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Inquisitorial   Listen
adjective
Inquisitorial  adj.  
1.
Pertaining to inquisition; making rigorous and unfriendly inquiry; searching; as, inquisitorial power. "Illiberal and inquisitorial abuse." "He conferred on it a kind of inquisitorial and censorious power even over the laity, and directed it to inquire into all matters of conscience."
2.
Pertaining to the Court of Inquisition or resembling its practices. "Inquisitorial robes."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Inquisitorial" Quotes from Famous Books



... pocket the revolver which he had found on the floor, near the dead man's body. The supreme test was about to be made. The wily police captain would now play his trump card. It was not without reason that his enemies charged him with employing unlawful methods in conducting his inquisitorial examinations. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... noiselessly, in the gloom of the guard-houses, barracks, and military hospitals. They strewed with their tiny bodies the roads that led into the outlying regions of the Empire, and those that managed to get there were fading away slowly in the barracks which had been turned into inquisitorial dungeons. This martyrdom of children, set in a military environment, represents a singular phenomenon even in the ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... she was born at sea (Where I am now) my "knowledge and belief" Are not worth much to the official chief, BRIDGES P. HENNIKER, if he only knew it. A True Return? Well, if it is not true, it Is not my fault. Inquisitorial band, I've done my level best—Witness my Hand! The bothering business makes me feel quite bilious, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various

... But it cannot be. The tradesmen and the professional men whom I represent say to me, "Why are we to be loaded, certainly for some years, probably for ever, with a tax, admitted by those who impose it to be grievous, unequal, inquisitorial? Why are we to be loaded in time of peace with burdens heretofore reserved for the exigencies of war?" The paper manufacturer, the soap manufacturer, say, "Why, if the Income Tax is to be continued, are ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... an exclusive trial; and the mournfulest set of pleadings, out of which nothing but a misjudgment can be formed, prevail there ever since. The noble Sterling, a radiant child of the empyrean, clad in bright auroral hues in the memory of all that knew him,—what is he doing here in inquisitorial sanbenito, with nothing but ghastly spectralities prowling round him, and inarticulately screeching and gibbering what they call ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... an interest in, stare, gape; prick up the ears, see sights, lionize; pry; nose; rubberneck*[U . S.]. Adj. curious, inquisitive, burning with curiosity, overcurious; inquiring &c. 461; prying, snoopy, nosy, peering; prurient; inquisitorial, inquisitory[obs3]; curious as a cat; agape &c. (expectant) 507. Phr. what's the matter? what next? consumed with curiosity; curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back. "curiouser and ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... the pope's commission and the king's favor, invested with all power, both ecclesiastical and civil, no man knew what bounds were to be set to the authority of his new tribunal. He conferred on it a kind of inquisitorial and censorial powers even over the laity, and directed it to inquire into all matters of conscience; into all conduct which had given scandal; into all actions which, though they escaped the law, might appear contrary to good morals. Offence was taken at this commission, which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... is expected at Mrs. Wharton's every hour. I fear that her inquisitorial eye will soon detect our intrigue and obstruct its continuation. Now, there's a girl, Charles, I should never attempt to seduce; yet she is a most alluring object, I assure you. But the dignity of her manners forbids all assaults upon her virtue. Why, the very expression ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... eaten sparingly, while she alternately listened to the details of the girl's farm life, the manner of the gold camp, the history of her arrival there and the many vicissitudes which had followed, and voiced the questions of her inquisitorial mind. Now she leant back in her chair and slowly sipped a cup of strong, milkless tea, while her eyes ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... her hand, barely touched the fingers of the stranger, and her keen, probing, inquisitorial eyes of palest grey wandered searchingly over the face and figure; while her haughty tone was chill—as the damp ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... Galileo so angered the pope that he called together an inquisitorial board and had Galileo tried by this Romish tribunal, and Galileo was sentenced to imprisonment for what ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... persecution which disfigured the "spacious days of great Elizabeth," not to mention the long and shameful history of the Penal Laws, he fixed his mind upon lurid legends of the reign of unhappy Mary Tudor, illustrated by prints in Fox's Book of Martyrs; upon inquisitorial tortures, the very thought of which—even out of doors in the pleasant spring sunshine—made him break into a heavy sweat, and which, by some grotesque perversion of ideas, he believed to be not only the necessary ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... provincial habits; much to the circumstance of the disproportion between surface and population, which, by scattering the well-bred and intelligent, a class at all times relatively small, serves greatly to lessen their influence in imparting tone to society; something to the inquisitorial habits of our pious forefathers, who appear to have thought that the charities were nought, and, in the very teeth of revelation, that Heaven was to be stormed by impertinences; while a good deal is to be conceded to the nature of a popular government whose ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... principle of Walpole's finance was undoubtedly good. The question, however, was not argued out by Pulteney or any other speaker on his side upon such a ground as the hardship to the poor man. The tyranny of an excise system, of any excise system, its unconstitutional, despotic, and inquisitorial nature—this was the chief ground of attack. Sir {314} William Wyndham sounded the alarm which was soon to be followed by a tremendous echo. He declared the proposed tax "not only destructive to the trade, but inconsistent with the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... these last moments of his gave him inquisitorial power, and the too cold wife could not conceal from him the flight which had taken place ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... The word Wehme, pronounced Vehme, is of uncertain derivation, but was always used to intimate this inquisitorial and secret Court. The members were termed Wissenden, or Initiated, answering to the modern ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various

... in this detective work, being ashamed of his own suspicions. But as he drank, as he associated again with the same sort of people who had wasted his time in Cincinnati, he rapidly became franker and more inquisitorial. And she dreaded to see the look she knew would come into his eyes, the cruel tightening of his mouth, if in her confusion and eagerness she should happen not instantly to satisfy the doubt behind each question. He tormented her; he ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... unreasonably numerous, nor were they inquisitorial; nevertheless, it proved that not one-half of those who were addressed cared to answer them. It was, of course, desirable to know a great deal more than could have been asked for or published with propriety, such as the proneness ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster

... attic a child of seven years was sitting up in a cot placed by the side of his dear Aunt Annie's bed. He had an extremely intelligent, inquisitorial, and agnostical face, and a fair, curled head of hair, which he scratched with one hand as Aunt Annie entered the room and held the candle on high in ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... the news, it is repeated again and again on the Disc, till she, by rapidly turning it with a peculiar movement of her own, causes a small bell to ring in the Temple, which signifies to her informers that she has understood all their communications, and knows everything. Her inquisitorial system is searching and elaborate, . . there is no secret so carefully guarded that the Black Disc ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... she always was. Her own claim and motto is: Semper idem (Always the same). But for this age of enlightenment her inquisitorial fires would still burn. "Rome's contention is, not that she does not persecute, but only that she does not persecute saints. She punishes heretics—a very different thing. In the Rhemish New Testament there is a note on the ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... relations with the family render searching inquiry difficult and often undesirable. But the mercifulness of a thorough investigation is that, once well done, it need not be repeated, and by saving endless blundering it also saves a family from much charitable meddling. Its seemingly inquisitorial features are justified by the fact that it is not made with any purpose of finding people out, but with the sole purpose of finding out how ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond

... in the State can be coordinate and independent of each other if the one claims and exercises the power to reprove and to censure all the official acts and all the private conversations of the other, and this upon ex parte testimony before a secret inquisitorial committee in short, to assume a general censorship over the other? The idea is as absurd in public as it would be in private life. Should the President attempt to assert and maintain his own independence, future Covode committees ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... not more acceptable than the inquisitorial curiosity. I was silent. He came into the room, sat down on the bench about two yards from me, and persevered long, and, for him, patiently, in attempts to draw me into conversation—attempts necessarily unavailing, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... other secrets of the Esoteric philosophy, the knowledge of it was lost during the Middle Ages; and when rediscovered, the hierarchy of the Church of Rome, upon the plea that it was contrary to the teachings of Scripture, resorted to inquisitorial tortures to suppress its promulgation; but, in spite of all their efforts, it has been universally accepted; and, in this otherwise enlightened age, we have presented to us the anomaly of a religion based ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... precincts of the Halidome. A heart, naturally kind and noble, was, in this instance, as it has been in many more, deceived by its own generosity. Father Eustace would have been a bad administrator of the inquisitorial power of Spain, where that power was omnipotent, and where judgment was exercised without danger to those who inflicted it. In such a situation his rigour might have relented in favour of the criminal, whom it was at his pleasure to crush or ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... apparatus for destroying the noxious creatures when unearthed. The heretics of the provinces assembled at each other's houses to practise those rites described in such simple language by Baldwin Ogier, and denounced under such horrible penalties by the edicts. The inquisitorial system of Spain was hardly necessary for men who had but little prudence in concealing, and no inclination to disavow their creed. "It is quite a laughable matter," wrote Granvelle, who occasionally took a comic view of the inquisition, "that the King should send us depositions ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... to orthodoxy, in the strife with Arianism, the supremacy in the East; and, under his auspices, the General Council of Constantinople re-affirmed the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity (381). In the ancient church he had a glory second only to that of Constantine. With the exception of his harsh and inquisitorial laws for the forcible suppression of Arianism and paganism, his legislation ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... (and I believe in all the slave States,) every coloured person's complexion is prima facie evidence of his being a slave; and the lowest villain in the country, should he be a white man, has the legal power to arrest, and question, in the most inquisitorial and insulting manner, any coloured person, male or female, that he may find at large, particularly at night and on Sundays, without a written pass, signed by the master or some one in authority; or stamped free papers, certifying that the ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft

... before the inquisitorial committees in the United States Senate, and had not been oppressed by the ponderous gravity of the investigation. He had faced the Senators without a tremor of awe. He had even regarded them with a confidence, equal if not superior to their own. But now he faced a calm, impassive group of men ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord, frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend the liberty, and establish the religion of Britain against the tyranny of Rome, if these worse than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are endured among us. To send forth the merciless cannibal thirsting for blood!—against whom?—Your protestant brethren—to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, by the aid and instrumentality of these horrible ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... Ferguson's eyes glowed; the case already whetted his remarkably keen inquisitorial instinct which had gained him place and certain fame in the Washington police force. "Are the Misses ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... opposed to the principle visible in it. That deep-seated and uncorrupted Puritanism, that conviction of the pervasiveness of sin, of the supreme importance of moral correctness, of the need of savage and inquisitorial laws, has been a dominating force in American life since the very beginning. There has never been any question before the nation, whether political or economic, religious or military, diplomatic or sociological, which did ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... counts on that of Mademoiselle Hortense Hulot?" said the Baron ironically, with an inquisitorial ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... future nests. If the second whorl is opaque, the spiral contains something. What does it contain? Earth washed in by the rain? Remnants of the putrefied Snail? That remains to be seen. With a little pocket-trowel, the inquisitorial implement which always accompanies me, I make a wide window in the middle of the final whorl. If I see a gleaming resin floor, with incrustations of gravel, the thing is settled: I possess an Anthidium's nest. But, oh the number of failures that go to one success! The number of windows ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... Fisherman. And this is true even of the most disastrous distortions or degradations of that creed; and true among others of the Spanish Inquisition. It may have been narrow touching theology, it could not confess to being narrow about nationality or ethnology. The Spanish Inquisition might be admittedly Inquisitorial; but the Spanish Inquisition could not be merely Spanish. Such a Spaniard, even when he was narrower than his own creed, had to be broader than his own empire. He might burn a philosopher because he was heterodox; but he ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... swart, beardless face, with its brilliant inquisitorial dark blue eyes, handsome secretive mouth veiled by no mustache—and boldly assertive chin deeply cleft in the centre—affected Beryl very unpleasantly, as a perplexing disagreeable memory; an uncanny resemblance hovering just beyond the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... cannot depend on Spain to obtain the welfare we all desire. A country like Spain, where social evolution is at the mercy of monks and tyrants, can only communicate to us its own instincts of calumny, infamy, inquisitorial proceedings, avarice, secret police, false pretences, humiliation, deprivation of liberties, slavery, and moral and material decay which characterize its history. Spain will need much time to shake off the parasites which ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... hand laid upon his shoulder. He started upright in bed, and gazed around him with astonishment. His chamber was filled by half a dozen sinister-looking men, robed entirely in black, in whom he recognized, not without a shudder, the dreaded familiars of the Holy Office, the officials of the Inquisitorial Tribune. His first impulse was to grope for his arms; but his sword and pistols had been removed. A rough voice bade him arise and follow, and he had no choice but to obey the mandate. Preceded and followed by the familiars, who were all armed, as he judged ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... upon the creature's side the desired cut; when a sufficient portion had been thus secured, the sentence of death was issued. Fancy the chalk a live coal, or the beast endowed with human consciousness, and no Indian, or Inquisitorial tortures ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... sell their slaves." Severus ordained that the city prefect should prevent slaves from being prostituted[209]. Aurelian gave his slaves who had transgressed to be heard according to the laws by public judges[210]. Tacitus procured a decree that slaves were not to be put to inquisitorial torture in a case affecting a master's life, not even if the charge was high treason[211]. So much for the laws that mitigated slavery under the Empire. They were not ideal; but they would in more respects ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... the wish you one day so piously expressed to me that your father could look down from heaven and see the purity and zeal of your intentions in writing his Memoirs; I am sure your HEAVENLY FATHER does see them. And I feel that this unjust, unchristian, inquisitorial attack will not only develop fresh sentiments of the tenderest nature in your friends, but also rally every human being of sound sense ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... a God, at present before us, is that of Comte. This in all its parts—its high priesthood, its hierarchy, its sacraments, its calendar, its hagiology, its literary canon, its ritualism, and we may add, in its fundamentally intolerant and inquisitorial character—is an obvious reproduction of the Church of Rome, with humanity in place of God, great men in place of the saints, the Founder of Comtism in place of the Founder of Christianity, and even a sort of substitute for the ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... the Romans into the domestic conduct of each private citizen. No rank escaped this jealous vigilance; and private liberty, even in the most indifferent circumstances of taste or expense, was sacrificed to this inquisitorial rigor of surveillance exercised on behalf of the State, sometimes by erroneous patriotism, too often by malice in disguise. To this spirit the highest public officers were obliged to bow; the consuls, not less than others. And even the occasional dictator, if by law irresponsible, acted nevertheless ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... Russia the opera and the theater. She was as intolerent to the Jews as her father had been, banishing them all from the country. She lived in constant fear of conspiracies and revolutions, and, as a desperate safeguard, established a secret inquisitorial court to punish all who should express any displeasure with the measures of government. Spies and informers of the most worthless character filled the land, and multitudes of the most virtuous inhabitants ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... rich men are ipso facto scoundrels and ferae naturae, with no rights that any slanderer is bound to respect. Here alone, the possession of a fortune puts a man automatically upon the defensive, and exposes him to special legislation of a rough and inquisitorial character and to the special animosity of judges, district attorneys and juries. It would be a literal impossibility for an Englishman worth $100,000,000 to avoid public office and public honour; it would be equally impossible for an American worth ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan

... was what I pretended to be, a stranger, and also with a feeling that I was safer at a distance if the challenge were followed by a bullet. Under the lamp I stopped for the officer to come up. I was not really frightened, but I cannot deny that I felt very nervous, as he came up, and, in an inquisitorial tone, asked, "What are you doing here?" I replied in German which was certainly comical and not a little shaky, for it was a fragmentary remembrance of the German read in my early college course, and never since revived, that "I was doing nothing—that ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... demands made upon them (though they have no option whatever in granting or withholding supplies) gives to the parish a vigorous entity and a certain autonomous life of its own, which otherwise it never could have possessed over against the all-regulating and inquisitorial Tudor machinery of ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware

... and have now our little concealments of affairs that would interest nobody but ourselves. Do you hear what I am saying, Herbert! Leave off your high tragedy airs and attend to reason, as expressed in your sister's advice. While your wife is my invalid guest, I will not have her subjected to any inquisitorial process. There is a time for everything under the sun, saith the preacher. This is the season for tender forbearance, and ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... and John entered with a grand inquisitorial air. He recoiled when he saw the monster so comfortable and, for the first time in his service, permitted himself a gentle shake ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... the execution of the law less expensive and more certain, remove obstructions to industry, lessen the temptations to evade the law, diminish the violations and frauds perpetrated upon its provisions, make its operations less inquisitorial, and greatly reduce in numbers the army of taxgatherers created by the system, who "take from the mouth of honest labor the bread it has earned." Retrenchment, reform, and economy should be carried into every branch of the public service, that the expenditures of the Government ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... a noteworthy fact, however, that in the fragmentary documents of inquisitorial proceedings which have reached us, the references to torture are singularly few.... In the six hundred and thirty-six sentences borne upon the register of Toulouse from 1309 to 1323, the only allusion ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... in what lonely room does he sit making up his accounts? but, not wishing to seem inquisitorial, I ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... coming, if it is not already here, when the public will cry out against the nervous fear and sleepless nights with which their children approach the semi-annual torture of our inquisitorial examinations. That reasonable examinations are essential and beneficial is hardly open to question. That a student should be expected correctly to answer a fair percentage of reasonable questions on work which has been properly taught is not a cause of complaint from anyone. But that ...
— The Teaching of History • Ernest C. Hartwell

... to shake him off, however. He would take no offence; I was cold to positive rudeness, I snubbed him unmercifully; I did not answer his remarks or his questions, which were incessant and shamelessly inquisitorial. Nothing disconcerted him. I had all but shut the door of my compartment in his face, but it suddenly occurred to me that he was capable of wandering on, and when he found the ladies inflicting ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... commissioner, sent from Teheran to examine into the proceedings of the mission, made an inquisitorial visit, and went all through the building, peeping into the chambers, and making himself and suite every where at home. Coming into the recitation room, where most of the girls were engaged in study, he selected, a large, robust pupil, ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... jealousy he had entertained of the minister tended to disappear under the fire of these inquisitorial interviews, and Ringfield might always be credited with having fine command over ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... "right to search," every American vessel which had taken in a cargo in a British, or any other port, was liable to be searched, from the truck to the keelson, by any British cruiser when met with on the high seas. And this inquisitorial process was submitted to as a matter of course, though not without murmurs loud and deep, from those who were immediately exposed to the inconveniences attending this arbitrary ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... said the worthy priest, "that you were not handed over to the inquisitorial brothers, for they would have burned you before you were allowed to import the odour of all the fields of Spanish onions and garlic into the Eternal City. It is a sign of the bad times that are approaching when errant cobblers are allowed to vitiate the ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... were too much for Lara to pass by Such questions, so repeated fierce and high;[jw] With look collected, but with accent cold, More mildly firm than petulantly bold, 430 He turned, and met the inquisitorial tone— "My name is Lara—when thine own is known, Doubt not my fitting answer to requite The unlooked for courtesy of such a knight. 'Tis Lara!—further wouldst thou mark or ask? I shun no question, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... been cross-examined. For, to my wonderment, WITHERINGTON, Q.C., commenced with displaying a respectful and sympathetic interest in my career, &c., which rendered me completely at my ease, and though on occasions he did suddenly manifest inquisitorial severity, I soon discovered that his anger was mere wind from a tea-pot, and that he was in secret highly gratified by the nature of my replies. And for the most part he had the great condescension to treat me with a kind ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... in whose conduct so many prying eyes were seeking for sources of accusation to gratify herself even by the overthrow of an absurdity, when that overthrow might incur the stigma of innovation. The Court of Versailles was jealous of its Spanish inquisitorial etiquette. It had been strictly wedded to its pageantries since the time of the great Anne of Austria. The sagacious and prudent provisions of this illustrious contriver were deemed the ne plus ultra of royal female policy. A cargo of whalebone ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... ignorance of practical farming; nothing enrages him like the presumption of a gentleman farmer like myself: secondly, that you ask his opinion on the publication of Agricultural Statistics, just modestly intimating that you, as at present advised, think that inquisitorial researches into a man's business involve principles opposed to the British Constitution. And on all that he may say as to the shortcomings of landlords in general, and of your father in particular, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... entering, could not help a slight tremor; which was increased as the Catalan Lieutenant bent upon him an inquisitorial look of his grey eyes, that glanced keenly under eyebrows long and grizzled ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... of time the blight of Spain was destined to descend on Italy, paralyzing the fair movements of her manifold existence to a rigid uniformity, shrouding the light and color of her art and letters in the blackness of inquisitorial gloom. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... barbarity of admitting an action for restitution of conjugal rights was impossible, divorce was a private transaction to which the wife was as fully entitled as the husband, and it required no inquisitorial intervention of magistrate or court; Augustus ordained, indeed, that a public declaration was necessary, but the divorce itself was a private legal act of the two persons concerned.[316] It is interesting ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... feeding in the same warm room. No doubt a boa-constrictor could not live comfortably if his soft, muscular sides got fifty pokes a day from as many sticks or parasols. Edward Cross, mild, gentle, gentlemanly, Prince of show-keepers, used to be very indignant at the inquisitorial desire possessed, especially by some of the fairer sex, to try the relative hardness and softness of serpents and monkeys, and other mammals and creatures. This story of the mandrill may excuse this pendant of ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... than they had yet received. By it, Christ established a close relation with them, and implied to them that He was willing to answer their cry. One can fancy how the poor blind faces would light up with a flush of eager expectation, and how swift would be the answer. The question is not cold or inquisitorial. It is more than half a promise, and a powerful aid to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend the liberty, and establish the religion of Britain, against the tyranny of Rome, if these worse than popish cruelties, and inquisitorial practices, are endured among us. To send forth the merciless cannibal, thirsting for blood!—against whom?—your Protestant brethren! to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, by the aid ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... most difficult for her to answer; the incitement being the pleasure of watching, from an artistic point of view, the beauty of Bluebell's ever-ready blushes while essaying to parry her tormentor's inquisitorial efforts. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... which had now become the reigning principle of English policy, was to be maintained on other ground, and with other weapons than those with which an inquisitorial high-commission, or a fierce system of penal enactments, had armed the hands of religious intolerance, political jealousy, or private animosity; and all the more generous and adventurous spirits prepared with alacrity to draw the sword in the noble cause of Belgian ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... Scrooby, nor any other place, was secure from the inquisitorial interference of the high church functionaries. The spy and the informer were abroad. No place of meeting could long remain a secret—whether manorial halls, shopkeepers' storerooms, barns, hay-lofts, or the broad shadows ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... perhaps, better judge of the inquisitorial nature of one of these surveys, or pymashees, as they are termed in Malabar, by knowing that upward of seventy different kinds of buildings—the houses, shops, or warehouses of different castes and professions—were ordered to be entered in the survey accounts; besides the following 'implements ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... that compelled the attention of those who were most zealous to combat its evidences, Bruno, casting off the shackles of the cloister, that 'prigione angusta e nera,' boldly advanced a system of Philosophy, startling, in those Inquisitorial times, from its independence, and horrible from its antagonism to Aristotle, the Atlas of the church. This was no less than pure Pantheism,—God in and through all, the infinite Intelligence. Deus ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... incapacity, has not overwhelmed you with invalids and old people without number. Or have we yet to learn of some provisions made to defend you from such guests? And how, without exercising a painfully inquisitorial control, can you prevent the lazy from enjoying the careless leisure which the right of maintenance guarantees to real invalids? I can perfectly well understand that your intelligent Freelanders, with their multitudinous wants, will not be content with forty per ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... whip in other devotions than those to which he professed exclusive addiction. When I saw the rage of all parties, I thought of the roasted Indians of the Brazils, and shuddered for the poor lad. After a short, but inquisitorial examination, in which he in vain endeavoured to throw the blame on me, he was stripped of his gaudy dress, and in spite of his well-founded protestations of innocence, turned almost naked from the house. When peace was restored, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various

... letters across the gate-posts. The original name of the place had been Ford House, but the old had had to give place to the new in those days as in these, and Ford House had been rechristened Andalusia Cottage as a testimony and an homage. Mrs. Corfield questioned the man in her keen inquisitorial way as to what he was about; and when he told her that the posts were to show "Virginia" now instead of "Andalusia," her great disgust, to judge by the sharp things which she said to him, seemed as if it took in the innocent hand as well as the peccant head. "I do think Sebastian Dundas is bewitched," ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... stadholder, Nieuwenaar, and caused one of his confidants, a Brabanter, Gerard Prounick, surnamed Deventer, to be elected burgomaster of Utrecht, although as a foreigner he was disqualified from holding that office. An even more arbitrary act was his creation of a Chamber of Finance armed with inquisitorial powers, thus invading the rights of the Provincial Estates and depriving the Council of State of one of its most important functions. To make matters worse, he appointed Nieuwenaar to preside over the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... knocking at the door. The beggar frowned, but Cumner's Son turned eagerly. He had only been in this room ten hours, but it seemed like years in which he had lived alone-alone. But he met firmly the passive, inquisitorial eyes of the healer of the plague, and he turned, dropped another bar across the door, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... formalities at outworks, moat, drawbridge, and gates, and the customary inquisitorial search of the luggage, the travellers were allowed to repair to a lofty inn, with the Lion of Flanders for its sign, and a wide courtyard, the successive outside galleries covered with luxuriant vines. Here, as usual, though the party of females obtained ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... orders to Margaret of Parma, Regent of the Netherlands, to proceed against heretics. So Philip's duplicity was revealed and the die cast. One thing was fortunate: the worst was known. Protests poured in, a veritable flood—protests against all Inquisitorial methods in a land accustomed to liberty—the prince, meantime, remaining moderate, to the exasperation of the Protestants, whose blood boiled at the prospect of an Inquisition in their midst and for their extermination. From Breda, William ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... Harvard for his information and perusal. He showed from the writings of John Wesley, Richard Watson, and others, and from examples which he cited (John Nelson, "the apostolic fellow-labourer of John Wesley," etc.) that such a doctrine savoured of despotism, and was harsh and inquisitorial in its effects. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... ever-increasing wealth; and now, since he had ceased to desire these, the question was—what for? But the genius of that Maryan with his questions! He had gone down so deeply into his father's being that those questions remained there and continued their inquisitorial labor. A beautiful and genial fellow! A young prince; almost a sage. But what does that signify if—he lacks something? What is it that he lacks, and so lacks that he is as if he had nothing? What is it ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... to agreement, notwithstanding the inquisitorial surveillance which Don Manuel de Vacaro exercised over the commander of ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... inquisitorial and peremptory. And as his temperament was choleric there were fellows who were actually afraid of him. He was redoubtable, not in virtue of his office, but because of his unwarrantable assumptions. I had never had anything ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... goes on to describe in detail how, governed and possessed by one idea, and by a theory, to oppose which was "moral depravity," he proceeded to establish his intolerable system of discipline, based on dogmatic grounds—meddlesome, inquisitorial, petty, cruel—over the interior of every household in Geneva. What is there fascinating, or even imposing, in such a character? It is the common case of political and religious bigots, whether Jacobin, or Puritan, or Jesuit, poor in thought ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... will frequently ask you if you want a certain article, simply for the purpose of telling you they haven't got it. Whether this queer inconsistency comes of simon-pure inquisitiveness, to hear what one will say in reply, or whether they derive a certain amount of inquisitorial pleasure from raising a person's expectations one moment so as to witness his disappointment the next, is a question I prefer to leave to others, but more than once am I brought into contact with this peculiarity during the few brief hours I stay at Aivan-i-Kaif. It ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... fundamental ground of complaint, there were derivative grievances. Under the influence of the clergy justice was administered in somewhat inquisitorial fashion, there was an uncertainty as to just what the law was, a strong disposition to confuse questions of law with questions of ethics, and great laxity in the admission and estimation of evidence. As early as 1639 people had begun to complain that too much power was ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... enquiries." But our "Mathematick" is one which Newton would have to go to school to learn; our "Staticks, Mechanicks, Magneticks, Chymicks, and Natural Experiments" constitute a mass of physical and chemical knowledge, a glimpse at which would compensate Galileo for the doings of a score of inquisitorial cardinals; our "Physick" and "Anatomy" have embraced such infinite varieties of being, have laid open such new worlds in time and space, have grappled, not unsuccessfully, with such complex problems, ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... pose as the conciliator of contending factions. The Jacobins were content when they saw the regicide Cambaceres become Second Consul; and friends of constitutional monarchy remembered that the Third Consul, Lebrun, had leanings towards the Feuillants of 1791. Fouche at the inquisitorial Ministry of Police, and Merlin, Berlier, Real, and Boulay de la Meurthe in the Council of State seemed a barrier to all monarchical schemes; and the Jacobins therefore remained quiet, even while Catholic worship was again publicly celebrated, while Vendean rebels were pardoned, and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... The priest's inquisitorial instincts suffered but little from the want of classical apparatus of the Inquisition At no time of the world's history have men been at a loss how to inflict mental and bodily anguish upon their fellow-creatures. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... the accused is usually put through some sort of an inquisitorial process by the captain at the station-house. If he is not very successful at getting anything out of the prisoner the latter is turned over to the sergeant and a couple of officers who can use methods of a more urgent character. If the prisoner is arrested by headquarters detectives, various ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... Opposition was jubilantly furious. Sheridan, who returned to the fray, declared that though the poor escaped these taxes they would starve; for the wealth which employed them would be dried up. Hobhouse dubbed the Finance Bill inquisitorial, degrading, and fatal to the virtues of truthfulness and charity. Squires bemoaned the loss of horses and carriages and the hard lot of their footmen. Arthur Young warned Pitt that if the taxes could not be evaded, gentlemen must sell their estates ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... still shot out his questions in an inquisitorial manner but Bas met its peremptory edginess with urbanity, though his face was haggard with a night of sleeplessness ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... early in the morning, when, we arrived for me to present myself to the British Authority and as the local officials did not in the slightest way interfere with my free passage nor subject me to any sort of inquisitorial interrogations (which in other colonies and under other Protectorates I had been obliged to undergo) I gave orders for our immediate departure as I was anxious to commence our march as soon ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... not later than to-morrow Thou shalt see that obedient flock which at one simple motion of my hand will rush to add burning coals to Thy stake, on which I will burn Thee for having dared to come and trouble us in our work. For, if there ever was one who deserved more than any of the others our inquisitorial fires—it is Thee! To-morrow I ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky

... else was left but the air of business reserve; and to a gaunt shaven face, especially when it is adorned with spectacles and the nose and temples are covered with dust, this reserve gives a relentless, inquisitorial appearance. Father Christopher never left off gazing with wonder at God's world, and smiling. Without speaking, he brooded over something pleasant and nice, and a kindly, genial smile remained imprinted on his face. It seemed as though ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... and tell the town Harrie had disappeared. Mrs. Swink, however, had to be told something. Madeleine, I imagine, has given notice and her mother is sitting up." Selwyn's hands made gesture of disgust. "Her letter is inquisitorial and hysterical. My answer will give a bump, ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher

... father-in-law, would naturally ratify everything that had been done. The Sanhedrim was assembled at his house.[1] The inquiry commenced; and several witnesses, prepared beforehand according to the inquisitorial process described in the Talmud, appeared before the tribunal. The fatal sentence which Jesus had really uttered: "I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days," was cited by two witnesses. To blaspheme the temple of God was, according to the Jewish law, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... might be accused of forgery and given in charge to a policeman. The papers consisted of some dividend-warrants payable to bearer, and an endorsed cheque, and the clerk examined them with a most formidable and inquisitorial frown. Then he asked Austin what his name was, and where he lived; and Austin blushed and stammered to such an extent and made such confused replies that the clerk looked more suspiciously at him than ever, and Austin had it on ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... any rate for the present, as I mean to exhaust my natural enemies, the managers, before I have recourse to my friends, in any way whatever. Kiss Dorothy for me, and don't let her break your spirit with inquisitorial and vexatious supervision of your actions. A timely resistance to friendly tyranny is ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... mutterings and saw the inquisitorial pencil of the official in uniform. He had shut off his light ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... Pardon me just a moment. [In an arrogant and inquisitorial tone to KRUEGER.] What is it ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... come so swiftly for the queen, who, after being removed from the Temple, spent seventy-two days and nights in the dark cell in that abode of horrors, the Conciergerie. Then came the trial, the inquisitorial trial, lasting all through the night in the gloom of that dimly lighted hall. And at half-past four in the morning she heard without a tremor the terrible words, "Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis Capet, the Tribunal condemns you to die." Not for a ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... call,—With Austin, if you choose,— In the adjoining gallery! There go! [GUENDOLEN goes.] Another lesson to me! You might bid A child disguise his heart's sore, and conduct Some sly investigation point by point With a smooth brow, as well as bid me catch The inquisitorial cleverness some praise. If you had told me yesterday, "There's one You needs must circumvent and practise with, Entrap by policies, if you would worm The truth out: and that one is—Mildred!" There, There—reasoning is thrown away on it! Prove she's unchaste... why, you may after ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning

... but no one saw the Captain. On the third day a member of the inquisitorial committee, who had his house under constant observation, saw him drive out with his son, and take the road that went direct to the neighborhood where Jacob Perkins lay concealed in ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... the last hundred years more than one officer has believed that infanticide had been suppressed by his efforts, and yet the practice is by no means extinct. In the Agra Province the severely inquisitorial measures adopted in 1870, and rigorously enforced, have no doubt done much to break the custom, but, in the neighbouring province of Oudh, the practice continued to be common for many years later. A clear case in the Rai Bareli ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... every Continental country occasionally prove the danger of vows of celibacy. The unsuspected purity of the Irish priesthood in this respect is the more remarkable, because, the government of the country being Protestant, there is no special inquisitorial legislation to insure it, because of the almost unbounded influence of the clergy over their parishioners, and also because, if any just cause of suspicion existed, in the fierce sectarianism of Irish public opinion it would assuredly ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens

... the proud and sombre bearing peculiar at that time to Puritans. Bernouin cast an inquisitorial glance at the person of the young man and entered the cabinet of the cardinal, to whom ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... by a peace-officer, who came to summon him to attend the magistrate. So he set forth in awful procession between two poor creatures, neither of them so stout as he was himself, to be conducted into the presence of inquisitorial justice. The people, as the aged prisoner was led along by his decrepit guards, exclaimed to each other, "Eh! see sic a grey-haired man as that is, to have committed a highway robbery, wi' ae fit in the grave!"And the children congratulated the officers, objects of their alternate dread ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... the time, to keep my inquisitorial eye from fastening itself on Dunkie's face, for I knew that he was playing up to me, that he was acting a part which wasn't coming any too easy. But he stuck to his role. When I put down my sewing, because my eyes ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... interest in his mission until he saw the evening meal in course of preparation in real kitchen-like manner; then he took the prisoner in charge and proceeded to "sweat" him in the approved style of a police captain's private office. The prisoner squirmed about for a time, successfully evading the inquisitorial probe aimed at him, but at last he "confessed" as to his name and address. He said that his name was Grant Howard and that his residence was at Gananoque, Ontario. Then a call to supper was issued and the composite aggregation of humans gathered around ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield

... Among the attendants at the Leipzig Debate was Hoogstraten. This gentleman followed the elevating profession of torturing and burning heretics in Germany,—the territory especially assigned to him. It looked as if he had come to Leipzig to follow up Eck's verbal thunder with the inquisitorial lightning, and make of Luther actually another Hus. When he found that he would not have an opportunity for plying his hideous trade this time, he ventured into territory where he was a stranger: he attempted ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... Written, "Judge not lest ye be judged." Do you Always heed the law?—carefully refrain from resolving yourself into an inquisitorial court,—becoming both prosecutor and judge and condemning those who chance to ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... of Edwards's Gangraena are a curious Presbyterian repertory of facts and scandals respecting the English Independents and Sectaries in and shortly after the year of Marston Moor. The impression which they leave of Mr. Edwards personally is that he was a fluent, rancorous, indefatigable, inquisitorial, and, on the whole, nasty, kind of Christian. [Footnote: Wood's Fasti, I. 413; Baillie's Letters, II. 180, 193, 201, 215, 251: and Gangraena itself—the copy of which before me consists of the third edition of Parts I. and II. (1646) and the first edition of Part III, (1646) bound ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... considerable; all that concerned clerks, or related to faith and beliefs, to tithes, to deeds and contracts having a moral character, wills for instance, came within the jurisdiction of the religious magistrate. This justice interfered in the private life of the citizens; it had an inquisitorial character; it wanted to know if good order reigned in households, if the husband was faithful and the wife virtuous; it cited adulterers to its bar and chastised them. Summoners (Chaucer's somnours) played the part of spies and public accusers; they kept themselves well informed on these different ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... that the brother of the French Emperor occupied the vacant throne, which the Inquisition had associated, in their superstition, with the throne of God itself. God and the king were inseparable words in the mouth of a citizen of New Spain, and he that dared to separate them was thought worthy of Inquisitorial fires. They owed the same reverence which the Aztecs rendered to their emperor ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... onion!" said the Tinker, lifting pot-lid to lunge at the bubbling contents with an inquisitorial fork. "An onion is the king o' vegetables! Eat it raw and it's good; b'ile it and it's better; fry it and it can't be ekalled; stoo it wi' a rabbit and you've got a stoo as savoury an' full o' flavour—smells all right, don't it, Ann?" he enquired suddenly ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... lawyer cut the Marquise short by giving her an inquisitorial look, examining the sanitary ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... pervades the Directory of Eymeric, into which they were incorporated by his commentator. It is only important to mention here that on the present occasion an agent was appointed to represent this Inquisition at Rome, and there to defend the inquisitors on occasion of appeals from the subjects of inquisitorial violence or from their friends or their survivors. And this was in spite of a bull sent into Spain two years before, appointing the Archbishop of Seville sole judge of such appeals. But that bull was a mere feint for conciliation and never acted on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... possessed, perhaps, more significance than the others, relapsed very soon into a strained and anxious silence. Pamela and Lutchester, on the other hand, divided their attention between a very excellent luncheon and an even flow of personal, almost inquisitorial conversation. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... should be affixed, in order, as he observed, "to complete the horn-book of the present ministry;" The minority in the lords, in a protest, branded the bill as a measure ineffectual in its provisions, unconstitutional in its partial abolition of the trial by jury, and unjust in its inquisitorial spirit. But though Pitt's scheme was not perfect, yet in many points of view it was preferable to that of Fox; and even its errors were magnified by the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... inquisitorial tribunal takes cognizance of crimes and delinquencies, more especially witchcraft and murder; and also operates as a mediator in wars, and dissentions among powerful tribes and chiefs. Its interference ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... pages: "Demonology, or Natural Magic or demoniacal, lawful and unlawful, also open or secret, by the intervention and invocation of a Demon," published in 1612. It consists of four books, treating of the crime of witchcraft, and its punishment in the ordinary tribunals and the Inquisitorial office. Its author was Don Francisco Torreblanca Villalpando, of Cordova, Advocate Royal in the courts of Grenada. It was republished in 1623, by command of Philip III. of Spain, on the recommendation of the Fiscal General, and with the sanction ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... heart on his flock, and who had seen with great grief the realization of his fears at the revival of the stocks; seen that a spirit of discontent was already at work among the peasants, and that magisterial and inquisitorial designs were darkening the natural benevolence of the Squire; seen, in short, the signs of a breach between classes, and the precursors of the ever inflammable feud between the rich and the poor, meditated ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... a child could be ruled (or approximately ruled, for inquisitorial government could hardly be so much as attempted) by some small means adapted to his size and to his physical aspect, it would be well for his health, but that seems at times impossible. By no effort can his elders altogether succeed ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... Lyce, opened at Belfort since the annexation, but the rest have to submit, or, by dint of great sacrifice, obtain private French teaching. And, whilst even Alsatians are quite ready to render justice to the forbearance and tact often shown by officials, an inquisitorial and prying system is pursued, as vexatious to the patriotic as enforced vaccination to the Peculiar People or school attendance to the poor. One lady was visited at seven o'clock in the morning by the functionary charged with the unpleasant mission of finding out ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... source does not, under this law, operate in such a way as to afford the taxpayer any substantial relief from the necessity of making a revelation of his income to tax officials. Whatever basis there may be for the common criticism or complaint that an income tax is inquisitorial remains under the operation of this law to nearly the same extent that it would if the tax were levied wholly and directly upon the recipients of the income, with no resort to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... Spanish inquisition, but his councillors were all against it. Under a different name, however, it was exactly imitated when Francis van der Hulst was appointed chief inquisitor by the state, [Sidenote: April 23, 1522] and was confirmed by a bull of Adrian VI. [Sidenote: June 1, 1523] The original inquisitorial powers of the bishops remained, and a supreme tribunal of three ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... confessions from the prisoner, to perplex and confound him, to do away, by fierce cross-questioning and bitter remarks from the bench, with any effect that his testimony might have on the jury. I don't mean to say that judges and lawyers have been more violent and inquisitorial against the unhappy Peytel than against any one else; it is the fashion of the country: a man is guilty until he proves himself to be innocent; and to batter down his defence, if he have any, there are the lawyers, with all their horrible ingenuity, and their captivating passionate eloquence. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... travelled so swiftly from shore to shore till the remote cities of Mexico, then but lately discovered, welcomed it, for four centuries failed to enter the English counties. This incredible delay must not be supposed to be due to any exceptional circumstances or to inquisitorial action. The cause is found in the agricultural character itself. There has never been any difficulty in obtaining books in the country other than could be surmounted with patience. It is the peculiarity of knowledge that those who really ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence—the dread sentence of death—was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution—perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill wheel. This only for a brief period; for presently ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... distance. The applicants themselves expect you to be faithful; if you are, they will honour you for it, and, if not, they will be disappointed. If they get the opportunity, they are far franker than you would expect. No doubt it is delicate work, and one has to guard against harshness and anything inquisitorial; but it yields the most blessed results. This is the harvest-time of the minister's year, when he sees that his labour is not in vain. Even one such close talk, brought about in this way or otherwise, casts a glow of reality ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... was pronounced heretical by the Inquisition, we must regard it also as an event indicative of a new and favourable feeling towards the friends of science. The opinions of Urban, indeed, had suffered no change. He was one of the few Cardinals who had opposed the inquisitorial decree of 1616, and his subsequent demeanour was in every respect conformable to the liberality of his early views. The sincerity of his conduct was still further evinced by the grant of a pension of one hundred crowns to Galileo, a ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... injury to Harold), and strong disclaimers of belief in them, still my mother's old friend must inquire into the character of these young men and my position with regard to them. If she had been tender instead of inquisitorial, I should have answered far more freely, and most likely the air of defiance and defence into which she nettled me had a partisan look; but it was impossible not to remember that Miss Woolmer had ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... chiefly because in the new Mendicant Orders there were now to be found men of sufficient knowledge and training to cope with the difficulty of unmasking heresy. But it is a mistake to suppose that the inquisitorial work was a perquisite of the Dominicans. Both Orders alike were employed by the Papacy in the unsavoury duty, although ultimately the Dominicans took the larger share. For the service of the wretched, to which the Franciscans primarily devoted themselves, soon necessitated a study of medicine ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... the young girl, as she glanced inquisitively round her, "this time, at least, I think I know as much as the most curious woman could possibly wish to know." Madame felt so embarrassed by this inquisitorial look, that, as if she heard Montalais's muttered side remark, she did not speak a word to her maid of honor, but, casting down her eyes, retired at once to her bedroom. Montalais, observing this, stood listening for a moment, and then heard Madame lock and bolt her door. By this she ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... business was sound and honest, and the upheaval was caused by the agitation of demagogues. The President, they asserted, had destroyed confidence by his attack on the commercial class. Federal prosecutions, new laws, and the enforcement of inquisitorial pure-food regulations had made it impossible for business to live. "Let us alone," ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... with more measured tread, now mingled his hearty bass voice in the conversation. His mental attitude was friendly, but inquisitorial; as seemed to him to befit one charged with the cure of souls. He proceeded to ask questions, beginning with inquiries conventional and domestic, but verging presently on points of faith. Babcock, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... any reason of jealousy, or personal spite, or party hatred, might be thus "hunted," "followed," "threatened," and financially squeezed or ruined, without a particle of legal investigation, at the will of a man whom the familiar charged with the inquisitorial business dare not hesitate to obey, surely it is not unreasonable to ask how far does the Salvation Army, in its "tribune of the people" aspect, differ from a Sicilian Mafia? I am no apologist of men guilty of the acts charged against the person who yet, I think, might be as fairly ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... not enough. Committees were self-constituted, or perhaps caucus-constituted to interview candidates, much after the modern style, to see whether they were sound on the main question. And as I had now become sufficiently advanced in years to be considered a candidate, I was waited on by such an inquisitorial body. I told the good brethren that I was not a little surprised to find any one in doubt as to my position. "Oh," said they, "we are not really in doubt as to your position, but we would like to understand how strong your convictions are, as you have not attended our meetings." "Yes," ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller



Words linked to "Inquisitorial" :   inquiring, accusatorial, inquisitor



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