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Penetrate   /pˈɛnətrˌeɪt/   Listen
Penetrate

verb
(past & past part. penetrated; pres. part. penetrating)
1.
Pass into or through, often by overcoming resistance.  Synonym: perforate.
2.
Come to understand.  Synonyms: bottom, fathom.
3.
Become clear or enter one's consciousness or emotions.  Synonyms: click, come home, dawn, fall into place, get across, get through, sink in.  "She was penetrated with sorrow"
4.
Enter a group or organization in order to spy on the members.  Synonym: infiltrate.
5.
Make one's way deeper into or through.
6.
Insert the penis into the vagina or anus of.
7.
Spread or diffuse through.  Synonyms: diffuse, imbue, interpenetrate, permeate, pervade, riddle.  "Music penetrated the entire building" , "His campaign was riddled with accusations and personal attacks"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Penetrate" Quotes from Famous Books



... each other is the best sight of all. Harry Esmond became the confidant of one and the other—that is, my lord told the lad all his griefs and wrongs (which were indeed of Lord Castlewood's own making), and Harry divined my lady's; his affection leading him easily to penetrate the hypocrisy under which Lady Castlewood generally chose to go disguised, and see her heart aching whilst her face wore a smile. 'Tis a hard task for women in life, that mask which the world bids ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... wherein he showed that he had so great knowledge in his vocation that his intellect must needs overstep the bounds of that art. Wherefore, having made acquaintance with certain studious persons, he began to penetrate with his fancy into questions of time, of motion, of weights, and of wheels, and how the latter can be made to revolve, and by what means they can be set in motion; and thus he made some very good and very beautiful clocks ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari

... Englishman, Guy Cecil, be to blame? That did not seem any more likely. Manuel was afraid of Cecil, though he would not admit it, even to himself. The Englishman's chill restraint, even in moments of the most tense excitement, cowed the Cuban. Never had he been able to penetrate into his fellow-conspirator's thoughts. But that Cecil should have talked loosely of so vital, so terrible a secret? No. The grave itself was not more secretive than that quiet schemer, of whom nothing ever seemed to be ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... going to run a newspaper; they were not going to run a newspaper. There was a poem in connection with them, which mystified LINCOLN B. SWEZEY not a little; he "allowed it was darned personal," but further than that his light did not penetrate. He went to a little Club, of which he was a temporary member; it was not fashionable, and did not seem to want to be, and SWEZEY thought it flippant. There he asked, "What are the Souls, anyhow?" "Societas ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... such an account to be controversial: otherwise it could not give a true picture of contemporary opinion. Intellectual and social causes have conspired to accentuate traditional differences in ethics, and to make the questions in dispute penetrate to the very heart of morality. It has been my aim to trace the new influences which are at work, and to estimate the value of the ethical doctrines to which they have seemed to lead. The estimate has taken the form of a criticism, but ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley

... enduring; fitted to grapple with difficulties and to support privations. There seems but little soil in his heart for the support of the kindly virtues; and yet, if we would but take the trouble to penetrate through that proud stoicism and habitual taciturnity which lock up his character from casual observation, we should find him linked to his fellow man of civilized life by more of those sympathies and affections than ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... interpretation of the observations made with instruments of precision, Le Verrier holds a highly honoured place. To him it has been given to provide a superb illustration of the success with which the mind of man can penetrate the deep things ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... certain forms, or modes, of experience here presented which are at least mystical in their tendency—the sense of a deeper reality than that which can be grasped by conscious reason—a desire to penetrate a secret that will not yield itself to articulate thought and which nevertheless leaves a definite impress on the mind. There is also a recognition of the passive attitude which the ordinary mystic doctrine avers to be essential to vision. Will these features warrant ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... have loved nothing else in the world—I who have always been ready to sacrifice for their sake ease, ambition, life itself... But, you see, I am not endeavouring, in a fit of vexation and injured vanity, to pluck from them the magic veil through which only an accustomed glance can penetrate. No, all that I say about them is but ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... ground on which it stands is uneven, and in many places declivitous; the different parts of the city are connected by bridges, and on every side is seen the fresh green foliage of the north. The natural canals which intersect Stockholm are of great depth, and ships of large burden are enabled to penetrate into the very heart of the town. The general style of building offers little to admire; the houses being for the most part flat-fronted, monotonous, and graceless, without any species of architectural decoration to relieve their inelegant uniformity. It is the position of the city, the air of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... more especially in reference to Prussia, towards which the eyes of the rest of Europe are at present anxiously turned. But his great design was to obtain and communicate information, respecting countries into which few Englishmen are accustomed to penetrate. Hence a large portion of his tour, both in Bohemia and Hungary, was performed on foot; and the acquaintance which he was thereby enabled to form with all ranks and conditions of the people, was at once more intimate ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... she wandered fruitlessly in that dark labyrinth, not only mindful of Philip's warning that she must not penetrate too deep into its depth, but fearful on her own account of an encounter with some such wild beast as that whose cry had terrified her. In time the hollow indifference of the woods began to weigh upon her spirits, ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... sighed heavily, and again arranged herself to watch the eastern horizon, or rather with her face in that direction; for she could see nothing. But, more quietly now, she lay gazing into the darkness, which it was in vain to try to penetrate; and thoughts succeeding thoughts in a more regular train, at last fairly cheated her into sleep, much as she wished to keep it off. She slept soundly for near an hour; and when she awoke, the dawn had really begun to break in the eastern sky. She again ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... covered with sheet iron, representing a Nuernberg maiden of the sixteenth century in the long mantle generally worn. It opened with folding doors, closing again over the victim, and pressing a series of poignards into the body, two being affixed to the front of the face, to penetrate to the brain through the eyes. "That this machine had formerly been used cannot be doubted; because there are evident blood-stains yet visible on its breast and part of the pedestal." This machine was introduced to Nuernberg in 1533, and is believed to have originated ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... disadvantage. He had been stilted and patronizing, when he had meant to be cordial and kind. On the other hand, he resented the quickness with which she had read his thoughts, as well as her perception that he had ground for uneasiness regarding his child. That she should penetrate the inner shrine of reserve he kept closed against those who stood nearest to him in the world gave him a sense of injury; and he turned this feeling to account during the next few hours in trying to deaden ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... Siberia were being realized, for according to some accounts these pretended sorcerers had for a long time proclaimed the near and inevitable downfall of this state by an invasion of Christians. Tausak spoke of the Cossacks as wonderful men and invincible heroes, lancing fire and thunder which penetrate through the cuirasses. Nevertheless, Kutchum, although deprived of sight, had a strong soul. He made ready to defend his country and his faith with courage. He at once gathered all his subjects, made his nephew Mahmetkul enter the campaign at the head of a large force of cavalry, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... the voices of soldiers. A song was being sung, and she could hear the words. How cruel it was that other people should have so much of light- hearted joy in the world, but that for her everything should have been so terribly sad! The wind, as it met her, seemed to penetrate to her bones. She was very cold! But it was useless to regard that. There was no place on the face of the earth that would ever be warm ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... therefore, to feel any apprehension as to our literature becoming Europeanized, because whatever is American in it must lie deeper than anything European can penetrate. More than that, I believe and hope that our novelists will deal with Europe a great deal more, and a great deal more intelligently, than they have done yet. It is a true and healthy artistic instinct that leads them to do so. Hawthorne—and no American ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... bank at that particular spot did not exceed a hundred fathoms. At length another puff of air from the land pressed upon their sails, and the water once more rippled beneath the bows of the boat. Paul's heart beat hard, and as he managed the tiller-lines, he strained his eyes uselessly in order to penetrate the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... imaginations began to torment me as to what he meant. He lived in London so much, for instance, that he had much quicker chance of knowing whatever there was to know; again, he was a man of the world, full of short, sharp sagacity, and able to penetrate what I could not; then, again, he kept a large account with Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin, as Major Hockin chanced to say; and I knew not that a banker's reserve is much deeper than his deposit; moreover—which, to my mind, was almost stronger proof than any thing—Sir ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... Furley had indicated. Obeying orders, he lay down and listened intently for any fainter sounds mingled with the tumult of nature. After a few minutes, it was astonishing how his eyes found themselves able to penetrate the darkness which at first had seemed like a black wall. Some distance to the right he could make out the outline of a deserted barn, once used as a coast-guard station and now only a depository for ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... novelties were apt to be presented. Lyons attended one of these private banquets while in Washington—a dinner party served to a carefully chosen company of public men, to which newspaper scribes were unable to penetrate. This same genial, easy-going tendency of Elton's to make himself acceptable to those with whom he came in contact took the form of a gift to Mrs. Lyons of a handsome cameo pin which he presented to her a day or two after their dialogue at the President's reception, and for which, as he confidentially ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... "Can your eyes penetrate beyond the spur of the hills yonder and see an army marching to our rescue, or your ears catch the welcome sound of tramping feet?" Ellerey said, pointing to the head of ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... the devil who gave them power 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 Paris, six to Italy, six to Spain, six to Germany, four ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... with a curtain around it. The nature of the light that penetrates through the curtain and becomes visible to a person standing outside depends upon the nature of the curtain. If several such curtains are thus successively placed around the light, it will have to penetrate through all of them; and a person standing outside will only perceive as much light as is not intercepted by all the curtains. The central light becomes dimmer and dimmer as curtain after curtain ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... sufficient light to enable him to see that the floor of the cave was thickly strewn with fragments of shells and gray-white coral, the stone itself being so soft that he could easily penetrate it with ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various

... 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 ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... dangerous. They were forcing their way to the front. There was no doubt that, as soon as they could penetrate the densely packed mob, they would charge up the stairs, even in face of a heavy fire. The reek of vodka was borne up in the heated atmosphere, mingled with the ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... efficient for small mammals (say up to squirrel size) and for birds, is not sufficiently strong to penetrate the skin and thoroughly fix the hair of the larger mammals. For this purpose the older taxidermists used a wash or powder, composed of equal parts of alum and nitre (saltpetre). This had the double disadvantage of rendering the specimen cured by its aid almost ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... may have life, and may have it abundantly." Life is the characteristic word of the great spiritual Gospel from which my text is taken. And no word can penetrate more deeply into the secret of Christ than this does. He was the sweetest, the most persuasive of moral teachers; but ethical principles and precepts are the common possession of humanity; and that in which Christ is pre-eminent ...
— Strong Souls - A Sermon • Charles Beard

... reverberated beneath the tramp of the legions of the Caesars. Here generation after generation of the moccasined savage, with silent tread, threaded his way, delighting in the gloom which no ray of the sun could penetrate, in the silence interrupted only by the cry of the wild beast in his lair, and awed by the marvelous beauty of lakes and streams, framed in mountains and fringed with forests, where water-fowl of every variety of note and plumage floated buoyant upon the wave, and ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... betrays the most tender and astonishing interest in your welfare. You know him to be a quack and a rogue, and he knows you know it. But he wriggles on his way, and leaves a track of slimy flattery after him wherever he goes. Who can penetrate that man's mystery? What earthly good can he get from you or me? You don't know what is working under that leering tranquil mask. You have only the dim instinctive repulsion that warns you, you are in the presence of a knave—beyond which fact all Fawney's ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... have given place to steamboats which now carry the river and lake commerce. But men are no longer dependent on the rivers, for swift railway trains penetrate every part of the country. The stage-coach is replaced by the trolley-car, and the horseback rider, plodding over corduroy roads with his saddle-bags, is succeeded by the automobile rider speeding over the ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory

... an expression nowise akin to that produced by rum, and he fastened on his companion one of his fiery gazes, which occasionally seemed to penetrate to the centre ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... the "lady Ayisha" had left the governorate I was forced to admit that the brats were useful. In their own way they served Grim as a pair of hounds work for a man out hunting rabbits, for they could penetrate places and be welcome where a grown man would be killed—at the very least—for intruding or attempting to intrude. Harems, for instance. And they could be naive and wheedling toward ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy

... slender, ambitious figure of some substitute of a prefectorial councillor, in the garb of one seeking a favour, dress-coat and white tie; and all, standing, sitting in groups or solitary, sought silently to penetrate with their gaze that high door closed upon their destiny, by which they would issue forth directly triumphant or with cast-down head. Jenkins passed through the crowd rapidly, and every one followed with an envious eye this newcomer whom ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... the meantime, it would afford me some amusement for my trouble. I therefore thrust into his mouth the largest hot potato I could find, and this had exactly the intended effect; for the fellow, unwilling to drop it, and not daring to penetrate it before it should get cool, held it slightly compressed between his teeth, to the great enjoyment of his countrymen, who laughed heartily, as well as myself, at the wry faces he made, and the efforts he used with his tongue to moderate the heat of the potato, ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... contemporaries, an estimate which we believe posterity will confirm. And to it we may add that death, which came to him in his sleep as a gentle deliverer, opened the door into the larger and fuller life into which he tried to penetrate and in which he firmly believed. If that faith be founded in truth, Darwin and Wallace, yonder ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant

... to a restricted space, and the air they breathed came from compression tanks, and not from the open sky. The lights had to be kept aglow, of course, for it was pitch dark at that depth. The sunlight cannot penetrate to more than a hundred feet. But sunlight was not needed, for the craft carried powerful electric lights that could illuminate the sea in the immediate vicinity ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton

... life which required some of the qualities of the hero, had nothing particularly heroic in his outward aspect. He was a man of medium size, and sinewy, well-knit frame. He had keen, gray eyes, which noticed everything, and could penetrate to the inner core of things; close-cropped hair, short serviceable beard, of that style which is just now most affected by men of restless energy; a short, straight nose, and a general air of masterful ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... leisure, it can be accomplished in ten days, whilst we wait for our bridge to be finished. If it so pleased you, we might go every day from noon till four of the clock into yonder pleasant meadow beside the river Gave. The trees there are so leafy that the sun can neither penetrate the shade nor change the coolness to heat. Sitting there at our ease, we might each one tell a story of something we have ourselves seen, or heard related by one worthy of belief. At the end of ten days we ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... To seek to penetrate the origin of these dances is to find ourselves in the darkness of antiquity. Almost all Indian peoples have the firmly fixed notion that the gods can be propitiated only by these exhausting dances. Consequently they are not performed by a ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... can penetrate to the heart of friendly solitude unless they have the gift of God's grace, or have gained the benefit of trials bravely accepted. Outside the door you must leave the dust of the road, the harsh voices and mean thoughts of the world, egotism, vanity, miserable rebellions against disappointments ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... gratefully kiss the hand of the lady of the house because she has the right of demanding gratitude? And in the theatre, with the multitude, what does not 'an astonishing chest' do? A strength of voice which can penetrate right through the leather of the mind gains stormy applause, whilst taste and execution can only be appreciated by the few. The actor can be certain of applause if he only thunder forth his parting reply. The comedian is sure ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... through the world, not to oppress other peoples, but to aid them in their own development, an essential preliminary will be the spread of the German language. For only he who knows the German language, and can read the works of our spiritual heroes in the original, can really penetrate into the German spirit, and feel himself at home ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various

... until darkness was upon them. The fire was kept up, but Baxter screened it as much as possible, so that the glare might not penetrate to the forest beyond the gully and prove a beacon to guide Dick and John ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield

... would laugh at all his recent fears. But of course there was not one chance in a million of his finding the igloo. It was not at all unlikely, though, that the drift might take him to a belt of timber, into which the bitter wind could not penetrate; and where he could crawl under the thick, low-hanging branches of some tent-like spruce. Even such a shelter now seemed very desirable, and would be accepted with thankfulness. If he failed to reach timber, the wind might blow him to some region of cliffs and ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe

... worse librettos—librettos which have some clear unmusical meaning of their own beyond which the audience cannot penetrate to the meaning of the music, if it has any. This libretto, apart from the music, is so nearly meaningless, it has so little coherence, that one can easily pass through it to the music. The author, Schickaneder, ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock

... the army, and I say you are in the woods," said the soldier, repeating the double postulate, so that the essence of the joke should by no possibility fail to penetrate the ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... energies of the British were now concentrated to scale the breastwork, which one daring officer had already mounted. While Lafitte and his followers, seconding a gallant band of volunteer riflemen, formed a phalanx which they in vain assayed to penetrate. ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... to penetrate Mrs. Elton's thoughts, and understand why she was, like herself, in happy spirits; it was being in Miss Fairfax's confidence, and fancying herself acquainted with what was still a secret to other people. Emma saw ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... thick curtain inside my room door? It is true I have heard it remarked that the wails of an infant when teething will penetrate through any obstacles. Still, a baize door inside your nursery door, and thick curtains inside mine would soften the disturbance—yes, would soften it. I was going to say ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade

... now really began to break in earnest, bringing with it a cold, damp chill, which seemed to penetrate to their very marrow. Spotts took off his coat and wrapped it around the shivering Violet—an act of chivalry which made Banborough curse his own thoughtlessness. But Spotts's endeavours to promote the comfort of ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... windows look out on either side. My bed-room is convenient, and yet I am far from the babble of the household. Not the trampling of the waves, no sounds of storm, no flash of lightning, even daylight cannot penetrate here unless the shutters are opened. It is so secret and quiet and hidden because it is in the corridor between the bed-room walls and the garden wall, and so every sound is deadened. A small oven is added to the bed-chamber, which by this narrow opening admits heat when required. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... last he returned the lady's salutation, by throwing himself at her feet, and rising up again, said to her, 'Madam, I return you a thousand thanks for welcoming me to a place where I had reason to believe my imprudent curiosity had made me penetrate too far. But, madam, may I, without being guilty of rudeness, presume to ask you how you know me? and why you, who live in the same neighbourhood should be so little known ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... indefatigable exertions the flock committed to his charge. When we consider the dreary wilds, the almost inaccessible heights, the rugged hills and lofty mountains to which sheep have access, and to which man could scarcely penetrate—that some sheep will stray and intermix with other flocks—that the dog knows the extent of his walk as well as every individual of his flock, and that he will select his own as well as drive away intruders, we must admit his ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... bored; they trembled for his health, but not one of them dared to do anything. Time ran on, and the dejection of M. du Maine and Madame de Maintenon increased. This is as far as the most instructed have ever been able to penetrate. To describe the interior scenes that doubtless passed during the long time this state of things lasted, would be to write romance. Truth demands that we should relate what we know, and admit what we are ignorant of. I cannot go farther, therefore, or pierce deeper into the density of these ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... of this is thought to be the obscurity of things, or the natural weakness and imperfection of our understandings. It is said, the faculties we have are few, and those designed by nature for the SUPPORT and comfort of life, and not to penetrate into the INWARD ESSENCE and constitution of things. Besides, the mind of man being finite, when it treats of things which partake of infinity, it is not to be wondered at if it run into absurdities and contradictions, out of which it is impossible it should ever extricate itself, it being of the ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley

... ever existed in the world; but at the same time it is one of the most confined and least dangerous. Nevertheless the friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction; for if ever a permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy again penetrate into the world, it may be predicted that this is the channel by which ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... minds were rarely prepared by previous education. It, nevertheless, overflowed into the daily lessons, and gave them that peculiar and somewhat singular aspect, which acted even upon those whose intelligence could not cope with it. Such is the mysterious magic of things which penetrate before ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... cardinal-flower, or our asters and goldenrod, dashing the roadsides with tints of purple and gold, he found them scentless also. "Where are your fragrant flowers?" he might well say; "I can find none." Let him look closer and penetrate our forests, and visit our ponds and lakes. Let him compare our matchless, rosy-lipped, honey-hearted trailing arbutus with his own ugly ground-ivy; let him compare our sumptuous, fragrant pond-lily with his own odorless NYMPHÆ ALBA. In our Northern woods he will find the floors carpeted with ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... which the boys swung their lanterns in a vain attempt to penetrate its gloom seemed indeed to lead into the heart of Buffalo Mound. A muddy, turbulent stream was rushing down it at a tremendous rate, but there was room enough left to allow the passage of an agile boy, willing to bend himself double, and the water was not deep ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo

... waters, and then he found them as salt as the sea. The low, miserable, desert country in the neighbourhood, and Lake Torrens itself, act as a kind of barrier against the progress of inland discovery at the back of the colony of South Australia, since it is impossible to penetrate very far into the interior, without making a great circle either to the east or to the west. The portion of the bed of the lake which is exposed is thickly coated with particles of salt; there are few trees or shrubs of any kind to be found near, nor are ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... the best information concerning this poison, and as repeated inquiries, in lieu of dissipating the surrounding shade, did but tend more and more to darken the little light that existed, I determined to penetrate into the country where the poisonous ingredients grow, where this pernicious composition is prepared and where it is constantly used. Success attended the adventure, and the information acquired made amends for one hundred and twenty ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... also floating through the moist air, to the effect that the potatoes and onions are about to give out! But don't be alarmed, dear Molly. There is no danger of a famine. For have we not got wagon-loads of hard, dark hams, whose indurated hearts nothing but the sharpest knife and the stoutest arm can penetrate? Have we not got quintals of dreadful mackerel, fearfully crystallized in black salt? Have we not barrels upon barrels of rusty pork, and flour enough to victual a large army for the next two years? Yea, verily, have ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... said. Nothing can go beyond it, and at times it is the only ground which we feel does not shake under our feet. All life is summed up, and due account is taken of it, according to its degree. Mrs. Butts' Calvinism, however, hardly took the usual dogmatic form. She was too simple to penetrate the depths of metaphysical theology, and she never would have dared to set down any of her fellow creatures as irrevocably lost. She adapted the Calvinistic creed to something which suited her. For example, she fully understood what St. Paul means when he tells the Thessalonians that ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford

... to the slit cave Ross's fear was ready to be expressed in anger, the anger of frustration over his own helplessness. With no chance of trying to penetrate the castle, he could not learn whether or not Ashe had been taken prisoner. And until the workers left the beach he could not prowl there hunting the grimmer evidence his mind ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... be superior? The objection did not escape Perrault, and he answers it ingeniously. It is the function of poetry and eloquence to please the human heart, and in order to please it we must know it. Is it easier to penetrate the secrets of the human heart than the secrets of nature, or will it take less time? We are always making new discoveries about its passions and desires. To take only the tragedies of Corneille you will find there finer and more ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... confused, or self- contradicting, but nevertheless respected; in other respects he had a strangely infertile brain. He had no sudden inspirations, no imagination. It could not be expected that he would ever bring forward any specially new thoughts, only that he would penetrate confusion, think out errors to the bottom, and, with the years, carry out a ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... 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 worthlessness ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

... was singularly self-absorbed. Those words of Robert Ferguson's, when he kissed her in his library, had never left her mind. She thought of them now when she and Nannie sat down in that silence of waiting which seems to tingle with speech. The dim light from the gas-jet by the mantelpiece did not penetrate beyond the dividing arch of the great room; behind the grand piano sprawling sidewise between the black marble columns, all was dark. The shadow of the chandelier, muffled in its balloon of brown ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... else in that company probably did a single word penetrate. Merely stricken dumb by the vibrant power of the voice, vaguely uneasy, vaguely saddened, group after group of hoydenish youngsters huddled in speechless fascination around the dark ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... hangings absolutely colorless. Between the fireplace and the large square table at which the magistrate worked, the cook had set two cups of coffee on a small table, and two armchairs, in mahogany and horsehair, awaited the uncle and nephew. As daylight, darkened by the windows, could not penetrate to this corner, the cook had left two dips burning, whose unsnuffed wicks showed a sort of mushroom growth, giving the red light which promises length of life to the candle from slowness of combustion—a ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... they were unprovided with any official laisser-passer. A document of that description having been obtained, however, from General Trochu on the morrow, a second attempt was made, and this time the party speedily passed through the French lines. But in trying to penetrate those of the enemy, some melodramatic adventures occurred. It became necessary, indeed, to dodge both the bullets of the Germans and those of the French Francs-tireurs, who paid not the slightest respect either to the Union Jack or to the large white flag which ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... tightly and followed Sommers. It was no easy task to penetrate the hot, sweating mob that was packing into the court, and bearing down toward the tracks where the fun was going on. Sommers made three feet, then lost two. The crowd seemed especially anxious to keep them back, and Miss Hitchcock was hustled ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... of defence. The houses of the town are mostly on a ridge, and enclosing the place is a mass of gardens fully a mile deep, each surrounded by high cactus hedges affording complete cover and quite impossible for infantry to penetrate. To reduce Gaza would require a prolonged artillery bombardment with far more batteries than General Allenby could ever expect to have at his command, and it is certain that not only would the line in front of the town have ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... hair. Can it be that the thronged street of a city will ever pass into this twilight solitude,—over those soft heaps of the decaying tree-trunks, and through the swampy places, green with water-moss, and penetrate that hopeless entanglement of great trees, which have been uprooted and tossed together by a whirlwind? It has been a wilderness from the creation. Must it not be a ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Mr. Blades, a great expert in this matter, said, 'It is a mistake to imagine that keeping the best-bound volumes in a glass-doored bookcase is a preservative. The damp air will certainly penetrate, and as the absence of ventilation will assist formation of mould, the books will be worse off than if they had been placed in open shelves. If securing be desirable, by all means abolish the glass and place ornamental brass wire ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys

... remained standing at the door, while the eyes of the personage we have just described were fixed upon him, and appeared to wish to penetrate even into ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth—to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose—to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it—to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... was most anxious to understand the history of Isis and Osiris, which Greek and Roman scholars talked about freely, and which none of them comprehended, and he made enquiries of priests and others, and examined critically such information as he could obtain, believing and hoping that he would penetrate the mystery in which these gods were wrapped. As a result of his labours he collected a number of facts about the form of the Legend of Isis and Osiris as it was known to the learned men of his day, but ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge

... persons who brush their teeth properly. I will tell you the right way. First of all procure a tooth brush of the best make, and of rather hard bristles, to enable it to penetrate into all the nooks and corners of the teeth; then, having put a small quantity of warm water into your mouth, letting the principal of it escape into the basin, dip your brush in warm water, and if you are about using Castile soap, rub the brush on a cake of the soap, and ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... things; and that whatever insight into the nature and being of God is given man, is produced by the divine Spirit playing upon this spiritual faculty in man, illuminating and irradiating it, so that it sees the perfection of God and is enabled to penetrate into His will. ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... that we had heard was unquestionably Yolanda's, but by what strange power it was enabled to penetrate our rock-ribbed prison and give tongues to the cold stones I could not guess, though I could not stop trying. Here was another riddle set by this marvellous girl for my solving. This riddle, however, ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... preaching he might truly convert unto the infancy of the Christian faith him now grown old in his evil days. And Milcho, this man of envious heart, this minister of death feared lest the preaching of Patrick should penetrate a breast of stone, and that by his clear and fiery eloquence, or by some irresistible miracle, he should be compelled to believe. Therefore held he it as base and shameful to submit unto the doctrine of ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... completely thrown off his guard, but fortunately as the brute sprang at him he threw up his arm, and thus saved his throat. But the arm was pierced by the sharp teeth, that seemed to penetrate through the clothing and flesh to the very bone. However, that was his last spring and his last bite, for before even Mustagan or anyone else could seize a weapon the report of Sam's gun rang out, and the wolf fell, dead enough this time. Sam had put the muzzle within ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young

... things. No policeman would ever have succeeded in raiding these dens of iniquity; he would have found nothing but empty rooms or bunks filled with snoring Chinese; the abominable stench would soon have driven him out again, but if, by any chance, he had attempted to penetrate further and to explore the walls for the purpose of discovering hidden openings, the only result would have been a story in the next day's papers ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... grandfather's possession from a sister, my great-aunt of that name. Save a field of oats, the land here was allowed to lie in grass and remain otherwise uncultivated. Beyond this small outlying farm, there was a dense body of woodland, which I did not then attempt to penetrate, but made a circuit to the northward through pasture land and young wood for half a mile or more, and by and by crossed the road, looking along which to the northwest, I could see the farmhouses ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... Indian who swayed the torch meant thereby to appraise some confederate that the scout who had dared to penetrate such a distance into their country, and to unearth their most important secrets, was seeking to make his way down the Rio Gila and out of their country again. This much said the torch in language that could not be mistaken. Although it added no ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... Africa a vast reserve supply of grand game. It inhabits regions that are either unknown, or most difficult to penetrate. As a species in point, consider the okapi. Only the boldest and most persistent explorers ever have set foot in its tangled and miasmatic haunts. It may be twenty years before a living specimen can be brought ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... amid the luxury of costume and high spirits represented there the entrance of the camel created something of a stir, and Perry was immediately surrounded by a curious, laughing crowd who were anxious to penetrate the identity of this beast who stood by the wide doorway eyeing the dancers with his ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... with a sharp pruning knife. No pairs should be left, and only the strongest and most vigorous should be retained. They should be disposed on alternate sides of the primary and none left in a space of six inches from the stem of the tree. The object of this is to allow the light to penetrate to the center of the tree, for the coffee tree bears fruit in greater profusion on branches that are exposed to the light than on those that ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs

... exacerbated by rapid population growth, industrial expansion, and increased water pollution. Private investment is critical to the modernization of the agricultural, energy, and export sectors. Oil production is leveling off, and the efforts of the nonoil sector to penetrate international markets have fallen short. Syria's inadequate infrastructure, outmoded technological base, and weak educational system make it vulnerable to future shocks and hamper competition with neighbors such as Jordan ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... watching her year-old baby. It smiles continually, but never cries, never moves, except when it is moved. Her face, thin and melancholy, is still calm and lovely. But her eyes go no more in quest of something beyond. A wall of darkness lies before her, which she will not penetrate. Aunt Merce sits near me with her knitting. When I look at her I think how long it is since mother went, and wonder whether death is not a welcome idea to those who have died. Aunt Merce looks at Verry and the child with a sorrowful countenance, exchanges a glance ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... all classes of fruit-pests, the only really complete method now in sight is the application of a poisonous gas, such as hydrocyanic acid, which is retained by means of a gas-proof tent pitched around each tree. No kind of a spray or wash can penetrate between bark and stem or into the cavities on fruit so well as a gaseous insecticide which permeates the whole of the air within the included space. But the gas-tight tent system of fumigation is as yet ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... for an instant, then looked at her brother with an anxious and scrutinizing glance, as if she wished to penetrate into his ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... has anywhere deposited in one place, from the hard and intractable substances with which she has almost everywhere surrounded those small quantities, and consequently from the labour and expense which are everywhere necessary in order to penetrate, and get at them. They flattered themselves that veins of those metals might in many places be found, as large and as abundant as those which are commonly found of lead, or copper, or tin, or iron. The dream of Sir ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... penetrate the genius of an artist, not merely forming a correct estimate of his technical ability and science, but also probing his personality to the core, as near as this is possible for us to do, we ought ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... up from the sofa, and crossing the room, sat down on a chair close to where Olof was seated. Then, lowering her voice a little, she went on, as if striving with words and look to penetrate his soul: ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... supper was over, we hastened with relief to his own part of the house, where the McGurk's influence does not penetrate. No one in a cleaning capacity ever enters either his library or office or laboratory except Llewelyn, a short, wiry, bow-legged Welshman, who combines to a unique degree the qualities of ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... Philip Baddely and Mr. Rochfort announced themselves by the noise they made on the staircase. These were the young men who had spoken in such a contemptuous manner at Lady Singleton's of the match-making Mrs. Stanhope and her nieces. Mr. Hervey was anxious that they should not penetrate into the state of his heart, and he concealed his emotion by instantly assuming that kind of rattling gaiety which always delighted his companions, who were ever in want of some one to set their stagnant ideas in motion. At last ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... heaven, but God knows all about your little sorrowful heart. You tell him all about it, and be at rest. There are times when we go through life that we must do this, yes, grown-up men and women, Betty, when they cannot see, and struggle to understand and penetrate the unseen, are brought down under God's hand. And He says to us, "I have done this: now is the time to trust Me." "Be still, and know that I am God." I have had to learn this lesson, and at times my heart has been hard and bitter. But there, why am I talking ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre

... another with all the consolations which philosophy and the pride of magnanimity could administer. In those gloomy cells, beneath the level of the street, into whose deep and grated windows the rays of the noonday sun could but feebly penetrate, their faces soon grew wan, and wasted, and haggard, from confinement, the foul prison ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... and beneficial degree of warmth penetrate his vitals, and all he experienced of his trouble was a singular sort of shiver, which exactly resembled electric shocks, causing pain but doing good. He proved himself susceptible to the consolations of his patron, who, after comfortably sipping up his last glass ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... ever 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 ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... same region, and that, as he travelled farther and farther from any given centre, the forms of life would differ more and more from those which prevailed at the starting-point, till, in the remotest regions to which he could penetrate, he would find an entirely new assemblage of animals and plants, altogether unlike those with which he was familiar. He would also anticipate that diversities of climate would always be associated with a corresponding diversity in the forms ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... was more physical than mental. It was as if I were inhaling at every breath some deadly fume, which seemed to penetrate to every nerve and bone and sinew of my body. I felt racked from head to foot, my eyes began to grow dim; it was like the entrance ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... balcony rail and the thud of a heavy object dropping on the grass below. Flinging open the glass doors, through which a torrent of wind poured into the room, and leaning out under the twisted branches of the vine, I tried in vain to penetrate the wall of blackness before me, and force my sight through it and down into the old garden, from which there arose only the rushing sound of the dry wind in the shrubbery. All the universe seemed made of black ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... leaned her cheek on her hand and closed her eyes. She did not want to look at young Randal and she found that she could not look at Michael Daragh. She was glad to be in a corner of the little room where the faint light of the lamp did not penetrate; she wished it might have been complete darkness to cover her. She was so unutterably tired ... never in her life had she been so tired. And Michael Daragh, her best friend of four good years, her—what ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... But it failed to penetrate very far. "I know I've treated you badly," he went on. "I was coming out in the spring, though; just as soon as I got things straight. I've worked like a son-of-a-gun too, but luck has always been against me." His voice gathered assurance from ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... allowed, and the night was cold. The figures of the men looked like phantoms in the dusk. Ned stood with his friends, while Milam gave the directions. They were to be divided into two forces. One under Milam was to enter the town by the street called Acequia, and the other under Colonel Johnson was to penetrate by Soledad Street. They relied upon the neglect of the Mexicans to get so far, before the battle began. Burleson, with the remainder of his men would attack the ancient mission, then turned into ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... sought to penetrate, feebly, through the fog, as if the sun knew only too well how often it had been defeated in its contest against the murky vapors of ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... always possessed a fascination for George and an attraction for the Professor as well. George, particularly, was anxious to penetrate the river, and sail up to the falls, but Harry's more practical views prevailed. "If we want to explore the river we can do it any day with a wagon, or on foot; but while we have the ship out, why not take a sail down the coast ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay

... the native to his European masters, the humble posture giving place to kneeling on a nearer approach. The kind proprietor of the Soekaboemi Hotel offers every facility to those guests anxious to penetrate below the surface of Soendanese life, placing his carriage and himself at the disposal of the visitor, and affording a mine of information otherwise unattainable, for books on Java are few and far between, and the work of Sir Stamford ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... are held to it as steel to a magnet. Both tail and head are involved in the feat. At the instant of making the hop the head is thrown in and the tail thrown out, but the exact mechanics of it I cannot penetrate. Philosophers do not yet know how a backward-falling cat turns in the air, but turn she does. It may be that the woodpecker never quite relaxes his hold, though to my eye he ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs

... the same things. We have talked about and exchanged our views on this question more than a dozen times, and yet you always come back and, in spite of your pretended omniscience, ask me about it with the most dreadful naivete, as though my eyes could penetrate any depth. What kind of notions have you, anyhow, of a young wife, and more especially of your daughter? Do you think that the whole situation is so plain? Or that I am an oracle—I can't just recall the name of the person—or that I hold the truth cut and dried in my hands, when Effi has poured ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... was beginning to penetrate into the little back yard, where the flowers were still glistening with the drops of their morning bath; and Mr. Bentley sat by the window reading his newspaper, his spectacles on his nose, and a great grey cat rubbing herself against ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... separated from him by a violent tempest. There had been no second vessel, and Flinders could have made no such assertion. Again, Peron wrote that Flinders said that, hindered by contrary winds, he had not been able to penetrate behind the islands of St. Peter and St. Francis, in Nuyts Archipelago. Flinders made no such absurd statement. He had followed the coast behind those islands with the utmost particularity. His track, with soundings, is shown on his large ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... slippery with the fallen leaves of the pine-trees. Anon it traced the crooked windings of some brawling mountain stream through thicket tangles where, you would think, no woman-ridden horse could penetrate. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... dread as the quiet, solemn tones fell upon my ear, poignantly, as if they must penetrate to my heart. I could not keep myself from sobbing. His face was turned toward me in the dusk, and I ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... the internal reflection which is responsible for most of the white brilliancy of the cut stone we must note that it is a fact that light that is passing through any transparent material will, upon arriving at any polished surface, either penetrate and emerge or else it will be reflected within the material, depending upon the angle at which the light strikes the surface. For each material there is a definite angle outside of which light that is passing as above described, is totally ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... tunnel, and we wind round past Stazione 89 and stop at Bardonnecha, the line abruptly ascending. Now a little town appears, and conspicuous in its square is the statue of some eminent citizen, surmounted by an outspread eagle; and then we penetrate the snowy mountains; and at last, when expectation is almost spent, we enter the great Mont Cenis tunnel, at first getting little intermittent flashes of light, and then indeed entombed within the great mountains, ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... "I meditate on the order of the universe, not to explain it by vain systems, but to admire it unceasingly, to adore the wise Author who is felt in it. I converse with Him, I let His divine essence penetrate all my faculties, I tenderly remember His benefits, I bless Him for His gifts; but I do not pray to Him. What should I ask Him? That He should change the course of things on my account; that He should perform miracles in my favor? I, who ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... which the eye of policeman or sbirro only can see, has created a sort of inquisition for Europe. The poor traveller has no means of knowing who has denounced him, or why; and wherever he goes, he finds a vague suspicion surrounding him, which he can neither penetrate nor clear up, and which exposes him to numberless and by no means petty annoyances. I accompanied my friend, after breakfast, to the Prefecture, to transact my own passport matters, and was glad to find that the authorities ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... civility, and had already bowed down his head to return the compliment; but she would not give him leave to speak. "Notwithstanding I desire," said she, "to know by what miracle you have come hither from the capital of Persia in so short a time; and by what enchantment you have been able to penetrate so far as to come to my apartment, and to have evaded the vigilance of my guards; yet, as it is impossible but you must want some refreshment, and regarding you as a welcome guest, I will waive my curiosity, and give orders to my women to regale ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... Susan would not have believed, would not have understood. Now she both believed and understood. And nothing that Mabel told her—not the worst of the possibilities in the world in which she was adventuring—burned deep enough to penetrate beyond the wound she had already received and to give her a fresh ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... censor, to disguise the sexual experiences of the wanderer. We can be quite certain that it will be said that the sexual as such will be forbidden by the censor. That is, however, not the case. The account is outspoken enough, and not the least prudish; the bridal pair embrace each other naked, penetrate each other and dissolve in love, melt in rapture and pain. Who could ask more? Therefore the sexual act itself could not have been offensive to the censor. The whole machinery of scrupulousness, concealment ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... said the dead woman. "It is thus granted to us. By my side you will be able to fly wherever your thoughts wish to go. Invisible to men, we shall penetrate into their most secret chambers; but with sure hand you must find out him who is destined to eternal torture, and before the cock crows he must be found!" As quickly as if carried by the winged thoughts they were in the great city, and from ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... water or lick the brackish soil. After spending the winter in hunting and trapping, the Boones and Hill, discouraged by the forbidding aspect of the hill-country which with its dense growth of laurel was exceedingly difficult to penetrate, abandoned all hope of finding Kentucky by this route and wended their arduous ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson

... the burnt district, and attempted to go through it at St. Clair's, but unsuccessfully: it was impossible to penetrate through the charred and blackened thickets. In the afternoon I walked round the point, and visited the houses of the people who are our nearest neighbours. I found poor Edie in sad tribulation at the prospect of resuming her field labour. It is really shameful ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... calm disinterested love of God. In this state a man can distinguish truth from falsehood, pure gold from base metal, in matters of belief; he can see the connexion of the various dogmas, and their harmony with reason; and in reading Scripture he can penetrate beneath the literal to the spiritual meaning. But when Clement speaks of reason or knowledge, he does not mean merely intellectual training. "He who would enter the shrine must be pure," he says, "and purity is to think holy things." And again, "The more a man loves, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... Confederate left that it was compromised, and to our own brave boys the news of their comrades' fortune. Pender and Thomas were slowly but surely forced back, under a withering fire, beyond the breastworks they had won. A second time did these veterans rally for the charge, and a second time did they penetrate a part of our defences; only, however, to be taken in flank again by Berry's right brigade, and tumbled back to their starting-point. But their onset had shown so great determination, that Ward was despatched to sustain Berry's right, lest ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... thankfulness of the fact that not one of the native priests or deacons had faltered in his attachment to the Christian faith or to the British crown. But, with the exception of Heta Terawhiti, they were unable to penetrate into the King Country, or to do much in any way to rouse their countrymen to fresh exertion. Nor were the white missionaries more successful. They were now elderly men, and they seem not to have had the heart to make fresh efforts. Morgan had died in the ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... the flagstaff, crossed a space of smooth white rock, and reached the great door which faced them. Mr. Phillips fitted the key and flung the door wide. A gloomy cool space lay before them. They were standing in bright sunshine and a glow of reflected light. Their eyes failed to penetrate the darkness before them. It was as if a thick black curtain hung inside the door. The Queen hesitated on the threshold. Mr. Phillips entered the room. He threw open the shutters and flung the great windows wide. Broad belts of light crossed the room. The ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... will come! Her chains will be severed by the sword of civilization and liberty. Science will penetrate her densest forests, and climb her loftiest mountains, and discover her richest treasures. The Sun of righteousness, and the star of peace shall break upon her sin-clouded vision, and smile upon her renewed households The anthem ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, having brought me again, Amorous, mature—all beautiful to me—all wondrous, My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons most wondrous; Existing, I peer and penetrate still, Content with the present—content with the past, By my side, or back of me, Eve following, Or in front, and I following her just ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... slips Vivia, a scarlet shadow, while a clumsy little black outline is ever designing itself at her heels as Ray strives in vain to perfect the mysteries of the left stroke. All about, the keen air breathes its exhilaration, and the glow seems to penetrate the pores till the very blood dances along filled with such intoxicating influence; all above, the afternoon heaven deepens till it has no hidden richness, and between one and the pale gold of the coldly reddening horizon the white air seems ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... accomplishment rises no further than an ordinary story: but there is an inner meaning which the more advanced can appreciate. There is yet an esoteric meaning, a holy of holies, into which only the initiated and instructed can penetrate, and this only those whose spiritual vision is unfolded can discern. "Only those in whom the spirit is evolved can understand the spiritual meaning."[27] But each stage has its gospel, though that ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt

... than a year in all. The schools were much alike. They were held in deserted cabins of round logs, with earthen floors, and small holes for windows, sometimes illuminated by as much light as could penetrate through panes of paper greased with lard. The teachers were usually in keeping with their primitive surroundings. The profession offered no rewards sufficient to attract men of education or capacity. After a few months of desultory instruction ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... tender gratitude and joy, at the new scenes of bliss I had opened to him: scenes positively new, as he had never before had the least acquaintance with that mysterious mark, the cloven stamp of female distinction, though nobody better qualified than he to penetrate into its deepest recesses, or do it nobler justice. But when, by certain motions, certain unquietness of his hands, that wandered not without design, I found he languished for satisfying a curiosity, natural enough, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... very backs and sides seem to be absolutely broken with carrying it up & down from day to day. And most especially when the Child is wean'd, and the Wet-Nurse turn'd away, the Maid cannot let it penetrate into her brain; that she now not only the whole week must rock, sing, dandle, dress, and walk abroad with it; but that she is upon Sundaies also bound to the Child, like a Dog to a halter; and never can stir out, ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... winnowed into threads by the wind, and flung before the following vapor like those swift shafts of arrowy water which a great cataract shoots into the air beside it, trying to find the earth. Beyond these, again, rises a colossal mountain of gray cumulus, through whose shadowed sides the sunbeams penetrate in dim, sloping, rain-like shafts; and over which they fall in a broad burst of streaming light, sinking to the earth, and showing through their own visible radiance the three successive ranges of hills which connect ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... the one stone wall he hadn't been able to penetrate. No connection he had, no contact, would reveal the secret laboratory where the dissection of the androids had taken place, or the specialist who'd done the job. Porter might give it to him in exchange for a guarantee of the hydroelectric post. But Crane ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman

... tendency of our intelligence is towards a philosophy radically theological, so often as we seek to penetrate, on whatever pretext, into the intimate nature of phenomena" (vol. iv. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... man, so adroitly hidden under unruffled externals? That there was a man he did not know, hiding deep down within those powerful shoulders, he had not the least doubt. He himself possessed the quick mobile temperament of the artist, and he could penetrate but not understand the poise assumed with such careless ease by his friend. Dutch blood had something to do with it, and there was breeding, but there was something more than these: he was a reversion, perhaps, to the type of man which ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... said nothing. It began to penetrate the thick skull of the trader that there was something unnatural about their crouched silence. Why didn't they try to explain? Or make ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... Jesuit missionary, was born at Brescia. He entered the Society of Jesus and was sent to the East. He landed at Macao in 1610, and while waiting a favourable opportunity to penetrate into China busied himself for three years in teaching mathematics. His thirty years' residence in China was marked by unceasing zeal and considerable success. He adopted the dress and manners of the country, was the first Christian ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... negotiations with Rome which, at first, he had reason to think, were favourably entertained; afterwards they were abruptly broken off. Nothing is more difficult than to penetrate through the wall of apparent unanimity which surrounds the Vatican. Sometimes, however, a breach is made, to the scandal of the faithful. Thus the biographer of Cardinal Manning revealed the fact that the late Archbishop of Westminster, who began by wishing the Temporal ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... Magyars the commercial monopoly of the East, and Italy will perceive that she has paid very dearly for a blocked-up window. The sole method by which Italy can from the Adriatic cause her commerce to penetrate to the Balkans is by concluding with a friendly Yugoslavia the requisite commercial treaties, which will grow more valuable with the construction of the lateral railways, running inland from the coast, which Austrians ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... a part of the grounds I did not often visit, partly because the trees close by, which formed a belt across the back of the place, grew so near together that not a breath of air could penetrate, and it was intolerable in the hot June days, and partly because my appearance there always created a panic. So seldom did a human being visit that neglected spot, that the birds did not look for guests, and a general stampede followed the approach ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... 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. Suffer me ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of gloomy woodland. It was not an open forest. The underbrush grew, dense and rank, between the boles of the tall trees, making a cover so thick that it was in many places impenetrable, so thick that it nowhere gave a chance for human eye to see even as far as a bow could carry. No horse could penetrate it save by following the game trails or paths chopped with the axe; and a stranger venturing a hundred yards from a beaten road would be so helplessly lost that he could not, except by the merest chance, even find his way back to the spot he had just left. Here and there it was broken by a rare ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... maces, or with axes having long handles. The steel arrow-heads should be tempered in the Tartar manner, by being plunged, while hot, into water mixed with salt, that they may the better be able to penetrate the armour of the Tartars. Our men ought likewise to have good swords, and lances with hooks to drag them from their saddles, which is an easy matter; and ought to have good helmets and armour of proof for themselves and horses: And those who are not so armed ought to keep in the rear ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... T.? Our arms were twined around each other in close embrace. Your heart was full to overflowing, and words gave place to tears. I shall not forget the intense anxiety I felt for you at that moment as I tried to penetrate the future, knowing, as I did, somewhat of the cruelty of prejudice. It seems we both had a foreboding of something that would follow. I do not know that I wept, but heaven witnessed and recorded the silent, sacred promise of my heart ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen

... wholly satisfied, nor did sleep come to her very readily. Her mind was vaguely disturbed. The thought of Max had set her brain in a turmoil which she literally dared not attempt to pursue to its source. She was beginning to be desperately afraid of the mystery she could not penetrate. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... can rob it of its true timbre, to be effective in falsetto. This is why the average "baritone tenors"—singers who begin as baritones but whose voices lend themselves to being trained up—rarely are able to penetrate an ensemble with a clear, ringing high note of genuine tenor quality. A good tenor falsetto is in fact a reversion to boy-soprano with, however, the quality of adult high voice predominating to such a degree that it has the tenor timbre; and in proportion as the high notes of the male ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... think mine is of the mental?" he inquired, looking at her so earnestly that he seemed to penetrate her ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... emanations as there may be from burning logs are odorous of the woodland, of the sunshine, of the fields and fresh air; the wood simply gives out as it burns the sweetness it has imbibed through its leaves from the atmosphere which floats above grass and flowers. Essences of this order, if they do penetrate the fibres of the meat, add to its flavour a delicate aroma. Grass-fed meat, cooked at a wood fire, ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... one superior and definitive epic. Conscience is the chaos of chimeras, of lusts, and of temptations; the furnace of dreams; the lair of ideas of which we are ashamed; it is the pandemonium of sophisms; it is the battlefield of the passions. Penetrate, at certain hours, past the livid face of a human being who is engaged in reflection, and look behind, gaze into that soul, gaze into that obscurity. There, beneath that external silence, battles of giants, like those recorded ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... Miss Bell; "but it was said that his head was hard, and that celestial truths, could not penetrate his thick cranium. He was harsh and avaricious, and quite embedded in material interests. He thought ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... extravagant demonstrations of joy. They seem to have believed that it was pretty nearly over with that hated instrument of Spanish tyranny. They fancied that, with his five hundred horse, Louis might penetrate the country by a rapid movement, and either take Alva prisoner, or, if the duke should retire to Antwerp, raise the whole country ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... old Christian hymns, perhaps the grandest of them, seemed to blend themselves in the chorus, to deepen immeasurably under this new intention. It is not always, or often, that men's abstract ideas penetrate the temperament, touch the animal spirits, affect conduct. It was what they did with Bruno. The ghastly spectacle of the endless material universe, infinite dust, in truth, starry as it may look to our terrestrial eyes—that ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater

... trees, probably killed by bush fires, alternating with Bricklow thickets: and then again crossed small plains and patches of open forest ground, which much relieved the tediousness of the ride through thick scrubs, which we had frequently to penetrate with both hands occupied in protecting the face from the branches. We also crossed chains of water-holes surrounded by a coarse stargrass; these now changed into creeks with deep and irregular beds, lined with Melaleucas, and now again dwindled into shallow channels, scarcely to be recognised ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... from the rock. Very probably, too—indeed, almost certainly,—the fall of the large mass of rock, which once formed the bottom of the basin on the north side of the road, has affected the old-established fissures, by which rain-water has been accustomed to penetrate in small quantities to the glaciere, so that now a much larger amount is admitted. On this account, there will probably be a great diminution of the ice in the course of future summers, though the amount formed each winter may be greater than it has hitherto ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... armed only with the shear-spear. Pincher considered this too dangerous, and rushed in between them to distract the boar's attention. Just as F—— aimed a thrust at his chest,—for it was of no use trying to penetrate his hide,—the boar lowered his head, caught poor faithful Pincher's exposed flank, and tore it open with his razor-like tusk; but in the meantime the spear had gone well home into his brawny chest, exactly beneath ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... came to the door and stood in the darkness listening. For a time the words would not penetrate his consciousness, and then he remembered what Clara had said. She had said something about Alfred Buckley and that there would be a story connecting her name with his. She had been hot and angry and had declared the story a lie. Hugh did not know what the story was about, ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... then that it would not be the last; that I should live to hear the mountains and hills of South Africa reverberate with the sound of exploding shells, that the whizz of bullets would assail my ears like the humming of bees; that a bullet would penetrate my own lungs, leaving me a mass of bleeding clay on the battle-field. I did not know that South Africa's plains would yet be drenched with the blood of Boer and Briton until ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald



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