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Ruthlessly   /rˈuθləsli/   Listen
Ruthlessly

adverb
1.
In a ruthless manner.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Ruthlessly" Quotes from Famous Books



... cannot resist the law's decree, Nor, noble as you are, do what he asks Here in this letter to repeal it, then I do assure you he will loftily Accept the situation, and fulfil The sentence on the morrow ruthlessly. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... pioneers stood by the side of their husbands and fathers, casting bullets and loading their flint-lock guns, as the latter bravely repelled the fierce onslaught of Zulus, Matabeles, and other savage hordes. Many of them were ruthlessly murdered by these savage tribes. No Africander will ever forget names such as Weenen (Place of Weeping), Blood Rivier (Blood River), Vechtkop and Blauwkrants—places where Boer women had contributed their share of blood, that ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... would think about the matter, but that at present we were not disposed to agree to his proposal. We all looked as little annoyed as we could, and let the matter drop. The Indians were preparing to make a great feast on the meat of the buffaloes they had so ruthlessly slain, and we hoped that when gorged with food they might be off their guard and give us an ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston

... the greatest nobles in India'. Tavernier visited Allahabad in December, 1665, and then heard the story, the governor concerned being at the time in the fort. I have no doubt that in the reign of Shah Jahan ordinary offences committed by ordinary criminals were ruthlessly punished, and to some extent suppressed. But, under the best Asiatic Governments, great men and their dependants have usually been able to do pretty much what they pleased. The English Government has the merit of refusing to give formal recognition to difference of rank in criminals, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... Often we feared lest Sultan, carried away by enrapt enthusiasm, would unwittingly sustain his part even to the lamentable though natural DNOUEMENT. Baal Burra was, of' course, the engaging and guileless victim, while Sultan, with triumphant realism, rehearsed a scene ruthlessly ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... tenth century until the peace of Westphalia, these territories belonged to the German empire, being ruled by sovereign dukes and princes. In 1648 portions of both provinces were ceded to France, and a few years later, in times of peace, Strasburg was ruthlessly seized and appropriated by the arch-despot and militarist, Louis XIV. By the treaty of Ryswick, that of Westphalia was ratified, and thenceforward Alsace and Lorraine remained radically and passionately ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... Government, as you call it, can't make men work. It can't force eight millions of the finest pisantry on God's earth—," and Father Columb was, by degrees, pushing away the seat from under him, when he was cruelly and ruthlessly stopped by his ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... Senator from Pennsylvania said yesterday with great beauty that he wanted to cast the angel element into the suffrage system of America. Sir, it seems to me, that it would be ruthlessly tearing the angel element from the homes of America; and the homes of the people of America are infinitely more valuable than any suffrage system. It will be a sorry day for this country when those vestal fires of piety and love are ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... same persecuting doctrine. All who opposed him were dealt with ruthlessly. He was a veritable Pope of Geneva. His treatment of Servetus was infamous. But so universal was the principle on which Calvin acted, that even the mild Melancthon called the cruel roasting of Servetus at a slow fire "a pious and memorable example ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... Lady Foljambe would have preferred smuggled goods, if they were cheaper than the honest article. Her conscience was very elastic about taxes. It was no great wonder that this spirit prevailed in days when the Crown could ruthlessly squeeze its subjects whenever it wanted extra money, as Henry the Third had done a hundred years before; and though his successors had not imitated his example, the memory of it remained as a horror and a suspicion. Dishonest ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... resented the curtailment of their prerogatives and powers, they decided that they might better remain on their thrones, even though the powers remaining to them were merely nominal, and accept the titles, honors and generous pensions which the Dutch offered them, than to resist and be ruthlessly crushed. In pursuance of this shrewd policy, every province in the Indies has as its nominal head a native puppet ruler, known as a regent, usually a member of the house which reigned in that particular territory before the white man came. Though the regents are appointed, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... a blasphemed and omnipotent Power was over me. The blow paused—hovered—fell, not upon me, not on the guilty, but again it fell on the innocent; and she, who was my only hope, my beloved Haydee, my wife, was snatched from my heart, ruthlessly ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... boles are to be noted. A reader may smile at the phrase "expression," but look at a tattered old birch, or a silvery young beech-hole, "modest and maidenly, clean of limb," or a lightning-scarred pine. Tree-study has advantages because it is always within reach. The axe has been so ruthlessly wielded that you must go far into the woods to get the best specimens of the pine, and the forests about our Maine lakes and in the Adirondacks have been sadly despoiled of their aristocrats. To see trees at their savage best one must go South, and seek ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... mind: but for the artist, whether of pencil, or brush, or chisel, they spell despair. All the morning she had wrestled with the picture half defiantly, as it were against the stream. Such work is seldom satisfactory; and since lunch she had been engaged in blotting it all out ruthlessly, bit ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... to find that he had opened the frowning portals of the mighty atmosphere plant in time to save the countless millions who were dying of asphyxiation on that far-gone day that had seen him hurtled ruthlessly through forty-eight million miles of space back to Earth once more. I had wondered if he had found his black-haired Princess and the slender son he had dreamed was with her in the royal gardens of Tardos ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... scarcely a hiding-place along the mountain-sides of Dauphiny but has some tradition connected with it relating to those dreadful times. In one, so many women and children were suffocated; in another, so many perished of cold and hunger; in a third, so many were ruthlessly put to the sword. If these caves of Dauphiny had voices, what deeds of horror they ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... best in the atmosphere of parlours and ball-rooms; if she infested the fields and roadsides like the squirrels, lizards, and mud-hens, she would be as ruthlessly exterminated as they. Every passing sportsman would fill her with duck-shot, and every strolling gentleman would step out of his way to smite off her head with his cane, as one decapitates a thistle. But in the drawing-room one lays off his destructiveness with ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... excuse for being late for dinner that he had been busy drilling his little soldiers, but his wife cut him short ruthlessly. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... yet there is a resemblance. We push out hopefully—and often boastfully—into the unknown wilderness, absolutely certain that we are pioneering a trail that will later become the royal highway to learning. We struggle on, ruthlessly using the hatchet and the ax to clear the road before us. And all too often we come back to our starting point, having unwittingly described a perfect circle, instead of the straight line that we ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... to our carriage and talks hopelessly. Why should he strive? Every year finds him deeper in debt. How strange that Georgia, the world-heralded refuge of poor debtors, should bind her own to sloth and misfortune as ruthlessly as ever England did! The poor land groans with its birth-pains, and brings forth scarcely a hundred pounds of cotton to the acre, where fifty years ago it yielded eight times as much. Of his meagre yield the tenant pays from a quarter to a third in rent, and most of ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... old pedantic Guentz, who had so often and so ruthlessly opened his eyes for him! To tell the truth, this friend had almost passed out of his thoughts; yet now he suddenly felt a ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... the fears of the people, the universal fear! The king has then resolved as no sovereign ought to resolve. In order to govern his subjects more easily, he would crush, subvert, nay, ruthlessly destroy, their strength, their spirit, and their self-respect! He would violate the inmost core of their individuality, doubtless with the view of promoting their happiness. He would annihilate ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... was two miles farther up the river. This fort was about thirty-five miles below the present site of Philadelphia, on a small stream called Christina creek. The fleet anchored at the mouth of the Brandywine, and invested the fort on all sides. The Swedes outside of the fort were ruthlessly pillaged; a battery was erected and the fort summoned to surrender. Resistance was hopeless. The articles of capitulation were soon signed between ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... to each other in accents of fear, "Oh, when will the time of fulfilment appear?" High over them boundless eternity quivers, And the scythe of Saturnus all-ruthlessly, shivers! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... toys in order that he may find out how they work, and asks innumerable questions which make him the terror and despair of his parents and the other "Olympians." No instinct is more insistent in the early days of the child's life. No instinct is more ruthlessly repressed by those to whom the education of the child is entrusted. No instinct dies out so completely (except so far as it is kept alive by purely utilitarian considerations) when education of the conventional type has done its deadly work. It has been said that ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... sight of those merry, girlish faces, and the sound of those care-free, laughing voices. At least she would not have all day before her eyes the slender, gloved fingers which she knew were as fair and delicate as the fabrics they so ruthlessly tossed from ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter

... misdeed than his. The time was past when he could feel that an unbroken chain of evidence had justified him in doubting and accusing Corona. He knew the woman he had injured better now than he had known her then, for he understood the whole depth and breadth of the love he had so ruthlessly destroyed. It was incredible to him, now, that he should ever have mistrusted a creature so noble, so infinitely grander than himself. Every tear she shed fell like molten fire upon his heart, every sob that echoed through the quiet room was a ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... ceremonial dances, they fell upon them suddenly, sword in hand. Then followed a great and dreadful slaughter. Unarmed, and taken unawares, the Aztecs were hewn down without resistance. Those who attempted to escape by climbing the wall of serpents were speared ruthlessly, till presently not one of that gay company remained alive; then the Spaniards added the crowning horror to their dreadful deed by plundering the bodies of their murdered victims. The tidings of the massacre flew like wildfire through the ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... But Hank, ruthlessly, as one whose blood is up, brought both his hands swiftly into view as he sprang at Dawley. There was a yell from the fair-haired one as Hank bent forward, then dropped squarely on the toes of ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock

... frightful ravages. The halcyon, delighted with the tempest, voluntarily mingles with the storm; rides contentedly upon the surge; rejoiced by the fearful howlings of the northern blast, plays with happy buoyancy upon the foaming billows, that have ruthlessly dashed in pieces the vessel of the unfortunate mariner; who, plunged into an abyss of misery, with tremulous emotion clings to the wreck; views with horrific despair, the premature destruction of his indulged hopes; sighs deeply at ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... they dare deny the same, My herald shall appoint a week, And let the recreant traitors seek My tourney court—that there and then I may dislodge their reptile souls From the bodies and forms of men!" He spake: his eye in lightning rolls! For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenned In the beautiful lady the child ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... Europe and of Asia. But if his policy had gone to water, the Viceroy, although he was soon to default from the constancy of his purpose, saw for the present clear before him the duty that now in its stead lay upon him of inflicting summary punishment on a people who had ruthlessly violated the sacred immunity from harm that shields alike among civilised and barbarous communities the person and suite of an ambassador accepted under the provisions of a deliberate treaty. Burnes and Macnaghten had met their fate because they had gone to Cabul ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... man who is a victim of our laws," he said, in beginning. "This is not an exceptional case. Men are being ruthlessly murdered every day from the same cause; this is not the only home that it has darkened. It is going on all over this land and all the time because we are willing, for the sake of a few dollars' revenue, to allow one man to grow rich on the failings of others. We know the consequences ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... sickroom to give her patient his medicine he wanted to tell her what the doctor had said, but she cut him off ruthlessly and told ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... our gunners has been shot in the knee. We camped near our last firing position, but waited a long time for our transport and its precious freight of cooks and "dickseys" (camp-kettles). Williams and I ruthlessly chopped down parts of a very good fence, and made a fire with the wood and a lot of dry mealy stalks, which burn furiously. Then we and Ramsey cooked our meat in our mess-tin lids, and made cocoa with water which Ramsey fetched from some distance. ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... grew intense. Beverly even started to circle around, content to lose a few miles and some minutes if only he could satisfy their minds that all was well with the unfortunate steamer that had been so ruthlessly torpedoed without warning ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... enemies." They read how Saul, the chosen king of Israel, had been divinely punished for sparing Agag of Amalek; how the prophet Samuel had hewn him to pieces; how the wholesale slaughter of the unbelieving Canaanites had been ruthlessly commanded and enforced; how Elijah had been commended for slaying four hundred and fifty priests of Baal; and they could not conceive how mercy to those who rejected the true faith could be aught but disobedience to God. Had not Almighty God said, "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... enough, but not great in expression, and the smile on it almost degenerated into a simper. His Holiness had a cold; and his recitative, though full, was not smooth. He was all priest when, in the midst of the service, he hawked, held his handkerchief up before his face, a little way off, and ruthlessly spat in it! ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... the man approvingly. "That's so." He wanted to continue the conversation, but they left him rather ruthlessly. And when, from the entrance to the performance tent, they glanced back over their shoulders, he was still gazing at his cousins behind the bars, seemingly deriving an acute pleasure from his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... keep her till she had grown into womanhood; till we had given her an education which would have fitted her to be the superioress of a convent, and then strike her with a fatal illness just as she was about to take the veil, and once more ruthlessly crush ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... [118] art began too precipitately, as mere form without matter; a thing of disconnected empiric rules, caught from the mere surface of other people's productions, in congruity with a general method which everywhere ruthlessly severed branch and flower from its natural root—art from one's own vivid sensation or belief. The Lacedaemonian (ho Lakon) Plato's favourite scholar always, as having that infinite patience which is the note of a sincere, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... from America was one of anguish, but still more one of rage. This attack upon non-combatant travelers, citizens of a neutral state, had been callously premeditated and ruthlessly executed in cold blood. The German Government had given frigid warning, in a newspaper advertisement, of its intention to affront the custom of nations and the laws of humanity. A wave of the bitterest anti-German feeling swept down the Atlantic coast and ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... wild, vulgar young men, at the best; but now,—now, O, their presence to her delicate soul was horror! How could she bear to look on them after what had occurred? She thought of the best of husbands ruthlessly cut down by their cruel, heavy, cavalry sabres; the kind friend, the generous landlord, the spotless justice of peace, in whose family differences these rude cornets of dragoons had dared ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... me?' Gemma jumped up at once and clapping loudly and shouting, bravo!... bravo!... she ran to the poor old super-annuated Iago and with both hands patted him affectionately on the shoulders. Only Emil laughed ruthlessly. Cet age est sans pitie—that age knows no mercy—Lafontaine has ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... clambered up over the waist, and saw a sight I shall never forget—every one of my poor shipmates had been ruthlessly slaughtered, and their mutilated bodies, stripped of every bit of clothing, were lying about the deck. A very brief examination showed me that every one of them was dead—in fact their heads had been beaten to pulp, and each body was pierced through and through ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke

... HORRORS OF GERMAN RULE IN FRANCE Forcibly removing French civilians from Lille to German labor colonies. Families were ruthlessly separated and led away into slavery often ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... all orchestral color, loses everything by being transferred to the piano. Then, sighing for fresh fields, the rapacious Magyar seized the tender melodies of Schubert, Schumann, Franz and Brahms and forced them to the block. Need I tell you that their heads were ruthlessly chopped and hacked? A special art-form like the song that needs the co-operation of poetry is robbed of one-half its value in a piano transcription. By this time Liszt had evolved a style of his own, a style of shreds and patches from the raiment ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... must be premised that Mr. Spencer abhorred exaggeration and inexact talk, and would ruthlessly prick the airy bubbles which endued the conversation of the daughters of the house with more buoyancy than strict logic, a gift which, he averred, was ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... Burlingame chiefly as one of those inevitable vintages from a vineyard which, according to the favour or disfavour of Heaven, yields from the same soil both good and bad. He had none of that Puritanism which would ruthlessly root out the vines yielding the bad wine. To his mind that could only be done by the axe, the rope or the bullet. It seemed of little use, and very unfair, to drive the wolf out of your own garden into that of your neighbour. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... But the difference between primary schools is just as great, only, unfortunately, we have become used to it; and the kindergarten being under fire, so to speak, must be absolutely ideal in its perfection, or it is ruthlessly held ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... Violet was resting from the noonday heat on the open leaves of her favourite flower, a noisy troop of boys, just set free from school, came dashing at full speed through the forest. "Hallo! there is a nest in that tree," cried one, and he trod ruthlessly on the violets as he sprang up the trunk of the ancient oak. The Fairy Violet was thrown to the ground, with a shock that left her for a time stunned and motionless. When she recovered, the boys were gone, and the flower in which she had been resting lay crushed and dying on the ground. ...
— How the Fairy Violet Lost and Won Her Wings • Marianne L. B. Ker

... scolded him for thus wasting his time and roughly asked why he had not taken home enough work to keep himself busy through the day. The story was quite credible because the residents of Hull-House have had many opportunities to see the worker driven ruthlessly during the season and left in idleness for long weeks afterward. We have slowly come to realize that periodical idleness as well as the payment of wages insufficient for maintenance of the manual worker in full industrial and domestic efficiency, stand economically ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... merchant vessels would not be sunk without warning and without saving human lives. He declared that the American government had no alternative but to sever relations, although refusing to believe that Germany would ruthlessly use the methods which she threatened, until convinced of her determination by "overt acts." Information of the move made by the United States was sent to American diplomatic representatives in neutral countries ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... with this application, all our needs deferred to the needs of the new generation that tramples on our heels?" and he found the answer in the presence of an overwhelming Will to Live manifesting itself throughout the universe of Matter, thrusting us ruthlessly before it, as a strong swimmer thrusts a wave before him as he swims. That the personal egotism should be subordinated to and overwhelmed by a pervading Will to Live filled his soul with passionate rebellion and coloured his exposition with the hues of despair. ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... way and another is at the very root of life. War is not conducted only by fire and sword; it is in all nature, it is the condition of existence for all created things. Even the wild flowers in the meadow wage war, and they wage it more ruthlessly even than man, for with them defeat means extermination. The law of Nature is that the fit should kill the unfit. The Lord is the Lord of Hosts. The lame, and the halt, and the blind must remain behind, while the strong man goes ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... visibly holding the leash on his impatience, for a "runner"—or travelling salesman—to complete his bath, when he plunged in gleefully, face and hands. Mrs. Kobbe drew him away with dismay. The paste that had endured the whole sea voyage he had now ruthlessly washed from one side of his head, the locks on the other side still standing ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... world is to wring it dry—not to try and convert it and make it better, but to turn its vices to account. That method has the double advantage of serving one's purpose at the time, and standing as a warning later. The best way to cure vice is to turn it ruthlessly to one's own account. That is what we are doing with Durnovo. His little idiosyncrasies will turn in witness ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... fancy, been talking all the time. Our junction proved to be a desolate, windswept platform, without a sign of shelter of any kind except a bleak-looking cabin, the habitation of the local R.T.O. Thompson roused him ruthlessly and learned that, with luck, we might expect our next train to start at six. I shivered. Three hours, the very coldest in the twenty-four, on that platform, did not strike me as a pleasant prospect Thompson used ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham

... impression on Henrietta that she avoided all those circles in which she had been so ruthlessly exposed to insult. A blush of shame and anger suffused her face whenever she thought of it. She also abandoned all her work of benevolence among the people. She began to think that her husband was right after all when he said, as he did continually: "Let the gentry stick to the gentry, and the poor ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... men and cries of sympathy from the women rose as they marked her fatigue, and how ruthlessly the men-at-arms who led her dragged her on, and the demonstration was a triumph to Caterina rather than to Cesare. As the float representing the dismantled citadel of Forli tottered by with her little girls upon the battlements, waving, the one the ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... was silent, watching the hands and the sparkling fingers, and the gloves that went on so ruthlessly. Then burst forth with words, low spoken and impetuous, which Rollo did ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... a vast pitiless Mechanism, seemed to cut and shape the fabric of existence and I, Moreau (by his passion for research), Montgomery (by his passion for drink), the Beast People with their instincts and mental restrictions, were torn and crushed, ruthlessly, inevitably, amid the infinite complexity of its incessant wheels. But this condition did not come all at once: I think indeed that I anticipate a little in ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... Haim looked at each other, and George looked at Mr. Haim. The older men showed apprehension. The strange idea of unconquerable destiny crossed George's mind—destiny clashing ruthlessly with ambition and desire. The three males sat down in obedience to the wish of the woman who had hidden herself in the room above. All of them were dominated by the thought of her. They did not want to sit down and eat and drink, and they were obliged to do so by ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... Hannah's Captain Bingo, relieved from lookout duty, and descending in quest of food from the Chief's particular eyrie on the roof of Nixey's Hotel, heard shrieks of infant laughter coming from the coffee-room. Knives, forks, and glasses had been ruthlessly swept from the upper end of one of the tables laid for the Staff luncheon, and across the fair expanse of linen, pounded into whiteness and occasional holes by the vigorous thumpers of the Kaffir laundry-women, meandered a marvellous ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... weakness warned her she was not able, and a moment reminded her of the folly of doing anything to rouse Nancy, who for the present was pretty quiet. Ellen lay upon her pillow and looked on, ready to cry with vexation. All her nicely-stowed piles of white clothes were ruthlessly hurled out and tumbled about; her capes tried on; her summer dresses unfolded, displayed, criticised. Nancy decided one was too short; another very ugly; a third horribly ill-made; and when she had done with each it was cast out of her ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... groaned with sullen, suppressed rage, or as if it were in pain; vast volumes of lurid smoke rolled through the sky, and streams of melted brimstone coursed down the hill-sides, burning up the pretty flowers, crushing the trees, and ruthlessly devouring the snug farms and cottages of the loving Philemons and Baucises who had incautiously built too near the fatal precinct. The poor contadini, who lately chaffered so vivaciously over their macaroni and chestnuts, were flying panic-smitten in all directions; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... Hermia was playing her game rather ruthlessly and, whatever her object, John Markham and she for the present at least were at cross purposes. Olga did not dare to go to see him, and though her door stood open she had no hope that he would enter it without encouragement. ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... issues, the World War broke out in Europe in 1914. As a hundred years before, American rights upon the high seas became involved at once. They were invaded on both sides; but Germany, in addition to assailing American ships and property, ruthlessly destroyed American lives. She set at naught the rules of civilized warfare upon the sea. Warnings from President Wilson were without avail. Nothing could stay the hand ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... her brilliant conversation, her charm of manner, all appealed to him strongly. And he had a shrewd suspicion that she was not altogether indifferent to him, although she loyally strove to hide her true feelings. Whenever he became tender, she ruthlessly laughed at him: she talked constantly of Daisy and of her many charms, and on every occasion strove to throw her into the company of Giles. She managed to do so on this occasion, for Giles heard a rather pettish voice at his ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume

... 22nd. Always disposing of superior numbers, Sheridan on this occasion won an important victory without much loss. A combat which took place, at Mount Jackson, during the pursuit, again ended successfully, and the triumphant Federals retired down the Valley, ruthlessly destroying everything which might be of the slightest value to the enemy. Early sharply followed them up, his men infuriated by the devastation of the "Granary of the Confederacy." At Cedar Creek (q.v.), ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... but poor solace to the pitiable old philosopher, thus ruthlessly haled up and down, questioned and threatened, threatened and questioned, receiving agonizing letters from his daughter week by week, and trying to keep up a little spirit to reply as happily and hopefully ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... having occupied her time for lo! these several years in the building of an ideal from such unpromising materials as were then at hand, she was ready to sweep those tentative makings—confessed failures now that she found the type she really wanted—swiftly, ruthlessly to the ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan

... list of Hates: Welfare Statism; tyranny by tax ("Remember the Boston Tea Party!"); loose divorce laws; fraternal lodges; "promiscuous enfranchisement"; water fluoridation; and so on. These were but a few of the cancers, he screamed, that must be ruthlessly excised from the body politic so that a lean, clean Euramerica might face the Arch-Enemy ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds

... he could not pass from minster to minster, from town to town, without journeying through long miles of forest. Do you think that the awful shapes and shadows of that forest never haunted his imagination as he built? He would have cut down ruthlessly, as his predecessors the early missionaries did, the sacred trees amid which Thor and Odin had been worshipped by the heathen Saxons; amid which still darker deities were still worshipped by the heathen tribes of Eastern ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... snow, or like whipped cream. Blanche bends down to blow "a honeycomb," holding the bowl of the pipe in the water; at her gurgling blasts there slowly heaves upwards the pile of larger, clearer bubbles, each reflecting the whole scene, and sparkling with rainbow tints, until Aubrey ruthlessly dashes all into fragments with his hand, and Mary pronounces it stiff enough, and presents a pipe to little Daisy, who, drawing the liquid into her mouth, throws it away with a grimace, and declares that she does not like bubbles! But Aubrey stands ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... translate that Gallic phrase? Don't we all get that old saw down and try its teeth on our tender flesh? When the old friends drop off, and the dear eyes we have loved look strange to us,—when the darling of our hearts is ruthlessly torn away, and we sit in the darkness of the tomb,—when shame for the living lost bows us to the earth in anguish,—when life has become meaningless, and nothing remains to vitalize the monotony of existence,—when we look upon our own ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... intellect, of imagination, a being of nerves, would have succumbed to the shock alone; but Billy was not as these. He simply lay still and thoughtless, except for half-formed ideas of revenge, until Nature, unaided, built up what the captain had so ruthlessly torn down. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... gentle blood commanded our attention, and whose gentle ways won our hearts, bore back to his mother-land and ours the benedictions of a people! Upon that pale, that white-faced shore I shall one day look, but woe is me for the bitter memories that will spring up for the love and loyalty so ruthlessly rent away! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... ruthlessly uprooted but a few days before, the tendrils very naturally clung to the first object that presented itself—and this of course was the intelligent and patient sitter, aged nineteen ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... and Italian brigands among the races of modern Europe. Yet so it is, and no "coercion" (so-called) ultimately enforced by legal authority was comparable in severity with the coercion which bloodthirsty miscreants ruthlessly applied to honest and peaceable neighbours, only guilty of paying their lawful debts. It is not too much to say that anarchy prevailed over a great part of Ireland, especially of Leinster, during the years 1831 and 1832. The collection of tithes became almost impossible. The ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... there, I was adamant. It was not so much what people might say that I minded, but a deeper difficulty. For if once I nursed him through this trouble, how could I or any woman in my place any longer refuse him? So I passed him ruthlessly on to Lungern (though my heart ached for it), and telegraphed at once to his nearest relative, Lady Georgina, to come up and take ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... panic-stricken by the wild shouts of the thousands who have surrounded them. At length, half-suffocated by the dense smoke, and terrified by the close approach of the roaring flames, the unfortunate animals charge recklessly through the fire, burnt and blinded, to be ruthlessly speared by the bloodthirsty crowd awaiting this last stampede. Sometimes a hundred or more elephants are simultaneously destroyed in this wholesale slaughter. The flesh is then cut into long strips and ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... not have complied had they understood, being coatless to a man. Bernard Graves took off a new golf coat which Shelby ruthlessly crumpled and stuffed into place. An instant later he was astride the Pole's hips, his hands grasping the powerful chest on either side. Bracing his elbows, Shelby bore his whole weight forward, counted three, sat back upon his knees, counted two, and so continued, down "one-two-three," ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... possible? Was it credible? Her pet, her baby sister, her pride and delight,—until she found her stronger in will,—her proud-spirited, truthful Nell, was beyond question corresponding with Lieutenant Hayne! Here was a note addressed to him. How many more might not have been exchanged? Ruthlessly now she explored the desk, searching for something from him, but her scrutiny was vain. Oh, what could she say, what could she do, to convey to her erring sister an adequate sense of the extent of her displeasure? How could she bring her to realize the shame, the guilt, the scandal, ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... up his mind about her; but he could not, because they were walking side by side. The sole manifestation of her that he could judge was her voice. It was a remarkable voice, rather deep, with a sort of chiselled intonation. The cadences of it fell on the ear softly and yet ruthlessly, and when she had finished speaking you became aware of silence, as after a solemn utterance of destiny. What she happened to have been saying seemed to be immaterial to the effect, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... tastelessly, carved; there was, as is shown in Plate VII., much scroll-work terminating them. Most of this was taken away, chipped into uncouth boxes, and sold, to be scattered everywhere. Not content with this, treasure-hunters, inconsiderate amateurs, have recklessly and ruthlessly disturbed the abodes of the dead. "After becoming Christians," said to me Sr. Mariano Ruiz, the only remaining 'son of the tribe' of Pecos, still settled near to its site, "they buried their dead within the church." These dead have been dug out regardless ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier

... me!" retorted the child, clutching the deep crimson passion-roses from a vase at her side, and trampling them ruthlessly beneath her feet. "Answer me at once, I ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... fifteen Negroes. Volunteer whites rode in all directions visiting plantations. Negroes were tortured to death, burned, maimed and subjected to nameless atrocities. Slaves who were distrusted were pointed out and if they endeavored to escape, they were ruthlessly ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... civil servants Irish-made paper to write on in their offices. It may even so arrange things that when Captain Craig comes to the House of Commons at College Green he shall sit on an Irish-made bench, dine off a cloth of Belfast linen, and be ruthlessly compelled to eat Meath beef, Dublin potatoes, and Tipperary butter. In such horrible manifestations of Home Rule I do not discern the material for a revolution. Again, it may be proposed that in order to develop manufactures, municipalities ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... no time to lose. Sheridan, accordingly, at once proceeded to attack the Confederates with the utmost vigor, defeating them in two engagements at Winchester and Fisher's Hill, and following up this success by laying waste the fields and ruthlessly destroying all the stores of grain and provisions which might prove useful to Lee's army. For a month or more he continued to sweep through the country practically unchecked. But on October 19.1864, during his absence, ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... which had led to that disgraceful affair, he had demanded an inquiry into the conduct of his superior; and that unfortunate personage being clearly convicted of unmilitary conduct, and having failed in the end which would have justified the means in the eyes of the voluptuous tyrant, was ruthlessly abandoned to his fate, and actually died on the scaffold with a gag in his mouth, as did the gallant Lally a few years afterward, to prevent his revelation of the orders which he had received, and for obeying ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... by the belt. Happily this broke, and he swam under the side of the canoe and finally got on shore, but the other three were killed—their heads were cut off and taken on board, and their bodies thrown to the sharks. The assailants were men-stealers, who killed ruthlessly that they might present ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... Chicago, where the former had been purchasing machinery for the new company, of which he was chief engineer. Time had done well for them and for St. Marys. The six months' physical inactivity of the works were spent wisely, if ruthlessly, in weeding out unfertile growths and concentrating resources on those which were sound and promising. There was a sharp distinction between this deliberate policy and the restless activity ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... canteens and torn knapsacks—the debris of a pitched battle. Many trees and shrubs were so lacerated that their foliage hung limp and wilting, while boughs with shrivelled leaves strewed the ground. Nature's wounds indicated that men had fought here and been mutilated as ruthlessly. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... it to restrain the impatience of his men. Reports drifted in from the scouts. The premature revolt had been crushed in blood and agony. New York was deserted except for the Mercutians. The country round had been ruthlessly rayed; not only had the armed bands of Earthmen been ferreted out and destroyed, but peaceful communities had been wantonly burned ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... and spun and re-throttled and pushed until she was quite red in the face. And when the car finally did get under way, the running-gear became slightly involved with my broken wash-tub and it was not until the latter was completely and ruthlessly demolished that the automobile found its right-of-way undisputed and anything like dignity ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... out the warm sun of a sultry July day, and only an occasional breath of air found its way in between their tightly turned slats. The whir of the locust outside, and the regular creak, creak of Aunt Jane's tall rocking-chair were the only sounds to break the stillness. This peaceful scene was ruthlessly disturbed by Polly, who came flying into the room and dropped into a chair at ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... the ground! A little hysterical sound—half laugh, half sob—escaped her. And Brett— She could hardly endure to think of him. It was past belief that any man who loved her—and within herself Ann acknowledged that in his own selfish, masterful way, Brett did love her—could have so ruthlessly flung everything aside—chivalry, honour, and a woman's happiness—in his fierce determination to obtain his ends. Past belief, indeed! Yet it had actually happened, and the consequences would roll on, like the wheels ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler



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