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Anguish   Listen
noun
Anguish  n.  Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress. "But they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage." "Anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child." Note: Rarely used in the plural: "Ye miserable people, you must go to God in anguishes, and make your prayer to him."
Synonyms: Agony; pang; torture; torment. See Agony.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Anguish" Quotes from Famous Books



... ever fathom the depth of Lee's anguish when the bitter end came, and when, beaten down by sheer force of numbers, and by absolutely nothing else, he found himself obliged to surrender! The handful of starving men remaining with him laid down their arms, and the proud Confederacy ceased ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... the joys thine hours have seen, Count o'er thy days from anguish free, And know, whatever thou hast been, 'Tis something ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... these words, 'All these (Bhishma and others) are high-souled (warriors), accomplished in arms and acquainted with all modes of warfare. Without doubt, O king, they can exterminate (our forces) even thus! Let thy heart's anguish, however, be dispelled. I tell thee truly that with Vasudeva as my ally, I can, on a single car, exterminate the three worlds with even the immortals, indeed, all mobile creatures that were, are, will be, in the twinkling ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... had was to go into the wood and fields with a book, either the "Practice of Piety" or Mr Rogers's "Seven Treatises," which were the only two books he had, and meditate and read, and sometimes pray; in which his anguish made him often invert Elijah's petition,—that he might die, because his life was a burden to him. God, though He was pleased to prolong his life, yet He found a way to lighten his grief, by removing his ague, and ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways—to the voices of quiet anguish, the voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart—to the injured voices, the anxious voices, the voices that have despaired of ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... intended to rob the Widow Canby's house. The only one at home was Kate, and I groaned as I thought of the alarm and terror that she might be called upon to suffer. As it was, I was sure she was worried about my continued absence. In my anguish I strove with all my might to burst asunder the bonds that held me. At the end of five minutes' struggle I remained as securely tied ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer

... kneeling in prayer. He will speak depreciatingly of Christ. He will wound all the most sacred feelings of your soul. He will put your home under the anathema of the Lord God Almighty. In addition to the anguish with which he will fill your life, there is great danger that he will despoil your hope of heaven, and make your marriage relation an infinite and eternal disaster. If you have made such engagement, your first duty is to break it. My word may ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... anguish, disquiet, foreboding, perplexity, apprehension, disturbance, fretfulness, solicitude, care, dread, fretting, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... once, had come to personal encounters with Tom, much to the anguish of the bully. He did not relish another chastisement, but his mean spirit ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton

... with sallow stars that dimly stare Down in the lonesome eyes, uplifted there As in vague hope some alien lance of light Might pierce their woe. The tears that blind her sight— The salt and bitter blood of her despair— Her hands toss back through torrents of her hair And grip toward God with anguish infinite. And O the carven mouth, with all its great Intensity of longing frozen fast In such a smile as well may designate The slowly-murdered heart, that, to the last, Conceals each newer wound, and back at Fate Throbs Love's eternal ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley

... just in time to escape being blinded by the burning dust, some of which, however, did get into his eyes. A little fly in the eye, as many a cyclist has found to his cost, is enough to engage the entire attention for five minutes, but a handful of ash gives more anguish to the square inch; and when Compton succeeded in opening his inflamed vision upon the scene, a transformation had happened in the writhing interval. The air was full of a sharp crackling and little explosions, and the first thing he saw ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... the tender names of companion, friend, sister.—They had but one will, one interest, one table. All their possessions were in common. And if sometimes a passion more ardent than friendship awakened in their hearts the pang of unavailing anguish, a pure religion, united with chaste manners, drew their affections towards another life; as the trembling flame rises towards heaven, when it no longer finds any ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... He thought that this was in consequence of my share in a plot of high treason against the King of Saxony, whom he looked upon as my benefactor, because I had been nominated conductor of the royal orchestra, and he expressed his opinion about me by ejaculating in tones of the deepest anguish: ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... and anguish: Queen of Heaven, Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows riven, Save me! oh, save me! ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... ever I remember it was in any fit of the stone, both in the lower part of my belly and in my back also. No wind could I break. I took a glyster, but it brought away but a little, and my height of pain followed it. At last after two hours lying thus in most extraordinary anguish, crying and roaring, I know not what, whether it was my great sweating that may do it, but upon getting by chance, among my other tumblings, upon my knees, in bed, my pain began to grow less and less, till in an hour after ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... years of happy, though childless married life, Mr. and Mrs. Botha's home was about to be blessed with an infant child, and it was the thought of the expectant mother's anguish and despair that took Hansie to ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... Rouen to the house of General De Bougy; and his former master sunk into profound grief as he dwelt upon the affection and solicitude which the young Switzer had shown toward him. "Only a year sooner," he mused, with torturing anguish, "and I might have been a saved man! Now, alas! thou hast come too late, noble ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... smelt it, but never did a thing, for she said, when I undertook to bake bread I must give my whole mind to it. Wasn't it hard? She might have called me at least," said Rose, recollecting, with a sigh, the anguish of that moment. ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... bright world seemed pressing down upon her heavily, the shrill notes of the birds clamoring their gratitude as they greedily fought for the crumbs, pierced through her head. She swayed to and fro, as if she were about to fall; for, in the young, mental anguish produces an absolute physical pain, and her head as well as ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... and the shrill cries of Winapie as she urged them to the attack; himself in the midst of the crush, breathless, panting, striving to hold off red death; broken-backed, entrail-ripped dogs howling in impotent anguish and desecrating the snow; the virgin white running scarlet with the blood of man and beast; the bear, ferocious, irresistible, crunching, crunching down to the core of his life; and Winapie, at the last, in the thick of ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind? What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... melody floated down from some unseen place, in varying strains of divine music broken by many pauses, and running through every phase of jubilation, sorrow, and pain. It ended in a low wail of unutterable sadness, a pleading, yearning cry of anguish, which seemed to call on God Himself to hear. When it was over, and all was hushed around, the world seemed to ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... servants had found, made an opening on the opposite side of my hand which doubled the wound. While he was performing this painful operation I told the story of the duel to the company, concealing the anguish I was enduring. What a power vanity exercises on the moral and physical forces! If I had been alone ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... little incident, however, affected her strangely, bringing back so vividly the scene on the ledge of rocks beneath the New England laurels, where Frank had sat beside her and poured words of boyish passion into her ear. There was for a moment a pitiful look of anguish in her eyes as they went out into the summer night toward the huckleberry hills, where lay that ledge of massy rock, and then come back to the realities about her. Frank saw the look of pain, and it awoke in his own ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... his mother, alas! could not receive. With tearful eyes and sorrowing heart this new-found friend watched by him to the last—then closed the heavy eyes, and smoothed the raven locks, and sent the quiet form, lovely even in death, to her who waited its arrival in bitter anguish. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... "With mute anguish," returned Dr. Cavendish, in a responding, calmer voice of pity; "and though I had warned her father that the shock of so suddenly tearing his daughter from such beloved relics might peril her own life, he continued ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... waited for the signal that should end the interval of suspense, the news was sent out from a lonely port on the Black Sea that the Czar was dead. Alexander, still under fifty years of age, had welcomed the illness which carried him from a world of cares, and closed a career in which anguish and disappointment had succeeded to such intoxicating glory and such unbounded hope. Young as he still was for one who had reigned twenty-four years, Alexander was of all men the most life-weary. Power, pleasure, excitement, had lavished on him hours ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... prosperously but that ill fate has sometimes stricken him? Hast thou enjoyed felicity unbroken and passed thy days without a shock, and now, upon a slight cloud of sadness, dost thou prepare to quit thy life, only to save thy anguish? If thou bear trifles so ill, how shalt thou endure the heavier frowns of fortune? Callow is the man who has never tasted of the cup of sorrow; and no man who has not suffered hardships is temperate in enjoying ease. Wilt thou, who shouldst have been a pillar ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... associations which go to make up a boy's dreams. He was a man of suppressed, perhaps half unconscious, but nevertheless deep-rooted enthusiasms; hence when the blow fell which deprived him not only of his inheritance, but also cut short the life of his mother, the unexpected, almost intolerable anguish he silently endured had left a deep, defacing scar ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... Who that heard it on Saturday last, has yet recovered the ravishing sensation produced by the thrilling tremour with which Rubini gave the Notte d'Orrore, in Rossini's "Marino Faliero?" Who can forget the recitativo con andante et allegro, in the last scene of "La Sonnambula;" or the burst of anguish con expressivissimo, when accused of treason, while personating his favourite role in "Lucia di Lammermoor?" Ah! those who suffered themselves to be detained from the opera on Saturday last by mere illness, or other light ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various

... warning and some prophecy that men should idolize the mother? Nothing, in fact, was more likely than that a just human reverence to the most favoured among women should have increased into her admiring worship: until the humble and holy Mary, with the sword of human anguish at her heart, should become exaggerated and idealized into Mother of God—instead of Jesus's human matrix, Queen of heaven, instead of a ransomed soul herself, the joy of angels—in lieu of their lowly fellow-worshipper, and the Rapture of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... circus gather together, and with tails interlaced, prepare a throne for Saint Euphemia; in the pit, aspics form a pleasing necklace for Saint Christina. It is not the will of the divine Spouse for whom they endure anguish that they should suffer in their modesty. When the executioner tears off Saint Agnes's garments, her hair grows thicker and clothes her in a miraculous garment. When Saint Barbara is to be taken naked through the streets, an angel brings her a white tunic. These ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... moments, Dr. Eben, in his heart, thought undevoutly of ministers. "A bruised reed, he will not break," came to his mind, often as he looked at this anguish-stricken woman, watching her only child's suffering, and morbidly believing that it was the direct result of her own sin. But Dr. Eben found little time to spare for his ministrations to Sally, when Hetty was in such distress. He ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... infinitely more strong. There was really nothing for her to do, nothing that Ramsdell, trained for such emergencies, could not do far, far better. And the hysterical sobbing, the moans of the mother's anguish, could be plainly heard through all the silent house. Olive pitied Mrs. Opdyke most intensely; but she was conscious of a sudden longing to administer a restorative box on the ear. It was unthinkable, to her young, elastic strength, that any one could be so ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow, All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing, All the dull deep pain, and constant anguish of patience! ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... divine. Yet mark anigh; Some fiery pang hath rent his soul within, Some hovering shade his brows encompasseth. What gifts hath Fate for all his chivalry? Even such as hearts heroic oftenest win; Honour, a friend, anguish, untimely death. E.M. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... light, by the light of the stars, in the darkness. And he came back hour after hour, silently, he looked into the chamber, saw him standing in the same place, filled his heart with anger, filled his heart with unrest, filled his heart with anguish, filled ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse

... her soft arms round his neck, she clung to him, saying the most adorable and poignant things, dissolved, indeed, in a murmuring anguish of remorse; until, with the same unexpectedness as before, she again disengaged herself—urging, insisting that he should ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the future of mankind—a game in which neither the hand, nor even a "finger of God" has participated!—he who divines the fate that is hidden under the idiotic unwariness and blind confidence of "modern ideas," and still more under the whole of Christo-European morality—suffers from an anguish with which no other is to be compared. He sees at a glance all that could still BE MADE OUT OF MAN through a favourable accumulation and augmentation of human powers and arrangements; he knows with all ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... this floor declarations of opinion that this Union could never be dissolved, than the declaration of opinion by anybody, that, in any case, under the pressure of any circumstances, such a dissolution was possible. I hear with distress and anguish the word "secession," especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world, for their political services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... exactly weeping," says Miss Massereene, slowly withdrawing one hand from her face, so as to let the best eye rest upon him; "it is hardly mental anguish I'm enduring. But if you can get this awful thing that is in my eye out of it ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... to her breast, and looked up like a martyr on her road to the stake: all her anguish was aroused ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... 'Scope,' or 'scobs' as it appears in Herd, means a gag, and was apparently used to prevent her from crying out. But the silver spoon and ball in the Breton ballad would appear to have been used for Marguerite to bite on in her anguish, just as sailors chewed bullets ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick

... returned to his work with renewed energy. 'Fecondite' was already taking shape in the leafy solitude in which he dwelt. And undoubtedly the steady task of creation, resumed morning by morning, greatly helped him to quiet the anguish of heart which the course of events in France would ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... for protection. With what mixed transports of joy and anguish did I again see her! By my advice, she endeavoured to procure proofs of her marriage-but in vain; her credulity had been ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... escaped; how escaped, who can divine? His sword shone in the moonlight. I feared him. Methought the ghosts of all those dead sat on that glittering glaive. I put my other foot to the ground, maugre the anguish, and fled towards the torches, moaning with pain, and shouting for aid. But what could I do He gained on me. Behooved me turn and fight. Denys had taught me sword play in sport. I wheeled, our swords clashed. His clothes they smelled all ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... detaining hand, but she rose, a firm look of kindly determination on her face. Going to the weeping woman, Irene sat down in a chair opposite her, and as she did so the woman raised her anguish-filled eyes. ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... raised his gleaming axe just as Jacinta came to herself and opened her eyes. Then two shrieks pierced the air. One was a cry of joy, for in the glittering steel Jacinta saw herself, so charmingly pretty—and the other a scream of anguish, as the wicked soul of the queen took flight, unable to bear the sight of her face ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... her acquaintances. A few minutes passed, half an hour passed, Lavretsky still stood, crushing the fatal note in his hands, and gazing senselessly at the floor; across a kind of tempest of darkness pale shapes hovered about him; his heart was numb with anguish; he seemed to be falling, falling—and a bottomless abyss was opening at his feet. A familiar light rustle of a silk dress roused him from his numbness; Varvara Pavlovna in her hat and shawl was returning in haste from her walk. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... presented himself to me this day, for the first time: he appeared glad to see me; but when on deck, the size of the ship, and the number of the crew, impressed him with so much alarm, that his very teeth chattered. This anguish attack continued some time, but was at length cured by our ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... reputation for brilliancy; so it was with a sigh of weariness that she rose to receive Quenelda Carson, a struggling little artist whom she had known slightly for years. But her interest was immediately aroused when she saw that Quenelda's usually rosy face was white with anguish, and the girl's pretty eyes swollen with ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... A wail of anguish burst from the frightened women at the awful fate that might be in store for so many human beings so near to them, and they clung closer to their children and thanked God that no such danger threatened them and ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... go. I'm not as strong as I thought. They'll call it suicide, but, of course, it's really murder." There was real anguish in his voice, ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... calculated to drive such a lover as David had been, half mad with anguish, even without the fact of his hasty marriage added ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... 'Yes, child, despidete de tu casa, take leave of your house, for you will never see it again!' Then came sobs from the sisters; and many of the gentlemen, ashamed of their emotion, hastily quitted the room. I hope, for the sake of humanity, I did not rightly interpret the look of constrained anguish which the poor girl threw from the window of the carriage at the ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... I describe my anguish of heart at seeing all those hopes of a mind so extraordinary, for extraordinary it is even in guilt, at once overthrown? It was indeed iteration of anguish! What! Can guile so perfectly assume the garb of sincerity? Can hypocrisy wear so impenetrable ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... announcement of physical suffering, though he well knew it must soon come, and marked with indescribable anguish the change that rapidly began to be manifested in his friend. But even this most terrible of all maladies was influenced by the gallant spirit of him on whom it was now preying; for not a complaint, not ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... a shameless calling must be revolting to them; the better instincts of their womanhood must rebel at the very shame of it. He believed that here and there, behind the rouge and forced hilarity, he could detect signs of an aching heart, a woman secretly filled with anguish. It gave him a sickening feeling of repulsion. Others saw only the outward gaiety of the scene; but he saw still deeper. He realized its tragic significance and it filled him with ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... consequences. Viewed from the back, he seemed a grim, ferocious-looking fellow, the terrible driver of the hackney-coach. He kept whipping his horses continually, and faster and faster the vehicle jolted along, Clare hiding his face in the cushions, in bitter anguish of heart. At last the coach stopped in front of a public-house. A fervent prayer arose in the mind of the traveller that his coachman would go inside and take something to drink. Part of the prayer was ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... firm, but renewed examinations and fresh tortures took place. For a whole month his torments were continuous. In one day he was drawn up by a rope fourteen times, and then suddenly dropped, until all his muscles quivered with anguish. Had he been surrounded by loving disciples, like Latimer at the burning pile, he might have summoned more strength; but alone, in a dark inquisitorial prison, subjected to increasing torture among bitter foes, he did not fully defend his visions and prophecies; and then his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... and leant out. The cool air revived me bodily, but to the fever of the spirit it brought no relief. To my heart, if not to my lips, sprang the old old cry for help which anguish has wrung from generation after generation. The agony of mine, I felt wildly, must pierce through sense, time, space, everything—even to the Living Heart of all, and bring thence some token of pity! For one instant my passion seemed to beat against the silent ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer

... over his grave, and a stone was raised on it, and his name was written in Ogham, And Lugh said: "This hill will take its name from Cian, although he himself is stripped and broken. And it was the sons of Tuireann did this thing," he said, "and there will grief and anguish fall on them from it, and on their children after them. And it is no lying story I am telling you," he said; "and it is a pity the way I am, and my heart is broken in my breast since Cian, the ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... grave anguish to talk of going to the police in the morning, of printing descriptive bills, of setting people to drag the ponds for miles around. It was extremely gruesome. I murmured something about communicating ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... round, and growled,— Saw the gore, and whined, and howled, While his owner groaned and scowled, And the blood was running. With the horrors of his state, And with anguish desperate, Then poor Harry owned too late, He was sick ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould

... suffering great anguish from his wound, was told to seek Isoude, the daughter of the King of Brittany, for she alone could cure such wounds. Wherefore he went to King Howell's court, and said, "Lord, I am come into this country to have help from thy daughter, for men tell me none but ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... convalescence has made its chilled and evanished figures and landscape bud, blossom, and live in scarlet, green, and snowy white (like the fire-screen inscribed with the nitrate and muriate of cobalt,)—strange is the power to represent the events and circumstances, even to the anguish or the triumph of the 'quasi'-credent soul, while the necessary conditions, the only possible causes of such contingencies, are known to be in fact quite hopeless;—yea, when the pure mind would recoil from the eve-lengthened shadow of an approaching ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... injured the main artery of his leg with the rapier which, like other students, he carried at his side. Whilst a friend who was with him had gone for a doctor, and he was left alone, he pressed the wound tightly as he lay on his back, but the leg continued to swell. In the anguish of death he called upon the Virgin to help him. That night his terror was renewed when the wound broke open afresh, and again he invoked the Mother of God. It was during his convalescence after this accident that he resolved upon learning ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... Chairman, if departed spirits are visitants of this earth, and familiar with the actions of men, the spirits of the patriotic Rutledge and of the sainted Gasden must have wept tears of anguish over the degeneracy of these men bearing their patronymics as they witnessed the outrages (the details of which are heart sickening) which were perpetrated upon those inoffensive women. Has the chivalry of South Carolina degenerated thus far? Is this the work of her ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... under its hard exterior. Step by step; left, right, left; rigid and mechanical, controlled by a mind that ceased to act and fell prey to wild fancies. You could hear them: the cooling whispers of a sea upon your Sarnia's shore ... dear little country! God's own Isle! Mental anguish and physical pain. ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... audible requests. Poor Mr Apjohn in his despair turned round to arrest the man by his coat-tails; but he was a moment too late, and all but fell backwards on the floor. As he righted himself he muttered an anathema, and looked with a face of anguish at his plate. ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... the disappointment of their fondest hopes, I will draw the curtain, and leave them, solitary and alone—alone with themselves, and with no aching eye to witness their grief, to give vent to their heart-bursting anguish. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... Who can tell the anguish of their souls when they entered that deserted chamber? How desolate their lonely hearthstone! How dark the home where her presence had scattered rainbow hues! A terrible blow it was to Capt. Willard; a very bitter thing thus to have his cherished plans frustrated, his brightest hopes ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... through the measured beat of the rhythm, and are always felt as life and peace, even when their golden light is broken by the wild and drifting clouds of human woe, or seen athwart the surging and blinding mists of mortal anguish. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... giving deadly blows there, and the Third Corps were closing up to attack. Pettigrew's forces on his left had given way, and a heavy skirmish line began to accumulate on that flank. He saw his men surrendering in masses, and, with a heart full of anguish, ordered a retreat. Death had been busy on all sides, and few indeed now remained of that magnificent column which had advanced so proudly, led by the Ney of the rebel army, and those few fell back in disorder, and without organization, behind Wright's brigade, which had been ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday

... anguish occasioned by these cruel suspicions, it is not of your kandjiar that you must take counsel—but ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... Water-Mother, East she swam, and westward swam she, Swam to north-west and to south-west, And around in all directions, In the sharpness of her torment, In her body's fearful anguish; Yet no child was fashioned from her, And no offspring was ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... and appeared upon the threshold, the picture of resigned and heavy sorrow. She had evidently been weeping, and the dark dress in which she had arrayed herself seemed to intensify the look of anguish on her face. The son of science was disconcerted. He did not know what to say, and, with great wisdom, ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... admonished by a haughty wave of the hand from the count, she hastened from the room. Later in the day, the Lord of Visinara quitted the castle, to pay the promised visit. His wife refused to go. "Mercy! mercy!" she exclaimed, in anguish, as she sat alone in her apartments, "to be thus requited by Giovanni—whom I so loved, my husband! my own husband! Is it possible that a man can be guilty of treachery so deep? Would that I had died ere I had known ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... anguish. "Dwindle, why don't you be a good boy and run along to the snack bar for a coffee break? And bring me some aspirin when you ...
— Master of None • Lloyd Neil Goble

... words; rising tears made them dim: "Doubt is over; my future is fix'd now," they said. "My course is decided." Her course? what! to wed With this insolent rival! With that thought there shot Through his heart an acute jealous anguish. But not Even thus could his clear worldly sense quite excuse Those strange words to the Duke. She was free to refuse Himself, free the Duke to accept, it was true: Even then, though, this eager and strange rendezvous, How imprudent! To some unfrequented lone inn, And so late (for the night ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... in his selfish absorption, to be ruthless in his dealings with others. It is so easy to trample upon others when a siren is beckoning you to climb higher, and your ears are eagerly listening to her seductive phrases. With her song in your ears, you cannot hear the wails of anguish of others, upon whose rights and life you trample, the manly rebukes of those you wound, or the stern remonstrances of those who bid you heed your course. Ambition blinds and deafens, and, alas, calluses the heart, kills comradeship, ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... saved from wrath through him. They were to tell men of a God who so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son to die for it; but of a God who so loved the world that he would not tolerate in it those sins which cause the ruin of the world. Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, and glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh good—that was to be their message, that was to be their weapon, wherewith they were to strike, and did strike, through the hearts of ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... was her turn to look in anguish at the closed door, and to toss in restless pain ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... bow and spear; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon horses; every one set in array as a man to the battle,** against thee, O daughter of Sion. We have heard the fame thereof; our hands wax feeble; anguish hath taken hold of us, and pangs as of a woman in travail."*** The supremacy of the Scythians was of short duration. It was said in after-times that they had kept the whole of Asia in a state of terror for twenty-eight years, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... song? It was the western wood-pewee. Instead of piping the sweet, pensive "Pe-e-e-o-we-e-e-e" of the woodland bird of the Eastern States, this western swain persists in ringing the changes hour by hour upon that piercing scream, which sounds more like a cry of anguish than a song. At Buena Vista, where these birds are superabundant, their morning concerts were positively painful. One thing must be said, however, in defence of the western ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... face, and she half opened her eyes, whispering "Father," and then fell asleep again smiling. He dared not linger another moment, but passing stealthily away, he paused listening at another door, his face white with anguish. "I dare not see Felicita," he murmured to himself, "but I must look on my mother's face ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... you had gone away in that fearful storm which caused me such anguish, and just as I was preparing to return to the convent, I was much surprised to see standing before me my dear M—— M——, who from some hiding-place had heard all you had said. She had several times been on the point of shewing herself, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... not proceeded far in the wood before he found his eyes swim, and a deadly sickness come over him. For several hours he lay convulsed on the ground expecting death; but the gaunt spareness of his frame, and his unvarying abstinence, prevailed over the poison, and he recovered slowly, and after great anguish: but he went with feeble steps back to the spot where the berries grew, and, plucking several, hid them in his bosom, and by nightfall ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham

... they were satisfied. And they were surprised, because it happened that, the supply of water falling short, they sought it, but were unable to find any in various parts of the islands, and were suffering the anguish and affliction that can be imagined in such an extremity, when one day the said father said mass, begging our Lord for help in such need. It happened, then, that after performing his ministry he returned to the men and told them to be very joyful, and to look in the direction ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... rest of his kind, he did not enjoy music. It gave him exquisite anguish, racking him nerve by nerve, and ripping apart every fibre of his being. It made him howl, long and wolf-life, as when the wolves bay the stars on frosty nights. He could not help howling. It was his one weakness in the contest with Leclere, ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... beyond which it would be difficult to go. The story of Naboth's vineyard is repeated daily on the largest scale. I grieve for Abdallah-el-Habbashee and men of high position like him, sent to die by disease (or murder), in Fazoghou, but I grieve still more over the daily anguish of the poor fellaheen, who are forced to take the bread from the mouths of their starving families and to eat it while toiling for the private profit of one man. Egypt is one vast 'plantation' where the master works his slaves without even feeding them. From my window now I ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... knew that to be only a mood, that unexpected tenderness for a woman whom he had hated for betraying him. It was Doris he wanted. The thought of her passing out of his life rested upon him like an intolerable burden. To be in doubt of her afflicted him with anguish. That the fires of her affection might dwindle and die before daily sight of him loomed before Hollister as the consummation of disaster,—and he seemed to feel that hovering ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... waiting, waiting. He could not apply himself to anything; he could scarcely wait. He was in a state that approached fever, if not agony. To exist from half-past two to three o'clock equalled in anguish the dreadful inquietude that ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... quite, however; and the honest fellow was tormented by the thought that he might have fought against the righteous cause. Senecal, who was immured in the Tuileries, under the terrace at the water's edge, had none of this mental anguish. ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... "I have over a dozen sons, and not one is worth a damn." I fear me that every father with sons grown to manhood has at some time voiced the same sentiment, curtailed, possibly, only as to numbers, and softened by another expletive, which does not mitigate the anguish of his cry, as he sees the dreams he had for his baby boys fade away into a mist ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... with anguish glow'd, When thy sweet lips where join'd to mine; The tears that from my eye-lids flow'd, Were lost in those ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron

... from Zwingli to the canon Utinger immediately followed, in which he honorably confessed the crime, yet affirmed that he had not been the seducer, but the seduced. With shame and anguish he made this confession, and vowed that, for the future, by daily and nightly searchings and labors, he would keep himself free from stains of this sort. "Nevertheless"—continued he—"if such charges are spread abroad by my enemies, your people must have ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... terms, contrasted with the mournful realities of the case, sharpened the anguish of fear and suspense throughout the whole city; and Maximilian with his friends, unable to bear the loud expression of the public feelings, separated themselves from the tumultuous crowds, and adjourning to the seclusion of their ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... for full half an hour. On returning to his study the first object that greeted him was poor 'Prinny,' standing on his 'bad eminence' exactly in the position in which he had been left, trembling with fatigue, and occasionally vending his anguish and distress in a low piteous moan, but not moving a limb, or venturing even to turn his head. Not having received the usual signal he had never once attempted to get down, but had remained disconsolate in his position 'sitting' ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... should become reestablished, we feel it necessary to take a glance at the kind of life the unfortunate girl led from the day she made the sacrifice until that at which we have arrived in this narrative. Since that moment of unutterable anguish her spirits completely abandoned her. Naturally healthy she had ever been, but now she began to feel what the want of it meant; a feeling which to her, as the gradual precursor of death, and its consequent release from sorrow, brought something like hope ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... placed in a mercantile house at Leghorn. My younger brothers and myself remained with my mother at Bristol. Two years was the limited time of his absence, and, on his departure, the sorrow of my parents was reciprocal. My mother's heart was almost bursting with anguish; but even death would to her have been preferable to the horrors of crossing a tempestuous ocean and quitting her children, my father having resolved on leaving my brothers and myself in ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him; as one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it; so, after sore wrestlings ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... pain mixed with a subtle anaesthetic, sweeter than anything she had known in this life. In the end she would have to do without this anodyne; would have to meet her hard and brutal world. Just now, while the yoke was hot to the neck, she might take this mercy to temper the anguish. On the long hill road before her it would be a grateful memory. It seemed now that she had put herself to the yoke, had taken the hill road very lightly. She had not thought of accepting the dentist's advice. With the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... as earth when dawn takes flight And beats her wings of dewy light Full in the faltering face of night, His soul awoke to claim by right The life and death of deed and doom, When once before the king there came A maiden clad with grief and shame And anguish burning her like flame That feeds on flowers ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... bloodshot eyes and looked into the gambler's smiling face. He realized the futility of his act, since it had placed him irrevocably in Gilmore's power. He had endured unspeakable anguish all to no purpose, since Gilmore knew; knew with the certitude of an eye-witness. And there the gambler sat smiling and at ease, torturing him ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... me? My soul fondly dwelt upon the images of my brother and his children; yet they only increased the mournfulness of my contemplations. The smiles of the charming babes were as bland as formerly. The same dignity sat on the brow of their father, and yet I thought of them with anguish. Something whispered that the happiness we at present enjoyed was set on mutable foundations. Death must happen to all. Whether our felicity was to be subverted by it to-morrow, or whether it was ordained that we should lay down our heads full of years and of honor, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... seemed suspended. He rubbed the palms of her hands, he covered her delicate feet with his coat, and then rushing up the bank into the road, he shouted with frantic cries on all sides. No one came, no one was near. Again, with a cry of fearful anguish, he shouted as if an hyena were feeding on his vitals. No sound; no answer. The nearest cottage was above a mile off. He dared not leave her. Again he rushed down to the water-side. Her eyes were still open, still ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... have righted it, a century of public education would have been necessary. The present opportunity has been bought at fearful cost. If we use it lightly, those who fell upon the field of Elma will have died in vain, and the anguish of mothers, and the tears of widows and orphans will mock us because we failed in our ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House



Words linked to "Anguish" :   break someone's heart, discompose, agonize, pain, torture, try, rack, distress, upset, untune



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