"Cruel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my question I looked quickly from one to the other of the four women seated with me under the roof of the Poplars and tried to search out what was in their hearts. I knew them and their lives with the cruel completeness it is given to friends to know each other in small towns like Goodloets and I could probe with a certain touch. And as they all sat silent with me, each one driven to self-question by my demand, I threw the flash of a ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... I see the wave that soon above my hopes, My fears, my sorrows, and my broken heart, Will roll in cruel triumph. I'm content. A long and troubled record I shall leave Of struggles in the dark 'gainst many foes. I begged for light to see my duty clear To see the purpose of my suffering To see the end ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... studious delicacy and respect due to a refined and accomplished woman in the full possession of her faculties. If she were really mad, this demeanor would not hurt her, and if she were not mad it was the only proper conduct to be observed toward her, as any other must be equally cruel and offensive. Her bodily health certainly required the attendance of a physician, and Traverse had therefore a fair excuse for his ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... would be cruel to take from her her only recreation. And she says she can't read any other way. You needn't listen ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... burnished brace Of plump, ruffed grouse he showed with pride, Angelic grief was in her face: "How could you do it, dear?" she sighed. "The poor, pathetic moveless wings!" The songs all hushed—"Oh, cruel shame!" Said he, "The partridge never sings," Said she, "The ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... the Kenwigses were thrown into a fever of rage and disappointment, by receiving the cruel news of their Uncle Lillyvick's marriage, which blow was a terrible one to Mrs. Kenwigs, blighting her hopes for her children's future. After weeping and wailing in the most agonized fashion, Mrs. Kenwigs drew herself up in proud defiance, and denounced her uncle in terms ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... at the hour of my life when it seems to me I most deserve a friend's loyalty? If you do you're not just, Fanny; you're even, I think," she went on, "rather cruel; and it's least of all worthy of you to seem to wish to quarrel with me in order to cover your desertion." She spoke, at the same time, with the noblest moderation of tone, and the image of high, pale, lighted disappointment she meanwhile presented, as of a creature patient and lonely in her ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... Meet or in the "Row" in a lady's habit, trigly perfect in fit, and on a side-saddle. In America this is an extreme opinion, and it is only among the most fashionable that a young girl having all her life ridden in a man's saddle, finds the world a joyless place and parents cruel when she is no longer allowed to ride like a boy. But she becomes, in spite of her protests, "another who looks divine on a horse." And you can look divine too, if you choose! On second thoughts the adjective must be qualified. No one ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... words with fresh spirit and confidence, telling them that this state of things could not last, and that he was going to join the king, who doubtless would soon call them to take part in a fresh effort to drive out their cruel oppressors. Edmund found that although none knew with certainty the hiding-place of King Alfred, it was generally reported that he had taken refuge in the low lands of Somersetshire, and Athelney was specially named as the place which he had made ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... Tory commander held him in especial hatred, for the reason that he knew that he loved Rosa Minturn, and suspected that she loved him in return. Surrounded by such heartless allies as were the Iroquois, a cruel man like the Tory could readily find the means of doing what he willed in the way of punishing a rival in the affections of a lady. After indulging in these reflections until he wearied, the prisoner found himself wondering as to how long ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... Furies.—Old Parr (Stanza IV.) lived to be 152; he died in 1635.—Semiramis (Stanza XVII.) was Queen of Assyria, under whom Babylon became the most wonderful city in the world; Helen was Helen of Troy, the cause of the war between the Greeks and Trojans; Medea was the cruel lover of Jason, who recovered the Golden Fleece.—Clytemnestra (Stanza XVIII.) was the wife and murderer of Agamemnon; Joan of Naples was Giovanna, the wife of Andrea of Hungary, who was accused of assassinating him. Landor wrote a play, "Giovanna of Naples," ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Of course he is. His telling you so frankly proves it. You know, really, Howard, all those poor people whom you try are more sinned against than sinning. If you would only talk to them in a friendly way instead of passing cruel sentences on them, you would find them quite nice to you. (Indignantly) I won't have this poor man trampled on merely because his mother brought him up as a Hooligan. I am sure nobody could be nicer than he was when he spoke ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... thought if I moved you would wake and see me, and you were awake all the time. You knew all the time, and you waited for me to stand there and feel as I did. I never dreamed a man could be so cruel." ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... he got out his bottle of liniment, and looked at Joe's arm, one of the ligaments of which had been strained by the cruel twist, Boswell said, sniffing ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... write I can almost hear the English reader saying, "Pooh! the same things are done times without number in England." And I can hear the American, still smarting under the recollection of some needlessly cruel and unfair thrust from the hands of a competitor, smile cynically and say that he would like to tell me certain things that he knows. Of course there are exceptions on either side. It takes, as the American is so fond of saying, "all kinds ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... hardships you will endure!" cried she; "to sleep on the cold stones, with no covering but the sky, or the dripping vault of some dreary cave! I have not courage to abandon you alone to such cruel rigors." ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... "pretty young creature!—Do you recollect how gay she was when first we came to Cecilhurst? and even last year, when she had hopes of her uncle's recovery, and when he talked of taking her to London, how she enjoyed the thoughts of going there! The world was bright before her then. How cruel of that uncle, with all his fondness for her, never to think what was to become of her the moment he was dead: to breed her up as an heiress, and ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... display of wrath, and of vowing of vengeance against some member of a neighbouring tribe. Unfortunately this is not always the case, the man who is supposed to have exercised the death-spell being sometimes waylaid and murdered in a most cruel manner."[28] With regard to the great Kamilaroi tribe of New South Wales we read that "in some parts of the country a belief prevails that death, through disease, is, in many, if not in all cases, the result of an enemy's malice. It is a common saying, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... they would have emitted the Chickens' gentle cheep. They died that we might live. Here is beef, mutton, poultry. Horror, it smells of blood, it is eloquent of murder! If we gave it a thought, we should not dare to sit down to table, that altar of cruel sacrifices. ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... of cruel Jack-in-the-pulpit, the skunk cabbage, and the water-arum (q.v.), a poor relation also of the calla lily, the golden club seems to be denied part of its tribal inheritance - the spathe, corresponding to the pulpit in which Jack preaches, or to the ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Philip Van Reypen, who came near Patty and murmured, "You haven't danced with me once to-night, and you've been awful cruel to me lately, anyway. Now let us have one more dance in honour of the ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... plied the whip. The Indian, supposing it was Rolf's father, marvelled at his method of showing affection, but said nothing, for the Fifth Commandment is a large one in the wigwam. Rolf dodged some of the cruel blows, but was driven into a corner of the rock. One end of the lash crossed his ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... bewildered faces peered at the man. The silence of the buried Temple was solid, awesome. Through the mist of wreathing incense-smoke and heavy shadows the giant head of the idol stared down, cruel in the coldness of the rock it had been ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... it not the cause of Europe and of all earthly freedom, deserves your sympathy and active protection. Like other free nations, we were brave. The Austrian dynasty was perjured and treacherous; and our bravest bled on the scaffold. Tyrannies are cruel: only the people knows how to be generous in victory.—Let me rather say, the People was generous: for the future I hope it will be just. I hope this, not because there is any deep truth in the Irish poet, ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... a terrible delusion, which only serves to show the depth and subtlety of him who, besides having "the power of death," is also "the father of lies," the great deceiver and ensnarer of mankind. History is full of analogous examples among men. In how many instances have the most cruel and remorseless tyrants made use of the passions and brute force of the multitude to secure their own elevation to absolute power, inducing their victims to forge and rivet their own chains. And it is so in this case. Sinners are the slaves of Satan; ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... triumph of Christ an expression of the eternal victory of GOD over all the evil and wickedness which mars the wonder of His creation. If we were to look primarily at the life of Nature, we might be tempted to say that GOD was cruel. If we considered certain of the works of man, we might be tempted to conclude that GOD was devilish. Looking at Jesus we gain the assurance that GOD is Love. We behold "the light of the knowledge of the glory of GOD in the face of Jesus Christ," ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... she waited through another instant of horror, until she was striking at faces that came within the reach of her arm. And then, like a monster created suddenly by an evil spirit, Graham was at her side. She had a moment's vision of his cruel, exultant face, his eyes blazing with a passion that was almost madness, his powerful body lunging upon her. Then his arms came about her. She could feel herself crushing inside them, and fought against ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... ah! what terrors frowned upon her fate — Death, with its formidable band, Fever and pain and pale consumptive care, Determin'd took their stand: 55 Nor did the cruel ravagers design To finish all their efforts at a blow; But, mischievously slow, They robb'd the relic and defac'd the shrine. With unavailing grief, 60 Despairing of relief, Her weeping children round Beheld each hour Death's growing power, And trembled ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... being apprized of her inability; to bear in mind, that he was, or seemed to be, pleased with her showy and us less acquirements; and that, when the gratification of his passion has been accomplished, he is unjust, and cruel, and unmanly, if he turn round upon her, and accuse her of a want of that knowledge, which he well knew, beforehand, she ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... society deprived her of the privileges which would have permitted her to see much of Graydon. They were kept separated by the transport's regulations; he was a common soldier, she of the officer's mess. The restrictions were cruel and relentless. They saw but little of one another during the thirty days; but their thoughts were busy with the days to come. Graydon grew stronger and more confident as the ship forged nearer to the Golden Gate; Jane more wistful and resigned to the new purpose which was to give life another ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... gentleness and human sympathy, little in keeping with the view held of him by that section of the British press which would willingly have seen England at the mercy of Paul Kruger—for England's good, for her soul's welfare as it were, for her needed chastisement. He was spoken of as a cruel, tyrannical, greedy German Jew, whose soul was in his own pocket and his hand in the pockets of the world. In truth he was none of these things, save that he was of German birth, and of as good ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... intensity of a nightmare. The horrors, for a short time repelled, were stronger than ever. She was tensely awake. Every word exchanged between Toby and herself came ringing into her head. She was aghast at the stupidity, the cruel and brutal stupidity, of her lover. He her lover! Love! why he didn't know what love meant! He would take everything she had to give; and when he was asked to stand by her Toby would repudiate her claim upon ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... birthday20 pass without a word of affection and congratulation. I am alive20 and well. Time has dealt leniently with me in that respect, if20 not in money matters. I do not say this in the hope of reconciling you to me. I know that is impossible after all these cruel years. But I do wish that I could see you again. Remember, I am your only child and even if you still think I have been a foolish one, please let me come to see you once before it is too late. We are constantly travelling ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... ALGERNON has written to me, asking me to see him again for the last time. I have written back that my decision is unalterable. It breaks my heart to have to be so cruel—but fate wills it, and it's no good fighting against Mamma. Sent my grey to be cleaned—but it won't look ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... with the treachery natural to a woman who is defending her own. It was useless for Minna to resist, and sulk, and be impertinent, and go on denying the truth of her remarks; there was only too much justification for them, and Frau von Kerich had a cruel skill in flicking the raw spot. The largeness of Jean-Christophe's boots, the ugliness of his clothes, his ill-brushed hat, his provincial accent, his ridiculous way of bowing, the vulgarity of his loud-voicedness, nothing was forgotten which might sting Minna's vanity. Such remarks were ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... "I didn't; I left it blank!" "Just so—you have told a silent lie; you have left it to be inferred that you had no fault to find in that matter." She said, "Oh, was that a lie? And how could I mention her one single fault, and she is so good?—It would have been cruel." I said, "One ought always to lie, when one can do good by it; your impulse was right, but your judgment was crude; this comes of unintelligent practice. Now observe the results of this inexpert deflection of ...
— On the Decay of the Art of Lying • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... she a tall, between-colours girl, quite young, with a sad face and queer stern mouth—a trifle cruel, the mouth, if I recollect. She used to sit across there by the piano, in a plain black dress, and no colour at all except ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... of the saide order, insomuch that they caused two paire of gallons to be set vp besides the castle, and thirtie of the Prussians pledges to be hanged therupon. Which seueritie so vexed and prouoked the Prussians, that in reuenge of the said iniury, they renewed bloody and cruel warres, slew many Christians, yea, and put 40. knights with the master of the Order, and the Marshal, vnto the edge of the sword. There was at the same instant in Pomerania a Duke called Suandepolcus, professing the Christian faith, but being ioyned in league with the Prussians, he indeuoured ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... eloquence of what they were doing, I confess that my drawing was blurred for a moment—the picture swam. They had accepted their failure, but they couldn't accept their fate. They had bowed their heads in bewilderment to the perverse and cruel law in virtue of which the real thing could be so much less precious than the unreal; but they didn't want to starve. If my servants were my models, then my models might be my servants. They would ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... not smile. Indeed, she gave him a very severe look. "How cruel!" she murmured. "Bobby, you deserve a sound spanking. You are a very naughty little boy." ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... cruel calamities which have in the past overtaken the United States because of her perpetual unpreparedness, we still insist that because we do not believe in war we therefore need no military system. It is as if we held that since we do not wish to be ill we will abolish physicians—or as ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... sum total of reported martyrs by twenty; by fifty, if you will; after all, you have a number of persons of all ages and sexes suffering cruel torments and deaths for conscience' sake, and for Christ's; and by their sufferings, manifestly with God's blessing, insuring the triumph of Christ's Gospel. Neither do I think that we consider the excellence of this martyr spirit ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... myself by reading a crude fly-sheet nailed on the wall, offering a reward of fifty guineas to anyone giving information leading to the arrest of one Samuel Nixon, commonly called 'Swift Nicks,' a notorious highwayman, six feet high, of very genteel appearance, well-spoken, but a cruel, bloody ruffian with it all. The Highlander interrupted my reading by beckoning me to follow him. Upstairs we went, and he ushered me into a room where were two gentlemen seated on opposite sides of a table on which were a small map and two large glasses containing ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... brought Norine Evans to Cuba. During the return journey from San Antonio de los Banos he had discovered how really ill Esteban Varona was, how weak his hold upon life. The young man showed the marks of wasting illness and of cruel abuse; starvation, neglect, and disease had all but done for him. After listening to his ravings, O'Reilly began to fear that the poor fellow's mind was permanently affected. It was an appalling possibility, one to which he could not reconcile himself. ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... occasion he was seized by the people who dwelt by the great lake of Carapaco, and tied hands and feet with stout cords, it being their intention to put him to a cruel death the next day. But very early in the morning, just at the time of the dawn, a beautiful youth entered and said, "Fear not, I have come to call you in the name of the lady who is awaiting you, that you may go with her to the ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... in despair. The character which Government now assumed in Prussia was indeed far more typical of the condition of Germany at large than was the bold and uncompromising despotism of Prince Schwarzenberg in Austria. Manteuffel, in whom the Prussian epoch of reaction was symbolised, was not a cruel or a violent Minister; but his rule was stamped with a peculiar and degrading meanness, more irritating to those who suffered under it than harsher wrong. In his hands government was a thing of eavesdropping and espionage, a system of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Orleans. Richard, the stout Earl of Warwick, another possessor, was killed at Barnet. George, Duke of Clarence, was drowned in a butt of Malmsey. Richard III. was the next possessor. Lady Margaret de la Pole, was beheaded at the age of seventy-two, by the cruel policy of Henry VIII., in revenge for a supposed affront by her son the Cardinal. In this parish also lived the infamous Colonel Titus, who advised Cromwell to deliver the nation from its yoke, in a pamphlet, entitled Killing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... strides towards the half-way houses, in one of which was the room tenanted by his aged mother; for, to whom else could he apply for consolation in this case of severe distress? That it was Moggy Salisbury who gave the cruel blow, was a fact completely substantiated by evidence; but that it was Smallbones who held the dog, and who thereby became a participator, and therefore equally culpable, was a surmise to which the insinuations of the corporal had given all the authority ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... "since I no longer hold a place in your affections, it would be idle to pursue the matter further. Heaven be praised, there are other damsels quite as beautiful, though not so cruel. Farewell for ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... women were not to the fore, where were the elegancies to come from? Where, indeed! It is a question which has broken many a gentler heart than Maud Beaudesart's, and will break many more. It is a cruel question; but not to put it would be more cruel still. For while this or that gentlewoman is in danger, no gentlewoman is safe. And the basest type of mind is that which gloats on the adversity of the world's spoiled child; the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... for this duty by obtaining all the knowledge of the subject that is possible to her. She will find that the laws of the human organization are marked by the same wisdom and beauty as those of the physical world; and many things which seemed dark and cruel will be seen to be beneficent and beautiful when their whole relation is understood. She may then give some reasonable answer to the question which the young intellect, struggling with the great problems of physical life, is so prone to ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... Doublet of the same Cut that were in Fashion at the Time of his Repulse, which, in his merry Humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve Times since he first wore it. 'Tis said Sir ROGER grew humble in his Desires after he had forgot this cruel Beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has frequently offended in Point of Chastity with Beggars and Gypsies: but this is look'd upon by his Friends rather as Matter of Raillery than Truth. He is now in his Fifty-sixth ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... was some time to be. Instead, there were planks, inclined at a steep angle, beneath which lay the stones of which the foundation to the porch were to be made. Jagged pieces of yet unhewn sandstone they were, with cruel edges. ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... yellow fangs, as was his habit when uttering a cruel jest, and Nelly began to coax him, hoping to avert the unforeseen trouble she had set afoot. At last the king promised that he would take no steps against Hamilton, but I knew that royal promises were never worth the breath ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... of the streets through which the unfortunate sufferers were carried, wearied at length by the daily sight of so melancholy a spectacle, ventured to utter complaints. Robespierre, no less suspicious than cruel, was alarmed, and, dreading an insurrection, removed the scene of slaughter. The scaffold was erected on the Place de la Bastille: but the inhabitants of this quarter also murmured, and the guillotine was transferred ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... had he, and much too long. Days before that he should have been "a boy again;" aye, a baby, a very infant—should have been soothed and softened and comforted with all the tenderness of mother-love; but even now, in this cruel extremity, every sign of sympathy was denied him. Some one put a hand gently but firmly on each of my shoulders, turned my back to him, took me out of the room, and I hurried away, while the air shuddered with his shrieks ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... Mackinnon, having done all he could, parted from the Prince with the same affectionate sorrow that had marked the farewells of all his faithful Highlanders. He was caught on his return to Skye, by the cruel Captain Scott, and five days later was brought back to Lochnanuagh, a prisoner on board an English man-of-war. Opposite the place where the ship cast anchor was a fissure in the rock, and halfway up was what looked like a mere grassy bank. In ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... it for me to misjudge because his is a-takin' way with the ladies? Just because the swate creatures smile on the lad an' flutter warm at the sight iv him? Bright eyes and brave men! 'Tis the way they have iv lovin' valor. They're shuddered an' shocked at the cruel an' bloody dades iv war, yet who so quick do they lose their hearts to as the brave butcher-bye iv a sodger? Why not? The lad's done brave things, and the girls give him the warm soft smile. Small reason, that, for me to be callin' him the devil's own cub. Out upon ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... had no stomach for that kind of work, and veered off to the south, where they occupied two little hills, whence they could enfilade a portion of our position. We answered their fire as best we could, but it was cruel, disheartening work. ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... encourage our former adversaries, Russia and China, to emerge as stable, prosperous, democratic nations. Both are being held back from reaching their full potential: Russia by the legacy of communism, economic turmoil, a cruel and self-defeating war in Chechnya; China by the illusion that it can buy stability at the expense of freedom. But think how much has changed in the past decade: thousands of former Soviet nuclear weapons eliminated; Russian soldiers serving with ours in the Balkans; Russian people ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... nations are circular. Under the severe pressure of despotism the people rise in their fury, and snap their chains asunder. A republic follows; degenerating first into a rude and wild democracy; and thence into a cruel and more turbulent anarchy. As a relief from the evils of this, the people, sighing for repose, fly back again into the arms of despotism. But with a people who have once tasted the sweets of liberty, this kind of tranquillity is short. Maddened by wrongs, real or supposed, they are soon ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... caught me hard this morning when I dressed And read the mirror's verdict. Ah, the pain Is gnawing like a canker at my breast, Is beating like a hammer in my brain; I must speak out or break beneath the strain. I'm going bald on top. O cruel reef Where youthful hopes lie wrecked! O dismal lane Whose end is but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... my heart. But truth is truth. I could not do that wickedness. Oh! how can you? This is the prompting of the evil spirit indeed, to expect me to join in leaving that innocent, generous spirit to die in cruel injustice. Let me go. I will not betray where you are. You will be safe in France; but there will yet be time for me to bear witness to your life. Write a letter. Your father would thankfully swear ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... taken Halsey to the doctor the night he disappeared. He accused the doctor of the deception, and, crossing the lawn, had said something cruel to Louise. Then, furious at her apparent connivance, he had started for the station. Doctor Walker and Paul Armstrong—the latter still lame where I had shot him—hurried across to the embankment, certain only of one thing. Halsey must not tell the detective what ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the Rhine, he waited until the waters of that stream had rescued Grynaeus from his persecutors. 'At last,' cried Melanchthon, as he saw him on the opposite side, 'at last he is torn from the cruel jaws of those who thirst for innocent blood.' When he returned to his house, Melanchthon was informed that officers in search of Grynaeus had ransacked ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... broad;(3) but Pompeius was considerate enough not to assign it to any of his lieutenants. The still resisting Cretan communities, however, who had seen their subdued countrymen taken to task by Metellus with the most cruel severity and had learned on the other hand the gentle terms which Pompeius was in the habit of imposing on the townships which surrendered to him in the south of Asia Minor, preferred to give in their ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of this infernal nonsense, I'll turn you out of the gaol neck and crop." This is a threat that never fails to produce the desired effect. To be expelled from gaol and driven, like Cain, into the rude and wicked world, a wanderer, an outcast—this would indeed be a cruel ban. Before such a presentiment the well-ordered mind of ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... arrival, they were provided with lodging free of expense; from that place news was instantly sent to Mizzlington. Little did Mr. Brown think, that morning, as he combed out his matted, gummy, locks, that his friend Captain de Camp had lost his, under the cruel shears, in ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... stood in a little opening, and the moonlight fell full upon his face. They could see it distorted into a malicious grin of cruelty and self-satisfaction. Slowly the rifle barrel of Shif'less Sol, in the bushes, was raised to a level, and it was pointed straight at a spot between the cruel, grinning eyes. An infallible eye looked down the sight, and a steady finger ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Empire, never laid aside the simplicity and moderation of a private citizen; who infused into Oriental despotism the spirit of British freedom; who never forgot that the end of Government is the happiness of the governed; who abolished cruel rites; who effaced humiliating distinctions; who gave liberty to the expression of public opinion; whose constant study it was to elevate the intellectual and moral character of the nation committed ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... silent drink the sick hymeneal spring. 'The bridal scene! the banquet or the bowers, Or woman's [bed of thorns, or] path of flowers,' Can't all persuade our souls to turn aside To live in filthy lust or cruel pride. Alas! your path of flowers will disappear; E'en now a thousand thorns are pointed near; Ah! here you find 'base treachery's burning brand,' And sorrows score the heart, nor spare the hand; But here 'Beauty's sovereign'—so say you— A thing that in one ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... his reverence would be entitled to half the plunder, and that discovery was almost impossible. Still, despite Dick's eloquence, the 'Bishop' submitted that such a cruel fraud was "tough" ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... demons or complete madmen, have yet much that is amiable and much that is sane; they stickle at no abominable lust, yet they are no bestial sybarites; they are brave, sober, frugal, enduring like any puritan; they are treacherous, rapacious, cruel, utterly indifferent to the sufferings of their enemies, yet they are gentle in manner, passionately fond of letters and art, superb in their works of public utility, and not incapable of genuinely admiring men of pure life ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... old eyes, as the old lips recalled that long-forgotten past. Then, as she went on, her voice broke to a sob, and failed of utterance. But it came. "And there—and there—were I and my darling, my Phoebe, that died in the cruel sea! Oh, my dear—that I might have seen her once again! But once again!..." She stopped to recover calm speech; and did it, bravely. "It was all in the seeming of it, my dear, but all the same hard for me to understand. Very like, my dear Ruth here was right and wise ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... was scarcely for a moment entertained, and the winter campaign proved as active as the summer one. The arrival of Mina to take the chief command of the Queen's forces, and the severity of the measures he adopted, rendered the character of the war more sanguinary and cruel than it had been since its commencement; and although, in numerous instances, the nearest relatives and dearest friends were fighting on contrary sides, it became impossible for them to obtain intelligence of each other's welfare. It was by no means surprising, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... these porcine treasures, and they reside in a spacious stone hall; but not the less is the atmosphere heavy with odours that are not exactly those of Araby the Blest. Throughout their sluggish existence the swine are carefully fed and cherished, and no cruel knife cuts short the thread of their destiny. At the time of Madame Pfeiffer's visit only one pair were enjoying their otium cum dignitate, and the number rarely exceeds ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... a woman sometimes take the opportunity to separate from a husband who either was cruel to her or was an idler and only ate and drank, and refused to work to support his wife and children? Or she might take a fancy to some one else and make it so hot for her husband that, contrary to his intention, he would let her go. I argue that worse trouble might arise ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... months ago, when he asked her to become his wife, and he thought when she said "yes" that no man was more blessed than he. It was, he feared, true he did not love her, nor she him; but why could not they have found that out before? What a cruel destiny was this which drew a veil before his eyes and led him blindfold over the precipice! He at first thought, when his joy began to ebb in February or March, that it would rise again, and that he would see ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... by the law," I continued, noting his hesitation. "He is simply involved in a cruel difficulty brought upon him by his own family—he seeks to escape from ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... use your own judgment my boy, you know. Use your own judgment. I would not think of persuading you to take such a step, if you felt at all doubtful. Think it over. Sleep on it. And, whatever you decide to do, on no account say a word about it to Jill. It would be cruel to raise her hopes until we are certain that we are in a position to enable her to realize them. And, of course, not a word to ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... now that he perceived, as he thought, that the game was lost and his life come to its last hour wherein he would have to leave his treasure and pleasure behind him, grew desperate and therewith most fierce and cruel. So all the captives whom they had taken (they were but two score and two, for the wounded men they had slain) he caused to be bound on the chairs of the high-seat clad in their war-gear with their swords or spears made fast to their right hands, ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... enemies, and going down to death. A wonderful description of the trial and death of the Messiah may be found in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which was fulfilled in the trial and death of Jesus. The hatred of the priests, the scoffings, the blows, and the cruel words of the people we will not describe. "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... other gentleman. Mr. Gilmore was to be read at a glance as an honest, straightforward, well-behaved country squire, whose word might be taken for anything, who might, perhaps, like to have his own way, but who could hardly do a cruel or an unfair thing. He was just such a man to look at as a prudent mother would select as one to whom she might entrust her daughter with safety. Now Walter Marrable's countenance was of a very different die. He had served in India, and the naturally dark colour of his face had thus become very ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... impression of strangers, who came to us on business, from their faces alone, without being influenced by anything they said. Enough to mention that I turned my glass partition to that account, and that a Life Assurance Office is at all times exposed to be practised upon by the most crafty and cruel of the ...
— Hunted Down • Charles Dickens
... for himself, but a good friend and a good citizen to boot. We do not go to cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has least fear for his own carcase, has most time to consider others. That eminent chemist who took his walks abroad in tin shoes, and subsisted wholly upon tepid milk, had all his work cut out for him in considerate dealings ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... place, and that so the whole matter is again at a stand, at which I am sorry for the King's sake, but glad that Sir W. Pen is again defeated, for I would not have him come to be Comptroller if I could help it, he will be so cruel proud. Here I spoke with Sir G. Downing about our prisoners in Holland, and their being released; which he is concerned in, and most of them are. Then, discoursing of matters of the House of Parliament, he tells me that it is not the fault of ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... crusty, hateful, ill-tempered, surly, churlish, disagreeable, ill-conditioned, morose, unamiable, crabbed, dogged, ill-humored, sour, unlovely, cruel, gruff, ill-natured, sullen, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... retribution had overtaken the Romans for their love of the cruel sports of the amphitheatre. The gladiators were generally prisoners taken in war, and sold to persons who trained them in schools for the Roman games. There was such a school at Capua, and among the gladiators was a Thracian of the name of Spartacus, originally a chief of banditti, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... %193. Cruel Punishments.%—The humane spirit of our times was largely wanting. The debtor was cast into prison. The pauper might be sold to the highest bidder. The criminal was dragged out into open day and flogged or branded. From ten to nineteen crimes ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... giant leaves and blossoms of the tropic water-lily; and on a fragment of rock rising above the surface dozed a small crocodile, not more than four feet long, but looking as old, dried up, and coldly cruel as sin itself! ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... their interests, their country, their all, and rushed blindly into the calamities of a civil war? He has read history to little account who has not learned that such a warfare is, in its nature, not only cruel, but protracted. It is like letting loose the hurricane. Passion and poverty, carnage and crime, desolation and death, become the condition of a hitherto happy people. For thirty years Germany was ravaged, and millions slain by a contest occasioned ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... something occurred to put her out. "I will try, oh, I will try," said Edith again and again, "but it is such hard work."—Yes, Edith, hard enough, and work which even Emilie can scarcely help you in. You wrestle against a powerful and a cruel enemy, and you need great and powerful aid; but you have read your Bible Edith, and again and again has Emilie said to you, "of yourself you ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... made known to the Minister. Was I to blame for having shrunk from distressing my good friend, by telling him that his wife had privately consulted me on the means of removing his adopted child from his house? And, even if I had been cruel enough to do this, would he have believed my statement against the positive denial with which the woman whom he loved and trusted would have certainly met it? No! let the consequences of the coming disclosure be what they might, I failed to see any valid reason for regretting ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... expedient was tried, and at length, when the animal was subdued by hunger, I thought I might venture to mount her; and having given her the strongest curb and shackled her feet I attempted to do so. She was as unruly as ever, and as a last expedient I resolved to adopt a plan which, though cruel, was, I knew, attended with wonderful success among the American Indians, by whom it is practiced. Watching a favorable opportunity, I sprang upon the onager's back, and seizing her long ear in my teeth, in spite of her kicking and plunging, bit it through. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... burying the youngest and favourite wives with the corpse is by no means uncommon,[36] and they resort to a variety of cruel practices for maiming and destroying their slaves; thus they cut off parts or the whole of their ears, a part of the nose, a finger or a hand. One of the servants who waited upon us at the King's house, had lost an ear in this way, for some ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... out his wicked intent; and so the jury brought in its verdict, and he was sentenced to be executed, which sentence was duly performed and that closed another act of the sad drama. Intemperance and Sensuality had clasped hands together, and beneath their cruel fostering the gallows had borne its dreadful fruit of death. The light of one home had been quenched in gloom and guilt. A husband had broken over the barriers that God placed around the path of ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... pinions sweep Above me once, but O to stain forbear The heart which still immaculate I keep! But thou com'st not, and now, with rosy hair From Ganges hastening, to all things again Their native hue restores Day's harbinger. Perhaps thou'st come, and ah, my cruel pain And wakeful thoughts thee ingress have denied Into my eyes, or hurl'd thee out amain. Since, blundering archer, thou dost shoot aside, Or snapp'st thy every dart my breast upon, To me thy wand be never more applied! Away, away! grim Death ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... the centre, holding on to both of them.] — It's the will of God, I'm thinking, that all should win an easy or a cruel end, and it's the will of God that all should rear up lengthy families for the nurture of the earth. What's a single man, I ask you, eating a bit in one house and drinking a sup in another, and he with no place of his own, like an old braying jackass strayed upon the rocks? (To Christy.) It's many ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... 9th of June Sergt. Hugh Matheson, of No. 2 Company, Queen's Own Rifles, died in the hospital at St. Catharines, from wounds received at Ridgeway, and on the 11th Corporal F. Lackey, of the same company, died in Toronto, from the effects of a cruel wound in the upper jaw, received in the same battle. The remains of these two soldiers were also given a public funeral, as large and imposing as had been accorded to their dead comrades a week previously. ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... A leopard was the basic cause of all this misery and treachery. Let us give Umballa a taste of it. Am I cruel? Well, yes; all that was gentle and tender in me seems either to have vanished or hardened. He has put terror into my heart; let me put it ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... the night air; how sweet! oh, how sweet! No, not kiss me, if you are going to leave me; not kiss me, if you can be so cruel!' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... as follows:—Ethelbert, king of the east angles, having reigned single some time, thought fit to take a wife; for this purpose he came to the court of Offa, king of Mercia, to desire his daughter in marriage. Queenrid, consort of Offa, a cruel, ambitious, and blood-thirsty woman, who envied the retinue and splendour of the unsuspicious king, resolved in some manner to have him murdered, before he left their court, hoping by that to gain his immense riches; for this purpose she, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... he was despising my love at the very moment that I thought it was melting his cruel heart! I hate him! He spurned me—did this man—he spurned me from him ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... days the year 1819 would come to an end. In three days a terrible drama would begin, a bourgeois tragedy, without poison, or dagger, or the spilling of blood; but—as regards the actors in it—more cruel than all the fabled horrors in the ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... resembling the goddesses in the Greek mythology,—some beneficent, some cruel; rendering aid to men, or pursuing them with their anger. And here one cannot resist the impression that the earliest forms of the Greek mythology were derived from the Babylonians and Phoenicians, and that the Greek poets, availing themselves of the legends respecting them, created ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... most heinous in a black man only to gratify a passion of nature, where the temptation was offered by one of a different colour, though the most abandoned woman of her species. Another negro man was half hanged, and then burnt, for attempting to poison a cruel overseer. Thus by repeated cruelties are the wretched first urged to despair, and then murdered, because they still retain so much of human nature about them as to wish to put an end to their misery, and retaliate on their tyrants! These overseers are indeed for the ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... calculation, or reflection on this wild adventure in a privateer, in the opinion that the English were an humane, generous, and magnanimous people, and that none but Turks, Frenchmen, and Algerines, were cruel; but my experience for three years past has corrected my false notions of this proud nation. If they do not impale men as the Algerines and Turks do, or roast a man as the Indians do, and as the Inquisitors do, they will leave him to starve, and linger out his miserable days ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Ah, cruel, cruel is our fate, And enters through the straitest gate; Since he is slave, and you are lord, Since he does not enjoy your hoard, Since you do not obey his ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... into outlying districts, both for the benefit of European settlers and of the aboriginal inhabitants. These latter have gained little and lost much by the occupation of their country by settlement. I have fought their battle against cruel wrong and oppression, holding, I trust, the hand of justice with an even balance, and I rejoice to say not without effect and benefit to both races. Their services as stockmen, shepherds, and pearlers are invaluable; and when they die out, as shortly ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... the merchant in a peremptory tone, which admitted not of the ghost of a reply; "I have thought it would really be cruel to separate a professor and a pupil so well made to understand ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... two feet in length, we proceed in a body until a rabbit is sighted, then, separating, we surround him and gradually close him in, pelt him with stones or sticks until the poor fellow is secured; sometimes three or four are run down together; it is cruel sport, but this is our only hope of fresh meat during the sojourn on the islands; a fine stew for dinner, and some speculation on the prospect of our ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... of his pranks took one's breath; his generosity to those he loved was prodigal. Nor did he ever miss a chance to score those under his displeasure. At times he was reckless beyond words to describe, and again he would fall sober for a day. He could be cruel and tender in the same hour; abandoned and freezing in his dignity. He had an old negro mammy whose worship for him and his possessions was idolatry. I can hear her now calling and calling, "Marse Nick, honey, yo' supper's done got cole," ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... James G. Legge was not with us, then deep in his work at the Home Office but full of joy in everything that was most joyful in the Nineties—its fights, its books, its prints, its posters. And I might name many besides, some forgotten, some dead, some seen no more by me, life being often more cruel than death in the separations and divisions it makes. But two voices above the others are almost as persistent in my ears as Henley's—the voices of Bob Stevenson and ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... of the ruling class, all that is necessary is to compare the laws of the different periods with the profitable methods of that class, and he will find that these methods, however despicable, vile and cruel, were not only indulgently omitted from the recognized category of crimes but were elevated by prevalent teaching to be commercial virtues and ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... limited vision of man, with his brief life, nature seems incredibly cruel and wasteful. Her teachings must be learned at fearful cost. Men will ask themselves what lessons are ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... protect all who seek our aid. The priests dread our influence, for we have many members, and I hope ere long, the power of the Pope in this country will be at an end. I am sure people must see what a cruel, ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... cruel and inhuman the Domination of the Romans was in Gallia: How intolerable their Exactions were: What horrible and wicked Lives they led; and with how great Inveteracy and Bitterness they were hated upon that Account by the Gauls, (especially ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... the Count of Moncade took up his abode in the Ambassador's house, and promised to return to Spain. The young woman seemed perfectly indifferent to the sum proposed, and wholly absorbed in her lover, and in the grief of leaving him. She seemed insensible to everything but the cruel sacrifice which her reason, and her love itself, demanded. At length, drawing from a little portfolio the promise of marriage, signed by the Count, 'I know his heart too well,' said she, 'to need it.' Then she kissed it again and again, with ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... "Oh, how cruel they were! And what good reason could they have for wishing to deprive you of the pleasure ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... the socialistic ideal of a more equal distribution of wealth is attainable, but if not, the dispensation of Providence is indeed cruel, and man a truly unfortunate creature. For if in this world misery must exist, so be it; but let some little loophole, some glimpse of possibility at least, be left, which may serve to urge the nobler portion of humanity to hope and struggle ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... they are called heroes! It's a fine thing to be able to invent names and make dictionaries—and it must be your fault, if mine has been framed for no purpose. I declare, when I recollect all the insulting and cruel things I hear in this country of my own and her people, it makes me lose my temper and forget my sex; but do not let my ill humor urge you to anything rash; remember your life, remember their prisons, remember your reputation, but do not, do ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the rule. He had been assailed in his cherished respectability, his self-esteem. Assailed and scarred. How broad and deep the scar was Jabez never told the world, which as a rule does not sympathise with such scars, but turns aside in its cruel indifference. The world had almost forgotten the scar now, and supposed Clerk Gum had done the same. It was all over and ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... cruel, dear; it was kind. You would be ill if you attempted it. Now you'll get better. He says all you need is rest and care—and that's exactly what I mean my ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... phrases. By the bye, Sheykh Yussuf filled up my inkstand for me the other evening and in pouring the ink said 'Bismillah el-Rachman el-Racheem' (In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate). I said 'I like that custom, it is good to remind us that ink may be a cruel poison or ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... is like the laughter of the gods. There is always a cruel point in it. The lords set to play. Sneers gave sting to their laughter. They clapped their hands around the speaker, and insulted him. A volley of merry exclamations assailed him like ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... that when he made his studio tea for the Vostrands he must ask Jeff; it would be cruel, and for several reasons impossible, not to do so, and he really did not see why he should not. Mrs. Vostrand was taking him on the right ground, as a Harvard student, and nobody need take him on any other. Possibly people would ask him ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that all which he had so passionately sought to achieve since the morning had suddenly crumbled away. Was he still bound for the Duvillard mansion in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy? He no longer knew. Then the exasperating remembrance, with its cruel irony, returned to him. Since Laveuve was dead, of what use was it for him to kill time and perambulate the pavements pending the arrival of six o'clock? The idea that he had a home, and that the most simple course ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... best; and there are as well other circumstances to be considered, as they respect rivers and marshes obnoxious to unwholsom and poysonous fogs, hills and seas, which expose them to the weather; and those silvifragi venti, our cruel and tedious western-winds; all which I leave to observation, because these accidents do so universally govern, that it is not easie to determine farther than that the timber is commonly better qualified ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... us from our foes, Didst bear that cruel Cross, And by its agony and woes Bring gain for all ...
— Hymns from the Greek Office Books - Together with Centos and Suggestions • John Brownlie
... the woman wonder, on his soul; The garden spot, for which men toil and wait; The house of rest, that is each heart's demand; But when, at last, he reached the gleaming goal, He found, oh, cruel irony of fate, But desert sun ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... wallowed in the lugubrious comfort of his own post-mortem revenge he wished that he had left unsaid some of the things he had said. Quelled by the vision of his wife weeping over him and repenting her cruelties, they began to seem less cruel. She was ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... but I rather hope that local practitioner gets his gruel somehow before we clear out." Clay shivered. "He's a cruel devil. Remember the remains of those two poor sacrificed wretches we ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... all of the suitors, however, and to her grief, for she was not cruel, they held her to her promise. On a certain day the few bold men who were to try their fortune made ready, and chose young Hippomenes as judge. He sat watching them before the word was given, and sadly wondered that any brave man should risk his life merely to win a bride. But when Atalanta ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... subsequently, when his well-concerted plans had secured him success, in knowing how to use without abusing his victory. Some of the magistrates are now well frightened, and, like all cowards, show a tendency to be cruel. Moore restrains them with admirable prudence. He has hitherto been very unpopular in the neighbourhood; but, mark my words, the tide of opinion will now take a turn in his favour. People will find out that they have not appreciated ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... beautiful in sleep, for it was ever reminding me of the curse I was doomed to carry about me. Many and many a night have I got up in my nightdress, and lighting my little lamp, sat for hours gazing at my terrible ugliness of face reflected in the mirror, drawn to it by a cruel fascination which it was impossible ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... any rate, after the failure of the Indulgence had been made clear even to those hopeful spirits who still, with Leighton, had believed it possible to efface years of wrong by a few grudging concessions, the cruel game was renewed with fresh vigour. The Highlanders, indeed, had gone, but their place was now to be filled by a more dangerous because a more disciplined foe. Orders were given to raise three new troops of cavalry for special service in Scotland. The Earls of Home and Airlie were chosen by ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... leave your parents, your duty and love will not suffer you to justify yourself by an appeal against them; and so you'll have the world against you. And should Lovelace continue his wild life, and behave ungratefully to you, will not his baseness seem to justify their cruel treatment of you, as well as ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... yawned wide, there rose ever a thin white line of surf, and underneath those crested waves there dwelt a very fearsome thing, called the Bar. I grew to hate and be afraid of this mysterious Bar, for I heard it spoken of always with bated breath, and I knew that it was very cruel to fisher folk, and hurt them so sometimes that they would cry whole days and nights together with the pain, or would sit with white scared faces, rocking themselves to ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... heart? He will not last the night through. Got you not our messages, sent hours ago? How can you show yourself so careless—so cruel? But tarry no longer now you are here. He has asked for you twice. Take care lest you dally ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... always forgets the most important things, or, if one remembers, they look so horribly disagreeable in black and white, and people bring them up against one years afterwards. Dear Elma, I'm afraid you think me a cruel old woman! I am desolated to appear so unfeeling, especially as I should certainly have fallen in love with you in Geoffrey's place, but it's not always a question of doing what we like in this world. I am sure your ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and stronger than other men, a good horseman, the greatest of warriors, and very cruel; a very wise man was he withal, but accounted in no ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... manifesto to be published, and despatched to foreign courts, setting forth the miseries we have endured, and the peaceable methods we have ineffectually used for redress; declaring, at the same time, that not being able, any longer, to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition of the British court, we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connections with her; at the same time, assuring all such courts of our peaceable disposition towards them, and ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... Francis Burdett objected as strongly as we have seen that Dickens did, as well as many other excellent men, who forgot the atrocities of the system it displaced in their indignation at the needless and cruel harshness with which it was worked at the outset, I have not at hand the means of knowing. But certainly this continued to be strongly the feeling of Dickens, who exulted in nothing so much as at any ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... cruel examples of them. Livia is infamed, for the poisoning of her husband; Roxalana, Solyman's wife, was the destruction of that renowned prince, Sultan Mustapha, and otherwise troubled his house and succession; Edward the Second of England, his queen, had the principal hand ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... moral sentiments, on the other hand, the Papuans seem very deficient. In the treatment of their children they are often violent and cruel; whereas the Malays are almost invariably kind and gentle, hardly ever interfering at all with their children's pursuits and amusements, and giving them perfect liberty at whatever age they wish to claim it. But these very peaceful relations between parents and children are ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... relationship on which they have entered to their own disgust and disappointment. Uncounted couples to-day have reason for the bitterness with which they complain that nobody ever taught or helped them. In fact the policy of silence is as cruel as its assumptions are untrue. Ignorance is an impossibility for the young. Our choice lies between garbled, distorted, and defiled knowledge and a knowledge that shall be clean, innocent, and helpful. It has often happened that men and women brought up ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... strange that when he died, the whole population "stormed through the streets to meet his funeral train, not in awe-stricken silence to meditate on the fall of human grandeur, but to unite in an eager tumult of rejoicing, as if some cruel brigand who had long held the city in terror were delivered over to them bound and in chains." For nearly thirty years this blood-stained miscreant had reigned over his hapless people in a sovereign plenitude of power, which by the theory of German imperialism in our ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... His bottle,' and recorded in 'His book,' have truly been turned into pearls. That long gallery of portraits of sufferers, who have all trodden the same rough road, and been sustained by the same hand, and reached the same home, speaks cheer to all who follow them. Hearts wrung by cruel partings from those dearer to them than their own souls, turn to the pages which tell how Abraham, with calm sorrow, laid his Sarah in the cave at Macpelah; or how, when Jacob's eyes were dim that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... battle lost that seemed won. The words, "disgrace to the family, to your mother and myself," kept ringing in his ears and he resolved to leave the town, go to the oil regions, go west, go anywhere, get rich, come back and make his people retract all their cruel reflections. ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... waver; she feared there might be future mischief as well as present inconvenience, in his applying to new usurers, and knowing she had now the power to prevent him, thought herself half cruel in refusing to exert it. She wished to consult Mr. Monckton, but found it necessary to take her measures immediately, as the Jew was already sent for, and must in a few moments be either ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... believe such evil of the Senor Wiley," Billie remarked at last. "Cruel he is and like a madman in his anger, but between him and El Negrito there could be no covenant. It may be that he came upon Sawyer skulking about and was warning him off the hacienda. Sawyer has been in Limasito for many days, and he plays high ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... body, not of Amasis, but of some unknown person whom he took for Amasis. The truth of the story is generally contested, for the deed would have been, as Herodotus himself remarks, contrary to Persian ideas about the sanctity of fire. I think that by his cruel treatment of the mummy, Cambyses wished to satisfy the hatred of the natives against the Greek-loving king, and so render himself more acceptable to them. The destruction of the mummy entailing ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... bellum; but I confess my feelings have not been so much roused for a long time as they have been on account of these poor people. There is something inexpressibly painful in being disappointed as one is setting out in the morning of life, as it were, in this cruel manner; and rather than see this state of things protracted, I would prefer paying a trifle out of my own pocket. If this wretched attorney will consent, now to take a hundred pounds and quit us, and carry back with him that annoying cutter with the lug-sails, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... the characteristics which he transmitted to his posterity were, in general, quite the reverse of those which he himself had manifested so abundantly in early life. Whereas, he had formerly been atrociously cruel, boastingly impious, and a scoffer at matters religious, his later descendants were generally tender of heart, soft of manner, and of great piety. Whereas, in early manhood he had been fiery and impulsive, quick of decision and immovable of opinion, his progeny were increasingly inclined to be deliberate ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... again. She, and Meg, and Robin went once more for a farewell look at Temple Gardens. It was the first time she had been in the streets since she had gone back to her mother, and she seemed ashamed and alarmed at every eye that met hers. When they stood looking at the river, with its swift, cruel current, Posy shivered and trembled until she was obliged to turn away and sit down on a bench. She was glad, she said, to get home again, and she would go out no more till the day came when Mr George drove them all down ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... life, present and past, we are maligning it; founding our theories, for simplicity's sake and to excuse our lack of hope and striving, upon its very worst samples. Wasteful as is the mal-distribution of human activities (mal-distribution worse than that of land or capital!), cruel as is the consequent pressure of want, there yet remains at the bottom of an immense amount of work an inner push different from that outer constraint, an inner need as fruitful as the outer one is wasteful: there remains the satisfaction in work, the ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... great deal of difference to me," she insisted—and the sound of these words on her own lips was like a summons arousing her from a dream. The sordidness of her life, its cruel lack of opportunity in contrast with the gifts she felt to be hers, and on which he had dwelt, was swept back into her mind. Self-pity, dignity, and inherent self-respect struggled against her woman's desire to give; an inherited racial pride whispered that she was worthy of the best, but because ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... startled at the cruel feast, By death's rude hands in horrid manner drest; Such grief as sure no hapless woman knew, When thy pale image lay before my view. Thy father's heir in beauteous form arrayed Like flowers in spring, and fair, like them ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... me to a life of woe, And 'twas not God. The pride of man hath said That I must suffer thus. It must be so Because the baronet was nobler bred. Oh, cruel, cruel wrong! Oh mockery! That bluer blood should ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats |
