"Pluck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In the evening, as soon as the young men came, we hung over the molasses, and set Mr. Nathaniel stirring it. We all sat around, naming apples. All at once he called out, "Which of you chaps has got pluck enough to ride over to Swampsey Village to-morrow, after a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... pluck, Ben," he said cheerfully; and turning away, he looked at Sally with a long, thoughtful gaze as he held ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... the cloth, shows you the mango tree in leaf. Covers it again—plays again. Takes away the cloth, and shows you the mango-tree in fruit, real fruit; but they never let you have the fruit for love or money. Rather than let any one have it, they pluck it and squash it between ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... come to day. I didn't know whether you meant to break off or not. I don't cherish any rancor. I don't see any use in carrying the war into friendships. We made the best fight we could. We did better than your side. You had the most men and the biggest fellows. We showed good pluck, if we did get licked. If you hadn't come to-day I should have been gone without seeing you, for I began to think that you were as narrow as these prating abolitionists. My commission is ready for me now at Richmond, and I'm just aching to get my regimentals on. I'm to be with Johnston in the Shenandoah, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... were letters sent to every bishop to pluck down the altars, in lieu of them to set up a table in some convenient place of the chancel within every church or chapel to serve for the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... momentary fear of her father's coming. As the day wore along, however, she began to recover her spirits. John Fox, soundly berating McLean and McTavish for some petty dereliction of duty, helped her to pluck up courage. She tried not to let him go out of her sight, and when she followed him into the huge cache and saw him twirling and tossing great bales around as though they were feather pillows, she felt strengthened in her disobedience to her father. Also (it was her first visit to ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... they eat the seeds of the Bois d'Inde they have an odor of nutmeg and cloves which is delightful (une odeur de muscade et de girofle qui fait plaisir)." He recommends four superior ways of preparing them, as well as other fowls, for the table, of which the first and the best way is "to pluck them alive, then to make them swallow vinegar, and then to strangle them while they have the vinegar still in their throats by twisting their necks"; and the fourth way is "to skin them alive" (de les corcher tout en vie).... ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... fingers that grasped the string of the parcel shook, and the man felt an odd lump in his throat, and a wave of thankfulness as he passed a flaring public-house when half-an-hour ago he had almost plunged madly in to find pluck for the river—devil's pluck. The woman. Nothing the matter with her but what rest and good food would cure. Another case for that little cottage. Lucky there were others being ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ever-recurrent idyllicism of open meadows or wilding clusters of simple rustic thickets, and the enormous antiquity of these two hoary ecclesiastic fanes. History is in the air, and you feel that the very daisies you crush underfoot, the very copses from which you pluck a scented spray, have their delicate rustic ancestries, dating back to Attila, who is said once to have brought his destructive presence where now such sweet solemnity of ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... discrete thoughts, of course. Millions of them, collected over a lifetime. But all at once he did not know his way through that labyrinth and his thoughts kept whirling back to the one Margot Dennison wanted as if, somehow, she could pluck it ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance
... bitterest cries and shrieks burst forth from it, and while the roots are being laid bare demons are heard to howl in horrid concert. When the preparatory work is done, and when the hand of the daring man is laid on the stem to pluck forth his prize, then is it as if all the fiends of hell were let loose upon him, such shrieking, such howling, such clanging of chains, such crashing of thunder, and such flashing of forked lightning assail him on every side. If his heart fail him but for one moment ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... Maine. Short-coastin' v'y'ges paid well in them days. There come a big storm in the spring—onexpected. Mother'd got a letter from Cap'n Josh—father he'd put out o' Newport with a sartain tide. He warn't jest a fair-weather skipper. Cap'n Am'zon gits his pluck an' darin' ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... an hour the electric stoves of the restaurant were going at their full capacity. Men, cheerfully excited men now, were bringing in pigeons by armfuls, and other men were skinning them. There was no time to pluck them, though a great many of the women were ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... I covet to ascend; The difficulty will not me offend; For I perceive the way to life lies here. Come, pluck up heart, let's neither faint nor fear, Better, though difficult, the right way to go, Than wrong, though easy, where ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... narrow,—his forehead ignoble and retreating. But despite a general badness, or what may be called a 'smirchiness' of feature, he had learned to assume an air of superiority, which by its sheer audacity prevented a casual observer from setting him down as the vulgarian he undoubtedly was; and his amazing pluck, boldness and originality in devising ways and means of smothering popular discontent under various 'shows' of apparent public prosperity, was immensely useful to all such 'statesmen,' whose statesmanship consisted in making as much money as possible for ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... kind of sailing-master, so as to relieve the captain of ship duty at whaling time, allowing him still to head his boat. This was not altogether welcome news to me, for, much as I liked the old man and admired his pluck, I could not help dreading his utter recklessness when on a whale, which had so often led to a smash-up that might have been easily avoided. Moreover, I reasoned that if he had been foolhardy before, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... of those fresh, bright, unaffected little books of travel.... Altogether a very agreeable little book, and I congratulate Mrs. Tweedie on her pluck ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... steadily along, Mr. Anderson showing wonderful pluck, considering the pain he must be suffering all the while from his numerous ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... to give you strength, energy and vim, in boundless measure. Just try this my friends, you, who write me of "there being a serious lack of vitality" in your system and hence your inability to grapple with the occult. No such thing. Fact is you lack courage and initiative, pluck and "go" and you are labouring under the hypnotism of weakening thoughts. Just change your thoughts, and your reserve forces will rush out into activity and you will be a changed man ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... minister to a mind diseased; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain; And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... Alice, tenderly, as Ellen's anxious face and glistening eyes were raised to hers, "if you love Jesus Christ, you may know you are his child, and none shall pluck you out ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... replied. "But for his pluck and promptitude she must have been drowned. A moment's hesitation on his part, and nothing could ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... the scene of the fray was reached, Seth was lifted carefully into the waggon and sent back to Minturne Creek, under the care of Jasper—who took the place of Josh as teamster, that darkey displaying considerably more pluck than the former, and evincing as much eagerness to encounter the Indians as Jasper did to avoid them—while the rescuing party followed on the trail of Sailor ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... wonder you wonder—quite below a man of his pluck; but the fact was, a sweetheart of his was longing for a feather-bed, and Jack determined to get it. Well, he marched into a house, the door of which he found open, and went up-stairs, and took the best feather-bed in the house, tied ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... important a department of the works of this school, which make indeed the noblest tradition, the only adequate tradition, the 'illustrated tradition' of its noblest doctrine—the fact that in the very earliest germ of this new union of 'practic and theoric,' of art and learning, from which we pluck at last Advancements of Learning, and Hamlets, and Lears, and Tempests, and the Novum Organum, already the perilous secret of this union is infolded, already the entire organism that these great fruits and flowers will unfold in such perfection ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... their Foundations loosning to and fro, They pluck'd the seated Hills, with all their Land, Rocks, Waters, Woods; and by the shaggy Tops Up-lifting bore ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... touch, the pairs just above them closing somewhat upon them, as in the shut sprig; so is the little round Pedunculus of this leaf fitted into a little cavity of the sprig, visible to the eye in a sprig new pluck'd, or in a sprig withered on the Branch, from which the ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... bridges and roads had been built sufficient to enable horse transport to carry rations and ammunition to the most advanced units. Ours were delivered just outside Battalion Headquarters, and the Companies fetched them from there. The admirable organization of the Staff, and the skill and pluck of our Transport Drivers, had enabled us to go into action carrying only our rations for the one day—very different from the Germans in their March offensive, when each man was loaded up ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... cast," said Laeg, "for the coat is the thickness of seven bulls' hides, and plated besides, and the rib- bones, through which Concobar's great spear impelled by thee hath burst his victorious way, are stronger than the thigh-bones of a horse; but pluck out the spear now, for it is beyond my power to do so, and stand well upon thy guard, for the two combats past will be as child's play to that which now awaits thee. Fenla, the third son of Nectan, is preparing himself for battle. He is called the Swallow, because there is not ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... seek their company at this time, descend and enter the ground to lay their eggs for new colonies, or, as Westwood states, they are often seized by the workers and retained in the old colonies. Having no more inclination to fly, they pluck off their wings and may be seen ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... was by no means Dutch, and whose pluck helped to redeem the other sex. She lived in a little house close up by the field where the hardest fighting was done,—a red-cheeked, strong, country girl. 'Were you frightened when the shells began flying?' 'Well, no. You see we was all ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... one could speak to him: "Kill me," he would say, "kill me. I am a wretched impostor. The combinazione has failed. It has failed, Pechero! the combinazione." And he would cry, sob, throw himself on his knees, pluck out his hair by handfuls, roll on the carpet. He would call us by our Christian names, implore us to put an end to his existence, speak of his wife and children whose ruin he had consummated. And none of us would have the courage to protest in face of a despair so formidable. What do I say? One ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... go to sleep, and then we shan't hear what he says," said Meredith. "They talk of his not having pluck enough to speak, but he can do it when he pleases," he remarked in a low tone to his next companion, Frank ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... run away," muttered Mr Darvell. "He ain't got pluck enough to do that. He's a coward, that's ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... beginning to walk alone, and it was her delight to play in the bright sunny garden, and pluck the gay flowers that still bloomed there in profusion. She was thus engaged, and murmuring a sweet but inarticulate song that her mother had attempted to teach her, when Janet, apprehending no danger, returned for a moment to the house, to ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Nottingham! All thus," our King 'gan say. Their bows bent, and forth they went, Shooting all in-fere Toward the town of Nottingham, Outlaws as they were. Our King and ROBIN rode together, For sooth as I you say, And they shot Pluck-buffet, As they went by the way. And many a buffet our King won Of ROBIN HOOD that day; And nothing spared good ROBIN Our King in his pay. "So God me help!" said our King, "Thy game is nought to lere; I should not get a shot of thee, Though ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... and not Moses who makes the serpent pluck and eat the first apple from the tree. But Bp. Wilson comments upon the words of Genesis (iii, 6) as though they contained this ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... trepidation stealthy steps crunching the snow round the house, and something that now and then touched the ground-floor doors and windows, as if quietly trying to get in: at last it fumbled at the ancient hanging handle of the outside kitchen-door! Now was the time for Paterfamilias to show his pluck, in the universal scare; so, armed cap-a-pied, with candles held in the rear by the terrified household, he valorously drew the bolts and flung open the heavy oaken door,—to greet—his children's donkey, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the vocal sneeze! Sight of the man suggested HOTSPUR'S boast; But the night froze; and to express such hope Sounded far softer than the softest soap To me, who rather chose my heels to toast In the warm vicinage of glowing stove, Than pluck the moon's-man's nose, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... no answer, but taking a rose from out of a vase near her began to pluck the petals in an absent manner and lay them beside her. When a woman's wits are pitted against those of a man it is well for him to disregard nothing, and, slight as this action was, I took note of it. I counted ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... lengths to save these Irishmen. They were not. He wished they were. If they were, if the men of England, from one end to the other, were prepared to say, 'These men shall not be executed,' they would not be. He was afraid they had not pluck enough for that. Their moral courage was not equal to their physical strength. Therefore he would not say that they were prepared to do so. They must plead ad misericordiam. He appealed to the press, which represented the power of ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... dear plants!" she cried, for she often talked to the flowers as though they could understand her. "Dear plants, save me; and I will never pluck your leaves nor harm you in any way so long as ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... heart of youth. He died as he had lived, always and forever in the thick of the fight. He had that American trinity of virtues, pluck, push and perseverance. Courage, endurance, energy, initiative, ambition, industry, good-cheer, sympathy and wonderful ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... your initiation fee in pluck and endurance, Jordan," said Mark Prescott, the able lieutenant of Dean Ritchie in his rounds of mischief. "You and Upton can consider yourselves full-fledged members of ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... maid clips off the stems Where once the flowers have been, So angels pluck earth's rarest gems, Immortal souls of men! The flower fadeth into air, From whence its life is given— But man's soul shining rich ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... It did not occur to me then, nor did it, I think, occur to anyone else, what an amazing bit of physical and moral courage it was. No one, then or after, had the slightest feeling of admiration for his pluck. "Did you ever see such a brute as P— looked?" was the only sort of ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... don't," said Frank impatiently; "we want a good plan, of course, but we want plenty of pluck and good manly dash. Impossible, you both say, because each of you has his own pet plan, one of you for Government interference, the other for going alone in disguise, and consequently you combine against me for one of you to carry ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... upon him suddenly. "Do you really believe He has no care for that which is lost? Have you blundered along all this time and never yet seen the lamp in the desert? You will see it—like every other wanderer—sooner or later, if you only have the pluck ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... picking up his crop and replacing his hat on his head. Not long afterwards, I saw our little Mazeppa crashing, horse and all, into the branches of a tree, but in spite of a black eye and a deep cut on his cheek, he finished the run—fortunately for him a very fast and long one—with imperturbable pluck and with no further misadventure. "Nasty cut that," I said to him as we trained back together, "you'd better get it properly looked to in town." "Pooh," said JOHNNIE, "it's a mere scratch. Did you see the brute take me into the tree? By Jove, it must have been a comic sight!" and with that ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... he is the one man who has to decide our destiny. Mine, too. You don't know how ambitious I am. To tell the truth, it was only out of ambition that I married you. Oh, you must not put on such a serious expression. I love you, you know. What is it we say when we pluck a blossom and tear off the petals? 'With all my heart, with grief and pain, beyond compare.'" She burst out laughing. "And now tell me," she continued, as Innstetten still kept ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... bough That shields thee from the day's fierce glow? Canst thou not raise thy breast to catch, On the soft moss beside the brook, The sun's last rays at even? Here thou mayst wander through the flowers' fresh dew, Pluck from the overflow The forest-trees provide, Thy choicest food,—mayst quench Thy light thirst at the silvery spring. Oh friend, true happiness Lies in contentedness, And that contentedness Finds everywhere enough." "Oh, wise one!" said the eagle, while he sank In deep and ever ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... to speak; but, without waiting for an answer, she turned away her glistening eye and crimson cheek, and threw up the window and looked out, whether to calm her own, excited feelings, or to relieve her embarrassment, or only to pluck that beautiful half-blown Christmas-rose that grew upon the little shrub without, just peeping from the snow that had hitherto, no doubt, defended it from the frost, and was now melting away in the sun. Pluck it, however, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... bitter quarrel followed that ended only when the man was driven out of the house with the ever-trustworthy broom. Joe Fox wanted to go over to the Rover farm, to have it out with Tom and Sam, but somehow he could not pluck up the ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... effect in youth. But we must bear in mind my constant plan and take the thing at its worst. First I try to prevent the vice; then I assume its existence in order to correct it.] I will let them flatter him, pluck him, and rob him; and when having sucked him dry they turn and mock him, I will even thank them to his face for the lessons they have been good enough to give him. The only snares from which I will guard ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... loved her once; he was her husband; why should she stand alone through this terrible ordeal? He had very little brains, it is true, but he had plenty of muscle: surely, if she provided the thought, and he the manly energy and pluck, together they could outwit the astute diplomatist, and save the hostage from his vengeful hands, without imperilling the life of the noble leader of that gallant little band of heroes. Sir Percy knew ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... grand tactical error. There is only one rule of conduct in dealing with nau-naus. Never swat them. Whatever you do, don't swat them. They are so vicious that in the instant of annihilation they eject their last atom of poison into your carcass. You must pluck them delicately, between thumb and forefinger, and persuade them gently to remove their proboscides from your quivering flesh. It is like pulling teeth. But the difficulty was that the teeth sprouted faster than I could pull them, so I swatted, and, so doing, ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... he had recovered from the accident at the shoemaker's, he was placed with a designer and painter of ikons. But "here he could not get on"; his master treated him too harshly, and his pluck failed him. This time he found himself a place, and succeeded in getting on board one of the ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... think then that with envy, malice, and all uncharitableness at your heart, you are certain of Heaven? For shame! Pluck the mote from ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "You'll pluck the spars out of her!" screamed Peters, in a frenzy now as his cherished masts whipped and cracked to the tremendous backward strain. Dolores ignored the crazed man, but a scornful smile wreathed about her lips, and her dark eyes gleamed. "Out with them!" ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... self-culture. But giving up right pleasure is. If you surrender the pleasure of walking, your foot will wither: you may as well cut it off: if you surrender the pleasure of seeing, your eyes will soon be unable to bear the light; you may as well pluck them out. And to maim yourself is partly to kill yourself. Do but go on maiming, and you will ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... There are millions of cherry blossoms on trees larger than many of our largest apple trees—wonderful double-flowering, beautiful trees, just one mass of pink blossoms as far as the eye can reach. They do so reverence these blossoms that they rarely pluck them, but carry about bunches made of paper or silk tissue that rival the natural ones in perfection. No person is so poor that he cannot, on this great festal day, have his house, shop, place of amusement or, at least, umbrella bedecked with these delicate ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... years later, when a lawyer's letter notified him that both his mother and father were dead, and that under the will of the latter he was to receive a legacy of seven thousand pounds. Meanwhile, Gordon appears to have made no attempt to win any of the prizes that were the common reward of pluck and industry in the Australia of the fifties. He joined the mounted police force of South Australia, but, impatient of its discipline, soon left it, and for long afterwards was content with the rough employment ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... West, in the heroic days of his youthful vigor. He was rather fond of recalling how he had carried his pick on his shoulder and his knife in his belt, with two Yankee sayings in his head, and little besides for baggage: "Muscle and pluck!—Muscle and pluck!" and "Go ahead for ever!" That was the sort of thing to be done when a man or a woman ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... exclaimed, taken by surprise in his turn, and, giant as he was, he felt himself plucked up from the ground as you pluck a weed from a lawn and held for a moment in mid-air and ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... the tender hyacinth off With yellow marigold. I too will pick Quinces all silvered-o'er with hoary down, Chestnuts, which Amaryllis wont to love, And waxen plums withal: this fruit no less Shall have its meed of honour; and I will pluck You too, ye laurels, and you, ye myrtles, near, For so your sweets ye mingle. Corydon, You are a boor, nor heeds a whit your gifts Alexis; no, nor would Iollas yield, Should gifts decide the day. Alack! alack! What misery have I brought upon my head!- Loosed on the ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... notion of Curly's locality, but he heard his voice, half taunting and half encouraging, and calling on all his pluck as he saw some hope of a successful issue, he resolved to ride it out if it lay within him so to do. He was well on with his resolution when he heard another voice, which ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... fugitive slave. Resistance was made by the occupant of the house and others, and the marshal's party finally driven off—the slave owner advising that course, and saying, "Well, if this is a specimen of the pluck of Pennsylvania negroes, I don't want my slaves back." The master of the house was severely wounded in the arm by a pistol shot; still he maintained his ground, declaring the marshal's party should not pass except by first taking ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society
... run parallel to virtue. Thus moderate anger is useful to courage, and hatred of evil to uprightness, and righteous indignation against those who are fortunate beyond their deserts, when they are inflamed in their souls with folly and insolence and need a check. And no one if they wished could pluck away or sever[244] natural affection from friendship, or pity from philanthropy, or sympathy both in joy and grief from genuine goodwill. And if those err who wish to banish love because of erotic madness, neither are they right who blame all desire because ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... a considerable optimism to profound depression. I have met and talked to quite a number of young men in khaki—ex-engineers, ex-lawyers, ex-schoolmasters, ex-business men of all sorts—and the net result of these interviews has been a buoyant belief that there is in Great Britain the pluck, the will, the intelligence to do anything, however arduous and difficult, in the way of national reconstruction. And on the other hand there is a certain stretch of ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... foeman can be found With the pluck to cross her ground, First she walks him round and round, the bright Medu—sa; Then she rakes him fore and aft Till he's just a jolly raft, And she grabs him like ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... overheard Hay address Miss Krill as Maud, and it was the first time she and her mother came to his rooms. Sandal was there, and gambling went on as usual. I lost money myself," said Hurd, with a grimace, "in order to make Hay think I was another pigeon to pluck. But the mention of the Christian name on so short an acquaintance showed me that Hay and Miss Krill had met before. I expect the meeting at Pash's office ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... In short, furnished with a cutting instrument, you carefully slit open the flanks of the flea. Expect to hear him howl, cough, spit, beg your pardon; to see him twist about, sweat, make sheep's eyes, and anything that may come into his head to put off this operation. But be not astonished; pluck up your courage when thinking that you are acting thus to bring a perverted creature into the ways of salvation. Then you will dextrously take the reins, the liver, the heart, the gizzard, and noble parts, and dip them all several times into the holy water, washing and purifying ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Uncle Stephen's house, when the old trapper turned round to Reuben. "You are a brave lad," he said; "I like your pluck. In a few years, when you get more muscle in your limbs, you will laugh at a pack ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... himself to relish his wit with a thick chuckle. And Lanyard's jaws ached with the strain of self-control. He continued to pluck at the folds of silk while concentrating in effort to memorise the voice, which he failed utterly to place. Undoubtedly this animal was a shipboard acquaintance, one who knew him well; but those detestable German gutturals disguised ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... stealthily during the night and gone off on his errand of death. Fortunately a chief some miles off detained him by force until she arrived. She stuck resolutely to him, and as all the more powerful chiefs came over to her side from sheer admiration of her pluck, he had eventually to abandon his purpose. After taking the native oath he betook himself to another part of the forest, where he built up ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... have equal pluck, strength isn't much needed. One is a brave man, and the other—a coward. Which do ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... tenderfoot at that time, having lately come to that country. But he had abundant pluck and courage. He had just brought dispatches to Crook from Fort Fetterman, riding more than three hundred miles through a country literally alive with hostile Indians. These dispatches notified Crook that General Terry was to operate ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... In the second year of his residence in Tecumseh he got the contract for lighting the town with gas. The contract was to run for twenty years, and was excessively liberal, for Mr. Gulmore had practically no competitor, no one who understood gas manufacture, and who had the money and pluck to embark in the enterprise. He quickly formed a syndicate, and fulfilled the conditions of the contract. The capital was fixed at two hundred thousand dollars, and the syndicate earned a profit of nearly forty per cent, in the first year. Ten years later a one hundred dollar share was worth a thousand. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... have mostly met with in the 'broadside' ballads, as they are called; but notwithstanding their fire and pathos, I found so much obscenity and libertinism mingled with their beauties, that I was compelled with a rash hand to pluck the nettles away that choked the healthy growth of the young, fresh, and budding flowers; preserving, as nearly as I could, their ancient simplicity and diction. Others, by local and nameless poets, I have given as I found them. Those ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... it really Elsie? I was just going to ask about her, Jean. But who are those children with her? I thought you told me in one of your letters that she lived quite alone?" asked Grace, stooping down to pluck a bluebell from Geordie's grave, instead of hurrying after this old friend, as the little Grace expected her ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... let all, who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of the storm and the growl of the breakers, speak out! But, alas! we have no right to interfere. If a man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in danger of the justice; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who says this? Our Constitution, consecrated by the callous suetude of sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument in ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... hands and exchanging all sorts of boyish exclamations of welcome with Lathrop Beasley, a tall, rather slender youth who had been their companion in Florida. Like the boys, Lathrop was an accomplished aviator and wireless operator, although he had not the initiative or the sturdy pluck to perform the feats that they had. He was, however, a boy of considerable brain and skill and among the boy-aviators of the country ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... the men lest they fail to provide for the family dependent upon their daily exertions, at moments seemed to us the secret stores of strength from which society is fed, the invisible array of passion and feeling which are the surest protectors of the world. We fatuously hoped that we might pluck from the human tragedy itself a consciousness of a common destiny which should bring its own healing, that we might extract from life's very misfortunes a power of cooperation which should ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... you tell Why you like the fields so well? You never pluck the daisies white, Nor look up to the sky so bright; So tell me, Moo-cow, tell me true, Are you happy when ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... nodding in the breeze, and the down all floating and glistening like gossamers through the air in the sunbeams. The Princess had never seen such a quantity of thistledown in her life, and she began to pluck and gather it as fast and as well as she could; and when she got home at night she set to work carding and spinning yarn from the down. So she went on a long long time, picking, and carding, and spinning, and all the while keeping the Princes' house, cooking, and making ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... in. As it always happens with us after a bright clear winter's day, snow was again beginning to fall, heavy flakes dropped and melted upon our horses' manes, who were beginning now to pluck up their spirits at the near prospect ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... because Nationalists would have "fourfold justification if they resisted in the way you have taught them to resist the Government of this country in maintaining the old system." "They have not the pluck," interjected Captain Craig, the most prominent of the Ulster members. The present Lord Chancellor, Mr. F.E. Smith, was voluble in declarations that Nationalists would "neither fight for Home Rule nor pay for Home Rule." These taunts did not ease Redmond's position, especially as it became ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... give A single impulse whence a wish could grow. There was a tulip scarce a gossamer's throw Beyond that platanus. A little child, Most dear to me, looked through the fence and smiled A hint that I should pluck it for her sake. Ah, me! I trust I was not well awake— The voice was very sweet, Yet a faint languor kept me in my seat. I saw a pouted lip, a toss, and heard Some low expostulating tones, but stirred Not even a leaf's length, till the pretty fay, Wondering, and half abashed ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... poaching on the preserves they claimed. Then Jim thought about Carrie, and felt half ashamed of his caution. She was a partner and although she did not know the difficulties she would not hesitate. He did not know if he was weak or not, but he did not want her to think he had no pluck. While he mused, Carrie came in, looking pale and tired, but she stopped and gave ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... in joy, Pluck, pluck, and eat thou happy boy; Sad fate abides thee. Thou mayst grow A man: for God may deem it so, I wish thee no such harm, sweet child: Go, whilst thou'rt innocent and mild: Go, ere earth's passions, fierce and proud, Rend thee as lightning rend the cloud: Go, go, life's day is in the dawn: ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... in the glow of such a spirit, a thrilling place, and the walk to it from the station through Glower Street (a pronunciation for which Mrs. Beale once laughed at her little friend) a pathway literally strewn with "subjects." Maisie imagined herself to pluck them as she went, though they thickened in the great grey rooms where the fountain of knowledge, in the form usually of a high voice that she took at first to be angry, plashed in the stillness of rows of faces thrust out like empty jugs. "It MUST do us good—it's all so hideous," ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... averse to such a change with a degree of feeling that amounts to national intensity. Their sympathies are with the Southern States, not because they care for cotton, not because they are anti-abolitionists, not because they admire the hearty pluck of those who are endeavoring to work out for themselves a new revolution. They sympathize with the South from strong dislike to the aggression, the braggadocio, and the insolence they have felt upon their own borders. They dislike Mr. Seward's weak and vulgar joke with the ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... see men like devils; yea, every foul spirit, and hateful bird, flock to, and take shelter in Babylon; let us not be frighted or dejected, but pluck up our hearts, and say, This is one of the signs that the downfall of Babylon is near. Wherefore it follows, after that the prophet had told us that these birds should dwell in the land of the people ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... every effort to realize even the most unfortunate predictions, as if hypnotized by their dread into a feeling that the tragic outcome was inevitable. Of course, on the other hand, she admitted, a happy prediction might have a tonic effect, heartening one to pluck victory from apparent failure. Or else, just by setting in action the magnetic power of expectancy, it might even draw mysteriously into one's life a wealth or a fame that had seemed unattainable, a love that ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... sense of duty than of imagination. The clear, direct vision of such people has its merit. There are others who both see and feel, to whom the simplest object in its suggestiveness may be full of beauty. It is the latter who pluck delightful mysteries out of travel; and who, after viewing nature, it may be in her calmest moods, bring away with them upon the tablets of memory a Claude Lorraine. The eyes will operate automatically, but it is of little avail ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... Christchurch were fringed with tutu bushes, little boys were foolish enough to pluck the beautiful berries and eat them. A little fellow whose name was 'Richard' ate of the fruit, grew sick, but recovered. When the punster heard of it, he said, 'Ah! well, if the little chap had died, there was an epitaph ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... his behaviour been. Then he made a raid upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare through the window of the post office, and fled laughing, after stunning the foremost of the two policemen who had the pluck ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... to pluck a twig from the sacred oak-tree and the act of picking the branch is supposed to be the challenge. But, in practice, the King of the Grove watches the sacred oak so carefully, that nobody remembers any ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Lydiard after Beauchamp came on the scene: and that may tell us how passionlessly pure the little maidenly sentiment was. For do but look on the dewy wood-sorrel flower; it is not violet or rose inviting hands to pluck it: still it is there, happy in the woods. And Jenny's feeling was that a foot ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... roared Hook, and the spokesmen were dragged back. 'You, boy,' he said, addressing John, 'you look as if you had a little pluck in you. Didst never want to be ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... were full of very large harmless snakes, but we did not come across them. If I had had a good head and plenty of skill and pluck as a climber, I might have come away a wealthy man, as the Hadji told us that in a sort of side cave high up in the large cave were the coffins of the men that first discovered these caves, and with them were large ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... Commissioner Pett came, newly come out of the country, and he and I walked together in the garden talking of business a great while, and I perceive that by our countenancing of him he do begin to pluck up his head, and will do good things I hope in the yard. Thence, he being gone, to my office and there dispatched many people, and at noon to the 'Change to the coffee-house, and among other things ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... that, until they got farther away from the scene of action, and struck the road running south, it would be better not to enter any place where they would be questioned. Choosing an open space among the trees, Leigh took off the bridles to let the horses pluck what grass they could, after giving to each a hunch of bread from their store. Then he returned, with the blankets that had been rolled up ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... of the field are frail things. Pluck one, and you have in your hand the frailest of things. But reach through the charm of colour and the tale of its beneficence in frailty to the poetry of the flower, and secret of the myriad stars ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... most daring thing I ever heard tell on," cried another of the party. "A lot of Yankees actually seized Fuller's train when he was eating his breakfast at Big Shanty, and ran it almost to Chattanooga. They had pluck, that's certain!" ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... under a burden. But it was there. Life had made her into one of the human beings capable of feeling that responsibility, each for all, and the war had driven it home, deep into her heart, whence she could not pluck it out. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... make the reflection that the new ways are intended to throw out the old ways; and the worst argument against any way is that the world can not go on so; for that is just what is wanted—that the world should not go on so. Mr. Brett nevertheless admired not only Mary's pluck, but the business faculty which every moment she manifested: there is a holy way of doing business, and, little as business men may think it, that is the standard by which they must be tried; for their judge in business affairs is not their own trade ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... so sinful," said Mr. Smith, severely. "Emma told me wot you said, but I never thought as you'd got the pluck to go and do it. I'm surprised ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... was Briggs, the actor. The very thought of him was a tonic. A born fighter, with the energy of six men, he was an ideal model for me. If I could work with a sixth of his dash and pluck, I should be safe. He was giving me work. He might give me more. The new edition of the Belle of Wells was due in another fortnight. My lyrics would be used, and I should get paid for them. Add this to my Orb salary, and I should be a ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... no loser, but a Conquerour, that his Ordinances take place, that his Cause prevaileth, and the work of purging and building his Temple goeth forward, and not backward. Neither yet are we so to understand the voice of the rod which lyeth heavy upon us, as if the Lords meining were to pluck up what he hath planted, and to pull down what he hath builded in this Kingdom, to have no more pleasure in us, to remove our Candlestick, and to take his Kingdom from us: nay, before that our God cast us off, and the glory ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... as one of us is likely to give another, in a world where everybody starves for something he can't have, and only God knows what the fight for self-denial costs. Shall we have supper now, Norah and Bim? Milk for Norah, bones for Bim, meat for Donald Brown—and a prayer for pluck and ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap, To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon: Or dive into the bottom of the deep, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned honor by the locks; So he, that doth redeem her thence, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... aren't you? But I like your pluck. You've never once admitted by word or look that you're caught. All the same, you know you are. You can't hurt me, and I can hurt you. Your word wouldn't stand against my proofs, if you put up a fight. You'd go ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... back out, at any rate. You did show pluck, you poor things! I hope you enjoyed the beach ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... calm, but still deranged. He thought the straws in his bunk were thorns, and would pluck at them with his fingers and exclaim: "My God, ain't they sharp?" Captain Mitchell called, and the boys said: "Sergeant, don't you know him?" "Yes," he replied, "he is one of the devils." The Captain said: "Sergeant, don't you ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... fellow that ever lived. I don't care if he does live out of the world. I'd go with him, and live with him, if he used the North Pole for a back log. Fah! I hate a slick man. Jim has spoiled me for anything but a true man in the rough. There's more pluck in his old shoes than you can find in all the men of Sevenoaks put together. And he's as tender—Oh, Mrs. Snow! Oh, girls! He's as tender as a baby—just as tender as a baby! He has said to me the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... of many well-wishers to the Maltese, who knew that—for a foreign settlement at least, and one, too, possessing in all the ranks and functions of society an ample population of its own—such a stately and wide-branching tree of patronage, though delightful to the individuals who are to pluck its golden apples, sheds, like the manchineel, unwholesome and corrosive dews on the multitude who are to rest beneath its shade. It need not, however, be doubted, that Sir Alexander Ball would exert himself to preclude any such intention, by stating and evincing the extreme impolicy and injustice ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... for the first bite. But she never got it, for without the slightest provocation the "beastie" gave a sudden spring forward, flopped his long tail over the reins, and started at a gallop down the road. Betty clung to the dashboard with one hand and tried to pluck off the obstructing tail with the other. Roberta, with the gingersnap still in her mouth, tugged desperately at the lines, and the back seat yelled "Whoa!" lustily, until Betty, having rearranged the tail and regained her seat, advised them to help ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... there is any book of the season that we can heartily commend to boys of the stirring wide awake kind, it is this. The eighteen stories of which it consists, are by well-known writers, all lovers of boys and admirers of pluck, truthfulness, and manliness in them. The various young heroes described represent in their characters some particular quality which entitles them to be classed under the title which the compiler has given the book. Mrs. Craik's story is called "Facing the World;" ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... 'As grand a pluck as a man could wish to find in a woman, true as I'm here,' he said, reaching forward his hand and tentatively touching her between ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... silence which was disturbing and made for sudden self-consciousness wholly to be condemned, and to be banished, if possible, directly. Jane, who did not fidget aimlessly with things, began diligently to pluck a long white feather out of her fan, and said in a voice that was deliberately commonplace, 'We ought to go back now, oughtn't we? Let me see who your next partner is, Peter, that I may send you back to dance with her.' ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... yond' carnation go and seek, There thou shalt find her lip and cheek; In that enamell'd pansy by, There thou shalt have her curious eye; In bloom of peach and rose's bud, There waves the streamer of her blood. —'Tis true, said I; and thereupon I went to pluck them one by one, To make of parts an union; But on a sudden all were gone. At which I stopp'd; Said Love, these be The true resemblances of thee; For as these flowers, thy joys must die; And in the turning of an eye; And all thy hopes ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick |
