"Heartrending" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had visited these enlightened Christians—if two of their children, instead of two of their horses, had met with a sudden death,—their grief could not be more heartrending or despairing than on this occasion. The whole family was in an uproar. There were wringing of hands, lamentable cries, and bewailings the most bitter, of the death of the best team in the town of Greenditch. The very children, down to the youngest of six years ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... be my own high admiration of the contents of this heartrending diary, which makes me suppose a possibility that after such a lapse of years, the publication may possibly (as that which cannot but do the highest honour to the memory of the amiable authoress) may [sic] not be judged altogether ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... inhabitants, each asking his neighbour what had occurred. When the confusion had somewhat abated, it was announced that the Amphion had blown up, and then every one hastened to the dock, where a most heartrending scene presented itself. Strewed in all directions were pieces of broken timber, spars, and rigging, whilst the deck of the hulk, to which the frigate had been lashed was red with blood, and covered with mangled limbs and lifeless trunks, all blackened ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... was out of any one's power to refute the sinister and prosaic verse. The contrast with 1914 is painful and striking. In the existing war the holocaust of victims, poets and historians, painters and sculptors, musicians and architects, has been heartrending, and it can never in future years be pretended that the Muses have this time spared us their most poignant sacrifices. A year ago the Revue Critique, one of the most serious and original of the ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... a round of visits, Mrs. Krauss presented a different appearance from that loglike invalid her niece had first beheld. She was a picturesque, graceful woman, with a pair of heartrending dark eyes, while a little touch of colour on her faded cheeks illuminated a face that still exhibited the remains of a remarkable beauty. Mrs. Krauss, in a hired and luxurious motor, made a rapid ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... cries from Armenia became so piercing, so heartrending, and so prolonged, that the Christian people in Europe would stand it no longer. They demanded that, come what would, the Powers must put a stop to the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... at her face was sufficient to tell them something dreadful had happened. Bertie was in her arms in a moment, while Eddie and Agnes—white, wild-eyed, terror-stricken—clung on either side. It was a heartrending picture of sorrow and despair, and Mr. Murray could not witness it unmoved. He just shook hands with Mrs. Clair, whispered a few words that he would telegraph at once to Mr. Gregory, and would call again in a few hours, to ask if he could ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of this when I am dead.' This was most heartrending, coming from a man I loved better than any one in the world excepting my wife. He died that night, in silence, and without ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... washerwomen. She comes back occasionally now, and we can't see but that she's as nice as she used to be when she hauled our family wash home in a little wagon every Saturday night. Being rich hasn't hurt her at all, though it has spoiled her figure beyond the utmost and most heartrending efforts ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... fright, caused by the noise of the shots, had passed, they instinctively rushed to their parents for protection. Oh, the anguish depicted upon the faces of these little things when they discovered that their loving progenitors were no more. Their looks and moans were heartrending. But there were others made happy. A sudden shout of joyousness burst forth from the throats of a dozen civilized men who eagerly rushed from behind their fortresses to view the work of destruction. They had displayed fine marksmanship and were ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... It was not a lurid picture of wholesale murder, nor a bottle of vitriol thrown in the face of the Kaiser. After the thunder and the lightning, came the still small voice. It is a poem in the metre and manner of Gray, with the same silver tones of twilit peace—heartrending by contrast ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... has been long and anxiously awaited, and the time which has elapsed has cost England and India very dear. Many precious lives have been lost, and much heartrending suffering has been endured, for which there can be no compensation. The reputation of England's power, too, has had a rude shake; and nothing but a long-continued manifestation of her might before the eyes of the whole ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... were selected for the first offerings, and after them followed others in quick succession, night and day, early and late, until the last wretched victim had been consumed. Most heartrending were the descriptions I received from persons who had actually looked on the fearful ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... not mention here the persecution to which Byron was subjected then, nor the ever-manly, dignified, but heartrending words which it drew forth from the noble poet in the midst of his retired, studious, regular, and virtuous existence. I shall speak of it elsewhere; but I will say now that so unexampled, atrocious, and foolish was this persecution, that ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... women; the mad hysteria that seized some and caused them to jump into the flood and death; the torture of despair that gripped those who, imprisoned in their homes by the water, waited in vain for help until the advancing flames came and destroyed them. The most heartrending feature of the situation was the pitiable terror of the women and children. Many of them sat up and sobbed through the night refusing to believe that their fathers had been drowned in the ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... from one form to the other. We have seen that in the case of Chopin, "creation was spontaneous, miraculous," coming complete and sudden. But George Sand adds: "The crisis over, then commenced the most heartrending labor at which I have ever been present," and she pictures him to us agonized, for days and weeks, running after the bits of lost inspiration. Goethe, likewise, in a letter to Humboldt regarding his Faust, which occupied him for sixty years, ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... the fair sex. We are told that to obtain the delicate and beautiful spiral plume called the "Osprey," the old birds "are killed off in scores, while employed in feeding their young, who are left to starve to death in their nests by hundreds." Their dying cries are described as "heartrending." But they evidently do not rend the hearts of our fashionable ladies, or induce them to rend their much-beplumed garments. Thirty thousand black partridges have been killed in certain Indian provinces in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... which is sounding in our ears now is no cry of terror or of disappointment, and the men who join in it are all of one mind; yet the cry is none the less bitter or heartrending. As we listen to it, we can distinguish the shrill voices of women mingled with the deeper ones of men, and we notice also, that, although the cry is one of sorrow and distress, there is a deep ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... told them down there?' inquired the tall, dark man of Joseph. 'Yes, Monsieur.' 'That needs some revision, then.' And the tall, dark man made up a long story. How this old Colonel had been paralyzed for fourteen years, but on hearing the victim's heartrending screams, received such a shock that all at once, as if by a miracle, had recovered the use of his legs; and it was he who had started out in pursuit of the murderer and ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... moment during his illness; and when he expired in her arms, still wishing to remain near his lifeless body, she fastened her arms through those of her chair, in order that she might not be torn from this heartrending scene. At last nature succumbed to such poignant grief: the unhappy mother fainted; and the opportunity was taken to remove her to her own apartment, still in the chair which she had not left, and which her ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of departure had arrived, and the trains for the lake were duly filled with passengers; not, however, till many heartrending scenes had occurred in connection with the luggage. Two young ladies, bosom friends, having hired a van to convey their joint wardrobe and other ornamental effects to the station, were informed, to their tearful despair, that only ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... object of our exasperated solicitude darting to and fro under the planks. He had cracked his voice at last, and could only squeak miserably. His back or else his head rubbed the planks, now here, now there, in a puzzling manner. He squeaked as he dodged the invisible blows. It was more heartrending even than his yells. Suddenly Archie produced a crowbar. He had kept it back; also a small hatchet. We howled with satisfaction. He struck a mighty blow and small chips flew at our eyes. The boatswain above shouted:—"Look out! Look out there. Don't kill the man. Easy does ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... last words very gently but very firmly. He was deeply, tenderly sorry for the poor, deformed, fragile girl, doomed to be a witness of that most heartrending of human tragedies, the passing away of her own scarce-hoped-for happiness. But he felt that at this moment the kindest act would be one of complete truth. He knew that Paul Deroulede's heart was completely given to Juliette de Marny; he ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... thought, because they changed their names and wore cheap clothes, that, presto! they were as workers and could pass on to an uninformed reading public the trials of the worker. (Incidentally they were all trials.) I had read in the past those heartrending books and articles and found it ever difficult to hold back the tears. Sometimes they were written by an immigrant, a bona-fide worker. The tragedy of such a life in this business-ridden land of ours tore ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... of a family—to load himself up with a heavy knapsack, which there was no earthly necessity for him to carry, and go skipping along the road for miles, vaulting over fences and jumping over rocks and ditches like a young calf or a colt. I myself saw a most heartrending instance of how a kindly man's nature can be changed by the derangement of his intellect. I was at some distance from his house, but I plainly saw him harness a little donkey which he owns to a large two-horse wagon loaded with stone, and beat and ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... were following the case and were looking out for some grim evidence that the god was at work in bringing retribution on the man whom everyone suspected of being the thief, were startled by a heartrending catastrophe. ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... pure. When they wished to make me guilty, I experienced a profound satisfaction in saying to myself: I have never been wanting in honor, and that, perhaps, was more difficult for me than all the rest. And now—oh! it is frightful—frightful!" cried the prisoner, sobbing in so heartrending a manner that Rigolette, deeply affected, could not ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... the trunk flew open. Paula stooped, lifted the necklace, held it out to the judges, pulling it straight by the two ends. . . . Ah! what a terrible, heartrending cry of despair! Orion even, never, never wished to hear the like again. Then she flung the jewel on the table, exclaiming: "Shameful, shameful! atrocious!" she tottered backwards and clung to her faithful Betta; for her knees were giving way, and she felt herself ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to take her away from that heartrending sight; they begged her to go to her room; but she insisted upon staying. They tried to remove her by force; but she clung to the bed, and vowed that they should tear her to pieces sooner than make her ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... voice. It broke on a heartrending sob. And the voice of the resourceful Capataz de Cargadores, master and slave of the San Tome treasure, who had been caught unawares by old Giorgio while stealing across the open towards the ravine to get some more silver, answered careless and cool, but sounding ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... plundered the lands of Cillechriost, and ferociously set fire to the church during divine service, when full of men, women, and children, while Glengarry's piper marched round the building cruelly mocking the heartrending wails of the burning women and children, playing the well-known pibroch, which has been known ever since by the name of "Cillechriost," as the family tune of the Macdonalds of Glengarry. "Some of the Macdonalds chiefly ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... stage. Progress and development, however, were conditional upon life, and he who has recourse to self-destruction sets an example of unseemly revolt against one of the most beautiful and comforting of all the laws of nature. Moreover, suicide was a waste of force on which it was simply heartrending to have to look. There were so many great deeds to be done which called for the laying down of life. In a thousand different ways one might benefit mankind by Winkelried-like actions. If one was determined to die, one should at least ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Comparing it hastily with the first-class compartment being held by Francesca, I found that it differed only in having no carpet on the floor, and a smaller number of buttons in the upholstering. This was really heartrending when the difference in fare for three persons would be at least twenty dollars. What a delightful sum to put aside for a rainy day!—that is, be it understood, what a delightful sum to put aside and ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to those commonplace but heartrending words. The door shut once more, and he went down ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... to the coming Presidential election. The whole field of the nation was scanned, and all is high hope and confidence. Illinois is expected to better her condition in this race. Under these circumstances, judge how heartrending it was to come to my room and find and read your discouraging letter of the 15th. We have made no gains, but have lost "H. R. Robinson, Turner, Campbell, and four or five more." Tell Arney to reconsider, if he would be saved. Baker and I used to do something, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... of importance, watching his mistress's proceedings from afar with eager eyes and quivering nose. He would never be persuaded to follow her, owing to a rooted objection to wetting his feet. He was, as a rule, very patient; but if she kept him waiting beyond the bounds of patience he howled in a heartrending fashion that ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... It was indeed a heartrending story, to come so late, so bootless now, to the poor boy who had slept all these years in the nameless grave, even ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... think that." She gave him her eyes in what seemed to him to be a questioning stare. "In a deep, heartrending sorrow like his he will scarcely remember my words from one day to another. Do you know what I think, Jarvis? Down inside of him he has a deeply religious nature, and I predict that he will now simply have to turn to God. After all, God is the ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... she in a voice heartrending by its sweetness, "you have come at last! How long, O my God! I have waited for you! You cannot think what I have suffered by your absence. I should have died of grief, had it not been for the hope of seeing you again. Who kept you ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... one day through the agency of a forged message purporting to come from a very dear friend whom I knew to be in grave trouble at the time. Oh! the whole thing was thoroughly well thought out, I can assure you!" she continued, with a harsh laugh which ended in a heartrending sob. "The forged message, the suborned servant, the threats of terrible reprisals if anyone in the village gave me the slightest warning or clue. When the whole miserable business was accomplished, I was just like a trapped animal inside a cage, held captive by immovable bars of obstinate silence ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Hilda, I am afraid I shall not be able to keep Miss Mills, she seems to get sillier every day; it is my private conviction that she has a love affair on, but she's as mum as possible about it. Poor Sutton cried in a most heartrending way when she left; she said when leaving, 'I'll never get another mistress like you, ma'am, for you never interfere, even to the clearing of the jellies.' I am glad she appreciates me, I didn't think she did while she was living with us. The new cook can't attempt anything in the way of soup, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... realist dip his falcon in the boiling blood of life, Tracing in heartrending horror all the hoary wrongs and strife, Till the world shall sick and sadden of its folly and its sin, Hearkening through the roar of traffic to the ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... into their pockets and gave her what cash they had. I never knew a man to hang back when a collection for a widow was being taken. Contributions sometimes were as high as five dollars. It made a heartrending scene: the broken body of a once strong man lying under a white sheet; the children playing around and laughing (if they were too young to know what it meant); the mother frantic with the thought that her brood was now homeless; ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... attempt to laugh, and played to us sublime things he had just composed, or rather, to be more accurate, terrible or heartrending ideas which had taken possession of him, as it were without his knowledge, in that hour ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... jagged trunk of a tree, found herself lying on the ground with only a little piece of torn clothing tightly clasped in her hand. Hitherto, comforted by Martha's presence, the little one had not uttered a sound; but now, feeling itself deserted, it gave vent to the most heartrending screams—screams that abruptly disturbed the silence of that lonely spot and pierced to the depths of Martha's soul. In an instant she rose, and, dashing on, bounded over stock and stone, tearing herself pitiably, but ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... rejoicings. Spain defaults. 399 The rebel chiefs being in exile, the people are goaded to fresh revolt. 400 The tragedy of the Calle de Camba. Cebu Island rises in revolt. 401 The Cebuanos' raid on Cebu City; Lutao in flames; piles of corpses. 402 Exciting adventures of American citizens. Heartrending scenes in Cebu City. 404 Rajahmudah Datto Mandi visits Cebu. Rebels in Bolinao (Zambales). 406 Relief of Bolinao. Father Santos of Malolos is murdered. 408 The peacemaker states his views on the reward he expects from Spain. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... words, the swans craned their necks and gave utterance to such heartrending sighs that the princess sobbed with renewed vigor and even ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... there came a short note, proclaiming her return home, and simply telling as a fact almost indifferent,—in a single line,—that all the trouble hitherto taken as to her own disposition had entirely been thrown away. "Everything has been broken off between me and Mr. Gilmore." It was a cruel and a heartrending postscript! ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... bringing a curse upon the family, and died in despair at being unable to obtain her father's pardon. Notwithstanding the consolations which the ministers of religion, touched by her repentance, freely gave her, she cried in heartrending tones with her latest breath: "Oh father! father!" "Never give your heart without your hand," she said to Modeste an hour before she died; "and above all, accept no attentions from any man without telling everything ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... sure to tire her down in the long-run. She felt her weakness increasing with the quickness of her breath; she uttered a wild scream, which in its heartrending intensity seemed to ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... two strong officers came bearing the body of the dead father in a rude pine box. They set it down on two old rickety stools. The cries of the children were so heartrending that the officers could not endure it, and made haste ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... when the child was six months old. The mother, scarcely turned thirty, had a brood of seven, no money and many debts. There is trouble for you—ye silken, perfumed throng, who nibble cheese-straws, test the hyson when it is red, and discuss the heartrending aspects of the servant-girl problem to the lascivious ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... whip, with dreadful imprecations, literally foaming at the mouth. I begged him to do nothing rash, but he seemed not to hear me. With the squeal of a fighting stallion, he rushed off to the servants' quarters, whence presently there came heartrending shrieks and cries for mercy. His sons, in fear of murder, followed him, and added their remonstrance to the general din. The women of his house appeared in doorways, ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... directions. Then he joined the brave fellows who were fighting for the lives of those still imprisoned in the wrecked caboose. Among these were Rod Blake, Conductor Tobin, and the sheriff. Snyder Appleby had turned sick at the heartrending sights and sounds to be seen and heard on all sides, and had gone back to his car to escape them. He did not believe a soul could be saved, and he had not the nerve to listen to the pitiful cries of those whom he considered doomed to a ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... my fault! Mine! My wickedness!" she cried, in a heartrending voice, bathed in tears, stretching out her clasped hands towards them. "He did it through me. I tortured him and drove him to it. I tortured that poor old man that's dead, too, in my wickedness, and brought him ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... him miles away from her again, with years perhaps before another sight of him. She suddenly seemed fearfully alone in a world that no longer interested her. Where should she go; what to do with her life now? Back to the hard grind of the hospital with nobody to care, and the heartrending scenes and tragedies that were daily enacted? Somehow her strength seemed to go from her at the thought. Here, too, she had failed. She was not fit for the life, and the hospital people had discovered it and sent her away to nurse her friend and try to get well. They had been kind and talked about ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... looks told unutterable things; they both seemed young, but their faces betokened the extreme of agony. The name of Patrick Morgan being called, the distracted wife clung to her husband, uttering the most piercing and heartrending cries. ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... beg," I said sarcastically; "if you are thinking of using these materials for one of your popular novels, be sure to throw in a few duels, several heartrending catastrophes, and other incidents of what you call 'action,' appropriately ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... too soon to the small room at the top of the house on Eleventh Street. He turned paler than his wife when he saw her lying on the bed. She smiled through her tears,—a really heartrending smile. ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... also! The birds awoke; a dog began to howl, and it seemed to me as if the day were breaking! Almost immediately two other windows flew into fragments, and I saw that the whole of the lower part of my house was nothing but a terrible furnace. But a cry, a horrible, shrill, heartrending cry, a woman's cry, sounded through the night, and two garret windows were opened! I had forgotten the servants! I saw the terrorstruck faces, and their frantically ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... use the unhappy chief officer as a causeway, and the poor wretch's despairing cries were heartrending. He was clinging for dear life to a bolt in the deck when Coke joined hands with a sailor and was thus enabled to reach him. Once the skipper's strong fingers had clutched his collar he was rescued—at ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... and in some cases even before death occurs, the friends and relatives assemble at the lodge and begin crying over the departed or departing one. This consists in uttering the most heartrending, almost hideous wails and lamentations, in which all join until exhausted. Then the mourning ceases for a time until some one starts it again, when all join in as before and keep it up until unable to cry longer. This is kept up until the body ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... from the dying are heard all around you, And heartrending sights every day are displayed; While blasphemous curses may well nigh astound you, And dangers fast thicken; yet be not dismayed. Lend, lend a hand! Lend, lend a hand! If these things appal you ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... To this party of thirty you propose to give seven seats in cabinet, to the whigs and radicals five, to Lord Palmerston one.' In the end there were six whigs, as many Peelites, and one radical. The case of four important offices out of the cabinet was just as heartrending: three were to go to the thirty Peelites, and one to the two hundred and seventy just persons. 'I am afraid,' cried Lord John, 'that the liberal party will never stand this, and that the storm will overwhelm me.' Whig pride was ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Harding himself, when he heard how the matter had been settled, without troubling himself much on the subject, considered it as certain that he would go back to his pleasant house and garden. And though there would be much that was melancholy, nay, almost heartrending, in such a return, he still was glad that it was to be so. His daughter might probably be persuaded to return there with him. She had, indeed, all but promised to do so, though she still entertained an idea that the greatest of mortals, that important atom of humanity, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... in their praise of the truth and uniform consistency of his characters, of his heartrending pathos, and his comic wit. Moreover, they extol the beauty and sublimity of his separate descriptions, images, and expressions. This last is the most superficial and cheap mode of criticising works of art. Johnson compares ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... with pity at this heartrending sight; tears rose to his eyes, and he determined to search through the palace for some explanation of the ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... regulate our stories entirely on this basis, we lose the real value of the fairy tale element. It is the one element which causes little children to wonder, simply because no scientific analysis of the story can be presented to them. It is somewhat heartrending to feel that "Jack and the Bean Stalk" and stories of that ilk are to be handed over to the critical youth who will condemn the quick growth of the tree as being contrary to the order of nature, and wonder why Jack was not playing football ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... morning there came a heartrending letter from Aunt Ju. She was very sorry that Lady George should have been so troubled;—but then let them think of her trouble, of her misery! She was quite sure that it would kill her,—and it would certainly ruin ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... profits decreased, so did the price of the stock in the stock market. The changing combinations of railroad capitalists were too absorbed in the process of gambling in the stock market to have any direct concern for management. It was nothing to them that this neglect caused frequent and heartrending disasters; they were not held criminally responsible for the loss of life. In fact, railroad wrecks often served their purpose in beating down the price of stocks. Incredible as this statement may seem, it is ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... are the same in tone, at different ages, here as all over the world. We have been perpetually reminded of home and family by the wailings which were once familiar to parental ears and heart, and felt thankful that to the sorrows of childhood our children would never have superadded the heartrending woes of the slave-trade. ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... but for poaching a pheasant the hungry man was imprisoned fourteen years. Seven shillings to nine shillings a week was the farm labourer's wage, and it took twenty-six shillings then to buy the food that seven would buy now. What a vivid and heartrending picture of cottage life under the landlord's tax is given in one old man's memory of his childish hunger and his mother's pitiful self-denial! "We was not allowed free speech," he writes, "so I would just pull ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... of the death struggle, and the distracted attempts to find a place of concealment for the victim, are too heartrending to be repeated here. James fell, it is said, with sixteen wounds in him, hacked almost to pieces, yet facing his murderers so desperately that some of them bore the marks of his dying grip when they were brought to the scaffold to be killed in their turn with every circumstance of horror ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... and centre of the defence were pierced, the Germans crossed the Nethe, and began to concentrate their howitzers on the inner line of ramparts. On the 7th the exodus from the city began by land and water, and amid heartrending scenes a quarter of a million people strove to reach the Dutch frontier or safety on the sea. The Belgian and British troops did their best to hold off the Germans while the flight proceeded and the city was subject to bombardment. It was doubtful ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... lamentations were quite heartrending. His feelings were, of course, respected, the graves were at once built up again, and the spear replaced. Captain Ommanney learnt afterwards from Kalli, that it was his father's grave, over which the spear ...
— Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian - A Memoir • Thomas Boyles Murray
... deeds. Far into the eighteenth century in England, the clergy dragged innocent women into the courts as witches, and learned judges pronounced on them the sentence of torture and death. The chapter on witchcraft in Lecky's History of Rationalism, contains the most heartrending facts in human history. It is unsafe to put unquestioned confidence in all the vagaries of mortal man. While women were tortured, drowned and burned by the thousands, scarce one wizard to a hundred ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton |
