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Cruel   /krˈuəl/  /krul/   Listen
Cruel

adjective
(compar. crueller or crueler; superl. cruellest or cruelest)
1.
(of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering.  Synonyms: barbarous, brutal, fell, roughshod, savage, vicious.  "Brutal beatings" , "Cruel tortures" , "Stalin's roughshod treatment of the kulaks" , "A savage slap" , "Vicious kicks"



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"Cruel" Quotes from Famous Books



... not be cruel, do not be ungrateful. This is what I had to say to you. And I must repeat that I leave you with the sadness ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... "Thou wert the first to cast such words at me, and now thou makest as if thou wouldst amend it, but a cruel and hard heart ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous

... without a shudder. For example, when he came to the throne, he found in the palace a certain eunuch named Mithridates, who had been concerned in his father's murder. He condemned this man to be put to death in the most horrible and cruel way. He was laid on his back in a kind of horse-trough, and strongly fastened to the four corners of it. Then another trough was put over him, leaving only his head and hands and feet uncovered, for which ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton

... army by picking out 1000 of his veteran warriors, who had gained his victories, and putting them to death. Any regiment sent out to battle, if they were defeated, were instantly destroyed on their return; it was, therefore, victory or death with them; and the death was most cruel, being that of impalement. Well was he ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... luck," she said slowly, as if she could think of nothing else. "Everything has gone the wrong way with me. My whole life has been ruined by a cruel Fate." ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... He will not last the night through. Got you not our messages, sent hours ago? How can you show yourself so careless—so cruel? But tarry no longer now you are here. He has asked for you twice. Take care ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... open the door for my little girl to come in; and she'll die if she is out on the Fells all night. Cruel, naughty Hester,' she said, slapping me; but she might have struck harder, for I had seen a look of ghastly terror on Dorothy's face, which made my very blood ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... people victor once, now vile and base, Deservedly made vassal, who once just, Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquer'd well, But govern ill the Nations under yoke, Peeling thir Provinces, exhausted all By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown Of triumph that insulting vanity; Then cruel, by thir sports to blood enur'd Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts expos'd, 140 Luxurious by thir wealth, and greedier still, And from the daily Scene effeminate. What wise and valiant man would seek to free These ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... that be determined? But I will not waste my words thereupon. The loss of my house and other property is insignificant, compared with the cruel wrong done the Lady Geraldine and the dishonor ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... eyelids that hide like a jewel; Ten heads,—though I sometimes count more; Six mouths that are cubic and cruel; Of mixed arms and legs, twenty-four; Descending in Symbolic glories Of lissome triangles and squares; Oh, mystic and subtle Dolores, ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells

... from his step-mother, Elizabeth of Valois, whom he loves with a sinful passion. His friend, the Marquis Posa reminds him of his duty and induces him to leave Spain for Flanders, where an unhappy nation sighs under the cruel rule of King Philip's governors.—Carlos has an interview with the Queen, but beside himself with grief he again declares his love, though having resolved only to ask for her intervention with the King, on {55} behalf of his mission to Flanders. Elizabeth ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... His cruel words of derision had hardly left his pale lips before they tacked again. He was not holding on, but he hastily snatched at the handles. He was too late, however, for he was tossed from the settee to the legs of the dining-room table (which, fortunately, were ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... element among the whites saw in a relaxation of the severe treatment of the blacks security and immunity in war. But anti-slavery sentiment in Massachusetts was not born of a genuine desire to put down a wicked and cruel traffic in human beings. Two things operated in favor of humane treatment of the slaves,—an impending war, and the decision of Lord Mansfield in the Sommersett case. The English government was yearly increasing ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... of Kunti, was speaking thus in a voice of sarcasm, king Yudhishthira told him, 'This is not time for cruel words!'" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... of cities and nations. It is in vain to build or plot or combine against it. Things refuse to be mismanaged long. Res nolunt diu male administrari. Though no checks to a new evil appear, the checks exist, and will appear. If the government is cruel, the governor's life is not safe. If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing. If you make the criminal code sanguinary, juries will not convict. If the law is too mild, private vengeance comes in. If the government is a terrific democracy, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... in true love's fond embrace, To gaze with looks so tender Upon the war-worn form and face Of Liberty's defender; To count with pride each cruel scar, That mars the manly beauty, Of him who proved so brave in war, So ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... escaped the imperial raid and Horapollo had spent all his early years with his father, his grandfather, and two younger sisters, in constant peril and flight. His youthful spirit was unremittingly fed with hatred of the persecutors, the cruel contemners and exterminators of the faith of his forefathers; and this hatred rose to irreconcilable bitterness after the massacre at Antioch where the imperial soldiery fell upon all his family, and his grandfather and two innocent sisters were ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... life by an absurd and irrational insistence on the offence that this abuse causes before God. For not only do you fiercely denounce the "acts of sin," as you name them, but you presume to go deeper still to the very desire itself, as it would seem. You are unpractical and cruel enough to say that the very thought of sin deliberately entertained can cut off the soul that indulges in it from the favour ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson

... they are a right manly breed, and, with education to correct inevitable prejudices, would be capable of great things. But before they could become efficient soldiers, they needed a severe course of training. In the flat country, south of the Ebro, it would be cruel and foolish to oppose them to regular troops. As guerrilleros, they were without parallel, being content with short commons, and ever ready to play ball after the longest march; but they were ignorant of soldiering as ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... Fortified thus, he explored Charybdis and all the Liparic whirlpools, and could have found Cadman's gun anywhere, if it had only been there. But at last the sea had its revenge upon him, through the cruel insistence of his king. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... naturally visionaries, and, as such, are good subjects for experiment. But it may be a cruel, and is a most injudicious thing, to set children a-scrying. Superstition may be excited, or the half-conscious tendency to deceive may be put ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... Loge is holding, have the kindness to give it me back." But Loge flings the Tarnhelm on the heap as part of the ransom. Hard to bear is this, but Mime can after all forge another. "Now you have gotten everything; now, you cruel ones, loose the thongs." But Wotan remarks, "You have a gold ring upon your finger; that, I think, belongs with the rest." At this, a madness of terror seizes Alberich. "The ring?..." "You must leave it for ransom." ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... loving to awake hate in the sternest, and from the mirth of sunny Leofwine sorrow glints aside, as the shaft from the sheen of a shield. But thou, thou, O beloved!—cursed be the king that chose thee, and cruel was the father that forgot the light of ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... letter dated August 9, 1859, after detailing the cruel treatment of these occupants of the lands which the Government had ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... can speak to.—I want to live with you. I must. I know you are a good woman. I know you are kind. If you are kind to mere strangers that come in boats, and keep a light to save them from shipwreck, you will not be cruel to me— the most ill used creature—the most ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau

... burning with excitement at once conceived a thousand suspicions, wholly unable to understand that a cold and reserved German might choose to deliberate at length, and finally give an answer with brevity. "After centuries of expectation in the cruel uncertainty in which this barbarous man had plunged me"—that is after eight or ten days, the answer came, apparently not without a second direct application for one.[311] It was short and extremely pointed, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... live high up in the Demerara, and they will, every one of them, tell you that there is a nation of Indians with long tails; that they are very malicious, cruel and ill-natured; and that the Portuguese have been obliged to stop them off in a certain river to prevent their depredations. They have also dreadful stories concerning a horrible beast called the water-mamma which, when it happens to take ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... indecencies, the authorities of Massachusetts passed some cruel laws. At first they forbade all persons "harboring Quakers," imposing severe penalties for each offence, then followed mild punishment on the Friends themselves. These proving ineffectual, the Puritans passed laws which authorized the cropping of the ears, boring the ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... governess. Her Majesty endeavoured to pacify the mind of the young Prince, by literally making herself a slave to his childish caprices, which in all probability would have created the confidence so desired, when a most cruel, unnatural, I may say diabolical, report prevailed to alienate the child's affections even from his mother, in making him believe that, owing to his deformity and growing ugliness, she had transferred all her tenderness to his younger brother, ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe

... her shattered reason made her unconscious of the change in her fortunes, and incapable of comparing the end of her life with its beginning. To herself she was still Miss Chauncey, a gentlewoman of high family, possessed of unusual worldly advantages. The remembrance of her cruel trials and sorrows had faded from her mind. She had no idea of the poverty of her surroundings when she paced back and forth, with stately steps, on the ruined terraces of her garden; the ranks of lilies and the conserve-roses ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... which had tortured us in moments of suspense. That was a fearful hour, when a shot had scarce to leap a cannon's length to find its commission; when the belches of the English guns burned the hair of our faces; when Death was sovereign, merciful or cruel at his pleasure. The red flashes disclosed many an act of coolness and of heroism. I saw a French lad whip off his coat when a gunner called for a wad, and another, who had been a scavenger, snatch the rammer from Pearce's hands ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... infant lip, What this aghast surprise of keenest panging, Wherefrom I blench, and cry thy soft mouth rest? Ah hold, withhold, and let the sweet mouth slip! So, with such pain, recoils the woolly dam, Unused, affrighted, from her yeanling lamb: I, one with her in cruel fellowship, Marvel what unmaternal ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... consideration. Probably, strength of body and mind, as a general rule, depends upon breed, and this argument tells two ways—it does not follow that vegetarians will be necessarily strong, and will cease to be cruel; nor does it follow that those who have been accustomed all their lives to eat meat will cease to be strong should they become vegetarians. As we have said, the great motive that induces many to give vegetarianism a trial is economy; and if persons would once get rid of ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne

... they were either favorable or unfavorable, but his frequent commendation in after years indicated that I gained his goodwill before the close of the war, if not when I first came to his notice; and a more intimate association convinced me that the cold and cruel characteristics popularly ascribed to him ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan

... which Frank looked for when he went with his grandfather to catch his sheep. Frank thought it was cruel to cut the ears so; but, when his grandfather told him it was the only way by which each owner could know his own sheep, ...
— The Nursery, February 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... or three lessons which have a deep meaning to those who are willing to read them honestly. The use of water-dressings in surgery completed the series of reforms by which was abolished the "coarse and cruel practice" of the older surgeons, who with their dressings and acrid balsams, their tents and leaden tubes, "absolutely delayed the cure." The doctrine of Broussais, transient as was its empire, reversed the practice of half ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... with tears. As I looked at her tears I said: "It is strange that she should weep so, for her story differs nowise from the many stories happening daily in the lives of men and women. She will tell me the old and beautiful story of lovers forced asunder by cruel fate, and this spot is no doubt a choice one to hear her story." And raising my eyes I admired once again the drooping shore, the serrated line of mountains sweeping round the bay. And the colour was so intense that it overpowered the senses like a perfume, "like musk," I thought. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... small but perfectly proportioned; her rounded face was charmingly pretty; her features, so regular that no emotion seemed to alter their beauty, suggested the lines of a statue miraculously endowed with life: it was easy enough to mistake for the repose of a happy conscience the cold, cruel calm which served as ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... make it possible for her to leave the immortal world of fairies in order to share the fate of her earthly lover, as his wife. In a moment of deepest despair about the state of his country, the fairy queen appears to him and purposely destroys his faith in her by deeds of the most cruel and inexplicable nature. Driven mad by a thousand fears, Arindal begins to imagine that all the time he has been dealing with a wicked sorceress, and tries to escape the fatal spell by pronouncing a curse upon Ada. Wild with sorrow, the unhappy fairy sinks down, and reveals ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... things, that it may be allowed me to find in one strong heart a haven from which I cannot be driven. Hitherto I have always considered self-justification an insult to innocence; and that is why I have disdained to defend myself. Besides, to whom could I appeal? Such cruel things can be confided to none but God or to one who seems to us very near Him—a priest, or another self. Well! I do know this, if my secrets are not as safe there," she said, laying her hand on d'Arthez's heart, "as they are here" (pressing the upper ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac

... by his wife's side, "And you, Thomas Putnam, you puppet in a bad woman's hands, chief aider and abettor of her wicked ways, you shall die two weeks before her, to make ready for her coming! And you," turning to the constables on each side of her, "for your cruel treatment of innocent women, shall die by this time ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... with you in taking joy at what I consider as the triumph of the cause of freedom in the Peninsula;—having read enough to know, and having seen enough to observe, that of all possible tyrannies—and I cordially hate them all—the most contemptible, corrupt, and cruel is the tyranny of absolute democracy, most especially when resting, as in Spain and Portugal, on that new instrument of freedom, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... cruel Emily, he would have taken to his heart and forgiven with tears; and what more can one say of the Christian charity of a man than that he is actually ready to forgive those who have done him every kindness, and with whom he is wrong ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... his jaw; it was cruel, brutal! They were killing her. His clinched fist moved blindly toward his neighbor: he touched her hand ...
— In The Valley Of The Shadow • Josephine Daskam

... is but a chain of sorrows.... These desires that urge us on are really causes of all our woe. We think they are ourselves. We are mistaken. They are all illusion.... This personality, this sense of self, is a cruel deception.... Realize once the true soul behind it, devoid of attributes ... an invisible part of the great impersonal soul of nature, then ... will you have found happiness in the blissful quiescence of Nirvana" [p. 186]. "In desire alone lies all the ill. Quench the desire, and the deeds ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... cruel thing to do to an animal," cried the lad, and he loosed the horse from the manger and turned him so he ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle

... be angry," said the Knight. "Thine anger affrights me not, yet it hurts thyself. Listen, mine own beloved, and I will tell thee the cruel, and yet blessed, truth. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... only just discovered our attachment, and I am grieved to say he disapproves of it, and has forbidden me to encourage your love, that is dearer to me than all the world. It is very hard. It seems so cruel. But I must obey. Do not make obedience too difficult, dear Walter. And pray, pray do not be as unhappy as I am. He says he has reasons, but he has not told me what they are, except that your father has other views for you; but, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... "Marjorie, you are cruel," he exclaimed raising his eyes with a flash in them; he was "only a boy" but his lips were as white as a man's ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... finally in such articulate declarations by prominent men as this: "Experience having settled the point, that this Trade cannot be abolished by the use of force, and that blockading squadrons serve only to make it more profitable and more cruel, I am surprised that the attempt is persisted in, unless as it serves as a cloak to some other purposes. It would be far better than it now is, for the African, if the trade was free from all restrictions, and left to ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... and five other Christian prisoners whom you see as a peace-offering. And so,' added Guy, looking down at his fetters, 'here you see me, an Anglo-Norman gentleman, of great name, in captivity and chains, and threatened with a cruel death; which, however, I would fain escape; for, tempting as may be the prospect of the crown of martyrdom, beshrew me, good Walter, if at my age I deem not life too sweet ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar

... the same opposition was experienced, even more rancorous and cruel. One would think that on the entrance of a few straggling and necessarily inferior feminine beginners into a trade or profession, those in possession would extend to them the right hand of fellowship, as comrades, extra assistance as beginners, ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... Helen felt she was cruel, she began to doubt her own motives; she thought she had been selfish in urging Cecilia too strongly; and, going to her kindly, she said, "Take your own time, my dear Cecilia: only tell him—tell him soon." "I will, I will indeed, when I can—but ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... exhalation of my heart's first passion, and though I never hated, I found I could no longer love you. Our marriage was illegal; I did not know it when it took place, but I learned it afterwards, when my love had chilled, and with perhaps a cruel, but a just hand, Minny, just to us both, I severed the cord which had bound us so sweetly, and our parted hearts drifted out of each other's sight, on the billows of ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... be a pretty companion for her, and not tyrannical and overbearing like me.' Hayward's Piozzi, ii. 336. No doubt in 1788 he attacked her brutally (see ante, p. 49). 'I could not have suspected him,' wrote Miss Burney, 'of a bitterness of invective so cruel, so ferocious.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, iv. 185. The attack was provoked. Mrs. Piozzi, in January, 1788, published one of Johnson's letters, in which he wrote—at all events she says he wrote:—'Poor B——i! do not quarrel with him; to neglect him a little will be sufficient. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... wellspring of pleasure and profit in my farm of one acre, when, in an evil moment, I resolved to part with her and try another. In an evil moment I say, for from that time my luck in cattle left me. The goddess never forgave me the execution of that rash and cruel resolve. ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... stately old Academy, and shared in the wholesome, health-giving sports their breadth permitted. I have known certain of her astute schoolmasters and felt the full rigor of their discipline. Stern tutors they were, at times seemingly cruel, but what retrospective mind will not now accord them unstinted praise and gratitude? Something more than the mere awakening and development of slumbering intellects was their province: raw, untamed spirits were given into their hands for a brief spell—brief when measured in after ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... the beauty of my locks, and cry In bitter wrath against the cruel fate That bids thy holy Nazarites to lie In earth contaminate. How can I make or meat or drink my care, How can mine eyes enjoy The light of day, when I see ravens tear Thy eagles' flesh, and dogs ...
— Hebrew Literature

... manner. Beware, however, my dear Charles," continued she, with earnestness, "of Mr. Allington. He is a bold, bad man, whom habits and associations have made haughty, imperious, cold-blooded, and cruel; and I tremble for you when he shall learn what has this day passed between us. Beware of him, for my sake; and, oh! promise me, dearest Charles, that, whatever may be the consequence of what we now have done, you ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... from the beginning? Was he even now at the post waiting—certain that eventually she must release the pigeon? The picture unnerved her to the point of panic. And yet she tried to reassure herself. No man, however cruel and pitiless, could deliberately plan so monstrous a thing. She tried to find excuses for the non-arrival of the Hoonah. . . . Perhaps the fall steamer had not come in on time. . . . Perhaps some accident had happened and the White Chief ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... and dreary Winter! O the cold and cruel Winter! Ever thicker, thicker, thicker Froze the ice on lake and river, Ever deeper, deeper, deeper Fell the snow o'er all the landscape, Fell the covering snow, and drifted Through the forest, round the village. O the famine and the fever! O the wasting of the famine! O the blasting ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... accomplishments of the world. They will be also introduced to the card-room, and to assemblies, and to the theatre, in their turn. The boys will be admitted to neither. The latter will of course feel their pleasures abridged, and consider their case as hard, and their father as morose and cruel. Little jealousies may arise upon this difference of their treatment, which may be subversive of filial and fraternal affection. Nor can religion be called in to correct them; for while the two opposite examples of father and mother, and of sisters and ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... only of men, but of animals; on the other hand—Christians, professing the law of brotherhood and love) like wild beasts on land and on sea are seeking out each other, in order to kill, torture, and mutilate each other in the most cruel way. What can this be? Is it a dream or a reality? Something is taking place which should not, cannot be; one longs to believe that it is a dream and to awake from it. But no, it is not a dream, it is ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy

... really cruel vengeance to be taken on a woman," said de Marsay, continuing his story, "with infernal ingenuity—for, as we had loved each other, some terrible and irreparable revenges were possible—I despised myself, I felt how common I was, I insensibly formulated a horrible ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... France. On the 21st January 1793, the unfortunate monarch was beheaded; and his son, still a prisoner, was partially acknowledged as Louis XVII., though only in the ninth year of his age. This was but a mockery, for his captivity only became the more close and cruel. He was separated from his mother, and handed over to the custody of one Simon, a ferocious cobbler, and his wife, who, besides practising all sorts of external cruelties on him, tried every means to demoralise his mind. When this ruffian was ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... tears were more explicable; she was old enough to understand the frightful waste of the best gifts involved in that premature ending; as for my grief, perhaps the true explanation of it may be that I mourned rather the father who had been kind to me in Wales, than the cruel ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... was to lead the Webster delegates, went to Washington the day before the convention assembled. He called on Mr. Webster and found him so filled with the belief that he should be nominated that it seemed cruel to undeceive him. Mr. Choate, at all events, had not the heart for the task, and went back to Baltimore to lead the forlorn hope with gallant fidelity and with an eloquence as brilliant if not so grand as that of Mr. Webster himself. A majority[1] of the convention ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... in his external surroundings; for his horizon is limited to the present. Yesterday's hunger is quickly forgotten in to-day's plenty; the fatigue of the morning's toil vanishes in the evening's frolic; even the wounds of a cruel blow are readily healed by a friendly word. Unconscious of any disparity between himself and others, he is equally contented with his lot, whether his clothing be velvet or rags, whether his play-ground be a royal park or the streets of a ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... without hesitation, that a free trade in corn was calculated to produce steadier prices than the system of restrictions with which it has been compared, I should, with as little hesitation say, that such a trade in corn, as has been described, would be subject to much more distressing and cruel variations, than the most determined ...
— The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn: intended as an appendix to "Observations on the corn laws" • Thomas Malthus

... clothes, hard hands, tawny face, and awkward manner of the country boy make sorry contrast with the genteel appearance of the other. The poor boy bemoans his hard lot, regrets that he has "no chance in life," and envies the city youth. He thinks that it is a cruel Providence that places such a wide ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... quarters fear was added to the anguish already overburdening the hearts of so many. Yet one woman, hearing the Germans were near, exclaimed, "Say what you like, these men are just like our French men. War is war; you cannot expect it to be anything but cruel and barbarous. The Germans are no ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... to the valour of the Germans, to the valour indeed of the Brandenburgers. What then could prevent the fall of Verdun itself? That indeed would compensate them for the hunger they suffered, and for the cruel losses the French were inflicting ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... of death is the anticipation of death; and it became Him who bore death for every man to drink to its dregs that cup of trembling which the fear of it puts to all human lips. We rightly regard it as a cruel aggravation of a criminal's doom if he is carried along a level, straight road with his gibbet in view at the end of the march. But so it was that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... not know that they loved him," Edgar said, "but they feared him. Their laws were very cruel ones, and it was death ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... and all the eyes of that cruel world around fixed upon her! Nothing to trouble her, and every ear on the alert to hear her,—young and pretty as she was,—confess her own shame in that public court! Nothing to trouble her, when she would so willingly have died to escape the agony ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... Test act, 1673. The act of Uniformity required that every clergyman should be reordained; should declare his assent to every thing contained in the Book of Common Prayer, etc. By this act, about two thousand dissenting ministers were ejected from their livings, and the most cruel persecution followed. The Five-mile and Conventicle acts imposed various fines, imprisonment, and death upon all persons above sixteen years of age, who attended divine service where the liturgy was not read; ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... saving the Duchessa d'Astrardente from her fate. Why do you refuse? why do you bargain?" he asked, suddenly turning towards her. "Does all my devotion count for nothing—all my love, all my years of patient waiting? Oh, you cannot be so cruel as to snatch the cup from my very lips! It is not for the sake of these miserable documents: what is it to me whether Don Giovanni appears as the criminal in a case of bigamy—whether he is ruined now, as by his evil deeds he will be hereafter, or whether he ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... Sallenauve, "to love you would have been insulting; not to love you was cruel! What sort of woman are you, that either way you ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... enthusiastic, and hopeful. Several of the worst of the landlords had already been brought to their knees, and there had been a considerable fall in the value of landed property. The serfs were passing from the extremity of despair and demoralization into the other extreme of exultant and sometimes cruel triumph. ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... This was so cruel a disappointment to Wild, and so sensibly affects us, as no doubt it will the reader, that, as it must disqualify us both from proceeding any farther at present, we will now take a little breath, and therefore we shall here close ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... Senorita—it is natural you should, and it is natural that I, their countryman and leader, should feel for them, also. I do not know what God has in reserve for my unfortunate country! We may have cruel and unscrupulous men among us, Senorita, but we have thousands who are just, and brave, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... spirit projected on the mists of the Non-ego.' Even like those cloud-phantoms are the gods made in the image of man, who have been worshipped through successive ages of the world, gods dowered with like passions to those of the races who have crouched before them, gods cruel and malignant and lustful, jealous and noble and just, radiant or gloomy, the counterparts of men upon a vast and shadowy scale. But here another question rose. If the gods that men have made and ignorantly worshipped be really but glorified copies of their own souls, where is ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... presence of the committee. The result was a deep and wide- spread feeling of compunction, and while we were under the influence of this I sought Judge Folger and showed him his opportunity to do two great things. I said: "It rests with you to remedy this cruel evil which has now cost Dr. Willard his life, and at the same time to join us in carrying the Cornell University Bill. Let the legislature create a new asylum for the chronic insane of the State. Now is the time of all times. Instead of calling it the Beck Asylum, give ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... she was too proud, too high-born, to stoop to the apothecary's son. The role of incredulity was in accordance with the plan which he had laid down, for he wished to appear as Mme. de Bargeton's champion. Stanislas de Chandour held that Mme. de Bargeton had not been cruel to her lover, and Amelie goaded them to argument, for she longed to know the truth. Each stated his case, and (as not unfrequently happens in small country towns) some intimate friends of the house dropped in in the middle of the argument. Stanislas ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... but her father, thinking that she might be perhaps a little wayward; while he grew daily more enamoured of his plan, redoubled his tenderness, seeking to study her whims in every other respect. It is cruel to loose every bond but that which galls most sorely, to pluck away every thorn but that which pricks most sharply: all the perceptions gather to that point, and the suffering is in consequence tenfold more acute. Such were Lucy's sensations, though ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... too pleased to understudy Irene in the new piece—in fact, it would have just suited me, Mr. Rathbone, and left me plenty of time for my social engagements too. Besides, if I once got a chance of a part like that I feel I should have made a hit. Oh, it was a cruel disappointment! After being too charming to me—or, at any rate, I was charming to him at the Cashmores' reception, you know—I remember he was standing in the refreshment-room with Mrs. Cashmore, and I went straight up to him ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... in which he died was indifferent to him. And so sentence, as is usual in such cases, was pronounced upon him, and he was ordered to be carried back and put into the press. But when he had carried it so far, and found there was no avoiding that cruel fortune which was appointed for such obstinate persons as himself, he desired time till the next morning to consider his plea, which being permitted him, he that ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... savage betrays his inferiority to animals not only in his cruel maltreatment of girls before they have reached the age of puberty,[119] but in his ignorance, in most cases, of the simplest caresses and kisses for which we often find corresponding acts in birds and other animals. The nerves of primitive men are too coarse for such ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... at the siege of Orleans. Richard, the stout Earl of Warwick, another possessor, was killed at Barnet. George, Duke of Clarence, was drowned in a butt of Malmsey. Richard III. was the next possessor. Lady Margaret de la Pole, was beheaded at the age of seventy-two, by the cruel policy of Henry VIII., in revenge for a supposed affront by her son the Cardinal. In this parish also lived the infamous Colonel Titus, who advised Cromwell to deliver the nation from its yoke, in a pamphlet, entitled Killing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various

... establish the reputation of Fools and Coxcombs? If so, I shall be very easy in my banishment, and have the pleasure of very good company. Without Raillery, wou'd these Gentlemen really be more wise than Scipio and Lelius, more delicate than Augustus, or more cruel than Nero? But they who are so angry at the Critics, how comes it that they are so merciful to bad Authors? I see what it is that troubles them; they have no mind to be undeceiv'd. It vexes them to have seriously admir'd those Works, which my Satires ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte

... smaller and not made of thick iron, the waves would have crushed it to pieces without the slightest compunction, and would have devoured all the people in it with no distinction of saints or sinners. The steamer had the same cruel and meaningless expression. This monster with its huge beak was dashing onwards, cutting millions of waves in its path; it had no fear of the darkness nor the wind, nor of space, nor of solitude, caring for nothing, and if the ocean had ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... dishonest things which were never so much as suspected by any, setting down his own conjectures as certain truths, yea, the least syllable that did escape her in passion, he maketh it an argument of her cruel and inhuman disposition . . . " {279b} In the MS. used by Bishop Keith, {279c} Spottiswoode added, after praising the Regent, "these things I have heard my father often affirm"; he had the like testimony "from an honourable and religious lady, who had the honour to wait near her ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... Sarah hastily. "I do wish, with my father, that this cruel war was at an end, that we might return to our friends ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... with variations at every step in the crowded rooms, and reflected with different shades in other countenances. The spectacle of so many vivid passions, of all these lovers' quarrels, these pleasing revenges, these cruel favors, these flaming glances, of all this ardent life diffused around them, only made them feel ...
— Domestic Peace • Honore de Balzac

... grand way to put it all to rights in a minute. You think I've turned him out because he's a good-natured worry like Bobbie, the bob-tailed sheep dog, and you say, 'Poor fellow, see how pitifully he's wagging his tail. It's cruel of you not to let him in.' That's the way you look at Septimus, and I can't stand it and I won't. I love him as I never dreamed a woman could love a man. I could tear myself into little pieces for him bit ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... back, I saw that it was cruel true. I had known in my heart all along that this was the truth; but it came to me like a blow from Jim. You see, it had been a hard struggle for the last year or so; and when I was home for a day or two I was generally too busy, or too tired and worried, or full of schemes for the future, ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... and Agony her brother, By bright new marriages in all great arts, By the rare wisdom like miraculous amber Won by the desolate grey sound of tears, By wedding-music of the flute and tambour Prevailing o'er Time's cruel plot of years, By all the proud prayers granted and denied us, Fate has no sword at all ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor

... from single to double rig is the decay of the cruel custom of "bobbing" the dogs' tails. When dogs are hitched one close behind the other (and the closer the better for pulling) the tail of the dog in front becomes heavy with ice from the condensation of the breath of the dog behind, until not only is he carrying weight but the use of the ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... 'She doesn't; it is cruel fate. Bobby, my boy, life is an utter failure. Oh! I don't know what I am saying, or why I am talking like this. Your mother is dying fast, can't you see it? I hoped she was getting stronger, but the doctor says it has only been her strong will that has got her downstairs at all. Oh, ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre

... mollified into reasonable compliance, let the anguish of that miserable knight stir thee to compassion,—thy master, I mean, whose soul I see sticking crosswise in his throat, not ten inches from his lips, waiting only thy cruel or kind answer either to fly out of his mouth or to ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... contending parties; and the intractable spirit of the Catholics insensibly cast him into the opposite scale. His moderation was guarded by timidity; but his son Theophilus, alike ignorant of fear and pity, was the last and most cruel of the Iconoclasts. The enthusiasm of the times ran strongly against them; and the emperors who stemmed the torrent were exasperated and punished by the public hatred. After the death of Theophilus, the final victory of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... have a little talk with Miss Vost before she saw Bobbie. He had so much affection for Bobbie that he wanted to ask Miss Vost to please not be unnecessarily cruel with him. He did not know that Miss Vost was never unnecessarily cruel to any living creature; for he made the mistake there of classifying all women into the good and the cruel, of which Miss Vost seemed to be among the latter. As a matter of fact, Miss ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... first heat of this determination, he turned towards some young men standing near him, one of whom was about to visit Vienna. He gayly proposed to join him,—a proposal readily accepted, and began conversing on the journey, the city, its splendid and proud society, with all that cruel exhilaration which the forced spirits of a stricken heart can alone display, when Evelyn (whose conference with Maltravers was ended) passed close by him. She was leaning on Lady Doltimore's arm, and the admiring ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VIII • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... to us suffering intense torture from the terrific pressure of such trusses— pressure perhaps ten times greater than needed— and this cruel pressure is exerted from the wrong direction, in ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons

... stretcher and snatched at it, thrusting out his face, the face of a terrified animal, open mouth, and round, palpitating eyes. He lifted his hand as though he would have struck at Charlotte, but John pushed him back. He was brutalized, made savage and cruel by terror; he had ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair

... at the side of Lord Chetwynde whose heart knew neither pity nor remorse, whose hand never faltered in dealing its blow, and who watched every failing moment of his life with unshaken determination. To him her cruel and bloody behests had been committed in her mad hour of vengeance; those behests he was now carrying out as much for his own sake as for hers; accomplishing the fulfillment of his own purposes under the cloak of obedience to her orders. He ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... Poor me!" murmured Phil, as if talking to himself. "Roger will talk to nobody but Laura, and Dave will see and hear and think of nobody but Jessie, and I'll be left in the cold! Oh, what a cruel world this is! If only—wow!" and Phil's pretended musings came to a sudden end, as Dave shied a pair of rolled-up socks at him and Roger followed with a pillow. In another instant a mimic battle was on, with pillows and various articles of clothing for ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer

... within its existing limits. Old-age pensions will carry us all a very long way. They have opened a door which will not soon or easily be closed. The members of both Houses of Parliament have been led to the verge of the cruel abyss of poverty, and have been in solemn session assembled to contemplate its depths and its gloom. All alike have come to gaze; none have remained unmoved. There are some distinguished and eminent men, men ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... impression that this man was capable of falsely accusing the girl in the presence of his wife, of his father and of Jorance himself. With Suzanne present, falsehood became impossible. The test was a cruel one, but, however it was decided, it carried with it the unimpeachable certainty without which Le Corbier was ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... desert shores of Africa, I never had so much as one thought of what would become of me; or one wish to God to direct me whither I should go, or to keep me from the danger which apparently surrounded me, as well from voracious creatures as cruel savages: but I was quite thoughtless of a God or a Providence; acted like a mere brute, from the principles of nature, and by the dictates of common sense only; and indeed hardly that. When I was delivered and taken up at sea by the Portuguese ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... Oh! how awful it seemed to him now, as he looked through the darkness at the very road along which they had brought Verny's dead body. Then his thoughts turned to the theft of the pigeons, his own drunkenness, and then his last cruel, cruel experiences, and this dreadful end of the day which, for an hour or two, had seemed so bright on that very spot where he stood. Could it be that this (oh, how little he had ever dreamed of it)—that this was to be the conclusion of ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... could convert this barbarian and detain him awhile at Rome, he would learn that women and nymphs (and inconstancy also) are one and the same. These cruel men have no lenity, no suavity. They who do not as they would be done by, are done by very much as they do. Women will glide away from them like water; they can better bear two masters than half one; and a new metal must be discovered before any bars are strong enough to ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... that your life will be made miserable and hardly worth living by the cruel treatment of friends. Enemies will ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... young man he did say, 'Thou cruel knave! tell me, I pray, As I have here consumed my store, How durst thee kick ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit, and since, in paying it, it is impossible I should live, all debts are cleared between you and me if I might see you at my death; notwithstanding, use ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... be no doubt that Shakespeare was profoundly pessimistic. There was abundant reason for it. The age of Elizabeth was an age of glorious sacrifices, but it was also an age of shameless hypocrisy, of cruel and unjust punishments, of downright oppression. Even the casual observer might well grow sick at heart. A nature so finely balanced as Shakespeare's suffered a thousandfold. Hence this contempt for life which showed only corruption and injustice. Cressida and ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud

... and grieved about something, and he asked me if I hadn't time to go away into a quiet place where we could talk it over by ourselves; but he had a kind of a cruel, insincere look in his eye, and I said no, I believed I didn't care to, and that I was a poor conversationalist, anyhow; and so I came away, and left him looking at his brass locket and kicking holes in the ground ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... convicts had met their death, the hunters could not repress a shudder of horror. Around it lay the repulsive-looking crocodiles, placidly sleeping on the water, and amongst them floated a man's straw hat. It was all that remained of the cruel, merciless band. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... she wailed. "O Father, Father! how could they be so cruel?" After a few moments she raised her head with a long, quivering sigh, and went on with the letter. When she had finished it, she took up the little black book. Her tears fell fast as she perused ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... intense my eyes may watch with curiosity, as a cat watches a fly. It may be into my curiosity will creep an element of warm gladness in the wonder which I am beholding outside myself. Or it may be that my curiosity will be purely and simply the cold, almost cruel curiosity of the upper will, directed from the ganglion of the shoulders: such as is the acute ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... great river and the palm fronds are gently stirring before the breeze that comes with nightfall on the Line. If you have nothing better to do, suppose you sit down beside me in a deck-chair and let me tell you something about these cruel and cunning monsters and the curious methods by which they are captured. Boy! Pass the cheroots and bring ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... constantly ambitious and brilliant youngsters from no estate married into the families of the planter princes. Meanwhile the one character utterly condemned and ostracized was the man who was mean to his slaves. Even the coward was pitied and might have been liked. For the cruel master ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... not forgetting his fare, And having a taste to renew it, Sailed round near the coop, high in air, With cruel intention, to ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould

... "Why you cruel monster!" cried Shirley. "I always loved dolls, but I had my baby sisters to take care of so I never ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm

... and a man of most eminent virtue, political and military, after having heard the sentence, advancing to speak, no audience till then having been allowed, instead of laying before them his own cause, or the impiety of so cruel a sentence, only expressed a solicitude for his judges' preservation, beseeching the gods to convert this sentence to their good, and praying that, for neglecting to fulfil the vows which he and his companions ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... parties exerted these calm efforts against each other in parliamentary votes and debates, the French factions, inflamed to the highest degree of animosity, continued that cruel war which their intemperate zeal, actuated by the ambition of their leaders, had kindled in the kingdom. The admiral was successful in reducing the towns of Normandy which held for the king; but he frequently complained that the numerous garrison of Havre remained totally inactive, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... nor wrong in Him, Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord. 'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs 100 That march now from the mountain to the sea; 'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. 'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots Shall join the file, one pincer ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... that children feel for a parent. I thought to myself that I might perhaps never see my daughter again, and I had a great desire that she should look upon me, before she went, that she might take my image with her in her memory. It seemed to me cruel to have her brought to my dungeon. It was sorrow enough for her young heart to know that her mother was a victim of slavery, without seeing the wretched hiding-place to which it had driven her. I begged permission to pass the last night in one ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... Southern Italy and the royal title, but even, by the grant of the legatine power to the King himself, exempted his kingdom from the visits of papal legates. Roger was supreme in Church and State. A cruel yet vigorous and able ruler, he built up a centralised administrative system from which Henry II of England did not disdain to take lessons. His possession of Sicily carried him to Malta and thence ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... thick-skinned and obstinate animal with a stick. It is much easier, and much more effective, to tickle up a sore, kept open for the purpose, with a little bit of stick, while comfortably seated on the creature's back. The fellow we refer to did that. We do not say or think that all Arabs are cruel; very far from it, but we hold that, as a race, they are so. Their great prophet taught them cruelty by example and precept, and the records of history, as well as of the African slave-trade, bear witness to the fact that their "tender ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne

... The Cecil party had complete control of the situation, and to all appearance meant to come to terms with the Archduke: which would wreck the Earl's ambitions irretrievably. Now, when his one chance lay in playing the repentant and tearful adorer of a mistress cruel and fair if somewhat mature—a very familiar role for him—his cry was all for the restoration of lost pecuniary privileges; and his mistress would naturally have none of a lover so self-centred. Despairing of the Queen's favour, he was ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... been his surprise, could he have been told at this moment how much he was already indebted to Christian Science? for had it not softened the cruel pride that had so encrusted her before? He knew nothing of this. He perceived a change in her manner and even character since he last saw her two years before, although even then his great love had been able to condone all weaknesses, or what others would call weaknesses. ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... hesitated and paused; while Emily endeavoured to support herself, as, with increasing perturbation, she expected what he might further say. A long pause of silence ensued, during which he was visibly agitated; at length, he said, 'It would be a cruel delicacy, that could prevail with me to be silent—and I will inform you, that the Chevalier's extravagance has brought him twice into the prisons of Paris, from whence he was last extricated, as I was told upon authority, which I cannot ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... my master; but much did I fear them, for never knew I a Norseman yet who was not cruel to me; and seeing them I ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... reaction swept her, of anger. Why was he there? Why wasn't he at home? Why had he made no attempt to relieve her cruel anxiety? A messenger—it would have been very simple! And Ben Sansome was so kind— as always. She turned to ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... heavy quilt, gorgeous with heraldic colours and devices, her pale cheeks flushed with fever, her breath catching painfully, and with a terrible short cough, murmuring strange words about her sisters, and about cruel tongues. A crowd of both sexes and all ranks filled the room, ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... government. I had not forgotten the soft hand, guided by a tender heart, that bound up with healing balsam the gash made in my head by Ike, the son of Abel. Thomas and Rowena, I found to be a well-matched pair. He was stingy, and she was cruel; and—what was quite natural in such cases—she possessed the ability to make him as cruel as herself, while she could easily descend to the level of his meanness. In the house of Master Thomas, I was made—for the first time in seven years ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... rubbish as that. No, sir, Mary; I don't pack Kathie off with a strange Frenchwoman, destined for heaven knows what, and that's all there is to it. The thing looks fishy to me. Maybe it's, a plot—a dark, cruel plot to get the child out of the country. If he wants me to believe that Mrs. Force is keen about Kathie, she'll have to say so herself, in so many words, and, blame me, Mary, I don't believe I'll let her say 'em by ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... been an epithet of Adonis. The Arabs still call the anemone "wounds of the Naaman." The red rose also was said to owe its hue to the same sad occasion; for Aphrodite, hastening to her wounded lover, trod on a bush of white roses; the cruel thorns tore her tender flesh, and her sacred blood dyed the white roses for ever red. It would be idle, perhaps, to lay much weight on evidence drawn from the calendar of flowers, and in particular to press an argument so fragile as the bloom of the rose. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... some people give me the name of being," he complained, with more gentleness in his voice than she had heard since he was courting her. He still studied her, as if he expected her to uphold common report and protest that he was hard and cruel-driving in his way. She said nothing; Isom proceeded to give himself the good rating which ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... on the scene, Cherry Ripe! Well, Dr. Anstice, to cut a long story short, Cherry thought us so selfish and cruel to prevent the poor birds sharing our fruit that she slipped into the kitchen garden one very hot morning, and devoted a good hour to taking up the netting—with the result that the stooping down with the sun beating on her head gave ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... hawk and the eagle have sharp eyes, and they can see a long distance. If we should see an eagle in a cage, we would find that its eyes are bright and a deep yellow in color; but they look wild and cruel, and we do not like to go very ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot

... swabber to-morrow; and as for plunder—they say old Avery, and one or two close hunks, made money; but in my time, all went as it came; and reason good, for if a fellow had saved five dollars, his throat would have been cut in his hammock. And then it was a cruel, bloody work.—Pah,—we'll say no more about it. I broke with them at last, for what they did on board of a bit of a snow—no matter what it was bad enough, since it frightened me—I took French leave, and came in upon the proclamation, so I am free of all that business. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... instantly seizing his advantage, he made prisoner George Cassen, one of this party, and obtained from him full information as to the movements of Captain Smith. The cowardice of Cassen did not save him. The savages put him to death with cruel tortures, and then ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... her sweetest moments to deal her wounds, was cruel; but the Countess just then distinctly heard Mr. George ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... may die any day, but it would be horrible to leave my child to battle with poverty, unsuccess. If he was to make a fortune he might go into it with a better heart, you know. And your brother is so young. He would be good to her. Not that I fancy Jasper Wilmarth could be cruel to a pretty young girl who would bring him ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... so dark since they have shut my eyes; I think it cruel in them to do that— Shut out the light of day and every chance That I could ever have of seeing Grace. I cannot move a muscle, and I try, And strive to part my lips to say some word; But all in vain; the mind has lost control Over ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey

... "God wouldn't be so cruel as to let him die. Don, look at me. Dear old doggie, I ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine

... of divine influence, the more one has of Providence. Thus in plants and animals divine Providence extends only to the species. When the Rabbis tell us that cruelty to animals is forbidden in the Torah, the meaning is that we must not be cruel to animals for our own good, in order not to develop habits of cruelty. To ask why God does not provide for the lower animals in the same way as he does for man, is the same as to ask why he did not endow the animals ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... was Basil doing all this time? Did he not possess a charm about him, that would have put an end to all this torturing treatment, and have made the Indians friends instead of such cruel enemies? Ah! poor Basil! he had suffered worse than any of the three. I shall tell you how it ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... don't know me now, a little bit? Ye were a little felly when we last met. I'm Peggy Donohoe that was—Peggy Grant now, since I married poor dear Grant that's dead. And, sure, rest his sowl!"—here she sniffed a little—"though he treated me cruel bad, so he did! Ye'll remember me brother Mick—Mick with the ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... made five thousand prisoners, and killed at least six thousand of the enemy. Adieu, my adorable Josephine. Think of me often. When you cease to love your Achilles, when your heart grows cool towards him, you wilt be very cruel, very unjust. But I am sure you will always continue my faithful mistress, as I shall ever remain your fond lover ('tendre amie'). Death alone can break the union which sympathy, love, and sentiment ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... singer Thamyris, who, in a piece which was probably of Sophocles, made his appearance with a black eye. Even accidental circumstances were imitated; for instance, the cheeks of Tyro, streaming blood from the cruel conduct of his stepmother. The head from the mask must no doubt have appeared somewhat large for the rest of the figure; but this disproportion, in tragedy at least, would not be perceived from the elevation ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... tiny pin she wore attached to her collar. The pin itself was a carefully wrought but cruel caricature of an awkward buglike creature. A small ruby set in the center of its ...
— Blind Spot • Bascom Jones

... dear. I know how weak you are, what you have gone through, alone, here in this dreary place. I know what pain you have endured, and the shame you have felt, the shame that faces you outside in the world. It is a cruel world. To women—oh, but it is cruel! It has no mercy for a woman who loves ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... that he was hasty and vindictive, positive in his opinions, and inexorable in his enmities. To excuse his participation in the arbitrary measures of the council, and his concurrence in the severe decrees of the Star-chamber, he alleged, that he was only one among many; and that it was cruel to visit on the head of a single victim the common faults of the whole board. But it was replied, with great appearance of truth, that though only one, he was the chief; that his authority and influence swayed the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... Their mother was incapable of thinking of anything: her condition was critical. The two children were left alone in the presence of death. At first they were more fearful than sorrowful. And they were not allowed to weep in peace. The cruel legal formalities were begun the first thing in the morning. Antoinette hid away in her room, and with all the force of her youthful egoism clung to the only idea which could help her to thrust back the horror of the overwhelming reality: ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... Oh, please don't let him hit me! I've been hit cruel to-day because I spoke to a man. Don't let him look at me like that! He's reg'lar wicked, that one. Don't let him look at me like that, neither! Oh, I feel as if I hadn't nothing on when he looks ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... as he was, there was a dignity, the dignity of truth in that brief appeal, which Arthur vainly struggled to resist. She had not attempted a single word of exoneration, and yet his reproaches rushed back into his own heart as cruel and unjust, and answer he had none. He rose mechanically, and as he turned aside to conceal the weakness, a deep and fearful imprecation suddenly broke from him; and raising her head, ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... been superintendent during the latter half of the time, this was a cruel stroke. He wanted to make her reverse her opinions. And they never met without 'Now, Ursula, don't you remember Jem Burton putting on Miss Pope's spectacles, and grinning at all ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... put into my craving hands the copy of her will? Why sentest thou to me the posthumous letter?—What thou I was earnest to see the will? thou knewest what they both were [I did not]; and that it would be cruel to oblige me. ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... First, here, to speak with you. Some devil's trick Gleamed in her smile, the way some women have Of smiling with their lips, wreathing the skin In pleasant ripples, laughing with their teeth, While the cold eyes watch, cruel as a snake's That fascinates a bird. I'd not obey her. She whipped a dagger out. Had it not been For Shadow-of-a-Leaf, who dogged us all the way, Poor faithful fool, and leapt out at her hand, She would have killed me. Then she darted away Like ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... creature!—Do you recollect how gay she was when first we came to Cecilhurst? and even last year, when she had hopes of her uncle's recovery, and when he talked of taking her to London, how she enjoyed the thoughts of going there! The world was bright before her then. How cruel of that uncle, with all his fondness for her, never to think what was to become of her the moment he was dead: to breed her up as an heiress, and ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... found every day of a fool who is no coward; examples may be found occasionally of a fool who is not cunning; but it may reasonably be doubted whether there is a producible instance anywhere of a fool who is not cruel. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... thing my fear died away and my intellectual poise returned. Of course it was not a ghost. Dead men did not rise up. It was a joke, a cruel joke. My mates of the forecastle, by some unknown means, were frightening me. Twice already must they have seen me run aft. My cheeks burned with shame. In fancy I could hear the smothered chuckling and laughter even then going on in the forecastle. ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London

... world has worshipped, and of all the varieties of monstrosity, not the less monstrous because sometimes beautiful, before which men have bowed. Cruel, lustful, rapacious, capricious, selfish, indifferent deities they have adored. And then, 'God hath established,' proved, demonstrated 'His love to us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... wholly loyal and conscientious men, capable of doing high duty elsewhere. Men are not alike. In some, however willing the spirit, the flesh may still be weak. To punish, degrade or in any way humiliate such men is not more cruel than ignorant. When the good faith of any individual has been repeatedly demonstrated in his earlier service, he deserves the benefit of the doubt from his superior, pending study of his case by medical ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense



Words linked to "Cruel" :   inhumane



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