"Confession" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... even at his disposal. We often hear people laud the beautiful submission and the self-sacrifice of this nameless maiden. To me it is pitiful and painful. I would that this page of history were gilded with a dignified whole-souled rebellion. I would have had daughter receive the father's confession with a stern rebuke, saying: "I will not consent to such a sacrifice. Your vow must be disallowed. You may sacrifice your own life as you please, but you have no right over mine. I am on the threshold of life, the joys of youth ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... had left you," she went on, "I regretted something I had said. I have to make a confession—I must make it!" she whispered, brokenly, the instinct to indulge in warmth of sentiment which had led this woman of passions to respond to Fitzpiers in the first place leading her now to find luxurious comfort in opening her heart to his wife. "I said ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... the Sherif seeing their presumptious Impenitence, caused them to be Executed with all the Expedition possible; even while they were Cursing and raving, and as they liv'd the Devils true Factors, so they resolutely Dyed in his Service': the rest of the Coven also died 'without any confession or contrition'.[26] ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... answered, 'I am a Knight that fain would be counselled in the quest of the Graal, for he shall have much earthly worship that brings it to an end.' 'That is true,' said the good man, 'for he will be the best Knight in the world, but know well that there shall none attain it but by holiness and by confession of sin.' So they rode together till they came to the hermitage, and the good man led Sir Bors into the chapel, where he made confession of his sins, and they ate bread and drank water together. 'Now,' said the hermit, 'I pray you that you eat none ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... been able to endure him since he tore up the Wheel of Fortune. I don't go to confession to him ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... He afterwards [132] quashed several tumults and insurrections, as well as several conspiracies against his life, which were discovered, by the confession of accomplices, before they were ripe for execution; and others subsequently. Such were those of the younger Lepidus, of Varro Muraena, and Fannius Caepio; then that of Marcus Egnatius, afterwards that of Plautius Rufus, and of Lucius ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Wisner he stands up too; and he makes his confession that's good for his soul. His Adam's apple kind of walked up and down his neck, but he ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... evil consequence at the time of the marriage had crystallised into hard fact. The child of the "foreign dancing-woman"—the being for whose existence Hugh's mad passion for Diane had been responsible—had on her own confession worked precisely such harm in the world as she, Catherine, had foreseen. And now, the years which had raised Catherine to the position of Mother Superior of the community she had entered had brought that child to her doors as a penitent waveringly ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... portals more often than any artist has the privilege to write it. Emerson never had any thorough training, either in philosophy, theology, or history. He admits it upon a dozen smiling pages. Perhaps it adds to his purely personal charm, just as Montaigne's confession of his intellectual and moral weaknesses heightens our fondness for the Prince of Essayists. But the deeper fact is that not only Emerson and Thoreau, Poe and Hawthorne, but practically every American writer and artist from the beginning ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... something very amusing in the manner of the strapping seaman as he sat down beside the puny little boy, with a bashful expression on his handsome face, as if he were about to make a humiliating confession. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... ice." ("Voyages of the 'Adventure' and 'Beagle,'" Volume III., 1839: "Journal and Remarks: Addenda," page 617.)) (and am so still of the manner in which I presumptuously speak of Agassiz), but it seems by his own confession that ordinary glaciers could not have transported the blocks there, and if an hypothesis is to be introduced the sea is much simpler; floating ice seems to me to account for everything as well as, and sometimes better than the solid glaciers. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... bank-clerk, and his anxious babycentric wife, the silent Lyman Casses, the slangy traveling man, and the rest of Mrs. Gurrey's unenlightened guests. They sat opposite, and they sat late. They were exhilarated to find that they agreed in confession of faith: ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... that this is rather a painful confession," I continued. "To stand here before you vanquished, a prisoner in a fortress, and take my own name upon my lips, is painful to the proud. And yet I wished that you should know me. Long after this we may yet ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seem to be no possible connection between his presence in the living room at Happy Wigwam making himself even more than ordinarily agreeable, and the confession he desired to wring from the murderer ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... difficult position. So much, however, did not happen, and the horrible deed upon Pace was in vain. Put to the question, Melazzo denounced Terlizzi, and together with him Cabane, Morcone, and the others. Further, his confession incriminated Filippa, the Catanese, and her two daughters, the wives of Terlizzi and Morcone. Of the Queen, however, he said nothing, because, one of the lesser conspirators, little more than a servant like Pace, he can have had no ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... with breathless attention to the words of the Duchess; he plainly saw that she was not to be subdued by argument. "Her only vulnerable point lies though the avenue of the passions," thought he—"for according to her own confession, she was intoxicated with rapture when encircled by my arms, and when receiving my ardent kisses; and only escaped the entire surrender of her person to me, by a powerful effort. My course, then, is plain—I ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... an hour later, lighter in heart than he had been for some time—ever since, in fact, Dacre Wynne's tragic disappearance had cast such a gloom over his life's happiness. He had unburdened his soul to Cleek—absolutely. And Cleek had treated the confession with a decent sort of respect which was enough to win any chap over to him. Merriton in fact had found in Cleek a friend as well as a detective. He had been a little astonished at his general get-up and appearance, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... though I might be burning to know; because I had not the hypocrisy to profess any anxiety for his recovery, and I had not the face to express any desire for a contrary result. Had I any such desire?—I fear I must plead guilty; but since you have heard my confession, you must hear my justification as well —a few of the excuses, at least, wherewith I sought to pacify my own ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... Toffy. The burden of the suggestion was too horrible to bear alone. 'He did not die!' His mother's mental state might not have been perfectly sound at the time of her husband's death; and her preference for him, Peter, was a fact that had been remarked by all who knew her. Had she begun to write a confession to her son, and stopped short in the middle? 'Don't hate me too much,' the letter said. Why should he hate ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... comes occasionally to worship his beloved saint, to make his confession to me, and to pay his respects to her he calls his mother. His own lodging consists but of two rooms: he has no servant, and yet he will not suffer Madame Walravens to dispose of those splendid jewels ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... suppose I will consent to desert you after that confession?" I questioned, almost indignant. "I would be a brute to do so. You saved me from arrest just now; for me to have been taken to the station house and searched would have put me in a bad hole. It was your wit that saved me, and now I am going to stay and help you. ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... own confession you are not prudent, for you do not act in relation to Christianity on the principles on which you say you act in the affairs of the present life; where you acknowledge that the least presumption will move you, when the interests ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... had surrendered himself quite to them, had relinquished to them his giant Russian strength, his zest of life, his joy, had given them his proud flesh that their cry and confession might reach the ears ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... she has been for years—she will sleep now—she has carried a heavy burden, but confession has relieved it. She has sent you a message; come to my house, and I will give ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... obtuse concentration of a girl who, like Agnes, seems to be thinking of nothing, but who is reflecting on things in general so deeply, that her artifice is unfailing. As a result of this profound meditation, Rosalie thought she would go to confession. Next morning, after Mass, she had a brief interview with the Abbe Giroud at Saint-Pierre, and managed so ingeniously that the hour of her confession was fixed for Sunday morning at half-past seven, before ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... Billy's knee and hid her face against his. From such a shelter she could speak more freely; but oh! how different the confession was from what it once ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... tickets remain unchanged. Perhaps no generation has ever been so much at the mercy of such labels as our own. Thus many people who are inclined to jibe at the doctrine of original sin welcome it with open arms when it is reintroduced as the uprush of primitive instinct. Opportunity of confession to a psychoanalyst is eagerly sought and gladly paid for, by troubled spirits who would never resort for the same purpose to a priest. The formulae of auto-suggestion are freely used by those who repudiate vocal prayer and acts of faith with scorn. If, then, I use for the purpose of exposition ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... least doubt of it, but in order to test the boy's sincerity, he told him to sit down in the chair, assuring him, at the same time, that he had nothing to fear. As he had atoned for his guilt by making a confession, the chair would hold him up as it would anybody else. Julius tremblingly obeyed, and when he found that the chair really did support him, he gained courage, and with a little questioning told the whole ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... hundred times they have sung it for me. So recently as the month of August, 1823, I was in a parish called Havre-a-Bouchers, when twenty-six canoes filled with Indians arrived there; they came to have their children baptised, and for confession, &c. There were eight singers among them, and during the week that they remained, they sang mass for me each day, and one might say conducted themselves like canons or like Trappists! They have clear ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... Ruby to the Jenisons set forth the details of a visit to the Tombs on the day following the murder. Both were constrained to remark that, in the view of Dick's confession, it would go very hard with him; they could see no chance of escape for him. Joey, however, urged David to contribute something toward engaging the services of a clever lawyer who at least might save him from the gallows. He stated that Ernie, after stubbornly maintaining his own innocence, refused ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... the professor dreamily. "Ah, yes, I must make a small confession of guilt there. I did not come here to escape the results of that indiscreet remark, but I really made it—about a year ago. Shall I ever forget? Hardly—the newspapers and my wife won't let me. I can never again win a new honor, however dignified, without being referred to in print as the peroxide-blond ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... spiders?' (alluding, perhaps, more particularly to the Jesuit associated with him in this charge). 'Do you think I am a Jack Cade or a Robin Hood?' he said. But though the evidence on this trial is not only in itself illegal, and by confession perjured, but the report of it comes to us with a falsehood on the face of it, and is therefore not to be taken without criticism; that there was a movement of some kind meditated about that time, by persons occupying chief places of trust and responsibility in the nation—a ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... He set limits of prudence upon his confession. He left out his Judatting practices. He did not tell you, for instance, that this deletion was an act of revenge against me who refused to marry him, having discovered his unfaith, and fearing its consequences in this world ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... disposition, answered for the whole company and said: "Sir Knight, we do not know the good lady of whom you speak; let us see her, and if she is of such beauty as you describe, we will most gladly make the confession ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... confession, on the part of the employers, involved in this protest against the ten-hour day, a confession of the wretched state of women's wages in the State of Illinois. If women of mature years—one of the petitioners had been an expert box maker for over thirty years—are unable, in a day of ten hours, ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... herself? and how should he escape from the marriage in such a manner as to leave no stain on his character as a gentleman? If he could have offered her a sum of money, he would have done so at once; but that he thought would not be gentleman-like,—and would be a confession on his own part that he had ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... bowed, and smiled, and were charming. They grasped your hand, offered you cigars, invited you to supper—they wanted nothing. And they found no difficulty in procuring guests. I was no better than the rest, reader—there is an honest confession—and, looking back now, I can see that I knew, and dined or supped with some queer characters in ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... Parliament. The repealers may therefore be refuted out of their own mouths. They say that Great Britain and Ireland ought to have one executive power. But the legislature has a most important share of the executive power. Therefore, by the confession of the repealers themselves, Great Britain and Ireland ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and dear sir, if after this confession on my part of a certain faulty demeanour with which I know well that I am afflicted, you are still willing to put the parish into my hands, I will accept the charge,—instigated to do so by the advice of all whom I have consulted ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... confession. I think I was justified, standing in a mother's position, as I do. I knew my vigilance had been eluded, and that your son had walked home with her after the skating; and you know very well how transparent young ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the pity was changing to admiration; his confession which he had meant to be so abject had kindled her fancy ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... necessary for a comedian to give an account of his faith as of his conduct. Fawcett must study the five points; and Dicky Suett, if he were alive, would have had to rub up his catechism. Already the effects of it begin to appear. A celebrated performer has thought fit to oblige the world with a confession of his faith,—or, Br——'s 'Religio Dramatici.' This gentleman, in his laudable attempt to shift from his person the obloquy of Judaism, with the forwardness of a new convert, in trying to prove too much, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... Nancy was concerned, had been very dull indeed. To be bored, in her creed, was a confession of complete failure; it indicated the most contemptible inefficiency, since she designed the whole fabric of her life with the unique object of keeping herself amused. Nothing bored her more than to have the general attention centered on ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... want. He might have added that there is the same acknowledgment in the word 'diversion' which means no more than that which diverts or turns us aside from ourselves, and in this way helps us to forget ourselves for a little. And thus it would appear that, even according to the world's own confession, all which it proposes is—not to make us happy, but a little to prevent us from remembering that we are unhappy, to pass away our time, to divert us from ourselves. While on the other hand we declare that the good which will really fill our souls and satisfy them to the ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... moment, scenting a mystery somewhere and guessing that he would not speak of it. And she asked no questions. She said not a word and merely bowed her head and started to apply the salve with delicate touches. For the result, a confession of all his troubles tumbled up the big man's throat to his tongue. He had to set his ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... assure you that he has not at all offended me. I am thankful, on the contrary, that he has spoken so openly. I care greatly for such a confession from him, and if he had spoken differently, I should feel much less esteem ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... inquiry—What was the mind of the earlier Christian writers on the subject? Of course their opinion cannot settle the truth of the question in debate, but it has a very important bearing upon the subject. The late Dr. Eadie claimed the voice of antiquity for the system of the Confession of Faith. He says, "The doctrine of predestination was held in its leading element by the ancient Church, by the Roman Clement, Ignatius, Hermas, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, before Augustine worked it into a system, and ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... "infamous and audacious. By heaven, I will have thy tongue torn out with hot pincers for mentioning the very name of a noble damsel! With lips blistered with the confession of thine own dishonour—that thou shouldest now dare—name her not—for an instant think not ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... division—as being entirely by himself. This must have been an oversight, inasmuch as Freneau had more than a mere hand in the execution of the piece, and inasmuch as we possess Brackenridge's own confession "that on his part it was a task of labour, while the verse of ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... to a totally ignorant inquirer. Charmian chose to take a course of reading on theosophy simply because of her admiration and respect for Susan Fleet. Ever since she had known Susan, and made that confession to her, she had been "going" to read something about the creed which seemed to make Susan so happy and so attractive. But she had never found the time. At length the ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... has more than once remarked to English visitors that he thought their own principles were so enlightened that they were paving the way for a higher form of religion, in the shape of Christianity—rather a startling confession to come from the lips ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... mass was sung, with all the impressive ceremony suitable to the occasion. As the king rose to his feet, or while he still kneeled before the altar and the "confession,"—the tomb of St. Peter,—the pope, as if moved by a sudden impulse, took up a splendid crown which lay upon the altar, and placed it on his brow, saying, in a ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... people, devoted, as was natural for an old man, to the forms in which he had moved during a long life, he esteemed it a duty to defend them, and that so much the more, because he was summoned to the task by the other clergy. He was lacking, however, in two particulars. According to his own confession he had heard Zwingli but seldom. Still he received as truth what was reported to him about his sermons, and boasted too much of his riper experience against a man scarce forty years old. Making skillful use of these weak points, the armed warrior advanced the ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... the case, as we can see from his admirable confession of faith, the publication of which we owe to his son Francis. (Ibid. Vol. I. pages 304-317.) Whoever wishes really to understand the lofty character of this great man should read these immortal lines in which he unfolds to us in simple and straightforward words the development of his conception ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... reddish patches; his lips were pinched; there was something in his eyes that reminded you of a cat's eyes. Boniface Cointet never excited himself; he would listen to the grossest insults with the serenity of a bigot, and reply in a smooth voice. He went to mass, he went to confession, he took the sacrament. Beneath his caressing manners, beneath an almost spiritless look, lurked the tenacity and ambition of the priest, and the greed of the man of business consumed with a thirst for riches and ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... being also in credence at court, was delatit as a traffekker with Frances Erle Bothwell; and he being examinat before king and counsall, confessit his accusation to be of veritie, that sundrie tymes he had spokin with him, expresslie aganis the king's inhibitioun proclamit in the contrare, whilk confession he subscryvit with his hand; and because the event of this mater had sik a succes, it sall also be praysit be my pen, as a worthie turne, proceiding frome honest chest loove and charitie, whilk suld on na wayis be obscurit from the posteritie for the gude example; and therefore I have ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... Baron, I must make the humiliating confession that long disuse has impaired sadly my understanding of German. If you should speak to me very slowly, probably I could comprehend you, but at that time you ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... never see her or allow her to see her children again, or the convention that she should never be spoken to again by any decent person and should finally drown herself, or the convention that persons involved in scenes of recrimination or confession by these conventions should call each other certain abusive names and describe their conduct as guilty and frail and so on: all these may provide material for very effective plays; but such plays are not dramatic studies of sex: one might as well say that Romeo and Juliet ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... want to know; more than you shall ever tell me, and I decline to hear a confession that, in my eyes, defiles you; that would only drive me to harsh denunciation of your foul idol. Moreover, I will not extort by torture what you have withheld so jealously. Do not wring your hands so ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... asked many questions, until at last, one day when I was being rowed across from Beaufort to Ladies' Island, I found myself, with delight, on the actual trail of a song. One of the oarsmen, a brisk young fellow, not a soldier, on being asked for his theory of the matter, dropped out a coy confession. "Some good sperituals," he said, "are start jess out o' curiosity. I been a-raise a sing, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... do not dream when they love. You will learn how the feelings are deep in proportion as the fancies are vivid, when you read that confession of genius and woe which I have left in ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... prophet rude. The sun of prosperity scorched the green growth of religious profession that had suddenly overspread his outward life. Michal, his daughter, better acquainted, probably, with the kingly airs of his later than with the pious confession of his earlier days, seems to have partaken of his inward hardness while she had no share of his superficial piety. Like him, she was ungodly in the depths of her soul; but unlike him, she disdained to wear the outward garb of godliness. When she exerted all the force of her irony in order ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... earned. He was their pander, and made them rob their visitors instructing them to pass it off as a joke if the theft was discovered. They gave him the stolen articles, but he never said what he did with them. I could not help laughing at this involuntary confession, remembering what Goudar had said about ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... claimant. Being disavowed, however, by the great majority of witnesses, including the wife, on the appearance of her true husband, he was sentenced to death for his fraud. Before his execution he made a confession, saying that some intimate friends of Martin Guerre, misled by the astonishing resemblance, had accosted him by that name, which gave him the idea of claiming Guerre's position and property; and that he had gained ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... illustrious pander, No fine set speech, no cadence, no turned periods, But a plain homespun truth, is what I ask. I did, myself, o'erhear your queen make love To Dolabella. Speak; for I will know, By your confession, what more passed betwixt them; How near the business draws to your employment; And when the ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... Taki Zenzaburo, in a voice which betrayed just so much emotion and hesitation as might be expected from a man who is making a painful confession, but with no sign of either in his face or ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... that is the lamp of Experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past." Patrick, the Irishman, always said, "our hind sight is better than our front sight." Right in the beginning let me say that inasmuch as an open confession is good for the soul, I most emphatically and with one gulp swallow this doctrine in toto. I take it for granted that a vast majority will, without much persuasion, acknowledge that our historical knowledge has ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... copies had been printed on foolscap paper. These copies had been locked up in what Mr. Lincoln called a "grip-sack," and intrusted to his oldest son, Robert. "When we reached Harrisburg," said Mr. Lincoln, "and had washed up, I asked Bob where the message was, and was taken aback by his confession that in the excitement caused by the enthusiastic reception he believed he had let a waiter take the grip-sack. My heart went up into my mouth, and I started down-stairs, where I was told that if a waiter had taken the article ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Practical probability is opposed to speculative, which leaves out of count certain circumstances, which are pretty sure to be present, and to make all the difference in the issue. Thus it is speculatively probable that a Catholic might without sin remain years without confession, never having any grievous sins to confess, grievous sin alone being necessary matter for that sacrament. There is no downright cogent reason why a man might not do so. And yet, if he neglected such ordinary means of grace as confession of venial sin, having it within reach, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... respect themselves so much, and, out of their respect for themselves, build so much upon success, set so ranch by never being defeated but always gaining their point, that when they are driven to confess themselves foiled, the confession is made from the "poor dumb mouth" of a wound that cannot be healed. It is there for ever—will be there at least until they find another God to worship than their own paltry selves. Hence it came that the bourn between the two spiritual estates yawned a ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... near me. She has solemnly promised, and she'll probably leave me alone to get the money. If she doesn't—in diplomacy—I'm lost." He had been turning his eyes vaguely about, this way and that, to avoid meeting hers; but after another instant he gave up the effort and she had the miserable confession of his glance. ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... satisfactorily done by the natives themselves has hardly arrived. Few native pastors today, and much fewer catechists, are competent, both on the score of character and of independence, to wisely direct the affairs of their people and to efficiently preserve church discipline. This is a sad confession to make; but truth compels me to make it—a truth emphasized more than once by long experience among them. A few years ago a church within my jurisdiction wished to expel a leading member whom it knew to be a godless man. He ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... another item, full of horror. Mr.s. Lewis, or her girl, in making her bed one morning after this, found, under her bolster, a keen BUTCHER KNIFE! The appalling discovery forced from her the confession that she considered her life in jeopardy. Messrs. Rice and Philips, whose wives were her sisters, went to see her and to bring her away if she wished it. Mr. Lewis received them with all the expressions ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... end as we began, I have to make a painful confession. If the works of Gluck in general and Orphee in particular have had a happy influence on our musical taste, a passage from this last work has been a noxious influence,—the famous chorus of the demons "Quel est l'audacieux—qui dans ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... story he buried his face in his hands, and bowed his head on the table in an attitude of utter dejection. Rolfe, looking at him, wondered if he were acting a part, or if he had really told the truth. He looked at Inspector Chippenfield to see how he regarded the confession, but his superior officer was busily writing in his note-book. In a few moments, however, he put the pocket-book down on the table and turned ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... statement may still be a help to the ascertainment of truth. Why should that help be rejected? Bentham scarcely admits of any exception to the general rule of taking any evidence you can get—one exception being the rather curious one of confession to a Catholic priest; secrecy in such cases is on the whole, he thinks, useful. He exposes the confusion implied in an exclusion of evidence because it is not fully trustworthy, which is equivalent to working in the dark because a partial ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... to-morrow,[1] together with the confession of my sins, intentional and unintentional, for which I beg your gracious absolution. My eyes, alas! prevent me from saying to-day as I could wish my hopes and desires that all good may ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... occasion offered, I have lightly sketched it out for him. Sometimes he argues that my instances are really isolated cases and that their evidence is not cumulative, at others he takes refuge in a tu quoque—in itself a confession of weakness—and alludes darkly to "top shelves" and "bottom drawers." But let us have no mysteries. These phrases, considered as arguments, have their origin in certain incidents which, that all the evidence may be in, ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... a soft, comfortable bed with spotless white sheets and pillow cases. How soundly we did sleep that night! You can just bet we were all glad enough to get back to civilization, though, of course, no one could have dragged out the confession from a single ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... height in the Epistle to a Young Friend. Here there is no personal confession, but a conscious and professed sermon, unrelated, as the last line shows, to the practise of the preacher. It is, of course, only poetry in the ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... in the room, and the sowars were sent away. Then Kassim explained the situation saying: "A confession brought forth by torture is often but a lie, the concoction of a mind crazed with pain. If this dog, who has more courage than feeling, sees the chance of his life he will ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... Confession, the details, the whole story, appealed to her evidently as obvious, typical, useless. She tried to select simple words, to leave the facts undimmed ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... our sanctifying of it, to the ends for which it is ordained, lie in a bare confession that it is such; but in a holy performance of the duty of the day to God by Christ, according to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... cruelties will suffice. A teacher of French named Wright was suspected of treason, and a note of a harmless kind, written in French, was found on him. Fitzgerald, who could not read it, brutally assaulted him, declared that he would have him first flogged and then shot; and failing to obtain a confession from him, caused him to receive 150 severe lashes and had him put in prison, where he lay for some days with his wounds uncared for. After the rebellion Wright sued him, and obtained L500 damages. Fitzgerald's severity and the courage with which he acted were effectual; Tipperary ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... on some of their treasure-hunting expeditions which they were still planning every time they met, would unearth a casket some dark night by the light of a fitful lantern, and inside would be a confession written by the man who had really stolen the money, saying that Dan Darcy was innocent. And Uncle Darcy and Aunt Elspeth would be so heavenly glad—The tears came to Georgina's eyes as she pictured ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... advantage of your absence to make a confession which I have postponed for two whole months, because I feared to cause you grief. We must renounce our projects of marriage and ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... more idea of business than a goat," criticised Montgomery, and Paul lowered his head in humble confession. "That man who calcimines your studio could figure on a piece of work with more intelligence than you reveal. I'll pay $2,500. It's only a fair price, and I can't afford ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, relates that a good priest named Stephen, having received the confession of a lord named Guy, who was mortally wounded in a combat, this lord appeared to him completely armed some time after his death, and begged of him to tell his brother Anselm to restore an ox which he Guy had taken from a peasant, whom ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... The confession was long and tedious, but during the whole of it the confessor made no further sign of surprise and rarely interrupted the sick man. It was night when Padre Florentino, wiping the perspiration from his face, arose and began to meditate. Mysterious ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... place among the Indo-Ayran races, who began to worship demons instead of angels and teach fear instead of hope, until now there are practically no Buddhists in India with the exception of the Burmese, who are almost unanimous in the confession of that faith. It is a singular phenomenon that Buddhism should so disappear from the land of its birth, although 450,000,000 of the human race still turn to its founder with pure affection as the wisest of teachers ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... saw hung in the balance—for to have avowed himself a freethinker would have dyed him socially only one shade less black than to have declared himself a Republican—so, escaping without a further confession of faith, he ascended to his room and applied himself anew to the regeneration of the American drama. The dull gold light, which slept on the brick walls, began presently to slant in long beams over the roofs, which mounted ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... known, and the crimes of which the unfortunate men were accused. They were to be tried before the grand inquisitor, Guillaume Humbert, a Dominican friar; but in the meantime, to obtain witness against them, they were starved, threatened, and tortured in their dungeons, to gain from them some confession that could be turned against them. Out of six hundred knights, besides a much greater number of mere attendants, there could not fail to be some few whose minds could not withstand the misery of their condition, and between these and the two original ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... prayer ran. And oh! hadn't he showed her that? It flashed over her troubled brain then and there: "It is Jesus that I need. It is he who can help me. I believe he can. I believe he is the only one who can." This was her confession of faith. "Then lead her to ask the help of thee that she needs. Just to come to thee as the little child would go to her mother, and say, 'Jesus, take me; make me thy child.'" Only that? Was it such a little, little thing to ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... truth came out piecemeal, through Swinny's confession and the witness of her fellow-servants. The wretched woman's movements had been wholly determined by the movements of Pinker; and she had been in the habit of leaving the child in the servants' hall, where the cook, being an affectionate motherly woman, made much of him, and fed him ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... match. John witnessed the game from the top of the Trent coach, and he stopped at Trent House. But he didn't enjoy his exeat, because he knew that Caesar was in trouble. Caesar owed Scaife thirteen pounds, and the fact that this debt could not be paid without confession to his father was driving him distracted. Scaife, it is true, laughed genially at Caesar's distress. "Settle when you please," he said, "but for Heaven's sake, don't peach to your governor! Mine would laugh and pay up; yours ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... shyness, and I fancied she had a fear that I would make the sort of gibe that such a confession could hardly have failed to elicit from Rose Waterford. She hesitated a little. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... we walked slowly along the line of the boulevards. It was early May, and the wheel of green which we traversed, together with the brilliant picture made by the crowds, put us both in a happy temper. It was not long before Monsignor heard the confession of my ideals. He smiled quickly when I raved of music, but the moment I drifted into the theme of mysticism—the transposition is ever an easy one—I saw his interest ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... in addition to the other unjustifiable motives that influenced me, I thought there would be a satisfaction in believing that I had been chosen for myself, rather than for my wealth. Indeed, I had got to be distrustful and ungenerous, and then I disliked the confession of the weakness that had induced me to change my name. The simple, I might almost say, loose laws of this country, on the subject of marriage, removed all necessity for explanations, there being no bans nor license necessary, and the Christian name only ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... crisis, volunteers a confession, but invites you to a comparison of the heads. With his outrageous Tory hatred of the Yankees, he, of course, declares there's no comparison; ridicules the fac-simile, and hastily seizing what he mistakes for the counterfeit, confounds the company by a quotation from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... beseech you, minimize the minutes; seek for such a fulness of "the Spirit of grace and of supplications," [Zech. xii. 10.] as shall draw you quite the other way. But if the time, any given night or morning, must be short, let it nevertheless be a time of quiet, reverent, collected worship and confession and petition. One thing assuredly you can do: you can, if you will, secure a real "Morning Watch" before your day's work begins. I do not say it is easy. Young men very commonly sleep sounder and longer than we seniors do; they are not always easy to rouse in a moment. ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... said, "ever since I began to realize that you had once been—er—foolish enough to become even slightly acquainted with that adventuress, Mrs. Ogleby. My advice is to fight, not to get in wrong by trying to dicker, for that might amount to confession, and suit Dorgan's purpose just as well. Photographs," he added sententiously, "are like statistics. They don't lie unless the people who make them do. But it's hard to tell what a liar can accomplish with either, in an election. ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... have a heap to explain when he is found," was Cram's reply. "Now I have to go to Doyle's. He is making some confession, I expect, to ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... authority, and attested by public documents,—facts which history has graven with her pen of iron in the rock for ever, but with other exhibitions of this man's character, not less, but more painful, for which he is himself singly responsible;—not the forced exhibition of a confession wrung from him by authority,—not the craven self-blasting defamation of a glorious name that was not his to blast,—that was the property of men of learning in all coming ages, precious and venerable in their eyes for ever, at the bidding of power,—not that only, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... session 1879-1880. These dealt, I fear exclusively, with foreign, notably with French and Indian, examples. I say I fear, not in the way of imputing blame to the authors for not having noticed English weirs, but because the absence of such notice amounts to a confession of backwardness in the adoption of remedial measures on English rivers. An instance, however, of improvement since then has been the construction by Mr. Wiswall, the engineer to the Bridgewater Navigation Company (on the Mersey and Irwell section of that navigation), ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... bed to find himself alone— the victim of his wrathful irony having evidently risen and fled away while his pitiless tormentor slept—"Doubtless to accomplish at once that nefarious intent as set forth by his unblushing confession of last night," mused the miserable John. And he ground his fingers in the corners of his swollen eyes, and leered grimly in the glass at the feverish ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... Major Tallahassee Tucker by his own confession, and I felt easier. I asked him into the creek, so I could drown him if he happened to be a track-walker or caboose porter. All the way up the mountain he driveled to me about asparagus on toast, a thing that his intelligence ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... tread was heard along the secret passages, and an iron screen being thrown hack, the confessor, a Franciscan friar, took his seat at a thick grating; behind which nothing could be seen, though the confession of the prisoner might pass to the ear of the holy man, and his counsel in return reach the ear, or it might be, the heart, of the solitary criminal. The door by which the prisoner first entered was never unbarred, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... your heart an mine as the sight of holy wather wrings the heart o the divil? What wickedness have you done to bring that curse on you? Here! where are you jumpin to? Where's your manners to go skyrocketin like that out o the box in the middle o your confession [he threatens ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... examine and make your election, For she knows nought of compulsion, only conviction desireth. This is the hour of your trial, the turning-point of existence, Seed for the coming days; without revocation departeth Now from your lips the confession; Bethink ye, before ye make answer! Think not! O think not with guile to deceive the questioning Teacher. Sharp is his eye to-day, and a curse ever rests upon falsehood. Enter not with a lie on Life's journey; the multitude hears you, Brothers and sisters and parents, what dear upon earth is and ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... to his arms. A trickle of scarlet came from the corner of his mouth. Plimsoll looked at him calculatingly. Hahn could not ride. But he wouldn't die for a while. To leave him here where the raiders would find him might mean a confession wrung from him that would tell of the getaway trail by Spur Rock and Nipple Peaks. He shook ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... conspicuous after than during the battle days, and between these breeders of devilment and the renegade Brules, there lay the village of Red Dog's reviving band,—three gangs of aboriginal jail-birds who looked upon Red Dog's release as virtual confession on part of the White Father that he dare not keep him, and they were only waiting until the grass sprouted and their ponies could wax fat and strong to take the war-path for another summer, and take all they could carry with them when they ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... some of my ideas in this letter, because it is for my satisfaction to be convinced that you, my dear general, who have been indulgent enough to permit me to look on you as upon a friend, should know the confession of my sentiments in a matter which I consider as a very important one. I have the warmest love for my country and for every good Frenchman; their success fills my heart with joy; but, sir, besides, Conway is an Irishman, I want countrymen, ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... denying the Pope the right to sell indulgences, he presently entirely denied his authority, and that of the Church, condemned religious ceremonies, confession, and the worship of the saints, and declared that Christians should have no rules of conduct other than the Bible. He also considered that no one could be saved without ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... but in September of that year he went to study German at Aschaffenburg, where he remained till April 1834. He then resumed his legal pursuits in his father's chambers, was admitted a writer to the signet in 1835, and five years later was called to the Scottish bar. But, by his own confession, though he "followed the law, he never could overtake it." His first publication—a volume entitled Poland, Homer, and other Poems, in which he gave expression to his eager interest in the state of Poland—had appeared in 1832. While in Germany he made a translation ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... she put down a big plate of corn muffins before her hungry charges, "Phil accused me once of being mysterious and never talking about myself. Well, I am going to make a confession about ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... once opened Glen's story came rapidly, and in the glow of confession he held nothing back, but his hearers ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... charitable the religion is that I maintain, than that which you profess: yours has counselled you to kill me, without hearing me speak, and without ever having given you any cause of offence; and mine commands me to forgive you, convict as you are, by your own confession, of a design to kill me without reason.—[Imitated by Voltaire. See Nodier, Questions, p. 165.]—Get you gone; let me see you no more; and, if you are wise, choose henceforward honester men for your counsellors in your designs."—[Dampmartin, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... I had read the character of Daker before we touched the quay at Boulogne: he was a man of fine and delicate nature, whom the world had hit; who had been cheery under punishment; and who had at length got his rich reward in Mrs. Daker. I repeat this confession, and to my cost; for it is necessary as part ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... the stanzas, through the beautiful clear high thoughts which seem to come as a breath and a breeze from an unattainable heaven, from the Nirvana we all hope for in our inmost hearts, whatever our confession of faith. And the poor girl was soothed, and touched and lulled by the music of thought and the sigh of verse that is in the poem; and the morning passed. I suppose the quiet and the poetry wrought up in her the feeling of confidence ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... organic forms assumed their present shape to be—"Growth with reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life and from use and disuse, &c." {158a} Wherein does this differ from the confession of faith made by Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck? Where are the accidental fortuitous, spontaneous variations now? And if they are not found important enough to demand mention in this peroration and stretto, as it were, of the whole matter, in which special prominence should be given to the special ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... at Wheeling father preached eleven times,—nearly every evening,—and gave them the Taylorite heresy on sin and decrees to the highest notch; and what amused me most was to hear him establish it from the Confession of Faith. It went high and dry, however, above all objections, and they were delighted with it, even the old school men, since it had not been christened 'heresy' in their hearing. After remaining in Wheeling eight days, we chartered a stage ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... least-frequented streets, and avoiding the recognition of such of his acquaintance as chanced to meet him, he slunk homeward, feeling a little less wretched, but infinitely more degraded, than he had done before his confession. ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... that it could do nothing. 'We have required,' thus they wrote to the States on the 15th of January, 1781, 'aids of men, provisions and money; the States alone have authority to execute.' Since Congress itself made a public confession of its powerlessness, nothing remained but to appeal to France for rescue, not from a foreign enemy, but from the evils consequent on its own want of government. 'If France lends not a speedy aid,' ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... deliver it to this friend of his, Oscar Seltz, during the afternoon. His arraignment by you, his subsequent imprisonment, no doubt frightened him and filled him with remorse—hence his rather unfriendly letter to Seltz. He had repented of his bargain, and was doubtless engaged in preparing a confession, telling you of his crime, and the reasons therefor, when the murderer ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... own will, to feel that one is merely a stone that has been set rolling. To feel like this is to experience the obtuse and intense sensations of nightmare, and this I know well. Have I not told you, Monsignor, of the dreams from which I suffered, which brought me to you, and which forced me to confession, those terrific dreams which used to drive me dazed from my bed, flying through the door of my room into the passage to wake up before the window, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... own feelings, too. He speaks to himself, and he hears himself remind himself of God, and of his duty to God, and acknowledge himself openly (as in confirmation) bound to believe and do what he, by his own confession, has assented unto. ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... first time Dab had heard his new acquaintance make a confession of inability, and he could see a more than usually thoughtful expression on his face. The coolness and skill of Dick Lee had not been thrown away ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... slavery, and was glad of an opportunity to wreak his vengeance upon the whites. He armed himself with a sharp broadaxe, under whose cruel blade many a white man fell. Nat.'s speech gives us a very clear idea of the scope and spirit of his plan. We quote from his confession at the time of the trial, and will let him tell the story ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... was now invaded by the Turks. In order to secure this support, he found it necessary to make concessions in religion to his Protestant subjects. At the diet of Augsburg, (1530,) where there was the most brilliant assemblage of princes which had been for a long time seen in Germany, the celebrated confession of the faith of the Protestants was read. It was written by Melancthon, in both Latin and German, on the basis of the articles of Torgau, which Luther had prepared. The style was Melancthon's; the matter was Luther's. It was comprised in twenty-eight articles, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... to suppress a confession he had resisted. The contact of her form, her large dark eyes now fixed upon him in emotion, the birth of the conscious woman in the virgin and her affection still in the leashes of a slavish sacrifice, tempted him onward ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend |
