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verb
Profound  v. i.  To dive deeply; to penetrate. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Profound" Quotes from Famous Books



... the scouts following their brave guide for half a mile in profound silence, when the barking of a small dog, almost at their feet, apprised them of a new danger. The click of the scout's rifle caught the ear of the girl, who quickly approached and warned them against ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... War, and after whom Colonel Bacon was named. He received the early rudiments of education at the Edgefield Academy, and when at the proper age he was sent for his classical education to the Pendleton English and Classical Institute, under the tutilage of that profound scholar and educator, Prof. S.M. Shuford. Colonel Bacon was fond of the classics, and had acquired rare literary attainments, and had he cultivated his tastes in that line assiduously, he no doubt would have become the foremost scholar of the State, if not the South. He was passionately ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... thinking men saw to be inevitable from the beginning, it was wise in Mr. Lincoln to leave the shaping of his policy to events. In this country, where the rough and ready understanding of the people is sure at last to be the controlling power, a profound common-sense is the best genius for statesmanship. Hitherto the wisdom of the President's measures has been justified by the fact that they have always resulted in more firmly uniting public opinion. One of the things particularly admirable in the public utterances of President ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... biographies, generally very laudatory. The mission of Augustine for the conversion of England is undoubtedly one of the most striking facts in Gregory's life; but the only chronicler of the seventh century who mentions it is the Continuator of Prosper. Is it surprising, then, that there is a still more profound silence on a fact less calculated to attract outside attention, such as is the recasting of the liturgical books peculiar to the Church ...
— St. Gregory and the Gregorian Music • E. G. P. Wyatt

... you not only with deep personal respect, but as the representative of the great people of France, and beg to bring you the greetings of another great people to whom the fortunes of France are of profound and ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... my most sincere respect and esteem for the Secret Committee, and most profound regard to the Congress, your most obedient and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... having fallen ill in the little Mansion-Royal of Meuse (CHATEAU DE MEUSE), a couple of leagues from Cleve,"—fell ill at Wesel; and there is no Chateau de MEUSE in the world (ERRORS 2d AND 3d),—"he wrote to me that he expected I would make the advances. I went, accordingly, to present my profound homages. Maupertuis, who already had his views, and was possessed with the rage of being President to an Academy, had of his own accord,"—no, being invited, and at my suggestion (ERROR 4th),—"presented himself there; and was lodged with Algarotti and Keyserling ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... nostrils dilated. In the course of about a quarter of an hour his eyes began to roll, foam issued from his half-opened lips, and his whole body was agitated by frightful convulsions. These violent symptoms having subsided, a profound sleep of several hours succeeded. In the evening I again saw this Indian. He was relating to a circle of attentive listeners the particulars of his vision, during which he alleged he had held communication with the spirits of his forefathers. ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... little over things more or less out of the common ruck, and sitting there in a kind of trance—isn't it possible that you may have very largely IMAGINED the change? Hypnotised yourself into believing it much worse—more profound, radical, acute—and simply absolutely hypnotizing others into thinking so, too. Christendom is just beginning to rediscover that there is such a thing as faith, that it is just possible that, say, megrims or melancholia may be removed at least ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... and lofty aims, were keenly disappointed in him. This alliance was in contravention of all their ideals. He began to grow distrustful and cold toward them, leaning entirely upon Speranski, his prime minister, who was French in his sympathies and a profound admirer of Napoleon. Alexander, no less zealous for reforms than before, hurt at the defection of his friends and trying to justify himself to himself, said "Does not this man represent the new forces in conflict with the old?" ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... from consideration of the effect, to seek the cause; and again, the cause of that cause; till of necessity he must come to this thought at last, that there is some cause, whereof there is no former cause, but is eternall; which is it men call God. So that it is impossible to make any profound enquiry into naturall causes, without being enclined thereby to believe there is one God Eternall; though they cannot have any Idea of him in their mind, answerable to his nature. For as a man that is born blind, hearing men talk of warming themselves by the ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... for use of the Crue at your expence by privately going to the Marsh (at St. John) and killing your Cattle. You may look for them every day after you receive this: they are bound up ye Bay a plundering. Take care of yourselves and pray keep this a profound secret." ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... effected between the Church, which is our eternal mother, and the society of the nineteenth century, of which we are the temporal children, and toward which we have also duties and regards. It is my most profound conviction that, if France in particular, and the Latin race in general, are given up to social, moral, and religious anarchy, the principal cause undoubtedly is not Catholicism itself, but the manner in which Catholicism has for a long ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... my childish days I remember to have had a vague but profound admiration for a certain legendary person called the Lord Mayor's fool. I had the highest opinion of the intellectual capacity of that suppositious retainer of the Mansion House, and I really regarded him with feelings approaching to absolute veneration, because my nurse informed me on every ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... evolution has passed are irrevocably buried in the past but such remarkable maintenance efficiency attained centuries ago and projected into the present with little apparent decadence merits the most profound study and the time is fully ripe when it should be made. Living as we are in the morning of a century of transition from isolated to cosmopolitan national life when profound readjustments, industrial, ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King

... Madame de Lamotte and her son, and his name, unlike those of some other great criminals, does not at first recall a long series of crimes, but when one examines this low, crooked, and obscure life, one finds a fresh stain at every step, and perhaps no one has ever surpassed him in dissimulation, in profound hypocrisy, in indefatigable depravity. Derues was executed at thirty-two, and his whole life was steeped in vice; though happily so short, it is full of horror, and is only a tissue of criminal thoughts and deeds, a very essence of evil. He had no hesitation, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... recognized the necessity of basing their investigations upon a diligent study of public records, state-papers, and notes of contemporary observers.[3] The same men prepared themselves for the task of criticism by a profound study of ethical and political philosophy in the works of Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, and Tacitus.[4] They examined the methods of classical historians, and compared the annals of Greece, Rome, and Palestine ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... particularly in mind to say, of Fontenette: that, as Senda remarked—for the above is an abridgment—"I rasser see chalousie vissout cause, san cause vissout chalousie;" and that even while I was witness of the profound ferocity of his jealousy when roused, and more and more as time passed on, I was impressed with its ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable

... 'm in love with you. Everyone who knows you is that," he predicated. "But also," he added, on a key of profound melancholy, "if you will forgive my forcing the confidence ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... desires me to express his profound regret that the State is about to lose one who we all fondly hoped had cast his destinies for weal or for woe among us; and that he is sensible that we lose thereby an officer whom it will be difficult, if not ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... which, without convulsion or groaning, brought on a heavy drowsiness and lethargy, with a gentle sweat on the face, the senses being stupefied by degrees; the patient, in appearance, being sensible of no pain, but rather troubled to be disturbed or awakened, like those that are in a profound natural sleep. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... origin of this custom is obscure, but it appears to express the idea that the youth now enters on an entirely new life, and having come into new relations and responsibilities, is to forget what he was and what he did before—a profound conception which has been taken up into some of the most advanced religions (as, for example, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... thaumaturgy, and necromancy, he favored the world (which world was the nursery where I, on his first coming home, lived among my sisters) with his select opinions. On this last subject especially—of necromancy—he was very great; witness his profound work, though but a fragment, and, unfortunately, long since departed to the bosom of Cinderella, entitled, "How to raise a ghost; and when you've got him down, how to keep him down." To which work he assured us, that some most learned and enormous ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... door of Canova's monument, and that he sees some coherence and meaning in Titian's; he has been all over the great mausoleum of the Doge Pesaro, and he knows whether the griffins descend from their perches at the midnight hour to bite the naked knees of the ragged black caryatides. This profound and awful animal I take to be a blood relation of the cat in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo, who sleeps like a Christian during divine service, and loves a certain glorious bed on the top of a bench, where the sun strikes upon him through the great painted ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... a profound relation between the moral powers and the powers that rule the worlds. So in this Sutra the fixed polestar is the eternal spirit about which all things move, as well as the star toward which points the axis of the earth. Deep mysteries attend both, ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston

... to engage you—and you have, besides, the comfortable promise of constant assistance from the Holy Spirit, if you diligently and sincerely pray for it. O! let not all this mercy be lost upon you—but give your attention to this your only important concern, and accept, with profound gratitude, the inestimable advantages that are ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... detained inhabitants, and their innocence, obliged us to beg Your Excellency, to allow yourself to be touched by their miseries, and to restore to them that liberty which we ask for them, with all possible submission and the most profound respect. ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty

... a more prominent element as we approach the more human side (if I may so call it) of Political Economy. Consider, for example, the doctrine which made so profound an impression upon the old school—Malthus's theory of population. It was summed up in the famous—though admittedly inaccurate—phrase, that population had a tendency to increase in a geometrical ratio, while ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen

... beings; she is, however, prepared to take the very first that may be unfortunate enough to come in her way; she has no ideas of her own, but is quick enough at borrowing those of other people; she considers herself a profound theologian; dotes on a converted papist, and looks on a Puseyite [46] as something one shade blacker than the devil. Now isn't that ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... Mexico, Book VI, chap. VIII. There is little doubt but that the tidings of the dreadful destruction of the mighty Tenochtitlan was rapidly disseminated among the tribes far down into Yucatan and Central America, and made a profound impression on them. ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various

... writing-room, from answering letters to a procession and worship once more, from the sacred services back again to her dressing-tent, and there, while she is being attired she listens to me while I read the most profound works—and how she listens! not a word escapes her, and her memory retains whole sentences. Amid all this hurry and scurry her spirit must need be like a limb that is sore from violent exertion, and that is painfully tender to every rough ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... hear what Father Goulden would say about the watch. He did not raise his eyes, but looked at it with profound admiration, while the men waited quietly like those who suffer from not being able to conceal their ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... wings of the folding-doors open. All the COURT is prostrate. There is a vague glimpse of candle light. A moment's pause of profound emotion and silence. THERESA slowly rises to look across the kneeling forms; she ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand

... for the first time we come upon a verse not unworthy of Marlowe himself—a verse in spirit as in cadence recalling the deep oceanic reverberations of his "mighty line," profound and just and simple and single as a note of the music of the sea. But it would be hard if a devout and studious disciple were never to catch one passing tone of his master's habitual accent.—It may be worth while to observe that we find here the same modulation ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... placed as to form a distinguished and remarkable group; and beside them stood three or four peasants, motionless, with their eyes turned upwards, and fixed, apparently, upon some object amongst the branches of the tree next to them. The meditations of youth are seldom so profound as not to yield to the slightest, impulse of curiosity, as easily as the lightest pebble, dropped casually from the hand, breaks the surface of a limpid pool. Quentin hastened his pace, and ran lightly up the rising ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... Oliphant's body at the foot of the cliff, with the clear traces of a struggle on the brink above, had created a profound sensation at Maxfield and the ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... hour's walk to the Hall, and I strode along at a pace which forced my companion now and again into a trot. I took rather a savage comfort in this, as one likes to bite hard on an aching tooth; for I had a profound friendship for this poor black boy, and to put a hardship upon him was to suffer myself even more than he did. Tulp had come up misshapen and undersized from his long siege with the small-pox, and with very rickety and unstable legs. I could scarcely have sold him for a hundred dollars, and would ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... advanced with rapid strides. One night an intense frost set in and covered the entire lake, as far at least as we could see, with a sheet of pure ice. It had set fast in a profound calm, and the surface was so smooth that every tree and bush on the outlying islets was reflected as if in water. Indeed, it could scarcely be told that the ice was not water except by ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... seamen, the young gentlemen understood that these careful preparations did not indicate merely a change in the holding-ground of the vessel. Everything about the Josephine seemed to be shrouded in profound mystery. Peaks kept all hands at work till the strict order of a man-of-war prevailed in every part of the deck and rigging. He did not say anything, or do anything, which afforded the slightest hint in regard to the destination of the consort. ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... the turnpike in front of my door. It was now midnight, and I sat on the porch observing their movements. They had my best corn-field beside them and their horses fared well. In a little while one entered the yard, came up to me, and after a profound bow, politely asked for a few coals to start a fire. I supplied him, and informed him as blandly as possible where he would find wood conveniently, as I had dim visions of camp-fires made of my palings. I was thanked in return, and the mild-mannered ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... profound to find that the Last Chance sign hung over a very prosperous grocery with boxes and barrels of provender out on the pavement under an awning and with huge, newly-painted screen doors guarding the wide entrance, at which ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... Indian girl to the foot of the pine. Catharine was just rousing herself from sleep, and she gazed with a bewildered air on the strange companion that Hector had brought with him. The stranger lay down, and in a few minutes sank into a sleep so profound it seemed to resemble that of death itself. Pity and deep interest soon took the place of curiosity and dread in the heart of the gentle Catharine, and she watched the young stranger's slumber as tenderly as though she had been a sister, or beloved friend, while Hector ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... a profound admiration for Vic. She had brains, was perfectly fearless, no man had ever taken a liberty with her, and every one in the Wadgery country who visited O'Fallen's had a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... most profound silence on what had passed with the envoy of M. de Metternich, and displayed no marks of ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... most abstruse problems, and tugs fiercely to pluck out the heart of their mystery. No difficulty is too great for the author to meet, and none seems able to upset his theory. In truth, the book is one of the most profound ever published in Boston, and whatever opinion may be given regarding its principles, none can gainsay its vigor of understanding and reach of learning. The pertinent question, Who reads an American ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen

... obvious indications of genius, and of its inseparable concomitant—originality. To this general remark the present Essay is far from forming an exception. No one can peruse it, without admiring the author's comprehensive research and profound meditation; but at the same time, partly from the exuberance of his imagination, and partly from an apparent want of method (though, in truth, he had a method of his own, by which he marshalled his thoughts in an order perfectly intelligible to himself), a first perusal will, to many readers, prove ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... for many minutes, scarcely breathing. Not the slightest sound reached our ears through the profound darkness; utter, intense silence. Finally I reached over and touched Harry on the shoulder, and arose ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... the night they hear the religious sing matins, and are not a little edified by it; for they also have their own form of religion, and there are among them religious men who lead a very austere life and claim to live in profound meditation. When it shall please God to enlighten them, Christianity will undoubtedly profit much by ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair

... employed in self-culture might make of him a philosopher, a poet, or a man of science. As it is easier to act than to think, the multitude of course will be only talkers, writers, and performers; but a great and civilized people must have at least a few men who take rank with the profound thinkers and finished scholars of the world. No lover of America can help thinking it undesirable that any one should be able to say of us with truth, what Locke has said, "The Americans are not all born with worse understandings than the Europeans, though we see none of them ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... time that she had appealed from Pilkington to him, and there was a profound humiliation in the thought that at this precise moment the loathsome Dicky might be of more solid use to her ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... have been a most courteous and gracious host," he said. "Your conversation has been stimulating, inspiring, and informative. Our profound thanks." ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin

... assured, dear lady, that I shall know no rest until your wrongs are repaired. If I fail, I myself will make reparation in full. Meanwhile, may I beg you and your sister to be my guests, that I may prove how deep is my sympathy, and how profound the respect ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... containing about an ounce each, under the name of "thistle oil," at the price of a quarter of a dollar each. The usual dose for dry bellyache is thirty drops upon a lump of sugar, and its effect is perfectly magical, relieving the pain instantaneously, throwing the patient into a profound and refreshing sleep, and in a few hours relieving the bowels gently of the contents. This oil seems fitted to compete in utility with the far more costly and less ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... they can require, still furnish the means and equip vessels of this description to commit the destruction which they do, for the sake of gain. There is a sermon, Sir, for you from a captain of a privateer, and I now wish you good morning.' I then got up, and, making a profound bow, I quitted the room before Mr. Trevannion made any reply, and here I am. Now all we have to do is to wait quietly, and see what takes place; but first, I shall go on board the Arrow, and let them know that I have quarrelled with the owner. The men are not very well pleased as it is with ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... manufactories, and the anthracite mines of Availlans, 3 m. distant. Horses changed. Between La Mure and La Salle, the next village, is perhaps the grandest scenery, the road running along the edges of high cliffs or in the profound depths of the ravine of the Bonne, which it crosses by the Pont-Haut. The hamlet of La Salle is exactly half-way between Grenoble and Gap, 31m. from each, and 8m. from Corps. The road, after passing the village of Quet and the gorge of ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... is that the Carders, (who are always of the first Quality) never begin to play till the French-Dances are finished, and the Country-Dances begin: But John Trot having now got your Commission in his Pocket, (which every one here has a profound Respect for) has the Assurance to set up for a Minuit-Dancer. Not only so, but he has brought down upon us the whole Body of the Trots, which are very numerous, with their Auxiliaries the Hobblers and the Skippers, by which Means the Time is so much ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... says in its song, a child says in its prattle. 'Tis the same hymn; a hymn indistinct, lisping, profound. The child has what the bird has not, the sombre human destiny in front of it. Hence the sadness of men as they listen, mingling with the joy of the little one as it sings. The sublimest canticle to be heard on earth is the stammering of the human soul on the lips of infancy. That confused chirruping ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... other man whom I sent to the farm at the same time proved of no use whatever. He stayed four days, and was dismissed for innocuous desuetude. Still another man whom I tried did well for five weeks, and then broke out in a most profound spree, from which he could not be weaned. He ended up by an assault on Otto in the stable yard. The Swede was taken by surprise, and was handsomely bowled over by the first onslaught of his half-drunk, half-crazed antagonist. As soon, however, as his slow ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... bewildered air. They understood that it was a solemn moment, but the human language was still full of mystery to them. Sugar wriggled his long fingers as a sign of distress; Bread patted his huge stomach; Water lay on the floor and seemed to suffer from the most profound despair; and Milk only had eyes for Bread, who had been her friend for ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc

... clothes until he came. He would waken quickly and be ready for his benefactor's directions. It was a great temptation. He yielded to it. His head had scarcely sunk upon the pillow before he slipped into a profound and ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... thought came, and that was to sing them anyway. He put the verses before him, touched the keys of the organ, opened his mouth and sang, not knowing where he was going to come out. He finished the first verse amid profound silence. He took a long breath and wondered if he could sing the second the same way. He tried and succeeded; after that it was easy to sing it. When he finished the hymn the meeting was all broken down and the throngs were crying. ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine

... the Regency coffee house. There I amuse myself by looking on while they play chess. Nowhere in the world do they play chess as skillfully as in Paris and nowhere in Paris as they do at this coffee house; 'tis here you see Legal the profound, Philidor the subtle, Mayot the solid; here you see the most astounding moves, and listen to the sorriest talk, for if a man be at once a wit and a great chess player, like Legal, he may also be a great chess player and a sad ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... the progress of his age was profound, though it did not often take shape in visible form. He believed that the world might be better, and was not minded to acquiesce in the established order of things. He sympathized with the Salvation Army; he was ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... author of the pamphlet entitled Peace before All! For the sake of his opinions, for the sake of consistency with the profound, the exalted faith to which his views give rise within him, ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... and who was about twenty years younger than Albertus, was one of the rarest geniuses that have existed on earth. He was a Franciscan friar. He wrote grammars of the Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages. He was profound in the science of optics. He explained the nature of burning-glasses, and of glasses which magnify and diminish, the microscope and the telescope. He discovered the composition of gunpowder. He ascertained the true length of the solar year; and his theory was afterwards ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... than ours. I have an Aunt Maria." She turned as if to go, but paused to throw back over her shoulder, "My mother's name was Theodora Marcella. She was a decent woman. The good die young." With a profound bow she was gone before the spell-bound group had recovered their breath The next place was a grocery store, and though near the supper hour, it chanced to be empty, except for the proprietor, whom she knew, and with him for her audience ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... words,—they are at once musical and imaginative and thoughtful. Yet with difficulty; for there is an antagonism among the elements: when the music is insistent, the thought is obscured; when the images are elaborate, their meaning is lost to sight; when the thought is subtle or profound, it rejects the image and is careless of sound. Swinburne's poetry is full of philosophy, but is so sensuous and musical that we miss its thoughts; Browning is too subtle a thinker to be a musician. The complexity of poetry is the source of its strength, lending it something of the inwardness ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... listen to Christian teaching. Some of them had courage enough to reform their lives. Children and women were baptized. Many received when dying the sacraments of the Church. Moreover, the sublime courage and self-devotion of the missionaries inspired the Indian mind with a profound respect for Christianity and added very greatly to the influence and prestige of the French name among ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais

... kindness often knew not whence it came. She had seen the world—its glories without being dazzled; its vices and follies without being infected by them. She had suffered often and severely from fits of long and painful sickness, always with calmness and resignation. She had a profound, but not an obtrusive sensibility. She was always cheerful, never frivolous; she had neither ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... footsteps had scarcely died away, when, in spite of my wish to keep awake, I dropped off into a profound sleep, and did not again unclose my eyes until it was time to ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... find that, during my Nonage, I had the reputation of a very sullen Youth, but was always a Favourite of my School-master, who used to say, that my parts were solid, and would wear well. I had not been long at the University, before I distinguished myself by a most profound Silence: For, during the Space of eight Years, excepting in the publick Exercises of the College, I scarce uttered the Quantity of an hundred Words; and indeed do not remember that I ever spoke three Sentences together in my whole Life. Whilst I was in this Learned ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... had no sooner read these words, so touchingly silly, than my anger against Pinkerton was swallowed up in gratitude. Of all the circumstances of my career—my birth, perhaps, excepted—not one had given my poor father so profound a pleasure as this article in the Sunday Herald. What a fool, then, was I to be lamenting! when I had at last, and for once, and at the cost of only a few blushes, paid back a fraction of my debt of gratitude. So that, when I next met Pinkerton, I took ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... farcical purposes in the Induction to the Shakespearean "Taming of the Shrew." But with Calderon the theme is lifted altogether out of the atmosphere of comedy, and is worked up with poetic sentiment and a touch of mysticism into a symbolic drama of profound ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... to display, said, "How d'ye, 'Liab?" to the crippled colored man, laid his saddle-bags on the floor, and took the chair assigned to him. The Northern man greeted the young ladies with apparent pleasure and profound respect, shook hands with the colored man, calling him "Mister" Hill, and before sitting down looked out on the crowded school with ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... to a window, while Ab was watching the movement of the loom, and looked across the fields. Suddenly the others heard him utter an ejaculation of profound astonishment. The loom ceased its monotonous thumping, and all eyes ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben

... admire him; for never had any man so much wit and so much solidity. I have seen him, at a time when he was so much taken up with the affairs of his master, that nobody could expect any thing from him but what related to his ministry, and his profound capacity to manage the most knotty negotiations; yet all the weight of his employment diminished nothing of his inimitable pleasantness, which charmed his friends, and was agreeable even to those barbarous nations ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... case of burglary as the other. In the first instance you are justified in taking the robber's life, and why not in the second? Those people who attacked the inhabitants of a country with whom they were in profound peace, were disowned by their own government, consequently they were outlaws and pirates, and it is a pity that Sutherland and every other prisoner taken had not been immediately shot. Mr Hume may flare up in the House of Commons, but I should like to know what Mr ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... brilliant writers who were to follow them in our own more natural and outspoken times; whose wise, sweet, passionate voices are already passing away into the distance; of whom so few remain to us.[4] The secret of being real is no very profound one, and yet how rare it is, how long it was before the readers and writers of this century found it out! It is like the secret of singing in perfect tune, or of playing the violin as Joachim can play upon it. In literature, as in ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... the medieval conception of a temporal and spiritual head of Christendom. The nations now recognized no common superior, whether emperor or pope, but all were equal in the sight of international law. The book of Grotius thus marked the profound change which had come over Europe since the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... bedchamber, and either the guest permitted to appear at her table in sooty day-garb, or else a great gap commanded in the service of her dishes, vexatious extreme for a lady composed of orderliness. She acknowledged Patrick's profound salute and his excuses with just so many degrees in the inclining of her head as the polite deem a duty to themselves when the ruffling ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... words. He took his seat in the largest and finest of the chairs behind the great velvet one reserved for the Governor, while I went and leaned against my window, and we stared at each other across the flower-decked building in profound silence, until, with one great final crash, the bells ceased, the drum stopped beating, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... beneath the ogive of the branches; a shower of rain had adorned them with pale-blue pearls. There he finally fell asleep. But his dream was unquiet, not like that which should come from the calm sleep of the sultry summer's afternoon. His was not the profound sleep of the lizard which hardly stirs when dreaming the dream of ancient walls; his was not the comfortable noonday sleep of the badger who sits in his dark earthen ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes

... covering herself with darkness and hiding behind ignorance. It was one of the ablest advocates for vivisection that America has produced, who, in an address before the American Academy of Medicine, condemned the secrecy of the physiological laboratory as "a grave and profound mistake," adding that "if there be necessary secrecy, there is wrong." No more significant condemntation of present-day methods has ever ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... skies above, And burning wastes around, A lonely traveller journeyed on Through solitudes profound; No wandering bird's adventurous wing Paused o'er that cheerless waste, No tree across those dreary sands A welcome ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... agreement in the opinion, that "wherever national conflict could be avoided, it was the business of all rational men to maintain peace." I saw a grim smile pass over his sallow features, probably at having found another dupe. Elnathan sat in profound ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... who sighs contemptuously as he holds up to censure the globe of human amour-propre. But we do not begin to understand the attitude of La Bruyere until we notice that there always is, in the popular phrase, "more in him than meets the eye." He is indeed a satirist, but not of the profound order of the Timons of the mind; his satire is superficial, and under it there flows a lenient curiosity mingled with a sympathy that ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... warmly inveighed against Pompey, and throughout his speech arraigned him as though he were at the bar. He said a great deal about me, to my disgust, though it was in very laudatory terms. When he attacked Pompey's perfidy to me, he was listened to in profound silence on the part of my enemies. Pompey answered him boldly with a palpable allusion to Crassus, and said outright that "he would take better precautions to protect his life than Africanus had done, whom C. Carbo had assassinated." Accordingly, important events appear to me to be in the ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... of all men of the world; so, after a very cursory glance at my work, Monsieur de Trailles began to find shocking faults in it, and in so high and clear a voice that not a word was lost within a certain range. Marianina shrugged her shoulders as she listened to this profound discourse, and when it was ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... as one's self, is a divine idea; but this idea can never be seen, felt, nor understood through the physical senses. Excite the organ of ven- 88:21 eration or religious faith, and the individual manifests profound adoration. Excite the opposite development, and he blasphemes. These effects, however, do not pro- 88:24 ceed from Christianity, nor are they spiritual phenomena, for both arise ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... his shoulders and advised me to keep aloof and say nothing. This I was most willing to do; I cared for none of these things. My mind was occupied with far more serious problems, such as I had heard explained by men of profound learning and honest purpose in the great universities of Germany; these troubles arose from questions which seemed to me to have no connexion with true religion at all. Even the differences between the reformed and unreformed churches were to me mere questions ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... all, that's only my personal feeling. You've done your country an immense service, and that's a much bigger thing still. Unfortunately, it can never be publicly recognised: this affair must remain a profound secret; and men, you know, have received medals and open honour for smaller things than you ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... the polished floor. The lady, thus released, bent her knee, and took the Empress's hand to kiss it, which the latter prevented by gracefully lifting her and saluting her on the forehead. After a few words of congratulation, she passed across the hall, making a profound obeisance to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... by Miss Jane Harrison is sure to be eagerly welcomed by all who take an interest in classical study or in anthropology. The conclusions at which she arrives are invariably based on profound study and assiduous research. Her generalisations are always bold, and at times strikingly original. Moreover, it is impossible for any lover of the classics, albeit he may move on a somewhat lower plane of erudition, not to sympathise with the erudite enthusiasm of an author who expresses ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... and produced from her cupboard—a receptacle regarded with profound interest both by Nelly and the maturer Jack—a pot of black currant preserve. She spread some with a liberal hand on the lad's bread, then watched him as he ate, her enjoyment equalling his own. The bread finished, she offered a spoonful of jam pure and simple; it ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... drawing him back from the brink, and looking him full in the eyes, with the half-savage glare passing out of his own to give place to an air of profound melancholy. "No, I wouldn't do you any harm, sir. ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... him miracles that would astonish him; also it might have another handsome result: it might persuade the great experts to discard their own trifling game and bring the Jackass Gulch outfit here and exhibit their skill in a game worth a hundred of the discarded one, for profound and breathless interest, and for displays ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... the sides projecting in great buttresses here and there, all of grey rock, while what had seemed to be the softer portions had probably crumbled away. Here and there, though, glimpses could be obtained of what looked like profound depths where all was ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn

... middle of the eleventh century, then, an intellectual ferment took place in France and Lorraine, earnest literary and scientific activity manifested itself, and above all elements of profound rabbinical culture became visible. But one who should regulate these forces was lacking, a guide to direct these activities and to serve as a model to others. In order that the movement might not come to a premature end, a master was needed who would give it impetus and define its ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... bones of their very bodies, laid aside in earth-barrows or stone coffins for this unknown length of years. And there the most unreflective among us feels a sudden awe and wonder at the momentary vision of the profound antiquity of this land in which we live, and for a few moments all desires and aims seem futile in face of ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... emotions which throng his mind at the same moment so crowd upon and jostle each other, become so inextricably intermingled, that it is very often extremely difficult for us to make out any meaning at all. Then many of his thoughts are so subtle and so profound that they cannot easily be drawn up from the depths in which they lie. No man can write with greater directness, greater lyric vigour, fire, and impulse, than Browning when he chooses— write more clearly and forcibly about such subjects ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... meetings in Argyleshire, I had the joy of speaking under the chairmanship of the glib and able Mr. Ainsworth, M.P. for that county. Among the votes of thanks was one for the chairman: it made a profound impression upon me, as much by its form as by its substance: "I hope, Mr. Ainsworth, that you will take better care of your health in future (hear, hear). No, no, you are not taking care of your health at all (laughter). We all expect you to be Prime Minister, and that is the reason we would like ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... into the house, and had her do me up, and then I sat down in a chair and fell into a profound strain of meditation. After a while I felt better, and went out to the stable again. The horse was leaning against the stable stall, with eyes half closed, and appeared to be very much engrossed ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... streams, feathered from head to foot with chestnuts, and here and there breaking out into a coronal of cliffs. The sun, which was still far from setting, sent a drift of misty gold across the hill-tops, but the valleys were already plunged in a profound ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hunger for beauty, just as there is physical hunger. Beauty speaks to their spirits through the senses; but Tolstoy would have your house barren to the verge of hardship. My veneration for Count Tolstoy is profound, yet I mention him here to show the grave danger that lies in allowing any man, even one of the wisest of men, to dictate to us what is best. We ourselves are the better judges. Most of the frightful cruelties ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard

... of the solar rays. I was forgetting where and who I was, to live the life of elves and sylphs, the fanciful creation of Scandinavian superstitions. I felt intoxicated with the sublime pleasure of lofty elevations without thinking of the profound abysses into which I was shortly to be plunged. But I was brought back to the realities of things by the arrival of Hans and the Professor, who joined me ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... Mexia, whom he accompanied to the president, and engaged to obey him in all things conformable to the royal orders. After this, all the captains of the troops and other principal persons in Panama were convened; who all pledged their obedience to the president, engaging to keep the matter a profound secret till farther orders. Yet the soldiers began to suspect the real situation of affairs, as they noticed that the president gave orders on every affair of importance that occurred, and that all their officers visited him very frequently, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... farther, he stopped and leaned his back against the fence. Bracing his legs before him so as to serve as props, he thrust his hands deep in his pockets, and raising his eyes appealingly to the stars, ejaculated, "Proposed to, by Jove!" A period of profound introspection followed, and then he broke forth: "Well, I 'll be hanged!" emphasizing each word with a slow nod. Then he began to laugh,—not noisily; scarcely audibly, indeed; but with the deep, unctuous chuckle of ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... securely fastened the net upon the stake and so preserved Delphine, while the heretic was left to perish. A few thought secretly, and whispered it in fear, that Michel had done a noble deed, and won heaven thereby. The cure, who came to look upon the calm dead face, opened his lips after long and profound thought: ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... by nature to bear,"—were hourly watchwords of thought with him. In this regard he and Hetty were alike, though they had reached their common standpoint by different roads: he by education and reasoning, and a profound admiration for the ancient classics; she by instinct and healthfulness of soul, and a profound love for that old ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson

... one side and looked on for a few moments. A gentle nudge on his elbow called his attention to an elderly man with stringy whiskers, who thus solicited his notice. The man held a folded paper gingerly by one corner, exhibiting profound respect ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... have to say in the colder terms of "mere morality." And though there will be a great loss in feeling, in persuasiveness and unction thereby, there will be gain in clearness. It is possible to express in the drab tones of morality the profound insights which have made religion the great guide to happiness; and even the man who deems himself irreligious may, if he takes to heart these more prosaic counsels, find something of the peace that has been the boon of ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... happiness which had been hers that day. She might suffer, but she had saved. Those roofs would thank her! In that murmur were the voices of women and children she had redeemed! At the sight and at the thought a wave of love and tenderness swept all bitterness from her breast. A profound humility, a boundless thankfulness took possession of her. Her head sank lower above her horse's mane; but this time it sank in ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... a profound silence behind me. I turned, striving to mask my apprehension with a smile. The ladies were regarding the pond in surprise. I admit that it was a pond, ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... for the delight of the eye, nor from over-reverence of the matter-of-fact. He despised the copying of models, as the makeshift of ignorance. His profound study of anatomy was not for greater accuracy of imitation, but for greater license of invention. Of grace and pleasingness he became more and more careless, until he who at twenty had carved the lovely angel of S. Domenico, came at last to make all his men prize-fighters and his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... a great grief that made her sob, a profound love which made her kiss the stone. Only whom did she love? whom did she weep for? whom did she pray ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... majority were assimilating the contents of illustrated weeklies over a fortnight old; two in opposite corners of the settee were asleep with their caps tilted over their noses, sleeping the sleep of profound exhaustion. One member of the mess was amusing himself with a dice-box at the table, murmuring to himself ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... painfully did Ebbo recover from his swoon, feeling as if the means of revival were rending him away from his brother. He was so completely spent that he was satisfied with a mere assurance that nothing was amiss, and presently dropped into a profound slumber, whence he awoke to find it still broad daylight, and his mother sitting by the side of his bed, all looking so much as it had done for the last six weeks, that his first inquiry was if all that had happened ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in reference to the Hair Bracelet was not more firmly settled than his resolution to keep his real sensations on seeing Madonna, and the purpose which had grown out of them, a profound secret from young Thorpe, who was too warmly Mr. Blyth's friend to be trusted. Every word that Zack had let slip, had been of vital importance, hitherto; every word that might yet escape him, might be of the most precious use for future guidance. ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... made many motions of the shoulders, and gave signs of interest and agitation. And she put her handkerchief over the bracelet, and then she advanced, with a hand which trembled very much, to greet Pen. "How is dearest Laura?" she said. The face of Foker looking up from his profound mourning—that face, so piteous and puzzled, was one which the reader's imagination must depict for himself; also that of Master Frank Clavering, who, looking at the three interesting individuals with ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... meaning of the word; he has left his jottings for the most part as he made them; a homely detail, a word from the lips of a dying soldier, a business memorandum, the copy of a letter—short, straightforward to the point, with none of the trappings of composition; but they breathe a profound sentiment, they give us a vivid look at one of the sides of life, and they make us acquainted with a man whom it is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... he was a man of like passions with ourselves; indeed, to so acute and sensitive a mind the struggle would be, probably, more prolonged and more agonizing than to many; and it is these three mental conditions—first, of unthinking acceptance of generally received teaching; second, of profound and agitating scepticism; and, thirdly, of belief founded upon reason and experience—that may be naturally expected to be found impressed upon his ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... 'Miss Burrage!'" she exclaimed. "You know it was Inza with you long ago—you promised to call me that. No wonder you didn't see me; you were going past with your head down, your eyes on the ground, and an expression of profound abstraction on your face. What in the world ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish



Words linked to "Profound" :   deep, important, profundity, unsounded, scholarly, intense, unplumbed, heavy, fundamental



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