"Piercingly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the moon was shining brightly, and the morning was piercingly cold. We soon entered on a sandy hollow way, emerging from which we passed by a strange-looking and large edifice, standing on a high bleak sand-hill on our left. We were speedily overtaken by five or six men on horseback, riding at a rapid pace, each with ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... force, and again the squire's steely eyes shot upwards, regarding her piercingly. "You're quite right," he said briefly. "I won't stand it. I've stood too much already. Now, Vera, you behave yourself, and stop ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... venomous glance at Ghek and turned away. The officer shook his head. "I do not understand it," he muttered. "Always has U-Van been a true and dependable warrior. Could it be—?" he glanced piercingly at Ghek. "Thou hast a strange head that misfits thy body, fellow," he cried. "Our legends tell us of those ancient creatures that placed hallucinations upon the mind of their fellows. If thou be such then maybe U-Van suffered from thy forbidden ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... unconscious I do not know, but it was daylight when I opened my eyes. It was piercingly cold—snow was falling, and although I lay in Phillip's arms with his coat over me, while he sat in his shirt-sleeves holding me. On the other side stood Kenneth Moore. He also was in his shirt-sleeves. His coat ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... I accosted a stranger, whose appearance pleased me, and besought his assistance in my perplexity. He was a man of lofty bearing; his countenance was strong and benign as the western wind; he had a gentle smile, but eyes which piercingly regarded me. He was of superior beauty, and conducted himself as one having authority. He was much occupied, and hastening upon some evidently important errand; but he stopped at once, and gave his attention to me with the hearty interest in others ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... hand with a shyly murmured greeting. Mr. Marshall took it and held it in his, looking so steadily and piercingly into her face that even her frank gaze wavered before the intensity of his keen old eyes. Then he drew her to him and kissed her gravely and gently ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... dead do not speak in syllables that an ordinary human ear can hear. And Colin heard his own name spoken in accents piercingly clear ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... (she so high in grace, he so shameless in brute strength!), bowed to a yoke, endured scorn, shame, bleeding, stripes, blindness, and the swoon like death—all this was something beyond thought: it was piercingly sweet, but it beat him down as a breath of flame. He fell flat on his face upon the black fern and blood, and so stayed ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... battery discharged with a muffled sputtering and flashing of sparks. The Zid howled piercingly and dropped away from ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... haven of Franklin Poynter's arms, fainted quietly. Sandra shrieked piercingly. The four men stared, goggle-eyed. Temple and Teddy, as though by common thought, burrowed their ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... the world that had held her and Robert, that, holding them, had taken on the ten days' splendour of their passion. It stood, divinely still in the perishing violet light, a world withdrawn and unsubstantial, yet piercingly, ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... the aisle between the upturned faces. He planted him at the bar immediately before the Court, pulling off his hat in such a way as to drag his hair over his face and give him an even more dishevelled appearance than before. Then he moved around to his own desk, keeping his eye fixed piercingly on the astonished Creel's bewildered face. A gasp went over the court-room, and the Bar stared at the ...
— The Sheriffs Bluff - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... trust, will be to learn to drive, said the Judge, who bad busied himself in throwing the buck, together with several other articles of baggage, from his own sleigh into the snow; here are seats for you all, gentlemen; the evening grows piercingly cold, and the hour approaches for the service of Mr. Grant; we will leave friend Jones to repair the damages, with the assistance of Agamemnon, and hasten to a warm fire. Here, Dickon, are a few articles of Bess trumpery, that you can throw into your ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... rock-salt. Like all the house, it was built of slabs, which, erected while green, and on account Of the heat, had shrunk until many of the cracks were sufficiently wide to insert one's arm. On Monday—after the rain—the wind, which disturbed us through them, was piercingly cold, but as the week advanced summer and drought regained their pitiless sway, and we were often sunburnt by the rough gusts which filled the room with such clouds of dust and grit that we were forced to cover our heads until ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... about, some of them with great lumps of food still in their mouths. But they were confused, and all went into the wrong places. Everything began to fall with dreadful crashes, the fat woman shrieked piercingly, and her shriek was— ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... perhaps he was ashamed of their reading, and indeed I never heard anything like it. "Oh yes," I said, resigned, but outwardly smiling kindly with the self-control natural to woman. They sang, or rather screamed, a hymn, and so frightfully loud and piercingly that the very windows shook. "My dear," explained the Man of Wrath, when I complained one Sunday on our way home from church of the terrible quality and volume of the ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... Ruth ceased laughing and looked at her piercingly. 'Poor Madame de Geyling?' she exclaimed. 'But, my child! Ah!' and she caught Wilhelmine by the wrist; 'you pity her? because she has lost the Duke's affection? Why?' She paused a moment—reflected. 'Girl! you have fallen in love with Serenissimus,' ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... stretches, sometimes lasting whole days, his slavery was of another sort. Then he was working in the lumber yard with Issachar, or waiting on customers in the hardware shop. The cold of winter set in in earnest now and handling "two by fours" and other timber out where the raw winds swept piercingly through one's overcoat and garments and flesh to the very bone was a trying experience. His hands were chapped and cracked, even though his grandmother had knit him a pair of enormous red mittens. He appreciated ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... so quickly that Dame Bragwaine hardly knew what had befallen; but now, upon an instant, she suddenly fell to shrieking so piercingly that the whole castle rang with the ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... dead do not terminate with the burial; frequently they are renewed at intervals by the women, during late hours of the night, or some hours before day-break in the morning. Piercingly as those cries strike upon the traveller in the lonely woods, if raised suddenly, or very near him, yet mellowed by distance they are soothing and pleasing, awakening a train of thoughts and feelings, which, though sad and solemn, are yet such as the mind sometimes delights ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... when his attention was diverted by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the vehicle. An officer in charge of transport was beating the soldier who was driving the woman's vehicle for trying to get ahead of others, and the strokes of his whip fell on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew she leaned out from behind the apron and, waving her thin arms from under the woolen ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... fratricide in mind—and to thy best belief in act, how drags on now the burden of thy life? For a day or two, spirits and segars muddled his brain, and so kept thoughts away: but within a while they came on him too piercingly, and Julian writhed beneath those scorpion stings of hot and keen remorse: and when the coast-guards dragged the Mullet, how that caitiff trembled! and when nothing could be found, how he wondered ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... court below. He anticipated the porter's steps on the staircase and his knock at the door, and it was with an intense relief and triumph that he saw the bottle strike the curtain and fall harmless. He would win yet. Lily screamed piercingly. ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... soft fingers at his throat and turned his face upward. All the blue air seemed glittering with the sun-tipped wings of gulls. The skylark's song, piercingly sweet, seemed to penetrate his soul. And, as his life-suit fell about him, so seemed to fall the heavy weight of dread like a shroud, dropping at his feet. And he stepped clear—took his first free step toward her—as though between them there were no questions, no barriers, nothing ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... by a deep, black defile which pierced the range. For a day and night they wound through this, hardly pausing to rest, for it had become piercingly cold. Moreover, as Silawayo explained, even when the weather was at its highest stage of sultriness elsewhere, in the mountains the changes were sudden and great. To be snowed up in this pass was too serious a ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... cases of violent fever when once the crisis is passed—I was sufficiently restored to take my place by a night-coach for London. The first few stages I endured tolerably well, notwithstanding that I had somewhat rashly ventured upon an outside place; but as midnight drew on, the wind became so piercingly keen, accompanied every now and then by a squally shower of sleet, that I was glad to bargain for an inside berth. By good luck, there was just room enough left for one, which I instantly appropriated, in spite of sundry hints hemmed forth by a crusty old gentleman, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... Piercingly she looked at me. Her eyes narrowed to slits and stabbed me with their spite. Her dark face grew turgid with impotent anger. As I stood there she was like to have killed me. Then like a flash her expression changed. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... day dawned wintry cold, but Chandi and I sallied forth gaily. After much vain hunting in Bhowanipur, outside Calcutta, we arrived at the right house. The door held two iron rings, which I sounded piercingly. Notwithstanding the clamor, a servant approached with leisurely gait. His ironical smile implied that visitors, despite their noise, were powerless to disturb the calmness ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... we left the museum, which, by the by, was piercingly chill, as if the multitude of statues radiated cold out of their marble substance. We might have gone to see the pictures in the Palace of the Conservatori, and S——-, whose receptivity is unlimited and forever fresh, would willingly ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and Charmian had an impression of height, of a bony slimness that was almost cadaverous, of irregular features, rather high cheek-bones, brown, very short hair, and large, enthusiastic and observant eyes that glanced almost piercingly at her, and quickly ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... a little sideways in such a way as to smite with it upward and hard. It struck the spectacled gentleman under the jaw with a peculiar dead thud, and a cry of horror came from the two seated parties at the sight. One of the girls shrieked piercingly, "Horace!" and everyone sprang up. The sense of helping numbers came to ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... we are thinking of—Guthrie and I. Are you strong enough physically and well-enough off financially to undertake such a burden?" She regarded him piercingly, a startled look in her eyes. "Doubtless you are a rich women—and, of course, no one could doubt your generosity. Still, a blind man ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... was conscious that the eyes of the inventor were fixed piercingly upon him. That consciousness caused his head to bow, and his cheeks to crimson with shame. It is the curse of this morbid sensibility, that righteous indignation at a foul slander upon one's good name springs up only after the victim ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... to behold. She and Grandcourt had just slackened their pace to a walk; he being on the outer side was the nearer to the unwelcome vision, and Gwendolen had not presence of mind to do anything but glance away from the dark eyes that met hers piercingly toward Grandcourt, who wheeled past the group with an unmoved face, giving no ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... heat. A perverted dignity, nurtured in a hard-shell, middle-class environment, prevented him from stripping to his undershirt. The sun's rays, diffusing abnormal heat through the atmosphere, reflected piercingly upward from the water, had played havoc with him. His first act upon landing was to seat himself upon a flat-topped boulder and dab tenderly at his smarting face while his men hauled up the canoe. That in itself was a measure of his inefficiency, ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... induce young ladies to sit up late at night; they cause them to dress more lightly than they are accustomed to do; and thus thinly clad, they leave their homes while the weather is perhaps piercingly cold, to plunge into a suffocating, hot ballroom, made doubly injurious by the immense number of lights, which consume the oxygen intended for the due performance of the healthy functions of the lungs. Their partners, the brilliancy of the scene, and the music, excite ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... or maid known of each other's thoughts, a conclusion to do business might not have been arrived at. As it was, Miss Loach, after a few more questions, appeared satisfied. All the time she kept a pair of very black eyes piercingly fixed on the girl's face, as though she would read her very soul. But Susan had nothing to conceal, so far as Miss Loach could gather, so in the end she resolved to ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... of much natural dignity, ingenuity, honesty, and kind affection, as well as sound intellect and imagination.... He had a burst of genuine fun too.... His laugh was ever a hearty, low guffaw, and his tones in preaching would reach to the piercingly pathetic. No preacher ever went so into one's heart. He was a man essentially of little culture, of narrow sphere all his life. Such an intellect, professing to be educated, and yet ... ignorant in all that lies beyond the horizon in place or time I have almost nowhere met with—a ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... I come to set it down I see that it is altogether trivial, and I cannot explain how it is that it is to me so piercingly significant. I had to whip you. Your respect for the admirable and patient Mademoiselle Potin, the protectress and companion of your public expeditions, did in some slight crisis suddenly fail you. In the extreme publicity of Kensington Gardens, in the presence of your two little sisters, before ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... nothing to me and I said nothing to Hank, and presently he moved off to collect logs for the fire, which needed replenishing, for it was a piercingly cold night and there were many degrees ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Livingstone gazed piercingly at her for several instants without moving a muscle of his face; suddenly its fixed and stern expression—you could not say softened, but—broke up all at once like a sheet ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... with the sight of a treasure which I could not reach. Moving off to another point, I again took my station where I hoped for better fortune; but the same evil chance once more occurred, and the ducks fell into the lake. This was too much for a hungry man to endure; the day was piercingly cold, and the edge of the pool was covered with ice; but my appetite was urgent, and I resolved at all hazards to indulge it. Pulling off my clothes, therefore, I broke the ice and plunged in; and though shivering like an aspen-leaf, I returned safely to ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... a small man and now over sixty, had a distinct presence. He wore excellent gray clothes of the same shade as his hair, and out of this neutrality of tint his bright, brown eyes sparkled piercingly. ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... roadway in repair achieves the stature of a considerable hill. In this particular May there could be no spot more desolate than the wells of Obak. The sun blazed upon it from six in the morning with an intolerable heat, and all night the wind blew across it piercingly cold, and played with the sand as it would, building pyramids house-high and levelling them, tunnelling valleys, silting up long slopes, so that the face of the country was continually changed. The vultures and the sand-grouse held it undisturbed in a perpetual tenancy. And to ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... on her dark features; but their melancholy and languid expression had given place to that of wild and restless vivacity, which was most common to them. Her eyes gleamed with more than their wonted fire, and her glances were more piercingly wild and unsettled than usual. To Julian's inquiry, she answered, by laying her hand on her heart—a motion by which she always indicated the Countess—and rising, and taking the direction of her apartment, she made a sign to Julian ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... ball, doubtless anxious to look after her invalid husband. She was driven home by a friend, and in order to inconvenience the latter as little as possible, she got out of the carriage without waiting for the house-door to be opened, and allowed her friend to drive away. It was a piercingly cold night, the ground was covered with snow, and she picked her way carefully up the steps and then felt in her pocket for her passe-partout. To her horror she discovered it was not there, she had forgotten to take it out with her! She used all her ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... strongly limbed man of about fifty, with a large, massive head, and a broad pile of forehead, overhanging two piercingly bright black-eyes, and features which would be heavy, were they allowed a moment's repose from the continual play of the facial muscles, sending a never-ending series of varying expressions across the dark, swarthy ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... his light, and looking fixedly at it for a considerable time. Strange thoughts passed through his mind as the pictured eyes seemed to gaze piercingly down into his own. When he turned ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dagger, the pain of the wound flowed through him piercingly; and as a horse stops and stands trembling, for there is something in the darkness beyond, John shrank back, his nerves vibrating like highly-strung chords; and ideas—notes of regret and lamentation died in great vague spaces. Ideas fell.... Was ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... said these words, Maria Nikolaevna positively bent her head a little on one side so as to look more intently and piercingly ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... them upon his knee and tried to console them. But there is something piercingly penetrating and austere even in the consolations of this new faith. He did but remind the children of the burden of gratitude laid upon them. "Would you let him suffer so much in vain? His suffering has made you and me happier and better to-day, at this ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to return," observed the Signore Grimaldi, in the way one utters a half-formed resolution. "This wind is getting to be piercingly cutting, and the night is hard upon us. What thinkest thou, Melchior; for, with Monsieur Sigismund, I am of opinion that there is ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... with his handkerchief, although the wind was piercingly cold; the gun was reloaded, and then Mason pointed and levelled it with the utmost care. When this was done, taking the lanyard in his hand he stepped back to the utmost length of the line, and with arm outstretched, stood for more than a minute squinting along the sights ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... steersman, with a rifle ready to his hand. Next to him sat a large red-bearded man, broad in the shoulders, massive in the jowl, almost brutal in his evidence of strength; even in that dusky light one could feel that his face was clenched in a scowl, and that his eyes were piercingly gray and cruel. Facing him, with his back towards the prow, sat Pere Antoine, a little bent forward, gesticulating with his hands, his whole attitude that of one who is trying to explain and persuade. After him came the remaining three Indian and half-breed paddle-men, sharp-featured ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... been keen, and piercingly cold. The whole lift of heaven seemed a dome of iron. Black and frost-bound was the earth under the cruel east wind. Now the wind had dropped, and as the darkness had gathered in, the weather-wise old labourers ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the inner cave the very embodiment of astonished consternation, for Branwen was gone, and in her place stood a little old woman, with a bowed form, and a puckered-up mouth, gazing at him with half-closed but piercingly dark eyes! ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... to stand on his tiptoes to draw this, and the chalk screeched piercingly as he bore on it heavily. But the high hat really did look like the ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... pattered, the hollow bones clattered, The traveller's teeth chattered—with cold—not with fright; The wind it blew hastily, piercingly, gustily; Certainly not ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... dumb. The old man fidgeted and mumbled to himself at the window. Suddenly he cried, piercingly: "Bessie—I see ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... broke the seal, and now that he unfolded the paper, Marianne turned her head toward the prince, and fixed her burning eyes piercingly upon his countenance. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... glistened when he smiled. His smile was like his face, large, and smooth, and fat. His eyes, which were light gray—white, Hughie called them—were shifty, avoiding the gaze that sought to read them, or piercingly keen, ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... in such weather, and after a hard day's work, to escape to her bed. My mother was indisposed and had retired to rest early. Well do I remember that night; it was the beginning of December, and the weather for some time past had been piercingly cold. The wind howled through the leafless boughs, and there was every appearance of an early and severe winter, as indeed befel. Long before eleven o'clock all was hushed and quiet within the house, and indeed without (nothing was heard), except the cold wind which howled mournfully in gusts. The ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the Hawks, led by Walter Osborne and Blake Merton, lifted their voices in a shrill "Kree-kree-eee," which rose piercingly above the Wolves' "How-ooo-ooo!" Then the Otters and the Foxes added their characteristic cries to the din, and away off in the shadows where the contagion of the noise penetrated, Indian Joe gave vent to a warwhoop ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... the cup returned with a smile piercingly sweet, the Lady rose. Saints on thrones, how tall she was! "The bimbo will thank you for this to-morrow, as I do now," said she. "Goodnight, my friends, and may the good God have mercy upon all souls!" She turned to go ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... perceived a singular figure by his side. The stranger was tall and thin, and attired in a dusky cloak which only partially concealed a flame-coloured jerkin. A cock's feather peaked up in his cap; his eyes were piercingly brilliant; his nose was aquiline; the expression of his features sinister and sardonic. Had Otto been more observant, or less preoccupied, he might have noticed that the stranger's left shoe was of a peculiar form, ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... all!" cried Steele, piercingly. "I call on you to witness the arrest of a criminal opposed by Sampson, mayor of Linrock. It will be recorded in the report sent to the Adjutant General at Austin. Sampson, I warn ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... the cliff and out upon a wide plain they fared. Ribbons of glorious colour streamed from the horizon to the zenith, and touched to flame the cymbals and the bugles and the trappings of the horses and the shields of the knights. Piercingly sweet, across the fields of blowing clover, came the even song of a feathered chorister, and—what on earth was ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... Even in the semi-darkness, Rankin felt the other's eyes fixed piercingly upon him. He passed his hand over his face; he seemed about to speak. But the habit of reticence was too strong upon him. Even the inspiration of the Englishman's confidence was not sufficient to break the seal of his own reserve. He arose slowly and shook ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... average summer temperature is only 58 deg. Fahrenheit and the winter about 45 deg.; so that there is little oppressive heat, and frost is very rare. But in spite of these figures the islands can become sultry under a blaze of sunshine; and in winter the winds are sometimes piercingly keen. No trees will grow unless protected from this wind; yet the tropical vegetation that flourishes in the open air conclusively proves the remarkable equability of the climate; while rainfall, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... there before him and watched it, and she saw that his eyes were piercingly bright, with the brightness of burnished steel. She could not turn her own away from them, though her whole soul shrank from that stark scrutiny. In anguish of mind she faced him, helpless, unutterably ashamed, while that burning blush throbbed fiercely through every vein and gradually ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... east grew a bit pale, Caleb Parish returned from his varied duties and laid a hand on his wife's forehead to find it fever-hot. The woman opened her eyes and essayed a smile, but at the same moment there rode piercingly through the still air the long and hideous challenge ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... visitor," she whispered piercingly through the same medium. "A man. A well man, not a sick one. He came on the train. He ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... has been permitted to remain, in all his manhood, the child that once we all were. In him the powerful and spontaneous flow of emotion from out the depths of being has never been dammed. He can still speak from the fullness of his heart, cry his sorrows piercingly, produce himself completely. Gracious and urbane as his music is, proper to the world of modern things and modern adventures and modern people, there is still a gray, piercing lyrical note in it that is almost primitive, and reflects the childlike singleness ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... wind rose and swept mourningly over the large leaves of the chestnut-tree beneath which they stood: the serene stillness of the evening seemed gone; an unquiet and melancholy spirit was loosened abroad, and the chill of the sudden change which is so frequent to our climate, came piercingly upon them. Godolphin was silent for some moments, for the thought found ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and old Dermody's son went out into the night. A lull in the wind had come, and the light of the moon, hung near the horizon's rim, flickered out dimly ever and anon as the edge of the drifting mist lapped up wave-like and touched her. It was piercingly cold. Ned Dermody leaned heavily on Dan as they walked, only till he fetched back his breath, he said, but it was slow in coming. They had not gone many hundred yards, yet vast tracts of solitude seemed to have folded round them, before Dan caught sight of something that somehow startled and ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... world as mixed of good and evil with a decent satisfaction and a decent endurance. But this is exactly the attitude which I maintain to be defective. It is, I know, very common in this age; it was perfectly put in those quiet lines of Matthew Arnold which are more piercingly blasphemous ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... d'Isabelle, or so she thought. "Mary" was gone off on her own independent course; Martha alone remained—still and quiet for ever, in the cemetery beyond the Porte de Louvain. The weather, too, for the first few weeks after Charlotte's return, had been piercingly cold; and her feeble constitution was always painfully sensitive to an inclement season. Mere bodily pain, however acute, she could always put aside; but too often ill-health assailed her in a part far more to be dreaded. ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... her straight brows and looked piercingly at Miss Summers. If Sally could have heard and appreciated the speech as Madame Gala did she would have known that she had become a favourite at a bound. She did not even guess it, so absorbed was she in deserving commendation, ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... the crossbow at that moment penetrated into her heart, the person he addressed could not have been more transfixed than at this speech. She started—an inquiring and tearful doubt rose into her eyes, as they settled piercingly upon his own; but the information they met with there needed no further word of assurance from his lips. He was a stern tyrant—one, however, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... do it, Cap'n, don't you do it!" called Miss Letty piercingly. "I don't want 'em to bid on gran'ther's books. I want them books myself, if I have to work my fingers to ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... that fell from the lips of the lady from London, trying harder to understand than she had ever tried to do anything in her life. She put all her quick, young mind and avid soul into the struggle to receive, though piercingly aware every instant of the difference between her attire and that of the women who had bidden her there, noting acutely variations between their language and hers, their voices, their gestures and hers. These were the women of Gray Stoddard's world. Such were his feminine ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... of every particular circumstance between him and the lady, not forgetting to lard them with the most extravagant encomiums on her beauty and merit. These he sings in the night below her window accompanied with his lute, or sometimes with a whole band of music. The more piercingly cold the air, the more the lady's heart is supposed to be thawed with the patient sufferance of her lover, who, from night to night, frequently continues his exercises for many hours, heaving the deepest sighs, and casting the most piteous looks towards ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... flutter throughout the room. Here, at last, was something definite to support the general contention that "we aren't through with the Germans yet." A lady up in front leaned across the aisle and whispered piercingly to her husband: ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... Everything was darkness and desertion. The moon was rising far beyond the West Port away in our front, but it was in the last quarter and afforded little light. There were very few stars visible. The night had turned piercingly cold, but so great was my mental anxiety and excitement that I seemed unaffected in body by the severity of the weather. With the lantern we began to search about for a boat, at first without success. In a square-shaped inlet or creek a little above the dockyard we presently ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... a matter of a few breaths of piercingly cold air before we were circling Hazlehurst Field. A brief glide and we were coasting on the ground toward the exact spot we had left. I looked at ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... had been seen arriving at the Cosmopolitan about a week before by the lawyer, and it had piercingly sung ever since. It sang, that is, as long as there was any light, real or artificial, to sing by. The boy who carried it from the shop for the twins said its cage was to be hung in a window in the sun, or it couldn't ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... sadness. Unconsciously, she had been sitting for a long time silent. As she looked up, she met Rachel's eyes fixed full on hers, with the same penetrating gaze which had so disturbed her in their first interview. Rachel did not withdraw her gaze, but continued to look into Hetty's eyes, steadily, piercingly, with an expression which held Hetty spell-bound. ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... Kurt dove into the wheat, and, sweeping wide his arms to make a passage, he strode on, his eyes bent piercingly upon the ground close about him. He did not penetrate deeper into the wheat from the road than the distance he estimated a strong arm could send a stone. Almost at once his keen sight was rewarded. He found a cake of phosphorus half buried in the soil. ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... bodily strength, however, he was not without presence of mind. For whilst Reilly and his captors were engaged in a fierce and powerful conflict, he placed his fore-finger and thumb in his mouth, from which proceeded a whistle so piercingly loud and shrill that it awoke the midnight echoes ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... said; and doubtless, horse teeth, hatchet jaws, slatternly in the gown, slipshod, awful. As for a girl, an unmarried, handsome girl, admittedly beautiful, her interjections, echoing a man, were ridiculous, and not a little annoying now and them, for she could be piercingly sarcastic. Her vocabulary in irony was a quiverful. He admired her and liked her immensely; complaining only of her turn for unfeminine topics. He pardoned her on the score of the petty difference rankling between them in reference ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... smallness, was brown in complexion; the nose was delicately formed and slightly curved; the hair brown, abundant, and usually dishevelled. The feature which struck all who met him for the first time was the eyes, which were brown in colour, large, and widely-opened, with the white conspicuous, and piercingly bright.—An exhaustive study of the portraits and busts of Goethe will be found in Goethes Kopf und Gestalt von Karl ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... whiff to us across the blue air. Against that stump—is it a real stump, or only a painted canvas affair from the property man's warehouse?—surely that is a demijohn of cider? And we can hear, presently, that most piercingly tremulous of all songs rising in rich chorus, with the plenitude of pathos that masculines best ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... with a catch in her sweet voice. And, scarce realizing what she did, she put the silver whistle to her lips and blew a piercingly loud blast. ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... in the dim haze of the distance; and to the left the everlasting snows of Snaehatten. A few wretched cabins are scattered at remote intervals over the desert plains, in which the shepherds seek shelter from the inclemency of the weather, which even in midsummer is often piercingly raw. Herds of rattle, sheep, and goats were grazing over the rocky wastes of the Fjeld. Reindeer are sometimes seen in this vicinity, but not often within sight of the road. The only vegetation produced here is reindeer moss, and a coarse sort of grass growing in bunches over the plain. I met ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... medium height, square shouldered and broad chested. His head was manly and handsome, his nose aquiline, his eyes large, dark, and piercingly bright, and shaded by strongly-marked eyebrows. His air was grave and thoughtful, and in strong contrast to that of the merry and buoyant Pisani. His temper was more equable, but his character was as impulsive as that of the admiral. He was now forty-five years of age—ten ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... involuntarily, I looked about me expecting to see people stopping, a crowd forming. But no one appeared to notice the little old woman except myself, and as she drew near I discovered that she wore spectacles and a fringe of iron-gray hair around her face. Her eyes were piercingly bright and on her lips was etched a sardonic smile. Not quite knowing how to explain my rude stare, I was preparing to turn in another direction, when the stranger accosted me, and in the voice of a man: "Perhaps you don't know ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... ladder into the loft. There was no door to shut out the wind, which blew piercingly cold, and after a time he found himself so chilled that he could not sleep. He rose to see if he could not find some protection from the wind by getting more into a corner; for although Phoebe had told him ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... the night in vain attempts at mutual consolation. Even our present sufferings occupied us. Our clothes were wet through, and the night had become piercingly cold. Our bed was a bench of stone; and upon this we lay as our chains would allow us, sleeping close together to generate warmth. It was to us a miserable night; but morning came at last, and at an early hour we were examined by the ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... I strolled out into the bar once more. Mr. Gunthorpe was being affable, according to instructions, to the old gentleman, while an old lady in a bonnet looked on piercingly. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... January was drawing to its close; the weather was growing more and more winterly; high winds, piercingly cold, were raving through our narrow streets; and still the spirit of social festivity bade defiance to the storms which sang through our ancient forests. From the accident of our magistracy being selected ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... alone down the ranks, and then took my place as usual, with dearest Albert on my right and Sir John Macdonald on my left, and saw the troops march past. They afterwards manoeuvred. The Rifles looked beautiful. It was piercingly cold, and I had my cape on, which dearest Albert settled comfortably for me. He was so cold, being 'EN GRANDE TENUE,' with high boots. We cantered home again, and went in to show ourselves to. poor Ernest, who had ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... concealed so long by darkness. It was even wanner and paler than he feared to find it, and her eye shone with an unnatural lustre, as it met his own. She extended her hands and placed them in his, gazed upon him piercingly, but without speaking, or indeed seeming able to utter ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... The artlessness of this wonder struck shame to their hearts when they chanced to learn that the lady had repaid it with a worldly-wise amusement at their own highly-colored waterfalls and snow-capped mountain-peaks. Marietta could recall as piercingly as if it were yesterday, in how crestfallen a chagrin she and her mother had gazed at their parlor after this incident, their disillusioned eyes open for the first time to the futility of its claim to sophistication. As for the incident that had led to the permanent retiring from their ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... Stanton glanced piercingly at her. Her proud, cold beauty and distinguished appearance stirred a momentary feeling of admiration in the "Iron Secretary's" breast. He half rose, then sank again into ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the gulf he paused. Below, with eyes grown accustomed to the darkness, she could discern figures running to and fro, and lanterns flashing, while shouts and cries rose piercingly above a ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... convulsed the woman's frame, and the spasm of agony that wrung the lips she pressed together, and the glistening damps of anguish that broke out upon the broad white forehead. To save her life she could not have said to him, "She whom you seek is here!" But a voice wailed in her heart, more piercingly than Rachel's, and it cried: "Richard's daughter! She is Richard's daughter! The homeless thing, the blighted child I found upon the veld, and nursed back to life and happiness and forgetfulness of a hideous past; whom I took into my empty heart, and taught ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... with a desire to cry aloud, the cry of a hawk or eagle on high, to cry piercingly of his deliverance to the winds. This was the call of life to his soul not the dull gross voice of the world of duties and despair, not the inhuman voice that had called him to the pale service of the altar. An instant of wild flight had ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... and stretched out his hands to hurl her back if she should attempt to return; but she descended again. Twice he heard her heavy footfall on the steps—then there was an interval of deep silence—then a sharp, grinding clash of metal echoed piercingly through the vault, followed by the noise of a dull, heavy fall, faintly audible far beneath—and then the old familiar sounds of the place were heard again, and were not interrupted more. The sacrifice to the Dragon ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... religion has breathed through it all, so exalted, so warm, so personal; the passionate mediaeval Christianity which expressed itself in crusades and religious orders and knight-errantry. The cry of the Saviour (Erloesung's Held, Hero of Redemption, the poet characteristically calls him) has rung so piercingly, there seems but one answer from a humanly constituted simple heart: "Did you indeed suffer so much and die for love of me and my brothers? How then can I the most quickly spend and scatter all my strength ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... Martha," said the venerable Father Ephraim, fixing his aged eyes piercingly upon them, "if ye can conscientiously undertake this charge, speak, that the brethren may not ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... who was watching the passage from his own bedroom farther on. When Ashe had opened it he found himself face to face as it were with the foaming stream outside. The window, as he had seen it before, was wide open to the water-fall just beyond it, and the temperature was piercingly cold and damp. The furniture was of the roughest, and a few of Kitty's clothes lay scattered about. As he fumbled for a light, there hovered before his eyes the remembrance of their room in Hill Street, strewn with chiffons and all the elegant ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lifting in the leaden sea, only now and then the boat had been heaved up, as on a huge shoulder which slipped from under it; such occasional sea-quakes came probably from the swell of some steamer that had passed it in the dark; otherwise the waves were harmless though restless. But it was piercingly cold, and there was, from time to time, a splutter of rain like the splutter of the spray, which seemed almost to freeze as it fell. MacIan, more at home than his companion in this quite barbarous and elemental sort of adventure, had rowed toilsomely with the ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... the honeysuckle clambering over a low white porch; and this light and this sweetness possessed an ineffable quality. Life, which had been merely placid a few hours before, had become suddenly poignant—every instant was pregnant with happiness, every detail was piercingly vivid. Her whole being was flooded with a sensation of richness and wonder, as if she had awakened with surprise to a different world from the one she had closed her ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... even more excitable foreign delegates cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio, chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah, amid which the ringing evviva of the delegate of the land of song (a high double F recalling those piercingly lovely notes with which the eunuch Catalani beglamoured our greatgreatgrandmothers) was easily distinguishable. It was exactly seventeen o'clock. The signal for prayer was then promptly given by megaphone and in an instant all heads were bared, the commendatore's patriarchal sombrero, which ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... French for this. And indeed a truly savage warfare it had become, here in this northern country on either side of the border between New York and Canada: where the winters were long and piercingly cold, where hunger frequently stalked, where travel was by canoe on the noble St. Lawrence, the swift Ottawa, the Richelieu, the lesser streams and lakes, and by snowshoe or moccasin through the heavy forests; where the Indians rarely failed to torture their captives in manner ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... Cripple stepped quietly forward toward Sidsel, flung his arms around her, and they danced a whirling dance. Sophie laughed aloud at it, but Sidsel directed her extraordinary glance maliciously and piercingly toward her. Otto saw it, and the girl was doubly revolting and frightful in his eyes. With the increasing darkness the assembly became more animated; the two parties of dancers were resolved into one. At length, when it was grown quite dark, the ale barrels become ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... fortified outpost of Toledo—"imperial" Toledo. Though it is situated between two and three thousand feet above sea-level, it does not seem to possess the advantages usually following such position, the climate being scorchingly hot in summer and piercingly cold in winter. So that one comes to the conclusion that in point of climate, as well as in location, the Spanish ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... towers, and there, standing on the sun-baked leads, his elbows resting on the parapet, he surveyed the scene. The steam-organ sent up prodigious music. The clashing of automatic cymbals beat out with inexorable precision the rhythm of piercingly sounded melodies. The harmonies were like a musical shattering of glass and brass. Far down in the bass the Last Trump was hugely blowing, and with such persistence, such resonance, that its alternate tonic and dominant detached themselves from the rest of the music and made a tune of their ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... sentence which had secretly tormented her for so long, thus piercingly uttered by this delirious, and, perhaps, dying child, with what seemed a preternatural earnestness and strength, arrested her devotions, and froze her with a ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... through his belt. And as when a strong man with a sharp axe smiting behind the horns of an ox of the homestead cleaveth the sinew asunder, and the ox leapeth forward and falleth, so leapt Aretos forward and fell on his back; and the spear in his entrails very piercingly quivering unstrung his limbs. And Hector hurled at Automedon with his bright spear, but he looked steadfastly on the bronze javelin as it came at him and avoided it, for he stooped forward, and the long spear fixed itself in the ground behind, and the javelin-butt quivered, and there dread ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... suddenly and piercingly on the doorstep outside. He was tired of the cold stone and wanted his warm corner behind the stove. Thyra smiled grimly when she heard him. She had no intention of letting him in. She said she had always disliked dogs, but ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... very close against hers, the scent of the heliotrope had grown on the sudden stronger and more piercingly sweet, perhaps because the sun had vanished behind the distant line of trees and a little breeze from the oncoming night was blowing across the flower-beds towards them. The quick-gathering twilight seemed to be shutting them in; people passed ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... voice brought the colour back to her face. His smile too, though it reminded her piercingly of Guy, sent a glow of comfort to her chilled ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... remained on board till morning. As we had been accustomed on this "Clipper No. 2" to breakfast at half-past 7, I thought they surely would not send us empty away. But no! we had to turn out at that early hour of a morning piercingly cold, and get a breakfast where we could, or remain without. This was "clipping" us rather too closely, after we had paid seven dollars each for ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... my own wanderings in Italy," Borrow writes, "I rested at nightfall by the side of a kiln, the air being piercingly cold; it was about four leagues from Genoa." {76e} Again, "Once in the south of France, when I was weary, hungry, and penniless, I observed one of these last patterans {76f} [a cross marked in the dust], and following ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... in my stead, Carrie," I whispered, as she wrapped me in mother's warm fleecy shawl, for the night was piercingly cold. ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... piercingly cold, and at any moment the snow might again come down and overwhelm me. The rough training I had gone through, however, had taught me never to despair, but to struggle on to the last. I had no thoughts of doing otherwise, ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... and lower. Physical comfort and the presence of his comrades caused a deep satisfaction that permeated his whole being. The light wind mingled pleasantly with the soft summer rain. The sound of the two grew strangely melodious, almost piercingly sweet, and then it seemed to be human. They sang together, the wind and rain, among the leaves, and the note that reached his heart, rather than his ear, thrilled him with courage and hope. Once more the invisible voice that had upborne him in the great valley of the Ohio told him, even here in ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... summons a footman appeared (a fellow I remembered to have seen at the town house when I had called), and it struck me that, as I enquired if Lady Tressidy was at home, he eyed me more piercingly than a well-trained servant usually ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... enthusiasm. Dancing was then resumed, and was carried on till a late hour at night. The scene was very picturesque, Lochnagar and other mountains in the neighbourhood being covered with snow. Although the wind blew piercingly cold from the north, her Majesty and the Princess remained a considerable time, viewing the sports with ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... whom was it intended? Obviously for one of the pupils. It was a clandestine epistle, too, otherwise it would have come by the regular channel through the post office. Perhaps it was a love letter. At this thought she gave a guilty start and gazed piercingly into the chestnut tree, but nothing was visible there save boughs and leaves. After all, the epistle was, doubtless, destined for some swarthy-visaged Italian beauty, and many such were in the convent school. That it had fallen at her feet was certainly but a mere coincidence. It was ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... the great god Pan, so "piercingly sweet by the river"—a far cry and a weary way from Pan to Handel and Beethoven; yet during all that time music has been the joy and the consolation ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... busy-minded mother, had a look which, though concealed, told that at heart they rejoiced to see their "bairn respeckit like the lave," and "all indeed went merry as a marriage bell." We and some others left at midnight. The air was piercingly cold, and the bear skins in which we were wrapped soon had a white fringe, where fell the fast congealing breath. There was no moon, and the stars looked dim, in the fitful gleam of the streamers of the aurora borealis, which ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... His eyes still shone piercingly down, but they read but little, for the dancer's were firmly closed against them, even while the dark cropped head ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... a statue. His eyes looked piercingly at the little red-haired man before him, who, in his terror, had lost ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... hunter, to the house, that he might have the comforts of nourishment and warmth. He was brought accordingly but these attentions were unavailing as he died a few days afterwards. Two days before his death I was surprised to observe him sitting for nearly three hours, in a piercingly sharp day, in the saw-pit, employed in gathering the dust and throwing it by handfuls over his body, which was naked to the waist. As the man was in possession of his mental faculties I conceived he was performing some devotional act preparatory to his departure, which he felt to be approaching ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... "Sis," whispered Link piercingly, "come out here! I've got a joke to tell you, something about the master and his girl. You ain't to let on to him you know, though. I found it out last night when he was off to the shore. That old key of Uncle Jim's was just the thing. He's a softy, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... at the window where Lyonors still watched, and hesitating no longer, blew the horn so piercingly and so long, that he woke all the echoes of ...
— Stories of King Arthur's Knights - Told to the Children by Mary MacGregor • Mary MacGregor
... perfect in physical development as the Hercules of Grecian art, radiant with love, glorious in self-reliant power; with lips bent firm to resist oppression, and melting into soft curves of passion and of pity; with deep, far-seeing eyes, gazing piercingly into the secrets of the unknown, and resting lovingly on the beauties around him; with hands strong to work in the present; with heart full of hope which the future shall realise; making earth glad with his labour and beautiful with ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... was a lean, bronzed young man, scarcely out of his teens, but there were years of hard life in his face. He slapped the dust in little puffs from his gloves. At sight of Kells he threw the gloves aloft and took no note of them when they fell. "STRIKE!" he called, piercingly. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... care; He, too, has given thee Gifts rich and rare. Still, then, thy voice upraise, Still chant thy Maker’s praise While we are rapt in sleep, Still thou thy vigil keep; Still let some earthly cry Go to our God on high; Humbly, yet fervently, piercingly call, Call for ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... Multicoloured leaves danced down from the trees in the villa gardens. Gaily clad children, pursued by anxious mothers and nursemaids, ran and shouted, the sunshine and fresh air having gone to their heads. Perched on the brick pier of an entrance gate, a robin uplifted its voice in piercingly sweet song. Autumn wore her fairest face, speaking of promise rather than of decay. It was good to be alive. Even to Mr. Iglesias' sober and chastened spirit horror of war, disgrace of financial failure, seemed remote and inconsiderable things, ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... have said he must be a thousand; his abnormally long, narrow, shaven face was so thin and gaunt and hollowed, and his tall, upright figure was so painfully fragile, that his black broadcloth seemed almost too heavy for the worn frame inside it. And nothing in the world else was ever so piercingly solemn as his keen weary old eyes. With his tall silk hat, his thin white hair, his long white face, long black frock-coat, and black trousers, he looked for all the world like a distinguished skeleton. Henry could never be quite sure whether he was to be classed as a "character," or ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... last few days receded from her mental vision like the flying houses and fields outside the carriage window, fading into some remote distance of her mind. Relief swelled in her heart as the train rushed west and London was left farther and farther behind. Something within her seemed to sing piercingly for joy, as though she had been a strange wild bird escaping from captivity to wing her way westward to the open spaces by the sea. London had frightened her. Its crowded vastness had suffocated her, its indifference had appalled her. She ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... neighboring claims plowed noiselessly, as figures in a dream. The whistle of gophers, the faint, wailing, fluttering cry of the falling plover, the whir of the swift-winged prairie pigeon, or the quack of a lonely duck, came through the shimmering air. The lark's infrequent whistle, piercingly sweet, broke from the longer grass m the swales nearby. No other climate, sky, plain, could produce the same unnamable weird charm. No tree to wave, no grass to rustle; scarcely a sound of domestic life; only the faint melancholy ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... this purpose. Though Madrid is situated between two and three thousand feet above the level of the sea, it does not seem to possess the advantages usually following such a position, the climate being scorchingly hot in summer and piercingly cold in winter. Thus, in point of climate and location, the Spanish capital ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou |
