"Ruthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dilettante fashion. The ceremony connected with the boy-bishop, which even Colet had thought worthy to be perpetuated in his school,(1269) had been abolished by order of the mayor in 1538.(1270) The ruthless destruction of the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury, and the erasure of his name from service-books, had been followed in the city by an order (1539) for a new common seal on which the arms of the city ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... numbers. The moment he saw the insignificant band he felt that they were doomed men, or else the spirit abroad was not what he thought it to be, and he had been witnessing some strong indications of its ruthless nature. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... onward, carrying the mother who thought she was honoring God and attaining the true end of being through ruthless strangling of maternal love. She visited Syria and Egypt and the islands of Ponta and Cyprus. At the feet of the hermit fathers she begged their blessing and tried to emulate the virtues she believed they possessed. At Jerusalem she fell upon her face and kissed the stone before ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... is most formidable, the violent Ki Ki or the ruthless Kauc. The latter, I feel sure, is only waiting till he sees an opening to rush in and slaughter us. There is not a generous sentiment in his breast; he would not spare the fledgling in the nest. Between these two, one on either hand, we are indeed ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... touch of something that borders on cynicism, submitting almost with a secret repugnance to the mysterious but supreme bond which holds the sexes miserably together; and the prostitute woman of all kinds, out to seize every advantage from men, ruthless, living upon sex—these are, it seems to me, the three main types of women resulting in our so-called civilization of to-day, from our repressions and falsehoods, our indefinite wills, from our confused ideals ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... dwell too much upon the horrors of the Revolution. It is very terrible, all that about the excesses of the mob and their mad hatred of the nobility and gentry—A bas les aristocrates! and their cry, A la lanterne! Yes: very terrible those ruthless executions with the lanthorn and the rope. But now, please, I have finished that compound equation. Pray go ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... on, hold on—thou hast the rock, The foes are on the sand: The first world tempest's ruthless shock Scatters ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... archbishop when the diocese of Mexico was raised to an archdiocese (by papal bull of July 8, 1547); but on account of his great age he declined the honor, and died (June 3, 1548) a few days after those documents arrived, being eighty years old. A cloud upon his memory is the ruthless and vandalic destruction, under his direction, of the Aztec images, manuscripts, and other records, both public and private, for which his agents made close search, not only in the City of Mexico but in all the larger cities and towns—a cruel and irreparable ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... himself. Profound in politics, and embued, of course, with that disregard for individual rights which its intrigues usually generate, this leader was cool and collected in danger, fierce and ardent in pursuing success, careless of facing death himself, and ruthless in inflicting it upon others. Such are the characters formed in times of civil discord, when the highest qualities, perverted by party spirit, and inflamed by habitual opposition, are too often combined with vices and excesses which deprive them at once of ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and went out in the heat, but a few hours in bed would cure it completely. Terence was unreasonably reassured by her words, as he had been unreasonably depressed the moment before. Helen's sense seemed to have much in common with the ruthless good sense of nature, which avenged rashness by a headache, and, like nature's good sense, might be ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... not mistaken his man, in selecting the one he did to execute his bloody purpose. He had chosen one of those ruthless savages, more or less of whom are to be found in every tribe, who had purchased a certain share of military reputation, by the exhibition of a hardihood that found its impulses in an innate love of cruelty. Contrary to ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "A harsh, headstrong, ruthless old man whose history will not bear careful reading. His sins shall be visited upon him through his offspring. He will have ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... gentlemen whose principles do not permit them to pay court to the existing government are neglected and degraded, and many conduct themselves accordingly; and, like some of the persons you have seen at Tully-Veolan, adopt habits and companions inconsistent with their birth and breeding. The ruthless proscription of party seems to degrade the victims whom it brands, however unjustly. But let us hope a brighter day is approaching, when a Scottish country gentleman may be a scholar without the pedantry of our friend the Baron, a sportsman without the low habits of Mr. Falconer, and a ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... mountain home she had seen British troops march into Charlottesville, four miles away, and then, with household treasure, had fled, knowing that beautiful Monticello would be devastated by the enemy's ruthless tread. She had known Washington, and had visited his lonely wife there at Mount Vernon when victory hung in the balance; when defeat meant that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would be the first victims of a vengeful foe. She saw her husband ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... "The ruthless destruction of the Tolmen, in the parish of Constantine, which has been so much deplored, has had the effect, we are glad to say, of drawing attention to the necessity of taking measures for the preservation of the remaining antiquities and objects of curiosity and interest ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... suddenly, for heaps of unexploded shells for the three-inch and five-inch German field-guns were abandoned, and in wicker baskets were loads of three-inch unexploded shells, apparently about to be served to the gunners. Wanton, ruthless devastation everywhere! In a field was a wrecked aeroplane, a white and yellow taube, with its right wing reaching into the air, looking like some gigantic, wounded bird. Towards sunset, an automobile passed along the road ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... principle—perhaps untrue, or not the only truth, though as high a one as Mother Rigby could be expected to attain—that feeble and torpid natures, being incapable of better inspiration, must be stirred up by fear. But here was the crisis. Should she fail in what she now sought to effect, it was her ruthless purpose to scatter the miserable simulacre into its ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... senseless thing and then laugh at the man who had helped her? She was kind to her cats, the neighbors all liked her, to everyone else she seemed human; but when it came to him she was a devil of hate, a fiend of ruthless cunning. She would tell him to his face—at three in the morning, when he had caught her running away from the mill—that she hoped his old mill would be ruined. And now, when the trammer or some other soft-head ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... the negro race. They were her servants; she taught some of them; hunted fugitives applied to her; she ransomed some by her own efforts; every day there came to her knowledge stories of the hunger for freedom, of the ruthless separation of man and wife and mother and child, and of the heroic sufferings of those who ran away from the fearful doom of those "sold down South." These things crowded upon her mind and awoke her deepest compassion. But ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... him, he must also suspect him of complicity in the Inter-County grab; he must suspect him of the ruthless crushing power that corrupts or annihilates opposition, making a mockery of legislation, a jest of the courts, and an epigram of ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... of the west, the pioneers suffered not only from the ruthless savage, but fearfully from the wolf. Many are the tales of terror told of these ferocious enemies of the white man, and his civilization. Many was the hunter, Indian as well as the Angle-Saxon, whose bones, made marrowless by the prowling ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... when I set out from Calcutta on my voyage to Japan, the first thing that shocked me, with a sense of personal injury, was the ruthless intrusion of the factories for making gunny-bags on both banks of the Ganges. The blow it gave to me was owing to the precious memory of the days of my boyhood, when the scenery of this river was the only great thing near my birthplace reminding me of the existence of a ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... city, all dominated by the master passion of the civilized world. There was little shade in the Fields and the day was hot. It was a crowded, uncomfortable, humid mass whose attention he was about to demand, and their minds were already weary of many words, their calves of the ruthless mosquito. They stared at Hamilton in amazement, for his slender little figure and fair curling hair, tied loosely with a ribbon, made him look a mere boy, while his proud high-bred face, the fine green broadcloth of his fashionably ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... I mean by Huns a people who insist on their tribal sovereign right of conquest by means of ruthless murder and senseless destruction—wiping out foreign ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... was part of the pact come to with the "Nationalist" leaders at the Downing Street breakfast-table, where Ireland's fate was sealed, and which they joyously supported in the House of Commons against such opposition as the All-for-Ireland minority was allowed to give it by the ruthless ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... rather stern, or even ruthless, about the set of the face and the firm ending of the lips," I ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... bane of my existence. Not so with Christine; she has always warmly returned the affection of our parents, as a daughter should love the authors of her being, while I fear I have been repining when I should have loved. Our origin is a curse entailed by the ruthless laws of the land, and it is not to be attributed to any, at least to none of these later days, as a fault; and such has ever been the language of my poor sister when she has seen a merit in their wishes to benefit us at the expense of their own natural affection. I would I ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... for his dagger, and found it; he then left the scene of his act of ruthless cruelty, with a conscience less troubled by so dark a deed than it would have been had he rubbed corn between his hands on the Sabbath, or neglected one of the washings prescribed by ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... cost seven years of the most cruel and comprehensive wickedness that the world ever saw; and, when at last its violence overflowed the frontiers, it cost nearly a quarter of a century of slaughter, of ruthless plunder and savage devastation, concluding with the capture of the French capital itself, twice within two years, and the restoration of the royal family by the bayonets ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... described as a hard despot, ruthless as a tiger who strikes his fellow-workers numb and dumb with fear. "But he is under no illusions as to the real sentiments of the members of the Soviet who back him, nor does he deign to conceal those which he entertains toward them.... Whenever ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... ruthless King! Confusion on thy banners wait; Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing, They mock the air with idle state. Helm nor hauberk's[1] twisted mail, Nor even thy virtues, Tyrant! shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears; From Cambria's curse, from ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... weeks, left him to look after himself because they quite honestly believed that that was the thing that he would prefer. Uncle Ivan tried to entertain him, but Bohun found him a bore, and with the ruthless intolerance of the very young, showed him so. The family did not put itself out to please him in any way. He had his room and his latchkey. There was always coffee in the morning, dinner at half-past six, and the samovar from half-past nine ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... Alexandrowski without a qualm; he who had to fortify himself to face an American dentist (his fees for missed appointments would have kept the average middle-class family in comfort for a year), was ruthless in his dealings with the half-crazed men and women who strayed across the frontier which ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... Johnston. The forts along the coast in great numbers were abandoned, and the troops thus gathered together did excellent service. North Carolina brought forward her reserves as the enemy neared her border, all determined to unite in a mighty effort to drive back this ruthless invader. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... just that! She was caught in the grip of this ruthless system; it held her fast and crushed her life out. And we maintain this system! I profit by it... all this luxury and power that I enjoy comes from it directly! Can't you see ...
— The Machine • Upton Sinclair
... consistent with the views of the Union men of the North, but with the nature and character of the Republic itself. But in the short and common-sense cut that Sherman had made to a solution, he left the politicians out in the cold, and they cried out against it as a hideous and ruthless piece of assumption on the part of a military man to attempt to have any opinions after the war was over. Any settlement that left the politicians out in the cold was not to be tolerated. Some of ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... and a rearguard, and both are out of step with the main body. Humanity condemns equally those who are too good for it, and those who are too bad. On its Procrustean bed the stunted members of the race are racked; the giants are cut down. It puts to death with the same ruthless equality the prophet and the atavist. The poet and the drunkard starve side by side.... Literature is the chief ornament of humanity; and perhaps humanity never shows itself uglier than when it stands with the pearl shining on its forehead, and the pearl-maker crushed beneath its heel.... England ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... her wit's end. Her husband had sold out his shares, and the money was lying at the bank ready to be put to its destined use. Visions of debt and bankruptcy presented themselves to her. She saw her black satin dress in the ruthless clutches of a pawnbroker, the house and furniture sold over her head, the children down at heel, and herself driven to work for her living—needlework, nursing, charing—what might not things come to? However, ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... between disgraceful squalor and ludicrous splendor, accommodates our democratic menage to the taste of the richest and most extravagant plebeian amongst us. He, unhappily, minds danger and oppression as little as he minds money, so long as he has a spectacle and a sensation, and it is this ruthless imbecile who will have lace curtains to the steamboat berth into which he gets with his pantaloons on, and out of which he may be blown by an exploding boiler at any moment; it is he who will have for supper that overgrown and shapeless dinner in the lower saloon, and will not let any one else ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... you; it was an act of fiendish revenge—cruel, ruthless, treacherous. I cannot reveal the perpetrator. My wife did not deceive me, did not even know that I had been deceived; she thought, poor child, that I was acquainted with the whole of her father's story, but I was not. ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... daylight, the aviators could have looked off to the open country, where fields lay. These were no longer covered with the fruits of the harvest, as in prewar times, but lay desolate, with ruined farm buildings, and everywhere the indelible mark of the ruthless hand of the Hun showing what had befallen the border Departments of poor ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... Bearing brave with bow and quiver, on his way to war or woo; Now with flaunting flags and streamers—mighty monsters of the deep— Lo the puffing, panting steamers, through thy foaming waters sweep; And behold the grain-fields golden, where the bison grazed of eld; See the fanes of forests olden by the ruthless Saxon felled,— Plumed pines that spread their shadows ere Columbus spread his sails. Firs that fringed the mossy meadows ere the Mayflower braved the gales, Iron oaks that nourished bruin while the Vikings roamed the ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... no fewer than five large and heavily-armed junks, crowded with men. Before the crew could even place themselves in a position for defence, the junk had been seized and the men cut to pieces by the ruthless pirates. The two men standing on the Su-chen's deck had escaped as by a miracle, for, after taking all her cargo out of the junk and throwing dead and wounded overboard, the leader of the pirates had indulged his humour by binding the two survivors and laying them ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... challenging present sympathy on the ground of past fidelity—all, all in vain: the hour that summons the Mussulman to prayer, equally silently tolls their death-knell; yon glorious sun, setting in a flood of fire, lights them to their untimely grave; one ruthless hand holds the unconscious head, another with deadly aim smashes the skull and scatters the brain—man's faithful friend is ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... in your service as any other. They were not compelled to go; they were not drafted. No, your pride had placed them beyond your compulsory power. But there was no necessity for its exercise; they were volunteers; yes, Sir, volunteers to defend that very country from the inroads and ravages of a ruthless and vindictive foe, which had treated them ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... several fine horses. They beheaded sheep in the palace till the floors ran with blood, and then pelted the passers-by with sheep's heads. They spent the money in the royal treasury like water, and played so many heedless and ruthless boy-tricks that the period of these months of folly was known, long after, as the "Gottorp Fury," because the harum-scarum young brother-in-law, who was the ringleader in all these scrapes, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... traits that in his presidency he became the idol and the mouthpiece of the popular will. In his assault upon the Bank as an engine of aristocracy, and in his denunciation of nullification, he went directly to his object with the ruthless energy of a frontiersman. For formal law and the subtleties of State sovereignty he had the contempt of a backwoodsman. Nor is it without significance that this typical man of the new democracy will always be associated with the triumph of the spoils ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... this foolish merchant, who hath all to gain and nought to lose by this proceeding. Give me but a little space, and their claims shall be met, thy desires shall be satisfied, and yet half of thy estate be saved, which else must be all devoured betwixt these ruthless money-lenders and lawyers. I can make a covenant more binding than any attorney, as I have proved again and again, and" (with a gulp) "if money must be raised at once, I know an honest, a fairly honest, goldsmith in Lombard Street who will lend at ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... were only intermittently concerned with social problems. On the whole the view prevailed, at any rate amongst the leaders, that Government should interfere in such matters as little as possible. Pauperism was still to be stamped out by ruthless deterrence: education had been only recently and reluctantly taken in hand: factory inspection alone was an accepted State function. Lord Beaconsfield was dead and he had forgotten his zeal for social justice long before he attained power. Gladstone, then in the zenith of his fame, never took any ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... in death as in life!" he faintly muttered, glancing from the break of the poop on the two bodies huddled together below, the blood of the faithful dog flowing with that of his ruthless foe into a crimson pool that was gradually extending its borders from the middle of the deck to the lee scuppers. "He has defended my little Elsie, I am sure, to the last, likewise, even as he defended me. I hope and trust my child is still ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... predestined laws ere his shall come; Cease from thy madness. If ye seek revenge For all the blood shed by your slaughtered tribes to Let this man, Cimbrians, live out all his days.' Not as their darling did the gods protect The man of blood, but for his ruthless hand Fit to prepare that sacrifice of gore Which fate demanded. By the sea's despite Borne to our foes, Jugurtha's wasted realm He saw, now conquered; there in squalid huts Awhile he lay, and trod the hostile dust ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... absolute and the time for silence or evasion was past. He was trapped and absolutely in their power. That they would kill him he had little doubt. A life more or less meant little to these ruthless scoundrels. But if he had to meet death, ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... sympathise. He speaks of the privileges of Saints; the peculiarities of national temperament; the distinctions between popular language and that used by scholastic writers, or otherwise marked by circumstances; the special characters of some of the writers quoted, their "ruthless logic," or their obscurity; the inculpated passages are but few and scattered in proportion to their context; they are harsh, but sound worse than they mean; they are hardly interpreted and pressed. He reminds Dr. Pusey that there is not much to ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... emaciated body, a low cry of protest and grief was wrung from her lips. Already most of the lovely ringlets of spun gold, which had won for the baby Donald's characterization of "Little Buttercup," gleamed on the rough floor, and the ruthless but necessary sacrifice ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... interviews were pacific; for the whites had a common enemy to dread, in the ancient and perhaps more lawful occupants of the country; but instances were not rare, in which jealousy and cupidity had caused them to terminate in scenes of the most violent and ruthless treachery. The meeting of two hunters on the American desert, as we find it convenient sometimes to call this region, was consequently somewhat in the suspicious and wary manner in which two vessels draw together in a sea that is known to be infested with pirates. While neither party is ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... himself with clenched hands in the effort to bear it. The thought that nothing could stop that sound, for it would continue to all eternity, was almost impossible to bear, and, as though his strength were a match for the ruthless forces of nature, he had an insane impulse to do some violent thing. He felt he must cling to his self-control or he would go mad. And now, looking out of the window at the lagoon and the strip of foam which marked the reef, he shuddered with hatred of the brilliant scene. The ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... Born in 1809, John Reid received his medical degree when but twenty-one years of age. A part of the two years following he spent in Paris, where Magendie was at the height of his notoriety for the ruthless cruelty of his vivisections. What attracted the young man we do not know, but Reid seems to have become greatly interested in physiological problems. Returning to Scotland, he pursued his investigations with all the zeal of youth, and apparently with little or no regard for the animal suffering ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... one end to another Was the whole of Heidaby; Ruthless treatment this, methinks; Our work, I trow, arouses grief in Svein. In the town spent I last night: Ere the eighth hour the flames shot up from ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... captain's deep voice came again over the water towards us: "Pull ashore, lads, and fill your water-casks." The men obeyed in silence, and it seemed to me as if even their hard hearts were shocked by the ruthless deed. On gaining the mouth of the rivulet at which we intended to take in water, we found it flowing with blood, for the greater part of those who were slain had been standing on the banks of the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... faces, like King Henry V.'s, which the sun will not condescend to burn, sometimes he smites savagely. He makes of the countenances of his foes a fry and of their bodies a comprehensive granulation. But if you find favour in his eyes—in those discriminating, ruthless, sight-absorbing glances which none may reciprocate—accept your privileges with a thrill of chastened pride that you may bask in his presence and be worthy his livery and of gladsome mind. The harpings of the sweet singer of Israel could not have been more effectual in the dispersal ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... ease about him that mixed well enough with his own City character, and did not compete with it at all. If Mr Dombey had any lingering idea that the Major, as a man accustomed, in the way of his calling, to make light of the ruthless hand that had lately crushed his hopes, might unconsciously impart some useful philosophy to him, and scare away his weak regrets, he hid it from himself, and left it lying at the bottom of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... when that dear head—turned away from him now in unutterable misery and shame—had nestled itself so fondly and so happily on his breast, fought hard to silence his conscience, to root out his dreadful sense of guilt, to tear the words of Judgment from their ruthless hold on his mind, to claim him in the sweet names of Pity and of Love. If she had turned and looked at him at that moment, their next words would have been spoken in each other's arms. But the oppression of her despair ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... She could rule no longer. She could not exact homage and admiration from society; and, though in her secret soul she despised it, yet what was there to life beside it? No one wanted or needed her. No human being cared for her above all others. She had gone on in ruthless pride, trampling, crushing, and now the great world would be only too glad to pay her back; but it never should. Even in this extreme bitterness of spirit an acknowledgment of that divine rule of love was wrested from her. She had never offered love and tenderness and sympathy to others, and ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... God's assistance in a land flowing with milk and honey; this very generation proved worse than their fathers. The original inhabitants of Canaan, whom they dispossessed, could hardly have surpassed them in sin against Jehovah; and therefore the ruthless slaughter of their conquest was as unreasonable as it was inhuman. So much for "God's ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... cultured, too, and the wise, are counted among thy slaves. Even the righteous surrender themselves to thee and are willing to undergo that hideous transformation. O Success, what an infernal litany thy votaries and high-priests are chanting to thee.... Thou ruthless Gorgon, what crimes thou art committing, and what crimes are being ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Yarrow braes, and banks of Tweed, Where the lone streams of Ettrick glide, 625 And from the silver Teviot's side; The dales, where martial clans did ride, Are now one sheep-walk, waste and wide. This tyrant of the Scottish throne, So faithless, and so ruthless known, 630 Now hither comes; his end the same, The same pretext of silvan game. What grace for Highland Chiefs, judge ye By fate of Border chivalry. Yet more; amid Glenfinlas' green, 635 Douglas, thy stately form was ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... the fugitives hurried on—they gained the gate—they passed by the Roman sentry; the lightning flashed over his livid face and polished helmet, but his stern features were composed even in their awe! He remained erect and motionless at his post. That hour itself had not animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of Rome into the reasoning and self-acting man. There he stood, amidst the crashing elements: he had not received the permission to desert his ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... by the other, who begs Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. To which Jesus replies, "This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise," implying that he will spend the three days of his death there. In short, every device is used to get rid of the ruthless horror of the Matthew chronicle, and to relieve the strain of the Passion by touching episodes, and by representing Christ as superior to human suffering. It is Luke's Jesus who has won ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... a comparatively flat country, despoiled of all its verdure by the ruthless hand of war. The evening was wet; we reached the once celebrated Thebes in the dark, and were glad to take shelter in a smoky room, in the first house that could receive us. The situation is fine, but the present town ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... breaking limbs and a shower of leaves and smaller twigs, the mighty bird of prey, extricating himself from every obstacle, tore his way into the leafy recess where his little victim waited, trembling. Every branch seemed agitated by his ruthless, irresistible advance, and the hanging nest swayed upon its slender branch, as the cruel talons of the intruder fixed themselves in the yielding bark. The weight of the monster bird upon the very branch which his little victim had chosen for a home caused it to bend almost to the breaking point, ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... sarcasm was not lost on Cyrus. He perceived that he had become the victim of a harsh and ruthless dealing. ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... grace Of a royal race; Only his throne is but a grave; Is there fate in fame? Is there doom in names? Ah! what did the cruel Zulu spears Care for the prince or his mother's tears? What did the Zulu's ruthless lance Care for the hope of ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... chanted low by the well of Barrackpore to the maddened Rajpoot, to the dreaming Moor, was fiercely shouted by the well of Cawnpore to a chorus of shrieking women, English wives and mothers, and spluttering of blood-choked babes, and clash of red knives, and drunken shouts of slayers, ruthless and obscene. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... whose face had been hopelessly cruel and ruthless, here started back with a gasp and a little ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a nice plot to face, and countermine! A plot that was only to be defeated by subtlety and strategy; for, at the most, there were but three of us, all told, against thirteen ruthless, treacherous men; and it was not to be forgotten that no dependence whatever was to be placed upon the man Harry; his scruples apparently drew the line at cold-blooded murder, but on the hither side of that, consideration ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... exacted from the sovereign of Chosen a promise of yearly tribute to the Ouchi. This was only one of several profitable raids. The goods appropriated in Korea were sometimes carried to China for sale, the pirates assuming, now the character of peaceful traders, now that of ruthless plunderers. The apparition of these Pahan** ships seems to have inspired the Chinese with consternation. They do not appear to have made any effective resistance. The decade between 1553 and 1563 was evidently their time of greatest suffering; and their annals of that era repay perusal, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... has not been disturbed by the fact that vast Peking, the vaunted capital, is in the hands of ruthless invaders. At first everyone thought that with the Palace empty, and all the great Boards and offices made mere camping-places for thousands of hostile soldiery, the government of the whole empire would be paralysed—sterilised. Yet ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... a disastrous effect on such noble structures raised by these monastic architects, as well as on many a rustic village church, which fell a prey to the ruthless invading bands of pagan warriors. But frequently, as we study the history written in the stonework of our churches, we find amid the massive Norman walls traces of the work of Saxon builders, an arch here, a column there, which link our own ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... and shades under the summer sunlight were full of splendour. No artist eye could have gazed upon it all and missed its appeal. But these men lived amidst it the year round, and they had learned something of the fear which the ruthless northland inspires. To them the beauty of the open season was a mockery, a sham, the cruel ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... and Tennysonian; and his "Oh! where is all thy loveliness?" in the later Ode to Lyce has caught marvellously the minor key of tender memory which relieves the brutality of that ruthless flagellation. Mr. Goldwin Smith's more numerous "Bay Leaves" are fashioned all in goodly measure; and his "Blest man who far from care and strife" well transfers to English the breathlessness of Horace's sham pastoral ecstasy. Of more ambitious translators Bulwer Lytton catches now and then ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... been torn from his guards, had not these shouted that he was placed in their hands by Saladin himself for conduct to the governor. As the emir was as sharp and as ruthless with his own people as with the prisoners who fell into his hands, the name acted as a talisman, and Cuthbert and his escort rode forward without molestation until they reached the entrance ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... and brought substantial ill! Oh, to thy cursed scream, discordant still, Let harmony aye shut her gentle ear: Thy boastful mirth let jealous rivals spill, Insult thy crest, and glossy pinions tear, And ever in thy dreams the ruthless ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... head. "Unfortunately, that, together with many other valued possessions, has been ravaged from me by the ruthless maw ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... her, this made her harder, more ruthless. She was now up against her own fate. It was for her to choose between being Mrs. Skrebensky, even Baroness Skrebensky, wife of a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, the Sappers, as he called them, living with the European population ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... despair, and, kneeling down upon the floor, she began, with dreadful earnestness and solemnity, to call upon Almighty God, imploring him to avenge the death of her children, and invoking the bitterest curses upon the head of their ruthless murderer. ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... even in its worst aspects, but which is so often marred by the passions of man, in its best. While all admit how much nature has done for the Mediterranean, none will deny that, until quite recently, it has been the scene of more ruthless violence, and of deeper personal wrongs, perhaps, than any other portion of the globe. With different races, more widely separated by destinies than even by origin, habits, and religion, occupying its northern and southern shores, the outwork, as it ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... his guilty agitation, shook a bottle of Dutch Drops until they were nothing but English Froth, and in his other hand sustained a formidable carving-knife, really intended to reduce the swelling, but apparently designed for the ruthless infliction of another wound as soon as that was dressed; Charity rendered not the least assistance, nor uttered a word. But when Mr Jonas's head was bound up, and he had gone to bed, and everybody else had retired, and the house was quiet, Mr Pinch, as he sat mournfully on his bedstead, ruminating, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... find footing on shore. Not content with plundering the coasts, they made their way up the streams, and often suddenly appeared far inland before an alarm could be given. Wherever they went, heaps of the dead and the smoking ruins of habitations marked their ruthless course. They did not hesitate to attack fortified cities, several of which fell into their hands and were destroyed. They always fought on foot, but such was their strength, boldness, and activity that ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... the reputation, gained by the manner in which he had drawn off his army from its dangerous position, by the ruthless spirit with which the operation was conducted; covering his retreat by burning every village through which he passed, and even ordering the town of Leiria to be destroyed, although altogether out of the ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... thyself, thou gav'st, despite the gods, To mortals more than is a mortal's due. And therefore must thou keep this dreary rock, Erect, with frame unbending, reft of sleep, And many a bootless wail of agony Shalt utter. Change of mind in Zeus is none, Ruthless the rule ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... Government were willing to confirm the receipt of this Memorandum and declare themselves satisfied. Fate, however, had decreed that I should play the role of Sisyphus at Washington. Scarcely were the negotiations terminated when the German Government, on the 8th February, declared the so-called "ruthless submarine war," i.e. announced to the sea powers their intention of sinking armed merchantmen without warning and without regard to crew or passengers. In view of this the American Government refused to complete the exchange of letters on the subject of the Lusitania. Instead of this ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... woodland song. Came Aphrodite, smiles on her sweet face, False smiles, for heavy was her heart, and spake: "So, Daphnis, thou must try a fall with Love! But stalwart Love hath won the fall of thee." Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. Then "Ruthless Aphrodite," Daphnis said, "Accursed Aphrodite, foe to man! Say'st thou mine hour is come, my sun hath set? Dead as alive, shall Daphnis work Love woe." Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. "Fly to Mount Ida, where the swain (men say) And Aphrodite—to ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... strange, in one so independent of others. He had a great faculty, at one time, for not caring, for being (or seeming) ruthless. It's a gift that a politician must envy. It hasn't been my way to lose my heart in politics: it's not safe. ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... or alliterations, "ruin, ruthless," "helm or hauberk," are below the grandeur of a poem that endeavours at sublimity. In the second stanza the Bard is well described, but in the third we have the puerilities of obsolete mythology. When we are told that "Cadwallo hushed the stormy main," and ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... fail to influence those with whom she came into contact—tall, dark, and handsome, she gave the impression of much strength of will, keen wits, and great abilities. She was a very clever teacher, who liked to push on quick pupils, but was a little ruthless towards stupid girls. She knew how to make the dullest subject entertaining, and expected a high average of work, having no toleration for laziness, and a contempt for incompetence. No girl ever dreamt of whispering ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... by their deeds the thing that made them men, the three shrunk to the moral stature of animals. Boland was the tiger, brooding over the city with yellow eyes, seeking whom he might devour. Druce was the wolf; cunning, ruthless, prowling. Anson was the mastiff; savage, brutal, given to wild bursts of rending passion. Love of power lashed Boland to his crimes; lechery prompted Druce in his prowlings; and whisky was the fire that smouldered under ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... to him a great demonstration of the root, the core, of divine pity which he believed to be the centre of the scheme of the world. Round this centre revolved wheels within wheels of cruelty, of agony, of ruthless passions and of lawless bitterness. Yet they radiated from pity. They radiated from love. How it was so he could not tell, and there the pessimist had him by the throat. But that it was so he felt in his inmost heart, and never more than now, when the tired boy ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... The rural tenants found themselves in a mesh of legal claims—old services revived, old dues enforced, endless suits in the King's courts grinding them again to serfage. Oppression was no longer the rough blow of the rough baron; it was the delicate, ruthless tyranny of ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... dark eye, a falcon gaze, roving and keen. His jaw was prominent and set, mastiff-like; his lips were stern. It was youth with its softness not yet quite burned and hardened away that kept the whole cast of his face from being ruthless. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... Ralph de Percy, Lord of Smeaton, and a freeholder named Allatson—in their disappointment and wrath set upon the hermit, whom they fatally wounded. When the abbot afterwards came to the dying hermit, and told him his assailants would suffer extreme penalty for their ruthless conduct, the hermit asked the gentlemen to be sent for, and said he would pardon them on certain conditions. 'The gentlemen being present bade him save their lives.—Then said the hermit, "You and yours shall hold your ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... arch, ogling person, with a good deal of eyes and teeth, and a great play of shoulders and rattle of conversation. There could be no doubt, from Mr. Ronald's attitude, that he worshipped the very chair she sat on. But I was quite ruthless. I laid my hand on his shoulder, as he was stooping over her like a hen ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tawny, nay, a bloody light in its gloom; and his face flushed—olive cheek and hueless forehead received a glow, as from spreading, ascending heart-fire; and he stirred, lifted his strong arm; he could have struck Mason—dashed him on the church floor—shocked by ruthless blow the breath from his body; but Mason shrank away, and cried faintly, "Good God!" Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester—his passion died as if a blight had shriveled it up; he only asked, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... at all events expressed—for these pretty and apparently innocent little victims. But, alas! our sympathy receives a sad shock, when it becomes known that the flying-fish is himself one of the petty tyrants of the ocean,—being, like his near congener, the pike, a most ruthless little destroyer and devourer of any fish small enough to go down ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... ancient Persia's long dead power, these. Men of Xerxes's ruthless, world-conquering hordes; the lustful, ravening wolves of Darius whom Alexander scattered—in this world of ours ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... months of the most ruthless war the world has ever seen, it was a curious sensation to find myself once again on English soil and in the midst of peaceful surroundings. It was one of those mild, balmy days which we very seldom get in the month of December, and the usual English Sunday atmosphere of rest and ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... out between the branches, and one by one deserting the shady covert, drew near under the irresistible attraction of the music. Then the goat-men rushed upon them with a demoniac fury. Folded in the arms of their ruthless assailants, the nymphs strove to keep up a while longer their raillery and loud laughter, but the mirth died on their lips. With heads thrown back and eyes swooning with joy and terror, they could only call ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... up against a plot so ruthless, a situation more terrible. A lone woman, Ma Thomas, had been selected for the ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... a man suddenly awaking in some desart isle, to which his sea-mates have transported him in his sleep, he looked around, and discerning no known objects, he cast his hands to heaven for pity, and complained on those ruthless men who had beguiled him with a promise of conveying him home to his country, and perfidiously left him to perish in an unknown land. But then the rich presents of gold and silver given him by Alcinous, which he saw carefully ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... contemplation, it would, I am confident, have ceased long ago to be matter of controversy; but the dust of prejudice and passion, which so distempers the intellectual vision of theologians and politicians, is seen to make, with ruthless impartiality, no exception of the ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... was cumulative. Remembering what he had seen he did not believe that a single one of Ward's men would be spared when they were taken as they surely would be. There were humane men among the Mexicans, like Almonte, but the ruthless policy of Santa Anna was to spare no one, and Santa Anna ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... that a difference of religious belief did not enable the settlers any more than the natives to pay a rent that could not be produced from the soil. The desire to change the nationality and religion of his tenants was so strong in one landlord that, in the words of my informant, "A scene of ruthless havoc began among his tenantry. To stimulate the slowness of the crowbar brigade he was known to tear down human habitations with his own hands." I remember these poor people standing in the market in those dark days of famine, having their bits of furniture for sale on ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... armaments; and the abolition of entangling alliances. The whole world was discussing the President's remarkable message, when it was dumbfounded to hear, on January 31, that the German ambassador at Washington had announced the official renewal of ruthless submarine warfare. ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... come to call natural selection there has been a continual weeding-out of the relatively lazy, cowardly, reckless, and imprudent. Much of our morality is the result of tendencies thus long cultivated by the ruthless methods of nature; we inherit a complex nervous organization, the outcome of ages of molding and selection, which now instinctively and easily responds to stimuli with a certain degree of inbred morality. This ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... unfastidious abonne. Stevenson, in writing an article for a magazine on his "First Book," chose "Treasure Island," for books other than novels do not count as books. He spoke of terror as the motive and interest of the tale; the dread for each and all of a mutiny headed by his ruthless favourite, John Silver. Indeed, terror, whether caused by the eccentric furies of Mr. William Bones, mariner, or of the awful blind Pew with his tapping staff, runs through the volume as the dominant motive. But there is so ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Ellen's look and attitude of entreaty, though the words with which she sought to soften the ruthless heart of her guide became inaudible ere they reached the height where Fanshawe stood. He felt that Heaven had sent him thither, at the moment of her utmost need, to be the preserver of all that was ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the founder of the modern school of the Law of Nature and of Nations. He was struck with the ruthless manner, in which wars were generally conducted; the slight pretences, upon which they were generally begun; and the barbarity and injustice, with which they were generally attended. He attributed these evils to the want of settled principles ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... observe a similar ceremony, but on the confines of Russia so intense is the belief in the superstition of the water goblin that in times of long drought a traveller journeying along the road has often been seized by the ruthless hands of the villagers and ceremoniously flung into a rivulet—a sacrifice to appease the spirit that lay in the waters. In Ireland the fairy-tale of Fior Usga—Princess Spring-water—has a kindred meaning; she, so the legend relates, sank down in ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... appear to be personifications of sudden tempests, which, with ruthless violence, sweep over whole districts, carrying off or injuring all ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... the hills, And extreme meeting place of light and shade, Wherein soft rains fell slowly, and became Clouds among sister clouds, where fair spent beams And dying glories of the sun would dwell, Why have they whom I know not, nor may know, Strange hands, unseen and ruthless, fashioned me, And borne me from the silent shadowy hills, Hither, to noise and glow of alien life, To harsh and clamorous swords, ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... will lie upon his master's clothes seemingly asleep, but giving immediate warning of the approach of a supposed marauder. He has a propensity, when at home, to fly at every horse and every strange dog; and of young game of every kind there is not a more ruthless destroyer ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... who constantly stimulate the trade to make it more profitable. As a result of investigations in New York, it is estimated that the number of prostitutes would be not more than one-fourth of what it is were it not for the ruthless greed of these men. The houses are usually located in the poorer parts of the city, but they are also to be found scattered elsewhere. In cases where public opinion does not warrant rigid enforcement of the law against it, the illicit traffic is disregarded by the police, and often they are ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... sides, to play both ends against the middle, to commit atrocities that opened the eyes of those who, believing they had subsidized the lawless, suddenly woke to the fact that they had subsidized themselves; then the outlaws, in their turn, discovering that every man's hand was against them; the ruthless establishing of a definite line between those inside and those outside the law, replacing the vague middle ground of semi-lawlessness. Always their friends fell away from them, those secretly leagued with them fearing to be seen in their company, and those not too definitely ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... ruthless to the wives of the householders and officials. He heaps them with vices. They are not merely vulgar in money matters. They are pitiful in their sexual affairs, and, in fact, in all relations. Gorki's harlots on the contrary always have some compelling, touching, noble trait. One of the prostitutes ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... a woman; and her lips quivered, and there was a tear in her eye, as she exposed the ruthless treatment to which she had subjected herself. The cruel morning rays—as with Jocelyn under Avice's scrutiny—showed in their full bareness, unenriched by addition, undisguised by the arts of colour and shade, the thin remains of what had once been Marcia's ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... harmless gentleman, who got into bad company by mere accident. Nor do I believe he ever had any more serious design on the capital of the nation than to look at it longingly from a distance, and perhaps a desire now and then to enjoy the hospitality of some old friend. That he would have played the ruthless invader, if he had got into the city, no reflecting mind ever believed. But then there were people ready enough to believe anything in those days—even to believe that there was truth to be found in the stories ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... in conversation and in letters, took up one of his favourite classic tags, and wove a shrewd modern reflection round it. For instance, a couple of years before the war, a phrase of Aristotle recommending a ruthless egotism in the conduct of war, led him ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... she knew, was bound to be a terribly painful thing for him, but there was no other way, and harsh necessity made her ruthless. She did what she could with an improvised sling, and helped him to stand on his uninjured leg. The pain he endured was shown in his white face, and in the bitten under lip, which trickled red. She was afraid that he was about to faint, but he ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... later, is certain death to so many. It is a pity that small florists and greengrocers in London do not know more about this; and it would be a great act of kindness to them and to their customers to instruct them. Then, instead of encouraging the ruthless slaughter of primroses, scores and hundreds of plants of which are torn up and then sold in a smoky atmosphere to which they never adapt themselves, these small shopkeepers might offer plants of the many ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... resurrection of the dead; and that these vast, streaming, endless swarms were the condemned, marching noiselessly as shades to unavoidable and everlasting misery. They seemed to me merely automata, in the hands of some ruthless and unrelenting destiny. They lived and moved, but they were without heart or hope. The illusions of the imagination, which beckon all of us forward, even over the roughest paths and through the darkest valleys and shadows of life, had departed from the scope of their ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... great vexed question of what Lee should or should not have done. First, it seems clear that (like Farragut and unlike Grant and Jackson) he lacked the ruthless power of making every subordinate bend or break in every time of crisis: otherwise he would have bent or broken Longstreet. Next, it may have been that he was not then at his best. Concludingly, it may be granted to armchair (and even other) critics that if ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... of villains attacked and murdered the pair. They were buried together at a place known for many centuries after as 'The Lovers' Grave,' and here Frederick used to loiter often, musing fondly on the dear sister who had been snatched from him in this ruthless fashion, and dreaming of the lofty artistic career which he had planned in vain for ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... of the insurgents.[729] Those that followed the Governor into exile upon the Eastern Shore, had been compelled to leave their estates to the mercy of the enemy. And the desperate rebels, especially after death had removed the strong arm of Bacon, had subjected many plantations to thorough and ruthless pillage. Crops had been destroyed, cattle driven off, farm houses burned, servants liberated. Almost every member of the Council had suffered, while Berkeley himself claimed to have ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... plumes, she said, would be like visiting Japan without buying a kimono. The bird is usually sold entire, the prices ranging from twenty-five to thirty dollars, according to size and condition, though, owing to the ruthless slaughter of the birds to meet the demands of the European market, prices are steadily advancing. The Winsome Widow bought four of the finest birds I have ever seen—gorgeous, flame-colored things with plumes ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... be thankful that the temptation did not reach the length of making me offer to buy Everton's silence. That, indeed, would have been suicidal. Yet the prompting suggestion came to me, in company with others still more ruthless. I was telling myself that the situation was sufficiently alarming to warrant almost any expedient. Though he was not yet aware of it, Everton had discovered our real secret; he knew we had ore, which—as yet—he thought we were stealing from the Lawrenceburg bins. If he should take one additional ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... idling they had days when they worked intensely, and Ludlow was as severe with Cornelia's work as he was with his own. He made her rub out and paint out, and he drew ruthless modifications of her work all over it, like the crudest of the Synthesis masters. He made her paint out every day the work of the day before, as they did in the Synthesis; though sometimes he paused over ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... in one family, however, was not only sad but alarming. Death knows no hatred: death is deaf and blind, nothing more, and astonishment was felt at this ruthless destruction of all who bore one name. Still nobody suspected the true culprits, search was fruitless, inquiries led nowhere: the marquise put on mourning for her brothers, Sainte-Croix continued in his path of folly, and all things went on as before. Meanwhile Sainte-Croix ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... sons, the three, the brave, From lands far hidden by the wave: I killed them for thee, who oppressest me sore; Hard died they, O ruthless one, washed ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... but it was at such long and fearful intervals, and then, vision-like, of such short duration, that, with the closed oaks of the tradesmen, and the woe-begone faces of the starving scouts and bed-makers, a stranger might have imagined some ruthless plague had swept away, "at one fell swoop," two-thirds of the population of Rhedycina. It was at this dull period of time, that a poor student, having passed successfully the Scylla and Charybdis of an Oxonian's fears, the great go and little go, and exhausted by long and persevering ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... act in the great drama of "natural selection," which had been played upon the stage of the earth since the first appearance of living forms; the last and most ruthless of them all, for the instigating cause was no longer merely the pressure for a share of the food supply, but to this was added the lust for power and place, the hunger for wealth and dominion, the insatiable appetite for autocratic control. Millions upon millions of men were swept away ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... treasures he has taken, Poor as we feel of hoarded wealth bereft, More precious are those implements forsaken, Found in the wreck his ruthless ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the strong man turns, with a haughty lip, On poverty, stern and grim, When he seizes the fiend with a ruthless grip, Ye need not fear for him. But when poverty comes to a little child, Freezing its bloom away— When its cheeks are thin and its eyes are wild, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... ruthless man destroyed more than fortunes; he trafficked in human lives. There had been half a dozen mysterious suicides which had been investigated by Scotland Yard, and found directly traceable to letters received in the morning, and burnt by the despairing victim before ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... with one hand and offer her a pickled beet with the other. This confuses her mind, and she may grow up not knowing right from wrong. (The striking example of the pickled beet was removed from the essay by the refined but ruthless Miss Dearborn, who strove patiently, but vainly, to keep such vulgar images out of her ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... were few and confusingly new, mixed with reality and the loose artistic conceptions of heroes in fiction. The young male, as she had actually seen him, had been of the sailor type, hard-bitten, primordial, ruthless. For the face under her gaze she could find but one expression—fine. The shape of the head, the height and breadth of the brow, the angle of the nose, the cut of the chin and jaws, all were fine, of a type she had ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath |
