"Rending" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but he gave him his forgiveness and his blessing, and then took his leave with tears and lamentations which rendered it impossible for him to speak, and in which all present joined. The scene was heart-rending. ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... president's car the little constellation of arc-stars in the valley below was suddenly blotted out in a skyward belching of gray flame; a huge volcano-burst of momentarily illuminated dust. Instinctively they braced themselves for the concussion that followed,—a bellowing thunderclap and a rending of earth and air that shook the surrounding hills and drowned the shriek of ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... uncle; a word to the wise is enough," said Popinot, to whom Cesar's heart-rending exclamation was ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... king—justly appreciative of the domestic affection so tenderly portrayed by Coventry Patmore's 'Angel in the House'—Mr. Swinburne charged impetuously with his Poems and Ballads, waving the banner of revolt against conventional reticence, kicking over screens and rending drapery—a reckless votary of Astarte, chanting the 'Laus Veneris' and the worship of 'Dolores, Our Lady of Pain.' From the calm and bright aspect of paganism he is turning toward its darker side, to the mystic rites and symbolism which cloaked the fierce primitive impulses ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... at that date, the destitution had grown heart-rending. The fire of the enemy was kept up more briskly than ever, but famine and disease killed more than cannon-balls. The soldiers of the garrison were so weak from privation that they could scarcely stand; yet they repelled every attack, and repaired every breach in the walls as fast ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... were the churches wrangling before the lad's distracted thoughts. If the theologies were rending religion, politics was rending the theologies. The war just ended had not brought, as the summer sermon of the Bible College professor had stated, breadth of mind for narrowness, calm for passion. Not while men are fighting their wars of conscience do they hate most, but after they have fought; and ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... suddenly stirred the grass. The harsh rustle it made was followed by a deafening crash, and a jagged streak of lightning fell from the leaden clouds; then the air was filled with the roar of driving hail. It swept the wood, rending leaves and smashing twigs, while the men crouched inside the straining tent and a constant blaze of lightning flickered about the grass. By and by the thunder died away and the hail gave place to torrential rain, while the slender trees rocked in the blast and ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... that she had hesitated even for that moment. She seemed to them to glide softly, steadfastly, without any faltering, before them into the little silent womanly room, where her night's work was folded tidily upon the table, and her tiny thimble and scissors laid beside it. What a heart-rending contrast lay between those domestic traces and that dreadful muffled figure, covered from the light of day with Nettie's shawl, which was now laid down there, Nettie did not pause to think of. She stood ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... evil and heart-rending; for joyously as the procession had marched forward on the first day, it dragged along sadly and hopelessly on the second. The desert wind had robbed many of the strong of their power of resistance and energy; others, like the bondman's wife and nursling, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the blast that engenders monsters has crushed out the inmost entrails with stern effort, and when their hand has swept away the living with cruel nail, tearing off limbs and rending ravished bodies; then Hadding, thy life shall survive, nor shall the nether realms bear off thy ghost, nor thy spirit pass heavily to the waters of Styx; but the woman who hath made the wretched ghost come back hither, crushed by her own ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... and behold! no Maurice made his, appearance; nor did he respond to his mother's heart-rending appeal. The young scamp had sneaked up the companion, unperceived by the mate, and was now on deck in high glee at his freedom from maternal thraldom, watching the battle of the elements and the struggle of the ship against the supremacy of the ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... another grinding, rending noise, as the great ice-floe revolved slowly in one direction and the current bore the vessel against it in another; and as these sounds arose Steve felt a strange oppression at the chest, and it ached where Johannes had seized him, and his wrenched ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... aloft, and the company gathered there, {70} but at midnight the young men were lowering the sails again, awaiting Heracles. But he wheresoever his feet might lead him went wandering in his fury, for the cruel Goddess of love was rending his heart ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... their conversation had to be carried on in low tones and whispers, for fear of the listening ears above,—'don't,—don't, thou'rt rending my heart. Oh, Sylvie, hearken. There's not a thing I'll not do; there's not a penny I've got,—th' last drop of blood that's in me,—I'll give up my life ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... hope of rescue; of a night of horrors, multitudes dying amid the awful terrors of flood and fire, plunged under the wild torrent, buried in mire, or consumed in devouring flames; of helpless creatures rending the air with pitiful screams crying aloud in their agony, imploring help with outstretched hands, and finally sinking with ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... her, her, my Angela, the twentieth part of the property you have deprived her of. Oh! I know you will listen to my entreaty! O Angela! my daughter!' And therewith the old man sobbed and lamented and moaned, calling upon his child by name in the most heart-rending tones. ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... I loving and pitying him, we separated; I had not time to preach my full doctrine, but gave him instead a deep and misty glass of cool beer, and pledged him brotherhood, freedom, and an equal law. Then I went on my way, praying God that all these rending quarrels might be appeased. For they would certainly be appeased if we once again had a united doctrine in Europe, since economics are but an expression of the mind and do not (as the poor blind slaves of the great cities ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... the huge sail bellied gently to the wind and the junk broke the violet breeze shadow beyond the calm of the sheltered water, a voice came over the sea, a voice like the clamour of a hundred gulls, thin, rending, fierce as the sound ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... shudder run over her, as though something vital were coming to her, like the rending pang of pain which heralds child-birth. After this, did she close her eyes for a moment, or did it come to her while she continued to gaze wide-eyed at the stern greatness of the universe? What was this old, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... in her boyish riding breeches and deep-skirted coat, merely nodded her thanks, took hold of the hammer firmly, and drove in more tacks, paying no further attention to William Van Beuren Portlaw and his heart-rending smiles. ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Juno's will the strife resign, The warring gods in fierce contention join: Rekindling rage each heavenly breast alarms: With horrid clangour shock the ethereal arms: Heaven in loud thunder bids the trumpet sound; And wide beneath them groans the rending ground. Jove, as his sport, the dreadful scene descries, And views contending gods with careless eyes. The power of battles lifts his brazen spear, And first assaults the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... in our day, with admirable success, to so many ancient writers, under a system of canons which have now raised this species of criticism to the rank of an inductive science. This criticism, applied to the Scriptures, has in many instances restored the true rending, and dissolved the objections which might have been founded on the uncorrected variations; and, as time rolls on, may lead, by yet fresh discoveries and more comprehensive recensions, to a yet further ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... his father's oath, and the rending crash split the silence at once. The car bucked and flipped, the doors were slammed open and ripped off against a tree that went down. The car leaped in a skew turn and began to roll and roll, shedding metal and humans as it racketed down ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... the one phrase again and again: "Oh, the pain in my knee!" And gradually I became aware that this lament was becoming a real melody, and for five long minutes Carre improvised a terrible, wonderful, heart-rending song on "the pain in his knee." Since then this has become a habit, and he begins to sing suddenly as soon as he feels that he ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... resolution to make her mine by force, I gave way to grief at the thought of her hatred of me. I went and leaned upon a gloomy old wall which happened to be near, and, burying my face in my hands, I broke into heart-rending sobs. My sturdy breast heaved convulsively, but tears would not bring the relief I longed for. I could have roared in my anguish, and I had to bite my handkerchief to prevent myself from yielding to the temptation. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... exactly what it ought not to have been. Instead of stimulating it checked, instead of expanding it stereotyped. Even for the church it had failed to bring unity, for it was from Oxford that the opinions had sprung that seemed to be rending the church in twain. The regeneration introduced by this momentous measure has been overlaid by the strata of subsequent reforms. Enough to say that the objects obtained were the deposition of the fossils and drones, and a renovated ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... sorry to have to part with my country, which I love, for which I would a thousand times have laid down my life, and which I no more can serve, but which beholds me now quit her bosom, since she considers me to be a bad citizen. This heart-rending thought does not allow me to commend my memory to you; labor, then, to make it pure in proving that a life which has been devoted to the service of the country, and to the triumph of liberty and equality, must punish that ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... relief, overcame me. My knees shook and gave way; I tottered, and sank helplessly into the seat built around our great magnolia. And shaken out of all self-control I wept as I had not been permitted to weep over my own dead, my own overthrown hopes. Head to foot I was shaken as with some rending sickness. The sobs were torn out of my ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... condition to benefit by the cessation of the attack. In spite of the terrible disadvantages under which they laboured, they had fought with splendid courage. The sides of the galleons had been riddled with shot, and the splinters caused by the rending of the massive timbers had done even greater execution than the iron hail. Being always to leeward, and heeling over with the wind, the ships had been struck again and again below the waterline, and many ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... silence was most profound, the watch on board the steamer City of Washington, and some sailors ashore, saw what appeared to be a sheet of fire flash up in the water directly beneath the Maine, and even as the blinding glare was in their eyes came a mighty, confused rumble as of grinding and rending, followed an instant later by a roar as if a volcano had sprung into activity beneath the waves of ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... finger was not needed. Sounds of paroxysm drew their attention sufficiently—sounds most poignant, soul-rending, and lugubrious. William and Johnnie perceived the large person of Mr. Crooper; he was seated upon the ground, his back propped obliquely against the smoke-house, though this attitude was ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... salvation is, and how it is obtained, there, unless there is a positive and determined resistance to the power of truth, the proper feelings will come of their own accord. It will require no heart-rending stories, no frantic appeals, no violent exhortations to bring them about. But we object to the revival system, because it is almost entirely built up on feeling, and thus reaches only one department of man's complex nature. Instead of changing the whole immaterial man—his intellect, his sensibilities, ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... nearer home, while it offered a place of retreat, in the event of the danger's becoming more serious. The fierce rapidity with which we now moved prevented all conversation, or even much reflection. The reports of the rending ice, however, became more and more frequent, first coming from above, and then from below. More than once it seemed as if the immense mass of weight that had evidently collected somewhere near the town of Albany, was about to pour ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... slumber Iblis tempted me to slay him; so I arose in haste, and drawing the sword from under his head, dealt him a blow that made his head fall from his body. But his sister knew what I had done, and rushing out from within the tent, threw herself on his corpse, rending her raiment and repeating ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... had passed the night and the morning in making inquiries. He knew all now. He knew Fantine's history in all its heart-rending details. He went on:— ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... though a priest, though the Vicar of Christ, and there the Emperor was to drink the cup of humiliation, of despair, to the dregs. It was there that, conquered, broken, betrayed by fortune, he was to sign his abdication. It was there that he was to utter those heart-rending words: "It is right; I receive what I have deserved. I wanted no statues, for I knew that there was no safety in receiving them at any other hands than those of posterity. A man to keep them while he lives, needs ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... taken from a letter of a subsequent date, in addition to the above letter, throws still further light upon the heart-rending affair, and shows Mr. Johnston's deep sympathy with the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... The horizon was unbroken by a single mound, from north round to north again, and it was as level as that of the ocean. My view to the north extended about eight miles, but I did not venture to compass that distance, only perhaps to have overlooked a similar heart-rending and desolate scene." This bears out the opinion expressed in the text. I do not hesitate, however, in the face of the interesting evidence brought forward by Captain Sturt, still to doubt the existence of an inland sea. I think the high temperature he experienced contradicts such an hypothesis; ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... piteous and all had gloomy forebodings of impending ruin. The dark, blue, cold waves, pressed hard by the wind, rolled and tumbled our vessel frightfully, seeming to make our fears their sport. What a dismal, heart-rending scene! After all our efforts in trying to reach Michigan, now I expected we must be lost. Oh how vain the expectation of reaching our new place, in the woods! I thought we should never see it. It looked to me as though Lake ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... so likewise many reformations; every country proceeding in a par- ticular way and method, according as their national interest, together with their constitution and clime, in- clined them: some angrily and with extremity; others calmly and with mediocrity, not rending, but easily dividing, the community, and leaving an honest possi- bility of a reconciliation;—which, though peaceable spirits do desire, and may conceive that revolution of time and the mercies of God may effect, yet that judg- ment that shall consider the ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... Goward, with a heart-rending sigh. "Miss Talbert and I were guests at the Abercrombies' last October—maybe she's told you—and on Hallowe'en we had a party—apple-bobbing and the mirror trick and all that, and somehow or other Miss Talbert and I were thrown together ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... courage and falls a-trembling; and then, giving up suddenly when the hunters come in force and the deadly guns are aimed—giving up, covering their heads with their paws and whimpering with groans and outcries almost human, very heart-rending and pitiful. ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... study. The attempt was futile. Talk still seemed to buzz about him; his temples throbbed; his thoughts wandered far and wide. Driven to bed long before his accustomed hour, he heard raucous voices rending the night, bellowing in hideous antiphony from this side of the street and the other, as the vendors of a halfpenny paper made the most of what Providence ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... and puritanic environment in which the world of sentiment and the life of the spirit were unknown, Mapu's romance descended like a flash of lightning, rending the cloud that enveloped all hearts. A century after Rousseau, there was still a corner in Europe in which pleasure, the joy of living, the good things of this life, and nature, were considered futilities, in which love was condemned as a crime, ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... her now had thought her indifferent. She was very pale, and deep circles round her eyes told of sleepless nights and days of mental misery, but otherwise there was not the faintest outward symptom of that terrible anguish which was rending her heartstrings. Her lips did not quiver, and the source of her tears had been ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... existence of a God, the idea of whom varies in such a remarkable way in the mind of His ministers? How can we avoid rejecting totally a God who is full of contradictions? How can we rely upon priests whom we see continually contending, accusing each other of being infidels and heretics, rending and persecuting each other without mercy, about the way in which they understand the pretended truths which they ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... of the girl next her, stepped on her own dress, tripped and came to her knees; picked herself up, with a sound of rending cloth, and finally got out of the room. This time the titter was not so easily checked. Peggy heard it rippling behind her as she fled. Even Miss Russell smiled as she rapped on the desk, and said ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... heard in every home North and South, and their meaning was unmistakable. The flash of that mortar gun and of the others that followed was as the lightning burning its way across the vault of heaven, revealing everything with intense vividness, and rending and consuming all noxious vapors. The clouds rolled speedily away, and from the North came the sound of ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... turns to the subject of emigration, at the time much in the public eye, and shows how superior is British North America to Australia, then highly spoken of. He paints vividly the heart-rending poverty of the British lower classes, and the fertility of the acres waiting ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... performing such a painful duty to save a child from disgrace, than I did in receiving such a severe, though well-merited, chastisement. Although I thought the punishment very harsh at the time, yet I felt conscious that I deserved it; and he performed the heart-rending task in such a manner as convinced me of its justice, and the more I reflected upon it the more I was satisfied that it arose from the greatest parental affection. It made the most lasting impression upon my mind, and stamped my determination, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... Neapolitan sailors of King Alonzo should have been wrecked here, I consider to be more likely. The vexed Bermoothes is a good name for them. There is no getting in or out of them without the greatest difficulty, and a patient, slow navigation, which is very heart-rending. That Caliban should have lived here I can imagine; that Ariel would have been sick of the place is certain; and that Governor Prospero should have been willing to abandon his governorship, I conceive to have been only natural. When ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... to move among. Love is life's snow. It falls deepest and softest into the gashes left by the fight—whiter and purer than snow itself. What is life without love? It is like this ice—a cold, bare, rugged mass, the wind driving it and rending it and then forcing it together again, nothing to cover over the open rifts, nothing to break the violence of the collisions, nothing to round away the sharp corners of the broken floes—nothing, nothing but ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... by a vague mechanical environment in which there are wheels within wheels. But the inner restraint of the artist is suggested in the treatment of the torment itself; which is suggested by a certain rending drag in the garments, while the limbs are limp and the head almost somnolent. She does not strive nor cry; neither is her voice heard in the streets. The artist had not to draw pain but to draw despair; and while the pain is old enough the particular despair is modern. ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... moments Lady Ingleton had almost hated Cynthia Clarke—when Cynthia had spoken of trying to wake up Dion Leith's mind, of his not being an intellectual man, of Jimmy Clarke's shrinking from him because of his deterioration. And when Cynthia had said that deterioration was "heart-rending" Lady Ingleton had quite definitely detested her. This feeling of detestation had persisted while, in the drawing-room, Cynthia was lovingly appreciating the new acquisition of Sevres. Lady Ingleton ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... soaring aloft, up, up, until it seemed to my excited imagination as though the little craft was being hove right up among the clouds and at the same time being capsized. Then came the thundering crash of another mountain of water upon her deck, accompanied by the sound of rending woodwork as the companion cover parted company and was swept away; a whole Niagara of water poured down through the opening upon my devoted head, and as I clung to the handrail with the grip of a drowning man the ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... time at the hospitals, for they were full of the most heart-rending cases. Among the physicians conspicuous there for energy and ability, were the indefatigable Hooton and Guth—men who justly deserved the confidence and respect of their boys. Among the most trying positions in the army, the Surgeon's is first. The minds and ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... of mad hair. He was in everybody's way, in Crusoe's way, and being, so to speak, "beside himself," was also in his own way. If people trod upon him accidentally, which they often did, Grumps uttered a solitary heart-rending yell proportioned in intensity to the excruciating nature of the torture he endured, then instantly resumed his position and his fascinated stare. Crusoe generally held his head up, and gazed over his little ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... endless day she passed standing over hot stewpans and sealing up jars, in the torture known only to those whom the chances of life detain at a distance from the sick bed of those dear to them. She suffered such heart-rending agony as those unhappy creatures suffer who cannot go where their anxiety calls them, and who, in the extremity of despair caused by separation and uncertainty, constantly imagine that death ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... his numerous letters written during the five years he remained in the Soudan, and that is the heart-rending condition of the thousands of slaves who were driven through the country, and the cruelty of the slave-hunters. Were we to begin quoting from those letters, we should outrun the limits of this sketch. He had broken the neck of the piratical army of man-stealers, and their forces were scattered ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... and other heroes of the dawn. There is a crab, I know, which lives on coconuts, enjoying the scientific name of Birgus latro, the Burglar; but it seems to be a special invention, as big as a cat and armed with two fearful pairs of pincers in front for rending the outside casings of the fruits, and a more delicate tool on its hind-legs for picking out the meat. Other animals have to do without it, as had man, I opine, in the stone and copper ages. With the iron ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... thieves operating along the boundary lines. He was glad that he had decided to explore this particular section of his district. A moment later he was still more glad, for the stillness of the morning air was suddenly broken by a splitting, rending sound, which was followed by the crash of a great tree as it came thundering to earth. There could be no mistaking the sound. A tree had been felled. Both boys stopped dead in their tracks and looked ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... the questions that rise out of the dust and din of the colossal upheaval which is rending half of the world. Directly or indirectly they touch the whole American people, regardless of rank or wealth. The tide of war has rolled us far upon the shores of world affairs. We have prospered in the kinship of ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... than the effort mankind is making, against all the chances of destruction by which he is surrounded, to affirm, in face of all that changes, his will and intention to continue? We all remember the heart-rending lamentation of Diderot: "The first promises made between two creatures of flesh," he says, "were made at the foot of a rock crumbling to dust. They called on Heaven to be a witness of their constancy, but ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... tormenting the world seemed to him to be concentrated in a "red flower," in one red flower. It was but necessary to tear it down, and the incessant, heart-rending cries and moans which rise to the indifferent sky from all points of the earth, like its natural breathing, would be silenced. The evil of the world, he believed, lay in the evil will and in the ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... for a moment on a heavy paper-weight as he looked across the room at the woman who was waggling her foot and knitting her scanty brows at the sound of the rending sobs. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... this he led the French. Then, selecting from the ranks of his followers, who stood in a great circle watching the ceremony, a little girl of ten years old, he led her into the ring and presented her to Cartier. After her, two little boys were handed over in the same fashion, the assembled Indians rending the air with shouts of exultation. Donnacona, in true Indian fashion, improved the occasion with a long harangue, which Taignoagny interpreted to mean that the little girl was the niece of the chief and one of the boys the brother of the ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... earless, stone-deaf, or have ears that hear not, to remain callous to the sobs, the sighs and the wailing of women, the heart-rending cries of the children, the death-rattle of strangled men, the cracking of the assassins' rifles, the only music that has filled the air of Russia ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... this, the strain of anxiety was universal and heart-rending. So much depended upon swelling the figures. The tension would have been relieved if our faces were all set towards extinction, and the speedy evacuation of this unsatisfactory globe. The writer met recently, in the Colorado ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and stabbing followed on deck. The Turks below swarmed up and drove the English overboard. Nothing daunted, Richard prepared to ram her. Forming up his best galleys in line-abreast he urged the rowers to their utmost speed. With a terrific rending crash the deadly galley beaks bit home. The Turk was stove in so badly that she listed over and sank like a stone. It is a pity that we do not know her name. For she fought overwhelming numbers with ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... and the fierce northern winds swept through the forests, creaking the leafless limbs of the trees as they swayed them to and fro, anon rending them in twain, and scattering the fragments over the white mantled earth. The wanderers now spent most of their time within the temple, by their glowing fire that blazed so cheerfully, the window and door closed tightly by skins, shutting out the ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... Rose of Sharon,' said Fakredeen, like a child about to cry for a toy, and he threw himself on his knees before Eva, and kept kissing her robe. 'Ask him to do more,' he repeated, in a suppressed tone of heart-rending cajolery; 'he can refuse you nothing. Ask him, ask him, Eva! I have no friend in the world but you; I am so desolate. You have always been my friend, my counsellor, my darling, my ruby, my pearl, my rose of Rocnabad! Ask him, ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... last staggered out on the Kohlslau platform utterly exhausted. As we did so we heard a distant roar from the city. Fritz turned an ashen gray, Spitz a livid blue. "Are we too late?" he gasped, as we madly fought our way into the street, where shouts of "The King! The King!" were rending the air. "Can it be Black Michael?" But here the crowd parted, and a procession, preceded by outriders, flashed into the square. And there, seated in a carriage beside the most beautiful red-haired girl I had ever seen, was the King,—the King whom we had left two hours ago, dead drunk ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... all around the earth was drenched With gore, and choked with corpses were the streams Of Simois and Xanthus. Still he chased, Still slaughtered, even to the city's walls; For panic fell on all the host. And now All had he slain, had dashed the gates to earth, Rending them from their hinges, or the bolts, Hurling himself against them, had he snapped, And for the Danaans into Priam's burg Had made a way, had utterly destroyed That goodly town—but now was Phoebus wroth Against him with grim fury, when he saw Those countless troops of heroes slain of ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... her. He withheld the very centre of himself. For a long time, she never realised. She was dazed and maddened only. But as months of married experience passed into years of married torment, she began to understand. It was that, after their most tremendous, and, it seemed to her, heaven-rending passion—yea, when for her every veil seemed rent and a terrible and sacred creative darkness covered the earth—then—after all this wonder and miracle—in crept a poisonous grey snake of disillusionment, a poisonous grey snake of disillusion that bit her to madness, ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... tremendously agitated. It surged back and forth in the throes of a struggle. There was a loud grating and clanging of metal. The man's voice leaped to a higher pitch and was sharp with imperativeness. A large body plunged and panted. There was a snapping and ripping and rending, and amid a shower of falling leaves a horse burst through the screen. On its back was a pack, and from this trailed broken vines and torn creepers. The animal gazed with astonished eyes at the scene into which it had been precipitated, then dropped ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... never heard before or since—a scream as of women in their hour of agony and extreme peril, sounded within a few paces of us. I sprang out of my hammock; and as I did so, two white and graceful female figures darted or rather flew by me, shrieking—and oh! in what heart-rending tones—for "Socorro! Socorro! Por Dios! Help! Help!" Close upon the heels of the fugitives, bounding and leaping along with enormous strides and springs, came three or four dark objects which resembled nothing earthly. The human ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... suggestion of consistent reasons, which may determine hesitating choice, or justify involuntary preference. And if I should succeed, as I hope, in making the Stones of Venice touchstones, and detecting, by the mouldering of her marble, poison more subtle than ever was betrayed by the rending of her crystal; and if thus I am enabled to show the baseness of the schools of architecture and nearly every other art, which have for three centuries been predominant in Europe, I believe the result of the inquiry may be serviceable for proof of a more vital truth than any at which ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... Jeremiah again. Moses thereupon went to the angels, and from them he learned that the Temple had been destroyed, and Israel banished from his land. Weeping and mourning, Moses joined the Patriarchs, and together, rending their garments and wringing their hands, they betook themselves to the ruins of the Temple. Here their wailing was augmented by the loud lamentations of the angels: (32) "How desolate are the highways to Jerusalem, the highways destined for travel ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... almost comfortable-certainly not suffering like himself, bruised and strained, with sharp twinges rending his damaged foot; his limbs cramped, and sensible of the acute misery of the cold, and the full horror of their position; but as long as he could shake even an unconscious murmur from his brother, it seemed like happiness compared with the utter ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... does much. Force likewise (for, as Antiquarian Philosophers teach, the royal Sceptre was from the first something of a Hammer, to crack such heads as could not be convinced) will all along find somewhat to do. And thus in perpetual abolition and reparation, rending and mending, with struggle and strife, with present evil and the hope and effort towards future good, must the Constitution, as all human things do, build itself forward; or unbuild itself, and sink, as it can and may. O Sieyes, and ye other Committeemen, and Twelve ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the long-robed paupers, the elegant dandies dressed in latest fashion, the men in Government service, the physicians, the students, not to speak of the women. For two or three minutes did these heart-rending moans resound—this cry of common sorrow which had issued from the Jewish heart. The rabbi was unable to continue. He stood upon the pulpit, covered his face with his hands, ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... weight of the hound carried him backwards on to the floor. Over they rolled and over, the hairy man and the hairy dog, growling and worrying in a bestial combat. He was fumbling at the animal's throat, and I could not see what he was doing, until it gave a sudden sharp yelp of pain, and there was a rending sound like the tearing of canvas. The man staggered up with his hands dripping, and the tawny mass with the blotch of crimson ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... jot did it stir, and after about five minutes of this futile work he appeared again at the window. The water was nearly on a level with the opening now, and rising moment by moment, while there were ominous ripping and rending sounds in Katherine's ice island, which warned her that the rescue must take place in the next few minutes if it was to be effected ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... no sin against the Holy Ghost, and God could show the Protestants, for a mote like this in the eyes of their enemies, whole beams in their own. It must needs be an intolerable burden to the Elector's conscience if war were to arise in consequence,—a war which might 'well end in rending the Empire asunder and letting in the Turks, to the ruin of the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... doubly grieved for leaving poor Rose all alone, especially as this was her day for being white and beautiful. She begged her not to leave the house, but to live on the milk of her sheep, and to bake cakes of some meal which was in the bin. Their adieus were heart-rending; although the soldiers declared that in three days the forester should be at liberty to return, provided the innocence of his family was established. Rose believed them, and endeavoured to take courage. ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... too late. That unguarded look of hers had betrayed her, rending asunder in an instant the veil with which for years she ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... reflections and regrets may have been his in that hour of awful mystery, we may not know. In the words of another: "What blight and anguish met his agonized eyes, whose lips may tell? what brilliant broken plans, what bitter rending of sweet household ties, what sundering of ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... tabernacle stood, only the high priest could enter there, and that but once a year, with blood which he offered for his sins and the sins of the people. It was this last veil which was rent when our Lord gave up the ghost on Calvary, and the sacred writer explains that this rending of the veil opened the way for every worshipper in the world to come by the new and living way ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... tyrant, frozen rigid, armed in mail, knelt at his head. The mercenaries held the nave, the bodyguard the door, archers lounged in the Piazza. All this parade of force was mere superfluity; Verona had no desire to revolt. The Veronese were for rending their hearts and not ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... pains"; neither to him nor to myself, she might have added. And so when he begged to be allowed to learn the piano, she started him with characteristic barbarity on the scales; and heard in consequence "heart-rending groans" and saw "anguished claspings of hands" as he lost his way among ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cardinal's hat and circumcision at the same time to secure the good things of this world and of those in the world to come. History also relates that his most Christian majesty, Henry III, of France, as a relaxation to the interminable squabble between two Christian religious factions which were rending France, and which in the end cost him his life, actually wrote a letter to the Sultan, asking the favor to be allowed to stand as godfather at the circumcision of his son. When it is remembered that the godfather at a Turkish circumcision has to make a strong profession of Moslem ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... on the entrance tubes, the expansive force of the water in the cistern increases in that accumulating ratio which is practically exemplified in the hydraulic press, and the whole mass of water bursts forth from the side of the mountain, as if it were a staved barrel, rending rocks, and scattering their shattered fragments around like dust. Hence we may presume arose these fierce pulsations which made the rivers descend wave on wave. What a sight, to have been remembered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... With the speed of fire Orlando followed where the enchantress fled, Rending and scattering tree and bush and brier, And leaving wide the vestige of his tread. Nearer he drew, with feet that could not tire, And strong in hope to seise her as she sped. How vain the hope! Her form he seemed to clasp, But ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... vexation. This heart-rending spectacle was very distasteful to him. He had company coming to dinner in the evening, and it would be extremely inconvenient for him to have to appear mournful. His mother was always doing something to bother him. She might just as well have chosen another day. However, he put on an appearance ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... alarmed her cautious sister, and drew from her frequent and serious remonstrances. But that she also travelled rapidly towards the final rending of the bonds which had hitherto held her, we find from a letter to Sarah Douglass, written in the spring of 1835. Speaking of Jay's book of Colonization, which had just appeared, ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... maiden clasped her hands over her face, cried out and shuddered. The lightning had shivered a tree upon which her gaze was fixed, rending it as she could ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... now I'll tell thee all— Only concerning what you hear, And still more surely what you see, You must be dumb as any stone; And you too must be well prepared For a most sad heart-rending sight— 'Twill make ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham
... of utter helplessness, when the borer swooped wildly downwards, and the floor was snatched sickeningly from under him. He was thrown violently against the instrument panel; then up toward the pointed top; and at the same instant came a rending crash that ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... may give only this advice, according to my small model. Men ought to take heed, of rending God's church, by two kinds of controversies. The one is, when the matter of the point controverted, is too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled only by contradiction. For, as it is noted, by one of the fathers, Christ's ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... they followed the example of their Divine Master, Who, from His Circumcision upwards, paid obedience to that Law which He came to fulfil, and Who was a constant attendant at the services of the Temple and of the Synagogues. There was no violent rending away from the old Faith, until God, in His wisdom and justice, saw fit to ordain the destruction of the guilty city Jerusalem, and the overthrow of the Jewish Temple, and Altar, and Priesthood, none of which had then any further purpose to serve ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... aside that delicate reserve, that lovely timidity, which she had hitherto exhibited. It was then that she poured forth, without restraint, all the ravishing tenderness of her nature. How affecting were those tears? How heart-rending the sighs that heaved her throbbing bosom? When will those tender exclamations cease to vibrate in my ear? When will those piercing cries give over their task, the torturing this constant breast? You, my friend, were witness to the ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... were heard coming out of the river—just such screams as would be uttered by a person who was being murdered. Sometimes a young maiden was seen emerging out of the waters, half naked, with dishevelled hair, that covered her shoulders, and the country resounded with her heart-rending crying as she appeared in the lake. The frequent crying of the Spirit gave to ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... when that they were returned unto their camp half a league distant, there arose a mighty tempest, and there was such an upheaval and rending of the earth as only God's hand could make; and there was a crashing and a groaning as if the world were smitten in twain, and the winds fled through the valleys in dismay, and the trees of the forest shrieked in terror and fell upon their faces. Then in the morning when the tempest ceased ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... have left unfulfilled their heroic task of witnessing to the truth by their death; but if indeed base alloy did mingle with their great and conscientious sacrifice, let us hope that the pangs of physical torture, the anguish of injustice and ignominy, and the rending asunder of all the ties of earthly affection, may have been some expiation for the imperfection ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... which the operation is performed, but which is always declared to be highly prosperous, if a liberal present has been made. During the performance of the ceremony, the forests appear in a blaze, the most discordant shouts rending the air, intermixed with the sounds of their instruments, composing altogether a tumult, which is heard at the distance of many leagues. The dancing is described as of the most ludicrous kind, marked by those indecencies, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... panting with their climb, made a halt. There, under the lea of the hill, it was necessary to get "a breather," and to gather themselves together for the supreme effort. The scene was not exhilarating. The grey mist falling—the scattered earth and mud rising and spluttering, the shrieking shells rending the air, already vibrant with the whirr of bullets—the closer sounds and sights of death and destruction—all these things were sufficient to stem the courage of stoutest hearts. Still the British band remained undaunted, still they prepared boldly for the final rush. Presently, with renewed ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... I feel a more rending pain now than I felt thirty years ago when Poland was entombed. Here are at stake the highest interests of humanity, of progress, of civilization. I find no words to utter my feelings; my mind staggers. It is filled with darkness, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... to the side of the stage. Abruptly the roar of the men was drowned in another sound—a soul-rending, teeth-grating, bone-rattling screech. The men froze, jaws sagging, eyes wide, hardly believing their ears. In the instant of silence as the factory whistle died away, Walter grabbed the microphone. "You want the code word to start the machines again? I'll ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse
... still until the paroxysmal rending in my head ceased. Then I sat on the grassy roadside trying to smile at the marquis, and shrugging an apology for my weakness. The beauty of the arched trees disappeared, and when next I recognized the world we were moving slowly ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood |
