"Compunction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chidings, and punishment, Andrew would seek the company of his little friend Emily on every convenient occasion. To avoid the consequences he would practice deception, and utter direct falsehood without compunction or hesitation. At last, after a struggle of two years, even the father became wearied and discouraged at the perseverance of his child; and there came a suggestion to his mind, that probably, to continue as he had been going on for so long a time, would do more harm than good. It requires ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... — N. penitence, contrition, compunction, repentance, remorse; regret &c 833. self-reproach, self-reproof, self-accusation, self-condemnation, self-humiliation; stings of conscience, pangs of conscience, qualms of conscience, prickings of conscience^, twinge of conscience, twitch of conscience, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Captain Servadac had been acting only in jest. Aware that old Isaac was an utter hypocrite, he had no compunction in turning a business transaction with him into an occasion for a bit of fun. But the joke at an end, he took care that the Jew was properly paid ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... bureau and discover the loss before he got out of the house, which would make it awkward for him. Once out in the street, he breathed more freely. He had enough with him to pay his only debt, and give him four hundred dollars extra. It might be supposed he would feel some compunction at robbing his stepmother of her all. Whatever her faults, she was devoted to him. But Willis Ford had a hard, selfish nature, and the only thought that troubled him was the fear that he might be found out. Indeed, ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... no disturbance of my soul Or strong compunction in me wrought, I supplicate for thy controul, But in the quietness of thought: Me this uncharter'd freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance desires; My hopes no more must change their name; I long for a repose which ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... closed house on the bank of the canal where Tebureimoa lay unguarded. We entered without ceremony, being in some haste. He lay on the floor upon a bed of mats, reading in his Gilbert Island Bible with compunction. On our sudden entrance the unwieldy man reared himself half-sitting so that the Bible rolled on the floor, stared on us a moment with blank eyes, and, having recognised his visitors, sank again upon the mats. So Eglon ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vague family—a shadowy aunt and uncle who shared with her an apartment in the labyrinthine hundreds. She was company, familiar and faintly intimate and restful. Further than that he did not care to experiment—not from any moral compunction, but from a dread of allowing any entanglement to disturb what he felt was the growing serenity ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... been fought and lost to me. Mr. Parasyte, roused to the highest pitch of anger and excitement, seemed to be determined to overwhelm me. He was reckless and desperate. He had smashed my boat apparently with as little compunction as he would snap a dead stick in his fingers. He was thoroughly in earnest now; and it was fully demonstrated that he intended to protect the discipline of the Parkville Liberal Institute, even if it cost a human life for him to ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... folded my arms, and stood watching him—and waiting. I knew that he could n't tell the truth without filling in the gaps in his own case. I never am deterred by any compunction over the methods I am sometimes obliged to use to make an individual, whom I know deserves no consideration, speak. With a knave like Burke I would as lief resort to thumb-screws, the boot, the rack, or even ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... refinement; and though from first to last the serious provocation in their disputes lay in the set policy of the Southern leaders, it ought to be realised that they, men who for the most part were quite kind to their slaves and had long ago argued themselves out of any compunction about slavery, were often exposed to intense verbal provocation. Nevertheless, what followed on Sumner's speech is terribly significant of the depravation of ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... If I borrowed from any one it would be from you. But my father has this very sum, five thousand pounds, and, as I tell him, I owe him so much that I have no compunction about owing ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Brotherton! I think that was the greatest triumph. She was down on him without the slightest compunction. I never saw a man so shot in my life. He sent me to look for the money, and she never left me till I had ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... Comprehensible komprenebla. Comprehension kompreneco. Compress kunpremi. Compressible kunpremebla. Comprise enhavi. Compromise kompromiti. Compromise kompromiso. Compulsion devigo. Compunction memriprocxo. Computation kalkulo. Compute kalkuli. Comrade kamarado. Concave kaveta. Conceal kasxi. Consecutive intersekva. Concede cedi. Conceit malmodesteco. Conceited malmodesta. Conceive gravedigxi. Concentrate koncentrigi. Concentric koncentra. Conception ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... absence was explained to Prince Robin that evening, not by the volcanic Mr. Blithers but by his practised and adroit better-half who had no compunction in ascribing it to the alarming condition of a very dear friend in New York,—one of the ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... sting of compunction. Theoretically, she deprecated the American wife's detachment from her husband's professional interests, but in practice she had always found it difficult to fix her attention on Boyne's report of the transactions in which his ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... campaigns he camped at the foot of the hill and learned that a wise and holy Brahmin named Shekh Selim Chishli, who resided in a cave among the rocks, exercised powerful influence among the Hindu deities. Akbar was a Mohammedan, but of liberal mind, and had not the slightest compunction about consulting with a clergyman of another denomination. This was the more natural because his favorite wife was a Hindu princess, daughter of the Maharaja of Jeypore, and she was extremely anxious to have a child. ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... that nothing remained but to die like a queen. Proudly as ever, she passed down the ranks and not a face looked pity on her, nor a voice blessed her. She was reaping what she had sown, and she who had killed without compunction the innocents who stood between her and her ambitions, was pitilessly slain, and all the land ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... sanity it must be recorded that as he passed out of the anteroom the notion of opening the street door and bolting out presented itself to this brave youth, only, of course, to be instantly dismissed: for he felt sure that the other would pursue him without shame or compunction. And the prospect of an officer of hussars being chased along the street by another officer of hussars with a naked sword could not be for a moment entertained. Therefore he followed into the garden. Behind them ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... that in Mr. Judson the linen draper I had to deal with a very different person from the Rev. Jonah Goodge. He questioned me closely as to my motive in seeking information on the subject of the departed Haygarth, and I had some compunction in diplomatising with him as I had diplomatised with Mr. Goodge. To hoodwink the wary Jonah was a triumph—to deceive the confiding linen draper was a shame. However, as I have before set down, I suppose at the falsest I am not much farther from the truth than a barrister or a diplomatist. ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... then and there, and ran away and hid. It was very silly of me, but I couldn't help it. That stings me yet. If I was ever to get a chance to pay Lou Carroll out for that, I'd take it without any compunction." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and the tears came into her eyes. She felt that she had been somewhat harsh to him; but she felt, too, with great thankfulness, that, despite this softening compunction, her heart was free and firm. She had great liking, but not a particle of love, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the moral nature of man, that it is confined at first to the family, then to the patriarchal family, then the tribe; but the fiction of kinship is still kept up, and, while the member of the primeval tribe feels he has no right to rob or murder within the limits of his tribe, he has no compunction whatever about robbing or murdering or injuring the members of some other tribe. So the moral principle in its practical working is limited to the range of the sympathy of the tribe, which does not go beyond the tribal limits. We see how that principle works still in the world, from the beginning ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... conceit as well as cruelty of men who imagine themselves the vicegerents and avengers of Deity. In His name they burn, and slay, and rob without compunction or remorse; nay, when like Sir Giles Overreach, their ears are pierced by widows cries, and undone orphans wash with tears their thresholds, they only think what 'tis to make themselves acceptable in the sight of God. Believing pious ends justify ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... of Carlos, who plays the part of the shrewd and cynical adviser to his friend, in whose genius and brilliant future he has unbounded confidence. As the result of their talk, Clavigo decides with some compunction to abandon Marie, and, as his fortunes rise, to find a more suitable mate. In the second Scene the other characters of the play are brought before us—Marie Beaumarchais, her sister Sophie, married to Guilbert, an architect, and Don Buenco, a disappointed ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... have received not a few startling confessions! Some of my friends have gone comforted away when they had made a clean breast and circumstantially given me the details of some great crime or evil that they had committed. I never experienced any difficulty, or felt the least compunction in granting them plenary absolution; I never betrayed them to the police, for I knew that of the crime confessed they were as guiltless as myself. Of course there is a good deal of pathos about their actions, but I always felt a glow ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... a relationship of pure utility humiliates man—it ignores the rights and needs of his deeper nature; it feels no compunction in maltreating and killing things of beauty that ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... fulfilment of the prediction; for it was written in the great book of fate that London was to be destroyed. Hundreds of persons, who might have rendered valuable assistance, and saved whole parishes from devastation, folded their arms and looked on. As many more gave themselves up, with the less compunction, to plunder a city which they ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... "Accident!" quoth he. "By the blood! d'ye see 'tis a strange accident, indeed, that lays two men by the heels and lets the third go without a scratch!" Delivering himself thus, he came forward into the room, and, taking the last victim of Jonathan's adventure by the arm, with as little compunction as he would have handled a sack of grain he dragged the limp and helpless figure from where it lay to the floor beside the first victim. Then, lifting the lighted candle, he bent over the two prostrate bodies, holding the illumination close to the lineaments ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... problem," said Katherine, and the remark reminded her of her humble friend Rachel. She therefore sat down and wrote her a kind, sympathetic letter, feeling some compunction for having allowed so long an interval to elapse since ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... easily reach the bow of the boat before it cleared the shore, and then it would not be necessary to make promises of any sort. Not that Rokoff would have felt the slightest compunction in ignoring any promises he might have made the girl, but he disliked the idea of having to sue for favour with one who had so recently assaulted ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Carmelite order, had dressed in white, and was engaged in singing litanies. When the summons had been read, he ordered a page to give the notary wine and cake, and then he returned to his prayers with every appearance of compunction and piety. ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... desire the African agricultural people to be considered models of perfection. Individually, or in small bodies, the mass of them are very far from being so, for they would commit any excesses without the slightest feelings of compunction. The fear of retribution alone keeps their hands from blood and plunder. The chiefs and principal men, if they have no higher motives, keep their different tribes in order, and do not molest travellers without good cause, or from provocation, as they know that protecting the traveller is the ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... while they drove in silence. Then compunction seized him and he remarked on the beauty of the foliage. She assented easily, but seemed no more relieved by the speech than embarrassed by the silence. It was impossible to treat her as a hired servant: one felt a strong personality in her. Before they ...
— In The Valley Of The Shadow • Josephine Daskam
... of the normal boy. As he chatted on about his early impressions of the Hall, his listener became aware that he regarded their first interview as the doorway of a friendship into which he had now entered. A knowledge of this fact smote Leigh with some compunction, for he had been so much absorbed in his own ulterior purpose as to regard this man in the light of a means toward its accomplishment. Now Emmet stood before him again, haying taken him at his word, innocent ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... Used to think I had some balance but evidently I am a plain nut. I'm disgusted with myself and I should think you would be more disgusted with me." The boy looked up at his uncle with eyes that were full of shamed compunction. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... that the threats held out are somewhat inconsistent with my only having a single ship, without a soldier in her; and I must even confess to some compunction at this off-hand sketch of an imaginary fleet and army—but the matter was of the last importance. On the one hand, if my demands were vigorously pressed, there was a strong probability of obtaining them without bloodshed; but, on the other hand, if any delay took place, ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... grief, regret, remorse, misery, heaviness, rue, unhappiness, contrition, dolor, agony, distress, compunction, bereavement. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... recounting the exploits and tricks of his earlier life, with a tone in which glee and compunction alternately predominated, his unfortunate auditor had sat down upon the hermit's seat, hewn out of the solid rock, and abandoned himself to that lassitude, both of mind and body, which generally follows a course of ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... peculiar treachery of this process which fixes upon falsehood a stamp of meanness quite exceptional; and renders it impossible, I think, to yield to its inducements, even in cases supposed to be venial, without a disgust little distinguishable from compunction. This must have been Kant's feeling when he said: 'A lie is the abandonment, or, as it were, the annihilation of ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... compunction Price broke the seal of the intercepted letter and read it aloud to me. It was a shocking thing, accusing me with Martin, and taunting my husband with the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... instead of being persuaded by him, and this in itself pleased her and restored her self-respect; her previous relations with Stanbury and Schenk suffered by comparison, and if she secretly hoped for the death or removal of Mme. Poussette it was with soft womanly compunction and pity, and with stern resolves not to overstep the ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... to have no distinct perception that certain actions are right, and others wrong. In infancy, we frequently perceive the most rebellious outbreakings of ungoverned passion, with tearing, and scratching, and beating the parent, without any indication of compunction, either at the time, or after it has taken place. Even in children of more advanced years, while they remain without moral instruction, and before the reasoning powers are developed, the injuries which they occasion to each other, or which they inflict upon ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... information. His fierce temper, and the fact that he had no powerful house behind him to help to support his case, probably made him reckless. In April, 1355, six months after his arrival in Venice as doge, the smouldering fire broke out. Two of the conspirators were seized with compunction on the eve of the catastrophe and betrayed the plot—one with a merciful motive to serve a patrician he loved, the other with perhaps less noble intentions—and, without a blow struck, the conspiracy collapsed. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... a man who believes in impulses. I made what was perhaps a rash proposition. But you must remember, that I had been alone, play-writing in Lympne, for fourteen days, and my compunction for his ruined walk still hung about me. "Why not," said I, "make this your new habit? In the place of the one I spoilt? At least, until we can settle about the bungalow. What you want is to turn over your work in your mind. That ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... unsatisfactory self-defence, but Sophy, when shown how ungenerous her conduct had been, crimsoned deeply, and though uttering no word of apology, wore a look that gave her step-mother for the first time a hope that her sullenness might not be so much from want of compunction, as from want of ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... might send them or not, as he chose; but she knew he would. This was the spirit of her letter, and her training had not taught her to soften and sweeten her phrase; but no doubt the old man, who was like her, would understand that she felt no compunction for what she had done, and that she loved him though ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... did have no use fer Chinks," said the mucker, as though in extenuation of his suggestion that they murder the youth. For some unaccountable reason he had felt a sudden compunction because of his thoughtless remark. What in the world was coming over him, he wondered. He'd be wearing white pants and playing lawn tennis presently if he continued to grow much softer and ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... must confess, I owed to my skill as a chess-player, a game of which he was particularly fond, and in which I had attained no small proficiency. I was too young and too unpracticed in the world to make my skill subordinate to my chief's, and beat him at every game with as little compunction as though he were only my equal, till, at last, vexed at his want of success, and tired of a contest that offered no vicissitude of fortune, he would frequently cease playing, to chat over the events of the time, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... passing it over—but we had tasted nothing that morning, and we had rode for eight hours, and were dying of hunger! Moreover we travelled with a cook, a very tolerable native artist, but without sentiment—his heart in his stew-pan; and he, without the least compunction, had begun his frying and broiling operations in what seemed the very vestibule of Pharaoh's palace. Our own mozos and our Indian guides were assisting in its operations with the utmost zeal; and in a few minutes, some sitting round the fire, and others upon broken pyramids, we refreshed ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... tears on reading the tender and pious letter addressed to him by the dying hand of Catherine; and he marked by several small but expressive acts, the respect, or rather the compunction, with which the recollection of her could not fail to inspire him. Anne Boleyn paid to the memory of the princess-dowager of Wales—such was the title now given to Catherine—the unmeaning compliment ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... of the owner was written. As he passed the second counter he observed a well-filled basket and he stopped to examine the name. "Mrs. John P. Matthews," was written on the slip. This was his basket, thought he, calmly and without compunction. Then he began to price the articles on the shelves near by. This was his style ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... that all this was false, as, unless certain conditions were promptly complied with, Toro would certainly kill both of them without the slightest hesitation or compunction. ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... Keep a firm rein upon these bursts of passion; 530 Remember what these men have dealt to thee, And that this sacrifice will be succeeded By ages of prosperity and freedom To this unshackled city: a true tyrant[eb] Would have depopulated empires, nor Have felt the strange compunction which hath wrung you To punish a few traitors to the people. Trust me, such were a pity more misplaced Than the late mercy ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... touched me on the back with the coarse velvet of his nose. Then followed two quick snorts of alarm; the horses shied simultaneously outward, while down on the ground between them came two souls with but a single thud, two hearts that squelched as one. In spite of the compunction and sympathy I felt, modesty compelled me to glide unobstrusively away, leaving the souls to disentangle themselves and catch their horses the best way ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... was left, while his companions went fossil-hunting, and stayed so long as to excite their compunction, and quicken their steps when they at length detached themselves ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... than compunction in these confessions. Spencer's mind was so narrowly systematized, that he was at last almost incapable of believing in the reality of alien ways of feeling. The invariable arrogance of his replies to criticisms shows his absolute self-confidence. Every opinion in the world had ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... before he climbed into the berth over Northwick's, he locked the door, and put the key under his pillow. Northwick did not seem to notice him, but a feeling of compunction made him put the key back in the door. "I guess I'd better leave it there, after all," he said. "It'll stop a key from the outside. Well, sir, good-night," he added to Northwick, and climbed to his berth with a light heart. Toward morning he was wakened by a groaning from the lower ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... younger brother invaluable for running errands. And you'll continue to fetch and carry, enduring all things from her and Bernard much as you do from me. When I do go—which won't be just yet—I shan't feel the faintest compunction about leaving you behind. I'm sure Bernard's honour will be as safe in your hands as it is ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... has absolved her from all her feelings of humanity? "The parting!" Where has she lived not to know how, according to our lecturers, families are parted at the auction-block in the Southern States without the least compunction? We are constantly told,—has she not heard it?—that the slave at the South is a mere "chattel," and that a slave-child is bought and sold as recklessly as a calf, and that a parting between a slave-mother and her children, sold and separated for life, is an ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... that could only be wiped out with blood. On each and all of these occasions, the sword was ready to the right hand; and where this generous weapon would not reach, the harquebuss and knife of paid assassins were employed without compunction.[183] We must not, however, ascribe this condition of society wholly or chiefly to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... grazing. I paddled to within fifty yards of him, and, though I found that my rifle would not go off and had to change it for another, with considerable movement, the deer took no notice of us, and I dropped him in his tracks with a feeling of compunction only overcome by the fact that we had no breakfast if he went away. So peaceful was our realm! I have often paddled within easy shot of a deer on other waters, but only by remaining motionless when he was ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... madame was distressed, but she did not know all the reasons why. Madame had been very good to her, and Bessie felt sorry; but to leave school for home was such a natural, inevitable episode in the course of life in the Rue St. Jean that, beyond a momentary regret, she had no compunction. Mr. Cecil Burleigh proceeded to lay open his arrangements. He was on his road to Paris, where he might be detained from ten to fifteen days, but madame should receive a letter from him when the precise time of his return was fixed. After he had spoken to this effect he rose to take leave, ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... appalling news came from the Assembly: Dr. Willard, while making one more passionate appeal for the asylum, had fallen dead in the presence of the committee. The result was a deep and wide- spread feeling of compunction, and while we were under the influence of this I sought Judge Folger and showed him his opportunity to do two great things. I said: "It rests with you to remedy this cruel evil which has now cost Dr. Willard his life, and at the same time to join us in carrying the Cornell University ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... he. He tries to shove off his responsibility upon them, and they are quite willing to take it. Their consciences are not easily touched. Fanatical hatred which thinks itself influenced by religious motives is the blindest and cruellest of all passions, knowing no compunction, and utterly unperceptive of the innocence ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... appearing to forget at table everything he had said to me in our walk, I should instantly have cancelled such a judgement on reflecting that the good news his wife was able to give him about their little boy was ground enough for any optimistic reaction. It may have come partly, too, from a certain compunction at having breathed to me at all harshly on the cool fair lady who sat there—a desire to prove himself not after all so mismated. Dolcino continued to be much better, and it had been promised him he should come downstairs after his dinner. As soon as we had risen from our own ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... the rules of war. Yet Washington seems to have considered that he had only acted in the character of a just judge. He could imagine that Arnold was undergoing "the torments of a mental hell," for the part he had acted in this transaction, but he felt no compunction for his own unjust and uncalled-for severity—he could see the mote in Arnold's eye, but could not discover the beam which was in his own. As regards Arnold he was probably correct. After the death of Andre that renegade issued addresses to the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... communicated the strange prediction of the weird sisters, and its partial accomplishment. She was a bad, ambitious woman, and so as her husband and herself could arrive at greatness, she cared not much by what means. She spurred on the reluctant purpose of Macbeth, who felt compunction at the thoughts of blood, and did not cease to represent the murder of the king as a step absolutely necessary to the fulfilment of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... me to look after them, I should have done so on my own account. I do not forget that in choosing a public teacher one is apt to give offence, but on behalf of your brother's sons I must risk giving offence and even incurring animosity with as little compunction as a parent would in looking after ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... the lion; but now that he saw the old man lying helpless and dying before him something akin to pity touched his savage heart. In his youth he would have slain the witch-doctor without the slightest compunction; but civilization had had its softening effect upon him even as it does upon the nations and races which it touches, though it had not yet gone far enough with Tarzan to render him either cowardly or effeminate. He saw an old man suffering and dying, and he stooped and felt of ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... patriarchal age of 1000 numbers could not be kept waiting. Then "Lord Jim," with about seventeen pages already written at odd times, put in his claim which was irresistible. Thus every stroke of the pen was taking me further away from the abandoned "Rescue," not without some compunction on my part but with a gradually diminishing resistance; till at last I let myself go as if recognizing a superior influence against which it was ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... and patted her shoulder with a queer compunction that had never troubled him before in his dealings ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... partial wandering of the mind that took the poor old woman away on this old-witch flight; and it was very curious and pitiful to witness the compunction with which she returned to herself and took herself to task for the preference which, in her wild nature, she could not help giving to harum-scarum wickedness over tame goodness. Now she tried to compose herself, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ungovernable passions, they indulge, without compunction, in falsehood, duplicity and the desecration of every virtue!... and yet think a pure love can condone and survive such unpardonable wrongs. They lightly weigh the tribute due to the refinement of a woman's heart. Their devotion is characterized by a singular ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... and the man of peace and letters, whose temperament shrank from contention of any kind, could not but congratulate himself upon an incidental triumph for which it was impossible to feel the smallest compunction. Moreover, he had gained his point. It was enough for him to know that there was a certain secret in Steel's life, upon which the wretch Abel had admittedly traded, even as his superior Minchin had apparently intended to do before him. Only those two seemed to have ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... himself. The uproar had frightened away all the other buffaloes, so, with the bodies of the one I had killed, and the ape, we forthwith returned to the camp to enjoy a hearty breakfast. The natives cut up the body of the ape, and ate it with as little compunction as they would have done mutton or beef. Charley and Harry, who were close behind me when I fired, declared that they had never seen better shots in their lives. "I felt that much depended on my taking ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the sea, he only saw the more clearly the darkness of the guilt in which he believed, and was more bitterly repelled by the motive at which he guessed. But now at least his zeal was awake again, and the sense of the hunt quickened. He would neither slacken nor spare; here need be no compunction. In the course of the day, he hoped, his net would be complete. He had work to do in the morning; and with very vivid expectancy, though not much serious hope, he awaited the answer to the telegram which he had shot into the sky, as it were, ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... he was left quite free to choose his own expressions; and as he has acknowledged his shame and compunction for the act, I trust that none of you will be tempted to elevate him into a hero, for a folly which he himself so much regrets. This affair,—as I should wish all bad deeds to be after they have once been punished,—will now be forgiven, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... the cause of Harley's silence).—"I honour your compunction, my Lord. Oh, let your heart and your conscience continue to speak to your ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... may not have supposed it, Proserpina found it impossible to take leave of poor King Pluto without some regrets, and a good deal of compunction for not telling him about the pomegranate. She even shed a tear or two, thinking how lonely and cheerless the great palace would seem to him, with all its ugly glare of artificial light, after she herself—his ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... the entrails of a carpet sweeper. His vision was blurred and he had no control over his muscles. Weakly he leaned against the table in front of the jury, the room swaying about him. The pains of hell gat hold upon him. He was dying. Even the staff felt compunction—all ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... were uttered in a tone of voice, that told his hearer of the sincerity of that which was spoken. Ali knew the character of the Malays too well to entertain any doubt. There would not be the slightest compunction in the matter; and knowing this, he lay there watching the men, as they slowly settled down once more around the blazing dammar-torch they ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... anxiously, apprehensive lest an open quarrel had actually taken place. He knew well that Josef Blot, alias Weirmarsh, was not a man to be trifled with. If Sir Hugh had served his purpose, as he no doubt had, then he would be betrayed to the police without compunction, just as others ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... will turn out well for either of us. Think it over. It will take us a long time to go the round of the farms and exploit the men, and all the time the suitors will be wasting your estate with impunity and without compunction. Prove the women by all means, to see who are disloyal and who guiltless, but I am not in favour of going round and trying the men. We can attend to that later on, if you really have some sign from Jove ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... I give, not as matter of glory, but shame: yet I ought to tell you all the truth, or nothing. 'Meantime,' thought I, (for I used to have some compunction for my vile practices, when cool reflection, brought on by satiety, had taken hold of me) 'I wish this sweet girl was grown to years of susceptibility, that I might reform this wicked course of life, and not prowl about, disturbing honest folks' peace, and endangering myself.' And as I had, by a ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the garden, and given them the timely warning. This was for him a greater relief than Fanny expected; for, after the first feeling of pride and delight at having gained his lovely prize, Delphin had felt more and more compunction in his inmost heart every time he thought of Madeleine. He was not willing to break off with Fanny—this was more than he dared to do; but, careless and clever as he was, he thought that he would be able for the present to keep up the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... but she knew it —knew it well; yet she offered that grace—offered it in a time when such a thing was unknown in war; in a time when it was custom and usage to massacre the garrison and the inhabitants of captured cities without pity or compunction—yes, even to the harmless women and children sometimes. There are neighbors all about you who well remember the unspeakable atrocities which Charles the Bold inflicted upon the men and women and children of Dinant when he took that place some years ago. It was a unique and kindly grace which ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... people who do not see the war, especially neutrals, are shocked at the destruction of churches. The Germans have been taught an unpleasant lesson in this in the case of Rheims. Therefore they answer by falsifying a film when it suits their purpose with just as little compunction ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... an unclean Humbug, in which Greed is God and Gall is recognized high-priest. We now consider our fortunes rather than our affections, acquire a husband or wife much as we would a parrot or a poodle, and get rid of them with about as little compunction. Cupid now feathers his arrows from the wings of the gold eagle and shoots at the stomach instead of the heart. Love without law makes angels blush; but law without love crimson even the brazen brow ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... not think that any landholder of this class, in the Bangur district, would feel much compunction for the commission of any crime that did not involve their expulsion from caste, or degradation in rank. Great crimes do not involve these penalties: they incur them only by small peccadillos, or offences deemed venal among other societies. The Government ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... his compunction, thought more of the matter than any one else, except his daughter. Had Winterborne been going on in the old fashion, Grace's father could have alluded to his disapproval of the alliance every day with the greatest frankness; but to speak any further on the subject ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... The feelings of compunction with which Halbert Glendinning was visited upon this painful occasion, were deeper than belonged to an age and country in which human life was held so cheap. They fell far short certainly of those which might have afflicted a mind regulated by better religious ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... it cannot be written that Bowen felt some compunction at what he was doing. We like to think that, when a man deliberately commits a crime, he should hesitate and pay enough deference to the proprieties as to feel at least a temporary regret, even if he goes on with his crime afterward. ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... got back Sue was making a pretence of doing some housewifery as if she lived there. But she seemed timid at his approach, and compunction wrought on him at ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... elder Mrs. Duncombe's own daughter was over, so that there might be room for her, and she was thankful for the reprieve, which left her able to spend Christmas among the privileges she had only learnt to value just as she was deprived of them. She looked at Mrs. Poynsett, half in curiosity, half in compunction, as she remembered how she had helped to set Cecil ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... evening, when the dew began to fall, and the shadows of men lengthened, and sing to her father songs of the land of the shades of evil men, songs which told of the crimes they had committed, and their repentance, and guilt, and compunction, and shame, and death. Though Moshup appeared to care little for any body, he nevertheless loved his little daughter, as he called her, whose head peered over the tallest trees, and whose voice was heard upon the main land. He shewed by many signs how much he loved his daughter. He ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... surrounding her face, which was all the more baby-like in its prettiness from the entire concealment of her hair. The poor child was weary, and it seemed to have gone to sleep in that half-standing, half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, our stranger had no compunction in awaking her. She opened her baby-blue eyes, and stared up with ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... presence or absence of the divine sentiment in man. By fault of our dulness and selfishness, we are looking up to nature, but when we are convalescent, nature will look up to us. We see the foaming brook with compunction; if our own life flowed with the right energy, we should shame the brook. The stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not with reflex rays of sun and moon. Nature may be as selfishly studied as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, mesmerism (with intent to show ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... we still did; no sailor has the least compunction at even running down a privateer. Mercy to privateersmen is unknown. "Give them the stem," is the word, the curs being regarded by Jack at the best as highwaymen; so, when he found we still peppered away, and sailing two feet for our one, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... boy!" answered the Countess, "as well may you ask a hungry lion to feel compassion, as a prejudiced and furious people to do justice. They are like the madman at the height of frenzy, who murders without compunction his best and dearest friend; and only wonders and wails over his own cruelty, when he is recovered from ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... years did him much harm in his youth. But there is no need to quote from so well-known md accessible a book; whoever opens it will not lay it down il] the last page. Cardano admits that he cheated at play, that e was vindictive, incapable of all compunction, purposely cruel in his speech. He confesses it without impudence and without feigned contrition, without even wishing to make himself an object of interest, but with the same simple and sincere love of fact which guided him in his scientific ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... Sir," said Mrs. Makebelieve, "that you were mistaken in your opinion. My daughter is not old enough yet to be thinking of marriage and such like. Children do be thoughtless. I am sorry for all the trouble she has given you, and"—a sudden compunction stirred her, for the man was standing up now, and there was no trace of Mrs. O'Connor visible in him: his face was as massive and harsh as a piece of wall. "Don't you be thinking too badly of us now," said Mrs. ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... faithful—always on the watch for any clue to the mystery of Marian Holbrook's fate, always ready to receive the wanderer with open arms, should any happy chance bring her back to the Grange. Assured of this, he felt less compunction in turning his back upon the spot where his lost love had vanished ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... hand to hand, jeered at for a while, and finally flung back to me as lies—lies all! The finely spun web of any fancy,—the delicate interwoven intricacies of thought,—these were torn to shreds with as little compunction as idle children feel when destroying for their own cruel sport the velvety wonder of a moth's wing, or the radiant rose and emerald pinions of a dragon-fly. I was a fool—so I was told with many a languid sneer and stale jest—to talk of hidden mysteries in the whisper ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... he may have saved in his pocket, is allowed so much as half a biscuit beyond his proper ration. Any riotous person who endangered the safety of the rest would be bound, and laid in the bottom of the boat, without the smallest compunction, for such violation of the principles of individual liberty; and, on the other hand, any child, or woman, or aged person, who was helpless, and exposed to great danger and suffering by their weakness, would receive more than ordinary care and indulgence, not unaccompanied with ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... laid down the tiny paw he had taken in his. It was limp as the hand of a dead girl. Clo would have felt less compunction if he had dropped it roughly. He took a few brisk steps, as though he had come to some decision. She forced herself back from the brink of unconsciousness to realize that he was going toward the door—not the outer door, through which she had entered, but another. He opened this, and Clo saw ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... are mountaineers. Not one of them has a religion or a creed. Nor is there anything which they [consider it right to] abstain from or to avoid [as impure]; but they do whatever they list, and follow their desires without check or compunction. Baluristan is bounded on the east by the province of Kashgar and Yarkand; on the north by Badakhshan; on the west by Kabul and Lumghan; and on the south by the dependencies of Kashmir. It is four months' journey in circumference. Its whole ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Brumley found himself fairly launched upon this expedition he had the grace to feel compunction. The Harmans, he perceived, had inadvertently made him the confidant of their domestic discords and to betray them to these others savoured after all of treachery. And besides much as he had craved to see Lady Harman again, he now realized he didn't in the least want to see her ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... shewed a singular implacability in her dealings with the rest of the world. In spite of which my aunt still retained her, for, while conscious of her cruelty, she could appreciate her services. I began gradually to realise that Francoise's kindness, her compunction, the sum total of her virtues concealed many of these back-kitchen tragedies, just as history reveals to us that the reigns of the kings and queens who are portrayed as kneeling with clasped hands ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... answered—"I say it to my shame, but I cannot see you in this poor place without compunction. It is not my single thought, nor my first; and yet it's there! I would gladly see you delivered. I do not offer it in love, and far from that; but, as God judges me—and I wonder at it too!—quite ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but life is the more precious the harder one has to labor to sustain it. We value things according to their cost. In the tropics, where no man need work, human life is held cheaply. Men die and kill without compunction; they excite revolutions and overthrow governments, sparing neither themselves nor others. But in Norway, as in Switzerland, where it is a ceaseless struggle from the cradle to the grave, there is more national pride and patriotism than in any land, and ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... me? Take up your sword, man, and do my bidding; thus shall you have a slender chance of life. Refuse and I pistol you without compunction. So now put on that ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people to the house more, and she assented, rather listlessly. So Peter hinted to Peggy, who had a cheering presence, that Rhoda would be glad to see her more often, and Peggy made what time she could to come round. Their circle of friends was limited; they ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... measure, must be gravely informed by Messrs. Clay, Norvell, Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and other honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they know not whereof they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted they can demand without compunction a violation ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... often meant to leave, but somehow, when the time comes, I stay on. His life seems to be made up of brutalities, small and large. He ruins a man with as little compunction as one could fancy him, in his younger days, pulling the legs from a fly. I have never seen him do a kindly action. And yet, all the time I find myself watching for it. A situation arises, and I say to myself: 'Now I am going to see ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... do, but she would do anything, sacrifice anything, to secure again that fatal document which, in George Fournel's hands, must bring a collapse worse than death. A dozen plans flashed before her, and now that her mind was set upon the thing, compunction would not stay her. She had gone so far, she was prepared to go further to save this Seigneury to Louis. She put in her pocket the silver-handled pistol ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... it self into three Rivulets, viz. Of Compunction, Compassion, Devotion; or Sobs of Nature sanctified by Grace. Languaged in several Soliloquies and prayers upon various Subjects, for the benefit of all that are in Affliction, and particularly for these present times, by John Featley, Chaplain ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... honest days that were no more had had their merits after all. Raffles would plan a fresh enormity, or glory in the last, with the unmitigated enthusiasm of the artist. It was impossible to imagine one throb or twitter of compunction beneath those frankly egotistic and infectious transports. And yet the ghost of a dead remorse seemed still to visit him with the memory of his first felony, so that I had given the story up long before the night ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... whistled. "But in that case you'll have no compunction in leaving him without saying 'goodbye.' Let's go and get ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... words Lenox started as it a cold finger-tip had touched his heart. Such a thought had never occurred to him: and he could have murdered, without compunction, the small self-satisfied woman who had lodged the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... and they—though they still don't fully understand it—are penned there in their heaven-offending, monstrous, horrible plant at the Falls, no true man can hesitate to smash them down with no more compunction than as though they were so many rattlesnakes ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... man with his knife and I have seen him kill one of the guards whom he had thought was favouring me in the matter of diet with less compunction than ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... bar your path. Winnington is a good fellow, but a thickheaded Philistine all the same. You spoke to me about him with compunction. Have no compunctions. Go straight forward. Women have got to shew themselves ruthless, and hard, and cunning, like men—if they are ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... look through the proofs of this little treatise, a twinge of compunction comes upon me. That humane philosopher Mr. Dooley has somewhere a saying to this effect: "When an astronomer tells me that he has discovered a new planet, I would be the last man to brush the fly off the end of his telescope." ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... touch of pity and compunction as she remembered these things, and suddenly she lifted to her lips ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... further reply, but somehow she felt an unuttered conviction, on the part of the man there beside her, of Joe's loss of heritage. And yet a certain compunction prevented her from making any explanation—that it was not Joe's fault. There was a sort of sacred inviolability about it. A hot little wave of feeling swept over her. She had treated Joe miserably. She had yielded to ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... is not a self-inflicted compunction, but a Christ-inflicted crucifixion. Our Lord was done with the cross when on Calvary he cried: "It is finished." But where he ended each disciple must begin: "If any man will come after me let him deny himself and ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... her head against Tavia's shoulder. Whatever compunction Tavia had felt for her part in the unfortunate state of affairs, she felt at ease now in the thought that she had saved this girl. That the hospital men were attending to Morrison, and that he would soon be out of reach of harming her, ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... is comforting. If only I could accept her as a human creature. But when I think of her callous reception of the tidings of the unhappy boy's death, my spirit fails me. Such a being would run a carving-knife into you, as you slept, without any compunction, and when you squeaked, she would laugh. Look at her base ingratitude to the good Hamdi Effendi, who took her in before she was born and has treated her as a daughter all her life. No: her spiritual ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... gentleness, the incessant kindness, the matchless generosity of these people seemed all a mockery. What availed it all when the same hand that heaped favors upon me, the guest, could deal death without compunction upon friends and relatives? It seemed quite possible for the Kohen to kill his own child, or cut the throat of his wife, if the humor seized him. And how long could I hope to be spared among a people who had ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... affairs, we naturally came to the conclusion that the sooner we changed that state the better. Our excursion to Topsham would, we supposed, prove a very disagreeable business to him; but we knew it would result very agreeably for us, and so, though with a good deal of maidenly compunction and granddaughterly compassion on Julia's part, we ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale |
