"Fathom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and enable them to perform acts which to us are incomprehensible. In the midst of this complete ignorance of their faculties and inner nature, is it wise for us to judge so boldly of their powers by a comparison with our own? How can we pretend to fathom the profound mystery of their mental nature, and decide what, and how much, they can perceive or remember, reason or reflect! To leap at one bound from our own consciousness to that of an insect's, is as unreasonable and absurd as if, with a pretty good knowledge of the ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... but drank of the coffee. Bassett too ate almost nothing. He was pulling himself together for the struggle that was to come, marshaling his arguments for flight, and trying to fathom the extent of the change in the ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... effect. But Howland was not a man to surrender to his fears, if they could be called fears. He was satisfied that a mysterious peril of some kind awaited him at the camp on the Wekusko, but he gave up trying to fathom the reason for this peril, accepting in his businesslike way the fact that it did exist, and that in a short time it would probably explain itself. The one puzzling factor which he could not drive out of his thoughts was the girl. Her sweet face haunted him. At every turn he saw it—now ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... henchman on the prow; So rapidly the barge-mall row, The bubbles, where they launched the boat, Were all unbroken and afloat, Dancing in foam and ripple still, When it had neared the mainland hill; And from the silver beach's side Still was the prow three fathom wide, When lightly bounded to the land The messenger of blood ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... mind—round what axis did it revolve—this was the puzzle. Clearly enough it was not like most women's, least of all like that of happy, healthy, plain-sailing Bessie. So curious did he become to fathom these mysteries that he took every opportunity to associate with her, and, when he had time, would even go out with her on her sketching, or rather flower-painting, expeditions. On these occasions she would sometimes begin to talk, but it was always ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... wouldst fathom Life and Being, Thou wouldst see through Birth and Death, Thou wouldst solve the eternal riddle— Thou a speck, a ray, a breath, Thou wouldst look at stars and systems, As if thou couldst understand All the harmonies of Nature, Struck by ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... Captain Snaggs thenceforth hugging the Irish side of the channel way and keeping it well on board on the port tack; and so on this second morning after leaving Liverpool, the ship was some six miles south of the Tuskar Light, with a forty-fathom bottom under her and the wind still to the southward and westward, right ahead of her true course, but shifting and veering from one point to another, and with a sudden sharp squall coming every now and then, by way of a change, to increase the ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... often heard and read about Brutus, one of those mysterious men whose history we could not fathom, for as far north as York we read in a book there that "Brutus settled in this country when the Prophet Eli governed Israel and the Ark was taken from the Philistines, about 1140 B.C., or a century and a half later ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... vans He spread for flight, and, in the surging smoke Uplifted, spurns the ground; thence many a league, As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets A vast vacuity. All unawares, Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance, The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him As many miles aloft. That fury stayed— Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... knowing Mr. Cobden; he was at once the slowest and quite one of the cleverest men I ever met. Personally I find it far easier to judge of brains than character; perhaps it is because in my line of life motives are very hard to fathom, and constant association with intelligence and cultivation leads to a fair toleration and criticism of all sorts and ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... quiet in the cabin, while those present digested Iff's conclusions and acknowledged their logic irrefragable. Staff caught Alison staring at the man as if fascinated, with a curious, intense look in her eyes the significance of which he could not fathom. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... summit of the hill above this cave, and see what is to be seen there. Always look at both sides of a mystery if you would fathom it; come along." ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... buried the body of Mahomet, and not in a chest of yron cleauing to the adamant, as many affirme that know not the trueth thereof. Moreouer, ouer the body they haue built a tombe of speckled stone a brace and a halfe high, [Marginal note: Or, a fathom.] and ouer the same another of Legmame fouresquare in maner of a pyramis. After this, round about the sepulture there hangeth a curtaine of silke, which letteth the sight of those without that they cannot see the sepulture. Beyond this in the same Mosquita are other two sepulchres ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... harbour, and these so deep that the largest ships could come up to the walls on either side. A great suburb, Loyang, lay beyond the northern water, connected with the city by the most celebrated bridge in China. Collinson's Chart in some points below the town gives only 1-1/4 fathom for the present depth, but Dr. Douglas tells me he has even now occasionally seen large junks come close ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... dialogue for an utter stranger," returned Alida, blushing, though the quick dark eye that seemed to fathom all her thoughts, saw it was not in anger. "I do not deny that the partiality of friends, coupled with my origin, have obtained the appellation, which is given, however, more in playfulness than in any serious opinion of its being merited—and now, as the hour is getting late, and this visit ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... his full heart's only lore: A prophet on the Sabbath-day Had touched his sightless eyes with clay, And made him see who had been blind. Their words passed by him like the wind, Which raves and howls, but cannot shock The hundred-fathom-rooted rock. ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... of fine musician, or sunset, or sea-waves rolling up the beach—what do they mean? Undoubtedly in the most subtle-elusive sense they mean something—as love does, and religion does, and the best poem;—but who shall fathom and define those meanings? (I do not intend this as a warrant for wildness and frantic escapades—but to justify the soul's frequent joy in what cannot be defined to the intellectual part, or ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... was a great kettledrum, formed like a brazen caldron, tapering to the bottom and covered with buffalo-hide—at least 3-1/2 or 4 feet in diameter. Bernier, indeed, tells of Nakkaras in use at the Court of Delhi that were not less than a fathom across; and Tod speaks of them in Rajputana as "about 8 or 10 feet in diameter." The Tartar Nakkarahs were usually, I presume, carried on a camel; but as Kublai had begun to use elephants, his may have been carried ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of "a dark woman," just as my aunt had told me. "In the time to come, Francis, beware o' pettin' yer ain blinded intairpretation on the cairds. Ye're ower ready, I trow, to murmur under dispensation of Proavidence that ye canna fathom—like the Eesraelites of auld. I'll say nae mair to ye. Mebbe when the mony's powering into yer poakets, ye'll no forget yer aunt Chance, left like a sparrow on the housetop, wi' a sma' annuitee o' thratty ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... guitar to the accompaniment of which he sang a number of plaintive and sweet-toned songs. Three or four of his countrymen occasionally came up from below. Then they, too, sang more plaintive songs; or played a strange game with especial cards which none of us "gringos" could ever fathom; or perhaps stepped a grave, formal sort of dance. Senora Morena, the only woman, would sometimes join in this. She was a large woman, but extraordinarily light on her feet. In fact, as she swayed and balanced opposite her partner she reminded me of nothing ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... infernal malevolence, such monstrous crimes, as mankind had grown civilized enough to disbelieve when they read any thing similar in former ages; if, indeed, any thing similar has been recorded. But I must not enter into what I dare not fathom. Catherine Slay-Czar triumphs over the good honest Poles; and Louis Seize perishes on a scaffold, the best of men: while whole assemblies of fiends, calling themselves men, are from day to day meditating torment and torture for his heroic widow; ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... lantern, watched the steady stream of gangings and herring-baited hooks follow one another over the side and sink astern. In a surprisingly short time the tub was empty, and the five hundred fathoms of trawl, with more than a hook to a fathom, lay in a long, straight line on the muddy bottom, three ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... with this resolution, Badang said to the hantou, "Give me the gift of physical strength; let me be strong enough to tear down and to uproot the trees; that is, that I may tear down, with one hand, great trees, a fathom or ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... had passed,—at the flight of Maltravers, the success of Lumley,—unable to account for it, to extort explanation from Vargrave or from Evelyn, was distracted by the fear of some villanous deceit which she could not fathom. To escape herself she plunged yet more eagerly into the gay vortex. Vargrave, suspicious, and fearful of trusting to what she might say in her nervous and excited temper if removed from his watchful eye, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... 'prohibition.' Markham is in the heart of the Bad Lands, the wonderful freakish Bad Lands, where great herds of cattle range over all the possible, and some of the impossible, places, while the rest of it—black, green, and red peaks, hills of powdered coal, wicked land cuts that no plumb can fathom, treacherous clay crust over boiling lava, arid horrid miles of ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... their side, I might have comprehended the modest proposal; but coming from those whose energy for business is proverbial, and whose acuteness in all matters of dollars and cents is unsurpassed, if equalled, by the shrewdest Hebrew of the Hebrews, I confess it is beyond my puny imagination to fathom. Were it accompanied with any pecuniary offer adequate to the sacrifice proposed, I might be able to comprehend it: but for those, or the descendants of those, who, as they found white labour more profitable, sold their sable brethren to their southern neighbours, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... right to tell them, Mr. Ducaine," she said. "I have hated myself ever since the other night when I seemed to side against you. There are things going on about us which I cannot fathom, and sometimes I have fears, terrible fears. But your course at least is a clear one. Don't let yourself be turned aside by any one. My father has prejudices which might lead him into grievous errors. Trust Colonel Ray—no one else. Yours is a dangerous ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her life with Martin should be looked upon as a flower of matrimony. Yet, womanlike, she took an unconfessed comfort in the fact that this was so—that no one, unless it were Nellie, was sufficiently astute to fathom the truth. To be sure, the Wades were never spoken of as "happy." They were invariably alluded to as "good folks," "true blue," "solid people," "ideal husband and wife," ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... returned, and he rose stiffly to his feet. He limped out of the Park, putting away the handkerchief, muttering profanity and trying to fathom the mystery. As nearly as he could reason it out, he must have been struck by another machine from ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... completed it. This resolution, like every thing great and entire, was admirable; the motive sufficient and justified by success; the devotedness unparalleled, and so extraordinary, that the historian is obliged to pause in order to fathom, to ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... Abbe scandalises the Church by acknowledging his son to all men,—and lo!—the son he was ashamed of all these years, turns out a prodigy! The fault once confessed, brings a blessing! Angela, there is something more than chance in this, if we could only fathom it!" ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... of it," remarked Syllenger. "At any rate I'll send your result to the Admiralty with the utmost dispatch. Take her in, Mr. Fox, and bring up where you find the two-fathom mark." ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... saluted Owain, and told him that his Ravens had been killed, the chief part of them, and that such of them as were not slain were so wounded and bruised that not one of them could raise its wings a single fathom above the earth. "Lord," said Owain, "forbid thy men." "Play," said he, "if it please thee." Then said Owain to the youth, "Go back, and wherever thou findest the strife at the thickest, there lift up the banner, and ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... to wile him into their power; but he was happily preserved from all their snares and devices in a manner that shows how wonderfully the Lord worketh out the purposes of His will, by ways and means of which no man can fathom the depth of ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... which I would reply that every careful parent has an Index Prohibitorius for his household; or ought to have one if he has not. I once knew a woman who allowed her daughter to plunge into Nana and other works of that character as soon as she could summon up enough knowledge of French to fathom their meaning. The daughter grew up and the result has not been encouraging to educationists thinking of proceeding on similar lines. The State also has its Index Prohibitorius and will not permit indecent books nor indecent pictures ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... Peter continued. "He came here with a request. He begged for my help. Guillot is here, committed to some enterprise which no one can wholly fathom. Dory has enough to do with other things, as you can imagine, just now. Besides, I think he recognizes that Monsieur Guillot is rather a hard nut for the ordinary English detective ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... starting from this at Cuzco, went down to the coast, and extended northward to the equator. These roads were from twenty to twenty-five feet wide, were macadamized with pulverized stone mixed with lime and bituminous cement, and were walled in by strong walls "more than a fathom in thickness." In many places these roads were cut for leagues through the rock; great ravines were filled up with solid masonry; rivers were crossed by suspension bridges, used here ages before their introduction into Europe. Says Baldwin, "The builders of our Pacific Railroad, ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... stood throughout the interview leaning heavily against the jamb of the kitchen door. Something inscrutable in the stare of the fishlike, china-blue eyes clung in his memory, and try as he would in the days that followed, MacNair could not fathom the meaning of that stare, if indeed it had any meaning. MacNair did not know why, but in some inexplainable manner the memory of that look eased many a ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... well content to leave it in 'the Dean's' hands, for he was most astute in management of men, and loved to fathom ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... again they fell into the talk which I could not fathom. And so I left them in their brief happiness, for my time of idleness was over, and I was ordered to attend Mrs. Milton-Cleave without ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... may warble as their poets write. The temper of our isle, though cold, is clear; And such our genius, noble though severe. Our Shakespeare scorn'd the trifling rules of art, 65 But knew to conquer and surprise the heart! In magic chains the captive thought to bind, And fathom all the depths of human kind! Too long, our shame, the prostituted herd Our sense have bubbled, and our wealth have shared. 70 Too long the favourites of our vulgar great Have bask'd in luxury, and lived in state! In Tuscan wilds ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... hidden; I have wandered with Hermes by the banks of the Nile, with Gautama along the mud-flats of the Ganges. I have disgusted myself with the writings of those who would reduce all history and religion to solar myths, and I have striven to fathom the meaning of those whose thoughts are profound and their hearts noble, but their speech halting. I have dreamed many things, Countess, and the worst is that I have lived to weary of my dreams, and to say that all things are vanity—all save one," he ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the same height; and upon each is placed a colossal statue of stone sitting upon a chair. Thus the pyramids are a hundred fathoms high; and these hundred fathoms are equal to a furlong of six hundred feet, the fathom being measured as six feet or four cubits, the feet being four palms each, and the cubits six. The water in the lake does not come from the place where it is, for the country there is very deficient in water, but it has been brought thither from the Nile by a canal: and for six ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... absolutely distasteful in American hotels that I cannot bring myself to use it in writing of them—she has been carried off to a lady's waiting room, and there remains in august wretchedness till the great man at the bar shall have decided on her fate. I have never been quite able to fathom the mystery of these delays. I think they must have originated in the necessity of waiting to see what might be the influx of travelers at the moment, and then have become exaggerated and brought to their ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... sun shone on His expiring head, in token that His death scattered our darkness and poured day on our sad night. The solemn silence was broken at last by that loud cry, the utterance of strangely blended consciousness of possession of God and of abandonment by Him, the depths of which we can never fathom. But this we know: that our sins, not His, wove the veil which separated Him from His God. Such separation is the real death. Where cold analysis is out of place, reverent gratitude may draw near. Let us adore, for what we can understand speaks of a love which has taken on itself the iniquity of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... thought that this middle-aged gentleman was taking advantage of an opportunity to bask in the smile of a pretty girl for the sheer pleasure of her company. He was purposely detaining her, but whether from a wish to amuse himself or to mark his indifference to what went on around him she did not fathom. The fact was that Sylvia had wondered herself a good deal about that interview in Mrs. Owen's house, and she was not quite sure ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... when in latitude 42 deg. and longitude 201 deg., and consequently opposite the coast of Japan, we descried a red stripe in the water, about a mile long and a fathom broad. In passing over it we drew up a pail-full, and found that its colour was occasioned by an infinite number of crabs, so small as to be scarcely distinguishable ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... to etiquette, rose, and, bowing to the king, retired. The queen followed with her ladies of honor. The queen-mother remained: the king's gayety was a mystery that she wished to fathom. ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... consider whether they had done so or not, William had come down from his perch; and now that he had reapplied himself to the oar, and saw that he was gaining ground in the right direction, he did not like to desist. Every fathom he made to windward was a fathom nearer to the saving of the lives of his companions,—a stroke less for the swimmers to make,—to whom, wearied as they must now be, the saving of even a single stroke might ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... them all without a sob, but be satisfied to throw them away as dung, that it may win him, and be found in him. Now, the wonder of a Deity, in his greatness, power, and grace, swallows up the soul in sweet admiration. O how doth it love to lose itself in finding here what it cannot fathom? And then it begins truly to see the greatness and evil of sin; then it is looked upon without the covering of pleasure or profit, and loathed as the leprosy of hell. Now the man is truly like God in the knowledge of good and evil, in the knowledge of that one infinite good, God; ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... had the motive for which we have been looking; that he may or may not have the habit of biting his nails; that he is crafty, and that if he were to do murder it is almost certain his methods would be novel and surprising, as well as extremely difficult to fathom—in short, that suspicion points unmistakably to Rama Ragobah. That is easily said, but to bring the deed home to him is quite another thing. I shall analyse the poison of the wound and microscopically examine the nature ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... descriptive to say, a damnable fix. He pondered over it a moment and then said, "I don't understand what you want me to do, Willett," and his tone was very cold. "I don't see how I can help you. From your own account you have behaved either like a fool or a blackguard, and what I can't fathom is why Davies's commanding officer, or some friend or comrade, did not ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... spoke thus of Alessandro, Felipe marvelled in silence. He himself had been afraid to mention Alessandro's name; but Ramona spoke it as if he were yet by her side. Felipe could not fathom this. There were to be many things yet which Felipe could not fathom in this lovely, sorrowing, ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... first, HERSCHEL believed that his twenty-foot telescope was of power sufficient to fathom the Milky Way, that is, to see through it and beyond it, and to reduce all its nebulosities to true groups ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... the calamity which had fallen upon him. So he remained with his mother, sitting near the window which looked out upon the railroad track over which Ethie had gone. What his thoughts were none could fathom, save as they were expressed by the dark, troubled expression of his face, which showed how much he suffered. Perhaps he blamed himself as he went over again the incidents of that fatal night when he kept Ethelyn from the masquerade; but if he did, no one was the wiser for ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... sister, I learned as time went on; and there had been feud while he lived between her and my father. Why, I couldn't imagine. She was the sweetest old soul I ever knew, indeed, and what on earth he could have quarrelled with her about I never could fathom. She tended me so carefully that as months went by, the Horror began to decrease and my soul to become calm again. I grew gradually able to remain in a room alone for a few minutes at a time, and to sleep ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... not.... I will not let it be: and secondly, that you try to hear the unspoken words, and understand how your gift will remain with me while I remain ... they need not be said—just as it need not have been so beautiful, for that. The beauty drops 'full fathom five' into the deep thought which covers it. So I study my Machiavelli to contrive the possibility of wearing it, without being put to the question violently by all the curiosity of all my brothers;—the questions 'how' ... 'what' ... 'why' ... put round and edgeways. They ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... during which the boat lost considerable way, I was unwilling to discourage the men, and reluctantly gave up my intention of ascertaining the depth and the character of the bed. There was a general shout in the boat when we found ourselves in one fathom, and we soon after landed on a low point of mud, immediately under the butte of the peninsula, where we unloaded the boat, and carried the baggage about a quarter of a mile to firmer ground. We arrived just in time for meridian observation, ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... in digging a deep narrow hole in the snow for a fire, and squatting around the top of it like frogs around the edge of a well, while I made a camp for myself. Of the art of cooking they were equally ignorant, and the mystery of canned provisions they could never fathom. Why the contents of one can should be boiled, while the contents of another precisely similar can should be fried—why one turned into soup and another into a cake—were questions which they gravely discussed night after night, but about which they could never ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... vigorously, and sending down a shower of sparkling drops. Never lived sane man, or madman, since time began, who, seeing her then, could or would have denied that she made the very prettiest picture ever seen by any person or persons whatsoever—but her purpose was difficult to fathom. Pursuing it, I remarked that it was improbable that birds ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... Francisco," and it was quite possible that the two had been friends, and that the young mother had adopted the name of Dubois when calling upon the nuns of the convent at St. Peter, either because it would naturally occur to her, or from some deeper design which, he could not fathom.... ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... with a modest look, "it may be, as you suggest, that Winnie Van der Kemp does not care for me more than for a fathom ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... of wheat," or when they look within their own hearts, and assert, as the poet Young said in 1759, long before the English romantic movement had begun, "there is more in the spirit of man than mere prose-reason can fathom." ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... could not easily be conquered by the sea; and the beauty and ornament of the works were such, as though he had not had any difficulty in the operation; for when he had measured out as large a space as we have before mentioned, he let down stones into twenty fathom water, the greatest part of which were fifty feet in length, and nine in depth, and ten in breadth, and some still larger. But when the haven was filled up to that depth, he enlarged that wall which was thus already extant above the sea, till it was two ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... her man (ladies are very apt to fathom their male acquaintance—too apt, I think); and, to pin him to the only medical theme which interested her, seized the opportunity while he was in actual contact with Julia's wrist, and rapidly enumerated her symptoms, and also told him what Mr. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... imposition was the flimsy pretence that but for an alleged protection the same sums would have gone in fealty to their red brethren. In 1644, the Narragansetts were fined 2000 fathoms, and doomed to pay yearly thereafter a fathom for every Pequot man, half a fathom for every youth and a hand breadth for every child in the tribe. As late as 1658,[34] the Pequots were fined ten fathoms a man, and one of their number imprisoned for ...
— Wampum - A Paper Presented to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society - of Philadelphia • Ashbel Woodward
... resemblance to Don Quixote is only just enough to make it interesting to the critical reader, without giving offence to any body else. The indecency and filth in this novel are what must be allowed to all Smollett's writings.—The subject and characters in Count Fathom are, in general, exceedingly disgusting: the story is also spun out to a degree of tediousness in the serious and sentimental parts; but there is more power of writing occasionally shewn in it than in any ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... answers, holdin' her needle for a moment— an' her voice was all hollow, like as if she pumped it up from a fathom or two. 'Then, if he knows what's due to his wife, I'll trouble en to come round,' she says; 'for this here's the door I ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... thing which had no intelligence, as humankind rated intelligence, did possess the ability to fathom the nature of that artificial barrier. The force field was examined, its nature digested. First approach had failed. The second was now ready—ready as it had not been months before when the first coming of these creatures had alerted the very ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... the reins were not held in. The lances they had were not light, but were big and square; nor were they planed smooth, but were rough and strong. Upon the shields with mighty strength they smote each other with their sharp weapons, so that a fathom of each lance passes through the gleaming shields. But neither touches the other's flesh, nor was either lance cracked; each one, as quickly as he could, draws back his lance, and both rushing together, return to the fray. One against the other rides, and so fiercely they smite each other that ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... hands behind her back, looking up at him with an expression he could not fathom. Suddenly she advanced, put up ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... frigate kept up this pace without gaining a fathom! This was humiliating for one of the fastest racers in the American navy. The crew were working up into a blind rage. Sailor after sailor heaved insults at the monster, which couldn't be bothered with answering back. Commander Farragut ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... rocks in three-fathom water, watching the pollock catch prawns, and the wrasses nibble barnacles off the rocks, shells and all, when he saw a round cage of green withes; and inside it, looking very much ashamed of himself, sat his friend the lobster, twiddling his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... uncovered, open to the continual attrition of a life of goodness, God will let it wear away? It will lessen and lessen, until at the last, when the Ocean of Eternity beats against it, it shall go down, down into the deeps of love that no mortal line can fathom. Oh, Herbert, come out with me!—come out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... several nights to learn all this, and, as he did not want to take any one into his confidence, he had to work in secret. But, with all his efforts he learned nothing, save that there was something odd about the ship that he could not fathom. ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... sadly: "Ah! my friend, if one fathom of your anchor chain were to rattle, as you drew it in, a thousand warriors would be standing on your deck. No, no, that could not be done. Even now, your ship would be taken from you were it not that Tararo has some feeling of gratitude toward ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Edwards both whirled hurriedly; and not a fathom's length away rode a second small boat; and standing forward were two men, their revolvers levelled directly at the ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... silent, a morose cur; if he practises honesty, he is but a good-for-nothing fool; if well dressed, he is proud, if not, he is a pig; if gentle of speech, he is double-faced and a rogue, whom none can fathom; if rough, he is an arrogant and froward devil. This is the world you make so much of, and pray you take my share of it and welcome," and at the word he shook himself free of them all, and away he sped boldly to the narrow ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... feet of iron rods, (no easy matter, where it had to be transported to the upper part of a glacier on men's backs,) thinking to bore the glacier through and through. As well might I have tried to sound the ocean with a ten-fathom line. The following year I took two hundred feet of rods with me, and again I was foiled. Eventually I succeeded in carrying up a thousand feet of line, and satisfied myself, after many attempts, that this was about the average thickness of the glacier of the Aar, on which I was working. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... that mystery of the Invisible is! We cannot fathom it with our miserable senses, with our eyes which are unable to perceive what is either too small or too great, too near to, or too far from us; neither the inhabitants of a star nor of a drop of water ... with our ears that deceive us, for they transmit to us the vibrations ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... man's mind cannot fathom the will of God. Which is an irrational statement for it is a well established fact, and indeed, a criterion of insanity, that when the deranged are confronted with facts which are conclusive and with creations of the imagination, they cannot differentiate fact from fancy, and maintain, ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... more gracious in her own house. I have her formal word that I am to come. Soon, not too soon, I will come over; and you shall meet me and take me to see her. There is something in her opposition that I can't fathom: I wondered twice was lunacy her notion: she looked at ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... across Joseph's face. The next moment, his brows still knit as he sought to fathom his sudden action, he was muttering the formal regrets that courtesy dictated. But Crispin had remarked that singular expression on Joseph's face—fleeting though it had been—and it flashed across ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... may to THIS one,' said she, in a meaning tone that he failed to fathom then. 'He deserted me once, but he ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... certain wandering saint, called St. Brendan, was not without its influence upon an enthusiastic mind. Moreover, there were many sound motives urging the Prince to maritime discovery; among which, a desire to fathom the power of the Moors, a wish to find a new outlet for traffic, and a longing to spread the blessings of the faith may be enumerated. The especial reason which impelled Prince Henry to take the burden ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... anybody in your life,—for him, or for that other one, or for anybody. For nobody, I believe;—except your cousin Kate. Still waters, they say, run deep; and sometimes I think your waters run too deep for me to fathom. I suppose I may go now, if you have got nothing more ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... thoughts that surged through Van's mind as he and Bob settled themselves into their places on the train and began the attempt to fathom the reams of directions Mr. Blake had sent them; pages and pages there were of what to do and what not to do on the long trip, the letter ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... me," said Coates, "there's something in all this that I can't fathom. As to keeping the prisoner here, that's all moonshine. But I suppose we shall know the whole ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... fathom round, spreads an acre of ground, They plastered it round to keep the tree sound. So we'll booze it away, dull care we'll defy, And be happy on the first Friday ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... pleasure. After a week of unremitting toil and study and contact with the rough edges of human nature, there was something unspeakably restful in the atmosphere of that quiet home; something soothing in the silent, steadfast affection, the depth of which he was only beginning to fathom. ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... in a cake o' lead, Bade him lie still and sleep, She cast him in a deep draw-well Was fifty fathom deep. ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... exhibited heaps of broken crockery-ware, mixed with the humble repast that hungry men had been looking forward to. Jimmy, in an ordinary way, was really a devotee of religion, who adhered to all its forms most rigidly so long as drink was kept out of his way. He could quote Scripture by the fathom, and when in his cups used to do so copiously. The ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... isles of Scilly, which are isolated mountain-peaks of the submerged plateau. The seas that wash the long Cornish peninsula, therefore, though they are thoroughly oceanic in character, especially on the north, are not oceanic in depth; we have to pass far beyond Scilly to cross the hundred-fathom line. From the Dover strait westward there is a gradual lowering of the incline, though of course with such variations and undulations as we find on the emerged plains; but the existence of this vast submarine basis must cause us to think of our island, naturally and geologically, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... destiny, and are wont to credit her with a sense of justice loftier far than our own; and however great the injustice whereof she may have been guilty, our confidence will soon flow back to her, the first feeling of dismay over; for in our heart we plead that she must have reasons we cannot fathom, that there must be laws we cannot divine. The gloom of the world would crush us were we to dissociate morality from fate. To doubt the existence of this high, protecting justice and virtue, would seem to us to be ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Infernal Regions from these parts. Others have gone down from the village with a "fifty-six" and a wagon load of inch rope, but yet have failed to find any bottom; for while the "fifty-six" was resting by the way, they were paying out the rope in the vain attempt to fathom their truly immeasurable capacity for marvellousness. But I can assure my readers that Walden has a reasonably tight bottom at a not unreasonable, though at an unusual, depth. I fathomed it easily with a cod-line and a stone weighing ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... to the North, Mr. Boyer held a consultation with the Vice-President and General Superintendent of the company. He freely admitted his inability to fathom the mystery surrounding the loss of the money, and thought the officers of the company did Maroney a great injustice in supposing him guilty of the theft. He said he knew of only one man who could bring out the robbery, and he was living ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... evident dread on the face of their leader as he looked at Marche-a-Terre eating his bread by the side of the road. But Hulot's face soon cleared; he began to rejoice in the opportunity to fight for the Republic, and he joyously vowed to escape being the dupe of the Chouans, and to fathom the wily and impenetrable being whom they had done him the ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... yet she seldom hurried by it or averted her eyes. It had an unpleasant fascination for her, and a mysterious reproach, which she did not seek to fathom. She walked on thoughtfully to-day; and when, at the next corner, she turned into the street that led toward home, she was given a surprise. Arthur Russell came rapidly from behind her, lifting his hat ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... there was such an almost irresistible gravity of conviction in his manner that I abandoned my remonstrance about his solitary life. I felt that I was in the presence of some secret influence which I could not fathom. To my relief, for I knew not what to ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... over!" she said, at the end, "and we know," she went on, with one of her rare revelations of the spiritual deeps that lay so close to the surface of her life, "we know that she is safe and satisfied at last, in His care." For a moment her absent eyes seemed to fathom far spaces. Barry abruptly ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... of their sea terms, and would not give them up for anything—not even if the soldiers of the King do not fathom ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... you how it was that I was adrift, like a bear in a washing-tub. My first mate was below. I had just relieved the deck, for in this blowing weather we must keep watch in harbour. The men were all at their dinner, when I heard the boat thumping under the main channels. I got into her to ease off a fathom or two of the painter; but as I hauled her ahead to get at the bend, it appears that the monkey of a boy who made her fast, and has been but a few months at sea, had made a 'slippery hitch,' so away it went, and I was adrift. I hailed them on board; but they did not hear me, although the first ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... Moreover, I was vaguely conscious of being the guardian of a woman's instinct for safety, an instinct which arrives with the cradle and only goes with the grave, and that made me feel somewhat helpless; a man in depths he cannot fathom, for such is the uncharted ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... River to set nets for Catching of fish; from this we immagin'd that there must be plenty of fish, but of what sort we know not for we saw none. The Greatest Depth of Water we found was 26 fathoms and decreaseth pretty gradually as you run up to 1 1/2 and 1 fathom. In the mouth of the fresh-water Stream or narrow part is 3 and 4 fathoms, but before this are sand banks and large flatts; Yet, I believe, a Ship of a Moderate draught of Water may go a long way up this River with ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... "Four fathom deep thy love doth lie: His faithful dog his fate doth share; We're Fiends;—this is not he and I; We are not ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... he listened to the fluent tide of her speech, a strange, mocking light in his eyes, whose portent she could not fathom. ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... such things transmission; for there is A floating balance of accomplishment Which forms a pedigree from Miss to Miss, According as their minds or backs are bent. Some waltz; some draw; some fathom the abyss Of metaphysics; others are content With music; the most moderate shine as wits; While others have a genius turn'd ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... because she found a live mouse in the pocket of her gown. A live virtue is like a live mouse. Indeed the surprises of virtue are far greater than the surprises of vice. We are never surprised when we hear that a man has gone to the bad; but who can fathom our wonderment when we are obliged to believe that he is gone ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the known, to work upward to the nature of the unknown. We must, he says, try to discover the Divine attributes and the Divine Character by first finding out what our own deepest nature implies. If God is to speak to us it must be in terms of our nature. Before undertaking to fathom with the plummet of logic the unsoundable mystery of foreknowledge, let us see what we can know through a return to the real nature of man as he is, and especially to the real nature of the new Adam who is Christ, the Son of God. Man, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... the day the old chief had several private consultations with the guide, and showed evident signs of being occupied with some mysterious matter of mighty import. What it was, Captain Bonneville could not fathom, nor did he make much effort to do so. From some casual sentences that he overheard, he perceived that it was something from which the old man promised himself much satisfaction, and to which he attached a little vainglory but which he wished to keep a secret; ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... instructive, to remark that while some dicotyledonous plants hold to the verticillate, i.e., opposite-leaved phyllotaxis throughout, a larger number—through the operation of some deep seated and innate principle which we cannot fathom—change abruptly into the other species at the second or third node, and change back again in the flower, or else effect a synthesis of the two species in a manner which is puzzling to understand. Here is a change from one fixed law to another, as unaccountable, ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... Marion came one Sunday in the Spencer house, with Natalie asleep up-stairs after luncheon, and Clayton walking off a sense of irritation in the park. He did not like the Hayden girl. He could not fathom Natalie's change of front with regard to Graham and the girl. He had gone out, leaving them together, and Marion had launched ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... give a lot to know what to make of it. The man is playing some game, but what the deuce it is I can't fathom." ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... expectation with her brother, but it was at their uncle they looked the moment after, because of the strange and sudden sound that issued from his lips. For it was like a cry, and his face wore a flushed and curious expression they could not fathom. The face and the cry were signs of something utterly unusual. He was startled—out of himself. A marvellous idea had evidently struck him. "It's either something," thought Judy, "or else he's got a pain." But Tim's mind ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... Elderly folks can look at a girl's eyes, and see that they are brown or blue or green, as the case may be; but the lover looks at them and sees in them the magic mirror of a hundred possible worlds. How can he fathom the sea of dreams that lies there, or tell what strange fancies and reminiscences may be involved in an absent look? Is she thinking of starlit nights on some distant lake, or of the old bygone ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... We are so fashioned that we can enjoy only the pleasant things of life. But this man can enjoy—enjoy, mark you—the commission of any act, however distasteful, if he think it to be his duty. There is the difference. I cannot fathom him. But it is now necessary that I become all which he loves—since he loves it,—and that I be in thought and deed all which he desires. For I have ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... occasion to discourse upon various sorts of love—fatherly love and brotherly love and maternal affection and so on. But this flare of passionate tenderness focussing upon one slender bit of a girl was something he could not quite fathom. He would have contradicted with swift anger any suggestion that perhaps it was merely wise old Nature's ancient method efficiently at work for an appointed end. He had been so thoroughly grounded in the convention of decrying physical impulses, of putting everything upon a pure and spiritual ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... one trips on the edge of a crevasse and disappears. His soul dropped into the frozen cleft that one cannot fathom." ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes |
