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Inquisitor   Listen
noun
Inquisitor  n.  
1.
An inquisitive person; one fond of asking questions. (R.) "Inquisitors are tatlers."
2.
(Law) One whose official duty it is to examine and inquire, as coroners, sheriffs, etc.
3.
(R.C.Ch.) A member of the Court of Inquisition.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Inquisitor" Quotes from Famous Books



... discipline which seduces them is called professional etiquette. In the army they become, occasionally, the most bigoted worshippers of red-tape. When that happens a doctor becomes a fanatic more ruthless than an inquisitor of old days. ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham

... the letter to Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, recommending that the woman be given a hearing and judgment rendered as to the extent of her heresy. By a singular fatality Bossuet appointed Fenelon as chairman or chief inquisitor of the committee to investigate the vagaries ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... Filipinas. The said rector acted as commissary of the Inquisition for the tribunal of Goa, as long as he was there; but when he was withdrawn those forts were left without any commissary. I gave testimony regarding that to the inquisitor-general, so that he on his part might procure from your Majesty the appointment for those forts of a minister—a matter so important for the purity of our holy faith—since your Majesty strives, as your chief glory, to preserve it in all the kingdoms and provinces of your monarchy; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various

... these, many thousands were dug up from their graves and burnt; seventeen thousand were fined or imprisoned for life. Whoever of the persecuted race could flee, escaped for his life. Torquemada, now appointed inquisitor-general for Castile and Leon, illustrated his office by his ferocity. Anonymous accusations were received, the accused was not confronted by witnesses, torture was relied upon for conviction; it was inflicted in vaults where ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... interest in the events of Europe, and received with the deepest sorrow the news that Calais had been lost by Philip's English wife. He was always ready to give his successor advice, and became more and more intolerant in religious questions. "Tell the Grand Inquisitor from me," he wrote, "to be at his post and lay the axe to the root of the tree before it spreads further. I rely on your zeal for bringing the guilty to punishment and for having them punished without favour to anyone, with all the severity which their crimes demand." ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... man has a right to turn inquisitor over another man, just because the second man is ready to marry the first man's daughter," said she. "And I'm sure papa wouldn't have stood it ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... ever seen the dusty cobwebs and the mould in the cellars of some ancient castle in Italy, France or England? This is the dust of centuries. Perhaps it touched the faces, helmets and swords of a Roman Augustus, St. Louis, the Inquisitor, Galileo or King Richard. Your heart is involuntarily contracted and you feel a respect for these witnesses of elapsed ages. This same impression came to me in Ta Kure, perhaps more deep, more realistic. Here life flows on almost as it flowed eight centuries ago; here man lives only ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... surround the choir, hastened to take possession of the seat abandoned by the worthy Tourainean. Having done so, he quickly hid his face among the plumes of his tall gray cap, kneeling upon the chair with an air of contrition that even an inquisitor ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac

... an understanding that it was to meet again, and went our different ways. We consigned our traps to the omnibus, H.C. for once trusting his precious treasures out of sight, but retaining his umbrella with all the determination of an inquisitor inflicting torture upon a fellow mortal. A short avenue brought us to the river, which flowed through the town, and, not without reason, had been condemned by Catherine. We crossed the bridge and went down the quay. It was lined ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various

... inquisition (general inquisicion suprema). This was opened in Seville, 1481. Thomas de Torquenada, prior of the Dominican convent at Segovia, father-confessor to Mendoza, had been appointed first grand inquisitor by the king and queen, in 1478. The peaceful teachings of the meek and lowly Jesus do not seem to have had much influence on this political Boanerges. He had two hundred familiars, and a guard of fifty horsemen, but ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... 1563 the King of Sweden carried four witches with him, as a part of his armament, to aid him in his wars with the Danes. In 1576, seventeen or eighteen were condemned in Essex, in England. A single judge or inquisitor, Remigius, condemned and burned nine hundred within fifteen years, from 1580 to 1595, in the single district of Lorraine; and as many more fled out of the country; whole villages were depopulated, and ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... is to protest against the inquisitor and to prefer the merchant who comes to offer me his wares. But when my impressions are clarified by reflection, I begin to see that the inquisitor, when he acts from a right motive, treats me as a man, as an end in myself, and if he ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... explanation lay. As in the present case the business transacted was chiefly in connection with leases and conveyances, the unfortunate lawyer had a rough week of it, and felt at the end very much like one of his own clients after a year in Chancery. However, the inquisitor appeared to be fairly well satisfied when all was done, so that Mr Pottinger, who all along had on his mind the uncomfortable consciousness of a few well-hidden irregularities, was doubly relieved ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... you stole?" continued the inquisitor, turning sharply to Rachel,—a style of examination which would scarcely ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... University could do; and it was as unwise as it was unworthy. The strength of his own case before the public was that he could be made to appear as the victim of a personal and partisan attack; yet on the first opportunity he acts in the spirit of an inquisitor, and that not in fair conflict with some one worthy of his hostility, but to wreak an injury, in a matter of private interest, on an individual, in no way known to him or opposed to him, except as holding ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... nimble squirrel's visitor, Let the brown hermit bring his hoarded nuts, For, tell him, this is Nature's kind Inquisitor,— Though man keeps cautious doors that conscience shuts, For conscious wrong all curious quest rebuts,— Nor yet shall bees uncase their jealous stings, However he may watch their straw-built huts;— So let him learn the crafts of all small things, Which he will hint most aptly ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... many imitations, as the Historian, here named; the Rhapsody, Observator, Moderator, Growler, Censor, Hermit, Surprize, Silent Monitor, Inquisitor, Pilgrim, Restorer, Instructor, Grumbler, &c. There was also in 1712 a Rambler, anticipating the name of Dr. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... think of the immediate result of the combat; to see the champion of science, old, worn, and on his knees before the Cardinal Inquisitor, signing his name to what he knew to be a lie. And, no doubt, the Cardinals rubbed their hands as they thought how well they had silenced and discredited their adversary. But two hundred years have passed, and however feeble or faulty her soldiers, Physical ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... "I never thought of that before. Why, of course, that's what they are. They've been reincarnated ... you know, transmigration of souls ... and that fat woman, Mrs. Smeale...." Mrs. Smeale was the Mayor's wife ... "was an Inquisitor before she was ... was dug up again. I can see her beastly big face in a cowl, and hot pincers in her hands, plucking poor Protestants' flesh off their bones ... and she's doing that now, using all the rotten rules and regulations ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... experienced just that! In the events of the day, it was revealed that a little, unknown midget of a man, with a doubtful background, was indeed a man, mentally, morally, and financially. Back of his cynicism—often expressed in the jargon of the underworld—was an alert mind that could lead an inquisitor into a maze ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... intended to apply to his daughters, I made no scruple of relating what I had heard. My auditors were at once more than interested—anxious. Whenever a negro breaks bounds in the South, everybody is on the alert, a self-constituted detective, judge, inquisitor, and possible executioner. Eternal ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... on the 25th of May, in the morning. On the morrow, the 26th, the registrar of the University, in the name and under the seal of the inquisition of France, wrote a citation to the Duke of Burgundy "to the end that the Maid should be delivered up to appear before the said inquisitor, and to respond to the good counsel, favor, and aid of the good doctors and masters of the University of Paris." Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, had been the prime mover in this step. Some weeks later, on the 14th of July, seeing that no reply arrived from the Duke ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... passed it on to the Supreme Inquisition at Madrid; the reply of this body was discouraging, for, though the request was granted in principle, impossible conditions, tantamount to a refusal, were imposed.[78] Luis de Leon's second request was addressed direct to the Inquisitor-General: this petition was disregarded. In other matters, less urgent but not less important from an orthodox point of view, the Inquisitionary judges at Valladolid made no concession to the prisoner. ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... rueful apprehension enter'd O, The wailing minstrel of despairing woe; Th' Inquisitor of Spain the most expert Might there have learnt new mysteries of his art; So grim, deform'd, with horrors entering U, His dearest friend and brother ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... criminal. 'No, sir,' he answered, turning square around and facing old Squeaky, 'I am not pledged to total abstinence.' Don't suppose he ever took a drink in his life. 'Did you ever attend the theatre?' This was the limit. It seemed to strike the brethren all at once what the old inquisitor was driving at. The words were hardly out of his mouth when there was a weird sound, a cross between a howl and a roar, and Grant was at the Moderator's desk. It will always be a mystery to me how he got there. There were three pews between ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, i. 219, says:—'Johnson would have made an excellent Spanish inquisitor. To his shame be it said, he always was tooth ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... lad; but I should like to be a grand inquisitor sitting on Master Anson for his renegade ways and superintending in the torture-chamber. My word, shouldn't he have the question of the water; no, the rack; or better still, the extraction of his nails. Stop a minute: I think hanging from the ceiling by his wrists with a weight ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... religious sects tolerated among us, of which every one has found opponents and vindicators, is another source of unexhaustible publication, almost peculiar to ourselves; for controversies cannot be long continued, nor frequently revived, where an inquisitor has a right to shut up the disputants in dungeons; or where silence can be imposed on either party, by the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... a very epitome of the sins of genius, breaking open the doors of private life, and wantonly wounding friends, in that crowning offence of Werther, and in his own character a mere pen-and-ink Napoleon, conscious of the rights and duties of superior talents as a Spanish inquisitor was conscious of the rights and duties of his office. And yet in his fine devotion to his art, in his honest and serviceable friendship for Schiller, what lessons are contained! Biography, usually so false to its office, does here for once perform for ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... wild armies forward crying, "Death or conversion!" Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain were earnest and conscientious when they roasted the Moors of Spain in the name of the Holy Church and Jesus the Saviour of the world. Torquemada was earnest and conscientious as the Grand Inquisitor who burnt heretics who could not accept ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... which he alleged that the archduke, contrary to the faith of treaties, encouraged and supported the rebellion of his subjects in Catalonia, by frequent succours from Naples and other places; and that the great inquisitor of Spain had been seized, though furnished with a passport from his holiness. He promised however to proceed no further, and suspend all operations, that the powers of Europe might have time and opportunity to contrive ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... need of affection, confidence and tenderness. Jeanne did not tell him about her new ideas, and her friendship for the Abb Tolbiac. The first time he saw the priest he conceived a great aversion to him. And when Jeanne asked him that evening how he liked him, he replied: "That man is an inquisitor! He must ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... to the Inquisitor what he had done, and received absolution for it; but he was obliged to inscribe the fact we have recounted in the Registers ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... carriage rattled on towards the city of strife, where Jew, Goth and Roman, Moor and Inquisitor, have all had their day. Estella was silent, drooping with fatigue. The General alone seemed unmoved and heedless of the heat—a man of steel, as bright and ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... to the vitals. Grand Inquisitor, Grand Khan, Sultan, Emperor, Tsar, Caesar Augustus—these are comparable. He stopped squirming ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... midst of a reticent and often skeptical period there comes, through the awakened vocational interest, an inlet into the soul of youth. No religious inquisitor or evangelistic brigand could have forced an entrance, but lo, all at once the doors are opened from within and examination is invited. It is invited because the boy wishes to know what manner of person he is and for what pursuit he is or may ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... friendly directions as to how to get back to my hotel without falling in with the police, "who wouldn't let you off as I have." I was fortunate enough to arrive without any further notice. The officers of the army hated to do police service, and my inquisitor was no doubt glad not to pass me into the custody of the police. I have always wished to know the name of my ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... his curly beard, deepened the hollows on either side of his sweetly pointed nose, and accented the determined corners of his firmly modelled lips. He was dressed in a simple tunic and wore no Talith; and as he slowly moved up the wide aisle the Grand Inquisitor, visibly annoyed by the resemblance, said to his famulus, "The heretic dares to imitate the Master." ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... which I sometimes hear in conversation, but with whom, I am glad to say, I have no personal acquaintance. Then you might ascribe to me a more deadly craft than mere quibbling and lying; in Spain I should have been an Inquisitor, with my rack in the background; I should have had a concealed dagger in Sicily; at Venice I should have brewed poison; in Turkey I should have been the Sheik-el-Islam with my bowstring; in Khorassan I should have been a veiled prophet. "Fanatic young men!" Why he is writing out ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... thought best not to have salaries, the matter can be remedied by appointing two religious or ecclesiastic persons, and one of the auditors of the Audiencia—who, as they are advisers, can likewise carry on the suits. These, as they conduct the office of commissary (which is here the same thing as an inquisitor), would be able to hear the cases and would do so as a work of charity, and with zeal for the honor of God, until they could obtain, from the confiscated property, salaries for the inquisitors whom your Majesty ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair

... of demonstrating the truth more clearly, my youthful inquisitor, and that is by sending you on a voyage of exploration. Are you willing to ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... Reverend Thomas Dixon. This gentleman's pulpit-slang used to be the talk of New York when I was a boy; and when I grew up, and came into the Socialist movement—behold, here he was, chief inquisitor of the capitalist Holy Office. I had a friend, a man who saved my life at a time when I was practically starving, and to whom therefore I owe my survival as a writer; this friend had been a clergyman in a Middle Western state, and had preached Jesus as ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... Marselait, Inquisitor Extraordinary of the King of France, raised his head from the parchments that littered the crude desk at which he sat. His glance shifted along the long stone-walled, torchlit room to the file of mail-clad soldiers who stood like steel statues by its door. A ...
— The Man Who Saw the Future • Edmond Hamilton

... refuse to explain the meaning of those exclamations?"—No answer. "Why do you persist in this obstinate and dangerous silence? Look, I beseech you, brother, at the cross that is suspended against this wall," and the Inquisitor pointed to the large black crucifix at the back of the chair where he sat; "one drop of the blood shed there can purify you from all the sin you have ever committed; but all that blood, combined with the intercession ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... workings of the Inquisition little distinction was made between men and women, and both seem to have suffered alike at the hands of these cruel ministers of the Church. In 1498, for the first time, it was decreed that men and women held under arrest by order of the inquisitor should be provided with separate prisons, and it is easy to imagine from this one statement that Isabella must have been very much of a bigot, or she could not have allowed so flagrant an abuse to exist for any length of time, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... regiments of soldiers, strained and spavined by fearful draughts, stalled in bogs and fainting upon hillsides,—their bones will evidence the sites of armies, when the skeletons of men have crumbled and become reabsorbed. I have seen them die like martyrs, when the inquisitor, with his bloody lash, stood over them in the closing pangs, and their last tremulous howl has almost moved to tears. Some of the dwellings seemed to be occupied, but the tidiness of old times was gone. The women ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... bishop's voice, a note almost pathetic. "Oh, I do not mean to ask you anything you may deem too personal. And God forbid, as I look at you, as I have known you, that I should doubt your sincerity. I am not your inquisitor, but your bishop and your friend, and I am asking for your confidence. Six months ago you were, apparently, one of the most orthodox rectors in the diocese. I recognize that you are not an impulsive, sensational man, and I am all the more anxious to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... forcibly as it vibrated through all her nature, could not eradicate the sympathy of years—the memories of Hiram and Kirtland, Haun's Mill and the desperate winter's march. Justice, her old friend, now her inquisitor, said sternly, "It was in these scenes in which some lost life and some reason that these men lost their moral standards." But her heart cried, "Now that I am insulted, ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... in sua dogmatizatione. Quarum prima fuit, quod Papa de facto non est Christi vicarius. Secunda, Nullus est Papa, nec Christi vicarius, nisi sit sanctus. De consimilibus, vel pejoribus, tenuit quadraginta conclusiones. Cujus tam Scripta quam auctorem Inquisitor confutavit, et ad ignem applicavit et incineravit. Hujusmodi errores excerpti sunt de haeresibus dicti Johannis Wykliff haeresiarchae, damnati Londoniis in Anglia, anno Domini MCCCLXXX, per primatem Angliae, et tredecim episcopos, ae magistros in sacra theologia ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... penalties. [Footnote: Bernaldez, Hist. de los Reyes, chap. xliv., quoted by Mariejol, L'Espagne, 46.] One of the great councils of the realm was formed to direct its operations, at the head of which was the inquisitor-general. The third in the line of inquisitors-general extended the Inquisition ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... had gathered round Medallion. The auctioneer, who liked the unique thing and was not without tact, having the gift of humour, took on himself the office of inquisitor, even as there rose again little snatches of "Vive Napoleon" from the crowd. He approached Valmond, who was moving on towards the Louis Quinze, with appreciation ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... 1507 he was appointed tutor to the seven-year old Charles V. He was sent to Spain in 1515 on a very important diplomatic errand; Charles secured his succession to the see of Tortosa, and on the 14th of November 1516 commissioned him inquisitor-general of Aragon. During the minority of Charles, Adrian was associated with Cardinal Jimenes in governing Spain. After the death of the latter Adrian was appointed, on the 14th of March 1518, general of the reunited inquisitions of Castile and Aragon, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... year of our Lord, one thousand two hundred and seventy-one, before me, Hierome Cornille, grand inquisitor and ecclesiastical judge (thereto commissioned by the members of the chapter of Saint Maurice, the cathedral of Tours, having of this deliberated in the presence of our Lord Jean de Montsoreau, archbishop—namely, the grievances and ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... Karamazoff, when he is overtaken by chastisement for a suspected crime. The doubting element is represented by Ivan Karamazoff, who is tortured by a constant conflict with anxious questions. In "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor," which the author puts into Ivan's mouth, Dostoevsky's famous and characteristic power of analysis reached its ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... his wit's end to supply a hypothesis to answer why the mulierose man, from being a criminal and object of the lady's just wrath, should suddenly have become an inquisitor, sitting in judgment upon ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... dark arts and secret ceremonies of the Nagualists escaped the prying eyes of the officers of the Holy Inquisition, which was established in Mexico in 1571. The answer is, that the inquisitors were instructed by Cardinal Diego de Espinosa, who at that time was Inquisitor General and President of the Council of the Indies, "to abstain from proceedings against Indians, because of their stupidity and incapacity, as well as scant instruction in the Holy Catholic faith, for the crimes ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton

... reason, so little can he conceive that it should much signify what his thoughts, tempers, affections, motives, and so forth, may have been. By continuing to press the subject, the instructor may find himself in danger of being regarded as having taken upon him the unkind office of inquisitor and accuser in his own name, and of his own will ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... when at the end of a year I sought that infant cherished, That highly respectable Gondolier Was lying a corpse on his humble bier— I dropped a Grand Inquisitor's ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert

... apprehension stealing over him. The touch of Fenella's fingers upon his arm left him, for a moment, cold. Sabatini turned his head slowly towards the speaker, and his face had become like the face of an inquisitor, stern and merciless, with the flavor of death in the cold, ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... felt that nothing but a deep anxiety had prompted it, else why that earnest gaze from which my own could not falter, or that white line showing about the lip he essayed in vain to steady? Recoiling inwardly, though I scarcely knew why, I forced myself to answer with the calmness of an inquisitor: ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... all this very quietly, but the value of this work will never be estimated or known. Sir Colin Campbell—afterwards Lord Clyde—who led the Highland brigade at the Battle of the Alma—called him the "Inquisitor General," a compliment, indeed; and to-day the veteran field-marshal, Lord William Paulet, never meets him without gripping his hand and exclaiming: "I'm glad to see you, Rawlinson—had it not been for you I ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... enemies not only persecuted and calumniated him, but accused him of great crimes; he even imagined that they had the intention of denouncing his works to the Holy Inquisition. Under this impression he presented himself to the inquisitor of Bologna; and having made a general confession, submitted his works to the examination of that holy father, and begged and obtained his absolution. His malady, for such we may surely call it, was continually exasperated by the arts of his rivals; and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... the chief inquisitor, and he revealed himself to us in a new and entirely unexpected light. No one could have anticipated the depth and variety of his resources. He placed himself in front of the girl and gestured and gesticulated, bowed, nodded, shrugged his shoulders, screwed his face into an infinite variety ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss

... followed her inquisitor into the office. Miss Nigel let down the front of the desk, opened a large ledger and donned a pair of spectacles. "Now," she said, "who are you, what are your references, and ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... the side of Jean de Malestroit in the redoubtable and learned person of Jean Blouyn of the order of Saint Dominic, delegated by the Grand Inquisitor of France, Guillaume Merici, to the functions of Vice Inquisitor of the ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... a certain firm of builders in London were worse. And then I asked them what it was that was coming after the Sphinx because of the deed. And at first they would not say, and I stopped oiling the door; and then they said that it was the arch-inquisitor of the forest, who is investigator and avenger of all silverstrian things; and from that they said about him it seemed to me that this person was quite white, and was a kind of madness that would settle down quite blankly upon a place, a kind of ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany

... her words, but it must have been a dense person who failed to perceive that Mrs. Jackson found her duty anything but painful. There was just that hard resonance in her voice that an inquisitor might have in condemning to the stake a Jew to ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... spread of Lutheran opinions, had written to the Pope for authority to increase, if that were possible, the stringency of the Spanish inquisition. The pontiff, nothing loath, had accordingly issued a bull directed to the inquisitor general, Valdez, by which he was instructed to consign to the flames all prisoners whatever, even those who were not accused of having "relapsed." Great preparations had been made to strike terror into ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... of Spain Cardinal Cienfuegos, Grand Inquisitor The Captain of the Guards The Duke of Olmedo The Duke of Lerma Alfonso Fontanares Lavradi, known as Quinola A halberdier An alcalde of the palace A familiar of the Inquisition The Queen of ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac

... now be tolerably familiar with the platform on which I stand. Not being a card player, and knowing absolutely nothing of the technicalities of the game, I am at a loss whether or not to look for an implication of underhand work in the phrase chosen by the inquisitor. If she means that I have kept aught back which that part of the reading public that does me the honor to be interested in my work has a right to know, I hope in the course of this paper to disabuse her mind of ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... the only means of stopping the leak. The friars of the nearest convent claimed the image from their propinquity, and came down to the ship in grand procession to carry it to their church. The grand inquisitor, hearing the circumstance, acknowledged to the bishop and heads of the clergy my intrepid behaviour in the hall of judgment: and not three hours after the ship had been hauled on shore, I was visited ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... but persistent questions regarding Page, his habits, how long I had known him, how often he came to my house and many other things, so annoyed me that I arose to find Jane and suggest going home. Failing in my quest I returned to find my inquisitor gone and Zura putting on her coat ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... the air of the Grand Inquisitor, appeared on the platform with his head-lad, Rushton. The trainer entered into talk with a man whom Albert informed his mistress was a ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... back on my spoken word, even in the presence of Duke Casimir's inquisitor. Besides which I judged that my father had influence enough to ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... friend, that you are even a cleverer Jew than I thought. But this is a matter that you must explain to others in due season. Believe me, I am no inquisitor." Then without more words ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... the end the main motive of the rack and of the stake. Personally I find it hard to suppose that some such consideration in any way lightened the last hours of the victim, but at least it enlightens our judgment of the inquisitor. Heresy was to him, quite honestly, a form of lunacy. Public opinion agreed with him. It was a species of moral and mental hydrophobia, and the mass of men no more desired to be converted to heresy than we desire to be bitten by mad dogs. In their ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... inquisitors at the table. Fortunately, Winifred and he were the only spectators; but unfortunately they blundered in at the very moment when the poor owner of the punt was on the rack. The central inquisitor was trying to extract from him information about a Becket, almost prompting him with the very words, but without penetrating through the duncical denseness. John Lefolle breathed more freely when the Crusades were broached; but, alas, it very soon became ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... my inquisitor and confessor in ordinary, has gone over the lecture twice, without scenting a heresy, and if she and Mrs. Romanes fail—a fico for a mere male ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... had heard about my engagement to Miss Phillips, and her arrival; so she at once began to talk to me like a father. The way she questioned me—why the Grand Inquisitor is nothing to it. But she didn't make any thing by it. You see I took up the Fabian tactics ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille

... question the perspiration stood visible on Ryder's brow, her cheeks were ghastly, and her black eyes roved like some wild animal's round the court. She saw her own danger, and had no means of measuring her inquisitor's information. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... where religious zeal was the ruling principle. A martyr at the stake, a soldier in the field, a lonely and banished wanderer consoled by the intensity and supposed purity of his faith under every earthly privation; perhaps a persecuting inquisitor, as terrible in power as unyielding in adversity; any of these seemed congenial characters to this personage. With these high traits of energy, there was something in the affected precision and solemnity ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... too much, and I showed it. He is not a contemptible man before the world; he is merely a very narrow one under close inspection. I could not—or did not—conceal my feeling. I showed it not only to him, to my friend. Husband grew to mean to me stifler, lung-contractor, iron mask, inquisitor, everything anti-natural. He suffered under my "sallies": and it was the worse for him when he did not perceive their drift. He is an upright man; I have not seen marked meanness. One might build up a respectable ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... astounding fact of all is, that you could take such an unmerciful flogging as Mr. Batterman gave you without waking up," continued the inquisitor. "Perhaps you did wake under this cruel infliction, but went to sleep again when the castigation was over. Can you inform me ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic

... with a heart would assume that her child was lying. The Archdeacon, without a particle of evidence, assumed it at once, and beat the wretched boy severely in the presence of the approving Hurrell. Hurrell would have made an excellent inquisitor. His brother always spoke of him as peculiarly gifted in mind and in character; but he knew little of human nature, and he doubtless fancied that in torturing Anthony's body he was helping Anthony's soul. To alter two words in the fierce ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... smelling around the box in a manner that excited some surprise and remark on the part of those who observed it. The dog's acute powers of smell detected the presence of some person in the box: fortunately, however, for the Dead Man, the owner of the four-legged inquisitor, having transacted his business, called the animal away, and ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... verses from his hand and read them. Even with her father standing there, watching her like an inquisitor, she could not help the tears coming in her eyes ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... prompt response. "After all you have done and are doing for me, it's a pity if I can't give you one evening in the week. You are looking after other people in New York; I'm going to look after you; and you shall find that I am a sharp inquisitor. You must reveal enough of the secrets of that mysterious office of yours to satisfy me that you ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... seeking neither vengeance nor corporal punishment, but solely wishing to enlighten her, and put her in the way of truth and of salvation; and that, as she was not sufficiently informed in such high matters, the Bishop and the Inquisitor offered her the choice of one or more of the assessors to act as her counsel." The accused, in presence of this assembly, in which she did not descry a single friendly face, mildly answered: "For what ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... dryness, archness, caution, the nervous energy as distinguished from the old English unction and vascular force. How he husbands himself,—what prudence, what economy, always spending up, as he says, and not down! How alert, how attentive; what an inquisitor; always ready with some test question, with some fact or idea to match or to verify, ever on the lookout for some choice bit of adventure or information, or some anecdote that has pith and point! No tyro ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... But if she tried to get away he brought her back to the subject. Cornered, she grew resentful: "I can't tell who told me," she pleaded, after ineffectual sparring. "I've forgotten. Are you a gambler?" she demanded, turning inquisitor herself. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... it was on that matter I wanted to speak to you; but this morning will do as well for that. It was not that that vexed me, Ludovico. I won't ask you to tell me where you were, and I don't want to play the inquisitor; but the fact is, I know very well without asking. And, my dear nephew, I cannot but tell you that you are acting ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... paramount. Israel in its palmiest days was not more vigilantly, jealously fanatical than Egypt. Every worshiper was a zealot; every ecclesiast an inquisitor. Church and State were inseparably united; law was fused with religion; science and the arts were governed by ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... sedition—of contempt of established authorities—was thus raised under the influence of private pique and long-cherished envy: it soon found an echo in the painted walls where the conclave sat "in close divan," and it was handed about from mouth to mouth, till it reached the ears of the Inquisitor, within the dark recesses of his house of terror. A cloud was now gathering over the head of the devoted Salvator which it seemed no human power could avert. But ere the bolt fell, his fast and tried friend Don Maria Ghigi threw himself between his protege and the horrible fate which awaited him, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... stentorian tone; for within these walls there was no appeal from his judgment or his temper. "The man who speaks only what he knows is old in wisdom;" and turning he addressed the company in great dignity: "It doth appear that Rome approveth Fra Paolo's rendering and hath gravely censured the Inquisitor who hath cited him, commanding him to meddle only with that of which ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... "The Mill on the Floss" and rise to "Daniel Deronda's" elevated but barren and abhorrent level? There are people capable of advising girls to read such a literary production as "Robert Elsmere"; and this advice reveals a capacity for cruelty worthy of an inquisitor. Then we are bidden to leave the unpolished utterances of frank love and jealousy and fear and anger in order that we may enjoy the peculiar works of art which have come from America of late. In these enthralling fictions all the characters are so exceedingly ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... members had been peculiarly eminent. Besides several prelates, they counted among their number an Archbishop of Toledo; and a Sidonia, in a season of great danger and difficulty, had exercised for a series of years the paramount office of Grand Inquisitor. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... look he had to him, yer might say," he said, groping for words to answer the high-vested inquisitor. "Like a child like. Never scolded yer wunst.... Just up and give yer all ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... a living sacrifice for the redemption of mankind. Prometheus chained to his rock, because he loved and defied, by some inscrutable magic of destiny, brings at last by his calm endurance the consummation of the Golden Age. Laon walks voluntarily on to the pile which the Spanish inquisitor had heaped for him; and Cythna flings herself upon the flames in a last affirmation of the power of self-sacrifice and ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford

... his arms across his chest and looked into the prosecutor's inflamed face. He seemed to erect between himself and his inquisitor in that simple movement an impenetrable shield, but he said nothing. Hammer was up, objecting, making the most of the opportunity. Captain Taylor rapped on the panel of the old oak door; the crouching figures in ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... "What an inquisitor you are, Bunny!" said he, putting down an evening paper that he had only just taken up. "Can't you see that this whole show has been no ordinary one for me? I've been fighting for a crowd I rather love. Their battle has got on my nerves as none of my own ever did; and now it's won ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... which I had been told controlled its affairs. The third policeman had heard of it and sent me off with directions. Presently I went through an obscure doorway, traversed a mean hall with a dirty gas-jet at the turn and came before a wicket. A dark man with the blood of a Spanish inquisitor asked my business. I told him I was a poor student, without taint or heresy, who sought knowledge. He stroked his chin as though it were a monstrous improbability. He looked me up and down, but this might have been merely a secular inquiry on the chance that I carried ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... the price of butter the last day you worked?" asked the inquisitor so quickly and sharply that the victim of the thrust actually turned pale, in spite of a strong front of bravado. But he made a brave enough effort to get over ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield

... he resolved to hunt up the objects of his hatred even in their most obscure and distant hiding-places. In one strange city after another he accordingly appeared, armed with the apparatus of the inquisitor, to carry his sanguinary purpose out. Having heard that Damascus, the capital of Syria, was one of the places where the fugitives had taken refuge, and that they were carrying on their propaganda among the numerous ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... dry, cheerful sort of place to meet your cousin in, too; uncommon lively; hope it'll raise his spirits to see all his cousins a-grinning there; his spirits don't seem much in sorts now," continued the ruthless inquisitor, with a glance at the "keeper's tree" by which they stood, in the middle of dank undergrowth, whose branches were adorned with dead cats, curs, owls, kestrels, stoats, weasels, and martens. To what issue the passage of arms might have come it is impossible ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... little compunction for being so troublesome—not more than a grand Inquisitor has in torturing a heretic—for am I not doing a real good public service in screwing crumbs of knowledge out of your wealth ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... given of the manner which the Waldenses disseminated their principles among the Catholic gentry. They gained access to the house through their occupation as peddlers of silks, jewels, and trinkets. "Having disposed of some of their goods," it is said by a writer who quotes the inquisitor Rainerus Sacco, "they cautiously intimated that they had commodities far more valuable than these, inestimable jewels, which they would show if they could be protected from the clergy. They would then give their purchasers a Bible ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... the unspeakable. There is a singular fascination in watching the eagerness with which the learned author ferrets out every circumstance which may throw discredit on his hero. His heart warms to him when he can bring forward some example of cruelty or meanness, and he exults like an inquisitor at the of an heretic when with some forgotten story he can confound the filial piety of the Rev. Robert Strickland. His industry has been amazing. Nothing has been too small to escape him, and you may be sure that if Charles Strickland left a laundry bill unpaid it will be given ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... ABUNDANTLY LESS generous, less mild and merciful sentiments" than yourself, and into their secular hands the poor authors must be delivered to fines, prisons, pillories, whippings, and the gallows. Thus your promise of impunity, which began somewhat jesuitically, concludes with the mercy of a Spanish inquisitor. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... their projects are among the most formidable of earthly visitations. Emerson accepted his martyrdom with meek submission; it was a martyrdom in detail, but collectively its petty tortures might have satisfied a reasonable inquisitor as the punishment of a moderate heresy. Except in that one phrase above quoted he never complained of his social oppressors, so far as I remember, in his writings. His perfect amiability was one of his most striking characteristics, and in a nature fastidious as ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... shudder, I faced the inquisitor, and thereafter kept my eyes upon him to avoid the sight of those other horrors. And he was horror enough for any man in ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... known them shot just "for fun"! The Indians retaliate by cutting off the heels of their white captives, or leaving them, in statu naturae, bound with thongs on an anthill; and a more terrible death could not be devised by even the inquisitor, Torquemada, of everlasting execration. The Indian is hard and cruel, indifferent to pain in himself or others. A serpent may sting a comrade, and he takes no notice; but let one find food and there is a general ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... under lead, the copies whereof we herewith send you, from our most holy Lord and Father in Christ, Innocent, by Divine Providence Pope, the eighth of that name. We therefore, John, the Archbishop, the visitor, reformer, inquisitor, and judge therein mentioned, in reverence for the Apostolic See, have taken upon ourselves the burden of enforcing the said commission; and have determined that we will proceed by, and according to, the full force, tenour, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... at the hearth of Cossette's presence; and he is stung when he sees no fire in the reception-room. The omission he can not misinterpret. He goes again, and the chairs are removed. Marius may have honor, but his honor is cruel, like an inquisitor with rack and thumbscrew; and then Jean Valjean goes no more, but day by day suns his heart by going far enough to look at the house where Cossette is—no more; then his eyes are feverish to catch sight of her habitation as parched lips drink at desert ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... INQUISITOR.—Don't you know, sir, that poeta nascitur non fit? Is not a judge a judge the moment he applies himself to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various

... had made for the Duke, and wholly destroyed it. Whereupon that Spaniard, considering himself affronted, denounced Torrigiano as a heretic; on which account he was thrown into prison, and after being examined every day, and sent from one inquisitor to the other, he was finally judged to deserve the severest penalty. But this was never put into execution, because Torrigiano himself was plunged thereby into such melancholy, that, remaining many ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... an attempt to rescue those about to suffer; but the stern looks of the well-trained Spanish troops kept them in awe. The sermon—if a fierce harangue composed of invectives against simple Christianity could so be called— was brought to a conclusion; and now, in a loud voice, the presiding Inquisitor asked the accused for the last time whether they would recant and make confession of their sins, promising them absolution and a sure entrance into heaven, with a more easy death than the terrible ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... in the lovers' tortures. He heard Ranulph's ineffectual attempts; he heard his groans; he heard their mutual cries. Inflamed by jealousy, he triumphed in his power of vengeance, and even prolonged the torture which accident had given him the means of inflicting. He stood like the inquisitor who marks his victim's anguish on the rack, and calculates his powers of further endurance. But he could no longer dally, even with this horrible gratification. His companion grew impatient. Eleanor's fair long tresses had escaped from their confinement in the struggle, and fell down her neck ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... inquisitor. "I think you knew her in England. Is it not true that you took her from the service of a railroad hotel and found a house for her on ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... Dismissing the Grand Inquisitor with a negligent wave of his hand, he concentrated on the main question. It was a good question. Malone could have sat and looked at it ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett

... grave's cold mouth there ever have caresses clung For those who died ideally good and grand and pure and young; Under the scorn of all who clamor: "There is nothing just!" And bow to dread inquisitor and worship lords of dust; Let sophists give the lie, hearts droop, and courtiers play the worm, Our martyrs of Democracy the Truth sublime affirm! And when all seems inert upon this seething, troublous round, And when the rashest knows not ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... family groups aside and parcelling out the doles of food. Already these mothers were erecting the invisible roof-tree and drawing around them and theirs the circle of the hearth, even though it was a circle drawn only in hot, drifting ashes. The Bishop was an inquisitor kindly of eye and understanding of heart, but by no means to be evaded. Unsuspected stores of bread and beans and tinned meats came forth from nondescript bundles of clothing and were laid under his eye. It appeared that Arsene LaComb had stayed ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... asp.' For instance, Procopius performs that 'labour of hate' for the Emperor Justinian, pouring oil into his wounds, but, then (as Coleridge expresses it in a 'neat' sarcasm), oil of vitriol. Nature must have meant the man for a Spanish Inquisitor, sent into the world before St. Dominic had provided a trade for him, or any vent for his malice—so rancorous in his malignity, so horrid and unrelenting the torture to which he subjects his sovereign and the beautiful Theodora. In this case, from the withering ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... father wearied me somewhat; he preached in the desert; that is to say he preached to me about virtue. He was always talking to me about our noble descent, of our cousin, who was a cardinal, of our uncle, who was a grand inquisitor of the Inquisition. Vanity of vanities! all was vanity with him, while with me all was love. I did not trouble myself about being of an illustrious family; I was handsome, I was worshipped, and, what was ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... Minos, the strict inquisitor, appears; And lives and crimes, with his assessors, hears. Round, in his urn, the blended balls he rolls, Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls. DRYDEN, AEneid, ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke

... fanciful derivation from the Greek, but to know that it came from offero, and was therefore to be found under fero; or again to look for hirundo under aer. Nor need we be surprised at the strange derivations upon which arguments were sometimes founded: that Sprenger, the inquisitor, could explain femina 'quia minorem habet et seruat fidem'; or the preacher over whom Erasmus' Folly makes merry, find authority for burning heretics in the Apostle's ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... to-day as then. And such a body will do the cruellest things and believe that it is offering up Christ's witnesses as sacrifices to God. That is partly an aggravation and partly an alleviation of the sin. It is possible that the inquisitor and the man in the San Benito, whom he ties to the stake, may shake hands yet at His side up yonder. But a church which has become, the world will do its persecution and think that it is worship, and call the burning of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... everything, immediately knew of Brancas's projected journey, and determined to get the start of him. At once she had sixteen relays of mules provided upon the Bayonne road, and suddenly sent off to France, on Holy Thursday, Cardinal del Giudice, grand inquisitor and minister of state, who had this mean complaisance for her. She thus struck two blows at once; she got rid, at least for a time, of a Cardinal minister who troubled her, and anticipated Brancas, which in our ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... mild and gentle Proserpine may have been represented in her virgin state by the Poets; yet her tribunal seems in many places to have been very formidable. In consequence of this we find her with Minos, and Rhadamanthus, condemned to the shades below, as an infernal inquisitor. Nonnus says, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... erudition, possessed the art of conveying knowledge into the heads of dullards. Disappointed in this expectation, he quarreled with his teacher, and in a spirit of revenge picked out of Bruno's writings a mass of testimony sufficient to convict him of heresy. This he turned over to the Inquisitor at Venice, Bruno was arrested, convicted, and sent to the Inquisition in Rome. When called upon there to recant, he replied, "I ought not to recant, and I will not recant." He was accordingly confined in prison for seven years, then sentenced to death. On hearing the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... often makes undue length even more irksome) great weakness. We need an insight into the best side of approach to conscience, or to will. We need the skill which knows how to question enough, but not too much, not as the inquisitor but as the helper. Many another matter will call for sanctified common-sense in the sick-room; a restful voice, easy, quiet movements, and the like. And let me say that where you are visiting a chronic case, and need to call again and again, ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... idea of the terrors embodied in the day of judgment than the fact that it came to be thought of under the terrific image of an Auto da Fe magnified to the scale of the human race and the earth, Christ, the Grand Inquisitor, seated as judge; his familiars standing by ready with their implements of torture to fulfil his bidding; his fellow monks enthroned around him; his sign, the crucifix, towering from hell to heaven ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... invent some horrible punishment for me. In mediaeval times, so I am given to understand, the clergy tortured people, in cells, for the good of their souls, and any one who had a private enemy denounced him to the Grand Inquisitor. Faith has nowadays given way before the assaults of science and it is the doctors who possess the powers of the rack. Instead of being suspected of heresy a man is now accused of having an abscess on his appendix. His doom is ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... in praise of a profession, such as merchandize or manufacture, than to observe the advantages which it procures to society; and is not a monk and inquisitor enraged when we treat his order as useless ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... putting their answers to the test whenever it was possible. She established by this means two facts: first, that she knew as much as any of those who undertook to instruct her; second, that her oracles sometimes gave false answers. Did the little inquisitor charge her betrayers with the lie? Magnanimous creature, she kept their falseness a secret, and ceased to probe their ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... what there might be about him that so forcibly suggested the Grand Inquisitor. Kitty, cigarette in hand, with half-shut eyes, did not answer immediately. She seemed to be perusing ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... following, the 21st of February, 1822, the jailer came for me about ten o'clock, and conducted me into the Hall of the Commission. The members were all seated, but they rose; the President, the Inquisitor, and two assisting Judges.—The first, with a look of deep commiseration, acquainted me that my sentence had arrived; that it was a terrible one; but that the clemency of the ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... enthusiastic priest, who either fans the flame of discord among his fellow subjects, or rises in rebellion against his legitimate monarch. Would, then, an atheist clothed with power, be equally dangerous as a persecuting priest-ridden king; as a savage inquisitor; as a whimsical devotee; or, as a morose bigot? These are assuredly more numerous in the world than atheists, as they are ludicrously termed, whose opinions, or whose vices are far from being in a condition to have an influence upon society; which is ever too much ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... of that flourishing commercial city was inevitable had not Charles V. listened to the representations of the Duchess of Parma, and abandoned this perilous resolve. The tribunal, therefore, was ordered not to interfere with the foreign merchants, and the title of Inquisitor was changed unto the milder appellation of Spiritual Judge. But in the other provinces that tribunal proceeded to rage with the inhuman despotism which has ever been peculiar to it. It has been computed that during the reign of Charles V. fifty thousand persons perished ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... It faced the light, and Lydia noted, when he had taken the opposite one, that they were in the technical position for inquisitor and victim. He waited scrupulously, and when she had seated ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... the Squire. "I suppose I am to be held up as a tyrant, a Nero, a Richard the Third, or a Grand Inquisitor, merely for having things smart and tidy! Stocks indeed!—your friend Rickeybockey said he was never more comfortable in his life—quite enjoyed sitting there. And what did not hurt Rickeybockey's dignity (a very ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... state, or are you permitted to say whither so strong a force has so suddenly sailed?" demanded the baronet, glancing his dark eye so expressively towards the other as to give him, in the growing obscurity, the appearance of an inquisitor. "I had been told the fleet would wait for ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... more serious was the beloved apologist of the Church, Ozanam, the inquisitor of the Christian language. Although he was very difficult to understand, Des Esseintes never failed to be astonished by the insouciance of this writer, who spoke confidently of God's impenetrable designs, although he ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... royal apostolic tribunal of this capital, for the six biennials of the thirteenth concession, by General Don Joseph Antonio Nuno de Villavicencio, proprietary regidor of this city (who obtained a letter from his Excellency the bishop, an inquisitor, and former apostolic commissary-general of the said Holy Crusade); and the said contract having terminated, a new one was made by General Don Diego Zamudio, an inhabitant of the said city, who is charged with this enterprise for the six biennials ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... Charles V, when confirming him in the regency, addressed as "the Very Reverend Father in Christ, Cardinal of Spain, Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of all the Spanish Territories, Chief Chancellor of Castilla, our very dear and much beloved friend and master," was also Grand Inquisitor, and was armed with the tremendous power ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... gradually proceeded in the design of creating a tribunal under its own direct control. Such a tribunal was soon practically instituted. Its leading spirit was St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican order of preaching friars, but the title of Inquisitor was not yet adopted at the time of his death, in 1221. St. Dominic, however, is with good reason regarded as the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... nations ready to perish Fall on him,—crown him in view Of tyrants caught in the net, And statesmen dizzy with fear and doubt! And though, because they are many, And he is merely one, And nations selfish and cruel Heap up the inquisitor's fuel To kill the body of high intents, And burn great deeds from their place, Till this, the greatest of any, May seem imperfectly done; Courage, whoever circumvents! Courage, courage, whoever is base! The soul of a high intent, be it known, ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... lady replied. "He would make the best possible husband for you." She smiled like a grand inquisitor at prospect of a pleasant day with rack and screw. "He needs a firm hand," ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... word all the little sprites and pleasures that were acting as my physicians, and prescribing balm for my wounds. She paid me the usual compliment, and then—"Do you dine at home to-day, sir?" abruptly inquired she. Here was a question. No Spanish inquisitor ever inflicted such complete dismay in so short a sentence. Had she given me a Sphynx to expound, a Gordian tangle to untwist; had she set me a lesson in algebra, or asked me the way to Brobdingnag; had she desired me to show her the North ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... is not a disease with which all on board are afflicted, for there is at least one grand inquisitor among us, by what I can learn; so take heed to your sins, and above all, be very guarded of old letters, marks, and other tell-tales, that usually ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... actually left the body would do much to explain the phenomena, and I was very eager to push toward this demonstration. I had now been her chief inquisitor for nearly thirty sittings, and had developed (apparently) the power to throw her into trance almost instantly. A few moments of monotonous humming, intoned while my hand rested upon hers, generally sufficed to bring the first stage of her trance. As we had been ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... where the humane edicts were disregarded which the prayers of Dominican friars (to their everlasting honor be it spoken) had wrung from the Spanish sovereigns, and which the legislation of that most wise, virtuous, and heroic Inquisitor (paradoxical as the words may seem), Pedro de la Gasca, had carried into effect in Peru,—futile and tardy alleviations of cruelties and miseries unexampled in the history of Christendom, or perhaps on earth, save in the conquests of Sennacherib and Zingis Khan. But on the frontiers, where negroes ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... the most bitter and implacable of all; the next day, May 26, 1430, without the loss of an hour, a letter was addressed to the Burgundian camp from the capital. Quicherat speaks of it as a letter from the Inquisitor or vicar-general of the Inquisition, written by the officials of the University; others tell us that an independent letter was sent from the University to second that of the Inquisitor. The University we may add was not a university like one of ours, or like any existing at the present day. ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... Though I was curious, it must not be supposed that I had the object of my enquiry for ever in my mind, or that my questions and innuendoes were perpetually regulated with the cunning of a grey-headed inquisitor. The secret wound of Mr. Falkland's mind was much more uniformly present to his recollection than to mine; and a thousand times he applied the remarks that occurred in conversation; when I had not the remotest idea of such ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... Sproul was still blinking at him, trying to comprehend the exact status of Hiram's belief, that forceful inquisitor, who had been holding his victim in check with upraised and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... lawyer of this period, relates, that a certain inquisitor came about this time into the vallies of the Alps, being commissioned to enquire out and proceed against heretical women with whom those parts were infested. He accordingly consigned more than one ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin



Words linked to "Inquisitor" :   Grand Inquisitor, inquirer, official, questioner, asker, inquisitorial, querier, functionary, interrogator



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