"Harrowing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... came again—louder, more harrowing. It came at regular intervals, and each time with the explosion at the end. I watched Carpenter, and he was like a high-spirited horse that hears the cracking of a whip over his head. The creature becomes more ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... grief and despair and suffering that Uncle Remus managed to throw into this supplication was really harrowing. ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... lowered into the water....I hastily seized a rope, and by means of a tremendous leap fell into the boat; the same wave which saved my life carried away my two children....It would be difficult to describe the horror of this terrible disaster, the cries of those still on board the ship, and the harrowing spectacle of those who, having thrown themselves into the waves, were making useless efforts to gain the beach....Seven living men at last found themselves on the shore of that unknown land...and (in the evening) it was a heartrending sight which presented ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... not grumbling at the little hardships and discomforts of this particular morning. He was grumbling at an entire life of discomfort. He was rebelling against his degrading slavery and enforced misery, and it was the harrowing consciousness of his own impotence that added ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... the silence of the mountain fell upon the camp, but it was hours before the shock to one's senses could be forgotten. I never before, nor never again expect to hear screams more harrowing or terrifying. ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... of the world, and as a memorial to future generations, that the mind of its author was moved by little less than inspiration. Lear, with its sublime picture of human misery;—Othello, with its harrowing overthrow of a nature great and amiable;—Macbeth, with its fearful murder of a monarch, whose "virtues plead like angels trumpet-tongued against the deep damnation of his taking off,"—severally exhibit, in the most pre-eminent degree, all ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... flat upon the stones. The wind searched close along the earth, the stones were cutting and icy, the bare hazels wailed about him; and soon the air of the afternoon began to be vocal with those strange and dismal harpings that herald snow. Pain and misery turned in John's limbs to a harrowing impatience and blind desire of change; now he would roll in his harsh lair, and when the flints abraded him, was almost pleased; now he would crawl to the edge of the huge pit and look dizzily down. He saw the spiral of the descending roadway, the steep crags, the clinging bushes, ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the 44th regiment from England. Then came the Civil War. Henson was too old to go, but his relatives enlisted. He was charged with having violated the foreign enlistment act and was arrested and acquitted after some harrowing experiences. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... forced the construction of several expensive lines of railway, yet it was impossible to carry all the products of the valley by rail. Millions of dollars' worth of merchandise were delayed at the bars. As early as 1726 attempts had been made to deepen the channels through the river's mouths by harrowing. But the first government effort was in 1837, when an appropriation was made for a survey and for dredging with buckets. Again in 1852 another appropriation was made; and a board, appointed by ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... waters retire, the women drop a few grains in a hole made with a hoe, then push back the soil with the foot. One weeding alone is required before the grain comes to maturity. This simple process represents all our subsoil plowing, liming, manuring, and harrowing, for in four months after planting a good crop is ready for the sickle, and has been known to yield a hundred-fold. It flourished still more at Zumbo. No irrigation is required, because here there are gentle rains, almost like mist, in winter, which go ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... affectionate child, bade him adieu, and ascended, the steps leading to the third story (Mount Rascal) in advance of the jailer, to be confined in a dark, unhealthy cell, there to await the caprice of one man. To describe this miserable hole would be a task too harrowing to our feelings. We pass it for those who will come after us. He little thought, when he shook the hand of his little companion, that it was the last time he should meet him for many months, and then only to take a last parting look, under the most painful circumstances. ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... reply to a question as to the cause of the prevailing discontent, "and we ain't no better off than we was when we commenced." This is the negro version of the trouble, which is elaborated on occasion into a harrowing story of oppression ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... hope in life had been to participate in a battle. There came a day, later, when he and Scotty worked side by side on the blood-stained rocks of the desert, helping to remove the dead and wounded; when they saw their General's body lowered into its lonely grave, and witnessed the hundred harrowing sights of a battlefield; and then and there, much of the boyish glamour of battle faded before the horrible reality. But that time had not yet come; and, like Napoleon, Dan was convinced that war ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... flickering jet up the concrete corridor, casting such fitful shadows by the prisoner's side that he starts from his cot in terror to touch the phantoms lest they be real; the alternate waves of choking heat and harrowing cold; the hammering of the steam-pipes; the curses, the groans, and the eruptive breathing of the sleeping and the drunken; the thoughts of home, and friends, and irreparable disgrace; the feeble hope that, after ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... and down the room. His face was white, his eyes were wild. He had the haggard look of one who has come through a long series of harrowing experiences up to the supreme torture where there is nothing worse ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... devil in the lowest pit, resolving that hell shall soon be fuller than before; for he will walk east and he will walk west, and he will seduce thousands from their allegiance. Another play, similar to the foregoing, but much more extensively known and acted, was called the "Harrowing of Hell." Christ and Satan appear on the stage and argue in the most approved scholastic style for the right of possession in the human race. Satan says, "Whoever purchases any thing, It belongs to him and to his children. Adam, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... And what is being done to them? No one asks—none likes to tempt the answer; all guessing what it would be, dreading to hear it spoken. Never did men suffer emotions more painfully intense, passions more heartfelt and harrowing; not even the prisoners of Cawnpore, or ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... laughed at that, Baumgartner swore that he would possess half of the farm before he died; and as Pressel and his wife died, and Seffy grew up, and as he noticed the fondness of the little red-headed girl for his little tow-headed boy, he added to his adjuration that he would be harrowing that whole farm before he died,—without paying a cent ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... learning, which could not have been obtained in all the schools and universities in the world. It enabled a poor, vile, unlettered rebel—a blasphemous travelling tinker, to become a most eminent preacher; one whose native powers, sanctified by harrowing but hallowing feelings, attracted the deep attention of the most learned and pious of his contemporaries, while it carried conviction to the most impious and profane. Even beyond all this, his spiritual acquirements fitted him, without scholastic learning, to become the most ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... rained, and from the patch of back yard, two stories beneath her window, began to mount the moist smell of living earth. Beside this open window, after the harrowing mornings of dentistry, with a soft rain falling from a sky swift and low with clouds, she wrote, her pencil dabbing constantly at the well of her tongue, a short story of some six thousand words composed out of the fabric of an idea that suddenly presented itself. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... anxiously did I scrutinize that face; with what a throbbing heart did I canvass every gesture, hoping to find some passing trait of doubt, of difficulty, or of hesitation; but none was there. Unlike one who looked upon the harrowing spectacle of the battle-field, whose all was depending on the game before him; gambling with one throw his last his only stake, and that the empire of the world. Yet, could I picture to myself one who felt at peace within himself,—naught of reproach, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... art has advanced, and is capable of affecting us more deeply, refinement too has advanced: there is less simplicity, but merely painful detail is subordinated to general expression and skill of drawing and color. It is where the two meet, as in Rubens, that the result is most harrowing: the picture I have just spoken of is the only one of his in which I ever saw any sign of delicacy or tenderness, any appeal to the deeper and more exquisite emotions. Nevertheless, by degrees his genius helps one to surmount his realism. On my first ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... not even know that they still lived; in fact, I could not bring myself to believe that they did. I was sure that Lys was dead. I wanted myself to die, and yet I clung to life—useless and hopeless and harrowing a thing as it had become. I clung to life because some ancient, reptilian forbear had clung to life and transmitted to me through the ages the most powerful motive that guided his minute brain—the ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... evident preoccupation of the ludicrous effects of the "Morgante Maggiore"—Berni even could not keep up his spirits; into the middle of Boiardo's serene fairyland adventures he inserted a description of the sack of Rome which is simply harrowing. All real cheerfulness departed from the people, to be replaced only by pleasure in the debaucheries of the buffoonish obscenity of Aretino, Bandello, and so forth, to which the men of the dying Italy of the Renaissance listened as the roysterers of the plague of Florence, with the mortal sickness ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... the avowed enemies of his Government, while Hindman, if guilty as charged, has practised cruelties unnumbered" on his people. Other representatives spoke in the same vein. Baldwin of Virginia told harrowing tales of martial law in that State. Barksdale attempted to retaliate, sarcastically reminding him of a recent scene of riot and disorder which proved that martial law, in any effective form, did not exist in Virginia. He alluded to a riot, ostensibly for bread, in which an Amazonian woman ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... their enemies. Around them, the camp was strewn with the unburied corpses of brothers, comrades and sons, and thousands more were tossing on the waves, or flung up on the shores of the bay. And while the neglect of that sacred duty pressed heavily on their conscience, still more harrowing were the cries of the sick and wounded, who clung round their knees, imploring to be taken with them, and when the army began to move followed with tottering steps, until they sank down exhausted, calling down the curse of heaven on the retreating ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... alone disturbed the stillness of the room. A circular table was placed in the centre of the apartment. Upon it there was a writing apparatus of gold. A vacant arm-chair stood before the table. The company gazed silently upon it as the instrument of the most soul-harrowing execution. ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Miss Honeychurch?" His voice suggested sympathetic reproof but at the same time indicated that a few harrowing details would not be unacceptable. His dark, handsome face drooped mournfully towards her to catch ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... he professed on most of the important subjects which interest mankind, and the views he entertained of the progress of society. He would then describe, in the most glowing language, the domestic happiness which he enjoyed in his native isle. He would paint, in harrowing sentences, the eternal misery and disgrace which his ignominious execution would entail upon the grey-headed father, who looked up to him as a prop for his old age; the affectionate mother, who perceived in him ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... which his mother gave him was in the fatal counsels of the courtiers whom she placed about him,—men who led him to waste his intellectual as well as his physical vigor, thus bringing on a malady which was purely fortuitous and not constitutional. Under these harrowing circumstances, Charles IX. displayed a gloomy majesty of demeanor which was not unbecoming to a king. The solemnity of his secret thoughts was reflected on his face, the olive tones of which he inherited from his mother. This ivory pallor, so fine by candlelight, so suited ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... to be harrowing, it is in this paper that they will chiefly provoke the tear of sentiment. Other Confessors have never admitted that they are Social Duffers, except Mr. MARK PATTISON only, the Rector of Lincoln College; and he seems to have Flattered himself that he was only a Duffer as a beginner. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 23, 1892 • Various
... a bedchamber, a council hall, or a hall of audience. She was alone. She wore a loose cream-coloured gown knotted about the waist; her arms were bare, and her hair unbound and flowing loose over her shoulders to her girdle. She was to die in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for the famous quartet in the ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... a little strange how the boys could come to converse as they did while surrounded by such gruesome sights; but after several hours' familiarity with such scenes these begin to lose some of their harrowing features. And while Rob and his chum were still shocked by frequent sights, they did not feel the same weakness that had, in the beginning, almost ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... wreaks his wrath on Madame Marneffe and on Crevel by his mysterious death-causing gift. The ideally virtuous Adeline Hulot also the novelist belittles, making her offer herself to Crevel to save her husband from the consequences of his degrading passions. Nearly all the book is harrowing, and even the atmosphere of the bohemian circles, where conversation is one sparkle of satire, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... the stillness and quiet of Olney were very acceptable to him, and then he began to long for more excitement—something to divert his mind from the harrowing fear, daily growing more and more certain, that Ethie would never come back. It was four years since she went away, and nothing had been heard from her since the letter sent to Andy from New York. "Dead," he said to himself many a time, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... that Madame Zattiany has decided to come out of her shell at last," said Judge Trent, shaking vigorously. "I've been urging it for some time. But she has had a long and harrowing experience, and seemed to want only to rest. I think the stir she made at your first-nights, Clavering, had something to do with it. There was a time, you know, when she never appeared without making a sensation—like poor Mary before her—but young as she ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... searcher for gold; but the flashes of sulphurous fires, blue and red, and the saucer eyes and chattering teeth of legions of demons have uniformly interposed to frighten the delvers from their posts, and preserve the treasures from their greedy clutches. But notwithstanding the harrowing sensations connected with the name of Kidd, and his renown as a pirate, he was but one of the last and most inconsiderable of that mighty race of sea robbers who, during a long series of years in the seventeenth century, were the admiration ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 'Francis Todd,' from Newburyport, came to Baltimore and took in a load of slaves for the New Orleans market. All the harrowing cruelties and separations which attend the rending asunder of families and the sale of slaves, were enacted under the eyes of the youthful philanthropist, and in a burning article he denounced the inter-State slave-trade as piracy, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... decision. He had one child, about eighteen months old, around whom his tenderest affections had entwined themselves; but when he remembered that his friend's intimacy with his wife had run almost parallel with their marriage, a harrowing suspicion crossed his mind, and made his heart turn from the form of beauty and innocence it had ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... objection was made by such powerful Abolitionists as Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, Stone gave reign to a sharp tongue. In the early days of the session, Roscoe Conkling told the story of Ball's Bluff for the benefit of Congress in a brilliant, harrowing speech. In a flash the rumor spread that the dead at Ball's Bluff were killed by design, that Stone was a traitor, that—perhaps!—who could say?—there were bigger traitors higher up. Stone was ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... could have sworn I heard the bells, and yet they were miles out of earshot. When Alec and I and the camels were all here together I thought this a very pretty place, but oh, how hideous did it appear while I was here alone, with the harrowing thought of the camels being lost and Alec returning without them. Death itself in any terrors clad would have been a more welcome sight to me then and there, than Alec Ross without the camels. ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... read trash!" he exclaimed. "And you're behind the times too, my dear. No one dreams of reading this kind of thing now—antiquated problem plays, harrowing descriptions of life in the east end—oh, no, we've exploded all that. Read poetry, ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... its massive, air-tight coffin, and all is confusion and uproar. The first thought is for the corpse; but who is to lift such a heavy weight and carry it to a place of safety without the dreaded jolting, almost as painful to the survivors as would be cremation itself? Such harrowing thoughts are usually cut short by the entrance of six or eight sturdy men from the nearest guild, who, armed with the necessary ropes and poles, bear away the coffin through flame and smoke with the utmost ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... was feeling badly, heart-brokenly, all alone in her room. After a long, harrowing talk with Mrs. Jerrold, at the close of which she had received commands never to go out alone in Rome, because it wasn't proper, she had been allowed to depart for her own room. Here she closed the door leading into Mrs. Jerrold's and Edith's apartment, and opened her window wide, and ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... kind to him—she would be sorry for him; his whole heart and soul had been on fire to get back to her—to get away from the harrowing silence of the flat which had always been associated in his mind with fun and laughter, and the happiest days of ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... her with the harrowing dread that I was on the point of being launched into the throes of eternity, if not already as dead as Death's door-nail, and so, with feminine want of reflection, she performed a ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... destroyer has trampled into dust, and which no earthly beauty can again clothe, or earthly spring reanimate. They are to be pitied who have no higher solace, no better remedy for their grief, than thus to water with unavailing tears the trophies of death; or to read the harrowing record which love has traced on its slab of cold marble, telling of the vanity ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... end, this appalling strife, With its reckless waste of human life, Its riving of highest, holiest ties, Its tears of anguish and harrowing sighs, Its ruined homes from which hope has fled, Its broken ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... was time to consult Biddick. He was sitting at his desk staring at a blank sheet of paper. His fingers were harrowing his hair and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... without adjuncts, without the suggestion of resources, without the relief of even mournful humour, and with a narrative rather than a dramatic background—the portraiture of a condition; and, because the man displayed is neither so noble nor so human, the pathos surcharging the work is neither so harrowing nor so tender. Yet the two works are akin in majesty of ideal, in the terrible topic of mental disease that shatters a king, and in the atmosphere of desolation that trails after them like a funeral pall; and it is not a wonder that Alfieri's Saul should be deemed the greatest tragedy ever originated ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... a horrid, harrowing night, for now the general distress was brought home to them more poignantly than ever. At dawn they learned that these people were actually dying of neglect. The faint light betrayed the presence of new corpses lying upon the station ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... clay can still Feel feverish pang and fainting chill, Whose eye can stare in stony trance Whose hair can rouse like warrior's lance, 'Tis hard for such to view, unfurled, The curtain of the future world. Yet, witness every quaking limb, My sunken pulse, mine eyeballs dim, My soul with harrowing anguish torn, This for my Chieftain have I borne!— The shapes that sought my fearful couch A human tongue may ne'er avouch; No mortal man—save he, who, bred Between the living and the dead, Is gifted beyond nature's law Had e'er survived to say he saw. At length the fateful answer came In ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... the marks of war became stronger and stronger, every village wore a rueful aspect, and every individual told a tale more and more harrowing to the feelings. The Postmasters seem to have been the greatest sufferers, as their situation demanded a large supply of corn, horses and forage, all of which, even to the chickens, were carried off. One poor woman, wife of a postmaster, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... be said to have had two tails—one in connection with his body, the other with his career. This tale, though short, is very harrowing, and as it is intimately connected with Crusoe's subsequent history we will relate it here. But before doing so we must beg our reader to accompany us beyond the civilized portions of the United States of America—beyond the frontier settlements ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... persecution. They were hunted by English troopers over their native moors and among the wild recesses of their mountains, whither they secretly retired for prayer and worship. The tales of the suffering of the Scotch Covenanters at the hands of the English Protestants form a most harrowing chapter of the records of the ages of religious persecution." This list might be considerably augmented, but it is unnecessary. However, that Protestant persecution and tyranny should never reach the enormous extent of the Romanists before them is proved by the fact ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... thing you can do, Alice," Fred replied, as Frank stood looking at the dog, who tried several times, but in vain, to scramble out, the ice each time breaking with its weight, "will be to turn and walk away; there is no use standing here harrowing your feelings by watching that poor little ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... not," answered Dora, and Ella continued, "But she was good, and I am not. I have never done a worthy act in all my life. Never thought of death, or even looked upon it, for mother told us there was no need of harrowing up our feelings—it would come soon enough, she said; and to me, who hoped to live so long, it has come too soon—all too soon;" and the hot tears rained through the transparent fingers, clasped so convulsively over ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... sight, Star after shuddering star the deep storms drown. The very throne of night, her very crown, A man lays hand on, and usurps her right. Song from the highest of heaven's imperious height Shoots, as a fire to smite some towering town. Rage, anguish, harrowing fear, heart-crazing crime, Make monstrous all the murderous face of Time Shown in the spheral orbit of a glass Revolving. Earth cries out from all her graves. Frail, on frail rafts, across wide-wallowing waves, Shapes here and there ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the tragic combat. I speak impersonally. It happens that I have no near relatives of military age, and neither I nor any near relative is likely to suffer by the war. But when I brood over the agony of the less fortunate millions, over the harrowing experience of Belgians, Poles, and Serbs, over the whole ghastly orgy of blood and tears in Europe, I feel unutterable disdain of these paltry efforts to justify the ways of ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... unconquerably vain and foolish about old men that manages to save them from entire ruin. But a woman shrivelled and blasted and twisted out of her purpose—they either look as though they had been steeped in vinegar or filled with tallow—is simply obscene. Before it is too harrowing, and in their best dresses and flowers, they ought to step into a ball-room of chloroform. But this change in me, Lee, isn't in my own imagination. The people who know me best have complained that what patience I had has gone; even Ira, I'm certain, notices it. I have no success in what ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of the result of the marriage, a harrowing doubt of his own feelings, possessed him. The experience is not so rare in the lives of lovers that it should be regarded, as it often has been, as something exceptional and abnormal in Lincoln's case. A reflective nature founded ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... extraordinary figure—a thing with a man's body and an animal's head—a dark, shaggy head with unmistakable prick ears. I gazed at it aghast. What was it? What was it doing? As I stared it bent down, lapped the water, and raising its head, uttered the same harrowing sound that had brought me thither. I then saw, with a fresh start of wonder, that its hands, which shone very white in the moonlight, were undergoing a gradual metamorphosis. I watched carefully, and first one finger, and then another, became amalgamated ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... became a prey to the most harrowing anxieties. Don Ambrosio saw that the mask had fallen from his face, and that the nature of his machinations was revealed. He had gone too far to retrace his steps, and assume the affectation of tenderness and respect; indeed, he was mortified and incensed at her insensibility to his attractions, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... is that we, who have borne the pains, shall also learn the lesson which they were intended to convey. If we do not learn it and proclaim it, then when can it ever be learned and proclaimed, since there can never again be such a spiritual ploughing and harrowing and preparation for the seed? If our souls, wearied and tortured during these dreadful five years of self-sacrifice and suspense, can show no radical changes, then what souls will ever respond to a fresh influx of heavenly inspiration? In that case the state of the human ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on dry clothes as soon as you can, Reuben, for you can be of great service to us upstairs. I'm astonished at you, Mr. Morton, you haven't any nerve at all—you who have dealt in conflagrations, murders, wars, pestilences, earthquakes, writing them up in the most harrowing, blood-curdling style; you have absolutely turned white and faint because the inmates of a farmhouse were shocked. I won't believe you are an editor at all unless you call me ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... he perpetrated the wildest and most extravagant eccentricities, without the slightest regard for the moral or artistic sensibilities of those on whom he imposed them—on others he contented himself with less harrowing minor freaks—but the object of thoroughly upsetting and confounding the mental balances of his victims was invariably achieved. He delighted, and displayed remarkable ingenuity, in providing orgies of the abnormal. He reveled in producing ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... plough, if we may judge by contemporary illustrations, had in the eleventh century a large wheel and very short handles.[49] In the twelfth century Neckham describes its parts: a beam, handles, tongue, mouldboard, coulter, and share.[50] Breaking up the clods was done by the mattock or beetle, and harrowing was done by hand with what looks like a large rake; the scythes of the haymakers and the sickles of the reapers were very like those that still linger ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... the general title of "Memoranda," appeared in the May number, 1870. In his Introductory he outlined what the reader might expect, such as "exhaustive statistical tables," "Patent Office reports," and "complete instructions about farming, even from the grafting of the seed to the harrowing of the matured crops." He declared that he would throw a pathos into the subject of agriculture that would surprise and delight the world. He added that the "Memoranda" was not necessarily a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... at the tiller. It drove for the blue fairway of the channel between the frothing shoals of the bar and made brave headway for the harbor. Then the ships stood out to sea to go clear of a lee shore and the captives of the Plymouth Adventure endured the harrowing suspense with such courage as they could muster. Should any accident delay the return of the long-boat beyond two days, even head winds or foul weather, or if there was lack of medicines in the town, they were doomed ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... battery began dropping into that field at the rate of several a minute. Every foot of it was torn up, and the French soldiers from their retreat in the woods saw their equipment being blown to pieces in every direction. The spectacle was harrowing, but the reflection that the aviator undoubtedly thought that he had turned his guns on a field full of men was cheering to them in ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... end, my lady?" my father inquired. "Surely you should have known better, but it is too late now. You are going to be present at a harrowing scene, which I hoped to save you. Mr. Aiken, help ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... The village had recovered from its excitement. The Weekly Sun appeared with a long and harrowing account of the "vile attempt to rifle the home of our esteemed and patriotic citizeness," and sang the praises of Courtney Thane, whose "well-known valour, acquired by heroic services during the Great War," prevented what might have been "a most ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... broken off her engagement promptly. But when Garnet, by mail, still flattered and begged, the poetess, with no notion of relenting, but in her love of dramatic values and the gentle joy of perpetuating a harrowing suspense, had parleyed; and only just now had her tyrannical son forced a conclusion unfavorable to the unfortunate suitor. So here in his office March smote his brow ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... you to speak to my little boys and girls!" I said; "but it's too harrowing to the feelings. I listened to one address ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... their singularly solemn faces.... You have not seen the battle which preceded, and the bad wounds which so many of my friends got in trying to kill a lot of them. You do not think of the fact that those dead men had parents, brothers, and sisters whom they loved. And you have not seen the harrowing destruction of the villages and towns—how the poor, hunted-down population is running away, leaving everything they had behind them to be consumed by the flames.... And then, remember, we are not fighting in order to cheer you up—we are not lying about in ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... they knew was the effect of weak submission to the dictation of his wife, not the result of any change in his own feelings. They regarded his wild words as only the incoherent utterances of a mind bewildered by horror, and were anxious to put an end to the harrowing scene, and remove the stricken man as soon as possible from the observation of a mixed crowd that was now rapidly assembling from all directions, many of whom knew Captain Wilde only in his unpopular capacity of exciseman, and would therefore be apt to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... sounded; and when in the succeeding act she struck, in natural and noble indignation, the libertine who had betrayed her, there was, I think, no one in the theatre who did not recognise that in Miss Terry our stage possesses a really great artist, who can thrill an audience without harrowing it, and by means that seem simple and easy can produce the finest dramatic effect. Mr. Irving, as Dr. Primrose, intensified the beautiful and blind idolatry of the old pastor for his daughter till his own tragedy seems almost greater than hers; the scene in the third act, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... remarkable. He showed no fear of the crabs, and darted around so quickly that he caught every one in the room. The one-legged one that Harvey had thrown out of the window was never found. Perhaps it made its way back to the river, and told of its harrowing experiences on land, and especially how it had ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... needlessly harrowing to dwell on the sights of horror we encountered at every turn. We pressed on, rapidly yet cautiously, our feet dabbling in blood wherever we trod. As we proceeded down a street about ten feet broad, we heard in front sounds as of voices ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... exciting and harrowing spectacle; but the commander looked as impassable as ever. He rang the gong for the ship to go ahead; and Mr. Gaskette wondered what he intended to do, though he was not left more than a ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... the one will always be straight, the other broken into folds; and the use too one puts the object to should guide one in the choice of design. One does not want to eat one's terrapins off a romantic moonlight nor one's clams off a harrowing sunset. Glory of sun and moon, let them be wrought for us by our landscape artist and be on the walls of the rooms we sit in to remind us of the undying beauty of the sunsets that fade and die, but do not let us eat our soup off them and send them down to the kitchen ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... sickness is that those attacked by it exhibit, more or less, symptoms of madness. One of my own messmates, for instance, whose life was preserved by a miracle, almost went entirely out of his mind. I will not dwell too long upon these sufferings, nor rekindle the harrowing scenes in ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... travelers were transported across the Gulf of Friedland in three-quarters of an hour, and descended at Krasnoe-selo, twenty-five versts from St. Petersburg. The fourth trial took place at Moscow, and Garnerin ascended more than four thousand toises [24,000 ft.] He had many harrowing experiences, and at the end of seven hours descended three hundred and thirty versts [200 miles] from Moscow, in the neighborhood of the old frontiers of Russia. This same balloon was again used at the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... harrowing tale? Far better we should drop the veil Of secrecy before begin His exploits in that Vale of ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... grieved for a very little while, but found in this "visitation of providence," as John Arthur piously termed it, food for romance weaving on her own responsibility. She entertained Peter, the groom, coachman and general factotum, with divers suggestions and suppositions, each more soul harrowing than the last, making of poor Madeline a lay figure upon which she fitted all the catastrophes that had ever befallen her ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... further harrowing experience for Zeke after reaching the Southern Railway's terminal on the pier at Pinner's Point, in Virginia, for here he was hurried aboard the ferry-boat, and was immediately appalled by the warning blast of ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... Burnham. "You have said enough. If you have any object in repeating this harrowing story, let me know what it is at once; if not, I have no time to listen ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... search of her boats that evening, and the slaves were transferred to her deck. But who shall describe the harrowing scene! The dhow seemed a very nest of black ants, it was so crowded, and the sailors, who had to perform the duty of removing the slaves, were nearly suffocated by the horrible stench. Few of the slaves could straighten themselves after their long confinement. Indeed some of them were ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... queer jumble of mental impulses which seemed to lead her always back to the harrowing realization that she had lost her father. That was the gigantic axis around which her whole mental structure revolved. It was staggering, stupefying, and ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... shut up and let me think, can't you? I know you're all right, Jack, but my head aches terribly, and this muss nearly drives me mad. Why can't you be sympathetic and advise me, instead of harrowing ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... then disking across at an angle will suffice, and in some instances disking one way only will be sufficient. On newly cleared lands the clovers will usually grow without any stirring of the land before sowing, or any harrowing after sowing. Clovers that are grown chiefly for pasture, as the small white, the Japan and the burr, will usually obtain a hold upon the soil if scattered upon the surface which is not soon ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... clasping his knees and harrowing his soul by his wild anguish, imploring to be saved from the horror of open shame, and, accustomed as Kenrick was to grant anything to this boy, he was reduced to great distress. Already his whole manner had relented from the loathing and anger he first displayed. ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... night. Old as well as young seemed to enjoy the balmy evening. Few remained indoors. Among these were Zashue and his wife. The woman leaned against him, and often looked up to his face with a smile. She felt happy by the side of her husband, and however harrowing the thought of her future seemed to be, the present was blissful ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... under quickening of the demonstration at the bridge, threw their burdens away; so the greater part of them at an early hour after nightfall appeared at the Adrianople gate objects of harrowing appeal, empty-handed, broken ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... Sir Lionel Borridge, the inventor of the most up-to-date calculating machine, and a mathematician of renown. He had a conical brow like a beautifully polished knee, and very sad eyes which seemed to proclaim to the world that the study of mathematics was, on the whole, a most harrowing occupation. With him came his aged wife and spinster daughter. Both appeared to be over fifty, and, like the head of their household, also deeply depressed by mathematics. These three, looking so learned, looking so miserable ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... besides a strange, morbid speculation on the innocence of suicide. He used his lawyer's training for dubious enough purposes, advising the Earl of Somerset in the dark business of his divorce and re-marriage. And, in a mournful pause in the midst of many harrowing concerns, he writes to a friend: 'When I must shipwreck, I would fain do it in a sea where mine own impotency might have some excuse; not in a sullen, weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming. Therefore ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... and upbraiding Basset with his haste and carelessness. Gladding insisted on being landed in order to prevent, by exercise, taking cold, threatening in his turn the constable, that if his clothes were spoiled he should come upon him for the damage. Poor Basset, quite confounded by these harrowing events, had not a word to answer, and replied only by shrugging and twisting his shoulders with pain. The departure of Tom made it necessary for him to assist the negro in rowing back the boat, which he did with a handkerchief tied ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Here is a square-built cistern filled from a spring within it, and the cattle were drinking from a beautiful sarcophagus. Losing our road again we came to Meshhad, rather west of the usual road. Clouds lowering and frowning over Carmel. At the village of Raineh I noticed a man harrowing a ploughed field by dragging a bunch of prickly-pear leaves after a yoke of oxen. Arrived ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... and drew a harrowing picture of its effect on our family life. "Unless you help us," I said, "this Hazel Catkin or Hairy Bittercress will ruin at least four ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 14, 1920 • Various
... pine-top: it is of no value;—the other is a long, fine brush, the middle being no coarser than the outside. It should be planted with a seed-drill, to make the rows straight and narrow for the convenience of cultivation. Harrowing with a span of horses, with a V drag, one front tooth out, as soon as the corn is up, is beneficial ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... troubles of this wearyful world. For how could she submit to any discomfort or privation (the family were not very well off for their station in life); or how could she receive objectionable visitors, or investigate cases of harrowing distress, or remonstrate with careless livery-stable keepers, or call to account extortionate milliners when this precious nervous system had to be considered? Lady Beresford turned away from these things and ordered round her bath-chair, and was taken out ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... he could think of; at Chigwell and in London; at the houses of the tradespeople with whom he dealt, and of the friends he knew; he pursued his search. A prey to the most harrowing anxieties and apprehensions, he went from magistrate to magistrate, and finally to the Secretary of State. The only comfort he received was from this minister, who assured him that the Government, being now driven to the exercise of the extreme prerogatives of the Crown, were determined to exert ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... use harrowing up your feelings, Ring-tail, repeating all that was said. Miss Patricia simply couldn't believe that the shot could have struck dead centre unless the eye had been deliberately aimed at, and she thought ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... to and fro on the coral floor, sometimes paused and laved his face and neck with tepid water from the bucket. His long arrears of suffering, the night's vigil, the insults of the morning, and the harrowing business of the letter, had strung him to that point when pain is almost pleasure, time shrinks to a mere point, and death and life appear indifferent. To and fro he paced like a caged brute; his mind whirling through the universe of thought and memory; his eyes, as he went, skimming the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... such inflexible rigidity of form, such harrowing cork-screw curls, and chronic expression as of smelling something disagreeable, is Mrs. LADLE, the hostess. A widow. Her husband, the late TIMOTHY, was a New York detective. Amassing a competency, he emigrated to Indiana, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... were more harrowing to be lived through. You, dear Mrs. Carnegie, to-day have relieved a certain amount of ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... junior went his way, having spontaneously composed on the spot an entirely new epitaph for himself, to the effect that Here lay the body of John Chivery, Who, Having at such a date, Beheld the idol of his life, In grief and tears, And feeling unable to bear the harrowing spectacle, Immediately repaired to the abode of his inconsolable parents, And terminated his existence ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... mother goes with us. As Bosko is giving her maid a hand in the packing, I must look after my own traps. Nesimir's servants would talk, which is just what I want to avoid. The two days in the train will give you plenty of time to learn the harrowing details. I have a pretty story for you; but it must wait. I am not cracked, nor sprung, nor trying to be funny; so you need not look at me in that way. I am out of business as a King, for good and all, and the sooner I cross the frontier, the better ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... hands of the persons who were absolutely necessary to her, and that, to remove any possible objections, the countess dowager her mother must set the example. The opportunity was made use of to remove the count from this harrowing spectacle, and everyone followed the countess dowager. Even the countess's own maids were not allowed to remain, being sent on errands which kept them out of the way. This further reason was given, that the eldest being ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... words to you; and I know that no persons unconnected by blood with your family, and enjoying such brief personal acquaintance with your son as myself; and mother and sisters, can be more sincerely or deeply moved at the harrowing record of his untimely fate. Indeed, it has cast a gloom over every one; and the hardest heart could not but be affected by such a noble spectacle as the last days of ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... stayed, however, when he returned to find that a visitor had called, and that this visitor was the mother of the little boy that Harry Lossing had saved from the car. The two women gave him the accident in full, and were lavish of harrowing detail, including the mother's feelings. "So you see, 'Raish," urged Mrs. Ellis, timidly, "there is some reason for opposition ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... permitted, and to a certain degree made necessary, these cruelties. It was at this point that he began to speculate on the origin and nature of slavery. Meanwhile he became, in the course of his life on the plantation, the witness of other scenes quite as harrowing, and the memory mingled with his reflections, and ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... by this harrowing narrative, Francine turned her head lazily toward the house. The door was thrown open at the same moment. A lithe little person rapidly descended the steps that ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... be thanked, who has spared us the monstrosity you would have developed into under the harrowing circumstances of a reversal of your sex," said ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... all-knowing Editor, Renouard's only friend and crony, wanted to know more than the rest of the world. From professional incontinence, perhaps, he thirsted for a full cup of harrowing detail. And when he noticed Renouard's schooner lying in port day after day he sought the sailing master to learn the reason. The man told him that such were his instructions. He had been ordered to lie there ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... intensified more and more every hour. I grew more and more impatient. My mood became one of constant and incessant fidgetiness, nervousness, and harrowing suspense. ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... weariness now made Joe's attacks spasmodic and wild. He was working his arms as if his hands had leaden weights attached to them. A harrowing anxiety appeared in his eyes. At the sight of it a little spring of joy welled up ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... of the lingering tortures, indignities, and sufferings of our soldiers in Rebel prisons has been something so harrowing that we have not dared to dwell upon it. We have been helplessly dumb before it, and have turned away our eyes from what we could not relieve, and therefore could not endure to look upon. But now, when the nation is called to strike the great and solemn balance of justice, and to decide ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Punch drew a harrowing picture, of the brokers being put into Windsor Castle, and of a paragraph which might appear in the Court Circular: "Yesterday, Her Gracious Majesty visited Prince Albert at her own Bench." But matters did not go so far, for on 14 Jan. next following, the Prince vouchsafed an answer to ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... of the cut or moulded blocks, and peat as obtained by plowing and harrowing the surface of drained peat-beds—may be used to advantage in the stair grate, fig. 1, which was introduced some years ago in Austria, and is adapted exclusively for burning finely divided fuel. ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... we all take off our hats to her pluck—needs more than any other class of womankind to take care of her health. She is out in all kinds of weather, she works hard, and ofttimes struggles through a daily routine that is harrowing beyond everything. After hours there is mending to be done, or a thousand and one little duties to keep her busy until, tired out and nerve-weary, she goes to bed to gain rest and strength for the struggles of the morrow. ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... to experienced married women of how discouraging it is to wear your good clothes for unappreciative men, they beg me not to be guilty of the heresy of wishing things different. If they have married one of the noticing kind, they tell me harrowing tales of gorgeous costumes having been cast aside because these critical men made fun of, or were prejudiced against them, and "made remarks." And they point with envy to Mrs. So-and-So, whose husband never knows what she has on, but who thinks she looks ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... previously existed of leaving the ghastly evidence of the murderous deed undisturbed,—the presence of the mangled corpse,—the bustle of the inquest, at which her attendance was required,—all these circumstances produced a harrowing effect upon the young girl's imagination. But when all was over, a sorrowful calm succeeded, and, if not free from grief, she was tranquil. As to Thames, though deeply and painfully affected by the ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... alike the just and the unjust, and the loving sympathetic slave boy witnessed the suffering and death of his little white friend. Then grief took possession of the little slave, he could not bear the sight of little Dick's toys nor books not [TR: nor?] clothing. He recalls one harrowing experience after the death of little Dick Buckner. George's grandmother was a housekeeper and kitchen maid for the white family. She was in the kitchen one late afternoon preparing the evening meal. The master had taken his family for a visit ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... a few minutes' delay for all to have ended happily. Why did not the poet take the opportunity offered and spare us the harrowing scenes at the end? Why could he not have lowered the curtain on the lovers united with Marke's full approval? Dramatically there was no reason why he should not have done so, but poetically it was ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... She had not raised her eyelids; but lay there in self-abandonment, consumed by fever. Her open nightdress displayed her childish breast, where as yet there were but slight signs of coming womanhood; and nothing could be more chaste or yet more harrowing than the sight of this dawning maturity on which the Angel of Death had already laid his hand. She had displayed no aversion when the old doctor had touched her. But the moment Henri's fingers glanced against her body she started as if she had received a ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... man who prayed and wrestled with God in prayer for her, and ultimately wrung her salvation by self-sacrifice from Divine Justice. Here and there are passages that we could have wished modified, but surely such a terrific fantasy was never before penned! It is as harrowing as The Ancient Mariner, and appeals to one more forcibly than Coleridge's "Rime," because it seems actual truth. Other volumes, containing impassioned ballads, lyrics, narrative poems and sonnets, came from Mr. Payne's ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... haunted by the vision of that poor Antonina Ivanovna, helpless to keep silence in her love, and winning her bridegroom only to find, like Elsa, that her Lohengrin could not give her his Heart. And almost more harrowing is the vision of the composer, with womanish generosity, giving himself to the one that asked, and finding that love cannot follow the mere placing of a wedding-ring. So he stands in the icy river, and its ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... at the Very Gates. Harrowing Scenes. Woman's Heroism. Crowded Hospitals. A Lull. Jackson's Meteor Campaign. Ashby Dead! The Week of Blood. Southern Estimate of McClellan. What "Might Have Been". Richmond Under Ordeal. "The Battle Rainbow". Sad Sequelae. Real Sisters of ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... was with Gahan of Gathol. Expecting momentarily to be dashed to destruction he presently found himself deposited gently upon the soft, ochre moss of a dead sea-bottom, bodily no worse off for his harrowing adventure than in the possession of a slight swelling upon his forehead where the metal hook had struck him. Scarcely able to believe that Fate had dealt thus gently with him, the jed arose slowly, as though more than half convinced ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs |
