"Compunction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sin! Sin! Do you not, from your point of view, consider the manner in which Paul's father behaved toward us a sin? I am unable to see any difference. There was no compunction about locking the door upon us. I was treated as a nondescript, bringing disgrace to the family! As if my family could not match up with the Warkentins any day! After all, I am the daughter of a university professor, my dear Miss Clara. You possibly fail to appreciate that ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... enough to look upon the body of a man you have killed. But Adams had no more pity or compunction in his mind than if ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... weeds, when she reached Fred's father's house, Emily loved to sit with her boy on her lap, and indulge in passionate tears, thinking over how fond poor Fred had been, and how proud of her. There was no sting in her grief, no compunction, for she knew perfectly well how happy she had made him; and there was not the anguish, of personal loss, and ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... frame he bade adieu to the old gentleman, whose voice had proved so musical, and set forth for the drawing-room. Already on the stair, he was seized with some compunction; but when he entered the great gallery and beheld his wife, the Chancellor's abstract flatteries fell from him like rain, and he re-awoke to the poetic facts of life. She stood a good way off below a shining lustre, ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... brother Charles, had, with all the simplicity of eighteen, straightway fallen in love with the handsome gentlemanlike man, who, on his side, made no secret of the impression produced on him by the great loveliness of the English girl. Moore, who was a thoroughly heartless scamp, had not the least compunction in agreeing to a marriage between his sister and this man, with whose character and mode of life he was perfectly well acquainted; indeed, it suited his views so well, that he did what lay in his power to forward it. There were no difficulties in the way; the two were almost ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... a little, and Sir Francis felt compunction. After all, from the girl's side of the question, what a sacrifice this was he was so coolly demanding of her. He felt suddenly ashamed, and half afraid of what he had ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... thrown on the word "boys" showed a fresh ground of complaint. Darsie felt a twinge of compunction, remembering the episode of the punt and her own great cause for gratitude. The answer came with ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... knowledge and ideas. No break is too great to be bridged by this instinctive impulse to rationalize the products of diverse experience. Hence, early man, having identified the Great Mother both with a cow and the moon, had no compunction in making "the cow jump over the moon" to become the sky. The moon then became the "Eye" of the sky and the sun necessarily became its other "Eye". But, as the sun was clearly the more important "Eye," seeing that it determined the day and gave warmth and light for man's daily work, it was ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... communicated the strange prediction of the weird sisters, and its partial accomplishment. She was a bad, ambitious woman, and so as her husband and herself could arrive at greatness, she cared not much by what means. She spurred on the reluctant purpose of Macbeth, who felt compunction at the thoughts of blood, and did not cease to represent the murder of the king as a step absolutely necessary to the fulfilment of the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... said. "In killing Afzal Khan did Sivaji sin?" ... "In the Bhagabat Gita," he replied to himself, "Krishna has counselled the assassination of even one's preceptors and blood relations.... If thieves enter one's house, and one's wrists have no strength to drive them out, one may without compunction shut them in and burn them. God Almighty did not give a charter ... to the foreigners to rule India, Sivaji strove to drive them out of his fatherland, and there is no sin of covetousness in that." Practical ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... than her words, her tender, pleading tone, pierced me with compunction, and I could not resist. "Edra, my sweet sister, do not imagine such a thing!" I said. "I would rather endure many punishments than give you pain. My love for you cannot fade while I have life and understanding. It is in me ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... her only relatives, and as such McKay was compelled to surrender his love to them for a time. But only for the very briefest time. He measured their affections at its true value, and had no compunction in asserting his claim over theirs to protect and ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... sir. If I borrowed from any one it would be from you. But my father has this very sum, five thousand pounds, and, as I tell him, I owe him so much that I have no compunction about owing ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... college aspirations was broken once for all. My Temple was destroyed. Nothing was left of it but vague yearnings and something like a feeling of compunction which will assert itself, sometimes, to ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... out Frere Isambard, and confessed to him in an anguish of remorse fearing never to be pardoned for what he had done. An Englishman who had sworn to add a faggot to the flames in which the witch should be burned, when he rushed forward to keep his word was seized with sudden compunction—believed that he saw a white dove flutter forth from amid the smoke over her head, and, almost fainting at the sight, had to be led by his comrades to the nearest tavern for refreshment, a life-like ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... favour, to assist her in spite of herself and she had received nothing save rudeness, ingratitude, and humiliation in return. Now, she was asserting herself. She was showing all Fairbridge that she was the one upon whom honour should be showered. She was showing him and rightfully. He remembered with compunction his severity toward her on account of the Martha Wallingford affair, his beautiful, gifted Margaret! Why, even then she might have electrified that woman's club by making the revelation which she had won to-night and reading this same selection from her own book. He had not read Martha Wallingford's ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... how to act; but there had been no sign. On the day following the interview he had felt, for the most part, relief. He was suddenly aware of the burden that the affair had been, he was a free man; but with this there had been compunction. He had acted like a brute; he was surprised that he could have been so hard, and he was a little ashamed of meeting the public gaze. If people only realised, he thought, what a cad he was, they would assuredly have nothing to do with him. As the days passed, this feeling increased and he was extremely ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... in the square reeled round and fell, while a cloud of filth and dust obscured the fallen monster, and men looked awe-struck at one another like naughty children who had broken something which they ought not to have dared to touch. The moment of compunction was a short one, and a howling throng rushed with one accord into the noisome cloud, fighting and quarrelling for bits of bronze and stone, and a man near me drew back, half stifled for an instant, saying, with disgust, "See what a stench the Empire has!" The ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... sooner we changed that state the better. Our excursion to Topsham would, we supposed, prove a very disagreeable business to him; but we knew it would result very agreeably for us, and so, though with a good deal of maidenly compunction and granddaughterly compassion on Julia's part, ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... Correspondant, a review which attempted to cover the imperious theories of the Church with a varnish of tolerance. Veuillot, franker and more open, scorned such masks, unhesitatingly admitted the tyranny of the ultramontaine doctrines and confessed, with a certain compunction, the pitiless yoke ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... was never left for long; and when it was absolutely necessary to leave him Joe's sharp ears were straining for any alarming sound, and, unauthorized by Diane, his eyes were on the hallway, watching the rancher's bedroom door. He had no compunction in admitting his fears to himself. He had wormed the whole story of the rancher's anger at Tresler's presence in the house from his young mistress, and, also, he understood that Diane's engagement to her patient was known ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... of pity and compunction as she remembered these things, and suddenly she lifted to her lips ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... letter sooner, and as I am telling my congregation this Lent that it is no use to reproach oneself for one's sins if one does not amend them, I will mend this. I will freely own I should not have felt the same compunction if you had been in health and spirits, but when I find you so grievously complaining of the want of both, I cannot leave you any longer without such poor comfort as a line for two from me can give. I wish I were ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... opinion that he had gone down the river for the purpose of seeing a Williamsport justice of the peace whose record was none too good and who could be depended upon to perform the contemplated marriage ceremony without compunction if his "palm was ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... to trample on; and his heart grew hot with anger against her, anger and scorn that were almost loathing, that she who looked so fine should be so poor, so—But he did not finish his thought, for on its heels came another, a recollection that stayed his anger and changed his scorn to compunction. However dear Rothgar might have been to her, he could be dear no longer, or she would never have betrayed his trust and dared his hate to save Ivarsdale Tower—and its master. Sebert winced and put up his hand to shut out the vision as he realized at whose feet ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... I know!" Dinah spoke with swift compunction. "It is far more than that. But I've never had such lovely things before. I can't help feeling a little giddy about it. You do understand, don't you? I'm not ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... heart accused them of being other than amusing. It is only by knowing his contrast that we recognize a bore when we meet him. It was in this manner that she now began to ascertain that Mr. M'Gabbery certainly had bored her. Ascertaining it, she threw him off at once—perhaps without sufficient compunction. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... to accept the situation gracefully and become engaged to Dorothy, and if he found out that she had not been remembered in the old gentleman's will, he could break it without one word of warning or the least compunction. He noticed, too, that Dorothy was growing quite shy of him of late. She had been quite fond of him in the past; it would never do to allow her to grow indifferent to him. He made up his mind to settle the ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... that Saturday morning, about the time Titania began to dust the pavement-boxes, in no very world-conquering humour. As it was a half-holiday, he felt no compunction in staying away from the office. The landlady, a motherly soul, sent him up some coffee and scrambled eggs, and insisted on having a doctor in to look at his damage. Several stitches were taken, after which he had a nap. He woke up at noon, feeling ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... the back with the coarse velvet of his nose. Then followed two quick snorts of alarm; the horses shied simultaneously outward, while down on the ground between them came two souls with but a single thud, two hearts that squelched as one. In spite of the compunction and sympathy I felt, modesty compelled me to glide unobstrusively away, leaving the souls to disentangle themselves and catch their horses the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... and, on occasion of a publick election, warned his people, according to his duty, against the crimes which publick elections frequently produce. His warning was felt by one of his parishioners, as pointed particularly at himself. But instead of producing, as might be wished, private compunction and immediate reformation, it kindled only rage and resentment. He charged his minister, in a publick paper, with scandal, defamation, and falsehood. The minister, thus reproached, had his own character ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... times when his compunction held Jerry to his task, but more often he turned an end furrow and laid his misgivings snugly under it and was away to the woods or the creek. There was joy and a loaf for the present. What ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... books and from his companionship. It was odd that from the care of his father he should immediately pass on to the care of one who had made such a disastrous mistake as I had made. But I feel the less compunction at the thought of the amount of sympathy I called for at that time, because I notice that the giving of sympathy is a necessity for Derrick, and that when the troubles of other folk do not immediately thrust ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... away the old man, not without some slight compunction. "But in my opinion she's too dark for such somber dresses. I've told her so a score of times." Then as he watched the woman before him rolling up the goods he proceeded to ask with fussy importunity what she thought the express charges ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... a trace of shame or compunction, she said page seventy-eight, and then the three grown ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... sharp spurs is forbidden, except by special permission. Whyte-Melville points out that my sex are unmerciful in the abuse of the spur. He says:—"Perhaps because they have but one, they use this stimulant liberally and without compunction. From their seat and shortness of stirrup every kick tells home. Concealed under a riding habit, these vigorous applications are unsuspected by lookers on." I have seen more than one poor animal's side badly torn and bleeding from a lady's spur. A lady who rides a horse in the ordinary ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... me? Take up your sword, man, and do my bidding; thus shall you have a slender chance of life. Refuse and I pistol you without compunction. So now put on that ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... sight of the deaf old lady sitting up in pain and alone, during the night had roused a sudden wave of pity in Eleanor's rather hard heart. A swift feeling of compunction smote her as she reflected how little thought she had taken of Mrs. Murray since she had come to live in her house. All her kindness had been accepted as a matter of course, and when Eleanor found that in return for that kindness no claim of any ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... I want faithfulness in the discharge of the duty I shall impose on you," said the Greek, sternly. "And, mark me, Giacomo—if you play me false, as you have done others, I will find you out, and finish your worthless life with as little compunction as I would ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... slip of paper on which the name of the owner was written. As he passed the second counter he observed a well-filled basket and he stopped to examine the name. "Mrs. John P. Matthews," was written on the slip. This was his basket, thought he, calmly and without compunction. Then he began to price the articles on the shelves near by. This was his style ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... strain of individual contributions and unpaid performances. When the Transvaal revenues advanced with such giant strides the Afrikaner Bond leaders in that State contrived arrangements by which the financial requirements were supplied from State receipts. Nor was the least compunction felt in doing so. Was the revenue of the State not chiefly derived from the Uitlander element—from Uitlander investments, which all throve from the nation's own buried gold wealth? No scruples existed to provide from those sources ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... husband would come, and so, as a corollary, Lord Lindfield would come. Then there would be the newly-engaged couple, namely, Daisy and Willie Carton. Either of them would go, as steel filings go to the magnet, wherever the other was, and without the least sense of compunction Lady Nottingham told each of them separately that the other was coming to her. She had been rather late in doing this, and, as a matter of fact, Willie, no longer hoping for it, had made another ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... up words to his lips from far within. It was so these words presently conveyed to me something that, as I afterwards knew, he had never uttered to any one. I have always done justice to the generous impulse that made him speak; it was simply compunction for a snub unconsciously administered to a man of letters in a position inferior to his own, a man of letters moreover in the very act of praising him. To make the thing right he talked to me exactly as an equal and on the ground of what we both loved best. The hour, the place, the unexpectedness ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... him back from taking this step; they had advised him not to be troubled about such matters, as the Lutheran Church was far too liberal mid generous to insist on agreement with the symbols on minor matters, and that without compunction they themselves deviated in various points from the Confessions farther than he did, it being sufficient to adhere to the great fundamental doctrines; this advice had suddenly given comfort to his heart and made the Lutheran Church dearer to him than before; and ever since ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... Buds felt no more compunction in employing the juniors on this quest than a government that organizes a secret service department. The enemy had betrayed them shamelessly and deserved reprisals. It was Desiree after all who won the chocolates. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... in so pretty a romance, and ready enough also, unless I was mistaken, to cause her husband a little mild jealousy, had listened to the story with a certain sly demureness. But this I foresaw would not last long; and I felt something like compunction as the moment for striking the blow approached. But I had now no choice. 'The best is yet to come, sire,' I went on, 'as I think you will acknowledge in a moment. Dromio, though he had discovered his mistress, was still in ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... boiling foam. The waves whirled him round for a moment like some huge leviathan tossing its prey. He sank into its gorge, and the insatiate gulf swallowed him up for ever. Anthony drew back. He turned from the horrid scene, with some yet lingering tokens of compunction, in the expectation of rejoining his companions; but in vain—the babes ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... abject slave, and if in her slow peregrinations about the cave she should stumble upon a scrap of anything edible, he would promptly roll her over with one of his exaggeratedly podgy front paws and snatch the morsel from her without the slightest compunction. In the same way he would chase her from teat to teat when they both were nursing, and when full-fed himself would ruthlessly scratch and tug at his mother's aching flanks from sheer boisterous wantonness. At such times he would climb about her hollow sides, holding on by his sharp ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... can't tell," said Hal. "We may be able to give them the slip. However, I would be opposed to any plan that did not have a good chance of success. For, if we failed, I am sure they would shoot us without compunction." ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... time of the risk we ran of having our canoe stolen by passing Indians, unguarded montarias being never safe even in the ports of the villages, Indians apparently considering them common property, and stealing them without any compunction. No misgivings clouded the lightness of heart with which we trod forward in warm anticipation of ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... knowledge of the extent to which he shared his second wife's feelings, the remembrance of the vows he had made on the subject to his first wife, these and the old, if not very strong, affection he had for Juliet, combined to stir in him feelings of compunction which showed themselves in an outburst of irritability. He scolded Juliet; ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... tired and discouraged house-breaker plodded, heavy footed, the unending road. Did vain compunction stir his youthful breast? Did he regret the safe respectability of the plumber's apprentice? Or, if he had not been a plumber's apprentice did he yearn to once again assume the unharried peace of whatever legitimate calling had been his before he bent his steps upon the broad ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... is the nearest approach to the ideal "economic" man, the "fittest" person to survive in trade competition. Admirable in domestic morality, and an orderly citizen, he is almost void of social morality. No compunction or consideration for his fellow-worker will keep him from underselling and overreaching them; he acquires a thorough mastery of all the dishonourable tricks of trade which are difficult to restrain by law; the superior ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... in that tongue to balance the partial accounts which the Roman writers have left us.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. They have not been partial, they have told their own story, without shame or regard to equitable treatment of their injured enemy; they had no compunction, no feeling for a Carthaginian. Why, Sir, they would never have borne Virgil's description of Aeneas's treatment of Dido, if she had ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... Judson shifted his weight cautiously from one elbow to the other. Then Flemister began, without heat and equally without compunction. The ex-engineer shivered, as if the measured words had been so many drops of ice-water dribbling through the cracks in the floor to fall ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and other honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they know not whereof they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted they can demand without compunction a violation ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... ordered them to be set at liberty. When some of his sycophants opposed this indulgence, representing that Mr. Holwell had still enough left to pay a considerable ransom, he replied, with some marks of compunction and generosity, "If he has anything left, let him keep it: his sufferings have been great: he shall have his liberty." Mr. Holwell and his friends were no sooner unfettered, than they took water from the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... but almost uninterestedly; and Percy was conscious of a tiny prick of compunction at his own heart. After all, the reconciling of a soul to God was a greater thing than the ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... I very horrid to be playing up here in the cool all the time?" she asked, pricked by the memory of Honor's words to one of her rare touches of compunction. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... and unharmed. The Khan, knowing how much he was individually answerable for the misery which had been sustained, must have wept tears even more bitter than those of Xerxes when he threw his eyes over the myriads whom he had assembled: for the tears of Xerxes were unmingled with compunction. Whatever amends were in his power he resolved to make by sacrifices to the general good of all personal regards; and accordingly, even at this point of their advance, he once more deliberately brought under ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... suggestion, for he had not been without some secret twinges of compunction at the idea of being married at Castell On, and still having none of his people at the wedding. That, of course, in his own and his uncle's opinion was quite out of the question; and so the ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... that "a fortnight had not elapsed before both parties were struck with sincere compunction, and through the intercession of a true friend, at their entreaty, the unhappy penitent was received by her father: it is said she would have proved worthy of this parental forgiveness, if an elder ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... his face, that strange face which I was now beginning so well to know—the face of my enemy. I knew it was the face of a murderer, a man who would have no compunction ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... feelings of compunction which troubled Macbeth and his wife are wellnigh proof against the utmost powers of suggestion, or, as in the case of Hubert and Prince Arthur, compel the criminal ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... others dangerously wounded, at a charivari. The bridegroom was a man in middle life, a desperately resolute and passionate man, and he swore that if such riff-raff dared to interfere with him, he would shoot at them with as little compunction as he would at so many crows. His threats only increased the mischievous determination of the mob to torment him; and when he refused to admit their deputation, or even to give them a portion of the wedding cheer, they determined to frighten him into compliance by firing several guns, loaded with ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... concerning his master; but much more for his avowing an intention of revenge. He threatened him with the entire loss of his favour, if he ever heard such another word from his mouth; for, he said, he would never support or befriend a reprobate. By these and the like declarations, he extorted some compunction from Tom, in which that youth was not over-sincere; for he really meditated some return for all the smarting favours he had received at the hands of the pedagogue. He was, however, brought by Mr Allworthy to express a concern for his resentment against Thwackum; and then the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... them on one by one he could have snapped their necks in turn, and he would have done so without compunction. As it was, with four leaping at him simultaneously, he called on all his reserve strength, his skill in boxing, and the strategy of his ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... naturally asked why not? But Mrs Wickam, agreeably to the usage of some ladies in her condition, pursued her own branch of the subject, without any compunction. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... as matter of glory, but shame: yet I ought to tell you all the truth, or nothing. 'Meantime,' thought I, (for I used to have some compunction for my vile practices, when cool reflection, brought on by satiety, had taken hold of me) 'I wish this sweet girl was grown to years of susceptibility, that I might reform this wicked course of life, and not prowl about, disturbing honest folks' peace, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... flood, turning the lanes into water-courses for three-fourths of the year, of miry fields and marshy heaths, she procured for herself a suit of boy's clothes, donning blouse and gaiters now and then without compunction for these ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... that no day pass without calling upon God in a solemn, fervent prayer, seven times within the compass thereof. That is, in the morning, and at night, and five times between. Taken up long ago from the example of David and Daniel, and a compunction and shame that I had omitted it so long, when I heedfully read of the custom of the Mahometans to pray five times in ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... Beatrice, with compunction; "you look very ill. Have you been long here? Mrs. Bell says that you are a ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... indignation were now laid aside. His tone and looks betokened the deepest distress. All the firmness, reluctance, and wariness of my temper vanished in a moment. My heart was seized with an agony of compunction. I came close to him, and, taking his hand involuntarily, said, "Dear ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... or that any one should repent of what he had done in a passion? as we see that Alexander the king did, who could scarcely keep his hands from himself, when he had killed his favourite Clytus: so great was his compunction! Now who, that is acquainted with these instances, can doubt that this motion of the mind is altogether in opinion and voluntary? for who can doubt that disorders of the mind, such as covetousness, and a desire of glory, arise from a great estimation ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... down the tiny paw he had taken in his. It was limp as the hand of a dead girl. Clo would have felt less compunction if he had dropped it roughly. He took a few brisk steps, as though he had come to some decision. She forced herself back from the brink of unconsciousness to realize that he was going toward the door—not the outer door, ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... but for the sort of respect she roused in him by surpassing him in his own kind. He cringed to her with a sneer. It was long since he had learned from her society to remember, with the nearest approach to compunction of which his moth-eaten heart was capable, the woman who had forsaken her own rank to brave the perils of his, and had sunk frozen to death by the cold of his contact. For some years he felt far more friendly to the offspring ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... of greediness belong to those kind of normal psychic manifestations which are on the verge of the abnormal into which they occasionally pass. They may occur, however, in healthy, well-bred, and well-behaved children who, under the stress of the sudden craving, will, without compunction and apparently without reflection, steal the food they long for or even steal from their parents the money to buy it. The food thus seized by a well-nigh irresistible craving is nearly always a fruit. Fruit is usually doled out to children in small quantities ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the subject of perils, it perhaps does not misbecome me to say that my most imminent perils come from yourself, or at least would come if I believed in your love and accepted your addresses. Your father has told me plainly that in that case I should be consumed into a cinder with as little compunction as if I were the reptile whom Taee blasted into ashes with the ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... her, felt both bewilderment and compunction. He thought for a moment of going after her and saying something further; then he heard a flutter and a quick sweet voice, and he knew that Charlotte had come for her hat. He heard her say: "Where? Oh, I see; ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... you would not give a loving word to save me. You would send me out to my death without compunction—without a care; and yet you know how I have ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... James felt compunction. "No, no, I won't be hard. It's all right, of course." He read on. The polligamous pirate with wives &c. had to be explained. She told him the story. The eyeglass became a ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... found himself in a difficulty. In spite of his gratitude and reverence for Commines, in spite even of his profound belief in his shrewder, sounder judgment, he revolted from this callous opportunism which abandoned a dead master for a new service without the apparent compunction of a moment. Surely the grave should first shut out all that was mortal of the old obedience? And yet, because of that unfailing gratitude and profound faith, he could not join with the girl in her open condemnation. But crumpling the letter anew, Commines shook his head ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... influenced so powerfully by events that the three felt no compunction at all at the shooting of this fleeing Indian. It was but a trifle compared with what they had seen the day ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the young man had seen the eye. Without compunction he began a search of the room, the old woman looking on ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... our worth—content If we our patron's praises earn: With but two ships abroad we went, With twenty we to port return. By our rich lading all may see The great successes we have wrought. Free ocean makes the spirit free: There claims compunction ne'er a thought! A rapid grip there needs alone; A fish, a ship, on both we seize. Of three if we the lordship own, Straightway we hook a fourth with ease, Then is the fifth in sorry plight— Who hath the power, has still the right; The What is asked for, not the How. Else know I not the seaman's ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... irrational satisfaction that his golden pheasants harmonised with the glitter of the warm and smiling girl beside him. And he sat down beside her—"You sit anywhere," said Mrs. Britling—with far less compunction than in his ordinary costume he would have felt for so direct a confession of preference. And there was something in her eyes, it was quite indefinable and yet very satisfying, that told him that now he escaped from the stern square imperatives ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... for his spite and his cupidity; and the man of peace and letters, whose temperament shrank from contention of any kind, could not but congratulate himself upon an incidental triumph for which it was impossible to feel the smallest compunction. Moreover, he had gained his point. It was enough for him to know that there was a certain secret in Steel's life, upon which the wretch Abel had admittedly traded, even as his superior Minchin had apparently intended to do before him. Only those ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... not so well," exclaimed Katherine, with a quick terror gripping at her heart. Then she thought with a swift compunction of the stranger they were bringing home, and wondered if her father would resent ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... to pour out her sorrows into the bosom of her friend; but this I could not allow. To visit the house of my bitterest enemy—to make a friend of his sister, was a glaring impropriety in a clergyman's wife, and I cannot even now feel any compunction at having put a stop to their intercourse—if, indeed, I succeeded in doing so. A cold cloud seemed to have fallen between me and your mother; and as for my brother, we scarcely spoke to each other at meals, and avoided each other ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... state of existence. Tribal wars were of constant occurrence, and the vanquished were either slain or enslaved. Men fought out their private quarrels to the death; and Beric, being by birth Briton and by education Roman, felt no more compunction at the sight of blood than ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... gifted with at all more feeling or sentiment than usually falls to the lot of a youth of his age, but a sort of compunction visited him at that moment to think how soon they all, alive and well, had invaded the poor old woman's locked and guarded sanctuary! He stooped to gather another lily, and offered the flowers to his father. Old Daniel ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... told her nothing, it was true; but she remembered how sarcastic and evil he looked when she took final leave of him after the ball. Had he discovered something then? Had he already laid his plans for catching the daring plotter, red-handed, in France, and sending him to the guillotine without compunction or delay? ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Parson's advice thankfully; besides having a distaste for the idea of corporal punishment, he could hardly have borne to hurt the eager, bright creature who always hung about him so confidingly when in the mood, but who had no compunction in not going near him for days, except to say good-morning and good-night, when in one of ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... ignorant of science, of book-learning, did not become infidels, but exhibited a practical faith throughout life, and died in the odor of sanctity. Divine faith does not require as a companion, in the individual Catholic, a knowledge of profane literature, but humility, compunction, self-denial, and a contempt of the world. Schools are therefore not absolutely necessary ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... prices. By ordinance they also set the rate of profit which traders should have upon all imported wares brought into the colony. This rate of profit was fixed at sixty-five per cent, but the traders had no compunction in going above it whenever they saw an opportunity which was not likely to be discovered. As far as the forest trade was concerned, the regulation was, of ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... the Countess, "as well may you ask a hungry lion to feel compassion, as a prejudiced and furious people to do justice. They are like the madman at the height of frenzy, who murders without compunction his best and dearest friend; and only wonders and wails over his own cruelty, when he is ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... when unscrupulous men or women deliberately stab the happiness of a fellow-creature, they have no wounded sensibilities, no haunting compunction,—and if remorse finally overtakes, it finds them well-nigh callous and indurated; but woe to that innocent being who is the unintentional and unconscious agent for the ruin of those she loves. I cannot remember the time when I did not love the only man for whom I ever entertained ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... had Esclairmonde either entered a convent or married young Waleran de Luxemburg, her cousin. Therefore he had striven to force on her his half-brother, who would certainly never unite any inheritance to hers; but he much preferred the purchase of her Hainault lands; and had no compunction in throwing over Boemond, except for a certain lurking desire that the lady's contumacy should be chastised by a lord who would beat her well into subjection. He would willingly have made a great show of generosity, and ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... than three thousand men and women, who lived promiscuously on the mountains together, like beasts, and, when they wanted provisions, supplied themselves by depredation and rapine. This lasted for two years till, many being struck with compunction at the dissolute life they led, his sect was much diminished; and through failure of food, and the severity of the snows, he was taken by the people of Novarra, and burnt, with Margarita his companion and many other men ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... I meant to have done, and as I designed to have given her the ribbon, asserted she had given it to me. When she appeared, my heart was agonized, but the presence of so many people was more powerful than my compunction. I did not fear punishment, but I dreaded shame: I dreaded it more than death, more than the crime, more than all the world. I would have buried, hid myself in the centre of the earth: invincible shame bore down every other sentiment; ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... on Mr. Polly's boots for a minute, struggling violently against the compunction of ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... and a deep blush spread itself over his boyish face. His tone was filled full to overflowing with compunction as he answered. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... sanguinary menace with bad spelling. But deeds of blood had often followed these scrawls in Hillsborough, and Henry knew it: and, indeed, he who can not spell his own name correctly is the very man to take his neighbor's life without compunction; since mercy is a fruit of knowledge, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... remorse that he should have softened to Bridget the sudden news of her friend's death. The sight of her now—a small tragic figure with a white face and burning eyes, in a black dress into which she had changed, deepened his compunction. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... these two classes of men—the ordinary man who has no compunction in resorting to force when the requirements of life demand it, and the idealist who refuses to have any lot or part in violence; there is also a hybrid. This male hybrid will descant on the general iniquity of violence, and then not only connive at those forms ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... know tomorrow early. I asked Mrs. Farlow to telegraph as soon as she got my letter." A twinge of compunction shot through Darrow. Her words recalled to him that on their return to the hotel after luncheon she had given him her letter to post, and that he had never thought of it again. No doubt it was still in the pocket of the coat he had taken off when he dressed ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... which would have made her future course lie before her in brighter and more tranquil light. She would at least be what she seemed to be. But here, amid the scenes of his past life, there was a deep compunction in her heart, and a profound pity for the miserable man, whose neighbors knew nothing about him but that he had disappeared out of their sight. That she should come to seek him, and find not even his grave, oppressed her with anguish as she passed ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... before had been in danger from this very crew, was smitten with a sudden compunction. Except for Muckle John, they were so pitifully feeble, a pack of humble, elderly folk, worn out with fasting and marching and ill weather. I had been sickened by their crazy devotions, but I was more sickened by this man's ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... prefer not to have been born, is a supposition that has nothing, absolutely nothing, absurd in it. Was he happy, the poor Jewish intellectualist definer of intellectual love and of happiness? For that and no other is the problem. "What does it profit thee to know the definition of compunction if thou dost not feel it?" says a Kempis. And what profits it to discuss or to define happiness if you cannot thereby achieve happiness? Not inapposite in this connection is that terrible story that Diderot tells of a eunuch who desired to take lessons in esthetics from a native of Marseilles ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... yet could not help being amused; and when on glancing her eye towards Jane Fairfax she caught the remains of a smile, when she saw that with all the deep blush of consciousness, there had been a smile of secret delight, she had less scruple in the amusement, and much less compunction with respect to her.—This amiable, upright, perfect Jane Fairfax was apparently ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... feet, and the other from one hand to the other through the breast; from this he became aware that the preacher was the holy man of whom so much was spoken. The first impression which the vision made upon him was, that he ought to lead a better life; but the words of the preacher filled him with such compunction, that he felt as if he had been pierced by the sword of the spirit which came out of his mouth. He went after the sermon to renounce in Francis' hands all the vanities of the world, and to embrace his Institute. Francis, seeing ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... you are about; bear in mind that I am covering you, and I warn you that if I detect the slightest appearance of haste in your movements, or if you produce anything except the telegram from your pocket, I shall shoot you, without a particle of compunction." ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... sure, be divided; whether such a division would serve any useful purpose is another matter. What I am sure of is that to have two such labels, to be applied when occasion requires and cancelled without much compunction, will excellently serve mine, which may, ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... care what arguments they use, what absurdities they utter in talking to them; they usually talk to them of things which are totally above their comprehension; and they instil errour and prejudice, without the smallest degree of compunction; indeed, without in the least knowing what they are about. We earnestly repeat our advice to parents, to keep their children as much as possible from such conversation: children will never reason, if they are allowed to hear or to ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... the contrary is the case, he has to read of himself as doing something habitual and entirely characteristic of him. In vain, so far as that acute young critic is concerned, has he broken new ground. But if he has with much compunction consciously turned his furrows in a field tilled before, he stands a fair chance of being hailed at the outset ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... when all idea of a day-long play had been discarded in favour of scenes more single and self-contained. The sacredness, also, of the saintly narrative was less binding than that of the Bible story. Those who had a compunction in caricaturing or coarsening the unholy or nameless people of the Scriptures would feel their liberty immensely widened in a representation of the secular and heathen world which surrounded their saint. This is clearly seen in the Miracle of the Sacrament, where the figure ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... "She has no compunction about rushing off to work on a newspaper, day after day, and leaving me daughterless," complained Mr. Ashe lightly. Yet a shadow so slight as to be hardly noticeable crossed his face, which no one save the lynx-eyed Elfreda ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... me last night," said King, drawing on imagination without any compunction at all, "that the fight in the Khyber was because ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... neither fear nor compunction in asserting that authority which would be his to the full to-morrow. He felt that there was a vein of rebellion in Elsa's character, and this he meant to drain and to staunch till it had withered to nothingness. It would never do for him—of ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... tears on reading the tender and pious letter addressed to him by the dying hand of Catherine; and he marked by several small but expressive acts, the respect, or rather the compunction, with which the recollection of her could not fail to inspire him. Anne Boleyn paid to the memory of the princess-dowager of Wales—such was the title now given to Catherine—the unmeaning compliment of putting ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... for any change of the kind to take place during a term. 'Was Sawyer ill?' one or two of the boys asked, as there came before them the recollection of the young man's pale and careworn face, and they recalled with some compunction the Pariah-like life that for some time ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... duty to be impertinent. I'm supposed to read all you fellows' letters before I stamp them. I'd be rather glad if they were liable to be censored again at the Base or somewhere else en route; it would relieve me of any compunction about the first reading, the text and preamble of the envelope would be good enough for me. You ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... was the old squire, and I enjoyed many a walk with him over Newmarket Heath, listening to his amusing anecdotes, his delightful humour and brilliant wit. His manner was so buoyant that no one could have believed he had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds, but he had, without compunction or regret. ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... sting of compunction. Theoretically, she deprecated the American wife's detachment from her husband's professional interests, but in practice she had always found it difficult to fix her attention on Boyne's report of the transactions in which ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... the villain had marked me down seven times with as little remorse as if I had been a buck in season. He told every rivet on my armour with a cloth-yard shaft, that rapped against my ribs with as little compunction as if my bones had been of iron—But that I wore a shirt of Spanish mail under my plate-coat, I ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... for he was not so deeply skilled in the arts of deception as to carry them on without some compunction; "but I left ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... had told her of Miss Ledwith's very large wealth, and it would have made no difference if she had known it, except the exciting in her of a quick question why they had been taken in at all, and whether she were not indeed being in her turn benevolently practised upon, as she with much compunction practised upon ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... it. Robin's divergence from his father's ways was, secretly, an acute disappointment to her. When she caressed Nelly with a warmth which none of her friends would have credited her with possessing, there was compunction with the tenderness. The child ought to have had the delight of marrying a soldier, a hero whom she could adore, as she herself had adored her Gerald. When she pressed the golden head to her angular bosom she was asking the girl's pardon for her ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... unwilling to enter the campaign. He satisfied his scruples by inventing a strange diplomatic form in which Austria was still described as a neutral, although she took part in the war, [171] and felt as little compunction in uniting with France as in explaining to the Courts of St. Petersburg and Berlin that the union was a hypocritical one. The Sovereign who was about to be attacked by Napoleon, and the Sovereigns who sent their troops to Napoleon's support, perfectly well understood one another's ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... sound his feelings with regard to you, in order to ascertain what facilities we should have for meeting in future, on the supposition that I could carry my project into effect. I found him of a most tractable disposition. He asked me how I felt towards you, and if I had not experienced some compunction at quitting you. I told him that you were so truly amiable, and had ever treated me with such undeviating kindness, that it was impossible I could hate you. He admitted that you were a man of merit, and expressed an ardent desire to gain ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... Sam had no compunction against eating their food. Scorning them all, he fully intended to get the better of them yet. Meanwhile he was wondering what had taken place between them. He could not interpret the relations between Bela and the three men. They were apparently neither friendly ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... soldier hears throughout in silence. I urge no answer: to those words, I fear, Thy heart with sharp compunction ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... congregation, which he had generosity enough to distribute among the poor of the parish, reserving but a small part to himself. Though this was bringing good out of evil, he still speaks of it (after above thirty years lapse since the commission) with the greatest regret and compunction of mind; for he is sensible, that though he can deceive man, he cannot deceive God, whose eyes penetrate into every place, and mark all our actions, and who is a Being too ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... had passed thus before she remembered the silent little figure behind her, and then it was with a swift sense of compunction that she took her hands from the ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... however much money he may have saved in his pocket, is allowed so much as half a biscuit beyond his proper ration. Any riotous person who endangered the safety of the rest would be bound, and laid in the bottom of the boat, without the smallest compunction, for such violation of the principles of individual liberty; and, on the other hand, any child, or woman, or aged person, who was helpless, and exposed to great danger and suffering by their weakness, would receive more than ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... should adopt, but continued deliberately at my accustomed devotions. As I was thus occupied, the fifth-form boy entered my room to learn my reason for neglecting his summons, and was for a moment startled when he discovered in what manner I was employed; but, without further hesitation or compunction, taking me by the collar, he inflicted a blow as a punishment for my presumption. This was a little too much, so instantly springing at him, and taking him unawares, for a moment I actually beat my tyrant off, when Kennedy accidentally presenting himself at the door, at once ranged himself ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... said the sensitive Frank, with quick compunction, silently reproaching himself for thus reminding ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... scenes before us,' she replied: 'such is the punishment of them. Let us hope and believe that the apparition, and the compunction which must follow it, will be accepted as the full penalty, and that both will ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... has the key which controls the automatic device. You may open the door and get the key, and from this time forward, if I find that you deceive me in the slightest degree, or make any attempt to injure the vessel, I will make it your grave without a moment's hesitation, and without the least compunction." ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... despairing of any improvement in the state of the country, he continued his journey in the company of a contrabandista, temporarily retired from the smuggling trade, from whom he hired two horses for the sum of forty-two dollars. Borrow allowed no compunction to assail him as to the means he employed when he was thoroughly convinced as to the worthiness of the end he had in view. To further his projects he would cheerfully have travelled ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... afternoon as she pressed close to the window, to catch the fading light on the page of her Bible, it chanced to be the chapter in St. Luke, which contained the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican; and while she read, a great compunction smote her; a remorseful sense of having scorned as utterly unclean and debased, her ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... bed, after the Colonel had bled him and clapped in his shoulder, as holding by her husband's hand she beheld the lad in a sweet slumber, murmuring a faint inarticulate word or two in his sleep, a faint blush quivering on his cheek, she owned he was a pretty lad indeed, and confessed with a sort of compunction that neither of her two boys—Jack who was at Oxford, and Charles who was just gone back to school after the Bartlemytide holidays—was half so handsome as the Virginian. What a good figure the boy had! and when papa bled him, his arm was ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... little deliberation, she had gone to the theatre, and there forgot her hard day-labor in the wonders of the stage,—forgot Jacqueline, and Antonine, and every care and duty. It was hard for her, when all was ended, to come back to compunction and explanation, yet to this ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... was so genuine that Brian felt some surprise, and also some compunction for having distrusted ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... himself on the forethought which had possessed him of the pistol. Otherwise the assassin, since he had retained sufficient wit and strength to crawl into hiding, could and assuredly would have potted Monsieur Duchemin with neither difficulty nor compunction. ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... another's sufferings. I thought as I listened to him of all I had heard about that ancestor of his who had killed a man in cold blood in the old house at the bank—and I knew that Joseph Chestermarke would kill me with no more compunction, and no less, than he would show in crushing a beetle that ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... tribunes, now taught by their colleague's death how utterly ineffectual was the aid the devoting laws afforded them.[72] Nor did the patricians display their exultation with due moderation; and so far was any of them from feeling compunction at the guilty act, that even those who were innocent wished to be considered to have perpetrated it, and it was openly declared that the tribunician power ought to ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius |
