"Rend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... return—although the men worked as only those can who toil for liberation from long imprisonment, no impression worth mentioning could be made on the ice. At length the attempt to rend it by means ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... which in my other life had been Quito, the kingdom of Atahuallpa, to the southern confines of Bolivia, which had once been part of the Land of the Four Regions, the dominions of my own father, all were ready to throw down their long-borne burdens and turn and rend their oppressors and those whose fathers had robbed them of the land ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... seen the timid tear, Steal trembling from mine eye? Have you not marked the flush of fear, Or caught the murmured sigh? And can you think my love is chill, Nor fixt on you alone? And can you rend, by doubting still, A heart so ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... seemed to make him deaf to cautious overtures. If he had only known it, there was the very thing he wanted. But how could you bargain with a man of that sort? It was like going into a tiger's den with a piece of raw meat in your hand. He was as likely as not to rend you for your pains. In fact, he was always threatening to do that very thing; and the urgency of the case, combined with the impossibility of handling it with safety, made Sterne in his watches below toss and mutter open-eyed in his bunk, for ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... contracting, with infinite slowness, but with infinite force. This pressure must result in mechanical strain somewhere, both in their own substance, and in that of the rocks surrounding them; and we can form no conception of the result of irresistible pressure, applied so as to rend and raise, with imperceptible slowness of gradation, masses thousands of feet in thickness. We want some experiments tried on masses of iron and stone; and we can't get them tried, because Christian creatures never will seriously and sufficiently spend ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... rushing The engines are gushing, And the flood, as a beast on the prey that it hounds, With a roar on the breast of the element bounds. To the grain and the fruits, Through the rafters and beams, Through the barns and the garners it crackles and streams! As if they would rend up the earth from its roots, Rush the flames to the sky Giant-high; And at length, Wearied out and despairing, man bows to their strength! With an idle gaze sees their wrath consume, And submits to his doom! Desolate The place, and dread For storms the barren bed. In the deserted gaps that casements ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... devil who spawned you!" He drove them forth with the flat of his sword. He saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing save that he was mad, possessed of a capital frenzy, the victim of some frightful dream; save that he saw through blood, that the lust to kill, to rend, and to destroy was on him. The flat of his sword fell rudely ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... interesting period of modern history, did not independent and judicious travellers or visitors abroad collect and forward to Great Britain (the last refuge of freedom) some materials which, though scanty and insufficient upon the whole, may, in part, rend the veil of destructive politics, and enable future ages to penetrate into mysteries which crime in power has interest to render impenetrable to the just reprobation of honour and of virtue." If, therefore, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... enfin, aurai-jo alors, Pour tout esprit, l'esprit de corps? Il rend le bon sens, quoi qu'on dise, Solidaire de la sottise; Mais, dans votes societe, L'esprit de corps, c'est la gaite. Cet esprit la regne sans tyrannie. Non, non, ce n'est point comme a l'Academie; Ce n'est ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... countries. The Revolutions of America and France have thrown a beam of light over the world, which reaches into man. The enormous expense of governments has provoked people to think, by making them feel; and when once the veil begins to rend, it admits not of repair. Ignorance is of a peculiar nature: once dispelled, it is impossible to re-establish it. It is not originally a thing of itself, but is only the absence of knowledge; and though man may be kept ignorant, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... of a broad flat wash. Now and again, lazily, I lean back to watch the witless hoverings of a big butterfly, or sleepily listen to the increasing sound of the tom-toms and the yells of the beaters, whose voices, as those of demons of the pit, rend the peaceful air and add to my sense of ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... spare the scoffer! Spare the wretch Who sneers at the anointed man of truth! When we reached that, I and my followers Would rend you limb from limb. There!—ha! ha! ha! [Laughing.] Have I not caught the slang these fellows preach; A grand, original idea, to back it; And all the stock in trade of ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... into the verandah, a newspaper in his hand. I could see that he looked extraordinarily disturbed. The courtyard, the railings, in front, seemed to rouse his wrath. He flung away his newspaper with a gesture which seemed to want to rend the space before him. ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... interval did that fall fill up: the five hundred, gazing as at some wonder in heaven, did not, could not, breathe: the outraged heart seemed to rend the breast in a shriek. Would it never end, that somersault? ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... her with amazement: "Do you value me like water and salt? Quick! call the executioners, for I will have her killed immediately." The other sisters privately gave the executioners a little dog, and told them to kill it and rend one of the youngest sister's garments, but to leave her in a cave. This they did, and brought back to the king the dog's tongue and the rent garment: "Royal Majesty, here is her tongue and garment." And his Majesty gave them a reward. The unfortunate ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... reason to their aid against those terrors with which they alarmed the ignorant, revolting at the hideous descriptions under which they attempted to defend their hypothesis, they had the intrepidity to tear the veil of delusion; to rend asunder the barriers of imposture; they considered with calm resolution, this formidable prejudice, contemplated with a serene eye this unsupported opinion, examined with cool deliberation this fluctuating notion, which had become the object of all the hopes, the source of all the fears, the spring ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... renounce their sleep, Contriving malices to make her weep; No iron-faced dames her character debate And spurn imploring mercy from the gate; But down she lies to a more peaceful end, For wolves do not calumniate, but rend— Sinks piecemeal to their maws, a willing prey, While resignation lubricates the way, And all her prospects brighten at the last: To wolves, not women, an ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... keen eyes can look at the sun himself—you who strike with the claws and rend with the beak in open daylight—it is your turn to speak. Marsh Hawk, where ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... flash'd the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies. Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast, When husbands or when lapdogs breathe their last, Or when rich china vessels fall'n from high In glitt'ring dust ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... comfort can I know? Behold, Wild dogs and wolves with hungry snarl contend Over thy prostrate mighty ones; and rend Their quivering limbs, ere life hath lost its hold. I sicken at the dawn of morn—the noon Brings horror with its brightness; for the day Shows but the desolate plain, Where, feasting on the slain, (Thy princes,) flap and scream the birds ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... back again?—Hui! Hoist the sail! Your bride, say, where is she?—Hui! Off, to sea! Captain, captain, you have no luck in love! Ha, ha, ha! Blow, storm-wind, howl away! No damage can you do to our sails! Satan has charmed them, they will not rend in ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... any dark spirit Septimus May was safe. Even had he been right and his prayer had freed such a being and cast it out of my house, would the Almighty have permitted it to rend and destroy the agent of its liberation? May could not have suffered death by any conscious, supernatural means if our faith is true; but, as he himself said, when he came here after the death of his boy, he did not pretend that faith in God rendered a human being superior to the ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... grumble, and who, while they receive their wages, scheme for the overthrow of the entire concern! His mills, instead of being shelters for his brothers and sisters, are nests of scratching eagles—ready to rend and claw! ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... respiration. The pericardium would be reached with comparatively little disturbance, and once exposed, the operator would be able to make a first and important series of observations, before proceeding farther. Finally, he would rend the pericardium, and arrive directly at the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... revenge, revenge! thou horribly injured, profaned old man! Thus, from this moment, and forever, I rend in twain all ties of fraternity. (He rends his garment from top to bottom.) Here, in the face of heaven, I curse him—curse every drop of blood which flows in his veins! Hear me, O moon and stars! and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the canting falsehood that the women of all other religions are degraded and immoral. Through tyranny and falsehood alone is Christianity able to hold woman in subjection. To tell her the truth would rend the temple of faith in twain and strike terror to the heart of the priest at the altar. Nothing but the truth will set woman free. She should know that Christian England captures the Hindoo girl to act as a harlot to the British soldier, and ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... tornado flies, And sounding mingles earth and skies, And wild confusion 'fore the eyes In terrors dressed. So passions fell in whirlwinds rise, And rend the breast! ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... it is like drinking champagne, smelling tuberoses, inhaling laughing-gas, going to the opera, all at one time, and, if you once take it in your hand, nothing short of a stroke of lightning could rend it away, I am convinced. Do read it, sir, to please me, and ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... to pleasures. War, he sung, is toil and trouble; Honour, but an empty bubble; Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying: If the world be worth thy winning, Think, O think it worth enjoying: Lovely Thais sits beside thee, Take the good the gods provide thee. The many rend the skies with loud applause; So Love was crown'd, but Music won the cause. The prince, unable to conceal his pain, Gazed on the fair Who caused his care, And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd, Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again: At length, with love and wine at once ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... that of work, and vibrate and linger in the air as though they feared to rise and disappear. And still the earth continues to give forth new sounds; heavy, rumbling, they set in motion everything about them, or, piercing, rend ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... cruel speech the poor child replied by a wild cry that seemed to rend her, while her eyes dilated as if under the influence of strong poison. Camors strode across the room, then returned and stood by her as he said, in a quick, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... spoken before Phedre rushes into the room to commence tremblingly and nervously, with struggles which rend and tear and convulse the system, the secret of her shameful love. As her passion mastered what remained of modesty or reserve in her nature, the woman sprang forward and recoiled again, with the movements of a panther, striving, as it seemed, to tear from her bosom the heart which ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... unspeakable. The tide was high. Great waves, flashing white through the darkness, came smiting through the rocks as if they would rend the very surface of the earth apart. The clouds scurrying overhead uncovered a star or two and instantly drew together ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... progress of the strange sight. Soon noises were heard, like those of the mountains when the evil spirits are shaking them; the sounds were awful, solemn, and regular, like the throbs of a warrior's heart; and now and then a sharp, shrill scream would rend the air and awake other terrible voices in ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... one," and she pointed to it, "that I had in the same lot. Although I do not generally buy furniture, I could not refuse to take it, as the person of whom I had all this seemed so unhappy. Poor lady! it was the parting with that, above all, that appeared to rend her heart; an old piece of furniture very ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain an hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Patowmac, in quest of a passage also. In the moment of their junction they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the sea. The first glance of this scene hurries our senses into the opinion, that this earth has been created in time, that the mountains were formed first, that the rivers began to flow afterwards, that in this place particularly ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... these appeared a reflection of the last and innermost nature of the man, the rock foundation, as it were, upon which was built the false and decorated superstructure that he showed to the world. There were the glaring eyes, there the grinning teeth of the Spanish wolf; a ravening brute ready to rend and tear, if so he might satisfy himself with the meat his ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... overwhelming impulse to fling himself over the precipice out of the reach of those stabbing words! A horrible nauseating recoil that seemed to rend ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... "Till starting at a brother's[A] name, "Horror shrinks his glowing frame, "Locks the half-utter'd groan, "And chills the parting breath:— "Astonish'd Nature heav'd a moan! "When her affrighted eye beheld the hands "She form'd to cherish, rend ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... the poet, when the Caliph's sister 'Olayyah[FN275] asked him, "O my lord, I have not seen thee enjoy one happy day since putting Ja'afar to death: wherefore didst thou slay him?" he answered, "My dear life, an I thought that my shirt knew the reason I would rend it in pieces!" I therefore hold with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... watches the soldiers' conversation of banter or pleasantry or quarrel, in which it might become worthless by being torn asunder. He remembered their parleying, and the proposal in which it ended,—"Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it whose it shall be." How far were their thoughts from his when their words recalled to him the prophecy they were unconsciously fulfilling,—"They part My garments among them, and upon My vesture ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... chance, a little while apart The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn: Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe Fill me than penetrates my spirit thus, Nor all those signs the Patmian prophet saw Seem a new heaven and earth so marvelous; But, clad thenceforth in iridescent dyes, The fair world glistens, and in after days The memory of kind lips and laughing eyes Lives in ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... face. Winston drew a deep breath of relief, his contracted brows straightening. For one hesitating moment he remained speechless, struggling for self-control. Merciful Heavens! would he ever understand this woman? Would he ever fathom her full nature? ever rend the false from the true? The deepening, baffling mystery served merely to stimulate ambition, to strengthen his unwavering purpose. He possessed the instinct that assured him she cared; it was for his sake that she had braved the night and Farnham's displeasure. ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... wondered where his sister was. She would be twenty-two years old now. A tenderness, haunting, tearful, invaded his heart. He suffered. At such moments the hard shell of his rough woods life seemed to rend apart. He longed with a great longing for sympathy, for love, for the softer influences that cradle even warriors between the ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... should be loth to run Myself all th' hazard, and you none; Which must be done, unless some deed Of your's aforesaid do precede. Give but yourself one gentle swing 525 For trial, and I'll cut the string: Or give that rev'rend head a maul, Or two, or three, against a wall, To shew you are a man of mettle, And I'll engage ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... rolled over and over each other on the ground—one striving to choke the life out of his opponent, the other seeking to rend ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... my Muse, what numbers wilt thou find To sing the furious troops in battle joined! Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound The victor's shouts and dying groans confound, The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, And all the thunder of the battle rise! 'Twas then great Malborough's mighty soul was proved, That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, Examined ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... smile, one which she had learnt in company, and grew frightened at herself to find that she was treating Agnes, as she treated the outer world. She did not know what to say; her love was deep, strong and warm within, but it was too soon to "rend the silken veil;" and this awkwardness, this consciousness of coldness was positive suffering. She was relieved that the return of Mr. and Mrs. Wortley put an end to the tete-a-tete, then shocked that ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Hoary rev'rend Villain! what, disarm me? Give me my sword—what, stand ye by, and see Your Prince insulted? Are ye ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... to renounce society with the same object is the wisest thing a man can do. Bernardin de Saint Pierre has the very excellent and pertinent remark that to be sparing in regard to food is a means of health; in regard to society, a means of tranquillity—la diete des ailmens nous rend la sante du corps, et celle des hommes la tranquillite de l'ame. To be soon on friendly, or even affectionate, terms with solitude is like winning a gold mine; but this is not something which everybody can do. The prime reason for social intercourse is mutual need; and as soon ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... executions criminelles. La on veut bander les yeux au condamne. Il s'y refuse, et dit d'une voix ferme qu'il saura mourir pour son Roi. Lui meme donne le signal de tirer et c'est en criant, "Vive le Roi! Vive Louis XVIII!" qu'il rend le dernier soupir." ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... as incense upon the still morning air, straight toward heaven, will not rise at all, but settles like smoke upon him, and fills his eyes with tears. Something seems to have come between him and his God. Strange, accusing voices are heard within him. However deep the agony that moves him, he cannot rend the cloud that interposes between him and his Maker. This, now, is simply a mood produced by ill health; and I hope that everybody who reads this will remember it. Remember that God never changes, that a man's ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... hare! The gates of the fortress shall be crushed more easily than nut-shells; the walls shall crumble; cities shall burn; and the scourge of God shall not cease! He shall cause your bodies to be bathed in your own blood, like wool in the dyer's vat. He shall rend you, as with a harrow; He shall scatter the remains of your bodies from the ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert
... estre perpetuellement vostre esclaue: Et le Diable en signe de remerciement & gratification leur respond, Approchez vous de moy: a quoy obeissant, elles en se trainant a genouil, le luy presentent, & luy receuant l'enfant entre ses bras, le rend a la Sorciere, la remercie, & puis luy recommande d'en auoir soing, leur disant par ce moyen sa troupe s'augmentera. Que si les enfans ayans attainct l'aage de neuf ans, par malheur se voueent au Diable sans ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... that cry—it was a woman's cry—did rend the air from, end to end of the gigantic enclosure, and the cry was echoed and re-echoed by thousands and thousands of throats, as the panther, taking steady aim, leaped ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... she; 'it might have been in danger when you were trusting to the frail works of men, which the waves love to rend to fragments—your good ships, as you call them, which but float about upon sufferance; but where can be the danger when in a mermaid's shell, which the mountain wave respects, and upon which the cresting surge ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... if we can, but it appears at all points. We are as ungrateful as children. There is nothing we cherish and strive to draw to us but in some hour we turn and rend it. We keep a running fire of sarcasm at ignorance and the life of the senses; then goes by, perchance, a fair girl, a piece of life, gay and happy, and making the commonest offices beautiful by the energy and heart with which she does them; ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... birds. This refers to the gift of counsel, with which the saints, by teaching and example, feed men who have been the brood, i.e. imitators, of the devil. Again, the dove tears not with its beak. This refers to the gift of understanding, wherewith the saints do not rend sound doctrines, as heretics do. Again, the dove has no gall. This refers to the gift of piety, by reason of which the saints are free from unreasonable anger. Again, the dove builds its nest in the cleft of a rock. This refers to the gift of fortitude, wherewith the saints build ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... artist Explored the pangs that rend the royal breast, Those wounds that lurk beneath the tissued vest. T. WARTON ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... antagonism, for he kept tugging at his leash and growling ominously. They were a bit in awe of him, and kept at a safe distance. It was evident that they could not comprehend why it was that this savage brute did not turn upon me and rend me. ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the foundations, and as the fair superstructure of character settled, the moral perpendiculars and planes of projection became more and more distorted. Fairness was gone, and in its place stood angry resentment, ready to rend and tear. Pity and ruth were going: the daily report from Margery told of the lessening chance of life for Andrew Galbraith, and the stirrings evoked were neither regretful nor compassionate. On the contrary, he knew very well that the news of Galbraith's ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... kill me so?" he yelled, snapping with his great jaws, trying to reach and rend the hands ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... brutes endued 10 In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude; Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, 15 And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:— These ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... patriotism within us. Our noble soldiery are taking a stand on the broad platform of universal liberty and justice. With scathing words they have rebuked the traitors in our midst; and they now breathe out threatenings and slaughter to the miscreants who would rend the fair heritage transmitted to us by the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the papers that lay before him and rend it aloud, looking severely at the monk over the top of it between the sentences. It was in the form of a confession, and declared that on such a date in the Priory Church of St Pancras at Lewes the undersigned had preached treason, although ignorant that ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... strife will have no end, Beauty and Truth will ever be at variance, A schism still the ranks of man will rend Into two camps, the Hellenes ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... also show how contrary to all sound philosophy is the fear, that the slave, on whom have been heaped all imaginable outrages, will, when those outrages are exchanged for justice and mercy, turn and rend his penitent master. When dealing with such unbelievers, we advert to the fact, that the insurrections at the South have been the work of slaves—not one of them of persons discharged from slavery: ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... point of anthracene (360 deg. ) suffices to decompose secondary alcohols, the primary remaining unaffected. These changes can be followed out by determinations of the vapour density, and so provide a method for characterizing alcohols (see Compt. Rend. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... representation given in illuminated missals and other conventual work, suggesting, as if they had happened at the same moment, the answer, "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil," and the accusation of blasphemy which causes the high-priest to rend ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... ever thinking amongst themselves what might be the difference between darkness and light. At last, worn out by the continued darkness, they consulted amongst themselves whether they should slay their parents, Rangi and Papa, i.e. heaven and earth, or whether they should rend them apart. The fiercest of their children exclaimed, "Let us slay them!" but the forest, another of the sons, said, "Nay, not so. It is better to rend them apart, and to let heaven stand far above us and the earth to lie under our feet. Let the sky become ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... expression of the central ranges are alike withdrawn. No frost-ploughed, dust-encumbered paths of ancient glacier fret the soft Jura pastures; no splintered heaps of ruin break the fair ranks of her forest; no pale, defiled, or furious rivers rend their rude and changeful ways among her rocks. Patiently, eddy by eddy, the clear green streams wind along their well-known beds; and under the dark quietness of the undisturbed pines, there spring up, year by year, such company of joyful flowers ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... moeurs des familles Chretiennes si graves, ce qui les conserva si chastes, c'est ce qui a toujours exerce sur les moeurs en general l'influence la plus profonde, l'exemple des femmes. Douees d'une delicatesse d'organes, qui rend, pour ainsi dire, leur intelligence plus accessible a la voix d'un monde superieur, leur coeur plus sensible a toutes ces emotions qui enfantent les vertus, et qui elevent l'homme terrestre au-dessus de la sphere etroite de la vie presente, les femmes, etrangeres a l'histoire ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... born. Probably no one who is half-starved and overworked during those critical years comes out of the trial with his moral nature uninjured; to certain characters it is a wrong irreparable. To stab the root of a young tree, to hang crushing burdens upon it, to rend off its early branches—that is not the treatment likely to result in growth such as nature purposed. There will come of it a vicious formation, and the principle applies also to the ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... be astonished at my brother's answer; and, putting both his hands to his stomach, as if he would rend his clothes for grief, Is it possible, cried he, that I am at Bagdad, and that such a man as you is so poor as you say? This is what must never be. My brother, fancying that he was going to give him some singular mark of his ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... was well aware of it. He had learnt it only the afternoon before when he was with her on the river. But he thought it a reason too delicate, of too fine a gossamer to be offered to the prosaic mind of his Aunt Margaret. With what ridicule and disbelief she would rend it into tatters! Reasons so exquisite were not for her. She could never ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... long white moss hangs pendent from his brows and cheeks, and his garments are rusted with age. On his feet are iron shoes, with soles made thick with the scraps of leather gathered through centuries past; and with these, it is said, he shall, in the last great twilight of the mid-world, rend the jaws of ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... cheering words have urged me on When fainting heart advised me to stay My halting pen, and leave my task undone: To Thee, I humbly dedicate this lay. Strong, womanly heart! whose long-enduring pain Has not sufficed to rend thy faith in twain, But rather teaches thee to sympathise With those whose path through pain and darkness lies Thyself forgetting, if but thou canst be Of aid to others in adversity; The helpful word, the approbative smile ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... powerful spirit which has temporarily taken possession of his body and speaks with his voice. The possession is indeed painfully manifest. His eyes glare, foam bursts from his mouth, his limbs writhe, his whole body is convulsed. These are the workings of the mighty spirit shaking and threatening to rend the frail tabernacle of flesh. This form of inspiration is not clearly distinguishable from what we call madness; indeed the natives do not attempt to distinguish between the two things; they regard the madman and the prophet as both alike inspired by a ghost or spirit, and ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... wife's room. She was still sleeping. Then it was that spasms of mortal agony began literally to rend the man. He left her side and seated himself on the bed in his dressing-room. He sat with his arms folded across his chest. His shoulders heaved. Deep dry sobs shook his huge frame. He would not let a groan escape from between his clenched teeth, but there was blood on his lower lip where he had ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... intuition, she understood that Fred still cared for her, nay, that he held now a reverent admiration that he had never thought of in the past. His melancholy eyes followed her about, now and then scintillating sparks of passion that seemed almost to rend his soul. She experienced an intense and exquisite sympathy for him that drew them together in a manner that he felt, and was grateful for, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... Frederick and Duke John, and published his letter. Against Munzer's mere words—his preaching and his personal revilements—he was not now concerned to defend himself. 'Let them boldly preach,' he says, 'what they can.... Let the Spirits rend and tear each other. A few, perhaps, may be seduced; but that happens in every war. Wherever there is a battle and fighting, some one must fall and be wounded.' He repeats here, what he had said before, that Antichrist should be destroyed 'without hands,' ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... his mood, and he truncated it. Was this young architect, whose very food and wages in Cullerne were being paid for by the money that he, Lord Blandamer, saw fit to spend upon the church, indeed to be the avenger? Was his own creature to turn and rend him? He smiled at the very irony of the thing, and then he brushed aside reflections on the past, and stifled even the beginnings of regret, if, indeed, any existed. He would look at the present, he would understand exactly ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... a spasm of laughter that seemed nearly to rend him. "Go on. Keep it up. I am enjoying ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... unnearable spout was cast by one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... le bras qui venge nos deux freres, Le bras qui rompt le cours de nos destins contraires, Qui nous rend maitres ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... will excuse me, Miss," began the molasses gentleman, so full of his entrance speech that he said the first part of it before he noticed that the room was empty. And then turned to rend his fellow adventurer, ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... sharp and piercing, horribly distinct. She had sought shelter like a frightened rabbit in the densest cover she could find, but, crouching low, she heard the rush of the remorseless wings above her. She knew that at any moment he could rend her refuge to pieces and hold her ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... admonished, wakes with the words of the spirit deeply engraved on the green leaf of his memory—that leaf never becomes dry. Is he a warrior, and has he the fate to be taken in the toils of the enemy?—when bound to the stake, and the fire scorches his limbs, and the pincers rend his flesh, and the hot stone sears his eye-balls, and the other torments are inflicted, that serve to feed the revenge of the conqueror, and test the resolution of the captive, no groan can be forced from him, in the utmost extremity of his anguish; he never stains his death-song ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... could collect her perceptions of the state of affairs; and oh! what wretchedness! Her darling brother, round whom the old passionate ardour of affection now clung again, lying at death's door; his wife sinking under her exertions;—these were the least of the sorrows, though each cough seemed to rend her heart, and that sleeping mother was like a part of her life. The misery was in that mystery—nay, in the certainty, that up to the last moment of health Arthur had been engaged in his reckless, selfish courses! If he were ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that the children might take into their minds. But the young savage has a keen sense of the ludicrous. His Majesty the King swung the great cheval-glass down, and saw his head crowned with the staring horror of a fool's cap—a thing which his father would rend to pieces if it ever came into his office. He plucked it off, and burst ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... age to age, and some truth there must be in the saying. Suspicion of self-interest could not but attach to him; that was inherent in the circumstances. He must rely upon the sincerity of his passion, which indeed was beginning to rack and rend him. A woman is sensitive to that, especially a woman of Sidwell's refinement. In matters of the intellect she may be misled, but she cannot mistake quivering ardour for design simulating love. If it were impossible to see ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... distance nothing but a high bow and four short funnels over a mighty bow wave that hid the rest of her long, dark-hued hull, and a black, horizontal cloud of smoke that stretched astern half a mile before the wind could catch and rend it. ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... One Face is with me. Hail, ye seven beings who make decrees, who support the Scales on the night of the judgment of the Utchat, who cut off heads, who hack necks in pieces, who take possession of hearts by violence and rend the places where hearts are fixed, who make slaughterings in the Lake of Fire, I know you and I know your names, therefore know ye me even as I know your names. I come forth to you, therefore come ye forth to me, for ye live in me and I would live in you. Make ye me to be vigorous by means of ...
— Egyptian Literature
... taken the liberty of accepting that sacrifice. It was necessary, he explained, that the wall between the tunnel and the cell should fall at the first blow. An attempt to slowly undermine it, or to pick it to pieces, would be overheard and lead to discovery. He therefore intended to rend the barrier apart by a single shock of dynamite. But in this also there was danger; not to those in the tunnel, who, knowing at what moment the mine was timed to explode, could retreat to a safe distance, ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... the beginning of the struggle which was to rend Scotland for so many years. A bond or covenant was drawn up, part of which was copied from one of the reign of James VI., fifty years before, guarding against the establishment of 'popery.' But now new clauses were added, protesting against the appointment of bishops, or allowing priests of any sort ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... her tears, while they seemed to rend her heart, brough a certain sense of lightness ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... I cannot teach My hand to hold my spirit so far off From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof In words, of love hid in me out of reach. Nay, let the silence of my womanhood Commend my woman-love to thy belief,— Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, And rend the garment of my life, in brief, By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude, Lest one touch of ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... loins recorded Psyche sprung. His temples, last, with poppies were o'erspread, That, nodding, seem'd to consecrate his head. Just at the point of time, if Fame not lie, On his left hand twelve rev'rend owls did fly. So Romulus, 'tis sung by Tiber's brook, Presage of sway from twice six vultures took. Th' admiring throng loud acclamations make, And omens of his future empire take. The sire then shook the honours of his head, And, from his brows, damps ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... are in full blast; shouts and maudlin yells rend the air. In front of one insignificant board, "ten-by-twenty," an old wretch is ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... wither, yea, as a frozen bird in the blast of winter, foolish Ootah, who lovest Annadoah! Soft beats the heart of Annadoah upon the bosom of Olafaksoah; yea, for very joy it flutters as a mating bird in summer time. Thou wouldst that beasts might rend her little breasts—safe are they now in the embrace of the strong man from the ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... the finger-nails, he understood that the lady was unable to endure the loss of the dear departed. He then brought his own scanty ration into the vault and exhorted the sobbing mourner not to persevere in useless grief, or rend her bosom with unavailing sobs; the same end awaited us all, the same last resting place: and other platitudes by which anguished minds are recalled to sanity. But oblivious to sympathy, she beat and ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... that we've done our best and worst, and parted, I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend. (O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted) I'll think of Love in books, Love without end; Women with child, content; and old men sleeping; And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain; And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping; And the young ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... solemn is the night?" thought Ronald. "How different will be to-morrow, when all this space will be full of burning ships, and the roar of guns and shrieks of dismay and agony will rend the air!" ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... heroes rushing to battle, they stream onward. They are fair as deer; their roar is like that of lions. The mountains bow before them, thinking themselves to be valleys, and the hills bow down. Good warriors and good steeds are their gifts. They smite, they kill, they rend the rocks, they strip the trees like caterpillars; they rise together, and, like spokes in a wheel, are united in strength. Their female companion is Rodas[i] (lightning, from the same root as rudra, the 'red'). They are like wild boars, and (like the sun) they have metallic jaws. On their chariots ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... confederate dame, who brags That she condemn'd me to the fire, Shall rend her petticoats to rags, And wound her legs with ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... profoundity of nature's peace suddenly showed him to himself. A man engaged in a struggle beyond his power!—committed to one of those tasks that rend and fever the human spirit even while they ennoble it! He had talked boldly to Stephen and the Bishop of "war"—"inevitable" and "necessary war." At the same time there was no one who would suffer from war more than he. The mere daily practice of Christianity, as a man's life-work, ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... resolutions, the Canary bird had gone to sleep, with its head under one wing, but with the first note of music it was all in a flutter of delight, and set up an opposition to the violin that threatened to rend its quivering little form ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... powerful by far than he; and that was Taboo—the custom and superstition handed down from his ancestors, These strangers were Korong; he dare not touch them, except in the way and manner and time appointed by custom. If he did, god as he was, his people themselves would turn and rend him. He was a god, but he was bound on every side by the strictest taboos. He dare not ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... where he lay, and with his strong hands felt along the walls, and found a crack between two great stones, and set his strength to rend them apart; but they clung together like the lips of Death. Long he struggled, yet could not stir them; and ever the doleful voice beat like a bell in his ears, till it seemed to him that he must give his life, so but ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards
... taint on the wind wafted through her routs and assemblies, no doubt sets it down to breathings upon her humble origin, or (it may be) even to some leaking gossip of her foregone wrong. (Women, my dear sir, are brutes to rend a wounded one of the herd.) She can know nothing ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... favourite avenue, so often did he find himself called upon to perambulate that especial thoroughfare. He knew that he was weak and foolish and dishonourable; he knew that he was sowing the dragon's teeth from which were to spring up armed demons that would rend and tear him. But Charlotte's eyes were unspeakably bright and bewitching, and Charlotte's voice was very sweet and tender. A thrilling consciousness that he was not altogether an indifferent person in Charlotte's consideration had ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... am stricken deep." He unslung his heavy fowling-piece and fired. The eyes of the brute glowed like green globes of phosphorescence in the light of the gun, then sank down with a howl that drew its comrades about it, not to succor and to save, but to tear and rend. He watched them a moment, muttering again, "How human!" and turning to an aged oak that spread its branches wide, built a fire of brush and bivouacked. But he could not sleep—the blue devils were playing at hide-and-seek within his heart, and phantoms that ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... he might approach and kiss the ossified corpse. But his knees bent under him, a strangled sob seemed to rend his throat, with a terrible spasm his faithful heart broke, ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... has to be fought through the legislatures and the courts until it is finally settled by the highest court in our land, and there, vanquished wrong expires in the arms of learned lawyers who sell their souls to do evil—who attempt to rend society with the very power that our institutions of learning have conferred upon them. All of our reforms would be led by scholars, if all scholars appreciated as they should the gift of education. There are, of course, a multitude of noble illustrations ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... here to beat you now; this is a change in the conditions of your existence, and should be followed by changed actions. Obey me, your true self, and things will go tolerably well with you, but only listen to that outward and visible old husk of yours which is called your father, and I will rend you in pieces even unto the third and fourth generation as one who has hated God; for I, Ernest, am the God who ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler |
