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Penetrating   /pˈɛnətrˌeɪtɪŋ/   Listen
Penetrating

adjective
1.
Having or demonstrating ability to recognize or draw fine distinctions.  Synonyms: acute, discriminating, incisive, keen, knifelike, penetrative, piercing, sharp.  "Incisive comments" , "Icy knifelike reasoning" , "As sharp and incisive as the stroke of a fang" , "Penetrating insight" , "Frequent penetrative observations"
2.
Tending to penetrate; having the power of entering or piercing.  Synonym: penetrative.  "A cold penetrating wind" , "A penetrating odor"



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"Penetrating" Quotes from Famous Books



... or life among the hills, but had passed his time in study, reading almost incessantly; though even to the ears of an athlete, if he were shut up in a small chamber with a piper, the strains evoked from this extremely penetrating instrument might jar. ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn

... the first appearance of Ireland as a power on the sea. In the fourth century the high-king, Niall of the Hostages, commanding a large fleet of war galleys, invaded Scotland, ravaged the English coasts, and conquered Armorica (Brittany), penetrating as far as the banks of the Loire, where, according to the legend, he was slain by an arrow shot by one of his own men. One of the captives he brought from abroad on one of his early expeditions was a youth named Patrick, afterwards to ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... fruit: other growths, fertilised or accelerated by Western Liberalism, but not belonging to the same family, were springing up in unexpected strength, and in regions which had hitherto lain outside the movement of the modern world. New forces antagonistic to Government had come into being, penetrating an area unaffected by the constitutional struggles of the Mediterranean States, or by the weaker political efforts of Germany. In the homes of the Magyar and the Slavic subjects of Austria, so torpid throughout the agitation of an earlier time, the passion of nationality was every ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... bounds and limits Of this interdicted valley, 'Gainst the edict of the King, Who has publicly commanded None should dare descry the wonder That among these rocks is guarded, Yield at once your arms and lives, Or this pistol, this cold aspic Formed of steel, the penetrating Poison of two balls will scatter, The report and fire of which Will ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... of it. Our astronomers," here the captain's thoughts shifted briefly to an observatory far out in space for perfect seeing, and portrayed a reflecting telescope with a mirror five miles in diameter, capable of penetrating unimaginable myriads of light-years into space, "have tabulated all the suns, planets, and satellites belonging to this Galaxy, and each of you has been given a complete chart and assigned a certain area which he is to explore. Remember, gentlemen, that this first major ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... one remembered that the Justinian, after making the heads of Port Jackson, had been kept at sea for three weeks, a fond hope was cherished that the sun had shone upon the whitened sails of some approaching vessel, which had been discovered by the penetrating eyes of our savage neighbours at Botany Bay. In this anxiety and expectation we remained till the 26th, when the long-wished-for signal was made, and in a few hours after the Britannia storeship, Mr. William Raven master, anchored ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... heart, and who in telling fortunes might readily dictate policy.[306] Under the disguise of gipsies, the emissaries of the emperor or the pope might pass unsuspected from the Land's End to Berwick-upon-Tweed, penetrating the secrets of families, tying the links of the Catholic organisation: and in the later years of the struggle, as the intrigues became more determined and a closer connection was established between the Continental powers ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... of La Rhune, we remained a whole month idle spectators of their preparations, and dearly longing for the day that should afford us an opportunity of penetrating into the more hospitable-looking low country beyond them; for the weather had become excessively cold, and our camp stood exposed to the utmost fury of the almost nightly tempest. Oft have I, in ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... disappearance of Leichardt's expedition, both in the same year (1848), had a very decided influence in checking the progress of Australian exploration. Seven years later, in 1855, Mr. Gregory landed on the north-west coast for the purpose of exploring the Victoria River, and after penetrating as far south as latitude 20 degrees 16 minutes, longitude 131 degrees 44 minutes, he was compelled to proceed to the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and thence to Sydney along the route taken by Dr. Leichardt in 1844. Shortly after his return Mr. Gregory was despatched by the Government of New ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... that Salvat's eyes were fixed upon him. Drawing nearer and nearer the condemned man had perceived and recognised his friend; and as he passed by, at a distance of no more than six or seven feet, he smiled faintly and darted such a deep penetrating glance at Guillaume, that ever afterwards the latter felt its smart. But what last thought, what supreme legacy had Salvat left him to meditate upon, perhaps to put into execution? It was all so poignant that Pierre ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... gradual invasion, which succeeded by pacific means where brute force had failed. A Berber population gradually took possession of the country, occupying the eastern provinces of the Delta, filling its towns—Sais, Damanhur, and Marea—making its way into the Fayum, the suburbs of Heracleopolis, and penetrating as far south as Abydos; at the latter place they were not found in such great numbers, but still considerable enough to leave distinct traces.** The high priests of Amon seem to have been the only personages who neglected to employ this ubiquitous ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... poem for him." The set poetic style of The Excursion is a failure, but there is something unique and unmatchable in the simple grace of his narrative poems and lyrics. "Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of his hand, and to write for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power. This arises from two causes: from the profound sincereness with which Wordsworth feels his subject, and also from the profoundly sincere and natural character of his subject itself. He can and will treat ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... him with a penetrating look, but the chilly blue eyes expressed nothing. Yet Francisco Alvarez thought that a bold woodsman like Braxton Wyatt would not show so much fear after a harmless passage with ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... normal condition, this forbidding wilderness had become peopled with thousands of men. The Army of the Potomac was penetrating and seeking to pass through it. Vigilant General Lee had observed the movement, and with characteristic boldness and skill ordered his troops from their strong intrenchments on Mine Run toward the Union flank. On this memorable morning the van of his columns wakened ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... had followed, or rather had accompanied, the demonstration, and the slender rapier, penetrating Borromee's chest, had glided like a needle completely through him, penetrating deeply, and with a dull, heavy sound, the wooden partition ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... there was the old lady, Sieciechowa, at Zgorzelice, who could easily fulfil Jagienka's duties, did not persuade her to remain, for he knew that sorrow does not like the light on human tears, and that a man is like a fish, when it feels the penetrating harpoon in its body it sinks to ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... Bombay Government for the assistance of Lieut. William Stroyan, I. N., an officer distinguished by his surveys on the coast of Western India, in Sindh, and on the Panjab Rivers. It was not without difficulty that such valuable services were spared for the deadly purpose of penetrating into Eastern Africa. All obstacles, however, were removed by their ceaseless and energetic efforts, who had fostered the author's plans, and early in the autumn of 1854, Lieut. Stroyan received leave to join the Expedition. At the same ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... "In the case of penetrating the interior of TERRA AUSTRALIS, either by a great river, or a strait leading to an inland sea, a superior country, and perhaps, a different race of people might be found, the knowledge of which could not fail to be very interesting, and might prove advantageous to the nation ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... He issued Proposals of considerable length, in which he shewed that he perfectly well knew what a variety of research such an undertaking required; but his indolence prevented him from pursuing it with that diligence which alone can collect those scattered facts that genius, however acute, penetrating, and luminous, cannot discover by its own force. It is remarkable, that at this time his fancied activity was for the moment so vigorous, that he promised his work should be published before Christmas, 1757. Yet nine years elapsed before it saw the light. His throes in bringing ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... wrote anything more scorching, more penetrating in its sarcasm, more fearful in its revelation of injustice and hypocrisy, than his article "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." He put aquafortis on all the raw places, and when it was finished he himself doubted ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... trappean rocks— basalt, greenstone, trachyte, and the rest— are found sometimes in dikes penetrating stratified and unstratified formations, sometimes in shapeless masses protruding through or overlying them, or in horizontal sheets intercalated between strata. Fissures have already been spoken of as occurring ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... is dry it carries death on the wing of the arrow, but if it should be wet, or damp, the poison becomes moist and remains on the surface of the wound (where it can be easily rubbed off) instead of penetrating with the dart into ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... simply comes in to keep warm up to the man who has come in to take a serious part in the discussion of the evening. I want to tell you this, that in the questions that are asked there after the speech is over, the most penetrating questions that I have ever had addressed to me came from some of the men who were the least well-dressed in the audience, came from the plain fellows, came from the fellows whose muscle was daily up against the whole struggle of life. They asked questions ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson

... all Laura; so was the sensitive change in eye and lip. But Helbeck neither wavered, nor caressed her. He had a better instinct. He looked at her with a penetrating glance. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... savage, back-breaking jolts which were translated into jerks when it started on again and fiendishly reiterated at every suspicion of a way-station on the course. So that he presently abandoned all hope of sleep and sought solace in tobacco and the shifting views afforded by the windows. Penetrating the upper valley of the Cernon, the railroad skirted the southern boundary of the Causse Larzac, then laboriously climbed up to the plateau itself; and Lanyard roused to the fact that he was approaching familiar ground from a new angle: the next ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... subject, cut off. Secure therefore severe study. Let the pupil see that you are aiming to secure it, and that the pleasure which you expect that they will receive, is that of firmly and patiently encountering and overcoming difficulty; of penetrating, by steady and persevering effort, into regions, from which the idle and the inefficient are debarred; and that it is your province to lead them forward, not to carry them. They will soon ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... 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

... estimation. That for which mainly books exist is communicated in these rich extracts. Many qualities go to make a good telescope,—as the largeness of the field, facility of sweeping the meridian, achromatic purity of lenses, and so forth,—but the one eminent value is the space-penetrating power; and there are many virtues in books, but the essential value is the adding of knowledge to our stock, by the record of new facts, and, better, by the record of intuitions, which distribute facts, and are the formulas which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... are the finest specimens of imaginative eloquence in the English, or in any, language. There is not much pathos, and no humour in them, and in these respects Grattan is far less of an Irishman, and of an orator too, than Curran; but a philosophy, penetrating constitutions for their warnings, and human nature for its guides—a statesman's (as distinguished from an antiquarian's) use of history—a passionate scorn and invective for the base, tyrannical, and unjust—a fiery and copious ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... little bird mean by pouring it forth at midnight? Probably the music gushed out of the midst of a dream in which he fancied himself in paradise with his mate, but suddenly awoke on a cold leafless bough, with a New England mist penetrating through his feathers. That was a sad exchange of ...
— Buds and Bird Voices (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... unlucky stroke, for, instead of penetrating as intended, it glided over the slimy skin, while, overbalancing himself in consequence of meeting with no resistance, Carey to his horror found himself following his stroke, and he would have plunged ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn

... prescription which I felt sure would be efficacious, and as I tore it out and placed it in his hand, I chanced to look up, and saw the hazel eyes of my hostess fixed upon me with a kinder and softer expression than they often condescended to admit into their cold and penetrating lustre. At that moment, however, her attention was drawn from me to a servant, who entered with a note, and I heard him say, though in an undertone, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... snares, intrigues, the clash of arms, the furious shouts of popular insurrections, tempests, and storms, she could not escape the influence of her early environment. Her talent for studying and penetrating the designs of her enemies, for facing or avoiding dangers with such sublime calmness and prudence, was partly inherited, partly acquired. That spirit she took with her to France, where her experience was widened and her opportunities ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... latter epithet be applied to him. It must, I think, be admitted that his ideas, even although we may disagree with them, were not those of a charlatan, but of a statesman. They cannot be brushed aside as trivial. They deserve serious consideration. Moreover, he had a very remarkable power of penetrating to the core of any question which he treated, coupled with an aptitude for wide generalisation which is rare amongst Englishmen, and which he probably derived from his foreign ancestors. An instance in point is his epigrammatic statement that ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... small native town, called after the island, Goree Town. When we came on shore, we were immediately surrounded by natives, who surveyed us with great curiosity and attention. We had prepared ourselves with fowling-pieces and shooting equipage, with the view of penetrating into the interior country: in pursuance of our design, we dispatched a messenger to Decar, with a request that we might be supplied with attendants and horses: our solicitation was promptly complied with; and Alexander, Marraboo's son, speedily ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... lifted himself upon his hands and listened. Yes, there was a waterfall below him, so near that he might almost reach and dip his fingers into it, and he was set in flame that lapped him round, licking his face, dipping its forked tongue into the hollows of his eyes, penetrating to his heart, and coursing in all his veins. He was mad to stay there and suffer, when he might slip from the grip of the fiend, and lave his limbs in the pool and drink from the cascade. Ryder dragged himself ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... matter what. He heard it faintly above the clatter of the rocks. He must be close to the edge now—Bartlesville—the Commercial Club—Abe Cone—and then Mr. Sprudell hit something with a bump! He had a sensation as of a hatpin—many hatpins—penetrating his tender flesh, but that was nothing compared to the fact that he had stopped, while the slide of shale was rushing by. He was not dead! but he was too astonished and ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... established rule and method. I shall have to point out this again to you, when we come to speak of the Pope and Johnson school of critics, and the way in which they wrote whole folios on Shakespeare, without ever penetrating a single step deeper towards the secret of his sublimity. It was just this idolatry of abstract rules which made Johnson call Bishop Percy's invaluable collection of ancient ballads "stuff and nonsense." It ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... whose sermons our father reads aloud in the evening, "comprises as many torments as the body of man has joints, sinews, arteries, etc., being caused by that penetrating and real fire of which this temporal fire is but a painted fire. What comparison will there be between burning for a hundred years' space and to be burning without intermission as ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... made a nest in one of the big trees at the back of the house, and I daresay that they are there, or perhaps they are hunting for their food—they always feed themselves. But I will soon tell you," and she whistled in a soft but penetrating note. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... the poetical esuthe and the Lacedaemonian proper name Sous, or Rush; agathon is ro agaston en te tachuteti,—for all things are in motion, and some are swifter than others: dikaiosune is clearly e tou dikaiou sunesis. The word dikaion is more troublesome, and appears to mean the subtle penetrating power which, as the lovers of motion say, preserves all things, and is the cause of all things, quasi diaion going through—the letter kappa being inserted for the sake of euphony. This is a great mystery which has been confided to ...
— Cratylus • Plato

... upon—thy fairest blossoms been withered in the bud? has wave after wave been rolling in upon thee? hath the Lord forgotten to be gracious? Hear the "word of Jesus" resounding amid the thickest midnight of gloom—penetrating even through the vaults of the dead—"Believe, only believe." There is an infinite reason for the trial—a lurking thorn that required removal, a gracious lesson that required teaching. The dreadful severing blow was ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... Romans, (which was the primary cause of their destruction) was, comparatively speaking, no more than a cypher, when compared with ours under the Americans. Indeed, I should not have noticed the Roman slaves, had not the very learned and penetrating Mr. Jefferson said, "When a master was murdered, all his slaves in the same house or within hearing, were condemned to death."[8]—Here let me ask Mr. Jefferson, (but he is gone to answer at the bar of God, for the deeds done in his body while living,) I therefore ask the whole American people, ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet

... and considered line; 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 Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... touch of cynicism"; others, to her inexhaustible spirit, her geniality, and the "powers of sarcasm, which she used with strong reserve." Others, again, see through to the faith and philosophy which lay behind her humour, "Scottish in its penetrating tenderness." ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... side of some hill, where the wet and the warmth of their bodies make a steam, like that of a boiling kettle. The wet, they say, keeps them warm by thickening the stuff, and keeping the wind from penetrating. I must confess I should have been apt to question this fact, had I not frequently seen them wet from morning to night, and, even at the beginning of the rain, not so much as stir a few yards to shelter, but continue in it without necessity, till they were, as ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... wandering on this terrestrial globe, and culling from the imperfect archives of these bygone years a corkscrew, an opera-glass, or, perchance, a pot of long since petrified marmalade, preserved intact by some protecting incrustation of stalagmite from the ravages of time, may dart a penetrating gleam of intelligence through the dark abysses of innumerable ages, and exclaim: "This clay, upon which I gaze, was of the human period. This coin, this meerschaum, this china shepherdess, this prayer-book with ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang

... those which the progress of science must hereafter disclose, we may hence conceive a well-grounded expectation, not only of constant increase in the physical resources of mankind, and the consequent improvement of their condition, but of continual accession to our power of penetrating into the arcana of Nature and becoming acquainted ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... of Aramaean stock. What is known as the "Third Semitic Migration" was in progress during this period. The nomads gave trouble to Babylonia and Assyria, and, penetrating Mesopotamia and Syria, sapped the power of Mitanni, until it was unable to resist the onslaughts of ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... our first interview. You recollect the brief, abrupt, and somewhat stern mode in which he was wont to communicate his pleasure to those around him. Methinks I see him even now in my mind's eye;—the firm and upright figure,—the step, quick and determined,—the eye, which shot so keen and so penetrating a glance,—the features, on which care had already planted wrinkles,—and hear his language, in which he never wasted word in vain, expressed in a voice which had sometimes an occasional harshness, far from the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... a start. He knew who was speaking now. His whole appearance had changed, but he could not help penetrating his disguise. It was the man who had called himself Count von Weimer—an Alsatian whose sympathies were so strongly French, and who had come to Cornwall for peace. The simplicity, and yet the audacity, of his ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... forty, with a dark, strong, handsome face, penetrating but pleasant eyes, and black hair slightly marked with gray. He was well dressed but not too well dressed, as became a public man whose following was largely of the country. His person gave an immediate impression of a polished but not over-polished gentleman—of a man who in ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... rapidly conquering the opposition and prejudice even of those whose obtuse minds seldom discover the intrinsic good motive frequently underlying an indifferent form. Those whose objections rested on their incapacity of penetrating further than the surface of the headline are rapidly beginning to discern in Walt Whitman's writings a force, a sentiment, a moral passion, and a natural grandeur that is amply compensating for the occasional roughness or looseness of the expressions he mirrors them in. Before his death ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various

... Christianity. Something more than ordinary courage in the presence of yelling savages and flights of arrows is necessary to support a delicate woman single handed and alone; this something Margaret Godfrey possessed, and, possibly, the penetrating eye of the Iroquois detected it in her every ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... is also provided with small follicles, or bags, which are filled with an oily substance. This, by gradually exuding over the skin, prevents water from penetrating and injuring its texture. ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... of phosphorescence is most conspicuous on stacks of fire-wood. At Dorjiling, during the damp, warm, summer months (May to October), at elevations of 5000 to 8000 feet, it may be witnessed every night by penetrating a few yards into the forest—at least it was so in 1848 and 1849; and during my stay there billets of decayed wood were repeatedly sent to me by residents, with inquiries as to the cause of their luminosity. ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... to break, and revealed that they were by the sea. Red rocks overhung them, and, receding into distance, grew livid in the blue grey atmosphere. The sun rose, and sent penetrating shafts of light in upon their weary faces. Another hour, and the world began to be busy. They waited yet a little, and the train slackened its speed in view of the platform at ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... boxes, with the repeated explosions of the shells, 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—all this for seventy minutes by the clock, with only four inches of twisted iron between danger, captivity, and shame on one side—and ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... it first abashed the devil in Paradise makes wrong-doers aware of their deformity, and yet has such subtle and penetrating might, such fascination for all finer spirits, that they have ever believed with their master, Plato, that should truth show her countenance unveiled and dwell on earth, all men would worship ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... and Ezram ended the first lap of their journey. They had had good traveling these past days. Steadily they had gone north, through the tilled lands of Northern Washington, through the fertile valleys of lower British Columbia, traversing great mountain ranges and penetrating gloomy forests, and now had come to the bank of a north-flowing river,—a veritable flood and one of the monarch rivers of the North. Every hour their companionship had been more close and their hopes higher. Every ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... two hundred years has existed over our Drama, scientific discoveries would have been no more disturbing and momentous than those which we are accustomed to see made on our nicely pruned and tutored stage. For not only would the more dangerous and penetrating scientific truths have been carefully destroyed at birth, but scientists, aware that the results of investigations offensive to accepted notions would be suppressed, would long have ceased to waste their time in search of a knowledge repugnant to average intelligence, and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... of which had so long prevailed, did not admit sufficient light. In the more southern countries there was not the same reason for the change; but where light was less strong, less clear, less penetrating, it might not be spared. So though with their glass they were beautiful in themselves, many of these windows gave place to larger ones. But if the admission of more light was one reason for the change, there was another powerful inducement offered by the larger field that might ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette

... penetrating, rose on the still air of the lower slope and was blown on the breeze to the summit ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... your enemy—eh?" he suggested, his dark, penetrating eyes fixed upon mine. "You know the motive of that trap which Despujol set for you, and yet you will not reveal ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... risk it and go in," said I. "We are putting all our cards on the table, at any rate. And at least we can see all that is to be sees. If there is any risk of Von Reuss penetrating our disguises, it is as well to gulp and get it over at once, rather than suck gingerly at it till the fear ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... imitating blindly every vague, mechanical movement of Foulet's. We settled ourselves in the comfortable chairs and Fraser left us. He had told us to relax—but to do anything else would have been impossible. The light soothed us, eased us; gave us, somehow, a penetrating sensation of peace and complete comfort. It flowed around us, warming us, lulling us to a delicious dreamy state that was neither waking nor sleeping. It wiped out danger; it wiped out Time; nothing existed but this warm and relaxing sense ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby

... windows and beds, and green blinds to keep out the glare of that hot clime. The verandah ran completely round the house, and a thick thatch of leaves formed a roof which effectually prevented the sun's rays from penetrating below. In front was a pretty flower-garden, and in the rear a well-stocked kitchen garden, producing in perfection all the native vegetables, fruits, and roots, as well as many from Europe. The islanders there saw even their own fruits and roots ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... lady. She stood for a moment and looked around her. Nora stopped also and when she saw her mother's eyes travel to the rambling old house, to the neglected lawn, the avenue overgrown with weeds, it seemed to her that a stab of the cruelest pain was penetrating her heart. ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... to be taken in order to make the great structure perfect. It was to accommodate sixty persons to be chosen by the academics, who should stay in it for several months should rise to all possible elevations, pass through all climates in all seasons, make scientific observations, &c. This balloon, penetrating deserts inaccessible by other means of travel, and visiting places which travellers have never penetrated, would be of immense use in the science of geography: and when under the line, if the heat near the earth should be inconvenient, ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... long, fixed, penetrating look which revealed more than she had ever seen before, then turned away and went slowly up-stairs. She did not come down to dinner, and in the evening the doctor ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... human life; and so the air holds together the whole world in a complex unity. He reached the wider doctrine by observing that the air is, to all appearance, infinitely extended, and that earth, water, and fire seem to be but islands in an ocean which spreads around them on all sides, penetrating their inmost pores, and bathing their smallest atoms. It was on such facts and appearances that he based his main doctrine. If we think of the modern theory of the luminiferous ether, we shall not be far from his view-point. But the ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... his own enthusiasm. His voice is full and deep, he speaks rapidly, and, altogether, he seems clearly a man who, once upon the track of a mystery which appealed to him, would pursue it with unremitting vigor. His eyes are kind, quick, and penetrating; and there is no doubt that he much prefers gazing at a Crookes tube to beholding a visitor, visitors at present robbing him of much valued time. The meeting was by appointment, however, and his greeting was cordial and hearty. In addition to his own language he speaks French well and ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... straight to Kadesh Barnea, and from this point, being commanded to invade the hill-land of Judaea, they first send twelve spies to reconnoitre the country, guided thereto by their own prudence, but also with the approval of Moses. Caleb is one of the spies, but not Joshua. After penetrating as far as the brook Eshcol they return; and though they praise the goodness of the land, yet the people are so discouraged by their report, that they murmur and do not venture to advance. Jehovah is angry at this, and orders them ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... laid down in constant circulars from the medical and other departments. Where men live and sleep in semi-frozen mud, and breathe an atmosphere of mist and brush smoke—and every one knows the wonderfully penetrating power of camp-fire smoke—it is not to be expected that their comfort is enviably great; especially where they have left comfortable homes, and changed their well-prepared, if simple, food for the hard and innutritious army ration. But such creatures of habit are we that, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... points of contact a ridge was formed down the roof. Over this line was laid a series of other tiles shaped into a half-cylinder, the lower end of each tile overlapping the next. By this means the rain was prevented from penetrating the crevice between the flanges. At the bottom, above the eaves, the line of semicircular tiles ended in a flower-like or mask-like ornament, which broke the monotony of the ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... Raillard that the reputation of his father-in-law was penetrating into Germany. He had seen some notices and reviews of his works, and in August a professor at the Zurich University ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... the more genial nuance of mockery. Raillery vibrated almost in the very tones of his voice, which had become clear and penetrating under the stimulus of her presence, but it passed away in tenderness, and the sarcastic wrinkles vanished from the corners of his mouth as he made the pathetic jest anent ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... above any personal animus, although the same cannot be said of those he criticizes. These, like d'Annunzio, whose limitations he points out—his egoism, his lack of human sympathy—are often very bitter, and accuse the penetrating critic of want of courtesy. This seriousness of purpose runs like a golden thread through all Croce's work. The flimsy superficial remarks on poetry and fiction which too often pass for criticism in England (Scotland is a good deal more thorough) are put to shame by La Critica, ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... ordered the letter book to be brought in. While Carrington was examining it, his eyes never left his visitor's face, but they would have had to be singularly penetrating to discover a trace of any emotion there. Throughout his inspection, Carrington's air remained as imperturbable as though he were reading the ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston

... expressed their approbation; but some said, "We will weigh the matter." I immediately went home, and lo! over the gymnasium, instead of the foregoing meteor, there appeared a bright cloud, without streaks or rays that seemed to combat with each other, and which, penetrating through the roof, entered, and illuminated the walls; and I was informed, that they saw some pieces of writing, and among others this, "Jehovah God breathed into the man's nostrils the SOUL OF LIVES, and the man became a LIVING SOUL," ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... increasing surprise, the character of the men whom he saw as common soldiers—young, quiet, and above the average countryman in address and intelligence—and this man's face surprised him still more, as did his bearing. His face was dark, his eye was dark and penetrating and passionate; his mouth was reckless and weak, his build was graceful, and his voice was low and even—the voice of a gentleman; he was the refined type of the Western gentleman-desperado, as ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.

... might yet reawake? Might not the Great Eyrie reproduce in its neighborhood the violence of Mount Krakatoa or the terrible disaster of Mont Pelee? If there were indeed a central lake, was there not danger that its waters, penetrating the strata beneath, would be turned to steam by the volcanic fires and tear their way forth in a tremendous explosion, deluging the fair plains of Carolina with an eruption such as ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne

... newspapers, came upon a letter signed "Lee Hannaford." It had reference to some current dispute about the merits of a new bullet. Hannaford, writing with authority, criticised the invention; he gave particulars (the result of an experiment on an old horse) as to its mode of penetrating flesh and shattering bone; there was a gusto in his style, that of the true artist in bloodshed. Pointing out the signature to Arnold Jacks, Dr. Derwent asked in a subdued tone, as when ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... secret, but unacknowledged awe and admiration upon the frowning fort and stately shipping, bristling with cannon, and vomiting forth sheets of flame as they approached the shore. In these might have been studied the natural dignity of man. Firm of step—proud of mien—haughty yet penetrating of look, each leader offered in his own person a model to the sculptor, which he might vainly seek elsewhere. Free and unfettered in every limb, they moved in the majesty of nature, and with an air of dark reserve, passed, on landing, through ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... slow steps, and long poring in the dark, hardly at last find out, and are often ready to forget one before we have hunted out another; we may guess at some part of the happiness of superior ranks of spirits, who have a quicker and more penetrating sight, as well as ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... varied and faultless, a form flowing yet well-defined, an earnestness that was sacred, a truth that was divine. A philosophy rich and largely suggestive had made the great men of Greece and Rome alert, vigilant, penetrating, before luxury and oppression had dragged them down to ruin and ignorance; and at last Ambition, splendid but destructive, becoming the world's artist, blended the midnight tints of decline and suffering with the carnation of triumph and liberty, and ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... only second to Egypt amongst the client powers of Rome.[847] It extended from Mauretania to Cyrenaica,[848] from the river Muluccha to the greater Syrtis, thus touching on the west the Empire of the Moors, at that time confined to Tingitana, on the east almost penetrating to Egypt, and enjoying the best part of the fertile region which borders the coast of the Mediterranean.[849] For the Moroccan boundary of the kingdom—the river Muluccha or Molocath—see Goebel Die Westkueste ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... her chiefly when she was in motion. She liked to perambulate the room with a duster in her hand, with which she stopped to polish the backs of already lustrous books, musing and romancing as she did so. Suddenly the right phrase or the penetrating point of view would suggest itself, and she would drop her duster and write ecstatically for a few breathless moments; and then the mood would pass away, and the duster would be sought for, and the old books polished again. These spells of inspiration never burnt steadily, but ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... the effect of Lurida's penetrating head-voice would be in a convalescent's chamber. She knew how that active mind of hers would set the young man's thoughts at work, when what he wanted was rest of every faculty. Were not these good and sufficient reasons for her decision? ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back and many times baffled; Not the pathfinder penetrating inland weary and long, By deserts parch'd, snows chill'd, rivers wet, perseveres till he reaches his destination, More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose march for these ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... if feeling the Chevalier's scrutiny, raised his eyes. As their glances met, casually in the way of gratifying a natural curiosity, both men experienced a mental disturbance which was at once strange and annoying. Those large, penetrating grey eyes; each seemed to be looking into his own ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... penetrating, so significant in the tones of Julie's voice, in her accent, in the glance that went with the words, that Victor, startled out of his indifference, stared at his wife ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... read a book spelled in that manner—Herman Melville's "Typee"; and many long hours I dreamed over its pages. Nor was it all dreaming. I resolved there and then, mightily, come what would, that when I had gained strength and years, I, too, would voyage to Typee. For the wonder of the world was penetrating to my tiny consciousness—the wonder that was to lead me to many lands, and that leads and never pails. The years passed, but Typee was not forgotten. Returned to San Francisco from a seven months' cruise in the North Pacific, I decided the time ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... Pericles and Aspasia within two years has given me delight. I was introduced to the man Landor when I was in Florence, and he was very kind to me in answering a multitude of questions. His speech, I remember, was below his writing. I love the rich variety of his mind, his proud taste, his penetrating glances, and the poetic loftiness of his sentiment, which rises now and then to the meridian, though with the flight, I own, rather of a rocket than an orb, and terminated sometimes by a sudden tumble. I suspect you of very short and dashing reading in his ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... attempt a description of Ali, I should speak of his face as large and full; the forehead remarkably broad and open, and traced by many deep furrows; the eye penetrating, yet not expressive of ferocity; the nose handsome and well formed; the mouth and lower part of the face concealed, except when speaking, by his mustachios and the long beard which flows over his breast. His complexion is somewhat lighter ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... history of political literature. There have been many more important statesmen, for he was never tried in a position of supreme responsibility. There have been many more effective orators, for lack of imaginative suppleness prevented him from penetrating to the inner mind of his hearers; defects in delivery weakened the intrinsic persuasiveness of his reasoning; and he had not that commanding authority of character and personality which has so often been the secret of triumphant eloquence. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... times either understood or personally liked. In outward appearance he had nothing of the Irishman, nothing of the Celt about him. He was cold, distant and unexpansive in manner and had more followers than friends. His speech was not that of a great orator. Yet he was singularly powerful and penetrating, with here and there brilliant flashes that showed profound wisdom. A man of few words, of strength rather than breadth of mind—his political ideals were often uncertain and confused—he was better fitted to be a combatant than a constructive politician. Beyond all ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... enjoyable drive, the weather too hot and sunny, perhaps, for Albinia's preferences, but thoroughly penetrating, and giving energy to, her East-Indian husband, and making the whole country radiant with sunny beauty—the waving hay-fields falling before the mower's scythe, the ranks of hay-makers tossing the fragrant ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... By an ingenious method devised by Engelmann, it may be shown that the greatest liberation of oxygen, and consequently the greatest assimilation of carbon, occurs in that region of the spectrum represented by the absorption bands. In this connexion Pfeffer points out that the penetrating power of light into a clear sea varies for light of different colours. Thus red light is reduced to such an extent as to be insufficient for growth at a depth of 34 metres, yellow light at a depth of 177 metres and green light ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... people in the gallery, so that those people who pay only five groschens for their seats also hear something." Then he began, and I wish you could have heard him! The sound didn't seem to be very loud, but it was penetrating and far-reaching. When he had finished, he raised one hand in the air, and you seemed to see all the people in the gallery drinking in the sound. That is the way Liszt teaches you. He presents an idea to you, and it takes fast hold of your mind ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... now dropping behind the distant range of the great North Mountains, the air was chill and penetrating, and the dense darkness which precedes the dawn enveloped all the world. Front Royal, save for a few scattered, flickering lights, lay in absolute darkness. Beverly drew a quick breath and shut her teeth ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... charge solely of a small yellow dog of the irascible breed common to the boats of the Po. Thither the smaller dealers in firewood resort, and carry thence supplies of fuel to all parts of the city, melodiously crying their wares up and down the canals, and penetrating the land on foot with specimen bundles of fagots in their arms. They are not, as a class, imaginative, I think—their fancy seldom rising beyond the invention that their fagots are beautiful and sound and dry. But our particular ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... many, and continuous, that their direction is always sure to strike the eye of one or more observers in all its significance. Lewis the Fifteenth, whose invincible weariness and heavy disgust veiled a penetrating discernment, measured accurately the scope of the conflict between the crown and the parlements: but, said he, things as they are will last my time. Under the roof of his own palace at Versailles, in the apartment of Madame de Pompadour's famous ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... 'butt' should be made thick enough to allow the shot to just pass through, and be stopped by another beyond it, without penetrating the latter; this is, for XI-inch, ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... bellows, and in the hollow made for the purpose he put in some hot cinders, which Harry fetched in a shovel from the kitchen, and then on them a lump of brimstone, and closed the nozzle over all; but not so quickly but that a puff or two of the penetrating fumes escaped, and made the boys' eyes water, and old Sam cough and choke most terribly for a minute ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... great factors of myth in all its forms, of superstitions, of religions, and also of science. We have reduced all the normal and abnormal sources of these fanciful ideas to that single source which we have just indicated. Penetrating below the kingdom of man into that of animals, we have there discovered where the germ was formed, and this completes the doctrine of evolution and bears witness to its truth. The evolution of myth went through the regular process, by which it was formulated and simplified, ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... pleading, let it be considered that, as we see things, it is precisely those views that take hold of the issues upon which our very being and all its activities depend, that serve best to train youth to broad views and penetrating thought. Such thinking seems to me to form the very essence of a really ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... is bliss,' he replied, with one of his usual penetrating glances. "Yours must be a very happily constituted mind to be so ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... up an advantageous position. If he had begun narrating the extraordinary romance he had invented, the least penetrating eye must have perceived its improbability, and one would have felt it required some support at every turn. But since he had resisted being forced to tell it, and apparently only ceded to Monsieur de Lamotte's violent ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... or rising here and there in the midst of verdant plains, the eye perceived only puny wigwams isolated and lost upon the banks of the great river, or perhaps a few agglomerations of smoky huts, such as Hochelaga or Stadacone; instead of our iron rails, penetrating in all directions, instead of our peaceful fields over which trains hasten at marvellous speed from ocean to ocean, there were but narrow trails winding through a jungle of primeval trees, behind which hid in turn the Iroquois, ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath

... and profound knowledge of chemistry, who had in view some new discovery of importance. In order to put his mind into the highest possible activity, he shut himself up for several successive days, and used various methods of excitement. He had a singing-girl, he drank spirits, smelled, penetrating odors, sprinkled Cologne-water round the room, etc., etc. Eight days thus passed, when he was seized with a fit of ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... enthusiasm the young singer attempts to develop the high notes and make them sound—in her own ears, at all events—as big as the middle voice. The pure head tone sounds small and feeble to the singer herself, and she would rather use the chest quality, but the head tone has the piercing, penetrating quality which makes it tell in a big hall, while the middle register, unless used in its right place, makes the voice muffled, heavy and lacking in vibrancy. Though to the singer the tone may seem immense, in reality it ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini

... before your eyes, such a man as Montesquieu. Think of a genius not born in every country, or every time; a man gifted by nature with a penetrating, aquiline eye; with a judgment prepared with the most extensive erudition; with an herculean robustness of mind, and nerves not to be broken with labour; a man who could spend twenty years in one pursuit. Think of a man, like the universal ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... The spirit of the boy was as ambitious of worldly glory as the spirit of the man looked for undying fame; from first to last, from the beginning of the century until the close of it, the same application, the same aptitude, the same self-devotion, and the same clear, unruffled, penetrating judgment, were visible in Mansfield's useful and ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... reached the little town of Tavistock, which lies, like the boss of a shield, in the middle of the huge circle of Dartmoor. Two gentlemen were awaiting us in the station—the one a tall, fair man with lion-like hair and beard and curiously penetrating light blue eyes; the other a small, alert person, very neat and dapper, in a frock-coat and gaiters, with trim little side-whiskers and an eye-glass. The latter was Colonel Ross, the well-known sportsman; the other, Inspector Gregory, a man who was rapidly making his ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... 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 her my people." We verily believe ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... Hugh Ritson arrived at Euston. He got into a cab and drove to Whitehall. At the Home Office he asked for the Secretary of State. A hundred obstacles arose to prevent him from penetrating to the head of the department. One official handed him over to another, the second to a third, the third to ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... a concurring opinion for himself and Justices Jackson, Rutledge and Burton. "We are all agreed," it begins, "that the First and Fourteenth Amendments have a secular reach far more penetrating in the conduct of Government than merely to forbid an 'established church.'"[21] What ensues is a well documented account of the elimination of sectarianism from the American school system which is reinterpreted as a fight for the secularization of public supported education.[22] Facing then ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... is too dry. The only way to see if the spawn has run satisfactorily is to open up the bed at one or two points to examine the material, opening it up slightly. If the spawn has run well, a very delicate white "fiber," the mycelium, can be seen penetrating all through the material. This handful can be replaced in the bed, packed down, and the soil covered over and firmed again at ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... Sertorius, was taken and razed to the ground. The Romans, probably for a moment, cherished a hope that they were done with their tough antagonist. The Sertorian army had disappeared; the Roman troops, penetrating far into the interior, besieged the general himself in the fortress Clunia on the upper Douro. But while they vainly invested this rocky stronghold, the contingents of the insurgent communities assembled elsewhere; Sertorius stole out of the fortress and even before the expiry ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... and the Jugo-Slavs in particular, the west owes most to the penetrating studies of R. W. Seton-Watson, who formerly wrote under the name of Scotus Viator. Before the war, Seton-Watson wrote The Southern Slav Problem and the Habsburg Monarchy (London, 1911), wherein he discusses the whole problem from the point of view of the Croats, in contrast to the ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,

... accepting cheerfully the facts of life as they are; it never seems to occur to him as seriously possible that a bad man could succeed or a good one fail; and as the ways of Providence, therefore, require no vindicating, neither his imagination nor his curiosity tempts him into penetrating the future. The house of Hades is the long home to which men go when dismissed out of their bodies; but it is a dim, shadowy place, of which we see nothing, and concerning which no conjectures are ventured. Achilles, in his passion over Patroclus, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... behind, and in a direct line with the tree under which we had dined, and I was about twenty yards from it. Directly his head darted round and in front of the tree, making a good mark, I let fly the arrow direct, as I thought, for his eye, hoping, by penetrating his brain, to settle him at once. But as he moved his head at that moment, the arrow went into his open jaws, one of which it penetrated, and going deep into the tree behind, pinned his ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... to her apartment, told the boys to wake Julie and have her send us a cup of tea and some refreshments in my little drawing-room. Though it was the middle of August, the rain and dampness were so penetrating that I did not hesitate to touch a match to a brushwood fire that is always prepared in my grate. In a short time my guest reappeared and as she refreshed herself, I busily plied her with questions concerning the events of ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard

... and of the priestly train who had recently thronged the fane, all were gone, like a troop of ghosts evoked at midnight by necromantic skill, and then suddenly dismissed. Deep silence again brooded in the aisles; hushed was the organ; mute the melodious choir. The only light penetrating the convent church proceeded from the moon, whose rays, shining through the painted windows, fell upon the graves of the old abbots in the presbytery, and on the two biers within the adjoining chapel, whose stark burthens they quickened into ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... seen in the act of penetrating the ovum. In the first figure it has already pierced the mucilaginous coat of the ovum, the limit of which is represented by a line through which the tail of the spermatozooen is passing: the head of the spermatozooen is just entering the ovum proper. It may be noted that, ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... gleam of the jewel-winged scarabei on her breast,—the weird light of the emerald-studded serpent in her hair; and more, much more familiar than these trifles, was the sound of her voice—dulcet, penetrating, grave and haunting ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... but so sincerely, as to induce the listener to fasten his penetrating blue eye on the speaker, who now first took the alarm, and felt that she might have said too much. At this moment the two young men entered, and a servant appeared to request that Admiral Bluewater would do ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... said: "The 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 a bottle ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... shall I say of the host of female novelists which this age has produced,—women who have inundated the land with productions both good and bad; mostly feeble, penetrating the cottages of the poor rather than the palaces of the rich, and making the fortunes of magazines and news-vendors, from Maine to California? But there are three women novelists, writing in English, standing out in this ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... every caution. For here trickled the thin flow of that rocky rivulet which was the other entrance and exit penetrating that immense horror of marsh and bog and depthless sink-hole ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... broad-shouldered, but with a body somewhat loosely built. He wore quiet grey clothes with a black tie, a pearl pin, and a neat coloured shirt. His complexion was a little pale, his features well-defined, his eyes dark and penetrating but hidden underneath rather bushy eyebrows. His deportment was quite unassuming, and he left the place as though entirely ignorant of the impression he created. The little cluster of chorus girls looked at him almost with awe. Only one of them ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... speaking in low tones. And then there came to them out of the night's silence a strange, weird beating; hollow, muffled, slow, and rhythmic, but penetrating and curiously exciting, like another pulse cunningly playing upon their own to make them beat more rapidly. The girl pulled her horse close in by ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... what may be termed the spiritual truth underlying this matter; the insane depth of jealous hatred which Manderson concealed. We can understand that he was capable of such a scheme. But as a rule it is in the task of penetrating to the spiritual truth that the administration of justice breaks down. Sometimes that truth is deliberately concealed, as in Manderson's case. Sometimes, I think, it is concealed because simple people are actually unable to express it, ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... issued from the inner room, approached me, requested me to sign my name in a huge ledger, and, that being done, thrust into my hands a bulky manuscript and departed. The manuscript had a taking title, but I did not pause to examine it. Penetrating the inner sanctum, I brought out the official and endeavored to return the packet. He refused to take it, —it was legally mine. This contest lasted for several minutes, until I saw a literary-looking man enter from the anteroom and look rather wildly at us. Evidently this was the owner, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... all seems quiet and so is the night. There is no moon and only a few stars are out. A penetrating dampness takes the place of cold and there is that in the air that threatens a ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... is talking about, then. That theory was all exploded, months ago." Then some echo of his daughter's words seemed at last to be penetrating his brain, and he lowered his paper with a sigh. "What has Mrs. Dennison to do with a thing like this, Olive?" he queried blankly. "Dennison is only ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... Ludwig thus occupies a not unimportant place. Far more penetrating and far more artistic than "realists" like Auerbach or Spielhagen he paved the way for the coming of Anzengruber who, in turn, anticipated the realism of the moderns in more, ways than is generally recognized. Ludwig will always be a figure of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... of our great writers (and there are numbers of them amongst us), he could not resist praise, and began to be limp at once, in spite of his penetrating wit. But I consider this is pardonable. They say that one of our Shakespeares positively blurted out in private conversation that "we great men can't do otherwise," and so on, and, what's ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... at some length on the interest which Rmnuja's Commentary may claim—as being, on the one hand, the fullest exposition of what may be called the Theistic Vednta, and as supplying us, on the other, with means of penetrating to the true meaning of Bdaryana's Aphorisms. I do not wish to enter here into a fuller discussion of Rmnuja's work in either of these aspects; an adequate treatment of them would, moreover, require considerably more space than is at ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... everything of the nature of wood and grass that is wet to dry, is consumed and reduced to ashes. And then, O Bharata, the fire called Samvartaka impelled by the winds appeareth on the earth that hath already been dried to cinders by the seven Suns. And then that fire, penetrating through the Earth and making its appearance, in the nether regions also, begetteth great terror in the hearts of the gods, the Danavas and the Yakshas. And, O lord of the earth, consuming the nether regions as also everything upon this Earth that fire destroyeth all things in a moment. And ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... whom he passed his days, had grown to be only vague, meaningless shapes to him. Their broadest pleasantries failed to raise a smile, and the coarse realities of a narrow, penurious existence had no power to disturb his happy serenity. All day long, in the back-shop where the penetrating smell of paste mingled with the fumes of the cabbage-soup, he lived a life of his own, a life of incomparable splendours. His little Corneille, scored thickly with thumb-nail marks at every couplet of Emilie's, was ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... room before a meagre fire of sputtering smoky logs, with Vesuvius wrapped from crest to base in a white mantle of new fallen snow, and with an icy tramontana from the bleak Abruzzi howling round the house, bending the bay trees and penetrating into every corner of the chamber, is by no means the ideal picture of a winter in the Sunny South; yet this is only what the traveller must be prepared to face, and is very likely to obtain. Nor is the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... poisonous flowers what a wondrous perfume he distilled! Through his magic reed, into what penetrating melody he blew that deathly air! His relentless fancy seemed to seek a sin that was hopeless, a cruel despair that no faith could throw off. Yet his naive and well-poised genius hung over the gulf of blackness, and peered into the pit with the steady nerve and simple ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... morning, ready for the march, Adjutant Pope came around for company commanders to report to Colonel Nance's headquarters. Thinking this was only to receive some instructions as to the line of march, nothing was thought of it until met by those cold, penetrating, steel-gray eyes of Colonel Nance. Then all began to wonder "what was up." He commenced to ask, after repeating the instructions as to private property, whose men had taken the rails. He commenced with Captain Richardson, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... about your work," said Farraday, turning on Mary his kind but penetrating glance. She told him she had published three or four stories, and ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... in the presence of Mr. Scott, by the native overseer of having stolen a valuable plant. He listened silently and scornfully to the accusation; his attitude erect, chest expanded, mouth closed, lips protruding, eyes firmly set and penetrating. He then defiantly maintained his innocence, with upraised and clenched hands, his head being now pushed forwards, with the eyes widely open and eyebrows raised. Mr. Scott also watched two Mechis, in Sikhim, quarrelling ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... pleasant and successful visit to Montgomery we went via the Mobile Railroad to Evergreen, a little town fitly named from its deeply shaded evergreen surroundings. We reached this little hamlet at two o'clock in the morning, and those who are familiar with the cold and penetrating dampness of a southern night, even in mid-summer, could realize our condition and desire for rest and warmth, and know something of our disappointment at finding the one poor little hotel of the town without a vacant room. Seeking the office for a resting place, we found the case ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... Aubergiste, that a stranger intended visiting La Trappe, very civilly introduced himself to me, and gave me every necessary direction how to proceed through the forest; at the same time expressing his surprise that an Englishman should take the trouble, and undergo the fatigue of penetrating through such a country, an attempt which few of his own countrymen had ever ventured to make. It was singular enough that only one person in the town could be found to accompany me as a guide, or who knew any thing of the track through the forest, although ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes

... they are themselves. They cannot even conceive the bitter-sweet, vital taste of that consciousness as we villagers have it, and they cannot understand how arid their existence seems to us without this unhurried, penetrating realization of their own existence and of the meaning of their acts. We do not blame city dwellers for not having it; we ourselves lose it when we venture into their maelstrom. Like them, we become ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... by step; and for a time Rob eagerly joined in the tracing, every now and then pointing out a place where they had broken a twig or displaced a bough; but after a time the gloom of the forest began to oppress him, and a strange sensation of shrinking from penetrating farther forced him to make a call upon himself and think of the words uttered before they ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... shadows deepen and the stars begin to come out, the whip-poor-will suddenly strikes up. What a rude intrusion upon the serenity and harmony of the hour! A cry without music, insistent, reiterated, loud, penetrating, and yet the ear welcomes it; the night and the solitude are so vast that they can stand it; and when, an hour later, as the night enters into full possession, the bird comes and serenades me under my ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... it for granted that it was Libu[vs]a who, with the seer's eye penetrating the future, laid the foundations of that right royal pile, Prague's crown of glory, the Hrad[vs]any. We have the authority of Cosmas for this; also Smetana composed an opera all about Libu[vs]a, so all our doubts are ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... people of French Canada had remained loyal at a crisis when their disaffection would have turned the scale and lost to England her remaining North American colonies. As De Salaberry wrote to the House of Assembly, in reference to the victory at Chateauguay: "In preventing the enemy from penetrating into the province, one common sentiment animated the whole of my three hundred brave companions, and in which I participated, that of doing our duty, serving our sovereign, and saving our country from the evil of an invasion. The satisfaction ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... that mean?" replied the old man in a rough voice. Giving her his hand for only a moment, he watched her with a long and penetrating look from under his bushy brows. Heidi gazed back at him with an unwinking glance and examined him with much curiosity, for he was strange to look at, with his thick, grey beard and shaggy eyebrows, that met in the middle ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri

... down in the afternoon, and we were prepared to start the following morning. There was no way of penetrating the island from our cove, for the walls rose perpendicularly from the beach, and, on either side of the cove, rose ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... aggressive or defensive tactics; and the fundamental laws of human nature: these are things that must most certainly be studied. 42. When invading hostile territory, the general principle is, that penetrating deeply brings cohesion; penetrating but ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu

... of a shellfish. So for coitus, it is but the attrition of an ordinary base entrail, and the excretion of a little vile snivel, with a certain kind of convulsion: according to Hippocrates his opinion. How excellent useful are these lively fancies and representations of things, thus penetrating and passing through the objects, to make their true nature known and apparent! This must thou use all thy life long, and upon all occasions: and then especially, when matters are apprehended as of great worth and respect, thy art and care must be ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... employment and subsistence to a numerous and increasing body of industrious and dexterous mechanics. The laborer is rewarded by high wages in the construction of works of internal improvement, which are extending with unprecedented rapidity. Science is steadily penetrating the recesses of nature and disclosing her secrets, while the ingenuity of free minds is subjecting the elements to the power of man and making each new conquest auxiliary to his comfort. By our mails, whose speed is regularly increased and whose routes are every year extended, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... own pet May, who has all this while been peeping into every hole, and penetrating every nook and winding of the dell, in hopes to find another rabbit, has returned to my side, and is sliding her snake-like head into my hand, at once to invite the caress which she likes so well, and to intimate, with all due respect, that it is time to ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford



Words linked to "Penetrating" :   piercing, perceptive



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