"Piercing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... joke 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 ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... when he considers you are of the race. In this you are above all others; but in your Eikonoklastes you exceed yourself. There, not content to see that sacred head divided from the body, your piercing malice enters into the private agonies of his struggling soul, with a blasphemous insolence invading the prerogative of God himself (omniscience), and by deductions most unchristian and illogical aspersing his last pieties (the almost certain inspirations ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... each other. The original end of painting their bodies was, probably, to exclude the cold; an end which, if we believe some relations, is so effectually produced by it, that the men thus painted never shiver at the most piercing blasts. But, doubtless, any people, so hardened by continual severities, would, even without paint, be less sensible of the cold than the civilized inhabitants of the same climate. However, this practice may contribute, in some degree, to defend them from the injuries of winter; and, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... says (Anec. p. 297) that 'Johnson's eyes were so wild, so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the hearts of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... women's ears Checked me: 'The silent partner is the best.' I saw how 'twas and ceased. Forth then he fared Alone—What horror passed upon the plain This night, I know not. But he drags within, Tied in a throng, bulls, shepherd dogs, and spoil Of cattle and sheep. Anon he butchers them, Felling or piercing, hacking or tearing wide, Ribs from breast, limb from limb. Others in rage He seized and bound and tortured, brutes for men. Last, out he rushed before the doors, and there Whirled forth wild language to some shadowy form, Flouting the generals and Laertes' son ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... road began to ascend with a very slight incline, winding around in an intricate sort of way, sometimes crossing deep gullies, at other times piercing the hillside in long dark tunnels; but amidst all these windings ever ascending, so that every step took them higher and higher above the little valley where Brieg lay. The party saw also that every step brought them steadily nearer to the line of snow; and at length they ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... hardly concluded our breakfasts, when a loud and clattering sound was heard; and down came, in a heavy trot, with sundry ear-piercing crackings of the whip, the thundering Diligence: large, lofty, and of most unwieldy dimensions: of a structure, too, strong enough to carry a half score of elephants. The postilion is an animal perfectly sui generis: gay, alert, and living upon the best possible terms with ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... assumed twenty different characters, besides that of a drummer boy, sometimes blackening my face to enter the palace unnoticed, and often holding conversations analogous to the sentiments of the wretches who were piercing my heart with the remarks circumstances compelled me to encourage. Indeed, I can safely say I was known, in some shape or other, to almost everybody, but to no one in my real character, except the Princess by whom I was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... 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
... in March, orange and lemon-trees blooming in these areas, as well as Bengal monthly and common white roses, tea-roses, verbenas, tiger-lilies, carnations, and scarlet geraniums. Neither the palm nor the orange will grow without shelter in this part of Spain,—the north winds being too cold and piercing,—except by artificial culture. Spain is almost a treeless country, her immense olive orchards serving but partially to redeem the barren aspect of the southern and middle districts. In the orange court of the Grand Mosque, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... whether we have broken the law or not; to hear witnesses for us and against us, to sum up the evidence, and set forth the evidence for us and the evidence against us. And our judge will be the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing through the very joints and marrow, and discerning the secret intents of the heart; neither is anything hid from Him, for all things are naked and open in the sight of Him with whom we have to do. With ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... neighbourhood was left in peace and a good deal in solitude. But the tranquillity was only local; din and perandi still flowed in other quarters: and we had one more sight of Gilbert Island violence. In the church, where we had wandered photographing, we were startled by a sudden piercing outcry. The scene, looking forth from the doors of that great hall of shadow, was unforgettable. The palms, the quaint and scattered houses, the flag of the island streaming from its tall staff, glowed with intolerable sunshine. In the midst two women rolled fighting on the grass. The combatants ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not increase, and the thinly scattered inhabitants are too much absorbed in the cares of self-defense even to attempt any amelioration of their condition. Such, however, will not always be the case. Europe has succeeded by her own efforts in piercing the gloom of the Middle Ages; South America has the same Christian laws and Christian manners as we have; she contains all the germs of civilization which have grown amidst the nations of Europe or their offsets, added to the advantages to be derived from our example: why then should she ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... asking what the will of the Lord is. One said, 'That went like a dagger to my heart, and I slept none all that night.' And when to-day, I turned to Rom. iii. 26, Eph. ii. 8-9, and Rom. iv. 1-4, they listened as children. Truly the word of the Lord is a sharp sword, piercing to the heart." ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... his fate? He trusted Islay (485) till it was too late. Where were those parts! where was that piercing mind! That judgment, and that knowledge of mankind! To trust a Traitor that he knew so well! (Strange truth! I)ctray'd, but not deceived, he fell!) He knew his heart was, like his aspect, vile; Knew him ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... maiming without weapons; and proceeds to gathering with devices that take the place of the hand in dipping, digging, hooking and grasping; weapons for striking, whether clubs, missiles or projectiles; edged weapons of capture, which were rare in America; piercing devices for capture, in lances, barbed spears, harpoons and arrows; traps for enclosing, arresting and killing, such as pens, cages, pits, pen-falls, nets, hooks, nooses, clutches, adhesives, deadfalls, impalers, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the eldest son of the old General Giacinto Paoli. He is about fifty years of age, of a middle size and dark complexion; his eyes are quick and piercing, and he has something in the form of his mouth which renders his appearance very particular. His understanding is of the first rate, and he has by no means suffered it to lie neglected. He was married, and has an only daughter, the wife of Signor ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... be more vivifying. Speak, therefore, while you feel called to do it; and when you feel called. But for yourself, my friend, I prophesy it will not do always: a faculty is in you for a sort of speech which is itself action, an artistic sort. You tell us with piercing emphasis that man's soul is great; show us a great soul of a man, in some work symbolic of such: this is the seal of such a message, and you will feel by and by that you are called to this. I long to see some concrete Thing, some Event, Man's Life, American Forest, or piece ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... 8. 26.] Elect Lady cried loudest in Gods | eares, when we heard not her words; | and why may we not thinke now, our | sinnes hindered vs from hearing | them? I am sure, heretofore she | hath spoken againe and againe many | Heart-piercing speeches to deterre | from Sinne, and to allure to | Holinesse of Life. If she be not | hearkened to now, henceforth wee | shall heare Her speake no more. I | charge you therefore before God and | the Lord Iesus Christ, and the | Elect Angells:[A] you (I say) I | [Note A: 1 Tim. 5. 21.] ...
— The Praise of a Godly Woman • Hannibal Gamon
... is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed up—he had judged. 'The horror!' He was a remarkable man. After all, this was the expression of some sort of belief; it had ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... dragoons; on which he said, in French, (a language he frequently spoke in,) 'We have missed some of them.' After this, he refreshed himself upon the field, and, with the utmost composure, ate a piece of cold beef and drank a glass of wine, amidst the deep and piercing groans of the poor men who had fallen victims ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... 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 ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... implacable revenge, or the complaint of ravished virgins blushing to tell their adventures before the listening crowd of city damsels, whilst in thy faithful history thou intermingledst the gravest counsels and the purest morals. Nor less acute and piercing wert thou in thy search and pompous descriptions of the works of nature; whether in proper and emphatic terms thou didst paint the blazing comet's fiery tail, the stupendous force of dreadful thunder and earthquakes, and the unrelenting ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... Canadian shore, And you'll rail at our Tenters, then, no more; New health and fresh life through your veins shall glow, Spite of piercing winds—spite of ice and snow, And I'd venture to promise, in truth, my friend, 'Twill not be the last that with ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... a withered little man, as ugly as though he were a blue-blooded grandee. His fiery eyes, placed very close to his nose and piercing as a gimlet, would have won him the name of a sorcerer in Naples. He seemed gentle because he was calm, quiet, and slow in his movements; and for this reason people commonly called him "goodman Fario." ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... they said we had descended three hundred feet. But we women had done nothing but emit piercing shrieks the entire way, and it might have been three hundred feet or three hundred miles, for all we knew. After our fierce refusal to start and our horrible screams during the descent, Jimmie's disgust was something unspeakable when we instantly said we wished we could do it again. Our guide, ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... church spires received them; the hoary city, old, sinful, and majestic. One behind another, round or pointed, piercing the sky or massing themselves, like sailing ships, like granite cliffs, spires and offices, wharves and factories crowd the bank; eternally the pilgrims trudge; barges rest in mid stream heavy laden; as some believe, the city loves ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... The image of the disease being destroyed, the disease itself is expected to disappear. Compare the magic of the Philistines, who made golden images of the sores which plagued them and stowed them away in the ark.(4) The custom of making a wax statuette of an enemy, and piercing it with pins or melting it before the fire, so that the detested person might waste as his semblance melted, was common in mediaeval Europe, was known to Plato, and is practised by Negroes. Some Australians take some of the hair of an enemy, mix it with grease and the ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... swift shuttles through the subterranean woof of the city's haste. From these feet let the witness infer our whole massive Hercules, a bulk that sprawls and stretches beyond the rivers through the tunnels piercing their beds and that towers into the skies with innumerable tops—a Hercules blent of Briareus and Cerberus, but not so bad a monster as it seemed ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... moment a piercing scream interrupted Fancy's explanation. It came from one of the front rooms, and was followed by another shorter scream—the ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... magnificent, every brilliant detail symbolically picturing the holy history of the Roman Catholic Church in the inexorable progress of its immense structure, which rises from the rock of Peter, with its beacons of faith and devotion piercing the fog of doubt and fear which surround the world and the worldly, was the ceremony yesterday at the Cathedral of St. Vibiana, whereby Bishop John J. Cantwell was installed in his diocese ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... came on; the wind shifted a point, which caused a gleam of sunlight to fall upon a sail. It was a boat! there could be no doubt of it—and making directly for the island! Unable to contain herself, Edith, uttering a piercing cry, sank upon the ground and burst into a passionate flood of tears. It was the irresistible impulse of hope long deferred at length realised; for the child did not entertain a doubt that this was at length ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... could swing himself out of the water, the fierce fish had turned. His whitish-green belly glanced in the sun—the poor little fellow gave a heart-splitting yell, which was shattered amongst the impending rocks into piercing echoes, and these again were reverberated from cavern to cavern, until they died away amongst the hollows in the distance, as if they had been the faint shrieks of the damned—yet he held fast for a second or two—the ravenous tyrant of the sea tug, tugging ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... protests with which the children surrounded her. Through her mind there shot the thought: "I have a secret from Oliver," and she felt suddenly guilty because for the first time since her marriage she was keeping something back from him. Then, following this, there came the knowledge, piercing her heart, that she must keep her secret because even if she told him, he would not understand. With the casualness of a man's point of view towards an emotion, he would judge its importance, she ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... very closely before those sentiments could be detected. The canon's habitual condition was perfect calmness, and his eyelids were usually lowered over his orange-colored eyes, which could, however, give clear and piercing glances when he liked. Reddish hair added to the gloomy effect of this countenance, which was always obscured by the veil which deep meditation drew across its features. Many persons at first sight thought him absorbed in high and earnest ambitions; but ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... side alone saved the baron from a wound which must have been fatal, as the brigand threw the knife at him with tremendous force, and it flew through the air and fell ringing upon the ground at a marvellous distance, instead of piercing de Sigognac's heart. His antagonist turned pale, for he was quite defenceless, having depended entirely upon his trusty navaja, which had never failed him before, and he very well knew that his vaunted ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... physician came next. The post-mortem examination showed that the bullet had entered the chest in the fourth left intercostal space and had taken an oblique course downward and backward, piercing both the heart and lungs. The left lung was collapsed, and the exit point of the ball had been found in the muscles of the back to the left of the spinal column. It was improbable that such a wound had been self-inflicted, ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... gorgeously clad in flowing silks and wore the princely cap with a button. At a glance his piercing eye took in every detail of the room. Then he went directly to the Madagascan, whose overbearing air of assurance immediately forsook ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... distinguished by the species of eloquence which is required when grave questions are to be solemnly brought under the notice of senates; and Sir Thomas Littleton, versed in European politics, and gifted with a vehement and piercing logic which had often, when, after a long sitting, the candles had been lighted, roused the languishing House, and decided the event of the debate. There, too, was William Sacheverell, an orator whose great parliamentary abilities were, many years later, a favourite theme of old men who ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... into full possession of his genius. For, although he ignored its great power and extent, it is impossible that he should not have had in hours like these, some vision of the future, some presentiment of coming glory, which, piercing through the veils that yet shrouded his genius, gave moments of ineffable delight. When he bathed in some solitary spot, he tells us in his memoranda that one of his greatest delights was to sit on a rock overlooking ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... minutes a terrible scene. The swaying motion which had hitherto prevailed changed into fierce vertical upheaval. The subterranean roaring increased in the most terrifying manner; then were heard the heart-piercing shrieks of the wretched people, the bursting of walls, the crashing fall of houses and churches, while over all rolled thick clouds of a yellowish-black dust, which, had they been poured forth many minutes longer, would ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... nestling in the colonel's chest and the splintered rib gave him more discomfort than the wounded leader had counted on. As the train jolted at times the ex-President experienced piercing pain. But he bore it without ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... of the head of the State and of the Chamber; and he was Collard's intimate friend. The majority of the cabinet was compact. The perfect calm of the horizon was undisturbed by a cloud. Vaudrey could rule without fear, without excitement and give all his spare time to that woman whose piercing glance, wandering smile, palpitating nostrils, dishevelled, fair hair, kisses, fondness, cries, and ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... crone, already stumbling into her dotage, hobbled from the kitchen and gathered up an armful of resinous pine from a pile beside the steps. "Dey's 'mos' es hot es de debbil's wood en iron shovel," she replied, with one foot on the step; adding in a piercing whisper: "I know dat ar shovel, honey, 'caze de debbil he done come fur me in de daid er de night, lookin' moughty peart, too; but I tole 'im he des better bide aw'ile 'caze I 'uz leanin' ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... thought the prisoner, and, with his heart beating fast, he sat watching two of the men and then gazing hard at the nearest wagon, piercing in imagination the thick canvas covering spread over the arching-in hoops, and seeing, as he believed, exactly where two Mauser rifles and the ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... force had to be used, in spite of furious resentment on the part of the baby. A more injured and ill-treated mortal could not have been imagined. She set up a heaven-piercing wail, evidently overcome with indignation and surprise at the cruel treatment that she had received. What horrid selfishness to take oneself and one's property away, when an engaging innocent enjoys grasping it and stuffing ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... moment when the coffin disappeared from view and the earth became a barrier for ever between the quick and the dead, Sina uttered a piercing shriek. Her sobs echoed through the quiet burial- ground, painfully affecting the little group of silent mourners. She no longer cared to hide her secret from the others who now all guessed it, horrified that death ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... short half-hour of mid-noon rest, the whistle, piercing, inanimate call, has dared to command the slavish obedience of animate and intelligent beings. I pause by the trestle over which rumble the cars, heavily laden with the cotton cloth whose perfection has made this ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... funnel, gully, tunnel, main; mine, pit, adit[obs3], shaft; gallery. alley, aisle, glade, vista. bore, caliber; pore; blind orifice; fulgurite[obs3], thundertube[obs3]. porousness, porosity. sieve, cullender[obs3], colander; cribble[obs3], riddle, screen; honeycomb. apertion[obs3], perforation; piercing &c. v.; 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) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... certainly be killed if he did not run. The little man was in despair; it was so pitiful and mean a fate to be beaten to death with clubs like a mad dog—oh! if he only were one, how he would scatter that throng of howling savages. With this thought an inspiration came to him like a ray of sunlight piercing the blackness of a dungeon. He felt among the inner folds of his ragged blanket, withdrew a small object and thrust it into his mouth. A second later the blanket was snatched from his body leaving him clad only in a breech clout, and he was given a push into the lane as a hint that ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... is called by the French engages. this is a singular anamal not common to any part of the United States. it's weight is sixteen pounds.- it is a carniverous anamal. on both sides of the upper jaw is fexed one long and sharp canine tooth.- it's eye are small black and piercing. ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... surpassed what it had hitherto been. Each vein of his dark brow rose distinctly and swelling from its surface, and he kicked and stamped with a fury that proclaimed the bitter tempest raging in his soul. When the Aid-de-Camp had again mounted, his shrieks and execrations became piercing, and for many minutes after they had entered into the heart of the forest in which the hut was situated, the shrill sounds continued to ring upon their ears in accents so fearful, that each felt a sensible relief when ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... hath an ear-piercing note, And you may hear mad music from 'ARRY in a boat; But safest of all sounds to give the tympanum a twist, Is the tow-row, tow-row, tow-row of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... one, then another black one—there must have been a dozen of them. Yergunov looked to see which was the biggest, swung his whip and lashed at it with all his might. A small, long-legged puppy turned its sharp muzzle upwards and set up a shrill, piercing howl. ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... over her shoulder: "They say the old woman was a gypsy and got married to one-armed Manel jumping over a broomstick. And I wouldn't wonder a mite if 'twas true. She was a queer looking old hag with black, piercing eyes and a proud way of walking. The boys are a wild crew. Why, I remember this girl Deolda, like a little leopard cat with blue-black shadows in her hair and eyes like saucers, selling berries at ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... most akin. Instead of coming west, it might have 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 China from the cold secularism of Confucius. Had it done so, missionaries from India ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... Spanish yew so strong, Arrows a cloth-yard long, That like to serpents stung, Piercing the weather; None from his fellow starts, But playing manly parts, And like true English hearts Stuck ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... aspect, but very little else. He was tall and lean, and had a fine large head, bald and smooth upon the top, with a circle of white hair behind the ears. His beard was pure white, and reached to his waist; his eyes were small, dark, and so piercing that they seemed to read your every thought. His eyebrows were very heavy, and as white as his beard. He dressed in a long black mantle with a girdle corded about the middle, and he walked slowly and majestically, and talked no more than he was ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... Collie pitched drunkenly as the horse came down again and again. His eyes were blurred and his brain grew numb. Faintly he heard Brand Williams cry, "Two minutes! Moonstone wins!" Then came a cheer. His gripping knees relaxed. He reeled and all around him the air grew streaked with slivers of piercing fire. He pitched headforemost at the feet of the ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... than ever on her heart. 'Oh! that this were an omen!' she cried, with clasping hands, as she listened to the howling of the wind upon the lofty staircase leading to their remote apartments. Drawing closer over her bosom the wrapper by which she attempted to exclude the piercing night-air, Amelia smiled at the thought of the chilliness of the grave,—of the grave, where the heart beats not, and the fixed glassy eye is incapable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... behind him Grey pressed forward, whilst even Ferguson paused in his writing to raise his piercing eyes and listen. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... introducing his celebrated Bill was just the avowed motive of that Bill and no other. It was to set up territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska. Douglas's mind was full of schemes for facilitating the march of American civilization westward, for piercing the prairies with roads and railways, for opening up communications with Oregon and the Pacific Slope. Kansas and Nebraska were then the outposts of such expansion. Naturally he was eager to develop them, to encourage squatters ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... wie die Nacht, tief wie das Meer—begins to glow with mauves and apple greens, apricots and silvery blues. Along the peaks of the great snowy mountains which shut it in, as if from the folly and misery of the world, there are touches of piercing primary colours—red, yellow, violet—the palette of a synchromist. Far below, hugging the winding river, lies little Innsbruck, with its checkerboard parks and Christmas garden villas. A battalion of Austrian soldiers, drilling in the Exerzierplatz, appears ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... me add to these the other thanks which I owe you for the wonderful moments during which I listened to your melodies, expressive of the fascinating charms of the sirens who dwell on the banks of our imagination, and of those piercing cries wrung from us by the extinction of the perfumes of their enchanted home,—for those thoughts which elevate us in their humility, that despair which throws us "without fear against swords, when the soul is pierced by a very different sword of grief," those elegies which one whispers ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... piercing shriek. 'You're lying, lying! But why should I care? You've done that for years. And Rose has been so kind, hasn't she, coming to see me every week? Take your letter, Francis. Yes, I've read it! I don't care. I'm helpless. Take it!' From its hiding-place under ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... we gazed in speechless horror at the dreadful catastrophe, a loud, piercing shriek rang out clear and shrill above the hoarse diapason of the howling tempest. She rolled completely bottom upwards, and ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... ever, and spoke good Dutch in a firm voice. 'Yes, I am above a hundred years old, and alone—quite alone.' I sat beside him, and he put his head on one side, and looked curiously up at me with his faded, but still piercing little wild eyes. Perhaps he had a perception of what I felt—yet I hardly think so; perhaps he thought I was in trouble, for he crept close up to me, and put one tiny brown paw into my hand, which he stroked with ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... steady pace of 2 miles an hour, very good going. The sky was slightly overcast at start and between two and three it grew very misty. Before we camped we lost sight of the men-haulers only 300 yards ahead. The sun is piercing the mist. Here in Lat. 81 deg. 35' we are leaving our 'Middle Barrier Depot,' one week for each re unit as ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... in the letter from which this is extracted. By insisting upon this passage, and upon certain other letters dexterously confounded with those published, Pope succeeded in raising dust enough to blind Lord Orrery's not very piercing intelligence. The inference which he desired to suggest was that some persons in Swift's family had obtained possession of the letters. Mrs. Whiteway, indeed, met the suggestion so clearly, and gave such good reasons for assigning Twickenham as the probable centre ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... no discoveries made in the gulf itself in which it went down; were there to be no treasures found in the recesses thus thrown open to the eye for the first time; no mines in the dissevered strata—no founts of inexhaustible freshness and flow opened by thus piercing into the bowels of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... remember you admired it; he has walked Broadway in a moody state of mind all winter, and grown as dull as is consistent with the essential sharpness of his nature. I ought to except our last interview, though, for his entreaties to mamma that she would bring you home with her were piercing." ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... Stephen's terrible sorrow if little Nan should be dead, all the woeful consequences of her fault, were stamped upon her heart with a sudden and very bitter stroke. Those who were watching her from the lane saw her stand as if transfixed for a moment; and then a piercing scream, which made every one within hearing start with terror, rang through the frosty air, as Martha sprang forward to the mouth of the old pit, and, peering down its dark and narrow depths, could just discern a little white figure lying motionless ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... fingers through his wild black forelock, and cast on Little O'Grady a piercing, inspirational glance from a pair ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... the Earl of Warwick, and the words of the friar, naming the Duchess of Bedford as his employer. Montagu listened in attentive silence. Though not perfectly free from the credulities of the time, shared even by the courageous heart of Edward and the piercing intellect of Gloucester, he was yet more alarmed by such proofs of determined earthly hostility in one so plotting and so near to the throne as the Duchess of Bedford, than by all the pins and needles that could be planted into the earl's ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for scouring out sand and deposit, especially in the dams of Algeria and of Spain. The amount of sand, etc., brought down by the floods is something enormous, and the question of the best means of getting rid of it has occupied much attention. In the old Moorish reservoirs the flushing gallery, piercing the lower part of the dam, was closed by iron doors on the down stream face and blocked with timber at the upper end. When required to be flushed out, laborers passed through the gallery and broke down the timber barrier, the silt forming a wall sufficiently thick to resist the pressure of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy, and despair. That Marah was never dry. No art could sweeten, no draughts could exhaust, its perennial waters of bitterness. Never was there such variety in monotony as that of Byron. From maniac laughter to piercing lamentation, there was not a single note of human anguish of which he was not master. Year after year, and month after month, he continued to repeat that to be wretched is the destiny of all; that to be eminently wretched is the destiny of the eminent; ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... viciousness includes all), from whence arise those perturbations which, as I just now said, are turbid and violent motions of the mind, repugnant to reason, and enemies in a high degree to the peace of the mind and a tranquil life, for they introduce piercing and anxious cares, and afflict and debilitate the mind through fear; they violently inflame our hearts with exaggerated appetite, which is in reality an impotence of mind, utterly irreconcilable with temperance and moderation, which we sometimes call desire, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... fatal night when your charms deprived him of that liberty which he resolved to preserve as long as he lived: he only tells you, that he devoted his heart to you in your charming slumbers; those slumbers which hindered him from beholding the brightness of your piercing eyes, in spite of all his endeavours to oblige you to open them. He presumed to present you with his ring as a token of his passion, and, in exchange, would be proud to receive yours, which he encloses in this billet. If you will condescend ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... torments also may in length of time Become our elements, these piercing fires As soft as now severe, our temper changed Into their temper, which must needs remove ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... the armed soldiers and cried with a piercing voice: "Hasten Juon Tare! Seize the smelting-oven entrance, else this devil will still ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... to disappear from the boarding-house and the boarders, and from Poppy Grace on the balcony next door; to get away from every face and every voice that he had known before he knew Lucia Harden's. Being convinced that he would never see her again, he wanted to be alone with his vivid and piercing memory of her. At first it was the pain that pierced. She had taken out her little two-edged sword and stabbed him. It wouldn't have mattered, he said, if the sword had been a true little sword, but it wasn't; ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... of sin, the eternal death of sin. Christ having come under the power of death, hath gotten power over it, and spoiled it of its stinging virtue. He hath taken away the poisonable ingredient of the curse, that it can no more hurt them that are in him, and so it is not now vested with that piercing and wounding notion of punishment. Though it be true that sin was the first inlet of death, that it first opened the sluice to let it enter and flow in upon mankind, yet that appointment of death is renewed, and ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... piercing shrieks began to subside, and she came a little under the influence of some soothing drops he had given her at the outset, I began to feel that sensation in the back of my neck that leads to conquest over the ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... (excite the feelings) 824. Adj. feeling &c v.; sentient; sensuous; sensorial, sensory; emotive, emotional; of feeling, with feeling &c n.. warm, quick, lively, smart, strong, sharp, acute, cutting, piercing, incisive; keen, keen as a razor; trenchant, pungent, racy, piquant, poignant, caustic. impressive, deep, profound, indelible; deep felt, home felt, heartfelt; swelling, soul-stirring, deep-mouthed, heart-expanding, electric, thrilling, rapturous, ecstatic. earnest, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... afloat. We were without torpedoes. Tests have been made to ascertain the relative efficiency of different constructions, a torpedo has been adopted, and the work of construction is now being carried on successfully. We were without armor-piercing shells and without a shop instructed and equipped for the construction of them. We are now making what is believed to be a projectile superior to any before in use. A smokeless powder has been developed and a slow-burning powder for guns of large caliber. A ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... pale now, and her eyes had a look of pain and horror. Her man—him that she was to marry—was the head of a mine also at Selby, forty miles beyond Bindon, and the horrible plot came home to her with piercing significance. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... considerably retarded the building of the house. In the mean time we resided in our canvas tents, which proved very cold habitations, although we maintained a fire in front of them, and also endeavoured to protect ourselves from the piercing winds by a ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... gripped the reins tighter, and she drove on unconsciously. Blake's words were beating in her ears. "Not a bad-looking old chap—very tall and well set up—piercing blue eyes and a pretty uppish way of talking." The description had meant nothing to her until someone whom it fitted all too aptly had drifted across her ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... marked, and his countenance particularly rugged; though the original complexion had certainly been fair, a circumstance somewhat unusual; his sight was near, and otherwise imperfect; yet his eyes, though of a light-grey colour, were so wild, so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the hearts of all his beholders.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 297. See post, end of the book, and Boswell's Hebrides, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... wing found itself outflanked by a new allied army from Paris, which was rapidly moving northward and threatened to roll up the entire German battle front from the direction of Compiegne. The critical question, who would succeed first, the Allies in outflanking the German right or the Germans in piercing the French centre, was decided in favor of the Allies. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... man, of whom I remember nothing but his piercing eyes steadily fixed upon me; he said there had been a wreck in the night, a ship carrying live pigs had gone to pieces, and the shore ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... to be an inglorious one.[1555] Those men that are righteous never incur such or similar deaths even if they be afflicted with mental and physical diseases of the most agonising kind. The lives of the righteous, O king, piercing through the Sun, ascend into the regions of Brahma. The lives of those that are both righteous and sinful rove in the middle regions. The lives of those that are sinful sink into the lowest depths. There is only one foe (of man) and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... tracks stopped. Beyond a certain point there were no footprints. Skip whined, almost getting under our feet in his efforts to keep near us. Suddenly then a piercing scream broke the stillness, and on a jutting rock, fully twenty feet above us, and in the very attitude of springing, we saw a large gray creature, its claws protruding on the ledge, its ears laid back and its long tail switching to and fro! It screamed again, ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... one another, as if they never expected to meet again in this world. But when we came to take our leave of these wretched families, my God, what were our feelings! To see the deep, silent grief of the men, and the looks of the poor women and children, as, falling upon their knees, with piercing screams, and eyes wild with terror, they seized our hands or hung to our clothes, entreating us for God's and mercy's sake not to leave them to be murdered! These things so filled my heart with grief, that I solemnly declare to God, if I know myself, I would gladly offer my own life ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... is always a matter of taste, and individual appreciation of birdsong varies like the rest. One man finds the cuckoo's cry intolerably wearisome. Another sees no romance in the gargling of doves, while comparatively few care for the piercing scream of the starling or the rasping note of the corncrake. Yet few birds perform to a more hostile audience than the owl. I say advisedly "the owl," since the vast majority of people make no distinction ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... dozen poor artists on the one side, and his Majesty Louis Philippe, his august family, and the numberless placemen and supporters of the monarchy, on the other; it was something like Thersites girding at Ajax, and piercing through the folds of the clypei septemplicis with the poisonous shafts of his scorn. Our French Thersites was not always an honest opponent, it must be confessed; and many an attack was made upon the gigantic enemy, which was cowardly, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that this particular volume was hard to find, for she must have been a long time away, and I had actually fallen into a doze when I was roused in an instant by a dreadful crash and a piercing scream from Mrs. Rusk. Scream followed scream, wilder and more terror-stricken. I shrieked to Mary Quince, who was sleeping in the room with me:—'Mary, do you hear? what is it? ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... ordinary light of day was hardly visible, stood bright and clear before you. The effect of such acting was indeed that of lightning—it appalled; the timid hid their eyes, and fashionable society shrank from such heart-piercing revelations of human passion. Persons who had schooled themselves to control their emotion till they had scarcely any emotion left to control, were repelled rather than attracted by Kean's relentless ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... a grave, abstracted-looking man, with an iron-grey moustache and dark, piercing eyes, looked up with a desponding shake of the head, and repeated slowly ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... choir; and the old austere interior had been subjected at the hands of the rising generation to an invasion of youthful warmth and color. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the choir itself, where the bright spring sunshine, piercing a newly-opened stained-glass window, picked out the new spring bonnet of Mrs. Demorest and settled upon it during the singing of the hymn. Perhaps that was the reason why a few eyes were curiously directed in that direction, and that even the ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... windows, and the columns there Made the following sight to ache As the heart that did them make. Well I can see that shining song Flowering there, the upward throng Of porches, pillars and windowed walls, Spires like piercing panpipe calls, Up to the roof's snow-cloud flight; All glancing in the Spanish light White as water of arctic tides, Save an amber dazzle on sunny sides. You had said, the radiant sheen Of that palace might have been A young god's fantasy, ere he came ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... represented as having been committed on a sleeping person by piercing the heart with a needle, and then artistically covering the almost imperceptible orifice of the wound with wax, in such sort as to render the discovery of the wound and the cause of death almost impossible even by professional eyes. And I ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope |
