"Piercing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... carry away water. Of this I am sure: within the rocky circle of the mountain whither we journey was once a great lake. But those who were before us, by wonderful arts of which I know naught, hewed a path for the water through the solid rock of the mountain, piercing even to the bed of the lake. But first they cut the channel that thou seest across the plain. Then, when at last the water burst out, it rushed down the channel that had been made to receive it, and crossed ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... thousands of miles apart. They have never met before,—they will probably never meet again. The fleet of flats covers, perhaps, a surface of several acres. "Fowls are fluttering over the roofs as invariable appendages. The piercing note of the chanticleer is heard. The cattle low. The horses trample as in their stables. The swine scream, and fight with each other. The turkeys jobble. The dogs of a hundred regions become acquainted. The boatmen travel about from boat to boat, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... strikes the hour—as a giant should who has struck it for centuries—with a grand, whole-arm movement, and a slow, muscular pride. We look up—we tourists of the red-backed books; we peasant-girls radiant with converging darts of silver piercing the masses of our thick black hair; we Austrian soldiers in white coats and blue tights; we voiceful sellers of the cherries of Padua, and we calm loafers about the many- pillared base of the church—we look up and see the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... in Gladwin's gaze as he sized up the big man—again from his shining patent leather shoes to his piercing eyes and broad, intellectual forehead. He fairly jumped when the command was repeated to take down the Rubens and hand it to him. As he ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... hearts of the hearers. Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, her face looking backward Still at the face of the speaker, her arms uplifted in horror; But John Alden upstarting, as if the barb of the arrow 910 Piercing the heart of his friend had struck his own, and sundered Once and forever the bonds that held him bound as a captive, Wild with excess of sensation, the awful delight of his freedom, Mingled with pain and regret, unconscious of what he was doing, Clasped, ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... heir of the Luxembourgs, as precious for history as for art, wherein may be seen collected together, by the side of the sword of the Constable Anne, the likeness of Luxembourg on horseback, with his proud and piercing glance, as well as the full-length portrait of Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, Princess de Conde, in widow's weeds, there is also a large and magnificent picture, representing a young woman of ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... illustration of the manner of his death; for instance, St. Peter on a cross, upside down; St. Thomas being killed by the spears of savages; St. Simon being sawn asunder. Near the beginning of the volume is a print of the Blessed Virgin with a sword piercing her body, and surrounded by seven medallions, showing "the seven griefs." The parable of "The mote and the beam" is quaintly depicted by two men standing near together, one with an enormous log of wood, equal in length to a third of his height, projecting unsupported from his ...
— Little Gidding and its inmates in the Time of King Charles I. - with an account of the Harmonies • J. E. Acland
... remarkably handsome man; some years past forty, I should judge; with long black hair, an aquiline nose, broad cheek-bones, a sunburnt complexion, and a very bright, keen, dark, and piercing eye. There were but twenty thousand of the Choctaws left, he said, and their number was decreasing every day. A few of his brother chiefs had been obliged to become civilised, and to make themselves acquainted with what the whites knew, for ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... reopened the wound he had inflicted, and inspired her with a wild desire to see him. She therefore wisely concluded that all correspondence between them must cease. In December, 1795, while he was still in Paris, she bade him her last farewell, though in so doing she was, as she says, piercing her own heart. She refused to hold further communication with him or to receive his money, but she told him she would not interfere in anything he might wish to do for Fanny. Here it may be said that, though Imlay declared ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... strength of his jaws, and holding him in a tight embrace, rolled with him about the bed, so that Scoronconcolo was unable to strike the one without striking the other. He endeavoured to get at the Duke from between Lorenzino's legs, but only succeeded in piercing the mattress, till at last he remembered that he had a knife about him, and drove it into the Duke's throat, turning it round and round until he eventually killed ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... small, office-like apartment, the key turned in the lock, and she was left alone. Frantic with excitement and fear, she let out three or four piercing screams, rattled the knob, and pounded the door until her fists were sore, but no one came to release her, and after a few moments she seemed to realize how useless it was to expect help from that quarter. She looked around her prison hopefully, curiously, ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... An elderly western farmer, with silver spectacles, new and glossy evening clothes, bony features, and stiff; thin, gray hair, trying to address a large crowd of people, under the drawbacks of a piercing wind and a cold in his head, was not a hero. Sybil's mind was lost in wondering whether the President would not soon die of pneumonia. Even this experience, however, was happy when compared with that of the call upon the President's wife, after which Madeleine decided ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... The original end of painting their bodies was, probably, to exclude the cold; an end which, if we believe some relations, is so effectually produced by it, that the men thus painted never shiver at the most piercing blasts. But, doubtless, any people, so hardened by continual severities, would, even without paint, be less sensible of the cold than the civilized inhabitants of the same climate. However, this practice may contribute, in some degree, to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... no beauty in this wealthy dame; 'Neath the dark lashes of her downcast eyes A weeping spirit lurks. And when she smiles, 'Tis but the sunbeams of an April day, Piercing a watery cloud.—S.M. ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... his draggled skirt and drew a bowie-knife from his boot. From his bosom he took a revolver, turning the chambers noiselessly as he felt the caps. He then crept toward the cabin softly and gained the shed. It was quite dark but for a pencil of light piercing a crack of the rude, ill-fitting door that opened on the sitting-room. A single voice not unfamiliar to him, raised in half-brutal triumph, greeted his ears. A name was mentioned—his own! His angry hand was on the latch. One moment more and he would have burst the ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... so genuine in its amazement and dismay, that the three men with one accord looked quickly up at her, then at the point on which her terrified gaze was fixed. Almost on the instant of the woman's cry, was heard a shrill, piercing, feminine scream. ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... saw the Lake of Como glittering in sunlight, dazzling cloaks of snow on all the mountains, which look as dry and brown as dead beech-leaves at this season. Our Bacchic journey had reached its close; and it boots not here to tell in detail how we made our way across the Spluegen, piercing its avalanches by low-arched galleries scooped from the solid snow, and careering in our sledges down perpendicular snow-fields, which no one who has crossed that pass from the Italian side in winter will forget. We left the refuge station at the top together with a train of wine-sledges, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... right of rendering them productive! Besides one ought not to give way to illusions: these countries, at times so delightful, do not enjoy a perpetual spring; they have their winter, and a rigorous one; a piercing cold is then spread through the atmosphere; deep snows cover the surface; the frozen rivers flow only for the fish; the trees are stripped of their leaves and hung with icicles; the verdure of the plains has disappeared; the hills and valleys offer but a uniform whiteness; ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... across our stage here; and London, with all its wonders, was at our doors, the wide expanse of its smoke-piercing towers visible in our distance. All the while my father kept the official part of himself at Liverpool, where his consular duties still claimed his attention; he went and came between Mrs. Blodgett's ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... writings they are girded, and wear thick or embroidered Phrygian robes. Mercury stands with them for the same reason, not because argument or eloquence commends benefits, but because the painter chose to do so. Also Chrysippus, that man of piercing intellect who saw to the very bottom of truth, who speaks only to the point, and makes use of no more words than are necessary to express his meaning, fills his whole treatise with these puerilities, insomuch ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... hard and strong in body. They were altogether alive like Him that made them in His image, like people in that unfallen country. But presently they thought it better to be safe, as if safety mattered, or anything but the exaltation of the heart and to have eyes that danger had made grave and piercing. We must overthrow ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... common feat of his craft, and, baring his arm, he struck the blow—not now fatal, for before even a hair had been injured, his arm was paralysed, the knife dropped from his hand, and the whole company was electrified by a piercing cry that awakened an echo in a dozen hills, and made the welkin ring again; and lo and behold! the whole assemblage saw a female figure, clad in green, with uplifted arms, standing on one of the rocks overhanging Llyn Barfog, and heard ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... was too much in the habit of hearing sarcastic, and to him incomprehensible speeches from her ladyship, to take any extraordinary notice of this; and if Belinda blushed, it was merely from the confusion into which she was thrown by the piercing glance of Lady Delacour's black eyes—a glance which neither guilt nor innocence could withstand. Belinda imagined that her ladyship still retained some displeasure from the conversation that had passed the preceding night, and the first time that she was alone with Lady Delacour, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... the bench, crossed the room, opened the door, and stepped outside. Not a star was to be seen, and the wind was stronger than ever. It was keen, piercing. But the man heeded neither the one nor the other. He was listening intently, and the faint sound of Break Neck Falls drifting in from the distance was to him the ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... only are all textile fabrics operated upon, but even the thickest leather is dealt with, and as a tour de force, but as a matter of fact, sheet-iron plates themselves have been pierced, and have been united by a seam no boilermaker ever contemplated, the piercing and the seam being produced by a Blake sewing machine. I believe all in this section will agree that the use of the sewing machine has been unattended by loss to those who earn their living by the needle; in fact, it would not be too much to say that there has been ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... stand before him, and bow their greetings askance with cold obeisance. Then there was one man who did not even bow, but sought a meeting only that he might provoke him with his obstinate sullenness, and gaze upon him with his piercing eyes—his own brother. Yet they were both honorable, good men, true Christians, benefactors of the poor, the darlings of their family, and once so fond of each other! Oh, this sorrowful earth here ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... envied Mrs. Helm in her drawing-room, richly attired and sparkling with jewels, or as she moved with the stately step of a queen among her trembling slaves, they should have beheld her on her death bed! They should have listened to her groans and cries for help, while one piercing shriek after another rang through the princely mansion of which she had been ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... a perfect and easy command over his own conceptions, and over the apt and vivid language which is their expression. Few men have entered so deeply into the ideas and feelings of the time, or have looked at the world, its history and its conditions, with so large and piercing an insight. But it is idle to dwell on what must strike, at first sight, any one who but opens the book. We go on to observe, what is equally beyond dispute, the deep tone of religious seriousness ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... "that in the time that thou dwelt among us thou wert renowned for thy skill in hunting and fishing. No one equalled thee in taking fishes in a net or in piercing with ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... piercing and morose glance at him, moved his right hand as if about to extend it, dropped ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Man had listened without an interruption. He sat leaning slightly forward, knees crossed, the left arm folded to support the elbow of the right, and his chin in his cupped right hand. His eyes had the piercing clear directness of an eagle's; they burned with an unwavering pale flame. Shrewder far than I, he saw the great advantage of knowing the worst, of at last thoroughly understanding Hunter and Inglesby and the motives which moved them. ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... blow on the crown of his head, so severe, and fierce, and violent, that his head and his neck were split down to his shoulders, and he fell dead. So Geraint left him thus and returned to Enid. And when he reached the place where she was he fell down lifeless from his horse. Piercing and loud and thrilling was the cry that Enid uttered. And she came and stood over him where he had fallen. And at the sound of her cries came the Earl of Limours, and they who journeyed with him, whom her lamentations brought out ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... cried the furious priest; and at the same moment springing forward and seizing an instrument from the hands of one of the tormentors, he struck it into the shoulder of Macer, and the lacerated arm fell from the bleeding trunk. A piercing ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... it at this moment again, and can hardly write for them; yet I wish you to know all this piercing ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... not answer, though Rush was looking full upon him; neither did he avoid the long and piercing gaze the stranger fixed upon him. He met that like ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... of a pike foot within a yard of his head, so imminent, that for an instant he thought it was at his own panel. There followed a splintering sound of a pike-head in the same place. He understood. They were sounding on the woodwork and piercing all that rang hollow.... His ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... white one, then another black one—there must have been a dozen of them. Yergunov looked to see which was the biggest, swung his whip and lashed at it with all his might. A small, long-legged puppy turned its sharp muzzle upwards and set up a shrill, piercing howl. ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the doctor or me, but to the man on the jetty. Hrolfur vouchsafed me one quick, unfriendly glance, but apart from that scarcely seemed to notice me. The look in those sharp, haunting eyes went through me like a knife. Never before had anyone looked at me with a glance so piercing ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... species of exhalation. Such is, in all its simple modesty, the aspect of a temple consecrated to the worship of Bacchus and Terpsichore. At first, by a very natural optical illusion, we are struck by the confined space before us, but the eye, after a time, piercing through the thick atmosphere of a thousand vapours which are most inodorous, the extent becomes visible by details which escape in the first chaotic glimpse. It is the moment of creation, all is bright, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... repeated the minister, after a pause. "Nod, if you can't speak," murmured the bridegroom. His words were the hiss of a serpent in her ears. Her will resisted no longer; her soul was wholly possessed by unreasoning terror of the man and horror of the marriage. "No! no! no!" she screamed in piercing tones, and snatching her hand from the bridegroom, she threw herself upon the breast of the astonished minister, sobbing wildly as she clung to him, "Save me, save me! Take me away! I can't marry him,—I can't! Oh, ...
— At Pinney's Ranch - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... came down from the lower part of the mountains. It began with a deep, long-drawn, hollow cry, between a howl and a moan, and then broke into a wild, piercing shriek. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... feet six inches in height and of slender figure, he gave the random impression of being a mild, meek man, characterized by excessive timidity. His complexion was swarthy and partly hidden by closely-trimmed black whiskers; his eyes were dark, vulpine and acutely piercing; his forehead was high. His voice was very low, soft ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... She gives a piercing whistle, and a large bird, descending from the sky, alights on the top of her head-dress, from which he scatters the blue powder. His plumage, of orange colour, seems composed of metallic scales. His dainty head, adorned with a silver tuft, exhibits a human visage. He has four wings, a vulture's ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... (which piqued her most) How through the deepest riddles he could spy; How all the curious arts that women boast Were quite transparent to his piercing eye; And so the queen had come—a royal guest— To put the sage's cunning to ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... overshadowed by the facile art of Raemaekers (imagine Goya overshadowed by Reynolds!), once represented Unamuno as an owl. A marvellous thrust at the heart of Unamuno's character. For all this vitality and ever-moving activity of mind is shot through by the absolute immobility of two owlish eyes piercing the darkness of spiritual night. And this intense gaze into the mystery is the steel axis round which his spirit revolves and revolves in desperation; the unity under his multiplicity; the one fire under his passions and the inspiration of ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... at him a piercing glance whose meaning was unmistakable, did not unclasp the hands behind ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... the look of terrific awe on the faces of these quaint savages. Let us imagine our own feelings on being, without warning, confronted by a caravan of strange prehistoric monsters; imagine an Easter holiday tripper surrounded by the fearful beasts at the Crystal Palace suddenly brought to life! What piercing shrieks they gave forth, as, leaving their hunting implements, they raced away, to drop, all at once, behind a low bush, where, like the ostrich, they hid their heads, and so hoped ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... a piercing cry and fell bleeding at the feet of its master, who answered it with a roar of anger. For a few seconds he stood motionless with surprise and fury. Then suddenly, taking the palpitating victim by the feet, he lifted it up, and, coming towards us, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Vether to the isle of Wizards, where he descended alone into the dreary vault in which a magician had been kept bound for six ages, and read the Gothick characters inscribed on his brazen mace. His eye was so piercing, that, as ancient chronicles report, he could blunt the weapons of his enemies only by looking at them. At twelve years of age he carried an iron vessel of a prodigious weight, for the length of five furlongs, in the presence of all the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... schooled them to prudence. De Boigne came up in the grey of the morning, when the indolent Hindus were completely off their guard. And when the Rajah and his companions were roused from the drunken dreams of Madhu, they already found the camp deserted, and the army in confusion. Fifty field pieces were piercing the lines with an incessant discharge of grape-shot, and Colonel Rohan who commanded de Boigne's right wing had, with unauthorised audacity, thrown himself into the midst of the camp at the head of three battalions. Rallying a strong body ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... instant a piercing scream seemed to come from the sea out beyond the surf, some yards higher up the coast. "Help! help! ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... to choose, Lest he the better gift should lose; And so resolved our prudent pair, The gifts in common they would share. The well was open to the sky. As o'er its curb they keenly pry, It seems a tunnel piercing through, From sky to sky, from blue to blue; And, at its nether mouth, each sees A brace of their antipodes, With earnest faces peering up, As if themselves might seek the cup. 'Ha!' said the elder, with ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... be the very counterpart of Uganda in its richness and beauty. Here the people use such huge iron-headed spears with short handles, that, on seeing one to-day, my people remarked that they were better fitted for digging potatoes than piercing men. Elephants, as we had seen by their devastations during the last two marches, were very numerous in this neighbourhood. Till lately, a party from Unyoro, ivory-hunting, had driven them away. Lions were also described as very numerous and destructive to human life. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... A shrill piercing scream, like the cry of a tortured soul, rang out of the forest, rising clear and trembling above the tolling of the bell and the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a cottage stood, A piercing wind swept round and shook the door, The shrunken door, and easy way made good, And drave long drifts of snow along the floor. It sparkled there like diamonds, for the moon Was shining in, and night ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... regretfully that we'd have to go outside and meet the folks. Outside, our guards—Hoddy, the two Marines, the Rangers who had escorted us from Palme's office, and Hutchinson's retinue—surrounded us, and we made our way down the plaza, through the crowd. The din—ear-piercing yells, whistles, cowbells, pistol shots, the cacophony of the two dance-bands, and the chorus-singing, of which I caught only the words: The skies of freedom are above you!—was as bad as New Year's Eve in Manhattan or Nairobi or New ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... which died down to be caught up and prolonged and deepened into a steady roar, as Marsh came slowly forward. He stood there bareheaded, impassive and quiet, listening to the great voice of the mass. At last he turned to the chairman. The latter picked up a whistle, and at that piercing call to order slowly the cheering began to subside. Faces pressed eagerly closer. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... declined such a sudden meeting, but before he could think of any excuse, a portly, fine looking man, with flowing chin beard and dark, piercing eyes, stopped as he was ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... and at a place where it seems to me, looking back, it must be always autumn and generally Sunday, there came suddenly upon the face of all I saw—the long empty road, the lines of the tall houses, the church upon the hill, the woody hillside garden—a look of such a piercing sadness that my heart died; and seating myself on a door-step, I shed tears of miserable sympathy. A benevolent cat cumbered me the while with consolations—we two were alone in all that was visible of the London Road: two poor waifs who had each tasted sorrow—and she fawned upon the weeper, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the young donkey's song was a most symphonious and harmonious, sweet song; so he continues to bray as melodiously as ever. There is, we believe, a moral to this parable, if we only knew what it was. Perhaps the piercing eye of the 'Nocturnal Whistler' ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... gasping, struggling, fighting for life, with an awful sensation of being sunk in a gulf of blackness. I fancied I heard Lillian Underwood's voice in a piercing scream. Then I ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... twin-born beings,—the one, in form and features the image of manly beauty,—the other, of feminine grace and gentleness; but to each of whom, alas! was allotted a sad privation. While the bright eyes of Reason are full of piercing and restless intelligence, his ear is closed to sound; and while Faith has an ear of exquisite delicacy, on her sightless orbs, as she lifts them towards heaven, the sunbeam plays in vain. Hand in hand the brother and sister, ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... Similarly, the problem of life is for the upper man to educate, control, and transmute the lower forces into sympathy and service. The combative powers once turned against his fellows must be turned against nature and used for hewing down the forests, bridging rivers, piercing mountains. Thus every animal force and passion becomes sacred through consecration to mental and spiritual ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... bright and piercing under his bushy white brows, had already detected his boy from a distance; and they twinkled as he took note, with all the pride of an author in his work, of the symmetry of limb and shoulders set forth by the ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... watch at the top of the shaft, Tom and Ned went out into the jungle to hunt. They had killed some game, and were stalking a fine big deer, which would provide a feast for the natives, when suddenly the silence of the lonely forest was broken by a piercing scream, followed by an agonized cry ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... sub-races—probably the fifth. "His stature was gigantic, somewhere between twelve and fifteen feet. His skin was very dark, being of a yellowish brown colour. He had a long lower jaw, a strangely flattened face, eyes small but piercing and set curiously far apart, so that he could see sideways as well as in front, while the eye at the back of the head—on which part of the head no hair, of course, grew—enabled him to see in that direction also. He had no forehead, but there seemed to be a roll of flesh where it should ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... barbs, and other tools made of reindeer horn, and a bodkin formed out of the more compact horn of the roedeer. This instrument was well shaped, and sharply pointed, and in so good a state of preservation that it might still be used for piercing the ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... phenomenon—in history. Physically and mentally of sanguine temperament, blue-eyed, fair, of a complexion singularly white but blushing with every passionate emotion—though otherwise a handsome man with piercing eyes—he seemed hardly destined to be of more moment to the state than his ancestors, who since the days of his great-great-grandfather Publius Cornelius Rufinus (consul in 464, 477), one of the most distinguished generals and at the same time the most ostentatious man of the times of Pyrrhus, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... inches square, is fixed; allowing the foul air to escape into the passage; and in the ceiling of the passage a similar sheet of zinc, allowing it to escape into the roof. Fresh air, meanwhile, should be obtained from outside, by piercing the windows, or otherwise. And here let me give one hint to all builders of houses: If possible, let bedroom windows open at the top as well ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... ten minutes. He could hear the singing and yelling, though he could not make out the words because of the noise of the elements. But then suddenly, above all the confusion, he heard a woman's shrieks piercing and shrill; and he started up and sprang into the hall. Whether they were cries of anger, or of fear, or of pain, Samuel could not be certain; but he knew that they were not cries ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... give Unto the judge, in lechery to live, He went him home, and sat him in his hall, And let anon his deare daughter call; And with a face dead as ashes cold Upon her humble face he gan behold, With father's pity sticking* through his heart, *piercing All* would he from his purpose not convert.** *although **turn aside "Daughter," quoth he, "Virginia by name, There be two wayes, either death or shame, That thou must suffer, — alas that I was bore!* *born For never thou deservedest wherefore To dien with a sword ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... One sudden, piercing shriek, and she dropped at his feet, grasping at the ground, and writhing in agony. Her soul seemed striving to recover the shock, and recollect its faculties. She half arose upon her elbow, supported her head upon her ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the young timber and bushes lining the stream, and ate lunch. Before lunch was finished, two Indian girls came down the river. The younger, tall, slender and graceful, dressed in bright, clean scarlet, was a picture. With her jet black hair hanging in shining plaits, her piercing eyes and handsome face, she was the most comely, sylph-like Indian ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... mention of the mother of Jesus is in the story of the cross. Ah, holy mother-love, constant and faithful to the end! At length Simeon's prophecy is fulfilled,—a sword is piercing the mother's soul also. "Jesus was crucified on the cross; Mary was crucified at the foot ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... did not often give way to his feelings. He quickly got a fresh grip on his emotions and could talk calmly again. But there was a gleam in those piercing eyes of his, undimmed by age, that made Owen glad he did not stand in the ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... stratum. It was a natural consequence that a substratum impervious to water should form a bed at a certain level to retain the drainage: by tapping this bed at any point, the water would be discovered; but by piercing the surface below this level, the hydraulic pressure would force the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... through the harder manner he saw her gentleness and tender love. He knew that he was all in the world to both of them, that in his hands lay their happiness and their misery. Their love made them feel every act of his with a force out of reason to the circumstance. He had seen in their letters, piercing through the assumed cheerfulness, a mortal anxiety when he was in danger, an anguish of mind that seemed hardly bearable. They had gone through so much for his sake; they deprived themselves of luxury, so that, in the various expenses of his regiment, he should not need ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... mad course at the first base by one of the shrillest shrieks of "Stop!" that ever burst from human lung. The next time the ball was hit she set him going again by a companion shriek; and with others of a like piercing quality (they seemed to flow from her lungs in an inexhaustible abundance) she guided him safely round the bases and home. From the blundering, stumbling way he ran, her shrieks seemed to be the only things in the world of which he ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... and sent an arrow through the arm of an old Centaur, which unhappily went quite through and fell on Chiron's knee, piercing the flesh. Then for the first time Hercules recognized his friend of former days, ran to him in great distress, pulled out the arrow, and laid healing ointment on the wound, as the wise Chiron himself had ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... and his piercing eyes blazed upon the youth. "By my father's soul! I can scarce forbear to strike you to the earth! But this I promise you, that if you show that sign of the Red Griffin in the field and if you be taken alive in to-morrow's battle, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to me, he looked through and through me with his horrible piercing glance, so that I sat quite uneasily on my bench. He continued: "Did I question her awake? I knew she would lie to me. Poor child! I loved her no less because I did not believe a word she said. I loved her blue eye, her golden hair, her delicious voice, that was ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... only one note—and not very much of that; but he would be surprised indeed at the volume of sound, the range, and the command over the instrument which a veteran boatswain would soon make everyday matter to him. Not only do these experts sound the regular calls with ear-piercing exactness, but actual tunes are ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... instant the animal was leaping and bounding within two or three yards of them, snarling savagely, and then making the hill-side ring with its piercing barks. It belonged to one of the guards, and had been prowling about in search of food when it caught the scent ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... more quickly in my life, for as I hastily slipped on my things, there was the sharp report of a gun or pistol, and a loud crash as of a door being burst in. Then the hush and quiet was at an end; there was a piercing shriek, another shot, followed by the sounds of struggling, loud and angry voices, then cries for help; and I made for the deck as quickly as I could, to find all in darkness. But men were running here and there, a sharp voice was giving orders, ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... we were obliged to send word to this effect to our Portland patrons. The next morning Addison and I rode home on old Jim and Buckskin, with their harness tied up in a bundle before us. The wind was piercing and bleak; we were both so chilled as to be ill of a cold for several days afterward. The story that we had to tell at home was far from being an inspiriting one. Not only had we lost our load, traverse sleds and rack, but in due time we had a bill of ten dollars to pay the hotel keeper for his ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... sensitive skill, the airs they loved. He had just finished "Annie Laurie"—"Man," Phineas used to declare, "when Doggie Trevor plays 'Annie Laurie,' he has the power to take your heart by the strings and drag it out through your eyes"—he had just come to the end of this popular and gizzard-piercing tune and received his meed of applause, when Toinette came out of the kitchen, two great zinc crocks in her hands, and crossed to the pump in the corner of the yard. Three or four would-be pumpers, among them Doggie, went to ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... he had called her to her account. He charged them to make their preparation now closing, by bringing before their minds that great day when the Judge of the earth would summon before him every soul he had made. None could escape his all-piercing eye; the king and his subject, the rich and the poor the strong and the weak, the learned and the ignorant the white and the colored, the master and his slave! each to render his or her account for the deeds ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... the cruelties which their religion entails upon the Hindoos, Mr. Styles is peculiarly severe upon us for not being more shocked at their piercing their limbs with kimes. This is rather an unfair mode of alarming his readers with the idea of some unknown instrument. He represents himself as having paid considerable attention to the manners and customs of the Hindoos; and, therefore, ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... was repeated from the south. There was a surfeit of owls, very much too many of them, and they called to one another too much. Tandakora did not like it. It was almost like a visitation of evil spirits. Those weird, long-drawn cries, singularly piercing on a still night, were bad omens. Some of his warriors stirred and became uneasy, but Tandakora quieted them sternly and promised that the Bostonnais would soon be along. Hope aroused again, the men plucked up courage and resumed ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... "Sojourner Truth," and begged the audience to be silent a few minutes. "The tumult subsided at once, and every eye was fixed on this almost Amazon form, which stood nearly six feet high, head erect, and eye piercing the upper air, like one in a dream." At her first word there was a profound hush. She spoke in deep tones, which, though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and even the throng at the doors and windows. To one man who had ridiculed the general helplessness of ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... Madame Tussaud. They met at South Hampton. What he thought was, "Here's this woman again," but he merely said, "That's a very chic costume of yours." What she thought was, "I wonder if he's seen Peter Pan," but she only said, "That's wet paint you're leaning against." He gave her a piercing glance, and she swallowed it. So they went to prison together and learned to ride the bicycle, and the consequence was they caught influenza, and the world said, "It's an ill wind that ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... soul must be Which, placed within Thy piercing sight, Shall shrink not, but with calm delight Can live, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... as far as possible the traces of her grief, and soon began to scan by the light of day with some curiosity her acquaintance of the previous evening. He was the very opposite to herself in appearance. Her eyes were large and dark. He had a rather small but piercing blue eye. His locks were light and curly, and his beard sandy. Her hair was brown and straight. He was fully six feet tall, while she was only of medium height. And yet Edith was not a brunette, but possessed a complexion of transparent ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... back—an unobtrusive personality, which would have been insignificant had the head been strictly proportionate to the rest of the frame. But there was nothing insignificant about the high and massive forehead, crowned with a mane of (then) iron-gray hair, the small and pale but piercing eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, or the thin lipped mouth, depressed at the corners into a curve indicative of iron will, and set between bushy whiskers of the same dark gray as the hair. The most cursory observer could not but recognize power and character ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... and rob the gloating Pierre of the happiness of seeing two men perish without danger to himself. Something of uncertain shape, but of a blue color, loomed vaguely behind Pierre's head; loomed and suddenly descended to the accompaniment of a piercing shriek. Pierre's pistol went off, but he had evidently been stricken between the shoulders; the ball went wild, and the pistol itself dropped from his hand, another cartridge exploding as it hit the floor. The next instant Pierre tumbled headlong ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... possessed a piercing glance and an infallible judgment when it was his object to read men's minds. "You have something to say," said he to the musketeer, "something to say which you do not say. Come, speak freely, monsieur; you know that I told you, once and for all, that you are to be always ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... rapidly, with great strength, then a small complaining cry again, and at intervals, a fresh burst of melody. I have remarked the same thing in other singing birds, species in which the harsh grating or piercing sounds that properly express violent emotions of a painful kind, have been nearly or quite lost. In the nightingale, this part of the bird's language has lost its original character, and has dwindled to something very small. Solicitude, fear, anger, are expressed ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... the night as I expected, but were still in Portland when morning came. We had fish for breakfast; found mine frozen beneath the crisp brown outside. After breakfast went up on deck. The sky was blue and bright, the air piercing cold. The town of Portland looked clean and beautiful in the fair sunlight. It is a place that goes climbing up hill. The floating ice and the liquid green water ruffled into white on the crest of the swells, are at play together. The ship moves out slowly, almost imperceptibly. Portland ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... of the 'Islanders' was formed in December, 1827, in the following manner: One night, about the time when cold sleet and stormy fogs of November are succeeded by the snowstorms and high, piercing night-winds of confirmed winter, we were all sitting round the warm blazing kitchen fire, having just concluded a quarrel with Tabby concerning the propriety of lighting a candle, from which she ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... road we could see the two spires of the churches of Saint Nicholas and Saint Thomas in Leipzig, piercing the sky, while to the right and left, on both sides of the city, rose great clouds of smoke through which broad flashes were darting. The noise increased; we were yet more than a league from the city, but we were forced to almost ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... could not get on without us, or we without knowing a hundred facts which merely satisfy the curiosity of the moment; and as if the great God could not take excellent care of us all meanwhile. We are eager, too, to get money, and get more money still—piercing ourselves through too often, as the Apostle warned us— with many sorrows, and falling into foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. We are luxurious—more and more fond of show; more apt to live up to our incomes, and probably a little beyond; ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... quantity of earth and lime into the pit to cover the bodies, Chowles and his companion departed, leaving Leonard alone. He continued there a few moments longer, and was about to follow them, when a prolonged and piercing cry smote his ear; and, looking in the direction of the sound, he perceived a figure running with great swiftness towards the pit. As no pursuers appeared, Leonard could scarcely doubt that this was one of the distracted persons he had heard of, who, in the frenzy produced ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... horrible fashion. They then suddenly broke their rank, strung their bows, placed their arrows ready, and went through the pantomime of shooting after a flying foe, uttering at the same time the most piercing cries, which echoed through the whole forest. I started up in affright, for I really believed that I was surrounded by enemies, and that I was delivered up into their power, without any chance of help or assistance. I was heartily ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... tumult subsided at once, and every eye was fixed on this almost Amazon form, which stood nearly six feet high, head erect, and eyes piercing the upper air like one in a dream. At her first word there was a profound hush. She spoke in deep tones, which, though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and away through the throng at the doors ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... ferment, that, unless it be mingled with a proportion of the water, or pent up very close, it will burst the vessel that holds it, and fly up in a fume and smoke. The water, on the contrary, is of such a subtile, piercing cold, that, unless it be mingled with a proportion of the spirits, it will sink almost through every thing it is put into, and seems to be of the same nature as the water mentioned by Quintus Curtius, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... the afternoon was broken by a piercing childish yell which lacked no element of earnestness. Ab leaped to his feet and was by the youngsters in a moment. He saw the terrified Beechleaf standing, screaming still, with a fat arm outheld, from which dangled a little shaft ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... the name could be planned that would not lead through the quaint old streets. From afar one catches a glimpse of the castle, perched, like that of Edinburgh, on a mighty rock, rising almost sheer from a delightfully diversified plain. It is a many-towered structure, piercing the blue sky and surrounded by an air of sullen inaccessibility, while the red-cross flag flying above it proclaims it a station of the king's army. It is not by any means the castle of the days of Bruce and Wallace, having ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... to thy Father bear This our feeble evening prayer; Thou hast seen how oft to-day We, like sheep, have gone astray; Worldly thoughts and thoughts of pride, Wishes to Thy cross untrue, Secret faults and undescried Meet Thy spirit-piercing view. Blessed Saviour! yet, through Thee, Pray that these may ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... overtook a fugitive negro, and as we came upon him unexpectedly, when turning the edge of a hammock, he had not time to retreat, being within rifle-range, or he would doubtless have done so. He threw up his arms, and gave a piercing shriek (an unvariable custom of Indians when in danger), expecting to be instantly shot. He had, however, nothing to fear, having fallen in with friends and not foes. As I saw he was without a rifle, I dashed forward and accosted him first. He was soon assured, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... lathered wave How you would bellow ditties of the brave! How, wilder that the sea-mew, through the foam Whistle shrill strains that agonised your home. In the brimmed bath you revelled; all the floor Was swamped with spindrift; underneath the door The maddened water gushed, while strong and high Your piercing top-note staggered passers-by. But now I hear the running taps alone, A faint and melancholy monotone; Or just a gentle swirl when sober hope Searches the bath's profound to salve the soap. Sadly I kick the unresponsive door; Youth, with its blithe ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... and a slight but awful smile played about her lips. "Half past eight, and that blessed baby not in bed yet. I knew how it would be. And you all smoking, too—natuerlich! You ought to know better, Herr Courvoisier—you ought, at any rate," she added, scorn dropping into heart-piercing reproach. "Give him to me," she added, taking him from me, and apostrophizing him. "You poor, blessed lamb! Well for you that I'm here to look after you, that have had children of my own, and know a little about the sort of way that you ought to be ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... wilder it grew, till it ended in a scream like a seamew's. Whoever the madman was, he knew the mystery of Indian souls, for in a little he would have had that host lusting blindly for death. I felt the spell myself, piercing through my awe and hatred of the spell-weaver, and I won't say but that my weary head kept time with the others ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... stammered; "I'll stop your dirty business now, by God!" and, leaping back, whipped a ranger's whistle to his lips, waking the forest echoes with the piercing summons ere I had bounded on him and had borne him down, shoulder-deep in moss ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... sat down, and were about to throw our hind leg up into the sheets, when a cold, hard hand, calloused like a horn spoon, grabbed hold of the small of our back, and two piercing eyes shot sharp glances at ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... end of about five minutes he ventured to re-open his eyes. His face instantly assumed an expression of abject terror, and the roar was intensified into a piercing shriek when he beheld a fierce little black cow staring at him within ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... it was in their hands, will reveal to the enquirer that though the crescent with a cross within its horns appears occasionally upon the coins of the Emperors of the East, and in one or two instances we see a cross of four equal arms with each extremity piercing a crescent, it is doubtful if a single example of the so-called "star and crescent" symbol can be ...
— The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion • John Denham Parsons
... seven. The second cousin, who had been holding his hat in his hand since leaving the church, despite the frightful weather, now drew nearer. All the others uncovered, and the prayers were about to begin, when a loud piercing whistle made everybody ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... piercing night-eyes of Nycteris descried not a few pairs of green ones gleaming like holes in the darkness, and many a round she made to keep far out of their way; but she never said to Photogen she saw them. Carefully she kept him off the uneven places, and on the softest and smoothest of the grass, ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... nature either of God or of man, in believing that thus a real communication is possible between them, and that by thoughts the occasions of which we cannot trace, by moments of elevation, by swift, piercing convictions, by sudden clear illuminations, God may speak, and will ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... thy citron groves, To where the lemon and the piercing lime, With the deep orange, glowing through the green, Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclined Beneath the spreading tamarind, that shakes, Fanned by the breeze, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... been used to in my Norfolk home. There I was accustomed to see the broads and rivers frozen over, and the means of communication by boat between the various rivers completely stopped. There we dreaded the marrow-piercing north-east wind which, coming straight across the cold North Sea from icebound Norway and the frozen Baltic, caused everything, animal and vegetable, to be cut and chilled, so that frequently both man and plant succumbed to its penetrating rigour; but ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... With a piercing squawk the bird shot into the air, flipped over, and came fluttering down facing him—talons outstretched, hooked beak open, eyes a-glare. Completely terrified, David turned and bolted for the thicket. He managed to thrash halfway through when a vine ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... time the sky had been dark and lowering, causing darkness to reign supreme, till the full moon, suddenly emerging from the heavy flying clouds, lighted up the house and its surroundings with its refulgent beams. Then suddenly throughout the silent night there rang forth a low, soft, piercing whistle. Only once it sounded, and then dead silence fell again. The wounded man started in his bed, but he could not raise his hand, and the whistle ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... all about that when I saw him before. He said he knew I had, but he wished to hear "whether the same words came out of the same mouth, or different words," so that he might know if I were a true man or not. Then, after pausing a while, he looked at me in his piercing fashion and asked: ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... crazy when she took him. But she'd a right to please herself. Folks is too ready to call other folks crazy. There's people who say I'M not in my right mind. Did yez ever"—Peg fixed Felicity with a piercing ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fingers in his mouth and emitted a shrill, piercing whistle. It was answered in a similar manner, and a moment later the dark mass resolved itself into Randy, the ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... scholar and writer on political economy, who had been so extensively robbed of ideas by Bastiat, and who retook his own, not without inflicting punishment. He was a handsome, black-eyed, white-haired man, with a very piercing glance. During the war, when men were sad and dull, and indeed till his death, Mr. Carey's one glorious and friendly extravagance was to assemble every Sunday afternoon all his intimates, including ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... her hands upon her breast in an agony of hope. Slowly but surely the speck came on; the wind shifted a point, which caused a gleam of sunlight to fall upon a sail. It was a boat! there could be no doubt of it—and making directly for the island! Unable to contain herself, Edith, uttering a piercing cry, sank upon the ground and burst into a passionate flood of tears. It was the irresistible impulse of hope long deferred at length realised; for the child did not entertain a doubt that this was at length ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... after looking about for his enemy had got back, and was standing knee-deep in the lake. He appeared restless and highly excited. His tail was continually in motion, and at intervals he uttered a piercing melancholy scream—far different to the usual trumpet-like bellow of his voice. He lifted his huge limbs, and then plunged them back again to the bottom, until the foam gathered upon the water ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... Pyramids are three in number, and they are one of the wonders of the world; nor is there on the face of the earth their like for height and fashion and skilful ordinance; for they are builded of immense rocks, and they who built them proceeded by piercing one block of stone and setting therein upright rods of iron; after which they pierced a second block of stone and lowered it upon the first. Then they poured melted lead upon the joints and set the blocks in geometrical ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... the chamber with the rest of us, and was assigned a bed on the side of the room opposite my own, and a little beyond. The nuns were all soon in bed, the usual silence ensued, and I was making my customary mental prayer and composing myself to sleep, when I heard the most piercing and heart-rending shrieks proceed from our new comrade. Every nun seemed to rise as if by one impulse, for no one could hear such sounds, especially in such total silence, without being greatly excited. A general noise succeeded, for many voices spoke together, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... myself to describe in detail what my unhappy husband said and did at this distressing period of the Trial. Deeply affected while Lady Brydehaven was giving her evidence, he had with difficulty restrained himself from interrupting her. He now lost all control over his feelings. In piercing tones, which rang through the Court, he protested against the contemplated violation of his own most sacred secrets and his wife's most sacred secrets. "Hang me, innocent as I am!" he cried, "but spare ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... scores, sitting on the rocks, great brown birds with black bars on their wings and tails, and buff-coloured breasts with rust-red spots and stripes. It was a wonderful sight, those eagle-like hawks, with their blue hooked beaks and deep-set dark piercing eyes, sitting in numbers on the rocks, and others and still others dropping down from the ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... shelter from the violence of the storm, when to his sudden horror and astonishment up started a tall female figure and seized him eagerly by the arm. At first she seemed speechless from some strong passion, and shaken as if by an ague fit: but, in a few moments she recovered her voice; and with piercing tones, in which, though trembling from agitation, Bertram immediately recognized those of ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... virtues and most heroic enterprise in the Brahmin; and, near the bottom of one of his nails, a deep-rooted sorrow, which would leave him only with his life. A transient shade of gloom on the Brahmin's countenance was soon succeeded by a piercing, inquisitive glance cast on the diviner. He saw the other's eyes directed on the miniature which he always wore, and which discovered itself to Avarabet as he stooped forward. A smile of contempt now took the place ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... thus pondered over John McIntyre's case, there was one person who was slowly, but surely, piercing his armor of reserve. Ever since his first visit, the eldest orphan had felt the fascination of the wicked watchman growing, and gradually he fell into the habit of paying him a short visit every evening. He had various reasons for going. First, he really felt ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... She lov'd to give them pleasure, and one time (The fav'rite legend of our country folk Hath oft the tale repeated) as they mix'd Carelessly in the crowd, remember'd notes Struck by a harper in a distant tent, Sweet and soul-piercing as the midnight songs Which are, they say, the harbingers of death, Flow'd on her ear—when, with impulsive spring, As if a magic spell had wing'd her feet, Fearing the sounds would vanish into air, And prove delusion ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... patiently. Live where thou wilt, I'll send thee gold enough; And long thou shalt not stay; or, if thou dost, I'll come to thee; my love shall ne'er decline. Gav. Is all my hope turn'd to this hell of grief? K. Edw. Rend not my heart with thy too-piercing words: Thou from this land, I from myself am banish'd. Gav. To go from hence grieves not poor Gaveston; But to forsake you, in whose gracious looks The blessedness of Gaveston remains; For nowhere else seeks he felicity. K. Edw. And only this torments my wretched soul, That, ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... lavish, but always exciting; and in, at least, that section which describes how the dying Oliver, blinded by weariness and wounds, mistakes Roland for a pagan and feebly smites him with his sword, there is real and piercing pathos. But for all his sense of character, the poet has very little discretion in his admiration of his heroes. Christianity, in these two poems, has less effect than one might think. The conspicuous value of life is still the ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie
... lost. With all my strength, I plucked myself clear of him and ran to the bulwarks. Sure enough, there was the boat pulling for the town, with my uncle sitting in the stern. I gave a piercing cry—"Help, help! Murder!"—so that both sides of the anchorage rang with it, and my uncle turned round where he was sitting, and showed me a face full of cruelty ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... His praise, from being rarely bestowed, animated and brought into full operation every faculty; while his steady, reserved, and earnest demeanor secured obedience and discipline. His very appearance excited awe and reverence; his figure was proud, lofty, and warlike, while his bright, piercing eye expressed profundity of thought, combined with gravity and mystery. His favorite study was that of the stars, and his most intimate friend was an Italian astrologer. He had a fondness for pomp and extravagance. He maintained sixty pages; his ante-chamber was guarded by ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... world." It was the high fortune of Rome that, in the principal crisis of her history, she possessed a citizen so splendidly endowed in intellect, character, and heart. Free to an extraordinary degree from the prejudices belonging to his age and country, with piercing and far-sweeping vision, he saw as from some superior height, the political situation of his own time in its relation to the past and the future of the ancient world. If Rome had till then carried out the work of conquest with considerable method, and upon the whole, with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... at present pant for two ladies only[96], who have for some time engrossed the dominion of the town. They are indeed both exceeding charming, but differ very much in their excellences. The beauty of Clarissa is soft, that of Chloe piercing. When you look at Clarissa, you see the most exact harmony of feature, complexion, and shape; you find in Chloe nothing extraordinary in any one of those particulars, but the whole woman irresistible. Clarissa looks languishing; Chloe, killing. Clarissa never fails of gaining admiration; ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... her blankly; the nurses looked down in unconscious comment on the twisted figure by their side. The surgeon drew his hands from his pockets and stepped toward the woman, questioning her meanwhile with his nervous, piercing glance. For a moment neither spoke, but some kind of mute explanation seemed to be going ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... plans for the future and wanted to put aside the unfortunate subject of West Point. To her surprise, instead of lightening, the lady's face grew still more troubled, as she turned to scan the landscape behind her with a piercing gaze. ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... spoken in terms of friendship of Martin Bouvin. In any case they were now nearing the gate where the man stood waiting with the horses. Josian and Maddalena were already mounted. As the servant held Alan's stirrup the Englishman looked down and saw under the hood the black piercing eyes and ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... save to that at which he aimed. Away rushed the arrow, rising high and, as it seemed, bearing somewhat to the left of the knight. Yet when it drew near to that knight the wind told on it and bent it inward, as he knew it would. Fair and full it struck upon the horse's chest, piercing through to the heart, so that down the poor beast came, throwing its rider ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... crowded dock, personified in the person of Curran. Often at midnight, amid the clash of arms, his wonderful pleadings were delivered; sometimes, as in Dublin, where the court rooms adjoined the prisons, the condemned, or the confined, could hear, in their cells, his piercing accents breaking the stillness of the early morning, pleading for justice and mercy—pleading always with superhuman perseverance, but almost always in vain. Neither menaces of arrest, nor threats of assassination, had power to intimidate that all-daring spirit; nor, it may be safely said, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... not, but this | [Note h: Rom. 8. 26.] Elect Lady cried loudest in Gods | eares, when we heard not her words; | and why may we not thinke now, our | sinnes hindered vs from hearing | them? I am sure, heretofore she | hath spoken againe and againe many | Heart-piercing speeches to deterre | from Sinne, and to allure to | Holinesse of Life. If she be not | hearkened to now, henceforth wee | shall heare Her speake no more. I | charge you therefore before God and | the Lord Iesus Christ, and the | Elect Angells:[A] you (I ...
— The Praise of a Godly Woman • Hannibal Gamon
... more consistent and easier to understand, while in the woman there even appears a form of regression. The normality of the sexual life is guaranteed only by the exact concurrence of the two streams directed to the sexual object and sexual aim. It is like the piercing of ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... to speak or move. An instant sufficed to disclose to him this unnatural vision; and an instant was enough to show the fairy that her secret was discovered. She turned her large lustrous eyes upon him, uttered a loud, piercing shriek, which shook the castle to its foundation, and all became darkness and silence. The lord of the chateau passed the rest of his life in penitence and prayer; but the lady was ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... you doing?" called out in a piercing tone of authority a lady in white, whom I had not seen until that moment, while, a little way beyond her, a gentleman in a suit of linen 'ducks,' whom I did not know either, stared at me with eyes which seemed to be starting from ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... pretty while Frosty, I found the Wind so very cold, that it reduced me to put on some defensives against it, which I never since, nor, if I forget not, all the foregoing part of the Winter was obliged to make use off. My unwillingness to stay long in so troublesome a Cold, which continued very piercing, till I had got half way home-ward, did put me upon galloping at no very lasy rate; and yet, before I could get to my Lodgings, I found the Wind turned, and felt the Rain falling; which, considering the shortness of the time, and that this Accident was preceded by a setled Frost, was ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... and he descended like to night. Then he sate him aloof from the ships, and let an arrow fly; and there was heard a dread clanging of the silver bow. First did the assail the mules and fleet dogs, but afterward, aiming at the men his piercing dart, he smote; and the pyres of the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.) |
