"Reprieve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that any man, snatched back to life in such a fashion would start and tremble at the reprieve, or would break down altogether, but this boy turned his head steadily, and followed with his eyes the direction of the officer's sword, then nodded gravely, and, with his shoulders squared, took up the new position, ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... will be! How awful to have the days and weeks and months slip by, and know that at the best there is only a reprieve of a few years. I think from this night I shall have my shadow of death. I shall always be doing things for the last time; a sad life that! And perhaps we change; as you say, we may become dead in life, prepared for a different ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... the yellow face had never looked so grim. She made no further effort to withstand him, aware that to do so would entail a battle of wills which could only end in her defeat. Perhaps deep in the heart of her she was even thankful for this brief reprieve. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... computation, that there remained but a fortnight to elapse of the engagement he had formed, and to which, though certain it was never to be renewed, no power on earth could make him false. With some difficulty they procured a reprieve for this short space, after which they found him perfectly willing to come under any engagements they chose to dictate. He entered the service of the Estates accordingly, and wrought himself forward to be Major in Gilbert Ker's corps, commonly called the Kirk's Own Regiment of Horse. Of his farther ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... head carried on a pole. More than once it happened that condemned men were paraded before the troops for execution with the graves dug and the coffins lying ready. The death sentence would be read, and then, as the firing party took aim, a reprieve would be announced. The reprieve in such circumstances was omitted often enough to make the condemned endure the real ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... the UFO investigation said. "There's no such thing as a flying saucer." He went on to say that all people who saw flying saucers were jokers, crackpots, or publicity hounds. Then he gave the airline pilots who'd been reporting UFO's a reprieve. "They were just fatigued," he said. "What they thought were ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... hoarse with his prayer to fall like a soldier, but when the bullets begin to wail around him, it is a thousand to one that he will duck his head. A man may be reasonably convinced that, since he must die some day, and his reprieve cannot be extended long, it is best to die in battle and shoot full-blooded into the spiritual land; nevertheless, if the shadow of a rock gives some shelter from the guns, he will crawl behind it. A few years ago there was a great Oxford ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... rests my sin against you. This paper, dated only a few months before my father's death, was in this pocket-book, the other paper in the deed box, of which his executors took possession. No one knew of this paper but me. I kept it back, granting the reprieve for your sweet sake. If I had obtained possession of you I might have told you of it—I do not know. I cannot answer for myself—my old self,' he repeated. 'God forgive me, I am punished. ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... this reprieve, went up stairs; and while Sally was laying out the law, and prating away in her usual dictorial manner, whipt on another gown, and sliding down the stairs, escaped to her relations. And this flight, which was certainly more owing to terror than guilt, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Dog! When I took him the time before, I told him what he would come to if he did not mend his Hand. This is Death without Reprieve. I may venture to Book him [writes.] For Tom Gagg, forty Pounds. Let Betty Sly know that I'll save her from Transportation, for I can get more by ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... speak; and then could only utter the words—number 7? "Still in the wheel," was the answer. "Our messenger is not yet returned from Guildhall, with news of what has been drawn this last hour. If you will call again at three, we can answer you." The man seemed to feel this as a reprieve; but as he was retiring, there came one with a slip of paper in his hand. This was the messenger from Guildhall, who handed the paper to the clerk. He read aloud, "Number 7. Were you ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... angel shall Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive Unless her prayers, whom Heaven delights to hear And loves to grant, reprieve him from the ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... mispronunciations; and Ned Ferry—that cockerel! Here was I in the barrel, and able only to squeal in irate terror at whoever looked down upon me. I could have crawled under a log and died. At the door of the Major's tent I paused to learn and joy of one to whom comes reprieve when the rope is on his neck, I overheard Harry Helm, the General's nephew and aide de-camp, who had been with us, telling what a howling good joke Smith had just got off ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... in a new place every day, and every time he broke out it cost the house money. Finally, I made up my mind to swallow the loss, and Mister Jim was just about to lose his job sure enough, when the orders for Extract began to look up, and he got a reprieve; then he began to make expenses, and he got a pardon; and finally a rush came that left him high and dry in a permanent place. Jim was all right in his way, but it was a new way, and I hadn't been broad-gauged enough to see that it was a ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... was with his friend to the last moment. Poor Forster was being gradually overpowered by the rising bronchial humours with which, as he grew weaker, he could not struggle with or baffle. It was then that Quain, bending over, procured him a short reprieve and relief in his agony, putting his fingers down his throat and ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... disposition, and abandoned morals, being provoked by the insults of the mob, commanded his soldiers to fire upon the crowd, by which precipitate orders several innocent persons were killed; Porteus was tried and condemned to die, but obtained a reprieve from the Queen, who was then Regent. The mob, however, were [sic] determined to execute the sentence; they accordingly rose in a tumultuous manner, forced open the prison doors, dragged forth Porteus, and hanged him on a dyer's pole; after which they quietly dispersed. On the 24th ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... was another series of deflecting flashes from the defense batteries. Two more domes vanished... Then—somehow—nothing more. Evidently some of the attackers had been only half hearted, this time. Reprieve... ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... REPRIEVES AND PARDONS if he sees good reason for doing so. A reprieve is a delay of punishment. When a person is convicted of murder, the judge sentences him to be put to death on a certain day. But there may be reason for further inquiry into the case, and to give time for such inquiry the governor may ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... no respite, nor reprieve, nor subterfuge was possible, he bravely decided upon his course of action; he wound his right foot round his left leg, raised himself on his left foot, and stretched out his arm: but at the moment when his hand touched the manikin, his body, which was ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... motive for constantly poking his coercive bill in our faces at these critical moments. The Lords will take courage at anything that seems to weaken the government morally. They are like a fellow going to be hanged who looks out for a reprieve, and is always hoping for a lucky escape until the ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... you seem to be? Can you think to blow out the intended fire your city is ready to flame in, with such weak breath as this? No, you are deceived; therefore back to Rome, and prepare for your execution: you are condemned; our general has sworn you out of reprieve ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... followed at Chenonceaux, was once imprisoned here. Even the powerful influence of Diane scarcely gained her father's pardon from Francis I. His sentence had been pronounced and he was mounting the steps of the scaffold when the reprieve came. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... sight of her, accidentally incurred, one tremendously hot summer night, as she slowly moved from her lodgings or wherever, in the high Bowdoin Street region, down to the not distant theatre from which even the temperature had given her no reprieve; and well remember how, the queer light of my young impression playing up again in her path, she struck me as the very image of mere sore histrionic habit and use, a worn and weary, a battered even though almost sordidly smoothed, thing of the theatre, very much as an old infinitely-handled ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... O.K. It isn't urgent." He was just as glad of the reprieve; it gave him one more chance to work matters through to a solution, and hand it to Burris on a silver platter. "But ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... VI.—"His attention to the poor during his Protectorship, and his opposition to the system of enclosures, had created him many friends among the lower classes, who hastened to witness his end, and yet flattered themselves with the hope of his reprieve."—LINGARD. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... The audience enjoys some delightful thrills while watching this situation—whichever it may be—develop, but is spared any acute anxiety, knowing from experience that just at the last moment the rescuing boat, or the heroic firemen, or the troops, or a reprieve from the Governor, will arrive and save the leading man or woman and the play from a premature end and for ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... condemned, without reprieve, to go O'er life's long deserts with its charge of woe, With sad congratulation joins the train Where beasts and men together o'er the plain Move on—a mighty caravan of pain: 170 Hope, strength, and courage, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... administrative duties, the President has the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in the case of impeachment. A pardon fully exempts the individual from the punishment imposed upon him by law; a reprieve, on the other hand, is simply a temporary suspension of ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... word was said. The mules were turned about; and leaving that great eye to guard the lonely canon, we retraced our steps in silence. Day had not yet broken ere we were once more at home, condemned beyond reprieve. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... detailed long consultations held with Satan for the purpose of overthrowing the kingdom of heaven. In some cases these confessions were the result of distempered understandings; but, generally, they may be attributed to the hope of respite and ultimate reprieve, as none but the supposed impenitent sorcerers were executed. Thus only the truthful and conscientious suffered from the effects of this odious insanity. Some among the wretched people who had confessed witchcraft ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... at Salem, ... on the third day of January, the lieutenant-governor being chief judge.... All ... were cleared, saving three.... The deputy-governor signed a warrant for their speedy execution, and also of five others who were condemned at the former court.... But ... I sent a reprieve; ... the lieutenant-governor upon this occasion was enraged and filled with passionate anger, and refused to sit upon the bench at a superior court, at that time held at Charlestown; and, indeed, hath from the beginning hurried on these matters ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... the last few hours had made a great impression on me, and, although I felt awed and somewhat shaken, my heart was light with the gladness of one who rejoices in a reprieve. The express that I had been so anxious to catch had long since gone on its way; still, in my present hopeful frame of mind, that did not trouble me. I felt a conviction that Mary was mending, that I should find her better, and, comforted by this belief, I walked briskly ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the wooden cannon and the chief's ruling that we were no longer Ward's prisoners appealed to me as a reprieve. At least the girl was snatched from Ward's clutches. But the unanimous vote that one of us must die threw me back ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... and as he continued she lost the sense of his spoken thoughts in the mad cross- tides of her own unuttered. Now her crying instinct was for rescue at all costs, at any hazard. Prayers, entreaties, cravings for reprieve thronged unvoiced and not to be voiced through every fibre of her body. Could he not spare her? Could he not? If she could turn suddenly upon him, clasp his knees, worm herself between his arms, put her face—wet, shaking, tremulous, but ah, Lord! how full ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... is an integral part of the cosmos, from which there is no appeal; no reprieve; no immunity, no "respecter of persons." The law is absolute and it is also just. Pure and perfect love is the price of immortal life. There is no other "coin ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... a reprieve was seemingly impossible, he faced his misfortunes with a dour courage. It had been a difficult and thankless task during the past month to stave off pressing creditors. With Iris in Bootle and Bulmer her devoted ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... persevere with them. Punishment by death is becoming more and more unpopular. The dislike of juries to bring in a verdict of "guilty" in a murder case is sufficient testimony to this. In the crowds who sign petitions for the reprieve of the condemned, the hysterical element is too prominent to make any other estimate possible. But the reaction is steady, and it will not be long before capital punishment becomes a thing of the past. To abolish it before a suitable substitute were provided would ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... than grief doth murder men. The thief, even at the gallows, may be killed If, while through every vein with fear he's chilled, Sudden reprieve do set him ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... metaphor, and turned with the others towards the press-room again. "Wait for the end of the spell, mate," said the albino over his shoulder—an afterthought. The swart man waited for the albino to precede him. Denton realised that he had a reprieve. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... by pushmen diminutive nomber unt platty few altogedder. Bot der localisation-topography unt der route you schall py der map mit you gross magnanimity indicate, unt Gott pless! Tousand pig tank you, Mr. Tongcollin! For von trifle-moment, you ver munificent reprieve"—— ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... blithe to see their backs. Indeed, a condemned thief with the rope about his neck, and the white cowl tied over his eyes, to say nothing of his hands yerked together behind his back, and on the nick of being thrown over, could not have been more thankful for a reprieve than I was, at the same blessed moment. It was like Adam seeing the deil's rear marching out of Paradise, if one may be allowed to ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... graces can your form improve, But all are lost, unless you love; While that sweet passion you disdain, Your veil and beauty are in vain: In pity then prevent my fate, For after dying all reprieve's too late. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... girl!" Cecil said kindly, and helped herself to bread and butter. Claire had a miserable conviction that her reply had had a deceptive effect, and that the shock when it came, would be all the more severe. Nevertheless, she was thankful for the reprieve; thankful to see Cecil eat sandwiches with honest enjoyment, until the last one had disappeared from ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... I handed a plate to a young lady at luncheon, and, looking sweetly upon me, as though I had brought a reprieve from the gallows, she sighed, "Oh thanks! ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Judge may not deal with the fallacies of a defence by placing before the jury the true trend of the evidence, what other business has he on the Bench? And it was for thus clearly defining the issue that some one suggested a petition for a reprieve, on the ground that the evidence was purely circumstantial, and that my "summing up was against the weight of the evidence." Truly a strange thing that circumstances by themselves ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... a dreadful dream about Eagle March. Somehow or other, he had been condemned to death by Major Vandyke (who had unbecomingly turned into a judge) and Eagle was to be executed unless I could arrive in time to save him, armed with a reprieve or pardon—I didn't quite know which—that I had got from Washington. I waked up crying out, because a hand had been stretched forth through darkness to clutch my shoulder, and prevent me from getting to El Paso until too late. Even then, when I was ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the constable from his plot, but who had nevertheless not refrained from joining it, and was the most guilty of all the accomplices in consequence of the confidential post he occupied near the king's person. The decree was not executed, however; Saint-Vallier received his reprieve on the scaffold itself. Francis I. was neither rancorous nor cruel; and the entreaties, or, according to some evil-speakers of the day, the kind favors, of the Lady de Brew, Saint-Vallier's daughter and subsequently the celebrated Diana of Poitiers, obtained from the king ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, and all three were seized, imprisoned, and, after a summary trial, were sent to the gallows. The two men were executed; but at the moment when Mary Dyer was standing, calm and resigned, with the rope around her neck, expecting to be launched into eternity, a reprieve arrived, and the victim was released. But it was only for a little time. She was again banished; and again returned, as if to seek her fate. A second trial took place, and she was again condemned. Her husband, who knew not of her return to Boston until it was too late, appeared before the magistrates, ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... himself close to the park wall; and, listening, he heard the river murmuring among the alders. He halted, utterly at a loss. If he were caught again could Rickerl save him? What could a captain of Uhlans do? True, he had interfered with Von Steyr's hangman's work, but that was nothing but a reprieve at best. ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... their lucid judgment, clearness of perception, and utter absence of all overplus of chivalrous feeling, in matters of cool dispassionate reasoning—were unanimous in their belief in the prisoner's guilt, and only acquiesced in the month's reprieve, because it was Isabella's wish. Against their verdict what could be brought forward? In reality nothing but the prisoner's own strongly-attested innocence—an attestation most forcible in the minds of the ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... is alive, safe and well, in Gibraltar. You deserve to know this, but it is all I can say to you. My mother has suffered so much that she hardly feels her joy; it has broken her down, and I, who have borne up well till now, feel prostrated by this reprieve. God be thanked for all his mercies! ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the letter he had received from her on the previous morning. He got it, and saw that it bore no address, merely stating that she would be in London by midday on the first of May, that was on the morrow. Till then it was clear he must wait, and he was not sorry for the reprieve. His was not a pleasant story for a husband to ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... be forgiven by God—never has been forgiven on earth, and never will be. Death—death inexorable, is declared by God's judgments on the world and on nations; and he has declared death as its punishment by his law—death to both male and female, without pardon or reprieve, and beyond the power ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne
... difficulty, the presence of the chief administrator of justice, who, having read the memorial and the note I had affixed to it, said, "That is sufficient, sir; have the goodness to assure madame la comtesse du Barry, my cousin, that the reprieve she desires is already granted; and as my fair relation appears to fear trusting implicitly to my personal friendship and humanity, I will set her mind at rest by putting you in possession of the legal forms requisite for the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... me!" she cried, delighted, both at the prospect of the music, which she loved with a real passion, and at the prospect of the brief reprieve the diversion would afford her from the revelation which ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... his subterranean retreat in such cheerful temper that he had no heart to browbeat the scared-looking Madame. Whereupon Madame would be divided in her honest soul between horror at Pierre's wrong-doing and thankfulness for a temporary reprieve from his ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... go back, however, and would have done so when vacation came; but a classmate invited him to his home, and there he went, glad of the reprieve from an embarrassing, and, as it seemed to him now, an undignified conflict with a civilian. But the surrender brought its sting, ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... scarcely made up his mind what to propose. A moment's reflection convinced him that only one thing could purchase Toby's reprieve; and perhaps even that would fail. Regardless of consequences to himself, he ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... you please, if it is any satisfaction to you to do so; but rely upon my obtaining the reprieve I seek." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... prevailed. The doctrine of a "ruling passion" is a remarkable contribution to Greek political thought, the abstract personifications reading like the work of a poet or philosopher. An exciting race against time is most graphically described. After great exertions the ship bearing the reprieve arrived just in time to save Mytilene. This act of mercy stands in sinister contrast with the treatment the unhappy Plataeans received from the liberators of Greece. The citizens were captured, Athens having strangely abandoned them in spite ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... limbs and a sensation as of cold water down his spine drove Lenox to open his second and last bottle of brandy. Stimulated by the kindly spirit, he wrestled with a fowl tougher than india-rubber, and slept as a doomed man might sleep on the night of his reprieve. ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... and Clover entered the hotel, very glad of the reprieve, and of one more quiet evening alone with papa. They needed to get their ideas straightened out and put to rights, after the confusions of the day and Lilly's extraordinary talk. It was very evident that the Nunnery was to be quite different from their expectations; but another thing was ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... the first of their early potatoes from the garden for supper and a bit of ham to eat with them, by way of celebrating their reprieve, and after supper the Shepherd got out his bagpipes and played "The Blue Bells of Scotland" until the rafters rang again. Jean stepped busily about the kitchen in tune to the music, humming ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... different ideas are by this means wrapped up in one short sound, and how much of our time and breath is thereby saved, any one will see, who will but take the pains to enumerate all the ideas that either REPRIEVE or APPEAL stand for; and instead of either of those names, use a periphrasis, to make any ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... ANNIE, as you'll easily believe. "O GILBERT, you must spare him, for I bring him a reprieve, It came from our Home Secretary many weeks ago, And passed through that post-office which I used to keep ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... faith no longer I implore, Nor yet his Latian kingdom to forego: Some fruitless space, some breathing time for woe, 'Till fate have thought the wretch subdu'd to grieve, Is all I beg—Obtain this last reprieve— 540 For pity gain it,—and the short delay With all her parting soul, will Dido pay". So pray'd the Queen, and o'er and o'er again, Pray'rs, sighs, and tears her sister urg'd in vain; Unmov'd he stands by tears, by pray'rs by sighs, 545 The fates oppose, the God ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... understand, but an unhappier face I have never seen. She looked like a criminal whose reprieve is over, and ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... intervals of reprieve from these morbid dreams, and he again began to compose with renewed—almost ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... God! a little speed had saved his life. Here is a kind reprieve come from the king, To bring him ...
— Cromwell • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... of music were brought low with her, but, in the last thin treble of second childhood, she trembled forth mild complaints of her neighbours' troubles, but very little of her own. We left her to enjoy her frugal meal and her noontide reprieve in peace, and came back to the middle of the town. On our way I noticed again some features of street life which are more common in manufacturing towns just now than when times are good. Now and then one meets with a man in the dress of a factory worker selling newspapers, or religious tracts, ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... the counsel for the defence in the trial of Jacques Aubrieux, has been received at the lyse. We are informed that the President of the Republic has refused to reprieve the condemned man and that the execution will take place ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... his desk. The next three hours passed without any consciousness of existence save the slow ticking of the astronomical clock which governed the mechanism of the telescope. The rest was merely figures and formulae, which might amount to the death-sentence of the human race or to an indefinite reprieve. ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... expiations they had witnessed. Analytic people were comparing the various modes of shooting, garroting, and guillotining. Cigars were sending up spirals of soothing smoke. There was a good deal of covert fear that a reprieve might be granted. Inquires were many and ingenuous for whisky, and one or two were so deeply expectant that ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... as their Saviour, now receive the adoption of sons. They become the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. This is their pedigree and they rejoice to declare it. A human governor or ruler may pardon a guilty criminal, and grant him a reprieve, but he never takes him into his own family. He may forgive the guilty one, but he cannot bestow upon him a new nature, nor can he consent to recognize him as a brother or a son. But God not only remits the sins of those whom He saves, He ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark
... was empty, and the front door stood open to the cool of the summer night. From the ballroom came the swaying lilt of the music and the beat of the dancers' feet. Ethne drew a breath of relief at her reprieve from her duties, and then dropping her partner's arm, crossed to a ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... the end of the week, or of many succeeding weeks: warmth and food, and Mrs. Evans' nursing powers combined, caused one of those curious rallies not uncommon in cases of consumption, though no one who saw the boy's thin, flushed cheeks, and brilliant eyes, could think the reprieve would be a long one. Still for the present there was improvement, and Lawrence could not help feeling glad that he might keep for a little while longer the child whose love had ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM
... the silence by clearing his throat with evident embarrassment. A peal of thunder offered him reprieve, and after its reverberations had died away, he still hesitated. "This," he said presently, "is a—the orphan—an orphan—one who has come to me from— She says her name ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... and that Leucha would naturally never speak to her again. These things might come to pass at once. As it was, they did come to pass a little later on, but on this special Saturday there was a slight reprieve both for Leucha and ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... coal his two small steamers, and had come close to the island expecting to find smoother water in which to do so. He told us afterwards he only took us because he knew how difficult it must be to get off the island. It was a reprieve to know we had not to leave that night; it gave us time to go round and say good-bye to all the old people. Some of them, especially Eliza Hagan, Betty Cotton and Martha Green, felt it very much. Mr. Keytel ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... them why; because Fitzgerald and I had saved the life of the daughter of one of the chief planters, who, in gratitude, had promised that he would assist us if we were ever in difficulty. I told them that they must adhere to what they said, as they would be condemned with the others, but that a reprieve would be given when they ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... the mission with which the poor young gentleman had charged him, with a sad blank face and a shake of the head, which told that there was no hope for the prisoner; and scarce a wretched culprit in that prison of Newgate ordered for execution, and trembling for a reprieve, felt more cast down than ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Axe, where he lived. And there I got for a shilling to stand upon the wheel of a cart, in great pain, above an houre before the execution was done; he delaying the time by long discourses and prayers one after another, in hopes of a reprieve; but none came, and at last was flung off the ladder in his cloake. A comely-looked man he was, and kept his countenance to the end: I was sorry to see him. It was believed there were at least 12 or 14,000 people in the street. So I home all in a sweat, and dined ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the Kislar Aga again appeared. "Her head," said he, hesitatingly. The Kislar Aga waited a little, to ascertain if there was no reprieve, for too hasty a compliance with despots is almost as dangerous as delay. He caught my eye—he saw at once, that if not her head, it would be his own, and he quitted the room. In a few minutes he held ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... such spells every little while. I mistrusted and he just as good as owned up to me that it wuz partly owin' to his bein' dressed up all the time; it wuz a dretful cross to him. He wears frocks to hum, round doin' the barn chores, and loose shues, but now of course he had no reprieve from night till mornin' from tight collars and cuffs and his ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... for she hoped that whatever called him to England might still further delay the wedding. She had made a bad bargain, but she intended carrying her part loyally to the bitter end—if she could manage to secure a temporary reprieve, though, she felt that she was warranted in doing so. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... angle that they struck, her bullets did not penetrate the brain, but they did give Bill an instant's reprieve. The bear struck at the wounds they made, then halted, bawling, in the snow. His roving eye caught sight of Virginia's form. With a roar ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... been taken on board the squadron as prisoners, had made their escape by swimming to the shore, three miles off; and this feat encouraged a bold pilot of Seville, named Ledesma, who was on board the admiral's caravel, to attempt a similar exploit. Never was bearer of reprieve for the condemned more welcome. Ledesma communicated with the Adelantado, and conveyed to the admiral intelligence of the desperate state of affairs. The result was, that when in a few days the wind moderated, all the settlers were taken ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... painful. I need hardly say that my own feelings were of a very distressing kind. Conscious that if the unfortunate man really was guilty, he was at least not deserving of capital punishment, I exerted myself to procure a reprieve. In the first place I waited privately on the judge; but he would listen to no proposal for a respite. Along with a number of individuals—chiefly of the Society of Friends—I petitioned the crown ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... 'What, perchance, have I done? In what way, please, have I sinned? Have I with my feet perhaps smashed your crockery? I beg of you, Mr. Cook, I entreat you, if such be the case, kindly grant the supplicant a reprieve.' ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... condemned to be hanged, and was brought to the gallows along with a fellow prisoner; but on the road, before reaching the place of execution, a reprieve arrived for the Jew. When informed of this, it was expected that he would instantly leave the cart in which he was conveyed, but he remained and saw his fellow prisoner hanged. Being asked why he did not at once go about his business, he said, "He was waiting ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... move among, all happy hearts that, knowing what Makes life worth while, have wasted not the sweet reprieve of being young. ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... by remorse or fright at the last moment, M de Courtornieu and the Duc de Sairmeuse had granted a reprieve to six of the prisoners and at that very hour a courier was hastening toward Paris with six petitions for pardons, ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... observation and by testimony that to send back the convalescents to the bench or the workshop from which they came is practically to repronounce upon them the sentence of death from which the sanitarium has offered them a reprieve. The only practical thing to do with such convalescents, and with such persons who are not capable of their ordinary avocations, is to get them in some way upon the land. There is a large demand for persons ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... tyranny of Calvin and of the Consistory; Gentilis was condemned to execution for differing with Calvin's teaching on the Trinity, and was compelled to make a most abject public retraction before he could obtain a reprieve. Several of the citizens were punished with long imprisonment for dancing even on the occasion of a wedding, as happened in the case of Le Fevre, whose son-in-law was obliged to flee to France because he resented warmly such methods of promoting religion. In Geneva ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... before her, and her fate in view, Unsated vengeance in her bosom grew: Sullen she was and threat'ning; in her eye Glared the stern triumph that she dared to die: But first a being in the world must leave - 'Twas once reproach; 'twas now a short reprieve. She was a pauper bound, who early gave Her mind to vice and doubly was a slave: Upbraided, beaten, held by rough control, Revenge sustain'd, inspired, and fill'd her soul: She fired a full-stored barn, confess'd the fact, And laugh'd at law and justified the act: Our gentle Vicar tried his powers ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... and downstairs for a nothing. At a word from mademoiselle she would trip down the whole five flights. When she was seated, her feet danced on the floor. She brushed and scrubbed and beat and shook and washed and set to rights, without rest or reprieve, always at work, filling the apartment with her goings and comings, and the incessant bustle that followed her about.—"Mon Dieu!" her mistress would say, stunned by the uproar she made, just like ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... Papa would call him her Perseus. She must have felt that there was no explaining what she suffered. She had only to act, to plunge. First she fixed her mind on Harry Oxford. To be able to speak his name and see him awaiting her, must have been relief, a reprieve. She did not waver, she cut the links, she signed herself over. Oh, brave girl! what do you think of me? But I have no Harry Whitford, I am alone. Let anything be said against women; we must be very bad to have such bad things written of us: only, say this, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this remark why Lina had asked her to go home with her. It was not because she wished to hear any of Dotty's brilliant stories, for she had not asked a single question about Out West; it was because she hoped for a reprieve ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... kind Usage my Salvation wrought; Her happy Aid I labour'd to obtain, Hop'd for Success, yet fear'd her sad Disdain, Tortur'd like dying Convicts whilst they live, 'Twixt fear of Death, and hopes of a Reprieve. First for her smallest Favours did I sue, Crept, Fawn'd and Cring'd, as Lovers us'd to do? Sigh'd e'er I spoke, and when I spoke look'd Pale, In words confus'd disclos'd my mournful Tale? Unpractised and Amour's fine Speeches coin'd, But could not utter what ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... was made such an appeal as men are rarely able to make, because a regenerated life was also vocal in utterance. To him a miracle seemed to have been wrought, and he listened to each word as if to a reprieve from ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... an apparently sincere and hearty interest towards her. Although her uncle had forborne to trouble her upon that hateful subject, after he had first proposed it, she knew his disposition too well to regard the reprieve as an ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... replied. "When we sailed from Skye he was under sentence, and they weren't over much given to reprieve for sheep-stealing in those days. It was in consequence o' that that ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... in his arms Everett had entirely forgotten to announce to her such a minor fact as the saving of her lands and estate, but to the two little old ladies his sympathy had made him give the words of reprieve with his first free breath. The bundles on the floor and the old trunk had smote his heart with a fierce pain that the impulsive warmth of his greeting and the telling of his ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... numbers, and much troubled at the sight of so many crosses and circles in the superstitious Algebra and that black art of Geometry) will, no doubt, determine once in their lives to become figure-casters, and so vote them all to be throwen into the fire, if some good body doe not reprieve them for pye-bottoms, for which purposes you know analogicall numbers are incomparably apt, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... convicted of arson, another of robbing the United States mail, when the mail was intercepted with a view of capturing letters from the Federal officers in the western counties to the authorities at the capital. In both instances President Washington granted first a reprieve, then a pardon. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... of so many years there is no need for lack of candor in discussing the events of 1885. To put it plainly Riel's fate turned almost entirely upon political considerations. Which was the less dangerous course,—to reprieve him or let him hang? The issue was canvassed back and forth by the distracted ministry up to the day before that fixed for the execution when a decision was reached to let the law take its course. The feeling in Quebec in support of the commutation was so intense and overwhelming ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... of the United States paused in the midst of the important business under discussion, and with the gravity due to a solemn occasion, took a card and wrote on it an order of reprieve for the turkey, which Tad seized, and fled with all speed, and Jack's life was saved. He became very tame, and roamed peacefully about the grounds at will, enduring petting and teasing alternately, from his capricious young master. At that time the White House was guarded by ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... there sweeps from out the cold north a mighty wind like a final sentence of death, the cruel ending to a reprieve, and soon the poor leaves, brown, red and golden, shaken too unkindly, strow the ground; the snow covers them, and the white expanse has only for adornment the sombre green of trees that alter not their garb-triumphing ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... praised! The joyful tidings are just announced of Land!! Oh! who can conceive our feelings now? The wretch condemned to the scaffold, who receives, at the moment he expects to die, the joyful reprieve, he can best conceive the state of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... had been originally fixed for the execution, but it was delayed until the 3rd. To the last moment, when he received notice of it, which was on the 29th of April, Garnet fully expected a reprieve. He "could hardly be persuaded to believe" in approaching death. Yet even then, on the very night before his execution—if we may believe the testimony of his keepers—he drank so copiously that the ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... friendship—those drops of honey in the cup of gall—did not their sweetness in this hour of desolation atone for the bitter dregs, and hold him to earth? The mighty struggle was to rend asunder these new-formed and holy ties. For him there existed no hope of a reprieve. Wise and good men had tried and found him guilty of a crime which, in all ages, had been held in execration by mankind. He was not a common criminal; for him there existed no sympathy, no pity. The voice of humanity ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... by Pennant and other writers of a similar custom being maintained at York. It gave rise to the saying, that "The saddler of Bawtry was hanged for leaving his liquor": had he stopped, as was usual with other criminals, to drink his bowl of ale, his reprieve, which was actually on its way, would have arrived in ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... was, that when happier days seemed to be dawning for the good man, that reprieve came too late. Grief and years, and humiliation and care, had been too strong for him, and Thomas Newcome was stricken down. Our Colonel was no more our friend of old days. After some days the fever which had attacked him left him, but left him so ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... back, he offered no further objections to their plans. Yet they could see that he was consenting to his exile only because he had no argument with which to meet theirs. He refused to resign from the Patent Office until the last moment, as if hoping for some reprieve from the sentence which his family had pronounced. He was moody, irritable, a changed boy from the one who had hippity-hopped with Leila on ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... up, indeed, with a great brilliance the dull printer's ink expended on the assemblage of the few letters that form the ship's name to the anxious eyes scanning the page in fear and trembling. It is like the message of reprieve from the sentence of sorrow suspended over many a home, even if some of the men in her have been the most homeless mortals that you may find among the wanderers ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... replied her exasperated father, stamping his foot, and pushing her from him; "go to bed, and if ever I hear of you going there again, you shall be well whipped." The tearful face lingered about the door in hope of a reprieve that did not come, and then disappeared for ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... and healthier spirit was called for at the present juncture. The time had come to make an example, and a more suitable case than the one now before him could not have been found for such a purpose. He would accordingly hold out no hope of a reprieve, but would counsel prisoner to make the best use of the short time remaining ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... much too small, and I was relieved, and even grateful. It was certainly an odd mode of procedure to devote primary attention to the trunks and boxes, leaving the travellers still shut up in the carriage, of which they were by this time pretty well tired. I was not sorry for the reprieve, however: being nervous about first impressions, and willing to defer mine, I sat shyly back, peeping at the candle and moonlight picture before ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... his consciousness; the rest hung more in his nerves than in his brain. He thought: 'Well, I will speak it out to her in the morning'; and thought so sincerely, while an ominous sigh of relief at the reprieve ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... march leaders won the administration a reprieve from the threat of a mass civil rights demonstration in the nation's capital, but at the price of promising substantial reform in minority hiring for defense industries and the creation of a federal body, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, to coordinate the ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Write the reprieve, and let me run with it,' cries the Princess—and she got a sheet of paper, and pen and ink, and laid ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be aware that her purpose was wicked. When the knock at the door was at last heard she trembled and feared that she would almost be unable to speak to him. Might it be possible that there should yet be a reprieve for her? No; it was his step on the stairs, and there he was in the ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... and city-moulding mind, II 1 And shelter from the clear-eyed power of biting frost, He hath taught him, and to shun the sharp, roof-penetrating rain,— Full of resource, without device he meets no coming time; From Death alone he shall not find reprieve; No league may gain him that relief; but even for fell disease, That long hath baffled wisest leech, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... faithfully: but whether it is to be called my message, or is not to be called my message, is to depend entirely on the subject-matter!... Thus, if a King, refusing to appear in person, should issue a reprieve to prisoners under sentence of Death, a proclamation of Peace or of War, an address to the representatives of the constitution, (Clergy, Lords, and Commons,) in parliament assembled,—the message would be his. But if, on ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... purchased a respite of three months, by adding thirty pounds to his debt, and so was thankful for another deliverance, and was confident of the promised subsidy within a week, or at all events a fortnight, or, at worst, three months was a long reprieve—and the subsidy ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... {ant. 132} lateness &c. adj.; tardiness &c. (slowness) 275. delay, delation; cunctation, procrastination; deferring, deferral &c. v.; postponement, adjournment, prorogation, retardation, respite, pause, reprieve, stay of execution; protraction, prolongation; Fabian policy, medecine expectante[Fr], chancery suit, federal case; leeway; high time; moratorium, holdover. V. be late &c. adj.; tarry, wait, stay, bide, take ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... A little earlier something of the same sort had happened to John Smith, who had been hanging for five minutes and a quarter, during which time the hangman "pulled him by the legs and used other means to put a speedy period to his life", when a reprieve arrived and he was cut down. He was hurried away to a neighbouring tavern where restoratives were given, blood was let, and after a time he came to himself, "to the great admiration of the spectators". According to his own account ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... anger, He cast it far away from Him in wrath. Then Death threw herself upon it, scattering terror everywhere. She holds this world in her talons. Misery also precipitates herself upon it, gnashing her teeth in beast-like rage. She clutches man like a beast of prey, she torments him without reprieve...." ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz |
