"Pierce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... founded the San Carlos Mission in the most entrancing location of the Carmelo Valley that the nature loving Serra could have chosen; the forests of oak, pine and cypress for which Monterey is noted to this day, stretch with even greater beauty as we pierce farther into the interior, while the fertility of the land drained by the beautiful Carmelo River together with the commanding position of the spot, made the site of the Mission ideal. And this Mission of the Carmelo Valley ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field
... jokes were of a much too serious character. The college Bible was abstracted from the Chapel and sent to Yale; the communion wine was stolen; a paper bombshell was exploded behind a curtain in the Greek recitation-room; and Professor Pierce discovered one morning that all his black-boards had been painted white. All the copies of Cooke's Chemical Physics suddenly disappeared one afternoon, and next morning the best scholars in the Junior Class were obliged ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... stuff, he knew, and he was fairly positive that there was no immediate danger: the tough fabric of the suits should resist it. A pseudopod-like surge flicked to his leg; crept up; cloaked the suit in patches of yellow; thickened and enveloped him. But it could not pierce through. ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... the volcanic forces of Ararat have acted most powerfully. This fissure is perhaps the greatest with which the mountain is seamed, and out of which has undoubtedly been discharged a great portion of its lava. Starting from the base of the dome, it seemed to pierce the shifting clouds to a point about 500 feet from the summit. This line is continued out into the plain in a series of small volcanoes the craters of which appear to be as perfect as though they had been in activity only yesterday. The solid red and yellow rocks which ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... he called to Henry, and at once his friend complied, and both ran down to the water's edge and strained their eyes to pierce the ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... like that till we get some splints," continued Gwen. "You see, if the muscles contract, the rough ends of the broken bone might pierce a blood vessel, or do dreadful damage. Some of you bring some sand and make a pillow under her head, then she'll be more comfortable. What we want next are ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... surely some must be red. I shall put red flowers for courage where they shall be seen, for courage is of all the virtues to be desired." But there were thorns on the red flowers and, try as she would, she could not hide the thorns so that they might not pierce her flesh. So there could be few of the red ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston
... begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back or stand his ground. But he considered again that he had no armour for his back, and therefore thought that to turn his back to him might give him greater advantage, with ease to pierce him with his darts; therefore he resolved to ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... edge of the primitive forest. Maine did not become a State, indeed, until 1820, the year before Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College, whence he was graduated in 1825, in the same class with Henry W. Longfellow and one year behind Franklin Pierce, afterward President of the United States. After leaving college Hawthorne buried himself for years in the seclusion of his home at Salem. His mother, who was early widowed, had withdrawn entirely from the world. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... perhaps less boisterous since the engine slacked. The rays of light from the cabin lamps pierce and split the waves. Corkey never saw so much ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... dreams, my thoughts, my endeavours, my determinations. Do you know what a weapon a sound can be, Miss Alston? Perhaps not. A sound can be like a sword and pierce you, like a bludgeon and strike you down. A little sound can nestle in your life, and change all the colour and all the meaning of it. The cry of the living child was terrible to me, I thought then. But—then—I had never ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... he that governs Klosterheim by night!" thought every cavalier, as he endeavored to pierce the gloomy being's concealment with penetrating eyes, or, by scrutiny ten times repeated, to unmasque the dismal secrets which lurked beneath his disguise. "There stands the gloomy murderer!" thought another. "There stands the poor ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... 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— ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... by the river with Denham, the other concentrated to a silver globe aloft in the fine blue space above the scum of vapors that was covering the visible world. She looked at the sky once, and saw that no star was keen enough to pierce the flight of watery clouds now coursing rapidly before the west wind. She looked down hurriedly again. There was no reason, she assured herself, for this feeling of happiness; she was not free; she was not alone; she ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... of it, not only the evanescence, but the mystery of the cloud; that its avenues are wreathed in darkness, and its forms and courses no less fantastic, than spectral and obscure; so that not only in the vanity which we cannot grasp, but in the shadow which we cannot pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of ours, that "man walketh in a vain shadow, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... elbows with him as he passed his fellow men in the street. He would never completely feel himself out of the presence of death. Day and night he must watch himself and guard himself, his tongue, his feet, his thoughts, never knowing in what hour the eyes of the law would pierce the veneer of his disguise and deliver his life as the forfeit. There were times when the contemplation of these things appalled him, and his mind turned to other channels of escape. And then—always—he heard Conniston's cool, fighting voice, and the ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... one of the boats has upset," whispered Bob, excitedly, as he leaned over the gunwale and tried to pierce the mist. ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... that lighteth every man that cometh into the world" shall pierce with its rays the darkness of the sensuous nature, will woman's spiritual motherhood for the race, be discerned as the way of its redemption from that darkness and its consequences. As that light is uncovered in individual souls the inner meaning of the Bible will appear, woman's nature ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... weird stillness fell after it. Then came a low moaning cry, a cry that was human in its agony, and yet which had in it something so near the savage that even Wabigoon found himself trembling as he strained in futile effort to pierce the impenetrable gloom ahead. Before the cry had lost itself in the distances of the cavern Mukoki was ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... prepared, and pushed him roughly down upon it, having first placed the crown of thorns upon his head. The crown of thorns was made of three branches plaited together, the greatest part of the thorns being purposely turned inwards so as to pierce our Lord's head. Having first placed these twisted branches on his forehead, they tied them tightly together at the back of his head, and no sooner was this accomplished to their satisfaction than they put a large reed into his hand, doing all with derisive gravity as if they were ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... 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
... clings a fair helpless one, half nude. There are other groups. Men in armour rush to meet the foe in futile agitation. On temple tops, on marble terraces and balconies, on the efflorescent capitals of vast columns that pierce the sky, swarms affrighted humanity. The impression is grandiose and terrific. Exotic architecture, ebon night, an event that has echoed down the dusty corridors of legend or history—these and a hundred other ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... playing their mischievous pranks;[768] and like were-wolves they can in their animal disguise be compelled to unmask themselves to any one who succeeds in drawing their blood. In either case the animal-skin is conceived as a cloak thrown round the wicked enchanter; and if you can only pierce the skin, whether by the stab of a knife or the shot of a gun, you so rend the disguise that the man or woman inside of it stands revealed in his or her true colours. Strictly speaking, the stab should be given on ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... Massachusetts; Roger Sherman and Oliver Elsworth, of Connecticut; Rufus King, of New York; Robert Morris and Thomas Fitzsimmons, of Pennsylvania; George Reid and Richard Basset, of Delaware; Jonathan Dayton, of New Jersey; Pierce Butler, of South Carolina; Hugh Williamson, of North Carolina; William Few and Abraham Baldwin, of Georgia; and last, but not least, James Madison, of Virginia." Yet from not one of these framers of the Constitution—from ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... conception, and if we want to force them to listen to us, we must begin by making a greater noise in order to attract their attention at all. In the same way it is of no use wasting subtleties on them; we have to go straight to the main points, which are clear and sharp enough to pierce their drink-besotted intelligences, or to reach any fragment of conscience they may have remaining ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... Meresq came out alone, and she knew he was on his way to the boat. He would look up, she was sure, and she entrenched herself behind the curtain. By the light of the moon she saw his gaze rivet itself on her window, as though it would pierce the gloom. His face was strangely pale, and even sad, and her rebellious heart throbbed wildly as she felt how perilously dear he still was to her. He turned away. Whatever he wore or did, there was a picturesque grace about him, thought Cecil; and as his boat ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... reactionary—so complete a reactionary that my position is incomprehensible to you who live in a veiled lie of social organization and whose sight is not keen enough to pierce the veil. You make believe that you believe in the survival of the strong and the rule of the strong. I believe. That is the difference. When I was a trifle younger,—a few months younger,—I believed the same thing. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... realize now the nobility of self-sacrifice that flung an army within reach of the jaws of destruction, that risked its annihilation to draw upon itself some of the sword-strokes that threatened to pierce to the heart of the West. Our national and natural instinct of admiration for a hard fighter, and still greater admiration for the apex of good sportmanship, for the friend or foe who can "take a licking," ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... by. We could not resolve to leave the place. Our eyes still sought to pierce the night. Sometimes a glimmer, due to the sparkle of the waters, trembled on the surface of the lake. Then it vanished, and with it the foolish hope that it had roused. Sometimes again, we thought we saw a shadow outlined against the dark, the ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... came, and saluted MacWilliams on the box and bowed to the two riders in the background. In his right hand he held one of the long iron rods with which the collectors of the city's taxes were wont to pierce the bundles and packs, and even the carriage cushions of those who entered the city limits from the coast, and who might be ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, which, if a man lean on it, will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh King of Egypt to all who trust ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... far more commonplace, which yet Willie liked well to look out upon, but which could not keep him long from his bed. There was, for instance, the moonless and cloudy night, when, if he had been able to pierce the darkness to the core, he would have found nothing but blackness. It had a power of its own, but one cannot say it had much to look at. On such a night he would say to himself that the day was so sound asleep he was dreaming of nothing ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... where it stood. Straight up the slope toward Beacon Street and toward the gold dome of the State House the fire errantly went. Blank walls between buildings seemed to make little difference to it; what it could not pierce it ran around. Only at the extreme end of the burial ground did it pause. Here a seven-story fireproof building confronted it, and proved equal to the task. Against the solid walls of this barrier the impetuous visitor beat in vain, ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... others weak: the brave exult, but the cowards tremble, as men who are sore dismayed. The Normans press on the assault, and the English defend their post well: they pierce the hauberks, and cleave the shields, receive and return mighty blows. Again, some press forwards, others yield; and thus in various ways the struggle proceeds. In the plain was a fosse, which the Normans had now behind ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... saw that he was doing a dastardly thing in cold blood. We need not examine their correspondence. In a few weeks she had contrived to put a chasm between them as lovers. Had he remained in England, boldly facing his own evil actions, she would have been subjugated, for however keenly she might pierce to the true character of a man, the show of an unflinching courage dominated her; but his departure, leaving all the brutality to be done for him behind his back, filled this woman with a cutting spleen. It is sufficient ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... way to Abbeychurch, the portraits of sundry radical leaders, embossed within a halo of steel-pens, and a notice of a lecture on 'Personal Respectability,' to be given on the ensuing Friday at the Mechanics' Institute, by the Rev. W. Pierce, the ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and birds that sing are by no means rare; but birds that sew, seem like the wonderful birds in the fairy-tales. Yet they really exist, and make their odd nests with great care and skill. They pick out a leaf large enough for their nest, and pierce rows of holes along the edges with their sharp bill; then, with the fibers of a plant or long threads of grass, they sew the leaf up into a bag. Sometimes it is necessary to sew two leaves together, that the space within may be ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... throne can no more be shaken by the puny attacks of men or devils than the everlasting mountains can be disturbed by the storm-blasts which howl around them. What more, then, is needed, than to shut up the wicked in a prison-house, through whose adamantine walls the accusing cry can never pierce, and whose doors are for ever barred by the holy decree of the Almighty? Ah! were it so, even this thought might possibly gratify pride and enmity, could a condemned, though not judged spirit for ever carry with it a conviction of having waged a war in which power alone had conquered weakness, ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... September. They then continued their journey on foot towards Christiana, where Parker was residing, and where the slaves of Mr. Gorsuch were supposed to be living. The party then consisted of Kline, Edward Gorsuch, Dickinson Gorsuch, his son, Joshua M. Gorsuch, his nephew, Dr. Thomas Pierce, Nicholas T. Hutchings, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... window too small, and besides the wall is set back a foot or two immediately on each side of the window so that the surface is more broken up. Again, instead of the whole rising up with a great pinnacled niche to pierce the cornice and to dominate parapet and cresting, the drip-mould of the window only gives a few ugly twists, and leaves a blank space between the window head and the straight line of the cornice and parapet; a line in no way improved by the tall rustic ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... 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, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... and Tom tried to pierce the darkness, and then made a sudden rush in the direction where he thought the ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... great friction in the machine? Can the mind of a Commander elaborate such movements with the same ease as the hand of a land surveyor uses the astrolabe? Does not the sight of the sufferings of their hungry, thirsty comrades pierce the hearts of the Commander and his Generals a thousand times? Must not the murmurs and doubts which these cause reach his ear? Has an ordinary man the courage to demand such sacrifices, and would not such efforts most certainly demoralise the Army, break up the bands of discipline, ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... thicket, as the Parthians knew well how to do; that is to say, people moiling, stirring, and hurrying up and down, restless and without repose. He must have those hushed, still, quiet, lying at a stay, lither and full of ease, whom he is able to pierce with all his arrows. In conformation thereof, Theophrastus being asked on a time, What kind of beast or thing he judged a toyish, wanton love to be? he made answer, That it was a passion of idle and sluggish ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... dread grew wrath, and his wrath fierce, And he arose, advanced. The shade retreated, But Juan, eager now the truth to pierce, Followed, his veins no longer cold, but heated, Resolved to thrust the mystery carte and tierce, At whatsoever risk of being defeated. The ghost stopped, menaced, then retired, until He reached the ancient wall, then stood ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... stretched over vast spaces of country they found barriers which in all cases checked their advance and in some cases finally stopped it. The Kentishmen and the South-Saxons were brought utterly to a standstill by the Andredsweald. The East-Saxons could never pierce the woods of their western border. The Fens proved impassable to the Northfolk and the Southfolk of East-Anglia. It was only after a long and terrible struggle that the West-Saxons could hew their way ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... weakness, and strength both redundant and vain; 5 Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease, Would be rational ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... elected themselves or their creatures the lawgivers of the commonwealth about to be created. So outrageous were the crimes of these miscreants at this and subsequent periods, that even the very creatures of Pierce and Buchanan, chosen especially for their supposed fitness to assist in these villanies, turned away, one after another, sickened at the sight of them, and forfeited forever the favor of their masters by shrinking from an unqualified and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... each containing an axe and an abundant supply of arrows, hung from the chariot transversely across its right side, while a shield armed with teeth was suspended behind. When a lion was found, the king pursued it in his chariot, letting fly his arrows as he went, and especially seeking to pierce the animal about the heart and head. Sometimes he transfixed the beast with three or four shafts before it succumbed. Occasionally the lion attacked him in his chariot, and was met with spear and shield, or with ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... four o'clock, and the other Spanish division, of eight ships, was heading for the scene and near at hand. Although effectually blocked in their first attempt to pierce the British line, these had not received such injury as to detract seriously from their efficiency. Continuing to stand south-southwest, after the British began tacking, they at last gained ground sufficiently ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... hour lay the fate of millions, rises from the group, standing slightly bent, forward, with one foot on the bottom of the boat, the other on the forward bench. His mild yet serious and commanding glance seems seeking to pierce the mist of the farther shore and discover the enemy, while intimations of the future grandeur of his country rise upon his mind. Nothing of youthful rashness appears in the expression of this figure, but the thoughtful artist has depicted ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Ingleborough. "I believe there's no country in the world where animals are more tortured by flies than in Africa. The wretched insects plunge in that sharp instrument of theirs, pierce the skin, and leave an egg underneath; the warmth of the body hatches it into what we fishing boys called a gentle, and that white maggot goes on eating and growing under the poor animal's coat, living on hot meat always till it is full-grown, when its ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... steel Wound up with a ratchet-wheel. Every beast I'd put to rout Like the man I read about. I would singe the leopard's hair, Stalk the vampire and the adder, Drive the werewolf from his lair, Make the mad gorilla madder. Needle-guns my work should do. But, if beasts got closer to, I would pierce them to the marrow With a barbed and poisoned arrow, Or I'd whack 'em on the skull Till my scimiter ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... by this interruption, just when he was going to prove his genius. Briggs shifted his quid, spat, and inspected the passing hulk with extreme deliberation. I looked at her too, wondering what there was about an old coal-carrier that could pierce Captain Shreve's accustomed phlegm. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... mystic avenues, thou the Earth-blinded summonest both Past and Future, and communest with them, though as yet darkly, and with mute beckonings. The curtains of Yesterday drop down, the curtains of Tomorrow roll up; but Yesterday and Tomorrow both are. Pierce through the Time-element, glance into the Eternal. Believe what thou findest written in the sanctuaries of Man's Soul, even as all Thinkers, in all ages, have devoutly read it there: that Time and Space are not God, but creations of God: that with God as it is a universal ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... moon wept down in rain, And ever her sighs rose high in wind; But the earth and sea were deaf and blind, And she wept and sighed her griefs in vain. And ever at night, when the storm is fierce, The cries of a wraith through the thunder pierce; And the waves strain their awful hands on high To tear the false ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... 1823, preferring the older forms, gave it thus: "Spit, spat or spit, spitten or spit."—New Gram., p. 111. NOTE:—"Johnson gives spat as the preterimperfect, and spit or spitted as the participle of this verb, when it means to pierce through with a pointed instrument: but in this sense, I believe, it is always regular; while, on the other hand, the regular form is now never used, when it signifies to eject from the mouth; though we find in Luke, xviii, 32, 'He shall be spitted on.'"—Churchill's New Gram., p. 264. This ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... we kneaded dough and rolled it into kringels. Opposite the underground window of our cellar was a bricked area, green and mouldy with moisture. The window was protected from outside with a close iron grating, and the light of the sun could not pierce through the window panes, covered as they were ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... wroth, But not to wanton with unbridled will In every cruelty, with fiend-like joy:— There lives a God to punish and avenge. Come forth, thou bringer once of bitter pangs, My precious jewel now—my chiefest treasure— A mark I'll set thee, which the cry of grief Could never penetrate—but thou shalt pierce it— And thou, my trusty bow-string, that so oft For sport has served me faithfully and well, Desert me not in this dread hour of need— Only be true this once, my own good cord, That hast so often wing'd the biting shaft:— For shouldst thou fly successless ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... Was it that our eyes reveal all they are capable of revealing at a glance, in an instant; that at a glance we see all that we wish to see; but that they do not and cannot reveal our inner self, the hidden things of the soul; and that when our eyes are gazed steadily at it looks like an attempt to pierce to ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... lively lady was already gone. With staring black eyes, imploringly trying to pierce the gloom, with hands and feet that sought to batter and break down the thick darkness, with incoherent cries and supplications following the moving of ignis fatuus lights ahead, she ran, and ran swiftly!—ran over treacherous foundations, ran by yawning gulfs, ran past branching galleries ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... bed and waited. At the least sound he started, thinking it might be the call from the governess. But the few sounds he did hear always resolved themselves into the moaning of the wind, and no voice came. With his eyes on the open window, trying to pierce the gloom and find the stars, he lay motionless for hours, while the night wore ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... to pierce the darkness, and I perceived that I stood on the lowest step of a staircase, vast as the foot of a mountain. Behind me were thousands of steps of lurid iron; before me, nothing but a void—an abyss, and ether; the blue gloom of midnight beneath my feet, as above ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... good point—can do no harm," said Philippe, making a thrust as if to pierce Monsieur ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... to suffer, unrepining, whatever Providence, in its infinite wisdom, sees fitting to inflict. If I have a soul for the dangers of the field, I have also, I think, the courage to confront those trials that pierce the heart with keener agonies than any the steel of a foeman can inflict. Fear not to task ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... been so treated will die. Other methods will procure the death of an enemy in a certain number of months or cause him to lose a limb. Sometimes they make a rosary of 108 fruits of the dhatura [406] and pierce the figure of the enemy through the neck after repeating charms, and it is supposed that this ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... drawing back his elbow, so as to stab his adversary with a shortened sword. A scuffle ensued, of which no bystander could follow with his eye the full details, till the Scot's sword was seen to turn upwards, and the point to pierce his own throat. Each combatant fell backwards, Le Gallais bleeding from the left hand, and Elliot spouting black gore ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... from behind trees. Their arms were clubs, bows, and Taquara arrows, the latter a formidable weapon tipped with a piece of flinty bamboo shaped like a spear-head; they could propel it with such force as to pierce a man completely through the body. The whites of Borba made reprisals, inducing the warlike Mundurucus, who had an old feud with the Araras, to assist them. This state of things lasted two or three years, and made a journey up the Madeira a risky undertaking, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... of honor he had drawn in with his mother's milk; and his father had developed it in him. Everything about him indicated pride: the upright carriage of his head, the glance of his black eyes which seemed to pierce the objects he looked at. He loved the Stanislas uniform which his father had worn before him, and which had been worn by Gouraud and Baratier, whose fame was then increasing, and Rostand, then in all the new glory ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... upon him for a moment with an expression of profound sympathy; he then looked around the room with searching glances, which seemed to pierce every niche, every fold of the curtains, and every piece of furniture and sculpture. "Is your majesty sure that no one can hear and watch us here?" he asked in a ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... him, and when his full senses returned Lucas was in the midst of the story of the deadly game of tag played in a ten-acre lot of dense underbrush by two of his old-time friends. It was a tale of gripping interest and his auditors were leaning forward in their eagerness not to miss a word. "An' Pierce won," finished Lucas; "some shot up, but able to get about. He was all right in a couple of weeks. But he was bound to win; he could ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... just because you can hit one of them on the head and knock him out of your way? I've got two good snapshots of both of you and I hid the camera, and if you choked me, I wouldn't tell you where it is. See? That old Pierce-Arrow is here because it's here. See? And it's going to stay here, too. I just threw your spark plugs into the lake. If you hadn't been a couple of big fools you wouldn't have stepped inside this car. Steal a Pierce-Arrow! You make ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the subject of a sedulously concealed scrutiny. Was he watching for his friend or for his own sake, or was he, in a spirit of retaliation, enjoying the suffering of one who had made others suffer? His reserve was so great that she could not pierce it, and his caution baffled even her vigilance. But she waited patiently, assured that the little drama must soon pass ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... gusty Friday night just after Easter. A night full of wind which comes in sudden blasts and drives the sharp shining rain along the streets so that it seems to pierce through coats and umbrellas, and makes such a quick pattering sound upon the pavement that people who are indoors, and just going to bed, pull aside their window-curtains, look out at the flickering lights, and feel ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Grand Wash in the years thereafter, but it appears that it was not until December, 1876, that a regular ferry there was established, this by Harrison Pearce. The place bears the name of Pearce's Ferry unto this day, though the maps give it as "Pierce." A son of Harrison Pearce, and former assistant in the operation of the ferry, James Pearce, was the first settler of Taylor on Silver Creek, Arizona, ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... as to fire the gun with a delay not exceeding one five-hundredth of a second. As soon as the blade of the propeller passes the barrel the system liberates the firing mechanism of the gun until another blade passes, or is about to pass, when the bullets that would pierce it are held up, just for that fraction of a second, again. So it goes on, like clockwork. You have noticed that on the new planes all the pilot has to do when he wants to fire his machine-gun is to press a small lever which is set, on most planes, ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... stack of cells. It is just possible that their early eclosion forces this method of exit upon them, a method which, though often attempted, does not always succeed. The females, furnished with stronger tools, make greater progress in my tubes. I see some who pierce three or four partitions, one after the other, and are so many stages ahead before those whom they have left behind are even hatched. While they are engaged in this long and toilsome operation, others, nearer to the orifice, have cleared a passage whereof those from a distance ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... knights of the world that could most of defence of arms. He goeth toward Perceval as fast as his horse may carry him and Perceval toward him. They mell together upon their shields right stiffly, so that they pierce and batter them with the points of their spears. And Perceval thrusteth his spear into the flesh two finger-breadths, and the knight doth not amiss, for he passeth his spear right through his arm so that ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... a veritable duel, in which persistent watchfulness is required in order to triumph over an adversary; for, if you are unlucky enough to turn your head, the sword of the celibate will pierce you ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... one they rose in the air and shot a straight line over the prairie. Others shot up into the blue sky and were soon lost to sight. Only one was left. He was making ready for his flight when Iktomi rushed upon him and wailed, "I want to be an arrow! Make me into an arrow! I want to pierce the blue Blue overhead. I want to strike yonder summer sun in its center. Make ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... the spear he held, that which I had snatched from the flank of the horse, and it was dropped with a scream. Black hands were thrust through the hole, and the Hottentot hacked and cut at them with the spear. But others came, more than he could pierce, and the whole door-frame began to ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... by which they entered, and there should be sufficient watchfulness to discover them before they have done much harm. I prefer to cut them out with a sharp, pointed knife, and make sure that they are dead; but a wire thrust into the hole will usually pierce and kill them. Wood-ashes mounded up against the base of the tree are said to be a preventive. In the fall they can be spread, and they at least make one of the ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... of a summer night, when fireflies are flashing their lanterns over the fields, the stars do not sparkle and blaze like those that pierce the frosty skies of winter. The light of Sirius, Aldebaran, Rigel, and other midwinter brilliants possesses a certain gemlike hardness and cutting quality, but Antares and Vega, the great summer stars, and ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... 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 ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... right of arms. The next is his adoptive son, whose love May seem more just, but doth no better prove; For though he did his loved Livia wed, She was seduced from her husband's bed. Nero is third, disdainful, wicked, fierce, And yet a woman found a way to pierce His angry soul. Behold, Marcus, the grave Wise emperor, is fair Faustina's slave. These two are tyrants: Dionysius, And Alexander, both suspicious, And yet both loved: the last a just reward Found ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... the little dears toys! toys that all day will sleep calmly in their boxes, seemingly stiff and wooden and without life,—but at night, when the souls enter them, will arise and surround the cots of the sleeping children, and pierce their hearts with their keen, envenomed blades! Toys indeed! oh, yes! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... body lies afar. The precipice Hath part, and parts in many an interstice Lurk of the tangled woodland—no light quest To find. And, ah, the head! Of all the rest, His mother hath it, pierced upon a wand, As one might pierce a lion's, and through the land, Leaving her sisters in their dancing place, Bears it on high! Yea, to these walls her face Was set, exulting in her deed of blood, Calling upon her Bromios, her God, Her Comrade, Fellow-Render of the Prey, Her All-Victorious, to whom this day She bears ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... footstep within the lone room Hath scattered the dream; loving eyes pierce the gloom, A lithesome young figure at Grandma's side kneels, A firm youthful hand into ...
— Grandma's Memories • Mary D. Brine
... — their annual income — the next year, as the law had placed an embargo on their ordinary avocation. King Williamstown was also visited, and there at a meeting held in the Baptist Church, which was kindly lent for the purpose by the Rev. Mr. Pierce, it was unanimously resolved to appeal to His Majesty the King against the Natives' Land Act. Mr. W. Sebe presided over this meeting of representative Natives, and Mr. Bassie translated ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... utterance to these words of fearful import, he started from his recumbent position, and, half-erect upon the raft, remained listening,—at the same time endeavouring with his glance to pierce the darkness that shrouded the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... pierce the wall," he said. "I found where a door had been, but it was filled solidly with stones ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... would be exposed to attack from all sides and liable to encounter superior forces. The main Austrian anxiety for the moment was the precarious position of Przemysl, to relieve which it was first essential to dislodge Brussilov or to pierce his line. Again, in the hour of her extremity, Austria's powerful ally ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... combination of malevolence and imbecility. He was what you call a remittance man. He got so much a quarter—a miserable sum it was—to keep out of England. He travelled about formerly. But no amount of travel, no association with his betters, could pierce his stolid pachydermatous obliquity. He was the worst kind of Englishman; he could not even cheat without being found out. But for the wise counsels of his lady he would have been in the lock-up over and over again. Such being the case, he took a justifiable pride in his Anglo-Saxon ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... incident to narrow minds: he whose comprehension can take in the whole subordination of mankind, and whose perspicacity can pierce to the real state of things through the thin veils of fortune or of fashion, will discover meanness in the highest stations, and dignity in the meanest; and find that no man can become venerable but by virtue, or contemptible ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... for this I sought his life? Oh base, degenerate Spaniard! Hadst thou done it, thou hadst been worse than damned: Heaven took more care of me, than I of him, to expose this paper to my timely view. Sleep on, thou honourable Englishman; I'll sooner now pierce my own breast than thine: See, he smiles too in his slumber, as if his guardian angel, in a dream, told him, he was secure: I'll give him warning though, to prevent danger from another hand. [Writes on TOWERSON'S paper, then sticks his dagger in it. Stick there, that when he wakens, he may know, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... frequently that I can not tell the number of times I have seen it. So frequently, that my own heart was becoming so hardened that I could witness with comparative indifference, the female writhe under the lash, and her shrieks and cries for mercy ceased to pierce my heart with that keenness, or give me that anguish which they first caused. It was not always that I could learn their crimes; but of those I did learn, the most common was non-performance of tasks. I have seen men strip and receive from one to three hundred strokes of the whip and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... bitter fact to the Germans that they had incurred such great losses without gaining any advantage. The French positions before the fort and in Vaux village remained intact, and the enemy had failed utterly in their attempts to pierce ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... which had given back to the pope his courage. It was this which Bennet had now to report to Henry. The French alliance, it was too likely, would prove a broken reed, and pierce the hand that ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... weighing from sixty to an hundred and twenty pounds. The rhinoceros is also often met with. This animal is rather less than the elephant, but stronger. His skin is prodigiously thick, and so hard that scarcely any weapon can pierce it. His snout is like that of a hog, on which grows a solid horn, ten or twelve inches long, which is much valued, because esteemed an ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... and let it lie in cold water for several hours before cooking—over night, if possible. Lay it in a kettle of cold water when it is to be cooked; bring the water to a boil slowly, and let it simmer until the tongue is so tender that you can pierce it with a fork. A large tongue should be over the fire about four hours. When it has cooled in the liquor in which it was boiled, remove the skin with great care, beginning at the tip, and stripping ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... I pushed the needle through his ear and cut off a little piece of silk. I looked anxiously in his face as he turned his head for me to pierce the other one. I was so nervous ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... liking. But indeed great company and the Dinner well cooked and served and they did drink my health on it. Also the house very handsome with Plate displayed and fires where the Company did sit. And the greatness of living we are come to did make Mrs Pierce's Mouth to water though she in her flowered Lutestring and liking well of it. So she green and yellow with spite as I did well perceive. Great Musique after, with "Great, good and just," and Sam'l at the top of his Tune, and so to cards and wine. Weary ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... In contempt of you I love Dinant, mine enemy, nay admire him, His valour claims it from me, and with justice, He that could fight thus, in a cause not honest, His sword edg'd with defence of right and honour, Would pierce as deep as lightning, with that speed too, ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... child is set for the falling and the rising of many in Israel; And for a sign which is spoken against; Yea and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul; That thoughts out of ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... swift, springy footsteps came hurriedly down the path, and a voice, which seemed to pierce her very heart, called: "Birdie, little ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... high Ground, the Earth is neither moist nor deep enough, and commonly the chief Root which grows directly downwards, cannot pierce the hard Earth which it soon meets with. Besides, the Winds are more boisterous, and cause the Blossoms to fall off as soon as blown, and when a little high, overturn the Tree, whose Roots are ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... standing off beyond the docks, huge shadowy figures, swaying silently in the faint light, for there was a slight haze in the air that even the brilliant moonlight could not wholly pierce. ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington |
