"Tormented" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on the alert; the man went to his back room, the bandar cleared the street at one bound, and in an instant stuffed his pouches full of the delicious morsels. He had, however, overlooked some hornets, which were regaling themselves at the same time. They resented his disturbance, and the tormented bandar, in his hurry to escape, came upon a thorn-covered roof, where he lay, stung, torn, and bleeding. He spurted the stolen bon-bons from his pouches, and barking hoarsely, looked the picture of misery. The noise of the tiles which he had dislodged ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... the time, he punished adultery, inhospitality, perjury, incest, cannibalism, and other excesses, of which, in legend, he was always setting the example. We know from Xenophanes, Plato, and St. Augustine how men's consciences were tormented by this unceasing contradiction: this overgrowth of myth on the stock of an idea originally noble. It is thus that I would attempt to account for the contradictory conceptions of Zeus, ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... unforgotten scream flashed into Mrs. Whitelaw's mind with these words of her husband's. Some one shut up there; yes, that was the solution of the mystery that had puzzled and tormented her so long. That cry of anguish was no supernatural echo of past suffering, but the despairing shriek of some victim of modern cruelty. A poor relation of Stephen's perhaps—a helpless, mindless creature, whose infirmities had been thus hidden ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... high altar, the Virgin in a glory, with downcast eyes and folded hands, grew vague and indistinct in the shadow, the colours fading, tarnished by centuries of incense smoke. The Christ in agony on the Cross was but a lamentable vision of tormented anatomy, grey flesh, spotted with crimson. The St. John, the San Juan Bautista, patron saint of the Mission, the gaunt figure in skins, two fingers upraised in the gesture of benediction, gazed stolidly out into the half-gloom under the ceiling, ignoring ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... when he was alone he might have a better opportunity of inspecting the secret fasting chamber, and perhaps he might find some crack through which he could spy upon what was going on. The more he tormented himself, the more depressed became the mermaid, and although she still maintained a cheerful countenance, her friendliness no longer came from the heart ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... three other arrangements are striking, though not equally so, both from their regularity and from their repeating each other, as the forms in a kaleidoscope.] of stars: he is now a vision 'to dream of, not to tell:' he is ready for the worship of those that are tormented in sleep: and the stages of his solemn uncovering by astronomy, first by Sir W. Herschel, secondly, by his son, and finally by Lord Rosse, is like the reversing of some heavenly doom, like the raising of the seals that had been sealed by the angel, in the Revelations. But the reader naturally ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... and, bad as this desolate country is, I would anyhow rather campaign here than in Egypt. The sun seems to scorch into your very brain, and you are suffocated by dust. Drink as much as you will, you are always tormented by thirst. It is a level plain, for the most part treeless, and with nothing to break the view but the mud villages, which are the same colour as the soil. Bah! we loathed them. And yet I ought not to say anything against the villages, for, if it had ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... in his hands. "Yes, holy father," he said, "I have been something else. I was a thief! I once belonged to the wickedest band of mountain robbers that ever tormented the land, and I was as wicked as ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... Teutonic temperament seldom is. But he put on a sinister expression to tell us that Heyst had not paid perhaps three visits altogether to his "establishment." This was Heyst's crime, for which Schomberg wished him nothing less than a long and tormented existence. Observe the Teutonic sense of proportion ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... made such an impression on me, that, mortified as I was besides, by the thoughts of dying in the prime of life, and at the same time perpetually tormented by various diseases, I immediately concluded, that the foregoing contrary effects could not be produced but by contrary modes of living; and, therefore, full of hopes, resolved, in order to avoid at once both death and disease, ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... home. He thought, of his mother. That home, those friends, that loving, mother, he now might never see again. Farewell, all dear ones! Farewell, bright past! Farewell, sweet life, and glad light of day! Such were the thoughts, gloomy and despairing, that filled his mind, and tormented his heart; and at the moment that his pursuer entered the grove and stood before him, David looked up with pale face and frightened eyes, and something like ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... absent-minded; he sat at table with scarce a word; he had little nervous movements, and subdued mutterings as of wrath. This continued on a second day, and Rose began to suffer an intolerable agitation. She could not help connecting her father's strange behaviour with the secret which tormented ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... drink," depressing. It told her nothing; all these books seemed to her to hold a policy of despair that indicated lunacy or suicide as Louis's only possible end. E.F. Benson's "House of Defence" was the most hopeful book she read. In the tormented morphia-maniac she saw Louis vividly. But she knew that he was too innately untrustful, unloving, to be saved by an act of faith. She had put that book down an hour ago, and turned again to the real pessimism of Zola, longing for the cool of the ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... lover first Shook out my canvas free And like a pirate burst Into that dreaming sea, The land knew no such thirst As then tormented me. ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... myself, in a few days, the second time penniless; was forced to ship again; got back; the same scenes were acted over; and here I am, the miserable wretch that you see me—light in purse, sick in body, and tormented in mind; the past a curse, the ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... distress replied: "But I must get in my wheat, for it has been lying on the ground a long time, and the weather is just right for it; what do you say about it, mother?" And the dying old woman, still tormented by her Norman avariciousness, replied yes with her eyes and her forehead, and so urged her son to get in his wheat, and to leave her to die alone, but the doctor got angry, and stamping his foot, he said: "You are no better than a brute, do you hear, and I will not allow you ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... apathy into which I had fallen. All the pains I had taken to find my way through the vault were wasted; I was lost in the profound gloom, and knew not where to turn. The horror of my situation presented itself to me with redoubled force. I began to be tormented with thirst. I fell on my knees ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... they have changed my soul, and sometimes I feel well for that reason. At times again I am tormented with the thought, for I fear that my manhood and energy are taken from me; that, perhaps, I am useless, not only for counsel, for judgment, for feasts, but for war even. These are undoubted enchantments! And to such a degree am I changed that I tell thee this, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... flight the armies of the aliens. And others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they wandered about in sheepskins and in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented. Of whom the world was not worthy." That is a faith worth having, and it is as sound philosophy as ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... dreams; never had a more wonderful romance actually happened, and yet the Empress of the French, the Queen of Italy, was not happy. A cruel passion which brings no pleasures, but only cruel sufferings, disturbed her happiness and tormented her heart. This passion, jealousy, which had tortured Napoleon in the early days of his wedded life, now Josephine in her turn had to endure with all its keen anguish. She felt that for her, a woman of forty-one, to hold fast the affections of a man of thirty-five, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... impatiently, tormented by misgivings as to the success of the enterprise, began: "It would be a blow to the Sanhedrin if this time the work ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... able to some extent to guide her strange craft, but by the time Peter recognised her she was very exhausted. She had come to save him, to give him her nest, though there were eggs in it. I rather wonder at the bird, for though he had been nice to her, he had also sometimes tormented her. I can suppose only that, like Mrs. Darling and the rest of them, she was melted because he ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... of the tormented woman turned fearfully toward the far side of the room. The late afternoon was turning into twilight and the corner by the chimney was dim and ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... still their eyeballs shrink tormented Back into their brains, because on their sense Sunlight seems a bloodsmear; night comes blood-black; Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh —Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous, Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses. ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... scrambled over a bank of rubbish which impeded our farther progress in the direction of the light, we found less difficulty in advancing and also experienced some relief from the excessive oppression of lungs which had tormented us. Presently we were enabled to obtain a glimpse of the objects around, and discovered that we were near the extremity of the straight portion of the fissure, where it made a turn to the left. A few struggles more, and we reached the bend, when to our inexpressible joy, there appeared ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... he continues: "What is Alexander doing when he rushes from Thebes into Persia and thence into India? He is ever restless, he loses his wits, he believes himself God. What is the end of Cromwell? He governs England. But is he not tormented by all the daggers of the furies?"—The words ring false, even for this period of Buonaparte's life; and one can readily understand his keen wish in later years to burn every copy of these youthful essays. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... 13 Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell; yea, I saw that I had rebelled against my God, and that I had ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... security. Sitting close to the rail upon one of the many steamer chairs she found there, herself almost the only passenger who had yet come aboard, she leaned her weary head against the rail, and, despite the hunger which tormented her, fell fast asleep. She knew nothing more; heard none of the busy sounds of loading the luggage, now constantly arriving, and was peacefully dreaming, when a girlish voice from the dock pierced through the babel ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... nothing of the feelings of shame which tormented me as I inflicted on my heart, like the beggars in the street, false wounds to excite the compassion of that enchanting woman. I soon appreciated the extent of my devotedness by learning to estimate the baseness of a spy. The expressions of ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... he roamed the house a spirit grievously tormented. In the gray of the morning, having perhaps persuaded himself that the whole affair was a trick of his imagination, he went back to ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... Delphi, crowned with flowers, and playing at dice; and that Penelope remembers them in her last fit of despair, just before the return of Ulysses, and prays bitterly that she may be snatched away at once into nothingness by the Harpies, like Pandareos' daughters, rather than be tormented longer by her deferred hope, ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... the generality of Americans that the silent current of events may change their beloved government, is not the way to please them; but in truth they need be tormented with no such fear. As long as by common consent they can keep down the pre-eminence which nature has assigned to great powers, as long as they can prevent human respect and human honour from resting upon high talent, gracious manners, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... greatly discouraged by their expulsion from the Twin Peaks, and their failure to occupy the main position on Spion Kop. The guns which had tormented Thorneycroft for so many hours, and which were the chief cause of his retirement, were withdrawn, and Schalk Burger's commandos oozed away towards Ladysmith. But there was, however, a stalwart and not inconsiderable remnant of burghers who responded to Botha's expostulations, ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... fate her own interest inspires; And rather than seek to allure, for her sake, His life down the turbulent, fanciful wake Of impossible destinies, use all her art That his place in the world find its place in her heart. I, alas!—I perceived not this truth till too late; I tormented your youth, I have darken'd your fate. Forgive me the ill I have done for the sake Of ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... his lively gallop, may play the counterpart to the tune that politics is dancing in my head. My plan about Berlin and the wedding immediately, etc., was certainly somewhat adventurous when you look at it in cold blood, but I hope there will be no change from July. If I am to be tormented, as you say, with an "unendurable, dispirited, nervous being," it is all the same in the end whether this torment will be imposed upon me by my fiancee or—forgive the expression—by my wife. In either case I shall try to bear the misfortune with philosophical ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... incounter, but too late to repent. Wee tooke our journey that night alongst the river. The break of day we landed on the side of a rock which was smooth. We carryed our boat and equippage into the wood above a hundred paces from the watter side, where we stayed most sadly all that day tormented by the Maringoines; [Footnote: Musquetos.] we tourned our boat upside downe, we putt us under it from the raine. The night coming, which was the fitest time to leave that place, we goe without any noise for our safty. Wee travelled 14 nights ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... It was Madame Zattiany who spoke now and her tones were deliberate and final. "Quite a different thing from being congratulated, and tormented by newspapers." She dismissed the subject. "I shall be free two weeks from today. What do you think of that?" Her voice was both gay and tender. "Judge Trent will see at once about engaging my stateroom. Don't tell me that that play of yours will prevent ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... impelled to unburden my heart to you: I have kept silence so long! You know what it is in the world, ... one must always keep silence, always shut in one's grief and force a smile, in company with the rest of the tormented, forced-smiling crowd. We can never be ourselves— our veritable selves—for, if we were, the air would resound with our ceaseless lamentations! It is HORRIBLE to think of all the pent-up sufferings of humanity—all the inconceivably hideous agonies that remain forever dumb and unrevealed! When ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... at the other end of the wherry! The mother rocking on her bosom the little one who smiled at the storm; the woman once so frivolous and gay, and now tormented with bitter remorse; the old soldier covered with scars, a mutilated life the sole reward of his unflagging loyalty and faithfulness. This veteran could scarcely count on the morsel of bread soaked in tears to keep the life in him, yet he was always ready to laugh, and went his way merrily, ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... court he entirely escaped from all judicial punishment.[58] Yes, torture was long continued in England itself, though not always by means of thumbscrews and Scottish boots and Spanish racks; the monstrous chains, the damp cells, the perpetual irritation which corrupt servants of a despotic court tormented their victims withal, was the old demon under another name.[59] Nay, within a few months the newspapers furnish us with examples of Americans being put to the torture of the lash to force a confession of their alleged crime—and this has been done by the power which this court has long been ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... Tormented with the anguish dread Of falsehood unatoned, I lay upon my sleepless bed, And tossed and turned and groaned. The man who finds his conscience ache No peace at all enjoys; And as I lay in bed awake, I thought I heard a noise. MEN: He thought he heard a noise— ha! ha! GENERAL: No, all ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... the rising of many rebellious elements. Nobles rose in order to regain power and influence; generals rose because they objected to the permanent pressure from the central administration and their supervision by controllers; men of the people rose as popular leaders because the people were more tormented than ever by forced labour, generally at a distance from their homes. Within a few months there were six different rebellions and six different "rulers". Assassinations became the order of the day; the young heir to the throne ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... He tormented himself with speculations and memories until he could endure it no longer. He must have comfort; his wounded self-sufficiency craved the balm of approval, and although he was contemptuously conscious of his own weakness, he turned to Edith to seek ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... composed of millions of diamonds; yet the sun did not blind the eye, nor the warmth rise to summer heat. Eternal spring had banished from these regions battle and death, tempest and decay, and far away below in misty distance lay all the sorrows of tormented creation. Amongst the flowers wandered blissful forms, absorbed in the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... cover of the night mist and shore foliage, they slipped away with the current. At first dawn streak, while the mist still hid them, they landed, carried their canoe to a sequestered spot in the dense forest, and lay hidden under the upturned skiff all that day, tormented by swarms of mosquitoes and flies, but not daring to move from concealment. At nightfall, they again launched down-stream, keeping always in the shadows of the shore till mist and darkness shrouded them, then sheering off for mid-current, where they paddled for dear life. ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... deemedst me a God and fearedst me, but now thou seemest to me to be a God, and I fear thee. Yea, though I have longed so sore to be with thee since the day of Shadowy Vale, and though I have wearied of the slow wearing of the days, and it hath tormented me; yet now that I am with thee, I bless the torment of my longing; for it is but my longing that compelleth me to cast away my fear of thee and caress thee, because I have learned how sweet it is ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... culture he received was not on a par with that required now by the average seminarian, let alone a Doctor of Divinity." He accepted the title of D. D. very reluctantly, being conscious that he did not deserve it. A feeling of the insufficiency of his education tormented him all through life. "It cannot be denied that he was industrious, self-reliant, ambitious, but withal, he was not a methodically trained man. At bottom, he was neither a philosopher nor a theologian, and at no time of his life, despite his efforts to acquire knowledge, did he ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... There is reason. It will end badly, one of these days, unless I end first, and that may happen also. Without you it would have happened long ago. You are the good angel in my life, the one friend God has sent me in my tormented existence, the one star in my black sky. Be my friend still, always, for ever and ever, and I shall live forever only to be your friend. As for love—the devil and his demons will know what to do with it—they will find their account in it. They have lent it, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... Vehement from the Tender, it will be no wonder if you see them stupid on the Stage, and senseless in a Chamber. To speak my Mind freely, yours and their Faults are unpardonable; it is insufferable to be any longer tormented in the Theatres with Recitatives, sung in the Stile of a Choir of ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... you are only fit to be tormented. It is your trade. Look at yourself; you will see you ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... and I could not press it, because her brother was only just dead; so I'm obliged to take her refusal second hand. Now I don't believe she ever sent the message he gave me. I think he has made her believe that I'm deserting and ill-treating her; and in this way she may be piqued and tormented ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... who have in them, by grace of God, the divine thirst for the higher life; who are discontented with themselves, ashamed of themselves; who are tormented by longings which they cannot satisfy, instincts which they cannot analyse, powers which they cannot employ, duties which they cannot perform, doctrinal confusions which they cannot unravel; who would welcome any change, even the most tremendous, ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... taste, and satisfied her heart. All the while she was comparing it with other scenes and another landscape, amid which she had lived till now—a monotonous blue sea, mountains scorched and crumbled by the sun, dry palms in hot gardens, roads choked with dust and tormented with a plague of motor-cars, white villas crowded among high walls, a wilderness of hotels, and everywhere ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not repress his agitation as he realized that every minute was bringing him nearer and nearer to the object of his desires. Fear and hope filled him, and he was alternately gladdened by the one and tormented by the other. ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... always as sweet when he returned, her efforts to please him as untiring, but in her heart her thoughts turned more and more constantly day by day to the idea of leaving him, of returning to her own life, where at least she had not been tormented by this perpetual hope ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... brooding fiercely on his wrongs, and reminding himself how Marcia had determined to have him, and had indeed flung herself upon his mercy, with all sorts of good promises; and had then at once taken the whip-hand, and goaded and tormented him ever since. All the kindness of their common life counted for nothing in this furious reverie, or rather it was never once thought of; he cursed himself for a fool that he had ever asked her to marry him, and for doubly a fool that he had married ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... Clarks river in the neighbourhood of the Mouth of Travelers rest. one of our Guides lost 2 of his horses, he returned in Serch of them he found them & rejoined us at Dark. all of the Indians with us have two & 3 horses each. I was taken yesterday with a violent pain in my head which has tormented me ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... times have I tormented myself in this way,' I thought (I recalled previous and similar fits of jealousy), 'and then seen it end in nothing at all? It is the same now. Perhaps, yes, surely, I shall find her quietly sleeping. She will awaken, she will be glad, and in her words and looks I shall see that ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... an interesting place. It is on a level, strongly fortified, and has a lake in the rear, from which the inhabitants are nightly serenaded by huge frogs and mosquitoes, and tormented in the day by numberless flies. The European merchants, therefore, have their houses chiefly in the neighbourhood shaded by palm-trees among the cinnamon plantations. We spent but a day here, while, with Mr Fordyce's assistance, I made inquiries for my grandfather and Alfred, ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... like that at the Misses Stone's —certainly no low-voiced, quietly conducted teacher. Rose was further aggrieved and tormented by the astonished heads privily raised, and the wondering eyes covertly looking at her. She laughed no more. She went on examining, commending, correcting, till she was tired out. Surely the morning hours were endless that day. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... death. You shall never be at quiet till you are in your Grave. You will be pining at many insufferable troubles, and a thousand several cogitations will be vexing your spirits at the chargeable maintenance of your Family. Insomuch that your very Soul will be tormented with incessant crosses, which alwaies accompany this evil, in the very happiest marriages. So that a Man ought in reality to confess, that he who can pass away his daies without a Wife is the most happiest. Verily a Wife is ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... inequalities, and some natural repining at his own obscure lot, mingled from the beginning, as (p. 193) has been said, "some bitternesses of earthly spleen and passion with the workings of his inspiration, and if these in the end ate deep into the great heart they had long tormented," who that has not known his experience may venture too strongly ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... seeing as much of Socrates as he could, and so he never quitted his side as long as he had a chance, but tried to follow his mode of living. And Socrates, when he perceived this to be his temper, no longer tormented him, but sought with all simplicity and clearness to {120} show him what he deemed it best for him to do ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... should probably be right in supposing that the anecdote is slightly antedated. I give it, however, as nearly as possible in the biographer's own words. "Granacci happened to show him a print of S. Antonio tormented by the devils. This was the work of Martino d'Olanda, a good artist for the times in which he lived; and Michelangelo transferred the composition to a panel. Assisted by the same friend with colours and brushes, he treated his subject in so masterly a way ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... read the history of his own love. "The Egeria of his dreams—the Venus Aphrodite that sprang in full and supernal loveliness from the bright foam upon the storm-tormented ocean of his thoughts," was a little girl, Elmira Royster, who lived with her father in a house opposite to the Allans in Richmond. The young people met again and again, and the lady, who has only recently passed away, recalled Edgar as "a beautiful boy," passionately ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... this thought, and after blowing out the candle, she turned her face to the wall and fell at last into a troubled sleep. But her sleep even was filled with perplexing questions, which she continued to ask herself with the same piercing mental clearness that tormented her when she was awake; and she passed presently into a vivid dream, in which she rescued the letter with burned hands, from the fire, and carried it to Kemper, who laughed and kissed her burns and threw the letter back into the ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... felt, without knowing it, all the pangs of jealousy: not that he believed his friend would interfere and dispute with him the possession of the gem which he had discovered, and over which he internally claimed a right of property, but he was oppressed with an uneasy sentiment of future ill, and tormented with a diffidence as to his own powers of pleasing, that made him say adieu to Marie and her father with cold gratitude—that seemed afterwards to them, and to him when reflection ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... my country, who was very often tormented with the gout, being importun'd by his physicians totally to reclaim his appetite from all manner of salt meats, was wont presently to reply that he must needs have something to quarrel with in the extremity of his fits, and that he fancy'd that railing at and cursing ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... wearer of this brilliantly embroidered badge must needs be a personage of high dignity among her people. Lastly, the inhabitants of the town (their own interest in this worn-out subject languidly reviving itself, by sympathy with what they saw others feel) lounged idly to the same quarter, and tormented Hester Prynne, perhaps more than all the rest, with their cool, well-acquainted gaze at her familiar shame. Hester saw and recognized the selfsame faces of that group of matrons, who had awaited ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... throb. And I could remember that more than once the sound had been followed by the shadowy appearance, in the door of my mind, of one of those black thoughts which try to tempt hope but only make it hide in shame and dread. Now, the memory of those occasions tormented me into accusing myself of having wished her gone. But ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... won't, Give me hope no more. Hope you foster and you ever Bid me come again to-morrow. Force me then to die Whom you force to live A life apart from you. Death will be a boon, Not to be tormented. Yet what hope has snatched away To the lover hope ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... tormenting her. There is nothing more crushing for the man who loves truly than the consciousness that he is bringing unhappiness on her he loves. We took our tea in silence, for my aunt was drowsy, Kromitzki seemed depressed, and I tormented myself more and more with anxious thoughts. "She must have taken it very much to heart," I thought, "and as usual has put upon it the worst construction." I expected she would avoid me the next day and consider our treaty of peace broken ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and blasphemy has played over my lips; I have studied the belief of the people,—this people that Brydaine called the best friend of God,—and have shuddered at the negation which was about to escape me. Tormented by conflicting feelings, I appealed to reason; and it is reason which, amid so many dogmatic contradictions, now forces the hypothesis upon me. A priori dogmatism, applying itself to God, has ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... came, from a bog many cranberries. And bidding Pook-jin-skwess bend over, he began to take from her hair the hideous vermin, and each, as he took it, became a horrid porcupine or toad. [Footnote: In the Eskimo mythology, Arnarkuagsak, the old woman of the sea, is tormented by vermin about her head. These are really the souls of still-born or murdered infants, who have become imps. The first thing which the angakok or sorcerer, who visits her must do is to free her from these pests. The descent of the sorcerer to this mother of all the monsters ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... the wine had no further relish. I was haunted by the vision at the window, and began, with an unreasonable irritation at the interruption, to repeat with fresh warmth my detestation of holidays. One couldn't even dine alone on a holiday with any sort of comfort, I declared. On holidays one was tormented by too much pleasure on one side, and too much misery on the other. And then, I said, hunting for justification of my dislike of the day, 'How many other people are, like me, made miserable by seeing the fullness ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... were in; but anything appeared preferable to dying of thirst on Bernier Island; my dislike to which was much increased from the fact of Mr. Smith and myself, who slept side by side, having been nearly tormented to death in the night by myriads of minute ants crawling over us, by mosquitoes stinging us, and by an odious land-crab every now and then running over us and feeling with his nippers ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... unfortunate adventurers were such shell-fish as they occasionally picked up on the shore, or the bitter buds of the palm-tree, and such berries and unsavoury herbs as grew wild in the woods. Some of these were so poisonous, that the bodies of those who ate them swelled up and were tormented with racking pains. Others, preferring famine to this miserable diet, pined away from weakness and actually died of starvation. Yet their resolute leader strove to maintain his own cheerfulness and to keep up the drooping spirits of his men. He freely shared ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... the CONFITEOR amid the indulgent laughter of his hearers and while the scenes of that malignant episode were still passing sharply and swiftly before his mind he wondered why he bore no malice now to those who had tormented him. He had not forgotten a whit of their cowardice and cruelty but the memory of it called forth no anger from him. All the descriptions of fierce love and hatred which he had met in books had seemed to him therefore unreal. Even that night as ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... her verses to justify or account for. How sweetly Number Five dealt with that poor deluded sister in her talk with the Doctor! "Yes," she said to him, "nothing can be fuller of vanity, self-worship, and self-deception. But we must be very gentle with her. I knew a young girl tormented with aspirations, and possessed by a belief that she was meant for a higher place than that which fate had assigned her, who needed wholesome advice, just as this poor young thing does. She did not ask for it, and it was not offered. Alas, alas! 'no man cared for her soul,'—no ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Peter of Arras adopted a very awkward manner of conjuring it. He said to it, 'If thou art the soul of the late Madame de St. Memin, strike four knocks,' and the four knocks were struck. 'If thou art damned, strike six knocks,' and the six knocks were struck. 'If thou art still tormented in hell, because thy body is buried in holy ground, knock six more times,' and the six knocks were heard still more distinctly. 'If we disinter thy body, wilt thou be less damned, certify to us by five knocks,' and the soul so certified. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... bones, and conscientious, too—it was so unfair, so damned unfair! He remembered Irene saying to him once: "Never was any one born more loving and lovable than Jon." Poor little Jon! His world gone up the spout, all of a summer afternoon! Youth took things so hard! And stirred, tormented by that vision of Youth taking things hard, Jolyon got out of his chair, and went to the window. The boy was nowhere visible. And he passed out. If one could take any help to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... By this time there was in the North German brain an awful inversion of all the legends and heroic lives that the human race has loved. Prussia hated romance. Chivalry was not a thing she neglected; it was a thing that tormented her as any bully is tormented by an unanswered challenge. That weird process was completed of which I have spoken on an earlier page, whereby the soul of this strange people was everywhere on the side of the dragon against the knight, of the giant against the hero. Anything unexpected—the ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... air, loud cries and shouts; lights gleamed before his eyes; all was noise and tumult, as some unseen hand bore him hurriedly away. Through all these rapid visions, there ran an undefined, uneasy consciousness of pain, which wearied and tormented ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... the night, however, the tide of returning health showed a check; there came a strong reaction, with delirium; his pulse was high, and terrible fancies tormented him, through which passed continually with persistent recurrence the figure of the old captain, always swinging a stick about his head, and crooning ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... is moulded of, as though the long ordeal had hardened the poor human clay into some dense commemorative substance. I often pass in the street women whose faces look like memorial medals—idealized images of what they were in the flesh. And the masks of some of the men—those queer tormented Gallic masks, crushed-in and squat and a little satyr-like—look like the bronzes of the Naples Museum, burnt and twisted from their baptism of fire. But none of these faces reveals a personal preoccupation: they are looking, one and all, at France erect on her borders. ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... perverse and bad. It would depict the martyrdom of almost all those who truly enlightened humanity, of almost all the great masters in every kind of art; it would show us how they, with few exceptions, were tormented without recognition, without any to share their misery, without followers; how they existed in poverty and misery whilst fame, honour, and riches fell to the lot of the worthless; it would reveal that what happened to them happened to Esau, who, while hunting the ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... reply came. If she had not consented to a separation, she would have answered long ago, or would have come personally, as she often did before. Nekhludoff had heard that an army officer was courting her, and while he was tormented by jealousy, he was at the same time gladdened by the hope of release ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... that it was vital to her to know this truth. Yet when her mind, or her tormented heart, was surely on the verge of its statement, was—or seemed to be—about to say to her, "Perhaps it is—that!" or "It is—that!" something within her, housed deep down in her, refused to listen, refused to hear, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... discovered, was lying before him in pain and nervous prostration, solely because malignant unkindness seemed to give pleasure to two bad, brutal fellows. Walter had himself rescued Eden by his consistent kindness from being bullied, corrupted, tormented—yet apparently to little purpose. That the poor boy's powers would be decidedly injured by this last prank, was certain. Dr Keith had dropped mysterious hints, and Walter had himself heard how wild and incoherent ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... was in this unjust to Gaston; the same ideas tormented him. He knew that at a word from him Helene would follow him to the end of the world—he had plenty of gold—it would be easy for Helene one evening, instead of going to rest, to go with him into a post-chaise, and in two days they would be beyond the frontier, ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... men have endured from sword and pestilence, from servitude, from the butchery of war and the cruelty of the Inquisition, have been right merely because they have been natural. Under this rule every monster that has tormented society from the first day until now can find full justification for itself on the simple ground that it exists! Under such an argument a howitzer is as good as a plough, a sword is as good as a sickle, a pillory is as good as a baby-wagon. By such ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... willing to yield. Before taking life on its pleasant side after having seen its evil side so dearly, I resolved to test everything. I remained thus for some time a prey to countless sorrows, tormented by terrible dreams. ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... of sickness and sorrow. Every day brought trouble. Every night was tormented with pain. They are very long—those nights when one lies awake, and hears the laboring heart pumping wearily at its task, and watches for the morning, not knowing whether it will ever dawn. They are not nights of fear; for the thought of death grows strangely familiar ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... and yet tormented child, Edwin was aware of a melting protective pity for him, of an immense desire to watch over his rearing with all insight, sympathy, and help, so that in George's case none of the mistakes and cruelties and misapprehensions should occur which had ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... of the two processes, and that is, as it is written on John Wesley's monument in Westminster Abbey, 'God buries the workmen and carries on the work.' The great Vizier who seemed to be the only protection of Israel is lying in 'a coffin in Egypt.' And all these truculent brothers of his that had tormented him, they are gone, and the whole generation is swept away. What of that? They were the depositories of God's purposes for a little while. Are God's purposes dead because the instruments that in part wrought them ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... red, or black cattle. An Albino negro, it has been remarked,[550] was peculiarly sensitive to the bites of insects. In the West Indies[551] it is said that "the only horned cattle fit for work are those which have a good deal of black in them. The white are terribly tormented by the insects; and they are weak and sluggish in proportion to ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... Presently, tormented by a fly, a huge-humped buffalo, with great shaggy mane, came galloping along, straight for where she lay. At sight of the thing on the grass, he started, swerved yards aside, stopped dead, and then came slowly up, ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... and slept until the evening without going either to the rehearsal or to Cabinska's home, but she felt even weaker upon awaking and had a painful dizziness in her head, while that keen and constant sapping sensation within herself tormented her so ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... where Herbert Dorrance awaited the issue of this critical stage of his wife's illness, and to Mrs. Aylett's chamber across the hall. "The Lord forgive 'em both! It won't be they two that will shed many tears if so be she doesn't see the light of another day—the murdered lamb! They tormented the life out of her. I passed by her room last night before bed-time, and heard her a-sobbin' and talkin' to herself, and walkin' up and down the floor, and THEY a-bangin' away on the pyano down ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... same time, my father was presented with a twelve- pounder howitzer by the Vincennes artillery, and Colonel de Caraman came to try it with us. We fired shots in the park, at the rising ground near Villiers, and my military enthusiasm was wrought up to the highest pitch. I tormented my mother till she had an artillery uniform made for me, and when I had it on my back I thought my fortune was made. After having been taken to the fair at Neuilly, and seeing the non- commissioned officers of the Regiment of the Guard quartered at Courbevoie dancing with the ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... the punishment of crime; repentance, its expiation. The former appertains to a tormented conscience; the latter to a soul changed ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... shade of a great tree, while everything around looked beautiful in the extreme; and it was not until my morning hunger was nearly appeased that the flies and the flying thoughts of our late companions tormented me much. ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... art critic, Vasari, who was Andrea's pupil during this time, has written that the wife, Lucretia, was abominable in every way. A vixen, she tormented Andrea from morning till night with her bitter tongue. She did not love him in the least, but only what his money could buy for her, for she was extravagant, and drove the sensitive artist to his grave while she ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... the punishment due on his account, and the vengeance I ought to inflict upon you for killing Ishbosheth, and for supposing that I should take his death kindly at your hands; for you could not lay a greater blot on my honor, than by making such a supposal." When David had said this, he tormented them with all sorts of torments, and then put them to death; and he bestowed all accustomed rites on the burial of the head of Ishbosheth, and laid it in the grave ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... in the hospital very much hurt indeed. She had been smashed in some complicated manner that left the upper part of her body intact, and lying slantingly upon pillows. Over the horror of bandaged broken limbs and tormented flesh below sheets and a counterpane were drawn. Morphia had been injected, he understood, to save her from pain, but presently it might be necessary for her to suffer. She lay up in her bed with an effect of being enthroned, very white and still, her strong profile with its big nose ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... talking to each other became silent; and gradually there was a deep silence in the guard-house. Frederick tormented by the fleas, kept staring about him. The wall, painted yellow, had, half-way up, a long shelf, on which the knapsacks formed a succession of little humps, while underneath, the muskets, which had the colour of lead, rose up side by side; and ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... of Thessaly, one of the turbulent Centaurs had attempted to steal away the bride. A fierce struggle followed, and in the general confusion, Chiron, blameless as he was, had been wounded by a poisoned arrow. Ever tormented with the hurt and never to be healed, the immortal Centaur longed for death, and begged that he might be accepted as an atonement for Prometheus. The gods heard his prayer and took away his pain and his immortality. He died like ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... girl of fourteen isn't a child. Why, the state that's again' child labor lets a girl of fourteen go to work if she can get a permit, so we've got the law on our side. You see how easy it is, Larry?" She beamed with pride at the solution she had found for the problem that had tormented her ever since the letter had come ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... the fit of the stone, which has tormented me for some days, is now so far abated, that, although it will not permit me to have the honour to wait on your majesty, yet is kind enough to enable me so far to obey your orders, as to write my sentiments ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various |
