"Reprieve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no one else, assuredly, has a right to claim dramatic pre-eminence. The one person for whom an approach to equality may be claimed is, not Adam Bede, but Arthur Donnithorne. If the story had ended, as I should have infinitely preferred to see it end, with Hetty's execution, or even with her reprieve, and if Adam had been left to his grief, and Dinah Morris to the enjoyment of that distinguished celibacy for which she was so well suited, then I think Adam might have shared the honors of pre-eminence with his hapless sweetheart. But as it is, the continuance of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... and scoffed at them from the foot of the gallows the two brave men were hanged. The halter had been placed upon Mrs. Dyer when her son, who had come in all haste from Rhode Island, obtained her reprieve on his promise to take her away. The bodies of the two men were denied Christian burial and thrown uncovered into a pit. All the efforts of husband and son were unable to keep Mrs. Dyer at home. In the following spring she returned to Boston and on the first day of ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... And there I got for a shilling to stand upon the wheel of a cart, in great pain, above an hour before the execution was done; he delaying the time by long discourses and prayers one after another, in hopes of a reprieve; but none come, and at last was flung off the ladder in his cloak. A comely-looked man he was, and kept his countenance to the end: I was sorry to see him. It was believed there were at least 12 or 14,000 people ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... terrified at the prospect of immediate execution that his separable soul left his body, and he found himself sitting on the eaves of a house, from which point he could see a man bound, and waiting for the executioner's sword. Just then, a reprieve arrived, and in a moment he was back again in his body. Mr. Edmund Gosse, who can hardly have been acquainted with the Chinese view, told a similar story in his Father and Son: "During morning and evening prayers, which were extremely lengthy and ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... in a new place every day, and every time he broke out it cost the house money. Finally, I made up my mind to swallow the loss, and Mister Jim was just about to lose his job sure enough, when the orders for Extract began to look up, and he got a reprieve; then he began to make expenses, and he got a pardon; and finally a rush came that left him high and dry in a permanent place. Jim was all right in his way, but it was a new way, and I hadn't been broad-gauged enough to see that it was a ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... had charged him, with a sad blank face and a shake of the head, which told that there was no hope for the prisoner; and scarce a wretched culprit in that prison of Newgate ordered for execution, and trembling for a reprieve, felt more cast down than Mr. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... only. It was the first day. I was as thin as a rail, as white as the pillow from which I had just raised my head. Death's reprieve was written all over me. I dragged along wearily, leaning on a stick. I was thinking of her, thinking, thinking always. As I scanned the faces of the crowds that thronged the streets, I thought only of her face. Then ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... investigation into this charge had proved ineffectual, the emperor gave orders to the captains of the cavalry who had been employed in it, to condemn Claudian to banishment, and to pass sentence of death upon Sallust, promising that he would reprieve him as he was being led to execution. The sentence was passed, as he commanded; but Sallust was not reprieved, nor was Claudian recalled from exile till after the death of Valentinian.... After they had ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... I ought to feel very glad, Edwards," he said. "This is a reprieve, don't you see, so far as I am concerned. And yet I can't realize it; I don't seem to care about it; ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... Uncle Tobe hanged all sorts and conditions of men—men who kept on vainly hoping against hope for an eleventh-hour reprieve long after the last chance of reprieve had vanished, and who on the gallows begged piteously for five minutes, for two minutes, for one minute more of precious grace; negroes gone drunk on religious exhortation who died in a frenzy, sure of salvation, and shouting out halleluiahs; ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... the fact of treason, and Prendergast was convicted and sentenced to be hanged in six weeks. Then this valiant woman's energy and perseverance rose to their highest. She set off for an audience with the Governor, Sir Henry Moore, Bart., and returned about the first of September with a reprieve. Just in time she arrived, for a company of fifty mounted men had ridden the whole length of the county to rescue her husband from the jail. She convinced them of the folly of such action as they proposed, and sent them home, while she turned ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... position. I can't understand his motive for constantly poking his coercive bill in our faces at these critical moments. The Lords will take courage at anything that seems to weaken the government morally. They are like a fellow going to be hanged who looks out for a reprieve, and is always hoping for a lucky ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... escape, but that Everard stood between her and the only available opening. She knew that he was about to propose, and would gladly have prevented it if possible, but as it was, there was no reprieve—he ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... before twelve o'clock to-morrow, since Gaston is a little too fond of you to fall in with my plans. His premature arrival would in effect admit the bull of equity into the china-shop of my intentions. And day-dreams are fragile stuff, Monsieur d'Ormskirk! Indeed, I am giving you this so brief reprieve only because I am, unwilling to have upon my conscience the reproach of hanging without due preparation a man whom of all politicians in the universe I most unfeignedly like and respect. The Protestant minister has been sent for, and will, I sincerely trust, be here at ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... guilty of crime. One was convicted of arson, another of robbing the United States mail, when the mail was intercepted with a view of capturing letters from the Federal officers in the western counties to the authorities at the capital. In both instances President Washington granted first a reprieve, then ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... prospect, and yet it was a reprieve. One is thankful for small mercies when a hairy savage with a blood-stained knife is standing at one's elbow. He dragged me from the room and I was thrust down the stairs and back into my cell. The door was locked and I was left ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with you, when we have time, about some of your points, but the last one—if it's valid—has tremendous force. I didn't know men felt that way. But no matter what my feeling for you really is, I'm really grateful to you for the reprieve ... and you know, Clee, I'm pretty sure you're going to get us back home. If anyone can, ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... "Here was a reprieve, and a most unexpected one. No one who has not believed himself to be just on the point of being smashed, can tell how glad I was when I was set loose from the farmer's terrible gripe, though only to find myself ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... fellow-conspirators.[256] On the detection of the plot, in 65 A. D., he, with the other chiefs of the conspiracy, was arrested. For long he denied his complicity; at last, perhaps on the threat or application of torture, his nerve failed him; he descended to grovelling entreaties, and to win himself a reprieve accused his innocent mother, Acilia, of complicity in the plot.[257] His conduct does not admit of excuse. But it is not for the plain, matter-of-fact man to pass judgement lightly on the weakness of ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... that," she said, "I did not mean that. What I mean is that at the moment the black sergeant, Usanga, and his renegade German native troops captured me and brought me inland, my death warrant was signed. Sometimes I have imagined that a reprieve has been granted. Sometimes I have hoped that I might be upon the verge of winning a full pardon, but really in the depths of my heart I have known that I should never live to regain civilization. I have done my bit for my country, and though it ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... came. Nearer, nearer still. Then suddenly a sharp exclamation broke from the watcher. It was a cry which had in it a strange thrill. It might have been the gasp of the condemned man at the sound of the word "reprieve." It might have been the cry of one momentarily ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... a porter likely to be hang'd For letting Gloster 'scape; sirrah, attend. You shall have a reprieve to bring him us. These boys are too-too stubborn, Lancaster; But 'tis their mother's fault. If thus she move me, I'll have her head, though all ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... earnest manner. He answered me at first with procrastinations, declaring, from time to time, he would mention it to my father; and still excusing himself for not doing it. At last he thought on an expedient to obtain a longer reprieve. This was by pretending that he should, in a very few weeks, be preferred to the command of a troop; and then, he said, he could with some ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... duties, the President has the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in the case of impeachment. A pardon fully exempts the individual from the punishment imposed upon him by law; a reprieve, on the other hand, is simply a temporary suspension of ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... favour of his reprieve broke out at once. Apart from the peculiar circumstances under which the crime was committed, it was urged that Mr. Lyndon's services to the country as an inventor should be taken into consideration. Within twenty-four hours over a million people had signed a petition in his favour, ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... kindly, and helped herself to bread and butter. Claire had a miserable conviction that her reply had had a deceptive effect, and that the shock when it came, would be all the more severe. Nevertheless, she was thankful for the reprieve; thankful to see Cecil eat sandwiches with honest enjoyment, until the last one had disappeared ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... recorded, if not in any official book, at any rate in all official minds. But B. B. himself had as yet decided nothing. When Crocker attended Lady Amaldina's wedding in his best coat and gloves he was still under suspension; but trusting to the conviction that after so long a reprieve capital punishment would ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... and incurred the capital penalty. Santa Cruz went to Bordeaux to beg for their lives at the feet of Dona Margarita. She received him most graciously, and promised to send a special courier to her husband to intercede in their behalf. Before the King's reprieve could possibly have arrived ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... simple enough in some respects, was not quite such a fool as that. Sometimes the Jinn could be mollified and induced to grant a reprieve by being told stories, one inside the other, like a nest of Oriental boxes. Unfortunately Fakrash did not seem in the humour for listening to apologues, and, even if he were, Horace could not think of or improvise any just then. "Besides," he thought, "I can't sit ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... behind time, and a terrible railway collision occurs. A leading firm with enormous assets becomes bankrupt, simply because an agent is tardy in transmitting available funds, as ordered. An innocent man is hanged because the messenger bearing a reprieve should have arrived five minutes earlier. A man is stopped five minutes to hear a trivial story and misses a train ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... I affected with the merit of the wonderful skill which the distillers are said to have attained: it is, in my opinion, no faculty of great use to mankind, to prepare palatable poison; nor shall I ever contribute my interest for the reprieve of a murderer, because he has, by long practice, obtained great dexterity ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... unprevisioned new, Or give to change reprieve! For new in me is olden too, That I for sameness grieve. O flowers! O grasses! be but once The grass ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... Lives there a true and tender friend, who doth compassionate My sickness and my long unrest, that unto him I may Make moan of all that I endure for dole and drearihead And of my sleepless eyes, oppressed of wakefulness alway? My night in torments is prolonged; I burn, without reprieve, In flames of heart-consuming care that rage in me for aye. The bug and flea do drink my blood, even as one drinks of wine, Poured by the hand of damask-lipped and slender-waisted may. The body of me, amongst the lice, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... across the ocean, she said, to plead the cause of a poor prisoner who was dying under sentence of the law. She paused a moment, having made this statement, and was answered by a nod. Prisoners often died without reprieve, he seemed to be aware. This cold civility warmed the petitioner's speech. Her mother would have been satisfied, Madeline Desperiers would have been overwhelmed with grief and horror, to have heard this young girl's testimony ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... angel shall Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive Unless her prayers, whom Heaven delights to hear And loves to grant, reprieve him from the ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... novice saw her cleaning windows. Her face was livid, and, in spite of her great energy, it was evident that her strength was almost spent. Seeing her fatigue, the novice, who loved her dearly, burst into tears, and begged leave to obtain her some little reprieve. But the young novice-mistress strictly forbade her, saying that she was quite able to bear this slight fatigue on the day on which ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... Old Peg was as a reprieve from death! The trot had almost dislocated her bones, and shaken her up like an addled egg, and the change to racing speed afforded infinite relief. She could scarcely credit her senses, and she felt a tendency to laugh again as she glanced over her shoulder. But that ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... patriots were genuinely alarmed. "This momentous question," wrote Jefferson, "like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... life-and-death anxiety for some word of love from him, it was cruelly false to play with another at the passion which was such a tragedy to her. This was the point that, put aside however often, still presented itself, and its recurrence, if he could have known it, was mercy and reprieve from the only source out of ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... hour; And further, to avoid all blame Of cruelty upon my name, To give you time for preparation, And fit you for your future station, Three several warnings you shall have Before you're summoned to the grave; Willing for once I'll quit my prey, And grant a kind reprieve; In hopes you'll have no more to say, But, when I call again this way, Well pleased the world will leave." To these conditions both consented, And parted ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... It was a reprieve—at the last moment! He had a whole day before him for flight, and he fully intended to flee this time; those hours of suspense in the saloon were too terrible to be gone ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... blood-thirsty state of mind, to put them off without any havoc and slaughter would have been as bitter a disappointment as to summon a multitude of good people to attend an execution, and then cruelly balk them by a reprieve. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... cried into Zuleika's ear—cried loudly, for it seemed as though all the Wagnerian orchestras of Europe, with the Straussian ones thrown in, were here to clash in unison the full volume of right music for the glory of the reprieve. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... condemned lay in Salford gaol, tortured by the suspense inevitably created by Maguire's reprieve. Although every effort was made by their friends to keep them from grasping at or indulging in hope, the all-significant fact of that release seemed to imperatively forbid the idea of their being executed on a verdict whose falseness was thus confessed. The ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... must find out what steps he has taken. Then, if the present holder of the letters is poor, he is open to bribery. So, no, we must make Jacques Collin speak. What a duel! He will beat me. The better plan would be to purchase those letters by exchange for another document—a letter of reprieve—and to place the man in my gang. Jacques Collin is the only man alive who is clever enough to come after me, poor Contenson and dear old Peyrade both being dead! Jacques Collin killed those two unrivaled ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... the whole Body of Priests made their Addresses to the Marquis Castel Roderigo, the then Governor of Flanders, for a Reprieve; which, after much ado, was granted him for some Weeks, but with an absolute Denial of Pardon: So prevailing were the young Cavaliers of his Court, who were all Adorers of this ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... no way deceived by the appearance of friendliness which the Stag had assumed. They knew that henceforth there was bitter hatred between them, and that their very lives were insecure. As to Ethel, it was, they knew, only a short reprieve which had been granted her. The Stag would not risk a division in the tribe for her sake, nor would attempt to bring her to a formal execution; but the first time she wandered from the hut, she would be found dead with a knife in ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... by Isegrim the Wolf. He also declares his only regret is to die before he can reveal to the king the hiding-place of a vast treasure which would enable him to outwit the plots of some rebels who are even now conspiring to kill him. The king, hearing this, immediately orders a reprieve, and, questioning the Fox in secret, learns that the conspirators are Brown the Bear, Isegrim the Wolf, and others. To reward the Fox for saving her husband's life, the queen now obtains his pardon, which Noble grants ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... an unhappier face I have never seen. She looked like a criminal whose reprieve is over, and the ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... measures to restore peace. Sharp sent for Burnet, and dismissed his advice without apparent resentment. He had already made valuable acquaintances in Edinburgh, and he now visited London, Oxford and Cambridge, and, after a short visit to Edinburgh in 1663, when he sought to secure a reprieve for his uncle Warristoun, he proceeded to travel in France and Holland. At Cambridge he was strongly influenced by the philosophical views of Ralph Cudworth and Henry More, who proposed an unusual degree of toleration within the boundaries of the church and the limitations ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... on the block takes a bath—not so much excitement as for a fire, perhaps, but more than for a funeral. On the eve of the fatal day the news spreads through the district that to-morrow poor Jacques is going to take a bath! A further reprieve has been denied him. He cannot put it off for another month, or even for another two weeks. His doom is nigh at hand; there ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... my birthday as well as yours, and as my sister, Mrs. Inge, gives a party to-night in honor of the event, I have come to insist that my classmate shall enjoy the same reprieve that I promise myself. Mrs. Inge commissioned me to insure your ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... gray goose by the sleeve, Says he, "Madam Gray Goose, by your leave, I'll carry you off without reprieve, And take you away to ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... will talk about this. You are offering me a two or three years' reprieve, are you not? ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... because Fitzgerald and I had saved the life of the daughter of one of the chief planters, who, in gratitude, had promised that he would assist us if we were ever in difficulty. I told them that they must adhere to what they said, as they would be condemned with the others, but that a reprieve would be given when ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... saw that the murderers were recompensed. Eighty years later a deserter from one of our regiments was under sentence to be shot. The officer commanding the firing party, another Captain Campbell of Glenlyon, had received a reprieve, with secret orders not to produce it until the culprit stood facing the levelled muskets. At that moment, as he drew the reprieve from his pocket, his handkerchief, coming with it, fell to the ground. The soldiers took it for their signal and fired. Glenlyon exclaimed, "It is the curse of ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... in the wake of the Lady Fani. Hoddan picked up his bag and followed. This, he considered darkly, was in the nature of a reprieve only. And if those three spaceships overhead did ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... your Puritan yet. We sent your hostage to Oxford for safe-keeping. News came of your death, and but now the King sent an order to have the fellow shot. But you can overtake the order, outstrip it. Here is a reprieve for the prisoner." ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... night. The space of her reprieve had gone by, and next morning she must face the issue. For herself she did not so greatly care, for at the worst she had a refuge whither Ishmael could not follow her—the grave. After all she had endured it seemed to her that this must be a peaceful place; moreover, ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... seduced by the emperor's daughter, Bellisant. The lovers are betrayed, and Amiles is unable to find the necessary supporters to enable him to clear himself by the ordeal of single combat, and fears, moreover, to fight in a false cause. He is granted a reprieve, and goes in search of Amis, who engages to personate him in the combat. He thus saves his friend, but in so doing perjures himself. Then follows the leprosy of Amis, and, after a lapse of years, his discovery of Amiles and cure. There are obvious reminiscences ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... never guessed the worst, nor anything like it. Not a doubt had he, nor could have, that Hughie was guilty; but he went straight from the court to his young woman and said, "I've saved money for us to be married on. There's little chance that I can win Hughie a reprieve; and, whether or no, it will eat up all, or nearly all, my savings. Only he's my one brother. Shall I go?" And she said, "Go, my dear, if I wait ten years for you." So he borrowed a horse for a stage or two, ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is true, come over his character; he became more desperate, but if was only because the deeper had become this affection. The incident of the reprieve of la Tour, which had meanwhile reached him, sank deeper into his heart than the whole round of his pleasures, and made him anxious for the moment when he might ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... of delight, what acclamations followed this discovery. To use Carteret's own comparison, the feelings of surprise and comfort experienced by the crew can only be likened to those of a criminal, who at the last moment on the scaffold receives a reprieve! It was Nitendit Island, already discovered ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... said. "Sure. Okay. It isn't urgent." He was just as glad of the reprieve; it gave him one more chance to work matters through to a solution, and report success instead of failure. "But what's going on in Miami?" ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... liquor, and the conversation began to assume that convivial tone peculiar to such assemblies. The little doctor was placed between Manifold and the Pythagorean, who, by the way, was exceedingly short-sighted; and on the other side of him sat Parson Topertoe, who seemed to feel something like a reprieve from his gout. When the liquor was placed on the table, after dinner, the Pythagorean got to his feet, filled a large glass of water, and taking a gulp of it, leaving it about half ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... (Yorkshire Proverb.) It was customary for criminals on their way to execution to stop at a certain tavern in York for a "parting draught." The saddler of Bawtry refused to accept the liquor, and was hanged, whereas if he had stopped a few minutes at the tavern his reprieve, which was on the road, would have arrived in time to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the news to break and end our efforts at any moment, but the quickness with which I had seized upon Preblesham's information confirmed the proverb about the early bird; the threehour reprieve stretched to five and by the time Havas flashed the news I had liquefied almost all of my now worthless assets—and to potential financial rivals. Needless to say I had not trusted solely to the honor of the men with ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... going to be concluded by the discharge of the terrible minute-gun. When, lo! it again booms on your ear—shall suffer death! No reservations, no contingencies; not the remotest promise of pardon or reprieve; not a glimpse of commutation of the sentence; all hope and consolation is shut out—shall suffer death! that is the simple fact for you to digest; and it is a tougher morsel, believe White-Jacket when he says it, than ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... of a cabin-window. The transom was high, and the man very heavy; so I was a good while in dragging the load up to the necessary height. Just as I got it there, the fellow gave a groan, and I felt a relief that I had never before experienced. It seemed to me like a reprieve from ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... fortifications of the place as strong as possible. All the slaves were therefore set to work on them, but those who had been under sentence of death were kept from too great a rebound of spirits at the reprieve, by being told that the moment the work was finished their respective punishments should be inflicted. Our poor friend Mariano was thus assailed by the horrible thought, while working at the blocks of concrete, which he mixed from morning ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... plead guilty to nothing. The authorities quite disregarded the fact that everyone of the self-accusations had been made in order to escape punishment. These considerations effected a revolution in the minds of most people. Remonstrances were presented to the courts, securing reprieve for those under sentence of death at Salem. This so irritated the despicable Stoughton ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... glad to go out, as they thought they ran more risk than the rest, and further, did not expect any speedy relief, and the multitude generally being content at being left in possession of their civic rights, and at such an unexpected reprieve from danger. The partisans of Brasidas now openly advocated this course, seeing that the feeling of the people had changed, and that they no longer gave ear to the Athenian general present; and thus the surrender was made and Brasidas was admitted by them on the terms of his proclamation. In ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... the cry of a frightened child begging a reprieve from punishment, and that piteous "Don't! don't!" rang in Bessie's ears long after the lips which uttered the words were silent ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... further than the mere terror of execution. When the decisive period approached, and he was to receive the extreme unction, he looked wistfully round, and when there still appeared no prospect of a reprieve, he turned to Julian Romero, and asked him once more if there was no hope of pardon for him. Julian Romero shrugged his shoulders, looked on the ground, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... will not be for long! The English do not punish as the Germans do! You dare not assault me! You dare not torture me! You must hand me over to the bwana collector to be tried in court of law. Nothing else is permissible! I shall receive short sentence, that is all, with reprieve after two-thirds time ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... possible, it would be but a short reprieve; I could not trust you; the sum would be spent, and I again in the state to which you have compelled me now; but without the means again to relieve myself. No, no! if the blow must fall, be it so one ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... spoke of his home-coming, and I did not; I dreaded it too much. Whenever the last steamers of the season were due, I nerved myself to look the passenger lists over; and when his name was missing, it was a reprieve. Neither my father nor my grandfather had believed in divorce; in their eyes it was disgrace. It seemed right, for Silva's sake, out of the rich placers David continued to find, he should contribute to my support. So—I lived my life—the ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... was charged with sinister import, but the man's assurance of her present safety was, somehow, convincing, and she accepted it with the emotional gratitude of one sentenced to death who receives a reprieve. She sank down on the stone bench near the crevice, and watched her jailer with unwavering attention, while he produced a candle from his pocket, and lighted it, and had recourse again to the stone jug of whiskey, which had remained by the ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... hoping for a reprieve, for vindication, for life, for rehabilitation, for Imperial favor, I led beast after beast back to its cage on a shaft-lift, or to a door in the wall. When the last one was caged an officer of the Imperial retinue, a frontiersman only lately come to Rome, stepped ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Dog! When I took him the time before, I told him what he would come to if he did not mend his Hand. This is Death without Reprieve. I may venture to Book him [writes.] For Tom Gagg, forty Pounds. Let Betty Sly know that I'll save her from Transportation, for I can get more by ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... the bushrangers was Jeffries: he obtained his reprieve in Scotland, to act as executioner.[170] Being transported to this country, he was employed as a scourger, and thus trained to cruelty, entered the bush. He robbed the house of Tibbs, a small settler, and after wounding, compelled him, with his wife, to proceed to the forest. ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... be tried. We have borne with thee full long. At next full moon thou wilt have had a year's reprieve. Thou must prepare to worship the true God and acknowledge His prophet, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... the soul are, when it is so saved, as I may say, out of the very grave: and I do not wonder now at that custom, when a malefactor, who has the halter about his neck, is tied up, and just going to be turned off, and has a reprieve brought to him—I say I do not wonder that they bring a surgeon with it, to let him bleed that very moment they tell him of it, that the surprise may not drive the animal spirits from the heart, ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... It will tone up your nervous system. But it's only for a week, mind! That's the limit of your reprieve before you go away. Don't imagine that stimulants and sedatives take the place of natural food or rest. Whatever—odds and ends you have to clear up must be cleared up within the ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... be forgiven by God—never has been forgiven on earth, and never will be. Death—death inexorable, is declared by God's judgments on the world and on nations; and he has declared death as its punishment by his law—death to both male and female, without pardon or reprieve, and beyond the power of ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne
... bespoke the abandonment of his resolution, "say to the brigand, who is called Arroyo, that he has nothing to fear, if he will only show himself. I pledge my solemn word to this. I do not mean to grant him pardon—only that reprieve which humanity claims ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... the most favourable manifestations may be blended with tokens of displeasure. Every approach of the Deity is liable to excite confusion to a guilty world; and a sense of demerit may lead us not only to expect a war-rant for execution when a reprieve is coming; but at first, like Manoah, to mistake ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... been dreadfully saddened of late by whole days- -nay weeks—of helplessness for any employment. They have but just revived. How merciful a reprieve! How merciful IS ALL we know! The ways of Heaven are not dark and intricate, but unknown and unimagined till the great teacher, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... an oak, not a vine. Be ready to give support, but do not crave it; do not be dependent on it. To develop your true self- reliance, you must see from the very beginning that life is a battle you must fight for yourself,—you must be your own soldier. You cannot buy a substitute, you cannot win a reprieve, you can never be placed on the retired list. The retired list of life is,—death. The world is busy with its own cares, sorrows and joys, and pays little heed to you. There is but one great password ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... suggests a Query: Is there any biographical notice of William Blake; and was he the author of the following piece, preserved among the Kings' pamphlets in the British Museum? "The Condemned Man's Reprieve, or God's Love-Tokens, flowing in upon the heart of William Blake, a penitent sinner, giving him assurance of the pardon of his sins, and the enjoyment of eternal happiness through the merits of Christ his Saviour. Recommended by him (being a condemned prisoner for manslaughter within ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... out, leaving Queed decidedly relieved at the brief reprieve. He had been harried by the fear that his visitor would insist on his stopping to produce an article or so while he waited. However, the time had come when the inevitable had to be faced. His golden privacy must ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Yolanda's emotions was the knowledge that she could insure Max's return by telling him that she was the Princess of Burgundy. But she did not want this man whom she loved so dearly, and who, she knew, loved her, if she must win him as princess. She was strangely impelled to reject a reprieve from a life of wretchedness, unless it came through the ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... surely defy detection," she proceeds, "but I have it on the authority of the label, that my husband has tried to find the antidote to these Drops, and has tried in vain. If my heart fails me, when the deed is done, there can be no reprieve for the woman whose tongue I must silence for ever—or, after all I have sacrificed, my ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... and disapproval. But beneath, I saw a dawning look which he could not keep down, of a great hope. It was as though he had been condemned to death, and the paper Beatrice had handed himto read had been his own reprieve. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... claws, ready and anxious to hug his body in a close and most loving embrace. There was not much time for Kit to scratch his head and cogitate. In fact, one instant spent in thought then would have proved his death warrant without hope of a reprieve. Messrs. Bruin evidently considered their domain most unjustly intruded upon. The gentle elk and deer mayhap were their dancing boys and girls; and, like many a petty king in savage land, they may have dined late and were now enjoying ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... close to the park wall; and, listening, he heard the river murmuring among the alders. He halted, utterly at a loss. If he were caught again could Rickerl save him? What could a captain of Uhlans do? True, he had interfered with Von Steyr's hangman's work, but that was nothing but a reprieve at best. ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... then rather chuse death Then me to be his bride? is his life mine? Why, then, because the Law makes me his Judge, Ile be, like you, not cruell, but reprieve him; My prisoner ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... so many years there is no need for lack of candor in discussing the events of 1885. To put it plainly Riel's fate turned almost entirely upon political considerations. Which was the less dangerous course,—to reprieve him or let him hang? The issue was canvassed back and forth by the distracted ministry up to the day before that fixed for the execution when a decision was reached to let the law take its course. The feeling ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... my doom, love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my she-advowson fly Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives faster than the males; And if, to measure age's span, The sober Julian ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... hoped to work wonders with her eloquence, her tears, her pleading glances. On hearing her prayer for a reprieve of twenty-four hours, swearing that after that she would never see Jeannin again, the commander and the chevalier were obliged to bite their lips to keep from laughing outright. But the former soon regained his self-possession, and while Angelique, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... arraigned by the humanitarian partisans of the prisoner. If a Judge may not deal with the fallacies of a defence by placing before the jury the true trend of the evidence, what other business has he on the Bench? And it was for thus clearly defining the issue that some one suggested a petition for a reprieve, on the ground that the evidence was purely circumstantial, and that my "summing up was against the weight of the evidence." Truly a strange thing that circumstances by ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... you goose! Write the reprieve, and let me run with it,' cries the Princess—and she got a sheet of paper, and pen and ink, and laid them ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in prison like the vilest malefactor. [24] Those who are inclined to palliate the cruelties of Constantius, assert that he soon relented, and endeavored to recall the bloody mandate; but that the second messenger, intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the eunuchs, who dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous of reuniting to their empire the wealthy provinces of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... meeting at the Homestead [expensive resort hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia, where the BAC often holds its 'work and play' sessions with high government officials and their wives], Stevens flew down from Washington for a weekend reprieve from his televised torture. A special delegation of BAC officials made it a point to journey from the hotel to the mountaintop airport to greet Stevens. He was escorted into the lobby like a conquering hero. Then, publicly, one member of the BAC after another roasted the Eisenhower Administration ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... tried for high treason (that is to say, for refusing to abjure the Covenant and to attend Episcopal worship) and condemned to death; but it has been denied that the sentence was ever carried into effect, on the strength of a reprieve granted by the Council at Edinburgh before the day of execution. That a reprieve, or rather a remand, was granted is certain, as the pages of the Council register remain to this day to testify. But it is not so certain that ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... man who had been snatched back to life in such a fashion would start and tremble at the reprieve, or would break down altogether, but this boy turned his head steadily, and followed with his eyes the direction of the officer's sword, then nodded his head gravely, and with his shoulders squared, took up a new position, straightened ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... when all were equally guilty? In his pleasant way the Captain used to tell how he acted in the dilemma. He went round to the twelve condemned wretches, and asked each man separately if, being under sentence of death, he desired a reprieve or wished for death. As luck would have it, of the twelve men, six pleaded for life and six as earnestly prayed that they might be sent to the scaffold. So the Captain hanged the six men who wished to live, and spared the six men who prayed for death to release them from their ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... has been caught red-handed from the murder of his wife. His crime is patent. He has himself confessed it under torture. His only hope of reprieve lies in the colour which he may be able to impart to it; and his speech is cunningly adapted to the nature of the Court, and to the moral and mental constitution of those of whom it is composed. His judges are churchmen: neutral on the subject of marriage; rather coarsely masculine in their idea ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... committed one error in trusting myself to such a blindfold calculation of chances as this. I committed another when Percival had paid the penalty of his own obstinacy and violence, by granting Lady Glyde a second reprieve from the mad-house, and allowing Mr. Hartright a second chance of escaping me. In brief, Fosco, at this serious crisis, was untrue to himself. Deplorable and uncharacteristic fault! Behold the cause, in my heart—behold, in the image of Marian Halcombe, the first ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... army. Szekuli, colonel of the Prussian hussars, condemned several patriotic ladies, belonging to the highest Polish families at Znawrazlaw, to be placed beneath the gallows, in momentary expectation of death, until it, at length, pleased him to grant a reprieve, couched in the most ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... the town and over the Five Towns, and it was in the Signal. The Signal spoke of Daniel Povey as 'the condemned man.' And the phrase startled the whole district into an indignant agitation for his reprieve. The district woke up to the fact that a Town Councillor, a figure in the world, an honest tradesman of unspotted character, was cooped solitary in a little cell at Stafford, waiting to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. The district determined that ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... again, and very distinctly relate the several injuries she had done him: but in all this it was observed the boy was free from any distortion; that he did not foam at the mouth, and that his fits did not leave him gradually, but all at once; so that, upon the whole, the judge thought it proper to reprieve her." Memoirs and Travels of Sir John Reresby (London, ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... the son of Saturn, Jove supreme 450 Himself afflicts, who in contentious broils Involves me, and in altercation vain. Thence all that wordy tempest for a girl Achilles and myself between, and I The fierce aggressor. Be that breach but heal'd! 455 And Troy's reprieve thenceforth is at an end. Go—take refreshment now that we may march Forth to our enemies. Let each whet well His spear, brace well his shield, well feed his brisk High-mettled horses, well survey and search 460 His chariot ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... melted with grief. She played on him with all a woman's artillery; and at last actually wrung from him what she called a reprieve. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade |
