"Pierce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him and laid his hand upon the Prince's arm. "Beware," he adjured him solemnly, "Beware of the Wind in the Chimney. Against him only the Cloak may not protect you. His eyes are keen to pierce disguises. His hands are strong to break down spells. See to it that he does not snatch from you in an unguarded ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... and then she fell into one of her exalted moods, when she seemed to lose consciousness of the ordinary conditions around her, or rather to pierce deeper into their significance and beauty. Her speech would, at such times, become rhythmic and picturesque; she evidently saw vivid images before her, in which her ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... deficiency, physical or moral; his features are irregular but pleasing; the nose perhaps a little short, and the mouth a little womanish; his address is excellent, and he can express himself with point. But to pierce below these externals is to come on a vacuity of any sterling quality, a deliquescence of the moral nature, a frivolity and inconsequence of purpose that mark the nearly perfect fruit of a decadent age. He has a worthless smattering ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... never, oh, never again, I'll cultivate light blue or brown inebriety;[1] I'll give up all chance of a fracture or sprain, And part, worst of all, with Pierce Egan's[2] society. ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... 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 bowstring, 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 ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... afternoon, meeting other trail bosses, nearly all of whom had heard more or less about the existing trouble. That we had the sympathy of the cattle interests on our side goes without saying, and one of them, known as "the kidgloved foreman," a man in the employ of Shanghai Pierce, invoked the powers above to witness what would happen if he were in Lovell's boots. This was my first meeting with the picturesque trail boss, though I had heard of him often and found him a trifle boastful but not a bad fellow. He distinguished himself from others of his station ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... have a very different tale to tell, Miss Dicey, if they could speak to you," observed Mr Paget. "Could your eyes pierce through the surface, you would see some savage bonitos or dolphins pursuing the hapless fish who visit the air, not for amusement, but in the hopes of escaping from ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... while there was silence, then Juanna looked up, searching Olfan's face with her eyes. Nothing was to be read there, for it was impossible to pierce the mask of solemn calm beneath which, in common with all his race, the king was accustomed to hide his thoughts. He leant on the shaft of his broad spear, his head bowed slightly as though in humility, his ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... the morning of Friday the sixth of January, the ship still driving, and approaching very fast to the shore, Mr. Henry Meriton, the second mate, went again into the cuddy, where the captain then was. Another conversation taking place, Captain Pierce expressed extreme anxiety for the preservation of his beloved daughters, and earnestly asked the officer if he could devise any method of saving them. On his answering with great concern, that he feared it would be impossible, but that their only chance would ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... victory," said Indaba-zimbi, addressing me aloud, and covering his eyes with his hand, "hear me and forgive me. These children are blind with folly, and think thee mortal because thou hast dealt death upon a mortal who dared to stand against thee. Deign to kneel down before me and let me pierce thy heart with this spear, then when I call ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... own, that He is shamefully slain. O ye who up till now have passed by the Cross of Jesus with tepid or cold hearts, and whom all these torments and tears, and His blood shed like water, have not been able to soften; now at last let this loud voice, this terrible cry, rend and pierce your hearts through and through. Let that voice which shook the heaven and the earth and hell with fear, which rent the rocks and laid open ancient graves, now soften your stony hearts, and lay bare the ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... stars rise higher and higher above the horizon in the one direction or the other, and those which shine in the latitude one is leaving, gradually disappear. If the surface of the Earth were flat, the ships on the sea would be visible as long as our sight could pierce the distance, and all the stars of the Heavens would be equally visible from the different ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... well-armed, when each combatant had but one man before him. For in close combat, and especially in so large an envelopment, the number of combatants immediately engaged was the same on each side. Then there were neither guns nor rifles able to pierce the mass by a converging fire and destroy it by the superiority of this fire over diverging fire. Arrows were exhausted in the first period of the action. It seems that, by their mass, the Romans must have ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... grief and rage oppress'd, His heart swell'd high, and labour'd in his breast; Distracting thoughts by turns his bosom ruled; Now fired by wrath, and now by reason cool'd: That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword, Force through the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord; This whispers soft his vengeance to control, And calm the rising tempest of his soul. Just as in anguish of suspense he stay'd, While half unsheathed appear'd the glittering blade,(57) Minerva swift descended from above, Sent by the sister ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... Sujet, a book still early but some years later than L'Enfant, Paul de Kock got nearer to his proper or improper subject—bachelor life in Paris, in the sense of his contemporary Pierce Egan's Life in London.[42] The hero may be called a French Tom Jones in something (but not so much as in the original phrase) of the sense in which Klopstock was allowed to be a German Milton. He has his Allworthy in a benevolent uncle-colonel, peppery but placable; ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... only another of those irresistible strokes to stretch Gaston beside Sir Reginald, and Eustace was left alone to maintain the struggle. A few moments more, and the Lances would come up—but how impossible to hold out! The first blow cleft his shield in two, and though it did not pierce his armour, the shock brought him to his knee, and without the support of the staff of the pennon he would have been on the ground. Still, however, he kept up his defence, using sometimes his sword, and sometimes the staff, to parry the strokes of his assailant; ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... demanded the man referred to as Pierce. He was solidly built, black moustache and heavy eyebrows. Mack took an instant ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... and sit down. You are worn out with your trouble. Don't repel me, Thyrza. I have done you a great wrong, and I know you cannot feel to me as you did; but I am not so hard-hearted that your suffering does not pierce me through. Only sit ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... of the staircase. The Rev. Canon Cantwell walked first by the side of Allen. The convict was deadly pale; his eyes wandered alternately from the priest to the individuals standing round, and then he uplifted his gaze, in a vain endeavour to pierce the dense canopy which hung above him. He walked with a tolerably steady step, and uttered the response, 'Lord, have mercy upon us,' ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... desk to answer. "I want to be your right arm." He took out a pack of cigarettes, shaking one free and offering it with courtesy. "Have one?" Bryce shook his head and the boy put one between his own lips and put the pack away. "My name is Pierce," he said, lighting the cigarette with the flame cupped in his hands as if he were used to smoking in the wind. He looked up with his eyes squinting against the smoke, shook the match out and dropped it in the ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... that "no vessel should think of gaining an anchorage there, without a pilot, or perfect knowledge of the hidden dangers. The rocks are of peculiar character, standing isolated like bayonets, with their points just below the surface, ready to pierce any unlucky craft that may encounter them." The "Dragon Rocks" lie in the near vicinity, at the end of a long reef that makes out from Crescent City. All the steamers that enter or depart from there must pass ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... warily, right, left; he knelt noiselessly, striving to pierce the thicket with his restless eyes. After a moment he arose on tiptoe, unslung his gun, cocked both barrels, and listened again, pipe tightly clutched ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... supposed to be glorified thereby. But the magnifiers of the past are often quite unconscious of the hollowness of their admiration, and honest in their horror of their fathers' acts; and we all need the probe of such words as Christ's to pierce the skin of our lazy reverence for our fathers' prophets, and let out the foul matter below—namely, our own blindness to God's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... What eye can pierce the depths in which the character and fate of nations are determined?—in which that which is inborn and that which has been experienced combine to form a new whole and a fresh nature?— in which even those ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... has from time to time been increased. Since the first ironclad was built, then, a contest—for only such it can be called—has been going on between the cannon-maker and the ship-builder, the one striving to construct a gun which shall pierce the thickest armour which the ship can carry, the other adding inch upon inch to his armour plates, to the end that they may be shot-proof; and this contest may be said to be going on ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... that the diabolical intention was manifest to the full. Here were several long spikes, square and massive, broad at the base and sharp at the points, placed in such a position that when the door should close the upper ones would pierce the eyes of the victim, and the lower ones his heart and vitals. The sight was too much for poor Amelia, and this time she fainted dead off, and I had to carry her down the stairs, and place her on a bench ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... the excitement of getting the girls off with all their trunks and packages intact, she had not realized the homesickness of the deserted school. Now it seemed to pierce her very bones. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... canes, cannas and pampas-grass; with walks now dropping into densest shade, now climbing out upon a bare spur of rock or lap of smooth lawn; the musical rain of a fountain in the green depths below; the hamlet and neighboring villas so lost to sight that the very birds might well doubt where to pierce the leafy canopy to find home, wife and callow nestlings; beyond, and round all, the half ring of quiet-colored, placid sea—the emerald sea, rough with white caps; the blue sea, sparkling in sunshine; the moonlit sea, silver-gleaming, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... very time I saw (but thou could'st not), Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid, all armed: a certain aim he took At a fair vestal, throned by the west; And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon; And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... through the Blue Ridge without Hooker's knowledge. He knew that something was going on, but there his information terminated. The troopers of Stuart kept watch over fifteen miles of front, and through this wall of sabres the Federal eye could not pierce. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... the upper body: the phallus polarized from the upper centers, and directed towards the great breast center of the woman. Her wakeful fear is terror of the great breast-and-shoulder, upper rage and power of man, which may pierce her defenseless lower self. The terror and the desire are near together—and go with an admiration of the slender, ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... well to complain about a few raiders that manage in thirty months to pierce the British patrols, or the hurried dash of swift destroyers into the Channel, but when you look from the white chalk cliffs of the Kentish coast at hundreds of vessels passing safely off the Downs, when you sail the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and see only neutral and Allied ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... was on the "look out!" The Buss was tugging at her moorings off the Rock, and some of the seamen and hands were perambulating the deck, wishing for settled weather, and trying to pierce the gloom by which they were surrounded. Suddenly the two vessels were seen approaching. The alarm was given. Those on board the doomed ships saw their danger when too late, and tried to sheer off the fatal spot, but their efforts ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... men,—sound that was dying in volume, rolling toward the Chickahominy. On the trampled brow of the plateau, beneath shot-riddled trees, General D. H. Hill, coming from the northern face, found General Winder of the First Brigade standing with several of his officers, trying to pierce the murk toward the river. "You rank here, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... returned Jones, with an enigmatic smile. His hard, cold eyes shifted to Allie and seemed to pierce her, then went back to Durade and Mull and Fresno. Plain it was to Allie, with her woman's intuition, that if Jones returned it would not be because he trusted that trio. Durade apparently made an effort to swallow his resentment, but the gambling pallor of his ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... roams the antlered deer, Adding each year a branch to his great horns, Until the unseen archer lays him low. So lives our prince; but he may see the day Two laughing eyes shall pierce his inmost soul, And make his whole frame quiver with new fire. The next full moon he reaches man's estate. We all remember fifty years ago When you became a man, the sports and games, The contests of fair women and brave men, In ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... that interrupted line when, in the midst of the confused noises of the tempest, I fancied I heard the sound of a voice, of a human groan. I rushed to my window; I leaned outside to pierce the darkness, and I discovered lying upon the drenched soil a vague form, something like a white bundle. At the same time, a more distinct moan rose up to me. A gleam of the terrible truth flashed through my brain like a keen blade. I groped through the darkness as far ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... wan mornings touch Its gray rocks, perhaps; and such Slender stars as dusk may have Pierce the rose that roofs its wave; Still the thrush may call at noontide And the whippoorwill at night; Nevermore, by sun or moontide, Shall I see it gliding white, Falling, flowing, ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... days are wild and fierce; Rapid gusts each crevice pierce. Such is my unhappy lot, Unbefriended and forgot! Others all can happy be; I from ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... August 12th, finding his body covered with spots, I so far understood them as to feel a sword pierce through my soul. As I knelt by his bed, with my hand in his, entreating the Lord to be with us in this tremendous hour, he strove to say many things, but could not. At length, pressing my hand, and ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... consummation of human destinies. Love was the only law Shelley recognized. Unterrified by the grim realities of pain and crime revealed in nature and society, he held fast to the belief that, if we could but pierce to the core of things, if we could but be what we might be, the world and man would both attain to their perfection in eternal love. What resolution through some transcendental harmony was expected by Shelley for the palpable ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... faster flew the betrayer, as though he would elude a pursuer from whom he could not escape. But he could not close his ears to that pleading voice, nor his eyes to that agonized look. Aye, erring mortal, that sound will pierce your soul till some reparation, some pure, unselfish deed, ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... man to pierce the obscurity by his intuition or by his research. Yet we must not be too critical of the want of proportion in his writing when we remember that he was a pioneer; for it was an original idea to piece together the stray fragments of history that ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... illusion—namely, the unique vanishing trick—for the first time in England; also that Toscato extended a cordial invitation to members of the audience to come up on to the stage and do their acutest to pierce the mystery. ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... Vice-President. Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808. He graduated at West Point, fought as colonel in the Mexican war, served three terms as congressman from Mississippi, the last two in the Senate, and was Secretary of War under Pierce. After Calhoun's death, in 1850, he became the most prominent of the ultra southern leaders. The new President was brought from Jackson, Miss., to Montgomery by a special train, his progress a continual ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... a hopping flea, His sister's children came to me: One with drum my ears did pierce, One was fluting loud and fierce, Then they danced me, made me sing, Like a monkey in a ring. Come O Deeby, come I pray, Bring the Doctor right away! Peace on your heart feel no alarm, You have not had the ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... better put it off till to-morrow." "No, no, now! now!" When they came to the bottom of the stairs, Horace said, "I am out of breath, let us draw here." They drew; Chetwynd hit him on the breast, but was not near enough to pierce his coat. Horace made a pass which the other put by with his hand, but It glanced along his side-a clerk, who had observed them go out together so arm-in-arm-ly, could not believe it amicable, but followed them, and came up just time enough to beat down their swords, as Horace had driven him against ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... Pierce Phillips emerged from the trading-post and, drawn by the force of gravitation, joined the largest and the most excited group of Argonauts. He was still somewhat dazed by his perusal of that Police edict; the blow to his hopes was still too ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... no more. He was looking at Urrea intently. He was trying, with all the power of his own mind and soul, to read this man's mind and soul. He was trying to pierce through that Spanish armor of smiles and gestures and silky tones and see what lay beneath. He sought to read the real meaning of all these polite phrases. His long and powerful gaze finally ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Murray! His last words on the scaffold, for being concerned in the murder of Pierce the gauger, were, that he got the first of his bad habits under Pat Mulligan and Norah—that he learned to steal by secreting at home, butter and meal to paste up the master's eyes to his bad conduct—and that his fondness ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... flesh, Indians, food of Indians, funeral rites Indians, luggage described Indians, manner of cooking their meat Indians, manner of sweating Indians, their musical instruments Indians, Nations of the North, nations of the South Indians, pierce their ears and noses Indians, treachery of Ireland Iroquois join the Mohawks; massacre the Hurons Isle D'Ane Isle D'Eluticosty Isle of Cape Breton Isle of Montreal Isle of Orleans Isle of Richelieu Isle of Sand Isle Perse Isles of Toniata ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... first word you utter will pierce through the hearts of your brothers like a dagger. Their lives hang upon your tongue. Go now and begin ...
— Children's Classics In Dramatic Form • Augusta Stevenson
... just the contrary, my lord! It is because I see only too well that I am forced to bandage my eyes. Even so I see as well as people who have no bandage. When I take it off my eyes pierce through everything. Everything I look at catches fire, or, if it cannot catch fire, it falls into a thousand pieces. ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... you're not going to cry very long! Won't you get it over? I thought you would be glad to know me—and I've come out of pure kindness to you, simply because I heard your old farmer was dead. Why Pierce Armitage should have brought you to him I never could imagine—except that once he was painting a picture in the neighbourhood and was rather taken with the history of this place —Briar Farm isn't it called? You'll make your eyes quite sore if you go on crying like that! Yes—I ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... the means of making you so, and by help of this sword in my hand. For with it I will pierce you to the heart, then cut up your body into small pieces, wash them carefully, and join them together again. And if I breathe upon them you will return to life young and handsome, just as if you were only ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... moments when the mustang's efforts seemed to flag and the yells of the Indians increasing in loudness came nearer and nearer, till the boy had hard work to keep from wrenching himself round in the saddle to try and pierce the black darkness to gaze defiantly at the fierce starting eyeballs and gleaming teeth of those who were ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... was equally certain that the savage, seeing his approach, had fled. The first thought of Crockett was one of alarm. The Indian might be hidden behind some one of the gigantic trees, and the next moment a bullet, from the Indian's rifle, might pierce ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... hundred men, yelling like demons and forgetting all danger in the madness of the chase. Right through the grove the great beast crashed and then half turned as he came to the open slope beyond. Running beside him was a daring youth trying in vain to pierce him in the belly with his flint-headed spear, and, as the mammoth came for the moment to a half halt, his keen eyes noted the pygmy, his great trunk shot downward and backward, picked up the man and hurled him yards away against the base of a ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... when these graceful pigmy trees Have swayed their last in any breeze, And all is bare, I may again See the ripe heads that pierce the plain, And eat once more before I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... cannot pierce a wink beyond] That this is the utmost extent of the prospect of ambition, the point where the eye can pass no further, and where objects lose their distinctness, so that what is there discovered, is faint, obscure, ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... and accidents will tarnish: But Celia has contrived to blast Those beauties that might ever last. Nor can imagination guess, Nor eloquence divine express, How that ungrateful charming maid My purest passion has betray'd: Conceive the most envenom'd dart To pierce an injured lover's heart. Why, hang her; though she seem'd so coy, I know she loves the barber's boy. Friend Peter, this I could excuse, For every nymph has leave to choose; Nor have I reason to complain, She loves a more deserving swain. But, oh! how ill hast thou divined A crime, that ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... heaping tablespoonfuls of walnut meats chopped fine, two tablespoonfuls of rich cream, and salt and pepper to taste. Take four large, fine celeriac roots, clean, scrub and scrape them. Cut off a slice from the top of each to make a cover, then with an apple corer remove the inside, taking care not to pierce the root, leave a shell a quarter of an inch thick. Fill each with the dressing, leaving fully half an inch at the top for it to swell. Place the cover on each, tie well the roots to prevent breaking in ...
— The Golden Age Cook Book • Henrietta Latham Dwight
... herself had to do—namely, take down from dictation, transcribe, copy, classify, and keep letters and documents, and occasionally correct proofs. All beyond this was misty for her, and she never adjusted her sight in order to pierce the mist. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... was much nearer than he thought to all that he shunned and banned. All his compositions were a mixture of truth and turgidness, of lucid strength and faltering stupidity. It was only in rare moments that his personality could pierce the casing of the dead ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... veils of fleecy film, they floated away, disclosing as they vanished, the giant summits of the encircling mountains, that lifted themselves to the light, one above another, in the form of frozen billows. Over these a delicate pink flush flitted in tremulous wavy lines—long arrows of gold began to pierce the tender shimmering blue of the sky— soft puffs of cloud tinged with vivid crimson and pale green were strewn along the eastern horizon like flowers in the path of an advancing hero,—and then all at once there was a slight cessation ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... however, his face was one that would attract and hold attention. So thin was it that it seemed as though the cheek bones would any minute pierce the bronzed skin, and from under bushy eyebrows two ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... delicate mission in August, 1852, and prosecuted it till the arrival of his successor in the Constantinople embassy, late in 1853. During this time, Mr. Webster died, and was succeeded by Edward Everett; and he again by Mr. Marcy, on the accession of President Pierce. Mr. Webster's letter of instruction, dated April 29, 1852, states the case clearly, as it does also the rights of missionaries. Mr. Everett's letter, dated February 5, 1853, gives the opinion of President Fillmore, based on Mr. Marsh's ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... is! 10 Wag it as wish thou, at its will, When out of doors its hope fulfil; Him bar I, modestly, methinks. But should ill-mind or lust's high jinks Thee (Sinner!), drive to sin so dread, 15 That durst ensnare our dearling's head, Ah! woe's thee (wretch!) and evil fate, Mullet and radish shall pierce and grate, When feet-bound, haled ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... lofty ground, Which, as it rais'd me near the sky, Was thence for vulgar eyes too high; Or, if beheld, to them appear'd By clouds of gloomy darkness blear'd. Yet still that misty height I chose, For well I knew the world had those, Whose sight, by learning clear'd of rheum, Could pierce with ease the thickest gloom. Thus, perch'd sublime, 'mid clouds I wrought, Nor heeded what the vulgar thought. What, though with clamour coarse and rude They jested on my colours crude; Comparing with malicious grin, My drapery to bronze ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... a May morning in 1825—spring-time of the year, late spring-time of the century. It had rained the night before, and a warm pallor in the eastern sky was the only indication that the sun was trying to pierce the gray dome of nearly opaque watery fog, lying low upon that part of the world now known as the city of Toronto, then the town of Little York. This cluster of five or six hundred houses had taken up a determined position at the ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... Germain," said little Marie. "We are not badly off on this little hillock. The rain does not pierce the leaves of these big oaks, and we can light a fire, for I can feel old stumps which stir readily and are dry enough to burn. You have a light, Germain, have you not? You were smoking your pipe a few ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... the big, shining automobile. Three of them were men. The fourth was a little girl. The little girl's name was Maida Westabrook. The three men were "Buffalo" Westabrook, her father, Dr. Pierce, her physician, and Billy Potter, her friend. They were coming from Marblehead ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... side. All this was done with such rapidity, such dexterity and agility, that any one chancing to pass at that instant would have thought himself the puppet of a vision. Morgan stopped, as on the other side of the wall, to listen, while his eyes tried to pierce the darkness made deeper by the foliage of poplars and aspens, and the heavy shadows of the little wood. All was silent and solitary. Morgan ventured on his path. We say ventured, because the young man, since nearing the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines, revealed in all his ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... in, she told us at once. He had business to attend to and friends to see he must get back to Riverside and down in that country where colts were waiting for him. He was the only one the E. K. outfit would allow to handle their young stock. Did we know that? And she was going to stay with a Mrs. Pierce down there for a while, near where Nate would be working. All this she told us; but when he did not return to dine with her on this first day, I think she found it hard to sustain her wilful cheeriness. Lin offered to take her driving to see the military post and ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... terebration[obs3], empalement[obs3], pertusion|, puncture, acupuncture, penetration. key &c. 631, opener, master key, password, combination, passe-partout. V. open, ope[obs3], gape, yawn, bilge; fly open. perforate, pierce, empierce|, tap, bore, drill; mine &c. (scoop out) 252; tunnel; transpierce[obs3], transfix; enfilade, impale, spike, spear, gore, spit, stab, pink, puncture, lance, stick, prick, riddle, punch; stave in. cut a passage through; make way for, make ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... so proof But through it from her bow The shafts that she can throw Will pierce and rankle. No champion e'er so tough, But's in the struggle thrown, And tripp'd and trodden down ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I have met," said the Cure, "who seems to pierce beneath the thin veil of our Gallic gayety; the first to whom the scene we now survey is fraught with other feelings than a belief in the happiness of our peasantry, and an envy at its imagined exuberance. But as it is not the happiest individuals, so I ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Arber's 'Introductory Sketch to the Martin Marprelate Controversy,' which appeared in 1895, contains a list of the more important tracts connected with that subject; and you will find Mr. W. Pierce's 'Historical Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts' (1908) useful. There are valuable lists of, and information upon, pamphlets of most descriptions and of all periods in the volumes of the 'Cambridge History of English Literature.' ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... without the slightest warning; and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness of volition and action, can you escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun himself could never pierce ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... his men had early made choice between the rich, the fruitful, easy Vega and the mountains they were to pierce for gold and hunt over for a fierce mountain chief. In the Vega they established themselves. The Indians brought them "tribute", and they exacted over-tribute, and reviled and slew when it pleased them, and they took the Indian ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... on this subject than I, Faith. But how hard must it be for the rays of divine truth to pierce through the blackness of that degradation which civilization has entailed on them! The conversion of the North American Indian was easier at the landing ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... with respect to the more material point of raising men, his lordship prosecuted it with such diligence, that in three months he had an army of eight thousand horse, foot, and dragoons, with which he marched directly into Yorkshire; and his forces having defeated the enemy at Pierce Bridge, his lordship advanced to York, where Sir Thomas Glenham, the governor, presented him with the keys, and the earl of Cumberland and many of the nobility resorted thither to compliment, and assist ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... Would to God you might receive our holy faith, and be wholly united with us." All the lords of the court, led by Duke Namo, paid their respects to the King of Mauritania. Charlot only failed to appear, fearing to be recognized as a traitor; but the heart of Carahue was too noble to pierce that of Charlemagne by telling him the treachery ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... the point then," said Master Richard confidently, "and a point that will not pierce him, else what of the ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... figures in brown burnouses marched quickly, with a sharp rustling of many slippered feet moving in unison, and golden spears of rain seemed to pierce the white turbans of the men who carried the bier. As they marched, fifty voices rose and fell wildly in a stirring chant, exciting and terrible as the beat-beat of a tom-tom, sometimes a shout of barbaric triumph, sometimes a mourning ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... imply that the laugh may be on me at the last," he returned, while the points of blue light seemed to pierce Stephen like arrows—no, like gimlets, "well, you're wrong about one part of it—for if that ever happens, I'll laugh with you because of ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... or nearly 2,800 bushels of pears, apples, plums, and filberts. Advices were received by the Antwerpen that another extensive importation of fruit from Antwerp may be expected at the St Katherine's Steam Packet Wharf this day (Saturday), by the steam-packet Princess Victoria, Capt. Pierce. ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... swift, springy footsteps came hurriedly down the path, and a voice, which seemed to pierce her very heart, called: "Birdie, ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... it, the mind of many a woman is a heap of petty antipathies; and, where the likings are fickle, the dislikings are pretty sure to be tenacious. A keen student of human nature has remarked, that many women "spend force enough in trivial observations on dress and manners, to form a javelin to pierce quite through a character." Women's eyes are armed with microscopes to see all the little defects and dissimilarities which can irritate and injure their friendships. Hence there are so many feminine friends easily provoked ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... the fair field congregate the three-year-olds and two-year-olds; they pierce the air with their infant squeals and neighs, they stamp, and glare, and strike attitudes with absurd statuesqueness, while their owners sit on a bank above them, playing them like fish on the end of a long ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the near approach of the allies. He had an immense quantity of ordnance: the batteries in the open country were supported by masses of infantry in solid squares. The plan of our operations was to attack Gross Goerschen with artillery and infantry, and meanwhile to pierce the line, to the enemy's right of the villages, with a strong column of cavalry in order to cut off the troops in the villages from support.... The cavalry of the Prussian Reserve, to whose lot this attack fell, made it with great gallantry; but the showers of grapeshot and musketry to which they ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... bloom of autumn, almost entranced the eye as a garden of the Lord. In a majestic grove the veteran Christian knelt, at peace with God, with himself, and with all the world. His eyes were closed. His hands were clasped. His soul was all absorbed in prayer. Suddenly a shower of arrows pierce him, and ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... made for him," said Nunaga, with a merry laugh. "Doesn't it fit well? My only fear is that if Arbalik sees him, he will pierce him with a dart before ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... art A Creature of a fiery heart— These notes of thine they pierce, and pierce; Tumultuous harmony and fierce! Thou sing'st as if the God of wine Had help'd thee to a Valentine; A song in mockery and despite Of shades, and dews, and silent Night, And steady bliss, and all the Loves Now sleeping in ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... shifty," yet am not altogether sure that in that term I accurately describe it. What first fastened my attention was this vague, unfocussed, roving, quasi-introspective vision flashing with panther-like suddenness into a directness that seemed to burn and pierce one like the thrust of a hot stiletto, His face was clean-shaven, save for a mere thumb-mark of black hair directly under the centre of his lower lip. This Iago-like tab and the almost fierce brilliancy of his concentrated gaze gave to his countenance at times a sinister, Machiavellian expression ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... handy man, reference and filing clerk, in the big piano house of Pomeroy and Parke. He had all the good traits of his race, and some of the traits that, without being wholly admirable, help a man toward success. No slur at himself or his religion was keen enough to pierce Mark's smiling armour of philosophy, no hours were too hard for him, no work too menial for him to do cheerfully, nor too important for him to undertake confidently. A wisdom far older than his years was his. ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... rescuers. My attendance at one of them. Bishop Loguen's prayer and Gerrit Smith's speech. Characteristics of Gerrit Smith. Effects of the rescue trials. Main difficulty of the anti-slavery party. "Fool reformers.'' Nominations of Scott and Pierce; their qualities. Senator Douglas. Abolition of the Missouri Compromise. Growth of ill feeling between North and South. Pro-slavery tendencies at Yale. Stand against these taken by President Woolsey and Leonard Bacon. My candidacy or editorship of the "Yale Literary Magazine.'' Opposition on ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Merman and mermaid, nereid and triton, were there, rejoicing in the sunbeams thus poured upon them through this subtle conduit of ocean, as do the motes of summer in her rays; but soon these disappeared, a motley crowd, confused and joyous, leaving the vision free to pierce the depths, glowing with golden light, in ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... were also made of baked clay, were fitted with wicks manufactured from the pith of a palm-tree, or sometimes from the stem of a very handsome variety of fern. This kind of wick was passed through a round hole at the end of the lamp, to which a sharp piece of hard wood was attached wherewith to pierce and draw it up whenever it showed signs of ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... penalty; —, hardly. pencher, to sway, lean. pendant, during; — que, while. pntrer, to penetrate; pntr de, thrilled with. pense, f., thought. penser, to think; — , to think of. Que penses-tu? What is thy suggestion? percer, to pierce. perdre, to lose, destroy. pre, m., father. perfide, perfidious, treacherous. perfidie, f., treachery. pril, m., peril, danger. prir, to perish. permettre, to permit, suffer, allow. Persan, Persian. Perse, f., Persia. perscuteur, m., persecutor. personnage, m., character (in a ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... which were still red with the glow of sunset. The noise which had aroused me was very slight; but there are some sounds which strike the heart before reaching the ear; and the subtlest emanations of love will at times pierce through the coarsest organization. Edmee's voice had just pronounced my name a short distance away, behind some foliage. At first I thought I had been dreaming; I remained where I was, held my breath and ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... as happens not to have been thought of or dedicated in a temple by any besides, and to dedicate this at Delphi as a memorial of herself. Accordingly with the tithe of her wealth she caused to be made spits of iron of size large enough to pierce a whole ox, and many in number, going as far therein as her tithe allowed her, and she sent them to Delphi: these are even at the present time lying there, heaped all together behind the altar which the Chians dedicated, and ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... he murmured, "I cannot pray! Here where my eye can pierce the distance, as if I myself were a god-here I feel the presence of the One, here He is near me and with me—I will call ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... against Gabriel Harvey;[259] wrote a dissertation on social manners: the "Anatomie of absurditie," 1589; a disquisition with an autobiographical turn, which may be compared with those Greene has left; "Pierce Penilesse his supplication to the Divell," 1592 (it had great success, and was even translated into French, "maimedly translated," says Nash,[260] probably with great truth); a novel "The unfortunate traveller or the ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... through the hissing waves, undismayed by the darkness or the screaming wind; she and the ocean had been friends since her baby days. When a breaker finally tossed her on the shore, she scrambled to the bank, then stood long endeavouring to pierce the rain for sight of the vessel. But it was far out in the dark. Dorthe was alone on the island. For a time she howled in dismal fashion. She was wholly without fear, but she had human needs and was lonesome. Then reason told her that when the storm was over the ship ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... roamed the woods, their majesty and leafy silence appealed to all his senses. The two vast still rivers threw over him the spell of mystery, and the secret of the greater one, its hidden origin, tantalized him. Often he gazed northward along its yellow current and wondered if he could not pierce that secret. Dimly in his mind, formed a plan to follow the yellow stream to its source some day, and again he thrilled with the thought of great adventures and mighty wanderings, where men of his ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... invaluable. Both the mother country, therefore, whose naval and commercial interests require her to retain the Cape peninsula, and her South African children, have every motive for cleaving to one another, and, so far as our eyes can pierce the mists of the future, no reason can be discerned why they should not continue so to cleave. The peoples of both countries are altogether friendly to one another. But much will depend on the knowledge, the prudence, the ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... when we started, but before we had proceeded far we came into a thick, cold, wet fog, which, after the heat of the last few weeks, seemed to pierce us to the very marrow. Eight miles farther on the four frisky white mules were exchanged for five steady dun-coloured ones, which were in their turn replaced after a seven-mile stage by four nice bays, who took us along ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... are of silvery whiteness, but are ragged from exposure to the action of the weather in the larger and older trees, he peeled off, and then cutting the bark so that the sides lapped well over, and the corners were secured from cracks, he proceeded to pierce holes opposite to each other, and with some trouble managed to stitch them tightly together, by drawing strips of the moose or leather-wood through and through. The first attempt, of course, was but rude and ill-shaped, but it answered ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... the way of Slick of Tennessee; Of gougers fierce, the eyes that pierce, the fiercest gouger he; He chews and spits, as there he sits, and whittles at the chairs, And in his hand, for deadly ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... unheeding, but Sigurd's laughter stopped: something in the tone of that one word chilled his blood and braced his muscles like a frost. He strained his eyes to pierce the shadow and make out what she was doing; and it seemed to him that he could no longer see her. She had disappeared,—where? In a sudden panic he groped behind him for the door; found it and flung it open. It was well that the moon was shining ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... went to help him. It was a moonless night, and if the sky was resplendent in the light of thousands of stars, the earth was clad in a darkness which my eyes, dazzled by the light of the flames, could not pierce. ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... are willing to follow me, stay here by the women and be of good cheer; for, by my troth, I will guard for thee both goods and honour. I will see to it, that they that seek thee here at Worms by the Rhine bide where they are; we will pierce deep into their country, till their ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... a tailor convicted of stabbing a soldier, the offence was aggravated in Lord Eskgrove's eyes by the fact that "not only did you murder him, whereby he was berea-ved of his life, but you did thrust, or push, or pierce, or project, or propell, the le-thall weapon through the belly-band of his regimental breeches, which ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... ducal cap of Austria, to be set up in the market-place at Altorf, before which emblem of authority he ordered every man to uncover and do reverence as he passed. The refusal of a peasant to obey this command, his arrest, trial, and condemnation to pierce with an arrow an apple placed on his own child's head, his dexterity in performing this feat, his escape from his enemies, his murder of the tyrant Gessler, the solemn compact sworn at Ruetli, and the revolutionary events that followed form ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... I may rip thee at one blow if you do not confess to me every assignation given, and in what manner they have been arranged. If thy tongue gets entangled, if thou falterest, I will pierce thee ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... life was stolen from me here, Stand not to thwart me in this great revenge; But rather come with large propitious eyes Smiling encouragement with ancient looks! Ye sages whose pale, melancholy orbs Gaze through the darkness of a thousand years, Oh, pierce the solid blackness of to-day, And fire anew this crucible of thought Until my soul flames up to the result! (He enters and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... love. But, although I tested every fibre of thought and analysed every motive, I was very sincere in my friendship, and very loyal in my admiration. Nor did my admiration wane when I discovered that Marshall was shallow in his appreciations, superficial in his judgments, that his talents did not pierce below the surface; il avait se grand air; there was fascination in his very bearing, in his large, soft, colourful eyes, and a go and dash in his dissipations that carried ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... not? the home of Hamlet and Ophelia and the Ghost!" she exclaimed, pointing ahead to where a grey-blue mass was rising out of the water. "Do you believe in ghosts, Prince?" she added suddenly, flashing a glance at him which seemed to pierce his brain like a ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... 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, and then, just as suddenly as he had begun his foray, he ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... the day on which he sailed to attack the Shannon, Lawrence writes to the Secretary of the Navy as follows: "Lieutenant Paige is so ill as to be unable to go to sea with the ship. At the urgent request of Acting-Lieutenant Pierce I have granted him, also, permission to go on shore; one inducement for my granting his request was his being at variance with every officer in his mess." "Captains' Letters," vol. 29, No. 1, in the Naval Archives at Washington. Neither officers nor men had shaken together.] ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... sad, crowding, crying gulls, and on the huddled white town with its narrow crooked streets and overhanging houses: Polperro had the eerie beauty of a dream or of a little foreign port. Such beauty and charm are on the edge of pain; you cannot disentangle them from it. They intoxicate, and pierce to tears. The warm morning sun sparkled on a still blue sea, and burned the gorse and bracken by the steep path's edge to fragrance. So steep the path was that they had to push their bicycles up ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... cast his dilating eyes along the rows of faces. Most of them were but as blurs, swimming, yet he was aware (he thought) of a formidable and horrible impassive scrutiny of himself, a glare seeming to pierce through him to the back of the belt round his waist, so that he began to have fearful doubts about that belt, about every fastening and adjustment of his garments, about the expression of his countenance, and about many other things jumbling together in his consciousness. Over ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... want stroking into position. This may be done with what is called a "pierce"; but a good stiletto, or even a very large needle, will answer the purpose. Sharply pointed scissors ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... How often, ah! how sadly often Wast thou pressed hard by the North's fair Barbarians! From large and conquering eyes They shot forth burning arrows; With crooked words as sharp as a rapier They threatened to pierce my bosom; With cuneiform angular missives they battered My poor stunned brains; In vain I held out my shield for protection, The arrows hissed and the blows rained down, And hard pressed I was ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... questions in the following stanzas by assuring himself that the Sun of God's grace can and will pierce even his "cloud of despair", and that he must wait therefore in ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... head in the wildest dismay, and though she stared at Miss Arran she did not seem to see her. Many a time like a lightning flash the thought had swept over her, but it seemed awful to have it put in words, to have the certainty pierce through her like ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... him the circle of his shield, and lightly he stepped with his feet, advancing beneath the cover of his shield. Then Meriones aimed at him with a shining spear, and struck, and missed not, but smote the circle of the bulls-hide shield, yet no whit did he pierce it; nay, well ere that might be, the long spear-shaft snapped in the socket. Now Deiphobos was holding off from him the bulls-hide shield, and his heart feared the lance of wise Meriones, but that hero shrunk back ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... needles pierce the yielding hose, So oft thy beauties pierce my yielding breast: Oh then compassionate my deep felt woes, And bid awhile the ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... instruments and methods of this experimental treatment, I wish to speak of the articles on the 'AEsthetics of Simple Form,' published as Studies from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory, by Dr. Edgar Pierce.[15] These articles, sub-entitled 'Symmetry' and 'The Functions of the Elements' seem at first sight to anticipate the discussions of this paper; but a short analysis shows that while they point in the same direction, they nevertheless deal with quite different questions ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... her brother cried, and now began to howl with astonishing suddenness, whereupon baby awaking contributed angry screams, and required to be taken out of the cradle. A great deal of hushing was necessary, and Mordecai feeling the cries pierce him, put out his arms to Jacob, who in the midst of his tears and sobs was turning his head right and left for general observation. His father, who had been—saying, "Never mind, old man; you shall go to the riders," now released him, and he went to Mordecai, who clasped him, and laid his cheek ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot |
