"Torture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... paint his agony of terror, the torture of mind which he endured, as he sat in the post-chaise, watching every landmark of the journey, counting every minute of the tedious hours, and continually putting his head out of the front window, and urging the postillions ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... felt at her ease. But the doctors she could not tolerate, and she suffered torture when they came to argue with her. Although these theologians showed her great consideration, their eternal questions wearied her; their slowness and heaviness exasperated her. She bore them a grudge for not believing ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... board the blockade-runner, or my natural disposition to good condition, made me taste sweet. Several times during that fearful day I was tempted to rush out from my hiding-place, and defying patrols, gun-boat's crew, and all authorities, make my escape from that place of torture. ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... and went to the window of the box. I felt certain that if I sat still any longer I should be in a sound sleep. This would never do. Already it was becoming a matter of torture to keep my eyes open. I began to pace up and down; I opened the door of the box and went out on the ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... endless self-torture he reached a certain degree of composure, but life had never any real pleasures to offer him. He never dared to accept any kind of distinction; he never dared to feel himself entitled to a kind word or even well-earned praise: in a word, he ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... too much torture for the gratification of a nonsensical fancy; and, after all, in the opinion of many, and of those, too, who are fondest of dogs, the animal looks far better in his natural state than when we have exercised all our cruel art upon him. Besides, the ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... grew, robust and noxious, until, in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, we find its bloom in a multitude of treatises by the most learned of the Catholic and Protestant divines, and its fruitage in the torture chambers and on the scaffolds throughout Christendom. At the Reformation period, and for nearly two hundred years afterward, Catholics and Protestants vied with each other in promoting this growth. John Eck, the great opponent of Luther, gave to the world an annotated ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... temperament, and am, besides, a member of that sect which Dr. More has called, mistakenly indeed, "the most melancholy of all;" but I confess a special dislike of disfigured faces, ostentatious displays of piety, pride aping humility. Asceticism, moroseness, self-torture, ingratitude in view of down-showering blessings, and painful restraint of the better feelings of our nature may befit a Hindoo fakir, or a Mandan medicine man with buffalo skulls strung to his lacerated muscles; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... I come up, it de Lord's truth, I ain' know nothin but a decent livin all de time. My old Missus was a dear old soul en I been raise dat way. I hear talk bout how some of de white folks would bout torture dey niggers to death sometimes, but never didn' see my white folks allow nothin like dat. Dey would whip dey niggers dat runaway en stay in de woods, but not so worser. No, mam, my Missus wouldn' allow no slashin round ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... over his head as if about to fell a tree, and in this position stood immovable like a statue; another held the point of his toe to his nose. Yet, from one point of view, these men are right. What torture of the body can equal the torture of the soul? If it were possible by any amount of physical pain to still and silence the agony of conscience, who would not endure it? The greatest condemnation of the self-cruelty ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... language, and felt that a little audacity was all that he needed to carry his mission out safely. Though he went boldly, he killed a secretary dressed in purple, instead of his master, and was caught and threatened with torture. Putting his right hand into the fire on the altar near by, he held it there until it was destroyed, [Footnote: Mucius was after this called Scvola, the left- handed.] and said that suffering had no terrors for him, nor for three hundred ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... in these days crowd in upon the mind, than to a lack of natural aptitude. The absorbing interest, however, is essential, and it may be developed by conforming to well-known principles of orthodox psychology. Self-torture or hard driving is not nearly as helpful as a strong inner purpose to keep the chosen subject in the real ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness
... this is the one whom it is most impossible to think of as acquiescing in such an easy relation to those around him, or even as attempting so to acquiesce—at least without inward self-question and torture. We must remember that Knox had undoubtedly before this time embraced the doctrinal system of the Reformation, no doubt in the form taught by Wishart. And a catechism of that doctrine, perhaps founded upon or identical with that which Wishart brought from Basel, he gave to his East Lothian ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... defence, tormented as he was by the twitchings of his face, the intonations which he could not express. And if the anguish of the poor man was touching, the old mother up there, leaning, gasping, moving her lips nervously as if to help him find words, reflected the picture of his torture. Though he could not see her, intentionally turned away from her gallery, as he evidently was, this maternal inspiration, the ardent magnetism of those black eyes, ended by giving him life, and suddenly his words and gestures ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... crowd of men, however numerous or remarkable. He has a narrow face, with high cheek-bones, and the thick, close black whiskers, beard and moustache, make him look almost as dark as a Spaniard. The eyes are deep-set, brilliant, restless—with infinite lessons of hours of agony, of loneliness, torture in all the million hours which filled up his nine years of endless and unbroken gloom in penal servitude. The frame is slight, well-knit—the frame of a sturdy son of the people—kept taut and thin ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... Peveril's arms, they had, on reaching this place, taken the further precaution of tying his ankles, so that he now lay on the ground utterly helpless, a prey to bitter thoughts, but nerving himself to bear bravely whatever torture might ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... broad and handsome; but a wide ditch, which the townsfolk dignify with the name of a canal, runs through the centre. There is generally but little water in this ditch, but millions of restless mosquitoes, which populate the whole town, and (I speak from experience) are a perfect torture. The houses being mostly plastered, have a stone-like and cleanly appearance, with their green Venetian blinds, and plantations of acacias and other Eastern trees, waving gracefully in front of them. The climate is salubrious, and provisions of all kinds abundant and cheap. I was ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... who pretended to be enchanters, and who carried magicians' wands, and wore, each of them, about his neck, what he told the ignorant people was a Serpent's egg in a golden case. But it is certain that the Druidical ceremonies included the sacrifice of human victims, the torture of some suspected criminals, and, on particular occasions, even the burning alive, in immense wicker cages, of a number of men and animals together. The Druid Priests had some kind of veneration for ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... gingerbread-buttons, of which the cob became passionately fond. Invariably, however, before giving it a button, he said, "Deaghblasda," with which word the cob by degrees associated an idea of unmixed enjoyment: so if he could rouse the cob to madness by the word which recalled the torture to its remembrance, he could as easily soothe it by the other word, which the cob knew would be instantly followed by the button, which the smith never failed to give him ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... soothingly, "of course it will. Then that is settled, eh? Because I want you to understand that unless you definitely promise me that there shall be no torture I shall be obliged to withdraw from this business altogether; moreover, I will take my magic off Sekosini, and then nothing that you can do will make him confess or incriminate the others. You know ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... progress are staggering backward and forward with their eyes passionately reverted to the past. Nay, we shall never be duly sensitive to the miseries and cruelties which make the world a place of torture for so many, so long as men are encouraged in the name of religion to look for a remedy, not in fighting against surrounding evils, but in cultivating aimless contemplations of an imaginary ideal. Much of ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... the West Highlands," ii. p. 15. Mr. Campbell says "I believe such a mode of torture can be traced amongst the Scandinavians, who once owned the Western Islands." But the Gaelic "Binding of the Three Smalls," is ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... holes specially arranged for that purpose. When the slave-hunters sought for corn, they were in the habit of catching the villagers and roasting their posteriors by holding them down on the mouth of a large earthen water jar filled with gloving embers. If this torture of roasting alive did not extract the secret, they generally cut the sufferer's throat to terrify his companion, who would then divulge the position of the hidden stores to avoid a similar fate. This accusation was corroborated by Mohammed, the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... thy peace, I will beat thee to death, city faggot that thou art!" When she heard this, she abhorred life and longed for death; so she turned to him and said, "O accursed old man, O greybeard of hell, did I trust in thee and hast thou played me false, and now thou wouldst torture me?" When he heard her words, he cried out, "O insolent wretch, dost thou dare to bandy words with me?" And he came up to her and beat her with a whip, saying, "An thou hold not thy peace, I will kill thee." So she was silent awhile, but she called to mind her brother and her former happy estate ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... were barking aloud with anxiety to take an active share in the amusement, while the bear, who was chained by the neck to a staple in the wall, and compelled to keep an almost erect posture, shook his antagonist with all the fury of madness produced by excessive torture. In the mean time bets were made and watches pull'd forth, to decide how long the bow-wow would bother the ragged Russian. The Dog-breeders were chaffing each other upon the value of their canine property, each holding his 388 brother-puppy between his legs, till a fair ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... she had been! This, then, was the reason why he had come, day after day, to Beatrice's house; this was the charm that had drawn him thither; this—she pressed her hands to her burning temples, as if to stop the torture of thought. Suddenly a voice was heard below, the door opened, and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sat on the edge of the hatch and gazed lovingly at the new instrument of torture, as he beat time to the inspiring strains, with a belaying pin. When the "Washington Post," was finished, he laid on "Jacksonville," with a chorus of human laughter, which sounded quite eerie. And so intent was he on this occupation, ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... some desperate impulse for a breeze—or to die! She lifted her head as the hoofs rang below—but still looked away toward some Mecca for good mules. You must needs have been there to get it all—the old gray against the red sky—and know first-hand the torture of the trails, the valor of labor, the awfulness of Luzon. To Cairns and Bedient there was something deep and heady to the picture, as they followed the eyes of Healy—and then his yell that filled ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... me: "This transfixed one, whom thou seest, Counselled the Pharisees that it was meet To put one man to torture ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... when she gave way to her indignation, she only used such language as we find on many pages of Wodrow, in the mouths of many Covenanters. Indeed, though Manse is undeniably comic, she also commands as much respect as the Spartan mother when she bids her only son bear himself boldly in the face of torture. If Scott makes her grotesque, he also makes her heroic. But Dr. McCrie could not endure the ridiculous element, which surely no fair critic can fail to observe in the speeches of the gallant and courageous, but not philosophical, members of the Covenant's ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... scarlet fired her neck and cheek and temple. That leap of blood seemed to release a riot of emotions. What had been a torment became a torture. She turned Sarchedon homeward, but scarcely had faced that way when she wheeled him again. She rode slowly and she rode swiftly. The former was hateful because it held her back—from what she no longer dared think; the latter was ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... stop to describe these courts, which became especially notorious in Spain some two centuries after their establishment. The unfairness of the trials and the cruel treatment to which those suspected of heresy were subjected, through long imprisonment or torture—inflicted with the hope of forcing them to confess their crime or implicate others—have rendered the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... away from him, he would have had me seized on shore, and brought on board by force; so that I had no remedy but patience. And this he brought to an end too as soon as he could, for after this he began to use me ill, and not only to straiten my provisions, but to beat and torture me in a barbarous manner for every trifle, so that, in a word, my life began ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... with Artemis Or yield the breast to Aphrodite? Both are mighty; Both give bliss; Each can torture if divided; Each claims worship undivided, In her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stout-hearted Wauchee moved onwards with a firm and erect gait, disturbed neither by the blows nor the menaces that were directed against him. He only exclaimed, "You have slain my chief and father, and lo! I have also struck down the head of your nation. It is well. Slay me—torture me, if you will. I can bear unmoved any torments you ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... council fire and decide how to torture her," said Malcolm, when the captive was securely tied. But the fire was out and they had no matches. The lot fell on Malcolm to run up to the ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... be obtained from the prisoner's lips than this declaration, either by private or public examinations. This being so, Cauchon bethought him what further cruelty could be employed to force the prisoner to give way, and the barbarous scheme of torture was ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... parted—when you struggled feebly in my arms with a premonition of your almost mortal weakness, and then sank back white and deathlike. If you had not made so wise and brave an effort you might have lingered on in torture like this poor girl. You stood in just that peril, did ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... such smooth and well-oiled wheels for all humanity in Paris that half the cares that torture us are cast aside as soon as we enter her precincts. Take, for instance, the grand question of housekeeping. Fancy living in a land where all the servants are skilled and civil, if not all trustworthy and honest; where washing-days and ironing-days and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... None but a thoroughbred would have stood up this long; and even she, if she ever stopped,—but the man ahead doubtless knew this also, for he would not let her stop, not so long as life remained and spur and quirt had power to torture. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... barbarous age were tempted and demoralised by the tremendous power over pain, and death, and hell. We have to learn by what reasoning process, by what ethical motive, men trained to charity and mercy came to forsake the ancient ways and made themselves cheerfully familiar with the mysteries of the torture-chamber, the perpetual prison, and the stake. And this cleared away, when it has been explained why the gentlest of women chose that the keeper of her conscience should be Conrad of Marburg, and, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... termagant, imperious, prodigal, lewd, profligate wench, as ever breathed; she used to rantipole about the house, pinch the children, kick the servants, and torture the cats and the dogs; she would rob her father's strong box, for money to give the young fellows that she was fond of. She had a noble air, and something great in her mien, but such a noisome infectious breath, as threw all the ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... are simply hemispheres of sheet-brass, and fitted closely over the eyeballs, beneath the lids. The conjurer's eyes water visibly after the brass covers are removed; and well enough they might; there is no sleight-of-hand about this—it is purely an act of self-torture. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... there is no putting up with that!" So saying, he sprang up and made off through the gate of the city, hardly believing in his escape. Quoth the King, "I excuse her, and in my son's hands be her doom. If he will, let him torture her, and if he will, let him kill her." Quoth the Prince, "Pardon is better than vengeance and mercy is of the quality of the noble;" and the King repeated, "'Tis for thee to decide, O my son." So the Prince set ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... true! 'tisn't true!' cried Cytherea in an agony of torture. 'He has never loved anybody else, I ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... had brought a crowd of spectators, "you are taxing the patience of this kind audience." "But one touch remains," said the old mechanic, "to complete my work;" and he busied himself a moment among the wheels. While he suffered the agonies of his torture a fearful whir was heard from the clock: the weights tumbled crashing to the floor as his eyes fell from their sockets. He had removed the master-spring, and his revenge was complete. The lovers devoted their lives to the comfort of the blind clockmaker, and the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... an inversion of la Trenise, except that in nineteen cases out of twenty, the waistcoat, tip, camellia and wristbands, seem to undergo intense mental torture; for if there be such a thing as "poetry of motion," pastorale must be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... before, Thus thou, with those eyes for thy lances, Hast pierced through my heart to its core. Ah, tell me, my soul, must I perish By pangs which a smile would dispel? Would the hope, which thou once bad'st me cherish, For torture repay me too well? Now sad is the garden of roses, Beloved but false Haidee! There Flora all withered reposes, And mourns o'er thine absence ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... our meeting would be Without peril to YOU, although haply to me The salvation of all my existence. "I own, When the rumor first reach'd me, which lightly made known To the world your engagement, my heart and my mind Suffer'd torture intense. It was cruel to find That so much of the life of my life, half unknown To myself, had been silently settled on one Upon whom but to think it would soon be a crime. Then I said to myself, 'From the thraldom which time Hath not weaken'd there rests but one hope ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... involved. She was fond of Pennie, but to have the regularity of her household disturbed by the presence of a child every week—the bustle of arrival and departure, the risk of broken china, the possible upsetting of Betty's temper; all this was torture to look forward to, and when she went to bed she felt that she was paying dearly ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... with passing time, so his increased with the days, and intensified by the cruel heat which was poured upon it. He realized the torture to which, in a thousand ways, this darling of his heart had for a lifetime been subjected; and his tenderness and love—in which was an element of indignation and pathos—deepened with every fresh revelation of the passing hours. When he came back to her he had few words to speak, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... among the Orange faction. The Attorney General caused, on the 16th of August, 1672, Cornelius de Witt to be arrested; and the noble brother of John de Witt had, like the vilest criminal, to undergo, in one of the apartments of the town prison, the preparatory degrees of torture, by means of which his judges expected to force from him the confession of his alleged plot against William ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... nearly half-past three, and therefore close upon two hours beyond the time fixed by Agnes for her return, when I became absolutely incapable of supporting the further torture of suspense, and I suddenly took the resolution of returning home and concerting with my female servants some energetic measures, though what I could hardly say, on behalf of their mistress. On entering the garden-gate I met our little child Francis, who unconsciously inflicted ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... hand is thine, she brings all heaven to meet thee!—And shall I follow? Again to stand aloof? To carry this inextinguishable jealousy even to yon distant realms? Earth is no longer a tarrying place for me, and hell and heaven offer equal torture. Now welcome to the wretched the dread ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... car, the girl could not help revelling in a taxi. She refused to be depressed by the gloomy spectacle of lower-class New York in the throes of a heat wave—pallid people hanging out of windows or standing at corners to be eased of their torture by the merciful spray from fire hydrants; barefooted half-naked children staring thirstily at soda fountains in bright, hot drug stores they could never hope to enter—every one limp, lethargic, glistening unhealthily with horrid moisture, all loathing themselves and indifferent ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... An enemy wounded on the battlefield may be killed at once or may be taken prisoner. All prisoners, wounded or otherwise, are taken home by the party that secures them, and are then killed, apparently without any prior torture, and generally eaten. A prisoner thus carried off would be regarded as a man killed, which in fact he shortly will be. The women of a community follow their fighting men in the expedition, their duty being ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... Mosquitoes nipped him until he could scarcely endure the intense irritation. He would have given anything for a little water; but though he heard a sentry pacing up and down outside, he did not venture to call to him, and could only writhe in heat and torture, longing for the dawn, yet fearing it and ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... it! He could not plunge his hand into the treasury; there were too many about, too many tongues. But Colonel Hare knew where the silver basket lay hidden, heaped with gold and precious stones; and torture could not wring the hiding-place from him. May he be damned to the nethermost hell! Let him, Durga Ram, but bury his lean hands in that treasure, and Daraka swallow Allaha and all its kings! Rubies and pearls and ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... not satisfied. I was jealous of that which Andrey Vassilievitch had—and I lacked. My whole relationship to Andrey Vassilievitch was a curious one. My friendship for his wife must I am sure have been torture to him. He knew that she had given me a great deal that she had never given to him. And yet, because he loved her so profoundly, he was only anxious that she should be happy. He saw that my friendship gave her new interests, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... to the picture caused Jack to shudder. If the captors of Otto Relstaub had put him to death, was it by a quick taking off, or had he been subjected to torture? Alas, that Jack Carleton was forced to answer the query as he ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... people of eminence, to obtain from them, either from their good-nature, or from their not being able to tell the truth firmly, a commendation, of which he may afterwards avail himself.' JOHNSON. 'Very true, Sir. Therefore the man, who is asked by an authour, what he thinks of his work, is put to the torture, and is not obliged to speak the truth; so that what he says is not considered as his opinion; yet he has said it, and cannot retract it; and this authour, when mankind are hunting him with a cannister at his ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... literature. Tears fell fast over it as the pages turned. For a long while he hesitated, but at last he took up the pen and wrote a sarcastic article of the kind that he understood so well, taking the book as children might take some bright bird to strip it of its plumage and torture it. His sardonic jests were sure to tell. Again he turned to the book, and as he read it over a second time, his better self awoke. In the dead of night he hurried across Paris, and stood outside d'Arthez's house. He looked up at the windows and saw the faint pure gleam of ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... moment longer he hesitated; he tried to resist her, he tried to take a sane and temperate view. But those tears were too much for him. They were the one torture he could not endure. With a sharp gesture he flung his hesitation from him. Yet even then he left himself a way of escape lest the temptation should be more than ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Pope! I tell you not of things learned by hearsay; I myself have beheld all these horrors in the Holy Land of Palestine. Through the ancient streets of Jerusalem the accursed infidels stalk in the evil pride of conquest. They insult and oppress, they torture and murder the followers of Christ. They rob and maltreat the pious pilgrims from all lands who toil through desert and over mountain to worship at the tomb of their Lord. Scarcely will these heathen suffer the adoration of Christ in the blessed city ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... you, Funky Warren. I'm going to torture you," he announced with a truculent scowl and a suggestive licking of ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... his, and how much money it contained. The cavalier knew it to be his own, and assured the judge he had put twenty sequins into it. Upon which the judge called me before him; "Come, young man," said he, "confess the truth. Was it you that took the gentleman's purse from him? Do not wait for the torture to extort confession." Then with downcast eyes, thinking that if I denied the fact, they, having found the purse upon me, would convict me of a lie, to avoid a double punishment I looked up and confessed my guilt. I had no sooner made the confession, than the judge called people to witness it, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... yet survive. There would seem to me to be about one chance in several million that we shall succeed—otherwise we shall die more quickly but no more surely than as though we sat supinely waiting for the torture of ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... little monkey who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper, or from that old baboon who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs, as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions." We have but to add:—if only the coming forth from the ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... was in vain to attempt arguing with her aunts. She therefore allowed them to wonder and declaim over their sucking pots, colic powders, and other instruments of torture, while she sent to the wife of one of her tenants who had lately lain-in, and who wished for the situation of nurse, appointing her to be at Lochmarlie the following day. Having made her arrangements, and collected the scanty portion of clothing Mrs. Nurse chose ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... given my promise of secrecy, and yet I was entirely helpless in their unscrupulous hands. Again and again they demanded the papers, which they said she had given me to keep for her, and my denial only brought upon me the increased torture of the cord, until I was almost black in the face, and my veins stood ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... worry and suffering that could lie behind those smiling eyes and never show! She saw that a great burden had suddenly been lifted from him, and with the necessity for further dissembling removed, his strong face was for the moment glorified. She realized now the torture to which she had subjected him by her own tenderness and repression; while their marriage had been a marvelous—a wonderful—event to her, to him it had been fraught with terror, despite his great love, and her thoughts harked back to the night she and Harley P. Hennage had carried him home ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... him if the light of day or the gloom of midnight was upon the earth; and in his rayless wanderings he had made his way into the dungeons, sepulchres, and vaults, which were lying far below the foundations of the castle, and which had for centuries served as places of torture, punishment, and death to the enemies of his long and noble line. In these secret charnel houses were buried the bodies of the oppressed, while in the haughty tombs around and above them lay the bones ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... not torture me longer. You have condemned me without a hearing. Be as merciful as you are strong and lovely. At least let me see you alone, when I can ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... for Mary Wilkins characters. We always used to take such people directly to see Cousin Tryphena, as dwellers in an Italian city always take their foreign friends to see their one bit of ruined city wall or the heap of stones which was once an Inquisitorial torture chamber, never to see the new water-works or the ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... grief of the loving father at these words! Had the oracle but threatened punishment to him, he would have endured any torture before subjecting his child to such a fate; but as a king, he dared not bring ruin on all his people, who trusted him. Psyche, herself, numb with horror, commanded quietly that preparations be made for the procession which should accompany her to the rock described ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... at this hour; they people the earth and the air with shapes of ghastly menace! They—Heaven pardon me! what would my madness utter? Madness?—madness? Ay, that is the real scourge, the real fire, the real torture, the real ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... course to be followed by you. When the catastrophe had happened, doubts, of course, arose in your mind as to whether you ought not to have acted differently, and these doubts, coupled with the impossibility of proving your innocence to the public, even though you were blameless, became torture to you. Peace to thy ashes, on which no guilt rests save that thou wert not exceptionally ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... says; is pretty liberal towards other creeds, but is certain that his own views are by far the best; is a steady thinker, a sincere minister, a tolerably good scholar, and a warm- hearted man, who wouldn't torture an enemy if he could avoid it, but would struggle hard if "put to it." Like the rest of preachers he has his admirers as well as those who do not think him altogether immaculate; but taking him in toto—mind, body, and clothes—he is a fervent, candid, ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... and an indispensable condiment to the jaded palate of the connoisseur, viz., a lingering duration. As a pleasant variety, therefore, the tormentors were introduced with their various instruments of torture; and many a dismal tragedy in that mode of human suffering was conducted in the sacred presence during the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... halloes, he feeds on roots and greens and mast. He uses things roughly and without sentiment. The coolness with which boys will drown dogs or cats, or hang them to trees, or murder young birds, or torture frogs or squirrels, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... however, remained as silent and motionless, and with a countenance as vacant as before. Cambyses was again disappointed. The pleasure which the exhibition afforded him was incomplete without visible manifestations of suffering in the victim for whose torture it was ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... from the torture of uncertainty to the calm of settled grief, had still a sacred duty to live for. She had not forgotten her husband's dream. She went to the cardinal-archbishop to beg the consecration of a little burial-plot at the foot of the greatest ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... would not waste any of them. Whoever tried to scale the walls would be done in at once; whoever attempted to follow him to the roof by way of the loft would be shot instantly. And his own condition demanded haste; the bullet, striking from above, had broken his arm. Every movement was torture. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... much from thirst. I do not recollect, indeed, having ever endured so much torture as I did during the next day's ride back. The Indians, perhaps, bore the want of water better than we did. It seemed as if we should drink the stream dry which bubbled up out of the hillside near the camp. It took us a whole ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... bandages. His knife was already shaping splints from the scrub poplar. Little Jerry, his eyes full of pain, watched him, knowing of the agony to come, when even those gentle Indian fingers could not save his poor ankle from torture while they set the broken bone. Suddenly the misery of anticipation was arrested by a great and glad cry from the Indian, who had discovered and pounced upon a small scarlet blossom that was growing down near the slough. He caught up the flower, root ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... Bolkonski's health and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Mary had two passions and consequently two joys—her nephew, little Nicholas, and religion—and these were the favorite subjects of the prince's attacks and ridicule. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... started and looked at her father, as if she had not heard aright. What did he mean? Was he going to add further torture to her racked brain by asking her to play and sing? She had hardly spoken a word during the meal, and had barely tasted her food. This Weston noted, and he well understood the reason. How much will she safely stand? he asked himself. ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... a dream then? Had it never been lost? Had she but imagined Burke's action in confiding it to her? She closed her eyes for a space, for her brain was swimming. The terrible, parching heat seemed to have turned into a wheel—a fiery wheel of torture that revolved behind her eyes, making her wince at every turn. The pain was intense; when she tried to move, it was excruciating. She sank down with her head almost on the iron box and waited in dumb ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... pump. A cold, methodical cruelty, a thousand times worse than the fanatic savagery of the Inquisition, devoured human creatures, giving them nothing more than the exact amount of sustenance necessary to prolong their torture.... No. This was another world, where his jealousy and his fury could find no vent. And he would have to lose Luna without a cry of protest, without a gesture of manly rebellion!...Now, upon beholding himself parted from her, he felt for the first time the genuine importance of his love; a ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... by false representations and promises of pecuniary support, to restore things to their former state. The hellish expedition at length arrived upon the shores of St. Domingo:—a scene of blood and torture followed, such as history had never before disclosed, and compared with which, though planned and executed by Whites[12], all the barbarities said to have been perpetrated by the insurgent Blacks of the North, amount comparatively to ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... not be so when our race has come into its own. But it will take many generations and perhaps many centuries before we reach the ideal. No physician who has a soul could permit a woman of your physique, your culture and refinement to walk barefoot and blindfolded into such a hell of physical torture. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... he cried; "the graveyard face! Go! I cannot bear those sad, reproachful eyes—those arms outstretched, asking mercy! Send foul fiends to torture me, and make my dreams hideous nightmares, but not this beautiful form to mock me with its purity, and kill me with its mild reproach. It has gone. But it will come again! It steals on me in the awful hours of ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... his pride, that he let drop The instrument of torture at his feet, And to the rest exclaim'd: "We have no power To strike him." Then to me my guide: "O thou! Who on the bridge among the crags dost sit Low crouching, safely now to ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... middle of the sixteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth, Catholic and Protestant theologians and ecclesiastics vied with each other in detecting witches guilty of producing sickness or bad weather; women were sent to torture and death by thousands, and with them, from time to time, men and children. On the Catholic side sufficient warrant for this work was found in the bull of Pope Innocent VIII, and the bishops' palaces of south Germany became shambles,—the lordly prelates of Salzburg, Wurzburg, and Bamberg ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the dying and I of the living God. Your present work of suspicion and slander is worthy of your coat and creed. All your church is but a black police; you are only spies and detectives seeking to tear from men confessions of guilt, whether by treachery or torture. You would convict men of crime, I would convict them of innocence. You would convince them of sin, I would convince them ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... build synagogues and to manage his own ecclesiastical affairs by means of a chief rabbi. The royal protection was dictated by no spirit of tolerance or mercy. To the kings the Jew was a mere engine of finance. The wealth which he accumulated was wrung from him whenever the crown had need, and torture and imprisonment were resorted to when milder means failed. It was the gold of the Jew that filled the royal treasury at the outbreak of war or of revolt. It was in the Hebrew coffers that the foreign kings found strength, to ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... declared to each comer the precise torments which awaited him in Tartarus. The wretched sinners were then seized by the Furies, who scourged them with their whips, and dragged them along to the great gate, which closed the opening to Tartarus, into whose awful depths they were hurled, to suffer endless torture. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... thus torture a human being were not likely to abstain from cruelty to the lower animals. The poets indeed protested then, as poets had done before, and always have done since, against the unmanly treatment of the dumb fellow-creatures committed ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... not tend to intolerance. She admits the possibility of salvation out of her own pale. But this circumstance, in itself honourable to her, aggravates the sin and the shame of those who persecuted in her name. Dominic and De Montfort did not, at least, murder and torture for differences of opinion which they considered as trifling. It was to stop an infection which, as they believed, hurried to certain perdition every soul which it seized, that they employed their fire and steel. The measures of the English government ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... even in the coupe they see nothing of the country. Thus the glorious bit of country we passed through from Champagnole to Morez was entirely lost on me, simply because the diligence is not a public conveyance, but an instrument of torture. The so-called coupe was so small, warm and low, that the three unfortunate occupants of it, a stout gentleman, a nun, and myself, were so closely wedged in that we could not stir a limb, whilst the narrow ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... said Mabel, "Oh, it's heavenly to see you. But I can't understand why I'm allowed to, after all the threats and punishments. I'm afraid I shall be made to pay somehow. He loves to torture me—and he knows how. I believe he hates me, now he's begun to realize that I'd give anything to leave him, that I don't ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... See the interesting extract from Kemaleddin's History of Aleppo in Wilken, preface to vol. ii. p. 36. Phirouz, or Azzerrad, the breastplate maker, had been pillaged and put to the torture by Bagi Sejan, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... the early days of Christianity, at the period of the Reformation, in many missionary fields in our own time, not only strong men, but tender women and children, have steadfastly endured shame and suffering in every form—banishment and the spoiling of their goods, imprisonment, torture, and death—for Christ's sake. In times of worldly peace and prosperity, the power of this principle is dimly seen; but were the Christians of this day required, under penalty of imprisonment, confiscation, and death, ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... said, and strode in between him and Tim's levelled weapon. "There is no friendship between us—now, or at any time. I believe you to be a miserable, snarling dog; but I would save even a cur from Indian torture. Did you ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... have I seen descend on beautiful, bewildered, dazed, meek eyes, so thickly fringed against the country sun; on soft, moist, tender nostrils that clouded the poisonous reek with a fragrance of the far-off fields! What torture of silly ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... blood that was shed so lately, of the tears which have flooded the face of all Poland, of the glory that not yet has ceased resounding: of these to think we had never the heart! For the nation is in such anguish that even Valour, when he turns his gaze on its torture, can do naught ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... I saw imaginary forms revealing themselves amid the flaming meteors. They seemed like creatures in agony, tossing their arms, bewailing in their attitudes the awful fate that had overtaken them, and fairly chilling my blood with the pantomime of torture which they exhibited. I thought of an old superstition which I had often heard about the earth, and exclaimed: "Yes, surely, ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... an uneasiness which cannot be imagined by one who has not felt it, grew upon me. I wanted light. The absence of it was torture! Light—to vivify the stifling air, which died as this man was dying—as I ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... tambourine. You don't suppose a quiet New York lawyer kept a stock of musical instruments large enough to fit out a strolling minstrel troupe just on the chance of a pair of ghosts coming to give him a surprise party, do you? Every spook has its own instrument of torture. Angels play on harps, I'm informed, and spirits delight in banjos and tambourines. These spooks of Eliphalet Duncan's were ghosts with all modern improvements, and I guess they were capable of providing their own musical weapons. At all events, ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews |
