"Cruel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sir? You do me much Honour: I must confess I do not find the softer Sex cruel; I am received as well as another ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... she; "it would be cruel to take from her her only recreation. And she says she can't read any other way. You needn't listen if ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... endued with rational and intellectual powers, and capable of being brought to as high a degree of proficiency as any other men. Africa ought to have a fair chance of raising her character in the scale of the civilized world.' I replied that it was this cruel traffic alone, which had prevented Africa from rising to a level with other nations; and that it was only astonishing to me that the natives there had, under its impeding influence, arrived at the perfection which had ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... repeated slightingly. And of course, though Polly deserved her punishment his inflection was both rude and cruel. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... be just what she had believed it, extremely good; and Harriet would have seemed almost too lucky, if it had not been for the cruel state of things before, and for the very complete enjoyment and very high sense of the distinction which her happy features announced. It was not thrown away on her, she bounded higher than ever, flew farther down the middle, and was in ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... might be the instrument of bringing his majesty back to the bosom of the catholic church—a bosom which no doubt the marquis found as soft as it was capacious, but which the king regarded as a good deal resembling that of a careless nurse rather than mother—frized with pins, and here and there a cruel needle. Therefore, expecting every hour that the king would apply to him for more money, the marquis had resolved that, at such time as he should do so, he would make an attempt to lead the stray sheep within the fold—for the marquis was not one of those ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... had finished, another man took his place and told the story of Deirdre and Naisi, and another told the fate of the four children of Lir that were turned into four beautiful swans by their cruel stepmother. ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... to personify the masses. Gifted by nature with a towering stature and a martial figure, his voice thundered above the roars of the crowd. He had his agitations, his fury, his moments of repentance, and sometimes even of cowardice; his heart was not cruel, but his brain was disturbed. Too aristocratic to be envious, too rich to be a spoliator, too frivolous to be a fanatic by principle, the Revolution turned his brain in the same manner as a rapidly flowing river carries with it the eye that in vain strives to ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the level of the plateau was easy compared to following them down into canyons and bringing them up alone. We all agreed that that was next to impossible. Another feature, which before we had not considered, added to our perplexity and it was a dawning consciousness that we would be perhaps less cruel if we killed the lions outright. Jones and Emett arrayed themselves on the side that life even in captivity was preferable; while Jim and I, no doubt still under the poignant influence of the last lion's heroic race and end, inclined ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... Revolution there is none sadder or more striking than this, that you may make everything else out of the passions of men except a political system that will work, and that there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma. It is always demoralizing to extend the domain of sentiment over questions where it has no legitimate jurisdiction; and perhaps the severest strain upon Mr. Lincoln was in resisting a tendency of his own supporters which chimed ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... this island, would you?" inquired Wyckoff when the boys had departed for the boat. "That would be cruel." ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... well judging what a complication of feelings must have crossed the bosom of the unhappy fugitive at that cruel moment. The clergyman was about to speak, but Sir ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... to this cruel little village, of which there are many along the French coast, and along every coast in the world, that Jeanne returned to rent a garret with an old and bedridden woman, unable to help herself. Without the ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... The flash of something cruel in his eye which Betty Winter had seen and feared from the first burned now with a steady blaze. For six days and nights he played in Joe Hall's place a desperate game, drinking, drinking always, and winning. Hour after hour he sat at the roulette table, his chin ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... cruel foe was at their very gates, nothing save fierce defiance reigned in the fiery creole hearts of the Crescent City. For a master-spirit was in their midst. Andrew Jackson, having utterly broken and destroyed the most powerful Indian confederacy that had ever ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... of this most dreadful execution, which occasioned the noise that drove the affrighted narrator to the shelter of any hole from the eye of merciless man. But the cruel scene did not end here. Even in the yet sensible ear of the Saied, expiring in agonies, his execrable murderer ordered that his wife and daughters should be given up to the soldiers; and that, in punishment of such universal rebellion in the town, the whole place should be razed to the ground. ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... on the floor of his own hut, by the side, oh, cruel fate! of his own machine, and there left to work out any number of problems which might occur to him during the next six hours; while his custodians, having carefully padlocked the door, retired to a respectful distance among the trees, where they could smoke their pipes in peace, ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... Betty in the comedy, the reader may ask. She goes on her triumphant way, the same cruel enchantress, until the last act, when she is quite ready to fall into the arms of Lord Morelove. Sir Charles Easy, touched by the constancy and devotion of his wife, announces that he will mend his wilful habits, and Lord Foppington, who flattered himself that ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... we see what effect it has on us, but stand by to cut away if we see there is peril. Oh, I hope we shall be able to ride it out. That poor captain! He must have been stunned by a blow of the boom. It seems cruel to stand here without lifting a hand to save him. But what can we do? Jane, is there anything you can think ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... my life, Your ample waist Just fits the gown I fancy for my wife, And suits my taste; Yet there you stand, flat-footed, square and deep, An unresponsive, elephantine heap, Coquetting with the stars while I'm asleep, O cruel Stack! ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... Scriptures. They also believed in the divine origin of the prayer-book, a measure of credulity which, although commendable, is, I believe, not required. These parents were severe, exacting, imperious—not bad nor exactly cruel—simply "consistent." They believed that man was a worm of the dust, and stood by the traditions. They believed in the dogma of total depravity ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... before St. Jean d'Acre, where we learned that Djezzar had cut off the head of our envoy, Mailly-de-Chateau-Renaud, and thrown his body into the sea in a sack. This cruel pasha was guilty of a great number of similar executions. The waves frequently drove dead bodies towards the coast, and we ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... rouse them for a brief moment from their apathy, for they were not cruel, only satiated with every sight, every excitement and luxury which their voluptuous city and the insane caprice of the imperator perpetually offered them; and they thirsted for horrors as a sane man thirsts for beauty, that it might cause a diversion in the even tenor ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and I see you are displeased with him about this foolish business that has just happened. For my own part, I think him to blame; but we must pardon, we must make allowances for the errors of youth; and I need not, to a man of your humanity, observe what a cruel thing it is to prejudice the world against a young man, by telling little anecdotes to his disadvantage. Relations must surely uphold one another; and I am convinced you will speak of Archibald with candour and friendship." ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... needs rest and consideration more than passion. But I wish men could know a little more than this, and understand that to enforce physical union when a woman's psychical and emotional nature does not desire it, is definitely and physically cruel. Woman is not a passive instrument, and to treat her as such ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... brave men? And if he did permit it, why did he not, when he saw they were overthrown, send a squadron to cover their retreat? To call such an exhibition of courage "a main of cocks", to look on it as a mere display for his amusement, was barbarous and cruel in the extreme. He worked himself up into a state of anger which rendered him less cautious than usual in ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... who blundered to his cost, though probably it would have made no difference. You must do me the justice, however, to admit that I did not maintain the role of observer very long—that I wooed you so openly that every one was aware of my suit. Is it not a trifle cruel to taunt me after I ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... some black liquid over the bride and bridegroom, which was intended to kill them, but the Fairy stretched out her wand and the liquid dropped on the Magician himself. He fell down senseless, and the Princess's father, deeply offended at the cruel revenge which had been attempted, ordered him to be removed and ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... of bondage. You know, some people are ashamed to tell it, but I thank God I was 'llowed to see them times as well as now. It's a pretty hard story, how cruel some of the marsters was, but I had the luck to be with good white people. But some I knew were put on the block and sold. I 'member when they'd come to John Goodren's place to buy, but he not sell any. They'd have certain days when they'd sell off the block and they took ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... I discovered the little cuss. It was a couple of years ago he showed up out at the quarters. I was getting Prayne ready for his fight with Delaney. Prayne's wicked. He ain't got a tickle of mercy in his make-up. I chopped up his pardner's something cruel, and I couldn't find a willing boy that'd work with him. I'd noticed this little starved Mexican kid hanging around, and I was desperate. So I grabbed him, shoved on the gloves and put him in. He was tougher'n rawhide, but weak. ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... Government, yet aiding and abetting its public enemies, persons who while professing a common fealty with their fellow citizens, would welcome to their homes incendiaries, and incite them to murder and plunder those very fellow citizens, and compel them to suffer all the horrors of a cruel warfare! No epithets that human ingenuity could heap upon them would be too harsh, or too undeserved, no contempt too humiliating for a people so devoid of honesty and all the qualities essential to render ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... infuriate them. They had no revenge to gratify; no plea could they make of their passions having been roused by battle, nor the excuse that they eat their enemies to perfect their triumph. This was an action of unjustifiable cannibalism. Atoi, the chief, who had given orders for this cruel feast, had only the night before sold us four pigs for a few pounds of powder; so he had not even the excuse of want of food. After Captain Duke and myself had consulted with each other, we walked into the village, determining to charge Atoi ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... this avaricious Farmer.—Judge, oh kind, humane and courteous Reader, what a terrible Situation the Poor must be in, when this covetous Man was perpetual Overseer, and every Thing for their Maintenance was drawn from his hard Heart and cruel Hand. But he was not only perpetual Overseer, but perpetual Church-warden; and judge, oh ye Christians, what State the Church must be in, when supported by a Man without Religion or Virtue. He was also perpetual Surveyor of the Highways, and what Sort of Roads he kept ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... without doubt, the most hideous physical curse which fallen man inflicts upon himself; and for this simple reason, that it reverses the very laws of nature, and is more cruel even than pestilence. For instead of issuing in the survival of the fittest, it issues in the survival of the less fit: and therefore, if protracted, must deteriorate generations yet unborn. And yet a peace such as we now enjoy, prosperous, civilised, humane, is fraught, though ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... the head of the leading one. As they came out Dias swung his wife on to a cushion strapped behind his saddle, and mounted himself before her. Harry and his brother climbed into theirs. They had both refused to put on the heavy and cruel spurs worn by the Peruvians, but had, at the earnest request of the Indian, put them in ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... digress here and tell about the beauty of the summer scenery along the Omaha road, and the shy and beautiful troutlet, and the dark and silent Chippewa squawlet and her little bleached out pappooselet, were it not for the unkind and cruel thrusts that I would invoke from the scenery cynic who believes that a newspaper man's opinions may be largely ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... attempt to run!" says the Hen, talking scared and desprit. "In an instant, should we turn our backs on him, the terrible creature would be upon us with one long cruel bound!" ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... duty to take this step hard as it might seem to him. He could not leave England without seeing her once more, he said, recently as they had parted, and brief as his leisure must needs be. There were so many things he would have to say to her on the eve of this cruel separation. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... then addressed Pandu and said, 'O king, even men that are slaves to lust and wrath, and void of reason, and ever sinful, never commit such a cruel act as this. Individual judgment prevaileth not against the ordinance, the ordinance prevaileth against individual judgment. The wise never sanction anything discountenanced by the ordinance. Thou art born, O ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... opening up of the country, the Europeans were brought into sanguinary collision with the Khasias, who fought bravely with bows and arrows, displaying a most blood-thirsty and cruel disposition. This is indeed natural to them; and murders continued very frequent as preludes to the most trifling robberies, until the extreme penalty of our law was put in force. Even now, some of the tributary Rajahs are far from quiet under our rule, and various parts of the country are ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... a cruel one for the self-respect which he had so curiously kept intact. He had been respectable ever since he was born; if he was born with any instinct it was the instinct of respectability, the wish to be honored for what he seemed. It was all the stronger in him, because his father had ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... truth his mouth was very attractive. Pure and youthful in outline and rich in colouring, a little cruel when firmly closed, it reminded one irresistibly of that portrait of an unknown gentleman in the Borghese gallery, that profound and mysterious work of art in which the fascinated imagination has sought to recognise the features of the divine ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... "Vaisampayana continued, 'Hearing these cruel words of Drona, who had asked of him his thumb as tuition-fee, Ekalavya, ever devoted to truth and desirous also of keeping his promise, with a cheerful face and an unafflicted heart cut off without ado his thumb, and gave it unto Drona. After this, when the Nishada prince began once ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... the streets of the Heavenly City? No, there shall not enter there anything that defileth, peace is upon her palaces. The swearing tongue, the impure tongue, the angry tongue, can find no place there. The cruel, slandering tongue talks many a soul into ruin, for they have no room for the scandal-monger in Heaven. Let us guard our speech, brethren, let us remember that, as Heavenly citizens, our lips should be sanctified by the fire of God's Altar. "Whoso keepeth ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... won't do it. What did I marry you for? Why did I leave my father's house to take you, a poor redemptioner just out of your time? It was because you weren't like other men. I knew you were kind and good-hearted when other men were cruel and unfeeling. From that day to this you have never made me sorry that I left home and turned my father against me. But if you do this thing you have in mind to a poor old wretch that can't help himself, then you won't be Sanford Browne any more. You'll have that old ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... little more time!" sighed Miss Theodosia. "There is so much left for us to do; it is cruel to hurry us so! We might—we might run away, dear! You and I. To Europe and Asia and Africa! I'd show you all the wonders of the world. Listen, Elly Precious,—the pyramids! Wouldn't you love to see the pyramids? You could play in the warm sand, anyway,—bury ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... said with emphasis, "those three aunts of yours haven't the sense of rabbits! The comparison flatters them. They had no business asking the Holtons to your party. It was unnecessary—it was absurd. It was cruel!" ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... his eyes, he brooded upon it. It was the glimpse of the little wife in the balcony the girl who had lived with the scar upon her husband's face and in his soul, and had leaned forward to eavesdrop upon his cruel triumph. Behind him, the two demi-gods talked together; snatches of their conversation tempted him to listen; but Herr Haase was engrossed with another matter. When the Prussian colonel, one living agony of crucified pride, stood for the blow, and the whip whistled ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... rule, and the rest are under native rulers who acknowledge our Queen as suzerain. It would have been a miracle had we not in the course of our government, during more than a hundred years, done many unwise, many wrong, even many cruel things. He would be a bold man who would stand forth and maintain we had done good, and only good, to the nations of India. We take no such optimist position. You can adduce many things in our dealings with the people which the best of the officials have themselves condemned, and you can mention ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... necessary; that she had plenty for them both and that she could help him, as few others, to more quickly win the fame which he was sure to attain. And she knew, too, that she could not so love another-there was never a doubt of that. But this time love was bitterly cruel. It came in all its affection and beauty only to sear and rend. She "must not marry," the great surgeon had told her. So gently and fatherly he had said it, that she did not realize its full import till now. Husbandless, childless, a chronic, incurable sufferer, she must ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... where you are!" cried Mr. Getz, striding up to them, and, before Fairchilds could prevent it, he had seized Tillie by the shoulder. "What you mean, runnin' off up here, heh? What you mean?" he demanded, shaking her with all his cruel strength. ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... of the change from single to double rig is the decay of the cruel custom of "bobbing" the dogs' tails. When dogs are hitched one close behind the other (and the closer the better for pulling) the tail of the dog in front becomes heavy with ice from the condensation of the breath of the dog behind, until ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... the famous statute of parochial settlement, 14 Car. II, c. 12, which forged cruel fetters for the poor, and is said to have caused the iron of slavery to enter into the soul of the English labourer.[357] The Act states, that the reason for passing it was the continual increase of the poor throughout the kingdom, which had become exceeding burdensome ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... "I am glad to hear it, for your sake! He seems a strange man, a very curious commingling of good and evil traits of character— kind and gentle to you—and, thus far, to me—yet relentlessly cruel and bloodthirsty in the prosecution of his accursed calling. And your name, senorita, will you not ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... taught and learned, The memories of cruel sights and deeds, The pent-up bitterness, the unspent hate Filtered through fifteen generations have Sprung up and found in me sporadic life. In me the muttered curse of dying men, On me the stain of conquered women, and Consuming me the fearful fires of lust, Lit long ago, ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... from his arguments. The pagans, who were conscious of his fervent zeal, expected, perhaps with impatience, that the flames of persecution should be immediately kindled against the enemies of the gods; and that the ingenious malice of Julian would invent some cruel refinements of death and torture which had been unknown to the rude and inexperienced fury of his predecessors. But the hopes, as well as the fears, of the religious factions were apparently disappointed, by the prudent humanity of a prince, [33] who was careful of his own fame, of the public ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... was present with him, gave him light and blinded him at the same time. He found delight in the thought of violence, because it held action in its grasp. Even cruelty was worth something. Was he cruel to Cuckoo? ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... murder Irishmen with impunity, stated that the thing had often been done, and called upon every male from fifteen to fifty to enrol himself in the Irish Independent Army—referring to the Protestants as "a cruel and bloody minority." The Yankee returned ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" O best and only consolation, the hope and belief in the final triumph of justice, the certainty of immortal life through Jesus Christ the Saviour! Cruel indeed is he who would rob man of the chief brightness ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... money out of ambition; and he would have ruined himself for ambition. Malicorne had determined to rise, at whatever price it might cost, and for this, whatever price it did cost, he had given himself a mistress and a friend. The mistress, Mademoiselle de Montalais, was cruel, as regarded love; but she was of a noble family, and that was sufficient for Malicorne. The friend had little or no friendship, but he was the favorite of the Comte de Guiche, himself the friend of Monsieur, the king's brother; and that was sufficient for Malicorne. Only, in the chapter of charges, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his room was empty. He ran to the window, and saw her, a shadow shape, swing into her saddle with a shadowy wave of the hand for him. He stood there watching her out of sight, so soon out of sight; his lady, the woman he loved, so infinitely kind, and beautiful, and cruel, heedless as the gods are of homage ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... place where she can be said to be absolutely safe; but so long as we hold La Charite there is, as you say, but slight fear of any fresh trouble there. From all other parts of France, we hear the same tales of cruel massacre and ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... the colonies in which there were no slaves became more populous and more rich than those in which slavery flourished. The more progress was made, the more was it shown that slavery, which is so cruel to the slave, is ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... gaol among felons. [536] The minister and his agents answered that Westminster Hall was open; that, if any man had been illegally imprisoned, he had only to bring his action; that juries were quite sufficiently disposed to listen to any person who pretended to have been oppressed by cruel and griping men in power, and that, as none of the prisoners whose wrongs were so pathetically described had ventured to resort to this obvious and easy mode of obtaining redress, it might fairly be inferred that nothing had been done which could not be justified. The clamour of the malecontents ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he had done for many years. Generally he could hear Paula walking up and down her room which was over his; for she went late to rest, and in the silence of the night would indulge in sweet and painful memories. How many loved ones a cruel fate had snatched from her! Father, brother, her nearest relations and friends; all at once, by the hand of the Moslems to whom he had abandoned her native land ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... rest; Which so prevailed, as he with small ado Enclosed her in his arms and kissed her too. And every kiss to her was as a charm, And to Leander as a fresh alarm, So that the truce was broke and she, alas, (Poor silly maiden) at his mercy was. Love is not full of pity (as men say) But deaf and cruel where he means to prey. Even as a bird, which in our hands we wring, Forth plungeth and oft flutters with her ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... Council of Nice, under the Empress Irene in 787, condemned the Iconoclasts, and restored the use of the sacred pictures in the churches. Nevertheless, the controversy still raged till after the death of Theophilus, the last and the most cruel of the Iconoclasts, in 842. His widow Theodora achieved the final triumph of the orthodox party, and restored the Virgin to her throne. We must observe, however, that only pictures were allowed; all sculptured imagery ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... suppose anything, Victor. As for Monsieur le Marquis, I have already ceased to hate him. How beautiful the sea is! And yet, contemplate the horror of its rolling over your head, beating your life out on the reefs. All beautiful things are cruel." ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... and cruel. But Lady Haldwell had been stung by Mrs. Armour's remark, and it piqued ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... formal politeness by the old gentleman, and Monsieur de G—, who was also at home, and in an excessive gay humour. "Alas, mademoiselle," cried he, "what a desert you will leave behind you! It is too cruel, this travelling mania on your part. We never ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... is short, Monsieur de Talizac, and I will remind you that in 1817, one night the good man whom you killed with your infamy lay dying. You had the cruel courage to enter his room, and knelt at the side of ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... is! I read that thing, and I felt my whole being sinking down as if into hell. There it is! And that is the end of it all! Oh, merciful Providence, is it not simply too cruel to be ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... too, were cannibals. They were ruled over by a Chief who was cruel, and whenever any of their people escaped I took them in and cared for them, and there are now many of those living with us who could not be induced to go back. For more than forty years no one has been killed and ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... to wriggle and twist, but the mountain had held him fast. Once he had straightened out, smashing the tiny cars and the tugging locomotive; breaking a leg and an arm, and once a head, but the devils had begun again, boring and digging and the cruel wound was opened afresh. Another time, after a big rain, with the help of some friendly rocks who had rushed down to his help, he had snapped his jaws tight shut, penning the devils up inside, but a hundred others ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... good thing morally as well as artistically in leaving Mrs. Hunter still something of a problem to his reader. In most things she is almost too plain a case; she is sly, and vulgar, and depraved and cruel; she is all that a murderess should be; but, in hesitating at murder, she becomes and remains a mystery, and the reader does not get rid of her as he would if she had really done the deed. In the inferior exigencies she strikes fearlessly; and when the man who has divorced her looms ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... hurt. She was mortally pierced. The blow was too cruel. She lowered her glance before his, and fixed it on the table-cloth. Her brow darkened. Her lower lip bulged out. She was the child again. He had with atrocious inhumanity reduced her to the unimportance of a child. She had bestowed on him and his interests the gift of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... experiences in the hills, several of which were of a humorous nature. Glen tried to be interested, although she found it difficult to follow what her father was saying. He puzzled her more than ever. Why was he so stern and cruel at times, and again so bright and merry? He did not seem the least angry now at her, neither was he apparently concerned about the two prisoners at ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... his persecutors into the school-house. He did not understand why all the wit—if wit it could be called—should be leveled at him; why he should be the target for every poisoned arrow, simply because he was poor, ugly and always at the bottom of his classes. He thought it unjust and cruel, and longed with all his heart for the time to come when by some real good luck he would have a chance to ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... shown by County Court Judge, who, on cases that came before him, permanently reduced rent by thrice amount of temporary reduction proffered. Judge further suggested that arrears should be wiped out. Landlord declined to listen to suggestion. Tenants drowned out by the cruel river, dragged out by the relentless landlord. Stood by whilst the emergency men wrenched roofs off their huts, and set fire to the ruins. A neighbour offered them shelter, enlarging out-buildings on her farm. ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... peaceful beings, terror and sadness to a great extent take their place. On the other hand, the sight of defenseless prey suffices to provoke, in the rapacious who are strong and well armed, by simple reflex association, a cruel sentiment of voluptuous anger, which ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... I understood you! How I do wish I knew what you were at! I have a great idea that you do not design to be cruel, when the right moment occurs. Till it does come, you know, we women never mean to have anybody. It is a thing of course among us, that every man is refused, till he offers. But why should you be cruel? Let me plead for my—present ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... and unfeeling," replied Madame Bathurst: "Caroline has been so long with me, that I have looked upon her as my own child, and now she is to be torn from me, without the least consideration of my feelings. It is very cruel and ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... It is not for you: I have heard it over, And it is nothing, nothing in the world; Unless you can find sport in their intents, Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain, ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... now they find life easy and sweet—sweet as the two notes mingled with their chatter. Upside down they cling to the swaying twigs, romping, disheveled bird-children, full of fun and song-talk. It is nothing to them that the cruel winds and deep snows of winter will be here all too soon. Summer days are long and joyous, life stretches out before them; why waste its hours with frets and fears about the future? Another round of merry chatter ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... But a change of weather was brewing. The night wind veered to the east. A fall of heavy flakes gave place to sleet, and that to silver rain. The whole wide world was sheathed in ice, and when the grouse awoke to quit their beds, they found themselves sealed in with a great, cruel sheet ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... outbreak of the war it was evident that the French built their hopes of recovering Acadia largely on a rising of the Acadians against the English rule, and that they spared no efforts to excite such a rising. Early in 1745 a violent and cruel precaution against this danger was suggested. William Shirreff, provincial secretary, gave it as his opinion that the Acadians ought to be removed, being a standing menace to the colony. [Footnote: Shirreff to K. Gould, agent of Phillips's Regiment, March, 1745.] This is the first proposal ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... me. 'You are wounded, too,' I said. Perhaps he heard me, perhaps it was the look on my face, but he answered gently: 'This is an old wound, but it has troubled me of late.' And then I noticed sorrowfully that the same cruel mark was on his feet. You will wonder that I did not know sooner. I wonder myself. But it was only when I saw his feet that ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... yonder shore waited the dreaded messengers who would gather the homeless into the Christian fold. She stayed to utter one farewell to the cold, the cruel marble, with its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... that Jarvis!—A creditor, sister. But the good old man has taken him away. Don't distress his wife! Don't distress his sister! I could hear him say. 'Tis cruel to distress the afflicted. And when he saw me at the door, he begged pardon that his ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... meerschaum light, I behold a bearded man, Built upon capacious plan, Sabre-slashed in war or duel, Gruff of aspect, but not cruel, Metaphysically muddled, With strong beer a little fuddled, Slow in love, and deep in books, More sentimental than he looks, Swears new ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... the wise and beneficent views of the most virtuous of masters and keep his benefits all the same; that perhaps is more clever, but it is not so noble. The time of illusions is over, and we are having some cruel experiences. Happily all the means are still in the king's hands, and he will arrest all the mischief which the imprudent want to make." The queen preserved some confidence: she only half perceived the abyss beginning to yawn beneath ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... been very cruel to have told a boy to write on 'fortune'; it would have been like asking him his opinion 'of things in general.' Fortune is 'good,' 'bad,' 'capricious,' 'unexpected,' ten thousand things all at once ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... hard-hearted, and cruel murderer, took a large stone, and beat his brother's head with it, until his brains oozed out, and he wallowed in his ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt
... liable, one and all, to the visitations of the most penal laws.[99] They had legislated without warrant, had detained free persons in bondage, levied illegal duties and imposed unconstitutional restrictions, and had inflicted cruel punishments for crimes invented by themselves. The apology for usurpation, was its obvious importance and general utility; but no one will dissent from the strong indignation expressed by the philosopher, at wanton violations of British ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... queen of Charles I., to whose influence the early settlers were much indebted. Religious persecution in England drove forth the founders of the colony; but in this case the Protestants were the instigators, and the cruel laws of Queen Elizabeth's reign against the Roman Catholics were the instruments. Lord Baltimore, an Irish peer, and other men of distinction in the popish body, obtained from Charles I., as an asylum in the New ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... spared under any pretence, that all prisoners should suffer death.[140] He threatened Charles with the punishment of Saul when he forebore to exterminate the Amalekites.[141] He told him that it was his mission to avenge the injuries of the Lord, and that nothing is more cruel than mercy to the impious.[142] When he sanctioned the murder of Elizabeth he proposed that it should be done in execution of his sentence against her.[143] It became usual with those who meditated assassination or regicide ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... administration. No office was henceforth to be filled by popular election, under penalty of the devastation of the offending district and of the enslavement of its inhabitants. The taxes, based on a comprehensive assessment, and distributed in accordance with Mohammedan usages, were collected by those cruel and vexatious methods without which, it is true, it is impossible to obtain any money from Orientals. Here, in short, we find, not a people, but simply a disciplined multitude of subjects; who were forbidden, for example, to marry out of the country without special permission, ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... house, to discharge the bailiffs, and to resume the possession of his remaining effects. But he would thus confront the world, and confess his terrors to have overcome him at the last moment; he would have to suffer glances more cruel than the pistol-ball. The world must not be deceived; when a man announces that he is going to kill ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... made use of her utmost skill and address, which as easily procured her victory, as her studied neglect before had caused her defeat. She won—and chose Mesabetes—the slayer of her son—who, being delivered into her hands, was put to the most cruel tortures and to ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... lad, yet I can remember well the cruel treatment I received. Some weeks it seemed I was whipped for nothing, just to please my mistress' fancy. Once, when I was sent to town for the mail and had started back, it was so dark and rainy ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... what the unfortunate situation was. He could not tell her everything—Plonny had cautioned secrecy about the real gravity of the crisis—but he would tell her enough to show her how he had acted, with keen regrets, from his sternest sense of public duty. It was a cruel stroke of fate's that his must be the hand to bring disappointment to the girl he loved, but after all, would she not be the first to say that he must never put his regard for her preferences above the larger good ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison |
