tear at vs torment

tear at

verb
  • To afflict or aggrieve. 

  • To pull at violently. 

torment

verb
  • To cause severe suffering to (stronger than to vex but weaker than to torture.) 

noun
  • Any extreme pain, anguish or misery, either physical or mental. 

  • Torture, originally as inflicted by an instrument of torture. 

How often have the words tear at and torment occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )