Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Pierce   Listen
verb
Pierce  v. t.  (past & past part. pierced; pres. part. piercing)  
1.
To thrust into, penetrate, or transfix, with a pointed instrument. "I pierce... her tender side."
2.
To penetrate; to enter; to force a way into or through; to pass into or through; as, to pierce the enemy's line; a shot pierced the ship.
3.
Fig.: To penetrate; to affect deeply; as, to pierce a mystery. "Pierced with grief." "Can no prayers pierce thee?"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Pierce" Quotes from Famous Books



... band 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 story of Jim Wolfe ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... Kappa Society Phoenix Park murders Photiades Pasha, Turkish minister at Athens governor of Crete Photographs of Athenian views, taken by Stillman Pictures from Appledore, first part appears in The Crayon Pierce, Franklin Pigeons, immense flocks of Pigott, Mr., his connection with the Parnell case Piperski Celia, convent of Pius IX. Plainfield, N.J. Plamenaz, Montenegrin minister of war Podgoritza Poe, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... Klosterheim by night!" thought every cavalier, as he endeavored to pierce the gloomy being's concealment with penetrating eyes, or, by scrutiny ten times repeated, to unmasque the dismal secrets which lurked beneath his disguise. "There stands the gloomy murderer!" thought another. "There stands the poor ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... save for a tiny shrill continuance of melody that somehow seemed only to pierce the silence, not to dispel it. Rudolph—of all things!—had in her absence acquired a canary. And everybody knew what an interminable ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... began to pierce the darkness, and I perceived that I stood on the lowest step of a staircase, vast as the foot of a mountain. Behind me were thousands of steps of lurid iron; before me, nothing but a void—an abyss, and ether; the blue gloom of midnight beneath my feet, as above my head. I became ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... upon his love, gave the poor woman scarce a thought, though when he saw her he noted her tear-stained eyelids and her woebegone, reproachful ways with an irritation which, though it could not pierce the studied courtesy of his manner, made itself felt, and further wounded the unhappy woman. Madame de Stafforth was constantly with the Duchess, and thus her Highness was perfectly informed of the Duke's daily visits ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... nervous tremor, no stress of a reproachful mind. Unconscious of the others, even of the minister's solemn phrases, she seemed to be revolving truths of her own, dismissing a problem private to her own heart. To the man who tried to pierce beneath that calm gaze, the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... cross. O that mine eyes were a fountain of tears that I might weep night and day before Thee! I despise and bruise myself that my penitence is not deeper, is not fuller. Help Thou mine impenitence, and more and more pierce, rend, and crush my heart. My sins are more in number than the sand. My iniquities are multiplied, and I have no relief." Perish your Puritanism, and your prayer-books too! I hear some high-minded and indignant man saying. Perish your Celestial City and all ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... month of June. It was not until the first day of July that a permanent encampment was made there, consisting of the Third Massachusetts Regiment, which moved from the fort, the Fourth, which moved from Newport News, and the Naval Brigade, all under the command of Brigadier-General Pierce,—the camp being informally called Camp Greble, in honor of the lieutenant of that name who fell bravely in the disastrous affair of Big Bethel. Here we remained until July 16th, when, our term of enlistment having expired, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... Toys indeed! Ay, ay, we will give the little dears toys! toys that all day will sleep calmly in their boxes, seemingly stiff and wooden and without life,—but at night, when the souls enter them, will arise and surround the cots of the sleeping children, and pierce their hearts with their keen, envenomed blades! Toys indeed! oh, yes! I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... her companion talkative. He stared ahead, as if trying to pierce with his eyes the line of timber that blurred across the landscape. Norah was glad he did not bother her with questions. She had told him all she knew, and now he ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... is marked by brutality and rage; when the Catholics are victorious, the retaliation is full of hypocrisy and greed. The Protestants pull down churches and monasteries, expel the monks, burn the crucifixes, take the body of some criminal from the gallows, nail it on a cross, pierce its side, put a crown of thorns round its temples and set it up in the market-place—an effigy of Jesus on Calvary. The Catholics levy contributions, take back what they had been deprived of, exact indemnities, and although ruined by each reverse, ...
— Quotes and Images From "Celebrated Crimes" • Alexander Dumas, Pere

... oft, ungrateful deity, have I swelled thy dark empire by the contempt or the cruelty of a fierce and proud fair one? How many faithful lovers, since I must confess it, have I, through irresistible raptures, sacrificed to thee? Go, I shall wound no more souls, I shall pierce no more hearts, but with darts dipped in the divine liquors that foster heaven's immortal passions. I shall hurl them no more but to make as many lovers as there are gods. As for thee, thou inexorable mother, who forcest her to bereave me of what I held dearest in this world, dread, ...
— Psyche • Moliere

... circle of the firelight, he finds a difficulty in conquering the gloom beyond. This makes his gaze in her direction the more concentrated; and, indeed, when he has separated her features from the mist of the falling night, he still finds it impossible to pierce the impenetrable veil of indifference ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... beat stronger Than those thickets dared to grow: I could pierce them! I could longer Travel on, methought, than so. Sheep for sheep-paths! braver children climb and creep ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... bore. limb, a branch. bread, food. limn, to draw or paint. bred, reared. arc, part of a circle. blue, a color. ark, a vessel. blew, did blow. prays, supplicates. boar, the male swine. praise, honor. bore, to pierce. preys, spoils. ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... from the track. And he himself, like everybody else, had felt the Adventist infection, and did not want to commit himself. So he turned to Mrs. Anderson. She answered like a seraph every question put to her—the conventional questions never pierce the armor of a hypocrite or startle the conscience of a self-deceiver. Mr. Hall congratulated her in his most official tone (a compound of authority, awfulness, and sanctity) on her deep experience of the things that made for her everlasting peace. He told her ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... command an endless string of biting epigrams, and his satire wounded with a touch so sharp that it was scarcely felt or seen except by the unfortunate recipient. Upon infrequent occasion, in the course of hot debate, some one would pierce his armor and touch him upon the unguarded quick; then the man was transformed, the eyebrows would shoot up, the eyes flash, the mustache bristle, the voice vibrate, and the invective which he poured forth scalded like molten lead. One understood at such a moment why he was ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... 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 ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... of war. You will remember that the famous Confederate ram Merrimac employed this mode of attack as a last resort, in her famous fight with the Monitor during the Civil War. She was not successful, for she did not strike the Monitor squarely. With their immense weight these monitors could pierce with their rams the armor of almost any ship and ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 11, March 17, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... 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 ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs

... might have been his opinion of the copy before him, there was no indication of it in his face, which wore the stolid indifference of his craft. Perhaps this was unfortunate, for as the day wore on and the level rays of the sun began to pierce the adjacent thicket, they sought out and discovered an anxious ambushed figure drawn up beside the editor's window,—a figure that had sat there motionless for hours. Within, the editor worked on as steadily and impassively as Fate. And without, the born poet of Sierra Flat sat and watched ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... about that night scene which kept Brace and his brother on deck for hours trying to pierce the black darkness, and whenever they made up their minds that it was time to go down to their berths something was sure to happen in the mysterious forest depths or near ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... that, by the smuggling vessels employed in this trade, intelligence had been carried into France during the war, and the enemies of the government conveyed from justice. Stephen Seignoret Rhene, Baudoin, John Goodet, Nicholas Santini, Peter de Hearse, John Pierce, John Dumaitre, and David Barreau, were impeached at the bar of the house of lords; and, pleading guilty, the lords imposed fines upon them according to their respective circumstances. They were in the meantime committed to Newgate until those fines should be paid; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... a great achievement for Saxon. Privily she conferred with a clerk she knew in Pierce's hardware store and made the purchase. On Sunday morning, after breakfast, when Billy was starting to go to the barber shop, she led him into the bedroom, whisked a towel aside, and revealed the razor box, shaving mug, soap, brush, and lather all ready. Billy recoiled, then came back ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... I leave the cot behind me Where my love hath her abode; And I wander with veiled footsteps Through the drear and darksome wood. Luna's rays pierce oak and thicket Zephyr heraldeth her way; And for her its sweetest ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... new direction, and they prepared to execute it with that barbarous ingenuity with which they were familiarized by the practise of centuries. Some sought knots, to raise the blazing pile; one was riving the splinters of pine, in order to pierce the flesh of their captives with the burning fragments; and others bent the tops of two saplings to the earth, in order to suspend Heyward by the arms between the recoiling branches. But the vengeance of Magua sought a deeper and more ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... This rendered it necessary that we should watch the sun when we happened to be out hunting; for to be suddenly left in the dark while in the woods was very perplexing, as, although the stars shone with great beauty and brilliancy, they could not pierce through the thick umbrageous boughs ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... on the stalk or leaf of a plant it is furnished with means to pierce the surface and extract the juices essential to the formation of the plant, thereby preventing vigorous growth and a full development. This idea is too apt to be associated with the bee when she visits the flower, as if she was armed with a spear, to pierce bark or stem and rob it of its nourishment. ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... filberts. Advices were received by the Antwerpen that another extensive importation of fruit from Antwerp may be expected at the St Katherine's Steam Packet Wharf this day (Saturday), by the steam-packet Princess Victoria, Capt. Pierce. ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... her eyes, there was no blue misty haze through which she ever feebly sought to pierce. She was lying in her own room, where she had passed so many despairing days and nights. The window was open; the sweet crisp morning air fanned her temples; the birds were singing in the garden below; and there beside her was the face so like, yet so unlike, the face from which ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... ever—if ever she should disclose herself to me, it would be the strangest revelation. Every woman wears a mask, except to one man; but Rhoda's—Miss Nunn's—is, I fancy, a far completer disguise than I ever tried to pierce.' ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... our experience is that it is a process of change. For the 'trower' at any moment, truth, like the visible area round a man walking in a fog, or like what George Eliot calls 'the wall of dark seen by small fishes' eyes that pierce a span in the wide Ocean,' is an objective field which the next moment enlarges and of which it is the critic, and which then either suffers alteration or is continued unchanged. The critic sees both the first trower's truth and his own truth, compares ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... highest rank have resorted to this expedient long ago. Dumas's novel of The Iron Mask turns on the brutal imprisonment of Louis the Fourteenth's double. There seems little doubt, in our own history, that it was the real General Pierce who shed tears when the delegate from Lawrence explained to him the sufferings of the people there—and only General Pierce's double who had given the orders for the assault on that town, which was invaded ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... could not pierce through the thick mist which had gathered beneath the car. Dark vapor was all around them. Such was the density of the atmosphere that they could not be certain whether it was day or night. No reflection of ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... her eyes to his. He was forgotten, and somehow he knew the look he would get if she should see him. It would be contempt and scorn that would burn his very soul. It is only a maid now and then to whom it is given thus to pierce and bruise the soul of a man who plays with love and trust and womanhood for selfishness. Such a woman never knows her power. She punishes all unconscious to herself. It was so that Margaret Earle, without being herself aware, and by her very indifference ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... fight is raging hot, before the traitors fly, When shell and ball are screeching, and bursting in the sky, If any shot should pierce through me, and lay me on my face, My soul would go to Washington's, and not ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... good counsel, Mr. Belford, founded upon these hints which I have given, pierce his heart, and incite him to do what will be so happy for himself, and so necessary for the honour of that admirable lady whom I long to see his wife; and, if I may, I will not think of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... power, toil, and liability, milder realities have now been substituted; and Ministerial responsibility comes between the Monarch and every public trial and necessity, like armor between the flesh and the spear that would seek to pierce it; only this is an armor itself also fleshy, at once living and impregnable. It may be said, by an adverse critic, that the Constitutional Monarch is only a depository of power, as an armory is a depository of arms; but that those who wield the arms, and those alone, constitute ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... destroyed by caustic. The patient should remain quiet and not be disturbed. The use of tincture of aconite internally, will be found excellent to prevent the rise of inflammation. A purgative is also advised, and four or five of Dr. Pierce's Pleasant Purgative Pellets will be sufficient to act upon the bowels. If there is pain, an anodyne and diaphoretic is proper. Dr. Pierce's Compound Extract of Smart-weed will fulfill this indication. In local inflammation cold water is a good remedy, yet sometimes hot water, or cloths wrung ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... Argus-eyed, able and happy to cope with this rolling miscellany of facts and sciences, and, by his own versatility, to dispose of them with ease; a manly mind, unembarrassed by the variety of coats of convention with which life had got encrusted, easily able by his subtlety to pierce these, and to draw his strength from nature, with which he lived in full communion. What is strange, too, he lived in a small town, in a petty state, in a defeated state, and in a time when Germany played no such leading part in the world's affairs as to swell the bosom ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... scratching themselves! And may the woman thou lovest love thy slave and betray thee for him. And may thy eldest daughter leave thy house secretly with a Jew! And mayest thou be impaled upon a stake, and suspended on high, exposed to the public gaze, until by the weight of thy body the stake pierce thy crown and thou fall parted asunder on the ground like a loathsome toad cut in twain by ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various

... 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 die ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... what we are all here for. If I were given to emotion, which I am glad to confess I am not, my deepest and innermost emotions would be called forth by the picture of his Lordship there before us, who holds the scales of Justice in his hands, who can pierce the outer coverings of dissembling and falsehood with the eagle eye of truth, who can right this hideous wrong, who can smooth out the crooked paths of falsehood, making all plain. Let the false traducer beware, I say, he is veritably between the Lion and the Eagle. His Lordship in this case is ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... content. A lock of grey hair had escaped from her bonnet, across her wrinkled forehead, and gave her a half-careless rakish air. Her youth of long ago—a youth of mad spirits, and of an extraordinary capacity for physical enjoyment, seemed at times to pierce to the surface again, even through her load of years. But in general she had a dreamy, sunny look, as of one fed with humorous fancies, but disinclined often to the trouble of ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Plantation, and brought us home by our own Hands and Bottoms, of what Advantage such an Improvement would be to the Crown of Great-Britain, and the People in general, I leave to Men of Reason and Experience to judge. I do intend (if God permit) by future Voyages (after my Arrival in Carolina) to pierce into the Body of the Continent, and what Discoveries and Observations I shall, at any time hereafter, make, will be communicated to my Correspondents in England, to be publish'd, having furnish'd myself with Instruments and other Necessaries ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... Egypt kneel adown Before the vine wreath crown! I saw parched Abyssinia rouse and sing To the silver cymbals' ring! I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce Old Tartary the fierce! Great Brahma from his ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... in her own 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 ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... up into his face with the most piercing and strangest and blackest eyes that ever were; yet so soft and quick and calm and large and kind and wise and gentle that their piercingness was but an added seduction; one felt they could never pierce too deep for the happiness of the heart they pronged and riddled and perforated through ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... kept by a Captain Jenkins). On the morning of July 2nd I left Bury for London and by mail coach to Bristol. On the morning of July 3rd by steamer to Swansea, and arrived late at night. I had then five pupils: Parker, Harman Lewis (afterwards Professor in King's College, London), Pierce Morton, Gibson, and Guest of Caius (afterwards Master of the College). Drinkwater had four, viz. two Malkins (from Bury), Elphinstone (afterwards M.P.), and Farish (son of Professor Farish). We lived ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... he says, "that the Indians had murdered my family! I set out for home, hoping that it might not prove as bad as the letter stated; but, O my God, it is even worse! My precious children, Corick, Pierce and Elizabeth, were killed and burned up in the house. My dear wife was stabbed, shot, and stamped, seemingly to death, in the yard. But after the wretches went to pack up their plunder, she revived and crawled off from the scene of death, to suffer a thousand deaths during the dreadful ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... came up to him, through the garden below, from the house. The notes seemed to keep time to the hand of the sickle- sharpener. He had heard it before, but only in snatches. Now it seemed to pierce his senses and to flood ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... exclaimed the other. "But you deceive yourself." And he continued, driving home his point with a finger which seemed to George to pierce his very soul. "Twenty cases identical with your own have been patiently observed, from the beginning to the end. Nineteen times the woman was infected by her husband; you hear me, sir, nineteen ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair

... pleasure. Whilst he sat by his bed, ministering to him with the care of a son, he dwelt with a melancholy delight on his revered features, and listened to his languid voice with those tender associations which are dear to the heart, though they pierce it ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... sending arrows after them! Fair breeding, in sooth!" repeated the stranger, standing with his arms crossed upon his mighty breadth of chest, and looking at Adam with a still, grave, commanding blue eye, that seemed to pierce him and hold him down, as it were, and a countenance whose youthfulness and perfect regularity of feature did but enhance its exceeding severity of expression. "You know the meed ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... needle; but her nurse told her that when they want to work any pattern in birch-bark, they trace it with some sharp-pointed instrument, such as a nail, or bodkin, or even a sharp thorn; with which they pierce holes close together round the edge of the leaf, or blade, or bird they have drawn out on the birch-bark; into these holes they insert one end of the quill, the other end is then drawn through the opposite ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill

... best pierce the ear of grief; And by these badges understand the king. For your fair sakes have we neglected time, Play'd foul play with our oaths. Your beauty, ladies, Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours Even to the opposed end ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... glare of the sinking sun, and she asked herself if he were there, or whether, as report had told her, he were in the far north. It was but half a day's ride over the hills, he had said. But strain her sight as she would, she could not pierce the heavy crags nor see into the wooded dells beyond. He had said he would pass the summer there; had ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... regretted having come to "Sloanehurst." He disapproved of himself unreservedly. Clad in an ample, antique night-shirt, he stood at a window of the guest-room assigned to him and gazed over the steel rims of his spectacles into the hot, rainy night. His real vision, however, made no attempt to pierce the outer darkness. His eyes were turned inward, upon himself, in derision of his behaviour during the ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... Mardi. For, me, I am here for aye.—Bring me wine, slaves! quick! that I may pledge my guests fitly. Alas, Media, at the bottom of this cup are no sparkles as at top. Oh, treacherous, treacherous friend! full of smiles and daggers. Yet for such as me, oh wine, thou art e'en a prop, though it pierce the side; for man must lean. Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all. King Media, let us drink. More ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... for the baking. The temperature found to produce the best results is about 400 degrees Fahrenheit, or the same as that for the baking of bread. Turn the potatoes once or twice during the baking, so that they will bake evenly. Allow them to bake until it is possible to pierce them to the center with a fork or they are soft enough to dent easily when pinched with the tips of the fingers. The latter is the preferable test, for when the potato is pierced, so much of the moisture is lost ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... no other way," said the professor. "Put it in your will that the coroner shall pierce your ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... thought himself on the marketplace of Altorf, in front of his own child, he, who had never had any; an arrow in his bow, another in his belt to pierce the heart of the tyrant. His conviction became so strong that ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet

... he had to give was a physical love. He did not love a woman, he loved the husk. Of the woman herself he knew nothing and cared less. He had never sought to know his wife, never tried to pierce beneath her beauty and discover where the woman lived and what she was like at home. Indeed, he knew less of his wife than his servants did, and by little and little she had seen how the matter stood. She had plucked the heart from his mystery and read him to the bones, while ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... his horse, ran up, stood over the fallen man, holding out the rifle like a pistol with the muzzle an inch off the bull's head, and fired. A buffalo's skull is an inch and a half thick, solid bone, as hard as granite; but a Martini carbine, sighted for a thousand yards, will pierce it like paper at short range. The smoke had not cleared away when the huge beast fell to the ground within two feet of his intended victims. Hugh pulled Considine from under the horse. The unfortunate beast struggled to his feet, with ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... But pierce through the web of lying as she might, the pressure on the English Queen became greater every day. What had given Elizabeth security was the adhesion of the Scotch Protestants and the growing strength of the Huguenots in France. But the firm government of Murray and ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... the woods are deep, It comes when twilight tints depart, It bends above me while I sleep, With pensive looks that pierce ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... there was silence, then Juanna looked up, searching Olfan's face with her eyes. Nothing was to be read there, for it was impossible to pierce the mask of solemn calm beneath which, in common with all his race, the king was accustomed to hide his thoughts. He leant on the shaft of his broad spear, his head bowed slightly as though in humility, his dark ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... which is fair; call me Mara, for I am full of bitterness'. Following the way of my Head, I had resolved to be the scorn of men, the outcast of the people. But the burden of this honour weighs me down; innumerable cares pierce me like swords. There is no rest of the heart. I was tranquil in my monastery. The tempest arose; I am in its waves, suffering with the loss of quiet a shipwreck of mind. The gout oppresses you; ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... greater or less degree, is experienced by all infants, may be made intelligible to those who have the care of children, we shall commence by giving a brief account of the formation of the teeth, the age at which they appear in the mouth, and the order in which they pierce the gums. The organs of mastication in the adult consist of 32 distinct teeth, 16 in either jaw; being, in fact, a double set. The teeth are divided into 4 incisors, 2 canine, 4 first and second grinders, and 6 molars; but in childhood the complement ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... of Air, a short time before his death. In the preface before this sermon, he said, There are four or five things I have to tell you this night; and the 1st is, A bloody sword, a bloody sword, a bloody sword for thee, O Scotland, that shall pierce the hearts of many. 2dly, Many miles shall ye travel and see nothing but desolation and ruinous wastes in thee, O Scotland. 3dly, The fertilest places in Scotland shall be as waste as the mountains. 4thly, The women with child shall be ript up and dashed in ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... had gotten beyond the monuments and now stretched unbroken across the valley from wall to slope. Wildfire could never pierce that line of flames. And now Slone saw, in the paling sky to the east, that dawn was ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... but how he was unable to disentangle from the pressures of mere curiosity and conjecture, Nettie Vollar—or rather Gerrit's old passing affair with Nettie—had entered into the unhappy occurrence. After an hour's vain search he gave up all effort to pierce the darkness until he had actual knowledge—if he ever had, he was forced to add silently. It was possible that the secret might be entirely guarded from the public, even from the closer part he had played and his familiarity with ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... most desolate day she had passed there that she felt it would be well-nigh impossible to spend another in such circumstances. The evening came at last; the sun, when its chin was on the earth, found an opening through which to pierce the shade, and stretched irradiated gauzes across the damp atmosphere, making the wet trunks shine, and throwing splotches of such ruddiness on the leaves beneath the beech that they were turned to gory hues. When night at last arrived, and with it the time for his return, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... p. 54. Miss Burney wrote very soon after the attack:—'At dinner everybody tried to be cheerful, but a dark and gloomy cloud hangs over the head of poor Mr. Thrale which no flashes of merriment or beams of wit can pierce through; yet he seems pleased that everybody should be gay.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 220. The attack was in June. Piozzi Letters, ii. 47. On Aug. 3, Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor:—'Mr. Thrale has perfectly recovered all his faculties and all his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... of smoke with a lurid heart to it covered the flank. The beat of the sun from above and the swelter of dust from below were overpowering. Gun horses fell in the traces and died of pure exhaustion. The men, parched and silent, but cheerful, strained their eyes to pierce the continual mirage which played over the horizon, and to catch the first glimpse of the Modder. At last, as the sun began to slope down to the west, a thin line of green was discerned, the bushes which skirt the banks of that ill-favoured stream. With renewed heart the cavalry pushed on and made ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... 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 and sense, blood ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... whom he seems to have been sincerely attached. In 1806 he had several rooms in London for the use of his pupils. One of these was at 13, Bond Street, which he shared with Gentleman Jackson, the pugilist and ex-champion. In Cruikshank's picture of the room (Pierce Egan's Life in London, p. 254), two fencers have unmasked and stopped their bout to see Jackson spar with Corinthian Tom. Angelo contributed an article on fencing to Sir John Sinclair's Code of Health and Longevity, vol. ii. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... into the dark corridor. Would he get a sight of the prisoner held there? He tried to pierce the darkness. Surely that was a movement, surely that was someone hurrying ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster

... below. Sweet land of melody! 'tis thine The softest passions to refine; Thy myrtle groves, thy melting strains, Shall harmonise and soothe my pains. Nor will I cast one thought behind, On foes relentless, friends unkind: I feel, I feel their poison'd dart Pierce the life-nerve within my heart; 'Tis mingled with the vital heat That bids my throbbing pulses beat; Soon shall that vital heat be o'er, Those throbbing pulses beat no more! No—I will breathe the spicy gale; ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... south-easter blew off the ice-cliffs and the sun was trying to pierce a gauzy alto-stratus. The 'Aurora' steamed north-east, it being our intention to round the northern limit of the Mertz Glacier. Gradually a distant line of pack, which had been visible for some time, closed in and the ship ran into a cul-de-sac. Gray, who was up in the crow's-nest, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... sand. Orioles and robins sang as they foraged for the blue cedar berry. All the afternoon the trees increased in size and when they made camp at night, it was under a giant pine whose kindred stretched in every direction as far as the eye could pierce through the dusk. There was water in a ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... classics, listen to the music of divine harmonies, and roam the picture galleries of the Eternal. So too in his dealings with his kind, he lives close to men and women who are frank, virile, direct, clean, independent. The culture coming from such associations is above price. One learns to pierce all shams, to honor essential manhood, to keep pure the fountains of sympathy, ambition, and love. Thus on the farm one may find full opportunity for that second means of ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield

... Rothsay to wear your cast garments, Sir John; this melted snow, which I feel pierce me to the very marrow, I am now encountering by your fault. Why did you presume to put off the boat without my ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... bouquet: this is precisely what they do not lack. Some other metaphor must be sought to embody the deficiency. At the same time the want is a real one; and exquisite as are the Odes, no one knew better than their author himself that they have no power to pierce the heart, or to waken those troubled musings which in their blending of pain and pleasure elevate into something that it was not before, the whole being of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... and others." About the year 1472, Melozzo painted his famous fresco of the Ascension in the great chapel of the Santi Apostoli at Rome. Vasari says of this work, "the figure of Christ is so admirably foreshortened, as to appear to pierce the vault; and in the same manner, the Angels are seen sweeping through the fields of air in different directions." This work was so highly esteemed that when the chapel was rebuilt in 1711, the painting was cut out of the ceiling with the ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... to slip through the sentries. They had reached the river two nights before, but only to realize that their hope was vain; no boats were to be seen, and the frowning blockhouses barred the way relentlessly. So they had struck north, again trying to pierce the frontier; and the night before had encountered sentries—not men alone, but bloodhounds. The guards had contented themselves with firing a few volleys—the dogs had pursued them savagely. One Jim had succeeded ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... barren country, which evening rendered still more desolate, bounded by the high mountain of Radicofani. Then, turning round, I beheld the whole extent of rock and forest, the groves of beech, and wilds above the convent, glowing with fiery red, for the sun, making a last effort to pierce the vapours, produced this effect; which was the more striking, as the sky was dark, and the rest of the prospect ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... Perhaps, without knowing it, in deciding to live he was only taking one more step on the road whose beginning he had seen in Elis, as he waited alone outside of the house where Hermes watched over the child; was saving the distant Rosamund from a stroke which would pierce through her armor even though she knelt before the throne of God. But he was conscious only of the feeling that he could not kill himself, though he did not know why he could not. The capacity for suicide evidently was not contained in his nature. He rejected the worm ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... though their words may be few; men, whose lives are serviceable, be they never so short, and worthy of honour, be they never so humble;—from these, surely, at least, we may receive some clear message of teaching; and pierce, for an instant, into the mystery of life, and of ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... He was afflicted, If the spear did pierce His side, If His hands and feet were nailed, If flowed forth His vital tide; Let the fruit of that deep anguish, Let the purchase of that pain, Be imparted to my spirit— Shall the ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris

... thing, it is another. If the stove does not smoke, the boiler must leak. If the pen is good, the ink must be poor. If the editorial column be able, there must be a typographical blunder. If the thorn does not pierce the knee, it must take you in the back. Life must have sharp things in it. We cannot make up our robe of Christian character ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... the cruciform plan with central tower. It must be noted once more that to the cruciform plan the central tower built on piers and arches is essential. It is possible, as in the Gloucestershire churches of Almondsbury and Avening, to pierce the north and south walls of a tower and add transeptal chapels: the plan will have a cruciform appearance, but will still be only an elongated plan with lateral additions. It is possible, in a church where ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson

... few of the marks in the first movement, at least, be explained to him. Rubinstein was all courtesy, all geniality, all encouragement. But he overdid his part just enough to allow the first quick stab of doubt—or of understanding—to pierce the poor boy's rapidly crumbling barrier of confidence. When, at last, the director was called to his waiting audience, Ivan sat on, like a stone, his eyes riveted on the first page of the score,—which might have contained pictures ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... meet the daffodils, For fear their yellow gown Would pierce me with a fashion So ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... huge stone on the machine and thus scattering its occupants, "the litter of English pigs"—these, and her "love-shafts", which, as Salisbury said, "pierce to the heart", are among the most wonderful of historical fairy tales. In the end the English had ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... Bell got neither rest nor sleep. Down in the Au-mann's haunt it sounds and rings, so that the tones sometimes pierce upward through the waters; and many people maintain that its strains forebode the death of some one; but that is not true, for the Bell is only talking with the Au-mann, who is ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... to pierce to the meaning of it: the children were being scattered—the reason must be that we felt the bath-water carrying too much for his powers through the hot weeks. It was not so! He was strong to draw and to bear. The babies should never ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... who worship Mammon find it come true daily, and see that, taking all things together, a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses, and that those who make such haste to be rich, fall, as the apostle says, "into temptation and a snare, and pierce themselves through with many sorrows." Such a man sees his neighbours making money, and making themselves more unhappy, anxious, discontented by it; he sees, in short, that it is not his interest to do nothing but make money ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... he asked once or twice, as he tried to pierce the utter darkness; but there was no answer, and at last he relieved the weariness of his position by moving close up to the wall, so as to lean his back against it, and in this position, despite all his trouble, his head drooped forward till his chin rested upon ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... girl—a bachelor girl in London in war-time—may have had passages in her past life of which her husband knew nothing—passages which may have an important bearing on her murder. Not until we have a thorough knowledge of her antecedents and her past life can we hope to pierce the hidden motives which have led to this murder. It is there, in my opinion, that we must seek for the clue to this strange murder, and it is to that effort I shall devote my energies as soon as I return to London. Until those facts are brought ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... to the deep; But secure with us abide, By the winding river's side; Our gladsome toil, our pleasures share, And think not of a world of care. 10 The lonely cayman,[37] where he feeds Among the green high-bending reeds, Shall yield thee pastime; thy keen dart Through his bright scales shall pierce his heart. Home returning from our toils, Thou shalt bear the tiger's spoils; And we will sing our loudest strain O'er the forest-tyrant slain! Sometimes thou shalt pause to hear The beauteous cardinal ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... journals will also tell us in the future of great events." Then assuming a gay tone he said: "But your majesty forgets that you promised the ladies a dance, and see how impatiently the little princesses look toward us; my sister Amelia is trying to pierce me with her scornful glances, because I have forced her to sit in her arm-chair like a maid of honor, for such a weary time, when she longs to float about like a frolicsome zephyr. To put a stop to her reproaches I will ask her to give me ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... bosses, nearly all of whom had heard more or less about the existing trouble. That we had the sympathy of the cattle interests on our side goes without saying, and one of them, known as "the kidgloved foreman," a man in the employ of Shanghai Pierce, invoked the powers above to witness what would happen if he were in Lovell's boots. This was my first meeting with the picturesque trail boss, though I had heard of him often and found him a trifle boastful but not a bad fellow. He distinguished ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... open at a lover's lightest tread, Break, and, for shame at what they hear, from white blush modest red; And all the spears on all the boughs of all the Ketuk-glades Seem ready darts to pierce the hearts of wandering youths and maids; Tis there thy Krishna dances till the merry drum is done, All in the sunny Spring-time, ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold

... mind and heart in a way never to be forgotten. It is held there by the simple things of life he sees about him every day, and which, every time he sees them, recall the truth he has heard preached. Dr. Thomas May Pierce, speaking of Dr. Conwell's ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... 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 that the sort of halo which my merited or unmerited reputation had ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... summits of the encircling mountains, that lifted themselves to the light, one above another, in the form of frozen billows. Over these a delicate pink flush flitted in tremulous wavy lines—long arrows of gold began to pierce the tender shimmering blue of the sky— soft puffs of cloud tinged with vivid crimson and pale green were strewn along the eastern horizon like flowers in the path of an advancing hero,—and then all at once there was a slight cessation of movement in the heavens—an ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... just here. There were plenty of brave fellows, ready to fight the monster, but nothing made of iron could pierce that hide of his. This was like armor, or one of the steel battleships of our day, and the Afang always spit out fire or poison breath down the road, up which a man was coming, long before the brave fellow could get near him. Nothing would do, but to go up into his lair, ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... been burnt at the stake and tortured, and limbs have been stretched on the rack, and people have been maimed by thumbscrews and bootscrews, and put inside iron figures with nails that tear and pierce. All this have they suffered in pursuit of duty, or at the bidding of conscience; and of such and of brave Joseph Ford there comes to us across the ages—a saying spoken long ago, to the effect that "he that loseth his life shall save it": ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... to go, for the shadows were falling, and already a fog had crept up the river, almost hiding the brown, swiftly-flowing water; yet before leaving the wharf he turned back once more and looked up and down, with eyes that strove to pierce the fog veil,—eager, longing eyes of a child, who hopes every moment to see the ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards

... he uttered the word. The irons seemed to pierce his soul. Probably he did not think that the son of a wealthy gentleman would be compelled to submit to such an indignity as being ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... calculation of the MS. for printing, and to secure each page containing nearly the same amount of writing, she used to prick the margin of her paper at equal distances, and her father made a little machine set with points by which she could pierce several sheets at once. A full sketch of the story she was about to write was always required by her father before she began it, and though often much changed in its progress, the foundation and purpose remained as originally ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... there, we have broken our agreement, now let us revert to art;" but the effort was vain, the talk soon drifted back again to the siege, and many were the conjectures as to what Trochu's famous plan could be and which point offered the most hopeful chance for the army to pierce the German cordon. ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... show that the soul is to play its part, but for ourselves within, where no eyes can pierce but our own; there she defends us from the fear of death, of pain, of shame itself: there she arms us against the loss of our children, friends, and fortunes: and when opportunity presents itself, she leads us on to the hazards ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... small lanthorn of an old pattern dangled over the table, and I noticed that it contained two or three inches of candle. Abaft the hatchway was a door on the starboard side which I opened, and found a narrow dark passage. I could not pierce it with my eye beyond a few feet; but perceiving within this range the outline of a little door, I concluded that here were the berths in which the master and his mates slept. There was nothing to be done in the dark, and I bitterly lamented ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... Davis had been the child who began his schooling so near to Lincoln in Kentucky. He had had a far different career. Good fortune had carried him to West Point, into the Mexican War, into the cabinet of President Franklin Pierce, and twice into the Senate. He had had money, high office, the best education his country could give him—everything, it seemed, that had been denied to Lincoln. Now the two men were the chosen heads of two great opposing factions, one bent on destroying the government that had treated ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay

... the highest marvels of art; it was always thrown open to the people, and in it they passed nearly half their days. Man brought what he held to be his best to the temple in which he came to worship God, and in it was concentrated all the world knew of beauty. Its light but ornate steeples seemed to pierce the very clouds; its columns rivalled the shafts of the forest; its balustrades were exquisitely chiselled; its tapestry inwrought with the finest needle work;—all gave evidence that the hand of love had lingered tenderly over every line in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... and throw each one in cold water containing vinegar, when all are done, rinse in water and put into boiling milk, add cupful of boiling water and teaspoonful of salt. Boil quickly with lid off, pierce with fork to know if done. Lift into hot dish and cover with sauce. Blend Crisco and flour in saucepan, over fire, add milk, salt and pepper, and cook five minutes. Remove from fire, add egg beaten with cream and lemon juice, pour over artichokes and sprinkle ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil

... with the starlit sky, and the mountains and the woods, and the soft shadows of the increasing moon. Oh! who can describe what the o'ercharged spirit feels at this sacred hour, when we almost lose the consciousness of existence, and our souls seem to struggle to pierce futurity! In the forest of the mysterious Odenwald, in the solitudes of the Bergstrasse, had Vivian at this hour often found consolation for a bruised spirit, often in adoring nature had forgotten man. But now, when he had never ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... wrapped in a lurid and sombre mistiness; the sullen mingling of darkness and of light; her masts pointing straight up could be tracked by torn gleams and vanished above as if the trucks had been tall enough to pierce the heavy mass of vapours motionless overhead. She was beautifully precious. His loving eyes saw her floating at rest in a wavering halo, between an invisible sky and an invisible sea, like a miraculous ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... Vilna's fall was reported, part of Von Hindenburg's army, its left wing, was reported at Vornjany, Smorgon, and Molodechno, all places east of Vilna, the last about eighty miles on the Vilna-Minsk railway. In vain did the Russians try to pierce this line, which, by the very nature of the advance, must have been exceedingly thin. It not only held, but managed to force the Russians to continue their retreat, and during this process captured large numbers of them. General von Eichhorn's army, the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears of their moon-freezing crystals, the bright chains Eat with their burning ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow

... lead and stones right against the back of its head. He might as well have fired at the boiler of a steam-engine. The entire body of an alligator—back and belly, head and tail—is so completely covered with thick hard scales, that shot has no effect on it; and even a bullet cannot pierce its coat of mail, except in one or two vulnerable places. Nevertheless the shot had been fired so close to it that the animal was stunned, and rolled over on its back in the water. Seeing this, the old ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... long time I sat there trying to pierce the blackness of the room beyond the window with my straining eyes, deeply sensitive to a curiosity that had as its basic force the very natural anxiety to know what disposition she had made of the rest of her person in order to ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... have acted most powerfully. This fissure is perhaps the greatest with which the mountain is seamed, and out of which has undoubtedly been discharged a great portion of its lava. Starting from the base of the dome, it seemed to pierce the shifting clouds to a point about 500 feet from the summit. This line is continued out into the plain in a series of small volcanoes the craters of which appear to be as perfect as though they had been in activity only yesterday. ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... sought his life? Oh base, degenerate Spaniard! Hadst thou done it, thou hadst been worse than damned: Heaven took more care of me, than I of him, to expose this paper to my timely view. Sleep on, thou honourable Englishman; I'll sooner now pierce my own breast than thine: See, he smiles too in his slumber, as if his guardian angel, in a dream, told him, he was secure: I'll give him warning though, to prevent danger from another hand. [Writes on TOWERSON'S paper, then sticks his dagger in it. Stick there, that when he wakens, he may ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... are graceful and almost pretty, slight in figure, and very fond of ornament. Indeed both sexes pierce their ears, noses, and lips, through which to thrust silver, brass, and gold rings, also covering their ankles and arms with metallic rings, the number only limited by their means. In the immediate neighborhood of the town are some English ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... their learning but their table-talk. But God knoweth they have gotten little that have only this discoursing gift: for, though like empty vessels they sound loud when a man knocks upon their outsides, yet if you pierce into them, you shall find that they are full of nothing ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard

... to me," shouted Umslopogaas. "Steel cuts where bullets cannot pierce," and with a bound like to that of a buck, the great Zulu leapt away ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... that Webster was the greatest man he ever knew, that Clay managed men better, and Calhoun was the finest logician of the century. "The two most eloquent men I ever heard were Northern men," said he; "Choate and Prentiss." "Pierce," he used to say, "was the most complete gentleman I ever saw in the White House. He was clever and correct. Zachary Taylor was the most ignorant. It was amazing how little he knew. Van Buren was shrewd rather than ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... death of shame and ignominy; for, but for you, we should have kept our secret, our plans would have succeeded, and ours would have been the triumph. But though your magic triumphs now, it shall not always be so. I too have a potent magic, by means of which mine eyes can pierce the veil of the future and see many things that are to be. I see you and the other 'mlungu going hence through many dangers to a far country, where other dangers await you; and, mark you this, though both go, only one of you shall return! It is enough; I have said, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... people pulling out of the mass like threads, all headed for the open gate. Swift as light those guards of the guns on the rampart sprang to place, the watcher of the portal swung the great studded gate ready for the clanging close, and, in a twinkling, so alert to peril do they become who pierce the wilderness, there were without only that howling mass of savages, De Courtenay, McElroy, and Edmonton Ridgar gazing with dimmed vision into the fast glazing eyes of ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... and withdrew two or three paces, looking down on her in silent consternation. She did not lift her eyes, but she felt that his gaze was upon her. It seemed to pierce to the very marrow of her bones, to the ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... man has plucked just prickles enough out of the dogma of Original Sin to make a thick and ample crown of thorns for his opponents; and yet left enough to tear his own clothes off his back, and pierce through the leather jerkin of his closeliest wrought logic. In this answer to this objection he reminds me of the renowned squire, who first scratched out his eyes in a quickset hedge, and then leaped back and scratched them in again. ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... this little, for the present, is ardently grasped at, and with eager sympathy appropriated in every bosom. If Byron's life-weariness, his moody melancholy, and mad stormful indignation, borne on the tones of a wild and quite artless melody, could pierce so deep into many a British heart, now that the whole matter is no longer new,—is indeed old and trite,—we may judge with what vehement acceptance this /Werter/ must have been welcomed, coming as it did like a voice from unknown regions; the first thrilling peal of ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... the slimy pools of the stagnant rivers, and once or twice he got a glimpse of what might well have been the ruins of towns and cities, but the gloom soon became too deep and dense for the searchlights to pierce and he was glad when the Astronef soared up into the brilliant sunlight once more. Even the ghastly wilderness of the lunar landscape was welcome after the nameless horrors of ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... wish we were out of this!" muttered Matt, as he tried in vain to pierce the gloom ahead. "You must find the road, Billy, ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... malice! Pile up falsehoods to the skies!—WHO WILL BELIEVE THE TALE OF PROBABILITY? Brethren! behold the man whose cause I pleaded with you—for whom my feelings had well-nigh mastered my better judgment. Behold him, and learn how hard it is to pierce the stony heart of him whose youth has passed in dissolute living, and in adultery. Shall I approach thy ear with the voice of her who cries from the grave for justice on her seducer? Look, my beloved, on the man whom I found discarded by mankind, friendless and naked whom I clothed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... and tail, The mailed back, and the wide-webbed prickly wings, Are green, like those base eyes of jealousy Which hope to see a covert murder done. I find the finest needle in the house, And press the point down on the slimy hide. The blunt edge crushes, does not pierce the shape, And brings the straggle that I gloat to see. The legs stretch out, and work to get away; A barbed tongue and twin fangs drool from the mouth. The eyes protrude, and glare with deadly hate, Until they fix at ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey

... believe it!" answered Brown, whose eyes were straining to pierce the darkness, which was blacker than the ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... whom he had to do. But what has this gentleman done for the Lord, after having done so much for him? The Lord has a suffering people, whose moans and groans at his feet for deliverance from oppression and wretchedness, pierce the very throne of Heaven, and call loudly on the God of Justice, to be revenged. Now what this gentleman who is so highly favored of the Lord, has done to liberate those miserable victims of oppression, shall appear before the world, by his letters to Mr. Gallatin, Envoy Extraordinary ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet

... turned up the slope of rock rubbish which leads to the foot of the cave cliffs. The mountain here is a sheer face of rock; and the caves, natural or artificial, pierce the rock in tiers, higher and lower. The precipice is spotted with them. The lowest ones are used now by the Arabs to pen their sheep and quarter their donkeys; Mr. Dinwiddie and I looked into a good many of them; in one or ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... about 250 persons, mostly of humble rank. Marcus Flaccus fled with his eldest son to a place of concealment, where they were soon afterwards hunted out and put to death. Gracchus had at the beginning of the conflict retired into the temple of Minerva, and was there about to pierce himself with his sword, when his friend Publius Laetorius seized his arm and besought him to preserve himself if possible for better times. Gracchus was induced to make an attempt to escape to the other bank of the Tiber; but when hastening ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... tender roots pierce deep, His green crest towers, dimmed in sleep, Under the stars whose thrones are set Where never prince hath ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare

... fought on with arrows, guided by the sound of bow-strings and (hostile) division. The very hiss of the arrows shot by the combatants at one another could not be heard. And so loud was the sound of drums, that it seemed to pierce the ears. And in that tumultuous uproar making the hair stand on end, the name of the combatant uttered in the battle, while displaying his prowess, could not be heard. The sire could not recognise the son of his loins. One of the wheels being broken, or the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... down. You are worn out with your trouble. Don't repel me, Thyrza. I have done you a great wrong, and I know you cannot feel to me as you did; but I am not so hard-hearted that your suffering does not pierce me through. Only sit ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... Now, therefore, I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States, have issued this my proclamation, warning all persons who shall connect themselves with any such enterprise or expedition that the penalties of the law denounced against ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... air, or yet the young stags skipping through the thicket, as the Parthians knew well how to do; that is to say, people moiling, stirring, and hurrying up and down, restless and without repose. He must have those hushed, still, quiet, lying at a stay, lither and full of ease, whom he is able to pierce with all his arrows. In conformation thereof, Theophrastus being asked on a time, What kind of beast or thing he judged a toyish, wanton love to be? he made answer, That it was a passion of idle and sluggish spirits.[224] From which pretty description ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... so that he feels no influence of sympathy coming from the wide ocean of humanity around, no influence of love from the deep heaven of God above. He is a sort of good rhinoceros, with a skin so thick that nothing can pierce it. ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... then I stood still, paralyzed. Monstrous evil-looking gray mists were clumped at the very threshold. Sinister formless vapors blotted out the mountain; everywhere vague, drifting hulks of malarious mist. I sought to pierce them, to find the landscape, the cheerful village, the warm human life nesting under God's heaven, but saw only—way below—as through a tunnel cut betwixt mist and mountain, a dead, inverted world of houses and trees in a chill, gray lake. I shuddered. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... know? Of Man, what see we but his station here, From which to reason, or to which refer? 20 Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known, 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. He, who thro' vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs, 25 What other planets circle other suns, What vary'd Being peoples ev'ry star, May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are. But of this frame the bearings, and the ties, The strong connexions, nice ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... world's way ... to beat the spirit down ... the eager spirit, superbly sane, daring to pierce the ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson

... that I dread most of all is the Sword-Fish, so named from the long sword-shaped snout on his upper jaw. This sword is very strong, and so sharp that it will easily pierce a boat. The White Shark is bad enough, but the Sword-Fish is even worse. His aim is unerring, and his disposition so fierce that he will attack anything that comes in his path, large or small. I saw one once that measured ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater

... only the evanescence, but the mystery of the cloud; that its avenues are wreathed in darkness, and its forms and courses no less fantastic, than spectral and obscure; so that not only in the vanity which we cannot grasp, but in the shadow which we cannot pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of ours, that "man walketh in a vain shadow, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... not the man to pierce the obscurity by his intuition or by his research. Yet we must not be too critical of the want of proportion in his writing when we remember that he was a pioneer; for it was an original idea to piece together the stray fragments of history that referred to his people. ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich



Words linked to "Pierce" :   move, strike, prick, transfix, cut, penetrate, horn, president, affect, gore, puncture, pick, center punch, President Pierce, perforate, sting, spike, poke, impale, break up, riddle, thrust, Sir Noel Pierce Coward, prickle, sound, Chief Executive, lance, Franklin Pierce, tusk, bite, punch



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com