"Executioner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then? is your happy life left on the outside of the prison, while constancy, dignity, wisdom, and the other virtues, are surrendered up to the executioner, and bear punishment and ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... to the most brutal. The hangman uses an argument which everyone can understand. In this sense, therefore, force must be the ultimate sanction, though it is equally true that to get the force you must appeal to motives very different from those wielded by the executioner. The application of this analogy of criminal law to questions of morality and religion affects the final conclusions ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... rather," said the Marquis of Brandenburg to the emperor, "instantly offer my head to the executioner, than renounce the gospel and approve idolatry. Christ did not institute the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to be carried in pomp through the streets, nor to be adored by the people. He said, 'Take, eat;' but never said, 'Put this sacrament into a vase, ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... from the centre of the city, sounding nearer than the first. CALAF hearkens, though his eyes are still riveted on the picture. The executioner appears on the city wall, a fearful sight, his bare arms bespattered with blood. He plants the head of the PRINCE Of SAMARKAND on the vacant pole ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... the farming. Thus many thousand farmers are carried on the registers as proprietors, who, in fact, are no longer such. Thus, again, many a large farmer—unskilled in his trade, or visited by misfortune, or who came into possession under unfavorable circumstances—also falls a prey to the executioner's axe of the capitalist. The capitalist becomes lord of the land; with the view of making double gains he goes into the business of "butchering estates:" he parcels out the domain because he can thereby get a larger price than if he sold it in lump: then also he has better prospects of plying ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... of players in the metropolis, one of whom, and a chief one, was his own townsman, should cheerfully adopt into their society, as an honored partner, a young man yet flagrant from the lash of the executioner or ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... she found an artist, named Hauer, waiting for her, to finish her portrait, which he had begun at the tribunal. They conversed freely together, until the executioner, carrying the red chemise destined for assassins, and the scissors with which he was to cut her hair off, made his appearance. "What, so soon!" exclaimed Charlotte Corday, slightly turning pale; but rallying her courage, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... kind occurs, the erotic feelings of childhood may still exercise influence later in life. As examples from world-literature, I may mention: Heine, who was still a boy when he was so greatly attracted by his Sefchen, the executioner's niece, whose personality made a definite impression on the poet's maturer work;[107] Goethe, whose friendship with the sister of the little Derones, likewise had certain artistic results; Dante, who first met his Beatrice at the age of nine ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... originated in the "NOTES AND QUERIES," I have not observed any notice taken of an anecdote respecting him, which is current among our neighbours on the Continent; namely, that he gave six guineas to the executioner, the JOHN KETCH of that day, to perform his ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.02.09 • Various
... country," said the stern old Brown glancing upward to the eternal hills on his way to the gallows, as calmly as if he were returning home from a long journey. "So perish all such enemies of Virginia. All such enemies of the Union. All such foes of the human race," solemnly announced the executioner as he fulfilled ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... and book at the same pile. The prudence of the author and printer saved them from this fate; but the book had hardly reached France before its sale was forbidden under penalty of fines and imprisonment, and it was condemned by an act of Parliament to be burnt by the public executioner in the streets of Paris, all of which particulars will be narrated in the BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF BARON D'HOLBACH, which I am now preparing for ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... shouted, "if ye would see to-morrow's light. Touch one hair of his head and your king dies," and I covered Twala with my revolver. Sir Henry and Good also drew their pistols, Sir Henry pointing his at the leading executioner, who was advancing to carry out the sentence, and Good taking a ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... of the Last Judgment, a river of fire flows from under the throne of Christ to devour and burn up the wicked.[1] In western art the idea is less formidable,—Christ is not at once judge and executioner; but the sentiment is always sufficiently terrible; "the angels and all the powers of heaven tremble before him." In the midst of these terrors, the Virgin, whether kneeling, or seated, or standing, always appears as a gentle mediator, ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... thing is to see this executioner chap going along behind all the kneeling figures, afore he knocks their heads off, and pulling this one here and a-shovin' that one theer, so arrangin' on 'em that he can have a clean stroke when he ups ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), the Fancy Ball descended to the Common Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, was required to officiate "frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, pumps, and white silk stockings." At the gallows and the wheel—the axe was a rarity—Monsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his brother ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... President, I did," replied Rouletabille, proudly. "I am not a policeman, I am a journalist; and my business is not to arrest people. My business is in the service of truth, and is not that of an executioner. If you are just, Monsieur, you will see that I am right. You can now understand why I refrained until this hour to divulge the name. I gave Larsan time to catch the 4:17 train for Paris, where he would know where to hide himself, and leave ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... should recognize Simpson anywhere, even at a masked ball. Besides, who but Simpson would go to a fancy-dress dance as a short-sighted executioner, and wear his spectacles outside his mask? But it was a surprise to me to see ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... paraded three times through the streets of Bagdad in the manner the Caliph had ordained, the executioner struck off his head, and thus perished that vile and infamous miscreant, the Emir ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... grew rich. The executioner rode a blooded horse, like a noble of the court, and went clad in gold and silver; his wife vied with noble dames in the richness of her array. The children of those convicted and punished were sent into exile; their goods were confiscated; plowman and vintner ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... living as they did in an era of revolutions, they were surprised occasionally in unpleasant situations. Crassus the rich, father of Marcus, had committed himself against Marius, and had been allowed the privilege of being his own executioner. Marcus himself, who was a little older than Cicero, took refuge in Sylla's camp. He made himself useful to the Dictator by his genius for finance, and in return he was enabled to amass an enormous fortune for himself out of the proscriptions. His eye for business reached ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... and the audience had melted away in a thin little stream. Matravers stood on the kerbstone hesitating. He had not meant to go behind to-night. He had a feeling that she must be regarding him at that moment as the executioner of her ambitions. Besides, she was going on to a reception; she would only be in a hurry. Nevertheless, he made his way round to the stage door. He would at least have a glimpse of her. But as he turned the corner, she was already ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... conservator of the peace among themselves, and a protector against trespassers from abroad, whether black or white; to hold property in him as impartial judge and an honest jury to try them for offenses, and a merciful executioner to punish them for violations of the usages ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Ichtharion Ludibras Harpagas First Sentry Second Sentry One of the Camel Guard An Executioner The Queen Tharmia (wife of Ichtharion) Arolind (wife of Ludibras) Carolyx (wife of ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany
... him to be bound to a tree and shot to death with arrows, and that the inscription over his head should state that there was no fault found in him but only that he was a Christian. This picture my sister wants to buy, shows him stripped and bound to the tree, and the executioner's work going on. Arrows are piercing him in various places; and the saint's face is raised to heaven with the look upon it of struggling pain and triumphing faith together. You can see that the struggle is sharp, and that only strength which ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... persons who fetch the poison; and this is the only chance they have of saving their lives. After sentence is pronounced upon them by the judge, they are asked in court, whether they will die by the hands of the executioner, or whether they will go to the Upas tree for a box of poison? They commonly prefer the latter proposal, as there is not only some chance of preserving their lives, but also a certainty, in case of their safe return, that a provision will be made for them in future by the Emperor. ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... taking possession of another against the will of the inhabitants, and butchering all who oppose the usurpation! Among the enormities which France has committed, this action seems but as a speck; yet the foulest murderer that ever suffered by the hand of the executioner has infinitely less guilt upon his soul than the statesman who concluded this treaty, and the monarch who sanctioned and confirmed it. A desperate and glorious resistance was made, but it was in vain; no power interposed ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... was once a hangman, or an executioner, rather. Well I remember it! I used the sword, not the rope. The sword is the braver way, although all ways are equally inefficacious. Forsooth, as if spirit could be thrust through with steel ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... interrupted for a moment, while the last awful ceremony was in progress, were resumed. As he read them, I saw the clergyman fix his eye on the executioner with a peculiar expression. He drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and passed it slightly over his upper lip. This was the fatal signal. A lumbering noise, occasioned by the falling of part of the apparatus, announced ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... Abbot Milo believed it for one. Figuratively, you can see his hands up as you read him. 'To hang two knights of such eminent degree and parts,' he writes, 'were surely a great scandal in any Christian king. Not that the punishment were undeserved or the executioner insufficient, God knoweth! But very often true policy points out the wisdom of the mean; and this is its deliberative, that to hang a bad man when another vengeance is open—such as burning in his castle, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... a lunatic who thinks himself judge, public prosecutor, and executioner rolled into one, and, even in the courtyard of his prison, he pronounces sentence of death on the flowers and the pebbles. One is stupefied by the tenacity of his hatred, which fills the book with bloody cries ...—'a cry ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... Osmin in the arm. Leonora pities the blow; and the Moorish soldier, deeply hurt at the insult, resolves to betray his master. He accordingly goes to the prison where Philip, the Cardinal, and Alonzo are confined, and killing his fellow Zarrack who was to have been their executioner, sets them free. When Abdelazer enters he finds himself entrapped. He glories, however, in his crimes, and as they set on him kills Osmin, himself falling dead in the melee. The Cardinal is forgiven, Leonora and Alonzo are united, whilst Philip ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... ignorant of the wretched truth! "Even to the giving of your life for his!" And his life was in my hands already! Oh, the pity, the horror of it! She called on God to bless me, and I was about to lead her only son straight from her death-bed to the executioner! ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... coaxed."[1] In this work he is trying to convince the Gnostics of their errors from various passages in the Old Testament. But he never invokes the death penalty against them. On the contrary, he declares that no practical Christian can be an executioner or jailer. He even goes so far as to deny the right of any disciple of Christ to serve in the army, at least as an officer, "because the duty of a military commander comprises the right to sit in judgment upon a man's ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... thought that every man concerned in either of those proceedings deserved the gallows, and fancied he could perform the office of executioner. He therefore made less scruple to require a pecuniary commutation for those offences, but thought the proceeds should be carried to a public account. Monthault laughed at this suggestion, said that ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... side. Then Mr. Brudenell, the chaplain, in his surplice, with his prayer book open in his hand, walking beside Richard, who is moody and disorderly. He walks doggedly through the gallows framework, and posts himself a little in front of it. Behind him comes the executioner, a stalwart soldier in his shirtsleeves. Following him, two soldiers haul a light military waggon. Finally comes the band, which posts itself at the back of the square, and finishes the Dead March. ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... resistance to authority, which was all that could be alleged against the followers of Gracchus, was treated, not as a riot, but as a rebellion. The Tullianum saw its daily dole of victims, who were strangled by the executioner; the goods of the condemned were confiscated by the State and sold at public auction. All public signs of mourning were forbidden to their wives;[741] and the opinion of Scaevola, the greatest legal expert of the day, was that some property of his niece Licinia, which had been wrecked in the general ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... cruelty in penalties. When an official has offended, or even when in his department there has been any violation of law, although beyond his power of prevention, so sure is he of the punishment of death, that he anticipates it by ripping up his own body rather than be delivered over to the executioner and entailing disgrace and ruin on all his family. There cannot under such a system be anything like judicious legislation founded on enquiry and adapted to the ever-varying circumstances of life. ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... incredulous she added, "Stay, I will show you. Little Bonsa must be thirsty who has fasted so long, also there are matters that I desire to know. Come hither—you, and you," and she pointed at hazard to the two priests who knelt nearest to her, "and do you bid the executioner bring his axe," she went on to ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... Pharaoh Necoh who had marched north to the Euphrates was defeated in a battle for empire by Nebuchadrezzar, son of the King of Babylon. From the turmoil of nations which filled the period Babylon emerged as that executioner of the Divine judgments on the world, whom Jeremiah since 627 or 625 had been describing generally as out of the North. His predictions were justified, and he was able to put a sharper edge on them. Henceforth in place of ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... chief offered to do the rest. He went with the schooner. On its arrival the unsuspecting "Lizard" came off to trade. At the end of a friendly visit he was stepping into his canoe when his unofficially appointed executioner stepped quietly forward, levelled his double-barrelled gun, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... not? Why the tyrant-killer, to be sure. This is an admirable arrangement for securing simplicity of proceedings, but it admits of some doubt whether it can be quite approved on the score of impartiality. When a man unites in his own person the characters of accuser, judge, and executioner, it is within the limits of possibility that he may be slightly untrustworthy. But in what is known as classical literature, not only are tyrant-slayers allowed to have their own way and say, but their action is upheld and defended by great ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... the figures of the Judgment of Solomon has very nearly copied the fig-tree from this angle, placing its trunk between the executioner and the mother, who leans forward to stay his hand. But, though the whole group is much more free in design than those of the earlier palace, and in many ways excellent in itself, so that it always strikes the ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... wholly bent upon Revenge. He determin'd to poison Astarte on a certain Night, and to have Zadig strangled by Break of Day. Orders for that Purpose were expressly given to a merciless, inhuman Eunuch, the ready Executioner of his Vengeance. At that critical Conjuncture, there happen'd to be a Dwarf, who was dumb, but not deaf, in the King's Apartment. Nobody regarded him: He was an Eye and Ear-witness of all that pass'd, and yet no more ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... strangers who visited the Peninsula, inns were for a long time almost unknown, and the occupation of an innkeeper, who sold what his countrymen were delighted to give, was considered degrading: so dishonourable indeed was it looked upon, that where an executioner could not be found to carry the sentence of the law into effect upon a criminal, the innkeeper was compelled to perform his functions: therefore the innkeepers, like usurers and other persons, who ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... queen, pointing out the man who had insulted her. The executioner raised his gleaming axe just as Jacinta came to herself and opened her eyes. Then two shrieks pierced the air. One was a cry of joy, for in the glittering steel Jacinta saw herself, so charmingly ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... him now, made a motion to me to lend him my sword, which hung naked in a belt by my side; so I did. He no sooner had it but he runs to his enemy, and, at one blow, cut off his head as cleverly, no executioner in Germany could have done it sooner or better; which I thought very strange for one who, I had reason to believe, never saw a sword in his life before, except their own wooden swords. However, it seems, as I learned afterwards, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... spokes. No longer was he young in the eyes of Virginia Howland. No, he was old, old as the avenging ages and as cruel, as cold as the march of time. Straight he made for the pretty white side of the gun-boat, as some grim executioner might measure for the blow of the sword which was to sever the white neck of some captive maid, some Joan of Arc. And the girl caught his spirit and became cruel too. She laughed at the gun-boat, as she fired again; she laughed as the Tampico quivered and went to the heart of the ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... this. He has written himself here, and the damned writing is perpetually and legibly before my eyes. He has put a brand, a Cain-like, accursed brand upon my face, the language of which can not be hidden from men; and yet you ask me if I know the executioner? Can I forget him? If you think so, Munro, you ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... said; "it is only the tumbril cart and the executioner going to the Place Louis XV. Ah! we used to see it often enough last year; but to-day, four days after the anniversary of the twenty-first of January, one does not feel sorry to ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac
... me to wake him, and I guess this will do it;" and, filling his great sponge with water, Frank stalked into the next room and stood over the unconscious victim like a stern executioner, glad to unite business with ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... is our chance; here is the opportunity for that flourish which modesty, throughout our life, has forbidden to us! John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, when the time came for him to lay his head upon the block, bade the executioner smite it off with three strokes as a courtesy to the Holy Trinity. King Charles the Second, as he lay upon his death-bed, apologised to those who stood around him for "being an unconscionable time adying." The story is familiar of Napoleon's aide-de-camp, who, when he had been ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... without pupils, all the refuse of the revolution, the women of the Palais-Royal: such was the army he commanded, having as his lieutenants Desmarets, an unfrocked priest, and Veyrat, formerly a Genevese convict, who had been branded and whipped by the public executioner. Real and these two subalterns were the principal actors in the drama that we ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... and purity of morals; but the intimacy which he formed with some libertine young men during his stay at the Academy of Paris entirely changed him. He contracted an insatiable desire for play, and even his own father said to him, "You will die by the hands of the executioner." Being destitute of money, the young Count took up the trade of a pickpocket, which he carried on in the pit of the theatres, and by which he made considerable gains in silver-hilted swords and watches. At length, having lost a sum of five-and-twenty thousand crowns at the fair ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... death an elegant supper was provided for him, and he was permitted to enjoy the society of a numerous party of his friends. When he reached the spot where he was to suffer, he was subjected to no lingering torments; for his head was severed from his body by a single stroke of the executioner. [383:1] ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... he was given, the more he told us about her, speaking of his unfortunate mistress as though she were the lowest of the low. For my own part, I confess that she interested me, this false Mme. Jenkins, who goes about weeping in every corner, implores her lover as though he were the executioner, and runs the chance of being thrown overboard altogether, when all society believes her to be married, respectable, and established in life. The others only laughed over the story, the women especially. Dame! it is amusing when one is in service to see that the ladies of the upper ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... yet, if you arrest me, 140 You are the judge and executioner Of that which is the life of life: the breath Of accusation kills an innocent name, And leaves for lame acquittal the poor life Which is a mask without it. 'Tis most false 145 That I am guilty of foul parricide; Although I must rejoice, for justest cause, That other hands have ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... eternal happiness—whose vital godliness preserved them in the midst of such evil examples and allurements, were persecuted with unrelenting rigour. The virtuous Lord William Russel, and the illustrious Sydney, fell by the hands of the executioner: John Hampden was fined forty thousand pounds. The hand of God was stretched out. An awful pestilence carried off nearly seventy thousand of the inhabitants of London. In the following year, that rich and glorious city, with the cathedral—the churches—public buildings-and warehouses, replenished ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... wish to live at peace with all the world? Then practise the maxims of an influential man, who, when asked, after the Revolution, how he managed to escape the executioner's axe, replied, "I made myself of no reputation ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... specific for courage is a preparation made from the gall bladder of a robber famous for his bravery, who has died at the hands of the executioner. The sale of such a gall bladder is one of the perquisites of a ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... prudent Prince never existed: you will read that "the mission of Napoleon" was to be the "testamentary executor of the revolution;" and the Prince should have added the legatee; or, more justly still, as well as the EXECUTOR, he should be called the EXECUTIONER, and then his title would be complete. In Vendemiaire, the military Tartuffe, he threw aside the Revolution's natural heirs, and made her, as it were, ALTER HER WILL; on the 18th of Brumaire he strangled her, and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with rough familiarity). A word first. Tell your executioner that if Pothinus had been properly killed—IN THE THROAT—he would not have called out. ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... When I opened the door I saw before me the very man, my brother, that I thought to see in the condemned cell at Casterbridge. He was in this chimney-corner; and jammed close to him, so that he could not have got out if he had tried, was the executioner who'd come to take his life, singing a song about it and not knowing that it was his victim who was close by, joining in to save appearances. My brother looked a glance of agony at me, and I know he meant, 'Don't reveal what you see; my life depends on it.' I was so terror-struck that I could ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... that he would, with his own hand, slay the Sieur of Yvetot, when and wherever he should chance to meet with him. The reader must not be surprised at such a vow: in those days, sovereigns frequently indulged in a plurality of offices, and could upon occasion perform the duty of the executioner as well as that of the judge. Vauthier happened to have a friend at court, who sent him timely warning of this state of affairs; and not thinking it by any means prudent to expose himself to the lethal fury of a king who had unscrupulously killed his own ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... "Disgrace has the contrary effect. The trade of a butcher is a brutal and an odious business; but it is in most places more profitable than the greater part of common trades. The most detestable of all employments, that of the public executioner, is, in proportion to the quantity of work done, better paid than any ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... went through Dacre. His hands clenched. He was as a man in the presence of his executioner. The paralysing spell was upon him again, constricting as a rope about his neck. But sacrifice was no part of his nature. With despair at his heart, he yet made ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... consumed till all are intoxicated. A spontaneous burst of singing and the muffled roll of walrus-hide drums then herald the fatal moment. At a given signal a ring is formed by the relations and friends, the entire settlement looking on from the background. The executioner (usually the victim's son or brother) then steps forward, and placing his right foot behind the back of the condemned, slowly strangles him to death with a walrus thong. A kamitok took place during the latter part of our stay." The Chukchi are nominally Christians, but sacrifice ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... in Persia about a famous and extraordinarily deep well—near Shiraz, I believe—into which untrue wives were precipitated by their respective offended husbands, or by the public executioner; and also how dishonoured women are occasionally stoned to death; but these cases are not very frequent nowadays. The Persian woman is above all her husband's most intimate friend. He confides all—or nearly all—his ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... of humanity. Demon masks of ancient lacquer hung from the pillars, naked swords gleamed in motionless hands, and in a deep recess whose 'darkness' was rendered 'visible' by one lamp, was that indescribable horror the executioner of the Lord of Hell, his many brandished arms holding instruments of torture, and before him the bell, the thunderbolt and sceptre, the holy water, and the baptismal flagon. Our joss-sticks fumed on the still air, monks waved censers, and blasts of dissonant music woke the semi-subterranean ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... change came over the miller's wife. A bright colour rose to her pale face, her eyes sparkled, and her hands clenched themselves tightly, as her trembling lips gave utterance to the words, 'They lie out there, behind the barn, waiting till the executioner comes to ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... fellows among all the inhabitants of Venice! Monstrous! Because they were the enemies of this infamous government, because they were reputed heretics, were they to languish in The Leads where he had languished twenty-five years ago, or were they to perish under the executioner's axe? He detested the government a hundred times more than they did, and with better reason. He had been a lifelong heretic; was a heretic to-day, upon sincerer conviction than them all. What a queer comedy he had been playing of late years—simply from tedium and disgust. ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... of night. There is Aimar de Ransonnet, President of the Parliament of Paris, one of the most upright of men, who first of all is suddenly dismissed from his office, sees his daughter die on a dunghill before his eyes, his son perish at the hands of the executioner, and his wife struck by lightning; while he himself is accused of heresy and sent to the Bastille, where he dies of grief before ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... years past has regularly presented herself at the door of the asylum. At her own request they place her in confinement; then the unhappy woman every night passes through the terrible scenes of the French Revolution, of which she was a witness in her youth. She trembles in the hands of the executioner; she fancies herself drenched with the blood of the victims; she weeps and cries aloud incessantly. In the course of a few weeks the mind returns to its wonted seat, and she is restored to liberty with the full expectation that she will ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... overthrown a dynasty and refused a crown he was buried like a king among kings. Two years later his body was torn from the tomb, and his head, cut off by the executioner, was exposed above the gate of the House of Parliament. A little while ago a statue was raised to him. The old anarchist turned autocrat now figures in ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... he was delivered over to the civil power for martyrdom. When surrounded by blazing fagots, he cried out, "O Lord God, have mercy upon me!" and a little afterwards, "Thou knowest how I have loved thy truth." With cheerful countenance he met his fate; and, observing the executioner about to set fire to the wood behind his back, he cried out, "Bring thy torch hither: perform thy office before my face. Had I feared death, I might have avoided it." As the wood began to blaze, he sang a hymn, which the violence of the ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... The Emir bids me tell you that you will have four days yet to live. On the fifth day you will die by the executioner, in the ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... in chase of us, whereas, had you not committed this mad act, we might have gone our way unmolested. Such is your crime and its consequences; and if I deliver you up to the crew, and explain what you have done, they will save me the trouble of being your executioner. Take him on deck," he said, in Romaic, to the men who held Paolo. "I will follow shortly; and you may, meantime, make preparations to deal ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... him,[1] and how he died in silence, like a boar at bay, rending from his wounds the dressings that his foes had placed to keep him alive, are notorious matters of history. At Padua alone he erected eight prisons, two of which contained as many as three hundred captives each; and though the executioner never ceased to ply his trade there, they were always full. These dungeons were designed to torture by their noisomeness, their want of air and light and space. Ezzelino made himself terrible not merely by executions ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... they could dissemble the tie which bound them together. They ran the greatest risks, and kept their failures to themselves. Fear never entered into their calculations; not one of them had trembled before princes, before the executioner's axe, before innocence. They had taken each other as they were, regardless of social prejudices. Criminals they doubtless were, yet none the less were they all remarkable for some one of the virtues ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... was seene to die a wretched prisoner at Loches in France, but not till he had lived and lingered ten yeares in thraldom, which was the worst of his bargaine. The fairest Queene, wife to the greatest King of Christendome, was she not lately scene to die by the hands of an executioner? Oh unworthie and barbarous cruelties And a thousand such examples. For, it seemeth that as the sea-billowes and surging waves, rage and storme against the surly pride and stubborne height of our buildings, so ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... (1667-1711). Of Cartesianism towards the close of the 17th century the only remnants were an overgrown theory of vortices, which received its death-blow from Newton, and a dubious phraseology anent innate ideas, which found a witty executioner in Locke. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... suggestion to the Chief. Asks that he be made the executioner. Uraso's address to the culprits. Their terror. Mysticism. Hypnotic influences. Mesmerism. Constant repetitions. Mystic numbers. The spell on all the natives. The effect of the mesmeric influence on ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... thou pull vengeance down upon thee? why shouldst thou pull vengeance down from heaven upon thee? Look up; perhaps thou hast already been pulling this great while, to pull it down upon thee. Oh, pull no longer; why shouldst thou be thine own executioner? Fall down upon thy knees, man, and up with thy heart and thy hands to the God that dwells in the heavens; cry, yea, cry aloud, "Lord, unite my heart to fear thy name, and do not harden mine heart from thy fear." Thus ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... imitate mee, in reuenging constantly, and dying valiantly. Hangman to thy taske, for I am readie for the vtmost of thy rigor. Herewith all the people (outragiously incensed) with one conioyned outcrye yelled mainely, Away with him, away with him, Executioner torture him, teare him, or we will teare thee in peeces ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... were tied within wooden frames, with extended arms and legs, and the head-executioner going round to each, marked with a piece of chalk, on the side of the men, in what direction his assistant (who stood behind him with a sharpened knife,) was to make the incision. On one man he described a circle on the side; another had a straight line marked down the centre of his stomach; a third ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... dacoits; let us hurry. That man is dead," pointing to his would-be executioner, "but plenty more in the forest." He seized the dah as a weapon for himself, and all four hurried after the ponies, who had come to a stand fifty yards farther along ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... of Spurius Cassius, whom the Roman Senate, suspecting that he was plotting to become King, caused to be beheaded, and his house to be pulled down; and in this scene the head, which is beside the executioner, and the body, which is on the ground in foreshortening, are very beautiful. In the next picture is the Tribune Publius Mucius, who caused all his fellow-tribunes, who were conspiring with Spurius to become tyrants of their country, to be burned; and here the fire that is consuming their bodies is ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... the marquise, "after what you tell me, now that I know the executioner's hand was necessary to my salvation, what should I have become had I died at Liege? Where should I have been now? And even if I had not been taken, and had lived another twenty years away from France, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... hip smiling, confident, the one long, black lock of hair hanging nearly in his eyes. He made no comment, but she saw that he was noting the ravages which the intervening hours had left in her face. Beneath his smile there was something hard and pitiless—a look that the executioner of a de Medici might have worn—and for a moment it put her at a loss for words. Then with an attempt at her old-time camaraderie, she shoved ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... Buck stared down at the sturdy friend who had taken the place of his dead father. His eyes softened, and their fire died out. But there was no rescinding of his desperate decision. He was thinking of what it would mean, the thought of this white-haired man in the hands of the executioner. He was thinking of the kindly heart beating within that stalwart bosom. He was thinking of the wonderful, thoughtful kindness for others which was always the motive of his life. And a deep-throated curse rose to his lips. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... Jean qui rit: John who weeps and John who laughs. One of these two persons,.. might with more accuracy have been called Petit Jean, than Petit Andre. This was actually the name of the son of Henry de Cousin, master executioner of the ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... in which criminals, or prisoners, were secretly executed; they were strangled, and without seeing their executioner, for a cord was passed through an opening, which he twisted till the victim was dead. This was the mode pursued with the prisoners of the Inquisitors; those of the Council were often placed in a cell to which there was a thickly grated window, through which the executioner did his office, and if ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the head and clinched it. On the other hand, would Miss Pemberton ever speak again to the man who had been the instrument of bringing disgrace upon the family? Spies, detectives, police officers, may be useful citizens, but they are rarely pleasant company for other people. We fee the executioner, but we do not touch his bloody hand. We might feel a certain tragic admiration for Brutus condemning his sons to death, but we would scarcely invite Brutus to dinner after the event. It would harrow our ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... scene of the battle, pointing out some crimson traces on the stone pavement. I called upon our imbecile's parents on my way home, and the old father was greatly shocked. "Here he be, sir," he said; "I hope you'll give him a jolly good hiding." I told him I could hardly undertake the role of executioner on a Sunday, in cold blood, and contented ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... life in the principles of freedom," says the historian of the House of Russell, "which the axe of the executioner does not, for it cannot, touch." This great thought must have strengthened the souls of the parents under so terrible a trial. The mother's health, however, sunk under the blow, which, in the sympathy of her celebrated daughter-in-law, the heroic Lady Rachel Russell, she endeavored ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... brother, knowing well that if apprehended his death were certain, had in the outset resolved, if attacked, rather to provoke his death, and insure it in the violence of a conflict, than be reserved for the axe of the Roman executioner. But in the short moment in which he fell headlong into the river, it flashed across his mind—'The darkness favors my escape—I can reach the shore;' so swimming a short distance below the surface, falling down with the stream and softly rising, concealed himself among the reeds upon the ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... knowing everything. But you don't seem to know anything, sir. I am not surprised that there are those who say advocates are know-nothings. But I should like to have back my fourteen hundred francs. Pamela is accused, that is to say, she accuses me of having betrayed his head to the executioner, and you will understand that if after all he escapes, and is transported, I can marry, can wed Pamela; and as the transported man will not be in France, I need fear no disturbance in my home. Get him fifteen years; ...
— Pamela Giraud • Honore de Balzac
... the best ministers and truest patriots in the land. But just as Guthrie was turning in at the gate of the Greyfriars, who should cross the street before him, so as almost to run against him, but the city executioner! The omen—for it was a day of omens—made the young minister stagger for a moment, but only for a moment. At the same time the ominous incident made such an impression on the young Covenanter's heart and imagination, that he said ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... humane arguments, according to Johnson, op. cit., consisted in tying his thumbs together with whipcord, "which was done several times by the executioner and another officer; they drawing the cord ...
— 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
... case less favourable, for neither could they deny that they deserved the punishment they had suffered, nor were there any tyrants to whom they could transfer their guilt. But they trusted that sufficient atonement had been made by the death of so many of their senators by poison and the hands of the executioner. They said, "that a few only of their nobles remained, being such as were not induced by the consciousness of their demerit to adopt any desperate measure respecting themselves, and had not been condemned to death through the resentment of their conquerors. That these implored ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... afterwards; for no man can resist hunger: but your fine feelings, your nice honour, your precise religion,—he! he! he!—these can teach a man very well to resist a common inducement; they cannot make him submit to be his own executioner; but they can prevent his turning king's evidence and being executioner to another. No, no: it is not to your common rogues that I may dare trust my secret,—my secret, which is my life! It is precisely of such a fine, Athenian, moral rogue as I shall make my proud friend ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... my soul feasting on this happy thought, I send this revelation to mankind and yield my body to the executioner to be shot until ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... him to come to his camp and fight for his throne. This project being rejected, and the author of it denounced by Robespierre, his bust publicly burned in Paris, and the medal formerly voted him broken by the hand of the executioner, he deemed it necessary to seek an asylum in a neutral country. Having provided for the safety of his army, he crossed the frontiers in August, 1792, accompanied by twenty-one persons, all of whom, on passing an Austrian post, were taken prisoners, and La Fayette was thrown into ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... torpid, and scarcely observant of any evil that may befall them. In Barbary it is always taken, if it can be procured, by criminals condemned to suffer amputation, and it is said, to enable those miserables to bear the rough operations of an unfeeling executioner, more than we Europeans can the keen knife of our most skilful chirurgeons. This it may be necessary to have said to my friend Mr. T. Wedgewood, whom I respect much, as his virtues deserve, and I know them well. I send a small quantity only as I possess but ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... your boy from disease," said the stranger earnestly, "his own professional pride or professional honour, whatever he might choose to call it, would compel him to do that. But the moment the doctor's work was done, that of the executioner ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... something of sensibility. It is stated by his biographer, that in the case of Sir EVERARD DIGBY, executed for a participation in the Gunpowder Plot, the tongue pronounced several words after the head was severed from the body. After the execution of CHARLOTTE CORDAY, also, it is alleged that the executioner held up her lovely head by its beautiful hair, and slapped the pale cheeks, which instantly reddened, and gave to the features such an expression of unequivocal indignation, that the spectators, struck by the ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... home—illustrates unpleasantly the painful Flemish facility to condescend to details, or even whole conceptions, the realism of which is unnecessarily deliberate and coarse. Here, in this death of St. Livinius, the executioner is shown in the act of presenting to a dog with pincers the bleeding tongue that he has just cut out of the ...
— Beautiful Europe - Belgium • Joseph E. Morris
... clasp the hand of the conqueror of Friedland, the latter foreseeing ruin from the adoption of the Continental System; and when Napoleon sent Savary on a special mission to the Czar's Court, the Empress-Mother and nobles alike showed their abhorrence of "the executioner of the Duc d'Enghien." In vain were imperial favours lavished on this envoy. He confessed to Napoleon that only the Czar and the new Foreign Minister, Romantzoff, were favourable to France; and it was soon obvious that their ardour for a partition of Turkey must disturb ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... his friend to such extremity, and desired rather to have him publicly flogged before Tiggity Sego's gate. This was agreed to, and the sentence was immediately executed. The culprit was tied by the hands to a strong stake; and a long black rod being brought forth, the executioner, after flourishing it round his head for some time, applied it with such force and dexterity to the Bushreen's back, as to make him roar until the woods resounded with his screams. The surrounding multitude, by their hooting and laughing, manifested how much they ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... the fire, nor all the brimstone and tortures they endure, which murders them alive. No, no; it is the domestical cause of all these mischiefs that racks their consciences and is their crudest executioner. This, this is the greatest of their evils; for a soul that has shaken off the fetters of flesh and blood, and is full of the love of God, no more disordered with unruly passions, nor blinded with the ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... over his right brow; and as if that had not sufficed to slay him, the fall of the masts had in some wonderful manner whipped a rope several times round his body, binding his arms and encircling his throat so tightly, that no executioner could have gone more artistically to work to pinion ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... invented. An iron spike, about six feet long, is forcibly passed between the back-bone and the skin from the lower part of the body, where a cross cut is made for its insertion, till it come out betwixt the shoulders and neck, the executioner guiding the point of it so that none of the vitals or large blood vessels may be wounded. The under end of the spike is afterwards made fast to a wooden post, which is then stuck into the ground, so that the miserable wretch is raised aloft, where he is supported partly by the iron spike in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... generals; and ten students were in consequence denounced, arrested, and severely flogged (by an arbitrary order of the grand duke,) to make them divulge their associates. Though writhing under the whip of the executioner, not a word escaped their lips to inculpate their friends, or impart a knowledge of the schemes that had so long engrossed their thoughts. The severity of the punishment may be conceived by the fact, that one of the number died soon after its infliction. The students were kept in solitary ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... the minute of the declaration of 1724, without any preliminary report, and simply bearing on the margin the date of the old edicts." For aiming the thunderbolts against the Protestants, Tressan addressed himself to their most terrible executioner. Lamoignon de Baville was still alive; old and almost at death's door as he was, he devoted the last days of his life to drawing up for the superintendents some private instructions; an able and a cruel monument of his past experience ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... had seen a man killed, to please him. Lucius, delighted at this proof of affection, said, "That is easily remedied; I will gratify your wish." He ordered a condemned criminal to be brought, sent for the executioner, and bade him strike off the man's head in the banquetting chamber. Valerius of Antium says that Lucius did this to please a female, not a male favourite. But Livy says that in Cato's own speech on the subject we are told that Lucius, to gratify his favourite, slew with his own hand a Gaulish ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... to kill or be killed. Do you know that the robbery was not proved, that it was seen that it was a calumny, that the curate was transferred to another town and that my son died from the result of his tortures? The other boy, who was still left for me, was not a coward like his father. The executioner was afraid that this son would take revenge for the death of his brother and so, under pretense of his not having a cedula, [19] which for the moment had been forgotten, he was imprisoned by the Civil Guard, maltreated, irritated and provoked by force and injuries until he ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... all. Her attendants in tears then assisted her to remove her clothing, but she firmly said, "Instead of weeping, rejoice; I am very happy to leave this world and in so good a cause." Then she knelt, and after praying stretched out her neck to the executioner, imagining that he would strike off her head while in an upright posture and with the sword, as in France; they told her of her mistake, and without ceasing to pray she laid her head on the block. There was a universal feeling of compassion, even the headsman himself being so ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... at him, and blood streamed from his left shoulder. But the pigtail, like an executioner's rope, was about the woman's throat. She uttered one smothered shriek, dropping the knife, and then ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... my turn must come pretty soon. It was Chamberlain who was to be my executioner, J. B. Chamberlain, chairman of the board of county commissioners of Stevens county, and always prominent in Hugoton matters. Chamberlain was about eight feet from me, or perhaps less, when he raised his rifle deliberately to kill me. There were powder ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... encountered only fearful demons. It leaps the length of its chain after Him, but it has only dashed into an affrighting crowd of lost and cursed souls. Thus is it ever writhing under the sense of being its own executioner. Thus there is not an hour of our summer sunshine, not a moment of our sweet starlight, not a vibration of our moonlit groves, not an undulation of odorous air from our flowerbeds, not a pulse of delicious sound from music or song to us, but that hapless unpitiable soul is ever falling sick ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... for when Lupus laid his garment aside, and complained of the cold [14] he said, that cold was never hurtful to Lupus [i.e. a wolf] And as a great many men went along with them to see the sight, when Cherea came to the place, he asked the soldier who was to be their executioner, whether this office was what he was used to, or whether this was the first time of his using his sword in that manner, and desired him to bring him that very sword with which he himself slew Caius. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the sacrifice of one of the brethren, the selection being determined by lot. The doctor, in his quality of visitor, was, it is true, spared the chance of being himself the victim, but he nearly became executioner. One of the Chinese adepts having been chosen, to his intense satisfaction, and approved by some mechanical movements on the part of the dragon-headed Baphomet, permitted his limbs to be removed, and then earnestly invoked the assistance of the "Charleston brother" for the ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... seconds gave the word! Boucher has gone mad! But you and I won't trouble ourselves about him, since he will soon pay for it. I think I see a change in the hunter's eye. It has grown uncommonly stern and fierce. He has the look of an executioner." ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... become, in less than two generations, nearly as obsolete as the sling and stone of the shepherd, and attack and defence now begin at distances to which, half a century ago, military reconnaissances hardly extended. Upon a partial view of the subject, the human race seems destined to become its own executioner—on the one hand, exhausting the capacity of the earth to furnish sustenance to her taskmaster; on the other, compensating diminished production by inventing more efficient methods of exterminating the consumer. At the present moment, at an epoch of universal peace, the whole ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... lot, Here to obey the savage tyrant's will, And murder virtue that can thus behold Its executioner, and smile upon him. That ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... out in a cold sweat. The sight of an executioner would have shocked him less than this prolix and pretentious Sister of the Hulks. As he looked at her purple-red gown, she seemed ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... slightly raising his right hand in a deprecatory manner, as if he would have said, 'Spare me!' So, had they been blows, and he a brave man, under strong constraint, and weakened by bodily suffering, he might have stood before the executioner. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... a man utterly worn out would drop by the wayside. One of our guard would then dismount, and try by kicks and blows to make him resume his place in the line. In all cases those measures proved unavailing, and a shot in the rear told us that one of our number had ceased to exist. The executioner would then fall into his place, laughing and chatting ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... been infused into the spirit of the inhabitants of the Philippines, when in the midst of so many calamities they did not know whether they would see sprout the seed they were planting, whether their field was going to be their grave or their crop would go to feed their executioner? What is there strange in it, when we see the pious but impotent friars of that time trying to free their poor parishioners from the tyranny of the encomenderos by advising them to stop work in the mines, to abandon their commerce, to break ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... beggars, cripples and ragged people to leave the line of the procession. The Queen could not endure for a brief moment the sight of those miserable ones doomed to unceasing squalor and poverty. What she gave others she received herself, for soon, bound in an executioner's cart, she was riding toward the place of execution midst crowds who gazed upon her with hearts as cold as ice and hard as granite. When Foulon was asked how the starving populace was to live he answered: "Let them eat grass." Afterward, Carlyle says, the mob, maddened ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... terrific eye. Yet, methinks, Welcome this anguish, welcome to my heart These rankling wounds inflicted by the god, Who on his scutcheon bears the monster-fish Slain by his prowess: welcome death itself, So that, commissioned by the lord of love, This fair one be my executioner. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson |
