heartrending

When he told me this he put his hand to his cheek as though he still felt the smart of the blow, and in his eyes was a pain that was heartrending and an amazement that was ludicrous.

Once only he gave Norine a sorrowful, heartrending look; then, from lips already cold, breathed that one word, 'Theodore!' Marcus Aurelius used to say: 'A man should leave the world as a ripe olive falls from the tree that bore it, and with a kiss for the earth that nourished it.' Well!

The disclosures suggested by what has come to light are so heartrending and so dreadful that I cannot bring myself to write about them until I am absolutely obliged to do so.

He locked the doors of his house, mounted his horse, and with a broken spirit set out on his journey; but he had hardly gone half-way when, harassed by his reflections, he had to dismount and tie his horse to a tree, at the foot of which he threw himself, giving vent to piteous heartrending sighs; and there he remained till nearly nightfall, when he observed a man approaching on horseback from the city, of whom, after saluting him, he asked what was the news in Florence.

My father talks of nothing but marches and countermarches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day before yesterday during my daily walk through the village I witnessed a heartrending scene....

She lived in a town "in the centre," sharing her compassionate labours between the horrors of overcrowded jails, and the heartrending misery of bereaved homes.

le Curé of Saint- Remy, and said to him: 'Monsieur, I will till the earth with my finger-nails, but give me back my child!' It was heartrending, Oudarde; and IL saw a very hard man, Master Ponce Lacabre, the procurator, weep.

But what was his surprise, on reaching the shore, to hear sounds of the most heartrending distress, mingled with the sweetest songs which had ever charmed him!

As a matter of fact, however, what he complained of most was his spiritual condition--that indescribable forsakenness--to which he gives such heartrending expression in "Zarathustra".

She caused him more dismay than before by suddenly murmuring, 'O father, father!' in a heartrending tone, and turning her face away.

Pickwick's masterly description of that heartrending scene?

Here, in Number Four, are my Adopted Handwritings of public characters; my testimonials to my own worth and integrity; my Heartrending Statements of the officer's family, the curate's wife, and the grazier's widow, stained with tears, blotted with emotion; et cetera, et cetera.