"Fathom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his companions, and the end of his thinking was this: There was a mighty pole in the cave, green wood of an olive tree, big as a ship's mast, which Polyphemus purposed to use, when the smoke should have dried it, as a walking staff. Of this he cut off a fathom's length, and his comrades sharpened it and hardened it in the fire and then hid it away. At evening the giant came back and drove his sheep into the cave, nor left the rams outside, as he had been ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... at least one man among my companions there who contrived, by devices which I never sought to fathom, to pass the immitigable outer gates themselves every day, attend to his business in the outer world for as many hours as might serve, returning quietly in time for last roll-call. He took a keeper with him, of course, but only in order to assuage possible anxiety ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... that it is, most certainly. That profound wisdom; that toleration of the weaknesses of men; that sympathy with men, who cannot fathom the mysteries of life, and the struggle for life of all things that love life; that spirit I call God, and I don't think that a better name has been ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... not in the subterranean gallery of the Rue Saint-Denis. Instead of the ancient stone, instead of the antique architecture, haughty and royal even in the sewer, with pavement and string courses of granite and mortar costing eight hundred livres the fathom, he would have felt under his hand contemporary cheapness, economical expedients, porous stone filled with mortar on a concrete foundation, which costs two hundred francs the metre, and the bourgeoise masonry known as a petits materiaux—small ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... correlation of natural forces. None of these has enabled us to penetrate the mysterious inner-chamber of life itself. For reasons obviously connected with our own welfare, He, from whom alone are "the issues of life," seems to have ordained that we should fathom the depths of both physical and chemical force, and beneficently wield and direct them to our own uses. But this vital force; this something that stands apart from and is essentially different from all other kinds of force, is of a nature that baffles all our efforts ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... and upon its bosom floated tiny islands, those in the distance reduced to mere specks; but ever beyond them was the sea, until the impression became quite real that one was LOOKING UP at the most distant point that the eyes could fathom—the distance was lost in the distance. That was all—there was no clear-cut horizontal line marking the dip of the globe ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nature and of mind. But religious faith is supreme trust in an unseen God and supreme obedience to his commands, without any other exercise of reason than the intuitive conviction that what he orders is right because he orders it, whether we can fathom his wisdom or not. "Canst thou by searching find ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... attributing the general distress to governmental cowardice and incapacity, those to conspirators and emeutes, still others to ignorance and general corruption,—and weary of the interminable quarrels of the tribune and the press, I sought to fathom the matter myself. I have consulted the masters of science; I have read a hundred volumes of philosophy, law, political economy, and history: would to God that I had lived in a century in which so much reading had been useless! I have made every effort to obtain exact information, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... inevitable—remains the flimsiest of our ideas and the only one that is backward? How should we know the one power which we never looked in the face? How could it profit by flashes kindled only to help us escape it? To fathom its abysses, we wait until the most enfeebled, the most disordered moments of our life arrive. We do not think of death until we have no longer the strength, I will not say, to think, but even to breathe. A man returning among us from another century would not recognize without ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... with her hands behind her back, looking up at him with an expression he could not fathom. Suddenly she advanced, put up her lips ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... upon existence; it is acknowledged to be a science founded upon close observation, and so nearly allied to other sciences, that its pursuit is impracticable without them; that it requires years of patient toil to fathom its mysteries, and the undivided efforts of a mind to comprehend its purposes; and yet we are daily told of the most extraordinary cures, and of the discovery of sovereign remedies, in all cases and descriptions of disease, by ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... one of the oldest cub pilots on the river, and now on the Railroad Line steamer Trombone, sends us a rather bad account concerning the state of the river. Sergeant Fathom is a "cub" of much experience, and although we are loath to coincide in his view of the matter, we give his note a place in our columns, only hoping that his prophecy will not be verified in this instance. While introducing the Sergeant, "we ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... said Zoe, ironically, yet blushing a little, because her secret meaning was, "You are always at my apron strings, and have no time to fathom Fanny." ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... direct the hunt on the morrow within a few miles of the McLeod ranch, she would entice my sweetheart out and give me a chance to meet her. There was a roguish look in Miss Frances's eye during this disclosure which I was unable to fathom, but I promised during the few days' hunt to find some means to direct the chase within striking distance of the ranch ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... Another had climbed over the tender and ordered the runner to hold up. All this was regular programme, as I had explained to Miss Cullen, but here had been a variation which I had never heard of being done, and of which I couldn't fathom the object. When the train had been stopped, the man on the tender had ordered the fireman to dump his fire, and now it was lying in the road-bed and threatening to burn through the ties; so my first order was to extinguish it, and my second was to start ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... read the stars on high, Nathless we read your fortunes true; The stars may hide in the upper sky, But without glass we fathom you. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... dunes, and Bonnet, who had now taken the helm, headed the sloop cautiously for this opening. One of the men constantly heaved the lead and cried the soundings as the ship progressed. The pirate chief kept to the left of the channel and finally passed through into a wide lagoon, with a scant fathom to spare at the shallowest place. The Fortune entered without difficulty, but the deeply-laden Francis grounded midway in and had to wait several hours for the ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... These silver mists shall melt away And dew the woods with glittering spray. Then in broad lustre shall be shown That mighty trench of living stone. And each huge trunk that from the side, Reclines him o'er the darksome tide, Where Tees, full many a fathom low, Wears with his rage no common foe; Nor pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here, Nor clay-mound checks his fierce career, Condemned to mine a channelled way O'er ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... when one attempts to fathom the mysteries surrounding the origin and migrations of the Negrito race he becomes hopelessly involved in a labyrinth of conjecture. Did the Negritos come from somewhere in Asia, some island like New Guinea, or is their original home now sunk beneath the sea? ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... killed her, but for this hound of hers. My fellows have him tight and safe, as you see: but I was thinking by your leave to lodge him with you, yours being the nearest house for the safe keeping of such. But the plague is," says he, "there seems to be more in the business than I can fathom: for one half of these drenched villains take the man's part, while scarce one of them seems too well disposed towards the lady: although to my knowledge she has worked more than any ten of them ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... amazement. But she wasted no time, throwing off her jacket with a quick twist of her wrist. Later she might fathom the tortuosities of her tyrant's mind. All she knew now was that she might dance. With whom was a ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... not bother about trying to fathom Jim's little secret. He fancied that it would all be made plain shortly; certainly when they happened upon the stern old man who was day after day cheating himself out of happiness, by refusing to let bygones be bygones, and ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... and the causes not difficult to fathom. The fact was, that Godolphin had now arrived at that period of existence when a man's character is almost invariably subject to great change; the crisis in life's fever, when there is a new turn in our fate, and our moral death or regeneration is sealed by the silent ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... such ideas; but the soul wearies of a pauseless flight; and, stooping from its wheeling circuits round and round this spot, suddenly it fell ten thousand fathom deep, into the abyss of the present— into self-knowledge—into tenfold sadness. I roused myself—I cast off my waking dreams; and I, who just now could almost hear the shouts of the Roman throng, and was hustled by countless multitudes, now beheld the desart ruins of Rome sleeping under its own ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... which a lover is waiting with a feast? It is better for him not to hear such things, for he is ready to go mad. He would not have given that girl for all Caesar's treasures, and she fled. What kind of love is that which dreads delight and gives pain? Who can understand it? Who can fathom it? Were it not for the hope that he should find her, he would sink a sword in himself. Love surrenders; it does not take away. There were moments at the house of Aulus when he himself believed in near happiness, but now he knows that she hated him, that she hates him, and will ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the rocks in three-fathom water, watching the pollock catch prawns, and the wrasses nibble barnacles off the rocks, shells and all, when he saw a round cage of green withes; and inside it, looking very much ashamed of himself, sat his friend the lobster, twiddling ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... you with a scrutinizing gaze, Resolved to fathom these your secret ways: But, sift them as I will, Your ways ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... conducted thither by certain English mariners which had been there with our Captain, in some of his former voyages. He had now left a plate of lead, nailed fast to a mighty great tree (greater than any four men joining hands could fathom about) on which were engraven these words, directed ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... first week in August found them harboured at Eastport. They stayed there four days, not so much because the place abounded in interest as because the Adventurer, who had behaved splendidly for several hundred miles, suddenly refused to go another fathom. Steve said he guessed the engine needed a good overhauling, and Perry chortled and offered his services to Joe to help take it apart. But Joe, in spite of his invaluable and ever-present hand-book, acknowledged his limitations, and the job went to a professional and the Adventurer ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... soldiers during every campaign, which none endeavor to explain, other than the facts themselves. But as the soldier is nothing more than a small fraction of the whole of a great machine, so much happens that he cannot fathom nor explain, that it naturally makes a great number of soldiers, like the sailor, somewhat superstitious. But when we speak of moral courage, where is there a courage more sublime than the soldier marching, as he thinks, to his certain death, while all his comrades are taking their chances ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... being a big trout—at least until it lay gasping on the bank at his feet—was as unshaken after long years of mistaken calculation as when first he sallied forth to the babbling brook with a willow branch, a fathom of twine, ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... same distance from the junction of lagoon and river, we had our swimming-place. On an acre or two of grass and moss, removed from any habitation, grew a score of lofty cocoas, and under these we threw off our pareus or trousers and shirts. The bank of the stream was a fathom from the water which was brackish at high tide and sweet at low. With a short run and a curving leap we plunged into the flowing water. It was refreshing at the hottest hour. The Tahitians seldom dived head first, as we did, but jumped feet ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... chap it was not easy to fathom at first sight. He resembled his father slightly, but he was larger and better built, although somewhat too flat across the chest. He seemed to affect a drawl, and the grasp of his ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... incomprehensible to him. Why under heaven had she done it? How could one so sensitive have done a wanton cruel thing like this? Her reason he could not fathom. The facts that confronted him were that she had done it, and had meant to carry the crime through. Only detection had changed ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... my word, that then the reins were not held in. The lances they had were not light, but were big and square; nor were they planed smooth, but were rough and strong. Upon the shields with mighty strength they smote each other with their sharp weapons, so that a fathom of each lance passes through the gleaming shields. But neither touches the other's flesh, nor was either lance cracked; each one, as quickly as he could, draws back his lance, and both rushing together, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... took together Steve asked Miss Grace how she happened to come from her home way up in New York down to Kentucky to teach mountain boys and girls, and she was silent a moment, a look which he could not fathom coming over her bright face. At last she said, "I was very foolish; I threw away happiness. Then I heard of this work and came here that I might redeem my life ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... civilization. On the Solomon Islands there are some petty reef communities which occupy themselves solely with fishing and making shell-bead money.[319] On New Britain divarra is made by boring and stringing fathoms of shell money. A fathom is worth two shillings sterling, and two hundred and fifty fathoms coiled up together looks like a life buoy.[320] In the northwestern Solomon Islands the currency consists of beasts' teeth of two kinds,—those of a kind of flying dog and of a kind of dolphin. Each ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... too, at length was found, and the smith forged the necessary length of chain. Then, taking advantage of a favourable day, when breeze sufficient blew to reveal the tell-tale spot of calm water, the treasure-hunter started in his boat, leaving one end of the chain on shore and paying out fathom after fathom as his boat swept round the calm and again reached shore. Now hitching the yauds to one end and the oxen to the other, the animals were cautiously started by the twin drivers. Slowly the chain swept over the bed of the lough, and tightened, fast ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... got no breath to waste in hollering," he panted. "Why, there's a good fathom and a half or two fathom o' water under her keel, and if I slack out down she'll go. Wants a couple o' boats to back in, one on each side, and get a rope under her thwarts. They could get her ashore then. Oh, dear! oh, dear! ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... than that section just considered was dealt with. Each station consisted of one chief officer, one chief boatman, two commissioned boatmen, and four established boatmen. There was a six-oared boat with her rudder and wash-boards—"wash-streaks" they are officially called—a five-fathom rope as a light painter, eight good ash oars, two boat-hooks. She was a sailing craft, for she was provided with a fore-mast, main-mast, and mizzen-mast, with "haul-yards," travellers, down-hauls, sheets, &c. Her canvas consisted ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... "But I can't quite fathom him," confessed Hodge. "If ever I saw a deceptive young scoundrel, it's that chap. At times he's so meek and modest that he dazes me. At other times he's so flippant and forward that I want to collar him and shake him ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... explicable but unexplained. The most formidable men are her friends, and why? Nobody dares to fathom the mystery. Then is this person the lion ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... regions of scientific reality, he would not allow himself to be drawn into the regions of the strange and almost of the supernatural; but yet how to explain why Top, one of those sensible dogs who never waste their time in barking at the moon, should persist in trying with scent and hearing to fathom this abyss, if there was nothing there to cause his uneasiness? Top's conduct puzzled Cyrus Harding even more than he cared ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... quick to note the contemptuous tone in her voice, and he gave her a keen, searching look as if he were trying to read her thoughts and fathom the reason for her very ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... money. He had learned of Mrs. Amos purchasing the ranch and paying for it in gold, and wondered at the time. Then he thought that perhaps Amos was trying to throw him off the purchase of the mine in order to secure the property himself. There was a mystery somewhere he could not fathom. ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... a short sail round the cliff. Just as they were putting in to the shore, the wind shifted with a sudden gust, the boat listed over, and it was thought they were both drowned. How it could have happened was beyond his mind to fathom, for John Green knew how to sail a boat as well as ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... writes] we always found more shallow water, and the sea thick, black, and very muddy, and came at length into five fathom water; and seeing this we determined to pass over to the land which we had seen on the other side, and here likewise we found as little depth or less, whereupon we rode all night in five fathom water, and we perceived the sea to run with so ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... so was the nightgown that he wore, instead of coat and waistcoat, over his ragged shirt. He was long unshaved; but what most distressed and even daunted me, he would neither take his eyes away from me nor look me fairly in the face. What he was, whether by trade or birth, was more than I could fathom; but he seemed most like an old, unprofitable serving-man, who should have been left in charge of that big ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... matter-of-fact (pre-Raphaelite) school of this country, we find the same absence of abstract truth, together with a painful stiffness, and the want of a sense for beauty. We are not sufficiently practical artists to fathom the difficulty, but it seems to us to arise from the absence of one of the most prominent elements of beauty and interest to be found in the universe, namely, mystery. If, in the metaphysical world, with our ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... necessary to cease paddling, during which the boat lost considerable way, I was unwilling to discourage the men, and reluctantly gave up my intention of ascertaining the depth and the character of the bed. There was a general shout in the boat when we found ourselves in one fathom, and we soon after landed on a low point of mud, immediately under the butte of the peninsula, where we unloaded the boat, and carried the baggage about a quarter of a mile to firmer ground. We arrived just in time for meridian observation, and carried the barometer to ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... branches, as sailors climb. I next taught them to use the lasso, a powerful weapon, by aid of which the people of South America capture savage animals. I fixed two balls of lead to the ends of a cord about a fathom in length. The Patagonians, I told them, used this weapon with wonderful dexterity. Having no leaden balls, they attach a heavy stone to each end of a cord about thirty yards long. If they wish to ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... "Who can fathom human enmity, or the ingenious cunning of the evil-doer?" asked the grey-faced rector quite calmly. "Have you never stopped to wonder at the marvellous ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... imagination of the twentieth century cannot fathom the poverty of the eighteenth. The great development of mines and manufactures, which has brought ease and independence within the reach of industrious labour everywhere, had hardly begun; employment was so scarce and intermittent, and wages were so low, that the working classes ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... humble writer. For the western country, as a hardy and profitable stock of thrifty hogs, the Berkshire mixed or crossed with the Poland China, would be my choice, but every man has his own notions concerning the breed of his stock. The main point is to keep them healthy. Please fathom these instructions, which will cost you no ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... to our room, and asked us if we knew John Wollam. We hesitated to answer, as we could not fathom the motives of the inquiry. But even while we deliberated among ourselves, John came up, and ended our doubts by greeting us heartily. He had been parted from us some three weeks, and in that time had suffered most incredible hardships in the manner ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... thus solely with surfaces. It can name the thickness of reality, but it cannot fathom it, and its insufficiency here is essential ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... to fathom the mental capacity and the mental processes of some of the highest mammals, there is the same superior degree of interest attaching to the study of wild species that the ethnologist finds in the study ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... opposite corner the doll sat staring at them with eyes of blank blue and her vacuous smile. A vague sense of injury was over Ellen, in spite of her delight and her gratitude—a sense of injury which she could not fathom, and for which she chided herself. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... is that?" demanded the skipper of the Gull, as our boom-end came within a fathom of his rail, our name being ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... additional fact to record among the errors of the human mind, and a great experiment on the strength of the imagination." Over that vast inquiry of the influence of mind over matter, — an inquiry which the embodied intellect of mankind will never be able to fathom completely, — it will, at least, have thrown a feeble and imperfect light. It will have afforded an additional proof of the strength of the unconquerable will, and the weakness of matter as compared with it; another illustration of the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... to Roderick's heart, but he had to master his own agony a moment, in the effort to support Pauline who had utterly broken down. When she had recovered sufficiently, he protested tenderly that there was a mystery in all this which he was unable to fathom, and entreated her to help him discover it by telling him minutely all that had happened since they had last met. She gradually summoned strength and composure enough to do so, relating in detail ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... seeing that 'tis the custom of the country to eat off the floor and sit upon nothing. A pot to cook victuals in is about all we need in that way. But how we are to get anything to cook in it is one mystery, and" (clacking his tongue) "what we are going to drink is another, neither of which I can fathom. For, look you, Senor, if one may judge of men's characters by their faces or of their means by their habitations, we may dance our legs off ere ever these Moors will bestow a penny piece upon us, and as for their sour milk, I'd as lief drink hemlock, and liefer. Now, if this ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... what the lead reported. I felt my voice shaking and the leadsman's voice shook a bit too as he called back that he had found the bottom with the red seventeen fathom mark. Half a minute later he sang out that his line had lost it. I was just about calling to let go anchor when away on our starboard bow we heard the pilots hailing. We sent up a flare, and at sight of it the lighthousemen, ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... had read of such things in books; were there such things actually in the family, and she had never known of them? A few hours ago and she had been unable to think of anything but her first ball, her new dress, her flowers; but she was seized now with the most intense desire to fathom this mystery. That it bid fair to be a sad mystery only made her more eager and curious. She was so young, so ignorant, there was still a halo of romance about those unknown things, trouble ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... your dreamy, tranquil life, How can you fathom the rage and strife, The blinding envy, the burning smart, That, worm-like, gnaws the Maestro's heart When he sees another snatch the prize Out from under his very eyes, For which he would barter his soul? You see I taught him his art from first to last: Whatever he was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... converted into such clinging slush by a few minutes' rain. Then immediately below, for eight feet or so, there is a curious soil full of stones and debris, which must mean something geologically, but which no one can explain. Finally, at about a fathom and a half there is a sea of despond—the real and solid substratum, thick, tightly bound clay, which has to be pared off in thin slices just as you would do with very old cheese. This is work ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... there, and glancing upwards from the street as the carriage drove off, I waved my hand to the slim black figure at the window, whose wan, weary eyes watched our departure with an expression which at the time I could not fathom. It was not until I was actually in the train that I remembered what Lady Delahaye's silent departure might mean ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... high advantage of their assistance and counsel in the labor of self-culture, to which he now addressed himself with wonted energy. Yet, these gentlemen, although proud of Frederick Douglass, failed to fathom, and bring out to the light of day, the highest qualities of his mind; the force of their own education stood in their own way: they did not delve into the mind of a colored man for capacities which the pride of race led them to believe to be restricted to their own Saxon blood. Bitter and vindictive ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... old one, and daddy's having a new shirt made out of the old sheet, and mammy's making a new sheet out of the old table-cloth.' But 'twistings and turnings' of a marvellous kind there must have been, which the male understanding could not fathom; for while the house was always in order, and the two ladies looked as neat as if they had just stepped out of a bandbox, no bills came in, and a little money ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... see at a glance that the style of this message, from beginning to end, is not Charles Brad-laugh's. Whose style it is we cannot say. We do not pretend to fathom the arcana of Spiritualism. It may be Mr. Reedmam's, it may be another's. If it be Mr. Reedman's, he must have been guilty of fraud or the victim of deception. Three distinct hypotheses are possible. Either someone else produced or concocted the message while ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... and each, seating himself on the only two deal chairs, laughed immoderately at my doleful complaints. The gaunt Norwegian, the owner of this humble dwelling, made such comical grimaces, and winked his little eyes so frequently and eruditely, in endeavouring to fathom their mirth, that I could not restrain myself, and took a conspicuous part in the joke. After arranging, through King, who had come with us, as forming one of the boat's crew, where and how we should sleep, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... above the surface of the lake, and in the hand was a fair sword that gleamed in the level rays of the setting sun. "This is a great marvel," said the King, "what may it mean?" And Merlin made answer: "Deep is this mere, so deep indeed that no man may fathom it; but in its depths, and built upon the roots of the mountains, is the palace of the Lady of the Lake. Powerful is she with a power that works ever for good, and she shall help thee in thine hour of need. For thee has she ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... Ramon Mansford stood within the vestibule of the former's home. Ramon's arm was around Alene's waist and her beautiful black eyes were upturned to his, as if to say, "Fathom the love we tell of, if you can." Down stoops Ramon and plants a fervent, lingering kiss upon the lips of the girl he loves, saying, ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... hints like those Chrysophrasia had let fall, that he should place himself in such a position as to defy insults instead of being obliged to bear them quietly; and the conviction brought home to him by Hermione's words had resulted in his immediate departure, with the determination to fathom the mystery, and to clear himself forever, or to sacrifice his love in ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... habit—that her ease was the result of life-long practice. Sometimes he found his own consciousness of her steady gaze almost unbearable. He always turned to meet her deep eyes fixed upon him with an expression he could not fathom. Frequently he thought it an expression of dislike—of secret resentment—of subtle defiance. There came at last a time when he knew that he turned toward her again and again because he felt ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... some of the thoughts that surged through Van's mind as he and Bob settled themselves into their places on the train and began the attempt to fathom the reams of directions Mr. Blake had sent them; pages and pages there were of what to do and what not to do on the long trip, the letter closing with ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... now she could not ask them from that bowed head, nor yet from those clasped hands. And yet, somehow, it seemed that something of the man's soul was revealed to her at this moment, though she could not as yet fathom the meaning of this ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... is their home. There, the place to which every race on earth sends a representative, the pulse of the whole world is throbbing. There, whoever does not run with the rest is run over; there, but one thing is important—actual life. Science has undertaken to fathom it, and the results which it gains with measures and numbers is of a different value and more lasting than that which the idle sport of the intellects of the older philosophers obtained. But art, her nobler sister, must pursue the same paths. To copy life as it is, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... confidences, but this matter of Annabel Summerhayes was one which her father had forbidden Rose to mention; and around the memory of her mother there had grown a mystery which the girl was unable to fathom. ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... have trouble with the little 'un," said Master Polwhele to his captain. "She don't draw half a fathom more than we do. No good running inside the shoals. And with this wind, she has the foot ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... that his silent unknown foe held the clue to the mystery he was trying to fathom. He fought on, silently, grimly. The cold creatoid fabric was slippery, but a sudden jerk of an arm, a certain quick twist that Grant was familiar with, and his enemy went limp. Grant's breath was coming in quick, labored gasps. There was very little air left ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... notice, for in these earliest works Shakespeare is compelled to use his personal experience, to tell us of his own life and his own feelings, not having any wider knowledge to draw upon. Every word, therefore, in these first comedies, is important to those who would learn the story of his youth and fathom the idiosyncrasies of his being. When AEgeon, in the opening scenes, tells the Duke about the shipwreck in which he is separated from his wife and child, he declares that he himself "would gladly have embraced immediate death." No reason ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... by the poorest rabble of poor gallery scramblers—could I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours—and the delicious Thank God, we are safe, which always followed when the topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful theatre down beneath us—I know not the fathom line that ever touched a descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than Croesus had, or the great Jew R—— is supposed to have, to purchase it. And now do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding an umbrella, big enough ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Music can be easily described in dry technical language, the language which deals in 'discords and their resolutions,' but that does not express its influence upon ourselves. No language can do that, for it is an attempt to fathom the infinite. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... with shame that my ideas on the subject are distressingly vague. I could never appreciate the poetry or the humor of making one's wrists ache by knocking to pieces gloomy-looking stones, or in dirtying one's fingers by analyzing soils, in a vain attempt to fathom the osteology or anatomy of our beloved earth, though my heart is thrillingly alive to the faintest shade of color and the infinite variety of styles in which she delights to robe her ever-changeful and ever-beautiful surface. ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... ere the article wanted could be passed along, the old boatswain had drawn out his from his waistband by means of the lanyard slung round his neck, and was busily employed in cutting up the signal halliards into short lengths of about a fathom each. ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... left, Glown-a-Coppal, the "Horse's Glen," invites the adventurous to fathom its depths. The dark lakes lying in its shadows are shoreless, but for the gloomy rocks which overhang the water's edge. Where the ground becomes more broken and rugged, suddenly a less inaccessible path arises, and leads to the Devil's Punch Bowl, a dark tarn, beset with strange echoes that ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... latitude of Ceylon, where the appearance of the flying fish excited the special wonder of the khan, who was by this time beginning, under the tuition of his fellow passengers, to make some progress in the English language, and had even attempted to fathom some of the mysteries of the science of navigation; "but though I took the sextant which the captain handed me, and held it precisely as he had done, I could make nothing of it." The regular performance of the Church ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... maze. What I have heard, Is plain, thou sayst: but wherefore God this way For our redemption chose, eludes my search. "Brother! no eye of man not perfected, Nor fully ripen'd in the flame of love, May fathom this decree. It is a mark, In sooth, much aim'd at, and but little kenn'd: And I will therefore show thee why such way Was worthiest. The celestial love, that spume All envying in its bounty, in itself With such effulgence blazeth, as sends ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... with," Slim answered, "there were forty fat pigs, each worth a fathom of prime shell-money, and shell-money worth a quid a fathom. That was two hundred dollars right there. There were ninety-eight fathoms of shell-money, which is pretty close to five hundred in itself. And there were twenty-two gold sovereigns. I split ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... Possibly she loves you deeply, only you do not believe it. Gauged by a woman's love, many men love, marry, and die, without even approximating the real grand passion themselves, or comprehending that which they have inspired, for no one but a woman can fathom a woman's love." ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... comedy after comedy, until I wrote you something that would run. You do me justice when you give me credit for good intentions; but the extent of my good-will and strong and warm interest in you personally and your great undertaking, you cannot fathom ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... wandered around the city awhile. In his paraNormal days he had never noticed them but it certainly was true that there were a lot of Suspendeds about. He studied some of them as he went along, trying to fathom their likes and dislikes by the way they moved and their expressions. But, unlike the paraNormals, each was different and it was impossible to see deeply ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner
... on the edge of a crevasse and disappears. His soul dropped into the frozen cleft that one cannot fathom." ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... where the rope was got, and doubt if I much cared. It was not that which gravelled me, but whether, now that we had it, it would serve our turn. Its length, indeed, we made a shift to fathom out; but who was to tell us how that length compared with the way we had to go? Day after day, there would be always some of us stolen out to the Devil's Elbow and making estimates of the descent, whether by a bare guess or the dropping of stones. A private ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from tawny jaws breathed flame of blazing fire, and with bronze hoofs smote the earth in alternate steps, and had led them and yoked them single-handed, he marked out in a line straight furrows, and for a fathom's length clave the back of the loamy earth; then he spake thus: 'This work let your king, whosoever he be that hath command of the ship, accomplish me, and then let him bear away with him the imperishable coverlet, the fleece glittering with tufts ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... "Three fathom o' water here, my lad," whispered Josh, as with his companion he leaned over the side and gazed ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... these dark comets should overtake the earth and strike it, the velocity of impact would be about eight miles per second; but if it should meet the earth in a head-on collision, the speed, when it struck, would be forty-five miles per second, a momentum beyond the power of the brain to fathom—indeed, man can not think of sixty miles per minute. Let a solid nucleous collide with the earth and imagination would reel at ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... craggy rocks, And thickets intricate, trembling he views His footsteps in the sand; the dismal road And avenue to death. Hither he calls 230 His watchful bands; and low into the ground A pit they sink, full many a fathom deep. Then in the midst a column high is reared, The butt of some fair tree; upon whose top A lamb is placed, just ravished from his dam. And next a wall they build, with stones and earth Encircling round, and hiding from all view ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Whately have seen clear into the man's cruel, cunning little mind, she would have been unutterably shocked at the ugly motives contending there. But she couldn't see. She was made for sunshine and quiet ways. She could never fathom the gloom. It was from her father that Marjie inherited all that strong will and courage and power to walk as bravely in the shadows as in the light, ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... with Edith Franks. Edith took an interest in her; she still believed that there was something behind the scenes—something which she could not quite fathom—but at the same time she fully and with an undivided heart believed in Florence's great genius, as ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... sad intensity in the eyes, as if trying to fathom any nether thought that he might have. It must have seemed to her at first that he was mocking her, but his words brought her the only relief from her self-upbraiding she had known. To suffer kindness from Miss Kingsbury would be ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... 1. The people were brought into the Hall, and enjoyed their meal with great appetites, being also treated to a glass of wine and a fathom of tobacco ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... uncanniness there is no doubt. We do not, and never shall, fathom the depth of a Chinaman's brain. After mutually looking at the same object from widely-different points of view we express our ideas, talk them over and invite criticism, while he—is silent. He listens ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... north side, thirty-odd miles from the mouth, they came to a certain peninsula, an island at high water. Two or three miles long, less than a mile and a half in breadth, at its widest place composed of marsh and woodland, it ran into the river, into six fathom water, where the ships might be moored to the trees. It was this convenient deep water that determined matters. Here came to anchor the Susan Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery. Here the colonists went ashore. Here the members of the Council were sworn, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... secrets to themselves, and I think you will agree with me it was in the highest degree consonant with justice that we should make them reveal them all to us." Small wonder that we missed this vital point, that we failed to fathom the force behind the German chemical war, if such an eminent authority was left groping for the truth. There was no time for mature reflection with the problems of war supply pressing forward in an endless stream. Lord ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... He, the charm of the town, in age scarce more than a stripling:— (He was acquainted with life, and knew the wants of his hearers, Fully convinced of the worth of the Holy Scriptures, whose mission Is to reveal man's fate, his inclinations to fathom; He was also well read in the best of secular writings.) "I don't like to find fault with any innocent impulse Which in the mind of man Dame Nature has ever implanted; For what reason and intellect ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... swept by her unheeded now. Why had not God been merciful to her, that she could have died there upon the sea, she thought. Ah, poor humanity never learns His mercy; perhaps it is because we have no measure by which to fathom its mighty depths. She saw herself old and lonely, forgotten but not forgetting. But even then lacked she not opportunity; woman-like, in spite of her constancy, she took a melancholy pleasure in the thought that there was one still who ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... not think we have seen the last of our troubles, though why he should take a gloomy view of the situation is more than I can fathom, since every one else on board considers that we have had a miraculous escape, and are sure now to ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... between all animals. He tried hard to conceive of some underlying natural cause by which all could have come about. As he grew older and his mind became more cautious he came to think the matter deeper than the human mind could ever fathom. He gave up the hope and believed the problem of animal origin and derivation would forever remain insoluble. He feared there was not in man the power to conceive his ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... remained in the breakfast-room, still nursing her injured companion, and very busy with her own thoughts. She was as convinced now that Tom had been true to her as if she had had the assurance from his own lips. Still there was much that was unaccountable—much which she was unable to fathom. A vague sense of the wickedness around her depressed and weighed her down. What deep scheme could these men have invented to keep him away from her during these long weeks? Was he, too, under some delusion, or the victim of some conspiracy? Whatever had been done was certainly connived ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to become reconciled to such a condition of affairs. No one seemed interested enough to fathom the reason for it, except a certain young peasant, named Micah, who had a home in the town of Moresheth, and was the proud possessor of several well-paying olive groves and vineyards ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... went out into the street, into the sunlight, into the busy world around him; but from that time forth a shadow rested on his young life that had never darkened it before,—a shadow whose cause he could not fathom and whose gloom he ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... and euen the roofe of the church was painted ful of images. The chiefe image was of our Ladie, which was garnished with gold, rubies, saphirs and other rich stones abundantly. In the midst of the church stood 12. waxe tapers of two yards long, and a fathom about in bignesse, and there stands a kettle full of waxe with about 100. weight, wherein there is alwayes the wicke of a candle burning, as it were a lampe which goeth not ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... on high in masses huge and dense; Where camest thou? thou ragged ball thrown out from time, and whence Doth thou intend to fathom realms of endless space and years? Art weary of thy dizzy flights? ...
— Poems - A Message of Hope • Mary Alice Walton
... Man cannot give assurance that sin is pardoned; in other words, man cannot absolve: but still the heart craves human assurance of forgiveness. What truth have we got to supply that craving? We shall therefore, rather try to fathom the deeps of the positive truth which is the true reply to the error; we shall try to see whether there is not a real answer to the craving contained in the Redeemer's words, "The Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins." What power is there in human forgiveness? What does ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... the cautious chin of an old man plunged into a situation which he could not fathom. "Would it not be better to consult the police first?" ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... of his madness and his folly; and not the thinnest phantom shadow of time divided him from the days of Harmouth, That moment of recognition annihilated all between; a lustre of his life swept away in one sweep of her eyelids, dropped fathom deep and forgotten in the gaze of her pure and tender eyes. It was not the Lucia of their last meeting; the tragic and terrible Lucia who had been so divided from him by her suffering and her grief. As she had ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... fond, almost a uxorious husband. The first burst of his wrath had long since passed away, and he was not disposed severely to censure what could not now be amended. The wily Lady Calista, accustomed from her earliest childhood to fathom the intrigues of a court, and watch the indications of a sovereign's will, hastened back to the Queen with the speed of a lapwing, charged with the King's commands that she should expect a speedy visit from him; ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... answered, 'I remember your wife very well. I could pick her out from ten thousand, but I have never seen her yet in the City of Light. You may, my dear friend, cherish only an illusion, and yet I am half willing to agree with you; such intuitive feelings have a deeper philosophy of truth than we can fathom, and no laughing skepticism, no mere frivolous doubt can expel them. Wait, my friend; it may yet be meant for you to meet her. And now I do recall some accounts told me of occasional visitants to Mars entering its life at different points; many indeed have been received ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... water had almost filled the level where it occurred, and, sweeping onward about eight fathoms to a winze, plunged down and partly over it. The greater part, however, went down to the eighty-five fathom level. East of this a man named Anguin, with his two sons, William and James—youths of about twenty years of age—were at work. They heard the roar of the approaching torrent, and the father and younger son James rushed towards the winze, intending to ascend the ladder. Before ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... framed some trifling excuse, at the same time darting significant glances at Wieland, as if to caution him against disclosing the truth. My brother said nothing, but delivered himself up to meditation. I likewise was silent, but burned with impatience to fathom this mystery. Presently my brother and his wife, and Louisa, returned home. Pleyel proposed, of his own accord, to be my guest for the night. This circumstance, in addition to those which preceded, gave new edge ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... everything but what fear constrain them to keep; crafty, timorous, quick of apprehension, ingenious enough in their own works, as may testify their weirs in which they take their fish, which are certain enclosures made of reeds and framed in the fashion of a labyrinth or maze set a fathom deep in the water with divers chambers or beds out of which the entangled fish cannot return or get out, being once in. Well may a great one by chance break the reeds and so escape, otherwise he remains a prey to the fishermen ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... said; "if you signal to them to veer out some more rope I could soon do it. I could not swim across the tide now, but if it were twenty fathom further ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty |
