"Rack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... infallible means for bringing out the truth. Weak-hearted men, impatient at the first pain, will confess crimes they never committed, and criminate others at the same time. Bold and strong ones will bear the most severe torments. Those who have been on the rack before bear it with more courage, for they know how to adapt their limbs to it, and they resist powerfully. Others, by enchantments, seem to be insensible, and would rather die than confess. These wretches user for incantations, certain passages from the Psalms ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... clad in their red silk hose, from the daintiest of velvet slippers, the young doctor drew on his fine walking-shoes, turned down the gas a little, closed the office window, and taking his hat from the rack behind ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... inexpressibly dismal and neglected. Years ago it had, no doubt, been the residence of some well-to-do county family; but in these twentieth-century post-war days, having been empty for nearly ten years, it had gone sadly to rack ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... table. Large fireplaces took the place of stoves for cooking. These were constructed four or five feet in width so that one or two pots or a side of meat could be suspended from a hook which was fastened on a rack in the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... the open framework of the bottom, which was folded back and secured against the bulkhead, out of the way, thus leaving plenty of air space above me when I should be turned in. At the foot of the bunks there was a nice deep, double chest of drawers, surmounted by an ornamental rack-work arrangement containing a brace of water-bottles, with tumblers to match, together with vacant spaces for the reception of such matters as brushes and combs, razor-cases, and other odds and ends. Then there was a wash-stand, with ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... forgive in the royal cause" (no doubt it was to that fatal business of losing the place of Groom of the Posset to which her ladyship alluded, as she did half a dozen times in the day). "Let the tyrant of Orange bring his rack and his odious Dutch tortures—the beast! the wretch! I spit upon him and defy him. Cheerfully will I lay this head upon the block; cheerfully will I accompany my lord to the scaffold: we will cry 'God save ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... and a limitless admiration for her missionary husband,—a large, ungainly man, with the manners of a shy schoolboy, and the wrapt gaze of a seer; a man who, in an age of fanaticism, would have walked smiling to the rack. As it was, he walked with no less equanimity through the pestilential mazes of the city and bazaar. For although in this age of tolerance run to seed, a man is not called upon to die for his beliefs, he is occasionally called upon to live for them; which is not necessarily the easier ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Electric Heater. This heater is especially designed to dry quickly the test pieces for use in connection with the Scalometer (see Fig. 100) without charring them. It may be attached to any electric light socket of 110 volts direct or alternating current. A metal rack is provided to hold the ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... Mr. Chamberlain throughout the speech to see how palpable, how painful this discovery was—especially to a man to whom politics is nothing but a mere conflict between contending rivalries and malignities. Mr. Asquith—calm, self-possessed, measured—put Joe on the rack with a deliberation that was sometimes almost cruel in its effectiveness and relentlessness; and Joe was foolish enough to point the severity and success of the attack by losing his self-control. When Mr. Asquith said that Joe could find no better employment than that ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... fanatics have exerted their ingenuity to invent torments for their victims—how useless—the rack, the boot, tire,—all that they have imagined are not to be compared to the torture of extreme thirst. In the extremity of agony the sufferers cry for water, and it is not refused: they might have spared themselves their refined ingenuity of torment, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... the shipwreck, in a watery sign; And in an earthy, the dark dungeon mine. Cold shivering agues, melancholy care, And bitter blasting winds, and poison'd air, Are mine, and wilful death, resulting from despair. The throttling quinsey 'tis my star appoints, And rheumatisms ascend to rack the joints: When churls rebel against their native prince, I arm their hands, and furnish the pretence; And housing in the lion's hateful sign, 410 Bought senates, and deserting troops are mine. Mine is the privy poisoning; I command Unkindly seasons, and ungrateful land. By me kings' palaces ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... his Crest Sat horror Plum'd; nor wanted in his graspe What seemd both Spear and Shield: now dreadful deeds 990 Might have ensu'd, nor onely Paradise In this commotion, but the Starrie Cope Of Heav'n perhaps, or all the Elements At least had gon to rack, disturbd and torne With violence of this conflict, had not soon Th' Eternal to prevent such horrid fray Hung forth in Heav'n his golden Scales, yet seen Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion signe, Wherein all things created ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... was bowling along Knightsbridge in a hansom, having left Hume with a strict injunction to rack his brains for any further undiscovered facts bearing upon the inquiry, and turn up promptly at ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... was still her ruling passion. And though strange misgivings annoyed and perplexed her, though her respect for Dennis daily increased, and at times a sudden pity and softness made her little hands hesitate before giving an additional wrench to the rack of uncertainty upon which she kept him; still, she would not for the world have abandoned her purpose, and such compunctions were as yet but the little back eddies ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... wish to know your secrets; for I might reveal them in my sleep. They might fill my soul with such anguish and terror, that they would occupy it even in slumber, and I might tell in my dreams what I certainly would not disclose in waking, though I were exposed to the tortures of the rack. Oh, love, I fear your secrets, and I fear that they threaten you with peril! Give them up. If my love has any power over you, I entreat you: renounce them. Resign all your plans of hate and vengeance! ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... himself of Renshaw's departure, he coolly bolted the door at the head of the companion-way, thus cutting off any communication with the lower deck. Taking a long rifle from the rack above his berth, he carefully examined the hammer and cap, and then cautiously let himself down through the forehatch to the deck below. After a deliberate survey of the still intact fastenings of the hatch over the forehold, he proceeded quietly to unloose them again with ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... his eyes, so that he could see and comprehend its every movement. He became, thenceforth, not a spectator only, but a chief actor, in the poor minister's interior world. He could play upon him as he chose. Would he arouse him with a throb of agony? The victim was forever on the rack; it needed only to know the spring that controlled the engine;—and the physician knew it well! Would he startle him with sudden fear? As at the waving of a magician's wand, uprose a grisly phantom,—uprose ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of socks, neckties, and suspenders. A discouraging assortment of boots, shoes, and leggings protruded from beneath the bed. Some calendars ornamented the wall, and upon a table stood a smoky lamp and some tobacco and a smelly pipe. On a rack over ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Rack'd by the flames of jealous rage, By all her torments deeply curst, Of hell-born passions far the worst, What hope my ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... rock he saw two staring eyes that shone like gleaming fires, now green, now red, and he knew that they were the eyes of a wolf. There was a low growl as of distant thunder. Then the moon's light shot through a rack of cloud, and he saw the form of the wolf standing out clear and black against the grey rock. He fixed an arrow to his bowstring; but at the sound of the creaking bow the wolf gave a sharp yelp and disappeared ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... and brought before Torquatus, governor of Umbria, then residing at Spoletto, about the year 178. The martyr, paying no regard to his promises or threats, in the first interrogatory was beaten with clubs, and in the second was hung on the rack, but in the height of his torments he cheerfully sang: "Glory be to thee, Lord Jesus!" Three days after, two soldiers were sent by Torquatus, to behead him in the dungeon, unless he would offer sacrifice to an idol, which a priest who accompanied them carried with ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... he was alone in the dark street, he began to think of George again, and to rack his brains in trying to discover whether or not he was ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... The Devil and his lovely dam walk with you, Come fortify your self, if they do dy, Which all their ruggedness cannot rack into me, They cannot find an hour more Innocent, Nor more friends to ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... prophecies were jeered at; his critical judgment called in question; and he was openly taxed with literary jealousy. So galling and unremitting was the fire, that he at length wrote to Goldsmith, entreating him "to take him off the rack of the newspapers"; in the meantime, to escape the laugh that was raised about him in the theatrical world of London, he took refuge in Bath during the triumphant career ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... William is a real right down lord," cried a third eagerly, "he won't rack-rent the tenants, and grind down the poor. Why, he saved us and our little ones from the workhouse last winter, though he is poor—that is quite poor for ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... years," he said, "and there would not have been a cottage habitable on the estate, nor a farm worth cultivating. He did absolutely nothing beyond collecting the rents. He let the whole place go to rack and ruin. The first day I arrived I sent him out of the house, with a talking to that he won't forget as long as ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... example, so that Antony was no longer equally imbued with courage but was suspicious of everybody. It was after this that he tortured and put to death Iamblichus, king of some of the Arabians, and others, and delivered Quintus Postumius, a senator, to his servants to be placed on the rack. Finally he became afraid that Quintus Deillius and Amyntas the Gaul, who happened to have been sent into Macedonia and Thrace after mercenaries, would espouse Caesar's cause, and he started to overtake them, pretending that he wished to render them assistance in case any hostile ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... which she began to wash other dishes, thus giving the observant Gibbie his first notion of housekeeping. Then she scoured the deal table, dusted the bench and the chairs, arranged the dishes on shelves and rack, except a few which she placed on the table, put more water on the fire, and disappeared in the dairy. Thence presently she returned, carrying a great jar, which, to Gibbie's astonishment, having lifted a lid in the top of the churn, she emptied into it; he was not, therefore, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... the woods, which had been fenced in, the horses were never taken out. No repairs were undertaken; if Fru Kaas attempted to have anything done at her own expense, the workmen were ordered off: there could no longer be any doubt about it, he wished everything to go to rack and ruin. The property went from bad to worse, and the woods—well! It was no secret, every one on the place talked about it—the timber was being utterly ruined. The best and largest trees were already rotten; by degrees the ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... on its trial by Barny and his companions, and in their critical judgment was pronounced quite as good as the captain of the ship had bestowed upon them, but that neither of those specimens of spirit was to be compared to whiskey. "By dad," says Barny, "they may rack their brains a long time before they'll make out a purtier invintion than potteen,—that rum may do very well for thim that has the misforthin' not to know betther; but the whiskey is a more nathral sper't accordin' to my idays." In this, as in most ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... I said, "but my butter-dish was doing itself proud. It had sneaked up to a magnificent toast-rack with stabling accommodation for about eight pieces, given by somebody with a title. And you ought to have seen the fish-slices. The fish-slices wore gorgeous. I expect William will spend a great part of his married life in slicing fish. It will be a great change from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... contour of the coast with deep interest, till it became an old story, and then whistled for a breeze to take them along more rapidly towards their port of destination. The fleet was now fully in the Skager Rack, or Sleeve, as it is also called ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... here!" Alix said, suddenly. The walls, the peaceful room, seemed to smother and stifle her. She crossed to the door, and opened it, and slipped noiselessly out into the night, catching a coat from the rack as she passed. ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... gone!—no single rack His eager eye can trace; And silence, still as death, has hush'd The clamors of ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... barred the gates: and the peal of laughter, Sudden and shrill that followed after, Died off into a dismal tone, Like a parting spirit's painful moan. "I wish," said Rudolph, as he stood On foot in the deep and silent wood; "I wish, good Roland, rack and stable May be kinder to-night than their ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... leaving a wide open space. The furnishings were rich, in excellent taste, the carpet a soft, green Wilton; the hanging lamp quite ornate, while a magnificent upright piano was firmly anchored against the butt of the aftermast. It was a yacht-like interior, even to the sheet music on the rack, and a gray striped cat dozing on one of the softly cushioned chairs. Gazing about, I could scarcely realize this was an abode of criminals, or that I was there a captive. It was the sudden grip of my guard which brought the ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... says, sagely, "There is a good deal of human nature in Ireland." That would not so much matter if there were less of inhuman nature—as exemplified in "carding" women, "houghing" cattle—and ruthlessly evicting rack-rented tenants. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... own position. He had saved her from her enemies; and in return she had opened her heart, naked and bleeding, to his eyes. What she had told him was not a voluntary confidence; it was a confession wrung from her by the rack of his questionings—the confession that she was a waif-child, that Pierre was not her brother, and that the man at Fort o' God was not her father. He had gone to the very depths of that which was sacred to herself ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... intending to end his days in the same retreat), had spent thirty years in the Civil Service. Nature herself is not so fixed and unvarying in her evolutions as was Poiret junior in all the acts of his daily life; he always laid his things in precisely the same place, put his pen in the same rack, sat down in his seat at the same hour, warmed himself at the stove at the same moment of the day. His sole vanity consisted in wearing an infallible watch, timed daily at the Hotel de Ville as he passed it on his way to the office. ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... to the Speaker of the Long Parliament, with an urgent request that they might be returned to him, with authority to proceed against the parties named, as outlaws. In Leinster, 4,000 similar indictments were found in the course of two days by the free use of the rack with witnesses. Sir John Read, an officer of the King's Bedchamber, and Mr. Barnwall, of Kilbrue, a gentleman of threescore and six, were among those who underwent the torture. When these were the proceedings of the tribunals in peaceable cities, we may imagine what must ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... was brought round and placed on the rack behind the wagon. It was a large black trunk, securely bound with brass bands, and showed marks of service, as if it had been considerably used. Two small strips of paper pasted on the side bore the custom-house marks of Havre and Liverpool. On one end was a large card, on which, ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... broken by spots of shade, By the walnut bough and the cedar made, And through their clustering branches dark Glimmers and dies the fire-fly's spark— Like starry twinkles that momently break Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack. ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... with its heaven-arches soaring and striving upward, an Odeum of the tones of the Sphere-music, a world in the world! And overhead[8] the eye-socket of the light and of the sky gleamed down, and the distant rack of clouds seemed to touch the lofty arch over which it shot along! And round about them stood nothing but the temple-bearers, the columns! The temple of all gods endured and concealed the diminutive ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... it are set silver salvers, candlesticks, and Christmas presents of silver. They still are in the red flannel bags in which they arrived. In the left wall is a recessed window hung with curtains. Against the right wall is a buffet on which is set a tea-caddy, toast-rack, and tea kettle. Below the buffet a door opens into the butler's pantry. A dinner table stands well down the stage with a chair at each end and on either side. Two chairs are set against the back wall to the right of the door. The walls and windows are decorated with holly and mistletoe and Christmas ...
— Miss Civilization - A Comedy in One Act • Richard Harding Davis
... her heart, as well as her anxiety. She flung herself face downward on her bed and wept. After a while she turned over on her back and looked at the room. Not one little thing in the whole apartment but served to rack her very soul with the consideration of her mother's love, which she was perhaps about to lose forever. The dainty curtains at the windows, the scarf on the dresser, the chintz cover on a chair—every one her mother had planned. She could not remember how much her mother ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... elapsed between the rack and the pincers, Olgiati had time to address this memorable speech to the priest who urged him to repent: 'As for the noble action for which I am about to die, it is this which gives my conscience peace; to this I trust for pardon from the Judge of all. Far from repenting, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... confused and red, and intermeddling with his hair, said, "Deed, sir, Rab's deid." "Dead! what did he die of?" "Weel, sir," said he, getting redder, "he did na exactly dee; he was killed. I had to brain him wi' a rack-pin; there was nae doin' wi' him. He lay in the treviss wi' the mear, and wad na come oot. I tempit him wi' kail and meat, but he wad tak naething, and keepit me frae feedin' the beast, and he was aye gur gurrin', and grup gruppin' me by the legs. I was laith to make ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... come to the tilt-yard this morn; he himself will take thee in hand to try what thou canst do. Thou mayst take the arms upon yonder rack, and use them until otherwise bidden. Thou seest that the number painted above it on the wall is seventeen; that will be thy ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... carefully sewed this flag with twine, and this part of the canvas I left and made it serve as the blade of my paddle; and so in due time I paddled to the Kansas shore. The river was rapid, and there were in the river heaps of drift-wood, called "rack-heaps," dangerous places into which the water rushed with great violence; but from these I was mercifully saved, and though I could not swim, I landed a few miles below Atchison without harm or accident, ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... promised sport. He was just slipping on a raincoat and about to leave the hotel when Will Blake appeared and handed him a letter. He glanced at it, half inclined to stick the missive in the hall letter rack and leave perusal until his return, but the handwriting was a woman's and did not lack for distinction and character. He felt curious and, not associating the incident with the rumoured crime, set down his rod and creel, opened ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... left alone, and even when seated quietly with Selina, would suddenly start and look apprehensively towards the door, as if she heard his footstep. Imagination, when uncontrolled, can keep the mind on a mental rack, to which that of the Inquisition was ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... he waved Louisa's from the peg on the hall rack, Felicia didn't mind in the least, she was mouthing this new phrase "Joy-ride," it sounded delightful. All the same she rescued her bonnet and carried it upstairs with her. "I love that boy like a plate of fudge," confided Mrs. Seeley as she and Felicia were ascending to the ornate bedroom ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... Celia, absently. "Yes; he was. But you must remember Lord Heyton is very much upset; when one's nerves are on the rack, the least thing, trifling ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... and sedate, as though I were some rack-rape that they did well to be feared of alone at night; and so came at last to the village green, where a great dance was a-foot, with torches, and a wandering fiddler to set the tune; and ale ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... in agony, From weary chime to chime, With one besetting horrid hint, That rack'd me all the time— A mighty yearning, like the ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... his long, lean frame, shuddering as if it had been on the rack. He drew two deep breaths, braced himself, wiped the blood from his lip, put on the stony mask which Bridget saw when she opened her eyes and found him looking ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... that they would transmit messages in a storm, on the ground or under water—were wound upon reels, making about two hundred pounds weight of wire to each reel. Two men and one mule were detailed to each reel. The pack-saddle on which this was carried was provided with a rack like a sawbuck placed crosswise of the saddle, and raised above it so that the reel, with its wire, would revolve freely. There was a wagon, supplied with a telegraph operator, battery and telegraph instruments for each division, each corps, each army, and one for my headquarters. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... weather, in the midst of the turmoil, giving orders in Low Dutch for the piping up of a fresh gust of wind or the rattling off of another thunder-clap; that sometimes he has been seen surrounded by a crew of little imps in broad breeches and short doublets, tumbling head-over-heels in the rack and mist, and playing a thousand gambols in the air, or buzzing like a swarm of flies about Anthony's Nose; and that, at such times, the hurry-scurry of the storm was always greatest. One time a sloop, in passing by the Dunderberg, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... time, giving an opening for the lady's "Horn I should like to see India!" But at that critical moment the bell rang for the fireworks, and at the same time tolled the knell of Becky's chances of becoming Mrs. Jos Sedley. For the fireworks somehow created a thirst, and the bowl of rack punch for which Jos called, and which he was left to consume, as the young ladies did not drink it and Osborne did not like it, speedily worked its disastrous effects. In short, as we all know, Jos made a fool of himself, and when he came to himself the following morning ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... of these exhibits was made by Mrs. Alexander Baumgard, of New York City, and showed an automatic advertising figure actuated by an electric motor. The figure was that of a woman standing before a rack on which were a number of signs. The figure stooped, picked up one of the signs, raised it, turned a quarter way around in order to display it to the best advantage, and replaced the sign. The next movement took up the next ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... scarcer as mile after mile was covered by the long, raking strides of the hardy horses. Occasionally Grey was forced to pull off the trail into the deep snow to allow the heavy-laden hay-rack of some farmer to pass, or a box-sleigh, weighted down with sacks of grain, toiling on its way to the Ainsley elevator. These inconveniences were the rule of the road, the lighter always giving way to the ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... a sally forth in the dark hours of night and exploding a charge in the direction of a marauder. He and his cronies of the tap-room, of an evening, before a glowing fire of logs, above which is the significant gun-rack (quite in old picture-book fashion), will give a deal of copy to an able writer who seeks ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... twenty-four hours food would be slipped through a hole in the wall by unseen hands; lying here until oftentimes death or the cruel mercy of madness came upon them before the overworked executioner found time to rack their limbs or lop off ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... features of a positive motion loom, intended for weaving narrow fabrics, exhibited by Knowles, of Worcester, Mass. The engraving shows so clearly how, by a right and left movement of the rack, the shuttle is thrown by the action of the intermediate cogwheels, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... some of Mariamne's enemies, who accused her to the king of a design to poison him. Herod was now prepared to hear any thing in her prejudice, and immediately ordered her servant to be stretched upon the rack; who in the extremity of his tortures confest, that his mistresses aversion to the king arose from something Sohemus had told her; but as for any design of poisoning, he utterly disowned the least knowledge of it. This confession quickly ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... village of La Mancha, there lived one of those old-fashioned gentlemen who keep a lance in the rack, an ancient target, a lean horse, and a greyhound for coursing. His family consisted of a housekeeper turned forty, a niece not twenty, and a man who could saddle a horse, handle the pruning-hook, and also serve in the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... saith not, they shall do so together. Yea, that they shall separate themselves by the dictate of God, from their brethren, to do so, is that which this text knows nothing of. Sometimes many may be together, apart from others; but why Mr. K., to serve his purpose, should rack and strain this text to justify his woman's meeting, I see no reason at all. My reason against him is, for that the look here upon him whom we have pierced, which is to be the cause of this mourning, is to be by an immediate revelation of the Holy Ghost, who doth not use to tell ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... money," he cried. "He's worth all the trouble you've had with him. You'll get a husband worth waiting for. He's one in a million. One hundred and five bouts in ten months and victor in all of them! He's a jewel, a pearl I I'd do anything for you, as I told you, I'd keep myself on the rack day and night for you and him. You are a pair! There's not on earth the match for ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... wife Hildreth, and their child, Dan, living in two tents, among a grove of trees, near the main building of the Health Home. These two tents had, of course, board floors, and there was a woman who kept them in condition ... and there was a rack for towels, and hot water was supplied by pipes from a nearby building. I think the tents were even ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... resignation. In spite of court intrigues, it from that moment maintained its independence and its dignity. "M. Despreaux," writes the banker Leverrier to the Duke of Noailles, "represented to the Academy, with a great deal of heat, that all was rack and ruin, since it was nothing more but a cabal of women that put Academicians in the place of those who died. Then he read out loud some verses by M. de St. Aulaire. . . . Thus M. Despreaux, before the eyes of everybody, gave M. de St. Aulaire a black ball, and nominated, all by ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Fionnachaidh and Ilbrec of Ess Ruadh. There used a bird with an iron beak and a tail of fire to come every evening to a golden window of Ilbrec's house, and there he would shake himself till he would not leave sword on pillow, or shield on peg, or spear in rack, but they would come down on the heads of the people of the house; and whatever they would throw at the bird, it is on the heads of some of themselves it would fall. And the night Caoilte came in, the hall was made ready for a ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... taken Master Garret. He is in prison in Lincoln College. He is to be strictly examined after evensong today. If he refuse to give up the names of all to whom he has sold his books, and who have listened to his teachings, they declare he will be sent to the Tower to be examined by the rack." ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... ten of them as they got into the train, but when they had deposited various objects on the rack, such as rifles, haversacks, and kit-bags like partially deflated airships, the number resolved ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... Selby-Harrison plays halfback—our doom was upon us and Selby-Harrison was sent for by the Prov. He came back shattered, like that telescope man who got caught by the Inquisition, having spent hours on the rack and nearly had his face eaten off as well. Our turn came next. We (Hilda and I) had just time to dart off on top of a tram to Trinity Hall (that's where we have our rooms), you know, of course, and jump into our best frocks before 1 P.M., the hour of our summons to the august presence. Hilda's ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... so slight both the promises of their adversaries, when they would have overcome them, with proffering the great things of this world unto them, and also their threatenings, when they told them they would rack them, hang them, burn them (Acts 20:24). None of these things could prevail upon them, or against them; because they did most really believe the Scriptures, and the things contained in them, as is clearly found, and to be seen in Hebrews 11, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... weather. The butterflies no longer hover around us; everything tosses and writhes overhead: on the steep slopes of the mountain the trees shiver, the long grasses bend low as if in pain; terrible gusts rack them with a hissing sound; branches, bamboo leaves, and earth ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... All this fine rolling of turf, and trimming up of the place, does not make much difference to you, old fellow, does it? You don't look altered since I saw you last, when old Jervis was letting the place go to rack and ruin. So they have a new entrance—very handsome conservatory—flowers—the banker does things in style. There," as Norman helped him off with his plaid, "wrap yourself up well, don't get cold. The sun is gone in, and I should not wonder if the rain ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... place filled with all kinds of articles used in the chase, and whose walls were dotted with trophies—red deer and roebucks' heads, stuffed game, wild fowl, a golden eagle, and a pair of peregrine falcons. He took a double-barrel from the rack, placed a supply of cartridges in a belt, buckled it on, and then returned to the oak-panelled hall, to pause where his bonnet hang over the hilt of ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... up, when with a decided gesture she stopped me. I looked at her surprised. Her face was flushed, indignant, I thought, and instantly my conscience was on the rack. What had I done, for my ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... confiscations of Lord Cornwallis were robberies, his imprisonments were unjust and cruel, and his executions, always upon the gibbet, were military murders. And if, to gain his point, he did not, like the Duke of Alva, (employed in a similar vocation) make use of the rack, the stake, and the faggot, yet Lord Cornwallis resorted to every other mode of punishment, a more improved civilization had left him, to suppress civil liberty. Such was the character of the commander in chief of the British forces ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... Well, well! I pity AEgon. His cattle, go they must To rack and ruin, all because vain-glory was his lust. The pipe that erst he fashioned is doubtless scored ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... passages and smaller chambers that opened on every side, appeared to extend far and wide beneath the very bowels of the earth. It was lighted with torches, but so dimly, that the gloom exaggerated the horrors, which the partial light disclosed. Instruments of torture of any and every kind—the rack, the wheel, the screw, the cord, and fire—groups of unearthly-looking figures, all clad in the coarse black serge and hempen belt; some with their faces concealed by hideous masks, and others enveloped in the cowls, through ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... terminus near, The clouds already closing in upon me, The voyage balk'd, the course disputed, lost, I yield my ships to Thee My hands, my limbs grow nerveless, My brain feels rack'd, bewilder'd; Let the old timbers part, I will not part, I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me, Thee, Thee ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... was made to this proposal; but Miss Matthews, who had already learnt some of the ways of the house, said she believed Mr. Booth would like to drink a glass of something; upon which the governor immediately trumpeted forth the praises of his rack-punch, and, without waiting for any farther commands, presently produced a large ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... and preceded by two familiars of the Holy Office, the latter carrying lanterns, made their way to a subterranean dungeon. The bolt of a massive door creaked, and they entered a mephitic in-pace, where the dim light revealed between rings fastened to the wall a bloodstained rack, a brazier, and a jug. On a pile of straw, loaded with fetters and his neck encircled by an iron carcan, sat a haggard man, of ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... They came back to their small flats or attic room rejoicing to find all safe under a layer of dust—shedding tears, some of them, when they saw the children's toys, which had been left in a litter on the floor, and the open piano with a song on the music-rack, which a girl had left as she rose in the middle of a bar, wavering off into a cry of fear, and all the domestic treasures which had been gathered through a life of toil and abandoned—for ever it seemed—when the enemy was reported within ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... the old lady replied. "He would make the best possible husband for you." She smiled like a grand inquisitor at prospect of a pleasant day with rack and screw. "He needs a firm ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... be economical, they should take some pains to ascertain what are the cheapest pieces of meat to buy; not merely those which are cheapest in price, but those which go farthest when cooked. That part of mutton called the rack, which consists of the neck, and a few of the rib bones below, is cheap food. It is not more than four or five cents a pound; and four pounds will make a dinner for six people. The neck, cut into pieces, and boiled slowly an hour and a quarter, in little more than water enough ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... being threatened to be tortured; secondly, the torture of being conveyed to the place of torture; thirdly, the torture of being, and bound for torture; fourthly, the torture of being hoisted on the torturing rack; and fifthly, and lastly, the torture ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... in the sea, and the wind wailed drearilie; Let the bells in yonder monastery toll, For the night rack nestles dark round the body stiff and stark, And unshriven to its Maker ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... young face that Elizabeth so loved was shrunken and wasted, the lips seemed drawn from the teeth, and yet at times the old cheery smile played round them; but the voice was weak and toneless, and every now and then the hard, dry cough seemed to rack him cruelly. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Benches must be furnished by the home club, and placed upon a portion of the ground outside the Players' Lines. They must be twelve feet in length, and must be immovably fastened to the ground. At the end of each bench must be immovably fixed a bat rack, with fixtures for holding twenty bats; one such rack must be designated for the exclusive use of the Visiting Club, and the other for the exclusive use ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... y' this was on Bob Morrison's plantation between Custard and Cotton Hill, Ga. We had no made brooms; we just bound broom corn tops together and used them for brooms and brushes. We didn't have no stoves either. We just cooked in a high pot on a rack. I done all dat. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... was going he had not given. During the days she had been lost he had been on the rack of torture. He did not want her to suffer months of such mental distress while the man she loved was facing alone the peril of his grim work in ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... with her father sitting beside her, and her mother's farewell kiss yet warm on her cheek, speeding over the open country, away from home and all that she held most dear. Her dressing-bag, with her umbrella neatly strapped to it, was in the rack overhead, the check for her trunk in her pocket. Could it all be true? She tried to listen while her father told her of the happy days he had spent on his grandfather's farm when he was a boy; but the interest was not real, and she found it hard to fix her mind on ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... forms of hat May wreathe my manly brow, No Straw shall e'er (be sure of that) Be half so dear as thou. Hang then upon thy native rack As varying modes compel, Till next year's fashions bring ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... comprehend its every movement. He became, thenceforth, not a spectator only, but a chief actor in the poor minister's interior world. He could play upon him as he chose. Would he arouse him with a throb of agony? The victim was for ever on the rack; it needed only to know the spring that controlled the engine: and the physician knew it well. Would he startle him with sudden fear? As at the waving of a magician's wand, up rose a grisly phantom—up rose a thousand phantoms—in many shapes, of death, or more awful shame, all flocking round ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... government were frequently imprisoned without any other authority than a royal order. According to law, torture, the disgrace of the Roman jurisprudence, could not, in any circumstances, be inflicted on an English subject. Nevertheless, during the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity. But it would be a great error to infer from such irregularities that the English monarchs were, either ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... all the west was dark, and inky black The level ruffled water underneath, And up the wind-cloud tossed, a ghostly rack, In many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... answered: "thank you for persuading Miss Moore to stay over for another week." Mrs. Tremont smiled, she could smile if she were on the rack; but she assured herself that she was done with poverty-stricken beauties till Grace and Maud were married, at least. For years she had been planning a match between Grace and ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... The broiler pan and rack should be kept out of the range when oven is being used or it will rust, warp or chip. It requires the same care any kitchen enamel ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... cruel punishment he went out and found Benny, who had been crying piteously all the time, and then my two boys went and hid themselves. I would have suffered the rack to have recalled that hour. It was too late. On going into the kitchen shortly after, I found a poor woman of the neighborhood with the box, which she said her thievish son had confessed he stole from the pantry. Perhaps some parents imagine the feelings of Charlotte ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... but that was nothing out of the common, for they often sat through a meal with little or no conversation. Marjory hated this state of things, and yet she had never had the courage to try to alter it. She would sit and rack her brains for something to say, and then decide that it was impossible that anything she could say would interest a grown-up man, and a man so stern and silent as Uncle George. Lately she had actually come to dreading meal-times, ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... not see her stretched upon the rack? would not see her exposed to tortures, such as, at no very distant period, the saints of our own church endured?—would not see her torn limb ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... clean, red carpet covered the floor. There was a dresser with a beveled mirror, a washstand with a flowered bowl and pitcher; the two or three chairs were softly upholstered. A little table held books, papers, and a day-old cluster of roses in a jar. There were towels on a rack and soap ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... their fester'd sore, Then justice and religion they forswore, Their maiden oaths debauch'd into a whore. Thus men are raised by factions, and decried; And rogue and saint distinguish'd by their side. They rack even Scripture to confess their cause, And plead a call to preach in spite of laws. But that's no news to the poor injured page; It has been used as ill in every age, And is constrain'd with patience all to take: 160 For ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... bounded from his chair, rushed and took his gun down from a rack placed in his bedroom, and precipitated himself out of doors, crying, "Jean! Monsieur! Take your guns! Follow me, my children! follow me! The ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... Christian Treasury, where we wrestled with tales of religious bigotry and persecution until we seemed to breathe the very atmosphere of dark and mouldy cells; and became daringly familiar with the thumb-screw and the rack, the Inquisition and other devildoms of Spain. I used to wonder pitifully why it had never occurred to the poor victims to say their prayers in bed, and thus save themselves such ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... was butter, now it is milk. Then the butter was made on the farm by the farmer's wife or the hired girl, now it is made in the creameries by men. My mother made most of the butter for nearly forty years, packing thousands of tubs and firkins of it in that time. The milk was set in tin pans on a rack in the milk house for the cream to rise, and as soon as the milk clabbered it ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... number of those who desired to see their friends in England, I determined to go to Chamounix. I thought that the sight of a great natural wonder like Mont Blanc would have an uplifting effect upon the mind, at a time when everything human seemed to be going to rack and ruin. The white peaks of the Alps in their changeless purity against the blue of the infinite sky seemed to me a vision which the soul needed. So I started off one lovely morning on my way to Paris. I went by side-car to Amiens, where I took the train. ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... are got by impudence and importunity, are like discoveries from the rack, when the afflicted person, for his ease, sometimes confesses secrets his heart ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... restrained. But, at Brown's urgent request, he followed him up the back stairs to a narrow corridor, and thence to a small room looking out upon the stable-yard. It was plainly furnished with a bed, a table, a few chairs, and a rack for guns and whips. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... In the foremost carriage I found him. I tried to persuade him to come out, but he clung to the rack. So I left him. I have not seen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... the military situation. The supply-ships, upon which the British scheme of operations depended, had been forced to take flight when Suffren first approached, and of course could not come back now. "My mind is on the rack without a moment's rest since the departure of the fleet," wrote the commanding general on the 25th, "considering the character of M. de Suffren, and the infinite superiority on the part of the French now that we are ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... Carmichael had taken a coldly sorrowful farewell of her, Arctura went round and round the old mill-horse rack of her self-questioning: God was not to be trusted in until she had done something she could not do, upon which he would take her into his favour, and then she could trust him! What a God to give all her heart to, to long for, to dream of being at home with! Then she compared Miss Carmichael and ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald |
