"Fathom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mamma, in the year 1692: it is a most dreadful account. In two minutes' time, the town of Port Royal was destroyed, and the houses sunk in a gulph forty fathoms deep. In every fathom, there are six feet, you know, mamma; so, if we multiply forty by six, we shall find that these poor creatures were instantly buried, with their houses, to the depth of two hundred and forty feet under ground. In other ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... Thou wouldst fathom Life and Being, Thou wouldst see through Birth and Death, Thou wouldst solve the eternal riddle— Thou a speck, a ray, a breath, Thou wouldst look at stars and systems, As if thou couldst understand All the harmonies of Nature, Struck ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... that came in his way. It struck me as being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to be far-fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a man's inmost thoughts. Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility in the case of one trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid. So startling would his results appear to ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a bull-dog. As the struggling fish splashed on the surface the groper, abandoning its illegitimate prey, swerved swiftly downwards. The retreat was a second too late, for Tom had seized the, harpoon lying athwart the boat, and though the fish appeared through a fathom and a half of water, a vague, fleeting, contorted shadow, he reached it. The barbed point passed through it, carrying a foot or two of the line, and a 30-pounder was added to our catch at one stroke and without a tremor of excitement on ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... $15,000,000,000. But the economic value of the lives destroyed represents only a small fraction of their potentiality—socially, morally, and spiritually. No human brain can calculate, no heart can fathom the cost or loss of this ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... I angled down the mountain toward the stream. Our arrival coincided with that of the canoe. It was of the Ojibway three-fathom pattern, and contained a half-dozen packs, a sledge-dog, with whom Deuce at once opened guarded negotiations, an old Indian, a squaw, and a child of six or eight. We exchanged brief greetings. Then I sat on a stump and watched ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the meaning of secession and the Civil War which followed it, we must fathom the thoughts and feelings of the opposing parties. Let us suppose two representative spokesmen to state ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... tell. Travelling eastward by land there is no such descent, and in this Mediterranean sea of ours one can sail as easily from Cadiz to Egypt as from Egypt to Cadiz. There is a divine alchemy in it which I cannot fathom, but the ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... in the highest degree. Possibly she loves you deeply, only you do not believe it. Gauged by a woman's love, many men love, marry, and die, without even approximating the real grand passion themselves, or comprehending that which they have inspired, for no one but a woman can fathom a woman's love." ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... between the English fathom and the French toise, as determined between the first astronomers of both countries, is ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the stars on high, Nathless we read your fortunes true; The stars may hide in the upper sky, But without glass we fathom you. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... is only discoverable by chance. A day came, however, at length when Julie flashed out before her aunt's astonished eyes into a complete forgetfulness of her marriage; she recovered the wild spirits of careless girlhood. Mme. de Listomere then and there made up her mind to fathom the depths of this soul, for its exceeding simplicity was as inscrutable ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... interested," he said mendaciously, "though I confess I do not quite fathom your intentions. And, by the way, I should like to have a few words with you on another matter, if Mr. Reuben would not mind waiting for me in the square just a ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... pointed to an abandonment of East Tennessee by the enemy, but it was hard for us to believe that the sudden retreat of Longstreet, after his announced intention to attack Knoxville, was not under orders which indicated a plan we ought to fathom. We had heard of his first purpose at many places on our road, for it is almost impossible to keep the people of the country from learning the destination of a moving column, and now the inhabitants who remained at Morristown were aware that Longstreet's ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... that he puzzled them. Even The Sky Pilot, the most astute and intelligent of them all, was at a loss to fathom The Oskaloosa Kid. Innocence and unsophistication flaunted their banners in almost every act and speech of The Oskaloosa Kid. The youth reminded him in some ways of members of a Sunday school which had flourished in the dim vistas of ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his men, we weighed, but by a sudden squall of wind having split our foresail, we with difficulty cleared the rocks by means of our boats, bore away for a sandy bay on the south side of the lagoon, and anchored in ten fathom. The next morning we got under weigh, but it blowing hard at W. by N. with a great swell, put into a small bay again, well sheltered by a ledge of rocks without us. At this time it was thought necessary to send the barge away back to Cheap's bay for some spare canvas, which was imagined ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... my dear, explicable but unexplained. The most formidable men are her friends, and why? Nobody dares to fathom the mystery. Then is this person the lion ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... know where the rope was got, and doubt if I much cared. It was not that which gravelled me, but whether, now that we had it, it would serve our turn. Its length, indeed, we made a shift to fathom out; but who was to tell us how that length compared with the way we had to go? Day after day, there would be always some of us stolen out to the Devil's Elbow and making estimates of the descent, whether by a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... back in his chair and listened, his face a study of perplexity and interest. Now and then he lifted his drooping lids and shot a quick, searching glance at the witness, as if seeking to fathom the thing that he had covered—the motive for Isom Chase's act. It was such an inadequate story, yet what there was of ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... got no breath to waste in hollering," he panted. "Why, there's a good fathom and a half or two fathom o' water under her keel, and if I slack out down she'll go. Wants a couple o' boats to back in, one on each side, and get a rope under her thwarts. They could get her ashore then. Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear! For him to leave me in charge, and then come back and find I've ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... 'I cannot fathom it,' said the headman at last to the priest. 'How readest thou this talk?' The lama, his tale told, was silently ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... pistols to his bosom and buttoned up. He was mounted in a few moments, and pressing slowly forward in pursuit. He had his own plans which we will not attempt to fathom; but we fear we shall be compelled to admit that he was not sufficiently a gentleman to scruple at turning scout in a time of peace (though, with him, by the way, and thus he justified, he is in pursuit ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... float, he swam for his life, and with such mighty strokes that he felt little of that icy cold. Down he was swept—now the lip of the fall was but three fathoms away on his left, and already the green water boiled beneath him. A fathom from him was the corner of Sheep-saddle. If he may grasp it, all is well; if not, ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... that last remark of Angelica's, twinkled a glance at his Father Confessor which had an effect on the latter that made itself apparent in the severity of his reply: "The ways of the Lord are inscrutable," he said, "and it is presumptuous for mortals, however great their station, to attempt to fathom them." ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Barry; thank God it is all over!" she said, at the end, "and we know," she went on, with one of her rare revelations of the spiritual deeps that lay so close to the surface of her life, "we know that she is safe and satisfied at last, in His care." For a moment her absent eyes seemed to fathom far spaces. Barry abruptly ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... Two things I never did, Mrs. Dr. dear, were write letters and read politics. Yet here I am doing both regular and I find there is something in politics after all. Whatever Woodrow Wilson means I cannot fathom but I am hoping I will puzzle ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... expiring head, in token that His death scattered our darkness and poured day on our sad night. The solemn silence was broken at last by that loud cry, the utterance of strangely blended consciousness of possession of God and of abandonment by Him, the depths of which we can never fathom. But this we know: that our sins, not His, wove the veil which separated Him from His God. Such separation is the real death. Where cold analysis is out of place, reverent gratitude may draw near. Let us adore, for what we can understand ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... and the storm, that cost so many tears, were essential to the harmony of a glorious system, a perfect plan, and that seeming sorrow was at last the occasion of unspeakable joy. Let no man say that this or that law, or operation of nature, were better changed, until he can fathom the designs of God; till he can create a planet, and send it on its everlasting round; till he can place a star in the firmament; till he can breathe upon a statue, the workmanship of his own hands, and be obeyed ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... the composer of four other Shakspearian lyrics, a fact unknown to Mr. Collier, when he wrote the article in the Shakspeare Papers: 'Where the bee sucks,' 'Full fathom five,' 'Lawn as white as driven snow,' and 'From the fair Lavinian shore.' They are all printed in the author's Cheerfull Ayres or Ballads, Oxford, 1660. We have now evidence from this work, that Wilson was the original composer of the music to one of Shakspeare's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... good at the responses, and Sam Buzza, his friend, whom few Trojans excelled in casting glances at the female congregation. Then, most gorgeous and bravest of all, the Admiral: he wore again his gold-laced coat, but the cocked-hat rested underneath the seat, and none could fathom the import of his gaze. By him sat his three daughters, a-row, in straight-backed dresses of like cut and colour, and peeped over their prayer-books; and Mrs. Buzza, timorous, in bright green satin. But of the throng of Trojan men and women, not ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... circles in them where the camping fires have been lit. I did not mind that evidence of life, but I did not like the cast-off clothing, draggled hats, coats, skirts, and boots that lay about. I never can fathom the mystery of tramps' wardrobes. They are never well-dressed exactly, but wherever they encamp they appear to discard clothing enough for two or three persons, clothing which, though I should not personally like to make ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was enveloped in a drizzling cloud, which arose from a vast cascade that, dashing, thundered against the rocks below my feet. On one side a perpetual torrent opened to my view a yawning abyss, which my eyes could hardly fathom with safety; sometimes I was lost in the obscurity of a hanging wood, and then was greatly astonished with the sudden opening of ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... everlasting life" (John iii. 16). I have never been able to preach from that text. I have often thought I would; but it is so high that I can never climb to its height; I have just quoted it and passed on. Who can fathom the depth of those words: "God so loved the world?" We can never scale the heights of His love or fathom its depths. Paul prayed that he might know the height, the depth, the length, and the breadth, of the love of God; but ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... each wailing world; weigh well the mighty impulse soon to be given, for out of the myriads of directions, and the myriads of impulsive forces, there comes but a single combination that will secure the perpetuity of your complex scheme. In vain does the bewildered finite spirit attempt to fathom this mighty depth. In vain does it seek to resolve the stupendous problem. It turns away, and while endued with omnipotent power, exclaims, 'Give to me infinite wisdom, or relieve me from the impossible task!'"-0. M. ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... to within a few yards and floated stationary, while some sort of communication was exchanged between the two. I could not fathom the method used, but the commander of our craft clamped what looked like a pair of headphones against his body and plugged the end of a wire leading from them into his instrument board. From time to time various colored lights glowed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... shrieks of yours—and the delicious Thank God, we are safe, which always followed when the topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful theatre down beneath us—I know not the fathom line that ever touched a descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than Croesus had, or the great Jew R—— is supposed to have, to purchase it. And now do just look at that merry ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Another had climbed over the tender and ordered the runner to hold up. All this was regular programme, as I had explained to Miss Cullen, but here had been a variation which I had never heard of being done, and of which I couldn't fathom the object. When the train had been stopped, the man on the tender had ordered the fireman to dump his fire, and now it was lying in the road-bed and threatening to burn through the ties; so my first order was to extinguish ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Here are found three basins—results of erosion, most likely—that are described as natural bath-tubs. The middle and largest of these pools is partly filled with silt, probably occluding the entrance to a cavern which formerly opened into it, a fathom or so below the water-surface. This cave was the hiding-place of a native woman whose father had discovered her love for one of Ponce de Leon's soldiers. He forbade her to have anything to do with the enemies of his country, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... to be diminished. My suspicions were beginning to be roused. I began to think that he had told me a falsehood; but he looked up at this instant, and a bright manly smile on his deep purposeful countenance, reassured me. I felt that there was some policy in the business which was not for me then to fathom. The cards were cut. A box of dice was also in ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... they had to pay close attention to get his meaning. Myengeen listened with a face as inscrutable as Imbrie's own. At the end he nodded with an expression of approval, and bent a queer look on Stonor that the trooper was unable to fathom. ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... and pass with the water into a vessel placed below to receive them. This water, now strongly impregnated, is boiled till the salt adheres in a thick crust to the bottom and sides of the vessel. In burning a square fathom of firewood a skilful person procures about five gallons of salt. What is thus made has so considerable a mixture of the salt of the wood that it soon dissolves, and cannot be carried far into the country. The coarsest grain ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... few masqueraders, however, whose fictitious identity was shrouded in mystery. No one could fathom the significance of a certain tall figure, dressed in rags, who stopped short in her tracks at frequent intervals, and, producing a needle and thread, sewed industriously at her tattered garments. A black-robed ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... of the superior knowledge of the sex possessed by Temple, for I could not fathom the meaning of coquette; but he had sisters. Temple and I walked the grounds together, mutually declaring how much we would forfeit for Heriot's sake. By this time my Sunday visits to Julia had been interdicted: I was plunged, as it were, in the pit of the school, and my dreams ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a strange man. The posse thought him unusually queer just then. His eyes seemed dulled with a peculiar faint, bluish film. His manner was over-deliberate. There was something back of it all that they could not fathom. Moreover, the place was darkened. Some one had hung blankets over the windows. The deputies—four of them—followed The ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... deep mystery here that I cannot fathom. In the first place, if they had really meant you to remain ignorant of the place at which the episodes described by you occurred, they would scarcely have dropped you at ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... things, for he is ready to go mad. He would not have given that girl for all Caesar's treasures, and she fled. What kind of love is that which dreads delight and gives pain? Who can understand it? Who can fathom it? Were it not for the hope that he should find her, he would sink a sword in himself. Love surrenders; it does not take away. There were moments at the house of Aulus when he himself believed in near happiness, but now he knows that she hated him, that she hates him, and will die with hatred ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... declared they had seen it in the distance) they would not have been allowed to approach it. This fact was the one point that chiefly dwelt in her mind—a secret of science which she puzzled her brain to fathom. What could be the unseen force that guarded the city?—girding it round with an unbreakable band from all exterior attack? A million bombs could not penetrate it,—so had said the Voice travelling to her ears on the mysterious ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... perfect and the most luminous—being the most persistent and the most inevitable—remains the flimsiest of our ideas and the only one that is backward? How should we know the one power which we never looked in the face? How could it profit by flashes kindled only to help us escape it? To fathom its abysses, we wait until the most enfeebled, the most disordered moments of our life arrive. We do not think of death until we have no longer the strength, I will not say, to think, but even to breathe. A man returning among us from another century ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... greeted him. For half an hour after that he cursed himself for not being as clever as Gregson. He knew that there was a change in Eileen Brokaw, a change which nature had not worked alone, as she wished him to believe. Then, and at supper, he tried to fathom her. At times he detected the metallic ring of what was unreal and make-believe in what she said; at other times she seemed stirred by emotions which added immeasurably to the sweetness and truthfulness of her voice. She was nervous. He found her eyes frequently seeking her father's ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... it impossible to fathom the sensations of the man, and their common desire for speed bewildered her more. She was relieved when the train was lightened of him. Soon the skirts of red vapour were visible, and when the guard took poor Braintop's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the Americans was Cyrus Field, the energetic promoter of the Atlantic Telegraph, then making (I think he said) his thirtieth transit within five years. He was certainly entitled to the freedom of the ocean, if intimate acquaintance with every fathom of its depth and breadth could establish a claim. It rather surprised me, afterwards, to see such science and experience yield so easily to the common weakness of seafaring humanity. Mr. Field told ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Sussex aside to Raleigh. "The devil aids him surely; for all that would sink another ten fathom deep seems but to make him float the more easily. Had a ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the tempest, and the heavy sea, which broke as high as the fore-yard, death appeared inevitable. There was only one hope left, and that was, that, should the tide change and take us under our lee-beam, it might possibly set us off on the Nine-fathom bank, which is situated at a distance of twelve miles north-northwest, off Boulogne harbor. On the event of reaching this bank, the safety of the ship and lives of the crew depended,—as it was determined there to try the anchors, for there was no possibility of ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... of his extremities. When he was on his feet Droom was more than six feet tall; as he sat in the low-backed, office chair he looked to be less than five feet, over all. What became of that lank expanse of bone and cuticle when he sat down was one of the mysteries that not even James Bansemer could fathom. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... cannot infer with plainness and certainty the precise means and method by which we can discriminate our friends in heaven need be no obstacle to believing the fact itself; for there are millions of undoubted truths whose conditions and ways of operation we can nowise fathom. Upon the whole, then, we conclude that we cannot by our mere understandings decide with certainty the question concerning future recognition; but we are justified in trusting to the accuracy of that doctrine, since it rests safely with the free ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... dollars, the same having been paid in to your credit. Each year, while the child remains in your charge, the same will in like manner be placed to your credit at the same bank. It may be as well to state, further, that all attempt to fathom whatever of mystery may attach to this affair will ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... may he, when Slid would fain exult, throw up his great arms, or toss with many a fathom of wandering hair the mighty head of Slid, and cry aloud tumultuous dirges of shipwreck, and feel through all his being the crashing might of Slid, and sway the sea. Then doth the Sea, like venturous ...
— The Gods of Pegana • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... but been his plaything, he reverently discovered the mother in his little wife; and "when he saw the big pupils looking at the baby so intently that they seemed to be looking into the future", he realised that there were depths in her eyes after all; depths more profound than he could fathom for all his drama and religion. And now all his old love, his dear old love, burst into fresh flames, and there was something new added to it, which he had dimly divined, but ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... his pipe in silence for a few minutes, blew the smoke out in clouds, and looked at it as though searching for something, and there was a serious look on his face, as though he was trying to fathom some mystery, while the redheaded boy was looking at himself in a hand mirror to see if the freckles on his nose were any smaller since he had been using some of his mother's toilet powder to remove them. Finally ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... another and up and down, and they wondered. For the ways of elephants are beyond the wit of any man, black or white, to fathom. ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... resolution, Badang said to the hantou, "Give me the gift of physical strength; let me be strong enough to tear down and to uproot the trees; that is, that I may tear down, with one hand, great trees, a fathom ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... mystery, La Corne; I cannot fathom it. But there is one more danger to guard against," said the Governor meditatively, "and we have sorrow enough ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Ralph could not fathom the possible motive of the stranger, who apparently was somehow interested in his doings. When they started out on their regular run, he told Fogg what Torchy had imparted to him. The fireman reflected speculatively over ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... his side, to judge by his pale cheeks, expected a rude handling, and when he found that I made no movement towards him, a look of relief crossed his countenance, followed by an expression which at the moment I was unable to fathom. Then, as by mutual consent, and without having exchanged a word, we turned our backs on each other and ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... She liked it better because her very own brother had planned it for her. She looked over some of the books and above his name he had written—"For my Sister Marguerite." And she was glad with a sense of mystery she did not care to fathom that her mother's room was between her ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... is not given to a humble man like myself, occupying a position of no authority, to fathom what may be in the minds of those great Princes of the Church, the Archbishops. In effect they rule the country, and it is possible that they prefer to place on the throne a drunken nonentity who will offer no impediment to their ambitions, rather than to elect a moral young man who might ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... "blunder" or "crime" was which had aroused the anger of Augustus, and every effort to bring into high relief the innocence of Ovid's personal life and his loyalty to the imperial family simply made them more cognisant of a mystery they could not fathom. Access to Caesar was easy to some of them, and through Marcia, Maximus's wife, they had hoped to reach Livia. But these high personages remained inscrutable and relentless. At times it seemed as if even Tiberius, although ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... had shown no signs of having profited by the telepathic powers of Fran and his companions. No spies were seized. A submarine installation that could lob missiles into New York from the edge of the hundred-fathom line was not depth-bombed. There were other failures to act on information obtained through the children. No nation could imagine another allowing spies to operate ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... burden is a broken nose and a facial appearance strangely inferior to the look of David Lockwin, the orator. Robert Chalmers need not disguise himself. He will never be identified. That broken nose is a distortion that no detective could fathom. Those scarlet fimbrications under the skin proclaim the toper. Those missing teeth complete a picture ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... tide current, as in the southern anchorage, we should never have found her more, or found her stranded beyond help. As it was, there was little amiss, beyond the wreck of the mainsail. Another anchor was got ready, and dropped in a fathom and a half of water. We all pulled round again to Rum Cove, the nearest point for Ben Gunn's treasure-house; and then Gray, single-handed, returned with the gig to the Hispaniola, where he was to ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... custom of the country to eat off the floor and sit upon nothing. A pot to cook victuals in is about all we need in that way. But how we are to get anything to cook in it is one mystery, and" (clacking his tongue) "what we are going to drink is another, neither of which I can fathom. For, look you, Senor, if one may judge of men's characters by their faces or of their means by their habitations, we may dance our legs off ere ever these Moors will bestow a penny piece upon us, and as for their sour milk, I'd as lief drink ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... time—I might have pretended to be ill, but my brain was so weary with work and sorrow, and so occupied, what was left of it, in trying to fathom Merchison's meaning, that I let the precious moment slip. At length he was standing close by me, and to me his face was like the face of an avenging angel, and his eyes shone like ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... young mind no manner of harm, but gave it a healthy impetus and stirred it up to prophetic activity. For what does it matter if the child, when it hears of original sin, or of death and the devil, forms a conception or a fantastic image of those profound symbols? To fathom them is the task of our whole lifetime, but the developing man is warned at the very beginning of an all-disposing higher power, and I doubt if the same end could be reached by early initiation into the mysteries of the rule of three ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... sloop cautiously for this opening. One of the men constantly heaved the lead and cried the soundings as the ship progressed. The pirate chief kept to the left of the channel and finally passed through into a wide lagoon, with a scant fathom to spare at the shallowest place. The Fortune entered without difficulty, but the deeply-laden Francis grounded midway in and had to wait several hours for ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... perhaps of heterodoxy, and perilous to be adopted by such as can not fathom it thoroughly. But if there be no germ of truth therein, it were better for some of us that we had ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... of the thoughts that surged through Van's mind as he and Bob settled themselves into their places on the train and began the attempt to fathom the reams of directions Mr. Blake had sent them; pages and pages there were of what to do and what not to do on the long trip, the letter closing with ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... But she wasted no time, throwing off her jacket with a quick twist of her wrist. Later she might fathom the tortuosities of her tyrant's mind. All she knew now was that she might dance. With whom was a ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... over the Republic during the winter of 1860-'61. The impending danger was that war would break out before Lincoln could be inaugurated. Such secrecy was observed by the Republican leaders that even Horace Greeley could not fathom their intentions. Late in December John A. Andrew and George L. Stearns went to Washington to survey the ground for themselves, and the latter wrote to William Robinson, "The watchword is, keep quiet." He probably ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... Ethiopian tribes have been the enemies and oppressors of that Israel whom they at last acknowledge for the dwelling-place of God, and enemies of that Jehovah before whom they finally bow down, he feels that he has no measuring-line to fathom the divine purposes, and bows his face to the ground in reverent contemplation with that word upon his lips: 'Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.' It is a parallel to the apostolic words, 'O the depths ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... citizen. The judge, Ward Hunt, did not promise well, for he had only recently been appointed to the bench through the influence of his friend and townsman, Roscoe Conkling, the undisputed leader of the Republican party in New York and a bitter opponent of woman suffrage. She tried to fathom this small, white-haired, colorless judge upon whose fairness so much depended. Prim and stolid, he sat before her, faultlessly dressed in a suit of black broadcloth, his neck wound with an immaculate white neckcloth. He ruled against her at once, refusing to let her ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... rubbish with which they were stocked. All the while I was innocently plagiarising that fateful walk of Browning's round the Riccardi Palace in Florence, the day when he bought for a lira the Romana homocidiorum. The world knows what was the outcome of Browning's purchase, but it will probably never fathom the full effect of mine. ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... mile, in order to avoid a small shoal of coral rocks, on which there is but two fathoms and a half of water. The best anchoring is on the eastern side of the bay, where there is sixteen and fourteen fathom upon an oosy bottom. The shore of the bay is a fine sandy beach, behind which runs a river of fresh water, so that any number of ships may water here without incommoding each other; but the only wood for firing, upon the whole island, is that of fruit-trees, which must be purchased of the natives, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... his face as plainly as if it had been painted on a sign-board. I knew something which he did not know; I was trying to get something which was to be kept a secret from him. If I could be put out of the way he probably thought he might have some sort of a chance. I could not fathom the man's mind, but that's the way it looked ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... commander as to be able to see through the intentions and designs of his adversary. And because it is hard to come at this knowledge directly, the more credit is due to him who reaches it by conjecture. Yet sometimes it is easier to fathom an enemy's designs than to construe his actions; and not so much those actions which are done at a distance from us, as those done in our presence and under our very eyes. For instance, it has often happened that when a battle has lasted till nightfall, the winner has ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... return on the following day to see it finished: or absolutely know that unseen damsel to be Rose Jocelyn. And if he waited, it was only to hear her sweet voice once again, and go for ever. As far as he could fathom his hopes, they were that Rose would not see him: but the hopes of youth ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... think we have seen the last of our troubles, though why he should take a gloomy view of the situation is more than I can fathom, since every one else on board considers that we have had a miraculous escape, and are sure now to reach the ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... believe we are able to fathom some of the ideas which passed through our heroine's mind that bright morning. We can take it for granted that she was very happy; that the future looked very promising, though she was impressed by the responsibility of becoming a ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... was one of those apparently insane remarks of the doctor's which no sane nor sober man could fathom or see a reason for—except ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... Nightmare did; till the Soul is nigh choked out of him, and only a kind of Digestive, Mechanic life remains. In Earth and in Heaven he can see nothing but Mechanism; has fear for nothing else, hope in nothing else: the world would indeed grind him to pieces; but cannot he fathom the Doctrine of Motives, and cunningly compute these, and mechanise them to grind ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... lies a land, A wonderful land that the winds blow over, And none may fathom nor understand The charm it holds for the restless rover; A great grey chaos — a land half made, Where endless space is and no life stirreth; And the soul of a man will recoil afraid From the sphinx-like visage that Nature weareth. But old Dame Nature, though scornful, craves Her ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... be off, Mother," said Anthony, who although vaguely aware that she was endeavouring to create an atmosphere of vacuity, could not fathom ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... Baalbec ever plunge into its forests—or, if they do, they never come back. Indeed, so great is the terror caused by the evil reputation of the mountain that fathers, on their death-beds, pray their sons never to try to fathom its mysteries. But in spite of its ill-fame, a certain number of young men every year announce their intention of visiting it and, as we have said, are never ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... to yourself," she whispered, "the dearest treasure of your soul." And she looked at him with eyes full of passions which he could not fathom, but among them he saw terror. And with great tenderness he drew her once more to his heart, putting his strong and steady arms around her like a shield, and ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... wait, ah! forever I can wait; Forever? I am brave: Time can not fathom a love so great— It waits beyond ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... and Count Fathom are both equally admirable in their way. Perhaps the former is the most pleasant gossiping novel that ever was written; that which gives the most pleasure with the least effort to the reader. It is quite as amusing as going the journey could have been; and we have just as good an idea of what happened ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... of so much money. He had learned of Mrs. Amos purchasing the ranch and paying for it in gold, and wondered at the time. Then he thought that perhaps Amos was trying to throw him off the purchase of the mine in order to secure the property himself. There was a mystery somewhere he could not fathom. ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... to joke," answered Hedin bitterly. "That's a thing I've never been able to fathom, why you always joke in the face of a serious situation, and then turn around and raise hell over some trivial matter that don't amount to a ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... Where could she have got that name? Well, I make no doubt, Ursula, that you are quite as good as she, and she of her namesake of ancient Rome; but there is a mystery in this same virtue, Ursula, which I cannot fathom! how a thief and a liar should be able, or indeed willing, to preserve her virtue is what I don't understand. You confess that you are very fond of gold. Now, how is it that you don't barter your virtue for gold sometimes? I am a philosopher, Ursula, and like to know ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... this, but try to fathom it. The more he thought of it, the clearer it became: ABSALOM'S HISTORY WAS HIS OWN. He began with rebellion. Naturally rebellion is the first step in a course which leads one from the highway—leads to passion and its ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... the fury of the wind as for the vehemence of Martin Luther." The Psalmist calls upon the forces of nature: "Praise the Lord, fire, and hail; snow and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling His word." (Ps. 148, 7. 8.) God has a mission that our philosophy does not fathom for the mad hurry and destruction of the whirlwind. How silly it would be to criticize a cyclone because it is not a zephyr! We can imagine a scene like this: The battle of Gettysburg is in progress and a gentle lady is permitted to ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... Lest ye chance murder one of God's high priests, Spare his thrice-wretched tribe! Believe me, sirs, Who have seen various lands, searched various hearts, I have yet to touch that undiscovered shore, Have yet to fathom that impossible soul, Where a true benefit's forgot; where one Slight deed of common kindness sown yields not As now, as here, abundant crop of love. Every good act of man, our Talmud says, Creates an angel, hovering by his side. Oh! what a shining host, great Duke, shall guard Thy ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... 6 1/2 feet long, all of which may be readily connected, forming in a short space of time a ladder of any required height; a canvas sheet, with 10 or 12 handles of rope round the edge of it for the purpose of a fire-escape; one 10-fathom and one 14-fathom piece of 2 1/2-inch rope; six lengths of hose, each 40 feet long, 2 branch-pipes, one 2 1/2 feet, and the other from 4 to 6 feet long, with one spare nose-pipe; two 6-feet lengths of suction-pipe, a flat rose, stand-cock, ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... before; and his servant was waiting for him. In less than no time he had changed his clothes. Immediately he went back to his carriage, and went in search of the man, who, he thought, was most likely to be able to fathom this mystery. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... by, one of my corrections in the fair copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos some sixty fathom— ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... care, took a seat, although not invited to do so. He looked cold and calm, but there was an excited gleam in his large eyes which showed that his calmness masked some emotion, the cause of which Cuthbert could not fathom. "I have come to see you about young ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... as it was then! So transparent that we saw great fish swimming about, full fathom five under us. A monstrous shark drifted lazily past, his dorsal fin now and then cutting the surface like a knife and glistening like polished steel, his brace of pilot-fish darting hither and thither, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... powerless to lift the veil biding the early history of humanity. Will it ever be so? Or will the day yet dawn when the veil will be rent asunder at last? Time alone can solve this question, which is one of those secrets of the future as difficult to fathom as those ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... the one measure, which was kept at Winchester, should be observed throughout the realm. Most nations have regulated the standard of measures of length by comparison with the parts of the human body; as the palm, the hand, the span, the foot, the cubit, the ell, (ulna, or arm) the pace, and the fathom. But, as these are of different dimensions in men of different proportions, our antient historians[r] inform us, that a new standard of longitudinal measure was ascertained by king Henry the first; who commanded ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... forces in this world, Mr. Warren, that science cannot fathom, and some of them are manifested in that castle now. A priest might call it a demon or a fiend; a psychologist, perhaps a returning spirit. I can't say—but I know there is something real, a malignant force ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Melodramatic Farce in Four Acts • Paul Dickey
... very little way from the horizontal, scarcely more than two inches in a fathom, and the stream ran gently murmuring at our feet. I compared it to a friendly genius guiding us underground, and caressed with my hand the soft naiad, whose comforting voice accompanied our steps. With my reviving spirits these mythological notions ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... at what had passed,—at the flight of Maltravers, the success of Lumley,—unable to account for it, to extort explanation from Vargrave or from Evelyn, was distracted by the fear of some villanous deceit which she could not fathom. To escape herself she plunged yet more eagerly into the gay vortex. Vargrave, suspicious, and fearful of trusting to what she might say in her nervous and excited temper if removed from his watchful eye, deemed himself compelled to hover round ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... was well known to the Portuguese Prince. A mysterious voyage of a certain wandering saint, called St. Brendan, was not without its influence upon an enthusiastic mind. Moreover, there were many sound motives urging the Prince to maritime discovery; among which, a desire to fathom the power of the Moors, a wish to find a new outlet for traffic, and a longing to spread the blessings of the faith may be enumerated. The especial reason which impelled Prince Henry to take the burden of discovery on himself ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... her, not in the least understanding what she would be at, yet fascinated by the sympathy—which she read plainly enough—and held by the beauty. By something besides beauty, too, which she saw without being able to fathom it. For in Esther's eyes there was the intense look of love and the fire of joy, and on her lips the loveliest lines of tenderness were trembling. Mrs. Blumenfeld gazed at her, but would almost as soon have addressed an angel, if one had stood beside her with wings ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... problem of the formation of coral reefs would never have been a difficult one. Nothing can be easier than to understand how there must have been a time when the coral polypes came and settled on the shores of this island, everywhere within the 20 to 25 fathom line, and how, having perched there, they gradually grew until they ...
— Coral and Coral Reefs • Thomas H. Huxley
... down the lantern and dug a hole between four tombs, the length and breadth of the chest, Kafour plying the spade and Sewab clearing away the earth by basketsful, till they had reached a depth of half a fathom, when they laid the chest in the hole and threw back the earth over it: then went out and shutting the door, disappeared from Ghanim's sight. When he was sure that they were indeed gone and that he was alone in the place, his heart was concerned to know what was in the chest and he said to ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... understand herself. She knew that she was behaving rather indiscreetly, though she did not fathom the cause of the restlessness that drove her to Clay Lindsay. The truth is that she was longing for an escape from the empty life she was leading, had been seeking one for years without knowing it. Her existence ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... Pemberton was a real scholar in his special line of study,—as all D. D.'s are supposed to be, or they would not have been honored with that distinguished title. But Mr. Byles Gridley not only had more learning than the deep-sea line of the bucolic intelligence could fathom; he had more wisdom also than they gave him credit for, even those among them who thought most of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... still busy trying to fathom the cause of Pete's untimely mirth, the long-drawn howl of the big timber wolf floated over the valley and sent a new lot of shivers down my back. It was the rallying call used by the wolves to call the band together when game is in sight. The sound increased in volume ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... Jean spoken to her of Father Austin; she loved him already, but she had yet to fathom the nobleness of his soul. His single-heartedness and abnegation of self, his tenderness and quick sympathy (virtues tempering his fierce abhorrence of Paganism), his stern reprobation of the evil, and his yearning for the good, in the untutored barbarians among ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... singing. The lichi tree by the tank looked like a smudge of ink on a background a shade less deep. The south wind was blindly roaming about in the darkness like a sleep-walker. The stars in the sky with vigilant unblinking eyes were trying to penetrate the darkness, in their effort to fathom some profound mystery. ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... The iron plating was taken off the Ozark, and the sides of our old friends the Eads gunboats, the four survivors of which were here, as ever where danger was. This iron, for want of wagons, could not be hauled round, so the boats ran up the river and dumped it overboard in a five-fathom hole, where the shifting sand would soon swallow it up. Iron plating was then too scarce and valuable to the Confederates to let it fall into their hands. Eleven old 32-pounders were ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... "Who can fathom human enmity, or the ingenious cunning of the evil-doer?" asked the grey-faced rector quite calmly. "Have you never stopped to wonder at the marvellous subtlety ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... suspect in these words an attempt at that insidious American humor he had often vainly endeavored to fathom? Mr. Heatherbloom gazed at him now with seemingly innocent but really very ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... ever, and for ever! When thine aking eye shall look forward to the end that is far distant, and when behind thou shalt find no retreat; when thy steps shall faulter, and thou shalt tremble at the depth beneath, which thought itself is not able to fathom; then shall the angel of distribution lift his inexorable hand against thee: from the irremeable way shall thy feet be smitten; thou shalt plunge in the burning flood; and though thou shalt live for ever, thou ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... a sign indicating that he wished to remain neutral. He felt that there was an intrigue at the bottom of it, whether comedy or tragedy; he was at his wit's end at not being able to fathom it, but in the meanwhile ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Breed knew of this danger was one day when he lay with Shady on a high point of ground. There were many things about Shady which he could not fathom. From the first he had found much of mystery in her. She insisted on traveling in broad daylight whenever the notion seized her and she seemed not to share his fear of horsemen, often rising incautiously from her bed for a better view of them, careless of the risk ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... raise! For the tidings of thy might, By the festal cities blaze, Whilst the wine-cup shines in light; And yet amidst that joy and uproar, Let us think of them that sleep, Full many a fathom deep, By thy wild and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... close to the side of Gerwazy, until he caught sight of his son Buzzard in the press. Buzzard with his right hand was aiming a blunderbuss, and with his left was pulling after him a great club, a fathom long, armed with flints and knobs and knots.163 (No one could have lifted it except Baptist.) Baptist, when he saw his darling weapon, his sprinkling-brush, seized it, kissed it, jumped into the air for joy, whirled it over his head and straightway ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... "'Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made, Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... the deep shadow, Kazan tried to fathom the meaning of these strange things that were happening. Why had his master and McCready gone out into the forest? Why had not his master returned? It was his master, and not McCready, who belonged in that tent. Then why was McCready there? He watched McCready as he entered, and suddenly the ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... World. Hear him: "The Gods love not deeds of violence; they honor justice and the rightful works of men." Such is his faith; still this faith is passing through the ordeal of fire: why should the Gods, being good, keep the good Ulysses away from his Return? The simple swineherd cannot fathom the ways of Providence, still he believes in that Providence; he is divinely loyal. His allegiance does not depend upon prosperity, not even upon insight. Zeus may rule the world as he pleases, I shall still have faith: "Though he slay me, ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... flight, and, in the surging smoke Uplifted, spurns the ground; thence many a league, As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets A vast vacuity. All unawares, Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance, The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him As many miles aloft. That fury stayed— Quenched ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... mark the silent lapse of flitting time Are not for thee; thine awful empire stands From age to age, unchangeable, sublime; Thy domes are spread where thought can never climb, In clouds and darkness where vast pillars rest. I may not fathom thee: 't would seem a crime Thy being of its mystery to divest Or boldly lift thine awful veil ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... the face of the world, ye ask straightway: 'What is the use of this?' It is clear that ye are frightened lest the investigator might ask a handful of barley for a thing the sense of which your mind does not fathom." ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... compelled to dispute of things ineffable and incomprehensible which only necessity can excuse, (n. 25.) He then proves the eternal generation of the Son, the procession of the Holy Ghost, and their consubstantiality in one nature, (l. 2 and 3.) He checks their presumption in pretending to fathom the Trinity, by showing that they cannot understand many miracles of Christ or corporeal things, which yet they confess to be most certain, (l. 3, n. 19, 20, 24.) He detects and confutes the subtilties of the Arians, in their various confessions ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... But hospitable treats did most commend Wise Issachar, his wealthy western friend. This moving court, that caught the people's eyes, And seem'd but pomp, did other ends disguise: 740 Achitophel had form'd it, with intent To sound the depths, and fathom where it went, The people's hearts, distinguish friends from foes, And try their strength, before they came to blows. Yet all was colour'd with a smooth pretence Of specious love, and duty to their prince. Religion, and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden |
