"Inquisitorial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of their manners, or the size [135] of their wives. Over education—over social habits-over the regulations relative to ambassadors and strangers—over even the marshalling of armies and the number of troops, they extended their inquisitorial jurisdiction. They became, in fact, the actual government of ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... doubt a boa-constrictor could not live comfortably if his soft, muscular sides got fifty pokes a day from as many sticks or parasols. Edward Cross, mild, gentle, gentlemanly, Prince of show-keepers, used to be very indignant at the inquisitorial desire possessed, especially by some of the fairer sex, to try the relative hardness and softness of serpents and monkeys, and other mammals and creatures. This story of the mandrill may excuse this ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... the Parson, who had always his eye and heart on his flock, and who had seen with great grief the realization of his fears at the revival of the stocks; seen that a spirit of discontent was already at work among the peasants, and that magisterial and inquisitorial designs were darkening the natural benevolence of the Squire; seen, in short, the signs of a breach between classes, and the precursors of the ever inflammable feud between the rich and the poor, meditated nothing less than a great Political Sermon—a sermon ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... truth, nothing was further from my mind or taste than such an enterprise; but as the demon had complete possession of him, and his passion was stimulated by the lies of a cabin-boy, I was forced to undergo an inquisitorial examination, which I resisted manfully but fruitlessly. The Bloomer-dame, who knew her man, assumed such an air of outraged innocence and calumniated virtue, interlarded with sobs, tears, and hysterics, that her perplexed husband was quite at his wit's end, but terminated the scene by ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... and saw the inquisitorial pencil of the official in uniform. He had shut off his light with ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... conscience with the claim that it was, after all, only a battle of wit against disinterested wit. For, self-delusively, he was beginning once more to regard all organized society and its ways as a mere inquisitorial process which the adventurous could ignore and the keen-witted could circumvent. Warfare, such as his, must be a ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... Criminal Courts, and to this post I was promoted out of my proper turn by the Rath, Herr von Brauchitsch, under whom I worked, because in those days I wrote a more than usually quick and legible hand. On the examinations, as criminal proceedings in the inquisitorial method of that day were called, the one that has made the most lasting impression upon me related to a widely ramifying association in Berlin for the purpose of unnatural vice. The club arrangements of the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... hand, barely touched the fingers of the stranger, and her keen, probing, inquisitorial eyes of palest grey wandered searchingly over the face and figure; while her haughty tone was chill—as the damp breath of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... which nothing but a misjudgment can be formed, prevail there ever since. The noble Sterling, a radiant child of the empyrean, clad in bright auroral hues in the memory of all that knew him,—what is he doing here in inquisitorial sanbenito, with nothing but ghastly spectralities prowling round him, and inarticulately screeching and gibbering what they call their judgment ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... early days of the republic the Democratic party protested even in armed insurrection in Pennsylvania against the inquisitorial excise tax, which, to use the language of that day, "penetrated a sphere of taxation reserved to the State." Today this party has placed upon the statute books the most inquisitorial tax ever laid in ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... was seen following from the house with two frosted, green-tipped goblets of silver hugged close to his stomach. It was obviously an effort to shield them from the windows of Miss Liz's room and her inquisitorial lorgnette. Colonel May noticed this shameless evidence of ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... really poor population. The men were seafaring, the women lacemaking, and just well enough off to make dissent doubly attractive as an escape from some of the interfering almsgiving of the place. Over-visiting, criticism of dress, and inquisitorial examinations had made more than one Primitive Methodist, and no severe distress had been so recent as to render the women tolerant of troublesome weekly inspections. The Curtis sisters were, however, regarded as an exception; they were viewed as real gentlefolks, not only by their own tenants, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sanguinary in reality, were more sanguinary in theory than in practice. Nothing, on the other hand, is more conspicuous than the spirit of fair play to the criminal, which struck foreign observers.[11] It was deeply rooted in the whole system. The English judge was not an official agent of an inquisitorial system, but an impartial arbitrator between the prisoner and the prosecutor. In political cases especially a marked change was brought about by the revolution of 1688. If our ancestors talked some nonsense about trial ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... few words, pronounce and answer thee, as followeth: Our Lady Benedicta hath run away firstly, brethren, for that being formed woman after Nature's goodly plan she hath the wherewithal to walk, to leap, to skip or eke to run, as viz.: item and to wit—legs. Secondly, inquisitorial brethren, she ran for an excellent good reason—as observe—there was none to let or stay her. And thirdly, gentle and eager hearers, she did flit or fly, leave, vacate, or depart our goodly town of Tissingors ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... Brunswick's side."[31131]—Naturally, finally, he, like Marat, imagines the darkest fictions, but they are less improvised, less grossly absurd, more slowly worked out and more industriously interwoven in his calculating inquisitorial brain. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... orders of monks, particularly the Franciscans and Dominicans, whom the pope employed to destroy the heretics, and inquire into the conduct of bishops. Pope Gregory IX., in 1233, completed the design of his predecessors, and, as they had succeeded in giving these inquisitorial monks, who were wholly dependent on the pope, an unlimited power, and in rendering the interference {80} of the temporal magistrates only nominal, the inquisition was successively introduced into several parts of Italy, and into some provinces of France; its power in the latter ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... could not help a slight tremor; which was increased as the Catalan Lieutenant bent upon him an inquisitorial look of his grey eyes, that glanced keenly under eyebrows long and grizzled ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... abbe, with a severe and inquisitorial look, under which Derues remained quite untroubled; "it is an attribute of God to reward and to punish, and the Almighty is not deceived by him who deceives men. The Psalmist has said, 'Righteous art Thou, O Lord, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... one in whose conduct so many prying eyes were seeking for sources of accusation to gratify herself even by the overthrow of an absurdity, when that overthrow might incur the stigma of innovation. The Court of Versailles was jealous of its Spanish inquisitorial etiquette. It had been strictly wedded to its pageantries since the time of the great Anne of Austria. The sagacious and prudent provisions of this illustrious contriver were deemed the ne plus ultra ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... last moments of his gave him inquisitorial power, and the too cold wife could not conceal from him the flight which had taken place ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... peninsula, did not so much conceal the cottage from view, as seem to denote that here was some object which would fain have been, or at least ought to be, concealed. In this little lonesome dwelling, with some slender means that she possessed, and by the licence of the magistrates, who still kept an inquisitorial watch over her, Hester established herself, with her infant child. A mystic shadow of suspicion immediately attached itself to the spot. Children, too young to comprehend wherefore this woman should be shut out from the sphere of human charities, would creep ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of sensational stories of the expedients adopted. But if we put the value of securities which have already left Germany or have been safely secreted within Germany itself beyond discovery by the most inquisitorial and powerful methods at $500,000,000, we are not likely ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... with a grand inquisitorial air. He recoiled when he saw the monster so comfortable and, for the first time in his service, permitted himself a gentle ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... other place, was secure from the inquisitorial interference of the high church functionaries. The spy and the informer were abroad. No place of meeting could long remain a secret—whether manorial halls, shopkeepers' storerooms, barns, hay-lofts, or the broad shadows of copse and forest. Go where they would, the conscientious ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... made no history, but continued on the even tenour of its path. Some years it was effective as a school of instruction, some years it was not, but never did it meet with the inquisitorial landlord, never but once did it suffer from the Crown. With the nineteenth century came its first crisis for three hundred years and it passed through unhurt. A new school with the old endowments, a better education ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... of Parliamentary Reform a service as dangerous as night-poaching, and far more dangerous than smuggling. Only ten more than that number ventured to protest against the introduction of a measure, still more inquisitorial in its provisions and ruthless in its penalties, which rendered every citizen who gave his attention to the removal of public grievances liable at any moment to find himself in the position of a criminal;—that very measure in behalf of ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... diabolico, as it has been justly called, especially at the epoch of Foresti's incarceration, retained the galling chain on the limbs, cut off the supply of moral and intellectual vitality, refused appropriate occupation, baffled hope, eclipsed knowledge, and kept up a vile inquisitorial process to goad the crushed heart, sap the heroic will, and stupefy or alienate the mental faculties; dawn ushered in the twilight of a mausoleum, noon fell dimly on paralyzed manhood, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... State can be coordinate and independent of each other if the one claims and exercises the power to reprove and to censure all the official acts and all the private conversations of the other, and this upon ex parte testimony before a secret inquisitorial committee in short, to assume a general censorship over the other? The idea is as absurd in public as it would be in private life. Should the President attempt to assert and maintain his own independence, future Covode committees may dragoon him into submission by collecting the hosts of disappointed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... high fever, I had an insatiable thirst. The only liquids given me were hot saline solutions. Though there was good reason for administering these, I believed they were designed for no other purpose than to increase my sufferings, as part of the same inquisitorial process. But had a confession been due, I could hardly have made it, for that part of my brain which controls the power of speech was seriously affected, and was soon to be further disabled by my ungovernable thoughts. Only an ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... to this day for the look she cast upon me ere she departed on her mission, the sour, suspicious, inquisitorial look that plainly demanded, 'What are you here for, I wonder?' Her mistress did not fail to notice it, and a shade of uneasiness darkened ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... Turiff. South of Forth and Tay," he said, "the King had many friends, who, oppressed by enforced oaths, compulsatory levies, heavy taxes, unjustly imposed and unequally levied, by the tyranny of the Committee of Estates, and the inquisitorial insolence of the Presbyterian divines, waited but the waving of the royal banner to take up arms. Douglas, Traquair, Roxburgh, Hume, all friendly to the royal cause, would counterbalance," he said, "the covenanting interest in ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... day. This, so far, had been sufficient information for all with whom she had come in contact—but as time went on, would not people ask more about her?—who were her father and mother?—where she was born?—how she had been educated? These inquisitorial demands were surely among the penalties of fame! And, if she told the truth, would she not, despite the renown she had won, be lightly, even scornfully esteemed by conventional society as a "bastard" and interloper, though the manner of her birth was no fault of ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... the conclusions of the Commission, but would carry them to their legitimate results,—the repeal of the inquisitorial tax ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... "Judge not lest ye be judged." Do you Always heed the law?—carefully refrain from resolving yourself into an inquisitorial court,—becoming both prosecutor and judge and condemning those who chance ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... dignity, inflicting scathing punishment of various kinds, and piling blazing coals of fire upon Mabel's pretty head. I thought, too, of merely disappearing, and leaving conscience to make martyrdom of my fair lady's life. But perhaps I doubted the inquisitorial capacity of her conscience. At all events, in the end, I rattled the drawing-room door-handle vigorously, and re-entered with a portentous clearing of the throat. There was a flutter and patter in the conservatory, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Cook will swear she's only thirty-three, And rather fancies she was born at sea (Where I am now) my "knowledge and belief" Are not worth much to the official chief, BRIDGES P. HENNIKER, if he only knew it. A True Return? Well, if it is not true, it Is not my fault. Inquisitorial band, I've done my level best—Witness my Hand! The bothering business makes me feel quite bilious, Peace now—for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... himself, nor divested himself of that inquisitorial appearance which was so distasteful to her. "We used to discuss Lady Frances ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... stood for a moment glancing from his guest to his wife, and in that instant of scrutiny whatever of the inquisitorial might have lurked in his eyes left them for a bland suavity. Conscience had hastened forward and her lips were smiling. Farquaharson's eyes dared to meet his ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... more important cases the accused is usually put through some sort of an inquisitorial process by the captain at the station-house. If he is not very successful at getting anything out of the prisoner the latter is turned over to the sergeant and a couple of officers who can use methods of a more urgent character. If the prisoner is arrested by ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... They told him he deserved the rack. Waad hereafter denied that they ever 'threatened him with it.' La Renzi was examined, and deposed that Ralegh had been in Cobham's company when Cobham received letters from Arenberg, and sent others to him. The contents of the voluminous inquisitorial dust-heap were perpetually being sorted, and distributed, or, reluctantly, discarded. Any answers reflecting on another, particularly if reflecting on Ralegh, were carefully put aside, to fill gaps in the direct evidence against him. Thus, Brooke, according to ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... our "Staticks, Mechanicks, Magneticks, Chymicks, and Natural Experiments" constitute a mass of physical and chemical knowledge, a glimpse at which would compensate Galileo for the doings of a score of inquisitorial cardinals; our "Physick" and "Anatomy" have embraced such infinite varieties of being, have laid open such new worlds in time and space, have grappled, not unsuccessfully, with such complex problems, that the eyes of Vesalius and of Harvey might be dazzled by the ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... sacerdotal system more completely swayed a nation, and never had a nation been reduced to a more abject state of degradation. The Inquisition was its government,—the auto-da-fes its triumphs,—bull-fights and processions its only diversions. Had the inquisitorial reign lasted a few years more, this people would have been no longer reckoned amongst ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... rage which sought to purchase life and safety for the Romish Church by the murder of Huss and of Jerome of Prague is instructive, if it is not pleasing. The truth was too true to be spoken. Never has the Church of Rome, in its inquisitorial madness, been so blinded with fury and passion as then. Weakened by internal feuds, with two Popes struggling and hurling anathemas at each other, and with a priesthood at its lowest point, not of ignorance, but of carnality, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... alternately listened to the details of the girl's farm life, the manner of the gold camp, the history of her arrival there and the many vicissitudes which had followed, and voiced the questions of her inquisitorial mind. Now she leant back in her chair and slowly sipped a cup of strong, milkless tea, while her eyes watched the ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... levelled the father of the race; we read with delight pages which warm and hurry us on, mingling truths with rumours, and known with suggested events, with all the spirit of secret history. But the character of James I. was to pass through the lengthened inquisitorial tortures of the sullen sectarianism of Harris.[A] It was branded by the fierce, remorseless republican Catharine Macaulay, and flouted by the light, sparkling Whig, Horace Walpole.[B] A senseless cry of pedantry had been raised against ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... popular creed in all its extravagance" as Homer had of his gods, or Shakspeare of his fairies. But the distinction is obvious. Homer did not personally identify himself with a creed, or do his utmost to perpetuate the worst parts of it in behalf of a ferocious inquisitorial church, and to the risk of endangering the peace of ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... are obscure, for it originated in caution and fear; but as the work betrays the workman, and the national physiognomy the native, it is evident that so inquisitorial an act could only have originated in the Inquisition itself. Feeble or partial attempts might previously have existed, for we learn that the monks had a part of their libraries called the inferno, which was not the part which they ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... ward's manner, however, seemed not to disturb the serenity of Sir Marmaduke to any appreciable extent. Casting a quick, inquisitorial glance at Sue, he shrugged his shoulders in token of indifference ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... government was as much a check as an assistance to Piero's schemes, bringing him so frequently into requisition for official intrigues that he had less opportunity for counterplotting, while his knowledge of State secrets which he might not compromise, of the far-reaching vision of Inquisitorial eyes, and of the swift and relentless execution of those unknown osservatori who had been unfaithful to their primal duty as spies, made him dare less where others were concerned than he would have foretold before ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... impossible to supply the market of Villarceaux; seven communes under requisition prevented it through the district of Sozannes which constantly keeps an armed force there to carry grain away as soon as thrashed."—It is interesting to remark the inquisitorial sentimentality of the official agents and the low stage of culture. (Proces verbal of the Magincourt municipality, Ventose 7.) Of course I am obliged to correct the spelling so as to render it intelligible. The said Croiset, gendarme, went with the national agent into the houses ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... puritanism, and generally well informed.... The examination of the parish books was also a labour of love and source of endless amusement. They mostly went as far back as a century and a half, and were, in the elder times, filled with such entries as bespoke a very strange condition of society. The inquisitorial practices and punitive power of the ministry could not be exceeded in countries enslaved by the priesthood of the Church of Rome. Forced confessions, the denial of religious rites even on the bed of death, excommunication, shameful exposures, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... piece of chalk upon the creature's side the desired cut; when a sufficient portion had been thus secured, the sentence of death was issued. Fancy the chalk a live coal, or the beast endowed with human consciousness, and no Indian, or Inquisitorial tortures could have been ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... enacting severe laws against heresy, but chiefly because in the new Mendicant Orders there were now to be found men of sufficient knowledge and training to cope with the difficulty of unmasking heresy. But it is a mistake to suppose that the inquisitorial work was a perquisite of the Dominicans. Both Orders alike were employed by the Papacy in the unsavoury duty, although ultimately the Dominicans took the larger share. For the service of the wretched, ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... number of Swiss pastors have been driven into banishment, by the inquisitorial proceedings of those who style themselves the liberal party in Switzerland. Many of the exiles are now residing in different parts of France, mostly near the frontiers of their own country—others have found a home ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... ascendancy here! Her creed is the same here and now, in this respect, that it has everywhere been, and must always be. It is her boast that she is always right, and knows no change. She practices her unholy inquisitorial and Jesuitical doctrines in this country, as far as she can and dare act them out. Her whole system is adverse to our republican institutions and she hesitates not to declare it. She has publicly burned our Bible in different States in this Union, and recently, in New York and Pennsylvania. ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... significance than the others, relapsed very soon into a strained and anxious silence. Pamela and Lutchester, on the other hand, divided their attention between a very excellent luncheon and an even flow of personal, almost inquisitorial conversation. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... contributions. He proposed to substitute an income tax of 2s. in the pound on all incomes of and above L200, and of graduated amounts between L60 and L200. The produce, he calculated, would be at least L10,000,000 a year. The opposition, led by Tierney, objected to the tax as inquisitorial, as a grievous confiscation, and as unjust, in that it would fall equally on precarious and on settled incomes, on the produce of industry and on the wealth of the idle. It was carried in the lords without a division, and in the commons by a large majority, and came into operation ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... the time of the recent judicial reforms the procedure in criminal cases was secret and inquisitorial. The accused had little opportunity of defending himself, but, on the other hand, the State took endless formal precautions against condemning the innocent. The practical consequence of this system was that an innocent man might remain for years in prison until ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Mexico, then but lately discovered, welcomed it, for four centuries failed to enter the English counties. This incredible delay must not be supposed to be due to any exceptional circumstances or to inquisitorial action. The cause is found in the agricultural character itself. There has never been any difficulty in obtaining books in the country other than could be surmounted with patience. It is the peculiarity of knowledge that those who really thirst for ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... inquisitorial eye of the villagers, nor hear the rude sarcasm and stinging wit which he knew they would hurl at him from their tongues, Moses turned down a foot-road leading from his garden to Folly Clough, and thus secured the quiet ever found in those deeply-wooded seams that ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... and prosecute any judicial action; the bishops maintained their right to judge crimes committed against the Church. In matters of faith trials were conducted by two judges, the Ordinary, who might be the bishop himself or the Official, and the Inquisitor or his Vicar. Inquisitorial forms were observed.[2032] ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... apparatus for destroying the noxious creatures when unearthed. The heretics of the provinces assembled at each other's houses to practise those rites described in such simple language by Baldwin Ogier, and denounced under such horrible penalties by the edicts. The inquisitorial system of Spain was hardly necessary for men who had but little prudence in concealing, and no inclination to disavow their creed. "It is quite a laughable matter," wrote Granvelle, who occasionally took ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... system of restraint. When the bill went up to the lords this was the only clause which encountered opposition; and Lord Lyndhurst moved that it should be omitted, on the ground that the regulations contained in it were arbitrary, inquisitorial, unjust, and unnecessary. It was defended by the lord-chancellor and Lord Melbourne; but the motion was carried by a majority of sixty-one against forty. The bill was returned to the commons without any other alteration; but on the motion of the chancellor of the exchequer it ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... inquisitorial baiting, which sailors, charged with offences, too often experience at the mast, that vicinity is usually known among them as ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... God, at present before us, is that of Comte. This in all its parts—its high priesthood, its hierarchy, its sacraments, its calendar, its hagiology, its literary canon, its ritualism, and we may add, in its fundamentally intolerant and inquisitorial character—is an obvious reproduction of the Church of Rome, with humanity in place of God, great men in place of the saints, the Founder of Comtism in place of the Founder of Christianity, and even a sort of substitute for the Virgin in the shape of ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... if it is not already here, when the public will cry out against the nervous fear and sleepless nights with which their children approach the semi-annual torture of our inquisitorial examinations. That reasonable examinations are essential and beneficial is hardly open to question. That a student should be expected correctly to answer a fair percentage of reasonable questions on work which has been properly taught is not a cause of complaint ...
— The Teaching of History • Ernest C. Hartwell
... there a people who inquired so impertinently as the Romans into the domestic conduct of each private citizen. No rank escaped this jealous vigilance; and private liberty, even in the most indifferent circumstances of taste or expense, was sacrificed to this inquisitorial rigor of surveillance exercised on behalf of the State, sometimes by erroneous patriotism, too often by malice in disguise. To this spirit the highest public officers were obliged to bow; the consuls, not ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... the Superintendent to a mission field varied according to the nature of the field and the character of the work done, between an inquisitorial process and a triumphal march. Nothing escaped his keen eye. It needed no questioning on his part to become possessed of almost all the facts necessary to his full information about the field, the work, the financial condition, and the general efficiency of the missionary. One or two ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... angered the pope that he called together an inquisitorial board and had Galileo tried by this Romish tribunal, and Galileo was sentenced to imprisonment for what Catholicism ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... confound him, to do away, by fierce cross-questioning and bitter remarks from the bench, with any effect that his testimony might have on the jury. I don't mean to say that judges and lawyers have been more violent and inquisitorial against the unhappy Peytel than against any one else; it is the fashion of the country: a man is guilty until he proves himself to be innocent; and to batter down his defence, if he have any, there are the lawyers, with all their horrible ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... government itself withdrawing more and more from interference with the operation of life, and liberty find its way back to the individual and to the social and economic groups. We live now under a more tyrannical and inquisitorial regime, in spite of (partly perhaps because of) its democratic forms and dogmas, than is common in historical records. Nationalization or state socialism would mean so great a magnifying of this condition that existence would soon become both grotesque and intolerable. We must realize, ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... did not come by and through its dictates; rejected with contempt the ceremonial of the Romish church; loaded the astonished priests with reproaches for their greediness and hypocrisy, and commanded them to leave her house. They went in bitterness and rage, but it was to return with the inquisitorial power, its warrants, and its officers; and they found only the cold corpse left of her, on whom they had hoped to work their vengeance. As I was soon discovered to have shared my mother's heresy, I was dragged from her dead body, imprisoned in a solitary cloister, and treated with severity, which ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... made him inquisitorial and peremptory. And as his temperament was choleric there were fellows who were actually afraid of him. He was redoubtable, not in virtue of his office, but because of his unwarrantable assumptions. I had never had anything to do ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... a noteworthy fact, however, that in the fragmentary documents of inquisitorial proceedings which have reached us, the references to torture are singularly few.... In the six hundred and thirty-six sentences borne upon the register of Toulouse from 1309 to 1323, the only allusion to torture is in the recital of the case of Calvarie, but there are numerous instances ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard |
