"Rending" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... other books will do. It is truly awful to read these battles after battles, lies after lies, called Diplomacy; it's fearful to read all this, and one wonders how he that set himself to this—He, of all men—could have the rare patience to produce such a labored, heart-rending piece of work. Again, when one reads of the stupidity, the shameful waste of our moneys by our forefathers, to see our National Debt (the curse to our labor now, the millstone to our commerce, to our fair chance of competition in our day) thus created, and for what? Even Carlyle cannot tell; then ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... brought smarting tears to the eyes of comfortable matrons, and swept their thoughts back to poignant moments of long ago—to youth and first love, to moonlight nights, entrancing meetings and heart-rending farewells! As for the younger and less emotional generation, even they were moved out of their everyday composure and hung upon the ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... his late brother-officers added the gnaw of envy to his heart-ache. On the third day of his exile he moved into lodgings in Woburn Place. Here at least he could be quiet, untroubled by heart-rending sights and sounds. He spent most of his time in dull ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... canyon for twenty miles or more. Judging by the amount of lava the eruption must have continued for a great while. Could one imagine a more wonderful sight—the turbulent stream checked by the fire flood from above! What explosions and rending of rocks there must have been when the two elements met. The river would be backed up for a hundred miles! Each would be shoved on from behind! There was no escape! They must fight it out until one or the other conquered. But the fire could not keep up forever, and, though triumphant ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... eagles, whereby the earth's centre was discovered. He must know of Deucalion, in whose days the whole world suffered shipwreck, of that single chest wherein were preserved the remnants of the human race, of the new generation born of stones; of the rending of Iacchus, the guile of Hera, the fiery death of Semele, the double birth of Dionysus; of Athene and Hephaestus and Erichthonius, of the strife for the possession of Athens, of Halirrhothius and that first trial on the Areopagus, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... Subsides the breeze; the untroubled waves repose; The scene is peaceful all. Can Death be nigh, When thus, mute and unarm'd, his vassals lie? Mark ye that cloud! There toils the imprisoned gale; E'en now it comes, with voice uplifted high; Resound the shores, harsh screams the rending sail, And roars th' amazed wave, and bursts ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... were resting from their labors, not in comfortable tents or on soft cushions, but on the hard ground, with no protection against sun and wind, and not too distant from the battle-field to hear the heart-rending cries and groans of their dying comrades. But even these cries and groans were to the triumphant Prussians the sign of their glorious victory, and awoke in those who had escaped unscathed through this terrible fire a feeling of ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... experiences, and she almost wondered whether Margaret would not think her changed beyond knowledge by the troubles of the past. But in this fancy Janetta only proved herself young at heart; in later years she found, as we all find, that the outer man is little changed by the most terrible and heart-rending calamities. It was almost a surprise to Janetta that Margaret did not remark on her altered appearance. But Margaret saw nothing very different in her friend. Her black mourning garments certainly made her look pale, but Margaret was ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... will again play the Marseillaise, the American Red Cross workers will again be in attendance, the gentleman in the top-hat and white-tie will again make his fiery oration of welcome, his audience will again pay no attention but will weep softly—the tediously heart-rending scene will be rehearsed throughout in every detail by an entirely new batch of actors. Twice a day, summer and winter, the same tragedy is enacted at Evian. It is a ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... with a ferocious irony, increasing even to madness, his craving for an ideal tenderness, for passionate outpourings of the bosom of an adored and faithful woman. He was compelled to stop, choked by hurried and rending sobs. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... town-hall, escorted by gens-d'armes, and carrying, attached to his back and breast, a writing in large characters, in these words, "Traitor to his country," which was read by light of flambeaux. This heart-rending assembly advanced towards the market-place, appointed for the execution of criminals. There they wished to bind the eyes of the accused;—he refused, and said, with a firm voice, that he knew how to die for his King. He himself gave the ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... friend full of rare qualities—for a friend to show off. And, the swollen veins in his forehead flattening, he began to make his peace with his piano. It could do more than shout and rage. It could sing like an angel in all languages; it could be witty, humorous, heart-rending, heart-healing, chaste, passionate, helpful, mischievous. And it could be wise and eloquent. It could stand up for a friend, and explain his sins away, and get ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... I slept, I could not get the thought of the pirate out of my mind. I dreamed that I was again on deck, and that I saw our pursuer, like some monster of the deep, her canvas towering high above our own towards the sky, close to us. Then she poured forth her broadsides, her shot with a crashing, rending sound passing across our deck. Still we remained unharmed, and I heard the captain say, "Give it them again, my lads—give it them again." Our crew sprung to their guns; but there came another broadside from the enemy which ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... with the sun of youth gone down, With the blossoms of the summer-time all withering and brown, Thou can'st not know that rending pain, those sobs thou can'st not hear, Thou can'st not feel those burning throbs whence wells the ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... rending, tearing, crashing sound. The airship quivered from end to end, and seemed to make a sudden dive downward. Then it appeared to recover, and once ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... everlasting, heaven hard to win, ignorance is acceptable to God as a proof of faith and submission, abstinence and mortification are the only safe rules of life—these were the fixed ideas of the ascetic mediaeval Church. The Renaissance shattered and destroyed them, rending the thick veil which they had drawn between the mind of man and the outer world, and flashing the light of reality upon the darkened places of his own nature. For the mystic teaching of the Church was substituted culture ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... and puritanic environment in which the world of sentiment and the life of the spirit were unknown, Mapu's romance descended like a flash of lightning, rending the cloud that enveloped all hearts. A century after Rousseau, there was still a corner in Europe in which pleasure, the joy of living, the good things of this life, and nature, were considered futilities, in which love was condemned as a crime, and the passions as the ruin of the soul. Such ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... heart-rending loss was in store for him. Progress was now very slow, for none of the cataracts or rapids could be navigated; canoes as well as stores had to be dragged over land from point to point. Frank Pocock had fallen lame and could not walk with the rest. ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... familiar with this parting or rending of the veil. We hear of it in the Jewish Temple, and in the Greek and Egyptian Mysteries. It had a mystically religious, and also obviously sexual, signification. It occurs here and there in the Roman Catholic ritual. In Spain, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... my head, and stood, waved her tail, and fixed me with her glowing yellow eyes; but just as I thought that it was all over she turned and began to feed on Kaptein, and so did the cubs. There were four of them within eight feet of me, growling and quarrelling, rending and tearing, and crunching poor Kaptein's bones; and there I lay shaking with terror, and the cold perspiration pouring out of me, feeling like another Daniel come to judgment in a new sense of the phrase. Presently the cubs had eaten their fill, and began to ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... from the edge, and had penetrated about fifty yards of close brushwood, when there came a frightful rending crash from behind us. With one impulse we rushed back the way that we had come. The bridge ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... unbroken by a single mound, from north round to north again, and it was as level as that of the ocean. My view to the north extended about eight miles, but I did not venture to compass that distance, only perhaps to have overlooked a similar heart-rending and desolate scene." This bears out the opinion expressed in the text. I do not hesitate, however, in the face of the interesting evidence brought forward by Captain Sturt, still to doubt the existence of an inland sea. I think the high temperature he experienced contradicts ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... scrambled for safety. One powerful blow from the axe, and with a crashing and rending, the great tree began its descent. When it struck the onlookers fully expected to see it broken into many pieces, but the bushy top, hitting the rocks first, broke the blow, and the body of the tree settled down gently without even ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... abate his rage, But rudely rending up his helmet, would 335 Have slaine him straight: but when he sees his age, And hoarie head of Archimago old, His hasty hand he doth amazed hold, And halfe ashamed, wondred at the sight: For that ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... a rending sound of breaking branches, a noise of rolling rocks; then deadly silence. For a long moment the men left standing on the cliff strained eyes and ears to where ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... rending of the heart? A disappointment? Shall I see myself misjudged, falsely suspected, despised? I accept beforehand all that Thou sendest me; and if through weakness I weep, suffer it to be so; if I murmur, check me; if I am vexed, correct ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... It was heart-rending work getting the sufferer into the berth while he poured out moanings of agony mingled with frantic accusations of his bearers, railings against God and all his laws, and unspoken recognitions of mother and sister. Ramsey, seeing his eye fall on Phyllis and remain there staring, and knowing ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... they that saw upon that night told after, that there came one wild flash of lightning that lightened sky and earth; and men looked and saw by its light, statelily standing, the rich cities and green forests of the Lyonesse; and then came black darkness, and a roar, and a crash, and a rending, as though all the rocks and the mountains should be torent [violently torn asunder]; and then another wild flash lightened sky and earth, and men looked, and the rich cities and green forests of ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... the old woman. 'You set too much store by the dog, and imagine such things. He's too old to ever be of service to us any more, and he eats a deal. The storm will be over by morning. Hear the showers of the leaves! The fall wind is rending the forest. 'Tis seventy falls that we have seen, and we will not see many more. We must live while we do live, and the dog must be put out of the way. You must take Faithful out into the forest in ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... singularly solitary in his habits, did not join us. I talked with Montgomery to clear my ideas of the way in which the Beast Folk lived. In particular, I was urgent to know how these inhuman monsters were kept from falling upon Moreau and Montgomery and from rending one another. He explained to me that the comparative safety of Moreau and himself was due to the limited mental scope of these monsters. In spite of their increased intelligence and the tendency of ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... season, the more vivacious must we be to put our readers in spirits. But we have consolation approaching in the shape of amusing work. Immediately that parliament is up, the newspapers will begin to lie, "like thunder," Tom Pipes would say. What mysterious murders, what heart-rending accidents, what showers of bonnets in the Paddington Canal, what legions of unhappy children dropped at honest men's doors! We have got a file of the "Morning Herald" for the last ten years;—and we give the worthy labourers in the accident line, fair notice, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... African marshes, most famous for his deadly propensity to charge on sight—could have given him a fair battle. But woe to the lion that should be obliged to face that terrible strength! Even the tiger, sinuous and terrible—armed with fangs like cruel knives and dreadful, raking, rending claws—could not have faced him in ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... wonderful as the waves. Who can paint the alternating hollows and promontories, the valleys, the melting bosoms, the sketches? How render the thickets of foam, blendings of mountains and dreams? The indescribable is everywhere there—in the rending, in the frowning, in the anxiety, in the perpetual contradiction, in the chiaroscuro, in the pendants of the cloud, in the keys of the ever-open vault, in the disaggregation without rupture, in the funereal tumult caused by all ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... revolved through each twenty-four hours. Up on the hill Hollister's men felled trees with warning shouts and tumultuous crashings. They attacked the prone trunks with axe and saw and iron wedges, Lilliputians rending the body of a fallen giant. The bolt piles grew; they were hurled swiftly down the chute into the dwindling river, rafted to the mill. All this time the price of shingles in the open market rose and rose, like a tide strongly on the flood, ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... different. I have studied the Dhobie in this spirit and find him to be nothing else than an example of the abnormal development, under favourable conditions, of a disposition which is not only common to humanity, but pervades the whole animal kingdom. A puppy rending slippers, a child tearing up its picture books, a mungoose killing twenty chickens to feed on one, a freethinker demolishing ancient superstitions, what are they all but Dhobies in embryo? Destruction is so much easier than construction, and so much more rapid and ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... Minerva of the Parthenon, Diana, in her hunting costume, with her hand on the quiver and a doe by her side, and the unfortunate Laocoon and his two little sons, struggling in the fearful coils of two huge serpents, and stretching their arms to the skies with heart-rending cries. I also saw Apollo Belvidere. He had just slain the Python and was standing by a great pillar of rock, extending his graceful hand in triumph over the terrible snake. Oh, he was simply beautiful! Venus entranced me. She looked as ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... Senate declared his consulship to be void, and elected L. Cornelius Merula in his place. [Sidenote: His cause espoused by the Campanian army.] Cinna, with characteristic audacity, instantly hastened to the army in Campania; and, rending his clothes and throwing himself on the ground, so worked on the pity of the soldiers that they lifted him up, and told him he was consul still, and might lead them where he pleased. [Sidenote: Marius lands in Etruria.] Then, visiting the ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... words Erebus came flying down the face of the knoll at a breakneck pace, yelling as she came, and flung herself upon the battling pair. As far as the spectators could judge she and the princess were rending Wiggins limb from limb; and they all three yelled their shrillest. Then with a yell the Terror leaped upon them from the cave and they were all four rolling on the ground ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... what had been rending her heart, he knew. He stopped writing; he took up a pencil, and absently began scribbling on ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... her, are unquestionably Steele's.—If the Tatler is not inferior to the Spectator as a record of manners and character, it is superior to it in the interest of many of the stories. Several of the incidents related there by Steele have never been surpassed in the heart-rending pathos of private distress. I might refer to those of the lover and his mistress, when the theatre, in which they were, caught fire; of the bridegroom, who by accident kills his bride on the day of their marriage; ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... formed, they succeeded in expelling several thousands of Catholics from the county. During the latter part of this year and the commencement of the next, the roads leading from the city of Armagh presented the most heart-rending scenes: groups of miserable families were seen endeavouring to escape from their persecutors into the south and western districts of the country. So strife and tumult ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... got into the hands of Moneylenders? He has no feeling, no Heart. This I have long known; he has behaved as ill as possible to me for years back. This bitter Truth I can no longer conceal: it is wrung from me by heart-rending agony. I am well rewarded. I came to Nottinghamshire to please him, and now he hates it. He knows that I am doing everything in my power to pay his Debts, and he writes to me about ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... which we vainly strive to pluck from his lips, and bind together in coherent and satisfactory records. The spirited surprise, the happy ambush, the daring onslaught, the fortunate escape,—these, as they involve no monstrous slaughter,—no murderous strife of masses,—no rending of walled towns and sack of cities, the ordinary historian disdains. The military reputation of Marion consists in the frequent performance of deeds, unexpectedly, with inferior means, by which the enemy was annoyed and dispirited, and the hearts and ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... the rending of mountains the tower belched a volcano of flame and the battle-field was as Sodom and Gomorrah when the ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... back to the audience, as if unaware of the applause. At last Fraeulein Unger turned him about so that he could see the demonstrations of the audience. The picture is presented of excited masses of people carried away by the emotions of the moment, rending the air with boisterous applause, and in the midst this great one, unresponsive to the homage showered on him, unconscious, seeing visions, ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... no home life, no knowledge of their children, no interest in education—that, in short, they left the whole business of worthy living to their wives, and devoted themselves exclusively to the wild-beast joys of tearing and rending their business competitors. ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... those awful days had Decies heard that heart-rending cry! How cruelly the words had tortured him! And here, they were repeated twenty years on—for the identification of ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... almost immediately broken by the cries and groans of the wounded. Some had been forcibly thrown out of the carriages, others had their legs and arms broken, and some were jammed into fixed positions from which death alone relieved them. The scenes that followed were heart-rending. Those who were uninjured, or only slightly hurt, lent willing aid to extricate their less fortunate fellow-travellers, but the howling of the wind, the deluging rain, and the darkness of the night, retarded their efforts, and in ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Moses thereupon went to the angels, and from them he learned that the Temple had been destroyed, and Israel banished from his land. Weeping and mourning, Moses joined the Patriarchs, and together, rending their garments and wringing their hands, they betook themselves to the ruins of the Temple. Here their wailing was augmented by the loud lamentations of the angels: (32) "How desolate are the highways to Jerusalem, the highways destined for travel without end! How deserted ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... had rushed and crushed against the massive trunk. Yes; there scarce stirred a breeze, and that heavy tree was convulsed, whilst the feathery shrubs stood still. For some minutes amongst the wood and leafage a rending and heaving went on. Dark as it was, it seemed to me that something more solid than either night-shadow, or branch-shadow, blackened out of the boles. At last the struggle ceased. What birth succeeded this travail? What Dryad was born of these throes? We watched fixedly. A sudden bell rang in the ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... embitter it, and here, no doubt, was the secret of that roughness, that carelessness for the sensibilities of others, which caused Boswell's father to christen him "Ursa Major." If his nature was in any way warped, it must be admitted that terrific forces had gone to the rending of it. His good was innate, his evil the result of ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... down on his head the wrath of his murdered kinsman's ghost. So, when the deed is done and the murder is out, he works himself up into a state of virtuous sorrow and indignation, covers his head with the leaves of a certain plant, and chanting a dirge in tones of heart-rending grief, marches straight to the village of the murderers. There, on the public square, surrounded by an attentive audience, he opens the floodgates of his eloquence and pours forth the torrent of an aching heart. "You have slain my kinsman," says he, "you are wicked ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... last by the face opposite him. It was awakening; it flushed, quivered, and the eyes darkened and widened. What was happening was this—Larry was setting Mary-Clare free in ways that he could not realize. Every merciless blow he struck was rending a fetter apart. He was making it possible for the woman, close to him physically, to regard him at last as—a man; not a husband that mistaken loyalty must shield and suffer for. He was placing her among the safe and decent people, permitting her at last to justify her instincts, ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... exclamation came as a terrific rending and cracking, far louder than heavy gunshots, came from the base of the tree. There was a vision of the lumbermen running clear. The next instant the straining guide parted with a report that echoed far down ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... comfortable, and vacant. Comparing it hastily with the first-class compartment being held by Francesca, I found that it differed only in having no carpet on the floor, and a smaller number of buttons in the upholstering. This was really heart-rending when the difference in fare for three persons would be at least twenty dollars. What a delightful sum to put aside for a rainy day; that is, you understand, what a delightful sum to put aside and spend on the first rainy day; for that is the way ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... his life—and he was determined to make Spain the greatest country in the world. In the second place, Philip II was sincerely and piously attached to Catholicism; he abhorred Protestantism as a blasphemous rending of the seamless garment of the Church; and he set his heart upon the universal triumph of his faith. If, by any chance, a question should arise between the advantage of Spain and the best interests ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... led us to a room where a collation had been prepared on a table lit up by wax candles burning in two silver candelabra. M. d'Anquetil invited us to be seated, and my good master tied his napkin round his throat. He already had a thrush on his fork when heart-rending sobs were to ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... have been able to exchange places with one so little fitted, as she thought, to endure. Sorely tried was the faith of the Hebrew lady; how little could she imagine that the prayers of many years were being answered by means of the very misfortune which was rending ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... of life. Sadder still, I hear the dark whisperings of those who would destroy the innocent and cast down the simple. I hear the satanic laugh of such as are false to sacred trusts and holy obligations, who ruthlessly as swine are rending hearts that have given all the pearls they had. From that sacred place, home, come to me hot words of strife, drunken, brutal blows, and the wailing of helpless women and children. Saddest of all earthly sounds, I hear the wild revelry of ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... in the imminent skies! Clouds break in fire. Earth yawns. The exulting thunder Shouts havoc to the whirlwinds. And men hear Amid the terrors of consenting storms, Floods, rocking worlds, mad seas, and rending mountains, Above the infinite clash, one long great cry, THOU ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... formerly the company awaited this last act. This was not the formal dust to dust, a verbal and figurative act, but some shovelfuls of real earth that for a few moments rattled and pounded the top of the coffin with a heart-rending sound. The minister shook hands with the chief mourners, every one took his way home, the bier was placed under a tree and left to the elements and to be the plaything of boys until the feet of them, that await at the door to carry out the dead, ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... too bold!— Rips up your toughest sail And tears your anchor-hold. You forge Through surge, To be in rending breakers ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... silver seal formed of three little figures back to back, wreathed with foliage, and supporting the Globe. They represented Faith, Hope, and Charity; their feet rested on monsters rending each other, among them the symbolical serpent. In 1846, now that such immense strides have been made in the art of which Benvenuto Cellini was the master, by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, Wagner, Jeanest, Froment-Meurice, and wood-carvers like Lienard, this little masterpiece would amaze nobody; but ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... incumbrance, or he would not have been found at her house by Boswell, as he was found on the 21st March, 1783, when she said "she was going to Bath, and should have been sorry to leave Dr. Johnson before I came." Considering the heart-rending struggle in which she was engaged at this time, with the aggravated infliction of an unsympathising and dogmatic friend, the wonder is how she retained ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... handkerchief, and when she took it up a narrow hem of white had become apparent between the girl's head and its surroundings. Neither spectator spoke, they scarcely looked at her, when she took another drop from the vase, and using it more boldly found the pasted figure curling up and rending under her hand, lines of newspaper type becoming apparent, and the ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for he was suffering as men suffer who feel the sweet bonds of wife and children and home, and dread the rending of them apart. In a moment, however, the soul behind his white face made it visibly luminous. "Houston," he said, "whenever the cause of freedom needs me, I am ready. I shall want no second call. But is it not ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... it came,—a crash as if heaven and earth had met; a wild, deep cry, made up of all tones of human agony and fright; the shriek of escaping steam; the rending and splintering of wood and iron; destruction, terror, pain, and death, all mingled in one awful moment. Then those who had escaped unhurt began the sad and terrible task of withdrawing from the ruin the maimed and bleeding bodies of those who yet lived, the crushed remains ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... requisitions of the exhibited stories. Whatever it might be and do in each particular piece, it represented in general, first the common mind of the nation, and then the general sympathy of all mankind. In a word, the Chorus is the ideal spectator. It mitigates the impression of a heart- rending or moving story, while it conveys to the actual spectator a lyrical and musical expression of his own emotions, and elevates him to the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... his excitement, Buos forgot himself and entwined with the flowing form of the she-creature, and the result was a rending of the air that cracked like heat lightning over the field. "No," he repeated again. "They must not be too late. They must learn. They must build from the very ground, and then they must fly. And then their eyes must be lifted to the stars, and desire ...
— Reluctant Genius • Henry Slesar
... down, as minute followed minute, till at length they rested like a sword of flame upon the statue of Amon-Ra. Once more that statue seemed to move. I thought that it lifted its stone arms to protect its head. Then in a moment with a rending noise, its mighty mass burst asunder, and fell in small dust about the throne, almost hiding ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... study. The attempt was futile. Talk still seemed to buzz about him; his temples throbbed; his thoughts wandered far and wide. Driven to bed long before his accustomed hour, he heard raucous voices rending the night, bellowing in hideous antiphony from this side of the street and the other, as the vendors of a halfpenny paper made the most of what Providence had ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... his glory and giving heat to everything we beheld a Being coming towards Surya, who seemed to shine with effulgence that was equal to that of Surya himself. Causing all the worlds to blaze up with his glory and filling them with his energy, he came, as I have already told thee, towards Surya, rending the firmament, as it were, for making his path through it. The rays that emanated from his body seemed to resemble the blazing effulgence of libations of clarified butter poured into the sacrificial fire. In consequence of his energy and splendour he could not be looked at. His form seemed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... MY DEAR FATHER,—The heart-rending tidings which you communicated reached me in Washington on Friday evening. I left yesterday morning, spend this day here at Mr. Cushing's, and set out on my return home to-morrow. I shall reach Philadelphia ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... out of her. Nevertheless, I could not persuade myself that this sluggishness was altogether due to the water she had taken in. It was wonderful, however, that she should still be afloat. No man could have heard the rending and grating of her side against the ice without supposing that every plank in it was ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... Puk-Wudjies, 5 They the envious Little People, They the fairies and the pygmies, Plotted and conspired against him. "If this hateful Kwasind," said they, "If this great, outrageous fellow 10 Goes on thus a little longer, Tearing everything he touches, Rending everything to pieces, Filling all the world with wonder, What becomes of the Puk-Wudjies? 15 Who will care for the Puk-Wudjies? He will tread us down like mushrooms, Drive us all into the water, Give our bodies to be eaten By the wicked Nee-ba-naw-baigs, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... was dependent on distant relations, and his own domains in Parnassus. The wretch was a poet! So they married. They spent their honeymoon genteelly, I dare say. His relations cut him. Parnassus paid no rents. He went abroad. Such heart-rending letters from her. They were destitute. How I worked! how I raged! But how could I maintain her and her husband too, mere child that I was? No matter. They are dead now, both; all dead for whose sake I ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in rather a rough spot for both mother and babe. The hasty fleeing for several days and nights to Egypt, with those heart-rending cries of the grief-stricken mothers of Bethlehem haunting their ears, the cautious return, and then apparently the change of plans from a home in historic Bethlehem to the much less favoured village of Nazareth,—it was all a pretty rough beginning on a very rough road. It was ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... to the subject of emigration, at the time much in the public eye, and shows how superior is British North America to Australia, then highly spoken of. He paints vividly the heart-rending poverty of the British lower classes, and the fertility of the acres waiting ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... had its way at last. The elements had won. With a rending of mighty timbers the tortured ship slid backward off the shoal and into the ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... himself trembling in every muscle as a deep rage at these blasphemies spread throughout his frame. As tropic storms strike languid forests, swaying, threshing, rending trees this way and that, so a mighty rush of fury swept him. Slowly at first, then faster, the almost forgotten taper flame of manliness that flickered on the altar of his inmost being leaped higher, until it blazed as a consuming fire. ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... simple words, disclosed more forcibly, more touchingly, than any direct exhibition of grief could have done, the inexpressible power of the misery she felt at this eternal separation from her only boy. She seized Una's two hands, and, kissing her lips, said, in tones of the most heart—rending pathos— ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... pressed steadily on toward the Grove. The destruction of that forest fane, consecrated so recently to the worship of God, and the burning of their homes and earthly goods seemed inevitable. The people, with pale, excited faces, awaited this heart-rending spectacle. ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... have been a finer subject for an able painter than this unhappy group. The tears, the anxiety, the anguish of the mother, while she met the gaze of the multitude, eyed the different countenances of the bidders, or cast a heart-rending look upon the children; and the simplicity and touching sorrow of the young ones, while they clung to their distracted parent, wiping their eyes, and half concealing their faces,—contrasted with the marked insensibility and jocular countenances ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... sensible one of the party, lifted me up, and supported me in his arms till I was set free. Then he let go suddenly, and I was so weak and giddy that I nearly fell down a third time. The General closed his eyes and emitted heart-rending groans, and the valet nipped hold of the handle of the chair and made for home as fast as he could go. I stood in the midst of my rags and tatters, and Mr ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... lodging, as their necessities drove them, rather than ask the parish to bear the expense of its interment:—the poor creatures lived in the hope of one day being able to bury their child at their own cost. It must have been heart-rending to see and hear the mother, who had been called upon to account for the state in which the body was found, make this deposition. By some, judging coldly, if not harshly, this conduct might be imputed to an unwarrantable pride, as ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... camp before the Phrygian walls. "Then thou, O Paeaen's son! had Lemnos ne'er "Known—to our shame abandon'd on the shore. "Thou now, so fame reports, in woody caves "Shelter'd, ev'n rocks mov'st with thy rending groans; "Pray'st that Laertes' son his justest meeds "May gain. Ye gods! ye gods! grant ye his prayers "A favoring ear! Now he, by oath combin'd "With us in war;—O, heavens! a leader too! "Heir to employ Alcides' faithful darts, "Sinks both by famine and disease opprest: ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... sense of the all-powerful unity of natural forces, and of the existence of an invisible, spiritual essence manifested in these forces, whether in unfolding the flower and maturing the fruit of the nutrient tree, in upheaving the soil of the forest, or in rending the clouds with the might of the storm. We may here trace the revelation of a bond of union, linking together the visible world and that higher spiritual world which escapes the grasp of the senses. The two become unconsciously blended together, developing ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... sooner arrived at the Place where all the Slaves receive their Punishments of Whipping, but they laid Hands on Caesar and Tuscan, faint with Heat and Toil; and surprizing them, bound them to two several Stakes, and whipped them in a most deplorable and inhuman Manner, rending the very Flesh from their Bones, especially Caesar, who was not perceived to make any Moan, or to alter his Face, only to roll his Eyes on the faithless Governor, and those he believed Guilty, with Fierceness ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... appearance. He wore a checked suit, very natty, and was more than usually tall and fine-looking. But his chief peculiarity lay in his expression. I never saw on any face, no, not on the stage, at the climax of the most heart-rending tragedy, a greater accumulation of mortal passion struggling with the imperative necessity for restraint. The young girl whose blond head lay on his shoulder looked like a saint in the clutch of a demon. She had ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... shoot ahead of the brig and rake her; but before he could do so, she fired her broadside, which came sweeping across the deck, killing two men and wounding three others. It was her last effort, however; for the whaler, passing ahead of her, poured in her broadside in return, rending her mainmast, and killing several of her crew. Finding that all resistance was useless, the French colours ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... liberated itself from the formalism and monotony that had marked it in the earlier plays, and is now free, varied, responsive to every mood and every type of passion; the language is laden almost to the breaking point with the weight of thought; the dialogue ranges from the lightest irony to heart-rending pathos and intolerable denunciation; the characters lose all semblance of artificial creations and challenge criticism and analysis like any personage in history; the action is pregnant with the profoundest significance. Hardly, if at all, less ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... Dartrey, relieved at sight of a loophole, to spring to some initiative out of the paralysis cast on him by a pretty little woman's rending of her veil. A man of honour alone with a woman who has tossed concealment to the winds, is a riddled target indeed: he is tempted to the peril of cajoleing, that he may escape from the torment and the ridicule; he is tempted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... horror-stricken group had rushed to the shore, and a crowd of spectators on the bank offered no aid beyond their cries. It was some distance before the water deepened, and the unfortunate woman was dragged for many yards, sometimes beneath the water, sometimes above the surface, rending the air with her screams, until at length the deep water hid her from their view. She was ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... forth his hand, and seizing the parchment wrenched it from its brazen frame, and rending it to shreds strewed them ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... I prove it in this wise: Where one protests very mildly against such abuse, and with all deference to the authority, they rail and threaten thunder and lightning, they clamor that it is heresy and high treason, that it is a rending of the seamless garment of Christ, and they would burn up the heretics, rebels, apostates and everybody in the whole world. By all of which it is clear that they hold "feeding" to mean naught else but such preying and flaying. In the meanwhile, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... quiristers, nymphs and demons, huge serpents and snakes of smaller size, birds of mighty wing, and separate companies of Pitirs, or progenitors of mankind; lightnings and thunder-bolts, clouds and colored bows of Indra, falling meteors, earth-rending vapors, comets and luminaries of various degrees; horse-faced sylvans, apes, fish, and a variety of birds, tame cattle, deer, men, and ravenous beasts with two rows of teeth; small and large reptiles, moths, ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... laid away forever in the ground. The old mother sat on the mat-covered ground beside her child, brushing away the intrusive flies with a piece of cocoanut-leaf, and wiping away the tears that slowly rolled down her cheeks. Now and then she would break into a low, heart-rending wail, and tell in a sob-choked, broken voice, how good this her child had always been to her, how her husband loved her, and how her children would never have any one to take her place. "Oh, why," she cried, "did the gods leave me? I am old and heavy with years; my back is bent and my eyes ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... he said, with a heart-rending sigh, "that is the point. To- morrow! Heavens! what will to-morrow's story ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... at the time, night-work, up forward, in clay so glutinous it would not leave the shovels and had mainly to be clawed out by hand—filthy, back-breaking, heart-rending labour. On calling the roll one dawn I found that The Beachcomber ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... but that the sun doth still Level his rays against the rising hill; I would be high, but see the proudest oak Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke; I would be rich, but see men too unkind Dig in the bowels of the richest mind; I would be wise, but that I often see The fox suspected while the ass goes free; I would be fair, but see ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... no further. There was a sudden soul-shaking shock. The front of the car seemed to plough into the ground. A rending, splitting noise filled ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... had wonderfully recovered since an hour ago, here made a playful run at the speaker's heels under the belief that the football had recommenced; and the heart-rending yelps which Railsford heard in the room below a few moments later were occasioned by an endeavour to detach the playful pet's teeth from the trouser-ends of ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... occupy. It is quite monstrous, in the first University of the most favoured of Christian lands, that a man should be compelled thus to lift up his voice in defence of the very Inspiration of GOD'S Word. O that Divine narrative, which is for ever rending aside the veil, and disclosing to us the counsels of the presence-chamber of the ALMIGHTY!—O those human characters, beset with all the infirmities of our fallen nature,—whose words and actions yet are shadows of things heavenly and eternal!—O that majestic retinue of types ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... walked with Charlie to see the wreck, and was returning along the cliff. As they passed the spot where Kenrick was, they had been first startled and then horrified by those shrieks, and while they stood listening another came to their ears, more piercing, more heart-rending ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... previous leg-pulls of Brigade Major. Make up details of what he tells the American—'That's a trench. That thing you fell over is a coil of wire. This is a sunken road—we sunk it, etc., etc.' Copy No. 3, additions and details, little touches of local colour, revision of choice of words, heart-rending erasions. And here, my child," I concluded, bringing out the beautiful, clean, smooth typed copy—"here is the finished work itself, light, pleasant, fluent, humorous and, most ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... points was raised by the Spanish commissioners. They maintained that the separation of Cuba from Spain involved the rending of the Empire, and that Cuba should therefore take responsibilities as well as freedom. The specific question was that of debts contracted by Spain, for the security of which Cuban revenues had been pledged. There was a manifest lack of equity in this claim, ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... my waking eyes, but each time I awoke trembling with apprehension and bathed in perspiration. As I lay there the second time, staring up into the darkness and telling myself I was a fool, there came a sudden rush of wind among the trees outside; then a vivid flash of lightning and an instant rending crash of thunder, and then a steady downpour of rain. I could guess how the gasping city welcomed it, and I lay for a long time listening to it, as it dripped from the leaves and beat against the house. A delightful coolness filled ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... that they startled us. There seemed to be dozens of hyenas—a regular class reunion of them—yet not one could be seen in the "murky gloom." And then, a moment later, we heard the crunching of teeth and the slither of rending flesh, and we knew that a supper party of hyenas was gathered about the festal board below us. I was afraid that they would eat up the carcass and thus keep away the lions, so I fired a shot to ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... breast, revealed in its ghastly, emaciated nakedness by the open nightshirt. The massive shoulders bowed, the supple body curved, the keen ear joined itself to the heaving surface. In a moment more the agonising, hacking, rending cough came on. Julius battled for air. Raising him deftly and tenderly, Saxham signed to the nurse, who hurried to him, answering his low questions in whispers, giving aid where he indicated ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the past Hades. He had been in some way very close to the boy. He had died somehow—cruelly. There had been blood—blood—and no one would help. Some devil had even laughed. When that scene came back the doctors and nurses held their breath and silently worked hard. Nothing seemed quite as heart-rending as what had happened to Jackson. But there were endless other things to ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... were in the box, but particularly to the wretched creature who was the occasion of it all. If he had known—if he could have conceived, beside whom he was sitting, and to whom the story was told!—I suffered with courage, like an Indian at the stake, while they are rending his fibres and boring his eyes, and while he smiles applause at each well-imagined contrivance of his torturers. It was too much for me at last, Jeanie—I fainted; and my agony was imputed partly to the heat of the place, and partly to my extreme sensibility; ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... was herself mourning in sackcloth. Out of her courts came the noise of warring sects; some contending against others with bitter warfare; and some, possessed of a demon, wallowed upon the ground foaming and rending themselves. In a time of panic, and disaster, and distress, and crime, the fountain which should have been for the healing of men, cast up its sediments, and gave out a bitter ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher
... England was suddenly awakened by the war with Russia, and afterwards by the revolt of her Indian mercenaries. The Russian was to be followed by a war between France and Austria; the enfranchisement of Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic; the fratricidal struggle between Prussia and Austria, and the rending asunder within six weeks of the famous Germanic Confederation of the Rhine. It is a somewhat singular coincidence that immediately before the commencement of these troubles the great Duke of Wellington ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... propellers revolved rapidly, the engine working perfectly, but there was something wrong with the launching. The rear guy-post seemed to drag, bringing the rudder down on the launching ways, and a crashing, rending sound, followed by the collapse of the rear wings, showed that the machine had been wrecked in the launching, just how, it was impossible for me to see. The fact remains that the rear wings and rudder were wrecked before the machine was free ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... obstinate silence interrupted only by sighs, groans, and broken hints of a deep sorrow which she cared not to reveal;—hence the days and nights passed by her seated on the floor, sleepless, her eyes fixed and her finger pressed upon her mouth;—hence, in short, all those heart-rending symptoms of incurable and mortal anguish which conducted her, in the space of twenty days, to the lamentable termination of a long life ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... At sight of Mr. Fopling, Ajax would bottle-brush his tail, arch his back, and explode into that ejaculation peculiar to cats. Mr. Fopling feared Ajax, holding him to be rabid and not knowing when he would do those rending deeds of tooth and claw upon him, of which the ejaculation, the arched back, and the bottle-brush were ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... rarely cry are likely to do so with great violence when they once give themselves up to it, and Charlotte's rending sobs drove poor Melina to the verge of distraction. At last she gathered the girl's slender figure into her arms and sat down in the ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... the sternest terms the eternal distinctions involved. I broke off all relations with him ultimately. And after a life spent in the most solemn and candid denunciation of the fluidity of religious belief, which is the curse of our age, though it involved me in many of the heart-rending suspensions of human intercourse with my nearest and dearest so plainly indicated in the Gospel, I passed at length, in complete tranquillity, to my final rest. The first duty of the sincere believer is inflexible intolerance. If a man ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of feeling; from that absorbing, heart-rending compassion for oneself (the most painful sensation, almost, of which our nature is capable), springs a deeper sympathy for others; and from the sense of our own weakness, and our own self-upbraiding, arises a disposition to be indulgent—to forbear—and to forgive—so at least it ought to be. ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... all but capsized, and the fire at my feet was overthrown. The very vault of heaven swung to and fro, ebbing and heaving with the general convulsion. The doleful psalmody in the neighboring ground broke abruptly. The chorus of many feminine voices sent forth but one rending shriek. The clamor of thousands of the town-folk from their encampment gave its wakeful response. Then the dead silence of consternation ensued. I picked up every stick and brand that had been scattered about, steadied myself in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... occupy a shelter-tent, on the brow of the hill at White Oak. To my great joy, he was able to offer me some stewed beef, bread and butter, and hot coffee. I ate voraciously, seizing the food in my naked fingers, and rending ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... for a few days' leave after long months in the trenches, nothing is too good for them. And when these days have flown, there is always the possibility that there may never be another leave. Not long ago I read a heart-rending article about the tragedies of the goodbyes in the stations and the terminal hotels—tragedies hidden by silence and a smile. "Well, so long," says an officer "bring back a V. C.," cries his sister from the group on the platform, and he waves his hand in deprecation as the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... blinding arc leaped between the two ships as the speeding Satorian hull smashed violently against the side of the Ancient Mariner! The men ducked automatically, and were hurled against their seat-straps with tremendous force. There was a rending, crashing roar, a sea ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... sadness of the leave-taking; and the receipt of many gifts, telegrams, and letters keeps up the excitement until after the departure of the pilot. But as the shore line recedes and we drift out to sea, there comes a realization of an entire change of environment and of the rending of former interests, which is, of itself, a fine preparation for the mental equipment necessary to assimilate the new scenes to ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... thus choosing their champion, much fiercer quarrels were rending the opposite party, whose Convention met at Charleston. The great majority of the Northern delegates were for choosing Douglas as candidate, and fighting on a programme of "popular sovereignty." But ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... of delight was followed by the chorus, and Okiok was about to resume, when a terrific rending sound seemed to paralyse every one. Well did they know that sound. It was the rending of the solid ice on which they stood. The advancing spring had so far weakened it that a huge cake had broken off from the land-ice, and was ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... a slide and a bump, Theodora dropped lightly at his side. She caught the placket of her skirt, on the way; but the sound of rending garments was too common an occurrence in her career to call for more than a passing attention. Strange to say, it had been much easier to talk when she had been half-hidden in the apple-tree. A sudden shyness came upon them both, as they looked in each other's eyes. There was an interval ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... to force cottages and hamlets in its front; but it could no longer 'nip' it. It did not appear probable to the two masters, however, that the vessel would be forced from its present berth, the rending and cracking of the ice sensibly diminishing, as the two floes came closer and closer together. Nor was this all: it was soon very obvious that the inner field was drifting, with an increased motion, into the bay, while the larger, or outer floe, seemed to hang, from some cause ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... lights, Must be strong of soul, and stout of arm, Able to send a shaft to the heart Of him who would quench that fire, Able to bend a warrior's bow, Able to poise a warrior's spear, Able to bear, without a groan, The torments devised by hungry foes, The pincers rending his flesh, The hot stones searing his ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... away from you bravely, mother, as you wish it. I have never been disobedient, have I? I will try and not forget till you come that you wish me to be brave—that it is a noble thing to be brave." Then, with a heart-rending sob, "Mother, oh mother, do not be ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... correction which we have seen applied in our day, with admirable success, to so many ancient writers, under a system of canons which have now raised this species of criticism to the rank of an inductive science. This criticism, applied to the Scriptures, has in many instances restored the true rending, and dissolved the objections which might have been founded on the uncorrected variations; and, as time rolls on, may lead, by yet fresh discoveries and more comprehensive recensions, to a yet further clarifying of the ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... guns were thundering and roaring, musketry was rattling, round-shot, and chain-shot, and grape, and langridge, and missiles of every description, invented for carrying on the bloody game of war, were hissing through the air, crashing against the sides of the ships, rending them asunder, shattering the tall masts and spars, sending their death-dealing fragments flying around, and hurling to the deck, mangled and bleeding, the gallant seamen as they stood at their quarters in all the pride of manhood, fighting for the honour and glory of heir ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... Anna, on her bed, half disrobed, but sleepless yet, still prayed he might not succeed. Just this one time, oh, Lord! this one time! With Thee are not all things possible? Canst Thou not so order all things that a day or two's delay of Kincaid's Battery need work no evil to the Cause nor any such rending to any heart as must be hers if Kincaid's Battery should go to-night? Softly the stair clock boomed three. She lifted her head and for a full three minutes harkened toward the camp. Still no sound there, thank God! She turned ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... they read their fate. Neither spoke, but Piney, accepting the position of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm around the Duchess's waist. They kept this attitude for the rest of the day. That night the storm reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder the protecting vines, ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... had prepared a little boat of bulrushes, which grew plentifully on the bank; and, making it water-proof by the use of pitch and tar, she put the child into it, committed it to the uncertain elements, and retired from the heart-rending scene. Poor Miriam, his sister, supposed to be at this time about ten or twelve years of age, was placed at a distance to watch the event. Dear little sentinel! what heart can refuse to pity thy sad employment! who does not sympathize with thy sorrow, and begin to mourn with thee for thy ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox |
