"Tear off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... decently and in order; no doubt, many reprehensible things were being done, but they were being done quietly: outwardly, so far as was possible, a respectable front was preserved. It was Mr. Kipling's distinction to tear off the mask of Imperialism as a needless and irritating encumbrance; he had too much sense of reality—too much humour, indeed—to want to portray Empire-builders as a company of plaster saints. Like an enfant ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... they are subjected to is like that of the Flat-Head Indian pappooses. At five or ten or fifteen years old they put their hands up to their foreheads and ask, What are they strapping down my brains in this way for? So they tear off the sacred bandages of the great Flat-Head tribe, and there follows a mighty rush of blood to the long-compressed region. This accounts, in the most lucid manner, for those sudden freaks with which certain children of this class ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... behaviour and of what he considered her repentance. She talked a great deal of religion, and stood much on the goodness of her past life. The mob raged terribly as she passed through the streets on her way to Tyburn. The women especially screamed, "Tear off her hat; let us see her face! The devil will fetch her!" and threw stones and mud, pitiless in their hatred. After execution her corpse was thrust into a hackney-coach and driven to Surgeons' Hall for dissection; the skeleton is ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... crystal pools among the rocks, fish have been left by the tide, and as you step over the congewoi, whose teats spurt out jets of water to the pressure of your foot, large silvery bream and gaily-hued parrot-fish rush off and hide themselves from view. But tear off a piece of congewoi, open it, and throw the sanguinary-coloured delicacy into the water, and presently you will see the parrot-fish dart out eagerly, and begin to tear it asunder with their long, irregular, and needle-like teeth, whilst the more cautious and lordly bream, with wary eye and ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... conception of scones, I hurried like a haggard ghost from tent to tent, seeking the forbidden thing. Cook on the backs of the little mirrors hanging from the pole hooks!... Will it wash off?... No! Cut it out with a penknife! Down on your knees and tear off the label from the wrong side of another carpet! (Memo: Must do the one in the dining-tent when the people are asleep for the night.) Cram three Cook towels into my pockets. Hastily pin a handkerchief over the name on a white bit of a tent wall. Must ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... hunter mine, and take with thee Ukhat When the cattle comes to the trough, Let her tear off her dress and disclose her nakedness. He[871] will see her and approach her. His cattle, which grew up on his field, will ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... was waylaid by a troop of his old playfellows. They wished him to accompany them to the old rendezvous in the square; but he refused, because he had a previous engagement. The boys then began to hustle him, and proceeded to tear off his tattered clothes. He could only bend his head before his assailants, but never ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... of all these roads is hard and kept in good repair—at any rate, in the summer months. In the winter they are, of course, thick in snow, which, when beaten down by the sleigh traffic, forms a new surface, which takes the wear and tear off the actual ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... woman down there in the water deterred him and caused him to hasten at once to her assistance. Anxiously he peered over the edge, and at length saw a hand thrust above the surface. It took him but an instant to tear off his coat and hurl himself into the water below. A few powerful strokes brought him close to the woman, and he was enabled to reach out and clutch her with a firm grip ere she again disappeared. Fortunate it was for him that ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... said why didn't I tear off a few patriotic poems now and slip them to him and he would send them to his paper and they would print them and maybe if some of them was good enough somebody would set down and write a song to them and probably everybody would want to buy it and sing ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... blasted, to seek in the exciting life of the plainsman and mountaineer oblivion of some incidents of their youthful days, which were better forgotten. Yet these aliens from society, these strangers to the refinements of civilization, who would tear off a bloody scalp even with grim smiles of satisfaction, were fine fellows, full of the milk of human kindness, and would share their last slapjack with a ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... any part of the straggle, and all because I was lying there helpless; but it was of no use to fret, though I lay there with the weak tears running down my cheeks, as that brave man was brought down, and laid near the grating, with Mother Bantem at work directly to tear off his coat, and begin to bandage, as if she had been ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... it few seconds as in Figure 2, to get rid of water which may have been taken in. Do this several times. Tear off clothing. Rub briskly the legs and arms toward the body. Draw the tongue forward every three seconds for a minute. If these methods fail to restore breathing, then perform artificial respiration, ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... had drained off a little I went out toward the ponds to ascertain the extent of the damage. Suddenly the whole park became alive with people, who, with an almost savage energy, began to tear off the broken branches and chop at the fallen trunks. It appears they were peasant-lodgers who had no right in the woods. In the main, I did not care whether they gathered the sticks, but as they had come through the broken fence without permission, and in ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... midst of furious cries of "Death to the poisoner!" heavy blows were audible, followed by stifled groans. It was a frightful butchery. Each individual, yielding to a sanguinary frenzy, came in turn to strike his blow; or to tear off his morsel of flesh. Women—yes, women—mothers!—came to spend their ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... one of these statues is that which, after being taken to Constantinople, was destroyed in a fire in 476 A.D. Fragments of the corselet still existed in the first century of our era, but inquisitive persons used to tear off pieces to see for themselves whether, as Herodotus assures us, each thread was composed of three hundred and sixty-five strands, every one visible with ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and tricks of the hiders and seekers in the sea. We can mention but a few in this lesson. Look at the Spider Crabs, and their trick of dressing up. They have hooks on their backs, which catch in the seaweed. Some of them even tear off weed with their pincers, and fix it on to these hooks, and succeed in looking like bundles of weed, and not ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... through the town along with the soldiers. The gunners insult the officers they meet, seize them by the throat and want to throw them into the Doubs. Others go to the house of the commandant, M. de Langeron, and demand money of him; on his refusing to give it they tear off their cockades and exclaim, "We too belong to the Third-Estate!" in other words, that they are the masters: subsequently they demand the head of the intendant, M. de Caumartin, forcibly enter his dwelling ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... best we can do—with wood. We must stop these cracks with something else. What did you wear?" He glanced at the chair where Alice had thrown her things. "A white cloak and a straw hat with a white veil and a black velvet ribbon. Tear off the ribbon and—we can't stand on ceremony. Here are my coat and vest. Rip them into strips and—Great ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... with bemused eyes and moving lips and rapidly counting on drumming fingers. Hilda is doing his sums for him. Beside him on his right side, apparently engaged in throttling him, is Gertrude the maid. Gertrude the maid is trying to tear off him a grimed collar and put on him a clean collar. Facing Gertrude on his other side is Flora. Flora is bawling his history in ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... "Sniffer" Orne, "what a messed up state all politics is in since this prim'ry business has put the blinko onto caucuses and conventions. Caucuses was sensible, Mr. Britt. Needn't tell me! Voters liked to have the wear and tear off 'em. Now a voter gets into that booth and has to caucus by himself, and he's either so puffed up by importance that he thinks he's the whole ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... mighty splendor. A new life and a great joy came to me as I filled my lungs with the sweet air. D'ri pulled into a cove, and neither could speak for a little. He turned, looking out upon the river, and brushed a tear off ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... and tear off the postcard of the ship that topped each day's menu; but, so far, all hints as to this one drawer had been futile; it remained the one barrier to their perfect confidence, the fly in the ointment of the ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... beings of ordinary life. One evening the hunter returned very late, after having spent the day in toilsome exertion. Again he deposited the product of his hunt at the feet of his wife, and again the silent females began to tear off the flesh as before, though with still greater rudeness and ill-breeding. The patience of the wife was completely lost, she could no longer controul her feelings, and suffered the thought to pass her mind, "Their conduct is certainly very strange! how can I bear with it any longer!" ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... open their teeth. The one who lives will speak. You shall see how I will make him speak. You shall see how I will make him speak. . . . Tear off his black robe, stretch him on this plank. The iron boots! the ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... as she lifted herself along with her hands, hoist after hoist sidewise, of course the thin stuff dragged on the rocks and began to go to pieces. By the time she came to where she could stand, she was a rebus of the Coliseum,—"a noble wreck in ruinous perfection." She just had to tear off the long tatters, and roll them up in a bunch, and fling them over into a hollow, and throw the two or three breadths that were left over her arm, and walk home in her silk petticoat, itself much the sufferer from ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... was to tear off his coat and follow the Hare's example; but when he saw a little red head appear and immediately be captured, and when he realized that Bacon, Simmons, and Armitage were all swimming to the ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... used to watch these readings by the river without venturing to address a word to the fair trespasser. One day, however, he was startled by a shriek: in her poetical dreamings the lady had slipped into the water. A moment sufficed to tear off his coat, and as he swam like a water-dog he had no difficulty in rescuing her. Of course after this adventure he had to call and inquire, and from henceforth his visits grew more and more frequent, and by a strange coincidence, he used to come riding up to the hall-door ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... her by the receiver. He continued, "It is a cheat; you had no more a bag of silver than a bag of gold; you don't want to pay me the postage, hey? Good! all the same; when you pass before my door, I will tear off your old black shawl from your shoulders; it is very threadbare, but it is ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... the charm which wrings it even out of terrible things; and a trace of distortion, of the grotesque, may perhaps linger, as an additional element of expression, about its [248] ultimate grace. Its eager, excited spirit will have strength, the grotesque, first of all—the trees shrieking as you tear off the leaves; for Jean Valjean, the long years of convict life; for Redgauntlet, the quicksands of Solway Moss; then, incorporate with this strangeness, and intensified by restraint, as much sweetness, as much beauty, as is compatible ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... frightened, reach my room. What a relief! I turn on the light—two, three, yes, four burners, and wish for more. I stir up the fire into a blaze; look over my left shoulder, but see nothing; listen, but hear nothing. I wheel my dressing-table near by; seat myself before the pretty oval mirror. I tear off those ugly blossoms, sent by that stupid man for me to wear; I look long and earnestly at the tired face I see reflected in the pretty oval mirror, with its beveled edges and dainty drapery of pink silk ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... the Romans. If the ancients were successful in making a practical implement for Reaping, by horse, or ox power, as some ancient writers assert, we certainly have no correct and reliable account of a machine that would be considered efficient or useful at the present day; a machine to save or tear off the heads only—as described by Pliny and Palladius—would more properly be termed a gathering machine, and not at all suited to the wants and habits of ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... were crimes worse than murder. I said that to torture was worse than to kill: to make life a curse worse than to take it away. I pointed to the insect that was crawling on the table, and asked if it would not be mercy to kill it, and cruelty, damnable cruelty, to tear off a wing one day, and a limb the next, and so on, till nothing remained of its tortured frame but the quivering pulse of life. I spoke of men who die on the scaffold, or who drag on existence in jails and hulks, and whose hearts are not ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... corpse"—in order to obtain certain cuttings and remnants from it, with which to injure the living—"especially if the witch has happened to cast her eye upon some goodly young man." And the scene of the night-watching of a dead body lest the witches should come to tear off the flesh with their teeth, is worthy of ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... "Tear off yon insolent placard. Nay, hold! fix over it our proclamation of ten thousand florins for the heretic's head! Ten thousand? methinks that is too much now—we will alter the cipher. Meanwhile Rinaldo Orsini, Lord Senator, march thy soldiers to St. Angelo; let us see if the heretic ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... darting towards a bush, picked up from beneath it a small piece of ribbon, which she at once pronounced to be part of the tie of Lily's large straw hat. This settled the question, though how she managed to tear off the string so as to leave it as an indication of the direction they had taken, it was difficult to say. Was it done on purpose, or had it been torn off in a struggle she might have made to escape. One thing was certain. We must continue the pursuit. We hoped every instant ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... flesh. His skin would come away with his cloth, his whole being would be lacerated! Is not the mark of priesthood an indelible one, does it not brand the priest for ever, and differentiate him from the flock? Even should he tear off his gown with his skin, he would remain a priest, an object of scandal and shame, awkward and impotent, shut off from the life of other men. And so why tear it off, since he would still and ever remain in prison, and a fruitful life of work in the broad sunlight was no longer within ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the poor woman. 'Then it was you who did the deed! I tear off the mask, and with dread and loathing see you as you are—you, whom the poor fugitive beholds in nightmares, and ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... it. She was afraid he was falling in love with Iole, and steeped the garment in the preparation she had made from Nessus's blood. No sooner did Hercules put it on, than his veins were filled with agony, which nothing could assuage. He tried to tear off the robe, but the skin and flesh came with it, and his blood was poisoned beyond relief. Unable to bear the pain any longer, and knowing that by his twelve tasks he had earned the prize of endless life, he went ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... a horrid sight, and Cherry was terribly frightened lest they should all come to life suddenly, and set on her and tear off her limbs too. She told Aunt Prudence, "she was mortal fear't of 'em, for she'd heard tell on 'em up to Zennor, and everybody said there was never no knowing what they wouldn't be up to. She'd thought all along that she'd got in with the Little ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... an acute attack of illness or a radical and fatal constitutional tendency. This sort of condemnation requires such intimate knowledge that one can hardly pass it upon any but one's self. One cannot tear off all coverings from the hearts and minds of others, whereas one could strip one's own moral deformities naked, and that species of self-accusation does seem to me a kind of immodesty. One naturally shrinks, too, from speaking of deep and ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... her fingers made no effort to untie the knot;—rather, had she drawn it tighter by applauding those things which inherently he realized needed rebuking. For in his soul lived a voice comparing her to an ideal known only to his dreams—a being, somewhere, who would tear off the sling with brave and loving hands, and not be content to see him drift. His closely guarded better nature was persistently pleading with him to face about, while her pouting lips imperiously demanded his mornings and afternoons for her entertainment. Then, ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... same locations with tube-flowers. Just to think of taking an animal that moves and eats and breathes, and cutting him up, and that each piece will become a perfect animal again! Yet such is the case with sea-flowers. When they wish to produce young, they tear off pieces from their bodies (the base parts), which soon develop into young sea-flowers. In the illustration I have shown three kinds of sea-flowers, all of which are common on our coast. The inside part of a sea-flower is divided by many partitions, forming a circle ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... English hearts it is not necessary to expound elaborately the infinite meanings which cluster round that blessed expression "home." Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defence, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... going to fool wid no button-holes we gointer tear off de whole piece dat de button-holes is in. (They all get set) All right boys, turn it on and let ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... my necktie; I merely tear off my collar, which a dying man may surely be permitted to do. But until you have seen a man die from such a stab as I receive every night, I don't understand how you can justly find fault with my ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... over the limbs of Hercules. So long as he is able, he suppresses his groans with his wonted fortitude. After his endurance is overcome by his anguish, he pushes down the altars, and fills the woody Oeta with his cries. There is no {further} delay; he attempts to tear off the deadly garment; {but} where it is torn off, it tears away the skin, and, shocking to relate, it either sticks to his limbs, being tried in vain to be pulled off, or it lays bare his mangled limbs, and his huge bones. The blood itself hisses, just as when a red hot plate {of metal is} dipped ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the deafening noise, and shocked to the very heart by the woman's shriek of pain, Win was not conscious of thought. She did not tell herself to spring to the nearest bed, tear off the covering, stop the nurse before she could rush wildly into the corridor, and wrap her in the blanket. All she knew for a moment was that she had done and was doing these things, that she was using her strength to hold the maddened ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... and spoke with horror. "They kill us with spears, and tear off our skins and wear them, because their own ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... enthusiasm, maddened with rage at sight of St. Genis, whose face is just then thrown into vivid light by the glare of the torches, cries wildly: "Soldiers of the Emperor, who are being forced to resist him, turn on those treacherous officers of yours, tear off ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... hearts of these men; he knew that while, in virtue of their office, they affected to expound and apply the divine law, and to rule the people in accordance with it, they were at once ignorant of God's word and tamely subservient to the passions of the people. To tear off, or rather to compel them with their own hands to tear off their cloak of hypocrisy, he addressed to them that question of wonderful simplicity but wonderful power, The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or of men? Knowing that if they should confess the divine origin of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... going to be all DAY getting that hatful of freight out?' and supplement this explosion with a firmament-obliterating irruption or profanity which nothing could stay or stop till his crater was empty. And now and then while these frenzies possessed him, he would tear off handfuls of the cotton and expose his cooked flesh to view. It was horrible. It was bad for the others, of course—this noise and these exhibitions; so the doctors tried to give him morphine to quiet him. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... promising rewards in heaven or threatening torments in hell, they encourage the religious people up to a certain point: for instance, if Savonarola only tells the ladies of Florence that they ought to tear off their jewels and finery and sacrifice them to God, they offer him a cardinal's hat, and praise him as a saint; but if he induces them to actually do it, they burn him as a ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... groans of ghosts may strike thy ears, They would not wound thee, as this story will. Hark, hark! a hollow voice calls out aloud, Jocasta! Yes, I'll to the royal bed, Where first the mysteries of our loves were acted, And double-dye it with imperial crimson; Tear off this curling hair, Be gorged with fire, stab every vital part, And, when at last I'm slain, to crown the horror, My poor tormented ghost shall cleave the ground, To try if hell can yet more deeply ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... which informed the victim that in future the Kellers would make no further advances without security, there was a tolerably wide space left between the forms of an exaggerated respect and the signature. It was quite easy to tear off the best part of the letter and convert it into a bill of exchange for any amount. The diabolical missive had been enclosed in an envelope, so that the other side of the sheet was blank. When it arrived, Victurnien was writhing in the lowest depths of despair. After ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... I would not take an advantage over him, even in the circumstances, yet I was not willing to be at a disadvantage. Therefore, as he was not encumbered with cloak or mantle, I employed a breathing moment to tear off my own cloak and throw it aside, not choosing to use it on my left arm as a shield unless he had been ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... telling you all about it—afterward; conceivably, that humanity might continue to reproduce its species. Otherwise humanity would proceed to extinguish itself forthwith. Thus, Cutty was totally unaware upon entering the shop that he was about to tear off its hinges the door he was so carefully bolting and latching and padlocking between Kitty Conover and this duffer who wanted to fiddle his way ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... trying to get in. He and the women who were there ran to the door and tried to fasten it; but the bolts and bars were gone. So the king told them to hold the door with all their strength, till he could find something to fasten it with. The king went to the window, and tried to tear off an iron stanchion there was there, but he could not. Then he saw a trap door in the floor, which led down to a kind of dark dungeon. So he took the tongs and pried up the door, and ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... less real each time it was uttered, "is an invention of clever, scientific men to note the days as they pass; it records the passing days. It's a plan to measure Time. It's made of paper and has the date and the name of the day stamped in ink on separate sheets. When a day has passed you tear off a sheet. That day is done with— gone. There are three hundred and sixty-five of these separate sheets in a year. It's just an invention of scientific men to measure the ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... to tear off our buttons hurryin'," said the former, as he flung down a dead spruce by the fireside and began chopping it into sticks. "They won't be lookin' for more fodder till they've picked the bones o' that 'ere moose. Don't ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... shut the port-hole, and in less time than I can tear off my clothes my tiny room is as bad ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... it prudent and meet To a bramble for refuge awhile to retreat; He enter'd the covert, but entering, found That briers and thorns did on all sides abound; And that, though he was safe, yet he never could stir, But his sides they would wound, or would tear off his fur: He shrugg'd up his shoulders, but would not complain: "To repine at small evils," quoth puss, "is in vain: That no bliss can be perfect, I very well knew— But from the same source good and evil doth flow— And full sorely my skin though these briers may ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... doing Odes In my quondam favorite modes, With your image to qui-vive me I'd tear off some Ode, ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... forward. It was now light; and the savages began a regular discharge of shot at his men, as they advanced to the deserted cabins. This determined him to move directly to the attack of the cabin, in which the warriors were assembled; and ordering his men to tear off the doors and hold them in front, as a shield, while advancing to the assault, he was already marching on the foe, when he was overtaken by an order from Col. Bowman, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... obtained from the clerk the man's name and destination. In his letter enclosing the confession the priest went on to say that the penitent had evidently had a severe struggle with his conscience. A mistaken sense of gratitude to the man who had bribed him had led him to tear off and destroy the upper half of the card given him by the up-town hotel clerk, and with the reminder gone he could not recall the man's name. But the destination address, "Wahaska, Minnesota," had been preserved, and the torn portion of the card bearing it was ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... neglect to tear off fifty or a hundred in the course of a day," suggested Lincoln, "and put the money for them in ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... my hat, overcoat and coat, to tear off the plaster and wash my nose, was but the work of a minute. I had placed in readiness my laboratory apron, a velvet skull-cap and a pair of spectacles, and scarcely had I assumed these and settled my eyebrows into a studious frown, when the bell rang. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... makes himself agreeable all around, and as John has had no proof of the Briton's miserable work in the harbor of Malta, he is wise enough to restrain his feelings and hold his tongue, trusting to some future event to tear off the mask and reveal him in ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... note-book much more such tabulated information which I picked up and hoarded for his entertainment, just as whenever a letter comes to me from abroad, I tear off the stamp and save it for a little ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... his hand. But a quibbling, pilfering, prevaricating State-Necessity, that tries to skulk behind the skirts of Justice;—a State-Necessity that tries to steal a pitiful justification from whispered accusations and fabricated rumors. No, my Lords, that is no State Necessity;—tear off the mask, and you see coarse, vulgar avarice,—you see speculation, lurking under the gaudy disguise, and adding the guilt of libelling the public honor to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... alone,' he continued, 'tear off a bit of paper and throw it over the wall. If any one comes, and you hear me on the ladder, begin to talk loudly, and I shall keep away. Could you be here to-morrow morning while the women are brushing ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper
... possessed followed the bishop, hooted him, and threatened him, up to the middle of the church. Order was only established by the intervention of the soldiers. During the confirmation the diseased redoubled their howls and infernal vociferations, and tried to spit in the face of the bishop and to tear off his pastoral raiment. At the moment when the prelate gave his benediction a still more outrageous scene took place. The violence of the diseased was carried to fury, and from all parts of the church arose ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... among those Chester onlookers. They realized that this was to be the crowning episode in all the long and bitter contest, when Jack Winters would bring every particle of skill and endurance he could command in his fighting eleven to tear off a victory before the time ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... stake, I tied the rope through the incision, and the united exertions of myself and three men hauled him out perfectly straight. I then drove a stake firmly through his throat and pinned him out. He was fifteen feet in length, and it required our united strength to tear off his skin, which shone with a variety of passing colours. On losing his hide he tore away from the stakes; and although his head was shivered to atoms, and he had lost three feet of his length of neck by the ball having cut through this part, which ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... best to deceive, as if true and false were all one to them. (27) There are others that will not do that, but which in the middle of their running, (28) should they catch the echo of a sound from some other quarter, will leave their own business and incontinently tear off towards it. (29) The fact is, (30) they run on without clear motive, some of them; others taking too much for granted; and a third set to suit their whims and fancies. Others simply play at hunting; or from pure jealousy, keep questing about ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... nobody is looking. And so tear-smeared and mud-bespattered up the long rise of darkening Crouch End Lane, where to-night the electric light blazes from a hundred shops, and dead beat into the Seven Sisters Road station, there to tear off its soaked jersey; and then home to Poplar, with shameless account of the jolly afternoon that it has spent, of the admiration and the praise that ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... was struck, and the two motionless watchers saw Cheyne go to a ti-tree, which grew on the edge of the large pool, tear off the outer thin and wet bark, and then make a torch of the dry part, which lit easily. Pinkerton waved it to and fro for a few moments, and then held it up. ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... poem he prays to Mary to allow him to tear off a small piece of her robe, so that he may keep himself warm with ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... noise and confusion. The savages run to and fro, whooping, chattering, laughing, and dancing. They draw their long scalping-knives, and hew off broad steaks. They spit them over the blazing fires. They cut out the hump-ribs. They tear off the white fat, and stuff the boudins. They split the brown liver, eating it raw! They break the shanks with their tomahawks, and delve out the savoury marrow; and, through all these operations, they whoop, and chatter, and laugh, ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... smiling, "should they do so, your excellency would tear off their nightcaps, and forcibly put their hats again on their heads. And as for the old women, Blucher, the young hero, will in the end rout them all, and ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... madness either sings snatches of songs or speaks prose. Almost all Lear's speeches, after he has become definitely insane, are in prose: where he wakes from sleep recovered, the verse returns. The prose enters with that speech which closes with his trying to tear off his clothes; but he speaks in verse—some of it very irregular—in the Timon-like speeches where his intellect suddenly in his madness seems to regain the force of his best days (IV. vi.). Othello, in IV. i., speaks in verse till the moment when Iago tells him that Cassio ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... action became more appalling to him. He would leave the camp, set off at a run as soon as he got safely out of sight; and, when he was sure of seclusion in distance, he would "cut loose"— yell and laugh and caper like a true madman; tear off his superfluous clothes, splash and thresh in some lonely lake like a baby whale that has not yet had the primary lessons in how to behave. When he returned to camp, subdued in manner, like a bad boy after recess, he was, in fact, not one bit subdued beneath the surface, but the more fractious ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... me as you please," returned Hugh Calveley sternly. "What I have to say is to the King, and to the King only; and though you break every bone in my body with your engines, and tear off my flesh with red-hot pincers, you shall not ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... could she understand, who trusted so completely, who lived in a labyrinth without a clue, who had built her dream world so securely that she had left no way of egress for herself? These were cruel people! She was mad to get away, to tear off this strange dress, to fling herself down in the darkness, in the woods, hiding her face against the earth! But though she was only Audrey and so poor a thing, she had for her portion a dignity ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... for temporising, for deception, for any species of polite shilly-shallying. We must, on the morrow, tear off our masks and appear before these misguided and feminine victims of our duplicity in our own characters as scientists. We must boldly avow our identities and flatly refuse to stir from this spot until the mystery of this astounding ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... said the mother; and she implored and wept. All at once she grasped two pretty flowers with her two hands, and called to Death, "I'll tear off all your flowers, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... high as heaven, or deep as hell? The man who allows his name to be used as president or director in connection with an enterprise that he knows is to result in the sale of twenty thousand shares of an undeveloped nothing—God will tear off the cloak of his hypocrisy, and in the last day show him to all the universe—a brazen-faced gambler. His house will be accursed. God's anathemas will flash in the chandelier, and rattle in the swift hoofs of his silver-bitted ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... pretty eyes over that pair of hypocrites in black, yonder," one of them exclaimed loudly and speaking directly at the Benedictines; "they are holy only in a crowd. If they met you when none else were near, they would tear off each other's gowns to be the ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... shoot," he said, and checked himself. "He ain't such a bad one with a pistol,"—and he patted me,—"but I allow ye'd better hunt kiver just the same. And if they ketch ye, Polly Ann, just you go along and pretend to be happy, and tear off a snatch of your dress now and then, if you get a chance. It wouldn't take me but a little time to run into Harrodstown or Boone's Station from here, and fetch ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... misadventures that befall us do we not invent? What is it that we do not lay the fault to right or wrong, that we may have something to quarrel with? Those beautiful tresses, young lady, you may so liberally tear off, are no way guilty, nor is it the whiteness of those delicate breasts you so unmercifully beat, that with an unlucky bullet has slain your beloved brother: quarrel with something else. Livy, Dec. 3, l. 5., speaking of the Roman army in Spain, says that for the loss of two ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... that the Blackfeet were completely overmatched. They kept doggedly in their fort, however, making no offer of surrender. An occasional firing into the breastwork was kept up during the day. Now and then, one of the Indian allies, in bravado, would rush up to the fort, fire over the ramparts, tear off a buffalo robe or a scarlet blanket, and return with it in triumph to his comrades. Most of the savage garrison that fell, however, were killed in the first ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... the nose of a cigar. Don't be a Vandal—you are not a Sandwich Islander, about to chew your Kava. A cigar should be handled daintily; it is a fragile, graceful creature—don't mar its beauty. Tear off the twist, and the pleasure of smoking is at an end! The outer leaf becomes untwirled. Ere it is half finished, you have a ragged end between your lips—nasty, foul, and unsightly—through which the smoke ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... rises slowly for a little, and then as slowly settles down to the floor. That won't do. I want to see him exactly balanced between floor and ceiling; so, of course, the paper must be of exactly the same weight as the balloon itself. We soon can accomplish that. See! I tear off a bit more. Top heavy yet? He rises higher this time, and settles down more slowly to the floor. Tear again. Whew! I took off too much that time. He rises to the ceiling, bumping his head against it a few times, and finally remains there in a sullen ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... the poor manuscript close to the candle; the leaves caught the flame; her own cap and hand burning first made her aware of the mischief done. She threw down the book; her sleeve was in flames; she had first to tear off the sleeve, which was, luckily for her, not sewn to her dress. By the time she recovered presence of mind to attend to the book, half its leaves were reduced to tinder. She did not dare then to replace what was left of the manuscript on your table; ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... erect in the chair with two dirty pink pieces of paper lying spread out at her feet. The palms of her hands were pressed convulsively to her face, with the tips of the fingers contracted against the forehead, as though the skin had been a mask which she was ready to tear off violently. The perfect immobility of her pose expressed the agitation of rage and despair, all the potential violence of tragic passions, better than any shallow display of shrieks, with the beating of a distracted head against ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... why should not the "treason" of General Reed, contemplated or effected, be spread upon his country's annals? Above all, when he and his descendants have adroitly disguised his villainy with the varnish of incorruptible patriotism, why should the hand which has the power to tear off the mask, and expose the enormity of guilt, be made to fall, self-withheld and self-paralyzed, from the effort? These are questions which admit of but one reply. I shall go on, and in continuation of my developments, I here subjoin another letter from Col. ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... courage, which the lord Melkarth granted, and spoke boldly, explaining that I had as yet been able to win no favour, though I had prayed long and fasted and lashed myself with thongs, whereupon Hannibal-the-Fighter made as if to tear off my mantle, laughing in his beard; and when I saw they did not believe me, my terror came back. Then it was that Melkarth shed wisdom upon his servant, and, after a moment's thought, I ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... were hungry, Chew-chew let them tear off strips of partly boiled meat. Sometimes she let them drink the broth from ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... to work. At Arcot's suggestion, Wade and Morey attacked the plate of crystal in an attempt to tear off a small piece, on which they might work. Arcot himself went into the televisophone room and put through a second call to the Tychos Observatory, the great observatory that had so recently been established on the frigid surface of the Moon. The huge mirror, twenty feet in diameter, allowed ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... seek power and fellowship, we have a right to ask what are a man's leading pursuits. And we must be prepared to tear off a mask before we understand the most of our fellows, for society and all of life is permeated with disguise. Now and then one seeks to appear worse than he is, hates fuss and praise, but this rare bird (to use slang and Latin in one phrase) is the exception that ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... where the hinge of stone Shall catch it like an arm! and when thou hast passed A long black time within, thou shalt come out To front the sun; and Zeus's winged hound, The strong, carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down To meet thee—self-called to a daily feast— And set his fierce beak in thee, and tear off The long rags of thy flesh, and batten ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... of Timothy running with a fire-engine! How would they have looked? Therefore hasten ye trim gentlemen, to doff your guilty blue and brass, and don the toga. Lay aside your skates, boys. Peter would have looked very strangely skating, therefore it is sinful to skate. Tear off your white chokers, ye Reverends, and throw away your pestles ye apothecaries, and be like the apostles. Shall we have checker-boards in heaven? No, brother, I presume not. Neither shall we marry, nor be given in marriage; but pray don't condemn us to celibacy on that ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... up after temptation, she seemed to have mounted a step nearer the source of grace. "The angel Gabriel," she said, "has appeared to strengthen me; it was he—my saints have assured me so. God has been ever my master in what I have done; the devil has never had power over me. Though you should tear off my limbs and pluck my soul from my body, I would say nothing else." The spirit was so visibly manifested in her that her last adversary, the preacher Chatillon, was touched, and became her defender, declaring that a trial ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the harm she had done to herself by the bad use which she had made of the gifts which now have been taken from her, she is completely astonished to find that the Bridegroom, who had only given her temporary peace because of her weakness, comes with yet greater violence to tear off ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... He felt sure of this, though he could actually see nothing. The house was surrounded, the courtyard crowded. Outside, on the stairs, in the other rooms, even on the roof itself, waited dreadful things ready to catch him, to tear off his wings, to make him prisoner ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... calm and self-possessed; but here was a new venture entirely, and while beat, beat, went his heart in rising alarm, the loud and louder rattle of the corn informed him of the closer coming of the animals. Now he hears them tear off an ear! Now they craunch it, and crowd snuffling along through the corn-hills! Now they cough, and his wildest fears are up; and now they breathe in hearing, and move as if for the place of his concealment, ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... ask Dr. X—— for his direction; and as she thought it might be necessary to write to him concerning Lady Delacour's health, she begged of Mr. Hervey to give it to her. He took a letter out of his pocket, and wrote the direction with a pencil; but as he opened the paper, to tear off the outside, on which he had been writing, a lock of hair dropped out of the letter; he hastily stooped for it, and as he took it up from the ground the lock unfolded. Belinda, though she cast but one involuntary, hasty ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... phrase used at the end, spoken by Sunday: "Can ye drink from the cup that I drink of?" which seems to mean that Sunday is God. That is the only serious note in the book, the face of Sunday changes, you tear off the mask of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... told you, what I tell you now. But I shrink from distressing you. To see a sad look on your dear face breaks my heart. It is only when I am away from you—when I fear the consequences if you are not warned of your danger—that I can summon the courage to tear off the mask from that woman's false face, and show her to you as she really is. It is impossible for me to enter into details in the space of a letter; I reserve all particulars until we meet again, and until I can produce, what you ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... the tribunes prefer to see a Roman citizen scourged before their eyes, than themselves to be butchered by you each in his bed." The more vehemently he cried out, the more violently did the lictor tear off his clothes and strip him. Then Volero, being both himself a man of great bodily strength, and aided by his partisans, having thrust back the lictor, retired into the thickest part of the crowd, where the ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... priest Pfannenschmidt had recovered from his surprise and alarm. He, who did not believe in the devil, although he daily addressed him, knew that the monster before him was an unseemly jest or a malicious interruption. He must, therefore, tear off his mask and expose ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... besom and began to tear off its twigs. Then she stripped the boy of his light clothes. Still wrapt in his radiant sadness, Egorka looked at his mother with astonished eyes. He ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... This they cannot always manage if he is a lively fellow, but half of them always rush into the arms of the other half, or drive their heads together, or tumble over; and then the crowd laughs vehemently, and invents nicknames for them on the spur of the moment; and they, if they be choleric, tear off the handkerchiefs which blind them, and not unfrequently pitch into one another, each thinking that the other must have run against him on purpose. It is great fun to look at a jingling match certainly, and ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... twentieth century young woman you love her. You'll be all to the mustard. Do something brave. Go hire a kid that is a good swimmer, to fall into the lake as you and your sweetheart are walking past, then throw back your shoulders and tear off your coat and leap in, the kid will get you to shore, but you'll be a hero in her eyes. Impersonate the hero, and ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... days for children. But if another child has been born to the mother after the one who has died, the full period of mourning must be observed for the latter; because it is said that in this case the mother does not tear off her sari or body-cloth to make a winding-sheet for the child as she does when her latest baby dies. The Kumrawats both grow and weave hemp, though they have no longer anything like a monopoly of its cultivation. They make the gons or double bags used for carrying ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... bottom of it is formed of coral mud. If we pounded this coral in water, it would be converted into calcareous mud, and the waves during storms do for the coral skeletons exactly what we might do for this coral in a mortar; the waves tear off great fragments and crush them with prodigious force, until they are ground into the merest powder, and that powder is washed into the interior of the lagoon, and forms a muddy coating at the bottom. Beside that there are a great many animals that prey upon the coral—fishes, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... invisible blind the builder to the fact that it is far more important to have the outside smooth. If smooth, there are no projecting surfaces for water to collect in, no edges for the frozen earth to cling to and by expansion tear off from the wall. If smooth, the joints in the masonry can be pointed or filled with mortar, and thus a suitable surface for the tar or ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... some very savage letters to Mr. Hobhouse, Kinnaird, to you, and to Hanson, because the silence of so long a time made me tear off my remaining rags of patience. I have seen one or two late English publications which are no great things, except Rob Roy. I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... filled with reverence for the idealized portrait of themselves that the poet has drawn, and the intervention of the reformer will be unnecessary, since they will voluntarily tear off the shackles that disfigure them. The poet, said Shelley, "redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man." Emerson said of Wordsworth, "He more than any other man has done justice to the divine in us." Mrs. Browning said (of Carlyle) "He fills the office of ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... she sighed "All right," and put up her cheek to pay the price. His arms tightened about her, and his lips were not content with her cheek. He fought to win her lips, but she began to tear off her gloves to scratch his eyes out ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... of water from the pond yonder, he sees above a thousand wonderful creatures that are otherwise never discerned in the water. But there they are, and it is no delusion. It almost looks like a great plateful of spiders jumping about in a crowd. And how fierce they are! They tear off each other's legs and arms and bodies, before and behind; and yet they are merry and joyful in ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... When the second night came, he was faint and turned to his food. He struggled with himself and opened a tin of salmon. But he could not eat. He believed that he would never eat again. He slept for an hour, then woke from terrifying dreams. His mind wandered and he longed to be gone and tear off his clothes and dip ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... make all these apparently trivial and insignificant deeds terribly important? Treason is treason, no matter what the act by which it is expressed. It may be a little thing to haul down a union-jack from a flagstaff, or to tear off a barn-door a proclamation with the royal arms at the top of it, but it may be rebellion. And if it is, it is as bad as to turn out a hundred thousand men in the field, with arms in their hands. There are small faults, there are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... families, including, in these days, minor politicians with axes to grind and occasional young women from the boulevards, all dine together in a warm bustle of talk, smoke, the gurgle of claret, and tear off chunks of hard French bread, while madame the proprietress, a handsome, dark-eyed, rather Spanish-looking Bordelaise, sails round, subduing the impatient, smiling at those who wish to be smiled at, and ordering her faithful waiters about like ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... how the misfortune occurred: Seeing herself all withered, the woman took the fan with which her companion had been winnowing maize for the manufacture of beer and shut herself into her hut, carefully closing the door. There she began to tear off her old skin, throwing it on the fan. The skin came off easily, a new one appearing in its place. The operation was nearing completion. There remained the head and neck only when her companion came to the hut to fetch her fan and before the old woman could speak, pushed open the door. ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... preparations were made for her to accompany the family, who were to spend three gay months in Bath. She dressed and danced as did the rest, but in the very ball-room found herself thinking, "If I only knew where to find the Methodists, or any who would show me how to please God, I would tear off all my fine things and run through the fire to them. If ever I am my own mistress I will spend half the day in working for the poor, and the other half ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... which the Parsees expose their dead to be devoured by birds of prey, was pointed out to them. No one but the priests are allowed to enter it; and the relatives leave the body at the door, from which they take it into the building. It is placed between two grates, which allow the vultures to tear off the flesh, but not to carry off the limbs. It made the Americans shudder when their guides told them about it more in detail than when it was described ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... away, when, one evening, the hunter was abroad later than usual. The moment he came in and laid down his day's hunt, as was his custom, before his wife, the two females seized upon the deer and began to tear off the fat in so unceremonious a way that her anger was excited. She constrained herself, however, in a good degree, but she could not conceal her feelings, though she said ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... girl, hitherto so retiring and quiet, had all at once taken an air of authority. There was something in the speech that shocked the heart more than the ear, and the sensitive woman felt a thrill of pain as she saw Agnes tear off a leaf from the crimson rose—place it between her lips—and fasten the cluster in her bosom. The quiet self-possession with which she did all this was so unlike her usual manner, that Mabel sat regarding ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... once living members of some of the oldest families in Finland; there they lie in wondrous caverns in the crypt, but as formerly tourists were wicked enough to tear off fingers and so forth in remembrance of these folks, they are now no longer shown. However, that delightful gentleman, the Head of the Police, who escorted us about bo, had the mysterious iron trapdoor in the floor uplifted, and down some steep steps—almost ladder-like, with queer guttering ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... people who long ago had lived in that country. They said these people were three times the size of a man of the present day, that they were so swift and strong that they could run by the side of a buffalo, and, taking the animal in one arm, could tear off a leg and ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody) |
