"Pierce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the corve, and were drawn up, up, up the deep shaft. When they reached the mouth of the pit, the fresh air brought back the colour to David's cheeks, and he opened his eyes for a moment, but quickly shut them, dazzled by the rays of the sun which was trying to pierce the murky atmosphere. This, however, showed that there was some life in the boy; and in better spirits than at first, Samuel hurried along to the widow, that he might restore her son to her. She had been over and over again to the pit's mouth to inquire ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... glance I rede thee, 'tis like wizard wight, * None can escape unscathed those eye shafts' glancing flight: In very sooth black eyes, with languorous sleepy look, * Pierce deeper than white swords however these may bite. Be not thy senses by her sweets of speech beguiled, * Whose brooding fever shall ferment in thought and sprite: Soft sided Fair[FN475] did silk but press upon her skin, * 'Twould draw red blood from it, as thou thyself ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... personalities; my arrows are shot at a venture; and if they hit any one at all, it is only that he stands in my shaft's way, and the harness of his conscience is unbuckled. The target of my feeble aim is general—to pierce the heart of evil, evil in the form of social heartlessness: it is no fault of mine, if some alarmed particulars will crowd about the mark. Ideal characters, ideal incidents, ideal scenes—to these I honestly pledge myself: ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... one deck, or were nearly altogether open, and had but one or two masts with large square sails, being propelled in calms and contrary winds by long oars. For purposes of offence they were fitted with beaks or rams to pierce the sides of the enemy, and were provided with catapults or other engines for hurling missiles, and with tubes for projecting Greek fire to create smoke and set their opponent on fire. The main tactics of the time, however, consisted in grappling with the enemy and transforming the combat into ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... have had enough of us by then. But softly—he approaches, and I must needs fly, lest he should pierce my disguise. Good-bye, and thank ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... or through a sealed letter, etc. The higher psychic vibrations easily pass through the most solid object, just as do the X-Rays, and consequently the clairvoyant is able to see what is going on on the other side of a brick wall, or the walls of a house. Likewise, the clairvoyant vision is able to pierce through the dense earth, and to perceive veins of mineral or metal ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... I feel that if ever—if ever she should disclose herself to me, it would be the strangest revelation. Every woman wears a mask, except to one man; but Rhoda's—Miss Nunn's—is, I fancy, a far completer disguise than I ever tried to pierce.' ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce In notes, with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus' self may heave his head From golden slumber, on a bed Of heap'd Elysian ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... dismal climate, issues the button, which shines on the breast, and the bayonet, intended to pierce it; the lancet, which bleeds the man, and the rowel, the horse; the lock, which preserves the beloved bottle, and the screw, to uncork it; the needle, equally obedient to the ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... demand thought. My arrow will pierce him before he has time for thought. He will declare himself my slave—I shall send him round the world to bring me back the wedding ring of a happy woman—in the meantime all the men who are between ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... imagination you can evoke. Pour the whole force of your thought and will into it. Believe vividly all through this adventure that such a shell, constructed of your thought, will and imagination, surrounds you completely, and that nothing can pierce it to attack." ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... bullet thrown by this rifle has, it is said, been known to pierce through armor-plate. It has made its way through twenty inches of packed sand, pierced twenty-two inches of oak timber, and fired from a distance of six hundred yards it will pass through five ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 47, September 30, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... happily urbane. Sometimes these sayings take the form of the cynical epigrams of a La Rochefoucauld; are expanded into sententious aphorisms by a La Bruyere; or reveal more earnest and athletic souls, who pierce below the social surface froth to do battle with the demons of the intellect. To this class belong men like the seventeenth-century ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of marrow bones; a leg of mutton; a loin of veal; a dish of fowl, three pullets, and a dozen of larks all in a dish; a great tart, a neat's tongue, a dish of anchovies; a dish of prawns and cheese. My company was my father, my uncle Fenner, his two sons, Mr. Pierce, and all their wives, and my brother Tom [Ob.1663]. The news this day is a letter that speaks absolutely Monk's concurrence with this Parliament, and nothing else, which ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... view, Gessler caused a pole, surmounted with the ducal cap of Austria, to be set up in the market-place at Altorf, before which emblem of authority he ordered every man to uncover and do reverence as he passed. The refusal of a peasant to obey this command, his arrest, trial, and condemnation to pierce with an arrow an apple placed on his own child's head, his dexterity in performing this feat, his escape from his enemies, his murder of the tyrant Gessler, the solemn compact sworn at Ruetli, and the revolutionary events that followed form ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... wish thou, at its will, When out of doors its hope fulfil; Him bar I, modestly, methinks. But should ill-mind or lust's high jinks Thee (Sinner!), drive to sin so dread, 15 That durst ensnare our dearling's head, Ah! woe's thee (wretch!) and evil fate, Mullet and radish shall pierce and grate, When feet-bound, haled ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... looked at him aggressively, obviously longing to pierce that stubborn calm with which Merryon had so ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... thousand unburied dead, but the grinning skulls and quivering jelly or the few rags that flutter in the wind are not the comrades that we knew. I think their spirits hover near, for they cannot go to their abiding-place till victory has been won. They are ever seeking to pierce the veil of sense so that they may add their strength to our arms, and these make for us of No Man's Land "no strange place," and give to our sentries encouragement until the land of No Man vanishes and our possession reaches ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... and stopped short, his eyes striving hard to pierce the gloom in front; but for nearly a minute both ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... Robin Pierce, the tall young man, stood alone for a few minutes. Two or three times he glanced towards Lady Holme, who had sat down on a sofa, and was opening and shutting a small silver box which she had picked up from a table near her. Then he walked quietly ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... certain man was so thin that he could jump through the eye of a needle. Another crept nimbly to a spider's web which was hanging in the air, and danced skillfully upon it until a spider came, which spun a thread round his neck and throttled him. A third was able to pierce a sunmote with his head and pass his whole body through it. A fourth was in the habit of riding an ant, but the ant threw him off and trampled him. In a work written in 1601, referred to in Grimm's Household Tales ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... fastened to the front of the cart, drove rapidly up the hill, trying to pierce the dusky shadows of the roadside. Now and then she called Winifred's name, and listened intently for some response, ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... long, which—owing to the contour of the island—flows to the eastern bays. The deficiency, however, if it amounts to one, is little felt, for Newfoundland excels other lands in the splendour of its bays, which not uncommonly pierce the land as far as sixty miles. The length of the coast-line has been calculated at about 6000 miles—one of the longest of all countries of the world relatively to the area. Another noteworthy physical feature is the great number of lakes and ponds; more than a third of the area is occupied ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... again "suddenly," when the soul will be translated into unknown climes. He will come again in the sable robes of death. Shall we know Him? Will our eyes be so keen and true that we shall be able to pierce the dark veil and say "It is the Lord!" This has been the joyful experience of countless multitudes. When the summons came their souls went forth, not as victims to encounter death, but as the bride "to meet the bridegroom!" ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... 1878, Senator Pierce presented a Bill before the Legislature in Albany for a new city charter for Brooklyn. In its reform movement it meant that in three years at the most Brooklyn and New York would be legally married. Instead of Brooklyn being ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... covered with hundreds of sharp quills, from ten to twelve inches in length, each of which can pierce like a little stiletto, does not sound like a particularly comfortable thing to have for a mother. But the baby porcupines were quite happy, and their mother, clumsy as she was, was clever enough never to let any of the quills touch her little ones. She was warm and soft enough underneath, and her ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... in the morning, the man who was to be swung made his appearance for a few moments, and then disappeared. The hooks by which he was to be swung, as well as the iron rods with which a number of devotees were immediately to pierce their sides, were carried through the streets, and held up that they might be seen by the people. Soon afterwards the man again appeared with the hooks in his back, and went up to the end of the beam to which he was to be fastened. This, of course, was lowered. ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... of a young saint, yet with white hair and perhaps 50 years on his back, is standing near the stone in a trance of intense melancholy, looking over the hills as if by mere intensity of gaze he could pierce the glories of the sunset and see into the streets of heaven. He is dressed in black, and is rather more clerical in appearance than most English curates are nowadays; but he does not wear the collar and waistcoat ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... proverb says, that the dart of contempt will even pierce through the shell of the tortoise; but this is more peculiarly the case when conscience tells the subject of the sarcasm that it is justly merited. Christian, stung with Buckingham's reproach, at once assumed a haughty and threatening ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... as a botanist, and the discovery of a pass through the northern range on to Liverpool Plains, which Lieutenant Lawson had been unable to find. On reaching the range he searched vainly to the eastward for any valley that would enable him to pierce the barrier, and had to retrace his steps and seek more to the west. Here he came upon a pass, which he called Pandora's Pass, [See Appendix.] and which he found to be practicable as a stock route to the plains. He returned to Bathurst on ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... said. "We take you to where the sparkling devil took your Helma and your Freda. We follow the sparkling devil that came down from the moon. Do you hear me?" I spoke slowly, distinctly, striving to pierce the mists that I knew swirled around the strained brain. And the words ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... Gregory. Gilbert gladly accepted the perilous commission. He loaded a number of mules with the treasure, concealed beneath vegetables, and disguising himself as a peasant, took a guide and set out for Rome. During a dark and stormy night he contrived to pierce the hostile lines and enter the city ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... wounds of those who are already wounded, instead of consoling and healing their wounds; and those who have not been wounded, instead of feasting upon the pleasing word of God have daggers placed to pierce their souls and ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... Mr. Pierce has discovered a tenth muse and writes impassioned verses to the Goddess of Chess whom he apostrophises as 'Sublime Caissa'! Zukertort and Steinitz are his heroes, and he is as melodious on mates as he is graceful on gambits. We are glad ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... her face with her hands; the consciousness of her guilt came with additional force to pierce her heart, as the melancholy results of her dereliction were revealed to her. Roque and Marien Rufa were much affected, and even the stern features of the renegade seemed to be softened by a ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... frustrated by the joy of life, and the crusader's valour is broken on the Moslem lances, and the scholastic's indefatigable pursuit of a harmonizing, a reconciling word of reason and of faith, his ardour not less lofty than the crusader's to pierce the ever-thickening host of doubts, discords, fears, fall all in ruins, in accepted defeat or in ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... have read her letters back home to Chicago—to her mother and father back home on Rush Street, in Chicago; and to her girlhood friends, Sarah Clapp, Vinie Harden, and Julia Pierce. They were letters that, for stiff-lipped pride and brazen boasting, were of a piece with those written by Sentimental Tommy's mother when things were ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... beggar do I feel before thee, (With a long look at her.) However fair thy youth's consummate glory Envelop thee from top to toe ... thou knowest Not much about my life, thou hast but seen A fragment of its shell, as dimly gleaming In shadows through the op'nings of a hedge. I wish thine eye might pierce the heart of it: As fully as the earth beneath my feet Have I put from me all things low and common. Callst thou that easy, since I now am old? 'Tis true, I've lost some friends by death ere this— And thou at most thy grandam—many friends, And those that live, where ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... praised the merciful God all together, and took heart, insomuch that they were ready not only to fight with men, but with most cruel beasts, and to pierce through walls ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... bears a sword Can pierce an armed man. It hurls its barbed syllables,— At once is mute again. But where it fell The saved will tell On patriotic day, Some epauletted brother Gave his ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... and left, one mile of the fatal three was safely passed. The apprehensions of the notary had so far subsided, that he even suffered the poor horse to walk up hill; but these apprehensions were suddenly revived again with tenfold violence by a sharp pain in the right side, which seemed to pierce him ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... formless, and without a plan. Not soon, the spirit, brooding o'er, began To see a purpose rise, like mountain isled, When God said, Let the Dry appear! and, piled Above the waves, it rose in twilight wan. So might thy pictures then have been too strange For us to pierce beyond their outmost look; A vapour and a darkness; a sealed book; An atmosphere too high for wings to range; And so we could but, gazing, pale and change, And tremble as at ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... the Chaldean, "for her hour is the present. The Assyrians are a dreadful people! They despise labor, they live by war. They conquer, they impale on stakes or flay living people, they destroy captured cities and lead away their inhabitants to bondage. For them to kill savage beasts is repose; to pierce prisoners with arrows or scoop out their eyes is amusement. Temples they turn into ruins, the vessels of the gods they use at their banquets, and make buffoons of priests and sages. They adorn their walls with skins torn from living people, and their tables ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... how he had it, nor yet how Muster Fenwick has the meadows t'other side of the river, which he lets to farmer Pierce; but he do have 'em, and farmer Pierce do pay him ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... antidote to her sharp suffering. The next minute she looked on her father as the key of an enigma concerning Seymour Austin, whom, she imagined, possibly she had not hitherto known at all. Her curiosity to pierce it faded. She and her maid were packing through the night. At dawn she requested her maid to lift the window-blind and give her an opinion of the weather. 'Grey, Miss,' the maid reported. It signified to Cecilia: no one ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... world; and drenched with slumber We have kept the centuries of night. Cry, Amati, pierce the waiting stillness Tremulous ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... from Emperor to King, rode up to the Imperial army, challenging their bravest to single combat. One of Narses' lifeguards, an Armenian' like his master, Anzalas by name, accepted the challenge. Cocas couched his spear and rode fiercely at his foe, thinking to pierce him in the belly. Anzalas dexterously swerved aside at the critical moment and gave a thrust with his spear at the left side of his antagonist, who fell lifeless to the ground. A mighty shout rose from the Imperial ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... have sent you an hundred pounds to keep for me.' Ib. p. 54. Miss Burney wrote very soon after the attack:—'At dinner everybody tried to be cheerful, but a dark and gloomy cloud hangs over the head of poor Mr. Thrale which no flashes of merriment or beams of wit can pierce through; yet he seems pleased that everybody should be gay.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 220. The attack was in June. Piozzi Letters, ii. 47. On Aug. 3, Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor:—'Mr. Thrale has perfectly recovered all his faculties and all his vigour.' ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... strained her eyes again to pierce the distance which she had been studying for some time. Then she laid a hand on Monty's head ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... enveloped the yellow flame of the lanterns on the foremast in a misty veil, descended from the rigging again, and threatened to extinguish the long series of lights along the endless row of docks. The glistening bands of light on the Oakland shore tried their best to pierce the fog, but became fainter and fainter in the damp, penetrating, constantly moving masses of mist. Even the bright eye on Angel Island was shut out at last. Too-oo-ot, again sounded the sullen cry of warning from the steamer in the Golden Gate—Too-oo-ot. ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... had, however, looked with more attention, he might have seen that man, bent double, gliding like a serpent along the stones and losing himself in the mist that floated over the surface of the marsh. He might have equally seen, had he attempted to pierce that mist, a spectacle that might have attracted his attention; and that was the rigging of the vessel, which had changed place, and was now nearer the shore. But Monk saw nothing; and thinking he had nothing to fear, he entered the ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to come back to England. One day in June a certain Walter of the royal household was terrified by a vision of St. Thomas, who appeared bearing a shining sword which he declared had been newly forged to pierce through the king himself. Walter hurried to the chapel, where Henry was at mass, to tell his tale. Three times the king bent before the altar and signed himself devoutly as though he prayed to the Lord, and then passed to his council chamber. The next day he called Walter to his presence, ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... utterly, That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine; Hidden away that never mightst thou see The face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel; Who gat from Love no joyous gladdening, But only Love's intolerable pain, Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain, Only the ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... acute-angled triangle; the third squadron formed the base of the triangle, towing the transports, and the fourth squadron brought up the rear, covering the transports. The whole formed a compact wedge, pushing forward like a great spear head to pierce ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... Nostrils flies. Swift Thunder-bolts from Anus, and the Mouth will break, With Sounds to pierce the Skies, and make the Earth ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... If one were to pierce through it and understand them as they may be supposed to understand themselves, one would not necessarily be in a position to give an opinion about the mafia, for, besides those who speak of the growing confidence in the police, there are others who assert that the improvement, if any, ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... an indefinable fear, now when the irrevocable separation confronted her; the thought that she was to leave her home was tinged with a vague sense of regretfulness, of impalpable foreboding. Sometimes a quivering pang would pierce her heart when the children put out their little arms to her; why that pain? She had got out of her bed last night and looked at them in their sleep. There they were lying, each in her little bed; they had kicked the blankets off and were uncovered up to their very ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... thousand who were making the great cloud of dust, and, as they came nearer and nearer, the suspense of Thomas' shattered brigades grew more terrible. Dick, reckless of shell and bullets, tried to pierce the cloud with his eyes. He caught a glimpse of a flag and uttered a wild shout of joy. It was the stars and stripes. The eight thousand were eight thousand of the North! He danced up and down on the stump, and shouted at the ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... politicians grew confident that none of the prominent candidates could command a two-thirds vote in the convention. Some had foreseen this months beforehand and had been casting about for a compromise candidate. Their choice fell eventually upon General Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire. Friends were active in his behalf as early as April, and by June they had hatched their plot. It was not their plan to present his name to the convention at the outset, but to wait until the three prominent candidates (Cass, Douglas, and Buchanan) were disposed of. He was ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... there was no sign at all. We stared at each other and rubbed our eyes; we two, left alone out of our company of six. Although the sun would not pierce to the valley for another hour, it slanted already between the pine-stems on the ridge, and above us the sky was ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... reality that we know as the bronze doors of the Baptistry. But had there been no dreams there had been no bronze doors, and the world of art would have been the poorer. Every tunnel that pierces a mountain; every bridge that spans a river; every building whose turrets pierce the sky; every invention that lifts a burden from the shoulders of humanity; every reform that gilds the world with the glow of hope, was preceded by a wish whose gossamer strands were woven in a human brain. The Red Cross of today is but a dream of Henri Dunant realized ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... that our author died in the year 1592, of a surfeit taken by eating pickled herrings, and drinking with them rhenish wine. At this fatal banquet, Thomas Nash, his cotemporary at Cambridge was with him, who rallies him in his Apology of Pierce Pennyless. Thus died Robert Green, whose end may be looked upon as a kind of punishment for a life spent ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... necessary to hold the country by a set of military posts, in order that the miners might pursue their labours without molestation. Some ruins of the fortifications are still to be seen; and the mines themselves, now exhausted, pierce the sides of the rocks, and bear in many places traces of hieroglyphical inscriptions The remains of temples show that the expatriated colonists were not left without the consolations of religion, while a deep well indicates the care that ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... with him for ever," said Philip, brushing away the bitter tears. "I will molest him no farther; I care no more to pierce this mystery. Better for him as it is—he is happy! Well, well, and I—I will never care for ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... twenty votes on the first ballot, he rose steadily until on the thirty-first he led with ninety-two. But neither he nor Cass had a good following from the South. An expediency candidate, acceptable to the South, was found in Franklin Pierce, who had fought in the war with Mexico. Against him the Whigs pitted the commander-in-chief in the war. But Scott was thought to be tainted with free-soil opinions. The Democrats, more thoroughly united, swept the country, and the new administration ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... seem incapable of gauging the German psyche. The two races meet each other in masks. The apparent ingenuousness of the English-speaking Teuton is calculated to throw the most vigilant Anglo-Saxon intelligence off its guard. We have no psychological X-rays by which to pierce the peculiar racial vesture in which the German soul is shrouded, nor are we endowed with the gift of patient observation which might enable us to extract those rays from facts. And so we stumble along, dealing with an imaginary people whom we ourselves ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... supercilious smile in the dark, listened again for a good while, but nothing was heard except those whisperings of the wind which poets speak of. He looked before him with his eyebrows screwed, in a vain effort to pierce the darkness, and the same behind him; and then after another pause, he began uncomfortably to move down the ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... had found even Norway too hot to hold it; and sail through witch-whales and icebergs to Iceland and Greenland, and the sunny lands which they said lay even beyond, across the all but unknown ocean. He would go up the Baltic to the Jomsburg Vikings, and fight against Lett and Esthonian heathen, and pierce inland, perhaps, through Puleyn and the bison forests, to the land from whence came the magic swords and the old Persian coins which he had seen so often in the halls of his forefathers. No; he would go South, to the land of sun and wine; and see ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Jenny's white coffin, O little chrysanthemum that lay in her bosom, O violets from Jenny's tomb, pierce with your faithful breath this cloud of incense ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... Watson watched and wondered. The three streams of light ran up and up, as though they would pierce the heavens; the eye could not follow their ends. All in utter silence, nothing but those beams of glorified light, their reality a hint of power, of life and wisdom—of the certainty of things. Plainly it had a tremendous significance ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... avenge me? One glance of Siegfried's eye would kill thee, if he so willed it." she answered, looking at Hagen darkly. "No weapon can pierce him in battle: I enchanted him against all danger—except some one thrust at him from behind. In the back I did not guard him. I would not protect him in cowardice, but Siegfried will never turn his back upon the enemy. Thou canst not kill him ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... went on dully, "that's where Wildred has had his pull over me since he ran across me, by a piece of devil's own luck, in Canada five years ago. As you say, I have changed; but his eyes are like gimlets, they'd pierce a stone wall. It's quite true, as you suspected, that he and Collins are one. I knew him by a queer scar on his hand, shaped like a star—perhaps you've observed it? But he didn't mind. He seemed even to find a sort of pleasure in telling me how he had been to a clever ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... thou be my death. And the first man that saw thee and had the might withal, would take thee straightway into his bed to be his leman. And once thou camest into a man's bed, and that bed not mine, wit ye well that I would not tarry till I had found a knife to pierce my heart and slay myself. Nay, verily, wait so long I would not; but would hurl myself so far as I might see a wall, or a black stone, and I would dash my head against it so mightily that the eyes would start and my brain burst. Rather would I die even such a death than ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... not move, save to lift his glasses now and then, as if with their magnifying powers he could pierce the dark. But the night and the swollen fog still hid everything going on beyond the river from those on the heights. Down by the shore the Mississippians in their rifle pits might see a little, and the ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of their time. We also find numerous awls and splinters of flint and bone, which they doubtless used in exactly the same manner as similar tools are used by the Lapps to-day in Europe, that is, to pierce holes in the hides, through which to pass their rude needle and thread. The needles are made of reindeer horn, and they were not only smoothly polished, but the eyes are of such a minute size, and withal so ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... latter moments. But in 1794 Thomas Borrow was busy recruiting soldiers in Norfolk, one hundred miles from the scene of the dying pugilist. However, the error was probably one of date merely, and during the year 1791 Thomas doubtless read the Bible to him in London, since we learn from Pierce Egan that "Ben derived great consolation from hearing the Bible read, and generally solicited those of his acquaintance who called upon him to read a chapter to him". {555}—3. Captain: The West Norfolk Militia was raised in 1759 by the third Earl of Orford. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... specimens which came in the reign of James I., southward, did not command much respect or admiration from our countrymen; indeed they were the bulls at which every satirist hurled his shafts, and blunt must have been that one which did not pierce some potent folly of language or manner. The town rang with anecdotes of their rags, beggary, and quarrels; ballad-singers made merry at their expense, and the stage resounded with uncomplimentary allusions. Indeed, in one of the most popular plays of ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... hence his name nongshohnoh, i.e. one who beats; for it is forbidden to kill a victim on these occasions with any weapon made of iron, inasmuch as iron was the metal which proved fatal to the thlen. He also takes the pair of silver scissors above mentioned, a silver lancet to pierce the inside of the nostrils of the deceased, and a small bamboo or cylinder to receive the blood drawn therefrom. The nongshohnoh also provides himself with rice called "u 'khaw tyndep," i.e. rice mixed with turmeric ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... it with pride—a slender dark-green needle yearning to pierce the void. He wandered around the spaceport and heard the fuelers and oilers discussing ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... down in the melee. For a few moments the Arabs were in the square and among the camels, and many of the officers had narrow escapes, while Major Gough and others were killed. For five minutes it was a hand-to-hand fight, but after the first wild rush no more of the enemy could pierce the ranks of the Heavies, and all who had entered the square were killed; and the enemy retreated, while the column marched down to and occupied the wells, and rejoiced in abundance of sweet if muddy water. The square had another fight of the same nature ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... camera lens, and causing a movable screen to approach the lamp, the image is seen to become smaller and smaller; the rays at the same time becoming more and more concentrated, until finally they are able to pierce black paper with a burning ring. Pushing back the lens so as to render the rays parallel, and receiving them upon a concave mirror, they are brought to a focus; paper placed at that focus is caused to smoke and ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... narrated by Macaulay. The result would be that the impression received from the historian of every incident and every person would be different, and would be wrong. The external facts might not be altered; but the falsehood would proceed from the incapacity or indisposition of the historian to pierce to the heart of the facts by sympathy and imagination. There would be abundant information, abundant eloquence, abundant invective against crime, abundant scorn of stupidity and folly, perhaps much sagacious reflection and judicial scrutiny of evidence; but the inward ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... eye could not in the slightest degree pierce, this difficult return lasted two hours. By reckoning the time since they started, taking into consideration that the walking had not been rapid, Starr calculated that he and his companions were near the opening. In fact, ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... cried. "Halloa! This way! Come to the light!" When, as he held the curtain with one hand, and with the other raised the lamp and tried to pierce the gloom that filled the place, something rushed past him into the room like a wild-cat, and ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... because it is so magnanimous, so forgiving, so saintly? Is it penetrated through and through with a mystical charity, with a psychological tenderness? Do we spare the feelings of the Cabinet Minister because we pierce through all his apparent crimes and follies down to the dark virtues of which his own soul is unaware? Do we temper the wind to the Leader of the Opposition because in our all-embracing heart we pity and ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... race much better than they now were. So he cheerfully consented, and told them to kill him if they could; and first they tried the stone hatchet, which was broken against his skull; and then they shot arrows at him, which could not pierce the toughness of his skin; and finally they plastered up his nose and mouth (which kept uttering wisdom to the last) with clay, and set him to bake in the sun; so at last his life burnt out of his breast, tearing his body ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... grossly in the rudiments of its own power. He has noted how, as a supposed necessary condition, the understanding sleeps in order that the fancy may dream. Studied in the history of society, and versed in the secret laws of thought, he can pass regularly through all the gradations, can pierce infallibly all the windings, which false taste through ages has pursued, from the very time when first, through inexperience, heedlessness, or affectation, the imagination took its departure from the side of truth, its original parent. Can a disputant ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... only to possess a certain elasticity but also to be capable of receiving a fairly sharp edge. The scales of their armour, I was told, were also treated in the same way, and were so hard that it was impossible to pierce them either with sword or spear. Then I exhibited my hunting knife, which excited Pousa's highest admiration, and also a certain amount of apprehension when, of set purpose, I casually mentioned my conviction that I could drive the blade through the best scale armour ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... would scarcely be possible to pierce the hand here without striking a vein. One of the prongs would be sure ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... dark, very dark indeed, for though the moon was nearly full, heavy clouds obscured the sky, and only now and then she managed to pierce them, showing as clear as day the deserted wet decks—for the watch had all stowed away—the few sails set and just under the foot of the foresail the lookout man, banging his arms to and fro to ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... all of whom had heard more or less about the existing trouble. That we had the sympathy of the cattle interests on our side goes without saying, and one of them, known as "the kidgloved foreman," a man in the employ of Shanghai Pierce, invoked the powers above to witness what would happen if he were in Lovell's boots. This was my first meeting with the picturesque trail boss, though I had heard of him often and found him a trifle boastful but not a bad fellow. He distinguished himself from ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... perfectly still for a few minutes, thinking, and with his eyes trying in all directions to pierce the thick black darkness by which he was surrounded, ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... discouraged; that, by the smuggling vessels employed in this trade, intelligence had been carried into France during the war, and the enemies of the government conveyed from justice. Stephen Seignoret Rhene, Baudoin, John Goodet, Nicholas Santini, Peter de Hearse, John Pierce, John Dumaitre, and David Barreau, were impeached at the bar of the house of lords; and, pleading guilty, the lords imposed fines upon them according to their respective circumstances. They were in the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... and kept his title perfect. He had always said that the land would not become valuable in his time, but that it would be a commodious provision for his children some day. It contained coal, copper, iron and timber, and he said that in the course of time railways would pierce to that region, and then the property would be property in fact as well as in name. It also produced a wild grape of a promising sort. He had sent some samples to Nicholas Longworth, of Cincinnati, to get his judgment upon ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... for her any day now. And she was writing to Georgie because she was afraid she'd have to tell him that she had done an awfully silly thing: she had sold her Sunbright shares to an awfully attractive young fellow whom Mr. Pierce had sent to her—and so on and so on. Mary's eye leaped several lines to her own name. "Mary agreed with me that the Potter electric light stock was just as safe and they offered seven ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... the outer vast pierce, unconsumed, the canopy of the dying Air. The helpless Earth is ...
— The Masque of the Elements • Herman Scheffauer
... To make ready a gun, mine, &c., for instantaneous firing. Also, to pierce the cartridge with the priming-wire, and apply the quill-tube in readiness for firing the cannon.—To prime a fire-ship. To lay the train for being set on fire.—To prime a match. Put a little wet bruised powder made ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... she was implacable. She was armoured by that phrase of hers, she'd "got to do the best for herself," and he knew he had no weapon to pierce that armour. ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... for an instant. Then he shot his final barb with deliberate intention—not so much to reproach—though there was utter honesty and loyalty to Carl in what he said—but more to touch the girl's tragedy with something sharp enough to pierce her morbidness. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... striving again to get loose, they discharged another volley larger than the first, and some of them attempted with spears to stick me in the sides; but by good luck I had on a buff jerkin, which they could not pierce. I thought it the most prudent method to lie still, and my design was to continue so till night, when, my left hand being already loose, I could easily free myself: and as for the inhabitants, I had reason to believe I might be ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... old, I wonder? Can I take one trip more? Go to the granite-ribbed valleys, flooded with sunset wine, Peaks that pierce the aurora, rivers I must explore, Lakes of a thousand islands, millioning hordes of the Pine? Do they not miss me, I wonder, valley and peak and plain? Whispering each to the other: "Many a moon has passed ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... judgment to make both consent In sense and elocution; and aspire, As well to reach the spirit that was spent In his example, as with art to pierce His grammar, and etymology ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... smiles, and flaming eyes, and outstretched arms, as if adjuring the spirits of the under-world to come to his assistance. But the commandant lay in careless security upon his soft, white couch; his eyes were closed; they could not pierce the dark cell where a fellow-man, with loudly-beating heart, but silent lips, called rapturously to the fair goddess Liberty, and hastened to clasp ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... so often defied and conquered, killed the noted aviator to-day. As if jealous of his intrepidity, they seized him and his fragile biplane, flung them out of the sky, and crushed out his life on the field from which he had risen a few minutes before with a laughing promise to pierce the heavens and soar higher than any human being had ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... soothes with bickering jar the Glorious Tree? O'er the high rock the foam of gladness throws, While star-beams lull Vesuvius to repose: Girds the white spray, and in the blue lagoon, Weeps like a walrus o'er the waning moon? Who can declare?—not thou, pervading boy Whom pibrochs pierce not, crystals cannot cloy;— Not thou soft Architect of silvery gleams, Whose soul would simmer in Hesperian streams, Th' exhaustless fire—the bosom's azure bliss, That hurtles, life-like, o'er a scene like this;— Defies the distant agony of Day— And sweeps o'er hecatombs—away! ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... as the edge of the stuff, too apt in any case, to cut and fray, is, thereby, still further weakened. Hems in woollen materials, which will not take a bend, can only be laid and tacked, bit by bit. In making, what are called rolled hems, the needle must be slipped in, so as only to pierce the first turning, in order that the stitches may not be ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... wanted. A picture or two of previous Sir Thomas's might be seen on the walls, if you have an artistic friend who could arrange this; but it is a mistake to hang up your own ancestors, as some of your guests may recognise them, and thus pierce beneath ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... lover? thought the Mother-Superior of the Convent of the Holy Way. And then she recalled her wandering thoughts, and turned them to the One Lover who never betrays His chosen. And her rapt eyes looking up, seemed to pierce beyond the flaming sky-vault overhead. She forgot all else, suddenly snatched from earthly consciousness to beatific ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... his troops far up the stream. By the 13th, all preparations were made. Night came on, calm, like the heart of the hero who knows that the culminating moment of his destiny has arrived. At such a crisis, the mortal part of the man is transfigured by the towering spirit, and his eyes pierce through the veils of things. His life lies beneath him, and he contemplates its vicissitudes with the high tranquillity of an immortal freedom. What is death to him who has already triumphed over the fetters of the flesh, and tasted the drink of immortality? He is ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... is reciprocal action between the intensity of moral feeling and the power of imagination; for, on the one hand, those who have keenest sympathy are those who look closest and pierce deepest, and hold securest; and, on the other, those who have so pierced and seen the melancholy deeps of things, are filled with the most intense passion and gentleness of sympathy. Hence, I suppose that the powers of the imagination may always be tested by ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... was given to the women in our province and all the other Western provinces, I confess that I thought our worst troubles were over. I see now that they were really beginning. A second Hindenburg line has been set up, and seems harder to pierce than the first. It is the line of bitter prejudice! Some of those who, at the time the vote was given, made eloquent speeches of welcome, declaring their long devotion to the cause of women, are now busily engaged in trying to make it ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... and white garments, and eye-salve to anoint his eyes.' So obstinately unconscious are we of our ruin that even God's voice, whether uttered in definite words, or speaking in sharp sorrows and punitive acts, but too often fails to pierce the thick layer of self complacency in which we wrap ourselves, and to pierce the heart with the arrow of conviction. Indeed we may say that the whole process of divine education of a soul, conducted through many channels of providences, has for its end mainly ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... occasionally, and stuck up again in a fresh attitude. To please me the corporal crept behind him and jogged him up and down in a life-like and scornful manner. The hope was that the Boers would send a bullet through that heart of straw. In the afternoon they did in fact pierce his hat, but at the time they were keeping their ammunition for something more definitely human, like myself. As I retired, after saluting the dummy for his courage, the bullets flew again, but the sights were still ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... Menelaus stood face to face, on the ground which Hector and Ulysses had meted out; and they brandished their spears, with wrath against each other. Paris drew the lot to be the first to cast his long-shafted spear; he threw it, and it struck the round shield of Atreides Menelaus, but did not pierce it; for the point of ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... infantry defiled through the Blue Ridge without Hooker's knowledge. He knew that something was going on, but there his information terminated. The troopers of Stuart kept watch over fifteen miles of front, and through this wall of sabres the Federal eye could not pierce. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... the calculations of those who revolted against its authority. As an illustration of the weakness of administration under their lead, it may be recalled that during the years of Mr. Buchanan's Presidency,—and indeed during a part of the Presidency of Franklin Pierce,—the project of a Pacific Railroad had been considered, and year after year abandoned, because of the argument, first, that the National Government had no power to contribute to its construction; ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... usage to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound. This, however, is inaccurate; to impale is, properly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the body, the victim being left in a sitting position. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... Criminal Court.—Robert Duncan, aged 47, staymaker, Mary Duncan, his wife, who surrendered to take her trial, and Pierce Wall O'Brien, aged 30, printer, were indicted for conspiring together to obtain money from the London and North-Western Railway ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... Softly suffused thro' the world's dark shrouds, Kindling them all as they pass by thy brightness,— Hills, men, cities,—a pageant of clouds, Thou to whom Life and Time surrender All earth's forms as to heaven's deep care, Who shall pierce to thy naked splendour, Bind his ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... of it all was, that when they were sitting together in the Consul's office, Morten could never get rid of the feeling, that however he might twist and wriggle, the clear blue eyes still seemed to pierce through his every manoeuvre; and the part he had to play was very painful to him. As soon as they had reckoned up the result of the year, the Consul put his finger on the gross receipts and said, "These ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... over came the unexpected call. Whence had that ill-advised, indelicate grey bird flown into this great haunt of men and shadows? Why had it come with its arrowy flight and mocking cry to pierce the heart and set it aching? There were trees enough outside the town, cloud-swept hollows, tangled brakes of furze just coming into bloom, where it could preside over the process of Spring. What solemn freak was this which made it come and sing to one who had no longer any business ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... again. A strong slant of south-east wind had driven the two ships out to sea; and now, as they raced landwards before a favouring breeze, they saw low down on the horizon one glittering hill-top after another pierce the morning mist bank. Helgi for the time had charge of the tiller, while Estein leant against the weather bulwark, ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... God's dying Son Passed through the grave, and blessed the bed; Then rest, dear saint, till from his throne The morning break, and pierce the shade. ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... you knew not your extremity, Nor could you know it though we told it you, The hearts of Mexicans once turned to hate Are far too deep for sincere eyes to pierce. But I thank God we knew the danger, sire, And struck the serpent raised even at your life. When you, all gentleness, could not have given The necessary blow. Ay, God be thanked, although You cast me from your ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... comes up upon the Prince's army with as much of his fury as hell could help him to; and his hap was to fall in just among the three captains, Captain Credence, Captain Good-Hope, and Captain Experience, and did cut, wound, and pierce them so dreadfully, that what through discouragement, what through disorder, and what through the wounds that they had received, and also the loss of much blood, they scarce were able, though they had for their power the three ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... a disciple of Benton; yet, as is often the case, the pupil soon learned to go far ahead of his teacher. In 1852, there was a union of the Free Democrats and National Democrats of Missouri, in support of Franklin Pierce. But the entire abandonment of Pierce's administration to the rule of the Southern oligarchs sundered the incongruous elements in Missouri forever. In 1856 Benton was found supporting James Buchanan for President; but Blair declined to follow ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... thou art and what thou sawest there; but, if thou liest, I hate thy lies, and if thou tellst the truth, I hate thy truth. In my bosom I feel the throb of life; I feel strength in my arm, and my proud thoughts, like eagles, pierce the space. And yonder in the shelter of my rule, under the protection of laws created by me, people live and toil and rejoice. Dost thou hear the battle-cry, the challenge men throw into ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various |
