"Piercing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thunder word! Piercing the soul like sharpest sword, Beginning without ending! Eternity! Time without Time, I know not in my grief and crime Whereto my soul is tending. The fainting heart recoils in fear To see ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... of steel before his eyes, and a piercing scream broke from him as Gian Maria's dagger buried itself in his breast. Too late Guidobaldo put forward a ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... Slowly but surely the speck came on; the wind shifted a point, which caused a gleam of sunlight to fall upon a sail. It was a boat! there could be no doubt of it—and making directly for the island! Unable to contain herself, Edith, uttering a piercing cry, sank upon the ground and burst into a passionate flood of tears. It was the irresistible impulse of hope long deferred at length realised; for the child did not entertain a doubt that this was at length ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... Seadrift's eye was like the glance of an eagle. It seemed to inquire, and to resent, in the same instant. Ludlow shrunk from the piercing look, and reddened to the brow,—whether with his recollections, or not, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... order, with a fresh breeze and smooth water. The hammocks had been stowed, the decks washed, and the awnings spread. Shoals of albicore were darting across the bows of the different ships; and the seamen perched upon the cat-heads and spritsail-yard, had succeeded in piercing with their harpoons many, which were immediately cut up, and in the frying-pans for breakfast. But very soon they had "other fish to fry;" for one of the Indiamen, the Royal George, made the signal that there were four strange ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... looking out anxiously to see what had become of me. So rising hurriedly, the soldier fired at the brown Japanese face. Before he had sunk on his knees again I had drilled him fair with a snapshot—in the head it must have been, because he went over with a piercing yell and with his hands plucking at his cap. The other man did not wait to see what would happen, but fled as fast as he could down a small lane that ran only twenty feet past me. Seeing the game was played out, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... she said, "There, I just knew I could do it! What are you big, strong men good for, any—" She looked down at the child's face in her arms, and then up at the doctor's, and she gave a wild screech, like the cry of one in piercing torment. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... She had taken off her furbelows, and was in her nightgown. Her high head-dress was replaced by a simple knot of ribbon, which confined her powdered hair into a small chignon, but I recognized her quite plainly, by the trembling light of the candle which she was carrying. It was her face with its piercing eyes, its pointed nose and its smiling and sensual mouth. She did not look so young to me as she appeared in her portrait. Bah! Perhaps that was merely caused by the feeble, flickering light! But I had not even time to account for it, not to reflect on the strangeness ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... thin, trimly made woman, with small, hard, aquiline features, piercing eyes, and a mien of so much graciousness that had she been a shade less well-bred she would have been patronising. She looked younger than her years in spite of her little cap and the sedateness of attire then common to women past their youth. Lady Constance Mortlake had the high ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... curtains we sat down, and were about to throw our hind leg up into the sheets, when a cold, hard hand, calloused like a horn spoon, grabbed hold of the small of our back, and two piercing eyes shot sharp ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... those who are mortal," said Berwine, in a low, but piercing whisper; "the owner of yonder chamber fears them not. Farewell—thy danger be on thine ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the tired, long, white face, that day I am not likely to forget. I remember the chilly smell of the typical West Indian store, the indescribable smell of damp gloom, of locos, of pimento, of olive oil, of new sugar, of new rum; the glassy double sheen of Ramon's great spectacles, the piercing eyes in the mahogany face, while the tap, tap, tap of a cane on the flags went on behind the inner door; the click of the latch; the stream of light. The door, petulantly thrust inwards, struck against some barrels. I remember the rattling of the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... customary good night kiss on his lips, and left him. He closed the dictionary, leaned his elbow on the table, and rested his head on his hand. His piercing black eyes were fixed gloomily on the floor, and now and then his broad chest heaved as dark ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... putting the question to the baronet, turned his sharp, piercing eyes upon him, and, at a single glance, perceived that something ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the military alertness of a Bismarck. His mental processes were profound, and his vision was far-reaching. He was a resourceful trader, an austere friend, a shrewd and uncompromising foe. Physically, he was a big man with a bull neck and black, piercing eyes. His policy in coffee was one of blood and iron. He brooked no interference with his plans, and he was ruthless in his methods of dealing with men and governments. Usually silent and uncommunicative, occasionally he exploded ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... and at their particular request I promised the Custom-house examiners one. They offered me any amount of money for it, which I declined to take. They are building a new Custom-house upon a large scale. The air here is very piercing—easterly winds prevail a great deal. The houses are bright, and have a gay appearance, the signboards are painted in such gaudy colours; the gilded letters are so very golden; the bricks so very red; the blinds and area-railings so very ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... attendance at the side of the platform. Presently Rev. Dr. Mandeville, of Albany, arose, turned his chair facing them, his back to the audience, and stared at them with all the impudence of a boor, as if to wither them with his piercing glance. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... was, as is generally known, in no way prepossessing. He was of middle stature, strong and coarsely made, with harsh and severe features, indicative, however, of much natural sagacity and depth of thought. His eyes were grey and piercing; his nose too large in proportion to his other features, and ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... associate, both being employed by the Northwestern Sanitary Commission to attend to this work of special field relief in that army. Mrs. Porter says that when she arrived there it was very cold, and the wind which had followed a heavy rain was very piercing, overturning some of the hospital tents and causing the inmates of all to tremble with cold and anxious fear. Mrs. Bickerdyke was going from tent to tent in the gale carrying hot bricks and hot drinks to warm and cheer the poor fellows. It was touching ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... as she put the fifth chair at the white-spread table (for the old mother had been mysteriously firm in her certainty that they should need it) did she turn to look into the keen brown eyes of the wise physician who had left her weeks ago in the bed above them. He gave her a long, piercing look. Then, ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... spoken with piercing emphasis, was received with the most enthusiastic applause that had thus far marked the proceedings of the convention. "The South Carolinians cheered long and loud," says an eye-witness, "and the tempest of shouts made the circuit of the galleries ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... ended the sentence, when the piercing eyes of the lady were anxiously fixed upon mine. After a moment's pause, she exclaimed, "The inference, indeed, is too plain. I know his fate. It has long been foreseen and expected, and I have summoned up my equanimity to meet it. Would to Heaven ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... hazel eyes; massive aquiline face, most massive, yet most delicate; of sallow-brown complexion, almost Indian looking; clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy; smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical metallic,—fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation free and plenteous: I do not meet in these decades such company over a pipe! We shall see what he will grow to. He is often unwell; very chaotic—his way is through Chaos and the Bottomless and Pathless; ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... Heh?" In one moment the fat fisher was back in the boat, and in another he had scrambled ashore with a number of fish, strung together through the gills. Above the noise of the traffic on the quay his voice rose, piercing. "I presenta. Flounder, all aliva. I give ze fish. You giva"—with suddenness he comically lowered his voice—"tobacco, rumma—what you like." He lay the gift of flounders on the wooden stage. "Where I get him? I catcha him. Where you get ze tobacco, rumma? ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... female, Katydid I know it by the trill That quivers through thy piercing notes, So petulant and shrill; I think there is a knot of you Beneath the hollow tree,— A knot of spinster Katydids,—- ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... slamming. At last all was in but ourselves. There were evidently no carriages, so we hurriedly shovelled our kit and ourselves into the open gun-trucks, squirming into cracks and corners; and at 6.30 A.M. to-day, with the sun just topping the distant veldt, the whistle blew, and we started. It was a piercing frosty morning; but we were all so tired that we slept just as we were. I found myself nestling on the floor of a truck (very dirty), between a gun-wheel and the three foot high side with feed-bags for pillows. Cold feet soon roused me, and I got up on to the gun ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... been forgotten. He saw a keen, ferret-faced lad, a little older than himself. He took an instant dislike to the boy, and rebuked himself for doing so. Yet the hard eyes looked too steadily into his, with a cold, piercing, deadly look. ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... sound, more piercing than ever. Dick leaped from his bunk and began to dress. Dave and Greg ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... corridor. As we were passing along the corridor, a door flew open abruptly, and an old drunken man, in his shirt, probably not of the peasant class, thrust himself out. A washerwoman, wringing her soapy hands, was pursuing and hustling the old man with piercing screams. Vanya, my guide, pushed the old man aside, and ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... displeases me; and the tricks that they most conceal from me, are those that I the soonest come to know; some there are that, not to make matters worse, a man must himself help to conceal. Vain vexations; vain sometimes, but always vexations. The smallest and slightest impediments are the most piercing: and as little letters most tire the eyes, so do little affairs most disturb us. The rout of little ills more offend than one, how great soever. By how much domestic thorns are numerous and slight, by so much they ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the monkey had done this simply to avoid being driven, and that he might dart through the underbrush and get in rear of them again, Toby ran forward quickly; but before he had taken more than a dozen steps he heard piercing shrieks, which evidently came from the monkey, while the commotion among the bushes indicated that a struggle of some kind ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... upon the well-arranged benches of the paseo in the afternoon, and watching the motley throng of people driving, riding on horseback, or promenading: the ladies with piercing black eyes and glossy dark hair shrouded by lace mantillas; the dashing equestrians exhibiting all the gay paraphernalia of a Mexican horseman; stately vehicles drawn by two snow-white mules; tally-ho coaches conveying merry parties of American or English people; youthful ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... pass, that seven years after, my husband being in Huntingdonshire, at a bowling-green, with Sir Capel Bedells, and many other persons of quality, one in the company was called Captain Taller. My husband, who had a very quick and piercing eye, marked him much, as knowing his face, and found, through his peruke wig, and scarlet cloak and buff suit, that his name was neither Captain nor Taller, but the honest Jesuit called Friar Sherwood, that had cheated him of the greatest part ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... to myself, but now I determined to have a maid. I found one without much difficulty. Her name was Price. She was a very plain woman of thirty, with piercing black eyes; and when I engaged her she seemed anxious above all else to make me understand that ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... time, and a scream, shrill and piercing, rends the air. One form drops like a stone right across the path. But there is another to dispose of. His rifle is raised. Either Golightly or his mistress will receive the contents of that barrel. But Rosalind's hand never wavers as she ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... His piercing eye noted every expression on the faces of his hearers, and seemed to read the inmost secrets of their hearts. He perceived the slightest inclination to purchase, and was as keen to see a hand steal towards a pocket-book as a cat to see a mouse ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... the grass upon all fours, leaving a trail of blood behind him after Jane's spear had sent him crashing to the ground beneath her tree. He made no sound after the one piercing scream that had acknowledged the severity of his wound. He was quiet because of a great fear that had crept into his warped brain that the devil woman would pursue and slay him. And so he crawled away like some filthy beast of prey, seeking a thicket where he might lie ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... fro he went, none hindering him, though many thrust their fingers in their ears and looked aside as he passed, wailing forth: "Woe, woe to Jerusalem! Woe to the city and the Temple!" Of a sudden, as Miriam watched, he was still for a moment, then throwing up his arms, cried in a piercing voice, "Woe, woe to myself!" Before the echo of his words had died against the Temple walls, a great stone cast from the Court of Women rushed upon him through the air and felled him to the earth. On it went with vast bounds, but Jesus, the son ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... him with her clear, piercing eyes, sharp enough to see through everything, and it seemed as if they changed from bird's eyes to human eyes—the very eyes of his godmother, whom he had not seen for ever so long. But the minute afterward she became only a bird, and with a screech and a ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... lain down on the sofa after breakfast, hoping to sleep a little; if she didn't, the time would be very long; but as she dozed, she began to see the thin, worn face and the piercing eyes, and the intonation of his voice began to ring in her ears. As she thought or as she dreamed, the striking of the clock reminded her of the number of hours that separated them. Only four hours and ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... of his infant son, and heard the lamentations of his mother at parting with her husband. But he does not lay bare the heart, with the terrible force of Dante, by a line or a word. There is nothing in Homer which conveys so piercing an idea of misery as the line in the Inferno, where the Florentine bard assigns the reason of the lamentations of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... more life, and while she was helping him into his dressing-gown, he vouchsafed a few grunts, followed by a piercing inquiry: ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... child, whom, for four days, she had not seen; then a thrill of unutterable joy pervaded her whole being. At this moment Christina raised her languid eyes; her glance met that of her mother; and with a piercing cry, she sprang from the couch. But, overcome by weakness and emotion, she faltered, grew paler, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... ringing sound and appearance, as if the sky itself o' nights had been frozen too—fixed and impervious—and the darkness had become already palpable. Yet the moon looked out so calm, so pure and beautiful, and the stars so spark-like and piercing, that it was a holy and a heavenly rapture to gaze upon their glorious forms, and to behold them, fresh and undimmed, as when first launched from ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... For some time the fight on the left and centre of the French line was undecided, the attacking columns being driven back many times, but at length the allies succeeded in turning the extreme left and also after fearful slaughter in piercing the centre; and the French were compelled to retreat. They had lost 12,000 men, but 23,000 of the allies had fallen; the Dutch divisions had suffered the most severely, losing almost half their strength. The immediate result of this hard-won victory was the taking of Mons, October 9. ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... well-educated, always reminds me of a peacock. You doubtless have seen and heard peafowls often enough to understand the comparison. The graceful motion and gorgeous plumage demand our admiration, until the creature, becoming accustomed to our presence, raises his voice in a piercing call, something between a hoot and a shriek, which causes us to cover our ears. After such an experience, we turn with relief to the sober hens who are contented to cluck peacefully through life, reserving their cackling ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... still more so to hear from Janet that Thackeray and Mrs. Alison were dead. She died the morning I left Cairo, so her last act almost was to send sweetmeats to the boat after me on the evening before. Poor dear soul her sweetness and patience were very touching. We have had a week of piercing winds, and yesterday I stayed in bed, to the great surprise of Mustapha's little girl who came to see me. To-day was beautiful again, and I mounted old Mustapha's cob pony and jogged over his farm with him, and lunched on delicious sour cream and fateereh ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... study of a language is an intellectual discipline of the highest kind. If I except discussions on the comparative merits of Popery and Protestantism, English grammar was the most important discipline of my boyhood. The piercing through the involved and inverted sentences of 'Paradise Lost'; the linking of the verb to its often distant nominative, of the relative to its distant antecedent, of the agent to the object of the transitive verb, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... four o'clock of a midsummer morning, as Mr. Beamish relates of his last share in the Tale of Chloe, a woman's voice, in piercing notes of anguish, rang out three shrieks consecutively, which were heard by him at the instant of his quitting his front doorstep, in obedience to the summons of young Mr. Camwell, delivered ten minutes previously, with great ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... upon him, will make one mad, and tie him fast to him by the eye." Leonard. Varius, lib. 1. cap. 2. de fascinat. telleth us, that by this interview, [4954]"the purer spirits are infected," the one eye pierceth through the other with his rays, which he sends forth, and many men have those excellent piercing eyes, that, which Suetonius relates of Augustus, their brightness is such, they compel their spectators to look off, and can no more endure them than the sunbeams. [4955]Barradius, lib. 6. cap. 10. de Harmonia Evangel. reports as much of our Saviour Christ, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... slight theatrical heightening of effect—from an absolute point of view a defect, but highly congenial to the taste of the time. It was the scenic side of nature which Scott gave, and gave inimitably, while Burns was piercing to the inner heart of her tenderness in his lines "To a Mountain Daisy" and "To a Mouse," while Wordsworth was mystically communing with her soul, in his "Tintern Abbey." It was the scenic side of nature for which the perceptions of men were ripe; so they left ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... At that instant a piercing scream seemed to come from the sea out beyond the surf, some yards higher up the coast. "Help! help! I'll ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... the spasms of death, unperceived by the mother, passed over the contracted muscles of the father's face. The bitter speech of the blind woman—blind of heart—was actually finished after death had given the final blow to the victim. Of this she had no suspicion, until instructed by the piercing shrieks of her daughter, who fell swooning upon the ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... terror; they considered it must be a bad omen, and for this once events appeared to justify superstition. A fearful storm arose, waves mountains high broke over the ships, whilst the wind blew furiously and rain fell without ceasing. When the sun at length succeeded in piercing the thick curtain of clouds which almost entirely intercepted his rays, a horrible scene was disclosed. The water looked thick and black, large patches of a livid white colour flecked the foaming, crested waves, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... and seriously threatened to starve the British Isles. Admiral Sims was two years older than Pershing and as typical a sailor as the former was soldier. With his bluff and genial, yet dignified, manner, his rubicund complexion, closely-trimmed white beard, and piercing eyes, no one could have mistaken his calling. Free of speech, frank in praise and criticism, abounding in indiscretions, he possessed the capacity to make the warmest friends and enemies. He was an ardent admirer of the British, rejoiced in fighting with them, and ashamed that our Navy Department ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... was the old baroness, a picturesque old lady with very white hair and piercing black eyes, with whom we have very little to do; then there was her eldest son, the present baron, for his father had been dead some years, and his beautiful young wife, whom he was so passionately fond of that he was jealous—dreadfully jealous—of ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... after me, calling out "kreuzer! kreuzer! kreuzer!" and holding out hand or tattered hat in a supplicating manner as they run along-side. Unlike the peasantry, none of these gypsies touch their hats; indeed, yon swarthy-faced vagabond, arrayed mainly in gewgaws, and eying me curiously with his piercing black eyes, may be priding himself on having royal blood in his veins; and, unregenerate chicken-lifter though he doubtless be, would scarce condescend to touch his tattered tile even to the Emperor of Austria. The black eyes scintillate ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... rough and wholesome; the comfort in the snug strong oaken cabin below was enhanced by the impression of the piercing cold outside, when they went down to supper ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... form and purpose this girl had gained a strange, still power; she no longer felt it mattered whether he spoke or looked at her; her instinct, piercing through his shell, was certain of the throbbing of his pulses, the sweet poison in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... light of these and similar passages, it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that this 'being found' does include a reference to the Apostle's place after death, though it is not confined to that. He thinks of the searching eye of the Judge taking keen account, piercing through all disguises, and wistfully as well as penetratingly scrutinising characters, till it finds that for which it seeks. They who are 'found in Him' in that day, are there and thus for ever. There is no further fear of falling out of union with ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... fat broth; and shutting him up in a kind of cage, hung him up in the air where the sun was most scorching, at noonday, in the midst of summer, in order to draw the wasps and gnats upon him, whose stings are exceeding sharp and piercing in those hot countries. He was so calm in the midst of his sufferings, that, though so sorely wounded and covered with flies and wasps, he bantered them as he hung in the air; telling them, that while they were grovelling ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... absolutely barren if a man do not grow weary of digging, and turning it to the enlivening sun, and if he require no more from it than it is proper to bear. Amidst stone and rocks there is sometimes excellent pasture, and their cavities have veins which, being penetrated by the piercing rays of the sun, furnish plants with most savoury juices for the feeding of herds and flocks. Even sea-coasts that seem to be the most sterile and wild yield sometimes either delicious fruits or most wholesome medicines that are wanting in the most fertile countries. Besides, it is the effect of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... consent to the transfer of the two rooms by Monsieur Cayron, here present," he said, with a sly wink at the umbrella-man; "and I will give you a lease of them for seven consecutive years. The costs of piercing the wall are to belong to you; and you must procure the consent of Monsieur le comte de Grandville and the cession of all his rights in the matter. You are responsible for all damage done in making ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... Fox's preaching, in those early years, chiefly consisted of some few, but powerful and piercing words, to those whose hearts were already in some measure prepared to be capable of receiving this ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... have no right to insist that your horridness is true of me, either. I—I could hear music, if you would let me." She sank on the little cushioned bench before her dressing table, where her youthfulness took on a piercing aspect of misery. Fanny's declaration, not far from tears, that she was just as she had always been was admirably upheld by ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... boarders, and from Poppy Grace on the balcony next door; to get away from every face and every voice that he had known before he knew Lucia Harden's. Being convinced that he would never see her again, he wanted to be alone with his vivid and piercing memory of her. At first it was the pain that pierced. She had taken out her little two-edged sword and stabbed him. It wouldn't have mattered, he said, if the sword had been a true little sword, but it wasn't; it had snapt ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... sap-head had been commenced on what the Captain of the Sappers called 'a beautiful night,' and what anyone else outside a lunatic asylum would have described with the strongest adjectives available in exactly the opposite sense. A piercing wind was blowing in gusts of driving sleet and rain, it was pitch dark—'black as the inside of a cow,' as the Corporal put it—and it was bitterly cold. But, since all these conditions are exactly those ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... as the sun lights up with smiles the cool waves of the morning. Yet Spinello felt that as often as this fragment of Paradise, as it might justly be termed, was turned towards him, lightnings appeared to gleam from it which dismayed and withered his soul. At such moments a piercing cold darted through his frame; and when it passed away, a tremor and shivering succeeded, which withered all his energies. In fact, whether in the society of Beatrice or not, Spinello now found that the terrible form of Lucifer, which his genius had created, was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various
... square, is fixed; allowing the foul air to escape into the passage; and in the ceiling of the passage a similar sheet of zinc, allowing it to escape into the roof. Fresh air, meanwhile, should be obtained from outside, by piercing the windows, or otherwise. And here let me give one hint to all builders of houses: If possible, let bedroom windows open at the top as well as ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... out his piercing coo-ee, and this time the answer was distinct enough for him to decide its exact position. Without another moment for reflection, he urged Bolter on, waded through the river, and dashed helter-skelter towards the wood. He thought nothing of the ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... landing, and when our canoe arrived there must have been fully four hundred Indians present. The first to greet us was Factor Mackenzie—a gruff, bearded Scotsman with a clean-shaven upper lip, gray hair, and piercing gray eyes. When we entered the Factor's house we found it to be a typical wilderness home of an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company; and, therefore, as far unlike the interiors of furtraders' houses as shown upon the stage, movie screen, or in magazine illustration, as it ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... Peter and St. Paul, and the four Evangelists. Below are King Osric and Abbot Serlo, the two founders of the Abbey Church. The four figures in the niches of the buttresses represent St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory. The windows of the porch have been formed by piercing the internal tracery. This has a very curious effect when viewed from the inside. From the outside the windows do ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... they must have seen how we fought for them." But all the same the lad gave a long piercing whistle, and his men clustered about him, ready for the blacks, who were now coming ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... his appearance. He was a tall, very large-boned, gaunt man, with an enormous breadth of shoulders, displaying Herculean strength (and this we found he eminently possessed). His face was of a size corresponding to his large frame; his features were harsh, his eye piercing, but his nose, although bold, was handsome, and his capacious mouth was furnished with the most splendid row of large teeth that I ever beheld. The character of his countenance was determination rather than severity. When he smiled the ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... distance of the horizon, shining on the distant western cliffs, whose variety, boldness, and ruggedness were magnified in outline and intensified in colouring by the heavy, yellowish-red glare which fell on them, and the sun's rays shot out in long forks, piercing the dark blue of the sea at all points in the western semicircle of our view. The atmosphere had grown warm—very warm for a ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... ain trumpet touts, Till a' the hills are rairin', An' echoes back return the shouts: Black Russell is na' sparin': His piercing words, like Highlan' swords, Divide the joints and marrow; His talk o' Hell, where devils dwell, Our vera sauls does harrow[13] Wi' fright ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Was moulded sharp, and sprinkled thin with hair Of starveling length, flimsy and soft as down. Achilles and Ulysses had incurr'd 265 Most his aversion; them he never spared; But now, imperial Agamemnon 'self In piercing accents stridulous he charged With foul reproach. The Grecians with contempt Listen'd, and indignation, while with voice 270 At highest pitch, he thus the monarch mock'd. What wouldst thou now? Whereof is thy complaint Now, Agamemnon? Thou hast fill'd thy tents With treasure, and the Grecians, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... far-off intervals could be heard the sweeping thud of an avalanche slipping from point to point on its disastrous downward way. Through the wreathing vapors the steep, bare sides of the near mountains were pallidly visible, their icy pinnacles, like uplifted daggers, piercing with sharp glitter the density of the low-hanging haze, from which large drops of moisture began presently to ooze rather than fall. Gradually the wind increased, and soon with sudden fierce gusts shook the pine- trees into shuddering anxiety,—the red slit in the sky ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... this languishing speech, Dorothy could feel his eyes like points of hateful fire piercing her satirically. It taught her vaguely, even through the torture her soul was undergoing, that composite sentiment of passion and cruelty felt for her by this Tartar in evening dress who mixed sneer with compliment ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... mouse," said he, continuing, "did not beat long about the bush, and from the first moment that she trotted before the shrew-mouse, she had enslaved him for ever by her coquetries, affectations, friskings, provocations, little refusals, piercing glances, and wiles of a maiden who desires yet dares not, amorous oglings, little caresses, preparatory tricks, pride of a mouse who knows her value, laughings and squeakings, triflings and other endearments, feminine, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... gave a piercing cry and fell bleeding at the feet of its master, who answered it with a roar of anger. For a few seconds he stood motionless with surprise and fury. Then suddenly, taking the palpitating victim by the feet, he lifted it up, and, coming towards ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... gradually piercing the semi-gloom around her. She could see him distinctly now, standing close beside her, in an attitude of ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... hostile? What a vain thing is this hostility! A dagger that pierces the hand of him that holds it. They who take up the sword shall perish by the sword was the lesson Jesus taught and himself never learnt it. Ferociously, recklessly, that supreme master of denunciation took up the sword of his piercing speech against the "Scribes" and the "Pharisees" of the "generation of vipers," until he made their very names a by-word and a reproach. And yet the Church of Jesus has been the greatest generator of ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... a nobler kind, Who never, never, shall behold him more! Long, long since perished on a distant shore! Oh, had you seen him, vigorous, bold, and young, Swift as a stag, and as a lion strong: Him no fell savage on the plain withstood, None 'scaped him bosomed in the gloomy wood; His eye how piercing, and his scent how true, To wind the vapor in the tainted dew! Such, when Ulysses left his natal coast: Now years unnerve him, and his ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... entered on the Land of Souls, for the Festival of the Dead[B] had been celebrated, and all the rites duly observed which release the soul from its compelled attendance on the body, until the baked meats have been eaten, and the howling and the piercing of flesh, and the tearing of hair, and the weeping in secret, have taken place. "They have come! they have come! The Fawn's Foot and her child have returned from the Land of Souls," was shouted through the village. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... blinded with his rage and might have slain his uncle, but the Lady Isoult, beholding the fury in his face, shrieked in a very piercing voice, "Forbear! Forbear!" And therewith he remembered him how that King Mark was his mother's brother and that it was his hand that had made ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... winding in and out of Bratley Wood, piercing deep into the wintry glories of Mark Ash; through mud and moss and soft pitfalls, where the horses sank up to their hocks in withered leaves; avoiding bogs by a margin of a yard or so; up and down, under spreading branches, where the cattle line but just ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... not finished writers, but great quarries of thought and imagery. Of the two, Emerson is much the finer spirit. He has not the radiant range of imagination or any of the rough power of Carlyle, but his placid, piercing insight irradiates the depth of truth further and clearer than do the strained glances of the latter. A higher mental altitude than Carlyle has mounted, by most strenuous effort, Emerson ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... footsteps in the crackling underbrush could be heard. Scotty could discern a dim figure coming towards his fire. He stood up as it approached. The old man with his long white beard, his bare silver head, for he carried his hat reverently, his tall, gaunt figure and piercing eye gave the young man the impression of one of the great men of Bible times, Isaiah, or that one who preached in the wilderness beyond Jordan and called to his hearers to make straight the paths for the coming ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... working together of all the tonal attributes,—color, quality, pitch, and loudness. There is the subtle intimacy of violin tones compared with the clear arresting ring of the trumpet; the emotional differences between qualities like C and G, too delicate for expression in words; the piercing excitement of the high, bright tones, compared with the earnest depth of the low, dull tones; the almost terrifying effect of loud tones compared with the soothing ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... came from the very bosom of the Father. God gave Him up freely for us, and all we have to do is to accept him as our Saviour. Look at Him at Gethsemane, sweating as it were great drops of blood; look at Him on the cross, crucified between two thieves; hear that piercing cry, "Father, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." And as you look into that face, as you look into those wounds on His feet or His hands, will you say He has not the power to save you? Will you say He has not ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... sunny bowers Where once she played with the ring-doves mild, 'Mid the piercing blast she can scent the flowers She plucked with joy when a ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... brought it down with a fierce lash on the quivering flesh of his son. He richly deserved the punishment, but God would not have struck him that way. There was the poison of hate in the blow. He again raised his arm; but as it descended, the piercing shriek that broke from the youth startled even the possessing demon, and the violence of the blow was broken. But the lash of the whip found his face, and marked it for a time worse than the small-pox. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... one who already knows his death sentence. "What if after all I am mistaken," I thought, "and there really is occasion for such grief as that!" I could think of nothing but that white mystery of sorrow piercing the gloom with mournful eyes. And when at last the "penitents" came crowding the altar with quaking cowardly knees, I fell upon mine and prayed: "Dear Lord, I am Thine, I will be good! Only take not from me the joy of living here in the green valleys of this ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... have made the prayer suggested in our last talk together—Lord Jesus, show me what there is in my life that is displeasing to Thee, that Thou wouldst change—we will appreciate something of the power of that Lake Erie searchlight. There is a searchlight whiter, intenser, more keenly piercing than any other. Into every heart that desires, and will hold steadily open to it, the Lord Jesus will turn that searching light. Then you will begin to see things as they actually are. And that sight ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... a white figure sprang up from behind a cluster of rocks. Quick as thought followed a flash, a report, a heart-piercing scream; and the men, with a cry of "Ghazi! Ghazi!" unceremoniously set down their ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... beard, which he wore a little picked, as the mode was, of a brownish colour, and so continued to the last, save that it was somewhat mingled with grey haires about his cheekes: which, with his countenance, was cleare, and fresh colour'd, his eyes quick and piercing, an ample forehead, manly aspect; low of stature, but very strong. He was for his life so exact and temperate, that I have heard he had never been surprised by excesse, being ascetic and sparing. His wisdom was greate, and judgment most acute; ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... this form to the true spire the change is slight, and consists in little more than various decoration; generally in putting small pinnacles at the angles, and piercing the central pyramid with traceried windows; sometimes, as at Fribourg and Burgos, throwing it into tracery altogether: but to do this is invariably the sign of a vicious style, as it takes away from the spire its character of a ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... completed with one of the most piercing and agonizing screams that ever issued from the throat of a fair young woman. At the same instant she ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... wrapper round her throat it is related that she would have immediately torn it asunder if her courage had not failed her. And when at the first movement of the shears she felt the cold iron against her skull, I tell you it seemed to her as if they were piercing her heart with a bright dagger. It is possible that she did not keep her head still for a moment while this tonsuring was taking place; she moved it in spite of herself, now to one side, now to another, ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... eyes, and soon these organs became so rheumy that the water would trickle down his cheeks; a shaking of the hand grew upon him to such an extent that in time he had to use artificial assistance to steady it for writing; his voice was high, shrill, liable to break, piercing enough to make itself heard, but not agreeable. This hardly seems the picture of an orator; nor was it to any charm of elocution that he owed his influence, but rather to the fact that men soon learned that ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... piles in the corners, or were stacked all round at the base of the cases. The bed was in the centre of the room, and in it, propped up with pillows, was the owner of the house. I have seldom seen a more remarkable-looking person. It was a gaunt, aquiline face which was turned towards us, with piercing dark eyes, which lurked in deep hollows under overhung and tufted brows. His hair and beard were white, save that the latter was curiously stained with yellow around his mouth. A cigarette glowed amid the tangle of white hair, and the air of the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle |
