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Cruelty   Listen
noun
Cruelty  n.  (pl. cruelties)  
1.
The attribute or quality of being cruel; a disposition to give unnecessary pain or suffering to others; inhumanity; barbarity. "Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty."
2.
A cruel and barbarous deed; inhuman treatment; the act of willfully causing unnecessary pain. "Cruelties worthy of the dungeons of the Inquisition." "Macaulay."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cruelty" Quotes from Famous Books



... that rubbing of the hands, which had been robbed of their thumbs by the savage cruelty of a former master for some piece of villainy or other—these things were premonitions of evil to all ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... their cruelty was their exceeding great wealth. Their soil was gold, and in their miserliness and their greed for more and more gold, they wanted to prevent strangers from enjoying aught of their riches. Accordingly, they ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... more bones. It should be said that there was very little pain attending a fracture of any one of the lady's bones, and that she did not in the least mind the monotony of lying in bed while the broken bones knitted themselves together. There can, therefore, be no charge of cruelty brought against her husband. Indeed, she herself entered with a hearty goodwill into the scheme of making a living with her bones, and would go out to break a leg with as much cheerfulness as if ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... had conquered the physical weakness which spoke by weeping. A suspicion of cruelty gave her the salutary stimulus of a lash; she sat upright and began to plan. The next day she went out, sold a bracelet, hired a cab, and went from one manager to another until she succeeded. Brought face to face with the question of work and wage, all the shrewd calculating ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... owing to the comparative dryness of the grasses, and the system of allowing the calf to have the milk during the daytime, a dairy of 200 cows does not produce as much butter as a Devonshire dairy of fifty. Some "necessary" cruelty is involved in the stockman's business, however humane he may be. The system is one of terrorism, and from the time that the calf is bullied into the branding pen, and the hot iron burns into his shrinking flesh, to the day when the fatted ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... such a wretched figure as on this occasion. He often congratulated himself on no blood having been shed by his order: and this was one of his dying consolations. It seems never to have occurred to him that his weakness caused more destruction than even cruelty would have done. It caused not only the loss of many lives; it encouraged the breaking up of society from its very foundations; it spared the wicked, while it betrayed the faithful. It did moral injury, which it may ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau

... before the other man swung slowly about in his chair so that he could see them. That was Hauck. David knew it. He was almost a half smaller than the other, with round, bullish shoulders, a thick neck, and eyes wherein might lurk an incredible cruelty. He popped half out of his seat when he saw the girl, and a stranger. His jaws seemed to tighten with a snap. A snap that could almost be heard. But it was Brokaw's face that held David's eyes. He was ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... of Neerhespen, bears witness to the following acts of cruelty committed by German cavalry at Orsmael Neerhespen, on August ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... through the eyes of the child, he uses the language that is natural to such sight: "Aha! there sat the dog with eyes as big as mill-wheels." In quick dramatic fashion the story unrolls before your vision: "So the soldier cut the witch's head off. There she lay!" No agonizing over the cruelty of it, the lack of sympathy. It is a joke after the child's own heart, and with a hearty laugh at this end to an impostor, the listener is on with the story. The logic is the logic of childhood: "And ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... "Please don't! You cannot know how I have suffered since for the cruelty of that act, or how I suffered then, first in jealous rage, and then in bitter resentment against the fate that I had not deserved. I went back to the apes after that, Jane, intending never again to see a human being." He told her then of his life since he had returned to ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the portrait in that locket; I couldn't possibly mistake it seeing that years ago I knew the original well. It's a miniature of Lady Logan, who died some years ago. Her husband, Lord Logan, was a gambler, a spendthrift, and a drunkard, and he treated her with abominable cruelty. They had one child, a son. I remember the son sitting on my knee when he was quite a little chap—he couldn't at that time have been more than five or six. He went to Marlborough, I know; then crammed for the army, but failed to pass; and yet he was ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... allowing decent time for their turning into lovers before I warned them not to think of me. I have heard that women who have suffered from man's inconstancy are disposed afterwards to revenge themselves by inflicting pain such as they have themselves endured, and delight in all the cruelty of coquetry. It was not so with me. Mine was too deep a wound— skinned over—not callous, and all danger of its opening again I dreaded. I had lovers the more, perhaps, because I cared not for them; till amongst them there came one who, as I saw, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... have? Pleasure ends in cruelty. Why? I don't know, and am not sufficiently curious to try and find out.... These cigars are excellent. Give your friend some tea. Do you know, Paul, I live a brute's life? It should be time to choose oneself a destiny, to employ one's ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... man give or require? And what is still more, they were not deceived in their expectation of being ill treated; for he who employed them, told them beforehand that the world would hate them, and treat them with contempt and cruelty. ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock

... gallows.] Turn where I will are pitfalls hell-deep. Mary and her dowry; Jean and her child - my child; the dirty scoundrel Moore; my uncle and his trust; perhaps the man from Bow Street. Debt, vice, cruelty, dishonour, crime; the whole canting, lying, double-dealing, beastly business! 'My son the Deacon - Deacon of the Wrights!' My thoughts sicken at it. [Oh the Deacon, the Deacon! Where's a hat for the Deacon? where's a hat for the Deacon's headache? ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... prayers, we give an episode in the Leith police court in 1878. A woman named Allan was charged with assaulting a man because he had ill-used one of her boys. She was a person of wild passions, and upbraided the man with divers acts of cruelty to her children. Bursting out into loud cursing, she reminded the man that, eight years previously, she had, in consequence of him kicking her orphan child, prayed that neither he nor his wife should have children; "and you know," she exclaimed, "my prayers have been ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... I should not have complained; but, ere we could Repair our ship, to drive us back again, Was such a cruelty...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... he made her suffer with his hateful unconsciousness of her pain—the male unconsciousness that rouses woman's conscious cruelty. ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... before the dauntless widow of Henry the Sixth, who so long, and in such desperate circumstances, upheld, by unyielding courage and deep policy, the sinking cause of her feeble husband; and who, if she occasionally abused victory by cruelty and revenge, had made some atonement by the indomitable resolution with which she had supported the fiercest storms of adversity. Arthur had been bred in devoted adherence to the now dethroned line of Lancaster, of which his father was one of the most ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various

... one bit of frontier philosophy which I should like to see imitated in more advanced communities. Certain crimes of revolting baseness and cruelty were never forgiven. But in the case of ordinary offenses, the man who had served his term and who then tried to make good was given a fair chance; and of course this was equally true of the women. Every one who has studied the subject at all is only too ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... after her, remarked, 'It's humane of my sister-in-law to think of making allowances. Most of us gratify the dormant cruelty in human nature by keeping an eagle eye on the wretched late ones when at last they do slink in. Don't you know'—he turned to Lady ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... has been most notably so in the history of this country. Almost without exception, the soldiers of all grades in the Union army desired to treat the conquered South with all possible kindness and humanity, while the men who inflicted upon the Southern people the worst form of cruelty were men who had never fought a battle. There have been some cruel soldiers in the world, many more cruel men who were not soldiers except perhaps in name. Men of that character generally avoid ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... the time of James I. He had withdrawn into the highlands, where he had found an asylum, when he learned that Murray, who in virtue of the confiscation pronounced against exiles had given his lands to one of his favourites, had had the cruelty to expel his sick and bedridden wife from her own house, and that without giving her time to dress, and although it was in the winter cold. The poor woman, besides, without shelter, without clothes, and without food, had gone out of her mind, had wandered about thus for some time, an ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... it should not be done, but wanted to hear what William would say. He gravely replied, "If all the men in the ship were of that mind, I will never believe that thou wilt be of that mind thyself, for I have heard thee protest against cruelty in all other cases." "Well, William," says I, "that is true; but what then shall we do with them?" "Why," says William, "is there no way but to murder them? I am persuaded thou canst not be in earnest." "No, indeed, William," says I, "I am not in earnest; ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... having a darling good time. And do you know, not one of these collegians has had the cruelty to ask me how I came by my new name. With some, this is due to charity, but with the others it isn't. They refrain, not from native kindness but from educated discretion. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... on a safe foundation, and to re-establish law and promote order, to insure justice and equal rights to all, the Republican party was forced to its reconstruction policy. To hesitate in its adoption was to invite and confirm the statute of wrong and cruelty to which I have referred. The first step taken was to submit the Fourteenth Amendment, giving citizenship and civil rights to the Negro and forbidding that he be counted in the basis of representation unless he should be reckoned among ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... Minister in every hero—think what a poor-blooded creature they wish to make of the glorious Nelson—but no casuistry avails to cleanse the memory of Pedro of Castille: even for his own ruthless age he was a monster of cruelty and lust. Indeed the indignation with which his biographers have felt bound to charge their pens has somewhat obscured their judgment; they have so eagerly insisted on the censure with which themselves regard their hero's villainies, that they have ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... her gaze, as if it afforded him bodily support. He felt that he ought to stoop and take up his hat, but he dared not look away from her. "Do you not err now, on the side of cruelty?" he asked her piteously. ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... the work and could do it without difficulty, but from the eagerness with which she had persuaded Lady Mason that the thing must be done by some one. And now who else could do it? In Sir Peregrine's present state it would have been a cruelty to ask him; and then his feelings towards Lucius in the matter were not tender as were those of Mrs. Orme. She had been obliged to promise that she herself would do it, or otherwise she could not have urged the ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... the Turks exercised on the wretched christians the most unremitting barbarity, destroying them by every method the most hellish cruelty could invent, or the most unfeeling heart could practise: some they roasted alive on spits, others they flayed alive, and in that horrid manner left to expire with hunger; many were sawed asunder, and others torn ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... delusion of these great politicians, who consider what they term state-interests as paramount to all other duties, human or divine, that while their whole life is a series of oppression, of troubles, of deceit, and of cruelty, their state-conscience finds nothing to reproach itself with. Of any other conscience it seems absolutely necessary that they should be divested. Richelieu, on his death-bed, made a solemn protestation, appealing ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... bird's head, it might have been, a beaver's tooth, or the knot of a tree; whatever, it was, the warrior would as little have thought of going to battle without arms, as without it. They treated their prisoners with great cruelty, partly it is said from the superstitious belief that the manes of their fallen companions were soothed by the sufferings of the captives. The prisoners who were not sacrificed, were adopted into the tribes in place of the slain, ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... never felt more shabbily than I did on the day when I decided to have it out with Gilbert. It was well enough to tell myself that it was my duty to knock the poor boy's hopes into splinters—but I'd like to know what act of gratuitous cruelty hasn't been justified on that plea? I've always shrunk from usurping the functions of Providence, and when I have to exercise them I decidedly prefer that it shouldn't be on an errand of destruction. Besides, in the last issue, who was I to ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... about this time, William Barnes by name, was a negligent sot, charged with "night-walking" and haunting "taverns and alehouses," and other evil practices, as well as with treating the poor boys "when present" with a cruelty which must have made them wish that his absences, long as they were, had been more protracted. Whether this man was his master or no, it was little that Bunyan learnt at school, and that little he confesses with shame ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... their cruelty," said his chum, fingering the flint arrow-heads he had found by the skeletons. "The whole story is as plain as print. The thirty men whose bones we have just disposed of, enslaved and tortured members of what was at that time a great race, working them as slaves in building these walls, and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... New-York, and transporting passengers with rapidity from one end of the island to the other, is an absolute necessity, no one has yet hit upon a plan which satisfies the public. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals objects to the Elevated Road, on the ground (though it is in the air) that the cars will continually run off the track, and, falling on the horses and dogs in the street below, crush them to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various

... precious Body of Christ, how long have I desired thee, and with what care have I sought thee! and now, that I have found thee, receive me into thine arms, and lift me up to my dear Redeemer! O death, [1] how amiable art thou in my eyes, and how sweet is thy cruelty!" "Your coals," said St. Cecily, "your flaming firebrands, and all the terrors of death, are to me but as so many fragrant roses and lilies, sent from heaven." "Shower down upon me," cried St. Stephen, "whole deluges of stones, whilst ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... that is necessary to the Church, nor can we assent to the adversaries in condemning it. For we ought to obey God rather than men. Those who in the beginning condemned manifest truth, and are now persecuting it with the greatest cruelty, will give an account for the schism that has been occasioned. Then, too, are there no scandals among the adversaries? How much evil is there in the sacrilegious profanation of the Mass applied to gain! How great ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... evolution which inspired him. His conception offered no help in overcoming the ills of humanity; rather was it as a chain binding man to earth, there to seek means to create of himself the man superior to himself; and thus leading him astray into egotism, cruelty ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... member of the Band of Mercy, of his Sunday School, which was a miniature society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. The badge was a small star, and Clarence wore this with as much pride as ever a policeman had in his shield. He displayed eagerness in the work, and grew somewhat unpopular with the other boys and girls ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... insignificant citizen's wife can outwit an old diplomat. What science they display under the most trying and peculiar circumstances! What profound combination in their plans of vengeance! What prudence in their malice! What patience in their cruelty! It is dreadful! I will visit you when you reside in the country, but while you reign over a prefecture, I have for you the respectful horror that a democratic mind has for ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... eye-and-stomach chimera." It was a ghastly and yet in some indefinable way a marvelously dear experience. Could it be possible, I wondered, that I was in this life to woo a second time the woman I had killed by my own neglect and cruelty? ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... St. Vitus's dance. I could not help thinking that his strange, catchy little laugh was also a symptom of some nervous malady. The terror of his face lay in his eyes, however, steel gray, and glistening coldly with a malignant, inexorable cruelty in ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... explain in some way or other why his Macbeth strode from crime to crime. It must be noted as most characteristic of gentle Shakespeare that even when confronted with this difficulty he did not think of lending Macbeth any tinge of cruelty, harshness, or ambition. His Macbeth commits murder for the same reason that the ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... saying, "this is cruelty. You go with no good cause that I can see—put the sea between us, and yet say no word to make the parting endurable. You understand what I suffer—my hateful thoughts, my dread, which is not so much dread as—Oh, that I should say it! Oh, that I should feel it!—hope; guilty, ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... all, because they were of the same tribe as the rebels, although they had nothing whatever to do with the insurrection. When we were building our cottage on the sands two Chinese skulls were dug up. We were all indignant at this wanton cruelty, but unable to resent it, except by the expression of our opinion, for the English were a mere handful of individuals ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... chase procured them, but in vain did they look for the bowl of succatash or embroidered moccasins—the products of woman's labor—in token that their gifts were pleasing to the coy beauty. In vain, when the shades of evening fell, the softly breathed flute lamented in melancholy tones her cruelty. In vain, with tasteful hand, the sighing lover painted his face and person to heighten his attractions and draw attention. The insensible Leelinau relished not the venison or bear's meat, nor would she listen to the flute, or look often at ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... girl-friend of our boyhood. She had been a beauty from her infancy, and her wiles had grown with her growth and strengthened with her strength; and now her myriad tricks of mischief, caprice and cruelty were too closely identified with what was most bewitching in her not to have become additional charms for us. In those days, while we were still hobbledehoys, she pleased us the more that she had, with the precocity of her sex, quite outstripped us where all subtle social forces are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... regard to Mary was carried on in the attorney's house for a week, during which her sufferings were very great. From the first she made up her mind to oppose her stepmother's cruelty by sheer obstinacy. She had been told that she must be made to marry Mr. Twentyman, and the injustice of that threat had at once made her rebel against her stepmother's authority. She would never allow her stepmother to make ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... against a government or a protectorate, a sanguinary struggle in the Forum against the dominance of a class, or an attack by chattels, not yet brutalised by serfdom but full of the traditions and spirit of freemen, against the cruelty and indifference of their owners. In one sense the servile movements were more universal, and perhaps better organised, than those of the men to whom, free birth gave a nominal superiority. A sympathy for each other's sufferings pervaded the units of the class who were scattered ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... Corporal Nym's philosophy must be my comfort—'Things must be as they may.'—I cannot come to your father's house, where he wishes not to see me; and as to your coming hither,—by all that is dear to me, I vow that if you are guilty of such a piece of reckless folly—not to say undutiful cruelty, considering your father's thoughts and wishes—I will never speak to you again as long as I live! I am perfectly serious. And besides, your father, while he in a manner prohibits me from returning to Edinburgh, gives me the strongest reasons for continuing a little while longer in this ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... 1896, as the successor of Blanco and the chosen Messiah of the friars. He had made a great name in Cuba as an energetic military leader, which, in Spanish colonies, always implied a tinge of wanton cruelty. In Spain he was regarded as the right arm of the ultra-clericals and a possible supporter of Carlism. He was accompanied by General Lachambre, whose acquaintance I made in Havana. In the same steamer with General Polavieja came 500 troops, whilst another steamer simultaneously ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... one mortal soul, and, carrying no arms, should have been assaulted by none. But his very good-nature seemed to make his young opponent only the more wrathful; she shot because his honest breast was bare; it bled at the wounds which she inflicted. Her relatives looked at her surprised at her cruelty, and the young man himself was shocked in his dignity and best feelings by his ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... political offender, with whom he is relentless. Such men are thrown into prison, interred in dark cells without trial, and can languish till death sets them free. In this respect the Prince is harsh, and according to Western ideas barbaric, though local circumstances fully excuse his seeming cruelty. The smallness of the prison at Podgorica shows more forcibly than anything else the remarkable lack of crime in the land. At present (1902) dangerous lunatics are confined in the common prison, but an ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... desperation Fills his heart, and impels him to all kinds of criminal actions. Nothing then holds he respected, he steals It. With furious longing On the woman he rushes; his lust becomes awful to think of. Death all around him he sees, his last minutes in cruelty spends he, Wildly exulting in blood, and exulting in howls and ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... heard that the malignance of mummies, especially in museums, is incredible. And she thinks it a judgment that some of the most distinguished ones are going bad. She says it's spite. I say its management. But I'm not ready to sit down yet! My wife means to start a society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Mummies, with the object of sending them back to their tombs where they can rest in that state of death it pleased their gods to call them to. Their object was eternal privacy, and they spent more on their tombs than their houses, because they expected to be dead a long tune, and wanted all ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... first menstruation and twenty when, according to some, every girl is a "possible murderess." So they wisely marry her and get rid of what is called the "lump of grief," the "domestic calamity"—a daughter. Amongst them we never hear of the abominable egotism and cruelty of the English mother, who disappoints her daughter's womanly cravings in order to keep her at home for her own comfort; and an "old maid" in the house, especially a stout, plump old maid, is considered not "respectable." The ancient virgin is known by being lean and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... continued, as he shouldered his rifle, and thrust the revolver and Bowie-knife into his belt, "you are in the power of one who has very little love for a man who is guilty of the cruelty of hunting a fellow-being with blood-hounds; so, if you expect to live to see daylight, don't make any noise." With this piece of advice, Frank left his captive, and started ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon

... suddenly that the Boxers had caught a lot of native Christians, and had taken them to a temple where they were engaged in torturing them with a refinement of cruelty. One of our leaders collected a few marines and some volunteers, marched out and surrounded the temple and captured everybody red-handed. The Boxers were given short shrift—those that had their insignia on; but in the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... yon lordling's slave— By Nature's law design'd— Why was an independent wish E'er planted in my mind? If not, why am I subject to His cruelty or scorn? Or why has man the will and power To ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... light of reason, in that ecstasy of battle; and he shied from the pursuit of victory to hail fresh blows upon the supine Hemstead, so that the stool was shattered and the cabin rang with their violence. The sight of that post-mortem cruelty recalled Carthew to the life of instinct, and his revolver was in hand and he had aimed and fired before he knew. The ear-bursting sound of the report was accompanied by a yell of pain; the colossus paused, swayed, tottered, and fell headlong ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ranks. This drew on his rider such abuse and brutality as wrung Nadia's heart, and filled Nicholas with indignation. But what could they do? They could not speak the Tartar language, and their assistance was mercilessly refused. Soon it occurred to these men, in a refinement of cruelty, to exchange the horse Michael was riding for one which was blind. The motive of the change was explained by a remark which Michael overheard, "Perhaps that ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... he felt anything beyond an immense compassion for these poor victims of man's cruelty. Perhaps with such a person as Patsy Kenny compassion would serve for love always. "The creatures!" he said to himself, "the creatures! Sure it isn't the hard ways of the world they're fit for ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan

... their bodies on these battlefields march on, bearing torches that have lit the courage of the world, with a light that can never fail. But the poor trees, so dear to France, giving life as a mother gives milk to her child!—they died to serve no end save cruelty. ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... exaggerates both the favors and the rebuffs he gets, both the kindness and the coldness of the woman. If he thinks he's ill-treated, he measures the supposed cause by his sufferings. As they are so great, he thinks the woman's cruelty correspondingly great. Nobody will believe such good things of a woman as the man who loves her; but nobody will believe such bad things if matters ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... come out in the papers." Maggie said no more; she saw she had gone too far. Willy sat puffing at his pipe; but when her father spoke of a certain investment that had not turned out as well as he had anticipated, he joined in the conversation, and she hoped her cruelty was forgotten. ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... were too busy up in heaven to consider the needs of us poor hobbling, polyktonous and betempted wretches of men—I went with him to the Society for the Prevention of Annoyances to the Rich, where a certain usurer's son was to read a paper on the cruelty of Spaniards to their mules. As we were all seated there round a table with a staring green cloth on it, and a damnable gas pendant above, the host of that evening offered him whisky and water, and, my back being turned, he took it. ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... even without the supposititious letter which he never received. The contempt of the people for the boy-soldiers at whose head he had marched into Madrid, combined with disdain for his own pompousness and with fury at his subsequent cruelty, goes far to account for much that was disastrous to French prestige and to ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... uniformly repeated in detail, and which was carefully written down and published in the following form:—she said she was a fugitive nun from the Hotel Dieu of Montreal, whence she had effected her escape, in consequence of cruelty which she had suffered, and crimes which were there committed by the Romish priests, who had the control of the institution, and to which they had access, by private as well as public entrances. Having expressed a willingness to go to that city, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... of a Northern people; but upon more familiar acquaintance the vices of the social system to which they belong will be found to have infected them with their own peculiar taint; and haughty, over-bearing irritability, effeminate indolence, reckless extravagance, and a union of profligacy and cruelty which is the immediate result of their irresponsible power over their dependents, are some of the ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... a tract of country now stretching across northern Mississippi and western Tennessee, were friendly to the English and willing to encroach on the French. They interrupted river traffic and practiced every cruelty on their prisoners. D'Artaguette knew as well as the early explorers that in dealing with savages it is a fatal policy to overlook or excuse their ill-behavior. They themselves believed in exact revenge, and despised a foe who did not strike back, their insolence becoming boundless if not curbed. ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... pastor on his side. Mr. Glynn was opposed to divorce on general ecclesiastical principles; moreover, he had been educated under the law of England, by which a woman cannot obtain a divorce from her husband for the cause of adultery unless it be coupled with cruelty—a clever distinction between the sexes, which was doubtless intended as a cloak for occasional lapses on the part of man. It was plain to him, as a Christian and as a hearty soul, that there had been an untoward accident—a bestial fault, a soul-debasing carnal ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... was the Carthaginian in Spain suffered to destroy those best and bravest men, the two Scipios? Why did Maximus[279] lose his son, the consul? Why did Hannibal kill Marcellus? Why did Cannae deprive us of Paulus? Why was the body of Regulus delivered up to the cruelty of the Carthaginians? Why was not Africanus protected from violence in his own house? To these, and many more ancient instances, let us add some of later date. Why is Rutilius, my uncle, a man of the greatest virtue ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... Erromanga. They were not satisfied with buying the valuable wood from the natives, but tried to get directly at the rich supplies inland. Naturally, they came into conflict with the natives, and fierce wars arose, in which the whites fought with all the weapons unscrupulous cruelty can wield. As a result, the population of Erromanga has decreased from between 5000 and 10,000 ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... Pisoes head be shewed upon a pole? Those members torne, rather then Roman-like And Piso-like with weapons in our hands Fighting in throng of enemies to die? And that it shall not be a civill warre Nero prevents, whose cruelty hath left Few Citizens; we are not Romans now But Moores, and Jewes, and utmost Spaniards, And Asiaes refuse[70] that doe ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... some recent) travelers as the recipients of religious homage turn out on inquiry to be clan gods whose anger is feared.[1181] The cult of many savage and many civilized deities has been, and is, characterized by gross cruelty and licentiousness; but it is certain that human sacrifice and sexual indulgence were, and are, in these cases not regarded as morally wrong. Durga (Kali), wife of Civa, most terrible and repulsive of female deities, while she is feared, is also revered ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... Calcutta would be as pleasing a subject. The character of the Hollanders is too grossly vicious and detestable to give the least pleasure. They are neither men, nor even devils; but a sort of lubber fiends, compounded of cruelty, avarice, and brutal debauchery, like Dutch swabbers possessed by demons. But of this play the author has himself admitted, that the subject is barren, the persons low, and the writing not heightened ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... guests. The vagabondism of the colonies is proverbial. Vagabonds are taken in almost every where throughout the bush. But the welcome given to them varies. Sometimes they are made to work before they are fed—to their infinite disgust. But no such cruelty was exercised at Boolabong. Boolabong was a very Paradise for vagabonds. There was always flour and meat to be had, generally tobacco, and sometimes even the luxury of a nobbler. The Brownbies were wise enough to have learned that it was necessary for their very existence that they should ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope

... neighbouring towns. If, however, it was comparatively fortunate as regards the horrors of that ferocious war, it was severely scourged by the most appalling epidemics of the Middle Ages. Leprosy and the pest had terrors greater even than those of battle. The cruelty of those feudal ages finds one of its innumerable records in the treatment of the miserable lepers at Albi. Having taken the disease which the Crusaders brought back from the East, they were favoured ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... she could not bear it when the boy was beaten. It made her sick. She felt that she must go out of this school, this torture-place. And she hated the schoolmaster, thoroughly and finally. The brute, had he no shame? He should never be allowed to continue the atrocity of this bullying cruelty. Then Hill came crawling back, blubbering piteously. There was something desolate about this blubbering that nearly broke her heart. For after all, if she had kept her class in proper discipline, this would never have happened, Hill would never have ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... 1756, scarcely forty years ago, that the French, being in possession of the provinces, attempted to wrest from us those portions of America which we occupied. What was the result? After a war which, for cruelty and atrocity, is perhaps unequaled in history, both parties employing savages, by whom the French and English were alternately tortured and burned to death, France, in attempting to obtain all, lost all, and was ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... who, on the transfer of the sceptre of Tamerlane to the East India Company, became tributaries or rather slaves to that Honorable body, none seems to have been treated with more capricious cruelty than Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of Benares. In defiance of a solemn treaty, entered into between him and the government of Mr. Hastings, by which it was stipulated that, besides his fixed tribute, no further demands, of any kind, should be made upon him, new exactions were every year ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... 's killed he 's just as dead as though the law permitted it. I 'm afraid you have n't much of a case, but if you 'll go to work and get twenty-five dollars together, I 'll see what I can do for you. We may be able to pull a case through on the ground of extreme cruelty. I might even start the case if you brought ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... him stand before our face.— Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too, That thou but lead'st this fashion of thy malice To the last hour of act; and then 'tis thought Thou'lt show thy mercy and remorse, more strange Than is thy strange apparent cruelty; And where thou now exact'st the penalty,— Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh,— Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture, But, touch'd with human gentleness and love, Forgive a moiety of the principal; Glancing an eye of pity on his losses, That ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... had not recognised her by her appearance I should probably have done so by her occupation at that moment, for she was engaged in chastising her offspring with all the vehemence and all the cruelty of her former performances. But in the present case there was a difference. Billy, instead of taking his castigation meekly, as before, was violently resisting by shout and kick the attentions of his relative. This ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... the Gendarmerie served as the executive organ of the political police, or of the so-called Third Section, dreaded throughout Russia on account of its relentless cruelty in suppressing the slightest manifestation of liberal thought. The Third Section was ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... pronounces to be sinful, we can not obey the precept, but we are bound to submit without resistance to the penalty. We are not authorized to abrogate the law, nor forcibly to resist its execution, no matter how great its injustice or cruelty. On this principle holy men have acted in all ages. The apostles did not obey the precept of the Jewish laws forbidding them to preach Christ, but neither did they resist the execution of the penalty attached to the violation of those laws. Thus ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... themselves, and I, stupid Don Quixote, instantly would let them go! Love and prejudice blinded me, I could not see how ridiculous I was with my respectful reserve. I had not yet read the anecdotes of Louis XIII, king of France, but I had read Boccacio. I kept on seeking in vain, reproaching her with her cruelty, and entreating her to let me catch her; but she would only answer that the difficulty of meeting each other was mutual. The room was not large, and I was enraged at my ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... sweet communion with your kind, After an hour lost in these lonely rocks Hunger and thirst after some human voice To drink, and human face to feed upon; What must one do where all is mute, or harsh, And ev'n the naked face of cruelty Were better than the mask it works beneath?— Across the mountain then! Across the mountain! What if the next world which they tell one of Be only next across the mountain then, Though I must never see it till I die, And ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... would for his own hand wage war on Spain and the Inquisition in the New World. If to do so was piracy, Drake resolved to become a pirate. But he assuredly did not conceive himself to be a pirate; nor were his motives the same; and his methods were utterly unstained by the blood-thirstiness and cruelty inseparably associated with the title. He was rather an Ocean knight-errant, smiting and spoiling, and incidentally enriching himself, but in knightly fashion and for a great cause: not a miscellaneous ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... yonder in the wide forest, who knows what storms are raving to-night in the hearts of men, though all the woods are still? who knows what haunts of wrath and cruelty and fear are closed to-night against the advent of the Prince of Peace? And shall I tell you what religion means to those who are called and chosen to dare and to fight, and to conquer the world for Christ? It means to ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... destroyed by the poison? Oh, is there no guilt in thus spreading a snare for my children? Should they fall, will none of their blood be upon your heads? Shall not the entreaties of a parent be felt by those who are themselves parents, and whose days may yet be rendered intolerable by the cruelty of ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... something. You will remember it always, Bebee?" he murmured in his unconscious cruelty. "I did not wish to spoil your cloudless pleasure, dear—for you care for me a little, do you not?—so I came back to tell you only now, that I go away for a ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... surrounding woods were cut down to make shanties; the surrounding country was scoured for food. In the intervening weeks, while they lay encamped on the banks, the last enemy to be vanquished in that region, the malarial fever, grappled with the sect and dealt deadly wounds. Illinois, shocked by the cruelty of her sister State, held out kind hands and fed the fugitives to some extent, and when April came, helped them to ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... this world," said he, "through many changes of fortune and varieties of humor, I have watched you steadily fall. Fifteen years ago you would have started at a theft. Three years back you would have blenched at the name of murder. Is there any crime, is there any cruelty or meanness, from which you still recoil?—five years from now I shall detect you in the fact! Downward, downward lies your way; nor can anything but death avail ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... quickly as possible in order to have time for his task before the gas was put out. He read industriously, as he read always, without criticism, stories of cruelty, deceit, ingratitude, dishonesty, and low cunning. Actions which would have excited his horror in the life about him, in the reading passed through his mind without comment, because they were committed under the direct inspiration of God. The method of the ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... are going quite away; and my eyes bless this chance to have embraced you once again. Your face is the kindest I have ever seen: even your silence, while I looked at you, seemed a grace instead of a cruelty. What kindness, I say to myself, even if it be mistaken kindness, must have sealed those dear lips not to tell me of ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous

... of a powerful tribe, now old and dispossessed of his power through the revolt of his tribe some years previous. At that time a price had been put upon his head, and he took refuge in the mountains. There was no sign of discouragement or cruelty in his manners, but his face expressed a bitter and profound sorrow. There was not a pig or a chicken on his place—for he would have nothing imported by the papales, or Europeans—but he gave his guests a large quantity of yams, for which he would accept no return except a little tobacco. When, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... groundlessness. When he had discussed the existing aspect of slavery in Trinidad, Jamaica and other places, he proceeded to deal with the general question. He confessed with shame and pain that cases of wanton cruelty had occurred in the colonies, but added that they would always exist, particularly under the system of slavery; and this was unquestionably a substantial reason why the British Legislature and public should ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... 1728, an opinion was entertained that much cruelty and rapacity were exercised by the keepers of the great prisons in London. It was known that they had almost unlimited power in their hands, that they were not subject to regular inspection, and that it was scarcely possible to bring them to justice ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various

... now in a situation too dreadful for the mind to contemplate without dismay. After the inhuman dragooning and horrible executions, the recital of which makes the blood run cold—after so much military cruelty, not in one, but in almost every part of the country—is it possible for this administration to procure unanimity in Ireland?' On March 22, 1798, the Duke of Bedford moved an address to the king, asking ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... an American very little older than Boyne himself, to whom a wilful young crown-princess, in a little state which Trannel would not name even to Boyne, had made advances such as he could not refuse to meet without cruelty. He was himself deeply in love with her, but he felt bound in honor not to encourage her infatuation as long as he could help, for he had been received by her whole family with such kindness and confidence that he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... all were in the grip of imperial forces whose ruthless purposes or lack of them made all men ridiculous, pathetic or magnificent, as you choose. He pitied ignorance and necessity, and despised vanity and cruelty for cruelty's sake, and the miserly hoarding of anything. He was liberal, material, sensual and yet spiritual; and although he never had more than a little money, out of the richness and fullness of his ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... and his love for her had never blinded him as to her faults; often he had corrected her for unfilial behaviour, for a too sharp word, for selfishness. But the one quality which to a strong and tender man is unendurable in the woman he loves, cruelty, he had never before realised in the girl, and his discovery that it lay in her to hurt him as she had done, had nearly ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... and we did; we succeeded—too well!—until at last we could not get enough of the dough. The unkindest cut of all, however, did not come until pies, pastry, and sweet cakes of all kinds were pronounced indigestible. The refined cruelty of this revolutionary decree was bitterly resented; not only by the confectioners, whose shop windows were works of art, but also by the public, who loved art. Even gouty subjects and folk with livers protested. As for the ladies, the war on sponge cakes almost broke their hearts. Pastry was to many ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... thankfulness was that when the awakening came the man was not to be alone there with his dead comrade. The bush can be cruel at times, and yet, although she may leave us alone with our beloved dead, her very cruelty bungs with it a fierce, consoling pain; for out-bush our dead ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... Kentucky continued rapidly to increase. The savages had apparently relinquished all hope of holding exclusive possession of the country. Though there were occasional acts of violence and cruelty, there was quite a truce in the Indian warfare. But the white settlers, and those who wished to emigrate, were greatly embarrassed by conflicting land claims. Many of the pioneers found their titles pronounced to be of no validity. Others who ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... a chaperon into whose care a young girl could be committed; there used to be the "dance card", or programme (still in vogue at public balls) that allotted a certain dance to a certain gentleman and lady equally. There used to be the cotillion which, while cruel, at least committed its acts of cruelty with merciful dispatch. When the cotillion began, the girl who had no partner—went home. She had to. Now, once she has acquired a companion, he is planted beside her until another takes his place. It is this fact and no other which is responsible ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... to remember, that in the person of his mother, he also sees his sovereign, and that the empress will resent every word of disloyalty spoken to the parent. And I hold it to be highly disloyal for my son to accuse me of making sport of his hopes. I have not come to my latest determination from cruelty or caprice; I have made it in the strength of my maternal love to shield my child from sin, and in the rectitude of my imperial responsibility to my people, who have a right to claim from me that I bestow upon them a monarch who is worthy ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... emotions are often intertwined, the latter surviving and lifting up a standard for emulation, the former passing away, dying with the instigating passion. Among the many hundreds of Indian songs I have known, none commemorate acts of cruelty. ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher

... law against it, sir," growled the Lieutenant; "against women-folk and children going to sea. It's murder and cruelty. I've been wrecked, scores of times; but it was with honest men, who could shift for themselves, and if they were drowned, drowned; but didn't screech and catch hold—I couldn't ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... no madness or cruelty in conjugal love: in its normal state it is all peace, contentment, happiness, while romantic love, in its normal state, is chiefly unrest, doubt, fear, anxiety, torture and anguish of heart—with alternating hours of frantic elation—until ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... be. Well, well, well, let us hope that, when the great Duke comes home, he may be able to put a stop to these things. Even in warfare, men say, he is merciful, and will permit no extortion and no cruelty. We citizens of London will give him a right royal welcome; perchance we may be able to crave a boon of him in return. He—or, rather, his wife—is all-powerful with our good Queen Anne; and she would not wish a hair ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... infantile sexual life, though mainly under the control of erogenous zones, also shows components in which from the very beginning other persons are regarded as sexual objects. Among these we have the impulses for looking and showing off, and for cruelty, which manifest themselves somewhat independently of the erogenous zones and which only later enter into intimate relationship with the sexual life; but along with the erogenous sexual activity they are noticeable even in the infantile years ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud

... our choicest flowers of memory to the innocent victims of an atrocious cruelty, to the women, the child martyrs, to that young English nurse, guilty only of generosity, whose assassination aroused the indignation of the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... well can to make these assertions true. If it is not said that any considerable number wantonly abuse and outrage him, it must be said that they manifest a barbarous indifference to his fate, which just as surely drives him on to destruction as open cruelty would. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... starvation; people die by the hundred thousand needlessly and painfully; men and women are lashed together to make hell for each other; children are born—abominably, and reared in cruelty and folly; there is a thing called war, a horror of blood and vileness. The whole thing seems to me at times a cruel and wasteful wilderness of muddle. You in this decent world ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... dinner and shot across the table; and Belgian women had cut the throats of soldiers quartered in their houses while they were asleep. The Chancellor concluded by saying, in this statement, that everyone knows that the German people is not capable of unnecessary cruelty or of ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard

... dined, and feted, and a large subscription was made for a class in horse-breaking. At this juncture I heard of a performance of the soi-disant Rarey at Naples, in which he had nearly killed a beautiful young mare, and, knowing that the system of Rarey did not include cruelty, I began to doubt the identity of the tamer. I called for the passport with which he had come, and which was, as usual, deposited at the police office, and discovered that it was issued by a "vice-consul pro tempore" at Dresden, an officer not recognized ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... privy to the deed, yet want the soul to act it. Nay more; had my designs been levelled at his fortune, you had stept in the foremost. And what is life without its comforts? Those you would rob him of; and by a lingering death, add cruelty to murder. Henceforth adieu to half-made villains—there's danger in them. What you have got is your's; keep it, and hide with it: I'll deal my future bounty to ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore

... expressing their opinion of the impolicy, injustice, inhumanity, and cruelty of the act, from which they appealed to God, and to the world; and also inviting the other colonies to join with them in an agreement to stop all imports and exports to and from Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies, until the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... families" of Boston, Bristol and New Orleans exported slaves. Now, for our soap and our salad, the West Coast supplies palm oil and kernel oil, and for automobile tires, rubber. But still to it there cling the mystery, the hazard, the cruelty of those earlier times. It is not of palm oil and rubber one thinks when he reads on the ship's itinerary, "the Gold Coast, the Ivory Coast, the Bight ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... upon her own head. But she had not been able to resist the temptation. Howard came into her life when the outlook was dreary and hopeless. He had offered to her what seemed a haven against the cruelty and selfishness of the world. Happiness for the first time in her life seemed within reach and she had not the moral courage to ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... life. It is common in calamitous circumstances, or in afflictions which seem immediately occasioned by others upon whom we may have been dependent, or with whom we have been in any way connected, to exclaim against the cruelty of our enemy, or the malice of such as have been instrumental in producing our unhappiness; but Hagar utters no complaints against Sarah, who had driven her into the wilderness, where she and her infant offspring might ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... in the other's heart, and which each left unspoken; to wit that Sir Mark feared his mother's pride and malice, what she might do if he were no longer there to refrain it; yea, and she seeking some outlet to her grief and solace for it in wrath and cruelty. ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... promises of Don Frederic, Alva's son, a large number of the principal citizens, as well as others of all ranks, and every man who had borne arms, were cruelly put to death, the survivors being treated with the greatest cruelty. The mind shrinks from contemplating such horrors, and the Hollanders might well desire to emancipate themselves from the rule of a sovereign capable of ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston

... appearing in Mr. Ford's paper, either in spirit or in text, and those which, in a past so recent that its horror haunts the memory of men and women of our generation, let loose upon tens of thousands of helpless and inoffensive people the most bestial and fiendish cruelty and hatred ever ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo

... that tribe will be visited and cruel deeds done. They know nothing of a God of Love—only gods and spirits who are ever revengeful, and must be appeased; who fly about in the night and disturb the peace of homes. It is gross darkness and cruelty, brother's hand raised against brother's. Great is the chief who claims many skulls; and the youth, who may wear a jawbone as an ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers

... voyages to Africa, would destroy more seamen than eighty-three to Newfoundland; and there is this difference to be observed, that the loss in one trade is generally occasioned by weather or accident, in the other by cruelty or disease. The instances are exceedingly numerous of sailors on board slave-ships, that have died under the lash, or in consequence of it. Some of the particulars are so painful that it has made me sicken to read them; and I therefore forbear to repeat them. Of the Alexander's crew, in 1785, ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... saw his father and mother, meanly dressed, sitting at the door of an inn. He alighted from his horse, entered their house, and asked for food. After his father and mother had brought him water to wash his hands he revealed himself to them and forgave his father for his cruelty. ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... worked, Alvina tried in vain to dissociate the two braves from their war-paint. The lines were drawn so cleverly that the grimace of ferocity was fixed and horrible, so that even in the quiet work of scene-shifting Louis' stiffish, female grace seemed full of latent cruelty, whilst Ciccio's more muscular slouch made her feel she would not trust him for one single moment. Awful things men were, savage, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... explain my cruelty on this occasion. Why did I not step forward to comfort and protect him? Where was the pitifulness which often made me burst into tears at the sight of a young bird fallen from its nest, or of a puppy being thrown ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... chairman of the Committee for the Prevention of Cruelty to Stage Animals. There is good work to be done here. We have always understood that the hind-legs of the Pantomime dragon suffer terribly while on the stage, owing to the closeness ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various

... in the city, when Nurse fortunately rose to the occasion, and, taking the law into her own hands, escorted the whole party up to Mother, which brought matters to a climax; for our boys were so ashamed of their cruelty and ungentlemanly behavior when Mother explained to them what their tricks really meant, that they became their own true selves, and we had the first good play together of the season the next morning on the shore, though Tommy did his best to bother us, and to draw off ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous

... Upbraid me with my fatal fondness for him! Ungrateful, barbarous ruffian! O, Elizabeth! Remember now thy long-establish'd fame, Thy envy'd glory, and thy father's spirit. Accuse me of injustice too, and cruelty!— Yes, I'll this instant to the Tower, forget My regal state, and to his face confront him: Confound the audacious villain with my presence, And add new terrors ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones

... of Calcutta, has just closed a tour during which he has made many addresses, attended, in all cases, by thousands of students and disaffected members of the community, and has not only denounced the government as the very incarnation of unrighteousness and cruelty, but has also urged the people to do all they can, both constitutionally and otherwise, to defeat and overthrow it and to establish a native rule upon its ruin. Any government, in order to ignore such language uttered ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... at their expense. It is a mischievous cavil to tell people who are doing good in one direction, that more might have been done somewhere else. Everything hangs together in the progress of public morality, and you cannot strike a blow at cruelty to animals without at the same time making a hit at cruelty to man. And the best argument in favor of the rights of beasts to protection, will be found in the tour you and I are now going to make together through the different classes ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... lost no time in making arrangements for the journey. A carriage was ordered; all possible preparations were made for the comfort of the invalid—everything that care or kindness could do was done; but the cruelty of the removal was not the less obvious. Georgy wailed piteously about the sixes-and-sevens to which they were being taken. Diana cared nothing about sixes-and-sevens; but she felt supreme indignation against Charlotte's stepfather, and she ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... that had been dead and buried so many years. He felt it would not be right in the highest sense for him to expose Stanton merely to gratify his own sense of revenge. He believed that his child had learned to love Stanton as her own father; that it would be a cruelty to her to expose him; that it would rob her of her social position and perhaps of the man she loved. The girl might even turn on him and hate him for his selfish indulgence of revenge at the expense of her happiness. At the ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... kindly, in contradistinction to De Soto, who was the most inhuman of all the early Spanish explorers. He was of the same school as Pizarro and Cortez; possessing their daring valour, their contempt of danger, and their tenacity of purpose, as well as their cruelty and avarice. De Soto made treaties with the Indians which he constantly violated, and murdered the misguided creatures without mercy. During the retreat of Moscoso's weakened command down the Arkansas River, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... proceeding with all the speed that fear inspires; and to my urgent request for some information as to food and shelter, I could obtain no other reply than muttered menaces of the fate before me if I remained, and exaggerated accounts of French cruelty. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... informed on the subject, says: "It is a cruelty to encourage these children with a gift of money, for instead of such gifts inuring to their benefit, they are extracted for the support of cruel and selfish parents and taskmasters." This is true, but the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... young Sultan Misnar, "what do thy base suspicious fears advise? Is there no way to build up the seat of justice and mercy but in murder and fratricide? Never let him who was born to execute judgment secure his honours by cruelty and oppression. The righteous Allah planted me not here to spread a poisonous shade over the offspring of His Prophet Mahomet: though fear and submission be a subject's tribute, yet is mercy the attribute of Allah, and the most pleasing ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... London, and renewed his early attachment in the court of the Archbishop of York. And while Anne was never in her lifetime charged with insensibility to the death of her relatives, or lack of feeling, she died not from any cruelty of his, but from weakness, and especially from grief over her boy's sudden decease. Richard indeed 'loved her early, loved her late,' and could neither have desired nor designed a calamity which lost him many English hearts. The burial of Henry ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... your belief that he will stick to it—stick to it for ever, to this idea of disinheriting you?—that your goodness and patience will never wear out his cruelty?" ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... enslaved Indians. This was the wealth which poured into the treasuries of a nation whose riches reared the colossal palaces of the Escorial, and the wondrous Minster of Seville. The creation of such prosperity meant a short-lived reign of luxury and cruelty—the lifting up of an old country for a time—the abasement of a new land. How different the happy and more lasting wealth with which we are able to endow Europe from Canada, when the parent land and the Dominion alike reap equal fruits from a bounteous ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... languor of the visual faculty can work disaster even in the calm periods of philosophic expatiation. "It cannot be doubted," says one whose daily meditations enrich The People's Post-Bag, "that Fear is, to a great extent, the mother of Cruelty." Alas, by the introduction of that brief proviso, conceived in a spirit of admirably cautious self-defence, the writer has unwittingly given himself to the horns of a dilemma whose ferocity nothing can mitigate. These tempered and conditional truths are not ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... thou have thought it?) taking advantage of Dorcas's compassionate temper, and of some warm expressions which the tender-hearted wench let fall against the cruelty of men, and wishing to have it in her power to serve her, has she given her the following note, signed by her maiden name: for she has thought fit, in positive and plain words, to own to the pitying Dorcas ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... Caligula, because he wore the soldier's leather shoe, or half-boot, (Latin caliga). Caligula was deified, but that did not prevent him from becoming a madman, which seems to be the best way to account for his wanton cruelty ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... forward to a glorious issue of temporal affliction in eternal glory, let us beware of unfitting ourselves for the future recompence by extreme resentment against those who are the agents that Almighty Wisdom uses to improve us. Let us not attribute to malice and cruelty what may be referred to less criminal motives. Do we not often afflict others undesignedly, and, from mere carelessness, neglect to relieve distress? Our own concerns, interests, and wishes engross our thoughts. Nothing is so important to us as forwarding our ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... such cruelty, The nurse the kindly surgeon seeks, And of poor Nellie's hapless lot With warm, indignant ...
— My Dog Tray • Unknown

... they had hit their white prisoners they uttered a yell of triumph, and Dr Lascelles knew that this terrible scene was only the prologue to one of a far more hideous nature, when, with a fiendish cruelty peculiar to their nature, they would fall upon their victims with their knives, to flay off their scalps and beards, leaving the terribly mutilated bodies to the birds and beasts of ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn

... with cruelty, or whether he was naturally of an angelic disposition, I shall probably never know now; but the fact remains that, instead of turning out the Fiend I'd been led to expect, he was one of the most considerate men I've ever met. He wouldn't ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... crew, was pitiable. Helpless from sea-sickness, not knowing where to go or what to do, bullied relentlessly by the ruthless petty officers—well, I never felt so sorry for a lot of men in my life. Glad enough I was to get below into the fo'lk'sle for supper, and a brief rest and respite from that cruelty on deck. A bit of salt junk and a piece of bread, i.e. biscuit, flinty as a pantile, with a pot of something sweetened with "longlick" (molasses), made an apology for a meal, and I turned in. In a very few minutes oblivion came, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... of mind was, so to speak, a good deal more black than blue. As he paced up and down the playground, rather like a wolf in a cage waiting for dinner, he was far more exercised to devise some way of making his faithless friend smart for his cruelty than to ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... persecuted the chemists, and imprisoned the naturalists, and opposed every discovery of science calculated to improve the condition of mankind. There is no crime that the Catholic Church did not commit, no cruelty that it did not reward, and no virtue that it did not persecute. It was the greatest and most powerful enemy of human rights. In one hand, it carried an alms dish, and in the other, a dagger. It argued with the sword, persecuted with poison, and convicted with faggot." R. ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... in the free states, he earnestly called upon all to abstain from slave-produce, and thus in a measure wash their own hands from participation in a system of abominable wickedness and cruelty. His zeal on this subject annoyed some of his brethren, but they could not make him amenable to discipline for it; for these views were in accordance with the earliest and strongest testimonies of the Society of Friends; moreover, it would have been discreditable ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... came the story of the lost trunk. Nor could Ruth keep back the tears as she told her friend about Uncle Jabez's cruelty. ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson

... individual of these criminals, had no compacts with devils, as they themselves imagined, but were really mad, so as openly to confess that they had done such feats as are impossible in the nature of things. But so it happens, that error generally begets superstition, and superstition cruelty. Wherefore I most heartily rejoice, that I have lived to see all our laws relating to witchcraft entirely abolished: whereas foreign states still retain this barbarous cruelty, and with various degrees of obstinacy in proportion to their ignorance ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead

... on the 20th of the following November.[3] Such a parent could not be a loss; he would have been, in all human probability, as careless of his son as he was of his wife; and, at all events, Chatterton had not the misery of early cruelty to complain of, for he had a mother, tender and affectionate, although totally unfit to guide and manage his wayward nature. Her first grief with him arose, strange as it may seem, from his inaptitude for learning—as a child he disdained ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various



Words linked to "Cruelty" :   inhuman treatment, malice, brutality, atrocity, ill-usage, hardheartedness, heartlessness, ferociousness, savagery, harshness, viciousness, malevolence, ill-treatment, maltreatment, coldheartedness, pitilessness, malevolency, inhumanity, ruthlessness, abuse, impalement



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