"Piercing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... distance, and one wished to draw the other to him, he had a way of placing two of his fingers against his tongue, and emitting a shrill screech which might well be taken for the scream of a locomotive whistle, so loud and piercing ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... totally different in shape from all other leopards. Instead of being low and long, with short but massive legs, it stands extremely high; the neck is long, the head small, the eyes large and piercing; the legs are long, and the body light. The tail is extremely long, and thick; this appears to assist it when turning sharply at full speed. The black spots upon the skin are very numerous, and ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... making out a satisfactory history of every ingot he was liable to severe penalties. This Act was, as might have been expected, altogether ineffective. During the following summer and autumn, the coins went on dwindling, and the cry of distress from every county in the realm became louder and more piercing. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... gentleman, who stood gravely regarding her. At sight of him she paused, embarrassed. No figure was more familiar in Washington, yet none was less to be expected here. There was no mistaking the large frame, the high brow, the dark and piercing eye, the costume—that of another day. Involuntarily, although her first impression (based upon other meetings with distinguished men) was one more of apprehension than of pleasure, she swept him a deep curtsy. ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... energy in his manner which surprised his companion. His white face was illuminated by a sort of radiance from within, his voice was full and firm, the glance of his eyes piercing and determined. ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... him in the quiet, earnest manner of one who feels the importance of what he is saying: "Slade, get your horse at once, and go home, or there will be —— to pay." Slade started and took a long look, with his dark and piercing eyes, at the gentleman. "What do you mean?" said he. "You have no right to ask me what I mean," was the quiet reply, "get your horse at once, and remember what I tell you." After a short pause he promised to do so, and actually got into the saddle; but, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... music, and of gondoliers calling over the lagoons to their comrades. It was an exquisite voice; not large, but flexible and very warm. The pianoforte accompaniment was rather uneasy and faltering. Now and then, when it became blurred and wavering, the voice was abruptly hard and decisive, once even piercing and almost shrewish. Then the pianist, as if attacked by fear, played louder and hurried the tempo, the little dark woman smiled mischievously, the white-haired woman put her handkerchief to her eyes, and the young man looked as if he wished to commit murder. But the huge man ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... going through a thing yourself, and having it go through you. And "through" here means not as a spear is thrust through a man's body, piercing it, but as fire goes through that which it takes hold of, permeating; as an odor goes ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... place, and shivered to think of the hot red blood stilled in death, and the grass roots creeping downwards like tentacles into the chinks of the wood, and sending up great fat greasy blades that sweated in the sun. I hated the grass roots, and dreamed horribly of them piercing into my heart, and drawing the life-blood to feed the bloated sweaty leaves, but the graveyard had an awful fascination for me. Sometimes old men would wander inside the dyke and move slowly to a rude stone and ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... piercing yell, and the pale woman looked such daggers at me that I nearly dropped the sketch, brushes and palette out of my hands. Oh, it was such a look! Brrr! how I shivered. Then, with another yell, tenfold more piercing than the first, she made a dash into the crowd, and tried to snatch the ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... all of her broken little life, felt an unkind touch, wavered, as the man's boot touched her slight body. Her sightless eyes clouded, all at once, with tears. And then, with a sudden piercing shriek, she crumpled up—in a white ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... within shot; then they shot fiercely with their cross-bows. Then the English archers stept forth one pace and let fly their arrows so wholly and so thick, that it seemed snow. When the Genoways felt the arrows piercing through heads, arms, and breasts, many of them cast down their cross-bows, and did cut their strings and returned discomfited. When the French King saw them fly away, he said, "Slay these rascals, for they shall let and trouble ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... she began in her piercing voice; as ever at fever heat of unrest, she waved at me ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... Warder. No pleased smile had he for the visitant, but a frown of stern displeasure. "Athanasius," said he, "why are you continually sending me these empty bags, carefully sealed up, with nothing inside?" It was one of the piercing sayings we meet with in Christian antiquity, when these things were real to Christian men, and not mere forms, as they too ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... country, because Christianity has yet to come; but it is not yet come—nowhere! Nowhere on earth! And with the sharp eye of misfortune piercing the dark veil of the future, and with the tongue of Cassandria relating what I see, I cry it out to high Heaven, and shout it out to the Earth—"Nations, proud of your momentary power; proud of your freedom; proud of your ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... opposite direction, you might go around the Point, and piercing the recesses of the ever-beautiful arm of the sea, find a perfect picnic ground at its farthest bend; or, crossing the harbour, there were lovely spots to be secured on the big, tree-clad island that well-nigh filled ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... wilderness lurked in the uplift and downput of his feet. He was cat-footed, and lithe, and strong, always strong. I likened him to some great tiger, a beast of prowess and prey. He looked it, and the piercing glitter that arose at times in his eyes was the same piercing glitter I had observed in the eyes of caged leopards and other ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... his speedy death. But the robust constitution of the athlete rose superior to the persecutions of his torturers, and to save further trouble he was barbarously murdered in his bed on the night of September 21. Piercing shrieks from the interior of the castle told the peasantry that some dire deed was being perpetrated within its gloomy walls. Next day it was announced that the lord Edward had died a natural death, and his corpse was exposed to ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... had stood on that lonely summit some two years and a half before. But now it was fine warm weather, with only a summer breeze blowing, and early afternoon instead of dull twilight. Those who ascended to the immediate neighbourhood of the Barrow perceived that the erect form in the centre, piercing the sky, was not really alone. Round him upon the slopes of the Barrow a number of heathmen and women were reclining or sitting at their ease. They listened to the words of the man in their midst, who was preaching, while they abstractedly pulled heather, stripped ferns, or tossed pebbles down ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Suddenly a piercing shriek saluted his ears. Something had occurred to alarm the owner of the fairy feet which made the soft pat, pat, on the ground. Another shriek, and Harry bounded down the road like an antelope, heedless of the remonstrances of ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... of buckskin or homespun, wearing wolfskin and coonskin caps, and carrying their long rifles on their shoulders, the wild soldiery of the backwoods tramped into the little French town. They were tall men, with sinewy frames and piercing eyes. Under "Old Hickory's" lead they had won the bloody battle of the Horseshoe Bend against the Creeks; they had driven the Spaniards from Pensacola; and now they were eager to pit themselves against the most renowned troops of ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... embarrassed by the piercing glance I turned on him, but he immediately started on one of those exhibitions of simplicity which are ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... went astray into my cloak, which at that moment was puffed out by the wind. Seeing that I did not fall, the Russian left the sergeant and aimed a great number of blows at me. These were at first fruitless, but one at last reached me, piercing my left arm, and I felt with a kind of horrible pleasure my blood flowing hot. The Russian grenadier with redoubled fury made another thrust at me, but, stumbling with the force which he put into it, drove his bayonet into my mare's thigh. Her ferocious instincts ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... constitute an adequate stimulus. That is, the contact must arouse a phylogenetic association with a physical struggle or with physical exertion. In the foot, the adequate stimuli for laughter are such contacts as resemble or suggest piercing by stones or rough objects.. The intention of the one who tickles must be known; if his intention be playful, laughter results, whereas if injury be intended, then an effort toward escape or defense is excited, but no laughter. ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... they had reached the back-kitchen door, just as Sylvia had unladen herself, and was striking a light with flint and tinder. The house seemed warm and inviting after the piercing outer air, although the kitchen into which they entered contained only a raked and slumbering fire at one end, over which, on a crook, hung the immense pan of potatoes cooking for the evening meal of the pigs. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Paris is another; to behold nothing but fields, houses, or trees in what a stretch of country offers us, is to remain on the surface; all aspects of things are thoughts of God. The spot where a plain effects its junction with a city is always stamped with a certain piercing melancholy. Nature and humanity both appeal to you at the same time there. Local originalities there ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... less than medium height, thin and agile. In all his actions he showed quickness and alertness. He had large, black, piercing eyes, his eyebrows were curved and thick; his nose straight and long; his cheeks somewhat sunken; his mouth, not particularly well formed but expressive and graceful. From early youth his forehead was deeply lined. His neck was erect; his chest, narrow. At ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... ladder of thrills to a high state of excitement; and, indeed, they were all so tuned to racing pitch, that some metal nerve or other seemed to jar inside all three, when the piercing, grating voice of ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... moments of perfect forgetfulness of this dreary world and all its cares, have been taken in an oaken bench, seated bolt upright and vis a vis to a lecturer on botany, whose calming accents, united with the softened light of an autumnal day, piercing its difficult rays through the narrow and cobwebbed windows, the odour of the recent plants and flowers aiding and abetting, all combined to steep the soul in sleep, and you sank by imperceptible and gradual steps into that state ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... stroke fell, marking him from the nape all down the spine, so that he now bore upon his back in red the sign the ass carries in black, a piercing shriek assailed Angus's ears, and his arm, which had mechanically raised itself for a third ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... had looked up he had seen a speck in the vaulted heaven. It was slowly soaring around and around in vast circles, and with each circle coming nearer and nearer to the ground. A pair of keen and powerful eyes were aloft there piercing the distance, looking, searching, in every direction, until at last their glance fell upon the figure upon the rock. The circling stopped. There was a swift rush through the air. A black feathered body ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... loved ones know what to answer, My pale face ye follow wherever it goes. My home's in the forest, my home's in the city, Wherever the terror of loneliness lies, And woe be to him who when out in the moonlight Catches the glance of my soul-piercing eyes. By day I am stone By night I have breath, And those whom I meet, know ...
— A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters • Charles A. Gunnison
... to Cuba and hearing from them an account of their holiday wanderings in Europe. Jack found the Spanish soldier to be a man of about thirty-two years of age, tall, swarthy, and by no means ill-looking: but such physical advantages as he possessed were heavily discounted by a pair of piercing, black, sinister-looking eyes, and a distinctly arrogant, overbearing manner; the man evidently thought well of himself, and took no trouble to conceal the fact. He greeted Jack's appearance in Senorita Isolda's company with something very nearly approaching a scowl, and coldly acknowledged Senora ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... back-stage. Frank was in her mind at that moment, as he had been all the evening; her zestful enjoyment of the affair was heightened by the thought that she could help him forget his troubles for a little while by the story she would carry to him. Then she and the others in the group heard the piercing squeals ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... a solid globe. We left chambers, tunnels, passageways, storerooms throughout it or piercing it from surface to surface. Thus, even as Xlarbti was being created, we provided for everything that we needed or could need—experimental laboratories, sub-surface vaults, chambers for the innumerable huge ray dynamos, energy storage ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei
... piercing Caustics ply their spiteful Powr; Emetics ranch, and been Cathartics sour. The deadly Drugs in double Doses fly; And Pestles peal a ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the step. There was a long piercing wail of the whistle that was smothered as the engine entered the snow-shed. The girl on the platform stood motionless a moment. Then one of her hands dropped from her breast, and with it came a faded spray of purple lilac. ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... venison without salt. If one of the fiery devils has passed, so have a dozen; and, what is worse, they have gone down towards the garrison, and not a soul crosses the clearing around it that some of their piercing eyes will not discover, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... me, and gave me a box on the ear, which made my head ring. Having always heard that a hearty kiss was the proper response to a girl's box of the ear, I took her by the ears, and kissed her repeatedly. But she uttered such a piercing scream as frightened even me. I let her go; and it was fortunate that I did so, for in a moment I knew not what was happening to me. The ground beneath me began to shake and rattle. I soon remarked that the railings again set themselves in motion; but I had no ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... gone eastward. It might have penetrated into Arabia and taken possession of those regions where the faith of the False Prophet now holds sway. It might have visited the wandering tribes of Central Asia and, piercing its way down through the passes of the Himalayas, reared its temples on the banks of the Ganges, the Indus and the Godavery. It might have traveled farther east to deliver the swarming millions of ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... spirits who on mischief wait! Their troop familiar, streaming through the air, From every quarter threaten man's estate, And danger in a thousand forms prepare! They drive impetuous from the frozen north, With fangs sharp-piercing, and keen arrowy tongue From the ungenial east they issue forth, And prey, with parching breath, upon thy lungs; If, waft'd on the desert's flaming wing, They from the south heap fire upon the brain, Refreshment from the west at first ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... instruments were arrows without barbs, and other tools made of reindeer horn, and a bodkin formed out of the more compact horn of the roedeer. This instrument was well shaped, and sharply pointed, and in so good a state of preservation that it might still be used for piercing the tough ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... symbolical writings; whether these were characters unknown to the vulgar, or figures of animals, under which was couched a hidden and parabolical meaning. Thus, by a hare, was signified a lively and piercing attention, because this creature has a very delicate sense of hearing.(342) The statue of a judge without hands, and with eyes fixed upon the ground, symbolized the duties of those who were to exercise ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... Magnan was awakened by a great noise. He seemed to hear piercing cries, and he felt that violent shuddering of the nerves which we suffer when on awaking we continue to feel a painful impression begun in sleep. A physiological fact then takes place within us, a start, to use the common expression, which has never been ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... grandly-cut features, pale with the natural paleness of a brunette, had premature lines about them, telling that the years had been lengthened by sorrow, and the delicately-curved nostril, which seemed made to quiver with the proud consciousness of power and beauty, must have quivered to the heart-piercing griefs which had given that worn look to the corners of the mouth. Her wide open black eyes had a strangely fixed, sightless gaze, as she paused at the turning, and stood silent ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... events of the previous day came back to Joy's mind as she stood by the window, and stirred her with a sense of strangeness and terror. The thought of the step she had resolved to take brought a sudden trembling to her limbs. It seemed to her the eyes of God were piercing into her heart, ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Mifflin, 'were to go in swimming together, while I waited on the sands, holding our bone-headed Press-agent on a leash. About a hundred yards from the shore up go her arms. Piercing scream. Agitated crowds on the beach. What is the matter? What has happened? A touch of cramp. Will she be drowned? No! G. Barnert Callender, author of Fate's Footballs, which opens at the Beach Theatre on Monday evening next, at eight-fifteen sharp, will save her. See! He ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the mother of Jesus is in the story of the cross. Ah, holy mother-love, constant and faithful to the end! At length Simeon's prophecy is fulfilled,—a sword is piercing the mother's soul also. "Jesus was crucified on the cross; Mary was crucified at ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... so poignant, his gesture so violent, his dark eyes so piercing that Columbine sustained a shock that held her trembling and mute. "How can you love Jack Belllounds? You were twelve years old when you saw him last. How ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... day of destruction will not, however, be without its forerunners. First will come a triple winter, during which snow will fall from the four corners of the heavens, the frost be very severe, the wind piercing, the weather tempestuous, and the sun impart no gladness. Three such winters will pass away without being tempered by a single summer. Three other similar winters will then follow, during which war and discord will spread over the universe. The earth itself will be frightened and begin to tremble, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... piercing, feline voice soon pounded flail-like into her consciousness, scattering her thoughts ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... down the walk in the moonlight, the black shadows of the bare branches falling one after another across his shoulders, and suddenly the thought that this was her husband who was leaving her thus came over her with a wave of irresistible emotion. Her throat ached with a piercing realisation of the tragedy of it, and without stopping to think, she ran down the steps and pursued him, panting and almost weeping. He turned at the sound of her hurrying steps, puzzled by the pursuit and on his guard against her influence. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... in the grey of the morning, when the indolent Hindus were completely off their guard. And when the Rajah and his companions were roused from the drunken dreams of Madhu, they already found the camp deserted, and the army in confusion. Fifty field pieces were piercing the lines with an incessant discharge of grape-shot, and Colonel Rohan who commanded de Boigne's right wing had, with unauthorised audacity, thrown himself into the midst of the camp at the head of three battalions. Rallying a strong body of ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... the love of God, like the cross of Christ. Come with me to Calvary, and look upon the Son of God as He hangs there. Can you hear that piercing cry from His dying lips: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!" and say that He does not love you? "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John xv. 13). But Jesus Christ laid down ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... as possible from the wild, waving arms, the frenzied eyes, the gaunt and wolfish aspect, the piercing, agonized voice of the fanatic, who had assumed to himself the solemn office of soul-comforter in a time of extremity. I saw from a distance his long, lank figure writhing like a sapling in a storm, as it overtopped the ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... stepped behind the high desk of justice, and took his official seat, a buzz of expectation went round. The clerk of the court bustled in with an air of importance, and shook hands with the District Attorney, whose troubled, anxious eye shot piercing glances in every direction. Daviess appeared to be seeking for somebody he hardly hoped to find. Old Jim, standing in a corner, craned his neck to get a better view, wheezily murmuring in the ear of his friend, the backwoodsman, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... entrails, and begins. When he leaves off, is another matter altogether—but not generally till he has gone through the round of human knowledge, explored the past, touched lightly upon the present, and cast a piercing glance into the darkness of the future. Soon after three, the Senate adjourns for dinner, and the orator of the day goes to his pudding with the rest, happy in the reflection that he has done his duty by his country, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Michael Scott. He wore a turban of crimson velvet, ornamented with mystic figures in gold, and on the front of it was a dazzling star. His eyes were bright and piercing, resembling those of a serpent. He was stout-made, and had a strong bushy beard, turning grey. On beholding Charlie Scott (he alone entered the wizard's sanctum sanctorum), the wizard stamped three times on the floor, and in a moment Prim, Prig, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... (which ended with a crow) he stuffed his red pocket handkerchief into his mouth and escaped. At the sound of the names, Merton had turned towards the inner door, open behind him, whence came a clear and piercing trill of feminine laughter from Miss Blossom. Merton angrily marched to the inner door, and shut his typewriter in with a bang. His heart burned within him. Nothing could be so insulting to clients; nothing so ruinous to a nascent business. He wheeled round to greet his visitors with a ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... was made known to her that she was to be burned at the stake in the market-place of Rouen, before a multitude of people, she burst into piercing cries of agony. Her physical strength, courage, and brain-power were all impaired by the months of abuse she had endured, and her very soul was torn by the neglect and indifference which the base king manifested toward her. Up to the very ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... they could obey, a white figure sprang up from behind a cluster of rocks. Quick as thought followed a flash, a report, a heart-piercing scream; and the men, with a cry of "Ghazi! Ghazi!" unceremoniously set down ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... as insolently as ever and their piercing shafts of light were of a steel-blue color; the meteorites still streaked their orange-red trails across the curtain of black. But this light in the distance, growing constantly brighter, was a deep red. ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... moment the fat fisher was back in the boat, and in another he had scrambled ashore with a number of fish, strung together through the gills. Above the noise of the traffic on the quay his voice rose, piercing. "I presenta. Flounder, all aliva. I give ze fish. You giva"—with suddenness he comically lowered his voice—"tobacco, rumma—what you like." He lay the gift of flounders on the wooden stage. "Where I get him? I catcha ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... the space between the joints soft; and while he is trying with his hand to draw out the fatal weapon, another arrow is driven through his neck, up to the feathers. The blood drives this out, and itself starting forth, springs up on high, and, piercing the air, spouts forth afar. The last {of them}, Ilioneus, had raised his unavailing arms in prayer, and had said, "O, all ye Gods, in common, (not knowing that all were not to be addressed) spare me!" The {God}, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... The leader taking one, and Marguerite the other, they looked down; now shading the torches, now moving them to the right or left, now raising them, now depressing them, as moonlight far below contended with black shadows. A piercing cry from ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... open all at once, in the midst of a multitude of eyes all round about you, all looking at you, all thinking about you, all judging you? What if you should hear, not a tumult of voices and noises, from which you could hope to hide, but a solemn company talking about you—every word clear and plain, piercing your heart with what you could not deny,—and you standing naked and shivering in the midst ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... pulpit and disappearing among the forest of statuary in the transept, was a floor consisting of the heads of the privileged—famous, renowned, notorious, by heredity, talent, enterprise, or hazard; he had read many of their names in the Daily Telegraph. The voices of the choristers had become piercing in their beauty. Priam frankly stood up, and leaned over the parapet. Every gaze was turned to a point under him which he could not see. And then something swayed from beneath into the field of his vision. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... had been the shadow of death. Presently a Manyuema forged ahead of his companions; there was none to see from what direction death came, and so it came quickly, and a moment later those behind stumbled over the dead body of their comrade—the inevitable arrow piercing the still heart. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of his ever matched the one we are preparing for him." At that moment, Gilda was brought out, her mouth tied with her scarf; but as they were bearing her away, she got the scarf loose and uttered a piercing shriek, and the scarf fell ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... that seven years after, my husband being in Huntingdonshire, at a bowling-green, with Sir Capel Bedells, and many other persons of quality, one in the company was called Captain Taller. My husband, who had a very quick and piercing eye, marked him much, as knowing his face, and found, through his peruke wig, and scarlet cloak and buff suit, that his name was neither Captain nor Taller, but the honest Jesuit called Friar Sherwood, ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... and invite my soul And what do I feel? An influx of life from the great central power That generates beauty from seedling to flower. I loaf and invite my soul And what do I hear? Original harmonies piercing the din Of measureless tragedy, sorrow and sin. I loaf and invite my soul And what do I see? The temple of God in the perfected man. Revealing the wisdom and end of earth's plan. —Elizabeth ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... was alone in the house, although on every side the pine woods encompassed her, Miss Farrar threw all her strength into one long, piercing cry for help. And upon the instant it was answered. From the hall came the swift rush of feet. The rat-like one swung toward it. From his revolver came a report that shook the room, a flash and a burst of smoke, and through it Miss Farrar ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... that the love of a Duchesse de Langeais, or de Maufrigneuse, or of a Lady Dudley does not bestow immense pleasure? If only you knew how much value the cold, severe style of such a woman gives to the smallest evidence of their affection! What a delight it is to see a periwinkle piercing through the snow! A smile from below a fan contradicts the reserve of an assumed attitude, and is worth all the unbridled tenderness of your middle-class women with their mortgaged devotion; for, in love, devotion ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... out-of-doors, or the purring content of the fire on the hearth of the stove at her feet; the book she had taken down to read fell unopened into her lap, and she gave herself up to a half-hour of such piercing self-question as only a high-minded woman can endure when the flattering promises of youth have grown ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... my head ached and a thousand needles were piercing my eyes. I rang for the maid and asked ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... sprang quickly to my feet searching for my sword, and there I found it, buried to the hilt in the green breast of Zad, who lay stone dead upon the ochre moss of the ancient sea bottom. As I regained my full senses I found his weapon piercing my left breast, but only through the flesh and muscles which cover my ribs, entering near the center of my chest and coming out below the shoulder. As I had lunged I had turned so that his sword merely passed ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of his sentences, as in other things, his language is strictly physiognomic of his matter, the speaking exterior of the inward life; which life is indeed the one sole organizing principle of it. Accordingly he has specimens of the most pithy, piercing, sententious brevity; specimens with all the ample and rich magnificence of ordered pomp; specimens of terse, restrained, yet rhythmical, and finely-modulated vigour; specimens of the most copious and varied choral harmony; specimens of the most quiet, simple, and pure-flowing melody; ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... newspapers; that man was bound by narrow limits; and the elemental processes of the world were undiscovered. We do not criticize Alexander for conquering the eastern perils, for he carried in his phalanxes the spirit of new-discovered thought. We do not denounce Rome for piercing the unknown realms with her legions, for she was the mother of a new belief. But this was at the dawn of history, when erudition was in its struggling embryo, and the physical was the better part of man. Man went forth ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... had come to shame. He looked at him with a calm eye and brow, but with a growing contempt that did not need words to express it. Harry Temple felt the color rise in his cheek, and his soul quaked for an instant. Then his habitual conceit arose and he tried to parry with his eye that keen piercing gaze of the other. It must have lasted a full minute, though it seemed to Mr. Temple it was five at the least. He made an attempt to offer his visitor a chair, but it was not noticed. David Spafford looked his man through and through, and knew him for exactly what he was. At last he ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... a shrine that cast a dazzing light, Sat, fixed in thought, the mighty Stagirite; His sacred head a radiant zodiac crowned, And various animals his sides surround; His piercing eyes, erect, appear to view Superior worlds, and look ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... such an air of regret that Joan and Dick laughed outright, and in the midst of it a shadow came across their own, and they turned to meet the amused, complacent stare of Bill. In acknowledging the introduction, Joan felt that his piercing eyes were studying her, probing her soul, as appraisingly as if seeking to lay her appearance and character bare. His harsh, determined face suddenly broke into a wondrous warmth of smile, and he ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... if you can, where the first fight came off, and who was sent with the despatch," demanded the general of the new-comer, upon whom the Hualpai looked in recognition, but with neither light nor welcome in his piercing eyes. Question and answer in halting, uncanny speech progressed fitfully a moment. Then came ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... Æneas was close at hand. This time Pandarus used his spear, which he launched with great force. It struck the shield of Diomede and, piercing it through, fixed itself in his breastplate. With a shout of joy Pandarus exclaimed, "Now, I think, I have given ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... character. We sometimes wish that we had seen Him, and heard His voice. We should have found it more difficult to believe in Him if we had. 'His flesh' was a 'veil' in other sense than the Epistle to the Hebrews means; for, by reason of men's difficulty in piercing beneath it, it hid from many what it was meant and fitted to reveal. Only eyes purged beheld the glory of 'the Word' become flesh when it 'dwelt among us'—and even they saw Him more clearly when they saw Him no more. Let ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... the locks, stamped with their feet in order to feel themselves firmer in their boots which were rather hard, not having as yet been rendered flexible by the heat of the blood. Then they went out; and the dogs, standing erect at the ends of their leashes, gave vent to piercing howls while beating the air with ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... older one, will whisk himself up a tree, perch on a branch and begin to scold, or he climbs to the top of a stump, or a rock, or merely stands upright without any foreign aid, and how he can "Chip, chip, chip, chip!" His piercing little shriek makes many a stranger to his voice and ways wonder what little bird it is that has so harsh a cry, and he keeps at it so persistently that again you say, How human! and you wonder whether it is husband scolding ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... Cuckoo came gayly forth from her nest; But just then an arrow flew by, Piercing the bird's soft yellow breast, Who died with a single sigh. "Too-loo! too-loo!" The Blue Jay said; "What shall I do? My love ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... it, and with a look which, ever since he had become his own master, was ever piercing as the eagle's, observed an insulting device representing Holland arresting the progress of the sun, with this inscription: ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of the eighteenth century found all Europe in this stage. Then came a stir in the heart of man: for Nature would not let him die altogether. First came recoil, complaint, reproach, mockery. Voltaire's light, piercing, taunting laugh—with a screaming wail inside it, if one can hear well—rang over Europe. "Aha, you are found out! Up, toad, in your true shape!" Then came wild, shallow theories, half true; then wild attempt to make the theories ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... whilst I go to meet The noble Brutus, thrusting this report Into his ears: I may say, thrusting it; For piercing steel and darts envenomed Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus As ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... we suffer less, or feel To-day's soul-piercing wounds do heal The wounds of months and years? Or that our eyes so long have been Familiar with the hunger keen Our babes endure, we gaze serene— Strangers to ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... sure that the two hostile Kings gazed upon them in uttermost amazement, nor wist any one whence that host came. But when it drew near, the horsemen charged home on the enemies and in the twinkling of an eye put them to flight; then hotly pursuing felled them with the biting sword and the piercing spear. Seeing this onslaught the King of Harran marvelled greatly and rendering thanks to heaven said to those around him, "Learn ye the name of the Captain of yonder host, who he may be and whence came he." But when all the foemen had fallen upon the field ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... in a summing up, might such a man not be found? But there were few places, indeed, in even the broadest plain of possibility, which could hold knowledge of so particular and piercing a quality as his look had implied. There had been so much more than curiosity or surprise in it. She could hardly face the memory of it, so cruelly it had struck her. There was no doubt in her mind that Kerr had seen the ring. Somewhere in the pageant of ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... said Father Courcy. "I understand perfectly what you want to say. It was like being lost and thinking that nothing could save you; a feeling that is piercing and dull at the same time, like a heavy weight pressing on you with sharp stabs in it. It was what they call shellshock, a terrible thing. Sometimes it drives men crazy for a while. But the doctors know what to do for that malady. It ...
— The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France • Henry Van Dyke
... forest, on the beach, You have pondered what to preach. Magic nights of piercing beauty, You have lectured ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... the drawing-room talking to Lady Elizabeth, and with her keen piercing eyes watching John, who was reading the newspaper by the table. She was pleased to see him lay it aside, look up, and smile, as the two friends entered, but she could have beaten them both, the one for her insignificance, and the other for her radiant loveliness; and she was still further provoked ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... piercing beyond the sight of other men, recognizes in so-called accidental heroes the "Representative men" of the ages, and in what to others seem but caprices and conventionalisms, the "Traits" of a nation, yet never overlooks the practical ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... the first day of the blizzard as a day of glowing things. For on the previous night I had read in Battalion Orders that I was to be Captain Ray. And so, this piercing morning, I could go out into the blizzard with three stars on my shoulders. With Gallipoli suddenness I had leapt into this exalted rank, while Doe, a more brilliant officer, remained only a Second Lieutenant. For him, as a specialist, there was no promotion. For me, no sooner ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... to speak; but the words that should have come from them reached God's ear alone; for in an instant Peter struck her down, the dark mass closed over her again ... and then wail on wail, long, wild, ear-piercing, rang along the vaulted roofs and thrilled like the trumpet of avenging angels through ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... preservers and keepers to a patent trap which Colonel Coulson, of Newburgh, has just invented. Instead of teeth, the jaws of the new trap have pads of corrugated rubber, which grip as tightly and effectively as the old contrivance without breaking the bones or piercing the skin. I trust these traps will shortly supersede the old ones, so that a portion of the inevitable suffering of the furred denizens of our woods may ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... the Piankeshaw, who received it with a grin of ecstacy, embraced it, snuffed at its odoriferous contents, and then passed it in like manner to his second follower. The chief made yet another signal, and the deputy, taking Roland by the arm, and giving him a piercing, perhaps even a pitying, look, delivered him likewise into the hands of the Piankeshaw; who, as if his happiness were now complete, received him with a yell of joy, that was caught up by his two companions, and finally joined in by all the ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... make and shape itself as it goes along, thought kindling thought, and image prompting image, and each part neither concerning itself with what has gone before, nor with what is coming after. The very sweetness has a certain piercing quality, and we taste it from clause to clause, almost from word to word, as so many keen darts of poetic rapture shot forth in rapid succession. Yet the passage, notwithstanding its swift changes of imagery and motion, is perfect ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... forces are in detachments, or are too much extended, the decisive point is his center; for by piercing that, his forces will be more divided, their weakness increased, and the fractions may ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... increased by the appearance of three or four witches who suddenly rose up before the fire. They were very old and haggard-looking creatures, with skins like shrivelled parchment; they had scanty, dishevelled hair, and piercing, beady eyes. They were not ornamented in any way, and seemed more like skeletons from a tomb than human beings. After they had gyrated wildly round the fire for a short time, the chant suddenly ceased, and the witches fell prostrate upon the ground, calling ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... forget what I witnessed there. General De Wet showed that there was no chance any longer of continuing the struggle ... I see him yet, that unyielding man, with his piercing eyes, his strong mouth and chin—I see him there still, like a lion fallen into a snare. He will not, he cannot, but he must give up the struggle! I still see the stern faces of the officers, who up to ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... nervous apprehension, a sleep more like the torpor of lethargy than natural slumber, fell on me at once. I neither stirred nor heard any thing till near two o'clock, when a piercing shriek from the deck aroused me. The moon had set, but there was light enough to show the decks abaft filled with men, though I could distinguish neither their persons nor movements. Cries of appeal, and moans as of wounded or dying, constantly ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... other woman murmured, almost as if speaking to herself. She was small and extremely thin, with insignificant features and sallow, slightly freckled complexion. But, though she was one of those women who might be of any age between twenty-eight and forty, her piercing gray eyes under black eyebrows, her quivering nostrils and slightly pointed chin, gave her a look of intense vitality. She was like a powerful if small electric lamp, purposely veiled by a dun-coloured shade. "It's doubly ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... death; for instance, St. Peter on a cross, upside down; St. Thomas being killed by the spears of savages; St. Simon being sawn asunder. Near the beginning of the volume is a print of the Blessed Virgin with a sword piercing her body, and surrounded by seven medallions, showing "the seven griefs." The parable of "The mote and the beam" is quaintly depicted by two men standing near together, one with an enormous log of wood, ...
— Little Gidding and its inmates in the Time of King Charles I. - with an account of the Harmonies • J. E. Acland
... he exclaimed in a sharp, piercing voice of authority and conscious power, "Thomas Gourlay, rise up and stand forward, your day of ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... life, and girded round with a panoply of power, and light, and strength; with vivid memory of the secret wrongs deemed buried in their graves. Our cities are thronged with an unseen people who flit about us, their piercing eyes invisible to us, are scanning all our ways. The universe is teeming with them,—"THERE ARE NO DEAD,"—the air, the earth, and the sky above, are filled with a viewless host of spirit—witnesses whose messages ever declare ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd
... account of the joys and toys of infancy, which period of life seemed to have been spent in a most beautiful garden full of delicious fruits and sunshine, where the presiding and ever present angel was mamma. Then she told of a dark night, and a sudden awaking in the midst of flames and smoke and piercing cries, when fierce men seized her and carried her away, put her into a ship, where she was dreadfully sick for a long long time, until they landed on a rocky island, and suddenly she found herself "there,"—pointing as she spoke to the little garden below them. While she ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Commander. I encountered him on the threshold of the hut, and he welcomed me in the richest and most musical of brogues. Large, corpulent, and powerful of body; plump and ruddy—or as some would say, bloated—of face; with resolute mouth and heavy animal jaws; expressive nose, and piercing blue-eyes; brown hair, mustache, and eyebrows; a fair forehead, and short sinewy neck, a man of apparently thirty years of age, stood in the doorway, smoking a cigar, and trotting his sword fretfully in the scabbard. He wore the regulation blue cap, but trimmed plentifully ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... not once see him before Waterloo, who was driven from Paris by him, and strove to discourage his supporters. Still less can we accept the following melodramatic description, by Thiebault, of Napoleon's appearance on Sunday, June 11th: "His look, once so formidable and piercing, had lost its strength and even its steadiness: his face had lost all expression and all its force: his mouth, compressed, had none of its former witchery: and his gait was as perplexed as his demeanour and gestures were undecided: the ordinary pallor of his skin was replaced ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... waters, over which it were madness to think of repassing. At that instant, with a deep and startling report, the broad sheet of ice confining the agitated river burst asunder parted, and was afloat in a hundred pieces around them. Another piercing cry of terror and distress issued from the devoted sleigh and Miss Haviland, with an involuntary impulse at the fearful shock, leaped out on to the large cake of ice on which the sleigh and horses were resting. ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... mischievous young people who were pushed into the foremost ranks of the mockers, and stood grinning and grimacing under the lights, would of a sudden feel a spell clamped upon them. They would hear a strange, quavering note in the preacher's voice, catch the sense of a piercing, soul-commanding gleam in his eye—not at all to be resisted. These occult forces would take control of them, drag them forward as in a dream to the benches under the pulpit, and abase them there like worms ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... barking, grunting, and showing their huge teeth. I waited till they were within fifteen yards. Then I fired the elephant gun, which was loaded with slugs, right into the thick of them. In that narrow place the report echoed like a cannon shot, but its sound was quickly swallowed in the volley of piercing human-sounding groans and screams that followed. The charge of heavy slugs had ploughed through the host of baboons, of which at least a dozen lay dead or dying in the passage. For a moment they hesitated, then they came on again with a hideous ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... running, Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I with parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms and aquatic plants, Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing the crow with its bill, for amusement—and I triumphantly twittering, The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh themselves, the body of the flock feed, the sentinels outside move around with erect heads watching, and are from ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... On inquiring, we were told that a number of women were engaged in cutting rushes for making nets. They were almost up to their waists, when great was their horror to see the scaly back and tail of a huge crocodile appear among them. They turned to fly towards the shore, but at that instant a piercing shriek gave notice that one of their number was seized. The rest, as they reached the shore, saw their helpless companion dragged away into deep water. In vain she shrieked—in vain she lifted up her hands imploringly ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... insight, but it did not penetrate to the sources of spiritual joy; and his deepest glimpses of truth were calculated rather to sadden than to inspire. A blandly cynical distrust of human nature was the result of his most piercing glances into the human soul. He had humor, and sometimes humor of a delicious kind; but this sunshine of the soul was but sunshine breaking through or lighting up a sombre and ominous cloud. There was also observable in his earlier stories a lack ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... and strange expletives wherewith he ridicules, to himself, his own failure to reach his goal; the immense patience with which—again and again, and yet again—he "tries back," throwing the topic into fresh attitudes, and searching it to the marrow with a gaze so piercing as to be terrible;—all this gives an impression of power, of resource, of energy, of mastery, that exhilarates the reader. So many inspired prophets of Hawthorne have arisen of late, that the present writer, whose relation to the great Romancer is a filial ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... stayed until cupidity got the mastery of revenge. Then, indeed, the shrieks of the wounded, and the yells of their murderers grew less frequent, until, finally, the cries of horror were lost to their ear, or were drowned in the loud, long and piercing whoops of the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... and the low potential house circuit, any contact of the two circuits in the converter is a source of danger. Special care should be taken to ensure absence of leakage, as it is termed. Mica or other insulation is sometimes employed to prevent the wires from coming in contact by piercing or sparking with the core and ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... colouring substance, yielding about half its weight of real colouring matter, which may be easily extracted by boiling in water. Dr. Warren De La Rue, who examined the living animal, states that on piercing the side of the insect a purplish-red fluid exuded, containing the colouring matter in minute granules. This colouring matter he succeeded in obtaining pure, in the form of a purple-brown friable mass, pulverizable ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... that poor Baldwyn, with a wild, heart-piercing cry, flung himself upon the shell containing all that remained of his lost treasure, and could with difficulty be removed from it by Bess and Sudall, both of whom were in attendance. The bunches of flowers and sprigs of rosemary having been laid upon the coffin by the maidens, amidst ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the scene. The ward tenders and the interne stared at her blankly; the nurses looked down in unconscious comment on the twisted figure by their side. The surgeon drew his hands from his pockets and stepped toward the woman, questioning her meanwhile with his nervous, piercing glance. For a moment neither spoke, but some kind of mute explanation seemed to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... wind freshened and veered south, which enabled us to steer east. The wind was attended with showers of sleet and snow till day-light, when the weather became fair, but piercing cold, so that the water on deck was frozen, and at noon the mercury in the thermometer was no higher than 34-1/2. At six o'clock in the morning, the variation was 23' west, being then in the latitude of 58 deg. 15' S., longitude ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... the ears of the unhappy prisoner, and forgetful of the many watchful eyes and ears around her, she exclaimed in a sad and piercing voice: "Mother, O mother! come, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... many days sooner. The taking off a circular piece of the bark from a branch of a pear-tree causes the fruit of that branch to ripen sooner by a fortnight, as I have more than once observed. The wounds made in apples by insects occasion those apples to ripen sooner; caprification, or the piercing of figs, in the island of Malta, is said to ripen them sooner; and I am well informed, that when bunches of grapes in this country have acquired their expected size, that if the stalk of each bunch be cut half through, that ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... There was a piercing wildness in the cry; the blood flushed into St. Clare's white, marble-like face, and the first tears he had shed since Eva died stood ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... on their faces, timing their intervals of movement by the play of the enemy's guns, which they watched skilfully. In this way they suffered exceedingly little in their advance, until at last springing upon the guns they captured them instantaneously, piercing the gunners with their sword bayonets. The sepoy infantry made a stand, but the rifles, in a hand to hand combat, were easy victors. The battle was decided in favour of the British; the sepoys fled, pursued by the carbineers, who continued ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... my view the palms of his hands, in which were scars as of nail wounds, and looked me through and through with those piercing yet tender eyes; and I did not need that he should say to me, 'I am Jesus ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... taken a few steps through the wood when Phyllis suddenly uttered a piercing shriek. This shriek was echoed by Nora and by Mary Morris, and all their hearts seemed to leap into their mouths when they saw something move among the trees. Rover uttered a growl, and, but for Annie's detaining hand, would have sprung forward. The high-spirited girl was not ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... the battle had begun in grim earnest. The Indians, dreading the destructiveness of the guns and the Gatlings, had made up their minds to capture them. As if by a preconcerted signal a large number of them leapt from their cover, and with wild, piercing whoops and war-cries, made a rush on the battery. Some of them were on horseback, and actually had their steeds smeared with dun-coloured clay so as to resemble the background and the rocks. It was indeed exceedingly difficult to distinguish them. Those on foot ran in a zigzag fashion, ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... sound of voices, as if two persons, one without and one within the wall, were hailing each other; a gate swung open, and the waggon came past under the very window of the bedroom. Even habit could not enable Felix to entirely withstand so piercing a noise when almost in his ears. He sat up a minute, and glanced at the square of light on the wall to guess the time ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... spirit of self-devotion: that spirit confessedly natural to Women, and only perverted by wrong education. Content with the sphere of usefulness assigned her by Nature and Nature's God, viewing that sphere with the piercing eye of intellect, and gilding it with the beautiful colours of the imagination, she will cease the vain and almost impious attempt to wander from it. She will see and acknowledge the beauty, the harmony ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... and uttered piercing shrieks, for he thought he had broken his left arm. Le Duc rode back and told me that the postillions had taken flight, possibly to give notice of our mishap to highwaymen, who are very common in the States of the Church ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... who always leaps from the train first and speeds scuddingly along the platform, to reach the stairs before any one else.) Here is the man who always carries a blue cardboard box full of chicks. Their plaintive chirpings sound shrill and disconsolate. There is such a piercing sorrow and perplexity in their persistent query that one knows they have the true souls of minor poets. Here are two cheerful stenographers off to Rockaway for the week-end. They are rather sarcastic about another young woman of their party who always insists on sleeping ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... they think they're alone," returned the charitable Mr. Fitzalan, unable to see the delinquents because he was trying to put a loose lens back into his eye-glasses. Tims came to his assistance, talking loudly; and her voice was of a piercing quality. Mildred, leaning forward, saw Mr. Fitzalan and Tims, both struggling with eye-glasses. She slipped from George's encircling arm and stood in the doorway of the farther room, beckoning to him with a scared face. He got up ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... most piercing look upon the young girl, and fancied he could perceive in her face nothing but the most unaffected surprise. "I observe," he said, "that you have as much generosity as intelligence, and I read in your eyes the forgiveness I solicit. A pardon pronounced by your lips is insufficient ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... mountains, which look as dry and brown as dead beech-leaves at this season. Our Bacchic journey had reached its close; and it boots not here to tell in detail how we made our way across the Spluegen, piercing its avalanches by low-arched galleries scooped from the solid snow, and careering in our sledges down perpendicular snow-fields, which no one who has crossed that pass from the Italian side in winter will forget. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... knife-edge of a single hill—the pass so often mentioned; but this isthmus expands to the seaward in a considerable peninsula: very bare and grassy; haunted by sheep and, at night and morning, by the piercing cries of the shepherds; wandered over by a few wild goats; and on its sea-front indented with long, clamorous caves, and faced with cliffs of the colour and ruinous outline of an old peat-stack. In one of these echoing ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his tucked-up cassock; his specialty was a hatred of the Encyclopaedia, and his desperate play at billiards, and persons who, at that epoch, passed through the Rue M***** on summer evenings, where the hotel de Cl****** T******* then stood, halted to listen to the shock of the balls and the piercing voice of the Cardinal shouting to his conclavist, Monseigneur Cotiret, Bishop in partibus of Caryste: "Mark, Abbe, I make a cannon." The Cardinal de Cl****** T******* had been brought to Madame de T.'s by his most intimate friend, M. de Roquelaure, former Bishop of Senlis, and one ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the clear melody sank into the harmony of the organ, then, with bent head and limbs unwontedly infirm, he entered the lovely little audience room. He stumbled into the first seat in the corner, his eyes piercing the colored dusk which lay between him and the singer. It was Mary, and it seemed to him that she had become a princess, sitting upon a throne. Accustomed to see only the slatternly women of the cow towns, or the thin, hard-worked, and poorly-dressed wives and daughters ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... But his piercing eyes so disconcerted me now that I had my chance, and was alone with him, that I could not find a word to say, and stood before him mute. I think this pleased him, for ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:— Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake; Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, Choose thou, before that spirit die, A piercing pain, a killing sin, And to my dead heart ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... monarch, fixing on him a piercing glance, said: "Knowest thou me'? Look in my eyes'! Look'! Answer me'! Are they the eyes of a stranger'!" The bereaved father replied that he had no recollection of having ever ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... bloody sweat stream down. The two thieves insult Him, the passers-by mock at Him, the soldiers cast lots for His raiment. And the shadowy darkness grows deeper and the sun hides himself.... Jesus dies upon the cross. He utters a piercing cry and gives up the ghost. Oh! most terrible of deaths! The veil of the temple is rent in twain from top to bottom. The earth quakes, the stones are broken, and the ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... from able to endure the test, and the dissatisfaction and disappointment which he then experienced became again keener and more relentless until he himself, from a solitary height, looked down with stony eyes upon the doings of the men at his feet; but always, even to his last hours, the piercing chill of his searching glance was broken by the bright splendor of soft human feelings, and the fact that these were left to him is what makes his great ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... had attended to myself, but now I determined to have a maid. I found one without much difficulty. Her name was Price. She was a very plain woman of thirty, with piercing black eyes; and when I engaged her she seemed anxious above all else to make me understand that she "never ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... don't want to break any," he said, "but if ever the time should come when I couldn't help it"—he lowered his voice to a hoarse but piercing whisper—"that will be the devourin' angel's day fer ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... sentiments in the name of Jesus, which made him especially obnoxious. Now he saw a chance to get off one of his theatrical stunts; he raised his two manacled hands into the air as if he were praying, and shouted in piercing tones: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... was a sound of voices in the outer room, and the door leading into the Baron's bed-chamber was violently flung open and as violently closed. The new-comer was a short, spare man of middle age, with a keen visage and piercing, deep-set little gray eyes. He stood for a few seconds scrutinizing Fisher with a sharp, almost ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... eyes a swift change, a look which in all of her life had never been there until now. A look of terror, of realization of death, of frantic fear. She sought to speak, and words failed her. The knife pressed steadily. A piercing scream ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... still more terrifying. Somewhere at the back of the Garden, a piercing whistle cut the air—evidently a signal—and suddenly we found ourselves facing a ghastly tragedy, and were made to realise the resistless superiority of a small body of disciplined troops ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett |
