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Inquisitor   /ɪnkwˈɪzətər/   Listen
Inquisitor

noun
1.
A questioner who is excessively harsh.  Synonym: interrogator.
2.
An official of the ecclesiastical court of the Inquisition.



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"Inquisitor" Quotes from Famous Books



... readers should by 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

... must be shielded against the influence of alien religions and races, which should accordingly occupy in the Russian monarchy a position subordinate to that of the dominant nation. The ideas of this fanatic reactionary, who was dubbed "The Grand Inquisitor" and whose name was popularly changed into Byedonostzev [1] carried the day at the Gatchina conferences. The deliberations culminated in the decision to refrain from making any concessions to the revolutionary element by granting reforms, however however modest in character, ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... slave into the Nile now and then, might invite a Bey to visit him, and stroke his beard and call him brother and put diamond-dust in the coffee he drank, so that he died before two suns came and went again, "of inflammation and a natural death"; but he, Achmet Pasha, was the dark Inquisitor who tortured every day, for whose death all men prayed, and whom some would have slain, but that another worse than himself might ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... We take from the French edition of Kaempfer's History of Japan(215) an account of what he calls "this detestable solemnity." It was conducted by an officer called the kirishitan bugyo, or Christian inquisitor, and began on the second day of the first month. In Nagasaki it was commenced at two different places at once, and was carried on from house to house until the whole city was finished. The officers of ...
— Japan • David Murray

... 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 ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... committed to the flames. Only the Nero of the last part of the Annals, or the Tiberius of the first six books of that work, can properly stand forth, in his persecuting spirit, as the counterpart of the Dominican, John de Torquemada, who, in the performance of his duty, as the Inquisitor General in Spain, proceeded against upwards of 100,000 persons, 6,000 of whom ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... panic-stricken at the fate of its leaders, quickly melted away. But no sooner was the semblance of tranquillity restored, than the Kaimakam Ismail Pasha, an unscrupulous agent of the merciless decrees of the vizir, was sent into Asia under the new title of Moufetish, or inquisitor; and an unsparing proscription almost utterly exterminated all the remaining partizans of Abaza-Hassan, without distinction of rank; while the suppression of numerous timars or fiefs, and the removal of the occupants of others from their ancient abodes to remote districts, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... wished to find out the attainments and standpoint of this would-be teacher, and so he proposed a question which would bring out the whereabouts of Jesus, and give opportunity for a theological wrangle. He did not ask the question for guidance, but as an inquisitor cross-examining a suspected heretic. Probably the question was a stereotyped one, and there are traces in the Gospels that the answer recognised as orthodox was that which Jesus gave (Luke x. 27). The two commandments are quoted from Deuteronomy vi. 5 and Leviticus xix. 18 respectively. The ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... that she 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 ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... 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 basks ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... 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 one to which they were condemned. The gag was removed from the mouth ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... inquisitor, summing up her terrible evidence, "what are we to think of a girl called Miss Moore in one town and Mrs. Lennox in the other, with no sign of a wedding ring and no sign of a husband? And what are we going to think of that baby? It seems to me scandalous." And she ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... roadside, the cowherds by the well, yonder—they have seen the scroll, I dare say, but they are not scholars enough to have read its letters. Cavina and his comrade in arms, lying in wait here, probably did not observe it, so intent were they for that pious and terrible Inquisitor who was to pass by. How their hearts must have leapt when they saw him, at length, with his companion, coming across that little arched bridge from the town—a conspicuous, unmistakable figure, clad in the pied frock of his brotherhood ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... with 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 with ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various

... good her words and took flight. Victurnien went soon afterwards, but not before others had guessed his ecstatic condition; his face wore the expression peculiar to happy men, something between an Inquisitor's calm discretion and the self-contained beatitude of a devotee, fresh from the confessional ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... moves; I most illogically desire Completely to expunge this dark suspicion, So reasonably conceived. I now abjure, Detest and curse these errors; and I swear That should I know another, friend or foe, Holding the selfsame heresy as myself, I will denounce him to the Inquisitor In whatsoever place I chance to be. So help me God, and these His Holy Gospels, Which with my hands I touch!" You will observe His promise to denounce. Beware, Castelli! What think ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes

... knowledge of Her Majesty's journey incognita, or you would not have been watching in the church with a loaded revolver in your pocket," he went on. "Your Brothers of Freedom, as you term them, never lack knowledge of Their Majesties' movements," my inquisitor said. ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... third room before I had a chance even to bid good-bye to the examiners in the second, I found myself standing before a small desk answering questions about myself and my business asked tersely by an inquisitor who read from a lengthy paper which had to be filled in, and behind whom stood three officers in uniform. These occasionally interpolated questions and always glared into my very heart. When I momentarily looked away from their riveted eyes it was only to be held transfixed by the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... papacy 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

... he goes the 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... brought by sea to Edinburgh in stormy November weather which kept the ship a fortnight on its way. A dying man when he was put in the Tolbooth, he yet had to undergo many exhausting examinations and a farcical trial, with "Bluidy Mackenzie" for chief inquisitor, and on Christmas Eve, 1684, he gallantly and cheerfully met a martyr's death at the ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... His mother would have wished him to sit under Cartwright and Travers. The friend of his choice was the Anglican preacher, Dr. Andrewes, to whom he submitted all his works, and whom he called his "inquisitor general;" and he was proud to sign himself the pupil of Whitgift, and to write for him—the archbishop of whom Lady Bacon wrote to her son Antony, veiling the dangerous sentiment in Greek, "that he was the ruin of the Church, for he loved his own ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... d'Herbois, or Carrier, or Panis. The normal Jacobin was a remarkable type. He has been excellently described by Louis Blanc as something powerful, original, sombre; half agitator and half statesman; half puritan and half monk half inquisitor and half tribune. These words of the historian are the exact prose version of the figure of Cimourdain, the typical Jacobin of the poet. "Cimourdain was a pure conscience, but sombre. He had in him the absolute. He had been a priest and that is a serious ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... at his inquisitor for a moment; then he explained with patient politeness: "These were not carnivorous ducks. They ate ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... 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 left ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... 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 ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... judges, who 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. He asked to be allowed to go to confession, and to say Mass once a ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... which is just as rare in this age as it was under the ancien regime. Don Josef Maria Chacon was his name,—a man, it would seem, like poor Kaiser Joseph of Austria, born before his time. Among his many honourable deeds, let this one at least be remembered; that he turned out of Trinidad, the last Inquisitor who ever ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... Testament. When Reuchlin's aid in this pious project was requested it was refused in a memorial dated October 6, 1510, pointing out the great value of much Hebrew literature. The Dominicans of Cologne, headed by their inquisitor, James Hochstraten, made this the ground for a charge of heresy. The case was appealed to Rome, and the trial, lasting six years, excited the interest of all Europe. In Germany it was argued with much heat in a host of {55} pamphlets, all the monks and obscurantists taking the side of the inquisitors ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... the steps we have mounted; not even, the priests inform us, if we are ascending to heaven; we carry them beyond the grave. However, it seems that our excellent marquis contrives to keep them concealed, and he is ready to face marriage—the Grandest Inquisitor, next to Death. Two furious matchmakers—our country, beautiful France, abounds in them—met one day; they were a comtesse and a baronne, and they settled the alliance. The bell was rung, and Renee came out of school. There is this to be said: she has no mother; the sooner a girl without ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... sources of life are frozen. I chatted—I who never chatted—with women, and with men. I even smiled—once. That was when my little white-faced wife asked me if it were not time to go home. Even a man under torture might find strength to smile if the inquisitor should ask if he were not ready ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... in loving one who no longer regarded her. "I do not deserve any man's regard," murmured she, as she laid her soul on the rack of self-accusation, and wrung its tenderest fibres with the pitiless rigor of a secret inquisitor. She utterly condemned herself while still trying to find some excuse for her unworthy lover. At times a cold half-persuasion, fluttering like a bird in the snow, came over her that Bigot could not be utterly base. He could not thus forsake one who had lost all—name, fame, home, and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... 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

... 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 of his deportment and discourse, that ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... lift her eyes to the inquisitor, but her irrepressible twitter came again and she had to turn away to the big ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... suppose we all have our little troubles," said Jake. Only that; the rack of the inquisitor grew limp. And Colonel Culpepper rose and gave Barclay his hand and spoke not a word. The silence was awkward, and at the end of a few moments ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... 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 ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... up before the Colonel, and under the threat of immediate death questioned as to where the treasure was, not being suffered meanwhile to communicate by word or sign with any one, save the officers of the rebels. Every day he refused, till at last his inquisitor's patience gave out, and he was told frankly that if he did not communicate the secret he would be shot at ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... absurd suggestion seriously. M. Verdurin, who was still casting furtive and intermittent glances at his wife, could see with regret, and could understand only too well that she was now inflamed with the passion of a Grand Inquisitor who cannot succeed in stamping out a heresy; and so, in the hope of bringing Swann round to a retractation (for the courage of one's opinions is always a form of calculating cowardice in the eyes of the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... 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 ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... flames. Volume after volume has been burned. But always, and at the critical moment, some copy has been preserved—here in the cottage of a devoted peasant at the risk of his life, hidden in the crevice of a rock from the inquisitor's search, or cast aside by a careless hand and forgotten amid a pile of swept up dust in a neglected corner of some impregnable castle; from whence it has come forth to be copied by slow and painful, yet loving, toil, ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman

... he led his 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 ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... questioned her then, his sharp face was certainly at that moment the face of an inquisitor, a set of keen and delicate instruments ready for probing, but so weary and childlike did she look, so weary and childlike was her speech, that he forbore. What did it matter, after all, what there was in her past? She had done ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... the chamber, and gazed around her; no signs by which an inquisitor of old could have detected the scholar of the Black Art were visible. No crucibles and caldrons, no brass-bound volumes and ciphered girdles, no skulls and cross-bones. Quietly streamed the broad moonlight through the desolate chamber with its bare, white ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the facial portion of Mr. Michael Korde stumbled against the door, the little rebels instantly disentangled themselves from one another and attempted to reach their proper places, whence the grand inquisitor hooked them out one by one, and thwacked the whole class in turn with his ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... were found in your locker," returned the inquisitor coldly, "and they couldn't have got there of their own accord. Some one put them there. If ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport

... moment, and Porter groaned inwardly; he knew that attitude. The fingers were rapiers, stilettos; presently their owner would thrust, with cutting phrase, proving that they were all indeed a very bad lot. Perhaps John Porter would have resented this angrily had he not felt that the Reverend Inquisitor was really honest in his beliefs, albeit intolerably narrow ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... to deter those under their control from teaching or countenancing doctrines which they believe to be damnable, and even to punish with death those who violate such prohibition." It would not be very difficult for us to imagine a tender-hearted Inquisitor of this stamp, stifling his weak compassion for the shrieking wretch under bodily torment by his strong pity for souls in danger of perdition from the sufferer's heresy. We all know with what satisfaction the gentle-spirited Melanethon heard of the burning of Servetus, and with what zeal he ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... He was finding Freddie, in the capacity of inquisitor, as trying as he had found him in the role of exuberant fianc. It offended his pride to have to make explanations to one whom he had always regarded with a patronizing tolerance as not a bad fellow in his way but in ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... I prepared to take my departure I was handed the address of another gentleman who would also examine me and make a report. Before I got out of the room my inquisitor said, "It may interest you to know that we have had more than six hundred applications for the post, and that it may, therefore, take some time before the matter ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland

... air ye?" demanded her inquisitor. "Eighteen? 'Most nineteen? Good Lord! You're a old maid right now. Well, don't you let twenty go by without gittin' your hooks on a man. My experience is that when a gal gits to be twenty an' ain't wedded—or got ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... the catalogue of most pious men and eminent scholars who underwent purification, as it is termed, in this den of superstition and tyranny. The culprit was not permitted to speak with his attorney, except in the presence of the inquisitor and a notary, who took notes, and certified what passed; and so far from the names of the informer or of the witnesses being supplied, every thing that could facilitate the explanation of them was expunged from the declarations; and the prisoners, one and all, in these ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various

... had not meant to misrepresent Webster's views. Always, after these encounters, Douglas knew how to come back, with a graver tone, to the larger issue, as if they, and not he, were trying to obscure it. A spectator might have fancied that these high-minded men were culprits, and he their inquisitor. Now and then, as when he dealt with the abolitionists, there was no questioning the sincerity of his feeling, and it stirred him to a genuine eloquence. He was not surprised that Boston burned him in effigy. Had not Boston closed her Faneuil Hall upon the aged ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... unsparingly now in these late years brought against him requires or deserves. The very allusion to such an offence as undutiful, unfilial conduct in one whose life is otherwise an example of obedience, respect, and affection towards his father, requires the biographer to take up the province of inquisitor, and ascertain what ground there may be, independently of that inadequate evidence alleged by others, for believing Henry to have once at least, and for a time, forgotten the duties of a son; or what proceedings, not involving his guilt, might have given rise ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... pleasant to 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 ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... tendency to regard a man as unclean or a barbarian, simply because he does not believe or behave as one's own people, is merely a product of isolation and ignorance, and disappears with education and the general opening up of a country. The inquisitor can no longer boast of "strained relations"—strained physically on the rack, owing to differences of religious opinion. The state of things which made it possible for sepoys to revolt because rifle bullets were greased with the fat of a sacred animal, or for ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... Although never formally adopted by any general council, all orthodox Jews embraced it as supplying a want which they felt. And they have adhered to it through long and dreary centuries, despite the rack and fire of the Inquisitor, and the contempt and scorn of a hostile world. The Talmud has been periodically banned, and often publicly burned, from the age of the Emperor Justinian till the time of Pope Clement VIII. In the year 1569 the famous Jewish library in Cremona was plundered, and 12,000 copies ...
— Hebrew Literature

... dean of St Peter's and vice-chancellor of the university. In 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

... "Conception" by Velasquez, in the possession of Mr. Frere, is a departure from the rules laid down by Pacheco in regard to costume; therefore, as I presume, painted before he entered the studio of the artist-inquisitor, whose son-in-law he became before he was three and twenty. Here the Virgin is arrayed in a pale violet robe, with a dark blue mantle. Her hands are joined, and she looks down. The solemnity and depth of expression in the sweet girlish face is very striking; the more so, ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... were trying days for her, and wearing for everybody that took part; but her share was the hardest, for she had no holidays, but must be always on hand and stay the long hours through, whereas this, that, and the other inquisitor could absent himself and rest up from his fatigues when he got worn out. And yet she showed no wear, no weariness, and but seldom let fly her temper. As a rule she put her day through calm, alert, patient, fencing with those ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... defy thee! What! wouldst thou bribe me,—me, a brother of the Sacred Society of the Holy Jesus, Licentiate of Cordova and Inquisitor of Guadalaxara? Thinkest thou to buy me with ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte

... instance, he denounced M. Gustave Chaudey, a writer in the Siecle, in the Pere Duchesne of the 12th of April, and that journalist was arrested in consequence on the following day. The journal became, not only the medium of all kinds of personal abuse and vengeance, but did the duty of inquisitor for the Communal Government, for whom it produced a terrible crop of victims. The Official Journal contained a number of decrees, the drafts of which at first appeared ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... outlaws and scoundrels by claiming that in the pursuit of their professional knowledge they should be free from the restraints of law, of honor, of pity, of remorse, of everything that distinguishes an orderly citizen from a South Sea buccaneer, or a philosopher from an inquisitor. For here we look in vain for either an economic or a sentimental motive. In every generation fools and blackguards have made this claim; and honest and reasonable men, led by the strongest contemporary minds, have repudiated it and exposed its crude rascality. From Shakespear ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... more to severe 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 ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... the highest pitch. She grew paler and paler, staring at the little, thin man with the green eyes, as some wretched Moor, accused of adhering to her own religion, might gaze at the inquisitor who doomed ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... she continued, "when I read about her cruelty to Robert, judging him in that inquisitor's fashion. Poor fellow! I think he died of a ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... stared at nobody—you stared at him, And found, less to your pleasure than surprise, He seemed to know you and expect as much. So, next time that a neighbor's tongue was loosed, It marked the shameful and notorious fact, We had among us, not so much a spy, As a recording chief-inquisitor, The town's true master if the town but knew 40 We merely kept a governor for form, While this man walked about and took account Of all thought, said and acted, then went home, And wrote it fully to our Lord the King Who has an itch to know things, ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... with the eyes of an Inquisitor, and with a mad desire to make her speak, to learn everything from her. How often had I put this question to myself: 'How do the other men behave towards the women who belong to us?' I was fully conscious of the fact that, from the way I saw two men talking to the same woman publicly in a drawing-room, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... that?" I asked, trying to speak calmly, though there was that in my mind which might have blanched the parchment cheek of a grand inquisitor. ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... opinions or his conscience.[2203] If, on voting days, he shares in the sovereignty, he is subject all the rest of the year, even to his private sentiments. Rome, to serve these ends, had two censors. One of the archons of Athens was inquisitor of the faith. Socrates was put to death for not believing in the gods in which the city believed.[2204]—In reality, not only in Greece and in Rome, but in Egypt, in China, in India, in Persia, in Judea, in Mexico, in Peru, during the first stages of civilization,[2205] the principle of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... a special ambassador to oversee it. He was in dread of the Inquisition, which was in vogue at the time, and sent off his printed sheets to England as rapidly as possible. Suddenly one day the order of confiscation came from the Inquisitor-General. Only Coverdale's official position as representing the King saved his own life. As for the printed sheets on which so much depended, they seemed doomed. But in the nick of time a dealer appeared at the printing-house and purchased four great vats full of waste paper ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... by your leave'; his parishioners backing him up; his Bishop in a frightful taking and not the least knowing what to do; the fagots all gathering to make a bonfire of him, and a great black six-foot-two Inquisitor ready to apply the match—and yet—I can't get you to take the smallest interest in it! I assure you, Hugh ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... physical and mental condition. Perceiving myself in the glass, I recoiled as from an image of horror. I saw a man with haunted, hungry eyes gleaming out from under a mass of disordered white hair, his pale, haggard face set and stern as the face of a merciless inquisitor of old Spain, his dark cloak dripping with glittering raindrops, his hands and nails stained as though he had dug them into the black earth, his boots heavy with mire and clay, his whole aspect that of one who had been engaged in some abhorrent deed, too repulsive to be ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... way. Before the gates, the cries of babes new born, Whom fate had from their tender mothers torn, Assault his ears: then those, whom form of laws Condemn'd to die, when traitors judg'd their cause. Nor want they lots, nor judges to review The wrongful sentence, and award a new. 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. The next, in place and punishment, are they Who prodigally throw their souls away; Fools, who, repining at their wretched state, And loathing ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... a 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 ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... 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

... leaving all the disputants holding the same views that they had entertained at the outset. Beza condemned as idolatrous the practice of admitting statues or paintings into Christian churches, and urged their entire removal. The Inquisitor De Mouchy, Fra Giustiniano of Corfu, Maillard, dean of the Sorbonne, and others, attempted to refute his positions in a style of argument which exhibited the extremes of profound learning and silly conceit. Bishop Montluc of Valence,[12] and four doctors of theology—Salignac, Bouteiller, D'Espense, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... 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 ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... if you please, Mr. Vivian," returned the little inquisitor. "And have you got the ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... 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 of the terrible ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... evening was closing in, the venerable Pedro Arbuez d'Espila, sixth prior of the Dominicans of Segovia, and third Grand Inquisitor of Spain, followed by a fra redemptor, and preceded by two familiars of the Holy Office, the latter carrying lanterns, made their way to a subterranean dungeon. The bolt of a massive door creaked, and they entered a mephitic in-pace, where ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... jumped from the tonneau, and in passable Spanish asked our inquisitor which, if any, of our suit-cases he wished to open. At the same instant a propitiatory cigarette ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Goldsmith and Johnson. How finely he describes Pope! His elegance of mind, his figure, his character were not unlike his own. He does not resemble a modern Englishman, but puts one in mind of a Roman Cardinal or Spanish Inquisitor. I never ate or drank with Mr. Northcote; but I have lived on his conversation with undiminished relish ever since I can remember,—and when I leave it, I come out into the street with feelings lighter and more etherial than I have at any other time.—One of his tete-a-tetes would at any time ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... their enmity against me, and he seems, from what took place and from his behavior, to have come as my enemy and as a very vehement one; or else the report is true that he has spent much to obtain this employment. I do not know more about it than what I hear. I never heard of an inquisitor gathering rebels together and accepting them, and others devoid of credit and unworthy of it, as ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... old cities in the East, I sought every opportunity to visit schools, Mahometan, Christian, and Jewish, under the old or under the more modern regime, and at the risk of being set down as a true American inquisitor, I pressed questions in every direction that would be likely to be suggested to a practical teacher, studying the problem we are here trying to solve: "What is the best education for our ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... instigated me to throw over the image, as 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 in my dungeon by the grand inquisitor, the bishop, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... The Inquisitor was right. The case as here resurrected against Joan had already been tried long ago at Poitiers, and decided in her favor. Yes, and by a higher tribunal than this one, for at the head of it was an Archbishop—he of Rheims—Cauchon's own metropolitan. So here, you ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... 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 us some of the work of fiction, reminding ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... well out of range of the Indians' arrows, and I have 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 scamper ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... 1481, two thousand victims were burnt in Andalusia; besides 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 no one could hear ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... extracting Harry's own grinders at that moment, would he have been expected to mind his cards and deal them neatly? When a man is laid on the rack at the Inquisition, is it natural that he should smile and speak politely and coherently to the grave, quiet Inquisitor? Beyond that little question regarding the cards, Harry's Inquisitor did not show the smallest disturbance. Her face indicated neither surprise, nor triumph, nor cruelty. Madame Bernstein did not give one more stab to her niece that night: but she played at cards, and prattled with ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... 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, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... do?" said Lucretia, raising her tall form to its utmost height, and haughtily facing her inquisitor,—"and, if I do, what then? Is he unworthy of me? Converse with him, and you will find that the noble form conceals as high a spirit. He wants but wealth: I can give it to him. If his temper is gentle, I can prompt and guide it to fame and power. He at least has education ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... neighbours the notion of something weird and impish; the physiognomy of madness was mistaken for that of witchcraft, while the poor wretches themselves, conscious of unaccustomed sensations and singular promptings, referred them to the agency of demons. Strangely enough, even an inquisitor—Nider, who died in 1440—gives many instances of persons whose symptoms he himself recognized as those not ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... turn; a second and third turn of the same kind: beyond this, with the rack, women were not to be tortured; with men a fourth turn was employed. These directions were written in a Manual, used by the Grand Inquisitor of Seville as late as A.D. 1820. An analysis is given by Dr. Rule, in his "History of the Inquisition," Appendix to vol. i., pp. 339-359, ed. 1874. Then we hear, elsewhere, of torture by roasting the feet, by pulleys, ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... of 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 Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... series of questions, which he put with a vigor and perseverance that I fear left me without a single fact of my life unrevealed, except those connected with the sacred sentiment that bound me to Anna, and which were far too hallowed to escape me even under the ordeal of a Stunin'tun inquisitor. In short, finding that I was nearly helpless in such hands, I made a merit of necessity, and yielded up my secrets as wood in a vice discharges its moisture. It was scarcely possible that a mind ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... statesman, born at Chiselhurst; was ambassador at Paris, and was there during the St. Bartholomew massacre, and was afterwards appointed one of Queen Elizabeth's Secretaries of State; he was an insidious inquisitor, and had numerous spies in his pay, whom he employed to ferret out evidence to her ruin against Mary, Queen of Scots, and he had the audacity to sit as one of the Commissioners at her ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... of," said Bridlesley; who, like all the other inhabitants of England at the time, answered the interrogatories of these fellows with the deference which is paid in Spain to the questions of an inquisitor. "A stranger—entirely a stranger—never saw him before—a wild young colt, I warrant him; and knows a horse's mouth as ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... summoned before the Inquisition, obeyed the mandate; but he brought with him his bodyguard, and stationed two pieces of artillery outside the building of the tribunal. After this he entered, and, placing his watch on the table, told the Inquisitor that, unless they finished their business with him in an hour, the place would be battered to pieces. In the face of this information the interview terminated ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... that they were all tender and pitiful, and desired to proceed mildly, 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 you admonish me as to my ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... gay disposition, he insinuated himself into the favour of his grace the duke of Wharton, and being, like him, destitute of prudence, he joined with that volatile great man in writing a paper called the Inquisitor, which breathed so much the spirit of Jacobitism, that the publisher thought proper to sacrifice his profit to his safety, and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... I punish whatever is clearly proved, but will not play grand Inquisitor, and hunt out every little peccadillo. With your notions, L'Isle, you would bring the men to confession every morning and make the service worse than purgatory. Must I answer for it if a girl squeaks out, half in jest, and half ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... not as a means but as an end in itself. In civil life the particular kind of 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 ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham

... smooth white walls and ceilings! If there had but been a print—a stain of dirt—a cobweb, to fleck their unbroken ghastliness! They stared at me, like grim, impassive, featureless formless fiends; all the more dreadful for their sleek, hypocritic cleanliness—purity as of a saint-inquisitor watching with spotless conscience the victim on the rack. They choked me—I gasped for breath, stretched out my arms, rolled shrieking on the floor—the narrow chequered glimpse of free blue sky, seen through the window, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... at 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

... country. He hears a wail. It is she herself wandering about the heath. "Seest thou not"—she says—"who leads me?" But he catches her up and bears her home. At this point the story threatened to become too moving; but the hard inquisitor, Del Rio, cuts the thread. "On lifting her veil," says he, "they found only a log of wood covered with the skin of a corpse." The Judge le Loyer, silly though he be, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... inferiority of Cyprian cotton; scarcely any of the crop finds its way to England, but is exported to Marseilles and Trieste. Should Consul Lang's suggestion be carried out, and the duty be taken upon export to relieve the grower from the vexatious delays of the inquisitor or government valuer, there can be no question of immediate improvement. There is no more trouble or expense in producing a first-class cotton than in the commonest variety, when climate and soil are so peculiarly favourable as in Cyprus. If the government continues the system of ad valorem ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... had a fortune left you?" went on her inquisitor, blinking enviously at the nodding plumes which shaded Miss Philura's blue eyes. "Everybody says you have; and that you are going to get married soon. I'm sure you'll tell ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley

... away, as if he would conceal the traitor face whose refined beauty this inquisitor was finding even less than skin deep. "Of course," he said, "I am not as innocent as I was a dozen years ago. But—what you would have, Dr. Annister? A saint? You know you would have to look far to find one among modern young men. I'm no worse than the most ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly

... 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 ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... understand you! You have been doing so well. Why have you suddenly slacked off?" asked her inquisitor, who believed in getting to the bottom of things if ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil

... game had begun prosperously, with Christian as the Witch of Endor, and John as a blend of the Prophet Samuel and the Head Inquisitor of Spain. A smouldering saucer of sulphur, purloined by the witch herself from the kennels medicine-cupboard, gave a stimulating reality to the scene, even though it had driven the fox terriers, who habitually acted as the Witch's cats, to abandon ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... 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 the ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford

... through a category of questions, worse than an "Inkwhich." "Why had I come to Liege?" "How long had I been there?" "Why did I want to go away?" "Where to?" "How?" etc. Finally my inquisitor became suspicious, or feigned it, and said, "But what have I to prove that you are an American?" Then I was furious and I answered, "Monsieur (I suppose he hated the French appellation), since you have the card of the American Consul asserting it, in ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

... 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 protector, for such ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... 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 of ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton

... papers had 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. Johnsons Rambler ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... 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 and avoided ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille

... "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 ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... letters 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, tenor, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... way home picked up a man and a woman of an unknown race. Those slaves however stubbornly refuse to betray the name of their country, and a lively debate ensues between the Grand Inquisitor and the younger more enlightened members of the council, as to the course, which should be adopted with Vasco. At last, owing to {5} the irritation caused by his violent reproaches, fanaticism is victorious, and instead of being furnished ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... over the guilty soul of the principal hero, Dmitry 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 ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... suspecting me to be a secret agent of the Government, they carefully avoided speaking on any subject beyond the state of the weather and the prospects of the harvest, and replied to my questions on other topics as if they had been standing before a Grand Inquisitor. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... seemed to be there, and every one was making patchwork. One boy was dangling his feet over the manger, several were perched on a ladder, and one was sitting cross-legged on a huge pumpkin. Johnny was going around as Grand Inquisitor from one to another. If a seam was puckered, he gave the unlucky seamstress what they called a "hickey,"—a tremendous thump on the head with his thumb and middle finger. If the stitches were big and uneven, he gave ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston

... in the record a new adversary to Jeanne, 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 ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... such a work as the 'Vestiges' would no more stir the ODIUM THEOLOGICUM than Franklin's kite. Sedgwick, however, attacked it with a vehemence and a rancour that would certainly have roasted its author had the professor held the office of Grand Inquisitor. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... this no answer. "Why do you 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 of the Queen of Heaven, and the merits ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... one of his patients. Goaded on by the Archdeacon he would 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 much the same, to ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... Assassins of his Sister, Lorenzo little thought how severely his interest was suffering in another quarter. As was before mentioned, He returned not to Madrid till the evening of that day on which Antonia was buried. Signifying to the Grand Inquisitor the order of the Cardinal-Duke (a ceremony not to be neglected, when a Member of the Church was to be arrested publicly) communicating his design to his Uncle and Don Ramirez, and assembling a ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... what the other lacks to make an interesting narrative having for background the introduction of the Inquisition to Castile. The denouement I supply is entirely fictitious, and the introduction of Torquemada is quite arbitrary. Ojeda was the inquisitor who dealt with both cases. But if there I stray into fiction, at least I claim to have sketched a faithful portrait of the Grand Inquisitor as I know him from fairly exhaustive researches into his life ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... 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 tear— That ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert

... double intrigue of love and politics becomes toward the end very confusing. The confusion is increased by the unexpected turn given to the character of Posa, and reaches a climax when we learn from the Grand Inquisitor that he has been pulling all the strings from first to last, and that the entire tragedy was foreordained in the secret archives of the Holy Office. The unity of interest is marred by the fact that in the last two acts the real hero, Don Carlos, drops into ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... 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

... a great deal to say. How do you like his new house? has he no gout? Are your cousins Cortez and Pizarro heartily mortified that they are not to roast and plunder the Americans? Is Goody Carlisle Disappointed at not being appointed grand inquisitor? Adieu! I will not seal this till I have seen or missed ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... the 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

... a crazy old frame-house, over a saloon. Her kitchen is approached by a sort of hen-ladder, a foot wide, which terminates in a balcony, the whole of which was occupied by a big gray goat. There was not room for the police inquisitor and the goat too, and the former had to wait till the animal had come off his perch. Mrs. Shallock is a widow. A load of anxiety and concern overspread her motherly countenance when she heard ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... 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 Pole, or the meaning of ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... 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 hoodwinked by the priest, too ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... her face. Yes, they had hung her with chains and tied her to the stake. "If she is to pour here, after all," Eudoxia had said grimly, "let her pay for the privilege." And close to the girl's elbow sat the chief inquisitor, Robin Morrell, big, bold, unabashed, persevering, bringing all possible pressure to force her to recant. People about them—his unconscious familiars—sipped and chattered, and fluttered up and away, but he remained fixed throughout. He must have her, he was determined to ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... The little inquisitor looked furious, and glanced towards the chief for protection; but his intrusion had provoked wrath in that quarter, and his glance was returned with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... general 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 he lived in continual fear of poison. The Dominican monastery at Seville soon became ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... 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 ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... and kicking his feet to and fro on the raised dais, while behind his chair, impassive as the Grand Inquisitor himself, Pierre de l'Hopital, President of Brittany, lifted a hand to an unseen servitor; and in a few moments the three Scots were ushered into ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... 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 was his in its whole ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... 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

... rather than at the point fixed by the honourable Member for Oldham (Mr Cobbett.), who would make the Jews incapable of holding land? And why stop at the point fixed by the honourable Member for Oldham rather than at the point which would have been fixed by a Spanish Inquisitor of the sixteenth century? When once you enter on a course of persecution, I defy you to find any reason for making a halt till you have reached the extreme point. When my honourable friend tells us that he will allow the Jews to possess property to any amount, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... 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 of Burgundy, he ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... wealth of their monasteries. He was able to render his master and the kingdom a great service, from the powers lavished upon him. He presided at convocations as the King's vicegerent; controlled the House of Commons, and was inquisitor-general of the monasteries; he was foreign and home secretary, vicar-general, and president of the star-chamber or privy-council. The proud Nevilles, the powerful Percies, and the noble Courtenays all bowed before this plebeian son of a mechanic, who had ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... 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 ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... you should act so like a grand inquisitor, Kitty. You really make me feel quite nervous," said Minnie, who put her little rosy-tipped fingers to one of her eyes, and attempted a sob, which turned ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... 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

... the more civilised Europeans. In Spain they found upon the throne deceit and hypocrisy wearing the mask of religion. They saw, at an auto-da-fe, men and women immolated in the flames to the mild Deity of the Christians; and they heard the grand inquisitor, Torquemada, boast to Ferdinand and Isabella that, since the establishment of the holy tribunal, it had tried eighty thousand suspected persons, and had burnt six thousand convicted heretics. When Faustus first saw the ladies and cavaliers assembled in the grand square, dressed in their ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... contempt by the community and even by the administrators of the laws. It is realized that such minute inquisition into the citizen's private life can only be effectively carried out where the citizen himself recognizes the divine right of the inquisitor. But the theocratic conception of life no longer corresponds to American ideas or American customs; this minute moral legislation rests on a basis which in the course of centuries has become rotten. Thus it has come about that nowhere ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... later writers, that remained to 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 simple souls they ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... could act the double part as skilfully as ambidextrous Churchill. He whose talk was always of liberty, no more shrunk from using persecution and the pillory against his opponents than if he had been at Lisbon and Grand Inquisitor. This lofty patriot was on his knees at Hanover and St. Germains too; notoriously of no religion, he toasted Church and Queen as boldly as the stupid Sacheverel, whom he used and laughed at; and to serve his turn, and to overthrow his enemy, he could ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... officers could observe his expression. Then Flint began to write on a sheet of paper, and passed his first question to the man. It was: "Don't you remember me?" Mulgrum wrote that he did not. Then the inquisitor asked when he had left Cherryfield to attend the school at Hartford; and the date he gave placed him there at the very time when Flint had been the master of the school for four months. On the question of locality, he could place the church, the ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic

... 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 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 an application, till some singularity in his manner brought it back to ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... a heavy burden laid on her by God, a constant fear of delusion, she had recourse about the same time to the Inquisitor Soto, who advised her to write a history of her life, send it to Juan of Avila, the "Apostle of Andalucia," and abide by his counsel. As the direction of Fra Garcia of Toledo and the advice of the Inquisitor must have been given, according ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... the innocent and harmless. They had the most unlimited authority granted them, and the whole thunders of the Vatican were directed to the destruction of witches and wizards. The bloody scenes which followed, exceed description. In 1435, Cumanus (an inquisitor) burnt forty-one poor women for witches, in the country of Burlia, in one year. One inquisitor in Piedmont burnt a hundred in a very short time; and in 1524, a thousand were burnt in one year in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various

... 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 admonitory ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... had gone downstairs. Someone had been here while we were at supper, and had examined elaborately everything I possessed. Happily I had little luggage, and no papers save the new books and a bill or two in the name of Cornelius Brand. The inquisitor, whoever he was, had found nothing ... The incident gave me a good deal of comfort. It had been hard to believe that any mystery could exist in this public place, where people lived brazenly in the open, and wore their hearts on their sleeves and proclaimed their ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... glasses?" urged his relentless inquisitor. "One at your plate, one at Carmel's, and one at the head of the board where sat your ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... sinuses. What was the use of losing his temper and throwing away his place, and so, among the consequences which would necessarily follow, leaving the poor lady-teacher without a friend to stand by her ready to lay his hand on the grand-inquisitor before the windlass of his rack had ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... to travel back through three centuries of time. Spain and the Renaissance surround us, and we look instinctively towards the Pavilion for the soldiers of Philip, or glance with apprehension at the door of the Palais de Justice for the sinister form of Peter Titelmann the Inquisitor. Around this very square marched the procession of the Holy Office, in all the insolent blasphemy of its power, and on these very stones were kindled the flames that were to destroy its victims. But all these have gone; the priest ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar

... altered; she regarded her inquisitor more intently. "You know I'm not," said she. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... the prisoners were taken one by one before police officials to be examined. Here is the narrative of one of the schoolgirls. This girl was dazed and almost unconscious from ill-treatment and the poisoned air, when she was dragged before her inquisitor. ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... heads of the church, the judges, or me, as you treat those unhappy ones [accused of witchcraft], subject any of us to the same tortures, and you will discover that we are all sorcerers."[550] He quoted an inquisitor who boasted that if he could get the pope on the rack he would prove him a sorcerer.[551] In the thirteenth century "judges were well convinced of the failure of the procedure with its secret and subjective elements, but they could not in any other ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... that 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 would have trusted. ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac



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



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