"Atone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... talents shone out more eminently in the beginning than in the end of his life. His manners were rough and austere; and he possessed not that perfect integrity which frequently accompanies, and can alone atone for, that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... Napoleon's spies," said the baron with a subtle smile, "and, since Monsieur Bonaparte must fare like the worthy citizens of Nuremberg who hang no one until they have caught him, Commissioner Kraus has not been compelled to atone for his bold enterprise with his life, but has ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... wish to avoid identifying Childe Harold's character with mine, and that, in sooth, is my second objection to my name appearing in the title-page. When you have made arrangements as to time, size, type, &c. favour me with a reply. I am giving you an universe of trouble, which thanks cannot atone for. I made a kind of prose apology for my scepticism at the head of the MS., which, on recollection, is so much more like an attack than a defence, that, haply, it might better be omitted:—perpend, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... go,' said Vetranio, gently detaining him. 'I have done you a great wrong, but I will yet atone for it by finding for you your child! While there were women who would have triumphed in my admiration, I should not have attempted to deprive you of your daughter! Remember when you recover her—and you shall recover her—that from the time ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... it to punish myself," Sanda exclaimed. "I've been punished—oh, sickeningly punished!—already. I'm confessing to you because—I want our friendship to go on as if I hadn't done anything ungrateful and cruel to spoil it. I'm trying to atone." ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... usual, a chequer work of good and bad: one beauty there was, however, which would atone for a thousand faults. We have never seen any thing in histrionic excellence to surpass, few to equal it. We mean when, in the first scene of the third act, after the assassination of Caesar, he returned to the senate house, and, dropping on one knee, hung over the mangled body: ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... appalling did the act appear to her that she trembled, hesitated, resisted, and was silent. Sorrow and remorse at once filled her soul; and, feeling that she had sinned against the Holy Ghost, she thought that God never could forgive her, and that no sacrifice she could ever offer could atone for this first act of disobedience. Through long and dreary years it was the spectre that never would down, but stood ready to point its accusing finger whenever she was tempted to seek the cause of her disappointments ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... that stood alone With no green weight of laurels round his head, But with sad eyes as one uncomforted, And wearied with man's never-ceasing moan For sins no bleating victim can atone, And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed. Girt was he in a garment black and red, And at his feet I marked a broken stone Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees. Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame, I cried ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... crime than the happiness of one individual is to that of the nation which I assisted to endanger, because one constituting a part of it had, unauthorised, oppressed me. No, no, Ellen, I should not be happy if I were not to atone for my faults; and this wretched life is the only atonement I can offer. But for you, and that poor child, my dearest and kindest, I should go to the scaffold rejoicing; but the thoughts—O God, strengthen and support me!" cried the unhappy man, hiding his face ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and holy day! McClellan gone overboard! Better late than never. But this belated act of justice to the country cannot atone for all the deadly disasters, will not remove the fearful responsibility from Lincoln-Seward-Blair, for having so long sustained this horrible vampire. Now ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... but now I find the contrary: I begin to think I've a heart like other men. It's better to atone for an error, than persist in one—therefore give me that deed, Neville——there, sir, [Giving it to FLORIVILLE.] do you think nobody has estates but yourself?—Louisa and her fortune are your own, Neville; and after my death, you shall have all mine:—and ...
— The Dramatist; or Stop Him Who Can! - A Comedy, in Five Acts • Frederick Reynolds
... have no ill-will towards him, for I regarded him as beneath my contempt," replied Captain Passford. "I can understand his condition, for of course he is suffering under a tremendous disappointment; but that does not atone ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... no manifestation of the will without completed action; he who thinks of performing a good action, but leaves it undone; he who desires to atone for an offense, but takes no step to do so; he who proposes to go out, to pay a call, or to write a letter, but goes no farther in the matter, does not accomplish an exercise of the will. To think and to ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... death-bed of George the Fourth. It is something to know that the King's brother, the Duke of Clarence, whom that death-bed had made King of England, was kind and generous to Mrs. Fitzherbert, and did all in his power to atone to her for the trials which her love and her royal lover had ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... To atone for this waste of time, he determined to crowd all that remained with delight: his gardens were an epitome of all nature, and on his palace were exhausted all the treasures of art; his seraglio was filled ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... supreme. He is called Areskoui, or Agreskoui, and his most prominent attributes are those of a god of war. He was often invoked, and the flesh of animals and of captive enemies was burned in his honor. [ Father Jogues saw a female prisoner burned to Areskoui, and two bears offered to him to atone for the sin of not burning more captives.—Lettre de Jogues, 6 Aug., 1643. ] Like Jouskeha, he was identified with the sun; and he is perhaps to be regarded as the same being, under different attributes. Among the Iroquois proper, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... ignorance of our national character, they imagined to be a damaging blow to the British Empire. France, Russia, Austria, and Germany were equally venomous against us, nor can the visit of the German Emperor, though a courteous and timely action in itself, entirely atone for the senseless bitterness of the press of the Fatherland. Great Britain was roused out of her habitual apathy and disregard for foreign opinion by this chorus of execration, and braced herself for a greater effort in consequence. She was cheered by ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wished Moore to accompany him as guide, philosopher, and friend. He assured the poet that he would allow him to be as patriotic as he pleased about 'the first flower of the earth and first gem of the sea' during the proposed sentimental journey. 'Your being a rebel,' were his words, 'may somewhat atone for my being a Cabinet Minister.' Moore, however, was compelled to decline the tempting proposal by the necessity of making ends meet by sticking to the hack work which that universal provider of knowledge, Dr. Lardner, ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... monks to prayer. Vigil and prayer, Clean lives, white days of strict austerity: Such were the offerings of these holy saints. How far might such not tend to expiate A riotous world's indulgence? Here my life, Doubly austere and doubly sanctified, Might even for that other one atone, So bound to mine, till both ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... of ideas, the other from a want of them. Style in the hands of some writers is like war-paint to the savage—of no perceptible value unless it is laid on thick. Our little ones begin too often on cheap and tawdry stories in one or two syllables, where pictures in primary colors try their best to atone for lack of matter. Then they enter on a prolonged series of children's books, some of them written by people who have neither the intelligence nor the literary skill to write for a more critical audience; on the same basis of reasoning which puts the young ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... was apparent that "Willings had given it to him" rather than risk a long hit. The next man was less fortunate and was thrown out after a neat sacrifice which put Carpenter on second. Then a pop-fly was muffed by Willings and there were men on first and second. But after that Willings, as though to atone for an inexcusable error, settled down to work and struck out the next two Durhamites, and the red ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... atone for the great bison slaughter by preserving the species from extinction have been crowned with success. Two governments and two thousand individuals have shared this task,—solely for sentimental reasons. In these facts we find reason to hope and believe that other efforts now being made ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... sacred bond, though by him considered an oppressive chain, her error becomes her virtue.—She affects us by her patient suffering: the moment in which she appears to most advantage is when she accuses herself as the persecutor of her inflexible husband, and, under the pretext of a pilgrimage to atone for her error, privately leaves the house of her mother-in-law. Johnson expresses a cordial aversion for Count Bertram, and regrets that he should be allowed to come off at last with no other punishment than a temporary shame, nay, even be rewarded ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... broad map of guilt, And the greatest sinner known. Yes, in me, to tell it briefly In one comprehensive word (Here my breath doth almost fail me), Luis Enius behold! I come here this cave to enter, If for sins so manifold Aught can ever satisfy, Let my penance thus atone To the Bishop of Hibernia I've confessed, and am absolved, Who informed of my intention With a gracious love consoled All my fears, and unto thee Sent these letters ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... thoughts came into Robert's soul. He wondered whether Benita would live and what she would say. Perhaps, however, she was already dead, and he would meet her presently. He wondered if he were doomed to die, and whether this sacrifice of his would be allowed to atone for his past errors. He hoped so, and put up a petition to that effect, for himself and for Benita, and for all the poor people who had gone before, hurled from their pleasure into the halls ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... Until reality becomes in its turn an effect unconsciously attained, the painter's imagination will be held more or less in abeyance. And perhaps we are justified in thinking that nothing can quite atone for its absence. Meantime, however, it must be acknowledged that Manet first gave us this sense of reality in a measure comparable with that which successively Balzac, Flaubert, Zola gave to the readers of their books—a sense of actuality and vividness beside which the traditionary ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... ease about her brother, Henrietta had gradually resumed her usual manner, and was now as affectionate to Beatrice as ever, but she was quite unconscious of her previous unkindness, and therefore made no attempt to atone for it. Queen Bee had ceased to think of it, and if a reserve had grown up between the two girls, they neither of ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hand, she came on till she stood before her rival and, offering the flowers, said, in words as simple as sincere, "Dear Mrs. Snowdon, I cannot let the last sun of the old year set on any misdeeds of mine for which I may atone. I have disliked, distrusted, and misjudged you, and now I come to you in all ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... that you will permit that to stand with my other misdemeanors until some rare fortune enables me to atone for all at once?" ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... the scattered fragments of the broken treasure and cast them into the fire; and from that day to this, he has never alluded in any manner to that occurrence. Always kind and tender to me, he seems to be ever endeavoring to atone for some wrong, and his long-continued silence assures me how vividly and regretfully he ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... ever now," he groaned to himself, "and ignorant, and mean, and dirty, and a beast in every sense of the word; I can't ever atone for the way I've treated her—for the way I've—but if I could only find her and try, oh, I've got ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... feudatory. At the same time Tiridates began to exercise his authority over the Armenians with severity, and especially to persecute those whom he suspected of inclining towards the Romans. Oorbulo appears to have felt that it was necessary to atone for his three years of inaction by at length prosecuting the war in earnest. He tightened the discipline of the legions, while he recruited them to their full strength, made fresh friends among the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... of that scripture which describes the righteous as never forsaken. Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty. Wordsworth owed his nomination to the friendly exertions of the Earl of Lonsdale, who desired to atone as far as might be for the injustice of the first Earl, and who respected the honesty of the man more than he appreciated the originality of the poet. The Collectorship at Whitehaven (a more lucrative office) was ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... thousand persons, whom, in a fit of vengeance, he had murdered in the circus of Thessalonica, A.D. 390, and inexorably compelled the imperial culprit, to whom he and all his party were under such obligations, to atone for his crime by such penance as may be exacted in this world, teaching his sovereign "that though he was of the Church and in the Church, he was not above the Church;" that brute force must give way to intellect, and that even the meanest ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... As if to atone for his former acts of rudeness, the young man accompanied her to the door, playfully claiming the privilege of taking leave just as his ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... at the last were enough to convince her that it was no joking affair. I was anxious to do something in the Doctor's behalf to atone for the injury to his feelings that I was the cause of, but the matter had gone ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... been a brute," I replied. "But I have endeavoured to make a lifetime atone for my early conduct." And I fell to thinking how even Nina, miracle of diligence and self-effacement, remembered a new pink frock across the abyss of the years. . . . Walking with my old friends round the garden, I found in every ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... tears that thou hast shed, Sister, for thy dear undying dead, For the sons thou hast not grudged to give, Loyally, that Liberty might live; Sister, for the little child Dead beside a hearth defiled— Do I dream my love alone Can atone? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... for me to interfere with the decrees of Fate. This punishment for having stolen their vessel from those who trusted you, and to whom you were bound by the laws of hospitality, has clearly been ordained by Providence. Land, then, and, by your submission in face of adversity, seek to atone ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... me. It was the best in the house, I found later on. That evening, after I had wakened refreshed, and eager to see and hear all that was possible in this new wonderland, Mrs. Flaxman, still a little nervous after her journey and anxiety on my account, came and sat with me; and to atone for keeping me in the house, told me stories of that beautiful, far-away time when she had seen my mother in that same room in the first joy of wifehood, and described my father as the proud, happy bridegroom, gazing with more than a lover's fondness on the beautiful girl who had ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... steadily. "I have been as much to blame as you. If I had been as resolute as I ought to have been—if I had sent you away the second time as I did the first—this would not have come to pass. I have been weak too, and I deserve to atone for my weakness by suffering. There is only one path open to us. Esterbrook, good-bye." Her voice quivered with an uncontrollable spasm of pain, but the misty, mournful eyes did not swerve from his. The man stepped forward and caught her in ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... expression of tenderness, "I ask your pardon for all I have made you undergo since I discovered you. I resolved to bring you to my palace before I told you your happiness; which ought now to be so much the dearer to you, as it has cost you so much perplexity and distress. To atone for all your afflictions, comfort yourself with the joy of being in the company of those who ought to be dearest to you. While you are dressing yourself I will go and acquaint your mother, who is beyond measure impatient to see you; and will likewise bring to you your son, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... his imitators shewed what he was by their disproportionate effects. The Periodical Essayists, that succeeded the Rambler, are, and deserve to be, little read at present. The Adventurer, by Hawksworth, is completely trite and vapid, aping all the faults of Johnson's style, without any thing to atone for them. The sentences are often absolutely unmeaning; and one half of each might regularly be left blank. The World, and Connoisseur, which followed, are a little better; and in the last of these there is one good idea, that of a man in indifferent health, who judges of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... disposal, knowing that by means of some spyhole he had contrived he could hear all that passed between us. And then you offered me marriage—by way of atonement. Do you remember? You offered to—to atone ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... realize, that such a human family existed: now I am persuaded of it, and as I alone am to blame for having brought this charge against you, I must now ask your forgiveness. We rejoice at your innocence, and hope with increased love to atone for our injustice. My son," he concluded, placing a hand on my shoulder, "I am now deeply ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... secret, and which attended the hope that perhaps the handsome captain might not be averse to her conversation. She had both read and observed that the taste of youth sometimes was for ripeness. She might atone, in a measure, for Elizabeth's disdain. She would have liked to visit him daily, with condolence and comfortings, but she could not do so without previous sanction of the mistress of the house, which sanction Elizabeth ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... their distant parents and friends; they prayed for their schoolfellows and for each other, and for Wildney, and they thanked God for all his goodness to them; and then Eric poured out his heart in a fervent prayer that a holier and happier future might atone for his desecrated past, and that his sins might be ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... outstretched hands Plead with the leaden heavens in vain, I see, beyond the valley lands, The sea's long level dim with rain. Around me all things, stark and dumb, Seem praying for the snows to come, And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone, With winter's sunset lights and dazzling morn atone. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... None the cry understood, that they of the day were the masters. Then even temperate minds were attack'd by sorrow and fury; Each one reflected, and swore to avenge all the injuries suffer'd, And to atone for the hitter loss of hopes twice defrauded. Presently Fortune declared herself on the side of the Germans, And the French were compell'd to retreat by forced marches before them. Ah! the sad fate of the war we then ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... to know that Cuthbert Ravenshoe was dead; that William, now master of Ravenshoe, still hoped for his foster-brother's life, and that old Lady Ascot was doing all she could to atone for a mistake? Charles, in fact, was still very weak and ill, and served his friend the cornet in a poor way. He had not recovered the shock of his fever and delirium in the Crimea, and both nerve and health ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Unobserved by the friends, a man of tall and noble appearance, his grey mantle thrown picturesquely across his shoulder, had taken up a position behind them, and was examining the picture with sparkling eyes. They got into conversation, and the stranger said almost in atone of solemnity, "It is indeed a singular mystery, how a picture often arises in the mind of an artist, the figures of which, previously indistinguishable, incorporate mist driving about in empty space, first seem to shape themselves into vitality in his mind, and there seem to find their ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... As if to atone for the former dearth, a sudden shower of most superior boys fell upon me, after I recovered from my campaign. Some of the very best sort it was my fortune to know and like—real gentlemen, yet boys still—and jolly times ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... great immoral postulate, usually known as Interest. The frequent occurrence of the conjunction of these two important postulates has caused our moral mathematicians to be rather negligent of their calculations on this subject of late years; but, to atone for this inexcusable indifference to one of the most important concerns of life, the calculating committee was instructed to pay unusual attention to all the obscurations of the present year, and this phenomenon, one of the most decided of our age, has been calculated with the utmost nicety ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Sir Philip, "for I have a great deal of business for you to do before you die: confess your sins, and endeavour to atone for them, as the only ground to hope ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... received at first with promotion and favours, and soon visited with punishment, thus bequeathing a signal lesson against being too confiding. I should judge that men, whose foolish blabbing brought them to destruction, when wholesome silence could have ensured their safety, well deserved to atone upon the gallows for their breach ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... good-natured reader will candidly overlook. But the false sublime, the tumour which is intended for greatness, the distorted figure, the puerile conceit, and the incongruous metaphor, these are defects for which scarcely any other kind of merit can atone. And yet there may be more hope of a writer (especially if he be a a young one), who is now and then guilty of some of these faults, than of one who avoids them all, not through judgment, but feebleness, and who, instead of deviating into error ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... to one whose suffering would atone for much of my misery. Edna, I withhold nothing; there is much I might conceal, but I scorn to do so. During one terribly fatal winter, scarlet-fever had deprived Mr. Hammond of four children, leaving him an only daughter—Annie—the image of her brother Murray. Her ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... coloured people have lately undergone considerable modification; in fact," said he, with some little confusion, "quite a thorough revolution. I don't, think we have quite done our duty by these people. Well, well, we must make the future atone for the past." ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... such a thing even to herself. She tried instead to believe that he was the cause of all this sorrow, and that she hated him for it. "In whatever he does," she said to herself, "he is actuated by remorse, and a desire to atone in some way for ruining ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... proud she would have been could she be present to record his triumphs. Alas! she did not remember that when all is lost which can make life beautiful, when the sun has set, and the spirit gone out of the day, the poor garish lights of our little victories can but ill atone for the glories that have been. Happiness and content are frail plants which can only flourish under fair conditions if at all. Certainly they will not thrive beneath the gloom and shadow of a pall, ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... force could it be that sustained him at this moment? If not now, at least shortly, he would give orders which must result in the death of thousands; it was enough to craze a general. How could he, reputed so good, give such orders? Could any success atone for so much disaster? What could be in the mind of General Lee to make him consent to such sacrifice? It must be that he feels forced; he cannot do it willingly. Would it not be preferable to give up the ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... which are for the most part filled with characters that in their nature tend to deformity; besides his figures are small, and the jonctures, and other difficulties of drawing that might occur in their limbs, are artfully concealed with their clothes, rags, &c. But what would atone for all his defects, even if they were twice told, is his admirable fund of invention, ever inexhaustible in its resources; and his satire, which is always sharp and pertinent, and often highly moral, was (except in a few instances, where he weakly and meanly suffered his integrity ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... whistle of triumph through a jagged gap, convenient for the purpose, in the front of his mouth, where half his teeth are wanting; and whenever he misses him, yelps out 'Mulled agin!' and tries to atone for the failure by taking a more correct ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... some ticket when his statue's built tell the gazer 'twas a cricket helped his crippled lyre; that when one string which made "love" sound soft, was snapt in twain, she perched upon the place left vacant and duly uttered, "Love, Love, Love", whene'er the bass asked the treble to atone for its ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... What can atone (O ever-injured Shade!) Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid? No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier, 50 By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, By foreign ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... Whip; that comes well from a beater to a beaten gang. Why aint you at your post,—the door-post, ha! ha!—and rally your men and overthrow these damned Tories? Oh, yes, King-Harman, your good looks do not atone for bad measures." ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... place. After dark and before abandoning our camp, we gathered quantities of wood, stacking it upon the fire, which when we left it was a wild tower of flame lighting up the whole mountain-side in the direction we had come, and seeming, in some sort, to atone for a long succession of shivering days in tireless bivouac. We followed the same stage road through the scattering settlement of Casher's Valley in Jackson County, North Carolina. A little farther on, two houses, of hewn logs, with verandas and green blinds, just fitted the ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... in making this new acquisition to my geography was of itself sufficient to atone for any aches or weariness I may have felt. The mere fact that one may walk from Washington to Pumpkintown was a discovery I had been all these years in making. I had walked to Sligo, and to the Northwest Branch, and had made the Falls of the Potomac ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... when I was a young priest. But one time I was grievously ill. I was given up as about to die. I received Extreme Unction and the Viaticum. It was then that my whole past life, with all its failings and all its sins, came before me with startling vividness. I saw how much I had to atone for; and I reflected on how few Masses would be said for me, and how few prayers. Ever since my recovery I have most fervently offered the Holy Sacrifice for the repose of the pious and patient souls in Purgatory; and I am always glad when I can, as my own offering, make the 'intention' ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... was no longer in peril. It was arranged that the trapper should return to Lean Bear, and inform him of the terms on which his son could be saved. He was instructed to tell the savage chief that Ethan could fire eight shots a minute, and that Wahena would surely atone with his life for any treachery on the ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... other. And what had this wretched woman to do with either of you? It is a misfortune for Denis to have been connected in any way with a man of Arthur Peyton's character; but after all, poor Arthur did all he could to atone for the disgrace he brought on us, by making Denis his heir—and I am sure I have no wish to question the decrees of Providence." Mrs. Peyton paused again, and then softly absorbed both of Kate's hands. "For my part," she continued, "I see in it another instance of ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... Miss Winifred, Mr. Flint is ashamed of having played the humanitarian this morning, so he is trying to atone by double cynicism this evening; but don't let him interrupt my story again, under pain of being sent back to the tavern, instead of taken care of in Mrs. White's best bed-room, under the charge of the best doctor (though I do say it) ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... that court can have any difficulty in matching the fiction with reality. I imagine that Congreve in part accepted a tradition of the stage, but I am also perfectly well assured that he depicted what he saw. How far the virtues we should associate with the Charles the Second spirit may atone for its vices is a question which would take us far into moral philosophy. It is enough to remark that those vices are the exclusive possession of no period: so long as society is constituted in anything like its present order, there must be a section of it for which those vices are the main ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... me, but I heard her say, "Poor woman, how ill she looks!" and I dared not speak to you; death was what I longed for, and I went to the river, but that girl's voice haunted me. "Poor woman," aye indeed! I was to be pitied; I had done wrong, but I would try to atone—but why am I telling you all this, you who ought to hate and despise me, I who have ruined your life. Oh! my God! my God! have mercy—' And with a paroxysm of grief, she lays her head on ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... atone," said Sir Ralph. "He has killed the king's men; and if the baron should aid and abet, he will lose his ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... not your pity,' she cried, writhing as if in great bodily torment—'my soul is stained with the guilt of a thousand crimes—and the only reparation I can make you, to atone for the wrong I intended, is to warn you to fly from this house as from a pestilence! This is the abode of murder—it is a charnel-house of iniquity; fly from hence, as you value your life—for an hour after midnight my husband, the terrible Dead Man, will return, and although you frustrated ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... word of anger or reproof to Stephen for his carelessness, not a word of her own pain. The great sorrow that she was anxious to smooth over and atone for to them was that they would have to put up ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... the Jook: "why, I think that while ninety-nine women out of a hundred are hypocrites, not one in a thousand has the courage to atone for it by an avowal like yours. Not that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... like a tender flower—' 'O hush, Sir Knight! 't were female art, To say I do not read thy heart; Too much, before, my selfish ear Was idly soothed my praise to hear. That fatal bait hath lured thee back, In deathful hour, o'er dangerous track; And how, O how, can I atone The wreck my vanity brought on!— One way remains—I'll tell him all— Yes! struggling bosom, forth it shall! Thou, whose light folly bears the blame, Buy thine own pardon with thy shame! But first—my father is a man Outlawed and exiled, under ban; The price of blood is ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... melody of heroes. He was lawyer by profession, Went from Louisville to Congress, And was actor in a drama, As romantic as 'twas gloomy. Mr. Cilley from New England, Challenged Webb to mortal combat, Webb, the editor, to fight him, To atone for printed libel. Webb declined the doubtful honor Of becoming human target, And on Mr. Graves, his second, Fell the duty of the duel. His antagonist, a marksman Of accomplished skill and practice, Yielding up the choice of weapons, Whether pistol, dirk, or sabre, ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... or later; but it seldom comes before the soul, passing from agony to contempt, has grown callous to men's judgments. Calumniate a human being in youth—adulate that being in age;—what has been the interval? Will the adulation atone either for the torture, or the hardness which the torture leaves at last? And if, as in Catherine's case (a case, how common!), the truth come too late—if the tomb is closed—if the heart you have wrung can be wrung no more—why the truth is as valueless as the epitaph on ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... advantages of thinking and acting for themselves. Even Christianity will make more progress from such examples than if through the efforts of a paid propaganda we try to force it upon people. Rob them of this freedom to act, to accept, and to reject, and all that England can give in return will not atone for the injury she inflicts. A nation should have much to offer in exchange, more than I see that any nation has, which stifles in the breast of the most ignorant people in the world the ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... son: a king whose perfidy and duplicity were only equalled by his self-complacency and power of self-deception, who never looked facts in the face, but placidly expected them to conform to his own petty desires, and whose dignified death failed to atone for a life devoted to ignoble personal ends, by crooked ways and treacherous means; a king peculiarly incapable of taking a broad statesman-like view of any question, who manifested no thought for the interests of the people of whom ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... change, and lets them thenceforth, like children, enjoy His fatherly love and blessing. Luther, in teaching now that justification proceeds from faith, rejects, above all, the notion that man by any outward acts of his own can ever atone for his sins and merit the favour of God. He reminds us, moreover, with regard to moral works especially, that good fruits always presuppose a good tree, upon which alone they can grow, and that, in like manner, goodness can only proceed from a man, if and ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... Americans. We're a pretty rough lot, I guess. Though, perhaps, what you lose in the look of the fruit, you'll make up in the flavour.' This Fisker said in a somewhat plaintive tone, as though fearing that the manifest substantial advantages of Frisco would not suffice to atone for the loss of that fashion to which Miss Melmotte ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... such an income as she could give him, he might shine among the proud ones of his nation. He should go into Parliament, and do great things. He should be lord of all. It should all be his without a word of reserve. She had been mercenary once, but she would atone for that now by open-handed, undoubting generosity. She herself had learned to hate the house and fields and widespread comforts of Ongar Park. She had walked among it all alone, and despised. But it would be a glory to her to see ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... between my female cousins (five in number) and me. Others were of opinion, that, as the rest of the children had been already provided for, he would only bequeath two or three hundred pounds to each of his granddaughters, and leave the bulk of the sum to me, to atone for his unnatural usage of my father. At length the important hour arrived, and the will was produced in the midst of the expectants, whose looks and gestures formed a group that would have been very entertaining to an unconcerned spectator. But, the reader ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... twelfth sonnet is waiting, save the mark! Stay: there ought to intervene a solemn pause; for your author's mind, on the spur of the occasion, pours forth an unpremeditated song of free-spoken, uncompromising, patriotic counsel; let its fervency atone for its presumption ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... was full of attraction. True, Lord Lossie had once and again spoken so as to offend him, but the confidence he had shown in him had gone far to atone for that. And to be near Lady Florimel!—to have to wait on her in the yacht and sometimes in the house!—to be allowed books from the library perhaps!— to have a nice room, and those lovely grounds all about him!—It ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... up: "the word that thou hast spurned shall become a rock to crush and to bruise thee; the spear which thou wouldst have broken shall pierce thy side; we have prayed, and wrestled, and petitioned for an offering to atone the sins of the congregation, and lo! the very head of the offence is delivered into our hand. He hath burst in like a thief through the window; he is a ram caught in the thicket, whose blood shall be a drink-offering to redeem vengeance from the church, and the place shall from henceforth ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... providence will inflict on those whose wanton cruelty has prompted them to destroy this fair arrangement of nature—this flowery prospect of human felicity. Engulphed in the dark abyss of never ending misery, they shall in bitterness atone for the stab thus given to human nature; and in anguish unutterable expiate crimes, for which nothing less than eternal sufferings can make adequate retribution!—Equally iniquitous is the practice of robbing that country of its inhabitants; ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... darkened before him, and exceeding grim was he grown, And he spake: "Thou hast slain my brother, and wherewith wilt thou atone?" ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... wretched, emaciated appearance and his lamentable state of mental alienation. He received him with the most compassionate tenderness; lodged him in his own room, appointed three servants to attend and watch over him day and night, and endeavored by the most soothing and affectionate assiduity to atone for the past act of rigor with which he reproached himself. When he learned, however, the manner in which his unfortunate brother had been treated in confinement, and the course of brutalities that had led to his mental malady, he was roused to indignation. ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... are heathenish. Or have you nursed a vain imagination of encountering Mr. Jardine, unknown to each other, and losing your hearts by an unaccountable fascination, and being as miserable as the principals in the second last chapter of one of Conny's three volumes? or were you to atone to him in some mysterious, fantastic, supernatural fashion, for the unintentional wrong? Because if you have done so, I'm afraid it is all mist and moonshine, poor Jack, quite as much as the twaddling ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of the English authorities. But if they took me to their main camp to be re-tried by their great council, possibly that sentence might be rescinded and they be left individually and collectively to atone for what they had done. Also they knew that I was very clever and might escape in some other way to bring the English, or possibly the Zulus, upon them, since they felt convinced that Dingaan and I were working together for their destruction, and that while I had breath ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... his life, and eventually with more than his life. The tyrant's wrath was followed by remorse,—a feeling, apparently, which rarely troubled his soul,—and he sought to atone for his cruelty to one churchman by loading the other with benefits. But his mad fury changed to as mad a benevolence, and he managed to make a jest of his gratuity. Puchnik was led into the royal treasury, and the emperor himself, thrusting his royal hands ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... the impression that life to her is indeed a vale of tears, and that a smile, never to speak of a laugh, is a frivolity truly reprehensible. She has a worse opinion of me than Aunt Jamesina, and she doesn't love me hard to atone for it, ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fox!" cried Julian, flinging his cap on the ground in a well-assumed tempest of chagrin. "He must have left Chad altogether, for not a trace of him is here; and I looked to have the pleasure of bringing him ourselves before the reverend prior, to atone for having helped that other pestilent fellow to avoid for a while the hand of the law. A plague upon him and his cunning ways! Unless he have found the secret chamber our father knows of, and which he once took ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the lamb that was offered to God was always a substitute lamb. Its meekness and submissiveness was only incidental to its main work, that of being slain for his sin and of its blood being sprinkled on the altar to atone for it. The humility of the Lord Jesus in becoming our Lamb was necessary only that He might become on the Cross our Substitute, our scapegoat, carrying our sins in His own Body on the Tree, so that there might be forgiveness for our sins and cleansing from all their stains, when we repent ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... real service to Berne Webster—she would atone, in some small measure, for the sorrow she had brought upon him, discarding him because of empty gossip!—Would he continue to love her?—Perhaps, if she had not discarded him, Mildred Brace would ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... cymbals, drums, fifes, citherns, organs, and harps that Ferrari's day could show. The scale of colour, as usual with Ferrari, is a little heavy; nor are the tints satisfactorily harmonised. But the vigour and invention of the whole work would atone for minor defects ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... to hear it, Mr. Sherwood; I will endeavor to atone for it at some future time," and with a few parting words he left the house. Very pretty was the picture that the young girls made, as they fluttered about the rooms helping each other to put the finishing touches to their toilets. Gussie's pink and white complexion looked lovelier than ever when ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... old fellow is happy in a better land. If kind acts and a generous heart can atone for the sin of gambling, and entitle men to a mansion in the skies, Canada Bill surely got one, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... in Sardoal they do. L. That is quite another thing, 685 Wait then and I'll show it you: Now no more my lady wills That I speak with her alone. How am I now woe-begone! On a day my lady said 690 That she would fain speak with me, Now I for my sins atone Since she says it may not be. How am I now woe-begone! For to me my lady said 695 That she fain would speak with me, Now I for my sins atone Since me now she will not see. How am I now woe-begone! Now I for my sins atone 700 Since she says it may not be, Through ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... of gigantic horses with ever-impending hoofs, tired of large plaster ladies whose complete poise does not entirely atone for a rather excess of buxomness, one can always turn to these reminders of the beauty that is the essential characteristic of ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... this my glory not the slightest part Would I," said she, "with one confederate share; I needed no adviser; my full heart Alone sufficed to counsel, guide and dare." "If so," he cried, "then none but thou must bear The weight of my resentment, and atone For the misdeed." "Since it has been my care," She said, "the glory to enjoy alone, 'T is just none share the pain; it should ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... tumultuous passion now beating in my heart would be revived, and, if possible, be revived with added misery!—No!—neither my temper nor my constitution will endure such another shock, one parting shall suffice, and the fortitude with which I will lengthen my self-exile, shall atone to myself for the ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... without emotion—"Vengeance! What is that to me? Do you hope to give peace to your own heart by inflicting suffering on our enemies? What can they possibly suffer that can atone for what they have inflicted? All that they can feel is as nothing compared with what we have felt. Vengeance!" he repeated, musingly; "and what sort of vengeance? Would you kill them? What would that effect? Would he be more miserable than he is? Or would you feel any greater happiness? Or do you ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... brother's sin had broken wide the feebly-flowing springs of her conscience, and she saw that in idleness and ease and drowsiness of soul, she had been forgetting and neglecting even the being she loved best in the universe. In the rushing confluence of love, truth, and indignation, to atone for years of half-love, half-indifference, as the past now appeared to her, she would have spoiled him terribly, heaping on him caresses and assurances that he was far the less guilty and the more injured of the two; but Leopold's strength was exhausted, and he fell back ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... his mother's place and sent round the wine. He was particularly attentive to Mr. Roscorla, who was surprised. Perhaps, thought the latter, he is anxious to atone for all this bother that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... was his obstinate repugnance to learning to write that he would wilfully blot over his copy-books in the most careless and slovenly manner. This conduct so irritated his mother that, to cure him of the propensity, she beat him again and again severely, till at last she beat him to death. To atone for her cruelty, she is now doomed to haunt the room where the fatal deed was perpetrated; and, as her apparition glides along, she is always seen in the act of washing the blood stains of her son from her hands. Although ever trying to free herself of these marks of her ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... nature of these feelings, they should never have gained ascendency. But I awoke too late—my very being was enchained. Still I may break from these engrossing thoughts—I would do so—pain shall be welcome, if it may in time atone for the involuntary sin of loving the stranger, and the yet more terrible one of grieving thee. Oh, my father, do what thou wilt, command me as thou wilt—I ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... smoky lamp his face looked sallow and thin, but his eyes were full of happiness. "She's got the noblest spirit that ever suffered, and noble spirits must suffer," he said as he handed me the letter. "See, she begs my forgiveness for having kept me on the gridiron. But doesn't one letter atone for a whole year of broiling? Ah, and you have been broiled, too, haven't you, Bill? Now let them put the balm on us. The Judge tells me that I am soon to be turned out, and I'll come out wiser than I was when I came in, for I have improved ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... the court of Calydon with his wife, proceeded on the road to the city of Trachyn, in Thessaly, to atone for the accidental death of Eunomus, and to be absolved from it by Ceyx, who was the king of that territory. Being obliged to cross the river Evenus, which had overflowed its banks, the adventure happened with the Centaur Nessus, which the Poet has here related. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... child, thou knowest not all! There is a destiny hangs over us; the hand of Providence is stretched out; oh! could I but save thee from the wreck! Yes," continued she in a firmer tone, "perhaps the sacrifice of myself may atone for all; I will go and offer myself to this divorce—it boots not what becomes of me. I will withdraw into the neighbouring monastery, and waste the remainder of life in prayers and tears for my child ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... conscientious, but he stands on the outside of the circle of his subject, and his view will lack symmetry. There is but one who, from his position in the centre, is competent to give a fair and full picture, and that is your own self. A few may possess imagination, and so partially atone for the disadvantages of position; but, ten hundred thousand to one, they will not have a chance at your life. You must die knowing that you are at the mercy of whoever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... to atone—win to Meriem's side and lay down his life, if necessary, in her protection. His eyes sought the length of the canoe in search of the paddle, for a determination had galvanized him to immediate action despite his weakness and his wound. But the paddle was gone. He turned his eyes ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that few think of questioning it. The idea that punishment deters from crime does not mean that the individual prisoner is prevented from another criminal act. A convicted man is kept in jail for as long a time as in the judgment of the jury, the court, or the parole board, will make him atone, or at least suffer sufficiently for the offence. If the terms are not long enough, they can be made longer. The idea that punishment deters, means that unless A shall be punished for murder, then B will kill; therefore A must be punished, ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... letter in full and endeavored by its press reports afterwards to atone for its blunder. It had been feared that trouble over this question would arise but no other paper referred to it. The Picayune, Item and States were most generous with space and complimentary ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... above conversation to be so unsatisfactory that she occupied herself before dinner in writing a letter to her nephew, in which she treated him to some very plain-speaking, and pointed out that unless he made haste to atone for past shortcomings, his chance of winning the heiress of Bourhill was ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... rather keep my sins to myself, and atone for them by the pangs of a wounded conscience. That is too easy a religion which shifts the burden of guilt on to the shoulders of a stipendiary priest, and walks away from the confessional absolved by the payment of ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... could not be driven out of the nest, the next question with them appears to have been, how she could be otherwise punished for her unlawful occupation of a property belonging to another. The council were of one mind in thinking that nothing short of the death of the intruder could atone for so heinous an offense; and having so decided, they went to work to put their sentence into execution in the following very wonderful manner. Leaving the scene of the contest for a time, they returned ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... indemnify; counteract, countervail, counterpoise; balance; outbalance[obs3], overbalance, counterbalance; set off; hedge, square, give and take; make up for, lee way; cover, fill up, neutralize, nullify; equalize &c. 27; make good; redeem &c. (atone) 952. Adj. compensating, compensatory; countervailing &c. v.; in the opposite scale; equivalent &c. (equal) 27. Adv. in return, in consideration; but, however, yet, still, notwithstanding; nevertheless, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... had a certain anxious note in it not quite in harmony with this declaration. He turned, under the drop-light overhanging the Board-table, and shook hands with his guest, as if to atone for this doubtful accent. "I shake hands with you again," he said, speaking rapidly, "because this afternoon it was what you may call formal; it didn't count. And—my God!—you're the man I ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... rough peasants and peasant-women who had come with their selfish requirements, seeking cures or to have doubts about quite practical affairs solved for them: about marrying off a daughter, or hiring a shop, or buying a bit of land, or how to atone for having overlaid a child or ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy
... immediately entered on the subject, and treated it in a masterly manner; and so far as I have been able to recollect, his thoughts were these: 'Sir, as men become in a high degree refined, various causes of offence arise; which are considered to be of such importance, that life must be staked to atone for them, though in reality they are not so. A body that has received a very fine polish may be easily hurt. Before men arrive at this artificial refinement, if one tells his neighbour he lies, his neighbour tells him he lies; if one gives his neighbour a blow, his neighbour gives ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... finished, she sat a moment silent; then she turned straight toward Miss Ives, and smiled, and it was a smile that could atone for any amount of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... are a hundred times right to hate me. I have deceived you, lied to you. I have conducted myself in a manner unworthy of you, unworthy of myself. But to atone for my fault—my crime, if you will—I am ready to do anything you order, to be your miserable slave, in order to obtain the pardon which I have come to ask of you, and which I will ask on my knees, if you command me ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Bacon was neither a courageous nor a lofty one. He too soon repented of his generous exertions in the popular cause, and sought to atone for them by so entire a submission of himself to her majesty, accompanied with such eloquent professions of duty, humility and profound respect, that we can scarcely doubt that a word of solicitation from the lips of Burleigh might have gained him an easy pardon. It ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... justice, as in vindictive justice, but also and still more the reconciliation of friendship, which is accomplished by the offender making atonement according to the will of the person offended. Accordingly the first requisite on the part of the penitent is the will to atone, and this is done by contrition; the second is that he submit to the judgment of the priest standing in God's place, and this is done in confession; and the third is that he atone according to the decision of God's minister, and this is done in satisfaction: ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... gift of the green girdle, which belongs to the Green Knight and was woven by his wife. Moreover, the whole thing has been arranged by Morgain the fay-woman (an enemy of Queen Guinevere, who appears often in the Arthurian romances). Full of shame, Gawain throws back the gift and is ready to atone for his deception; but the Green Knight thinks he has already atoned, and presents the green girdle as a free gift. Gawain returns to Arthur's court, tells the whole story frankly, and ever after ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... or even cruel, parent; the partisan who gives up friends, family, and fortune, rather than break the verbal promise made in other years to a now poverty-stricken master; the wife who ceremoniously robes herself in white, utters a prayer, and thrusts a sword into her throat to atone for a wrong done to strangers by her husband,—all these obey the will and hear the approval of invisible witnesses. Even among the skeptical students of the new generation, this feeling survives ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... but for the anxiety that continually harassed my mind as to the fate of those two whom I had left in Moorshedabad, I mean Marian and my cousin, who, in spite of many crimes, had at last done something to atone for his past misconduct; but for this, the time which followed would have been full of satisfaction. For I was now to witness the closing acts of that great historic drama of which I have already chronicled the commencement. ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... was—I never wronged her womanhood By crowning it with praises not her own— She was all earth's, and earth's, too, in that mood When she brings forth her fairest; I atone Now, in this fading brow and failing frame, That such a soul such soul as ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... Christians or not. A hundred and sixty backwoodsmen gathered at Mingo Bottom under the lead of Colonel David Williamson, who had once disgraced himself among them by preventing them from killing some Moravian prisoners, and who now seems to have been willing to atone for his humanity. They marched swiftly to the Muskingum, where they stole upon the Indians in the cornfields, and seized their guns. They told them at first that they were going to take them to Fort Pitt, and at the vote held to decide ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... sight of her putting her name to the letter. She had done that, written her name to the renunciation of him! No individual could bear the sight of such a crime, and no suffering man could be appeased by a single victim to atone for it. Her sex must be slaughtered; he raged against the woman; she became that ancient poisonous thing, the woman; his fury would not distinguish her as Clotilde, though the name had started him, and it was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... upon somebody's bunk—he neither knew nor cared whose—and he was snoring unmelodiously, and not dreaming a thing; for when a cow-puncher has nothing in particular to do, he sleeps to atone for the weary hours when he must be very wide-awake. An avalanche descended upon his unwarned middle, and checked the rhythmic ebb and flow of sound. He squawked and ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... colloquialisms that are natural to spoken words frankly exposed to cold print. This does not help them to any particular distinction as literature, but perhaps it lends them an ease and familiarity which may partly atone to you and to all good souls for their plentiful lack of dignity. I have said so often that I am not an historian, that I ought to add that whatever history lies hidden here belongs to Train, our only accredited chronicler, and, even at the risk of bowing too low, I must needs protest, in ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... this hour, oh! to be sure, I shall remember it," he said, with trembling lips; "my son shall atone to me for this hour of shame and ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... would otherwise have remained rigid on their fastenings. It was pleasant to be sought out and made much of, and it pleased her to think that some of her quondam friends were genuinely sorry that they had once stood aloof. They attempted to atone, it would seem. For three weeks they lived in an atmosphere of teas and dinners and theater parties, a giddy little whirl that grew daily more attractive, so far as Hazel ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... condition of life—the age or the sex of the pilgrim may be. Individuals from France, from America, England, and Scotland, visit it—as voluntary devotees, or to perform an act of penance for some great crime, or perhaps to atone for a bad life in general. It is performed, too, in the dead heat of summer, when labor is slack, and the lower orders have sufficient leisure to undertake it; and, I may add, when travelling on foot is most fatiguing; they arrive, therefore, without a single exception, ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... to atone for her former indiscretion and establish herself again on her height of maiden reserve in Thomas Merriam's eyes, sat resolutely in the meeting-house of a Sabbath day, with her eyes cast down, and after service she glided swiftly down the aisle ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... was instantly sent for, and drawn up in front of the house; not that their co-operation was necessary, but that their appearance might terrify. His ardour now cooled, and he seemed willing, by submission, to atone for his misconduct. His intrepid disregard of personal risk, nay of life, could not however, but gain admiration; though it led us to predict, that this Baneelon, whom imagination had fondly pictured, like a second Omai, the gaze of a court and the scrutiny ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... henceforth my love is yours alone, To you alone will I offer the bowl, to you will I give My essence only, but love me, and I will atone To you for my general loving, atone as long ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... that, I thought I could give him no greater pleasure than the chance to prove himself of some real service to mademoiselle, and I would like to atone for stealing the honors he had felt so sure of. And more still: we had decided, in our hasty conference a little while before,—Dr. Saugrain, my captain, and I,—that it would not do at all to wait ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... have always loved solitude and silence, I am a great gossip with my friends, which arises, perhaps, from my seeing them but rarely. I atone for this loquacity by a year of taciturnity. I mutely recall my parted friends by correspondence. I resemble that class of people of whom Seneca speaks, who seize life in detail, and not by the gross. ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... gallant knights of Calatrava gain the strong town of Zalea with scarcely any loss, and atone for the inglorious defeat of their companions by El Zagal. They found the magazines of the place well stored with provisions, and were enabled to carry a seasonable supply to ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... season ended disastrously with a severe drubbing for the Hillton nine at the hands of St. Eustace on the latter's home ground. The fellows said little, but promised to atone for it when the boat race came off. This occurred two days before class day, which this year came on June 22d, and very nearly every pupil traveled down the river to Marshall to witness it. The day away from school came as a welcome relief after the worry ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... what he had heard from Mr Frampton, and what Jeffreys had suffered in consequence; how he had struggled to atone for the past, and what hopes had been his as to the future. Raby's face glowed more and more as she listened. It was a different soldier's tale from what she was used to; but still it moved ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... of many lives will hardly atone for one I took once, though the deed was done in self-defense," said the outlaw gravely. "I am glad to have been of help in this case." He glanced around the room with a return of his former light careless manner and nodded approvingly as he noted the stores of provisions and water. "Good," he ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a state of anger and humiliation which was new to her. For the first few hours, she was resolved never to speak to Schilsky again. When this mood passed, she made up her mind that he should atone for his behaviour to the last iota: he should grovel before her; she would scarcely deign to look at him. But the nearer the time came for their meeting, the more were her resentful feelings swallowed up by the wish to see him. She counted off the hours till the opera commenced; she concocted a ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... she returned, in a tone of pathetic tenderness, "Heaven knows, too wildly well! If that could atone for my fault, I should not fear to give ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton |
