"Rack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... treated. Again and again, with all solemnity, the Royalists had declared that were they to return as conquerors no stone of Paris should be left standing on another, and that the inhabitants should expire in the ashes of their homes on the rack and ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... salvation but through Christ, whom they despised on account of the ignominious death he died. Because at Rome, the proud mistress of the world, they thundered out the terrors of the law upon that idolatrous, war-making, and slave-holding community. Why were the martyrs stretched upon the rack, gibbetted and burnt, the scorn and diversion of a Nero, whilst their tarred and burning bodies sent up a light which illuminated the Roman capital? Why were the Waldenses hunted like wild beasts upon the mountains of Piedmont, and slain with the sword of the Duke of Savoy ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... has forgotten modesty as much as he has forgotten pride (cheers). I am not a man at all. I am a cause (renewed cheers). I set myself against Comrade Gregory as impersonally and as calmly as I should choose one pistol rather than another out of that rack upon the wall; and I say that rather than have Gregory and his milk-and-water methods on the Supreme Council, I would offer myself ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... little table drooped a few faded flowers in an awkward vase. On the mantlepiece, where she would never have more than one or two good ornaments, and the old gilt clock, were now stacks of papers, a rack bulging with packing materials—something like that—an ink-bottle, a candlestick, the candle trailed over with sealing-wax, and an untidy ball of string. And right in the centre of the room a great clumsy writing-table, an office table, piled with papers again, ledgers, a portable ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... the mules, my child, nor anything beside. Go! Quickly shall the servants harness the wagon for you, the high one, with good wheels, fitted with rack above." ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... When Lord Dorset told him (says the MS. letter) "Mr. Felton, it is the king's pleasure that you should be put to the torture, to make you confess your accomplices, and therefore prepare yourself for the rack:"—Felton answered, "My lord, I do not believe that it is the king's pleasure, for he is a just and a gracious prince, and will not have his subjects tortured against law. I do affirm upon my salvation that my purpose was not known ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Norway, E. by Russian Finland, Gulf of Bothnia, and the Baltic, and on the N. stretches across the Arctic circle between Norway (NW.) and Russia (NE.), while its southern serrated shores are washed by the Skager-Rack, Cattegat, and Baltic. From the mountain-barrier of Norway the country slopes down in broad terrace-like plains to the sea, intersected by many useful rivers and diversified by numerous lakes, of which Lakes Wenner, Wetter, and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... posture. Sitting thus three hours a day must soon produce round shoulders. Various devices have been proposed to help the pupil out of this difficulty. Our booksellers furnish a simple rack, which is shown in Fig. 9. It holds one or two books. In Fig. 10 two books are seen resting upon it. Fig. 11 shows the position of the pupil while using the book-rack. An eminent professor in a New-England college said to the assembled students, the other day, "This ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... grass in a hollow behind us, for the Armenians were well content to ruminate. Most likely they would have fallen asleep if we had not been there to keep an eye on them, for prolonged subjection to too much fear is soporific, so that tortured poor wretches sleep on the tightened rack. ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... the horizon to look, broad and red as if she too were swollen with anger that she had been roused from her rest by their noise, and compelled to hurry up to see what her children were about, thus rioting in her absence, lest they should rack the whole frame of things. And as she rose, the loud wind grew quieter, and scolded less fiercely, the trees grew stiller, and moaned with a lower complaint, and the clouds hunted and hurled themselves ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... danger lay beside him. The kitchen door constantly banged open and shut, as the Chinese cook trotted out and back, carrying scraps to the waste barrel, or bringing his new-washing tins to hang on a rack in the open air, a resource on which he was forced to fall back on account of his ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... the chamber, nothing specially cruel or repulsive in the arrangements of his captivity. He was not in fetters, nor fed upon bread and water. He was not put upon the rack, nor even threatened with it as Ledenberg had been. He was kept in a mean, commonplace, meagerly furnished, tolerably spacious room, and he was allowed the services of his faithful domestic servant John Franken. A sentinel paced ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... party returned from this place on the 13th, late in the afternoon, bringing specimens of the native copper. They were nine hours in getting to the forks, and continued the rest of the day in getting to the rack, where they encamped. They had been four hours in descending what required nine in going up. The doctor brought several fine and large masses of ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... times as much. Did any man that ever got the Pearl of great price feel that he had given too much for it, even if he had given all that he had? Never! Martyrs and confessors have gloried in the possession of it while they have writhed on the rack and in the flames, and you never heard one solitary testimony that any man or woman of God ever thought that they had paid too highly for it. Never! Do you want to have your prayers answered? That is the ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... four legs like Tdariuk, the reindeer. But it was ever so much larger than Tdariuk, and its legs were straighter. Little Black Bear wasn't long in finding out that this was not really any one at all, but just a rack Omnok had made on which to keep his meat. And there was meat up there! Oh! strips and strips of it! But it was all high out of reach. Little Black Bear sniffed and sniffed, and My! It did smell good! But even when he stood on his tiptoes he couldn't reach the least ...
— Little White Fox and his Arctic Friends • Roy J. Snell
... until he had about given up hope of being able to complete the rack that the wood arrived. The pieces were beautifully grained, and when Theo beheld them he could in his mind's eye see the bookshelves shaped, smoothed, and rubbed down. He must finish the gift if he toiled nights as well as days! It is doubtful if ever a boy worked as hard ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... faith,—but I feel no power within me to endure patiently year after year. I would be like the poor, weak women they shut up in the Inquisition and who suffered on to the end only through remorseless compulsion, because the walls were too thick for escape, and the tormentor's hands and the rack were irresistible. My soul would succumb as well as my body. This would seem wild, wicked talk to Mr. Eltinge; it would seem weak and irrational to any man. But I'm only Ida Mayhew, and such is my nature. I've been made all the more incapable of patient self-sacrifice by self-indulgence from my ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... out, half-naked, and his first thought was to save his good gray mare from the fire. But this act of humanity had been foreseen and provided against. The miscreants had crept into the stable, and tied the poor docile beast fast by the head to the rack; then fired the straw. Her screams were such as no man knew a horse could utter. They pierced all hearts, however hard, till her burnt body burst the burnt cords, and all fell together. Man could not aid her. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... from me and explored the rack of music rolls, became interested and took a piece, the first part of the Kreutzer Sonata, hesitated. "No," she ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... me, I must confess," said Polly, drumming absently on the keys, while Jasper spread the sheet of music on the rack. "You know there must be two; one for dear Mr. King and one for the boys as guests of honor. Now how shall ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... taste and discrimination have been exercised in its adornment. There are many good paintings, including portraits of the various presidents of the club, which adorn the entrance hall. After books, perhaps the most distinctive feature of the club is our collection of pipes. In a large rack in the smoking-room—really a superfluity, since smoking is permitted all over the house—is as complete an assortment of pipes as perhaps exists in the civilized world. Indeed, it is an unwritten rule of ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... out of human sinews because he ought. The grand inquisitor's devotion and conscience told him that he ought to advance the holy faith by every engine in his power, and therefore, as he considered that the rack, the thumbscrews, the rope, the fire and the faggot were the best possible engines, he used the same to the utmost of his ability; and thought, alas for humanity! that he ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop
... good cause, should be omnipotent for evil? Doubtless there was many a jolly Popish priest in the old manor-houses of the northern counties, who would have admitted, in theory, the deposing power of the Pope, but who would not have been ambitious to be stretched on the rack, even though it were to be used, according to the benevolent proviso of Lord Burleigh, "as charitably as such a thing can be," or to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, even though, by that rare indulgence ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... plate had been duly polished and placed in the rack that Aline had insisted on my making, Harry spread out a ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... hideous. The thumb, which was separated from the fingers by the gee-pole, had likewise been nipped and gave him great pain. The monstrous moccasin still incased his foot, and strange pains were beginning to rack the leg. At Sixty Mile, the last beans, which he had been rationing for some time, were finished; yet he steadfastly refused to touch the eggs. He could not reconcile his mind to the legitimacy of it, and staggered and fell along ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... hast thou brought me from the dungeon dark and drear, Where these limbs of mine have wasted in confinement for a year? Dost thou lead me forth to torture?—Rack and pincers I defy! Is it that thy base grotesquos ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... Drinkwater's quarrymen. Immediately the eye before-mentioned was aflame, and in sonorous tones the owner "war-r-r-ned" the foremen and workmen from holding any converse with Mr. Charles George Mahon, whom he addressed personally as "a rack-renting landlord," and otherwise held up to scorn and derision. Perched on his crutches, the cripple defied him, and poured out a torrent of eloquence on "the fiery dthragon of hunger" and other direful creatures, including landlords, which would have set at defiance Canon ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... Make their own jealousies high-treason, And fix 'm whomsoe'er they please on? Cannot the learned counsel there Make laws in any shape appear? 330 Mould 'em as witches do their clay, When they make pictures to destroy And vex 'em into any form That fits their purpose to do harm? Rack 'em until they do confess, 335 Impeach of treason whom they please, And most perfidiously condemn Those that engag'd their lives for them? And yet do nothing in their own sense, But what they ought by oath and conscience? 340 Can they not juggle, and, with ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... from a rack of arms Harry chose a plain black hanger with an agate hilt. As he did it on he saw below it some heavy staves loaded with lead—just such as ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... the multitude of those that are now under the Romans, who would not pity their condition? and who would not make haste to die, before he would suffer the same miseries with them? Some of them have been put upon the rack, and tortured with fire and whippings, and so died. Some have been half devoured by wild beasts, and yet have been reserved alive to be devoured by them a second time, in order to afford laughter and sport to our enemies; and such of ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... of life, alas! were vain. Could art have saved her, she had still been mine, Both art and care together did combine: But what is proof against the will divine? Methinks I still her dying conflict view, And the sad sight does all my grief renew; Rack'd by convulsive pains, she meekly lies, And gazes on me with imploring eyes; With eyes which beg relief, but all in vain, I see but cannot, cannot ease her pain. She must the burden unassisted bear, I ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... always consistent with it self, and needs nothing to help it out; it is always near at hand, and sits upon our Lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware: whereas a Lye is troublesome, and sets a Man's Invention upon the rack, and one Trick needs a great many more to make it good. It is like building upon a false Foundation, which continually stands in need of Props to shoar it up, and proves at last more chargeable, than to have raised ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... of separation, I could not reflect upon the anguish she must feel at parting with me, and the incessant sorrows to which her tender bosom would be exposed during my absence, without being pierced with the deepest affliction! As my imagination was daily and nightly upon the rack to invent some method of mitigating this cruel stroke, or at least of acquitting my love and honour in the opinion of this gentle creature, I at length stumbled upon an expedient, with which the reader will be made acquainted in due time; and, in consequence ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... to start, so Von Baumser threw on his coat and hat, and picked out a thick stick from a rack in the corner. "We may need something of de sort," ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thou treadst the plundered track, Where poverty has swept before, Leaving his victim on the rack, Then, then, thou art a demon black, That steals within the poor man's ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... otherwise, with that thing between them? She glanced up at the rack overhead. The thing was there, in her dressing-bag, symbolically suspended over her head and his. He was thinking of it now, just as she was; they had been thinking of it in unison ever since they had entered the train. While the carriage ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... or the sunshine; no girl should remain undeveloped physically through lack of exercise when she could, through exercise, make herself strong. Even to abuse her feet, the important centre of many important nerves, by tight shoes, is wrong; so is it to rack her spine and upset or throw out of position all the delicate and wonderfully fashioned organs of the abdominal cavity by the wearing of high French heels. Undoubtedly, however, American motherhood and girlhood represent something more and more intelligent; indeed, in physical culture ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... said he, getting redder, "he didna exactly dee; he was killed. I had to brain him wi' a rack-pin; there was nae doing wi' him. He lay in the treviss wi' the mear, and wadna come oot. I tempit him wi' the kail and meat, but he wad tak naething, and keepit me frae feedin' the beast, and he was aye gur gurrin', and grup gruppin' me by the legs. I was laith to make awa wi' ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... record of their ever ringing a valley about with armed warriors and starving to death the women and children within. Victims for the gods were struck down without warning, so that they might not suffer even the pangs of anticipation. The thumb-screw and rack of Christendom struck with horror those of my cannibal friends to whom I ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... A pan like that shown in Fig. 2 is both convenient and satisfactory. It is provided with a cover that fits tight. In this cover, as shown, is an opening that may be closed or opened so as to regulate the amount of moisture inside the pan. In the bottom of the pan is a rack upon ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... name, Lady Mary, that is not it," answered Brandon, who was on the rack. "Please do not think it. I cannot bear to have you say such a thing when it is so ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... to his lonely hut and taking thence his cloak and great sword, he seized upon his mightiest hammer and beat down the roof of the hut and drave in the walls of it; thereafter he hove the hammer into the pool, together with his anvil and rack of tools and so, setting the sword in his girdle and the cloak about him, turned away and plunged into the deeper ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... owing to the surprise she was in, I easily seized her by the mane, and notwithstanding her resistance, led her into the stable, where I put a halter upon her head, and when I had tied her to the rack, reproaching her with her baseness, I chastised her with a whip till I was tired, and have punished her every day since in the manner which your ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... groans; he heard their mutual cries. Inflamed by jealousy, he triumphed in his power of vengeance, and even prolonged the torture which accident had given him the means of inflicting. He stood like the inquisitor who marks his victim's anguish on the rack, and calculates his powers of further endurance. But he could no longer dally, even with this horrible gratification. His companion grew impatient. Eleanor's fair long tresses had escaped from their confinement in the struggle, and ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... hill-tops, the lanes that wound away between walls of sumac. She thought of another unexpected ride toward another crisis of life. Her heart was beating wildly; her breathing was labored; her hands twitched open and shut. She took the mirror from its rack, and saw her pupils extraordinarily dilated, so that her eyes ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... creature may The keenest sufferings feel; Not such as rack the frame of clay, Which art of man may heal; But pain untold at others' woes, And deadly blight of sin, Which right and virtue overthrows, And blackens ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... Lord Strathern's fatuity and the facile disposition Lady Mabel had so unexpectedly betrayed. But, though sorely troubled, he was not a man to despair. He resolved to watch L'Isle closely, and to rack his own invention for some way to foil his schemes, while taking care not to betray the least ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... to call a meeting of the club," Helen took up the story, "so Roger and I came over and talked with Grandfather, and he lent us a hay rack and we dressed it up with boughs and got the carpenters to make some very large cut out letters—U. S. C.—two sets of them, so they could be read on both sides. They were painted white and stood up high among the green stuff and really looked ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... in!" exclaimed the mathematician with a clear voice. "Come in! The lady has not broken her word, nor by me shall she be petitioned to do so. It is I who will quit this place. You have succeeded, Sir John, in your revenge—you have succeeded, and yet perhaps it is an imperfect success. You shall not rack the heart, though you should starve the body. You think, perhaps, I shall pursue you with objurgation or entreaty. You are mistaken. I leave you to the enjoyment of your triumph, and to the peace which a blunted conscience will, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... cook we'll have company to dinner," Wade called to Santry as he untied a horse from the hitching rack near the barn and rode off to ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... again applied, and a physician ordered to attend to see what degree of pain he could support,' etc. (Smollett's 'History of England', 1823, bk. iii, ch. 7, xxv.) Goldsmith's own explanation—according to Tom Davies, the bookseller—was that he meant the rack. But Davies may have misunderstood him, or Goldsmith himself may have forgotten the facts. (See Forster's 'Life', 1871, i. 370.) At pp. 57-78 of the 'Monthly Review' for July, 1757 (upon which Goldsmith was at this date employed), ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... unpretentious. The whole furniture of a not ill-to-do family was in the kitchen: the beds, the cradle, the clothes, the plate-rack, the meal-chest, and the photograph of the parish priest. There were five children, one of whom was set to its morning prayers at the stair-foot soon after my arrival, and a sixth would ere long be forthcoming. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... place—or even that it would be left vacant. That itself would be better than having it overrun with some horde who know nothing of the geography of dreamland, and nothing of the history that has given this house its soul and its identity. And if such a tribe come here the place will go to rack and ruin in no time—an old place goes down so quickly if it is not carefully attended to. They'll tear up my garden—and let the Lombardies get ragged—and the paling will come to look like a mouth with half the teeth missing—and the ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... presently found myself groping my way, with her assistance, down the companion ladder and into the cabin. She guided me to one of the sofa-lockers, upon which I mechanically seated myself; and then I saw her go to the swinging rack and pour out a good stiff modicum of brandy, which she brought and held to my lips. I swallowed the draught, and after a few seconds my senses returned to me, almost as though I were recovering from a swoon, Miss ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... it as long as any scum rises, then strain it through a sieve, and let it cool. Add some yeast, and stir it well; let it work in the tub for two or three weeks, or till the head begins to flatten; then skim off the head, draw off the liquor clear, and tun it. When made a year, rack it off, and fine it with isinglass. To every eight gallons add half a pint of the best rectified spirits of wine, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... I rack invention to endeavour to account for so strange an incident: my conjectures were all unsatisfactory, all improbable. I looked round to see if I could discover his lordship in the house, but without success: ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... no doubt," said Paul; "but we must take off the sword-bayonets from the muskets, and give them to two of the men. I will be first on board, and knock down Dupuis. Let the men rush to the main-mast and secure the arms from the rack the moment that they reach the deck, while you, Dick, seize the helm. I will tell off four men to loose the sails and to cut the cable directly that we get on board. This will leave us ten men to do the fighting. If all goes well we shall find the better part of the French crew down below, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... had a hard subject to deal with, the gentlemanly conductor packed up the bundles, and tossed them into the rack, heedless of the protest of the indignant owner. I confess that I rather enjoyed the discomfiture of the old lady, who had compelled me to stand for the accommodation of her bundles. She was unreasonable, and utterly ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... fought as well as we could. Many fell fighting; others, too weak to stand to deliver a stout blow, were taken as prisoners: we three were amongst these. Our captors cured us of the fever, then handed us over to the priests at Vera Cruz. A year we spent in prison. We have been on the rack; the thumbscrews bereft us of thumbs, for they crushed them so badly that we were fain to have them off, fearing the arm might mortify. The villains cropped us of one ear, so that they might track us if we chanced to escape. By the ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... supposed possible, the tramp of feet was heard upon the porch. Sally flew toward the hall—then flew back again, leaving the door closed, and standing still and breathless upon the hearth-rug, in the full light of the fire. Voices were heard in the hall, and the rattle of umbrellas in the rack. ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... in their place. There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained, deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of formidable scrap-books and books of reference which many of our fellow-citizens would have been so glad to burn. The diagrams, the violin-case, and the pipe-rack—even the Persian slipper which contained the tobacco—all met my eyes as I glanced round me. There were two occupants of the room—one, Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we entered—the other, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... went into the kitchen to get himself some water. Here, too, was order. On a rack were the plates that she had used for dinner on the night of her quarrel with Strickland, and they had been carefully washed. The knives and forks were put away in a drawer. Under a cover were the remains of a piece of ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... neat and compact, and about the size of a very small English hack. For riding there are two kinds—the Spanish, which goes at the "rack" or amble pace, and the American, which goes the regular pace; the broad foreheads, short heads, and open nostrils show plenty of good breeding. The charges both for horses and Volante, if you wish to go out ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... discouraging assortment of boots, shoes, and leggings protruded from beneath the bed. Some calendars ornamented the wall, and upon a table stood a smoky lamp and some tobacco and a smelly pipe. On a rack over the door ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... just entering the opening, revived hope in their sinking hearts. The next moment that help was on the spot; but it was unnecessary. A mightier Hand was about to interpose. From the bold, black van of the hurrying and deeply-charged rack of cloud, that had now unheeded gained the zenith, a stream of fire, before which all other fires paled into nothing, at that instant descended on the top of the burning pine, and, rending it from top to bottom by the single explosion, sent its wide-flying fragments in blazing circles to the ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... unwillingly What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps, Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar, That beasts shall tremble ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... from Thompson, he went through them rapidly, then drawing a sheet of note-paper from the rack before him he scribbled a hasty note, enclosed it with one of the fingerprints in an envelope, which he sealed, addressed, and handed to Thompson with instructions to see that it was delivered without delay. He also told him to send Peters and ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... nor was he permitted to reap any more glory for a few succeeding years. At last, Philip was disposed to send both his mother and himself to the Netherlands; removing Don John from the rack where he had been enduring such slow torture. Granvelle's intercession proved fruitless with the Duchess, but Alexander was all eagerness to go where blows were passing current, and he gladly led the reinforcements ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... lot," thought Ayrault. "Earth cannot give that joy for which we sigh. Poor fellows! though you rack my ears and distress my heart, I cannot ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... uneasily at her own board clutching at a thin fragment of cold dry toast that hung cheerlessly awry in the silver rack, like the last brown leaf to a frosty tree, while she crunched the toast, spoke dryly of the poor; of how 'interesting many of them are;' how when you take the trouble to understand them, you no longer lump them all together in a featureless ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... me a nice pat when my cow was dry; and bread of her own baking too, about as good as I myself make." He chuckled as he wiped the last dish and placed it neatly in the rack. ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... Jefferson, "if we sacrificed it to them, it might be a doubtful benefit. I often thank my stars I wasn't born in the age of martyrs. If J. had been, I'm sure the very sight of the rack or the faggot would ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... laughing at me and my nation more than a man could bear, situated as I was. They acquitted me through his means. We shook hands, and he hoped all would go right with me, he said; but nothing ever went right with me after. I took little note ever after of worldly matters: all belonging to me went to rack and ruin. The hand of God was upon me: I could not help myself, nor settle mind or body to any thing. I heard them say sometimes I was a little touched in my head: however that might be I cannot say. But at the last I found it was as good for me to give all that was left to my friends, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... dying in despair, They lay till woman came To soothe them with her gentle care, And feed life's flickering flame. When wounded sore, on fever's rack, Or cast away as slain, She called their fluttering spirits back And gave them strength again. 'Twas grief to miss the passing face That suffering could dispel; But joy to turn and kiss the place On which ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... subject for a compromise Made to swing to and fro over a slow fire Orator was, however, delighted with his own performance Philip, who did not often say a great deal in a few words Scaffold was the sole refuge from the rack Ten thousand two hundred and twenty individuals were burned Torquemada's administration (of the inquisition) Two witnesses sent him to the stake, one ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... to give the fellows, whoever they may be, a warm reception if they attempt to molest us." All hands were instantly employed in getting ready for the enemy. The gun was loaded, and several shot placed in a rack near it; the muskets and pistols were also loaded, and cutlasses were buckled on. They had no boarding-nettings, and their only hope of victory was by showing so bold a front at first, that the enemy might be driven off without coming ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... den caused both the visitors to lose no time in seating themselves in favorite seats. Steve threw himself haphazard upon an old but comfortable lounge, tossing his cap at the same time toward a rack on the wall, and chuckling triumphantly when by sheer luck it stuck ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... amaranth," she said, and ran off lightly and so deftly among the rocks and in the shadow that was advancing now even upon the foam of the sea, that she had vanished before I had time to deter, or to pursue her. I sought her awhile, until the dark rack of sunset obscured the light, and the sea's voice changed; ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... into the corridor, where by this time an office clerk and another man had joined the maid who was in charge of the coat rack. ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... circumstance, in the present juncture, that some thousand families are gone, or going, or preparing to go, from hence, and settle themselves in America. The poorer sort, for want of work; the farmers whose beneficial bargains, are now become a rack-rent, too hard to be borne. And those who have any ready money, or can purchase any, by the sale of their goods, or leases; because they find their fortunes hourly decaying; that their goods will bear no price, and that few or none, have ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... they'd tear him to pieces on the spot, and kill or torture every member of his family. And so too, in England, most people believe, without a shadow of reason, that if men and women were allowed to manage their own personal relations, free from tribal interference, all life and order would go to rack and ruin; the world would become one vast, horrible orgy; and society would dissolve in some incredible fashion. To prevent this imaginary and impossible result, they insist upon regulating one another's lives ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... scenes before a cultured audience, but the crowds who came to an Elizabethan play were of a temper to enjoy a Mohawk scalp dance. They were accustomed to violent scenes and sensations; they had witnessed the rack and gibbet in constant operation; they were familiar with the sight of human heads decorating the posts of London Bridge or carried about on the pikes of soldiers. After witnessing such horrors free of cost, ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... totally inadequate price, but Edward could get no more. In the depths of his misery, he accepted it. The gentleman took the collection home, gave it to his boy, and finally allowed it all, for want of care and attention, to go to rack and ruin. And so that was the end of ten years of poor Thomas Edward's unremitting original work in natural history. A sadder tale of unrequited labour in the cause of ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... serve the interests of truth, it is by mere accident. It is very much easier to find arguments for the divine authority of the Gospel than for the divine authority of the Koran. But it is just as easy to bribe or rack a Jew into ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... delighted," he answered: "thank you for persuading Miss Moore to stay over for another week." Mrs. Tremont smiled, she could smile if she were on the rack; but she assured herself that she was done with poverty-stricken beauties till Grace and Maud were married, at least. For years she had been planning a match between Grace and ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... highest of the two square towers, and had often clambered along the broken walls of the keep or descended into those strange little subterranean chambers, now half-choked with earth and rubbish, which tradition declared were the dungeons in which prisoners in the old days had been put to the rack, seared with red-hot irons, or ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... to say to her: the torturing, mental rack to which she was being subjected had not yet fully done its work. It still was capable of one or two turns, a twist or so which might succeed in crushing her pride and her defiance. Well! so be it! she was in the man's power: had placed herself ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... admitted her to the little army parlor, and informed her that Mrs. Waldron had stepped out, but would be home directly. A bright wood fire was blazing on the hearth and throwing flickering lights and shadows about the cosey room. The piano stood invitingly open, and on the rack were some waltzes of Strauss she remembered having heard the cavalry band play a night or two previous. Seating herself, she began to try them, and speedily became interested. Her back being to the door, she did not notice ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... Mr. Baron encountered his niece, who had been a witness to the scene, which explained everything to her. "You see, you see," cried the old man, "everything going to rack and ruin! Would to Heaven you could be married to-night and sent away ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... that Haven Point was a clean and compactly built town containing about two thousand inhabitants. It was located at the head of Clearwater Lake, a beautiful sheet of water about two miles long and half a mile wide and containing a number of picturesque islands. At the head of the lake was the Rick Rack River, running down from the hills and woods beyond. Up in the hills it was a wild and rocky watercourse containing a number of dangerous rapids, but where it passed Colby Hall it was a broad and fairly deep stream, ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... a time they put us on the rack—probing each man's story down to the smallest detail. It was long after midnight when the questioning was at an end. The finale came when a trooper searched the bodies of Lessard and Gregory, and relieved Hicks and Bevans of the plunder that was still concealed ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... let me explain (Although an idler) weariness and pain. Man's ever rack'd and restless, here below, And at his best estate must labour know. Then comes fatigue. The Sisters nine may please And promise poets happiness and ease; But e'en amidst those trees, that cooling shade, That calm retreat for them expressly made, No rest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... flap was thrown open and the adjutant's office stood partially revealed. It was a big wall tent backed up against another of the same size and pattern. Half a dozen plain chairs, two rough board tables littered with books, papers and smoking tobacco, an oil stove and a cheap clothes rack on which were hanging raincoats, ponchos and a cape or two, comprised all the furniture. In a stout frame of unplaned wood, cased in their oilskins and tightly rolled, stood the colors of the famous regiment; and back of them, well within the second tent where one clerk was just ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... along the benches sat white-clad figures, their faces hidden behind rubber masks, their hands covered with gloves. In front of each man was a small microscope under a glass shade, a pair of balances and a rack filled with shallow porcelain trays. Evidently the work on which they were engaged did not endanger their eyesight, for the eye-pieces in the masks were innocent of protective covering, a circumstance which added to ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... small room, dimly lighted and very disorderly. Scraps of paper were strewn around the floor. Dust had settled on the ink-rollers of the foot-press. A single case of type stood on a rack and the form of a bill-of-fare—partly "pied"—was on a marble slab which formed the top of a small table. On an upturned soap-box was a pile of unprinted menu cards. Josie noted a few cans of ink, a bottle ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... comfort. My tent had been floored; at one end rose an excellent chimney; strips of planks, skillfully balanced on two logs, supplied a spring bed; I had secured a split bottom chair, and my saddle and bridle were disposed upon a rough rack, near a black valise containing my small stock of apparel, and the pine table and desk ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... and Noll left his seat and went groping his way along the dark, echoing hall, through the dimly-lighted dining-room to the library-door. Entering, he found his uncle still seated before the organ, but with his head bent forward upon the music-rack, and apparently lost in deep thought, for he did not look up till Noll stood beside him. Trafford made a faint attempt to ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... perform'd, and all my labours o'er, For me what lot has fortune now in store? The listless will succeeds, that worst disease, The rack of indolence, the sluggish ease. Care grows on care, and o'er my aching brain Black melancholy pours her morbid train. No kind relief, no lenitive at hand, I seek, at midnight clubs, the social band; But midnight clubs, where wit with noise conspires, Where ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... he sat patient by her side, watching until the sun of her consciousness should rise and scatter the clouds of sleep. Hour after hour he sat, and still she slept, outwearied with the rack of emotion. Morning had begun to peer gray through the window-curtains, when she woke ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... this; and there was a rattling noise which Roy interpreted, for he knew that the men in the guard-room had seized the pikes from the rack, and that a bristling hedge of steel was ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... word and look, Rack every hidden thought; Or fish with golden hook, True love cannot be caught: For that will still be ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... heaven! that anything in the likeness of man should suffer these rack'd extremities, for the uttering of his sophisticate good ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead, As on the jag of a mountain crag Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And, when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... November I seriously formed the plan of forcibly escaping from a place where I was forcibly kept. I began to rack my brains to find a way of carrying the idea into execution, and I conceived a hundred schemes, each one bolder than the other, but a new plan always made me give up the one I was on ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... able to do it myself," said Robinette, keeping down a hysterical laugh. "See how easily it goes when you know the secret!" and she deftly turned her key in two locks one after the other, let down the mysterious facade of the affair, and pulled out an extraordinary rack on which hung so many dresses and wraps that Mrs. Benson lost ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... have a hard pull up. So the oaken window-seat in the gun-room is as polished and smooth as an old saddle; for if the squire is indoors, he is certain to be there. He often rests there after half an hour's work on one or other of the guns in the rack; for, though he seldom uses but one, he likes to take the locks to pieces upon a little bench which he has fitted up, and where he has a vice, tools, a cartridge-loading apparatus, and so forth, from which the room acquired its name. With the naked eye, however, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... taking his fishing gear down from the rack on the porch. Without looking around, he said: "Cooler down by ...
— The Destroyers • Gordon Randall Garrett
... sarcasm of entailed power is a thing so obvious that one marvels it has escaped the recognition of mankind until yesterday. But stay! Men have always seen its monstrous absurdity—hence the rack. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... trump you are, Aunt Mary!" said Jack admiringly. "Here, Burnett, fish her out that extra cap from the cane rack; there's always one in the bottom. There—now you won't take cold, ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... aggressiveness. She had lived too many years in the Far East. In Hong Kong she was known as the "Mandarin." Her powers of merciless inquisition suggested torments long drawn out. The commander of the Sirdar, homeward bound from Shanghai, knew that he was about to be stretched on the rack when he took his ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... seem to me much like gratitude to win a man's money, and I wished I hadn't started. Presently Bill looked up, and spying me, pointed to my stack of chips, and said, "Whose stack is that?" "Mine," I replied, and with one fell swoop he dashed the chips into the rack, and taking a ten-dollar bill from the drawer, he turned to his side partner and said, "Jim, take the deal," and then he got up, took me by the arm, saying, "You come ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... Gods? She liked men and women, and she spoke of them—of kinglets she had known in the past; of her own youth and beauty; of the depredations of leopards and the eccentricities of love Asiatic; of the incidence of taxation, rack-renting, funeral ceremonies, her son-in-law (this by allusion, easy to be followed), the care of the young, and the age's lack of decency. And Kim, as interested in the life of this world as she soon to leave it, squatted with his feet under the hem of his robe, drinking all in, while the ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... and you'll be too easy, too," said Hilda savagely. "You'll lose the good tenants and you'll keep the bad ones, and the houses will all go to rack and ruin, and then you'll sell all the property at a loss. That's how it will be. And what shall you do if you're not feeling well, and if ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... dread of the Dutch mariners. This hill, according to Irving, was peopled with a multitude of imps, too great for man to number, who wore sugar-loaf hats and short doublets, and had a picturesque way of "tumbling head over heels in the rack and mist." They were especially malignant toward all captains who failed to do them reverence, and brought down frightful squalls on such craft as failed to drop the peaks of their mainsails to the goblin who presided over this shadowy ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... thus I recall to my mind The elect of the land we shall soon leave behind, I can read in the weather-wise glance of thine eye As it follows the rack flitting over the sky, That the faint coming breeze would be fair for our flight, And shall steal us away, ere the falling of night. Dear Douglas! thou knowest, with thee by my side, With thy friendship to ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... her old practised hand, a sure step of her old practised foot, a sure light balance of her body, and she was in the boat. A quick glance of her practised eye showed her, even through the deep dark shadow, the sculls in a rack against the red-brick garden-wall. Another moment, and she had cast off (taking the line with her), and the boat had shot out into the moonlight, and she was rowing down the stream as never other woman rowed on ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Hamlin's somewhat restrained. But, at Brown's urgent request, he followed him up the back stairs to a narrow corridor, and thence to a small room looking out upon the stable-yard. It was plainly furnished with a bed, a table, a few chairs, and a rack for guns and whips. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... account of his kind-heartedness, partly since he could never resist a bargain and he got her for almost nothing, partly, perhaps because of his canny foresight, bought a wretched, puny, sickly, little runt of a four-year-old slave-girl, a mere rack of bones covered with yellow skin. She continued sickly for some years, then, when she was more than half grown, the fresh air of Trebula, its good water, the kindness with which she was treated, the generous fare accorded her, all working together, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... driver must wait upon his stubborn donkey. For you can never move one by reason or by threats. He would die and go to the wrong place rather than give up his point. This is why you will see some churches going to rack, antiquated and out of touch with the life about them. Look inside and you will find some old mule steward stalled in the amen corner, with his ears laid back at the pulpit or ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... on either side. The train was crowded, and I had to get into a carriage where there were already seven other people. One crusty old gentleman objected, but I got in, notwithstanding; and, putting my cheeses upon the rack, squeezed down with a pleasant smile, and said ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... Dopeson was fully aware of this noisy intrusion, the intruder had disappeared. He lost no time, however, in setting the usual machinery in motion. By a continuous series of movements of the receiver rack on the telephone he aroused Miss Dolly Bobbitt, the night operator, from the depths of the novel she was reading, and notified the Police Department in East Ketchem across the lake to be on watch for the car. The police ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the Captain who moved first. He went to the remaining bulkhead, spun a dog, and opened a cabinet. From it he took a rack of spare radar parts and three thick coils of wire. Paresi, startled, turned and saw Hoskins peering owlishly at ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... Effingham, laughing, again drawing Eve towards him and saluting her cheek; "for if I were on the rack, I could scarcely say which I love best, although you have the consolation of knowing, pert one, that ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... leaving the red bundle on the seat beside her. It was lucky, I told her, that the carriage wasn't full, otherwise it would have had to go up in the rack, where it wouldn't have ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... warning. Of all species of fatigue, the back-breaking monotonous swing of a heavy camel is the worst; and, should the rider lose patience, and administer a sharp cut with the coorbatch that induces the creature to break into a trot, the torture of the rack is a pleasant tickling compared to the sensation of having your spine driven by a sledge-hammer from below, half a foot deeper into the skull. The human frame may be inured to almost anything; thus ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... Rob! three willing ones,—Barbara, who is ever sighing for new worlds to conquer; Betty, who already dotes upon St. Sebastian stuck full of arrows and St. Lucia carrying her eyes on a platter; Madge, who would go to the rack if only you led the way,—and poor rebellious, ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... giving and taking on both sides, this or that law against the Protestants going for one or two millions added to the free gift. In this way the revocation of the Edict of Nantes is gradually brought about, article by article, one turn of the rack after another turn, each fresh persecution purchased by a fresh largess, the clergy helping the State on condition that the State becomes an executioner. Throughout the eighteenth century the church sees that this operation continues.[1403] In 1717, an assemblage of seventy-four ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... toward it, clutching her shawl and gritting her white teeth together. "Oh, I go my ways, my rye, but I have not done with you yet, may the big devil rack my bones if I have. You win to-day—I win to-morrow, and so good day to you, and curses on you for a bad one. The devil is a nice character—and that's you!" she screamed, beside herself with rage. "The puro beng is a fino mush, if you will have the kalo jib!" and with a wild ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... remembered that Maroney was observed to post a letter while in Memphis. Roch managed to see the address as it lay on the rack in the hotel, and found it directed to Mrs. M. Cox, Jenkintown, Montgomery County, Penn. When I arrived in Philadelphia, I concluded it would be a good plan to find out who Mrs. M. Cox was, and accordingly detailed Mr. Fox to procure the information. "His ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... his hat and stood irresolute, expecting some greeting. But nothing happened. On a rack against the wall he saw a gray uniform coat like that which Mr. Quimbleton had worn in the Balloon office, and a similar gray cap with the silver monogram. He glanced at the books. One was The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the other was a Bible, open at the ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... Antinor, with a laugh that rang unnatural and hoarse. "Jest! when for a day and a night my soul hath been on the rack and mocking demons have jeered at my ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Kharkoff entered the room again, "do you suppose you could get some perfectly clean test-tubes and sterile bouillon from Miss Nevsky's laboratory? I think I saw a rack of tubes ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... marr'd, for even then the feeling Came o'er me, that thou never couldst be mine! And in the cloud of sadness, gently stealing Like a dim shadow o'er that brow of thine, I read my destiny. Oh! life can bring No darker doom—no wo that may inherit So much of bitterness—no rack to ring With deeper ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various |
