"Surcease" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of man have tried it... and lost. The gods know how to deal with such as you. To pursue is to possess, and to possess is to be sated. And so you, in your wisdom, have refused any longer to pursue. You have elected surcease. Very well. You will become sated with surcease. You say you have escaped satiety! You have merely bartered it for senility. And senility is another name for satiety. It is satiety's ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... her waiting on fate, alone in the cabin under Wreckers' Head, gave no surcease to her mental castigation. Her sin loomed the more huge as the hours dragged their ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... Fancy Jenny going home with half a face!" He laughed excitedly at his forced pleasantry, and the sound of his laugh was music to Jenny's ears. He was excited. He was moved. Quickly the melancholy pressed back upon her after this momentary surcease. He was excited because she was in his arms—not ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... surcease from our maladjustments: If we are denied power, influence, or love by society or by individuals, we can obtain these desiderata in our dreams. We can possess in dreams the things which we cannot have by day. In sleep the poor man becomes a Midas, the ugly woman handsome, the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... islands standeth a great city called Daryabar, wherein dwelt a king of exalted degree. But despite his virtue and his valour he was ever sad and sorrowful having naught of offspring, and he offered up without surcease prayers on that behalf. After long years and longsome supplications a half boon was granted to him; to wit, a daughter (myself) was born. My father who grieved sore at first presently rejoiced with joy exceeding at the unfortunate ill-fated birth of me; and, when I came of age to learn, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... that soon will shine, For the beckoning hand I soon shall see, For the fitful glare of the mortal sign That bringeth surcease of agony, For the dreary glaze of the dying brain, For the mystic voice that soon will call, For the end of all this passion and pain, Wilmur is ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... assumption of unconcern he did not possess. The more I think over it the more I am surprised that such keen men as the gangsters should have been frightened by what had occurred. But frightened they were, the three of them, out of their bunks and out of the precious surcease of ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... humanitarianism, benevolence, faith, hope, veneration for the Deity, and for the supernatural elements of religion. The day has gone by when the solemn, joyless preacher can command a large congregation. People to-day want a religion which is bright and cheerful, which offers a surcease from the cares and sorrows of ordinary life. They want to be cheered, encouraged, inspired, and uplifted, rather than depressed and made sad and melancholy. Therefore, the successful preacher will not permit his intense conviction of the seriousness, earnestness, and solemnity of ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... the end-of-track camp was still forty miles away, but the breaking day brought no surcease of strugglings. When it came to the bitter end, when his eyelids would close involuntarily and he would wake with a start to wonder dumbly how far the 956 had come masterless, Gallagher took a chew of tobacco and began to rub the spittle ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... An easy death! Gentle surcease of mortal breath! I sink, I stiffen, I'm foredone! The feeling though's a pleasant ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various
... of the Lotus by the brooksides sparingly, unless thou wouldst have surcease of memory, which is to become a ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... would be different! Therein, after all, lay the roots of the peace and the surcease which henceforth would be his portion. At thought of this prospect, now imminent, he uplifted his soul in a ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... his own building it seemed to him that he could obtain surcease only by reducing the self within him. As surely as he let it feel a want, all the torture came back upon him. When his pride lifted up its head, when he desired any satisfaction for himself, when he was tempted for a moment to lay down his cross, the cries came back, the sea of blood ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... arm and thigh, burnt nigh black by fierce suns, the muscles showed hard and knotted; within my body, scarred by the lash, the life leapt and glowed yet was the soul of me sick unto death. But it seemed I could not die—finding thereby blessed rest and a surcease from this agony of life as had this Frenchman, who of all the naked wretches about me, was the only one with whom I had any sort of fellowship. He had died (as I say) with the dawn, so quietly that at first I thought he but ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... orderliness of the bedroom was silence; and beyond was the vast Sunday afternoon silence of the district, producing the sensation of surcease, re-creating the impressive illusion of religion even out of the brutish irreligion that was bewailed from pulpits to empty pews in all the temples of all the Five Towns. Only the smoke waving slowly through the clean-washed sky from a few high chimneys over miles of deserted ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... and comforting legend it is for small minds, and being merciful, God may in His own way bring us to realize it, in deed and in truth. When the lonely father or the broken hearted mother tells the desolate child that legend, childhood finds surcease there for its sorrow. But when there is no God, no Heaven, no angels to whom the absent one has gone, what then do deserted mothers say?—or dishonored fathers answer? What surcease for its sorrow has the little lonely, aching heart in that sad ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... Jesus, always to the Son of God, offering him the terrible power of her adoration, addressing him as the eternal lover, growing passionate, exalted, large, as she contemplated his splendor. Thus she mounted to endurance and surcease. ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... to the son who worked for him, cared for him, worshiped him, the slightest inkling of what might have happened in the dim days of the long ago to transform him into a beaten thing, longing for the final surcease. And when the end came, it found him in readiness, waiting in the big armchair by the windows. Even now, a book lay on the frayed carpeting of the old room, where it had fallen from relaxing fingers. Robert Fairchild picked it up, and with a sigh restored it to the grim, fumed ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... nurse, whom Bruce had so nearly killed, was off duty until the night-shift should go on at the hospital. The nurse had taken advantage of this brief surcease from toil, by going for a little walk in the cool sunset air, and had carried ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... very beginning. There has never been any question before the nation, whether political or economic, religious or military, diplomatic or sociological, which did not resolve itself, soon or late, into a purely moral question. Nor has there ever been any surcease of the spiritual eagerness which lay at the bottom of the original Puritan's moral obsession: the American has been, from the very start, a man genuinely interested in the eternal mysteries, and fearful of missing their correct solution. The frank theocracy ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... woful whistle and Sandy Sawtelle valiantly strove for the true and just accord of his six strings. It was no place for a passive soul. I parted swiftly from the hammock and made over the sun-scorched turf for the ranch house. There was shelter and surcease; doors and windows might be closed. The unctuous whine of Jimmie Time ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... them as substitutes for the sacred lotus, and prison flowers never flaunted more freely. As innocent as they, he deftly, tirelessly trained each plant, caressed each opening bud, cherished it as if it were a jewel, and found surcease of the pangs of exile, easement for the restraints upon liberty, and blissful consolation. Tendance upon the garden under the strait shadow of wall was to him, not a duty, not a pastime, but a ritual. The captive was happy, for here was ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly: if the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease success: that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all; here, But here upon this bank and shoal of time We'd jump the life to come. . ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... maid forlorn from the land of snow." "What sorrow is thine, and what thy sin?" "The deepest sorrow the heart can know. I have nothing done Yet must still endeavor, Though my strength be none, To wander ever. Let me in, to seek for my pain surcease, I can ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... Signorina relighted the tea-lamp, and presently they were all talking together, jesting and offering suggestions. No matter how great the ache in the heart may be, there is always some temporary surcease. Hillard was a man. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... service and so hindred him being commanded to the conrye[1] by the churche wardens, and having the admission of the saide Richard Haie openly redd with a revocation of the former granted to the saide Hardyng. wherebye he was commanded and enioyned to surcease frome ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... in the palaces of imperial Rome and the rock strongholds of robber barons, or in the sky-aspiring hotels of modern times and in the boozing-kens of sailor-town. Just so were these men, empire-builders in the Arctic Light, boastful and drunken and clamorous, winning surcease for a few wild moments from the grim reality of their heroic toil. Modern heroes they, and in nowise different from the heroes of old time. "Well, fellows, I don't know what to say to you-all," Daylight ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... spanning the history of man from human sacrifice and idol worship, through the religions of man's upward striving, to the Medusa of rank atheism at the end of it all. Small wonder that, like old Ecclesiastes, he found vanity in all things and surcease in sugar stocks, singing boys, and ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... burnout, meltdown, disintegration; comma, colon, semicolon, period, full stop; end &c 67; death &c 360. V. cease, discontinue, desist, stay, halt; break off, leave off; hold, stop, pull up, stop short; stick, hang fire; halt; pause, rest; burn out, blow out, melt down. have done with, give over, surcease, shut up shop; give up &c (relinquish) 624. hold one's hand, stay one's hand; rest on one's oars repose on one's laurels. come to a stand, come to a standstill; come to a deadlock, come to a full stop; arrive &c 292; go out, die away; wear away, wear off; pass away &c (be ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... day to man came pledge of perfect peace, This day to man came love and unity, This day man's grief began for to surcease, This day did man receive a remedy For each offence, and every deadly sin, With guilt of heart ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... and true, and for yourself that sedan of my niece's? It's a good car. Last year's model, but only run about four thousand miles and in tiptop condition. It's always had the best of care, and I imagine it will please Mrs. P. immensely and grant you surcease from sorrow. Of course, I will not give it to you. I'll sell it to you—five hundred down upon the signing of the agreement, and in lieu of the cash, I will take over that jitney Mrs. Poundstone finds so distasteful. ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... who chose to denounce him to the inquisitor, at whose mercy were the lives and property of all. They therefore begged the Duchess Regent to despatch an envoy on their behalf, who should humbly implore his Majesty to abolish the edicts. In the mean time they requested her Highness to order a general surcease of the inquisition, and of all executions, until the King's further pleasure was made known, and until new ordinances, made by his Majesty with advice and consent of the states-general duly assembled, should be established. The petition terminated ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow, From my books, surcease of sorrow,—sorrow for the lost Lenore,— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... him, at two o'clock, that pacing the floor in the agony of suspense was a very useless occupation. He would go to bed. Morning would bring relief and surcease to his troubled mind. Constance was doubtless sound asleep in her room. Everything would have been explained to her long before this hour; she would understand. So, with the return of his old sophistry, he undressed and crawled into the strange bed. ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... I surcease, Through whom alone lives she, Ceases my Love, her words, her ways, Never ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... the sake of his mother, and that he might learn all that the Church had to teach him, the boy conscientiously tried to obey. He was reminded again that, though taught to obey, he was being trained to lead. This in a sense pleased him, as offering surcease from an erking sense of responsibility. Nevertheless, though he constantly wavered in decision; though at times the Church won him, and he yielded temporarily to her abundant charms; the spirit of protest ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... There was no uncertainty about it. More than anything else in the world, my frayed and frazzled mind wanted surcease from weariness in the way it knew surcease would come. And right here is the point. For the first time in my life I consciously, deliberately, desired to get drunk. It was a new, a totally different manifestation of John Barleycorn's power. It was not a body need for alcohol. It was a mental desire. ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... scarcely have been a true descendant of the fighting Blounts of Tennessee if the prospect of a conflict had been other than inspiring. If there were to be no Patricia in his future, ambition must be made to fill all the horizons; and since work is the best surcease for any sorrow, he found himself already looking forward in eager anticipation to the moment when he could begin the grapple, man-wise and ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... the coming of night there was no surcease, for such was my sense of my own responsibilities that my sleep was much broken. I would wake with a start from troubled slumber to remember something of importance that I had until that moment entirely forgotten. I developed a severe headache and became so distraught that to the simplest questions ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... them, and that was—I blush to say it—Melons. Melons the depredator—Melons, despoiled by larger boys of his ill-gotten booty, or reckless and indiscreetly liberal; Melons—now a fugitive on some neighboring house-top. I lit a cigar, and, drawing my chair to the window, sought surcease of sorrow in the contemplation of the fish-geranium. In a few moments something white passed my window at about the level of the edge. There was no mistaking that hoary head, which now represented to me only aged iniquity. It was Melons, ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... to pass, The soldier's, and poor lover's work e'er was. Doubtful is war and love; the vanquished rise, And who thou never think'st should fall, down lies. 30 Therefore whoe'er love slothfulness doth call, Let him surcease: love tries wit best of all. Achilles burned, Briseis being ta'en away; Trojans destroy the Greek wealth, while you may. Hector to arms went from his wife's embraces, And on Andromache[186] his helmet laces. Great Agamemnon ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... said Holmes suavely, as we entered the room and Launcelot faced about on the piano-stool toward us. "This thing called music is indeed a delightful surcease from the dull cares of the day, but finer still would be the resolution in young men of noble lineage to keep their lily-white hands off of property that is not listed on the tax-duplicate in their name, and to refrain from dishonest and secret contact with uncouth crooks from Australia, who induce ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... and saloon, the latter a quiet place that was stranger to mixed drinks and hilarity. It was sort of a neighborhood rendezvous; most of the henpecked husbands of the district sought haven there, and surcease of care with cribbage ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... hunger, for a time, and under the tattered blankets that covered them saw, perhaps, visions of enchanting lands, and in their dreams feasted at those wonderful tables which hungry children see only in sleep, to the poor woman sitting at the failing fire there came no surcease of sorrow, and no vision threw even an evanescent brightness over the hard, cold facts of her surroundings. And the reality of her condition was dire enough, God knows. Alone in the wilderness, miles from any human habitation, the trails covered deep with snow, ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... stalk after wild geese. He was furiously hungry, chilled and soaked to the bone, but riotously happy. His future seemed to stretch before him, a brighter continuation of a bright past, a time for high achievement, bold work, and yet no surcease of pleasure. He had been master of himself in that hour, his body firm and strong, his soul clear, his mind a ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... Lycia, Gaza, Ierusalem, Bethleem, to the riuer of Iordan, and the sea or lake of Zodome, and returned backe to Ioppe, and from thence by sea to Tripolis, of which places because many others haue published large discourses, I surcease to write. Within few dayes after imbarking my selfe at Tripolis the 22. of December, I arriued (God be thanked) in safety here in the riuer of Thames with diuers English marchants, the 26. of March, 1588, in the Hercules of London, which ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... an happy enlarger of the honour and reputation of your Countrey; so at length you may enioy those celestial blessings, which are prepared to such as tread your steps, and seeke to aspire to such diuine and heroical vertues. And euen here I surcease, wishing all temporal and spirituall blessings of the life present and that which is to come to be powred out in most ample measure, not onely vpon your honourable Lordship, the noble and vertuous Lady your bedfellow, and those two rare iewels, your generous off-springs, but also vpon all the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... in their holy day, and in the first colonial years these instructions were given to Governor Endicott by the New England Plantation Company: "And to the end that the Sabeth may be celebrated in a religious man ner wee appoint that all may surcease their labor every Satterday throughout the yeare at three of the clock in the afternoone, and that they spend the rest of the day in chatechizing and preparacoon for the Sabeth as the ministers shall direct." Cotton Mather wrote thus of his grandfather, old John Cotton: ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... you descend to a bottomless pit of melancholy, —well, then, why suffer, when over the bar a man will furnish you a release from agony? And so men of certain types of temperament, or with unhappy experiences, form the alcoholic habit because it gives them surcease from pain; it deals out to them, temporarily, a new world with happier mood, lessened tension ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... to the end, the Saboth may bee celebrated in a religious manner, we appoint, that all that inhabite the plantation, both for the general and particular employment, may surcease their labor, every Satterday throughout the year, at three of the clock in the afternoone, and that they spend the rest of the day in catechising and preparation for the Saboth, as the minister ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... a pity, I would throw that lovely Psyche to the ostrich in Scopas's court-yard; for, by Herakles! he would swallow your gem more easily than we can swallow such cruel taunts. We do indeed bless the Muses that work brings you some surcease of gloomy thoughts. But for the rest—I hate to speak the word gold. We want it no more than you, who, when the coffer is full, bury it or hide it with the rest. Apollodorus forced a whole talent of the yellow ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... feared an awful struggle at the last, but the death angel was pitiful, bringing surcease of suffering; and so, peacefully sped the soul of John Grant, of the —— Mississippi Regiment, happily unconscious of the end, and murmuring with his last breath, of home ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... there are mony things seen to work strange effects, q^{r}of no human witt can give a reason, it having pleasit God to give to stones and herbes special virtues for the healing of mony infirmities in man and beast, advises the brethern to surcease their process, as q^{r}in they perceive no ground of offence: And admonishes the said Laird of Lee, in the useing of the said stone to tak heed that it be used hereafter w^t the least ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... honourable burghers by whom he is at this present sustained, to maintain and defend the said post until my arrival; and to that end to encourage and hearten all men, as hitherto hath been so notably done by him, that they may not make surcease for so few days of that stedfast toil and bravery which they have heretofore shown. May God have all in ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... away, and she welcomed the night which shut out the dreary prospect. But it brought no cessation of the harassing wind without, nor surcease of the nervous irritation its perpetual and even activity wrought upon her. It haunted her pillow even in her exhausted sleep, and seemed to impatiently beckon her to rise and follow it. It brought her feverish dreams of her husband, footsore ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... allowing corn to soak in the juices of succulent fruits, to which they had added certain other ingredients best known to themselves. Ko-tan knew by experience that a single draught of this potent liquor would bring happiness and surcease from worry, while several would cause even a king to do things and enjoy things that he would never even think of doing or enjoying while not under the magical influence of the potion, but unfortunately the next morning brought suffering in direct ratio to the joy of the preceding ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... other soilure they may have gathered by the labours of the past week; not a few, likewise, are wont to practise abstinence for devotion to the Virgin Mother of the Son of God, and to honour the approaching Sunday by an entire surcease from work. Wherefore, as we cannot then completely carry out our plan of life, we shall, I think, do well to intermit our story-telling on that day also. We shall then have been here four days; and lest we should be surprised by ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... thereof." The Minister laughed and said , Allah be gracious to thee, O King of the age! Thou art none other but heedless with respect to this impostor, this liar. As thy head liveth, there is no baggage for him, no, nor a burning plague to rid us of him! Nay, he hath but imposed on thee without surcease, so that he hath wasted thy treasures and married thy daughter for naught. How long therefore wilt thou be heedless of this liar?" Then quoth the King, "O Wazir, how shall we do to learn the truth of his case?"; and quoth the Wazir, "O ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... mistake you made in not coming to me and so furfilling the old promise. To set that error right, even though it be by wronging Rudyard by one great stroke—that is better than hourly wronging him now with no surcease of that wrong. No, no, this cannot go on. You could not have it so. I seem to feel that you are writing to me now, telling me to begone forever, saying that you had given me gifts—success and love; and now to go and leave ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... door-leaves, virgin band: Enow we've played. But ye the fair New-wedded twain live happy, and Functions of lusty married pair 230 Exercise sans surcease. ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... our life prisoners is deplorable in the last degree. Not a few of them are hopelessly insane; but insanity, even, brings them no surcease of sorrow. However wild their delusions may be on other subjects, they never fail to appreciate the fact that they are prisoners. Others, not yet classed as insane, as year by year goes by, give only too conclusive evidence that reason is becoming unsettled. The terribleness ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... to make unpittied spoile. Yet my poore life, all sorrowes to assoyle, I would her yield, her wrath to pacify; But then she seeks, with torment and turmoyle, To force me live, and will not let me dy. All paine hath end, and every war hafh peace; But mine, no price nor prayer may surcease. ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... fend for itself. But you've a bonny English soul within you, and for that you are fighting. And so had poor Taffy Jones. And I have a bonny Scottish thirst, the poignancy of which both of you have been happily spared. I will leave you, laddie, to seek in slumber a surcease from martyrdom." ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... she was getting farther from the wagon as the sheep drifted and she followed. But daylight would bring surcease of suffering—she had only to endure and keep moving. So she stamped her feet and swung her arms, tied her handkerchief over her ears, rubbed her face with snow when absence of feeling told her it was freezing, and prayed for morning. Surely the storm was too severe to be a long one—it ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... if ye remember, we kept devoutly when Neifile was queen, intermitting delectable discourse, as we did also on the ensuing Saturday. Wherefore, being minded to follow Neifile's excellent example, I deem that now, as then, 'twere a seemly thing to surcease from this our pastime of story-telling for those two days, and compose our minds to meditation on what was at that season accomplished for the weal of our souls." All the company having approved their queen's devout speech, she, as the night was now far spent, dismissed them; ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... cups upon them. They thought I was generous—I could not tell them that I had not known a happy instant till this coffee pouring time. I had not recognized that it was toiling with the hands that would bring a surcease to the beating of queries at my bewildered brain. There are no answers to this war. One can only labor for it and so, strangely, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Escaped across the Styx, from "the Night's Plutonian shore," he seems the imaged soul of the questioner himself,—of him who can not, will not, quaff the kind nepenthe, because the memory of Lenore is all that is left him, and with the surcease of his sorrow even that would ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... street. In the afternoon a vast and complicated game of visiting cards is played. One does not begin to be serious till the evening; one eats then, solemnly and fully, to the faint accompaniment of appropriate conversation. And there is no relief, no surcease from utmost conventionality. It goes on night and day; it hushes one to sleep, and wakes one up. On all but the strongest minds it casts a narcotizing spell, so that thought is arrested, and originality, vivacity, individuality become a crime—a shame that must ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... there might be surcease to the loneliness, and two intelligences so unlike commune. The very unlikeness of each bringing to the other thought not yet considered, and together going on to ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... President Wilson were to address the Germans, and pronounce a severe sentence upon them, they would accept it with resignation and without a murmur and set to work at once." In German-Austria his fame was that of a savior, and the mere mention of his name brought balm to the suffering and surcease of sorrow to the afflicted. A touching instance of this which occurred in the Austrian capital, when narrated to the President, moved him to tears. There were some five or six thousand Austrian ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... thou camest, to the merciful maws of the children of the Tree of Life or the gleaming fangs of the great white apes, for there lies speedy surcease from suffering; but insist in your rash purpose to thread the mazes of the Golden Cliffs of the Mountains of Otz, past the ramparts of the impregnable fortresses of the Holy Therns, and upon your ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... him known lovingly as "OLD TOMORROW." Hail to "the Chieftain!" He lies mute to-day, But Fame still speaks for him, and shall for aye. "To-morrow—and to-morrow!" SHAKSPEARE sighs. So runs the round of time! Man lives and dies. But death comes not with mere surcease of breath To such as him. "The road to dusty death" Not "all his yesterdays." have lighted. Nay! Canada's "OLD TO-MORROW" lives to-day In unforgetting hearts, and nothing fears The long to-morrow ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... said, breathing out with the male's easy surcease from responsibility—"you women and your worries. If you 'ain't got ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... my virtuous couch to steal Some surcease from the labours of the day, Ere silence like a poultice comes to heal— In short, when I prepare to hit the hay; Ere slumber's chains (I quote from Moore) have bound me, I hear a lot ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... tired. He wanted a year of freedom from dependence, surcease of responsibility—a year to roam where he wished, foregather with whom he pleased, haunt the places congenial to him, come and go unhampered; a year of it—only one year. What remained for him to do after the year had expired ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... the previous day "openly violated, defied and set at naught the good and wholesome laws of the Province, and as great numbers were again assembled for like purposes, I warn," he said, "exhort and require you, and each of you, thus unlawfully assembled, forthwith to disperse, and to surcease all further unlawful proceedings at your peril." The reading was received with general and continued hisses, and a vote that the meeting would not disperse. Mr. Copley, the son-in-law of Mr. Clarke, inquired whether the meeting would hear the Messrs. Clarke, ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... to aid them in securing their plunder, in case the Saxon cultivator was rash enough to resist. The baronial order presently ceased to render any real service to their duke, beyond upholding him that he might uphold them. But there was no such surcease for the Saxon cultivator. The share of his cattle and crops which he was compelled to give up to the Norman baron became more rigidly defined, more strictly exacted, with every succeeding century, and the whole civil state of England was built up ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... plead for its being lightened. The courtesies that were offered to him, in so far as the Governor was warranted in offering such civilities, he took as his due; but he never craved a greater indulgence or went one step in word or in deed to obtain a surcease from his ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... domestic dramas interested, however, as much by their subject as by the excellence of his acting. Moreover, the public are apt sometimes to grow weary of burlesques,—their eternal grimacing and word-torturing and negro-singing and dancing. Themes for parody become exhausted, and, without long surcease, would not bear repetition. You may grow puns, like tobacco, until the soil is utterly worn out. The burlesque-writers, too, exhibited signs of weariness and feebleness. Planche retired into the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... magic touch. Riggs and Wimperley were, like Stoughton, keen fishermen, and while Birch fished for only one prize, all felt alike that here was a surcease after a trying morning. They ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... would kill her if she tried any more such tricks. Realizing the folly of any further attempts to outwit the half-breed, Helen rode silently on. Not once did McFann strike across a ridge. Imprisoning slopes seemed to be shutting them in without surcease, and Helen looked ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... Sometimes, I think that the less he has of it, the more important it becomes. I had thought that as I grew older my career would more and more fill my life, that youth and passion were synonymous and that with maturity would come calm and surcease. This is not the truth. The older I grow the more difficult it becomes for me to feel that work can fully satisfy a man. Nor will merely caring for a woman be sufficient. A man must care for a woman ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... kingdom, on pain of the halter: nevertheless, we have willed and ordained that the execution and accomplishment of our said letters, prohibitions and injunctions, be and continue suspended and surcease until we ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... brought relief to her pent-up heart. She had found a mother's ear for her mother's sorrow; and the after-calm of a great grief was now falling over her. She leaned her aching head on the shoulders of the older and stronger woman by whose side she sat, and at last her sorrow brought the surcease of sleep. The fire threw its fitful flicker on her haggard face, lighting up in strange relief the lines of agony and the moisture of the freshly fallen tears. Now and again she sobbed in her slumber—a sob that ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly: if the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease success; that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We 'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgement here; that we ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... crowding out of the towns have had little pleasure in the spring, and their blissful days are only now beginning. What is it to them that the seaside landlady crouches awaiting her prey? What is it to them that 'Arry is preparing to make night hideous? They are bound for their rest, and the surcease of toil is the only thing that suggests poetry to them. Spring the season for poets! We wipe away that treasonable suggestion just as we have wiped out the solstice. We holiday makers are not going to be tyrannized over by literary ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... legere, la valse legere, The free, the bright, the debonair, That stirs the strong, and fires the fair With joy like wine of vintage rare— That lends the swiftly circling pair A short surcease of killing care, With music in the dreaming air, With elegance and grace to spare. Vive! vive la valse, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... Alma Cutting; but nominally it is dubbed 'grateful requital of a life of devotion' in my lover! You grieve over my heartlessness? That is the one compensation time brings, when men and women have killed the best in our natures. Teeth ache fiercely; then the nerve dies, and we have surcease from pain, and find comfort in knowing that the darkening wreck can throb no more. There was a time when the pangs of Prometheus seemed only pastime to mine, but all things end; and now I get on as comfortably without a heart, as the victims of vivisection—the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... city, (London,) doth vouch a foreigner to warranty, that he shall come into the chancery, and have a writ to summon his warrantor at a certain day before the justices of the beach, and another writ to the mayor and bailiff of London, that they shall surcease (suspend proceedings) in the matter that is before them by writ, until the plea of the warrantee be determined before the justices of the bench; and when the plea at the bench shall be determined, then shall he that is vouched be commanded to go into the city," (that is, before "the ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... one or two courses to and fro more, to have gotten a certainty for some of their lives: but finding that it would not be, the colonel himself about sunsetting came forth and requested respite with surcease of arms till the next morning, and then he ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... crime of being Potts the wretched Colonel had now added malversation of a trust fund. But I crave surcease, while it may be mine, from the immediately troubling waters of Potts. Let me turn more broadly to our town and its good people for that needed recreation which they ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... pans! Ho, kettles and pans! The stars are the gods' but the earth, it is man's! Yet down in the shadow dull mortals there are Who climb in the tree-tops to snatch at a star: Seeking content and a surcease of care, Finding but emptiness everywhere. Then make for the mountain, importunate man! With a kettle to mend . . . and your ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... round the little cell, and back again at the handsome suffering face that seemed to have found surcease and rest in the narrow walls, with a stirring of regret. But the next moment he awakened the sleeper, and in the briefest, almost frigid, sentences, related the ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... woman particularly. Her face was an unrelieved sadness; she had fulfilled the prescribed rites, in the appointed place, but there was no surcease from the endless round of dull misery which she knew was her ordained lot. Thought J.W.: "I suppose this is a sort of joining the church, an initiation or something of that sort. Not much like what happened when I joined the church in Delafield. Everybody was glad there; here nobody ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... for an overwrought, overtired man, clothed in no restraint, to try what surcease was to be found in the bottom of a glass. But Dulac was not a drinking man. So he walked. As he walked bitterness awoke, and he cursed under his breath. Bitterness increased until it was rage, and, as man is so constituted ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... vague, mad, noble dreams of Byron, Shelley and Napoleon, the awakening found those disillusioned souls, Wagner, Nietzsche and Chopin. Wagner sought in the epical rehabilitation of a vanished Valhalla a surcease from the world- pain. He consciously selected his anodyne and in "Die Meistersinger" touched a consoling earth. Chopin and Nietzsche, temperamentally finer and more sensitive than Wagner—the one musically, the other intellectually—sang themselves ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... for the rest of my life what course I might take, and having sought all the ways to the wood to select the most proper, I concluded at the last to set up my staff at the Library door in Oxford, being thoroughly persuaded that in my solitude and surcease from the Commonwealth affairs I could not busy myself to better purpose than by reducing that place (which then in every part lay ruined waste) to the publick use ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... in a feverishly renewed search which brought no surcease of anxiety and at its end Willa dragged herself with leaden feet to her room. Her head seemed bursting and she shook as with an ague as she dressed for the tedious dinner and the still more tedious game of bridge which was the program of the evening. She dared not absent herself, ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... moods of depression, and such a mood had come to her just before Aline's arrival. Life, at that moment, had seemed to stretch before her like a dusty, weary road, without hope. She was sick of fighting. She wanted money and ease, and a surcease from this perpetual race with the weekly bills. The mood had been the outcome partly of R. Jones' gentlemanly-veiled insinuations, but still more, though she did not realize it, of ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the juvenile belligerents. Dexterously extricating the hand of the little fellow from the collar of his antagonist, she hurried the former [89] into her gateway, shouting out to him at the same time to fasten the door on the inside. This the little fellow did, and no doubt gladly, as this surcease from actual conflict, short though it was, must have afforded space for the natural instinct of self-preservation to reassert itself. Hereupon the elder of the two lads, like a tiger robbed of his prey, sprang furiously ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... thou thy course and last no longer, If they surcease to be that should survive. Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger And leave the faltering feeble souls alive? The old bees die, the young possess their hive: Then live, sweet Lucrece, live again and see Thy father die, and not thy ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... peace inherit, Guide our leaders by Thy spirit, Grant our country strength and peace. To the straying, sad and dreary, To each Christian faint or weary Grant Thou solace and surcease. ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... woman to lie At the roots of man's life, like a canker, and dry And wither the sap of life's purpose. But there Lay the bitterer part of the pain! Could he dare To forget he was loved? that he grieved not alone? Recording a love that drew sorrow upon The woman he loved, for himself dare he seek Surcease to that sorrow, which thus held him weak, Beat him down, and destroy'd him? News reach'd him indeed, Through a comrade, who brought him a letter to read From the dame who had care of Constance (it was one To whom, when at Paris, the boy had been known, A Frenchman, and friend ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... seek! Grant me the joy of wind and brine, The zest of food, the taste of wine, The fighter's strength, the echoing strife The high tumultuous lists of life— May I ne'er lag, nor hapless fall, Nor weary at the battle-call!... But when the even brings surcease, Grant me the happy moorland peace; That in my heart's depth ever lie That ancient land of heath and sky, Where the old rhymes and stories fall In kindly, soothing pastoral. There in the hills grave silence lies, And Death ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... space and independence, more quiet—surcease from meeting fellow-boarders at every step. I plan to move into an apartment, or perhaps a modest little house, if I can manage it. For I am not rich, unhappily, though I believe the boarders think I am, because I make Emma a present of a dollar each year at ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... year it was; the Grand Rebellion broke out, and my cause—the great cause—Peebles against Plainstanes, ET PER CONTRA—was called in the beginning of the winter session, and would have been heard, but that there was a surcease of justice, with your plaids, and ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... the paper and turned over one or two pages, seeking the title. It was the Matrimonial Journal! It seemed like a scurrilous joke on the part of fate. What had she to do with matrimony; with hopes for a happy, contented home and surcease of the never-ending search for the pittance that might keep her alive? She hardly knew why she folded it and ran the end into the poor little worn plush muff she carried. When she reached her room again ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... rendezvouses, thereby countenancing a malignant cause, and listing themselves under a malignant—yea, Popish banner; many subscribed and sware themselves contrary to the covenant by taking tests, oaths, and bonds, obliging them to surcease from covenanted duties, and to keep the peace and good behaviour with them, whom they were obliged by covenant to seek to bring to punishment; yea, some, and not a few, were inveigled in the snare of the oath ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... Baubles of stone when he thirsted! Surely the gods here who guarded these vanities must be laughing. If each of these crystals had only been a drop of that crystal which gives life and surcease to burning throats,—if only these bits could resolve themselves into that precious thing which they mocked ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... the land of snow." "What sorrow is thine, and what thy sin?" "The deepest sorrow the heart can know. I have nothing done, Yet must still endeavor, Though my strength is none, To wander ever. Let me in, to seek for my pain surcease;— I can find ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... upon him. The cabby who, at his initial instance, had traveled this weary way from Quadrant Mews, after the manner of his kind, ere turning back, had sought surcease of fatigue at the nearest public; from afar Kirkwood saw the four-wheeler at the curb, and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... any pensions, censes, portions, peter pence, or any other impositions to the use of the said Bishop of the See of Rome; but that all such pensions, &c. which the said Bishop or Pope hath heretofore taken - shall clearly surcease, and never more be levied or paid to any person or persons in any manner or wise." - Nothing short of the slavery and ruin of the nation would have been the consequence of their submitting to those exactions: And the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... bowed in anguish, On her ear there fell a voice, Bringing surcease to her sorrow, Bidding all ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... the 29th of July 1637—six days after the riot in St Giles—it was reported to the Privy Council by Archbishop Spottiswoode, for himself and in name of the remanent bishops, that it seemed expedient to them "that there should be a surcease of the service-booke" till the king signified his pleasure as to the punishment of "that disorderlie tumult"; and "that a course be sett down for the peaceable exercise thereof." He also reported that "the saids bishops had appointed and given order that, in the whole churches ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... but the ground[171] itself is naught, from whence Thou canst not relish out a good division: Therefore at length surcease, prove not stark-mad, Hopeless to prosecute a hapless suit: For though (perchance) thy first strains pleasing are, I dare engage mine ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... machines have now been running seventy or eighty years, and we must expect that, worn as they are, here a pivot, there a wheel, now a pinion, next a spring, will be giving way; and however we may tinker them up for a while, all will at length surcease motion. Our watches, with works of brass and steel, wear out within that period. Shall you and I last to see the course the seven-fold wonders of the times will take? The Attila of the age dethroned, the ruthless destroyer of ten millions of the human race, whose ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... have children: they darken the pale sunlight; I have none: I'm in nature's debt. The young lack wisdom; the old lack life; I have brains; but I shake at the knees; Alas! who could covet a scene of strife? Give me peace in this life's surcease!" ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... feeling of content, for, where before his future at best seemed but a void, now it was filled with possibilities the contemplation of which brought him, if not happiness, at least a surcease of absolute grief, for before him lay a great work ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not estimate the length of the symphony; but my impression was one of extreme length. Halfway through it the players both took their coats off. There was no other surcease. ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... the inquiry, what I was to say in my defence), [16] when you all thought the great thing was to discover some means of acquittal; [17] since, had I effected that, it is clear I should have prepared for myself, not that surcease from life which is in store for me anon, but to end my days wasted by disease, or by old age, on which a confluent stream of evil things most ...
— The Apology • Xenophon
... This is the blessed "surcease of sorrow" of which the crowded life of the modern city knows nothing: but, as the practical Roman indicates, it will not support life of its own mere motion. Cf. Dr. Johnson's picture of Shenstone: "He began from this time to entangle his ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... champagne bottles. The celebrated women who have stepped out of their domestic circles to enchant or astonish the world, have almost invariably been cursed with unhappy homes. But poor Sylvia was not destined to this fortune. Cast back upon herself, she found no surcease of pain in her own imaginings, and meeting with a man sufficiently her elder to encourage her to talk, and sufficiently clever to induce her to seek his society and his advice, she learnt, for the first time, to forget her own griefs; for the first ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... said Jacob Dolan, as he fumbled in his pockets, and tried to breathe away from her to hide the surcease of his sorrow, "Ah, madam," he repeated, as he suddenly thought to pull off his hat, "I did not come for you—'twas Miss Hendricks I called for; but I have one for you, too. He gave the bundle to me the last thing—poor lad, poor ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... the track Through sun-bathed space, to where his fellows dwell; The martyr, granted respite from the rack, The death-doomed victim pardoned from his cell,— Such only know the joy these exiles gain,— Life's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain. ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... lambe, or the lambes owne mothers hed. Ne certes may I take it well in part, That ye my cousin Wolfe so fowly thwart, And seeke with slaunder his good name to blot: For there was cause, els doo it he would not: 1220 Therefore surcease, good dame, and hence depart." So went the Sheepe away with heavie hart; So manie moe, so everie one was used, That to give ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... power escaped the lime-light; no delinquency, real or imaginary, of Jackson—its candidate for re-election— but was ruthlessly drawn into the open day. Even the domestic hearthstone was invaded and antagonisms engendered that knew no surcease until the last of the chief participants in the eventful struggle had descended ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... judgment be, and hereby is, awarded, that the special plea in bar, so as aforesaid pleaded, is a good and sufficient plea in bar, in law, to the indictment aforesaid, and that all proceedings on the said indictment do forever surcease, and that the said Samuel A. Worcester be, and hereby is, henceforth dismissed therefrom, and that he go thereof quit without day. And that a special mandate do go from this Court to the said Superior Court, to carry this ...
— Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, at January Term, 1832, Delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in the Case of Samuel A. Worcester, Plaintiff in Error, versus the State of Georgia • John Marshall
... placed there for the object of killing herself (or some other fox), and that she may apply it to another animal for that purpose. Furthermore, that she understands the nature of death—that it brings 'surcease of sorrow,' and that death is better than captivity for her young one. How did she acquire all this knowledge? Where was her experience of its supposed truth obtained? How could she make so fine and far-seeing a judgment, wholly out of the range of brute ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... was half crazed by the heat and the lack of fresh air, of which there was absolutely none in the closet in which he was trying to sleep. He ran down into the street nude at two o'clock in the morning in the hope of finding a surcease of his distress. A policeman saw him, remembered his blushing Comstockery in time and haled the poor lad off to a cell. The next morning the magistrate in tones of grimmest virtue sent the boy to the reformatory, remarking with appropriate jest that the ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... could never again engage in a public career, he yet might be compelled by "some unlooked-for circumstance" to make "a transient effort" for the public safety, was not put to the test until nearly three years afterward, when it was verified in the midst of those days in which he was suddenly to find surcease of all earthly care ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... only, only arms of mine! Lest like a weary girl I fall From clasping love so high, And lacking thus thine arms, then may Most hapless I Turn utterly to love of basest rate; For low they fall whose fall is from the sky. Yea, who me shall secure But I of height grown desperate Surcease my wing, and my lost fate Be dashed from pure To broken writhings in the shameful slime: Lower than man, for I dreamed higher, Thrust down, by how much I aspire, And damned with drink of immortality? For such things be, Yea, and the lowest ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... fogs came—for he arrived there in winter—he had found surcease and rest in the steady glow of a lighthouse upon the little promontory a league below his habitation. Even on the darkest nights, and in the tumults of storm, it spoke to him of a patience that was enduring and a steadfastness that was immutable. ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... This eminence with its villa appropriately bore the Greek title Pausilypon (Grief's Surcease), a compound word like our modern names Heartsease, Sans Souci, etc. It is ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio |
