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Penance   Listen
noun
Penance  n.  
1.
Repentance. (Obs.)
2.
Pain; sorrow; suffering. (Obs.) "Joy or penance he feeleth none."
3.
(Eccl.) A means of repairing a sin committed, and obtaining pardon for it, consisting partly in the performance of expiatory rites, partly in voluntary submission to a punishment corresponding to the transgression, imposed by a confessor or other ecclesiastical authority. Penance is the fourth of seven sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church. "And bitter penance, with an iron whip." "Quoth he, "The man hath penance done, And penance more will do.""
4.
Hence: Any act performed by a person to atone for an offense to another; an act of atonement. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Penance" Quotes from Famous Books



... am in delicate health, the King, having recovered from his illness, commanded me to do penance,—almost public penance. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... may find here some reasons in his logic of gloom. For years he and his had been fighting various impending disasters. In the end he had torn his family apart and set out on a weary pilgrimage to pay, for long financial unwisdom, a heavy price—a penance in which all, without complaint, had joined. Now, just when it seemed about ended, when they were ready to unite and be happy once more, when he could hold up his head among his fellows—in this moment of supreme triumph had come the message that ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... the. Frescobaldi, the. Freynet, Gilbert of. See Gilbert. Friars, the; the four orders of; See Austin or hermits of order of St. Augustine; Bonhommes; Carmelite or White; Crutched; Dominicans; Francisans; —— of the Penance of Jesus Christ or —— of the Sack; Trinitarians or Maturins. Froissart, John. Froissart, Chroniques, ed. Luce; ed. Kervyn. Fronsac, Viscount of. Funck-Brentano's, F., editions of the Chronique Artesienne and ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... seek for examples of such misuse of language on my own part, I am not at all sure he might not succeed, though I have usually been on my guard against such looseness of expression. If I am guilty, I do penance beforehand, and only hope that I may thereby deter others from committing the like fault. And I venture on this personal observation by way of showing that I have no wish to bear hardly on the preacher for falling ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... American administration were disregarded. I know not if so much as an answer has been returned to them. The minister penitentiary, (as some of the British prints called him,) Mr. Jay, was sent on a pilgrimage to London, to make up all by penance and petition. In the mean time the lengthy and drowsy writer of the pieces signed Camillas held himself in reserve to vindicate every thing; and to sound in America the tocsin of terror upon the inexhaustible resources ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... Gentry suffer interdiction, no more sense spoken, all things Goth and Vandal, till you be summed again, Velvets and Scarlets, anointed with gold Lace, and Cloth of silver turned into Spanish Cottens for a penance, wits blasted with your Bulls and Taverns withered, as though the Term lay ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont

... This penance had not proceeded far, before the door was again opened, and Mr. Morris Brown presented himself to ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of their own gizzard, Cross Captain X. and rough old General Izzard! Letter to Letter spreads the dire alarms, Till half the Alphabet is up in arms. Nor with less lustre have Initials shone, To grace the gentler annals of Crim. Con. Where the dispensers of the public lash Soft penance give; a letter and a dash— Where Vice reduced in size shrinks to a failing, And loses half her grossness by curtailing. Faux pas are told in such a modest way,— "The affair of Colonel B—— with Mrs. A——" You must forgive them—for what is there, say, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... I was careful to make not the slightest allusion to the narcotic she had given me, or to the scene that followed, and we lived in unbroken harmony. But my priestly scruples tormented me more than ever, and I knew not what new penance to invent to blunt my passion and mortify my flesh. Though my visions were wholly involuntary and my will had nothing to do with them, I shrank from touching the host with hands thus sullied and spirit defiled by debauchery, whether in act or in dream. To avoid falling into these ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... theologian, he constantly breathes one engrossing sentiment. With him, Christianity was the love of God and its morality was the love of the neighbor. Judged by occasional expressions, his piety might seem too ascetic and mystical—too urgent of penance and self-crucifixion—too enthusiastic in emotion, perilling the sobriety of reason in the impassioned fervors of devotion—sometimes bordering upon that overstrained spiritualism, which, in its impulsive ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... Angelico, to return to the question, was not a St. Francis, a Fra Jacopone. But even Angelico had his passionately human side, though it was only the humanness of a nice child. In a life of hard study, and perhaps hard penance, that childish blessed one nourished childish desires—desires for green grass and flowers, for gay clothes,[5] for prettily-dressed pink and lilac playfellows, for the kissing and hugging in which he had no share, for the games of the children ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... various horrors of these hulks to tell— These prison ships where Pain and Penance dwell, Where Death in ten-fold vengeance holds his reign, And injured ghosts, yet unavenged, complain: This be my task—ungenerous Britons, you Conspire to murder whom you ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... answered her husband. "I shall go, speak with the priest, and see what he saith. Without"—and he turned to Elizabeth—"thou wilt be penitent, and go to mass, and do penance ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt

... and the tediousness of doing nothing. To strenuous minds there is an inquietude in overquietness and no laboriousness in labor; and to tread a mile after the slow pace of a snail, or the heavy measures of the lazy of Brazilia, were a most tiring penance, and worse than a race of some furlongs at the Olympics. The rapid courses of the heavenly bodies are rather imitable by our thoughts than our corporeal motions; yet the solemn motions of our lives amount unto a greater measure than ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... out on 'the sly,' you know," she observed with an arch smile. "I have a good, quiet aunt who lives down at Richmond, and I do penance there for a time, whenever I have been more than usually wicked; but to-day I could not resist the fine weather and the crowd and the fun, and above all the bad company, which amuses me more than all the rest ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... blood—for a title and an income. And now that he held her at her true value, that his love had died a natural death in contempt and scorn, her whole heart, her whole soul craved him with a sick longing that was like death. It was her daily torture and penance to see him, to speak to him, and note the cold scorn of his gray, tranquil eyes. Jealousy had been added to her other torments; he was ever by Lady Gwendoline's side of late—ever at Drexel Court. His father had set his heart upon the match; she was ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... there during the confessions, and during Mass. I am not excusing them, but did you ever hear of the ancient penance of wearing peas in pilgrims' shoes? Some, I believe, and I think Erasmus is the authority, had the wisdom to boil those peas. But you cannot boil cobblestones. I never realized this part of our people's sufferings till a poor ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... delight, and he saw with some regret that the mere animal excitement of the stroll seemed to draw the attention too much from religious considerations, and, in particular, to make the exercises of the morning seem like a preparatory penance to the enjoyments of the afternoon, nevertheless, when Mr. James looked back to his own boyhood, and remembered the frigid restraint, the entire want of any kind of mental or bodily excitement, which had made the Sabbath so much a weariness to him, he could not ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... detained me many days in Egypt to sacrifice and do penance, for I had forgotten to make proper offerings to them. The island of Pharos lies just off the coast of Egypt. There I remained until the daughter of the Ancient Sea King, seeing my distress, came to ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... a'! what shall we do, Thir dark, unhallow'd times; We 're surely dreeing penance now, For some most awfu' crimes. Sedition daurna now appear, In reality or joke; For ilka chiel maun mourn wi' me, O' a hinging, toom meal pock, And sing, Oh ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... this cell made for a place of penance and self-torture," he said, "and it's just as it used to be during his lifetime, before he was too ill to go in any more. His twisted wire scourge is there, with his blood on it, his horsehair shirt, and a girdle bristling with small, sharp spikes. Will you have ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... religion, their very religion was a gloomy sacrifice of tastes and sympathies that were never their own, offered up as a part of a bargain for the security of their possessions. Austere faces, inexorable discipline, penance in this world and terror in the next—nothing graceful or gentle anywhere, and the void in my cowed heart everywhere—this was my childhood, if I may so misuse the word as to apply it to such a ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... mean "destitute of political morality; habitually using duplicity and bad faith." Cent. Dict.], but laboured in vain to soothe and silence that painful feeling by superstitious observances, severe penance, and profuse gifts to the ecclesiastics. The second property, with which the first is sometimes found strangely united, was a disposition to low pleasures and obscure debauchery. The wisest, or at least the most crafty ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... answered, with a sarcastic smile, "as you expect to do penance the rest of your lifetime, I did not know but you would deem it your duty to educate every beggar who ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes

... as my only anchor. But he lies in prison, has perhaps been already slain by the rage of his enemies, although by my guilt, by my fault. I am the abhorred one who has brought him to prison and to death. Woe to me, the scum of men! There is no hope for me, my crimes can be expiated by no penance. For he is dead—and I, I am his murderer! Thrice unhappy hour in which my mother gave me to the world! Must I still drag on this life of agony and bear these tortures about with me?—as one pest stricken, flee from men, and be despised and shunned ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead

... with love. Only she wanted to humble herself to him, to kneel before him. She wanted now to be self-sacrificial. After all, she had failed to make Morel really love her. She was morally frightened. She wanted to do penance. So she kneeled to Dawes, and it gave him a subtle pleasure. But the distance between them was still very great—too great. It frightened the man. It almost pleased the woman. She liked to feel she was serving him across an insuperable ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... stilled them, he turned to the Lady Vivien and said: "This is my command that I lay upon thee: that thou shalt go into the court of King Arthur and shalt confess thyself to him and that thou shalt fulfil whatever penance he may lay upon thee to perform because of thy transgressions. Now wilt thou do this for to ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... Part II. the punishment begins; in Part III. the punishment reaches its climax. Part IV. brings the "turn"; in the crisis of his sufferings comes the consciousness of fellowship with other creatures and repentance for his cruelty. Parts V. and VI. relate his penance begun, and his return by supernatural agencies to the world of human fellowship; and Part VII. brings us back to the opening scene, closing the whole with a moral. The moral is so plainly set forth that one wonders how Mrs. Barbauld could ever have complained, ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... evil desires, the ancient enemy inflicts hard labor upon us. There is a labor for vice, when any one is either afflicted against his will, for the evil which he has done, or of his will is troubled by the labor of penance. There is a labor against vice, when he that is converted to God is troubled with divers temptations. There is also a confusion in vice, when a man, distracted by most evil passions, is not ruled by reason, but hurried along confusedly by the tumult of vices; a confusion ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... of their stay, she strolled out with him through one of the long woods that stretched away behind their hotel. Excited by the coming end of her self-inflicted penance, moved by the beauty among those sunlit trees, she found it difficult to talk. But Winton, about to lose her, was quite loquacious. Starting from the sinister change in the racing-world—so plutocratic now, with the American ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... simple: 'Very well,' she said, 'I hope I shall be able to make her comfortable:' no begging off, no heroism. And really, Beatrice, don't you think we could make some other arrangement? It is too great a penance for her, poor child. Lady Susan will do very well, and I can have an eye to her; I am much inclined to leave the poor little Queen ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... confession rang the promise of all the after years, of the ministry in Jerusalem, of his declaration of the Christ in many a heathen city, of the death he was to die in Rome. Lack this flame of affection and preaching will be a task, a penance, a weary iteration and reiteration of things so often spoken as to render them threadbare and hackneyed to the speaker. Possess this all-consuming love and preaching will be as "a ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... The room was empty, and the priest was soon after at the dying man's bedside. After a full, sincere, and humble confession, conditional baptism was administered; and, confirmed by all the rites of the church, purified by penance, strengthened by the holy eucharist, and healed by the holy unction of heaven, that pure soul passed away to God in two days after, having become speechless in about an hour after the administration of ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... his book, the only stain upon his fair pages. It reads thus: 'After a variety of vicissitudes, she had embraced the Romish faith: that religion which relieves from all personal responsibility in spiritual matters; and which teaches that earthly penance and ascetic observances will open the gates of heaven to the vilest of criminals.' We have studied Westminster, Episcopal, and Catholic catechisms, the teachings in all three of which are that faith in Christ and sorrow for and renunciation of sin alone can open the gates ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... is to say, it was different from the Roman, and if not identical with the Gallican liturgy, was similar to it. Of the co-equality of the Trinity they had no doubt. In the 'Tripartite Life,' Baptism and Eucharist are mentioned as sacraments, but penance, marriage, holy orders, and extreme unction are not referred to as sacraments; while confirmation, if not accepted as of divine institution, was esteemed to have an imperative importance. There is only a slight trace of the honours paid to the Virgin Mary in the same ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... for the safety of the young student? Had she not prayed against storms and icebergs? And now that he was coming, her heart smote her as if he were a ghost of some one whom she had murdered! Whether she loved him, or Edwards, or anybody, indeed she could not tell. But she would do penance for her crime. And so, when next she heard the quiet voice of "the long trapper" asking for her, she refused to see him, though the refusal all ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... that I behold the Blessed Virgin, whose maternal heart consented in that hour of agony to be broken for the sins of men. I see the Magdalen as she clings to the cross, and receives upon that hair, with which she wiped His Feet, the drops of His Blood. I behold that heart, humbled in penance and inflamed with love—the heart of the woman who had loved much, and for whom he had prayed. It seems to me that I travel step by step to Calvary, and learn, as they unite in Him, every lesson of suffering, of peace, of hope, of ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... I called Iddawc Cordd Prydain, for from this did the battle of Camlan ensue. And three nights before the end of the battle of Camlan I left them, and went to the Llech Las in North Britain to do penance. And there I remained doing penance seven years, and after that I ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... were more consistent in their mourning than the civilized people of the present day. They sat upon the ground and fasted, with rent garments, and ashes strewn upon their heads. This mortification of the flesh was a sort of penance inflicted by the self-tortured mourner for his own sins, and those of the dead. If this grief were not of a deep or lasting nature, the mourner found relief for his mental agonies in humiliation and personal suffering. He did not array himself in silk, and wool, ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... of all penalties to soldiers in the holy war, and from this time on the 'crusade indulgence' became a regular means of recruiting, used, for example, by Leo IX in 1052 and by Urban II in 1095. By this time the practise had grown up of regarding an indulgence as a remission not only of penance, but of the pains of purgatory. The means which had proved successful in getting soldiers for the crusade were first used in 1145 or 1146 to get money for the same end, pardon being assured to those who gave enough to fit out one soldier on ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... Buddhism. The sacred books are printed in the vernacular, in marked contrast to the customs of the other sects. Women, too, are given a very different place in the social and religious scale and are allowed hopes of attaining salvation that are denied by all the older sects. "Penance, fasting, prescribed diet, pilgrimages, isolation from society, whether as hermits or in the cloister, and generally amulets and charms, are all tabooed by this sect. Monasteries imposing life vows are unknown within its pale. Family life takes the ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... I told Father Dumphy what I'd done, he called me an ol' fool an' gave me an extry litany fer penance. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... dost quit my house," said Don Manuel, "it will be to be shut up for life in a convent, there to do penance for thy sins, and to profit by the holy example of that good aunt that died in odour ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... this side of Yorkshire from Lancashire. Early in the morning we marched, and kept our scouts very carefully out every way, who brought us no news for this day. We kept on all night, and made our horses do penance for that little rest they had, and the next morning we passed the hills and got into Lancashire, to a town called Littlebrough, and from thence to Rochdale, a little market town. And now we thought ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... ever favored him, because he rode a mile round to avoid a turnpike, not having wherewithal to pay it. Since that disastrous day he is ever furnished with such a weight of small change that, had Cola Pesce carried it, the strong swimmer must have sunk like a stone—in penance, probably, even as James of Scotland wore the iron belt. At a pause in the conversation you may hear him rattling the coppers in his pocket moodily, as the spectres in old romances rattle their chains; but his remorse is unavailing. A fair chance once lost, Whist and Erycina never ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... departure, after putting a series of questions to various persons, which were answered without the slightest regard to truth, the replicants being ignorant of any penalty attached to lying beyond confession and penance; and considering, indeed, that in an instance like the present it was rather a virtue than a sin. When they were fairly out of sight, Constance went leisurely back to her bower, and ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... please you, sir, it hung up in the room where I was stript; and I borrow'd it of one of the drawers to come home in, because I was loth to do penance through the ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson

... in a trembling voice, which told me that the victory was won, 'is there nothing else? Have you no other penance for me?' ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... is told of the unavailing penance of Jehoram the son of Ahab. There is no preparation; all the tragedy lies in this notice of something casually seen, and left without a commentary, for any one to make his own story about, if he ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... was simply known that Boccanera represented absolutism—the Church freed from all compromises with modern society, and waiting in immobility for the Deity to triumph over Satan, for Rome to be restored to the Holy Father, and for repentant Italy to perform penance for its sacrilege; whereas Sanguinetti, extremely politic and supple, was reported to harbour bold and novel ideas: permission to vote to be granted to all true Catholics,* a majority to be gained by this means in the Legislature; then, as a fatal ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... statement, as she pushed back her chair from the commandant's breakfast table, "I MUST really say that I don't see anything particularly heroic in doing something wrong, lying about it just to get other folks into trouble, and then rushing off to do penance in a high wind and an open boat. But she's pretty, and wears a man's shirt and coat, and of course THAT settles anything. But why earrings and wet white stockings and slippers? And why that Gothic arch of front and a boy's hat? That's what I simply ask;" and the youngest ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... oblivion in the jaws of a frightful hippopotamus-headed monster, "the devourer of evil souls." This annihilation, however, is only the fate of those inveterately wicked. Those respecting whom hopes of reformation may be entertained are condemned to return to earth and do penance in long cycles of lives in the bodies of various animals. This is what is known as the transmigration of souls. The kind of animals the soul should animate, and the length of its transmigrations, were determined by the nature ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... recantation of his audacious forgeries, and Chatterton, who has buried his inexplicable story in his own grave, a tale, which seems but half told—we must place a man well known in the literary world under the assumed name of George Psalmanazar. He composed his autobiography as the penance of contrition, not to be published till he was no more, when all human motives have ceased which might cause his veracity to be suspected. The life is tedious; but I have curiously traced the progress of the mind in an ingenious imposture, which is worth preservation. The present literary forgery ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... cross-question Fate complacently, Less for his own sake than Science's,— Not even he, with his rich gathered lore, Returns from that dark journey down to death. Here or hereafter? Only this I know, That, whatsoever happen afterwards, Some men do penance on this side the grave. Thus Regnald Garnaut for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... as it is still called, had been for a century previous of infamous repute. In Beaumont and Fletcher's play, the Knight of the Burning Pestle, one of the ladies who is undergoing penance at the barber's, has her character sufficiently pointed out to the audience, in her declaration, that she had been "stolen from her ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... hearts. Their plea for additional rigor, being plausibly urged, was favorably received by a community darkened by prejudice. Few regarded with pity, and most with stoical indifference, this barbarous correction for crimes anticipated, and rigorous penance for offences existing only in the diabolical fancies of their tormentors. The truth is, it was the love these poor wretches bore their wives, children, and native soil, for which they were punished. They were commonly bound two and two by chains, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... sackcloth and ashes, rebuking herself with heaviest censures from day to day, because she had found herself to be in danger of regarding this man with a perilous love; and she had been constant in this work of penance till she had been able to assure herself that the sackcloth and ashes had done their work, and that the danger was past. "I like him still and love him well," she had said to herself with something almost of triumph, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... Sweden. In the interest of discipline, Andreas Sandel, who arrived in 1702, introduced a system of monetary penances. In his History of the Lutheran Church in America Dr. A. Graebner writes: "Whoever came to church tipsy, was to pay 40 shillings and do public penance. Blasphemy of the divine Word or the Sacraments carried with it a fine of 5 pounds sterling and church penance; to sing at unseemly hours was punished by a fine of 6 shillings; such as refused to submit to the discipline were to be excluded from the congregation and to be refused interment at its ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... gate, which always stands open, but do not ask us to tell you what we saw or what befel us there, for that you will learn for yourself. This only we may say, that it cost us each our right eye, and has imposed upon us our nightly penance." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... from you His best gift, because you are not willing to be utterly led by Him. There have been in ancient days many such souls, who have fled from the wickedness of the world, and have spent themselves in prayer and penance, and have done a holy work—for indeed there are many victories that may be won by prayer. But indeed, dear brother, I think that God's will for you is that this lonely life of yours should have an end. ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... altar, in the outward room, a lamp was still burning, a missal was displayed, and on the floor lay a discipline, or penitential scourge of small cord and wire, the lashes of which were recently stained with blood—a token, no doubt, of the severe penance of the recluse. Here Theodorick kneeled down, and pointed to the knight to take his place beside him upon the sharp flints, which seemed placed for the purpose of rendering the posture of reverential devotion as uneasy as possible. He ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... thou—I tell thee, boy, The hand which serves its country should be pure. Ambition, selfish love, vain lust of power Ravage thy head and heart! and would'st thou hold The judgment balance with a hand still red With royal blood? Would'st thou dare speak a penance On guilt, thyself so guilty? Canst thou hope Castile will trust her to thee? God forbid! Mad is that nation, mad past thought of cure, Past chains and dungeons, whips, spare food, and fasting, Who yields the immortal man a patriot's name, And looks in private vice for public virtue. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... sober and sedate of us, an immense amount of material for amusement. I confess I have stopped in the street, many a time, to see a sage monkey go through his grotesque manoeuvres, under the direction of a tutor who ground out music from a wheezing hand-organ, and have been willing to undergo the penance of hearing the music of the master, for the sake of witnessing the genius of the pupil. I can conceive of nothing more excessively ludicrous than many of these exhibitions. But I must not detain the reader ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... blush before his own swashbucklers, he proceeded to lay before the House a narrative of the case. Both parties, it was held, had been to blame, and both were, as usual, to pass a short period of penance in the Tower. But Buckingham's enemies contrived, under the rules of the House, to inflict an insult upon him, which might have stirred the blood of a Quaker, not to speak of that which flowed in the veins of this model gentleman. It was unjust, they urged, that any punishment should fall upon ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... within the memory of man portrayed upon a glass window in the hall, where unfortunately it has not been preserved. Mab's Cross is still extant. An old ruinous building is said to have been the place where the Lady Mabel was condemned to render penance, by walking hither from Haighhall barefooted and barelegged for the performance of her devotions. This relic, to which an anecdote so curious is annexed, is now unfortunately ruinous. Time and whitewash, says Mr. Roby, have altogether defaced the effigies of the knight and lady ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... the other cheek?" Sally queried. "One lump, Miss Gannion. I am still keeping up my Lenten penance, for I acquired the taste for it, and I can't bring myself back to the old extravagant ways. Next Lent, probably I shall mortify the flesh ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... cannot touch the guilt; but when the guilt is remitted, there is still the penalty. I may ruin my health by a dissolute life; I may repent of my dissoluteness and be forgiven; but the bad health will remain. For bad health, substitute penance in this world and purgatory in the next; and in this sphere the ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... the writer for his pains." Ludovico di Cherio, a famous illuminator of the fifteenth century, has this note at the end of a book upon which he had long been engaged: "Completed on the vigil of the nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, on an empty stomach." (Whether this refers to an imposed penance or fast, or whether Ludovico considered that the offering of a meek and empty stomach would be especially acceptable, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... Jim humbly knelt before the sweet faced lady in whose careworn face they readily recognized the countenance of their own once so happy mother, and pleaded for her forgiveness. While they were still waiting for the words which would end a penance stretching over twenty weary years, she arose from her chair, and trembling with emotion lifted her withered arms high above her head, and with a face that bespoke the joy which had at last blessed her life, ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... I will do any penance you ask; I am unworthy to speak your name. I owe you my life and more—and more a thousand times." At this she lifted her arm and placed her hand upon his cheek and neck. She then learned for the first time that he was wounded, and the tears came softly as she slipped from his arms to ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... superstitious fear and the hypocritical disesteem of a man's own self, sets to work with self-reproaches, whimpering compunction and a torturing of the body. It is intended not to result in virtue but to make expiation for sins, and by self-imposed punishment the sinners expect to do penance, instead of ethically repenting." And again—"All ethical gymnastics consist therefore singly in subjugating the instincts and appetites of our physical system ... a gymnastic exercise rendering the will hardy and robust, which by the consciousness ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... all of his enemies in Paris, bishops, priests and potentates, explaining that he had quit literature forever, and was now engaged in helping struggling, exiled Catholics to get an honest living—he was doing penance as foreman of a watch-factory—would the Most Reverend not help in this worthy work? Money flowed in on Ferney—Frederick ordered a consignment of watches, Queen Catherine did the same, and the Bishop of Paris sent his blessing and an order for enough ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... ready to release all mankind if he might revenge himself on the author. Shaw, in Captain Brassbound's Conversion, really showed at its best the merry mercy of the pagan; that beautiful human nature that can neither rise to penance nor sink to revenge. Many had proved that even the most independent incomes drank blood out of the veins of the oppressed: but they wrote it in such a style that their readers knew more about depression than oppression. In Widowers' Houses Shaw very nearly (but not quite) succeeded ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... temples are learned men, and eat nothing which suffers death, neither flesh nor fish, nor anything which makes broth red, for they say that it is blood. Some of the other Brahmans whom I mentioned, who seek to serve God, and to do penance, and to live a life like that of the priests, do not eat flesh or fish or any other thing that suffers death, but only vegetables[394] and butter and other things which they make of fruit,[395] with their rice. They are all married, and have very ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... hope to die," protested Drew, to appease his divinity. "Put any penance on me you like. I'll sit in sackcloth and put ashes on my head if you say so, and you'll ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... to the Laity, is a thing also, if it be minded, that will very much help on the business, and make the people stand at a greater distance from the Clergy. I might instance, likewise, in their Auricular Confession, enjoining of Penance, forgiving sins, making of Saints, freeing people from Purgatory, and many such useful tricks they have, and wonders they can do, to draw in the forward believing Laity into a most right worshipful opinion and honourable esteem ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... one. On the other hand, as little have I closed my feelings against the lovely and enchanting sweetness which this great semi-barbarian sometimes so affectingly utters. On those occasions he is like an angel enclosed for penance in some furious giant, and permitted to weep through ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... still, each summer, Annie pressed her father to return to the old place, and he agreed, chiefly because it mattered little to him where he went. He regarded the summer trip in the light of a penance to be paid for the sin of being a member of society and the head of a household, and placed every minute so wasted to the debit of the profit and loss account in the mental ledger of his life's affairs, for it must not be supposed ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... the Mission property. The coffin, made of packing cases and covered with black calico, was carried by pastors, and the service was conducted by Mr. Meek himself, who scourged himself to perform the pathetic task as a penance ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... relics of the saints; and on his return to the choir, after the solemnity, the psalter stuck to his hands. Astonished and greatly confounded, and at length calling to his mind his crime on the preceding day, he made confession, and underwent penance; and being assisted by the prayers of the brotherhood, and having shown signs of sincere contrition, he was at length liberated from the miraculous bond. That book was held in great veneration; because, when the body of St. Kenelm was carried forth, and the multitude ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... came to know this secret I have tried so hard to keep for him. I had been hunting with the King and lost my way in the forests of Grimwald. I found him there in the thickest part—naked, slashing his body wildly with a knife in an agony of remorse and penance and the most terrible grief I have ever witnessed. Before he well knew what he was about he had blurted forth the whole pitiful story—that he had killed his cousin in a moment of passion—that he must scourge and torture his body to discipline ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... said gravely, "what you were thinking of when you stood with Bella and Liza before the congregation last Sunday morning"—two other Magda-lenes had done penance by Bridget's side. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... scandalous life which he has led on earth," said the archbishop. "Although as a man he is responsible to God alone for his deeds, as a sovereign he acknowledges to his subjects that he heartily repents of his wickedness, and desires to live only that he may do penance for the past and make amends ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... years of penance had not been in vain. Nick had forgiven her. We saw him kneeling at the bedside, we saw him with her hand in his, and Helene was drawing me gently out of the room and closing the door behind her. She did not look at me, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... tardy remorse for her deceit towards the dead man, who had treated her with kindness, had not its influence in causing this sudden religious enthusiasm, and whether the Sister in the Convent of the Visitation in Paris gave herself extra penance for ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... wanderings, in fulfilment of a vow of penance, Arjuna came to Manipur. There he saw Chitrangada, the beautiful daughter of Chitravahana, the king of the country. Smitten with her charms, he asked the king for the hand of his daughter in marriage. Chitravahana asked him who he was, ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore

... to the gardener, "I think that fellow's a half fool. I offered him a crown, and also said. I would get him a suit of clothes, and he would not take either; but talked about some silly penance he was undergoing." ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... father and mother, and had shut them up in religious houses, where they had been subjected to such severe chastisement, by way of making them do penance for the heresy of their parents, that many of them died ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... tools, for one thing, and he derived exquisite pleasure from the exercise of execution. The surety of his touch, the knowledge of the exact effect he was after, made his working hours an absorbing pleasure rather than an exasperating penance. And through his secluded life, with its singleness of purpose, its absence of the social ambitions of his youth, and the complexity of life in the world, the restlessness and agitation of his earlier devotion to his ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... and less to man's vain strength and dim wit, thou wouldst never have uttered even for England's sake—leaving her to the angels;—not, I say, absolving thee from that sin, but pausing yet to decide what penance and atonement to fix to its committal, I do in the name of the Power whose priest I am, forbid thee to fulfil the oath; I do release and absolve thee from all obligation thereto. And if in this I exceed my authority as Romish priest, I do but accomplish my duties as ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that God will pardon any crime, a murder for instance, solely by a man's telling it to a priest—a man after all and one whose duty it is to keep quiet about it—by his fearing that he will roast in hell as a penance—by being cowardly and certainly shameless into the bargain? I have another conception of God,' he used to say, 'for in my opinion one evil does not correct another, nor is a crime to be expiated by vain lamentings or by giving alms to the Church. Take this example: ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... taught by example, if not formally and by written precept, that marriage was honorable, and that celibacy was an invention of the priests not warranted by primitive Buddhism. Penance, fasting, prescribed diet, pilgrimages, isolation from society whether as hermits or in the cloister, and generally amulets and charms, are all tabooed by this sect. Monasteries imposing life-vows are unknown within its pale. Family life takes the place of ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... pain articulate so long In penance of some mouldered crime, Whose ghost still flies the furies' thong Down ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... Fitzgerald was about to rush after her; but his wife caught his arm, and he was obliged to follow. It was an awful penance he underwent, submitting to this necessary restraint; and while his soul was seething like a boiling caldron, he was obliged to answer evasively to Lily's frequent declaration that the superb voice of this Spanish ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... to the chief of the Imams to know what this prodigy might mean; and was informed in reply, that his father, though a great man, had also been, unfortunately, a great reformer, and that as such it was too much to be feared that he had a terrible penance to undergo in the other world. The Sultan sent for his brother-in-law to pray at the same place, and afterward several others of his household; and on each occasion the same portentous words were heard. One day he announced his intention of going in state to his father's tomb, and was attended ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... of the monastery of Saint Francis, a prelate of singular sanctity, being afflicted, in his latter days, with a despondency so deep that neither penance nor fasting could remove it, vowed never again to behold, with earthly eyes, the blessed light of heaven, nor to dwell longer with his fellowmen; but, relinquishing his spiritual dignity, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot," ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... tales thei devise How meritoire is thilke dede Of charite, to clothe and fede The povere folk and forto parte The worldes good, bot thei departe Ne thenken noght fro that thei have. Also thei sein, good is to save 470 With penance and with abstinence Of chastite the continence; Bot pleinly forto speke of that, I not how thilke body fat, Which thei with deynte metes kepe And leyn it softe forto slepe, Whan it hath elles al his wille, With chastite ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... he must verify this statement, and summoned the confessor. When he had admitted the breach of faith, the judges were obliged to revoke their sentence and pardon the criminal, much to the gratification of the public mind. The confessor was adjudged a very severe penance, which Saint-Thomas modified because of his prompt avowal of his fault, and still more because he had given an opportunity for the public exhibition of that reverence which judges themselves are bound to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... of the first two morning calls, and there were many more such periods of penance, for the bride and bridegroom were not modern enough in their notions to sit up to await their visitors, and thankful they were to those who would be at the expense of finding conversation, though this was not always the case; for much of the neighbourhood ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... persecution whose persecutor had been overtaken—there would be no mail carrier in the morning. No mail to be taken care of. Exultant, we tried to figure how many days Dave would be blockaded and we would be spared that morning penance of handing the mail sack out from ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... to tell Peter at this moment all that she had heard to-day? She rather thought that it was her duty to do so, and yet she was restrained by some feeling of feminine honour from disgracing her niece,—by some feeling of feminine honour for which she afterwards did penance with many inward flagellations ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... that ony man may do, is to pissen in hire houses, that thei dwellen in. And who so that may be founden with that synne, sykerly thei slen hym. And of everyche of theise synnes, it behovethe hem to ben schryven of hire prestes, and to paye gret somme of silver for hire penance. And it behovethe also, that the place, that men han pissed in, be halewed azen; and elles dar no man entren there inne. And whan thei han payed hire penance, men maken hem passen thorghe a fuyr or thorghe 2, for to clensen hem of hire synnes. And also ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt

... causes the ingredients to amalgamate, and the flavors to harmonize and blend more freely; and when, on Christmas day, you bring out this hermit, after doing a three months' penance in a dark cell, it will come out rich, succulent, and unctuous; you will not only have a luxury, "fit to set before a king," or before the Empress of India, but fit to crown a feast of the very gods themselves, on high ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various

... whereas you must lie prostrate in the dust and wait to be chosen. When you have done that He will raise you, and the Heavens will ring with the joy of the great spirits who never fell, and who are almost envious of the sinner doing Penance." ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... traceable spring of action. When nurse went, Miss Lucilla gave the household no peace, because no one could rightly curl the long flaxen tresses upon her shoulders, until the worry became so intolerable that Honora, partly as penance, partly because she thought the present mode neither conducive to tidiness nor comfort, took her scissors and trimmed all the ringlets behind, bowl-dish fashion, as her own carrots had figured all the days ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... spotless. Even now, even with my happiness at stake, I could not speak so plainly had I not spoken so cruelly and wrongly before. I did not know you then as I know you now, but having said what I thought then, I am bound to say what I think now, if only as a penance. Did I hesitate to do so, I should be less grateful than that poor Indian girl who was ready as she said, to give her life for the life ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... sovereign: and yet fate willed that she should be buried alive in a Westmoreland valley, seeing the same hills and streams, the same rustic faces, from year's end to year's end. Surely it was a hard fate, a heavy penance, albeit self-imposed. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... clearness. A pious man, toiling onward in poverty, proud of his good conscience, at peace with himself, and steadfastly true to himself in his heart in spite of the spectacle of exultant vice, was a fallen angel doing penance, who remembered his origin, foresaw his guerdon, accomplished his task, and obeyed his glorious mission. The sublime resignation of Christians was then seen in all its glory. He depicted martyrs at the burning ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac

... chair before the Prioress made her appearance. Each of the Nuns was heard in her turn, while the Others waited with the Domina in the adjoining Vestry. Ambrosio listened to the confessions with attention, made many exhortations, enjoined penance proportioned to each offence, and for some time every thing went on as usual: till at last one of the Nuns, conspicuous from the nobleness of her air and elegance of her figure, carelessly permitted ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... the tailor-made dress and six years of liaison with Owen Asher was no let to the mediaeval virgin formulated in antique custom. In the duet with Tannhaeuser she was benign and forgiving, the divine penitent who, having no sins of her own to do penance for, does penance ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... turned out afterward that the condemned man deserved death for a crime that he was not known to be guilty of at the time of his execution; yet the mind of the Rabbi was ill at ease, and he voluntarily did penance by subjecting himself in a peculiar fashion to great bodily suffering. Sixty woolen cloths were regularly spread under him every night, and these were found soaked in the morning with his profuse perspiration. The result ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... a diffidence amounting to awe. In that exclusive shop he would meet miles of furbelowed femininity, but he would not have ventured unprotected into those fluffed and billowed aisles for anything short of a penance. ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester

... words no one really ever understands? It is the voice, my child. Go on, or I shall make you do some frightful penance." ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... to a man by the Hindu caste system. "The duties of Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas, and of Sudras, too, O terror of your foes, are distinguished according to the qualities born of nature. Tranquillity, restraint of the sense, penance, purity, forgiveness, straightforwardness, also knowledge, experience, and belief in the future world, this is the natural duty of the Brahmans. Valour, glory, courage, dexterity, not slinking away from ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... was far from being well-looked; and Sedley, who was so ugly, that Charles II. said, his brother had her by way of penance[141].' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... The law doth sometimes mediate, thinks it good Not ever to steep violent sins in blood: This gentle penance may both end your crimes, And in the example ...
— The White Devil • John Webster

... by her father that she and the tutor and a half-dozen female attendants were to be bundled up and sent away to America, and that she was to do penance, take a dieting treatment, and come back in due time to try and atone for her unfortunate past, did she weep and beg to be allowed to remain at her own dear home? No; she listened in apparently meek and rather mournful submission, and, after her father went away, she turned ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... sure. I do so love those nice bright little cottage parlours, with their pretty pots of flowers and cheerful furniture—so much warmer and more comfortable, you know, than the great dreary empty barns that most people go and do penance by living in. If ever I marry—which I don't suppose I ever shall do, for nobody'll have me, I'm sorry to say: at least, nobody but stupid people in the peerage, Algies and Berties and Monties I always call them—well, if ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... I am inclined to think that I know very little about your knight; but it is natural that I should much prefer my own. Your knight is like one of those remorseful men of the olden time who, partly from faith and partly in penance for past misdeeds, dons a suit of plain heavy iron armor, and goes away to parts unknown to fight the infidel. My knight is clad in shining steel; nor is the steel less true because overlaid with a filagree of gold; and he will make the world better not by striking rude and ponderous ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... piece could be written about her. (Sits, right, and takes out his note-book. Writes. Looks up.) First act: Dr. Goll. Rotten already! I can call up Dr. Goll from purgatory or wherever else he's doing penance for his orgies, but I'll be made responsible for his sins. (Long-continued but much deadened applause and bravos outside.) They rage there as in a menagery when the meat appears at the cage. Second act: Walter Schwarz. ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind

... proud humility of repentance; I will find some sphere of life where I can expiate the errors to which you, the mediator between Heaven and me, have shown no mercy. Perhaps God may be less inexorable. My sufferings, sufferings full of the thought of you, shall be the penance of a heart which will never be healed, which will bleed in solitude. For a ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... to find Mrs. Croix sitting beside his bed. She had left town in June, and usually did not return until late in September. She wore a white frock and a blue sash, and looked like an angel about to do penance. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... conqueror judged it best to accept for the present the resubmission, however forced, of a party too powerful to be put down by examples. The Cardinal Mattei, Archbishop of Ferrara, being brought into his presence, uttered the single word peccavi: the victor was contented with ordering him a penance of seven days' fasting and prayer in a monastery: but he had no intention to forget these occurrences whenever another day of reckoning ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... was raised to a great ecclesiastical position; each was in middle age. Each had led an upright, virtuous life before his elevation; and each, on being elevated, changed it for a life of extraordinary penance and saintly devotion. Each was promoted to his high place by the act, direct or concurrent, of his sovereign; and each showed to that sovereign in the most emphatic way that a bishop was the servant, not of man, but of the Lord of heaven and earth. Each boldly confronted ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... Lancelot, having been advised in a dream of her death, braved the bands of lawless men that now ravaged the fair land of Britain, and brought her body to the isle of Glastonbury. He laid it solemnly beside the body of her dear lord Arthur, and thereafter he endured greater penance. ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... daughter had been in danger but had saved herself, he swore revenge to the perpetrator of the outrage, yet at the same time his heart laughed with pride at Gro's fearlessness. He took the young nobleman prisoner and rewarded him with heavy and tedious torture as penance for his insolence. Yet at the same time he delighted himself with the thought of putting his daughter to a still more dangerous proof. He wished to see the young-blooded, inexperienced birds reach out swinging and scratching in ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... the Christian [76] host, And God hath thunder'd vengeance from on high, For my accurs'd and hateful perjury. O just and dreadful punisher of sin, Let the dishonour of the pains I feel In this my mortal well-deserved wound End all my penance in my sudden death! And let this death, wherein to sin I die, Conceive a second life ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe

... know they are ineluctable, I know they are growing on me. I know I may offend again, and I warn you of it. But the next time I offend, tell me so plainly and frankly like a lady, and don't lacerate my heart and bludgeon my vanity with imaginary faults of your own and purely gratuitous penance. I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... with oars contending, sails with sails, Upon Windander's spacious breast, it chanced That—after I had left a flower-decked room (Whose in-door pastime, lighted up, survived To a late hour), and spirits overwrought Were making night do penance for a day Spent in a round of strenuous idleness— My homeward course led up a long ascent, Where the road's watery surface, to the top Of that sharp rising, glittered to the moon And bore the semblance of another stream Stealing with silent lapse to join ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various

... light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost. "I am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens

... a ray of gentle homage shone under the lids in its place. I had seized a mere vexing fairy, and found a submissive and supplicating little mortal woman in my arms. Then I made her get a book, and read English to me for an hour by way of penance. I frequently dosed her with Wordsworth in this way, and Wordsworth steadied her soon; she had a difficulty in comprehending his deep, serene, and sober mind; his language, too, was not facile to her; she ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... "However," he said to himself with a sigh, "it is all part of the story, I suppose." In his inmost soul he felt the conviction that he was altogether, in his strange progress through the joyous crowd with that pale, anxious companion, going through a sufficient penance to make amends for the misfortune of which he was ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... seems to have been very indistinctly apprehended by him, so that he cannot be safely trusted as a theologian. He had evidently no clear conception of the place which works ought to occupy according to the scheme of the gospel; and hence he sometimes speaks as if pardon could be purchased by penance, by fasting, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... said Mrs. Evelyn, nodding her head delightedly, as she drew him towards the pantry "I know! Come and see what is in store for you. You are to do penance for a month to come with tin pans of blackberry jam, fringed with pie crust no, they can't be blackberries, they must be raspberries, the blackberries are not ripe yet. And you may sup upon cake and custards, unless you ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... ladies home. This plan was carried out; and when Mary had been left at the door of the Hotel de Paris, they insisted on taking Madame d'Ambre at once down the hill to her lodgings in the Condamine. The penance was made only a little lighter to the victim by a lift in Schuyler's automobile. She was far from grateful to its owner, and made no answer except a twist of the shoulders to his last words: "Remember not to change your mind. It ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... words unto that foremost of rivers, they then consulted with one another thus, 'All of us shall emancipate Sarasvati from her curse.' Then all those Brahmanas, O king, worshipping Mahadeva, that lord of the universe and protector of all creatures, with penance and vows and fasts and diverse kinds of abstinences and painful observances, emancipated that foremost of rivers, the divine Sarasvati. Beholding the water of Sarasvati purified by those Munis, the Rakshasas (that had taken up their abode there), afflicted ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... on the edge of his cot, and the whimsical thought struck him that all those he had brought to this same cell, and who had paid the first of their penance here, must be laughing at him now in the spirit way. In his mental fancy a little army of faces trooped before him, faces dark and white, faces filled with hatred and despair, faces brave with the cheer of hope and faces pallid with the dread of death. And of these ghosts of his man-hunting prowess ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood

... strolled out with little William Vane; Captain Levison joined them, and they never came in till nearly dinner-time, when the three entered together, Lady Mount Severn doing penance all the time, and nursing her rage against Isabel, for Mrs. Levison kept her indoors. There was barely time to dress for dinner, and Isabel went straight to her room. Her dress was off, her dressing-gown on. Marvel was busy with her hair, and William chattering ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... took leave of me with cordial kindness; and as for the sisterhood, I had serious thoughts of kissing them all round, but forbore to do so, because, in all such general salutations, the penance is fully equal to the pleasure. So I kissed none of them; and nobody, to say the truth, seemed ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... sat gossiping on the sofa; and Fanny, who in the course of the day had received more than one reproving look from her mother-in-law for flirting with Delphin, was now doing penance with the old ladies, to whom Pastor Martens had also ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... what dire penance can atone For such an outrage, done to thee? Arraign'd before thy beauty's throne, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... when he heard the story. "She whom you married is an evil spirit," said he. "Beneficent spirits do not wed human beings. It is your duty to renounce her at once and do penance for your sin." Though he hardly found it possible to believe the priest's assertion, the knight strove to persuade himself that it was true, and that he was really acting virtuously in renouncing the water-nymph and marrying again. So he ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... just at present much more comfortable for all parties you should square round a little, and take your punch. Come, Thady, are you going to be a martyr, too? it's a heathenish kind of penance, though, to be holding your tongue so long. Come, my boy, you were to bring the ticket about ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... find a solution of Tchitchikof's conduct. He asserted that Tchitchikof, in his love for money, had committed some fraud or some misdeed to obtain it, and that his conscience smiting him, he had sought ghostly solace from some minister, by whom he had been ordered, as adequate penance, to get off a certain portion per annum in bad bargains—thus at once doing good to the sellers and torturing the avaricious spirit of the penitential purchaser. To this the governor objected, with much force, that, money being the end of human existence, the gaining of it, by any means ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various

... through. You stand accused of plotting for your father's murder. The evidence still holds, and some men who rode with you to-day to seize this gentle girl and drag her back to a marriage with your son—and save your ill-gotten gold thereby—some of these men who will confess to me and do penance to-morrow night, are the same men who long ago confessed to other crimes—you can guess what ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... commanding the gendarmerie at Hamburg notified to the exiled inhabitants that those who did not leave the town within the prescribed time would receive fifty blows with a cane and afterwards be driven out. But if penance may be commuted with priests so it may with gendarmes. Delinquents contrived to purchase their escape from the bastinado by a sum of money, and French gallantry substituted with respect to females the birch for the cane. I saw an order directing all female ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... hand that fed them. Much of the time, which she might readily have applied to the better efforts of her art, she employed in making coarse garments for the poor. It is probable that there was an idea of penance in this mode of occupation, and that she offered up a real sacrifice of enjoyment in devoting so many hours to such rude handiwork. She had in her nature a rich, voluptuous, Oriental characteristic—a taste for the gorgeously beautiful, which, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... stood in a relation of vassalage to the Yamanouchi branch of the Uesugi in Echigo, and his father attained an independent position. Kagetora, as Kenshin was called in his youth, found himself engaged in his twenty-first year in a contest with his elder brother, whom he killed, and, by way of penance for the fratricide, he took the tonsure under the name of Kenshin and would have retired from the world had not his generals insisted on his remaining in command. It was at this time that Kenshin became ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... Could it be some prisoner of Doddridge Knapp's, brought hither by the desperate band that owned him as employer? Was it a man whom I might succor? Or was it Doddridge Knapp himself, overwhelmed by recollection and remorse, doing penance in solitude for the villainy he had done and dared not confess? I listened with all my ears. Then there came through the door the low, stern tones of a man's voice speaking earnestly, pleadingly, threateningly, ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... James, my curate with me.' 'Oh, wurrah, no,' said both, 'don't mention that, your Reverence, except you wish to break their hearts, out and out! why, that would be a thousand times worse nor making them stand to do penance: doesn't your Reverence know that if they hadn't the pleasure of running for the bottle, the whole wedding wouldn't be worth three half-pence?' 'Indeed, I forgot that, Jemmy.' 'But sure,' says my uncle, 'your Reverence ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... The time is always ripe For a good deed. Napoleon, you will come! And though you fail, failure will be majestic. Withdraw like frightened schoolboy and you make Your throne a penance stool whereon you sit For laughter of the nations. But come, and though You fail, when time has brought America To her full, greedy strength, these scornful kings Will then unite in desperate endeavor To give your great conception form and face, And ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan

... overthrown, sin and its curse were taken away, heaven was opened and made accessible". It was then becoming that christians should consecrate these days of mercy, of grace and salvation to exercises of penance, devotion, and thanksgiving. The imposing liturgy of the Roman church is at this season more than usually solemn; and it is our task to describe, and endeavour to trace to their origin, its ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... of mildness and coercion, to break me of this evil habit. I was sure, however, to escape from him, and to conceal myself in some hole or corner, where I slept out the remainder of the watch; and the next morning, I was, as regularly, mast-headed, to do penance during the greater part of the day for my deeds of darkness. I believe that of the first two years of my servitude, one-half of my waking hours, at ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... are consequences plainly deducible from thence: it therefore being sinful in the persons, who labour under them, to attempt to contract matrimony together, they are properly the object of the ecclesiastical magistrate's coercion; in order to separate the offenders, and inflict penance for the offence, pro salute animarum. But such marriages not being void ab initio, but voidable only by sentence of separation, they are esteemed valid to all civil purposes, unless such separation is actually made during the life of the parties. ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... when some morning visitors were at the Homestead, prosy neighbours whose calls were always a penance to Rachel, and the butler, either from the manner of the inquiry or not regarding him as drawing-room company, put him into the dining-room and announced, "Mr. Mauleverer to see Miss Rachel." Up jumped Miss Rachel, with "You'll excuse me, it is on business;" and went off highly satisfied that ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... remarked that my piety would not require the carriage, and that I preferred to walk. Besides, it would be well for William and James to attend divine service. She could not spare James, and thought William had better clean the harness, by way of penance. ...
— Lemorne Versus Huell • Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

... undergo a severe penance for some negligences that were not to be passed over. Not designed ones, he said: but that was a poor excuse, as I told him: for, had they been designed, he should never have come into my presence more: that they were not, showed his want of thought and attention; ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson



Words linked to "Penance" :   absolution, repentance, self-abasement, self-mortification, penitence, penalization, punishment, self-reproach, confession, remission of sin, penalisation, penalty, remittal, remorse, sacrament, remission



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