"Unworthiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw the wonder of sea and sky, the boat coming in over the sea, with Maddalena in the stern holding a bouquet of flowers, his heart leaped up and he forgot for a moment the shadow in himself, the shadow of his own unworthiness. He sprang off ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... is of any use among bad men; and any form will work in the hands of the good; but the essence of all government among good men is this, that it is mainly occupied in the production and recognition of human worth, and in the detection and extinction of human unworthiness; and every Government which produces and recognizes worth, will also inevitably use the worth it has found to govern with; and therefore fall into some approximation to such a system as I have described. And, as I told you, I do not contend for names, nor particular powers—though ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... of their surroundings, their possible peril, as instantly erased from his mind. He merely saw that girl face upturned to his in the starlight, so fair and pleading, he merely heard that soft voice urging her unworthiness, her sorrow. A great, broad-shouldered giant he towered above her, yet his voice trembled like that of a ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... Divine Office, which in spite of my unworthiness is a daily joy, I have not the courage to look through books for beautiful prayers. I only get a headache because of their number, and besides, one is more lovely than another. Unable therefore to say them all, and lost in choice, I do ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... began, in a trembling voice. "Before I cast my vote in this ballot, I wish to say that I have listened to my honored colleague from Chouteau County with mingled feelings of shame at my own unworthiness and admiration for the courage which had dared to say what every man of us should have said six weeks ago. Senator Danvers beseeches us to send to Washington a man who will guard the fair name of Montana, who will work for our best interests, and reflect honor on every inhabitant of ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinders not the Effect of the Sacraments.—Although in the visible Church, the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometime the evil have chief authority in the ministration of the Word and Sacraments; yet, forasmuch as they do not the same in their own name, but ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... yet he has bid you come to him. He knows that,—and knowing it, he has taken your responsibility and paid your debt, and offers you now a clean discharge, if you will take it at his hand;—and for the other part of this unworthiness, that blood cannot do away, blood has brought the remedy—'Shall we who are evil give good things to our children, and shall not our Father which is in heaven give his Holy Spirit to them that ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... several years Governor of the Plymouth colony. It has been stated above that the ship Fortune, of 53 tons burden, brought in the autumn of 1621 the Pilgrim passengers who had been left in England the year before by the sea-unworthiness of the Speedwell. The Fortune anchored in Plymouth Bay the 9th of November—just a year from the day on which the Mayflower spied the land of Cape Cod. Mr. Winslow prepared and sent back by the Fortune an elaborate "Relation" ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... offers courtesies to show them, rather than himself, humble. He disdains all things above his reach, and preferreth all countries before his own. He imputeth his want and poverty to the ignorance of the time, not his own unworthiness; and concludes his discourse with half a period, or a word, and leaves the rest to imagination. In a word, his religion is fashion, and both body and soul are governed by fame; he ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... Reform Bill era. That is the right thing; and for that he will work day and night, body and soul, and if needs be, die. There, in the editor's den at Leeds, he "begins to see the truth of what you told me about the world's unworthiness; but stop a little. I am not sad as yet. . . . If I am hindered from feeling the soul of poetry among woods and fields, I yet trust I am struggling for something worth prizing— something of which I am not ashamed, and need not be. If there be aught on earth worth aspiring to, it is the lot of him ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... he witnessed did not console him for that chill hour of dawn, when, in the chapel at Donnaz, he had served the mass for Don Gervaso, with a heart trembling at its own unworthiness yet uplifted by the sense of the Divine Presence. In the churches adorned like aristocratic drawing-rooms, of which some Madonna, wreathed in artificial flowers, seemed the amiable and indulgent hostess, and where the florid passionate music of the mass was rendered by the King's opera ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... seemed taking part in a triumphal march led by celestial minstrelsy toward the throne. She saw her husband mount its white, glistening steps, so changed, and yet so like his former self when full of love, youth, and hope. He appeared overwhelmed with a sense of unworthiness, but his reception was all the more kind and reassuring. Then as he departed from the royal presence, crowned with God's love and favor forever, though he had all heaven before him, he seemed looking for her as that he longed for most, and her strong ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... entirety he laid bare the burning hopeless passion that consumed him, the torturing longing that possessed him, and the knowledge of his own unworthiness that had driven him from her that she might be free with a freedom that would be at last absolute. But even in this letter which tore down so completely the barrier between them he did not admit to her the true reason of his marriage, he preferred to leave ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... regard of our deliverance past, and our danger present and to come, let us look up to God, and every man reform his own ways. Besides we are come here amongst a Christian people, full of piety and humanity. Let us not bring that confusion of face upon ourselves, as to show our vices or unworthiness before them. Yet there is more, for they have by commandment (though in form of courtesy) cloistered us within these walls for three days; who knoweth whether it be not to take some taste of our manners and conditions? And if they find ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... moves, plotting in the darkness against her, and fighting desperately with such weak weapons as she possessed. It was characteristic that she did not blame herself for her failure; it was the baseness of van Tuiver, his inability to appreciate sincere devotion, his unworthiness of her love. And this, just after she had been naively telling me of her efforts to poison his mind against Sylvia while pretending to admire her! But I made allowances for Claire at this moment—realizing ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... in that of the mourning and self-reproaching Christian who sits by your side,—your devout father, your saintly mother, or sister,—whom you know, and who you know is a better being than you are. Why should they be weary and heavy-laden with a sense of their unworthiness before God, and you go through life indifferent and light-hearted? Are they deluded in respect to the doctrine of human depravity, and are you in the right? Think you that the deathbed and the day of judgment will prove this to be the fact? No! if you shall ever know anything of the Christian ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... previous chapters I have quoted the late Master of Balliol and Lord Sherbrooke. Professor Thorold Rogers excelled in a Shandean vein. Lord Bowen is immortalized by his emendation to the Judge's address to the Queen, which had contained the Heep-like sentence—"Conscious as we are of our own unworthiness for the great office to which we have been called." "Wouldn't it be better to say, 'Conscious as we are of one another's unworthiness'?" Henry Smith, Professor of Geometry, the wittiest, most learned, and most genial ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... unto thee that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain." Moses'doubts of the truth of his Divine mission originated in the consciousness of his own unworthiness, and in the condition of those to whom he was sent. From these doubts he was delivered by the announcement that, at the place where he had been called, he, at the head of the delivered people, should serve his God. This ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... "It was to me, too. But—though fully sensible of my unworthiness—I shall do my best to deserve the very high honour that has been done me. And I hope we may count ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... hitherto opposed to conscience and to public opinion the same cool and placid hardihood which distinguished him on fields of battle, had really begun to feel remorse, it would be absurd to reject, on account of his unworthiness, the inestimable services which it was in his power to render to the good cause. He sate in the interior council; he held high command in the army; he had been recently entrusted, and would doubtless again ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he thought of Violet,—of Violet again free, of Violet as again a possible wife for himself, of Violet to whom he might address himself at any rate without any scruple as to his own unworthiness. Everybody concerned, and many who were not concerned at all, were aware that he had been among her lovers, and he thought that he could perceive that those who interested themselves on the subject, had regarded ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... stayed sober all might have been well, but his headache and feeling of unworthiness had been too much for him and I found him with a straw in the neck of a bottle of whisky alternately laying down law to Georges Coutlass and drinking himself into a state of ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... friendship, and especially as having an immediate intercourse with God, such as the closest intimacies of earth dimly shadow forth;—when this thought of my future being comes to me, whilst I hope, I also fear; the blessedness seems too great; the consciousness of present weakness and unworthiness is almost too strong for hope. But when, in this frame of mind, I look round on the creation, and see there the marks of an omnipotent goodness, to which nothing is impossible, and from which every thing may be Loped; when I see around me the proofs of an ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... naught, and less than naught. 'T is but a new knowledge of mine own unworthiness. Sure 'never such a fool as an old fool' ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... to the intellectual life is but a survival of the general anti-educational prejudices of former ages. It is also a kind of envy, prompting us to find fault with whatever excellence is a reproach to our unworthiness. The disinterested love of truth is a rare virtue, most difficult to acquire and most difficult to preserve. If knowledge bring power and wealth, if it give fame and pleasure, it is dear to us; but how many are able to love it for its own sake? Do not nearly all men strive to convince ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... His reverence!—his unworthiness!—'Tis so apparent, that even he himself sees it, as well as every body else. Hence his offers to purchase me! Hence it is, that settlements are to make up for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Haney, who was without subtlety in affairs of the heart. The women he had known had been mainly coarse-fibred or of brutish directness of passion and purpose, and this woman's words and tone at once confused and appalled him. All she said of his unworthiness as a husband was true. He had gone to Sibley at first to win Bertha at less cost than making her his wife—but of that he had repented, and on his death-bed (as he thought) he had sought to endow her with his gold. Since then he had lived, but only as half a man. ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... for a few seconds, and you are going to be so exceedingly kind as to listen to me. You need fear nothing. I did not carry you off to insult you, nor yet to take by force what you refused to grant of your own will to my unworthiness. I could not stoop so low. You possibly think of outrage; for myself, I have ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... It was here that the Senora had perceived some things that it would be out of her power to do. "We will not discuss those, because they do not touch the real point at issue. What it is our duty to do by Ramona, in such a matter as this, does not turn on her worthiness or unworthiness. The question is, Is it right for you to allow her to do what you would not allow your own sister to do?" The Senora paused for a second, noted with secret satisfaction how puzzled and unhappy Felipe looked; then, in a still gentler voice, ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... "whatever may have been her unworthiness, it can never afflict you more; I believe that she is in her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... of his father, Stevenson speaks of him as a "man of somewhat antique strain, and with a blended sternness and softness that was wholly Scottish, and at first sight somewhat bewildering," as melancholy, and with a keen sense of his unworthiness, yet humorous in company; shrewd and childish; ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... was not worthy to be any longer trodden by his feet. He himself, on the other hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief that if Providence should see fit to remove him, it would be because of his own unworthiness to perform its humblest mission here on earth. With all this difference of opinion as to the cause of his decline, there could be no question of the fact. His form grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... clauses of the bill before those of disfranchisement, so as to give the latter a more gracious appearance, as if the boroughs to be extinguished were made to suffer, not so much for their own positive unworthiness as in order to make room for others which had become of undeniably greater importance. The King took the strictly constitutional line of accepting their resignation and intrusting the Duke of Wellington with the task of forming a new administration, warning the Duke, at the same ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... cessation of those perpetual gyrations? Yet no gesture, no devious step betrayed impatience. On they went, as if destined to move thus for ever. Looks long and earnest began now to be cast upon the new-made hillock, as if striving to draw inspiration thence, or reproaching its tenant with his unworthiness. No inspiration came, and gradually the steps became slower and more languid, yet still the measured tread went on. A darker and darker cloud settled on their weary faces, but they could not stop; the duty was too sacred to remain unfulfilled. They could not leave ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Could he do less than this he was about to do? Rose had wedded her noble nature to him, and it was as much her spirit as his own that urged him thus to forfeit her, to be worthy of her by assuming unworthiness. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... my object, I must explain more particularly than as yet I have done, a word rendered frivolous by the levity of our heart, a word defiled by the disorder of our passions, and too often by the unworthiness, and worse, of poets and novelists, but which still, in its virgin purity, is ever protesting against the outrages to which it has been subjected: that word ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... your helping hand; yet I never dreamed or dared to cherish thy love, till a voice impaired with age encouraged the cause, and declared they who acquired thy favor should win a victory. I saw how Leos worshiped thee. I felt my own unworthiness. I began to KNOW JEALOUSLY, a strong guest—indeed, in my bosom, —yet I could see if I gained your admiration Leos was to be my rival. I was aware that he had the influence of your parents, and the wealth of a deceased ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... soul, she dare not approach it; she sees it adorned with all the ornaments which her Bridegroom has taken from her; but though she admires it, and sinks into the depths of nothingness, she cannot desire to have these ornaments again, so conscious is she of her unworthiness to wear them. She thinks it would be a profanation to put them upon a person so covered with mud and defilement. She even rejoices to see that, if she fills her Beloved with horror, there are others ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... these injuries except Westover, but Whitwell called them out with a frankness which was perhaps more carefully adapted to the situation than it seemed. Westover made no attempt to parry them formally; but he offered some generalities in extenuation of the unworthiness of the Durgins, which Whitwell did ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... contrivance that it was!—with only the thinnest vesture of human similitude about it, through which was evident the stiff, ricketty, incongruous, faded, tattered, good-for-nothing patchwork of its substance, ready to sink in a heap upon the floor, as conscious of its own unworthiness to be erect. Shall I confess the truth? At its present point of vivification, the scarecrow reminds me of some of the lukewarm and abortive characters, composed of heterogeneous materials, used for the thousandth time, and never worth ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... no one will be sorry that her own love-story should find a pleasant denouement. As an argument in favor of mixed marriages the book would have been stronger if Esther's lover had been separated from her only by prejudice, and not by unworthiness as well, but the pathos of the story is in no way marred by the neglect to clinch an argument. Like all Miss Laffan's novels, it is simple in plot. Construction is not her strong point, and though Christy Carew has more story to it than her former books, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... beside which any other publicity is that of a hermit's cell. The whole farm knows where you are, and all are suspicious of your predatory intentions. You can have none under these conditions. Meanwhile the whole pack voices its opinion of you and your unworthiness. ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... to come. Piers, on the other hand, though with less poetic rage, is a truer idealist, and approaches the high things of poetry more reverentially than his Bacchic comrade. When Cuddie, acknowledging his own unworthiness, adds: ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... incompatible. And yet wealth cannot extinguish insatiable greed, nor has power ever made him master of himself whom vicious lusts kept bound in indissoluble fetters; dignity conferred on the wicked not only fails to make them worthy, but contrarily reveals and displays their unworthiness. Why does it so happen? Because ye take pleasure in calling by false names things whose nature is quite incongruous thereto—by names which are easily proved false by the very effects of the things ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... negligence of soul, and that you held The pleasures of to-day your only care, Regardless of the morrow; I found means That you should neither want, nor waste my substance. When you, whom fair succession first made heir, Stood self-degraded by unworthiness, I went to those the next in blood to you, Committing and consigning all to them. There shall your weakness, Clitipho, be sure Ever to find a refuge; food, and raiment, And roof to ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... so! I feel it so!" agreed the professor eagerly. He was charmed to discover so understanding an appreciation of his fiancee, and rose to the bait with innocent alacrity. "I feel very deeply the responsibility attached to such a trust and my own unworthiness to possess it, but I know that Esther will be patient with me and help me to overcome my failings. She is ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... more humbly remember our sins and unworthiness, and strive to shew forth our thankfulness, "not with our lips only, ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... special notorious facts; the bishops replied with urging the theory of their position, and supposed that they could relieve the ecclesiastical system from the faults of its ministers, by laying the sole blame on the unworthiness of individual persons. The degenerate representatives of a once noble institution could not perhaps be expected to admit their degeneracy, and confess themselves, as they really were, collectively incompetent; yet the defence which they brought ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... throne of God and of the Lamb. Wherefore, sinner, here is laid a necessity upon thee; one of the two must be thy lot: either thou must accept of God's grace, and be content to be saved freely thereby, notwithstanding all thy undeservings and unworthiness, or else thou must be damned for thy rebellion, and for thy neglecting of this grace. Wherefore consider with thyself, and think what is best to be done. Is it better that thou submit to the grace and mercy of God, and that thou accept of grace to reign for thee, in ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... own unworthiness, sir, but I think any passing follies I may have indulged in are ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... hand, neither had she treated her ex-governess with kindness or courtesy. She had been calm and cold in her reception of the visitor; that was all. But was she right? After all, she knew no positive evil of the woman. She had only strong circumstantial evidence of her unworthiness. She recalled an old saying ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... man able to forgive himself. Nor does it always cleanse an unclean inner life. To many a man it has been just the fact that his fiance or wife was so sublimely willing and able to forgive that has revealed to him his own unworthiness and ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... bent on honouring his Master and promoting the good of the people among whom he labours, and who is not at the same time increasingly thankful for having been called to so high an office, while deeply humbled at his own unworthiness and his ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... of undeserved praise; but though his natural fear of offending and losing favor sprung up directly, a higher principle faced it, and bearing down all obstacles, forced him to acknowledge his unworthiness of the ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... woman to dream that her lover is a pirate, is a sign of his unworthiness and deceitfulness. If she is captured by pirates, she will be induced to leave her home ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... American critic—by which I mean you, O discriminating reader, as well as the professional who puts pen to paper—is equally in need of the art of definition. The books we read and write are on different planes of absolute excellence or unworthiness. There is—to take the novel—the story well calculated to pass a pleasant hour but able to pass nothing else; there is the story with a good idea in it and worth reading for the idea only; there is the story worthless as art but usefully catching some current phase of experience; and there is ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... indwelling, their want of anything in their experience that corresponds in the least degree to such words as these. Judge whether a man is not more likely to be bowed down in wholesome sense of his own sinfulness and unworthiness, if he has before him such an ideal as this of my text, than if it, too, has faded out of his life. I believe, for my part, that one great cause of the worldliness and the sinfulness and mechanical formalities that are eating the life out of the Christianity of this generation is the fact of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... numerous acquaintances and give them all the advantages, social and political, his wealth could so easily obtain. Then why, in the name of well-bred indolence, should he muse with such persistent gloom, on his general unworthiness at this particular moment? Was it because this Norwegian maiden's grand blue eyes had met his with such beautiful trust ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... in feeling that it was a happiness undeserved: for he thought himself much inferior to Christophe, who in his turn was no less humble. This mutual humility, the product of their great love for each other, was an added joy. It was a pure delight—even with the consciousness of unworthiness—for each to feel that he filled so great a room in the heart of his friend. Each to other they were tender and filled ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... whom he had not seen for years, and this classmate introduced Duncan to his sister, and this sister was a remarkably pretty girl, and Duncan fell in love with her at first sight, and by the time he got to the top of Mount Washington he was so deep in love that he began to consider his own unworthiness, and to wonder whether she might ever be induced to care for him a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... Because of my unworthiness, O master, my heart's beloved, I have been allowed to come between you and the work you were given of the gods to do. The fault is all mine, and must come from my evil deeds in a previous life. By sacrifice of joy ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... sposalizio struck me as tame and cheerless, the mass as irreverent and vulgarly conducted. At the same time there is something too impressive in the mass for any perfunctory performance to divest its symbolism of sublimity. A Protestant Communion Service lends itself more easily to degradation by unworthiness in ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... a tonic to weak natures and wavering wills; and Christie felt a general revival going on within herself as her knowledge, honor, and affection for him grew. His strength seemed to uphold her; his integrity to rebuke all unworthiness in her own life; and the magic of his generous, genial spirit to make the hard places smooth, the bitter things sweet, and the world seem a happier, honester place than she had ever thought it ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... primary instruction attributes to it. Historical research has verified the opinion of these witnesses. It is impossible to relate the taking of the Bastile Saint-Antoine without recognizing the silliness or the unworthiness of the citizens who were the principal actors in this enterprise. This old prison had just been put out of commission by a royal ordinance which decreed its demolition. Very many of the 'conquerors of the Bastile' cried 'Vive le Roi!' as they went down the Faubourg ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... moved to his depths, as the full extent of her sacrifice for love dawned upon him. He was a vagabond on the face of the earth, but she was tearing herself away from deep roots in the soil of home, as well as from the conventions of her circle and her sex. Once again he trembled with a sense of unworthiness, a sudden anxious doubt if he were noble enough to repay her trust. Mastering his emotion, he went on: "I reckon my packing and arrangements for leaving the country will take me all day at least. I must see my bankers if nobody else. I shan't take leave of anybody, that would arouse suspicion. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... "One's own unworthiness," I replied, "though doubtless real—p'f, p'f—is a barrier that most of us can readily get over when our admiration for a particular lady waxes strong enough. So THIS is the prior attachment!" I took the portrait down ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... of much sorrow of heart to her; and she was a distinctly clever little girl, of which she was utterly unconscious, it being an integral part of Miss Farringdon's system of education to imbue the young with an overpowering sense of their own inferiority and unworthiness. During the first decade of her existence Elisabeth used frequently and earnestly to pray that her hair might become golden and her eyes brown; but as on this score the heavens remained as brass, and her hair continued dark ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... allow any outsiders to be present, said his first Mass in a lonely little chapel in a wood near Bajet, beloved by him on account of its solitude and silence. There, entirely alone save for the acolyte and server required by the rubrics, and trembling at the thought of his own unworthiness, the newly made priest, celebrating the great Sacrifice for the first time, offered himself for life and death to be the faithful servant of his Lord. So high were his ideals of what the priestly life should be that in ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... barons formed an association, bound by oath to drive Gaveston into exile and deprive him of his earldom. All over the country there were secret meetings and eager preparations for war. The outlook became still more alarming when the Earl of Lincoln at last changed his policy. Convinced of the unworthiness of Gaveston, he turned against him, and the whole baronage followed his lead. Only Hugh Despenser and a few lawyers adhered to the favourite. Gloucester did not like to take an active part against his brother-in-law, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... timidly, like one who, whilst overconscious of his utter unworthiness, ventures to crave a boon which he knows himself without the right to expect, I asked Falcone would he show me something of Marozzo's art with ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... as I acknowledge that for the most part it is, to speak disrespectfully of Works that have enjoyed for a length of time a widely-spread reputation, without at the same time producing irrefragable proofs of their unworthiness, let me be forgiven upon this occasion.—Having had the good fortune to be born and reared in a mountainous country, from my very childhood I have felt the falsehood that pervades the volumes imposed upon the world under the name of ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... forgotten for the time her own sense of unworthiness, and was smiling happily as friend after friend arrived, when suddenly her smile vanished. For coming up the path in a fine dress of pale yellow muslin and wearing a flower-trimmed hat was Lucia Horton. No one but Rebecca, of course, was surprised to see Lucia. ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... for the advantage of such moments?—moments indeed they were, and less—flashes of time, that were not here before they had disappeared. We exchanged but few words. I was still oppressed with the conviction of my own unworthiness, and wondered if she could read in my burning face the history of shame. How she must avoid and despise me, thought I, when she has discovered all, and how bold and wicked it was to darken the light in which she lived with the guilt that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... customary disguise, let us be frank: you have been angrily asking, exquisitely hypocritical reader, why you have been forced to read this record of sinful life; in your exquisite hypocrisy, you have said over and over again what good purpose can it serve for a man to tell us of his unworthiness unless, indeed, it is to show us how he may rise, as if on stepping stones of his dead self, to higher things, etc. You sighed, O hypocritical friend, and you threw the magazine on the wicker table, where such things lie, and you murmured something about leaving the world a little better ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... pious character of the new bishop, the growing reputation, and rising honours of his son, she mistook the appearance of moral excellence for moral excellence itself, and felt her own unworthiness even to become the ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... beauty, her sweet life, her idyllic dreams, and Thorpe, the gang-driver! In his own soul he had made a shrine for Jeanne, and from his knees he had looked up at her, filled with the knowledge of his own unworthiness. He had worshiped her, as Dante might have worshiped Beatrice. To him she was the culmination of all that was sweet and lovable in woman, transcendently above him. And from this love, this worship ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... of tidying up, which, from the nature of things, cannot be regarded as premature. The fact is that I wanted to do it myself because of a feeling that had nothing to do with the considerations of worthiness or unworthiness of the small (but unbroken) pieces collected within the covers of this volume. Of course it may be said that I might have taken up a broom and used it without saying anything about it. That, certainly, is one way of ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... cheerful semblance and sweet majesty; That every wretch, pining and pale before, Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks. A largess universal like the sun His liberal eye doth give to every one, Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all Behold, as may unworthiness define, A little touch of Harry in the night. And so our scene must to the battle fly, Where—O for pity!—we shall much disgrace With four or five most vile and ragged foils, Right ill-dispos'd in brawl ridiculous, The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see, Minding ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... knows how hard! If he were dead, I could bear it better. But, ah! to live with this great sea of silence between us— a dreary, cold, mocking sea, crossed by no word, no whisper, filled only with slowly, sadly sailing ghosts of precious memories! Yes, yes! despite all his unworthiness—despite the verdict of my judgment, and the upbraiding of my conscience—I love him! I love him! You can sympathize with me. Do not reproach me; pity me, oh! pity me in ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... he answered awkwardly after thinking a while. "This priest, Nicholas, though I hold him a foul villain, is doubtless still a priest, clothed with all the authority of our Lord Himself, since the unworthiness of the minister does not invalidate the sacrament. Were it otherwise, indeed, few would be well baptized or wed or shriven. Moreover, although I suspect that himself he mixed the draught, yet he may not have known that you were drugged, and you stood silent, and, ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... lavish their alms upon Beggars, and obstruct the relief of the really indigent.—Alms that frustrate a good and useful institution cannot be meritorious, or acceptable to God: and no maxim is less founded in truth, than that the merit of the giver is undiminished by the unworthiness of the object.— The truly distressed are too bashful to mix with the herd of common Beggars; necessity, it is true, will sometimes conquer their timidity, and compel them publicity to solicit charity; but their modest ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... heed of merit or unworthiness Deceived himself concerning the value of his own work Gods whom men had invented after their own likeness Hate the person from whom ...
— Quotations From Georg Ebers • David Widger
... presently said, in answer. "The worry, the uncertainty, as to what I ought to do, has destroyed the peace of my later days. I altered my will when smarting under the discovery of his unworthiness; but, even then a doubt as to whether I was doing right caused me to name him as inheritor, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... engineer's unswerving loyalty. Year after year he had never faltered, and at the end of it all, even though apparently robbed by his chief of his heart's desire, had thrust himself between Clark and the hoarse hatred of the mob. Came now an overwhelming sense of unworthiness, and Clark asked of himself who was he to demand such sacrifice. Then, as though a cloud had revealed the sun, the way ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... Nassau Hall. It was a strange sight to that rude hamlet of Stockbridge—those reverend forms finishing their long journey at the feet of the poor exiled missionary. When their errand was announced, he burst into tears, overcome by a sense of unworthiness, and in a subsequent letter he confirms his unfitness by reference to his 'flaccid solids and weak and sizy fluids.' But the demand was pressed, and Northampton learns with astonishment the exaltation of her banished ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... he, how unjust and cruel are you, and how severe my fate, which not content with the despair my real unworthiness of adoring you has plunged me in, but also adds to it an imputation of crimes my soul most detests:—I never heard even the name of the lady you mentioned till your lips pronounced it; and if it be she I danced with, I protest I never saw her face: and as for the meaning of the other lady's treatment ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... the consciousness of Christ's love, uninterrupted by our transgression, is the mightiest power to deepen penitence and the consciousness of unworthiness. Do you not think that when the Apostle saw in Christ's face, and heard from His lips, the full assurance of forgiveness, he was far more ashamed of himself than he had ever been in the hours of bitterest remorse? So long as there ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... that the fallow years are as good as the years of plenty; the silent Winter prepares the soil for Spring; and we know, too, that the sense of unworthiness and the discontent that Thorwaldsen felt during his first few weeks at ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... headache by the same girdle, but when next it was wanted, it could nowhere be found. Bede argues quaintly that its disappearance was also an act of Divine Providence, since some of the sick who flocked to it might be unworthy, and, not being cured, might doubt its efficacy, while in reality, their own unworthiness was to blame. "Thus," he concludes, "was all matter for detraction removed from ...
— Early Double Monasteries - A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914 • Constance Stoney
... my Uncle, the General Robert, answered to me as I told him of my unworthiness of his gift of the ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... part," said Oisille, "I do not call the woman ignorant who brings her candle or burning taper into the presence of God, and makes amends for her wrongdoing on bended knees before her sovereign Lord, confessing her unworthiness and with steadfast hope seeking ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... from her own lips. There is nothing, except some unworthiness in herself, that could make any change in my estimation ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... serene and still an evening! how calm are the heavens and the earth! Shall none enjoy them; not even we, my Leofric? The sun is ready to set: let it never set, O Leofric, on your anger. These are not my words: they are better than mine. Should they lose their virtue from my unworthiness in uttering them? ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... and with Dr. Liddon. The latter said that "he thought a deacon might lawfully, if he found himself unfit for the work, abstain from direct ministerial duty." And so, with many qualms about his own unworthiness, he at last decided to ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... smiled, somehow, as if he had been to a very excellent college and a super-fine prep school of many traditions—as, indeed, he had—but now it was exactly the grin, Marjorie realized, still with a feeling of unworthiness, of the soldier, sailor, and marine grinning so artlessly from the War Camp Community posters. In his year of foreign service, Francis had shaken off the affectations of his years, making him, at twenty-five, a much older and more ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... to be her father. My estimate of my own worth was not so modest that I could conceive of my interests ever being seriously jeopardized by this pompous maker of nails. It was pleasanter to think that the fault lay rather in my own unworthiness than in another's worth, and my pride urged me to combat her, to prove that while I might not be all that a woman of her ideals could ask, yet my shortcomings were those of my fellows in mass and not ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... facts were ascertained. Browning would not urge her a step beyond her actual feelings, but he must know whether her refusal was based solely on her view of his supposed interests. And with the true delicacy of frankness she admits that even the sense of her own unworthiness is not the insuperable obstacle. No—but is she not a confirmed invalid? She thought that she had done living when he came and sought her out. If he would be wise, all these thoughts of her must be abandoned. Such an answer brought a great calm to Browning's heart; ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... not blind, nor yet forgiving. "O yes, believe me," as the song says, "Love has eyes!" The nearer the intimacy, the more cuttingly do we feel the unworthiness of those we love; and because you love one, and would die for that love to-morrow, you have not forgiven, and you never will forgive, that friend's misconduct. If you want a person's faults, go to those who love him. ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... again seating himself at the head of the table, "I should pay but a bad compliment to your understanding, were I any further to insist on my own unworthiness. I will not, at any rate, be wanting in zeal for the good cause, and I will trust to Him who directs us all, for assistance in the difficult duties which you have imposed ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... account for the fairy race. It is that they are angels who revolted with Satan and were excluded from heaven for their unworthiness, but were not found evil enough for hell, and therefore were allowed to occupy that intermediate space which has been called "the Other World." It is still a moot point with the Irish peasantry, as it was with ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... a silent commentary on his own unworthiness. "I know I'm only a sort of a waistrel," he said, "but, Phil, the way I'm loving that girl it's shocking. I can never take rest for thinking of her. No, I'm not sleeping at night nor working reg'lar in the day neither. Everything ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... the poet in one of the final hymns of the "Royal Crown," filled with a sense of his own unworthiness, ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... her lovers, accidentally cast her eye on the portrait of a philosopher, that hung opposite to her seat: the happy character of temperance and virtue struck her with so lively an image of her own unworthiness, that she instantly quitted the room; and, retiring home, became ever after an example of temperance, as she had been before ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers |
