"Martyrdom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sky, shining as if made up of the footprints of innumerable saints, say that it is the road to Jerusalem. The road to the New Jerusalem has no such pallid and spiritual glory: its colors are those of life. No death but that of martyrdom, with its rosy blood, waving palm-branch and golden crown, is figured there. Life, and the joy of life, beauty so profuse that it can afford to have a few blemishes like a slatternly Venus, and the dolce far niente of poverty that neither ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... such an air of martyrdom," his sister told him. "I know you have a book half read; you want to get ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... of long and unprecedented martyrdom. Dorothea reviewed it as she changed into her white pique' for dinner, the while beamingly advising Jennie as to the selection of hair ribbons. SHE had vaulted fences; Jennie had been assisted. SHE had baited lines; Jennie's ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... France pointed to him, saying, "See our champion!" Pride was in his eye when he looked towards the Saracens; but to the men of France his regard was all sweetness and humility. Full courteously he spake to them: "Ride not so fast, my lords," he said; "verily these heathen are come hither, seeking martyrdom. 'Tis a fair spoil that we shall gather from them to-day. Never has King of France gained any so rich." And as he spake, the two hosts ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Affonso II. The legend says that five friars of Morocco, went to her, and said, "Three things we prophesy to you: (1) we five shall all suffer martyrdom; (2) our bodies will be brought to Coimbra; and (3) which ever see our relics the first, you or the king, will die the same day." When their bodies were brought to Coimba,[TN-51] the king told Queen Orraca she must join the procession with him. She pleaded illness, but Affonso ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Thomist proclaims his readiness to suffer martyrdom rather than allow this, and to maintain the great doctrine of St Thomas to the death. His allusion to the importance of the doctrine only calls forth more severely the indignant eloquence of the Jansenist, and he brings the Letter to a close in a passage which ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... nor press it to his lips; and in the midst of this surging tide of misery there arose a desire that, glad in its own anguish, bade him increase the bitterness of these last hours by making a confession of his suffering; and, exulting savagely in the martyrdom he was ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... which they were embarked. The conduct of their listeners showed easily enough the motives which had brought them to war. Some stood with clasped hands and eager eyes listening to the exhortations of the priests, and ready, as might be seen from their earnest gaze, to suffer martyrdom in the cause. More, however, stood indifferently round, or after listening to a few words walked on with a laugh or a scoff; indeed preaching had already done all that lay in its power. All those who could be moved by exhortations of this kind were there, and ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... errors with perfect obstinacy. So much I have gathered of truth about this plain, noble human brother and father of ours; his imperfections are the traits of his face, by which we know him for our fellow; his martyrdom and his example nothing can lessen or annul; and only a person here on the spot can ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... others only desired the destruction of a man who had intrigued against the reign of terror which they had established; his death on the guillotine, even if it were surrounded with the halo of martyrdom, would have satisfied them completely. Chauvelin looked further than that. He hated the man! He had suffered humiliation through him individually. He wished to see him as an object of contempt rather than of pity. And ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... being tried in Carthage? 9. On what occasion did Joseph deliver his last speech? 10. Why did not Joseph go west to the mountains? 11. What did Governor Ford promise? 12. Give some expressions of the prophet on going to Carthage. 13. Who were with Joseph in jail? 14. Tell about the martyrdom. 15. When did it take place? 16. How old was Joseph when he ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... idolatry, to the comparison between the sufferings of the Jews, and those of idolatrous nations, to the long rehearsal and rhetorical declaration of the plagues of Egypt, and to the reward of 'the just man' after a death of martyrdom; and would besides help to explain the putting together of the first ten chapters, and the fragment contained in the remaining chapters. They were works written at the same time, and by the same author: nay, I do ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... if, and say, "seldom, if ever." But in sentences like the following, the adverb appears to express, not time, but degree; and for the latter sense ever is preferable to never, because the degree ought to be possible, rather than impossible: "Ever so little of the spirit of martyrdom is always a more favourable indication to civilization, than ever so much dexterity of party management, or ever so turbulent protestation of immaculate patriotism."—Wayland's Moral Science, p. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of power, somehow, a look of strength, as if she would venture much, dare much, for them she loved. She had the gift, not always a happy one, of loving,—a strength of devotion that always has for its companion- trait a gift of endurance, of martyrdom if necessary. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... in any days to come, should you be tempted to remind us that we did not protest against the martyrdom of Belgium, that we were a bit slow in coming into the war,—oh, don't utter that reproach! Go back to your own past; look, for instance, at your guarantee to Denmark, at Lord John Russell's words: 'Her Majesty could not see with indifference a military occupation of ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... mother with her seven sons suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Emperor. The sons, when ordered by the latter to do homage to the idols of the Empire, declined, and justified their disobedience by quoting each a simple text from the sacred Scriptures. ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... admiration of men who are worthy to be called his fellow-countrymen. Our British nation thrills with a proud joy as it reflects upon the splendid achievements of that stainless life, now crowned with the laurels of martyrdom, and of an ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... stranger turned his face swiftly, bent toward Miles, and smiled once again, and the boy thought suddenly of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and how those who were looking "saw his face as it had been the face of ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... by step—the song into notes, the poem into words, the angel into paint or stone; and the saints have touched dreams of great service, bringing down the pictures of the dream somehow in matter—and their own bodies often to martyrdom.... ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... the Place du Martroi was not the scene of Joan's martyrdom, and yet this wide, noble square, with her monument in the centre, from which diverge so many streets associated with her history, stood for infinitely more to us than anything we had seen at Rouen, the actual ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... year 1534. That holy place, which has been watered with the blood of martyrs, and where their bodies are still deposited, inspired a particular devotion into Xavier, and possessed him with a fervent desire of martyrdom. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... enthusiasts, as if the impending calamities had not been sufficient, ascribed the distresses of the state to the impieties of the Christians. A violent persecution ensued in all parts of the empire; and Justin Martyr, Polycarp'us, and a prodigious number of less note, suffered martyrdom. ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... and one yet longer and more full of anxiety, which commenced with supper. The conversation turned to the events of the day. Otto mingled in it, and endeavored therefrom to derive advantage; it was a martyrdom of the soul. ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... ones have two or three rooms which open into each other, and are furnished with a bed or two, a few chairs and tables, a looking-glass, a crucifix, and small daubs of paintings enclosed in glass, representing some miracle or martyrdom. They have no chimneys or fireplaces in the houses, the climate being such as to make a fire unnecessary; and all their cooking is done in a small kitchen, separated from the house. The Indians, as I have said before, do all the hard work, two or three being attached to the better house; ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... my brave girl,' I said, 'have you, then, felt our sorrow so deeply? Have you so fully shared poor Winnie's pain that your nerves have given way at last? You are suffering through sympathy, Sinfi; you are suffering poor Winnie's great martyrdom.' ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... melancholy pleasure from the knowledge that she has utterly given up all she had formerly so zealously guarded, and she feels that her love has reached its grand climacteric when she abandons herself, without redemption, to the idol she has set up in the highest place in her soul. This heroic martyrdom is one of the recognizable causes of the immorality that insidiously permeates our ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... this, foolish priest, that you have endured death and martyrdom—to prolong the days of a ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... morality which was more than a string of rules sanctioned by convention; from the hour when he refused to escape from prison because his conscience bade him submit to die;—from the days of the sublime martyrdom of Socrates and Jesus, the noble school of the Stoics, down to the philosophic Titans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Germany, with the glorious sage of Koenigsberg at their head, there has been but one answer to the question, What is conscience? ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... who suffered martyrdom at Palermo under Decius in 251; represented in art as crowned with a long veil and bearing a pair of shears, the instruments with which her breast were cut off. Festival, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the Church. They had somewhere heard the maxim, that Sanguis martyrum est semen ecclesiae;[16] therefore in order to sow this seed, they began with impeaching a clergyman: and that it might be a true martyrdom in every circumstance, they proceeded as much as possible against common law,[17] which the long-robe part of the managers knew was in a hundred instances directly contrary to all their positions, and were sufficiently warned of it beforehand; but ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... was a dark African of the tribe of the Gomeres, who was likewise a hermit or dervise and passed among the Moors for a holy and inspired man. No sooner were the mangled remains of his predecessor buried with the honors of martyrdom than this dervise elevated himself in his place and professed to be gifted with the spirit of prophecy. He displayed a white banner, which he assured the Moors was sacred, that he had retained it for twenty years for some signal purpose, ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... his attentions gradually ceasing, he had left her quite free to do what she pleased. She had never liked him, had always feared him. The long intermittent thraldom to his power had been an abomination to her, and it was martyrdom ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... descending a second time among men, proclaims aloud: 'He who would follow me must forsake himself!' We have lived in peace long enough, and God wishes that the harvest should again be moistened with the blood of His Saints. Let us prepare for martyrdom, if it shall be needed, for the law of God, and resolve that nothing shall sever us from the charity of ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... bestias" had become a new and frequent sentence for malefactors. It will be recollected, that it was the most usual form of martyrdom for the primitive Christians. Polycarp was brought all the way from Smyrna to be exposed to it in the ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... by experts in humanity. There he had seen what Love could do when it could rise higher than its human channels; he had seen young men, scarcely older than himself, set out for England, as for their bridals, exultant and on fire; and back to Rheims had come again the news of their martyrdom: this one died, crying to Jesu as a home-coming child cries to his mother at the garden-gate; this one had said nothing upon the scaffold, but his face (they said who brought the news) had been as the face of Stephen at his stoning; and others had come back themselves, ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... to bring away the bag of prayer-books! Many a good dinner did Charles Honeyman lose by assuming that unlucky ephod. Why did the high-priest of his diocese order him to put it on? It was delightful to view him afterwards, and the airs of martyrdom which he assumed. Had they been going to tear him to pieces with wild beasts next day, he could scarcely have looked more meek, or resigned himself more pathetically to the persecutors. But I am advancing matters. At this early time of which I write, a period not twenty years since, surplices ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... weakness of circumstances, the pertinacity of nature. What could she do?—she gave up the scarcely-formed germ of hope that had begun to appear in her breast. She made up her mind silently to what must be. No agonies of martyrdom could have made Nettie desert her post and abandon these helpless souls. They could do nothing for themselves, old or young of them; and who was there to do it all? she asked herself, with that perpetual reference to necessity which was ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... dark and noisome dungeon, there to remain till the day fixed for the next auto-da-fe, at which he was to suffer the extreme penalty inflicted by the Inquisition. He was among those who suffered on the day already described, when Don Carlo de Seso received the crown of martyrdom. Though he boasted of no exalted rank or lineage, yet, bold in the faith, he died as bravely as ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... With the martyrdom of incessant pain came a ripening of the man's character. Frohman developed a great admiration for Lincoln. Often he would ask Gillette to read him the famous "Gettysburg Address." Simple, haunting melodies like "The Lost Chord" took hold of him. Marie Doro was frequently summoned ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... till the next Saturday to rush back to Hillsboro, and relieve the poor old man of the burden of remorse he had carried so faithfully and so mistakenly all these years, and to snatch the specious crown of martyrdom from that shameless thief of another ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... have been the few, how eloquent the presentation, to have raised $10,000 with which to start a paper for the sole purpose of advocating equal rights for women! But they were ardent and eloquent, and from the road to martyrdom they have come to us through history as great men and women of their time. The pages of the Woman's Journal are brilliant with their sayings, and the reports of the early stockholders' meetings echo the voices of that pioneer band led by Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the - Woman's Movement • Agnes E. Ryan
... cried. She did not go to bed that night. The cat jumped up in her lap, and she was glad of that soft, purring comfort. It seemed to her as if she had committed a great crime, and as if she had suffered martyrdom. She loved her father and her sisters with such intensity that her heart groaned with the weight of pure love. For the time it seemed to her that she loved them more than the man whom she was to marry. She sat there ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Watts before their eyes; a writer, who, if he stood not in the first class of genius, compensated that defect by a ready application of his powers to the promotion of piety. The attempt to employ the ornaments of romance in the decoration of religion, was, I think, first made by Mr. Boyle's Martyrdom of Theodora; but Boyle's philosophical studies did not allow him time for the cultivation of style; and the Completion of the great design was reserved for Mrs. Rowe. Dr. Watts was one of the first who taught the Dissenters to write and speak like other men, by shewing them ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... while disguised as the shoemaker's apprentice Crispinus, by the Roman Princess Laodice, daughter of Maximinus, is very lively and dramatic: the sprightliest scene, I should say, ever played out on the stage of Rowley's fancy. On the other hand, the martyrdom of St. Winifred and St. Hugh is an abject tragic failure; an abortive attempt at cheap terror and jingling pity, followed up by doggrel ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... elsewhere; and I have been trying to recollect, among all the immensity of Paintings, Mosaic and Statuary I have seen here, representing St. Peter in Prison, St. Peter on the Sea of Galilee, St. Peter healing the Cripple, St. Peter raising the Dead, St. Peter receiving the Keys, St. Peter suffering Martyrdom, &c. &c. (some of them many times over), I have any where met with a representation of that most remarkable and beneficent vision whereby the Apostle was instructed from Heaven that "Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... continue throughout its course. For instance, it is observable that, in the Acts of the Apostles, the first example of each class of incidents recorded there, such as the first preaching, the first persecution, the first martyrdom, the first expansion of the Gospel beyond Jews, its first entrance into Europe, has usually the stamp of miracle impressed on it, and is narrated at great length, while subsequent events of the same class have neither of those marks of distinction. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... intemperate action had thrown Rome into convulsion and who had met their fate, not undeserved however lamentable, the one in a street riot, the other while heading an armed sedition. But the criticism contained the elements of its own refutation. The youth, the brotherhood, the martyrdom of the men were the very elements that gave a softening radiance to the hard contour of their lives. The Gracchi were a stern and ever-present reality; they were also a bright and gracious memory. In either character they must ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... regarded as expressing the sense of the people, the assassination of this turbulent journalist must be considered being the case, that the departments are for the most part, if not rejoiced, indifferent—and many of those who impute to him the honour of martyrdom, or assist at his apotheosis, are much better satisfied both with his christian and heathen glories, than they were while he was living to propagate anarchy and pillage. The reverence of the Convention itself is a mere political pantomime. Within ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... be chivalrous in the absence of all other impulses, Mathilde. And all other impulses have expired in me. So I will take the package. We will start to-morrow early. And as for the rest ... I will spare you the tedium of martyrdom." ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... Serf or Vassal, Tenth Century Serjeants-at-Arms, Fourteenth Century Shepherds celebrating the Birth of the Messiah Shoemaker Shops under Covered Market, Fifteenth Century Shout and blow Horns, How to Simon, Martyrdom of, at Trent Slaves or Serfs, Sixth to Twelfth Century Somersaults Sport with Dogs, Fourteenth Century Spring-board, The Spur-maker Squirrels, Way to catch Stag, How to kill and cut up a, Fifteenth Century Staircase of the Office of the Goldsmiths of Rouen, Fifteenth Century Stall ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... saw only the shining armour, the glittering fight; she did not see the path of God deeply rutted by trampling feet, burnt by the blazing footsteps of God. She heard herself as John's great crying voice and heeded the prison and the martyrdom not at all: it was a moment's flash, a moment's revelation. Then she turned to him. Her eyes were very bright. She ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... cool autumn night, when the fire crackles, the ten children of the settlement, fighting or agreeing, come running from their houses like hens. We sit on the floor in front of the hearth, and I suffer the often-repeated martyrdom of the "Fire Pig." This tale, invented once as fast as I could talk, I have been doomed to repeat until I dread the ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... with all kinds of evil. The official Church is publishing diplomatic Notes and promoting the publishing of books. That is all. The Church is afraid of suffering, although "there are even to-day enough occasions for the Church to suffer." "Prelates wear the purple which symbolises martyrdom: But who on earth has heard lately of the martyrdom of a Cardinal?" Mickiewicz bitterly complains that the "high clergy deserted the way of the Cross. They never would suffer. In order to escape suffering they fled as refugees to books, theology and doctrines. But la force ...
— The Religious Spirit of the Slavs (1916) - Sermons On Subjects Suggested By The War, Third Series • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... will not obtrude himself at M—th again in a hurry), about a twelvemonth back, set himself to prove the character of the Powder Plot conspirators to have been that of heroic self-devotedness and true Christian martyrdom. Under the mask of Protestant candour, he actually gained admission for his treatise into a London weekly paper, not particularly distinguished for its zeal towards either religion. But, admitting Catholic ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... inexperience and religious fanaticism, as were the British and French missionaries of early days, peasants and apprentices who had forsaken the fields and workshops for the higher sphere of devoteeism and freedom from manual labor. These clerics, though often self-sacrificing and yearning for martyrdom, attributed all differences from their standards or preachments to inherent wickedness ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... surrounded. Even if he had possessed sufficient resolution to change his former habits, and to become a good clergyman, his companions and his patron, instead of respecting, would have shunned him as a censor. Unwilling to give up the pleasures of conviviality, and incapable of sustaining the martyrdom of ridicule, Buckhurst Falconer soon abjured all the principles to which he could not adhere—he soon gloried in the open defiance of every thing that he had once held right. Upon all occasions, afraid of being supposed to be subject ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... enforce what he thinks[730].' MAYO. 'Then, Sir, we are to remain always in errour, and truth never can prevail; and the magistrate was right in persecuting the first Christians.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, the only method by which religious truth can be established is by martyrdom. The magistrate has a right to enforce what he thinks; and he who is conscious of the truth has a right to suffer. I am afraid there is no other way of ascertaining the truth, but by persecution on the one hand and enduring it on the other[731].' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... that this is the last place they would care to invade." And in Brewster's face Peggy seemed to read that for her martyrdom was the only wear. ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... past died before this present sin? Has this most cruel age already stoned To martyrdom that magic ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... whose faith and love had been unhinged by fear, felt all their latent affection rekindled by this detestable attempt. A phalanx of faithful breasts closed round him; the wretch, who, although a prisoner and in bonds, vaunted his design, and madly claimed the crown of martyrdom, would have been torn to pieces, had not his intended victim interposed. Adrian, springing forward, shielded him with his own person, and commanded with energy the submission of his infuriate friends—at this moment I ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... had a quiet humour of her own in spite of her demure looks, laughed at the dejection and martyrdom of Sir Harry; and taking the eagerly-proffered arm of a callow lieutenant, ostentatiously and hopelessly in love with her, went away to play her part of deputy hostess. She moved from group to group, and everywhere received smiles and congratulations, for she was a general favourite, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... "Art thou, too, like our brethren? They do not understand. It is a question of the heart, not of texts. What is it I feel is the highest, divinest in me? Sacrifice! Wherefore He who was all sacrifice, all martyrdom, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... or was she mad? God who knows all things knew that she had suffered a heavy wrong, a cruel injustice, a martyrdom of pain. She had raised herself to one of the highest positions in the world and there she had met her ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... activity of morally stunted brewers and distillers, whose hellish motto is, 'Make the boys drink!' It has fought the money octopus, and again and again has sounded to the world the peril which money-drunken criminals like Ames and his clique constitute. And for that we must now wear the crown of martyrdom!" ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... peasantry. And yet, who can pity the moujik? His cheeks are altogether too round, and his morals too superbly bestial; he has clearly been created to sing and starve by turns. But the Italian peasant who speaks in the tongue of Homer and Virgil and Boccaccio is easily invested with a halo of martyrdom; it is delightful to sympathize with men who combine the manners of Louis Quatorze with the profiles of Augustus or Plato, and who still recall, in many of their traits, the pristine life of Odyssean days. Thus, they wear to-day the identical "clouted leggings of oxhide, against the ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... to indite Wars, hitherto the only argument Heroic deemed, chief mastery to dissect With long and tedious havoc fabled knights In battles feigned (the better fortitude Of patience and heroic martyrdom Unsung), or to describe races and games Or tilting furniture, emblazoned shields, Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds, Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights At joust and tournament; then marshalled feast Served up in hall with sewers and seneshals: The skill of artifice ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... memorials of the piety, wisdom, and devotedness of the martyr Renwick, it appears desirable to present a brief sketch of his personal history—to notice the particular time in which he laboured, and the principles for which he contended,—his martyrdom, character, and the distinct and honourable position assigned him in the great work of maintaining and advancing the Redeemer's cause in ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... me to have arrived, and America to be the place, for a new departure—a third point of view. The same freedom and faith and earnestness which, after centuries of denial, struggle, repression, and martyrdom, the present day brings to the treatment of politics and religion, must work out a plan and standard on this subject, not so much for what is call'd society, as for thoughtfulest men and women, and thoughtfulest literature. The same spirit that marks the physiological author and demonstrator on ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... jump. They played several times. It didn't sound too badly at the "Elevation" when they had chosen rather a soft (comparatively) simple melody. The cure preached a very pretty, short sermon, telling them about Saint Cecile, the delicately nurtured young Roman who was not afraid to face martyrdom and death for the sake of her religion. The men listened most attentively and seemed much interested when he told them how he had seen in Rome the church of St. Cecile built over the ruin of the saint's house—the ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... Puritan exodus, notwithstanding their intolerance of errors in belief, were comparatively broad-minded men. They were sharers in a great national movement, and they came over when their cause was warm with the glow of martyrdom and on the eve of its coming triumph at home. After the Restoration, in 1660, the currents of national feeling no longer circulated so freely through this distant member of the body politic, and thought in America became more provincial. The English ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... forfeited. For it is the best and most ordinary resource of these political apostates to court, to offer themselves to persecution for the sake of the popular predilection and pity which usually fall upon persecuted men; it becomes worth their while to suffer, for a time, political martyrdom, for the sake of the canonization that awaits the suffering martyr; and I make no doubt the right honourable gentleman has so much penetration, and at the same time so much passive virtue about him, that he would be glad not only to seem ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... for the ballot might say, hoping thence to acquire the impetus of strong interest; but he soon wearied of the work, and began to long that the speech might be ended, although the period of his own martyrdom would thereby be brought nearer to him. At half-past seven so many members had deserted their seats, that Phineas began to think that he might be saved all further pains by a "count out." He reckoned the members present and found that they were below the mystic forty,—first by two, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... the Church with the infamy of cruelty and blood, flame, sword, thumb-screw, rack and torch. The blackest pages in the story of the martyrdom of man have been written by their hands. They sent Alva into the Netherlands to sweep it with fire. They revoked the edict of Nantes until the soil of France was drunk with the blood of her children. They led the trembling sons and daughters ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... it were not for this trouble about hearing their name said all wrong by people on omnibuses and even shouted all wrong by newspaper sellers, one of the CECILS might become Prime Minister some day. As it is they wear a look of sorrowful martyrdom, as if they were perfectly ready for the nearest stake; and this look, combined with their peculiar surname, has caused them to be not in-aptly known as The Sizzles. How very much better would it have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... the proto-martyr of the Reformation in Scotland, with the object of inducing him to recant. The result, however, was that he was himself much shaken in his allegiance to the Church, and the change was greatly accelerated by the martyrdom of H. His subsequent protest against the immorality of the clergy led to his imprisonment, and ultimately, in 1532, to his flying for his life to Germany, where he became associated with Luther and Melancthon, and definitely joined ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... he wrote to Archbishop Warham, 'I have no inclination to risk my life for truth. We have not all strength for martyrdom; and if trouble come, I shall imitate St. Peter. Popes and emperors must settle the creeds. If they settle them well, so much the better; if ill, I shall keep on the ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... of her answer had changed before the end into the most musical accents in which a woman could find utterance for ingenuous love. To listen to her words was to pass in a moment from martyrdom to heaven. Montriveau grew pale; and for the first time in his life, he fell on his knees before a woman. He kissed the Duchess's skirt hem, her knees, her feet; but for the credit of the Faubourg Saint-Germain ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... starting-point. If Jesus was only a brave man, paying with His life the penalty of His bravery in the streets of Jerusalem, it is wasting words to call Him "the Saviour of the world." If His death were only a martyrdom, then, though we may honour Him as we honour Socrates, and many another name in the long roll of "the noble army of martyrs," yet He can no more be our Redeemer than can any one of them. But it was not so that Christ thought of ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... universe. And then I remembered the stake and the cross-roads, and the queer fact that Christianity had shown this weird harshness to the suicide. For Christianity had shown a wild encouragement of the martyr. Historic Christianity was accused, not entirely without reason, of carrying martyrdom and asceticism to a point, desolate and pessimistic. The early Christian martyrs talked of death with a horrible happiness. They blasphemed the beautiful duties of the body: they smelt the grave afar off like a field ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... indispensable qualities of the modern mind? The power to make quick decisions and the inability to cling to convictions; the nervous high pitch and the failure to sustain the triumphant note; energy without direction; success without stability; martyrdom without faith. And around, above, beneath, the pervading mediocrity, the apotheosis of the average. Was this the best that democracy had to offer mankind? Was there no depth below the shallows? Was it impossible, even by the most patient search, to discover ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... rarely the moral and intellectual eminence necessary to inspire their flock with feelings of love and confidence; while, on the other hand, the false prophets and their followers, vigorously persecuted by official religion, easily gained for themselves the overwhelming attraction of martyrdom. Far from lessening the numbers of those who deserted the established church, persecution only increased them, and inflamed the zeal of its victims, so that they clung more passionately than ever to the new dogmas and their ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... by disapprobation; could not be cowed by abuse; never was put out by noise—although he frequently was by the police; nor put down by reason—though he sometimes was by force; spoke everywhere, on all subjects, against the opinions (apparently) of everybody; and lived a life of perpetual public martyrdom and protest. ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... Drummond travelling over Europe —the death of a King sent him away on a farther and a final journey. His grief for the execution of Charles I. is said to have shortened his days. At all events, in December of the year of the so-called 'Martyrdom,' ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... de Stael. That overestimated woman had gained the halo of martyrdom by the so-called persecution of the Emperor. But the persecution was, in the opinion of keen observers, more on her part than his. The Committee of Public Safety had found her an intriguer, and had called upon her husband to remove her from Paris; the Directory kept her under watch at Coppet, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... angry! I knew I should!" she exclaimed. She quivered, and a kind of sob shook her; but even to have made Katharine angry was some relief, and allowed her to feel some of the agreeable sensations of martyrdom. ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... sufficient—Thou art, worthy Hezekiah! become a saint, to escape martyrdom. Methinks I see the gallant foin ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... another. If it be for instance her Birth-day[42], perhaps, her Grandmother hath instructed her to be particularly cautious on that day; so if it be the Day of the Week on which Childermas hath happened to fall that Year; or King Charles's Martyrdom: defer the attack at all such Seasons. For to speak in Sea-Language, then is dirty Weather[43], then it blows a Hurricane; and if you weigh Anchor at that Season, you will be scarce able to ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... exhaustion opens the doors of liberty. You have had no children. It is the punishment of those who wish to be too independent; but that suffering is nevertheless a glory for those who vow themselves to Apollo. Then do not complain for having to grub, and describe your martyrdom to us; there is a fine book to be ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... fairly started up the flowering slope of boyhood and girlhood, have only strength enough left to die. They fade away. Some call it consumption; some call it nervous prostration; some call it intermittent or malarial disposition; but I call it martyrdom of the domestic circle. Life for ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... who remained would have said, with Grenville. "We have only done our duty, as a man is bound to do." They sought no palms or crowns of martyrdom. "They also serve who only stand and wait," and their first action was merely to step aside and give places in the boats to women and children, some of whom were too young ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... of action. But here all energy is concentrated on the one ecstasy, and this exists for its own sake, and the desire of it is like thirst, which returns after every partial satisfaction. The desire of beauty, the love of love, can but be a form of martyrdom when, as with Rossetti, there is also the ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... was obviously impossible either to guarantee any considerable number of Irishmen holding property against loss by a policy aimed at the foundations of property, or to count upon finding for every Irish seat a member of local weight and stake, imbued with the spirit of martyrdom. ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... marble, highly adorned with carving; perhaps one of the finest specimens of its period: the effigy of the prelate is represented as resting beneath a cinquefoil canopy in his robes, bearing his crosier, with a lion and dragon under his feet; beneath this is a representation of the martyrdom of St. Edmund, a prince of East Anglia, by the Danes, commemorative of his having been lord abbot of Bury before he was preferred to the see of Ely; the niches in the sides of the prelate's stall have statuettes—on the left, St. Etheldreda, an abbess ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... lament—he will probably have what is a better claim than mere saintship on Heaven—martyrdom," said De Mauleon, with a smile in which sarcasm disappeared in melancholy. "Poor Raoul!—and what of my other cousin, the beau Marquis? Several months ago his Legitimist faith seemed vacillating—he talked to me very fairly about the duties a Frenchman owed to France, and ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her intention, and after a season of martyrdom set forward to find Captain Moore's quarters. She had no difficulty, for Polly was looking out for her, with her pipe in her mouth. "Come in, child," said she, "and warm yourself; how is your cough? I stewed ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... largely, that he gained the love of his people, and fixed his memory in their hearts so strongly, that he was revered as a Saint, and the title of Confessor was given to him, though it properly only applies to one who has suffered everything short of martyrdom, for the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... examination the doctrine which it enforced. Accordingly I entered into a thorough searching of the Scripture without bias, and was amazed to find how baseless was the tenet for which in fact I had endured a sort of martyrdom. This, I believe, had a great effect in showing me how little right we have at any time to count on our opinions as final truth, however necessary they may just then be felt to our spiritual life. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... them as, with Zoe Oppner and the Zimmermanns, they made their way to the library. Only a few minutes elapsed, to their surprise, ere Alexander reappeared. Martyr-like, he had performed his painful duty, and a beatific consciousness of his martyrdom was writ large upon him. In an absolutely ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... out of, St. Helena. Its attention was directed specially to the United States. There the Napoleonic cult had early taken root, thanks to his overthrow of the kings and his easy sale of Louisiana; the glorifying haze of distance fostered its growth; and now the martyrdom of St. Helena brought it to full maturity. Enthusiasm and money alike favoured schemes ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... though struck while the words came with the monstrosity of what she had done, she was incapable of abating a jot of it. "I notified her that he had faults and peculiarities that made mamma's life a long worry—a martyrdom that she hid wonderfully from the world, but that we saw and that I had often pitied. I told her what they were, these faults and peculiarities; I put the dots on the i's. I said it wasn't fair to let another ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... resistance against an overpowering enemy and all the sorrows of those scattered people who still gave him loyalty. Men of Republican instincts paid a homage in their hearts to this young king, sanctified by sorrow and crowned with martyrdom. Living plainly as a simple soldier, sharing the rations, the hardships and the dangers of his men, visiting them in their trenches and in their field-hospitals, steeling his nerves to the sight of bloody things and his heart to the grim ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... indeed to share either our martyrdom or our glorification, but was to survive us many years on earth, living in an odour of great sanctity and reflected splendour, as the central and most august figure in a select society. She would perhaps be able indirectly, through her sons' influence with the Almighty, to have a voice ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... dashing together of two frantic mobs to which we give the name of armies. The end to be attained justifies the means, we are willing to believe; but the sight of these pictures is a commentary on civilization such as a savage might well triumph to show its missionaries. Yet through such martyrdom must come our redemption. War Is the surgery of crime. Bad as it is in itself, it always implies that something worse has gone before. Where is the American, worthy of his privileges, who does not now recognize the fact, if never until now, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various |
