"Compunction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... told me last night," said King, drawing on imagination without any compunction at all, "that the fight in the Khyber was because ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... it cannot be written that Bowen felt some compunction at what he was doing. We like to think that, when a man deliberately commits a crime, he should hesitate and pay enough deference to the proprieties as to feel at least a temporary regret, even if he goes on with his crime afterward. Bowen's ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... compunction in destroying scores of natives, and, strange to say, the most inhuman atrocities were committed by blacks, who were employed to act as troopers. On one occasion, after the murder of a white man by two blacks, a band ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... pray, indeed, poor man! and I trust his prayers are heard with mercy at the throne of grace," said his companion, in his earnestness disregarding the sneering tone of his companion. "He is full of compunction, and admits his guilt." ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... strangle herself by the weight of her own body at Caesar's first step towards her. So desperate was the resolution depicted on Meroe's face that the Roman general for an instant remained motionless. Then, urged either by compunction for his violence; or by the certainty that, if he attempted force, he would have but a corpse in his possession; or, as the unscrupulous libertine later pretended, by a generous impulse that had ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... was not chivalry that prompted Schwalbe to act with consideration. Had he been untrammelled he would have sent his prey to the bottom without compunction, for he had all the brutal instincts of the kultured Hun. It was a superstitious fear that held his frightfulness in check—a presentiment based upon the Mosaic Law, an eye for an eye and a tooth ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... of heavenly consolation but he who hath diligently exercised himself in holy compunction. If thou wilt feel compunction within thy heart, enter into thy chamber and shut out the tumults of the world, as it is written, Commune with your own heart in your own chamber and be still.(1) In retirement ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... Compunction weeps our guilt away, The sinner's safety is his pain; Such pangs for our offences pay, And these ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe
... both settlers and Governors accustomed themselves to treat the aborigines rather as beasts of burden than as men, and they were hunted, slain, or driven to labour with as little compunction as if they had been pack-mules. The slightest sign of revolt was wont to be punished by an outlet of blood which left the unfortunate folk cowering in deeper terror and despair than before. The utter misery of the Indians may be imagined when the measures they took ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... left, while his companions went fossil-hunting, and stayed so long as to excite their compunction, and quicken their steps when they at length detached themselves from the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sort and knew that they were to be respected. In all, he had made only one serious blunder. He should never have permitted the vision of a face to deter him. He should have taken the things from the safe and vanished. It had not been, a matter of compunction. And yet . . . Ah, he was human, whatever his dream might be; and he loved this American girl with all his heart and mind. It was not lawless love, but it was ruthless. When the time was ripe he would speak. ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... Edward Watton. He once formally asked Letty if she would go with him to one of Lady Maxwell's East End "evenings," and she, with equal formality, refused. But he did not take advantage of her refusal to go himself. Was it fear of his own weakness, or compunction towards Letty, or the mere dread of being betrayed into something at once ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... compunction in these confessions. Spencer's mind was so narrowly systematized, that he was at last almost incapable of believing in the reality of alien ways of feeling. The invariable arrogance of his replies to criticisms shows his absolute self-confidence. Every opinion in the world had to be ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... essential to my happiness that life without her would be a void. If you but knew the agony of mind I endured while they wore acting that hateful charade last night! I quite shudder when I think how I felt towards Lawless; I could have slain him where he stood without a shadow of compunction. No, I must leave this place without delay; I would not go through what I suffered yesterday again for ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... days before Hugh regained his old vigor and buoyancy; then it came to life like an Antaeus flung down to mother earth. His hour of doubt, of self-distrust, of compunction, was whirled away like an uprooted tree on the flood of his happiness. He flung reason and caution to the four winds; he dared Bella or Pete to betray him, he played his heroic part with boisterous energy; his tongue wagged like a tipsy troubadour's. What an empty canvas, ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Superman in the highest potency yet attained. He has made a clean sweep of the old British morality. He is coldly and unfeelingly inspired by a frightful craving for power, that wades through rivers of blood, and knows neither compunction nor pity. These are weaknesses which the Superman has conquered.—"GERMANUS," ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... serves as a differential thermometer, detecting the presence or absence of the divine sentiment in man. By fault of our dulness and selfishness we are looking up to nature, but when we are convalescent, nature will look up to us. We see the foaming brook with compunction: if our own life flowed with the right energy, we should shame the brook. The stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not with reflex rays of sun and moon. Nature may be as selfishly studied as ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... not to have been born, is a supposition that has nothing, absolutely nothing, absurd in it. Was he happy, the poor Jewish intellectualist definer of intellectual love and of happiness? For that and no other is the problem. "What does it profit thee to know the definition of compunction if thou dost not feel it?" says a Kempis. And what profits it to discuss or to define happiness if you cannot thereby achieve happiness? Not inapposite in this connection is that terrible story that Diderot tells of a eunuch who desired to take lessons in esthetics from a native ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... his face, that strange face which I was now beginning so well to know—the face of my enemy. I knew it was the face of a murderer, a man who would have no compunction at ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... gathered together in their fastnesses, in which they knew themselves to be safe from Israel's attacks. [716] Their fear was in reality quite without foundation, for Israel never dreamed of transgressing God's command by waging war upon Lot's descendants. They might without compunction keep the former provinces of Moab and Ammon because they took them not from these, but from Sihon and Og, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... and was now engaged in the opium trade, or, in other words, he smuggled opium into China. At first I was much pleased with him; but when I came to be more thoroughly acquainted with him, I found that I could not approve of the principles which guided him, or many of the acts he committed without compunction. I have, however, seldom met any one who, at first sight, was more likely to win confidence and regard. I have frequently met people like him; and I consider them much more dangerous companions ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... the furious donkeys nearing and striking with their fore-feet, and biting each other about the head and neck without the smallest feeling of compunction or remorse; the two guides shrieking and swearing in Portuguese at the donkeys and each other, and striking right and left with their long staves, perfectly indifferent as to whom they hit; the unhappy riders, furious with fright and chagrin, shouting in English to the belligerents ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... her own handkerchief, she wet it and laid it on his palm, across which a red gash ran. He had moved close to her, stooping down, and a disturbing thrill ran through him as she held his hand. Once more, however, he was troubled by a sense of compunction as he recalled ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... kind creature," said uncle Nathan, moving his head with gentle compunction. "I'm afraid it came hard though to hear poor Anna mentioned, but I couldn't ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... what was Mr. Hastings's business during this long protracted visit. First, he tells you that he came there to reduce all the state and dignity of the Nabob. He tells you that he felt no compunction in reducing that state; that the elephants, the menagerie, the stables, all went without mercy, and consequently all the persons concerned in them were dismissed also. When he came to the abolition of the pensions, he ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... dead, for we shot them by moonlight. I would gladly have spared the young ones and some of the cows, but to do so would only have meant leaving them to perish of hunger; it was kinder to kill them at once. The wounded bull I slew with my own hand, and I cannot say that I felt much compunction in so doing. He knew me again, and made a desperate effort to get at me, but I am glad to say that ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... she can fully and freely expand her wings and take her flight to her Lord. Of this truth she had now renewed personal experience. In the high degree of Divine union to which she had attained, she saw her imperfections in a clearer light than ever, and the view filled her with confusion and compunction. That by the help of Divine grace, she had through life been preserved from every sin of deliberation, was the opinion of competent judges, well acquainted with her soul's history. The imperfections which she so bitterly deplored ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... comfort bring you? Speak cheerfully: how did my letter work On his hard temper? I am sure I wrote it So feelingly, and with the pen of sorrow, That it must force Compunction. ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... parlor, where they don't seem to be a whit less at home than in fashion's gilded halls: and now they are at Newgate, seeing the irons knocked off the malefactors' legs previous to execution. What hardened ferocity in the countenance of the desperado in yellow breeches! What compunction in the face of the gentleman in black (who, I suppose, has been forging), and who clasps his hands, and listens to the chaplain! Now we haste away to merrier scenes: to Tattersall's (ah gracious powers! what a funny fellow that actor was who performed Dicky Green in that ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... them if some such governor as Paulus should come here? And all this I have done for the sake of Brutus!" AEmilius Paulus was the Consul, and might probably have Cilicia as a province, and would no doubt give over the Salaminians to Brutus and his myrmidons without any compunction. In strictness—with that assurance in the power of law by means of which our judges are enabled to see that their righteous decisions shall be carried out without detriment to themselves—Cicero should have caused the delegates from Salamis instantly to have deposited their money ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... the love and practice of truth have grown obsolete; dramatic pieces and works of fiction, indeed all kinds of literature, especially biography, and even history, combine to outrage truth with impunity; no compunction is felt in transforming great characters into monsters, and monsters into heroes. People are no longer astonished that travellers' narratives should be like poems, good or bad, works of imagination full of anachronisms, exaggerations, impossibilities, making the sea take ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... forward and anon stood face to face with the young man on whom he had just wreaked such an irreparable wrong. Not a thought of compunction or remorse rose in his mind as he looked down at the handsome flushed face—quite calm and set outwardly in spite of the terrible agony raging ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... with meditative care. It was a square of orange-coloured merino, such as pedlars who deal with the squaws always carry, an ordinary thing for a settler's child to possess. As he held it, Bates felt compunction that it was not something finer and to his idea prettier, for he did not like the colour. He decided that he would purchase something better for her as soon as possible. He followed ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... light footfalls of women, upstairs, where Claire, in person, seemed to be superintending the arrangement of his room. At the sound, a twinge of compunction swept Brice. But, at memory of her brother's stealthy ransacking of an unconscious guest's clothes, the feeling passed, leaving only a ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... creditable merchants felt no compunction in speculating in the flesh and blood of their own species. These articles of merchandize were as common as wheat and tobacco, and ranked with these as a staple of Maryland. This state of things was naturally ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... Pen's anger somewhat, and made Arthur feel no little compunction for the deed which he was about to do. He knew that the announcement which he was about to make would destroy the darling hope of the old gentleman's life, and create in his breast ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to be vain, Mrs. Bird!" cried Polly, with compunction in her voice. "I 've never had a real beautiful, undyed, un-made-over dress in my whole life, and I shall never have strength of character to own four ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... and affectionate parents; but let them once go abroad, and come within the contagion of slavery, and it seems to alter the very nature of a man; and the father has sold, and still sells, the mother and his children, with as little compunction as he would a sow and her litter of pigs; and he often disposes of ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... rub! Not one short, sharp pang, and over—all fire quenched in cool mists of death and unconsciousness, but long years to come of daily, hourly, paying the price; incessant compunction, active punishment. A prospect for a martyr to shirk from, and for a woman who has made a ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... much of course the promise will be given and systematically broken without the slightest compunction; because in the creed of Rome the end sanctifies the means and no end is esteemed higher or holier than that of adding members to ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... I should feel when I had shot him!" thought Simon, and his mind reverted to the rattlesnake, and to a sneaking compunction which had seized him when the tail gave its death-quiver. The possibility of missing his mark when once obliged to shoot did not enter his mind. He was fighting on the side of right and justice, and possessing, as he did, but small knowledge ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... compunction, "you'll think me an awful bore, Jerrolds, but I've been more or less practising on you, haven't I? But you'll remember, perhaps, this used to be a sort of hobby of mine, and I work it into shape nowadays for a young men's ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... fled on their entrance, and knowing each corner and pass of the intricate old house, escaped all search. But Varney was taken on the spot; and instead of expressing compunction for what he had done, seemed to take a fiendish pleasure in pointing out to them the remains of the murdered Countess, while at the same time he defied them to show that he had any share in her death. The despairing grief of Tressilian, on viewing the mangled and yet ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... and feeble as she sat in the window seat, stripped now of its tapestry cushions, with the roofs of the New Building rising among its trees at the back, where her husband had walked a year ago with such delight, that Ralph felt a touch of compunction, and ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... moments of emergency. She found a certain satisfaction in scrupulously observing her promise, made earlier on that eventful day, and sent off a messenger with the stipulated loan. Then a reaction of compunction set in, and she reminded herself that in fairness she ought to write and tell her news in as friendly a fashion as possible to her dismissed suitor before it burst upon him from some other quarter. They had parted on more or ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... officers who may fall into their hands are to be kept as hostages, so that he can open negotiations with the skipper. If he gets what he wants, he hands us back; if not, there is no manner of doubt that he will put us out of the way without compunction." ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... submit to your decrees as to those from which there is no appeal: but to wound without deigning even to look at what you destroy,—to shoot at random those arrows that are pointed with poison,—to see them fasten on the heart, and corrode its vital functions, yet look on without compunction, or turn away with cold disdain,—Oh where is the candour I thought lodged in Cecilia! where the justice, the equity, I ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... now tired and discouraged house-breaker plodded, heavy footed, the unending road. Did vain compunction stir his youthful breast? Did he regret the safe respectability of the plumber's apprentice? Or, if he had not been a plumber's apprentice did he yearn to once again assume the unharried peace of whatever legitimate calling had been his before he bent his steps upon the broad ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... them not, so long as they observed sufficient etiquette to keep their distance from his royal person and immediate following. This nice decorum, however, be it said, was an unwritten law with these waifs and scatterlings, knowing the merry monarch who tolerated them afar would feel no compunction at hanging them severally, or in squads, from the convenient branches of the trees surrounding the castle, should the humor seize him that such summary chastisement were best for their morals and the welfare of the community. Thus, though bold, were they also ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... consoled and soothed. There are Indians in the south of Newfoundland at the present day, but they are Mikmaks who come over from the adjoining regions of Cape Breton and Nova Scotia. So tender, indeed, is the modern government of the island towards these (out of compunction for the past) that they are allowed to kill the reindeer and other wild animals without the licence which is exacted from white people, and so ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... it opened into a yard, which seemed the storehouse for old rubbish—a safe enough place to alight in. When she returned to the street she saw the "Pretender" coming along, wheeling two bicycles; and her relief at seeing him was mingled with compunction at giving him such ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... imminent perils come from yourself, or at least would come if I believed in your love and accepted your addresses. Your father has told me plainly that in that case I should be consumed into a cinder with as little compunction as if I were the reptile whom Taee blasted into ashes with the ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... blinding gale, was so terrible that it blanched her cheek, and made her lips tremble when she tried to speak. She felt that she had been a little brusque to him at times, and now she reproached herself in remorseful compunction, and with the abandonment of a child to her present overwrought condition, felt that she could never refuse him anything should his blue eyes turn pleadingly to her again. At first she did not give way, but was sustained, like Maggie, by the bustle of preparation for the return, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... sin! Sin! Do you not, from your point of view, consider the manner in which Paul's father behaved toward us a sin? I am unable to see any difference. There was no compunction about locking the door upon us. I was treated as a nondescript, bringing disgrace to the family! As if my family could not match up with the Warkentins any day! After all, I am the daughter of a university ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... if a man be in some sort hindered so that he is not at liberty to make use of such external acts, the interior man does not therefore cease to pray; in the secret chamber of his heart, where lies compunction, he lies prostrate before the eyes of God (Of Care for ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... not been armed in proof, the villain had marked me down seven times with as little remorse as if I had been a buck in season. He told every rivet on my armour with a cloth-yard shaft, that rapped against my ribs with as little compunction as if my bones had been of iron—But that I wore a shirt of Spanish mail under my plate-coat, I ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... advice thankfully; besides having a distaste for the idea of corporal punishment, he could hardly have borne to hurt the eager, bright creature who always hung about him so confidingly when in the mood, but who had no compunction in not going near him for days, except to say good-morning and good-night, when in ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... restless, as if she too had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people to the house more, and she assented, rather listlessly. So Peter hinted to Peggy, who had a cheering presence, that Rhoda would be glad to see her more often, and Peggy made what time she ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... said at last. "But I warn you that if my trust is misplaced and you do attempt to escape, I'll burn you down without compunction." ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... the child's face, the dark eyes brimming with rising tears, and the little mouth drawn and trembling, might have touched some men; indeed, even Caffyn felt a languid compunction for what he was doing. But his only chance lay in working upon her fears; he could not afford to be sentimental just then, and so he went ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... her and restored her self-respect; her previous relations with Stanbury and Schenk suffered by comparison, and if she secretly hoped for the death or removal of Mme. Poussette it was with soft womanly compunction and pity, and with stern resolves not to overstep the mark ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... should cease before it has revenged itself? or that any one should repent of what he had done in a passion? as we see that Alexander the king did, who could scarcely keep his hands from himself, when he had killed his favourite Clytus: so great was his compunction! Now who, that is acquainted with these instances, can doubt that this motion of the mind is altogether in opinion and voluntary? for who can doubt that disorders of the mind, such as covetousness, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... resentment; and afterwards, when the driver chose to lose his temper and scold them, they were more determined than ever to refuse. Had he appeared at this time with his former good-natured expression, and had he shown any signs of compunction for his insolent behavior, there is no doubt that they would have brought up the subject of their own accord, and promised him as handsome a sum as his exploit deserved. But his continued sulks prevented them from introducing the subject, ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... say not so? Old gaffer dead?" And when the soldier was told how the feeble thread of life had been snapped by the shock of joy on his coming, a fit of compunction and sorrow seized him. He covered his face with his hands and wept with a loudness of grief that surprised and touched his hearers; and presently began to bemoan himself that he had hardly a mark in his purse to pay for a mass; but therewith he proceeded ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... while in front of the empty tent and if any had been there to note him, they might have seen a shadow as of compunction creep over ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... his partner's gloomy view. To him every word proved that he was free from any personal obligation to Del Ferice and might accept the latter's assistance without the least compunction. He did not like to remember that a man of Ugo's subtle intelligence might have something more important in view than a profit of a few hundred thousand francs, if indeed the sum should amount to that. Orsino's brow cleared and his ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... friend out of a piece of property valued at twelve thousand six hundred dollars, and preventing him from reselling the same piece at a very advanced figure. Again and again he wished that it was some other than Vandover; he told himself that in such case he would put the screw on without the least compunction. All through one night Geary was on the rack torn between his friendship for his chum and his devouring, inordinate ambition to make his way and to make his pile. In the end Vandover was sacrificed—the opportunity was too good—Geary could not resist ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... a deep movement of compunction; for the moment, her mind ceased to contend against what she felt to be cruel and unreasonable, and in her self-blame ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... that we recognize a bore when we meet him. It was in this manner that she now began to ascertain that Mr. M'Gabbery certainly had bored her. Ascertaining it, she threw him off at once—perhaps without sufficient compunction. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... tone he has been taught, without a glance at his gift—a touch of etiquette he has been taught, too. Then the curious eyes of childhood wander to the palm, and, seeing the unexpected pretty gold thing lying there, he colors up to the tips of his ears with surprise and pleasure. Then sudden compunction seizes on the kindly little heart. The world is strange to him. He knows but one or two here and there. His father is poor. A sovereign—that is, a gold piece—would be rare with him, why not rare with another? Though ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... observed that, from the uncertainty of its motions, the turkey-cock was blind, a discovery which caused a throb of compunction to enter his breast for standing and looking on, so he ran forward. The eagle saw him instantly, and tried to fly away, but was ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... agony, even his who had tried to injure her and hers. The sick man perceived this and something of the affection he had once felt for his master's child, before he had betrayed that master's trust, stirred him to speak and thrilled him with compunction. He felt himself to be doomed; he had already sent Ferd away again to summon a priest; and according to his faith he meant to make his peace with the world; but these preparations had been on his own account only. Now he began to feel ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... moment, caught in the same strong current; then she slipped from him and drew back a step or two, pale and troubled. Her look smote him with compunction, and he cried out, as if he saw her drowning in a dream: "You can't go, Matt! I'll ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... to me once for all; I've a train to catch and a steamer to catch, and I'm going to do both. And if you don't instantly hand out those papers you've concealed I'll have no more compunction in taking them by force than I'd have in stripping an ear of corn! Make up your mind ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... the papers? One has to be Jekyll or Hyde, you know," he added, appropriating the Boss's illustration without compunction. "Some of them were—facetious." ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... degree. It chanced that he came upon Lieutenant Barlow, who, in pursuit of game, had lost his bearings and, far from his companions, was beating around quite bewildered in a watery solitude. Long-Hair promptly murdered the poor fellow and scalped him with as little compunction as he would have skinned a rabbit; for he had a clever scheme in his head, a very audacious and outrageous scheme, by which he purposed to recoup, to some extent, the damages sustained by letting ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... ordered him to be whipped in his presence, and afterwards sent him to the Tower, where he himself saw him put to the torture. The unhappy gentleman, overcome by all these severities, abjured his opinions; but feeling afterwards the deepest compunction for his apostasy, he openly returned to his former tenets, and even courted the crown of martyrdom. He was condemned as an obstinate and relapsed heretic, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... apparition of the young girl. He was so convinced that there was a vein of insanity about her, that he was very sure that questioning her only excited her the more. Just as he had parted from her, some compunction seized her, and she followed him to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... jaunting-car, notwithstanding the sufferings of the invalid, was clattering after me at about nine miles an hour. At first I rather enjoyed the malice of the penalty their curiosity was costing, but as I remembered that the invalid was not the chief offender, I began to feel compunction at the severity of the lesson, and drew ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... of the knife is habitual, the flinching which men naturally feel at the idea of driving it into a fellow-creature, is overcome; and a man who is accustomed to dissect the still palpitating carcasses of animals, has very little compunction in resorting to the knife in the event of collision with his own race.) This fellow looked a butcher; his face and head were all animal; he was by no means intelligent. He was working at a loom, and had already been confined for seven years and a half. He said that, after the first ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Nature about him and the love and beauty of an exquisite womanhood at his hand for possession, could nevertheless devote his energies to the science of destruction and the compassing of death without compunction, on the lines Roger Seaton had laid down as the remedy against ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... laughed grimly and swore. "By the body of God, if I thought he were not I would twist his accursed neck for him! But the cholera never fails, he is dead for certain—see!" And he knocked the head of the corpse to and fro against the sides of the coffin with no more compunction than if it had been a block of wood. Sickened at the sight, I turned away and said no more. On reaching one of the more important thoroughfares I perceived several knots of people collected, who glanced at one another with eager yet shamed faces, and spoke in low voices. A whisper reached ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... lessons she inculcated. Once I recollect her mentioning the particular failing which disgraced so intelligent a being. She pleaded, in excuse of it, the unmitigable regret of a widowed heart, and with compunction declared that she flew to intoxication as the only refuge from the pang ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... easily reach the bow of the boat before it cleared the shore, and then it would not be necessary to make promises of any sort. Not that Rokoff would have felt the slightest compunction in ignoring any promises he might have made the girl, but he disliked the idea of having to sue for favour with one who had so recently assaulted and ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ability for spinning, would be content to drift and dawdle through life on his father's money. At that moment he was more contemptible to her than Irene, winning lovers by the score, and casting them aside with no more compunction than if they were the ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... sentimentalists are those who die, tribute their pity in an erratic fashion. These are the vegetarians who are sad because it is wrong to kill for food; yet they wear without compunction the leather of cattle who have neither committed suicide nor died of old age. And the anti-vivisectionists view without any stir of pity the children of the slums and the sick of all kinds. Pity raises man to the divine but, like all ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... "Lady of the Camelias" in her appartement on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. Another habitue there at this period was Lola's old Dresden flame, the Abbe Liszt, who, not confining his attentions to the romanticists, had no compunction about poaching on the preserves of Dumas fils, or, for that matter, of anybody else. As for the fair, but frail, Alphonsine, she said quite candidly that she was "perfectly willing to become his mistress, if he wanted ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... With compunction tweaking at his chest Soames descended the stairs, where was always that rather pleasant smell of camphor and port wine, and house where draughts are not permitted. The poor old things—he had not meant to be unkind! And in the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... him, and others whom she had not loved with the same carnal love, but only desired to make them useful to her own desire of power and glory, by the same magical arts; for which she now humbly begged pardon of Holy Church, and of all Christian folk; and, penetrated with compunction, desired only that she might retire into the convent of Crowland. She asserted the marriage which she had so unlawfully compassed to be null and void; and prayed to be released therefrom, as a burden to her conscience and soul, that she might spend the rest of her life in penitence for her many ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... loving, frank and generous creature was the woman, he thought, whose good name he would have periled in a clandestine courtship in preference to losing his inheritance by an open betrothal. A stab of compunction pierced his bosom; he felt that he loved her more than ever, but passion was stronger than affection, stronger than conscience, stronger than anything in nature, except pride and ambition. He lightened his clasp about her waist—he bent ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... shewed a singular implacability in her dealings with the rest of the world. In spite of which my aunt still retained her, for, while conscious of her cruelty, she could appreciate her services. I began gradually to realise that Francoise's kindness, her compunction, the sum total of her virtues concealed many of these back-kitchen tragedies, just as history reveals to us that the reigns of the kings and queens who are portrayed as kneeling with clasped hands in the windows of churches, were stained by oppression and bloodshed. I had taken note of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... I was pitted began to draw his breath in gasps. He was a scoundrel not fit to die, less fit to live, unworthy of a gentleman's steel. I presently ran him through with as little compunction and as great a desire to be quit of a dirty job as if he had been a mad dog. He fell, and a little later, while I was engaged with the Spaniard, his soul went to that hell which had long gaped for it. To those his companions his death was as ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... monstrous suggestion that struck me dumb. Without replying, I rose and shook them off, retiring with my boy into the inner chamber. But they pursued me without compunction, repeating the extraordinary "conundrum," and dragging the Malay duenna along with them to interpret my answer. The intrusion provoked me; but, considering their beggarly poverty of true life and liberty, of hopes and joys, and loves and memories, and holy fears ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... appearing to forget at table everything he had said to me in our walk, I should instantly have cancelled such a judgement on reflecting that the good news his wife was able to give him about their little boy was ground enough for any optimistic reaction. It may have come partly, too, from a certain compunction at having breathed to me at all harshly on the cool fair lady who sat there—a desire to prove himself not after all so mismated. Dolcino continued to be much better, and it had been promised him he should ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... soldier hears throughout in silence. I urge no answer: to those words, I fear, Thy heart with sharp compunction will reply. ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... but somehow she felt an unuttered conviction, on the part of the man there beside her, of Joe's loss of heritage. And yet a certain compunction prevented her from making any explanation—that it was not Joe's fault. There was a sort of sacred inviolability about it. A hot little wave of feeling swept over her. She had treated Joe miserably. She had yielded to her feelings like a child. ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... mighty impulse, is the sole law of the earth; in time it learns that impulse, the mightiest, the divinest, though it may be law in heaven, is sometimes a veritable nemesis on earth: it gives freely, gladly, without compunction; it finds the gift rewarded by consequences too ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... been one of mild but contemptuous abuse. More than once he had uttered the words "old skate" in tones of earnest conviction, and with the worn end of the whip he had cruelly tickled the still absurdly sensitive sides. Had beating availed he would with no compunction have beaten the drooping wreck. But now, all at once, he was curiously tender. He patted the shoulder softly, put both arms around the bony neck, and pressed his face against the face of Dexter. A moment he stood thus, then spoke in ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... shortly after he was surprised and overpowered by emissaries of Canon Fulbert and subjected to irreparable mutilation. He tells the story with perfect frankness and with hardly more than formal expressions of compunction, and thereafter follows the narrative of their separation, he to a monastery, she to a convent, and of his care for her during her conventual life, or at least for that part of it that had passed before ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... that Ellen Carley would be faithful—always on the watch for any clue to the mystery of Marian Holbrook's fate, always ready to receive the wanderer with open arms, should any happy chance bring her back to the Grange. Assured of this, he felt less compunction in turning his back upon the spot where his lost love had vanished from the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... he said with late compunction. "And I've been worrying you with all my silly affairs. Cheer up,—and smile at me before I ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... thanksgivings for the deliverance, while Mrs. Pennel was sobbing in her handkerchief, Miss Roxy was much scandalized by seeing the young cause of all the disturbance sitting upon his heels, regarding the emotion of the kneeling party with his wide bright eyes, without a wink of compunction. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of a sure thing, for no race loves its children more than the red folk. An Indian has no compunction whatever in staking his treaty money, which comes so easily and may as lightly go; he does not hesitate to risk all his wealth, for after all wealth is a burden; he will even wager his wife, if the game possesses him; but he is very ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Cadiz. Also, Jean Jacques, the young, verdant, impressionable French Catholic, was like her Carvillho Gonzales, and she had loved her Carvillho in her own way very passionately, and— this much to her credit—quite chastely. So that she had no compunction in drawing the young money-master to her side, and keeping him there by such arts as such a woman possesses. These are remarkable after their kind. They are combined of a frankness as to the emotions, and such outer concessions to physical ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... willingness to undertake the task suggested. They felt no compunction over the seizure ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... in the arms of the boatswain's men to the starboard quarter, and flung over the side with no more compunction or care than had he been so much rubbish. She heard the final scream of terror with which he vanished, the splash of his fall, and then in the ensuing silence ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... and seeing required eyes, which Heaven knows the PREMIER woefully lacked. (Cheers.) What right had an incorrigible hoodwinker such as Mr. ASQUITH to advise anyone to see? It was monstrous. Let the people get rid of this impostor without a twinge of compunction, and the sooner the better. As to swapping horses in mid-stream being unwise, perhaps it was, but it was not unwise in the way that waiting to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... Mark had consigned to her of each of the cities that belonged to her, and cast them into the fire. Then, turning again to the king, 'What!' she cried, 'dost thou hesitate? Do thou even as I; if we lose our dear children, at least escape we everlasting punishment.' Then the king, moved with compunction, threw into the fire all the lists, and, when they were burned, sent people to stay the levy of those imposts. And afterwards their youngest child died, worn out with lingering illness. Overwhelmed with grief, they bare him from their house at Braine to Paris, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... he may have saved in his pocket, is allowed so much as half a biscuit beyond his proper ration. Any riotous person who endangered the safety of the rest would be bound, and laid in the bottom of the boat, without the smallest compunction, for such violation of the principles of individual liberty; and, on the other hand, any child, or woman, or aged person, who was helpless, and exposed to great danger and suffering by their weakness, would receive more than ordinary care and indulgence, ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... to supplicate, and though still in a suspense that my temper knows ill how to endure; but I should rather be rendered miserable than happy, in merely overpowering your reason by entreaty. I leave you, therefore, to your own reflections; yet remember,—and refuse not to remember with some compunction, that all chance, all possibility of earthly happiness for me depends upon ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... of the Wall Street Record," came back the reply in a tone that showed no hesitation or compunction if it was lying. "I suppose you have heard the rumours that are current downtown that Hartley Langhorne and the people associated with him have gone broke in the pool they formed to get control of the public utilities that would put them in a position ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... scraps of knowledge and ideas. No break is too great to be bridged by this instinctive impulse to rationalize the products of diverse experience. Hence, early man, having identified the Great Mother both with a cow and the moon, had no compunction in making "the cow jump over the moon" to become the sky. The moon then became the "Eye" of the sky and the sun necessarily became its other "Eye". But, as the sun was clearly the more important "Eye," seeing ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... bitterness was sweeping over her heart. In the first agony caused by Annabel's death Maggie had vowed a vow to her own heart never, under any circumstances, to consent to be Hammond's wife. In the first misery of regret and compunction it had been easy to Maggie Oliphant to make such a vow; but she knew well, as the days and months went by, that its weight was crushing her life, was destroying her chance of ever becoming a really strong and good woman. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... back with the coarse velvet of his nose. Then followed two quick snorts of alarm; the horses shied simultaneously outward, while down on the ground between them came two souls with but a single thud, two hearts that squelched as one. In spite of the compunction and sympathy I felt, modesty compelled me to glide unobstrusively away, leaving the souls to disentangle themselves and catch their horses ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... cynical, half wistful, as though the decent honest days that were no more had had their merits after all. Raffles would plan a fresh enormity, or glory in the last, with the unmitigated enthusiasm of the artist. It was impossible to imagine one throb or twitter of compunction beneath those frankly egotistic and infectious transports. And yet the ghost of a dead remorse seemed still to visit him with the memory of his first felony, so that I had given the story up long before the night of our return from Milchester. Cricket, ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... Buds felt no more compunction in employing the juniors on this quest than a government that organizes a secret service department. The enemy had betrayed them shamelessly and deserved reprisals. It was Desiree after all who won the chocolates. She haunted house and garden with the persistency of a small ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... was awakened at the unusual hour of five a.m. by having her window broken by a large pebble. 'I tried small ones first, but it was not a bit of good,' said Peter later, with compunction. ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... agility of a child), and then along the flints below Flinty Point. She rapidly fell into my habits. She was an adept in finding birds' nests and wild honey; and though she would not consent to my taking the eggs, she had not the same compunction about the honey, and she only regretted with me that we could not be exactly like St. John, as Graylingham Wilderness yielded no locusts to eat with the honey. Winifred, though the most healthy of children, ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... her body was laid bare, and severely afflicted with many strokes of discipline, even till the blood flowed; nor did she regain her liberty, until by many tears and sincere repentance she had showed evident signs of compunction. ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... them that very morning. Now, here was an opportunity of getting him into disgrace, and probably cause him to lose his situation. True, he would have to tell a falsehood, but Tom had never been a scrupulous lover of truth, and would violate it for a less object without any particular compunction. ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... scruples nor honesty, neither compunction nor pity; for the woman who was his favourite he had turned upon and sent to that grim island fortress, where in one of those terrible oubliettes below the level of the lake her death took place eight ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... taught her to gratify the first at any cost, even to that of dipping into the pocket of an impecunious newspaper correspondent. It was a part of her strength—and of her charm too—that she did such things naturally, openly, without any of the ugly grimaces of dissimulation or compunction. ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... And then Rama, the slayer of hostile heroes, came to the hermitage, last of all. Him the mighty-armed Jamadagni, of great austerities, addressed, saying, 'Kill this wicked mother of thine, without compunction, O my son.' Thereupon Rama immediately took up an axe and therewith severed his mother's head. Then, O great king, the wrath of Jamadagni of mighty soul, was at once appeased; and well-pleased, he spake the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... exclaimed, "what hast thou done? A sort (a company) of brave youths, otherwise endued with good gifts, by thy inducement hast thou brought to their utter destruction and confusion." The Jesuit himself commands our respect, although we refuse him our esteem; for he felt some compunction at the tragical executions which were to follow, and "wished all the blame might rest on him, could the shedding of his blood be ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... sought to make out what caused her delay. She continued praying, she frequently passed her handkerchief over her face, by which D'Artagnan perceived she was weeping. He saw her strike her breast with the pitiless compunction of a Christian woman. He heard her several times proffer, as if from a wounded heart: "Pardon! pardon!" And as she appeared to abandon herself entirety to her grief, as she threw herself down almost fainting, amid complaints and prayers, D'Artagnan, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... him round for a moment like some huge leviathan tossing its prey. He sank into its gorge, and the insatiate gulf swallowed him up for ever. Anthony drew back. He turned from the horrid scene, with some yet lingering tokens of compunction, in the expectation of rejoining his companions; but in vain—the babes and his deliverer ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... walk brought us to Lengan Lengang about dusk, where we put up for the night. For the first time, this day I saw the cockatoo in his wild state; I was within easy shot of two of them, but the stream lay between us, and I felt some compunction ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... own children by the kindest affections, feels no compunction of conscience while administering the law which denies a father his own children-which commands those children to be sold with the beasts of the field! Mark the slender cord upon which the fate of these unfortunates turns; mark the suffering through ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... sparkled. 'I shall like going,' said she,—'all but leaving you, Molly,' she added, in a lower tone, as if suddenly smitten with some compunction. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... was the door leading to the front part of the house. He started toward that door, walking on tiptoe. A shudder crept up his spine as he tiptoed across the floor directly in front of the armed guards who would have shot him down without compunction could they have seen him. He was not yet used to his invisibility; knowing himself to be substantial, feeling his feet descend solidly on the floor, he still could hardly credit the fact that human eyes could ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... me with compunction," he cried. "But if, indeed, I have drawn you into so cruel a waste of your time, the only compensation I can make you will be carefully to keep from you the day when ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... keen sense of smell to its hiding-place. Then Nuflo would rejoice and feast, rewarding them with the skin, bones, and entrails. But at length one of the dogs fell lame, and Nuflo, who was very hungry, made its lameness an excuse for dispatching it, which he did apparently without compunction, notwithstanding that the poor brute had served him well in its way. He cut up and smoke-dried the flesh, and the intolerable pangs of hunger compelled me to share the loathsome food with him. We were not only indecent, it seemed to me, but cannibals to feed on the faithful ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... compunction," they declared, "about exposing the Holy Order of St. Francis to derision and disgrace. He deserves ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... as he could the old warmth of his feeling for Statira, and in his compunction experienced a tenderness for her that he had not known before, the strange tenderness that some spirits feel for those they injure. He went oftener than ever to see her, he was very good to her, and cheered her with his interest ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... would have any more compunction than Diogenes, so the moral is—give them as wide a berth as possible. If we were driving a big hay-cart, I'd ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... enigmatic smile on his lips. "Couldn't I?" he said. Glancing again at her as he rose, he saw that she seemed weary, her lashes lay long on her pale cheek. "Oh," with a touch of compunction in his tone, "I have, as usual, talked far too much. You are tired and we must go. Jose," lifting his voice, "as soon ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Hilary saw him take a pistol from his breast-pocket, and, if physiognomy was any index of the mind, Hilary saw plainly enough that if he refused to obey this man's orders he would have no compunction in ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn |
