"Probe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opened the door wide ere he knew why he had come, or could think of anything to say. And now he was in greater uneasiness than usual at the thought of the cobbler's deep-set black eyes about to be fixed upon him, as if to probe his very thoughts. ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... and the reasons she had for speaking in such terms of Lord Pendennyss. The promise to see her was cheerfully made by Mrs. Wilson, and her confidence accepted; not from a desire to gratify an idle curiosity, but a belief that it was necessary to probe a wound to cure it; and a correct opinion, that she would be a better adviser for a young and lovely woman, than even Pendennyss; for the Donna Lorenza she could hardly consider in a capacity to offer advice, much less dictation. They then took ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... officers within their district and the state in which smuggling then was, and "whether on the progress or decline, in what articles, and at what places carried on." For the Board was determined "to probe the conduct of the Preventive officers and punish them" for any laxity and negligence, for which faults alone they would be dismissed. And in order that the vigilance and faithful duty in the commanders and officers on board the cruisers "may not be deprived of fair and due reward" ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... physically and mentally, and began to probe tentatively in this new part of his mind. He could feel Horng too reaching slowly for contact; his presence was comfortable, mild, confused but unworried. As his thoughts blended with Horng's the present faded perceptibly; this confusion was merely a moment in centuries, and soon too it would ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... whispered cautious Ancyrus, the elder, "have a care ... thou, Caius Nepos, must probe him ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... took place. The two best accounts, Dr. Morrison's own statement and the French Minister's graphic report-to his government, were both written rather to fix the principal events immediately after they had occurred than to attempt to probe beneath the surface, or to deal with the strictly personal or private side. Nor did they embrace that most remarkable portion of the Boxer year, the entire sack of Peking and the extraordinary scenes which marked this latter-day Vandalism. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... men so skilful in medicine that they can aid wonderfully in such cases, and surgeons so apt at operating that they too, can do much good. But we should not for a moment think of leaving patients to depend on what can be swallowed, or what lancet and probe can do, when the very sources of life itself are neglected, and cures waited on for months that may be secured in a week or even less. Above all, when you know how to do it, infuse new life in the body, and promote the throwing off of that ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... of the disputant, we must consider his intention. For if he were to dispute as though he had doubts about the faith, and did not hold the truth of faith for certain, and as though he intended to probe it with arguments, without doubt he would sin, as being doubtful of the faith and an unbeliever. On the other hand, it is praiseworthy to dispute about the faith in order to confute ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... likely, credible; probabil'ity; improb'able; pro'bate, the proof of a will; proba'tion, the act of trying; proba'tioner; proba'tionary; probe, to try by an instrument; prob'ity, tried integrity; approba'tion, commendation; rep'robate (adj. literally, ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... marked, was yet quite indescribable; that Arthur was unhappy, that his profession was more than ever distasteful to him, he soon discovered; but the real cause of these feelings he tried in vain to probe. He saw, with the deepest regret, that all his former exhortations on the subject, his earnest entreaties that Arthur would persevere till he brought a willing heart as an offering to his Maker, all had been without effect; but yet his kind heart ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... when the hunter starts out of a winter morning, to see his hound probe the old tracks to determine how recent they are. He sinks his nose down deep in the snow so as to exclude the air from above, then draws a long full breath, giving sometimes an audible snort. If there remains the least effluvium of the fox, the hound will detect it. If it be very slight, it only ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... inverted "Y" incision. "We'll take a look at the thorax first," he said, as he used the handlers to pry open the rib cage and expose the thoracic viscera. "Ah! Thought so! See that?" He pointed with a small handler that carried a probe. "Look at those lungs." He swung a viewer into place so Mary could see better. "Look at those abscesses and necrosis. It's Thurston's Disease, all right, ...
— Pandemic • Jesse Franklin Bone
... on me in the least. I was too much accustomed to analytical labors to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I determined to probe the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... crushed against Mormon's temple. It seemed as if the skull split open and a jagged, red-hot probe searched through his brain. He threw up his head in agony, his chin exposed, but instinct still awake to fling out both hands, catch the oncoming blow, his fingers clamping deep about the wrist above the hand that held the rock—some ore fragment tossed away by an old-timer—that ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... beneath, which is placed transversely with reference to the former, and so is effectually hindered from getting any farther. And this I have frequently experienced in my dissections of veins. If I attempted to pass a probe from the trunk of the veins into one of the smaller branches, whatever care I took I found it impossible to introduce it far any way by reason of the valves; whilst, on the contrary, it was most easy to push it along in the opposite direction, from without inwards, ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... machine, my new boss driving, Cummings sitting next him, I at the further side, began the keen, cool probe after a truth which to me lay very evidently on the surface. Any one, I would have said, might see with half an eye that Worth Gilbert had bought Clayte's suitcase so that he could get a thrill out of hunting for it. Cummings I knew had in charge all the boy's Pacific Coast holdings; ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... his part that had remained the same—one attitude toward one person—and her mind hovered over this. On each occasion it had stirred her curiosity and, though she had not admitted it, made her uneasy. Why not probe him on the subject, now that she had him completely to herself? But as soon as silence fell between them she saw that wave of preoccupation which had submerged him during their walk from the parade-ground to the Purdies' rising over him again and floating him away ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... literature, and history, on the acts and thoughts of other minds; and could we take the mightiest intellect that ever awed and controlled the world, and unravel his powers, and return their constituent particles to the multitudinous objects whence they were derived, the last probe of our analysis, after we had stripped him of all his faculties, would touch that unquenchable fiery atom of personality which had organized round itself such a colossal body of mind, and which, in its simple naked energy, would still be capable of rehabilitating itself in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... syllables on hands and knees, And stumble often, yet pass me with ease And reach the spring upon the summit steep. Oh, I could lay me down, dear child, and weep These charr'd orbs out, but that you then might cease Your upward effort, and with inquiries Stoop down and probe my heart too deep, too deep! I thirst for Knowledge. Oh, for an endless drink Your goblet leaks the whole way from the spring— No matter, to its rim a few drops cling, And these refresh me with the joy to think That you, my darling, have the morning's wing To cross the mountain ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... was beyond him. He did not understand. His life had trained him along more primitive lines of selection. But he realized now that he was trying to probe something in his soul that defied his rather limited powers of judging. He had not given his heart unreservedly, he had not pledged himself. Clare Kavanagh had repented of a child's weakness and had run away from him, vaguely hinting that she would ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... see hurrying up to kiss Each with his mate from every part, nor stay, Contenting them with momentary bliss. So one with other, all their swart array Along, do ants encounter snout with snout, So haply probe their fortune and their ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... memoir of him, which I have been sent, I find the following passage: "In his early childhood, when reason was just beginning to ponder over the meaning of things, he was so won to enthusiastic admiration of the heroes and heroines of the Catholic Church that he decided he would probe for himself the Catholic claims, and the child would say to the father, 'Father, if there be such a sacrament as Penance, can I go?' And the good Archbishop, being evasive in his answers, the young boy found himself emerging more and more in a woeful Nemesis of ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... friction, the galvanic energy, of society. Virtue alone can face them. Vice dreads them as it dreads the light. With uncourtly hands, they tear the mask from Hypocrisy; they arraign at the bar of public opinion, political Culprits, amenable to no other tribunal; and they probe to the quick, the seared consciences of Peculators and Oppressors. If the sycophants of courts, and the sophistical apologists of arbitrary power, should craftily urge that the people are sometimes misled by fraud and falsehood, and therefore unable to distinguish between patriots and plunderers, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... led Sprengel to believe the conspicuous markings at the entrance of many flowers served as pathfinders to insects. This golden circle also shelters the nectar from rain, and indicates to the fly or bee just where it must probe between stigma and anthers to touch them with opposite sides of its tongue. Since it may probe from any point of the circle, it is quite likely that the side of the tongue that touched a pollen-laden anther in one flower will touch the stigma ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... giddiness! (Here he steps upon the pin, and utters an exclamation). Ha! what is this? I'm wounded ... agony! With what a darting pain my foot's transfixed! I'll summon help (with calm courage)—yet, stay, I would not dim this nuptial day by any sombre cloud. I'll bear this stroke alone—and now to probe the full extent of my calamity. (Seats himself on sofa in such a position as to be concealed by the screen from all but the audience, and proceeds to remove his boot.) Ye powers of Perfidy, it is a pin! I must know more of this—for it is meet such criminal neglect should be exposed. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... lie beyond the probe of the cynic, or the wit of the literary man. They spring from sympathetic observation and a quietly serious mind. And there is something equally fresh and unexpected in some of the ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Joe, "very strange. There's a bullet in your shoulder. After you rest a while we'll probe for it and see if we can get it out. Don't talk any more. Just lie quietly and ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... hard to bear! harder than the surgeon's probe which had gone before. It was hard at the same time not to fall on my knees to give thanks; or to break out into a shout of glad praise. I suppose I showed nothing of it, only stood still - and pale by the side of the bed; till Mr. Thorold asked me for something, ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Land's. When this stranger focused his gaze on an object, his eyebrow lines gathered into a frown, his heavy eyelids closed around his pupils to contract his huge field of vision, and he looked! What a look—as if he could magnify objects shrinking into the distance; as if he could probe your very soul; as if he could pierce those sheets of water so opaque to our eyes and scan the deepest seas ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... has also the habit to probe into things he deems worthy of his attention," retorted the offended scientist; but he was obliged to closet his wrath. An inner door opened and the host reappeared with his mother and a fair demonstration of her virtues. She was a very large woman dressed loosely in black, but she carried herself ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... question coming in a sort of parabolic curve and he dodged it. By a neat evasion he got the topic switched to sociology, from that to philosophy, to heredity, literature, journalism, art, and finally prenatalism. Every effort I made to probe him on public finance was met by some calm and smiling barrage of eclectic interest. For an hour we played conversational pingpong in the most amiable style. And when Mr. White urbanely confessed that he liked everybody in the House of Commons, even "Bob" Rogers ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... was an analyzer, an originator, a motivator—and more. The young man found himself avoiding too deep a probe into the mind of Brian Taggert; he knew that he had not yet achieved the maturity to understand the multilayered depths of a mind like that. ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... wasted and lean, the voice low as of a man very near death: and I found his thigh much inflamed, suppurating, and ulcerated, discharging a greenish and very offensive sanies. I probed it with a silver probe, wherewith I found a large cavity in the middle of the thigh, and others round the knee, sanious and cuniculate: also several scales of bone, some loose, others not. The leg was greatly swelled, and imbued with a pituitous humor ... and bent and drawn back. There was a large bedsore; he could ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... not give up even then—he tried one last probe: 'Of course,' he said; 'I forgot, your husband kept him so completely in the dark about it all—eh, Mark? Why, when you got him to come down to Wastwater with me, he had no idea what festivities were in ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... this calmness was only on the surface; something strange had stirred the depths of his chief's keen, masterful mind. He would have liked to ask a question or two, but knew from experience that it was neither wise nor profitable to try and probe citizen Chauvelin's thoughts. So after a moment or two he turned back ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... avail, more gentle means will often succeed; and so it proved in the present case; for, though a spade be too boisterous and rough an implement, a pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated into the caverns, will probe their windings to the bottom, and quickly bring out the inhabitant; and thus the humane inquirer may gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of it. It is remarkable that, though these insects are furnished with long legs behind, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... voice. Our noble functions must be so performed, That happy impress graves the rabble mind But thus to meet these vultures with a smile Doth like a colic make mine honor gripe, Machiavelian methods were in sooth The better physic for the patients' needs And I like good physician must the probe Thrust in and sound the ugly, gaping wound. Quezox: Most noble sire, if I may caution speak It were to all this filthy, croaking brood Ne'er lend an open ear, for in it they Will honey-coated poison quick distil. Francos: ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... sometimes disposed to sing Te Deum [Te Deum laudamus: We praise Thee, O God; the first words of an ancient hymn, sung in the morning service of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches], rather to conceal a defeat than to celebrate a victory, and he hastened to probe the matter more closely, by hoping their arrival had been attended with no inconvenience to the good ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... upon Reggie. He was unable to place him. That he was a friend of Maud he knew, and guessed that he was also a resident of the castle. He would have liked to question Reggie, to probe him, to collect from him inside information as to the progress of events within the castle walls; but it is a peculiarity of golf, as of love, that it temporarily changes the natures of its victims; and Reggie, ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... not till the afternoon that he determined to call on his relative, Miss Aldclyffe, and cautiously probe her knowledge of the subject occupying him so thoroughly. Cytherea, he knew, was still beloved by this solitary woman. Miss Aldclyffe had made several private inquiries concerning her former companion, and there was ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... seed grind the earth of this mountain and apply it to your eyes!" The powder is kept in an etui called Makhalah and applied with a thick blunt needle to the inside of the eyelid, drawing it along the rim; hence etui and probe denote the sexual rem in re and in cases of adultery the question will be asked, "Didst thou see the needle in the Kohl-pot ?" Women mostly use a preparation of soot or lamp-black (Hind. Kajala, Kajjal) whose ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... replied; "but they have also invented these questions, which probe the mind to the marrow ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... its own line according to the bent of its nature, and its one tool has been perfected for its trade until it can follow no other. The thrush catches such worms as rashly show themselves above-ground; but an ancient ancestor of the snipe found that, if it followed them into marshy lands, it could probe the soft ground and drag them out of their chambers. For this operation it has now a bill three inches long, straight, thin and sensitive at the tip, a beautiful instrument, but good for no purpose except extracting worms ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... reality little pollen boxes opening by trap-doors on either side, is tucked under the curving tip of a petal at whose base lie two orange-colored nectar glands. A small bee or fly enters the flower: what happens? To reach the nectar, he must probe between the bases of two exceedingly irritable stamens. The merest touch of a visitor's tongue against them releases two anthers, just as the nibbling mouse all unsuspectingly releases the wire from the hook of the wooden trap he is caught in. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics] A bug that disappears or alters its behavior when one attempts to probe or isolate it. (This usage is not even particularly fanciful; the use of a debugger sometimes alters a program's operating environment significantly enough that buggy code, such as that which relies on the values of uninitialized ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... could get no benefit from his own prescriptions. Philip was puzzled and shocked by that eager cleaving to the earth. He wondered what nameless horror was at the back of the old man's mind. He would have liked to probe into his soul so that he might see in its nakedness the dreadful dismay of the ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... progress. To provide for the needs of a small safari may be a light or delightful task; but the difficulties and requirements of a large force, moving forward against an alert, ubiquitous foe, compel you to probe into everything: the nature of the country, with its mountains and rivers, forests and deserts, for scores of miles around; its animal and human diseases; its capacity for supplies and transport; its climate and soil ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... know that the source of the Hudson—the most important source—is a little lake in Essex County, with an Indian name which translates into "Tear of the Clouds?" I didn't, and I'm not certain people ought to probe rivers' pasts any more than they ought women's. It's their own fault if they find out insignificant beginnings. Fancy saying, "Who was she?" about a beautiful body of water like the Hudson! Jack is naturally glad that Henry Hudson was English, ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... noticed that his healthy foot was growing stiff and the ankle swelling. When the head-surgeon came on his daily rounds, the patient confided his fear to him. The doctor examined the emaciated limb, unobserved lanced the abscess, perceived that the probe reached to the bone, rubbed his hands together and looked into the peasant's face ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... woodmen began to probe with the end of a staff among the ivy. For some time he was met by the solid ground, but presently the butt of the staff went through suddenly, pitching him on his head, amid a suppressed ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... surveyed him with an astonishment she made no effort to conceal. Never had she felt at a greater disadvantage with him. Never had she understood him less. Was this attempt at unconcern, so pitiably transparent to her, made in an endeavour to probe her mind or to deceive his own? In her anxiety to determine, ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... mighty trouble in the rudiment of comprehension, nascent in his mind, still seemed to him an apparition; but a trouble overcome is strength gained, and he felt himself stronger. Had he been of an age to probe self, he would have detected within him a thousand other germs of meditation; but the reflection of children is shapeless, and the utmost they feel is the bitter aftertaste of that which, obscure to them, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... tell. I probe my heart With sharpest instruments of pain, And listen if the sweet refrain Still wells up through the smart— "Thy will ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... vitriolati singulorum, unc. iv. in crucibulum candens injice, agitetur donec deflagratio & scintillatio desinat, & adde opii concisi, unc. i. & in pulverem redige addendo rad. glycyrrhiz. ipecacoanhae subtilissime pulver. ana, unc. i. & dein probe misceantur omnia. Dosis a gr. x. ad scrup. ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... Mr. Peter Magnus, 'that's very unpleasant. It is a lady, I presume? Eh? ah! Sly, Mr. Pickwick, sly. Well, Mr. Pickwick, sir, I wouldn't probe your feelings for the world. Painful subjects, these, sir, very painful. Don't mind me, Mr. Pickwick, if you wish to give vent to your feelings. I know what it is to be jilted, Sir; I have endured that sort of thing ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Antonyms: imperforation, closure. Associated words: auger, drill, gimlet, bodkin, bore, bit, puncture, perforate, pink, awl, stylet, imperforable, imperforate, punch, wimble, pierce, eyeleteer, dibble, plug, spigot, spile, gouge, puncheon, probe. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... self-righteousness of the young inquirer, Jesus now tested him in the light of the commandments in which God has revealed his holy will. The youth at once replied, "All these things have I observed from my youth up." Jesus now applied the deep probe which showed that the man had never observed the spirit of the Law, even though he believed that he had kept the letter. Jesus disclosed the real selfishness of the heart as he proposed a supreme test: "One thing thou lackest yet: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... her acquaintance (of course below that of a countess) she visits the slightest dereliction from female propriety with unrelenting bitterness. Woe be to the trespasser, high or low! The weapon is always ready to probe and gash and lacerate; the lash is constantly raised, "swift to smite and never to spare." But who would venture to speak a word against the decorum of Lady Straitlace? If she goes out in the dark, 'tis ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... the Hospital Steward for a Nelaton probe. No drug or medicine in any form was administered to the President, but the artificial heat and mustard plaster that I had applied warmed his cold body and stimulated his nerves. Only a few were at any time admitted to the room by the officer, whom I had stationed at the door, ...
— Lincoln's Last Hours • Charles A. Leale
... her father had hinted approval of his lordship's obvious intentions. Countess of Ventnor! Yes, it was a nice title. Still, she wanted another couple of years of careless freedom; in any event, why should Lady Tozer pry and probe? ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... rehearse calmly the story of these trials, which will long remain the reproach of British lawyers. We shall not probe the motives which led to the appointment of two such men as Justice Mellor and Justice Blackburne as Judges of the Commission, but history will be at no loss to connect the selection with their peculiar character on the ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... pains of an impostor seized him. The deplorable image of the Don making confession became present to his mind. It was a clever stroke of this female intriguer. She saw him redden grievously, and blink his eyes; and not wishing to probe him so that he would feel intolerable disgust at his imprisonment ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... chalice, and saw. He has put a stone there, the same in size, in cut, in engraving, but different in colour, in quality, in value—a stone I have never seen before. How has he obtained it—whence? I must brace myself to probe, to watch; I must turn myself into an eye to search this devil's-bosom. My life, this subtle, cunning Reason of ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... again. And again she was secretly pleased to see him stir under the cool probe of her eyes. "How long did ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... tried to make the best of it, but it was impossible to be entirely unaffected by the depressing chill of the atmosphere. Conversation turned upon Mrs. Ermsted, regarding whom the report had gone forth that she was very seriously ill. Lady Harriet sought to probe Stella upon the subject and was plainly offended when she pleaded ignorance. She also tried to extract Monck's opinion of poor Captain Ermsted's murder. Had it been committed by a mere budmash for the sake of robbery, or did he consider that any political significance was attached ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... to keep away from this trial. She knew it was no place for her to carry the awful secret that she had hidden away in her heart. No matter how deeply she might have it hidden, the fear hung over her that men would probe for it. A word, a look, a hint might be enough to set some on the search for it and she had had a superstition that it was a secret of a nature that it could not be hidden forever. Some day some one would tear it from her heart. She knew that it was dangerous for her to be in Danton ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... ears or excited the suspicions of the careless sentinels, Ulpius crept into the cavity he had made, groping his way with his bar, until he reached the brink of a chasm, the depth of which he could not probe, and the breadth of which he ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... one of the most abominable performances that can be imagined. Mannouri held in his hand a probe, with a hollow handle, into which the needle slipped when a spring was touched: when Mannouri applied the probe to those parts of Grandier's body which, according to the superior, were insensible, he touched the spring, and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... seemed to him a gratuitous probe into the private affairs of the family. "I do not care to discuss ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... his consulting-room to read character, temperament, shrewdly, to probe for more than mere bodily symptoms. Would Doctor Hartley act out of his fear or out of his subjection to women? In leaving the Loulia Isaacson had really trusted him to act out of his fear. But suppose Isaacson had misjudged him! Suppose Mrs. Armine again used her ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... forest, Murtagh up the stream, and Saloo along the sea-beach, where he waded out into the water, still in the hope of picking up another large oyster. He took with him a stalk of bamboo, pointed at one end, to be used as a probe in the soft bottom in case any oysters might be ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... The question seemed to probe into a matter that he had not before considered. But he shook ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... that the majority of those among whom his lot was cast, did seem whole-heartedly content to live in a conventional world and to enjoy conventional successes. Such men, and they were numerous, never seemed disposed to probe beneath the surface of things, unless they were confronted by adverse circumstances, bereavements, or indifferent health; and, under these conditions, their one aim seemed to be to escape as soon as possible from the region of discomfort: they viewed ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... your mind too fast. Don't jump at conclusions. It's intellectual dishonesty to do that. Wait till you have convinced yourself. Spell out your problems slowly; they are not easy ones; try to see how the present complex system works; try to probe its inequalities and injustices; try to compare it with the ideal commonwealth: and you'll find the light in the ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... amusing when the hunter starts out of a winter morning to see his hound probe the old tracks to determine how recent they are. He sinks his nose down deep in the snow so as to exclude the air from above, then draws a long full breath, giving sometimes an audible snort. If there remains the least effluvium of the fox the hound will detect it. If it be ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... alien to the off-world men. But the barrier, meant to deter multi-footed creatures, with wings or no visible limbs at all, proved to be a better protection than its creators had hoped. There was no penetration—only a baffled butting of one force against another. And then the probe withdrew as undetected ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... to probe, "you can remember everything now, and you are not afraid. Tell me what happened to ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... to hers, and his keen blue eyes seemed to probe the recesses of her soul. If she answered, would the steel springs of some trap ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of reformers and revolutionaries, but could not guide them. It had waited like a handmaid on the abstractions of Nature and Reason; it had hardly realised an independent life. The time had come for systematic attempts to probe its meaning and definitely to ascertain the direction in which humanity is moving. Kant had said that a Kepler or a Newton was needed to find the law of the movement of civilisation. Several Frenchmen now undertook to solve the problem. They did not solve it; but the new science of sociology ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... quickly checked herself, and they moved on in silence. Meynell, with his pastoral instinct and training, longed to probe and soothe the trouble he divined in her. A great natural dignity in the girl—delicacy of feeling in the ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on the table when she got home, and though while bolting her food she glanced at Nannie rather keenly, she did not try to probe her feelings. "But she looks down in the mouth," Sarah Maitland thought. There must have been delicacy somewhere in the big nature, for she was careful not to speak of Elizabeth's engagement before Harris, for fear the girl might, by some involuntary tremor ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... Broffin pushed the probe of inquiry a little deeper. How did M. Pouillard happen to remember? Mais, it was because the young man was very droll; he was of the cold blood. When Victor, le garcon, would have brought news of the emeute, ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... a little more brave; he said it was foolish to notice such small things as mosquitoes. I have seen them light on his face and run in their bills, probe in until they reached the fountain of life, suck and gormandize until they got a full supply, then leisurely fly away with their veins and bodies full of the best and most benevolent blood, to live awhile, and die from the effects of indulging too freely ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... Agatha's look were not smiling, though they did not look unkind. They gazed, without embarrassment, as without pride, into Agatha's face, as if they would probe at once to the covered springs of action. Mrs. Stoddard was a thick-set woman, rather short, looking toward sixty, with iron-gray hair parted in the middle and drawn back in ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... at his breakfast-table it was, after all, as elsewhere recorded, that I contrived to support life; barely, indeed, and most slenderly, but still with the final result of escaping absolute starvation. With that recollection before me, I could not allow myself to probe his frailties too severely, had it even been certainly safe to do so. But enough; the reader will understand that a year spent either in the valleys of Wales, or upon the streets of London, a wanderer, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... rings and public robbery flourished in Canada; but among high officials, all were not corrupt. There were some memorable exceptions. One of these exceptions was the worthy, witty, and honest warden of the Quebec merchants, Jean Tache, "homme probe et d'esprit," say old memoirs. Mr. Tache, the "syndic des marchands," was not only an upright and wealthy merchant, he was also gifted with the poetical fire; he, it was, who wrote the first French poem issued in Canada, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... backward again, too delicate to ask another question that might probe a sorrow which he divined to be recent. Romola, who knew well what were the fibres that Tito's voice had stirred in her father, felt that this new acquaintance had with wonderful suddenness got within the barrier that ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... two who had been present were sorely hurt. When we receive our slight cuts and bruises through life, there are usually outcry and abundant sympathy. But when we receive our deep wounds, that leave scars, often only God knows; and it is best so, for He can heal, but the world can only probe. ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... or, at least, would render them less painful. They now felt at a loss how to undeceive her even in her misery, lest the sudden recurrence of happiness might confirm the estrangement of her reason, or might overpower her enfeebled frame. They ventured, however, to probe those wounds which they formerly did not dare to touch, for they now had the balm to pour into them. They led the conversation to those topics which they had hitherto shunned, and endeavoured to ascertain the current of her thoughts in those varying moods that had formerly ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... easy, a few words on the telephone, a cable, a letter, and the business is done. Such transactions are daily occurrences, they leave no particular impression, nor call for any deep thought. And yet, it is very interesting to probe deeply to find the origin of this business. A planter in Texas has worked hard for six months with his entire family, to raise his cotton crop. In the early days of Spring, the ground had to be cleared and ploughed to prepare it for the seed. Then comes the time of sowing, and ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer
... how divers weddings came about: and each marriage appears, upon the whole, to have resulted satisfactorily. Dame Melicent and Dame Adelaide, not Florian, touched the root of the matter as they talked together at Storisende: and the trio's descendants could probe no deeper. ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... in which Robert Redmayne had been most frequently reported. Certain appearances were chronicled and, before Ganns returned to England, the theory had been accepted that the fugitive hid and dwelt aloft in some fastness with the charcoal burners. Now Brendon felt the need to probe this opinion and determined, if possible, to find the ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... see all round the ship for a distance of about a couple of hundred yards; but inshore of us the shadow of the island lay jet-black upon the surface of the water, completely hiding all evidence of movement in that direction, even when I attempted to probe the blackness with the night glass. Therefore we were obliged to trust quite as much to our ears as to our eyes for warning of the approach of an enemy; but even they did not help us much, for the island was but a small one, and the thunder of the surf upon its weather shore, borne ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... large, genial, and ever cheerful, that Eve could not bear it. "I must shake him out of this, at all hazards," thought she: yet she put off the experiment, and put it off, partly in hopes that David would speak first, partly because she saw the wound she would probe was deep, and she winced ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... I will now write more seriously. You refer yourself to my friendship for consolation. It shall be exerted for the purpose. But I must act the part of a skilful surgeon, and probe the wound which I undertake ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... the symbol Marl. I was or had been an entity Marl. Were there others back there, somewhere? There must have been, must be yet. Was I the only Marl who metamorphosed into this state of rational entity? Surely not. Yet I could contact no other rationale around me as far away as I could probe. How far was that? How could I know. Was it far enough to reach the other Marls, or were they scattered thinly throughout infinity around me ...
— Cogito, Ergo Sum • John Foster West
... encyclopedias," said Goethe; and the great premier Gladstone was a charming man in society, though he never talked on any but serious subjects. He was noted for his ability to pump people dry without seeming in the least to probe. "True conversation is not content with thrust and parry, with mere sword-play of any kind, but should lay mind to mind and show the real lines of agreement and the real lines of divergence. Yet this is the very kind of conversation which seems to me so very rare." In order ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... discomfort and, glancing at Mrs. Upton, he saw it echoed, though with, a veiled echo. She laid down her work; she looked at her daughter as though to probe the significance of her speech, and, not finding her clue, she ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Englishman is a creature of the past? Time and continued international experience can alone settle this question. There are, however, bitter memories of past sufferings at his hands in hundreds of American homes, that make it better for both countries not to probe the subject too deeply. ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... erected to commemorate the benevolence and public zeal of some wali or pasha who must have made a handsome fortune in the promotion of a public enterprise. Be this as it may. It is not our business here to probe the corruption of any particular Government. But we observe that this miserable botch of a monument is to the ruins of the Acropolis, what this modern absolutism, this effete Turkey is to the magnificent tyrannies of yore. Indeed, nothing is duller, more stupid, more prosaic than a modern absolutism ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... all that pestiferous flood which flows out of every man's mouth. "Is there any wise man among you?" &c. And indeed this is the orderly proceeding both of nature and grace. Nature begins within to probe among the superfluous and noisome humours which abound in the body, and desolate the members, and doth not think it sufficient to apply external plasters. Grace must begin within too, to purge the heart, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, the eye looks, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... so returned to the Grey Room, and, with Peter's help, and one of the maids, I had everything taken out of the room, except the bed—even the very pictures. I examined the walls, floor and ceiling then, with probe, hammer and magnifying glass; but found nothing suspicious. And I can assure you, I began to realize, in very truth, that some incredible thing had been loose in the room during the past night. I sealed up everything again, and went out, locking ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... heard an uproar one day in the servants' quarters in which my two nurses seemed to be involved. I was entirely ignorant as to the cause of the commotion and for some time held my peace, as one of the first lessons I learned in China was not to probe too deeply into domestic affairs, since one derived but little satisfaction from the attempt. As the confusion continued, however, I summoned Ling Kein in order to ascertain the cause of it. It seems that Ning Ping ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... night. She had arranged to meet him again two days hence in order to repeat to him what she had heard the while of Sir Marmaduke's movements, and when she was like to be free to go to Dover. During those intervening two days she tried hard to probe her own thoughts; her mind, her feelings: but what she found buried in the innermost recesses of her heart frightened her so, that she ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... ancient ceremony," said the priest; "probably Persian, like the baptismal form, although, for that matter, we can never dig deep enough for the roots of these things. They all turn up Turanian if we probe far enough. Our ways separate here, I'm afraid. I am delighted to have made your acquaintance, Mr. Ware. Pray look in upon me, if you can as well as not. We are near ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... des ordentlichen Lehrers G. Zinsser: Der 'Kampf Beowulfs mit Grendel,' als Probe einer metrischen Uebersetzung des angelschsischen Epos 'Bevulf.' Saarbrcken. Druck von Gebrder Hofer. 1881. 4to, ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... thought it natural to have enemies. But what staggered him was to find that he had not a single friend. Those on whom he had counted, those who hitherto had seemed to be interested in everything that he wrote, had not given him a single word of encouragement since the concert. He tried to probe them: they took refuge behind vague words. He insisted, he wanted to know what they really thought: the most sincere of them referred back to his former works, his foolish early efforts.—More than once in his life he was to hear ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... beautiful, and intellectual face, as a reminder of what genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, not to treat him always with deferential courtesy, and, to our occasional request that he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or that he would erase a passage colored too highly with his resentments against society and mankind, he readily and courteously assented-far more yielding than most men, we thought, on points so excusably sensitive. With a prospect of taking the lead in another ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... difference. Dacre Wynne had disappeared during the brief time that he was a guest in Merriton's house. The subject did not die with the owner of Merriton Towers. He spent many long evenings with Doctor Bartholomew talking the thing over, trying to reconstruct it, probe into it, hunt for new clues, new anything which might lead to a solution. But such talks always came to nothing. Every stone had already been turned, and the dry dust of the highway ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... hour of the night had come. Every sound of human activity had long ago ceased. It was the quiet time when one may most easily probe an intense experience. I felt that more was to be known,—something which the minister longed to tell,—something to which what he had caused me to read was to serve as a prelude. I suspected how powerless must have been this sensitive man in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of overpraising it, but probe and probe for words to hint its surprising virtues. We may well celebrate it with festivals and music. It has that indescribable quality of all first things,—that shy, uncloying, provoking barbed sweetness. It is eager and sanguine as youth. It is born ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... penetrates the soft and yielding fibre of the young tree, and if not discovered in time, destroys the leading shoot or branch. The only remedy which has been adopted in Ceylon, is the following:—Several intelligent boys are provided each with an iron needle or probe, of about a foot long, with a sharp double barbed point, like a fish-hook, and a ring handle; they go through the plantation looking narrowly about the trees, and when they perceive the hole in the trunk, which indicates that the enemy is at work, they thrust in the barbed instrument and ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... him. If he flourished under my care I would know it, and if he did not I would know it, and that would be all I would want to know. I have watched Daddy search for the seat of nervous disorders, and sometimes he had to probe very deep to find what developed nerves unduly but he didn't ever do any picking and raveling and fringing at the soul of a human being merely for the sake of finding out what it was made of; and everyone ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... from thy Sire divine? Hast thou no foes about thee, then, that one— Thou vile King!—must be turned against thy son? The deed was thine. Thy Sea-born Sire but heard The call of prayer, and bowed him to his word. But thou in his eyes and in mine art found Evil, who wouldst not think, nor probe, nor sound The deeps of prophet's lore, nor day by day Leave Time to search; but swifter than man may, Let loose the curse to slay ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... platform like ordinary mortals. Though he could undoubtedly have extended his rights to the stopping of a train for his wife or son, he wisely reserved this for himself, lest it should lose prestige. There was sufficient glory already (to probe his mind to the bottom) for Lady Ashbridge in being his wife; it was sufficient also for Michael that he was ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson |
