"Inquisition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I lived in constant apprehension of being summoned to my uncle's room, and being called on for an explanation of my meeting with Captain Oakley, which, notwithstanding my perfect innocence, looked suspicious, but no such inquisition resulted. Perhaps he did not suspect me; or, perhaps, he thought, not in his haste, all women are liars, and did not care to hear what I might say. I rather lean to ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Cranbourne nodded. "In the course of the next three days Van Diest will try the persuasion of bribes and failing success you disappear, my friend, for a short inquisition." ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... Nay—He Himself submitted to be tortured; but for those who wronged Him, His prayer was only—'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO! The ministers of truth should rather suffer themselves than let others suffer. The horrors of the Inquisition are a blot on religious history; our Master never meant us to burn and torture men into faith. He desired us to love and lead them into the way of life as the shepherd leads a flock into the fold. I repeat again, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... question. The Congregation of the Council answered by a simple affirmative. In 1892, Greenwich time was introduced for State purposes into all railway, postal, and Government offices in Holland. The query was put to the Congregation of the Inquisition if the clergy and people might, for the purpose of fast and other ecclesiastical obligations, follow the new time, or were they obliged to retain the true time? The reply was "affirmative ad primam: negative ad secundam partem." "In a word, the constant Roman answer has been 'Do as you please'; ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... with the bamboo, which, when applied to the more tender parts of the body, very often, as early as the fifteenth blow, frees its victim for ever from all his earthly sufferings. Other more severe punishments, which in no way yield the palm to those of the Holy Inquisition, consist in flaying the prisoner alive, crushing his limbs, cutting the sinews out of his feet, and so on. Their modes of carrying out the sentence of death appear to be mild in comparison, and are generally confined to strangling and decapitation, although, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... of that infernal court, the Inquisition; which, though not so considerable at Rome as in Spain and Portugal, will, however, be a good sample to you of what the villainy of some men can contrive, the folly of others receive, and both together establish, in spite of the first natural principles ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the rights of a conqueror. He issued edicts abolishing the Inquisition, all feudal rights, and all particular jurisdictions; regulating the number of monks; increasing, at the expense of the monastic establishments, the stipends of the parochial clergy; and proclaiming a general amnesty, with only ten exceptions. ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... accidents to which genius is liable, and by which it is frequently suppressed in a people. The establishment of the Inquisition in Spain at one stroke annihilated all the genius of the country. Cervantes said that the Inquisition had spoilt many of his most delightful inventions; and unquestionably it silenced the wit and invention of a nation whose proverbs attest ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... cultural ancestry of the region goes, the South has been arid of thought since the time of Thomas Jefferson, the much talked-of mind of John C. Calhoun being principally casuistic; on another side, derivatives from the Spanish Inquisition could contribute to thought little more than tribal medicine men ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... means, I fear. The barbarity of these inhuman creatures is frightful, and they carry out the rites of the Inquisition to the full extent of its cruelty. However," he went on, his face clearing a little, "although I tried to dissuade him, I was not altogether unprepared for this development, and you can rely on me not to lose a point in your favour. We must outwit ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... his hateful inquisition into the homes of the Christians in Jerusalem, he will follow the fugitives to Damascus. The extension of the persectution was his own thought. He was not the tool of the Sanhedrin, but their mover. They would probably have been content to cleanse Jerusalem, but the young zealot would not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... 14th.—Avignon; wall; view from the tower of the Cathedral; visit it; paintings very beautiful; palace; inquisition; left Avignon for Beaucaire; river uninteresting; thence to Nismes by railway; poor country; asses and mules used; women shoeing them; people athletic, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... terrible things old-time religious war was the most ghastly and terrible. One can hardly credit nowadays the cold, callous cruelty of those times. Generally death was the least penalty that capture entailed. When the Spaniards made prisoners of the English, the Inquisition took them in hand, and what that meant all the world knows. When the English captured a Spanish vessel the prisoners were tortured, either for the sake of revenge or to compel them to disclose where treasure lay hidden. Cruelty begat cruelty, and it would be hard to say whether the Anglo-Saxon ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... force a man to think as you do, to draw him into what you conceive to be the true path; mildness and conciliation are much more likely to effect your object than the Emperor of China's yellow stick. The days of the Inquisition, of Judge Jefferies, and of Claverhouse, are happily gone by; and the artillery of man's wrath now vents its harmless thunders much in the same way as the thunders of the Vatican, or the recent fulmination of the Archbishop of Paris ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... putting down the rebellious, and holding high assize from place to place, that He might execute judgment and justice; beholding all the wrong that was done on earth, and coming, as it were, out of His place, at each historic crisis, each revolution in the fortunes of mankind, to make inquisition for blood, to trample His enemies beneath His feet, and to inaugurate some progress toward that new heaven and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, and righteousness alone. That vision, in whatsoever metaphors it may be wrapped up, is real and true, and ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... Socialists met their worst opposition in a corrupt church and their writings were coloured by the conflict. We are asked to stand sponsor for all they said. One might as well charge 20th century Christians with the horrors of the Inquisition! ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... long been nuncio in Spain, observes, that the people, accustomed to revere the Inquisition as the oracle of divinity, abhorred the proposal of the marriage of the Infanta with an heretical prince; but that the king's council, and all wise politicians, were desirous of its accomplishment. Gregory XV. held a consultation of cardinals, where it was agreed ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... sinister conferences with Philip of Spain and with his minister, that incarnation of cruelty and of the Inquisition, the ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... in 1532 to the government of Milan. Here too may be noticed the presence at Bologna of Girolamo Morone's son, who had been created Bishop of Modena in 1529. For him a remarkable fate was waiting. Condemned to the dungeons of the Inquisition as a heretic by Paul IV., rescued by Pius IV., and taken into highest favor at that Pontiff's Court, he successfully manipulated the closing of the Tridentine Council to the profit of the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Luther's cause from political interest, but he did not need a weapon against the Pope since the Holy See was entirely subservient to his wishes. Bigotry, inherited from Spanish ancestors, showed itself in the Emperor now. In Spain and the Netherlands he used the terrible Inquisition to stamp out heresy. The Grand Inquisitors, who charged themselves with the religious welfare of these countries, claimed control over lay and clerical subjects in the ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... reaction manifested itself in three countries hitherto allies of France, and it brought on the fifth coalition. The court of Rome was dissatisfied; the peninsula was wounded in its national pride by having imposed upon it a foreign king; in its usages, by the suppression of convents, of the Inquisition, and of the grandees; Holland suffered in its commerce from the blockade, and Austria supported impatiently its losses and subordinate condition. England, watching for an opportunity to revive the struggle on the continent, excited the resistance of Rome, ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... GOA, the large, strong, and populous metropolis of the Portuguese possessions in the east. This is the see of an archbishop, who is primate of all the east, and is the residence of their viceroys; and there are the courts of inquisition, exchequer, and chancery, with a customhouse, arsenal, and well-stored magazines. The city of Goa, which stands in an island, is girt with a strong wall, and defended by six mighty castles called Dauguim, San Blas, Bassoleco, Santiago de Agazaim, Panguim, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... this. Or, even more probably, she had invented it on the spot, to see what change she could get out of Sally. She knew that Sally, prudently exasperated, would give tongue; whereas conciliatory, cosy inquisition—the right way to approach the elderly gossip—would only make her reticent. Now it was only necessary to knit, and Sally would be sure to develop the subject. The line she appeared to take was that ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the Pope, and when he attended mass, went to the one at ten o'clock, or to the shortest, the military mass. Although in Madrid he had spoken ill of the religious orders, so as not to be out of harmony with his surroundings, considering them anachronisms, and had hurled curses against the Inquisition, while relating this or that lurid or droll story wherein the habits danced, or rather friars without habits, yet in speaking of the Philippines, which should be ruled by special laws, he would cough, look wise, and again extend his hand downwards ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... this trial is comment enough. But according to that rule no law is immoral. It was "not immoral" in 1410 to hang and burn thirty-nine men in one day for reading the Bible in English; the Catholic Inquisition in Spain was "not immoral;" the butchery of Martyrs was all right soon as lawful! ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... shall I avoid thee? or with what spell Dissolve the enchantment of thy magic cell? Ev'n Fox himself can't boast so many martyrs, As yearly fall within thy wretched quarters. Money I've none, and debts I cannot pay, Unless my vermin, will those debts defray. Not scolding wife, nor inquisition's worse; Thou'rt ev'ry mischief crammed ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... they were cramped with the Jargon of a wordy and unintelligible Philosophy, and durst not give themselves the Liberty to think in Religion, without the Boundaries fixed by the Church, for fear of Anathemas, and an Inquisition. Till those Fetters were broken, little Advance was made, for many Ages together, in any useful or solid Knowledge. In truth, every Man who makes a new Discovery, goes at first by himself; and as long as the greatest Minds are Content to go in Leading-strings, ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... better ruler than her own husband, to whom she proved nevertheless an admirable wife, acting independently only where clear principle was at stake. The two greet errors of her reign, the introduction of the Inquisition and the banishment of the Jews, must be charged to the confessor rather than to the Queen, and these were errors in which her husband was as closely involved as herself. On the other hand, some of the best reforms ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... enduring some little, that by our good use of this little trial, our Lord nay be moved to give us strength to suffer more, and may send us more to undergo. Envy raising him enemies, he was accused of shutting heaven to the rich, and upon that senseless slander thrown into the prison of the inquisition at Seville. This sensible disgrace and persecution he bore with incredible sweetness and patience, and after he was acquitted, returned only kindnesses to his calumniators. In the fiftieth year of his age he began to be afflicted with the stone, frequent ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... individuality, but only inwardly. In the midst of this turbulent society Browning creates him with the temperament of a poet, living in a solitary youth, apart from arms and the wild movement of the world. His soul is full of the curiosity of the time. The inquisition of his whole life is, "What is the life most worth living? How shall I attain it, in what way make it mine?" and then, "What sort of lives are lived by other men?" and, finally, "What is the happiest life for the whole?" The curiosity does not drive him, like the rest ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... Who claims protection from authority, Showing his confidence and his submission To that authority, can hardly be Suspected of combining to destroy it. 520 Had I sate down too humbly with this blow, A moody brow and muttered threats had made me A marked man to the Forty's inquisition; But loud complaint, however angrily It shapes its phrase, is little to be feared, And less distrusted. But, besides all ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... to their respective roads by the conjectures of 17th-century antiquarianism, Gale being their special identifier. The names themselves (except in the case of the Via Devana) are old, and three of them, the Ermine Street, the Icknield Street, and the Fosse Way, figure in the inquisition of 1070 as being, together with the Watling Street, those of the Four Royal Roads (quatuor chimini) of England, the King's Highways, exempt from local jurisdiction and under the special guard of the ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... him, and a sentence against him and his books was fulminated by the Cardinals, prohibiting the "sale and vending of the latter, and condemning him to the formal prison of the Holy Office for a period determined at their pleasure." The sentence of the Inquisition was in part couched in these words—"We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Gallileo, by reason of these things, which have been detailed in the course of this investigation, and which, as above, you have ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... the due weight of religious considerations in its philosophical studies. For it may easily happen that a particular bias or drift may characterize an Institution, which no rules can reach, nor officers remedy, nor professions or promises counteract. We have an instance of such a case in the Spanish Inquisition;—here was a purely Catholic establishment, devoted to the maintenance, or rather the ascendancy of Catholicism, keenly zealous for theological truth, the stern foe of every anti-Catholic idea, and administered by Catholic theologians; yet it in no proper sense belonged to the Church. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... later I would have to face my own soul in a rigid inquisition as to how far I had been to blame for this tragedy. I had been married less than a year, and yet my husband was involved in a horrible ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... tenures in the archives of Dublin and London, with such good success, that in a very short time 66,000 acres in Wicklow, and 385,000 acres in Leitrim, Longford, the Meaths, and King's and Queen's Counties, were "found by inquisition to be vested in the Crown." The means employed by the Commissioners, in some cases, to elicit such evidence as they required, were of the most revolting description. In the Wicklow case, courts-martial were held, before which unwilling witnesses were tried on the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... up in a sanbenito." So, now we are to answer for the inquisition. One thing is, that he makes the fathers guilty of asserting most of the corruptions about the power ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... who would destroy the Inquisition of this day by plunging his spotless blade into an Inquisition whose sun has set, ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... The superstition of the ordinary newspaper reader is just as profound, and the tyranny of the majority may be just as injurious as the superstition of a Spanish peasant, or the tyranny of the Inquisition.' ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... the organization of regular communication by water with Gallipolis, and by wagons with such positions as we might occupy further up the river. Deputations of the townspeople were informed that it was not our policy to meddle with private persons who remained quietly at home, nor would we make any inquisition as to the personal opinions of those who attended strictly to their own business; but they were warned that any communication with the enemy ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... was so terribly shaken and nervous after being hit that he was long in getting the better of the fright. Like the French prisoner whom the cruel authorities of the "Inquisition" determined should be experimented upon as a victim of imagination in the way of supposed bleeding to death, Charlie, although he had not received a scratch, thought he was dying fast, till the doctor informed him of ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... you. The quest of inquiry finding him by death acquited of the Inditement, I was let to wit y^t another Lord of litle wit, one whose imployment for the Pageant was vtterly spent, he being knowne to be Eldertons immediate heyre{21:7}, was vehemently suspected; but after due inquisition was made, he was at that time knowne to liue like a man in a mist, hauing quite giuen ouer the mistery{21:11}. Still the search continuing, I met a proper vpright youth, onely for a little stooping in the shoulders, all hart to the heele, a penny Poet, ...
— Kemps Nine Daies Wonder - Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich • William Kemp
... declined to use any discretion in the matter. When she left the room he did not return to the window, but sat down upon his box. His eye fell upon the other, a big wooden cube. Of its contents he knew nothing. He would amuse himself by making inquisition. It was nailed up. He borrowed a screwdriver and opened it. At the top lay a linen bag full of oatmeal; underneath that was a thick layer of oat-cake; underneath that two cheeses, a pound of butter, and six pots of jam, which ought to ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... about as cheerful a one in Grandcourt as an appointment made by the Court of the Inquisition would have been, once upon a time, in Spain, ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... and often illogical. Our playwright yet betrays the amateur touch. It is regrettable, too, for he chose an excellent theme and setting. The time is near the close of the sixteenth century, under the rule of Philip II. of Spain and the much-dreaded Inquisition. An inventor, a pupil of Galileo, barely escapes the Holy Office because of having discovered the secret of the steamboat. Referring to the preface again, we find Balzac maintaining, in apparent candor, that he had historic authority ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them: and forgetteth not the complaint of ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... [par. 7.] Clarendon, on the commission sent to England when the King was tried:—The Marquess of Argyle had had too deep a share in that wickedness [the delivery of the King], to endure the shock of a new dispute, and inquisition upon that subject; and therefore gave not the least opposition to their passion [of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... ten and a half acres had been gradually acquired through as many as ten grants. This land had formed part of six other holdings, and much of the rest of the land belonging to these holdings had also been alienated.[92] The Inquisition of 1517 reported numerous cases of engrossing, and Professor Gay notes some of the entries in the returns of the Inquisition of 1607 which are also interesting in this connection: W. S. separated six yardlands from a manor house and put a widow ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... justices appointed to serve the high and worshipful criminal court. Inasmuch as Mary Schweidler, the daughter of Abraham Schweidlerus, the pastor of Coserow, hath, after the appointed inquisition, repeatedly made free confession, that she hath a devil named Disidaemonia, the which did re-baptize her in the sea, and did also know her carnally; item, that she by his help did mischief to the cattle; that he also appeared to her on the Streckelberg in the likeness ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Pathetic. In this Observation however we beg leave to differ with him. In the fourth Act the whole Board of Portuguese Privy Counsellors are melted into Tears. The Trial of the Prince moves the Hearts of those Monsters of Iniquity, those Members of Inquisition, when the less humane Audience are in Danger, from the Tediousness of two insipid Harangues of falling fast asleep. This majestic Scene is too exactly copied from a Trial at the Old Bailey, to have even ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster
... grave was dug in the prison-yard, and the victims, four at a time, were led forward to the edge of the pit and shot, each batch being compelled to witness the execution of the four prisoners preceding them. With a refinement of cruelty that was only equalled by the Inquisition, he had wrung confessions from women and afterwards had them shot and buried. At Petersburg they knew these things, but he had actually been commended for his loyalty ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... of one's wits in encounters with the guards was continually nerve-frazzling. But now as the cart joggled past, the guard made a casual survey of us all, taking it for granted that I was one of the local inhabitants. For this respite from constant inquisition I was indebted to the dust, grime and sweat that covered me. It blurred out all distinction between myself and the peasants, forming a perfect ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... Naples, Sicily, and Burgundy, and with his treasures brought from Mexico and Peru; and the Pope with his armies of priests and monks, recruited from all parts of the Christian world, and armed with the weapons of the Inquisition and the thunderbolts of excommunication: let us think of their former victories, their confidence in their own strength, their belief in their divine right: and let us then turn our eyes to the small University of Wittenberg, and into the bleak study of a poor Augustine ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... comfortable and serenely dull—a room which appeared to be as unconscious of acts of mercy, and easy unreasoning over-affectionate forgiveness to offenders of any kind—juvenile or otherwise—as if it had been a cell in Newgate, or a private torturing chamber in the Inquisition. Perhaps Mr. Goodworth felt thus affected by the parlor (especially in November weather) as soon as he entered it—for, although he had promised to beg Zack off, although Mr. Thorpe was sitting alone by the table and accessible to petitions, with a book in his ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... point in the Laws of Plato is the amount of inquisition into private life which is to be made by the rulers. The magistrate is always watching and waylaying the citizens. He is constantly to receive information against improprieties of life. Plato does not seem to be aware that espionage can only have a negative effect. He ...
— Laws • Plato
... conversation of pedestrians, are in Spanish. With a knowledge of that language the stranger may make his way about as easily as in his own native country. These are the descendants of the Jews who were driven out of Spain by Torquemada and his Spanish Inquisition and were so hospitably received by ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... voluble objections, which had, for the first time during the proceedings, Joe's hearty indorsement. But the judge waved him down, and the prosecutor pressed his new line of inquisition. ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... of the Rights of Man. The Pope ordered the annulment of all that had occurred at the Comtat Venaissin, the re-establishment of the privileges of the nobles and clergy, and the reinstallation of the Inquisition in all its rigor. The pontifical decrees were affixed to ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... two months on the route? When I left Valladolid, nobody had any more thought of an insurrection than of a new deluge. All I know of it is what I have heard from public rumour—that is, so much as could be divulged without fear of the Holy Inquisition. If, moreover, we are to believe the mandate of the Lord Bishop of Oajaca, the insurrection will not find many supporters in ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... most charming spots that Nature gave to this scenic Ohio region dwelt a being—a wretch—by the name of McKinney, the tales of whose terrible deeds recall the gruesome acts of the days of the Inquisition or the horrible tortures of the fierce Iroquois. In one of the caves embowered in this leafy wilderness, where the rays of the noonday sun scarce ever fall and there reigns perpetually a cavernous gloom, dwelt this bold robber. ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... license, while I oppose licensing, I refuse not the pains to be so much historical, as will serve to show what hath been done by ancient and famous commonwealths against this disorder, till the very time that this project of licensing crept out of the inquisition, was catched up by our prelates and hath caught ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... of Shakspeare's admirable observations of life, when we should feel, that not from a petty inquisition into those cheap and every-day characters which surrounded him, as they surround us, but from his own mind, which was, to borrow a phrase of Ben Jonson's, the very "sphere of humanity," he fetched those images of virtue and ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... to the Parliament of Toulouse desired to cause annoyance to the First President (so it is said), to whom Vanini was granted considerable access, teaching his children philosophy, if indeed he was not altogether in the service of that magistrate, the inquisition was carried through rigorously. Vanini, seeing that there was no chance of pardon, declared himself, when at the point of death, for what he was, an atheist; and there was nothing very extraordinary in that. But supposing ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... Court was held there, and the gray, weather-beaten, irregular building, resembling a pile of precipitous rocks, echoed with the revels of licentious prelates. We could not enter to learn the terrible secrets of the Inquisition, here unveiled, but we looked up at the tower, from which the captive Rienzi was liberated at the intercession ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... the spectacle of this dark-eyed young woman was quite beyond the gamut of his routine experience. In a sort of charmed coma he surveyed the visitor, and found himself starting to inform the President of her arrival without a preliminary inquisition even to the extent of inquiring the nature of her business with that gentleman. Accordingly, after the briefest of intervals she found herself ushered into the office of an elderly gentleman who rose courteously to ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... be sold! nay then I have nothing to say to her— sold! what Impudence is practis'd in this Country?— With Order and Decency Whoring's established here by virtue of the Inquisition— Come let's be gone, I'm sure we're no Chapmen for ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... cultured palace-car passengers who amuse themselves with theories; who infer that because human slavery is abolished in the Occident and the thrones of the Orient are beginning to totter before the might of democracy; because science is marching on to triumph after triumph, and no Spanish Inquisition or English Court of High Commission longer casts its upas-shadow athwart the hearts of men, the great world is "growing nobler and better," I hereby tender my services to pilot them through that Perdition which does not hover ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... they were exterminated. What their religious tenets were, we shall never know. With the Vaudois, Waldenses, "poor men of Lyons," they must not be for a moment confounded. Their creed remains to us only in the calumnies of their enemies. The confessions in the archives of the Tolosan Inquisition, as elicited either under torture or fear of torture, deserve no confidence whatsoever. And as for the licentiousness of their poetry—which has been alleged as proof of their profligacy—I can only say, that it is ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... her that if he urged her more her heart would burst. Yielding to the impulse of the hunted animal, she wrenched herself free and turned to run somewhere, anywhere, so that she might avoid his merciless inquisition. A harsh laugh fell on her ears, and nothing more effective to put a stop to her ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... War upon Galileo. Concentration of the war on this new champion The first attack Fresh attacks—Elci, Busaeus, Caccini, Lorini, Bellarmin Use of epithets Attempts to entrap Galileo His summons before the Inquisition at Rome The injunction to silence, and the condemnation of the theory of the earth's motion The work of Copernicus placed on the Index Galileo's seclusion Renewed attacks ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Government is ready to further public opinion in the promotion of your riches, strength, and happiness, as well as to assist these, by disseminating through the press the political opinions of great and wise men—without fear of the Inquisition, ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... quarter of the town, and forbidden to stray beyond my limits. Or I was as a modern traveller in the same famous city, forced to quit it at last without gaining ingress to the most mysterious haunts—the innermost shrine of the Pope, and the dungeons and cells of the Inquisition. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... bigot and a tyrant, and his despotism, which included the establishment of the Inquisition, drove the people to madness, and provoked them to rebellion. During the reign of Charles V. the Reformation had made considerable progress in Germany, and its principles were firmly planted in the Low Countries. Philip imposed upon ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... not indulge in ungrounded suspicion, But truly the matter looks dark to my mind. And I trust before long a most strict inquisition Will be ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... children and inconvenient to every body, they were made the subject of a special decree, which deprived them of their freedom of movement. The Republic was always limiting the privileges of the Church! It is known how when the holy inquisition was established in its dominions in 1249, the State stipulated that great part of the process against heresy should be conducted by secular functionaries, and that the sentence should rest with ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... when I come to think of it, it seems to me that my father was the only person of my acquaintance who did not suspect that I was resolved never to wear either the black robe of Inquisition or the crimson ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... the city, with the news that a commissioner had arrived to make inquisition into the late troubles, there was a great stir and agitation throughout the community. Knots of whisperers gathered at every corner; those who were conscious of malpractices were filled with consternation; while those who had grievances, real or imaginary, to complain of, especially ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... and aggression abroad, he did not scruple to declare that the government had wilfully exaggerated domestic disturbances, in order to establish a system of oppression more intolerable than "the horrors of the inquisition of Spain," and implied that the ministers were hostile to France merely because France was, as he jeeringly said, "an unanointed republic". Windham and other whigs voted against him, and his amendment was rejected by 290 to 50. He returned to the charge, but spoke more moderately, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... alone remains, but that the most important; its examination having been, indeed, my chief inducement for the preceding inquisition. "There neither is nor can be any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition." Such is Mr. Wordsworth's assertion. Now prose itself, at least in all argumentative and consecutive works, differs, and ought to differ, from the language of conversation; ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... could have validity. They found him guilty of having taught the hateful doctrine that a priest who committed crimes could not give absolution for the crimes of others; and they held an auto de fe—which means a "sentence of faith." As we read in Lea's "History of the Inquisition": ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... life is a joy—and he is content to taste in glorious idleness the ecstasy of living. The evening closes in, and then the horizon seems to be narrowing; like the walls of the deadly chamber in the home of the Inquisition, the skies shrink inward—and the youth has misgivings. The next day finds his plain shrunken a little in expanse, and his horizon has not so superb a sweep. Nevertheless he goes gaily on, and once more he raises his voice joyously, and tries to think that the plain and the horizon ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... should write about the Middle Ages, I don't know. Dark Ages, we used to call 'em. Nobody knows what happened, and nobody cares, except that they're over now." He continued for some minutes on the uselessness of such information, touching, naturally, on the Spanish Inquisition and the ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... in more confusion than can easily be imagined; entered the torture chamber, entered the inquisition, entered the tentacles of that sly and beaming polyp, ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... bizarre and brutal business for a man of fine feeling. He would be thrust into the pitiless mouth of sensation-mongers, called to appear before tribunals, subjected to an inquisition of his fellow-men, made to endure a notoriety infinitely odious even in anticipation. Indeed, Sir Walter's simple intellect wallowed in anticipation, and so suffered much that, given exercise of restraint, he might have escaped altogether. He was brave enough, but personal bravery would not be called ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... powers of the inquisition to ascertain whether grisettes have increased or diminished since the revolution; but their number is, and always has been, immense in Paris. An object highly deserving of the attention of the French legislators would be to find a remedy for this evil. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the most elusive chaps on earth. Half London is dying to know what really goes on there, and yet, if by any chance one comes across a prospective or retrospective guest, he is as dumb about it as though it were some Masonic function. We've got you this time, Baler, though. We'll put you under the inquisition on ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... said Devers, "I must ask, in justice to myself, that one or two officers, who are friends of mine, may be present at the inquisition. I am conscious of nothing but enemies in this office, and I can expect no ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... truly modern invention, which, had it existed in the days of the Spanish inquisition, would have placed in the hands of the malevolent fanatics an instrument of exquisite torture. It is constructed to effect a double purpose, the achievement of the maximum of production and the expenditure of the minimum of human effort. It is the acme of inventive genius. To work ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... unscathed in this rigorous inquisition. Francoise inquired of everyone, neighbors, drapers, the principal, the teaching sisters at school, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... back to St. Augustine, where, as the Spanish writer affirms, they were well treated. Those of good birth sat at the Adelantado's table, eating the bread of a homicide crimsoned with the slaughter of their comrades. The priests essayed their pious efforts, and, under the gloomy menace of the Inquisition, some of the heretics renounced their errors. The fate of the captives may be gathered from the indorsement, in the handwriting of the King, on the back of the despatch of Menendez ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... religion has frequently led to the stake, and I never heard of the Spanish Inquisition being called healthy for anybody taking part in it. Still, religion flourishes. But your old-fashioned, unscientific, gilt, ginger-bread Heaven blew up ten years ago—went out. My Heaven's just coming in. ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... after nulla bona returned, a testatum be entered upon the roll, quod devastavit, a writ of inquiry shall be directed to the sheriff, and if by inquisition the devastavit be found and returned, there shall be a scire facias quare executio non de propriis bonis, and if upon that the sheriff returns scire feci, the executor or administrator may appear and traverse ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... expect any pleasantness where Lord Loudwater is concerned," said Olivia, with a sudden almost petulant impatience, for this inquisition was a much more severe strain on her than Mr. Flexen perceived. "Do you mean now, or ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... Pierre was amazed to find himself face to face with Monsignor Nani, who had just left the Vatican on his way to the neighbouring Palace of the Inquisition, where, as ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... residence, than to the spot where Galileo Galilei sleeps beneath the marble door of Santa Croce; no building on which I gazed with greater reverence, than I did upon the modest mansion at Arcetri, villa at once and prison, in which that venerable sage, by command of the Inquisition, passed the sad closing years of his life. The beloved daughter on whom he had depended to smooth his passage to the grave, laid there before him; the eyes with which he had discovered worlds before ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... villainies, and studying methods of destroying their fellow-creatures, not for their crimes but their errors; if he would not expect to meet benevolence, engage in massacres, or to find mercy in a court of inquisition, he would not look for the true church in the ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... The scription is in red and black letters, alternately. This book contains several large illuminations, and coloured borders; and I was told, by its owner, that it was the very book upon which the OATHS OF INITIATION INTO THE SPANISH INQUISITION were administered. Its condition is most perfect. The first large illumination represents a Saint, with his scull divided by a sword, and blood streaming copiously from him: a palm, with three crowns, is in his right hand; a book is in his ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... an adept in the art of inquisition. To know about her friends' affairs was one of the objects of her life, and it was not only the general facts that she insisted on knowing: she proposed to be acquainted with their deepest secrets and the smallest particulars. She knew Alice Lancaster's views, or believed she did; ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Well, any one who had beheld his spiritual self would have been obliged to concede that it weakened at that moment. It was because, of all the tortures which he had undergone in the course of this long inquisition to which destiny had doomed him, this was the most terrible. Never had such pincers seized him hitherto. He felt the mysterious stirring of all his latent sensibilities. He felt the plucking at the strange chord. Alas! the supreme trial, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... who became an English Denizen in 1748, was an Italian descendant from one of those Hebrew families whom the Inquisition forced to emigrate from the Spanish Peninsula at the end of the fifteenth century, and who found a refuge in the more tolerant territories of the Venetian Republic. His ancestors had dropped their Gothic surname on their settlement in the Terra Firma, and grateful to the God of Jacob who had ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... correspondent with those which he had given against the original inquiry. He says, "Though it may in some little degree save the Governor-General from personal insult, where there is no judicial power lodged, that of inquisition can never answer any good purpose." This is doctrine of a most extraordinary nature and tendency, and, as your Committee conceive, contrary to every sound principle to be observed in the constitution ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... them that the Sahibs will be angry and will make an inquisition and a report to the Rajah. There is also the Babu with them. Clerks ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... church of God and gold, and as a matter of course it preached that it was the supreme arbiter of life and death in matters of faith, and extended its authority into every relation of life. It brought from the lands of the Inquisition the idea of priestly power, and there was none to dispute it in Latin America, as there was in the colonies of our own country. It gave the people little instruction, and no responsibility or freedom. It made outward submission the test of piety and faith. And ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... there was a faint pink light in the sky— a perfume of lilac in the air from the window-boxes and flower-barrows. I took Eve's fingers in mine and held them. I think she knew that something in the nature of an inquisition was coming, for she sat very demure, her eyes fixed ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fleet: against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honour, the liberties, the religion—the Protestant religion—of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition, if these more than Popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us—to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connexions, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child! to send forth the ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... the glory of the schools, Writing, one day, "The Inquisition's" rules, Stopt, when the evening came, for want of light. The devils, who below from morn till night, Well pleased, had seen his work, exclaimed with sorrow, "Something he will forget before to-morrow!" One zealous imp flew upward from the place, And stood before him, with ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... them." Not only were children whipped, but many ingenious instruments of torture were invented. One instructor made his scholars sit on a "bark seat turned upside down with his thumb on the knot of a floor." Another master of the inquisition invented a unipod—a stool with one leg—sometimes placed in the middle of the seat, sometimes on the edge, on which the unfortunate scholar tiresomely balanced. Others sent out the suffering pupil to cut a branch of a tree, and, making a split in the large ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... replied, she had strength enough to torment these persons, and she should have strength enough to stand. I speaking something against their cruel proceedings, they commanded me to be silent, or else I should be turned out of the room". What a piteous picture of the awful colonial inquisition and the village Torquemada! What a grim portrait of an ancestor to hang in your memory, and to trace ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... merely consist of an inquisition of questions with appropriate answers thrown in; it surely is not mere reading; nor can it be mistaken for preaching or lecturing. These are all means that may be employed in the process of teaching. And they are important, too. We have been cautioned much, of late years, not to lose ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... how he could expose me so. JOHNSON. 'Poh, poh! (said he) they knew nothing about you, and will think of it no more.' In the afternoon the gentlewoman talked violently against the Roman Catholicks, and of the horrours of the Inquisition. To the utter astonishment of all the passengers but myself, who knew that he could talk upon any side of a question, he defended the Inquisition, and maintained, that 'false doctrine should be checked on its first appearance; that the civil power should ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... some members of our family. For five-and-twenty years afterwards she haunted us at intervals; and so singularly and secretly conducted were all her movements, that had she lived in the days of the Inquisition, Miss Jerningham might have proved one of its most valuable agents and coadjutors. She was a thin, middle-aged personage, or, more correctly speaking, of uncertain age, and without anything remarkable ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... a man will disappear with the suddenness and completeness of the flame of a candle that is blown out. All the agencies of inquisition—the hounds of the trail, the sleuths of the city's labyrinths, the closet detectives of theory and induction—will be invoked to the search. Most often the man's face will be seen no more. Sometimes he will reappear in Sheboygan or in the wilds of ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... to the foul means then employed in Spain for converting the Moors and Jews, by means of the holy office of the Inquisition.—E. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... bath-room in the house of a Spaniard; whereas with the Northern Europeans it is never wanting. The Spaniards appear to regard the bath as a species of medicine, to be used only with caution; many, even to the present day, look upon it as an institution not quite Christian. At the time of the Inquisition frequent bathing, it is known, was a characteristic of the Moors, and certainly was not wholly free from danger. In Manila, only those who live near the Pasig are the exceptions to the rule; and there the good or bad practice prevails of whole families bathing, in the company of their friends, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... the injury to his spine had made him still more so, and the mental agitation he experienced during 1852 and 1853 was enough to prevent him from ever being restored to perfect health. During these two years he must have endured nothing less than the tortures of the inquisition; and no doubt some of his Calvinistic neighbors considered it a judgment on him for his heresy. A mutilated life is not so very bad after one is used to it, but the beginning is terrible. It is like being surrounded with invisible barbed ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... persecuted any body of men conspicuous by its poverty, or if it has done so has rarely persecuted them for long. The Inquisition of Spain, violent against the wealthy Jews and comfortable Moriscos, took little notice of the Gipsies; but, then, 'Pobre como cuerpo de Gitano' was and is a common saying ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... his Excellencies letter was from beginning to the end a most abominable lie—I aver that my conduct will stand the strictest scrutiny of every military judge—I aver that my Court Martial was a Court of Inquisition—that there was not a single member with a military idea—at least if I may pronounce from the different questions they put ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... VI issued a bull against these processions. All such papal prohibitions remained without effect. The association of religious flagellation with perverted sexual motives is shown by its condemnation in later ages by the Inquisition, which was accustomed to prosecute the priests who, in prescribing flagellation as a penance, exerted it personally, or caused it to be inflicted on the stripped penitent in his presence, or made a woman penitent discipline him, such offences ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... living. He told Segrais that the ambassador one day complimented Cervantes on the great reputation he had acquired by his Don Quixote; and that Cervantes whispered in his ear, "Had it not been for the Inquisition, I should have made my book much ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... were fatigued, we were taken to the municipality, our passports collated with our persons, and at the inn we were obliged to insert in a book our names, the place of our birth, from whence we came, and where we were going. This, you will say, has more the features of a mature Inquisition, than a new-born Republic; but the French have different notions of liberty from yours, and take these things very quietly.—At Flixecourt we eat out of pewter spoons, and the people told us, with much inquietude, that they had sold their plate, in expectation ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... But Arran made his peace with the Church in 1543, and Beaton, the able but worldly Archbishop of St Andrews, and as such Knox's diocesan, became once more the leader of Scotland. He had already instituted the Inquisition throughout his see; he was now advanced to be Papal Legate; and he was fully prepared to press into execution the Acts which a few years before he and the King had persuaded the Parliament to pass. Not to be a member of the Church had always meant ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... Guffey wearied of this futile inquisition; or perhaps it occurred to him that this was too public a place for the prosecution of a "third degree"—there might be some one listening outside the door. He stopped twisting Peter's wrist, and tilted back Peter's head so that ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... avenge itself not only by the stagnation of many of the States, but by the paralysis of the great liners which depend on steerage passengers, without whom freights and fares will rise and saloon passengers be docked of their sailing facilities. Meantime the inquisition at Ellis Island has to its account cruelties no less atrocious than the ancient Spanish—cruelties that only flash into momentary prominence when some luxurious music-hall lady of dubious morals has a taste of the barbarities meted out daily to blameless and hard-working refugees from oppression ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... to Henry VII. still exists in the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey. From England he went to Spain, where he modelled a statue of the Virgin for a great nobleman. Not receiving the pay he expected, he broke his work to pieces; for which act of sacrilege the Inquisition sent him to prison, where he starved himself to death in 1522. Such at least is the legend ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... connection with so much that is strikingly evil, all of it done, or rather assented to, upon the highest and purest motives. Whether we refer to the expulsion of the Jews, the treatment of the Moorish converts, or the establishment of the Inquisition, all her proceedings in these matters were entirely sincere and noble-minded. Methinks I can still see her beautiful majestic face (with broad brow, and clear, honest, loving eye), as it looks down upon the beholder from one of the chapels in the cathedral at Granada: ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... consideration of earthly things, and wrapt in contemplation, the Sikkim Rajah has arrived at great sanctity, and is all but prepared for that absorption into the essence of Boodh, which is the end and aim of all good Boodhists. The mute conduct of his Court, who looked like attendants at an inquisition, and the profound veneration expressed in every word and gesture of those who did move and speak, recalled a Pekin reception. His attendants treated him as a being of a very different nature from themselves; and ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker |
