"Pierce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reputation of liberalism. The three-horse trap of the district police-captain began to be seen frequently in their village. "I must keep an eye on the peasants"—so he explained his visits up at the house. "Two lonely ladies must be looked after a little." He would inspect the walls as though he wanted to pierce them with his eyes, peer at the photographs, turn over the books in the drawing-room negligently, and after the usual refreshments, would depart. But the old priest of the village came one evening in the greatest distress and agitation, to confess that he—the priest—had ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... Neck they will surely seek us; for, though a very fine place for us while the country's thin, yet even its old owners, the wolves, would fly from it when the horn of the hunter rings through the wood. It won't be very long before they pierce to the very 'nation,' and then we should have but small chance of a long grace. Jack Ketch would make mighty small work of our necks, in his hurry ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... that large sombre room, with its shadowy window bays, its recesses and alcoves, one could well understand the legends that had sprouted in its black corners, its germinating darkness. My candle was a little tongue of light in its vastness, that failed to pierce the opposite end of the room, and left an ocean of mystery and suggestion beyond ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... most blue and down-cast mortal, was battling with the thought that life, after all, was hardly worth the living, and the outlook for anything better in a dim and uncertain future, too dubious to be entertained. But all at once my vision seemed to pierce the shaded pane that intervened between me and the great, rushing, riotous world, and such a conception of all that lay the other side the ground glass window overflowed my soul, that I felt rebuked as by ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... be interesting if one could learn the inner history of these abortive transactions. I have often tried, in vain. It is impossible for an outsider to pierce the jungle of sordid mystery and intrigue which surrounds them. So much I gathered: that the original contract was based on the wages then current and that, the price of labour having more than ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... to rehearse, Your wily snares an' fechtin fierce, Sin' that day Michael did you pierce, Down to this time, Wad ding a' Lallan tongue, or Erse, In prose ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... by the wrists. "Cold boy, you shall not so easily slip me. A pretty girl you make, Aladdin; but love pierces such disguise as a rapier might pierce lard." ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... act was done. Tremendous act! Bring your microscope and peer with awe into that single act. No fathoming line can sound its depth. No measuring rod its height nor breadth. No thought can pierce its intensity. That reaching arm went around a world. Millenniums in a moment. A million miles in a step. An ocean in a drop. Volumes in a word. A race in a woman. A hell of suffering in an act. The depths ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... young ladies as our friends and the public chose to commit to our charge. Consequently, we were a considerable distance from the sea, and divided from it by a labyrinth of streets and houses. But the sea was my delight; and I would often gladly pierce the town to obtain the pleasure of a walk beside it, whether with the pupils, or alone with my mother during the vacations. It was delightful to me at all times and seasons, but especially in the wild commotion of a rough sea-breeze, ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... remembered For your indignities to me, that's all. England expended millions on her libels To poison Europe's mind and make my purpose Obscure or bloody—how have they availed? You have me here upon this scarp of rock, But truth will pierce the clouds, 'tis like the sun And like the sun it cannot be destroyed. Your Wellingtons and Metternichs may dam The liberal stream, but only to make stronger The torrent when it breaks. "Is it not true? That's why I weep and ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... the market-place at Altorf, before which emblem of authority he ordered every man to uncover and do reverence as he passed. The refusal of a peasant to obey this command, his arrest, trial, and condemnation to pierce with an arrow an apple placed on his own child's head, his dexterity in performing this feat, his escape from his enemies, his murder of the tyrant Gessler, the solemn compact sworn at Ruetli, and the revolutionary events that followed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... shares in the nature of it, not only the evanescence, but the mystery of the cloud; that its avenues are wreathed in darkness, and its forms and courses no less fantastic, than spectral and obscure; so that not only in the vanity which we cannot grasp, but in the shadow which we cannot pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of ours, that "man walketh in a vain shadow, and ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... passion, the unflinching truth, My later pencil gained, I gleaned from them. I prized them. I reclaimed their ragged freedom, Rather than hold my seat, a liveried slave, At the rich board of my Lord Cardinal. A palace was a prison till I reared Mine own. But now my child's heart I would pierce Sooner than see it bear the least of ills, Such as I ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... Britain, Germany, and America, influencing thought and conduct as few books have ever influenced them, and now an important element in the education of a great democracy,—the plays of Shakespeare occupy a position whence imagination "can not pierce a wink beyond, but doubt discovery there." His reputation and influence must change greatly in the years to come; but this at least is secure—three hundred years of an ever increasing sway over the ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... dead water looked. Ugly stakes stuck up from the mud to pierce any creature that tried to leap across. And here and there on the water were patches of green poison as big as cabbage leaves. Flann drew back from the Moat. Leap it he could not, and swim it he dare ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... tree-trunks were as round and straight and smooth as pillars, and stood close together; they were bare of branches to a point about twenty-five feet above-ground, and from there upward so thick with boughs that not a ray of sunlight could pierce through. The world was bright with sunshine outside, but a deep and mellow twilight reigned in there, and also a deep silence so profound that I seemed to hear my ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that the next moment a rifle ball would pierce his heart, sprang up and with the fleetness of an antelope rejoined his companions. They were on the open prairie. There was nothing to afford either party the slightest protection. The Indians slowly and cautiously advanced, until they came within speaking distance. Carson, who could speak ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... foe come in the field to meet him, whose name was Apollyon. Then did Christian fear, and he cast in his mind if he would go back or stand his ground. But Christian thought that as he had no coat of mail on his back, to turn round might give Apollyon a chance to pierce it with his darts. So he stood his ground, For, thought he, if but to save my life were all I had in view, still the best way ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... darkness, therefore shines, therefore reveals. True, there are infinite gulfs in Him, into which our small vision can not pierce, but they are gulfs of light, and the truths there are invisible only through excess of their own clarity. There is a darkness that comes of effulgence, and the most veiling of all veils is the light. That for which the eye exists is light, but through light ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... in that God regarded not. As we steered the ship away, away, From the boat that rocked on that dismal Bay, There arose from the wretches left behind, Helpless by famine, sick and blind, A cry that would pierce through iron bars; The despairing groan Of those left alone Passed through the ranks of the shivering stars, To the dreadful God on His holy throne. When out of that accursed Bay, Southward, homeward we sailed away. ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... There are numerous accounts of such presages in the chronicles. Guibert of Nogent relates, for instance, that when Landric, elected Bishop of Noyon, was receiving episcopal unction, the text of the Gospel foreshadowed evil—"A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also." After having committed several crimes, he was assassinated. He had, as his successor, the Dean of Orleans; the new bishop on being presented for consecration, there was sought, in the Gospel, for a ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... made of deal, and was sixteen inches broad. I began to pierce it at its juncture with another board, and as there were no nails or clamps my work was simple. After six hours' toil I tied up the napkin, and put it on one side to empty it the following day behind the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... dispel our sadness; Pierce the clouds of nature's night; Come, thou Source of joy and gladness, Breathe thy life, ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... it durst dare to oppose it selfe against the authority of so many other famous ancient judgements, which he reputeth his regents and masters, and with whom hee had rather erre. He chafeth with, and condemneth himselfe, either to rely on the superficiall sense, being unable to pierce into the centre, or to view the thing by some false lustre. He is pleased only to warrant himselfe from trouble and unrulinesse: As for weaknesse, he acknowledgeth and ingeniously avoweth the same. He thinks to give a just interpretation to the apparences which his conception presents unto him, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... breeze still continued to send its light breath, and before this the vessel gently glided on. Not a thing could be seen in that intense darkness. Toward morning Louis Brandon, who had remained up all night in his deep anxiety, tried to pierce through the gloom as he strained his eyes, and seemed as though he would force the darkness to reveal that which he sought. But the ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... of the dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and elegant than the upright stub of a burdock; and that from something innate and independent of all association of ideas—these I had set down as irrefragable orthodox truths until perusing your book shook my faith." These words so pierce this soap-bubble of the metaphysicians, that we can hardly read them without fancying that the poet meant them to be ironical. Dugald Steward expressed surprise that the unschooled Ayrshire ploughman should have formed "a distinct conception of the general principles ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... our prophet then, Chosen from all the sons of men To lead his fellows on the way Of hidden knowledge, delving deep To nameless mysteries that keep Their secret from the solar day! Or who shall pierce with surer eye! This shifting veil of bittersweet And find the real things that lie Beyond this turmoil, which we greet With such a wasted wealth of tears? Who shall cross over for us the bridge of fears And pass in to the country where the ancient Mothers dwell? Is it an elder, bent and hoar ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... work on the eastern side. Letter after letter came from the sufferers, bringing such complaints as this: "We are in as bad circumstances as ever any poor Christians were ever in; for the cries of widowers, widows, fatherless and motherless children, are enough to pierce the most hardest of hearts. Likewise it's a very sorrowful spectacle to see those that escaped with their lives with not a mouthful to eat, or bed to lie on, or clothes to cover their nakedness, or keep them warm, but all they had consumed into ashes. These deplorable circumstances cry ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... lay with her hands stretched at her side under the covering, and only her face visible above it. She now turned her head a little, so as to pierce the earnest speaker with a gleam from her dull eye. "Have you accepted Walter Libby?" ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... my pistol, Glaud, my man, And charge ye weel my gun: For, but an I pierce that bluidy butcher My babes we ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... all the index of a folio edition of Seneca in Latin, a large part of a volume of La Bruyere's Maxims in French, and several pages of Cecilia. He had done no other mischief whatever, and not a vestige remained of the leaves that he had devoured."—PIERCE EGAN. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... west of where the Fredericksburg Railroad crosses. It was near night when the troops arrived. They found the bridge guarded, with troops intrenched, on the north side. Hancock sent two brigades, Egan's and Pierce's, to the right and left, and when properly disposed they charged simultaneously. The bridge was carried quickly, the enemy retreating over it so hastily that many were shoved into the river, and some of them were drowned. Several hundred prisoners were captured. The hour was so late that Hancock ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... fierce In the cause of the Lord To threat and to pierce With the heavenly sword! Anger and Zeal And the Joy of the brave Who ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tattered clothes small vices do appear Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold And the strong lance of justice breaks; Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it!" ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... guns were ready to be conveyed to Przemysl at the end of January, but that the Russian military authorities decided to postpone their departure in view of the determined attempts made by the Austro-German forces to pierce the Russian lines in the Carpathians in order to relieve the fortress, which, if successful, might have endangered the safety of the siege material. Owing to this fact the bombardment of Przemysl began only about a fortnight ago, when the Austro-German offensive ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... her hand from Sir John's arm. A kind of intuition told her what was coming. Like a flash a sword seemed to pierce right through her heart. She had a memory of her mother, of the loving eyes now closed—the voice so full of sympathy now silent. Was her mother to be supplanted and because of her? For once passion got ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... wild bees, cocoons, etc. The stuffs supplied by insects and used in the arts, are equally important to collect and study with regard to their mode of production. Besides, we shall call the attention of travellers to the alteration made by insects in the plants they inhabit, the manner many of them pierce the bark of trees or even the wood, eat or roll the leaves, or cause in them, by their stings escrescences, etc. Specimens of these alterations would be of great interest to enthomology, especially when united with ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... English Classics or Gateway Series), Inland Voyage, and Travels with a Donkey (Gateway Series). From the essays read Child's Play, Aes Triplex (both in Virginibus Puerisque). Some of the essays and best short stories (including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) are given in Canby and Pierce's Selections from Robert Louis Stevenson. From the volume of poems called Underwoods, read The Celestial Surgeon and Requiem. A Child's Garden of Verse may be read entire in ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... contrary. She has a very frank, honest look. She has great eyes that look as though they could pierce a wall, and yet at the same time they ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... shall invade the country; he shall lay it waste with fire and sword, and carry away your wives and children into captivity." A thrill of rage ran through the assembly; and already many of those present had begun to cut, in the neighboring woods, stakes sharpened to a point to pierce the priest, when one of the chieftains named Buto cried aloud, "Listen, ye who are the most wise. There have often come unto us ambassadors from neighboring peoples, Northmen, Slavons or Frisons; we have received ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... be taught, ye feathered throng, With love's sweet notes to grace your song, To pierce the heart with thrilling lay, Listen to mine Anne Hathaway! She hath a way to sing so clear, Phoebus might wond'ring stop to hear; To melt the sad, make blithe the gay, And nature charm, Anne hath a ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... touching himself, it is perfected by fortitude against the fear of dangers; and against inordinate lust for pleasures, by fear, according to Prov. 15:27: "By the fear of the Lord every one declineth from evil," and Ps. 118:120: "Pierce Thou my flesh with Thy fear: for I am afraid of Thy judgments." Hence it is clear that these gifts extend to all those things to which the virtues, both intellectual ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... should mount the ladders and struggle to gain the towers and put to the sword all those who took refuge in them to be secure from the griffins. They obeyed their Queen's commands, dismounted at once, placing before their breasts such breastplates as no weapon could pierce, and, as I told you, with the armor all of gold which covered their legs and their arms. Quickly they crossed the plain, and mounted the ladders lightly, and possessed themselves of the whole circuit of the walls, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... day Xenophon sacrificed and led out the whole army under the 20 cover of night, intending to pierce far into the heart of Lydia with a view to lulling to sleep the enemy's alarm at his proxmity, and so in fact to put him off his guard. But Asidates, hearing that Xenophon had again sacrificed with the intention of another ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... and grew weary of the persistent shrilling. The day came when Uncle Billy was forcibly put into his seat by a disgusted sergeant-at-arms. He was half drunk (as he had come to be most of the time), but this humiliation seemed to pierce the alcoholic vapours that surrounded his always feeble intelligence. He put his hands up to his face and cried like a whimpering child. Then he shuffled out and went back to the saloon. He soon acquired the habit of leaving his seat in the House vacant; he was no longer allowed to ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... was burned where it stood. Straight up the slope toward Beacon Street and toward the gold dome of the State House the fire errantly went. Blank walls between buildings seemed to make little difference to it; what it could not pierce it ran around. Only at the extreme end of the burial ground did it pause. Here a seven-story fireproof building confronted it, and proved equal to the task. Against the solid walls of this barrier the impetuous visitor beat in vain, and then, ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... Atkinson and Pembroke, of Andrew Mack at Gilmanton and Haverhill, of John Hubbard at New Ipswich, of Ezra Carter at Peacham, of Clement Long and William Nutting at Randolph, of James K. Colby at St. Johnsbury, of Ebenezer Adams at Leicester, of Proctor Pierce at Deerfield, of Caleb Butler at Groton, and Benjamin Greenleaf at Bradford, constitute a vital portion of the history of academic education in New England. Nor must we forget that such men as Albert C. Perkins, at Exeter, C. F. P. Bancroft, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... his face at the same instant, and Harry saw the flame and white smoke puff from it, and the sickening thought flashed into his mind that the shot was fired at him, and that he would feel the deadly ball pierce his body! Before he could more than formulate this he heard the bullet pass him with a screech, and strike somewhere with a plainly sharp slap. Turning his head he saw the leading Rebel stagger and fall. Harry thre his gun up, with the readiness acquired in old hunting ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... rush Of wild jealousy, all the fierce passions that waste And darken and devastate intellect, chased From its realm human reason. The wild animal In the bosom of man was set free. And of all Human passions the fiercest, fierce jealousy, fierce As the fire, and more wild than the whirlwind, to pierce And to rend, rush'd upon him; fierce jealousy, swell'd By all passions bred from it, and ever impell'd To involve all things else in the anguish within it, And on others inflict its own pangs! At that minute What pass'd through his mind, who shall say? who may tell ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... terebration[obs3], empalement[obs3], pertusion|, puncture, acupuncture, penetration. key &c. 631, opener, master key, password, combination, passe-partout. V. open, ope[obs3], gape, yawn, bilge; fly open. perforate, pierce, empierce|, tap, bore, drill; mine &c. (scoop out) 252; tunnel; transpierce[obs3], transfix; enfilade, impale, spike, spear, gore, spit, stab, pink, puncture, lance, stick, prick, riddle, punch; stave in. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... in the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, which, if a man lean on it, will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh King of Egypt to all ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... concentration of wounds, in this blinking cavern of confused and unintelligible life, I try first to get my bearings. Some weak candle flames are shining along the Refuge, but they only relieve the darkness in the spots where they pierce it. At the farthest end faint daylight appears, as it might to a dungeon prisoner at the bottom of an oubliette. This obscure vent-hole allows one to make out some big objects ranged along the corridor; they are low stretchers, like coffins. Around and above them one then dimly discerns ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... breast grows from the broad back of the Centaur. A single banner streams above its lofty turret, the only banner of the Cross now raised on earth; the symbol of God's mystic love alone floats high enough to pierce into the unclouded blue ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... poplars tune your flute: Let them pierce, keenly, subtly shrill, The slow blue rumour of the hill; Let the grass cry with an anguish of evening gold, And the great sky ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... the valiant swords of those who surround me pierce my breast a thousand times if at any time I oppress the countries I now lead to freedom! Let the authority of the people be the only existing power on earth! Let the name of tyranny be obliterated from the language of ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... himself of any trace of sensitiveness that may remain to him after a youth about which the only thing certain is its complete obscurity, in order that no hint may be sufficiently broad to fit in with the tolerant breadth of his impudence, and no affront sufficiently pointed to pierce the skin with which Nature and his own industry have furnished him. Literary culture must be eschewed, for with literary culture come taste and discrimination—qualities which might fatally obstruct the path of this journalistic aspirant. For it must be assumed that in some of its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... There was no hope for me in the old walls, in the tiny window, or in the massive door. It was only in this one direction of the wooden screen that there was any possibility of exploring. My reason told me that if I should pierce it—which did not seem very difficult—it would only be to find myself in another cell as strong as that in which I then was. Yet I had always rather be doing something than doing nothing, so I bent all my attention and all my energies upon the wooden wall. Two planks ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stable in this world below? Medio e fonte,—Virtue has her faults,— The clearest fountains taste of Epsom salts; We snatch the cup and lift to drain it dry,— Its central dimple holds a drowning fly Strong is the pine by Maine's ambrosial streams, But stronger augers pierce its thickest beams; No iron gate, no spiked and panelled door, Can keep out death, the postman, or the bore. Oh for a world where peace and silence reign, And blunted dulness verebrates in vain! —The door-bell jingles,—enter ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... so loud and shrill—the death-cry of a hundred drowning creatures, blended into one fierce yell—that it rung far above the war-cry of the elements, and echoed, and re-echoed till it seemed to pierce air, sky, and ocean. But what was that—that old gray head that rose above the water's surface, and with looks of agony, and screams for aid, buffeted with the waves! One look, and he had sprung from ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... red with blood. Diaz shaded his eyes with his right hand, and tried to pierce the distant obscurity. All at once he perceived at the end of the luminous zone projected by the fires, the man he was seeking. He was making furious evolutions on his horse, and uttering shouts of defiance. Diaz remembered the speech of the haciendado about the horse ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... tried in vain to pierce behind the masks, and ascertain the identity of those holding him up, but ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... Nov. et Vet. Test. lxxiii on Luke 2:35: "Thy own soul a sword shall pierce") says that the Blessed Virgin "was troubled with wondering doubt at the death of our Lord." But doubt in matters of faith is a sin. Therefore the Blessed Virgin was not preserved ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... in 1888 for a teacher to begin a work in the vicinity of Mt. Meigs, Ala., similar to the work done at Tuskegee, but, of course, on a smaller scale. Mr. E. N. Pierce, of Plainville, Conn., had resolved to do something in the way of providing better school facilities for the colored people living on a large plantation, into the possession of which he had come. ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... governor, who, however, thus addressed him: "Incomparable archer! I will keep my promise; but," added he, "tell me what needed you with that second arrow which you have, I see, secreted in your girdle? One was surely enough." "The second shaft," replied Tell, "was to pierce thy heart, tyrant, if I had chanced to harm my son!" At these words the terrified governor retired behind his guards, revoked his promise of pardon, commanding him further to be placed in irons, and to be reconducted to the fort. He was obeyed, and, as slight murmurs rose ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... dozing, he started with a vivid thought, a recollection which seemed to pierce his brain. To whom did he owe his fall from comfort and self-respect, and all his long miseries? To Mrs. Weare's father. And, from this point of view, might the cheque for five pounds be considered as mere restitution? Might it not strictly be ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Hellas, namely to cause a thing to be made such as happens not to have been thought of or dedicated in a temple by any besides, and to dedicate this at Delphi as a memorial of herself. Accordingly with the tithe of her wealth she caused to be made spits of iron of size large enough to pierce a whole ox, and many in number, going as far therein as her tithe allowed her, and she sent them to Delphi: these are even at the present time lying there, heaped all together behind the altar which the Chians dedicated, and just opposite to the cell of the temple. 116 Now at Naucratis, ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... The woods are never solitary—they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity. We can never pierce its infinite mystery—we may only wander, awed and spellbound, on the outer fringe of it. The woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one only—a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... effect of the gloom upon the nerves of the soldiers is not less than on the features of the country. Each man tries to walk quietly, and hence all are listening for the slightest sound. Every eye seeks to pierce the darkness. Every sense in the body is raised to a pitch of expectancy. In such hours doubts and fears come unbidden to the brain, and the marching men wonder anxiously whether all will be well with the army, and whether they themselves ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... filled with an insane desire to go on galloping, I believe my idea was to plunge deeper and deeper into the forest with her; but this idea was wrapped in a haze, and when I tried to pierce it, I was conscious of nothing but a wild throbbing of ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... who had herself consoled, and sending for a surgeon, ordered him to open her veins in a bath, that so, the blood running out more freely, she might sooner die. Also she bought poison, as the bleeding did not succeed, and procured a cobbler's awl wherewith to pierce her heart, but as the women with her were undecided whether the heart were on the right side or the left, she took the ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... fairly positive that there was no immediate danger: the tough fabric of the suits should resist it. A pseudopod-like surge flicked to his leg; crept up; cloaked the suit in patches of yellow; thickened and enveloped him. But it could not pierce through. ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... landed, we perceived the Island to be strangely overcast with Fogs, which no Brightness could pierce, so that a kind of gloomy Horror sat always brooding over it. This had something in it very shocking to easy Tempers, insomuch that some others, whom Patience had by this time gained over, left us here, and privily convey'd themselves round the Verge of the Island to find a Ford ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... or buckler, and other armor of iron, and are provided with lances and other weapons. These lances were very long, and were made of the toughest wood that could be obtained. The object of each combatant in such an encounter is to strike his antagonist with the point of his weapon so as either to pierce his armor and kill him, or else to throw him off his horse by the shock and force of the blow. If a knight were unhorsed, he lay generally helpless on the ground, being unable to rise on account of the weight of his armor. ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... campstool inside the tent where the boys slept, Dave found a keen-eyed, hatchet-faced man. He sat stiff as a poker, and seemed to pierce Dave through and through with his glance as he looked ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... she would pierce and stab it with looking. Then, with a sudden wild movement, she took up the picture, and tore it into twenty pieces. The pieces she left strewn on the floor, so that they must necessarily strike the eye of anyone coming into the room. And ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "Heimir", from both of whom he learns that she is free to choose whom she will, but that she will marry no one who has not ridden through the wall of flame. With this answer they proceed to Brynhild's castle, where Gunnar is unable to pierce the flames, even when seated on Sigurd's steed. Finally Sigurd and Gunnar change forms, and Sigurd, disguised as Gunnar, rides through the wall of fire, announces himself to Brynhild as Gunnar, the son of Giuki, and reminds her of her promise to marry the one who penetrated ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... crossed at Grand Wash in the years thereafter, but it appears that it was not until December, 1876, that a regular ferry there was established, this by Harrison Pearce. The place bears the name of Pearce's Ferry unto this day, though the maps give it as "Pierce." A son of Harrison Pearce, and former assistant in the operation of the ferry, James Pearce, was the first settler of Taylor on Silver Creek, ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... uncle a deep, unfathomable feeling underlying his seeming godlessness. Topandy, on his side, suspected that some dark shadow had prematurely crossed the serenity of the young man's mind. Each tried to pierce the depths of the ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Tom tried to pierce the darkness, and then made a sudden rush in the direction where he thought the visitor ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... shouted Umslopogaas. "Steel cuts where bullets cannot pierce," and with a bound like to that of a buck, the great ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... world aright, to begin with, who cannot say about all creation, 'It is the Lord!' Nature is but the veil of the invisible and ascended Lord: and if we would pierce to the deepest foundations of all being, we cannot stop until we get down to the living power of Christ our Saviour and the Creator of the world, by whom all things were made, and whose will pouring out into this great universe, is the sustaining principle and the true force ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... the stake and tortured, and limbs have been stretched on the rack, and people have been maimed by thumbscrews and bootscrews, and put inside iron figures with nails that tear and pierce. All this have they suffered in pursuit of duty, or at the bidding of conscience; and of such and of brave Joseph Ford there comes to us across the ages—a saying spoken long ago, to the effect that "he ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... but medium, not exceeding five feet four inches, I think; and to make the most of it, he flung his head far back, and gave himself a little strut in walking. He had a thin face with a sharp nose that looked as if it would peck you, and grey eyes that could pierce a millstone if there was a guinea on the far side of it. His hair, for he wore his own, had been red, though it was now grizzled; and the colour of it was set down in Moonfleet to his being a Scotchman, for we thought all Scotchmen were red-headed. He was a lawyer by profession, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... out of that no hope, What great hope haue you? No hope that way, Is Another way so high a hope, that euen Ambition cannot pierce a winke beyond But doubt discouery there. Will you grant with me That Ferdinand ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... however, accepted the challenge, for none had a weapon Able his hard skull to pierce, and therefore they called him ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... near the bluff to allow of her guns being elevated sufficiently to throw their shot to the crest of the cliff, retired to a more favorable position. The Confederates wasted but few shot on her, knowing they would not pierce her armor. ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle
... waves. Eyre was up at the bow, trying to catch some glimpse of the outlines of the coast or to make out some light that would show them where the entrance to Tarbert harbor lay. If only some lurid shaft of lightning would pierce the gloom! for they knew that they were being driven headlong on an iron-bound coast; and amid all the noise of the wind and the sea they listened with a fear that had no words for the first roar of the waves along ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... to pierce the obscurity of the shack. Ambrose, not yet knowing what was expected of ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... of the boats has upset," whispered Bob, excitedly, as he leaned over the gunwale and tried to pierce ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... '84. MY DEAR MR. PIERCE,—You know, as well as I do, that the reason the majority of republicans are going to vote for Blaine is because they feel that they cannot help themselves. Do not you believe that if Mr. Edmunds would consent to run for President, on the Independent ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Lawrence. It was absolutely impossible for Lord Hastings to maneuver the ship out of the way of all three missiles. He did the best he could, but one of the projectiles penetrated the side of the ship and pierce ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... must have other powers, Juices, and veins, and sense and life than ours; One moment's cold like theirs would pierce the bone, Freeze the heart's-blood, and turn ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... eyes pierce through and through me; Her deep eyes, lovelier than imperial pansies, Velvet and flame, through which her fierce will holds me, Powerless and tame, and draws me on and onward To sad, unsatisfied and animal yearnings, Wild, unrestrained—the brute within the human— ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... innocent, who killed my son? Abenamar shall mourn as well as I; His Ozmyn, for my Tarifa, shall die. But since thou plead'st so boldly, I will see That justice, thou would'st hinder, done by thee. Here, [Gives her his sword.] take the sword, and do a sister's part: Pierce his, fond girl, or ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... this which had given back to the pope his courage. It was this which Bennet had now to report to Henry. The French alliance, it was too likely, would prove a broken reed, and pierce the hand ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... life" given him; and next, light to see in what way he was to put to use the strength so gained. The first effect of the sacraments was what one might call the natural one of making more visible the shadows which enveloped his path, as well as stimulating his instinctive efforts to pierce through them. After the rapturous joy which succeeded confession and absolution, a period of desolation and dryness heavier than he had ever known at once set in. Perhaps he had expected the very reverse of this. At all events, it was not many days ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... appointments can be annulled only by free and open competition. By that bridge we can return to the practice of Washington and to the intention of the Constitution. That is the shoe of swiftness and the magic sword by which the President can pierce and outrun the protean enemy of sophistry and tradition which prevents him from asserting his power. If you say that success in a competitive literary examination does not prove fitness to adjust customs duties, or to distribute ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... Rachel had already found out. Obeying his first impulse he sprang at the clergyman with an oath, then seeing that his two guides, who carried assegais, had ranged themselves beside him, checked himself, for he feared lest those spears should pierce his heart. ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back or to stand his ground. But he considered again that he had no armour for his back; and, therefore, thought that to turn the back to him might give him the greater advantage, with ease to pierce him with his darts.[83] Therefore he resolved to venture and stand his ground; for, thought he, had I no more in mine eye than the saving of my life, it would be the best ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... self-complacent rejection of the counsel to 'buy refined gold, and white garments, and eye-salve to anoint his eyes.' So obstinately unconscious are we of our ruin that even God's voice, whether uttered in definite words, or speaking in sharp sorrows and punitive acts, but too often fails to pierce the thick layer of self complacency in which we wrap ourselves, and to pierce the heart with the arrow of conviction. Indeed we may say that the whole process of divine education of a soul, conducted through many channels of providences, has for its end mainly this—to convince His wandering ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... pang when my hand was severed had roused me for a few moments, but only to darkness; and my effort to speak had been rewarded with as many Welsh knives as could pierce my flesh ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dr. Sprague's valuable and well-known work, "Annals of the American Pulpit," contains three letters from which we learn some of his leading characteristics. Dr. Pierce of Brookline, the faithful chronicler of his time, speaks of his pulpit talents as extraordinary, but thinks there was not a perfect sympathy between him and the people of the quiet little town of Harvard, while he was highly acceptable in the pulpits of the metropolis. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Stuart. That evening it was my good fortune to hear Mr. Lincoln address a political meeting at the old Courthouse in advocacy of the election of General Winfield Scott to the Presidency. The speech was one of great ability, and but little that was favorable of the military record of General Pierce remained when the speech was concluded. The Mexican War was then of recent occurrence, its startling events fresh in the memory of all, and its heroes still the heroes of the hour. The more than ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... fact about our experience is that it is a process of change. For the 'trower' at any moment, truth, like the visible area round a man walking in a fog, or like what George Eliot calls 'the wall of dark seen by small fishes' eyes that pierce a span in the wide Ocean,' is an objective field which the next moment enlarges and of which it is the critic, and which then either suffers alteration or is continued unchanged. The critic sees both the first trower's ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... fragments of flint rock; these bruised and cut their feet very much, but were scarcely less troublesome than the prickly-pear of the open plains, which have now become so abundant that it is impossible to avoid them, and the thorns are so strong that they pierce a double sole of dressed deer-skin; the best resource against them is a sole of buffalo-hide in parchment (that is, hard dried). At night they reached the river much fatigued, having passed two mountains in the course of the day, and travelled thirty miles. ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... wept down in rain, And ever her sighs rose high in wind; But the earth and sea were deaf and blind, And she wept and sighed her griefs in vain. And ever at night, when the storm is fierce, The cries of a wraith through the thunder pierce; And the waves strain their awful hands on high To tear the false moon from ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... these words, the eminent advocate of Sauveterre rose from his chair, and, placing himself before Jacques de Boiscoran, he asked, looking at him with one of those glances which seem to pierce ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... springy footsteps came hurriedly down the path, and a voice, which seemed to pierce her very heart, called: "Birdie, little ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... hand that no one who has failed to see her at the Junior League Dances, in a Poiret frock, can know her! Come, come! Don't know how we drifted into this chorus of praise of Claire! What I wanted to ask was your opinion of the Pierce-Arrow. I'm thinking of buying one. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... educated personages among the laity, the Methodist and Baptist churches dominated the life of the community. Revivals that recall the Great Awakening in New England in the time of Jonathan Edwards were frequent. The most popular preacher in Macon — George F. Pierce, afterwards bishop in the Southern Methodist church — is said to have preached the terrors of the law so plainly that the editor of a long extinct Universalist paper said he could smell fire and brimstone half a mile from the church. The ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... Vandusen suddenly sat up very straight and tried to pierce with his eyes the shadows to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... cleanliness, order, and silence, before the rehearsals were over! There were only two things left as we found them, bits of humanity both, understood from the first as among the fixtures of the place: a Man in a Straw Hat, tall, and very fitful in his exits and entrances, of whom we never could pierce the mystery, whether he was on guard or in possession, or what he was; and a solitary little girl, who flitted about so silently among our actors and actresses that she might have been deaf and dumb but for sudden small shrieks and starts elicited by the wonders going on, which obtained for ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the interior level, consequently seven feet from the ground, that Dick Sand resolved to pierce a hole in ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... a minute she waited by that camp-fire, but there was never a sign of the builder of it, though she centered all her will in making her eyes and ears sharper to pierce through the darkness and to gather from the thousand obscure whispers of the forest any sounds of human origin. So she grew bold at length to take off the pack and the saddles; the camp was hers, built for her coming by the invisible power ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... myself. I launch eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb abyss[43] be vocal with speech. I pierce its order; I dissipate its fear;[44] I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished and planted, or ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... sergeant, two corporals, one musician, and sixteen privates of Company D First Dragoons, who were still stationed at Fort Snelling.[121] Captain Gardiner, who had preceded his leader up the river, had selected the escort and collected the party on May 24th in Camp Pierce—a temporary encampment located three miles northwest of the fort.[122] Early in June camp was broken and the start for the far West was made, at first, over the Red River Trail, and then across the prairies to Fort ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... it a thousand darknesses fell from the screeching sky. Not a round-eyed creature of the night might pierce an inch of that multiplied gloom. Not a creature dared creep or stand. For a great wind strode the world lashing its league-long whips in cracks of thunder, and singing to itself, now in a world-wide yell, now in an ear-dizzying hum and buzz; or with a long snarl and ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... undertaking. Having employed a number of men, settlers in the neighborhood, I determined to continue the tunnel for a certain distance through the mound, all the way if indications were favorable, and then to pierce the mound from the top. The men in two parties went industriously to work on the opposite sides, working toward each other, making a tunnel about eight feet in diameter. The earth though originally soft soil had become so hard that it was necessary ...
— The Mound Builders • George Bryce
... man, though with each step that I took I felt my apprehensions increase. To pierce in this manner a depth of sombre darkness, with only the dim outline of an unknown man moving silently before me, was any thing but encouraging in itself. Then the way was too long, and the spot we sought too far from the door. A really injured man would not be carried beyond the first room, I thought, ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... of Daza. They had opened the wounds, he says, down to the skull before Vesalius came. Vesalius insisted that the injury lay inside the skull, and wished to pierce it. Olivarez spends much labour in proving that Vesalius had "no great foundation for his opinion:" but confesses that he never changed that opinion to the last, though all the Spanish doctors were against him. Then on the 6th, he says, the Bachelor ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... right in detecting the malice beneath Millicent's pretended friendliness. It seemed to Miss Loder that the only way to pierce this upstart girl's armour of complacency was to launch shafts of cleverly-veiled contempt; and although to Owen these darts were either imperceptible or merely accidental, Toni knew very well that ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Siere Fitz Pierce he flew, And broke his helm and seiz'd hym bie the throte: Then manie Normann knyghtes their arrowes drew, That enter'd into Mervyn's harte, God wote. In dying panges he gryp'd his throte more stronge, 535 And from their sockets started out ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... different from that of a mere compiler. It requires too, in a high degree, the kind of imagination which enables a man to reproduce not only the acts but the feelings, the ideals, the modes of thought and life of a distant past, and pierce through the actions and professions of men to their real characters. Insight into character is one of the first requisites of a historian. It is therefore, much to be desired that he should possess a wide knowledge of the world, the knowledge ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... stirred. Ere yet the exclamation had died on his lip, Almamen took from his breast a phial, and dashed it on the ground—it broke into a thousand shivers: a mist rose over the apartment—it spread, thickened, darkened, as a sudden night; the lamps could not pierce it. The luminous form of the Hebrew grew dull and dim, until it vanished in the shade. On every eye blindness seemed to fall. There was a dead silence, broken by a cry and a groan; and when, after some minutes, the darkness gradually ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton |
