"Mercy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... came back to his world he was lying upon the ground, with his head against a log, and about him was a circle of brown faces, cold, hard, expressionless and apparently devoid of human feeling; pity and mercy seemed to be unknown qualities there. But the boy met them with a gaze as steady as their own, and then he glanced quickly around the circle. There was no other prisoner and he saw no ghastly trophy; then his comrades had escaped, and, deep satisfaction in his heart, he let ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... who catches a Sioux!" I shouted. "Come on, Indians! Who follows? Is the Indian less brave than the pale face?" and we all dashed forward, spurring our hard-ridden horses without mercy. Each Indian gave his horse the bit. Beating them over the head, they craned flat over the horses' necks to lessen resistance to the air. A boisterous wind was fanning the burning grass to a great tide of fire that rolled forward in forked ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... and he presented his plea with all the eloquence of which he was master. But it fell on ears that understood not its purport. I know of no more pathetic incident in all the long chapter of human woe and despair than this pitiful prayer of a perishing people for mercy and forgiveness, spoken in a tongue that carried no meaning to those who heard. Let us hope that if the petition had been understood it would have ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... disenchanted, she would be intelligent enough to understand that his character safeguarded the enterprise of their lives as much or more than his policy. The extraordinary development of the mine had put a great power into his hands. To feel that prosperity always at the mercy of unintelligent greed had grown irksome to him. To Mrs. Gould it was humiliating. At any rate, it was dangerous. In the confidential communications passing between Charles Gould, the King of Sulaco, and the head of the silver and steel ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... opinion of ALMORAN, are below his notice; but HAMET considers his own interest as connected with yours. When ALMORAN, therefore, shall be unchecked by the influence of HAMET; he will leave you to the mercy of some delegated tyrant, whose whole power will be exerted to oppress you, ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... they heard of the death of "Mars' Billy." It was no sham sorrow, but real. Some of the slaves had nursed "Mars' Billy"; others had played with him when he was a child. "Mars' Billy" had begged for mercy in the case of others when the overseer or master was thrashing them. The sorrow in the slave quarter was only second to that in the "big house." When the two young masters were brought home wounded, the sympathy of the slaves ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... area, Lord Howe was given the other. His task was to prevent the coalition obtaining such a command of home waters as would place our trade and coasts at their mercy, and it was not likely to prove a light one. We knew that the enemy's plan was to combine their attack on the West Indies with an attempt to control the North Sea, and possibly the Straits of Dover, with a Dutch squadron of twelve to fifteen ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... somewhat at a loss to understand the object of Mr. Horsfall's letter on this subject which appears in the "Mercury" of to-day. If he means that fish hatched by this process are as much at the mercy of their natural enemies as they are in their natural spawning beds I differ from him entirely; but if he means that there is no good in breeding migratory fish like Salmon, when the obstacles to their return in the shape of stake nets, ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... to make baby happy, so that he won't worry mamma who is sick." That was a noble answer. In trying to amuse his baby brother, and to relieve his poor sick mother, that little boy was serving God as truly and as acceptably as the angel Gabriel does when he wings his way, on a mission of mercy, to ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... had however previously passed through a more evangelical process: four theological propositions struck the knife into the heart of the minister. The conscientious assassin, however, accompanied the fatal blow with a prayer to Heaven, to have mercy on the soul of the victim; and never was a man murdered with more gospel than the duke. The following curious document I have discovered in ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... questioned him to know who and what he was? and he told them he was an Hebrew; and the story implies that he confessed himself to be guilty. But these Gentiles, instead of sacrificing him at once without pity or mercy, as a company of Bible-prophets or priests would have done by a Gentile in the same case, and as it is related Samuel had done by Agag, and Moses by the women and children, they endeavoured to save him, though at the risk of their own lives: for the account ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... lies,—its reeling, rotten principalities,—its sickly atmosphere of effeminate luxury, wherein neither justice nor judgment lived, and the solitary virtues left mere effete shadows of philanthropy and cowardly impulses called love and mercy,—needed a new race, stony and strong, unshrinking in conquest and reformation, full of zeal, and incapable of pity, to rend away the fogs that smothered truth and decency, to disperse the low-lying clouds of weak passion and maudlin luxury, to blow a reveille clear and keen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... stone? Come to ravish, come to loot, Come to play the ghoulish brute. Ah, indeed! We well are met, Bayonet to bayonet. God! I never killed a man: Now I'll do the best I can. Rip you to the evil heart, Laugh to see the life-blood start. Bah! You swine! I hate you so. Show you mercy? No! . . . and no! . ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... her, all the sorrowful way to the place of death. "Christ have pity! Saint Margaret have pity! Pray for her, all ye saints, archangels, and blessed martyrs, pray for her! Saints and angels intercede for her! From thy wrath, good Lord, deliver her! O Lord God, save her! Have mercy on her, we beseech ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... his providence will be manifested to us, the tenderness of his infinite love, the depth of his unsearchable wisdom, and the extent of his omnipotent power. In all his appointments let us adore these his attributes, earnestly imploring his grace, that according to the designs of his mercy, we may make every thing, especially all afflictions, serve for the exercise and improvement ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... surprise witnessed the dumb-show of mutual recognition, came up and inquired what it meant. Burl explained, and having noticed the ugly smile with which he had been regarded, could not help foreboding the terrible fate that must await them if their lives lay at the mercy of that revengeful savage whom he had ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... then, consists in some similitude and likeness to God, and fellowship with him founded upon that likeness. There is such an impression of God, his glorious attributes, his infinite power, majesty, mercy, justice, wisdom, holiness, and grace, &c., as sets him up all alone in the soul without any competition, and produceth those real apprehensions of him, that he is alone excellent and matchless. O how preferable doth be appear, when ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... mercy to a criminal may be gross injustice to the community. I don't speak of this young fellow in particular, who I heartily wish may be able to clear himself, for I like both his modesty and his spirit. But I fear he has rushed ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... toward Rome, there is need of caution also against the opposite error. A false and exaggerated spirituality will lead to standards of holiness which are not warranted by the New Testament. Of these Luther himself somewhere said, "May the God of mercy preserve me from belonging to a congregation of holy people. I desire to belong to a church of poor sinners who constantly need forgiveness and the help of a good physician."* *Methods of receiving candidates into active membership ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... does not affect us at all. The King is perhaps merely a stage figure; Ortrud is just one degree better than the average witch of a fairy story; but Frederic, savage and powerful, but so superstitious as to be at the mercy of his wife, is human enough to interest us. And Wagner has managed his story perfectly throughout, excepting at the end of the second act, where that dreary business of Ortrud and Frederic stopping the bridal procession is a mere reminiscence of the wretched ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... operating against the peace and security of the United States. A scrutiny of the Nazi Fifth Column[1] in a few European countries, especially in Czechoslovakia just before that Republic was turned over to Germany's mercy by the Munich "peace" and in France where Nazi and Italian agents built an amazing secret underground army, has made the fascist activities in the Western Hemisphere somewhat clearer ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... "It's in God's mercy she escaped. The thought of it curdles the very blood in my veins. Poor child! is this ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... enmity was dooming many a follower of Christ to torture and death, yet the 500 Lord showed mercy unto him so that he became a solace for many men. And in after times the God of creation, Redeemer of men, changed his name, and he was called Saint Paul, and of the teachers of 505 the law no one of all those, or man or woman born into the world, was ...
— The Elene of Cynewulf • Cynewulf
... extreme tenderness and consideration toward those who fought their country's battles. These are sentiments con|"ion to all good citizens. They lead to the most benevolent care on the part of the Government and deeds of charity and mercy in private life. The blatant and noisy self-assertion of those who, from motives that may well be suspected, declare themselves above all others friends of the soldier can not discredit nor belittle the calm, steady, and affectionate regard ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... change their conduct; they confess the worth of the soul, their obligation to obey, and their peril if they do not; yet, for all this, the present sacrifice required of them is too much for them. They may be told of their Lord's love for them, His self-denying mercy when on earth, His free gifts, and His long-suffering since; they will not be influenced; and why? because the fault is in their heart; they do not like God's service. They know full well what they would have, if they might choose. Christ is said ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... question, sir, and pray take heed that an answer is necessary. Is there not crime in this world that is beyond pardon? Are not some people guilty of sins so terrible and so numerous that the Church dares not pardon them, and if God, in His justice, takes account of them, He cannot for all His mercy pardon them? See, I begin with this question, because, if I am to have no hope, it is ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... ties and anchors to this earth; you have wives and families. I, thank God, have none of them, and am free. Now understand me. If it suit me, I will buy slaves. I will let captured slaves go down to Egypt and not molest them, and I will do what I like, and what God, in His mercy, may direct me to do about domestic slaves; but I will break the neck of slave raids, even if it cost me my life. I will buy slaves for my army; for this purpose I will make soldiers against their will, to enable me to prevent raids. I will do this in ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... standing in his sacred robes and holding his lute, just as they had seen him last in the prow of the ship. The sailors, supposing that they beheld his spirit, were seized with terror, and fell at the king's feet, confessing all their wickedness and begging for mercy. But Periander was filled with indignation, and spurned them angrily. Arion interposed, urging the king to be merciful, now that the seamen had seen their wickedness, and were willing to make restitution. Periander, however, would not hear ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... seemed a fortress now, manned by Celt and Hun and, Israelite and Saxon, captained by Titans. And the strife between them was on a scale never known in the world before, a strife with modern arms and modern methods and modern brains, in which there was no mercy. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... were sometimes very restive; but it was of no use; they were beaten without mercy until they carried us over the dangerous places. The pack-horse was always driven on in front with many blows; it had to serve as pioneer, and try if the road was practicable. Next came my guide, and I brought up ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... you. I have no choice. But what I came for was to plead and to ask a little mercy for my uncle, who is an old, old man, and very ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... upwards of a thousand men, rode up from the city and joined him. The mob at once took to flight, some running through the corn-fields, while others threw away their bows and other weapons, dropping upon their knees and crying for mercy. ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... a little reproachful uplifting of his hands and brows. "Have you no bowels of compassion? You know how the charms of domestic life have always attracted me. And to be able to enjoy them with such an admirable companion as Miss Kavanagh! Are you soulless, utterly without mercy, Isabel, that you open up to me a glorious vision such as that merely ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... words of Bishop Beveridge, l.c., "And therefore, though I cannot apprehend His mercy to Abel in the beginning of the world, and His mercy to me now, but as two distinct expressions of His mercy, yet as they are in God, they are but one and the same act,—as they are in God, I say, who is not ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... 'Lawk a mercy, Lady Mary! Why most young gentlemen have themselves photographed in every new place they go to; and as Mr. Hammond has been a traveller, like his lordship, I made sure he'd have been photographed in knickerbockers and ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... heard the story and came there. The demi-gods themselves were filled with pity and prayed to the goddess Gauri whose image had been set up there before by Love-cluster's father: "Oh, Mother, the merchant who set up this statue was always devoted to you. Show mercy to him in ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... it, nor to account for it. Why should she pity the slayer of her husband? It was a question unasked, unconsidered. Afterwards she was to recall this hour and its strange impulses, and to realise that it was not pity, but mercy that moved her to do the ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... social sciences into overstrained analogies, such, for instance, as the assimilation of societies to organisms. But it will, at least, have had the merit of helping sociology to shake off the pre-conception that the groups formed by men are artificial, and that history is completely at the mercy of chance. Some years before the appearance of "The Origin of Species", Auguste Comte had pointed out the importance, as regards the unification of positive knowledge, of the conviction that the social world, the last refuge of spiritualism, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... blind, Because ye have heard a rumour of the deeds He did unknowingly,—yet, we entreat you. Strangers, have pity on me, the hapless girl, Who pray for mine own sire and for none else, —Pray, looking in your eyes with eyes not blind. As if a daughter had appeared to you. Pleading for mercy to the unfortunate. We are in your hands as in the hand of God, Helpless. O then accord the unhoped for boon! By what is dear to thee, thy veriest own, I pray thee,—chattel or child, or holier name! Search through the world, thou wilt not ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... sound, too, by Heaven's mercy," said the Lord Proprietor, plucking off his peaked cap and shaking the water from it. He carried a lantern, and his jacket and loose trousers of yellow oilskin shone with the wet like a suit of mail. "All the way from Inniscaw I've come, in the gig. Peter ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... providing places of torment for the wicked. There is no clear distinction of soul and body; the spirits beneath the earth are spoken of as souls only, yet they retain a sort of shadowy form when they cry for mercy on the shores of the lake; and the philosopher alone is said to have got rid of the body. All the three myths in Plato which relate to the world below have a place for repentant sinners, as well as other homes or places for the very good and very bad. It is a natural ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... detaining such possession, that he or they be immediately fined and imprisoned. This proclamation, says a peppery old chronicler, may well rank with the one excepting those arch traitors and rebels, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, from the mercy of the British monarch. In view of Dunmore's confidence in the validity of the Camden-Yorke decision, it is noteworthy that no mention of the royal proclamation of 1763 occurs in his broadside; and that he bases his objection to the Transylvania ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... existed May 13, the armorclads had the torpedo fleet completely at their mercy, for even if they had not been destroyed by the excellent practice of the Hotchkiss gunners, they would have been of no use, as they could not with safety discharge their torpedoes. In fact, the search lights discovered distinctly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... point of wit, and sometimes of truth. At other times they are so generous and candid, to allow, it is written by a club, and that very great hands have fingers in it. As for those who only appear its adversaries in print, they give me but very little pain: The paper I hold lies at my mercy, and I can govern it as I please; therefore, when I begin to find the wit too bright, the learning too deep, and the satire too keen for me to deal with, (a very frequent case no doubt, where a man is constantly attacked by such shrewd adversaries) I peaceably fold it up, or fling it aside, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... "For mercy's sake! for mercy's sake!" cried D'Artagnan; "that which you will not do at this moment, I myself will do within an hour, but here, upon this road, I should die bravely; I should die esteemed; do me ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... didn't think so, I wouldn't use her. She has ample reason to hate Ivan Saranoff and she knows how much mercy she has to hope for from him if he ever gets her in his clutches. We can't play a lone hand against Saranoff forever and I know of no better place to recruit an organization than the enemy's camp. Thelma saved our lives ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... him; Mr. Hickman, you will be one of the happiest men in the world, because you are a good man, and will do nothing to provoke this passionate lady; and because she has too much good sense to be provoked without reason: but else the Lord have mercy upon you! ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... a wretched mattress, which had been lent me by a person named John Volcan; and my life was despaired of by every one, till the 9th of September, when, by the cares of Stephen and of Martha, my good hostess, or rather through the mercy of God, the fever abated, and I soon recovered my former health, to the astonishment of every one. My domestics likewise recovered, and we began again to consult on the best means of escaping out ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... weed-grown lane; not far beyond he found the sinking mounds of some breastworks on a knoll which commanded the river channel. The very trees and grass looked harrowed and distressed by war; the silence of the sunset was only broken by the cry of a little owl that was begging mercy of its fears far down the ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... once, mademoiselle! You will not stay to be at the mercy of a sneaking spy. See! I will call my red friends. Do not be afraid! They will carry you off, but I will be with you, and we will find ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... invitation: "Never do I court strange tables, Though the food be rare and toothsome; One's own country is the dearest, One's own table is the sweetest, One's own home, the most attractive. Grant, kind Ukko, God above me, Thou Creator, full of mercy, Grant that I again may visit My beloved home and country. Better dwell in one's own country, There to drink Its healthful waters From the simple cups of birch-wood, Than in foreign lands to wander, There to drink the rarest liquors From the golden ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... very." Then, as to the cordiality of his reception by his Nephew, what could by possibility have expressed it better than the look, voice, manner of the Reader. "'Will you let me in, Fred?' Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off." The turkey that "never could have stood upon its legs, that bird," but must have "snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax!"—the remarkable boy who was just about its size, and who, when told to go and buy it, cried out "Walk-ER!"—Bob ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... The English Government can enforce its demands on the puny cabinets of Madrid and Lisbon, scarce conscious of a substantive existence, in all that concerns our petty interests: wherever justice and mercy to mankind demand our interference, there our voice sinks within us, and no sound is uttered. That any treaty without an outfit clause should be suffered to exist between powers so situated, is an outrage upon all ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... resolved to go without his knowledge to pray for mercy from the spinner, and in the name of Renelde's dead mother she besought her to spin no more. Renelde gave her promise, but in the evening Guilbert arrived at the cottage. Seeing that the cloth was no farther advanced than it was the evening before, he inquired ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... shelter and succour than the invincible arms of the great Philip: nothing beats the plus ultra.[71] For the two faces of a doubloon, a smile comes over the grim visage of the procurator and of all the other ministers of mischief, who are downright harpies to us poor gitanas, and have more mercy for highway robbers than for our poor hides. Let us be ever so ragged and wretched in appearance, they will not believe that we are poor, but say that we are like the doublets of the gavachos of Belmont, ragged and ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Sahib have mercy! That great black brute will kill me if the police come here. I take Saidie to my house, the Sahib comes there when he will. He pays, he has ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... me that, were our order to yield Egypt to the mercy of the pharaohs? The wisest pharaohs have behind them the experience of a few years at the longest, but the priestly order has investigated and taught during tens of thousands of years. The mightiest ruler has two eyes and two hands, while we possess thousands of eyes and thousands of hands in all ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... formal ceremonious prayer. I have noticed (vol. iv. 60) the sundry technical meanings of the term Salat, from AllahMercy; from Angel-kindintercession and pardon, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... His mouth opened; then shut again with a sharp snap. That beautiful creature now belonged to him, and to none other! Were there other claimants, he would crush them without mercy! As for this apostate priest, Jose—humph! if he still lived he should rot the rest of his days in the reeking dungeons of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... pinto, having Annie-Many-Ponies to reckon with, did not bolt. The braided rein-end of her squaw bridle lashed him stingingly; the moccasined heels dug without mercy into the tender part of his flanks. He came lunging down over the first rim of the bluff; then since he must, he gathered himself for the ordeal and came leaping down and down and down, gaining momentum with every jump. He could ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... greater than Diogenes himself: for he too stands on the adamantine basis of his Manhood, casting aside all props and shoars; yet not, in half-savage Pride, undervaluing the Earth; valuing it rather, as a place to yield him warmth and food, he looks Heavenward from his Earth, and dwells in an element of Mercy and Worship, with a still Strength, such as the Cynic's Tub did nowise witness. Great, truly, was that Tub; a temple from which man's dignity and divinity was scornfully preached abroad: but greater is the Leather Hull, for the same sermon was preached there, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... trying to report the roll of the waves on the Atlantic; she could only listen with beating heart and flushing cheek. Presently she listened with a new interest, for the divisions of the subject were: "God's thought of sin," and "God's thought of mercy." Though the morning was warm, she shivered and drew her wrap closer about her. "God's thought of sin! She was in a mood to comprehend in a measure what a fearful ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... I complain in this letter, have mercy and don't blame me, for, I forewarn you, I am in low spirits, and that earth and heaven are dreary and empty to me at this moment. In a few days our vacation will begin; everybody is joyous and animated at the prospect, because everybody is ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... listen," said Kasia, calmly; "and I shall not speak; or, if I do, it will be to urge him to continue to defy you. Do you imagine that any threat, any torture, could compel him to place the world at the mercy of your Kaiser? You do ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Belgium. She was also mistress of Italy and Holland, and could reckon on the dependence of the German empire, owing to the cession of the left bank of the Rhine. The German empire, abandoned by Austria, likewise was at her mercy, and tremblingly expected its fate; while the government of the church and the kingdom of Naples were tottering to their very foundations. Spain, moreover, with all its resources, was wholly in the hands of the French. England now stood alone in the contest; and though she remained ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... his jaw. "Then there's no help for it," he said firmly. "We'll have to go with Hooliam. I'll make him take our little boat along, so we won't be entirely at his mercy; and I'll watch ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... forget the smocks of the donas. He proclaim as if by a poster on the streets that he will be a bad husband, a thoughtless, careless, indifferent husband. He has vow by the stars that he adore me. He has serenade beneath my window until I have beg for mercy. He persecute my mother. And now he flings the insult of insults in my teeth. And ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... war and peace They saw the monarch's state increase, Watching his weal with conquering eye That never let occasion by, While nature lent her aid to bless Their labours with unbought success. Never for anger, lust, or gain, Would they their lips with falsehood stain. Inclined to mercy they could scan The weakness and the strength of man. They fairly judged both high and low, And ne'er would wrong a guiltless foe; Yet if a fault were proved, each one Would punish e'en his own dear son. But there and in the kingdom's bound No thief or man impure was found: ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... one of cowardice or mercy, remained yet to be seen. It might be that he feared himself receiving some mortal injury, which would at once put a stop to that preternatural career of existence which he affected to shudder at, and yet evidently took considerable pains ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... there; but he was very ill himself, and this was a bad quarter for him, who had been so lately very sick at Hamburg; yet he contented himself without going to bed. His sons and company had some fresh straw, and God in his wonted mercy still preserved him and his company. The host sent word to his General, Koningsmark, that the English Ambassador was at ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... God made unto his church since the fall, was by Jesus Christ as the great prophet and preacher of righteousness. Particularly, it was he that first appeared unto lapsed man, and as the great revealer of the council of peace, called upon him in the voice of mercy, saying, "Adam, where art thou?" It was he that, pleasing himself in the forethoughts of his future incarnation, and as a prelude thereto, condescended at different times to appear in a human form, and speak unto the fathers. By him, as the messenger of the covenant, were ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... let pass by in his wife. I found her"—again the rude details of his discovery—"an' I found him, an' I let him go fer the white-livered coward he was, but her I killed. I shot her dead after she'd said her prayers an' asked God's mercy on her soul. Then I walked off, but they kotched me an' I was tried. They didn't swing me. Out in them parts they knowed I was in my rights; so the boys held, but 'twas a life sentence. They tuk me by rail down to Dawson an' ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... For some time past trade, especially ship-building, had been in a state of depression in Derry, with the result that a good many of the better class of artisans, who were uniformly Unionist, had gone to Belfast and elsewhere to find work, leaving the political fortunes of the city at the mercy of the casual labourer who drifted in from the wilds of Donegal, and who at this election managed to place the Home Rule candidate in a majority ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... does not like his fare, he may console himself with the reflection, that he need not expose his mouth to the like mortification again. Mercy to the feelings of the mistress of the mansion, will forbid his then appearing otherwise than absolutely delighted with it, notwithstanding it may be his extreme antipathy. If he like it ever so little, he will find occasion to congratulate himself on the advantage his digestive organs will derive ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... eyes, while from standing in the morning at prayer your back just aches, and your legs ache. And at evening there is service again. You knock at the door of the mother superior's cell: 'Through prayers of Thy saints, oh Lord, our Father, have mercy upon us.' And the mother superior would answer from the cell, in a little ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... the first three years of his reign he fought nineteen battles and vanquished nine self-styled kings; but he never, on any occasion, detected a conspiracy, nor destroyed a revolution before it had broken out openly. He was often, therefore, at the mercy of Atossa and frequently found himself baffled by her power of concealing a subtle lie under the letter of truth, and by her supreme indifference and coldness of manner under the most trying circumstances. In his simple judgment it was absolutely impossible for any one to lie directly ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... prophets, the wise men, and the scribes, though they have told us nothing about a life to come, have told us much about the life that is now. They have had—they also,—their dreams, and we have laughed at them. They have dreamed of mercy, and of justice; they have dreamed of peace and good-will; they have dreamed of labor undisappointed, and of rest undisturbed; they have dreamed of fulness in harvest, and overflowing in store; ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... tell you. They're at the mercy of any political schemer who thinks it worth his while to fool 'em. Take Leith, for instance. There's a man over there who has controlled every office in that town for twenty-five years or more. He buys and sells votes and credentials like cattle. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... will the enemies of Christianity think and say about my fall?" Until one day about noon, as I was gazing through the window of my lonely cell, I saw, or fancied I saw, a solitary star, and my thoughts were gradually lifted from the cross of suffering to the throne of Mercy, and (let philosophers and theologians explain it as they may) instantaneous peace of mind followed the sight, or fancied sight, of that noon-tide star! The load was removed which threatened to crush my brain into lunacy, the "salt surf ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... Miss Pinnegar, "you see me issuing tickets, don't you? Yes—well. I'm afraid he will have to do that part himself. And you're going to play the piano. It's a disgrace! It's a disgrace! It's a disgrace! It's a mercy Miss Frost and your mother are dead. He's lost every bit of shame—every bit—if he ever had any—which I doubt very much. Well, all I can say, I'm glad I am not concerned. And I'm sorry for you, for being his daughter. I'm heart sorry for you, I am. Well, well—no sense ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... as naked as when he was born, came running from a dressing room and pranced and leaped over the sand to bring the sweat- beads to his skin; then, snatching at the nearest gladiator, wrestled with him until the breathless victim cried for mercy; dropped him then, as crushed as if a python had left a job half-finished, and shouted for the ashen sword-sticks. In a minute, with a leather buckler on his left arm, he was parrying the thrusts and blows of six men, driving and so crowding them on one ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... to the law; so all impetus, all motive for exertion, seemed taken from my being; so I went back into books. And so a moping, despondent, worthless mourner might I have been to the end of my days, but that Heaven, in its mercy, sent thy mother, Pisistratus, across my path; and day and night I bless God and her, for I have been, and am—oh, indeed, I ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... long implored of heaven this favorable wind," replied the young girl. "I thank the God of mercy that my prayer ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... to a seat and burst into tears. Once before—but in how different a case!—he had seen her thus thrilled with weeping. Then fate had thrown him humbled at her feet, now it was she who cried him mercy in every line of her bowed head and shaken breast; and the thought of that other meeting flooded ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... imperative. It did not say for him to endeavor to find out the cause of the death of this white man, but to go at once into their camp and to massacre, confiscate anything of value, and have no mercy on the Redskins, who had slaughtered a white man who was "only hunting" ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... Highness the Governor, Through the Hakim of Jubaland: Salaams, yea, many salaams, with God's mercy, blessing, and peace. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and one talke with another. But when the Priest is at seruice no man sitteth, but gagle and ducke like so many Geese. And as for their prayers they haue but little skill, but vse to say As bodi pomele: As much to say, Lord haue mercy vpon me. For the tenth man within the land cannot say the Pater noster. And as for the Creede, no man may be so bolde as to meddle therewith but in the Church: for they say it shoulde not bee spoken of, but in the Churches. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... cannot pray—Despair has laid his iron hand upon me, and seal'd me for perdition..."). However, a benevolent deity touches him with the finger of grace, enabling him to repent ("I wish'd for ease, a moment's ease, that cool repentance and contrition might soften vengeance"). He can now pray for mercy and in his dying moments is vouchsafed assurance of forgiveness ("Yet Heaven is gracious—I ask'd for hope, as the bright presage of forgiveness, and like a light, blazing thro' darkness, it ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... penitence and need. We come before God in our worship as those who are sinful and needy. We ever make approach through the sacrifice of the Cross. But we come also as those who have confidence in divine love and mercy. So praise, joyous praise, predominates. The Te Deum, the Benedicite, the Benedictus, the Jubilate, all ring out this note and give {29} joyousness to the service, while Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis tell of rejoicing and hope in what ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... joined M. Antonius, Decimus Brutus attempted to make his escape into Macedonia to Marcus Brutus; but he was overtaken in the Alps by the cavalry of Antonius, and put to death after abjectly praying for mercy. This was the just punishment of a treacherous friend who helped Caesar to the supreme power and then betrayed him (Vell. Paterculus, ii. 61). Like many other men, he did well enough when he was directed by others, but when he was put in command, he lost his head ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... little in this infant community which one man could plunder from another, and any dishonest attempts in so small a society would almost infallibly be discovered. To persons detected in such crimes, he could not promise any mercy; nor indeed to any whom, under their circumstances, should presume to offend against the peace and good order of the settlement. What mercy could do for them they had already experienced; nor could any ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... unwilling to engage myself; as much as in me lies, I employ myself wholly on myself, and even in that subject should rather choose to curb and restrain my affection from plunging itself over head and ears into it, it being a subject that I possess at the mercy of others, and over which fortune has more right than I; so that even as to health, which I so much value, 'tis all the more necessary for me not so passionately to covet and heed it, than to find diseases so insupportable. A man ought to moderate himself betwixt the hatred of pain and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... village," she resumed, "and on the eastern side of our farmstead, there lives an old dame, whose age is this year, over ninety. She goes in daily for fasting, and worshipping Buddha. Who'd have thought it, she so moved the pity of the goddess of mercy that she gave her this message in a dream: 'It was at one time ordained that you should have no posterity, but as you have proved so devout, I have now memorialised the Pearly Emperor to grant you a grandson!' The fact is, this old dame had one son. This son had had too an only son; but he ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... The stories of the Old Testament are put into relation with the Gospel by way of type and anti-type. There are allegories: the anchorite life contrasted with the mad life of the world, the celestial ladder, &c., and fine impersonations, such as night and dawn, mercy and truth, cities and rivers, are frequently found, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... will and charity, confidence and peace. The time has come for a more practical use of moral power, and more reliance upon the principle that right makes its own might. Our authority among the nations must be represented by justice and mercy. It is necessary not only to have faith, but to make sacrifices for our faith. The spiritual forces of the world make all its final determinations. It is with these voices that America should speak. Whenever they declare a righteous purpose there need be ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... built a temple of dazzling splendor. Among this people had arisen great preachers,—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah,—who declared that religion did not consist in the sacrifice of bulls and goats, but in justice, in mercy, and in humility. They had a genius for religion, just as the Greeks had a genius for art, and the ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... mild language; learning without pride; valour united with mercy; wealth accompanied with a generous contempt of it—these four ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... the coarse and vulgar kind there was no mercy. If a man got drunk, or cursed, or stole, or used his fists, or committed adultery or fornication, he was expelled, and not permitted to return till he had given infallible proofs of true repentance. No guilty couple ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... woe and death, a gloomy fanatic was revolving in the recesses of his own dark, bewildered, and overwrought mind, schemes of indiscriminate massacre to the whites. Schemes too fearfully executed as far as his fiendish band proceeded in their desolating march. No cry for mercy penetrated their flinty bosoms. No acts of remembered kindness made the least impression upon these remorseless murderers. Men, women and children, from hoary age to helpless infancy were involved in the same cruel fate. Never did a band of savages do their work of death more unsparingly. Apprehension ...
— The Confessions Of Nat Turner • Nat Turner
... truce; I plead for mercy. Let us have out the traits of Eliza's character separately, and examine the scope ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... and it's sure to come. Behind the management there are merciless millions of money: behind the strikers the gaunt wolf of hunger stalks in the snow. Can you beat a game like that? Never. And after all what right have you and your people to expect mercy at the hands of organized capital? Does the Union show mercy to men like me? To escape the blight of the black-list I changed my name. Three times I found work, but in each instance the company were forced to discharge me or have a strike. I was not a Union ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... with glue, her limbs weak as if they had been beaten to a pulp by violent blows. She was all pain, but, worse still, a black horror of her life crushed and terrified her, until she buried her face in the pillow and wept and moaned for mercy. But to remain in bed was impossible. The pallor of the place was intolerable, and sliding her legs over the side she stood, scarcely able to keep her feet. The room swam as if in a mist; she held her head with clasped hands; the top of it seemed ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... must throw yourself upon their mercy. This is no time to nurse one's hatred against one's foes. When shall ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... course, we should meet with affliction or distress, it is His appointment, and designed undoubtedly for our good. It is our wisdom, as well as duty to submit patiently to whatever may befall us, never losing our courage or becoming disheartened by suffering, but trusting to the mercy and power of Him who can and will, at His own good time, deliver us from evil." Mr. Campbell kneeled down, surrounded by his family, and, in a fervent and feeling address poured forth his thanksgiving for past mercies and humble solicitation for further assistance. ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... at Barrancas, where it was helpless. After much manoeuvring, the State forces of Florida induced Slemmer to retire from Barrancas to Pickens, then garrisoned by one ordnance sergeant, and at the mercy of a corporal's guard in a rowboat. Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, was in a similar condition before Anderson retired to it with his company. The early seizure of these two fortresses would have spared the Confederates ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... outside, while Tom, with Ned to help him, worked feverishly to repair the break. They were in a serious strait, for with the airship practically helpless they were at the mercy of the natives. And as Tom glanced momentarily from the window, he saw scores of black, half-naked forms slipping in and out among ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... exhausted, the hope of those who no longer believe, the sublime courage of the conquered! Yes, there is at least one door to this life we can always open and pass through to the other side. Nature had an impulse of pity; she did not shut us up in prison. Mercy for ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant • David Widger
... his arms in a gesture supremely theatrical, and laughed. "I stand here at their mercy. Let them, if they will, add mine to the blood that will presently rise up to choke them. Let them assassinate me. It is a trade they understand. But until they do so, they shall not prevent me from speaking to you, from telling you what is to be looked ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... and mercy. A resolute following of reason (in which I should include insight) to its conclusion, though the heavens fall, and an unfailing fellow-feeling for the pain and struggle and heart-ache and sin that ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the quartette of men presented a very fierce appearance; and Phil felt relieved to know that poor Pete was not fated to fall into their clutches. The fugitive had given them a heap of trouble, and in case of capture could expect little mercy. ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... wounded creature by the fire—it was a Wolf-brute with a bearded grey face—lay, I found, with the fore part of its body upon the still glowing timber. The wretched thing was injured so dreadfully that in mercy I blew its brains out at once. The other brute was one of the Bull-men swathed in white. He too was dead. The rest of the Beast People had vanished ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... that must be going on in their brains," he urged. "If I were a man in such a situation I'd throw myself upon the woman's mercy. I'd say, 'Beautiful, sweet lady! I know I know you. Your name, your entirely charming and appropriate name, is trembling on the tip of my tongue. But, for some unaccountable reason, my brute of a memory chooses to play the fool. If you've a spark ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... sway by a kingdom less,—[ih] This is to be a monarch, and repress Envy into unutterable praise. Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits, For who would lift a hand, except to bless?[ii] Were it not easy, Sir, and is't not sweet To make thyself beloved? and to be Omnipotent by Mercy's means? for thus Thy Sovereignty would grow but more complete, A despot thou, and yet thy people free,[ij] And by ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... cheerless, settled over the land. The bright and many-colored leaves that had flashed their myriad beauties in the full glare of the sunlight, had fallen from the trees, leaving their trunks, gnarled and bare, to the mercy of the sweeping winds. The streams were frozen, and the merry-makers skimmed lightly and gracefully over the glassy surface of pond and lake. Christmas, that season of festivity, when the hearts of the children are gladdened by the visit of that fabulous gift-maker, and when music and joy rule ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... am merely a student of human instincts and characteristics—Half a cynic is a poor creature—A complete one has almost reached the mercy and ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... forging ahead all the time, the boat of the pirate bumped away lightly from between the vessel and our dinghy, and we remained alongside, holding to the end of the severed line. I sent my fourth shot after them and got in exchange a scream and a howl of "Mercy! mercy! we surrender!" She swung clear of the quarter, all hushed, and faded into the mist and moonlight, with the head and arms of a motionless man hanging ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... at the time Attorney-General of the Confederate Government, proceeded to enforce the Act with utmost rigidity. The exception of the Border States and Territories, already noted, was also made under this law, but towards the citizens of States of unquestioned loyalty no mercy was shown. A close search was instituted by Mr. Benjamin, in which agents, former partners, attorneys, trustees, and all who might have the slightest knowledge of a piece of property within the limits of the Confederacy, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... and retribution was stimulated to a kind of madness by that first baptism of fire and blood, and expanded the simple and grave warnings of the gospel into a lurid poetry of physical torture. Hence, while Christianity brought multiplied forms of mercy into the world, it failed for many centuries to humanize the savage forms of justice; and rack and wheel, fire and fagot were the modes by which human justice aspired to a faint imitation of what divine justice was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... surprised to hear it—there are axioms in probity, in honesty, in justice, as there are axioms in geometry; and moral truth is no more at the mercy of a vote than ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... self-giving Christ. For him, as for so many other theologians, God becomes forgiving and gracious on account of Christ's merit and righteousness and thus no longer imputes sin to us. Because of what Christ did, God now beholds us with an attitude of mercy, grace, and forgiveness, and, on condition of our faith, imputes to us the righteousness of Christ. Salvation is, thus, a plan by which we escape from the God of justice and wrath and have our dealings with a God who has become ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... and what is here? And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer; And they cross'd themselves for fear, All the knights at Camelot: But Lancelot mused a little space; He said, 'She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... Devil's inspired Agents have manag'd themselves under the especial Influence of the Cloven-Foot; how they have made War under the Pretence of Peace, murther'd Garrisons under the most sacred Capitulations, massacred innocent Multitudes after Surrenders to Mercy. ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe |
