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Penetrate   Listen
verb
Penetrate  v. t.  (past & past part. penetrated; pres. part. penetrating)  
1.
To enter into; to make way into the interior of; to effect an entrance into; to pierce; as, light penetrates darkness.
2.
To affect profoundly through the senses or feelings; to touch with feeling; to make sensible; to move deeply; as, to penetrate one's heart with pity. "The translator of Homer should penetrate himself with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style."
3.
To pierce into by the mind; to arrive at the inner contents or meaning of, as of a mysterious or difficult subject; to comprehend; to understand. "Things which here were too subtile for us to penetrate."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Penetrate" Quotes from Famous Books



... that the Russian army was going off, crossed the river in force and furiously attacked their rear-guard, and tried to penetrate between it and the main body of the army, but Prince Eugene's division was sent back to assist General Korf, who commanded there. In the meantime two columns of the French moved along the main road to Moscow with the evident intention of heading the Russian ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... his hands to his lips, and the cry reverberated in the narrow passage; but, though he shouted again and again, his voice did not penetrate, for the sound of the pumping and rushing of water, and the boy had to make his way right to where Hardock was anxiously watching the working of the machinery; and as Gwyn reached him, he was once more holding his lanthorn down to see how ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... the same with her singing; the same with the selection of the pieces that she sang and played. Such frigid and constrained, yet prompt and pointed acquiescence with the wishes he imposed upon her, and on no one else, was sufficiently remarkable to penetrate through all the mysteries of picquet, and impress itself on Mr Carker's keen attention. Nor did he lose sight of the fact that Mr Dombey was evidently proud of his power, and liked to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... One knoweth a little too much about every one! And many a one becometh transparent to us, but still we can by no means penetrate him. ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... necessity to guard the empire from all hostile attacks, whether from France or Russia, or both combined. A country surrounded with enemies as Germany is, in the centre of Europe, without the natural defences of the sea which England enjoys, or great chains of mountains on her borders difficult to penetrate and easy to defend, as is the case with Switzerland, must have a superior military force to defend her, in case of future contingencies which no human wisdom can foresee. Nor is it such a dreadful burden to support a peace establishment of four hundred and fifty thousand men ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... manner, when, about four o'clock, I again found myself at the Pont Royal, after paying a visit to the hotel. Here I met two American friends, and we walked by the quay of the palace, towards the Pont Neuf. The people were in a dense crowd, and it was even difficult to penetrate the mass. Just before we reached the bridge, we heard shouts and cries of Vive le Roi, and presently I saw M. de Chabot-Rohan, the first honorary aide-de-camp, a gentleman whom I personally knew, and who usually led the cortege ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... as a pillar, and forms, in fact, two separate bridges joined on the opposite sides of this central boulder. I walked cautiously across the first portion, stood to listen again on the rock dividing the foaming waters, and tried to penetrate the obscurity. There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard. I went over the rock and proceeded towards the second half of the bridge, when I found to my horror that this second half of the ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... wish to see?" demanded the jailer, in a coarse, rough tone, seeking to penetrate the veil ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... moving cautiously, so as not to run blindly upon some sentry post in the darkness. There would be nervous soldiers on duty, liable to fire at any sound, or suspicious movement, and it was a part of my plan to penetrate the lines unseen, and without inviting arrest. Once safely within the confines of the camp, the lack in uniforms and discipline, would afford ample freedom, but to be held as a prisoner, even for a short time, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... and we were actually confronted with the danger, it would be necessary for the Indians who have their villages and houses on the seacoast, or along the rivers or estuaries, where the enemy could penetrate easily, to retire inland to live, it seems that it would be advisable for the fathers of the doctrinas to have the natives warned and persuaded immediately to move to more retired and secure places; and that they should commence ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... They have a certain depth of root in the lives of a proportion of the existing generation. Their fitness for satisfying human needs may have vanished, and their congruity with one another may have come to an end. That is only one side of the truth. The most zealous propagandism cannot penetrate to them. The quality of bearing to be transplanted from one kind of soil and climate to another is not very common, and it is far from being inexhaustible even ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... But if they were on the watch, so was Pettengill, from previous experience, waiting behind his door with a heavy wooden bar in his hand, and giving instant chase to the flying urchins, would send the bar rattling at their heels. One day, after a season of unusual quiet, one of our lads anxious to penetrate his mystery, ventured to knock gently at the barred portal, was admitted, and expressed his wish to purchase a pair of shoes. The old man opened several chests containing the articles sought for, and finally selected a pair which proved a fit; but upon his visitor's ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... so, as occasion offered, I was put through this ordeal, by no means an easy one. At each fair charmer, as I bowed, I looked with what directness I dared, to see if I might penetrate the mask and so foil Kitty in her amiable intentions. This occupation caused me promptly to forget most of the names which I heard, and which I doubt not were all fictitious. As we passed out at the foot of the row I recalled that I had not heard ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... scene of action, they found the seven bears busily engaged in digging up roots, so the men separated in order to surround them, and then closed in. The place was partly open and partly covered with thick bushes into which a horseman could not penetrate. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... before the party set off, I arrived accidentally at the house, taking a survey of numerous bodies of woodcutters belonging to the establishment with which I was connected. The only time anyone can penetrate into the interior in the winter season, the lakes and rivers being frozen over; even the Bay of Exploits, though salt water, was then (the end of January) frozen for sixty miles. Having proposed to accompany the party, they immediately consented. Our equipments consisted ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad

... were large and frequent; still, with the aid of some old condemned paulins obtained from the quartermaster, the walls were covered and the necessity for chinking obviated. This method of covering the holes in the side walls also possessed the advantage of permitting some little light to penetrate to the interior of the house, and avoided the necessity of constructing a window, for which, by the way, no glass could have been obtained. Next a good large fire-place and chimney were built in one corner by means of stones and ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan

... by some magic means and emerging safe, undetected, in batiste so rare that her skin blushed through it, in a frock that was priceless and yet nothing at all, and in warm marvellous sables that no blast of wind or misfortune could ever penetrate—and diamonds in her hair. She pictured thousands of smart women, with imperious command over rich, attendant males, who at that very moment were moving quickly in automobiles from theatres towards the dancing-clubs that clustered round ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... the route had failed his horse had divined the fact. There were no hills now that they could climb to obtain a view of the country. They came upon a few, but so dense and interlaced was the brush that scarcely could a rabbit penetrate the mass. They were in the great, lonely ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... ravens, and I do not like De Sautys; for if, indeed, it were all right with the De Sautys, it would be all wrong with certain things that are most dear to the romantic part of me; since De Sauty is to my imagination the living type of that indiscriminate sacrilege of trade which would penetrate the beautiful illusions of remoteness, as through an opera-glass,—which would tie the ends of the earth together and toss it over shoulder like a peddler's bundle, to "swop" quaint curiosities, inspiring relics, and solemn symbols, for British prints or American pig-iron. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... sufficient to be acquainted with the ceremonials of the Sabine nation; in his expansive mind he conceives greater views, and inquires into the nature of things. 'Twas love of this pursuit, his country and cares left behind, that caused him to penetrate to the city of the stranger Hercules. To him, making the inquiry what founder it was that had erected a Grecian city on the Italian shores, one of the more aged natives, who was not unacquainted with {the history of} the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... far from the steps (nor could she be induced to penetrate further, though they would have made way for her) that only fragments reached her, but ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... led between hedges of prickly-pear, eight or ten feet in height, and often of considerable width, the broad leaves so closely overlapping each other that they formed a dense mass through which the light failed to penetrate, bright scarlet flowers and purple fruit ornamenting the massive wall. Here and there cocoa-nut trees sprang up from the inner side like oaks or elms in an English hedgerow, most of them loaded with fruit; while occasionally ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... been struck from his horse by a piece of case shot, fortunately almost spent, and which failed to penetrate his thick pelisse. He was badly contused, and for a short time insensible; but he quickly sprung to his feet again, mounted his horse, and maintained his place in the fight as if nothing had happened. After this second repulse he again formed up his troops, ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... to penetrate into these leafy solitudes; but communication with the outside world was so rare that the Angell family, who had long been self-supporting, and able to live without the products of the mother colony away to the ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... was a question probably of days or hours. Her presence in the cottage, when once the village was in full possession of the slander, would be a perpetual provocation. One way or another the truth must penetrate to her. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... productive, and interesting inquiry, not only advantageous to those who indulge in it, but beneficial to human nature at large. What time and talent have men wasted in metaphysical lucubrations! They have sought to penetrate the internal nature of things, of the mind, and of matter; they have taken purely vague combinations of words for substantial realities; but these very researches, or others which have arisen out of them, have enlightened us upon ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... iron-plating. It cannot have been of any serious thickness, for a Viking ship had not enough displacement to spare for carrying heavy armour; but the thin plates were strong enough to be a defence against arrows and spears, and as these would not penetrate a thick wooden bulwark it seems likely that the plating was fixed on a rail running along each side, thus giving a higher protection than the bulwark itself. Erik's ship was thus a ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... come on to be cloudy, and he had lost his bearings; and although he had only to go always downhill—everywhere the way to safety when one is lost—the absence of trails had so impeded him that he was overtaken by night while still in the forest. Unable in the darkness to penetrate the thickets of manzanita and other undergrowth, utterly bewildered and overcome with fatigue, he had lain down near the root of a large madrono and fallen into a dreamless sleep. It was hours later, in the very middle of the night, that one of God's mysterious messengers, gliding ahead ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people, is to give them full information of their affairs through the channel of the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... inexplicable realities in the dangerous stimulant of angry partisanship or the indolent narcotick of vague and hopeful vaticination: fortunamque suo temperat arbitrio. Both by reason of my age and my natural temperament, I am unfitted for either. Unable to penetrate the inscrutable judgments of God, I am more than ever thankful that my life has been prolonged till I could in some small measure comprehend His mercy. As there is no man who does not at some time render himself amenable to the one,—quum vix justus sit securus,—so there is none that does ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... knowledge; but it may surprise you to know that it is so common among the Moslems, that according to the Turkish popular belief, there is always a White Adept somewhere within the mosque of St. Sophia,—hidden under a disguise none would be likely to penetrate. There are hundreds of stories. The common thought is that representatives of this Lodge, or their disciples, often appear; are not so far away from the world of men; may be teaching, quite obscurely, or dropping casual seeds of the Secret Wisdom, in the next village. Well; I imagine ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... penetrate Mr. Krech's dazed faculties. His eyes opened, blinked once or twice, opened again and stared tranquilly up into Creighton's. His ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... and this the dead body of a bird or of a pig; and again, that this Falernian is only a little grape-juice, and this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed with the blood of a shell-fish: such then are these impressions, and they reach the things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what kind of things they are. Just in the same way ought we to act all through life, and where there are things which appear most worthy of our approbation, we ought to lay them bare and look at their ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

... cataracts at the southern boundary of Egypt, I found the journey so agreeable, so full of interest, and attended with so much less danger than I had supposed, that I determined to go on for a month or two longer, and penetrate as far as possible into the interior. Everything ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... white face beside his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible surmise on the pavement—these could at worst suspect, they could not know; through the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate. But here, within the house, was he alone? He knew he was; he had watched the servant set forth sweet-hearting, in her poor best, 'out for the day' written in every ribbon and smile. Yes, he was alone, ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... keen eyes of Mont Sterry could not penetrate the moonlight sufficiently far to detect anything. He was out of the saddle in a twinkling, and tried a trick learned from the old hunters. He pressed one ear against the ground, which, as all know, is a much better conductor of sound ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis

... known to march two days and two nights consecutively without cooking a meal or sleeping, so as to escape from any parties which might follow them. The British, since the occupation of Upper Burma, have been able to penetrate the Chin-Lushai country from both sides at once. The pacification of the Chin Hills is a triumph for British administration. Roads, on which Chin coolies now readily work, have been constructed in all directions. The rivers have ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... Angelotti is still at large, but Cavaradossi has been arrested. Scarpia, who has meanwhile conceived a violent passion for La Tosca, extracts from her the secret of Angelotti's hiding-place by putting her lover to the torture in an adjoining room, whence his cries penetrate to her distracted ears. La Tosca buys her lover's safety by promising herself to Scarpia. The latter gives orders that Cavaradossi's execution shall only be a sham one, blank cartridge being substituted for bullets. When they are ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... of their own, or some guess founded on private information not half so good as what everybody gets who reads the papers,—never by any possibility a word that we can depend on, simply because there are cobwebs of contingency between every to-day and to-morrow that no field-glass can penetrate when fifty of them lie woven one over another. Prophesy as much as you like, but always hedge. Say that you think the rebels are weaker than is commonly supposed, but, on the other hand, that they may prove to be even stronger than is anticipated. Say what you like,—only ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Washington municipalities. Where a few years ago was nothing but a wilderness, known only to the Indians or an occasional fisherman, are now busy marts with extensive waterfront factory sites. Pretty roads start from these cities and wind along the harbor front or penetrate the interior. Excursions by water may be made to Bay Center and Tokeland, summer resorts and fishing stations. Crab and clam fisheries and the oyster beds may be seen here to advantage, Tokeland being the place where eastern ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles

... such poems must be content with the approbation of those heaven-favoured geniuses, who, by a similarity of taste and sentiment, are enabled to penetrate the high mysteries of inspired fancy, and to pursue the loftiest flights of enthusiastic imagination. Nevertheless, the praise of the distinguished few is certainly preferable to the applause of the undiscerning million; for all praise ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... Nihaulowit. And the strong snake readily resolved to destroy or fight the beings or the men. The dark snake he brought, the monster (Amanyam) he brought, snake-rushing water he brought (it). Much water is rushing, much go to hills, much penetrate, much destroying. Meanwhile at Tula (this is the same Tula referred to in the Central American legends), at THAT ISLAND, Nana-Bush (the great hare Nana) becomes the ancestor of beings and men. Being born creeping, he is ready to move and dwell at Tula. The beings and men ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... extended not only to the famous world centers, but even to the humblest corners, wherever one of their race existed. Rabat, Casablanca, Larache, Tafilete, Fez, were African towns into which the great banks of Europe could penetrate only with the aid of these auxiliaries, bearing an almost famous name yet ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... their environment. To him whose views of Roman history are but a shapeless mist, if not an absolute void, Virgil and Horace are sealed books; nor can any one who is ignorant of Scotland and her traditions penetrate beyond the husk of 'Waverley' or 'Old Mortality.' To the young beginner a few judicious words of explanation at the commencement of a book may serve to awaken that interest without which reading is useless, and to make darkness ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... to like letting his package out of his hands, not for anything in the world; perhaps he did not even dare trust it into his own pocket. I could stake my life there was something at the bottom of that package—I considered a bit. Just the fact of finding it so impossible to penetrate this mysterious affair distracted me with curiosity. I searched my pockets for something to offer the man in order to enter into conversation with him, took hold of my shaving-book, but put it back again. Suddenly it entered my head to be utterly audacious; ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... it is vain to try to penetrate even with the eye, to say nothing of one's steps, for there all is covered with a misty cloud that rises incessantly from quivering morasses. But finally behind this mist (so runs the common rumour) extends a very fair and fertile region, the main capital of the kingdom ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... again as if it would never stop. The days, consequently, grew unutterably dreary, from the misfortune of all being perforce confined, as before, to the house by the bitter cold wind; and, to make matters worse, the snow-flakes now seemed to penetrate through the tiniest crevices within the hut, so that the air in the interior of the dwelling was of the temperature of freezing, no matter how great a fire was ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... another repository, and nearer, which it would be worth while to endeavour to penetrate: I mean the Scottish College at Paris. I have heard formerly, that numbers Of papers, of various sorts, were transported at the Reformation to Spain and Portugal: but, if preserved there, they probably are not accessible yet. If they were, how puny, how diminutive, would all such discoveries, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... human knowledge, we rest content with it as a final solution; the Socratic maxim, "I know that I am ignorant," should not lead to despairing resignation but to courageous further inquiry. The duty of speculation is to penetrate deeper and deeper into the secrets of the divine, even though the ultimate revelation will not be given us until the hereafter. The fittest instrument of speculation is furnished by mathematics, in its conception of the infinite and the wonders ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... she? Killed—stabbed! Too bad! Many's the trinket I've bought of her for—for—well, some of the girls, you know," and he winked suggestively at the detectives. "Old lady Darcy's dead! Say, look here, boys!" he exclaimed with a sudden change of manner, as something seemed to penetrate to his sodden brain, "you—you don't for a minute think I did this—do you?" and he sat up straight ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele

... our Lord, yet let not your hearts faint or fear, but rather fortify yourselves in your Faith because all his actions are miraculous and secret, which human understanding cannot comprehend, and who can penetrate into the depth of them? In a brief time all things shall be manifested to you clearly in their purity, and ye shall know and consider and be instructed by the Inventor himself. Blessed is he who can ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love, as well as out of wide division; in the former case, they are subtle and delicate, and difficult to penetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in this one respect, such a mystery to me; I can make no guess at the state ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... 'I'll open a way for you, Confederates!' and, seizing as many spears as he could grasp in his arms, dragged them down with his whole weight and strength upon his own bosom, and thus made an opening for his countrymen to penetrate the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... self-analysis, without being able to penetrate the inner recesses of his own soul in that ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... mall. The king did so, and when he arrived there, the physician came to him with the mace, and said, "Exercise yourself with this mace, and strike the ball until you find your hands and body perspire. When the medicine I have put up in the handle of the mace is heated with your hand, it will penetrate your whole body; and as soon as you perspire, you may leave off the exercise, for then the medicine will have had its effect. Immediately on your return to your palace, go into the bath, and cause yourself to be well washed and rubbed; then retire to bed, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... truth had come, and who had borne witness against the error or inconsistency or inadequateness of old ways of thinking. The questions which presented themselves to the acuter minds of a hundred years ago, were present to the acuter minds who lived hundreds of years before that. The more deeply we penetrate into the history of opinion, the more strongly are we tempted to believe that in the great matters of speculation no question is altogether new, and hardly any answer is altogether new. But the Church had known how to deal with intellectual insurgents, from Abelard in the twelfth century ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... kitchen. The body of this imposing building stood twenty feet square upon the ground. The kitchen measured nine feet by eight, and there was a wood-shed three feet wide, in which Puella managed to pile the wood and various domestic mysteries into which Corona felt no desire to penetrate. There were a parlor, a dining-room, a guest-room, and two rooms left for 'the family.' There were two closets, a coal-bin, and a loft. The house stood on what, for want of a scientific term, Corona ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... bother my head over these questions, they never have been scientifically explained to the beginning; I doubt if they ever will be, because they start with the origin of matter and that is too far beyond man for him to penetrate. Just enjoy to the depths of your soul——that's worship. Be thankful for everything——that's praising God as the birds praise him. And 'do unto others' that's all there is of love and religion combined ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... flattering evasive sophistries, she asked in a voice whose marvellous modulations in the midst of intense feeling seemed to penetrate every nook ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... would not be disheartened. If she saw the rocks ahead, against whose fatal shoulders she was being swept—if she heard, dinning in her ears, the rush and roar of the headlong, irresistible rapids—if her eyes could penetrate the void which opened darkly beyond—she only nerved herself the more resolutely, her glance was all the firmer, her determination ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... is a truth established; the sign of this failure is, that the most potent spirit known to the magicians of the East, and whose name none may utter and live, has laid his spell upon this well. The mortal does not breathe, nor ever will, who can penetrate the secret of that spell, and without that secret none can break it. The water will flow no more forever, good Father. I have done what man could. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... so rigidly shrunk up, that they could not now admit them; no, not while the portentous spectre was unveiling his visage to them, in near and still nearer approach; not when the element of another world was beginning to penetrate through the rents of their mortal tabernacle. It appeared that literally their thoughts could not go out from what they had been through life immersed in, to contemplate, with any realizing feeling, a grand change of being, expected so soon to ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... with English sportsmen, that he could express himself very tolerably in English. Mr Fordyce, laughing, said that he should prefer watching outside with the horses; so, accompanied by four of the most active villagers, Nowell, Dango, and I prepared to penetrate through the jungle. Our only mode of escaping the thorns was to crawl on our hands and knees, trailing our rifles after us; and to do this without the certainty of their going off, we had to secure the locks in cases. Then we had ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... all of you. I am sure of it. Oh, she is grand, fantastic, passionate, daring. Think of it, Karl," he went on, going close to the boy and leaning over him, bringing out his words so that every one seemed to penetrate his heart; "think of it, to-night a kiss behind a door in front of which her husband was standing. Danger fascinates her. And just now, a moment before ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien

... that night, and eased dear mother's heart so much, and made her pale face spread with smiles, I had resolved to penetrate Glen Doone from the upper end, and learn all about my Lorna. Not but what I might have entered from my unsuspected channel, as so often I had done; but that I saw fearful need for knowing something more than that. Here was every sort of trouble gathering ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... to transport themselves from one end of the world to the other with the rapidity of thought; to speak all languages; to have their purses always full of money, however much they might spend; to be invisible, and penetrate into the most secret places, in spite of fastenings of bolts and bars; and to be able to tell the past and future. These thirty-six brethren were divided into bands or companies: six of them only had been sent on the mission to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... one exclaimed: "I am amazed by the progress Schiller can make within a single fortnight!" Perhaps this explains why the great seem to come in groups. Thrust an Emerson into any Concord, and his pungent presence will penetrate the entire region. Soon all who come within the radius of his life respond to his presence, as flowers and trees respond with boughs brilliant and fragrant to the sunshine when spring replaces the icy winter. After a little time, each Emerson stands girt about with Hawthornes, Whittiers, ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... depends on the structure of our sense apparatus; for it reveals a realm just as real as that already known to us, but hitherto concealed from us because it is not accessible to the natural senses. Accordingly, if the microscope can penetrate through the veil of illusion which normally hides a whole world of potentially visible phenomena, it may be that it can even teach us something about the ideas we have hitherto formed concerning the nature of things. Perhaps it can bring us a step nearer the ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... about this blessed life while we stay in this world. Human eyes cannot penetrate into the deep mystery. We are like men standing on the shore of a great sea, wondering what lies on the other side. No one has come back to tell us what he found in that far country. We bring our questions to the word ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... with tape. I'm sure that this oil would penetrate anything which was not absolutely ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... dropped back upon the bed, and the next thing I remember is snatching up a pillow, and holding it tight-pressed against Jeanie's face for fear the sound of her sobs should penetrate into the next room; and afterwards we both got out, somehow, by the other door, and rushed downstairs, and clung to each ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... in!" exclaimed Lord Rosmore as he came towards her. "I have never had the curiosity to penetrate into this rubbish heap before, and behold I am rewarded by ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner

... the assassin, and put an end to my career. He would aid in bringing me to public execution,—no, death by a mob! Well, in return for his hospitable invitation, I can only express the desire that he would penetrate into some of the dark corners of New Hampshire; and, if he do, I am much mistaken if he would not find that the people in that benighted region would be very happy to listen to his arguments, and engage in an intellectual conflict ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton

... the patellar region are of rather frequent occurrence, and because of the comparatively unprotected position of these structures, the capsular ligaments of the stifle joint may be perforated as a result of violence in some form. Calk wounds which penetrate the tissues in the immediate region of the lower portion of the external part of the femerotibial capsule sometimes result in open joint because of tissue necrosis resulting from the introduction of infection. Contused wounds sometimes destroy the skin and fascia over large areas ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... merely responded with a wave of the hand and sallied out of the door to go in pursuit of her companion. The brilliancy of the moon, which met her eye, was as limpid as water. But suddenly came a slight gust of wind. She felt it penetrate her very flesh and bore through her bones. So much so, that she could not help shuddering all over. "Little wonder is it," she argued within herself, "if people say 'that one mustn't, when one's body is warm, expose one's self to the wind.' This cold is really dreadful!" She was at the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... the opposite shore; and my camp could not be seen from the river, as I had taken pains to hide myself in the thicket of young willows from all curious eyes. There was no hope that my voice would penetrate to the other side of the stream, neither could I reach the water beyond the soft ooze. Being well provisioned, however, it would be an easy matter to await the rise of the river; and if no friendly freshet sent me the required assistance, the winds would harden the ooze ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... length and stretches from the Vardar River on the west to the Gulf of Orplanos on the east. There are three lines of defense. To assist the first two on the east are Lakes Beshik and Langaza, on the west the Vardar River. Should the enemy penetrate the first lines they will be confronted ten miles from Salonika by a natural barrier of hills, and ten miles of intrenchments and barb-wire. Should the enemy surmount these hills the Allies war-ships in the ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis

... their blankets were quite socially inclined, and the wig-wams at a little distance looked very romantic to the young easterner, but the odors wafted from them were sufficient for him, and he declined to penetrate any further into the mysteries of an Indian camp; and after taking one or two views of the Indians and their tepees, he returned ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... this one thing that will give us rest is precisely what the South, if we leave the work of reconstruction in their hands, will make it impossible for us to do; and yet it must be done ere America can penetrate the Southern States. It is for this reason, and not with any desire of establishing a standing garrison of four hundred thousand loyal voters in the South, that we insist on the absolute necessity of justice to the black man. Not that we have not a perfect right to demand the reception of ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... toward the very middle of the world. Its width was a matter of memory, and its depth unguessable, for although dim moonlight filtered through it, he did not know where the moon was, nor how far such light could penetrate through moving water. Somewhere it met rock-bottom and boiled there, for a roar like the sea's came up from ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... governed, it must be administered with the consent and approval of the Dutch. He dwelt strongly upon the danger of allowing and encouraging natives to procure arms in Griqualand West as an enticement to work for the diamond owners. The secret designs of Sir Theophilus Shepstone he did not penetrate, and therefore he was unprepared for the next development in the South African drama. The South African Conference in London, which he attended during August, 1876, led to no useful result because Molteno, though he had ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... of charcoal; the former being to be had at an easy rate, the latter not without a great expence; but hitherto they have proved ineffectual, the workmen finding by experience that a sea coal fire, how vehement soever, will not penetrate the most fixed parts of the ore, by which means they leave much of the mettal behind ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... not say that all this time the lad was longing for the return of Deerfoot, the Shawanoe. If any one could penetrate the mystery which shut them in at every step, he was the one to do it. None could have attained a point nearer perfection than he, so far as ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... downfall of flakes had been turned into a biting scourge that whipped up the soft cloak from the face of the open, treeless prairie and sent it lashing through the frigid air. Long before night had begun to settle down, no eye could penetrate the scudding snow a foot beyond the window ledges, except when a sudden stilling of the tempest disclosed the writhing cottonwood break to the north, and the double row of ash saplings leading south to the ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... in the great square hall, hung round in baronial style with antlers, and furnished in all the luxury of modern comfort, wondering through which of the dozen doors that open out of the square it would be best worth our while to penetrate, a footman, bearing a tray with afternoon tea, flits past us. Let us follow him, for afternoon tea means that ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... ignorant, came out of the very strength of his nature and not out of any inconsistent weakness. Is it any weakness, pray, to be wrought on by exquisite music? To feel its wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings of your soul, the delicate fibres of life where no memory can penetrate, and binding together your whole being past and present in one unspeakable vibration, melting you in one moment with all the tenderness, all the love that has been scattered through the toilsome years, concentrating in one emotion of heroic courage or resignation all the hard-learnt ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... tempted by the illusions of our terrestrial senses and of our isolation to believe in the silence of the night: that on the contrary, the real aim of Astronomy, instead of ending with statements of the positions and movements of the stars, is to enable us to penetrate to them, to make us divine, and know, and appreciate their physical constitution, their degree of life and intellectuality in ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... the only appliances employed were induction coils giving a ten or twenty inch spark. Marconi and others perceived the necessity of employing greater force to penetrate the ether in order to generate stronger electrical waves. Oil and steam engines and other appliances were called into use to create high frequency currents and those necessitated the erection of large power stations. Several were ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... Jacques Gaultier together. She said "good morning" to them, and then resumed the preparation for the morning meal. Jacques' dark eyes followed her all about the room; doubtless he was thinking of the time when she would be performing the same duties under his roof, while she—Well, we will not penetrate into her thoughts; no doubt she would prefer keeping them to herself, so we will let her, in the certainty that the train of thought was very different ...
— Legend of Moulin Huet • Lizzie A. Freeth

... that help was at hand. He and his friends, who knew Mr. Hardy, were alone of the tribe convinced that a pursuit would be attempted. The fact that no such attempt to penetrate into the heart of the Indian country had ever been made, had lulled the rest into a feeling of absolute security. The Raven, indeed, calculated that the pursuers must now be close at hand, and that either on that night or the next they would probably enter the gorge ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... constructive force at work. The only difference between the growth of an organism and that of a crystal is, that in the former case, in consequence of its semi-fluid state of aggregation, the newly added particles penetrate into the interior of the organism (inter-susception), whereas inorganic substances receive homogeneous matter from without, only by opposition or an addition of new particles to the surface. "If we, then, designate the growth ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott

... of Avena, like those of Phalaris, when growing in soft, damp, fine sand, leave an open crescentric furrow on the shaded side, after bending to a lateral light; and they become bowed beneath the surface at a depth to which, as we know, light cannot penetrate. The arcs of the chords of the buried bowed portions formed in two cases angles of 20o and 21o with the perpendicular. The open furrows on the shaded side were, in four cases, .008, .016, .024, and .024 of an inch in breadth. Brassica oleracea (Common Red).—It ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... fragment of yourself. You yield your universality to the bond of common brotherhood; but your individualism—what it is that makes you you—withdraws itself naturally, involuntarily, inevitably, into the background,—the dim distance which their eyes cannot penetrate. But, from the fraction which you do project, they construct another you, call it by your name, and pass it around for the real, the actual you. You bristle with jest and laughter and wild whims, to keep them at a distance; and they fancy this to be your every-day equipment. They ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... saw was in the woods of Quebec, where, many years ago, three birch saplings had taken root in a huge, hollow pine stump, and where, as time passed, the stump, gradually decaying, had allowed the roots of the fast-growing birches to penetrate through the cracks in the stump to the ground. The roots eventually formed the rafters of a moss- and rotten-wood chinked, water-tight roof to the little cavern in which the old pine stump had once stood and where two winters ago slept a bear. There was but a single entrance between ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... difficulties, of which some may be surmounted, some can only be evaded, many can be neither. Hurried on by the headlong impetuosity of his temper, he entangles himself in these perplexities; and thinks to penetrate them, not by skill and patience, but by open force. He is baffled, deceived, and still more deeply involved; but injury and disappointment exasperate rather than instruct him. He had expected heroes, and he finds mean men; friends, and he finds smiling traitors to tempt him aside, to profit ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... the voice of God seemed to forbid his love; and the conviction that he must give it all up became a clear as it was painful. The poor fellow leaned his head against the shaggy bark of an elm in a shadowy square which the street-lamps could but faintly penetrate. The night wind swayed the budding branches of the great tree, and they sighed over him as ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... very clear and good to breathe as he went on nearer and nearer, seeing now that the fumes rose softly all along one jagged line such as might have been formed by the earth opening right before him. But there was no opening. As far as he could penetrate the dim mist, the earth looked perfectly level, but the vapour rose from it as it does or appears to do from a swampy meadow on a fine autumn evening; and it was evident to him that he might try and dash through without fear of running headlong ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... on the Borg pier looking down at the lake, which was now gray and turgid. Her gaze did not penetrate beneath the surface of the water, yet she seemed to see the whole wide expanse of ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof

... due in a great degree to the tri-calcium silicate (3CaO, SiO2) which is soluble by the sodium chloride found in sea-water, so that the resultant effect of the action of these two compounds is to enable the sea-water to gradually penetrate the mortar and rot the concrete. The concrete is softened, when there is an abnormal amount of sulphuric acid present, as a result of the reaction of the sulphuric acid of the salt dissolved by the water upon a part of the lime in the cement. The ferric ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams

... just avoided some thick scrubs, which either on the right or left would have been very difficult to penetrate. The woods opened gradually however, into a thick copse of Acacia pendula, and at the end of three miles we reached the eastern skirts of an extensive open plain, the ground gently undulating. At 4 3/4 miles, on ascending ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... penetrate into the forest to the west brought the Queres into the very position which the Tehuas desired. The scouts of the latter had obeyed punctually and diligently the orders which they had received, following step by step the advancing foe and reporting to headquarters ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... me cross. I drew from my quiver an arrow that I thought would penetrate his skin. "Mr. van Tuiver," I said, "a man in your position must always be an object of gossip and scandal. Suppose some enemy were to send your wife an anonymous letter? Or suppose there were some woman who thought that you had ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... of steam spouting out of the ground. A strong sulphurous smell pervaded the atmosphere, and warned us what was to be expected from a nearer proximity to the crater in active operation at the farther end of the lake, to which, nothing daunted by its appearance, our party was determined to penetrate. Our advance was made cautiously; the surface of the ground was in some places soft and yielding, and we knew not to what brimstone depths an unwary step might sink us. There were little ravines to be crossed, which had to be first carefully sounded. As we proceeded ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... quick flesh appeared underneath; the other, which spread on the surface of the skin only in the form of rough scales. And from this difference it happened, that the former species was, and the latter was not, contagious. For these scales, being dry and light like bran, do not penetrate into the skin; whereas the purulent matter issuing from the ulcers infects the surface of the body. But concerning the differences of cuticular diseases, I heartily recommend to the reader's perusal, what Johannes Manardus, equally valuable for his medical knowledge and the ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead

... course, where this man is living, and I must know it if it costs me all my fortune to penetrate this mystery. In presence of so cruel an enemy ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac



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