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More "Compunction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... closed house on the bank of the canal where Tebureimoa lay unguarded. We entered without ceremony, being in some haste. He lay on the floor upon a bed of mats, reading in his Gilbert Island Bible with compunction. On our sudden entrance the unwieldy man reared himself half-sitting so that the Bible rolled on the floor, stared on us a moment with blank eyes, and, having recognised his visitors, sank again upon the mats. So Eglon ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vague family—a shadowy aunt and uncle who shared with her an apartment in the labyrinthine hundreds. She was company, familiar and faintly intimate and restful. Further than that he did not care to experiment—not from any moral compunction, but from a dread of allowing any entanglement to disturb what he felt was the growing serenity ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... been fought and lost to me. Mr. Parasyte, roused to the highest pitch of anger and excitement, seemed to be determined to overwhelm me. He was reckless and desperate. He had smashed my boat apparently with as little compunction as he would snap a dead stick in his fingers. He was thoroughly in earnest now; and it was fully demonstrated that he intended to protect the discipline of the Parkville Liberal Institute, even if it cost a human life for him to ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... folded my arms, and stood watching him—and waiting. I knew that he could n't tell the truth without filling in the gaps in his own case. I never am deterred by any compunction over the methods I am sometimes obliged to use to make an individual, whom I know deserves no consideration, speak. With a knave like Burke I would as lief resort to thumb-screws, the boot, the rack, or even ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... refinement; and though from first to last the serious provocation in their disputes lay in the set policy of the Southern leaders, it ought to be realised that they, men who for the most part were quite kind to their slaves and had long ago argued themselves out of any compunction about slavery, were often exposed to intense verbal provocation. Nevertheless, what followed on Sumner's speech is terribly significant of the depravation of ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... If I borrowed from any one it would be from you. But my father has this very sum, five thousand pounds, and, as I tell him, I owe him so much that I have no compunction about owing ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Brotherton! I think that was the greatest triumph. She was down on him without the slightest compunction. I never saw a man so shot in my life. He sent me to look for the money, and she never left me till I had ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... Comprehensible komprenebla. Comprehension kompreneco. Compress kunpremi. Compressible kunpremebla. Comprise enhavi. Compromise kompromiti. Compromise kompromiso. Compulsion devigo. Compunction memriprocxo. Computation kalkulo. Compute kalkuli. Comrade kamarado. Concave kaveta. Conceal kasxi. Consecutive intersekva. Concede cedi. Conceit malmodesteco. Conceited malmodesta. Conceive gravedigxi. Concentrate koncentrigi. Concentric koncentra. Conception ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... absence was explained to Prince Robin that evening, not by the volcanic Mr. Blithers but by his practised and adroit better-half who had no compunction in ascribing it to the alarming condition of a very dear friend in New York,—one of the ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... sting of compunction. Theoretically, she deprecated the American wife's detachment from her husband's professional interests, but in practice she had always found it difficult to fix her attention on Boyne's report of the transactions in which his ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... campaigns he camped at the foot of the hill and learned that a wise and holy Brahmin named Shekh Selim Chishli, who resided in a cave among the rocks, exercised powerful influence among the Hindu deities. Akbar was a Mohammedan, but of liberal mind, and had not the slightest compunction about consulting with a clergyman of another denomination. This was the more natural because his favorite wife was a Hindu princess, daughter of the Maharaja of Jeypore, and she was extremely anxious to have a child. ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... that nothing remained but to die like a queen. Proudly as ever, she passed down the ranks and not a face looked pity on her, nor a voice blessed her. She was reaping what she had sown, and she who had killed without compunction the innocents who stood between her and her ambitions, was pitilessly slain, and all the land ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... sanity it must be recorded that as he passed out of the anteroom the notion of opening the street door and bolting out presented itself to this brave youth, only, of course, to be instantly dismissed: for he felt sure that the other would pursue him without shame or compunction. And the prospect of an officer of hussars being chased along the street by another officer of hussars with a naked sword could not be for a moment entertained. Therefore he followed into the garden. Behind them ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... that in Mr. Judson the linen draper I had to deal with a very different person from the Rev. Jonah Goodge. He questioned me closely as to my motive in seeking information on the subject of the departed Haygarth, and I had some compunction in diplomatising with him as I had diplomatised with Mr. Goodge. To hoodwink the wary Jonah was a triumph—to deceive the confiding linen draper was a shame. However, as I have before set down, I suppose at the falsest I am not much farther from the truth than a barrister or a diplomatist. ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... then and there, and ran away and hid. It was very silly of me, but I couldn't help it. That stings me yet. If I was ever to get a chance to pay Lou Carroll out for that, I'd take it without any compunction." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and the tears came into her eyes. She felt that she had been somewhat harsh to him; but she felt, too, with great thankfulness, that, despite this softening compunction, her heart was free and firm. She had great liking, but not a particle of love, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the moral nature of man, that it is confined at first to the family, then to the patriarchal family, then the tribe; but the fiction of kinship is still kept up, and, while the member of the primeval tribe feels he has no right to rob or murder within the limits of his tribe, he has no compunction whatever about robbing or murdering or injuring the members of some other tribe. So the moral principle in its practical working is limited to the range of the sympathy of the tribe, which does not go beyond the tribal limits. We see how that principle works still in the world, from the beginning ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... conceit as well as cruelty of men who imagine themselves the vicegerents and avengers of Deity. In His name they burn, and slay, and rob without compunction or remorse; nay, when like Sir Giles Overreach, their ears are pierced by widows cries, and undone orphans wash with tears their thresholds, they only think what 'tis to make themselves acceptable in the sight of God. Believing pious ends justify ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... of Carlos, who plays the part of the shrewd and cynical adviser to his friend, in whose genius and brilliant future he has unbounded confidence. As the result of their talk, Clavigo decides with some compunction to abandon Marie, and, as his fortunes rise, to find a more suitable mate. In the second Scene the other characters of the play are brought before us—Marie Beaumarchais, her sister Sophie, married to Guilbert, an architect, and Don Buenco, a disappointed ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... have received not a few startling confessions! Some of my friends have gone comforted away when they had made a clean breast and circumstantially given me the details of some great crime or evil that they had committed. I never experienced any difficulty, or felt the least compunction in granting them plenary absolution; I never betrayed them to the police, for I knew that of the crime confessed they were as guiltless as myself. Of course there is a good deal of pathos about their actions, but I always felt a glow ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... a relationship of pure utility humiliates man—it ignores the rights and needs of his deeper nature; it feels no compunction in maltreating and killing things of beauty that ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... fulfilment of the prediction; for it was written in the great book of fate that London was to be destroyed. Hundreds of persons, who might have rendered valuable assistance, and saved whole parishes from devastation, folded their arms and looked on. As many more gave themselves up, with the less compunction, to plunder a city which they ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... "Accident!" quoth he. "By the blood! d'ye see 'tis a strange accident, indeed, that lays two men by the heels and lets the third go without a scratch!" Delivering himself thus, he came forward into the room, and, taking the last victim of Jonathan's adventure by the arm, with as little compunction as he would have handled a sack of grain he dragged the limp and helpless figure from where it lay to the floor beside the first victim. Then, lifting the lighted candle, he bent over the two prostrate bodies, holding the illumination close to the lineaments ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... problem," said Katherine, and the remark reminded her of her humble friend Rachel. She therefore sat down and wrote her a kind, sympathetic letter, feeling some compunction for having allowed so long an interval to elapse since ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... easily reach the bow of the boat before it cleared the shore, and then it would not be necessary to make promises of any sort. Not that Rokoff would have felt the slightest compunction in ignoring any promises he might have made the girl, but he disliked the idea of having to sue for favour with one who had so recently assaulted ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Carmelite order, had dressed in white, and was engaged in singing litanies. When the summons had been read, he ordered a page to give the notary wine and cake, and then he returned to his prayers with every appearance of compunction and piety. ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... desire the African agricultural people to be considered models of perfection. Individually, or in small bodies, the mass of them are very far from being so, for they would commit any excesses without the slightest feelings of compunction. The fear of retribution alone keeps their hands from blood and plunder. The chiefs and principal men, if they have no higher motives, keep their different tribes in order, and do not molest travellers without good cause, or from provocation, as they know that protecting the traveller is the ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... while they drove in silence. Then compunction seized him and he remarked on the beauty of the foliage. She assented easily, but seemed no more relieved by the speech than embarrassed by the silence. It was impossible to treat her as a hired servant: one felt a strong personality in her. Before they ...
— In The Valley Of The Shadow • Josephine Daskam
... of the normal boy. As he chatted on about his early impressions of the Hall, his listener became aware that he regarded their first interview as the doorway of a friendship into which he had now entered. A knowledge of this fact smote Leigh with some compunction, for he had been so much absorbed in his own ulterior purpose as to regard this man in the light of a means toward its accomplishment. Now Emmet stood before him again, haying taken him at his word, innocent ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... Used to think I had some balance but evidently I am a plain nut. I'm disgusted with myself and I should think you would be more disgusted with me." The boy looked up at his uncle with eyes that were full of shamed compunction. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... that the threats held out are somewhat inconsistent with my only having a single ship, without a soldier in her; and I must even confess to some compunction at this off-hand sketch of an imaginary fleet and army—but the matter was of the last importance. On the one hand, if my demands were vigorously pressed, there was a strong probability of obtaining them without bloodshed; but, on the other hand, if any delay took place, ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... grief, regret, remorse, misery, heaviness, rue, unhappiness, contrition, dolor, agony, distress, compunction, bereavement. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... recounting the exploits and tricks of his earlier life, with a tone in which glee and compunction alternately predominated, his unfortunate auditor had sat down upon the hermit's seat, hewn out of the solid rock, and abandoned himself to that lassitude, both of mind and body, which generally follows a course of ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... peculiar treachery of this process which fixes upon falsehood a stamp of meanness quite exceptional; and renders it impossible, I think, to yield to its inducements, even in cases supposed to be venial, without a disgust little distinguishable from compunction. This must have been Kant's feeling when he said: 'A lie is the abandonment, or, as it were, the annihilation of ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... compunction Price broke the seal of the intercepted letter and read it aloud to me. It was a shocking thing, accusing me with Martin, and taunting my husband with the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... instead of being persuaded by him, and this in itself pleased her and restored her self-respect; her previous relations with Stanbury and Schenk suffered by comparison, and if she secretly hoped for the death or removal of Mme. Poussette it was with soft womanly compunction and pity, and with stern resolves not to overstep the ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... to have no distinct perception that certain actions are right, and others wrong. In infancy, we frequently perceive the most rebellious outbreakings of ungoverned passion, with tearing, and scratching, and beating the parent, without any indication of compunction, either at the time, or after it has taken place. Even in children of more advanced years, while they remain without moral instruction, and before the reasoning powers are developed, the injuries which they occasion to each other, or which they inflict upon ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... information. His fierce temper, and the fact that he had no powerful house behind him to help to support his case, probably made him reckless. In April, 1355, six months after his arrival in Venice as doge, the smouldering fire broke out. Two of the conspirators were seized with compunction on the eve of the catastrophe and betrayed the plot—one with a merciful motive to serve a patrician he loved, the other with perhaps less noble intentions—and, without a blow struck, the conspiracy collapsed. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... a man who believes in impulses. I made what was perhaps a rash proposition. But you must remember, that I had been alone, play-writing in Lympne, for fourteen days, and my compunction for his ruined walk still hung about me. "Why not," said I, "make this your new habit? In the place of the one I spoilt? At least, until we can settle about the bungalow. What you want is to turn over your work in your mind. That ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... unsatisfactory self-defence, but Sophy, when shown how ungenerous her conduct had been, crimsoned deeply, and though uttering no word of apology, wore a look that gave her step-mother for the first time a hope that her sullenness might not be so much from want of compunction, as from want of ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... might send them or not, as he chose; but she knew he would. This was the spirit of her letter, and her training had not taught her to soften and sweeten her phrase; but no doubt the old man, who was like her, would understand that she felt no compunction for what she had done, and that she loved him though ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... did have no use fer Chinks," said the mucker, as though in extenuation of his suggestion that they murder the youth. For some unaccountable reason he had felt a sudden compunction because of his thoughtless remark. What in the world was coming over him, he wondered. He'd be wearing white pants and playing lawn tennis presently if he continued to grow much softer and ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... must confess, I owed to my skill as a chess-player, a game of which he was particularly fond, and in which I had attained no small proficiency. I was too young and too unpracticed in the world to make my skill subordinate to my chief's, and beat him at every game with as little compunction as though he were only my equal, till, at last, vexed at his want of success, and tired of a contest that offered no vicissitude of fortune, he would frequently cease playing, to chat over the events of the time, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... passing it over—but we had tasted nothing that morning, and we had rode for eight hours, and were dying of hunger! Moreover we travelled with a cook, a very tolerable native artist, but without sentiment—his heart in his stew-pan; and he, without the least compunction, had begun his frying and broiling operations in what seemed the very vestibule of Pharaoh's palace. Our own mozos and our Indian guides were assisting in its operations with the utmost zeal; and in a few minutes, some sitting round the fire, and others upon broken pyramids, we refreshed ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... tears on reading the tender and pious letter addressed to him by the dying hand of Catherine; and he marked by several small but expressive acts, the respect, or rather the compunction, with which the recollection of her could not fail to inspire him. Anne Boleyn paid to the memory of the princess-dowager of Wales—such was the title now given to Catherine—the unmeaning compliment ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... of the owner was written. As he passed the second counter he observed a well-filled basket and he stopped to examine the name. "Mrs. John P. Matthews," was written on the slip. This was his basket, thought he, calmly and without compunction. Then he began to price the articles on the shelves near by. This was his style ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... that all this was false, as, unless certain conditions were promptly complied with, Toro would certainly kill both of them without the slightest hesitation or compunction. ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... Keep a firm rein upon these bursts of passion; 530 Remember what these men have dealt to thee, And that this sacrifice will be succeeded By ages of prosperity and freedom To this unshackled city: a true tyrant[eb] Would have depopulated empires, nor Have felt the strange compunction which hath wrung you To punish a few traitors to the people. Trust me, such were a pity more misplaced Than the late mercy ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... touched me on the back with the coarse velvet of his nose. Then followed two quick snorts of alarm; the horses shied simultaneously outward, while down on the ground between them came two souls with but a single thud, two hearts that squelched as one. In spite of the compunction and sympathy I felt, modesty compelled me to glide unobstrusively away, leaving the souls to disentangle themselves and catch their horses the best way ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... was left, while his companions went fossil-hunting, and stayed so long as to excite their compunction, and quicken their steps when they at length detached themselves ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... than compunction in these confessions. Spencer's mind was so narrowly systematized, that he was at last almost incapable of believing in the reality of alien ways of feeling. The invariable arrogance of his replies to criticisms shows his absolute self-confidence. Every opinion in the world had ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... before he climbed into the berth over Northwick's, he locked the door, and put the key under his pillow. Northwick did not seem to notice him, but a feeling of compunction made him put the key back in the door. "I guess I'd better leave it there, after all," he said. "It'll stop a key from the outside. Well, sir, good-night," he added to Northwick, and climbed to his berth with a light heart. Toward morning he was wakened by a groaning from the lower ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... younger brother invaluable for running errands. And you'll continue to fetch and carry, enduring all things from her and Bernard much as you do from me. When I do go—which won't be just yet—I shan't feel the faintest compunction about leaving you behind. I'm sure Bernard's honour will be as safe in your hands as it is ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... has absolved her from all her feelings of humanity? "The parting!" Where has she lived not to know how, according to our lecturers, families are parted at the auction-block in the Southern States without the least compunction? We are constantly told,—has she not heard it?—that the slave at the South is a mere "chattel," and that a slave-child is bought and sold as recklessly as a calf, and that a parting between a slave-mother and her children, sold and separated for life, is an ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... that could only be wiped out with blood. On each and all of these occasions, the sword was ready to the right hand; and where this generous weapon would not reach, the harquebuss and knife of paid assassins were employed without compunction.[183] We must not, however, ascribe this condition of society wholly or chiefly to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... grazing. I paddled to within fifty yards of him, and, though I found that my rifle would not go off and had to change it for another, with considerable movement, the deer took no notice of us, and I dropped him in his tracks with a feeling of compunction only overcome by the fact that we had no breakfast if he went away. So peaceful was our realm! I have often paddled within easy shot of a deer on other waters, but only by remaining motionless when he was ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... madame was distressed, but she did not know all the reasons why. Madame had been very good to her, and Bessie felt sorry; but to leave school for home was such a natural, inevitable episode in the course of life in the Rue St. Jean that, beyond a momentary regret, she had no compunction. Mr. Cecil Burleigh proceeded to lay open his arrangements. He was on his road to Paris, where he might be detained from ten to fifteen days, but madame should receive a letter from him when the precise time of his return was fixed. After he had spoken to this effect he rose to take leave, ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... appalling news came from the Assembly: Dr. Willard, while making one more passionate appeal for the asylum, had fallen dead in the presence of the committee. The result was a deep and wide- spread feeling of compunction, and while we were under the influence of this I sought Judge Folger and showed him his opportunity to do two great things. I said: "It rests with you to remedy this cruel evil which has now cost Dr. Willard his life, and at the same time to join us in carrying the Cornell University ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... he. He tries to shove off his responsibility upon them, and they are quite willing to take it. Their consciences are not easily touched. Fanatical hatred which thinks itself influenced by religious motives is the blindest and cruellest of all passions, knowing no compunction, and utterly unperceptive of the innocence ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... appearing to forget at table everything he had said to me in our walk, I should instantly have cancelled such a judgement on reflecting that the good news his wife was able to give him about their little boy was ground enough for any optimistic reaction. It may have come partly, too, from a certain compunction at having breathed to me at all harshly on the cool fair lady who sat there—a desire to prove himself not after all so mismated. Dolcino continued to be much better, and it had been promised him he should come downstairs after his dinner. As soon as we had risen from our own ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... the rules of war. Yet Washington seems to have considered that he had only acted in the character of a just judge. He could imagine that Arnold was undergoing "the torments of a mental hell," for the part he had acted in this transaction, but he felt no compunction for his own unjust and uncalled-for severity—he could see the mote in Arnold's eye, but could not discover the beam which was in his own. As regards Arnold he was probably correct. After the death of Andre that renegade issued addresses to the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... communicated the strange prediction of the weird sisters, and its partial accomplishment. She was a bad, ambitious woman, and so as her husband and herself could arrive at greatness, she cared not much by what means. She spurred on the reluctant purpose of Macbeth, who felt compunction at the thoughts of blood, and did not cease to represent the murder of the king as a step absolutely necessary to the fulfilment of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... me to look after them, I should have done so on my own account. I do not forget that in choosing a public teacher one is apt to give offence, but on behalf of your brother's sons I must risk giving offence and even incurring animosity with as little compunction as a parent would in looking after ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... the lion; but now that he saw the old man lying helpless and dying before him something akin to pity touched his savage heart. In his youth he would have slain the witch-doctor without the slightest compunction; but civilization had had its softening effect upon him even as it does upon the nations and races which it touches, though it had not yet gone far enough with Tarzan to render him either cowardly or effeminate. He saw an old man suffering and dying, and he stooped and felt of ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... patriarchal age of 1000 numbers could not be kept waiting. Then "Lord Jim," with about seventeen pages already written at odd times, put in his claim which was irresistible. Thus every stroke of the pen was taking me further away from the abandoned "Rescue," not without some compunction on my part but with a gradually diminishing resistance; till at last I let myself go as if recognizing a superior influence against which it was ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... and patted her shoulder with a queer compunction that had never troubled him before in his dealings ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... partial wandering of the mind that took the poor old woman away on this old-witch flight; and it was very curious and pitiful to witness the compunction with which she returned to herself and took herself to task for the preference which, in her wild nature, she could not help giving to harum-scarum wickedness over tame goodness. Now she tried to compose herself, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ungovernable passions, they indulge, without compunction, in falsehood, duplicity and the desecration of every virtue!... and yet think a pure love can condone and survive such unpardonable wrongs. They lightly weigh the tribute due to the refinement of a woman's heart. Their devotion is characterized by a singular ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... and the man of peace and letters, whose temperament shrank from contention of any kind, could not but congratulate himself upon an incidental triumph for which it was impossible to feel the smallest compunction. Moreover, he had gained his point. It was enough for him to know that there was a certain secret in Steel's life, upon which the wretch Abel had admittedly traded, even as his superior Minchin had apparently intended to do before him. Only those two seemed to have ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... himself. The uproar had frightened away all the other buffaloes, so, with the bodies of the one I had killed, and the ape, we forthwith returned to the camp to enjoy a hearty breakfast. The natives cut up the body of the ape, and ate it with as little compunction as they would have done mutton or beef. Charley and Harry, who were close behind me when I fired, declared that they had never seen better shots in their lives. "I felt that much depended on my taking ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the sea, he only saw the more clearly the darkness of the guilt in which he believed, and was more bitterly repelled by the motive at which he guessed. But now at least his zeal was awake again, and the sense of the hunt quickened. He would neither slacken nor spare; here need be no compunction. In the course of the day, he hoped, his net would be complete. He had work to do in the morning; and with very vivid expectancy, though not much serious hope, he awaited the answer to the telegram which he had shot into the sky, as it were, ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... he was left quite free to choose his own expressions; and as he has acknowledged his shame and compunction for the act, I trust that none of you will be tempted to elevate him into a hero, for a folly which he himself so much regrets. This affair,—as I should wish all bad deeds to be after they have once been punished,—will now be forgiven, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... the cause of Harley's silence).—"I honour your compunction, my Lord. Oh, let your heart and your conscience continue to speak to your ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... may not have supposed it, Proserpina found it impossible to take leave of poor King Pluto without some regrets, and a good deal of compunction for not telling him about the pomegranate. She even shed a tear or two, thinking how lonely and cheerless the great palace would seem to him, with all its ugly glare of artificial light, after she herself—his ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... the entrails of a carpet sweeper. His vision was blurred and he had no control over his muscles. Weakly he leaned against the table in front of the jury, the room swaying about him. The pains of hell gat hold upon him. He was dying. Even the staff felt compunction—all ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... were uttered in a tone of voice, that told his hearer of the sincerity of that which was spoken. Ali knew the character of the Malays too well to entertain any doubt. There would not be the slightest compunction in the matter; and knowing this, he lay there watching the men, as they slowly settled down once more around the blazing dammar-torch they ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... anxiously, apprehensive lest an open quarrel had actually taken place. He knew well that Josef Blot, alias Weirmarsh, was not a man to be trifled with. If Sir Hugh had served his purpose, as he no doubt had, then he would be betrayed to the police without compunction, just as others ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... will turn out well for either of us. Think it over. It will take us a long time to go the round of the farms and exploit the men, and all the time the suitors will be wasting your estate with impunity and without compunction. Prove the women by all means, to see who are disloyal and who guiltless, but I am not in favour of going round and trying the men. We can attend to that later on, if you really have some sign from Jove ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... I give, not as matter of glory, but shame: yet I ought to tell you all the truth, or nothing. 'Meantime,' thought I, (for I used to have some compunction for my vile practices, when cool reflection, brought on by satiety, had taken hold of me) 'I wish this sweet girl was grown to years of susceptibility, that I might reform this wicked course of life, and not prowl about, disturbing honest folks' peace, and endangering myself.' And as I had, by a ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the garden, and given them the timely warning. This was for him a greater relief than Fanny expected; for, after the first feeling of pride and delight at having gained his lovely prize, Delphin had felt more and more compunction in his inmost heart every time he thought of Madeleine. He was not willing to break off with Fanny—this was more than he dared to do; but, careless and clever as he was, he thought that he would be able for the present to keep up the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... but she knew it —knew it well; yet she offered that grace—offered it in a time when such a thing was unknown in war; in a time when it was custom and usage to massacre the garrison and the inhabitants of captured cities without pity or compunction—yes, even to the harmless women and children sometimes. There are neighbors all about you who well remember the unspeakable atrocities which Charles the Bold inflicted upon the men and women and children of Dinant when he took that place some years ago. It was a unique and kindly grace which ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... people who do not see the war, especially neutrals, are shocked at the destruction of churches. The Germans have been taught an unpleasant lesson in this in the case of Rheims. Therefore they answer by falsifying a film when it suits their purpose with just as little compunction ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... an unclean Humbug, in which Greed is God and Gall is recognized high-priest. We now consider our fortunes rather than our affections, acquire a husband or wife much as we would a parrot or a poodle, and get rid of them with about as little compunction. Cupid now feathers his arrows from the wings of the gold eagle and shoots at the stomach instead of the heart. Love without law makes angels blush; but law without love crimson even the brazen brow ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... not think that any landholder of this class, in the Bangur district, would feel much compunction for the commission of any crime that did not involve their expulsion from caste, or degradation in rank. Great crimes do not involve these penalties: they incur them only by small peccadillos, or offences deemed venal among other societies. The Government ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... his compunction, thought more of the matter than any one else, except his daughter. Had Winterborne been going on in the old fashion, Grace's father could have alluded to his disapproval of the alliance every day with the greatest frankness; but to speak any further on the subject ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... The feelings of compunction with which Halbert Glendinning was visited upon this painful occasion, were deeper than belonged to an age and country in which human life was held so cheap. They fell far short certainly of those which might have afflicted a mind regulated by better religious ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... it cannot be written that Bowen felt some compunction at what he was doing. We like to think that, when a man deliberately commits a crime, he should hesitate and pay enough deference to the proprieties as to feel at least a temporary regret, even if he goes on with his crime afterward. ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... got back Sue was making a pretence of doing some housewifery as if she lived there. But she seemed timid at his approach, and compunction wrought on him at ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... elder Mrs. Duncombe's own daughter was over, so that there might be room for her, and she was thankful for the reprieve, which left her able to spend Christmas among the privileges she had only learnt to value just as she was deprived of them. She looked at Mrs. Poynsett, half in curiosity, half in compunction, as she remembered how she had helped to set Cecil ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... evening, when the dew began to fall, and the shadows of men lengthened, and sing to her father songs of the land of the shades of evil men, songs which told of the crimes they had committed, and their repentance, and guilt, and compunction, and shame, and death. Though Moshup appeared to care little for any body, he nevertheless loved his little daughter, as he called her, whose head peered over the tallest trees, and whose voice was heard upon the main land. He shewed by many signs how much he loved his daughter. He ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... surrounding her face, which was all the more baby-like in its prettiness from the entire concealment of her hair. The poor child was weary, and it seemed to have gone to sleep in that half-standing, half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, our stranger had no compunction in awaking her. She opened her baby-blue eyes, and stared up with ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... presence or absence of the divine sentiment in man. By fault of our dulness and selfishness, we are looking up to nature, but when we are convalescent, nature will look up to us. We see the foaming brook with compunction; if our own life flowed with the right energy, we should shame the brook. The stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not with reflex rays of sun and moon. Nature may be as selfishly studied as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, mesmerism (with intent to show ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... we still did; no sailor has the least compunction at even running down a privateer. Mercy to privateersmen is unknown. "Give them the stem," is the word, the curs being regarded by Jack at the best as highwaymen; so, when he found we still peppered away, and sailing two feet for our one, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... boy!" answered the Countess, "as well may you ask a hungry lion to feel compassion, as a prejudiced and furious people to do justice. They are like the madman at the height of frenzy, who murders without compunction his best and dearest friend; and only wonders and wails over his own cruelty, when he is recovered from ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... years did him much harm in his youth. But there is no need to quote from so well-known md accessible a book; whoever opens it will not lay it down il] the last page. Cardano admits that he cheated at play, that e was vindictive, incapable of all compunction, purposely cruel in his speech. He confesses it without impudence and without feigned contrition, without even wishing to make himself an object of interest, but with the same simple and sincere love of fact which guided him in his scientific ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... Sir," said Mrs. Makebelieve, "that you were mistaken in your opinion. My daughter is not old enough yet to be thinking of marriage and such like. Children do be thoughtless. I am sorry for all the trouble she has given you, and"—a sudden compunction stirred her, for the man was standing up now, and there was no trace of Mrs. O'Connor visible in him: his face was as massive and harsh as a piece of wall. "Don't you be thinking too badly of us now," said Mrs. ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... faithful—always on the watch for any clue to the mystery of Marian Holbrook's fate, always ready to receive the wanderer with open arms, should any happy chance bring her back to the Grange. Assured of this, he felt less compunction in turning his back upon the spot where his lost love had vanished ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... hand to hand, jeered at for a while, and finally flung back to me as lies—lies all! The finely spun web of any fancy,—the delicate interwoven intricacies of thought,—these were torn to shreds with as little compunction as idle children feel when destroying for their own cruel sport the velvety wonder of a moth's wing, or the radiant rose and emerald pinions of a dragon-fly. I was a fool—so I was told with many a languid sneer and stale jest—to talk of hidden mysteries in the whisper ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... he may have saved in his pocket, is allowed so much as half a biscuit beyond his proper ration. Any riotous person who endangered the safety of the rest would be bound, and laid in the bottom of the boat, without the smallest compunction, for such violation of the principles of individual liberty; and, on the other hand, any child, or woman, or aged person, who was helpless, and exposed to great danger and suffering by their weakness, would receive more than ordinary care and indulgence, not unaccompanied with ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... laid down the tiny paw he had taken in his. It was limp as the hand of a dead girl. Clo would have felt less compunction if he had dropped it roughly. He took a few brisk steps, as though he had come to some decision. She forced herself back from the brink of unconsciousness to realize that he was going toward the door—not the outer door, through which she had entered, but another. He opened this, and Clo saw ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... are mountaineers. Not one of them has a religion or a creed. Nor is there anything which they [consider it right to] abstain from or to avoid [as impure]; but they do whatever they list, and follow their desires without check or compunction. Baluristan is bounded on the east by the province of Kashgar and Yarkand; on the north by Badakhshan; on the west by Kabul and Lumghan; and on the south by the dependencies of Kashmir. It is four months' journey in circumference. Its whole ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Brumley found himself fairly launched upon this expedition he had the grace to feel compunction. The Harmans, he perceived, had inadvertently made him the confidant of their domestic discords and to betray them to these others savoured after all of treachery. And besides much as he had craved to see Lady Harman again, he now realized he didn't in the least want to see her ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... shewed a singular implacability in her dealings with the rest of the world. In spite of which my aunt still retained her, for, while conscious of her cruelty, she could appreciate her services. I began gradually to realise that Francoise's kindness, her compunction, the sum total of her virtues concealed many of these back-kitchen tragedies, just as history reveals to us that the reigns of the kings and queens who are portrayed as kneeling with clasped hands ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... answered—"I say it to my shame, but I cannot see you in this poor place without compunction. It is not my single thought, nor my first; and yet it's there! I would gladly see you delivered. I do not offer it in love, and far from that; but, as God judges me—and I wonder at it too!—quite ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but life is the more precious the harder one has to labor to sustain it. We value things according to their cost. In the tropics, where no man need work, human life is held cheaply. Men die and kill without compunction; they excite revolutions and overthrow governments, sparing neither themselves nor others. But in Norway, as in Switzerland, where it is a ceaseless struggle from the cradle to the grave, there is more national pride and patriotism than in any land, and ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... me? Take up your sword, man, and do my bidding; thus shall you have a slender chance of life. Refuse and I pistol you without compunction. So now put on that ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people to the house more, and she assented, rather listlessly. So Peter hinted to Peggy, who had a cheering presence, that Rhoda would be glad to see her more often, and Peggy made what time she could to come round. Their circle of friends was limited; they ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... measure, must be gravely informed by Messrs. Clay, Norvell, Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and other honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they know not whereof they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted they can demand without compunction a violation ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... often meant to leave, but somehow, when the time comes, I stay on. His life seems to be made up of brutalities, small and large. He ruins a man with as little compunction as one could fancy him, in his younger days, pulling the legs from a fly. I have never seen him do a kindly action. And yet, all the time I find myself watching for it. A situation arises, and I say to myself: 'Now I am going to see ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... do, but she would do anything, sacrifice anything, to secure again that fatal document which, in George Fournel's hands, must bring a collapse worse than death. A dozen plans flashed before her, and now that her mind was set upon the thing, compunction would not stay her. She had gone so far, she was prepared to go further to save this Seigneury to Louis. She put in her pocket the silver-handled pistol ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... it self into three Rivulets, viz. Of Compunction, Compassion, Devotion; or Sobs of Nature sanctified by Grace. Languaged in several Soliloquies and prayers upon various Subjects, for the benefit of all that are in Affliction, and particularly for these present times, by John Featley, Chaplain ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... honest days that were no more had had their merits after all. Raffles would plan a fresh enormity, or glory in the last, with the unmitigated enthusiasm of the artist. It was impossible to imagine one throb or twitter of compunction beneath those frankly egotistic and infectious transports. And yet the ghost of a dead remorse seemed still to visit him with the memory of his first felony, so that I had given the story up long before the night ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... whistled. "But in that case you'll have no compunction in leaving him without saying 'goodbye.' Let's go and get ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... words Lenox started as it a cold finger-tip had touched his heart. Such a thought had never occurred to him: and he could have murdered, without compunction, the small self-satisfied woman who had lodged the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... and they—though they still don't fully understand it—are penned there in their heaven-offending, monstrous, horrible plant at the Falls, no true man can hesitate to smash them down with no more compunction than as though they were so many rattlesnakes ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... man with his knife and I have seen him kill one of the guards whom he had thought was favouring me in the matter of diet with less compunction than ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... bar your path. Winnington is a good fellow, but a thickheaded Philistine all the same. You spoke to me about him with compunction. Have no compunctions. Go straight forward. Women have got to shew themselves ruthless, and hard, and cunning, like men—if they are ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... look through the proofs of this little treatise, a twinge of compunction comes upon me. That humane philosopher Mr. Dooley has somewhere a saying to this effect: "When an astronomer tells me that he has discovered a new planet, I would be the last man to brush the fly off the end of his telescope." ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... touch of pity and compunction as she remembered these things, and suddenly she lifted to her lips ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... further reply, but somehow she felt an unuttered conviction, on the part of the man there beside her, of Joe's loss of heritage. And yet a certain compunction prevented her from making any explanation—that it was not Joe's fault. There was a sort of sacred inviolability about it. A hot little wave of feeling swept over her. She had treated Joe miserably. She had yielded to ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... is not a self-inflicted compunction, but a Christ-inflicted crucifixion. Our Lord was done with the cross when on Calvary he cried: "It is finished." But where he ended each disciple must begin: "If any man will come after me let him deny himself and ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... her head against Tavia's shoulder. Whatever compunction Tavia had felt for her part in the unfortunate state of affairs, she felt at ease now in the thought that she had saved this girl. That the hospital men were attending to Morrison, and that he would soon be out of reach of harming her, ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... is comforting. If only I could accept her as a human creature. But when I think of her callous reception of the tidings of the unhappy boy's death, my spirit fails me. Such a being would run a carving-knife into you, as you slept, without any compunction, and when you squeaked, she would laugh. Look at her base ingratitude to the good Hamdi Effendi, who took her in before she was born and has treated her as a daughter all her life. No: her spiritual ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... gentleness, the incessant kindness, the matchless generosity of these people seemed all a mockery. What availed it all when the same hand that heaped favors upon me, the guest, could deal death without compunction upon friends and relatives? It seemed quite possible for the Kohen to kill his own child, or cut the throat of his wife, if the humor seized him. And how long could I hope to be spared among a people who had ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... affairs, we naturally came to the conclusion that the sooner we changed that state the better. Our excursion to Topsham would, we supposed, prove a very disagreeable business to him; but we knew it would result very agreeably for us, and so, though with a good deal of maidenly compunction and granddaughterly compassion on Julia's part, we ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... foot of a big pine-tree, just where the pass narrows to a wild ravine. As he took out the slice of bread and meat neatly wrapped about with brown paper, his thoughts reverted with a certain sore compunction to the hand that had prepared it for him. It had been his mother's farewell service, and he somehow realized now as he had not realized at the time, how much all those careful preparations meant, to her and to himself. He remembered ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... wondering where we've got to," said Lord Poynter guiltily, recalling his mind from a distance and lapsing into silence. And Eric felt compunction in helping to cut short the man's one half-hour ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist. My arguments perverted some others, particularly Collins and Ralph; but, each of them having afterwards wrong'd me greatly without the least compunction, and recollecting Keith's conduct towards me (who was another freethinker), and my own towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine, tho' it might be true, was not very useful. My London pamphlet, which ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... Edith was visited with severe compunction; an intrusive uncomfortable feeling that she had never before been thus compelled to entertain. For looking back upon the past two years she perceived that her conduct as mistress of that drawing-room and house had not always been as fastidious ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... him, and this in itself pleased her and restored her self-respect; her previous relations with Stanbury and Schenk suffered by comparison, and if she secretly hoped for the death or removal of Mme. Poussette it was with soft womanly compunction and pity, and with stern resolves not to overstep ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... reasons why. Madame had been very good to her, and Bessie felt sorry; but to leave school for home was such a natural, inevitable episode in the course of life in the Rue St. Jean that, beyond a momentary regret, she had no compunction. Mr. Cecil Burleigh proceeded to lay open his arrangements. He was on his road to Paris, where he might be detained from ten to fifteen days, but madame should receive a letter from him when the precise time of his return was fixed. After he had spoken to this effect he rose to take ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... Kid," said Jane with compunction in her voice. "Just let yourself down a little like I do, and remember you don't wear silk onderclothes now. I'm afraid those stockings won't feel very good after yours, but you gotta be careful. An' 'f I was you I'd cut my hair off, I really would. It's an awful pity, ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... sense of right and wrong, and by whom these poor wanderers of the woods are looked upon as intruders in their own country, or as vermin that infest the land, and whose blood may be shed with as little compunction as that of the wild ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... her things; he might send them or not, as he chose; but she knew he would. This was the spirit of her letter, and her training had not taught her to soften and sweeten her phrase; but no doubt the old man, who was like her, would understand that she felt no compunction for what she had done, and that she loved him though she ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... sentry-boxes in the square reeled round and fell, while a cloud of filth and dust obscured the fallen monster, and men looked awe-struck at one another like naughty children who had broken something which they ought not to have dared to touch. The moment of compunction was a short one, and a howling throng rushed with one accord into the noisome cloud, fighting and quarrelling for bits of bronze and stone, and a man near me drew back, half stifled for an instant, saying, with disgust, "See what a stench ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... once. All vermin meet their fate from these destroyers. Food, clothing, necessaries, superfluities, mere trash, and valuable property, are alike in their regard, and equally acceptable to their digestive powers. They would devour this journal with as little compunction as so much blank paper—and a sermon as readily as the journal—nor would either meal lie heavy on their stomachs. They float on your coffee, and crawl about your plate, and accompany the victuals ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... not welcome this old-time greeting, and she drew away her hand, saying, "not allowed. Naughty man! Express proper compunction, or you can't ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... own handkerchief, she wet it and laid it on his palm, across which a red gash ran. He had moved close to her, stooping down, and a disturbing thrill ran through him as she held his hand. Once more, however, he was troubled by a sense of compunction as he recalled his interview ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... that early in the summer I did some translations for Miss Thomson's 'Classical Album,' from Bion and Theocritus, and Nonnus the author of that large (not great) poem in some forty books of the 'Dionysiaca' ... and the paraphrases from Apuleius? Well—I had a letter from her the other day, full of compunction and ejaculation, and declaring the fact that Mr. Burges had been correcting all the proofs of the poems; leaving out and emending generally, according to his own particular idea of the pattern in the mount—is ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... to the middle like the rest of the party, besides splashes over face and hat, I could get no dirtier than I was already. I got without compunction into a canoe some three feet wide; and was shoved by three Negroes down a long winding ditch of mingled mud, water, and mangrove-roots. To keep one's self and one's luggage from falling out during the journey was no easy matter; ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... neither fear nor compunction in asserting that authority which would be his to the full to-morrow. He felt that there was a vein of rebellion in Elsa's character, and this he meant to drain and to staunch till it had withered to nothingness. It would never do for him—of all men—to have a rebellious ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... upstairs and unlock my suit-case and take from it the leather purse-belt with the Ambulance funds in it, and I bring it to the Commandant and lay it before him and compel him to put it on. As I do this I feel considerable compunction, as if I were launching a three-year-old child in a cockle-shell on the perilous ocean of finance. I remind him that fifteen pounds of the money in the belt is his (he would be as likely as not to forget it). As for the ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... be. I have dismissed, henceforth and for ever I have dismissed all feeling from my mind; now I have no brother, no friend, no pupil, and, I fear, no Saviour. Israel is all in all to me. I have no other life. 'Tis not compunction, then, that stays my arm. My ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... kind creature," said uncle Nathan, moving his head with gentle compunction. "I'm afraid it came hard though to hear poor Anna mentioned, but I ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... that Saturday morning, about the time Titania began to dust the pavement-boxes, in no very world-conquering humour. As it was a half-holiday, he felt no compunction in staying away from the office. The landlady, a motherly soul, sent him up some coffee and scrambled eggs, and insisted on having a doctor in to look at his damage. Several stitches were taken, after which he had a nap. He woke up at noon, feeling ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... moment, caught in the same strong current; then she slipped from him and drew back a step or two, pale and troubled. Her look smote him with compunction, and he cried out, as if he saw her drowning in a dream: "You can't go, Matt! ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... chambermaid; but before I left the hotel it occurred to me to examine the visitors' book for Farnham's name, wishing to look at the handwriting which, if his, I felt sure I could not fail to recognise. As I searched the pages vainly I thought with some compunction of Farnham himself, remembering how I had hardly known, on the evening of our unexpected meeting in London, whether or not to be genuinely pleased to see him. I had feared to have too much of his society during the few hours at the St. James's Theatre; ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... tell you how much I think it. Do you know, I must be a strange contradiction. When I knew you were engaged to another woman, I strained my every nerve to win you from her. While the object was still to be gained, I felt no compunction; I was fettered by no scruples. I wanted to steal you from her and marry you myself. But now that all this is changed, and that you of your own free will come and offer to make me your wife, I for the first time feel how wrong it would be of me to take advantage of you in ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... he replied with interest, "for I have been thinking I ought to give you some warning before Felix returns. He is simply serving a purpose of his own, an utterly selfish purpose, and he is using her to help him gain his end without the least compunction. Don't let her go again, Miss Marne, if you can help it. I know Felix Brand through and through, and he ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... stopped his team and rushed upon the scene, and there he stood now, in the silent crowd of frightened girls and sobered boys, gazing at the devastation with such an expression of aghast horror, that at the sight of him all Scotty's compunction vanished and he ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... saved in his pocket, is allowed so much as half a biscuit beyond his proper ration. Any riotous person who endangered the safety of the rest would be bound, and laid in the bottom of the boat, without the smallest compunction, for such violation of the principles of individual liberty; and, on the other hand, any child, or woman, or aged person, who was helpless, and exposed to great danger and suffering by their weakness, would receive more than ordinary care and indulgence, not unaccompanied ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... many paces again when they discovered two horses tied to a tree, possibly the property of the two couriers whose boat they had previously utilized. These they looked upon as fair spoil in an enemy's country, and with little compunction and less ceremony mounted and started on their way. A few miles brought them to the verge of the wood, and the day was now breaking. They therefore reluctantly dismounted, turned their steeds adrift for fear of detection, and trudged forward on foot ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... the presence or absence of the divine sentiment in man. By fault of our dulness and selfishness, we are looking up to nature, but when we are convalescent, nature will look up to us. We see the foaming brook with compunction; if our own life flowed with the right energy, we should shame the brook. The stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not with reflex rays of sun and moon. Nature may be as selfishly studied as trade. Astronomy ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... meeting each other so gallantly with a trembling compunction. Mrs. Herrick, who trusted her, was giving her hand in sublime ignorance. It was vain that Flora told herself she had given warning. She knew she had thrown the softening veil of her spiritual crisis over the ugly material fact. Had she said, "I want you to uphold me while ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... things to do; you must excuse me." He was nervous, restless, his heart was beating much faster than usual; he couldn't stand still, and he had no compunction whatever about leaving her to get rid, by ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... that he could easily reach the bow of the boat before it cleared the shore, and then it would not be necessary to make promises of any sort. Not that Rokoff would have felt the slightest compunction in ignoring any promises he might have made the girl, but he disliked the idea of having to sue for favour with one who had so recently assaulted and ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not now recollect; but I do remember how greatly astonished I was at his extraordinary talent when I first heard him play. The intellectual claws and pinions were already giving signs of mighty power in the youth who was scarcely 14 years of age, and somewhat delicate in appearance. I felt some compunction in undertaking to give him further instruction, determined not to undertake the task, and therefore informed the father that in the case of such a stupendous organisation the wisest plan was to leave it free, independent development without a teacher. However Tausig insisted ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... He is the nearest approach to the ideal "economic" man, the "fittest" person to survive in trade competition. Admirable in domestic morality, and an orderly citizen, he is almost void of social morality. No compunction or consideration for his fellow-worker will keep him from underselling and overreaching them; he acquires a thorough mastery of all the dishonourable tricks of trade which are difficult to restrain by law; the superior calculating intellect, which is a national heritage, is used unsparingly ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... the three working properties of nature, which Newton stole, as described in the Gentleman's Magazine, July, 1782, p. 329. These laws are illustrated in the whizgig. There is the harsh astringent, attractive compression; the bitter compunction, repulsive expansion; and the stinging anguish, duplex motion. The author hints that he has written other works, to which he gives no clue. I have heard that Behmen was pillaged by Newton, and Swedenborg[583] by Laplace,[584] and Pythagoras by Copernicus,[585] and Epicurus by Dalton,[586] ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... hats, and long boots, then watering their horses at the ford. They were as daring and irresponsible swashbucklers as ever rode out on mediaeval foray, and, having once sold their allegiance to Torrance of Cedar, and recognized that he was not to be trifled with, were ready to do without compunction anything ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... which stands a man of birth too high to suffer his adoption of the humbler means of existence, and yet of resources too inadequate to sustain him without action—nay, bold and indefatigable exertion. I, at the moment, felt a very inferior degree of compunction at the crisis which offered to give me at least a chance of being seen, known, and understood among men. I felt like a man whose ship was stranded, and who saw the storm lifting the surges that were to lift him along with them; or like the traveller in an earthquake, who saw the cleft in the ground ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... burdensome when it is laid upon one's self. Indeed, she was conscious just then that one might be shortly thrust upon her which she would find it very hard to bear, and she became troubled with a certain compunction as she remembered how she had of late persistently driven all thought of it ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... of leniency toward her one-time lover, severity with herself was a natural sequence. "'Tain't as if I was a girl," Persis owned, in sorrowful compunction. "I'd ought to know what men are by this time, and that the best of 'em need to be braced up by some good woman's backbone." She could not escape from the painful conviction that she had failed her friend. He had turned to her for help and her hurt pride had rendered her oblivious ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... 'Have you no compunction at leaving me to the dulness of this horrible palace, to satisfy your idle fancy for going to Rome,' said she, pouting her pretty lip, and playing with a lock of the dark brown hair ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... it, all the same," answers Malatesta, shaking his head. "A man can't half kill a girl and show no compunction—specially not Nobili—the best-hearted fellow breathing. Nobili is just the man to feel such an accident as that dreadfully. How splendid Nera looked to-night! She quite cut out the Ottolini." Malatesta spoke with enthusiasm; he had a ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... though still in a suspense that my temper knows ill how to endure; but I should rather be rendered miserable than happy, in merely overpowering your reason by entreaty. I leave you, therefore, to your own reflections; yet remember,—and refuse not to remember with some compunction, that all chance, all possibility of earthly happiness for ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... combined with their West Indian cruises a foray along the coasts of Guinea and into the Red Sea. These corsairs were not all commissioned privateers, however, for some of them seized French shipping with as little compunction as English or Dutch. Especially after the Treaty of Utrecht there was a recrudescence of piracy both in the West Indies and in the East, and it was ten years or more thereafter before the freebooters were ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... beeches and elms,' quoth he, as he hacked at a hickory stem. 'They are home trees; but the shrubs have chiefly foreign faces, so I can chop them down without compunction.' ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... by more than three thousand men and women, who lived promiscuously on the mountains together, like beasts, and, when they wanted provisions, supplied themselves by depredation and rapine. This lasted for two years till, many being struck with compunction at the dissolute life they led, his sect was much diminished; and through failure of food, and the severity of the snows, he was taken by the people of Novarra, and burnt, with Margarita his companion and many other men and women whom his errors ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... his totems or presiding spirits every possible animal, as we have seen, and all sorts of nature-phenomena, such as rain and fire and water and clouds, and sun, moon and stars—which WE consider quite senseless and inanimate. Towards these apparently senseless things therefore he felt the same compunction as I have described him feeling towards his brother tribesmen. He could sin against them too. He could sin against his totem-animal by eating it; he could sin against his 'brother the ox' by consuming its strength in the labor of the plough; he could sin against the corn by cutting it down and ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... Toyotomi. It is stated, but the evidence is not conclusive, that in order to reach these high posts, he had to be adopted into the house of a Fujiwara noble. He had been a Taira when he served under Nobunaga, and to become a Fujiwara for courtly purposes was not likely to cause him much compunction. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... this renaissance of mental activity that reminded us of the Kawa and of William Henry Thomas. Great heavens, what would he think of us? Here nearly a month had elapsed, we were mostly married and had never given him a thought. We were filled with compunction. On top of this Triplett came to us with the announcement that Baahaabaa had informed him that we might expect a big wind about this time. Remembering what we had been through the Captain was worried about ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... series of scraps of knowledge and ideas. No break is too great to be bridged by this instinctive impulse to rationalize the products of diverse experience. Hence, early man, having identified the Great Mother both with a cow and the moon, had no compunction in making "the cow jump over the moon" to become the sky. The moon then became the "Eye" of the sky and the sun necessarily became its other "Eye". But, as the sun was clearly the more important "Eye," seeing that it determined the day and gave warmth and light for man's ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... Tisdall offered on his knees, declaring it must remove my last objections, since the worthy friend of my childhood supported his suit. I received it sedately, and dismist him with the compunction so worthy a gentleman merited. Was this letter honest to his friend? I ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... putrescence. But no explanation can make the deed other than terrible, or the man that did it other than fierce and stern. No traits of chivalrous generosity are told of him, nothing that softens the dreadfulness of war. He showed no touch of pity or compunction, no lofty, statesmanlike qualities, nothing constructive; he was simply a rough soldier, with an iron hand and an iron heel, who burned and slew and settled down his men in the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... of his arm, as if to banish with a peremptory gesture the kneeling envoys of compunction, manliness and ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... 'Throw him into the waters of Ganga!' And at the command of their mother, the wicked Gautama and his brothers, those slaves of covetousness and folly, exclaiming, 'Indeed, why should we support this old man?—'tied the Muni to a raft and committing him to the mercy of the stream returned home without compunction. The blind old man drifting along the stream on that raft, passed through the territories of many kings. One day a king named Vali conversant with every duty went to the Ganges to perform his ablutions. And as the monarch was thus engaged, the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... hard hearts Rogues, and presently Give us a sign you feel compunction, Every man up with's cudgel, and on his neighbour Bestow such alms, 'till we shall say sufficient, For there your sentence lyes without partiality; Either of head, or hide Rogues, without sparing, Or we shall take the pains to beat you dead else: ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... squatters while thus situated. Seeing them armed as on the previous day, he was apprehensive of some new evil; and as he approached the several stray groups, made known his apprehensions to his companion in strong language. He was not altogether assured of Forrester's own compunction, and the appearance of those around almost persuaded him to ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... family; and I said, without hesitation, take no care of her, but cast her off; such punishment I awarded for an offence committed against the reputation of a family not my own; and what I advised respecting the child of another, with full as small compunction I would do with mine. I cannot conceive anything more unreasonable or intolerable than that the fortune and the character of a family should be marred by the idle caprices ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... we're going into the Union lines. You know the country hereabouts. Help us to find our friends in the swamp, and we will take you all with us," Jack said; but feeling a good deal of compunction, as he was not so sure that the freedom bestowed upon these guileless friends might not, for a time at least, be more of a hardship than their happy-go-lucky servitude. Meanwhile, in the expansion of renewed hopes and full stomachs, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... was short: he should be at the Knaresdean races, hoped to meet them there, and accompany them home. This information re-decided Caroline, while it rewarded Evelyn. In a few minutes more, Mrs. Hare arrived; and Caroline, glad to escape, perhaps, her own compunction, hurried into the carriage, with a hasty "God bless you all! Don't fret—I'm sure she will be well to-morrow; and mind, Evelyn, you don't catch the fever!" Mr. Merton looked grave and sighed, as he handed her into the ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... countenance that was like marble in its intensity. I knew that he was suffering, and that my words were the cause of his agony. I knew that I was prodding him deeply and severely, thrusting the iron into his soul with as little compunction as a Mexican charo exerts when he "cinches" a heavily burdened burro. But I was doing it with malice prepense, and I was doing it for ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... and Percy was conscious of a tiny prick of compunction at his own heart. After all, the reconciling of a soul to God was a greater thing than the reconciling of East ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... search for water. It might be, he felt, that a lead water-pipe ran somewhere about them. He would cut it without compunction. ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... uttered in a tone of voice, that told his hearer of the sincerity of that which was spoken. Ali knew the character of the Malays too well to entertain any doubt. There would not be the slightest compunction in the matter; and knowing this, he lay there watching the men, as they slowly settled down once more around the blazing dammar-torch ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... She was all compunction and honey now, hovering around him where he stood stanching honourable wounds. After a while he laughed. "Thunder!" he exclaimed ruefully; "my nose seems to be growing for fair. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... they look upon us, Protestants, as the Mahomedans do the Christians, a sort of outcasts, the killing of whom amounts not to the horrid sin of murder. It is certain that some of these people have been known to plunge a knife into a man with no more compunction than an Englishman or an American would ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... brought us to Lengan Lengang about dusk, where we put up for the night. For the first time, this day I saw the cockatoo in his wild state; I was within easy shot of two of them, but the stream lay between us, and I felt some compunction at ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... edge of the slope; the still, shining sea far below her; and all around her and illumining her, as it were, the reddening glow flooding over from the westering sun. Nan—perhaps moved by some subtle compunction, perhaps only in token of friendly remembrance—took out her handkerchief and waved it twice; but there ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... breathed her last, Wolfdietrich, delivered from the spell she had cast upon him by making him partake of the magic root, suddenly remembered his mother, Berchther, and his faithful companions, and, filled with compunction, hastened off to help them. On his way he passed through many lands, and finally came to a fortified town, whose walls were adorned with human heads set up on spikes. He asked a passer-by what this singular decoration might mean, and learned that ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... could say what you might discover by digging down into the ground. One man claimed to have struck a vein of oyster-soup. And anyway he sold oyster-soup over his counter at a dollar a dish. Gas-gushers were lighted and burned without compunction as to waste. Gamblers were ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... back of Eily's letter instructions for her to put herself under the bearer's care, and he would restore her to her father. She determined to obey at once, and without a murmur, and at nightfall left the cottage in Danny's company. Two hours afterwards Hardress himself arrived in a fit of compunction. On learning that they had departed, he swore to himself that if this his servant exceeded his views, he would tear his flesh from his bones, and gibbet him as a miscreant and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Maid of Provence carried a handful of guns and a small but carefully chosen crew, together with Sainte-Helene, Perrot, and the lad Maurice Joval, who had conceived for Iberville friendship nigh to adoration. Those were days when the young were encouraged to adventure, and Iberville had no compunction in giving the boy this ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... borne himself with such correctness toward his warriors and his people, and has shown so much compunction in withdrawing from the limits of the palace, that his mother may forgive ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... provoked war by falling upon and destroying a detachment of the emigrants. Intruders the latter doubtless were, but, as the Matabili themselves had slaughtered without mercy the weaker Kafir tribes, the Boers might think they need not feel any compunction in dealing out the like measure to their antagonists. And, in point of fact, the emigrants seem all through to have treated the natives much as Israel treated the natives of Canaan, and to have conceived themselves ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... in front of the empty tent and if any had been there to note him, they might have seen a shadow as of compunction creep ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... is, moreover, supposed to blunt the moral feelings of those who indulge; and to a certain extent this is true. If your servant smokes opium, dismiss him with as little compunction as you would a drunken coachman; for he can no longer be trusted. His wages being probably insufficient to supply him with his pipe and leave a balance for family expenses, he will be driven to squeeze more than usual, and probably ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... know how restless he had been; had heard his hardly suppressed sighs and tossings to and fro, infallible indications with him of serious perturbation. Had his discomfort been bodily only, he would have felt no compunction in calling her to his aid, as he had done scores of times. Her sleepless hours had also been fraught with melancholy disquiet. Putting away from her—with firmness begotten by virtue born of will—and so much of this thoughtfulness ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... waste places where the horses could not take the mower, is this white gentian. It is one of the plants which make a magnificent appearance in a tall, thin-stemmed vase, in your library. You need but one and if you chance to find a patch you may take a plant without any compunction of conscience, for they are usually numerous. At the top of the smooth stem are four leaves with heart-shaped bases, gradually tapering to points at the ends. These four pale green leaves cross each other after the manner of a St. Andrew's Cross. Just where ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... against rival in the English royal line. A man might be in those days a very brave and gallant knight, a model in the eyes of all for the unsullied purity of his chivalric honor, and yet be ready to poison or starve an uncle, or a brother, or a nephew, without compunction or remorse, if their rights or interests conflicted with his own. The honor of chivalry was not moral principle or love of justice and right; it was mere punctiliousness in respect to ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Cilicians, Samothracians, and Ionians, the latter only recently in rebellion against Persia and at that time welcoming help from Athens in a cause in which Athens herself was now involved. Apparently there was no compunction felt on this account, for the Ionians distinguished themselves by gallant fighting against their Greek brethren. Nevertheless, it is not hard to imagine difficulties involved in the task of making a unit of such an assortment ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... notwithstanding the sufferings of the invalid, was clattering after me at about nine miles an hour. At first I rather enjoyed the malice of the penalty their curiosity was costing, but as I remembered that the invalid was not the chief offender, I began to feel compunction at the severity of the lesson, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... system. Dutch, French, and Spanish trading vessels had long been provided by their owners with forged papers certifying a neutral origin, generally Prussian. To these both captains and crews swore without compunction when searched by British cruisers. This system England made her own, issuing not merely to real, but also to sham neutrals, licenses which insured them against search when laden with wares for or from English ports. The firms which engaged in the trade—and after the removal ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... faith would sever us. It is always reminding us of the body which piety bids us to forget. Painters and sculptors glorify that which saints and ascetics have mortified. The masterpieces of Titian and Correggio, for example, lead the soul away from compunction, away from penitence, away from worship even, to dwell on the delight of youthful faces, blooming colour, graceful movement, delicate emotion[5]. Nor is this all: religious motives may be misused for what is worse than merely sensuous suggestiveness. ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... the diary. A stiff battle was kept up against electioneering iniquities at Newark. Riding, boating, shooting were Mr. Gladstone's pastimes in the day; billiards, singing, backgammon, and a rubber in the evening. Sport was not without compunction which might well, in an age that counts itself humane, be expected to come oftener. 'Had to kill a wounded partridge,' he records, 'and felt after it as if I had shot the albatross. It might be said: This should be more or less.' And that was true. He was always a great walker. ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... A momentary compunction pricked Noel, for the man was obviously old, and, by the peculiar fashion in which he recovered his balance, he seemed to be crippled also. But the next moment he was laughing, though his mood was far from hilarious. For, with an agility as comical as it was ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... influenced by self-inflicted social reserve. But these marked attentions soon suggested to Claude a cause more significant. The guide's likeness to that bandit who died in Himalaya camp was most striking. It seemed that this sentimental Englishman yet felt compunction for that ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... had naturally a tender heart, though hardened by his long familiarity with sin, could not help crying when he thought that Tom Price might perhaps be transported for a crime which he himself had helped to commit. He had had no compunction about the robbery, for he had not been instructed in the great principles of truth and justice; nor would he, therefore, perhaps have had much remorse about accusing an innocent boy. But, though utterly devoid of principle, he had some remains of natural ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... over, and that nothing remained but to die like a queen. Proudly as ever, she passed down the ranks and not a face looked pity on her, nor a voice blessed her. She was reaping what she had sown, and she who had killed without compunction the innocents who stood between her and her ambitions, was pitilessly slain, and all the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the North. Jack, in his life-long character of an attached and incorruptible protector, was to go with them. He would be quite as ready, in the interests of his friends, to bite a priest as a layman, and would show his teeth at the Sheriff with as little compunction as at a street-sweeper. Moreover, like all of his race, Jack was a forgiving person. Many a time had Gertrude teased and tormented him for her own amusement, but nobody expected Jack to remember it against her, when he was summoned to protect her from possible ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... breakfast, and then made her plans. These plans were decisive enough. At Rosebury no one thought of being so silly as to be over-educated. None of the young brains of the rising generation were over-forced or over-stimulated, and Miss Martineau felt no compunction whatever in writing a short note to each of six little pupils, and telling them that they need not come to her that morning, for she meant ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... which the Government of India with open eyes placed an obstacle in the path, which they had so long pursued, to follow which they had made so many efforts themselves and demanded so many sacrifices from their subjects. Perhaps from compunction, but probably to soothe the Liberal Government, by appearing to localise the disturbances, and disclaiming any further acquisition of territory, they issued a proclamation to "all the people of Swat and the people of Bajaur, who do not side with Umra Khan," in which they declared ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... of our headlights, little clumps of soldiers, with donkeys loaded with the new uniforms, loomed suddenly out of the darkness. Once a donkey took fright and bolted back, and the soldier in charge yelled and pointed his rifle at us. If we had moved he would have shot without compunction. Later the men had bivouacked, and all along the rest of the road we passed little fires of fresh brushwood, the sparks pouring up like fountains into the night, round which the soldiers and drivers were sitting and singing ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... He had to count ten, and he has counted it right.' Then recollecting that Mr. Davies, by acting as an INFORMER, had been the occasion of his talking somewhat too harshly to his friend Dr. Percy, for which, probably, when the first ebullition was over, he felt some compunction, he took an opportunity to give him a hit; so added, with a preparatory laugh, 'Why, Sir, Tom Davies might have written The Conduct of the Allies.' Poor Tom being thus suddenly dragged into ludicrous notice in presence of the Scottish Doctors, to whom he was ambitious of appearing ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... his contrast that we recognize a bore when we meet him. It was in this manner that she now began to ascertain that Mr. M'Gabbery certainly had bored her. Ascertaining it, she threw him off at once—perhaps without sufficient compunction. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... and full of love. "Oh, Leonard, I am so glad you are alone! Leonard, dear Leonard, pray do not insist on my marrying that young man. Now it comes to the time, my heart fails me." The tears stood in her glorious eyes, and an honest man would have pitied her, and even respected her a little for her compunction, though somewhat tardy. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... their notice and its results are dimly seen, they can bear to contemplate it. They may take the steps which lead to crime, impelled by the same sort of mental action as in working out a mathematical problem, yet be powerless with compunction at the final moment. They knew not what deed it was that they deemed themselves resolved to do. In truth, there is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full resolve, either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution. Let us hope, therefore, that all ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... guilty of such an outbreak. From that moment he began the serious endeavour to subjugate the pig, tiger, mule, or whatever animal he found in himself. There remained, however, this difference between them—that Alister punished without compunction, while Ian was sorely troubled at having ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... practitioners. The thoughts and words of the sonnets of Daniel, Drayton, Watson, Barnabe Barnes, Constable, and Sidney were assimilated by Shakespeare in his poems as consciously and with as little compunction as the plays and novels of contemporaries in his dramatic work. To Drayton he was especially indebted. {110} Such resemblances as are visible between Shakespeare's sonnets and those of Petrarch or Desportes seem due to his study of the English imitators of those sonnetteers. Most of Ronsard's ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... a first aid to the injured. She had betrayed the bandits without the least compunction, because they had ignored the oath of vengeance against the slayer of her son; but she nursed them all impartially and skillfully until the doctor arrived, late ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... icebergs. Perhaps I was in specially good form; perhaps the bears "rose" well. Anyhow, the bag was a portentous one. In later days, on reading of the growing scarcity of Polar bears, my conscience has pricked me; but that afternoon I experienced no compunction. Nevertheless, when the huge pile of skins had been hoisted on board, and a stiff grog had been served out to the crew of the captain's gig, I ordered the schooner's head to be set due south. For icebergs were played out, ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... departure, came to Scotty Baker much more quickly than he had anticipated. Within a week after the hunt—in the very first mail he received, in fact—came an offer from a Minneapolis firm to take every scrap of horse-flesh he could spare. With much compunction and a doleful face he read the letter aloud ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... consequence of being obliged to give orders through him. They said Mokwine is reported to have been killed by the Makololo, but Monahin is the individual who put forth his hand and slew him. When one of these people kills in battle, he seems to have no compunction afterward; but when he makes a foray on his own responsibility, and kills a man of note, the common people make remarks to each other, which are reported to him, and bring the affair perpetually to his ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... in mind that I am covering you, and I warn you that if I detect the slightest appearance of haste in your movements, or if you produce anything except the telegram from your pocket, I shall shoot you, without a particle of compunction." ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... France, Germany, or Italy, where they appealed from the decisions of the Holy Office to the sovereign pontiff. [37] Sixtus the Fourth appears for a moment to have been touched with something like compunction; for he rebuked the intemperate zeal of the inquisitors, and even menaced them with deprivation. But these feelings, it would seem, were but transient; for, in 1483, we find the same pontiff quieting the scruples of Isabella respecting the appropriation of the confiscated property, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... the side of the building, found that it opened into a yard, which seemed the storehouse for old rubbish—a safe enough place to alight in. When she returned to the street she saw the "Pretender" coming along, wheeling two bicycles; and her relief at seeing him was mingled with compunction at giving him such a ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... proverb had become a little uncertain. Not that her affection for her father was diminished, but there were snatches of unusual irritability which momentarily escaped her, followed by bursts of tenderness that were the creatures of compunction. And often, after some hasty word, she would throw her arms round her father's neck with the fondness of remorse. She pursued her usual avocations, for she had really too well-regulated a mind, she was in truth a person ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... to be a more disagreeable subject," retorted Giles; then felt compunction for the rude speech. "I beg your pardon, Morley, I am a perfect bear. But this illness has made me peevish, and the events of the last few weeks have rendered my brain ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... tell," said Hal. "We may be able to give them the slip. However, I would be opposed to any plan that did not have a good chance of success. For, if we failed, I am sure they would shoot us without compunction." ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... murmuring, and submit to your decrees as to those from which there is no appeal: but to wound without deigning even to look at what you destroy,—to shoot at random those arrows that are pointed with poison,—to see them fasten on the heart, and corrode its vital functions, yet look on without compunction, or turn away with cold disdain,—Oh where is the candour I thought lodged in Cecilia! where the justice, the equity, I ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... had been fought and lost to me. Mr. Parasyte, roused to the highest pitch of anger and excitement, seemed to be determined to overwhelm me. He was reckless and desperate. He had smashed my boat apparently with as little compunction as he would snap a dead stick in his fingers. He was thoroughly in earnest now; and it was fully demonstrated that he intended to protect the discipline of the Parkville Liberal Institute, even if it cost a human life for him ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... individually answerable for the misery which had been sustained, must have wept tears even more bitter than those of Xerxes when he threw his eyes over the myriads whom he had assembled: for the tears of Xerxes were unmingled with compunction. Whatever amends were in his power he resolved to make by sacrifices to the general good of all personal regards; and accordingly, even at this point of their advance, he once more deliberately brought under review the whole question of the revolt. The question was formally debated before the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... and hear this man, and were convinced that the providence of God was exercised in this individual in a very remarkable manner. He gladly listened to God's word, or heard it spoken of always with great gravity and compunction, and he ever reverenced with sighs the pronunciation of the name of God, or of Jesus Christ, and could not endure to hear curses; but whenever he heard any one swear by God's death or pains, he waxed indignant, and exclaimed, with vehemence and with sighs, 'Wretched man ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... rebuke of her words, though I knew she had intended no rebuke, and made up my mind with a rush of compunction to write a long letter to ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... Hervey. Random laughed aloud when the name came into his puzzled head. That buccaneer was the last person to surrender his plunder or to feel compunction in committing a crime. Once the skipper got his grip on two jewels, worth endless money, he would never let them go—not even one of them. Arguing thus, it seemed that Hervey was out of the running, and Random could think of no one else. In this dilemma he remembered that two heads ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... when his compunction held Jerry to his task, but more often he turned an end furrow and laid his misgivings snugly under it and was away to the woods or the creek. There was joy and a loaf for the present. What more could ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... can | dixerim, quae Fraternae Compassionis relate the Death of the Lady | affectu in feruore prode[u]t Frances Roberts without shedding | charitatis, pro qua eti[a] ad some Teares of Compassion, of | horam tui ipsius immemor esse, Deuotion, yea and of Compunction | sobria quad[a] ebrietate videris. too[m]? Shee deserues some Teares | S. Bern. in Epiph. Dom. Serm. 3.] from vs (Beloued) as well as from | the Poore, weeping now and shewing | [Note: Bountie to the Poore.] the Coats and garments which this | ...
— The Praise of a Godly Woman • Hannibal Gamon
... warden promises, not because he desires improvements, but because he fears the scandal of mutiny in the prison—an inconvenient thing when one is supposed to be conducting a model institution; and even an easy going public, which will tolerate other forms of cruelty to convicts, feels compunction about starving them, especially when it is taxed to provide them with wholesome ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... proposed to do with "Traviata." It won fame and cash for its composer in the old days when people went to the opera for lack of the music-hall, not yet invented; when Costa still lorded it not over living musical London merely, but over all the deceased masters, and without compunction added trombones to Mozart's scores, and defiled every masterwork he touched with his unspeakable Costamongery; when Wagner was either unheard of or regarded as a dangerous lunatic and immoral person; and it shows every sign of having been written ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... climbed higher, she could catch glimpses of the road down which her father had driven almost to his death. She studied Al's back as he rode before her and wondered if he could really be cold-blooded enough to kill without compunction whoever he was told to kill, whether he had any personal quarrel with his victim or not. Certainly he had had no quarrel with her father, or ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... His vision was blurred and he had no control over his muscles. Weakly he leaned against the table in front of the jury, the room swaying about him. The pains of hell gat hold upon him. He was dying. Even the staff felt compunction—all but the Honorable Peckham. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... mountaineers. Not one of them has a religion or a creed. Nor is there anything which they [consider it right to] abstain from or to avoid [as impure]; but they do whatever they list, and follow their desires without check or compunction. Baluristan is bounded on the east by the province of Kashgar and Yarkand; on the north by Badakhshan; on the west by Kabul and Lumghan; and on the south by the dependencies of Kashmir. It is four months' journey in circumference. Its whole extent consists of mountains, valleys, and defiles, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... with deep compunction, and was melted into tears; and he said to the elder, "Thou hast told me everything plainly, and hast completed unerringly thy terrible and marvellous tale. With such truths set before us, what must we do to escape the punishments in store for sinners, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... stride, confident, nervous, and jubilant. Scurrying back to Minneapolis to see a girl he had known as a child seemed the interesting and romantic thing to do, so without compunction he wired his mother not to expect him... sat in the train, and thought ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... that my most imminent perils come from yourself, or at least would come if I believed in your love and accepted your addresses. Your father has told me plainly that in that case I should be consumed into a cinder with as little compunction as if I were the reptile whom Taee blasted into ashes with the flash of ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... life itself, but it was not she who was lying on the bed. She had died before—died by her own act—leaving behind her another woman whose life was a living lie, who was so corrupt and worthless as to be unfit to live. It was that I was going to destroy. I felt no compunction—no remorse. As I placed the muzzle of the revolver against her breast, she opened her eyes in terror, and saw me. I pulled the trigger quickly.... As I did so I heard the dinner ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Powell's house to pour out her sorrows into the bosom of her friend; but this I could not allow. To visit the house of my bitterest enemy—to make a friend of his sister, was a glaring impropriety in a clergyman's wife, and I cannot even now feel any compunction at having put a stop to their intercourse—if, indeed, I succeeded in doing so. A cold cloud seemed to have fallen between me and your mother; and as for my brother, we scarcely spoke to each other at meals, and avoided each other ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... certain "Instructions for the conduct of troops" which were found on a wounded officer of the 9th Army Corps, had resolved—irrespective of success or failure in the War—to massacre the Serbs without compunction: "Any person encountered in the open, and especially in a forest, must be regarded as a member of a 'band' that has concealed its weapons somewhere, which weapons we have not the time to look for. These people are to be executed if they appear even ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... unfair to Samuel Shuckleford to say that he had no compunction whatever in deciding upon a course of action which he knew would involve ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... her body was laid bare, and severely afflicted with many strokes of discipline, even till the blood flowed; nor did she regain her liberty, until by many tears and sincere repentance she had showed evident signs of compunction. ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... his pen in the inkwell and carefully made an entry in the ledger. His assistant felt a sudden pang of compunction. ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... away, while the second of the two officers followed him, delivering chop after chop with his heavy blade, till the unfortunate wretch dropped upon the deck, where he was at once seized and pitched overboard without the slightest compunction. ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... him so interested in an amateur. Usually his manner was remarkable for its detachment and severe assurance; but it seemed that this case excited even him. Lady Laura was filled again with sudden compunction. ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... strain of individual contributions and unpaid performances. When the Transvaal revenues advanced with such giant strides the Afrikaner Bond leaders in that State contrived arrangements by which the financial requirements were supplied from State receipts. Nor was the least compunction felt in doing so. Was the revenue of the State not chiefly derived from the Uitlander element—from Uitlander investments, which all throve from the nation's own buried gold wealth? No scruples existed to provide from those sources the armaments ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... unkingly task was to bring about by hint and stratagem, what he was not man enough to prescribe by order. He satisfied Clarendon's enemies by openly proclaiming his anger at the Chancellor's delays; he kept up a pretence of compunction to Clarendon's friends, and begged them to persuade him how wise and ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... as calm as ever, and therefore the more menacing. Alarm stirred the company. He protruded from his pocket the butt of a pistol—newly purchased. "I go armed, Binet. It is only fair to give you warning. Provoke me as you have suggested, and I'll kill you with no more compunction than I should kill a slug, which after all is the thing you most resemble—a slug, Binet; a fat, slimy body; foulness without soul and without intelligence. When I come to think of it I can't suffer to sit at table with ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... difficulties, or out of work. Some who may have got good appointments are, nevertheless, often kept poor by their efforts to help relations who, on their part, seem to have no delicacy about making urgent demands for assistance. Even mothers will prey without compunction on married children who can ill ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... night on deck, Mr. Dodd" (with a grin); how "it wasn't no night for pan-jammers, he could tell me"; having transacted all which, he would throw himself down in his bunk and sleep his two hours with compunction. But the captain neither ate nor slept. "You there, Mr. Dodd?" he would say, after the obligatory visit to the glass. "Well, my son, we're one hundred and four miles" (or whatever it was) "off the island, and scudding for all we're worth. We'll make it to-morrow ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to ask any questions about the prisoner; and, certainly, William will not thank him for being the means, by his unjust and arbitrary conduct, of causing a split between the English and his foreign troops. I should like to put all their heads into one noose, and I should feel no compunction in setting them swinging, for a greater set of rascals were never collected under the sun. I must say that the contrast between our army and the Irish is very great, and that, although many bloody deeds are performed ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... than what Providence has allotted for us, and to die before our ordained time:—Whether offered up in gratitude, or uttered in complaint, destiny cannot be altered by a thousand sighs and lamentations. The angel who presides over the store-house of the winds feels no compunction, though he extinguish the old ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... Mrs. Margaret Lobkins might at another time have excited Paul's risible muscles; but at that moment he really felt compunction for the unceremonious manner in which he had left her, and the softness of regretful affection imbued in its hallowing colours even the image of ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... They seem at first sight to be a verdict of "guilty" against the teachers or the system in which they play a part. That verdict will not be accepted without protest by those incriminated, but even the protesters will feel some compunction, and now that they can no longer question the heroic "student" as to what he means, and go to him for advice as to the remedies for this failure, they should search their hearts and their experience for the help he might have given, had he not laid down his arms ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... red hood surrounding her face, which was all the more baby-like in its prettiness from the entire concealment of her hair. The poor child was weary, and it seemed to have gone to sleep in that half-standing, half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, our stranger had no compunction in awaking her. She opened her baby-blue eyes, and stared ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... and have received not a few startling confessions! Some of my friends have gone comforted away when they had made a clean breast and circumstantially given me the details of some great crime or evil that they had committed. I never experienced any difficulty, or felt the least compunction in granting them plenary absolution; I never betrayed them to the police, for I knew that of the crime confessed they were as guiltless as myself. Of course there is a good deal of pathos about their ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... the Countess, "as well may you ask a hungry lion to feel compassion, as a prejudiced and furious people to do justice. They are like the madman at the height of frenzy, who murders without compunction his best and dearest friend; and only wonders and wails over his own cruelty, when he is recovered from ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... tossed carelessly by a few critics from hand to hand, jeered at for a while, and finally flung back to me as lies—lies all! The finely spun web of any fancy,—the delicate interwoven intricacies of thought,—these were torn to shreds with as little compunction as idle children feel when destroying for their own cruel sport the velvety wonder of a moth's wing, or the radiant rose and emerald pinions of a dragon-fly. I was a fool—so I was told with many a languid sneer and stale jest—to talk of hidden mysteries in the whisper of the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... whole race of rattle-snakes would rise up and bite them. Under the influence of the white man, however, their respect for their grandfather the rattle-snake gradually died away, till at last they killed him without compunction or ceremony whenever they met him. The writer who records the old custom observes that he had often reflected on the curious connection which appears to subsist in the mind of an Indian between man and the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... formed my excuse from the first object that presented itself: I accused her with doing what I meant to have done, and as I designed to have given her the ribbon, asserted she had given it to me. When she appeared, my heart was agonized, but the presence of so many people was more powerful than my compunction. I did not fear punishment, but I dreaded shame: I dreaded it more than death, more than the crime, more than all the world. I would have buried, hid myself in the centre of the earth: invincible shame bore ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the authorities content with the mere fixing of prices. By ordinance they also set the rate of profit which traders should have upon all imported wares brought into the colony. This rate of profit was fixed at sixty-five per cent, but the traders had no compunction in going above it whenever they saw an opportunity which was not likely to be discovered. As far as the forest trade was concerned, the ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... girl assumed proprietorship and authority that kept the little gray missionary see-sawing between pleasure and trouble. By Zura's merry teasing Jane's naturally stammering tongue was fatally twisted. She joked till tears were near; then with swift compunction Jane was caught in arms tender and strong and loved ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... enthusiastic on the subject. "Why, I believe if you were crossing a chasm with only a board between you and eternity, and they happened to need that board for kindling wood they would pull it out from under you without the slightest compunction." ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
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