... too much torture for the gratification of a nonsensical fancy; and, after all, in the opinion of many, and of those, too, who are fondest of dogs, the animal looks far better in his natural state than when we have exercised all our cruel art upon him. Besides, the ... — The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt Read full book for free!
... grew, robust and noxious, until, in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, we find its bloom in a multitude of treatises by the most learned of the Catholic and Protestant divines, and its fruitage in the torture chambers and on the scaffolds throughout Christendom. At the Reformation period, and for nearly two hundred years afterward, Catholics and Protestants vied with each other in promoting this growth. John Eck, the great opponent of Luther, gave to the world an annotated ... — History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White Read full book for free!
... temperament, and am, besides, a member of that sect which Dr. More has called, mistakenly indeed, "the most melancholy of all;" but I confess a special dislike of disfigured faces, ostentatious displays of piety, pride aping humility. Asceticism, moroseness, self-torture, ingratitude in view of down-showering blessings, and painful restraint of the better feelings of our nature may befit a Hindoo fakir, or a Mandan medicine man with buffalo skulls strung to his lacerated muscles; ... — The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier Read full book for free!
... I come up, it de Lord's truth, I ain' know nothin but a decent livin all de time. My old Missus was a dear old soul en I been raise dat way. I hear talk bout how some of de white folks would bout torture dey niggers to death sometimes, but never didn' see my white folks allow nothin like dat. Dey would whip dey niggers dat runaway en stay in de woods, but not so worser. No, mam, my Missus wouldn' allow no slashin round ... — Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration Read full book for free!
... over his head as if about to fell a tree, and in this position stood immovable like a statue; another held the point of his toe to his nose. Yet, from one point of view, these men are right. What torture of the body can equal the torture of the soul? If it were possible by any amount of physical pain to still and silence the agony of conscience, who would not endure it? The greatest condemnation of the self-cruelty ... — Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams Read full book for free!
... language, and felt that a little audacity was all that he needed to carry his mission out safely. Though he went boldly, he killed a secretary dressed in purple, instead of his master, and was caught and threatened with torture. Putting his right hand into the fire on the altar near by, he held it there until it was destroyed, [Footnote: Mucius was after this called Scvola, the left- handed.] and said that suffering had no terrors for him, nor for three hundred ... — The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman Read full book for free!
... in these days crowd in upon the mind, than to a lack of natural aptitude. The absorbing interest, however, is essential, and it may be developed by conforming to well-known principles of orthodox psychology. Self-torture or hard driving is not nearly as helpful as a strong inner purpose to keep the chosen subject in the real ... — Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness Read full book for free!
... this is the one whom it is most impossible to think of as acquiescing in such an easy relation to those around him, or even as attempting so to acquiesce—at least without inward self-question and torture. We must remember that Knox had undoubtedly before this time embraced the doctrinal system of the Reformation, no doubt in the form taught by Wishart. And a catechism of that doctrine, perhaps founded upon or identical with that which Wishart brought from Basel, he gave to his East Lothian ... — John Knox • A. Taylor Innes Read full book for free!
... defence, tormented as he was by the twitchings of his face, the intonations which he could not express. And if the anguish of the poor man was touching, the old mother up there, leaning, gasping, moving her lips nervously as if to help him find words, reflected the picture of his torture. Though he could not see her, intentionally turned away from her gallery, as he evidently was, this maternal inspiration, the ardent magnetism of those black eyes, ended by giving him life, and suddenly his words and gestures ... — The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet Read full book for free!
... crowd of men, however numerous or remarkable. He has a narrow face, with high cheek-bones, and the thick, close black whiskers, beard and moustache, make him look almost as dark as a Spaniard. The eyes are deep-set, brilliant, restless—with infinite lessons of hours of agony, of loneliness, torture in all the million hours which filled up his nine years of endless and unbroken gloom in penal servitude. The frame is slight, well-knit—the frame of a sturdy son of the people—kept taut and thin ... — Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor Read full book for free!
... Peveril's arms, they had, on reaching this place, taken the further precaution of tying his ankles, so that he now lay on the ground utterly helpless, a prey to bitter thoughts, but nerving himself to bear bravely whatever torture might ... — The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe Read full book for free!
... broad and handsome; but a wide ditch, which the townsfolk dignify with the name of a canal, runs through the centre. There is generally but little water in this ditch, but millions of restless mosquitoes, which populate the whole town, and (I speak from experience) are a perfect torture. The houses being mostly plastered, have a stone-like and cleanly appearance, with their green Venetian blinds, and plantations of acacias and other Eastern trees, waving gracefully in front of them. The climate is salubrious, and provisions of all kinds abundant and cheap. I was ... — The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne Read full book for free!
... who pretended to be enchanters, and who carried magicians' wands, and wore, each of them, about his neck, what he told the ignorant people was a Serpent's egg in a golden case. But it is certain that the Druidical ceremonies included the sacrifice of human victims, the torture of some suspected criminals, and, on particular occasions, even the burning alive, in immense wicker cages, of a number of men and animals together. The Druid Priests had some kind of veneration for ... — A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... gingerbread-buttons, of which the cob became passionately fond. Invariably, however, before giving it a button, he said, "Deaghblasda," with which word the cob by degrees associated an idea of unmixed enjoyment: so if he could rouse the cob to madness by the word which recalled the torture to its remembrance, he could as easily soothe it by the other word, which the cob knew would be instantly followed by the button, which the smith never failed to give him ... — The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow Read full book for free!
... soothingly, "of course it will. Then that is settled, eh? Because I want you to understand that unless you definitely promise me that there shall be no torture I shall be obliged to withdraw from this business altogether; moreover, I will take my magic off Sekosini, and then nothing that you can do will make him confess or incriminate the others. You know ... — The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood Read full book for free!
... progress are staggering backward and forward with their eyes passionately reverted to the past. Nay, we shall never be duly sensitive to the miseries and cruelties which make the world a place of torture for so many, so long as men are encouraged in the name of religion to look for a remedy, not in fighting against surrounding evils, but in cultivating aimless contemplations of an imaginary ideal. Much of ... — The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks Read full book for free!
... the West Highlands," ii. p. 15. Mr. Campbell says "I believe such a mode of torture can be traced amongst the Scandinavians, who once owned the Western Islands." But the Gaelic "Binding of the Three Smalls," is ... — Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston Read full book for free!
... holes specially arranged for that purpose. When the slave-hunters sought for corn, they were in the habit of catching the villagers and roasting their posteriors by holding them down on the mouth of a large earthen water jar filled with gloving embers. If this torture of roasting alive did not extract the secret, they generally cut the sufferer's throat to terrify his companion, who would then divulge the position of the hidden stores to avoid a similar fate. This accusation was corroborated by Mohammed, the ... — Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker Read full book for free!
... thy peace, I will beat thee to death, city faggot that thou art!" When she heard this, she abhorred life and longed for death; so she turned to him and said, "O accursed old man, O greybeard of hell, did I trust in thee and hast thou played me false, and now thou wouldst torture me?" When he heard her words, he cried out, "O insolent wretch, dost thou dare to bandy words with me?" And he came up to her and beat her with a whip, saying, "An thou hold not thy peace, I will kill thee." So she was silent awhile, but she called to mind her brother and her former happy estate ... — The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous Read full book for free!
... were barking aloud with anxiety to take an active share in the amusement, while the bear, who was chained by the neck to a staple in the wall, and compelled to keep an almost erect posture, shook his antagonist with all the fury of madness produced by excessive torture. In the mean time bets were made and watches pull'd forth, to decide how long the bow-wow would bother the ragged Russian. The Dog-breeders were chaffing each other upon the value of their canine property, each holding his 388 brother-puppy between his legs, till a fair ... — Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan Read full book for free!
... she had been! This, then, was the reason why he had come, day after day, to Beatrice's house; this was the charm that had drawn him thither; this—she pressed her hands to her burning temples, as if to stop the torture of thought. Suddenly a voice was heard below, the door opened, and ... — My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton Read full book for free!
... sat on the edge of the hatch and gazed lovingly at the new instrument of torture, as he beat time to the inspiring strains, with a belaying pin. When the "Washington Post," was finished, he laid on "Jacksonville," with a chorus of human laughter, which sounded quite eerie. And so intent was he on this occupation, ... — Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various Read full book for free!
... some desperate impulse for a breeze—or to die! She lifted her head as the hoofs rang below—but still looked away toward some Mecca for good mules. You must needs have been there to get it all—the old gray against the red sky—and know first-hand the torture of the trails, the valor of labor, the awfulness of Luzon. To Cairns and Bedient there was something deep and heady to the picture, as they followed the eyes of Healy—and then his yell that filled ... — Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort Read full book for free!
... me: "This transfixed one, whom thou seest, Counselled the Pharisees that it was meet To put one man to torture... — Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri Read full book for free!
... when she gave way to her indignation, she only used such language as we find on many pages of Wodrow, in the mouths of many Covenanters. Indeed, though Manse is undeniably comic, she also commands as much respect as the Spartan mother when she bids her only son bear himself boldly in the face of torture. If Scott makes her grotesque, he also makes her heroic. But Dr. McCrie could not endure the ridiculous element, which surely no fair critic can fail to observe in the speeches of the gallant and courageous, but not philosophical, members of the Covenant's ... — Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott Read full book for free!
... scarlet fired her neck and cheek and temple. That leap of blood seemed to release a riot of emotions. What had been a torment became a torture. She turned Sarchedon homeward, but scarcely had faced that way when she wheeled him again. She rode slowly and she rode swiftly. The former was hateful because it held her back—from what she no longer dared think; the latter was ... — Wildfire • Zane Grey Read full book for free!
... stop to describe these courts, which became especially notorious in Spain some two centuries after their establishment. The unfairness of the trials and the cruel treatment to which those suspected of heresy were subjected, through long imprisonment or torture—inflicted with the hope of forcing them to confess their crime or implicate others—have rendered the ... — An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson Read full book for free!
... away from him, he would have had me seized on shore, and brought on board by force; so that I had no remedy but patience. And this he brought to an end too as soon as he could, for after this he began to use me ill, and not only to straiten my provisions, but to beat and torture me in a barbarous manner for every trifle, so that, in a word, my life began ... — The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe Read full book for free!
... with Artemis Or yield the breast to Aphrodite? Both are mighty; Both give bliss; Each can torture if divided; Each claims worship undivided, In her ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith Read full book for free!
... stout-hearted Wauchee moved onwards with a firm and erect gait, disturbed neither by the blows nor the menaces that were directed against him. He only exclaimed, "You have slain my chief and father, and lo! I have also struck down the head of your nation. It is well. Slay me—torture me, if you will. I can bear unmoved any torments you ... — The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various Read full book for free!
... council fire and decide how to torture her," said Malcolm, when the captive was securely tied. But the fire was out and they had no matches. The lot fell on Malcolm to run up to the ... — Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston Read full book for free!
... be obtained from the prisoner's lips than this declaration, either by private or public examinations. This being so, Cauchon bethought him what further cruelty could be employed to force the prisoner to give way, and the barbarous scheme of torture was ... — Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower Read full book for free!
... parted—when you struggled feebly in my arms with a premonition of your almost mortal weakness, and then sank back white and deathlike. If you had not made so wise and brave an effort you might have lingered on in torture like this poor girl. You stood in just that peril, did ... — A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe Read full book for free!
... such smooth and well-oiled wheels for all humanity in Paris that half the cares that torture us are cast aside as soon as we enter her precincts. Take, for instance, the grand question of housekeeping. Fancy living in a land where all the servants are skilled and civil, if not all trustworthy and honest; where washing-days and ironing-days and ... — Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various Read full book for free!
... None but a thoroughbred would have stood up this long; and even she, if she ever stopped,—but the man ahead doubtless knew this also, for he would not let her stop, not so long as life remained and spur and quirt had power to torture. ... — Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge Read full book for free!
... barbarous age were tempted and demoralised by the tremendous power over pain, and death, and hell. We have to learn by what reasoning process, by what ethical motive, men trained to charity and mercy came to forsake the ancient ways and made themselves cheerfully familiar with the mysteries of the torture-chamber, the perpetual prison, and the stake. And this cleared away, when it has been explained why the gentlest of women chose that the keeper of her conscience should be Conrad of Marburg, and, ... — The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton Read full book for free!
... termagant, imperious, prodigal, lewd, profligate wench, as ever breathed; she used to rantipole about the house, pinch the children, kick the servants, and torture the cats and the dogs; she would rob her father's strong box, for money to give the young fellows that she was fond of. She had a noble air, and something great in her mien, but such a noisome infectious breath, as threw all the ... — The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot Read full book for free!
... are simply hemispheres of sheet-brass, and fitted closely over the eyeballs, beneath the lids. The conjurer's eyes water visibly after the brass covers are removed; and well enough they might; there is no sleight-of-hand about this—it is purely an act of self-torture. ... — Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens Read full book for free!
... there is no putting up with that!" So saying, he sprang up and made off through the gate of the city, hardly believing in his escape. Quoth the King, "I excuse her, and in my son's hands be her doom. If he will, let him torture her, and if he will, let him kill her." Quoth the Prince, "Pardon is better than vengeance and mercy is of the quality of the noble;" and the King repeated, "'Tis for thee to decide, O my son." So the Prince set ... — The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton Read full book for free!
... true! 'tisn't true!' cried Cytherea in an agony of torture. 'He has never loved anybody else, I ... — Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy Read full book for free!
... had brought a crowd of spectators, "you are taxing the patience of this kind audience." "But one touch remains," said the old mechanic, "to complete my work;" and he busied himself a moment among the wheels. While he suffered the agonies of his torture a fearful whir was heard from the clock: the weights tumbled crashing to the floor as his eyes fell from their sockets. He had removed the master-spring, and his revenge was complete. The lovers devoted their lives to the comfort of the blind clockmaker, and the ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various Read full book for free!
... an inversion of la Trenise, except that in nineteen cases out of twenty, the waistcoat, tip, camellia and wristbands, seem to undergo intense mental torture; for if there be such a thing as "poetry of motion," pastorale must be ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various Read full book for free!
... before, Thus thou, with those eyes for thy lances, Hast pierced through my heart to its core. Ah, tell me, my soul, must I perish By pangs which a smile would dispel? Would the hope, which thou once bad'st me cherish, For torture repay me too well? Now sad is the garden of roses, Beloved but false Haidee! There Flora all withered reposes, And mourns o'er thine absence ... — Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various Read full book for free!
... our meeting would be Without peril to YOU, although haply to me The salvation of all my existence. "I own, When the rumor first reach'd me, which lightly made known To the world your engagement, my heart and my mind Suffer'd torture intense. It was cruel to find That so much of the life of my life, half unknown To myself, had been silently settled on one Upon whom but to think it would soon be a crime. Then I said to myself, 'From the thraldom which time Hath not weaken'd there rests but one hope ... — Lucile • Owen Meredith Read full book for free!
... involved. She was fond of Pennie, but to have the regularity of her household disturbed by the presence of a child every week—the bustle of arrival and departure, the risk of broken china, the possible upsetting of Betty's temper; all this was torture to look forward to, and when she went to bed she felt that she was paying dearly ... — Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton Read full book for free!
... with passing time, so his increased with the days, and intensified by the cruel heat which was poured upon it. He realized the torture to which, in a thousand ways, this darling of his heart had for a lifetime been subjected; and his tenderness and love—in which was an element of indignation and pathos—deepened with every fresh revelation of the passing hours. When he came back to her he had few words to speak, ... — What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson Read full book for free!
... among the Orange faction. The Attorney General caused, on the 16th of August, 1672, Cornelius de Witt to be arrested; and the noble brother of John de Witt had, like the vilest criminal, to undergo, in one of the apartments of the town prison, the preparatory degrees of torture, by means of which his judges expected to force from him the confession of his alleged plot against William ... — The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere) Read full book for free!
... nearly half-past three, and therefore close upon two hours beyond the time fixed by Agnes for her return, when I became absolutely incapable of supporting the further torture of suspense, and I suddenly took the resolution of returning home and concerting with my female servants some energetic measures, though what I could hardly say, on behalf of their mistress. On entering the garden-gate I met our little child Francis, who unconsciously inflicted ... — Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey Read full book for free!
... hand is thine, she brings all heaven to meet thee!—And shall I follow? Again to stand aloof? To carry this inextinguishable jealousy even to yon distant realms? Earth is no longer a tarrying place for me, and hell and heaven offer equal torture. Now welcome to the wretched the dread ... — Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Read full book for free!
... car, the girl could not help revelling in a taxi. She refused to be depressed by the gloomy spectacle of lower-class New York in the throes of a heat wave—pallid people hanging out of windows or standing at corners to be eased of their torture by the merciful spray from fire hydrants; barefooted half-naked children staring thirstily at soda fountains in bright, hot drug stores they could never hope to enter—every one limp, lethargic, glistening unhealthily with horrid moisture, all loathing themselves and indifferent ... — Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson Read full book for free!
... An enemy wounded on the battlefield may be killed at once or may be taken prisoner. All prisoners, wounded or otherwise, are taken home by the party that secures them, and are then killed, apparently without any prior torture, and generally eaten. A prisoner thus carried off would be regarded as a man killed, which in fact he shortly will be. The women of a community follow their fighting men in the expedition, their duty being ... — The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson Read full book for free!
... Mosquitoes nipped him until he could scarcely endure the intense irritation. He would have given anything for a little water; but though he heard a sentry pacing up and down outside, he did not venture to call to him, and could only writhe in heat and torture, longing for the dawn, yet fearing it and ... — In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang Read full book for free!
... it! He could not plunge his hand into the treasury; there were too many about, too many tongues. But Colonel Hare knew where the silver basket lay hidden, heaped with gold and precious stones; and torture could not wring the hiding-place from him. May he be damned to the nethermost hell! Let him, Durga Ram, but bury his lean hands in that treasure, and Daraka swallow Allaha and all its kings! Rubies and pearls and ... — The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath Read full book for free!
... not satisfied. I was jealous of that which Andrey Vassilievitch had—and I lacked. My whole relationship to Andrey Vassilievitch was a curious one. My friendship for his wife must I am sure have been torture to him. He knew that she had given me a great deal that she had never given to him. And yet, because he loved her so profoundly, he was only anxious that she should be happy. He saw that my friendship gave her new interests, ... — The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole Read full book for free!
... to the picture caused Jack to shudder. If the captors of Otto Relstaub had put him to death, was it by a quick taking off, or had he been subjected to torture? Alas, that Jack Carleton was forced to answer the query as he ... — Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis Read full book for free!
... people of eminence, to obtain from them, either from their good-nature, or from their not being able to tell the truth firmly, a commendation, of which he may afterwards avail himself.' JOHNSON. 'Very true, Sir. Therefore the man, who is asked by an authour, what he thinks of his work, is put to the torture, and is not obliged to speak the truth; so that what he says is not considered as his opinion; yet he has said it, and cannot retract it; and this authour, when mankind are hunting him with a cannister at his ... — Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell Read full book for free!
... literature. Tears fell fast over it as the pages turned. For a long while he hesitated, but at last he took up the pen and wrote a sarcastic article of the kind that he understood so well, taking the book as children might take some bright bird to strip it of its plumage and torture it. His sardonic jests were sure to tell. Again he turned to the book, and as he read it over a second time, his better self awoke. In the dead of night he hurried across Paris, and stood outside d'Arthez's house. He looked up at the windows and saw the faint pure gleam of ... — Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac Read full book for free!
... moment longer he hesitated; he tried to resist her, he tried to take a sane and temperate view. But those tears were too much for him. They were the one torture he could not endure. With a sharp gesture he flung his hesitation from him. Yet even then he left himself a way of escape lest the temptation should be more than ... — The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell Read full book for free!
... Pope! I tell you not of things learned by hearsay; I myself have beheld all these horrors in the Holy Land of Palestine. Through the ancient streets of Jerusalem the accursed infidels stalk in the evil pride of conquest. They insult and oppress, they torture and murder the followers of Christ. They rob and maltreat the pious pilgrims from all lands who toil through desert and over mountain to worship at the tomb of their Lord. Scarcely will these heathen suffer the adoration of Christ in the blessed city ... — With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene Read full book for free!
... you, Funky Warren. I'm going to torture you," he announced with a truculent scowl and a suggestive licking of ... — Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren Read full book for free!
... his, and how much money it contained. The cavalier knew it to be his own, and assured the judge he had put twenty sequins into it. Upon which the judge called me before him; "Come, young man," said he, "confess the truth. Was it you that took the gentleman's purse from him? Do not wait for the torture to extort confession." Then with downcast eyes, thinking that if I denied the fact, they, having found the purse upon me, would convict me of a lie, to avoid a double punishment I looked up and confessed my guilt. I had no sooner made the confession, than the judge called people to witness it, and ... — The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous Read full book for free!
... yet survive. There would seem to me to be about one chance in several million that we shall succeed—otherwise we shall die more quickly but no more surely than as though we sat supinely waiting for the torture of ... — At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs Read full book for free!
... little monkey who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper, or from that old baboon who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs, as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions." We have but to add:—if only the coming forth from the ... — The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid Read full book for free!
... was in vain to attempt arguing with her aunts. She therefore allowed them to wonder and declaim over their sucking pots, colic powders, and other instruments of torture, while she sent to the wife of one of her tenants who had lately lain-in, and who wished for the situation of nurse, appointing her to be at Lochmarlie the following day. Having made her arrangements, and collected the scanty portion of clothing Mrs. Nurse chose ... — Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier Read full book for free!
... given my promise of secrecy, and yet I was entirely helpless in their unscrupulous hands. Again and again they demanded the papers, which they said she had given me to keep for her, and my denial only brought upon me the increased torture of the cord, until I was almost black in the face, and my veins stood ... — The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux Read full book for free!
... worry and suffering that could lie behind those smiling eyes and never show! She saw that a great burden had suddenly been lifted from him, and with the necessity for further dissembling removed, his strong face was for the moment glorified. She realized now the torture to which she had subjected him by her own tenderness and repression; while their marriage had been a marvelous—a wonderful—event to her, to him it had been fraught with terror, despite his great love, and her thoughts harked back to the night she and Harley P. Hennage had carried him home ... — The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne Read full book for free!
... him if the light of day or the gloom of midnight was upon the earth; and in his rayless wanderings he had made his way into the dungeons, sepulchres, and vaults, which were lying far below the foundations of the castle, and which had for centuries served as places of torture, punishment, and death to the enemies of his long and noble line. In these secret charnel houses were buried the bodies of the oppressed, while in the haughty tombs around and above them lay the bones ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various Read full book for free!
... not torture me longer. You have condemned me without a hearing. Be as merciful as you are strong and lovely. At least let me see you alone, when I can ... — Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch Read full book for free!
... for Mary Wilkins characters. We always used to take such people directly to see Cousin Tryphena, as dwellers in an Italian city always take their foreign friends to see their one bit of ruined city wall or the heap of stones which was once an Inquisitorial torture chamber, never to see the new water-works or the ... — Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield Read full book for free!
... grief of the loving father at these words! Had the oracle but threatened punishment to him, he would have endured any torture before subjecting his child to such a fate; but as a king, he dared not bring ruin on all his people, who trusted him. Psyche, herself, numb with horror, commanded quietly that preparations be made for the procession which should accompany her to the rock described ... — Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester Read full book for free!
... at this hour; they people the earth and the air with shapes of ghastly menace! They—Heaven pardon me! what would my madness utter? Madness?—madness? Ay, that is the real scourge, the real fire, the real torture, the real ... — Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton Read full book for free!
... course to be followed by you. When the catastrophe had happened, doubts, of course, arose in your mind as to whether you ought not to have acted differently, and these doubts, coupled with the impossibility of proving your innocence to the public, even though you were blameless, became torture to you. Peace to thy ashes, on which no guilt rests save that thou wert not exceptionally ... — Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith Read full book for free!
... says; is pretty liberal towards other creeds, but is certain that his own views are by far the best; is a steady thinker, a sincere minister, a tolerably good scholar, and a warm- hearted man, who wouldn't torture an enemy if he could avoid it, but would struggle hard if "put to it." Like the rest of preachers he has his admirers as well as those who do not think him altogether immaculate; but taking him in toto—mind, body, and clothes—he is a fervent, candid, ... — Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus Read full book for free!
... and an indispensable condiment to the jaded palate of the connoisseur, viz., a lingering duration. As a pleasant variety, therefore, the tormentors were introduced with their various instruments of torture; and many a dismal tragedy in that mode of human suffering was conducted in the sacred presence during the ... — The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey Read full book for free!
... halloes, he feeds on roots and greens and mast. He uses things roughly and without sentiment. The coolness with which boys will drown dogs or cats, or hang them to trees, or murder young birds, or torture frogs or squirrels, ... — Birds and Poets • John Burroughs Read full book for free!
... however, remained as silent and motionless, and with a countenance as vacant as before. Cambyses was again disappointed. The pleasure which the exhibition afforded him was incomplete without visible manifestations of suffering in the victim for whose torture it was ... — Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott Read full book for free!
... from the torture of uncertainty to the calm of settled grief, had still a sacred duty to live for. She had not forgotten her husband's dream. She went to the cardinal-archbishop to beg the consecration of a little burial-plot at the foot of the greatest ... — The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke Read full book for free!
... would not waste any of them. Whoever tried to scale the walls would be done in at once; whoever attempted to follow him to the roof by way of the loft would be shot instantly. And his own condition demanded haste; the bullet, striking from above, had broken his arm. Every movement was torture. ... — A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart Read full book for free!
... much from thirst. I do not recollect, indeed, having ever endured so much torture as I did during the next day's ride back. The Indians, perhaps, bore the want of water better than we did. It seemed as if we should drink the stream dry which bubbled up out of the hillside near the camp. It took us a whole ... — Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston Read full book for free!
... bandages. His knife was already shaping splints from the scrub poplar. Little Jerry, his eyes full of pain, watched him, knowing of the agony to come, when even those gentle Indian fingers could not save his poor ankle from torture while they set the broken bone. Suddenly the misery of anticipation was arrested by a great and glad cry from the Indian, who had discovered and pounced upon a small scarlet blossom that was growing down near the slough. He caught up the flower, root ... — The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson Read full book for free!
... Bolkonski's health and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Mary had two passions and consequently two joys—her nephew, little Nicholas, and religion—and these were the favorite subjects of the prince's attacks and ridicule. ... — War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy Read full book for free!
... started and looked at her father, as if she had not heard aright. What did he mean? Was he going to add further torture to her racked brain by asking her to play and sing? She had hardly spoken a word during the meal, and had barely tasted her food. This Weston noted, and he well understood the reason. How much will she safely stand? he asked himself. ... — Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody Read full book for free!
... a dream then? Had it never been lost? Had she but imagined Burke's action in confiding it to her? She closed her eyes for a space, for her brain was swimming. The terrible, parching heat seemed to have turned into a wheel—a fiery wheel of torture that revolved behind her eyes, making her wince at every turn. The pain was intense; when she tried to move, it was excruciating. She sank down with her head almost on the iron box and waited in dumb ... — The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell Read full book for free!
... pump. A cold, methodical cruelty, a thousand times worse than the fanatic savagery of the Inquisition, devoured human creatures, giving them nothing more than the exact amount of sustenance necessary to prolong their torture.... No. This was another world, where his jealousy and his fury could find no vent. And he would have to lose Luna without a cry of protest, without a gesture of manly rebellion!...Now, upon beholding himself parted from her, he felt for the first time the genuine importance of his love; a ... — Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez Read full book for free!
... by false representations and promises of pecuniary support, to restore things to their former state. The hellish expedition at length arrived upon the shores of St. Domingo:—a scene of blood and torture followed, such as history had never before disclosed, and compared with which, though planned and executed by Whites[12], all the barbarities said to have been perpetrated by the insurgent Blacks of the North, amount comparatively to ... — Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson Read full book for free!
... not be so when our race has come into its own. But it will take many generations and perhaps many centuries before we reach the ideal. No physician who has a soul could permit a woman of your physique, your culture and refinement to walk barefoot and blindfolded into such a hell of physical torture. ... — The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon Read full book for free!
... he cried; "the graveyard face! Go! I cannot bear those sad, reproachful eyes—those arms outstretched, asking mercy! Send foul fiends to torture me, and make my dreams hideous nightmares, but not this beautiful form to mock me with its purity, and kill me with its mild reproach. It has gone. But it will come again! It steals on me in the awful hours of ... — Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich Read full book for free!
... his pride, that he let drop The instrument of torture at his feet, And to the rest exclaim'd: "We have no power To strike him." Then to me my guide: "O thou! Who on the bridge among the crags dost sit Low crouching, safely now to ... — The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri Read full book for free!
... middle of the sixteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth, Catholic and Protestant theologians and ecclesiastics vied with each other in detecting witches guilty of producing sickness or bad weather; women were sent to torture and death by thousands, and with them, from time to time, men and children. On the Catholic side sufficient warrant for this work was found in the bull of Pope Innocent VIII, and the bishops' palaces of south Germany became shambles,—the lordly prelates of Salzburg, Wurzburg, and Bamberg ... — History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White Read full book for free!
... the dying and I of the living God. Your present work of suspicion and slander is worthy of your coat and creed. All your church is but a black police; you are only spies and detectives seeking to tear from men confessions of guilt, whether by treachery or torture. You would convict men of crime, I would convict them of innocence. You would convince them of sin, I would convince them ... — The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton Read full book for free!
... build synagogues and to manage his own ecclesiastical affairs by means of a chief rabbi. The royal protection was dictated by no spirit of tolerance or mercy. To the kings the Jew was a mere engine of finance. The wealth which he accumulated was wrung from him whenever the crown had need, and torture and imprisonment were resorted to when milder means failed. It was the gold of the Jew that filled the royal treasury at the outbreak of war or of revolt. It was in the Hebrew coffers that the foreign kings found strength, to ... — History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green Read full book for free!
... declared to each comer the precise torments which awaited him in Tartarus. The wretched sinners were then seized by the Furies, who scourged them with their whips, and dragged them along to the great gate, which closed the opening to Tartarus, into whose awful depths they were hurled, to suffer endless torture. ... — Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens Read full book for free!
... thus torture a human being were not likely to abstain from cruelty to the lower animals. The poets indeed protested then, as poets had done before, and always have done since, against the unmanly treatment of the dumb fellow-creatures committed ... — The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis Read full book for free!
... not tend to intolerance. She admits the possibility of salvation out of her own pale. But this circumstance, in itself honourable to her, aggravates the sin and the shame of those who persecuted in her name. Dominic and De Montfort did not, at least, murder and torture for differences of opinion which they considered as trifling. It was to stop an infection which, as they believed, hurried to certain perdition every soul which it seized, that they employed their fire and steel. The measures of the English government ... — Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay Read full book for free!
... even in the coupe they see nothing of the country. Thus the glorious bit of country we passed through from Champagnole to Morez was entirely lost on me, simply because the diligence is not a public conveyance, but an instrument of torture. The so-called coupe was so small, warm and low, that the three unfortunate occupants of it, a stout gentleman, a nun, and myself, were so closely wedged in that we could not stir a limb, whilst the narrow ... — Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards Read full book for free!
... said Mabel, "Oh, it's heavenly to see you. But I can't understand why I'm allowed to, after all the threats and punishments. I'm afraid I shall be made to pay somehow. He loves to torture me—and he knows how. I believe he hates me, now he's begun to realize that I'd give anything to leave him, that I don't ... — It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson Read full book for free!
... See the interesting extract from Kemaleddin's History of Aleppo in Wilken, preface to vol. ii. p. 36. Phirouz, or Azzerrad, the breastplate maker, had been pillaged and put to the torture by Bagi Sejan, ... — The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon Read full book for free!
... the early days of Christianity, at the period of the Reformation, in many missionary fields in our own time, not only strong men, but tender women and children, have steadfastly endured shame and suffering in every form—banishment and the spoiling of their goods, imprisonment, torture, and death—for Christ's sake. In times of worldly peace and prosperity, the power of this principle is dimly seen; but were the Christians of this day required, under penalty of imprisonment, confiscation, and death, ... — Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows Read full book for free!
... said, and strode in between him and Tim's levelled weapon. "There is no friendship between us—now, or at any time. I believe you to be a miserable, snarling dog; but I would save even a cur from Indian torture. Did you ... — The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish Read full book for free!
... have I seen descend on beautiful, bewildered, dazed, meek eyes, so thickly fringed against the country sun; on soft, moist, tender nostrils that clouded the poisonous reek with a fragrance of the far-off fields! What torture of silly ... — Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al Read full book for free!
... blood that was shed so lately, of the tears which have flooded the face of all Poland, of the glory that not yet has ceased resounding: of these to think we had never the heart! For the nation is in such anguish that even Valour, when he turns his gaze on its torture, can do naught ... — Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz Read full book for free!
... I saw imaginary forms revealing themselves amid the flaming meteors. They seemed like creatures in agony, tossing their arms, bewailing in their attitudes the awful fate that had overtaken them, and fairly chilling my blood with the pantomime of torture which they exhibited. I thought of an old superstition which I had often heard about the earth, and exclaimed: "Yes, surely, ... — Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss Read full book for free!
... an uneasiness which cannot be imagined by one who has not felt it, grew upon me. I wanted light. The absence of it was torture! Light—to vivify the stifling air, which died as this man was dying—as I ... — Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood Read full book for free!
... tambourine. You don't suppose a quiet New York lawyer kept a stock of musical instruments large enough to fit out a strolling minstrel troupe just on the chance of a pair of ghosts coming to give him a surprise party, do you? Every spook has its own instrument of torture. Angels play on harps, I'm informed, and spirits delight in banjos and tambourines. These spooks of Eliphalet Duncan's were ghosts with all modern improvements, and I guess they were capable of providing their own musical weapons. At all events, ... — Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews Read full book for free!
... those who thus seek to represent it. We will not have the philosophy which ignores suffering; witness the popularity of Schopenhauer. We resent the art which ignores sorrow. True art has no pleasure in sin and suffering, in torture, horror, and death; but on its palette must lie the sober colorings of human life, and so to-day the most popular picture of the world is the "Angelus" of Millet. We will not have the literature that ignores suffering. "Humanity will look upon nothing else but its old sufferings. It loves ... — The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser Read full book for free!
... all strength by some portentous struggle. I trembled from head to foot. I cried out once—a despairing prayer for help, I think it was—and then I seemed to plunge headlong down through an immensity of space until my lips found hers. The ecstasy, the living fire, the anguish, and the torture of it have left their indelible scars upon my memory. Even as I write the cruelly sweet poignancy of that moment is with ... — The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini Read full book for free!
... brothers by brothers. The smoke rises in the valley, and the home is blotted out. All that makes life worth living goes, then life itself. What sterner test can a nation be put to than this? It is a torture long and slow; the agony and bloody sweat. I know well that if my own country were invaded I should, or hope I should, behave exactly as these men are doing; and as I should call it patriotism in my own case, I cannot refuse to call it the same in theirs. You see ... — With Rimington • L. March Phillipps Read full book for free!
... struggle testifies to pain—receiving blow after blow without hope or thought of appeal—going off by and by to die, or to suffer back to life alone. Not much merit in it, perhaps—a passive, hopeless endurance of an inevitable torture; but such tortures warp or shape a lifetime. Rarely ever eyes that have watched out such a night see the sun rise with its ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various Read full book for free!
... said Horatio, even Muscovites would chuse to have some pretence for what they do; and sure the first favourite and generalissimo of a prince, who boasts an inclination to civilize his barbarous subjects, will not, without any cause, torture them whom chance alone has put into his power, and who have never done him any personal injury.—By heaven, pursued he, turning to the prince, we all are innocent of any part of those crimes laid to our charge:—time, perhaps, if our declarations are ineffectual, will convince ... — The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood Read full book for free!
... imprisoned, not in a public jail under the care of impartial public functionaries, but in a private workhouse belonging to the creditor. Frightful stories were told respecting these dungeons. It was said that torture and brutal violation were common; that tight stocks, heavy chains, scanty measures of food, were used to punish wretches guilty of nothing but poverty; and that brave soldiers, whose breasts were covered with honorable scars, were often ... — Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay Read full book for free!
... the part of the riders have been reported—of whippings, spurrings, and even absolute torture, to ... — Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various Read full book for free!
... returning from a hard day's fishing, he met a number of boys all shouting and laughing over something they were worrying in the middle of the road. It was a tortoise they had caught and were ill-treating. Between them all, what with sticks and stones and other kinds of torture, the poor creature was hard beset and seemed almost frightened ... — Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac Read full book for free!
... beautiful as this. No master, whether German, Italian, or French, was ever able to delineate, as is done here in a single scene, holy prayer, melancholy, disquiet, pensiveness, the slumber of nature, the mysterious harmony of the starry skies, the torture of expectation, hope, uncertainty, joy, frenzy, delight, love delirious! And what an orchestra to accompany these noble song melodies! What inventiveness! What ingenious discoveries! What treasures of ... — A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel Read full book for free!
... tremendous flogging from a whip with a fearful heavy leathern lash, which made me think of the Russian knout. The blows fell with a thud that made my nerves shiver, and the back of the sufferer was covered with blood, which was thrown here and there by the ensanguined instrument of torture as it whistled through the air. He took his punishment, however, to use the language of the P.R., like a man, and though his body seemed to bend like a reed with each stroke, he never uttered a sound that I ... — Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan Read full book for free!
... which are confirmed by other early writers, are so express with reference to these points, that they seem to require something more than a mere reference in this place. "When his father was suffering under the torture of a grievous sickness, the Prince endeavoured with filial devotedness to meet his wishes in every possible way; and notwithstanding the biting detraction and manifold accusations of some, which (according to the prevalence of common ... — Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler Read full book for free!
... following morning the massacre was completed by the butchery and torture of wounded remnants of these brave Union defenders—some being buried alive, and others nailed to boards, and burned ... — The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan Read full book for free!
... paid for the honour they conferred in lying at any man's house, and so rode away. But poor Sancho Panza did not get off scot free, for they tossed him in a blanket in the backyard, where the Don could see the torture over the wall, but could by no means get to ... — The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds. Read full book for free!
... namely, that, when the spirit or soul of Eudemus left his body, it went thence straight to his own house.—A cup of massy gold having been stolen from the temple of Hercules, this god appeared in a dream to Sophocles three consecutive times, and pointed out the thief to him; who was put to the torture, confessed the delinquency, and gave up the cup. The temple afterwards received the ... — Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian Read full book for free!
... the war with abated breath,— Skeleton Boy against skeleton Death. Months of torture, how many such? Weary weeks of the stick and crutch; And still a glint of the steel-blue eye Told of a ... — Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter Read full book for free!
... by Vignan, he learned to his indignation that the whole tale was false. Vignan had spent a winter at the very village where they were, but confessed that he had never gone a league further north. The Indians knew of no such sea, and craved permission to torture and kill him for his deceptions; they called him loudly a liar, and even the children took up the cry and jeered at him. They said, "Do you not see that he meant to cause your death? Give him to us, and we promise you that he shall not lie any more." ... — Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson Read full book for free!
... uncertainty, disquietude of soul, anguish, longing for an unknown good, bitter regrets, had succeeded a delicious calm, the ecstasy of the lost child who finds his mother, and forgets in a moment the torture of ... — Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier Read full book for free!
... Governor, to which they replied that the Governor was not there to protect him. He was then taken to a tree and lashed to it, stripped, and all the Americans took a hand in flogging him into insensibility. When he recovered, he says, he asked for death rather than torture, and was answered savagely that he and his men were the means of depriving the Americans of 3,000 dollars' worth of skins by their operations, and that Englishmen had better keep away from Cape Barren and leave ... — The Americans In The South Seas - 1901 • Louis Becke Read full book for free!
... sick and the weary to toil unrequited. Woman, in her appealing delicacy and suffering, about to become a mother, is fainting under the lash, or sinking exhausted beside her cotton row. We hear the prayer for mercy answered with sneers and curses. We look on the instruments of torture, and the corpses of murdered men. We see the dogs, reeking hot from the chase, with their jaws foul with human blood. We see the meek and aged Christian scarred with the lash, and bowed down with toil, offering the supplication of a broken heart to his Father in Heaven, for ... — The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society Read full book for free!
... disturbances in a town of Languedoc called Nimes, and I beg that order may be restored with as much mildness as possible, and without shedding of blood." As, fortunately for the Protestants, Mazarin had need of Cromwell at that moment, torture was forbidden, and nothing allowed but annoyances of all kinds. These henceforward were not only innumerable, but went on without a pause: the Catholics, faithful to their system of constant encroachment, kept up an incessant persecution, in which they were ... — Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere Read full book for free!
... stature taken from him while he is still unmutilated. It is in truth a living death; and when the excruciating torment is gone, it leaves an almost worse legacy behind it—inability to move. Even debtors in the torture chamber have the weights sometimes removed from their feet; but this cruel malady, when it has once taken hold of a man, seems never to relinquish possession. A disease of this kind, bringing with it weakness and helplessness, is especially terrible to ... — The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator) Read full book for free!
... rockers and six sharp points and a big old fashioned rocking chair with four more pointed rockers, made the baby's room a storage place for ancient instruments of torture. ... — Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field Read full book for free!
... stranger, haste away, Lest you become the giant's prey. On his return he'll bring another, Still more savage than his brother: A horrid, cruel monster, who, Before he kills, will torture you. Oh valiant stranger, haste away, Or you'll become ... — Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various Read full book for free!
... and I guessed the torture of her thoughts. She did not know. She only knew that she was to borrow five thousand francs of me for her husband. So she told a lie. "Yes, he has written to me." "When, pray? You did not mention it to me yesterday." "I received his letter this morning." "Can you show it me?" ... — Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various Read full book for free!
... In the torture of toothache which she had endured during the night Banvilda had dashed her arm against the wall, and had broken some of the ornaments off the ring. She feared to tell her father, who would be sure to punish ... — The Book of Romance • Various Read full book for free!
... the future of man after death are often combined with these ideas; this is why chastity, death, or even all kinds of torture are, in certain countries, imposed on the woman after death ... — The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel Read full book for free!
... in a flood of new emotion; she tried once or twice to be discreetly angry with herself for admitting so unreservedly the pleasure she felt in Pierre's admiration; she placed her soul on a rack of self-questioning torture, and every inquisition she made of her heart returned the self-same answer: she loved ... — The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby Read full book for free!
... his ears cut off, to have his nose slit, to be branded in the face, to stand in the pillory, to be whipped at the post, to pay a fine of 10,000 pounds, and to suffer perpetual imprisonment. Dr. Young might well shrink from exposing himself to similar torture. But Dr. Young had other warnings, ... — East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie Read full book for free!
... saying to himself, not to have told Mrs. Ormonde I That would have been a greater folly than anything yet. No irreparable harm was as yet done; to confess a mere state of mind would have been to fill his friend with fears wholly groundless, and to fix a lasting torture in his own memory. It would have been to render impossible any future work in Lambeth. Yet upon the continuance of such work practically depended Grail's future. To Gilbert Grail he had solemn duties to perform. Henceforth the scope ... — Thyrza • George Gissing Read full book for free!
... unwelcome visitors would seize me, and in their insane glee practise upon me some savage torture. Would they never cease? For nearly thirty minutes I sat still as death, where they had flung me. Safety lay in not attracting their attention; but a dreadful ordeal was ... — A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith Read full book for free!
... of the same age as Hieronymus, who from his very childhood had associated with him on entirely familiar terms. The informer was able to name one of the conspirators, Theodotus, by whom he himself had been solicited. He was immediately seized, and delivered to Andranodorus to be subjected to torture, when, without hesitation, he confessed as to himself, but concealed his accomplices. At last, when racked with every species of torture, beyond the power of humanity to bear, pretending to be overcome by his sufferings, he turned his accusation from the guilty ... — The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius Read full book for free!
... intervals there came to Lenox the peculiar long-drawn note with which the hill villagers call to one another across the valleys. An infectious spirit of jubilation pervaded the air. The sun himself, in these cheerful latitudes, is transformed from an instrument of torture to the golden-locked hero of Norse and Greek legend; and with every step of the ascent Lenox felt the blood course ... — The Great Amulet • Maud Diver Read full book for free!
... isn't. Picture to yourself the cruelty of bottling up a herd of monks here in full view of their renounced liberty. Imagine being condemned to pass this window a dozen times in the day, on the way to that dreary chapel of theirs. A refinement of torture with which the window downstairs simply can't compete. How they must have hated the smell of the sea, poor dears! But I daresay they didn't open their windows very often. It wasn't the fashion in ... — The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell Read full book for free!
... wretched incendiary whom history will handcuff in eternal infamy with the temple-burner of ancient Ephesus. The first gun that spat its iron insult at Fort Sumter, smote every loyal American full in the face. As when the foul witch used to torture her miniature image, the person it represented suffered all that she inflicted on his waxen counterpart, so every buffet that fell on the smoking fortress was felt by the sovereign nation of which that was the representative. Robbery could go no farther, ... — Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Read full book for free!
... this is," he thought; "pleasant enough, though, as far as the climate goes; but the people in it are awful! What a lot of bloodthirsty, bilious-looking wretches, to be sure; ready to consign to torture and death a poor innocent, unprotected orphan because he happens to be of a ... — Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng Read full book for free!
... tear we shed, There shall be torrents red, Not from the eye-founts fed, But from the veins! Bloody shall be the sweat, Fiends, felons, that shall yet Pay retribution's debt, In torture's pains! ... — War Poetry of the South • Various Read full book for free!
... will divine And destiny propitious? Pass we then For so Heaven's pleasure is, that I should lead Another through this savage wilderness." Forthwith so fell his pride, that he let drop The instrument of torture at his feet, And to the rest exclaim'd: "We have no power To strike him." Then to me my guide: "O thou! Who on the bridge among the crags dost sit Low crouching, safely now to me return." I rose, and towards him moved with speed: the fiends ... — The Divine Comedy • Dante Read full book for free!
... announced her intention of adopting him as a member of her family, and by sheer force of will she compelled the men to release him. After staying for some time amongst the Mohawks he escaped, but was again captured just as he was nearing Three Rivers. Once more he was spared from torture at the intercession of his adopted relations. He then made an even bolder bid for freedom, and fled to the south, up the valley of the Richelieu and the Hudson, and thus reached the most advanced inland post ... — Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston Read full book for free!
... their oars, but their strokes were uneven and feeble; for they were worn out by the hard duty of the preceding fortnight; and, though they did their best, the boat made little more headway than the tide. It was a losing chase, and Mr. Larkin, who was suffering torture as he saw how little we gained, cried out, "Pull, lads! I'll double the captain's prize: two months' extra pay: ... — Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders Read full book for free!
... foreign countries, little better than so many uncaged beasts of prey. Here they enjoy liberty from all social restraint ... and become rejoicing monsters, who perhaps go on their way, after a hideous sequence of murder, conflagration, violation, torture, with as much gaiety and equanimity as if they had merely taken part in some student gambols.... Deep in the nature of all these noble races there lurks unmistakably the beast of prey, the blond beast, lustfully roving in search of booty and victory.—FR. ... — Gems (?) of German Thought • Various Read full book for free!
... as this is filled—this wild house so far from the world—and fill it honestly? Shall I say, 'Yes, I have misjudged him,' the man who has shot my servant here in this room and left me with the dead? Shall I say that he is a good man because sometimes, when he has ceased to kill and torture those who serve him, he acts as other men? Oh, I could win much if I could say that; I could win, perhaps, all that a woman desires. But I shall never speak—never; I shall live as I am living until I ... — The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton Read full book for free!
... Corpus Act was suspended, a Bill was passed against seditious Assemblies, the Press was prosecuted, some Scottish Whigs who clamoured for reform were sentenced to transportation, while one Judge expressed regret that the practice of torture for sedition ... — The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth Read full book for free!
... questing after elements of truth. Neither must they be boys to be instructed, but fellow-teachers with whom I may wrangle and agree on equal terms. We must reach some solution, some shadow of consent; for without that, eager talk becomes a torture. But we do not wish to reach it cheaply, or quickly, or without the tussle and ... — English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.) Read full book for free!
... It is a growing torture to you. Even in the generous flush of mercy you thought of it; you said you would never go back to that hotel. I knew why you said it. I knew what, even then, you suffered—what of fear and shame and outraged modesty. I know what you stood for, there in the street with a half-senseless ... — The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers Read full book for free!
... Billy. It's to save you torture, old fellow, just to save you useless suffering, Billy." He drew his pistol from his belt, took careful aim just behind the pony's ear, and, turning his head away, pulled ... — The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely Read full book for free!
... happy and I knew it not, But jested with the heart that lov'd me well. The sickening echo of each foolish word I said to pain him comes to torture me— ... — Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards Read full book for free!
... through which he must toil with weary, bleeding feet till he reached the land watered by the river of life. Reason and duty, as he believed, forbade the existence of this foolish passion, and he must and would destroy it; but in his anguish he felt as if he had resolved to torture himself to death. ... — Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe Read full book for free!
... of stone, When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy brows And their flat hands were callous in the palm With walking in the fashion of their sires, Grope as they might to find a cruel god To work their will on such as human wrath Had wrought its worst to torture, and had left With rage unsated, white and stark and cold, Could hate have shaped a demon more malign Than him the dead men mummied in their creed And taught their trembling children to adore! Made in his image! Sweet and gracious souls Dear to my heart by nature's fondest names, Is not your ... — The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Read full book for free!
... says, that they should be driven out of the churches; that the religious people, as well as the irreligious, would be against them; that the time would come when those who killed them would think that they did God service; that nothing but labour, and want, and persecution, and slander, and torture, and death was before them—and now He had gone away and left them. He had vanished up into the empty air. They were to see His face, and hear His voice no more. They were to have no more of His advice, no more of His teaching, no more of His tender comfortings; they were to ... — Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley Read full book for free!
... was altogether so startling an apparition, that all of us jaded, commonplace spectres turned and fastened our weary, lack-lustre eyes upon her looks, with an utter inability to remove them. There was one fat, unctuous person seated opposite, to whom his interest was a torture, for he would have gone to sleep except for her remarkable presence: as it was, his heavy eyelids fell half-way shut, and drooped there at an agonizing angle, while his eyes remained immovably fixed upon that strange, death-white face. How it could have come of ... — Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells Read full book for free!
... coach with her, and turning his head quickly, he met the stern eye of Dorriforth; upon which, without the smallest salutation, he turned from him again abruptly and rudely. Miss Milner was confused, and Miss Woodley in torture, at this palpable affront, to which Dorriforth alone ... — A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald Read full book for free!
... ever for active life," said Gertrude. "You allow no charm to solitude, and contemplation to you seems torture. If any great sorrow ever come upon you, you will never retire to seclusion as its balm. You will plunge into the world, and lose your individual existence in the ... — The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton Read full book for free!
... him. He made one despairing stride towards the door. He would leave her forever without another word. He was wretched; and the Duchess was laughing within herself over mental anguish far more cruel than the old judicial torture. But as for going away, it was not in his power to do it. In any sort of crisis, a woman is, as it were, bursting with a certain quantity of things to say; so long as she has not delivered herself of them, she experiences the sensation which we are apt to ... — The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... have me" rose to John's lips, but all power to speak them seemed to desert him; he had grown suddenly as weak as melting snow, and in an instant the occasion had passed. He hated himself for his weakness. The weary burden of his love lay still upon him, and the torture of utterance still menaced him from afar. The conversation had fallen. They were approaching the greenhouse, and the cats ran to meet their patron. Sammy sprang on ... — A Mere Accident • George Moore Read full book for free!
... no idea how horrible a bed is that you can't sleep in." The old man's voice broke in a tremor. "Ah, it's a bed of torture! I spend many a wicked hour in mine, envying St. Lawrence his gridiron. But what do ... — Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells Read full book for free!
... questions which torment me when I am alone in the dead of night. My bed becomes a place of unendurable torture. I rise and dress myself, and wait for the daylight, looking through my open ... — The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins Read full book for free!
... route, it should not interfere with the object before me. Had my mind not been so completely engaged with my own immediate prospects, when hope suddenly and unexpectedly revived, had become so tinged with fears and doubts as to be almost torture, I must have been much amused with my present position, as I found myself seated with my two fair friends, rolling along through Wales in their comfortable travelling carriage —giving all the orders at the different ... — The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872) Read full book for free!
... full, and that Mr. Puddleham's first Sunday would be a success. And the chapel, of course, had a bell,—a bell which was declared by Mrs. Fenwick to be the hoarsest, loudest, most unmusical, and ill-founded miscreant of a bell that was ever suspended over a building for the torture of delicate ears. It certainly was a loud and brazen bell; but Mr. Fenwick expressed his opinion that there was nothing amiss with it. When his wife declared that it sounded as though it came from the midst of the shrubs at their own front ... — The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... Ziska thoroughly understood, and he retorted by destroying the Bohemian monasteries, and burning the priests alive in barrels of pitch. "They are singing my sister's wedding song," exclaimed the grim barbarian, on hearing their cries of torture. Queen Sophia, widow of Wenceslas, the late king, who had garrisoned all the royal castles, now sent a strong body of troops against the reformers. The army came up with the multitude, which was largely made up of women and children, on the open plain ... — Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris Read full book for free!
... death! but annihilation! but to lose forever this remembrance, as vivid as reality; but to renounce these recollections, which torture me, devour me, and consume me! No! no! no! Live! live—poor, despised, scorned—live in the galleys, but live! so that thought remains—since this infernal creature has all ... — Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue Read full book for free!
... through my body like lightning, causing the most excruciating pain that I have ever felt during my life. I had to halt the party, and was lifted from the saddle completely powerless. After dismounting, the pain became so violent, and the torture so excessive, that I thought my career in the world was coming quickly to a close. I was completely paralysed, and a cold perspiration was pouring in streams over my face and body. Recollecting I had got a mixture of laudanum ... — Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart Read full book for free!
... sensibilities, do not put us on the rack more than is absolutely necessary. It has always seemed to me—and I am glad to have this opportunity of unburdening my heart upon the point—it has always seemed to me, that there was something barbarous in that torture of the sympathies in which the novelist delights, and which his reader, it must be supposed, finds peculiarly grateful. It really reminds me of that pleasure which certain savages are said to take in cutting themselves with knives, and inflicting ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various Read full book for free!
... Englishmen of the need for despotic rule, and no consideration whatever was allowed to interfere with the stability of government; individual rights and even the laws themselves must be overridden, if they conflicted with the interests of the State. Torture was illegal in England, and men were proud of the fact, yet, in cases of (p. 433) treason, when the national security was thought to be involved, torture was freely used, and it was used by the very men who boasted of England's immunity. They were conscious of no inconsistency; ... — Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard Read full book for free!
... messianic aspect in my writings, and I fell to thinking over "Esther Waters"; and reading between the lines for the first time, I understood that it was that desire to standardize morality that had caused the poor girl to be treated so shamefully. Once Catholicism took upon itself to torture and then to burn all those it could lay hands upon who refused to believe with its doctrines, and now in the twentieth century Protestantism persecutes those who act or think in opposition to its moralities. Even the saintly Mrs. Barfield did not ... — Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore Read full book for free!
... be done because it is right, 219-l. Right to dictate what shall be believed belongs to no man or men, 29-m. "Right to govern" vested in the ablest, wisest, best, 203-l. Right, under Necessity, to slay; no right to torture, because not necessary, 832-u. Righteous shall dwell in Gimli or Vingolf with God, according to the Edda, 619-m. Rightfulness of many actions difficult to prove from our standpoint, 830-m. Rights, inalienable, ... — Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike Read full book for free!
... to men unacquainted with the masquerade of life: I deceived others, and I endeavoured to deceive myself; and have worn the face of pleasantry and gaiety, while my heart suffered the most exquisite torture. ... — The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson Read full book for free!
... appetite would be improved by the exercise. This was a dreadful prospect for the unhappy prisoner, but meantime it prolonged his life a few hours, as he was immediately hung up in the larder and left to himself. There, in torture of mind and body, like a fish upon a hook, the wretched boy began at last to reflect seriously upon his former ways, and to consider what a happy home he might have had, if he could only have been satisfied with business and ... — Junior Classics, V6 • Various Read full book for free!
... said the other, passively. "Then the week is not to be finished until to-morrow at noon. Twenty-four hours of torture to me! I suppose that the ingrates will count time to the last shadow! Oh, Mata, Mata, you once were a faithful servant! Why did you let me make that foolish promise of giving them an entire week? A day would have been ample, then Tatsu and ... — The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa Read full book for free!
... and panted for the destruction of his fellows. His face, upon which the glare of the garish fire danced in derision of his agony, was distorted, and terrible to look upon: brief as was the space allotted to him, each moment seemed a year of torture. As the flames rose and encircled their victim, his cries were so dreadful, that Springall pressed his hands to his ears, and buried his face in the sand; but Roupall looked on to the last, thinking aloud his ... — The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall Read full book for free!
... debasement to which it condemned the wife. The evangelical method is this: it has not occupied itself with communities, yet has wrought the profoundest of the social revolutions; it has not demanded any reform, yet has accomplished all of them; the atrocities of war and of torture, the gladiatorial combats and immodest spectacles, the despotism of fathers and the debasement of women, all have disappeared before a profound, internal action, which attacks the ... — The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin Read full book for free!
... was devoted to her religion. The fires which had burned in Henry's time were kindled again, but now for the torture of Protestants, bishops, and men of mark. Mary wedded the Catholic king and cruel fanatic Philip II of Spain, the most powerful monarch of Europe; so that only to her death and the reign of the persecuted Elizabeth ... — The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various Read full book for free!
... sleep—or rest—impossible. She did not think much of Marsham; she could hardly remember what she had written to him. Love was only another anguish. Nor could it protect her from the images which pursued her. The only thought which seemed to soothe the torture of imagination was the thought stamped on her brain tissue by the long inheritance of centuries—the thought of Christ on Calvary. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The words repeated themselves again and again. She did not pray in words. But her ... — The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward Read full book for free!
... parchment codex, Vaticanus 1288. See Volume I, page 8.] for I have run across the book written by him about it. He understood so well how he stood with all the senators that, in spite of many protests, their slaves and freedmen and intimate friends were arrested by him and were asked under torture whether "so-and-so loves me" or "so-and-so hates me." For the charts of the stars under which any of his foremost courtiers had been born gave evidence, he said, as to who was friendly to him and ... — Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio Read full book for free!
... named Vetinus, or Guetinus, who was living in 824, was ill, and lying upon his couch with his eyes shut; but not being quite asleep, he saw a demon in the shape of a priest, most horribly deformed, who, showing him some instruments of torture which he held in his hand, threatened to make him soon feel the rigorous effects of them. At the same time he saw a multitude of evil spirits enter his chamber, carrying tools, as if to build him a tomb or a coffin, and enclose ... — The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet Read full book for free!
... need to go far to find it. In the state of mind in which he was he was prone to find it everywhere. The world was full of it, the world, that hospital.... Oh, the agony, the sorrow! Pains of the wounded body, quivering flesh, rotting away in life. The silent torture of hearts under gnawing grief. Children whom no one loves, poor hopeless girls, women seduced or betrayed, men deceived in their friends, their loves, their faith, the pitiable herd of the unfortunates whom life has broken and forgotten!... Not poverty ... — Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland Read full book for free!
... to make every creature in league against him, conjuring up ingratitude and insult in their least looked-for and most galling shapes, searching every thread and fibre of his heart, and finding out the last remaining image of respect or attachment in the bottom of his breast, only to torture and kill it! In like manner, the "So I am" of Cordelia gushes from her heart like a torrent of tears, relieving it of a weight of love and of supposed ingratitude, which had pressed upon it for years. What a fine return of the passion upon itself is that in Othello—with what a mingled agony ... — English literary criticism • Various Read full book for free!
... which despite twelve months in the tomb, looked as it had looked in life, was carried to the dungeon—in the Middle Ages a torture-room; no cry uttered there can reach the outer world—and was submitted to the ancient process for slaying a vampire. From that hour no supernatural visitant has ... — Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer Read full book for free!
... minister to man, Silent distiller of the balm of rest, How wonderful thy power, when naught else can, To soothe the torn and sorrow-laden breast! When bleeding hearts no comforter can find, When burdened souls droop under weight of woe, When thought is torture to the troubled mind, When grief-relieving tears refuse to flow; 'Tis then thou comest on soft-beating wings, And sweet oblivion's peace from them is shed; But ah, the old pain that the waking brings! That lives again so soon ... — Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson Read full book for free!
... bench to bench until he had been introduced to all the young ladies and gentlemen in the room. Lincoln went through the ordeal countless times. If he took a serious view of the performance it must have put him to exquisite torture, for he was conscious that he was not a perfect type of manly beauty. If, however, it struck him as at all funny, it must have filled him with unspeakable mirth to be thus gravely led about, angular and gawky, under the eyes of the precise Crawford, ... — The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne Read full book for free!
... belief in the diabolic power of woman, judicial murder of helpless women became an institution, which is thus characterized by Sumner: "After the refined torture of the body and nameless mental sufferings, women were executed in the most cruel manner. These facts are so monstrous that all other aberrations of the human race are small in comparison.... He who studies ... — Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard Read full book for free!
... savages were still in the Valley. Their council fires were still lighted, no further distant than the Salt Springs. In their hearts burned all the old lust for torture and massacre, and the awful joys of rending enemies limb by limb. But the spell of Europe was upon them, and, in good part or otherwise, they bowed under it. So much had been gained, and two peaceful white people could come and talk in perfect safety ... — In the Valley • Harold Frederic Read full book for free!
... inflicts irreparable injuries upon poor people, and is full of the most gigantic abuses. It is often complained of by the Levant correspondents of newspapers, under the character of the various spiritual tribunals of Eastern Christians inflicting fines, torture, and imprisonment on refractory or heretic members of those churches. The Jewish synods of Africa and the East exercise the same arbitrary powers, under the sanction of the supreme Mahometan authorities. Lately, however, the European ambassadors have ... — Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson Read full book for free!
... nearly fainting; the colour mounted to her cheeks and brow; she could not lift her eyes from the ground towards the man who was questioning her. More than once she was inclined to rise and flee from the room rather than continue to undergo the mental torture she was suffering. Never afterwards did she look the vicar in the face. At length the ordeal was over, the Te absolvo was pronounced, and she, with trembling knees, hanging down her head, tottered to her pew by the side ... — Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston Read full book for free!
... refugees, about ten Frenchmen, a few strangers from other nations, but of the number of the lesser nobility, men, in short, in search of shelter and fortune. A strange fortune, a marvellous shelter indeed to reward the greed of the ambitious—exile, death, and torture! Were the testimony of such witnesses to be relied upon, we might well exclaim: 'Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.' Yet how is it that we find among the seven hundred patriots who were hung so many Poles, less than a half of whom were Catholics, many of whom were Jews, Protestants, and even ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various Read full book for free!
... detestable and extreme pleasure that arch-heretics, and false prophets, and impostors are transported with, when they once find in themselves that they have a superiority in the faith and conscience of men; so great as if they have once tasted of it, it is seldom seen that any torture or persecution can make them relinquish or abandon it. But as this is that which the author of the Revelation calleth the depth or profoundness of Satan, so by argument of contraries, the just and lawful sovereignty over men's understanding, by force of truth rightly interpreted, ... — The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon Read full book for free!
... from the death of the one some means for preserving the life of the other. The councillor was in a violent fever, agitated unceasingly both in body and mind: he could not bear any position of any kind for more than a few minutes at a time. Bed was a place of torture; but if he got up, he cried for it again, at least for a change of suffering. At the end of three months he died. His stomach, duodenum, and liver were all in the same corrupt state as his brother's, and more than that, the surface of his body was ... — CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE Read full book for free!
... or some time past when the trio of campers were suddenly aroused by a most terrific clamor. It sounded as though all the small boys in Chester had secured dishpans and such instruments of ear torture, and assembled with the idea of giving a village serenade to some newly wedded folks who would be expected to treat the bunch ... — Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton Read full book for free!
... exclaimed the King. Then he turned to his servants and said: "Please take General Crinkle to the torture chamber. There you will kindly slice him into thin slices. Afterward you may feed him to ... — The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum Read full book for free!
... necessary for him to be acquainted with every art and stratagem of savage warfare, and to possess more strength and bravery than the rest of his tribe. When a Carib aspired to be the chief, it was customary to expose him to the biting of ants; and if he could bear the torture without flinching, then he was considered fit for ... — The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston Read full book for free!
... shelter from a vertical sun, without water to restore the fluids which his fierce rays extracted from their parching bodies. An immense number of birds were flying over and around these jagged peaks, and who knows how greatly these may have added to the torture of the shipwrecked crew, when failing nature denied the power ... — Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay Read full book for free!
... now hear me, child. There are deeds which are done, and which I have done, but those deeds are only done upon strong impulses. Murder is one, but people murder for two reasons only—for revenge and for gold. People don't do such acts as are to torture their minds here, and perhaps be punished hereafter—that is, if there be one, child. I say, people don't do such deeds as these, merely because a graceless son comes to them, and says, 'if you please, mother.' Do you understand ... — Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat Read full book for free!
... because that creature does not speak his language? All that day, with growing, racking pains, poor Redruff hung and beat his great, strong wings in helpless struggles to be free. All day, all night, with growing torture, until he only longed for death. But no one came. The morning broke, the day wore on, and still he hung there, slowly dying; his very strength a curse. The second night crawled slowly down, and when, in the dawdling hours of darkness, a great Horned Owl, drawn by the feeble flutter of a dying ... — Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton Read full book for free!
... it. But it is rarely in the world's history that its ideal has been one of joy and beauty. The worship of pain has far more often dominated the world. Mediaevalism, with its saints and martyrs, its love of self-torture, its wild passion for wounding itself, its gashing with knives, and its whipping with rods—Mediaevalism is real Christianity, and the mediaeval Christ is the real Christ. When the Renaissance dawned upon the world, ... — The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde Read full book for free!
... Providence to avenge the wrongs of their country,—will it be said that all this was brought about by the incantations of these Begums in their secluded Zenana; or that they could inspire this enthusiasm and this despair into the breasts of a people who felt no grievance, and had suffered no torture? ... — The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick Read full book for free!
... better; but to what can I trust, when you have these continual relapses? The vast time that passes between your writing and my receiving your letters, makes me flatter myself, that by now you are out of all pain: but I am miserable, with finding that you may be still subject to new torture! not all your courage, which is amazing can give me any about you. But how can you write to me? I will not suffer it-and now, good Mr. Chute will write for you. I am so angry at your writing immediately after that dreadful operation, ... — The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole Read full book for free!
... horrors of the scene. While one of the hags sprinkles her hell-drops through the adjoining house, another is casting up earth from a pit, in which the boy is presently imbedded to the chin, and killed by a frightful process of slow torture, in order that a love philtre of irresistible power may be concocted from his liver and spleen. The time, the place, the actors are brought before us with singular dramatic power. Canidia's burst of wonder and rage that the spells ... — Horace • Theodore Martin Read full book for free!
... missionary fields in our own time, not only strong men, but tender women and children, have steadfastly endured shame and suffering in every form—banishment and the spoiling of their goods, imprisonment, torture, and death—for Christ's sake. In times of worldly peace and prosperity, the power of this principle is dimly seen; but were the Christians of this day required, under penalty of imprisonment, confiscation, and death, to deny Christ, it would at once manifest itself. Many would apostatize, ... — Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows Read full book for free!
... love at first sight never knows what has struck him, and therefore mercifully escapes all the agonizing slow-torture of feeling himself sink, inch by inch, ... — A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland Read full book for free!
... claws, and from whose ears have started horns. They sail upon bats' wings; and only by their livid hue, which changes from yellow to the ghastliest green, and by the cruelty of their remorseless eyes, can you know them from the souls they torture. In Hell ugliness and power of mischief come with length of years. Continual growth in crime distorts the form which once was human; and the interchange of everlasting hatred degrades the tormentor ... — Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds Read full book for free!
... to all peaceful folk between Sweedsboro and our own city. Their bands acted under royal commissions, some as honest soldiers, but some as the enemies of any who owned a cow or a barrel of flour, or from whom, under torture, could be wrested a guinea. All who were thus organised came at length to be dreaded, and this whether they were bad or better. Friend Masters had suffered within the week, but, once over the Schuylkill, he assured me, there need be no fear, as our own partisans ... — Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell Read full book for free!
... little while Mr. Brumley and Lady Beach-Mandarin had almost persuaded each other that Sir Isaac was applying physical torture to his proudly silent wife, and Mr. Brumley was no longer dreaming and glancing at but steadily facing the possibility of a pure-minded and handsomely done elopement to "free" Lady Harman, that would be followed in due course by a marriage, a "true marriage" on a level of understanding ... — The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells Read full book for free!
... Lord made anguish a reward, a home In banishment, hell groans, hard pain, and bade That torture house abide the joyless fall. When with eternal night and sulphur pains, Fullness of fire, dread cold, reek and red flames, ... — Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck Read full book for free!
... have been interrupted? By a legal notice from Bechet, who summons me to furnish her within twenty-four hours my two volumes in 8vo, with a penalty of fifty francs for every day's delay! I must be a great criminal and God wills that I shall expiate my crimes! Never was such torture! This woman has had ten volumes 8vo out of me in two years, and yet she complains ... — Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd Read full book for free!
... the grandest since creation began—the crowned, perfected woman. For this the cry of womanhood has risen out of the depths through the centuries. Up through agony and despair it has come, through sin and shame, through poverty and martyrdom, through torture which has wrung drops of blood from woman's lips, still up, up, till it has reached ... — The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various Read full book for free!
... regions of the earth, for we have embassies from every part of the world, and Satan himself has learned many particulars from our Senate in regard to the administration of affairs and the means of torture. ... — A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall Read full book for free!
... "Cuarro saco, Senor," as he bade me note the varying numbers on the hook, and I wondered inwardly whether the Holy Office had experimented during the sixteenth century with Spanish fleas, and so brought them to such an astonishing perfection in the administration of slow torture. Breeding, I take it, holds good with fleas as with horses, dogs, etc. Those born of parents with thicker mail, longer springs, harder proboscis, and greater daring in initiative, would doubtless be selected and encouraged, if I may say so, to go farther. ... — An Ocean Tramp • William McFee Read full book for free!
... that looked very like one of contempt or ridicule. "You come from the land of melancholy and bile—where your holidays are fasts, and your day of rest is one of unmitigated toil. You would be sorry to forego, no doubt, the prospect of everlasting torture and eternal condemnation. Mr Z—— is too far advanced for you, ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various Read full book for free!
... misery numbed her limbs, and she cried out in her heart for God to punish old Gordon's sin from generation to generation—meaning that young Gordon should suffer for the sins of his father. Yet through her torture and the burning anger of her prayer ran a silent undercurrent, a voiceless call for mercy upon her and upon all she loved, her father ... — A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers Read full book for free!
... of Christ, for his body's sake — for the human race, of which he is the head. Be sure that, come what may of the rest, let the flames of hell ebb or flow, that man is safe, for he is delivered already from the only devil that can make hell itself a torture, the devil of selfishness — the only one that can possess a man and make himself his own living hell. He is out of all that region of things, and already dwelling in the secret place ... — David Elginbrod • George MacDonald Read full book for free!
... of ideal bliss, into the world of shadows which again closed around and infolded me, my first dread was, not unnaturally, that my own shadow had found me again, and that my torture had commenced anew. It was a sad revulsion of feeling. This, indeed, seemed to correspond to what we think death is, before we die. Yet I felt within me a power of calm endurance to which I had hitherto been a stranger. ... — Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald Read full book for free!
... one of those scenes of massacre and torture, worthy of cannibals, horrible to relate, and the more incredible, that they happen almost always in the presence, and often with the aid, of honest and humane people, who, blinded by false notions and stupid prejudices, allow themselves to be led into all sorts of barbarity, under the ... — The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue Read full book for free!
... passed up the main street in Peabody's sleigh on the way to Anderson Crow's home, was the centre of attraction. He was the hero of the hour, for was not Rosalie Gray herself, pale and ill with torture, his most devoted slave? What else could Tinkletown do but pay homage when it saw Bonner's head against her shoulder and Anderson Crow shouting approval from the bob-sled that carried the kidnapers. The four bandits, two ... — The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon Read full book for free!
... was glad to hear you severe—it is a happy excess, I think. When men of intense reality, as all great poets must be, give their hearts to be trodden on and tied up with ribbons in turn, by men of masks, there will be torture if there is not desecration. Not that I know much of such things—but I have heard. Heard from Mr. Kenyon; heard from Miss Mitford; who however is passionately fond of the theatre as a writer's medium—not ... — The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Read full book for free!
... he did not know, but it seemed only a momentary respite from the torture of memory, when, still in the darkness, thousands of tremulous penetrating sounds were astir, and with a great start he recognized the rain on the roof. It was coming down in steady torrents that made the house rock before the tumult of his plunging heart was still, and he was longing ... — The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) Read full book for free!
... of her guests! The flowers had lost their perfume—the music its divine influence. Yet, with the serpent of remorse and anguish gnawing at her heart, she was forced to smile and seem happy and at ease. A half hour passed in this way seemed an age of torture; and when the messenger despatched by her husband had returned and summoned them again to the library, it gave her ... — The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage Read full book for free!
... it had come to an end—the feast and the Tziganes playing, and Theodora will always be haunted by that last wild Hungarian tune. Music, which moved every fibre of her being at all times, to-night was a torture of pain and longing. And he was so near, so near and yet so far, and it seemed as if the music meant love and separation and passionate regret, and the last air most passionate of all, and before the final notes died away Hector bent over to her, ... — Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn Read full book for free!
... way in which the Chinese Embassy dealt with one of your pet reformers some years ago did not win general approval. No, Mr. Forbes, we must try and circumvent the wily Chinese by other methods than torture and imprisonment. Of what avail will it be if this fellow, Wong Li Fu, is laid by the heels? Isn't it more than certain that he has plenty of determined helpers? Do you imagine that he killed Mrs. Lester? Not a bit of it. He will be able to produce the clearest proof that he was miles ... — Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy Read full book for free!
... dawn he was up and on. Going was slow, for now the real torture of desert thirst was on him and he knew that unless he found water that day, buzzards would be circling over him on the morrow. By ten o'clock his tongue was swelling and he seemed to have ceased to sweat, and ... — The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie Read full book for free!
... controlled the power of the throne. At fourteen years of age his enemies were driven out and his kinsmen came into power. They, caring only for blood and plunder, prompted the boy to cruelty, teaching him to rob, to torture, to massacre. They applauded him when he amused himself by tormenting animals; and when, riding furiously through the streets of Moscow, he dashed all before him to the ground and trampled women and children under his horses' feet, they praised him ... — Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris Read full book for free!
... from her back, and the lash mercilessly cut its way into her quivering nerves, while her awful screams pierced the damp, chill air of the morning. The hot irons were brought, and simmered upon her recoiling flesh. The unhappy creature was then carried, mangled and bleeding, and half dead with torture, and terror, and madness, to the prison hospital. After nine months of imprisonment she was permitted to escape. She fled to England, and was found one morning dead upon the pavements of London, having been thrown from a third story window ... — Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott Read full book for free!
... the lingering breath. "Behold the man!" Robust and frail. Beneath That breast indeed might throb the Sacred Heart. And from the lips, so holily dispart, The dying murmur breathes "Forgive! Forgive!" O wide-stretched arms! "I perish, let them live." Under the torture of the thorny crown, The loving pallor of the brow looks down On human blindness, on the toiler's woes; The while, to overturn Despair's repose, And urge to Hope and Love, as Faith demands, Bleed, bleed the feet, the broken side, ... — Silverpoints • John Gray Read full book for free!
... suffering for nothing now? Would any good to himself or others come from a pain so exquisite, so rife with torture—a pain so strongly impregnated with fear and doubt that he scarcely dared own it to himself? Only now and again those few bitter ... — Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey Read full book for free!
... ground And lay writhing in torture; I bit the black earth And I shrieked in wild anguish; I called on his name, And I thought in my madness My voice must awake ... — Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov Read full book for free!
... ceased after my edict was issued, by which, according to your commands, I had forbidden the existence of clubs. On this account I believed it the more necessary to find out from two maid-servants, who were called deaconesses [ministrae], and that by torture, what was the truth. I found nothing else than a perverse and excessive superstition. I therefore adjourned the examination and hastened to consult you. The matter seemed to me to be worth deliberation, especially ... — A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D. Read full book for free!
... the one thing indispensable. The old Dutch law condemned criminals to a diet of unsalted food, the effects being said to be those of the severest physical torture. Years ago an experiment tried near Paris demonstrated the necessity of its use. A number of cattle were fed without the ration of salt; an equal number received it regularly. At the end of a specified time, the unsalted animals were ... — The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell Read full book for free!
... people who were eating, and well-nigh suffocated by the odor of food, the Comte and Comtesse de Breville and Monsieur and Madame Carre-Lamadon endured that hateful form of torture which has perpetuated the name of Tantalus. All at once the manufacturer's young wife heaved a sigh which made every one turn and look at her; she was white as the snow without; her eyes closed, her head fell forward; she ... — Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant Read full book for free!
... now high, and it shone with dazzling brightness upon the bleached bones which lay upon the road. Again the torture of thirst fell upon the little group of survivors, and again, as they rode with withered tongues and crusted lips, a vision of the saloon of the Korosko danced like a mirage before their eyes, and they saw the white napery, the wine-cards by the ... — The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle Read full book for free!
... south-west, whilst Dir and all other indications point to the south-east. But Pashai seems to me the reading to which all texts tend, whilst it is clearly expressed in the G. T. (Pasciai), and it is contrary to all my experience of the interpretation of Marco Polo to attempt to torture the name in the way which has been common with commentators professed and occasional. But dropping this name for a moment, let us see to what ... — The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa Read full book for free!
... in the role; one of them was the embodiment of every womanly grace and charm. If her husband did not adore her, he was a brute, deserving of death by slow torture. Her name was Adele Ratignolle. There are no words to describe her save the old ones that have served so often to picture the bygone heroine of romance and the fair lady of our dreams. There was nothing subtle or hidden about her charms; her ... — The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin Read full book for free!
... eye and the cutting off of the tail; but, as for the slitting of the paunch, there is no putting up with that!" So saying, he sprang up and made off through the gate of the city, hardly believing in his escape. Quoth the King, "I excuse her, and in my son's hands be her doom. If he will, let him torture her, and if he will, let him kill her." Quoth the Prince, "Pardon is better than vengeance and mercy is of the quality of the noble;" and the King repeated, "'Tis for thee to decide, O my son." So the Prince set her free, saying, "Depart from our neighbourhood and Alla ... — The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton Read full book for free!
... scorched. During her absence, Ernestine wrote to Schumann many letters, chiefly remarkable for their poor style and their worse grammar. To a man of the exquisite sensibility of Schumann, and one who took literature so earnestly, this must have been a constant torture. It humiliated his own love, and greatly undermined the romance, which crumpled absolutely when he learned that she was not the baron's own daughter, but only an adopted child, and of an illegitimate birth at that. He had not learned these ... — The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes Read full book for free!
... the wizard, boy, Of dark and subtle skill, To agonize but not destroy, To torture, not to kill. When swords are out and shriek and shout Leave little room for prayer, No fetter on man's arm or heart Hangs ... — The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various Read full book for free!
... thousands of years in which he has shared life with other beings, he has feigned—falsely—not to comprehend them, not to see them as brothers, suffering, loving, and dreaming like himself. In order to exploit them, to torture them without remorse, his men of thought have told him that these creatures cannot think, that he alone possesses this gift. And now he is not far from saying the same thing of his fellow-men whom he dismembers and destroys. Butcher, murderer, you ... — Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain Read full book for free!
... The disgrace of it was torture to his sensitive mind, without the physical chafing to pull him down to bones. Those two weeks had taken off his frame a great deal of the flesh that he had gained during the summer. His gauntness was more pronounced than it ever had ... — The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden Read full book for free!
... Italian jurist and economist, Cesare Beccaria first called public attention to those wretched beings, whose confessions (if statements extorted by torture can thus be called) formed the sole foundation for the trial, the sole guide in the application of the punishment, which was bestowed blindly, without formality, without hearing the defence, exactly as though sentence were being passed ... — Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero Read full book for free!
... was so small it had not occurred to them that a man could get into it. Lysander had got into it, however, and there he lay, so cramped, and stifled, and compressed, that he could not endure the torture without an effort to ease it by moving a little. He had stirred; then all was ... — Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge Read full book for free!
... shocked if I declare that in my belief it was the same need, the same pain, the same torture. We are in his case allowed to contemplate the foundation of all the emotions—that one joy which is to live, and the one sadness at the root of the innumerable torments. It was made plain by the way he talked. He had never suffered so. It was gnawing, it was fire; it was ... — Falk • Joseph Conrad Read full book for free!
... crash of houses crushing and the increase of uproar, as scores of luckless inhabitants went down under the falling rock. Giant cranes with huge, ludicrous awkward arms, heaved up pots of burning pitch and oil and flung them ponderously into the city to do whatever horror of fire and torture had not been done by the engines. Hourly the rattle of small stones increased, merely to attract the attention of the citizens to an activity to which they were so accustomed that it was almost unnoticed. At times citizens and soldiers rushed ... — The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller Read full book for free!
... a fly in the ointment of Martin's content. Of late, his sanctuary was not always inviolate. On the occasion of the past Christmas, an absent and fiendish-minded nephew had presented Mrs. Meagher with a phonograph. This instrument of torture Mrs. Meagher installed in the little parlor, and at frequent intervals she sat herself down before it and indulged in a jamboree ... — Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer Read full book for free!
... a hang-dog air but in his eyes was that same wistfulness of unspoken worship. Brent knew that he was trying to explain to Alexander his torture of self accusation because of the disaster born of his ... — A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck Read full book for free!
... terrible demoralisation. Continuous exhausting toil, day after day, year after year, is not calculated to develop the intellectual and moral capabilities of the human being. The wearisome routine of endless drudgery, in which the same mechanical process is ever repeated, is like the torture of Sisyphus; the burden of toil, like the rock, is ever falling back upon the worn-out drudge. The mind attains neither knowledge nor the power of thought from the eternal employment of the same muscles. The ... — The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels Read full book for free!
... at one another and said: 'Who of us is sure? Who will stand torture that we may not be made to play and sing ... — An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko Read full book for free!
... Iroquois, whose arms have always wielded a tomahawk against them, and who, in their turn, have encountered their deadly vengeance, confess them very brave, and, whenever they make them captives, honour them with the prolonged torture, which it is the right of the brave and valiant only ... — Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones Read full book for free!
... penance. Anticipating the glory of extirpating heresy, he is feeling the sharp edge of an axe, to be employed in the decollation of the enemies to the true faith. A sledge is laden with whips, wheels, ropes, chains, gibbets, and other inquisitorial engines of torture, which are admirably calculated for the propagation of a religion that was established in meekness and mercy, and inculcates universal charity and forbearance. On the same sledge is an image of St. Anthony, accompanied by his pig, and the plan of ... — The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler Read full book for free!
... I've track'd her to her covert. How will the young Numidian rave to see His mistress lost! If aught could glad my soul, Beyond the enjoyment of so bright a prize, 'Twould be to torture that young, gay barbarian. —But, hark! what noise! Death to my hopes! 'tis he, 'Tis Juba's self! there is ... — Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison Read full book for free!
... that in days of yore ye were 290 dear unto the King of glory, loved of the Lord and strong in his service. And lo! ye of this knowledge unwisely and perversely cast Him forth when ye cursed Him who thought to loose you from your curse, your torture of fire, your servile bondage, 295 through the might of His glory. Foully ye spat upon the face of Him who by his noble spittle wrought anew the light of your eyes, the cure of 300 your blindness, and saved you oft from the ... — The Elene of Cynewulf • Cynewulf Read full book for free!
...torture the betrothed Katrine felt is not to be told. Three years were to her an eternity; and her imagination called up such visions of danger from wounds, privations, and disease, that she parted from her lover as though it were forever. The miller ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various Read full book for free!
... turn pale, and answered nothing, he laughed scornfully, turned his horse's head, and rode off in another direction. After that the sight of Brother Jonathan became torture to me. I always read the terrible accusation in his face, although he has never uttered it; and I soon found he was equally obnoxious to my wife. Indeed, she actually hated him; for, as she told me, he had persecuted her with his love, long before I had ever been to Don Manuel's. She shunned him ... — Sister Carmen • M. Corvus Read full book for free!
... work of a long period of time. After nearly three years of strenuous effort, the Constituent Assembly had come to an end. With Mirabeau as its master spirit, it had done much, some evil, but a great deal that was good. It had suppressed torture, done away with secret letters, and lightened the burden of many grievous taxes. Now, the one man who was able to deal with the crisis if any man was, the aristocrat who had become the darling of the rabble, the "little mother" ... — The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner Read full book for free!
... kindness, goodness! Why was such a rascal as I born, ever to give her soft bosom a moment's uneasiness? Why am I cursed? I, who would undergo all the plagues and miseries which any daemon ever invented for mankind, to procure her any good; nay, torture itself could not be misery to me, did I but know that she was happy."—"Why, look you there now," says the landlady; "I told her you was a constant lovier."—"But pray, madam, tell me when or where you knew anything of me; for I never ... — The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding Read full book for free!
... that which maiden modesty doth warrant, Let all my sins lack mercy! O, my father! Prove you that any man with me convers'd At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight Maintain'd the change of words with any creature, Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death. ... — Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition] Read full book for free!
... first day aboard came back to the lad and made him shudder. There had been stories current among the men that gave a glimpse of how Stede Bonnet dealt with those who were treacherous. Which of a dozen awful deaths was in store for him? Ah, if only they would spare the torture, he thought that he could die bravely, a worthy scion of dauntless stock. He thought of Job who must have been seized in his bunk below. The poor fellow was to have short happiness in his changed way ... — The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader Read full book for free!
... had talents which we lack, and it is not without reason that some good folk cry out that the decline has come. We no longer know how to sculpture living human flesh; this is consequent on the loss of the art of torture. Men were once virtuosi in that respect, but are so no longer; the art has become so simplified that it will soon disappear altogether. In cutting the limbs of living men, in opening their bellies and in dragging out their entrails, phenomena were grasped on the moment and ... — The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo Read full book for free!
... a storm of epigrams. Her speeches, like bullets, came hissing past his ears. Every word that Diane hurled at him was triple-barbed; she humiliated, stung, and wounded him with an art that was all her own, as half a score of savages can torture an enemy ... — The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... and crimes. No man's life, if narrowly scrutinized by an unfavorable and prejudiced criticism, but will afford ground for accusation. Then, too, facts may be perverted, circumstances may be made to bear a meaning that does not really belong to them, and fear and torture may force the weak to say anything that they are required. And, finally, the evidence and the judgment of those who have everything to gain by the condemnation of those whom they accuse, must always be viewed with suspicion by sober and truth-loving minds. Moreover, in judging the Templars, ... — The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various Read full book for free!
... are conversant about the centre of the earth to torture the souls of damned men to the day of judgment; their egress and regress some suppose to be about Etna, Lipari, Mons Hecla in Iceland, Vesuvius, Terra del Fuego, &c., because many shrieks and fearful cries are continually heard thereabouts, and ... — The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior Read full book for free!
... scarcely gave them any relief. They began to experience the cravings of thirst. The butte still appeared at a great distance—at least ten miles off. What, if on reaching it, they should find no water? This thought, combined with the torture they were already enduring, was enough to fill them with apprehension ... — The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid Read full book for free!
... God! why should the thought of death With terror make me shiver? 'Tis he who'll from the yoke beneath Of mis'ry me deliver. From torture He Will set me free, I can regret ... — Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt Read full book for free!
... had no mind to swallow the insult and become a mere ward of Hanbridge. Bursley would die fighting. Both Constance and Sophia were bitter opponents of Federation. They would have been capable of putting Federationists to the torture. Sophia in particular, though so long absent from her native town, had adopted its cause with characteristic vigour. And when Dr. Stirling wished to practise his curative treatment of taking the sisters 'out of themselves,' he had only to start ... — The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett Read full book for free!
... by inch as he had entered, would subject him to the full fury of the flames. Oh, they would sear and destroy him quickly if he tried to creep through them! All night they had been mocking him with their cheerful crackle; they had only been waiting for this chance to torture him. He had to spring high to enter the little hole at all; there was no way to dodge the flames outside. But he might knock the logs apart and put the ... — The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall Read full book for free!
... Desdemona, learns, too late, that he has been deceived, and kills himself. Cassio's character is cleared. Iago is led away to torture. ... — William Shakespeare • John Masefield Read full book for free!
... how I ran! and took My baby to my breast! I lingered—and the long lash broke My sleeping infant's rest. I worked till night—till darkest night, In torture and disgrace; Went home, and watched till morning light, ... — The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark Read full book for free!
... work they could not even wipe off their faces—they were as helpless as newly born babes in that respect; and it may seem like a small matter, but when the sweat began to run down their necks and tickle them, or a fly to bother them, it was a torture like being burned alive. Whether it was the slaughterhouses or the dumps that were responsible, one could not say, but with the hot weather there descended upon Packingtown a veritable Egyptian plague of flies; there could ... — The Jungle • Upton Sinclair Read full book for free!
... it was in vain to attempt arguing with her aunts. She therefore allowed them to wonder and declaim over their sucking pots, colic powders, and other instruments of torture, while she sent to the wife of one of her tenants who had lately lain-in, and who wished for the situation of nurse, appointing her to be at Lochmarlie the following day. Having made her arrangements, and collected the scanty portion of clothing Mrs. Nurse chose to allow, Mrs. Douglas ... — Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier Read full book for free!
... sentence: "Thou shalt suffer anguish in childbirth and grievous torture. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and in the hour of travail, when thou art near to lose thy life, thou wilt confess and cry, 'Lord, Lord, save me this time, and I will never again indulge in carnal pleasure,' and yet thy desire ... — The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg Read full book for free!
... accused one to stamp it. If this was done freely the person was allowed freedom, for they said no Christian would step on the face of Christ. If the accused one refused to do this the horrors of his torture were so great that death was a release. The writer of these lines has seen some of those old footplates that have been preserved ... — Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols Read full book for free!
... inquire whether I deserved to be so treated, fair kinsman?" answered Quentin; "and you, my lord, know that I am no tale bearer; nor shall either question or torture draw out of me a word to King Louis's prejudice, which may have come to my knowledge while I was in his service.—So far my oath of duty keeps me silent. But I will not remain in that services ... — Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott Read full book for free!
... not the sort of persecution you will be subjected to. The time of such cruel torture is over. The world has become Christian in name, but in heart it is ... — The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould Read full book for free!
... thou robbedst of his silvers and leftest with me sick in the closet doing such and such by him?" And the workmen said to him, "Is not this he whom thou badest us seize and beat?" Therewith Abu Kir's baseness was made manifest to the King and he was certified that he merited torture yet sorer than the torments of Munkar and Nakr.[FN228] So he said to his guards, "Take him and parade him about the city and the markets;"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her ... — The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton Read full book for free!
... sweet Harriet," said the young man, "I leave you; and though it is torture to me to be away from your side, yet I have resolved never again to see you until I have made the most perfect search for your brother; until I can win a dearer embrace than any I have yet received, by placing him ... — Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton Read full book for free!
... Frenchman in a seal-skin cap with a braided hood over it, once our travelling companion in the coupe aforesaid, who, waking up with a pale and crumpled visage, and looking ruefully out at the grim row of breakers enjoying themselves fanatically on an instrument of torture called 'the Bar,' inquired of us whether we were ever sick at sea? Both to prepare his mind for the abject creature we were presently to become, and also to afford him consolation, we replied, 'Sir, your servant is always sick when it ... — Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... or a loch-trout. They of Kennet and Test know a good deal better than to approach your wet flies. A few minutes of this failure reduce the novice to the despair of Tantalus. He never was set to such a torture as casting over big feeding trout and never getting a rise. You feel inclined to throw your fly-book bodily at the heads of the trout and bid them take their choice of its contents. That method of angling would be quite as successful as angling for large southern trout ... — Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang Read full book for free!
... not come. Ask yourself how many unhappy hours Keats has caused you in loneliness. For myself I have been a martyr the whole time, and for this reason I speak; the confession is forced from me by the torture. I appeal to you by the blood of Christ you believe in. Do not write to me if you have done anything this month which it would have harried me to have seen. You may have altered—if you have not—if you still behave in dancing rooms and other societies ... — Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters Read full book for free!
... one in marriage. Teach her to love you so that she cannot exist without you. But if the matter becomes known to her mother she will have you burned in the fire. Then you must beg, as a last favour, that your body may be anointed with oil so that you may burn the more quickly and be spared torture. If the peri-king allows this favour, we two will manage to be your anointers, and we will put an oil on you such that if you were a thousand years in the fire not a trace ... — The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang Read full book for free!
... of the Harpies, and each dull-hued poisonous twig bleeds with red blood before us, and cries aloud with bitter cries. Out of a horn of fire Odysseus speaks to us, and when from his sepulchre of flame the great Ghibelline rises, the pride that triumphs over the torture of that bed becomes ours for a moment. Through the dim purple air fly those who have stained the world with the beauty of their sin, and in the pit of loathsome disease, dropsy-stricken and swollen ... — Intentions • Oscar Wilde Read full book for free!
... edge of the bank trying hard to collect my wits and recover from a fainting spell. We finally managed to get the boat back and around the bend where we lay concealed for some time, suffering the torture of Hades. I finally crawled to the top of the bank and with field glass surveyed the locality in every direction. No life was visible, still the unearthly noise kept up, and the feeling of those two lone travelers would be impossible to describe. The thought ... — Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young Read full book for free!
... Gallese, which is halfway between Orvieto and Rome. In this solitude, Violante and Marcello were finally surprised under circumstances which made their guilt certain, and final confession was obtained from Marcello after he had been arrested and subjected to torture. Thereupon the duke sought him out in his prison, and stabbed him and threw his body into the prison sewer. The pope, Paul IV., was the duke's uncle; and upon being told what his nephew had done, he showed no surprise, but asked significantly: "And what have they done with the duchess?" Murder, under ... — Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger Read full book for free!
... that to which he had looked forward. From the beginning he regretted coming; before the end it was slow torture for him. He was out of place and felt more out of place than he was. Glances at his carelessly purchased clothes were veiled, and never utterly impolite, but he was conscious of them. He was conspicuous because he was different; outwardly in garb, inwardly in much else. There was ... — The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory Read full book for free!
... society columns by the yard? The papers were six months old, to be sure, when I got them, but every mention of you was like a knife stab to me. Jealousy drove me to memorize the name of every man with whom you were seen in public, and I called down all sorts of curses upon their heads. I used to torture my lonely soul with ... — The Silver Horde • Rex Beach Read full book for free!
... Mouth, her Neck, her Hand, her Hair, a Majesty and Grace in every Motion, compleated my Undoing; I rav'd, I burnt, I languish'd with Desire, the holy Place cou'd scarce contain my Madness: with Pain, with Torture, I restrain'd my Passion when she retir'd, led sadly from the Altar. I, mixing with the Croud, enquir'd her Name and Country; her Servant told me, that she was of Quality, and liv'd in England, nay, in this very Town: ... — The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn Read full book for free!
... to evil to do good, even for evil's sake," said the old man. "The thing that he would is done already. The wound that he would make is already bleeding; the heart he is gone to break is broken; the soul that he would torture... — The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford Read full book for free!
... if it could be that they were taking him to some desert spring, where they meant to tie him to die of thirst in sight of water. The alkali plain held many forms of torture, as he knew. ... — 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart Read full book for free!
... melancholy little carts which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture. ... — Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood Read full book for free!
... when he had tormented her, waiting to be coaxed back to love and smiles again. The hard man's eyes filled with tears, as he thought of it. He watched the deep, tearless sobs that shook her breast: he had wounded her to death,—his bonny Margret! She was like a dead thing now: what need to torture her longer? Let him be manly and go out to his solitary life, taking the remembrance of what he had done with him for company. He rose uncertainly,—then came to her: was that ... — Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis Read full book for free!
... the emperor's lictors, Through suspect of being a Christian, In lone deserts wild and dismal Lives a saintly savage life, He will give to all my wishes The solution of these doubts:— And till then, O restless thinking Torture me and tease no more! Let me live for that! ... — The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca Read full book for free!
... from which escaped accents of veritable torture; a delirium of tone followed, meagre melodies fighting for existence in the boiling madness of it all; it was the parody of a parody, the music of yesterday masquerading as the music of to-morrow. Alixe nervously watched the critic. He stood at the ... — Visionaries • James Huneker Read full book for free!
... Some other pleasures: these to me are none. Why do I prate Of women, that are things against my fate! I never mean to wed That torture to my bed: My Muse is she My love shall be. Let clowns get wealth and heirs: when I am gone And that great bugbear, grisly Death, Shall take this idle breath, If I a poem leave, that poem is ... — Book of English Verse • Bulchevy Read full book for free!
... and Antwerp, and I saw no end of new wonders, of course, and in Brussels we went to the opera. I did wish Molly was there, for she certainly would have thought she had struck Heaven, and I did, pretty nearly! I'm getting used to my dress-suit, and it isn't quite such an exquisite piece of torture to "do" my tie as it was at first, since Flora did it for me one night, and gave me some little hints for the future. She is ... — The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes Read full book for free!
... beginning of June, and the cuckoo at this time of the summer scarcely ceased his cry for more than two or three hours during the night. The bird's note, so familiar to her ears from infancy, was now absolute torture to the poor girl. On the Friday following the Wednesday of Melbury's departure, and the day after the discovery of Fitzpiers's hat, the cuckoo began at two o'clock in the morning with a sudden cry from ... — The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy Read full book for free!
... reenforcement of immense magnitude to our little army (if I may so call it), but we would not think of them. We were now in the situation that I had labored to get ourselves in. The idea of being made prisoner was foreign to almost every man, as they expected nothing but torture from the savages, if they fell into their hands. Our fate was now to be determined, probably in a few hours. We knew that nothing but the most daring conduct ... — Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester Read full book for free!
... suppress a detail of his own days in Sydney, down to the attractions of an Italian restaurant he had discovered near the jail, the flavor of the Chianti and so forth. On the contrary, it was most interesting to note the play of features in the tortured man, who after all brought his torture on himself by asking so many questions. Soon, when his visitor left him, the bondman could follow the free in all but the flesh, through every corridor of the prison and every street outside, to the ... — Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung Read full book for free!
... were so like each other in anything," said Charles; "oh, the misery I have endured, in having to stand up to dance, and to walk about with a partner!—everybody looking at me, and I so awkward. It has been a torture to me ... — Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman Read full book for free!
... certain that the torture was over, his hopes were suddenly destroyed. The three Venerians approached again, each bearing a number of vessels containing germ cultures. These they placed on the table at Parkinson's side; then two of them withdrew, leaving the leader to continue his work. Uttering a few words in ... — Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various Read full book for free!
... into the bargain. Yes, Kate was his, and his only; and it was the resolve to keep her his, and thus spite his enemy as long as possible, that withheld Richard from seeking relief in suicide at this juncture. So Providence leads men from agony to worse agony, with intent, doubtless, to torture out of them the evil which they will ... — Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne Read full book for free!
... but I was still paralyzed in my left leg, and the only attention I required was daily massage for an hour, and then another hour in the torture-chamber with an electric current grilling me. After this was over, I would go into the city, do the block, have afternoon tea, give an address at the Town Hall recruiting-depot, go to a theatre, and then as ... — "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett Read full book for free!
... convulsed with shyness, the more that he knew that the unhappy Mary was listening with jealous ears. Charlotte, walking like Agag, "delicately," had a piteous expression in her eyes as though she were being led to the torture. ... — Jeremy • Hugh Walpole Read full book for free!
... when I come up, it de Lord's truth, I ain' know nothin but a decent livin all de time. My old Missus was a dear old soul en I been raise dat way. I hear talk bout how some of de white folks would bout torture dey niggers to death sometimes, but never didn' see my white folks allow nothin like dat. Dey would whip dey niggers dat runaway en stay in de woods, but not so worser. No, mam, my Missus wouldn' allow no slashin round bout whe' she was. ... — Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration Read full book for free!
... presently, but I have not finished my story yet. You see that wall?" Harry pointed to the wall between their cell and the one occupied by Miss Juanita. The consul nodded. "Behind that wall is a young woman—a Cuban sympathizer—who is awaiting torture, perhaps death, at the hands of her captors, because she will not betray the cause. And that young woman is Miss Juanita, the sweetheart of ... — A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich Read full book for free!
... hoped to find from the death of the one some means for preserving the life of the other. The councillor was in a violent fever, agitated unceasingly both in body and mind: he could not bear any position of any kind for more than a few minutes at a time. Bed was a place of torture; but if he got up, he cried for it again, at least for a change of suffering. At the end of three months he died. His stomach, duodenum, and liver were all in the same corrupt state as his brother's, and ... — CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE Read full book for free!
... such gravity have taken place as the murder of a man, and the culprits have been allowed to run away scot-free, without being arrested? Issue warrants, and despatch constables to at once lay hold of the relatives of the bloodstained criminals and bring them to be examined by means of torture." ... — Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin Read full book for free!
... have lived during the last four nights, Valentine," said the count. "But, oh, how I passed that time! Oh, the wretched hours I have endured—the torture to which I have submitted when I saw the deadly poison poured into your glass, and how I trembled lest you should drink it before I could find time to throw ... — The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere Read full book for free!
... resembling the mode of torture employed by Procrustes—a celebrated highwayman of ancient Attica, who tied his victims upon an iron bed, and, as the case required, either stretched out or cut off their legs to adapt ... — New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton Read full book for free!
... travelling on towards the land of freedom, led by the North Star, they were set upon by four of these slave-catchers, and one of them unfortunately captured. The other escaped. The captured fugitive was put under the torture, and compelled to reveal the name of his owner and his place of residence. Filled with delight, the kidnappers started back with their victim. Overjoyed with the prospect of receiving a large reward, they gave themselves up on the third night to pleasure. They put up at an inn. The Negro ... — Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown Read full book for free!
... very much interested in you, Miss Standish. It amuses me to see him torture the corners of his eyes to look at you. I have thought it would be only charity and good-will to change ... — The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood Read full book for free!
... the athletic and careless Indian would swing himself into the saddle, and in a few rough jerks teach the unruly animal to recognize a master. Of course, long before this, the rooster was dead, for at the first strong clutch his neck was broken, so that there was no unnecessary torture. The stream of riders flowed on, and at last one lucky fellow gave the right kind of a pull, and out came the rooster, to be swung around his head with a fierce yell ... — The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James Read full book for free!
... back upon the night with a horror that sleep had been kind enough to interrupt only at intervals. The wretched hostelry lived long in her secret catalogue of terrors. Her bed was not a bed; it was a torture. The room, the table, the—but it was all too odious for description. Fatigue was her only friend in that miserable hole. Aunt Fanny had slept on the floor near her mistress's cot, and it was the good old colored woman's grumbling that awoke Beverly. ... — Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon Read full book for free!
... home, and Guster will fetch him. Guster disappears, glad to get out of the shop, which she regards with mingled dread and veneration as a storehouse of awful implements of the great torture of the law—a place not to be entered after the gas is ... — Bleak House • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... inauspicious lip, and giving expression to a feeling that looked very like one of contempt or ridicule. "You come from the land of melancholy and bile—where your holidays are fasts, and your day of rest is one of unmitigated toil. You would be sorry to forego, no doubt, the prospect of everlasting torture and eternal condemnation. Mr Z—— is too far advanced for you, ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various Read full book for free!
... of health he resigned from the Chinese service and returned to America. For two years he lived in New York City, suffering in body without cessation the most exquisite torture. During that time his letters to his family show only tremendous courage. On the splintered, gaping deck of the Chen Yuen, with the fires below it, and the shells bursting upon it, he had shown to his Chinese crew the courage of the white man who knew he was responsible for them and ... — Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis Read full book for free!
... hear of my crossing the mountains without an escort, for he assured me that El Cuchillo, the Spanish guerilla chief, was out that way with his band, and that it meant a death by torture to fall into his hands. The old priest observed, however, that he did not think a French hussar would be deterred by that, and if I had had any doubts, they would of course have been decided ... — The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle Read full book for free!
... the woman's face; her cup had been full before; she had drunk her fill of grief; and this new horror, her husband struggling like a mouse in the bitter cold water, could not add a pang to her torture. All that I have described happened, of course, in a few seconds; the man had barely gone under before one of the ship's butchers, in his white clothes, was in after him. Let no one belittle the race of butchers. The life-taker knew how to save ... — The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young Read full book for free!
... wine the same as priests! To die for such absurdities when life is so beautiful and the heretic might have enjoyed it so richly with any of the plump-breasted, big-hipped blonde women, friends of the cardinals, who witnessed his torture! Unhappy apostle! Jaime ironically pitied the simplicity of the martyr. He looked at life through different eyes. Viva el amor! Love was the only thing worth while ... — The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez Read full book for free!
... he essayed to thrust his foot into my companion, which had been reduced to the same shrunken state as myself. In vain he tugged, swore, and strained; first with one, and then with another, until the stitches in our sides grinned with perfect torture; the perspiration rolled down his forehead—his eyes were staring, his teeth set, and every nerve in his body was quivering with his exertions—but still he ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various Read full book for free!
... and burning the royal proclamation. Corvinus had a narrow escape from the emperor's wrath, and his hatred of Pancratius increased. Unable to secure another victim, Corvinus seized his old schoolmaster and gave him up to torture and death at the hands of his pupils. On his return from this bloody expedition, Corvinus, drunken and reckless, was thrown from his chariot into a canal and would have drowned had not Pancratius rescued him. At that time Pancratius recovered the knife with which he had cut down the edict and which ... — Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester Read full book for free!
... nothing for it but to go bravely forward. Although it was unpleasant to have one's hair trimmed by an uncertain pair of rusty clippers, I could not help experiencing a feeling of relief that the convict did not have a pair of shears. He was working too near my jugular vein. Finally the period of torture came to an end, and the prisoner accepted his fees with a profound salutation. We breathed sighs of relief, not unmixed with sympathy, as we saw him marched safely away ... — Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham Read full book for free!
... had gathered round him, by his resolute bearing, his gentleness and patience, his steadfast adherence to the truths he had taught, and his heroic endurance of the fiery ordeal through which he had to pass to his rest and reward." The harrowing details of his six long hours of torture have been preserved for us by his friend Alesius, himself a sorrowing witness of the fearful tragedy. "He was rather roasted than burned," he tells us. It may be that his persecutors had not deliberately planned thus horribly to protract his sufferings—though ... — The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell Read full book for free!
... I laid them aside until the next occasion when I should feel disposed for self-torture, and got out of bed. A bath and breakfast braced me up, and I left the house in a reasonably ... — The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse Read full book for free!
... the companions of Agnes, the saints who served as her escort: three at her right—Dorothea, who was fed in prison by miraculous bread; Barbe, who lived in a tower; and Genevieve, whose heroism saved Paris: and three at her left—Agatha, whose breast was torn; Christina, who was put to torture by her father; and Cecilia, beloved by the angels. Above these were statues and statues; three close ranks mounting with the curves of the arches, decorating them with chaste triumphant figures, who, after the suffering and martyrdom of their earthly life, were welcomed by a host ... — The Dream • Emile Zola Read full book for free!
... in which I suffered, too," Eleanor replied, quietly. "Perhaps that is what drew us so closely together from the first. Four years of torture!" she continued, more to herself than to the ... — The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt Read full book for free!
... it must be literally removed from cares and noise, for it is impossible to study at all deeply while exposed to interruption. How terribly most of us have suffered from this form of mental torture, for it is little else! What trains of lucid thought, what word-pictures have been destroyed by thoughtless breakings of the chain of sequence! 'I have never known persons who exposed themselves for years to constant ... — The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan Read full book for free!
... regard them as education—not at the time. They got into his dreams. He set them down as warnings, or punishments, intended to give him a taste for a better life. He felt that it was his conscience that made such things torture him. That was his mother's idea, and he had a high respect for her opinion in such matters. Among other things, he had seen her one day defy a vicious and fierce Corsican—a common terror in the town—who had chased his grown daughter with ... — The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine Read full book for free!
... persisted in my resolve, and was whirled, more dead than alive, across the Continent to Berlin. In the period of three months I had traversed all the leading kingdoms and pushed my purpose to the sandy banks of the Nile. Every moment in this journey was an infinity of torture; but in the bitterest pangs I remembered the divine consummation, and kept on. My infirmities were increased rather than diminished. In the deepest thunder I could hear the delving of the beetle; and though the whole vault blazed with electric light, I could see the twinkle ... — Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend Read full book for free!
... myself capable: has brought the burning tears into my eyes which make it a hard task to write to you. All this I know, and yet I dare not believe in myself. It is useless to deny it, Carmina—I love him. Even now, when you have found me out, I love him. Don't trust me. Oh, God, what torture it is to write it—but I do write it, I will write ... — Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins Read full book for free!
... thine. Mistaken Caiaphas! Ah! which blasphem'd; Thou, or thy pris'ner? which shall be condemn'd? Well might'st thou rend thy garments, well exclaim; Deep are the horrors of eternal flame! But God is good! 'Tis wondrous all! Ev'n he Thou gav'st to death, shame, torture, died for thee. Now the descending triumph stops its flight From earth full twice a planetary height. There all the clouds condens'd, two columns raise Distinct with orient veins, and golden blaze. One fix'd ... — The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young Read full book for free!
... by Moll, who also had strong feeling to repress, and therefore could comprehend her father's torture, and she would often seize an opportunity, nay, run great risk of discovery, to hie her secretly to his room, there to throw herself in his arms and strain him to her heart, covering his great face with tender kisses, and whispering words ... — A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett Read full book for free!
... date, and on the ins and outs of different incidents during the insurrection, that was a severe tax on the memory of a wounded man. All that is positively known of the inquisition are the questions and Kosciuszko's replies. What lay beneath it—what were the means of moral torture wielded by those who conducted the inquiry, the pitfalls spread for a prisoner who lay helpless, racked by pain from the wound in his head; what was the ingenuity employed to wrest his answers from him, ... — Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner Read full book for free!
... blisters, and a very rending of her bones, so now she fell victim to them again. In sunshine and rain she faced the desert. Sunburn and sting of sleet were equally to be endured. And that abomination, the hateful blinding sandstorm, did not daunt her. But the weary hours of abnegation to this physical torture at least held one consoling recompense as compared with her experience of last year, and it was that there was no one interested to watch for her weaknesses and failures and blunders. She could ... — The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey Read full book for free!
... hues of the horizon thickened and deepened to a leaden-grey; the sun gleamed aloft pallid and rayless, like a ghost of its former self; and the ocean, black and turbid, heaved restlessly, writhing as if in torture. An intense and unnatural silence, too, seemed suddenly to have fallen upon nature, enwrapping the scene as with a mantle, a silence in which the flap of the canvas, the pattering of the reef- points, the ... — The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood Read full book for free!
... convicted under the Foreign Enlistment Act. Much sympathy was shown him by the vast British public, and little for the Reformers, who, whatever their part in the affair, had to suffer most. They endured mental torture, and bodily discomfort of all kinds—discomfort so acute that it brought on some active illness, and caused one to commit suicide. A Judge from the Orange Free State—Judge Gregorowski—who took an unctious joy in the proceedings, was imported to try them, and he revived ... — South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke Read full book for free!
... are innocent; she has boasted of a liberty which she does not possess, in order to clear you of the wrong which you have done in denying that liberty. The deafening rattle which your wife shakes will follow you everywhere with its obtrusive din. Your darling will stun you, will torture you, meanwhile arming herself by making you feel only the thorns of married life. She will greet you with a radiant smile in public, and will be sullen at home. She will be dull when you are merry, and will make you detest her merriment when you are moody. Your two faces ... — The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... street, engaged in that self-torture which is the chief recreation of unhappy lovers. He steeped his heart in gall by imagining Maud in love with another. His passion stimulated his slow wits into unwonted action, until his mind began to form exasperating ... — The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay Read full book for free!
... before. His failure had one advantage. It freed him from all of guilt. It served also to keep his expectations at an unusually high pitch, so that when the morning of the great day arrived at last, it seemed as if he were facing twelve long hours of actual torture. ... — The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman Read full book for free!
... he went to his dressing-room, had his bath, and went down to breakfast, half-desiring his wife's appearance, that he might begin his course of vindictive torture. He could not eat, and was just rising to go out, when the door opened, and the parlor-maid, who served also ... — Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald Read full book for free!
... dawned a broken-down man rose from the bedside of the deceased. He had spent the night in torture, and now went to wake the daughter of the dead woman—wake his daughter! He must take care of her without letting her know that ... — The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere Read full book for free!
... under me, and began to force on bigger mathematical flowers from my unhappy soil in the Doctor's scholastic hothouse, I began to feel as if I were blighted, and as if quadratic equations were instruments of torture... — Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn Read full book for free!
... sincere," Nancy cried; "women must have loved you deeply, tragically, and have suffered all the torture there is, at ... — Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley Read full book for free!
... closes abruptly with a story of a gang of them, which has all the horrors of rack and torture. In the Translator's sequel we find ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various Read full book for free!
... "I believe you 've kept her in this house like a bird in a cage, to torture her as you 've tortured me. Why did n't you send her away, when you discovered I 'd been making ... — The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins Read full book for free!
... heart to push his inquiries farther. He felt that he had no right to remain any longer, when in all probability his presence was a torture to the ... — Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon Read full book for free!
... shine upon the black And hideous structure of the guillotine; Beside the haloed countenance of saints There hangs the multiple and knotted lash. The Christ of love, benign and beautiful, Looks at the torture-rack, by hate conceived And bigotry sustained. The prison cell, With blood-stained walls, where starving men went mad, Lies under turrets matchless in ... — Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox Read full book for free!
... necessity of making a living for himself and family to remain away from church, meditated sorrowfully as he followed his plow, and often at the end of his furrow fell upon his knees and besought the Creator to save his undying soul and spare him the everlasting torture of the damned. A popular little gift book, published by the American Tract Society of New York, was entitled Passing Over Jordan, and on an early page we find the ... — Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd Read full book for free!
... was the pillar which always raised the queen up again, when the torture of her daily life cast her to the ground. She would, she must live for her children. She must, so long as a breath remained in her, devote all her powers to retain for her son the dauphin at least the crown beneath whose burden his father sank. She wanted ... — Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach Read full book for free!
... through his tongue. Some thrust iron bars and burning coals into their sides. The boldest mount a wooden scaffold and throw themselves down upon iron spikes beneath, stuck in bags of sand. It is very painful to fall upon these spikes; but there is another way of torture quite as painful—it is the swing. Those who determine to swing, allow the blacksmith to drive hooks into the flesh upon their backs, and hanging by these hooks they swing in the air for ten minutes, or even for half ... — Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer Read full book for free!
... and as lightly as a bird might fly. Three minutes brought her in sight of Hickory Bush, a grove of trees straggling up from the flat in the moonlight, and resembling a congregation of witches with draggled hair, suffering torture. Beyond the trees shone a cluster of white camps; and the girl's heart gave a great bound as she saw by the order prevailing there, that the inmates had been so far unmolested. She sprang into the midst of ... — Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins Read full book for free!
... know what to do with a tenth part of this silver, senor. It would never do for me to make a show of being rich; the authorities would seize me, and perhaps torture me to make me reveal ... — The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty Read full book for free!
... to throw any light on its origin. With a little ingenuity, one might, perhaps, torture some such notion out of certain fantastic sentences of Plato. In the Symposium (par. 192), however, God is represented as putting obstacles in the way of the union of fitting lovers, in consequence of the wickedness of mankind. When ... — The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams Read full book for free!
... came. To-day I am out of bed for the first time since. I wish I were not a boy; then I could stand shocks better. They all think he went west. I start to-night, in a wagon—two or three hours of that, then I get a train. I don't know where I'm going, but I must go; to try to keep still would be torture. ... — A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain Read full book for free!
... work he had.' Why, to talk of individual freedom and equality of opportunity under a system of cannibalistic competition like this is like the mocking laughter of a raving maniac gloating over the torture of the victim it holds in its murderous grip."[45] In another popular pamphlet the worker is told: "After all, John, does it not strike you that there is some foul iniquity in a system which allows one part of the community to do another portion of it to death and ... — British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker Read full book for free!
... administrator who filled his place, having refused to remove the interdict which had been pronounced against certain confraternities which admitted members of the secret societies, was condemned on 25th April, 1875, to six years of forced penal labor. Four years of the like torture were decreed against the administrator of Olinda for a similar offence. So much for the humanitarian Emperor of Brazil and his ... — Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell Read full book for free!
... despair when he felt this relation between Warren and himself. Something within him cried out to him to reveal his identity. Warren would kill him; but it was not fear of death that put Cameron on the rack. He had faced death too often to be afraid. It was the thought of adding torture to this long-suffering man. All at once Cameron swore that he would not augment Warren's trouble, or let him stain his hands with blood. He would tell the truth of Nell's sad story and his own, and make what amends ... — Desert Gold • Zane Grey Read full book for free!
... not change this marble statue into a woman of flesh and blood, with heart and soul? These lips are ready to smile, to utter a cry of rapture and delight, and behind the veil of my eyes lies a soul, which one touch of thine will arouse! O Frederick! Frederick! why do you torture me? Do you not know that your wife worships, loves, adores you; that you are her salvation, her god? Oh, I know these are unholy, sinful words! what then? I am a sinner! I am ready to give my soul in exchange for thee, Frederick. Why do you not hear me?—why have not my sighs, my ... — Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach Read full book for free!
... And, since you want me to specify the reason, you understand that I am not going to torture my brain to turn it into a romance for you, or commence by recounting in the naturalistic manner of what stuff my first trousers were made, or, as the neo-Catholics would have it, how often I went as a child to confession, ... — Atlantida • Pierre Benoit Read full book for free!
... The bitter experiences of her whole existence, the struggle to live, the never-ending physical suffering, the long-continued bodily and mental torture had, as it were, cut her loose from life and placed her above it. Her education, the things she had seen, the spectacle of what seemed the end of everything, the Revolution, had so formed her character as to lead her to disdain human suffering. And this old woman, who had nothing ... — Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt Read full book for free!
... weight. It bent first just a little—then more. Then for a long moment it hung motionless, or with but the faintest quiver of vibration. Then, out of the sightless cavern came the screeching sound of metal scraping upon metal—a wild sound, like the torture of some inarticulate thing; a dull, grinding noise followed, and at last, out of the steaming furnace which the lower part of the train shed was now become, came the dull roar of some ... — White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble Read full book for free!
... she mused, "that torture of life must be passed on to coming generations for their unhappiness, their grief, their misery. I presume it was necessary that there should be this plan of the general blindness ... — 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough Read full book for free!
... He entered upon great possessions, in money, land, and houses; but behind his delight stood a ghost that cried out that his enjoyment of these things should not be of long duration. It was the ghost of the rich relative, who had been permitted to return to earth to torture his nephew into the grave. Wherefore, under the spur of this constant reminder, John Hay, always preserving the air of heavy business-like stolidity that hid the shadow on his mind, turned investments, houses, and lands into sovereigns—-rich, round, red, English ... — Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling Read full book for free!
... away, yet now present in his heart, else he would have noticed more particularly the appearance of her whom he addressed. The reader would have seen at once that she received his declaration of love for another like a death blow, that she sat there and heard him go on as one would sit under torture; yet by the strong force of her character subduing almost entirely all outward emotions. There was no disguising it to a careful observer, she, the Countess Moranza, ... — The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray Read full book for free!
... fathers, as a matter of course—then this man is rewarded by an eternity of bliss, happiness and joy—without end. Try to think of what ETERNITY means—think of the aeons upon aeons of time, on and on, and on, forever—and the poor sinner is suffering exquisite torture all that time, and in all time to come, without limit, respite, without mercy! And all the same time, the "good" man is enjoying his blissful state, without limit, or end, or satiety! And the time of probation, during which the two worked out their future fate, ... — Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson Read full book for free!
... after being well treated by his lord. But the punishment suggested by Jesus for the abominable conduct was extremely harsh: "And his lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him." Torture for criminals was ... — The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd Read full book for free!
... (abominable!): "unprovender'd:" "such his tale:" "Ah! suffering to the height of what was suffer'd" (a most insufferable line): "amazements of affright:" "the hot sore brain attributes its own hues of ghastliness and torture" (what shocking confusion of ideas!). In these delineations of common & natural feelings, in the familiar walks of poetry, you seem to resemble Montauban dancing with Roubigne's tenants, "much of his native loftiness remained in the ... — The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas Read full book for free!
... sense of the great and liberal change in laws concerning married women since 1848. I am no more approving of or admiring the old English common law, or the canon law, concerning women, than I am approving of or admiring the law that came to light recently in the Transvaal and would have allowed the torture of Jameson and his men, who, as a matter of fact, were allowed to go almost unpunished. The law of the Dutch Government in Africa belonged to the Middle Ages; their conduct belonged to to-day. I only believe that at the time when it was possible ... — Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson Read full book for free!
... hardly a crime that was not laid at the door of Barneveld and all his kindred. The man who had borne a matchlock in early youth against the foreign tyrant in days when unsuccessful rebellion meant martyrdom and torture; who had successfully guided the councils of the infant commonwealth at a period when most of his accusers were in their cradles, and when mistake was ruin to the republic; he on whose strong arm the father of his country had leaned for support; the man who had organized a political ... — The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley Read full book for free!
... those adjustments of the human sense-organs, which he so eloquently describes as implying pre-arrangement, Mr. Martineau had described the countless elaborate appliances which enable parasites to torture animals immeasurably superior to them, and which, from his point of view, no less imply pre-arrangement, I think the notes of admiration which end his descriptions would not have seemed to ... — Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer Read full book for free!
... though he may lead a domestic life. Such a man is purged of all his sins. Fasts and other penances cannot destroy sins, however much they may weaken and dry up the body that is made of flesh and blood. The man whose heart is without holiness, suffers torture only by undergoing penances in ignorance of their meaning. He is never freed from sins of such acts. The fire he worshippeth doth not consume his sins. It is in consequence of holiness and virtue alone that ... — The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli Read full book for free!
... of the torture that she suffered paralyzed all outward expression of pain. Quietly she put the book back on the table. Quietly she touched him, and called him ... — The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins Read full book for free!
... common people stumbled along in the dark. The laws, moreover, were full of injustice and cruelty. An offender might have his hand or ear cut off, or his tongue torn out; he might be burned with red-hot irons or have molten lead poured into his flesh. Hanging was an easy death compared to the lingering torture of having one's bones broken on ... — A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes Read full book for free!
... destruction wherever they set foot. Something must be done to protect the wagon-trains on the Santa Fe Trail. I have already lost part of two valuable loads this season, and Narveo has lost three. But the appalling loss of property is nothing compared to the terror and torture to human life. The settlers on the frontier claims are being massacred daily. The Governor of Kansas is doing all he can to get some action from the army leaders at Washington. But you haven't been in military service for six years without finding out that some army leaders are flesh and blood, ... — Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter Read full book for free!
... fight, and the knives were required only for cutting the tent ropes or, in case of discovery, to enable them to take a life or two before they fell, fighting. Each had sworn to kill himself, if he found escape impossible, in order to escape a death by torture if he fell alive into the hands ... — For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty Read full book for free!
... infliction of serious cruelties. As assignees of Spain, we seem to have succeeded not only to her properties but to her policies in the treatment of subject races. We do not know that in the greatest excesses of the bad colonial government of Spaniards they ever inflicted a torture more exquisite than that of the "water cure." How many of the perpetrators of these atrocities have been adequately punished, or how many ... — The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume Read full book for free!
... the temporary glow of success fading before the torture of aching feet, "I don't see that they helped very much when they were here. We did the suggesting, and all they did was to laugh ... — The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope Read full book for free!
... among disagreeable trades, like cleaning sewers; but a cynic might contend that the pleasures of vindictiveness and moral superiority are so great that there is no difficulty in finding well-to-do elderly gentlemen who are willing, without pay, to send helpless wretches to the torture of prison. And apart from enjoyment of the work itself, desire for the good opinion of neighbors and for the feeling of effectiveness is quite sufficient to ... — Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell Read full book for free!
... will you not change this marble statue into a woman of flesh and blood, with heart and soul? These lips are ready to smile, to utter a cry of rapture and delight, and behind the veil of my eyes lies a soul, which one touch of thine will arouse! O Frederick! Frederick! why do you torture me? Do you not know that your wife worships, loves, adores you; that you are her salvation, her god? Oh, I know these are unholy, sinful words! what then? I am a sinner! I am ready to give my soul in exchange for thee, Frederick. Why do you not hear me?—why have not my sighs, my tears the power ... — Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach Read full book for free!
... you torture me so? Sometimes I think you care for me; sometimes that you hate and detest ... — The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths Read full book for free!
... passion, understanding, devotion—more capable of giving herself wholly and greatly to a mate—than any girl could be. The well of life still poured its flood into her! Her husband could never know that agony of longing, those arms stretched out to—what? When would this torture of defeated capacity be ended—when had God set the ... — Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938) Read full book for free!
... swallowing, appetite, digestion, etc.; and the result of its failure to function would create coughing, choking, indigestion—separately or in combination. Its mental functions include the expression of shame, desire, disgust, grief, torture, ... — Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann Read full book for free!
... "It is right that I should know, and you too! It is meet that such deeds should be made known to the world: my sister was taken by these men, but less fortunate than my husband she had life enough left for torture—she too is dead now; M. de Puisaye adds: Thank God! And that is all that I can ... — The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle Read full book for free!
... souls are blown "about the pendent world." Shakspere may indeed have heard some of the old tales of a hot and cold purgatory, such as that of Drithelm, given by Bede,[91] whence (rather than from Dante) Milton drew his idea of an alternate torture.[92] But there again, the correspondence is only partial; whereas in Montaigne's APOLOGY OF RAIMOND SEBONDE we find, poetry apart, nearly every notion that enters into ... — Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson Read full book for free!
... purpose. When the slave-hunters sought for corn, they were in the habit of catching the villagers and roasting their posteriors by holding them down on the mouth of a large earthen water jar filled with gloving embers. If this torture of roasting alive did not extract the secret, they generally cut the sufferer's throat to terrify his companion, who would then divulge the position of the hidden stores to avoid a similar fate. This accusation was corroborated by Mohammed, ... — Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker Read full book for free!
... shortness of face makes the dog appear smaller in head and less formidable than he otherwise would be. Formerly this shortness of face was artificially obtained by the use of the "jack," an atrocious form of torture, by which an iron instrument was used to force back the face by means of thumbscrews. The nose should be rough, large, broad, and black, and this colour should extend to the lower lip; its top should be deeply set back, almost between the eyes. The distance from ... — Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton Read full book for free!
... will never call you ridiculous, but I shall think you hate me if you make me pass another night in torture. You have inflamed me." ... — The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt Read full book for free!
... compared with my kaleidoscopic movements among the swashy seas. Many visions were before me that night, of the numerous little sufferers who are daily slung backwards and forwards in those pernicious instruments of torture called cradles. ... — Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop Read full book for free!
... who had a vague idea it might be some kind of marine torture, like keel-hauling in ... — "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling Read full book for free!
... One torture was over, another on. Crack after crack sounded from the forest—from here and there and everywhere, it seemed—and with a song that like a hurtling insect ran the scale of notes, the bullets buried themselves in the trunk of our oak with a chug. Once ... — The Crossing • Winston Churchill Read full book for free!
... it repeatedly; but though her heart longed to believe, her mind remained unconvinced. She shrank from all mention of the subject with her step-mother, knowing how one-sided a partisan she would be, but could not deny herself the self-torture of questioning Lola again. The child relentlessly stuck to her text, painting the scene with a vividness that did credit to her descriptive powers; and being one of those vivacious and ubiquitous children never to be sufficiently ... — Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston Read full book for free!
... That its educated followers no longer believed in a physical Hell, that its more advanced clergy had entered into a conspiracy of silence on the subject was no answer. The great mass of the people were not educated. Official Christendom in every country still preached the everlasting torture of the majority of the human race as a well thought out part of the Creator's scheme. No leader had been bold enough to come forward and denounce it as an insult to his God. As one grew older, kindly ... — All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome Read full book for free!
... me now to let go my hold on work, on this bitter effort to succeed, on this vain, useless striving for recognition, and sink into some humble position which would supply the necessities for a quiet obscure existence—shared with this woman. The weeks, months, years, passed now, wasted, in a dull torture, in a low fever, filled with long, dragging hopes, expectations, possibilities, and no realities. Better sweep all these away and settle into a level, solid existence, contented with the simple natural pleasures that life offers without striving for. Contented! ... — To-morrow? • Victoria Cross Read full book for free!
... be enchanters, and who carried magicians' wands, and wore, each of them, about his neck, what he told the ignorant people was a Serpent's egg in a golden case. But it is certain that the Druidical ceremonies included the sacrifice of human victims, the torture of some suspected criminals, and, on particular occasions, even the burning alive, in immense wicker cages, of a number of men and animals together. The Druid Priests had some kind of veneration for the Oak, and for the mistletoe—the same plant that we hang up in houses at Christmas Time now—when ... — A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... with all his best energies burnt out in those weird orgies beneath the water; and his bridal vow is a hollow one, for when he utters it he hears the shriek of the Lurline blending with the wedding music, and his nightly couch is to be henceforth a torture of unrest—his ride by day a mere hopeless fleeing from the ghosts ... — Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford Read full book for free!
... the night he woke. Some sound was threatening him. It was London, coming to get him and torture him. The light in his room was dusty, mottled, gray, lifeless. He saw his door, half ajar, and for some moments lay motionless, watching stark and bodiless heads thrust themselves through the opening and withdraw ... — Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis Read full book for free!
... anisette, and talk of something else—your trip, your family. No? no? You are only asking me out of politeness! You are so aimable, so kind. Well, if you are not ennuyee—in fact, I want to tell you. It was too long to write, and I detest a pen. To me there is no instrument of torture like a pen. ... — Balcony Stories • Grace E. King Read full book for free!
... conversant about the centre of the earth to torture the souls of damned men to the day of judgment; their egress and regress some suppose to be about Etna, Lipari, Mons Hecla in Iceland, Vesuvius, Terra del Fuego, &c., because many shrieks and fearful cries are continually heard thereabouts, and familiar apparitions ... — The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior Read full book for free!
... advantage of the fact that their prey was compelled to swerve to the left, began to close in, bringing themselves in such close proximity that Bart could see the fierce, vindictive faces, the flashing eyes, and eager clutching hands, ready to torture them should they ... — The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn Read full book for free!
... he ordered, growling in Hindustanee through his savage black mustache. "I have yet to hear what price a Hindu sets on immunity from torture!" ... — Told in the East • Talbot Mundy Read full book for free!
... possible absurdity in the way of preparation for this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I bought. My boots might be placed in any collection of instruments of torture. I provided, and sent down by the Norwood coach the night before, a delicate little hamper, amounting in itself, I thought, almost to a declaration. There were crackers in it with the tenderest mottoes that could be got for ... — David Copperfield • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... hastened to the barbarians' camp, and in his pontifical robes, sought the mercy of the unrelenting and savage foe. But he could secure no better terms, than that the unresisting should be spared, the buildings protected from fire, and the captives from torture. But this promise was only partially fulfilled. The pillage lasted fourteen days and fourteen nights, and all that the Goths had spared was transported to the ships of Genseric. The statues of the old pagan gods, which adorned the capitol, ... — Ancient States and Empires • John Lord Read full book for free!
... means to obtain this favor for me? Swear it to me, monseigneur, that I may bless your name, and that, even under torture, nothing may escape but a thanksgiving ... — The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere) Read full book for free!
... pictures in this gallery of various glory. It is sublime in its ample outline, and exquisitely tender in its details. It is charged with many precious lessons, which flow freely at the gentlest touch; and it is cruel to put it to the torture to compel it to give meanings which it ... — The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot Read full book for free!
... to sophistry. He threw up his hands with a gesture of despair, and took the seat to which the conspirator invited him. The meal was excellent; the host not only affable, but primed with curious information. He seemed, indeed, like one who had too long endured the torture of silence, to exult in the most wholesale disclosures. The interest of what he had to tell was great; his character, besides, developed step by step; and Somerset, as the time fled, not only outgrew ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... wrung, as he stood amongst the familiars a silent witness of her sufferings; but to interfere was impossible. One thing, however, was favorable. He knew she would not be again disturbed till a sufficient time had elapsed for the recovery of such strength as would enable her to endure further torture; and he had, therefore, some time before him for ... — The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar Read full book for free!
... of two rooms. The first room, with a large, dilapidated stove and two dirty windows, had a black measure for measuring the prisoners in one corner, and in another corner hung a large image of Christ, as is usual in places where they torture people. In this room stood several jailers. In the next room sat about twenty persons, men and women in groups and in pairs, talking in low voices. There was a writing table by ... — Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy Read full book for free!
... at a christening party not long since, where there were amongst the guests a formal couple, who suffered the acutest torture from certain jokes, incidental to such an occasion, cut—and very likely dried also—by one of the godfathers; a red-faced elderly gentleman, who, being highly popular with the rest of the company, had it all his own way, and was in ... — Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... Turning dispiteous torture out of door! I must be brief; lest resolution drop Out at mine eyes, in tender womanish tears. Can you not read it? ... — The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard Read full book for free!
... in thought as free as ever, What are England's rights, I ask. Me from my delights to sever, Me to torture, me to task? Fleecy locks and black complexion Cannot forfeit Nature's claim; Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in black ... — The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson Read full book for free!
... justifiable only on principles of self-preservation; and therefore it gives no other right over prisoners, but merely to disable them from doing harm to us, by confining their persons: much less can it give a right to kill, torture, abuse, plunder, or even to enslave, an enemy, when the war is over. Since therefore the right of making slaves by captivity, depends on a supposed right of slaughter, that foundation failing, the consequence drawn from it must ... — Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone Read full book for free!
... the Father in spirit and in truth." They drink the cup of Christ and are baptized in the purification of persecution who discern his true merit,—the unseen glory of suffering for others. Physical torture affords but a slight illustration of the pangs which come to one upon whom the world of sense falls with its leaden weight in the endeavor to crush out of a career ... — No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy Read full book for free!
... incense smoke. Surgeons and dentists allow us fleeting glimpses of bright steel instruments, very strangely shaped. It is contrived that we see them in a cold, clear light, the light of scientific relentlessness. There is a suggestion of torture, not brutal but exquisitely refined, of perfected pain, achieved by the stimulation of recondite nerves of very delicate sensibility. Lawyers wear archaic robes and use a strange language in their mysteries, conveying to us a belief that Justice is an ancient witch ... — Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham Read full book for free!
... conversation, which she had fancied necessary to his existence, than for her "roast beef and plumb pudden," which he now devours too "dirtily for endurance." She was fully resolved to go, and yet she could not bear that her going should fail to torture the friend whom for eighteen years she had loved ... — Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen Read full book for free!
... a forebode of impending griefs. The room was a fashion of torture chamber to Dorothy. Mrs. Hanway-Harley had summoned her to this room for admonition and reproach and punishment since ever she was ten years of age. Wherefore, there was little in her mother's call to engage Dorothy pleasantly; and she hung back, and answered ... — The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis Read full book for free!
... Babbalanja, "when from the ambiguity of his speech, you could so easily have derived something flattering, thus to seek to extract unpleasantness from it? Be wise, Yoomy; and hereafter, whenever a remark like that seems equivocal, be sure to wrest commendation from it, though you torture... — Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville Read full book for free!
... cruelty. But there is nothing in the least barbaric or ignorant about intellectual cruelty. The great Renaissance artists who mixed colours exquisitely mixed poisons equally exquisitely; the great Renaissance princes who designed instruments of music also designed instruments of torture. Barbarity, malignity, the desire to hurt men, are the evil things generated in atmospheres of intense reality when great nations or great causes are at war. We may, perhaps, be glad that we have not got them: but it is somewhat dangerous to be proud that we have not got them. Perhaps we are ... — All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton Read full book for free!
... opposing factions at times united to plunder and torture their wretched victims, and again they fell upon each other's forces, and slaughtered without mercy. Even the sanctity of the temple could not restrain their horrible ferocity. The worshipers were stricken ... — The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White Read full book for free!
... and yet this was far more awful. Only the throat of a human being could emit that chilling cry. It rose in shrill crescendo, to die away in a sobbing wail that lifted the hair on the listener's head. Again and again it came—a moan born of the frightful torture of ... — Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens Read full book for free!
... he would have the chance to try, instead of to some spot off the map. Whether he won or lost, at any rate he was in the ring, and could fight. So every night he sat in Alcala, and wrote. Sometimes he would only try to write, and that was torture. ... — The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse Read full book for free!
... but he did not move. Again she dipped the spoon, looking at him with defiant eyes, and with the same deliberation she let the stuff fall on the living flesh. This time the perspiration sprang out on her brow, her face burned suddenly hot, her whole frame shrank under the torture. ... — The Long Night • Stanley Weyman Read full book for free!
... the king lent a ready ear to suggestions of this kind, they soon furnished him with an overwhelming mass of evidence of the treasonable designs of Philotas. Philotas was at once arrested, and put to the torture in the presence of the chief officers of the Macedonian army, while Alexander himself sat behind a curtain to hear what he would say. It is said that when Alexander heard Philotas piteously beg Hephaestion for mercy, he exclaimed ... — Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch Read full book for free!
... and every fang imbued with virulent copperhead poison, stormed through our streets in the light of day and in the gloom of night, during many ghastly hours, knowing no law save its own wicked will, while Treason, Cruelty, House-breaking and House-burning, Robbery, Assassination, Torture, Hanging, Murder, stalked on in its wild train of horror. But we know its face now, and it will be our own fault if anything so foul shall e'er be seen again in our midst. We must be on the alert to act when called upon—not to ... — Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various Read full book for free!
... answer; he turned away. The old man caught at his feet. 'You are not going,' he cried in a shrill voice, '—you are not going? Leave me to die,—that is well; the sun will come and burn me, thirst will come and madden me, these wounds will torture me, and all is no more than I deserve. But Silver? If I die, she dies. If you forsake me, you forsake her. Listen; do you believe in your Christ, the dear Christ? Then, in his name I swear to you that you cannot ... — Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson Read full book for free!
... be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper, or from that old baboon, who descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs—as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted ... — The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin Read full book for free!
... fortune. Before night had fallen, on the day he was burned, an elderly woman of serene visage had appeared in his bachelor den, and declaring herself a nurse sent by friends, had proceeded to make him more comfortable than he had believed possible, with those aching members touching up every nerve to torture. ... — Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry Read full book for free!
... into his very heart's core, and remorse, like an old vulture, gnawed at his vitals; yet for a few brief, agonizing moments he slept, but only as the fiends of hell might be supposed to sleep. A dream, a series of change and torture, bewildering and terrible, came, like a blight, ... — Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various Read full book for free!
... in extent to the half of Europe, are only the purgatory, not yet the real Siberian hell. You still find woods there, poor, thin, dwarfed woods, it is true, but where there is wood there is fire and vitality. The true hell of human torture begins beyond the line of the woods; then there is nothing but ice and snow; ice that does not even melt in the plains in summer—and in the midst of that icy desert, miserable human beings thrown upon this shore by an ... — Selected Polish Tales • Various Read full book for free!
... her having stolen him, as it appeared she had; also for her jealousy. What would be the end of the muddle? Rodney asked himself. He thought of the stake and the frenzied villagers dancing around the fire with blood-curdling yells. Would he be able to endure the torture? He hoped so, for the boy was proud of his race. But why borrow trouble? All around him were signs of peace and savage contentment. The little camp-fires twinkled in the gathering dusk. Some of the squaws sang bits of a wild lullaby ... — Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane Read full book for free!
... examined this rather more minutely than the other, and whilst we could find nothing dreadful in the penitents' apartment, we fancied, on entering the priest's side, that, we had met with something belonging the realm of confessional torture as depicted by the Hogans, Murphys, and Maria Monk showmen, and which the officials had forgot to put by in some of their secret drawers. It was hung upon a nail, had a semi- circular, half viperish look, and was cupped at ... — Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus Read full book for free!
... limit of human life under such conditions. In early English history condemned criminals were put to death by being deprived of sleep, and the same method has been employed in China. Enforced sleeplessness, in fact, has been used as a form of torture by the Chinese, being more feared than any other. The men subjected to this frightful ordeal ... — Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden Read full book for free!
... guidance had been purely negative, there was yet something about it which had given him a vague pleasure. Instinctively he knew that she was of the order of women to whom the merest touch from a man whom they disliked would have been torture. ... — A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim Read full book for free!
... or a Senate, or other Soveraign Person forbid us to beleeve in Christ? To this I answer, that such forbidding is of no effect, because Beleef, and Unbeleef never follow mens Commands. Faith is a gift of God, which Man can neither give, nor take away by promise of rewards, or menaces of torture. And if it be further asked, What if wee bee commanded by our lawfull Prince, to say with our tongue, wee beleeve not; must we obey such command? Profession with the tongue is but an externall thing, and no more then any other gesture whereby we signifie our obedience; and wherein a ... — Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes Read full book for free!
... did not leave Ryde until the 23d, it is possible that Fielding received a reply. During the remainder of this desultory voyage he continued to beguile his solitary hours—hours of which we are left to imagine the physical torture and monotony, for he says but little of himself—by jottings and notes of the, for the most part, trivial accidents of his progress. That happy cheerfulness, of which he spoke in the Proposal for the Poor, had not yet deserted him; and there are ... — Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson Read full book for free!
... scoundrel, interrupted one while for an instant by Squeers screaming out, "Sit down, you—beggar!" and followed at its close by the last and crowning outrage, consequent on a violent outbreak of wrath on the part of Squeers, who spat at him and struck him a blow across the face with his instrument of torture: when Nicholas, springing upon him, wrested the weapon from his hand, and pinning him by the throat—don't we all exult in the remembrance of it?—"beat the ruffian till ... — Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent Read full book for free!
... one of the gravest of my life, I had happily no leisure to think of myself. My whole soul sickened with anxiety for the girl. I knew enough of Indian ways to guess her fate. For Shalah and myself there might be torture, and at the best an arrow in our hearts, but for her there would be things unspeakable. I remembered the little meadow on the Rapidan, and the tale told by the grey ashes. There was only one shot in my pistol, but I determined that it should be saved for her. In such a crisis ... — Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan Read full book for free!
... sighed religiously at the thought of Winnie's "gift." Winnie could have sighed, too, but it was with torture. ... — The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock Read full book for free!
... violently taken away, by despotic power and prelatic intolerance. The extent of this organization, in a time of great suffering is remarkable. Gordon of Earlston, when examined before the Privy Council in 1683, with the instruments of torture placed in view, testified that several counties were divided into districts, of which there were 80, with 7000 associated members. There is evidence that, chiefly through the Divine blessing upon Renwick's faithful ... — The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston Read full book for free!
... bigotry, tyranny, and cruel religious intolerance were such as flourished in the seventh century, and in spite of systematic slave raids the population decreased by nearly two-thirds, and practically all the children died. Peace came, well-being came, freedom from rape and murder and torture and highway robbery, and every brutal gratification of lust and greed came, only when the Sudan lost its independence and passed under English rule. Yet this well-meaning little sonneteer sincerely felt that his verses were issued in the cause of humanity. ... — Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt Read full book for free!
... the English nation has authorized, by a tacit consent, an almost general mitigation of such part of those judgments as savours of torture and cruelty: a sledge or hurdle being usually allowed to such traitors as are condemned to be drawn; and there being very few instances (and those accidental or by negligence) of any persons being embowelled or burned, till previously deprived ... — Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various Read full book for free!
... still brooding over the fact, and trying to torture it into some connection with Mr. Huddlestone's danger, when a man entered the tavern and asked for some bread and cheese with a ... — New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... "My God! Oh! my God!" writhed and leaped so as to displace the gratings, and scatter the nine tails of the scourge all over his person. At the next blow he howled, leaped, and raged in unendurable torture. ... — White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville Read full book for free!
... for here, he thought, was death at last. But it was only a new torture; perhaps Gino inherited the skill of his ancestors—and childlike ruffians who flung each other from the towers. Just as the windpipe closed, the hand fell off, and Philip was revived by the motion of his arm. And just as he was about to faint and gain at last one moment of oblivion, the motion ... — Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster Read full book for free!
... the first rush had ended and the time to follow the lines of ambulance wagons back to Washington drew near, the old anguish returned to torture her soul. She told herself it was all over, and yet she knew that somewhere in that vast city of tents, stretching for miles over the hills and valleys about Falmouth Heights, was John Vaughan. She had put him resolutely ... — The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon Read full book for free!
... further attempts. Indeed she had hardly completed the last chapter of her 'Criminal Queens' before she was busy on another work; and although the last six months had been to her a period of incessant trouble, and sometimes of torture, though the conduct of her son had more than once forced her to declare to herself that her mind would fail her, still she had persevered. From day to day, with all her cares heavy upon her, she had sat at her work, with a firm resolve that so many lines should be always forthcoming, let the ... — The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... suffered many inconveniences, accidental and intentional jostling, insolence and ribald jest. The Cantonese, excepting in the shops where he expects profit, always resents the intrusion of the fan-quei—foreign devil. The chair was torture. It hung from the centre of a stout pole, each end of which rested upon the calloused shoulder of a coolie; an ordinary Occidental chair with a foot-rest. The coolies proceeded at a swinging, mincing trot, which gave to the suspended seat ... — The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath Read full book for free!
... boy? what rapturous agony Torments and glorifies his glance at her As with delight in torture? Cheer thee, man: Thou ... — Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards • Algernon Charles Swinburne Read full book for free!
... moral and symbolical meaning. The bajan lies upon a table, undergoing the planing of his tusks, "while a saw lies upon the ground, suggestive of the actual de-horning of the beast. The work itself and later apologies for the institution mention among the instruments of torture a comb and scissors for cutting the victim's hair, an auriscalpium for his ears, a knife for cutting his nails; while the ceremony further appears to include the adornment of the youth's chin with a beard by means of burned cork or other pigment, and the administration, (p. 120) internal ... — Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait Read full book for free!
... the four quarters of the world, far away at that moment a king sat enthroned in his hall. A captive was bound before him—bound, but proud, defiant, unconquerable of soul. There was silence in the hall until the king spake the doom and torture... — Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell Read full book for free!
... their side—without weapons and without means of defense. They pledged themselves ahead to show no violence. They had all too good reason to anticipate that their lot would be the same as that of others who had preceded them—torture as ingenious and varied as Torquemada and ... — Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie Read full book for free!
... insolent sway and armed terror. Why should I relate the horrible murders, the savage deeds of the monarch? May the gods keep them in store for himself and his line! Nay, he would even link dead bodies to living, fitting hand to hand and face to face (the torture!), and in the oozy foulness and corruption of the dreadful embrace so slay them by a lingering death. But at last his citizens, outwearied by his mad excesses, surround him and his house in arms, cut down his comrades, ... — The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil Read full book for free!
... had lost her case in the Divorce Case and Jimmy had been taken away from her? Even now she shuddered when she thought of the risk she had run. She remembered again the period of waiting when the jury could not come to an agreement. What torture she had endured, though no one knew it, or, perhaps, ever would know it! Had not that torture been a tremendous warning to her against the unwise life? Why go into danger again? But perhaps there was no danger any more. A man who has tried to divorce his ... — In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens Read full book for free!
... cursing of Tara, where the growing unity of the nations was split into fractions, down to the present time. I often doubt if the barbarities in eastern lands which we shudder at are in reality half so cruel, if they mean so much anguish as this threat of after-torture does to those who believe in the power of another to inflict it. It wounds the spirit to the heart: its consciousness of its own immortality becomes entwined with the terror of as long enduring pain. It is a lie ... — AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell Read full book for free!
... wooden man, he who knows little, this week of final examinations is a period of unalloyed torture. He must go before an array of professors who are there to expose ... — Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock Read full book for free!
... thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But if after all we should fail, be it so. We still shall have the proud consolation of saying to our consciences, and to the departed shade of our country's freedom, that the cause approved of our judgment, and adored of our hearts, in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, we ... — Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay Read full book for free!
... lord. But the punishment suggested by Jesus for the abominable conduct was extremely harsh: "And his lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him." Torture for criminals was thus taught ... — The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd Read full book for free!
... grimaces and jokes which marked the sale—with the distorted countenances and boisterous laughter which were to be seen on every side—how it must have writhed under the smart of general ridicule, or have groaned under the torture of contemptuous indignation! Peace to Henley's[384] vexed manes!—and similar contempt await the efforts of all literary quacks ... — Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin Read full book for free!
... being gone over by the bare titles of the pictures, reading cannot but be learned; and indeed too, which thing is to be noted, without using any ordinary tedious spelling, that most troublesome torture of wits, which may wholly be avoided by this method. For the often reading over the Book, by those larger descriptions of things, and which are set after the Pictures, will be able perfectly to beget a habit ... — The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius Read full book for free!
... apology for a nap, and who pretend to be reading Macaulay or Herbert Spencer only to dream between the leaves; sensitive readers, who cannot abide the least noise or interruption when reading, and to whose nerves a foot-fall or a conversation is an exquisite torture; absorbed readers, who are so pre-occupied with their pursuit that they forget all their surroundings—the time of day, the presence or the voices of others, the hour for dinner, and even their own existence; ... — A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford Read full book for free!
... thought. "By this torture, he hopes to extract her diamonds. What a life! What fiends to ... — The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu Read full book for free!
... pause, then Mrs. Orton Beg broke out: "Don't make me think about it. Surely I have suffered enough? Disagreeable to know! It is torture. If I ever let myself dwell on the horrible depravity that goes on unchecked, the depravity which you say we women license by ignoring it when we should face and unmask it, I should go out of my mind. ... — The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand Read full book for free!
... denounced—nay, if we are not alert and quick of wit, we shall be deceived by it, and wonder in the end, as the fool does, why heaven struck that final blow; concluding that it was but another whimsy of the Gods. The ladies prayed to their mother. They were indeed suffering vile torture. Ethereal eyes might pardon the unconscious jugglery which made their hearts cry out to her that the step they were about to take was to save her children from seeming to acquiesce in a dishonour to her memory. Some such words Adela's tongue did not shrink from; and ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith Read full book for free!
... lamp, Mr. Smithers sees plainly enough that the end is near. The fugitive touches the ground with only the balls of his feet, as if each step were torture, and expels his breath with unceasing violence. He does not ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various Read full book for free!
... what, dear?—of death? Oh yes; the chances are many against me; and even if the operation is safely performed, it may not arrest the disease. But to one who suffers the torture which it is the will of Heaven that I should bear, speedy death would only be a happy release. And yet, Agnes, do not misunderstand me; I would not for the world do anything to shorten my life of suffering. Oh no! 'All the years of my appointed time ... — Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely Read full book for free!
... a human enemy might have done. His savage snarl was full of intelligence, and his slow approach was deliberate torture. He stood for a moment in full view—then slipped and slid down to the surface of the ice, where, ten yards away, he stood ... — The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten Read full book for free!
... Gerome, with a deafening crack of his heavy chapar whip. We are both provided with this instrument of torture—a thick plaited thong about five feet long, attached to a short thick wooden handle, and terminating in a flat leathern cracker of eight or ten inches. A cut from this would make an English horse jump out of his skin, ... — A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt Read full book for free!
... accelerated force; for the evil knoweth its time is short. Here the Scriptures declare that evil is temporal, not eternal. The dragon is at last stung to death by his own malice; but how many periods of self-torture it may take to remove all sin and its effects, must depend ... — Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy Read full book for free!
... dear fellow. No more introductions to-night, please. I've just suffered torture from an unspeakable youth from Aberdeen, who expected me to rejoice with him because Oxford is at last recognising the 'exeestence of a metapheesical principle in the wur-r-ld ... — Audrey Craven • May Sinclair Read full book for free!
... high, and it shone with dazzling brightness upon the bleached bones which lay upon the road. Again the torture of thirst fell upon the little group of survivors, and again, as they rode with withered tongues and crusted lips, a vision of the saloon of the Korosko danced like a mirage before their eyes, and they saw the white napery, the wine-cards by the places, the long ... — The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle Read full book for free!
... Her second school brought her, indeed, two kind friends; but her shyness made that school-life in itself a prolonged tragedy. Of the two experiences as a private governess I shall have more to say. They were periods of torture to her sensitive nature. The ambition of the three girls to start a school on their own account failed ignominiously. The suppressed vitality of childhood and early womanhood made Charlotte unable to enter with sympathy ... — Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter Read full book for free!
... an ordeal to traverse. In the presence of such a contingency the poor girl felt grim and helpless; she could only vaguely wonder whether she were called upon in the name of duty to lend a hand to the torture of ... — The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James Read full book for free!
... with his shoulder, in the best football fashion he could muster. It could try—but it couldn't keep him and Ellen here to be burned in their heat-ray bath, or treated to whatever alien torture they had in mind. He felt his shoulder hit. And he knew he'd missed. It was an arm that he struck against, and the arm brought him upright, while a second arm drew back and came forward with a savage right to ... — Pursuit • Lester del Rey Read full book for free!
... Marat, Barriere, and the black Dessalines, took this hateful, hissing, stinging, maddening reptile to their bosoms, and they are welcome to its rewards. But they mistook the thing: it was not liberty transformed; it was tyranny unbound, the very scourge of hell, and Satan's chief instrument of torture to a guilty world. It was neither more nor less than Sin, despising GOD, and warring against ... — Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various Read full book for free!
... he observes the most noble disinterestedness upon a throne where selfishness has long held sway, that he spontaneously commenced his reign by conferring benefits, that his first acts held out the fairest hopes to Italy and to Europe, that he has suffered the lingering torture of exile, that he exercises a precarious and dependent royalty under the protection of two foreign armies, and that he lives under the control of a Cardinal. But those who have fallen victims to the efforts made to replace him on his throne, those whom the Austrians ... — The Roman Question • Edmond About Read full book for free!
... there must have been an extensive foundation in facts for the horrors detailed by the committee. If it could not be distinctly proved that an individual officer had murdered any prisoner by the use of a particular torture, yet the instruments of torture described in the above extract were in the prisons—they were seen and handled by the committee, who were not to suppose that they were kept for no use. They state, that it had become the practice for the keepers ... — Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various Read full book for free!
... (the Committee) deeming that our marriage would have been a greater disgrace to their village than even bloodshed or death, would have left us to our fate—Miss King to be carried off, or perchance grossly insulted, and myself left, as the spiked barrel especially evinced, to torture and to death. That this Committee saved my life, I have no doubt; and I have publicly thanked them for the act. So I would be grateful even to the man who took deadly aim at me with his revolver, and ... — The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen Read full book for free!
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