"Shrift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... place men there be Who know and speak not, lo, I make decree That, while in Thebes I bear the diadem, No man shall greet, no man shall shelter them, Nor give them water in their thirst, nor share In sacrifice nor shrift nor dying prayer, But thrust them from our doors, the thing they hide Being this land's curse. Thus hath the God replied This day to me from Delphi, and my sword I draw thus for the dead and ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... laid down his little bag, rubbed his hands together, and produced a smile of satisfaction; but it was such a smile as a totally ruined man would perhaps force on his lips, or a man condemned to a short shrift by his doctor. I begged him to make himself at home and said that I would go at once and hunt up the woman of the house who would make him up a bed on the big couch there. He hardly listened to what I said. What were all those things to ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... wouldn't be much danger o' that," remarked George, with a significant nod, which Maurice took to mean that if caught those black criminals might meet with a short shrift. ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... presently if he had received his Maker, and the King told me Yes, and shrift too, and anointing—all the night before when he had come to himself for a while and called for a priest. He had spoken my name, too, at that time and they had told him that one was gone to bring me and at that he ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... have the mass, that will not be suffered where the Parliament of England has power." A great deal has happened since Cromwell's time, and the mass is no longer the symbol of intolerance, if only because the Church of Rome has no power to persecute. Cromwell would have had a short shrift if he had fallen into the hands of mass-goers. To tolerate intolerance is a Christian duty, and therefore possible for an individual. Whether it was possible for the Lord General in 1650 is a question hardly suited for popular treatment on a public platform. All that he did ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... the fugitive at Ziklag in striking and characteristic fashion. He first flames out in fierce wrath upon the lying Amalekite, who had hurried with the tidings and sought favour by falsely representing that he had killed the king on the field. A short shrift and a bloody end were his. And then the wrath melts into mourning. Forgetting the mad hatred and wild struggles of that poor soul, and his own wrongs, remembering only the friendship and nobleness of his earlier days, he casts over the mangled corpses of Saul and Jonathan the mantle of his ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... a sinking heart that Martin de Vargas and his brave garrison beheld the town fall once again into the hands of Kheyr-ed-Din; they knew, as by this time did all the Mediterranean and the dwellers on the coasts thereof, the implacable enmity of the corsair to the Christians, and how short a shrift would be theirs should they fall ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... soon in danger. Short shrift is given to the horse-thief. The State authorities are powerless in face of the duplicity of these native residents. They feel they have been enslaved by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The roads became unsafe. Travellers are ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... is to say, on the whole, and so far as it went. He foresaw that short shrift would be given to those idlers on Garrison Hill. On the other hand, he frowned at the prospect—call it the chance, rather—of seeing that establishment replaced by one more efficient. To be sure, if the necessities of Coast Defence demanded it.... ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Russell were but too fully borne out. There was short shrift in those days for Irishmen accused of treason, and the verdict of guilty, which he looked forward to with so much resignation, was delivered before the last rays of the sun which rose on the morning ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... to demand grace of mortal man," said the Scot; "it is in your Grace's pleasure to give or refuse me time for Christian shrift—if man denies it, may God grant me the absolution which I would otherwise ask of His church! But whether I die on the instant, or half an hour hence, I equally beseech your Grace for one moment's opportunity to speak that to your royal person which ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... was not there, On the wings of shrift and prayer, Pure as winds that winnow snow, Her soul had risen twelve hours ago. The burdened steed at the barred gate stood, No whit the nearer to his goal. Now God's great grace assoil the soul That ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... did or no," said the glover; "I only know I saw him not. As to Catharine, she cannot be said to use Father Clement's ministry, seeing her confessor is old Father Francis the Dominican, from whom she had her shrift today. But women will sometimes be wilful, and sure enough she consults with Father Clement more than I could wish; and yet when I have spoken with him myself, I have thought him so good and holy a man that I could have trusted my own salvation ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... shrift thou shouldst little need, if thou hadst never failed in duty. But how shall ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... sword. He drew it now, held the blade across his knee, and with one effort of all his strength broke the steel in twain, then threw the pieces from him, and turned his sunken eyes upon the Admiral. "I beg the shortest shrift that you may give," he said. "It was I who, when they tormented me, told them all. Hang me now, John Nevil, in ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... but short shrift for the helpless folks on a fishing vessel when struck by a liner. The keen prow cuts right through planking and stout oak frame, and the dissevered portions of the hull are tossed to starboard and to port, to sink before the white foam has ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... are determined to make an enemy of me, Darrin, I shall do my best to see to it that you have short shrift in ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... situation is serious. But we place our faith in Parliament. Several of the leaders have given their ultimatum; if all signs do not fail, they surely will make short shrift this time." ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... firmness in the task of leading or driving us. And if in the course of your duty you encounter any genuine rascal endeavouring to grind the faces of the poor or to find his own profit in the misery of his fellow-men we look to you to give him short shrift. ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... impossible," said the commandant in a cold voice. "Your wires are not the only ones that suffer, and ours has undergone some damage during the night. It may be two hours before it is repaired, and you must not be surprised if we make short shrift ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... you—now," he cried. "But see you play the game to-night. You get your free run, only if I get the man I'm after. The rest of the gang don't count a lot, nor the liquor. It's the boss of the gang I need. If you've lied to me you'll get short shrift." ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... ... yes, Yankee ... well, when a fellow was both a Yank and a tramp he was given a short shrift in the South. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... and respectable citizens of California and Nevada, when, if Mark Twain were before them as members of a vigilance committee for any mild crime, such as mule-stealing or arson, it is to be feared his shrift would have been short. What a dramatic picture the idea conjures up, to be sure! Mark, before these honest men, infuriated by his practical jokes, trying to show them what an innocent creature he was when it came to mules, or ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... Daireh; he would have had a short shrift if we had caught him! It was unlucky, though, that he was found out before you came; he could not have done us much more harm, and the finding him here would have done you a great deal of good. By George! You are a nasty fellow to have for an enemy, ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... by Arabs. Shortly afterward we ran into a cavalry patrol, but the men escaped over some very broken ground before we could satisfactorily come to terms with them. It was lucky for the deserter that we found him before they did, for his shrift would have been short. We got back to camp at half past eight, having covered ninety-two miles in our ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... one another's hand; which Ganymede espying, thinking he had had his mistress long enough at shrift, said: ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... distaste. He was soldier now, and not monk—ay, and even the observances that such soldiers as Henry and James never failed in, and always enforced, were becoming a burthen to him. They wakened misgivings that he did not like, and that must wait till his next general shrift. ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and Mr. Asmunsen. Both were eligible for the militia, and both were drafted to serve in the punitive expedition that was despatched from California against the farmers of Missouri. Mr. Kowalt and Mr. Asmunsen refused to serve. They were given short shrift. Drumhead court martial was their portion, and military execution their end. They were shot with their ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... narrated took place on the 15th of August, and as Harley's time to fulfil his contract with Messrs. Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick was growing very short—two weeks is short shrift for an author with a book to write for waiting presses, even with a willing and helpful cast of characters—so I resolved not to intrude upon him until he himself should summon me. I knew myself, from bitter experience, how unwelcome the most welcome of one's friends can be at busy hours, ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... aback! stand aback!' said Robin; 'Why draw you me so near? It was never the use in our country One's shrift another ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... up!" said Benson, spooning up pea soup with his brand new tin spoon. "This increases your sentence to the extent of a shorter shrift." ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... anglers. They drive the top part of their rods deep into the water, so as to rake the bottom, and then bring the hook out with a jerk. Every now and then ... one of the persecuted fishes ... is hauled out with short shrift."—Daily News.] ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... unclean, That on me no sin may be seen; I come with Knowledge for my redemption, Redempt with heart and full contrition, For I am commanded a pilgrimage to take, And great accounts before God to make. Now I pray you, Shrift, mother of salvation, Help hither my good deeds for ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... no closer," he explained. "At such times their deviltry knows no bounds. They would make short shrift of anyone who would ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... this heartless fashion! Surely they might have somehow made shift to carry off their injured comrades with them, for they must be fully aware that if the unfortunate wretches fall into the hands of the authorities they will meet with short shrift. Well, we seem to have punished them rather more severely than I had thought; I should not be very greatly surprised if I find a few more poor beggars in the same plight before I have ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... had she been anything but woman, a sacrosanct being, immune from clubs and bullets, that she would have been allowed to carry matters with such high victorious hand as in England—and more power to her!—she has of late been doing. Let men attempt such tactics, and their shrift is uncomplimentarily short. It may be said that woman enjoys this immunity with children and curates, but, even so, it may be held that these latter participate in a less degree in that divine nature with which woman ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... They were fine, straight, clear-eyed boys, white enough to "pass." He brought them to America and put Alexander in the celebrated Cheshire School, in Connecticut. Here he often visited him, but one last time, fell dead. He left no will, and his relations made short shrift of these sons. They gathered in the property, apprenticed grandfather to a shoemaker; ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the Indians more so, for they must have realized that they would be given short shrift if any harm now came to Rosemary and Floyd. The soldiers and cowboys would not hesitate to take swift and sure vengeance. So the Indians must fight to the bitter end, selling their lives as dearly ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... who would have received short shrift if hands could have been laid upon him—Chunk. None knew this better than he, yet he was as fearless as he was shrewd. Scoville had already won from him unlimited devotion—bought him, body and soul, with kindness and freedom. ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... with an eye to finding its weak spots. In many cases no doubt he fancied that they were there to study and copy his methods and ideas, without having the decency later on to attribute their knowledge to him. It was short shrift for any one of them with ideas or "notions" unfriendly to him advanced in his presence. For a little while during my stay there was a smooth-faced, rather solid physically and decidedly self-opinionated mentally, doctor who ate at the same small ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... for you at the door, Dick. You know the physician can not be kept waiting, so make your parting brief. Short shrift is the easiest in love ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... says Noailles, "the eye was met with the hideous spectacle of hanging men;" while Brett and a fresh batch of unfortunates were sent to suffer at Rochester and Maidstone. Day after day, week after week, commissioners sat at Westminster or at the Guildhall trying prisoners, who passed with a short shrift to the gallows. The Duke of Suffolk was sentenced on the 17th; on the 23rd he followed his daughter, penitent for his rebellion, but constant, as she had implored him to be, in his faith. His two brothers and Lord ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... Tom!" commented the other, chuckling with amusement. "If he gets the notion in his head that we are legion he won't be so apt to blaze away at us, knowing it would mean a short shrift for him. He may prefer to play the poor French peasant part, and try to pull the wool over ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... French are really disturbed about it. They have cabled their Foreign Office and received an official denial of the rumour; but official denials carry no weight nowadays. Out of ten Frenchmen in Syria, five believe that Lawrence is with Feisul and if they can catch him he will get short shrift. But, oh, Jimgrim—oh, ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... unalterableness of the full-fledged tendencies among the insane are found in the European literature cited by us. Even discussion of the outcome of the border-line cases, such as we have given examples of, needs but short shrift. Everyone knows the extreme difficulties of dealing with constitutional inferiors; marked cases are socially fit only for proper colonization. The epileptic, in default of cure of his disease, is ever going to be prone to many peculiar mental ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... also whose books and writings tell What certain path to heavenly bliss us leads; And hermits good, and ancresses that dwell Mewed up in walls, and mumble on their beads, And virgin nuns in close and private cell, Where, but shrift fathers, never mankind treads: On these they called, and on all the rout Of angels, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... of sympathy, crept to Iris's side and gently stroked her hair. Like her mother, she could only guess that the English lady's friends were captured, perhaps dead. Even her limited experience of life's vicissitudes had taught her what short shrift was given to those who defied authority. The Republic of Brazil does not permit its criminals to be executed, but it shows no mercy to rebels. Manoela, of course, believed that the Englishmen were helping the imprisoned Dom Corria to regain power. She remembered how a mutiny was once ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Sherwood, either to take thee on the way or to prevent thy getting back to the woodlands again. He hath given the Bishop of Hereford command over all these men, and thou knowest what thou hast to expect of the Bishop of Hereford—short shrift and a long rope. Two bands of horsemen are already upon the road, not far behind me, so thou hadst best get thee gone from this place straightway, for, if thou tarriest longer, thou art like to sleep this night ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... confiteor; shrift; exomologesis. Associated Words: shrive, shrift, confessional, shriven, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of Dr. Roebuck in a Cyclopedia of Biography, recently published in Glasgow, runs as follows:—"Roebuck, John, a physician and experimental chemist, born at Sheffield, 1718; died, after ruining himself by his projects, 1794." Such is the short shrift which the man receives who fails. Had Dr. Roebuck wholly succeeded in his projects, he would probably have been esteemed as among the greatest of Scotland's benefactors. Yet his life was not altogether a failure, as ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... result of training in the newest ways and methods, in part the outcome of her own ideas and fancies. Reforms in the kitchen region, if those deaf old ears could have been induced to give them even a hearing, would have met with short shrift and scornful rejection, and the kitchen region spread over the zone of dairy and market business and half the work of the household. Emma, with the latest science of dead-poultry dressing at her finger-tips, sat by, an unheeded ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... Father Anselmo, the young priest, to me, at my last shrift; and fight I did. For from Italy's bosom I had drawn the strength of sword-arm, hip, and thigh; and I vowed to lose that arm and life and all that made life dear toward the trampling of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... was about done, and that it was time to draw the net. My salary was enormous, and already amounted to a competence, and I knew that if I remained in Russia, sooner or later somebody would find me out; and then there would be short shrift for me, between the nihilists on one hand, and the jealous nobility on the other, for the latter saw in me nothing but an interloper ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... would have been somewhat more summary in circumstances like these,", said the Duke, "and, by Heaven! the old style had its merits too; but these are different days, though, if I were you, I fancy I'd prefer the short shrift of Long David the dempster to the felon's cell. Be good enough ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... back, said Robin; Why draw you me so near? It was never the use in our country, One's shrift another should hear. ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... at first merely opposed the excesses of the Jacobins gradually drifted over to the royalists. The Convention now found itself attacked in the very city which had been the chosen abode of Liberty and Equality. Some thirty thousand of the Parisian National Guards were determined to give short shrift to this Assembly that clung so indecently to life; and as the armies were far away, the Parisian malcontents seemed masters of the situation. Without doubt they would have been but for their own precipitation ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... when Archbishop Sudbury, who had been active in preventing the king from landing from the Thames, and the ministers who were concerned in the levy of the poll-tax, fell into their hands. Short shrift was given these detested officials. They were dragged to Tower Hill, and their ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the priest came round to Friedel's side, and the boy was wakened to make his shrift, the words were contrite and humble, but calm and full of trust. They were like two of their own mountain streams, the waters almost equally undefiled by external stain—yet one struggling, agitated, whirling giddily round; the other still, transparent, and the light ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was immediately held. The hapless pilot at first denied all knowledge of the letter, but at length compelled to confess his guilt, with a short shrift he was next morning hanged ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... some means to come to shrift This afternoon; And there she shall at Friar Lawrence' cell Be shriv'd and married. Here is for ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... And he was artist enough to see how from that little starting episode the whole business had sprung—given, of course, the entrance of the wilful force called love. But a father, especially when he has been thoroughly alarmed, gives the artist and philosopher in him short shrift. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... collecting his wits. Painfully he tried to puzzle out what had happened. Obviously somebody must have crept up behind him as he listened and struck him down with a blow on the head. They knew him now for a spy, and would in all probability give him short shrift. Undoubtedly he was in a tight place. Nobody knew where he was, therefore he need expect no outside assistance, and must depend solely on ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... not at all sure that all the armored men were slain—that some few may not have escaped and be lurking there. It would be short shrift for us if we fell into their ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... against the wals and cald them bauds, because they wold see such a wrong committed, and not fall vpon him. To returne to Heraclide below, whom the vgliest of all bloud suckers Esdras of Granado had vnder shrift. First he assayled her with rough meanes, and slew her Zanie at her foote, that stept before her in rescue. Then when al armed resist was put to flight, he assaied her with honie speech, & promised her more iewells and giftes than hee was ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... you and Father Fothergill, and the rest of you, mean yesterday by burying that drowned man so close to me? He died in mortal sin, Emmanuel; no shrift, no unction, no absolution: why he might as well have been excommunicated. He plagues me with his grinning, and I can't have any peace in my shrine. You must howk him up ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... my reign are falling from me full of life, full of colour to the end. Shall I win this wonderful woman? Am I mad to hope it? If I lose, it is a short shrift and a long rope at the end ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... entirely too many ungrateful niggers are running away. I hope the conviction of that fellow yesterday may discourage the rest of the breed. I 'd just like to catch any one trying to run off one of my darkeys. He 'd get short shrift; I don't think any Court would have ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... devil—short shrift he got—given straight into my hand! I swore to kill him when I heard it; an' I have—pitched him over the bridge and broken his blasted neck. I'd burn in ragin' hell through ten lifetimes to do it again. But that's done once ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... by a hated foe whose strength he could well afford to despise, General Jackson, in a war properly waged only against Indians, ran a wild and lawless, but very vigorous and effective, career in Spanish possessions. He hung a couple of British subjects with as scant trial and meagre shrift as if he had been a mediaeval free-lance; he marched upon Spanish towns and peremptorily forced the blue-blooded commanders to capitulate in the most humiliating manner; afterwards, when the Spanish territory had become American, in his civil capacity as Governor, he flung the Spanish ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... the dead branches and twigs that the trees had been too lazy to shed; short shrift for them on the first spring-cleaning night. Down they came, helter-skelter, and no notice taken of the tree's groaning, or its ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... should every night call ourselves to account. What infirmity have I mastered to-day? what passion opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired?" and then he follows with the profound truth that "our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift." If you cannot at first control your anger, learn to control your tongue, which, like fire, is a good servant, but a ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... not get the maid for mate, But thou shalt die, thou knight enamour'd; So make thy shrift 'neath the linden straight, The little ...
— Proud Signild - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... Bird! make a short shrift— Here's a hair-shirted Palmer hard by; And here's Lawyer Earwig to draw up your will, And we'll witness ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... and body were so bitterly at odds. At every step we lifted him he thought to wend. But now, methinks, it is the soul that suffereth. Ever for the priest he crieth, and Sir Oliver, I wot not why, still cometh not. 'Twill be a long shrift; but poor Appleyard and poor Selden, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Escape with me! These Rangars will not believe without proof that thou hast saved their lives by bargaining. They will show thee short shrift indeed when my loss is discovered. Come now and I will make thee Maharanee ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... that it was necessary to "sequester him from hearing ladies' confessions." The nuns petitioned the visitors, on the exposure of the seduction of a sister, that he and his companion might come to them no more; and the friar was told that his abominable conduct might be the occasion that "shrift should ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... Paine, utterly lacking all sense of reverence for the past, should brand this conduct as treasonable to the imperious needs of the present? Viewing monarchy as represented by Versailles or Carlton House, and aristocracy by the intrigues of Coblentz and the orgies of Brooks's Club, he gave short shrift to both forms of Government. Monarchy he pronounced more or less despotic; and under aristocracy (he says) the interests of the whole body necessarily suffer; democracy alone secures the rule of the general will; and this can be thoroughly secured only ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... though she asked for the intercession of no created being, still set apart days for the commemoration of some who had done and suffered great things for the faith. She retained confirmation and ordination as edifying rites; but she degraded them from the rank of sacraments. Shrift was no part of her system. Yet she gently invited the dying penitent to confess his sins to a divine, and empowered her ministers to soothe the departing soul by an absolution which breathes the very spirit of the old religion. In general it may be said that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Gymbert. You never were known as a truth teller. This is your own affair, or Quendritha's, for Offa has seen no man to give any such order to. Nor dare you go near him on your own account, or short would be your shrift. Get hence, and take your lies back to her who sent you. Mayhap you have told that queen that you have slain Sighard the thane. If so, another lie or two will ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... Tibble. "But bone shall make me trow that shrift in words, without heart-sorrow for sin, and the Latin heard with no thought of Him that bore the guilt, can set the sinner free. 'Tis none other that the Dean sets forth, ay, and the book that I have here. I thank my God," he stood up and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... they'd a regular tariff, as we've Sir Robert Peel's, Stating so much for him who "lies, swears, murders, stabs, or steals;" And p'rhaps a thousand items more, as "not attending mass," "Ogling the girls," "neglecting shrift," and others ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... threateningly. You're like the rest of them, are you? An insolent pack of little bitches since your poor mother died. But wait awhile. You'll all get a short shrift and a long day from me. Low blackguardism! I'm going to get rid of you. Wouldn't care if I was stretched out stiff. He's dead. The man ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Officer drifts on, and presently, with the uneasy assurance of the proprietor of a punch-and-judy show who has inadvertently strayed into Park Lane, attempts once more to give his unpopular entertainment. This time his shrift is even shorter, for he encounters Major Kemp—never at his sunniest in the ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... The whole workshop, indeed, seemed doomed to complete destruction, for the fire had obtained such firm hold that the engines seemed to make little impression upon it. From the shouts of the Germans it was clear that they were greatly enraged, and it was perfectly certain that the shrift of the authors of the fire, if they were caught, would be an ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... themselves. One ran under the table, the second got into the bed, the third into the oven, the fourth in the kitchen, the fifth in the cupboard, the sixth under the sink, and the seventh in the clock-case. But the wolf found them all, and gave them short shrift; one after the other he swallowed down, all but the youngest, who was hid in the clock-case. And so the wolf, having got what he wanted, strolled forth into the green meadows, and laying himself down under a tree, ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... in La Revue (Paris), "Carnegie and the German Peace," would seem to indicate that France is not yet looking toward peace. The article is by Jean Finot himself, the well-known editor and publisher of La Revue, and it gives the pacifists short shrift indeed. The American peace propaganda, M. Finot characterizes as "the attempt at corruption," and he holds ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... it consisteth in the deniall of the whole faith, sometimes in part. The first is, when the soule is absolutelie yeelded to the diuell and hell-fier: the other is, when they haue but bargained not to obserue certeine ceremonies and statutes of the church; as to conceale faults at shrift, to fast on sundaies, etc. And this is doone either by oth, protestation of words, or by obligation in writing, sometimes sealed with wax, ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... crept through the lanes like a wolf in winter, searching for some lonely colt or sheep to devour. Furious and bewildered, worn out with his long watching, he almost resolved that young La Mariniere should have short shrift if he met him. This, it seemed now, was the only way to remove him out of the General's path. None of his relations knew exactly where he was that night. If he were found dead in a ditch, the hand that struck him would never be known. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... the hound," he said to one of his retainers, "and see if the brute recognizes him; if so, put him in charge of him for the future. And see you Scot, that you attempt no tricks, for if you try to escape I will hang you without shrift." ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... a time when they might sift This hidden whim; and long they watch'd in vain; For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift, And seldom felt she any hunger-pain; And when she left, she hurried back, as swift As bird on wing to breast its eggs again; 470 And, patient, as a hen-bird, sat her there Beside her Basil, weeping through ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... somehow, the Providence in which she believed might intervene, or the Zulus might come to seek her, if they only knew where she was gone. Oh! why had she not brought a guard of them with her to Ramah? At least they would never have insulted her, and Ishmael's shrift would have been short. ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... no shrift to make," rejoined the butcher. "I have already settled my account with Heaven. ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of the wall, we could not see; but the work done there was done quickly. There was a little shouting, a sound of arms clashing, and then four or five men—as though this were the easiest way of getting rid of them—were thrown over the parapet, and fell near us in the water. To these short shrift was given. As they came to the surface, our fellows instantly finished them with a spear-thrust or two. Then we heard the sound of a windlass creaking, and the clanking of chains; and as we looked through the opening in the wall we saw the ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... afterwards. My verdict I gave in a look at the headman, and his confirmation of my unspoken thought was, "Yes; he's too quiet." Yet it was a long while before I could get him up sufficiently for recognition beyond doubt; that accomplished, it was short shrift. He was lifted into the boat by the tail, the triangles came out easily under the knife, and off went a well-mended fish of about 13 lb. That is to say, I call him a fish; the boatmen decline to render even this nominal honour, and ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... upon going to see whether the old woman wanted anything. As you might suppose, she was sent back to the parlour with short shrift, but not so harshly ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... command the whole secret corps of rangers and scouts of the army, who spread themselves everywhere, and freely entered in and out of the enemy's camp." In other words, he was a sort of chief spy; and if he had been caught in the British lines would have had a very short shrift, notwithstanding his sanctimonious utterances, and the peculiarly sensitive conscience of which he made a perpetual boast. About the same time he was declared a chief of the Iroquis nation, under the name of Onwarenhiiaki, or the tree ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... that the spying figure seen on Thames bank has followed me home and is responsible for after happenings, longer dallying must cease. Perhaps Paul is now in custody. Those who shall come for Pierre Lanier will witness a change and have short shrift." ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... French territory, should be put to death within twenty-four hours!' As in many cases the question of the crime of emigration was to be decided by persons actually enjoying the property of the alleged emigrant, this short shrift was a most effectual ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... off such devilish habits; reject all garments as plunder, and take only weapons: though if valuables offer themselves, ducats or silver, they are useful in any case. I tell you this beforehand, gentles, if any one gets drunk on the expedition, he will have a short shrift: I will have him dragged by the neck like a dog behind the baggage waggons, no matter who he may be, even were he the most heroic Cossack in the whole army; he shall be shot on the spot like a dog, and flung out, without ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... No, but a worse thing: 'twas told me in shrift; Thou know'st 'tis death, an if it be reveal'd. Come, ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... the Libel gun, I had still to be on my guard against more obscure and personal weapons; I am an ex-convict, and any lenity of treatment which I had hitherto enjoyed is not to be looked for in the future. If I were sent back to prison, my shrift was likely to be short; and I could only hope, in that event, to have been able to say enough to afford my entertainers ample provocation for giving me, as my comrades ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... life from that of the West End poulterer who sold only Surrey fowl, or, curiously enough, as he really does, Scotch salmon. So, too, with the theatres and music-halls; the lower riverside population demand, if not necessarily a short shrift, a cheap fare, and so he gets his two and three performances a night at a price ranging from three pence to two shillings for what in the west brings from one ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... the opinion that the cursed Inglez, the spy who came from Jamaica to see whom he could get for a hanging without a priest, was down there, too. So that was it! O'Brien knew how to stir their hate. I should get a short shrift. "He was a fiend, the Inglez: look how many of us he has killed!" they cried; and Manuel would have loved to cut my flesh, in small pieces, off my bones—only, alas! I was now beyond his vengeance, he feared. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... brilliance of good cheer in the works of Stevenson and other tubercular artists. The white plague is a powerful mental stimulant. It is a double-distilled extract of baseless optimism. But this optimism, like that resulting from other stimulants, is dearly bought. Its shrift is too short. And let nobody forget that for each variety of pathological optimism and brilliance and beauty there are ninety and nine corresponding sorts of pathological pessimism and dullness and ugliness induced by disorders of the liver, heart, ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... were going to go on with our work. The only point from which we could fire upon these destructive guns was so exposed that any artillery we might be able to mount there could only count on the shortest shrift under the fire of the hundred or more 'heavies' that the Austrians would be able to concentrate upon it. And yet (I figured), well employed, these few minutes might prove enough to do the ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... fought it out one morning in Mr. Stair's wood-field, and he had what he came for. Not to give him a chance to escape, we brought him here, and as soon as he is fit to ride I'll send him to the colonel. Tarleton will give him a short shrift, I promise you, and then"—this to the master of Appleby Hundred—"then your title will be well ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... us, with the girl, Conchita, composed our travelling party. I knew we dared not take the route usually travelled. We should be followed by hostile pursuers and forced back, perhaps slain upon the spot. I at least would have had a short shrift. Knowing this, we made direct for the mountains, with whose passes I was familiar, having traversed them in pursuit of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... it supplied me with absolutely no subject for writing. But as when we are together we are never at a loss for something to say, so ought our letters at times to digress into loose chat. Well then, to begin, the liberty of the Tenedians has received short shrift,[570] no one speaking for them except myself, Bibulus, Calidius, and Favonius. A complimentary reference to you was made by the legates from Magnesia and Sipylum, they saying that you were the man who alone had resisted ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Quick-witted and impatient, she had yet infinite toleration for the simpleton, and could on occasion suffer fools with a gladness quite unshared by her much gentler daughter or her husband. But the snob, the sycophant, and, above all, the humbug met with short shrift at her hands, and the insincere person hated her heartily. She spoke her mind with the utmost freedom on every possible occasion, and as she had plenty of brains and considerable shrewdness her remarks were ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... without halting (and his eyes waxed dim at the last) he would stand near the officiant, chaunt the psalms with him, say the amens, and be clerk, almost a laic. If he had the right book, he would be priest, say the prayers, use the holy water, swing the censer, cast on the mould, then give shrift and benison and go on his way. If the place were a large city and many bodies came for burial he did just the same until all were finished. Potentates expecting to eat bread with him were often vexed and complained at these delays; but, ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... composition, and its isolated situation must have all militated against discipline and restraint, and it appears to have degenerated into a band not unlike those Southern 'bush-whackers' in the American war to whom the Federals showed little mercy. They had given short shrift to the Boer prisoners who had fallen into their hands, the excuse offered for their barbarous conduct being that an officer who had served in the corps had himself been murdered by the Boers. Such a reason, even if it were true, could of course offer no justification for indiscriminate ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shrift for Peter of Colfax that night had not John and Guy and another of his henchmen rushed into ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... have waxed even warmer had not Rachel reentered the room for a pencil she had dropped. The head prefect pricked up her ears at the sound of the disturbance, whereupon Mabel and Bertha, who knew they would receive short shrift if she demanded an explanation, made a hasty exit, merely murmuring to Jess and Peachy as they ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... granted, in acknowledgement of her 'renowned humanity to both conflicting armies,' as the words translated by Dr. Glossop run. Certain it is she brought her wounded brother safe home to England, and prisoners in that war usually had short shrift. For three years longer she was the Countess of Fleetwood, 'widow of a living suicide,' Mr. Rose Mackrell describes the state of the Marriage at that period. No whisper ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the convent are now a number of pictures and fragments of sculpture. The "Last Supper," by Taddeo Gaddi, on the wall, is notable for depicting Judas, who had no shrift at the hands of the painters, without a halo. Castagno and Ghirlandaio, as we shall see, under similar circumstances, placed him on the wrong side of the table. In either case, but particularly perhaps in Taddeo's picture, the answer ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... chains round their limbs, might not be the liberators of Colonel Kelly—the slayers of Brett might not be amongst them; but they were Irishmen, at any rate, and so they would answer the purpose. Short shrift was the cry. The ordinary forms of law, the maxims of the Constitution, the rules of judicial procedure, the proprieties of social order and civilization, might be outraged and discarded, but speedy vengeance should, at all hazards, be obtained: ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... suspicion. Neither the leaders nor the people had forgotten his flight a year before to place himself at the head of the foreign invaders, nor the letter that he had left behind him for the National Assembly, protesting against all that had been done. They were again reminded of what short shrift they might expect if the King's friends should come back. The Duke of Brunswick at the head of the foreign army set out on his march, and issued his famous proclamation to the inhabitants of France. He demanded ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... draw near Him by hope and soothfast love. And right as after hope cometh love, so after Levi was Judah born, the fourth son of Leah. Leah in his birth cried and said: "Now shall I shrive to our Lord."[46] And therefore in the story is Judah cleped "Shrift."[47] Also man's soul in this degree of love offereth it clearly to God, and saith thus: "Now shall I shrive to our Lord." For before this feeling of love in a man's soul, all that he doth is done more for dread than for ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... passed through the last sluice, and at about three o'clock the last boom was shut behind them. There was no retreat possible for them now. The seventy were to take the strong castle and city of Breda or to lay down their lives, every man of them. No quarter and short shrift—such was their certain destiny, should that half-crippled, half-frozen little band not succeed in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... beggar! Is it not enough that thou art let into this high hall to pick up scraps, but thou must listen to our speech and join in our conversation? If thou shouldst bend that bow we will make short shrift of thee, I promise. We will put thee on a ship and send thee over to King Echetus, who will cut thee to pieces and give thy ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... shrift and a long rope for that Evan when I catch him," he said. "He comes here every year, and I suppose that the goods I have had from him at times have been plunder. I would that you had ended him last night. Now he has got away in peace, and is out of my reach, maybe, by ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... to any man, Heaven's gates might open; yet had he perished without shrift or sacrament, and I could never bear to be absent when masses were said for his soul's redemption. Nay, and I was fain to go to churches and chapels, inasmuch as I was secure there from the speech ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... he stands no nonsense. He's all on the side of the honest workers, and one of them has only to denounce a man as a thief for the Vigilants to nail him at once. Then there's a short trial, a short shrift, and there's one rogue the less ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... hypocrisy," he said. "Yet I will be frank as at an Easter shrift. Since that fellow Davie fell into credit and familiarity with Your Majesty, you no longer treated me nor entertained me after your wonted fashion, nor would you ever bear me company save this Davie were the third. Can I pretend, then, to regret ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... non-commissioned officer. Be assured that he chose the bravest of the brave for that night's work, for, when the drawbridge was drawn slowly up that evening, it was ten men, and three of them unarmed, against a regiment; and short and terrible would have been the shrift accorded to them had an inkling of suspicion arisen, or had the slightest blunder, or precipitation, ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... reclamation, conciliation, propitiation; indemnification, redress. amends, apology, amende honorable^, satisfaction; peace offering, sin offering, burnt offering; scapegoat, sacrifice. penance, fasting, maceration, sackcloth and ashes, white sheet, shrift, flagellation, lustration^; purgation, purgatory. V. atone, atone for; expiate; propitiate; make amends, make good; reclaim, redeem, repair, ransom, absolve, purge, shrive, do penance, stand in a white sheet, repent in sackcloth ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... ''48' was a farce. Stimulated by the French Revolution, John Mitchel wrote rabid sedition, but received short shrift at the hands of the Government, who arrested him, sentenced him to fourteen years' transportation, and almost from the dock he was taken manacled in a police van, escorted by cavalry, and put on board a steamer, which at once put ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... have I found alway. But of your greate goodness, by your leave, I woulde pray you that ye not you grieve, I will with Thomas speak *a little throw:* *a little while* These curates be so negligent and slow To grope tenderly a conscience. In shrift* and preaching is my diligence *confession And study in Peter's wordes and in Paul's; I walk and fishe Christian menne's souls, To yield our Lord Jesus his proper rent; To spread his word is alle mine intent." "Now by your faith, O deare ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... confess. I did not stir. Carefully every door of the church was shut; a holy quiet sank upon, and a solemn shade gathered about us. After a space, breathless and spent in prayer, a penitent approached the confessional. I watched. She whispered her avowal; her shrift was whispered back; she returned consoled. Another went, and another. A pale lady, kneeling near me, said in a low, kind voice:—"Go you now, I ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the fourth time since you broke your word, And started hacking through, the seasons' cycle Brings Autumn on; the goose, devoted bird, Prepares her shrift against the mass of MICHAEL; Earth takes the dead leaves' stain, And Peace, that hardy annual, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... a voice of icy calm the Colonel retorted, "If you summon your bodyguard, Maharajah, you are a dead man. That would be rebellion; and with rebels we make short shrift." ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... shrift for those that err! Jove has rebuked my sin: Now, helpless and without demur, You shall behold me where the tube-lifts purr Pale captive to the penny Thunderer ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various |
