"Relentless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great, big, bluff, bearded, broad-shouldered, beetle-browed, brusque bully of a brigand; this fierce, ferocious, bloodthirsty, relentless, ruthless ruffian; this hard-hearted, implacable, inexorable villain; this cruel, vengeful, vindictive, griping, grasping, scowling fiend; this demoniac miscreant, without pity, and ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... blow out the candle, but he lay there with his great white eyes fixed on the ceiling, in the cool, determined manner of a bold man who had made up his mind to face danger and meet whatever might befall him. We escaped, however, without injury, the doughty landlord and his relentless sons merely demanding pay for supper, lodging, horse-feed, and breakfast, which my valiant uncle, betraying no signs of fear, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... a breathlessly eerie experience for such of the spectators as stayed on to watch—and these were many. Night came on steadily and Farman covered lap after lap just as steadily, a buzzing, circling mechanism with something relentless in its isolated persistency. ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... perhaps a mile nearer Cuba, when day again dawned there was a further recurrence of the same staring, cloudless sky of dazzling blue, the same blazing sun, the same breathless atmosphere, and the same oil-smooth sea. And as these days of calm and stagnation succeeded each other with relentless persistency, I kept up the custom of bathing the negroes and thoroughly cleansing the slave-deck, until at length the poor creatures actually grew fat and merry, so that Mendouca, despite his fast-growing impatience and irritability at the continued calm, was obliged to admit ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... may conceive as having enormous thickness! How it must have cracked, crumbled, and fallen in frequent titanic crashes as it moved forward. It does not need the imagination of Dore to picture this advance, thus hastened in fancy, grim, relentless as death, its enormous towering head lost in eternal snows, its feet shaken by earthquakes, accumulating giant glaciers only to crush them into powder; resting, then pushing forward in slow, smashing, reverberating ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth. It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters of the old world, with the shape and lineaments of the new. The Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbearing, and relentless; and heretics were shifting, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil power, and never agreeing together, except by its aid; and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehensions, trying to put the ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... banished these and all other subjects from their minds. Blessed sleep! so aptly as well as beautifully styled, "Tired Nature's sweet restorer." That great host of dusky warriors—some unquestionably devout, many cruel and relentless, not a few, probably, indifferent to everything except self, and all bent on the extermination of their white-skinned foes,—lay down beside their weapons, and shared in that rest which is sent alike to the just and to the unjust, through ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... all things; O envious age! thou dost destroy all things and devour all things with the relentless teeth of years, little by little in a slow death. Helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing the withered wrinkles made in her face by old age, wept and wondered why she had twice ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... When they bought the drinks to kindle my dying mind. To be judged by you, The soul of me hidden from you, With its wound gangrened By love for a wife who made the wound, With her cold white bosom, treasonous, pure and hard, Relentless to the last, when the touch of her hand, At any time, might have cured me of the typhus, Caught in the jungle of life where many are lost. And only to think that my soul could not react, Like Byron's did, in song, in something noble, But turned on itself like a tortured snake—judge ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... him. He had encountered bad manners and bad faith, had been the victim of sharpers of all kinds, was dogged by bad luck. He had played in orchestras that were never paid and wandering opera troupes which disbanded penniless. And there was always the old enemy, more relentless than the others. It was long since he had wished anything or desired anything beyond the necessities of the body. Now that he was tempted to hope for another, he felt alarmed and shook ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... heard the same cry more than once that afternoon, and instead of its being the call of a crow, they knew it came from the throat of an Indian warrior, and therefore a relentless enemy. ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... hung a number of rude prints, chief among which was a hideous representation of Jesus Christ driving the money-changers out of the Temple—the man of gentleness being represented as a stern, passionless Master, the strength of whose person was thrown into a relentless face, and a mighty arm wielding a massive whip. At this figure he often glanced, and now and again a look of recognition seemed to steal over his features, as though the essence of his religion was embodied in that act—a gospel anodyne for a ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... the Papal Bull had been secured, and at first he was unfavourable to it and was not anxious to become archbishop and primate. It was his advice which led Margaret to send away the hated Spanish regiments from Netherland soil; and, far from being naturally a relentless persecutor, there is proof that neither he nor the president of the Privy Council, the jurist Viglius, believed in the policy of harsh and brutal methods for stamping out heretical opinions. They had in this as in other matters ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... is gray with unfallen sleet; the wind howls bitterly about the house; relentless in its desperate speed, it whirls by green crosses from the fir-boughs in the wood,—dry russet oak-leaves,—tiny cones from the larch, that were once rose-red with the blood of Spring, but now rattle on the leafless branches, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... even the rolling of rifle fire, was plainly to be heard now in the streets. In the distance—and not a great distance, either—the smoke of a dozen burning villages was to be seen to the north and east. It was so that the Germans marked their advance, steady, relentless. Henri exclaimed ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless hand. 'When he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he saw it, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk to him, and show the ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain with labour to such knowledge as most interested him; and I attracted him. When he was freshest ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... balance Missouri, and the establishment of a line of compromise, which would leave all territory north of 36 deg. 30' consecrated to freedom. The Slave Power submitted with anger, intending to break the bargain as soon as it was strong enough, and continued on its relentless struggle for power. It determined to gain possession of the Senate of the United States; make it a house of nobles; control through it the foreign policy, the Executive, and the Supreme Court; and, with this advantage, reckoned it could always manage the House of Representatives and govern ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... me, but I answered not; and at last the soul that vexed the man that had trusted me flew away and left him at peace. I was never able to bind things any more, for every one of my fibres was worn and wrenched, and even my relentless heart was weakened by the struggle. Very soon afterwards I was thrown out here. I have done ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... melodies of his music and in the variety of his moods—now sombre, stern and relentless, now tender and pleading, now in despair of his people yet identifying himself with them—was this rural poet, who was called to carry the burdens of prophecy through forty of the most critical and ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... individually by beams of the most prodigious power; and while one was being annihilated dozens more were rushing to the attack. Then, while the twisting, dodging invader was busiest with the tiny but relentless destroyers, Rodebush launched ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... nearly every case the aggressors, and it is significant that among the local organizations of the Knights inimical to trade unions, District Assembly 49, of New York, should prove the most relentless. It was this assembly which conducted the longshoremen's and coal miners' strike in New York in 1887 and which, as we saw,[25] did not hesitate to tie up the industries of the entire city for the sake ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... wrench and twist Chris had knocked the gun from his hand, and it had slithered away, now lost in the bunching smoke. But Istafiev's other hand, steel-ribbed with tense muscles, had darted like a snake into the American's throat, and under that iron, relentless grip Chris was weakening. His head was whirling; the old wound throbbing waves of nausea through him. Desperately he tried to struggle loose, flailing with his legs—but useless. He knew ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... theft, he went to the Chamber of Deputies, asked for my husband and bluntly demanded thirty thousand francs of him, to be paid within twenty-four hours. If not, he threatened him with exposure and disgrace. My husband knew the man he was dealing with, knew him to be implacable and filled with relentless hatred. He lost his head and ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... were ahead of him to intercept him. But Waring, wise in his craft, knew that the man-hunters would search for tracks at every water-hole on the long northern trail. And if they found his tracks they would follow him to the hills. They were as keen on the trail as Yaquis and as relentless as wolves. Their horses, raw-hide tough, could stand a forced ride that would kill an ordinary horse. And Ramon's wiry little cayuse, though willing to go on until he dropped, could not last ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... upon anything that might sound "calm." So, after she had compiled arguments that must convince her listeners that the Philippine Islands should be given their independence, she tried them out behind carefully-closed doors, with Gyp as a stern and relentless critic. ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... chair, with a loose red cloak thrown over him. Upon this his white hair fell, and his pallid fingers lay in a ghastly fashion without a sign of life or movement or of the power that kept him up; all rigid, calm, and relentless. Only in his great black eyes, fixed upon me solemnly, all the power of his body dwelt, all the life of his ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Accused. Every hero of every melodrama has had to meet that false accusation at some moment during the play; otherwise we should not know that he was the hero. I saw myself in the dock, protesting my innocence to the last; I saw myself entering the witness box and remaining unshaken by the most relentless cross-examination; I saw my friends coming forward to give evidence as to my ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... blended it with the refined. It had created among the people an appreciation of the beautiful, the pathetic, and the pure. The early Irish chronicles, as well as songs, show how strong among them that sentiment had ever been. The Borromean Tribute, for so many ages the source of relentless wars, had been imposed in vengeance for an insult offered to a woman; and a discourtesy shown to a poet had overthrown an ancient dynasty. The education of an Ollambh occupied twelve years; and in the third century, the time ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... of this black deed, in his grief and rage he denounced relentless war against his Barons, and both sides were in arms for half a year. But, it then became necessary for them to join their forces against Bruce, who had used the time well while they were divided, and had now ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... and socially, became rapidly worse. From day to day the people of England were startled with tidings of fierce conflicts which faction waged, the disloyalty of the great majority of the people, the relentless cruelty with which the Ribbon Society exacted its victims, and the continued pressure of famine and sickness upon the physical life of the people. Ireland, so long conversant with misery, was still to taste the cup in all its bitterness. Everything meant for her good by the legislature ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... fiery chargers now he daily flies. When I approach thee, thou from me wouldst flee? But if thou must so soon thus go, the sea Perhaps thou too canst cross, if thou wilt 'void Death's waters, which relentless ever glide. But Izdubar, Ur-Hea, here hath come! The boatman of the seer, who to his home Returns. He with an axe in yonder woods A vessel builds to cross the raging floods. If thou desirest not to cross with him, We here will welcome thee ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... of Nature and the British Raj. We have given peace and, to a certain extent, prosperity to the teeming millions of India, and they have increased and multiplied until the land is overburthened, and Nature, with relentless will, bids Famine and Pestilence lay waste the cities and the plains. Then Science, with irrigation works and improved hygiene, strives hard to gain a victory, but still ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... his head in the little clearing. It developed the next morning, when he found himself for the first time for many months on the truckle bed, between linen sheets, with a cool, bamboo-twisted roof between him and the relentless sun. He raised himself a ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was set like a flint, her tone relentless. Marc'antonio half raised his two fists, clenching them for a moment, but dropped them by his side, turned his back, and began to walk obediently ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... deer over their cruel and relentless foes gave very much delight to the Indians as well as to Frank, Alec, and Sam, and it was decided not to fire at the beautiful creatures, but to leave ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... had been telling so many truths about us, that poor little Tim believed implicitly in her fortune-telling ability. She felt that her doom was sealed; that the cruel finger of a relentless fate had written it so plainly in her tell-tale palm, that all who saw it might read. She hid her face on my shoulder and sobbed so violently that it put an end to ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... be difficult to say what ought to be done. I feel sure that society ought to suppress with relentless energy all those parlours of the astrologists and palmists, of the scientific mediums and spiritualists, of the quacks and prophets. Their announcements by signs or in the public press ought to be stopped, ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... of the child, I wonder!" he mused; "Where has she gone, the 'Glory-of-the-Sea'! I would give all I have to look upon her beautiful face again;—and Ronsard—he, poor soul—silent as a stone, weakening day after day in the grasp of relentless age,—would die happy,—if I would let him! But I do not intend to give him that satisfaction. He shall live! As I often tell him, my science is of no avail if I cannot keep a man going, till at least a hundred and odd years are past. Barring accidents, or self-slaughter, of course!" ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... about us was almost breathlessly still; crisp, clear and sun-lit, it seemed an atmosphere in which all Nature should rejoice; [Page 45] the silence was broken only by the deep panting of our engines and the slow, measured hush of the grinding floes; yet, beneath all, ran this mighty, relentless tide, bearing us on to possible destruction. It seemed desperately unreal that danger could exist in the midst of so fair a scene, and as one paced to and fro on the few feet of throbbing plank that constituted our bridge, ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... and await the recurrent breath which may bear another universe, unlike our own, where the animate may control the inanimate, the organic triumph over the inorganic,—(rising) ay, man himself may dominate nature, control the relentless ecliptic, and say to the ages of ice and fire 'Ye shall not ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... drawing-room, which was still empty, while the guests at the house were dressing for dinner, Rnine handed the deed to Hortense. She seemed dazed by all that she had heard; and the thing that bewildered her even more than the relentless light shed upon her uncle's past was the miraculous insight and amazing lucidity displayed by this man: the man who for some hours had controlled events and conjured up before her eyes the actual scenes of a tragedy which no ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... relentless gales, And yours the brave and the patient way; But we hold the storms in our trusty sails, And for you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... whisper crept through the little settlement. The right eye of the commander, although miraculous, seemed to exercise a baleful effect upon the beholder. No one could look at it without winking. It was cold, hard, relentless, and unflinching. More than that, it seemed to be endowed with a dreadful prescience,—a faculty of seeing through and into the inarticulate thoughts of those it looked upon. The soldiers of the garrison obeyed the eye rather than the voice of their commander, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... heat Hath dried the dew, and warm'd the air; The feather'd songsters now retreat, Fann'd by the sun's relentless glare. The morning service now is o'er, The pastor, kindly greeted too, And, after greetings at the door, They all ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... and bleeding and exhausted. Weaker and weaker became the struggles of them all, when a sudden misstep sent Bulan stumbling headforemost against the stem of a tree, where, stunned, he sank unconscious, at the mercy of the relentless bulls. ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... true sense of the word did not exist. There were only Latin Church hymns and legends, perverted reminiscences of antiquity, and, in the vulgar tongue, legends of the saints and simple dancing-songs for the amusement of the lower classes. Thanks to the relentless war which the clergy waged against them, a few only have been preserved. There can be no doubt that Provence was the birthplace of European poetry. The "sweet language" of Provence was the first to reach perfection and perfect ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... "I think that nine times out of ten they are correct. I may be doing the man an injustice, but I can't help it. Every time that I talk with him I feel that he is playing a part, that underneath his polish he has a cruel, relentless nature." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... Kenny and shook his head. A heavy hand with the truth, that Irishman; and about as understandable in these splendid, tender days of his idiocy and bliss, as March wind, comets or star-dust. His passion for truth was literally a passion, relentless and exact. He worked harder. His steadiness, as Jan said, was grim and conscious and a thing of terror to anything in his path. He wrestled with his check book and managed somehow to keep his studio in order. And he was kinder. Fahr, in particular, remarked it; and Fahr, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... seas breaking on the rocks close to me. Already I was covered by the spray, which flew in showers over me. Had I slept on much longer I must have been swept away, and awakened only to find myself in the cruel grasp of the relentless waves. I might, however, now never see another sunrise. I prayed as I had never prayed before, and resolved to struggle to the ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... the Lotharian, warning him back, for he knew that he could but uselessly sacrifice his life by placing himself, all unarmed, in the path of the cruel and relentless savages. ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not take her eyes from the ponies. She was conscious of the unwonted color in her cheeks, which was slowly dying away beneath her companion's relentless gaze. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... obloquy fall more hardly than on Zola, and never with less reason. It may be that he accumulated unseemly details and risky situations too readily; but he was an earnest man with a definite aim in view, and had formulated for himself a system which he allowed to work itself out with relentless fatality. The unredeemed baseness and profligacy of the period with which he had to deal must also be borne in mind. As to his personal character, it has been fitly described by M. Anatole France, himself a distinguished novelist. Zola, said he, "had the candour and ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... upon a short story that she had entitled Hypocrites. And she had tried desperately to "lay about her with a bludgeon," and say biting, savage things of hypocritical human nature, and hold a relentless mirror up to its little faults. Kinross would have been convulsed ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... hope in the eyes of Knox, who detested the idea of a female monarch. Might they "bow down in the House of Rimmon" by a feigned conformity? Knox, in a letter to the Faithful, printed in 1554, entirely rejected this compromise, to which Cecil stooped, thereby deserving hell, as the relentless Knox (who had ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... (L.). Thou fell destroyer! Had not guilt steel'd thy heart, awak'ning conscience Would flash conviction on thee, and each look, Shot from these eyes, be arm'd with serpent horrors, To turn thee into stone!—Relentless man! Who did the bloody deeds—O, tremble, guilt, Where'er thou art!—Look on me; tell me, tyrant, Who slew ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... young, and in none of her stories has she introduced any violently disagreeable female characters. Her villains are mostly men, and even these she invests with a picturesque fatality which drives them to errors, crimes, and scoundrelism with a certain plaintive, if relentless, grace. The inconstant lover is invariably pursued by the furies of remorse; the brutal has always some mitigating influence in his career; the libertine retains through many vicissitudes a seraphic ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Since fate relentless stopp'd their heavenly voice, No more the forests ring, or groves rejoice; Who now shall charm the shades, where Cowley strung His living harp, and lofty Denham sung? But hark! the groves rejoice, the forest ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... dream, had taken him bodily from himself and was now leading him into shadows, into drear, lonely, dark solitude, where all was cold and bleak; and on and on over naked shingles that marked the world of tragedy. Here he must tell his tale, and as he plodded on his relentless leader forced him to tell ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... the King of England, though, during the whole period, the poor child, instead of exercising any kingly rights or prerogatives, was a helpless prisoner in the hands of others, who, while they professed to be his protectors, were really his determined and relentless foes. ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... sagacity into the prevailing exchange of platitudes, one of us wrote a book upon the subject, grounding it upon the obvious doctrine that women have much more to gain by marriage than men, and that the majority of men are aware of it, and would never marry at all if it were not for women's relentless effort to bring them to it. This banality the writer supported, by dint of great painstaking, in a somewhat novel way. That is to say, he put upon himself the limitation of employing no theory, statement of fact or argument in the book that was not already ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... carriages of persons who got, in their way to town from Bath, as far as Marlborough, after strange embarrassment, here came to a dead stop. The ladies fretted, and offered large rewards to labourers if they would shovel them a track to London; but the relentless heaps of snow were too bulky to be removed; and so the 18th passed over, leaving the company in very uncomfortable circumstances at the Castle and ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... intimately acquainted with "the official in the position to know" and "the man higher up," "the gentleman on the inside," and other anonymous but famous individuals. He is tireless, impervious to rebuff, also relentless; as an investigator of crime he is the keenest hound of them all; often he does more than expose, he prevents. He is the Warwick of modern times; he makes and unmakes kings, sceptral ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... take the force of Public Opinion, which seems to exercise a relentless sway over the minds and manners of men. This is a very subtle and secret force, which is most difficult to trace, and resembles electricity in the science of physics. We cannot see it, but are only able to judge of its power by its results. Its point of application is ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... faithful old servitor. Lord GEORGE seems to have been, as the cabman observed of the late JOHN FORSTER, "a harbitery gent," kind to those who faithfully serve him (as one is kind to a useful hound), but relentless to any who offended him or crossed his path. Moreover, whilst, as his biographer devoutly says, he purified the turf, he was not, upon occasion, above fighting blacklegs with their own weapons. The book ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... the earth with his thunderbolts, an overbold mortal, and this time the son of the worthy gate-keeper was his victim. The sculptor certainly had been so unlucky as to touch Hadrian in his most sensitive spot, but a cordially benevolent feeling is not easily converted into a relentless opposition if we are not ourselves—as was the case with the Emperor—accustomed to jump from one mood to the other, are not conscious—as he was—of having it in our power directly to express our good-will or ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... piano. I'm not so bored, now." Little flames of red burned in either thin cheek. "What nonsense!" Suddenly he was tired. "This is a practical and earnest world," his voice grew thin and hurt her. "Yet beauty is relentless. You'll have your garden, but I shouldn't be surprised at ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... licentiousness trembled in every saloon and bagnio throughout the union. No whirlwind, tornado or simoon of the desert ever startled a nation as her volcanic career. From ocean to ocean, from Canada to Texas. she faced a storm of relentless criticism and bitter sarcasm from political curs, clerical hirelings and editorial henchmen of the murderous liquor traffic such as no mortal ever faced before. A star of hope to the one hundred thousand despairing drunkards, ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... jealous proprietor. The banker is at once the most potent creator of wealth, and the main distributor of the products of art and Nature. And yet, by the strangest antinomy, this same banker is the most relentless collector of profits, increase, and usury ever inspired by the demon of property. The importance of the services which he renders leads us to endure, though not without complaint, the taxes which he imposes. Nevertheless, since nothing can avoid its providential mission, since nothing which ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... worship where it had been accorded by the Edict of St. Germain. No wonder that the Huguenots, on their side, warned her, with friendly sincerity and frankness, that, should she refuse to entertain their just demands, the present peace would be only a brief truce, the prelude to a relentless civil war. "We will all die," was their language, "rather than forsake our God and our religion, which we can no more sustain without public exercise than could a body live without food and drink."[804] Not only did ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... the man "next" the President was his Secretary of the Treasury, John Branch, cold and smooth and able, secreting, in his pale-gray soul, an icy passion for power more relentless than heat ever bred. To speak of him as unscrupulous would be like attributing moral quality to a reptile. For him principle did not exist, except as an eccentricity of some strangely-constructed men which might be used to keep them down. Life presented ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... humming, "A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, a buff trip slip for a six-cent fare," and so on and so on, without peace or respite. The day's work was ruined—I could see that plainly enough. I gave up and drifted down-town, and presently discovered that my feet were keeping time to that relentless jingle. When I could stand it no longer I altered my step. But it did no good; those rhymes accommodated themselves to the new step and went on harassing me just as before. I returned home, and suffered all the afternoon; suffered all through ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Stephanus' cave; her heart was full of tears, and yet she was unable to pour out her need and suffering in a soothing flood of weeping; she was wholly possessed with a wild desire to sink down on the earth there and die, and to be released by death from her relentless, driving torment. But it was still too early to disturb the old man—and yet—she must hear a human voice, one word—even if it were a hard word—from the lips of a human being; for the bewildering feeling of distraction which confused ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... at last, both by fire and fare, and still more by his frequent potations, he commenced the story of his disguises and escapes, laughing at times with boisterous self-admiration, swearing brutally and bitterly at others, over the relentless energy with which he had been pursued. Deb. Smith listened with eager interest, slapping him upon the back with a force of approval which would have felled an ordinary man, but which Sandy Flash ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... my pledge of silence, and longed intensely to communicate the melancholy secret to the energetic Frenchman; for at times when I re- flect upon the eight-and-twenty victims who may probably, only too soon, be a prey to the relentless flames, my heart ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... philanthropist—Cornelius Vanderbilt. Personally he was a disgusting brute; ignorant, base, a boor in his manners, a blackguard in his language; he had little if any natural affection, and to those who offended him he was a relentless barbarian. Yet the man was a great philanthropist, and became so by the piling up of millions of dollars. Of course he did that for his own vulgar satisfaction, though personally he could not use the ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... water-chestnuts, and stared at the skyline. He hated horizons. He was always visualizing the Hand whenever he let his gaze rest upon the horizon. An enormous Hand that rose up swiftly, blotting out the sky. A Hand that strove to reach his shoulder, relentless, soulless but lawful. The scrutiny of any strange man provoked a sweaty terror. What a God-forsaken fool he was! And dimly, out there somewhere in the South ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... steps and stopped suddenly, for a hand slipped under his arm. (You should have seen his cousin's face, the Boston one, when in that relentless way known only to women and eminent artists in cross-examination she got ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... vigil which had lasted from the moment of bidding General Laurance good-night, on the previous evening, had left its weary traces in the beautiful face; but rigid resolution had also set its stem seal on the compressed mouth, and the eyes were relentless as those of Irene, waiting for the awful consummation in the Porphyry chamber ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... were faultlessly curved and painted in the clear vermilion of her pure warm blood. Her chin and the lower part of her face were a little heavy, in the acceptation given by painters to that term,—a heaviness which is, according to the relentless laws of physiognomy, the indication of an almost morbid vehemence in passion. She had above her brow, which was finely modelled and almost imperious, a magnificent diadem of hair, voluminous, redundant, and now of a ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... mud and blood. But I can tell you what is going to come out of that welter of ruin. There will come a sane and righteous hatred of militarism. What will be surely destroyed is Caesarism. Prophecy? This is not prophecy; I am stating an assured fact. Even at this hour of hysterical and relentless warfare there lies deep in the heart of the democracy of Europe a consuming hatred ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... Relentless as fate the St. Eustace forwards surged on toward the opposing goal. Two yards, three yards, one yard, five yards, half a yard, always a gain, never a check, until once more the leather reposed just in front of the Hillton goal and midway between the ten and fifteen-yard line. ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the relation of the religion to life, to its material problems, we find in Christianity the same great faith in the coming of universal peace and brotherhood, the same defense of the poor and the oppressed, the same scathing rebuke of the oppressor, that we find in Judaism. There is the same relentless scourge of the despoilers, of those who devour widows houses. And again I say that Socialism is not only not opposed to the great social ideals of Christianity, but it is the only means whereby ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... he must let Nature flow through him and slowly; he releases his more personal desires to her broader rhythm, conscious that this blends more and more with the harmony of her solitude; it tells him that his search for freedom on that day, at least, lies in his submission to her, for Nature is as relentless as she is benignant. ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... form. Those in the line between one species and another supposed to be derived from it he may be bound to provide; but as to "an infinite number of other varieties not intermediate, gross, rude, and purposeless, the unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause," born only to perish, which a relentless reviewer has imposed upon his theory,—rightly enough upon the atheistic alternative,—the theistic view rids him at once of this "scum of creation." For, as species do not now vary at all times and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... S. Paul, died for all men, and when suffering on the cross, He prayed even for his relentless persecutors: on the anniversary then of his death it is fit that His church should pray for all men, that all may be saved by the application of His merits to their souls. The Card. Celebrant commences the beautiful, charitable, and ancient prayers of this day with the words, Let us ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... or slave bands, the servile dregs of the population. In course of time, from various influences, the third class became almost eliminated in many provinces. From the cradle to the grave these cruel barriers still intervene between the strata of the people, relentless as ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... avenue of wealth and promenade of fashion, usually thronged with the pleasure-seeking denizens of the metropolis—was comparatively deserted, save by a few shivering mortals, who hurried on their way with rapid footsteps, anxious to escape from the relentless and iron grasp of hoary winter. And yet on that day, and in that street, there stood upon the pavement directly opposite the "Old South Church," a young girl of about the age of fourteen years, holding in her ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... marvellous winter was, When past the fence-rails, downy-gray with rime, I creaked adventurous o'er the spangled crust That made familiar fields seem far and strange As those stark wastes that whiten endlessly 90 In ghastly solitude about the pole, And gleam relentless to the unsetting sun: Instant the candid chambers of my brain Were painted with these sovran images; And later visions seem but copies pale From those unfading frescos of the past, Which I, young savage, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... frowned on him. Pursued by his relentless creditors, the ex-king was thrown into the King's Bench prison. His distresses attracted the commiseration of Horace Walpole, who, as Boswell informs us, “wrote a paper in the ‘World,’ with great elegance and ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... would be my state. But neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven's Supreme; Nor hope to be myself less miserable By what I seek, but others to make such As I, though thereby worse to me redound: For only in destroying I find ease To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed, Or won to what may work his utter loss, For whom all this was made, all this will soon Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe; In woe then; that destruction wide may range: To me shall ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... recall it, no spoken word of Jennifer's or mine came in to break the rhythm of the hasting voyage. Our paddles rose and fell, dipping and sweeping in unison as if we two, kneeling in bow and stern, were separate halves of some relentless mechanism driven by a single impulse. Overhead the starlit dome circled solemnly to the right or left to match the windings of the stream. On each hand the tree-fringed shores sped backward in the gloom; and beneath the light shell of poplar wood that ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... not tell me that. You are relentless as—well, 'Fate' comes in handy," with a reckless laugh. "Let us be conventional by all means, and it is a good old simile, well worn! You decline my proposal then? It is a sensible one, and should suit you. Dance ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... He met Ruth in all possible places and ways, and addressed her in every manner he could imagine most calculated to move and affect her to penitence and virtue. Towards morning he fell asleep, but the same thoughts haunted his dreams; he spoke, but his voice refused to utter aloud; and she fled, relentless, to the deep, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... every dawn, some men attack, And many sighs are drained. Happy the lad whose mind was never trained: His days are worth forgetting more than not. He sings along the march Which we march taciturn, because of dusk, The long, forlorn, relentless trend From larger day to ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... legislation which protected both it and the game it sheltered, blinded them to the still greater physical mischiefs which its destruction was to entail upon them. No longer under the safeguard of the law, the crown forests and those of the great lords were attacked with relentless fury, unscrupulously plundered and wantonly laid waste, and even the rights of property in small private woods ceased to be respected. [Footnote: "Whole trees were sacrificed for the most insignificant purposes; the peasants would cut down ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... burden through the country; sometimes forced to fight their foes in order to carry out their holy mission. Follow them as they ford the rivers and travel trackless deserts; facing torrid heat and drenching tropical storms; daring perils from wild beasts and relentless wild men; exposing themselves to the fatal fever, and burying several of their little band on the way. Yet on they went, patient and persevering, never fainting nor halting, until love and gratitude had done all that could be done, and they laid down at the feet of the British consul, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... wool is illusory; and, above all, when it must be conceded that the increase of the cost of living caused by such tariff becomes a burden upon those with moderate means and the poor, the employed and unemployed, the sick and well, and the young and old, and that it constitutes a tax which with relentless grasp is fastened upon the clothing of every man, woman, and child in the land, reasons are suggested why the removal or reduction of this duty should be included in a revision of our ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... identity, our very union, from every point of view and every point on the planet, every different opinion. But we must be bound together by a faith more powerful than any doctrine that divides us—by our belief in progress, our love of liberty, and our relentless search for ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William J. Clinton • William J. Clinton
... reason of this most untoward event, I fear me that our position with reference to these Taranteens will be worse than it was before, and that now they will be converted from indifferent neighbors into relentless enemies, unless we discover and deliver up to them the murderer, and even that ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... accept Mr. Bigelow's loyal and honorable defence of his friend's memory as the best that could be said for Mr. Seward, but the best defence in this case is little better than an impeachment. As for Mr. Johnson, he had held the weapon of the most relentless of the 'Parcae' so long that his suddenly clipping the thread of a foreign minister's tenure of office in a fit of jealous anger ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Mr. Pillsbury's valuable services were given at a minimum price, Mrs. Stanton received no salary and Miss Anthony drew out only what she was compelled to use for her actual expenses. She was exhausted in mind and body from the long and relentless persecution of those who once had been her co-workers, but to the world she showed still the old indomitable spirit. Her letters to friends and relatives at this time, appealing for funds to carry on the paper, are heart-breaking. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... marched northward to visit with sternest punishment the hardy north-men, who were so long in submitting to his authority; and the monks of Durham fled before the advance of the relentless Norman, carrying with them, as before, the body of St. Cuthbert. They reached Lindisfarne in safety to find the Abbey in the ruinous state in which it had been left by the Danes two centuries earlier. Thus, once again, the body of St. Cuthbert ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... were searched for the most savage and relentless beasts, from which the fiercest monster might be selected for the arena; and the ranks of maiden youth and beauty throughout the land were carefully surveyed by competent judges in order that the young man might have a fitting bride in case ...
— The Lady, or the Tiger? • Frank R. Stockton
... Not so! The Son of Man had not where to lay his head. The nation, whose white flower He was, had rejected Him; and the world, for which He came to shed his blood, knew Him not. The religious leaders of the age were pursuing Him with relentless malice, and would have taken his life before the predestined hour had arrived, had He not escaped from their hands, and gone away "beyond Jordan into the place where John was at the first baptizing; and there He abode: and ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... years and how many unkindnesses fortune has done you. There is not much use either in preaching to one's self or to another, the advantages of adversity. I don't believe that men are made by fighting relentless Fate, the stuff they have is sometimes proved by struggle,—that is the best that can be said ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... he became the national hero, the self-made man, the incarnation of the popular ideal of democracy. The very rashness and arbitrariness which his Seminole campaign displayed appealed to the west, for he went to his object with the relentless directness of a frontiersman. This episode gave to Adams the opportunity to write his masterly state paper defending the actions of the general. But Henry Clay, seeing, perhaps, in the rising star of the frontier military hero a baneful omen to his own career, ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... Honorius alluded. He encountered men, women, and children of every rank and of every age. Men who had filled the highest stations in Rome associated in friendly intercourse with those who were scarcely above the level of slaves; those who had once been cruel and relentless persecutors, now associated in pleasant union with the former objects of their hate. The Jewish priest, released from the fetters of bigotry and stubborn pride, walked hand in hand with the once hated Gentile. The Greek had beheld the foolishness of the Gospel transformed ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... fatally than this dreadful calumny." And uttering a loud cry of despair, and wringing her hands, she exclaimed: "Oh, my God, what did I do, to deserve so terrible a disgrace! What did my husband do that he should be thus exposed to the relentless malice of his foe? Was not the measure of our wretchedness full? Could not that cruel man, who calls himself Emperor of the French, content himself with hurling us into the dust, and with robbing my husband of his states? Is the honor of his wife ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... Blue Laws), which George Town inherited from Maryland, were decidedly severe, and it took a man of Mr. Foxall's force of character to enforce them. A few of the offenses against which he waged relentless war may be mentioned. Five dollars was the penalty for gaming, hunting, and fishing on the Sabbath. No trading was allowed on the Lord's Day, except the selling of "fresh fish, milk, and other perishable goods." Cock-fighting and ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... had artfully laid and cunningly sprung upon them. Still all his indignation and rage were of no avail. Even if he were able to free himself from the grasp of his guards, and to escape the arrow-shots that would be aimed at the fugitive, he saw no chance for him in the relentless chase that would follow. All advantages would be on the side of the Tanos, who knew the country, whereas he was a total stranger. Nothing was left him but to resign himself to his fate and to await the course of events. It was hard for the ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... events. It is a Christian philosophy of history, an attempt to prove the truth of the Gospel by its effect upon the nations. With the Bible before him Grundtvig weighs and evaluates people and events upon the scale of the revealed word. And his judgment is often relentless, stripping both persons and events of the glorified robes in which history and traditions invested them. In answer to countless protests against such a method of reading history, Grundtvig contends that the Christian historian ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... was now seldom given in the relentless warfare which the selfish interests were ever waging against the people, but it was intrigue, the promise of place and power, and the ever effectual appeal to ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... The relentless chronometer at last announced that Walter must turn his back upon the wooden Midshipman: and away they went, himself, his Uncle, and the Captain, in a hackney-coach to a wharf, where they were ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... about to present is one of war,—cruel, merciless, relentless war; therefore repulsive, and only interesting from the magnitude of the issues, fought out, indeed, on a narrow strip of territory. What matter, whether the battlefield is large or small? There was as much heroism in the struggles of the Dutch republic as in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... shipboard, and her face was more delicate in its outlines than usual. She would have been very pale but for the spot of vivid scarlet that glowed on each cheek, and which was but the outward sign of the inextinguishable spirit that burned within her. Her eyes gleamed with a relentless fire and her slight but perfect form was erect and ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... was fondly hoped, for the almost involuntary part which they had taken in a former and more criminal enterprise. But religious bigotry and political jealousy, each perhaps sufficient for the effect, combined in this instance to urge on the relentless temper of Mary; and the lady Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley her husband were ordered to prepare for the execution of the sentence which had ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... to those high ideals of fealty and honor which were the cardinal virtues of the knightly order. Owing to the absence of these fine qualities of mind and soul, the Italian in war was too often of fierce and relentless temper, showing neither pity nor mercy and having no compassion for a fallen foe. Warriors never admitted prisoners to ransom, and the annals of their contests are destitute of those graceful courtesies which shed such a beautiful lustre over the contests of England and France. Stratagems ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... flinty, more than barbarous: The Scythians or the marble hearted fates Could not have acted more remorseless deeds In their relentless natures, then these of thine: Was this the answer I long waited on, The satisfaction for thy ...
— A Yorkshire Tragedy • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... the majesty of the law on one side, and the long deep misery of a noble people on the other. Which are the young men of Ireland to respect—the law that murders or banishes their people, or the means to resist relentless tyranny and ending their miseries for ever under a home government? I need not answer that question here. I trust the Irish people will answer it to their satisfaction soon. I am not astonished at my conviction. The government ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... wash, he refused to acknowledge the great tawny Mississippi at its best, as a relation of the streams he knew. Certainly this menacing dawn reminded him of nothing he had ever witnessed. Waves slapped against his boat, waves which did not conceal, but rather accentuated, the sullen and relentless rush of the vast body of the water. While the surface leaped and struggled, wind-racked, the deeps moved steadily on. Elijah saw that his boat was being driven into a river chute, and seizing his sweeps, he began to row toward ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... narrow beach and then carried up pathless hills, valleys, and bluffs, several hundred feet high, to the firing line. The whole of this mass of troops, concentrated on a very small area, and unable to reply, were exposed to a relentless and incessant shrapnel fire, which swept every yard of the ground, although, fortunately, a great deal of it was badly aimed or burst too high. The reserves were engaged in road-making and carrying supplies to the crest, and in answering ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... are sometimes given to pupils, with the idea that they will instruct and form them in the art of writing: but few things can be more terrific or dangerous to the young writer, than the voice of relentless criticism. Hope stimulates, but fear depresses the active powers of the mind; and how much have they to fear, who have continually before their eyes the mistakes and disgrace of others; of others, who with superior talents have attempted and ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... to my recollections of old Dan Gorman, a man as intensely interested in the struggle as ever any one was. I remembered his great pot belly, his flabby skin, his whisky-sodden face. I remembered his grasping meanness, his relentless hardness in dealing with those in his power. The most thoroughly materialised business man in Belfast has more spirituality about him than old Dan Gorman ever had. Nor did I believe that his son, Michael ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... sometimes did so while dozing. During such moments this man sitting there so mysteriously silent, almost hid in a cloud of heavy-scented smoke, filled me with a sort of unearthly terror. He seemed to be some grim, mute, but relentless tyrant, possessing over me a supernatural power which he used to drive me on mercilessly to exhaustion. But these feelings came very rarely; besides, he paid me so liberally I could forget much. There at length grew between ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... of all, the most relentless vengeance wreaked on a helpless victim. "Of all the laws which swept down upon them from St. Petersburg and Moscow," says Leroy-Beaulieu with characteristic insight into the soul of Israel, "those which they [the Jews] ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... a suggestion of the character of this other master than Jesus, who seeks to get control of us, and from whose relentless, vise-like grip Jesus would fain free us. He says there is only one thing to do with it. No half-way compromise—the great American expedient—will do here. The Master says plainly it is to be denied, ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... attempt it? Had she not better let herself be killed—she sometimes thought she should be killed, to so great a height of morbid dread had risen her secret agony—and die, quietly, silently, thus escaping out of the hands of her enemies, who pursued her with this relentless hatred. ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Allen White's method is the reverse of Dr. Van Dyke's. If he has held his hand anywhere the reader does not suspect it, for it seems, with its relentless power of realization, to be laid upon the whole political life of Kansas, which it keeps in a clutch so penetrating, so comprehensive, that the reader does not quite feel his own vitals free from it. Very likely, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... went after those monkeys in a mood of relentless severity. Thus far, the regular denizens of Rainbow Island had dwelt together in peace and mutual goodwill, but each diminutive wou-wou must be taught not to pull any strings he found tied promiscuously to trees or stakes. ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... winter sunshine. A light snow covered the ground, and in it could be seen the tracks of rabbit, squirrel, coon, opossum, and occasionally a wild cat. In the distance the loud baying of hounds told that some creatures of the wild were being pursued by their relentless enemies. ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick |
