|
|
|
More "Penetration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... step to re-enter the room, but Fleur-de-Lys, whose jealousy, previously so vividly aroused by this same gypsy, had just been re-awakened, Fleur-de-Lys gave him a look full of penetration and distrust. She vaguely recalled at that moment having heard of a captain mixed up in the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... her reproachfully with that sudden and intimate penetration which was one of his chief spells with women. ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... point of Church discipline and liberty differed from hers; and this state of things was made possible not by an usurpation of power, but by the deliberately ordered system of the Church of England. Anthony had at least sufficient penetration to see that this, as a fundamental principle of religion, however obscured it might be by subsequent developments, was yet fraught with dangers compared with which those of papal interference were comparatively trifling—dangers that is, not so much to earthly peace and prosperity, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... characteristics, if I may venture on such ground, were clearness and vigor, intensity, fervor,[26] concentration, penetration, and perseverance,—more of depth than width.[27] The moral conditions under which he lived were the love, the pursuit, and the practice of truth in everything; strength and depth, rather than external warmth of affection; fidelity to principles and to friends. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... was studying her companions, and for a time this occupied her, for Christie possessed penetration and a feminine fancy for ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... the minds of his age, arose in Thomas Carlyle. The son of a Scotch farmer, he had in his youth a hard student's life of it, and many severe struggles to win the education which is the groundwork of his greatness. His father was a man of keen penetration, who saw into the heart of things, and possessed such strong intellect and sterling common sense that the country people said "he always hit the nail on the head and clinched it." His mother was a good, pious woman, who loved the Bible, and Luther's "Table Talk," and Luther,—walking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... any foreboding of the future that moved Fleda's tears as the sense of her grandfather's present pain, the quick answer of her gentle nature to every sorrow that touched him. His griefs were doubly hers. Both from his openness of character and her penetration, they could rarely be felt un- shared; and she shared them always ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... true sans culotte; but, he says, that the 'sharp-sighted woman, who was to be deceived by none of his stories or professions, saw him get off with deep and manifest disappointment and chagrin.' I have thought of this many times since, when I have had occasion to witness the quick-sightedness and penetration of women. The same quality that makes them, as they notoriously are, more quick in discovering expedients in cases of difficulty, makes them more apt to ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... is mistaken," returned Mahtoree, indulging in a smile of exulting penetration, at the very instant he corrected the force of his denial, in deference to the years and services of one so aged. "The Big-knives are very wise, and they are men; all of them would be warriors. They would leave the Red-skins to dig roots and ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... entire controversy, and often enables the student to see clearly how and why certain passages around which dispute has gathered are really corrupt. Indeed, the vast and mysterious ogre called corruption assumes shape and form under the acute penetration and the deft handling of the Dean, whose great knowledge of the subject and orderly treatment of puzzling details is still more commended by his interesting style of writing. As far as has been possible, I have let him in the sequel, except for such clerical corrections as were ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... Luther, and with far more acuteness and penetration than he showed in his theses, had already assailed the whole system of indulgences. And, in regard to any idea on Luther's part of the effects of his theses extending widely in Germany, it may be noticed that not only were they composed in Latin, but that they dealt largely with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... more amusing than when he gave a loose rein to his genius upon the very few branches of knowledge of which he only possessed the outlines."[238] One of his defects, according to both Stewart and Carlyle, was his poor penetration into personal character; but he was very fond of drawing the character of any person whose name came up in conversation, and Stewart says his judgments of this kind, though always decided and lively, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... august bodies are secret, that their majesty may not be tarnished by communication with vulgar interests. They rule like the unseen influence of mind over matter, and form, as it were, the soul of the state, whose seat, like that of reason, remains a problem exceeding human penetration." ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... tropical climate of Lahaina the coffin stood open for seven days, and then even the loyal jury gave him up. But they sat on him again, and changed their verdict to "suicide induced by mental aberration"—because, said they, with penetration, "he said he was dead, and he was dead; and would he have told the truth if he had been in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was an exceedingly clever woman, close on thirty years of age. She had taken very high honors at Cambridge, and was a person of great penetration of character, with ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... better should win the first place, I hold to be the most desirable of possible events. But perhaps our 'S.E.' is not yet so far committed to the process of decay as to be incapable of reform, and the machinery that we use for penetration may be used as well for organizing a reform and for enforcing it. There is as much fashion as inevitable law in our 'P.S.P.' or 'S.E.' talk, and if the fashion for a better, that is a more distinct and conservative, pronunciation should set in, then at the ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... little on the arm with which he held her. Her lips were slightly parted with a half-wicked smile that showed her fine white teeth; the same expression of ungovernable malice burned in her dark eyes, which she riveted for some seconds on those of Camors with persistent penetration—then suddenly veiled them under the fringe of her dark lashes. This glance sent a thrill like lightning to his ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... but we cannot refrain from intruding upon his inmost thoughts and with heartfelt sympathy grieve for the indulgent parent who sees his fair first-born sacrificed to the world and mammon. The man of far-seeing penetration knows too well the great mistake and with painful intensity contrasts the sweet girlish wife of his youth with the fashionable woman of the world who presides supreme over his household—he sighs deeply and plunges deeper into ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... to the praise of her domestic virtues with eyes immovably fixed on her elegant chemisette. But Magdalen's quick penetration had previously detected a look that passed between Mrs. Lecount and her master, which suggested that Noel Vanstone had been instructed beforehand what to say and do in his visitor's presence. The suspicion of this, and the obstacles which the room presented to arranging ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... and the future of the world hangs upon the result. We must change our lives. Insidiously, while we have called all foreigners brothers and sought foes amongst ourselves, the great force of barbarism, in a new guise and with enormous power of penetration and annexation, has worked for our undoing. This force now stands bared, in the hideous bestiality of Germany's doctrine of Might, and it can be defeated only by an adaptation of its methods that will leave nothing as ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... imagine that the work of the lowly and uninfluential is not worth the doing. There is no legal limit to the possible influences of a good deed or a wise word or a generous effort. Nothing is really small. Whoever is open to the deep penetration of nature knows this. Although, indeed, no absolute satisfaction may be vouchsafed to philosophy, any more in circumscribing the cause than in limiting the effect, the man of thought and contemplation falls into unfathomable ecstacies ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... in error, and his prophecies failed of fulfilment, a conclusion which we cannot adopt. To suppose that he partook in the false, mechanical dogmas of the carnal Jews would be equally irreconcilable with the common idea of his Divine inspiration, and with the profound penetration and spirituality of his ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... end which they desire with sincerity. Long and patient observation, joined to a multitude of different notions, is required to form a just estimate of the character of a single individual; and can it be supposed that the vulgar have the power of succeeding in an inquiry which misleads the penetration of genius itself? The people has neither the time nor the means which are essential to the prosecution of an investigation of this kind: its conclusions are hastily formed from a superficial inspection of the more prominent features of a question. Hence it often ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... his vision if he had had any, now restored it when he didn't have any, and his sight became so keen that he was able to see through OEROPION—though, I believe, he reinforced his powers of ocular penetration ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... the intolerance of temper which beset his father. What did Joanna Crawfurd say to such compromising agreeability? Joanna was disarmed in his case; she contradicted herself, as we all do. She had the penetration to perceive that many externals went to raise Harry Jardine's price in the eyes of the world; externals which had little to do with the individual man,—youth, a good presence, a fair patrimony, freedom from appropriating ties. Strip Harry of these, render him middle-aged, time-worn ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... rising and bowing, "you are a man of unusual penetration, and I like you. I should like to see more of you, but your hour has expired. I thank you for your pleasant words, and I bid you an ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... you are serious or not," she said. "For your own sake, I hope you are not. Rose has been flirting with you, but I thought you had penetration enough to see through her. I hope, I trust, Frank, you have not allowed yourself ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... psychological process which makes us aware of the presence of another person, though we may have heard and seen nothing, Blanche became conscious that she was no longer alone. She looked up quickly, into the face of a stranger; but no great penetration was needed to guess that the young man before her was ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... the quickness of his observation, for keen penetration of character, and for happy humorous description of particular traits in those he met. He possessed, too, a wonderfully retentive memory. It is largely due to his lively descriptions of our interesting fellow clerks at Derby that I have been able, ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... these being the two classes into which, as he imagined, the western population was about evenly divided. That they immediately classified him, in their western vernacular, as a "tenderfoot," and a remarkably verdant specimen at that, was not owing to their superior penetration, as it was ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... unexceptionable on that account. The paper can be readily secured to the arrangement alluded to by means of a couple of pins, one at each of two opposite angles, the wood being sufficiently soft to admit of their ready penetration. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... to favour his scheme, he being a young man of no experience in the world, and having no great correspondence with the French: he was the more easily gained over, as all the Suns were agreed, that the Sun of the Apple was a man of solidity and penetration; who having repaired to the Sovereign of nation, apprised him of the necessity of taking that step, as in time himself would be forced to quit his own village; also of the wisdom of the measures concerted, such as even ascertained success; and of the danger to which his youth was ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... later form of empiricism. Its professors are commonly converts to their own theories, at least in a great degree; for, strange as it may seem, there can mingle with the disposition to deceive others, the power of deceiving one's self; and while they exercise much acuteness and penetration in discovering, by the air, look, dress, and manner of those who consult them, the leading points in the history or character of persons of whom they have no previous knowledge, they at the same time persuade themselves that they see something indicative of ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... is more conceptive power in youth, and at that time of life a man can make more out of the little that he knows. In age, judgment, penetration and thoroughness predominate. Youth is the time for amassing the material for a knowledge of the world that shall be distinctive and peculiar,—for an original view of life, in other words, the legacy that a man of genius leaves to his ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... expectations of property? He would inquire, at least have the girl and her aunt into his court and get a good look at them before performing his routine function of initialing the legal form. Poet that he was, he prided himself much on his powers of penetration into human motives, when he had ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... people thought her charming when she cared to charm; to be confirmed in one's opinions by such pretty, vivacious eyes and lips few men would find distasteful. To Lawrence she had nothing to say. She knew that he knew that she had nothing worth saying. She resented his penetration; she resented his pity; and pity was the only light in which he found the thought of her tolerable. He had thought to show her through his eyes widening vistas of beauty and grandeur; and instead he caught glimpses ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... King, for giving me so carelessly away: and thou art wondering, why I am telling thee about it: and last of all, it may be, thou art counting on my independence. Is it not so? And I hung my head in silence, ashamed at being so accurately detected by the subtle penetration of this extraordinary Queen. And presently she said, as if to console me for my confusion, with unutterable sweetness in her voice: Come, do not allow delusive imagination to run away with thee, but curb him, and rein him up, ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... that she has "much light and sincerity," with "penetration enough to unfold all the secrets of ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... was rather pathetic reading when he kept to the point, for love for his wife cropped out plainly between the lines after years of separation. Suddenly he began to adorn me with a variety of fine qualities. He assured me that I had penetration, clear judgment, and a sense of justice, as ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... which, being physical, existed before the Roman conquest, the conquest added some others: it broke down the political barrier that previously cut off these convenient means of penetration, the rivers; it suppressed the wars between the Gallic tribes, the privileges, the tyrannies, the tolls, the monopolies; it saved the enormous resources that were previously wasted in these constant drains; it put again the hoe, the spade, the tools of the ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... possible for him to go outside the school gates. This unparalleled list of punishments inflicted on the first day of the half year, and intended to last till the ensuing Christmas holidays, was not connected with any specified offence. It required no great penetration therefore, on the part of the boys to connect Ernest with the putting Mrs Cross's and Mrs ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... of such pre-eminent intellectual capacity that no gleam of knowledge, however fugitive it might be, ever escaped his keen penetration, attached a quite different importance to the youth's words from what the rest did, for the builder had reported them to him as the presumptuous saying of a young fledgling carpenter. This man was the Prince-bishop himself. He had the young man summoned to his presence, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... case, her revived enthusiasm for her brother drove to the penetration of the husband pleading to thwart its course. His offer was wealth: that is, luxury, amusement, ease. The sub-audible 'himself' into the bargain was disregarded, not counting with one who was an upward rush of fire at the thought that she was called ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... extreme pallor, though at this moment slightly flushed with the animation of a deeply-interesting conference. His cheeks were hollow, and his gray eyes seemed sunk into his clear and noble brow, but they flashed with irresistible penetration. Such ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... would, it was naturally supposed, draw down upon him the vengeance of those who visited with massacre the neighbouring valley of Glencoe. The forbearance of Government can only be accounted for by the supposition that King William, with his usual penetration, decreed it safer to conciliate, than to attempt to crush a clan which was connected by marriage with the most powerful ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... ordered their commander. "It is small enough to be brought inside our carrying compartment, and we can see with our penetration rays just what manner of creatures it holds. They are intelligent, that is certain, for their space ...
— The Jameson Satellite • Neil Ronald Jones
... whom you have heard much, is an extraordinary woman, with more common sense than I almost ever met with. Great quickness in discovering characters, penetration in going to the bottom of them, and a pencil that never fails in a likeness— seldom a favourable One. She exacts and preserves, spite of her birth and their nonsensical prejudices about nobility, great court and attention. This she acquires by a thousand little arts and offices ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... acts and declamation of ladies of the Deemas stamp, whom they counted the worst enemies of the good cause—some wittingly, others unwittingly so. These people among the comparatively humble multitude below, also had the penetration to perceive that the so-called "wrongs" did not lie all on one side, but that there was a pretty large class of the so-called "lords" who went about the world habitually in a sad and disgraceful state of ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... healthy, when the neglect of Governments has not delivered them over to the fatal malaria, the Italians are, mentally, the most richly endowed people in Europe. M. de Rayneval, who is not the man to flatter them, admits that they have "intelligence, penetration, and aptitude for everything." The cultivation of the arts is no less natural to them than is the study of the sciences; their first steps in every path open to human intellect are singularly rapid, and if but too many of them stop before the end is attained, it is ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... favour, or to conclude that an author had written without meaning, because he could not immediately catch his ideas; he knew that the faults of books are often more justly imputable to the reader, who sometimes wants attention, and sometimes penetration; whose understanding is often obstructed by prejudice, and often dissipated by remissness; who comes sometimes to a new study, unfurnished with knowledge previously necessary; and finds difficulties insuperable, for want of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... the entire revenue of the country from a single tax on land! how he withers it with his irony! how he makes you laugh whilst he is convincing you! how sure one feels that the proposal is killed by his wit and economic penetration: killed never to be mentioned again ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... expected that a savage who has heard nothing else for years except that any penetration of his territory by white men meant destruction, could give up that belief simply on the pledge of one of ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... control of the parish, which she ruled as if it were a quarter-deck. She did not use her father's language, but she inherited his voice. It rang over boys' clubs and into mothers' meetings with the penetration and volume ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... subject of comment, or even observed at all by our schoolfellows. That he observed it in all its bearings, and as fixedly as I, was apparent; but that he could discover in such circumstances so fruitful a field of annoyance, can only be attributed, as I said before, to his more than ordinary penetration. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the processes which lead to the introduction of organic matter into the earth have not gone far enough to set in effective work the great laboratory which has to operate in order to give fertile soil. The pebbles hinder the penetration of the roots as well as the movement of insects and other animals. There has not been time enough for the overturning of trees to bring about a certain admixture of vegetable matter with the soil—in a word, ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... would wish to kiss her too often. She is just as fond of him as he is of her, and in just the same way; but if I had his chance I'd soon have it a different way;" and the good lady was complacency itself over her penetration, as she bade Graydon good-night. No one could see and report the surface of affairs more accurately ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... had had more penetration he would have seen that there was no trace of sentimentality in him, but something indeed quite the opposite. But Avdotya Romanovna noticed it. She was intently ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... being noticed. Thus, Maxwell reports the case of a young Chinese woman, certainly quite normal, in whom after the birth of her first child the vagina became almost obliterated, yet beyond slight occasional pain she noticed nothing wrong until the husband found that penetration was impossible (British Medical Journal, January 11, 1902, p. 78). The insensitiveness of the vagina and its contrast, in this respect, with the penis—though we are justified in regarding the penis as being, like organs of special sense, relatively deficient ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Belarus lags behind its neighbors in upgrading telecommunications infrastructure; state-owned Beltelcom, is the sole provider of fixed line local and long distance service; modernization of the network to digital switching progressing slowly domestic: fixed line penetration is improving although rural areas continue to be underserved; four GSM wireless networks are experiencing rapid growth; strict government controls on telecommunications technologies international: country code - 375; Belarus is a member of the Trans-European Line ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... writer's position, while at the same time showing quite clearly the defects that explained it. Mr. LUCAS, in short, does not commit the error of making his hero merely a mute, misunderstood paragon, whom anyone with common penetration must have recognised as such. On the contrary, we sympathise with him, especially in the big tragedy of his life, while quite admitting that to any casual acquaintance he must have appeared only a dull and uninteresting egoist. This I call clever, because it shows that Mr. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... common object of benevolence remaining; in the exercise of which the jealousies and angry passions incident to a state of hostility could not have any part with a generous and a high-minded people; whilst the experience and penetration of liberal and enlightened governments could, without difficulty, form such arrangements as would prevent that which was intended as a benefit to mankind, from being made subservient to any ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary
... unanimity of the loyalists, if they had been permitted to champion my cause before I had fallen, when after that fall they had proved strong enough to raise me up again. And the real feelings of these men you not only had the penetration to see, when bringing forward my case, but the power to encourage and keep alive. In promoting which measure—I will not merely not deny, but shall always remember also and gladly proclaim it—you found certain men of the highest rank more courageous in ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... a long view of what was beyond his reach, nor a quick apprehension of what was within it; but his sound sense, very good in speculation, his good-nature, his engaging and wonderfully easy behaviour, were enough to have made amends more than they did for his want of penetration. He was constantly wavering in his resolution, but what to attribute it to I know not, for it could not come from his fertile imagination, which was lively. Nor can I say it came from his barrenness ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... to the bridge and keyed for Bourdon, directed him to arm two of his penetration missiles, lock them onto the stranger, and switch over to my control. With the firing key in my hand, I stood at the televideo screen and watched for any signs of treachery. The ship moved in, came ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... drifted into and out of an adventure with a more offhand and imperturbable adroitness. Franklin went through life with the joyous inventiveness of the amateur. He had the amateur's enthusiasm, coupled with a clairvoyant penetration into technical problems such as few amateurs have possessed. With all of his wonderful patience towards other men, Franklin had in the realm of scientific experiment something of the typical impatience of the mere dabbler. He was inclined to lose interest in the special problem ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... narrative we might be reasonably content, if the penetration of modern learning had not opened a new and larger prospect of the antiquities of nations. The Hungarian language stands alone, and as it were insulated, among the Sclavonian dialects; but it bears a close and clear affinity to the idioms of the Fennic ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... extreme, and bounded by their ability alone. Their manners are simple; they are generally, except among the chiefs, devoid of the Malay cunning and chicane; yet endued with a quickness of apprehension, and on many occasions discovering a considerable degree of penetration and sagacity. In respect to women they are remarkably continent, without any share of insensibility. They are modest; particularly guarded in their expressions; courteous in their behaviour; grave in their deportment, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... Sir Argus believ'd the Dame might have guess'd right; Yet, entre-nous, thought her not very polite: But that was a trifle; he now had a clew To assist his research; and more satisfied grew: Since the OWL'S well-known wisdom, and vast penetration, From ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... view. Such is the complexity of human affairs, and so infinite the combinations of circumstances, that the true hypothesis which is capable of explaining and reuniting all the apparently conflicting circumstances of the case, may escape the acutest penetration: but the prisoner, so far as he alone is concerned, can always afford a clue to them; and though he may be unable to support his statement by evidence, his account of the transaction is, for this purpose, always most material and important. The ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... "is the same thing to you, sense or nonsense." He dwells on Warton's marked attraction to whatever is prodigious and impossible. The manner in which these accusations are made is insolent and detestable; but Ritson had penetration, and without knowing what he reached, in some of these diatribes he pierced to the heart ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... a new toy to a child; and it took him on the weak side, for like many young men coming to the Bar, and before they had been tried and found wanting, he flattered himself he was a fellow of unusual quickness and penetration. They knew nothing of Sherlock Holmes in those days, but there was a good deal said of Talleyrand. And if you could have caught Frank off his guard, he would have confessed with a smirk that, if he resembled any one, it was the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been, that it was to the sagacity and penetration of King James that the detection of the conspiracy must be ascribed, and that it was his Majesty who first suggested the agency of gunpowder: but the Earl of Salisbury, in a letter to Sir Charles Cornwallis, ambassador at Madrid, asserts, that in a conversation ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... lifting of her lids he betrayed his self-consciousness. "I suppose so." He kept to the most laconic form of speech in order to leave no opening to her penetration. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... stubborn to yield to his power of transformation.... It required a mind of uncommon vigilance, and most intractable temper, to resist this charm with which he decoyed away his hearers; it demanded a rapidity of penetration, which is rarely, if ever, to be found in the jury-box, to detect the intellectual juggle by which he spread his nets around them; it called for a stubbornness and obduracy of soul which does not exist, ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... looked at each other; the eyes of the elder man, cruel, deep, all-observing; those of the younger, steady, fearless, undismayed. Few of his troopers could withstand the sinister penetration of Louis of Hochfels' gaze, but on the jester it seemed to have no more effect than the casual glance of ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... point of death at Metz, in 1744, proves to what extent he had then won the hearts of his subjects. His person was fine and well-proportioned; his manners were grace personified; he possessed considerable penetration when his native indolence would permit him to attend to public affairs; and he was not destitute, like his predecessor Charles VI., when roused by necessity, or the entreaties of a high-minded and generous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... he hastened to promulgate it. Then I, for one, perceived at once that the splendid 'Fire Queen' could be no other than a daughter of 'Berners of the Burning Heart.' And now, Madam! am I permitted to introduce myself by the name I bear in this humdrum world of reality, or has your penetration already ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... hard, too obviously certain, to allow any penetration of the inevitable human and personal irregularities beneath. It might be possible that he was all of a piece of the conventional stereotyped proprieties; but Lee couldn't imagine Claire marrying or holding to a man ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and in all villages house cellars had been enlarged and connected by new galleries, the debris from the buildings forming a thicker roof against penetration by shells. Where there had seemed no life in Beaumont-Hamel battalions were snug in their refuges as the earth around trembled from the explosions. Those shell-threshed parapets of the first-line German trenches which appeared to represent complete destruction ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... conviction. They were as if recovering from the fright of seeing a ghost; spirits seemed to have swept past them with cold wings, carrying off the prisoner they thought secure; only supernatural forces could be charged with the penetration of their impregnable wall. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... predecesseur, il en avait tout le solide; des vues droites et desinteresses, sans prejuge et sans passion; une fermete toujours d'accord avec la raison, une valeur, que le flegme scavoit moderer et rendre utile: un grand sens, beaucoup de probite et d'honneur, et une penetration d'esprit, a laquelle une grande application et une longue experience avoient ajonte tout ce que l'experience peut donner de lumieres. Il avoit pris des les commencemens un grand empire sur les sauvages, qui le connoisoient exacte a tenir sa parole, et ferme a vouloir qu' on lui gardat celles ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... optical instruments have acquired great perfection; certain telescopes increase objects six thousand, and bring the moon to within a distance of forty miles. Now at that distance objects sixty feet square are perfectly visible. The power of penetration of the telescope has not been increased, because that power is only exercised to the detriment of their clearness, and the moon, which is only a reflecting mirror, does not send a light intense enough for the telescopes to increase objects beyond ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... able to conceal from your penetration, my inclination for M. de Sevigne," said the Countess, "and you can not reconcile the serious nature of so decided a passion with the frivolity attributed to me in society. You will be still more astonished when I tell ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... said Dymock, turning round and snapping his fingers; "I hammered it out, Master Shanty, sooner than you did; I knew the physiognomy of a daughter of Zion at the very first glance; you, too, must never talk again of your penetration, Aunt Margaret," and the good man actually danced about the room; but Shanty on one side, and Aunt Margaret on the other, seized him by an arm, and forced him again upon his chair, entreating him to be still; whilst Salmon roused himself in his seat, shook off, or tried to shake off his ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... in a very emphatic manner and as if there had been an intended secret expedition ... which had been detected only by the vigilance and penetration of the British minister. I answered, 'Why, Mr. Bagot did say something to me about it; but I certainly did not think him serious, and we had a good-humored laughing conversation on the occasion.' Canning, with great vehemence: 'You may rely upon it, sir, that ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... possibly even more damnable by reason of those same inevitable mountains. British prisoners of war interned there knew that. Mr. R. O. PROWSE, in A Gift of the Dusk (COLLINS), speaks with subtle penetration for those other prisoners, interned victims of the dreadful malady. Of necessity he writes sadly; but yet he writes as a very genial philosopher, permitting himself candidly "just that little cynicism which helps to keep one tolerant." He is of the old and entertaining school of sentimental ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... said Captain Dalgetty, again eyeing them both with an air of comic penetration, "I find it would not be altogether unacceptable to either of you, to have some token to remember the old soldier by, in case it shall please M'Callum More to hang him up at the gate of his own castle. And doubtless it would be no small satisfaction ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... His Majesty's navy. There it is, my boy," producing a large official-looking document from his pocket; "and I sincerely hope that you will not only accept it, but that also, with such friendly help as I may be able to afford you, you will rapidly distinguish yourself and do credit to my penetration in selecting you for so unusual ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... of the miraculous conception would not, without the strongest corroborative evidence, have commended itself to a man of his acumen and his calling. A physician by profession, the companion of Apostles, and possessing singular penetration and sagacity, he tells us that he had received the facts he narrates from eye witnesses and competent authorities. For information as to the events connected with the birth of her Son, Luke would naturally have recourse to Mary. There is evidence in his Gospel that he had intimate ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... followers of Darwin have fallen into an obvious confusion between race and nationality, and into the natural trap of patriotic conceit. The dissent of the Indian and Colonial governing class to the first crude applications of liberal propositions in India has found a voice of unparalleled penetration in Mr. Kipling, whose want of intellectual deliberation is only equalled by his poietic power. The search for a basis for a new political synthesis in adaptable sympathies based on linguistic affinities, was greatly influenced by Max Muller's ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... Hindoo, the man of the Renaissance and the man of the eighteenth century, cast in the same mold and after the same pattern, and after a certain abstract conception which served for the whole human species. There was a knowledge of man but not of men. There was no penetration into the soul itself; nothing of the infinite diversity and wonderful complexity of souls had been detected; it was not known that the moral organization of a people or of an age is as special and distinct as the physical structure of a family of plants or of an order of animals. History to-day, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... natural religion alone becomes still more manifest, when we consider the weakness and limited extent of the human understanding. To meditate assiduously on an abstract object, which does not fall under the perception of the senses, is given only to a few individuals endowed with uncommon penetration. But by far the greater part of men, disinclined to submit to long and arduous researches, concerning what they ought or ought not to believe and to do, prefer living thoughtlessly; and when they even try to enter ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... have imagined that Tacitus wrote vigentibus, "flourishing," instead of urgentibus, "urgent." But it is sufficiently evident, from other passages, that the causes which were operating gradually, but surely, to the destruction of the Roman empire, did not escape the penetration of Tacitus, even when disguised by the most flattering appearances. The common reading ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... is confronted with organization. It does what it can, it resolves the organized into the unorganized, for it cannot, without reversing its natural direction and twisting about on itself, think true continuity, real mobility, reciprocal penetration—in a word, that creative evolution which ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... got to dwelling too insistent on trivial things, for a laboring man. . . . He's taking her back her horse—real broke up and sorrowful like over the prospect of seein' her again so soon, too, now wasn't he? And me—me sympathizin' with him! Sometimes, Joe, your lack of penetration is plumb aggravatin' to me. You talk a lot, but you don't say much! You got to ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... jestingly, in a way that could give no offense, even to the wildest of boys, yet there was curiosity, keenness, penetration, in his speech. It had not the slightest effect upon ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... Herr Lassalle, who brings you this letter, is a young man of remarkable intellectual gifts. With the most thorough erudition, with the widest learning, with the greatest penetration that I have ever known, and with the richest gift of exposition, he combines an energy of will and a capacity for action which astonish me. In no one have I found united so much enthusiasm ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... entreated Miss Lamarque, whose penetration showed her by this time that the pilot was only playing on our fears, for want of a better instrument for his skill. "I quite enjoy the idea that you have actually been astride a fragment of the arctic glacier, and that we may perhaps make the acquaintance ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... heightened and made efficient by "imagination-penetrative," a thing concerned not with the combining but the apprehending of things. A possession, akin to the power, Ruskin says, all great pictures have, which "depends on the penetration of the imagination into the true nature of the thing represented, and on the scorn of the imagination for all shackles and fetters of mere external fact that stand in the way of its suggestiveness"—a possession which ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... beings who are equally at home in nature and with man. He knew a tale of all that ran and swam, and flew, or only grew, possessing that extensive familiarity with things which shows equal sweetness of sympathy and playful penetration. Most refreshing to me was his unstudied lore, the unwritten poetry which common life presents to a strong and gentle mind. It was a great contrast to the subtleties of analysis, the philosophic strainings of which I had seen too much. But I will not attempt ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... not encourage intimacies with people. He found it painful to look with involuntary penetration into the confusion of their ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... he watched attentively the behaviour of all those he came in company with, and as he was master of a good deal of penetration, and also no small experience in the sex, and besides was not suspected to have any views that way, it is certain he had a good chance ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... withdrawing; I could not bear either to keep or part with him. The sense of pain, however, prevailing, from his prodigious size and stiffness, acting upon me in those continued rapid thrusts, with which he furiously pursued his penetration, made me cry out gently: "Oh, my dear, you hurt me!" This was enough to check the tender respectful boy even in his mid-career; and he immediately drew out the sweet cause of my complaint, whilst his eyes eloquently expressed, at once, his ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... old fellow, well known in Scarnham for his business abilities and his penetration, chiefly into other people's affairs, looked at Neale with a mingled expression of meaning ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... of the general, his son Titus, and two other officers, announced that he was endowed with prophetic powers, and that he was commissioned by God to tell Vespasian that he would become emperor, and that he would be succeeded by his son Titus. The prophecy was one that required no more penetration than for any person, in the present day, to predict that the most rising man in a great political party would one day become prime minister. The emperor was hated, and it was morally certain that his ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... pain from the development of the larva of the H. lineata. During the spring of the year, the pain resulting from the presence of the larvae beneath the skin and the penetration of the skin is manifested by excitement and running about. Besides the loss in milk and beef production, there is a heavy yearly loss from the ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... should be deprived of the forementioned advantage we at present receive by the visive faculty, and have left us only the empty amusement of seeing, without any other benefit arising from it. But in that case, it will perhaps be said, our sight would be endued with a far greater sharpness and penetration than it now hath. But it is certain from what we have already shown that the MINIMUM VISIBILE is never greater or lesser, but in all cases constantly the same: and in the case of microscopical eyes I see only this difference, ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... We saw how after Wolsey's fall he at first inclined to the protestant doctrines, and then again persecuted them with extreme energy. He sacrificed, as formerly Empson and Dudley, so Wolsey and now Cromwell to the public opinion roused against them. He recognised with quick penetration successive political necessities and followed their guidance. The most characteristic thing is that he always seemed to belong body and soul to these tendencies, however much they differed from each other: he let ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... fall into your hands, I shall have disappeared, under what circumstances I have not the penetration to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances of my nameless situation tell me that the end is sure and must be early. Go then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned me he was to place in your hands; and if you care to ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... and humanitarian discourse—no mere casual sentence or two as heretofore at times, but solidly sustained throughout an almost entire sitting; that they may not, like the American savan, be thereupon betrayed into any surprise incompatible with their own good opinion of their previous penetration. ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... as it is intended to be; but it needs no penetration to see here a man whose sympathies with all kinds of those "come-outers" who then multiplied exceedingly in his neighborhood, would be infinitesimal. He had not, however, yet engaged with this problem so closely as he was to do. So far one would discern only that fatalistic ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... utmost. Moriya himself ascended a tree and by skill of archery held his assailants long at bay. Archery had been practised assiduously by the Yamato warrior from time immemorial, and arrows possessing remarkable power of penetration had been devised. During the reign of Nintoku, when envoys from Koma presented to the Court iron shields and iron targets, a Japanese archer, Tatebito, was able to pierce them; and in the time of Yuryaku, a rebel named Iratsuko ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... mouth of the child is applied at or near the neck of the uterus, that this can take place. The infant is not unfrequently heard to cry just before birth, after labor has commenced, but before the extrusion of the head from the womb, in consequence of the penetration of ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... lost considerably in every attack: —she had a quick black eye, and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes with such penetration, that she look'd into my very heart and reins.—It may seem strange, but I could ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... it) all the finest qualities of a superior nature; and, for the glory of truth, let us demonstrate, in a prince admired of the universe, that what makes heroes, that what carries to the highest pitch worldly glory, worth, magnanimity, natural goodness—all attributes of the heart; vivacity, penetration, grandeur and sublimity of genius—attributes of the mind; would be but an illusion were piety not a part of them—in a word, that piety is the essence of the man. It is this, gentlemen, which you will see in the forever memorable life of the most ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... daemons sat to him, and the saint who saw the daemons; and the metaphysical elements took form. "Piety itself is no aim, but only a means whereby, through purest inward peace, we may attain to highest culture." And his penetration of every secret of the fine arts will make Goethe still more statuesque. His affections help him, like women employed by Cicero to worm out the secret of conspirators. Enmities he has none. Enemy of him you may be,—if so you shall teach him aught which your good-will ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... hope that you will also be a more fortunate one—that you will complete what I have begun— avenge Austria's wrongs on France, and restore her to her place as one of the four great powers. You have not only the instincts of a soldier, but the quickness and penetration which constitute military genius. My pupil, I think, will ere long ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... is to stay with the Danforth-Sibbs. Mamma says that as he is a stranger here we must be very polite to him, and that his being here will give distinction to the season. Do you like him?" There was in Evelyn still, with the penetration of the woman, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... house, but to one well furnished with all kind of necessaries, having beautified the heaven and the earth with glory, and all sorts of nourishment for his pleasure and sustenance." But the most pious penetration is exhibited in the spiritualizing of the creation and of the flood—every step produces some type of that new creation, or regeneration, without which no soul can be fitted for heaven. The dim twilight before the natural sun was made, is typical of the state of those ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a mark of the connoisseur to be able to read character and habit and to divine at a glance all a creature's potentialities. This sort of penetration characterises the man with an eye for horse-flesh, the dog-fancier, and men and women of the world. It guides the born leader in the judgments he instinctively passes on his subordinates and enemies; it distinguishes ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... ancient learning train'd, His rigid judgment Fancy's flights restrain'd; Correctly pruned each wild luxuriant thought, Mark'd out her course, nor spared a glorious fault. The book of man he read with nicest art, And ransack'd all the secrets of the heart; Exerted penetration's utmost force, And traced each passion to its proper source; Then, strongly mark'd, in liveliest colours drew, And brought each foible forth to public view: 280 The coxcomb felt a lash in every word, And fools, hung out, their ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... her for a time during which her eyes sustained his penetration without a relenting gleam, some lapse of cruelty or of paradox. But with a passionate, inarticulate sound he turned away, to remain, on the edge of the window, his hands in his pockets, gazing defeatedly, doggedly, into ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... intention of naval tactics been stated with so much penetration, simplicity, and completeness. The order, however, which Grenier worked out—that of three lines of bearing disposed on three sides of a lozenge—was somewhat fantastic and cumbrous, and it seems to have been enough to ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... his old age instructed some of the most splendid singers in the history of the lyric stage. He also married one of the most gifted and most beautiful divas of Europe, Faustina Bordoni. The following anecdote does equal credit to Hasse's heart and penetration: In after-years, when he had left England, he was again sent for to take Handel's place as conductor of opera and oratorio. Hasse inquired, "What! is Handel dead?" On being told no, he indignantly refused, saying he was not worthy to ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... Granite and its Varieties. Decomposing into Spherical Masses. Rude columnar Structure. Graphic Granite. Mutual Penetration of Crystals of Quartz and Feldspar. Glass Cavities in Quartz of Granite. Porphyritic, talcose, and syenitic Granite. Schorlrock and Eurite. Syenite. Connection of the Granites and Syenites with the Volcanic Rocks. Analogy in Composition of Trachyte and Granite. Granite Veins in ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... the Americans Dr. H.W. Furness (1802-96) and Dr. J. Freeman Clarke (1810-88), and the English John Hamilton Thom (1808-94). Thom's sermons are ranked among the highest for spirituality and penetration; they certainly had profound effect in stimulating the wise and generous philanthropy of William Rathbone and Sir Henry Tate. A celebrated representative of this side of Unitarianism is Dr. James Drummond, still living, the ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... practiced pen and of the presence of that sort of luminous intellectual fog which stands for clearness among these people. For surely it is NOT clearness—it necessarily can't be clearness. Even a jury would have penetration enough to discover that. A writer's ideas must be a good deal confused, a good deal out of line and sequence, when he starts out to say that a man met a counselor's wife in the street, and then right in the midst of this so simple ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... when it comes to saying that he did not describe them well, then that is quite another matter, and that I should emphatically deny. The things that are really odd about the English upper class he saw with startling promptitude and penetration, and if the English upper class does not see these odd things in itself, it is not because they are not there, but because we are all blind to our own oddities; it is for the same reason that tramps do not feel dirty, or that niggers do not feel black. I have often heard a ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... monotonous; amplifying his phrases to press home in every possible way a rigorous reasoning; provoking discussion; always appealing to the logic of his hearers; sometimes difficult to follow, because his discourse was so rich in ideas; but always holding attention by the penetration of his surveys as well as ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... had been unable to express himself through the medium of political life, Disraeli's novels would long ago have had the due which the expert is just beginning to give them. Had Rossetti not been primarily a poet, the expert in painting would have acquired long ago his present penetration into the peculiar value of Rossetti's painting. Likewise, if Whistler had never painted a picture, and, even so, had written no more than he actually did write, this essay in appreciation would have been forestalled again and again. As it is, I am a sort of ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... rat-like thief to the life. The detective examined him carefully, but no ray of recognition came into his face. Then, like throwing off a garment, Ashton-Kirk allowed the mannerisms he had assumed to drop from him. Osborne at once sat erect with a laugh of pleasure at his own lack of penetration. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... I have ever known; 'her talk is so crisp,' as Luttrell once said of her. She has no imagination, no invention, no eloquence, no deep reading or retentive memory, but a noble, straightforward, independent character, a sound and vigorous understanding, penetration, judgment, taste. She is perfectly natural, open and sincere, loves conversation and social enjoyment; with her intimate friends there is an abandon and unreserved communion of thoughts, feelings, and opinions which renders her society delightful. Of all ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... summing up all commandments in one,—Thou shalt love (Matt. xxii. 37-40); and at the same time insisted as no other prophet had done on the finality of conduct and the necessity of obedience (Matt. vii. 21-27). His penetration to the heart of an idea was nowhere more clear than in his doctrine of the kingdom of God as realized in the filial soul, and as involving a judgment which should take cognizance only of brotherliness of conduct. It would not be difficult to show that all these different aspects of his ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... in Spain, in Court and diplomatic circles, was followed by a year at Oxford, where Thomas Allen, the mathematician and occultist, looked after his studies. Allen "quickly discerned the natural strength of his faculties, and that spirit of penetration which is so seldom met with in persons of his age." He felt he had under his care a young Pico di Mirandola. It may have been now he made his boyish translation of the Pastor Fido, and his unpublished version of ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... or, at least, to manifest any such interest in her affairs? Were all her efforts futile to hide her love? In spite of her habit of reserve and repression she had a passionate heart, and this fact had been forced upon her by vain and continuous struggles. Had he the penetration to learn the truth? She could not tell, and this uncertainty touched her pride to the very quick. After hours of wavering purpose, impulses to ignore him and his request, moments of tenderness in which will, pride, and every consideration were almost ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... was a model of the household virtues, and would have attracted consideration as a woman by her amenities, though she had possessed no reputation in the world of letters. She was eminently religious and benevolent. Her countenance bore indication of a superior intellect and deep penetration. Though her society was much cherished by her contemporaries, including distinguished foreigners who visited the metropolis, her life was spent in general retirement. She was averse to public demonstration, and seemed scarcely conscious of her power. She died ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... negotiation, in which the penetration, judgment, and firmness, of the American commissioners were eminently displayed, eventual and preliminary articles were signed on the 30th of November. By this treaty every reasonable wish of America, especially on the questions ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... much any foreboding of the future that moved Fleda's tears as the sense of her grandfather's present pain, the quick answer of her gentle nature to every sorrow that touched him. His griefs were doubly hers. Both from his openness of character and her penetration, they could rarely be felt un- shared; and she shared them always ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... all very young and unprotected girls, and to place them wantonly with women of the streets has in general an outrageous irresponsibility and folly quite insufficiently implied by the experience of a girl of Natalya's individual penetration and self-reliance. ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... is low (in several military rifles only one- half that of other nitros), and the recoil consequently small; and it is claimed that with the slight increase of the charge (from 29 to 30 grs.) both penetration and initial velocity will be largely increased, whilst the gas pressure and recoil will not ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... he lay at the point of death at Metz, in 1744, proves to what extent he had then won the hearts of his subjects. His person was fine and well-proportioned; his manners were grace personified; he possessed considerable penetration when his native indolence would permit him to attend to public affairs; and he was not destitute, like his predecessor Charles VI., when roused by necessity, or the entreaties of a high-minded and generous mistress, of noble and heroic qualities. His conduct ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... world, and believes in nothing. Under the appearance of universal benevolence he conceals universal scorn. His finesse, sharpened by the grindstone of adversity, has become mischievous. And, while he sees through all disguises worn by others, he hides his penetration carefully under a mask of cheerful good nature and jovialness. But he is kind, he loves his friends, and ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... upon the relations that existed between Courcelle and Talon. The former was valiant, energetic, and intelligent; but he felt that he was outshone by the latter's promptness, celerity in design, superior activity, wider and keener penetration, and he could not ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais
... mentioned, was master of the horse to the duchess: he was possessed of a great deal of wit, had much penetration, and loved mischief. How could she bear such a man near her person, in the present situation of her heart? This greatly embarrassed her; but Montagu's elder brother having, very a-propos, got himself killed where he had no business, the duke obtained for Montagu the post of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... because they ascend the acclivities more slowly than horses. The disease does not attack the native horses of the Sierra, for which reason they are better than the coast horses for mountain travelling. Mules, however, are preferable to either. It is wonderful with what tact and penetration the mule chooses his footing. When he doubts the firmness of the ground he passes his muzzle over it, or turns up the loose parts with his hoof before he ventures to step forward. When he finds himself getting into soft and marshy ground he stands stock still, and refuses to obey either ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... Russia finally crippled, the Balkan States would become Turco-Teutonic provinces, and the Near East a German avenue into Asia, while Egypt might be recovered for the Sultan and made a base for German penetration ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... Empire. The Persian armies invaded Babylonia. Nabonidus was defeated finally at Opis in June 538; Sippara fell, and Cyrus' general appearing before Babylon itself received it without a struggle at the hands of the disaffected priests of Bel-Marduk. The famous Herodotean tale of Cyrus' secret penetration down the dried bed of Euphrates seems to be a mistaken memory of a later recapture of the city after a revolt from Darius, of which more hereafter. Thus once more it was given to Cyrus to close a long chapter of Eastern history—the history of imperial Babylon. Neither did he ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... schoolfellows. That he observed it in all its bearings, and as fixedly as I, was apparent; but that he could discover in such circumstances so fruitful a field of annoyance, can only be attributed, as I said before, to his more than ordinary penetration. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... in Vauvenargues' thinking; balance, evenness, purity of vision, penetration finely toned with indulgence. He is never betrayed into criticism of men from the point of view of immutable first principles. Perhaps this was what the elder Mirabeau meant when he wrote to Vauvenargues, who was his cousin: 'You have the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... in the last particular," he said, with a sigh. "Mr. Whyte is so rough and overbearing that the Indians are beginning to dislike him. Some of the more clear-sighted among them see that a good deal of this lies in mere manner, and have penetration enough to observe that in all his dealings with them he is straightforward and liberal; but there are a set of them who either don't see this, or are so indignant at the rough speeches he often makes, and the ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... President made known that he was going to command it; Hamilton, as I have understood, requested to follow him; the President dared not refuse him. It does not require much, penetration to divine the object of this journey. In the President it was wise, it might also be his duty. But in Mr. Hamilton it was a consequence of the profound policy which directs all his steps; a measure dictated by a perfect knowledge of the human heart. Was it not interesting for him, for ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... cradle, to the consummation of rhetorical fame, in the pursuits of the bar, or those, in general, of any public assembly. It is sufficient to say, that in the execution of this elaborate work, Quintilian has called to the assistance of his own acute and comprehensive understanding, the profound penetration of Aristotle, the exquisite graces of Cicero; all the stores of observation, experience, and practice; and in a word, the whole accumulated exertions of ancient genius on ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... known statement seems hardly necessary. Rigid impartiality, the critic's greatest asset, is manifest throughout the review, and we thoroughly appreciate the favorable mention not infrequently accorded us. In passing upon the merits of Dowdell's Bearcat, Mr. Fritter shows equal penetration and perspicuity, and we are convinced that his rank amongst ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... working-women, because she has brought to the study of the subject not only great care but uncommon aptitude. She has made a close personal investigation, extending apparently over a long time; she has had the penetration to search many queer and dark corners which are not often thought of by similar explorers; and we suspect that, unlike too many philanthropists, she has the faculty of winning confidence and extracting the truth. She is sympathetic, ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... each other; the eyes of the elder man, cruel, deep, all-observing; those of the younger, steady, fearless, undismayed. Few of his troopers could withstand the sinister penetration of Louis of Hochfels' gaze, but on the jester it seemed to have no more effect than the casual glance of one ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... small golden cross. His countenance was naturally of an extreme pallor, though at this moment slightly flushed with the animation of a deeply-interesting conference. His cheeks were hollow, and his gray eyes seemed sunk into his clear and noble brow, but they flashed with irresistible penetration. Such was Cardinal Grandison. ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... document is sufficient to explain the glory that Ardant du Picq deserved. In no other career has a professional ever reflected more clearly the means of pushing his profession to perfection; in no profession has a deeper penetration of the ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... Mirror' and in book form in 1915. This volume, written in free verse and containing about two hundred brief sketches, or posthumous confessions, shows Mr. Masters to be a psychologist of the keenest penetration, a satirist and humorist, laying bare unsparingly the springs of human weakness, but seeing with an equal insight humanity's finer side. "Spoon River Anthology", which had perhaps a wider recognition than that of any volume of verse of the period, was followed by "Songs and Satires", 1916; "The ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... right there, my dear friend. You may remember, I have always said you had the penetration of a statesman, (Mrs. Swiggs makes a curt bow, as a great gray cat springs into her lap and curls himself down on her Milton;) and, as I was going on to say of this dashing Baronet, he played our damsels about in agony, as an old sportsman does a covey of ducks, wounding more in the head than in ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Alexis gratefully kissed her beloved hand, and the counts and gentlemen surrounded him, loudly praising the great wisdom of the empress, whose divine penetration enabled her everywhere to discover and ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... with the penetration of an Italian, more cautious than Hyndford, yet equally honest and worthy. His friendship for me was unbounded, and the time passed in their company was esteemed by me most precious. The liberality of my sentiments, thirst after ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... their petty ambitions and vanities he accepted as part of the heritage of a race of beings apart form his own, and he hid his timidity under a brusque manner which gave him credit for a keener penetration than he actually possessed. And, strangely enough, Fate, with sardonic humor, had given him a knack, which so few painters possess, of catching on canvas the elusive charm of his feminine sitters, of investing with grace those characteristics he professed so much to ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... characters he used to give as they appeared to him, both in light and shade. Some people, who had not exercised their minds sufficiently, condemned him for censuring his friends. But Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose philosophical penetration and justness of thinking were not less known to those who lived with him, than his genius in his art is admired by the world, explained his conduct thus: 'He was fond of discrimination, which he could not show without pointing out the bad as well as the good in every character; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the penetration I was capable of, to find out one thing, whether you were purely and unreservedly sincere in it. I wondered whether you really wished to live your life alone, but could not find the courage to tell me so. I firmly believe that no failure ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... held, his intimate acquaintance with the purposes of the King and the intrigues of the French Court, the special embassies on which he was engaged, as well as his judicial mind and historical aptitude, his love of truth, his tolerance and respect for justice, his keen penetration and critical faculty, render his memoirs extremely valuable. In 1572 he accompanied the Italian ambassador to Italy; then he was engaged on a special mission to the Netherlands; for twenty-four years he was a ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... that alfalfa roots have gone down into congenial subsoils 40 to 50 feet, but usually less, probably, than one-fourth of the distances mentioned would measure the depths to which the roots go. And with decreasing porosity in the subsoil, there will be decrease in root penetration until it will reach in some instances not more than 3 to 4 feet. But where the roots are thus hindered from going deeper, they branch out more in their search ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... 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) 252; tunnel; transpierce[obs3], transfix; enfilade, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... what infinite variety, belongs to the voice! Sometimes it is a flute, sometimes a trip-hammer; what a range of force! In moments of clearer thought or deeper sympathy, the voice will attain a music and penetration which surprise the speaker as ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... combinations were unusual and produced a result somewhat remarkable. The quality of brains which, in the first Reuben Vanderpoel had expressed itself in the marvellously successful planning and carrying to their ends of commercial and financial schemes, the absolute genius of penetration and calculation of the sordid and uneducated little trader in skins and barterer of goods, having filtered through two generations of gradual education and refinement of existence, which was no longer that of the mere trader, had been transformed in the great-granddaughter ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Disraeli had been unable to express himself through the medium of political life, Disraeli's novels would long ago have had the due which the expert is just beginning to give them. Had Rossetti not been primarily a poet, the expert in painting would have acquired long ago his present penetration into the peculiar value of Rossetti's painting. Likewise, if Whistler had never painted a picture, and, even so, had written no more than he actually did write, this essay in appreciation would have ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... of the blended simplicity, penetration, and overflowing kindness of the writer, occasioned me much anxious thought. There was no doubt in my mind but that Gerald and Montreuil were engaged in some intrigue for the exiled family. The disguised name which the former assumed, the state reasons which D'Alvarez confessed that Barnard, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bad man!—the good woman he can no more hurt than the serpent can bite the adamant. He believed he knew Sepia's self, although he did not yet know her history; and he scorned her the more that he was not a hair better himself. He had regard enough for his wife, and what virtue his penetration conceded her, to hate their intimacy; and ever since his marriage had been scheming how to get rid of Sepia—only, however, through finding her out: he must unmask her: there would be no satisfaction in getting rid of her without his wife's convinced acquiescence. He had been, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... penetration by telling you what I perceive you are already aware of, that Terence Duffy was the professed admirer of Miss Biddy. The affair with Captain Donovan raised him materially in her estimation, and it was whispered that the hand and fortune of the heiress were destined ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... the trees of the orange family is the Eucalyptus globulus, which, not being able to compete with the former in the variety of nasal titillations it gives rise to, probably consoles itself with coming off the distinct victor in the department of power and penetration. The leaves and twigs of this tree are distilled for oil. This oil is in large demand on the Continent, the fact of there being no other species than the globulus in the neighborhood being a guarantee of the uniformity of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... voyez, et que je ne vois point? Je manque de penetration; j'avoue que je m'y perds! Je ne vois pas le sujet[102] de me defaire d'un homme qui m'est donne de bonne main,[103] qui est un homme de quelque chose, qui me sert bien, et que trop bien peut-etre: voila ce qui n'echappe pas ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... play with, like a new toy to a child; and it took him on the weak side, for like many young men coming to the Bar, and before they had been tried and found wanting, he flattered himself he was a fellow of unusual quickness and penetration. They knew nothing of Sherlock Holmes in those days, but there was a good deal said of Talleyrand. And if you could have caught Frank off his guard, he would have confessed with a smirk that, if he resembled any one, it was the Marquis de Talleyrand-Perigord. It ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cried, "Alas! there is no one that knows me," and a disciple asked what was meant, he replied, "I do not murmur against God. I do not mumble against man. My studies lie low, and my penetration lies high. But there is ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... whose glance, having more penetration, had at last brought a look of sympathy to his face. "Let us go up to the poor thing, she stands so alone, and I'm not clear that she has not the worst ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... man of great cunning and penetration, divined what had happened (perhaps indeed he had been informed of it by the messenger who brought him his summons), and suspecting that the Gallic troops were likely to break the existing concord, he pretended that a token which had been agreed upon had been sent to him that he was ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... blown by, fell into a talk of ways and means. It seemed she knew Mr. Robbie, to whom I had been so slenderly accredited by Romaine—was even invited to his house for the evening of Monday, and gave me a sketch of the old gentleman's character which implied a great deal of penetration in herself, and proved of great use to me in the immediate sequel. It seemed he was an enthusiastic antiquary, and in particular a fanatic of heraldry. I heard it with delight, for I was myself, thanks to M. de Culemberg, fairly ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... considerable difficulty as to the nature of the materials from which Ptolemy's wonderful sphere was to be constructed. Nor could a philosopher of his penetration have failed to observe that, unless that sphere were infinitely large, there must have been space outside it, a consideration which would open up other difficult questions. Whether infinite or not, it was obvious that the celestial sphere must have a diameter at least many thousands ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... speak truly, brother," said the lovely girl, breathing more quickly, and half amazed at Ruez's penetration ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... illustrated by the conditions of our 'S.E.' homophones: and that something better should win the first place, I hold to be the most desirable of possible events. But perhaps our 'S.E.' is not yet so far committed to the process of decay as to be incapable of reform, and the machinery that we use for penetration may be used as well for organizing a reform and for enforcing it. There is as much fashion as inevitable law in our 'P.S.P.' or 'S.E.' talk, and if the fashion for a better, that is a more distinct and ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... spirit, wrote verses, and was a very fair actor. He was only twenty-eight, and he was already a kammer-yunker, and had a very good position. Panshin had complete confidence in himself, in his own intelligence, and his own penetration; he made his way with light-hearted assurance, everything went smoothly with him. He was used to being liked by every one, old and young, and imagined that he understood people, especially women: he certainly understood their ordinary weaknesses. As a man ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... I might be able to show him the error of his ways: but I looked in vain for that generous, noble spirit his mother talked of; though I could see he was not without a certain degree of quickness and penetration, when he ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Villeroi's, you would appear with blue feathers in your head-dress. I do not add my name; it is one of those which should not be found at the bottom of a declaration of love." In spite of all her penetration, the duchesse de Grammont did not perceive, in the emphatic tone of this letter, that it was a trick. Her self-love made her believe that a woman of more than forty could be pleasing to a king not yet twenty. ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... precede a storm began to be heard, and men of penetration clearly saw there was something gathering, relative to me and my book, which would shortly break over my head. For my part my stupidity was such, that, far from foreseeing my misfortune, I did not suspect even the cause of it after I had felt its effect. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Ark, after school, and look over the books I have. We will talk some more about it, and you shall select as you please, or I will select for you, if you desire," I said, looking at Rebecca with kindly though severe penetration. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... indifferent, perfectly self- reliant, never at a loss, and yet never at her ease, with her figure in company with them there, and her mind apparently quite alone - it was of no use 'going in' yet awhile to comprehend this girl, for she baffled all penetration. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... immediately. Kapin conceived doubts; but instead of pursuing them, wandered after judgments; and they will lead a man where-ever he has a mind to be led. Carte, with more manly shrewdness, has sifted many parts of Richard's story, and guessed happily. My part has less penetration; but the parliamentary history, the comparison of dates, and the authentic monument lately come to light, and from which I shall give extracts, have convinced me, that, if Buck is too favourable, all our other historians are blind guides, and have not made out ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... dedicated to more mature deliberations-to the unfolding of the plan of warfare which Wallace had conceived. As he first sketched the general outline of his design, and then proceeded to the particulars of each military movement, he displayed such comprehensiveness of mind; such depths of penetration; clearness of apprehension; facility in expedients; promptitude in perceiving, and fixing on the most favorable points of attack; explaining their bearings upon the power of the enemy; and where the possession ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... the Celts? I defy anybody to say. Who are the Irish? I defy any one to be indifferent, or to pretend not to know. Mr. W. B. Yeats, the great Irish genius who has appeared in our time, shows his own admirable penetration in discarding altogether the argument from a Celtic race. But he does not wholly escape, and his followers hardly ever escape, the general objection to the Celtic argument. The tendency of that argument is to represent the Irish or the Celts as a strange and separate ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... a glance in spite of herself, and, with the intuitive penetration of a woman, intimated that she had come to the same conclusion. The two strangers were both tall, and decidedly gentleman-like young men, whose personal appearance would cause either to be remarked. The one whom the captain addressed as Mr. Sharp had the most youthful look, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... which means he easily brought over the Grand Sun to favour his scheme, he being a young man of no experience in the world, and having no great correspondence with the French: he was the more easily gained over, as all the Suns were agreed, that the Sun of the Apple was a man of solidity and penetration; who having repaired to the Sovereign of nation, apprised him of the necessity of taking that step, as in time himself would be forced to quit his own village; also of the wisdom of the measures concerted, such as even ascertained success; and of the ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... enough to say that Burke had what is the distinctive mark of the true statesman, a passion for good, wise, and orderly government. He had that in the strongest degree. All that wore the look of confusion he held in abhorrence, and he detected the seeds of confusion with a penetration that made other men marvel. He was far too wise a man to have any sympathy with the energetic exercise of power for power's sake. He knew well that triumphs of violence are for the most part little better ...
— Burke • John Morley
... so far off in the long white room, were uncannily distinct, emotion charging each word with preternatural power of penetration; and every movement of the speakers had to the girl's excited eyes a weird precision, as of little figures she had once seen at a Paris puppet show. She could hear Miltoun reproaching his grandmother in words terribly dry and bitter. She ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... war on absolute happiness, because such a condition is opposed to the laws of both; possibly, also, because Heaven is jealous of its privileges. My love for you forebodes some disaster to which all my penetration can give no definite form. I know neither whence nor from whom it will arise; but one need be no prophet to foretell that the mere weight of a boundless happiness will overpower you. Excess of joy is harder to bear than any amount ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... honeycombed with intrigues and conspiracies. Intelligence from Canada, with its burden of promises to speedily glut the passions of war, circulated stealthily all about us. How it came, how it was passed from hearth to hearth, defied our penetration. We could only feel that it was in the air around us, and strive to locate it—mainly in vain—and shudder at ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... disjointed style, an odd jumble of dialogue and soliloquy, in which he tries to jerk out his thoughts, as if he would have them known, and yet not have them known. I believe men generally credit themselves with peculiar penetration when they are in the act of being deluded, whether by themselves or by others. Hence, again, the strange and even ludicrous conceit in which Leontes wraps himself. "Not noted, is 't," says he, referring ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Inanimate and vegetable nature (and the observation had not escaped the penetration of Rodogune) adorn and arrange it as you will, infallibly suggests an idea of solitude, that communicates sadness to the mind. Accordingly your path was here beguiled with the warbling of a thousand birds, the full-toned blackbird, the mellow thrush, and the pensive nightingale. ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... the armour it must be kept in mind for purposes of comparison that the armoured belts of the newer ships, nine inches at the thickest part, were of Harveyized or Krupp steel, and could resist penetration better than the thicker belts of the older ships. It will be noticed that the Japanese carried fewer of the heavier types of guns, but had more 6-inch quick-firers than the Russians. This is a point to bear in mind ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... comes to saying that he did not describe them well, then that is quite another matter, and that I should emphatically deny. The things that are really odd about the English upper class he saw with startling promptitude and penetration, and if the English upper class does not see these odd things in itself, it is not because they are not there, but because we are all blind to our own oddities; it is for the same reason that tramps do not feel dirty, or that niggers do not feel black. I have often ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... third from the last. The person immediately evoked by the title of the work is poor Hetty Sorrel. Mrs. Poyser is too epigrammatic; her wisdom smells of the lamp. I do not mean to say that she is not natural, and that women of her class are not often gifted with her homely fluency, her penetration, and her turn for forcible analogies. But she is too sustained; her morality is too shrill,—too much in staccato; she too seldom subsides into the commonplace. Yet it cannot be denied that she puts things very happily. Remonstrating with Dinah ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... immediately beneath the surface within reach of the active roots. If the rainfall has been scanty and the soil is dry he may use ten of water to two of night soil, not to supply water but to make certain sufficiently deep penetration. If the weather is rainy and the soil over wet, the food is applied more concentrated, not to lighten the burden but to avoid waste by leaching and over saturation. While ever crowding growth he never overfeeds. Forethought, ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... tyrant, for he is convinced of the value of what he brings and knows no doubts. He is ruthless, yet only up to a certain limit, which is determined by his sense of the inferiority of the other. The man who rejects forms, however, cannot rule; the very penetration into the domain of another seems to him a wrong to his own, the basis of which is recognition and allowance. If he is forced to penetrate, he loses all balance, for in wrong-doing he understands no gradations. Similarly he is ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... readily as 'so far I have no other sentiment for her but sincere devotion,' thought he. Kister really was capable of sacrificing himself to friendship, to a recognised duty. He had read a great deal, and so fancied himself a person of experience and even of penetration; he had no doubt of the truth of his suppositions; he did not suspect that life is endlessly varied, and never repeats itself. Little by little, Fyodor Fedoritch worked himself into a state of ecstasy. ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... great penetration to guess who it was to whom he owed his humiliation. So he armed himself with a ruler in one hand and the parcel in the other, and ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... antique cameo. The expression is that of a mind in continuous exercise—of a mind accustomed not to slow but to quick deliberation, and to instant decision. The definition of the face gives the eyes the aspect of penetration, as if they saw at once beneath the ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... Germany's capture of France in 1940 were that the allies in Saudi Arabia had complete military and technical superiority unlike the Germans and that, once under attack, Iraq's front line collapsed virtually everywhere, giving the coalition license to pick and choose the points for penetration and then dominate the battle with fire and maneuver. The lesson for future adversaries about the Blitzkreig example and the United States is that they will face in us an opponent able to employ technically superior forces with brilliance, ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... at Sais, a mystical contemplation of nature reminding us of the discourses of Jakob Boehme, has some suggestion of the symbolistic lore of parts of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, and proves a most racking riddle to the uninitiated. The penetration into the meaning of the Veiled Image of Nature is attempted from the point of view that all is symbolic: only poetic, intuitive souls may enter in; the merely physical investigator is but searching through a charnel-house. Nature, the countenance of Divinity, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Lucy's natural penetration and habit of attending to faces rather than words came to her aid. "Wait a minute, Mrs. Wilson," said she; "I think there is some misunderstanding here. Perhaps the fault is mine. And yet I remember more than one nursery-maid that was kind enough ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... pretty children, without thinking about it or knowing how it was done. He is a great talent, a born talent, and I never saw the true poetical power greater in any man than in him. In the apprehension of external objects, and a clear penetration into past situations, he is quite as great as Shakspeare. But as a pure individuality, Shakspeare is his superior. This was felt by Byron, and on this account he does not say much of Shakspeare, although he knows whole passages by heart. He would willingly have denied him altogether, for Shakspeare's ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... seems had not considered the matter well. This was not the way, as it proved, to be taken for matters of mere omission, with a man of Mr. Lovelace's penetration. Nor with any man; since if love has not taken root deep enough to cause it to shoot out into declaration, if an opportunity be fairly given for it, there is little room to expect, that the blighting ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... atomicbomb would do the trick, finally and conclusively. The searing, volcanic heat, irresistible penetration, efficient destructiveness and the aftermath of apocalyptic radiation promised ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... There was only one drawback to the beauty of the whole picture, and that was a tall man—a very tall man—in a brown coat and bright basket buttons, and black whiskers and wavy black hair, who was seated at tea with the widow, and who it required no great penetration to discover was in a fair way of persuading her to be a widow no longer, but to confer upon him the privilege of sitting down in that bar, for and during the whole remainder of the term of his ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... considered the physician of most "weight," though Dr. Minchin was usually said to have more "penetration," divested his large heavy face of all expression, and looked at his wine-glass while Lydgate was speaking. Whatever was not problematical and suspected about this young man—for example, a certain showiness as to foreign ideas, and a disposition to unsettle what had been settled and forgotten ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... by this writer constitute the strongest evidence known to me in support of the alleged influence of evergreen trees, as distinguished from the draining by downward conduction, which is a function exercised by all trees, under ordinary circumstances, in proportion to their penetration of a bibulous subsoil by tap or other descending roots. The question has been ably discussed by Beraud in the Revue des Deux Mondes for April, 1870, the result being that the drying of the soil by pines is due simply to conduction by the roots, whatever ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... noon like men, and in the afternoon like devils.[314] In the spring of 1757 he sailed for England, and was for a time at Falmouth; whence Colonel Matthew Sewell, fearing that he might see and learn too much, wrote to the Earl of Holdernesse: "The Baron has great penetration and quickness of apprehension. His long service under Marshal Saxe renders him a man of real consequence, to be cautiously observed. His circumstances deserve compassion, for indeed they are very melancholy, and I much doubt of his being ever perfectly cured." He was afterwards a long time ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... an accident or a plan," mused the young woman; but she saw that Arkwright did not appreciate the cleverness and the penetration of her remark. Indeed, she knew in advance that he would not, for she knew his limitations. "Now," thought she, "Craig would have appreciated it—and clapped me on ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... have for some time been largely frustrated in their attempts at expansion based directly on force. As a result, they have begun to concentrate heavily on economic penetration, particularly of newly-developing countries, as a ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... emphatic Rufus W. Peckham, in presenting the report on contested seats, briefly stated that the committee, by a unanimous vote, found "the gentlemen now occupying seats entitled to them by virtue of their regularity."[1773] Kelly's conceit did not blind his penetration to the fact that for the present, at least, he had reached ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and then they turn to a Gangreen by Amputation. Jacobitism (I speak of it in relation to the strong Hopes they have of succeeding by a French Power) is an uncurable Distemper. I have often wonder'd to hear Persons, otherwise of great Penetration and Sense, grow constantly Delirious upon this Topick. The Wagers that have been lost upon that very Prospect wou'd have purchas'd him a little Kingdom. Time has open'd a great many People's Eyes; but there is a set of Men who ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... he watches carefully over his own conduct, lay out too much of his attention upon the comparison of probabilities, and the adjustment of expedients, and pause in the choice of his road till some accident intercepts his journey. He whose penetration extends to remote consequences, and who, whenever he applies his attention to any design, discovers new prospects of advantage, and possibilities of improvement, will not easily be persuaded that his project is ripe ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... was a man of the world and of society, and flattered himself that neither man nor woman had art deeper than his penetration; but as he rapidly scanned the broad brow, clear, level-glancing eyes, firm, sweet mouth, queenly head, and mien of innocent self-confidence, he asked ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... bored into those of the Intelligence Director. They were noted for their icy penetration, but upon this night they were like steel knives. It was as though he surveyed Hillerman from behind the bulwark of some new and hostile information. Even as he stared, Cargill was ...
— The Clean and Wholesome Land • Ralph Sholto
... UTTERSON,—When this shall fall into your hands, I shall have disappeared, under what circumstances I have not the penetration to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances of my nameless situation tell me that the end is sure and must be early. Go then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned me he was to place in your hands; ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... in it. He is a parasite, but free and as well able to exist free as the fox or jackal; but the parasitism pays him well, and he has followed it so long in his intercourse with social man that it has come to be like an instinct, or secret knowledge, and is nothing more than a marvellously keen penetration which reveals to him the character and degree of credulity and other mental weaknesses of ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... invention was taught at Mecca by a stranger who settled in that city after the birth of Mahomet. The arts of grammar, of metre, and of rhetoric, were unknown to the freeborn eloquence of the Arabians; but their penetration was sharp, their fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and sententious, [40] and their more elaborate compositions were addressed with energy and effect to the minds of their hearers. The genius and merit of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... Well, as I was saying, my poor watch had lost her speech. I should not have cared much for this, but something worse attended it; the subtle particles of the water with which the case was filled, had by their penetration so overcome the cohesion of the particles of paper, of which my dear picture and watch-paper were composed, that in attempting to take them out to dry them, my cursed fingers gave them such a rent as I fear I never shall get over! Multis fortunae vulneribus percussus, ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... upon the speaker a look of steady penetration. He met it with a glance of perfect confiding. "She sees me," he said, at the same time, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... literature, not only of her own nation, but of the Latin, Spanish, Italian, and English languages, which she spoke with fluency and correctness, a rare accomplishment for a French woman. During the Empire and the Restoration she was intimate with Madame Recamier and Madame de Stael, and for penetration and readiness of mind and charm of manners was not unworthy to be ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... conduct was advisable now that Miss Merrivale was visiting Mrs. Staggchase. He had astutely decided that the latter, at least, would make no remarks about him to her guest; and, in view of the fact that it was scarcely possible to conceal his flirtation with the New Yorker from the penetration of her hostess, he decided to content himself with hiding from the stranger his devotion to his older friend. He still assured himself that his serious intentions were directed toward Miss Mott, and he secretly smiled to himself ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... preacher always destroys the effect of his warnings and causes the hearer to be less afraid than angry, as is always the case when men are captiously scolded and found fault with and threatened. On the other hand, its presence gives power and penetration to the terrors borne upon its breath. It is instinctively felt that the hard words of the preacher are spoken as by one who weeps before he speaks. He does but speak because he must, because it would be cruellest ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... Coleridge emphasized the "endless, subtle beauties of Dante"; the vividness, logical connection, strength, and energy of his style. In this he pronounced him superior to Milton; and in picturesqueness he affirmed that he surpassed all other poets ancient or modern. With characteristic penetration he indicated the precise position of Dante in mediaeval literature; his poetry is "the link between religion and philosophy"; it is "christianized, but without the further Gothic accession of proper chivalry"; it has that "inwardness which . . . distinguishes all the classic from ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... sneer at the sketch of them which I am tempted to give, as lacking in probability and truth, I will insert instead the careful estimate placed upon them severally by their slave judges. And here it is: "In the selection of his leaders, Vesey showed great penetration and sound judgment. Rolla was plausible and possessed uncommon self-possession: bold and ardent, he was not to be deterred from his purpose by danger. Ned's appearance indicated that he was a man of firm nerves and desperate courage. Peter was intrepid ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... and less. Reports began to come in from the right of batteries wiped out (the 28th R.F.A. Brigade lost nearly all their guns here, for nearly all the detachments and horses were killed), and of a crushing attack on the 19th Brigade and penetration of our line thereabouts. And soon afterwards the movement itself became visible, for the 14th Brigade, and then the 13th, began to give way, and one could see the trenches being evacuated on the right. The Norfolks stuck well to it on the right, and covered the retirement that was beginning; ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... glory, hated his person the more, so that he was obliged to leave Utrecht. Descartes was injuriously accused of being an atheist, the last refuge of religious scandal: and he who had employed all the sagacity and penetration of his genius, in searching for new proofs of the existence of a God, was suspected to believe there was no ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... all their white faces were gathered into one, the prototype of suffering humanity, the sad, hollow-checked, hollow-eyed victim of birth and heritage. His voice seemed to swell that night to something greater than its usual volume; some peculiar gift of penetration seemed to have been accorded him. A hundred thousand men heard his passionate prayer to them. They were hard-featured, hard-minded Yorkshiremen, most of them, ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... spoken so clearly, with so much force, assurance and sincerity, that he did not doubt her good faith, but he persisted in not believing her penetration. She might have been deceived, blinded by her devotion to him, carried away by unconscious hatred for Henriette. However, in measure as he tried to reassure and to convince himself, a thousand small facts recurred to his recollection, his wife's words, Limousin's looks, a number ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... whether first to warn the Padre, or to carry my ill news direct to the threatened inhabitants of the residencia. Fate was to decide for me; for, while I was still hesitating, I beheld the veiled figure of a woman drawing near to me up the pathway. No veil could deceive my penetration; by every line and every movement I recognised Olalla; and keeping hidden behind a corner of the rock, I suffered her to gain the summit. Then I came forward. She knew me and paused, but did not speak; I, too, remained silent; and we continued for some time to gaze upon each other with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Place de la Trinite, where twenty details testified to the visit of Gorka, the weight of the perjured word of honor became a heavy load to the novelist, so much the more heavy when he discovered the calculating plan followed by Boleslas. His tardy penetration permitted him to review the general outline of their conversation. He perceived that not one of his interlocutor's sentences, not even the most agitated, had been uttered at random. From reply to reply, from confidence to confidence, he, Dorsenne, had become ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... volume of the Zrich edition, which appeared in 1769, contained the "Reden an Esel," which the reviewer in the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek[60] with acute penetration designates as spurious. Another translation of these sermons was published at Leipzig, according to the editor of a later edition[61] (Thorn, 1795), in the same year as the Zrich ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... was his trusty friend, felt that a tempest was coming. Both saw that the disturbing powers were rooted in the society of the Koshare, that Tyope and the Naua must be the leading spirits. But how and to what ultimate end the machinations were intended escaped their penetration. For the same reason they could not come actively to the relief of the situation, as no overt action had as yet been committed which would justify an official ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... be nonsensical, but the nonsense has much spirit in it. They are usually preceded by a dedication of mock solemnity to some one of her family. It would seem that the grandiloquent dedications prevalent in those days had not escaped her youthful penetration. Perhaps the most characteristic feature in these early productions is that, however puerile the matter, they are always composed in pure simple English, quite free from the over- ornamented style which might be expected from so young a writer. One of her juvenile effusions is given, as a specimen ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... against Philip and his supposed policy, which, from their subject, received the name of "the Philippics"—a title since commonly given to any discourse or declamation abounding in acrimonious invective. The penetration of Demosthenes enabled him easily to divine the ambitious plans of Philip, and as he considered him the enemy of the liberties of Athens and of Greece, he sought to rouse his countrymen against him. His discourse was essentially ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... great political penetration. As yet, however, all was conjecture concerning the enemy; and Nelson, having victualled and watered at Tetuan, stood for Ceuta on the 24th, still without information of their course. Next day intelligence arrived that the CURIEUX brig had seen them on the 19th, standing to the northward. He ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... many branches of business constantly affords; the spirit of commerce, which is the simple art of a reciprocal supply of wants, is well understood here by everybody. They possess, like the generality of Americans, a large share of native penetration, activity, and good sense, which lead them to a variety of other secondary schemes too tedious to mention: they are well acquainted with the cheapest method of procuring lumber from Kennebeck river, Penobscot, etc., pitch and ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... doing battle. How much it cost the poor sinner to pick up the letter, emerge from his closet, and make his way upstairs to Mr. Blithe's ante-chamber will never be known. That it reduced his overdraft in Heaven goes without saying. Curiously enough, the penetration of the barrier erected upon the obnoxious personality of a managing clerk proved a less formidable business than Mr. Slumper had expected. The very truculence of the fellow stung the derelict to a sudden defiance. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... indiscriminate employment of such medicines might be very serious and irremediable, as is well known to every person possessing the smallest portion of medical knowledge. The boasted, though groundless pretensions of certain illiterate empirics to cure diseases which have eluded the skill and penetration of the faculty, is another absurdity into which people of good common sense have been most woefully entrapped. The lessons of experience ought to prove the most useful, as purchased at the greatest trouble and expense; but ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... a young woman of some penetration, deftly changed the topic, and Clavering came near to pleasing her, but he did not quite succeed, before he took his departure. Then Hetty glanced inquiringly at ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... found a market in the company for hundreds of thousands of tons of coal, and, from keeping a solitary wharf, has come to be the owner of a fleet of colliers. At this hour, the company consists of six individuals—the four original projectors, and a couple of old codgers—'knowing files,' who had the penetration, in the beginning, to see through the 'bearing dodge,' and would not be beaten or frightened off. They paid up every call upon shares, and bought others—and then, by shewing a bold front, asserted a voice in the management, and crushed in to a full and fair share of the profits. They ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... scissors wherewith I may sew up for thee the breach in yon millstone." Hereat Pharaoh the King fell a-laughing, he and his Grandees, and cried, "Blessed be Allah, who hath vouchsafed to thee all this penetration and knowledge;" then, seeing that the Envoy had answered all his questions and had resolved his propositions he forthright confessed that he was conquered and he bade them collect the tax-tribute of three years and present it to him together with the loan concerning which Haykar had written ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... people—a people of remarkable cuteness and penetration; but it seems to me that they are taking things easy as far as fighting is concerned. They don't send their soldiers ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... Conjurer: or, a Collection of Surprising Stories, with Names, Places, and particular Circumstances relating to Mr. Duncan Campbell, commonly known by the Name of the Deaf and Dumb Man; and the astonishing Penetration and Event of his Predictions. Written to my Lord—— by a Lady, who for more than Twenty Years past; has made it her Business to observe all Transactions in the Life and Conversation ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... historians, harnessed to the car of militarism, inflamed the people against England as the jealous enemy of Germany's legitimate expansion. Abroad, like a great octopus, she was fastening the tentacles of permeation and penetration in every corner of the globe, honeycombing Russia and Belgium, France, England and America with secret agents, spying and intriguing and abusing our hospitality. For twenty-five years the Kaiser was our frequent and honoured, if somewhat embarrassing, guest, professing ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... before the Centum Viri. For he urged a great variety of arguments in the defence of right and equity, against the literal jubeat of the law; and supported them by such a numerous series of precedents, that he overpowered Q. Scaevola (a man of uncommon penetration, and the ablest Civilian of his time) though the case before them was only a matter of legal right. But the cause was so ably managed by the two advocates, who were nearly of an age, and both of consular rank, that while each endeavoured ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... deficient, but higher informed from a principle common to all the fine arts,—had swayed the keys to a mood which Jenny, with all her (less-cultivated) enthusiasm, could never have elicited from them. I mention this as a proof of my friend's penetration, and not with ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... the higher qualities of the imagination. She could analyse, but not characterise; construct, but not create. She could take one defect like selfishness, or one passion like love, and display its workings; or she could describe a whole character, like Napoleon's, with marvellous penetration; but she could not make her personages talk, or act like human beings. She lacked pathos, and had no sense of humour. In short, hers was a mind endowed with enormous powers of comprehension, and an amazing richness of ideas, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... natural tannins, is afforded by the fact that though Neradol D quickly penetrates the grain, it is but "loosely" fixed by the latter, i.e., it is not deposited to such an extent that it would prevent penetration of the vegetable tannins. In the case of a mixture of Neradol D and vegetable tannins, the former quickly diffuses into the pelt and fixes the fibres, thus facilitating penetration of the vegetable tannins. This assumption is justified ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... believe that a sentiment of this description could have sufficient power to transport you to such a degree of injustice. You repeat the opinion of every other foreigner upon the Italian character, when drawn from first impressions; but it requires deeper penetration, and a more patient scrutiny, to be able to form a correct judgment upon this country, which at different epochs has been so great. Whence comes it that this nation, under the Romans, has attained the highest military character in the world? that it has been the ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... allow me to congratulate you on your keen artistic perception! I believe you are the only person, besides myself, who has hitherto been struck by those definite but undefinable traits of similarity. Mr. van Koppen may well be proud of your penetration—" ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... This penetration of French, not only in Flanders, which was nominally attached to the kingdom of France, but also in Lotharingia and even in Liege, the centre of German influence, is all the more remarkable as it implied no political hegemony, the counts of Flanders being practically independent, at the ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... came a man who had the penetration to see that the phantom science of geology needed before all else a body corporeal, and who took to himself the task of supplying it. This was Dr. James Hutton, of Edinburgh, physician, farmer, and manufacturing chemist—patient, enthusiastic, level-headed devotee of science. Inspired ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... were employed, not to satisfy the pope; for he had too much penetration to be so easily imposed on: nor yet to deceive the people; for they were too gross even for that purpose: they only served for a coloring to Philip's cause; and in public affairs men are often better pleased that the truth, though known to every body, should be wrapped ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... in the society of her most intimate friends she frequently owns that she is bored to death. She writes memoirs, or rather a journal, of all that falls under her observation. She is so clever, has so much imagination and penetration, that they must be very entertaining. She writes as well as talks with extraordinary ease and gracefulness, and both her letters and her conversation are full of point; yet she is not liked, and has made hardly any friends. Her manners ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... once brought hither, planted and Cultivated by the hands of Industry; and here are Provender for more Cattle, at all seasons of the Year, than ever can be brought into the Country.* (* It says a good deal for Cook's penetration that he wrote like this, for the coast of Australia is not promising, especially in the dry season; and coming as he did from the more apparently fertile countries of Tahiti and New Zealand, Australia must have appeared ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... Napoleonic army, and of establishing the system of the Landwehr in France. A very remarkable passage in this manifesto is that on the Press; by which, he says, the Government is terrorised. With extraordinary penetration, he advises that the strength of journalism shall be broken by the sacrifice of the three or four millions gained by the "timbre," and the liberation of the newspapers, which are stronger than the seven ministers—for they ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... and gives her a marvellous brilliance. To this height she has raised the man of her choice! And already she is making plans for removing her own establishment to St. Petersburg, to a mansion not too far from the Embassy; while the Prince, with his pale sunk cheeks and rapt look—the look whose penetration Bismarck could never sustain—checks upon his contemptuous lips the smile at once mysterious and dogmatic, compounded of diplomacy and learning, and thinks to himself: 'Now Colette must make up her ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... oppressed by its learning. She saw, with a curious little blending of pique and pleasure, that he was not in the least afraid of her, and that, while claiming to be simply a farmer, he unconsciously asserted by every word and glance that he was her equal. She had the penetration to recognize from the start that she could not patronize him in the slightest degree, that he was as high-spirited as he was frank and easy in manner, and she could well imagine that his mirthful eyes would flash with anger on slight provocation. She had never met ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... M'Cormick, who was a lad of considerable penetration, "that you need be afeard of either him or the black list. Be me sowl, I know the same Bartle well, an' a bigger coward never put a coat on his back. He got as pale as a sheet, to-night, when Corney there ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Rowe he said that as an editor Howe "has done more than he promised; and that, without the pomp of notes or the boast of criticism, many passages are happily restored." The preface, in his opinion, "cannot be said to discover much profundity or penetration." But he acknowledged Rowe's influence on Shakespeare's reputation. In our own century, more justice has been done Rowe, ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... him to a man. The Kid had a good eye for the trick of a step, and ear for the lilt of a voice, and his private choice was a marvelous creature who scintillated as the 'Aurora Borealis.' But the Greek dancer was too subtle for even his penetration. The majority of the gold-hunters seemed to have centered their verdict on the 'Russian Princess,' who was the most graceful in the room, and hence could be no other than ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... "Mr. Kenwick's penetration is too subtle for a plain man's comprehension," Uncle Dan observed. The persistency with which the Colonel be-mistered Kenwick was an unmistakable ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... in his short stories. His second novel "Bel Ami", which came out in 1885, had thirty-seven editions in four months. His editor, Havard, commissioned him to write new masterpieces and, without the slightest effort, his pen produced new masterpieces of style, description, conception and penetration[*]. With a natural aversion for Society, he loved retirement, solitude and meditation. He traveled extensively in Algeria, Italy, England, Britany, Sicily, Auvergne, and from each voyage he brought back a new volume. He cruised on his private yacht "Bel Ami", named after one of his earlier ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... the uterus, that this can take place. The infant is not unfrequently heard to cry just before birth, after labor has commenced, but before the extrusion of the head from the womb, in consequence of the penetration of ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... his wife a cold kiss which he would fain have made deadly. Louis XI. then crossed over to the Malemaison, eager to begin the unravelling of the melancholy comedy, lasting now for eight years, in the house of his silversmith; flattering himself that, in his quality of king, he had enough penetration to discover the secret of the robberies. Cornelius did not see the arrival of the escort of his royal master ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... Edward's penetration had been sufficiently quick to discover that there was a mystery about the angler, that there must have been a cause for the blush that rose so proudly on Ellen's cheek; and his Quixotism had been not a little mortified, ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... February and the 28th of March, 1782. The phenomenon of the inversion or displacement of fields and pieces of land, by which one is made to occupy the place of another, is connected with a translatory motion or penetration of separate terrestrial strata. When I made the plan of the ruined town of Riobamba, one particular spot was pointed out to me, where all the furniture of one house had been found under the ruins of another. The loose earth had evidently moved like a fluid in currents, ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... concerned; but Eric loved it, and petted it like myself! Many a time I see Mouser looking up at that model of his ship there, blinking his eyes as if he knew well where the young master is, for cats have deeper penetration than human folk give them credit for. I heard him miaow-wowing this morning; and, when I went to look for him, there he was on the top of the stove, if you please, gazing up at the little ship, ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... giving to his left eye and cheek just that peculiar amount of screw which indicated intense sagacity and penetration; "but I've a notion that, if they are to be found, Captain Guy is the man ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
