"Reprieve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doom of all mankind? Or doth it happen only to some?" They answered, "Unless death come before hand to remove him, no dweller on earth, but, as life advanceth, must make trial of this lot." Then the young prince asked in how many years this overtook a man, and whether the doom of death was without reprieve, and whether there was no way to escape it, and avoid coming to such misery. They answered him, "In eighty or an hundred years men arrive at this old age, and then they die, since there is none other way; for ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... hath reached me, O auspicious King, that quoth the Death-messenger to the King, "Well-away, well-away! this may be in no way. How can I grant thee a reprieve when the days of thy life are counted and thy breaths numbered and thy moments fixed and written?" "Grant me an hour," asked the King; but the Angel answered saying, "The hour was in the account and hath sped, and thou unheeding aught; and hath fled, and thou taking no thought: and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... disposed of my prisoner?" she asked. "Listen to me, commandant; surely, if I can trust your face, the death of a man after a fight is no particular satisfaction to you. Well, then, give my Chouan a reprieve, for which I will be responsible, and let me see him. I assure you that aristocrat has become essential to me, and he can be made to further the success of our plans. Besides, to shoot a mere amateur in Chouannerie ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... to put his new resolution in force. The immediate apprehensions of the kidnapper were quieted, by an assurance that he might yet live for days, though his punishment was inevitable. A reprieve, to one abject and wretched as Abiram, temporarily produced the same effects as a pardon. He was even foremost in assisting in the appalling arrangements, and of all the actors, in that solemn tragedy, his voice alone ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... investigation said. "There's no such thing as a flying saucer." He went on to say that all people who saw flying saucers were jokers, crackpots, or publicity hounds. Then he gave the airline pilots who'd been reporting UFO's a reprieve. "They were just fatigued," he said. "What they thought ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... occurs. A leading firm with enormous assets becomes bankrupt, simply because an agent is tardy in transmitting available funds, as ordered. An innocent man is hanged because the messenger bearing a reprieve should have arrived five minutes earlier. A man is stopped five minutes to hear a trivial story and misses a train or steamer by ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Take what precautions you please, if it is any satisfaction to you to do so; but rely upon my obtaining the reprieve I seek." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... place in 1712, when the jury convicted an old woman named Jane Wenham, of Walkerne, a little village in the north of Hertfordshire, and she was sentenced to be hanged. The judge, however, quietly procured a reprieve for her, and a kind-hearted gentleman in the neighbourhood gave her a cottage to live in, where she ended her days in peace. With regard to the mobbing of reputed sorcerers, it is recorded that in the year 1628, Dr. Lamb, a so-called wizard, who had been under the protection of ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... to understand, but an unhappier face I have never seen. She looked like a criminal whose reprieve is over, and the day of ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... woman on his arm he approached the box-office. "Not a seat left," sounded to his hen-pecked ears like the concluding words of the black-robed judge: "and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul." But a reprieve came, for one of the aforesaid beacon lights of hope rushed forward, saying: "I have two good seats, not far back, and only ten apiece." And the gentleman with fear in his heart and the red-faced woman ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... with them, but men of desperate fortunes or enthusiasts: those who dare not ask pardon, because they have transgressed beyond it, and those who gain by confusion, as thieves do by fires: to whom forgiveness were as vain, as a reprieve to condemned beggars; who must hang without it, or starve ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... with agility in the wake of the Lady Fani. Hoddan picked up his bag and followed. This, he considered darkly, was in the nature of a reprieve only. And if those three spaceships overhead did ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... with red-hot pincers, to be torn asunder by four horses, and to be quartered. Before the execution of this frightful sentence, he was, by order of the court, put to torture. But, instead of reiterating his former accusations, he retracted almost every point.[240] To purchase a few moments' reprieve, he sought an interview with the first president of the parliament, Christopher de Thou; and we have it upon the authority of that magistrate's son, the author of an imperishable history of his times, that, entering into greater detail, Poltrot persisted constantly in exculpating ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... shades wear, and what forms are seen In their large bowers, with that sad path and seat Which none but light-heel'd nymphs and fairies beat;[55] Their solitary life, and how exempt From common frailty, the severe contempt They have of man, their privilege to live A tree, or fountain, and in that reprieve What ages they consume, with the sad vale Of Diophania, and the mournful tale, Of th' bleeding vocal myrtle; these and more Thy richer thoughts, we are upon the score To thy rare fancy for, nor dost thou fall From thy first majesty, or ought at all Betray consumption; thy full vig'rous bays ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... moment there was no possible chance of escape for the Master. He had virtually condemned Himself by His own words. There was no retreat or reprieve. He was roughly pushed from the hall and like a common criminal was turned over to the taunts and revilings of the mob, which availed itself of its privileges to the full in this case. Insults, curses, revilings, ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... fear had suggested; the Athenians being glad to go out, as they thought they ran more risk than the rest, and further, did not expect any speedy relief, and the multitude generally being content at being left in possession of their civic rights, and at such an unexpected reprieve from danger. The partisans of Brasidas now openly advocated this course, seeing that the feeling of the people had changed, and that they no longer gave ear to the Athenian general present; and thus the surrender was made and Brasidas ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... Of Madian and her vanquisht Kings; And how ingrateful Ephraim Not worse then by his shield and spear Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument, Defended Israel from the Ammonite, Had not his prowess quell'd thir pride In that sore battel when so many dy'd Without Reprieve adjudg'd to death, For ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... with such a climate, it seems as if one could almost make repair equal waste, and thus keep death indefinitely at bay. But all men, even the strongest, are living under a death sentence, with but an indefinite reprieve. And even yet, with all of our science and health, we can not fully account for those diseases which seemingly pick the very best flower of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... longer, as Gordon was then at Jaffa, and that delay, I repeat it solemnly, cost Gordon his life. Whoever else was to blame afterwards, the first against whom a verdict of Guilty must be entered, without any hope of reprieve at the bar of history, was Sir ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... No graces can your form improve, But all are lost, unless you love; While that sweet passion you disdain, Your veil and beauty are in vain: In pity then prevent my fate, For after dying all reprieve's ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... although Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN is still nominally Chancellor of the Exchequer, he is really a prisoner in the Tower, conveyed under guard to and from the House, and that the reprieve of the sentence of capital punishment passed on him by The Daily Mail may expire—and he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... securely in this room, where you will be left in peace for at least forty-eight hours, after which time a telegram can be despatched to any address you choose to supply us with. But really, owing to unforeseen circumstances, this chance of a reprieve is remote. It wholly depends upon the arrival, or otherwise, at this house, of a gentleman ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... develop your true self- reliance, you must see from the very beginning that life is a battle you must fight for yourself,—you must be your own soldier. You cannot buy a substitute, you cannot win a reprieve, you can never be placed on the retired list. The retired list of life is,—death. The world is busy with its own cares, sorrows and joys, and pays little heed to you. There is but one great ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... a long breath of relief. Anyhow, she now had more than two months' reprieve. By the end of that period something might happen to make Max willing to extend it. The tent had been put up again, and all but Max had returned to sleeping in it. He had announced that he cared to take no more chances with thunderstorms and cyclones, so Sally had arranged comfortable ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... have perish'd, as I fondly thought, Lest her kind Usage my Salvation wrought; Her happy Aid I labour'd to obtain, Hop'd for Success, yet fear'd her sad Disdain, Tortur'd like dying Convicts whilst they live, 'Twixt fear of Death, and hopes of a Reprieve. First for her smallest Favours did I sue, Crept, Fawn'd and Cring'd, as Lovers us'd to do? Sigh'd e'er I spoke, and when I spoke look'd Pale, In words confus'd disclos'd my mournful Tale? Unpractised ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... others are ordered to labour, others to fight with the wasps, others to clear away all dirt, others to accompagny and escort the king; and when he is old and has no wings they carry him. And if one of them fails in his duty, he is punished without reprieve. ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... happy in the possession of Alcestis. But Admetus fell ill, and being near to death, Apollo prevailed on the Fates to spare him on condition that some one would consent to die in his stead. Admetus, in his joy at this reprieve, thought little of the ransom, and perhaps remembering the declarations of attachment which he had often heard from his courtiers and dependents, fancied that it would be easy to find a substitute. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... struck, her bullets did not penetrate the brain, but they did give Bill an instant's reprieve. The bear struck at the wounds they made, then halted, bawling, in the snow. His roving eye caught sight of Virginia's form. With a ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... Is't not a kind of incest to take life From thine own sister's shame? What should I think? Heaven shield, my mother play'd my father fair! For such a warped slip of wilderness Ne'er issued from his blood. Take my defiance; Die! perish! might but my bending down, Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed. I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death. No word ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... grasp. One struggle with the feeble frame, and the wrestle for life was over for ever. His biographers write of this sleep, that was watched with so much anxiety by his physicians: "It was hoped that a favourable crisis had arrived." It had. It marked the advent of the last reprieve, that release that can never be recalled. The clouds have passed away for ever, and in the sunshine came the solace of all cares, the finality of pain, and the soothing and the solution of all sorrow. Heaven had sent its last call ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... and downstairs for a nothing. At a word from mademoiselle she would trip down the whole five flights. When she was seated, her feet danced on the floor. She brushed and scrubbed and beat and shook and washed and set to rights, without rest or reprieve, always at work, filling the apartment with her goings and comings, and the incessant bustle that followed her about.—"Mon Dieu!" her mistress would say, stunned by the uproar she made, just like a child,—"you're turning things upside ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... being maintained at York. It gave rise to the saying, that "The saddler of Bawtry was hanged for leaving his liquor": had he stopped, as was usual with other criminals, to drink his bowl of ale, his reprieve, which was actually on its way, would have arrived in time ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... dawned upon her, and as he continued she lost the sense of his spoken thoughts in the mad cross- tides of her own unuttered. Now her crying instinct was for rescue at all costs, at any hazard. Prayers, entreaties, cravings for reprieve thronged unvoiced and not to be voiced through every fibre of her body. Could he not spare her? Could he not? If she could turn suddenly upon him, clasp his knees, worm herself between his arms, put her face—wet, shaking, tremulous, but ah, Lord! how full of love—near ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... overtaken Carver House, Kaiser Bill had gained a temporary reprieve. In the excitement over Nyoda's going away he had been forgotten entirely for a whole week, and of course nothing would be done about his execution until she returned. Kaiser Bill was making the most of his reprieve by breaking bounds every day ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... Provisors mark the successive defeats that drove them back from the high post of command which character alone had earned for them. If the Black Prince had lived, or if Richard II. had inherited the temper of the Plantagenets, the ecclesiastical system would have been spared the misfortune of a longer reprieve. Its worst abuses would have then terminated, and the reformation of doctrine in the sixteenth century would have been left to fight its independent way unsupported by the moral corruption of the church from which it received its most powerful impetus. The nation was ready for sweeping remedies. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... come, and she grew hysterical as well as restless. She watched the clock; the minutes passed with feet of lead, but the hours with wings of fire. She was now like a criminal looking for a reprieve. Every time the clock warned to strike, she felt one hour ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... weariest aught, and when Ulysses' son Shall come, he will with vest and mantle fair Cloath thee, and send thee whither most thou would'st. 410 To whom Ulysses, toil-inured. I wish thee, O Eumaeus! dear to Jove As thou art dear to me, for this reprieve Vouchsafed me kind, from wand'ring and from woe! No worse condition is of mortal man Than his who wanders; for the poor man, driv'n By woe and by misfortune homeless forth, A thousand mis'ries, day by day, endures. Since thou detain'st ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... with the march leaders won the administration a reprieve from the threat of a mass civil rights demonstration in the nation's capital, but at the price of promising substantial reform in minority hiring for defense industries and the creation of a federal body, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, to coordinate the ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... — N. {ant. 132} lateness &c. adj.; tardiness &c. (slowness) 275. delay, delation; cunctation, procrastination; deferring, deferral &c. v.; postponement, adjournment, prorogation, retardation, respite, pause, reprieve, stay of execution; protraction, prolongation; Fabian policy, medecine expectante[Fr], chancery suit, federal case; leeway; high time; moratorium, holdover. V. be late &c. adj.; tarry, wait, stay, bide, take time; dawdle &c. (be inactive) 683; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... space, to be relieved from his burdens. For them both, so young, so helpless against powers that were ruthless in the accomplishment of wider destinies, they were allowed to find in these silent minutes a brief reprieve. ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... earnestly together. They were in no way deceived by the appearance of friendliness which the Stag had assumed. They knew that henceforth there was bitter hatred between them, and that their very lives were insecure. As to Ethel, it was, they knew, only a short reprieve which had been granted her. The Stag would not risk a division in the tribe for her sake, nor would attempt to bring her to a formal execution; but the first time she wandered from the hut, she would be found dead with a ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... in some respects, was not quite such a fool as that. Sometimes the Jinn could be mollified and induced to grant a reprieve by being told stories, one inside the other, like a nest of Oriental boxes. Unfortunately Fakrash did not seem in the humour for listening to apologues, and, even if he were, Horace could not think of or improvise any just then. "Besides," he thought, "I can't sit up here telling ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... is lost who is greater than we, And loved us so well that death should reprieve Of all hearts this one to us; when we must leave His grave,—the past will ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... many crosses and circles in the superstitious Algebra and that black art of Geometry) will, no doubt, determine once in their lives to become figure-casters, and so vote them all to be throwen into the fire, if some good body doe not reprieve them for pye-bottoms, for which purposes you know analogicall numbers are incomparably apt, if they ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... instant as if to give a steadiness to me. "I want you to take me out to the State Prison. I want to talk face to face with a man who killed his own brother, in cold blood, it is said. A pretty powerful influence is at me day and night for a reprieve and I—I don't know what to do about it. It is a difficult case. If I went in my official capacity to see the man it might give his friends undue hopes; and suddenly I felt that I could run away from the whole ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... many years there is no need for lack of candor in discussing the events of 1885. To put it plainly Riel's fate turned almost entirely upon political considerations. Which was the less dangerous course,—to reprieve him or let him hang? The issue was canvassed back and forth by the distracted ministry up to the day before that fixed for the execution when a decision was reached to let the law take its course. The feeling in Quebec in support of the commutation was so intense ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... holder of the letters is poor, he is open to bribery. So, no, we must make Jacques Collin speak. What a duel! He will beat me. The better plan would be to purchase those letters by exchange for another document—a letter of reprieve—and to place the man in my gang. Jacques Collin is the only man alive who is clever enough to come after me, poor Contenson and dear old Peyrade both being dead! Jacques Collin killed those two unrivaled spies ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... a great crowd of superannuated benchers of the Inns of Court, senior fellows of colleges, and defunct statesmen: all whom I ordered to be decimated indifferently, allowing the rest a reprieve for one year, with a promise of a free ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... Street.—I received yesterday a reprieve from Gloucester, and Harris's sanction for my staying here a week longer; so that the meeting, and the report of Mr. Guise and Mr. Burrow's declaring themselves both as candidates upon separate interests, but secretly assisting one another, were, as ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... would please, you should not know. But since that knowledge, more than death, will grieve, Know, Indamora gained you this reprieve. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... should like Molly to give up a party at Mrs Goodenough's, to which they were all three invited, but to Which Molly alone was going. Molly's heart leaped up at the thoughts of stopping at home, even though the next moment she had to blame herself for rejoicing at a reprieve that was purchased by another's suffering. However, the remedies prescribed by her husband did Mrs Gibson good; and she was particularly ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... yet, however, scarcely made up his mind what to propose. A moment's reflection convinced him that only one thing could purchase Toby's reprieve; and perhaps even that would fail. Regardless of consequences to himself, he resolved to ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... the reprieve, 'this morning for ten thousand of your throats, I'd not have given a doit.' But this is only the same 'good citizen' we saw in the first scene, who longed to make a quarry of thousands of the quartered slaves, as high as he could prick his lance! That was 'the altitude of his ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... I'll despatch an Express to the Congress. This repulse, if I mistake not (or victory, as Carleton may call it), will stand 'em but in little stead—'t will be only a temporary reprieve—we'll reinforce our friends, let the consequence be what it may—Quebec must fall, and the lofty strong walls and brazen gates (the shield of cowards) must tumble by an artificial earthquake; should they continue in their obstinacy, we'll arm our friends with missive thunders ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... heads, to intimidate them; and then, as their opposition became violent, he directed the guard to fire among them; whereby six persons were killed, and eleven severely wounded. For this he was prosecuted at the expense of the city, and condemned to die. But, a short reprieve having been obtained, the mob, determined to defeat it, assembled in the night preceding the seventh day of September, whereon he was to have been executed pursuant to the sentence, and, in a very riotous manner, seized and disarmed the city-guard, and possessed themselves of the town-gates, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... God! a little speed had saved his life. Here is a kind reprieve come from the king, To bring him straight ...
— Cromwell • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... murdering the young man; but that he intended to have killed his captain, with whom he had the night before a violent quarrel. He was brought to the gallows, a prayer made, and the time for his execution almost arrived, when Colonel Arnold thought best to reprieve him and send him to General Washington. I have been informed, that he died in gaol before the ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking
... South, the catastrophe is but deferred, not avoided. Out of the Union, the more extreme Southern States—those in which King Cotton has already firmly established his dynasty—are, if we may judge by passing events, ripe for the result. The more Northern have yet a reprieve of fate, as having not yet wholly forgotten the lessons of their origin. The result, however, be it delayed for one year or for one hundred years, can hardly admit of doubt. The emergency which is to try their system may not arise for many years; but passing events warn us that it maybe upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... do it in the grave. Who edit the agricultural papers, you—yam? Men, as a general thing, who fail in the poetry line, yellow-coloured novel line, sensation-drama line, city-editor line, and finally fall back on agriculture as a temporary reprieve from the poorhouse. You try to tell me anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger noise he makes and the higher the salary ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... informally to dinner, bringing with them a guest of theirs, "some one of the name of Davenant." For an instant he felt that he must ask her to telephone and put them off, but on second thoughts it seemed better to let them come. It would be in the nature of a reprieve, not so much for himself as for Olivia. It would give her one more cheerful evening, the last, perhaps, in her life. Besides—the suggestion was a vague one, sprung doubtless of the hysterical element in his suppressed ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... court-martial, and condemned to death, a circumstance which, as may naturally be supposed, was very distressing to us. Madame de Bourrienne applied to the commanding officer for the man's pardon, but could only obtain his reprieve. The regiment departed some weeks after, and we could never learn what was the fate of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... why Lina had asked her to go home with her. It was not because she wished to hear any of Dotty's brilliant stories, for she had not asked a single question about Out West; it was because she hoped for a reprieve from the dreaded knitting. ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... any man who had been snatched back to life in such a fashion would start and tremble at the reprieve, or would break down altogether, but this boy turned his head steadily, and followed with his eyes the direction of the officer's sword, then nodded his head gravely, and, with his shoulders squared, took up a new ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... I say, yet scarce believe What all my heart is black with knowing; Doomed, I yet watch for some reprieve, But know too well that love is going, As sure as yonder ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... cry of a frightened child begging a reprieve from punishment, and that piteous "Don't! don't!" rang in Bessie's ears long after the lips which uttered the words were ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... did that husband then rather chuse death Then me to be his bride? is his life mine? Why, then, because the Law makes me his Judge, Ile be, like you, not cruell, but reprieve him; ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... the news to break and end our efforts at any moment, but the quickness with which I had seized upon Preblesham's information confirmed the proverb about the early bird; the threehour reprieve stretched to five and by the time Havas flashed the news I had liquefied almost all of my now worthless assets—and to potential financial rivals. Needless to say I had not trusted solely to the honor of the men with whom I had conversed, but had the sale confirmed in each case by an agent on the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... transitory splendours could not all Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall? Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart An hour's importance to the poor man's heart. Thither no more the peasant shall repair To sweet oblivion of his daily care; No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail; No ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... sweet faces to be kissed, and lose herself in the forgetfulness of an eternal sleep; never to go back again to an Eden contaminated. But when she lingered the melody of a thrush pierced her through and through. At last she turned and reluctantly retraced her steps, as one whose hour of reprieve has expired. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the people of the Lord were not content to remain virgins; a state of being which, at bottom has not much to recommend it. The daughter of Jephtha before being immolated for the sake of the Lord, demanded of her father a reprieve of two months in which to weep for her virginity upon the mountains of Gelboe; it seems it should not have taken so long had she had nothing to regret. Ruth had recourse to the quickest method when she wished to cease being a virgin; she simply went and lay down upon the ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... sacrifice to the idols, and remained in their houses praying and fasting. They were accused before Decius, and they confessed themselves to be Christians. However, the Emperor gave them a little time to consider what line they would adopt. They took advantage of this reprieve to dispense their goods among the poor, and they retired, all seven, to Mount Celion, where they determined to ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Nicky came like a reprieve. How was it, he said, that they were let in for him? Or rather, why had they ever let ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... for her ladyship. No child has fallen to her lot. If O'Shimo Dono be the first to give birth to a child in the yashiki, it must be between the knees of her ladyship. Deign then to make full confession.... Ah! There is no need to beg for mercy and reprieve from the examination. Saku is old. Her ladyship is a married woman. Both possess experience. On refusal personal examination is to be made. O'Tsugi, O'Han, are to aid." The two women had come forward and passed behind ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... husband insisted upon going back to meet his sentence. Drs. Thomas and Scholtz declared this most unadvisable. His heart was in such condition, any shock might prove fatal. Their reports were forwarded to the Transvaal Government, and I begged for a few days' reprieve, cabling my urgent request to Mr. Olney in Washington, Dr. Coster at Pretoria, and our faithful friend, Mr. Robert Chapin, United States Consul at Johannesburg. Mr. Olney at once petitioned the Boer ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... hoped to work wonders with her eloquence, her tears, her pleading glances. On hearing her prayer for a reprieve of twenty-four hours, swearing that after that she would never see Jeannin again, the commander and the chevalier were obliged to bite their lips to keep from laughing outright. But the former soon regained his self-possession, and while Angelique, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of rigor during the king's captivity gave place to a momentary tolerance. Berquin, who had been arrested, was liberated, and Lefevre recalled from exile. But the respite was brief. Two years later, Berquin was again arrested, tried, condemned, and executed speedily to prevent reprieve on April 17, 1529. But the triumph of the conservatives was more apparent than real. Lutheranism continued to gain silently ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... his administrative duties, the President has the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in the case of impeachment. A pardon fully exempts the individual from the punishment imposed upon him by law; a reprieve, on the other hand, is simply a temporary suspension of the execution ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... the suggestion. She had not intended to make it,—had not, in truth, thought of it. But when her mother talked of Harry's destiny, as though some terrible evil had come upon him,—as though she were speaking of a poor wretch condemned to be hanged, when all chances of a reprieve were over,—then her spirit rose within her. She had not meant to say that she was going. Harry had never asked her to go. "If you talk of his destiny I am quite prepared to share it with him." That was her meaning. But her mother already saw her ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... The cause of the first tumult was a sudden panic, occasioned by the running of some of the guards who arrived late; the second was due to the appearance of Sir Anthony Browne, whom the people fancied had been sent with a reprieve. ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... that she could never pardon herself such weakness. But yet she felt herself to be aware that her purpose was wicked. When the knock at the door was at last heard she trembled and feared that she would almost be unable to speak to him. Might it be possible that there should yet be a reprieve for her? No; it was his step on the stairs, and there he was ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... seventeen days from now, and if Billy races across by Vancouver he can make it. In the meantime Nebraska seems a million miles away. I know the heartbeats of the fellow who is riding to the place of execution, with a reprieve. But seventeen days is a deadly ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... to give her answer to Larry Twentyman; but why should she keep the man waiting for three weeks when her answer was ready? Her stepmother she knew would soon force her answer from her, and her father would be anxious to know what had been the result of her meditations. The real period of her reprieve had been that of her absence at Cheltenham, and that period was now come to an, end. At each station as she passed them she remembered what Reginald Morton had been saying to her, and how their conversation ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... incurred, one tremendously hot summer night, as she slowly moved from her lodgings or wherever, in the high Bowdoin Street region, down to the not distant theatre from which even the temperature had given her no reprieve; and well remember how, the queer light of my young impression playing up again in her path, she struck me as the very image of mere sore histrionic habit and use, a worn and weary, a battered even though almost sordidly smoothed, thing ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... To give you time for preparation, And fit you for your future station, Three several warnings you shall have Before you're summoned to the grave; Willing for once I'll quit my prey, And grant a kind reprieve; In hopes you'll have no more to say, But, when I call again this way, Well pleased the world will leave." To these conditions both consented, And ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... return, rode through the Indian country, to the quarters of the district commander, to try and get a reprieve, hoping to glean new evidence to clear me. He was refused, and returned just as I was led down on the banks of the river ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... such an appeal as men are rarely able to make, because a regenerated life was also vocal in utterance. To him a miracle seemed to have been wrought, and he listened to each word as if to a reprieve ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... wouldn't give much for his regard," growled Van Dyk. "The reed is slender, but it's the only one we have to lean on now. However, we've got a reprieve, for I heard 'em say just now that they'll delay executing us till to-morrow, after reaching one of their other and safer ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... Love to sweet Life; and I shall think my self ever obliged to my dear Wife, for this kind Reprieve;—had she been cruel, I had been strangled, or hung in the Air like our ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... a hearing, even from your best friend," was her discouraging reply; but when they were at the door she gave him a formal reprieve. "I shall walk for a few minutes on the portico to rest my nerves," she said. "If you want to ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... "Job's comforters" have met, With steps, like ours, unsteady, They could not help themselves, and yet To judge us they were ready; Life's path is trod at last, and God More ready to reprieve is, They know who rest beneath the sod, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... angel shall Bless this unworthy husband? he cannot thrive, Unless her prayers, which Heaven delights to hear, And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath Of ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... army, and the Common Council had agreed (18 Jan.) that the amount should be collected from the wards.(434) But before this could be accomplished an incident occurred which threatened to jeopardise the loan. This was the reprieve of John Goodman, a Roman Catholic priest, who had been condemned to death. The morning after parliament had agreed to raise money for the Scottish commissioners alderman Pennington rose in the House and declared that, in ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... at the Gray Mahatma. He seemed perfectly indifferent. He was not even interested in the prospect of reprieve. I think his thoughts were miles away, although his eyes stared straight ahead at Yasmini. But he was interested in something, and I received the impression that he was waiting for that something to ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... move among, all happy hearts that, knowing what Makes life worth while, have wasted not the sweet reprieve of ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... no less than grief doth murder men. The thief, even at the gallows, may be killed If, while through every vein with fear he's chilled, Sudden reprieve do ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... freely. There are cases in which to obtain time for thought seems the one essential thing—cases in which a reprieve is ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... possess the right of reprieve; they felt it their duty to refer the case to the Council of Five Hundred, asking 'whether Lesurques was to die because of his resemblance to a criminal?' The Council passed to the Order of the Day on the report of Simeon; and Lesurques was executed, forgiving his judges. And ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... yesterday, when I saw that you had recognized me. It was very merciful in you to reprieve me, even for a few hours; but you will pardon me if I ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... not in form there was no sign of it in his work on the court. There was little of courtesy, less of fun and nothing at all of mercy in his play. From first to last and without reprieve he drove his game ruthlessly to a finish. So terrific, so resistless were his attacks, so coldly relentless the spirit he showed, ignoring utterly all attempts at friendly exchange of courtesy, that the unhappy and enraged Stillwell, becoming utterly ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... window twilight made Familiar mysteries of shade. Faint voices from the darkening down Were calling vaguely to the town. Intent upon a low, far gleam That burned upon the world's extreme, I sat, with short reprieve from grief, And turned the volume, leaf by leaf, Wherein a hand, long dead, had wrought A million miracles of thought. My fingers carelessly unclung The lettered pages, and among Them wandered witless, nor divined The wealth in which, poor fools, they ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... reprieve from giving the answer she hated to make, the girl left the room in haste, as if intent upon summoning the lad. But she was gone longer than seemed necessary, nor did the waiting grandmother hear the boyish voice she loved, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... thoughtful men. Jefferson wrote from Monticello in 1820: "This momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.... I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... concussion. This paralyzed the launch's advance, and allowed me to devote my exclusive attention to the other boats; yet, before I could bring the schooner in a suitable position, a signal summoned the assailants aboard the cruiser to repair damages. I did not reflect until this moment of reprieve, that, early in the day, I had hoisted the Portuguese ensign to deceive the Dane, and imprudently left it aloft in the presence of John Bull! I struck the false flag at once, unfurled the Spanish, and refreshing the men with a double allowance of grog and grub, put them again to the sweeps. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... and ingenious mind conjured up softer words than these, and more purfled periods wherein to dress the iron truth. But in these two sentences the truth lay. He arrived at the farm, he entered the house; he felt it as a reprieve that he met not the bounding step of the welcoming Sibyll. He sat down in the humble chamber, and waited a while in patience,—no voice was heard. The silence at length surprised and alarmed him. He proceeded ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "Who killed Myles Joyce?" [Footnote: One of several men hanged for the Maamtrasna murders. All the other men sentenced protested that Myles Joyce was innocent, and died protesting it. Strong efforts were made to gain a reprieve for this lad.] while some varied the proceedings by calling "Murderer!" after him. A few days later, when I was driving with Lady Spencer in an open carriage, a well-dressed bicyclist came riding through the cavalry escort, and in a quiet, conversational ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... went on, and the St. Luke left off zig-zagging, the relief of those on board was the relief of a reprieve from death. Almost everybody was cured of sea-sickness, and quite everybody was ready to overwhelm his neighbour with cordiality and benevolence. Rich people didn't mind poor people, and came along ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... unfortunate being who had been condemned to lose his head, but the moment after it had been laid upon the block, a reprieve arrived; the victim was, however, already sacrificed. The living principle had been extinguished by the fear of the axe, as effectually as it would have ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... this young man: 'We will try, but it will be hard work. One oughtn't to begin dancing at twenty-eight.' I limbered him up as best I could. I had only two weeks to do it in. I begged him to put off his departure, to obtain a reprieve of three or four months—I could have made something of him. He would not. He went without knowing anything. I often think of him. He will represent us out there; he will represent us very badly; ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... broken the vows she took. She dies to-night with her babe—thus, oh God, thus! by being built alive into the foundations of the house she has disgraced. It is the judgment that has been passed upon her, judgment without forgiveness or reprieve. I am the abbess of this convent—ask not its name or mine—and I love this sinner as though she were my daughter. I have obtained this much of mercy for her because of my faithful services to the church and by secret influence, that when I give her the cup ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... Whether this was deliberately aimed at by Tressamer or not, it was the consequence of the policy adopted by him. But no sooner had the law pronounced her doom than the tide turned with startling rapidity, and a gigantic agitation was at once set on foot for a reprieve. ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... an extreme sensitiveness, and the man who smiles at the trivial misfits of life realizes also that all men who tread the earth are living under a sentence of death, and that Fate has merely allowed them an indefinite, but limited, reprieve. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Bacon had altogether taken the wind out of his sails, summed up in the same vein, to prove that James was a Solomon and a prophet, and would show no favouritism to Scotchmen. He held out no hope of a reprieve. "The base and barbarous murder," he said, with ample legal verbiage, "was exceeding strange;—done upon the sudden! done in an instant! done with a pistol! done with your own pistol! under the colour of kindness. As Cain talked with his brother Abel, he rose up and slew him. Your ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... were asleep, he sat before the blaze in the big fireplace, on the hearth cleanly swept with its turkey-wing and buffalo-tail. There was to be one more night of his reprieve from solitude. The three women of the house and the man were sleeping around the room in bunks. The child's bed had been placed near him on the floor after she slept, as he had asked it to be. He had no thought of sleep for himself. He was too intensely awake with apprehension. ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... and the front door stood open to the cool of the summer night. From the ballroom came the swaying lilt of the music and the beat of the dancers' feet. Ethne drew a breath of relief at her reprieve from her duties, and then dropping her partner's arm, crossed to a ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... man is condemned to die in a week's time and is shut up in a prison from which it is certain that he cannot escape, he will always hope that a reprieve may come before the week is over. Besides, the prison may catch fire, and he may be suffocated not with a rope, but with common ordinary smoke; or he may be struck dead by lightning while exercising in the prison yards. ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... comely a Youth should be brought to Disgrace! —I see him at the Tree! The whole Circle are in Tears! —even Butchers weep! —Jack Ketch himself hesitates to perform his Duty, and would be glad to lose his Fee, by a Reprieve. What then will become of Polly! —As yet I may inform him of their Design, and aid him in his Escape. —It shall be so— But then he flies, absents himself, and I bar myself from his dear dear Conversation! That too will distract me. —If he keep out of the way, my Papa ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... on eagerly, for I love to witness a reprieve, such as many a time it hath been mine to see ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... the block takes a bath—not so much excitement as for a fire, perhaps, but more than for a funeral. On the eve of the fatal day the news spreads through the district that to-morrow poor Jacques is going to take a bath! A further reprieve has been denied him. He cannot put it off for another month, or even for another two weeks. His doom is nigh at ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... very monument of melancholy, led through the steady rain to the scaffold. He saw the Sheriff presently called away, but could not see the Scotch lad who called him, who was Gibb riding in with the reprieve. He could see Markham standing before the block, he could see the Sheriff return, speak in a low voice to Markham, and lead him away into Arthur's Hall and lock him up there. He could then see Grey led out, he ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... to it the apostles ascribed the wonderful success of their preaching. He mentions, that ten years ago, when a magistrate condemned for high treason was led to execution with a halter about his neck, the citizens ran in a body to the hippodrome to beg a reprieve; and the emperor, who was not able to reject the request of the whole city, readily granted the criminal a full pardon. Much more easily will the Father of mercy suffer himself to be overcome by the concord of many in prayer, and show mercy to sinners. Not only men join the tremendous ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... man, at the last moment, begs for a reprieve of a day, an hour, a few seconds. Raoul was about to kill himself: his mother prayed to God to grant her one day, not even a day, one night; as if in this space of time some unexpected relief would come to ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... comparison with the rewards bestowed on others for less important services, by raising him to the peerage, by the title of Baron Nelson of the Nile, with a pension of L2,000. The Court of Naples, to which the battle of Aboukir was as a reprieve from destruction, testified a due sense of its obligation by bestowing on him the dukedom and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... sounded like a reprieve to a condemned man on the morning of his execution, and in the revulsion of my ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... believed that to solidify a quicksand was impossible. The effect on him was so great that he was mentally prostrated, and although the company generously and justly relieved him from his engagement, the reprieve came too late, for he died. It then came to be a question whether or not the tunnel should be abandoned. Many advised that it should. At this juncture Mr Robert Stephenson, son of the great George, ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... scarcely deserving of pity, and too mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in any other country whilst it is predominant there. War, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspended its operation. It has given a reprieve, at ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... because Grimshaw started and stepped back a pace, gripping his cane. Then he laughed. "Why not?" he said. "Let this be me. And I'll go on, with that clanking hardware store around my neck. It can be done, can't it? Better for you and for Dagmar. I'm not being philanthropic. I'm looking, not for a reprieve, but for release. No one knows this fellow in Salvan—he probably came up from the Rhone and was on his way to Chamonix. What d'you think was the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... in every respect the climate is altered. Here another kind of sensuality, another kind of sensitiveness and another kind of cheerfulness make their appeal. This music is gay, but not in a French or German way. Its gaiety is African; fate hangs over it, its happiness is short, sudden, without reprieve. I envy Bizet for having had the courage of this sensitiveness, which hitherto in the cultured music of Europe has found no means of expression,—of this southern, tawny, sunburnt sensitiveness.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} What a joy the golden afternoon of its happiness is to us! When we look out, ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... Sentence was pass'd, the whole Body of Priests made their Addresses to the Marquis Castel Roderigo, the then Governor of Flanders, for a Reprieve; which, after much ado, was granted him for some Weeks, but with an absolute Denial of Pardon: So prevailing were the young Cavaliers of his Court, who were all ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... is true, come over his character; he became more desperate, but if was only because the deeper had become this affection. The incident of the reprieve of la Tour, which had meanwhile reached him, sank deeper into his heart than the whole round of his pleasures, and made him anxious for the moment when he might again ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... great sorrow for them, Lady Montefiore sustaining a severe loss in the death of her brother, Mr Joseph Cohen. This occurrence caused the deepest grief to herself and every member of the family. On the same day Sir Moses was obliged to attend at Newgate to speak with Rickie, a reprieve having, after all, been sent to ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... his bed, for there was some blood on them, and some pieces of linen and lint lying about, and that was all he knew. He had not spoken to, nor seen Signor Paolo that night. Zappa's anger was very great at hearing this, and he was very nearly revoking the reprieve he had granted to the other prisoners. He believed that treachery had been practised, though, except Paolo and Nina, he knew not whom to suspect; and, while she denied all knowledge of the event, her brother was nowhere to be found; so, weary ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... flew open, and he reached, without difficulty, the presence of the chief administrator of justice, who, having read the memorial and the note I had affixed to it, said, "That is sufficient, sir; have the goodness to assure madame la comtesse du Barry, my cousin, that the reprieve she desires is already granted; and as my fair relation appears to fear trusting implicitly to my personal friendship and humanity, I will set her mind at rest by putting you in possession of the legal forms requisite for ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... a partial reprieve; but then it was so partial that it would have been much better for him to have had no such reprieve at all. Mrs. Woodward was at Sunbury with Linda, and no one was at home but Katie. What was he to do? was he to tell Katie? or was he to pretend that all was right, that ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... hands, the kislar aga again appeared. "Her head," said he, hesitatingly. The kislar aga waited a little to ascertain if there was no reprieve, for too hasty a compliance with despots is almost as dangerous as delay. He caught my eye—he saw at once that if not her head it would be his own, and he quitted the room. In a few minutes he held up by its fair ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... a man buy a reprieve from Death!" he continued. "Never do that—never? Did you ever think of it, Sim, that what happens is always ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... found guilty of crime. One was convicted of arson, another of robbing the United States mail, when the mail was intercepted with a view of capturing letters from the Federal officers in the western counties to the authorities at the capital. In both instances President Washington granted first a reprieve, then a pardon. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... with the provost-marshal, Rivers learned that there had been a hastily summoned court-martial, and in the presence of very clear evidence a verdict approved by General Grant. The man would be shot at seven the next morning. "A hopeless case, Mr. Rivers," said the Provost, "any appeal for reprieve will be useless—utterly useless—there will be no time given for appeal to Mr. Lincoln. We have had too much ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... de Miolans, a daughter of a once illustrious Savoyard family. To her devotion and that of his de Vergy's relatives, who spared nothing but the necessary funds to avert his impending ruin, Michel owed a short reprieve from the execution of his creditors. Four months' delay was granted his wife in which to raise the interest due on the loans; but although journeying to Paris and soliciting every influence to procure the required sum, the countess of Gruyere failed in her efforts. The poor lady ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... ordinary powers of the President are also important.[45] One of the greatest is the power to grant reprieves and pardons. A reprieve is the temporary suspension of the execution of a sentence. By means of a reprieve the President may gain time to look into the evidence more carefully. Complete release from a sentence is secured by ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James |
