"Heartrending" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It was heartrending to hear the moaning of the wounded in the dark. The burghers helped the doctors to bring the wounded into the tents, where they could be attended to; I gave the doctors as much water as they liked to ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... difficult to believe that a man who draws in such noble outlines the dignity of the daily life of humanity regards as evil that divine act of procreation by which that dignity is renewed from age to age. It is difficult to believe that a man who has painted with so frightful an honesty the heartrending emptiness of the life of the poor can really grudge them every one of their pitiful pleasures, from courtship to tobacco. It is difficult to believe that a poet in prose who has so powerfully exhibited the earth-born air of man, the essential kinship ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... spiral plume called the "Osprey," the old birds "are killed off in scores, while employed in feeding their young, who are left to starve to death in their nests by hundreds." Their dying cries are described as "heartrending." But they evidently do not rend the hearts of our fashionable ladies, or induce them to rend their much-beplumed garments. Thirty thousand black partridges have been killed in certain Indian provinces in a few days' time to supply the European demand for their skins. One dealer ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... was out of any one's power to refute the sinister and prosaic verse. The contrast with 1914 is painful and striking. In the existing war the holocaust of victims, poets and historians, painters and sculptors, musicians and architects, has been heartrending, and it can never in future years be pretended that the Muses have this time spared us their most poignant sacrifices. A year ago the Revue Critique, one of the most serious and original of the learned journals of Paris, announced the losses it had endured. It was conducted by a staff of ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... from Fasito'otai were selected for the first offerings, and after them followed others in quick succession, night and day, early and late, until the last wretched victim had been consumed. Most heartrending were the descriptions I received from persons who had actually looked on ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... being in exile, the people are goaded to fresh revolt. 400 The tragedy of the Calle de Camba. Cebu Island rises in revolt. 401 The Cebuanos' raid on Cebu City; Lutao in flames; piles of corpses. 402 Exciting adventures of American citizens. Heartrending scenes in Cebu City. 404 Rajahmudah Datto Mandi visits Cebu. Rebels in Bolinao (Zambales). 406 Relief of Bolinao. Father Santos of Malolos is murdered. 408 The peacemaker states his views on the reward he expects ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... her own home was Virginia more beloved and admired than in our family; we feel afflicted painfully at what to our human vision looks like an unmitigated calamity. But if it is so hard for us to bear, to whom in no sense she belonged, what a heartrending event this is to you, her mother! What an amazement, what a mystery. But it will not do to look upon it on this side. We must not associate anything so unnatural as death with a being so eminently formed for life. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... him in vain, and finally recognized his agonizing cries from the opposite shore where the cannibals were torturing him. In his delirium he had swum across the narrow inlet which separated them from their enemies; his heartrending cries told of the reception accorded him. "Oh, if he had only repented!" cried the boys with a shudder, ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour, and of cavaliers. He had thought ten thousand taxis must have leaped from their stands, etc. The whistle that at first sounded merely mechanical and ear-piercing had become heartrending and human when I saw from whom it proceeded—a very heart-cry that still haunts me. But was it a heart-cry? Was Brett, is Brett more ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... the vessel's stern hove up, an indistinct blur of deeper blackness on the darkness of the night, the line of lights slid forward and vanished one after another until all had disappeared, while at the same moment a heartrending wail from hundreds of throats pealed out across the water, punctuated by a ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... to reach over to Skipper Zeb to wake him, when all at once the stillness was broken by a terrifying, heartrending howl, rising and falling in mournful cadence, and echoing through the forest behind them. The howling creature was separated from Charley only by the thickness of the canvas, and ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... it grew a little dusk, still no buyer. Soon the boys knew that they must begin their long drive home. But, to take the pigs back again; it was too heartrending to think of. ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... seemed to wear herself out and cease. She sat herself down upon the rocky floor, shook the dense cloud of her beautiful hair over her face and breast, and began to sob terribly in the torture of a heartrending despair. ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... trustful; it is the major affliction of the deaf that they grow suspicious of their intimates and abhorrent of themselves. There is nothing in history more majestic than the battle of this giant soul against his doom; nothing more heartrending than his bitter outcries; nothing loftier than his high determination to serve his turn on earth in spite of all. He was the very King Lear of music, trudging his lonely way with heart broken and hair wild ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... soup, John," said Mary, as they went out, "You know, one can never get these people to do anything in a rational way," she added to James. "It's perfectly heartrending trying to teach them even such a natural thing as ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... was to this end we were fighting; for this that every village and family in England was deploring the death of beloved sons and fathers. We dared not speak to each other, even at table, of Malplaquet, so frightful were the gaps left in our army by the cannon of that bloody action. 'Twas heartrending for an officer who had a heart to look down his line on a parade-day afterwards, and miss hundreds of faces of comrades—humble or of high rank—that had gathered but yesterday full of courage and cheerfulness round the torn and blackened ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... little daughter! If any one will give me back my daughter, I will be his servant, the servant of his dog, and he shall eat my heart if he will.' She met M. le Cure of Saint-Remy, and said to him: 'Monsieur, I will till the earth with my finger-nails, but give me back my child!' It was heartrending, Oudarde; and IL saw a very hard man, Master Ponce Lacabre, the procurator, weep. Ah! poor mother! In the evening she returned home. During her absence, a neighbor had seen two gypsies ascend up to it with a bundle in their arms, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... an Alien, a meer Stranger in England that hath not been acquainted with your generous housekeeping; for my own part, my more particular Tyes of Service to you, my Honoured Lords, have built me up to the height of this experience." His preface is a heartrending cry of regret for the good old times before usurping Parliaments banished splendidly extravagant gentlemen across the seas, "those golden days of Peace and Hospitality, when you enjoy'd your own, so as to entertain and relieve others ... those golden days wherein were practised ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... the Hall looked as if they had reached the stage of being dreadfully bored with each other when we arrived. They did not hear us immediately, and as my momentary dream dissolved I had an impression of them all as being on the verge of a heartrending yawn. They perked up instantly, however, when they saw us, turning towards us with a movement that looked concerted and was in itself ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... agency of a forged message purporting to come from a very dear friend whom I knew to be in grave trouble at the time. Oh! the whole thing was thoroughly well thought out, I can assure you!" she continued, with a harsh laugh which ended in a heartrending sob. "The forged message, the suborned servant, the threats of terrible reprisals if anyone in the village gave me the slightest warning or clue. When the whole miserable business was accomplished, I was just ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... heartrending story, to come so late, so bootless now, to the poor boy who had slept all these years in the nameless grave, ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... brought to justice. The Board of Works, to mark its indignation at this murderous attack upon one of its servants, stopped the works in the locality, and the inhabitants, miserably off before, sank into a state of the most heartrending destitution, as is testified by Captain Wynne, writing from the same place a fortnight or three weeks after, to Colonel Jones.[148] "I must again," he says, "call your attention to the appalling state in which Clare Abbey is at present. I ventured through that ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... stop there, I beg," I said sarcastically; "if you are thinking of using these materials for one of your popular novels, be sure to throw in a few duels, several heartrending catastrophes, and other incidents of what you call 'action,' appropriately expressed in ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... of care furrowed the brows of the disheartened bushmen then. Not only was their living taken from them by the drought, but there is nothing more heartrending than to have poor beasts, especially dairy cows, so familiar, valued, and loved, pleading for food day after day in their piteous dumb way when one has it ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... but we all felt somehow disappointed, and looked back wistfully at the little boat, jumping up and down far astern now; the poor little light shining in vain, and the poor wretch within screaming out in the most heartrending accents a last faint desperate "I ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... enemy for many years. But one day the great poet died, in Greece, the death of a hero. His body was taken back to England for burial, and Caroline Lamb stood at her window and saw the procession go by. The coffin was followed by a dog, howling piteously. Caroline uttered a heartrending cry, and sunk to the floor insensible. They raised her and placed her in her bed, from which she never rose; she was borne from it ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... English, "I am asleep, and don't waken me." The position of the boy caused the recollection of the old melody to flash into the mother's heart,—she simply pointed to him as the words streamed in a low melodious murmur, but one full of heartrending sorrow, from her lips. The old sacred association—for it was one which she had sung for him a thousand times,—until warned to desist by his tears—deepened the tenderness of her heart, and she said with difficulty, whilst she ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... of caucus of the Whig members, held in relation to the coming Presidential election. The whole field of the nation was scanned, and all is high hope and confidence. Illinois is expected to better her condition in this race. Under these circumstances, judge how heartrending it was to come to my room and find and read your discouraging letter of the 15th. We have made no gains, but have lost "H. R. Robinson, Turner, Campbell, and four or five more." Tell Arney to reconsider, if he would be saved. Baker ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... up. To his satisfaction, Jim found that the man was suffering from nothing more serious than a severe scorching, and he guessed that it must have been the anticipation of torture which had made the Indian send up those heartrending screams. As soon as the poor wretch had recovered from the shock which he had sustained, Jim questioned him as to how he came to be in such a situation, and was told that the man, whose name, by the way, was Jose, had been a guide in the guerilla ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... oppression and villainy, brought to bear upon them by distant relatives, who were the infamous agents of a still more infamous government. The case of Nick, although sore enough in its way, was not so heartrending as that of Kate. He was of a sex fitted to wrestle with the storms of life, but she, proud and brave as she was, occupied a different position. Fortunately for both, however, through the instrumentality of a small pittance set aside by the Courts in her case, and a kind relation ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... to take her away from that heartrending sight; they begged her to go to her room; but she insisted upon staying. They tried to remove her by force; but she clung to the bed, and vowed that they should tear her to pieces sooner than make her leave ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... basis, we lose the real value of the fairy tale element. It is the one element which causes little children to wonder, simply because no scientific analysis of the story can be presented to them. It is somewhat heartrending to feel that "Jack and the Bean Stalk" and stories of that ilk are to be handed over to the critical youth who will condemn the quick growth of the tree as being contrary to the order of nature, and wonder why Jack was not playing football on the school ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... natural composure and courage had vanished utterly in a tumultuous storm of fear. Had the danger been less, his distress would have seemed ridiculous. But in this dismal, merciless abyss lay the shadow of death, and his heartrending cries might well have called Heaven to his help. Perhaps they did. So hidden before, he was now transparent, and one could see the workings of his heart and mind like the movements of a clock out of its ...
— Stickeen • John Muir
... of God!" was the heartrending cry that proceeded everywhere from yet living men hidden among hecatombs of the slain, as they heard the footsteps of the ambulance corps and their helpers. Really, the task was an endless one, ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... morning there came a heartrending letter from Aunt Ju. She was very sorry that Lady George should have been so troubled;—but then let them think of her trouble, of her misery! She was quite sure that it would kill her,—and it would certainly ruin her. That odious Baroness had ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... unanimous in their praise of the truth and uniform consistency of his characters, of his heartrending pathos, and his comic wit. Moreover, they extol the beauty and sublimity of his separate descriptions, images, and expressions. This last is the most superficial and cheap mode of criticising works of art. Johnson compares him who should endeavor to recommend this poet by passages unconnectedly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... cadets. They do it cheerfully, and, strange to say, are as careful not to be "hived" as the cadet whose accoutrements they are cleaning. I say "required." I do not mean that regulations or orders require this of the new cadets, but that the cadets by way of hazing do. From the heartrending tales of hazing at West Point, which citizens sometimes read of, one would think the plebes would offer some resistance or would complain to the authorities. These tales are for the most part untrue. In earlier days perhaps hazing ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... made an attempt to laugh, and played to us sublime things he had just composed, or rather, to be more accurate, terrible or heartrending ideas which had taken possession of him, as it were without his knowledge, in that hour of solitude, sadness, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... attics. When they opened the door a woman who lay there in child-bed raised herself up on the iron bedstead and gazed at them in alarm. She was thin and anemic. When she perceived the condition of her husband she burst into a heartrending fit of crying. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... country, somewhere near the boundaries of the Hoopstad and Boshof districts; here a regular circus had gathered. By a "circus" we mean the meeting of groups of families, moving to every point of the compass, and all bivouacked at this point in the open country where we were passing. It was heartrending to listen to the tales of their cruel experiences derived from the rigour of the Natives' Land Act. Some of their cattle had perished on the journey, from poverty and lack of fodder, and the native owners ran ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... the roads impassable; and at the best, the beasts could seldom be urged beyond a walk, fetlock-deep in mire or water. Worse than all, Berenger, far from recovered, and under the heavy oppression of a heartrending grief, could hardly fail to lose the ground that he had gained under the influence of hope. The cold seemed to fix itself on the wound on his cheek, terrible pain and swelling set in, depriving him entirely of sleep, permitting him to take no nourishment ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Armstrong's voice in tone of heartrending anguish, goes up that of Dupre calling the names ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... up in the big chair; his legs were thrust out stiffly in front of him. He looked a heartrending interpretation of discomfort in his evening clothes, for he hadn't even loosened the collar. He had thought of it, but felt it might be disrespectful to Jan. Besides, there was something of the ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... against the wall and lighted a candle. But before he had moved a step from the bed to fetch the photographs he heard behind him a piercing, heartrending shriek. Looking round, he saw his wife's large eyes fastened upon him, full of amazement, horror, and wrath. . ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Her story was a sad one of a wicked childhood, ignorant youth, wasted early years, melancholy, sins, outbursts of faith, falls, returns of love, pride, virtue, restitution through repentance, scourged hopes, dead confidences, the entire heartrending existence of a woman who had left more of her heart than of the flesh of her body clinging to the nails of her calvaries:—all, though ordinary and commonplace, was so cruel in its truth that it appealed at once to Sulpice's heart, a heart bursting with pity, to that credulous man who was ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... is soon exhausted, the strike-pay goes not far even for food, and hunger is soon written on the children's faces. For one who lives in close contact with workers, a protracted strike is the most heartrending sight; while what a strike meant forty years ago in this country, and still means in all but the wealthiest parts of the continent, can easily be conceived. Continually, even now, strikes will end with the ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... is in the eye of the observer. What is farce to you is often tragedy to the actual performer. The man who slips over a piece of orange peel, or chases his hat along the muddy pavement, is rarely conscious of the humour of the situation. On the other hand, you shall see persons involved in heartrending tragedies to whom the thing shows as farce, like little children playing in churchyards or riding tombstones astride. To the little imps of comedy, who, according to Mr. Meredith, sit up aloft, holding their sides at the spectacle of mankind, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... as he rose from the floor, where he had been grovelling in heartrending paroxysms of grief. Seizing the old man's hand, he kissed it and pressed it to his bosom. Then, bursting into tears, he added: "God Himself will reward you for having come ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... wife cannot be right," declared Ben, endeavoring to speak with mature and legal poise; "but as you say, that heartrending doubt of your duty may attack you at times. How would it be to put it beyond your power to yield to his wishes by marrying some one ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... just returned from a secret excursion into Russia, and had seen Miss Haldin. She lived in a town "in the centre," sharing her compassionate labours between the horrors of overcrowded jails, and the heartrending misery of bereaved homes. She did not spare herself in good ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... dies, and in some cases even before death occurs, the friends and relatives assemble at the lodge and begin crying over the departed or departing one. This consists in uttering the most heartrending, almost hideous wails and lamentations, in which all join until exhausted. Then the mourning ceases for a time until some one starts it again, when all join in as before and keep it up until unable to cry ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... of my Bible I find the following, which was written shortly after I emerged from the stormy sea of heartrending agony through which I passed in my conflict with sectarianism, rationalism, infidelity and doubt. It was not written for the public, but was simply an effort of my soul to express in a measure, through human symbols, the painful experiences through which it passed. It will ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... either by tricking or overpowering the watchman. All sorts of clever shifts were made to enable families where perhaps only one lay sick to escape from the house, leaving the sick person sometimes quite alone, or sometimes in charge of a nurse. Dan said it was heartrending to hear the cries and lamentations of miserable creatures pleading to be let out, convinced that it was certain death to them to remain shut up with the sick. Yet, since they might likely be themselves already infected, it was the greater peril and cruelty to let them forth; and he had ghastly ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... not wait to begin my work in the hospitals. Everywhere I went, where there were wounded men, I sang for those who were strong enough to be allowed to listen, and told them stories, and did all I could to cheer them up. It was heartrending work, oftentimes. There were dour sights, dreadful sights in those hospitals. There were wounds the memory of which robbed me of sleep. There were men doomed to blindness for the rest of ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... deposited their burden in front of one of the windows, Aline threw herself upon her brother's body, uttering heartrending cries. Madame de Bergenheim did not stir; she lay upon the sofa with eyes and ears buried in the cushions, and seemed deaf and blind to all that surrounded her. Mademoiselle de Corandeuil was the only one who preserved her presence of mind. Controlling her ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... would weep, touched by the heartrending tales of the messenger. What could she do! She was as poor as her maids; she had jewels, many jewels, but not a franc. Then Argensola came to the rescue with a solution worthy of his experience. He would smooth the way for the good mother, leaving some of her jewels at the Mont-de-Piete. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to take a bitter pleasure in the study of modern vice. He painted scenes at cafe-concerts and the rooms of wantons with intense truth. Nobody has revealed better than he the lowness and suffering of the creatures "of pleasure," as they have been dubbed by the heartrending irony of life. Lautrec has shown the artificiality of the painted faces; the vulgarity of the types of the prostitutes of low origin; the infamous gestures, the disorder, the slovenliness of the dwellings of these ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... was next to impossible. The opening grew more contracted; I could scarcely force myself forward, digging fingers and toes into the hard earth floor, the obstructing timber scraping my body. It was an awful, heartrending struggle, stretched out flat like a snake in the darkness, the loose earth showering me with each movement. There was more than one support down; I had to double about to find opening; again and again I seemed to be against an unsurpassable barrier; twice I dug through a mass of fallen ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... seemed to me as if the day were breaking! Almost immediately two other windows flew into fragments, and I saw that the whole of the lower part of my house was nothing but a terrible furnace. But a cry, a horrible, shrill, heartrending cry, a woman's cry, sounded through the night, and two garret windows were opened! I had forgotten the servants! I saw the terrorstruck faces, and their ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... to command you, Caroline, but to bear the request of my guests. No, I do not even ask you on my account to go up to the great hall: it is to please my guests only." Her tears and heartrending appeal began to sober him. Bigot had not counted on ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Notwithstanding this heartrending recital, the graves of rebel soldiers in many places in this state and throughout the north, were decorated by Union soldiers. What hurt does it do to throw a few flowers on the clay that covers one who was once your enemy? Nobody thinks less of ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... kinds of darkness, taken from the two formidable sides of night. Dea had that shadow in her, Gwynplaine had it on him. There was a phantom in Dea, a spectre in Gwynplaine. Dea was sunk in the mournful, Gwynplaine in something worse. There was for Gwynplaine, who could see, a heartrending possibility that existed not for Dea, who was blind; he could compare himself with other men. Now, in a situation such as that of Gwynplaine, admitting that he should seek to examine it, to compare himself with others was ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... previous sensational Adelphi effects. In such a piece as "the Lights," it is scarcely fair that "the Heavies" should have it nearly all to themselves, but so it is, and the two Light Comedy parts capitally played by Miss JECKS and Mr. LIONEL RIGNOLD, do not get much of a chance against the heartrending sorrows of Miss EVELYN MILLARD, and of Mrs. PATRICK CAMPBELL, the slighted, or sea-lighted heroine, known as "Dave's Daughter" (oh, how fond Mr. W.A. ELLIOTT must be of Dave Purvis, the weakest sentimentalist-accidental-lunatic-criminal that ever was let off scot-free at R.H. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... his lips with instinctive obedience. When he opened them again his face had softened; the words fell upon the silence with a heartrending inflection of misery. ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Mozart, is a man without a country. As the one manipulates his joyous, soft, serene rhythms, the other throbs and trembles with obscure meanings and pathetic, heartrending laments, the source of which lies hidden as at the ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... letters. His had been brief, hurried accounts of his doings, assuring her of his safety after every action and of his unalterable affection; hers were the artless outpourings of a warm, passionate nature tortured by ever-present heartrending anxiety for the man she loved best in the world. There had been no time to warn her of his visit to Gibraltar, and his ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... accomplishment. So Doris was allowed considerable latitude in the commoner branches. Mrs. Webb had been exacting in the few things she taught, especially arithmetic. And Uncle Win admitted to himself that Doris had a poor head for figures. When she came to fractions it was heartrending. Common multiples and least and greatest common divisors had such a way of getting mixed up in her brain, that he felt very ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... sad sight to watch the ethical degradation of one of the most remarkable intelligences among the men of his generation; it was heartrending to see him fall every day more and more into the power of unscrupulous people who did nothing else but exploit him for their own benefit. South Africa has always been the land of adventurers, and many a queer story ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... that simple question in Betty Graham's voice; Sam, at all events, showed the least surprise; the old colonel wheeled toward the back of the store, his jaw dropping and his eyes protruding as though he were confronted with a ghost. As, in a way, he was: even I had been struck by that strange, heartrending similarity to her mother's tone; and even I trembled a little to hear that voice, as it seemed, from beyond ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... fallen upon the place. Up this same rocky passage-way, eight summers ago, swarmed thousands of wretched refugees from the seat of war in Eastern Armenia; small oblong mounds of loose rocks and bowlders are frequently observed all down the ravine, mournful reminders of one of the most heartrending phases of the Armenian campaign; green lizards are scuttling about among the rude graves, making their habitations in the oblong mounds. About two o'clock I arrive at a road-side khan, where an ancient Osmanli dispenses feeds of grain for travellers' animals, and brews coffee for the travellers ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... overcome this the Commander must have a great force of will. By this resistance we must not exactly suppose disobedience and murmurs, although these are frequent enough with particular individuals; it is the whole feeling of the dissolution of all physical and moral power, it is the heartrending sight of the bloody sacrifice which the Commander has to contend with in himself, and then in all others who directly or indirectly transfer to him their impressions, feelings, anxieties, and desires. ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... death struggle, and the distracted attempts to find a place of concealment for the victim, are too heartrending to be repeated here. James fell, it is said, with sixteen wounds in him, hacked almost to pieces, yet facing his murderers so desperately that some of them bore the marks of his dying grip when they were brought ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... once grotesque and pitiful. The carefully curled ringlets of colourless hair contrasted strangely with the sudden havoc in her complexion. Perhaps she was conscious of it, for she tried to turn her face away, so that Greif should not see it. Then all at once, with a heartrending sob, she let her head fall forward upon his shoulder, while her nervous, wasted hands grasped his ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... from The heavenly gates; upon the lurid flame His chariot shall roll, and on the clouds Of sable smoke, down through the stormy sky, Where roar tremendous thunders, mid the cries Of agony and fear, which rise anon, Heartrending, from the lost, in anguish sore, Who call for shelter, but have no reply, Save terrors still more awful than before; Who seek for mercy, when their fearful doom Shall echo in their ear, "Too late! too late!" Then all the earth shall be engrossed ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... to rise and rush after him, but whether she was really overcome by her feelings, or whether she felt the one chance of prevailing left her was to faint, she uttered a heartrending cry, and the chevalier had no choice but ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... with her idea. That Flossie should have an idea at all was something so deliciously new and surprising; and what could be more heartrending than these prodigious intellectual efforts, her evident fear that her limitations constituted a barrier between them? As if it mattered! As if he wanted a literary critic for his wife. And how brutally he had criticized her—as if it mattered! ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... a telegram was forwarded to his friends in New York, bidding them come soon if they would see him alive. Mr. Miller, who was teaching in a distant part of the country, dismissed his school to attend his dying friend. It was heartrending to hear Mr. Wilmot in his delirium, call for Julia to come to him—to let him look on her face once more before he died. Then he would fancy himself at home and would describe Julia to his sister ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... I thought on my way to the Latkins how it was possible that I did not notice Raissa. Where had she disappeared to? She must have seen—Suddenly I remembered that at the very moment David was falling a heartrending shriek had sounded in my ears. Was it not she? But in that case why did I not see her? Before the hovel in which Latkin lived was an empty space covered with nettles and surrounded by a broken, tottering fence. I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... with a terrible weight and soreness on her all the time, though she could not think of the dear grannie, of whom it was no figure of speech to say that she had been indeed a mother. The idea of her absence from home for ever was too strange, too heartrending to be at once embraced, and as she neared the end of her journey on that long day, Carey's mind was chiefly fixed on the yearning to be with her husband and Janet, who had suffered such a shock without her. She seemed more able to feel through her husband-who was so ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sacred sea of the old poets and philosophers, on the sea whose voice has rocked the thought of the world, that he cast into the shadow that long lament, so heartrending and sublime, that posterity will long shudder at the remembrance of it. The bitter strophes of this lament seem to be cadenced by the Mediterranean itself and to be in rhythm, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... said, "They carried away women and children captive, and in their long journey through the wilderness, they were subjected to heartrending trials." ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... If all the youths and old men, the sick and maimed, could have been eliminated from the Boer forces, eighty per cent, would probably have been found to be a low estimate of the number thus subtracted from the total force. It would have been heartrending to many a continental or American general to see the unmilitary appearance of the Boer burgher, and in what manner an army of children, great-grandfathers, invalids, and blind men, with a handful of good ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... He gave a heartrending groan of pain. The boys stood stricken with consternation. It was going to be a long and difficult task to get the professor out of his present predicament, and there ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... It broke on a heartrending sob. And the voice of the resourceful Capataz de Cargadores, master and slave of the San Tome treasure, who had been caught unawares by old Giorgio while stealing across the open towards the ravine to get some more silver, answered careless and cool, but sounding ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... confusion that followed the sudden extinction of the candle, while Ned was freeing Alan and Jack Jellup was uttering heartrending groans, the marshal's confederate lost his nerve and made his escape. When a lantern had been procured, immediate attention was ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... to use the unhappy chief officer as a causeway, and the poor wretch's despairing cries were heartrending. He was clinging for dear life to a bolt in the deck when Coke joined hands with a sailor and was thus enabled to reach him. Once the skipper's strong fingers had clutched his collar he was rescued—at least from the instant death that might have been the outcome of his abject terror, for there ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... prudish lover, who desires to woo less than to be wooed; and at all times and through all moods he remains the primeval sentimentalist. He will detach his life entirely from the catchwords which pretend to govern his actions; he will sit and croon the most heartrending ditties in celebration of home-life and a mother's love, and then set forth incontinently upon a well-planned errand of plunder. For all his artistry, he lacks balance as flagrantly as a popular politician or an advanced journalist. Therefore ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... advantage to those who could command money enough to purchase luxuries at an enormous cost. Oppression and an utter carelessness of the well-being of the captive, pressed hardly upon those who were poor. No annals can convey a more heartrending description of the sufferings of the prisoners confined in county gaols, than their own touching and heartfelt appeals, some of which are to be found ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... and resolutions. But I am struggling with the associations of this lone, lone hearth—with no fire, no father, no mother, sister or brother left—the whole is heartrending. I quit you now, my kind friends; I am blind with tears, but ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... on board the ship, he began to curse his daughter, calling her a Christian dog and other vile names. Finally it was deemed best to set him and the other Moors ashore; and when the old man saw the ship sail away with his daughter, he began to sob and cry aloud in the most heartrending way, threatening to kill himself if she did not return to him. The last words that she heard were, "I forgive you all!" and they made her weep so bitterly that it seemed as if her tears would ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... that the most ordinary, everyday thing appears to it as something entirely new and attractive, as if metamorphosed by witchcraft and now seen for the first time. Life is worth living, says art, the beautiful temptress; life is worth knowing, says science. With this contrast the so heartrending and dogmatic tradition follows in a theory, and consequently in the practice of classical philology derived from this theory. We may consider antiquity from a scientific point of view; we may try to look at what has happened ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... to prey upon. And being in search of victims, and coming upon the Duchess of Little Britain as she rode with her knights, he had laid hands upon her and carried her off to his den in a mountain. Five hundred men that followed the duchess could not rescue her, but they heard such heartrending cries and shrieks that they had little doubt she had been ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... to a guttural travesty of itself, rose to a shout on the ascending notes of the last line. Then, without pause for breath, came the voice of speech—hurried, expressionless, heartrending to hear. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... picture of wholesale murder, nor a bottle of vitriol thrown in the face of the Kaiser. After the thunder and the lightning, came the still small voice. It is a poem in the metre and manner of Gray, with the same silver tones of twilit peace—heartrending by contrast with the ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... still on the same spot, but there was a change in their positions. The prisoner was now kneeling with clasped hands before the cut-throats, begging for his life for the sake of his wife and children, in heartrending accents, to which his executioners replied in mocking tones, "We have got you at last into our hands, have we? You dog of a Bonapartist, why do you not call on your emperor to come and help you out of this scrape?" The unfortunate man's entreaties became more pitiful ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the South African War. I admit the generous philanthropy of our country has been evinced to a degree that is almost inconceivable, and I hesitate even now in making this fresh appeal, but can only plead as an excuse the heartrending accounts of the sufferings of Mafeking that I have received from my sister, Lady ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... One of the men killed was found with his tongue cut out. The members of Butler's party finally entered the homes of most of the prominent Negroes in the town, smashed the furniture, tore books to pieces, and cut pictures from their frames, all amid the most heartrending distress on the part of the women and children. That night the town was desolate, for all who could do so ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... I was washing my hands before dinner and cheerfully whistling Hiawatha, I became conscious that Jones was lolling back on a sofa at the dark end of the room. What particularly arrested my attention was a groan—preceded by a pack of heartrending sighs. It worried me—when everything seemed to be going so well. He had every right ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... he spoke, to meet the mountain of flesh which hurled itself upon him in a blind rush of Berserk rage—braced himself, met and countered it. Never had that spacious office—the scene of so many heartrending appeals, dramatic climaxes, impassioned confessions and violent altercations—witnessed so terrific a struggle, ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... declaration of the inestimable value and glorious results of American medical education, the writer draws the logical(?) sequence that it (American medical education) is responsible for a case of most heartrending malpractice, which he relates, compared to which the Japanese hari-kari were merciful mildness, and approaching more nearly the tortures by crucifixion as administered by this same kind-hearted people. With about as much reason and justice might he conclude that the American system of Sunday-school ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... inventors one easily perceives the change from one form to the other. We have seen that in the case of Chopin, "creation was spontaneous, miraculous," coming complete and sudden. But George Sand adds: "The crisis over, then commenced the most heartrending labor at which I have ever been present," and she pictures him to us agonized, for days and weeks, running after the bits of lost inspiration. Goethe, likewise, in a letter to Humboldt regarding his Faust, which occupied him for sixty years, full of interruptions ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... was sending out other men with torpedoes and flags in both directions. Then he joined the brave fellows who were fighting for the lives of those still imprisoned in the wrecked caboose. Among these were Rod Blake, Conductor Tobin, and the sheriff. Snyder Appleby had turned sick at the heartrending sights and sounds to be seen and heard on all sides, and had gone back to his car to escape them. He did not believe a soul could be saved, and he had not the nerve to listen to the pitiful cries of those whom he considered doomed ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... monstrous, it is heartrending!" gasped Tricotrin, when he grasped the enormity of his failure; "but, light of my life, why should you blame me ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... college without salary; and Gottfried, the clerk, was out of situation for several months every year. The two wrote begging letters in every possible key, from the jovial "Fork me out thirty thalers immediately," to the heartrending supplication, "If you don't want me to be ruined, ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... inspired to unusual speed by the heartrending sounds that came from below. When she returned, Grandmother seemed to be in a final spasm, and even Matilda was frightened, though she would ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... full.] What I don't understand's this.... Take up whatever paper you like and you'll find the most heartrending accounts of the destitution among the weavers. You get the impression that three-quarters of the people in this neighbourhood are starving. Then you come and see a funeral like what's going on just now. I met it as I came into the village. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... day the second attack came on. The crisis was terrible. Herbert felt himself sinking. He stretched his arms towards Cyrus Harding, towards Spilett, towards Pencroft. He was so young to die! The scene was heartrending. They were obliged to send ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... overcome with pity at this heartrending sight; tears rose to his eyes, and he determined to search through the palace for some explanation of the beautiful ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... the ordinary sufferings of the slave-ship. They are recorded in many books; and I believe the most heartrending tales that have been told are not a whit exaggerated. My own experience convinces me that most of them are within the boundaries of truth. On board the Pandora these poor wretches were treated as is usual on other slave-vessels. They were kept below, close packed and without any accommodation ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... Douloureuse, already cited, affords an excellent instance of a quiet last act. After the violent and heartrending rupture between the lovers in the third act, we feel that, though this paroxysm of pain is justified by the circumstances, it will not last for ever, and Philippe and Helene will come together again. This is also M. Donnay's view; and he devotes his ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... his knees, fighting desperately to loosen the tightening coils, and uttering heartrending ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... had visited these enlightened Christians—if two of their children, instead of two of their horses, had met with a sudden death,—their grief could not be more heartrending or despairing than on this occasion. The whole family was in an uproar. There were wringing of hands, lamentable cries, and bewailings the most bitter, of the death of the best team in the town of Greenditch. The very children, down ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... was a question even she could not have answered. Such expeditions with the boys were sources of tears and tribulations. Elizabeth was always meeting with disaster. She was not satisfied unless she was manipulating a rod and line, and she did not know which filled her with the greatest heartrending compunction, the sight of the poor worm writhing on the hook or the poor fish. Then she was always being thrown into a panic of terror by the sight of a snake or a frog or a mud-turtle, and when real dangers did not menace, the boys ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... wasn't I! I didn't take it! I know nothing about it," she cried with a heartrending wail, and she ran to Katerina Ivanovna, who clasped her tightly in her arms, as though she would shelter her ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... shadow from her long watching through its illness, and when it was taken from her, her grief was deep. The bright world was no longer bright since she was bereft of her darling, and her moans for the lost loved one were heartrending. ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... bits. The Prince was fortunate enough to be able to lay hold of a floating spar, and contrived to keep himself afloat; and, after a long struggle with the winds and waves, he was cast upon a strange island. But what was his surprise, on reaching the shore, to hear sounds of the most heartrending distress, mingled with the sweetest songs which had ever charmed him! His curiosity was instantly roused, and he advanced cautiously till he saw two huge dragons guarding the gate of a wood. They were terrible indeed ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... unpleasant it is to me. My dear Hilda, I am afraid I shall not be able to keep Miss Mills, she seems to get sillier every day; it is my private conviction that she has a love affair on, but she's as mum as possible about it. Poor Sutton cried in a most heartrending way when she left; she said when leaving, 'I'll never get another mistress like you, ma'am, for you never interfere, even to the clearing of the jellies.' I am glad she appreciates me, I didn't think she did while she was living with us. ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... wandered, driven as a leaf is driven by wandering winds. He headed columns in Hindustan; he called the name of the one woman he had loved. In death, as in life, his thought was for others, for Clive, dear, dear Clive. He said, 'Take care of him when I 'm in India;' and then, with a heartrending voice, he called out, 'Leonore, Leonore!' She was kneeling by his side now. The patient voice sank into faint murmurs; only a moan now and then announced that he was not asleep. At the usual hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands, outside the bed, feebly beat time. ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Mistress Winter's door. Agnes opened it herself. Dorothy had indeed rushed to do it, but fortunately Agnes contrived to reach it before her. It was evident that Cicely was loth to tell her terrible news, though Dorothy begged her, over Agnes' shoulder, to relieve her heartrending suspense. Was it from one faint throb of womanly feeling in her usually hard heart, that Mistress Winter, in sharp tones, summoned Dorothy within, and left Agnes to hear the ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... to remain. As it was, they were already too deeply laden for safety. The sailors had literally to lift out those who had last got in, and to place them on the shore, ere we shoved off into deep water. It was heartrending to see the whole shore lined with fugitives: some rushing into boats which had already come up, some waving frantically to other boats which were approaching. Here, Spanish troopers charging the unhappy ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... which is sounding in our ears now is no cry of terror or of disappointment, and the men who join in it are all of one mind; yet the cry is none the less bitter or heartrending. As we listen to it, we can distinguish the shrill voices of women mingled with the deeper ones of men, and we notice also, that, although the cry is one of sorrow and distress, there is a deep undertone ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... locked up in her little place, that she could but just pay the rent for. Here, too, were young girls, children with an aged, worn look, like the fruit that withers to half its size before it ripens. Most heartrending of all, persons of real refinement were mingled up with this rude mass; poor wretches who had indeed seen better days, and their helpless, broken-hearted looks, the remnants of early sensitiveness, that still clung around them, was pitiful ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... associations for the battle against oppression. Very unhappily they preached their doctrine to the colored people, and collected these into societies.[261] To this mixed and excitable multitude, minute, heartrending descriptions of slavery were given in the piercing tones of passion; and slaveholders were held up as monsters of cruelty and crime." p. 136. "The abolitionists often speak of Luther's vehemence as a model to future ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... made the background, and on the shore little Mary Morrison bade little Jimmie Jones "Good-bye" with heartrending sobs. But this Bobbie Shafto never went to sea. As picture followed picture, he was shown pulling at a rowing machine, sailing toy ships in a tub, fishing in a pail, and digging for treasure in a tiny sand pile—and after each funny scene, ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... made an incursion into the country of Mackenzie in Brae Ross, plundered the lands of Cillechriost, and ferociously set fire to the church during divine service, when full of men, women, and children, while Glengarry's piper marched round the building cruelly mocking the heartrending wails of the burning women and children, playing the well-known pibroch, which has been known ever since by the name of "Cillechriost," as the family tune of the Macdonalds of Glengarry. "Some of the Macdonalds chiefly concerned in this inhuman outrage ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... them to jump into the flood and death; the torture of despair that gripped those who, imprisoned in their homes by the water, waited in vain for help until the advancing flames came and destroyed them. The most heartrending feature of the situation was the pitiable terror of the women and children. Many of them sat up and sobbed through the night refusing to believe that their fathers had been drowned ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... aimee, I am starving. You who are at ease, let me come and eat with you"—and so on and so on. Her heart grieved for them; but que veux-tu?—one was not a charitable institution. So it was all very sad and heartrending. To say nothing of her hourly anxiety. If only the sale guerre would cease and they could go on tour again! Ah, ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... misfortune. He locked the doors of his house, mounted his horse, and with a broken spirit set out on his journey; but he had hardly gone half-way when, harassed by his reflections, he had to dismount and tie his horse to a tree, at the foot of which he threw himself, giving vent to piteous heartrending sighs; and there he remained till nearly nightfall, when he observed a man approaching on horseback from the city, of whom, after saluting him, he asked what ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the best I can for them—I do that for all prisoners," answered Colonel Lyon, soberly. "I do not believe in making war any more heartrending than is necessary." ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... he said to himself; "the only means of reclaiming this lost—this miserable—this still most lovely and most unhappy girl, must rest in her father's appeal to the broken laws of his country. I must haste to apprise him of this heartrending intelligence." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... difficulties, in her position. She had no conflicting duties, no occasion to decide between her father and her husband, between the country of her birth and that of her adoption, none of those struggles and heartrending perplexities which so cruelly beset her afterwards. At that time the Emperor Francis was well contented with his son-in-law, and corresponded with him in a most friendly way. At that happy moment the Frenchwoman could be an Austrian without injury to ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... unlimited expectations, are as likely to be surprised by heroic demonstrations as the dullest soul that never strove for aught except its paltry starving self. But the hero surprised is not surprised into uncomprehending wonder, but rather into smiles, or tears, or heartrending, out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... battle ground to bury the dead, if he could not avenge their fall. He was joined by many friends of the killed and missing, from Lexington and Bryant's station. They reached the battle ground on the 25th. It presented a heartrending spectacle. Where so lately had arisen the shouts of the robust and intrepid woodsmen, and the sharp yell of the savages, as they closed in the murderous contest, the silence of the wide forest was now unbroken, except by birds of prey, as they screamed and sailed over the carnage. ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... the National Theater, where he knew the manager, and some of the company, had made a great pet of him. He had often gone there alone or with his tutor. How he had heard the terrible news from Ford's Theater is not known, but he came up the lower stairway with heartrending cries like a wounded animal. Seeing Thomas Pendel, the faithful doorkeeper, he ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... was separated from her sister, her daughter, and her son, by virtue of a decree which ordered the trial. Weber, in his memoirs of her, states, that the separation from her son was so touching, so heartrending that the very gaolers who witnessed the scene confessed, when they were giving an account of' it to the authorities, that they could not ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... with dreadful imprecations, literally foaming at the mouth. I begged him to do nothing rash, but he seemed not to hear me. With the squeal of a fighting stallion, he rushed off to the servants' quarters, whence presently there came heartrending shrieks and cries for mercy. His sons, in fear of murder, followed him, and added their remonstrance to the general din. The women of his house appeared in doorways, weeping ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... rock; and as I stood panting and well-nigh spent, mighty distraught and my gaze bent thitherward, I shivered (despite the sweat that streamed from me) with sudden awful chill, for from those greeny depths I heard a scream, wild and heartrending, and knowing this voice grew sick and faint and sank weakly to my knees; and now I heard vile laughter, then hoarse shouts, and forth of the underbrush opposite broke a wild, piteous figure all rent and torn yet running very fleetly; as I watched, cursing my helplessness, she tripped and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... were dropping their heads, and the heartrending voice went on: "Have you arrested him? You'll do very wrong if you arrest——But perhaps he has given himself up! That would be just like him. He is devoted to me and would tell you any falsehood if he thought it would——But ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... refused to approve it, and Mr. Stanton repudiated it; and that the policy of the Federal Government was to refuse all exchanges while they "fired the Northern heart" by placing the whole blame upon the "Rebels," and by circulating the most heartrending stories of "Rebel barbarity" to prisoners. If either of the above points has not been made clear to any sincere seeker after the truth, we would be most happy to produce further testimony. And we hold ourselves prepared to maintain against all comers, the truth of every proposition we have ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... them some redress for their affliction and want, and besought him, even now, to make peace with the Swedes, and to command the Stadtholder in the Mark to institute a milder government in the unhappy province. In heartrending words, they pictured the distresses of both wretched cities, which had so far declined that they had now hardly seven thousand inhabitants, while ten years ago they had numbered more than twenty thousand. "But fire, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... darting to and fro under the planks. He had cracked his voice at last, and could only squeak miserably. His back or else his head rubbed the planks, now here, now there, in a puzzling manner. He squeaked as he dodged the invisible blows. It was more heartrending even than his yells. Suddenly Archie produced a crowbar. He had kept it back; also a small hatchet. We howled with satisfaction. He struck a mighty blow and small chips flew at our eyes. The boatswain ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... she in the saddle when a heartrending war-whoop sounded on their flank, and she knew that they were surrounded! Instinctively she reached for her husband's second quiver of arrows, which was carried by one of the pack-ponies. Alas! the Crow warriors were already upon them! The ponies became unmanageable, and the ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... and kissed it, and kissed it and wept again, in grief so passionate, so heartrending, as to draw bitter tears from my eyes. I said what little I could to calm her—to have sought to do more would have been a mockery; and observing that the darkness had closed in, I took my leave and departed, being favoured with the services of my ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... event was more than the feeble frame of Anastasia could endure. She rapidly failed, and on the 7th of August, 1560, she expired. The grief of Ivan was heartrending, and never was national affliction manifested in a more sincere and touching manner. Not only the whole court, but almost the entire city of Moscow, followed the remains of Anastasia to their interment. Many, in the bitterness of their grief, sobbed ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... credit would fall. Disowned by his mother-in-law, and publicly given up by her, he would be of no use to Herzog, and would be promptly thrown over by him. The mistress did not wish her daughter to know the heartrending truth. She would not willingly cause her to shed tears, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... long, put up at auction and bid off to persons that had come from many different places. Here goes the father of a family in one direction, the mother in another, and the children all scattered hither and thither. And then it was heartrending to witness their brief partings. Bad as had been their lot with Mr. Stamford, they would far sooner stay with him than be separated from those of their fellow-slaves whom ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... heartrending alternative has never been imposed on any body of politicians, and John Redmond, unlike his younger brother, was not of those to whom decision came by an instinctive act of allegiance. His nature forced him to ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... "Many heartrending scenes were witnessed along the route, as the torrential rain and the vast zone of mud increased the misery of the moving multitude. Food was scarce and many went without it for days, while sleep was impossible as the throng trudged westward. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... with much greater effect and insistence, by this charming woman of the world. Her mother, still living, had passed her time in the disturbed and exciting atmosphere of plots and counterplots; and she herself could tell him story after story of heartrending tragedies and of hairbreadth escapes, which had happened to her own relations and friends. From her he acquired those aristocratic longings which always characterised him, and through her influence he made acquaintance with several people of high position ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... same far and wide, and her heart was full of pity for the helpless people, "Heartrending accounts," she wrote, "come from up-country, where the people, panic-stricken, are fleeing and leaving the dead and dying in their houses, only to be stricken down themselves in the bush. They have no helper up there, and know of no Saviour. I am just thinking that perhaps the reason God ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone |
