"Merciful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed; and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you His ...
— Lee's Last Campaign • John C. Gorman
... "'It's good He's more merciful than His creatures,' I said; an' I went away more angry than I ever want to get. I couldn't quite make it out—I can't to this day—how she could mourn so over the child, an' yet never have a thought for all the years she'd had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... folk were slain; Why should they live to cozen fools with lies? You would swear now you have used me faithfully; Shall I not make you swear? I am ware of you: You will not do it; nay, for the fear of God You will not swear. Come, I am merciful; God made a foolish woman, making me, And I have loved your mistress with whole heart; Say you do love her, you shall marry her And she give thanks: yet I could wish your love Had not so lightly chosen forth a face; For your fair sake, ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... must go to war as my soldier—with my ideal. Your country has called you to help uphold its honor, its pledged word. You must fight to conquer an enemy who threatens to destroy freedom.... You must be brave, faithful, merciful, clean—an American soldier!... You are only one of a million. You have no personal need for war. You are as good, as fine, as noble as any man—my choice, sir, of all the men in the world!... I am sending you. I am giving you up.... Oh, my darling—you will ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... knees. 'Oh, merciful God, have pity upon this most unhappy man sunk in the pit of sin. Let the Redeemer, Thy only begotten Son, stretch ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... for bathroom, dear, and kept there till you had worked the murder of Becket in tapestry and four acts. I shall be more merciful. When you can show me a representation of the man who drew Slipaway in the Calcutta Sweep trying to believe that it wouldn't have won, even if it hadn't been knocked down when it was ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... ended in 1560. Like his enemy, Christian II, he was a strange mixture of contradictions. He was brave in battle, wise in council, pious, if not a saint, clean, and merciful when mercy fitted into his plans. His enemies called him a greedy, suspicious despot. Greedy he was. More than eleven thousand farms were confiscated by the crown during his reign, and he left four thousand farms and a great fortune to his children as his personal share. But historians ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... the assembly of exulting prophets; there is the unnumbered family of martyrs crowned for the victory of their struggles and suffering; there are virgins triumphing, who, by the power of chastity, have subdued the lusts of the flesh and the body; there are the merciful recompensed, who with food and bounty to the poor have done the works of righteousness, who keeping the Lord's commands have transferred their earthly inheritance into heavenly treasures. To these, O most dearly beloved brethren, let us hasten with most eager longing; {170} ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... for her, and for us also—for now there is no hope. What will become of us without my son? Oh, merciful heaven!" The unfortunate woman hid ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... most merciful Father, who seest all our miseries, and knowest all our necessities, look down upon me, and pity me. Defend me from the violent incursion [incursions] of evil thoughts, and enable me to form and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... 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. There was no real heart in it, nothing to give it consistence; the hot passion of a few men insulted, the variable ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... considered her destitute of saving knowledge, and I am quite sure she had no well-defined views on justification. Nevertheless, she read her Bible a great deal, and thought she found divine lessons there—how to bear the cross meekly, and be merciful. Let us hope that there is a saving ignorance, and that Mrs. Raynor was justified without ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... were a hundred candles or so in the sconces, on the panelled walls, and in the chandelier hanging from the decorated ceiling, and despite the assiduous snuffing by the servants, was dim. The subdued illumination was not without its advantage. It was merciful to the painted faces and softened the crudity of their raw colouring. A mixture of odours offended the nostrils. Powder came off in clouds, not only from the hair of the belles but also from the wigs of the beaux. Its peculiar scent mingled with a dozen varieties of the strong perfumes ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... accidental. The hand of chance has been merciful, that is all; and if you would fully understand New York's self-conscious love of incongruity it is elsewhere that you must look. Walk along the Riverside Drive, framed by nature to be, what an enthusiast has called it, "the finest residential avenue ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... so disposed, I could have you severely punished for the assault which you have committed on me. Your dress and appearance indicate poverty, although your language evinces that you have enjoyed more elevated fortunes; I am disposed to be not only merciful, but generous. Come, sir—leave this young person with me, unmolested; depart from this house quietly, and say nothing about what you have seen, and here is a fifty dollar bill for you. When you need more, come to me, and you shall ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... Liverpool after a voyage of three weeks from the Bahamas; so that I have in fact been but one week on shore in five months. My thoughts naturally turn on this quiet Christmas-day, in this lonely island, to my dear family. I can only hope, and trust them to the protection of a merciful Providence. The only sign of a holiday on board to-night is the usual "splicing of the main-brace"—Anglice, giving Jack an ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... street, or the sight of their badges even in broad daylight. I call it a sin and a shame that such things can be. Well, well, well, let us hope that, when the great Duke comes home, he may be able to put a stop to these things. Even in warfare, men say, he is merciful, and will permit no extortion and no cruelty. We citizens of London will give him a right royal welcome; perchance we may be able to crave a boon of him in return. He—or, rather, his wife—is all-powerful with our good Queen ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... which turns on a pivot. One side of it is open to the street, and in it the wretched parent lays the more wretched baby,—ringing a small bell, at the same time, for the new admittance; the parent vanishes, the receptacle turns on its pivot,—the baby is within, and, we are willing to believe, in merciful hands. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of a most merciful but sometimes severe God, simultaneously abuse both mercy and justice; that, full of indulgence for the indifferent, for their friends, and for themselves, they treat with extreme rigour whoever has had the misfortune to become obnoxious to power; that they more ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... Merciful Heaven! we shudder as we write! The state of destitution to which the civic authorities are reduced is appalling. Will our readers believe it—there were only five hundred tureens of turtle, or two thousand five hundred pints, or five thousand ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... would be so! I had a presentiment of it," said his mother. "Merciful God! How is it you have not passed? What is the reason of it? What subject ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... slept, and his slumber was deep, sweet, and dreamless. No warning came to him while the savage eyes, bright with cruel fire, crept closer and closer, and the merciful darkness, coming again, tried to close down and hide the approaching tragedy ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... loom where the goddess stood plying her task, and they saw shapes and images come to bloom out of the wondrous colors, as sunset clouds grow to be living creatures when we watch them. And they saw that the goddess, still merciful, was spinning; as a warning for Arachne, the pictures of her own triumph over reckless gods ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... with cruel eyes. 'In an hour, lad! You must be fond of pain to court it, and out of humour with life to throw it away. Or stay,' he continued abruptly, after considering Simon's narrowly for a moment, and doubtless deducing from it a last hope, 'I will be merciful. I will ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... with a tyranny a little extraordinary in a man who professed to respect their calling so much. The literary controversy at this time was very bitter, the Government side was the winning one, the popular one, and I think might have been the merciful one. 'Twas natural that the opposition should be peevish and cry out: some men did so from their hearts, admiring the Duke of Marlborough's prodigious talents, and deploring the disgrace of the greatest general the world ever knew: ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... better. Your pardon, sir, your collar's much too tight. Now will I steal his hidden mystery, And learn the secret of his lengthened pain; Cure him and gain great honor. To think a man Would case himself in buttons like an armour! Now, shirt—— Merciful God! what miracle is this! A stigma! Aye! a stigma! the letter "A" In blood suffused! The counterpart of that Which Hester wears, but palpitating here In life! This is beyond my skill. Ah! David! David! Thou art the man! Thou wouldst Have set me in the hot forefront of battle Hadst thou ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... said: I know the most High is called merciful, and he pardoneth; for if he did not so that they which have committed iniquities might be eased of them, the ten thousandth part of men should not remain living; there should be very few left, peradventure, in ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... gun to his face the third time, and elevated the muzzle above the deer, let it descend until he saw the animal through the sight, when the rifle cracked. Mary immediately wept aloud, exclaiming, "Oh, merciful God, you have missed it!" Mr. Eddy assured her that he had not; that the rifle was upon it the moment of firing; and that, in addition to this, the animal had dropped its tail between its legs, which this ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... and find that those who set forward with us, lovingly and cheerily, on the journey, have, one by one, dropped away from our side. Place the superstition in this light, and I confess I should like to be a believer in it. I see nothing in it that is incompatible with the tender and merciful nature of our religion, nor revolting to the wishes and affections of ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Ah, Madame! if you had seen, as I did, that when we reached home the first thing poor Madame Panpan came to do, was to fall upon her husband's neck, and in a voice broken with sobs, and as though her heart would break, to thank that merciful God who had spared her in her trouble, that she might still work for him and his children! you would not be ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... life's abysmal heights with failing heart And reeling brain, gaze on that troubled gulf— It is thy pathway to the Better-Land, Which thou must traverse with a sea-bird's flight, Whose rest is on the bosom of the storm. Ay! 'tis a fearful plunge! Now think of Death— There is an angel merciful and strong, Hovering ever o'er the weary world, That foldeth in his arms the weak, whose feet Totter upon the brink of the Inane, And, like a mother, wafts them from Earth's strife Into the bosom of eternal rest; ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... often from Curt, Poor Major Lent! It seems too hard that Camilla should be left so utterly alone in the world. The Major died as he would have wished to die, Curt writes. It was at that terrible Stone Bridge—where God was merciful to me when your squadron ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivora; and if so, is a merciful provision by our benevolent Creator for lessening the pain of death. Turning round to relieve myself of the weight, as he had one paw on the back of my head, I saw his eyes directed to Mebalwe, who was trying ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... came the angry knowledge that simple slaughter was too good for Paul Brennan. He was not a dog to be quickly released from misery by a merciful death. Paul Brennan should suffer until he cried for death as a blessed release ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... to forget that the cook has neuralgia," said Eshley; "she may be just dozing off into a merciful sleep and your outcry will waken her. Consideration for others should be the guiding principle of people in ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... no way to qualify the blessing. The sweetness and majesty of Nature are so exquisite, so pure, that when they are before us we cannot imagine they could be better if they proceeded from an omnipotently merciful Being and no pestilence had ever been known. We must not worry ourselves with attempts at reconciliation. We must be satisfied with a hint here and there, with a ray of sunshine at our feet, and we must do what we can to make the best of what ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... the waxen-faced, choleric clergyman of the church his stepmother attended, but he put the memory away. No, he would not be like that; he would not preach fire and brimstone from a white-pine pulpit. He would be large and just and merciful like God; and Juliet Burwell would come to hear him preach, looking up at him with her blue, blue glance. In the meantime he would not rob that marsh hen's nest which he had found. He would never steal another egg. He wished that he didn't have that ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... nothing; if you called his name right in his ear, 'Sergey Sergeyitch!' he would look round like this, 'Eh?' and look down on the ground again, and now you see he has laid hands on himself. There's no sense in it, your honor, it's not right, and there's no making out what's the meaning of it, merciful Lord! Say your father was rich and you are poor; it is mortifying, there's no doubt about it, but there, you must make up your mind to it. I used to live in good style, too; I had two horses, your honor, three cows, I used to keep twenty head of sheep; but the time has ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... before the end of that experience. Luckily, people, whether mature or not mature (and who really is ever mature?) are for the most part quite incapable of understanding what is happening to them: a merciful provision of nature to preserve an average amount of sanity for working purposes in this world ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... "Oh, merciful God! Don't! Listen—you MUST listen. Let me stay! What difference should it make to you. You have nursed hundreds of men. You have saved many lives. Save mine—give me back my little girl! She can come to me in Quebec and then we can get away somewhere ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... letter with a burning flush on his face, which afterward grew white as with the pallor of death; a red mist was before his eyes, the sound of surging waters in his ears, his heart beat loud and fast. Could it be true—oh, merciful Heaven, could it be true? At first he had a wild hope that it was a cruel jest that Philippa was playing with him on his wedding-day. It could not be true—his whole soul rose in rebellion against it. Heaven was too just, too merciful—it could not be. It was ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... says the governor. Such trials were well known to him it seems. He was not sure whether he should murder all who ever had borne the name of Christ, or only those who proved themselves to be really his disciples, by refusing to revile him, and return to idolatry; and the merciful emperor commands him to spare the apostates. Above twenty years before—in A. D. 86—there were apostates from the persecuted religion. In A. D. 90, John had written, "they went out from us, that it ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... if they were far off in some blessed place on the other side of this nightmare, I was aware of the merciful and pitiful faces of Mrs. Lambert ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... in spite of the scenes around me, I seemed to see the white hand I knew so well, laid on the young man's breast and to hear my mother's gentle voice saying,"Be merciful". I lowered my sabre and sent the youth and ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... thousands of others were then fighting and conquering for Germany, while I had to live far the peaceful calling to which I was destined. Now it is a question of preserving our newly re-established liberty, which in so many places has already brought in so rich a harvest. The all-powerful and merciful Lord reserves for us this great trial, which will certainly be the last; it is for us, therefore, to show that we are worthy of the supreme gift which He has given us, and capable of upholding ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... 'Good Heavens, merciful powers! what does it mean?' thought Nikolai Artemyevitch when he was left alone. 'What did that idiot tell me? Eh? I shall have to find out, though, what house it is, and who lives there. I must go myself. Has it come to ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... hand, we firmly believe, from the natural relations of truth with the constitution of the mind of man, that, with the exception of a very few cases of obliquity of intellect, which may safely be left to the merciful interpretations and apologies of Him who created such intellects, those who thus honestly and industriously 'seek' shall 'find;'—not all truth, indeed, but enough to secure their safety; and that whatever remaining ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... Merciful God! Here is a man accused by regular articles of impeachment. The accuser declares he is morally certain that the money had been received, but was prevented from being applied to its destination by the person accused; and he acquits him. Does he acquit him ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... off, dared not even lift his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, "God be merciful to ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... contained one gang which, even in that party, was preeminent in every mean and every savage vice, a gang so low-minded and so inhuman that, compared with them, Robespierre might be called magnanimous and merciful. Of these wretches Hebert was perhaps the best representative. His favorite amusement was to torment and insult the miserable remains of that great family which, having ruled France during eight hundred years, had now become an object of pity to the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... pale light in the north-east, the morning chill, and the clock striking three, reminded him that it must be the hour of Prime, and he said to himself, "Sure, if a priest be worshipping at this hour, he will be a good and merciful man. I can ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Allah is indeed merciful, O my Aunt," responds Salam with lofty irrelevance. Then follows a prolonged pause, somewhat trying, I apprehend, to Aunt, and struggling with a yawn Salam says at length, "I will see what ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... learned what I wanted; I carried more ammunition to the interview before me. I found Dykeman in his room, propped up in bed, wheezing with an attack of asthma. A sick man is either more merciful than usual, or more unmerciful. Apparently it took Dykeman the former way; he accepted me eagerly, and had me call Cummings from the adjoining room. The lawyer was half into that costume he had brought from San Francisco. He came quite modern ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... how merciful it was of God to let me know in time. In a few weeks I should have been his wife, and then it would have ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... and affirme that God hath prouided such meanes for the furtherance of this enterprise, as doe stand vs in stead of great treasure: for first by reason that it hath pleased God of his great goodnesse, of long time to hold his merciful hand ouer this realme, in preseruing the people of the same, both from slaughter by the sword, and great death by plague, pestilence, or otherwise, there are at this day great numbers (God he knoweth) ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... gentle sir, since I have crossed the sea with much danger to see you, I have never asked you one favor; now I beg as a boon to myself, for the sake of the Son of the Blessed Mary, and for your love to me, that you will be merciful to these men!" ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... misery we attempt to relieve," said Robert of Paris, "the more we shall carry with us the blessing of our merciful saints, and Our Lady of the Broken Lances, who views with so much pain every species of human suffering or misfortune, save that which occurs within the enclosure of the lists. But come, valiant Anglo-Saxon, resolve me on my request as speedily as thou canst. There is something in thy face of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... may at all, in His most merciful hands, promote the holy cause of such a hidden life and its fruitful issues, it will indeed be happiness to the writer. In these days of stifling materialism in philosophy, and withering naturalism in theology, but in which also the Holy Spirit, ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle, helpful, clement, a convict, returning good for evil, giving back pardon for hatred, preferring pity to vengeance, preferring to ruin himself rather than to ruin his enemy, saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more nearly akin to an angel than to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Mussulmans when alone on a journey; he himself regards this as a practice good neither for soul nor body (seminal emissions during sleep providing all necessary relief); should, however, a Mussulman fall into this error, God is merciful![348] ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Father was strongly disposed to hypochondria.] but laugh and be merry and in good spirits. We think the Mufti H. C. [the Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo] a MUFF, but we know God to be compassionate, merciful, and loving. I kiss papa's hands a thousand times, and embrace my SISTER MADCAP as often as I have to-day taken snuff. I think I have left my diplomas at home? [his appointment at court.] I beg you will send them to me soon. My pen is rude, and I am ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... contained the germ of the present one. There is, no doubt, a special allusion to the word in 1 Sam. xvi. 12: "And the Lord said. Arise and anoint him, for this is he." (Compare 2 Sam. xii. 7; Ps. lxxxix. 21; Acts xiii. 22.) According to Thine heart: "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and [Pg 146] plenteous in mercy," Ps. ciii. 8. All these great things,—i.e. the promise of the eternal dominion of his house. [Hebrew: gdlh] and [Hebrew: gdilh]—words in which David takes special delight—never mean "greatness," but always ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... old days of the reign of M'Bongwele—those days which you were so anxious to restore—your dying would have been a lingering, long-drawn-out, excruciating torment; but under the teaching of those who put me on this throne I have learned to be merciful, and my sentence is that you be led forth and hanged by the neck from the bough of the tree that ended M'Bongwele's cruel and iniquitous life, and there left as an example and a warning to all who think such evil thoughts as yours. Bind them ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... faithfully kept. For the first time in thirty years I am able to give an "unofficial" account of the life of these unfortunates, and to deliver to the world their piteous appeal for deliverance. May it be that these pages have not been written in vain, that the clemency of a wise and merciful Ruler may yet be extended towards the unfortunate outcasts in that Siberian hell of famine, pestilence, and darkness, scarcely less terrible in its ghastly loneliness than those frozen realms of eternal silence which enshrine the mystery ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... refused him without just reasons, I shall condescend to treat him with more regard than he can reasonably expect, and point out such sentiments, as not only justly exposed him to that refusal, but would have provoked any ministry less merciful than the present, to have inflicted some heavier ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... my father had stripped thy poisonous skin from thy putrid flesh. Yesterday thy queen might not have proved more merciful. Yet do I know how thy disappointment chafes thy brave soul, and because of that thy rash speech goes unpunished." The hush intensified, for the leniency of Dolores was little less to be feared than her fury. A smile of ineffable radiance broke over her beautiful ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... attraction for us, except the Creator, the Redeemer, the Saviour, sole and true God, who is full of goodness, who is all goodness, who is the true and supreme good, who alone is kind, pious, and merciful, gracious, sweet, and gentle, who alone is holy, righteous, true, upright, who alone has benignity, innocence, and purity; of whom, by whom, and in whom is all the pardon, all the grace, all the glory of all penitents, ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... clear that to let her alone was merciful, and there was no lack of mutual communications among the rest. Frank and Charlie gave their account of the condition ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fortunes going out into service again, and say to themselves,—"I can indeed nowise prevent this money from falling at last into the hands of others, nor hinder the good of it from becoming theirs, not mine; but at least let a merciful death save me from being a witness of their satisfaction; and may God so far be gracious to me as to let no good come of any of this money of mine before ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... tender surprises, with an emotion that was all the keener on account of the contrast that it made with the courage, the hope, and the fine manliness of all his thought and all his word. Children, helplessness of all kinds, touched always that merciful heart. I can scarcely think of him as a man of the world, although he had had in his few and glorious days experience enough to harden the spirit of any man. He could never, as I think of him, have grown into your ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... their midst was no less mystified than they; but far less moved, since sudden death was the most merciful fate to which she might now look forward. So far she had been subjected to nothing worse than the petty cruelties of the women, while, on the other hand, it had alone been the presence of the women that had saved her from worse treatment at the hands ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... best governor that ever presided over this ancient and respectable province; and so tranquil and benevolent was his reign, that I do not find throughout the whole of it a single instance of any offender being brought to punishment,—a most indubitable sign of a merciful governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of the illustrious King Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van Twiller was ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... feel that they ought to mark the epoch of their arrival at power with certain merciful actions, Morten had given permission to Per Karl to drive the hearse with the old blacks, which were, however, condemned to be shot on the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... this twain, but whither have they passed? Ah me, that dark must always follow day, That Love's last kiss is surely kissed at last, Howe'er so wildly the poor lips may pray: Merciful God, is there no other way? And pen, O must thou of the ending write, The hour Lanciotto found them where they lay, Folded together, weary with delight, Within the sumptuous petals of the rose ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... hands away then and groaned to learn that she had driven off a famous plutocrat. But now he was back; indeed he was in the pool now, and she had him on her hook. He had grievously disappointed her by turning out to be a commonplace young man with no gilt on his phrases. But one must be merciful to ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... little was my worth to breathe the air of this golden century, and how infinitely less to wear upon my breast its consummate flower. Fortunate is he who, with a case so desperate as mine, finds a judge so merciful. ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... not every threshold seek Meadows and the flight of birds For compassion still? Blessed are the merciful.... Are we pilgrims yet to speak Out of Olivet the ...
— Abraham Lincoln • John Drinkwater
... or other. He has persuaded our uncle to let him read the Bible to the party before they go out to work, and he does so now every morning; and then he offers up a beautiful prayer for our safety, and returns thanks for the care with which we have hitherto been watched over by our merciful God. ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Samarian, Hosea, to prophesy were different than those of the Tekoan. Understanding the lasting love that dwelt within him for Gomer, and how he yearned for her return to him, he cried out to his people, from the depths of a wounded heart, speaking through the inspiration of a loving and merciful God: ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... heavenly ovens. And then he wanted to get up again, for he could feel the strong breath of his enemy, sleep. But he could not get up. In a state of terror he yielded himself to his enemy. Shameful cowardice on the part of a man now aged nine! God, however, is merciful, and sent to him an angel in the guise of a night-watchman, who kicked him into wakefulness and off the place. He ran on limping, beneath the stellar systems, and reached his work at half-past ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... it has cost, and how many wrongs had to be committed, that we might obtain our rights!" sighed Andreas Hofer, pointing to the battle-field. "My heart overflows with pity on seeing these horrors, and I implore you all to be merciful with the wounded and to treat the prisoners leniently. Among these prisoners are about one thousand Bavarians and Saxons. See, they are standing down yonder in dense groups, and our men surround them, mocking and abusing them. Go down to them, dear ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... the insolent down at a glance. When he speaks in his anger Hillocks skip like the kid, and the mountains leap like the roe-buck. Yet,—why are ye afraid, ye children? This awful avenger, Ah! is a merciful God! God's voice was not in the earthquake, Not in the fire, nor the storm, but it was in the whispering breezes. Love is the root of creation; God's essence; worlds without number Lie in his bosom like children; he made them for this purpose ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the past. The present, for a few hours at least, was merciful oblivion. What would the future bring? She had bravely and faithfully put from her all temptation to learn the glory of life, and the completeness of love, from any save from her own husband. And he had failed to teach. Can the deaf teach harmony, ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... the captain of the pirates, who had already been seized by the king's officers, he said, "Although this man has committed that which is very worthy of death, yet because God, the most Merciful, has spared him in the tempest and the wreck, I also will spare him this once; therefore give him a hundred pieces of gold that he may not be tempted by poverty further to do wrong, and let ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... hope that Fectnor would actually come to her—now, before Harboro came home. At the worst she might save Harboro, and there was even a chance that she could make Fectnor see her position as she saw it—that she could persuade him to be merciful to her. Surely for the sake of security and peace in all the years that lay before her.... A definite purpose dawned in her eyes. She went to her room and began deliberately to choose her most ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... "I rejoice that a merciful Providence hath turned your steps homeward, in time for me to bid you a last farewell. In a few weeks, sister, I am to sail as a missionary to the far islands of the Pacific. There is not one of these beloved faces that I shall ever hope to behold again on this ...
— John Inglefield's Thanksgiving - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. Praise be to God, the Lord of the Creation, the all-merciful, the all-compassionate! Ruler of ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... sword. There's husbandry in heav'n, Their candles are all out.— A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, And yet I would not sleep: Merciful Powers, Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... a few cripples who have been sent into the world with deficient or defective limbs—doubtless for wise and merciful ends. Merciful I say advisedly, for, "shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" These look on and rejoice, perchance, in the joy ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... fulfilled! I appeal to his house—the hereditary judges of the first tribunal in the world—to you I appeal for justice. Patrons of all the arts that humanize mankind, under your protection I place humanity herself! To the merciful Sovereign of a free people I call aloud for mercy to the hundreds of thousands in whose behalf half a million of her Christian sisters have cried aloud, that their cry may not have risen in vain. But first I turn my eye to the throne of all justice, and devoutly humbling ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... him—then had I still been the happiest of women, and his friends in stations more equal to their own merits. Reflections like these imbitter continually each day as it passes. But I trust in the same merciful Hand which has held me from sinking in my extreme calamity, that he will still support and make me worthy of a blessed meeting hereafter. Can you excuse, sir, the overflowing of a heart that knows not where to stop when on a ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... retained it. The hypothesis of madness comforted. I would give much to feel that he had really believed in his progress with the work, that his assurance of having come to the end was genuine. If he had deceived himself, God had been merciful. But if not, if he had sat down day after day, with the appalling consciousness of his impotence, there have been few of the sons of men to whom God had meted out, in this world, greater punishment for sin. It is incredible that he should have lasted so long alive. No wonder ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... orator, were it not for his weakness of chest, which renders it necessary that he should acquire the art of speaking without over-exertion, and should adopt a delivery sufficient for the display of his rhetorical talents on the one hand, yet merciful to his physical resources on the other. He is called Cicero; he will stop but a short time, and will pass over to Asia Minor and its cities, before he returns to continue a career which will render his name immortal; and he will like his short sojourn at Athens so well, that he ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... of the gods to be merciful," she said. "This peace- offering should propitiate the angriest, cruellest goddess in the universe; and for one who was neither angry nor really cruel—well, she should be satisfied.... altogether satisfied," ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... not being a priest, unto whom alone it appertaineth to conceive such matter. 'Tis true, there be that say lay folk can as well conceive, and have as much right as any priest; but holy Church agreeth not therewith. God be merciful to us all, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... the work of a savage and cruel creature, the blow proved more merciful than it had been intended: it had caught Marguerite full between the eyes; her aching senses, wearied and reeling already, gave way beneath this terrible violence; her useless struggles ceased, her arms fell inert by her side: and losing ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... up. An expression of ineffable gratitude overspread her sorrowful countenance. She murmured in a broken voice, 'Oh, how merciful, how merciful you are!' And then, after an evident struggle with herself, she covered her face with her hands, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... submitted. They would have done well had they submitted upon the arrival of the French and English reinforcements. For the monarchs, annoyed by the defeat of their forces and by the heavy losses they had sustained, and knowing that the besieged were now at their last crust, were not disposed to be merciful. ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... ears of chosen juries while a fact spoke over the population, with a relentless rolling out of its one hard word. But eloquence, powerful on her behalf, was dumb when referred to Nesta. It seemed a cruel mystery. How was it permitted by the Merciful Disposer! . . . . Nataly's intellect and her reverence clashed. They clash to the end of time if we persist in regarding the Spirit of Life as a remote Externe, who plays the human figures, to bring about this or that issue, instead of being beside us, within us, our ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "Saint Benedict be merciful to us!" she cried, nearly dropping the basin. "What on earth is all this ado? And the children here in the midst of it! Holy Virgin, help us! There is nothing but trouble for a poor woman in this world. And me as good as a widow, and worse, too. Haimet! Flemild! whatever ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... said the temporal magistrate; 'but I think even your merciful logic will hardly deny ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Leonid Andreyevitch, says I'm a snob, a usurer, but that is absolutely nothing to me. Let him talk. Only I do wish you would believe in me as you once did, that your wonderful, touching eyes would look at me as they did before. Merciful God! My father was the serf of your grandfather and your own father, but you—you more than anybody else—did so much for me once upon a time that I've forgotten everything and love you as if you belonged to my family... ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... strive in vain, produced by their seeming opposites, which are now despised and discarded; naturalness produced by studious art; daring sublimity by strict self-restraint; depth by clear simplicity; pathos by easy grace; and a morality infinitely more merciful, as well as more righteous, than the one now in vogue among poetasters, by honest ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... suffer. I can do nothing; I am nothing. It would be impossible for me to explain how helpless and dependent I am—you could not understand it. My whole heart went out to you, for you seemed both gentle and strong. The hope would grow in my soul that you might be merciful to me when you came to know me as I am. Good-by, Millie Jocelyn. You will find a friend strong and helpful as well as kind. As for me, my best hope is to die." He bowed his head upon the hand he did not venture to kiss, and then almost ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... I fell, Fell like the snowflakes from heaven to hell; Fell to be trampled as filth on the street Fell to be scoffed, to be spit on and beat; Pleading—cursing—dreading to die, Selling my soul to whoever would buy, Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread, Hating the living and fearing the dead. Merciful God, have I fallen so low? And yet I was once ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... what is right is merely what, in the long run and with regard to the greater number of cases, is expedient Principle is not always an infallible guide. For illustration, it is not always expedient—that is, for the good of all concerned—to tell the truth, to be entirely just or merciful, to pay a debt. I can conceive a case in which it would be right to assassinate one's neighbor. Suppose him to be a desperate scoundrel of a chemist who has devised a means of setting the atmosphere afire. ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... ends of the earth. It was her inheritance to lead a lawless life. Nothing else was possible for her. God must see how she had been hemmed in by circumstances, how she had been goaded and driven from the paths of peace and purity where she had wished to dwell. God was not a man, and He would be merciful ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... greatness is not in them, but through them—that they could not do or be anything else than God made them; and they see something divine and God-made in every other man they meet, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful. ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... "I am a living and breathing man like yourselves. I have done no wrong, and injured no man—be merciful unto me; ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... from Syria to Rome, and began to teach the false principles which Marcion adopted afterward with more success. He impiously affirmed that there were two Gods; the one rigorous and severe, the author of the Old Testament; the other merciful and good, the author of the New, and the father of Christ, sent by him to redeem man from the tyranny of the former; and that Christ was not really born of the Virgin Mary, or true man, but such {128} in shadow only and appearance. Our holy pope, by his pastoral vigilance detected that monster, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... pretend to be a friend," said Thorn viciously,—"and I have no cause to be merciful. I like to bring a man to public shame when he has forfeited his title to anything else; and I intend that Mr. Rossitur shall become intimately acquainted with the interior of the ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... slow, slow murder, through poverty and the white man's whisky. The savage's gentle friend, the savage's noble friend, the only magnanimous and unselfish friend the savage has ever had, was not there with the merciful swift release ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... prayer, and resisting all persuasion even to take advantage of the adjoining cairny cave. In vain did Walter Gibson delay till the last moment, and talk of his farther usefulness. Mr Lawson's only answer was—"I am in the hands of a merciful Master, and, if he has more service for me, he himself will provide a way for my escape. I have neither wife nor child, nor, I may say, relation, alive. I am, as it were, a stranger in the land of duty. If the Lord so will it that the man of blood shall prevail over me, he will raise up others ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... merciful God, that, as Thine holy Apostle St. James, leaving his father and all that he had without delay, was obedient unto the call of Thy Son Jesus Christ and followed Him, so we, forsaking all worldly and carnal affections, may be evermore ready to follow Thy holy ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... us hear it; and you shall do as you please afterwards. Merciful goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Tattle, "do my ears deceive me? I declare I looked round, and thought I heard the squeaking chimney-sweeper was in ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... "Merciful God," said the postmaster, "it is impossible. No person handled those letters but myself; there is my endorsement; so help me, I did not open them, and I swear with uplifted hand before my Maker that this is the truth." As I turned to Bedell, as much as to ask if he ever heard ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... sprung of a house, ancient indeed and noble, but degraded and impoverished by a series of crimes and follies, which had attained a scandalous publicity. The kinsman whom he succeeded had died poor, and, but for merciful judges, would have died upon the gallows. The young peer had great intellectual powers; yet there was an unsound part in his mind. He had naturally a generous and tender heart; but his temper was irritable and wayward. He ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... just and upright, I'll have nothing from Thee! Turn from me! I will none of Thy advice, none of Thy heavenly patience and magnanimous mercy! That marble-hearted woman had said to me, "If you deny God, He will forgive you, for He is infinitely good and merciful; but if you deny the Devil, he will be revenged on you!" and I had seen the devilish light in their eyes. I had shuddered and shunned them, and yet I had plunged headlong into the abyss which they had opened at ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... said, was reproached for having been too merciful to a wicked man: "I was indeed," said he, "merciful to the man, but not to his wickedness." Ordinary judgments exasperate themselves to punishment by the horror of the fact: but it cools mine; the horror of the first murder makes me fear a second; and the deformity of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... was crazy. Maybe he was just some poor soul who wasn't responsible for his own actions. It would be merciful, Forrester thought, to find out first, and ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... danger, greater than my ignorance of this country would allow me to guess, had threatened me of late, had come to his knowledge in Florence, and had been forestalled by himself, under the merciful guiding of Heaven, at the last moment. The Government of Tuscany, owing to the dotage of the Grand Duke and the wicked influence of Donna Violante over her brother-in-law, the Grand Prince Gastone, was impotent; ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett |
