"Confess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time of departure came, and Dietrich called for his steed, Dietlieb was forced to confess what he had done. The story came to Ermenrich's ears, and he felt called upon to pay the required sum to release his guest's weapons and steeds, but contemptuously inquired whether Dietlieb were good at anything besides eating and drinking, ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... though, I confess, I would rather it could have been done. Even presuming that she is sincere in her professions of regard, I do not like the thought of a person in her circumstances going to what to her must be serious trouble and expense on our account. The easiest way to reconcile ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... side-shows had set an example to the concert. The Etablissement in short melted away, and it was little wonder that a lady who from the moment of her arrival had been so gallantly in the breach should confess herself it last done up. Maisie could appreciate her fatigue; the day had not passed without such an observer's discovering that she was excited and even mentally comparing her state to that of the breakers after a gale. It had blown hard in London, and she would take time to go down. ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... business; I will confess I didn't come to see you," he said. "I'm only a bone-headed cowpuncher, but even cowpunchers can play square. They don't, as a rule step in between a man and his wife. You married Spikes, and according to your ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... is not quite all it is cracked up to be. In my fancy I had pictured the gallant and bloodthirsty beast rushing out upon us full pelt from some grass-grown nullah at the first sniff of our presence, and fiercely attacking both men and elephants. Instead of that, I will confess the whole truth: frightened as at least one of us was of the tiger, the tiger was still more desperately frightened of his human assailants. I could see clearly that, so far from rushing out of his own accord ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... some difficult educational problems. Since we confess that we know so little concerning efficient methods for ethical, moral, or social teaching, it is evident that we must be far from a satisfactory plan for dealing with instruction which is intended to oppose most powerful instinctive tendencies and long-established habits of sensuality. ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... "Well, I confess that it is hard upon you," said the colonel; "but, as I have told you, I am not going to take the responsibility of feeding ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... have had acquaintance with numerous 'researchers.' I have also spent a good many hours (though far fewer than I should have spent) in witnessing (or trying to witness) phenomena. Yet I am theoretically no 'further' than I was at the beginning; and I confess that at times I have been tempted to believe that the Creator has eternally intended this department of nature to remain baffling,—to prompt our curiosities and hopes and suspicions all in equal measure, so that, although ghosts and clairvoyances, and raps ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... chap, with his height and straightness, his bright blue eyes and proud silver head, is a sight for sore eyes, as they say. But just then I had glimpsed something that was even better worth seeing. I am not impressionable, but I must confess that I was impressed by ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... the date of the 5th instant. Having read therein that Your Royal Majesty only desires authority and importance when and inasmuch as I decide this with the nation, as regards my opinion, I frankly confess that, entertaining a loyal respect for the throne, I hold the person of Your Royal Majesty excepted from the power conferred upon me of nominating personages to the Supreme Council. As to the nation, the conduct ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... had of this extraordinary Person, was neither better nor worse than under the Gallows. Well, but think you, I warrant, 'twas about some Charitable Duty that his sacred Function and Piety oblig'd him to, such as Exhorting the poor Souls to confess their Crimes, in order to be sav'd, or the like; no, faith, but quite contrary, for he was rather hardning them, and infusing a strong Portion of his own obstinacy, to fortifie 'em for their dubious Journey; and in few minutes after, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... step is to ascertain the object in view in placing the twenty-day characters around the inner space in the order we find them. Here I confess we shall encounter greater difficulty in arriving at a satisfactory explanation; still, I think we shall be able to show one object in view in this singular arrangement, although we fall short ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas
... I confess that I too was considerably surprised at the action of the State Department, and I called on Secretary Hay one morning and asked to be ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... some surprise, I confess, that I read the message of the President. The message laid down certain conditions as those upon which alone the great Confederacy of the United States could be preserved from disruption. In so doing the President ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... then the seminal, which upon good reason I ghess to be Mechanical also, as I may elsewhere more fully shew: But because I may, by this, hint a possible way how this appearance may be solv'd; supposing we should be driven to confess from certain Experiments and Observations made, that such or such Vegetables were produc'd out of the corruption of another, without any concurrent seminal principle (as I have given some reason to suppose, in the description of a Microscopical ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... news the matter assumed a different aspect. Rose had done her best to develop her patrol, and what if the leaders should offer recognition for this? How awful it would be to have to refuse and confess! ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... did the prayer arise, A golden flame athwart the chancel dim, Then came the porter crying, "Haste, arise! A sick old man waits you to tend on him; And many wait—a knight whose wound gapes grim, A red-stained man, with red sins to confess, A mother pale, who brings her ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... from you a letter written in your own gracious and weapon-bearing hand is an honourable privilege, under the weight of which many a General might have felt his knees tremble, and I confess that I too, though used to your Majesty's kindnesses, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... king, then, this Gryffyth," said the Norman, with some admiration; "but," he added in a colder tone, "I confess, for my own part, that though I pity the valiant man beaten, I honour the brave man who wins; and though I have seen but little of this rough land as yet, I can well judge from what I have seen, that no captain, not of patience unwearied, and ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... everything which unlimited wealth could purchase. Her conscience never ceased to trouble her for the part she had played in helping to ruin the life of that beautiful wife and mother whom she had met in New York. She was ever haunted by that sad, sweet face. She had been half-tempted, many times, to confess everything to Sir William, hoping thus to atone in part for what she had done, and because, after she found that Sadie's cause was hopeless, she began to pity that poor, injured girl; but her fear of Lady ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... I confess that there was something eerie in the isolation and remoteness of St. Enimie. Compared to the savagery and desolation of the Causses, it was a little modern Babylon—a corner of Paris, a bit of boulevard and bustle, but with such narrow accommodation, and with such limited ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... I am accusing Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone of knowing more about the murder than they care to tell or want to tell. I am also accusing them, and especially your guardian, of knowing all about Maitland, alias Marbury. I made him confess last night that he knew this dead man ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... used in the open air, in private baths, swimming-baths, houses, gardens, &c., and thinks of the arches that have been built, the hills that have been tunnelled, and the valleys that have been levelled for the purpose of conducting the water to its destination, he must confess that nothing has existed in the world more calculated to excite admiration." The same sentiment strikes an observer of to-day when looking at the ruins of these aqueducts. At the end of the first century ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... adopted son and rear me up, that I might in due season fulfil an office about the Temple. Therefore I was much troubled, for I feared the old man, who was very terrible in his anger, and ever spoke with the cold voice of Wisdom. Nevertheless, I determined to go in to him and confess my fault and bear such punishment as he should be pleased to put upon me. So with the red spear in my hand, and the red wounds on my breast, I passed through the outer court of the great temple and came to the door of the place where the High Priest ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... Delarue's two views are also admirable; and Lockyer has given a better set of views than any of the others. But there is an amount of detail in Mr. Dawes' views which renders them superior to any yet taken. I must confess I failed at a first view to see the full value of Mr. Dawes' tracings. Faint marks appeared, which I supposed to be merely intended to represent shadings scarcely seen. A more careful study shewed me that every mark is to be taken as the representative ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... answered, and the lips with difficulty gave it form. Weeping, I said, "The present things with their false pleasure turned my steps, soon as your face was hidden." And she: "Hadst thou been silent, or hadst thou denied that which thou dost confess, thy fault would be not less noted, by such a Judge is it known. But when the accusation of the sin, bursts from one's own cheek, in our court the wheel turns itself back against the edge. But yet, that thou mayst now bear shame ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... investigation confirming or contradicting the opinion entertained by Captains King and Dampier, that a channel would be found to connect Roebuck Bay with an opening behind Buccaneers Archipelago, thus making Dampier's Land an island. I confess, my own impressions at first sight differed from that of those high authorities, nor did a nearer examination shake my opinion. Cape Villaret, a short ridge lying East and West, and about 150 feet high, was still the most remarkable object; the sand on its side having a curious red appearance. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... and the king's confessor, the Dominican Aliaga, Calderon was seized upon as an expiatory victim to satisfy public clamour. He was arrested, despoiled, and on the 7th of January 1620 was savagely tortured to make him confess to the several charges of murder and witchcraft brought against him. Calderon confessed to the murder of Juaras, saying that the man was a pander, and adding that he gave the particular reason by word of mouth since it was more fit to be spoken than written. He steadfastly denied ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Southern fare. After a while the youngest daughter, who was a red-hot rebel, found herself deeply in love with a young Yankee doctor. I wonder if he was on duty at the hospital in the Seminary down the street? An engagement followed and the marriage was imminent, but she could not bring herself to confess to her friends that she was about to become the wife of one of the despised soldiers. Finally her mother told her she must at least tell Mrs. Cassin, their neighbor on the corner, who was very devoted to her. So she summoned all her courage and marched ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... With all my unbounded reverence for Washington, I have, I confess, sometimes found it hard to forgive him for not manumitting his slaves long before his death. A fact which has lately come to my knowledge, gave me great joy; for it furnishes a reason for what had appeared to me unpardonable. It appears that Washington possessed a gang of negroes in right ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... Leocadia, that I loved you, and you loved me; and yet I confess also that my written promise was given more in compliance with your desire than my own; for before I had long signed it my heart was captivated by a lady named Teodosia, whom you know, and whose parentage is as noble as your own. If I gave you a promise signed with my hand, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... she replied, "but I am amiable enough to let you ride him for once, and I will try your charming Lizzie. You must confess that in size and appearance she is far more like a lady's horse ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... dearest friends without reluctance, or wish her to be unconcerned at the loss of those who, by a marvellous love, have sheltered her from all those storms which must have overwhelmed helpless innocence. Only remember that your tears be the tears of resignation, and that your sighs confess a heart humbly yielding to His will who ordereth all things according to His infinite knowledge ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... While the discussion was at its height upon his amendment excluding Jefferson Davis from the benefit of the General Amnesty Bill, Mr. Blaine, looking across to the opposite side of the Chamber, said: "I confess to a feeling of commiseration for some gentlemen upon the other side, who represent close districts. Surrounded by their Southern associates here, and with intense Union constituencies at home, their apprehension, as they are called to vote upon ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... the fact of your living showed you had not yet paid your debt to life," he said drily, "and I confess that I cannot see any great value in realizing these things you speak of. If they are so, they are ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous; repair Thou it. It has that within which must offend Thine eyes; I confess and know it. But who shall cleanse it? or to whom should I cry, save Thee? Lord, cleanse me from my secret faults, and spare Thy servant from the power of the enemy. I believe, and therefore do I speak. Lord, Thou knowest. Have I not confessed against myself my transgressions unto Thee, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... I confess that the theory of an inland sea has long since vanished from my mind, though I base my opinion on reasons different from those of Mr. Eyre. The intercourse between natives of opposite sides of the continent (though it is certainly possible) has never been established, and while it remains ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... left hand, between Portree and Dr Macleod's house, Mr M'Queen told me there had been a college of the Knights Templars; that tradition said so; and that there was a ruin remaining of their church, which had been burnt: but I confess Dr Johnson has weakened my belief in remote tradition. In the dispute about Anaitis, Mr M'Queen said, Asia Minor was peopled by Scythians, and, as they were the ancestors of the Celts, the same religion might be in Asia Minor and Sky. JOHNSON. 'Alas! sir, what can a ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... know as much about women—as I thought I did,' Sir George answered grimly. 'You seem, ma'am, to be much sought after. One man can hardly hope to own you. Pray have you any other affairs to confess?' ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Conservatives and had been for years and years. Men who had voted, with pain and sorrow in their hearts, for the Liberal party for twenty years, came out that evening and owned up straight that they were Conservatives. They said they could stand the strain no longer and simply had to confess. Whatever the sacrifice might mean, they ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... of a God who is worthy of love and service,—and I speak most reverently,—who under such conditions would take a satisfaction in these things? I confess I am not able to. I can conceive of no way in which I can serve God only as I serve Him through my own life and through the lives of my fellow-men. This, certainly, is the only kind of service He needs or wants, ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... had ordered his dinner at his club, wrote the following letter to Lady Altringham. He had intended to write from Penrith in the morning, but when there had been out of sorts and unhappy, and had disliked to confess, after his note of triumph sounded on the previous evening, that he had been turned out of Humblethwaite. He had got over that feeling during the day, with the help of sundry glasses of sherry and a little mixed curacoa and brandy which he took immediately on his arrival in London,—and, so ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... The tragedy was ended. I never remember to have heard him make a gloomy remark. This was not because he had no perception of the pollutions of society. I once said to my father, "Are people so much worse now than they used to-be?" He made no answer for a minute, for the old people do not like to confess much to the boys. But after awhile his eye twinkled and he said: "Well, DeWitt, the fact is that people were never any better ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... thought and word, but not in deed. I should not, however, have conducted myself in so reckless a manner if our ringleader, namely, the so-called Lisel (Elisabeth Cannabich), had not inveigled and instigated me to mischief, and I am bound to admit that I took great pleasure in it myself. I confess all these my sins and shortcomings from the depths of my heart; and in the hope of often having similar ones to confess, I firmly resolve to amend my present sinful life. I therefore beg for a dispensation ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... alarmed at this susurrus, and began to reflect that the retirement of Mr. Pattison, unless his loss could be supplied in good time, was like to be a blow to the establishment; for, in truth, this Paul had a winning way with the boys, especially those who were gentle-tempered; so that I must confess my doubts whether, in certain respects, I myself could have fully supplied his place in the school, with all my authority and experience. My wife, jealous as became her station, of Mr. Pattison's intentions, advised me to take the matter up ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... direction I was obliged to confess that I saw as yet no practicable way. We bade them a "good-bye," receiving their "God bless you" in return, and started southward along the range to look for some possible cliff to descend. Brewer, ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... I think you make too much of the other trouble, as you call it. I confess it troubles me too a little; though, perhaps, not as it does you. And luckily less, the more I reflect on it. After all, there don't seem so much to be bothered about. As you know, Ned, it's a common ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... gladly see and hear, that the two words mass and sacrament were considered by every one as being as far apart as light and darkness, yea, as the devil and God. For they (the Papists) must themselves confess, that mass dues not signify the reception of the sacrament as Christ instituted it; but the reception of the sacrament they do, (and no thanks to them,) they must call communion. But that is called MASS which the priest alone performs at the altar, in which ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... Shepherd? I confess you surprise me, for I have always had an idea that he was a man of good family; although in some strange way his education had been neglected for, in fact, he told me one day that he was ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... have told why he had yielded to the impulse to stay. He had for months been coming more and more to feel that the church of Rome was his true refuge, yet he hardly now dared confess this to himself. He had been deeply affected by the discovery that Maurice had been to confession at St. Eulalia, and he longed himself to follow the example of his friend. To Ashe, however, it seemed like trifling with sacred things, and ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... congress of most of the 'ex Ministres'. If they have raised a battery, as I suppose they have, it is a masked one, for nothing has transpired; only they confess that they intend a most vigorous attack. 'D'ailleurs', there seems to be a total suspension of all business, till the meeting of the parliament, and then 'Signa canant'. I am very glad that at this time you are out of it: and for reasons ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... pictures of the master. What is the meaning of this green? Was it the fashion, or the varnish? Girodet's pictures are green; Gros's emperors and grenadiers have universally the jaundice. Gerard's "Psyche" has a most decided green-sickness; and I am at a loss, I confess, to account for the enthusiasm which this performance inspired on its first ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... whisper concerning her went round among more showy but less attractive women,—many an involuntary but low murmur of admiration escaped from the more cautious lips of the men. She was talking to the Princesse D'Agramont, who with her brilliant dark beauty could afford to confess ungrudgingly the charm of a woman so spirituelle as Sylvie, and who, between various careless nods and smiles to her acquaintance, was detailing to her with much animation the account of her visit to the ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... glittering spiritual meshes, and can never be quite the same as if the web had never held them for its passing moment in its light zone of thought. For ideas generate duties, knowledge stimulates action, and to act in a world of doubt may well be onerous. We frankly confess to you that a dread responsibility has cast a deep shadow upon all our moments since the commencement of our intercourse with you. Our butterfly hours were then past: we grew into work-a-day bees—if only we have stored some honey in your ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and that is why we come to you. You've played a part—a desperate game. You had some motive back of your surrender, but what we cannot guess. Now, man, I want to help you for your sake and for the sake of those back there. Go call out Hillary, and make a clean breast of it all. Tell me your game. Confess, and I will get you ...
— The Southern Cross - A Play in Four Acts • Foxhall Daingerfield, Jr.
... all the proofs in my hand. I have witnesses whom we shall meet presently at the criminal investigation department. Confess, can't you? In spite of everything, you're tortured by remorse. Remember your dismay, at the restaurant, when you had seen the newspaper. What? Jacques Aubrieux condemned to die? That's more than you ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... confess'd the fruitful mould; The verdant apple ripens here to gold; Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows, With deepest red the full pomegranate glows, The branches bend beneath the weighty pear, And silver olives flourish all the year; ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... him in this and avouch that she was his mistress and had been stoned on his account in the city. So he did this and coming by night to the villager's house, stole therefrom goods and clothes; whereupon the old man awoke and seizing the thief, bound him fast and beat him, to make him confess. So he confessed against the woman that she had prompted him to this and that he was her lover from the city. The news was bruited abroad and the people of the city assembled to put her to death; but the old man, with whom she was, forbade them and said, 'I brought this woman hither, coveting the ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... no need to raise the question of the genuineness of this strange relic, though I confess to having had my doubts about it, or to wonder for what nefarious purposes the impious weapon was designed—whether the blade was inserted by some rascal monk who never told the tale, or whether it was used on secret ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... confess," said Sir Richard, "that you have roused a degree of interest in poor old women which I never felt before, and it does seem to me that we might do a good deal more for them with our mere superfluities and cast-off clothing. Do the old women ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... trace O'Hara," said Ste. Marie. "He seems to have disappeared as completely as your nephew. I suppose you have no clews to spare? I confess I'm out ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... "I confess I am a bit startled," said d'Alcacer; but except for a slightly hurried utterance nobody could have guessed at ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... had expressed his concurrence so far as the naval portion of the scheme was concerned, and provided that the army made the necessary advance in Flanders. When the scheme was shown to me shortly after taking office as First Sea Lord I confess that I had some doubts as to the possibility of manoeuvring two monitors, with a pontoon 550 feet in length secured ahead of and between the bows of the monitors, but in view of the immense importance of driving the Germans from the Belgian coast and ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... myself—I don't even read the papers. My daughter does, sometimes, but only when there is nothing the matter with Georges, her remaining son! As for me, as long as my tenants pay their rents and my leases are kept up—! You see my account-books: I live in them, gentlemen; and I confess that I know absolutely nothing whatever about that story of which you wrote to me in ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... I declare I should now be ashamed to mention, especially in the presence of Miss Portman, who deserves the best that this world can afford of every denomination. Well, ma'am, in one word," continued she, addressing herself to Belinda, "I am extremely rejoiced that things are as they are, though I confess that was not always my wish or opinion, for which I beg Mr. Vincent's pardon and yours; but I hope to be forgiven, since I'm now come entirely round to my Lady Anne Percival's way of thinking, which I learnt from good authority at Oakly-park; ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... better than they, I had provisions of my own which I did not share with my comrades; yet, when I buried the last, I had so little remaining, that I thought it could not hold out long: So I dug a grave, resolving to lie down in it, because there was none left alive to inter me. I must confess to you, at the same time, that, while I was thus employed, I could not but reflect upon myself as the cause of my own ruin, and repented that I had ever undertaken this last voyage. Nor did I stop at reflections only, but had well nigh hastened ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... that the women who ask this change in our political organization are not simply seeking to be put upon school boards and upon boards of health and charity and upon all the large number of duties of a political nature for which he must confess they are fit, but he says they will want to be President of the United States, and want to be Senators, and want to be marshals and sheriffs, and that seems to him supremely ridiculous. Now I do not understand that that is the proposition. ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... the Fourth, not many months sithence, had at Rome in prison certain Augustine friars, many bishops, and a great number of other devout men, for religion's sake. He racked them and tormented them: to make them confess, he left no means unassayed. But in the end how many brothels, how many whoremongers, how many adulterers, how many incestuous persons could he find of all those? Our God be thanked, although we be not the men we ought and profess ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... hour ago, I saw you as distinctly as I see you now; if you were not there then, you are not here now,' and I grasped his arm as I spoke to convince myself that it was really he. I thought that my husband was teasing me by his repeated denials, and that he would at last confess he was really there; and it was only when he assured me in the most positive and serious manner that he was a mile away at the time I saw him in the garden, that I could believe him. I have never been able to account for the appearance. There was no one I could possibly ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... so changed, so assiduous to business, so positive in manner, so thoroughly free, as it seemed from the follies of his younger days—follies that had warped all his best natures—due, as Judge Wright was compelled to confess, to the timely efforts of Colonel Boone, there sprang into the breast of Judge Wright an unquenchable flame of jealousy. What right had Colonel Boone to hold such an influence over this boy, the pampered and humored dissipate of this Congressman from Indiana, when his own commands, and his mother's ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... courtiers, who had no other desire than to signalize themselves by clamorous exultation. He offered various topicks of conversation, but obtained only forced jests, and laborious laughter; and after many attempts to animate his train to confidence and alacrity, was obliged to confess to himself the impotence of command, and resign another day to grief ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... the need of the farmer himself to go to town to sell and to buy, to get repairs and information, and (a much more generally gratified taste than he would always care to confess to his wife) to satisfy his craving after intercourse with his kind,—who shall estimate the aggregate of all this travel, or even of that part of it which, under the pretext of business, is really only an habitual going ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... useful work. Talking and working are essentially different things; and it is well for Parliament, for the newspapers, and for the nation at large, that so many excellent legislators are compelled to confess, like Marc Antony, "I am no orator." The members for Glasgow have never made themselves famous in the direction of much speaking; their aim has been to gather much wool with little cry, thus reversing completely the well-known motto. The interests of a city like Glasgow are ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... diametrically opposed to that in which all his nearest relations were engaged. Besides all which, this person had formerly been made a prisoner by themselves, without any just foundation, and had even been so nearly punished capitally, that he had been ordered to make his testament and to confess himself in preparation for death, which injurious treatment he could not be supposed to have forgotten. Gonzalo was so much convinced by these arguments, that he countermanded the order given to the licentiate Carvajal, and sent off Juan d'Acosta ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... lived; the perseverance of his apprenticeship; his intellectual exploits; and, after all, his glory, we are inclined to maintain that what he failed to accomplish or undertake is as nothing in comparison with his achievements.... There is nothing left but to confess that the clay of which he was made was thick with diamonds, and that his life was one of the most valiant and the most noble a poet ever ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... But, even to such as Calvaster, we should be just. You complained, a while ago, that the judges of the Vestals had ignored both the facts and the evidence. Let us weigh the evidence and stick to the facts. The only fact you present is that you caught Calvaster lurking in your house. You confess that you were completely puzzled as to what motive brought him there. Your friend surmises an explanation which disgusts, insults and alarms you. You instantly credit it completely, think and act as if it were unquestionably true. I am prejudiced against ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... I confess I suspect the soundness of this policy; in matters respecting men's feelings and actions theories are less convincing than facts: whenever, therefore, they are found conflicting with actual experience, they not only are despised ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... pricking the body to find the witch-mark, he compelled the wretched and decrepit victims of his cruel practices to sit in a painful posture, on an elevated stool, with their limbs crossed; and, if they persevered in refusing to confess, he would prolong their torture, in some cases, to more than twenty-four hours. He would prevent their going to sleep, and drag them about barefoot over the rough ground, thus overcoming them with extreme weariness ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... eyes in silence—studied them till Leonore, who did not find that steady look altogether easy to bear, and yet was not willing to confess herself stared out of countenance, asked: "Do ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... "I confess I cannot see you in the picture that rose for some perverse reason in my mind; but—well, you really are too young to go about so much ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... perhaps, have become penitent for early sins, during the long hours of reflection afforded me in the chateau. But, with all the fervor of an ardent and thwarted nature, I was much more disposed to rebel and revenge myself when opportunity occurred, than to confess my sins with a lowly and obedient heart. Indeed, most of my time in prison had been spent in cursing the court and king, or in reflecting how I should get back to Africa in the speediest manner, if I was ever lucky enough to elude the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... The present division has been assailed more violently by the critics and torn out of its place with greater unanimity than any other portion of the Odyssey, with the possible exception of portions of the last two Books. Let us confess, however, that our tendency is to reconcile, if this can be done, the discords and to knit together the rent garment, by threads not always on the surface, but very real to any eye which is ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... that the task should be taken up and carried on by parents and teachers, under her controul; but when we compare the nature and success of their operations with hers, we perceive the immense inferiority of their best endeavours, and are obliged to confess, that in many instances, instead of forwarding her work, they either mar or destroy it. For in regard to the matter of their teaching, it may be observed, that they can teach their pupils nothing, except ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... appetite, since it does not prompt to action. To say then that a man has no passions, means that the sensitive appetite never stirs within him, but is wholly dead. But this is impossible, as the Stoic philosopher was fain to confess when he got frightened in a storm at sea. Having no passions cannot in any practical sense mean having no movements of the sensitive appetite, for that will be afoot of its own proper motion independent of reason: ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... earnestly, Ingeborg, that you make me desperate. I confess that there is something ... something I would wish otherwise ... but for Heaven's sake, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... mama would fly with me till the reign of sport was over. It was a terrible grief to have to go at the only time when the ranch was not a prison. I grew up nursing a crop of smothered rebellions and longings which I was ashamed to confess. At sixteen mama was to take me abroad for two years; I was to be presented and brought home in triumph, unless Europe refused to part with a pearl of such price. All pearls have their price. I was not left in absolute ignorance of my own. Of all who ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Ante, p. 45 note 1, and Letters of Boswell, p. 196. In writing to Temple he thus mentions his career as a barrister. 'Jan. 10, 1789. In truth I am sadly discouraged by having no practice, nor probable prospect of it; and to confess fairly to you, my friend, I am afraid that, were I to be tried, I should be found so deficient in the forms, the quirks and the quiddities, which early habit acquires, that I should expose myself. Yet the delusion of Westminster Hall, of brilliant reputation ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... believe in it at all, who believe in the exaltation of Jeanne's brain, in the excitement of her nerves, in some strange complication of bodily conditions, which made her believe she saw and heard what she did not really see or hear. For our part, we confess frankly that these explanations are no explanation at all so far as we are concerned; we are far more inclined to believe that the Maid spoke truth, she who never told a lie, she who fulfilled all the promises ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... part I must confess that when I succeeded in doing anything which he was able to praise, and which consequently gave him pleasure, I was so happy and elated that I felt as if I were raised to the seventh heaven! Indeed, had he not taught ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... pleasures. The most famous of her victims was Tannhaeuser, who, after he had lived under her spell for a season, experienced a revulsion of feeling which loosened her bonds over his spirit and induced anxious thoughts concerning his soul. He escaped from her power and hastened to Rome to confess his sins and seek absolution. But when the Pope heard of his association with one of the pagan goddesses whom the priests taught were nothing but demons, he declared that the knight could no more hope for pardon than to see his staff bear buds ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... how you contrive, mother, always to say the most disagreeable things; the marvellous way in which you pitch on what will, at the moment, wound me most, is truly wonderful. I compliment you on your skill, but I confess I am at a loss to understand why you should, as if by right, expect me to remain here to serve as a target for the arrows of ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... of the crime charged and the participants in it. This lady was surprised when I informed her that the days of the rack and the thumbscrew were passed, and, though pious, well bred, and a member of the church, thought it a hardship that a negro might not be whipped or tortured till he would confess what he might know about a robbery, although not even a prima facie case existed against him, or that sort of evidence that would induce a grand jury to indict. I offer this as an instance of the feeling that ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... aroused soon after sunrise by a knock at his door, and in came a venerable old native in a long white robe, crimson girdle, and hat exactly like a stove-pipe, minus the rim. Shutting the door as carefully as if he were about to confess a murder, he opened a small silk bag, and flashed upon Frank's astonished eyes a perfect heap of precious stones of all sorts and sizes; then holding up the fingers of both hands several times in succession, he ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and leave it alone!" a servant-girl expostulated, "that, he said, was kept in order to be given to Hsi Jen; and on his return, when he again gets into a huff, you, old lady, must, on your own motion, confess to having eaten it, and not involve us in any way as to have to bear ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... was no remedy. All that remained was to hinder suspicion from lighting on the innocent, and to confess, to my friend, the offence which I had committed. Meanwhile my first project was resumed, and, the family being now wrapped in profound sleep, I left my chamber, and proceeded to the elm. The moon ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... the stings went in were round and hard, and now it was that Dexter's conscience began to prick him as sharply as the bees' stings, and he walked about the garden trying to make up his mind as to whether he should go and confess to Dan'l that he stirred the bees up ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... Concorde, Paris, at the corner of the Rue Royale). Deciding to pass the evening tete-a-tete with Madame Roland, I derived, as I always do, great pleasure from that spiritual woman's society, and the charms of her brave soul and engaging conversation. I must confess that if she had only some more faults, only a few more passionate failings of any kind, I might love her better; but I am content to believe that the deficiency is in me, and not in her. We spent some sadly interesting hours together on this occasion, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... by the general name of Karman, comprehends all influences which the past exercises on the present, whether physical or mental.(7) It is not my object to examine or even to name all these influences, though I confess nothing is more interesting than to look upon the surface of our modern life as we look on a geological map, and to see the most ancient formations cropping out everywhere under our feet. Difficult as it is to color a geological map of England, it would be still ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... for the summer if you could have a big house party, bringing your friends with you. I must confess that I have done little but read the week I ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... was, would have died sooner than betray his friend and master, as Mr. Holt well knew; for he had tried the boy more than once, putting temptations in his way, to see whether he would yield to them and confess afterwards, or whether he would resist them, as he did sometimes, or whether he would lie, which he never did. Holt instructing the boy on this point, however, that if to keep silence is not to lie, as it certainly ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Lincoln's house," says Colonel McClure, "and rang the bell, which was answered by Lincoln, himself, opening the door. I doubt whether I wholly concealed my disappointment at meeting him. Tall, gaunt, ungainly, ill-clad, with a homeliness of manner that was unique in itself, I confess that my heart sank within me as I remembered that this was the man chosen by a great nation to become its ruler in the gravest period of its history. I remember his dress as if it were but yesterday—snuff-colored and slouchy pantaloons; open black vest, held by a few brass buttons; straight ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... in contrary tales, For he says nothing still, and that same nothing Is that which we have stood on all this while; He hath confess'd even all, for all is nothing. This is your witness, he hath witness'd nothing Since nothing, then, so plainly is confess'd, And we by cunning answers and by wit Have wrought him to confess nothing to us, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... him very, very much. But she could not bear to confess it, for all that, and a moment afterwards she was sitting upright again in her chair, feeling that she had weathered the first storm. Her companion, who was not ignorant of her ways, contented herself then with patting Margaret's hand caressingly during ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... I confess that the empty houses gave me the creeps, staring down at me with their open windows while I sucked my orange. In the rooms behind those windows lay dead bodies, no doubt: some mutilated, some swollen with the plague ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... and even larger words, like although and notwithstanding, occur very often in all compositions. How easy it would be, inexperienced persons think, to take up a long word, such as extraordinary, and place it in position at one stroke. I confess that I had this idea myself, long before I knew that any one ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... eye, with its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... two broad columns on the right, where the chapel of Varvara the Martyr begins, those who are going to confess stand beside the screen, awaiting their turn. And Mitka is there too— a ragged boy with his head hideously cropped, with ears that jut out, and little spiteful eyes. He is the son of Nastasya the charwoman, and is a bully and a ruffian who snatches apples from the women's ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... important step in progress, But, like all progress, it involves hardship to individuals. For the higher moral classes, the saints and the reformers, it is the occasion of wholehearted rejoicing. It is just what they have, all the while, been trying to bring about. But I confess to a sympathy for the middle class, morally considered, the plain people, who feel the pinch. They have invested their little all in the old-fashioned securities, and when these are depreciated they feel that there is nothing to keep the wolf from the ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... "Anarchists Confess," read Jack. "Two Englishmen Admit They Blew Up Hotel Where Lord Peckham Was Stopping. No Suspicion Attaches to Two ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... confess that they are not able to solve the mystery of Mme. Tetrazzini's wonderful management of ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... for mortal to attain—S.F.B. Morse, since better known as the inventor of the Electric Telegraph. But a little while after this his fame was flashing through the world, and the unbelievers who voted him insane were forced to confess that there was, at least, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... felt indefinably chilled. Why this appointment for a meeting at one of the large hotels? Curious. Why this mystery, anyway, he thought irritably; why this excess of mystery? And yet, after all, he was forced to confess to his inmost soul that, mystery though it was, he did not find it any the less delightful for that, rather the ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... conclude, that he, who, by the consent of all men, bears so eminent a character, will out of his inborn nobleness forgive the presumption of this address. It is an unfinished picture, I confess, but the lines and features are so like, that it cannot be mistaken for any other; and without writing any name under it, every beholder must cry out, at first sight,—this was designed for Atticus; ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... imperial consolidation, was itself an evidence of doubt deeper than that harboured by his opponents. "When those subtle views were adopted by the country, under the plausible plea of granting {256} self-government to the Colonies, I confess that I myself thought that the tie was broken. Not that I for one object to self-government. I cannot conceive how our distant colonies can have their affairs administered except by self-government. But self-government, in my opinion, when it is conceded, ought to have been conceded as part ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... He need have done, and yet that so few had turned to Him, and been won by Him. His whole body was now worn out; all His blood was shed; nothing remained for Him to do; and therefore He was constrained to confess, "It is finished"; and yet by all His labours, afflictions, and sufferings, He had brought no richer harvest to the Father than this. Truly, this was the most bitter of all His sorrows, that after so hard a battle His victory had not been more glorious, and that He returned a conqueror to ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... said the doctor gravely; "I have been a medical man for thirty years—a great student, but I must frankly confess that I do not know what women are. As to my daughter, she is of an age to judge for herself, and when she accepts a man for ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn |
