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Torn   /tɔrn/   Listen
Torn

adjective
1.
Having edges that are jagged from injury.  Synonyms: lacerate, lacerated, mangled.
2.
Disrupted by the pull of contrary forces.  "Torn by conflicting loyalties" , "Torn by religious dissensions"



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"Torn" Quotes from Famous Books



... superfluous. Then came Jessie. Of Jessie her father had repeatedly said that she was the only girl of his who had brains; those brains, if existent, must now be turned to account. But Jessie had long since torn up her school-books into curl-papers, and, as learning accumulated outside her head, it vanished from the interior. When she declared that arithmetic was all but a mystery to her, and that she had forgotten what ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... scarcely necessary to relate the events which ensued; how the Church of Nicomedia was razed to the ground; how, in retaliation, the imperial palace was set on fire; how an edict was openly insulted and torn down; how the Christian officers in the army were compelled to resign; and, as Eusebius, an eye-witness, relates, a vast number of martyrs soon suffered in Armenia, Syria, Mauritania, Egypt, and elsewhere. So resistless was the march of events that not even the emperor ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... their protection; these are either aculei, prickles, as in rose and barberry, which are formed from the outer bark of the plant; or spinae, thorns, as in hawthorn, which are an elongation of the wood, and hence more difficult to be torn off than the former; or stimuli, stings, as in the nettles, which are armed with a venomous fluid for the annoyance of naked animals. The shrubs and trees, which have prickles or thorns, are grateful food to many animals, ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... noon of the twenty-fifth, in making a raft to cross the St. Joseph. Then they resumed their march; and as they forced their way through the brambly thickets, their clothes were torn, and their faces so covered with blood, that, says the journal, they could hardly know each other. Game was very scarce, and they grew faint with hunger. In two or three days they reached a happier region. They shot deer, bears, and turkeys ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... the stones. They rose and staggered together to the terrace. As they went Tua saw that Rames was looking at his right hand curiously; also that it was covered with blood, and that the little finger was torn off it. Then she remembered nothing further, except a sound of shouts and of heavy hammering at the ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... Beauty roses, somewhat crushed and broken, were in the far corner. From certain abrasions in the stems, he concluded that they had been torn, or ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... contemporaries; but all that is authentic in our "larger Christ" was implicit in the Man of Galilee. That to which we respond as to God is the historic Jesus mirrored in His disciples' faith. We agree with the eloquent words of Tertullian: "We say, and before all men we say, and torn and bleeding under your tortures we cry out, 'We worship God through Christ. Count Christ a man, if you please; by Him and in Him God would be known and adored.'" And our assurance that we can become ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin

... it may appear when compared with those elaborate constitutions of which the last seventy years have been fruitful, the English long enjoyed a large measure of freedom and happiness. Though, during the feeble reign of Henry the Sixth, the state was torn, first by factions, and at length by civil war; though Edward the Fourth was a prince of dissolute and imperious character; though Richard the Third has generally been represented as a monster of depravity; though the exactions of Henry the Seventh caused great repining; ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... wood, and drawers of water,—these, bent under burdens, or torn of scourges—these, that dig and weave—that plant and build; workers in wood, and in marble, and in iron—by whom all food, clothing, habitation, furniture, and means of delight are produced, for themselves, and ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... is armed, so are we; we have still a mile to go. Ha!" her voice ended abruptly. There was a crashing sound, a shot, a shout, a confused sense as if the whole coach were falling to the ground. The door was torn open. Before Betty could even raise the deadly little weapon she carried, it was seized from her hand—the whole party were dragged out of the carriage—they found themselves surrounded by armed men. There was a violent struggle, ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... entered amid shrieks, cries, and yells. Blood was streaming from every conceivable part of the bodies of all who were old enough to comprehend their loss. Hundreds of fingers were dismembered; hair torn from the head lay in profusion about the paths, wails and moans in every direction assailed the ear, where unrestrained joy had a few hours before prevailed. This fearful mourning lasted until evening of the ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... in his wretched isolation as an old bachelor, with nobody to care for him, and he also suffered atrocious mental torture, torn by paternal tenderness springing from remorse, longing and jealousy, and from that need of loving one's own children, which nature has implanted into all, and so at last he determined to make a despairing attempt, and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... the prisoner, Thomas Edwards. A collapsing beam had torn away some bricks from the wall of his cell, and he came wriggling through the aperture, using the most ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... that had escaped being smashed in were threadbare, or seemed to be slipping off skeleton houses. Mutilated telegraph-poles and broken straggly wires, evil-smelling pools of water, scattered bricks, torn roadways, and walls blackened and scarred by bomb and shell, completed a scene of mournfulness and desolation. We passed one corner house on the shutters of which some "infanteers" had chalked the inviting saucy sign, "Ben Jonson's Cafe." Then we struck across a fast-ripening ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... however, the men were working with a will. Board after board was torn away and the different sections moved to one side. At last the whole top of the shed was off. All that remained was to let the ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood

... come 'ere trying to undermined our bloody morality,' howled Dick Wantley as he hurled a lump of granite that he had torn up from the macadamized road ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... boundaries' of Acadia. All to no purpose; for neither nation could afford to recede from its position. It was a question for the last argument of kings. Meanwhile the officials in the colonies anxiously waited for the decision; and the poor Acadians, torn between the hostile camps, and many of ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty

... appeared, from which we quenched our thirst; while the magnolias and other flowering plants on its banks relieved the dull uniformity of the woods. The sun, however, beat down on our heads with intense force, and our legs were torn by the sharp teeth of the saw-palmetto which covered the ground. Here and there rose distant islands of pine, which give the name to the region. Not a human being could we see, the only animal life visible being some lean wild cattle, which found a scanty subsistence in the natural ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... tabernacle; Sylvester was there, however, lolling listlessly upon the ground. As I looked upon this man, I thought him one of the most disagreeable fellows I had ever seen. His features were ugly, and, moreover, as dark as pepper; and, besides being dark, his skin was dirty. As for his dress, it was torn and sordid. His chest was broad, and his arms seemed powerful; but, upon the whole, he looked a very caitiff. "I am sorry that man has lost his wife," thought I; "for I am sure he will never get another." What surprises me is, that he ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... the thought of the lov'd ones left, And oft their names to my mind are borne; Some have forsaken me and some by death are reft; But now 'tis all one, as through the past I drift, That past which from me can never be torn. ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... them up from the lake, they shone so bright; I knew not they were thine. Take them again, they are now brighter than before; now look down into the deep well close by; I shall tell thee the names of the two flowers thou wouldst have torn up, and thou wilt see their whole future life—their whole human existence: and see what thou wast about ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... loving recollection described each very minutely, just as some old nurses have a way of doing with the funeral cards of their deceased friends. This paved the way for a spontaneous confession that she really preferred Mr. Torn, the curate of St. Matthew's, to Captain Golightly, though people were so stupid, and would say she was in love with him just because they flirted a little sometimes. Rose had already imagined herself in love with at least a dozen ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... together the ends of that tough bow; and when he found how vain a thing it was to endeavour to draw Ulysses's bow, he desisted, blushing for shame and for mere anger. Then Eurymachus adventured, but with no better success; but as it had torn the hands of Antinous, so did the bow tear and strain his hands, and marred his delicate fingers, yet could he not once stir the string. Then called he to the attendants to bring fat and unctuous matter, which ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB

... never failed him at need. Minerva (who is wisdom itself) put it into his thoughts no longer to keep swimming off and on, as one dallying with danger, but boldly to force the shore that threatened him, and to hug the rock that had torn him so rudely; which with both hands he clasped, wrestling with extremity, till the rage of that billow which had driven him upon it was past; but then again the rock drove back that wave so furiously, that it reft him of his hold, sucking him with it in its return, and the sharp rock (his cruel ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... wounds, the wounds, those painful wounds; Oh, they were made for me! His hands and feet, his holy head, All pierced and torn I see. ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz

... was still plunging on before the gale, as I had last seen her the night before, only that the mainsail had been torn away, although the tattered fragments were left clinging round the yard-arms, one or two longer pieces streaming out like pennants from the leech at each end of the spar, and some other strips had clung to the fore- rigging ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... indeed, born for each other; let me not, then, deprive her of so honourable a charge— Oh, why must he, who sees in such colours the excellencies of both, who admires with such fervour the perfections you unite, be torn with this violence from the objects he reveres, even though half his life he would sacrifice, to spend ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... upon a sheet torn from her best pad, folded it, sought out Olive and handed it to her, telling her to pass it round the form. The juniors grinned at its contents. They had felt themselves neglected, but were quite ready to forgive past omissions on the strength of a ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... managed in every way. The whole hope of conversation round the table depended on Miss Colza, and she was deeply offended by having been torn away from Mr Rubb. How could she talk seated between the two Tom Mackenzies? From Dr Slumpy Mrs Mackenzie could not get a word. Indeed, with so great a weight on her mind, how could she be expected to make ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... small pocket copy of the 'Orlando Furioso' of Ariosto—now in the possession of the poet's grandson, Mr. Gordon Wordsworth—of which the title-page is torn away, the following is written on the first page, "My companion in the Alps with Jones. W. Wordsworth:" also "W. W. to D. W." (He had given it to his sister Dorothy.) On the last page is written, "I carried this Book with me in my pedestrian ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... Elma's torn shoe gave her considerable trouble, and noticing her limping, I induced her to sit down while I took it off, hoping to be able to mend it, but, having unlaced it, I saw that upon her stocking was a large patch of congealed blood, where her foot itself had also been cut. I managed ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... uniform consisted of a forage cap, a coat with one sleeve torn off and a pair of frayed trousers, but whose rifle was of the most up-to-date pattern, was at once joined by several others, not more splendidly arrayed ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... re-baptize her in the sea, and did also know her carnally; item, that she by his help did mischief to the cattle; that he also appeared to her on the Streckelberg in the likeness of a hairy giant. We do therefore by these presents make known and direct, that Rea be first duly torn four times on each breast with red-hot iron pincers, and after that be burned to death by fire, as a rightful punishment to herself and a warning to others. Nevertheless, we, in pity for her youth, are pleased of our mercy to spare her the tearing with red-hot pincers, so that she shall ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... by the children that she lived with niggers till she came to Crompton Place, and they guessed her mother was one, and nobody knew anything about her anyway. There was a fierce fight in which Dora came off victorious, with a scratch or two on her face and a torn dress. That afternoon the Colonel was confronted by what seemed a little maniac, demanding to know if her mother was black, and if she had lived only with negroes until she ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... Churchill, as to where the fault of the surrender belonged, which was rather promptly silenced by General Sherman, who hurried to the scene of trouble. There, after some ill-natured talk, Deshler ordered his men to lay down their arms. I rode into the fort, and found the parapet badly torn up by the fire from the fleet. On going to the embrasure where I had seen the gun while on the river-bank talking to Captain Shirk, the piece was found split back about eighteen inches, and the lower half of the muzzle dropped out. A battered but unexploded shell lying with the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... you, with eyes full of scorn, Threadbare is my coat, and my hosen are torn: Scoff on, my rich Owen, for faint is thy glee When the maid of Llanwellyn smiles ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... terrified him. To be only a wretched king, only a remote descendant of a hero who had become a god by mighty labours, only a common man formed of flesh and bone, and without having in aught rendered himself worthy of it—without having even, like his ancestor, strangled some hydra, or torn some lion asunder—to enjoy a happiness whereof Zeus of the ambrosial hair would scarce be worthy, though lord of all Olympus! He felt, as it were, a shame to thus hoard up for himself alone so rich a treasure, to steal ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier

... cruelly bound to the stump of a tree which had been often used for tethering animals at milking time just outside the barn. His clothes were half torn from off his back, and several gaping, bleeding wounds told of the fight which had ended in his capture. Most significant of all was the long semicircular red line round the brow, where the scalping knife had ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... got far away from the shepherd and the fold and all the little lambs he knew. And he was dirty, not a bit clean, and his wool was all torn by the briers, and the thorns had hurt him, and he was hungry and thirsty and tired, and did not know where to go. He could hear the wolves growl, and he thought he could see their eyes looking at him as if they wanted to eat him ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker

... from his wound, his clothes all torn, his head uncovered—Mansana at last could venture to look round. He saw Theresa standing in the carriage, beside the open door. Possibly she may have intended to throw herself out, and have fallen backwards in the violent ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... ploughed. Farming weans man from his sorrows. That tranquil pursuit tolerates nothing but tranquil meditations. There, too, in mother earth, you may plant and reap; not, as in other things, plant and see the planting torn up by the roots. But if wandering in the wilderness, and wandering upon the waters, if felling trees, and hunting, and shipwreck, and fighting with whales, and all his other strange adventures, had not as yet cured poor Israel of his now hopeless passion, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... were properly secured, our uniforms were torn off our backs and a couple of blue cotton shirts, such as the Chinese coolies wear, pulled over our shoulders, as a sort of disguise. An ugly old pith hat, of the shape of a mushroom, was then jammed down on the tops of our ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... taken through the nuns' chapel, and sent on with smiles to the public chapel to look on Montcalm's tomb, originally a hole in the chapel fabric torn by British shells. The nuns could not go into that chapel. "We are cloistered," ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... in one flame. Again, I say, Charlotte, banish this hypocritical word 'friendship!' It is only love which I feel for you, let this sentiment enter at every avenue of your heart, and do not feign ignorance of it, sweet hypocrite. Surprise has torn away the mask! The passionate kiss, which still burns upon my lips, was not given by a friend or sister; but overcome by joy, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... feast. All tongues were at their freest, all imaginations ran wild, all evil passions were at their height, when suddenly the noise ceased, and the guests clung together in terror. A man stood at the entrance of the hall, pale, disordered, and wild-eyed, clothed in torn and blood-stained garments. As everyone made way at his approach, he easily reached the pacha, and prostrating himself at his feet, presented a letter. Ali opened and rapidly perused it; his lips trembled, his eyebrows ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... suppose, for I hardly knew what I was doing—I tried to cover up this feeling. I was furious with him for knocking me out. Can you ever understand? And I was pretty rude. He took it wonderfully and just apologized—Heaven knows what for—and cleared out. The moment he was gone, I could have torn my hair. I actually went again to the inn, to try and find him, though what I should have done if I had ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... is often killed and torn to pieces by a drove of peccaries, that he has been imprudent enough to attack. Indeed, this fierce creature will not often meddle with the peccaries when he sees them in large numbers. He attacks only single ones; but their "grunting," which can be heard to the distance of nearly a mile, ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... babe you so fondly adored, Death's torn from the heart of her mother, So full was your soul of a mother's deep love, You would gladly have died to restore her. Poor fragile, fading, short-lived flow'r, She was bright and ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... mention is made of their efforts. While the fight is on they share all the dangers of the private soldier, and often they have to remain when the others are relieved to finish their duty. The terrible sights of open wounds, bodies that have been minced by shell splinters, torn off limbs, dying men uttering their last requests, are enough to unnerve the bravest men. The stretcher bearers nevertheless continue with their task, well knowing what ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts

... come quick, Charlotte, you and Mikey. Never mind the blood," was the firm command and in a few seconds Charlotte and Mikey squeezed through the fast closing opening, bloody and torn, but with the limp Stray dragged between them. A great cheer went up as Martha turned and caught the unconscious boy in her arms, then it froze in the throats that had been uttering it. Slowly, but ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... his hut or in the streets. They ran all over the village, looking for him. They went to all the pothouses and huts, but could not find him. He had disappeared, and two days later came of his own accord to the police office, pale, with his clothes torn, trembling all over. He was bound and put in ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... three hours of hard exercise a day. From that moment the lazy brutes led a dog’s life. Water and the detested “Spratt“ biscuit, scorned in happier days, formed their meagre ordinary; instead of somnolent airings in a softly cushioned landau they were torn from chimney corner musings to be raced through cold, muddy streets ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... sometimes, To move compassion: Sir, there is a table, That doth command all these things, and enjoyns 'em, Be perfect in their crutches, their feign'd plaisters, And their torn pass-ports, with the ways to stammer, And to be dumb, and deaf, and blind, and lame, There, all the halting paces are ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... and motor-cars drawn across the street to make a barricade, and most of the gates of the Green had garden-seats and planks lying against them. There were even branches, torn from the trees and shrubs, thrust ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... and a friend of Leonardo da Vinci, with whom he made rapid progress. The ruling motive in his life seems to have been jealousy both of Benvenuto Cellini and of Michelangelo, one of whose cartoons he is said to have torn up and destroyed. He is regarded by some as inferior in sculpture only to Michelangelo, with whom a comparison unfavourable to Bandinelli is tempted in such works as the marble colossal group of Hercules and Cacus in the Piazza del ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... unpopular professors with ropes in the night, on the icy, steep sidewalk of college street, sending them bumping down the long hill, hatless and with badly torn pants till they brought up with dull thuds against the barber shop on South Main Street; we of course stole the college bell so there was nothing to call us to prayers or recitations; we howled for hours ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... that there was some difficulty. Kiddie Katydid had torn open the message; and now he turned it over and over, wondering what it said—for to tell the truth, he couldn't read ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey

... and he was now thrown into prison on his outlawry. Dangerous riots broke out in London and over the whole country at the news of his arrest; and continued throughout the rest of the year. In the midst of these tumults the ministry itself was torn with internal discord. The adherents of Chatham found their position in it an intolerable one; and Lord Shelburne announced his purpose of resigning office. The announcement was followed in the autumn by the resignation of Chatham himself. Though still prostrated by disease, the Earl was sufficiently ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... wholesale kind of equity was administered, why must the individual suffer for no fault of his own? Wherein lies the justice of a Being who, credited with omnipotence, permits that by a sweep of the wild hurricane of disaster, "green leaves with yellow mixed are torn away"? ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... want no aid, Will live the old life out and chance the new. And your sentence is written all the same, And I can do nothing—pray, perhaps: But somehow the word pursues its game— If I pray, if I curse—for better or worse: And my faith is torn to a thousand scraps, And my heart feels ice while ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... Nor are the emotions, torn out of their context, more significant than actions without a background. They are mental phenomena to be observed and described by the psychologist; to the moralist they are, taken alone, as unmeaning as the letters of the alphabet, ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... have torn it!" Tai-yue remonstrated laughingly. "But wait and I'll ask him about it! so come along all of you, and I vouch I'll make him abandon that idiotic frame of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... these top-heavy giants tortured by an invisible and violent witchcraft, a phrase comes back into my mind. I remember a little boy of my acquaintance who was once walking in Battersea Park under just such torn skies and tossing trees. He did not like the wind at all; it blew in his face too much; it made him shut his eyes; and it blew off his hat, of which he was very proud. He was, as far as I remember, about four. After complaining repeatedly of ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... change fall upon the landscape, and they paused in their search and looked at one another silently. They had been ceaselessly at work all day, and the work had left its marks on them. Their faces were burnt to a fiery red, they were torn and scratched in the brambles, their clothes were soaked in mud and water to the waist, and they had been bitten and stung by insects until they looked as though some strange fever had broken ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner

... fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred, to those who wanted them, and the poor creatures were worked to death and abused without mercy. When, in desperation, they would rise against their tyrants, they were punished savagely, being burned alive, torn to pieces by bloodhounds, and drowned in the ocean or the rivers, even helpless little children often being ...
— Las Casas - 'The Apostle of the Indies' • Alice J. Knight

... receiving room, redolent of bloody tasks. Evidently he had been out to some dinner or party, and when the injured man was brought in had merely donned his rumpled linen jacket with its right sleeve half torn from the socket. A spot of blood had already spurted into the white bosom of his shirt, smearing its way over the pearl button, and running under the crisp fold of the shirt. The head nurse was too tired and listless to be impatient, but she ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... foot, and felt ready to faint. I went downstairs trembling, tottering, and my teeth chattering. When I arrived on the stage the curtain was rising. That curtain which was being raised so slowly and solemnly was to me like the veil being torn which was to let me have a glimpse of my future. A deep gentle voice made me turn round. It was Provost, my first professor, who had come to encourage me. I greeted him warmly, so glad was I to see him again. Samson was there, too; I believe ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... rate, I think it best to let you know immediately that she has accepted him,—at last. If there be any pang in this to you, be sure that I will grieve for you. You will not wish me to say that I regret that which was the dearest wish of my heart before I knew you. Lately, indeed, I have been torn in two ways. You will understand what I mean, and I believe I need say nothing more;—except this, that it shall be among my prayers that you may obtain all things that may tend to make you happy, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... in the habit of pinnin' bills together or sumpum like that. On each desk the blotter is in the same place and is used the same way. There's a lot of pussonality 'bout the way folks use a blotter. Some uses both sides, some only one side. Some has their blotters all torn an' sorta nibbled round the edges, an' some has 'em neat and trim. Well, the blotters on these two desks ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... going to worry it when I grabbed him. I 'm afraid he has eaten one of your gloves. I can't find it, and this one is pretty well chewed up," said Tom, bereaving Snip of the torn kid, to ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... by half the population which appropriates and cultivates the soil over which he wandered in the chase. His beautiful woods are gone; the green corn grows where the green trees grew, and the bruised and torn face of his mother earth muddies to disgust, with her clay-freighted tears, the limpid streams by which he sat down to rest, and from which he drank to quench his thirst from weariness earned in his hunt for wild game, which grew with him, and grew for him, as nature's provision. The deer and ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... of Moresque architecture, with a gorgeous panelled roof, a rich profusion of plaster arabesques, and, horresco referens, the walls covered with a bright French paper. Our good rector groaned at this abomination, but said the Gauls had torn away the glorious carved panelling for firewood in the war of 1808, and the college was too poor to restore it. His righteous indignation waxed hot again when we came to the beautiful sculptured pulpit of the chapel, where all the delicate details ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... of compliment to the ladies, of whom there were several, and who ought in politeness to have been mentioned first. Nothing could be simpler than their costume, consisting of a very dirty and extremely torn chemise, with short sleeves, a shorter petticoat, and a pair of shoes, generally of dirty satin: also a reboso, and the long hair hanging down as Eve's golden locks may have done in Paradise. "They call this place a Paradise," a Spanish soldier wrote to his father; ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... no companions but the wretched and culpable beings who were to be flung from it, hour by hour; and no hearers but the crowd, who rushed in desperate anxiety to that spot of hurried execution—and then rushed away, eager to shake off all remembrance of scenes which had torn ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... heat did verses write, Must now my woes in doleful tunes indite. My work is framed by Muses torn and rude, And my sad cheeks are with true tears bedewed: For these alone no terror could affray From being partners of my weary way. The art that was my young life's joy and glory Becomes my solace now I'm old and sorry; Sorrow ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... strain than that which he had to endure. When, in the hour of his greatest need, his faithful companion, the wife of many years of happy union, whose hand had smoothed his pillow, whose voice had consoled and cheered him, was torn from him after a few days of illness, I felt that my, friend's trial was such that the cry of the man of many afflictions and temptations might well have escaped from his lips: "I was at ease, but he ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... and sullenly out of the depths they beheld a horrible, dripping, shapeless something that eventually resolved itself into a human body—clothed in torn rags and matted ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... said Toussaint, "you will have confirmation of the news I brought. I will speak presently of what must be done. This proclamation," pointing to the torn paper, "grants an amnesty to all engaged in former conflicts of race, and declares that there are no 'returned emigrants' in the island—that they are all considered native proprietors—that all now absent shall be welcome again, and shall be protected—that the blacks ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... it occurred to her that she had forgotten Tom's school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed,—the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich's Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in masculine wisdom,—in that knowledge which made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... have sewed them—the papers that fell dripping from your pocket—and the picture. Many times I have looked upon the face of this woman, who has caused you pain. And I have hated! Oh, how I have hated! So that I could have torn her in pieces. ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... never been violated by the presence of a conqueror,[2] submitted to the English "sectaries;" and, what was still more humbling to the pride of the nation, the royal robes, part of the regalia, and the national records, were irreverently torn from their repositories, and sent to London as the trophies of victory. Thence the English general marched forward to Dundee, where he received a proud defiance from Lumsden, the governor. During the preparations for the assault, he learned that the Scottish lords, whom Charles had intrusted ...
— 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

... artillery began to pour in their shells on us more furiously than ever! The air around us was kept in a blaze, and a roar of bursting shells, and the ground, all about, was furrowed and torn. We quietly sat behind our works, and interchanged our individual observations on what had just taken place, and waited for ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame

... civil war seriously damaged Lebanon's economic infrastructure, cut national output by half, and all but ended Lebanon's position as a Middle Eastern entrepot and banking hub. In the years since, Lebanon has rebuilt much of its war-torn physical and financial infrastructure by borrowing heavily - mostly from domestic banks. In an attempt to reduce the ballooning national debt, the HARIRI government began an austerity program, reining in government expenditures, increasing revenue collection, ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... chief priestess turn again to the blossom of her days, and be a girl once more, and the desired of all men, even as in the past! And, O lord and master, as I here ask a marvel not yet wrought since we were torn from the old land, have I not prepared the sacrifice in which thy soul ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... rise, got half to his feet, screamed, and fell over. Something about his hindquarters had been wrenched or torn or broken. Slade swore furiously and jerked out his revolver to fire repeatedly into the body of the struggling beast. The fourth shot was through ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... was the person from whose trousers the piece of cloth had been torn he took good care to destroy what he had retained of the breeches without delay, for they were never again ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... at the food the generous dog had brought it. How proud Edwin felt of Woggy as he looked and understood the scene. How Woggy, in his solitary rambles, must have discovered the forlorn kitten, who had been suddenly torn from her home, far up the valley perhaps, and borne, half drowned and thoroughly frightened, on the rushing torrent, until her box, in which the rising waters had found her taking her afternoon nap, had lodged against the tree. Edwin wanted to rescue ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... maternal uncles, and some upon their sister's sons. And some called upon others, on the field of battle. And a very large number of combatants, O Bharata, lost their weapons, or had their thighs broken. And others with arms torn off or sides pierced or cut open, were seen to wail aloud, from desire of life. And some, endued with little strength, tortured by thirst, O king, and lying on the field of battle on the bare ground, asked ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... said Trevor. He took out of his pocket a copy of the General Review. He opened it at the page where Florence's article appeared. He then also produced from his pocket-book a tiny slip of paper, a torn slip, on which, in Bertha Keys's handwriting, was the identical sentence which had attracted so much attention in ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade

... She was glad to think that he had that supreme satisfaction to make up for the cruelty of her refusal to care more. Perhaps, she thought, he wouldn't have had it if he had had her. He would have been torn in two; he would have had to give himself twice over. She felt that he didn't love her more than he loved his science, and science exacted an uninterrupted and undivided service. One life hadn't room enough for two such loves, and he might not have done so much if she ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... all alike, and the colossal edition of Miss Somebody or Other's poems—that by reason of its magnificent cover of crimson and gold occupied a most prominent position—met with the same vindictive reception as the tattered and torn volumes of Whittier stowed away in an ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... the coat was buttoned as on that day, it rested over his heart; and during the second desperate charge of General Beauregard's lines, Russell felt a sudden thump, and, above all the roar of that scene of carnage, heard the shivering of the glass which covered the likeness. The morocco was torn and indented, but the ball was turned aside harmless, and now, as he touched the spring, the fragments of glass fell at his feet. It was evident that his towering form had rendered him a conspicuous target; some accurate marksman had aimed at his heart, and the ambrotype-case had preserved his ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... over it was time for Monsieur to put his fiddle into its case, and to say with a graceful sweeping bow, "Good evening, young ladies!" A joyful sound to Pennie. In a minute she had torn off her mittens, changed her shoes, and was on her way back ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton

... and he was away, his torn shirt fluttering as the wind rushed past, while Alice Deringham hastened to the end of the verandah with Forel to see the last of him just as another man rode in at ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... from womb troubles such as leucorrhea, torn cervix, falling womb displacements and diseases of the inner womb, ovaries and tubes, suffer from all kinds of headache. The pain may be in the nape of the neck, the back part of the head and on the top behind (occiput). It may ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... of being slight, even short. The face which I had known so bright and winning, was now white and set. His fair, curling hair—scarce darker than Croisette's—hung dank, bedabbled with blood which flowed from a wound in his head. His sword was gone; his dress was torn and disordered and covered with dust. His lips moved. But he held up his head, he bore himself bravely with it all; so bravely, that I choked, and my heart seemed bursting as I looked at him standing there forlorn and now unarmed. I knew that Kit seeing him thus would gladly have died ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman

... the racket; With long strides he soon is there, When John Henry and the maiden, Crouching, for the worst prepare. At his feet John tells his story, Shows his clothing soiled and torn; And his face so sad and pleading, Yet so white and scared and worn, Touched the old man's heart with pity, Filled his eyes with misty light. "Take her, boy, and make her happy,— ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... dining-tent a group of curious people surrounded her. The double roof of the big tent was extended horizontally, and a lamp hanging from a pole gave a brilliant light. Grace would sooner the light had been dim, for she was hot and her clothes were torn and wet with dew. Besides, she must tell her tale and admit that she had ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss

... Hamlet's ghost, Nor all the tragic, stage-made host; With saucer eyes, and looks aghast, Would make me run away so fast: Not all who Milton's head inspire,— "Gorgons and Hydras and Chimaeras dire!" Nor haggard Death, nor snake-torn Sin, Look half so ugly, old and thin; No—all his hell-born, monstrous crew, Are not so dire a sight ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low

... of its own gravity. Situations formerly supported persons. It now became necessary that personal qualities should support situations. Formerly, where authority was found, wisdom and virtue were presumed. But now the veil was torn, and, to keep off sacrilegious intrusion, it was necessary that in the sanctuary of government something should be disclosed not only venerable, but dreadful. Government was at once to show itself full of virtue and full of force. It was to invite partisans, by making it appear ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... people of M. were watching the old year out and the new year in, the young Englishman with a force of men was wrecking the pump-house down by the station. The little upright boiler was torn out and placed in the machine shops, and with it a little engine was driven that turned the ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman

... anonymity is the cloak of all sorts of misdoings, and I have often heard people declare that in their opinion every leader-writer should be forced to sign his name. As I once heard it picturesquely expressed, "The mask should be torn from the villain's face. Why should a man be allowed to stab his neighbour in the dark!" As a matter of fact, I am convinced that anonymity makes, not for irresponsibility but for responsibility, and that there are many men who, though truculent, offensive, and personal when they write ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... boat concluded to land, and the morning stillness was torn into shreds by its frightful whistle. Horatio threw up both hands and fell backward on the deck, where he lay pawing the air wildly. Then he stuffed his paws into his ears and howled as he kicked with his hind feet. Bo stood over ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine

... soloist was Orpheus, the beautiful love story of whose life is common property. He was torn to pieces by frantic women, a fate that seems always to threaten some of our prominent pianists and violinists at the ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... clearing, still thus encumbered, is a mere vistal opening in the woods, from which only the underwood has been removed. The more slender saplings have been cut down or rooted up; the tangle of parasitical plants have been torn from the trees; the cane-brake has been fired; and the brush, collected in heaps, has melted away upon the blazing pile. Only a few stumps of inferior thickness give evidence, that some little labour has been ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... their frail armor of twigs. Champlain gave the signal; the crowd ran to the barricade, dragged down the boughs or clambered over them, and bore themselves, in his own words, "so well and manfully," that, though scratched and torn by the sharp points, they quickly forced an entrance. The French ceased their fire, and, followed by a smaller body of Indians, scaled the barricade on the farther side. Now, amid howlings, shouts, and screeches, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... Gothic periods (1000-1400) Italy was torn by political wars, though the free cities, through their leagues of protection and their commerce, were prosperous. A commercial rivalry sprang up among the cities. Trade with the East, manufactures, banking, ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... fired that first pistol-shot? "One of the citizens of the demonstration; and moreover, the sentinels had their muskets torn from them;" affirm the partisans of the Central Committee, and they bring forward, among other proofs; the evidence of an eye-witness, a foreign general, who saw it all from a window of the Rue de la Paix. But these assertions are but little to be relied upon. Can it be seriously believed that ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... as I respect marriage, as the foundation of almost every social virtue, I cannot avoid feeling the most lively compassion for those unfortunate females who are broken off from society, and by one error torn from all those affections and relationships that improve the heart and mind. It does not frequently even deserve the name of error; for many innocent girls become the dupes of a sincere affectionate heart, ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... drip of the rain, the trickle of water in the gutters, and the flap of the torn awning in front of the drug store broke the sullen stillness, and then some distance ahead she saw a man and a woman, under an umbrella held close to their heads, coming slowly toward her. The slowness of their walk caught ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... and it gives us no rest. We were a child then, ten years old. And we stood in the great square with all the children and all the men of the City, sent to behold the burning. They brought the Transgressor out into the square and they led [-them-] {him} to the pyre. They had torn out the tongue of the Transgressor, so that they could speak no longer. The Transgressor were young and tall. They had hair of gold and eyes blue as morning. They walked to the pyre, and their step did not falter. And of all the faces on that square, of all the faces which shrieked and ...
— Anthem • Ayn Rand

... populace, however, whose predilection for the queen, now that she was dead, seems to have returned, were determined that the procession should proceed by the natural route. To this end the pavement was torn up, trenches made in the road, and the avenues blocked up in every other direction. The people triumphed; but at Hyde-Park upper-gate a conflict between the military and the people took place, and two of the latter were shot ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... great deal happier than he was this morning.' 'Why, how is that?' asked I eagerly. 'Oh, he is not going to Alabama. Mr. K—— heard that he had kicked up a fuss about it (being in despair at being torn from one's wife and children is called kicking up a fuss; this is a sample of overseer appreciation of human feelings), and said that if the fellow wasn't willing to go with him, he did not wish to be bothered with any niggers down there who were to be troublesome, so he might stay behind.' 'And ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... 1643 the zeal of the soldiers could no longer be restrained. Even in the solitude and terror of his prison in the Tower Laud still feels the bitterness of the last blow at the house he held so dear. "May 1. My chapel windows defaced and the steps torn up." But the crowning bitterness was to come. If there were two men living who had personal wrongs to avenge on the Archbishop, they were Leighton and Prynne. It can only have been as a personal triumph over their humbled persecutor ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... could have reached it he would have torn the image down, and beat it as he had been beaten. In his impotent rage he shrieked ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham

... was torn with jealousy and spent much time thinking about how she might win her husband again. So she asked the ring for a toy in the form of a beautiful little chick, ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,

... trying to smooth the torn leaves when he reached her. It had been one of the old textbooks, printed on real paper, and it was fragile with age. She had been trusted by the librarian to take good care of it. Now, page after page was ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin

... The country was lovely, and she wondered any one would live in the city who could leave it. She kept a journal for Graeme, and it was filled with accounts of rides, and drives, and sails; with, now and then, hints of work done, books read, of children's lessons, and torn frocks, of hay-making, and butter-making; and if Graeme had any misgiving as to the perfect enjoyment of her sister, it could not have been her letters that had anything to do ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... missionaries had never seen the hunter though, of course, they were familiar with his name, and looked at him with great curiosity. The hunter's buckskin garments were wet, torn, and covered with burrs. Dark spots, evidently blood ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... such a process? In the stratum represented by the mud bank, the stone would be of what I have termed a felted, not a fissile character; its organic remains would exist in a fragmentary and scattered state,—for, torn up from their places of original deposition, and rolled onwards in the storm-impelled mud, they could not fail to be broken up and dispersed; and further, they would be in large part those of bulky deep-sea fishes. And ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... broad red scarf and some of them wore a flannel jersey. They were all bare-headed and bare-footed, or rather without boots, for they wore socks; this is enough to satisfy S. Alfio, who, being a doctor, does not insist on their taking needless risk. Nevertheless the socks must get torn to pieces before they are out of the town, and their feet must be bleeding long before they reach Trecastagne. Some of the so-called nudi, both men and women, were fully dressed except that they were without hats or boots. They all ran, occasionally they may rest by walking, but they ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... cab so as to pick it up. It was addressed to himself, and was quite a bulky parcel. On examination, however, its bulk was found to consist of thirty-three pieces of paper of no value wrapped one round the other. When the last covering was torn away it reduced itself to a small slip of paper, on which ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... the turn in the road—when you can't see home any more—when you'd give all the world to turn back, but dare not." Tim had faced about and was looking over the valley as we climbed the long slope of the ridge. "It's just like being torn in ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... it. Indeed I had not thought she was so fair. It is such a short while ago that she was quite a small child with her hair still unkempt and not yet attired in the manner of princesses, and she would go up into the wild woods unattended and come back with her robes unseemly and all torn, and would not take reproof with a humble spirit, but made grimaces even in my marble court ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... a ray of reason shone for a moment on her darkened mind, and she told him how much she had suffered from the hands of one who now slept just without the door, and asked him to forgive her ere she died, he laid upon his bosom her aching head, from which in places the long hair had been torn, leaving it spotted and bald, and bending gently over her, he whispered in her ear, "As freely as I hope to be forgiven of Heaven, so ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes

... future it was! Within less than two years Cossacks were the escort of the King of Rome. When the Coalition made him a prisoner, he was forever torn from his father. Napoleon, March 20, 1815, on this return from Elba, re-entered triumphantly the Palace of the Tuileries as if by miracle, but his joy was incomplete. March 20 was his son's birthday, the day he was four years old, and the boy ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... their stiff and disfigured mummies to recall our imagination to the stern reality of fact. Two other pyramids, but in this case of stone, still exist further south, to the left of the village of Lisht: their casing, torn off by the fellahin, has entirely disappeared, and from a distance they appear to be merely two mounds which break the desert horizon line, rather than two buildings raised by ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... of those who did my best to get it for them: but the water companies did not choose to take it; and now this part of England is growing so populous and so valuable that it wants all its little rainfall for itself. So there is another leaf torn out of the Sibylline books for the poor old water companies. You do not understand: you will some day. But you may comfort yourself about London. For it happens to be, I think, the luckiest city in the world; and if it had not been, we should have ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... song of the parson's son, as he lay in his bunk alone, Ere the fire went out and the cold crept in, and his blue lips ceased to moan, And the hunger-maddened malamutes had torn him ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service

... lesser damages to the beast the hirer had to pay compensation on a fixed scale. Thus, if the ox had its eye knocked out during the period of its hire, the man who hired it had to pay to the owner half its value; while for a broken horn, the loss of the tail, or a torn muzzle, he paid a quarter of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... left Milan and established his headquarters at Stradella; there he remained until June 12th, left on the 13th, and marched to the Scrivia through Montebello, where he saw the field of-battle, still torn and bleeding after Lannes' victory. The traces of death were everywhere; the church was still overflowing with the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... of goods and chattels in the hands of one man. Under the law of muru a man smitten by sudden calamity was politely plundered of all his possessions. It was the principle under which the wounded shark is torn to pieces by its fellows, and under which the merchant wrecked on the Cornish coast in bye-gone days was stripped of anything the waves had spared. Among the Maoris, however, it was at once a social duty and a personal compliment. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves



Words linked to "Torn" :   divided, injured



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