"Compassion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one of the men in her immediate vicinity chivalry triumphs over impatience. He gives a shrug of petulance, arises and begs her to have his seat. She is not entitled to it on any ground, save compassion upon his part. By refusing to use the eyes in her head she has forfeited all right to special consideration. But he surrenders his place to her and she ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... consciousness that their future lot might depend upon their present conduct and appearance, endeavored to assume an air of pleased satisfaction, and thereby possibly win the favorable notice of the group which stood surveying them from the balcony, or at the least the friendly compassion of the older slaves of the household, who began to pour forth from the different doors upon the ground floor of the palace, and join unbidden in the inspection. Most of these, in the early days of their captivity, had stood ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... sacred host. "'He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,' says the Redeemer, 'hath ever-lasting life, and I will raise him up on the last day.' The day of life was almost spent, when you came to him; night was coming on, but He, in the plenitude of His divine compassion, turned you not away, but gives you a princely reward—even Himself. Like the Prodigal, destitute and naked, you return, and receiving you, He spreads a mystic feast, in which He gives you heavenly food; and while the shadow of death falls around you, lo! He ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... thee, and anguish weighing on my heart; Tell me, was any spark of pity or of love For the poor lover kindled in thy heart, While thou didst live? I, then, between my hope And my despair, passed weary nights and days; And now, my mind is with vain doubts oppressed. Oh if but once compassion smote thee for My darkened life, conceal it not from me, I pray thee; let the memory console me, Since of their future our young days were robbed!" And she: "Be comforted, unhappy one! I was not ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... Which giveth me boldness to show what I can Of one that lieth in danger by sickness Remitting his languor to your gentleness. MEL. What meanest thou, I pray thee, gentle mother? Go forth with thy demand, as thou hast done. On the one part thou provokest me to anger, And on the other side to compassion: I know not how thy answer to fashion. The words which thou speakest in my presence Be so misty, I perceive not thy sentence. CEL. I said I left one in danger of sickness, Drawing to death for ought that I can see: Now choose you or no to be murderess, Or revive him with a word to come from ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... almost scatheless from the fall into the ravine, which was not the case with his assailant, who had been carried down to the settlement with the life just clinging to his crushed body. All that was possible had been done for him, and now Alton waited with intense suspense, with something akin to compassion in his eyes, and his anger diverted from the dying wretch to the man who ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... their very mouths if their father's squeezed dry like a sponge! Sure, if you'd tell him this, he wouldn't go on!" Then she paused a moment, looking up into the other woman's face. "He'd have some bowels of compassion;—wouldn't he now?" ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... went to do some shopping in Sancerre; and Dinah went on to Cosne alone with the two friends. Lousteau took his seat by the lady, Bianchon riding backwards. The two friends talked affectionately and with deep compassion for the fate of this choice nature so ill understood and in the midst of such vulgar surroundings. Bianchon served Lousteau well by making fun of the Public Prosecutor, of Monsieur Gravier, and of Gatien; there ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... surprise or horror—nothing but kindness and compassion, while he answered, "My poor girl, I was afraid how it might have been." Then he led her to a chair and sat down by her side, so as to let her perceive that he was ready to listen, and would give her time. He might be in haste, but it was no ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Job could do was to pray and wait, little caring what the outcome might be, little caring what might be the verdict of the world of Gold City; knowing only two things—that Jane was dead and life could never be the same to him; and that the God who looked down in tender compassion on his child shut in between those dark stone walls, knew all about it. Job had read how one like unto an angel walked in the furnace of old with God's saints; he felt, now, that the Christ came and sat by his side in those ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... had ever been relentless to himself, and refused to regard himself as an object of injustice, or as needing compassion. As he stood for a moment confronting himself, scorned, despised and humiliated, he felt for himself the measureless contempt to which he seemed to have fallen; yet, under it all, and against it all, he arose. "Oh, Bart! Bart! what a poor, abject, ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... again moments so holy and so sweet. O, how precious are these sudden unfoldings of loving-kindness! These Godsends of infinite love! He had not dared to expect any thing for himself; he had only asked for the life of Phyllis, and it had been given him with that royal compassion ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... six loaves, the two flagons and cups, and to smell the savoury odour which exhaled from the dishes. "Child," said she, "to whom are we obliged for this great plenty and liberality? Has the sultan been made acquainted with our poverty, and had compassion on us?" "It is no matter, mother," said Alla ad Deen, "let us sit down and eat; for you have almost as much need of a good breakfast as myself; when we have done, I will tell you." Accordingly both mother and son sat down, and ate with the better relish as the table was so well ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... that you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to perish of want at your door, and took me under the shelter of your roof. I know all your sisters have done for me since—for I have not been insensible during my seeming torpor—and I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... such soldiers; but Tilly never made the attempt. Left by their general's silence masters of the lives of all the citizens, the soldiery broke into the houses to satiate their most brutal appetites. The prayers of innocence excited some compassion in the hearts of the Germans, but none in the rude breasts of Pappenheim's Walloons. Scarcely had the savage cruelty commenced, when the other gates were thrown open, and the cavalry, with the fearful hordes of the Croats, poured in upon the ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... this meadow there are cotes and folds for sheep, and an house is built here also for the nourishing and bringing up of those lambs, even the babes of those women that go on pilgrimage. Also there is One here who can have compassion and that can gather these lambs with His arm and carry them in His bosom. This Man, she said, will house and harbour and succour the little ones, so that none of them shall be lacking in time to ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... more heinous morally. It was hard in many cases to reconcile the exigencies of war with the call of humanity, and the sense of responsibility was only partially relieved by the knowledge that a higher authority would give due weight to the extenuating circumstances that appealed so often to one's compassion. The introduction of "suspended sentences" by the Army (Suspension of Sentences) Act 1915, with a view to keep a man's rifle in the firing line, and to give an offender the chance of retrieving his liberty by subsequent devotion to duty, ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... good people realized that they were face to face with something more worthy of attention, more affecting than usual. But they could not take her back to her mother as yet. She must go before the commissioner first. That was absolutely necessary. They called a cab from compassion for her; but she must go from the station to the cab, and there was a crowd at the door to stare at the little lame girl with the damp hair glued to her temples, and her policeman's blanket which did not prevent her shivering. At headquarters she was conducted up a dark, damp stairway ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... God that you are alive. It's a miracle." He noticed that Ray's clothing was torn nearly to rags. In compassion he laid a hand on Ray's shoulder, quickly withdrew it, and examined it in the moonlight. "You are hurt, my son. Come into the house. I'll put you to bed and send for ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... amativeness and combativeness are both small; adhesiveness large; the organ of destructiveness (i.e., of determined clearance of intervening obstacles) immense, but less than that of benevolence; and their philoprogenitiveness takes rather the character of compassion and tenderness to things that need aid or protection than of the animal love of offspring. I never met with one person deformed or misshapen. The beauty of their countenances is not only in symmetry of feature, but in a smoothness of surface, which ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... say, though I have not before taken notice of it, that a feeling of compassion made us unwilling to desert altogether the unfortunate people still on the raft until, for our own safety, we were compelled to do so. Before long, it was but too probable, their numbers would be ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... blessing on our labors, we have ventured to make an important addition to our original plan, and do therefore earnestly solicit the support and assistance of all who can feel the tender emotions of sympathy and compassion or relish the exalted pleasure ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... be critical on one who had interfered with their favourite project of a marriage between Philip and Hester; and, though full of compassion for the cruelty of Daniel Robson's fate, they were too completely men of business not to have some apprehension that the connection of Philip Hepburn with the daughter of a man who was hanged, might injure the shop over which both his and their name appeared. But ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... had left her lips. How fiercely above all else, in that harrowing moment had risen the desire to fling the accusation of that word into the ears of him who listened from his secret hiding-place. But she refrained out of compassion for the man she loved, and declared instead, "Miss Challoner died from a wound; how given, why given, no one knows. I had rather have died myself than have to tell you this. Oh, Mr. Brotherson, speak, sob, do ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... creature!" said Mrs. Chester, filled with compassion, as she encountered the glance of the great wild eyes that seemed to illuminate the whole of that miserable face, "here, let her sit in the rocking-chair close up ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... wisdom and goodness of God. When the gospel was first promulgated slavery existed in the world, in a form, no doubt, which made it a sore evil—a grievous curse. The cries of the oppressed had come up before the throne of God. He was moved with compassion for masters and servants. Go, said He, to his beloved son, to yonder world, and remove the curse of slavery. Instruct servants to love and obey their masters, to serve them freely and cheerfully—without murmuring or repining—and ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... feeling of compassion rose in our hero's breast as he looked at these moral wrecks of humanity; for their characters and prospects were ruined, though their physique was not much impaired. It seemed to him such an awful home-coming, ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... apart near the ramparts and behind a gun. The beauty, the expression of her eyes, the tear that had trembled there, the compassion in her voice, and a kind of wild elegance that consecrated the freedom of her movements, all combined to enslave my imagination and inflame my heart. What had she said? Nothing to signify; but her ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... passed, and then the kindly sea had compassion on my lonely, forlorn condition, and rose and toyed with my boat, and finally lifted her and bore her safely back to ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... Judgment of the Performance. Mrs. Oldfield, who, it seems, is the Heroick Daughter, had so just a Conception of her Part, that her Action made what she spoke appear decent, just, and noble. The Passions of Terrour and Compassion, they made me believe were very artfully raised, and the whole Conduct of the Play artful and surprizing. We Authors do not much relish the Endeavours of Players in this kind; but have the same ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... arrived at the grass-clad hills, and the halls of Circe, the daughter of the Sun, filled with various wild beasts. Soon as he beheld her, after salutations were given and received, he said, "Do thou, a Goddess, have compassion on me a God; for thou alone (should I only seem deserving of it,) art able to relieve this passion {of mine}. Daughter of Titan, by none is it better known how great is the power of herbs, than by me, who have been transformed ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... observed the other, surveying this unfortunate wretch with compassion, "whether all perception of honor and self-respect is lost in you I care not. Here are five pounds for you; that is to say—and pray understand me—I commit them absolutely to your own keeping—your own honor, your self-respect, or by whatever name you are pleased to call it. ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... tells us how the hearts of his fellow-townsmen were moved with compassion on hearing of the destruction of the Children's Home, on that terrible night, and that some of them attempted to ascend the hill and offer aid, but had to turn back, unable to face ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... him, luring him on like a trembling quail that flutters before one's feet in the wheat to draw him away from her nest. She didn't know the compassion of his heart, the tenderness in which it strained to her over the intervening space. He forgot all, he forgave all, in the soft pleading of romance which came back to him ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... that is performed in the will of man and not in the movings of the Holy Spirit, was a great hurt to me, and hindrance of my spiritual growth in the way of truth. But my heavenly Father, who knew the sincerity of my soul to Him and the hearty desire I had to serve Him, had compassion on me, and in due time was graciously pleased to illuminate my understanding further, and to open in me an eye to discern the false spirit, and its way of working from the true, and to reject the former and cleave to ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... doomed, but beautiful and piteously appealing figure on which my eyes were fixed in terror, and amaze, and profound compassion? Alas! Yet are there some objects which enter the whirl at a late period of the tide, which for some happy reason descend slowly after entering, which do not reach the bottom before the turn of the tide, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... will sneer at the women of England. We who have to do the work and fight the battle of life know the inspiration which we derive from their virtue, their counsel, their tenderness—and, but too often, from their compassion and their forgiveness. There is, I doubt not, still left in England many a man with chivalry and patriotism enough to challenge the world to show so perfect a specimen of humanity as a cultivated ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... nut!" Frank's voice was a mixture of contempt and compassion. Nucky immediately turned sulky and the meal was finished in silence. When the last doughnut had been devoured, Frank stretched himself in the warm sand left among the rocks ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... sharpness of temper, which very often tempted her to the indulgence of malice and uncharitableness; and a proud spirit, which could scarcely brook injustice. But these natural defects were in a measure counterbalanced by a high and lofty sense of responsibility to Almighty God—a feeling of compassion and forgiveness for the frailties and infirmities of others, and a generous and discriminating consideration for the errors ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... go away, I will take you in to see him, for truly he is a sight far more moving to compassion than displeasure, whatsoever his sins and heresies ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... had been a former friend of Asaad, was touched with compassion, and by perseverance succeeded in once more opening his prison doors, and taking off his chains. But he also became suspected in consequence of his kindness to Asaad, and it is not known how long the sufferer was allowed this partial freedom. One of his brothers ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... abhorrence of the books of knight-errantry. The scrivener, who was by, said he had never read in any book of chivalry of any knight-errant who had ever died in his bed so quietly and like a good Christian as Don Quixote, who, amidst the compassion and tears of those who were by, gave up the ghost, or, to speak plainly, died; which, when the curate perceived, he desired the scrivener to give him a certificate, how Alonso Quixano the Good, commonly called Don Quixote de la Mancha, had departed out ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... flat and dead." Great literature puts the breath of life into this deadness. Not merely to peruse, but to assimilate, the King Lear of Shakespeare or the Vita Nuova of Dante cannot fail to turn the current of our minds strongly towards right feeling—in the one case of duty and compassion, in the other ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... chariot wheels, and she remembered quite distinctly that she had had a strong desire to keep him there. She herself had felt for him nothing more than cordial friendship and gratitude; but, nevertheless, there had been mingled with generous compassion some resentment against the wife, whose appeal she ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... of tenderness are revealed in these sweet parables of the Lost Sheep and the Good Shepherd! The tender, loving heart of the Savior goes out in eager compassion and pity for the straying. What boundless sympathy is revealed in the words, "He calleth his own sheep by name;" "He goeth after that which is lost;" "When he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing!" The seeker after souls ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... find a tall, stalwart man standing behind him. His features were strong but very grave, and the prince caught a look of compassion in his eye as their gaze met. His skin was fair and without blemish, a robe of silver cloth fell from his shoulders, and in his right hand he ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... let them dye. But shuch of y^e passengers as were yet abord shewed them what mercy they could, w^ch made some of their harts relente, as y^e boatson (& some others), who was a prowd yonge man, and would often curse & scofe at y^e passengers; but when he grew weak, they had compassion on him and helped him; then he confessed he did not deserve it at their hands, he had abused them in word & deed. O! saith he, you, I now see, shew your love like Christians indeed one to another, but we let one another lye & dye like doggs. Another ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... are who would willingly barter A queen's diadem for the crown of a martyr. They want to be pitied, not envied. To know That the world feels compassion makes joy of their woe; And the keenest delight in their misery lies, If only their friends will look ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... more; every time that the love of God, or the feeling of the truth, rouses a man to look first up at the light, then down at the skirts of his own garments—that moment a divine resurrection is wrought in the earth. Yea, every time that a man passes from resentment to forgiveness, from cruelty to compassion, from hardness to tenderness, from indifference to carefulness, from selfishness to honesty, from honesty to generosity, from generosity to love,—a resurrection, the bursting of a fresh bud of life out of the grave of evil, gladdens ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... of scorn that had kindled in Blandford's eyes, darkened with a swift shadow of compassion as he glanced at Demorest's hard, ashen face. He held out his hand with a sudden impulse. "Enough, I accept your offer, and shall put it to the test this very night. I know—if you do not—that Rosita is to leave here for Los Osos an hour from now in a private carriage, ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... still requireth at my hands Such things as are not, cannot, may not be, And my desire although my power withstands, Will give me wings, who never yet could flee. What then remains except my maimed soul Extort compassion from love-flying age, Or if naught else their fury may control, To call on death that quells affection's rage; Which death shall dwell with me and never fly, Since vain desire seeks ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... off speaking, there emerged from the forest our other detachment and the guide, the latter carrying two fat turkeys. He greeted the backwoodsman as an old acquaintance, but with a degree of sympathy and compassion in the tone of his salutation which contrasted strangely with his usual ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... nothing to me but one poor, wounded babe, and it seemed at present worse than death, that it was in such a pitiful condition, bespeaking compassion, and I had no refreshing for it, nor suitable things to revive it.... But now (the next morning) I must turn my back upon the town, and travel with them into the vast and desolate wilderness, I knew not whither. It is ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... mention of Schevleningen the Marches had looked at each other with a guilty alarm, which they both tried to give the cast of affectionate sympathy but she dismissed her fear that he might be going to let his compassion prevail with him to his hurt when he said: "Why, we ought to have been there before this, but I've been taking my life in my hands in trying to see a little of Germany, and I'm afraid now that Mrs. March has her mind too firmly fixed on Berlin to let me think of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Brangaene, in despair at such wilful blindness. "From Tristan to Mark lies Melot's road. He there sows evil seed. This nocturnal hunting-party, so hurriedly concerted, has in view a nobler quarry than your fancy deems!"—"Melot," Isolde persists in his defence, "invented the stratagem, out of compassion for his friend. And do you make it into a reproach to him? He cares for me better than do you. He opens to me that which you close. Oh, spare me the misery of hesitation! The signal, Brangaene, ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... smiled pleasantly, and not without compassion. "Look out for yourselves," said he, as he ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... are in my care!' This was spoken with a resolution equal to his own. Then Mr. Hilton went on, more softly and with infinite compassion: 'Moreover, I want to have a talk with you which may alter your views.' Harold interrupted, still playing the game of hiding ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... uncertain how to regard him, and Mrs. Johnson openly described him as peculiar. He was so deeply tanned by the fervid suns of the New Hampshire winter, and his hair had so far suffered from the example of the sheep lately under his charge, that he could not be classed by any stretch of compassion with the blonde and straight-haired members ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... broke in upon the court by exclaiming that 'he did'nt care if the court had convicted him, he wasn't guilty any how.' 'That will be a consolation to you,' rejoined the judge, with unusual benignity, and with a voice full of sympathy and compassion, 'That will be a consolation to you, in the hour of your confinement, for we read in the good Book that it is better to suffer wrong, than do wrong.' In the irrepressible burst of laughter which followed ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... it was their name for him among themselves, and that they watched him with a certain contemptuous compassion, in the full belief that ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... expect succor in time of necessity. Although I have sent earnest petition therefor to Mexico, I think that they will neglect my request, just as they do everything else, unless they see an order from your Majesty I beseech your Majesty to have compassion for this new plant of the faith of Jesus Christ, which costs your Majesty and your subjects so dearly to establish and preserve. May your Majesty grant me grace and send me troops, and let those who come be from those realms of Castilla—a matter of moment ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... chief, pierced his thigh. Down to the earth he sank on his knees, and the Trojan chief rushed forward sword in hand. Then the vanquished hero besought the conqueror: "I have deserved my fate, and I do not deprecate it, yet if any regard for an unhappy father can move you, have compassion on the aged Daunus. You too had such a father. You have triumphed. Lavinia is yours. Persist not ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... she don't know nothin'," said the boy, looking at her with an air of compassion "wot a sad thing it is to belong to a lower species of human natur! Well, I s'pose it can't be helped. A pirate, Kickup, ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... the great mass, whose humanity has been ground out of them by cruel oppression—whom no good Samaritan hand has yet reached—how could it be otherwise? We wish to turn the tables; to supplant oppression by righteousness, insult by compassion and brotherly kindness, hatred and contempt by love and winning meekness, till we allure these wretched ones to the hope and enjoyment of manhood and virtue."[55] . . . . "The means of education and religious instruction are better enjoyed, although ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... series of favours, of kindness, and of generosity, flashed, with momentary but irresistible compunction, upon the mind of one of his sanguinary judges, who, suspending the bloody proceedings which then occupied the court, implored the compassion of his fell associates. He pleaded until he had obtained his discharge, and then at once forgetting the emotions of mercy, which had inspired his tongue with the most persuasive eloquence, he very ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... returning would be within her power! But now she felt that she might not return and leave that poor, suffering wretch behind her. As she thought of him she tried to interrogate herself in regard to her feelings. Was it love, or duty, or compassion which stirred her? She had loved him as fondly as any bright young woman loves the man who is to take her away from everything else, and make her a part of his house and of himself. She had loved him as Nora now loved the ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Then a curious compassion for her troubled the man. She was young and very comely, and it was, he felt, cruelly hard on her that, bearing her father's shame, she must lead a life of hard labour at that desolate ranch. He felt an almost ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... also saw the kindly efforts of his guests, felt that this was the last intolerable dagger-thrust. Their amused compassion suffocated him. He wanted people to envy him, not pity him, he thought in ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... you never were in," she said, regarding him with great kindness and compassion. "I know you are disappointed, but you are too much a man to ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... and happy; it seemed to her that her pain was already over and done with. Framed in the doorway, in the yellow lamplight, she beheld the fancies of her youth, the memories of the past. She saw again the woman she had been, and watched, with eyes filled with compassion, her early sorrows, and the troubles of her later years. "It was all of no account," she said to herself, "but it doesn't matter now." And she set herself to wait in patience for Mr. Jeminy, who she never doubted would ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... which signified, "Speak;" and he remained standing, with his eyes fixed searchingly on these desponding men. Pelisson bowed to the ground, and La Fontaine knelt as people do in churches. This dismal silence, disturbed only by sighs and groans, began to excite in the king, not compassion, but impatience. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... moment there was no dry eye present; the very doctor wept. Margaret's grief was loud; she felt every source of love and tenderness for their only boy opened in her unhappy and breaking heart, and was inconsolable: but then compassion for her husband was strong as her grief. She ran to Art, she flung her arms about his neck, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... me. Having never been able, as brothers and Christians, or in any just way, to obtain peace from him, we were constrained to appeal to the judgment of God. Lothair was beaten and retired, whither he could, with his following; for we, restrained by paternal affection and moved with compassion for Christian people, were unwilling to pursue them to extermination. Neither then nor aforetime did we demand aught else save that each of us should be maintained in his rights. But he, rebelling against the judgment of God, ceaseth not to attack us ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... revulsion in Cecil's feelings; returning remorse bore down her stubborn pride. Very low and plaintive was the whisper—"Ah! have mercy—have mercy; you make me so unhappy;" but there came a more piteous appeal from her eyes. In Mark's stout manhood was an element of more than womanish compassion and tenderness; he never could bear to see even a child in tears; no wonder if his anger vanished before the contrition of the one being whom he loved far better than life. He lost sight of his own wrongs instantly, but not of the object ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... divergent students of psychological law. Herbert Spencer analysed it with characteristic thoroughness. Nietzsche went farther. He reacted violently against the onslaughts of pity in his own soul, and in philosophical self-defence inverted the promptings of compassion. The war has shown the human need of self-defence against excessive sympathy. We are surfeited with horrors on land and sea; the ghastly truth of a carnage which exceeds anything known in history, of maimed and broken lives, of starving and homeless people, is ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... by charity," he agreed. "Had Palencia no compassion?" She grew dark and would not answer him at first; presently asked, had ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... flung herself at the feet of the King. 'My lord,' she cried, 'have I given you cause to wish my death? Your son is the Prince; I can refuse him nothing. Have pity on me, wife as I am. Kill me not without reason. And if you have no compassion left for me, find a place in your heart for your grandchildren, who are ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... beforehand, and with calmness and intrepidity offered himself willingly to suffer the knife, and shed the first-fruits of his sacred blood in this painful manner. Under the smart this divine infant shed tears, but not as other children; for by them, with the most tender love and compassion, he bewailed chiefly our spiritual miseries, and at the same time presented with joy his blood as the price of our redemption to his Father. Fourthly, by thus humbling himself under this painful operation, he would ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... had more passion than tenderness, but what woman is not to be surprised and softened? When her young favourite, the greatest fighter she had ever seen, broke down at the end of his gallant effort and began to cry like a girl, her bowels of compassion yearned within her, and she longed to cry with him. She only saved herself from some imprudence by flight, and had her cry alone. After a flow of tears, such a woman is invincible; she treated Alfred at tea-time with remarkable coldness and reserve. This piece of acting led to ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... for folly, for a jest,—the horror and bitterness of the thought filled her mind to overflowing. In the first anguish of that recollection she had to go forth, receiving no word of comfort in respect to it, meeting only with a look of sadness and compassion, which went to her very heart. She came forth as if she had been driven away, but not by any outward influence, by the force of her own miserable sensations. "I will write," she said to herself, "and tell them; I will go—" And then she stopped short, remembering ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... befell him as he followed me, or whether he entered the crack with me and then lost sight of me, I know not; but in vain have I sought him every day since my arrival within these walls, and so anxious am I to learn what is become of him, that I am now come forth, contrary to my nature, to engage your compassion, and ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... temperance of mediocrity, but, in the excess of contradictions, his soul is discordant, he shivers in his frozen hopes and burns in his glowing desires; in his eagerness he is clamorous, and he is mute from fear; his heart burns in its affection for others, and for compassion of himself he sheds tears from his eyes; dying in the laughter of others, he is alive in his own lamentations; and like him who no longer belongs to himself, he loves others and hates himself; because matter, as say the physicists, with ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... smuggling tobacco to the prisoners," Breschia answered, and all of a sudden I found my heart beating like a hammer. Was this the man, I wondered, who had shown compassion to Miss Ros-sano's hapless father? And was he therefore the man of all others whom I needed to lay hands on? If that were so it seemed nothing less than a providence that the man should be English, for my ignorance of all the patois ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... and his grandfather had brutally violated an innocent friendship. They had put into insulting words what neither he nor Clare had dreamed of—he hastily assured himself that they were not lovers. More than ever before he now felt infinite tenderness toward her—compassion, sympathy—an overpowering impulse to seek her. He had much to tell her. He could not think of any one in all the world who would listen as she would listen. The red eyes glowering out of the summer gloom did not daunt him; they suggested ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... On coming up to them, after he had told them of his misfortune and the miserable condition to which he had been reduced, they smoked together, as they are accustomed to do with one another and their acquaintances when they visit each other. They had pity and compassion for him, offering him every assistance, and conducting him to their village, where they entertained him and ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... from man, threw himself on his knees and commended his soul to God. Suddenly, however, one of those who had shown himself most ferocious during the massacre, Jean Coussinal by name, was touched as if by miracle with a feeling of compassion at the sight of so much resignation, and threw himself between the bishop and those about to strike, and declaring that whoever touched the prelate must first overcome himself, took him under his protection, his comrades retreating in astonishment. Jean Coussinal raising the bishop, carried him ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... content. It must do away with such ridiculous feelings as blame, irritation, anger, resentment. It must establish in the mind an all-embracing tolerance. Until a man can look upon the drunkard in his drunkenness, and upon the wife-beater in his brutality, with pure and calm compassion; until his heart goes out instinctively to every other manifestation of the unique Force; until he is surcharged with an eager and unconquerable benevolence towards everything that lives; until he has utterly ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... she found it, as a woman will. Our chief interest in her at this time lies in the fact that certain missing fragments in the history of the person known as Zerviah Hope we owe to her. She hovers over the tale with a distant and beautiful influence, pervading as womanly compassion and alert as a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... position by fighting. Two battles were fought on nearly the same ground, on September 19, and October 7. The first was indecisive; the second resulted in so complete a rout for the British that, leaving his sick and wounded to the compassion of Gates, Burgoyne retreated to Saratoga. There finding his provisions giving out, and that there was no chance for escape, he capitulated with his entire army, October ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... appeared smilingly, smoothing down the front of the dress that had taken the place of the one she travelled in. She advanced towards Mason with sweet compassion in her eyes, and that ill-fated man thought he had never seen any one look so altogether charming—excepting, of course, his own wife in her youthful days. She seemed to have smoothed away all the Boston stiffness as ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... fear and uncertainty written in the secretary's face, produced no quiver of compassion in the detective. Britz was measuring the man with cool, calculating eyes, that shone in their sockets like balls of chilled steel. Long ago he had learned to turn an indifferent ear to protestations of innocence. Such pleas drop with equal ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... to my virtue; for this bugbear of a compulsory marriage I cannot give up a love which God Himself has inspired in my heart. Then let it be so! Let the world judge and the priests condemn me. I will not sacrifice my love to a prejudice. I know that this is sinful, but God will have compassion on the sinner who has no other happiness on earth than this only one—a love that controls her whole being. And if this sin must be punished, oh, my Maker, I pray you to pardon him, and let the punishment fall ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... walk in loose snow. They consider such a walk so tiresome, that they loudly commiserated one of my crew, who had to walk without snow-shoes after drifting weather from the village Yinretlen to the vessel, about three kilometres distant. Finally a woman's compassion went so far that she presented him with a pair, an instance of generosity on the part of our Chukch friends which otherwise was exceedingly rare. The frame of the snow-shoes is made of wood, the cross-pieces are of strong and well-stretched thongs. ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... regeneration was predestined to happen. A precursor of Hegel, he taught three eras: the dominion of the Father, or the first era, characterised by fear and the severity of the law; the dominion of the Son, or the era of faith and compassion; and the dominion of the Holy Ghost, or the era of love. This last era was beginning to dawn, and in many places Joachim's words were regarded as the prophecies of a seer. Thus the monk, Gerhard of Borgo San Domino, claimed for the dawning third era the preaching of a new gospel ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... forward to assist her? to raise her up, and offer her restoratives? No—not one. Hundreds would have done so, but they dared not: she was an outcast, excommunicated, abandoned, and lost; and should any one, moved by compassion for a suffering fellow-creature, have ventured to raise her up, he would have been looked upon with suspicion, and most probably have been arraigned, and have had to settle the affair of conscience with the ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... father's spoils from his father's slayer; but more than all these, for that lightning of divine rage and pity, of tenderness that speaks in thunder and indignation that makes fire of its tears, in the horror of great compassion which falls on him, the tempest and storm of a beautiful and godlike anger which shakes his strength of spirit and bows his high heart down at sight of Arthur dead. Being thus, as he is, the English masterwork of Shakespeare's hand, we ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... upon his son's head, made the sign of the cross, and blessed him in the name of the Holy Trinity. Then raising him in his arms he tenderly embraced him. saying, as he did so, to the great potentates around him, that he felt a sincere compassion for the son on whose shoulders so heavy a weight had just devolved, and which only a life-long labor would enable him to support. Philip now uttered a few words expressive of his duty to his father ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... insisted that the Baron was the man of whom they were in chase, and it required all the Count's eloquence to persuade them to the contrary; but his pitiable plight rather amused them than excited their compassion. Some of them had even the cruelty to beg him to start again, and give them another chase. At length the kind-hearted landlady of the inn, coming out, begged him to enter, undertaking to wash his waistcoat and shirt-front, and to put ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... say that Christ appeals to the gentler instincts of man,—to his unselfishness, his meekness and compassion. Yet some of the most admirable Christians have been ambitious and aggressive. Others say, He appeals to our need of help. But self-reliance is a Christian trait. Others say, He appeals to our sense of sin—our need of pardon. But ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... can love me still, I will live as your slave, your minion, your wife; aught you will have me be. You have raised me from wretchedness. Oh!" continued she in an altered tone, "have I mistaken your meaning? Did you utter those words in false compassion for my sufferings?—Speak, it is not yet too late—all may be well. My fate—my life is in your hands. If you love me yet—if you can forsake Eleanor, speak—if ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to sit, entertained by howling blasts, till a fresh engine comes up from Blair Atholl. Such an experience was once mine, and I always think of it when I read the ninth ode of Horace's first book. Outside were the great snow-sheeted mountains, and the moon was gazing in blear-eyed compassion through a screen of haze. From end to end of the train resounded the rhythmic beat of cold-footed passengers striving to bring some warmth of blood to ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... his back were thirty-seven gashes made with a cowskin, while on his head were many bruises besides. It was a Sunday morning, fresh from his terrible punishment, that the poor fellow had found the editors of the Genius, who, with the compassion of brothers, took him in, dressed his wounds, and cared for him for two days. Such an experience was no new horror to Lundy, but it was doubtless Garrison's first lesson in that line, and it sank many fathoms deep into ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... our humble supplications, and to me, who above all have need of Thy compassion, graciously give ear. Spare Thou this penitent, that, by Thy mercy, he may escape condemnation in the judgment to come. Let him not know the dread of darkness, nor the pang of fire. Having turned from his way of error into the path of ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child; and behold the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... were broken down. When the Moors saw this they came to the King, and fell at his feet, and besought him of his mercy that he would let them depart, leaving to him the city and all that they had therein, for they asked for nothing but their lives. And the King had compassion upon them and granted their prayer; and the city was yielded to him on a Sunday at the hour of tierce, which was before a week had run out since the Monks of ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... character, with the substitution of "I" for "he,"" and the omission of the prefatory "he acts as if he thought" so and so. The only feelings they can possibly excite are disgust at the AEciuses, if regarded as sane loyalists, or compassion if considered as Bedlamites. So much for their tragedies. But even their comedies are, most of them, disturbed by the fantasticalness, or gross caricature, of the persons or incidents. There are ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... omniscience. He knew what was in men and knew their thoughts. He manifested the power of God in controlling the forces of nature, commanding the wind and the waves, turning water into wine. He had power over disease, over the demons and over death. He revealed the Love and the compassion of God. ...
— The Work Of Christ - Past, Present and Future • A. C. Gaebelein
... encouragement and waving of handkerchiefs; "Courage, courage, brave patriots!" was their salutation; and when night fell upon the scene, there rose from the lagoons strains of instrumental and vocal melody, and improvised recitations breathing honor, compassion, and hope; so that in spite of bayonets and police, terrorism and espionage, the voice of their fettered country wafted to every captive the assurance that he had not striven and been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... sight of the cocked rifles, and held up their hands like lambs for the Chinaman to rope them, which he did like lashing a chest and about as tender, the tears streaming down the women's faces. But there wasn't a spark of compassion in Elijah Coe, and he never ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... her voice from afar, and, coming nearer, looked with compassion upon her grief. He touched the tree with his all-healing hands. Immediately the sap began to stir and rise in the trunk; young leaves unfolded; white, nectar-laden flowers opened here and there. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... times, when they were alone together, waiting Stephen Whitelaw's coming home to tea, Mrs. Tadman's heart, not entirely hardened by long years of self-seeking, yearned towards her kinsman's wife; and the secret animosity with which she had at first regarded her changed to a silent pity, a compassion she would fain have expressed in some form or other, ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... a duke, which God raised up to deliver the children of Israel from the Midianites, in whose hands they were fallen, because they had broken God's commandment, and displeased God: yet at the length he had compassion on them, and raised up Gideon to deliver them. When they heard that they had a captain, or a duke, that should deliver them, they assembled a great number, about thirty thousand: but when it came to pass that they should fight, they ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... philosophers of his kidney; or else mount a step higher, and, with conceit still more monstrous, and mental vision still more wretchedly debauched and weak, begin suddenly to find yourself afflicted with a maudlin compassion for the human race, and a desire to set them right after your own fashion. There is the quarrelsome stage of drunkenness, when a man can as yet walk and speak, when he can call names, and fling plates and wine-glasses at his neighbor's head with a pretty ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it not be inferred from this that our hero's character had grown so blase and hard, or his conscience so blunted, as to preclude his experiencing a particle of sympathy or compassion. As a matter of fact, he was capable both of the one and the other, and would have been glad to assist his old teacher had no great sum been required, or had he not been called upon to touch the fund which he had decided should remain intact. In other words, the ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... into dust in the land of exile: their souls, chained to their mortal bodies, shared their captivity, and if they were provided with the necessary sustenance and libations to keep them from annihilation, it was not from any motives of compassion or pity, but from a refinement of vengeance, in order that they might the longer taste the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the stranger began, 'I have come to rectify a great mistake. This poor fellow mortal whose body you are committing to its last resting place mistook the full measure of God's compassion. He believed that he had committed that sin for which there is no forgiveness. In his extreme anxiety to atone for his former crime, he was led to commit another, for God requires no man to commit suicide, and his Word expressly forbids it. My friends, I am here to-day to tell ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... them hither, Ariel,' said Prospero: 'if you, who are but a spirit, feel for their distress, shall not I, who am a human being like themselves, have compassion on them? Bring them, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... burned, and all the women are to be tarred and feathered." I said, "Madam, if I believed them capable of such a vile threat, even, much less the execution, I would see them cut down without a feeling of compassion" (which is not true), "and swear I was a Yankee rather than claim being a native of the same country with such brutes." She has a long tongue; when I next hear of it, it will be that I told the story, and called them brutes and hoped they would be shot, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... over the head, and large drops glistened on the wan brow. Beulah stood beside the bed a few minutes; the apartment was furnished with almost Oriental splendor; but how all this satin, and rosewood, and silver, and marble mocked the restless, suffering sleeper! Beulah felt tears of compassion weighing down her lashes, as she watched the haggard countenance of this petted child of fortune; but, unwilling to rouse her, she silently stole down the steps. The hall was dark; the smell of gas almost stifling. Of course, the ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... beauty,—Irish blue, under gracefully arched brows, and luminous with the sunshine that has sparkled in the eyes of his race in all the generations, caught by looking skyward for a light that dawned not upon earth. His expression was sad, and the beautiful smile that illumined his face, radiating compassion, kindness, gentleness and the humor of the Kelt, made me think of a brilliant noontide sun ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... sudden revulsion of feeling, she was sensible of a great compassion for him; and with each pressure of her lips to the roses, she implored his forgiveness for her unpremeditated desertion. She called to mind his tenderness, his unceasing care of her, and, closing her eyes, stretched out her arms to him, in the empty room. Already ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... mean such as lust, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, friendship, hatred, longing, emulation, compassion, in short all such as are followed by pleasure or pain: by Capacities, those in right of which we are said to be capable of these feelings; as by virtue of which we are able to have been made angry, or grieved, or to have compassionated; by States, those in right of ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... Heemskerk and De Veer, having seen them on their previous voyage. Most refreshing it was to see other human faces again, after thirteen months' separation from mankind, while the honest Muscovites expressed compassion for the forlorn and emaciated condition of their former acquaintance. Furnished by them with food and wine, the Hollanders sailed in company with the Russians as far as ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... done for us, as officers might at any moment arrive from the General Head-quarters and require the rooms. It was then past nine o'clock, and bitterly cold—and we began to wonder. Finally the polite officer who had been charged to dismiss us, moved to compassion at our plight, offered to give us a laissez-passer back to Paris. But Paris was about a hundred and twenty-five miles off, the night was dark, the cold was piercing—and at every cross-road and railway ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... which teaches us to do to others as we would that they should do to us. This uniformity of moral feeling and affection even proves a check upon those who have subdued the influence of these feelings in themselves. Thus, a man who has thrown off all sense of justice, compassion, or benevolence, is still kept under a certain degree of control by the conviction of these impressions existing in those by whom he is surrounded. There are indeed men in the world, as has been remarked by Butler, in whom this appears ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... belonged to such an order of things, would you do so with the assent of your own will?" Now everyone knows well that if he secretly allows himself to deceive, it does not follow that everyone else does so; or if, unobserved, he is destitute of compassion, others would not necessarily be so to him; hence, this comparison of the maxim of his actions with a universal law of nature is not the determining principle of his will. Such a law is, nevertheless, a type of ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... so moving, so sympathetic, that it excited my compassion, and made me determine to follow her. Accordingly I elbowed my way, though I felt that I rather disturbed the surgeon's dressing; but that was a trifle. I followed her up stairs without ceremony. With respect to her, affection, 'masterless passion, had swayed her ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... from him with contempt, until she felt the weariness of the exertion of making useless protests; and now, he had come, in this strange wild passionate way, to make known his love For, although at first it had struck her, that his offer was forced and goaded out of him by sharp compassion for the exposure she had made of herself,—which he, like others, might misunderstand—yet, even before he left the room,—and certainly, not five minutes after, the clear conviction dawned upon her, shined bright ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... me shall separate, at once my lips All trembling kissed The book and writer both Were love's purveyors In its leaves that day We read no more' While thus one spirit spake The other wailed so sorely, that heart-struck I, through compassion fainting, seem'd not far From death and like a ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... wreck and growth, to confusion and order, to the world at large, I turn a deaf ear; and have life only for this one thing,—which also in general I feel to be one of the pitifulest that ever man went about possessed with. Have compassion for me! It is really very miserable: but it will end. Some months more, and it is ended; and I am done with French Revolution, and with Revolution and Revolt in general; and look once more with free eyes over this Earth, where are other things ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... satisfy everyone who feels compassion for cosmic suffering. Professor Huxley has told us that there is no sadder story than the story of sentient life upon this planet, and in so saying he has the testimony of modern science behind him. A vast amount of attention has been directed to this phase of the subject within ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... to the ground; when he finished reading the second act every actor but one had left the room, and Meyer thrust a dagger into the poet's heart by declaring that "Fiesco" was nothing but high-flown rubbish. Having, however, heard but two acts of the play, and probably stirred to compassion by Schiller's mournful countenance, the regisseur requested that the manuscript should be left with him; and the following morning the poet was compensated for the intervening night of misery, by hearing Meyer proclaim that "Fiesco" was a masterpiece, and that the bad effect it ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... even a dozen steps, if you are likely to feel shocked at having your knees suddenly clasped by a figure hardly human; who perhaps holding you forcibly for a minute, conjures you loudly, by the sacred wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ, to have compassion upon his; shewing you at the same time such undeniable and horrid proofs of the anguish he is suffering, that one must be a monster to quit him unrelieved. Such pathetic misery, such disgusting distress, did I never see before, as I have been witness to in this gaudy city—and that not occasionally ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... chance he observed the descent of the balloon which carried the prisoners of the Confederates. Clad in his diving dress he was walking beneath the water at a few cables' length from the shore of the island, when the engineer had been thrown into the sea. Moved by a feeling of compassion the captain ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... bowels of compassion. But, at all events, you promise me the dish when you're done with it? you give me ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... fell like raindrops from his fingers; saw himself the all-conspicuous figure, as, with masterful gestures, he compelled the soul that lay dormant in brass and strings, to give voice to, to interpret to the many, his subtlest emotions. And he was overcome by a tremulous compassion with himself at the idea of wielding such power over an unknown multitude, at the latent nobility of mind ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... trumping compassion from foghorn nose, all laughing they brought him forth, Ben Dollard, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... a very long sad story. Not about my stinginess, I mean—though that is a sad story, in another sense, but will not move my compassion. As to Sir Edmond, I can only tell you now that, while he was a man of great scientific knowledge, he knew very little indeed of money matters, and was not only far too generous, but what is a thousand times worse, too trustful. Being of an honorable race ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... friends would be ready to help him, if necessary, with arms. Cosimo was cited to appear before the Balia, which, much against the wishes of his friends, he did. "Many," says Machiavelli, "would have him banished many executed, and many were silent, either out of compassion for him or apprehension of other people, so that nothing was concluded." Cosimo, however, was in the meantime a prisoner in the Palazzo Vecchio in the Alberghettino tower[96] in the custody of Federigo Malavolti. He could hear all that was said, and the clatter of arms and the tumult made ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... luckie, either for that after Caratake was remooued out of the waie, or bicause the Romans (as though the warre had beene finished) looked negligentlie to themselues, either else for that the Britains taking compassion of the miserable state of Caratake, being so worthie a prince, through fortunes froward aspect cast into miserie, were more earnestlie set to reuenge his quarrell. Heerevpon they incompassed the maister of the campe, and those legionarie bands of souldiers which ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... "I protest I am devoured with curiosity, my dear boy, but I have also bowels of compassion. When we are well on with our meal, when you are strengthened with food and drink, then you may begin. But now—Dickie," to ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... as Mr Wopples would have said, a highly dramatic situation, but, alas, that the confiding nature of Madame Midas should thus have been betrayed, not only by Vandeloup, but by Kitty herself—the very girl whom, out of womanly compassion, ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... understanding, tenderness of affection, and rectitude of intention; but discover, at the same time, a temper timorous, anxious, and impatient of misfortune; a tendency to burst into complaints, helpless dependance on the affection of others, and a weak desire of moving compassion. There is, indeed, nothing insolent or overbearing; but then there is nothing great, or firm, or regal; nothing that enforces obedience and respect, or which does not rather invite opposition and petulance. She ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... weather, pretty generally proceeded to the churches, which will be open morning, noon, and night, for it is a solemn occasion, and thousands will supplicate Almighty God to be pleased to look upon us with compassion, and aid us, in this hour of extremity, to resist the endeavors of our enemies to reduce us ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... cried Arnfinn, laughing, while the girl bit her under lip with an air of penitence and mortification which, in any other bosom than a cousin's would have aroused compassion. ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... within her, she had hoped that Eliot's savage bitterness towards her might have softened with the passage of time—that perhaps he had learned to tincture his contempt for her with a little understanding and compassion, allowing something in excuse for youth and for the long, grinding years of poverty which had ground the courage out of her and driven her into making that one ghastly mistake for which life had exacted such a heavy ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... their gentleness and compassion, they are witnesses in their own favor, and have strong motives for showing the fairest side. But what do the laws themselves imply? Are enactments ever made against exigencies which do not exist? If negroes ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... women sobbing round, and I could not quite check my own tears. What had happened was reported to papa either by Joseph Redman or John Brown; it excited only anger, and such expressions as "unmanly driveller." Compassion or relenting is no more to be looked for than ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... of a crazed beast, because it took that form as readily as any other, and in taking it, best served my selfish ends. Now I must pay for that sorry shaping, just as, I think, you too must pay some day. And so, I cry farewell with loathing, but with compassion also!" ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... am afraid I have mistaken. Piety and greatness of soul set you above all misfortunes that can happen to yourself, and the calumnies of false tongues; but that same piety which renders what happens to yourself indifferent to you, yet softens the natural compassion in your temper to the greatest degree of tenderness for the interests of the Church, and the liberty and welfare of your country: the steps that are now made towards the destruction of both, the apparent danger ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... yes, and dreary! You all abuse my husband and look on me with compassion; you think, "Poor woman, she is married to an old man." How well I understand your compassion! As Astroff said just now, see how you thoughtlessly destroy the forests, so that there will soon be none left. So you also destroy mankind, and soon fidelity ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov |
