"Tearing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sought another door, and ran hither and thither through the house to find the woman. My uncles ran after him, afraid something might befall him. I remained where I was, far from comfortable. Two or three minutes passed, and then I heard the thunder of hoofs. I ran to the window. There she was, tearing across the park at full gallop, on just such a huge black horse as she had smothered in the bog! I was the only one of us that saw her, and not one of us ever set eyes ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... and the purple shawl. "I sought wildly," said I; "you were evanished. The proprietaire was tearing his hair—no insurance—he knew nothing. So I too tore my hair; and I said things. There was a row. For he also said things: 'Figure to yourselves, messieurs! I lose the Continental—two ladies come and go, I know not ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... Elizabeth was tearing down the garden path before she had finished. To be cast off as hopeless was anguish, but it was nothing to the horror of being kept at home to be made genteel. In a moment more, with shrieks of joy, she was flying down the lane, towards two disgusted looking boys reluctantly ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... primitive man, for all in a second it was as if the centuries of civilisation and Christianity had gone for naught, and the great gulf which lies back of us to the past had been leapt. One had doubted it not, had he seen those old men tearing up the tobacco plants, their mouths dribbling with a slow mutter of curses, for they had drunk much cider, and being aged, and none too well fed, it had more hold on them than on some of the others; and to see the women lost to all sense of decency, with their petticoats ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... bowl, swallowed all its contents in a few seconds, and eagerly demanded meat. This we refused, telling him to wait until morning, but he begged so eagerly that we gave him a small piece, which he devoured, tearing it like a dog. He said he must have more. We told him that his life was in danger if he ate so immoderately at first. He assented, and said he knew he was a fool to do so, but he must have meat. This we absolutely ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... however, and when she had donned her dress and tucked her unruly curls into place, she looked as fresh and sweet as a flower. She finished her toilet in breathless haste, and as she flung open the door of her room she nearly ran into Phil, who was tearing down the hall ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... seemed to think that in that case I really wasn't worth the trouble of talking to, for he quietly went on digging, and tearing the flowers to pieces as fast as he got them out of the ground. After a few minutes ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... with a shock like that of an earthquake, tearing up the rebels' work above them, and vomiting men, guns and caissons two hundred feet into the air. The tremendous mass appeared for a moment to hang suspended in the heavens like a huge, inverted cone, the exploding powder ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... his chances were very good. At any rate, he determined to keep on his present course until he found himself mistaken. The Goldwing was tearing through the water at a tremendous rate. Since his passengers left her, she was trimmed down at the stern too much; but this did not interfere with her speed while she had ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... severed human head in either hand. He seemed but little abashed when he saw us, but came forward rapidly enough towards us, glancing the while over his shoulder. Several sailors were rushing at him with their bayonets, ready to spit him, when he fell on his knees, and, tearing open his tunic, disclosed to our astonished eyes a bronze crucifix with a silver Christ hung on it. "Je suis catholique," he cried to us repeatedly and rapidly in fair French, and the sailors stayed ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... gather o'er my head— Them moon conceals her light— The lamp goes out! It smokes!—Red rays are darting, quivering Around my head—comes down A horror from the vaulted roof And seizes me! Spirit that I invoked, thou near me art, Unveil thyself! Ha! what a tearing in my heart! Upheaved like an ocean My senses toss with strange emotion! I feel my heart to thee entirely given! Thou must! and though the price were life—were heaven! [He seizes the book and pronounces mysteriously the sign of ...
— Faust • Goethe
... whom they slew in war, and to carry them away as trophies; but these were found cumbersome in the hasty retreat which they always make as soon as they have killed their enemy; they are now satisfied with only tearing off the scalp. This is usually taken from the crown of the head, of a small circular size; sometimes however they take the whole integuments of the skull, with which they ornament their war jackets and leggins, or twist into a brush for the purpose of keeping ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... Vilyashev ascended a steep hill; on the flat summit of a tumulus that crowned it he observed an eagle tearing a pigeon to pieces. At his approach the bird flew up into the clear, empty sky, towards the east, emitting a low, deep, unforgettable cry that echoed dolefully over the ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... against the solid piles. Hear the roar of the tide, sucking through the trestle. And hear and see your pretty, fresh-painted boat crash against the piles. Feel her stout little hull give to the impact. See the rail actually pinch in. Hear your canvas tearing, and see the black, square-ended timbers thrusting holes through it. Smash! There goes your topmast stay, and the topmast reels over drunkenly above you. There is a ripping and crunching. If it continues, your starboard shrouds ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... not cast off the terrible moccasins then and there? And, all in your naked feet, unmindful of tearing stones and piercing thorns, speed you after your father, and confessing all, implore him to beat you, ere he had forgiven you? He might have done so; rebuked you sternly, punished you sorely, but far easier ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... Both had been distinguished by their bravery, and were reckoned among the first commanders in the royal service. Lucas, tearing open his doublet, exclaimed, "Fire, rebels!" and instantly fell. Lisle ran to him, kissed his dead body, and turning to the soldiers, desired them to advance nearer. One replied, "Fear not, sir, we shall hit you." ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... silently, trying to make their way through the thicket which was now much denser because the bushes and the trees were covered with wild hop vines. Zbyszko walked first, tearing down the green vines, and breaking the branches here and there; Jagienka followed him with a crossbow on her shoulder, looking like ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... in thinking what would have been had I acted differently," she says. "What I had written in a semi-frenzy of patriotism would have been hot pincers, tearing open wounds which humanity and religion would have ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... carrion—appear. There may not have been one visible a moment before in the hot blue sky, but, taught by scent or by sight that their banquet is prepared, they come flocking from all corners of the heavens, a hideous crowd round their hideous meal, fighting with flapping wings and tearing it with their strong talons. And so, says Christ, wherever there is a rotting, dead society, a carcase hopelessly corrupt and evil, down upon it, as if drawn by some unerring attraction, will come the angels, the vultures of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... with the idea of Knox as a human cannon-ball, endowed simply with force of will, and tearing and shattering as it goes. The views which at a definite period gave this tremendous impulse to a nature previously passive, are not obscure, and are perfectly traceable. They are views upon which Knox continually insists as common to himself with all Christian men, and which were ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... with each other, he with a pale face and a biting manner, she purple with rage, tearing tufts of grey hair from under her cotton cap. Madame Bordin took Germaine's part, while ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... the waist. The removal of the garments is probably a sign of mourning, just as among the Hebrews and other Semites it was customary to put on the primitive loin-cloth[1280] as a sign of grief. In somewhat later times, we find sorrowing relatives tearing their clothing[1281]— originally tearing off their clothing—and cutting their hair as signs ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... torch into Johnny's hand, his companion leaped forward and, with a cat-like motion, dropped down beside the prostrate form. Tearing away at jacket and shirt, he bared the breast and placed his ear close down ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... the vizier Khacan's distraction at this account of the insolence of his son. "Ah!" cried he, beating his breast, and tearing his beard, "miserable son! unworthy of life! hast thou at last thrown thy father from the highest pinnacle of happiness into a misfortune that must inevitably involve thee also in his ruin? neither will the king be satisfied with thy blood ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... they exercise upon him without any mercy, as he cannot escape from them because of his chain; he defends himself with all his force and skill, throwing down all who come within his reach and are not active enough to get out of it, and tearing the whips out of their hands and breaking them. At these spectacles, and everywhere else, the English are constantly smoking tobacco; and in this manner—they have pipes on purpose made of clay, into the farther end of which they put the herb, so dry that it may be rubbed into powder, ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... his eyes to shut out the staring light, and he wished in a vague way that he might shut out the sounds of the battle—the everlasting boom and clatter, the tearing reverberations. But he smiled too, for he realized that his being where he was alone meant that the army had moved on over that last hill; and that there would soon be the Relief ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... me," he said, jumping into his trousers, "and everything I say you grip on to. If that's a man-of-war, she'll be in a tearing hurry; all these ships are what don't do nothing and have their expenses paid. That's our chance; for we'll go with them, and they won't take the time to look twice or to ask a question. I'm Captain Trent; Carthew, you're Goddedaal; Tommy, you're Hardy; Mac's Brown; Amalu—hold ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mansion; I shall not stir step until I see you safe." And through her brimming tears Betty realized that his kisses were falling on her hands, as without a word she turned and fled toward the open door. But when she reached it some new-born impulse tearing madly at her heart made her pause, and looking back she saw Geoffrey lift something from the grass at his feet which he waved toward her as he sped down the path, and raising her hand to her gown she knew that he had carried with him ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... Red Fisherman" and the "Letter of Advice" I fear I must peremptorily disable their judgment. But this appearance of levity is in great part due exactly to the perfect modulation and adjustment of his various notes. He never shrieks or guffaws: there is no horse-play in him, just as there is no tearing a passion to tatters. His slight mannerisms, more than once referred to, rarely exceed what is justified by good literary manners. His points are very often so delicate, so little insisted on or ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... Even as he was greeted by the strong master of the hills and his charming wife, there fell upon his ears a dull report as of distant cannon; then another, and another. They led him across the yard, and there to the north on the other side of Roark, men were tearing up the mountain to make way for the railroad. As they looked, another blast sent the rocks flying, while the sound rolled and echoed through ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... time, till their bodies were a mass of wounds, and the combatants were tearing each other's flesh with this sort of rake made of pointed blades. One of them had his jaw smashed, while the ear of the other ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... proud as Lucifer; and, to be sure, my birth was as good as that of any man in Europe. Demmy! Where was my lord himself when the Esmonds were lords of great counties, warriors, and Crusaders? Where were they? Beggarly Scotchmen, without a rag to their backs—by George! tearing raw fish in their islands. But now the times were changed. The Scotchmen were in luck. Mum's the word! "I don't envy him," says Sampson, "but he shall provide for you and my dearest, noblest, heroic captain! He SHALL, by George!" would my worthy parson ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sudden and unexpected accumulation of disasters was too much for him. As he passed his sire, with his brown curls streaming straight out behind, and his eyes flashing with excitement, his teeth clinched, and his horse tearing along more like an incarnate fiend than an animal, a spirit of combined recklessness, consternation, indignation, and glee took possession of him. He waved his whip wildly over his head, brought it down with a stinging cut on the horse's neck, and uttered a shout of defiance ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... in crumpling paper, tearing newspapers and rolling them into balls, pulling at glove or hair, ringing of a bell (142, 143). Eighteenth week, discomfort shown by depressing angles of mouth (149). Eighteenth week, nights of ten to eleven hours without taking food (155). Eighteenth ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... him on his feet, he usually stays up. I said, "We're in a land of mystery; we've got Alice in Wonderland tearing her hair from jealousy. I think we're ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... hen lobster, on account of the live spawn. Some fishmongers have a cruel custom of tearing this from the fish before they are boiled. Lift up the tail of the lobster, and see that it has not been robbed of its eggs: the goodness of your sauce depends upon its having a full share of the spawn in it, to which it owes not merely its brilliant red ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... debtors, the loss of my property would be a great inconvenience to me, perhaps, for many years; but it would leave me as it found me,—neither better nor worse. So is it with this calamity: it does not touch me; something which I fancied was a part of me, which could not be torn away without tearing me nor enlarged without enriching me, falls off from me and leaves no scar. It was caducous. I grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real nature. The Indian who was laid under a curse that the wind ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... him. He thanked God, when the way that he was in was not of God's prescribing, but of his own inventing. So the persecutor thanks God that he was put into that way of roguery that the devil had put him into, when he fell to rending and tearing of the church of God; "Their possessors slay them (saith the prophet), and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich;" Zech. xi. 5. I remember that Luther used to say, "In the name of God begins all mischief." All must be fathered upon God: the ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... tearing in a tornado across the pond; but, I am sure—sure as I am of the beating of my own heart, that Harrington trembled from other causes than the danger we were in. Twice he bent his lips to my face, but checked himself with murmurs which the cruel ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... place of everlasting wet, darkness, and cold, one heavy slush of hail and mud, emitting a squalid smell. The triple-headed dog Cerberus, with red eyes and greasy black beard, large belly, and hands with claws, barked above the heads of the wretches who floundered in the mud, tearing, skinning, and dismembering them, as they turned their sore and soddened bodies from side to side. When he saw the two living men, he showed his fangs, and shook in every limb for desire of their flesh. Virgil threw lumps of dirt ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... years old—his shepherd and two other men, who had come to him that summer, being outlaws—one called Thorgils, and the other Eyolf. Thorstein the Black and Svein, son of Alf o' Dales, stood before the door. The rest of the company were tearing the roof off the dairy. Hunbogi the Strong and the sons of Armod took one end of the beam, Thorgils, Lambi, and Gudrun's sons the other end. They now pull hard at the beam till it broke asunder in the middle; just at this Hardbien thrust a halberd ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... indigestion may also be accompanied by gastric pain or by uneasiness at the pit of the stomach. It may be a sense of fulness or tightness, or a feeling of distention or weight, or again, a feeling of emptiness, goneness or sinking. Now and then there are burning, tearing, gnawing, dragging sensations under the breast-bone; and there is a general complaint of a capricious appetite, heartburn, vomiting, nervous headache, neuralgia and cold extremities. Other symptoms are pain from ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... the laws of nations are supposed to be supported. 'Give unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's.' It was for the law to declare who were and who were not man and wife, and in this matter the law had declared. After this how could she doubt? Or how could she hesitate as to tearing herself away from the belongings of the man who certainly was not her husband? And there were dreadful words in these letters which added much to the agony of her who received them,—words which were used in order that their strength might prevail. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... trying to convince our hearers of some truth, we often find it necessary to show them, not only the truth of a proposition or the expediency of a course of action, but also the falsity of some opposing proposition or the inexpediency of the opposite course of action. This tearing to pieces another's argument, is called refutation, or destructive argument. A successful debater shows nearly if not equal skill in tearing down his opponent's arguments as in building up ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... is gone, its image kept living in the brains of man and brute; the miracle of reproduction, with its imperious desires and staggering consequences. And to put the last touch upon this mountain mass of the revolting and the inconceivable, all these prey upon each other, lives tearing other lives in pieces, cramming them inside themselves, and by that summary process, growing fat: the vegetarian, the whale, perhaps the tree, not less than the lion of the desert; for the vegetarian is only the eater ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... common complication; in fact, it is always present, except in very mild cases. The cough becomes more severe, and often comes on in tearing paroxysms, causing sickness and vomiting. The breathing is short and frequent, the mouth hot and filled with viscid saliva, while very often the bowels are constipated. If the liver becomes involved, we shall very soon have the jaundiced ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... along the empty road, the Gray Dragon purring with joy in our joy, rabbits ran ahead of us, like tiny messengers impatient to tell the good news of what had happened. Our big, white headlight turned them into bouncing, gray balls, and there were dozens of them, tearing along just in front of us sometimes, but we would not have killed or hurt one for its weight ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... were now heard coming along the corridor. Tearing the window open, Benedetto swung himself on the sill. He looked into the dark waters of the Seine, and firmly muttered: "Forward! Down ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... fish-feast; and he eagerly crunched the heads and remains that he found. But there was an odd and horrid smell on the wind. It frightened him, and as he went down to where he last had seen his Mother the smell grew worse. He peeped out cautiously at the place, and saw there a lot of Coyotes, tearing at something. What it was he did not know; but he saw no Mother, and the smell that sickened and terrified him was worse than ever, so he quietly turned back toward the timber-tangle of the Lower Piney, and nevermore ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... hands were employed in shoring up the ship to prevent her falling over on her side. Scarcely was this done when huge masses of ice came drifting down with fearful force directly on the ship, carrying away the shores as if they were so many reeds, and tearing off large sheets of the ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... hero to rescue her. She went on packing. When her handbag was ready she looked about for means to escape. She opened her windows and studied the drop and the odd bits of helpful rainpipe. Descent was not so easy as she had imagined. Short of tearing the sheets into strips (and that might really bring her within the J.P.'s purview) or of picking the lock (which seemed even more burglarious, not to mention more difficult) she might really remain trapped. However, there would ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... corpse to the burying ground, following the imaun, who recited some prayers. Ali Baba came after with some neighbors, who often relieved the others in carrying the bier to the burying ground. Morgiana, a slave to the deceased, followed in the procession, weeping, beating her breast, and tearing her hair. Cassim's wife stayed at home mourning, uttering lamentable cries with the women of the neighborhood, who came, according to custom, during the funeral, and, joining their lamentations with hers, filled the quarter far and near with ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... part of it contained an enigma he could by no means comprehend.—It seemed impossible to him there could be any reasons prevalent enough to make him quit, with honour, a prince who had so liberally rewarded his service; but hoping a further explanation, he lost not any time in conjectures; and tearing open the other letter without giving himself time to examine the hand in which it was directed, found, to his inexpressible astonishment, the name of Dorilaus subscribed. It was indeed wrote by that ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... first woman he ever loved, probably ever will, as he is made. Now we don't like this stranger butting in here; we resent it, Molly. We are on the side of our friend, and we want him to win. I'll grant that this fellow is fine, and that he has done well, but what's the use in tearing up arrangements already made? And so suitable! Now Molly, you are my best nurse, and a good reliable aid in times like this. I gave you instructions an hour ago. I'll add this to them. YOU ARE ON THE HARVESTER'S SIDE. ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... paused. In the pause she heard the gale tearing at the windows. She looked at the woman in the sister's dress. Rosamund was sitting motionless, and was now looking down. Lady Ingleton positively hated the sister's dress at that moment. She thought of it as a sort of armor in which her visitor was encased, an armor ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... abhor that man—abhor, detest, hate, loathe him! There is no word in all the language strong enough to express my feeling for him. Think of it, Mr. Ingelow!"—she faced around, her eyes flashing fire—"think of tearing a bride from the very altar on her wedding-night, and compelling her to marry a man she abhorred! You, who are a brave man and an honorable gentleman, tell me what language is strong enough ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... strife in Hawaii; visited, without harm, the wind-god's home on Molokai and Kalipahoa's poison grove, and on Oahu found another chance to win the people's favor. A bird so huge that its head weighed near two hundred pounds had been depredating among the villages, tearing children from their mothers and killing domestic animals, yet always defended by the priests, who, having confused it with a strange species of owl, considered it as sacred. The rover did not ask permission to ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... times. Every year, nay, every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those whom we defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others; and reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we have been the cause of each ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... friend, I shall be the first to bring thee tidings of bitter woe. Hylas has gone to the well and has not returned safe, but robbers have attacked and are carrying him off, or beasts are tearing him to pieces; I heard ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... muttered Leon, tearing his hair. "On the day when I see her again after three years' absence, I can think of nothing more soul-inspiring than showing her mummies!" He launched a kick at the triple coffin of the colonel, saying, "I wish the devil had ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... quiet him, and implored her father to excuse him, at the same time begging of Arthur to leave the house. The consternation and excitement of those about him, seemed to add fuel to the fire already within him, and tearing the bible from the old woman's lap, he hurled it on the fire. Tip rushed to save it, but Arthur seized the poker and stood threatening death to any who dared to touch it. Tip, undaunted, made another effort. The dreadful weapon fell upon his unprotected head, and in another instant he was stretched ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... the writhing fingers. He saw sweat standing out upon Ortiz's forehead. And the fingers closed savagely upon Bell's hands, tearing at them. Ortiz looked at him with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... got that blue shirt on, and that's soon mended," said the man, taking hold of the collar of the shirt on both sides, and tearing it open with a ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... he exclaimed at last, tossing the books into a disorderly heap and tearing his theme in two. "What difference will it make fifty years from now, if I'm not prepared to-morrow? I guess I'll get that blanket while I ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... you did get home all right? I like your way of acting Casabianca! The chieftain sent me tearing out after you, and when I ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... speaking calmly, I must admit that I do not now believe Mr. Ellsler's financial future depended entirely upon the yes or no of my mother and myself; but that I was on an errand of life or death every one must have thought who saw me tearing through the streets on that ninety-in-the-shade day.... One man ran out hatless and coatless and looked anxiously up the street in the direction from which I came. A big boy on the corner yelled after me: 'Sa-ay, sis, where's the fire?' But, you see they did not know that ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... purposes, had no artistic aims, had no home life, no knowledge of their children, no interest in education—that, in short, they left the whole business of worthy living to their wives, and devoted themselves exclusively to the wild-beast joys of tearing and ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... should use cruelty and unheard of tortures to extract gold and tribute from the Indians. 15. One majordomo of his killed many peaceable Indians, by hanging, burning them alive, throwing them to fierce dogs, and cutting off their feet and hands and tearing out their tongues and hearts, for no other reason than to frighten them into submission and into giving him gold and tribute, as soon as they recognised him as the same celebrated tyrant. He also gave them many cruel beatings, cudgellings, blows and other kinds of cruelty every day and ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... ax with all his mighty strength, but the powerful brute seized it in those terrible hands, and tearing it from Clayton's grasp hurled it far to ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mountainous giddiness of wrath, its overwhelming crest—heavy as iron, fitful as flame, clashing against the sky in long cloven edge,—its furrowed flanks, all ghastly clear, deep in transparent death, but all laced across with lurid nets of spume, and tearing open into meshed interstices their churned veil of silver fury, showing still the calm gray abyss below; that has no fury and no voice, but is as a grave always open, which the green sighing mounds do but ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... spoonful and very disappointing to Mr. Waters—they all felt the curling sensation begin, and commenced the new muscle-practice Somers had mentioned; and just then Mr. Painter, who had probably heard that Somers had gone, came tearing through the timber, and my folks quit practising, and broke for trees and limbs, with Mr. Painter after one plump young chap which he didn't quite get, and pretty soon was shaking a limb in the usual way, only harder, being hungrier than common. The plump young ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... calling for more wine, having already pushed it round very freely. We did not drink much ourselves, but plied them hard, and at last the conscript commenced the whole history of his intended marriage and his disappointment, tearing his hair, and crying now and then. "Never mind," interrupted O'Brien, every two or three minutes, "buvons un autre coup pour la gloire!" and thus he continued to make them both drink until they reeled away to bed, forgetting their ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... by a great force, an inexorable power that grasped me and wrenched me, tearing me from the point in space I had occupied a moment before. My perception blurred, but I was not frightened. Without the Pat I did not care what happened. I was intensely curious. "So this is how it is," I reasoned in a flash, "to cease ...
— Cogito, Ergo Sum • John Foster West
... the country beneath us, and still we could not altogether blind ourselves to it. Colossal jungles, resembling brakes of moss and canes five hundred or a thousand feet in height—creeks as black as porter, gliding under their dank and rotting aisles—mountainous quadrupeds or lizards crashing and tearing through their branches—one of them at least six hundred feet in length, with a ridgy back and long spiky tail, dragging on the ground, a baleful green eye, and a crooked mouth full of horrid fangs, which made it look the very incarnation of cruelty ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... university. But Milt had been born to a talent for machinery. At twelve he had made a telephone that worked. At eighteen he was engineer in the tiny flour mill in Schoenstrom. At twenty-five, when Claire Boltwood chose to come tearing through his life in a Gomez-Dep, Milt was the owner, manager, bookkeeper, wrecking crew, ignition expert, thoroughly competent bill-collector, and all but one of the working force ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... which it was undertaken and for the endurance with which it was pursued. What a chatter there was as we returned, what a narration of glorious incidents of pace, of skill and of cunning defeated by greater cunning. Falls there had been and shin-scrapes and the tearing of skirts and stockings, and legends were made up and told again and again. And at home the lady of the house had to hear it all once more, and the tea she gave us was voted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... judging that Poniatowski was closing with the enemy on the old Moscow road, gave him the signal to attack. Suddenly, from that peaceful plain, and the silent hills, volumes of fire and smoke were seen spouting out, followed by a multitude of explosions, and the whistling of bullets, tearing the air in every direction. In the midst of this noise, Davoust, with the divisions Compans and Dessaix, and thirty pieces of cannon in front, advanced rapidly to ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... round the fallen hart, and were allowed to wreak their fury on him by tearing his throat, happily after sensibility was gone; while Nicholas, again baring his knife, cut off the right fore-foot, and presented it to the King. While this ceremony was performed, the varlets of the kennel ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... hands, for the benefit of her suffering parent. While Clayton was employed in supping this mutton abomination, with a loud noise peculiar to the vulgar, and Mrs. Raymond whispering inaudible words above the bowl, I was ostensibly employed in tearing a croquet to pieces with my fork, while I interrogated Dinah, in a low, even voice, between each shred, unintelligible, I knew, in the next room, through its monotony, on the success of her mission, and caught her muttered rather than murmured ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... hence by their art they inspire the violator with an ungovernable desire of breaking down the door, of rushing in, and attacking them; and when this is effected, the harlot raising herself erect with the violator begins to fight with her hands and nails, tearing his face, rending his clothes, and with a furious voice crying to the harlots her companions, as to her female servants, for assistance, and opening the window with a loud outcry of thief, robber, and murderer; and when the violator is at hand she bemoans herself and weeps: and after violation ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... mission, and in truth I am faint with loss of blood. It was well the Danes stopped when they did, for I felt my strength failing me, and could have held out but little further. Yes, Edmund," he continued, as the lad, tearing strips from his garments, proceeded to bandage his wounds, "your father is dead. Nobly, indeed, did he fight; nobly did he die, with a circle of dead Danes around him. He, Algar, Toley, and myself were the last four to resist. Back to back we stood, and many were the Danes who ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... care of, than the most valuable and beautiful of his kind. So dear, indeed, was this same ugly Diogenes, and so welcome to her, that she kissed the hand of Mr. Toots in her gratitude. And when Diogenes, released, came tearing up the stairs and, bouncing into the room, dived under all the furniture, and wound a long iron chain that dangled from his neck round legs of chairs and tables, and then tugged at it until his eyes nearly started out of his head; and when he growled at Mr. Toots, ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to the window. True enough, there he was, tearing down the street, hatless, and gesticulating as he went. I turned to Mary with a gesture ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... "Senor," cried Dolores, tearing away her hands, which Ashby had seized in his, "I will instantly leave you if you are so dishonorable. All this is insult to me—yes, to me. Oh, senor, you will ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... horizon. A second and third followed, then a howling tempest roared and hissed without cessation through the city, wrenching tiles from the roofs, twisting the fruit-trees in the gardens and the young elms and lindens in many a street, tearing away the flags the boys had fastened on the walls in defiance of the Spaniards, lashing the still waters of the city moat and quiet canals, and—the Lord does not abandon His own—and the vanes turned, the storm came from the north-west. No ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had indeed found Maury abandoned, and had returned, quick work was necessary, I attacked at the same instant as my adversary did. As I would no more than disable an antagonist less protected than myself, I made to touch him lightly in his right side; but my point, tearing away a part of his jerkin, gave the sound and feel of metal, and thus I learned that he too wore body armor. I was pleased at this; for now we were less unequal than I had thought, and I might use full force. He had tried to turn with his dagger this my ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... sort, probably. But, Midget mine, there are other sorts of fun beside tearing up and down stairs ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... turban on the ground, and tearing his hair, exclaimed, "Wo is me! Who art thou, woman! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... fight, or rather massacre, continued hot around the Inca, whose person was the great object of the assault. His faithful nobles, rallying about him, threw themselves in the way of the assailants, and strove, by tearing them from their saddles, or, at least, by offering their own bosoms as a mark for their vengeance, to shield their beloved master. It is said by some authorities, that they carried weapons concealed under their clothes. If so, it availed them little, as it is not pretended that they ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... is sufficiently complete, the idea suddenly bursts forth, it may be at the end of a voluntary tension of mind, or on the occasion of a chance remark, tearing the veil that hides the ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... brither John'; and when she stoops from horseback to kiss this sinister kinsman at parting, he thrusts his sword into her heart. The rosy face of the bride is wan, and her white bodice is full of blood when the gay bridegroom greets her, and he is left 'tearing his yellow hair.' More often, death itself does ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... desired to go thither immediately. Scarcely had they entered the square, when they heard the cry of loud lamentations. They followed the sound till they came to a house of which the door was open, and where there was a man tearing his turban, and weeping bitterly. They asked the cause of his distress, and he pointed to the fragments of a china vase, which lay on the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... clatter of the rifles. The raiders were caught in an ambuscade. The Emir fell, but was up again and waving. There was a splotch of blood upon his long white beard. He kept pointing and gesticulating, but his scattered followers could not understand what he wanted. Some of them came tearing down the pass, and some from behind were pushing to the front. A few dismounted and tried to climb up sword in hand to that deadly line of muzzles, but one by one they were hit, and came rolling from rock to rock to the bottom of the ravine. The shooting was not very ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... his way. Left to her own inventive resources, Natalie had first suggested the young surgeon's medical studies as Launce's unanswerable excuse for shutting himself up at intervals in the lower regions, and had then hit on the happy idea of tearing her trimmings, and condemning herself to repair her own carelessness, as the all-sufficient reason for similar acts of self-seclusion on her side. In this way the lovers contrived, while the innocent ruling authorities were on deck, to meet privately ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... took my hat while I was looking at the big one eating the sugar. Oh, see! he is tearing off the blue ribbon band, and biting pieces out of the rim and dropping them down for the little monkeys," and tears ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... and give it to the customer, tearing it off along the perforated lines. Fill out the battery tag, indicating after "Instructions" just ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... they drank, ate, and swore terribly, and whistled after the town prostitutes. To amuse these ruffians our shopkeepers used to make the cats and dogs drink vodka, or tie a kerosene-tin to a dog's tail, and whistle to make the dog come tearing along the street with the tin clattering after him, and making him squeal with terror and think he had some frightful monster hard at his heels, so that he would rush out of the town and over the fields until he could ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... never say it again," the girl said, when she crept home from her midnight pilgrimage. "I'll come here every day and live it all over again. It will keep me quiet until he comes. Maybe he'll never come,"—catching her breast, and tearing it until it grew black. She was so tired of herself, this child! She would have torn that nerve in her heart out that sometimes made her sick, if she could. Her life was so cramped, and selfish, too, and she knew it. Passing by the door of Grey's room, she saw ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... that I used to run into a lot and that always drove me wild. He demanded a girl who'd never been kissed and who liked to sew and sit home and pay tribute to his self-esteem. And I'll bet a hat if he's gotten an idiot to sit and be stupid with him he's tearing out on the side with some ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... that sooner or later it would shake the plagued boat to pieces," declared Herb. "Hope that didn't happen when they were away out on that rearing, tearing flood, though. My gracious, how it does rip along! Guess we could have made six or eight miles an hour without ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... power of grasping, and these are the features of organization to which the evolution of the human intellect was wholly due in its first stages. The man-ape was not able to contend successfully with the larger animals by aid of its natural weapons. Its diminutive size, its lack of tearing claws, and its lesser powers of speed, left it at a disadvantage, and had it attempted to conquer by the aid of its strength and the seizing and rending powers of teeth and nails, its victory over the larger animals would never have been won. Even with the aid ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... worrying noise, and when I lifted my eyes I saw the wood-pile was gone, and the manager, aided by all the pilgrims, was shouting at me from the river-side. I slipped the book into my pocket. I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... her by the neck and lifted her up. She pushed the lace scarf up at the side of Celia's head. Celia began to struggle furiously, convulsively. She kicked and writhed, and a little tearing sound was heard. One of her shoe-buckles had caught in the thin silk covering of the cushion and slit it. Helene Vauquier let her fall. She felt composedly in her pocket, and drew from it an aluminium flask—the same flask which Lemerre was afterward to snatch ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... with their heads backwards in a completely inverted position. To these observations I may add, on the high authority of Azara, that the Carrancha feeds on worms, shells, slugs, grasshoppers, and frogs; that it destroys young lambs by tearing the umbilical cord; and that it pursues the Gallinazo, till that bird is compelled to vomit up the carrion it may have recently gorged. Lastly, Azara states that several Carranchas, five or six together, will unite in chase of large birds, even ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... of justice, yea, even in the inferior and worldly forms of prudence and self-preservation; but it was love that spoke them first. Were there no love in us, what sense of justice could we have? Would not each be filled with the sense of his own wants, and be for ever tearing to himself? I do not say it is conscious love that breeds justice, but I do say that without love in our nature justice would never be born. For I do not call that justice which consists only in a sense of our ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... dish we can offer to our noble guests!" said Jurissa; "'twill suit, I doubt not, their dainty palates." And, tearing off the cloth, he exposed to view the grizzly and distorted features of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... the flames were creeping along both wings towards the Louvre. In the palace itself a battalion of infantry were at work. Some were throwing furniture, pictures and curtains through the window into the courtyard; others were hacking off doors and tearing up floors, while strong parties were engaged on the roofs in stripping off the slates and tearing down the beams ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... ribs, Down on the plain he fell, forth streamed the blood Drenching his splendid arms, drenching the form Glorious of mould, and his thick-clustering hair. There mid the slain in dust and blood he lay, Like a young lusty olive-sapling, which A river rushing down in roaring flood, Tearing its banks away, and cleaving wide A chasm-channel, hath disrooted; low It lieth heavy-blossomed; so lay then The goodly form, the grace of loveliness Of Nireus on earth's breast. But o'er the slain Loud rang the taunting of Eurypylus: "Lie there in dust! Thy beauty marvellous Naught ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... the French for a dozen years eagerly busy in tearing up whatever had roots in the past, replacing the venerable trunks of tradition and orderly growth with liberty-poles, then striving vainly to piece together the fibres they had broken, and to reproduce artificially that sense of permanence and continuity which is the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various |
