masterly manner ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... identified the young man of the garden with the donkey-driver of yesterday was clear—though how such blindness was possible, was not clear. Probably she had only caught a glimpse of his back at a distance; in any case he thanked a merciful Providence and decided to risk no further chance. As they neared the end of the arbour, Gustavo was talking—shouting ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... as a professed nun I may be able to use better what little I have learned in two years and a half than if I stay on as a lay sister. It is not for myself, except in so far as I know that the only way to help him is to do my best here. As I hope that God may be merciful to him, so I hope that God will accept my work, my prayers, ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... and the various and inestimable advantages, civil and religious, which, secured under our happy frame of government, are continued to us unimpaired, demand of the whole American people sincere thanks to a benevolent Deity for the merciful dispensations of His providence. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... He knew the reason of his reluctance to reach the house—he desired success and yet he feared it, feared the consequences that might result, feared the strength of his own will to persevere in the course he had chosen. For him there was no other way but, merciful God, it would be hard! He set his teeth and stared at the frozen landscape with unseeing eyes. Since her outburst four weeks ago Miss Craven had not spoken again of the wish that was nearest her heart, but he knew that she was waiting for an ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... are proclaiming Obsequies strange to the shrines of the west— Services Christendom's cruelties shaming— Taught by the merciful, Buddha the blest. ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... said Guy, as if the strong feeling would show itself. 'It was most merciful. That little boat felt like a toy at the will of the winds and waves, till one recollected who held the storm in ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... only from some of the tapers burning perpetually, but the pale light in the north-east, the morning chill, and the clock striking three, reminded him that it must be the hour of Prime, and he said to himself, "Sure, if a priest be worshipping at this hour, he will be a good and merciful man. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... attendant wrongs, cruelties, horrors. They refused to speak as a body, and censured, condemned, execrated their members who did speak faithfully for the down-trodden, and who co-operated with him whom a merciful Providence sent as ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... them home for the gibbet would have been a cruel sort of kindness. The doctor hailed them and told them of the stores we had left, and where they were to find them, but they continued to call us by name and appeal to us for God's sake to be merciful and not leave them to die in such ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... peril from Chinese bullets, and assuredly those who had brought him into peril could not be punished too severely; on the other hand, the last mail from Tonquin had brought her one of those great joys which always incline us to be merciful. Fred had so greatly distinguished himself in a series of fights upon the river Min that he had been offered his choice between the Cross of the Legion of Honor or promotion. He told his mother now that he had quite recovered from a wound he had received which had brought him some ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... present, the problem must be left. Its only answer is a guess. Yet it should be capable of a definite solution. Every year, in our great cities, it becomes necessary to put homeless dogs out of existence in some merciful way. It should be possible, by use of chloroform, to determine which theory is true. If, under proper circumstances, a dozen animals were made absolutely unconscious by the use of chloroform, as insensible as human being are made before a capital operation, so that the corneal reflex is abolished, ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... peacefulness in England. Only a few months before, Richard II—weak, wicked, and treacherous—had been dethroned, and Henry IV declared King in his stead. But it was only a seeming peacefulness, lasting but for a little while; for though King Henry proved himself a just and a merciful man—as justice and mercy went with the men of iron of those days—and though he did not care to shed blood needlessly, there were many noble families who had been benefited by King Richard during his reign, and who had lost somewhat of their power and prestige from the coming in ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... shock me," she said, almost sternly. "You have no right to insult my faith in a merciful God by such words, and your believing Him cruel and vindictive on this one bit of your experience is the sheerest egotism. It is the essence of selfishness to think everything wrong when one does not have one's ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... cold black fury, but fell soon into a slough of despond. His life was over, but he was not dead. For him, as for the rest of us, death would, I think, have been more merciful—and yet, I would not have had him die ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... Almighty and all-merciful God! the Great Author and Disposer of all beings! I hereby pledge myself, in thy sight, to keep sacred the holy principles, one and all, which I this day have had set before and disclosed to me, by the ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... the question. Hence it is, that the public wish was in favour of Robespierre; for, besides that his cautious character has given him an advantage over the undisguised profligacy of Hebert, it is conjectured by many, that the more merciful politics professed by Camille Desmoulins, are secretly suggested, or, at least ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... perfect his articulation. Instead of that, you bring him back fat, stupid, and savage, and so far from reading better, unable to read at all. It would serve you right, if I were to hang the whole set of you, and confiscate all your goods; but I am a merciful man, and will be ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... some curse the rubber vines entrench themselves with these. The naked rubber collectors, shivering over their fires, are attacked by the rheumatism and dysentery and fever that lie in these swamps; diseases almost merciful, for the aches and pains they cause draw the mind away from the wild beasts and devils and phantoms that haunt the imagination ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... meditation on it. Through reading of the word of God, and especially through meditation on the word of God, the believer becomes more and more acquainted with the nature and character of God, and thus sees more and more, besides His holiness and justice, what a kind, loving, gracious, merciful, mighty, wise, and faithful Being He is, and, therefore, in poverty, affliction of body, bereavement in his family, difficulty in his service, want of a situation or employment, he will repose upon the ...
— Answers to Prayer - From George Mueller's Narratives • George Mueller
... the nature of the gods? Draw near them then in being merciful; Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge. Titus Andronicus, Act i. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... reining in. "Ye lay so close among the reeds that I had passed you by. I saw your horse bemired, and put him from his agony! which, by my sooth! an ye had been a more merciful rider, ye had done yourself. But come forth out of your hiding. Here be none to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... some of the things I need," he said in a low tone. "Keep perfectly still and rest a little if you can. There is no need for you to worry. We will have you all fixed up within an hour. It is a clean break—a merciful thing, for we couldn't take an X-ray of ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... the to be spoiled Philistine in every Filipino, it had comforted him in that sickening campaign. Surely, surely if he, an American "non-com," had spared a Filipino now and then, He watching over Israel had not been less merciful. ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... to choose between the warriors and the wild beasts," said Nikobob, "the beasts will be found the more merciful." ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... public each week, Mr. Punch, you impress With your cool-headed wit and ability, So I wonder you've not had the gumption to guess There's method in our imbecility; Read on, and your premature chiding deplore, For our merciful mission, in brief, Is to brighten the tragical drama of war By ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... close on the announcement of her name. "Mrs. Beach Donner!"—the impression was naturally marked. Every one betrayed it a little but Mrs. Brookenham, who, more than the others, appeared to have the help of seeing that by a merciful stroke her visitor had just failed to hear. This visitor, a young woman of striking, of startling appearance, who, in the manner of certain shiny house-doors and railings, instantly created a presumption of the lurking ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... was painful to me! Even as she came toward me, I was thinking of you, was in search of you. And her kiss! If the lips had been those of one of the statues on the terrace, it could not have moved me less. Nell, be merciful to me! What could I do? I am a man, she is a woman. Could I thrust her from me? I longed to do so; I would have told her I loved her no longer, that my love was given to another, to you, Nell; but there ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... Arish, Poshin and Aramin; and when the period of his dissolution drew nigh, he solemnly enjoined the eldest, whom he appointed his successor, to pursue steadily the path of integrity and justice, and to be kind and merciful in the administration of the empire left to ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... only, like her, loved a man of rank equal to my own! But no, I am not of good faith with myself: the prince royal's position dazzled me. Ah! how merciful is heaven to cover our innermost thoughts with an impenetrable veil! Alas! God pardons the defects in our frail humanity sooner than ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... publican, who stood afar off, and dare not lift up as much as his eyes toward heaven, but cried only, 'God be merciful to me a sinner.' Better far to be the honest and devout soldier, who, when Jesus offered to come to his house, answered, 'Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof. But speak the word only, and my ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... thoughts of something final, at least as far as this probation was concerned, greatly depressed Denas. "Never more, never more," was the monotonous refrain that sprang from her soul to her lips. But it is a wise provision of the Merciful One that the past, in a healthy mind, very soon loses its charm, and the things that are present take ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... tropics entails many hardships, though unavoidable and only to be expected, in war. War is horrible in any aspect in which it may be viewed. Even those features of it intended to be merciful, are full of harshness and rigor; and after all, fighting ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... deadliest of all hunts, proceeded, each became more engrossed in it, neglecting no precaution, seeking incessantly some minute advantage. Henry was by nature generous and merciful, but at this time he did not think of those things. Wilderness ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and who seems to afford the wretched old villain his only repose of mind, if repose he can have from so horrible a conscience. I gave the child a small coin. The inhabitants feed the bandit, and tolerate him with an admirable spirit of merciful forgiveness. And if they do, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... shame to the king and the tribe by the silly foolish things you did. God's Word teaches men to be kind and merciful and generous, but it does not pass over sin or permit it. I cannot ask the king not to punish you. Ask God to help you in the future, so that you will not do ...
— White Queen of the Cannibals: The Story of Mary Slessor • A. J. Bueltmann
... accepting them because they worshipped Christ, and counselling them, for their salvation, not to think the present life great, but rather to remember judgment to come; and to know that Christ was the only true and eternal king; and he begged them to be merciful to men, and to think of justice and the poor. And they, when they received the answer, rejoiced. Thus was he kindly towards all, and all looked on him as their father. He then betook himself again into the inner ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... seem very little, and I think it would be better that you should walk the streets than that you should refuse to come to him now. He had a letter from you, which God, knowing about, blinded him so that he could not read it, and he believes that you love him and are faithful to him. It is very merciful of God to let him believe that. He must not be undeceived now, and you must come and be lovely to him and pretend and pretend, and make his dying beautiful. I have the right to ask this of you, for, next to Peter, I was the one that loved you most. And when I made ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... "Merciful goodness!" said the host, in excited astonishment, which his wife seemed in a great measure to share, "that is the name of my brother's son, Caradoc, commonly called Cardo Wynne; that is what Dr. Hughes ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... I begged him to be more merciful in his prophecies; he failed not, every night, to administer to me ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... fiercely at him. Her judgment wavered two ways. Her first inclination was to hold that the fellow was jibing at her covertly, and she followed her original impulse far enough to clasp a neighboring sugar-bowl in a large, capable hand. A second and more merciful thought entered her brain and stole slowly through it, like a faint echo ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... but his eyes were shining. "Janet Mackay! And Ocky—Ocky thought she was dying—! She tried to shield Janet by assuming the guilt! Merciful Heaven, what a thing to do! No wonder she insisted on my recalling Kitty Doyle at once! Threatened to turn her sacrifice into a wasted gesture, Kitty did—and, by golly, Kitty has! But it wasn't wasted as far as we're ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... and burst into tears. "Try and not give way," said Miss Janet again; "we are doing all we can. We must hope and pray. I feel a great deal of hope. God is so merciful, he will not bring this stroke upon you in your old age, unless it is necessary. Why do you judge for him? He is mighty to save. 'The Lord on high, is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.' Think of His mercy and power ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... ministered, reverently and lovingly, to the old mother's need of body and of soul, my heart was melted within me. Blessed, indeed, was I in a lot full to overflowing of all the good gifts which a wise and merciful Maker could lavish upon his erring and craving creature. I stood reproved. I felt humbled to think that I should ever for a moment have indulged one idle or restless longing for the restoration of that past ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... formed the alone exception to His miracles of mercy.[35] All the others were proofs and illustrations of beneficence, compassion, love. But He seems to interpose this ONE, in case we should forget, in the affluence of benignity and kindness, that the same God, whose name and memorial is "merciful and gracious," has solemnly added that "He can by no means clear the guilty." He would have us to remember that there is a point beyond which even His love cannot go, when the voice of ineffable Goodness must melt and merge into tones of stern wrath and vengeance. The guilty may, for ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... "Grant, O merciful God, that, as Thine holy Apostle St. James, leaving his father and all that he had without delay, was obedient unto the call of Thy Son Jesus Christ and followed Him, so we, forsaking all worldly and carnal affections, may be evermore ready to follow Thy holy commandments, ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... rectitude, and the law of whose life is duty. He is just and upright,—in his business dealings, in his public action, and in his family life—justice being as essential in the government of a home as of a nation. He will be honest in all things—in his words and in his work. He will be generous and merciful to his opponents, as well as to those who are weaker than himself. It was truly said of Sheridan—who, with all his improvidence, was ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... he preferred to make a friend. I wish that we should next drink to a fairer and a more tender foe. She found me in prison; she cheered me with a priceless sympathy; and what she has done since, I know she has done in mercy, and I only pray—I dare scarce hope—her mercy may prove to have been merciful. And I wish to conjoin with these, for the first, and perhaps the last time, the health—and I fear I may already say the memory—of one who has fought, not always without success, against the soldiers of your nation; but who came here, vanquished already, only ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and a blanket round him—another bark mat over all, his head too, formed his bed in the open air, during a cold, dark night in April). When everything was adjusted, he put his pipe down, and offered up, in his own tongue, this simple little prayer, 'Be merciful to me, Jesus.' Then he drew up his feet, and ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... spy!" thought Andrew, while he raised his cudgel, the only weapon he carried, and frowned. But Andrew was a merciful man; he could not bring himself to strike a sleeping man, even though waking him might entail a doubtful conflict, for he could see that the trooper's hand grasped the hilt of his naked sword. For a few moments he surveyed the sleeper, as if calculating ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... how merciful it was of God to let me know in time. In a few weeks I should have been his wife, and then it would have ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... certainly a few more such institutions as the Sheltering Home at Brighton, Mass., or the Morris Refuge would be a credit to a country. How better than by applying it to our cats can we demonstrate the truth of Solomon's maxim, "A merciful man is merciful to ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... implore you, be merciful. I submit to any conditions: only let me see her. I will walk the park till morning, but say that an interview shall be granted in the morning. Frankly, sir, it is not my intention to employ force: I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "Merciful heaven!" wailed the coachman, "what more could I do? If I'd been driving fast or had not shouted to him, but I was going quietly, not in a hurry. Everyone could see I was going along just like everybody ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... 'Merciful enough to such pestilent rebels and heathens,' he answered sneering. 'Surrender your city without condition, and the viceroy, in his clemency, will accept the surrender. Nevertheless, lest you should say afterwards that faith has been broken with you, be it ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... a Kempis, sed non inveni nisi in angulis et libellis. I too have found repose where he did, in books and retirement, but it was there alone I sought it: to these my nature, under the direction of a merciful Providence, led me betimes, and the world can offer nothing which should ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... lying back in an easy-chair. The one was a florid, elderly gentleman, who was first cousin to a junior Lord of the Treasury, and therefore claimed to be a profound authority on politics, home and foreign. He was a harmless poor devil enough, from whom a merciful Providence had concealed the fact that his brain-power was of the smallest. His companion, reclining in the easy-chair, was a youthful Fine Art Professor; a gelatinous creature, a bundle of languid affectations, with the added and fluttering self-consciousness of a school-miss. He was ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... all-merciful God, whose power is over all Thy works, who willest that all men shall glorify Thee in the constant bringing to perfection those powers of Thine which shall more and more make perfect the beings of Thy creation, we glorify Thee in the gift of Thy ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... of egoism, of competition, of bargaining even into our relations with the Most High; prayers of an imprecatory character such as meet and shock us in some of the psalms. How could these and their like possibly be granted by a just and merciful Creator? ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... sure that there are many here who can join in a hymn to our merciful Father and Friend," exclaimed Mrs Rumbelow. "The young ladies will lead you, for I have often heard them singing on a Sunday evening, and it has done my heart ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... not know how, with the merciful make I am of, I should then have cared so little, or else ignored so largely the cruelties I certainly knew that the Spaniards had practised in the conquests of Mexico and Peru. I knew of these things, and my heart was with the Incas and the Aztecs, and yet somehow I could not punish the Spaniards ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... should not neglect the Coverdales. Nothing could have been kinder than Bella. She did not speak on the subject till the morning of the last day, and then only in a very few words. "Bessy," she said, "as you are great, be merciful." ...
— The Mistletoe Bough • Anthony Trollope
... of the physiology of pain. There is no standard by which to measure it, even if the courage and endurance of any mortal man could enable him to analyze his own tortures philosophically. Was it not always supposed that the guillotine is merciful, because quick in annihilation? Look at Wiertz's pictures at Brussels. If his idea (shared too, now, by many clever surgeons) be true, you will see the amount of a long life's suffering exceeded by what seems to us a minute's agony. But it is like the Eastern king's gaining the ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... pitiless, merciful stroke! The monarch of the meadow would never again feel the magic thrill of the sap in its veins, nor the bursting of brown bud ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... don't wish to. But oh, Mr. Bemis, I've just come from my own children, and you must be merciful ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... We all, in our Christian life, carry with us the two natures—our own poor miserable selves, and the better life of Jesus Christ within us. The one flourishes at the expense of the other; and it is the Husbandman's merciful, though painful work, to cut back unsparingly the rank shoots that come from self, in order that all the force of our lives may be flung into the growing of the cluster which is acceptable ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... out of the cave and the desert? or cannot the heart in the midst of crowds feel frightfully alone? Singleton on the world of waters, prowling about with pirates less merciful than the creatures of any howling wilderness,—is he not alone, with the faces of men about him, but without a guide that can conduct him through the mists of educational and habitual ignorance, or a fellow-heart that can interpret to him the new-born yearnings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... before two Wangwana entered my tent, who were slaves of Thani bin Abdullah, our dandified friend of Unyanyembe. These men came, on the part of the king's brother, to claim the HONGA ! The king's brother, demanded thirty doti! Half a bale! Merciful Providence! ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... we could not risk another mutiny; and to take them home for the gibbet would have been a cruel sort of kindness. The doctor hailed them and told them of the stores we had left, and where they were to find them. But they continued to call us by name and appeal to us, for God's sake, to be merciful and not leave them to die in such ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... roof, made of the two tablets handed down at Sinai, which God fits over Earth whenever men go to war. For He is merciful: and many of us here remember that once upon a time we were men and women. So when men go to war God screens the sight of what they do, because He wishes ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... back the hair from my forehead. Oh, there was magic in her fingers. That gentle stroke restored my pride, my self-respect. It was a gesture of understanding. I felt now as I felt the first time I saw the lady, like a little boy before a wise and merciful mother. I knew the lady understood. She knew my heart was clean, ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... of the old Government, now put in use for the last time, Phipps requested the advice of the elders as to the proceedings against the witches. The reply, drawn up by the hand of Cotton Mather, acknowledges with thankfulness "the success which the merciful God has given to the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of our honorable rulers to defeat the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected." It advises, however, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... hearts were melted within them. Many of them heard, for the first time, of the divine compassion of Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost; and as they listened, tears stole into eyes that were strangely unused to shed them; and from some of the poor wanderers a cry went up to the merciful Father, and was the first prayer in the sinful, sorrowful life. In 1816, she became a systematic visitor of the prison. About that time, the "Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline" was instituted, and she worked ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... discharge all the offices necessary in a ship as occasion required, even that of the surgeon. In his conduct as a naval commander he was skilful and valiant, just to his owners, kind to his seamen, loyal to his sovereign, and merciful to his enemies after victory. His many glorious exploits justly entitle him to high fame; and he died, at fifty-five, in the ardent pursuit of glory, in the cause of his queen ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... god dies, the Motombo dies. It is known from of old, and therefore the Motombo watches over the god as a mother over her child. Then, until a new god is found, the Mother of the Holy Flower rules, she who is merciful and will harm none, and I rule under her and will certainly put my enemies to death, especially ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... a not dissimilar play, the life violently altered is kept in the strange channel by a succession of violent acts. In Hamlet, when Hamlet's merciful wisdom has decided that the life violently altered shall not be wrenched back, his destroying wisdom decides that she shall not be kept in the strange channel. The King, just in his way, seeks to find out if Hamlet be sane. If Hamlet be sane, ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... rifles spoke, and half a score went down unconscious, but not seriously hurt. In a few hours they would be as well as ever, such was the merciful charge that Tom Swift and the others used ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... age. A man fitted, in some luckier settled age, to have become one of those incorruptible barren Pattern-Figures, and have had marble-tablets and funeral-sermons! His poor landlord, the Cabinetmaker in the Rue Saint-Honore, loved him; his Brother died for him. May God be merciful to him, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... her husband, and whom her ferocious nobles would have put to death, without the opportunity of confession and absolution, that "his soul might perish with his body!" (See her letter to Talavera.) She showed this merciful temper, so rare in that rough age, by dispensing altogether with the preliminary barbarities, sometimes prescribed by the law in capital executions. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... always allowed that man was free in thought and action, and therefore a responsible being made to justify the ends of Providence, he believed that Providence did give some sanction to the laws implanted in our natures. Sinners must be punished, but a merciful God must proportion punishments to the weakness of our natures, and Byron therefore inclined toward the Catholic belief in Purgatory, which agreed better with his own appreciation of the goodness and mercy ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Puebla must be observed here. The honor of the army and the honor of our country call for the best behavior on the part of all. To win the approbation of their country, the valiant must be sober, orderly, and merciful. His noble brethren in arms will not be deaf to this hearty appeal from their commander ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... the fact that, in considering the rights of the creatures below the level of man, we are dealing with a question which does not seem to have entered into the minds of the ancients. Such old phrases as "the merciful man is merciful to his beast" indicate that cruelty to the domesticated creatures was, in a way, reprobated by the ancients; but not until well on in the present century do we find any indication that reason had come to ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... that Fectnor would actually come to her—now, before Harboro came home. At the worst she might save Harboro, and there was even a chance that she could make Fectnor see her position as she saw it—that she could persuade him to be merciful to her. Surely for the sake of security and peace in all the years that lay before her.... A definite purpose dawned in her eyes. She went to her room and began deliberately to choose her most becoming ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... Rhibyn—be merciful! The poor wretch looks as if he were ready to howl at the bare mention of such a heathen, fabulous name. Anything would be an improvement on the Welsh—Cambyses, Sardanapalus, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... my Lord was in a state of high emotion, and the cause of it was evident when I perceived his ruffians had borne into the house a swooning lady, whom merciful unconsciousness had rendered oblivious to her present surroundings, and whose wrists his Lordship was vigorously slapping in the intervals between his frequent applications to her nostrils of a flask, which, as I more ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... then, was not unmixed With merciful suggestion, 50 When, as my roving eyes grew fixed Upon the chair in question, I saw its trembling arms enclose A figure grim and rusty, Whose doublet plain and plainer hose Were something worn ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... in my agony of distress, is this a sample of the English humanity we have heard and read so much of from our school boy years to manhood? If they be a merciful nation, they belong to that class of nations "whose tender mercies ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... How merciful that in such a moment a man is spared the agony of thought! His agony goes into action, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... he, suddenly throwing himself at her feet, "save me! You can do it. Write to Frank, and make him induce his father to let me off. I came to see you, my sweet, merciful sister! I knew you would save me. Good God! What noise is that? There ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... experienced a great relief. Solitude had calmed her sorrow. She still suffered, she would always suffer, but she gathered from her faith and from noble resolutions bravely accomplished that peace and resignation which a merciful Heaven bestows upon all sad hearts that appeal to it ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... object, he continued active with his pen, both in the Latin and the German languages. He was glad to turn to this from the questions of ecclesiastical controversy, which had formed the subject of his disputation, and of the writings referring to it. It was enough for him to show forth simply the merciful love of God and of the Saviour Christ, to point out the simple road of faith, and to destroy all trust in mere outward works, in one's own merit and virtue. Only to this extent, and because the authority pretended by the Church was opposed to this truth and this road to salvation, he was forced ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... causeless—from thy breast, Deeming thy race less valiant than the North: Faithfuller they stand and nearer to their sires! Remorseless less to others and to self I grant them; that implies not valiant less: The brave are still in spirit the merciful; Far down within their being stirs a sense Of more than race or realm. Some claim world-wide, Whereof the prophet is the wailing babe, Smites on their hearts—a cradle decks therein For Him they know not yet, the Bethlehem Babe. That claim thy fathers felt! Through Teuton woods (Dead Rome's historian ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... upon me with the same expression as the others. They looked at me everywhere. Youthful eyes ran along beside the carriage; a hundred pairs watched me after I had alighted and the vehicle had gone. The darkness came on as a kind thing which threw a merciful blanket over me. I thanked the night. I was grateful for the world's vicious classes, so used to violence that they did not stare at me. I thanked the good old rough crowd, the fist-pounding, the hard-talking, hoarse-voiced loafers whose leers showed envy of my notoriety. And all the time I ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... back towards his birthplace had triumphed over his physical exhaustion. Now came the time, however, when the latter asserted itself. With a half-stifled moan he collapsed. Sheer fatigue induced a brief but merciful spell of uneasy slumber. He lay upon his back near one of the broader dikes, his arms outstretched, his unseeing eyes turned toward the sky. The darkness deepened and passed away again before the ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Christianity of the time. It was through this dehumanising of Jesus in Christian thought and experience that Mariolatry arose in the Roman church. Could anything be more grotesque than the suggestion that the mother of Jesus should need to plead with her son to be merciful with frail humanity? And yet this is what it came to; the figure of Mary was introduced in order to preserve a real humanity in our relations with the Godhead. All honour to those who have called us back to the real Jesus, ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... more than justify God. He pointed to the sacrifice on the altar, and found peace with God and cleansing from sin, as he did so. That comes out in the literal meaning of the words which he uttered, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." In the Greek, the words mean literally, "God be propitiated to me, the sinner." The only way by which a Jew knew that God could be propitiated was by a sacrifice, and, in all probability, at that very hour the lamb for the daily burnt offering was being offered ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... took up the question of criminal reform, George IV. was exceedingly sensible of the enormity of executing very young men for secondary offences, and that he was continually pressing on his Ministers a more merciful administration of the law. He sometimes found Peel by no means ready to yield. In one case Peel invoked the aid of the Cabinet to overrule the wish of the King, who desired to save two culprits from ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... attain his goal in life fears not sin. God will pardon him an error. God has appointed man as the builder of life, but has not endowed him with too much wisdom. Consequently, He will not call in his outstanding debts severely. For He is holy and most merciful." ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... engadgement undertaken by James Duke of Hamilton the year befor for procuring K. Ch. the first's liberty, and so continued solaceing himself with that murus ahaeneus of a good conscience till he resigned up his blessed soule into the hands of his merciful creator in the end of that year 1659, having, lyke Moses of[724] Mount-pisga, seen the designes and inclinations of this Island to bring back their banished King which he had much promoted by his prayers; and so this good man, lyke ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... favourite black sultana, attacked him together; but he eventually got the upper hand, by thrashing them all. Of course he breaks the head of a pasha; sets the bowstring at defiance; decapitates the eunuch sent to perform that merciful office on himself; and at last provokes the attack of the Shaitanculy, or devil's assistant. Just, however, as the prince of darkness had made his appearance, an alarm was given, away scampered the crowd, out went the lights, Punch disappeared, ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... brighter than any smile, which often comes to eyes that look their last. He laid himself down gently, and stretching out his strong right arm, as if to grasp and bring the blessed air to his lips in fuller flow, lapsed into a merciful unconsciousness, which assured us that for him suffering ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... awed and wondering Chinaman to hauling the sacks of ore out from beneath the shanty and piling them conveniently near the roadway. She watched every movement and checked off each sack like a shipping-clerk. "Merciful powers! the work that man did!" she exclaimed, alluding to Bidwell, who had dug all that mass of ore and packed it in the night from the mine to ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... constant succession of gales continued for four days, rendering it almost certain (to human foresight) that she must go down. But by the merciful goodness of God we were preserved, and I am happy to inform you that all the survivors have been taken from the wreck and are now in this harbor, and on the ship "Antarctic" for Liverpool, except eighteen men that volunteered to remain, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... merciful fighting with evil lasts for a little while, but verse 10 tells how soon and easily it is annihilated. God's 'desire' brushes away all defences, and the obstinate sinners are like children, who are whipped ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... exercise of your powers on poor Mr. Raymond is hardly fair. Recollect (turning to Middlemore,) it is not given to all to possess the refinement of wit, nor, (addressing St. Clair) the advantages of personal attraction, therefore is it more incumbent on those, to whom such gifts are given, to be merciful unto the wanting in both." This was ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... are none well attested in the opposite scale. In particular, he spared the eyes of his brother Mahmood, when, by all oriental policy, he had every temptation to incapacitate an active competitor for the throne. Two considerations heighten the merit of this merciful forbearance; Mahmood was the elder, a fact which slightly improved his title; and Mahmood, in a similar situation, had not spared the eyes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... cause. While Juventus is on his way to "hear a preaching," Hypocrisy encounters him, argues with him against forsaking the traditions of his fathers, and diverts him from his purpose. Some while after, Good Counsel finds him in the lowest state of debauchery, and reclaims him; and God's Merciful Promises undertakes ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... more merciful to you than your imprudence perhaps deserved, Marie. He has saved you from great danger. You were willing to make great sacrifices, but fortunately they have not been accomplished as you expected. Innocence has saved you from love. You are as one who, thinking ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... House from behind the massive form of the Member for Rochdale. It looked as if the unhappy Member for West Birmingham had undergone a sort of transformation, and had, like Mr. Anstey's hero in "Vice Versa," gone back to the tiny form and slight face of his boyhood. Mr. Potter, however, is merciful, and having asserted his rights, he surrendered them again gracefully to Mr. Chamberlain; and the perky countenance of the gentleman from Birmingham once more looked down from the heights of the third bench. It would take Mr. Chamberlain a long time to do so graceful ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... voice. I cannot bear to lose those priceless moments, and yet I must do so if she goes from me. Am I not justified in desiring her presence? Come to me; tell me, to-night, what you would have me do. Be merciful, my angel spouse. Remember my empty, desolate heart. Remember the greatness of the work I have set myself to do. Oh, my sweet spirit, if you could only put an arm about my neck now, without any other interposing soul! Come to me, whisper to me—now! Let me know ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... religion had to stem the stream; the Romans of the decadence and the men of the North differed in their passions, but resembled each other in the impetuosity with which they followed the lead of their instincts. To both, the apostle came and whispered: Curb thy passions, be hard upon thyself and merciful to others; blessed are the simple, blessed are the poor; as thou forgivest so shalt thou be forgiven; thou shalt not despise the weak, thou shalt love him! And this unexpected murmur was heard each day, like a counsel and a threat, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... women and children begin their sufferings by beating them with switches and clubs; and as they reel and recoil from the blows, these fiendish imps show their gratification by unremitting peals of laughter; too happy, if their tortures ended here, or if the merciful tomahawk brought them to ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... getting late. I'd better go to bed. I fear I shall tire you by my guide-book descriptions. But this for a good-night's thought: Here I am away from you, away from my world, as it were. I can look back on my short life, and I can see the hand of an allwise and merciful Father, shaping events, ever for my good. Was it chance that we two should have taken the same steamer and be thrown together as we were. Not at all. There is a power behind the universe—call it what we may—which directs. ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... are the very men to be killed, for the death of one of them may effect a surprise and victory, and do more injury to the enemy than the killing of a thousand men in battle. According to their doctrine, it is peculiarly proper and merciful to shoot pickets; yet they propose to interpolate on the laws of war a provision that pickets shall not be shot. This provision is, in accordance with our philosophy, founded on Christian principles and the dictates of healthy humanity, for pickets are not active belligerents, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and have my fill Of knowledge, what this vessel can containe; Beyond which was my folly to aspire. Henceforth I learne, that to obey is best, 560 And love with feare the onely God, to walk As in his presence, ever to observe His providence, and on him sole depend, Merciful over all his works, with good Still overcoming evil, and by small Accomplishing great things, by things deemd weak Subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise By simply meek; that suffering for Truths sake Is fortitude to highest victorie, And to the faithful Death the Gate of Life; 570 Taught ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... my father!" cried a number of women's voices, "be merciful!" And, forcing their way through the throng, a party of some twenty women of varying ages—from girls of seventeen or eighteen to one withered hag who, from her appearance, might have been a hundred years old—flung themselves upon ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... forgave the Egyptian prince of Sais when, like Manasseh, he had been sent in chains to Assyria after an unsuccessful rebellion, and restored him to his old principality. What was done by Assur-bani-pal might well have been done by the more merciful Esar-haddon, who showed himself throughout his reign anxious to conciliate the conquered populations. It is even possible that Assur-bani-pal himself was the sovereign against whom Manasseh rebelled and before whom he was brought. ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... the ring on this finger; it comes to me from above, a merciful token to prepare my soul for death. Perchance thou mayest have heard that once an aged pilgrim stopped me on my way from God's House, and asked for alms—and I, having nought else on my person to bestow, drew ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... oh, cruelty! to come back from merciful nothingness and peace to this burning anguish, not to be borne, of body and mind. "I had died," he thought—"it was done with," and a wild, impotent rage, as against some brutality done him, surged ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it must have been to behold the blowing up of the 'L'Orient' French three-decker, with upward of a thousand men on board! Merciful Heaven! so many poor fellows launched into eternity in one moment! They say there were but ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... formal and essential, there will be, But whatever become of his perishable life, ought not, if possible, the soul of him to be saved from the claws of Satan! "Claws of Satan;" "brand from the burning;" "for Christ our Saviour's sake;" "in the name of the most merciful God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen:"—so Friedrich Wilhelm phrases it, in those confused old documents and Cabinet Letters of his; [Forster, i. 374, 379, &c.] which awaken a strange feeling in the attentive reader; and ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... is, that each of them has followed his own natural inclination, as well in forming the design, as in the execution of it. The very heroes show their authors; Achilles is hot, impatient, revengeful, Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, &c. Aeneas patient, considerate, careful of his people, and merciful to his enemies; ever submissive to the will of heaven, quo fata trahunt, retrahuntque, sequamur. I could please myself with enlarging on this subject, but am forced to defer it to a fitter time. From all I have said I will only draw this inference, that the action of Homer ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... the two prisoners, and the tears ran down his face. He was the man whom Colonel Sullivan and Bale had overtaken on their way to Tralee. In spite of his life and his wrongs, he was a merciful man, and with all his heart he wished that, if he could do no good, God had been pleased to send him another way through the mist. Not that life was to him aught but a tragedy at any time, on whichever road he took. What but a tragedy could it be to a man bred at Douay and ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... lacking which, the best laid plans of social seers "gang aft aglee." Let us look at things as they are. That we must press forward towards righteousness—that we must hunger and thirst after a social life that is true and pure, just and merciful—all will agree; but they are blind who do not see that the way is long and the process slow. What is it that so tragically delays the march of man toward the better and wiser social order whereof our prophets dream? Our age, like the ages gone before, is full of schemes of every kind ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... definite times. 'That from which,' i. e. that highest Person who is the ruler of all; whose nature is antagonistic to all evil; whose purposes come true; who possesses infinite auspicious qualities, such as knowledge, blessedness, and so on; who is omniscient, omnipotent, supremely merciful; from whom the creation, subsistence, and reabsorption of this world proceed—he is Brahman: such is the meaning of the Sutra.—The definition here given of Brahman is founded on the text Taitt. Up. III, 1, 'Bhrigu Varuni went to his father Varuna, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... what the caliph had proposed; and there being every thing necessary for writing in the hall, the caliph wrote a letter to the king of Bussorah; at the top of which he placed this form, "In the name of the most merciful God," to shew he would be ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... a speckled snake lay Tight strangled, because it had hiss'd him away From the flower at his finger; he rose and drew near Like a Son of Immortals, one born to no fear, But with strength of black locks and with eyes azure bright To grow to large manhood of merciful might. He came, with his face of bold wonder, to feel, The hair of my side, and to lift up my heel, And question'd my face with wide eyes; but when under My lids he saw tears,—for I wept at his wonder, He stroked ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... shoutings. Mrs. Gordon hearing the noise, came out and stood in front of the Mission House, looking in the direction of her husband's working place, and wondering what had happened. Ouben, one of the party, who had run towards the Station the moment that Mr. Gordon fell, now approached her. A merciful clump of trees had hid from her eyes all that had occurred, and she said to Ouben, "What's the cause ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... life must be lived. Whatever happens, the truly devout man has no fears or qualms. He has attained equanimity; the Lord is his shepherd; he shall not want. There is a serenity experienced by the genuinely faithful that the faithless may well envy. God is the believer's eternal watcher; a wise and merciful ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... closes with a prayer to the "merciful Father of humanity to remove from all races of men every unbrotherly feeling in the sacred name of religion, which is but one." The prayer were touching and beautiful on the assumption that there ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... clutching horror that gripped him. They would have done what they thought necessary, but without any unnecessary cruelty. What the Utes would do he did not know. They would make sure of their vengeance, but they would not be merciful about it. ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... frightful harrow. Yet, so lutes and lawns begin. You like the smooth music of a silken court, the picturesque ceremony, the poetic tradition, the perfume, the splendor, and lo! a troop in jerkin pricking to the fray in horrible earnest, and blood, and ghastly wounds, and torture, and merciful death! Yet, so courts and ceremonies are instituted. One of the hardest battles that reform has to fight is this battle in the air—so to speak: this contest with taste and imagination that cling to the myriad-hued moss and the delicate vine ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... paused. "I was trying to be merciful. And then, I wonder if it is safe to let him go, hating me? Oh, well!" He shrugged his narrow shoulders. "I seldom leave the laboratory, and certainly nothing can harm me here." He touched ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... it please thee, gracious sorceress, If zeal for glory chance to move thy heart, Or milk of kindness soften it, Be merciful to us, And with thy magic herbs, Heal up the ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... remarkable for reckless and wanton cruelty. His principal wars during the second period were with Dejatch Goscho Beru, governor of Godjam; with Dejatch Oubie, whom he conquered, as we have already stated, at the battle of Deraskie, and with the Wallo Gallas. He could, however, still be merciful, and though he imprisoned many of the feudal chiefs, he promised to release them as soon as the pacification of his ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... claim. For why, say they, should we apply the name of king, the title of Jupiter the Beneficent, and not rather the title of tyrant, to a man ambitious of sole authority and power, lording it over a degraded multitude? For a tyrant may be as merciful as a king may be oppressive; so that the whole difference to the people is, whether they serve an indulgent master or a cruel one, since serve some one they must. But how could Sparta, at the period of the boasted superiority of her political ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... and then Gezha Monedo Merciful Spirit Akeedood He said Tah Let Wassay-au, Light be, Appee dush And then Wassay-aug ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... wine to true believers in case of sickness; is not your highness sick; was the wine of Shiraz given by Allah to be thrown away? Allah Karim! God is most merciful; and the wine was sent that true believers might, in this world, have a foretaste of the pleasures awaiting ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 1355, six months after his arrival in Venice as doge, the smouldering fire broke out. Two of the conspirators were seized with compunction on the eve of the catastrophe and betrayed the plot—one with a merciful motive to serve a patrician he loved, the other with perhaps less noble intentions—and, without a blow struck, the conspiracy collapsed. There was no real heart in it, nothing to give it consistence; the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... did not come. Heaven was merciful, but it was not yet pleased to relieve her soul. This was her purgation for the sin of making them the slaves of her ambition. But it became more than purgation soon, and her mood approached despair. Months had passed since the brig ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... there wouldn't be any grouse at all if they weren't shot," he said seriously, "and besides, wild birds don't die comfortably in their beds if they're not killed by man. A charge of shot is more merciful than a death from cold and starvation, or even from the attack of a hawk or any of a bird's other natural enemies. Just think. Wouldn't you rather have the violent end yourself than the ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... he said. 'Their merciful lordships dined together, but the butler said they left the table before it was time. Then they heard firing in the house. We broke the doors and found the Lady Baroness dead, in the room beyond the Herr Baron's study, and in the study the Herr Baron ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... feel like, my poor boy. But it's no good. You'll waste your strength uselessly. It may sound harsh, but my advice to you is: Cut your losses. Time's merciful. You'll forget." ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... of the Emperor to be merciful; it was his wish to be clement. If possible, he wanted peace. If mercy and gentleness could get it he could have it. He gave free permission to Sir Gervaise Yeovil and his son to return to England. He ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... that we had better go. I am sure we have much to be thankful for to-night. What a merciful deliverance! And if poor Beatrice had gone the parish must have found another schoolmistress, and it would have meant that we lost the salary. We have a great deal to be ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... to kill a woman who lives for you only, and whom you render the most miserable creature in existence." Louis XV gave me a kiss, and laughingly said, "I ought to make you sleep in the Bastille to-night." "I am then more merciful than you, for I think I shall make you sleep in the couch you love best." This reply amused the king excessively, and he himself proposed to send for madame de Bearn. I should speak of my presentation ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Mosely did perhaps the most unwise thing possible. His courage fairly broke down, and he started to run. Immediately a dozen men were on his track. He was brought back, moaning and begging for mercy, but the crowd was in no merciful mood. Victims they demanded, and when the rope was brought the two wretched men were summarily suspended to the ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... "Merciful heaven, my friend, but they've used you fearfully! They only bound and held me till Jackson got back from Ceralvo's a couple of hours ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... secure the remaining pillage of the wreck. Hebert and Lanty dreaded what they might see, but to their great relief those poor remains had disappeared. They shuddered as they remembered the hyenas' laughs and the jackals' howls they had heard at nightfall; but though they hoped that the sea had been merciful, they could even have been grateful to the animals that had spared them ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I be killed in those ways, Man, when others more merciful were to your hand? Indeed, why should I be killed at all? Moreover, if you wished to satisfy your hunger with my body, why at the last was I thrown ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... alone implore. No virtues have redeemed them from their bonds; Wily ferocity, keen idleness, And the close cringes of ill-whispering want, Educate them to plunder and obey; Active to serve him best whom most they fear, They show no mercy to the merciful, And racks alone remind them of ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... took on an opal light in which were merged and transcended all the colours of the day. Every pinnacle and rock was lit up as by a heavenly fire, the pines were outlined like black sentinels against the sky, guardians of that merciful green life from which we spring and to which we return. My old friend the goat-herd and daily messenger from the highest pastures stood beside me. "Beautiful, Pierre," I said, "and in this you have lived ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... themselves for death. The chains secure them to the posts. The bags of gunpowder are hung around their necks. They loudly commend their souls to God. Soon comes release to the aged Latimer. The flames have leapt up to the powder, and in a moment his sufferings are done. Not so merciful is the end of his brother martyr. Slowly, with shocking agony, his lower limbs are burnt away, and not till he has suffered the extremity of pain does he at last join Latimer in Paradise. That little ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... and urge that Servetus should be punished capitally, although he made an earnest but unsuccessful effort to induce the magistrates to mitigate the severity of the sentence, by the substitution of some more merciful mode of execution.[414] But the other principal reformers of Germany and Switzerland—Melanchthon, Haller, Peter Martyr, and Bullinger gave their hearty endorsement to the cruel act;[415] while if any further proof were needed to ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... election, than for the whole nation. In chap. xlii. we meet the servant of God, who, as a Saviour meek and lowly in heart, does not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, and by this merciful love establishes righteousness on the whole earth. In chap. xlix., the Prophet describes how the covenant-people requite with ingratitude the faithful labours of the Servant of God, but that [Pg 4] the Lord, to recompense ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... at present arms with the power of destroying them. It sounds very well to English ears to preach forbearance and generosity to the landowners. But it should be remembered that few of them have it in their power to be merciful or generous to their poor tenantry. They act under compulsion, usually of the severest kind. They are themselves engaged in a life and death struggle with their creditors. Moreover the greater number of the depopulators are mere agents for absent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... comes from the people, and foolish is the ruler who is cruel and hears not their cry. The great and good king is merciful, and kindness can do more than cruelty. Boast not of the greatness of your ancestors. Each man uses but one bowstring, and that is his own. Who cares for the worth that is buried? The good man is true to his own heart, and thus makes ...
— Northland Heroes • Florence Holbrook
... longer, the conversation was eked out. Then Herries rose. With her hand in his, he said earnestly: "Now you must be merciful and relent. I shan't give up hope. Any time in the next fortnight is time enough, remember. 'Pon my word, I've dreamt of those waltzes of ours ever since. And the floor at the PRUSSE is still better, don't you know? You won't have ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson |
