"Penetration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... women do pretty children, without thinking about it or knowing how it was done. He is a great talent, a born talent, and I never saw the true poetical power greater in any man than in him. In the apprehension of external objects, and a clear penetration into past situations, he is quite as great as Shakspeare. But as a pure individuality, Shakspeare is his superior. This was felt by Byron, and on this account he does not say much of Shakspeare, although ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... can pierce; so that a thing is called dull through being obtuse and unable to pierce. Now a bodily sense, by a kind of metaphor, is said to pierce the medium, in so far as it perceives its object from a distance or is able by penetration as it were to perceive the smallest details or the inmost parts of a thing. Hence in corporeal things the senses are said to be acute when they can perceive a sensible object from afar, by sight, hearing, or scent, while on the other hand they are said to be dull, through ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... large official-looking document from his pocket; "and I sincerely hope that you will not only accept it, but that also, with such friendly help as I may be able to afford you, you will rapidly distinguish yourself and do credit to my penetration in selecting you ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... amperage) are often not nearly so important in regard to the effects on the body, as the area, duration, and location of the points of contact with the current, and the resistance offered by clothing and dry skin to the penetration of the electricity. ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... the highest sense of intellectual penetration, kindness may be a folly, and intended ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... congratulate you on your keen artistic perception! I believe you are the only person, besides myself, who has hitherto been struck by those definite but undefinable traits of similarity. Mr. van Koppen may well be proud of your penetration—" ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... conference which convened at Algeciras, Spain, in December, 1905, for the purpose of adjusting the very serious dispute that had arisen between France and Germany over the status of Morocco. France had been engaged for some years in the peaceful penetration of Morocco. By the terms of the Entente of 1904 England recognized Morocco as being within the French sphere of influence and France agreed to recognize England's position in Egypt. The German Kaiser had no idea of permitting any part of the world to be divided up without ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... become acquainted with humanity, and gotten on intimate terms with life. He had haunted the waysides and markets to good purpose; he had laid the foundation of those qualities which characterize his best work: mastery of expression, penetration into character, the ability to look upon a face and read the thoughts that lurk behind, the crouching passions, and all the aspirations too great for speech. To picture great men you must be a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... himself to a circle apparently so much more barren; what warmth of creative genius must have been necessary to have forced from its apparent aridity a fresh growth of luxuriant bloom, unhoped for in such a soil! What intuitive penetration is repealed by this exclusive choice, which, wresting the different effects of the various instruments from their habitual domain, where the whole foam of sound would have broken at their feet, transported ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... life, reckless of human suffering, he gazed only with his enquiring glance of profound penetration, hoping to espy something, whereby he might learn the fate—not of his messenger, that was to him a matter of supreme indifference—but ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... she said, "is a man of a good deal of penetration and judgment, and if you could get one of those sisters to come here and write for you I should like it very much; and if the first one did not suit, you could try another without trouble or expense. The fact that you had a good many strings to your ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... surprised to the greatest degree. So much penetration, so much frankness, created admiration, but did not entirely remove his suspicions. The more this young man was superior to others, the more he was to be dreaded if he meant to deceive him; "You are an honest youth; but at the present moment I can only do for you that which ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... bored into those of the Intelligence Director. They were noted for their icy penetration, but upon this night they were like steel knives. It was as though he surveyed Hillerman from behind the bulwark of some new and hostile information. Even as he stared, Cargill was booming ...
— The Clean and Wholesome Land • Ralph Sholto
... her schoolboy brother. Seemingly a prey to the fateful maiden meditations which baffle a father's penetration and even a mother's sagacity, it was impossible to be certain whether it was the lamplight that cast those shadows that flitted over her face like thin clouds over a bright sky, or whether they were passing shades of ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... his full rig of sou'-wester, oilskins, and long boots; and I have often heard it described how insinuatingly he carried himself on these appearances, artfully combining the extreme of deference with a blunt and seamanlike demeanour. My father and uncles, with the devilish penetration of the boy, were far from being deceived; and my father, indeed, was favoured with an object-lesson not to be mistaken. He had crept one rainy night into an apple-barrel on deck, and from this place of ambush overheard Soutar and a comrade conversing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a number of verse criticisms of contemporary writers, which he calls Snapshots. These display considerable penetration; perhaps the following ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... of necessity possess the same properties. We could not imagine an exact identity of composition giving rise to two bodies entirely different in their sensible appearance and chemical relations. The most ingenious philosophers entertained the opinion that chemical combination is an inter-penetration of the particles of different kinds of matter, and that all matter is susceptible of infinite division. This has proved to be altogether a mistake. If matter were infinitely divisible in this sense, its particles must be imponderable, ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig
... It needed no great penetration to guess who it was to whom he owed his humiliation. So he armed himself with a ruler in one hand and the parcel in the other, and walked over ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... ideas that those advances in cytology were made; and though the doctrine of the continuity of germ-plasm cannot be maintained in the form originally propounded, it is in the main true and illuminating. (It is interesting to see how nearly Butler was led by natural penetration, and from absolutely opposite conclusions, back to this underlying truth: "So that each ovum when impregnate should be considered not as descended from its ancestors, but as being a continuation of the personality ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... abilities. The mother wrote to Wieck a letter which is highly creditable to her heart and judgment, and Wieck's reply is equally creditable to him as a friend and teacher. Evidently his powers of penetration led him to entertain the highest hopes for Schumann. Among other things he writes that, with due diligence, Robert should in a few years become one of the greatest pianists of the day. Why Wieck's hopes in this particular were not fulfilled, and why, ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... Lucy's natural penetration and habit of attending to faces rather than words came to her aid. "Wait a minute, Mrs. Wilson," said she; "I think there is some misunderstanding here. Perhaps the fault is mine. And yet I remember ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... nation to grant concessions. It backs up a bank which has financed a company to build railroads or develop the internal resources of a country; or to exploit mines or oil-fields, or to do those thousand-and-one things which constitute what is called "peaceful penetration." Think of the recent dealings with Turkey,[16] and the international rivalry, always suspicious and inflammatory, which has practically divided up her Asiatic dominions between European States—so that Armenia is to belong to Russia, Syria to France, Arabia to Great Britain, ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... arrived, and had short conversations with Mr. Nyttleton—terse, and to the point. Miss Aldclyffe neither moved nor spoke during this proceeding; it might have been supposed that she was quite unmindful of it, had it not been for what was revealed by a keen penetration of the veil covering her countenance—the rays from two bright black eyes, directed towards the lawyer ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... genius, who in his old age instructed some of the most splendid singers in the history of the lyric stage. He also married one of the most gifted and most beautiful divas of Europe, Faustina Bordoni. The following anecdote does equal credit to Hasse's heart and penetration: In after-years, when he had left England, he was again sent for to take Handel's place as conductor of opera and oratorio. Hasse inquired, "What! is Handel dead?" On being told no, he indignantly refused, saying he was not worthy to tie ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... wonderful man. Sometimes I have endeavoured to discover what quality it is which he possesses that elevates him so immeasurably above any other person I ever knew. I believe it to be an intuitive discernment, a quick but never-failing power of judgment, a penetration into the causes of things, unequalled for clearness and precision; add to this a facility of expression and a voice whose varied intonations are ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... in Ethne which he had so readily taken to himself. Signs of the necessary something more than friendship—so he had accounted them, and he was right so far. But it was not he who had inspired them. His very penetration and insight had led him astray. He was silent for a few minutes, and Mrs. Adair searched his face in the moonlight for some evidence that he resented Ethne's secrecy. But ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... considerable depth in the filtering material, so that the runs gradually decreased in length until they were reduced to about three days. Unfortunately, it was necessary to use unfiltered water for washing, which, together with the great penetration from the applied water, finally made it necessary to remove all the filtering materials, and ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... may tell me, the young people are taught to be Christians. It may be want of penetration, but I have not yet been able to perceive it. As an honest man, whatever we teach, and be it good or evil, it is not the doctrine of Christ. What He taught (and in this He is like all other teachers worthy of the name) ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hope you mistake her! I cannot believe it possible, for I recall nothing in her conduct that justifies your supposition; and I do not think I lack penetration. If she were really interested in me, as you imagine, she certainly would not thrust so prominently and constantly before me faults of character which she well knows I cannot tolerate. Moreover, my dear sister, consider the disparity in our years, the incompatibility ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... supposed that the law was indulgent and its administration lax. The very reverse was the case. The punishment for sodomy, when completely effected, was death, and it was frequently inflicted. Homosexual intercourse, without evidence of penetration, was regarded as "attempt" and was usually punished by the pillory and a heavy fine, followed by two years' imprisonment. Moreover, it would appear that more activity was shown by the police in prosecution than is nowadays the case; this is, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... suspicious, saw with his usual penetration what was passing within me, and ordered me to go upon the ridge of woods to keep a look-out upon the neighborhood and await the return of the shepherd. I obeyed, of course, stifling the fury that raged within me, though I felt for the moment that he ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... a glance in spite of herself, and, with the intuitive penetration of a woman, intimated that she had come to the same conclusion. The two strangers were both tall, and decidedly gentleman-like young men, whose personal appearance would cause either to be remarked. The one whom ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... exaggeration. Art is not the falsification of nature, but the fuller realization of it. It is the interpretation of nature's truth, the translation of it, divined by the artist, into simpler terms to be read and understood by those of less original insight. The deeper the penetration into the life-force and shaping principle of nature, the greater is ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... course of the day I had an opportunity of observing the watchfulness and penetration of our commandant. A sailing-vessel was quietly at anchor in a small creek. The commandant, perceiving it, immediately ordered the steamer to stop, ordered out a boat, and sent an officer to see what it was doing there. So far everything had gone correctly; ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... of recognition came into his face. Then, like throwing off a garment, Ashton-Kirk allowed the mannerisms he had assumed to drop from him. Osborne at once sat erect with a laugh of pleasure at his own lack of penetration. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... accompanied by a light battery of literary and pictorial criticism, detached from his heavier home armament. Emerson, on the other hand, gives us probably the most masterly and startling analysis of a people which has ever been offered in the same slight bulk, unsurpassed, too, in brilliancy and penetration of statement. But the "English Traits" is as clear, fixed, and accurate as a machinist's plan, and perhaps a little too rigidly defined. Hawthorne's review of England, though not comparable to Emerson's work for analysis, has this advantage, that its outline is more flexible and leaves ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... fine frenzy of her lovely eye as she notes the approach of a woman more gorgeously arrayed than herself, or the triumphant contempt that settles about her lips at the advance of a poorly clad sister. How contemplatively she lingers upon each detail of attire-with what keen penetration she takes in the general ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... of spiritual penetration and intellectual consistency which has kept Mr. Churchill from ever building a very notable realistic plot has kept him from ever creating any very memorable characters. The author of ten novels, immensely popular for more than a score of years, he has to his credit not a single figure—man or woman—generally ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... the musing Blessington; "there is a mystery in this that baffles all my powers of penetration. Were I in possession of the contents of the letters, I might find some clue ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... of prophecy and a property of divinity which has made her an object of fear and worship, it may be well to review the modern explanations of the origin of this unique feminine power. Herbert Spencer was of the opinion that feminine penetration was an ability to distinguish quickly the passing feelings of those around and was the result of long ages of barbarism during which woman as the weaker sex was obliged to resort to the arts of ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... in the life of Solomon which the writer of Ecclesiastes took as the scene and subject of his story. With marvellous penetration and consummate power he penetrates the mind of Solomon and paints the blackness of desolation, the misery of satiety, the dreadful darkness of a soul which has given itself to this ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... friend, Herr Lassalle, who brings you this letter, is a young man of the most remarkable intellectual gifts. With the most thorough erudition, with the widest learning, with the greatest penetration that I have ever known, and with the richest gift of exposition, he combines an energy of will and a capacity for action which astonish me. . . . In no one have I found united so ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... was incontestable, but, while Peter Martyr's perspicacity was quick to grasp the desirability of conciliating the new confessor, it equally divined the barriers forbidding access to the remote, detached Franciscan. In one of his letters he compared the penetration of Ximenes to that of St. Augustine, his austerity to that of St. Jerome, and his zeal for the faith to that of St. Ambrose. Cardinal Ximenes had admirers and detractors, but he had ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... pretence ... he did not care whether he had hurt her or not, for she was a "cry-ba" at all times, ready to "girn" at anything ... but he had sorrow at the thought that he had done something of which his father might have disapproved. Mrs. MacDermott, with that penetration which is part of the nature of people who are accustomed to yield to stronger personalities had discovered that she could win John to her obedience by reminding him of his father; and she used her power without pity. "What would your father think of you, if he knew!" ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... at her reproachfully with that sudden and intimate penetration which was one of his chief spells with women. ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... instructors and the mission of General Liman von Sanders, hoping to perfect its army with the object of assuring its independence against the Russian danger insinuated by Berlin. Germany, however, took advantage of this penetration into the Turkish Army to make that army a weapon ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... style, an odd jumble of dialogue and soliloquy, in which he tries to jerk out his thoughts, as if he would have them known, and yet not have them known. I believe men generally credit themselves with peculiar penetration when they are in the act of being deluded, whether by themselves or by others. Hence, again, the strange and even ludicrous conceit in which Leontes wraps himself. "Not noted, is 't," says he, referring to ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... other reasons which cannot escape your Imperial Majesty's high penetration, you will understand that the immense preponderance of opinion in this country is not and cannot be monarchical. If logic were not sufficient to demonstrate this, it would receive proof from the fact that, in the two months since the allied flags wave over Vera Cruz, and ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... faith, Sebond exerts himself to make comprehensible by arguments of the reason. This book—so Montaigne relates—had been given to his father, at the time when Luther's new doctrines began to be popular, by a man of great reputation for learning, Pierre Bunel, who 'well foresaw, by his penetration, [11] that this budding disease would easily degenerate into an execrable atheism.' Old Pierre Montaigne, a very pious man, esteemed this work very highly; and a few days before his death, having fortunately found it ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... would still lay upon me endless tasks, which he showed considerable ingenuity to fish up and renew, in the manner of Penelope's web. I never refused, as I say, for I was hired to do his bidding; but I took no pains to keep my penetration under a bushel, and would sometimes smile in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... your penetration by telling you what I perceive you are already aware of, that Terence Duffy was the professed admirer of Miss Biddy. The affair with Captain Donovan raised him materially in her estimation, and it was whispered that the hand and fortune of the heiress were destined for her successful champion. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... other than mere worldly things to do. Poverty, wealth, many duties, or many affairs, distract and confuse him.' One sentence more is all that can be added here; and if it seems to be suggested by an aphorism of Bacon, it is equal to it in pith and penetration:—'Every felicity, as well as wife and children, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... fall into your hands, I shall have disappeared, under what circumstances I have not the penetration to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances of my nameless situation tell me that the end is sure and must be early. Go then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned me he was to place ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... intended to resist arrows, and is said to be efficient when the wearer is at long range. At short range, however, it helps only to lessen the penetration, as I had occasion to observe after an attack on the upper Agsan, in which one of my warrior friends was wounded on the shoulder by an arrow. A band of Debabons went to make a demonstration at the house ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... aunt's ears the next day; all that for a dirty little farm-laborer. I had had none of that sensuous delight which both mentally and physically is found in getting into a virgin, had never thought of having her as one, nor did I recollect much cunt resistance to my penetration; but she certainly was a virgin. In my furious lust, and with my unbendable stiff prick I must have hit the mark, and burst through it at one or two cunt-rending shoves. She had given a loud cry in the midst of it, "Oh! pray now,—oh! pray,"—but I had heeded it not. ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... a man consents to play the part which du Tillet had allotted to Roguin, he develops the talents of a comedian; he has the eye of a lynx and the penetration of a seer; he magnetizes his dupe. The notary had seen Birotteau some time before Birotteau had caught sight of him; when the perfumer did see him, Roguin held out ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... his advent being hailed uproariously by the revelers, who knew him to a man. The Kid had a good eye for the trick of a step, and ear for the lilt of a voice, and his private choice was a marvelous creature who scintillated as the 'Aurora Borealis.' But the Greek dancer was too subtle for even his penetration. The majority of the gold-hunters seemed to have centered their verdict on the 'Russian Princess,' who was the most graceful in the room, and hence could be no other than ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... indifferent, perfectly self- reliant, never at a loss, and yet never at her ease, with her figure in company with them there, and her mind apparently quite alone - it was of no use 'going in' yet awhile to comprehend this girl, for she baffled all penetration. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... chose to paint them. He had achieved a great reputation by them. The good people liked to have a genius in their own set whom they had discovered, and who was only to be appreciated by persons of exceptional taste and penetration. Lavender, the uninitiated were assured, was a most cultivated and brilliant young man. He had composed some charming songs. He had written, from time to time, some quite delightful little poems, over which fair eyes had grown full and liquid. Who had not heard of the face that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... faire, his slovenliness, his timidity; and it was a great surprise to discover, long after, a bundle of letters from Mr. Russell to his father, in which he found his abilities and shortcomings discussed with extraordinary penetration. ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ill. M. de la Marche seemed neither to observe nor to guess anything. The abbe alone examined me attentively. More than once I caught his blue eyes anxiously fixed on me, those eyes in which natural penetration was always veiled by habitual shyness. The abbe did not like me. I could easily see that his kindly, cheerful manners grew cold in spite of himself as soon as he spoke to me; and I noticed, too, that his face would invariably ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... he must possess a cool presence of mind, and above all be able to calmly distinguish the facts which are of importance in the strengthening of the clue from those that are merely superfluous. All these, besides other qualities, are necessary for the successful penetration of criminal mysteries; hence it is that the average amateur, who takes up the hobby without any natural ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... concerning the country we were prevented from visiting. Our chronicler narrated many fine things of its people; extolling their bravery in war, their amiability in peace, their devotion in religion, their penetration in philosophy, their simplicity and sweetness in song, their loving-kindness and frugality in all things domestic:—running over a long catalogue of heroes, meta-physicians, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... of God, whereby he multiplies holy souls, by the communication of himself. In this experience, the soul appears to be in God, and God in her, as first cause, drawing and penetrating the soul nearest to himself, and by penetration, in this soul, drawing, through ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... of the fortress of Ross, a man of penetration, and one not easily frightened, gave a very decided answer. He had, he said, at the command of his superiors, settled in this region, which had not previously been in the possession of any other power, and over which, consequently, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... with some astonishment. Whenever he has alluded to him since, it has been with significant eulogy. When I alluded that he was no gentleman, he seemed out of patience with me for the objection. You say papa has penetration. On this subject I believe he has indeed. I have told him nothing, yet he seems to be au fait to the whole business. I could think at some moments his guesses go farther than mine. I believe he thinks a prospective union, deferred ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... formerly so freely offered him, and heard from her lips the respectful Mr. Oswald, instead of the frank, sisterly Philip, he said to himself—"She looks down upon the backwoodsman, and would have him know his place." So much for man's boasted penetration! ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... will of the two? And was it helped (insensibly to myself) by his advantages of personal appearance? I can only confess that his apology presented a picture of misery to my mind, which shook my resolution to refuse him. His ready penetration discovered this change in his favour: he at once took advantage of it. "Five minutes of your time is all I ask for," he said. "Won't you indulge a man who sees his fellow-creatures all talking happily round him, and feels dead ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... a man of great cunning and penetration, divined what had happened (perhaps indeed he had been informed of it by the messenger who brought him his summons), and suspecting that the Gallic troops were likely to break the existing concord, he pretended that a token which had been agreed upon had been sent to him that he was ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... many other difficulties, would ere long succumb to his perseverance. While in this frame of mind it occurred to him that he might make a tool of his new acquaintance and would-be patron. At the same time he had penetration enough to perceive that his intended tool was a dangerous instrument, highly-tempered and sharp-set, with a will of its own, not yet quite demoralised, and not by any means ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... with great exactitude between the conception of true tanning effect and pickling effect when considering the action of chemical substances on pelt (i.e., animal hide, treated with lime, depilated, and the surplus flesh removed). Whereas any true tannage is characterised by the complete penetration of the substance and its subsequent fixation by the pelt in such a way that a thorough soaking and washing will not bring about a reconversion (of the leather) to the pelt state; pickling, on the other hand, is only characterised by the penetration ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... theatre and the preceding night's performance; she immediately began to talk about Mochalof of her own accord, and did not confine herself to mere sighs and exclamations, but pronounced several criticisms on his acting, which were as remarkable for sound judgment as for womanly penetration. Mikhalevich mentioned music; she sat down to the piano without affectation, and played with precision several of Chopin's mazurkas, which were then only just coming into fashion. Dinner time came. Lavretsky would have ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... York working-women, because she has brought to the study of the subject not only great care but uncommon aptitude. She has made a close personal investigation, extending apparently over a long time; she has had the penetration to search many queer and dark corners which are not often thought of by similar explorers; and we suspect that, unlike too many philanthropists, she has the faculty of winning confidence and extracting the truth. She is sympathetic, but not a sentimentalist; she appreciates exactness in facts ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... word is, the more likely are common ideas about it to be hazy. We substitute acquaintance with the sound for penetration into the sense. A frond of sea-weed, as long as it is in the ocean, unfolds its delicate films and glows with its subdued colours. Take it out, and it is hard and brown and ugly, and you have to plunge it into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... great deal of penetration on the part of the fourth lieutenant to comprehend the trick of his rival. He was indignant and angry, and all the more so because he had been outwitted, even while he was attempting to outwit ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... sensation of smarting, as if particles of red hot sand had been scattered over the flesh. If torn from their hold, the suckers remain behind and form an ulcer. The only safe expedient is to tolerate the agony of their penetration till a drop of coco-nut oil or the juice of a lime can be applied, when these little furies drop off without further ill consequences. One very large species, dappled with grey, attaches ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... king heard from his retainer; and declared that he who could say such things had either more than mortal wisdom or more than mortal folly; in these few words fathoming the full depth of Amleth's penetration. Then he summoned his steward and asked him whence he had procured the bread. The steward declared that it had been made by the king's own baker. The king asked where the corn had grown of which it was made, and whether any sign was to be found there ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... may serve to illustrate the penetration, decision and boldness of this warrior chief. He had been south, to Florida, and succeeded in instigating the Seminoles in particular, and portions of other tribes, to unite in the war on the side of the British. ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... enough to prevent all transmission of light, and we may investigate how much is reflected at the surface and how much is absorbed; or, on the other hand, we may confine our attention to the light which enters the body and inquire into the relation between the decay of intensity and the depth of penetration. We shall take these two cases ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... not attempt to remove it, Knox," he said. "The depth of penetration may have a tale to tell. The wood of the yew tree is one ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... and politically by delaying, resolutely if discreetly, the extension in that country of the over-lordship of the King. Herein lies the explanation of the fact that for three and a half centuries the English penetration into Ireland is a mere chaos of private appetites and egotisms. The invaders, as we have said, were specialists in war, and in the unification of states through war. This they had done for England; this they failed to do ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... bad, Geraldine, and as the Chevalier, save for this one weakness, this exceeding susceptibility, was a man of penetration, he decided that he would rescue himself once and for all from these drains upon him. With this purpose he went to a very famous monastery in Champagne called—well, anachronistically known as St. Voltaire's. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... began to bustle about the boat, talking all the time. Finding himself unable to "size up" this man, he was inclined to credit him with extraordinary powers of penetration, which, it seemed to him, would be favoured by silence. Also, he feared some pointblank question. He had no ready-made story to tell. He and his patron had put off considering that rather important detail too long. For the last two days, the horrors of thirst, coming on them unexpectedly, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... things. But, if you really understand them, I would say to you: "Give me L20,000 and I will save the situation entirely." That would be doing something worthy of your great powers; that would give you a reputation for penetration in discerning the real state of affairs; because by so doing you would safeguard the welfare of more than a thousand people, and ensure a prosperous future for the ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... One of the most interesting of the many questions of large comprehensiveness which connect themselves with the penetration of the Mongolian race into America, which up till now it had been the fashion to regard as the inheritance of the Caucasians, is the relative capacity of labor possessed by both these two great races, who in the Western States of America ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... diplomatic circles, was followed by a year at Oxford, where Thomas Allen, the mathematician and occultist, looked after his studies. Allen "quickly discerned the natural strength of his faculties, and that spirit of penetration which is so seldom met with in persons of his age." He felt he had under his care a young Pico di Mirandola. It may have been now he made his boyish translation of the Pastor Fido, and his unpublished version of Virgil's ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... discover wherein his interests were centred and attack him through that avenue. So skilful was she, so insinuating in her flattery and in her questions, that she rarely failed to secure admiration as a woman of singular penetration. She had the gift of being able to listen with apparent interest to a conversation, throwing in the necessary question here and there. When it was necessary to talk, she could change her tactics and make conversation for ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... expose its muddy shallows. She was in the mood for such a kind of writing: she could have started on it at once but that the theme was wanting; and it may count on popularity, a great repute for penetration. It is true of its kind, though the dredging of nature is the miry form of art. When it flourishes we may be assured we have been overenamelling the higher forms. She felt, and shuddered to feel, that she could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... penetration of a spirit from the other world could not have divined that he would return from such ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... to know what classicism really is, that it is the outline of all things that endure. They have both shown that it is not idiosyncrasy alone which creates originality, that idiosyncrasy is but the husk of personal penetration, that it is in no way the constituent essential for genius. For genius is nothing but the name for higher perception, the greater degree of understanding. Cezanne's fine landscapes and still-lifes, and Whitman's majestic line with its gripping imagery ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... standing before Sabre in the little cupboard bending his head close towards him as though he would sense out, if he could not see, some hidden motive behind all this. He contracted his great brows as if to squeeze more penetration into his gaze. "Yes, but I'll want references, Mr. Sabre. My girl's been well brought up. She's not going ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... sad; only I am so silly, I cannot help being hurt when you speak coldly. Of course you are quite right: it is dreadful to think of anyone being killed or even hurt; and I hope nothing really serious has— (Her voice dies away under his contemptuous penetration.) ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... been speculation that the aerial phenomena might actually be some form of penetration from another planet . . . the existence of intelligent life on Mars is not impossible but is completely unproven . . . the possibility of intelligent life on the Planet Venus is not considered completely unreasonable by astronomers ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... vouchsafed. At once, in studying these pieces, one observes a wide departure in method and accomplishment from the style of the "Wald-Idyllen." In those, it seemed, the poet had somehow failed to compose "with his eye on the object": the vision lacked steadiness, lacked penetration—or it may be that the vision was present, but not the power of notation. In the Goethe paraphrases, on the other hand, we are given, in a measure, the sense of the thing perceived; I say "in a measure," for his power of acute and sympathetic ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... the Buddhists. Since the publication of our results in the Ind. Ant. Vol. VII, p. 143 and in Jacobi's introduction to his edition of the Kalpasutra, which have been further verified by Jacobi with great penetration, views on this question have been divided. Oldenberg, Kern, Hoernle, and others have accepted this new view without hesitation, while A Weber (Indische Studien Bd. XVI, S. 240) and Barth (Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, tom. III, p. 90) keep to their former ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler
... different notions, is required to form a just estimate of the character of a single individual; and can it be supposed that the vulgar have the power of succeeding in an inquiry which misleads the penetration of genius itself? The people has neither the time nor the means which are essential to the prosecution of an investigation of this kind; its conclusions are hastily formed from a superficial inspection of the more prominent features of a question. Hence it often assents ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... and then are discharg'd by Phlegbotomy, and then they turn to a Gangreen by Amputation. Jacobitism (I speak of it in relation to the strong Hopes they have of succeeding by a French Power) is an uncurable Distemper. I have often wonder'd to hear Persons, otherwise of great Penetration and Sense, grow constantly Delirious upon this Topick. The Wagers that have been lost upon that very Prospect wou'd have purchas'd him a little Kingdom. Time has open'd a great many People's Eyes; but there is a set of Men who are enslaved to the French ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... apostles, were men of the meanest occupations, and their church, a wretched room in a miserable tenement. The superb buildings of St. Peter's in Rome, and St. Paul's in London, used by their followers, were not within the reach of their penetration. They were also totally ignorant of tripple crowns, red hats, mitres, crosiers, robes, and rochets, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... nowadays be called neurotic or highly strung, but was in his young days merely put down as bad temper. He had a high estimation of his mental powers, and a poor opinion of those who did not share this estimation. He took a special pride in his insight into character, and in that instinctive penetration that is said to enable its fortunate possessor to see as far through a brick wall as most people. (A modest ambition, when all is said and done!) His contemporaries liked him: at least, they smiled ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... our young lady had been "through" something, and indeed the discovery demanded no great penetration. She went straight up to her friend, who received her without a greeting. Isabel's elation in having sent Caspar Goodwood back to America presupposed her being in a manner glad he had come to see her; but ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... of this effect—most of it, in fact—lay in the role of Lillian they had not penetration enough to distinguish; they began to doubt whether she had ever been the very great success and the powerful woman they had supposed her ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... him to hear from Lord Hastings, whose word to men was never questionable, the solemn assurance of her unstained chastity. But he trembled at this mysterious disappearance, and knew not to whom to impute the snare, till the penetration of Hastings suddenly alighted near, at least, to the clew. "The Duchess of Bedford," said he, "ever increasing in superstition as danger increases, may have desired to refind so great a scholar and reputed an astrologer and magician; if so, all is safe. On the other hand, her favourite, the friar, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... righteous age? I know, that in a modern fist, Bribes in full energy subsist. 10 Since then these arguments prevail, And itching palms are still so frail, Hence politicians, you suggest, Should drive the nail that goes the best; That it shows parts and penetration, To ply men with the right temptation. To this I humbly must dissent; Premising no reflection's meant. Does justice or the client's sense Teach lawyers either side's defence? 20 The fee gives eloquence its spirit; That only is the client's merit. Does art, wit, wisdom, or address, Obtain ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... * * "The return of the Druses," a "Blot in the 'Scutcheon," and "Colombo's Birthday," all have the same originality of conception, delicate penetration into the mysteries of human feeling, atmospheric individuality, and skill in picturesque detail. All three exhibit very high and pure ideas of Woman, and a knowledge, very rare in man, of the ways in which what is peculiar in her office ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... see that, a quarter of a century ago, I was also one of the few who then doubted the absolute distinctness of species, and special creations of them. Yet I, like the rest, failed to detect the quo modo which was reserved for your penetration to DISCOVER, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... wondering whether this was a random shot on her part or one of the flashes of penetration with which ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... between the work in hand and the child's inner wants is absolutely essential to the gaining of knowledge. Mr. W. N. Hailmann puts the whole matter in a nutshell when he says: "If the kindergartner has the penetration to discover these inner wants, and the skill to adapt the circumstances and her own purposes to these, she will find it easy to secure and hold the child's attention. Without this penetration and skill, all else is unavailing. She may sing and cajole herself into hoarseness, ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... took up three years and twenty-seven days, having commenced on the 10th August, 1519, and concluded on the 7th September, 1522. By its success, the skill and penetration of the great Columbus, who, only twenty-seven years before, had first asserted the possibility of its performance, were fully established. One circumstance was discovered in this voyage, which, although reason have taught us to explain, could hardly have ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... nineteenth {241} century—"an intelligent, clear, honest, most kindly vivacious creature; the genialist Radical I have ever met,"[11] said Carlyle. The ease of his writing and his gift for light satire must not be permitted to obscure the consistency and penetration of his views. Even if Durham contributed more to his Report than seems probable, the view there propounded of the scope of Responsible Government is not nearly so cogent as that of the later pamphlet. Buller, like the other members of ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... something to play with, like a new toy to a child; and it took him on the weak side, for like many young men coming to the Bar, and before they had been tried and found wanting, he flattered himself he was a fellow of unusual quickness and penetration. They knew nothing of Sherlock Holmes in those days, but there was a good deal said of Talleyrand. And if you could have caught Frank off his guard, he would have confessed with a smirk that, if he resembled any one, it was the Marquis de Talleyrand-Perigord. It was on the occasion ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rhetoric of by-gone times kept in significance by the perceiving, the imagining, and the sense of a flowing symbolism in Nature, which our own time brings to them. To make Homer alive to this age,—what an expenditure of imagination, of pure feeling and penetration does it demand! Let the Homeric heart or genius die out of mankind, and from that moment the "Iliad" is but dissonance, the long melodious roll of its echoes becomes a jarring chop of noises. What chiefly makes Homer great is the vast ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the penetration of the white ants into the interior of the sets, and the consequent destruction of the latter, is prevented by dipping each end into buttermilk, asafoetida, and powdered mustard-seed, mixed into a ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... to the propriety of his course in this respect: a letter from a stranger upon a matter of public interest is not usually looked upon as a private letter. Emerson never spoke with more felicity and penetration than he does in this letter; but it is for Whitman's own sake that we would have had him practice self-denial in the matter; he greatly plumed himself upon Emerson's endorsement, and was guilty of the very bad taste of printing a sentence from ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... of prudence and penetration, conceived a favourable opinion of the stranger. He loaded him with presents, and assigned him a distinguished rank among his officers. Bazmant might have been proud of his new situation could he have banished from his memory the fortune he had once ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... a money-maker. He had much penetration, considerable knowledge of the world, and a disposition to be constantly in the midst of enterprise, excitement, and stir. His schemes for gaining wealth were various; he had dipp'd into almost every branch and ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... (Outlines of Logic, p. 21., 1847, and English Language, p. 510., 2nd edition) defines the conjunction to be a part of speech that connects propositions, not words. His doctrine is so palpably and demonstrably false, that I am somewhat at a loss to understand how a man of his penetration can be so far deceived by a crotchet as to be blind to the host of examples which point to the direct converse of his doctrine. Let the learned Doctor try to resolve the sentence, All men are either two-legged, one-legged, or no-legged, into three constituent propositions. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... delighted any eye but its own. It was fat and flabby as the rest of Eugene Thrush; there was quite a collection of chins to shave; and yet anybody but himself must have recognised the invincible freshness of complexion, the happy penetration of every glance, as an earnest of inexhaustible possibilities beneath the burden of the flesh. Great round spectacles, through which he stared like a wise fish in an aquarium, were caught precariously on a button of a nose which in itself might have prevented the superficial ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... of fulfilment, a conclusion which we cannot adopt. To suppose that he partook in the false, mechanical dogmas of the carnal Jews would be equally irreconcilable with the common idea of his Divine inspiration, and with the profound penetration and ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... of their principles, and pursue his investigation of them, till he reaches the extreme point. After exerting himself for a long time, he will suddenly find himself possessed of a wide and far-reaching penetration. Then, the qualities of all things, whether external or internal, the subtle or the coarse, will be apprehended, and the mind, in its entire substance and its relations to things, will be perfectly intelligent. This is called the investigation ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... Eyck there is more structure, more muscle, more blood in the veins; hence the impressive virility of his faces and the strong style of his pictures. Altogether he is a portrait-painter of Holbein's kin—exact, shrewd, and with a gift of penetration that is almost cruel. He sees things with more perfect rightness than Memling, and also in a bigger and some summary way. The sensations which the aspect of things evokes in him are more powerful; his feeling for their ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... fact, modern philosophy has a considerable amount of prose about it, is not easily impressed, accepts no limitations from feeling, and holds nothing too sacred to be attacked with the weapon of analytic thought. And yet it combines penetration with intrusiveness; acuteness, coolness, and logical courage with its soberness. Never before has the demand for unprejudiced thought and certain knowledge been made with equal earnestness. This interest in knowledge for its ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... of the author's design. He does not intend that the devil shall succeed; he does not mean to adopt the conclusion of the legend and send Faust to hell. He had the penetration to see, and he meant to show, that the notion implied in the old popular superstition of selling one's soul to the devil—the notion that evil can obtain the entire and final possession of the soul—is a fallacy; that the soul is not man's to dispose of, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord |
