"Tormenting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quagmires; to live for weeks on flesh, without bread or salt to it; to lie on the cold ground; to cook your own food; and to mend your own jacket and mocassins? Are you ready to endure hunger and thirst, heat and cold, rain and solitude? Have you patience to bear the stings of tormenting mosquitoes; and courage to defend your life against the grizzly bear, the buffalo, and the tomahawk of the red man, should he turn out ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... affairs of life, M. Moriaz found it difficult to dispense with her approbation, and she promised herself to choose with discretion the moment to make a decisive assault upon him. In the meanwhile she gave herself the pleasure of tormenting him by her silence, and of grieving him by her long-continued pouting. One day M. ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... all Christians?" said I. And the words were scarcely out of my lips when the thoughts came back to me which had been tormenting me as we walked up from old Mirren's cottage. Those two roads! Did Annas mean that only those were Christians who took the higher one? Only, what was there in the air of Abbotscliff which seemed to make ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... only a few hours. By the next day he was tormenting himself with all the ingenuity of which he was capable, and the task of amusing Mr. Beresford was ten thousand times harder than ever. He did it, and did it better than usual, but only because he was so annoyed at his own anxiety and absence ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... concern for her, his offers to help, the influence he would have in her favour with Nancy Ellen. Of course if he was forced to postpone his wedding he would not be pleased; but it was impossible that the fears which were tormenting Nancy Ellen would materialize into action on his part. No sane man loved a woman as beautiful as her sister and cast her aside because of a few months' enforced waiting, the cause of which he so ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... liver, as the pains of the mind are greater than those of the body. Jealousy is a ferment of love, hatred, hope, fear, shame, anxiety, suspicion, grief, pity, envy, pride, rage, cruelty, vengeance, madness, and if there be any other tormenting passion which can agitate the human mind. Therefore to express jealousy well, requires that one know how to represent justly all these passions by turns, (see Love, Hatred, &c.) and often several of them together. Jealousy shews itself by restlessness, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... length, my long expecting eyes meet again your hand-writing, after a breach of correspondence that I can never 'recollect without pain. Revive it not in my mind by any repetition, and I will dismiss it from all future power of tormenting me, by considering it only as a dream of other times. Cry "Done!" my Alex, and I will skip over the subject, not perhaps as lightly, but as swiftly as you skip over the hills of Norbury Park. I delight to think of the good ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... these persons, nor rejected the impious flattery. Immediately after this he was seized with pains in his bowels, extremely violent at the very first. He was carried therefore with all haste to his palace. These pains continually tormenting him, he expired in ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... erect, and render him the abhorrence of that People of whom He was then the Idol. Conscience painted to him in glaring colours his perjury and weakness; Apprehension magnified to him the horrors of punishment, and He already fancied himself in the prisons of the Inquisition. To these tormenting ideas succeeded Matilda's beauty, and those delicious lessons which, once learnt, can never be forgotten. A single glance thrown upon these reconciled him with himself. He considered the pleasures of the former night to have been purchased at an easy price by the sacrifice ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... but the audience thought that he was talking mere nonsense, and no one could be persuaded that he was speaking the truth. And when at last a certain talkative young gentleman came in, and, taking his seat, began to laugh and jeer at Prodicus, tormenting him and demanding an explanation of his argument, he gained the ear of the audience far ...
— Eryxias • An Imitator of Plato
... frequently the lot and condition of those poor people, from whose labour their wealth and livelihood doth wholly arise; not only in their diet, but in their cloathing, and overworking some of them even to death (which is particularly the calamity of the most innocent and laborious) but also in tormenting and whipping them almost, and sometimes quite, to death, upon even small miscarriages. He apprehends it was from this prejudice against the Negroes, that arose those supercilious checks and frowns he frequently met with, when using innocent ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... you mind me? (She looks about.) Which one of the hermit-boys is here? (She sees the king.) Oh, sir, please come here and free this lion cub. The little rascal is tormenting him, and I can't make him ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... These allusions to my professional duties are in doubtful taste. I didn't become a head-jailer because I like head-jailing. I didn't become an assistant- tormentor because I like assistant-tormenting. We can't all be sorcerers, you know. [PHOEBE is annoyed] Ah! you ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... thee save the Wazir Dandan." Quoth the Minister, "Weal it was thou didst see in thy dream, O King of the age!" Quoth the King, "O Wazir, I dreamt that I was in a pit which seemed a black well where multitudes were tormenting me; and I would have risen, but when springing up I fell on my feet and could not get out of that same pit. Then I turned and saw therein a girdle of gold and I stretched out my hand to take it; but when I raised it from ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... her master as an indulgent one when sober, but when he was on a "spree" he seemed to take great delight in tormenting her. He would have her beaten unmercifully without cause, and then have her stripes washed in salt water, then he would have her dragged through the horse pond until she was nearly dead. This last operation seemed to afford him much ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... steal, or insist upon coming into the house, or scratch up the flower-beds. Some accuse them of causing warts, but this is not true. When handled, they sometimes give forth an acrid liquid from the skin, which stings the mouths of tormenting dogs and smears meddling fingers. But this, though unpleasant, does no harm. Many people have handled toads freely and never had a wart; many others who have never touched a toad have had ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... hot day when everything was still but the flies, which were tormenting in the extreme; and, after trying first one room and then the other, I was about to go and lie down in the place set apart for my bath as being the coolest spot there was, when I heard a dull thud apparently in the next room where I had been sitting at the window, and I was ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... mirth, joy, glad countenance, pleasant speeches, agility of body, and all pleasure, but, with sighs and sorrowings, they poured out woefull complayntes and moans with bitter tears, and wringing of their hands, and tormenting of themselves.' The last the English saw of them was the whole devoted tribe assembled on the hill around a sacrificial fire, whence they implored their gods to bring their heaven ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... At last, however, his self-tormenting ceased, and his weary soul found rest in a comforting belief in Christ's forgiveness. As a result of his worry his health had given way, and he felt that his end was at hand. But after peace came to him and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... need to ask the name of the man who had come between him and the woman he loved. For weeks he had watched his brother and Hermione, asking himself if their intimacy meant anything, and then driving away the tormenting question, as though it contained something of disloyalty to her. Now he remembered that for weeks this thing she had spoken must have been in her mind, since she had always entreated him to wait a little longer before speaking with her father. It had appeared such an easy matter to her to wait; ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... not suppress a tear. He was losing a sincere and unbounded affection. He had found in Dinah the gentlest La Valliere, the most delightful Pompadour that any egoist short of a king could hope for; and, like a boy who has discovered that by dint of tormenting a cockchafer he has killed it, Lousteau ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... him, in his proper person, had become impossible: and the following was the vicarious vengeance adopted by God's vicegerent upon earth, whose pastime it had long been to study the ingenuities of malice, and the possible refinements in the arts of tormenting. Here follows the published report on this one case:—"The ferocious miscreant determined to be fully revenged, and immediately sentenced the Adikar's wife and children, together with his brother and the brother's wife, to death after the following fashion. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... parching heat of the veins dries up and withers the flowers of Love, Hope, and Joy; and any pause, any release from the rack of ecstasy on which we are stretched, seems more insupportable than the pangs which we endure. We are suspended between tormenting desires and the horrors of ennui. The impulse of the will, like the wheels of a carriage going down hill, becomes too strong for the driver, Reason, and cannot be stopped nor kept within bounds. Some idea, some fancy, takes possession ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... significantly equidistant from the heights on either hand, lay the bodies, half buried in ashes; some in the unlovely looseness of attitude denoting sudden death by the bullet, but by far the greater number in postures of agony that told of the tormenting flame. Their clothing was half burnt away—their hair and beard entirely; the rain had come too late to save their nails. Some were swollen to double girth; others shriveled to manikins. According to degree of exposure, their faces were bloated and black or ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... for cordiality. He drew near a lamp, and looked at the name and street address on the card, and then said, "Ah, of Boston! My name is Ellison; I'm of Milwaukee, Wisconsin." And he laughed a free, trustful laugh of good companionship. "Why yes, my cousin's been tormenting herself about her mistake the whole afternoon; but of course it's all right, you know. Bless my heart! it was the most natural thing in the world. Have you been ashore? There's a good deal of repose about Tadoussac, now; but ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... and self-tormenting reflections she passed the evening, and much of the night; but youthful hope, that cheers the heart with flattering and deceitful promises, never sufficiently well defined to resemble certainty, but always brilliant; hope, whose elasticity raises the sinking heart, soothed and ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Pacific Ocean is nothing but a shallow little brook, that you can ford all the year round, if it does not utterly dry up in the summer heats, when you want it most; or, at best, it is a fussy little tormenting river, that won't and can't sail a sloop. What are you going to do about it? You are going to wind up your lead and line, shoulder your birch canoe, as the old sea-kings used, and thrid the deep ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... your Flush, rather. Then I will, on my side, prepare. When I say 'take counsel'—I reserve my last right, the man's right of first speech. I stipulate, too, and require to say my own speech in my own words or by letter—remember! But this living without you is too tormenting now. So begin thinking,—as for Spring, as for a New Year, as for a ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... strove, in the Paradise, to give the greatest beauty that he knew to the souls of the blessed, restored to their bodies, so too in the Hell he made the strangest forms of devils that can possibly be seen, most intent on tormenting the souls of the damned; and in this work he surpassed not merely the Germans who were working there but even his own self, to his own great credit. And for the reason that he made therein a great number of figures and endured much fatigue, it has been nothing but praised up to ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... mind 590 Too oft admitted or too long retain'd, Shock their frail seat, and by their uncurb'd rage To savages more fell than Libya breeds Transform themselves, till human thought becomes A gloomy ruin, haunt of shapes unbless'd, Of self-tormenting fiends; Horror, Despair, Hatred, and wicked Envy: foes to all The works of Nature and the gifts ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... intently, stirring with a long-handled spud which I had brought, I concluded that even my golden eagle had been carried into that deep place. However, water or no water, I resolved to have it out with that dark pool as soon as the rest of the channel should be drained, which took a tormenting time to do; and having thick boots on, I pinned up my skirts, and jumping down into the shoals, began to paddle in a fashion which reminded me of childish days passed ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... for the eighth dance, and was very glad of it, for he could not have carried off the necessary small talk. As it was, he felt that his excitement must be patent to those around him. His mind was filled with tormenting doubts, his chance for success seemed so infinitely small, his plan so extravagantly impracticable, now that ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... sat herself down and threw her white handkerchief over her head, letting it flutter in the wind. One of the crew asked her why she did so, and she replied that the servant in the castle had been tormenting her, saying that she would never dare to sail to Gorcum in such tempestuous weather, and she was now signalling him that she had been as good as her word. Whereupon she continued to wave ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sin, though indeed He did greatly pity me, yet I could have no benefit of Him. These things may seem ridiculous to others, even as ridiculous as they were in themselves, but to me they were most tormenting cogitations: every one of them augmented my misery, that Jesus Christ should have so much love as to pity me, when yet He could not help me; nor did I think that the reason why He could not help me, was, ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... the boys who cry after Major MacNicol, my old friend and comrade?" asked the General in a high squeaking voice. "If I had my stick at some of you, tormenting a gallant old soldier!" And as he spoke he lifted his cane by the middle and shook it at the ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... control Lalage, no more claim on her than anyone else had, he was mad to trouble about her, knowing what he did of her, and having ten years' experience of women behind him. Yet he lay there, wide-eyed, wondering, and tormenting himself. Twice he got up and endeavoured to smoke a cigarette, but all to no purpose. The tobacco tasted rank, and, after a few whiffs, he let the thing go out. When, towards morning, he did fall into a heavy sleep, it was only to dream of Lalage, with the mud and rain squelching ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... souls Have passions in proportion violent, Resistless, and tormenting; they're a tax Imposed by nature on pre-eminence, And fortitude and wisdom must ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... admonition was enough to arouse her curiosity, and before I could prevent it she took the book and, laughing, danced off into the studio with it. I called to her, but she slipped away with a tormenting smile at my helpless hands, and I followed ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... him to torment him, and I got him to jumping and threshing right near the boat. The sun was in the faces of the cameras and that was bad. And as it turned out not one of these exposures was good. What a chance missed! But we did not know that then, and we kept on tormenting him and snapping pictures of his leaps. In this way, which was not careless, but deliberate, I played with him until he shook out the hook. ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... mean time the whole crowd of men, women and children danced and hooted and clapped their hands, assailing him with the choicest epithets of Indian vituperation. With loud cries they demanded that he should be tied to the stake, that they might all enjoy the pleasure of tormenting him. A stake was immediately planted in the ground, and he was firmly fastened to it. His entire clothing was torn from him, mainly by the Indian women. The whole party then danced around him until midnight, yelling in the most frantic manner, smiting him with ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... managed to delay the fulfillment of the sentence for two months, visiting many of his colleagues who were political personages. The desire of saving the life of his client was tormenting him as an obsession. He had devoted all his activity and his personal influence ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... nothing of this remark. But as he drew nearer and nearer, and his ugly mood became more and more apparent, I felt that he was looking forward to provoking me into giving him a distraction from whatever was tormenting him. I waited. A few minutes and we were face to face, I outwardly calm, but my anger slowly lighting up as he deliberately applied to it the torch of his insolent eyes. He was wearing his old familiar air of cynical assurance. Evidently, with his recovered fortune, he had recovered ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... and the melancholy, self-tormenting Nazarenes are quite as little to my taste as the dry and joyless Hebrews. May our dear Lady of Sidon, holy Astarte, forgive me, that I kneel before the many sorrowed Mother of the Crucified and pray. Only my knee and my tongue worship death—my heart remains true to life. But ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... like a man guilty of some mean crime and arraigned before all the world. Then he struck Tito with his switch, and began to gallop down the steep path at a breakneck pace, sticking his feet far out upon either side. He would forget. He would put away these thoughts that were tormenting him. He would enjoy this day of pleasure for which he had sacrificed so much, for which he had trampled down ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... their minds from such tormenting memories, Haig went deep into his adventures, his wanderings, his search for excitements. He told her of strange lands and peoples, of the beautiful spots of the world, of battles and perils and escapes,—everything he had been through, with ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... between his wife and me before he came in. I told him all that I thought about his way of proceeding towards me in those matters, and he, poor fellow, was completely confounded. I told him that it seemed to me as if he really took pleasure in tormenting people; as if he could not be happy unless he thought that he was making other people miserable,—that he seemed to begrudge those that were around him the least ease, or quietness, or pleasure, and to wish to keep them on a perpetual ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... would be woebegone and disconsolate, and the next he would be visited with a violent flow of spirits, to which he could only give vent by incessant laughing, whistling, and telling stories. When other resources failed, we used to amuse ourselves by tormenting him; a fair compensation for the trouble he cost us. Tete Rouge rather enjoyed being laughed at, for he was an odd compound of weakness, eccentricity, and good-nature. He made a figure worthy of a painter as he paced along before us, perched on the back of his mule, and ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... mouths have been made hard and insensible by just such drivers as these, may, perhaps, find some support in it; but for a horse who can depend upon his own legs, and who has a tender mouth and is easily guided, it is not only tormenting, but it ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... experience so handled as if his book had been written out of my heart. I do here wish to set forth that I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the Galatians (excepting the Holy Bible) before all the books I have ever seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience. About this time I was beset with tormenting fears that I had committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost, and an ancient Christian to whom I opened my mind told me he thought so, too, which gave me cold comfort. Thus, by strange and unusual assaults of the tempter was my soul, like a broken ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... me," Lindy continued, "but a year after I came here to live their son was born, and from that time on all was changed. Mr. Putnam was never unkind to me but once, but Mrs. Putnam seemed to take delight in blaming me, and tormenting me, and nagging me, until it is a wonder that my disposition is as good as it is, and you know it is not very good," said she to Quincy with a little smile. She resumed her story: "I loved the little boy, Jones ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... and children into the island, "which be all taken and executed to the number of six hundred. Sorleyboy himself," he continued, "stood upon the mainland of the Glynnes and saw the taking of the island, and was likely to have run mad for sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself, and saying that he there lost all that he ever had!" The impression left upon the mind by this horrible story, is increased by the composure with which even the news of it was received. "Yellow-haired Charley," wrote Essex to the queen, "might tear himself for ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... depend upon it, will be able to persuade ourselves that we alone can use our eyesight in the pitch profundity of darkness, and these will find a peculiar pleasure in tormenting the others who have ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... one of Governor Phipps' first official acts to order all the prisoners into irons. This restraint upon their motions might impede them, it was hoped, in tormenting the afflicted. Without waiting for the meeting of the General Court, to whom that authority properly belonged, Phipps hastened, by advice of his counsel, to organize a special court for the trial of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... innocence, though he admitted he had made the above-mentioned confession; which he however endeavoured to account for, by protesting that he was forced into it by the continued importunity she used: who vowed, that, as she was sure of his guilt, she would never leave tormenting him till he had owned it; and faithfully promised, that, in such case, she would never mention it to him more. Hence, he said, he had been induced falsely to confess himself guilty, though he was innocent; and that he believed he should have confest a murder ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... some thousand or twelve hundred pounds, was offered to the English nation for seven hundred: but we would not give seven hundred, and the whole series would have been in the Munich museum at this moment, if Professor Owen[A] had not, with loss of his own time, and patient tormenting of the British public in the person of its representatives, got leave to give four hundred pounds at once, and himself become answerable for the other three!—which the said public will doubtless pay him eventually, but sulkily, and caring ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... until she had tried out her reawakened ambition. She had given up all that had been occupying her since she left America with Freddie; she had abandoned herself to a life of toil. Certainly nothing could have been more tedious, more tormenting to sensitive nerves, than the schooling through which Brent was putting her. Its childishness revolted her and angered her. Experience had long since lowered very considerably the point at which her naturally sweet disposition ceased to be sweet—a process through which every good-tempered ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... its richness and exhausts the body of its animating powers. No wonder that its loss enfeebles the constitution, and results in impotency, premature decline, St. Vitus's dance, paralysis, epilepsy, consumption, softening of the brain, and insanity. No wonder that conscience and fear become tormenting inquisitors, and that the symptoms are changed into imaginary ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... suppose so!" snapped Mercy. Her conversation was mostly made up of snaps and snarls. "Everybody tells me all about how happy I ought to be because I'm not worse off than I am. That's their tormenting ways— I know 'em! There!" she added, looking out of the window. "Here's another of those ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... fealty to the Incredible, and traitorously cramp thyself into a cowardly canting play-actor in God's Universe; or, solemnly forswearing that, into a mutinous rebel and waste bandit in thy generation: here is an aim that is clear and credible, a course fit for a man. No need to become a tormenting and self-tormenting mutineer, banded with rebellious souls, if thou wouldst live; no need to rot in suicidal idleness; or take to platform preaching, and writing in Radical Newspapers, to pull asunder the great ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... to realise it all, I can't," responded Laura; and the interest with which she entered immediately into a discussion of furnishing and housekeeping banished from her mind all recollection of the despondency, the tormenting doubts, of the last few weeks. Yes, all would go well—all must go well in spite of everything she had imagined. Once married she would see this foolish foreboding dissolve in air, and with the wedding ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... immediately they left it, the more to occupy themselves with my legs. In an agony I broke from them and ran, careless whither, cleaving the solid dark. They accompanied me in a surrounding torrent, now rubbing, now leaping up against me, but tormenting me no more. When I fell, which was often, they gave me time to rise; when from fear of falling I slackened my pace, they flew afresh at my legs. All that miserable night they kept me running—but they drove me by a comparatively smooth path, for I tumbled into no gully, and passing ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... was safely asleep he slipped a piece of pack thread through the chain and, carrying the other end to his own bed, was enabled by a few rapid jerks to waken Marryat whenever he chose. Apparently satisfied with his victory in the gentle art of tormenting, Babbage yielded voluntarily upon the original point of dispute. Marryat and others joined the reading party, transformed it to a scene of carnival, and were discovered ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... himself for every imagined microscopic soiling, she has walked through good and evil, letting the vileness of sin trickle off her unhidden soul, so quietly and majestically that all thought of evil vanishes; and the self-tormenting wretch, with macerated flesh hidden beneath the heavy garments of mysticism and philosophy, suddenly feels, in the presence of her unabashed nakedness, that he, like herself, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... enter a bewildering vortex of a life of terrible intensity and great solitude. We are aware of nothing but Self, are tormented by Self with its forever unsatisfied longings, and by the impossibility of achieving any other Self. In this intensity of self-tormenting loneliness the soul feels to gyrate, and all that she knows of that which is outside of this Self is the sound of the rushing of invisible things, for she is blind. Without the light of this world and without ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... of chance. From eight o'clock that evening until two the next morning, he sat in a suffocating room full of cigarette-smoke, trying in vain to win back the dollar or two he had lost at the outset; flushed and trembling with excitement, and hating himself with a bitter and tormenting hatred. And so he discovered his vice; he discovered that he had in him the soul of the gambler! And all the rest of the winter he had to wrestle with that shame. He would go to his dinner, tired and heartsick; and they would ask him to play again; and he—the man who carried a message for humanity ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... when he had been leader of a corps and was viceroy the priests would cease tormenting him with their guardianship. But just then they appeared with redoubled energy. They had made him viceroy; for what purpose? to remove him from the pharaoh, and conclude a shameful treaty with Assyria. They had used force in such form that he betook himself to the temple as a penitent to obtain ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... known their hour of violence; but now they were at an end. Through her mind, long harried by grotesque visions, fragmentary images of the life that she was leaving, tormenting lines of verse, obstinate presentments of pictures once beheld, indistinct impressions of rivers, towers, and cupolas, gathered in the length of journeys half forgotten—through her mind there now only moved a few primal sensations ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... swarms from the cut hay, stinging and tormenting the workers; a blazing sun scorched their necks, and smarting sweat ran into their eyes; when evening came, such was the ache of backs continually bent, they could not straighten themselves without making ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... grew tremendously hot as he worked away at his scull for quite an hour, during which time they had not seen anything more formidable than half a dozen red oxen standing knee-deep in the water, and swinging their tails to and fro to drive away the tormenting flies. ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... death in battle but now, for the first time, the safety of an entire regiment depended solely upon him as he approached the summit of the hill from which he expected to catch sight of his opponents he dreaded to fight them, lest he prove unequal to the emergency. But, while he was tormenting himself with this over-anxiety, he suddenly remembered that his opponent was just as new at his duties as he was and probably quite as nervous, and from that moment his confidence gradually returned. As a matter of fact, Colonel Harris, who commanded ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... give me courage. I am often so depressed! And then I don't know what to do. I say to myself: 'What is the good of fighting? What's the good of tormenting myself? One way or the other, what does it matter? Nothing and nobody matters!' That is a dreadful condition to be in. I don't want to get like that. Help ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... with the old porker! etc.—But I can certify that these insults were all uttered between the Pont-Turnant and the parterre, and by about a dozen men, among which were five or six gunners following the king, the same as flies follow an animal they are bent on tormenting."] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... war, [48] Whose coal-black faces make their foes retire, And quake for fear, as if infernal [49] Jove, Meaning to aid thee [50] in these [51] Turkish arms, Should pierce the black circumference of hell, With ugly Furies bearing fiery flags, And millions of his strong [52] tormenting spirits: ]From strong Tesella unto Biledull All Barbary is ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... hand, as she had a good deal of initiative and a strong personality, she could also revel in action, in playing a principal part. Under a quiet manner her courage was daring and her spirit high. Unless someone or something was actively tormenting her, to an extent quite insupportable, ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... where, with due repose, Creatures restored their weary spirits; laid These upon stones and upon feathers those, Or greensward, in the beech or myrtle's shade: But scarcely did thine eyes, Orlando close, So on thy mind tormenting fancies preyed. Nor would the vexing thoughts which bred annoy, Let thee in peace ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... eyes, suddenly jumped upon all fours and barked twice, after which he trotted off to where Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus were tied to the wheels of the waggon, put his nose to each, and barked; and in the place of a patient attack upon tormenting flies and fleas, the dogs leaped up, strained at their thongs, and ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... terms of crushing severity in which the Lord President had spoken of Sydney Westerfield and of himself. Sentence by sentence he read the reproof inflicted on the unhappy woman whom he had vowed to love and cherish. And then—even then—urged by his own self-tormenting suspicion, he looked for more. On the opposite page there was a leading article, presenting comments on the trial, written in the tone of lofty and virtuous regret; taking the wife's side against the judge, but declaring, at the same time, that no condemnation ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... in fierce and awful strain: "Nay, this is not the Spear-wound in my side! There let the life-blood flow itself to death! For this is fire and flame within my heart That sways my senses in delirium,— The awful madness of tormenting love! Now do I see how all the world is stirred, Tossed and convulsed, and often lost in shame By the terrific ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... their flank! Pepper 'em from behind walls and trees!" shouted Colonel Barrett, who saw that it would be useless to follow the retreating enemy in battalion order, but each man, acting for himself, could run through fields and pastures and keep up a tormenting fire. ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... mastership, clothed in words fresh and weighty from the mine of popular speech, stamping them with his glittering imperial superscription. Imaginations! there are imaginations of the future, the reverse of poetical. Hunger will give you tormenting imaginations of breakfasts and dinners; avarice enlivens some minds with pictures of gains that are to be. But imaginations of the life beyond the grave, these we cannot entertain without spirituality. The having them with any urgency ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... had legions of followers, equally insistent on tormenting humanity. In The Wonders of the Invisible World, published in 1692, Mather proves that there is a devil and that the being has specific attributes, powers, ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... his new product, and invited the enemies to bring along their wildest specimens About thirty of Texas' most ferocious cattle, placed within the enclosure, spent a whole afternoon plunging at the barbs in a useless and tormenting attempt to escape. This spectacular demonstration of efficiency launched Gates fairly upon his career. He immediately began to sell his new fencing on an enormous scale; in a few years the whole world was demanding it, and it has become, as recent ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... He fell to tormenting himself with the possibility of her having gone already. Everything in those bare rooms had been packed—there was no real reason for the girl to remain another hour. Perhaps she had reconsidered, changed her mind, and departed even earlier than she ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... Bertie was off on a new tack tormenting them with the more serious aspects of the situation, pointing out the shortage of supplies that was already making itself felt, and asking them what they were going to do about it. A little later I met ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... not have been so willing to pull at an oar, but he knew Diamond was gnawing his heart out, and the big fellow had developed a sudden satisfaction in tormenting ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... lips curving deliciously, of a voice with a wonderfully soft Highland accent; the vision and memory of Moira, Cameron's sister, as she had appeared to him in the Glen Cuagh Oir at her father's door. Had Cameron known of this tormenting vision and this haunting memory he might have questioned the perfect sincerity of his friend's counsel. But Dr. Martin kept his secret well and none shared with him his visions ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... would, as you say, be inevitable. More fortunate than Rasselas, I found a happy spot where the names of women are never called, where the myths of Ate and Pandora are forgotten, and where the only females that have successfully run the rigid blockade are the tormenting fleas, that wage a ceaseless war with the unoffending men, and justify their nervous horror lest any other creature of the same sex should smuggle herself into their blissful retreat. I have seen crowned heads, statesmen, great military chieftains, and geniuses, whose ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... When he was come to him, he kissed his cheik, and said, "Lo! hear is a tokin that I forgeve thee: My harte, do thyn office." And then by and by, he was putt upoun the gibbet, and hanged, and there brynt to poulder.[433] When that the people beheld the great tormenting of that innocent, thei mycht not withhold frome piteous morning and complaining ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... verjuice, and nerves, Where other people would make preserves, He turns his fruits into pickles: Jealous, envious, and fretful by day, At night, to his own sharp fancies a prey, He lies like a hedgehog roll'd up the wrong way, Tormenting himself ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... their boyish sport to deride him; and, besides, his imagination constantly created an alibi for Dunstan: he saw him continually in some congenial haunt, to which he had walked off on leaving Wildfire—saw him sponging on chance acquaintances, and meditating a return home to the old amusement of tormenting his elder brother. Even if any brain in Raveloe had put the said two facts together, I doubt whether a combination so injurious to the prescriptive respectability of a family with a mural monument and venerable tankards, would not have been suppressed as of unsound tendency. But ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... joy, in thee I rest, Though all inferior comforts fail; No hopeless anguish heaves my breast, And no tormenting ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... bitter reproaches and complaints were exchanged. Voltaire, too, was soon at war with the other men of letters who surrounded the King; and this irritated Frederic, who, however, had himself chiefly to blame: for, from that love of tormenting which was in him a ruling passion, he perpetually lavished extravagant praises on small men and bad books, merely in order that he might enjoy the mortification and rage which on such occasions Voltaire took no pains to conceal. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... must make Beatrice more flashing at first, and softer afterwards. This will be an improvement upon my old reading of the part. She must be always merry and by turns scornful, tormenting, vexed, self-communing, absent, melting, teasing, brilliant, indignant, sad-merry, thoughtful, withering, gentle, humorous, and gay, Gay, Gay! Protecting (to Hero), motherly, very intellectual—a gallant creature and complete in ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... over them during the fervor of the day, bringing with them tempering airs from the distant mountains. To the prevalence of these breezes, and to the want of all leafy covert, may we also attribute the freedom from those flies and other insects so tormenting to man and beast during the summer months, in the lower plains, which are ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... part of this night on shore, a circumstance of which the tormenting mosquitoes took every possible advantage; finally driving me from their territory with every indignity, and in a state of mind anything but placid. The poet doubtless spoke from experience ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... with elbows on the ground, feet erected behind them, chin in hand, devouring the narrative with their eyes; the fifth wriggling restlessly about, evidently in search of opportunities of mischief or of tormenting tricks. Just within earshot, but sketching the picturesque wooden bridge below, sat one girl. The little one, with her youngest brother, was close at their mother's feet, threading flowers to make a garland. It was a pretty ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Shoustova, excitedly and hurriedly. "'Anything you tell me,' he said, 'can harm no one; on the contrary, if you tell me, we may be able to set free innocent people whom we may be uselessly tormenting.' Well, I still said I would not tell. Then he said, 'All right, don't tell, but do not deny what I am going to say.' And ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... should I perceive in the midst of them, but my early and tormenting flame, the everlasting Sacharissa! She was grown up, it is true, into the full beauty of womanhood, but showed by the provoking merriment of her countenance, that she perfectly recollected me, and the ridiculous flagellations of which she had twice ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... indeed for breathing space as, on the afternoon of her arrival, she sat sunken in a large chair and felt, as one relief, that she would not see Miss Robinson again until evening. It had been tormenting, all the journey up, to tear herself from her own sick thoughts and to answer Miss Robinson's unsuspecting comments ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick |
