"Pierce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of bands of some firm material, which passed over the head and around the forehead. On the inside thorns were fastened, with the points downward, so that a very slight pressure would cause them to pierce the skin. This I suppose is intended to imitate the crown of thorns which our Saviour wore upon the cross. But what will it avail them to imitate the crucifixion and the crown of thorns, while justice and mercy are so entirely neglected? What will it avail to ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... Professor Pierce, who is, you know, the greatest mathematician in the world, teaches us mathematics and has an awful time of it; we must be very stupid, for the more he explains, the less we seem to understand, and when he gets ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... Guerchard. "Robberies at the big jewellers' are sometimes Worked by these means. But what is uncommon about it, and what at first sight put me off the track, is that these burglars had the cheek to pierce the wall with an opening large enough to enable them to remove the ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... her eyes again to pierce the distance which she had been studying for some time. Then she laid a hand on Monty's head and shook ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... longer closed his sentences with the word "madame." His great eyes, as they looked steadily down to her, were as direct, as cruelly direct, in their gaze as the eyes of a bird of prey. They pierced her defences, but to-day did not permit her, in return, to pierce his, to penetrate, even a little way, into his territory of thought, of feeling. She remembered the eyes of Meyer Isaacson. They, too, were almost cruelly penetrating; but whereas they distinctly showed ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... was standing beside them, also trying to pierce the darkness with trained eyes, although he could not see ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... garden path and leaned upon the gate, staring in turn at me. He was old and strange-looking, being clad in a rusty gown with a hood to it that was pulled over his head, so that I could only see a white, peaked beard and a pair of brilliant black eyes which seemed to pierce me as a shoemaker's ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... Ib. p. 54. Miss Burney wrote very soon after the attack:—'At dinner everybody tried to be cheerful, but a dark and gloomy cloud hangs over the head of poor Mr. Thrale which no flashes of merriment or beams of wit can pierce through; yet he seems pleased that everybody should be gay.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 220. The attack was in June. Piozzi Letters, ii. 47. On Aug. 3, Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor:—'Mr. Thrale has perfectly recovered all his faculties and all his vigour.' Notes ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... undulating and varied form, and presenting those varieties of light and shade, and that interesting combination of glade and thicket, upon which the eye delights to rest, charmed with what it sees, yet curious to pierce still deeper into the intricacies of the woodland scenery. Above rolled the planets, each, by its own liquid orbit of light, distinguished from the inferior or more distant stars. So strangely can imagination deceive even those by whose ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... looked dully upward. The sky was gray slate now, festooned with bellying black. No sign of the sun; not the least ray could pierce. The fliers hung aimless overhead, no sparkle to their hulls. The valley was dark too; the terrible rays had ceased raking it ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... National Conventions. In 1850 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-Second Congress, and was re-elected to the Thirty-Third, in which he served as Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, and was the author of the Homestead Bill which passed in 1854. In 1855 he was appointed by President Pierce Governor of Kansas, but declined the office. In 1862 he was elected a Representative from Pennsylvania to the Thirty-Eighth Congress, and was re-elected to the Thirty-Ninth. He was succeeded in the Fortieth Congress by John ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... curtained her sight. A loud rumbling arose, and waves of life seemed to surge up and circle around her. Echoes, odors, and even light streamed against her face, though her hands were still nervously pressed to it. At times sudden gleams appeared to pierce her closed eyelids, and amidst the radiance she imagined she saw monuments, steeples, and domes standing out in the diffuse light of dreamland. Then she lowered her hands and, opening her eyes, was dazzled. The vault ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... a wretched corse upon the shore, That lies until the morning brings Searchings, and shrieks, and sorrowings; Or, haply, to all eyes unknown, Is borne away without a groan, On a chance plank, 'mid joyful cries Of birds that pierce the sunny skies With seaward dash, or in calm bands Parading o'er the silvery sands, Or mid the lovely flush of shells, Pausing to burnish crest or wing. No fading footmark see that tells ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... for tierra caliente—and then went out into the coffee plantation and orange walk. Anything so lovely! The orange-trees were covered with their golden fruit and fragrant blossom; the lemon-trees, bending over, formed a natural arch, which the sun could not pierce. We laid ourselves down on the soft grass, contrasting this day with the preceding. The air was soft and balmy, and actually heavy with the fragrance of the orange blossom and starry jasmine. All round the orchard ran streams of the most delicious clear water, trickling with sweet music, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... his eyes trying to pierce the cloud of smoke that hung all about the burning building, he began to sense the import of the wild cries that were being uttered about him, a Cree shouting to a voyageur, or it might be one of the French halfbreeds ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... been painted to express the first of the sorrows of the Virgin, being the first of the pangs which her Son was to suffer on earth. But the Presentation in the Temple has been selected with better taste for the same purpose; and the prophecy of Simeon, "Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also," becomes the first of the Seven Sorrows. It is an undecided point whether the Adoration of the Magi took place thirteen days, or one year and thirteen days after the birth of Christ. In a series of subjects artistically arranged, the Epiphany always ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... Doria Villa. We had a glorious excursion, finding rainbow anemones and seeing wonderful views. Mr. Christopher Cranch joined us.—I went to the Vatican for the first time this year, with E. Hoar. We met there Mr. Hawthorne escorting Mrs. Pierce and Miss Vandervoort. We went through all the miles of sculpture.—Una and I called on Mrs. Pierce, Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Pickman, Mrs. Hoar, and met Mrs. Motley. In the afternoon I went with E. Hoar to Mr. Story's studio. Mrs. Pickman called on me.—Mr. Hawthorne and I and Julian went to call ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... as the rest of the company. I strode aimlessly to and fro, striving at every coign to pierce with my eyesight the white drift. I pushed back my hat; I gnawed my knuckles; I felt that I could not stay still, yet knew not for what point to make. Almost I felt that in another moment I should screech out—when a breath of sea air caught the skirt of the cloud, and rolled ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... stranger I have met," said the Cure, "who seems to pierce beneath the thin veil of our Gallic gayety; the first to whom the scene we now survey is fraught with other feelings than a belief in the happiness of our peasantry, and an envy at its imagined exuberance. But as it is not the happiest individuals, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... began in various parts of North America. Dr Franklin is so well acquainted with the progress of the war in Canada, previous to his departure, that we need only observe, the campaign has ended as favorably for us in that quarter, as we could reasonably expect. The enemy, having been able to pierce no further than Crown Point, after a short stay, and reconnoitering General Gates' army, at Ticonderoga, thought proper to recross the lake, and leave us in quiet possession of those passes. General Gates, having left a proper force at Ticonderoga, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... augurs could read entrails as easily as a modern child can read coarse print. Roman history is full of the marvels of interpretation which these extraordinary men performed. These strange and wonderful achievements move our awe and compel our admiration. Those men could pierce to the marrow of a mystery instantly. If the Rosetta-stone idea had been introduced it would have defeated them, but entrails had no embarrassments for them. Entrails have gone out, now—entrails and dreams. It was at last found out that as hiding-places for the divine ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his great tongue was licking his jaws. The hero, who saw him coming long before he was near, took refuge in a thicket and waited until the lion approached; then with his arrow he shot him in the side. But the shot did not pierce his flesh; instead it flew back as if it had struck stone, and ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... not pierce the heavy clouds, and the night continued dark. At last the dawn come slowly up the east and showed an angry sea, and an old man grayly pallid on the sands near the dying fire; of the vessel nothing was ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... strength, the last effort of ebbing life, he broke down the door, and saw his mistress writhing upon a sofa. Pauline had vainly tried to pierce her heart, and now thought to find a rapid death by strangling ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... can still be seen) to Magdalen on the south, and with the numerous rivers and conduits which form so many natural moats on west and east, the city soon becomes impregnable. To-day such puny efforts would be ludicrous, but in those times of cannon balls which could scarcely pierce a two-inch board, they more than suffice, did he for whom the work was done but have ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... from Sir John's arm. A kind of intuition told her what was coming. Like a flash a sword seemed to pierce right through her heart. She had a memory of her mother, of the loving eyes now closed—the voice so full of sympathy now silent. Was her mother to be supplanted and because of her? For once passion got the upper hand ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... and each man set out to pierce his allotted section of the enemy's position. Private Dunshie, who had hoped for a road, or at least a cart-track, to follow, found himself, by the worst of luck, assigned to a portion of the thick belt of wood which stretched between the two roads. Nature had not intended him ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... the rope and hatchet to the wood, where the unicorn had been seen. And when he came towards it he dodged it, and he dodged it, till at last he dodged behind a big tree, till the unicorn, in trying to pierce, ran his horn into the tree ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... hammering betokened a prodigious activity. The besieged, under delusion that the guns had been destroyed, could not understand the enemy. Not until the second ensuing morning was the mystery solved. The watchmen on the towers, straining to pierce the early light, then beheld the great bronze monster remounted and gaping at them through an embrasure, and other monsters of a like kind on either side of it, fourteen in all, similarly mounted ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... kindly cloud of circumstance; The bitter word, and the unkindly glance, The crust and canker coming with the years, Are liker Death than arrows, and the lance Which through the living heart at once doth pierce. ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... either the prejudices of class, caste, wealth, or power. I protest in the name of a constituency whose early history was a sublime and persistent struggle against the prejudices of pampered and arrogant ruffianism at home, and the worse than ruffian spirit of the Administrations of Pierce and Buchanan, and the Democratic traitors who at that time constituted a majority of this House, and were engaged in preparing the nation for its harvest of blood. We must go back to the spirit and purposes of the founders of our Government. We must accept the grand logic of the ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... faults,— The clearest fountains taste of Epsom salts; We snatch the cup and lift to drain it dry,— Its central dimple holds a drowning fly Strong is the pine by Maine's ambrosial streams, But stronger augers pierce its thickest beams; No iron gate, no spiked and panelled door, Can keep out death, the postman, or the bore. Oh for a world where peace and silence reign, And blunted dulness verebrates in vain! —The door-bell jingles,—enter Richard Fox, And takes this ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... posts for the electric wires are provided at O and P, which wires are shown in Fig. 2. A spring clamp, N, Fig. 2, enables the insertion of chemically prepared or other paper, which lies against the inner side of brass rim, M, and held in place by the clamp, N. The electric sparks above spoken of pierce the strip of paper with small holes and colored marks. These holes, etc, show the exact limits to which the pointer has traveled under pressure, and thus an indelible record is kept by the electrical indications shown upon the strip of paper. The paper can have the pressures ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... the scene of the robbery, and were able to examine the place by the light of the moon, which had just managed to pierce the thick veil of clouds that had covered it during the earlier part of that night. Then they retired to a shady cavern, or hole, or hollow at the foot of the embankment, near to the gap in the hedge, and there ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... for this, That none of all these but for all these I Must bear my burden, and no eye but mine Weep of all women's in this broad land born Who see their land's deliverance; but much more, But most for this I thank them most of all, That this their edge of doom is chosen to pierce My heart and not my country's; for the sword Drawn to smite there and sharpened for such stroke Should wound more deep than ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... England for Italy attracts a great many visitors, and the large photographs which give the condition of the butt after each impact of the projectiles brings up again the double problem as it is stated: How to construct a gun and projectile which shall be able to pierce the heaviest armor; and how to construct armor which shall be proof against the heaviest shot. Many saw with interest in the Machinery Building at the Centennial the eight-inch armor-plating made by Cammell of Sheffield, tested in one case by nine ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... long time he sobbed like a brokenhearted child. After this natural expression of grief he felt better, and became able to think connectedly. He finally resolved that he would become "famous," and rise in "gloomy grandeur" till he towered far above his fellow men. He would pierce this obdurate maiden's heart with poignant but unavailing regret that she had missed the one great opportunity of her life. He gave but slight and vague consideration to the methods by which he would achieve the renown which would overshadow Laura's life; but, having resolutely adopted the purpose ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... lively lady was already gone. With staring black eyes, imploringly trying to pierce the gloom, with hands and feet that sought to batter and break down the thick darkness, with incoherent cries and supplications following the moving of ignis fatuus lights ahead, she ran, and ran swiftly!—ran over treacherous foundations, ran by yawning gulfs, ran ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... common cloud, 'twas more a sort of haze; It settled down about the streets, and stopped for days and days, And not a drop of dew could fall and not a sunbeam shine To pierce that dismal sort of mist ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... tempered by a soft breeze; for all in that land was fair, and it grew fairer day by day to all who dwelt there. Tall trees with rich foliage and fragrant flowers, but without lower limbs or underbrush, grew as in a grove, wide as a forest, yet so far apart that the eye could pierce ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... of light gleams in the dark cell of the anchorite absorbed in prayer, or a bird alights on the window and sings its song; the stern anchorite will smile in spite of himself, and a gentle, sinless joy will pierce through the load of grief over his sins, like water flowing from under a stone. The princess fancied she brought from the outside world just such comfort as the ray of light or the bird. Her gay, friendly ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... alone through the merry crowd. The orchestra was playing a medley. The violins seemed to fairly pierce thought. A Roman-candle burst forth on the right with a great spluttering, and the people, shrieking with delight, rushed in that direction. Then a rocket shot high in the air with a splendid curve, ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... correspondence. In a few weeks she had contrived to put a chasm between them as lovers. Had he remained in England, boldly facing his own evil actions, she would have been subjugated, for however keenly she might pierce to the true character of a man, the show of an unflinching courage dominated her; but his departure, leaving all the brutality to be done for him behind his back, filled this woman with a cutting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... said to himself; and encouraged by the persuasion of a certain melody which he felt he could work out there, and nowhere but there, he pushed the gate open, and entered the park. A perfect place it seemed to him, no one but the birds to hear him, and the sun's rays did not pierce the thick foliage of the sycamore grove. Never did place correspond more intimately with the mood of the moment, and he played his melody over and over again, every now and then stopping to write. Her step was so light, and he ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... might make him fall into destruction." Meanwhile Ali turned to his fellows and asked them, "What manner of man is this Zurayk?"; and they answered, "He was chief of the sharpers of Al-Irak land and could all but pierce mountains and lay hold upon the stars. He would steal the Kohl from the eye and, in brief, he had not his match for roguery; but he hath repented his sins and foresworn his old way of life and opened him a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... five to the ordained missionary force of the missions; namely, Messrs. Alpheus N. Andrus, Carmi C. Thayer, John Edwin Pierce, Royal M. Cole, and Theodore S. Pond. Messrs. Milan H. Hitchcock, Edward Riggs, Henry Marden, and John Otis Barrows, were added in 1869. These were all accompanied by their wives. Besides these, there were George C. Reynolds, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... reduced to the proper proportions, and polished, before the subject or legend could be engraved upon them with the burin. To drill a hole through them required great dexterity, and some of the lapidaries, from a dread of breaking the cylinder, either did not pierce it at all, or merely bored a shallow hole into each extremity to allow it to roll freely in its metallic mounting. The tools used in engraving were similar to those employed at the present day, but of a rougher kind. The burin, which was often nothing ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... perfectly still for a few minutes, thinking, and with his eyes trying in all directions to pierce the thick black darkness by which he ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also;) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. And there was one Anna a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser; she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity: and she was a widow of about ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... uncertainty and peril, to worship God as their fathers had worshipped before them? Still, if they saw little around them to encourage and support, theirs (we may well believe) was the eye of faith that is strengthened to pierce the future. If they heard few words of cheer from men, there came upon their ears, from a Greater than man, words of strong hope and glorious promise. In that Transatlantic gathering, small and unnoticed as it was, the ten who came together heard, in the Gospel of the Annunciation, that "with God ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... against us, do not strike us." When all the spears and headaxes of Giambolan were lost, the boys truly were not hurt. "Now we are next to throw our spears. You, our headaxes, when we strike and throw the spear you pierce the side of Giambolan," they said. Not long after Giambolan laid down. "You, my headaxe, cut off the heads of Giambolan at one blow," they said. So the ten heads were cut off. "You, my spear and headaxe, go and kill all the people in the houses ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... stars which pierce the veil far o'er this world of sin, And seem to give faint visions of a paradise within, In all their hallowed loveliness, their vague and mystic lore, Oh! do they not seem beckoning to a purer, holier shore? And tell me why the well-loved eyes which here upon us beam Gleam radiantly ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... as women. It was an unfathomable look,—partly of pain, partly of antagonism. His eyes habitually sought the sky, yet they did not seem to perceive what they gazed upon; it was as if they would pierce beyond it. ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the floor of Congress, the party of Jefferson, christened anew by Jackson, grew stronger year by year. Opponents there were, no doubt, disgruntled critics and Whigs by conviction; but in 1852 Franklin Pierce, the Democratic candidate for President, carried every state in the union except Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. This victory, a triumph under ordinary circumstances, was all the more significant in that Pierce was pitted ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... man's strength yet; and remember you are my only child. See that your charioteer covers you with his shield when you have entered the battle, for the Egyptians are terrible as archers. Their bows carry much further than do ours, and the arrows will pierce even the strongest armor. Our spearmen have always shown themselves as good as theirs—nay, better, for they are stronger in body and full of courage. It is in the goodness of her archers and the multitude of her chariots that the strength of Egypt lies. Remember that although your father, ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... caused a pole, surmounted with the ducal cap of Austria, to be set up in the market-place at Altorf, before which emblem of authority he ordered every man to uncover and do reverence as he passed. The refusal of a peasant to obey this command, his arrest, trial, and condemnation to pierce with an arrow an apple placed on his own child's head, his dexterity in performing this feat, his escape from his enemies, his murder of the tyrant Gessler, the solemn compact sworn at Ruetli, and the revolutionary events that followed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... you know what is burdening me tonight? It is the curses which the world is at this moment hurling upon me: as when one man, thinking evilly of another, sticks needles into wax, and needles of pain pierce the other..." a sense of evil which was deepened the next day by an ominous little accident, when one of his old gunpractice hulks arrived from Bombay, bearing the throne: for as this was being conveyed into the Boodah a ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... at the very moment we dream of their full enjoyment; if the flower fades so fast—the days of spring are so fleeting; if nature, like a thick veil thrown between this world and the next, suffers but a few rays of Thy glory to pierce its folds, while it keeps us from Thee even in kindling the flame of desires which it never satisfies—it is because Thou knowest that in the inexhaustible richness of Thy Being there are everlasting fountains to quench the insatiate thirst of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... is dawning for a soundly critical animism. It is realised that to formulate "laws" in accordance with which certain modes of happening take place is not to pierce to the heart of things, but to rest on the surface. Mechanism explains nothing and leaves us poor indeed! Whereas, the universe is a majestic manifestation of Becoming—of a veritable development ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... Capys and the rest, of sounder mind, Urge us to tumble in the rolling tide The doubtful gift, for treachery designed, Or burn with fire, or pierce the hollow side, And probe the caverns where the Danaans hide. Thus while they waver and, perplext with doubt, Urge diverse counsels, and in parts divide, Lo, from the citadel, foremost of a rout, Breathless Laocoon runs, and from ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... "sheep," do not err as to the speaker. Watch a good shepherd collect his flock at evening. Every sheep knows him. It is getting dark, and the quiet animals are busily feeding in the fragrant clover, but the tender cadences of the voice of their guide and protector pierce their delicate ears and enter their gentle hearts, and the white flock comes bounding toward the shepherd. A sportsman in golf suit and plaid cap and with a fine baritone voice may call earnestly, but "a stranger will ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... as he tried to pierce the darkness, "because the skipper must be lying at anchor where we ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... lights are permitted on any machines, official or otherwise, after a certain point is reached. One of the favorite outdoor sports of this preacher for a month was to lie on his stomach on the front mud-guard of a big Pierce-Arrow through the war-zone roads, bumping over shell-holes, with a little pocket flash-light playing on the ground, searching out the shell-holes, and trying to help the driver keep in the road. It is a delightful occupation about two o'clock in the morning, ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... fairly positive that there was no immediate danger: the tough fabric of the suits should resist it. A pseudopod-like surge flicked to his leg; crept up; cloaked the suit in patches of yellow; thickened and enveloped him. But it could not pierce through. ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... winning the Cup. Who shall dare say that he was not then a sincere lover? thought the Mother-Superior of the Convent of the Holy Way. And then she recalled her wandering thoughts, and turned them to the One Lover who never betrays His chosen. And her rapt eyes looking up, seemed to pierce beyond the flaming sky-vault overhead. She forgot all else, suddenly snatched from earthly consciousness to beatific ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... by the blacks were plainly coming nearer, and I sprang to my feet, trying to pierce the darkness, but everywhere there were the dimly-seen shapes of trees so close that they almost seemed to lower and their branches to bear down upon our heads; there was the fresh moist scent of ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... pace to Elizabeth. She could realize nothing but that her father was in danger. After hearing Nora's reasons for this sudden journey, she spoke no word but sat rigid, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She was leaning forward, trying to pierce the darkness of the road before them. The rain beat into her face. Her cap and veil were drenched but ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... give. It is that of a woman who had herself consoled, and sending for a surgeon, ordered him to open her veins in a bath, that so, the blood running out more freely, she might sooner die. Also she bought poison, as the bleeding did not succeed, and procured a cobbler's awl wherewith to pierce her heart, but as the women with her were undecided whether the heart were on the right side or the left, she took the poison, and so ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... usually more permanent. The child who has been punished unjustly feels the injury inflicted on his spirit, days, months, and, it may be, years, after the body has lost the smarting consciousness of stripes. And you know that sharp words pierce the mind with acutest pain. We may speak daggers, as well as use them. Is this at all ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... Thereupon, lo you, the other knight, right angry and sorrowful and full of wrath for his fellow that he seeth dead, and cometh in great rage to Messire Gawain and Messire Gawain to him, and so stoutly they mell together that they pierce the shields and pierce the habergeons and break the flesh of the ribs with the points of their spears, and the bodies of the knights and their horses hurtle together so stiffly that saddle-bows are to-frushed and stirrups loosened and girths ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... * Whose sight heals the sick and abates all blight: Here are roe-like maidens with breasts high raised * And with charms of the straightest stature bedight: Their eyes prey on the lion, the Desert's lord. * And sicken the prostrate love- felled plight: Whomso their glances shall thrust and pierce * Naught e'er availeth mediciner's might: Here Al-Hayfa scion of noble sire * E'en craven and sinner doth fain invite; And here for the drunken wight there abide * Five pardons[FN198] and bittocks of bread to bite. My desire is the maiden who joys in verse, * All such I welcome with me to alight, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the crusader's valour is broken on the Moslem lances, and the scholastic's indefatigable pursuit of a harmonizing, a reconciling word of reason and of faith, his ardour not less lofty than the crusader's to pierce the ever-thickening host of doubts, discords, fears, fall all in ruins, in accepted ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... last. He turned Bess' steps toward Pine Mountain and home. He would face it all—the world's scorn, the old scenes which seemed each one to pierce anew his heart. He had been down to Gethsemane; he ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... moment the captain listened, straining his eyes at the same time to pierce the dense mist ahead; the man on the look-out, perched in the bows, who had been leaning forward with his hand shading his eyes, turned about with a startled gesture, throwing his arms aloft, and shouted to ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... mountain's top; two hundred and forty feet above its base. Presently, through the darkness, we perceived at an apparently interminable distance a few dots of light, that shed no lustre, and could help us in no way to pierce the pitchy gloom of the great cavern. The lights were not interminably distant, for they were upon the other shore, and this gnome lake is but a mere drop of water in the mountain mass, its length being three hundred and thirty, and its breadth one ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... demand thought. My arrow will pierce him before he has time for thought. He will declare himself my slave—I shall send him round the world to bring me back the wedding ring of a happy woman—in the meantime all the men who are between him and the title will die of different diseases—he ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... of men, who speedily made America famous. These were Emerson, Lowell, Longfellow, Holmes, Hawthorne, Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, and Sparks. In science, also, men of mark were beginning their labors, as Pierce, Gray, Silliman, and Dana. Louis Agassiz before long began his wonderful lectures, which did much to make science popular. In short, Jackson's administration marks the time when American life began to take on its ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... he was nineteen years 25 Considering and retouching Peter Bell; Watering his laurels with the killing tears Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to Hell Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres Of Heaven, with dewy leaves and flowers; this well 30 May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to foil The ...
— The Witch of Atlas • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... to Solitude and Want impart. I lov'd, mid thy most desert woods astray, With pensive step to measure my slow way, [H] 165 By lonely, silent cottage-doors to roam, The far-off peasant's day-deserted home; Once did I pierce to where a cabin stood, The red-breast peace had bury'd it in wood, There, by the door a hoary-headed sire 170 Touch'd with his wither'd hand an aged lyre; Beneath an old-grey oak as violets lie, Stretch'd at his feet with stedfast, upward eye, His children's children join'd the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... even this utterance of the pain, even this little, for the present, is ardently grasped at, and with eager sympathy appropriated in every bosom. If Byron's life-weariness, his moody melancholy, and mad stormful indignation, borne on the tones of a wild and quite artless melody, could pierce so deep into many a British heart, now that the whole matter is no longer new,—is indeed old and trite,—we may judge with what vehement acceptance this /Werter/ must have been welcomed, coming as it did like a voice from unknown regions; ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... birds that run, birds that swim, and birds that sing are by no means rare; but birds that sew, seem like the wonderful birds in the fairy-tales. Yet they really exist, and make their odd nests with great care and skill. They pick out a leaf large enough for their nest, and pierce rows of holes along the edges with their sharp bill; then, with the fibers of a plant or long threads of grass, they sew the leaf up into a bag. Sometimes it is necessary to sew two leaves together, that the space within ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... wing, he look'd with joy On Simois, and the plain where once was Troy; A smile the triumph of his heart betray'd, To view the mighty ruin Love had made. 115 On Venice, long were bent his partial eyes, Thro' the blue main where gilded domes arise: Old Neptune saw them pierce the curling wave, Own'd the audacious conquest,—and forgave. To fam'd Sicilia next his flight he bends, 120 Stoops on the purple pinion, and descends Where he himself inspir'd the Mantuan swain, And taught Theocritus his tender strain; There, Fame reports, by ways unknown, he led The ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... intently for the next shout. How still it was while they sat there! What a grand, gloomy solitude! They could hear no sound but the beating of their own hearts. Solemn thoughts of the Creator of these mighty hills crept into their minds as they gazed around and endeavoured to pierce the thick darkness. But this was impossible. It was one of those nights in which the darkness was so profound that no object could be seen even indistinctly at the distance of ten yards. Each could see the other's ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... to enlarge the wounds of those who are already wounded, instead of consoling and healing their wounds; and those who have not been wounded, instead of feasting upon the pleasing word of God have daggers placed to pierce their souls and wound ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... to me," shouted Umslopogaas. "Steel cuts where bullets cannot pierce," and with a bound like to that of a buck, the great Zulu leapt away ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Bayley's Hotel, which was on the site of the Pritchard House, now turned into a bank; Sporburg & Co., importers of provisions and dry goods, Wharf Street, foot of Yates; Thos. Patrick & Co., corner Johnson and Government Streets, wholesale liquors; Pierce & Seymour, corner Yates and Douglas Streets, furniture dealers. Mr. Seymour was one of the charter members of the Pioneer Society, which society he took a great interest in. He was a firm believer in the cold water cure, and took cold water baths for all ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... the King; "your words, aimed at thy brother's honour, pierce my heart.—John, thou hast thy boon as concerns the castle; for the unhappy young lady, we will take her in our own charge.—Fleming, how many men wilt ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... you in Japan find it difficult to become truly acquainted with the Japanese? We see many students here, but we are unable to gain more than a superficial acquaintance. They seem to be incrusted in a shell that we are unable to pierce." The editor of the Japan Mail, speaking of the difficulty of securing "genuinely intimate intercourse with the Japanese people," says: "The language also is needed. Yet even when the language is added, something still remains to be achieved, and what that something is we have never ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... born on the Subbs plantation near Snow Hill, North Carolina. When eight years old he was sold for $1,150 [Handwritten Note: '?'] to the Harper family, who lived in Snow Hill. After the Civil War, Pierce farmed a small place near Snow Hill and saw many raids of the Klu Klux Klan. He came to Galveston, Texas, in 1877. Pierce attended a Negro school after he was grown, learned to read and write, and is interested in ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... was not at her ease with me. I found her several times watching me with a curious, intent gaze, seeking, as it were, to pierce my thoughts, to dive into my motives, but always puzzled—even as I was puzzled over her. That round of visiting made me more loath than ever to believe that I was right. Such gentle thought and care, such consideration, such real charity, ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... knight of the white shield made great joy thereof, and the lad asked him, 'were knights so easy to slay? Methought,' saith the lad, 'that none might never pierce nor damage a knight's armour, otherwise would I not have run him through with my javelin,' saith the lad. Sir, the lad brought the destrier home to his father and mother, and right grieved were they when they heard the tidings ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... perfectly quiet, save for a tiny shrill continuance of melody that somehow seemed only to pierce the silence, not to dispel it. Rudolph—of all things!—had in her absence acquired a canary. And everybody knew what an interminable nuisance a ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... Pierce did love fair Petronel Because she sang and danced well And gallantly could prank it; He pulled her and he haul'd her And oftentimes he call'd her Primrose pearls prick'd in ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... game of the forest. Toys indeed! Ay, ay, we will give the little dears toys! toys that all day will sleep calmly in their boxes, seemingly stiff and wooden and without life,—but at night, when the souls enter them, will arise and surround the cots of the sleeping children, and pierce their hearts with their keen, envenomed blades! Toys indeed! oh, yes! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... the practical jokes were of a much too serious character. The college Bible was abstracted from the Chapel and sent to Yale; the communion wine was stolen; a paper bombshell was exploded behind a curtain in the Greek recitation-room; and Professor Pierce discovered one morning that all his black-boards had been painted white. All the copies of Cooke's Chemical Physics suddenly disappeared one afternoon, and next morning the best scholars in the Junior Class were obliged to say, ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... our soft rest must cease, And fly together with our country's peace! No more must we sleep under plantain shade, Which neither heat could pierce, nor cold invade; Where bounteous nature never feels decay, And opening buds drive ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... an anecdotic "explanation." I learnt at school that Percy came from "pierce-eye," in allusion to a treacherous exploit at Alnwick. The Lesleys claim descent from a hero who overthrew ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... bark; he despoiled the tower of its strength, and yet could not batter it down. Job stood firm, tho assailed from every quarter; showers of arrows fell, but they did not wound him. Consider how great a thing it was, to see so many children perish. Was it not enough to pierce him to the quick that they should all be snatched away?—altogether and in one day; in the flower of life; having shown so much virtue; expiring as by a stroke of vengeance; that after so many sorrows ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... rear their low'ring heads, To pierce the heavy and umbrageous clouds; And where the cavern dewy moisture sheds, And night's thick veil the guilty ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... given him; and next, light to see in what way he was to put to use the strength so gained. The first effect of the sacraments was what one might call the natural one of making more visible the shadows which enveloped his path, as well as stimulating his instinctive efforts to pierce through them. After the rapturous joy which succeeded confession and absolution, a period of desolation and dryness heavier than he had ever known at once set in. Perhaps he had expected the very reverse of this. At all events, it was not many days before ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... course, is partly the reason of her power over me. I feel that if ever—if ever she should disclose herself to me, it would be the strangest revelation. Every woman wears a mask, except to one man; but Rhoda's—Miss Nunn's—is, I fancy, a far completer disguise than I ever tried to pierce.' ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... veiled in a light mist. The evening breeze scattered the gentle odor of lilies. Not very far off a dog barked now and then. At times a grave lowing saddened the silence. Tiburcio did not remove his eyes from the pigeon-house, unless it was to pierce the shadows and try to discover in the distance one of the birds. Perhaps some of ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... Court.—Robert Duncan, aged 47, staymaker, Mary Duncan, his wife, who surrendered to take her trial, and Pierce Wall O'Brien, aged 30, printer, were indicted for conspiring together to obtain money from the London and North-Western Railway ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... metal. The rotors, in fact, would be floated in oil just as the high-speed centrifuge the Chief had mentioned had floated on compressed air. But they had to be perfectly balanced, because any imbalance would make the shaft pierce the oil film and touch the metal of the bearing—and when a shaft is turning at 40,000 r.p.m. it is not good for it to touch anything. Shaft and bearing would burn white-hot in fractions of a second and there would be several ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... pierce the yielding hose, So oft thy beauties pierce my yielding breast: Oh then compassionate my deep felt woes, And bid awhile ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... They pierce the hide of the thickest and dullest; they startle and bewilder the brains of the most crass and the most insensitive. And it is just because they do this that Wilde is so cordially feared and hated. It was, one cannot help feeling, the presence in him of a shrewd vein of sheer boyish bravado, ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... the King advanced towards me with a menacing cry as if to pierce me through the diagonal; and in that same movement there arose from myriads of his subjects a multitudinous war-cry, increasing in vehemence till at last methought it rivalled the roar of an army of a hundred thousand Isosceles, and the artillery of a thousand Pentagons. ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... front, in order emphatically to point out Him who suffered as a substitute, in contrast to those who had really deserved the punishment: "He, on account of our transgressions." There is no reason for deviating:, in the case of [Hebrew: Hll], from the original signification "to pierce," and adopting the general signification "to wound;" the LXX. [Greek: etraumatisthe]. The chastisement of our peace is the chastisement whereby peace is acquired for us. Peace stands as an individualizing designation of salvation; in the world of contentions, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... Maclay relates that on one occasion when Pennsylvania's demands were sharply attacked, his colleague, Robert Morris, was so incensed that Maclay "could see his nostrils widen and his nose flatten like the head of a viper." Pierce Butler of South Carolina "flamed away and threatened a dissolution of the Union, with regard to his State, as sure as God was in the firmament." Thus began a line of argument that was frequently pursued thereafter until it was ended by wager of battle. On ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... we more and more eagerly craned our necks over the deck rails, trying to pierce the darkness of the deep for one flash of light that might mean France hard ahead. But nothing happened, and one after another the watchers dropped ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... side. All this was done with such rapidity, such dexterity and agility, that any one chancing to pass at that instant would have thought himself the puppet of a vision. Morgan stopped, as on the other side of the wall, to listen, while his eyes tried to pierce the darkness made deeper by the foliage of poplars and aspens, and the heavy shadows of the little wood. All was silent and solitary. Morgan ventured on his path. We say ventured, because the young man, since nearing the Chateau ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... his mind whether to go back or to stand his ground. But he considered again that he had no armour for his back; and, therefore, thought that to turn the back to him might give him the greater advantage, with ease to pierce him with his darts.[83] Therefore he resolved to venture and stand his ground; for, thought he, had I no more in mine eye than the saving of my life, it would be the best ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... United States who entertained a holy fear lest the Pope should one morning land upon our shores, and take forcible possession of our country. A venerable clergyman once informed me that when he went to pay his respects to President Pierce, who then occupied the White House, his Excellency remarked to him: "I had a visit from a nervous gentleman, who asked me whether I was making any preparations to resist the approach of the Pope. I replied that so far I had taken no steps, but that no doubt I would ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... Celestial Railroad," in the "Mosses," where Christian's pilgrimage is so deftly parodied in a railroad route to the heavenly goal. Full of keen satire, it does not, as it might at first seem, tend to diminish Bunyan's dignity, but inspires one with a novel sense of it, as one is made to gradually pierce the shams of certain modern cant. But a more profound consequence was the direction of Hawthorne's expanding thought toward sin and its various and occult manifestations. Imagine the impression upon a mind so fine, so exquisitely responsive, and so ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... which ever yelpt within, Past eastward from the falling sun. At once He felt the hollow-beaten mosses thud And tremble, and then the shadow of a spear, Shot from behind him, ran along the ground. Sideways he started from the path, and saw, With pointed lance as if to pierce, a shape, A light of armour by him flash, and pass And vanish in the woods; and followed this, But all so blind in rage that unawares He burst his lance against a forest bough, Dishorsed himself, and rose again, and fled ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... third day of the third moon, the nutmegs bloom; A maggot, lo, works hard to pierce into a flower; But though it ceaseless bores it cannot penetrate. So crouching on the buds, it swing-like rocks itself. My precious pet, my own dear little darling, If I don't choose to open how ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... curls, seemed a protest in themselves against hopelessness. On the third day he smiled; it was in recess that she detected him at it. An organ-grinder's monkey in the school-yard called it forth, a sweet, glad smile, which lit up his dense features as the sun at twilight will pierce through and illuminate for a few minutes a sullen cloud-bank. Miss Willis saw in a vision on the spot a refuge from hopelessness. Behind that smile there must be a winsome soul. That spiritless expression was but a veil or rind hiding ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... perceive or imperfectly they may comprehend, to hold in implicit faith that the Adorable Monarch of all the past and of all the future is a King who "can do no wrong." This early exhibition of tooth, and spine, and sting,—of weapons constructed alike to cut and to pierce,—to unite two of the most indispensable requirements of the modern armorer,—a keen edge to a strong back,—nay, stranger still, the examples furnished in this primeval time, of weapons formed not only to kill, but also to torture,—must be altogether at variance with the preconceived ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... afternoon, meeting other trail bosses, nearly all of whom had heard more or less about the existing trouble. That we had the sympathy of the cattle interests on our side goes without saying, and one of them, known as "the kidgloved foreman," a man in the employ of Shanghai Pierce, invoked the powers above to witness what would happen if he were in Lovell's boots. This was my first meeting with the picturesque trail boss, though I had heard of him often and found him a trifle boastful but ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... have asked," said he, "Sir Knight—take ten times more—reduce me to ruin and to beggary, if thou wilt,—nay, pierce me with thy poniard, broil me on that furnace, but spare my daughter, deliver her in safety and honour!—As thou art born of woman, spare the honour of a helpless maiden—She is the image of my deceased Rachel, she is the last ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Christ, write to you in His precious Blood: with desire to see you and the other sons clothed in the wedding garment that covers all our nakedness. That is a protection which does not let the blows of our adversary the devil pierce our flesh with mortal wound, but makes us rather strengthened than weakened by every blow of temptation or molesting of devils or fellow-creatures or our own flesh, rebellious to the spirit. I say that these blows not only do not hurt us, but they shall ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... long trail of smoke was rising and the explosions became louder. We suddenly discovered the "Archie" in flames. It was in the courtyard and for camouflage had been covered with branches. It was mounted on an armored Pierce-Arrow truck. The "crump" had hit it, and gasoline, paint, branches, and hubs were supplying the fuel which was cooking out the ammunition, the crack, crack, being the report of single shells, whereas ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... and installed there virturally a slave until 1864, when I escaped through the kindness of a delightful Episcopalian woman from Cincinnati, Ohio. As I could not speak English, my chores were to act as a tutor and companion for the children of Pierce Buckran Haynes, a well known slave trader and plantation owner in Kentucky. Haynes wanted his children to speak French and it was my duty to teach them. I was the private companion of 3 girls and one small boy, each day I had to talk French and write French for them. They became ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... when God made His pretty world He had certain things exceeding sharp and sweet to say to us, which it is His will only to whisper to us through human reeds: the frail human reeds on which we sometimes deafly lean until they break and pierce our cruel hands? ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... humility, among the great billows of life that encompassed and lifted her, it seemed with enormous heart-beats, Helen remembered Franklin's words. 'Let it melt—please let it melt, dear Helen.' But it had needed the inarticulate, the instinctive, to pierce to the depths of life. Gerald's tears, his head so boyishly pressed against her, his arms so childishly clinging, had told her what her heart might have been dead to for ever if, with reason and self-command, he had tried to put ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... game he chases, while he seeks Thickets best suited for his sports, and round The Erymanthean woods his toils he sets, He meets his mother:—at his sight she stay'd, The well-known object viewing. Arcas fled Trembling, unconscious why those eyes were fix'd On him immoveably. His spear, prepar'd To pierce his mother's breast, as near she draws The youth protends. But Jove the deed prevents: Both bears away, and stays the matricide. Swept through the void of heaven by rapid whirl They're borne, and neighbouring constellations made, Loud Juno rag'd, to see ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... sound met his ear, in vain his anxious gaze endeavoured to pierce the gloom, but the darkness was too intense. Minutes appeared like hours, and still the awful silence remained unbroken; he felt, and the thought was agony, that out of the twenty-four human beings who had so lately trod the deck of the schooner, he ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... States of Pennsylvania, New-York, Massachusetts, and Vermont, whose legislatures have either memorialized Congress to abolish slavery in the District, or instructed their Senators to move such a measure, must be gravely informed by Messrs. Clay, Norvell, Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and other honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they know not whereof they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted they can demand without compunction a ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... down on a hot gridiron wus animated by a more warm and martyrous feelin' of self-sacrifice. Yes, I truly felt, that if there wus dangers to be faced, and daggers run through pardners, I felt I would ruther they would pierce my own spare-ribs than Josiah's. (I say spare- ribs for oritory—my ribs are not ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... method of artificially staining the stone, to be readily permeable. It was argued by E. Reusch that the cavities were alternately filled and emptied by means of intermittent hot springs carrying silica; while G. Lange, of Idar, suggested that the tension of the confined steam might pierce an outlet through some weak point in the coating of gelatinous silica, deposited on the walls, so that the tubes would be channels of egress rather than of ingress—a view supported by Heddle, who described them as "tubes ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... light eludes the eye which it illumines, if we would seize and contemplate it, we must have two things: we must have a special and a supernatural object. There must be light within you, and it must pierce the depths wherein ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... he's a toro bravo, is Vivillo, a heart of gold. Not the most famous torero in Spain shall pierce it. I've loved him for four years, since he was a baby at his mother's side, and Rafael Calmenare used to take me to visit him; loved him better even than Corcito, and all this time I've been saving up to buy him before he's of the age for a corrida. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Daniel Pierce Thompson (b. 1193, d. 1868) was born at Charlestown, Mass., but soon removed with his father to Vermont, where he lived until twenty years of age, on a farm. His means of schooling were most limited, but he was very ambitious and ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... been made of the use of pits and traps in warfare. In addition to these it is customary for a returning war party to conceal in the trail many saonag, small stiletto-shaped bamboo sticks, which pierce the feet of those in pursuit. A night camp is effectively protected in the same ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... galleries which are supported by the pillars of the great nave. Thus it is impossible for the boldest curiosity, if any such should dare to mount the narrow balustrade of these galleries, to see farther into the choir than the octagonal stained windows which pierce the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... you.... The strongest of us are insufficient to ourselves in this life, and if we will not stretch out our hands for help to our fellows, who, for the most part, are indeed broken reeds and quite as often pierce as support us, we needs must at last stretch them out to God; and doubtless these occasions, bitter as they may seem, should be accounted blest, which make the poor proud human soul discover its own weakness ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... said Ned, and after lowering the lamp a little by putting the wick back amongst the oil, they crept out on to the veranda, where all listened for a time and tried to pierce the darkness. ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... curse, and might follow his own inclinations without concern or hurry, without let or hindrance. And as he suddenly turned it, the rays leaped forth again with renewed brilliancy, and seemed to pierce his very heart. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to pierce Collins' stupor and strike some memory filed long ago in his subconscious mind, and he suddenly straightened and ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... the general cry; and the musicians, each after his kind, did pierce and vex the air with such a medley of disquieting sounds that the talkers were fain to cease, and the dancers to fall to in good earnest. Alice and her brother were disguised as the cunning beggar had predicted—to wit, as the virgin queen ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... uttered these last words audibly; they pierce to the heart's core of the mute, impassive watcher. Strong antipathy is as clairvoyant as strong sympathy, and with a leap of understanding, and a fresh surge of fierce resentment, Saxham acknowledges the deadly truth contained in those ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... mother and I, with such young ladies as our friends and the public chose to commit to our charge. Consequently, we were a considerable distance from the sea, and divided from it by a labyrinth of streets and houses. But the sea was my delight; and I would often gladly pierce the town to obtain the pleasure of a walk beside it, whether with the pupils, or alone with my mother during the vacations. It was delightful to me at all times and seasons, but especially in the wild commotion of a rough sea-breeze, ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... hot, unblinking eyes tried to pierce the darkness. Tears of shame and pity for this big brother burnt their way out and ran down his cheeks. He was wondering. He was striving to put away the horrid doubt that was searing his ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... pierce me with the spears Of their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains Eat with their burning gold into my bones. Heaven's winged hound, polluting from thy lips His beak in poison not his own, tears up My heart; and shapeless ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... when I pushed the needle through his ear and cut off a little piece of silk. I looked anxiously in his face as he turned his head for me to pierce the other one. I was so nervous that ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... 1849. The four years that followed saw the Presidential chair filled by Whigs, General Taylor and Mr. Fillmore; and those four years form the only time in which men who had had no connection with the democratic party wielded the executive power of the United States. General Pierce and Mr. Buchanan, both democrats, were at the head of the Government for the eight years that followed Mr. Fillmore's retirement. Thus, during the sixty years that followed Mr. Jefferson's inauguration ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... inquiring and genteel mind has now to wander for his politeness to Paternoster-row[2]; to Pierce Egan, for his knowledge of men and manners; and to Owen Swift, for his knightly accomplishments, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... Calvinistic creed, and an Arminian clergy" (Bartlett). Whilst she has had such genuine Calvinists as Scott and Toplady, she has also produced men who held that the Saviour died for all—viz., Hales, Butler, Pierce, Barrow, Cudworth, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick, and Burnet. The Wesleyan body ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... they do not lack. Some other metaphor must be sought to embody the deficiency. At the same time the want is a real one; and exquisite as are the Odes, no one knew better than their author himself that they have no power to pierce the heart, or to waken those troubled musings which in their blending of pain and pleasure elevate into something that it was not before, the whole being of him that ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... blood-red, wrathful streak Pierce through the twilight glooms that blur His cruel vigilance and her Regard, they light fierce looks that wreak A hopeless hate that cannot stir, A voiceless hate that ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... contest of grand proportions; for he would not have failed to convince them that all that they had any right to claim, and therefore all that they could expect their fellow-citizens to fight for would be more secure under his government than it had been under the governments of such men as Pierce and Buchanan, who made use of sectionalism and slavery to promote the selfish interests of themselves and their party. The estimation in which he was latterly held by the most intelligent of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... with my friend Eddie Pierce." adding as the ceremony was performed, "Eddie keeps a good team, any time ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... female writers have chosen a masculine nom de plume, and guarded it consistently, like Saxe Holm, etc. Miss Murfree is, we believe, the first whose disguise editors as well as the general public failed to pierce. Now that the critical faculty begins to play more surely upon the works of Charles Egbert Craddock, it may be said that a woman's love of romance and picturesqueness shades off into haze and unreality some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various |
