"Heartrending" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the lamentations that ensued when Miss Wardle found herself deserted by the faithless Jingle? Shall we extract Mr. Pickwick's masterly description of that heartrending scene? His note-book, blotted with the tears of sympathising humanity, lies open before us; one word, and it is in the printer's hands. But, no! we will be resolute! We will not wring the public bosom, with the delineation of ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... break the seal of this when I am dead.' This was most heartrending, coming from a man I loved better than any one in the world excepting my wife. He died that night, in silence, and without ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... to cover his bronzed face, and with the glaring sun beating down upon his closed eyes and noble gray head. Just behind him they led his riderless black horse, with his master's boots reversed in the stirrups and the empty saddle knotted with crape. It was at once majestic, heartrending, and terrible. It unnerved me, and yet it was not surprising to have such a moving spectacle greet me ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... solicitude darting to and fro under the planks. He had cracked his voice at last, and could only squeak miserably. His back or else his head rubbed the planks, now here, now there, in a puzzling manner. He squeaked as he dodged the invisible blows. It was more heartrending even than his yells. Suddenly Archie produced a crowbar. He had kept it back; also a small hatchet. We howled with satisfaction. He struck a mighty blow and small chips flew at our eyes. The boatswain ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... not wait to begin my work in the hospitals. Everywhere I went, where there were wounded men, I sang for those who were strong enough to be allowed to listen, and told them stories, and did all I could to cheer them up. It was heartrending work, oftentimes. There were dour sights, dreadful sights in those hospitals. There were wounds the memory of which robbed me of sleep. There were men doomed to blindness for the rest ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... English, "I am asleep, and don't waken me." The position of the boy caused the recollection of the old melody to flash into the mother's heart,—she simply pointed to him as the words streamed in a low melodious murmur, but one full of heartrending sorrow, from her lips. The old sacred association—for it was one which she had sung for him a thousand times,—until warned to desist by his tears—deepened the tenderness of her heart, and she said with difficulty, whilst she involuntarily held over the candle to gratify the father's ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... at the hearth, kindling a fire, and he looked up to see why she did not finish. She was sitting on the edge of the old watchman's rude bed, bowed low over the sleeping child, and again sobs were shaking her like an ague fit. There was something heartrending in this silent, wordless anguish; but there was nothing to be said, and Tom went on making the fire. After a little she sat ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... become his wife cannot be right," declared Ben, endeavoring to speak with mature and legal poise; "but as you say, that heartrending doubt of your duty may attack you at times. How would it be to put it beyond your power to yield to his wishes by marrying ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... excitable, the impetuous, and to organize these into associations for the battle against oppression. Very unhappily they preached their doctrine to the colored people, and collected these into societies.[261] To this mixed and excitable multitude, minute, heartrending descriptions of slavery were given in the piercing tones of passion; and slaveholders were held up as monsters of cruelty and crime." p. 136. "The abolitionists often speak of Luther's vehemence as a model to future reformers. But who, that has read history, does not know that ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... the Hall looked as if they had reached the stage of being dreadfully bored with each other when we arrived. They did not hear us immediately, and as my momentary dream dissolved I had an impression of them all as being on the verge of a heartrending yawn. They perked up instantly, however, when they saw us, turning towards us with a movement that looked concerted and ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... usually placid and trustful; it is the major affliction of the deaf that they grow suspicious of their intimates and abhorrent of themselves. There is nothing in history more majestic than the battle of this giant soul against his doom; nothing more heartrending than his bitter outcries; nothing loftier than his high determination to serve his turn on earth in spite of all. He was the very King Lear of music, trudging his lonely way with heart broken and hair wild in the ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... hold of a floating spar, and contrived to keep himself afloat; and, after a long struggle with the winds and waves, he was cast upon a strange island. But what was his surprise, on reaching the shore, to hear sounds of the most heartrending distress, mingled with the sweetest songs which had ever charmed him! His curiosity was instantly roused, and he advanced cautiously till he saw two huge dragons guarding the gate of a wood. They were terrible indeed to look upon. Their bodies were covered with glittering scales; ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... she's as nice as she used to be when she hauled our family wash home in a little wagon every Saturday night. Being rich hasn't hurt her at all, though it has spoiled her figure beyond the utmost and most heartrending efforts of her ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... the matter had been settled, without troubling himself much on the subject, considered it as certain that he would go back to his pleasant house and garden. And though there would be much that was melancholy, nay, almost heartrending, in such a return, he still was glad that it was to be so. His daughter might probably be persuaded to return there with him. She had, indeed, all but promised to do so, though she still entertained an idea that the greatest of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... pious clergymen to make a tour through North Carolina in order to remove the prejudices which the minds of the Regulators and Highlanders may labor under with respect to the justice of the American controversy, and to obviate the religious scruples which Governor Tryon's heartrending oath has implanted in their tender consciences. We are employed at present in quest of some persons who may be equal to ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... morning there came a heartrending letter from Aunt Ju. She was very sorry that Lady George should have been so troubled;—but then let them think of her trouble, of her misery! She was quite sure that it would kill her,—and it would certainly ruin her. That odious Baroness had summoned everybody that had ever befriended ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... full.] What I don't understand's this.... Take up whatever paper you like and you'll find the most heartrending accounts of the destitution among the weavers. You get the impression that three-quarters of the people in this neighbourhood are starving. Then you come and see a funeral like what's going on just now. I met ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Elector to furnish them some redress for their affliction and want, and besought him, even now, to make peace with the Swedes, and to command the Stadtholder in the Mark to institute a milder government in the unhappy province. In heartrending words, they pictured the distresses of both wretched cities, which had so far declined that they had now hardly seven thousand inhabitants, while ten years ago they had numbered more than twenty thousand. ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... in her little place, that she could but just pay the rent for. Here, too, were young girls, children with an aged, worn look, like the fruit that withers to half its size before it ripens. Most heartrending of all, persons of real refinement were mingled up with this rude mass; poor wretches who had indeed seen better days, and their helpless, broken-hearted looks, the remnants of early sensitiveness, that still clung around them, was ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... struggle, and the distracted attempts to find a place of concealment for the victim, are too heartrending to be repeated here. James fell, it is said, with sixteen wounds in him, hacked almost to pieces, yet facing his murderers so desperately that some of them bore the marks of his dying grip when they ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... stained with blood. French blood, German blood, it is always the Man of Sorrows. Yesterday we were listening to the sublime and gloomy plaint which breathes from Barbusse's Under Fire. To-day come the yet more heartrending accents of Menschen im Krieg (Men in Battle). Although they hail from the other camp, I will wager that most of our bellicose readers in France and Navarre will flee from them with stopped ears. For these tones would be a shock ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... rabble the secluded mansion where the Christian household dwelt. He could not offer to them a more acceptable service, and the lady's modest apartment was soon swarming with enemies of her God and His followers. In spite of her heartrending cries and supplications, her children were seized, and when the youngest boy clung to her, the mother was thrown senseless upon the pavement. The whole five were carried off in triumph; it was the greatest success of the day. There was some hesitation how to dispose of them; at last the girls were ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... we moderns are to regain the primal zest by sprawling all over the world growing used to travel and geographical variety, being at home everywhere, that is being at home nowhere. Let it be granted that a man in a frock coat is a heartrending sight; and the two alternative methods still remain. Mr. Kipling's school advises us to go to Central Africa in order to find a man without a frock coat. The school to which I belong suggests that we should stare steadily at the man until we see the man inside the frock coat. ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... for the country. Those farmers are always grumbling. I'll just take a thimbleful of your best gin, Mr Crimmins. A small gin, sir. Yes, sir. Terrible affair that General Slocum explosion. Terrible, terrible! A thousand casualties. And heartrending scenes. Men trampling down women and children. Most brutal thing. What do they say was the cause? Spontaneous combustion. Most scandalous revelation. Not a single lifeboat would float and the firehose ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... not yet abandoned. More men came up, some fearfully injured. They reported that the rest were in the workings far away— already the mine was on fire, the heat and smoke unbearable—that it was a miracle any had escaped, that all but themselves must have perished. Heartrending were the wailings and shrieks and moanings which arose at this announcement, confirmed by the viewer and overmen. Still many lingered on in the hopes that the corve might be again sent down, but the viewer forbade any to descend, as ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Feast of the Annunciation, transferred from Passiontide, was the day chosen for me to enter the Carmel. On the evening before, we were gathered around the table where I was to take my place for the last time. These farewells are in themselves heartrending, and just when I would have liked to be forgotten I received the tenderest expressions of affection, as if to increase the pain ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... pretty things she would have thought it sin so much as to desire to wear. Where Rose lingered longest was outside those heavenly places where you saw far off a flutter of white in the windows, which turned out to be absurd, tiny, short-waisted frocks and diminutive under-garments, and little heartrending shoes; things of desire, things of impossible dream, to be approached with a ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... are unanimous in their praise of the truth and uniform consistency of his characters, of his heartrending pathos, and his comic wit. Moreover, they extol the beauty and sublimity of his separate descriptions, images, and expressions. This last is the most superficial and cheap mode of criticising works of art. Johnson compares him who should endeavor to recommend this poet by passages ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... die, dear Arribas, and was touched, edified, to the bottom of my soul. God grant, when my hour comes, I may find that calm, that force, in the last struggle with life. Not a complaint! not a sigh! Once only he gave Norine a sorrowful, heartrending look; then, from lips already cold, breathed that one word, 'Theodore!' Marcus Aurelius used to say: 'A man should leave the world as a ripe olive falls from the tree that bore it, and with a kiss for the earth ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... in the pink powder, at once grotesque and pitiful. The carefully curled ringlets of colourless hair contrasted strangely with the sudden havoc in her complexion. Perhaps she was conscious of it, for she tried to turn her face away, so that Greif should not see it. Then all at once, with a heartrending sob, she let her head fall forward upon his shoulder, while her nervous, wasted hands grasped his ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... forever covered with moisture, leaky when rain comes, with the floor never dry, and pervasive with a perpetual smell like the smell of a cave which never gets the light of day. Here men, women, and children were huddled together in a promiscuous communion of misery, made infinitely more pathetic and heartrending because none complained. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... voice. It broke on a heartrending sob. And the voice of the resourceful Capataz de Cargadores, master and slave of the San Tome treasure, who had been caught unawares by old Giorgio while stealing across the open towards the ravine to get some more silver, answered careless and cool, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the last words very gently but very firmly. He was deeply, tenderly sorry for the poor, deformed, fragile girl, doomed to be a witness of that most heartrending of human tragedies, the passing away of her own scarce-hoped-for happiness. But he felt that at this moment the kindest act would be one of complete truth. He knew that Paul Deroulede's heart was completely given to Juliette de Marny; he too, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... amid the shouts of joy and the thundering of the cannon, a shriek of terror was heard, loud, penetrating, and heartrending. What was that? What means the tumult upon the deck of the admiral's ship? Seems it not as if they had roughly seized this princess whose feet had just now touched the ship? as if they had grasped her, as if she resisted, ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... selected for the first offerings, and after them followed others in quick succession, night and day, early and late, until the last wretched victim had been consumed. Most heartrending were the descriptions I received from persons who had actually looked on ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... made an attempt to laugh, and played to us sublime things he had just composed, or rather, to be more accurate, terrible or heartrending ideas which had taken possession of him, as it were without his knowledge, in that hour of solitude, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... was awful, it was heartrending; and though we exerted ourselves to the utmost from six o'clock in the morning until eight at night, we advanced our camp only two miles that day. And when we gathered around the fire at night, how we did "cuss" that river! None of us, however, was discouraged, nor flinched at the prospect. ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... dragged innocent women into the courts as witches, and learned judges pronounced on them the sentence of torture and death. The chapter on witchcraft in Lecky's History of Rationalism, contains the most heartrending facts in human history. It is unsafe to put unquestioned confidence in all the vagaries of mortal man. While women were tortured, drowned and burned by the thousands, scarce one wizard to a hundred was ever condemned. The marked distinction in the ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... horrible; everybody was frantic to rush to the relief; no one knew what best to do; public feeling was at fever-heat. How could it be otherwise when William Howard Russell, the Times correspondent, was constantly writing such true but heartrending letters as this: ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... by a cane, one hand poignantly resting on his back. The face was drawn with pain and despair. "For twenty years I suffered untold agonies," this person was made to confess in large print. It was heartrending. But opposite the moribund wretch was a figure of rich health, erect, smartly dressed, with a full, smiling face and happy eyes. Surprisingly this was none other than the sufferer. One could hardly have believed them the same, but so ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... country—rumors of war are heard and painfully felt. My father talks of nothing but marches and countermarches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day before yesterday during my daily walk through the village I witnessed a heartrending scene.... It was a convoy of conscripts enrolled from our people and starting to join the army. You should have seen the state of the mothers, wives, and children of the men who were going and should have heard the sobs. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... she passes through the Celtic Tartarus. It is plain that the Seigneur of Jauioz by his purchase of their countrywoman became so unpopular among the freedom-loving Bretons that at length they magnified him into a species of demon—a traditionary fate which he thoroughly deserved, if the heartrending tale concerning his victim has ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... thought on my way to the Latkins how it was possible that I did not notice Raissa. Where had she disappeared to? She must have seen—Suddenly I remembered that at the very moment David was falling a heartrending shriek had sounded in my ears. Was it not she? But in that case why did I not see her? Before the hovel in which Latkin lived was an empty space covered with nettles and surrounded by a broken, tottering fence. I had hardly got over this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... only a few rags to cover its unwashed nakedness, and an unfurnished mud cabin shared with the pigs and poultry for its sole dwelling-place—abject poverty begs a copper from "his honour" for the love of God and the glory of the Blessed Virgin, telling meantime a heartrending story of privation and oppression. Abject poverty points to all the outward signs and circumstances of its woe; but it forgets the good stone house in which live the son and the son's wife—the dozen or more of cattle grazing free on the mountain side—that bit of fertile ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... made the background, and on the shore little Mary Morrison bade little Jimmie Jones "Good-bye" with heartrending sobs. But this Bobbie Shafto never went to sea. As picture followed picture, he was shown pulling at a rowing machine, sailing toy ships in a tub, fishing in a pail, and digging for treasure in a tiny sand pile—and after each funny scene, the curtain would drop, and ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... upstairs, and were met just at the drawing-room door by Mrs. Clair. One glance at her face was sufficient to tell them something dreadful had happened. Bertie was in her arms in a moment, while Eddie and Agnes—white, wild-eyed, terror-stricken—clung on either side. It was a heartrending picture of sorrow and despair, and Mr. Murray could not witness it unmoved. He just shook hands with Mrs. Clair, whispered a few words that he would telegraph at once to Mr. Gregory, and would call again in a few hours, to ask if he could ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... once into a thousand pieces; hardly two planks held together. It seemed as if she had been made of glass. Not a soul escaped. One or two bodies, with a few planks and casks, were all that ever reached the shore." Well might Mr. Traill add, "I was haunted for months by the remembrance of that heartrending sight." ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... in a despairing cry. Had she been flayed alive she could not have sent to heaven a more terrible, a more heartrending and anguished plaint. ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... daily life of humanity regards as evil that divine act of procreation by which that dignity is renewed from age to age. It is difficult to believe that a man who has painted with so frightful an honesty the heartrending emptiness of the life of the poor can really grudge them every one of their pitiful pleasures, from courtship to tobacco. It is difficult to believe that a poet in prose who has so powerfully exhibited the earth-born air of man, ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... bold, forbidding front of No Name Mountains changed to red and gold. Gale held grimly by the side of the tireless, implacable horse, holding the Yaqui on the saddle, taking the brunt of the merciless thorns. In the end it became heartrending toil. His heavy chaps dragged him down; but he dared not go on without them, for, thick and stiff as they were, the terrible, steel-bayoneted spikes of the choyas pierced ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... saddle, seized the poor alderman round the neck, and we both came rolling to the ground together. So completely was he possessed with the notion that I meant to assassinate him, that while I was endeavouring to extricate myself from his grasp, he continued to beg his life in the most heartrending manner. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... curse and groan. No help; all in vain. I shall go out of my mind, I expect. If he were dead!—if he were lyin' under the hillock yonder beside his brothers, I would say nothing. He gave, and He has a right to take away! But, Almighty God!"—-And the man uttered a cry so frightful, so heartrending, that the knives and forks fell from our hands, and a number of negro women and children came rushing in to see what was the matter. We gazed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... silence. Then a wild burst of grief from the prisoner's wife, to which his two children, not understanding it all, but vaguely conscious of some calamity, added their voices in two long, discordant wails, which would have been ludicrous had they not been heartrending. ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... junk gave a heavy lurch. "There she goes, poor thing!" exclaimed Pincott. "Well, she didn't look as if she was made to swim. But pull away, my lads— pull away. We may be back in time to pick up some of the poor fellows." It was heartrending to see the poor wretches struggling in the water, and holding out their hands imploringly to us, and yet not be able to help them. Many very soon sunk; others got hold of gratings and bits of wreck, and endeavoured to keep themselves ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... dreadfully put out with Loraine and made some bitter threats against him. But I don't believe he would have done the deed if he had been sober, but he's been on a spree for several days and he was half crazy when he did it. Oh it was heartrending to see Loraine's wife when they brought him home a corpse. She gave an awful shriek and fell to the floor, stiff as a poker; and his poor little children, it made my heart bleed to look at them; and his poor old mother. I am afraid it will be ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... held in relation to the coming Presidential election. The whole field of the nation was scanned, and all is high hope and confidence. Illinois is expected to better her condition in this race. Under these circumstances, judge how heartrending it was to come to my room and find and read your discouraging letter of the 15th. We have made no gains, but have lost "H. R. Robinson, Turner, Campbell, and four or five more." Tell Arney to reconsider, if he would be saved. Baker and I used to do something, but I think you attach more importance ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... comprising some fifty burrows in all. None of the sorrows of this underworld shall escape me. There are four of us engaged in sifting the excavated earth through our fingers. What one has examined another takes up and examines; and then another and another yet. The returns are heartrending. We do not succeed in finding one single nymph of the Halictus. The whole of the populous city has perished; and its place has been taken by the Gnat. There is a glut of that individual's pupae. I collect them in order to ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... day of departure had arrived, and the trains for the lake were duly filled with passengers; not, however, till many heartrending scenes had occurred in connection with the luggage. Two young ladies, bosom friends, having hired a van to convey their joint wardrobe and other ornamental effects to the station, were informed, to their tearful despair, that only about one-tenth of the goods could ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... Natalia Haldin. Sophia Antonovna had just returned from a secret excursion into Russia, and had seen Miss Haldin. She lived in a town "in the centre," sharing her compassionate labours between the horrors of overcrowded jails, and the heartrending misery of bereaved homes. She did not spare herself in good ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... the sacred sea of the old poets and philosophers, on the sea whose voice has rocked the thought of the world, that he cast into the shadow that long lament, so heartrending and sublime, that posterity will long shudder at the remembrance of it. The bitter strophes of this lament seem to be cadenced by the Mediterranean itself and to be in ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the same far and wide, and her heart was full of pity for the helpless people, "Heartrending accounts," she wrote, "come from up-country, where the people, panic-stricken, are fleeing and leaving the dead and dying in their houses, only to be stricken down themselves in the bush. They have no helper up there, and know of no Saviour. I am just ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... weak to be able to do anything at all for themselves. As soon as I discovered them, I boiled a bucketful of water, added some tins of condensed milk and the greater part of a bottle of brandy to it, and fed them with the mixture. Their feeble cries for some of this nourishment were heartrending; some could only whisper, "Bwana, Bwana" ("Master, Master"), and then open their mouths. One or two of them, indeed, could hardly do even this, and were so weak as to be unable to swallow the spoonful ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... some soup, John," said Mary, as they went out, "You know, one can never get these people to do anything in a rational way," she added to James. "It's perfectly heartrending trying to teach them even such a natural thing as making ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... curse his daughter, calling her a Christian dog and other vile names. Finally it was deemed best to set him and the other Moors ashore; and when the old man saw the ship sail away with his daughter, he began to sob and cry aloud in the most heartrending way, threatening to kill himself if she did not return to him. The last words that she heard were, "I forgive you all!" and they made her weep so bitterly that it seemed as if her ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... late before the visitors departed; after that Tom Fuller was compelled to take his leave,—a heartrending performance as far as he was concerned; so the day drew to a close, leaving both the husband and wife more preoccupied and anxious than the dreary ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... picture house a heartrending, soul thrilling melodrama was at its last gasp. The long suffering heroine was in the arms of the long misjudged, ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... heartrending; but the skipper was a thoughtful man, and when he found that his mate was famine-struck, he risked swamping the boat, and sent some beef and biscuit. The shameless Spaniards had plenty below, but they were enraged for ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... mamma no doubt and aunts), prick up their ears, and M. Kangourou translates to them, softening as much as possible, my heartrending decision. I feel really almost sorry for them; the fact is, that for women who, not to put too fine a point upon it, have come to sell a child, they have an air I was not prepared for: I can hardly ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... make some sort of sign to him over the decaying bulwarks. The Mesmans were taking care of him as far as it was possible. The Bonito case had been referred to Batavia, where no doubt it would fade away in a fog of official papers. . . . It was heartrending to read all this. That active and zealous officer, Lieutenant Heemskirk, his air of sullen, darkly-pained self-importance not lightened by the approval of his action conveyed to him unofficially, had gone on to take up his station in the Moluccas. . ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... one of the bathers, and, in company with many more people, he ran down to the water's edge, when he could see that a boy was battling with the waves, his head just above water, and crying for help in the most heartrending tones. People were running about wringing their hands, while those who had been bathing were huddling on their clothes, and others, again, had gone to seek for a boat; but it was very plain that, if assistance were not immediately rendered, ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... the future pastor was not, therefore, a very happy one, for at school there are no feeble women to be captivated by heartrending revelations of a noble nature at war with universal wickedness, and all but shattered by the assaults of an unfeeling world. Nor, strange to say, do schoolmasters, as a rule, value the boy who ranges himself on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... an Indian dies, and in some cases even before death occurs, the friends and relatives assemble at the lodge and begin crying over the departed or departing one. This consists in uttering the most heartrending, almost hideous wails and lamentations, in which all join until exhausted. Then the mourning ceases for a time until some one starts it again, when all join in as before and keep it up until unable to cry longer. This is kept up until the body is removed. This crying ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... husband. In a variant of the Maori sagas, to which I have more than once referred, the lady quits her spouse in disgust because he turns out not to be a cannibal, as she had hoped from his truculent name, Kai-tangata, or man-eater. Truly a heartrending instance of misplaced confidence![226] ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... we landed we tapped one of the barrels. The mixture was something heartrending. It was the color of a plate of Bowery pea soup, and it tasted like one of those coffee substitutes your aunt makes you take for the heart trouble you get by picking losers. We gave a nigger four fingers of it to try it, and he lay under a cocoanut tree three days beating the sand with his ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... in the horror of the place, for, nearby was an even more heartrending sight. Piled in several heaps much higher than a man's head and as carelessly as cordwood were the tiny coffins holding the babies which the authorities are called on by the poor of the city to bury in large numbers—far too poor to meet the cost of ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... was overcome with pity at this heartrending sight; tears rose to his eyes, and he determined to search through the palace for some explanation of the beautiful ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... Bible, and gave us all a tender farewell. Never will time erase from my mind the memory of the parting with my loved ones; it pains me now even as I dwell upon it. It was Sunday afternoon, and two days prior to my sailing for Bermuda, when the heartrending parting took place. Love can never say its last 'good-bye,' and especially is this true of a mother's love. What thoughts were passing through her mind that Sunday afternoon? God knows fully. But surely they were tinged with this reflection: Would she ever see me again? A shadow deep and dark had ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... physically and mentally. He had been roughly used by two of the Roxley players, and had made a fumble at a critical moment. And all during that heartrending first half Dora had ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... Heartrending scenes are witnessed in front of the closed doors of the various banking establishments, where large posters are to be seen, bearing the inscription: Closed temporarily, by order of the Government. The most popular of these institutions is the Wiener ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... his feet like a worm trodden upon; and her groans of distress and her smothered moans were the heartrending ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... natural providers and, when they found that it was the intention to destroy that on which their very existence seemed to depend, their appeals to be permitted to have some of the flour before the mill was burned, were heartrending. Worse than all else, in spite of the most urgent precautions, enjoined upon the officers in charge, the flames extended. The mill stood in the midst of a group of wooden houses and some of them took fire. Seeing the danger, I rode across and ordered every man to fall in and assist ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... to me as if the day were breaking! Almost immediately two other windows flew into fragments, and I saw that the whole of the lower part of my house was nothing but a terrible furnace. But a cry, a horrible, shrill, heartrending cry, a woman's cry, sounded through the night, and two garret windows were opened! I had forgotten the servants! I saw the terrorstruck faces, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... you don't like it!" said the Inca princess, with a little look of humble disappointment which was infinitely more heartrending than the smile; "but do you know, father, I have ridden so long in this costume, and in the gentleman fashion, that I feel quite sure—at least, I think—I should be utterly knocked up the first day if I were to begin a long hard journey in the ladies' position. ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... careful not to be "hived" as the cadet whose accoutrements they are cleaning. I say "required." I do not mean that regulations or orders require this of the new cadets, but that the cadets by way of hazing do. From the heartrending tales of hazing at West Point, which citizens sometimes read of, one would think the plebes would offer some resistance or would complain to the authorities. These tales are for the most part untrue. In ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... by this news of Angela's death, he soon began to feel that an antipathetic, disturbing influence had departed out of his life, and that now for the first time he could begin to breathe freely. The very same day he set out for F——. You could not credit how heartrending was the Councillor's description of the moment when he first saw Antonia. Even in the fantastic oddities of his expression there was such a marvellous power of description that I am unable to give even so much as a faint indication of it. Antonia inherited all ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... him," continued the old man, taking his niece's hand, "but he is watching for the success of his treason. Do you recognise my son, Rosita?" he added, with heartrending despair, "or the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to say, except Lord Fareborough, who, in a big easy-chair by the fire, was nursing his five-and-twenty ailments, and no doubt inwardly cursing those people for the chatter they were keeping up. They stopped their game when Lionel entered, to hear the news; and when he had told his heartrending tale, Lady Adela's ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... was he of his position, of his welcome, of the safe, warm, tingling place that would presently be his in the hollow of the young man's arm. The desire of it made Baby's arms and his body writhe, with a heartrending agitation, in ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... the same spot, but there was a change in their positions. The prisoner was now kneeling with clasped hands before the cut-throats, begging for his life for the sake of his wife and children, in heartrending accents, to which his executioners replied in mocking tones, "We have got you at last into our hands, have we? You dog of a Bonapartist, why do you not call on your emperor to come and help you out of this ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... them down there?' inquired the tall, dark man of Joseph. 'Yes, Monsieur.' 'That needs some revision, then.' And the tall, dark man made up a long story. How this old Colonel had been paralyzed for fourteen years, but on hearing the victim's heartrending screams, received such a shock that all at once, as if by a miracle, had recovered the use of his legs; and it was he who had started out in pursuit of the murderer and ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... proclaiming her return home, and simply telling as a fact almost indifferent,—in a single line,—that all the trouble hitherto taken as to her own disposition had entirely been thrown away. "Everything has been broken off between me and Mr. Gilmore." It was a cruel and a heartrending postscript! ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... rooted itself in the soil of these wayward hearts. It is a plant too rare and exotic for the climate of earth. Take it back with Thee to Thine own home if Thou wilt, but seek not to achieve the impossible." It was heartrending that this exhibition of pride should take place just at this juncture. These were the men who had been with Him in His temptations, who had had the benefit of His most careful instructions, who had been exposed to the full influence of His ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... to take her away from that heartrending sight; they begged her to go to her room; but she insisted upon staying. They tried to remove her by force; but she clung to the bed, and vowed that they should tear her to pieces sooner than make her ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... at the window with the venomous creature coiled round her neck, screaming with wild terror. The spectators on the stage think that the snake is dead, and that she is only screaming from "nerves," but in reality she is being slowly strangled. I began screaming in a frantic, heartrending manner, and continued screaming, each cry surpassing the last in intensity and agony. At rehearsal I could not get these screams right for a long time. Madame de Rhona grew more and more impatient and at ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... We are told that to obtain the delicate and beautiful spiral plume called the "Osprey," the old birds "are killed off in scores, while employed in feeding their young, who are left to starve to death in their nests by hundreds." Their dying cries are described as "heartrending." But they evidently do not rend the hearts of our fashionable ladies, or induce them to rend their much-beplumed garments. Thirty thousand black partridges have been killed in certain Indian provinces in a few days' time to supply the European demand for their skins. One dealer in London ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... a stirring sermon. He repeated his warning text over and over again; he illustrated it in the most brilliant fashion; and his appeals to those who had secret sins, to confess them at once, were quite heartrending in their pathos. As most of his congregation had their own little peccadilloes to worry over, Mr Cargrim's sermon made them quite uneasy, and created a decided sensation, much to his own gratification. If Bishop ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... heartrending story, to come so late, so bootless now, to the poor boy who had slept all these years in the nameless grave, even ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... shall I ever express to you my gratitude? Ah! if incomparable talents, and matchless zeal and ability, had sufficed, I know I should be free. But instead of that"—he pointed at the little door through which he was to pass, and said in a heartrending tone,— ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... a hero. His body was taken back to England for burial, and Caroline Lamb stood at her window and saw the procession go by. The coffin was followed by a dog, howling piteously. Caroline uttered a heartrending cry, and sunk to the floor insensible. They raised her and placed her in her bed, from which she never rose; she was borne from it to ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... characteristic as an English music-hall, with its half-participating audience. "Hurrah for Maudie!" as some favourite took the boards to sing, with her shoulders hunched up to the brim of her enormous hat, a heartrending song ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... When they opened the door a woman who lay there in child-bed raised herself up on the iron bedstead and gazed at them in alarm. She was thin and anemic. When she perceived the condition of her husband she burst into a heartrending fit of crying. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... creak in the beams of his wooden kitchen startled his soul. Every accidental noise that occurred filled him with unutterable horror. The door, being clumsily made, fitted badly in all its parts, so that it shook and rattled in a perfectly heartrending manner. ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... inspection-pit was the place of honour reserved for the N.C.O. in charge. Other business prevented my receiving them at the front gate and conducting them to their several rooms. When I did arrive on the scene it was my heartrending duty to explain to Privates Anstruther and Vernon that the reason why they couldn't find their bedroom was because they had filled it with their motor-cars. But it is wonderful how people can settle down ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... that." She gave him her eyes in what seemed to him to be a questioning stare. "In a deep, heartrending sorrow like his he will scarcely remember my words from one day to another. Do you know what I think, Jarvis? Down inside of him he has a deeply religious nature, and I predict that he will now simply have to turn to God. After ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... and it was heartrending to Lord Henry to watch her. Unmoved as he was, as a rule, by women's tears, he felt that these, coming as they did from such a proud spirit, were almost like blood issuing from ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... soon to the small room at the top of the house on Eleventh Street. He turned paler than his wife when he saw her lying on the bed. She smiled through her tears,—a really heartrending smile. ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... was Virginia more beloved and admired than in our family; we feel afflicted painfully at what to our human vision looks like an unmitigated calamity. But if it is so hard for us to bear, to whom in no sense she belonged, what a heartrending event this is to you, her mother! What an amazement, what a mystery. But it will not do to look upon it on this side. We must not associate anything so unnatural as death with a being so eminently formed for life. We must look beyond, as soon as our tears will let us, to the sphere on which she ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... debases; but this long, steady succession of horrible executions and frightful scenes changed the very nature of the inhabitants, and they became a prey to a spirit demoniacal rather than human. The prayers and tears of those led forth to the stake, their heartrending cries as they were bound to it, and their shrieks of agony that were wafted out over the still waters of the bay, fell on hard and pitiless hearts. The ashes of the wood that consumed one victim would hardly grow ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... out of any one's power to refute the sinister and prosaic verse. The contrast with 1914 is painful and striking. In the existing war the holocaust of victims, poets and historians, painters and sculptors, musicians and architects, has been heartrending, and it can never in future years be pretended that the Muses have this time spared us their most poignant sacrifices. A year ago the Revue Critique, one of the most serious and original of the learned journals of Paris, announced the losses it had endured. It was conducted ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... sanitary arrangements, and the children compelled to attend school wherever they may be temporarily located, and to receive an education which will in some degree help to get these poor unfortunate people out of the heartrending and desponding condition into which they have been allowed to sink. Although Mrs. Lee was ill and poor, her face beamed with gladness to find that I was trying in my humble way to do the Gipsy children good; and in a kind of maternal feeling she said she should be pleased to show her deep interest ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... "Oh, ma'am, such heartrending news as I have had!" began she. "A relation of mine is dying, and wants to see me. I ought to be away by the ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... rushing up like fire from the crater of a volcano, soon reached the tapestry, which it quickly devoured. In the midst of all this frightful tumult and these terrific cries, two reports, fearfully distinct, followed by two shrieks more heartrending than all, froze me with terror. These two shots had mortally wounded my father, and it was he who had given utterance to these frightful cries. However, he remained standing, clinging to a window. My mother tried to force the door, that she might go and die with ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of importance, watching his mistress's proceedings from afar with eager eyes and quivering nose. He would never be persuaded to follow her, owing to a rooted objection to wetting his feet. He was, as a rule, very patient; but if she kept him waiting beyond the bounds of patience he howled in a heartrending fashion ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... tense, for now he scarcely ever speaks—he reads next to nothing—it is difficult to persuade him to eat—he will not leave the house—he used to have a rather ruddy complexion—he is now deadly pale and terribly emaciated. He sighs in the most heartrending manner, and seems to be in a state of extreme nervous tension. In short, he is very ill, and yet he seems to have no bodily disease. His eyes have a terribly startled expression in them—his hand trembles so that he can scarcely raise a cup of tea to his lips. In short, he looks like ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... imagined that the storming of the place would be an easy matter. But despair had suggested to the Carthaginians means of defence in every direction. All assaults were repelled. Everybody was engaged day and night in the manufacture of arms. Nothing can be more heartrending than this last struggle of despair. Every man and every woman labored to the uttermost for the defence of the city with ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... of a hammer beating on iron! "How the blood spurts!" whispered someone. Two hammers hit the nails, and at each blow heaven and earth trembled. The crowd held its breath, and not a sound was heard from the town. Nothing but the ringing of the hammer. Then suddenly a heartrending cry was heard in the crowd. It came from a strange woman who had pushed through it and sank to the ground. The mass of people drew away more and more, no one would stand in front, yet each stretched his neck so as to see over the others' heads. They saw the stake ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... carried away women and children captive, and in their long journey through the wilderness, they were subjected to heartrending trials." ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... started to prosecute his work more earnestly in Baltimore. The sight of the slave-pens along the principal streets; of vessel-loads of unfortunates torn from home and family and sent to Southern ports; the heartrending scenes at the auction blocks, made an impression on Garrison never to be forgotten; and the young man whose mother was too poor to send him to school, although she early taught him to hate oppression, resolved to devote his life to secure the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... down on the Persian carpet at Mrs. Greyne's large but well-proportioned feet, and, bathing them with her tears, cried in a heartrending manner: ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... night. Dea had that shadow in her, Gwynplaine had it on him. There was a phantom in Dea, a spectre in Gwynplaine. Dea was sunk in the mournful, Gwynplaine in something worse. There was for Gwynplaine, who could see, a heartrending possibility that existed not for Dea, who was blind; he could compare himself with other men. Now, in a situation such as that of Gwynplaine, admitting that he should seek to examine it, to compare himself with others was to understand himself no more. To have, like Dea, empty sight from ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... After this frank declaration of the inestimable value and glorious results of American medical education, the writer draws the logical(?) sequence that it (American medical education) is responsible for a case of most heartrending malpractice, which he relates, compared to which the Japanese hari-kari were merciful mildness, and approaching more nearly the tortures by crucifixion as administered by this same kind-hearted people. With about as much reason and justice might he conclude that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... most of them uncovered, all unarmed, and worn out with hunger and fatigue; the dragoons, the Flanders regiment, the hundred Swiss, and the National Guards preceded, accompanied, or followed the file of carriages. I witnessed this heartrending spectacle; I saw the ominous procession. In the midst of all the tumult, clamour, and singing, interrupted by frequent discharges of musketry, which the hand of a monster or a bungler might so easily render fatal, I saw the Queen preserving most courageous ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... are you fools? Why do you think I held my tongue, when I discovered your infamy, and let myself be poisoned, and threw the doctors off the scent? Do you really hope that I did this to prepare a scene of heartrending farewells, and to give you my benediction at the end? ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... was flourishing a monstrous whip, with dreadful imprecations, literally foaming at the mouth. I begged him to do nothing rash, but he seemed not to hear me. With the squeal of a fighting stallion, he rushed off to the servants' quarters, whence presently there came heartrending shrieks and cries for mercy. His sons, in fear of murder, followed him, and added their remonstrance to the general din. The women of his house appeared in doorways, weeping and wringing ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... for the first time that night. "The whole wretched business," I said, "is bitter enough, I should think, for a man of your kind . . ." "It is, it is," he whispered twice, with his eyes fixed on the floor. It was heartrending. He towered above the light, and I could see the down on his cheek, the colour mantling warm under the smooth skin of his face. Believe me or not, I say it was outrageously heartrending. It provoked me to brutality. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... and resolutions. But I am struggling with the associations of this lone, lone hearth—with no fire, no father, no mother, sister or brother left—the whole is heartrending. I quit you now, my kind friends; I am blind with tears, but this ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... the brushwood, like a wild animal prepared to spring, he neither saw nor heard the tokens which might have moved him to suspicion. But suddenly it seemed to him that a wild cry rang out upon the stillness of the night air. His friend's name—or was it his own?—three times repeated, in tones of heartrending pain and terror. "Brian! Brian! Brian!" Whose voice had called him? Not that of anyone he knew. And yet, what stranger would use that name? He ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... a regular circus had gathered. By a "circus" we mean the meeting of groups of families, moving to every point of the compass, and all bivouacked at this point in the open country where we were passing. It was heartrending to listen to the tales of their cruel experiences derived from the rigour of the Natives' Land Act. Some of their cattle had perished on the journey, from poverty and lack of fodder, and the native owners ran a serious risk ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... whole weeks without anything new In the way of flounced silks, and thus left in the lurch, Are unable to go to ball, concert or church. In another large mansion near the same place Was found a deplorable, heartrending case Of entire destitution of Brussels point-lace. In a neighboring block there was found, in three calls, Total want, long continued, of camel's-hair shawls; And a suffering family, whose case exhibits The most pressing need of real ermine tippets; One deserving young ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... happening to know these countries it is almost heartrending to hear such nonsense, and worse still to see it repeated in serious papers, which reproduce and comment upon it gravely for the benefit ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to rise and rush after him, but whether she was really overcome by her feelings, or whether she felt the one chance of prevailing left her was to faint, she uttered a heartrending cry, and the chevalier had no choice but to support her ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and Schmucke's vain efforts to persuade his friend to consent to the operation. To all the poor German's despairing entreaties Pons only replied by a shake of the head and occasional impatient movements; till, after awhile, he summoned up all his fast-failing strength to say, with a heartrending look: ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... jump into the flood and death; the torture of despair that gripped those who, imprisoned in their homes by the water, waited in vain for help until the advancing flames came and destroyed them. The most heartrending feature of the situation was the pitiable terror of the women and children. Many of them sat up and sobbed through the night refusing to believe that their fathers had been drowned in the ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... eminently distinguished at the bar, on the bench, in the senate, in diplomacy, in arms, and in letters, but distinguished also by misfortunes and misdeeds which have furnished poets and novelists with materials for the darkest and most heartrending tales. Already Sir James had been in mourning for more than one strange and terrible death. One of his sons had died by poison. One of his daughters had poniarded her bridegroom on the wedding night. One of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... happy, she went to the hovel of poor Madelon Dreux, the cobbler's widow, and nursed her and her children through a malignant fever, sitting early and late, and leaving her own peaceful hearth for the desolate hut with the delirious ravings and heartrending moans of the fever-stricken. "How ought one to dare to be happy if one is not of use?" she would say to those who sought to dissuade ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... with his heartrending smile; "for at best, the thoughts of Kano Indara cannot be our thoughts. ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... to relate. As already intimated, the prospects of both had been blighted through oppression and villainy, brought to bear upon them by distant relatives, who were the infamous agents of a still more infamous government. The case of Nick, although sore enough in its way, was not so heartrending as that of Kate. He was of a sex fitted to wrestle with the storms of life, but she, proud and brave as she was, occupied a different position. Fortunately for both, however, through the instrumentality of a small pittance ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... this basis, we lose the real value of the fairy tale element. It is the one element which causes little children to wonder, simply because no scientific analysis of the story can be presented to them. It is somewhat heartrending to feel that "Jack and the Bean Stalk" and stories of that ilk are to be handed over to the critical youth who will condemn the quick growth of the tree as being contrary to the order of nature, and wonder why Jack was not playing football ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... heartrending about my letters. I have 'got the eye' evidently. The black slave of the poor dragoman who died in my house is here still, and like a dog that has lost his master has devoted himself to me. It seems nobody's business to take him away—as ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... seized the girl and arraigned her before the judge, who condemned her to death. The people smeared her with honey from top to toe, and exposed her where bees would be attracted to her. The insects stung her to death, and the callous people paid no heed to her heartrending cries. Then it was that God resolved upon ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... figure even now," says Mrs. Moloney, in her depressing voice. "But time an' throuble is cruel hard on some of us. I had a figure meself when I was young," with a heartrending sigh. ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... whole soul went with it, and my body alone, insensible to the snow and sleet, followed, and was jolted, tossed and swung about, without the least consciousness of its own sufferings. But the fear of causing Julie an unexpected shock which might prove fatal or of renewing a heartrending scene of separation, repelled me, and the idea of watching over her safety like a loving Providence, and with angel-like disinterestedness, nailed ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Serbian armies through the mountains of Albania was almost as heartrending as the flight of the civilian population. Day by day, thousands of men, ill-clad and ill-shod, or with bare and bleeding feet, so famished that they fed on the flesh of dead horses by the wayside, stumbled painfully and wretchedly along, over trails deep ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... was obliged to recount the smallest incident of the ghastly event, and she drank in every word, shuddering as at some deadly poison. Again and again she questioned me with the skill and zeal of a professional cross-examiner. Nor would she let me omit a syllable. And when at the most fearful and heartrending point, her soft, dimpled chin sunk down on her breast, and her fair, babyish hand knocked at the tender bosom ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... examine his injuries just as the Chilian main body rode up. To his satisfaction, Jim found that the man was suffering from nothing more serious than a severe scorching, and he guessed that it must have been the anticipation of torture which had made the Indian send up those heartrending screams. As soon as the poor wretch had recovered from the shock which he had sustained, Jim questioned him as to how he came to be in such a situation, and was told that the man, whose name, by the way, was Jose, had been a guide in the ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... If any one will give me back my daughter, I will be his servant, the servant of his dog, and he shall eat my heart if he will.' She met M. le Cure of Saint-Remy, and said to him: 'Monsieur, I will till the earth with my finger-nails, but give me back my child!' It was heartrending, Oudarde; and IL saw a very hard man, Master Ponce Lacabre, the procurator, weep. Ah! poor mother! In the evening she returned home. During her absence, a neighbor had seen two gypsies ascend up to it with a bundle in their arms, then descend again, after closing the door. After their departure, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... is, that the limited credit of a worker's family at the baker's and the pawnbroker's is soon exhausted, the strike-pay goes not far even for food, and hunger is soon written on the children's faces. For one who lives in close contact with workers, a protracted strike is the most heartrending sight; while what a strike meant forty years ago in this country, and still means in all but the wealthiest parts of the continent, can easily be conceived. Continually, even now, strikes will end with the total ruin and the forced emigration of ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... his mind wandered, driven as a leaf is driven by wandering winds. He headed columns in Hindustan; he called the name of the one woman he had loved. In death, as in life, his thought was for others, for Clive, dear, dear Clive. He said, 'Take care of him when I 'm in India;' and then, with a heartrending voice, he called out, 'Leonore, Leonore!' She was kneeling by his side now. The patient voice sank into faint murmurs; only a moan now and then announced that he was not asleep. At the usual hour the chapel bell began to ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... for I was bedecked in all my finery, and upon entering Noo-koom's lodge, I seized Ojistoh by the hair of her head, and dragged her out. Her struggles to escape from me were quite edifying in their propriety. Her shrieks were heartrending—or rather, they would have been had they not alternated with delighted giggles. By that time the wedding march had begun; for as we struggling lovers led the way, the children, bubbling with laughter, followed; ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... picture of wholesale murder, nor a bottle of vitriol thrown in the face of the Kaiser. After the thunder and the lightning, came the still small voice. It is a poem in the metre and manner of Gray, with the same silver tones of twilit peace—heartrending by contrast with the ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... finished his training in the school of chivalry. He had been profoundly moved by little Amy's sacrifice to the powers of life, and he was further touched by the heartrending spectacle of Jane. Jane doing all she knew for him; Jane, so engaging in her innocence, hiding her small, childlike charm under dark airs of assumed maternity; Jane, whose skirts fluttered wide to all the winds ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... time Charley was not idle. The fate of 'Crinoline and Macassar' has not yet been told; nor has that of the two rival chieftains, the 'Baron of Ballyporeen and Sir Anthony Allan-a- dale.' These heartrending tales appeared in due course, bit by bit, in the pages of the Daily Delight. On every morning of the week, Sundays excepted, a page and a half of Charley's narrative was given to the expectant public; and though I am not prepared to say that the public received ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... cruel, it is monstrous, it is heartrending!" gasped Tricotrin, when he grasped the enormity of his failure; "but, light of my life, why should you blame me for ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... icy barriers to melt away, the heart of caste is as hard and its severity as rigid as ever. The helplessness of a family under these circumstances is, to any one who is not a slave to the whole accursed system, most pitiful and heartrending. ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... Billy had never heard in her voice before; "my Cap'n, I am a woman, a woman like my mother. Tell me, as true as heaven, am I your Janet and hers?" Billy's deep eyes pleaded for mercy, but the woman before him would not relent. There was a heartrending pause, then: ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... the rocks, my man is killed." "Ma bien aimee, I am starving. You who are at ease, let me come and eat with you"—and so on and so on. Her heart grieved for them; but que veux-tu?—one was not a charitable institution. So it was all very sad and heartrending. To say nothing of her hourly anxiety. If only the sale guerre would cease and they could go on tour again! Ah, those ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... of Judge Richard William Irwin, of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, and his party, as related in the Paris Herald, were heartrending. On leaving Switzerland for France they were forced to carry their own luggage, all the porters apparently having selfishly marched off to die for their country, and the train was not lighted, nor ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis |
