"Pierce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was clear. He leaned forward as if trying to pierce the darkness between them. His thin white hands were tight upon ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... there was no voice and no order. The terrible tramp of the Guard, and the sound that Heine loved, the dance of the French drums, was extinguished; there was no echo of their songs, for the army was of ghosts and was defeated. They passed in the silence which we can never pierce, and somewhere remote from men they sleep in bivouac round the most splendid ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... Peter had given it to her as a wedding present, and she had worn it to the altar; but the little diamond cross suspended from the middle she had never seen. The gold buckle at Eva's belt had belonged to her since her last birthday—it was very badly bent, and the dull points would scarcely pierce the thick ribbon. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hall was very still. The stillness of it seemed to pierce and hurt.... Then it was broken by a cry, a hoarse cry, wrenched from the soul of a man. "My boy!... My boy!..." Old Elder Newton was on his feet, tottering toward his son, and before his son he sank upon his knees and buried his hard, weathered ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... happiness, but thoughts and feel{335} ings which this recital has quickened, unfit me to proceed further in that direction. The grim horrors of slavery rise in all their ghastly terror before me; the wails of millions pierce my heart and chill my blood. I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip; the death-like gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered bondman; the appalling liability of his being torn ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... had in vain endeavored to pierce the disguise of his guest's political feelings; but, while there was nothing forbidding in his countenance, there was nothing communicative; on the contrary it was strikingly reserved; and the master of the house ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... with the glow of sunset. The noise which had aroused me was very slight; but there are some sounds which strike the heart before reaching the ear; and the subtlest emanations of love will at times pierce through the coarsest organization. Edmee's voice had just pronounced my name a short distance away, behind some foliage. At first I thought I had been dreaming; I remained where I was, held my breath and listened. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... shall dare say that he was not then a sincere lover? thought the Mother-Superior of the Convent of the Holy Way. And then she recalled her wandering thoughts, and turned them to the One Lover who never betrays His chosen. And her rapt eyes looking up, seemed to pierce beyond the flaming sky-vault overhead. She forgot all else, suddenly snatched from earthly consciousness to beatific realisation ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... principals. My father declined to read them; he thought they were too sentimental, but as the author had an Irish name he was inclined to regard them with tolerance. He thought I would be better employed in absorbing "Tom and Jerry; or The Adventures of Corinthian Bob," by Pierce Egan. My mother objected to this, and substituted "Lady Violet; or the Wonder of Kingswood Chace," by the younger Pierce Egan, ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... rate of progress for the past year it will require but eight years and ten months to pierce through the mountain and at the rate for the past six months it will require but six years and five months. But when the central shaft and well No. 4 are sunk to grade the number of faces to work from will be doubled, and the time of completion thereby ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... past,—nay, looking to the future and not to the present, valuing the present only as it is the seed ground of the future, the foundation upon which the structure is to rise whose pinnacle shall some day pierce the sky,—I want to tell them of the Jesus that shall be. In fuller comprehension of Him, with deeper understanding of His life, with a more entire impression of what He is and of what He may be to the soul, so men shall understand Him in the days to be, and ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... have been crossed by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The giddy heights of the Fraser River Canyon are traversed, and this is but the beginning, for three other great corporations are bending their strength to pierce the passes of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. We see to-day scenes more after the manner of the Arabian Nights Entertainments than of the humble dream that Lord Selkirk dreamt ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... delicate fruit, rich in oil, and with thin shells, so that the little creatures can pierce the husks and shells while the fruit ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... jury, and, would you believe it, the opposing counsel happened to be visiting a friend on the next floor, and my eloquence floated up through the air-shaft, and gave our whole plan of action away. We were routed on the point we had supposed would pierce the enemy's armor and lay him at our feet, for the wholly simple reason that that abominable air-shaft had made my strategic move a matter of ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... Alia vera sunt: Numenius in Euseb. Pr. Ev. XIV. 8, 4 says Carneades allowed that truth and falsehood (or reality and unreality) could be affirmed of things, though not of sensations. If we could only pierce through a sensation and arrive at its source, we should be able to tell whether to believe the sensation or not. As we cannot do this, it is wrong to assume that sensation and thing correspond. Cf. Sext. P.H. I. 22 [Greek: peri men tou phaisthai toion e toion to hypokeimenon] ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... leave the hall, and went himself to Greenwood, where he slew Gil Morice, and sent his head to Lady Barnard. On his return, the lady told her lord he had slain her son, and added, "Wi' the same spear, oh, pierce my heart, and put me out o' pain!" But the baron repented of his hasty deed, and cried, "I'll lament for Gil Morice, as gin he were mine ain."—Percy, Reliques, etc., ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... through the vast, dark, tangled beating heart of the place, sprang into being a tension. The grey lines listened for the word Advance! The musket rested on the shoulder, the foot quivered, eyes front tried to pierce the darkness. Sound was unceasing; and yet the mind found a stillness, a lake of calm. It was the moment before ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... they rose, like mighty billows, mounting higher until the tallest, dimly outlined in a thickening purplish haze, cut the sky, a rampart vision could not pierce. They seemed alive, those hills, the thick untouched growth stirring ceaselessly under the wind, a restless sea of sunlit green with flashes of white from laurel thickets and soft glintings where satiny oak-leaves ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... marvelled at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign that shall be spoken against, (yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." [Luke ii. 28.] In this incident it is worthy of remark, that Joseph and Mary are both mentioned by name, that they are both called the parents of the young child; that both are equally ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... then proceeded to pierce a similar set of holes around another that also stood out on the open lake. After that he went to a third one, and this and then a fourth were prepared in a ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... woman is a heap of petty antipathies; and, where the likings are fickle, the dislikings are pretty sure to be tenacious. A keen student of human nature has remarked, that many women "spend force enough in trivial observations on dress and manners, to form a javelin to pierce quite through a character." Women's eyes are armed with microscopes to see all the little defects and dissimilarities which can irritate and injure their friendships. Hence there are so many feminine friends easily provoked to mutual criticisms ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... your sciences constantly removes this mysterious image from your gaze. As light eludes the eye which it illumines, if we would seize and contemplate it, we must have two things: we must have a special and a supernatural object. There must be light within you, and it must pierce the ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... since the work done by the missile is not then disturbed by the general destructive force of the storm. Thus, near Racine, Wis., I have known an ordinary fence rail, slightly sharpened on one end, to be driven against a young tree like a spear and pierce it several feet. The velocity of the rail must have been something enormous, or otherwise the rail would have glanced from such a ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... a great lecturer on bayonet exercise. He curdled the blood of boys with his eloquence on the method of attack to pierce liver and lights and kidneys of the enemy. He made their eyes bulge out of their heads, fired them with blood-lust, stoked up hatred of Germans—all in a quiet, earnest, persuasive voice, and a sense of latent power and passion in him. He told funny stories—one, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... and I, that our only course must be to pierce the castle wall and let ourselves down to the moat by means of a rope. The latter portion of this scheme being manifestly the more likely, we decided to secure our rope first. This was easier said than done. Our coverlets were of such thin ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... enough,—perhaps a little too much—about them. So I pass lastly to consider its uses in policy; dependent chiefly upon its tenacity— that is to say, on its power of bearing a pull, and receiving an edge. These powers, which enable it to pierce, to bind, and to smite, render it fit for the three great instruments, by which its political action may be simply typified; namely, the Plough, the Fetter, and ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... unperceived, by excessive light. O King! whose greatness none can comprehend, Whose boundless goodness does to all extend,— Light of all beauty, ocean without ground, That standing, flowest—giving, dost abound... Great Architect—Lord of this universe,— That sight is blinded would thy greatness pierce. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... eternal and the ever blest. This busy, puzzling stirrer up of doubt, That frames deep mysteries, then finds them out, Filling, with frantic crowds of thinking fools, Those reverend bedlams, colleges, and schools; Borne on whose wings each heavy sot can pierce The limits of the boundless universe. So charming ointments make an old witch fly, And bear a crippled carcase through the sky. 'Tis this exalted power, whose business lies In nonsense and impossibilities. This made a whimsical philosopher Before the spacious ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... spirit, The outward show above the inward life; A hollow lie, well varnished, well played out, Above the pure, the everlasting truth; Fancying Nature is not Nature still, Because repressed, or cheated, or concealed; Juggling ourselves with frauds a very child, Yet unperverted, readily would pierce! ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... meadows; shadowy groves where light is low; Lawns watered with the rills That cruel Love hath made me shed, Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe; Thou stream that still dost know What fell pangs pierce my heart, So dost thou murmur back my moan; Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone, While in our descant drear Love sings his part: Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air; List to the sound out-poured from my despair! Seven times and once more seven The roseate dawn her beauteous ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... is the enchanter who has awakened all these thousands to life, and still binds them to silence. His countenance is bright and clear, his glance seems to pierce the hill which divides him from the enemy, and to divine the moment of their attack. There is the ruler, whose will is law to all these thousands of men, whose word is now to lead them to death, ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... feebly, and cast his dilating eyes along the rows of faces. Most of them were but as blurs, swimming, yet he was aware (he thought) of a formidable and horrible impassive scrutiny of himself, a glare seeming to pierce through him to the back of the belt round his waist, so that he began to have fearful doubts about that belt, about every fastening and adjustment of his garments, about the expression of his countenance, and about many other things jumbling together in ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... such a manner as not only to possess a certain elasticity but also to be capable of receiving a fairly sharp edge. The scales of their armour, I was told, were also treated in the same way, and were so hard that it was impossible to pierce them either with sword or spear. Then I exhibited my hunting knife, which excited Pousa's highest admiration, and also a certain amount of apprehension when, of set purpose, I casually mentioned my conviction that I could drive the blade through the best scale armour that the Bandokolo ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... the last effort of ebbing life, he broke down the door, and saw his mistress writhing upon a sofa. Pauline had vainly tried to pierce her heart, and now thought to find a rapid death by strangling ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... the crossing of the isthmus I have seen soldiers, parched with thirst, and unable to wait till the hour for distribution of water, pierce the leathern bottles which contained it; and this conduct, so injurious ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... made in England for Italy attracts a great many visitors, and the large photographs which give the condition of the butt after each impact of the projectiles brings up again the double problem as it is stated: How to construct a gun and projectile which shall be able to pierce the heaviest armor; and how to construct armor which shall be proof against the heaviest shot. Many saw with interest in the Machinery Building at the Centennial the eight-inch armor-plating made by Cammell of Sheffield, tested in one case by nine spherical shots overlapping, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... In my flexible gloved hand I carried my only weapon, a small bullet projector with oxygen firing caps for use in this outside near-vacuum. The leaden bullet with its slight mass would nevertheless pierce a man at ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... of Franklin Pierce as President of the United States, Hawthorne was appointed consul at Liverpool, whither he sailed in 1853, resigning in 1857 to go to Rome, and returning to America four years later. "Our Old Home" is the fruit of this period spent in England. It was written at Concord, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... thousand men. Anne de Montmorency having received orders to defend southern France, began by laying it waste in order that the enemy might not be able to live in it; officers had orders to go everywhere and "break up the bake-houses and mills, burn the wheat and forage, pierce the wine-casks, and ruin the wells by throwing the wheat into them to spoil the water." In certain places the inhabitants resisted the soldiers charged with this duty; elsewhere, from patriotism, they themselves set fire to their corn-ricks and pierced ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... kite Was mounted to a wondrous height; Where, giddy with its elevation, It thus express'd self-admiration: "See how yon crowds of gazing people Admire my flight above the steeple; How would they wonder, if they knew All that a kite, like me, could do? Were I but free, I'd take a flight, And pierce the clouds beyond their sight. But, ah! like a poor prisoner bound, My string confines me near the ground. I'd brave the eagle's towering wing, Might I but fly without a string." It tugg'd and pull'd, while thus it spoke, To break ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... Priske there was no sign at all. We stared at each other and rubbed our eyes; we two, left alone out of our company of six. Although the sun would not pierce to the valley for another hour, it slanted already between the pine-stems on the ridge, and above us the sky ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... to observe under water better than its human enemies, and it was in no doubt as to its assailant. In an instant it attacked the giant, seeking to pierce him with ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... chamber, alone in the solemn stillness, deep in her heart an appeal that could not be uttered because of its intensity, her strained gaze fastened on the brilliant, star-lit skies as if she would pierce the mysteries of life and death and surprise some effluence of spirit-love—some smile of tenderness from the angel of her little child—a strange calm came to her—a dim perception of eternal values—of the nothingness of time and place—of the ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... bamboo that beareth fruit only when it is about to die, the son of Dhritarashtra winneth this treasure at play. Intoxicated, he perceiveth not in these his last moments that dice bring about enmity and frightful terrors. No man should utter harsh speeches and pierce the hearts of the others. No man should subjugate his enemies by dice and such other foul means. No one should utter such words as are disapproved by the Vedas and lead to hell and annoy others. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... blue. Northwood jerked off his coat and wrapped it around her, taking the intense cold against his unprotected shoulders. The low, gray sky was rapidly darkening, and the feeble light of the sun could scarcely pierce the clouds. It was disturbing to know that even the summer temperature in the Antarctic ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... way ... to beat the spirit down ... the eager spirit, superbly sane, daring to pierce the barriers between ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson
... Will Pitts and John Briggs still remained, with half a dozen others—schoolmates of the less adventurous sort. Buck Brown, who had been his rival in the spelling contests, was still there, and John Robards, who had worn golden curls and the medal for good conduct, and Ed Pierce. And while these were assembled in a little group on the pavement outside the home a small old man came up and put out his hand, and it was Jimmy MacDaniel, to whom so long before, sitting on the river-bank and eating gingerbread, he had first told the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... through the subtlety of the spirits that agitate them, that they can make them appear or disappear at pleasure. Some have bodies or vehicles so spongeous, thin, and defecat [pure] that they are fed by only sucking into some fine spirituous liquors, that pierce like pure air and oil; others feed more gross on the foyson [abundance] or substance of corn and liquors, or corn itself that grows on the surface of the earth, which these fairies steal away, partly invisible, partly preying on the grain, as do crows and mice; wherefore ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... he's gone, so he's gone. Did he come to take you home with him? Why didn't you go?—Oh, Marcia!" The brutal words had hardly escaped him when he ran to her as if he would arrest them before their sense should pierce her heart. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... wanted. A picture or two of previous Sir Thomas's might be seen on the walls, if you have an artistic friend who could arrange this; but it is a mistake to hang up your own ancestors, as some of your guests may recognise them, and thus pierce beneath the vraisemblance of ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... Her hands swept the audience. "'Marchons! Marchons!'" She pointed at the crowd. Each man felt her fiery glance pierce to him—France called—she was holding out her arms to her sons to ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... some distance above the masses of rolling vapors he found he was at no advantage, since the strongest telescope he could bring to bear could not pierce the cloud masses. ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... stunned and bewildered him, and his mind was a confused blur; then as she appeared again, smiling upon and in the embrace of another man, a sharp sword seemed to pierce his heart. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... Hollister who, at the time the Emerys began to pierce the upper crust, was the leader of Endbury society, had discarded chromos as much as five years before. Mrs. Emery and Marietta, newly admitted to the honor of her acquaintance, wondered to themselves at the cold monotony of her black and white engravings. The artlessness of this wonder ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... himself or his readers, and restrained always in utterance. It gives to those lighter matters on the surface of life and literature among which he for the most part moved, a wonderful force of expression, as if at any moment these slight words and fancies might pierce very far into the deeper soul of things. In his writing, as in his [122] life, that quiet is not the low-flying of one from the first drowsy by choice, and needing the prick of some strong passion or worldly ambition, to stimulate him into all the energy of which he ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... Stoutheart, with a laugh, "that she is more likely to put his heart wrong than his head right with these wicked black eyes of hers. Have a care, Glumm: they pierce deeper than the sword ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... various parts of North America. Dr Franklin is so well acquainted with the progress of the war in Canada, previous to his departure, that we need only observe, the campaign has ended as favorably for us in that quarter, as we could reasonably expect. The enemy, having been able to pierce no further than Crown Point, after a short stay, and reconnoitering General Gates' army, at Ticonderoga, thought proper to recross the lake, and leave us in quiet possession of those passes. General Gates, having left a proper force at ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... that gentle lady thought, Had joyed her love; and whom she hated so, Her to Death's door her anger would have brought, Unless she venged her sorrow on the foe. She wheeled her courser round, with fury fraught, Less with desire to lay her rival low, Than with the lance to pierce her in mid breast, And put ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... some one on whose countenance a faint gleam of comprehension was discernible—"tell these flapdoodles of the ages what I mean." With vanity, conceit, pretence of knowledge, she was merciless, if the pupil were a promising one; keen shafts of irony would pierce the sham. With some she would get very angry, lashing them out of their lethargy with fiery scorn; and in truth she made herself a mere instrument for the training of her pupils, careless what they, ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... the devout words; they seemed to take wing, as though to pierce the shrouding mist and scatter it; but they themselves were finally dissolved in the triumph and blackness. . ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... she was implacable. She was armoured by that phrase of hers, she'd "got to do the best for herself," and he knew he had no weapon to pierce ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... or sometimes from the stem of a very handsome variety of fern. This kind of wick was passed through a round hole at the end of the lamp, to which a sharp piece of hard wood was attached wherewith to pierce and draw it up whenever it showed signs ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... practise rapid turning and ramming floating rafts. The bows were strengthened by cross timbers in all the larger ships, and in the target work the crews were taught to concentrate the fire of several guns on one spot. But Tegethoff knew he had not a single gun in his fleet that could pierce the armour of the Italian vessels. He told his officers that for decisive results they must trust to the ram. He had painted his ships a dead black. The Italian colour was grey. "When we get into the fight," said Tegethoff, "you ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... occasionally acted as infantry; nor were they inferior to the rest of Scotland in forming that impenetrable phalanx of spears, whereof it is said, by an English historian, that "sooner shall a bare finger pierce through the skin of an angry hedge-hog, than any one encounter the brunt of their pikes." At the battle of Melrose, for example, Buccleuch's army fought upon foot. But the habits of the borderers fitted them particularly to distinguish themselves as light cavalry; ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... of them had observed the chief as he stood erect, motionless, poised like a stag scenting the air. His dark eyes seemed to pierce the purple-golden forest, his keen ear seemed to drink in the singing of the birds and the gentle rustling of leaves. Native to these haunts as were the wild creatures, they were no quicker than the Indian to feel the approach of foes. The breeze had ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... a delicious refreshing evening; the full moon rose calmly in the dark blue vault of the night-sky, and poured a flood of light down on the cool earth. But its rays did not give a strong enough light to pierce the misty veil that hung over the giant mass of the Holy Mountain; the city of the oasis on the contrary was fully illuminated; the broad roadway of the high-street looked to the wanderer who descended from the height above like a shining path of white marble, and the freshly plastered ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... paroled and allowed to retain their waiters. We were for several days entirely destitute of provisions except muscles, which we gathered from the muscle beds. I was at this time waiter to Captain Pierce Powers, master's mate of the Ranger. He treated me with ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... up long-absent heroes into day. When on the pausing theatre of earth Eve's shadowy curtain falls, can any man Bring back the far-off intercepted hills, Grasp the round rock-built turret, or arrest The glittering spires that pierce the brow of Heaven? Rather can any with outstripping voice The parting sun's gigantic strides recall? Twice sounded GEBIR! twice th' Iberian king Thought it the strong vibration of the brain That struck upon his ear; but now descried A form, a man, come nearer: ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... miracles, "which were such as no man could do except God were with him." They witnessed the wonders which attended his birth—those which attended, and followed his death—many of that nation, who had seen his crucifixion, and the soldier's spear pierce his heart while he hung on the cross, saw him alive after his passion; and a sufficient number, mostly, if not wholly Jews, witnessed his ascension. Yet as a people they rejected him, and continued in unbelief! Not only denied him before Pilate, but notwithstanding ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... the time when day still lingers, but some few stars begin faintly to pierce the twilight. The horizon was singular. The mist upon it varied. Haze predominated on land, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... thou surely art A creature of a 'fiery heart':— These notes of thine—they pierce and pierce; Tumultuous harmony and fierce! Thou sing'st as if the god of wine Had helped thee ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... man below, What can we reason, but from what we know? Of man, what see we but his station here From which to reason or to which refer? Through worlds unnumbered though the God be known, 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. He, who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs. What other planets circle other suns, What varied being peoples every star, May tell why Heaven has made us as we are. But of this frame the bearings, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... number of base scoundrels during my political life, but it was reserved for the gentlemen of Bristol to find among them a monster in human form, capable of committing so detestable and cowardly an act as that. The people of Bristol are proverbial for their bravery; witness the Belchers, Pierce, Neate, &c. but what is called the gentry of Bristol, with a very few exceptions, are the most mean, dastardly, selfish, and cowardly of their species. Burke's definition of a Bristol merchant is truly characteristic. "He has no church but the Exchange; ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... pierce anything. They'll go through a brick wall as easily as the x-rays do. That's one valuable feature of my rifle. You don't have to see the object you aim at. In fact you can fire through a house, and kill something ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... the water. The captain, standing like a statue, waited until the craft was within ten feet of the unconscious swordfish, then thrust downward with all his might. It was a thrust—not a throw—and the muscular strength behind the blow caused the steel to pierce the thick skin of the swordfish. At the same instant the keg around which the line had been wound was thrown overboard, and the water flew up like a fine jet from the rapid revolutions of the barrel as the swordfish sped ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... smiling at the Baroness's clever coquetry, when I decided to follow the inspirations of my heart, instead of choosing selfish motives as my guide. Every time I took her hand when dancing with her, I expected to feel a little claw ready to pierce the cold glove. But, while waiting for the scratch, it was a very soft, velvety little hand that was given me; and I, who willingly lent myself to her deception, did not feel very much duped. It was evident ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... battle: Words like flaming stars Shot down with power to burn the palaces; Words like bright javelins to fly with fierce Hate of the oily Philistines and glide Through all the seven heavens till they pierce The pious hypocrites who dare to creep Into the Holy Places. "Then," I cried, "I am a fire to rend and roar and leap; I am all joy and song, all sword and flame!" Ha—you observe me passionate. I aim ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... the land would not become valuable in his time, but that it would be a commodious provision for his children some day. It contained coal, copper, iron and timber, and he said that in the course of time railways would pierce to that region, and then the property would be property in fact as well as in name. It also produced a wild grape of a promising sort. He had sent some samples to Nicholas Longworth, of Cincinnati, to get his judgment upon them, and Mr. Longworth had said that ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... wildly o'er her bed; Like a wretched corse upon the shore, That lies until the morning brings Searchings, and shrieks, and sorrowings; Or, haply, to all eyes unknown, Is borne away without a groan, On a chance plank, 'mid joyful cries Of birds that pierce the sunny skies With seaward dash, or in calm bands Parading o'er the silvery sands, Or mid the lovely flush of shells, Pausing to burnish crest or wing. No fading footmark see that tells Of that poor ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... ho! and wake Diana with a hymn: With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear, And draw her home ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... the most intelligent of all animals in the matter of training, have been educated to fight in the arena, usually by pushing each other head to head. A fighting tusker can lord it over almost any number of tuskless elephants, because he can pierce their vitals, and they cannot pierce his. A female fights by hitting with her head, striking her antagonist amidships, if possible. Once when the late G. P. Sanderson was in a keddah, noosing wild elephants, and was assulted [sic] by a vicious tusker, his life was saved ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... Pennsylvania determined to fit out a vessel or two at its own expense, and with this view a small merchant ship, called the Hyder All, then lying outward-bound with a cargo of flour, was purchased. It took but a few days to discharge her freight, to pierce her for sixteen guns, and to provide her with an armament. Volunteers flocked to offer themselves for her crew. The command was given to Barney, and, at the head of a convoy of outward-bound merchantmen, he stood down the bay, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... words he bowed again to me, while his sad eyes seemed to pierce my soul; and then he quietly closed the wicket and fastened it with a heavy bolt, and I knew that we must ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... there were no palaces to guard, no insane ruler to protect, no one came to question the purpose of the benighted wanderers, nor did sudden outbursts of laughter or good cheer pierce the mud walls of the humble abodes that lay scattered on ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... twenty-five years of age I was present at a temperance meeting at Lowell, held in an unfinished factory building called the Prescott Mills. After some speaking, in which I had taken a part, the Rev. Dr. Pierce, then a white-headed gentleman of seventy years, whom I had seen as an overseer of Harvard College, came to me, introduced himself, and after a little conversation he asked me where I was born. When I answered Brookline, ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... confidence that Germany's previous violent attacks along the Bzura-Rawka front would never pierce the Russian line, but the present colossal co-ordinate movement was developed with such suddenness, and has been carried so far without meeting serious Russian resistance, that more and more the British press is discounting ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... population of Petropavlovsk. Crossing the bay under spritsail and jib, with a slashing breeze from the south-west, we ran swiftly into the mouth of the Avacha River, and landed at the village to refresh ourselves for the fifteenth time with "fifteen drops," and take leave of our American friends, Pierce, Hunter, and Fronefield. Copious libations were poured out to the tutelary saint of Kamchatkan explorers, and giving and receiving three hearty cheers we pushed off and began to make our way slowly up the river with poles and paddles toward the Kamchadal ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... select party, sir," remarked Carrick in comment, while Carter still tried to pierce the gloom to establish the identity ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... find so many readers in juvenile quarters, that it has required a certain amount of courage to place them also on my Index Expurgatorius! Turning once again to writers of the sterner sex, I have ruled out C. R. Maturin, G. W. M. Reynolds, and Pierce Egan, Junr.; and (quitting the "sensational" for the "mildly entertaining") out of the Rev. J. M. Neale's many historical tales I have selected only one—"Theodora Phranza," which, besides being well written, has the merit of dealing with a somewhat neglected period. Stories possessing a background ...
— A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales • Jonathan Nield
... front lines, for no lights are permitted on any machines, official or otherwise, after a certain point is reached. One of the favorite outdoor sports of this preacher for a month was to lie on his stomach on the front mud-guard of a big Pierce-Arrow through the war-zone roads, bumping over shell-holes, with a little pocket flash-light playing on the ground, searching out the shell-holes, and trying to help the driver keep in the road. It is a delightful occupation about two o'clock in the morning, ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... body had gained strength, so that he was clothed at times, to wander aimlessly about the ward. But he had remained dazed. Now and then the curtain of the past lifted, but for a moment only. He had forgotten his name. He spent long hours struggling to pierce the mist. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... snail's pace to Elizabeth. She could realize nothing but that her father was in danger. After hearing Nora's reasons for this sudden journey, she spoke no word but sat rigid, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She was leaning forward, trying to pierce the darkness of the road before them. The rain beat into her face. Her cap and veil were drenched ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... rumbling arose, and waves of life seemed to surge up and circle around her. Echoes, odors, and even light streamed against her face, though her hands were still nervously pressed to it. At times sudden gleams appeared to pierce her closed eyelids, and amidst the radiance she imagined she saw monuments, steeples, and domes standing out in the diffuse light of dreamland. Then she lowered her hands and, opening her eyes, was dazzled. The vault of heaven ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... where Santa Anna had concentrated his whole force. Here the river was protected by levees, the head of the bridge strongly fortified, and the stone convent surrounded by a strong field-work. The attack on the bridge and the convent was desperate. Pierce and Shields had made a detour to the main road in the rear of Churubusco. They struck the Mexican reserves, and all the troops on both sides were engaged. Worth and Pellow carried the bridge in time to save Pierce and Shields. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... mind this golden rule: that the feet are to be placed at true angles, with the line of the mark running, as it were, fairly through the heels: thus," and he took the position, fitted an arrow to his bow, and, scarce looking towards the target, flew his shaft so straightly as to pierce the very center of the bull. "Try now to notch the arrow," said Warrenton, ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... that four proximate effects may be ascribed to love: viz. melting, enjoyment, languor, and fervor. Of these the first is "melting," which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen, are closely bound together, so as to be hard to pierce. But it belongs to love that the appetite is fitted to receive the good which is loved, inasmuch as the object loved is in the lover, as stated above (A. 2). Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love: ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... remember that Desmond and I influence each other to act alike? And that we comprehend each other without collision? I love him, as a mature woman may love,—once, Ben, only once; the fire-tipped arrows rarely pierce soul ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... your argument. You are then compelled, you see, to throw yourself exclusively upon the alleged historic discrepancies; they become your sole weapon; and if it pierces the New Testament history, I want to know whether it does not equally pierce all other remote history too? In truth, if, as you and Mr. Fellowes agree,—I only doubt,—a miracle is impossible, nothing can (as I think) be more strange, than that, instead of reposing in that simple fact, which you say is demonstrable, you ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... was a fool. Thou searching humane nature, that didst wake To do me wrong, thou art inquisitive, And thrusts me upon questions that will take My sleep away; would I had died ere known This sad dishonour; pardon me my friend; If thou wilt strike, here is a faithful heart, Pierce it, for I will never heave my hand To thine; behold the power thou hast in me! I do believe my Sister is a Whore, A Leprous one, put up thy ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... praised the merciful God all together, and took heart, insomuch that they were ready not only to fight with men, but with most cruel beasts, and to pierce through walls ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... the early part of their journey, did a gleam of joyousness pierce the dull glaze of Mr. Ducksmith's eyes. He had procured from the bookstall of a station a pile of English newspapers, and was reading them in the train, while his wife knitted the interminable sock. Suddenly he folded a Daily Telegraph, ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... assigns as their opposites. For dulness is contrary to sharpness, since an intellect is said, by comparison, to be sharp, when it is able to penetrate into the heart of the things that are proposed to it. Hence it is dulness of mind that renders the mind unable to pierce into the heart of a thing. A man is said to be a fool if he judges wrongly about the common end of life, wherefore folly is properly opposed to wisdom, which makes us judge aright about the universal cause. Ignorance implies a defect in the mind, even about any particular ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... against all men from of old Thou hast set thine hand as a curse, And cast out gods from their places. These things are spoken of thee. Strong kings and goodly with gold Thou hast found out arrows to pierce, And made their kingdoms and races As dust and surf of the sea. All these, overburdened with woes And with length of their days waxen weak, Thou slewest; and sentest moreover Upon Tyro an evil thing, ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Athene came to Perseus in a dream, and let us make believe that we are dreaming now. She had great gray eyes, clear and piercing, and she knew all thoughts of men's hearts and the secrets of their souls. My eyes are not gray, Alec, nor can they pierce as hers; but I can borrow her beautiful words, and tell you that she turns her face from the creatures of clay. They may 'fatten at ease like sheep in the pasture, and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. They grow ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... Girl!" says Father; "I've heard enough, and too much. Tis Time wasted to reason with a Woman. I do believe there never yet was one who would not start aside like a broken Bow, or pierce the Side like a snapt Reed, at the very Moment most Dependance was placed in her. Let her Husband humour her to the Top of her Bent,—she takes French Leave of him, departs to her own Kindred, and makes Affection for her Childhood's Home the Pretext for defying the Laws ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning |
