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Penetrating   Listen
adjective
Penetrating  adj.  
1.
Having the power of entering, piercing, or pervading; sharp; subtile; penetrative; as, a penetrating odor.
2.
Acute; discerning; sagacious; quick to discover; as, a penetrating mind.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Penetrating" Quotes from Famous Books



... sunshine, of which we have written as glistening among the "leafy tide of greenery," and on the ripening corn-fields and gaily-painted flowers in the country, was penetrating also the close streets of one of the poorest parts of London, cheering some of the hearts of the weary toiling ones there, into whose lives little sunshine ever fell, and for a while, it may be, helping them to forget the misery of their lot, ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous

... instinctively divined the degree in which I pleased; I have never been deceived; can I be mistaken now? ... And indeed, why should not a prince find me beautiful, when all other men tell me that I am so? But there was more than admiration in the prince royal's eyes, which have a peculiarly penetrating expression; his look was more kind than ordinary glances, and said more than any words. Perhaps all princes ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... all the growing parts of all plants circumnutate. Although this movement, in its ordinary or unmodified state, appears in some cases to be of service to plants, either directly or indirectly—for instance, the circumnutation of the radicle in penetrating the ground, or that of the arched hypocotyl and epicotyl in breaking through the surface—yet circumnutation is so general, or rather so universal a phenomenon, that we cannot suppose it to have been gained for any special purpose. We must believe that it ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... low, penetrating voice. "Aye, England, through Ireland. Ireland will come first, then Wales, Scotland, and England. Dear lad, the great day is come—the greatest the world has ever known. France, the spirit of it, is alive. It will purge and cleanse ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... become contaminated with various pathogenic bacteria and organisms which may be drawn into the dwellings by the movements of the ground air. As a rule, there is very little to hinder the ground air from penetrating the dwellings of man, air being drawn in through cellars by changes in temperature, and by the artificial heating ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various

... the restoration of a chemically "bleached" iron ink mark is the sulphide or sulphuret of ammonia (it has several names). This penetrating chemical blackens metals or their salts, whether visible or not, if brought together. It must not be used by direct contact, the best and safest plan being to place a quantity in a small saucer, to be set on the floor of a closed box; to fasten to the box lid the specimen ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... the mortar sets, which does not take long, the mason sticks a few stones into the soft mass, as the work advances. She dabs them half-way into the cement, so as to leave them jutting out to a large extent, without penetrating to the inside, where the wall must remain smooth for the sake of the larva's comfort. If necessary, a little plaster is added, to tone down the inner protuberances. The solidly embedded stonework alternates with the ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... despair of response. Passing into the loftier woods, we find them resounding with the loud proclamation of the Golden-Crowned Thrush,—scheat, scheat, scheat, scheat,—rising and growing louder in a vigorous way that rather suggests some great Woodpecker than such a tiny thing. And penetrating to some yet lonelier place, we find it consecrated to that life-long sorrow, whatever it may be, which is made immortal in the plaintive cadence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... The penetrating chill of the night air aroused Beryl from her profound trance; and lighting the gas over her dressing table, she re-read the magical words that had transformed her narrow world. This was Monday the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... cold stillness of the winter mornings was broken by agitating waves of sound, penetrating the souls of sleepers. Janet would stir, her mind still lingering on some dream, soon to fade into the inexpressible, in which she had been near to the fulfilment of a heart's desire. Each morning, as the clamour grew louder, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... as quick to perceive, as was his will to act, or his hand to do. He saw at once through all sham and artifice. He could be almost said to perceive what was passing through one's mind, so quick was his discernment, so penetrating his thought. He might have been a Jesuit, nor fallen a whit behind the most polished and profound of that marvellous ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... prayer to all his gods, summoned his resolution and his powers, and spoke. He endeavoured to use as few words as possible, to be lucid, to make his points, to show what he was after—and, driving fear away from him, he kept his own eyes steadily fixed on those penetrating organs which confronted him. And once, twice, he saw or thought he saw a light gleam of appreciation in those organs; once, he believed, the big head nodded as if in agreement. Anyhow, at the end of a quarter of an hour (unheard-of length for an interview with Markledew!) Triffitt had neither ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher

... human destiny. His destiny had been to thrive by the favor of various white men on the sea. He had swept the decks of ships, had tended their helms, had minded their stores, had risen at last to be a Serang; and his placid mind had remained as incapable of penetrating the simplest motives of those he served as they themselves were incapable of detecting through the crust of the earth the secret nature of its heart, which may be fire or may be stone. But he had no doubt whatever that the Sofala was out of the proper track for crossing the ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... fountain, and watery depth, and running stream. These spirits dislike white men very much, because they are always intruding upon their quiet, robbing both hill and valley of their stately trees, breaking up the bosom of the earth, penetrating into every dark morass and cavern, and polluting, by some means or other, every fountain, and watery depth, and running stream. Indians do not wish to provoke them, and so try to propitiate them by innocent and unbloody offerings. We ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... upon me in two ways. Sometimes Gabriel cometh and communicateth the revelation unto me, as one man unto another, and this is easy; at other times it affecteth me like the ringing of a bell, penetrating my very heart, and rending me as it were in pieces; and this it is which ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... summer, may go down 8 feet. Red clover, a perennial species, may thickly invade the top 5 feet. Other useful subsoil busters include densely sown Umbelliferae such as carrots, parsley, and parsnip. The chicory family also makes very large and penetrating taproots. ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon

... with much fatigue; their legs grew tired; the dogs dragged the sledge with difficulty; their diminished supply of food could not comfort men or beasts. The weather was very variable, changing from intense, dry cold to damp, penetrating mists. ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... strange thing, which was this: a soldier in my presence gave one of his fellows a blow on the head with a halbard, penetrating to the left ventricle of the brain; yet the man did not fall to the ground. He that struck him said he heard that he had cheated at dice, and he had drawn a large sum of money from him, and was accustomed to cheat. They called me to dress him; which I did, as it were for the last time, ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... second bridge—send the ambulance to the road below," he called, his ringing voice penetrating bell-clear through the ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... this system, so far as is necessary for our purpose, may be soon told. Kant, dissatisfied with the distrust in the human faculties induced by the scepticism of Hume, and the one-sided sensationalism of Condillac, carried a penetrating analysis into the human faculties;(712) attempting to perform with more exactness the work of Locke, to measure the human mind, which is the sounding-line, before fathoming the ocean of knowledge. Like Copernicus inverting astronomy, ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... some one of the fortresses of the country. But the habitatations," says our traveller, "present generally an indiscriminate mass of ruins; they were originally erected in haste, and being often cemented with mud instead of mortar, the rains of autumn, penetrating between the outer and inner faces of the walls, swell the earth, and soon effect the ruin of the whole"—it must be confessed, but sorry structures for the triple fires of an enemy. Sir William, on his visit, found the commandant in a state of misery not exceeded by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various

... one's nature, and binding it with cords until its softest and loosest particles are knit together, and become strong. Why! you can take a handful of cotton-down, and if you will squeeze it tight enough, it will be as hard and as heavy as a bullet and will go as far, and have as much penetrating power and force of impact. The reason why some men hit and make no dint is because they are not gathered together and braced up ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... finished reading, Helen looked up at her friend and the gaze of penetrating curiosity that she saw in Marion's eyes caused her to blush with confusion. Unable to meet her friend's gaze steadily, she shifted her eyes toward the most uninteresting part of the car, the floor, ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis

... points on the upper Missouri. From one rider we learned that the first herd of the present season which went through on this route were cattle wintered on the Niobrara in western Nebraska, whose destination was Alberta in the British possessions. This herd outclassed us in penetrating northward, though in distance they had not traveled half as far as ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams

... case of a man in his corporeal body swimming about in a crocodile skin, and I doubt whether any native would chance himself inside a crocodile skin and swim about in the river among the genuine articles for fear of their penetrating ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... supple bodies support a head covered with long, curly hair, and the face is framed by a long and fairly well-kept beard. The eyes roll unsteadily, and their dark and penetrating look is in no wise softened by the brown colouring of the scela. The nose is only slightly concave, the sides are large and thick, and their width is increased by a bamboo or stone cylinder stuck through the septum. Both nose and ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... Chingatok looked with penetrating gaze at Anders while he translated, and, considering the nature of the communication, the so-called Brainless One proved himself a better man than the giant ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... present in every thought, and was the ornament and chief of every group that passed before my warm imagination. Whilst the incumbent continued to speak of the future, of his own sacrifice, and my great gain—whilst his words, without penetrating, touched my ears, and died away—my soul grew busy in the contemplation of the prize, which, now that it was mine, I scarce knew how to estimate. Where was she then? How had she been? To how many days of suffering ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... Guy looked at me with a glance as penetrating as a keen blade. Otherwise hedid not appear surprised by the proposal I had made; perhaps he had been expecting it—and he uttered only the ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... said a gentleman wished to speak to me. I saw a man standing in the gangway; he was a tall, soldierly person, about forty years of age, with iron-grey hair and spiked moustache, and an aquiline nose. His eyes were singularly bright and penetrating. He immediately said:— ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... gifted spirits were insensibly moulding the character and destiny of the Association. The hurried but firm step of a pale student of Trinity College might be daily seen pacing the unfrequented flagways that led to the Corn Exchange. His penetrating glance, half shrouded by its own shyness, his face averted from the crowd, and his mind turned within, he would come, and sit, and hear, and suppress the emotions that swelled his proud young heart as he caught glimpses of a bright future for his country. He had the ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... Campbell's columns marched east into the hills in the Ohrigstadt direction, Park penetrating almost as far as Pilgrim's Rest, while General Kitchener's column moved south towards Middleburg. On September 3rd the force was broken up, Colonel Park's column being left in the neighbourhood of Blinkwater, whilst General Kitchener's column marched towards ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson

... to him, her sad and pensive face, almost the dearest face in the world to him; and he gazed into it with penetrating and loving eyes. Would it not be best to tell the child the secret this grave covered, here, by the grave itself? Better for her to know the truth concerning the dead, than cherish hard and unjust thoughts ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... of a captain in the British Navy with reference to the availability of steam vessels for national defense; and what a lesson does it teach to us in America, where steam navigation is found penetrating every portion of the Union, and spreading itself on our maritime and lake frontier in every direction! Here is found no expression of apprehension lest the mercantile steamers might interfere with the growth or efficiency ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey

... jadelike' are to be used," Pao-yue explained, "it would be better then to employ the two words 'Penetrating Fragrance,' which would be ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... momentarily filling the garden quietnesses with a tumult of noise. A bugle had sounded from one of the fortified galleries high above him, had sounded clearly out across the huddled little town at the foot of the Rock, challenging, uncompromising, thrillingly penetrating, as the paper had fluttered and shaken in his fingers. He had accepted it, in that first moment of unreasoning emotionalism, as an auspicious omen, as the call of his own higher life across the engulfing abysses ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... at Aden our fellow-passenger, whom I have mentioned as having assumed the Turkish dress for the purpose of penetrating into the interior of Abyssinia. He depended, in a great measure, for comfort and safety, upon two native priests, whom he had brought with him from Cairo, and who, in return for his liberality, had promised all the protection and assistance in their power. He left ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... in Svithjod in spring (A.D. 1030), and had sent spies from thence to Norway. All accounts from that quarter agreed that there was no safety for him if he went there, and the people who came from the north dissuaded him much from penetrating into the country. But he had firmly resolved within himself, as before stated, to go into Norway; and he asked King Onund what strength King Onund would give him to conquer his kingdom. King Onund replied, that the Swedes were ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... were about to leap over a hollow between some masses of stone, probably two, perhaps three feet deep; but the bushes and brambles which had rooted in the sides had effectually masked what was evidently a deep chasm, penetrating to some unknown distance in the ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... the gate,—the axe of Bisset and the swords of the military monks doing terrible execution. Twice the Saracens formed in a mass to prevent their reaching the only gate which was not closed; as often Bisset, penetrating singly into the Saracen ranks, dealt death and destruction to his foes, and opened the way for his friends; till gradually, having by force of arm overthrown every obstacle in his path, he reached the gate, and, followed by the Grand Master of the Temple, dashed through the ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar

... Huddled under the sheltered side were the sheep of the farm, several in number and of the common sort. At the sight of him, they always bleated familiarly, but this evening their long, quavering, gray notes were more penetrating, more insistent than usual. These sensitive, gentle creatures, whose instincts represent the accumulating and inherited experiences of age upon age of direct contact with nature, run far ahead of ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... election chiefly to his good offices, but partly to the fact that my book on Charlotte Bronte had found favour with the reading public. A great deal has been written since then about the Brontes. Some of our ablest literary critics have discussed their genius with a penetrating insight that has opened up for us the secrets of their wonderful laboratory, whilst industrious investigators have brought to light many facts which were unknown to Mrs. Gaskell at the time when she wrote her famous Memoir. A Bronte Society has been formed ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... when he is calm and cool. Christ's granting the request was Christ's sharpest rebuke of the request. But there was not only the gracious and yet chastising granting of the foolish desire, but there was a penetrating warning: 'Be not faithless, but believing.' What did that mean? Well, it meant this: 'It is not a question of evidence, Thomas; it is a question of disposition. Your incredulity is not due to your not having enough to warrant your belief, but to your tendency and attitude of mind and heart.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... The grey eyes, meeting eyes dark, kindly, and penetrating, flickered and fell; so much emotion they betrayed, no more, and that as disingenuous as ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... voice, shrill and penetrating as a baby's, after her. "They say 'tain't luck to have a weddin' put off. 'Ain't ye afeard he'll ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... strange gloom of the forest, a transparent gloom confused by thin glints and threads of penetrating, pinkish light, the formless alarm of the moose began to subside. In a few minutes his wild run diminished into a rapid walk. He would not go back to his feeding, however. He had been seized with a shuddering distrust of the young birch thickets on the slope. Over ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... Tchuktchi villages, so much so that these people are known as Masinker (which in their dialect signifies "good") amongst the American whalemen. The odour of a Tchuktchi is indescribable, but so powerful and penetrating as to be noticeable some distance from a settlement, this characteristic smell being caused by a certain emanation of the human body which enters largely into the Masinker's daily use. The fluid is employed chiefly for tanning purposes, but it is also used for cleaning food platters, ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... searching look in the Italian's dark eyes, and was convinced that the prince also had the impression that they had met before. At last Quentin, unable to curb his curiosity, expressed his doubt. Ravorelli's gaze was penetrating as he replied, but it was ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... new." Under the auspices of the African Exploration Society, and the directions of the Royal Geographical, Mr. Keith Johnston and Mr. Joseph Thomson undertook the exploration of the country between Dar es Salaam and Lake Nyassa, the former falling a victim to illness, the latter penetrating through unexplored regions to Nyassa, and subsequently extending his journey to Tanganyika. We can but name the international enterprise resulting from Brussels Conference; the French researches of Lieutenant de Semelle and of de Brazza; the various ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... the tireless foe. He has stationed portions of his forces at given points along this line, and his personal work is to march rapidly with small bodies of infantry, yeomanry, scouts, and artillery towards places immediately threatened. He has to keep the Boers from penetrating that long and flexible line, for if once they forced a passage in large numbers they would sweep like a torrent southwards, envelop his rear, cut the railway and telegraph to pieces, stop all convoys, paralyse the ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... he was not a man of sense. Johnson. 'Why, Sir, he is not a distinct relater; and I should say, he is neither abounding nor deficient in sense. I did not perceive any superiority of understanding.' BOSWELL. 'But will you not allow him a nobleness of resolution, in penetrating into distant regions?' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is not to the present purpose. We are talking of his sense. A fighting cock has a nobleness ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... the moonlight shone like a star on the steel helmet of the watcher who leaned so breathlessly over the battlements, into the night air far below him swung the rich, resonant voice of the musician, the words clear and cleancut, and of such a penetrating sweetness that the ironsheathed warrior above all unconsciously leaned still further over the stonework, and, hardened though he was, made no pretense to stop slow tears that came to his eyes and fell, drop by drop, to glitter like diamonds among ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... was white, and the figures black, sat the lusty coalheavers, quaffing large draughts of Barclay's best, and puffing forth volumes of smoke, which wreathed heavily above their heads, and involved the room in a thick dark cloud. From this apartment might their voices be heard on a winter's night, penetrating to the very bank of the river, as they shouted out some sturdy chorus, or roared forth the burden of a popular song; dwelling upon the last few words with a strength and length of emphasis which made the very roof tremble ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... the true ardor of the discoverer. In 'First Footsteps in Eastern Africa' he shows his unhesitating bravery again, when penetrating the mysterious, almost mythical walled city of Harar. After many dangers and exhausting experiences he sees the goal at last. "The spectacle, materially speaking, was a disappointment," he says. "Nothing conspicuous appeared but two gray minarets ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... sure that Northwick had a soul, and he had his misgivings that it was a troubled one. He, too, had heard of the American defaulter, who has a celebrity of his own in Canada penetrating to different men with different suggestion, and touching here and there a pure and unworldly heart, such as Pere Etienne bore in his breast, with commiseration. The young priest did not conceive very clearly of the make and manner of the crime he suspected the ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... silk garment or lucco hang in grave unbroken lines from neck to ankle; his plain cloth cap, with its becchetto, or long hanging strip of drapery, to serve as a scarf in case of need, surmounts a penetrating face, not, perhaps, very handsome, but with a firm, well-cut mouth, kept distinctly human by a close-shaven lip and chin. It is a face charged with memories of a keen and various life passed below there on the banks of the gleaming river; and ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... strong, she could do the work of a man, although she was over seventy years of age; burnt black by the sun, and with a pile of grey hair like the hank of flax on her distaff, she was feared by the whole district for her penetrating glance and her untiring energy. When Gianna was satisfied the stars had changed their courses, said the people, so rare was the event; therefore, that this little wanderer contented her was at once a ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... bouquet of this wonderful beverage is unusually penetrating and diffusing, and a proof is that one night at a dinner in the summer, with the windows all open, the guests noticed this peculiar aroma in the air. I said to them that Governor Tilden had opened ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... infinite charm was exhaled from his person, and those who had seen him up to that time no longer recognized him.[8] He had not yet any disciples, and the group which gathered around him was neither a sect nor a school; but a common spirit, a sweet and penetrating influence was felt. His amiable character, accompanied doubtless by one of those lovely faces[9] which sometimes appear in the Jewish race, threw around him a fascination from which no one in the midst of these kindly and ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... and the action of the hand in laying it is just as decisive, and just as "free," as the hand of a first-rate surgeon in a critical incision. A great operator told me that his hand could check itself within about the two-hundredth of an inch, in penetrating a membrane; and this, of course, without the help of sight, by sensation only. With help of sight, and in action on a substance which does not quiver or yield, a fine artist's line is measurable in its proposed direction to considerably less than the thousandth ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... a terrible evening yesterday. He does not show himself any more, but I feel that he is near me, watching me, looking at me, penetrating me, dominating me and more redoubtable when he hides himself thus, than if he were to manifest his constant and invisible presence by supernatural ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... with a circle of strong and comprehensive minds like their own. From the moment of Mr. Falkland's arrival in the neighbourhood, Mr. Clare distinguished him in the most flattering manner. To so penetrating a genius there was no need of long experience and patient observation to discover the merits and defects of any character that presented itself. The materials of his judgment had long since been accumulated; and, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... Devore and Burleigh and Peter Mortimer and many other clerks and employees asked if this were like a desert day and Jack said that it was. He longed to be free of all roofs and feel the geniality of the hearth-fire of the planetary system penetrating through his coat, his skin, his flesh, into his very being. Why not close the store and make a holiday for everybody? he asked himself; only to be amazed, on second thought, at such a preposterous suggestion from a hundred-dollar-a-week ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... saw more swiftly, and saw into more profoundly to-day than ever before in her life; that she had a strangely clear vision of minds as well as of faces, that she was vivid, penetrating. And she had time, before she began to sing, for an odd thought of the person drowning who flashes back over the ways of his past, who is, as it were, allowed one instant of exceptional life before he is handed over to death. This thought was clear, clean cut in her mind for a moment, and she ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... toward noon the rain changes to snow; the cold and the penetrating snow drive me into the shelter of the ill-smelling stables. It blows a perfect hurricane all the afternoon, accompanied by fitful squalls of snow and hail, and the same programme continues the greater part of the night. But in the morning I am thankful ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... ticket, after drawing blank at two booking offices, made his way to the bookstall. Here he inquired, in a loud, penetrating voice, if they had got "Mr. Jeremy Garnet's last novel, 'The Maneuvers of Arthur.'" Being informed that they had not, he clicked his tongue cynically, advised the man in charge to order that work, as the demand for it might be expected shortly to be large, and spent a shilling on a magazine ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... things to all men.' At any rate, Molly might soon have been aware that Cynthia was not remarkable for unflinching morality; but the glamour thrown over her would have prevented Molly from any attempt at penetrating into and judging her companion's character, even had such processes been the least in accordance with her ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... widespread desire to rush about and make showy and startling changes. But it does not follow that this involves progress if the enterprise itself is dully conceived and most of it does seem to me to be dully conceived. In the absence of penetrating criticism, any impudent industrious person may set up as an "expert," organise and direct the confused good intentions at large, and muddle disastrously with the problem in hand. The "expert" quack and the bureaucratic intriguer increase and multiply in a dull-minded, uncritical, strenuous ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... she looked steadfastly toward heaven for a few moments, and then, in a low, sweet, penetrating ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... as in foreign countries, the multitude pay homage only to Napoleon's uninterrupted prosperity; without penetrating or considering whether it be the consequence of chance or of well-digested plans; whether he owes his successes to his own merit or to a blind fortune. He asserted in his speech to the constitutional ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... startled by a groan from the wounded man, who they had supposed was dead. They laid him down carefully, and one of them produced a flask, from which he poured a little brandy on his lips, and the stimulant penetrating his mouth, revived Hadley, and this, with the aid of other restoratives, soon brought him to consciousness. Seeing he was not dead, his companions now dressed his wounds as well as they could, under the circumstances. It was soon ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... this time I did so, to be polite. I was wary; ready for anything. I knew that there was something unpleasant in the air. I wondered if he had seen me passing the Moon Glow to Benny somehow. Perhaps he had barrier-penetrating vision, like the Z group of metal people ... but I had never heard of a Builder like that. I knew that he had long suspected that I made ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns

... reached the Albert Nyanza; and when, after many perils, he got safely back to Northern Egypt, his fame as an explorer was fully established. His was the first expedition which had been successful in penetrating into Central Africa from the north. On his return to England he was welcomed with enthusiasm, and ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... artillery, the noise of the projectiles striking the cars, the hiss as they passed in the air, the grunting and puffing of the engine—poor, tortured thing, hammered by at least a dozen shells, any one of which, by penetrating the boiler, might have made an end of all—the expectation of destruction as a matter of course, the realization of powerlessness, and the alternations of hope and despair—all this for seventy minutes by the clock with only four inches of twisted iron work to make ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... deer's nose for reference in mounting the head later. For our purpose we wish a cast of the nose and lips, so with the head in the flesh at hand, the hair as far back as the corner of the mouth is coated with clay water to prevent the liquid plaster from penetrating and adhering. This done the head is propped up on the table and a rough box arranged around it, which will reach nearly to the mouth as the head is placed with nose uppermost. Pour sand in this box until only as much of the nose projects as ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham

... pleased than otherwise at the thought that his design should have none of the characteristics of a vulgar burglary. No mask now; his front should be as open as his demand. Cutts's report of the facility of penetrating into Darrell's very room also lessened the uses of an accomplice. And in the remodification of his first hasty plan of common place midnight stealthy robbery, he would no longer even require an assistant to dispose of the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... short of manhood. Has it not all that man can have,—free, happy, noble, and spiritual thoughts? And are not those thoughts newer, purer, and more unselfish in the youth than in the man? What eye has the man, that the youth's is not as comprehensive, keen, rapid, and penetrating? or what hand, that the youth's is not as swift, forceful, cunning, and true? And what does the youth gain in becoming man? Is it freshness, or deepness, or power, or wisdom? nay rather—is it not languor—the languor of satiety—of indifferentism? And thus soul-rusted ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... Frisky Frog, and to be danced by Miss K. T. Did. The other members of the Quartette were to sing the song while Miss Katy danced. It spoiled the effect somewhat to lose her clear high soprano, but Mr. Tree Toad Todson filled in with his penetrating tenor, and it was rumored that the Composition ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks

... stroke to have originally studied medicine; without the knowledge thus acquired, without the psychological and physiological experiences thus obtained, my savoir faire would often have gone a-begging." It seems also that he practised politics on medical principles, penetrating a political situation, or detecting a political disease, by the help of single expressions or acts, after the manner of medical diagnosis, and in his curative treatment endeavouring to remove as far as possible every pathological impediment, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... man for breeding discontent in the army, but at that moment he and every other around him for once relaxed that stringent discipline that held them in bands of iron. A third trumpet call cut the air, quick, shrill, penetrating. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... with abundance of details and plenty of colour, and a realistic assurance that it is no mere make-believe. Macaulay never stops to brood over an incident or a character, with an inner eye intent on penetrating to the lowest depth of motive and cause, to the furthest complexity of impulse, calculation, and subtle incentive. The spirit of analysis is not in him, and the divine spirit of meditation is not in him. His whole mind runs in action ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley

... sure," said Dunn, touching his hat, and as he did so he said in a sharp, penetrating whisper: "Look out—trouble's brewing—don't know what, but look ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon

... went through with her explanations, blushing and stammering awkwardly enough, as the penetrating eyes fastened themselves curiously and ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... guests had all departed and only the musicians remained. As they filed out through the ample doorway, on their way home, the first faint streak of early dawn became visible in the east. One of them, a lank, plain-featured young man of ungainly aspect but penetrating eye, called the attention of the ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... dream made such an impression upon him that for a time he found it hard to believe that stones and rocks had not this strange and secret life lurking in their recesses; and indeed it has since stood to me as a symbol of life, haunting and penetrating all the very hardest and driest things. It seems to me that just as there are almost certainly more colours than our eyes can perceive, and sounds either too acute or too deliberate for our ears to hear, so the domain of life may be much further extended in the earth, the air, ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... north. If circumstances proved favourable, I intended to travel as far as Bengara, about twelve days' trip for a Dayak with a light burden to carry. In case of unfavourable weather and too much delay in getting fresh provisions, I felt that I should be satisfied in penetrating well into a region not before visited by whites, where I might succeed in coming into contact with the shy nomads, called Punans, known to roam there in limited numbers. To this end I had taken along one ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... Leigh's clear penetrating voice, artistically modulated to the perfectly musical expression of thought, was not without its usual effect, even on a mind so callous as that of Gherardi. He moved uneasily in his chair,—he was inwardly fuming ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... make rain-kites of oil-skin or paraffine paper, as the ordinary paper or cloth becomes saturated with the dampness and very heavy, thus lessening the buoyancy of the line. So penetrating is the dampness of clouds, even without a rain-storm, that the wooden frames sometimes become warped and the paste seams ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various

... capitals of most of the hostile potentates, deposed and created Kings at his pleasure, and appeared the virtual sovereign of the chief part of the continent, from the frontiers of Spain to those of Russia. Even those countries we find him invading with prodigious armies, defeating their forces, penetrating to their capitals, and threatening their total subjugation. But at Moscow his progress is stopped: a winter of unusual severity, co-operating with the efforts of the Russians, totally destroys his enormous host: and the German sovereigns throw off the yoke, and combine ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately

... Sulphur (if it be pure and freed from its Vinager) being leasurely sublim'd in close Vessels, rises into dry Flowers, which may be presently melted into a Bodie of the same Nature with that which afforded them. Though if Brimstone be burnt in the open Air it gives, you know, a penetrating Fume, which being caught in a Glass-Bell condenses into that acid Liquor called Oyl of Sulphur per Campanam. The use I would make of these Experiments collated with what I lately told you out of Agricola is this, That even ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... by inhabitants of the lower parts of the earth. They seemed actually suspended from the dark vault of heaven, and their gentle light shed a fairylike gleam over the snow-fields around the foot of the Matterhorn, which raised its stupendous pinnacle on high, penetrating to the heart of the Great Bear, and crowning itself with a diadem of his magnificent stars. Not a sound disturbed the deep tranquillity of the night, except the distant roar of streams which rush from the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... At that moment the youth turned his head, and met Austin's eyes with an expression that was not a smile, but something far more subtle, something that bore the same relation to a smile that a smile does to a laugh—thrilling, penetrating, indescribable. Austin flung out ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... compares the great authors—Shakespeare, for instance—who seem proof against the mutability of language, to 'gigantic trees, that we see sometimes on the banks of a stream, which, by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away by the ever-flowing current, and hold up many a neighbouring plant to perpetuity.' And such is the ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... that Turgot was born half a generation after the first race of the speculative revolutionists. Rousseau, Diderot, Helvetius, Condillac, D'Alembert, as well as the foreign Hume, so much the greatest of the whole band of innovators, because penetrating so much nearer to the depths, all came into the world which they were to confuse so unspeakably, in the half dozen years between 1711 and 1717. Turgot was of later stock and comes midway between these fathers of the new church, between Hume, Rousseau, Diderot, and the generation of its fiery ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley

... a man mery." For its use in confections this will suffice from the "Apparatus Plantarum" of Laurembergius, 1632: "In re familiari vix ullus est telluris habitatus angulus ubi non sit Croci quotodiana usurpatio, aspersi vel incocti cibis." And as to its uses as a dye, its penetrating powers were proverbial, of which Luther's Sermons will supply an instance: "As the Saffron bag that hath bene ful of Saffron, or hath had Saffron in it, doth ever after savour and smel of the swete Saffron that it contayneth; so our blessed Ladye which ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... marbles, pencils, handkerchiefs, tarts, gum, sleeve links, and walnut shells. Any one venturesome enough to take a header through these might succeed in reaching the layer of last year's apple peel below, or in penetrating to the crumb heaps in the bottom corners; but few there were who possessed that amount of boldness. Of course, Jack had no notion of what his worldly goods consisted. He had a way of shying things into his desk and forgetting them; and only when it became so full that the lid stood nearly wide ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... travellers' whole attention was concentrated on the glorious Sun. His light was inexpressibly cheering; and his heat, soon penetrating the walls of the Projectile, infused a new and sweet life into their chilled and exhausted frames. The ice rapidly disappeared, and the windows soon resumed their former ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... visit of the old priest, but his presence had bestowed, instead of solace, fret and discomfort. When he fixed on her his mild, penetrating eyes, she felt as if he were dragging into the light certain secret things which had been so far closely hidden within her heart, and concerning which she had successfully dulled ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... Sow-bread. When the seeds are ripe, the stalk of the flower gradually twists itself spirally downwards, till it touches the ground, and forcibly penetrating the earth lodges its seeds; which are thought to receive nourishment from the parent root, as they are said not to be made to grow in ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... sentiment takes possession of my soul with the rapidity of lightning, but instead of illuminating, it dazzles and confounds me; I feel all, but see nothing; I am warm, but stupid; to think I must be cool. What is astonishing, my conception is clear and penetrating, if not hurried: I can make excellent impromptus at leisure, but on the instant, could never say or do anything worth notice. I could hold a tolerable conversation by the post, as they say the Spaniards play at chess, and when I read that anecdote ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... in life and no other, and what he says could not, we feel, possibly have been said in any other way, nor by any other person. And so along the whole gamut of the classes through which Mr. Anstey leads us. The humour is penetrating, and it is difficult to say where the truth ends and the caricature begins. Who can forget the visit to the Tudor Exhibition, when Henry VIII's remarkable hat was on view? "'Arry," says 'Arriet to her escort; "look 'ere; fancy ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... viking ships up the coast of western Norway, Olaf had looked for the first time upon the wild splendour of the fiords, with their deep blue reaches of the sea penetrating far inland between steep precipices braided with sparkling waterfalls. He had seen the giant mountains rising high into the sky, with their rugged summits capped with snow and their lower slopes covered with vast forests of tall pine trees. ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... the crags, then deepened and spread, penetrating the darkness below, which was no longer black, but dusky purple. Rosemary's heart sang as she climbed, and the fragrance of the lily thrilled her soul with pure delight. The path was smooth, now, and thorns no ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... "You no sing out. You chase um fella fly. Too much strong fella fly. You catch water, washee brother belong you; washee plenty too much, bime bye brother belong you all right. Jump!" he shouted fiercely at the end, his will penetrating the low intelligence of the black with dynamic force that made him jump to the task of brushing the ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... spectre that threw up warning hands, and so drift on; but the dream would be broken perhaps too late, and all time could not repair the possible shipwreck. Into the chill shadow of this problem plunged Miss Patty, bringing through the room the penetrating spicery of an apron full of pinks, which she was sorting ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... reasoning, and to reason himself more cogently and more profoundly than his teachers. But at the same time, as soon as his passion was spent, reason resumed her sway; he felt his faults, he acknowledged them, and sometimes with such chagrin that his rage was rekindled. A mind lively, alert, penetrating, stiffening itself against obstacles, excelling literally in every thing. The prodigy is, that in a very short time piety and grace made of him a different being, and transformed faults so numerous and so ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... had caught sight of them, and was advancing. She was in deep mourning, but her hands were full of primroses, which shone against the black; and the sun, penetrating the thin green of some larches to her left, danced in her eyes and on a face full of sensitive ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... eyeball, and enables the animal to see and advance with security in darkness where the human eye would be of little use. The lower part of the cavity of the horse's eye, into which the dazzling rays fall from the sky, is furnished with an intensely black lining, by which the rays penetrating the inner nervous layer ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... set him to console himself by admiring his own cleverness in penetrating this great distrustful man. Now of all sentiments, Vanity is the most restless and the surest to peep out. Skinner was no sooner inflated than his demure obsequious manner underwent a certain change: slight and occasional only; but Hardie was a subtle man, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... fluid that heavy substances may sink through it, carried down by their own gravity. In one case, however, M. Boucher de Perthes observed several large flat dishes of Roman pottery, lying in a horizontal position in the peat, the shape of which must have prevented them from sinking or penetrating through the underlying peat. Allowing about fourteen centuries for the growth of the superincumbent vegetable matter, he calculated that the thickness gained in a hundred years would be no more than three centimetres.* (* "Antiquites Celtiques" volume 2 ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... and would make tolerable or even pleasing the excessive summer. Not so. It was a northern mind judging by northern things that came to this conclusion. There is not in all Lombardy a clear stream, but every river and brook is rolling mud. In the rain, not heat, but a damp and penetrating chill was the danger. There is no walking on the banks of the rivers; they are cliffs ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... is reported lately to have 'brought down' Exeter Hall by observing, 'in a low but penetrating voice,' that the Devil was a very stupid person. It is true that Ben Jonson is on the side of the lady, but I am far too orthodox to entertain any such opinion; and though I have, in this instance of history, so far resisted him as to have ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell

... reason penetrating even to the irrational instincts, and making spirit and blood obedient and docile to it. Such also were most of his companions, for though they were dashed to the ground and dragged along by the Cyclops, they said not a word about Odysseus, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... only just time to open the wicket. His feet clung to the stone flags still dank with manure, in such wise that it seemed as if he were held there by some clasp of the soil. And suddenly, despite himself, there came back to him a memory of the Paradou, with its huge trees, its black shadows, its penetrating perfumes. ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... capable of any design which could fascinate a rebellious temper and an undisciplined impulsiveness. He was quite sure that Dorothea was the cause of Will's return from Rome, and his determination to settle in the neighborhood; and he was penetrating enough to imagine that Dorothea had innocently encouraged this course. It was as clear as possible that she was ready to be attached to Will and to be pliant to his suggestions: they had never had a tete-a-tete without her bringing away from it some new troublesome ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... absolute ruler, lording it over man and beast without appeal, and treating the Kildrummie stationmaster as a federated power. Peter was a short man of great breadth, like unto the cutting of an oak-tree, with a penetrating grey eye, an immovable countenance, and bushy whiskers. It was understood that when the line was opened, and the directors were about to fill up the post of guard from a number of candidates qualified by long experience on various lines, Peter, who had ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... as on the previous night. So quietly, however, did he open his eyes that he took by surprise a man crouching by the fire as if stealing a bit of warmth. Farwell turned over, and the two eyed each other with wide, penetrating gaze. ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... will dine immediately.' She rang the bell. 'Miss Barfoot took it for granted that I would represent her. Look, the fog is penetrating even to our fireside.' ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... clearest and most obvious expression of his devotion to the Spirit of Ideal Beauty, its reality to him, and his vow of dedication to its service. But the Prometheus is the most deeply mystical of his poems; indeed, as Mrs Shelley says, "it requires a mind as subtle and penetrating as Shelley's own to understand the mystic ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon

... arrows more penetrating and distressing is, that Satan, with subtle art, tips them with sentences of Scripture. 'No place for repentance'; 'rejected'; 'hath never forgiveness,' and other passages which, by the malignant ingenuity of the fiend, are formed by his skill as the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... individual was raised above the rest, who, having the wisdom to appreciate the institutions of Solon, had the authority to enforce them. Silently they grew up under his usurped but benignant sway, pervading, penetrating, exalting the people, and fitting them by degrees to the liberty those institutions were intended to confer. If the disorders of the republic led to the ascendency of Pisistratus, so the ascendency of Pisistratus paved the way for the renewal of the republic. As Cromwell was the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "Whilst we are penetrating to the interior by means of the sloping passage on the north side, Ali Mohammed and yourself must mount ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... godliness, catering more and more to the world, indulging in carnal amusements, festivals, wife auctions, and kissing bees, to the very border line of decency, but especially filling up with the influences mentioned in Rev. 18:2, till the leaven of Spiritualism is fast penetrating the whole mass. Yet there are a multitude of God's people connected with these churches, who deplore the situation, and for whom a crisis is approaching. The cry is again to be raised, "Babylon is fallen, come out of ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... death of a number of trout, in the fourth part of a long poem in blank verse, published within a few years. ["The Excursion", 8 2 568-71.—Ed.] That poem contains curious evidence of the gradual hardening of a strong but circumscribed sensibility, of the perversion of a penetrating but panic-stricken understanding. The author might have derived a lesson which he had probably forgotten from these sweet and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... Mr. Brett Page has done, with firmness and precision, and with a joy in every stroke that will beget in countless readers that answering joy which is the reward of both him who guides and him who follows. There is but one word for a work so penetrating, so eductive, so clear—and that word is masterly. Let no one believe the modest assertion that "Writing for Vaudeville" is "less an original offering than a compilation." I have seen it grow and re-grow, ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... the workings of the Hawaiian mind on the creations of their own imagination, the beings who stood to them as gods; not robbing them of their power, not deposing them from the throne of the universe, perhaps not even penetrating the veil of enchantment and mystery with which the popular regard covered them, at the most perhaps giving them a hold on the affections of ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... throughout the rebellion, describes the course of the military operations. The political aspect of the rebellion, from the Tory point of view, is dealt with in T. C. Haliburton, The Bubbles of Canada (1839). For a penetrating analysis of the situation which led to the rebellion see Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles

... sixty-three, with an aquiline nose, dark eyes, not yet robbed of their lustre, grey hair waving over his shoulders, and a pointed beard and moustache. The general expression of his countenance was shrewd and penetrating, and yet there were certain indications of credulity about it, showing that he was as likely to be imposed upon himself as to delude others. It is scarcely necessary to say that ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... it into an oven, and fires were kindled about it—fierce and penetrating—hotter than all the heats of summer that had ever brooded upon the bank of the river. But through all, the clay held itself together and endured its trials, in the confidence of a great future. "Surely," it thought, "I am intended for something very splendid, since such pains are taken with me. ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke

... As no one more firmly believed in the power of Christianity to regenerate a fallen race, as faith and experience both conspired to assure him that the only effectual deliverance for the sinful and degraded was to be wrought by Christian education, and by the active agency of Christian instruction penetrating into the haunts of vice and the abodes of misery, these acquisitions he strove to secure for all his beloved countrymen; for these he laboured, and for these he was willing to spend and to ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... instrument was called tlapanhuehuetl, or the half drum, which was of the same diameter but only half the height.[27] Still another variety was the yopihuehuetl, "the drum which tears out the heart,"[28] so called either by reason of its penetrating and powerful sound, or because it was employed at the Yopico, where that form ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton

... fisheries, on which both the French and the English had long encroached, to the great prejudice of Spanish rights. Doubtless, too, these inland waters gave access to the South Sea, and their occupation was necessary to prevent the French from penetrating thither; for that ambitious people, since the time of Cartier, had never abandoned their schemes of seizing this portion of the dominions of the King of Spain. Five hundred soldiers and one hundred sailors must, he urges, take possession, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... penetrating as he said: "Mrs. Lambert, I would like to place my hand on your daughter's arm again, I must be permitted to demonstrate conclusively that she has had nothing to do with the handling ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... suddenly sitting in a high room, brilliantly lighted by a soft, tranquillizing radiance, listening to a chorus of most delicately attuned voices, indescribably sweet, penetrating and moving. Around me upon white ivory chairs arranged in an amphitheatre sat beings like myself, all looking outward upon a sloping lawn where were gathered beneath blossoming fruit trees an army, it seemed, of half ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... Ointment according to directions. It is very penetrating, and has great softening and cooling properties. Use ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.

... some distant lonely water emerging in its glory to be the mirror and refuge of all heaven's light; to remember the gorse and broom and look forward to the royal purple of the heather—all this is a consummation of pure life, a high, sensuous pleasure penetrating to the inmost soul, and of such exceeding price that to disdain its offerings or to pass incurious before them, is to live in the blindness of ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... at her, and in his strangely penetrating eyes there dawned, suddenly, the rare expression that Marcia remembered—as of a grave yet angry tenderness. Then he turned away, walking fast, and was soon invisible among the light shadows of a beech avenue, just in leaf. Marcia was left behind, breathing quick, to watch ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... follies of life with equal strength, humor, and propriety. The field of history and biography was cultivated by many writers of ability, among whom we distinguish the copious Guthrie, the circumstantial Ralph, the laborious Carte, the learned and elegant Robertson, and above all, the ingenious, penetrating, and comprehensive Hume," &c. &c. We will quote no more of the passage. Could a man in the best humor sit down to write a graver satire? Who cares for the tender muse of Lyttelton? Who knows the signal efforts ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... caressing humility. It was by these contrasts that Serge had attracted the young girl's notice. She felt herself face to face with a strange nature, different from men around her, and had become interested in him. Then he had spoken to her, and his sweet penetrating ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... boldly up the steps, pressed the bell-button; laid hold of the door-knob, and entered into a vestibule as dark as his bewilderment and as empty as the palm of his hand; proving that the young gentleman of fashion had experienced no difficulty in penetrating farther into fastnesses of this singular establishment. And reflecting that where one had gone, another might follow, P. Sybarite pulled the door ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... another before the victorious arm of the Incas. Yet it was not till the middle of the fifteenth century that the famous Topa Inca Yupanqui, grandfather of the monarch who occupied the throne at the coming of the Spaniards, led his armies across the terrible desert of Atacama, and, penetrating to the southern region of Chili, fixed the permanent boundary of his dominions at the river Maule. His son, Huayna Capac, possessed of ambition and military talent fully equal to his father's, marched along the Cordillera towards ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... Was she too paralysed to express herself clearly? I waited in some anxiety till she spoke, when this fear vanished. Her voice betrayed the character her features failed to express. It was firm, resonant, and instinct with command. Not loud, but penetrating, and of a quality which made one listen with his heart as well as with his ears. What she said is immaterial. I was there for a certain purpose and we entered immediately upon the business of that purpose. She talked and I listened, mostly without comment. Only once did ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... conspicuous bravery, determination, and gallant leading of his command. The enemy attacked on the right of the Battalion frontage, and succeeded in penetrating the wood held by our men. Owing to successive lines of the enemy following on closely there was the gravest danger that the flank of the whole position would be turned. Grasping the seriousness of the situation, Colonel Anderson made his way across the open in full view of ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various

... Here we found skinned carcasses of porcupines and a heap of wild mutton lying on the confused hut floor. Our cook boiled the porcupines in a big pot with a lot of potatoes we obtained at the same hut, and although the potatoes were protected by their skins, the awfully wild penetrating porcupine flavor found a way through the skins and flavored them to the very heart. Bread and beans and dried fruit we had in abundance, and none of these rank aboriginal dainties ever came nigh any meal of mine. The Indians eat the hips of wild roses entire like ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir

... I turned my glance away; but it was drawn directly towards a picture which hung before me,—a face that drove away all recollection of the colossal goddess. The golden hair was parted over a broad brow; from the gentle, dreamy eyes there came a soft, penetrating glance, and a vagueness as of fancy rested over the whole face. I scarcely heard a word that was spoken to me as I looked upon this new charm, and I could hardly find answers for the questions that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... not a difficult one, nor the fourth; but when we had climbed down about two hundred and fifty feet the rocks were so glacially polished and water-worn that it seemed impossible to get any farther. To our right was a crack penetrating the rock perhaps a foot deep, widening at the surface to three or four inches, which proved to be the only possible ladder. As the chances seemed rather desperate, we concluded to tie ourselves together, in order to share a common ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... much. While we have a common object we're all right. I'm afraid of success. Doctor, you've a penetrating eye. Why, the treasure might break us up. If you had sent it down to me I believe I'd have sent it back. That would have been your best chance. I wonder you didn't think of it. But you've got your flaws. If you'd ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... A penetrating analysis of the social structure of a community must quite naturally be based upon studies of human geography. Plant and animal geography has been studied, but slight attention has been given to human geography, that is, to the local distribution of persons who constitute a community ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... dark alley, whose fetid odors were quite sufficient to deter the dainty from penetrating beyond—they went, and into a miserable room where was scarcely space for them to stand, so huddled was it with broken furniture and ragged children. A fire was burning in a shattered grate, and an untidy woman stood ironing by a table whereon was the remnant of their meager ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... for S——, and small enough for a country town lawyer. He would have put on towards him a patronizing air, and tried to excite in his mind a nobler ambition than to move in our circumscribed sphere, if something in the young man's steady, penetrating, half-mysterious eye had not ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur



Words linked to "Penetrating" :   knifelike, perceptive, penetrative, acute, incisive, discriminating, penetrating injury, keen, sharp, penetrating trauma



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