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Mortify   /mˈɔrtɪfˌaɪ/   Listen
Mortify

verb
(past & past part. mortified; pres. part. mortifying)
1.
Practice self-denial of one's body and appetites.
2.
Hold within limits and control.  Synonyms: crucify, subdue.  "Mortify the flesh"
3.
Cause to feel shame; hurt the pride of.  Synonyms: abase, chagrin, humble, humiliate.
4.
Undergo necrosis.  Synonyms: gangrene, necrose, sphacelate.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Mortify" Quotes from Famous Books



... treachery to the cause. Hence arises the spirit of the sect, that bitter, narrow orthodoxy which is the bane of those who hold strongly to an unpopular creed. So many real temptations to treachery exist that suspicion is natural. And among leaders, ambition, which they mortify in their choice of a career, is sure to return in a new form: in the desire for intellectual mastery and for despotic power within their own sect. From these causes it results that the advocates of drastic reform divide themselves into opposing schools, ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell

... "-order," posxtmandato. mongrel : hibrida. monk : monahxo. monkey : simio. monster : monstro. mood : modo. moor : stepo, erikejo; "(—a ship)" alligi. moral : morala, bonmora. mortar : mortero, "(a—)" pistujo. mortgage : hipoteko. mortify : cxagreni; gangrenigxi. mortification : (med.), gangrene. mosaic : mozaiko. mosquito : moskito. moss : musko. moth : ("clothes"—), tineo. motive : motivo. motto : devizo, moto. mould : model'i, -ilo; tero, sximo. mound : altajxeto, remparo, digo. mourn : funebri. "-ing," funebra vesto. move : ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth,' &c. (Col 3:1-5). 'Wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil-speakings, as new-born babes desire the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... had Ephraim, and it seemed to him not so much from a solicitude for his health as from a desire to mortify his flesh for the good of his spirit. Ephraim obeyed perforce; he was sincerely afraid of his mother, but he had within him a dogged and growing resentment against those attempts ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... all the ways that wisest men could find, To mend the age and mortify mankind, Satire, well writ, has most successful prov'd. And cures, because the ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... took the papers and turned to go in. He thought Hiram had accomplished little, and he did not wish to mortify ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... facetious friend of mine used to say, the wine could not be bad, where the company was agreeable; a maxim which, however, ought to be taken cum grano salis: but what is the society of London, that I should be tempted, for its sake, to mortify my senses, and compound with such uncleanness as my soul abhors? All the people I see, are too much engrossed by schemes of interest or ambition, to have any room left for sentiment or friendship. Even in some of my ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... Prioress there, on the octave of St. Martin, and the Father, Fr. Juan de la Cruz, divided the Host between her and another sister, she thought that it was done not because there was any want of Hosts, but because he wished to mortify her, "for I had told him how much I delighted in Hosts of a large size. Yet I was not ignorant that the size of the Host is of no moment, for I knew that our Lord is whole and entire in the smallest particle." Here reason pulls one ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... to me whether I would or not," was the unembarrassed reply. "One of our graduates went to Chicago, and has a nice practice there. I don't know where I shall go. It would mortify mother dreadfully to have me driving about Philadelphia in a ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... baggage, and take my horse from the inn where I had put up; and afterward returned to supper at the archbishop's palace, where a neatly furnished room was got ready for me, and such a bed as was more likely to pamper than to mortify the flesh. The day following his Grace sent for me quite as soon as I was ready to go to him. It was to give me a homily to transcribe. He made a point of having it copied with all possible accuracy. It was done to please him; for I omitted neither accent, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... that he may be kind and honest, it may be needful he should become a total abstainer; let him become so then, and the next day let him forget the circumstance. Trying to be kind and honest will require all his thoughts; a mortified appetite is never a wise companion; in so far as he has had to mortify an appetite, he will still be the worse man; and of such an one a great deal of cheerfulness will be required in judging life, and a great deal ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... people say of a woman to whom no man attaches himself? Oh, she is heartless, brainless, soulless; and what is more, devoid of charm! Coquettes will not spare me. They will rob me of the very qualities that mortify them. So long as my reputation is safe, what do I care if my rivals deny my merits? They certainly will not inherit them. Come, my friend; give up something for her who sacrifices so much for you. Do not come quite so often; I shall love you ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... five it is meant that we must subject and mortify our five bodily senses, in such wise that we may never offend with them, taking through them or some of them unregulated pleasure or delight. In this way we shall be five, when we have subdued ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... your misfortune, Mr. Lovelace, as well as mine, at present. Every woman of discernment, I say as I say, [I had a mind to mortify a pride, that I am sure deserves to be mortified;] that your politeness is not regular, nor constant. It is not habit. It is too much seen by fits and starts, and sallies, and those not spontaneous. You ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... day with me," he said. "I may neither eat nor drink until the sun goes down. The flesh is a strong giant, very full of pride and lust of living, and the spirit must needs keep watch and ward, seizing every opportunity to mortify and deject its adversary. Goodwife Allen is still gaping with the crowd at the fort, and your man and maid have not yet come, but I shall be overhead if you need aught. Mistress Percy must want ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... obtain the pardon of sin, and must go to hell. Now, it was our solemn duty, on withdrawing from the world, to consecrate our lives to religion, to practice every species of self-denial. We could not become too humble, nor mortify our feelings too far; this was to be done by opposing them, and acting contrary to them; and what she proposed was, therefore, pleasing in the sight of God. I now felt how foolish I had been to place myself in the power of such ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... Easter holidays. It is probable, from subsequent circumstances, that the Commander de Foulquerre had some information of this arrangement among the Spanish chevaliers, and was determined to be beforehand, and to mortify the pride of their champion, who was thus preparing to read him a lecture. He chose Good Friday for his purpose. On this sacred day, it is customary in Catholic countries to make a tour of all the churches, offering up prayers ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... soon, and when I told him about it he acted real huffy and agreed with Jane Olive, and resented the idee of a Home for Fallen Men. Blandina, who come while we wuz talkin' about it to borry a few needlefuls of white thread, she shed tears and said she wouldn't mortify men by namin' a home like that for thousands of worlds ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... have been exceedingly rare. Queer enough these structures were, and sufficiently gratifying to the pride and provocative of the envy which the beauties of Bale (avowedly) went to churches in which there was no marble to mortify. For they were of different heights, according to the rank of the occupant. A simple burgher's wife took but a step toward heaven when she went to pray; a magistrate's of the lower house, we must suppose, took two; a magistrate's of the upper house, three; a lady, four; a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... more To all he spoke, than e'er before, He found her thoughts would absent range, Yet guess'd not whence could spring the change. And first he modestly conjectures His pupil might be tired with lectures; Which help'd to mortify his pride, Yet gave him not the heart to chide: But, in a mild dejected strain, At last he ventured to complain: Said, she should be no longer teazed, Might have her freedom when she pleased; Was now convinced he acted wrong To hide her from the world ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... error among those who bear arms, instances not being wanting in which bodies of men that are the mere creatures of authority, have not hesitated to trample the power that brought them into existence under foot, rather than submit to mortify the feelings of a purely conventional and exaggerated pride. The major was rebuked rather than convinced, it not being the natural vocation of youth to perceive the justice of all ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... silence. To have expressed what he felt would have been only to mortify and offend Iris. Old habit (as he had said) had made the idea of devoting himself to her interests the uppermost idea in his mind. He asked if the money had all been spent. Hearing that some of it was still left, he resolved on making ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... more than all our dowries for another year to come; and—forgive me for repeating what you seem purposely to forget—I cannot cast the shadow between my equals and the master. Would you so mortify me as to make me take from Eunane's hand, for example, what should ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... it is beset, and our already numerous failures in it. We lose heart; and partly in ill-temper, partly in real doubt of our own ability to persevere, we first grow querulous and peevish with God, and then relax in our efforts to mortify ourselves and to please Him. It is a sort of shadow of despair, and will lead us into numberless venial sins the first half-hour we ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... here? My wound may mortify. I think it is growing worse instead of better," added he, with a groan of anguish. "I will give you my word, Dandy, if you will put me on board of any vessel bound to any place where I can get home, I will give you all your freedom. If you are arrested, ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... day, and also the first Sunday in Lent, the Bishop of London, preaching before the King, took for his subject the preparation for our Lord's Passion, and said that it was not only needful to mortify the spirit, but also the flesh, teaching which is opposed to the doctrine of ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... think," he admonished—"do not think that because you imitate the Pharisees you are perfecting your lives. They fast, they pray, they weep, and they mortify the flesh; but to them one thing is impossible, charity to the failings of others. Whoso then shall come to you, be he friend or foe, penitent or thief, receive him kindly. Aid the helpless, console the unfortunate, forgive your ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. (13)For if ye live according to the flesh, ye shall die; but if by the Spirit ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. (14)For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God. (15)For ye did not receive the spirit of bondage, again to fear; but ye received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... idolatries; others, gayer, will appear in the dress of careless, unskillful admiration; not a few, both men and women, go indeed weakly along with the current stream of popularity, but, to say truth, look happiest when they find some stinging notice that may mortify the new bold candidate for glory; while, last and best, a fewer, a very much fewer, do handsomely the liberal part of friends, commending where they can, objecting where they must, sincere in sorrow for a fault, rejoicing without ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... hence, when he has grown up into a good and sensible man, we may, or if I am no longer here, you may tell him all about it, my dears. But just now it would mortify him, and prevent the lesson from doing him the good we hope for. I should not at all like him to know I had employed detectives. He would be angry at having been taken in. That Jowett is a very decent fellow, and did his part well; ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth

... superior to their temptations, were torn from their homes without warning, and incarcerated in their floating dungeons. Nothing was forborne, in the shape of pitiless and pitiful persecution, to break the spirits, subdue the strength, and mock and mortify the hopes, alike, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... anxiety to soften hard truths. According to him, the Countess Sarah and Miss Ville-Handry did not get on well with each other; but he declared he was bound to say that the wrong was all on the young lady's side, who seemed to make it the study of her life to mortify her step-mother, while the latter bore the most irritating provocations with unchanging sweetness. He alluded to the calumnies which endangered Miss Henrietta's reputation, admitting that she had given some ground for them by thoughtless acts. He finally added ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... Devonshire, I find it out of my power to perform it; for, as soon as I arrive at Dover, I intend to let the ladies go on, and I will take a country lodging somewhere near that place in order to do some business. I have so outrun the constable that I must mortify a little to bring it up again. For God's sake, the night you receive this, take your pen in your hand and tell me something about yourself and myself, if you know anything that has happened. About Miss Reynolds, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... her poet He divined this, and his hatred and jealousy of the child increased. And when the early letters of Ron-die contained complaints of Jack, he was very much delighted. But this was not enough. He wished to mortify and degrade the boy still more. His hour had come. At the first words of the letter, for he finally opened it, his eyes flamed with malicious joy. "Ah! I knew it!" he cried, and he handed the ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... and in the Squire's pew, you are naturally an object of considerable attention to the girls about your age, as well as to a great many fat old ladies in iron spectacles, who mortify you excessively by patting you under the chin after church; and insist upon mistaking you for Frank; and force upon you very dry cookies ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... flesh, but after the Spirit.... For to be carnally minded, is death, but to be spiritually minded, is life, and peace.... For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... tormented by envy and jealousy, than those who live under an hereditary aristocracy. The prince is so far distant from his subjects, that he is rarely seen by them; he is so far above them that nothing in his situation can mortify his self-love. But the nobles who govern in an aristocracy are under the eyes of all, and they are not so elevated, but that odious comparisons are made without ceasing. Thus in all ages we have seen the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... how he would mortify The flesh! If any one had dainty fare, Good man, he would come there, And look at all the delicate things, and cry, 'O belly, belly, You would be gormandizing now, I know; But it shall not be so! Home to your bread and ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... our cause Is in a damn'd condition: for I'll tell thee, That cankerworm, call'd lechery, has touch'd it; 'Tis tainted vilely. Wouldst thou think it? Renault (That mortify'd, old, wither'd, winter rogue,) He visited her last night, like a kind guardian: Faith! she has some temptation, that's the ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway

... regarded as a masterpiece, and should not obtain the prize—now, in heaven's name! what does it matter? He would perhaps, from the very circumstance of his having less fortune as a poet, be only the more practical man, and I confess that would not mortify me. And I shall wish both the poem and the appointment at the place where pepper grows if you are to become pale and nervous on its account! Promise me now next post-day to be reasonable, and not to look like the waning ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... fall into this disorder. If I find Tom has done any thing amiss, he will hear more of it; and as your own master is not here to admonish you, I'll just take the liberty of doing it for him, since I know it would mortify him exceedingly to learn that his steward had done any ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... punctilious respect and nice regard to precedency, even by words of courtesy—'Your ladyship does me honour,' etc.—Lady St. James contrived to mortify and to mark the difference between those with whom she was, and with whom she was not, upon terms of intimacy and equality. Thus the ancient grandees of Spain drew a line of demarcation between themselves and the newly-created nobility. Whenever or wherever they met, they treated ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... beach, where some people might be sauntering, I may have heard remarks made in a sneering tone, such as, "You are a queer chap to be handlin' a pair o' oars!" or, "Oh, jimminy! Look at that millikin pin, boys!" And then I could hear other jeers mingled with shouts of laughter. But this did not mortify me in the least. On the contrary, I felt proud to show them that, small as I was, I could propel my craft in the right direction, and perhaps as rapidly as many of them that were even twice ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... smiling bitterly—"unhappy indeed; for they are the same as my own. I rest a little upon omens and prefigurations; and am superstitious; as those must ever be who have lived upon the sea, and have risked their all upon the faith of its unsteady waves. It will mortify you (my young friend) to confess, (but it is true) that much as storm, sun, passion, and hardships, may have tanned and disfeatured my face, nevertheless it is still like thy gentle woman's face, with its fair complexion and its overshadowing locks; and when I look back upon that inanimate ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... Importance: yet all agreeing in a different way to dupe and amuse the poor People, by the fantastick Singularity of their Habits, the unintelligible Jargon of their Schools, and their Pretensions to a severe and mortify'd Life. ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... charged to "abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;" to "mortify your members, which are earthly;" to "exercise yourselves rather unto godliness;" to "be kindly affectioned towards all men." But who does not know that "strong drink," not only "eats out the brain," but "taketh away the heart," diminishes ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... falling into obscurity in England, and he hopes to make himself considerable by provoking an illustrious adversary. He will have a great party—the Church, the Whigs, the Jacobites, the whole wise English nation—who will love to mortify a Scotchman, and to applaud a man who has refused a pension from the king. It is not unlikely, too, that they may pay him very well for having refused it, and that even he may have had in view this compensation. Your whole friends ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... report the marvels of velocity, &c., in such a way that they become insults to yourself. It is obvious that in their way of insisting on our earth's speed in her annual orbit, they do not seek to exalt her, but to mortify you. And, besides, these fellows are answerable for provoking people into fibs:—for I remember one day, that reading a statement of this nature, about how many things the Earth had done that we could never hope to do, and about the number of cannon balls, harnessed as a tandem, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... that I shall have more than balanced it. A ball-room is an epitome of all that is most worthless and unamiable in the great sphere of human life. Every petty and malignant passion is called into play. Coquetry is perpetually on the alert to captivate, caprice to mortify, and vanity to take offence. One amiable female is rendered miserable for the evening by seeing another, whom she intended to outshine, in a more attractive dress than her own; while the other omits no method of giving stings to her triumph, which she enjoys with all the secret arrogance of an oriental ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... hearing. Come, take away these dishes, and be sure to eat every morsel of that omelette, for I would not willingly mortify Octave's vanity. When you have regaled yourself with it, show him the empty dish, tell him it was delicious, and that I send thanks. Hattie, say to mamma I shall not be able ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... I did not wish to mortify the old gentleman and spoil his shortlived joy. That is the reason why I did not express my distrust in his presence. But the despatch does not really convey the impression of being true. It does not even contain a more exact statement of the place where the battle is said ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... She did not mortify Roger, who liked her all the time; and if he thought at all, only considered her as shy or grave, and still continued to admire her, and seek her out, whenever his former favourite, Jessie, was not in the way to rattle with in his usual style. Jessie was full of enjoyment, Henrietta ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Mrs Delvile was not expected till late. Cecilia, therefore, determined to make a visit to Miss Belfield, to whom she had been denied during the late disorders at Mr Harrel's, and whom she could not endure to mortify by quitting town without seeing, since whatever were her doubts about Delvile, of ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... did some few centuries later. He was plump and portly, a little thick-winded, especially after dinner, stood five feet four in his sandals, and weighed hard upon eighteen stone. He was, moreover, a personage of singular piety; and the iron girdle, which, he said, he wore under his cassock to mortify withal, might have been well mistaken for the tire of a cart-wheel. When he arrived, Sir Robert was pacing up and down by the side of a newly ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... sin to think of him. Every thing seems to be sin; and loving people more especially. Mother Ada told me one day that she saw in me an inclination to be too much drawn to Mother Alianora, and warned me to mortify it, because she was my father's sister, and therefore there was cause to fear it might be an indulgence of the flesh. And now, these weeks past, my poor, dry, withered heart seems to have a little faint pulsation in it, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... humble familiarity on my part had continued, the more effort it would require to suppress it; and Mr. Falkland was neither willing to mortify me by a severe prohibition of speech, nor even perhaps to make me of so much consequence, as that prohibition might seem to imply. 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 ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... a winding-sheet, and left him with Christ, who so graciously took the cumber of Rutherford's ill-ravelled life also. Young men whose hesp still runs even, and whose web is not yet torn, as Rutherford says to Earlston, 'Make conscience of your thoughts and study in everything to mortify your lusts. Wash your hands in innocency, and God, who knoweth what you have need of before you ask Him, will Himself lead you to encompass His holy altar, and thus to enter the harbour of a holy home and an ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte

... a great debt to those who point out faults. For they mortify us. They teach us that we have been despised. They do not prevent our being so in the future; for we have many other faults for which we may be despised. They prepare for us the exercise of ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... wishes and views are directed to poetic pursuits. I am aware that though I were to give performances to the world superior to my former works, still if they were of the same kind with those, the comparative reception they would meet with would mortify me. I have turned my thoughts on the drama. I do not mean the stately buskin ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... move with it, even as the pulse of the blood in the extremities acts with the central movement of the heart. And this is to be obtained through a double process; the first, that of checking, repressing, quelling the inclination of the will to act with reference to self as a centre; this is to mortify it. The second, to cherish, exercise, and expand its new and heavenly power of acting according to the will of God, first, perhaps, by painful effort in great feebleness and with many inconsistencies, but with continually augmenting regularity ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... more pointed than private. He appeared to be destitute alike of the ambition which urged, and of the passionate energy of mind which enabled, me to excel. In his rivalry he might have been supposed actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart, astonish, or mortify myself; although there were times when I could not help observing, with a feeling made up of wonder, abasement, and pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his insults, or his contradictions, ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... which we have spoken, to which she belonged by profound sympathy; and that of Father Damon, to which she belonged by undefined aspiration. In him was the spiritual element asserting itself in a mediaeval form, in a struggle to mortify and deny the flesh and yet take part in modern life. Imagine a celibate and ascetic of the fifteenth century, who knew that Paradise must be gained through poverty and privation and suffering, interesting himself in the tenement-house question, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... as he tossed his curls and pranced, that Polly went off into another gale of merriment; but even while she laughed, she resolved not to let him mortify ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... code to which they were obliged ostensibly to submit. In their moods of revolt, they honestly believed their parents to be dull and obstinate creatures who had lost the appetite for romance and ecstasy and were determined to mortify this appetite in others. They desired heaps of money and the free, informal companionship of very young men. The latter—at the cost of some intrigue and subterfuge—they contrived to get. But money they ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... with their miserable humanity can enjoy it. They laugh, as you know, at Praxilla, the poetess, because she makes the dying Adonis lament, when face to face with death, that he is forced to leave the apples and pears behind him. But is not that subtly true? Yes, yes; Praxilla is right! We fast, we mortify ourselves—I have felt it all myself—to partake of divinity. We almost perish of hunger and thirst, when we might be so happy if only we would be satisfied with apples and pears! No man has ever yet succeeded in the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... you have had in them, that I may govern myself accordingly." He answered: "To give you an example of the drudgery we go through, I will entertain you only with my three last stations: I was on the 1st of April last, put to mortify a great beauty, with whom I was a week; from her I went to a common swearer, and have been last with a gamester. When I first came to my lady, I found my great work was to guard well her eyes and ears; but her flatterers were so ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. 5. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: 6. For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... having devoted himself all night to Lady Sarah. Vivian seized the moment to explain his real feelings, and he made his proposal for Lady Julia. It was received with warm approbation by the father, who seemed to rejoice the more in this proposal, because he knew that it would disappoint and mortify Lady Glistonbury. The interests of his hatred seemed, indeed, to occupy his lordship more than the interests of Vivian's love; but politeness threw a decent veil over these feelings; and, after saying all that could be expected of the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... our readers have already recognized the lady who instigated the attack on the "turgotine," may be allowed to keep the name which she used to escape the dangers that threatened her in Alencon. The publication of her real name would only mortify a noble family already deeply afflicted at the misconduct of this woman; whose history, by the bye, has already been given ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... choose to stop you in that way. As for Saul, it is impossible that you should become such a man as he. It is not that he mortifies his flesh, but that he has no flesh to mortify. He is unconscious of the flavor of venison, or the scent of roses, or the beauty of women. He is an exceptional specimen of a man, and you need no more fear, than you should venture to hope, that you could become such ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... this dull stuff. 'Tis time enough To whine and mortify thyself with penance, The present moment claims more gen'rous use; Thy beauty, night, and solitude, reproach me, For having talk'd thus long—come, let me press thee, [laying hold of her. Pant on thy bosom, sink into thy arms, And lose ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe

... frown. "He must turn away his heart from this earthly love; and after we shall have mortified this love in him, this savage and arrogant man will return to us and to God, contrite and humble." But we shall not be able to mortify it, friend. It is so ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... the shepherds and cattle-drivers, and passing with much more of discomfort than satisfaction many of those sublime combinations of mountainous scenery which now draw visitors from every corner of England, to feast their eyes upon Highland grandeur, and mortify their palates upon ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... "You really mortify me, my dear Miss Phoebe!" he exclaimed, smiling half-sarcastically at her. "My poor story, it is but too evident, will never do for Godey or Graham! Only think of your falling asleep at what I hoped the newspaper critics would pronounce a most brilliant, powerful, imaginative, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Anthony. Avarice owns no heart, has no natural affections. You may go, but it is only to mortify your pride, agonize your feelings, and harden your kind nature against the whole world, without producing any ultimate ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... time he was out with her. It's a shame to keep him up so! As for myself, I would never go any where if I had to, for the lack of a man, always be dragging poor papa out. It must be so very mortifying. But nothing could mortify that girl; she is such an upstart. Her bonnets and her dresses are the talk of the town, because they are so ugly and unbecoming. But she has a gracious and pleasant manner, and sometimes has a good deal of attention—whenever she once gets out. People frequently say ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.

... by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant implacable resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... heart strings; draw tears from the eyes. sadden; make unhappy &c 828; plunge into sorrow, grieve, fash^, afflict, distress; cut up, cut to the heart. displease, annoy, incommode, discompose, trouble, disquiet; faze, feaze^, feeze [U.S.]; disturb, cross, perplex, molest, tease, tire, irk, vex, mortify, wherret^, worry, plague, bother, pester, bore, pother, harass, harry, badger, heckle, bait, beset, infest, persecute, importune. wring, harrow, torment, torture; bullyrag; put to the rack, put to the question; break on the wheel, rack, scarify; cruciate^, crucify; convulse, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... wish to withdraw him, it is to place him out of danger," he retorted with asperity. "Not because I wish to mortify him, naturally. Is that clear? Does he want to pass the next thirteen hours ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram

... fool," answered the Pilgrim, "to repent our sins, and to mortify ourselves with fastings, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... mademoiselle cherie, for those who would withdraw themselves from the world. They are very strict, I believe, the sisters, and mortify the flesh exceedingly. Me, I cannot see why we should leave the beautiful world the bon dieu has put us into. For certain, He would not have put us in if He had not meant us ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... very solitary. The flippancy of the lives around her, the inanity of her relatives' pursuits, their heedlessness of those inner qualities which make the real—indeed, the only considerable difference between man and man, could but fret, and mortify, and abash a heart which, in the absence of any religious faith, had, at any rate, the need of it. Her father, who entertained clear views of "the right thing" and "the wrong thing" in social ethics, was still too rigid ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... others, who are perpetually exposed to a thousand dangers, we account their happiness as uncertain as the crown is to a person that is still engaged in battle, and has not yet obtained the victory." Solon retired, when he had spoken these words,(1103) which served only to mortify Croesus, but not to ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... charged his brethren that they should not inflict injury upon the body; for he saw very well that he had rendered himself unfit to be of service to his brethren. Therefore St. Peter requires nothing more than that we should be sober,—that is, mortify the body to such an extent as to prevent its being in our apprehension too wanton; for he fixes no definite time how long we should fast, as the Pope has done, but leaves it to each, individually, to fast so that he remain sober ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... employed a similar device to awaken and mortify the sleepers in meeting. He shouted "Fire, fire, fire!" and when the startled and blinking men jumped up, calling out "Where?" he roared back in turn, "In hell, for sleeping sinners." Rev. Mr. Phillips, of Andover, in 1755, openly rebuked his congregation for "sleeping ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... think!—Knyphausen, who knows the King well, privately tells me, "He will come round." "It is his avarice," thinks Knyphausen too; "nay it is also his jealousy of the Prince, who is very popular with the Army. King does everything to mortify him, uses him like a child; Crown-Prince bears it with admirable patience." This is Knyphausen's weak notion; rather a weak creaky official gentleman, I should gather, of a cryptosplenetic turn. "Queen told me some days later, His Majesty ill-used the Crown-Prince, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... after his sudden departure in the morning, unknown to his kind host. The great Juniper did this, says his biographer, having told us what he did, not so much from his habitual inclinations, for which he was so justly celebrated, as from his excessive piety, and as much as he could to mortify worldly pride, and to show how a true saint despised ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... enemy is in France that you should have done this? But nature has gifted me with a determined courage—nothing can overcome me. It cost my pride much too—I made that sacrifice; I—but I am above your miserable declamations—I was in need of consolation, and you would mortify me—but, no, my victories shall crush your clamours! In three months we shall have peace, and you shall repent your folly. I am one of those ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... a very different disposition, and this was no other than the celebrated St. Chrysostom, who dieted me with sermons instead of sacrifices, and filled my ears with good things, but not my belly. Instead of high food to fatten and pamper my flesh, I had receipts to mortify and reduce it. With these I edified so well, that within a few months I became a skeleton. However, as he had converted me to his faith, I was well enough satisfied with this new manner of living, by which he taught ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... mortify the body by early rising and by very plain living. Few, as I said before, eat meat; and I was assured that a complete and long-continued experience had proved to them that young people maintain their health and strength ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... in knowledge, rank, fortune, etc. In the two last articles, it is unjust, they not being in his power: and in the first it is both ill-bred and ill-natured. Good-breeding, and good-nature, do incline us rather to raise and help people up to ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our own private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many friends, instead of so many enemies. The constant practice of what the French call 'les Attentions', ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... at her ease among former friends. New faces,—unaccustomed looks,—those only can she tolerate. She would pine among familiar scenes; she would be apt to blush, too, under the eyes that knew her secret; her heart might throb uncomfortably; she would mortify herself, I suppose, with foolish notions of having sacrificed the honor of her sex at the foot of proud, contumacious man. Poor womanhood, with its rights and wrongs! Here will be new matter for my course of lectures, at the idea of which you smiled, Mr. ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... now preserved in the British Museum,[62] thus feelingly refers to the embarrassed circumstances of the Earl:—'My good Lord, lately growing heavy and pensive in his affairs, which for some late years have mortify'd his mind.... This lately manifestly appeared in his change of complexion; his face fallen less; his colour and eyes turned yellow to a great degree; his stomach wasted and gone; and a dead weight presses continually, without sign of relief, ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... with her, although I think she was one of the most insulting persons I ever met. I made a point of never letting her get any advantage of me, and so we got along very well. Whenever she had a chance, she was sure to say something that would mortify or hurt me; and I never failed to repay both principal and interest with a voice and face as smooth as hers. And here let me say that there is no other way of dealing with such people. Self-denial, modesty, magnanimity, they do not and cannot understand. Never turn them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... my tongue. What cool craniums those old enditers of Folios must have had. What a mortify'd pulse. Well, once more I throw myself on your mercy— Wishing peace in thy new dwelling— ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... always would eat little and talk much; so Burton, who was a magnificent trencherman, suffered serious inconvenience, and the present occasion proved no exception. It was in vain that Burton urged the Archbishop to mortify himself by eating his dinner. After a while Mrs. Burton, who sat on the other side of the Archbishop, remarked "Richard must take you to the Zoo and show you his famous fish." "I'll certainly go," said Manning, turning to Burton, "I am really curious to see it." "Then my Lord," followed ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... Lord Mayor of this town; but since my coming hither, they lie more in the outsides and walls, and have made themselves dens, and caves, and holes, and strongholds therein. Wherefore, O Mansoul! thy work, as to this, will be so much the more difficult and hard; that is, to take, mortify, and put them to death according to the will of my Father. Nor can you utterly rid yourselves of them, unless you should pull down the walls of your town, the which I am by no means willing you should. Do you ask me, What shall we do then? Why, be you diligent, ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths: Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith, even unto death, we may glorify thy holy Name; through ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... met with much to disquiet and mortify him in his cousin's behaviour. She had too old a regard for him to be so wholly estranged as might in two meetings extinguish every past hope, and leave him nothing to do but to keep away from Uppercross: but there was such a change as became very alarming, when such a man as Captain Wentworth ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... depraved—which certainly is indisputable in the century in which it was born. According to it, man must change his ways. Life here below is simply an exile; let us turn our eyes upward to our celestial home. Our natural character is vicious; let us stifle natural desires and mortify the flesh. The experience of our senses and the knowledge of the wise are inadequate and delusive; let us accept the light of revelation, faith and divine illumination. Through penitence, renunciation and meditation let us develop within ourselves the spiritual man; let our life ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... mortify yourself wholly, give up all to God, and the peace which is not of this world will descend upon you. For eighteen centuries no grander word has been spoken; and although humanity is forever seeking after a more exact and ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... let the Ladies of Rank look at PAMELA.—-Such an alarming Reflection as that will, at the same time that it raises the Hope and Ambition of the Humble, correct and mortify the Disdain of the Proud. For it will compel them to observe, and acknowledge, that 'tis the Turn of their Mind, not the Claims of their Quality, by which (and which only) Womens Charms can be lasting: And that, while ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson

... let Elnora go like a beggar, and hurt and mortify her past bearing. I've got to the place where I tell you plain what I am going to do. Maggie and I went to town last night, and we bought what things Elnora needs most urgent to make her look a little ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mortify a wit, The many-headed monster of the pit: A senseless, worthless, and unhonour'd crowd; Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud, Clattering their sticks before ten lines are spoke. Call for the farce, the bear, or the black-joke. What dear delight to Britons farce affords! 310 ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... who will not in the least instance mortify their own humour to purchase the satisfaction of all mankind, so there are some who make no scruple of satisfying their own pride and vanity at the expence of the most cruel mortification of others. Of this kind is Agroicus, who seldom goes to an assembly ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... that we know nothing of music, and that what we have hitherto admired as such was nothing more than trumpery? Why does he disdain the poetry of Metastasio, to adopt that of a man whom nobody knows? I will not lend my hand to mortify the old man who for thirty years has been our court-poet. I owe it to him, at least, not to appear at this representation, and that is reason enough for me to refuse ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... new Wench, I warrant—But prithee, Sham, I have other matters in hand; 'Sheart, I am so mortify'd with this same thought of Fighting, that I shall hardly ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... act wrongly in endeavoring to mortify me," said d'Artagnan, in whom the natural quarrelsome spirit began to speak more loudly than his pacific resolutions. "I am from Gascony, it is true; and since you know it, there is no occasion to tell you that Gascons are not very patient, so that when they have begged to be ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... it had come, and Westby was humiliated, and the audience were not unsympathetic with Irving for the achievement; yet Irving felt already the sting of remorse. Westby was only a boy, and he was a master; it was not well for a master to mortify a boy in the presence of other boys—a boy whose disappointment ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier

... the same preparations for your comfort," replied her father, taking a seat by her on the sofa, for they were in their own private parlor; "you may find unaired bed-linen and an empty larder, which, beside inconveniencing yourself, would sorely mortify and trouble Aunt Phillis and her right-hand woman, Sarah, ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley

... comfort was in this wise: He said, "You must have a few more lessons on your wheel before you go, and I'll take you out for a lesson to-morrow if you'll get up and go at six o'clock in the morning—that is, if you'll wear gloves. But you mortify me half to death ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... clinching her white teeth, "I hate that man, and I did hope his proposal would come from himself; then there would have been nothing to alloy my quiet satisfaction at mortifying one who is so ready to mortify others. But no, he has bewitched you; and you take his part, and you look vexed; so all my pleasure is turned ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... hurt the feelin's of my sect, do you suppose I would mortify 'em before the assembled nations of the earth, by slightin' 'em, by not payin' attention to 'em, and makin' 'em the first and prime object of my distinguished ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... I dream, But that is a pullet and clouted cream; Myself by denial I mortify— With a dainty bit of a warden-pie; I'm clothed in sackcloth for my sin— With old sack wine I'm lined within; A chirping cup is my matin song, And the vesper's bell is my bowl, ding-dong. What baron or squire, Or knight of the shire, Lives half so ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... his amusements at Lambeth, where he resided, was to mortify Dr. Tenison, the archbishop, by a publick festivity, on the surrender of Dunkirk to Hill; an event with which Tenison's political bigotry did not suffer him to be delighted. King was resolved to counteract his sullenness, and, at the expense of a few barrels of ale, filled ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... they crush'd my chest: They flapp'd my light out as I read: I saw Their faces grow between me and my book: With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left, And by this way I'scaped them. Mortify Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns; Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps, With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain, Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that still Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise: ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... "I shall never, never marry before Eleanor. It would mortify her—I know it would—and make her feel that she herself had failed. She's awfully frank about those things, Ezra—surprisingly frank. I don't see why being an old maid is always supposed to be so funny, do ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... of Corne'lius Cinna, Pompey's grandson. This nobleman had entered into a conspiracy against him: Augustus sent for the other conspirators, reprimanded them, and dismissed them. But resolving to mortify Cinna by the greatness of his generosity—"I have twice," says he, "given you your life, as an enemy and as a conspirator: I now give you the consulship; let us therefore be friends for the future; let us contend only in showing ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... married to myself, or to some gentleman I did not care for, I would not spend a shilling. But I am going to marry him; and so—oh, Edward, think of them saying, 'What has he married? a dowdy: why she hadn't new things on to go to church with him: no bonnet, no wreath, no new white dress!' To mortify him the very first day of our——" The sentence remained unfinished, but two lovely eyes filled to the very brim without running over, and completed the sense, and did the Viceroy's business, though a brother. "Why you dear little goose," said he: "of course, I don't mean ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... gipsies. And driving back past the nunnery again, Sofya Lvovna thought of Olga, and she felt aghast at the thought that for the girls and women of her class there was no solution but to go on driving about and telling lies, or going into a nunnery to mortify the flesh. . . . And next day she met her lover, and again Sofya Lvovna drove about the town alone in a hired ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... narrative was scrupulously studied. That exaggerated praise which I had received, now made me sensitive to the blame; I could bear it less easily than before, and saw more clearly, that it did not spring out of an interest in the matter, but was only uttered in order to mortify me. For the rest, my mind was fresh and elastic; I conceived precisely at this time the idea of "The Picture- Book without Pictures," and worked it out. This little book appears, to judge by the reviews and the number of editions, to have ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen

... that he intends to remain faithful to his system, and never to dissolve the alliance with France. And now, when my zeal, eloquence, and untiring expositions of the utility of this alliance have succeeded in rendering him deaf to all promises, and attaching his heart more sincerely to France, you mortify and insult the king in so defiant a manner! Ah, count, this is to postpone the attainment of my object to a very distant period, and to take from me, perhaps forever, the order I am longing for. For how can I keep my word?—how can I obtain ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... the Reason and the Moral sense, the passions that prompt to evil, and the sensual appetites. "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die," said Paul, writing to the Christians at Rome, "but if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." "The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh," he said, writing to the Christians of Galatia, "and these ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... in vain they moralise; in vain they teach us thou art a delusion; in vain they dissect thine inspiring sentiment, and would mortify us into misery by its degrading analysis. The sage may announce that gratified vanity is thine aim and end; but the lover glances with contempt at his cold-blooded philosophy. Nature assures him thou art a beautiful and sublime ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... said Sally, with her prettiest color. "He despises me, but he will take the case, anyway! And he has done nothing but mortify and enrage me all day, but I feel that I should miss it if it stopped! So we are going to sacrifice our lives to each other—isn't it edifying and beautiful of us? We'll tell you all ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... was the genuine effusion of good-nature and good-humour, tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what is called wit in other men. It never was the meaning of his raillery to mortify; and therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to please and delight even those who were the objects of it. To his friends, who were frequently the objects of it, there was not perhaps one of all his great and amiable qualities which contributed ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... perfectly judicious, madam," returned Mr. Brocklehurst. "Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that especial care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them. I have studied how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment of pride; and, only the other day, I had a pleasing proof of my success. My second daughter, Augusta, went with her mama to visit the school, and on her return she exclaimed: 'Oh, dear papa, how quiet and plain all the ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... a moderate religion is amply sufficient—for the masses believe that he demands the most painful efforts on the part of those whom he deigns to initiate into the supremely adorable mysteries of His Person—it is necessary and just that he should mortify them before allowing them to taste the essential intoxication ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... "which signifies wisdom, to the new-born King, by the luster of our wisdom in His sight." We offer God incense, "which signifies fervor in prayer, if our constant prayers mount up to God with an odor of sweetness"; and we offer myrrh, "which signifies mortification of the flesh, if we mortify the ill-deeds of the flesh by refraining from ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... wines, yet there is no bad spirit in Portugal towards the French. The reason of this is no mystery; it is the nature not of the Portuguese only, but of corrupt and unregenerate man, to dislike his benefactors, who, by conferring benefits upon him, mortify in the most generous manner ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... heard not a word of it; she had made a tool of me! She did not seem to be aware of my existence while my cousin was present; she received me less cordially perhaps than when I was first presented to her. One evening she chose to mortify me before the duke by a look, a gesture, that it is useless to try to express in words. I went away with tears in my eyes, planning terrible and outrageous schemes of ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... because to go to the theatre costs money. He doesn't go to concerts because concerts cost money. He is a teetotaler, not so much because he wishes to keep his stomach clean and his head clear, but because his ideal men are teetotalers, grad-grinds, who mortify the flesh in order to save. And the money is saved with a bad intention. The aim is either to start independently in business, or else to secure shares in the undertaking paying the highest dividends compatible with security. The ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... approaching the fire after having handled snow; and the inflamed heels from walking in snow. Hence those who have been exposed to much cold have died on being brought to a fire, or their limbs have become so much inflamed as to mortify. Hence much food or wine given suddenly to those who have almost perished by hunger has destroyed them; for all the organs of the famished body are now become so much more irritable to the stimulus of food and wine, which they have ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... painful, soon began to mortify, and he felt the worms in his still living body! Vultures came to feast upon him, ere the vital spark of existence had gone out within him, and he had not the strength left to lift a hand, or speak a word in ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison

... you would mortify me if it were in your power for acting against your advice. But my fame does not depend upon your judgment. All Europe admired the greatness of my mind in resigning a crown to dedicate myself entirely to the love of the sciences and the fine arts; things of which you had ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... changing. Perhaps the extent of the change is best shown by the old Catholic ascetic training. Its supreme object was to discipline and strengthen the will: to accustom men habitually to repudiate the pleasurable and accept the painful; to mortify the most natural tastes and affections; to narrow and weaken the empire of the desires; to make men wholly independent of outward circumstances; to preach self-renunciation as itself ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... lest such a transaction might come to the ears of his connexions. Moreover, he doubted whether his signature, whose expectations were so much more bounded than those of —-, would avail with my unchristian friends. However, he did not wish, as it seemed, to mortify me by an absolute refusal; for after a little consideration he promised, under certain conditions which he pointed out, to give his security. Lord D—- was at this time not eighteen years of age; but I have often doubted, on recollecting since the good ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... Diana, and now he came around the fire and put his hands on her shoulders. "No! No! Diana! not my weaknesses keep us apart, bitterly as they mortify me." ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... it to pass that many of the Saints were so perfect, so contemplative of Divine things? Because they steadfastly sought to mortify themselves from all worldly desires, and so were enabled to cling with their whole heart to God, and be free and at leisure for the thought of Him. We are too much occupied with our own affections, and too anxious about transitory things. Seldom, too, do we entirely conquer even a single ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis

... jilting him. "He was held at the long saw above a month, doing his duty as well as he might, and that was but clumsily; for he neither dressed nor danced, when his rivals were adroit at both, and the lady used to shuffle her favors amongst them affectedly, and on purpose to mortify his lordship, and at the same time be as civil to him, with like purpose to mortify them." Poor Mr. Francis! Well may his brother write indignantly, "It was very grievous to him—that had his thoughts upon ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... have sap and juice in their talk. When they think they think clearly. When they speak they express themselves with an energy and directness which mortify the thin speech of conventional persons. Here is Farfrae, the young Scotchman, in the tap-room of the Three Mariners Inn of Casterbridge, singing of his ain contree with a pathos quite unknown in that part of the world. The worthies who frequent the place are deeply moved. ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... only a passing breeze, during the which, howsoever, I happened to swallow my thimble, which accidentally slipped off my middle finger, causing both me and the company general alarm, as there were great fears that it might mortify in the stomach; but it did not; and neither word nor wittens of it have been seen or heard tell of from that to this day. So, in two or three minutes, we had some few good songs, and a round of Scotch proverbs, when the clock chapped eleven. We were all getting, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... now become your intimate companion, I will not mortify Your Grace with the history of her origin, and an account of her genealogy, which I am sure would greatly distress you. Believe me, Madam, I should be sorry to give you a moment's mortification. My sincere ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe

... intuition, and with the quickness of thought; so as to regulate his language before it proceeds from the lips or the pen. If they come only by tardy recollection, or are called to mind but as contingent afterthoughts, they are altogether too late; and serve merely to mortify the speaker or writer, by reminding him of some deficiency or inaccuracy which there may then ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... said, "Mortify, worry the body, which is essentially and inherently evil." "No," said others, "the sins of the body don't hurt the mind; the two things are distinct, don't react on one another." (St. Paul deals with all this in the Colossians.) The Incarnation is the solution or the culmination ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... merchants to give English ships, (if able and sufficient) the preference. But the most beneficial statute for the trade and commerce of these kingdoms is that navigation-act, the rudiments of which were first framed in 1650[e], with a narrow partial view: being intended to mortify the sugar islands, which were disaffected to the parliament and still held out for Charles II, by stopping the gainful trade which they then carried on with the Dutch[f]; and at the same time to clip the wings of those our opulent ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... an ounce, and here begin, In the name of Christ, to wax a philosopher. There be full few, which that I woulde proffer To shewe them thus much of my science; For here shall ye see by experience That this quicksilver I will mortify, Right in your sight anon withoute lie, And make it as good silver, and as fine, As there is any in your purse, or mine, Or elleswhere; and make it malleable, And elles holde me false and unable Amonge ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer



Words linked to "Mortify" :   crush, discipline, demean, contain, offend, take down, subdue, hold, control, abstain, refrain, demolish, check, hold in, curb, rot, desist, disgrace, train, wound, spite, humiliate, bruise, hurt, humble, condition, degrade, chagrin, moderate, smash, injure, waste, put down, mortification



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