"Excruciating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doubt he was growing weaker. Once or twice he stumbled, and the last time he lay a few moments before rising. He wanted to rest badly. The cold was keener than ever; it was merciless; it was excruciating. He no longer had the vitality to withstand it. It stabbed and stung him whenever he exposed bare flesh. He pulled the parka hood very close, so that only his eyes peered out. So he moved through the desolation of the ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... of Lyons. M. Deybens proposed my educating M. Malby's children; I accepted this offer, and departed for Lyons without causing, and almost without feeling, the least regret at a separation, the bare idea of which, a few months before, would have given us both the most excruciating torments. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... resigned to her the care of his ward, than he flew to the spot where he had left Lord Frederick, negligent of what might be the event if he still remained there. After enquiring, and being told that he was gone, Dorriforth returned to his own apartment; and with a bosom torn by more excruciating sensations than those which he had given ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... quite calmly and rationally. The shock of suddenly encountering the two persons who had been uppermost in her thoughts before those terrible injuries to her brain had balanced it again. Though the pains in her head were excruciating, as she explained, yet she could now think, and she remembered all the bitterness ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... him from being dragged into the water. The crocodile, having tasted blood, would not quit its hold, but tugged and wrenched the arm completely off at the elbow-joint, and went off with its prize. The unfortunate man, in excruciating agony, was brought to the camp, where it was necessary to amputate another piece ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... and I now found severe shooting pains, more racking than the sharpest rheumatism I had ever suffered, pervading my whole body. They increased until I suffered the most excruciating agony, as if my bones had been converted into red—hot tubes of iron, and the marrow in them had been dried up with fervent heat, and I was obliged to beg that a hammock might be spread on deck, on which I lay down, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... twelfth year of his age, a stubborn, painful, and malignant ulcer, broke out upon his left thigh; which, for near five years, defeated all the art of the surgeons and physicians, and not only afflicted him with most excruciating pains, but exposed him to such sharp and tormenting applications, that the disease and remedies were equally insufferable. Then it was, that his own pain taught him to compassionate others, and his experience of the inefficacy of the methods then in use, incited ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... down upon me. I gave myself up for lost. I felt all the agonies of suffocation, my lungs were torn from my palpitating body; my legs wrenched round in their sockets; my feet whirled upwards in that gust of devilish air. All—excruciating, damning pain—and ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... no oasis. They found no wady other than stone-dry. By day they slept, by night pushed forward. Day by day they grew weaker and less rational. The increasing nerve-strain that possessed them was companioned by the excruciating torture of their bodies racked by ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... before, the truth that lay behind one of Stanley's convictions. He once said, "No luxury of civilization can be equal to the relief from the tyranny of custom. The wilds of a great city are greater than the excruciating tyranny of a small village. The heart of Africa is infinitely preferable to the heart of the world's largest city. If the way were easier, millions would fly ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... of an hour he had managed to get the boat that far. He was sick with nausea from his exertions, and at times it seemed that blindness smote him, for he could not see, his eyes vexed with spots and points of light that were as excruciating as diamond-dust, his heart pounding up in his throat and suffocating him. Elijah betrayed no interest, did not move nor open his eyes; and Daylight fought out his battle alone. At last, falling ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... An excruciating pain shot through me. I set my teeth to keep from screaming and closed my eyes to hide the anguish ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... What could she be, the daughter of peasants, what could she have ever been? Probably some one knew the truth about her, in all that great society. Such things might be known. Francesca Campodonico's delicate noble face rose faintly between her and the sky, and she realized with excruciating suddenness the distance that separated her from the woman she hated, the woman who perhaps knew that Gloria Dalrymple was the daughter of a peasant and a fit wife by her birth for ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... toothsome morsels. As for the many kinds of fungus which grew upon the mountain, he knew not which were edible and which poisonous. After an experiment with one pleasant-smelling red-skinned specimen, which gave him excruciating cramps, he left the whole race of fungi ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... particularly &c adj.; in particular, in propria persona [Lat.]; ad hominem [Lat.]; for my part. each, apiece, one by one, one at a time; severally, respectively, each to each; seriatim, in detail, in great detail, in excruciating detail, in mind-numbing detail; bit by bit; pro hac vice [Lat.], pro re nata [Lat.]. namely, that is to say, for example, id est, exemplia gratia [Lat.], e.g., i.e., videlicet, viz.; to wit. Phr. le style ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... their victims left a journal, which describes his suffering and that of his companions. Their mouths, he says, became so sore that, if they had food, they could not eat; their limbs were swollen and disabled with excruciating pain; they died of scurvy. Those who died first were coffined by their dying friends; a row of coffins was found, in the spring, each with a man in it; two men uncoffined, side by side, were dead upon the floor. The ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... was not true; that the red man was great and noble, and the pale face was a beast—and added that he had another tomahawk and bows and arrows in his own country, and might see the day when this insult would be terribly resented. The old man sank down on his rude seat, and gave way to excruciating grief. ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... Skaguay, and he had a blissful thought of sleeping those six miles. But the man did not know how to row, and Churchill took the oars and toiled for a few more centuries. He never knew six longer and more excruciating miles. A snappy little breeze blew up the inlet and held him back. He had a gone feeling at the pit of the stomach, and suffered from faintness and numbness. At his command, the man took the baler and threw ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... had lain, with here and there deep notches where the steel had bitten through the guard of flesh and shored into the wood. Round the chamber, placed in all sorts of irregular ways, were many implements of torture which made one's heart ache to see—chairs full of spikes which gave instant and excruciating pain; chairs and couches with dull knobs whose torture was seemingly less, but which, though slower, were equally efficacious; racks, belts, boots, gloves, collars, all made for compressing at will; steel baskets ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... and in these latter years he has put forth a thousand foolish and subversive vagaries. People have not taken him quite seriously for some time. They laugh at his follies, ridicule his philanthropic schemes,—of which he has an infinite number, for he is a man of the kindest heart,—they tell excruciating stories of his colossal self-conceit, and they go home and read his books because no such books can be found written by any other man, search they never so widely. He has always been a wrong-headed man, entirely ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... painful and arduous duties. But her own slender form and consumptive countenance showed that by toil and watching she was almost worn out herself. This noble girl, by night and by day, with unwearied attention, endeavored to alleviate the excruciating pains of her afflicted parent. I could not look upon her but with admiration, in seeing the devotedness with which she watched every movement of her mother. How many wealthy parents would give all they possess, to be blessed with such a child! For ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... pain is intense, the foot is held in an elevated position and swung back and forth. In hind legs the member is often flexed in abduction and held in this position for several minutes, being rested on the ground only during short intervals. When compelled to walk, if pain is excruciating, the animal hops with the sound leg, no weight being supported by the ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... culmination or orgasm, when he was seized with complete numbness and lost all pleasurable sensation in the penis. The numbness was followed by a sensation of pain, which was intensified on the slightest motion, and which was at times so excruciating as to forbid separation for upward of an hour, or until the penis had become flaccid. The woman asked for advice for her unfortunate husband's relief, and the case was reported as a means of obtaining suggestions from the physicians ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... access to the best sources of information, has given a faithful account of the torments they endured. Vinegar mixed with salt was poured on the lacerated bodies of the dying; some were roasted on huge gridirons; some, suspended aloft by one hand, were then left to perish in excruciating agony; and some, bound to parts of different trees which had been brought together by machinery, were torn limb from limb by the sudden revulsion of the liberated branches. [306:1] But, even in the East, this attempt to overwhelm ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... the small parlour of a little inn, a number of strong, able-bodied fellows are discovered holding their hands a few inches before their faces, and sitting in silence immediately in front of a stove of such excruciating power, that it really feels as if it would roast the very eyes in their sockets; and yet, as one endures this agony, the back part is as cold as if it belonged to what is called at ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... said that he was too beautiful to paint. And yet, although so singularly lovely, he owed less of his charm to regularity of feature or to grace of movement, than to an indescribable personal fascination. One further detail Hogg pointedly insists upon. Shelley's voice "was excruciating; it was intolerably shrill, harsh and discordant." This is strongly stated; but, though the terms are certainly exaggerated, I believe that we must trust this first impression made on Shelley's friend. There is a considerable mass of convergent testimony to the fact ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... only desires Providence to let him like a soldier fall. Of course he breaks down, but there is no adverse criticism. Friendly hearers say, "Do yowe try back, Willum, and catch that up at start agin;" and Willum does try back in the most excruciating manner. Then the elders compare the artist with singers of bygone days, and a grunting chorus of stories goes on. Then comes the inevitable poaching song. Probably the singer has been in prison a dozen times over, but he is regarded as a moral and law-abiding character ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... descended upon the Brigade. This and a severe outbreak of Spanish 'flue provided him with a regular hundred patients a day. He himself had bitter personal experience of the boils. We never saw him without one for ten weeks. His own method of dealing with their excruciating tenderness was to swathe his face in cotton-wool and sticking-plaster. "Damn me, doctor, if you don't look like a loose imitation of Von Tirpitz," burst out the adjutant one day, when the doctor, with a large boil on either side of his ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... that William II. has occasional fits of insanity. This is by no means the case, but it must be admitted that the peculiar malady to which I referred above, and which is as yet not eradicated from his system, causes him, at times, days of the most excruciating pains all over the back and side of his head, and it is scarcely surprising that at such moments the emperor should act in a way which astonishes the uninitiated. Indeed, William II. displays extraordinary force of character in suppressing physical agony, when the duties he owes to the state ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... of the previous night, added to his pulpit duties, had so fairly prostrated his strength, that the sternest teetotaller in the kingdom would scarce have forbidden him a glass of our fifty-year-old Madeira. But even the fifty-year-old Madeira proved no specific in the case. He was suffering under excruciating headache, and had to stretch himself in his bed, with eyes shut but sleepless, waiting till the fit should pass,—every pulse that beat in his temples ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... his previous tolerance, ordered six fires to be lighted simultaneously in Paris. The Convention, as we know, limited itself to a single guillotine in the same city. It is probable that the sufferings of the victims were not very excruciating; the insensibility of the Christian martyrs had already been remarked. Believers are hypnotised by their faith, and we know to-day that certain forms of ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... attendants, "What mean you by remarking that lying is the distinction of traitors? Is it possible that ye have not put them to death? Declare the truth instantly, or by the God who hath appointed me guardian of his people, I will have you executed with the most excruciating torments." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... lock, stock, and barrel, right there all the time. So her raiment of violet amounts to a purely gratuitous advertisement of a permanently self-evident fact.—And such a shade too, such a positively excruciating shade!" ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... side of a ridge and looked down into a narrow strip of plain on the other side. Just as Nada had given up in weakness and despair, so now he was almost ready to quit. He had traveled miles since the owl fight, and his wounds had stiffened, and with every step gave him excruciating pain. His injured eye was entirely closed, and there was a strange, dull ache in the back of his head, where Gargantua had pounded him with his beak. The strip of valley, half hidden in its silvery mist of dawn, seemed a long ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... involuntarily two paces, and dropped upon one knee: but he still remained firm, endeavoring to cover me with his body. You may conceive my rage and despair, whilst all my efforts to disengage myself were paralyzed by the excruciating pain in my thigh. Powerless and disarmed, I witnessed for some moments this ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... arrangements of Nature for free and easy movement. It loosens what ought to be tight, it contracts the nerves, and so shortens the limbs that a tall man finds all the comeliness of his stature taken from him while he is still unmutilated. It is in truth a living death; and when the excruciating torment is gone, it leaves an almost worse legacy behind it—inability to move. Even debtors in the torture chamber have the weights sometimes removed from their feet; but this cruel malady, when it has once taken hold of a man, ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... exceedingly painful muscular spasms occurring in the muscles of the calf of the leg, the toes, etc. The expectant mother in the later months of pregnancy awkwardly turns in bed, is suddenly awakened and without a moment's warning, is seized with a most excruciating pain in her leg or toe. The most effectual treatment for these cramps is quickly to apply a very cold object to the cramping muscle. Extremes of either heat or cold usually relieve as well as the vigorous grasping or kneading of the ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... am and that I cannot be silent when I meet with perverse opinions. While you have been away I have had much to hear and to say; it would have exhausted the strength of the strongest. I only wonder you don't find me more worn out, for what can be more excruciating for a woman, that to be obliged to enter the lists for manly decisiveness against a man who is defending a perfectly antagonistic view? Give ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Houston suffered excruciating pain from the arm hanging helpless at his side, but he traveled forward without a murmur, scarcely conscious of his own suffering in his anxiety for Jack. The cut was comparatively short, but ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... articles, as well as in contempt of common humanity, delivered up above twenty men of the garrison to the Indians, in lieu of the same number they had lost during the siege; and in all probability these miserable captives were put to death by those barbarians, with the most excruciating tortures, according to the execrable custom of the country. Those who countenance the perpetration of cruelties, at which human nature shudders with horror, ought to be branded as infamous to all posterity. Such, however, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... "Poor Browne was in excruciating pain from scurvy. Every day I expected to find him unable to stir. My men were ill from exposure, scanty food, and muddy water; my horses leg-weary and reduced to skeletons. I alone stood unscathed, but I could not bear to leave my companion ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... at Chillon, on the Lake of Geneva, where the first criminal proceedings were instituted against them, after they had long before been accused by the people of poisoning the wells; similar scenes followed in Bern and in Freiburg, in 1349. Under the influence of excruciating suffering, the tortured Jews confessed themselves guilty of the crime imputed to them; and it being affirmed that poison had in fact been found in a well at Zofingen, this was deemed a sufficient proof to convince the world; and the persecution ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... made a finish of me, I believe," he gasped, placing one hand upon his side, as though the effort to speak had caused excruciating pain in that region of his body. "Blast his pictur, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... they should be low, quoting the wrong person, talking on the wrong subject, teasing with notice, excruciating with attentions, disturbing a tete-a-tete in order to make up a dance; wasting eloquence in persuading a man to participate in amusement whose reputation depends on his social sullenness; exacting homage with a restless eye, and not permitting the least worthy knot to be untwined without ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... However, upon excruciating entreaty, he consented to explore the surface of the water with a clothes-prop, but reported that the luckless trousers had disappeared in the depths, Herman having forgotten to remove some "fishin' sinkers" from his pockets before making ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... camp, and I was wet and cold and exhausted, and the pain in my blistered hands was excruciating. But not soon shall I forget that ride down the shore with the sea so rippling and moon-blanched, and the boom of the surf on the rocks, and the peaks of the island standing bold and dark against ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... between the claws; it becomes a hard substance and very painful; the animal gets feverish and is scarcely able to rise, and if got up holds out the afflicted leg. He is off his food, and sinks rapidly in condition; and the pain is excruciating. I apply a succession of poultices, and when the lump breaks the danger is over: tow and tar are then applied to the sore, a cotton bandage put on between the claws of sufficient length to secure the application, and the ends made fast by a woollen garter cut from an old stocking. If the disease ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... confirmation of the intelligence, and commenced a loud call for Mr. Kemble. He had not then returned from the Crown and Anchor; but of this the pitites were not aware, and for nearly half an hour they kept up a most excruciating din. At length the great actor made his appearance, in his walking dress, with his cane in hand, as he had left the tavern. It was a long time before he could obtain silence. He. apologized in the most respectful terms for appearing ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... which no one took account, had ended all for the unhappy wife, had been the beginning of a joy beyond words for the other two. She had kept her bed for two days, suffering from a nervous attack, accompanied by excruciating neuralgia, and had died quite suddenly from the bursting of a ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... he recalled what Filmer had just told him. His weakened body held no firm clutch on his imagination at that time of his life—it ran riot, often giving him abnormal pleasure by its vivid touches; occasionally causing him excruciating pain as he suffered, in an exaggerated way, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... no response. They did not hear any further firing behind them. On and on they trudged. Night turned to day. Day rolled slowly on into night once more. And still they staggered on, footsore and weary. Mallory suffered excruciating agony from his wound. There were times when it seemed that it would be impossible for him to continue another yard; but then the thought that Barbara Harding was somewhere ahead of them, and that in a short ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... forgot myself for about half an hour, and nodded on my post, and on awakening I was taken with what I am sure must have been a slight attack of cholera. I was stone cold, particularly my arms, hands, legs, and feet, and suffered excruciating pains in my stomach, till nature relieved me, which she was kind enough to do uncommonly frequent. I had luckily some brandy with me, of which I drank, I should think, half a bottle down without tasting it; but it did me a great deal of good at ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... possessed no recollection of what they had done upon earth. Domestic affection, friendships, and the memory of good offices rendered to one another,—all were effaced from their minds: nothing remained there but an inexpressible regret at having been exiled from the world of light, and an excruciating desire to reach it once more. The threshold of Allat's palace stood upon a spring which had the property of restoring to life all who bathed in it or drank of its waters: they gushed forth as soon as the stone ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... children lay rolling in its bottom, drinking the waters of bitterness; and their cries, mixed with the roaring of the waves and the furious north wind, increased the horrors of the scene. My unfortunate father then experienced the most excruciating agony of mind. The idea of the loss which the shipwreck had occasioned to him, and the danger which still menaced all he held dearest in the world, plunged him into a swoon. The tenderness of his ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... strangled in the spasm of his throat. But he took Rowcliffe's hand and wrung it, discharging many emotions in that one excruciating grip. ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... hounds challenged. The whipper-in rated to no purpose, the huntsman insisted she was wrong, and the whip was applied with great severity, in doing which the lash most unfortunately took the orb of the eye out of the socket. Notwithstanding the excruciating pain she must inevitably have laboured under, the poor suffering animal again flew to the scent, and exultingly proved herself to be right, for a fox having stole away, she broke covert after him unheeded, and continued the chase alone. After ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... It was excruciating duty, with the raven-haired Rose wheeling her perambulator along the opposite way and keeping, by way of feminine perversity, on a latitudinal line with ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... The street was deserted save for de Robespierre's berline and his impatient postillion. Between them Duhamel and Maximilien assisted Caron to the door of the carriage. The moving subjected him to an excruciating agony, but he caught his nether lip in his teeth, and never allowed them to suspect it. As they raised him into the berline, however, he toppled forward, fainting. Duhamel hastened indoors for a cordial, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... lifted his head, and, with a voice strangely resonant of agony, but which had still an indescribable calm mingled with its hoarseness, pronounced in excruciating accents, from under the mass of stones, words to pronounce each of which he had to lift that which was like the slab of a tomb placed upon ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... taught me something further, namely, that my head was liable to excruciating little throbs of pain. I raised a hand to it. My forehead was swathed in bandages, like a turbaned Turk's. Oh, to be sure, in the castle at Prezelay, as we were retreating up the staircase, Schwartzmann had fired ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... strove to bring resolution to his aid, and to fix his thoughts on a happier state of existence beyond this earth, the contemplation of which might aid him to bear without flinching, a short period of excruciating pain. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... innocent mirth. However excruciating the effort, he had produced a remark in English. He retired, repeating between spasms of enjoyment: "Oh, I sink so. Awe time nise ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... telling them that they were about to enter, not upon a single action, but upon a long war,—that from success, then, would follow a series of victories,—and that therein lay their only salvation from a death at once excruciating and infamous. They must, he said, live upon victory after victory,—an expression that showed he had a clear comprehension of the nature of his situation. In the battle that followed, Varinius was beaten, unhorsed, and compelled to fly for his life. All his personal goods fell into the hands ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... shut on Oliver, he threw himself, shaken, on the couch, hating Oliver and all his works more than ever. Go about barefoot and swab decks! It was madness. Besides being dangerous to health, it would be excruciating discomfort. And to be insulted for not grasping at such martyrdom! It was intolerable; and Doggie remained justly ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... I come off duty everything gets blurred. The outlines of objects grow indistinct and misty. I have to sit down in a chair. The pain is excruciating." ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... complete possession of the city of Delhi, consoled Nicholson on his deathbed. From the first there was little hope that this valuable life could be saved. He was taken into hospital in a fainting condition from internal hemorrhage, and he endured excruciating agony; but, wrote General Chamberlain, 'throughout those nine days of suffering he bore himself nobly; not a lament or sigh ever passed his lips.' His every thought was given to his country, and to the last he materially aided the military authorities by his ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... was hobbling along just able to walk. He had strained a tendon in his right leg the previous morning, and had been enduring the most excruciating pain all day. He wanted to stay and help us skin the sheep, but I would not let him We were a long way from camp, and it would require all his strength to get ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... death if they can." (465.) In the Pope, Luther had recognized the Antichrist; and the idea of treating, seeking an agreement, and making a compromise with the enemy of his Savior, was intolerable to him. At Smalcald, while suffering excruciating pain, he declared, "I shall die as the enemy of all enemies of my Lord Christ." When seated in the wagon, and ready to leave Smalcald, he made the sign of the cross over those who stood about him and said: "May the Lord fill you with His blessing and with hatred against the Pope!" Believing that ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... my companion, or myself. We two have since very frequently talked the matter over—but never without a shudder. In one of our conversations Augustus frankly confessed to me, that in his whole life he had at no time experienced so excruciating a sense of dismay, as when on board our little boat he first discovered the extent of his intoxication, and felt himself ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... His father was the squire of Farlow, where I was rector before I came to Southminster. Dick was not a source of unmixed pleasure to his parents. As a boy of eight he sowed the parental billiard-table with mustard and cress in his father's absence, and raised a very good crop, and performed other excruciating experiments. I believe he beat all previous records of birch rods at Eton. I remember while he was there he won a bet from another boy who could not pay, and he foreclosed on the loser's cricketing trousers. His parents were ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... having forgotten to make the dressing for the chicken salad which had been prepared for the watchers. Steavens had never heard anything in the least like it; it was injured, emotional, dramatic abuse, unique and masterly in its excruciating cruelty, as violent and unrestrained as had been her grief of twenty minutes before. With a shudder of disgust the lawyer went into the dining-room and closed ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... resistance; then anarchy. Thus it was with the French of the eighteenth century. Thus it is with the Russian, the German, the English, the Irish peoples of to-day. The heel of the tyrant is studded with too many steel nails to be borne without excruciating pain ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... bishops and priests ordained, consecrated and sacrificed. See the Church at an Oecumenical Council; then it capped the climax of cruelty and crime; it resorted to demoniacal subterfuge to condemn good men as heretics and burn them alive, believing that death by fire would inflict the most exquisitely excruciating tortures; at the Council of Constance it sought to condemn Wickliffe, by making an inference from some of his principles that he propagated the doctrine,—"God is obliged to obey the Devil,"—nowhere to be found in the Trialogue, Dialogue, and all the other works, treatises, and opuscles ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... often retarded by colds, which was the only sickness we had as yet experienced: the workmen, indeed, had been often blinded for four or five days together, by the white sap of a tree, which getting into their eyes, occasioned a most excruciating pain for several days. The best remedy we could apply, was Florence oil; which, dropped into the eye, destroyed the acrimony of the sap. One man was totally blinded with it, for want of making timely application ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... Ragged Men greeted them joyously and fed them, and enlisted their aid in a savage attack on a land-convoy on the way to the city. Their weapons carried the convoy, and they watched wounded prisoners killed with excruciating tortures.... ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... before the whole household he repeated his false story, and clung to it with a bitter effrontery that we may well call diabolic, remembering how the nervous terror of punishment and exposure sinks the angel in man. Our phrase, want of moral courage, really denotes in the young an excruciating physical struggle, often so keen that the victim clutches after liberation with the spontaneous tenacity and cruelty of a creature wrecked in mastering waters. Undisciplined sensations constitute ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... was that of pain—burning, stabbing, racking pain, of so excruciating a character that I incontinently groaned aloud. Then, as though in response to my groan, I heard—vaguely, and without any immediate comprehension of the meaning of ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... always one thing remarkable about these temperance ships, that when they arrive in harbour, their crews, excited to madness by long abstinence from their favourite liquor, and suffering in consequence all the excruciating torments of thirst, run into violent excesses the moment they get on shore. St. Jago is famous for a kind of liquid fire, called aguadente, which is smuggled on board ship in the shape of pumpkins and watermelons. These are sold ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... also succeeded in fishing out from forward some of the men's clothing, which he distributed among the party; and then, having done all that a man could do, he sat himself down, almost overcome, to wait till the morning, when he might hope to get the survivors on shore. Adair's leg gave him excruciating pain. Rogers sat on one side of him, Murray on the other, supporting him in their arms, and endeavouring, by every means they could think of, to alleviate his suffering, by gently rubbing his legs, frequently ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... her concerning the religious sentiments of the other ladies of the court; but, though bold in professing her own religious views, she was just as firm in refusing to implicate any of her former associates. Threatenings and promises were alike found useless. Then she was subjected to the most excruciating torture; but, though every limb was dislocated, the noble girl remained true to her friends and to her God. So enraged was the chancellor at her fortitude, that when the lieutenant of the tower refused to obey his order to screw the rack still more tightly, he seized ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... bald scalp of the head. These are then lighted, and allowed to burn down into the skin until permanent scars have been formed, the unfortunate novice being supported on both sides by priests who encourage him all the time to bear what must be excruciating pain. The fully qualified priest receives a diploma, on the strength of which he may demand a day and a night's board and lodging from the priests of any temple ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... eyes always rested upon her with deepening interest and tenderness. And he grew daily more conscious of a great peace and happiness—peace and happiness such as he had never known since his boyhood's days. He, who had found the ways of modern society dull to the last point of excruciating boredom, was not aware of any monotony in the daily round of the hours, which, laden with simple duties and pleasures, came and went softly and slowly like angel messengers stepping gently from one heaven to another. The world—or that which is called the world,—had ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... cursed by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed indeed the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks of fiction; on the contrary, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... was the distance at which they now appeared! My present debility was felt with intolerable impatience. To love and to be unable to heap happiness on the object beloved, was a thought that assailed me with excruciating sensations! ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and painful. My blood became impoverished, and I suffered from incapacity with an appalling sense of misery and general apprehension of coming evil. I passed sleepless nights and was troubled with irregular action of the heart, a constantly feverish condition, and the most excruciating tortures in my stomach, living for days on rice water and gruel, and, indeed, the digestive functions seemed to ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... among the Japanese, the guechas at Chemulpo were hard at work, and from morning till night and vice versa they were summoned from one house to the other to entertain with their—to European, ears excruciating—music on the Shamesens and Gokkins, while sake and foreign ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... you may be sure. And here, sure enough, she found poor Harry lying in excruciating pain, and with a great white swelling on his knee, which her experienced eyes saw at once was no ordinary bruise ...
— The Good Ship Rover • Robina F. Hardy
... accident had happened, and servants were sent out in all directions. The first conscious perception Charles had was of waking to excruciating agony, and finding himself supported on men's shoulders along the road. No doubt every one believed him still insensible, or, much as he was disliked, they would not have been so cruel as to reproach him ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... to meet beside one child draped over the arm of a chair in an excruciating attitude. They straightened her out together. Corinna did not look at Evan nor speak, but from her to him he thought he felt a warm current pass—or perhaps it was only because he wished to believe it. None of the other helpers were near. The child ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... fall into his hands, which was susceptible of pain. In that way he learned to use his implements of war effectually, and at the same time blunted all those fine feelings and tender sympathies that are naturally excited, by hearing or seeing, a fellow being in distress. He could inflict the most excruciating tortures upon his enemies, and prided himself upon his fortitude, in having performed the most barbarous ceremonies and tortures, without the least degree of pity or remorse. Thus qualified, when very young he was initiated ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... a poet without an exclusive sense of the poetic, a man without the finer discriminations, enjoying everything with the unreasoning enthusiasm of a boy. He was the poet of the dung hill as well as of the mountains, which is admirable in theory but excruciating in verse. In the same paragraph he informs you that, "The pure contralto sings in the organ loft," and that "The malformed limbs are tied to the table, what is removed drop horribly into a pail." No branch of surgery ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... his mouth had slipped down and his words sounded hollow and choking in the rock-bound chamber. He tried to raise his voice in a shout, though he knew how futile his loudest shrieks would be. The effort choked him more. His suffering was becoming excruciating. Sharp pains darted like red-hot needles through his limbs, his back tortured him, and his head ached as though a knife had cleft the base of his skull. The strength of his limbs was leaving him. He no longer felt any sensation in his cramped feet. He measured ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... Marshall group, and stands alone in my experience. To give the opposite extreme, which is yet far more near the average, I will describe the soil and productions of Fakarava. The surface of that narrow strip is for the more part of broken coral lime-stone, like volcanic clinkers, and excruciating to the naked foot; in some atolls, I believe, not in Fakarava, it gives a fine metallic ring when struck. Here and there you come upon a bank of sand, exceeding fine and white, and these parts are the least productive. The plants (such as they are) spring ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hurdle-race, at the premature age of twenty-four, was at the University, the amiable young fellow, passing to his rooms in the early morning, and seeing Hugby's boots at his door, on the same staircase, playfully wadded the insides of the boots with cobbler's wax, which caused excruciating pains to the Rev. Mr. Hugby, when he came to take them off the same evening, before dining with the Master ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... now," he would say; "it's a great favourite with performers; they dance the sand dance to it." And he expounded the sand dance. Then suddenly, it would be a long "Hush!" with uplifted finger and glowing, supplicating eyes; "he's going to play 'Auld Robin Gray' on one string!" And throughout this excruciating movement,—"On one string, that's on one string!" he kept crying. I would have given something myself that it had been on none; but the hearers were much awed. I called for a tune or two, and thus introduced myself ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... My uncle is a martyr, Foker, my boy. My uncle has been doing excruciating duties all night. He likes to go to bed rather early. He has a dreadful headache if he sits up and touches supper. He always has the gout if he walks or stands much at a ball. He has been sitting up, and standing up, and supping. He has gone home to the gout and the headache, and for my sake. ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stalking oracle of awful phrase, The approving "Good!" (by no means good in law) Humming like flies around the newest blaze, The bluest of bluebottles you e'er saw, Teasing with blame, excruciating with praise, Gorging the little fame he gets all raw,[bp] Translating tongues he knows not even by letter, And sweating plays so middling, bad ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... losses; it is rarely sought as a means of escape from bodily suffering. If we feel that we have a competence at our backs, so that we can die warm and quietly in our beds, with no need to worry about expense, we live our lives out to the dregs, no matter how excruciating our torments. Job probably felt the loss of his flocks and herds more than that of his wife and family, for he could enjoy his flocks and herds without his family, but not his family—not for long—if he had lost all his money. Loss of money indeed ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... Head proceeded to deftly loosen the fastenings of an enormous bandage which I now discovered enveloped my chest. This done, I was very tenderly raised to a sitting posture—an operation which gave me excruciating pain, by the way—and the endless turns of the bandage were deftly unwound, one of the nurses seating herself upon the bed and supporting me meanwhile. When at length the bandage was removed, several ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... the front door. A man was seated at the wheel of the motor car, and turned his head quickly as they approached. Mr. Fielding nodded pleasantly, though his face was white with excruciating pain. ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... plot and did not discover the dynamite concealed in the carpenters' sleeping quarters. Halturin showed wonderful coolness while the search was going on, and continued to sleep every night on the explosive, though it caused him excruciating headaches. When he was assured by the chemist of the Executive Committee that the quantity collected was sufficient, he exploded the mine at the usual dinner hour, and contrived to escape uninjured.* In the guardroom immediately above the spot where the dynamite ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... now was excruciating; and, realising that my left leg must be badly hurt, I made another effort before I was overcome again, getting upon my feet and reeling towards a big upright mass of granite; but before I had taken half-a-dozen limping steps the ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... and motionless as a statue; gradually her lips separated, and her eyes glared; she seemed to have lost the power of reply; she put her hand to her right side, as if to compress it, then both her hands, as if to relieve herself from excruciating torture: at last she sank, with her head forward, and the blood ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... this inclement weather and think how these poor creatures must suffer from the cold, it seems to me that they are the people who should apply to those who have anything to bestow in charity; not those who are the only people, as it would appear, who can take pleasure in this excruciating weather. See if your club cannot do something for these poor sufferers instead of collecting merely for your own personal amusement; contribute to their necessities, and then come and see me again. I shall be ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... gripped him by the wrist, half-turning as he did so. Before Milburgh knew what was happening, he was lying on the floor, face downwards, with Ling Chu's knee in the small of his back. He felt something like a wire loop slipped about his wrists, and suffered an excruciating pain as the Chinaman tightened the connecting ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... might be hundreds and hundreds of such things that Edward was concealing from her—that they might necessitate more mortgagings, more pawnings of bracelets, more and always more horrors. She had spent an excruciating afternoon. The matter was one of a divorce case, of course, and she wanted to avoid publicity as much as Edward did, so that she saw the necessity of continuing the payments. And she did not so much mind that. They could find three hundred a ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... wrinkles, his dark face, still showing a yellowish pallor, was hard and set. He reviewed the entire situation, and as his consuming ambition contemplated the glories of success, and the success after that, and the succession of successes that led up and ever up, his every nerve was afire with an excruciating, impatient pleasure. ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... will walk home," said Mr. Alwynn, slowly. It gave him excruciating pain to say anything so severe as this; but he got ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... Bas, and then when it is of return your sailors so splendid, with sang-froid so perfect, will gobble it up. Just gobble it up. As I will gobble up this cold beef upon your table. Peste, I am of a hunger excruciating. I have not eaten for five, ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... excruciating and remediless his grief must be, to be so cut off from all equal community of experience and destiny with mankind, to see all whom he loves, generation after generation, fading away, leaving him alone, to form new ties again ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... with their pointed arrows; and, at other times, binding them to a tree, and piercing the tenderest parts of their naked bodies with sharp-pointed sticks of burning wood, which last, because the most painful and excruciating method of torture, was ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... Nero must have a victim, and Tacitus tells us that he charged the Christians with the crime. Then opened in Rome the awful carnival of bloodshed that the orator never mentions, in which horrible modes of torture and excruciating methods of producing pain vied with each other in satisfying the demands of death. Women bound to raging bulls and dragged to death were not without the companionship of others who, in the evening, in Nero's garden, were coated with pitch, covered with tar, bound to stakes of pine, lighted ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... letter by the last post. I cannot tell you how much I regret it. When I was complaining and accusing you of neglect, you were suffering the most excruciating pain; but I could not have imagined this unfortunate reverse. Impute my impatience to my anxiety to hear from you. I am pleased at the gayety of your letter. Do not think a moment of the consequences which you ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... pronounced by the martyr on Pere Lactance was not added to their number; and at a quarter-past six on September 18th, exactly a month to the very minute after Grandier's death, Pere Lactance expired in excruciating agony." ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
