"Unmerited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal of my beloved in the hour of her making them, But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that in Ligeia's more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length recognized the principle of her longing with so wildly earnest a desire for the life which was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild longing—it is this eager vehemence of desire for life—but for life—that ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... belong exclusively to the tomb,—the natural and only period of human inconstancy, with regard either to desert or to opinion: for they are the very same hands which erect, that very frequently (and sometimes with reason enough) pluck down the statue. Had such an unmerited and unlooked-for compliment been paid to me two years ago, the fragments of the piece might at this hour have the advantage of seeing actual service, while they were moving, according to the law of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... own fatherland, he seemed to feel intuitively the importance to both countries of accentuating permanent points of agreement rather than transient points of difference; hence it was that in his paper he steadily did us justice, and in Parliament was sure to repel any unmerited assault upon our national character and policy. He was clear and forcible, with, at times, a most effectively caustic utterance ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... you for the Skibo grouse and also for your kind letter. It is a solemn and absorbing thing to hear so many kind and unmerited words as I have heard and read this last week. It seems to me another man they are talking about, while I am expected to do the work. I wish a little of the kindness could be saved till I leave ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... degeneration—how often may this be ascribed to the injustice of the elements, and how often to the injustice of our social condition, which is the crowning injustice of man? Need we, at the sight of unmerited wretchedness, look to the skies for a reason, as though a flash of lightning had caused it? Need we seek an impenetrable, unfathomable judge? Is this region not our own; are we not here in the best explored, best known ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... perceived the double play of curiosity and repugnance in his hostess with a fierce amusement. He had to make some sort of poor jest, he did not know what, to account for the laugh which tore him asunder, which he could not keep in. What the joke was he did not know, but it had an unmerited success, and the carriage rattled along past the garden wall in a perfect riot of laughter from the fine lungs of the rector and Flo and Georgie and all the little ones. If any one had but known! The tragedy was horrible, but the laughter was ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... and your tone, sir, towards myself are so extraordinary, so inexplicable, and so unmerited, that there is nothing for me but to withdraw. As for this person, Mr. Ham, whom you admit to terms of such intimacy, nothing, I assure you, but the sacred shield of your household could have saved him from the punishment which his insolence deserves. However, he will not always ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... bring unmerited dishonour on grey hairs of poor old progenitor by finding him out in bribe-taking? Did he not bring my honoured father's aforesaying grey hairs in ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... teach self-help; thus hardship itself may often prove the wholesomest discipline for us, though we recognise it not. When the gallant young Hodson, unjustly removed from his Indian command, felt himself sore pressed down by unmerited calumny and reproach, he yet preserved the courage to say to a friend, "I strive to look the worst boldly in the face, as I would an enemy in the field, and to do my appointed work resolutely and to the best of my ability, satisfied that there is a reason for all; and that even irksome duties ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... ability to discharge the trust faithfully. But you enter, Signore, into all our motives, and will join us in the opinion that it is equally unbecoming the Republic, and one of its most illustrious citizens, to leave a ward of the former in a position that shall subject the latter to unmerited censure. Believe me, we have thought less of Venice in this matter than of the honor and the interests of the house of Gradenigo; for, should this Neapolitan thwart our views, you of us all would be most liable to be ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... independence and bad domestic example, indulged in the freaks of a cold-blooded vanity a little too long. Once it had, by an opening undesigned and unmerited, led him into the way of happiness. Could he have been satisfied with the conquest of one amiable woman's affections, could he have found sufficient exultation in overcoming the reluctance, in working himself into the esteem and tenderness of Fanny Price, there would have been every probability ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... have had an opportunity of seeing most of the provincial papers. They exhibit a miserable picture of the state of the press. The conduct of the editors ought, I think, to be exposed. I have been afraid that from such unmerited abuse, you would quit the Guardian in disgust, and I am glad to see that, though your mind may be as sensitive as that of any ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... was in favour then. It was after his acuteness had helped in deposing the splendid brigand Foucquet, and his power was serving France well, so well that he brought about his head the inevitable jealousy which finally threw him, too, into unmerited disgrace. ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... my brave friend!" interrupted Walter, touched at his change of manner. "Forgive such unworthy, such unmerited suspicion. This is not the first time I have had to learn your kindly care for ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... sort of intonation) I went on staring dully at his lowered eyelids. Beginning with a fear lest I should lose my place as third on the list, I went on to fear lest I should pass at all. Next, these feelings became reinforced by a sense of injustice, injured self-respect, and unmerited humiliation, while the contempt which I felt for the professor as some one not quite (according to my ideas) "comme il faut"—a fact which I deduced from the shortness, strength, and roundness of his nails—flared ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... the privilege of Professor Howes' instruction and example, but he has, during the preparation of this work, received the readiest help, advise, and encouragement from him— assistance as generous as it was unmerited, and as ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... the influence of Eppie, a child in need of love, is led up to by two distinct series of events, of which it forms the knot. The one series, which concerns itself with Marner, may be traced back to the unmerited wrong which he suffered in his youth; and the other series, which concerns itself with Eppie, may be traced back to the clandestine marriage of Eppie's father, Godfrey Cass. The initial event of one series has no immediate logical relation to the initial event of the other; ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... change which material civilisation has wrought, while it has militated against that comparatively small section of males who have nothing to offer society but the expenditure of their untrained muscular energy (inflicting much and often completely unmerited suffering upon them), has immeasurably extended the field of male labour as a whole. Never before in the history of the earth has the man's field of remunerative toil been so wide, so interesting, so complex, and in its results ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... utmost excess of cruelty and tyranny, if nations of the world, differing in colour, and form of government, from ourselves, were so possessed of empire, as to be able to reduce us to a state of unmerited and brutish servitude. Of consequence, we sacrifice our reason, our humanity, our christianity, to an unnatural sordid gain. We teach other nations to despise, and trample under foot, all the obligations ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... retaliate. Hence their prisoners were most infamously treated. Against this the Americans remonstrated, and, on finding their remonstrances disregarded, they adopted a system of retaliation which occasioned much unmerited suffering to individuals. Col. Ethan Allen, who had been defeated and made prisoner in a bold but rash attempt against Montreal, was put in irons and sent to England as a traitor. In retaliation, General Prescott, who had been taken at the mouth of the Sorel, was put ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Atonement, resting, as such a doctrine must do, on a 'forensic' or 'legal' or 'judicial' conception of man's relation to God. It is all the more astonishing when the charge is combined with what one can only decline as in the circumstances totally unmerited compliments to the clearness with which he has expressed himself. There is nothing which I should wish to reprobate more whole-heartedly than the conception which is expressed by these words. To say that ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... criminal practice, thorough judgment of men, and an extraordinary dignity of bearing. With admirable temper and self-control, he submitted to indignity and insult in the court-house, which the judge was unable to restrain, and to unmerited obloquy, without ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... was of Adelaide that Florian thought: of the tall, impulsive, and yet timid, fair girl who was both shrewd and innocent, and of her tenderly colored loveliness, and of his abysmally unmerited felicity in having won her. Why, but what, he reflected, grimacing—what if he had too hastily married somebody else? For he had earlier fancied other women for one reason or another: but this, he knew, was the great love of his life, and a love ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... years I never left my books; I went up ... and won unmerited praise. My high place I do not much prize; The joy of my parents will first make me proud. Fellow students, six or seven men, See me off as I leave the City gate. My covered couch is ready to drive away; Flutes and strings blend their ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... could not understand it. At first Abbie did not recognize her hearty lover. His huge frame was gaunt and wasted. His ruddy face was white, and his cheeks hung in folds like moulded putty. His country clothes dropped about him aimlessly. From crown to foot he had been devastated by unmerited disgrace. Grief may ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... present the paper to Dr. Sevier he had not understood the little rector's marked alacrity in accepting his service. Now it was plain enough. He was well-nigh dumfounded. The responses that came from him came mechanically, and in the manner of one who wards off unmerited buffetings from one whose ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... arisen if the Government at that critical moment had suffered itself to be deterred from upholding the only true standard of value, either by the pressure of adverse circumstances or the violence of unmerited denunciation. The manner in which the people sustained the performance of this duty was highly honorable to their fortitude and patriotism. It can not fail to stimulate their agents to adhere under all circumstances ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... Lord Aberdeen appears to have attached unmerited weight to the advice of the weak members of his own Cabinet—men who, to borrow a phrase of Lord Palmerston's, were 'inconvenient entities in council,' though hardly conspicuous either in their powers of debate or in their influence in the country. Politicians of the stamp of the Duke of ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... cajoling her as the mahout did, and assured her that she was a "Pearl" and my "Heart's Delight." Chota Begum continued walking round and round in a small circle, as did all the other elephants. I changed my tactics, and made the most unmerited insinuations as to her mother's personal character, at the same time giving her a slight hint with the blunt end of the ankus. Chota Begum continued stolidly walking round and round. Meanwhile language most unsuited to a Sunday School arose from other ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... answer, extorted perhaps by harsh words, or unmerited censure, has cost many a servant the loss of a good place, or the total forfeiture of a regard which ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... Moratin. His industry was astonishing: between October 1824 and November 1828, he composed thirty-nine plays, six of them original, the rest being translations or recasts of classic masterpieces. In 1831 he published a translation of Tibullus, and acquired by it an unmerited reputation for scholarship which secured for him an appointment as sub-librarian at the national library. But the theatre claimed him for its own, and with the exception of Elena and a few other pieces in the fashionable romantic vein, his plays were a long series of successes. His only ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... constant friend," said he, "to you,—who of all my friends alone remained true in exile, and unshaken by misfortune,—to you I will confide a secret that I would intrust to no other. I repent me already of having espoused this cause. I did so while yet the disgrace of an unmerited attainder tingled in my veins; while I was in the full tide of those violent and warm passions which have so often misled me. Myself attainted; the best beloved of my associates in danger; my party deserted, and seemingly lost but for some bold measure ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her cousin, and having to adapt her pace to the slower one, but she decidedly expected the avowal from Dolores, and thought it mean not to make it. 'And, oh, the jam!' she mourned as she went upstairs. While, on the other hand, Dolores considered what she called 'being sent to bed' an unmerited and unjust sentence given without a hearing; when their tardiness had been all Mysie's fault, not hers. She had no notion that her aunt only sent them to lie down, because they looked heated, tired, ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... those untutored inhabitants of the frozen regions vowed vengeance on the Indians, and cursed in their hearts the white men who supplied them with the deadly gun. But the curse was unmerited. In the councils of the fur-traders the subject of Esquimau wrongs had been mooted, and plans for the amelioration of their condition devised. Trading posts were established on Richmond Gulf and Little Whale River; but owing to circumstances which it is unnecessary to detail here, ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... and mutinous heats; and needed all their skill and strength to keep matters straight. It is now upon seven hundred years since the Cadet of Hohenzollern gave his hawk the slip, patted his dog for the last time, and came down from the Rough-Alp countries hitherward. And found favor, not unmerited I fancy, with the great Kaiser Redbeard, and the fair Heiress of the Vohburgs; and in fact, with the Earth and with the Heavens in some degree. A loyal, clever, and gallant kind of young fellow, if your Majesty will think? Much has grown and waned since that time: ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... of him who killed your brother. Did you love your brother? Nay, not more than did I, for I sent his soul into the void, and I would gladly have gone after it to ask God for the pardon of all his sins—and mine. Think: I hid the truth, but why? Because a woman would suffer an unmerited scandal and shame. Nothing could recall Foorgat Bey; but for that silence I gave my life, for the land which was his land. Do ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Ayrart de Montors, and had, by reason of de Montors' love for her, so goaded and allured the outcome of their talk—"ignobly," as she said,—that a clean-handed gentleman would come at three o'clock for Perion de la Foret, and guide a thief toward unmerited impunity. All this she spoke quite levelly, as one reads aloud from a book; and then, with a signal change of voice, Melicent said: "Yes, that is true enough. Yet why, in reality, do you think I have in my own person come to ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... That he thought the same; that he was feeling the injustice as a crying and unmerited wrong, was but too evident. Mr. Bitterworth had bent his head in a reverie, stealing a glance at Lionel ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Hector stared at his shoes; Peggy gave a short, staccato cough; and Arthur looked swiftly across the room, to see how Mellicent bore herself beneath this unmerited snub. She was seated on the sofa beside Eunice Rollo, slightly in advance of himself, so that only a crimson cheek was visible, and a neck reddened to the roots of the hair, but Arthur saw something else, which touched him even more than his old friend's distress—a ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... would have the right some day, perhaps, to be astonished at you. Recall to mind also that he is a boy of too remarkable abilities to be condemned to an obscure and illiterate life. Such a sentence would have been unmerited two years ago, and now, after his brilliant career at Stockholm, it would be ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... luck," like many other adages that time has kept in unmerited circulation, is a bad one. The man who trusts to luck for his clothing is apt to wear rags, and he who depends on it for food ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... pernicious conclave, of whose vile proceedings so many tales were told; these were the men, of all ranks and classes, who poured into the jealous despot's ear the venom of calumny and falsehood; these the spies and traitors who, by secret and insidious denunciations, brought sudden arrest and unmerited punishment upon their innocent fellow-citizens, and who kept the King advised of all that passed in Madrid, from the amorous intrigues of a grocer's wife, to the political ones concerted in the cabinet of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... divulged your compelling by force those who had long kept themselves apart from the contagion of heresy to yield to its detestable communion. In this, O chief[79] of human powers, I, as successor, however unmerited, in the Apostolic See, cease not to remind you that whatever may be your material power in the world, you are but a man. Review all those who, from the beginning of the Christian belief, have attempted with various purpose to persecute ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... relation, the love of power or of notoriety is sufficient to induce good men to lend a too willing ear to vulgar testimony in favour of themselves; and in our own times it is not common to repudiate the unmerited cheers of a popular assembly, or to offer a contradiction to fictitious tales which record our talents or our courage, our charity or ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... give her own little baby the only treasure she possesses, her healthy breast, should she really be so blind to her own interests, why then the case is different, and (to use Dr. Schneibel's words) not altogether unmerited, only a result of the social economy to which she does not know how to be intelligently subordinate, and which will reduce her, with the inexorable logic of the laws of civilisation, to a useless superfluity, which Society's organism rejects. ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... she was not denied. Darden came at times, sat in Mistress Stagg's sunny parlor, and talked to his sometime ward much as he had talked in the glebe-house living room,—discursively, of men and parochial affairs and his own unmerited woes. Audrey sat and heard him, with her eyes upon the garden without the window. When he lifted from the chair his great shambling figure, and took his stained old hat and heavy cane, Audrey rose also, curtsied, and sent her duty to Mistress Deborah, but she asked no questions ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Wordsworth, who treated the genius of Thomson with unmerited severity, revived descriptive poetry in a form which owed more than Wordsworth realized to the model of The Seasons. In The Excursion and The Prelude, as well as in many of his minor pieces, Wordsworth's ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... the close of our season, when the Spa was emptying and our fashionables talked more of packing their trunks than of the newest scandals, might have done me some professional damage besides bringing unmerited public laughter upon the heads of two honest gentlemen. As it was, our leading news-sheet, the Hotwells Courant, did not even smoke the affair, and so lost a nine days' wonder; while the Whig Examiner, after printing ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... system introduced by Constantine was displayed in the feeble administration of his sons; who, by their vices and weakness, soon lost the esteem and affections of their people. The pride assumed by Constans, from the unmerited success of his arms, was rendered more contemptible by his want of abilities and application. His fond partiality towards some German captives, distinguished only by the charms of youth, was an object of scandal to the people; and Magnentius, an ambitious soldier, who was himself of Barbarian ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... and although I am in the evening of life, I realize that I have not yet "finished my course." There is still much more for me to do in this sorrowful, sin-cursed world. God has, among other blessings, given me a strong physique. By his unmerited power I am keeping the faith, growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... deficiency of national charity.* It was this which, in the modified and discreet regulations that he sought to establish on his estates, Maltravers especially and pointedly attended to. Age, infirmity, temporary distress, unmerited destitution, found him a steady, watchful, indefatigable friend. In these labours, commenced with extraordinary promptitude, and the energy of a single purpose and stern mind, Maltravers was necessarily brought into contact with the neighbouring magistrates and gentry. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that every one was quite sure. Still, there was no gainsaying the fact that, churlish and morose as our skipper's normal temper always was, he was never so much so as in his behaviour towards his able fourth mate, who, being a man of fine, sensitive temper, chafed under his unmerited treatment so much as to lose flesh, becoming daily more silent, nervous, and depressed. Still, there had never been an open rupture, nor did it appear as if there would be, so great was the power Captain Slocum possessed over the will ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... all unmerited praise with the guilt of flattery, or to suppose that the encomiast always knows and feels the falsehoods of his assertions, is surely to discover great ignorance of human nature and of human life. In determinations depending not on rules, but on reference and comparison, ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... alive, but, resolved to carry vengeance to the utmost extent, he was made to undergo the torture, suffering pangs too horrible to think of. He was then conveyed to Poitiers, where he suffered at the stake, and by his unmerited fate left an indelible blot on the age in which such monstrous cruelty could be perpetrated, or such ignorant barbarity tolerated. He endured his torments with patience and resignation. While he was suffering, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... choked him to think that nature herself might preserve him from his wrath, that the old man might die before his hour of expiation could arrive. But Solomon Coe would live to feel his vengeance. His hatred was at white heat now; what would it be after twenty years of unmerited torture? To think that this terrible punishment had befallen him through such contemptible agencies—through such dull brains and vulgar hands—was maddening; and yet he must needs feed upon that thought for twenty years, and keep his senses ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... mysterious glory. I rose from my seat and returned to the house, and with that new insight and comprehension which had come to me—that message, as I could not but regard it—I now felt nothing but love and sympathy for the suffering woman who had wounded me with her unmerited displeasure, and my only desire was to show my devotion ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... the old count, which, though somewhat incoherent, had been spoken with impressiveness and dignity. The announcement of his lofty rank; the remembrance of his misfortunes, of which most present had heard, and which were universally believed to be unmerited; the assertion that Cazeneau had been the arch villain and plotter,—all combined to increase the common feeling of sympathy for the two before them. This feeling was deepened by Florian's words. His influence, but recently so strong, ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... while Eve, at once assuming an injured air for such an unmerited attack, said, "Really, Joan, I don't know what you mean. Old Poll Potter has just been telling us that Adam came flying and fuming up her way, wanting to know if she'd seen us, and then, when she said where we'd gone to, he used the most dreadful language to her—I'm ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... to embrace his friend, but the latter was slashing, mangling, in a fit of rage, the slain beast. "I accept not unmerited thanks," he answered at length, turning from the Colonel's embrace. "This same boar gored before my eyes a Bek of Tabasoran, my friend, when he, having missed him, had entangled his foot in the stirrup. I burned with anger when I saw my comrade's blood, and flew ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... the foundation for the series of disastrous events which began soon after his death, and which, in quick succession, brought the people to total ruin. The prosperity only confirmed them still more in their security. Instead of being led to repentance by the unmerited mercy of God (compare 2 Kings xiv. 26, 27), they considered this prosperity as a reward of their apostasy, as the seal by which Jehovah-Baal confirmed the rectitude of their ways. The false prophets, too, did what was in their power to strengthen them in their delusion, whilst the true ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... etiquette. She began to question herself. Had she been right? It mattered very little what the writer of a "society" paper said of her, if she had done the really right thing. What had she done? To save her father's friend from danger, to save her father from unmerited suspicion, she had gone out late in the evening with a man considerably over fifty, whom she had known from her babyhood. He had, it is true, been in the disguise of a young man. She had talked to him on the platform much as she would have talked ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... (1627-1641) was Dean of Worcester when promoted to the See of Exeter. He was a famous theological writer, and was translated to Norwich in 1641. There he suffered a great deal of unmerited persecution, which he bore bravely, though the ill-treatment of his enemies ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... rode Hubert and his fifty horsemen. They stayed not for brake, and they slacked not for ford. All the loving heart of Hubert went before him to the rescue of the friend of his boyish days; suffering, he doubted not, cruel wrong and unmerited imprisonment in a noisome dungeon. And ere the midnight hour he arrived amidst the familiar scenes, and saw at length the towers rise before him in the faint light ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... announced in the kindliest possible manner that some friends of my art, who wished to remain unknown, sympathising with my unmerited condition, had united to offer me the means of relieving my burdensome position. I considered it fitting to express my thanks for this happy consummation only to my patroness, Princess Metternich, and now set about making arrangements for the final dissolution ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... ever forget the mingled sadness and fervor of his original appeal, the actual distress written in his face, the unlimited generosity of his mood and deed as well as his unmerited self-denunciation? One pictures such tenderness and concern as existing between parents and children, but rarely between brothers. Here he was evincing the same thing, as soft as love itself, and he a man of years and some affairs ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... saw above, complained to Cromwell of the obstinacy of certain friars and monks, who, he thought, would confer a service on the country by dying quietly, lest honest men should incur unmerited obloquy in putting them to death. Among these, the brethren of the London Charterhouse were specially mentioned as recalcitrant, and they were said at the same time to bear a high reputation for holiness. In a narrative written by a member of this body, we ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... visited daily one or two thousand times. He throws a last glance over the colonies, which are becoming torpid. From the richest he takes their superfluous wealth to distribute it among those whom misfortune, unmerited always in this laborious world, may have rendered necessitous. He covers the dwellings, half closes the doors, removes the useless frames, and leaves the bees to their long winter sleep. They gather in the centre of the hive, contract themselves, and cling to the combs that ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... undermined his popularity more than any of his acts, since he touched the pockets of the people. The odium, however, fell chiefly on his ministers, especially those who received the name of the Cabal, from the fact that the initials of their names spelt that odious term of reproach, not unmerited in ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... is that this woman is quite innocent, and that the last hope of saving her from an unmerited punishment is gone. The grossest injustice has been confirmed by ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... they should thus dole out my clothes as if I were a convict in some penitentiary. They mean to degrade me. It can't be done. No man can be degraded by unmerited insult heaped upon the helpless. Such acts can only degrade their perpetrators. The day will come when the people will blush at the memory of ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... appeared to know nothing whatever; except that Miss Graham had sometimes declared herself an ill-used creature, deceived by the baseness of mankind, and the victim of unmerited sufferings, in the way of poverty and deprivation. Beyond this, Miss Tonks could tell nothing; and although she made the most of what she did know, Robert soon sounded the depth of her small stock ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... his face communicated itself by a sort of electric thrill to Theos, whose heart began to beat heavily with a sense of vague alarm. "What is this Khosrul?" he thought half resentfully—"and how dares he predict for the adored, the admired Sah-luma so dark and unmerited an end? ... "Hark! ... what was that low, far-off rumbling as of underground wheels rolling at full speed? ... He listened,—then glanced at those persons who stood nearest to him, . . no one seemed to hear anything unusual. Moreover all eyes ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... want to be absolved," sobbed Dora, dropping on her knees again, and seeking his breast. "Oh, Dick, Dick, you are braver than they know. Was it not easier to face the firing party than to endure the ignominy of this unmerited disgrace?" ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... called Charity had been trying to live up to her name, of late. That was why she was haggard. She smiled at her friend's unmerited praise. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... sunk in the world, and, instead of riding my horse and drinking my wine, as a real gentleman should, have hardly enough now to buy a pint of ale; ay, and am very glad when anybody will treat me to one. Why, why was I born to undergo such unmerited misfortunes? ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... afterwards made prisoner by Gonzalo, who was even on the point of putting him to death; but on setting out for Quito, Gonzalo took him into favour. Carvajal now followed him with good will against the viceroy, upon whom he was eager to take signal vengeance for the unmerited death of his brother; and was even followed on this occasion by about thirty of his friends and relations, who formed a separate company under his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... Christian." He has within him a perpetual inner sunshine, a perennial well-spring of peace. Never ruffled and fretted by real or imagined injuries, he puts the best construction on motives and actions, and by a gentle answer to unmerited reproach often disarms wrath. ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... Matty gave the prospect of her affairs being retrieved, for she displayed her love of pre-eminence to the very first person who gave her the good news. The ill-nature of her neighbours, however, after the birth of her child and the desertion of her husband, inducing her to leave the scene of her unmerited wrongs and annoyances, she suddenly decamped, and, removing to another part of Ireland, the poor woman began a life of hardship, to support herself and rear the offspring of her unfortunate marriage. In this task she was worthily assisted by one of her brothers, who pitied her ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... the grace of God. The word "grace" is defined by lexicographers as favor or mercy. Grace is a characteristic in the nature of God which offers mercy or favor though wholly unmerited by the recipient. Man is an offender against God. Through repentance he finds favor or grace in God's sight without any worthiness, excellence or meritoriousness in himself, but because of the merciful nature ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... for the love of Heaven, before you go!' exclaimed Eugene. 'Is there any mode, any means whereby Edouard may be rescued from this frightful, this unmerited calamity—this irretrievable ruin?' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... history of language that I cannot pass it thus slightly over. It is one which, rightly regarded, may assist to put us in a just point of view for estimating the character of the local and provincial in speech, and rescuing it from that unmerited contempt and neglect with which it is often regarded. I must here go somewhat further back than I could wish; but only so, only by looking at the matter in connexion with other phenomena of speech, can I hope to explain to you the ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... article in "The Republican Herald." This paper, indeed, devoted a column or so every day to personal criticism of the Professor, and each attack surpassed its forerunner in virulence of invective. All the young man's qualities of character came out under this storm of unmerited abuse. He read everything that his opponents put forth, replied to nothing, in spite of the continual solicitation of the editor of "The Democrat," and seemed very soon to regard "The Herald's" calumnies merely from the humorous side. Meanwhile his own speeches grew in knowledge and vigour. With ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... re-shipping in the craft. It was well I had this feeling, for, I have since heard, this very schooner got the brig the next passage out, murdered all hands, and burnt the vessel, in sight of the port! I set this escape down, as one of the many unmerited favours I ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... with which he uttered the threat alarmed Mistress Croale. He might rouse unmerited suspicion, and cause her much trouble by vexatious complaint, even to the peril of her license. She must take heed, and not irritate her enemy. Instantly, therefore, she changed her tone to ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... of Franklin standing unmoved under this torrent of abuse is, I think, the most dramatic incident of his life. It was a victory of glorious endurance; it was the crown of unmerited infamy which was needed to give depth of interest to his successful career. An eyewitness thus described the scene: "Dr. Franklin's face was directed towards me, and I had a full, uninterrupted view ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... feel that I would be unworthy, not only of your confidence and affection, but of the name and character of a gentleman, if I did not warmly partake of your just resentment at this gross and unmerited offence, offered at a moment when your conduct had entitled you to so very different a line ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... and sent Stewart and Power down the river to escape from the fate which had become inevitable to himself. It is very painful to think of the reproaches to his country and to his country's government that must have passed through the mind of that devoted man during those months of unmerited desertion. In Gordon's letter of the fourteenth of December he said: "All is up. I expect the catastrophe in ten days' time; it would not have been so if our people had kept me better informed as to ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... during so distressing a period of absence, to have written you a letter so gay and careless as my last. I confess indeed the societies of this place afforded me so much entertainment, that in the midst of generous friendship and unmerited kindness, I almost forgot the anguish of a lover, and ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... evening, and passed with him some delightful hours. The conversation at one time turned on Byron, especially on the disadvantage at which he appears when compared with the innocent cheerfulness of Shakespeare, and on the frequent and usually not unmerited blame which he drew on himself by his manifold works of negation. Said Goethe, "If Byron had had the opportunity of working off all the opposition that was in him, by delivering many strong speeches in parliament, he would have been far purer ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... discourses, Lewis Cornaro, was descended from one of the most illustrious families in Venice, but by the ill conduct of some of his relations, had the misfortune to be deprived of the dignity of a nobleman, and excluded from all honours and public employments in the state. Chagrined at this unmerited disgrace, he retired to Padua, and married a lady of the family of Spiltemberg, whose name was Veronica. Being in possession of a good estate, he was very desirous of having children; and after a long expectation of this happiness, ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... of revenge, but slowly the love—unmerited as it may have been—and the sense of loss, of loneliness, came over her like a great wave, and with her face on his still shoulder she wailed her wretched grief to the silent wilderness. When she looked up it was sundown. She realized that whoever had killed him might come ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... a proper channel for their bounty. The consequence is that it often runs in waste places, and feeds intemperance and dishonesty when it might be made to revive and nourish the hapless victims of an unmerited poverty. He then, who hath a bountiful eye, will not only be ready to distribute and willing to communicate,[4] but will also industriously look about for proper objects. He will cheerfully yield a portion of his time as well as of his wealth to the work of ...
— A Sermon Preached on the Anniversary of the Boston Female Asylum for Destitute Orphans, September 25, 1835 • Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright
... as brands from the burning! I felt my helplessness and lay at the feet of Christ. I cried, coldly, yet, I believe, sincerely, "Save me, Lord, as a brand snatched out of the fire! Stretch forth Thine almighty arm and save Thy lost creature by free, unmerited grace!"' ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... Lear, when, in Dostoieffsky's "Despised and Rejected," the uncomplaining hero drains his cup of suffering and virtue. These are notes that please the great heart of man. Not only love, and the fields, and the bright face of danger, but sacrifice and death and unmerited suffering humbly supported, touch in us the vein of the poetic. We love to think of them, we long to try them, we are humbly hopeful that we may prove ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... undying love of his country. We all know that if Kossuth would have taken wealth and a secure retreat, with a life of ease for himself, America would gladly have laid all these at his feet. But because he could not acquiesce in the unmerited dishonor of his country, he lives a life of obscurity, poverty, and labor. All this was written in his pale, worn face, and sad, thoughtful blue eye. But to me the unselfish patriot is more venerable for his poverty and ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... walked along the frontier that had been agreed upon, and at each landmark a number of boys were soundly whipped and allowed to run home! This was done in the hope that the victims would remember, as long as they lived, the spot where they had received their unmerited castigation.* The device, I have been assured, was generally very effective, but it was not always quite successful. Whether from the castigation not being sufficiently severe, or from some other defect in the method, it sometimes happened that ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... the head-waters of the Missouri in 1805, and had their perils and adventures told anonymously by one who was to become famous for many noble qualities of mind and heart, for great accomplishments and unmerited misfortunes.[A] ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... himself, or Charles XII., when at the head of their first victorious armies, could feel a greater transport in their bosoms." After reading this, some may perhaps think that Pope's epigram on Cibber[14] was not unmerited; but when they consider that thieves feel a similar exultation, they may rather be inclined to pity poor human nature. In exemplification of what we have advanced, we request attention to the following extract from Vaux. Some of his acquaintances in Newgate had informed him that Mr. ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... years. No! Demobilisation should be as swift as possible, and risks be run to make it swift. The soldier-workman who goes back to civil life within two or three months after peace is signed goes back with a glow still in his heart. But he who returns with a rankling sense of unmerited, unintelligible delay—most prudently, of course, ordained—goes back with "cold feet" and a sullen or revolting spirit. What men will stand under the shadow of a great danger from a sense of imminent duty, they ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... must be confessed, to be ruled with a feather. "An impudent rascal" at the best of times, he often "deserved a great deal and had but little." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1472—Capt. Balchen, 26 Jan. 1716-7.] But unmerited punishment, too often devilishly devised, maliciously inflicted and inhumanly carried out, broke the back of his sense of justice, already sadly overstrained, and inspired him with a mortal hatred ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... unhappy, and consequently objects highly deserving of the commiseration and friendly aid of the humane and generous.— it is hardly possible to imagine a situation more truly deplorable than that of a person born to better prospects, reduced by unmerited misfortunes to poverty, and doomed to pass his whole life in one continued and hopeless struggle with want, shame, ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... "This fierce recrimination and unmerited tirade is not exactly the welcome I was prepared to expect," returned Eugene haughtily; and, rising, he took his hat from the table. She rose also, but made no effort to detain him, and leaned her head against the mantelpiece. He watched her a moment, then approached and put his ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... 25, being the forty-ninth anniversary of his accession, the jubilee of George III. was celebrated with hearty and sincere rejoicings. His popularity was not unmerited. He was politically shortsighted, but within his range of vision few saw facts so clearly; he was obstinate and prejudiced, but his obstinacy was redeemed by a moral intrepidity of the highest order, and his prejudices were shared by the mass of his people. Having lived through the seven years' ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... apparent claims of justice afford presumptive proof, hard to be resisted, of a future state wherein there are compensations for the unmerited ills, a complement for the fragmentary experiences, and rectification for the wrongs, of the present life.15 God is just; but he works without impulse or caprice, by laws whose progressive evolution requires time to show their perfect results. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... with that superior power of misery which distinguishes the human being, and places him at a proud distance from the most melancholy chimpanzee, sat still on her bough, and gave herself up to the keen sense of unmerited reproach. She would have given the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some of it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very nice, for Maggie's palate was not at all obtuse, but she ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... numbered. But this only a few far-seeing patriots felt. And not only was Cicero banished, but his palace was burned and his villas confiscated. He was not only disgraced, but ruined; he was an exile and a pauper. What a fall! What an unmerited treatment! ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... Freeman's Journal. In this sheet, which was edited by Mr. Willcocks himself, various desirable measures of reform were advocated, and the dominant faction were from time to time referred to in opprobrious, but certainly not untruthful or unmerited language. The paper obtained a considerable circulation, and soon made its editor an object of bitter hatred on the part of the authorities. The vilest abuse was poured out upon him, and he was subjected to a course of persecution ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... that passed, and the scene at first had pressed upon her feeble mind in a way to paralyze it entirely; but, by this time she had rallied, and was growing indignant at the unmerited suffering the Indians were inflicting on her friend. Though timid, and shy as the young of the deer on so many occasions, this right-feeling girl was always intrepid in the cause of humanity; the lessons of her mother, and the impulses of her own heart—perhaps ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... turning pale and trembling; "they are unworthy of you, and wholly unmerited by me. Not to save your life, which I value as I do my own, would I commit mur—the crime that you suspect. This phial contains a simple opiate, not half so dangerous or disagreeable as the laudanum and camphor of your ship's medicine chest. The sleep produced ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Master Humphrey described himself and his manner of life," "became the property of the trunkmaker and the butterman;" and most Dickens lovers will agree with me in rejoicing that the omitted parts have now at last been tardily rescued from unmerited neglect, and finds [Transcriber's Note: sic] a place in the recently issued "Charles Dickens" edition of ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... father had formerly done devoted service to the Bourbons, and had played an important and perilous, though secret part. When their cause was lost by the elevation of Napoleon, he took refuge in the quietude of the country and domestic life, accepting the unmerited accusations that followed him as the inevitable reward of those who risk all to win all, and who succumb after serving as pivot to the political machine. Knowing nothing of the fortunes, nor of the past, nor of the future of my family, ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... ignorant that truth is the rarest thing in the world, nor are those who have been the subjects of mystifications got up in payment for wrongs, supposed or real, the most impartial judges of character or facts. As for the charge of an undue love of money, it is unmerited. Money will do less in America than in any other country of my acquaintance, and infinitely less than in either France or England. There is truth in this accusation, as applied either to a particular class, or to the body of the American people, only in one respect. ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... this dislike that had been bred not alone in the minds of the girls of the two upper classes, but among the sophomores and her own classmates as well. The sophomores thought her ridiculous; the freshmen themselves felt that she was bringing upon the whole class unmerited criticism. ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... not only altogether innocent of the murder, but altogether unconnected with it! I shall go into the great silence, into the land of forgetfulness, but of this I am sure, you, my lord, and you, gentlemen of the jury, must for ever be haunted by the thought that you have sent an innocent man to an unmerited doom." ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... ever acknowledged before. There was a consistency in him, and a courage, and an honesty of purpose. But there was no softness of heart. Had there been a grain of tenderness there, he could not have spoken so often as he had done of Mrs. Peacocke without expressing some grief at the unmerited sorrows to which that poor ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... hardly need to be told that this spirited young cadet was suffering his unmerited disgrace as keenly ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... stripped of a large part of her dominions, fled into Hungary, and with all of a beautiful woman's art of persuasion appealed to her Hungarian subjects to avenge her wrongs. Her unmerited sufferings, her beauty, her tears, the little princess in her arms, stirred the resentment and kindled the ardent loyalty of the Hungarian nobles, and with one voice, as they rang their swords in their scabbards, they swore to support the cause of their queen ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... what misfortune had she already attained the undisguised dislike of this Amazon? To what fate would this unmerited disfavor condemn her? It is a terrible thing to remain chained and helpless at such a time, to realize that cruel wrong, possibly torture, is being visited upon another, upon one you know and love, and ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... mother; of having plotted to ally her base Scotch blood to the noble blood of the Audleys; and, having exhausted every opprobrious epithet, she was forced to stop from want of breath to proceed. As Alicia listened to the cruel, unfounded reproaches of her aunt, her spirit rose under the unmerited ill-usage, but her conscience absolved her from all intention of injuring or deceiving a human being; and she calmly waited till Lady Audley's anger should have exhausted itself, and then entreated to know what part of her conduct had excited ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier |
