"Torture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that is near the door, after his custom, the farmer thinks it an evil omen. For a robin to sing persistently near the house winter or summer is a sign that something is about to go wrong. Yet the farmer will not shoot him. The roughest poaching fellows who would torture a dog will not kill a robin; it is bad luck to have anything to do with it. Most people like to see fir boughs and holly brought into the house to brighten the dark days with their green, but the cottage children tell you that they must not bring a green fir branch ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... He stood before a shrine, writhing, wringing his hands, contorting his whole frame in an agony of remorseful recollection, but finally knelt down to weep and pray. If this youth had been a Protestant, he would have kept all that torture pent up in his heart, and let it burn there till it seared him ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... religion. Here it is sufficient to observe that the old law which had been hitherto altogether arbitrary—either the will of the Emperor or of the Shogun—was revised on the model of the Napoleonic code and soon published throughout the land. The use of torture to obtain testimony was wholly ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga
... boldly made the subject of the play. Ford pushed the morbid and unnatural in character and passion into even wilder extremes than Beaumont and Fletcher. His best play, the Broken Heart, is a prolonged and unrelieved torture ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... lepers; returned to old ways, And strove to keep occupied, filling her days With devotional duties. But when the night came She heard through her slumber that song like a flame, And her dreams were sweet torture. She sought all too soon To chill the warm sun of her youth's ardent noon With the shadows of premature evening. Her mind Lacked direction and purpose. She tried in a blind, Groping fashion to follow an early ideal Of love and of constancy, starving ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... thousand deaths from this hair-shirt of a secret, which cut him, skinned him, turned him pale and red in the same minute and caused him to squint continually. Remember that he belonged to Tarascon, unfortunate man, and say if, in all martyrology, you can find so terrible a torture as this—the torture of Saint Bezuquet, who knew a secret ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... the victim, I bore the insensible lady to the hospital of Dalem; and the utmost skill of our surgeons was employed upon her wounds. Better had it been spared!—The dying girl was roused only to the endurance of more exquisite torture; and while murmuring a petition for 'mercy—mercy to her father!' that proved her still unconscious of her family misfortunes, she attempted in vain to take from her finger the ring I have had the honour to deliver to your highness:—faltering with her last breath, 'for his sake, Don ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... to be the same instrument of torture to me that you remember it always was in my youth, when I used to read your letters with such wonder and delight. This spell is still upon me, for I appreciate the magic of your mind now as much as I did then, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... thought, nor publicly to worship as he believed was right. Many of the Christians were not ashamed to conceal their real belief from the heathen Romans, who were everywhere seeking with hatred for the followers of Christ, to torture and slay them. ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... field we came to a deep gully through which ran a swift stream almost knee-deep. Our way led across this stream, and there was only one means of getting over. That was to plunge in and splash through. Tired as we all were, after getting thoroughly wet our feet felt like lead, and marching was perfect torture. Still there was ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... with accelerated force, for the devil 569:24 knoweth his time is short. Here the Scriptures declare that evil is temporal, not eternal. The dragon is at last stung to death by his own malice; but how many periods 569:27 of torture it may take to remove all sin, ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... motionless, poised, breathing hard—the silence oppressed the girl—each moment her terror increased—expectant attention became suffering that demanded his voice—and still was silence—save for the dull roar of Niagara that more and more pervaded the air. The torture of waiting for the words—a curse against her, she feared—overwore Ruth's endurance. She looked up suddenly, and John Bedell saw in hers the beloved eyes of his dead wife, shrinking with intolerable fear. He groaned heavily, flung up his hands despairingly, and strode ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... be difficult to see, perhaps, that a necessary holiness, or a necessary sin, is a contradiction in terms, if we would only allow reason to speak for itself, instead of extorting testimony from it by subjecting it to the torture of a false logic. For what proposition can more clearly carry its own evidence along with it, than that whatever is necessary to us, that whatever we cannot possibly avoid, is neither our virtue nor our fault? What can be more unquestionable, than ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... ourselves. John of Gaunt or Harry Hotspur might find fault with us for the same reason, giving up the 'good old customs' of rushes on the floor, for instance, and flagons of ale for breakfast. There were the stocks and the pillory too, and hanging for theft, and the torture of prisoners. Those were all in use more or less when the Pilgrims went to America, and I'm sure we're all glad that they were given up. The world must move, and I suppose it's but natural that the new nations should give it ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... The next night it is crimped until each individual hair has acute curvature of the spine; then it is burned off in chunks and triangles and squares; it is yanked out by the handfuls, it is wadded and twisted and tugged at and built up into an Eiffel tower, and—after a few hours of such torture—the little woman takes out the sixty odd hairpins, shakes it loose, gets every hair into a three-ply tangle of its own, and then hops into bed! When she gets up in the morning she pulls out and combs out more ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... alternative of the three. It feared to be harsh, and was cruel; for by retaining the supreme rank for the king, it condemned him to the torture of the hatred and contempt of the people; it crowned him with suspicions and outrages; and nailed him to the throne, in order that the throne might prove the instrument of his ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... torture as long as he could and finally decided to escape. He went to Richmond, Kentucky on to Lexington. On his way he made a contract with a man to drive his horses to Orleans, but was caught while in Lexington. On his way they caught him and took him to jail and he remained until his master came ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... asserted in England, and by those who really think they know whereof they speak, that although such torture-houses as Dotheboys Hall certainly did exist, even so lately as Dickens wrote, the publication of "Nicholas Nickleby," by turning attention upon the abuse, effectually swept it out of English civilization. We "smile bitterly," as romance ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... peace was signed (1848) the Mormons, a religious sect, finding themselves unwelcome and out of place in Illinois, moved westward in a body. Enduring every hardship, every privation, perishing by hundreds in the trackless deserts, captured and put to torture by the Indians, they still persevered in their migration, and, halting at last in the valleys of Utah, began the settlement of the Central West. [Footnote: See Migrations ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... woods. These savages are making signs, Deerslayer, for me to encourage you to come ashore with the canoe; but that I'll never do, as it's ag'in reason and natur'. As for old Tom and myself, whether they'll scalp us tonight, keep us for the torture by fire, or carry us to Canada, is more than any one knows but the devil that advises them how to act. I've such a big and bushy head that it's quite likely they'll indivor to get two scalps off it, for ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... with his club had he not been shot dead at the moment of striking. On the 23rd they cruised about in search of the Pandora until the afternoon when, having drunk their last drop of water, they gave her up, and made sail for Namuka, the appointed rendezvous. The torture they suffered from thirst on the passage was such that poor Renouard, the midshipman, became delirious, and continued so for many weeks. Their leeway and the easterly current combined to set them to the westward of Namuka, and the first land they made was Tofoa, which they mistook ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... A twinge of frightful torture swept the Flopper's face—and with that same slow, awful deliberation the misshapen arm straightened out. Men cried aloud again and again—a woman fainted, another here, another there—children wailed and ran, some shrieking, some ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... with thine own hand killed my father and my two brothers. Torture me as thou wilt; I shall rejoice in having freed the world ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... and drowned, or were mangled by sea-monsters. The only ones to obtain an endurable death, considering the sufferings round about, were such as killed one another or themselves before any calamity befell them. These did not have to submit to torture, and as corpses had the burning ships for their funeral pyre. The Caesarians, who saw this, at first so long as any of the foe were still able to defend themselves would not come near; but when the fire began to consume the ships and the men so far ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... was to pay for Hugh's death and her favor, made a mockery of all the beauties of giving—a mockery, too, of her acceptance of them, whether tacitly or otherwise. A man who could kill without scruple, a woman-baiter, courteous that he might be cruel, tolerant that he might torment! By torture of her spirit and of her body he had brought her near death that he might gain the flavor of ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... frenzy for work, I will compare it to an attack of herpes. I scratch myself while I cry. It is both a pleasure and a torture at the same time. And I am doing nothing that I want to! For one does not choose one's subjects, they force themselves on one. Shall I ever find mine? Will an idea fall from Heaven suitable to my temperament? Can I write a book to which I shall give myself heart ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... Visconti, for the hand of his beautiful cousin Lucia as the bride of Kent. When all was arranged, but not sooner, in November he presented himself at Kenilworth. (Rot. Pat, 7 H. IV, Part i.) What means were taken to torture his unhappy cousin into compliance with his iron will can only be conjectured. She did at last consent to disown her marriage, unless the facts alleged in the petition of Kent's sisters are fictions. On January 19th, 1406, "all the goods ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... hearsay; I myself have beheld all these horrors in the Holy Land of Palestine. Through the ancient streets of Jerusalem the accursed infidels stalk in the evil pride of conquest. They insult and oppress, they torture and murder the followers of Christ. They rob and maltreat the pious pilgrims from all lands who toil through desert and over mountain to worship at the tomb of their Lord. Scarcely will these heathen ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... slow torture. Like mad things we ran about where there was room, unable to stand still as long as we were on the ship and he on shore. To have crossed the ocean only to come within a few yards of him, unable to get nearer till all the fuss was over, was dreadful enough. But to hear other passengers called ...
— From Plotzk to Boston • Mary Antin
... worshipped a god who devoured the souls of the dead, inflicting torture in the eating, but mercifully releasing souls from pain ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... replied, "They know that do accuse me; I know of none:" then turning to Leonato, she said, "O my father, if you can prove that any man has ever conversed with me at hours unmeet, or that I yesternight changed words with any creature, refuse me, hate me, torture me to death." ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... remarked Hiramani; "but has he not been too cruelly used by his uncle? You must have noticed the welts on his naked back. I counted five as broad as my forefinger. How could a grown-up man torture a child like that?"—and she looked meaningly ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... to peace, Prophaners of this Neighbor-stained Steele, Will they not heare? What hoe, you Men, you Beasts, That quench the fire of your pernitious Rage, With purple Fountaines issuing from your Veines: On paine of Torture, from those bloody hands Throw your mistemper'd Weapons to the ground, And heare the Sentence of your mooued Prince. Three ciuill Broyles, bred of an Ayery word, By thee old Capulet and Mountague, Haue thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets, And made ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... on edge] Everything we can say is useless, and it'll only torture and humiliate us. We must ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... are covered with brush and leaves under the last birch in the bush, where I finished that meddlesome fool of a lawyer. You know why you ought to give a lot to Regy's boy. It's all over. Curse the lot of you. Here goes, but mind you kill that damnable Squire, or I'll come when I'm dead and torture the life out ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... hand grievously, broke my knuckles, and cut and bruised the flesh, so that it awaked me out of my sleep. Another apprehension I had was, the cruel usage we might meet with from them if we fell into their hands; then the story of Amboyna came into my head, and how the Dutch might perhaps torture us, as they did our countrymen there, and make some of our men, by extremity of torture, confess to crimes they never were guilty of, or own themselves and all of us to be pirates, and so they would put us to death with a formal appearance of justice; and that they might ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... by definition, is a place where all is perfect. Therefore, in Heaven everybody is exactly like everybody else, and therefore, everybody is thoroughly and completely bored! There is no torture like boredom, Dixon, and—Well, have ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... he means not to give characters entire, but such parts of each man's particular passions, acquirements, and habits, as he was most likely to transfer into his political schemes. What writing, what sentence, what character, can stand this torture?—What extreme perversion may not, let me say, does not, this produce? Yet thus does he choose to treat all men, that were not favourers of the latest measures of the Queen, when the best that has been said for her, shows ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... stole upon Marm Lisa, the torture and the anguish, the long hours of bewilderment, faded little by little, little by little, till at length a blessed sleep crept over her eyelids, blotting into a merciful nothingness the terror and the ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... general was to attend with twenty thousand men, armed with poisoned arrows, to shoot you on the face and hands. Some of your servants were to have private orders to strew a poisonous juice on your shirts and sheets, which would soon make you tear your own flesh, and die in the utmost torture. The general came into the same opinion; so that for a long time there was a majority against you; but his majesty resolving, if possible, to spare your life, at last brought ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... several have been tortured till they died, and others have been sentenced to death, and, it is believed, executed, although the only evidence of their guilt was the pretended confessions wrung by torture from their ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light; but rather darkness visible Serv'd only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all, but torture without end. 895 MILTON: Par. ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... shouted Leblanc. "Sapristi! that black devil wanted to torture me, Leblanc, the friend of the great Napoleon. Well, at least I have tortured him ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... the least degree to their profession? If not, then each officer may define cruelty according to his own temper, and if it is not usual he will make it usual. Corporal punishment, imprisonment, the gag, the ball and chain, and all the almost insupportable forms of torture invented for military punishment lie within the range of choice. Third. The sentence of a commission is not to be executed without being approved by the commander, if it affects life or liberty, and a sentence of death must be approved by the President. This applies to cases in which there ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... easily credit the painful anxiety which is raised in my mind when I read such a statement as this. I think I see my poor Elizabeth, the wife or slave to some wild savage; her children, merciful Heaven! my grandchildren, growing up as the brutes of the field, in ignorance and idolatry. It is torture, my dear Alexander—absolute torture, and requires long prayer and meditation to restore my mind to its usual tone, and to enable me to bow to the dispensations of ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... body and soul. This source is the blessed Trinity. As often as we make the sign of the Cross we invoke the blessings of God upon us, for we owe all blessings to the infinite merits of our divine Saviour, who died upon the Cross for us. The ignominious instrument of torture and death, the Cross, has now become the instrument of life and the source of salvation. Hence the Church never dispenses blessing except in the sign of the Cross. St. Chrysostom says therefore: Every ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... minister, his voice faltering and his hands trembling as they rested on Cecil's bowed head, "so we give him into Thine own hand and send him forth into the wilderness. Thou only knowest what is before him, whether it be a harvest of souls, or torture and death. But we know that, for the Christian, persecutions and trials are but stepping-stones leading to God; yea, and that death itself is victory. And if he is faithful, we know that whatever his lot may be it will be glorious; that whatever the ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... pillow, which they might easily have done by the simple expedient of throwing it over the ship's side into the sea. He himself had done this twice, but the keeper had immediately brought a fresh pillow already heated for the torture and forced it under ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... determination of his future path. Nothing is more painful to a man of any energy than the inability to put things in order in himself— to place before himself what he has to do, and arrange the means for doing it. To be the passive victim of a rushing stream of disconnected impressions is torture, especially if the emergency be urgent. So when the sun came up Zachariah began to be ashamed of himself that the night had passed in these idiotic moonings, which had left him just where he was, and he tried to settle what he was to do when he reached Manchester. He did not know a soul; but ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... paled slightly, but she kept her eyes steadily fixed on her companion's face. She began to understand where the point of the torture was coming in. ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... Important Factor in Health. Few more ingenious instruments of crippling and torture have ever been invented than fashionable tight ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... her horse's neck; she did not see him smile. He had felt quite sure that she sought relief for the silences of her life in literary composition. When an unattractive woman has not talent she finds a double revenge in the torture of words, he thought. What shall I say to her? That she is whittling thorns for her own soul? Bah! Did I not find enjoyment once in the very imaginings of all that has scourged me since? Would I have thanked anyone for opening my eyes? And the positive is ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... tell the mother falsehood after falsehood to keep her content. The children had suddenly become infected with a contagious disease, and the doctor had said that the new baby must not be exposed in any circumstances. After three long weeks of torture it devolved upon him to tell his wife ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... way through the cave was a maddening torture. They had no light, nor would they dare use one if they had. There were no wheel marks to follow on the stone floor. Without Ulv's sensitive nose they would have been completely lost. The cave branched and rejoined and they soon ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... fetters, and were often branded to prevent escape. If slaves ran away, and were caught, they might be crucified. If a householder were killed by a slave, all the slaves in his house might be put to death. As at Athens, the testimony of slaves was given under torture. Hatred to the master on the part of the slave was a thing of course. "As many enemies as slaves," was a ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... given any indication of his desertion being the result of insanity, something might be done, but there was nothing to suggest such was the case. To delay the execution for twenty-four hours and then to have to carry it out would mean subjecting a human being to unspeakable torture. He felt he could not take it upon himself to run the chance of inflicting such misery upon the man. The Colonel and I saw at once that the case was utterly hopeless and that we could do no more. The question then was to ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... the highest philosophy. It is the divine voice which speaks in our hearts, though it has caught some accretion of human passion and superstition. The popular versions are false and debased; the old versions of the Atonement, for example, monstrous; and the belief in the everlasting torture of sinners, a hideous and groundless caricature. With much that such men have said I could, of course, agree heartily; for, indeed, it expresses the strongest feelings which have caused religious revolt. But would it not be simpler to say, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Master Hopkins!" interposed the governor sternly. "It is never well to threaten what we cannot perform. We break not bones nor put to the torture in our new community; but, John Billington, I shall counsel thy father to take thee ashore and whip thee so soundly as shall make thee long remember that gunpowder is for thee forbidden fruit. Go, now, to thy cabin, and remain there till he comes, while I go to see ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... alcalde-mayor or his deputy divides among the chiefs two, three, four, or more taes of gold (which is a certain weight worth five pesos), and orders that so many gantas of rice be collected for one toston. Afterward they send, to collect this rice, men without piety; who, with blows, torture, and imprisonment enforce compliance with the rate of three hundred and fifty gantas for a toston; and, in other years, one hundred of wine, and this year, sixty. It is a fact well established, for I have learned from the very persons who collect ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... the Bishop and Synod. From that time onwards he became a political agent, and was mixed up in the plots which filled the closing years of the reign of Charles II. In 1684 he was arrested and questioned. Though made to undergo the torture of the boot, he refused to disclose anything. He was then handed over to the tender mercies of General Dalziel, the "Muscovy beast who would roast men," and was kept from sleeping for eight or nine days till his enemies themselves were weary. He had ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... he examined the broken foreleg more carefully. Gentle as was his touch, yet Link knew it must cause infinite torture. But the dog did not flinch. He seemed to understand that Ferris meant kindly, for he moved his magnificent head far enough to lick the man's hand ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... not an outline betrayed itself through the heavy folds of drapery in which it was wrapped. His thoughts recurred to his unfinished marble, as offering the one mode in which he could find a silent outlet to the feelings and thoughts which it was torture to keep imprisoned in his soul. The cold stone would tell them, but without passion; and having got the image which possessed him out of himself into a lifeless form, it seemed as if he might be delivered from a presence which, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... midway between the seat and the floor, was the weapon chosen by Satan for my destruction. In German churches you do not kneel, and seldom stand, but sit nearly the whole time, praying and singing in great comfort. If you are four years old, however, this unchanged position soon becomes one of torture. Unknown and dreadful things go on in your legs, strange prickings and tinglings and dartings up and down, a sudden terrifying numbness, when you think they must have dropped off but are afraid to look, then renewed and fiercer prickings, shootings, and ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... of the cruelty of the Iroquois has arisen mainly from the custom which they occasionally practiced, like some other Indians, of burning prisoners at the stake. Out of the multitude of their captives, the number subjected to this torture was really very small,—probably not nearly as large in proportion as the number of criminals and political prisoners who, in some countries of Europe, at about the same time, were subjected to the equally cruel torments of the ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... Barker seems to have been an idle person—he says that after travels "my former fancye of professenge nothinge partycularly was verye muche encreased"[129]—and a papistical one, for on the accession of Mary he came home to serve the Duke of Norfolk, whose Catholic plots he betrayed, under torture, in 1571. It was then that the Duke bitterly dubbed him an "Italianfyd Inglyschemane," equal in faithlessness to "a schamlesse Scote";[130] i.e. the Bishop of ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... in a flood of new emotion; she tried once or twice to be discreetly angry with herself for admitting so unreservedly the pleasure she felt in Pierre's admiration; she placed her soul on a rack of self-questioning torture, and every inquisition she made of her heart returned the self-same answer: ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... of your own existence, and to know that there could be no possibility of my revealing any thing about you; no," he added, as his clenched fist fell upon the table, and his face flushed up deeply at his rising feeling—"no, not even if it were still the fashion to employ torture; not even the rack could extort from me one syllable that could implicate you. After all that I have said, I swear that by all that ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... torments—for those men that grace And holiness of life slight and disdain, There to bemoan themselves with hellish pain. This place, also, the pains so dismal be, Both as to name and nature, that in me It is not to express the damning wights, The hellish torture, and the fearful plights Thereof; for as intolerable they Must needs be found, by those that disobey The Lord, so can no word or thought express Unto the full the height of that distress; Such miserable caitiffs, that shall there Rebukes of vengeance, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... possess psychic properties, they were thought to derive them from evil sources, and so strong was the prejudice against these unfortunate animals on this account, that all through the Middle Ages we find them suffering such barbaric torture as only the perverted minds of a fanatical, priest-ridden people could devise (which treatment, no doubt, partly, at all events, accounts for the many palaces, houses, etc., in those particular countries, stated to have been haunted by the spirits ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... de Witt was thrown into prison and put to the torture on a false charge of planning the assassination of the Prince of Orange. Jan de Witt visited his brother in his agony, and a mob, bursting into the jail, seized upon both brothers as traitors and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... trust, gave an asylum to refugees, and treated them with respect and kindness, were scrupulous observers of their pledged word, and eminently faithful to their treaty obligations. On the other hand, it must be admitted that they had some customs which indicate a tinge of barbarism. They used torture for the extraction of answers from reluctant persons, employed the scourge to punish trifling offences, and, in certain cases, condescended to mutilate the bodies of their dead enemies. Their addiction to intemperance is also a barbaric trait. They were, no doubt, on the whole, less civilized ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... friends, and without pleasure. The last may, perhaps, appear strange to men unacquainted with the masquerade of life: I deceived others, and I endeavoured to deceive myself; and have worn the face of pleasantry and gaiety, while my heart suffered the most exquisite torture. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... the ground of that cave, in every conceivable position of misery and torture, were the bodies of half a dozen ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... the gig stopped at the avenue gate. Feemy was all but fainting; what with the cold and her former fear, and the dreadful position in which she found herself, she could not have moved if she had tried; she just preserved her senses sufficiently to torture her, and that was all. Plainly she heard her lover whistle; and plainly Thady heard it too, for he kept his stick completely still, and took the pipe from his mouth: then the second whistle—then she heard Ussher's foot on the ground—heard him approaching, ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... was curious to see how he put down and pushed away all he had once begun to touch and torture. Mrs. Edmonstone said it was self command in no common degree; and Philip allowed that to cure so inveterate a habit ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... done? Life is beginning to be a torture. If I send her away, I shall eat my heart out. If she stays, fuel is but added to the fire. Her caressing ways will drive me mad. To repulse her were brutal—she loves to be fondled; she can scarcely speak to me without ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... trapper rose hastily. The expression of his brow was still the same, but his mouth was altered. The lips were pressed tightly like those of a brave when led to torture, and there was a fierce activity in his motions as he sprang down the bank and proceeded to dig a hole in the soft earth. For half an hour he laboured, shovelling away the earth with a large, flat stone; and carrying down the body, he buried it there, under the shadow of a willow. The trapper ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... guides. Nor did it matter that ignorance rather than evil intent had been the cause of their failure. It was enough for Hauptmann Fritz Schneider to know that he was lost in the African wilderness and that he had at hand human beings less powerful than he who could be made to suffer by torture. That he did not kill them outright was partially due to a faint hope that they might eventually prove the means of extricating him from his difficulties and partially that so long as they lived they might ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... He got well of this, but only to fall into a dropsy, which despatched him in a week. Shortly before his death, at the seventh hour, he cried out to two Spaniards who were standing by the bed that he had suffered such great torture from the working of Troilus, and that he was dying therefrom. "Therefore," he cried, "in your presence I summon him with my dying words to appear before God's tribunal, that he may give an account of all the evil he has wrought against me." On the following day there came a messenger ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... kill one another on Saturdays and Sundays, the murderers are seldom brought to justice because of Omerta; a word which is said to be derived from uomo and to signify manliness in the sense of power of endurance, the power, for example, of keeping silence even under torture; hence it comes to be used for an exaggeration of that natural sense of honour, that Noblesse Oblige or Decency Forbids, which makes an English schoolboy scorn to become a sneak. It may be false and foolish, it may be noble and chivalrous, whatever it ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... down, you—beggar!" and followed at its close by the last and crowning outrage, consequent on a violent outbreak of wrath on the part of Squeers, who spat at him and struck him a blow across the face with his instrument of torture: when Nicholas, springing upon him, wrested the weapon from his hand, and pinning him by the throat—don't we all exult in the remembrance of it?—"beat the ruffian till ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... nevertheless true, that a good man, a kind man, a generous man, may sometimes quite unconsciously drive a woman nearly mad; make her feel as though a legion of fiends were struggling for possession of her soul, goad her weakness into acts which torture alone causes, and the after-blackness of which, presented to her real self, creates a humiliation which only drives her madder still. Men, that is, good men, who are stronger and better able to do and to bear—ought to be very gentle, very wise, in the manner they ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Marianne; "leave me, leave me, if I distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! but do not torture me so. Oh! how easy for those, who have no sorrow of their own to talk of exertion! Happy, happy Elinor, you cannot have an idea of what ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... a movie-man whipped out a handkerchief and tied it over my eyes. The director then took the firing squad in hand. He had but recently witnessed the execution of a spy where he had almost burst with a desire to photograph the scene. It had been excruciating torture to restrain himself. But the experience had made him feel conversant with the etiquette of shooting a spy, as it was being done amongst the very best firing-squads. He made it now stand him in ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... of fulfilment, and as he came up the steps, I looked into the face of Ex-Secretary Pollifex, and saw there an expression which is beyond description. Say that of the ghost of a man who has been hanged, attending an execution. Or say the expression of a Catholic, converted by torture, watching the action of the thumb-screws upon another heretic. The air, in short, of a man who had been through it all before. And as the then Secretary came madly rushing up the steps, Pollifex confronted ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... glimpses of a tomorrow, and struggles against the inevitable future. He must have legal purgation, discharge, release from custody, quittance. He exacts it from the vanquished, and at need puts them to the torture, to obtain it. Louis Bonaparte knows that there exists, in the conscience of every prisoner, of every exile, of every man proscribed, a tribunal, and that that tribunal is beginning his prosecution; he trembles, the executioner feels a secret dread of his ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... thing is responsible for making woman the victim of more woes and diseases than all other causes put together. About one-half the children born in this country die before they are five years of age, and no doubt this terrible mortality is largely due to this instrument of torture known as the modern corset. Tight lacing is the cause of infantile mortality. It slowly but surely takes the lives of tens of thousands, and so effectually weakens and diseases, so as to cause the untimely ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... come out here and reduce the price of their tickets to their value,—say about sixty-two and a half cents a dozen,—it is possible that we sha'n't hear them any more. When we ride forty miles, at an expense of at least ten dollars, extras not included, to hear a couple of itinerant Dutchmen torture a brace of unoffending instruments into fits, until the very spirit of music howls in sympathy, if some one will cave in our head with a brickbat, we will feel ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... faith in her. Suddenly, she does a thing, shocking, incomprehensible, and, in doing it, asks you not to question, for she can not explain; asks you to think of her kindly; to trust her still. Here is a test for your friendship. Others may pry, drag her name about, torture her with their curiosity; she has appealed to you. Respect her secret. Let her bury it if she will, and can; you can not help her. If she has become that bad man's wife, she is past human help. Undoubtedly there is a mystery here; undoubtedly she has acted ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... observed, that she did not, like ordinary persons under extreme anguish of mind, suffer her understanding, in the mean time, to sink into listlessness and debility. The most inapprehensive reader may conceive what was the mental torture she endured, when he considers, that she was twice, with an interval of four months, from the end of May to the beginning of October, prompted by it to purposes of suicide. Yet in this period she wrote her Letters from ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... Hebrew and Greek original, they secreted the knowledge from the people. They fear that this would forever discredit them with their hearers. Hence, they still outwardly lend their influence to the doctrine of eternal torture, which they do not believe, and feel angry with us because we teach the people the Truth upon the subject, which they know will bring to them hundreds of questions difficult ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... the poison," moaned Little, squirming out of his bed and trying to lift his friend up. Then his own world spun around him, and he fell beside Barry, every inch of ant-bitten skin a blazing patch of torture. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Believe me, gentlemen, what has tortured me most during this night has not been the thought that I'd killed the old servant, and that I was in danger of Siberia just when my love was being rewarded, and Heaven was open to me again. Oh, that did torture me, but not in the same way: not so much as the damned consciousness that I had torn that damned money off my breast at last and spent it, and had become a downright thief! Oh, gentlemen, I tell you again, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... possible absurdity in the way of preparation for this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I bought. My boots might be placed in any collection of instruments of torture. I provided, and sent down by the Norwood coach the night before, a delicate little hamper, amounting in itself, I thought, almost to a declaration. There were crackers in it with the tenderest mottoes that could be got for money. At six in the morning, I was in Covent Garden Market, buying ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... confirmed by other early writers, are so express with reference to these points, that they seem to require something more than a mere reference in this place. "When his father was suffering under the torture of a grievous sickness, the Prince endeavoured with filial devotedness to meet his wishes in every possible way; and notwithstanding the biting detraction and manifold accusations of some, which (according to the prevalence of common opinion) made efforts to diminish the kind feeling of the ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... been fighting and fighting and fighting until their nerves were nothing but a jangling torture. And a counter-attack on Neuve Chapelle was being organised. Huggie told me afterwards that when the car had come along the road, all the men had jumped like startled animals and a few had turned to take cover. Why, ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... freed from her bonds she sighed deeply, uttered a little sob as though her soul had fluttered to her lips, and sank into Royson's arms. In the ever-growing darkness he had not realized earlier how acute was the torture she was enduring. She must have experienced some difficulty in breathing, owing to the outrageous manner in which her mouth and nostrils were covered. Yet, to render her quite helpless, her wrists were tied with such cruel force that they became swollen and stiff, and her delicate skin ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... ascent no more!'—Immediately I heard arise towards me, from the depth of invisible abysses, a myriad of formidable voices united in a strange chant—'Let us destroy him! Let him be destroyed! What does he here among the dead? Let him be delivered back to torture! Let him ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... necessity of making a living for himself and family to remain away from church, meditated sorrowfully as he followed his plow, and often at the end of his furrow fell upon his knees and besought the Creator to save his undying soul and spare him the everlasting torture of the damned. A popular little gift book, published by the American Tract Society of New York, was entitled Passing Over Jordan, and on an early page we find ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... bigotry, tyranny, and cruel religious intolerance were such as flourished in the seventh century, and in spite of systematic slave raids the population decreased by nearly two-thirds, and practically all the children died. Peace came, well-being came, freedom from rape and murder and torture and highway robbery, and every brutal gratification of lust and greed came, only when the Sudan lost its independence and passed under English rule. Yet this well-meaning little sonneteer sincerely felt that his verses were issued in the cause of humanity. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... of the Constitution was carried in procession through the city with the honours paid to the Holy Sacrament, and all political prisoners were set at liberty. The prison of the Inquisition was sacked, the instruments of torture broken in pieces. On the 9th the leaders of the agitation took steps to make the King fulfil his promise. A mob invaded the court and threshold of the palace. At their demand the municipal council of 1814 was ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... till I came to him. Sometimes after the old man had repeated his composition to me I would begin to dispute with him, asking whether the thing would not be better another way, and he could hardly keep from flying into a passion with me for putting his work to the torture." ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... we forget. And yet, when we were new-born we did remember other times and places. We, helpless infants in arms or creeping quadruped-like on the floor, dreamed our dreams of air-flight. Yes; and we endured the torment and torture of nightmare fears of dim and monstrous things. We new-born infants, without experience, were born with fear, with memory of fear; and ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... friends and comrades may fire the blood. It may lead men to risk their own lives in a desperate charge to get even. But it is a pain that does not rankle and that does not fester like a sore that will not heal. It is the tales the Canadians have to tell of sheer, depraved torture and brutality that has inflamed them to the pitch of hatred that they cherish. It has seemed as if the Germans had a particular grudge against the Canadians. And that, indeed, is known to be the ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... agreed on, remarks, 'qu'elle a quelque nouvelle offence contre la dite reyne d'Ecosse,' which could have been nothing else but the first news of the seizure of one of Ridolfi's servants at Dover on the 10th April, who then under torture ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... without compliance to ordained conditions. But, we ask, have those conditions named in Genesis been perpetuated in [10] the multiplication of mankind? And, are the conditions of salvation mental, or physical; are they bodily penance and torture, or repentance and reform, which are ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... that what I say is true," he continued in quieter but no less intensely passionate accents—"You know that every day sees our Master crowned with new thorns and exposed to fresh torture! You know that we do nothing!—We stand beside Him in His second agony as dumb as though we were unconscious of it! You know that we MIGHT speak and will not! You know that we fear the ephemera of temporary governments, policies, and social conventionalities, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... still resting in her own, and drawing the long veil back over face, she walked silently with the puzzled spinster, unable to broach the theme she had at heart. Merry spared her the torture ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... strangely grouped towers and palaces, and its huge squares, made me feel an insignificant insect with no right to opinions of any kind; and as I gazed up at the dark, medieval buildings, vague visions of Cornelis and John de Witt in their torture, of van Oldenbarneveld, and fair Adelaide de Poelgust stabbed and bleeding, flitted fearfully through my brain. I wanted to get out and look for the stone where Adelaide had fallen to die (how well I remembered that story, told in twilight and firelight ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... be devoured, &c., was mentioned. A rev gentleman could not understand the conduct of Government; could not see that there was any impropriety in torturing men's souls; seemed to think that a good deal might be said in favour of bodily torture as well! These are your teachers, O Israel! Imagine what the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... carried in their hands either a cross, or an inverted torch, which was a sign that their own life would shortly be extinguished. Few of these showed weakness, since they had already triumphed over long-protracted torture. They walked with head erect to the quemada ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... main subject in this story and its companion—the trial, to a point of utter torture, of knightly faith, and several passages in the conduct of both, more especially the exaggerated scenes in the House of Baldringham, and hermitage of Engedi, are signs of the gradual decline in force of intellect and soul which those who love Scott best have ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... other ravenous beasts in the world; but this one is peculiar in that he laughs over his work, which is also his pastime. Now, if you wish to hear a Boy laugh—a horse-laugh, a giant-laugh—just put some other animal, human or otherwise, through a course of torture. Twist a pig's tail until it comes out; or, if you don't like the occupation, the Boy will cheerfully do it—and will drown the squeal of the porker in his own uproarious merriment. What do you suppose were the age and sex of the inventor ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... in the broader sense," said mother, "and if you'll forgive me, your face bears marks of suffering almost amounting to torture." ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... the verge From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, An Iris sits amidst the infernal surge, Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn Its steady dyes, while all around is torn By the distracted waters, bears serene Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn: Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, Love watching Madness with ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... in those days was pretty severe. For slight offences the boys were deprived of their recess or compelled to study for an hour after the school was dismissed. The chief weapon of torture was the ferule, to the efficacy of which I can testify from much personal knowledge. The master had in his desk, however, a cowhide for gross cases. I do not remember knowing how that felt from personal experience, but I remember very well seeing it applied occasionally ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... fever. It was for you I did it—for your sake I sold my honor, the love of my country, the freedom of my brothers. For your sake I risked an awful death. For your sake I have lived like a hunted man, with the cry of the wolves always in my ears, and the fear of death and of eternal torture with me day by day. No other man since the world was made has done more. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... only one faint chance of recovery, that good news might arrive. The chief cause of physical collapse was the torture of the brain; and it was possible that the whole system might even now rally under the vitalizing thrills of hope. But as day by day passed by and brought nearer that dreaded occasion, the opening of Parliament on ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... rather to be buried under the solid squares of hay than to be discovered in such a position. Sir Thomas' words inspired him with a ray of hope, but his expectations were dashed as suddenly as they had arisen by the words of the baron and the action of the busy landlord, who, all unconscious of the torture he was inflicting, struggled ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... homage to their self-sacrifice and zeal, and never has work of human hand or spirit been more worthy of tribute. The Jesuit went, often alone, where no others dared to go, and he faced unknown dangers which had all the possibilities of torture and martyrdom. Nor did this energy waste itself in flashes of isolated triumph. The Jesuit was a member of an efficient organization, skillfully guided by inspired leaders and carrying its extensive work of Christianization with machine-like thoroughness through the vastness of five continents. ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... do it; not ambitious of more, not fancying himself capable of more.'[19] Of all men living or dead, this is the one whom it is most impossible to think of as acquiescing in such an easy relation to those around him, or even as attempting so to acquiesce—at least without inward self-question and torture. We must remember that Knox had undoubtedly before this time embraced the doctrinal system of the Reformation, no doubt in the form taught by Wishart. And a catechism of that doctrine, perhaps founded upon or identical with that which Wishart brought from Basel, he gave to his East Lothian pupils. ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... view, completely ruined two lives. I did not know then what an awful struggle was going on in her own breast between her pride and her remorse for having driven Winnie away, to be lost in Wales. Afterwards her sad case taught me that among all the agents of soul-torture that have ever stung mankind to madness the scorpion Remorse is by far the most appalling. But other events had to take place before she reached the state when the scorpion stings to death all other passions, ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the doctor hoped to find from the death of the one some means for preserving the life of the other. The councillor was in a violent fever, agitated unceasingly both in body and mind: he could not bear any position of any kind for more than a few minutes at a time. Bed was a place of torture; but if he got up, he cried for it again, at least for a change of suffering. At the end of three months he died. His stomach, duodenum, and liver were all in the same corrupt state as his brother's, and more than that, the surface of his body was burnt ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... going up and down these narrow streets? At every turn is this little cock of a king's man who, though he croweth not with his mouth, doeth so with his looks. I know not for whom he is seeking. Not for me, or he would assail me and capture me and put me to the torture to tell him where Hugo is, for he thinketh Hugo is Josceline, which he is not, but a stranger, and a headstrong one. There is nothing in dreaming of going up a ladder or climbing a tree, if I get not the better of him." And so he betook him ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... was so rarely that a white man fell into the hands of the negro savages that when one had the misfortune to do so they generally made the utmost of him. And that "utmost" was usually something in which prolonged and agonising torture figured largely. But it would obviously be worse than useless to attempt to escape until an opportunity occurred of at least a fair prospect of success; for to attempt and fail meant the extinguishment at once of all further hope. And, up to the present, I had not had a ghost of ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... disappointment. I knew not which to believe, yet longed more and more to cross forever into the unknown land; for doubt and secrecy are the lure of lures, and no new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace. So when I learned of the drug which would unlock the gate and drive me through, I resolved to take it when ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... children was the pillar which always raised the queen up again, when the torture of her daily life cast her to the ground. She would, she must live for her children. She must, so long as a breath remained in her, devote all her powers to retain for her son the dauphin at least the crown beneath whose burden his father sank. She wanted nothing more for herself, ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... the natives suggested that it was their wish to take both the men prisoners instead of killing them. They had done too much to be let off with such an easy death: they were wanted for torture. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... suffered torture and abuse for two hours he was obliged to start at once on a journey to Auitan. The suffering priest, after being compelled to march through the street shouting "Vivas!" for the Republic and Aguinaldo, spent the night without a mouthful of food ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... the point of view at which YOU take life," said Angela quietly, "but I was just then thinking of a cousin of mine,—a very beautiful woman; her husband treated her with every possible sort of what I should term civil cruelty,—polite torture—refined agony. If he had struck her or shot her dead it would have been far kinder. But his conduct was worse than murder. He finally deserted her, and left her penniless to fight her own way through the world. Then he died suddenly, and she forgot ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... the extension of the citizenship carried the principles and practice of Roman law to every quarter of the empire, the spirit of that law underwent an entire change. It became exact, impartial, liberal, humane. It limited the use of torture to force confession from persons accused of crime. It protected the child against a father's tyranny. It provided that a master who killed a slave should be punished as a murderer, and even taught that all men are originally free by the law of nature ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... the hands of vandals, who were ruthlessly destroying the loved and cherished objects that had surrounded him from infancy, Antoinette, crushed by the disasters of this most wretched night, this was the terrible picture that rose before him. To this torture was added the despair caused by a sense of his utter powerlessness. Gladly would he have rushed back to the chateau to die there, struggling with his enemies, but he was prevented by the thought of Antoinette, ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... only concession which can be made in consideration of the kindness which had been extended to them is, not to burn the chateau of the ladies of Vanes, who had been so charitable; but they burn all their title-deeds, and torture the business agent at three different times by fire, to force him to deliver a document which he does not possess; they then only withdraw him from the fire half-broiled, because the ladies, on their knees, implore mercy for ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine |
