"Reprieve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... extended 400 yards into the proposed tunnel, and which the trial shafts on each side of it had almost miraculously just passed without touching. Overwhelmed at the discovery, the contractor instantly took to his bed; and though he was justly relieved by the company from his engagement, the reprieve came too late, for he ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... have a short reprieve, because Dick has had to go away again; not to his mother, this time, but to London. A telegram was forwarded to him from Gloucester, where he had left sending-on instructions; and he knocked at my door early yesterday morning (at Tintern) to say he must leave immediately by the first ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... he was a child. Two of the soldiers were sentenced to be hanged for desertion, and the officer in command hurried forward the execution, although an express had been sent to lay the case before the general at another post. The offence was only a desertion in name, and the reprieve was promptly granted, but it came fifteen ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... Temple and Drusilla Fane were coming 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 ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... sov'reign god replied: "Since in my pow'r and goodness you confide, If for a little space, a lengthen'd span, You beg reprieve for this expiring man, I grant you leave to take your Turnus hence From instant fate, and can so far dispense. But, if some secret meaning lies beneath, To save the short-liv'd youth from destin'd ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... the brand of an old offender, was executed; the young offender was spared, having obtained a reprieve, but lay starving a long while in prison, till at last she got her name into what they call a circuit ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... general and special amnesty, commutation of punishment, reprieve, and restoration ...
— The Constitution of Japan, 1946 • Japan
... looked upon as a reprieve, and when a traveller, expressing sympathy, suggested that "it might sicken her a bit of camp life," Jack clung to ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... wished to see the condemned man alive. Undaunted by the news, the brave wife sought an interview with the Empress, in whom she found a warm advocate, but who was obliged to own, after several attempts to obtain a reprieve, that she despaired of success. Teresa Confalonieri hurried back to Milan through the bitter winter weather, in doubt whether she should arrive before the execution had taken place. But the unceasing efforts of the Empress won the day. The respite was granted on the 13th ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... labour. This was done because Omar determined to put forth all his available power to render the fortifications of the place as strong as possible. All the slaves were therefore set to work on them, but those who had been under sentence of death were kept from too great a rebound of spirits at the reprieve, by being told that the moment the work was finished their respective punishments should be inflicted. Our poor friend Mariano was thus assailed by the horrible thought, while working at the blocks of concrete, which he mixed from morning ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... but Eben is on the alert, and unless they shoot us without the usual twenty-four hours' reprieve, he will have Montgomery come to ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... REPRIEVES AND PARDONS if he sees good reason for doing so. A reprieve is a delay of punishment. When a person is convicted of murder, the judge sentences him to be put to death on a certain day. But there may be reason for further inquiry into the case, and to give time for such inquiry the governor may postpone the execution of the ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... that he could get, and, leaving his friend sitting in the stocks in his shirt-sleeves, he disappeared as swiftly as one could wish a man to carry a reprieve. ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... passed the time while the carriage was conveying Mr. Eldridge home; and yet when he came in sight of the house, he wished a longer reprieve from the dreadful task of informing Mr. and Mrs. Temple of their ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... arrive at Askatoon before the stroke of the hour, but still he would be too late, for in her pocket now was the Governor's reprieve. The man had slept soundly. His wallet was still in his breast; but the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and their monstrous fore-arms, hung with sharp, bony claws, ready and anxious to hug his body in a close and most loving embrace. There was not much time for Kit to scratch his head and cogitate. In fact, one instant spent in thought then would have proved his death warrant without hope of a reprieve. Messrs. Bruin evidently considered their domain most unjustly intruded upon. The gentle elk and deer mayhap were their dancing boys and girls; and, like many a petty king in savage land, they may have dined late and were now enjoying a scenic treat of their ballet troupe. At all events ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... immediate execution that his separable soul left his body, and he found himself sitting on the eaves of a house, from which point he could see a man bound, and waiting for the executioner's sword. Just then, a reprieve arrived, and in a moment he was back again in his body. Mr. Edmund Gosse, who can hardly have been acquainted with the Chinese view, told a similar story in his Father and Son: "During morning and evening prayers, which were extremely lengthy and fatiguing, I fancied that one of my ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... 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
... to the life, what the ecstasies and transports of the soul are, when it is so saved, as I may say, out of the very grave: and I do not wonder now at the custom, when a malefactor, who has the halter about his neck, is tied up, and just going to be turned off, and has a reprieve brought to him - I say, I do not wonder that they bring a surgeon with it, to let him blood that very moment they tell him of it, that the surprise may not drive the animal spirits from the ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... up for some cigars; but when she got into her father's room, she seated herself blindly and looked aimlessly down at her hands. What a blessed reprieve this was! If she could but stay here! She could if it were not for the peace-pipe. Such a silly performance too! Father kept those superfine cigars over in the cabinet there. Should she bring only two as usual? Then ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... even to her cloudy intellect; gradually thus the truth 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 ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... All for his life assail'd the throne, All would have bribed the skies by offering up their own. So great a throng not Heaven itself could bar; 'Twas almost borne by force as in the giants' war. The prayers, at least, for his reprieve were heard; His death, like Hezekiah's, was deferr'd: Against the sun the shadow went; Five days, those five degrees, were lent To form our patience and prepare the event. The second causes took ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... The little doctor was placed between Manifold and the Pythagorean, who, by the way, was exceedingly short-sighted; and on the other side of him sat Parson Topertoe, who seemed to feel something like a reprieve from his gout. When the liquor was placed on the table, after dinner, the Pythagorean got to his feet, filled a large glass of water, and taking a gulp of it, leaving it about half full, he proceeded ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... of a great author asks knowledge and industry before it may be attempted, but in the end it is the critic, not the author, who is judged by it, and, where his sympathies have been too narrow, or his sight too dim, condemned without reprieve, and ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... it 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 ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... to the flowers, 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
... father of Diane de Poitiers, whose footsteps we followed at Chenonceaux, was once imprisoned here. Even the powerful influence of Diane scarcely gained her father's pardon from Francis I. His sentence had been pronounced and he was mounting the steps of the scaffold when the reprieve came. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... an unhappier face I have never seen. She looked like a criminal whose reprieve is over, and the day ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to fire over their 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 ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... expression of fear. But, in reality this was not so. At all times, and especially since he knew that he had got consumption, Semenoff had dreaded death. At the outset of his malady, he was in a state of abject terror, much as that of a condemned man for whom hope of a reprieve there was none. It almost seemed to him as if from that moment the world no longer existed; all in it that formerly he found fair, and pleasant, and gay had vanished. All around him was dying, dying, and every ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... 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 and its greatest message to ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... twice, and the country people believe that the breaking of the rope gave him a right to a pardon. They tell me that the sheriff, a personal enemy, in spite of the signs and tokens of the breaking ropes, hung him while he had a reprieve in his pocket. There is a kind of Rob Royish flavor about the memory of this man ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... time at Gibraltar, and you may imagine that I was soon on shore making the best use of the few hours' reprieve granted to the "Hollander's" weary engines. I had an idea that I should do better alone, so I declined all offers of companionship, and selecting a brisk young fellow from the mob of cicerones who ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... a country, 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 ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... hardly say that my own feelings were of a very distressing kind. Conscious that if the unfortunate man really was guilty, he was at least not deserving of capital punishment, I exerted myself to procure a reprieve. In the first place I waited privately on the judge; but he would listen to no proposal for a respite. Along with a number of individuals—chiefly of the Society of Friends—I petitioned the crown for a commutation of the sentence. But being unaccompanied with a recommendation from the judge, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... stand there until the horses, save for the wounded one still kicking fruitlessly, were gone. Travis felt a sense of reprieve. They might not be able to get at the Red, but he was hurt and afoot, two strikes which might yet reduce him to a condition ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... cabin-window. The transom was high, and the man very heavy; so I was a good while in dragging the load up to the necessary height. Just as I got it there, the fellow gave a groan, and I felt a relief that I had never before experienced. It seemed to me like a reprieve from the gallows. ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the wooden cannon and the chief's ruling that we were no longer Ward's prisoners appealed to me as a reprieve. At least the girl was snatched from Ward's clutches. But the unanimous vote that one of us must die threw ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... purchased a respite of three months, by adding thirty pounds to his debt, and so was thankful for another deliverance, and was confident of the promised subsidy within a week, or at all events a fortnight, or, at worst, three months was a long reprieve—and the subsidy must arrive before ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... spoke of his home-coming, and I did not; I dreaded it too much. Whenever the last steamers of the season were due, I nerved myself to look the passenger lists over; and when his name was missing, it was a reprieve. Neither my father nor my grandfather had believed in divorce; in their eyes it was disgrace. It seemed right, for Silva's sake, out of the rich placers David continued to find, he should contribute to my support. So—I lived my life—the best I was able. I had many interests, and always one ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... camp had been established at the nearest wood, and a stray killed. Stakes were driven to mark the rise or fall of the water, and we settled down like prisoners, waiting for an expected reprieve. Towards evening a fire was built up and the two sides of ribs were spitted over it, our only chance for supper. Night fell with no perceptible change in the situation, the weather remaining dry and ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... new place every day, and every time he broke out it cost the house money. Finally, I made up my mind to swallow the loss, and Mister Jim was just about to lose his job sure enough, when the orders for Extract began to look up, and he got a reprieve; then he began to make expenses, and he got a pardon; and finally a rush came that left him high and dry in a permanent place. Jim was all right in his way, but it was a new way, and I hadn't been broad-gauged enough to see that ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... first of their early potatoes from the garden for supper and a bit of ham to eat with them, by way of celebrating their reprieve, and after supper the Shepherd got out his bagpipes and played "The Blue Bells of Scotland" until the rafters rang again. Jean stepped busily about the kitchen in tune to the music, humming the ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... and told her errand. She had come across the ocean, she said, to plead the cause of a poor prisoner who was dying under sentence of the law. She paused a moment, having made this statement, and was answered by a nod. Prisoners often died without reprieve, he seemed to be aware. This cold civility warmed the petitioner's speech. Her mother would have been satisfied, Madeline Desperiers would have been overwhelmed with grief and horror, to have heard this young girl's testimony in regard to prison-life. The old man, as he listened, sighed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... themselves each time he was re- exposed to them, so that in fact this association, had he suffered it to become constant, would on a certain side have but ministered to his intenser gravity. He had made, as I have said, to create on the premises the baseless sense of a reprieve, his three absences; and the result of the third was to confirm the after-effect of ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... 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 whom we ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... the Convention received the news of victory. It was really their reprieve, for news of disaster would have cut short their career. Jubilant over a prompt success, their joy was savage and infernal. With the eagerness of vampires they at once sent two commissioners to wipe the name of Toulon from the map, and its inhabitants from the earth. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... O.K. It isn't urgent." He was just as glad of the reprieve; it gave him one more chance to work matters through to a solution, and hand it to Burris on a silver platter. "But why ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Washington thus adverts to the delay in forming a quorum of Congress: "I feel for those members of the new Congress, who, hitherto, have given an unavailing attendance at the theater of action. For myself, the delay may be compared to a reprieve; for, in confidence, I tell you (with the world it would obtain little credit) that my movements to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... week I handed a plate to a young lady at luncheon, and, looking sweetly upon me, as though I had brought a reprieve from the gallows, she sighed, "Oh ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... to plead for a reprieve. Not yet—not yet! Whatever she had to face, let her rest for a little first. They had parted with her for the night; they would not go to her room, she knew—outcast as she now was from the sympathy of ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... his foot in the rope, and went head over heels among the thistles. The donkey gravely bent down, and thrice smelt or sniffed its prostrate foe; then, having convinced itself that it had nothing farther to apprehend for the present, and very willing to make the best of the reprieve, according to the poetical admonition, "Gather your rosebuds while you may," it cropped a thistle in full bloom, close to the ear of the Squire; so close indeed, that the Parson thought the ear ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... 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 ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... they will never wish for it, because of that which their hands have sent before them; God knoweth the wicked doers; and thou shalt surely find them of all men the most covetous of life, even more than the idolaters: one of them would desire his life to be prolonged a thousand years, but none shall reprieve himself from punishment, that his life may be prolonged: God seeth that which they do. Say, Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel (for he hath caused the Koran to descend on thy heart, by the permission of God, confirming that which was before revealed, a direction, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... vapors made a smudge there in the midst of the glittering assemblage of the peaks, and when, for a meager hour, once in a while, the summit stood clear in the sunshine, as if the tortured mountain, condemned to everlasting punishment, had been given a brief reprieve. ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... this reprieve, went up stairs; and while Sally was laying out the law, and prating away in her usual dictorial manner, whipt on another gown, and sliding down the stairs, escaped to her relations. And this flight, which was certainly more ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... alders. He halted, utterly at a loss. If he were caught again could Rickerl save him? What could a captain of Uhlans do? True, he had interfered with Von Steyr's hangman's work, but that was nothing but a reprieve at best. ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... as if she were about to fall. "Then it is only a reprieve," she moaned, "and I am none the less ruined. Those cursed letters will necessarily be read, and all will be discovered. They will see——" The thought of what they would see endowed her with the energy of despair, and clutching hold ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... unprevisioned new, Or give to change reprieve! For new in me is olden too, That I for sameness grieve. O flowers! O grasses! be but once The ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... not prejudge anything, that I promise you. I will keep my mind open to the last. But—I should like to say—it would not be any easier to me to throw myself into an agitation for reprieve because this man was tempted to crime by my property—on my land. I should think it right to look at it altogether from the public point of view. The satisfaction of my own private compunctions—of my own private feelings—is not what I ought to regard. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... oblation, and can not be forgiven by God—never has been forgiven on earth, and never will be. Death—death inexorable, is declared by God's judgments on the world and on nations; and he has declared death as its punishment by his law—death to both male and female, without pardon or reprieve, and beyond the power of any ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne
... Cheer after cheer rent the very air. Hoarse shouts of "Drayton!" "Drayton!" sounded, but no Drayton appeared. Under the confusion incident to the delivering of the reprieve he had slipped away to give his well-nigh spent horse the attention of which the noble animal stood in need. Then, being in want of rest himself, he had thrown himself prone on the grass under a tree, and was at that very moment fast asleep. So, finding their calls for him vain, ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... he had not; and at nine o'clock I sent Frison out again; and at ten and eleven—always with the same result. I was like a man waiting and looking and, above all, listening for a reprieve; and as sick as any craven. But when he came back, at eleven, I gave up hope and dressed myself carefully. I suppose I had an odd look then, however, for Frison stopped me at the door, and asked me, with evident alarm, where I ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... from Newbury, on Deacon Dole's hard-trotting horse, and was so galled and lame of it that she could scarce walk. The Major said he met her at the head of King Street yesterday, with half a score more of her sort, scolding and railing about the reprieve of the witch, and prophesying dreadful judgments upon all concerned in it. He said he bade her shut her mouth and go home, where she belonged; telling her that if he heard any more of her railing, the Magistrates ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... station on the Columbia railroad, altogether about forty miles from town, but for want of regular traffic and proper means of conveyance an exceedingly tedious and unpleasant drive thence to the said farm. Here there is indeed pure air for the children, and a blessed reprieve from the confinement of the city; but so uncivilized a life for any one who has ever been accustomed to the usual decencies of civilization, that it keeps me in a ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... brought food and drink. Jean had to utter a grim laugh at their coolness; and he was reminded of many dare-devil deeds known to have been perpetrated by the Hash Knife Gang. Jean was glad of a reprieve. The longer the rustlers put off an attack the more time the allies of the Isbels would have to get here. Rather hazardous, however, would it be now for anyone to attempt to get to the Isbel cabins in the daytime. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... that," she said, "I did not mean that. What I mean is that at the moment the black sergeant, Usanga, and his renegade German native troops captured me and brought me inland, my death warrant was signed. Sometimes I have imagined that a reprieve has been granted. Sometimes I have hoped that I might be upon the verge of winning a full pardon, but really in the depths of my heart I have known that I should never live to regain civilization. I have done my bit for my country, and ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... tried and condemned to death at Port Royal. As the Spaniards, however, had refused to punish them, and as there was no reason why the Jamaicans should be the executioners, the captains of the port and some of the council begged for a reprieve, and the English prisoner, Francis Witherborn, was sent to England.[341] Captain Johnson, one of the pirates after whom Beeston had originally been sent, was later in the year shipwrecked by a hurricane upon the ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... disturb your mirthful hour; And further, to avoid all blame Of cruelty upon my name, 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 ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... 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 down, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... And Fenice, who hears his grief, struggles and strives for strength to comfort him by word or glance. Her heart almost bursts because of the sorrow which he shows. "Ah Death!" he says, "how mean thou art, to spare and reprieve all things despicable and vile—to let them live on and endure. Death! art thou beside thyself or drunk, who hast killed my lady without me? This is a marvellous thing I see: my lady is dead, and I still live on! ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... it a kind of reprieve when she heard from Mr. Strafford that they might delay their journey safely for a month. The sober middle age which had come upon her before its time, as her life rolled on out of the anguish and tumult of the past, made home and quietness the ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... 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 ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... meal, where a great herd of cattle lay smothered and frozen. There were ranch houses, too, in the circle of destruction, their occupants frozen stiff as the carcasses that dotted the plains. The country had stood tense for the following blow. Only Thurston had lived in certainty of a few days reprieve. And now had come ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... by a 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 ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... had she not been sworn to celibacy, she would have cast an eye upon the faithful Ralph, who was obedient to her behests whether at Gaol Delivery or Bear Garden. For her he would pack a jury or get a reprieve; for him she would bait a bull with the fiercest dogs in London. Why then should she fear the law, when the clerk of Newgate and Gregory the Hangman fought ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... 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 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
... went back to Littlebath, intent on enjoying her short reprieve. Something might happen; she did not ask herself what. The old gentleman might not last long; but she certainly did not speculate on his death. Or;—she had a sort of an idea that there might be an "or," though she never allowed herself to dwell on it as a reality. But on one ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Clover entered the hotel, very glad of the reprieve, and of one more quiet evening alone with papa. They needed to get their ideas straightened out and put to rights, after the confusions of the day and Lilly's extraordinary talk. It was very evident that ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... such long steps, but she set her teeth and swung forward. In front of Tenney's they stopped. The rooms were lighted. The house was still. Raven drew a deep breath. What he had expected he did not know, whether calls for help or Tenney's voice of the woods shouting, "Hullo!" This, at any rate, was a reprieve. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... reprieve, but he dared not move for fear of drawing the attention of the lion to him, and clung to the hope that perhaps the great creature might be content to glut itself upon ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... who was controlling the UFO 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 were spaceships ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... himself. "Your eyes are like a startled fawn's. Have I been too abrupt—too thoughtless and inconsiderate? You would forgive me, love, if you knew how I have longed for you; have yearned for this meeting as Dives yearned for water—as the condemned yearn for reprieve. Have you no smile for me, sweetheart?—no word of welcome for the man whose heaven is your love? You knew I would come. You knew I ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... cries of delight, what acclamations followed this discovery. To use Carteret's own comparison, the feelings of surprise and comfort experienced by the crew can only be likened to those of a criminal, who at the last moment on the scaffold receives a reprieve! It was Nitendit Island, already ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... 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 ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... know just what it will mean in the end, Miss Marston," he said, with emotion. "But it's a reprieve while ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... weeks, and indeed the delay was 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
... dark in the room, and he could not see her face, and yet she kept her eyes shut as if asleep, for every fraction of a minute in which she could still escape seeing him in his fury seemed a reprieve; and yet her heart beat so violently that it seemed to her that he must hear it, when he approached the bed with a soft step that was peculiar to him. She heard him walk up and down, and at last go into the kitchen that adjoined the sleeping-room. In ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had nevertheless not refrained from joining it, and was the most guilty of all the accomplices in consequence of the confidential post he occupied near the king's person. The decree was not executed, however; Saint-Vallier received his reprieve on the scaffold itself. Francis I. was neither rancorous nor cruel; and the entreaties, or, according to some evil-speakers of the day, the kind favors, of the Lady de Brew, Saint-Vallier's daughter and subsequently the celebrated Diana of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... The joyful tidings are just announced of Land!! Oh! who can conceive our feelings now? The wretch condemned to the scaffold, who receives, at the moment he expects to die, the joyful reprieve, he can best conceive the ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... person and behaviour of Mr. Wilks[199] has no small share in conducing to the popularity of the play; and when a handsome fellow is going to a more coarse exit than beheading, his shape and countenance make every tender one reprieve him with all her heart, without waiting till she hears his ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... 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 ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... 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
... (I use the word as indicating mental or physical suffering—in my case, the former—not with any local significance) there are moments when the anguish-stricken spirit is mercifully allowed a temporary reprieve. Such a moment occurred after the first awful paroxysm of self-loathing and torture which I experienced when my past life was made known to me in its true colours, and it was in this saner and comparatively painless interval that I met one whom ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... 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 on purpose, as it ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... tyranny of Calvin and of the Consistory; Gentilis was condemned to execution for differing with Calvin's teaching on the Trinity, and was compelled to make a most abject public retraction before he could obtain a reprieve. Several of the citizens were punished with long imprisonment for dancing even on the occasion of a wedding, as happened in the case of Le Fevre, whose son-in-law was obliged to flee to France because he resented warmly such methods of promoting religion. In Geneva ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... impression, and believing that it is their actual duty to destroy, as far as lies in their power, every source of unhappiness, it has been a custom among them from time immemorial, to destroy every one that they could convict of so heinous a crime; and in fact there is no reprieve from ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... blasphemy and foaming impenitence. His desperate venom and blasphemous raillery is part despair, part calculated horror. In his last revolt against death and all his foes, he snatches at any weapon, even truth, that may serve his purpose and gain a reprieve:— ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... 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 and Amour's fine Speeches coin'd, But could not utter what ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... occur the bridal ceremonies, prior to which, moved by Ortrud's entreaties, Elsa promises to obtain a reprieve for Telramund from the sentence which has been pronounced against him. At the same time Ortrud takes advantage of her success to instil doubts into Elsa's mind as to her future happiness ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... lover's passion, No wretched father, no unthrifty son! No craving, subtle whore or shameless bawd, Nor stubborn clown or daring parasite, No lying servant or bold sycophant. We are not wanton or satirical. These have their time and places fit, but we Sad hours and serious studies to reprieve, Have taught severe Philosophy to smile, The Senses' rash contentions we compose, And give displeas'd ambitious Tongue her due: Here's all; judicious friends, accept what is not ill. Who are not such, let them do ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... lost, that all efforts were in vain, that she herself would be publicly disgraced, and that Leucha would naturally never speak to her again. These things might come to pass at once. As it was, they did come to pass a little later on, but on this special Saturday there was a slight reprieve both ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... spectre horses is variously explained, some believing that the dead man is leading an assault on the fort, others wondering if it may not be a conscience-smitten governor hurrying to rescue or reprieve his victim, and arriving too late,—a theory quite generally rejected on the ground that there never was that ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... storm. Judge Thayer was there, glorifying in the success of his undertaking, sparing none of those who had mocked him for a sucker and a fool. A cool breath of reviving wind was moving, fresh, sweet, rain-scented; as hopeful, as life-giving, as a reprieve to one chained among faggots at the ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... the courtyard. "No reprieve, no reprieve! Nobody comes near us. There's only the night left now!" moaned Dennis. "Do you think they'll reprieve me in the night, brother? I've known reprieves come in the night afore now. Don't you think there's a good chance yet? ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... slaughter of pheasants and the torture of foxes, which his soul loathed to listen to. 'It's from Lady Hilda,' he said, glancing through it, 'and it ISN'T an invitation after all.' He could hardly keep down a faint tone of gratification as he discovered this reprieve. 'Here's ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... important airs, wearing white silk knee-breeches, a green swallow-tail coat, and a cocked hat. On the sleeve of his coat was embroidered in gold the image of a key and seven sprays of water. He had great privileges and authority, and could condemn or reprieve any sort of criminal except, of course, a sheep stealer. He lived in a mansion beside the town, and this mansion was almost as famous as the seven famous springs. People travelled from far places to see it. A flight of ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... I took him the time before, I told him what he would come to if he did not mend his Hand. This is Death without Reprieve. I may venture to Book him [writes.] For Tom Gagg, forty Pounds. Let Betty Sly know that I'll save her from Transportation, for I can get more by ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... 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 as he was, he set off with Vlacco and his officers ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... with us in England it will do a bad book no ultimate service, that it is written by a lord, or a bishop, or a privy counsellor, or a member of Parliament—though, undoubtedly, it will do an instant service—it will sell an edition or so. This being the case, it being certain that no rank will reprieve a bad writer from final condemnation, the sycophantic glorifier of the public fancies his idol justified; but not so. A bad book, it is true, will not be saved by advantages of position in the author; but a book moderately good will be extravagantly aided by such advantages. ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... for pretty Hetty Sorrel. Hetty is seduced by the young squire, murders her baby, and is condemned to die for the crime. Dinah visits the doomed girl in prison, wins her to a confession and repentance, and accompanies her in the gallows-cart. They are at the scaffold when a reprieve arrives.—George ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... gig. Consequently it might be though that there was no romance in Cowfold. There could not be a greater mistake. The history of every boy or girl of ordinary make is one of robbery, murder, imprisonment, death sentence, filing of chains, scaling of prison walls, recapture, scaffold, reprieve, poison, and pistols; the difference between such a history and that in the authorised versions being merely circumstantial. The garden of Eden, the murder of Cain, the deluge, the salvation of Noah, the exodus from Egypt, David and Bathsheba, ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... affixing our seals to the former petition; but Sogoro, who was chief of a large district, producing a thousand kokus of revenue, and was therefore a man of experience, acted for the others; and we grieve that he alone should suffer for all. Yet in his case we reverently admit that there can be no reprieve. For his wife and children, however, we humbly implore ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... is my doom, Love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my She Advowson fly Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives faster than the males; As if to measure ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... disapproval. But beneath, I saw a dawning look which he could not keep down, of a great hope. It was as though he had been condemned to death, and the paper Beatrice had handed himto read had been his own reprieve. ...
— Captain Macklin • 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
... this feeble frame to save, (Unblest reprieve) and rob the gaping wave, The morn broke forth, these tearful orbs descried The golden banks that bound the western tide. With full success I calm'd the clamorous race, Bade heaven's blue arch a second earth embrace; And gave the astonish'd age that bounteous ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... said, savagely. "The pirate vessel on which he sailed was captured, and he has been hanged. One or two of the crew were granted a reprieve, but Roger was the most bloodthirsty man among them, and to ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... then," replied Greg, shifting his campaign hat to the other hand and feeling like a man who has secured a reprieve. ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... dismissed doubts, and, with a clear conscience, gave herself up to the enjoyment of her sister's visit, each minute of which seemed of diamond worth. Perhaps the delights were the more intense from compression; but it was a precious reprieve when Arthur's answer came, rejoicing at Violet's having a companion, and hoping that she would keep her till his return, which he should not scruple to defer, since she was so well provided for. He had just been deliberating whether he could accept an invitation ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Ha, ha! Reprieve, I call it, because if the skipper had gone on with his silly argument much longer he would have had to be knocked out of the way. I could hardly hold myself in on account of the precious minutes. However, his guardian angel put it into his ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... much too small, and I was relieved, and even grateful. It was certainly an odd mode of procedure to devote primary attention to the trunks and boxes, leaving the travellers still shut up in the carriage, of which they were by this time pretty well tired. I was not sorry for the reprieve, however: being nervous about first impressions, and willing to defer mine, I sat shyly back, peeping at the candle and moonlight picture ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... dentist's missive he inscribed "Auditorium Annex, Chicago, Illinois." Over the lawyer's letter he hesitated a moment, and then boldly wrote "Chateau Frontenac, Quebec, P. Q." This would at least be a grateful reprieve. After five days all these epistles would be returned to their senders, who would probably not question the fact that their failure to reach him had not been purely accidental. Moreover his credit with this trio would positively be improved by the impression ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... rowdies and courtesans of Boston. Then you will, be arrested, tried, condemned to be hanged, thrown into prison. Now is your happy day. You will be converted—you will be converted just as soon as every effort to compass pardon, commutation, or reprieve has failed—and then!—Why, then, every morning and every afternoon, the best and purest young ladies of the village will assemble in your cell and sing hymns. This will show that assassination is respectable. Then you will write a touching letter, in which you will forgive all ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... be done till after the Wil'sbro' business," said Raymond, glad of the reprieve. He could not bear the prospect of banishment for his mother or himself from the home to which both were rooted; and the sentence of detachment from her was especially painful when she seemed his only consolation for his wife's perverseness. Yet ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was cruelly false to play with another at the passion which was such a tragedy to her. This was the point that, put aside however often, still presented itself, and its recurrence, if he could have known it, was mercy and reprieve from the only source out ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... consultations held with Satan for the purpose of overthrowing the kingdom of heaven. In some cases these confessions were the result of distempered understandings; but, generally, they may be attributed to the hope of respite and ultimate reprieve, as none but the supposed impenitent sorcerers were executed. Thus only the truthful and conscientious suffered from the effects of this odious insanity. Some among the wretched people who had confessed witchcraft showed a subsequent disposition to retract. A ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... It is brought about too much by a tour de force, too entirely by the de par le roi, to deserve the praise bestowed on the rest of the piece. It resembles, in short, too nearly the receipt for making the "Beggars' Opera" end happily, by sending someone to call out a reprieve. But as it manifested at the same time the power of the prince, and afforded opportunity for panegyric on his acuteness in detecting and punishing fraud, Moliere, it is certain, might have his own good reasons for unwinding and disentangling the plot by ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... Thus gradually she was won from the Lombard runes to more personal interests, and as in the slow progress towards the station they neared a bridge, Hauptmann divined the spot where the East Germanic hypothesis lately in peril of death might receive an indefinite reprieve. ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather |
