"Agonizing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their cause of ruin! O burning hell! in all thy store of torments, There's not a keener lash! Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime, Can reason down its agonizing throbs; And, after proper purpose of amendment, Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace? O, happy! happy! enviable man! O glorious magnanimity ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... usually helpless against capital. The employer, perhaps, decides to shut up the shops; he ceases to make profits for a short time. There is no change in his habits, food, clothing, pleasures—no agonizing fear of want. Contrast this with his workman whose lessening means of subsistence torment him. He has few comforts, scarcely the necessities for his wife and children in health, and for the sick little ones no proper treatment. It is not capital ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... I, throwing the toad out the window, where it was followed by an agonizing shriek from Toddie. Again he felt, and his search was rewarded by the tension screw of Helen's sewing-machine. Then I attempted some research myself, and speedily found my fingers adhering to something of a sticky consistency. I quickly ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... can never be informed—that our hopeless portion is that of the really dead—these considerations, I say, carry into the heart, which still palpitates, a degree of appalling and intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must recoil. We know of nothing so agonizing upon Earth—we can dream of nothing half so hideous in the realms of the nethermost Hell. And thus all narratives upon this topic have an interest profound; an interest, nevertheless, which, through the sacred awe of the topic itself, very ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... "A long, lingering, agonizing death," the young lady translated. She tossed the curly end of her braid over her shoulder and rose, with sounds of lamentation. "I ought to have known better than to sit down again when I was once up," she ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... holy King of earth, in goodness lowly, From thy ruins by the Tiber, Look with tearless aspect mild, Till each agonizing fibre Like thine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... motioned the crowd away; I heard my name breathed audibly; the next moment I was by Isora's side. All pain, all weakness, all consciousness of my wound, of my very self, were gone: life seemed curdled into a single agonizing and fearful thought. I fixed my eyes upon hers; and though there the film was gathering dark and rapidly, I saw, yet visible and unconquered, the deep love of that faithful and warm heart which had lavished its life ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... only the results were seen. When not more actively employed she would sit by the bed-sides of the suffering men, and charm away their pain by the magnetism of her low, calm voice, and soothing words. She sang for them, and, kneeling beside them, where they lay amidst all the agonizing sights and sounds of the hospital wards, and even upon the field of carnage, her voice would ascend in petition, for peace, for relief, for sustaining grace in the brief journey to the other world, carrying with it their souls into the realms of an ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... myself that I would much rather die than endure imprisonment another month, and had I believed that another month would see me still there, I am pretty certain that I should have ended the matter by crossing the Dead Line. I was firmly resolved not to die the disgusting, agonizing death that so ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... of moods. They had their moments of rapturous love—passionate attempts at self-surrender. They had long hours of cool discussion, as impersonal as if they had been talking about the characters out of a hook instead of about themselves. They had stormy nerve-tearing hours of blind agonizing, around and around in circles, lacerating each other, lashing out at each other, getting nowhere. They had moments of ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... of the gas did a much more valuable thing for the German troops than causing the agonizing death of many hundreds and sending thousands in headlong flight. It made a four-mile-wide opening in the front of the Allies. And the Germans were quick to take advantage of that opening. They followed the gas, and were aided in their advance by ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... still was under the strong influence of Anna's wondrous eyes, else he would never have been able to articulate with such unruffled calm. His charge was doing agonizing things to his official shins, and even pinching him just over the short ribs on his left side with a forefinger and a thumb which showed amazing strength and malice ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... Portuguese convulsion. But we are not all fit by nature to put about butter-tubs in July. I plead guilty to an excitable temperament. The Bowery youth here speak of a kind of perspiration which, metaphorically, they designate as "a cast-iron sweat." This for the last twelve hours has been my own agonizing style of exudation. And, moreover, the startling event of which I am to write has (to borrow again from the sage Montaigne) created in me "so many chimeras and fantastic monsters, one upon another, without design or order, that, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... and in the inspection of mortal agonies. I can see no other explanation of the phenomena which meet my eye in Africa. In almost all the towns on the Oil Rivers, you see dead or dying animals in some agonizing position." [189] ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... then calms, subsides, or ceases; but lost—which hope prevents mourning as dead, and whose death-like absence almost precludes the idea that they live, engenders in the soul of true affection, a gloomy, torturing and desponding sorrow, more agonizing than the sting actual death leaves behind. I have endeavored to depict what must have been, what were the feelings of Peter Houp's wife. She mourned and grieved, and still hoped on, though months and years passed away without imparting the slightest ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... They marched in a kind of quick trot through the streets, followed by a crowd of boys, and varying the noise occasionally by shouts and howls of the most horrible character. They paraded through all the principal streets of the city, which for an hour sent up such an agonizing scream that you might have fancied it an enormous monster, expiring in great torment. The people seemed to take the whole thing as a matter of course, but it was to us a novel manner of ushering in a ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... thought was like a knife in his revengeful heart, that she might thus have escaped the tortures prepared for her, and thwarted the gratification of his insane and hideous longings. A second thought suggested to him that she was sleeping. But this conjecture was scarcely less agonizing to him than the former. That she, the sorceress, should sleep and be at rest, whilst he, her victim, could find no sleep, no rest, no peace, body or mind, was more than his bitter spirit could bear. He shook the bars of the door with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... Sir Richard had not been carried out of the room before strewing the floor with his necktie and fragments of his gloves. But these details were forgotten in the excitement. The harper twanged still more violently at his strings, the fiddler rasped out the agonizing tune more screechingly than ever; and as the delirium of the dance fevered this horde of well-bred people the desire to exercise, their animal force grew irresistible, and they charged, intent on each other's overthrow. In the onset, the vast shoulders and the ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... of the torment, which the cessation of the use of morphia brings about, are interesting. Agonizing pains show that the nerves, long muffled, have become more acutely sensitive than they were before the fatal drug was first employed. A host of lesser troubles—insomnia, pain, and indigestion—attend the cure. I know nothing more pitiful than such an ordeal, ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... appeared now to Andras as an almost fantastic dream. Since then he had erected a mausoleum of marble on the very spot where Prince Sandor fell; and of all the moments of that romantic, picturesque war, the agonizing moment, the wild scene of the burial of his father, was most vivid in his memory—the picture of the warrior stretched in the snow, his hand on the handle of his sword, remained before his eyes, imperishable ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... velvet rugs and hangings. Her mother, she found, had pneumonia; there was practically no chance of her recovering. Linda sat for a short while by the elder's bed, intent upon a totally strange woman, darkly flushed and ravished in an agonizing difficulty of breathing. Linda had a remembered vision of her gold-haired and gay in floating chiffons, and suddenly life seemed shockingly brief. A serious-visaged clergyman entered the room as she left and she heard the rich soothing murmur ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... truth, forced by the ingenuity of lawyers into falsehood and perjury! What awful denunciations and what light wit, almost in the same breath! Of what laughter hardly suppressed by judicial authority would it tell—what agonizing sobs altogether unsuppressable would it describe—how many a clever, smiling, self-sufficient barrister would it, from long knowledge, have learnt to laugh to scorn—of how many a sharp attorney would it declare the hidden ways! But ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... The part which he had to act is one very difficult to any actor. The carrying an external look of indifference when the heart is sinking within,—or has sunk almost to the very ground,—is more than difficult; it is an agonizing task. In all mental suffering the sufferer longs for solitude,—for permission to cast himself loose along the ground, so that every limb and every feature of his person may faint in sympathy with his heart. ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... crept forward with agonizing slowness, until at length he stopped and gazed at the wall of rock still in front of him. That part of it was very smooth and overhung a little between where he was and the steeply sloping strip of shingle on which the girl stood. The stream swirled ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... was a pile of dead bodies, and among them peeped out a piece of a female dress. Anxious to relieve their friend's agonizing suspense, the young men leaped down into the ditch, and began removing the upper bodies from the ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... an epidemic has a material cause; the Christian healer says it has a mental cause. Before there is an object to fear there must be the sentiment of fear. Let scarlet fever appear in a community, and every parent will immediately send out the most agonizing thoughts of fear. Where will they go? Everywhere, because thoughts can not be restrained. Their influence goes out in every direction. To the tender children especially, because particularly directed to them. ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... uncovered." There was much Christian edification, but the presence of such a hero as he with "noble Head uncovered" would enable any man nine years old with a spark of honor and sympathy in him to endure agonizing amounts of edification. Then suddenly there was a frightful shudder in my heart. The hangman approached with the rope, and Helen Mar, with a shriek, threw herself upon Wallace's breast. Then the great moment. If I live a thousand years these lines ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... been thrown into a fever of jealous rage. He was utterly beyond his depth now, and he was silent because to speak would have meant to break into accusation. His imagination had pictured Claire in Lawrence's arms while he was gone; if he had actually known the truth it would have been less agonizing than the picture. ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... still industriously turning the lever. Then were heard mysterious voices and sounds as if of muffled exclamations. Everybody looked at the music-box, which began to quake and tremble as if a ghost were within. Then arose fierce yells and agonizing cries, mixed with loud curses. Before anybody could realize what had happened, three angry musicians leaped from the music instrument, the steaming punch dropping from ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... of human rights. The slaveholder and his victim both look to them;—the one with deprecating gesture, and words of flattery—the other in beseeching and half reproachful earnestness. We cannot doubt that the agonizing appeal of the latter is listened to by all who truly feel the weight of their religious testimonies resting upon them; and we trust there will be found among them, an increasing zeal to secure to these ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... nearly an hour the sub hovered round, a good distance off, and ended by rising astern to shell this obstinate Q ship to death. But even then the dauntless Q men still aboard never gave a sign of life. The wounded lay in their agonizing pain without making a sound, and stiff as soldiers at Attention! The rest stood by their guns and torpedoes, ready for anything. In the meantime another dangerous fire was blazing, more ammunition was blowing up, and the engulfing sea was creeping ever near ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... even the stoicism of the savage. The neighboring woods resounded with the yells of rage and despair uttered by the fugitive warriors, as they beheld the destruction of their dwellings and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and offspring. "The burning of the wigwams," says a contemporary writer, "the shrieks and cries of the women and children, and the yelling of the warriors, exhibited a most horrible and affecting scene, so that it greatly moved some of the soldiers." The same ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... said, "a message sent without wires; it came by one of those underground currents that convulse an unconscious world, sometimes agonizing mountains, at others perplexing a simple maid like yourself. You see, Joan, all things conspire to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... strong and clear voice, broke forth the unanimous and decisive answer: Amen—such truths we do indeed hold to be self-evident. And animated and sustained by a declaration, so inspiring and sublime, they rushed to arms, and as the result of agonizing efforts and dreadful sufferings, achieved under God the independence of their country. The great truth, whence they derived light and strength to assert and defend their rights, they made the foundation of their republic. And in the midst of this ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... won uncourted and unknown,—a heart that had secretly nursed, in the favoring solitudes of these wild lakes, and brooded over, a passion more deep and intense than words could well be found to describe. There was such a heart; and that heart was now wildly beating, in the agonizing uncertainties of a hoped reciprocation, in the bosom of that peerless child of the forest, the beautiful Fluella; and all the more intense were its workings, because confined to its own deep recesses, where the hidden flame was laboring constantly for an outlet to its pride-walled ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... are much more common, in the records, than deaths. Dr. Corson, of Savannah, Georgia, reports six cases, characterized by agonizing pains, spasmodic contractions like those of tetanus, and grave general symptoms. All recovered. From Anaheim, California, a fatal case is reported by Dr. Bickford, death occurring twenty hours after the bite. William A. Ball, of San Bernardino, California, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... produced which uttered savage hatred against all who were not fully orthodox, and the sects practiced violence and cruelty against each other to the full extent for which they found opportunity. "Never, perhaps, was the infliction of mutilation, and prolonged and agonizing forms of death, more common" than in the seventh and eighth centuries.[539] "Great numbers were deprived of their ears and noses, tortured through several days, and at last burned alive or broken slowly on the wheel."[540] ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... could find some excuse for them and, though the length of his service entitled him to more consideration than most of those who cried out bitterly for "vengeance," could write in his book ("These From the Land of Sinim"), "In the heat of the conflict, and under the agonizing strain of anxiety for imperilled loved ones, many hard things have been said and written about the officials who allied themselves with the Boxers. But these men were eminent in their own country for their learning ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... to measure the mass of suffering which was here inflicted, and to number the individuals that fell, considering each who suffered as our fellow-man, we are overwhelmed with the agonizing calculation, and retire from the field which has been the scene of our reflections, with the simple, concentrated feeling—these armies once lived, breathed, and felt like us, and the time is at hand when we ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... Caroline were the first to arrive,—Caroline in pale floating green tulle, which accentuated the pure olive of her coloring, and transported Billy from his chronic state of adoration to that of an almost agonizing worship. Dick and Betty were next. He had realized the possible awkwardness of the situation for her, and had been thoughtful enough to offer to call for her. She was in defiant scarlet from top to toe, and had never looked more entrancing. Preston Eustace was to come ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... unbroken surface of the dust-brown expanse and the edge of the trampled grassy plain, stretched a sort of canal, perhaps ten paces wide, of brown-black, glistening pitch, beaten up with thrashing antlers, and tossing heads that whistled despairingly through wide nostrils, and heaving, agonizing bulks that went down slowly to their doom. After several ranks of the herd had been engulfed those next behind turned about in terror and fought madly to force their way back from the fatal brink. But the inexorable masses behind them rolled them on backwards, and slowly they too were ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... consummate art in the imitation of the most terrible and overpowering emotions; and it is difficult to conceive a more powerful representation than they exhibited of the gloomy forebodings of suspicion, of the agonizing suspence of unsatisfied doubt, and the "sickening pang of hope deferred"—heightened, rather than diminished, by the consciousness of innocent intention, and the feeling of undeserved affliction, and ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... it seemed to him that there were grey threads where once had been untarnished gold. Yet he could not and would not speak, and she came on till she stood opposite him, the dead woman lying there between them. Then for the first time she lowered her eyes and he awoke with a start of agonizing pain. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... of brush and bramble, the twinkling lights in the top story of the distant house leading him on. Once he paused for an instant, thinking he heard the clamor of rude voices borne on the wind; then plunged forward again, his flying feet seemingly weighted with lead; and all the while an agonizing picture of Lydia, white and helpless, facing the crowd of drunken men ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... her to a very weak condition, and brought on her last sickness. Her monastery and the whole city of Cassel were grievously afflicted at the thought of their approaching loss; she alone appeared without concern, lying on a coarse hair-cloth, ready to give up the ghost, while the prayers of the agonizing were read by her side. Perceiving they were preparing a cloth fringed with gold to cover her corpse after her death, she changed color and ordered it to be taken away; nor could she be at rest till she was promised she should be buried as ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... to sleep long in this position, for a loud, groaning noise at the door, broke upon their ears though the pelting fury of the storm, like one in agonizing distress. ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... moved me strangely. It was the man that chiefly excited my sympathy and interest. Some violent emotion seemed to struggle in his breast; it was as if some irresistible force drew him towards her, while an unseen arm held him back. Silent, but agonizing, was the struggle, and beautiful the temptation. 'No,' I thought, 'he attempts too much; he will, he ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Seleukus's house, he was easier; for here he was known; here he would be understood. Berenike must know what he thought of Caesar's suit, and seeing her wholesome and honest hatred, he had sworn to himself that he would snatch his sister from the hands of the tyrant, if it were to lead him to the most agonizing death. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... me, anyway, Emma. I'll know that while I'm smirking on the sprightly Miss Sweeney, your face will be undergoing various agonizing twists in the effort to make American prices understood by an Argentine who can't ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... went into the woods for red raspberries, leaving Tish still practicing in the water with Aggie holding the rope. Happening to sneeze, the line slipped out of her hand, and she had the agonizing experience of seeing Tish carried away by ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that help could be most effectually given, how they were even to be preserved from receiving injuries instead of benefits at our hands,—whence were we to learn this but from their language and from our own hearts? They had spoken of unrelenting and inhuman wrongs; of patience wearied out; of the agonizing yoke cast off; of the blessed service of freedom chosen; of heroic aspirations; of constancy, and fortitude, and perseverance; of resolution even to the death; of gladness in the embrace of death; of weeping over the graves of the slain, by those who had not been so ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the district. Already, scores of the prickly-pears through which they must wend their way were assuming the staggering attitude characteristic of them as the sap dried and they died of their wounds. Sometimes, one side of a bush would shrivel first, causing it to double up like a creature agonizing. Some crouched like strange beasts watching to spring. Others thrust themselves ominously forward with projected arms, as if ready to grapple. Some brandished their flat leaves as the painter Wiertz, in his famous picture of Napoleon in Hell, made wives and mothers brandish ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... fighting valiantly against himself all this while—though he would have protected Grace's good repute as the apple of his eye—was a man; and, as Desdemona said, men are not gods. In face of the agonizing seductiveness shown by her, in her unenlightened school-girl simplicity about the laws and ordinances, he betrayed a man's weakness. Since it was so—since it had come to this, that Grace, deeming herself free to do it, was virtually ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... her father's knees. An hour passed, during which not an articulate word was spoken; but cries, and groans, and occasional shrieks of anguish, which pierced even the thick wall of the Temple, and were heard in the street below, rose from the group. For two hours the agonizing interview was continued. As they gradually regained some little composure, in low tones they whispered messages of tenderness and love, interrupted by sobs, and kisses, and blinding floods of tears. Louis XVI. described his trial, excusing those who had sentenced him, gave some religious ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... a minute or two of agonizing suspense, while the shore batteries kept up a galling fire and the merchantman steamed out to ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... and faint and low, Like the sighing of an evening breeze, Comes through these painted lattices The ceaseless sound of human woe, Here, while her bosom aches and throbs With deep and agonizing sobs, That half are passion, half contrition, The luckless daughter of perdition Slowly confesses her secret shame! The time, the place, the lover's name! Here the grim murderer, with a groan, From his bruised conscience rolls the stone, Thinking that thus he can atone For ravages of sword and ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... introductory remarks, the phrase 'naked terrors;' by which I mean, that, throughout all the speeches, addresses and reports in behalf of the Society, it is confessed, in language strong and explicit, that an irrepressible and agonizing fear of the influence of the free people of color over the slave population is the primary, essential and prevalent motive for colonizing them on the coast of Africa—and not, as we are frequently urged to believe, a desire simply ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... picture of the beauteous and beloved maiden his heart throbbed violently. In the high altitude he found respiration difficult, and now he almost suffocated for lack of breath. He felt a pang at his heart as he saw the white chief enter the tent. The winds wailed sibilant and agonizing messages into the ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... negative superiorities. This is all too finite, we say; we see too well the vacuum beyond. It lacks the note of infinitude and mystery, and may all be dealt with in the don't-care mood. No need of agonizing ourselves or making others agonize for these good creatures just ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... fought, and he fell; -"My son," cried she, "you have then murdered your father!" and she sunk breathless at my feet. Comments, Madam, upon such a scene as this, would to you be superfluous, and to me agonizing: I cannot, for both our sakes, be too concise. When she recovered, she confessed all the particulars of a tale which she had hoped never to have revealed.-Alas! the loss she had sustained of my father was not by death!-bound to her by no ties but those ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... selfish persons, I considered what demeanor I should assume, in order to impress my grandmother with a conviction of my own consequence. Of course, dignified and unbending I would be; but what if she chose to consider me a child, and treat me accordingly? The idea was agonizing to my feelings; but then I proudly surveyed my five feet two inches of height, and wondered how I could have thought of such a thing! Still I had sense enough to know that such a supposition would never have entered my head, had there not been sufficient ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... of so dear a son, poor Mrs. M'Coy fell on her knees to colonel Brown, and with all the widowed mother agonizing in her looks, plead for his life. But in vain. With the dark features of a soul horribly triumphant over the cries of mercy, he repulsed her suit, and ordered the executioner to do his office! He hung up the young man before the eyes of his mother! and then, with savage joy, suffered ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... out of the saddle. She was stiff and awkward, and she let herself slide. Kells handled her gently and like a gentleman, and for Joan the first agonizing moment of her ordeal was past. Her intuition had guided her correctly. Kells might have been and probably was the most depraved of outcast men; but the presence of a girl like her, however it affected him, must also have brought up associations ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... round his neck, while over all Their heads and crests tower high and tall. He strains his strength their knots to tear,* While gore and slime his fillets smear, And to the unregardful skies Sends up his agonizing cries: A wounded bull such moaning makes, When from his neck the axe he shakes, Ill-aimed, and from the altar breaks. The twin destroyers take their flight To Pallas' temple on the height; There by the goddess' feet concealed They lie, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... lightly and playfully of all that he meant to do, her heart throbbed, and she dared not lift her eyes to his face, lest they should suddenly reveal to him that awful conflict within of wild, and piteous, and agonizing doubt. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... by their limbs out before the door, screeching as they went, and filling the air with their loud, agonizing cries. Momont walked after them, with his head hanging down, his knees shaking, and his back bent double; but still he was walking himself; he was still able to save himself the disgrace of being dragged out like the women. ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... intervals, as we near the last pages of the large and closely-written book containing the first volume of his diary, do we meet with those agonizing complaints of dryness, the distress of doubt, the weary burden of insoluble difficulties, so common heretofore. He seems, indeed, no longer battling; be victory is won; but it remains to know what are ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... pony went on, and she spoke to him no more. He saw her figure diminish and her blue veil grow gray—saw it with the agonizing sensations ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... the terrible excitements of watching the decorators at work, her scheme developing beneath their hands, and the awful knowledge that now it was being done it was done for good or bad—no altering it now!—and the agonizing excitements of putting down the carpets—how can you tell exactly how a carpet is going to look until you see it actually down upon its floor and between its walls?—and the increasing excitement all the ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... Poor Poverty! how agonizing must thy hunger be, where others swell in scornful superfluity! And when some one casts with indifferent hand a crust into thy lap, how bitter must the tears be wherewith thou moistenest it! Thou poisonest thyself with thine own tears. Well art thou in the right ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... this is false. God already loves the world. He loves sinners, even, who are not penitent. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. How dishonoring to God, then, to represent Him as unwilling to save agonizing sinners; so that the protracted prayers of the church are necessary, and often unavailing! Paul says that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. The world had transgressed, had gone away from God, and Christ's mission as mediator, is to bring it back in agreement ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... described with great exaggeration as a condition of abandoned wickedness. But from childhood his abnormally active dramatic imagination had tormented him with dreams and fears of devils and hell-fire, and now he entered on a long and agonizing struggle between his religious instinct and his obstinate self-will. He has told the whole story in his spiritual autobiography, 'Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,' which is one of the notable religious books of the world. A reader of it must be filled about equally with ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... delicate irony no answer was possible, and Kate could only bite her lips, and pretend not to understand. But it was difficult not to turn pale and tremble sometimes, so agonizing were the anecdotes that the active brain of Dolly conjured up concerning the atrocities that pursuing husbands had perpetrated with knife and pistol on the betrayers of their happiness. And when these scarecrows failed, there were ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... about the middle of the dorsal surface of the hand, the fangs entering on each side of a metacarpal bone, and the poison lodging apparently in the palm of the hand. The patient, when seen, exhibited the characteristic terror and depression, weak, rapid heart action, and agonizing local pain. I made two small incisions in the region of the wound upon the dorsum of the hand, and injected permanganate of potassium freely. This patient ultimately recovered, but only after sloughing and prolonged suppuration. I believe that had I incised freely and at once from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... can lawfully be preferred to any higher consideration. Here is the fact. At a Medico-Legal Congress, held in the summer of 1895, Dr. Bach, one of its leading lights, openly maintained it as his opinion that "Physicians have the moral right to end life when the disease is incurable, painful, and agonizing." ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... agreed, with a hard, fixed look. "I—you see, Lawrence was my lover—I spent two or three hours in agonizing suspense. I knew what I should feel when I stopped, but couldn't go on with the others, because I might have kept them back. It was freezing hard and now and then a little snow fell, but I scarcely noticed this; ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my elbow. Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the agonizing pain in my side. And after that there is another long interval in ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Colvill rushed, upon this occasion, on my thought, I almost started on my feet. To meet him, after so long a separation, here, and in these circumstances, was so unlooked-for and abrupt an event, and revived a tribe of such hateful impulses and agonizing recollections, that a total revolution seemed to have been effected in my frame. His recognition of my person, his aversion to be seen, his ejaculation of terror and surprise on first hearing my voice, all contributed ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... was horrified by the sight which met his gaze. There, upon the bed, lay the poor, unhappy girl swollen to an enormous size, her body moving about the bed as if Beelzebub himself were in her, while between her gasps for breath she exclaimed in agonizing sobs: "Oh, my God, I wish I were dead! I ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... startled cries. The next shell burst right ahead of us, sending a shower of bullets and steel fragments around. A man about twenty yards to the right of my company, but not of my platoon, leaped into the air with an agonizing cry and fell in a heap, mortally wounded. As we were advancing very swiftly, I only saw it as in a dream, while running by. Then came in rapid succession four or five terrific explosions right over our heads, and I felt a sudden gust of cold wind strike my cheek as a ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people on earth. The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blest, indeed, the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Athenian greatness, any field of human inquiry had been successfully explored; if human reason had achieved any conquests; if any thing true and good had been obtained, that must endure as an heir-loom for all coming time; and if those centuries of agonizing wrestlings with nature, and of ceaseless questioning of the human heart, had yielded no results, then, at least, the lesson of their failure and defeat remained for the instruction of future generations. Either the problems they sought to solve were proved to be insoluble, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... his lips back in a snarl of rage and pain, and Dave realized that further words were useless. He felt a certain pity for his victim and no little admiration for his courage, but such feelings were of small consequence as against his agonizing fears for Alaire's safety. Had he in the least doubted Jose's guilty knowledge of Longorio's intentions, Dave would have hesitated before employing the barbarous measures he had in mind, but—there was nothing else for it. ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... a pebbly shoal. The moon was aloft in heaven. I was cold to the heart, cold to the marrow of my bones. I could move neither hand nor foot, and thought I was dead. By slow degrees a little power came back, and I managed at length, after much agonizing effort, to get up on my feet—only to fall again. After several such failures, I found myself capable of dragging myself along like a serpent, and so got out of the water, and on the next endeavour was able to stand. I had forgotten ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... peculiar atrocity of flogging from town to town lay in this: that the victim's wounds became cold between the times of punishment, and in winter sometimes frozen, which made the torture intolerably agonizing. Then, as hanging was impossible, other means were tried to make an end of her: "Thus miserably torn and beaten, they carried her a weary journey on horseback many miles into the wilderness, and toward night left her there among wolves, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... followed messages of reproof from His servants. It bore the characteristics that mark the work of God in every age. There was little ecstatic joy, but rather deep searching of heart, confession of sin, and forsaking of the world. A preparation to meet the Lord was the burden of agonizing spirits. There was persevering prayer, and unreserved ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... but, as you may suppose, I felt still very far from being comfortable. Nor were the various objects that met my eye of a consolatory nature: men lying, some dead, others at their last gasp, while the agonizing groans of those who were undergoing operations at the hands of the hospital assistants, added to the horror of the scene. I may now say that I have seen, on a small scale, every ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... an agonizing time getting us all introduced and a still more agonizing time of stage wait afterward. Then Cousin Dudley (I thirsted for his gore) said chirpily, "My niece has learned to ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... Maurice discovered that such acquaintance had also its risks, the shock was agonizing. He was overwhelmed with disgust and shame. Once, at his desk, brooding over what had happened, his whipping instinct of truthfulness roused a sudden, frantic impulse in him to go home and confess to ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... gripped them with the strange, clawing lassitude and discomfort. Bart, gasping under it, heard the girl moan, saw her slump lax in her chair, half fainting. Her face was so deathly white that he began seriously to be afraid she would die of her fear. Fighting his own agonizing weakness, he pulled himself upright. He reached the girl, dug his claws ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... precautions only half reassured him, for he knew that he could not see properly and that certain stains had very likely escaped him. He stood irresolute in the middle of the room, a prey to a somber, agonizing thought, the thought that he was going mad, that at that moment he was not in a fit state to come to a determination and to watch over his security, that his way of going to work was probably not the one the circumstances demanded. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... joint from my leg. However, it returned to its socket, though my leg is still weak with the sprain. But there is more to tell you. My efforts to reduce the dislocation were so great that my body broke out into a profuse sweat and I caught a severe chill. This was followed by agonizing pain in my bowels, which only subsided when its violence was on the point of killing me. A moment more and like Philemon I should have gone to the grave, not to my recital, should have finished not my speech but my destiny, should have brought not my tale but my life to a close. ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... didn't love him I oughtn't to marry him, and I thought of the sad, sad tale of Lucy, Lady Horsingham, whose ghost was now in the nightly habit of haunting Dangerfield Hall. The struggles that poor thing must have gone through, the leaden hours of dull, torpid misery, the agonizing moments of acute remorse, the perpetual spirit-wearing conflict between duty and inclination, much to the discomfiture of the former; and the haunting face of Cousin Edward continually rising on that heated imagination, pleading, reproaching, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... crucifix, and, prostrating himself before the spare, agonizing shape of the Holy Sufferer, fell into a long passion of tears and broken prayers. He rose and flung himself, worn-out, upon his hard pallet, and, seeming to slumber, dreamed again within his dream. Once more in the vast cathedral, with throngs of the living choking its aisles, amidst jubilant ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... written manifestly in the first instance to meet special and pressing current trials; it bears the impress of a time of severe sifting, a time when foundations were challenged, and individual faith put to even agonizing proofs, and the community threatened with an almost dissolution. Such a writing must have a voice articulate and sympathetic for a ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... about "an early and a quiet grave." When she writes this it is written in the deepest earnest of despair; when this mood is over it is over for ever, and we emerge into a clear atmosphere of hope and content. The despondency has been agonizing, but the agony is sharp and rapid, and gives place to the wisdom ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... "nihilist." His theory of Jewish reform, superannuated by his new materialistic world view, was thrown aside, and a gaping void opened in the soul of the writer. This frame of mind is reflected in Lilienblum's self-revelation, "The Sins of Youth" (Hattot ne'urim, 1876), this agonizing cry of one of the many victims of the mental cataclysm of the sixties. The book made a tremendous impression, for the mental tortures depicted in it were typical of the whole age of transition. However, the final note of the confession, the shriek of a wasted soul, which, having overthrown the ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... make some remark when the words froze on his lips. Mrs. Winslow had given vent to a cry. It thrilled Hugh strangely, as though he feared some agonizing pain had ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... ourselves panting, and at last, suddenly, "b-e-a-t, beat!" After the old dame has given him the old rug and bidden him sleep off his weariness, comes the fever with the ringing of the church bells and the persistent, agonizing thought, "I must be clean, I must be clean." It is this that drives him out to the "clear, clear limestone water, with every pebble at the bottom bright and clean" the cool, cool, cool water for his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... Monkey Fairy, represents human nature, which is prone to all evil. His unreasonable vagaries moved Hsuean Chuang to compel him to wear a Head-splitting Helmet which would contract upon his head in moments of waywardness. The agonizing pressure thus caused would bring him to his senses, irrespective of ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... in the tent till the sun had slightly warmed the air, and then attempted to prepare breakfast by the fire; but no one could eat anything, and the native from Waimea complained of severe headache, which shortly became agonizing, and he lay on the ground moaning, and completely prostrated by mountain sickness. I felt extreme lassitude, and exhaustion followed the slightest effort; but the use of snow to the head produced great relief. The water in our canteens was hard frozen, and the keenness of the cold ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... that was true enough, though it had produced in her agonizing fears of becoming ill which had somewhat ruffled her temper. And besides, she had a headache. And then she had a ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black |
